RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
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Adalbert of Prague
claimants for the papal see (Benedict IX., Sylvester III., and Gregory VI., qq.v.). Henry was minded to make him pope, but he firmly declined, and suggested the candidate on whom the choice finally fell, Suidger, bishop of Bamberg (see Clement II.).
Adalbert returned with Henry in May, 1047, and devoted himself to diocesan affairs. In the territories of the Abodrites (Obotrites) Gottschalk had gained supreme power, and worked with Adalbert for the introduction of Christianity (see Gottschalk, 2). Norway, Sweden, and Denmark had all recognized the spiritual jurisdiction of Hamburg; but an effort was now made to break away from it. Svend Estridsen, king of Denmark after 1047, made an alliance with Henry through Adalbert's mediation, and brought forward a plan for the establishment of a separate ecclesiastical province in Denmark, with an archbishop and seven suffragans. Adalbert naturally could not look with complacency on the withdrawal of so large a part of his jurisdiction, after the sacrifices which the Church of Hamburg had made in the previous two hundred years for the evangelization of the northern kingdoms; and he feared that Sweden and Norway would follow. Yet he could not deny that there was some justification for Svend's desire. The emperor and Pope Leo IX., who took part in the Council of Mainz in 1049, seemed not indisposed to grant it. Adalbert offered to consent, on condition that he should have the rank of patriarch for the whole north. This, he thought, would solve the difficulty; one archbishop could not be subject to another, but might be to a patriarch. The project grew on him; and he planned the establishment of eleven new German sees to serve as a basis for his dignity. He did not contemplate any immediate rejection of Rome's suzerainty; but it was obvious that his plan might easily give him a position in the north not far short of that which the pope held in the south. Leo died in 1054, and Henry in 1056; and further thought of so far-reaching a scheme had to be postponed.
Deprived of Henry's support, Adalbert suffered much at the hands of the Billung dukes. Henry's son and successor (but five years old at his father's death) in 1062 fell into the power of Anno, archbishop of Cologne (q.v.); but the latter was soon forced to share his power with Adalbert, and then to see it passing more and more into his rival's hands. Of the two, Adalbert had much the better influence on the young king. He reached the height of his power when he had the king proclaimed of age at Worms (Mar. 29, 1065), and practically held the government in his own hands. But in Jan., 1066, the princes, with Anno at their head, forced Henry to banish Adalbert from court; and his remaining years were clouded by many troubles. New assaults of the Billungs forced him to flee from Hamburg. Paganism once more got the upper hand among the Wends, who laid waste the neighboring Christian lands; in Sweden the Church had to fight for its very existence. He was recalled to court in 1069, but did not succeed in restoring the prestige of his position. He still worked for the consolidation of the royal power in
Germany, but had to leave the Saxon problem behind him unsolved. He bore long physical sufferings with remarkable firmness, laboring to the last for the king and for his diocese. He wished to be buried at Hamburg; but the destruction of that city by the Wends prevented this; and his body was laid in the cathedral of Bremen, the rebuilding of which he had himself completed.
(Carl Beetheau.)
Bibliography: Bruno, De hello Saxonico, in MGH, Script., v. (1844) 327-384 (2d ed., by W. Wattenbach, in Script, rer. Germ., scec.xi, 1880); Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesice pontificum, in MGH, Script., vii. (1846) 267-389 (printed separately, Hanover, 1846; 2d ed., 1876), Germ, transl. by J. C. M. Laurent (2d ed., by W. Wattenbach, Leipsic, 1888); Chronicon Gozecensis, in MGH, Script., x. (1852) 140-157; Colmar Griinhagen, Adalbert Erzbischof von Hamburg, Leipsic, 1854; Lambert, Annates, in MGH, Script, xvi. (1859), 645-650 (2d ed., by Holder- Egger, in Script, rer. Germ., 1894); E. Steindorff, Jahrbiicher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich III., 2 vols., Leipsic, 1874-81, and in ADB, i. 56-61; G. Dehio, Geschichte des Erzbistums Hamburg-Bremen, i. 178-277. Berlin, 1876; R. Ballheimer, Zeittafeln zur hamburgischen Geschichte, pp. 18-24, Hamburg, 1895; Hauck, KD, iii. 649-664.
ADALBERT OF PRAGUE (Czech, Woitech, " Comfort of the Army "): An early German missionary, sometimes improperly called " the Apostle of the Slavs " or " of the Prussians "; b. about 950; murdered Apr. 23, 997 He was the son of a rich Czech nobleman named Slavenik, connected with the royal house of Saxony. He was educated at Magdeburg, but on the death of Adalbert (981), first archbishop of that place, whose name he had taken at confirmation, he returned home and was ordained priest by Thietmar, the first bishop of Prague, whom he succeeded two years later. He received investiture at Verona from Emperor Otho II., his kinsman, and was consecrated by Willigis, archbishop of Mainz, his metropolitan. His troubles soon began. The attempt to execute strictly what he conceived to be his episcopal duties brought him into conflict with his countrymen, who were hard to wean from their heathen customs. After five years of struggle, he left his diocese, intending to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but after a sojourn at Monte Cassino, he entered the monastery of St. Boniface at Rome, where he led a singularly devoted and ascetic life. In 992, however, he was required by the pope and his metropolitan to return to Prague. The conflict with stubbornly persistent heathen customs — polygamy, witchcraft, slavery — proved as hard as ever, and he once more left his diocese, returning, after a missionary tour in Hungary, to the peaceful seclusion of his Roman cloister.
In 996 Willigis visited Rome and obtained fresh orders for Adelbert to return to his see, with permission to go and preach to the heathen only in case his flock should absolutely refuse to receive him. He went north in company with the young emperor, Otho III., and in the next spring, through Poland, approached Bohemia. Things had grown worse than ever there: his family had fallen under suspicion of treason through their connections with Germany and Poland; and the greater part of them had been put to death. His offer to return to Prague having been contumeliously rejected, he
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