rights conferred upon the Hamburgian archdiocese "by blessed Gregory, Nicholas, and others of his predecessors," and, in particular, "over the bishops of the Swedes and Danes, of the Norwegians, of Iceland, Scritifinnland and Greenland, as also of the Slavonians between the Eider and the Danube."1 As a matter of course, the authors who reject as forged the bull of Gregory IV. are compelled to deny also the authenticity of all the confirmatory papal documents, in which mention is made of Greenland long before it was discovered by Eric the Red. Nor are these the only diplomas which misinterpretation of the Icelandic sagas is compelled to ignore. Several more should be declared spurious as well, because, although issued after the conversion of the Northmen in Greenland, while expressing the name of this country, they openly state that they simply renew the grants and territorial jurisdiction accorded by Gregory IV. and his nearer successors to the metropolitan of Hamburg. Of this character is the bull issued on the 29th day of October, 1055, by Pope Victor II., who, when again submitting the bishops of Iceland and Greenland to the Hamburgian archiepiscopal see, solemnly attests that in so doing he follows the decrees of his predecessors Nicholas, Agapitus, Benedict, and Leo.2 The most conclusive of all proofs is offered us, however, in a bull of Innocent II., dated May 27, 1133. Notwithstanding the oft-repeated confirmation of the rights of the archbishop of Hamburg, his jurisdiction still continued to be contested and to be assumed by other prelates. As we shall notice farther on, the first 1 Beauvois, Origines, p. 10, ref. to Groenl. Hist. Mindesm., t. iii. pp. 71, 73, and Rydberg, i. 32; Diplomat. Island., p. 43; Liljegren, t. i. p. 20. See Document XXV. "Sicut a prædecessoribus nostris Nicolao, Agapito, Benedicto, Leone, hujus almæ apostolicæ sedis decretum est." (Liljegren, t. i. p. 37; Beauvois, Origines, p. 29, n. 3.) Northman resident bishop of Greenland had been consecrated by Adzer, archbishop of Lund in Sweden. Adalberon, the metropolitan of Hamburg, considered the fact as an infringement upon his right and jurisdiction, and entered complaints at the court of Rome. The pontiff was to decide according to the acts of his predecessors. Did he consider as apocryphal the ancient documents naming Greenland as part of the Hamburgian province? He says, "Often, indeed, has our venerable brother Adalberon, archbishop of Hamburg, complained before our predecessors Calixtus and Honorius, and before Us, that Ascerus of Lund and some bishops of Denmark deny the obedience due him as to their metropolitan, in the manner prescribed by the ancient privileges granted by the Roman pontiffs, Gregory, Sergius, Leo, Benedict, Nicholas, and Adrian. Therefore, since no man ought to enjoy the fruit of his temerity, We, after mature deliberation with our counsel of bishops and cardinals, place again under your jurisdiction, venerable brother Adalberon, as well the bishop of Lund as the bishops of Denmark. Favorable to the prayers of our beloved son, King Lothair, and, following the text of the diplomas of Gregory, Sergius, Leo, Nicholas, Benedict, and Adrian, We confirm that the episcopal sees of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Funen, Cronland, Halsingoland, Iceland, Scritifinge and of the Sclavonians, shall be suffragan unto you and, through you, to the Church of Hamburg, their metropolis." 1 As the Roman pontiffs upheld the bull of Gregory IV., so did Emperor Frederic ratify and renew the letters patent of Lewis the Pious. On the 16th day of March, A.D. 1158, he issued a document in which we 1 Migne, t. clxxix. col. 180, from Lappenberg, p. 132; Liljegren, t. i. p. 46. See Document XXVI. read that Hartwic, archbishop of Hamburg, had brought to him the parchment by which the august Emperor Lewis had first established the Hamburgian see, requesting Frederic to add his own lasting authority to the act of his predecessor. "Being thus fully cognizant of the pious action of our predecessor," the emperor says, "we decree what he has decreed, and what he has given we give, and confirm it all with our imperial power. We particularly recall to mind how the illustrious Emperor Lewis performed a work well worth the highest encomium, by establishing beyond the Elbe, at the place called Hamburg, an archdiocese including all the churches of the Danes, of the Swedes, of the Norwegians, of Funen, of the Greenlanders, of the Halsingolanders, of the Icelanders, of the Scritifinns, and of all the northern countries. The limits which Emperor Lewis drew and, with the advice of the princes, assigned to the said Church, yet somewhat altered according to the circumstances of the times, we preserve and confirm with our authority." The diploma ends with the minute description of the renovated boundaries.1 It would require a certain amount of courage to reject as forgeries all these documents and many more sufficiently suggested, which, to an unprejudiced reader, establish beyond all doubt the authenticity of the Diplomas of Lewis the Pious and of Gregory IV., even in their details regarding our hemisphere. But, besides these, there are several more proofs of St. Ansgar's legation having comprised the territories of Iceland and Greenland distinctly expressed. These names, it is true, do not appear in the life of St. Ansgar by the monk of Corbie, Gualdo, published 1 1 Liljegren, t. i. p. 59; Diplomat. Island., p. 214, n. 36. See Document XXVII. 1 by the Bollandists. The author could find no convenient place in his metrical Latin lines for the barbarous names of the pontifical bull,-the reason, likely, why the Slavonians themselves are ignored. Neither are Iceland and Greenland mentioned in St. Ansgar's biography published in the year 1642 by Philip Cæsar; but this omission is amply compensated by Cæsar's publication of the life of the first archbishop of Hamburg, as written towards the end of the eleventh century by Vicelinus, in the twelfth chapter of which the names of "Islondon" and "Gronlondon" are conspicuous.* 3 St. Rembert, the second metropolitan of Hamburg, has also left us his predecessor's biography, in which he states that Pope Gregory IV. constituted Ansgar, present before him, his delegate among all the northern and eastern nations,-the Swedes, the Danes, the Funelanders, the Greenlanders, the Icelanders, the Scritifinns, and the Slavonians.5 The life of St. Rembert himself was written by a contemporary of his, before the close of the ninth century, likely by the third archbishop of HamburgBremen, Adalgarius, or by a virtuous and learned priest of the time. In the first chapter we read that "Lewis, king of the Franks, established in the northernmost part of the Saxon province an archiepiscopal see, from which the preaching of the word of God should extend to the neighboring nations of the Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Funelanders, Greenlanders, Icelanders, Scritifinns, and Slavonians, and to all the boreal and oriental nations, whatever their names may be.1 Langebek thinks that the contested names were afterwards added here also, but both of his reasons are manifestly erroneous. 2 Adam of Bremen, when relating the erection of the Hamburgian see, mentions only the Danes, the Swedes, and the Slavonians, but notices farther on that the Icelanders, the Greenlanders, the Goths, and the Orkney islanders came to pay their respects to Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg, and request him to send them priests and bishops, which he also did. This fact clearly proves that Iceland and Greenland were aware of their jurisdictional dependency upon the Hamburgian metropolis; while there is but one pontifical document -namely, that of Gregory IV.-which institutes the same ecclesiastical dependency, all other papal bulls being but confirmatory of the former. It thus establishes in particular that the letter of Victor II. to Archbishop Adalbert, dated October 29, 1055, is not the first authentic diploma to mention the two American countries, as asserted in Wetzer and Welte's lexicon.3 Two more statements of ancient witnesses may suffice to show that portions of our hemisphere had been confided to the active zeal of the apostle of the North, St. Ansgar. In the missal of Bremen, printed in the year 1511, a hymn in honor of St. Ansgar says that Iceland and Greenland were illumined with the light of faith under his care; and the chronicle of the Bremen archbishops assures us that St. Ansgar converted a number of na 1 Langebek, t. i. p. 451, n. z; t. ii. pp. 123, 126. 2 Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiæ Pontificum, lib. i. cap. 13, ap. Pertz, t. vii. p. 292; Groenl. Hist. 3 Art. Grönland. |
