WENDELIN, ven'de-tin, MARKUS FRIEDRICH: German Reformed theologian; b. at Sand hausen near Heidelberg in 1584; d. at Zerbst (66 m. s.w. of Berlin) Aug. 7, 1652. He received his education at Heidelberg, following Ramus in his philosophy and Paresis in his theology; in 1609 he served as private tutor in Geneva, and, after being in Dessau in 1610, was called in 1612 as rector of the Gymnasium illustre at Zerbst, a position which he retained till his death. The period of the Thirty Years' War was not one in which such an insti tution could be expected to flourish, but it was main tained at a high level by the new rector, who pro duced a number of works pedagogical in character. Theological in content were his De prcr?destinatione (Frankfort, 1621); Christiance theologise libri ii (Han over, 1634), later translated into Dutch and Hun garian; Compendium Christiance theologise (1634); ISystema majus (1656), a kind of model Reformed dogmatics which called forth replies from Christoph Franek and Johann Gerhard; though this was pre ceded by his Exereitatiortes theologiece vindices (1652). There was also a posthumous Collatio .sloctrince Christiance Reformatorum et Lutheranorum (1660). Wendelin's significance rests in the fact that he was the first to set forth in systematic form on German soil the Reformed system of teaching, on the basis of Scripture and in an objective-synthetic method. This involved the setting forth of a communio apo telesmatum as opposed to the Communicatio idio mat2lm (q.v.).

(E. F. Karl Müller.)

Bibliography: J. C. Beckmann, Hist. des Fürstercth,ums Ankalt, vii. 366 sqq., Wittenberg, 1710; F. xindscher, Geschichte ales . Gesamtgymnasiuma xu Zerbst, 2 parts, Zerbst, 1871; W. Gass, Geschichte der proEestantischen Dogmatik, i. 416 sqq., Berlin, 1854.

WENDS, CONVERSION OF THE: The history of Christiau missionary work among the Wends is closely bound up with German political history, and has to do with the period from the close of the eighth to the beginning. of the thirteenth century. The power of resistance of these tribes to the influence of the Germans is an essential element in the history. The southern Wends on the Thuringian borders of the German empire offered but little resistance to the advance of the Germans, but the northern Wends of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg carried on their struggle for liberty for centuries until 'the surviving remnants were subdued. The progress of Christian missions in the south and north was correspondingly different; in the one case there was a gradual but steady advance, in the other potable achievements followed by complete reverses, until the survivors were compelled to submit to Christianization. Three regions in which the movement was carried out show striking diversities in the course of events: Mecklenburg-Brandenburg, the Sorb district, and Pomerania-Poland. The history in the first is by far the most dramatic.

Charlemagne did not concern himself with the conversion of the Wends. But under Ansgar (q.v.), Wendish children were redeemed from slave-dealers in order to educate them as missionaries to their people. Despite the baptism of an Obotrite prince, Sclaomir (821), no further results were obtained, and the Wends withdrew from their alliance with the empire. Under Otto I. an attempt was made to advance from Hamburg on the west and Magdeburg on the east, under which had been placed the bishoprics of Havelberg and Brandenburg, founded in 938. For the western Wends a separate bishopric was founded at Aldenburg (Oldenburg in Holstein) in 968. Conditions were more favorable in Oldenburg, the land of the Obotrites, because the district was under a unified government. Havelberg and Brandenburg had to do with the fierce Leutizi. The defeat of Otto II. at Crotone undid all the work. The weakness of the empire being shown, the Wends in 983 destroyed all traces of Christianity from Brandenburg to Oldenburg, and the three bishoprics were practically destroyed. Matters did not improve under the first Saxon king, Heinrich II. The series of bishops in Oldenburg remained nominally unbroken, and the Obotrite princes Uto and Ratibor consented to be baptized, but the people were unaffected. A hermit named Gunther tried in 1017 to work among the Leutizi, but soon returned to Bohemia.

This unproductive period was followed by the remarkable episodeinwhich Gottschalk (q.v., 2) figured. He was the son of Uto, and undertook the systematic Christianization of the people, with the - help of the Saxon counts and especially of Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen (q.v.). His success was only superficial. Upon the archbishop's losing the imperial favor and entering into the dissensions of the Saxons, the Wends arose, caused a massacre of Christians at Lenz in which Gottschalk fell (1066), and destroyed all traces of Christianity. Of the three bishoprics, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, - and Ratzeburg, the names alone remained. A contributing cause of this calamity was largely the prince's own tactlessness in supporting missionaries who were foreigners and refused to learn the language of the people, so that the prince himself had to be their

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interpreter. One result of the uprising was that the peaceful conversion of the Wends ceased to be thought of; annihilation was now the word. The conditions were not bettered when, in 1067, Bishop Burchard of Halberstadt destroyed the chief senttuary of the Leutizi and rode the sacred steed of Radigast into Halberstadt. Missionary activity was resumed when Kruto, the successor of Gottschalk, was slain by Heinrich, son of Gottschalk, who with Saxon assistance seized the rule. Heinrich proceded more cautiously than his father, though he eves a Christian and had a church at Altliibeck, the only one in Mecklenburg. Constant wars with external foes prevented him from carrying out his plans. His assassination in 1127 caused missionary work again to cease. Under the powerful Niklot, the Mecklenburg country again relapsed into heathenism. The Wends found piracy, which they learned from the Danes, a more attractive occupation than agriculture or cattle-raising. This again showed that what was required for the safety of the kingdom was either thoroughgoing conversion of the Wends or their annihilation. This was the watchword in the Saxon crusade of 1147. Count Adolf of Holstein-Schauenburg and Heinrich of Badewide succeeded in tearing Wagrien and Pola,bien (East Holstein and Lauenburg) from the Wends, and the former was completely devastated and cleared of its Wendish population. German settlers took their place, to whose spiritual welfare the aged Vicelin devoted his last days.

When Bernard of Clairvaux was preaching a crusade to the Holy Land, the Saxons replied that they had heathens enough at home. Bernard thereupon began to preach with enthusiasm the crusade against the Wends. Niklot had been living in peace with the German princes. Adolf of Holstein being reminded of the alliance between him and Niklot, excused himself, whereupon Niklot attacked and captured Lübeck. The campaign thus inauspiciously begun by the crusaders ended in disaster. The German nobles were finally content to make a sorry peace with Niklot, upon his agreeing to let his people be baptized if they wished. .Henry the Lion saw more profit to himself in the Wends as heathens, for so he received the tribute that would have gone to the Church. Upon his receiving the right of investiture for Wendland, he changed his policy, and appointed the Provost Evermod to Ratzeburg, Gerold to Oldenburg, Berno to Mecklenburg (1155). Berno became the Boniface of the Mecklenburg Wend country. He had, indeed, little success before Niklot's heroic death in 1160. 2diklot's son Pribislaw was baptized and the Christianizing of the country proceeded rapidly. This was, however, due to the practical extinction of the original Wendish population. German colonists had taken their place. The Mecklenburgian Wends had defied conversion for four hundred years and had gone dawn without having as a people embraced Christianity.

The Sorbs on the southern borders of the German empire had quite a different history. As early as ?82 a war of the Sorbs is referred to as an "uprising," showing their prior subjection to the empire. They lived together with Germans in the valleys of

Thuringia and were regarded as Christians in the time of Charlemagne. Advances across.the Saale were begun by Count Otto of Saxony and energeti cally continued by his son Heinrich I. The Dale minzians, the eastern neighbors of the Sorbs, were subdued in 928. Emperor Otto I. undertook the first missionary work among these southern Wends. Meissen, Zeitz, and Merseburg were made suffragan bishoprics of Magdeburg on Wendish soil. The first bishops, Burkhard, Hugo, and Boso, were con secrated by Archbishop Adalbert in 968. These southern Wends clung tenaciously to their national language and religion, but the progress of Chris tianity was favored by the immigration of Germans. At the end of the century, there were a number of churches, the oldest being at Zeitz and Boson. In the twelfth century the episcopal cities had become German and had churches, so also had a number of the fortified towns, but the mass of the population clung to heathenism although their sanctuaries and public idol worship had been done away with. The gradual diminution of the W endish population and the increasing immigration of Germans finally brought about the assimilation of the remaining Wends, which was completed in some parts of the country only at the close of the fourteenth century. In Poland, Count Miseco accepted Christianity in the tenth century. A Polish bishopric was founded in 968 (Posen, under Magdeburg), although the Polish population for a long time remained more heathen than Christian. Otto III. estab lished the archbishopric of Gnesen, while Boleslaw Chrabry, the conqueror of the Pomeranians, es tablished the bishopric of Kolberg, with a German bishop, Reinbern. After his death Pomerania re lapsed, for a time was under Danish rule, and after the middle of the eleventh century became an inde pendent heathen kingdom. In 1119 it again fell into the hands of the Poles. Even at that time Prince Wratislaw, his wife, and some of the nobles were Christians, as were a part of the population in the Pomeranian cities. In 1120 heathenism was disintegrating, which explains its sudden overthrow when Boleslaw III. conquered the Pomeranians and made the acceptance of Christianity one of the conditions of peace.

E. Schäfer.

Bibliography: Sources are: Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. J. M. Lappenberg in MGH, Script., iii. (1839), 733-871, and in Script. rer. Germ., Hanover, 1889, also in MPL, exxxix. 1183-1422; Adam of Bremen, GeaEa Hammaburgensis ecclesix pontificum, ed. J. M. Lappenberg in MGH, Script., vii (1846), 267-389, and in Script. rer. Germ., 2d ed., Hanover, 1876; Helmold, Chronica Slavorum, in MGH, Script., xxi (1869), 11-99, in Germ. transl. by J. C. Laurent, 2d ed. by W. Wattenbach, Leipsic, 1888; Arnoldus Lubecensis, Chronica Slavorum, in MGH, Script., xxi (1869), 115-250, and ed. J. M. Lappenberg, in Script. rer. Germ., Hanover, 1868; F. Wigger, Mecklenburgische Areualeu bis . . 1066, Schwerin, 1860; Mecklenburgisches Urkundeubuch, vol. i., Schwerin, 1863. Consult: L. Giesebrecht, Wend, sche Geschichten, 3 vols., Berlin, 1843; Wendisches Volksthum in Sage, Brauch, and Sitte, Berlin, 1882; L. Nottrott, Aus der Wendenrnission, Halle, 1897-98; Hauck, KD, iii. 69-149, 623-658, iv. 554-625; E. Fireusch, Kircheugeschichte der YVendenlande, Paderborn, 1902; and the articles Ansgar; Gottschalk, 2; Otto of Bamberg; and Vicelin, with the literature under them.