[Image] [Hi-Res Image]
Page 84
Egixrt o! York Eglinne THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Britain, would recite the Psalter daily, and would fast a day and a night every week. This vow he kept faithfully and added to it new austerities. He became a priest, renowned for humility, kindness, and learning. He desired to preach the Gospel to the tribes on the continent from whom the Angles and Saxons of Britain had sprung, gathered a company, and set sail (686 or 687); but, warned by visions, as he supposed, and driven back by a storm, he returned to Ireland. His interest continued, however, and about 690 he sent an Englishman, Witbert, on an unsuccessful mission to the Frisians, and in 692 he despatched Willibrord (q.v.) and his company. He did much to persuade the Irish to conform to Rome in regard to Easter and the tonsure, and in 716 went to Ions and worked successfully and with much tact for the same end there and on the mainland of Scotland.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Belle, HieE. ecd., iii. 4, 27, iv. 3, v. 9, 10, 22, 23; ASB, April, iii. 313-31b, cf. 997; R,ettberg, KD, ii. 513; W. F. $kene, Celtic Scotland, ii. 278-282, Edinburgh, 1880; DCB, ii. 49 eqq.; DNB, xvii. 148 eqq.: Hauck, KD, i. 418-417.
EGBERT OF YORK: First archbishop of York; d. at York Nov. 19, 766. He was of royal family and a brother of Edbert, king of Northumbria 737758. His childhood and youth were spent in the monastery of Hexham; then he went to Rome, where he learned the Roman usages and was ordained deacon. He was an intimate friend of Belle, who wrote him a letter (in Plummet's Belle, i. 405423) when he was made bishop of York. He received the pallium from Pope Gregory III. in 735 and thus became independent of Canterbury. For his great learning he was called armarium omnium liberalium artium. His greatest achievement, perhaps, was the founding of a school attached to his cathedral church and the training of competent teachers for it; it became for the north of England what Canterbury was for the south and among its teachers were Egbert's successor Albert (Ethelbert), and the great pupil of the latter, Alcuin. He esteemed classical learning, promoted grammatical study, church music, and the recording of contemporary history, and collected a library highly praised by Alcuin (q.v.). The latter and Egbert's anonymous biographer speak of his admirable qualities in the warmest terms. Boniface applied to the influential and learned archbishop in two extant letters (in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 358360, 388-390), begging him to use his influence with Ethelbald, the powerful king of Mercia, asking for certain works of Belle's, and seeking advice in a question of conscience. Egbert's replies are, unfortunately, not preserved. He was buried in his church in York. Several works of Egbert's are preserved, but not in original form; they are (1) a dialogue on the government of the Church and church discipline (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 403-413); (2) a penitential (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 413433); (3) a pontifical (ell. W. Greenwall, Suttees Society publications, xxvii., Durham, 1853); (4) a work De jute sacerdotali; (5) the De remediis peocatorum is merely a section of the larger collection. H. HAHN.
BIHLIOQeAPBT. $otwoee: Vita Aleuini in Jsff6, BRG, vi.; Alauin, De pontiftcibw W aria eocleaiae Eborataa- 84sie, in MGM, Pods. i (1881), 189-208: travel. in J. Rains, Historians of the Church of York, i. 348-398, cf. preface, lxi.-lxv., London. 1879; Belle, Epiatola ad Ep_ bertum in MPL, xew., and in Opera, ell. by J. Smith, pp. 207-228, London, 1841; $imeon of Durham, Hiet. Du_elmm, ell. by \T. Arnold, London, 1882, travel. in J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England, v., London. 1855; William of Malmesbury, De rebus Deetie repum Anplorum in MGM, Script.. a (1862), 449-484, travel. in J. Stevenson, se above, vol. iv., London, 1855; Bonifaoe. Epietoia in MGM, D'Pletolarum, iii (1891), 207 eqq. Consult also Fae6i Eborauneee, ad. by W. H. Dixon, i. 94-100, London, 1883; DCB, ii (1880), 50-52; H. Hahn, Bonifas und Lul. PP. 189 eq4.. LeiDe=0. 1883: DNB, avii (1889), 147-148.
z. Early of the Lutheran pariah of Vaagen, one Life. of the Lofoden Islands, and soon afterward married Gertrude Rack. From his brother-in-law, a whaler of Bergen, he learned that the southwestern part of Greenland was inhabited by heathen, and his interest in them was still further increased by reading old Norse chronicles.
During the tenth century pagan Northmen had migrated from Iceland to Greenland, and had driven back the aborigines, who were called Skrallingen; but about the year 1000 Christianity seems to have taken root among the colonists. s. Settle- About 1348, however, the " black menu in death," raging throughout Europe, Greenland. severed communication with the kingdom, and the aborigines seized the opportunity to destroy one settlement after another. For some sixty years the Church survived, but the year 1410 marks the cessation of all authentic reports concerning the colony and Church. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the kings of j Denmark and Norway sent a series of expeditions to regain the province, which failed, but the enthusiasm awakened in Egede'a heart and his hope in a higher goal were destined to win a victory.
Despite the opposition of high and low, se well as of his nearest kin, he became more and more convinced that he was called to go to these poorest of his brethren, but the bishops of Bergen and Trondhjem, before whom he laid his " pro3. Interest poeal for the conversion and enlightin Mission enment of the Greenlanders," recoiled to Green- from the difficulties, and even the
land. missionary college founded at Copen hagen in 1714 gave him faint sympathy. In 1717 he resigned his pastorate, and went, in the autumn of the following year, to Bergen with his wife and four children. There he not only tried to interest friends in his plan of a Greenland mission