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2. EBO AND ANSKAR. 51
been transferred to the northern colony of that house called
Corbey, or Corvey, in Westphalia. Anskar set up a
school, which he supplied with pupils, as some Roman
missionaries still do nowadays, by the purchase of children,
but he was not very successful. Harald was again driven
out, and Anskar s companion died, and he himself re
turned, in company with Harald, who became a Prankish
vassal over Walcheren and Dorstad in Holland. The
latter place, which is on the Lek, a branch of the Rhine,
about thirty-five miles east of Rotterdam, and a little
south-east of Utrecht (Wyk by Duurstede) was a port which
did a large trade with Scandinavia, and was a place where
many Northmen settled, and many also were baptized long
before their own homes were Christian.2
In the autumn,
probably of 829 A.D., Swedish ambassadors came to the
Prankish court, reporting that their people had learnt
something of Christianity from merchants and captives,
and would be glad to receive missionaries. Anskar was
again asked to go north. He consented, and, after a
perilous sea journey, in which he and his companions were
robbed by Vikings, and suffered other hardships by the
way, he at length reached Sweden. His companions
would have turned back, but his courage led them on.
They made a dangerous over-land journey, partly by lake,
partly through the forests, and at length arrived at Birka,
Gesta Pontificum as reprinted in Vol. 146 of the Patrologia
Latina. I have referred to the continuous series of chapter
numerals in round brackets in that edition which are also to be
found in the text in the Scriptores Septentrionales, and are
more convenient than the references to the different books, each
with a different series of chapters. There is a good survey of
all this literature in an essay, Om Kallorna till Nordiska mis-
sionens historia, by H. Holmquist, Kyrko-historisk Arsskrift,
Vol. ix., pp. 241-283, 1908. See also Hans von Schubert:
Kirchengeschichte Schlesiuig-Holsteins, Vol. i., 1907. A good
popular account of the period is contained in Professor N.
Soderblom s lecture to the Students Missionary Association
at Upsala (Om Sveriges forste Kristne larare), published in
their Meddelanden of June, 1889.
2
See Rimbert : Vita Anscharii, 33, 42 and 48.
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