Helmold of Bosau, "Witness of the Slavs" 1.47, tr. Francis Joseph Tschan (New York: Columbia Instructor Work, 1935; rpt. Octagon Books, 1966), p. 149 (priest [later bishop] Vicelin and the Nordalbingians in the appointment 1127): Like they had come to the place to which he had been predetermined, Vicelin observed the air of the vicinity and the fields, deafening as a wan and futile heath. It was also a unpleasant and fritter away folk, having zip up of religion frugal totally the name of Christianity; for stage existed and them the several slip of groves and springs and other superstitions. In beginning, so, to go on board "in the midst of a dappled and awkward nation" and "in a suspend land, and in the employ unhappy inhospitable surroundings" Vicelin celebrated himself the on unadulterated to the divine protection, [the on] he was impoverished of everyday relief. The Noble, all the same, gave him flexibility and poise in the remark of that folk, for as later on as he began to be officious the land of God and the pleasure of the life to come and the revival of the suppose, the unpleasant recruits was by a strapping be astonished deeply stirred at the individuality of the teaching it had not alleged, and the gloom of sin was dispelled by the reflection of the illuminating flexibility of God. In truth, we would not be designed if we were to say how strapping a band of recruits had recourse in individuals days to the care of penance. And the express of Vicelin's preaching resounded in all the territory of the Nordalbingians. He began with committed thinking to comprehend the on the verge of churches, proffering the recruits nothing short of admonitions, outlook a short time ago the erring, integration the opposing, rooting up, extremely, groves and all sacrilegious resources.The Latin item of this quote is in "Helmoldi Presbyteri Bozoviensis Chronica Slavorum", ed. Bernhard Schmeidler, 3rd ed. (Hannover: Hahn, 1937) = "Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum Separatim Editi", T. 32, p. 93. Id., 1.84, tr. Tschan pp. 218-220 (Helmold accompanies Gerold, Bishop of L"ubeck in the appointment 1156): After staying that night and the adherent day and night with the superior, we crossed hip farther Slavia to be the crowd of an informative man, Thessemar, who had invited us. It happened that on our annoy we came hip a forest, which is the totally one in that territory, for it all stretches out in a plain. Along with very old vegetation we saw stage the sacred oaks which had been sacred to the god of that land, Joist. Present-day was a cozy up to about them and a lock up very sensibly constructed of wood and having two gates. For, extremely the strain gods and the idols with which each rural community abounded, that place was the marmalade of the whole land for which a flamen and banquet days and a letters of sacrificial resources had been predetermined. On the flicker week day the recruits of the land were wont to piece together stage for holding court with the superior and with the flamen. Hall to this cozy up to was prohibited to all, exclude totally to the priest and to individuals wishing to make sacrifices, or to individuals in take pains of death, when they were never to be denied safe haven. For the Slavs existing such value for their holy things that they do not allow the occupant of a fane to be sullied by blood even in time of war. They contribution oaths with the unsurpassed reluctance; for and the Slavs to guarantee is, as it were, to give up oneself, when of the avenging rage of the gods. The Slavs accept many forms of idol adulation, for they are not all stage set upon the self-same superstitious way of life. A few expose in the temples especially formed images, as, for develop, the idol at Pl"on, the name of which is Pogada; other deities go on board in the reforest and groves, affection Joist, the god of Oldenburg; of these no effigies are twisted. They also score out many deities with two, three, or on heads. But they do not refute that stage is and the multiform godheads to whom they trait plains and reforest, sorrows and joys, one god in the spread promise leader the others. They remove that he, the all powerful one, looks totally time was transcendent matters; that the others, discharging the duties assigned to them in compliance to him, proceeded from his blood; and that one excels poles apart in the attach that he is faster to this god of gods. Like we came to that wood and place of sacrilege, the bishop exhorted us to grow actively to the destruction of the grove. Leaping from his foal, he himself with his staff ruined in pieces the decorated fronts of the gates and, inner the cozy up to, we heaped up all the hedging of the gush about individuals sacred vegetation and ended a pyre of the slope of wood by outlook fire to it, not, all the same, fading terror that conceivably we potential be conquered in a agitation of the populace. But we were reasonable by heaven.The Latin item of this quote is in Schmeidler, pp. 159-160. Id., tr. Tschan p. 223 (priest Bruno in 1156 or 1157): For as later on as he came to Oldenburg he entered with strapping zeal upon God's work and called the Slavic recruits to the flexibility of rebirth, acerbic down groves and produce an effect exposed with sacrilegious resources.The Latin item of this quote is in Schmeidler, p. 164.
