Ansgar
Monk of Corbie sent by Louis the Pious to the Danes and then to the Swedes at Birka. He became the first archbishop of Hamburg, later joined with Bremen, and is known almost entirely from the Life written by his successor Rimbert.
Ansgar was trained at Corbie and sent to teach at its daughter house of Corvey in Saxony. From there he was chosen to go home with the baptized Danish king Harald, and afterwards to answer a Swedish request for priests (Rimbert, Life of Anskar 6–7; 9–10). Louis the Pious made him archbishop of a new see at Hamburg, and Pope Gregory IV named him legate for the northern peoples; after Hamburg was burned by raiders he was given the see of Bremen as well (Rimbert, Life of Anskar 12–13; 16; 22–23). See Ansgar’s Mission to Scandinavia.
Rimbert says that his last illness began in the sixty-fourth year of his life, the thirty-fourth of his episcopate, and that he died on the day after the feast of the Purification (Rimbert, Life of Anskar 40–41). Rimbert names no year; 865 is the year given by the translator of the Life, and the year of birth is reckoned from it.
In the timeline
- AD 829 to AD 831, estimated dateAnsgar’s Mission to Scandinavia
The monk Ansgar is sent from the Frankish court to the Danes and then to the Swedish trading town of Birka, and becomes the first archbishop of Hamburg. His churches are few and fragile, and depend on the leave of kings.
Primary sources
Life of Anskar
- Rimbert, Life of Anskar 6–7; 9–10sourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Rimbert, Life of Anskar 12–13; 16; 22–23sourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Rimbert, Life of Anskar 40–41sourcebooks.fordham.edu