forXIV

Introduction to the 2002 Edition

geries conducted on behalf of the see in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries; somehistorians have argued that the whole idea of an early
“archbishopric of Hamburg”is a later invention, but the account just
given is probably broadly correct.*?
The missionary aspirations of the ninth century were revived in
the tenth century following Henry I’s victory over the Danes, probably
in 934. Just as the archbishopric of Magdeburg, founded by Otto
I in 967/968, claimed extensive missionary rights over the Slav lands
to the east, so the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen claimedsimilar
rights over the Scandinavian north(as well as over the northernmost
Slavs in Oldenburg and Mecklenburg, where suffragan bishoprics
were set up for a time). However, the Danish rulers in particular,
andto a lesser extent those in Norway and Sweden, wereincreasingly
unhappyabout such external control. They sought repeatedly to have
their bishops consecrated elsewhere, and there are signs (some of
which are noted by Adam) of missionary work by Anglo-Saxon and
French clerics in the Scandinavian lands.’2 Adam’s hero Adalbert
tried to have Hamburg-Bremen turnedintoa patriarchate,that is an
archbishopric with even higher status, in order to preserve his claims
over the north,’’ but from the mid-eleventh century the writing was
on the wall for Hamburg-Bremen’s metropolitan claims. In spite of
protests by the archbishops andtheir rulers, archbishoprics were established
with papal support and approval in Denmark (Lund, 1103/
1104), Norway (Trondheim/Nidaros, 1152) and finally Sweden
(Uppsala, 1164).’* Hamburg-Bremen, never a rich see even at the
height of its prosperity between c. 950 and c. 1060, had already
suffered severe material losses during the Germancivil war of 1073-—
1122, and it was reducedto the status of an impoverished archbishopric
with a handfulofstill more impoverished suffragans; for much
of the twelfth century it and they were largely under the control of
the dukes of Saxony, especially following the defeat of the archbishops
in the struggle for succession to the counts of Stade in the years
1144 to 1148."