"The Northmen cease not to slay and carry into captivity the Christian people, to destroy the churches and to burn the towns. Everywhere, there is nothing but dead bodies— clergy and laymen, nobles and common people, women and children. There is no road or place where the ground is not covered with corpses. We live in distress and anguish before this spectacle of the destruction of the Christian people."
No wonder the Anglican prayer book contains the prayer, “From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us.” Once more, when Christians did not reach out to them, pagan peoples came after what the Christians possessed. And once more, the phenomenal power of Christianity manifested itself: the conquerors became conquered by the faith of their captives. Usually it was the monks sold as slaves or Christian girls forced to be their wives and mistresses who eventually won these savages of the north. In God’s providence their redemption became more important than the harrowing tragedy of this new invasion of barbarian violence and evil which fell upon God’s own people whom He loved. After all, He spared not His own Son in order to redeem us! Thus, again, what Satan intended for evil, God used for good.
In the previous hundred years, Charlemagne’s scholars had carefully collected the manuscripts of the ancient world. Now the majority were to be burned by the Vikings. Only because so many copies had been made and scattered so widely did the fruits of the Charlemagnic literary revival survive at all. Once scholars and missionaries had streamed in peace from Ireland across England and onto the continent, and even out beyond the frontiers of Charlemagne’s empire. Under the brunt of these new violent invasions from the north, the Irish volcano which had poured forth a passionate fire of evangelism for three centuries cooled almost to extinction. Viking warriors, newly based in Ireland, followed the paths of the earlier Irish peregrini across England and onto the continent, but this time ploughing waste and destruction rather than new life and hope. (for some reason...a large section of the article is not on Winter's website..it has to do with this third period and the growth of the Church in Europe)
To recapitulate our first period (AD 0-400) ended with a barely Christian Roman Empire and a somewhat Christian emperor, Constantine. Our second period (AD 400-800) ended with a reconstitution of that empire under Charlemagne, a vigorously Christianized barbarian. (Can you imagine an emperor who wore a monk's habit?). Our third period (AD 800-1200) ends with Pope Innocent III as the strongest man in Europe, made so by the Gregorian Reform
(My thoughts) In seemingly the darkest times in history. when it seems that Satan is all-powerful and God is being defeated (Viking invasion and Black plague), God brought great good for His people (conversion of Vikings, Protestant Reformation). “In God’s providence He worked redemption in the midst of harrowing tragedy...and evil that fell upon God’s beloved people. After all, He spared not His own Son in order to redeem us! Thus again, what Satan intended for evil, God used for good.”
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