The naturally childlike and submissive
disposition of the Slavi rendered them in all other regions, as we
have seen, willing to receive the Christian doctrines, more especially
when their superiors themselves acted as their apostles, as was in
some measure the case with the Russian Vladimir, Jagello in Lithuania,
etc.[2] But the mode described above, which was adopted by the German
heroes, not only among the Vendes, but also some centuries later among
the old Borussians, could not but rouse all their feelings of pride
and nationality to a decided resistance. Even when the Germans
refrained from force, their means of conversion were equally opposed
to the spirit of Christianity. Bishop Otho of Bamberg, for instance,
was accustomed, when on his missionary travels, to have fifty or more
wagons in his train loaded with cloth, victuals, and other supplies,
in order to reward on the spot those who submitted to baptism.[3]
But the holy light of Christianity, even after the Vendish tribes had
embraced its doctrines, did not clear up the darkness of their fate.
The whole humiliating relation between masters and serfs in Germany,
which still degraded the last century, was unknown to the free ancient
Germans, among whom only the prisoner of war was a slave; and is
derived from the period of the submission of the Vendes.
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