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 164 THE DECLINE AND FALL whom he had so long adored^ was dragged through the streets of Kiow ; and twelve sturdy barbarians battered with clubs the misshapen image, which was indignantly cast into the waters of the Borysthenes. The edict of Wolodomir had proclaimed that all who should refuse the rites of baptism would be treated as the enemies of God and their prince ; and the rivers were instantly filled with many thousands of obedient Russians, who acquiesced in the truth and excellence of a doctrine which had been embraced by the great duke and his boyars.^"^ In the next genei'atiori the relics of paganism were finally extirpated ; but, as the two brothers of Wolodomir had died without baptism, their bones were taken from the grave and sanctified by an irregular and posthumous sacrament. Christianity In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian A.D. 8c6-iioo' sera, the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Russia.^''^ fhe triumphs of apostolic zeal were repeated in the iron age of Christianity ; and the northern and eastern regions of Europe submitted to a religion more different in theoi'y than in practice from the worship of their native idols. A laudable ambition excited the monks, both of Germany and Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the bar- barians ; poverty, hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first missionaries ; their courage was active and patient ; their motive pure and meritorious ; their present reward consisted in of the same name, which had arisen near the mouth of the Borysthenes, and was lately honoured by the memorable interview of the empress of Russia with the emperor of the West. [Till recently, the date of the marriage and conversion of Vladimir was supposed to be A.D. 988. The authority is the Russian chronicle of " Nestor," which contains the fullest (partly legendary) account (c. 42). Vladimir captured Cherson, and sent an embassy, demanding the hand of the princess Anne, and threatening to attack Constantinople if it were refused. Vasilievski showed (in a paper in the Zhurnal Min., 184 (1876), p. 156) from the notice in Leo Diaconus (p. 175, ed. Bonn), and the Baron von Rosen (in his book of extracts from the annals of Yahia (1883), note 169), that Cherson was captured in A.D. 989 (c. June) ; and it follows that the marriage and conversion cannot have been celebrated before the autumn of 989. The fragment which is sometimes called " Notes of the Greek toparch of Gothia." which was published by Hase (notes to Leo Diaconus, p. 496 sqq. ed. Bonn), does not belong to this period nor concern the neighbourhood of Cherson ; but probably refers to events which happened on the lower Don in the early part of the loth century. This explanation has been proposed by Th. Uspenskiin the Kievskaia Staritra of 1889 (see Schlumberger, L'^pop^e Byzantine, p. 767, note).] 1"! [The adoption of Christianity in Russia was facilitated by the fact that there was no sacerdotal caste to oppose it. This point is insisted on by Kostomarov, Russische Geschichte in Biographien, i. 5.] i'*2 Consult the Latin text, or English version, of Mosheim's excellent History of the Church, under the first head or section of each of these centuries.