Gottschalk (Slavic prince)

Saint Gottschalk
Born	11th Century
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	June 6
Patronage	languages, linguists, lost vocations, princes, translators

Saint Gottschalk (or Godescalc) (Latin: Godescalcus) (died 6 June 1066) was a prince of the Obotrite confederacy from 1043 to 1066. He established a Slavic kingdom on the Elbe (in the area of present-day northeastern Germany) in the mid-11th century. His object in life seems to have been to collect the scattered tribes of the Slavs into one kingdom, and to make that kingdom Christian.

"A pious and god-fearing man", Gottschalk effected the Christianisation of the Slavic tribes of the Elbe. He organised missions of German priests and founded monasteries at Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, Ratzeburg, Lübeck, and Lenzen, erecting the first three into dioceses. He himself often accompanied the missionaries on their work and augmented their message with his own explanations and instructions. In all this, he was supported by the efforts of Adalbert, Archbishop of Hamburg. However, the Obotrite nobility and peasantry largely remained pagan.

Gottschalk's father Udo was a poor Christian (male christianus according to Adam of Bremen) whose own father, Mistiwoi, had renounced the new religion for the old Slavic paganism. Udo sent his son to be educated at the monastery of St Michael at Lenzen and later at Lüneburg. After a Saxon murdered Udo in 1028, Gottschalk renounced Christianity and took over the leadership of the Liutizi to avenge his father. He killed many Saxons before Duke Bernard II of Saxony defeated and captured him; his lands went to Ratibor of the Polabians.

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