UTRECHT and the CONVERSION of GERMANY. LIUDGER and the GOSPEL of THOMAS* School Liudger Or Ludger, Also Known As Saint Ludgerus
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CHAPTER FORTY-NINE UTRECHT AND THE CONVERSION OF GERMANY. LIUDGER AND THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS* School Liudger or Ludger, also known as Saint Ludgerus, was sent by his father and mother to the school of abbot Gregorius in Utrecht in 754. This school was situated between the church of Saint Martin and the church of the Salvator, roughly on the site of the present main university building on the Domplein. At the time, the school drew students from far afi eld: Angles and Franks, Frisians and Saxons and even Swabians and Bavarians from the south of Germany and Austria. Now and again an itinerant saint from England would stop at the school to prepare himself for his missionary work amongst the still pagan, cognate Saxons living in the Dutch provinces of Overijssel and Drenthe, in the area known as the “Achterhoek”, and in the north of Germany. Boniface wintered in Utrecht in 754 before setting off on what would become his last journey to Frisia. The young Liudger saw him there and would later remember his grey head. The quality of the education offered was high. Liudger read with his favourite tutor Augustine’s Encheiridion in Latin, still an important fountainhead of theology, which since the academic revolu- tion of 1968 most students in the Netherlands are no longer capable of reading. But the library also held a “codex” containing the works of the Roman historian Livy. Utrecht at the time also offered classical literature on the curriculum. Abbot Gregorius, a noble Frank from the vicinity of Trier, had been so inspired by Boniface when he was a young lad, that he followed him everywhere, eventually becoming the successor of Willibrord and Boniface in Utrecht. Yet he had not become a bishop, he was an abbot and a professor. As was the case in Ireland, abbots and professors in those days ranked above bishops. * Previously published in Dutch in: PUG Mededelingen, June 1994. 808 chapter forty-nine Liudger was very fond of Gregorius and later composed his biog- raphy, the “Vita Gregorii”. This made him the fi rst literary fi gure in the Netherlands. Mother Shortly after she had been born, Liudger’s mother had narrowly escaped death. Her paternal grandmother was a pagan, and took it ill of her daughter-in-law that she only bore her husband daughters. She hired murderers to kill the child, who put the infant in a tub fi lled with water to drown it. The little child grabbed hold of the edge of the tub and resisted its killers. Providentially, a neighbour intruded on the scene. She took hold of the child and dabbed its mouth with honey. This made the killing, according to Germanic law, illegal. Our ancestors’ customs could be cruel. Cannibalism, witch murders, strangulation of prisoners of war were not uncommon practices. As a result of the miraculous intervention, Liudger’s entire family dedicated itself to the Church. Both Liudger and his younger brother Hildegrim, who was educated by Liudger himself at Utrecht, rose to become priests, abbots and bishops. Two daughters married into the aristocracy, but their sons, too, became abbots and bishops. The youngest daughter, Heriburg, entered the convent. There was nobody left in the family to inhabit the manor house on the river Vecht. Frisian Nobleman The Frisians at the time peopled the area which roughly runs from the river Weser in Germany to the river Zwin in Belgium. They also lived along the Dutch river Vecht in the province of Utrecht, where Liudger’s father owned vast properties. Liudger was born in Zwesen, which survives in the name Zwesereng, the common farmland of the villagers of Zwesen, opposite castle Oud-Zuilen on the Vecht, which was possibly built on the site where once the manor house of Liudger’s Frisian family stood. There the boy saw the ships pass on their way to Sweden. Later he longed to go to the immense Scandinavian lands, but he was barred from going by the Emperor Charlemagne. He only got as far as Helgoland. It later became a family legend that as a child, Liudger already trained for his future task. Hardly could he walk or speak or he was gathering the bark of trees and turned them into .