Stedingers
Stedingers
(1) A class name for a number of early sects which revived Gnostic and Manichean principles and worshiped the devil, in some instances cursing God while they did so. They are also known as Luciferites, e.g., the Stedingers in northern Germany (13th century); also a similar group of sectarians in Austria (14th century).
(2) The adherents of the schismatical bishop, Lucifer of Cagliari, in Sardinia (died 370 or 371) who dealt very harshly with converts from Arianism. He apparently was not reconciled with the Church before his death.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Stedingers
(A word meaning “those living along a shore”)
A tribe of Frisian peasants in Northern Germany who revolted against their lord, the Archbishop of Bremen, and had to be subdued by arms. The Stedingers refused to pay tithes and to perform forced labour as serfs. These duties were demanded of them with considerable severity, and Archbishop Gerhard II of Bremen (1219-58) sent troops against them. His army, however, was defeated in 1229, whereupon the Stedingers destroyed churches and monasteries, and ill-treated and killed priests. A synod held at Bremen, 17 March, 1230, accused them, in addition to the acts of violence above-mentioned, of contempt for the authority of the Church and for the sacraments, as well as of superstitious practices; it also excommunicated them. The Stedingers refused to submit, and Gregory IX commissioned the Bishop of Lübeck and the Dominicans to labour among them for the extirpation of unbelief. The Emperor Frederick II placed the rebels under the ban of the empire, and on 9 Oct., 1232, Gregory IX issued a Bull commanding the Bishops of Lübeck, Minden, and Ratzeburg to preach a crusade against them. An army was collected and advanced against the Stedingers, but it was defeated in the winter of 1232-33. A new crusading army defeated a part of the tribe, but the other part was once more victorious. The pope now issued another Bull, addressed to several bishops of Northern Germany, commanding a fresh crusade, and on 27 May, 1234, the Stedingers were completely defeated near Bremen. The majority of them now submitted; on 24 August, 1236, Gregory IX commanded that they should be relieved from excommunication after performing penance and satisfaction, and should be received again in the Church. The Stedingers were not heretics, but rebels against lawful ecclesiastical and secular authority.
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HAHN, Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter, III (Stuttgart, 1845); SCHUMACHER, Die Stedinger; Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wesermarschen (Bremen, 1865); FELTEN, Papst Gregor IX (Freiburg im Br., 1886), 220 sq.
J. P. KIRSCH. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Stedingers
a community of Frisians who were settled in the vicinity of Bremen and Oldenburg at the beginning of the 13th century, and who were deprived of liberty and independence because they refused to render tithes to the Church. A certain priest became dissatisfied with the amount of the fee paid at confession by the wife of a prominent man, and when administering the sacrament he placed her money instead, of the host in her mouth. Convinced that her sins prevented her from swallowing the supposed host, she carried it in her mouth to her home, where she discovered its nature. Her husband was indignant at the insult offered his wife, and reported the case to the superiors of the priest, but obtained only unworthy reproaches in reply. He therefore considered himself warranted in punishing the offender, and took his life. The clergy now assumed the attitude of an injured party, and complained to archbishop Hertwig II of Bremen, who demanded the rendition of the murderer and the payment of an immoderate fine, and accompanied his demand with violent threats of punishment in case of refusal. As the action of the criminal had been already approved by the Stedingers, they refused obedience; and when the archbishop imposed increasingly heavy burdens, and even pronounced the ban over the country, they renounced the authority of himself and his chapter, refused further tithes, and declared that they would thenceforward recognize no authority over them save that of the civil government (1204 sq.).
The archbishop, having already in 1197 obtained the promise of pope Innocent III that a crusade should be inaugurated against the Stedingers if required for their subjection, now collected an army (1207) and marched against the rebels, but was appeased with money and promises. He died in the following year, and his successors renewed the war, prosecuting it with varying success during forty years. A large army raised by archbishop Gerhard II was utterly defeated and its base of operations, the Castle of Schluter (Castrum Sluttere), stormed in 1230. Enraged by the disaster, the bishop and his associates now called upon the world to combine for the destruction of the contumacious heretics, and did not hesitate to spread abroad the most contemptibly silly and impossible stories, which could only find credence in a superstitious and spiritually enslaved age. The pope was nevertheless induced by such calumnies to pronounce the general ban of the Church over the unhappy community, and to cause a crusade against it to be preached. Forty thousand soldiers assembled at Bremen to avenge the injury sustained by the Church, and the most powerful ally of her enemies, duke Otto of Luneburg, was detached from their cause through papal influence and the fear of the imperial interdict. The Stedingers nevertheless prepared for resistance; and when the attack was made and irresistible numbers prevailed against them, four hundred of them laid down their lives in the conflict before the field was lost; and in another place a wing of the great army was actually defeated, and its purpose of destroying the dikes of the river Weser and drowning out the population prevented. The prisoners taken by the crusaders were, however, numerous, and all miserably perished at the stake. The country was devastated with fire and sword, and rapine and licentiousness were the governing motives of the army of the Church. A final battle took place on May 27, 1234, near Altenesch. Eleven thousand Stedingers drove the mighty host of their adversaries before them, but, having lost their formation in the pursuit, were themselves taken in flank and rear by the cavalry under count Cleve.
Half of them fell on the field, or were drowned in the stream. Of the remainder, some fled to the free Frisians and became fully identified with them, and others submitted to the authority of the Church. Their country was divided between the, archbishop of Bremen and counts Otto II and Christiami III of Oldenburg. The archiepiscopal Church in Bremen celebrated the bloody triumph with a procession, and ordained an annual day of commemoration, fixing on the fifth Sunday after Easter for that purpose, besides causing a chapel to be erected near the scene of the victory. The abbot Hermann of Corvey exhibited his joy by the erection of two other chapels in the same neighborhood. All the writers prior to the Reformation who mention this war condemn the Stedingers as heretics, and it was reserved for the days of Protestantism to vindicate the fame of these champions of liberty. On May 27, 1834, a simple but durable monument was dedicated to their memory on the site where once stood one of the abbot of Corvey’s chapels. See Monachi Chronicles. in A. Matth. Analect. 2, 501; Chron. Rastad. ap. Langeb. Scriptt. Rer. Danic. vol. 3; Stadeus, Chron. ad A. 1197; Wolter, Chronicles Brem. ap. Meibom. vol. 2; Godefr. Monach. S. Pantol. ad A. 1234, ap. Freher-Struve, 1, 399; Ep. Gregor. IX, in Raynald, anno 1233, No. 42, complete in Ripoll; Bullarium Ord. Proedicat. 1, 52, and Ep. Gregor. IX ad Henrici Friderici Imp. Filium, in Martene, Thesaur. 1, 950; Mansi, 23, 323; Bisbeck, Die Nieder- Weser u. Osterade (Hanov. 1789); Kohl, Handb. d. Herzogth. Oldenburg (Bremen, 1825); Muhle, Geschichte d. Stedingerlandes im Mittelalter, in Strackerjan, Beitr. zur Gesch. d. Grossherzogth. Oldenburg (Bremen, 1837), vol. 1; Crantz, Metropolis, lib. 7 and 8; Schminck, Expedit. Cruc. in Stedingos (Marb. 1722); Ritter, Diss. de Pago Steding et Stedingis Soec. XIII Hoereticis (Viteb. 1725); Lappenberg, Kreuzzug gegen d. Stedinger (Stade, 1755); Hamelmann, Oldenb. Chronik; Von Halem, Gesch. d. Herzogth. Oldenb. vol. 1; Scharling, De Stedingis Comment. (Hafn. 1828). See also general histories of the region and the Church, e.g. Schrckh, pt. 29; Gieseler, Lehrbuch, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 599 sq.