Helmold

At Bishop Gerold's instigation Helmold wrote his Chronica Slavorum, a history of the conquest and conversion of the Polabian Slavs from the time of Charlemagne[1] (about 800) to 1171.

The purpose of this chronicle was to demonstrate how Christianity and the German nationality gradually succeeded in gaining a footing among the Wends, especially in the eastern portion of Holstein.

As an eyewitness he gives a clear description in fluent Latin of Vicelinus's missionary labors, of the founding of the bishopric in Oldenburg, of the transfer of this bishopric to Lübeck when German commerce at the latter place had become more important than in the former city, of the spread of German influence among the Wends, of the merciless subjugation and extermination of these, and of the summoning to their lands of foreign settlers, principally Westphalian and Dutch.

He said that among the troops of Henry the Lion during the Wendish Crusade, there was "only talk of money, never about Christianity" and missionary conversion of the Slavs.

His trustworthiness was seriously questioned in the 19th century (see particularly Sehirren, Beiträge zur Kritik holsteinischer Geschichtsquellen, Leipzig, 1876) owing to his antagonism towards the Archbishops of Bremen and his partiality for the Oldenburg-Lübeck bishopric, but it should not be supposed that he was guilty of an intentional falsification of facts.