.D. 1000. It was not, however, until
their more complete subjection to Poland about a hundred years later,
that any marked result was obtained. Otho, Bishop of Bamberg, who
placed himself at the head of the Pomeranian mission A.D. 1124, was at
last enabled to overcome the fierce opposition which the heathen
natives offered to the work of the Church, and by A.D. 1128
Christianity had gained a firm footing amongst them.

[Sidenote: of Prussia Proper.]

From Pomerania the Church extended itself eastward to Prussia Proper,
about A.D. 1210. Here, too, Christianity was very distasteful to the
natives, partly as being the religion of their enemies the Poles.
About A.D. 1230, the "Order of Teutonic Knights" was instituted for the
purpose of subjugating Prussia; and, after a depopulating warfare of
fifty years' duration, the remaining inhabitants embraced Christianity.
Before the end of the thirteenth century, the German element had quite
superseded the Sclavonic in Prussia, as well as in Pomerania, and in
what had formerly been the kingdom of the Wends.

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[Sidenote: Extent of Roman influence in Germany.]

The Church in Germany, taken as a whole, was very much under Roman
influence, partly, perhaps, on account of the early connexion between
the emperors of the West and the see of Rome, and partly from the
constant state of civil warfare into which Germany was plunged from the
twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. In these contests the near
neighbourhood of the Popes to the Italian possessions of the Western
Empire gave them a hold on the affairs of Germany which they were not
slow to use, and the turbulent German nobles were disinclined to resent
an interference which was so often exerted in their behalf against an
unpopular sovereign. The temporal power of the Popes was, however,
much weakened by the great Schism; and though the Church of Germany
acknowledged the true Pope, there was, amongst its members, a very
widespread sense of the urgent need of some searching reformation. To
this feeling may be traced, not only the unhappily disappointed
expectations with which so many persons looked to the Councils of
Constance and Basle, but also the unsound and exaggerated teaching of
such men as John Huss and Jerome of Prague.

Section 5. _The Church of Hungary._

[Sidenote: Conversion of Hungary.]

The Hungarians or Magyars were descended from a Tartar or Finnish
tribe, who settled in Pannonia towards the clos