-121, 124-129, 148, 149, &c.)]

[Footnote 75: See the Ceremoniale Aulae Byzant. tom. ii. c. 15, p.
343-345: the style of Olga, or Elga. For the chief of Barbarians the
Greeks whimsically borrowed the title of an Athenian magistrate, with a
female termination, which would have astonished the ear of Demosthenes.]

[Footnote 76: See an anonymous fragment published by Banduri, (Imperium
Orientale, tom. ii. p. 112, 113, de Conversione Russorum.)]

[Footnote 77: Cherson, or Corsun, is mentioned by Herberstein (apud Pagi
tom. iv. p. 56) as the place of Wolodomir's baptism and marriage; and
both the tradition and the gates are still preserved at Novogorod. Yet
an observing traveller transports the brazen gates from Magdeburgh in
Germany, (Coxe's Travels into Russia, &c., vol. i. p. 452;) and quotes
an inscription, which seems to justify his opinion. The modern reader
must not confound this old Cherson of the Tauric or Crimaean peninsula,
with a new city of the same name, which has arisen near the mouth of the
Borysthenes, and was lately honored by the memorable interview of the
empress of Russia with the emperor of the West.]

In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian aera,
the reign of the gospel and of the church was extended over Bulgaria,
Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Russia.
[78] The triumphs of apostolic zeal were repeated in the iron age of
Christianity; and the northern and eastern regions of Europe submitted
to a religion, more different in theory than in practice, from the
worship of their native idols. A laudable ambition excited the
monks both of Germany and Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the
Barbarians: poverty, hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first
missionaries; their courage was active and patient; their motive pure
and meritorious; their present reward consisted in the testimony of
their conscience and the respect of a grateful people; but the fruitful
harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the proud and
wealthy prelates of succeeding times. The first conversions were free
and spontaneous: a holy life and an eloquent tongue were the only arms
of the missionaries; but the domestic fables of the Pagans were silenced
by the miracles and visions of the strangers; and the favorable temper
of the chiefs was accelerated by the dictates of vanity and interest.
The leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and
sain