Anscarius, Or Ansgar. (Fr. Anschaire), Saint, the "apostle of the north," born in Picardyin 801, died at Bremen m 864. Educated in the old Benedictine monastery of Corbie, near Amiens, he was early transferred to a new one recently founded at Korvey on the Weser, where he distinguished himself as a teacher. When Harold of Denmark, who had been baptized in Mentz, returned to his country, he took with him as missionaries Anscarius and his colleague Audibert. Success at first attended their efforts, but after a time they, as well as the king, were expelled from the country. Anscarius in 829 penetrated into Sweden, where he obtained from the king, Biorn, permission to preach, and made many converts, returning to his monastery in 831. In the same year Pope Gregory IV. made him archbishop of Hamburg and apostolic legate, and to this appointment the bishopric of Bremen was afterward added. Pope Nicholas I. appointed him his legate to preach the gospel among the Swedes, Danes, and Slavs. He won the favor of King Eric of Jutland, and succeeded in preaching the Christian religion there in 862. In Sweden he reformed many disorders which had grown up among the new Christians. Anscarius was not indeed the first who attempted to propagate the gospel in northern Europe, but he was the first to firmly plant Christianity among the Danes and Swedes.