Cross and Scepter (10 page)

Two main questions have dominated scholarly discussions about the Christianization of Scandinavia: (1) Was the process sudden or gradual? (2) Was it mainly carried out by indigenous kings or leaders or were the main players foreign missionaries? The idea of a gradual Christianization predominated in the second half of the twentieth century, based in part on the experience of modern conversions, which typically require a long process of missionary activity before success is achieved; in part from a tendency to reduce the importance of the kings; and in part from archaeological evidence of prolonged contact between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, which led to the reception of various external impulses, Christianity among them. Gradual Christianization thus centers on a religious understanding of the process, linked to the work of missionaries, though political forces were not excluded from the explanation: Scandinavian chieftains formed links with kings and nobles abroad and brought Christian rites and objects home with them.

Concerning the first question, most sources, including the two contemporary ones on the conversion of Denmark, point either to one decisive event or to a short period of confrontation between the two religions, although Widukind refers to a prehistory of gradual Christian infiltration. By contrast, they give different answers to the second question. The foreign sources that deal with the mission to Scandinavia, notably Rimbert's
Life of
Ansgar
(c. 875) and Adam of Bremen's
History of the Archbishops of Hamburg
(c. 1070), attribute the conversion to German missionaries, beginning with Ebo's and Ansgar's missions (823 and 829), whereas the indigenous ones tend to emphasize the importance of the kings. Although Saxo accepts Poppos's miracle as the decisive event, he also points to the Danes' own contribution. At King Gorm's orders, Thorkel sets out on an expedition to the northern edge of the world, where, in great danger, he invokes the God of the universe and is saved, after which he goes to Germany, which had recently converted to Christianity, and is instructed in the basic elements of Christian doctrine. The emphasis on the role of indigenous kings or chieftains is even stronger in the Old Norse sagas, where the conversion of Norway is mainly attributed to the two missionary kings, Olav Tryggvason (995–1000) and St. Olav Haraldsson (1015–1030), while the clerical missionaries play a subordinate part. The earliest of these sources, Ari's account of the conversion of Iceland in the year 1000, dating from the 1120s, regards the whole process as political. According to Ari, several leading men had converted to Christianity, whereas others were strongly opposed. The Icelanders were under pressure as well from the Norwegian King Olav Tryggvason, who was introducing Christianity into Norway. On the advice of a highly respected pagan, Thorgeir Thorkellsson, the Icelanders agreed to convert to Christianity, in return for some concessions to the pagans. This was done entirely for pragmatic reasons, in order to maintain the unity of the people. Neither doctrines nor miracles were involved. There are very few written sources for the conversion of Sweden, but a thirteenth century source,
Gutasagan
(the “History of the Gotlanders”) describes the conversion of the island of Gotland as a pragmatic decision, not unlike what happened in Iceland.

None of these sources is completely trustworthy. The missionary sources are chronologically closer to the events or, in the case
of Adam, at least partly based on earlier written sources, but they are likely to exaggerate the importance of the missionaries. The indigenous sources, which are later, are also biased but in the opposite direction. Both the sagas and Saxo contain in addition a number of stories that are clearly legendary. Nevertheless, our general knowledge of early Scandinavian society clearly points in the direction of a political explanation of the conversion, a conclusion that gains support from the oldest indigenous account, that of Ari.

To some extent, this discussion is about definitions. If we understand Christianization as a fundamental transformation of a people's beliefs and religious practices, it obviously requires a prolonged process, one that is impossible to date through the available source material. By contrast, if by “Christianization,” we mean the formal decree making Christianity the only lawful religion, we can in most cases narrow it down to a precise date, or at least to within a few decades. This still leaves the question of the relationship between the official conversion and previous Christian influence. It is difficult to imagine a royal decree introducing a new and completely unknown religion, at least if such a decree is to have any effect, but it is an open question how much preparation would have been needed. Depending on the strength of the monarchy and the status of those supporting Christianity, the formal introduction may well have come at a stage when only a minority of the population were Christians. On the other hand, a majority of Christians would not necessarily translate into a religious monopoly for Christianity.

The relevance of the parallel to modern missions is also doubtful. Medieval accounts show that what the missionaries tried to achieve was a formal, collective conversion. Their efforts were directed at influencing the kings or other leaders of society with the aim of bringing about the establishment of an ecclesiastical hierarchy and the baptism of the population. Some individual
conversions might be a means to achieve this, but, unlike modern missionaries, their medieval counterparts were not concerned with deep personal convictions. From this point of view, the missionary and the indigenous sources agree.

There may be stronger arguments in favor of a more secular version of gradual conversion. Increasing contact with Christian Europe might have led to familiarity with Christianity, as well as to personal links between Scandinavian chieftains and their foreign counterparts, which might have entailed baptism. Baptism and the acceptance of Christian missionaries were clearly means by which Scandinavian kings or chieftains might gain the friendship of their counterparts abroad, as did the two Olavs, who were baptized respectively in England and in Normandy, and Harald Bluetooth, whose conversion to Christianity may have been calculated to win the friendship of Otto the Great.

However, it is difficult to imagine that these means, either missionary or secular, would lead to the decisive step from accepting a certain Christian influence to actively rejecting paganism. From the point of view of traditional Scandinavian religion, the acceptance of new gods did not mean the rejection of the old ones, as is evident from Widukind's account.

If we are to explain this, we have to consider the kings. Religion and political power were closely connected in the pagan period. There was apparently no professional priesthood; the chieftains acted as cultic and religious leaders. We can assume that the position of chieftain was unstable; there was typically competition between several leading men for local power. Although it would not have been impossible for one of these chieftains to achieve domination over his competitors, the pagan religion did not give the same support to this kind of lordship, and to a newcomer, the lack of firmly rooted political and religious leadership over a given area was clearly a handicap. This would apply both to a ruler like Harald Bluetooth, who, from a base probably in southern Jutland,
tried to conquer the whole of Denmark, and even more to the Norwegian kings, who returned with men and booty from Viking expeditions abroad. By contrast, Christianity was a unitary religion, with one cult, one God, and a professional cult organization that immediately abolished the religious importance of local chieftains. The sources occasionally draw a parallel between the rule of one king and the belief in one God, thus suggesting that there is a logical connection between the new religion and larger political entities: just as one God rules the world, so there must be one king in a country. Snorri lets Harald Finehair swear by the Almighty God that he will conquer Norway and states that he disliked the pagan magic,
seiðr.

Although the king was not necessarily the head of the ecclesiastical organization, he had considerable control over it in the early Middle Ages, notably in countries where Christianity was a new religion. Admittedly, this organization must in the beginning have been too weak to add very much to the king's power. Nevertheless, Christianity had a centralizing effect by virtue of being a new religion. The struggle for this religion, including the destruction of pagan cult sites, of which there is archaeological evidence, gave the king an opportunity to replace old chieftains with his own adherents. Thus, the conversion is likely to have strengthened the position of the king, although this did not mean a general decline of the aristocracy. The magnates who converted could maintain their position in local society by building churches and appointing priests, but, at least in the beginning, the new religion attached them more closely to the king. Finally, Christianity also gave the king an incentive to conquer new areas in order to propagate the new religion. Admittedly, we cannot exclude the possibility that other chieftains besides the kings acted in the same way; for in fact there was hardly a sharp distinction between kings and other leaders at this time. The important point is that
Christianity was a means to centralization, whether carried out by men who were already regarded as kings or not.

On these matters, Harald Bluetooth and the sagas probably give an accurate account, although the latter exaggerate the importance of the two main missionary kings, Olav Tryggvason (995–1000) and St. Olav Haraldsson (1015–1030). In any event, after the death of Harald Finehair in the 930s, all rulers of Norway except one were Christian and probably contributed in various ways to the final outcome. In a similar way, Saxo is wrong in contrasting the Christian Harald with his successor Sven, who allegedly returned to paganism and was brought back to Christianity only through God's punishment; most probably, Harald's conversion of the country became permanent. It also seems that the towns worked as bridgeheads of a kind for the conversion of the surrounding countryside, to the extent that we can talk of “ports of faith” in analogy with “ports of trade” (Sæbjørg Nordeide). Nidaros (now: Trondheim), founded by King Olav Tryggvason in the 990s, is an example, as is Sigtuna in Sweden at around the same time. Moreover, although the archaeological evidence from Norway shows that conversions took place at different times in different parts of the country, there is nothing to indicate the coexistence of Christianity and paganism within any particular area. Thus, while not ignoring the importance of other contacts with Christian Europe, via Viking and trading expeditions for example, we have to conclude that the decisive step was taken by the kings, who established the Church and banned pagan cult.

The main pattern of Christianization is the same throughout Scandinavia, but we may point to some differences between Denmark and Norway (we know too little about Sweden to draw conclusions about this country). In the case of Denmark, its conversion is clearly influenced by its powerful neighbor to the south, Ottonian Germany. In 965, when Poppo allegedly performed his
miracle, Otto the Great was at the height of his power and his friendship must have been very attractive to Harald, both as a source of prestige and to diminish the threat from a mighty neighbor. Otto may also have served as a model for Harald of a powerful ruler with stronger control of his subjects than Harald and his predecessors had managed to achieve in Denmark. Finally, Germany was actively engaged in missionary activities, and a separate ecclesiastical organization devoted to this enterprise, the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen, had existed for around a hundred years.

By contrast, the English kings were less able to intervene in Scandinavia. King Ethelred (979–1016), the contemporary of Sven Forkbeard and the two Olavs, was an unsuccessful ruler who was repeatedly defeated by Scandinavian Vikings and was eventually succeeded by the Danish Cnut the Great. Nevertheless, Anglo-Saxon England was a wealthy and highly centralized country with a monarchy that might well have served as a model for the Scandinavian kings. Moreover, in contrast to their Danish counterparts, the Norwegian kings lacked a firm local base, which gave them an even stronger incentive to introduce a new religion, and, above all, to suppress the old one, on which the power of their rivals was based.

It may be objected that this explanation completely ignores religious and cultural factors and regards people in that time as acting solely out of rational self-interest. The best response to this accusation is that such considerations are fully compatible with a religious attitude. There was no sharp distinction between the religious and the secular spheres in the early Middle Ages, certainly not in paganism, and considerably less in Christianity than in later ages. Consequently, success in the secular field might easily translate to a religious advantage. Nor was contemporary religion an objective system of dogma. It was instead, and intensely, a matter
of personal relationships, so that there was a strong connection between allegiance to a leader and allegiance to his gods.

The Christianization of Scandinavia formed part of a greater wave of conversions that brought most of Northern and Eastern Europe into Western Christendom. Bohemia converted in the early tenth century, Poland in 966, and Hungary in 1000, whereas Russia converted to Eastern Christendom in 988. In all these cases, we witness voluntary conversions by local rulers—conversions that differ in character from those of previous and subsequent periods. The closest parallel is the conversion of England in the early seventh century, which was carried out by missionaries from Rome without any military or political pressure, although there was probably a stronger presence of Christianity in seventh-century England than in Scandinavia and East Central Europe three hundred years later. The subsequent conversion of the Netherlands and northern Germany also shows some resemblance to the Scandinavian experience, but these areas were at least nominally under the control of the Carolingians who supported the missionaries. By contrast, the conversion of Saxony, previously outside the Carolingian Empire, was the result of a prolonged and bloody war, as was also the conversion of the lands on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea from the twelfth century onwards.