When you talk about the Vikings, the first images that come to mind are usually warriors
and sailors with particular and well-known mythology. Gods such as Thor, Odin and Loki
have become popular in recent times with films and other media. The relations between Christendom
and the Pagan Norse are remembered as bloody and cruel. While certainly there is much truth
to this, the Christian religion always had strong relations with the population of Scandinavia
during the Dark Age. Welcome to this documentary on the introduction of the Christian faith
to Scandinavia and how the pagan Vikings evolved into the Christian kingdoms of Scandinavia.
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In the first six centuries of the first millennium, Denmark and the southern half of Scandinavia
were populated by Germanic peoples, who sailed the Northern Sea and traded with the Romans.
These peoples followed a set of pagan beliefs that would develop into the better-known Old
Norse Religion. The religion was polytheistic, with the most important gods being Odin, especially
in places associated with royal power, and Thor. A great emphasis was put on the worship
of ancestral spirits, and rituals comprising sacrifices and offerings were common. The
worship of the gods was mostly personal between the individual and the gods, without the presence
of a priest, and often the ceremonies partook outside in places of natural beauty.
With the expansion of the Frankish Kingdom towards the Frisians and Saxons and the Christianization
of these territories during the seventh and eighth centuries, modern-day Denmark attracted
the attention of the Christian church. Being the closest region to mainland Europe, Denmark
would be the region first in contact with the Christian faith. The first missionary
we know of is Willibrord, who around 710 and 714 traveled from Frisia to Schleswig, that
time Danish territory, to convert the locals with little success, halting further attempts
in the area for a century. However, the Christian religion still had an influence over the culture
of the Norse and their practices, which were often modified or changed over the centuries.
For example, some practices we find only in late Norse Iron age are the rite of carving
runestones in memory of the dead or the idea of Valhalla, which was probably introduced
by the concept of the Christian Paradise.
In 793 the attack at the monastery of Lindisfarne was perpetrated by Norwegian Vikings, and
this event is considered by historians the start of the Viking Age. This initiated an
age of increased Norse contacts with the rest of Europe, both through warfare and trade,
which brought Christianity to Scandinavia. In 814, in the midst of a succession crisis
in Denmark, a Danish petty king called Harald came to the court of Louis the Pious, son
of Charlemagne, in search of help to retake his throne. He obtained support from the Franks
and managed to be reinstated in parts of Jutland, ruling with other Danish princes.
In 822 the archbishop of Reims, Ebo, obtained the papal mandate to convert the North and
was invited by Harald to his domains, who also converted with his family to Christianity
in 826. Ebo led missionaries to Denmark a few times with little success during the reign
of Harald, which ended in 827.
One of the missionaries, Ansgar, was appointed to stay and lead the mission in Denmark on
a permanent basis. After the death of Harold, Ansgar traveled to the Swedish city of Bilka
by invitation of the Swedish King Björn, where he established a small community of
Christians and was remembered as Apostle of the North. To help with his efforts, Ansgar
was appointed to the newly formed archbishopric of Hamburg, which was established with the
goal of converting the Norse. Hamburg, however, was sacked by Viking raiders in 845, and the
seat of the archbishop was moved to Bremen. This, combined with the general weakness the
Emperor experienced up to the coronation of Otto the First, slowed down the Christianization
of the Vikings, though attempts were still made in Denmark and Sweden by individuals,
and some churches were built in mercantile cities, such as Ribe and Hedeby for foreign
merchants.
The Germans were not the only ones attempting to convert Scandinavia. Possibly a more important
role was held by British missionaries who traveled via the North Sea. During the ninth
and tenth centuries, Vikings came in contact with the Anglo-Saxon Christian peoples living
there both by raiding and settling the British Isles. We know that British missionaries came
to Scandinavia, but lack of written sources suggest that it was mostly individual initiatives
rather than organized missions by secular rulers, such as those coming from Germany.
Their influence can be seen in many areas, such as liturgical traditions, church architecture,
Christian terminology, and inscribed crosses on rune stones. It is also possible that slaves
and captives taken back to Scandinavia helped to spread the Christian religion.
Things changed under the rule of King of Denmark Gorm the Old. Historical sources remember
him as a prosecutor of Christians, but the influence of Queen Tyre and threats by the
German king halted this prosecution. The Bishop of Bremen, Unni, traveled to the court of
Gorm and received permission to proselytize in Denmark by his son Harald Bluetooth. Unni
then traveled to Sweden where he died in 936.
Around 958 Harald Bluetooth succeeded his father. He is considered the first King of
all of Denmark and around 960 he converted to Christianity with his family, baptized
by the cleric Poppo. This event is recorded on one of the Jelling stones, massive carved
stones with depiction of Jesus and a runic text, which translates to: “King Haraldr
ordered this monument made in memory of Gorm, his father, and in memory of Thyrvé, his
mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.”
While we should not take literally that all of Denmark was converted, Harald’s conversion
is still considered the start of Christian Denmark and would influence Sweden and Norway
to follow. The reason for the conversion was more political than religious. Historians
are uncertain if the conversion was followed by a defeat to the German King Otto, or instead
before an attack as to remove a casus belli that could prompt a German invasion. In 965
a privilege granted by Otto the first establish the first three bishoprics in Denmark; in
Århus, Ribe and Schleswig.
It still took some time for the kings to fully embrace Christianity, as Harald successor,
Svend Forkbeard conflicted with the Christian Clergy in England during his conquest of the
kingdom in the first two decades of the eleventh century. Also, Svend’s son, Knut the Great,
while being considered a champion of the Christian church, often did not follow the Christian
ethic, and for this, he went to Rome to atone for his sins. However, it is undeniable that
Christianization paved the way to the formation of Knut’s North Sea empire, which comprised
Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden.
The biggest impact on the church under the rule of Knut was his break from the Archbishopric
of Hamburg-Bremen, which had already started under his father. He invited clergy from England,
Ireland, and Scotland to Denmark, over German members of the Church. This was a political
maneuver to lessen the power that the German kings had in his courts, and some historians
believe that Hamburg attempted to create a sort of “patriarchate of the North”.
Norway saw the first introduction to Christianity during the reign of Håkon the Good, who had
been raised and baptized in England, and tried to peacefully spread Christianity during his
reign from 930 to 960. In the following century, the Christianization of Norway was more or
less successful, depending on who was the leader at the time, with pagan and Christian
rulers succeeding each other. Under the reigns of Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldsson, at
the start of the ninth century, Norway experienced violent attempts of forced Christianization,
and rebellions by Norse pagans were crushed to establish control over the country. Also
during this period, he sent missionaries to the Norse settlements in the Faroes, Iceland,
Shetland and Orkney islands.
Sweden’s conversion was more gradual. The kingdom was less centralized than Denmark
and sources mention a great Temple in Uppsala which held immense significance. Around 990
the Christian king Olof Skötkonung and heathens agreed to tolerate each other, creating a
society where both religions were practiced and were peaceful to each other up to the
end of the eleventh century. Bishoprics were generally set up later in the country when
compared to both Denmark and Norway. There is no sign of forced baptism, also because
the attempts made were by kings not strong enough to convert the whole country, meeting
with stiff resistance. The perception that Sweden was heathen lasted in the following
century even though most of Sweden converted, and even the Norwegian King Sigurd Jorsafal
launched a crusade in Sweden in the twelfth century as a pretext for expansion.
Some Vikings, spearheaded by those from Sweden, established communities in the land of the
Rus, where they entered into contact with the Byzantine court. Here some Vikings converted,
but archaeological evidence suggests that Greek influence in the conversion of Scandinavia
was negligible.
Iceland, which had been colonized by Norwegians from around 870, had already seen an influx
of Christians during the first half of the tenth century, and in the latter half British
missionaries had come to the island. In the year 1000, the Icelandic council ruled that
the island would be Christian. During the same period, the Faroes adopted Christianity.
With the decline of the bishopric of Hamburg, we find a greater interest by the Pope towards
the kingdoms of Scandinavia. The first contacts between kings and the Pope can probably be
traced to Knud the Great’s trip to Rome in 1026, where he also met the King of Burgundy
and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The Pope, at the time in conflict with the
emperor during the Investiture Controversy, helped Scandinavia to free itself from the
influence of the Germans by establishing new archbishopric, such as the Archbishopric of
Lund in 1104 which was the highest church in Scandinavia. This meant that Bremen-Hamburg
no longer had jurisdiction over the North. Lund held this position until 1152 when the
elevation of the Bishopric of Nidaros to Archbishopric in Trondheim made the Norwegian church independent
from the Danish church, and it was followed in 1164 by the formation of the Archbishopric
of Uppsala in Sweden.
As we have seen, Christianization of Scandinavia was often encouraged and partaken by kings
or members of the nobility, and only later spread to the common folk. The reason for
this can be found in the benefits that Christianity gave the Norse rulers, such as better relations
with the stronger powers of Europe, such as the Pope, Emperor, and Kings of Germany. It
was attractive to the Norse rulers to have a class of educated people among their subjects,
from which administrators and counselors could be drafted from the clergy. The polytheistic
and individualistic Norse religion made it hard for a state to control its population,
while a monotheistic religion with communal worship and a religious elite loyal to the
state was a useful tool for the Scandinavian kings. In fact, we can associate the creations
of the Kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden with their conversion to Christianity.
The establishment of bishoprics, which happened during the tenth and eleventh century, was
another factor for this Christianization, as it’s believed that nearly all of Denmark
was Christian after the death of Knut the Great, who had greatly focused on the church
hierarchy in his kingdoms, establishing new bishopric in Denmark. Another drive for the
Christianization was the building of churches undertaken by kings and members of the nobility.
For the common folk instead, the adoption of Christianity was more gradual. The adoption
of Christianity often came from the top-down: when the King adopted Christianity his vassals
were often encouraged to follow him, and so would then people loyal to the noble. However
not always was this the case, as the first Christian in Scandinavia were those converted
by the early missionaries before the kings adopted the new religion.
For many decades, however, old folklore and beliefs were mixed in Scandinavian households.
Offerings to the old spirits were still made to not anger them, and some of the more peripheric
regions held on to old beliefs. Sometimes the cult of saints helped to Christianize
Scandinavia more rapidly, especially the cults of local saints such as Olaf the Saint, King
of Norway.
Though the minority, not all people accepted Christianity at first. In a Norse saga, it
is recounted that a Swedish King, Inge, was forced around the year 1080 to flee his kingdom
as his heathen subjects did not approve of his rejections of the old customs, but he
managed to return three years later and reintroduce Christianity in his kingdom. We already mentioned
the bloody conversion of pagans in Norway by Olav Tryggvason and Olaf the Saint, where
people were tortured and temples destroyed, which seem to be the only example of widespread
violence during the conversion of Scandinavia.
The conversion was helped by integrating Norse symbology, such as the hammer of Thor which
became the cross. Norse paganism was strongly affiliated with nature spirits, so often missionaries
would build chapels in places with significance for the pagans, such as at the top of hills
at beautiful beaches. With the passing of time, the significance of the place was taken
over by the saints of the chapels.
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