It has long been recognized that trade, contact with Scandinavian settlements in Christian lands, and viking raiders returning with loot to their home countries probably had more effect than formal missions in familiarizing Scandinavians with Christianity and convincing some of them to adopt the faith. However, native “missionary” kings tend to get the credit for the formal “conversion” of the territories that were to become the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. As often as not, they receive credit for unifying the kingdom as well—a kingdom which at the time may have been no more than a conglomoration of local chieftaincies whose leaders (whether called “kings” or “jarls”) and boundaries varied from one generation to the next.
In this engaging volume, Anders Winroth provides a valuable discussion of direct and indirect Scandinavian contacts with southern lands, starting in the second century, and of the archeological evidence for familiarity with Christianity in Scandinavia. He emphasized the difficulty of interpreting such evidence, and reminds us of the complex processes involved in Christianization, with theological doctrine arriving much later than adoption of prayers or amulets. An excellent description of eigth-century Scandinavian society and the importance of gift-giving in maintaining that society (and the viking society that followed it) will be valuable to students of “Beowulf” as well as to historians of Scandinavia. A summary of the viking age itself reminds readers that the raids were intended primarily to obtain wealth, whether by peaceful or violent means. Religious affiliation was not an issue; Charles the Fat paid one viking band to go ravaging his cousin's kingdom, another host attacked an independent group of mauraders for pay; we learn of these events because Christian kings plundered church treasures or imposed taxes in order to make the pay-offs. When an archbishop fell foul of the Carolingian emperor (having participated in a coup against him), he sought refuge in the north.
If Scandinavians were already reasonably familiar with Christianity, and may have worshipped Christ with or without other gods, what was the role of the kings who got the credit? The most important contribution of this volume is its examination of the social relationships formed by gift-giving, and illustration of how conversion at the higher levels of society may have worked—beginning not with the king responsible for outlawing paganism, but with the first royal convert who obtained a modicum of power in his homeland. In the society that produced the viking raids, religious creed was far less important than power; a relationship with a ruler who could provide gifts and generous feasting was what mattered. The significance of a king's conversion is not, as often assumed, that he can impose the religion on his people; Scandinavian kings had no such power, any more than Æthelbert of Kent, a royal convert known thanks to his correspondence with Gregory the Great. Imposition of Christianity as the official religion of a country, with penalties for disobedience, is only practicable if a large part of the population is already well-disposed to the religion. In more recent, but not irrelevant, army wisdom, “never give an order you know will not be obeyed.”
Christianity introduced a new kind of social relationship—that of god-parent (or confirmation sponsor) to god-child or confirmand, rituals which joined other forms of artificial kinship such as fosterage, blood-brotherhood, and relationships such as marriage and concubinage. Saga accounts of such ties need not be accepted at face value—it would be just as important for saga authors to present their ancestors as god-children of kings as it was to praise the kings themselves as good Christians—but the recorded baptismal or confirmation relationships of Scandinavian kings such as Olaf Tryggvason with Christian ones were surely repeated among their followers. Christianity was the prestigious religion of Europe, but it would take some time to establish it as such in Scandinavia to the extent of displacing other types of belief and practice. It required a successful (read: wealthy and generous) king to do so. By the time of St. Olaf, credited with passing laws that prohibited paganism in Norway, Christianity had been associated with Norwegian rulers for at least three generations. The gift of such a religious relationship may not have been granted lightly—any more than a king would lightly marry off a daughter, sister, or mother—but at another level, participating in a religious ritual with one's leader would be an obvious indication of loyalty—refusal to do so, of the reverse. It goes without saying that desire to be associated with such a leader depended on his already having power or wealth (in the case of Olaf Tryggvason, in the form of rich booty from England).
Winroth warns against the pitfalls of believing hagiographic accounts, Icelandic sagas, or the writings of Adam of Bremen. Chapter 9, “Writing Conversion,” should be mandatory reading for students of the period, and for readers of Icelandic literature who may wish to accept saga accounts at face value. However, Winroth is inconsistent in what he accepts and rejects from these sources. The thirteenth-century authors who attributed a simplified conversion process to “missionary kings” may, for the same reason, have credited those kings with unification of what later became the Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Only in the case of Harald Bluetooth do we have anything like supporting evidence for such a claim; the ideology of “one king—one church” did not become fact in Norway in until the thirteenth century, the country having multiple Christian kings at several points before that time.
Given his admirable caution in dealing with medieval sources, and his healthy skepticism of the writings of Adam of Bremen, it is surprising to read Winroth's statement that Harald Gormsson's construction of the mounds at Jelling was a deliberate and forcible statement of paganism in the face of Christian rulers, whose number he was to join, in a 180-degree about-face, within ten years (113). Among scholars who have dealt with the problem, there is little agreement on who was buried in the larger mound, who built (or added to) either mound, or when this was done, let alone who broke into the northern mound and what was removed. One or more bodies for burial in the new church, or treasure, leaving the bones to dissolve in the damp of the ages? It is far from clear that the contemporary message of the huge mounds would be “pagan” rather than simply “power” and/or “royalty.” The religious affiliations of Harald and his father, Gorm, are still matters of speculation; Winroth elsewhere quotes the statement of a German contemporary of Harald's, Widukind of Corvey, who stated that the “Danes were Christians of old” (112, 135). (It should be noted that the Widukind listed in the index on pages 14 and 16 is the Saxon opponent of Charlemagne, not the Corvey chronicler.) The “wooden cross, which archaeologists interpret as a Christian symbol” (135) is presumably the (bronze) cross-shaped mount that is often incorrectly identified as a pendant (see Else Roesdahl, “The Northern Mound: Burial Chamber and Grave Goods,” Mediaeval Scandinavia 7 [1974]: 214–215)—this volume contains other English-language discussions of the Jelling site. For a more recent summary of theories about Jelling see Jörn Staeker, “Jelling—Mythen und Realität,” Der Ostseeraum und Kontinentaleuropa 1100–1600: Einflussnahme, Rezeption, Wandel, eds. Detlef Kattinger, Jens E. Olesen, and Horst Wernicke (Schwerin: T. Helms, 2004), 77–102.
This is a lively and provocative volume. It raises new and important issues, and will be a valuable discussion text for advanced classes on medieval European history, culture, and religion.
