The pagan religion, which Scandinavians had clung to for centuries, suddenly became threatened by the introduction and expansion of another religion: Christianity. Traditional beliefs and values, which were woven into pagan life and culture[1], were steadily usurped by this new religion led by missionaries and clerics. Vikings, defined collectively in this paper as the people comprising the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland, resisted the conversion to Christianity until the mid- to late-tenth century. Numerous factors persuaded the people to accept Christianity at different times within the whole of Scandinavia; this culminated in the final conversion of all of the Vikings to Christianity, to the detriment and abandonment of the old pagan ways.

            Vikings had contact with Christians for some time prior to the arrival of missionaries in their homelands in about the ninth or tenth century. One source of contact was in the area of trading. Vikings, having been keen sailors with extraordinary boats, had no trouble sailing to foreign lands to trade. In fact, “most of the first generations of Vikings were seeking wealth, not land.”[2] While the Vikings were engaging in this trade, they inevitably came in contact with the religious aspects of their Christian trading partners. “There may have been some contact between Scandinavians and Christians in the course of trade as early as the eighth century.”[3] While they certainly did not instantly convert to Christianity, this interaction had shown them that there were other religions aside from their own polytheistic pagan ways.

            Another way in which Vikings came into contact with Christians was through raiding. “The first recorded raids were on monasteries in the British Isles.”[4] “Churches were targeted as sources of treasure, tribute, and, especially in Ireland, slaves.”[5] It was not as though the Vikings were attacking churches and monasteries simply to spite or challenge Christianity, but rather, these were places of great wealth that could easily be conquered and pillaged, as little resistance was given by the monks or priests present. One of the first Christian places to be attacked was Lindisfarne, an island monastery off the coast of Northumberland, in 793.[6] These monastic raids continued until the time when Christianity overcame paganism in Scandinavia.

            Settlement was another area in which Vikings came into contact with Christians. Friends and relatives would emigrate to Christian countries such as England, Ireland and Normandy, and would quickly accept the local faith. In time, some of these people would perhaps have sent word or requested that others join them in these settlements.[7] “…By the beginning of the tenth century most of the Scandinavians who had settled in Western Europe, or their descendents, were as Christian as their native neighbours.”[8] Generally, however, this did not affect the larger Scandinavian population, as many Viking settlers did not return to their homelands.

As limited as Viking contact initially had been with Christianity, the religion nonetheless began to take hold in the tenth century. Denmark became officially Christian in c. AD 965, Norway followed at the beginning of the eleventh century, along with Iceland in the year 1000, and Sweden very gradually converted throughout the eleventh century.[9] There are many factors as to why this monumental religious change occurred. The most influential of these involved political coercion. “In all areas the lead was taken by rulers; there is no evidence that conversion was ever the result of popular demand.”[10]

“With the possible exception of some pagan converts, adherence to Christianity was not a matter of individual choice, but rather a collective obligation.”[11] Scandinavian kings had discovered that assistance would not be forthcoming from Christian kings during times of trouble unless they relinquished their traditional pagan ways. Also, “for the Viking kings the new faith meant the strengthening of central power, in the short as well as the long term, as the Church was centrally organized and traditionally very dependent on the king.”[12] These ideas are best illustrated by the example of the Danish King Harald Klak. “For most of his reign Harald was threatened by his partners, and in 826, in order to secure continued Frankish support he accepted baptism at Mainz, with the Frankish emperor, Louis the Pious, as sponsor.”[13] Unfortunately, this conversion meant very little at the time, as Harald was expelled from his kingdom in 827 and spent the rest of his life in exile.[14]

The true conversion of Denmark did not occur until the reign of Harald Bluetooth. Around 965, according to Else Roesdahl:

 

…the priest Poppo performed a miracle which demonstrated that Christ was greater than all the other gods: he carried a large piece of red-hot iron in his bare hand without coming to any harm. ‘After this trial the king was converted, decided to worship Christ as sole God, commanded his pagan subjects to reject the idols and accorded from then on due honour to the priests and servants of God.’[15]

 

After Denmark succumbed to Christianity, a succession of kings across the remainder of Scandinavia began to convert to Christianity and impose it upon their people. While Norway’s first Christian king was Håkon Aðalsteinsfostri[16], Christianity did not take hold during his reign. It wasn’t until Olaf Tryggvason returned home in c. 995 to become king, having already been baptised in England, that the introduction of Christianity throughout Norway began to gain ground.[17] “The greatest success was in western and southern Norway and around the year 1000 Olaf was responsible for the conversion of Iceland, probably under threat of reprisals.”[18] Olaf had traditionally been given most of the credit for converting Norway, but according to Birgit Sawyer, “Olaf’s main contribution to the conversion of Norway was his conquest of Trøndelag, whose rulers had remained obstinately pagan.”[19] While Olaf Tryggvason was responsible for the initiation of Christianity to Norway, it was not until the reign of Olaf Haraldsson that the conversion was finally completed. Olaf mercilessly imposed Christianity on the people. “The old sanctuaries were destroyed, people had to choose between baptism and strife, and Christianity was made obligatory at the Moster Thing, possibly in 1024, when edicts prescribing the Christian way of life were issued.”[20]

Finally, the last Scandinavian country to be converted via a Christian king was Sweden. However, unlike Denmark, Norway and Iceland, the conversion of Sweden is much more poorly documented. General consensus has nonetheless agreed that the first Swedish Christian king was Olof Skötkonung[21], who reigned during the beginning of the eleventh century. However, an accurate date of conversion cannot be discerned. Full conversion in Sweden was slow to take hold and in some parts of the country pagan customs and ceremonies were still being practiced during the late eleventh century, and perhaps even into the twelfth century.[22]

Although political coercion played the most significant role in the acceptance and conversion of Christianity across Scandinavia, there were other reasons as to why this new religion eventually took over as the dominant religion. One such factor was the flexibility of the traditional pagan religion. Paganism was a polytheistic religion, meaning that the Vikings worshipped many different gods and goddesses. This made it remarkably easy to simply incorporate the new Christian god into their pre-existing pantheon of deities. “…Some Scandinavians were prepared to accept that Christ was a god, if not the only one.”[23] Christianity had been preached as a religion of power and success[24], which were two traits that Vikings cherished, so it was no sacrifice for them to incorporate a new god into their religion that was already so similar to their previous ones.

On the other hand, this pagan reasoning ultimately resulted in their own religious undoing. Church propaganda began to take hold in the Viking minds, and they soon began thinking that perhaps this Christ figure might be the most powerful, and only, god that existed. Birgit Sawyer explains how this might have occurred:

 

In the early stages of Christianisation missionaries said little about such theological subtleties as the Trinity or the Virgin birth and concentrated on the power of a militant Christ to ensure success in this world and salvation from eternal damnation in the next. Their main purpose was to demonstrate that their God was not just more powerful than other gods, but was indeed the only true God and that all others were demons. […] The disruption of churches by Vikings must have raised doubts about Christ’s power but it was explained by Christians as a divine punishment for their sins. Victories won by Christians were, in contrast, proof that their God was supreme. Miracles, such as the ordeal that convinced [King Harald], and the impunity with which missionaries and Christian kings destroyed idols and defied pagan taboos were further proofs of the power of Christ.[25]

 

Another way that the church circumvented the pagan religion was by using old pagan ceremonies and traditions in new Christian ways. They simply took pre-existing pagan festivals, renamed them, and claimed that they were celebrating in the name of Christ or the Virgin Mary, instead of the old pagan gods. An example of this would be the traditional sacrificial banquets celebrated by the pagans. Before Christianity, the pagans would sacrifice horses and cattle to their many gods. “The blood from the slaughtered animals was sprinkled on the altar, the walls, and the assembled men; but the flesh seems to have been consumed by the worshippers. Toasts were drunk in honor of the chief deities and also in memory of those who had been laid away in the barrow.”[26] After Christianity took hold, the blood sacrifices ceased, holy water was sprinkled around instead of the sacrificial blood, and ale toasts were drunk instead to Christ and the Virgin Mary.[27]

Yet another pagan festival that was taken over and changed to suit Christianity was the Yule festival, the greatest and best known of pagan festivals, which was celebrated in January when men began to observe that the sun was returning from the south. The first Norwegian Christian king, Håkon, succeeded in having the great festival moved back to December 25, and in the course of time it was merged with the feast of the Nativity.[28] It was with relative ease that Christianity usurped these pagan holidays.

For some pagan hold-outs, there were ways in which to placate Christians and still enjoy the benefit of trading and interacting with them. This usually took the form of ‘prima signatio’,[29] or ‘primesigning’,[30] which simply meant that a pagan individual received the sign of the cross. This was a first step towards conversion, without being forced to succumb to baptism. Using this avenue of conversion meant that the Vikings could still continue to practice their old pagan ways and worship the old gods without fear of accusations of heresy.

Finally, one last reason why many Vikings adopted Christianity can be found within the concept of ‘covering all the bases’, so to speak. Aside from the fact that most Vikings were forced into accepting the new Christian religion by their kings, the remaining few who had a choice often practiced the death-bed baptism. Runic inscriptions have shown that many men ‘died in white clothing’, meaning that they had very recently been baptised.[31] The thought process behind this is that these Vikings could live their lives as they pleased in the old traditional way, but just in case the Christians were right, they could be baptised just before dying, and in so doing wipe away any sins that they might have accumulated and be allowed to enter the Christian kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, if the Christians were wrong and there was no eternal salvation, then the Vikings would still be assured their pagan afterlife, as they had never truly given up their religion.

Whether forced or voluntary, the conversion of Christianity did bring benefits to Scandinavia. Before Christianity took hold, “… the [Viking] culture was an oral one, since writing and the Roman alphabet only came in with the establishment of the Christian Church.”[32] This important element of society was essential to the development of coherent kingdoms. As Thomas Lindkvist states, “The late Viking Age and the early Middle Ages were a period of fundamental developments in Scandinavian political history. It was then that the three Scandinavian kingdoms originated – in chronological order: Denmark, Norway and Sweden – all of them precursors of the later national states.”[33] In short, if writing had not been introduced, then laws and statutes would not have been recorded, which ultimately would have hindered the development of the Scandinavian kingdoms. “In the process of political and social transformation Christianity and the church were of crucial importance.”[34]

Paganism in Scandinavia held out longer against Christian intrusion than in other part of Europe. However, the lure of power and aid to Viking kings from Christian kings proved too tempting and the formal sanctioning of Christian conversion began with equanimity. This task was helped by the relative ease with which pagans accepted new gods into their pantheon of deities. With a bit of church propaganda thrown into the mix, Vikings stood no chance of retaining their old pagan ways. The Christian church had achieved full Scandinavian conversion by the twelfth century. For better or worse, the Vikings were ultimately forced to relinquish all ties to their traditional pagan beliefs.

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