(Image source: IC Photo)
Chen Zhi/Wen
Anders Winrot's Conversion to Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in The Reconstruction of Northern Europe discusses the process and reasons for the spread of Christianity in northern Europe, and unlike the traditional view that this depends on the efforts of missionaries, the author prefers the role of Viking leaders in the needs and initiatives of the early Scandinavian states, while the missionary community that wields the historical discourse exaggerates its influence. The problem is that the book is somewhat fragmented, with the first seven chapters dealing with the politics, economy, and society of Scandinavia, and the conquest and plundering of Europe, chapter eight or nine dealing with the construction of missionaries' discourse power, and the last three chapters beginning to talk about the role and motivation behind the introduction of Christianity by Vikingyar and the kings. In addition, many of the translations of the book are inconsistent with the translations in common today, raising suspicions that the translators have not been exposed to this field before.
But while the text is fragmented, it is not impossible to understand the author's intentions: by confronting the viking-era Nordic society, the reader can take a proportional estimate of the importance of Christianity in the construction of the early Scandinavian state compared to the other means of the Viking chiefs.
The Viking Age generally refers to the period from 790 to 1066 AD, when pirates from the Nordics continued to invade the Coast of Europe and the British Isles, covering the European continent and the Arctic, and even a Viking tribe visited the American continent, five hundred years before Columbus.
At the beginning of the Viking Age, Scandinavia did not yet have the concept of a state, that is, there was no unified political body with institutionalized and specialized administrative machines. Controlled by clan chiefs known as Yar, these chiefs are not unshakable, constantly threatened to be challenged by competitors, and the seizure and loss of power are easy things to do. Even if a Viking leader had great power during his lifetime, it was not a logical arrangement or regulation for his son to inherit his power. During this period, there was no absolute correlation between social status, status, and heredity, and the sons of the Great Chiefs still needed to assert their power in battles with other chiefs.
In order to seize, preserve, and expand their power, the leaders had to use force as a backing and cultivate warriors who loyally followed them in order to control the ever-expanding territory and population. However, due to the lack of coercive administrative institutions, and the institutional power to make the masses self-evidently allegiable through the resort to political symbols, the Viking chiefs could only rely on their bravery, the prestige accumulated over the years, the close friendship with the samurai, and the unhesitating generosity to persuade the samurai to follow them.
Among them, the chieftain's generosity is linked to the number of items he can collect, but the number of materials he holds is not directly equivalent to the power available, because the warriors under the chiefs are not mercenaries who fight only for money, but free men with a sense of honor, and will not tolerate money bribery. The first thing the chief needs to do is to establish a close, close personal relationship with them, and if they are not blood relatives, they will create intimate relationships in different ways, such as forming brotherhood through ceremonies, forging marriage alliances, and feasting, drinking and sleeping in the leader's deer hall.
It was only at this time that objects came into play, and chiefs continued to confirm and maintain intimate relationships by giving gifts, and in Scandinavian society gifts were symbols of friendship, associated with fame and honor, and whose function was not economic value or practicality, but in raising the prestige of the giver and recipient. Thus, in poetry of this era, such as Beowulf, poets, while praising the generosity of their leaders, would focus on the rarity, novelty, and beauty of gifts, and often brush over the use of objects.
Therefore, it was because of the relationship with the leader that the samurai would willingly and enthusiastically fight for him, and the gift was a sign of the leader's intimate relationship with the samurai. From then on, a samurai who received gifts from the leader had a moral duty to return loyalty and fight heroically to repay the leader, thus showing his heroic qualities and the value of manhood, and the chief did his best to stimulate this glorious sense of responsibility in his heart. In a society without a state, a government, where power relations are established, the samurai are driven by gifts and willingly do their duty for their leaders, rather than having the obligation to fight for the king as in a fully formed state.
It can be said that the power of these chiefs, based on personal dependence, is the most primitive and basic power structure. In order to get more and better items as gifts, there are two ways to choose from, most of which are Viking Yar.
One was to sail to Europe, as far as the Mediterranean Sea, plundering everywhere, sometimes through negotiation and intimidation from the locals to get ransom, and even directly as mercenaries, to recruit enemy countries for them, to guard against other Viking gangs. The other was to hire craftsmen to process the booty into exquisite crafts, so that its value increased, and as the loot and crafts increased, the Vikings established crafts and trade centers, deeply involved in international trade, in exchange for exotic items, which enjoyed a reputation because of their rarity, and highlighted the generosity and power of the chiefs.
By understanding the basics of Viking society, one of the reasons why Christianity was introduced to the Vikings was that through their collective conversion to Christianity, the Viking chiefs gained a new bond between themselves and their followers, and between their followers, namely, the use of religious and quasi-religious rituals to create a close-knit social relationship as close as the family. But that wasn't enough, and in pre-Christian Scandinavia, the ritual of communal communion during sacrifices to the pagan gods whom Christians called pagans also worked, and the warriors increased their friendship by making alliances of blood.
Among other reasons were that Christianity was also a novelty, and its reputation was so prestigious that the kings of England, as well as the Emperors of the Byzantine and Frankish Empires— the most powerful men in Europe at the time— believed in this religion, and by introducing Scandinavia, the leaders shared a share of their prestige. Similarly, the sacrificial rites contained in the Christian Communion had the same function as pagan dietary sacrifices, but the communion included rare and expensive wines of the time and were therefore more attractive.
And most importantly, the Christian clergy were the only intellectual class in Western Europe after the dissolution of the Roman Empire, dwarfing the Pagan priesthood of Northern Europe(if any) in breadth and depth. These clerics served the chiefs through various techniques, including astronomy and medicine, formed administrative institutions, generated the concept and symbol of the state, and completed the leap from primitive military democracy to the early state.
As a result, several successful people created their own stable kingdoms, forming institutional power that could be passed on to their descendants, no longer relying entirely on personal prestige, which is the historical beginning of the three Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
By its very nature, medieval Christianity was an extremely exclusive institutional religion that required believers, after conversion, to believe in the only god, God, and to live according to canons and doctrines, hold ceremonies, and avoid taboos, thereby establishing social relations.
In catechism, refuge is a major shift, a choice among mutually incompatible options. It does not make sense for a person to accept individual, specific customs (e.g., burial, hanging of a cross, baptism) unless one accepts all the customs and beliefs of Christianity. The convert needs to become a new person, to remove all past inconsistencies with doctrine, including the renunciation of the gods and old religious practices of the past, and the conversion must be comprehensive and thorough, and preferably in an instant.
It also has a hierarchical hierarchy of priests, whose ceremonies are carried out by these specially trained and authorized men, in specialized buildings, and only priests of the episcopal level are eligible to confer priesthood on priests, priests, etc., or to the churches.
In contrast, nor did the Nordic Gnostic rituals spread widely, requiring no special requirements for the houses in which the ceremonies were performed, nor did they require specially designated clergy to operate them. Religious historians generally believe that pagan rites can be held almost anywhere and performed by anyone. Some ceremonies are certainly performed at home by the head of the household, while the more important rituals are performed outdoors by the head of the family.
The reasons for such sacrifices are more important because they are performed by dignitaries than because there is a strict hierarchy (such as a Christian relationship) between the different places where the ceremony takes place. The author points out that this outline of the pre-Christian religious situation in Scandinavia is largely corroborated by written sources, archaeological excavations, and some place names.
Many northern place names have the names of pagan gods or include nouns that refer to a place where ceremonies are performed, while some place names include both, and since there is no reason to think that every place where there is a pagan religion has a place name that reflects the pagan religion, we can think that the worship of pagan gods was all over the place at that time, and pagan worship was held in many places. And there is no evidence that pagan organizations in various regions have gone beyond their local reach, nor that pagans have specially appointed clergy similar to Christianity.
Thus, it can be concluded from written sources, archaeological excavations and toponymic evidence that pagan rites are scattered, have no hierarchical distinctions, and are not difficult for most people to preside over. As a result, the leader could not fully control the pagans. But Christianity is different, it has the potential to be monopolized. Moreover, it was through the introduction and monopolization of Christianity that the Nordic region gradually formed a European type of kingdom, and the most powerful chief became the de facto king of the entire region, and his power was no longer based on a small group of warriors who enhanced relations through gift exchange, but a systematic, ideologically supported power relationship.
Since it was cultivated in a barbaric land, there were few priests, there was no perfect church organization, or church organizations were slowly forming, and the missionaries from afar had to rely on the force of the newly converted Viking king to protect themselves and fight against the pagans. Medieval Christianity did not have a concept of religious freedom, but rather supported the use of indigenous forces. These newly converted kings thus became the de facto heads of the Church in their spheres of influence, the bishops were their faithful servants, and the bishops of all scandinavia were appointed by the king, and the bishops often swore allegiance to their kings. It was not until after the 12th century that the church was full of wings and tried to become independent under the inspiration of the Cluny movement.
By accepting and forcibly promoting Christianity, converts dismantled rivals from using religion to build networks of friendship and religion. Opponents cannot use paganism to build networks because overt pagan rituals have become illegal. Since in the Nordic context, the pagan ceremony held in public is a highly politicized act, which at some point concentrates the community in one place, raising the status of its executor or organizer. The presiding officers used the liturgy to achieve the political goal of gathering a group of followers, and the prohibition of public sacrifice was to prevent them from achieving this purpose.
Nor could they use Christianity for this purpose, because the kings controlled the bishops and thus the opportunity to exploit Christian ceremonies. In scandinavia after conversion, there were very few clerics, and the kings and other rulers stipulated that only Christianity could perform public ceremonies, and Christian priests were under their control, so that they could control public liturgy while blocking the important way for their opponents to win support.
It is the Germanic polytheism that any leader can use to create his own group, compared to the Germanic polytheism that does not require specially appointed experts, authorities, and specially designated places when performing ceremonies, and the exclusivity of Christianity, which is not a religious belief that anyone can use, naturally has a great attraction to the most powerful Viking chiefs and kings who aspire to establish a unique authority. It also helps us understand why the kings of Scandinavia were eager to outlaw paganism when they converted to Christianity, and were keen to control the Christian churches in their own territory early in their conversions.
On the other hand, they reaped all the benefits of Christianity, including the baptismal system of the Father and Mother, through which the kings could construct close kinships that could be extended to all subjects under their control (the person who performed the baptism had to be a priest).
The administrative skills of the clergy. Relying on the services of the clergy, the professional central authorities of the Scandinavian countries gradually took shape, and the monopolistic new religions with hierarchical structures changed the way the governing societies functioned. Because of their hyphenation, numeracy, and understanding of the more complex and advanced state operations, the clergy were the only royal administrators and advisers that the kings of the early Middle Ages could count on. They helped the kings build governments that functioned according to laws and written documents, which forced their subjects to defend themselves and manpower against the king's opponents. At the same time, the effectiveness of the King's laws and the judgments of the courts was enhanced.
Recognition of the legitimacy of its regime. The church provided ideological support for the monarchy: the clergy taught that the king's rule was approved by God, who had commissioned him to promote Christianity. Just as there is only one God and one Church in the world, there can only be one King in a nation. As a result, the cohesion of the kingdom was no longer maintained by the exchange of gifts, and the succession to the throne was concentrated within the king's family, and gradually transitioned to the succession of fathers and sons.
The Church's eminent relations in the world. With the Pope giving the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden their own archbishops from 1103 to 1164, they thus obtained the qualifications of a kind of formal Christian state recognized by the Holy See. The Scandinavian countries became part of European civilization, coinciding with the revival of Catholic Europe from 1000 AD, and the Vikings shared this result and raised their own level of civilization. The Latin language of the Church has been the lingua franca of academia until the Reformation and the formation of the early nation-state, and the periphery of the Latin Catholic world (Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary) can quickly share the technological and ideological achievements of the core region (English, French, German, Italian) with the help of Latin, and the decline of Poland is to some extent related to the abandonment of Latin in academia and the formation of language barriers.
With the Christianization of northern Europe and the end of the Viking Age, kings monopolized violence in the kingdom, eliminated competitors, plundered foreign plunder to obtain booty to win over samurai, and stable rule dispelled the ambitions of potential challengers to organize foreign plunder to obtain a large number of goods and then return home to challenge the most powerful. After the collapse of the Frankish Empire, the transformation of castles and armed forces from all over the world into highly mobile cavalry also allowed countries to find ways to resist the Vikings who relied on surprise and rapid attacks. History turned the page, and Europe entered the era of knights in which castle owners competed with each other until they were blasted out of the Middle Ages by gunpowder, and the story of the Vikings was hidden in the saga of the bard, and others sang.