It was in large part because the Christian worldview offered a much more positive and hopeful future for both individuals and humanity as a whole that the Vikings began to convert to that faith. The idea that believers would be rewarded with eternal life in a peaceful heaven became increasingly appealing. By the early 1100s a majority of the Norse were Christians.
More precisely, most were partial Christians. For a while, an undetermined number of Vikings embraced both the new faith and some of the old pagan beliefs and rituals. Evidence for this syncretism (melding) of the two faiths appears partly in medallions and
The coming of Christianity to the Viking lands is commemorated by Gosforth Cross, in Cumberland, Britain. The cross features several carved scenes from Norse mythology.
Other jewelry excavated from Viking gravesites. It was common, for example, to associate the Christian cross with Thor's famous hammer, Mjollnir, and to portray them side by side. In addition, archaeologists found a Norse cross with a Christian crucifixion scene carved on one side and a scene from Ragnarok on the other.
In time, however, the old beliefs faded and largely disappeared. More and more Christian churches came to dot the landscapes of Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and other Viking lands. The first Viking churches were small wooden structures that looked like houses. But by the early 1200s very large, multi-storied churches began to be erected.
"In Denmark and Sweden, wooden churches were replaced with stone from the 11th century onwards," Haywood writes,
But in Norway the tradition of building with wood survived, and the 12th
Century saw remarkable developments in the architecture of the stave church [post-and-beam constructions with timber framing]. . . . Stave churches were tall, often elaborately decorated structures with carved portals [entrances], verandas, spires, and dragon-headed finials [sculptured ornaments], that have an almost oriental look about them. They must rank as some of the most distinctive monuments of the late Viking Age.61
In adopting Christianity, the Norse performed a complete reversal of attitude. Christian churches had once been nothing more to them than convenient, lucrative targets to be ransacked and looted. But eventually, the descendants of those raiders came to build their own churches and in that way became part of a great historical wheel coming full circle, with the invaders taking their places in the churches they had once destroyed.
World History
