In this period, Scandinavia and central Europe became a fully integrated part of Christendom. The Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Czech, Hungarian, and Polish rulers opted for conversion to Christianity and its imposition on the people whom they ruled. Christianization ‘from above’ does not mean that no previous contacts existed with Christian areas; indeed, in most cases there is evidence of individual conversions and syncretism prior to the ruler’s decision to convert. However, it was the official enforcement of a religious change to Christianity that marked the real turning point. Conversion was intertwined with political change as well: the rulers established dynasties, drawing ever larger territories under their control, and began to create structures through which they could exercise their authority more effectively.
The chronology and circumstances of conversions varied. The Bohemian case is controversial: one tradition holds that a number of Bohemian chieftains were baptized in Regensburg in 845; another, that Borivoj (d. before 895), the first known ruler of the Premyslid dynasty, accepted baptism in 883 from Great Moravia. Whatever the case, Christianization in Bohemia took off during the tenth century. In Poland, the baptism around 966 of Mieszko (d. 992) was linked to his marriage; through his Bohemian wife Dobrawa he relied on Bohemian missionaries to convert the Poles. Hungary’s ruling family converted following the German defeat of Hungarian raiding armies (933, 955): the chieftain Geza (d. 997) invited Frankish missionaries and arranged the marriage of his son Vajk (baptized as Stephen) to Gisela, the daughter of Duke Henry of Bavaria. Missionaries in central Europe arrived mostly from Byzantine and German areas. Bohemia, once converted, also provided missionaries to neighbouring territories, most famously Adalbert (Vojtech), killed by the Prussians while evangelizing them in 997, and claimed by all central European polities as their own saint.
After isolated missionary successes, Christianization took off in Scandinavia in the late tenth century. The Danish king Harald Bluetooth accepted baptism about 966; the Christianization of Denmark continued during the eleventh century. Christianity was introduced in Norway during the tenth century and imposed from 995-1000 onwards under King Olaf Tryggvason, who had been perhaps baptized and certainly confirmed in England. After 1016 King Olaf Haraldsson used force to Christianize the north-western parts of Norway. Missions to Swedish lands (Svealand), and even a royal conversion in the late tenth century, pre-dated widespread Christianization there, less tied to royal power and accomplished by the twelfth century. The pagan cult centre of Uppsala continued to exist until around 1080, and the evidence of burials and rune stones testifies to the coexistence of Christians and pagans throughout the eleventh century. An example of this coexistence is a mould for ironwork displaying side by side a cross and Thor’s hammer.48 Iceland, settled in the late ninth and early tenth centuries by Scandinavians (mostly Norwegians), adopted Christianity around 1000. Many parts of
Scandinavia were difficult to reach, and the Christianization of isolated communities took a long time.
Traditional beliefs and cults including the worship of forces of nature and sacrificial feasts did not disappear with the advent of Christianity. Indeed, the challenge to new rulers frequently came in the form of so-called pagan revolts, where political rivalry and religious contestation became intertwined (in 1046 and 1061 in Hungary, perhaps in 929 or 935 in Bohemia, some time between 1035 and 1038 in Poland, in 1060 and perhaps c.1080 in Sweden). In the Scandinavian case, contact with Christianity even triggered the elaboration of traditional beliefs and rituals: the systematization of the originally fluid pantheon of gods; and perhaps the building of a temple as the centre of the cult.
Nor was Christianization a uniform process. Various missionary centres vied for influence over the new territories. There was rivalry between Regensburg and Mainz for the subjection of Bohemia to their archdiocese. In Scandinavia until the mid-twelfth century most bishops were English or German, and drew on their own ecclesiastical traditions. Even church buildings show this duality: while Nidaros (Trondheim) Cathedral (Norway) shows English influences, especially in similarities with Lincoln Cathedral, the contemporary cathedral in Ribe (Denmark) was built of tufa from the Rhineland, and its structural elements and sculptures resemble those of German cath-edrals.49 Yet another player in this rivalry, the papacy, often tried to ensure that newly converted lands were directly dependent upon the Apostolic See, but in the end usually failed to achieve more than at most symbolic submission.
A variety of imported and local religious elements merged, creating distinct patterns in the new countries. Thus in Bohemia-Moravia and Hungary, strong Byzantine influences persisted, which originated in missions in the second half of the ninth century in Moravia and a century later in Hungary. Its most notable examples are Old Church Slavonic* hagiographic texts and liturgy until the end of the eleventh century in Bohemia, and the existence of Greek monasteries throughout the twelfth century in Hungary. In Scandinavia, rune inscriptions were used on church bells and baptismal fonts, and rune stones served as Christian gravestones in pagan cemeteries. A rune stone at Jelling (Denmark) represented Christ surrounded by pre-Christian motifs.50 In written culture and art, local and outside influences blended together. Latin writing was imported everywhere, but whereas in Hungary, for example, this also meant the introduction of writing itself and thus the beginnings of literacy, manifest in charters and chronicles, in Sweden runes that had already existed centuries prior to Christianization continued to be widely used after the introduction of Christianity, concurrently with the Latin alphabet. Vernacular religious literacy emerged locally. In Bohemia, a rich vernacular literature of saints’ lives was already developed in the tenth century, whereas the first extant texts in Hungary, a prayer to the Virgin Mary and a burial speech, date from the late twelfth century, and Polish prose and poetry appeared in the thirteenth century. Religious texts in the vernacular began in Norway and Iceland in the twelfth century, in Denmark in the thirteenth, while Swedish vernacular literature developed only after 1300. In art, Byzantine, German, and Parisian models and often artists left their marks, but locals increasingly adapted rather than simply adopted art forms. For example, while in 1170-80 the metalwork of the portals of Gniezno Cathedral in Poland shows the influence of the art of the Meuse region,51 in the thirteenth century Gothic architecture in northern Europe became distinct through the use of brick as a building material.
The newly emerging dynasties made use of Christian sanctity, propagating the cult of their ancestors. Thus Saint Vaclav (Wenceslas, d. 929 or 935) in Bohemia, Saint Stephen (d. 1038) in Hungary, Saint Olaf (d. 1030) in Norway, Saint Cnut (d. 1086) in Denmark, and Saint Eric (d. 1160) in Sweden were presented as Christian heroes fighting and (except for Stephen) dying for the faith against pagan adversaries. This image entailed the reinterpretation of the historical facts: for example, Vaclav was killed by his Christian brother in a fight for the throne; Cnut by magnates who opposed him. The role of these rulers in introducing or spreading Christianity in their respective countries became a part of national myth. Modern scholars have debated the relative role of native rulers, the German emperor, and the pope in these conversions. As contemporary evidence is scarce, interpretations have often hinged on assumptions and modern political agendas. What is certain is that a combination of the activity of missionaries arriving from established Christian centres, imperial participation in some cases (most famously Otto III’s visit to Gniezno in 1000), and initiatives by local leaders led to the formation of new Christian polities. The Church remained under royal control in these countries: rulers presided over synods, and intervened in the election of prelates, except when magnates could press their own interests in episcopal elections, or when royal power was weakened through internal conflict, as was often the case in Sweden. Despite papal opposition, proprietary churches, whose lay owners had rights to the possessions of the church and controlled the election of priests (see Chapter 4), continued to be the norm. In most of Scandinavia lay ownership of tithes was prevalent at least until the thirteenth century, and in 1279 a council for Hungary and Poland decreed that the system of patronage must replace proprietary churches.
Christian structures were put in place at the highest level first. Missionary bishops were initially part of the itinerant royal retinues. Then new bishoprics were founded. That of Prague (976) and Olomouc (1060s) were suffragans of the archbishop of Mainz, so that Bohemia did not have ecclesiastical independence from the German empire. Bohemian bishops were invested by the emperor until 1212, when Frederick II granted the Bohemian king the right to invest his bishops. Polish bishoprics came under the archbishopric of Gniezno in 1000 (although the pagan revolt disrupted the ecclesiastical system and Casimir had to restore the church around 1040), and the Hungarian ones under that of Esztergom in 1001, creating independent ecclesiastical organizations in the latter two polities. In Danish areas dioceses were organized between the early eleventh century and 1060, in Norwegian ones at the end of the eleventh century, and in Sweden in the twelfth century, up to around 1170. Scandinavian rulers often tried but failed to shake off the authority of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, until the pope created an independent Scandinavian province under the (Danish) archbishopric of Lund (1103 or 1104). Contested royal succession led some candidates to turn to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, which in turn triggered a papal response of setting up a Norwegian archbishopric at Nidaros in 1153 and a Swedish one at Uppsala in 1164. Parish organization spread more slowly, over several centuries, with the building of small churches. Many of these in Scandinavia were first built with wood, then in the twelfth century rebuilt in stone. The Christianization of the population could be decreed by the first Christian rulers, as in Hungary, where strict laws were promulgated on duties such as attending church and not working on Sundays and on punishments for the infringements of these rules. ‘If some persons, upon coming to church to hear the divine service mutter among themselves. . . if they are. . . common folk, they shall be bound in the narthex of the church. .. and punished by whipping and by the shearing off of their hair.’52 Elsewhere—for example, in Denmark and northern Sweden—people gradually changed their beliefs and practices without such pressure from above. Monasteries were founded, initially with Benedictine monks from abroad. The full integration of these areas into Christendom is apparent in the speed with which newly founded orders appeared; local recruitment also became significant. For example, Cistercians arrived in these countries in the ii4os; in the following century Franciscans and Dominicans also established themselves rapidly, starting in the late 1220s in some cases.
Christianization was one element in the process of change; political development was the other. Kingdoms incorporating an area more or less securely under the power of one king ultimately replaced tribal organization under chieftains in central Europe, and shared power between many chieftains and lords in Scandinavia. Terms such as ‘Denmark’ or ‘Hungary’ serve the historian’s convenience rather than portraying historical realities: no leader at the beginning of the period ruled over the entire area of what later became one kingdom; there were a number of rival local powers everywhere. Rulers, sometimes using the personnel and resources that Christianization brought from outside, consolidated their power through internal struggles and the physical elimination of rivals. For example, in Bohemia the Premyslids had the Slavnlk family massacred in 995; in Hungary in 997 King Stephen distributed the severed limbs of his opponent Koppany to be displayed in some of the key centres. Tenth - and eleventh-century Scandinavian history also provides numerous cases of such contests: for example, in 999 the Danish
Sven (Swein) Forkbeard killed the Norwegian Olaf Tryggvason in battle, then Sven’s son Cnut (also king of England, 1016-35) drove Olaf Haraldsson into exile, and Olaf was killed in battle in 1030.
World History
