When did people stop believing in the old gods like Greek and Norse? Did the Vikings just wake up one morning and think ”this is bullshit”?

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When did people stop believing in the old gods like Greek and Norse? Did the Vikings just wake up one morning and think ”this is bullshit”?

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24 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Generally speaking, Christian influence is to blame. Rome originally persecuted Christians, but after emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, Rome quickly became a monotheistic society. As religious tolerance wasn’t huge back then, it didn’t take long for Rome to start persecuting “old gods” instead, including the Greek and Roman gods. As Rome spread across Europe, so too did Christianity, making its way into England, France, and even Norway (Normandy is interesting reading, by the way). Missionaries converted those who were willing, and societal pressure persecuted those who weren’t, until eventually almost everyone was Christian.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Usually in those days the average person on the street, didn’t have too much choice in what religion they wanted to be. For the most part you were whatever religion everyone else in your village was and everyone was the religion that the person in charge said they were.

If the tribal leader or king converted to Christianity for political reasons, the people followed, not necessarily because they wanted to, but because they had no choice.

For example Harald Bluetooth for which the Bluetooth wireless connection is named became a Christian and then he became King of all Danes and then the Danes became Christians because he said so.

In practice many conversion efforts only slapped a new label on pagan customs and traditions. Old gods were relabeled as saints old feasts became Christian feasts and many kept doing what they had been doing all along with only gradual change of the underlying stuff.

Individual people may have converted because they were convinced by theological arguments, but the majority switched because they were told to by people you couldn’t disagree.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Greco-Roman religion was officially abolished as state religion by the Roman emperor Constantine (306-337 AD), briefly revived by Julian the Apostate and finally abolished by his successors. Since then, it fought a long defeat against Christianity, but pockets of Greco-Roman paganism still lingered in rural Greece until VIII century (the Maniot pagans), and a Byzantine philosopher Gemistos Pletho advocated a return to the old faith even later (he lived during the last years of Byzantium).

The Norse religion started to peter out similarly, after the Christianization of Scandinavian kingdoms. However, all Scandinavia did not Christianize in an instant, unlike Rome. Denmark became Christian around 1000, Norway Christianized under Olaf the Saint (1015-1028), Sweden was gradually Christianized from 990s until 1100.

Anonymous 0 Comments

While a number of respondents have made the case for Christianity becoming the official religion and pushing out the “old” gods, this has never stopped underground believers from continuing their faith. Surely adherents to the Norse and Roman pantheons continued their beliefs.

The OP asked when people stopped believing that a bunch of humanoid deities sat atop Olympus. I am curious too if there came a point wherein people said “Okay, this is just too ludicrous to be believed.”

As I write, I realize there is an active religion today that purports to believe that an alien dictator brought billions of people to Earth on Dc-8’s and blew them up using hydrogen bombs so maybe there is nothing people won’t believe.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Suomenusko died thanks to the crusades to what we know as Finland, and conversion activity by Novgrodians. Also centuries of oppression by the swedish crown.

Many of our traditions did continue existing along side christianity. Mainly thanks to swedes failing to culturally convert us, and us keeping our own language.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It didn’t happen overnight, but was rather a slow burn that took place over the course of about 600 years. Starting from the rule of Constantine as Roman Emperor, to the establishment of the Carolingian Dynasty and Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne.

Early Christianity wasn’t spread by the sword in quite the same way early Islam was in the Middle East and North Africa. Many conversions were done from the top down for political and economic reasons.

Christianity had been rapidly spreading throughout the Roman Empire after Constantine’s conversion from Greco-Roman paganism in the 300’s. When Rome fell, those people remained Christian, and they began building powerful kingdoms from the ashes of the Empire. Most notably the Frankish Kingdoms, who would come to dominate the Western European political landscape throughout the Early Middle Ages.

As these kingdoms grew in power, lesser powers in the region would be encouraged to covert in exchange for favours. One notable example is Rollo, a Viking who became Count of Rouen and first Duke of Normandy. In exchange for ceasing viking attacks on on the Frankish kingdoms, Charles III offered Rollo Normandy, but on the condition that he convert as well. Which Rollo accepted. There’s evidence that he never really took the conversion seriously. However, things did filter down over time such that his descendant William II (aka William I the Conqueror, King of England) was maintaining close relations with the Church about a century later.

There was also active missionary work going on. You’re probably familiar with St. Patrick, who converted Ireland. Many of these missions were good at integrating pagan customs with Christian practices. For example, It’s well known that many modern Christmas traditions stem from the Norse holiday of Yule, including tree decorating, Yule logs, gift giving, and Santa Claus, as well as it taking place around the winter solstice.

Not to say there wasn’t conquest, like Charlemagne’s campaigns into the Germanic territories, where forced conversions of Saxons took place. Which ultimately led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I know a few pissed of Frisians didn’t take kindly to being proselytised and killed the guy who later became St. Boneface in the town of Dokkum in 754. So no, there appeared to have been a bit of resistance 🙂

Anonymous 0 Comments

Technically, the religion is still alive. I know there are some families who still worship the old gods, and there’s a movement of neo-paganism which have been causing a resurgence in worship of old gods among people.

Anonymous 0 Comments

In Iceland it was a democratic decision taken in 1000AD.

It was driven by the Christianisation of Norway under king Olaf Tryggvason who had all the enthusiasm of a new convert and insisted on bringing all Norway’s neighbours into the Christian sphere of influence. Tryggvason managed to trigger conflicts in Denmark and Norway between Christians and followers of the old gods and he soon set his eyes on Iceland.

Iceland had received a number of Christian missionaries who had had some success in converting the local population, but one whom, Thangbrandur, enraged the population and ended up killing some of the Icelanders. When he returned to Norway, he told Tryggvason that the Icelanders were refusing to accept the new religion, the king threatened war and there were genuine fears that Iceland would soon be engulfed in civil war.

Things came to a head because of the actions of a Christian convert, Hjalti Skeggjason who had been sentenced for mocking the goddess Freyja. He was allowed to serve his sentence in Norway along with his father-in-law. During their exile, they got the backing of Tryggvason and on their return raised an army that threatened to trigger the war in Iceland.

So, the matter was referred to the Icelandic parliament for arbitration. Iceland was a form of democracy where individual chiefs gathered at the Althing located at the site of Thingvellir a little to the East of modern Reykjavik. The speaker of the Althing was a man called Thorgeir Thorkelsson, he heard arguments from both sides and the gathered everyone at the Law Speaker’s Rock to hear his plan. Thorgeir said that all Icelanders should be baptised into the Christian faith – HOWEVER, and here was the genius part – the old gods could be worshipped in private. So Iceland became a Christian country in 1000AD and civil war was avoided.

If you’re ever in Iceland, you can visit the national park at Thingvellir and see the Law Speaker’s rock from which the proclamation was made. If you go to the North, you can also visit the beautiful waterfall at Godafoss which was given its name after the huge wooden statues of the old gods were thrown into the river.

Apologies for mangled spellings, I don’t have an Icelandic keyboard in front of me.

Anonymous 0 Comments

As someone who has come back to the old religions, you’d be absolutely shocked how many people STILL believe in those old gods. You’ve already gotten answers sure, but there’s no one answer here. Christianity, monotheism as a whole, is more profitable and more political.

You can’t tell a Northern Heathen how to worship Odin, he’ll question *your* methods. How to worship God/Yahweh/Allah is already detailed in some books. That’s easier to corral people with than any spoken doctrine.

However Iceland has had the Ásatrúarfélagið (Ásatrú Fellowship) since 1972, and as far as this little American knows, the Ásatrú Heathen faith is an indoctrinated religion there which is growing quite rapidly. They’re one of very few places that has official temples dedicated to the old Norse gods.

Naturalists, pagan polytheists, wiccans, they’re all straying from organized religion in lieu of a more ambiguous practice. I personally don’t like being told how to view the world, I prefer to let the world tell me. I know a lot of modern individuals who agree. I’d argue the worship of old gods never truly went away, it just got oppressed into silence by the Church.