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”?
In: Culture
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.
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