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
I would argue that the Greek and Roman pantheons were never believed in, in the same way that Christianity is believed in. Christianity is a faith based on specific historical claims about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it has produced a series of creeds and confessions that lay out precisely what Christianity believes to be true. Greek, Roman, Norse, and other myths belong to a different category entirely. They have no creeds, no confessions, and no catechisms. Their adherents would have been puzzled by the suggestion of such a thing. Their “faith” such as it was, existed in a different frame from their philosophy, which co-existed fairly happily but remained separate. (You might see something similar today in the practice of Shinto, for instance.) Christianity was the first faith to put the two together and give us theology.
I’m not sure if this is an original thought to him, but G.K. Chesterton elaborates on this at length in one of his great works, *The Everlasting Man.* (You can easily find it as a free PDF, and can just jump to the part where he starts discussing “comparative religion.”)
Incidentally, this is part of the reason that the line used by folks like Dawkins in debating Christians is mistaken: “You’re also an atheist when it comes to Zeus and Thor and Baal, I’m just an atheist for one more god than you.” It’s a category error. There was never anything like Jewish monotheism, until Christianity which consummated it (Jews would disagree). And there hasn’t been anything comparable since that hasn’t somehow descended from Christianity.
I think I can answer this.
I have done some research into the normans, and it turns out that they originated as vikings who invaded northern France.
So they carved out the territory they needed and became an enclave. They freely adopted the the french language, customs and way of living, but still maintained their ferocious army.
The French king ended up giving them their own lands, in exchange for giving the Italians a pasting in the south.
So after a while they became as french as the french, and set about improving the french system of administration.
So the answer is that they readily adopted overseas cultures and “gods”.
Both were converted to Christianity.
Greece converted when it was a part of the Roman Empire at the same time that the whole of Rome was converting. This took centuries.
The Vikings Converted due to Christian Missionaries sent by the Catholic Church specifically to convert them (and others in Northern Europe). This also took several hundred years.
I Norway at least they killed everyone who would not converte.
My history teacher explained it like this once “both sides pray to their religion before a battle, if you win your god was clearly stronger so at the next battle your enemies pray to your god too”
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.
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.
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.
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 🙂
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.
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.
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