The Viking conversion to Christianity

Aim: To understand how and why the Vikings converted to Christianity.

Background

'In this year, dire portents appeared over Northumbria. They consisted of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine followed, and a little after that, on 8 June, the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God's church on Lindisfarne.'

With this dramatic language the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle heralded the sacking by Vikings of the Lindisfarne monastery on the north-east coast of England in 793. It wasn't the first Viking raid; the first recorded such attack took place a few years earlier in 789. But its target was to make it the most notorious and it helped to condemn the Vikings thereafter to a reputation for appalling and indiscriminate violence and cruelty.

Who were the Vikings?

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The term 'Viking' has come to be used as a catch-all name for all the Scandinavian peoples who first traded with, then raided and eventually settled in Britain from the eighth century onwards. The word translates as 'sea-borne adventurer', 'pirate' or 'raider' – and the people it describes were all of these. Lindisfarne was only the first of many monasteries they sacked, and as well as England their raiding took them to Scotland, Ireland, Wales and much of north-west Europe. London, Southampton and Paris all became targets, and as their strength and confidence grew they began to overwinter in the areas they raided and subsequently to think about conquest and settlement.

Under ever-increasing population pressures in their Scandinavian homelands, where flat, suitable farmland was scarce, they established settlements in coastal areas of England, Scotland and Ireland, where they founded Dublin in 841. These sea-borne adventurers also established colonies on the islands of the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland and even North America. The Hebrides remained under Viking control until 1266, and Orkney and Shetland until the 15th century. A dialect of Old Norse, Norn, was still being spoken in Orkney, where half of the modern population has been found to have traces of Viking DNA, as late as the 18th century.

In Scotland, there was Scandinavian settlement – a fact reflected in place-names to this day. There must already have been a considerable confluence between native and Scandinavian ways of life, and the assimilation of the settlers under native rule accelerated following their conversion to Christianity.

Evidence Written sources from Christian chroniclers who were determined to present the pagan

Vikings in the worst possible way. The sources written by Irish Chroniclers, such as the Annals of Ulster, are believed to be the most useful.

Archaeology such as pagan burials.

Place-name evidence such as the name Papa suggest that resident Christians may have survived in some areas and influenced the incoming Norse.

Saga literature describes the history of this period but has problems in that they were written down hundreds of years after the events they describe.

Chronological framework Initial raiding and pirate activity down the west coast of Scotland and Ireland, dating

from the late 8th century. These raiders set up bases on the islands of northern and western Scotland.

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Initial settlement of the Northern and Western Isles during the 9th century.

By the late 9th century the Vikings also settled on mainland Scotland in Caithness and Sutherland. Inevitably they came into conflict with the kingdoms to the south. Impact on the Scottish-Pictish conflict was probably considerable.

Establishment of the Earldom of Orkney by Earl Rognvald of Møre. The first ruler was his brother, Sigurd ‘the Mighty’.

By the mid 10th century the Northern and Western Isles were Norse settled.

Norse Earls of Orkney became important political figures in the north. They married into the line of the Scottish kings. Sigurd ‘the Stout,’ Earl of Orkney (c. 985-1014) married a daughter of King Malcolm II of Scotland.

Pagan religious beliefs The Norse were pagans; they were referred to as geinte (‘gentiles’ or ‘pagans’) by the

Irish and Scottish sources until the middle of the ninth century. Christian centres, especially the wealthy monasteries, were seen as easy targets for the gathering of moveable plunder. Iona was abandoned, except for a few monks, in 807, and Columba’s remains were taken to safety in Ireland and Scotland.

The Vikings, though considered pagan by the Christian Celts, had a complex system of religious beliefs. This religion was polytheistic, meaning that the Vikings believed in and worshipped a number of deities. There were two families of Gods, the Aesir and the Vanir. The Aesir were warrior gods under the leadership of Odin who lived in Asgard. The Gods of the Aesir included Odin and his two sons Balder and Bragi, the fertility god Freyr, Loki (the trickster) and Thor. The goddesses of the Aesir included Freyja, the fertility goddess and twin sister of Freyr; Frigg, Odin's wife; Sif, the wife of Thor; and Idun, the keeper of the apples of youth. There were also Vanir branch of Gods – this was the older of the two branches of the family of the gods, and they were deities of fertility, wealth and health. The Vanir lived at Vanaheim, and their gods included the long-legged Honir and wise Mimir.

The Norse religion also included a vision of the afterlife. Valhalla is the hall of the heroic dead, called "Einherjar". These warriors were slain in battle and chosen by Odin as his followers. After battle, beautiful maidens called Valkyries rode over the battlefields and chose the slain warriors who would go to Valhalla. Originally, these spirits were far more sinister, as they were portrayed as spirits of slaughter, as dark angels soaring over the battlefields like vultures. However, this image evolved into a

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kinder, more beautiful image of beautiful maidens who also served the everlasting meat and mead to the heroes in Valhalla. This is the Norse vision of the afterlife - one of perpetual feasting and fighting enjoyed by the heroic dead; meat and mead were restored every night, all battle wounds healed overnight.

The main sources of evidence for Viking pagan beliefs are the Eddas, literary works which represent the old pagan beliefs as folk tales. The Eddas provide a huge amount of information about the gods, and their relationship with giants, men and dwarfs. The most powerful god was the one-eyed Odin, the Allfather, god of warfare, justice, death, wisdom and poetry. Odin presided over Valahalla. Probably the most popular god, however, was Thor, who was stupid but incredibly strong. With his hammer Miollnir, crafted by the dwarfs, he was the main defender of the gods against the giants. He was also the god of thunder, and he was particularly worshipped by seafarers. Amulets of Thor's hammer were popular throughout the Viking world. The brother and sister Frey and Freyja, the god and goddess of fertility, were also important, and there were many other minor gods and goddesses.

Vikings and Christianity Christianity was subject to interpretatio norroena, or Norse interpretation, by the

Vikings. Celtic women are often considered central to the conversion of the Vikings to Christianity. Because the many Viking invaders married the indigenous Celtic women, this intermarriage brought the Vikings into direct contact with the ideas and values of Christianity. The Viking conversion to Christianity was further facilitated by the similarity in structure of Thor's hammer and the Christian cross. This can be seen in that these structures often fused in Norse artwork and sculpture. For example, a tenth century soapstone found in Jutland was used to make both Thor's hammer and Christian crosses. Also, the polytheistic nature of the Norse religion further facilitated this conversion; accepting another god (Christ) was not difficult for the Norse. Even as the Vikings began to understand the centrality of monotheism to Christianity, this did little to impede their acceptance of the religion, as they most likely recognized characteristics of their other gods and mythic beings in the Christian saints.

Christianity was most likely adopted by the majority of Norse settlers by the middle of the 10th century. However, this process was a gradual one, as evidenced by the merging of religions depicted. Even as the Vikings began to embrace many of the values and ideas of Christianity, it is believed that many continued to hold to the familiar stories of their Norse gods. It is also possible that elements of Norse paganism were adapted to convey Christian messages and ideas. For example, the Norse dragon came to be associated with Satan.

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Burial evidence is crucial here as pagan Viking burials in Scotland have grave-goods associated with them. Dating of these graves shows us how long the Vikings believed in the pagan gods of Thor and Odin. Pagan Viking Age graves in Scotland belong to the 9 th

and 10th centuries and are concentrated in Orkney, Caithness and the Western Isles.

Documentary evidence from the Sagas tells of the conversion of Sigurd the Stout, Earl of Orkney by the Norwegian king in the late 10th century. The importance of the leaders in society in the conversion of the population was crucial. Sigurd’s conversion may have been superficial. He died under his raven banner (a potent pagan symbol) at the Battle of Clontarff (1014) in Ireland. Under the rule of his son Thorfinn, conversion took a real hold.

Some evidence of earlier conversion through place-name evidence and archaeological evidence such as surviving Pictish cross-slabs in Shetland. In the south and east of Scotland ‘hogsback’ graves show the influence of Christianity coming from the south (Northumbria).

Vikings and Monasteries Throughout the Viking Age, the Vikings frequently raided monasteries in Ireland,

Scotland and England; the most famous of these raids was the raid of Lindisfarne Priory in England in 793 AD. The Vikings were attracted to the monasteries not only because of the wealth of these monastic centres, but also because they offered relatively little by way of defence. However, the considerable wealth of these centres was clearly the primary attraction for the Vikings. The monasteries were centres of fine metalwork manufacturing, as the intricately designed and extremely valuable metalworks were used to adorn holy books and reliquaries. This portable, attractive wealth was particularly attractive to the Vikings, who used such metalworks to make brooches or horse harness equipment. The immediate results of these raids included material wealth for the Vikings, as well as establishing a reputation among their contemporaries as formidable and feared raiders. However, one of the unforeseen, yet most lasting, results of the Viking raids on monasteries such as Lindisfarne and Maughold was the historical reputation the Vikings gained.

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Because the clerics of such monasteries were literate, their descriptions of the raids and of the Vikings themselves were told and recorded from their perspective. These written testimonies comprise the majority of the written records of the Vikings today. For example, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the Lindisfarne raid as "The harrying of the heathen miserably destroyed God's church in Lindisfarne by rapine and slaughter." Another description of this raid, by cleric Alcuin of York states, "Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold the church of St. Cuthburt, spattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments; a place more venerable than any other in Britain has fallen prey to pagans." Thus, through written testimony, the clerics have preserved an image of the Vikings as heathen and even animal-like creatures motivated by greed and whose cruelty known no bounds; this image has survived throughout history and into modern times.

Primary Sources

Source AExtracts from the Irish Chronicles describing the arrival of the Vikings and their actions against important religious sites.

794: Annals of Ulster, vol. i, p.274, s.a. 793=794Devastation of all the islands of Britain by the gentiles. (probably Norwegians)

795: Annals of Innisfallan; Rerum Hiberniacarum Scriptores, vol. ii, part 2, p.24; O’Conor’s year 781=795Devastation of Iona of Columcille (Columba), and of Inishmurray and of Inishboffin.

802: Annals of Ulster, vol i, pp. 284, 286, s.a. 801=802Iona of Columcille was burned by the gentiles.

806: Annals of Ulster, vol i, pp. 290, s.a. 805=806The community of Iona was slain by the gentiles, that is to say sixty-eight [monks].

807: Annals of Ulster, vol i, pp. 292, s.a. 806=807The building of the new monastery of Columcille (St Columba), in Kells.

Ca. 807: Dublin Annals of Innisfallen, Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores, vol. ii, part 3, p.28; s.a. 807Cellach, the abbot of Iona of Columcille, came to Ireland after the slaying of his people by Scandinavians; and the monastery of Columcille was constructed by him in Kells of Meath. And he was abbot there for seven years, and went back to Iona; and he was buried there.

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825: Annals of Ulster, vol i, p. 320, s.a. 824=825The martyrdom of Blathmac, Fland’s son, by the gentiles in Iona of Columcille.

829:Annals of Ulster, vol i, p. 326, s.a. 828=829Diarmait, abbot of Iona, went to Scotland, with the relics of Columcille.(Dairmait was abbot at Kells)

831:Annals of Ulster, vol i, p. 328, s.a. 830=831Diarmait came to Ireland with the relics of Columcille.

pp255-259, Early Sources of Scottish History A.D. 500 to 1286 (Vol I) collected and translated by A.O. Anderson

Viking Saga writers from Iceland describe the conversion of the Earl of Orkney.

Source BIn his days Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, returning from a viking expedition to the west, came to the Orkneys with his men, and seized Earl Sigurd in Rövág, as he lay there with a single ship. King Olaf offered the Earl to ransom his life on condition that he should embrace the true faith and be baptized; that he should become his man, and proclaim Christianity over all the Orkneys.p3, The Orkneyinga Saga translated from the Icelandic by Jon A. Hjaltalin and Gilbert Goudie, edited, with notes and introduction by Joseph Anderson. Published by James Thin, bookseller, South Bridge, Edinburgh

Source CFive years after the death of King Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, Earl Sigurd went to Ireland. He set his elder sons over his domains, and sent Thorfinn to the King of Scots, his mother’s father. While on this expedition Sigurd was killed in Brian’s battle; and as soon as the news came to the Orkneys his sons Sumarlidi, Brúsi, and Einar, were accepted as Earls, and they divided the islands among them, each taking one third.p4 , The Orkneyinga Saga translated from the Icelandic by Jon A. Hjaltalin and Gilbert Goudie

Source D describes King Olaf’s winning offer to Earl SigurdNow, since it has so happened, Earl Sigurd, that you have come into my power, you have to choose between two very unequal alternatives. One is, that you embrace the true faith, become my man, and be baptized with all your subjects. In that case you may have certain hope of honour from me. …. The other alternative is a very hard one, and quite unlike the former – viz, that you shall be slain on the spot, and after your death I will send fire and sword throughout the Orkneys, burning homesteads and men, unless this people is willing to accept immunity by believing in the true God. And if you and your subjects choose the latter

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alternative, you and they, who put your trust in idols, shall speedily die, and shall thereafter be tormented in hell-fire, with wicked devils, without end.p211, The Orkneyinga Saga translated from the Icelandic by Jon A. Hjaltalin and Gilbert Goudie

Source E descibes Sigurd’s eventual agreement to convertAnd because the Earl was situated as he was, he chose the better alternative of doing as the King desired, and so he embraced the true faith. Then the Earl was baptized, and so were all the people of the Orkneys. Then Earl Sigurd became the Earl of King Olaf according to this world’s dignity, and held from him lands and dominions, and gave him as a hostage his son who has already been mentioned. His name was Hvelp of Hundi (whelp or hound). King Olaf had him baptized by the name of Hlödver, and took him with him to Norway. Earl Sigurd confirmed all their agreement with oaths. After this King Olaf sailed from the Orkneys, leaving priests to instruct the people in the holy faith. King Olaf and Earl Sigurd parted friends. Hlödver lived but a short time, and after his death Earl Sigurd paid no homage to King Olaf. Then he married the daughter of Melkólf, the King of Scots, and their son was Thorfinn.p212, The Orkneyinga Saga translated from the Icelandic by Jon A. Hjaltalin and Gilbert Goudie

Source F shows the distribution of known pagan Viking burial sites in Scotlandp71, Atlas of Scottish History to 1707, Edited by Peter g B Neill and Hector L MacQueen

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Source G shows the distribution of Papar names in Scotland. The survival of these place names (derived from the Norse name for priest) in areas that were swamped by the Norse is taken to mean Christians may have survived and had an impact on the invaders.

map from p165, Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford, Leicester University Press, 1987, Printed by SRP Ltd, Exeter

Source H show two stone slabs with crosses from a grave find at Kiloran Bay, Colonsay, South Hebrides. They were added to a pagan burial showing that the mourners were being careful to respect all possible gods. The burial is dated to the ninth century and shows that the Hebridean Vikings were being influenced by Christian belief.p162, , Scandinavian Scotlandby Barbara E. Crawford

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Source I shows a Cross-slab from Papil, Shetland. The Christian cross can be clearly seen to the top. The stone dates from around 800 AD. Its survival implies that some Norsemen adopted Christianity earlier than the Sagas would have us believe.

photo on p29, Viking Scotland by Anna Ritchie, Anna Ritchie 1993, Publised by B T Batsford Ltd, 4 Fitzhardinge Street, London W1H 0AH. Original photo property of Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland.

Secondary Sources

On the pagan religion

Source 1By the Viking Age many gods in the pagan pantheon were rapidly losing their importance, and worship centred around Thor, the most powerful of the gods, Frey and his sister Freyja who stood for fertility and powers of increase, and Odin. Odin is the one god whose influence can be dimly perceived as having retained some vitality among the Scandinavian settlers in Britain.p195, Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara Crawford

Source 2All the gods are warrior gods and Thor is pre-eminently the god of physical strength. Only Odin, however, is the god of strife. He encourages battle and gives victory, he is the lord of the dead, the valkyries are his servants. The Viking Age was a turbulent time and it must have often been seen what unlikely chances swayed the outcome of battle. The unpredictable in war was attributed to Odin, the fickle god who had his favourites but did not keep them for ever: he was openly regarded as one whose oath could not be trusted.p391, The Viking Achievement by Peter Foote and David M. Wilson, the authors 1970, published by Book Club Associates, By arrangement with Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd

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The Christian religious centres were tempting targets.

Source 3Iona, which for centuries had been the cultural and religious capital of northern Britain, was constantly exposed to Viking marauders. Its position on the western seaways and near the mouth of the Firth of Lorn, which gave it such a commanding position in the days of Columba and Adomnán, now spelt its doom at the hands of sea-born raiders. It had much to offer the heathen freebooter. It was a monastery enriched for centuries by Scottish, Pictish, northern British, Irish and Anglo-Saxon kings. The Vikings returned again and again to centres such as this, which in western Christian eyes were sanctuaries where it was sacrilege to spoil, but which to the Vikings were shop windows crammed with the loot of centuries, and occupied by unarmed monks who worshipped the ‘White Christ’. To the Northmen, Christ was a god who preached everything their warlord Odin despised: peace, humility and suffering as opposed to war, cunning and brutality.p147, Warlords and Holy Men by Alfred P Smyth

Pagan settlers are easy to identify by grave finds, though some are more complex.

Source 4Pagan Viking Age graves in Scotland belong to the 9 th and 10th centuries and are concentrated in Orkney, Caithness and the Western Isles. These are the graves of the raiders, merchants and settlers of the first hundred years or so of Viking activity, and the personal belongings buried with them show a mixture of weapons, tools and jewellery brought from Norway and new finery, usually brooches and decorative mounts, acquired in the West as loot or barter. Some graves were stone-lined like that at Gurness, some were shallow pits and a few were splendid affairs, with the grave covered by an upturned boat and a great mound raised above it. Occasionally the skeleton or a horse is found, slaughtered to accompany its owner, and one woman was buried on Colonsay with her pet dog laid with its head on her knees.p45, Invaders of Scotland by Anna Ritchie and David J. Breeze

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Source 5The graves of the pagan Norsemen primarily mark the incomers out as distinctive in their culture and beliefs and they provide a remarkable body of evidence about the life-style of the peoples of Scandinavia prior to their conversion in the late tenth century. The pagan Norse graves of Scotland are of exceptional importance as a source of evidence for material culture in a period when the native population had long foregone the practice of burying grave-goods with their dead.p116 Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford

Yet, most commentators consider the Christian religion the more powerful though the spread and timing of conversion is more difficult to measure.

Source 6It was inevitable that barbarian Vikings, with their primitive beliefs in outmoded gods and with their lack of writing and booklearning, would be greatly influenced by the higher Christian civilization which they encountered at such close quarters in the Scottish Isles. As the earliest Norse settlers turned to fishing and farming in the Isles, they came into sustained contact with Hebridean Christianity and its clergy.p173, Warlords and Holy Men by Alfred P Smyth

On Earl Sigurd’s ‘conversion’.

Source 7The circumstances are likely and the account itself very probably does enshrine the memory of an actual meeting when Earl Sigurd was forced into some sort of submission; certainly its association with a particular place lends the story an air of authenticity. But the additional details recorded in different accounts are no doubt highly coloured: the threat of immediate death to the earl if he refused baptism (Heimskringla); the earl’s prevarication and attempt to avoid conversion (Theodric’s History, written in Norway in the late twelfth century); the apparently immediate and widespread success of the christianisation of the islands (Jarl’s Saga). As far as the king was concerned the temporal submission of the earl was no doubt just as valuable an achievement as his conversion; the taking of the earl’s son as hostage for his good and loyal behaviour was an inevitable part of such royal visits to the earldom.p70 Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford

Source 8No doubt too much has been made of the whole famous incident; but the fault for that lies with historians rather than with the saga writers. If it ‘is not easy to accept the high significance attributed to it by the sagas’, this is really because too much has been expected of the sagas as historical sources in the past. The significance of the event to the saga writer was the dramatic nature of the confrontation between these two famous leaders of the Viking West. He was not particularly concerned with the exact effect this enforced baptism had on the actual

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state of the religious belief of the islanders, although no doubt assuming that the change of religion of the powerful earl of Orkney was a significant matter for the lands he ruled.p70 Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford

On the spread of Christianity

Source 9There is in fact evidence to suggest that the Norsemen had already begun to embrace Christianity before the ardent convert, Olaf, arrived, even if the earls themselves had not. Early Scandinavian place-names incorporating the element kirk from Old Norse kirkja, church, are to be found in the Northern Isles, as in Kirkbister and Kirkabister. It is likely that not every Norse immigrant had a Norwegian wife to bring to the new colony and that local Pictish girls became wives to the incomers, or nurses to their children, and that Christianity would soon become absorbed by the Norse population.p28, Viking Scotland by Anna Ritchie

Source 10But the survival of ordinary native combs and similar gear supports the hypothesis that Christian worship by native peasants may have continued and been adopted by the Norse at an earlier date than the saga tale which attributed to the behest of Olaf Tryggvason about 995. Viking artefacts in churchyards argue an acceptance of Christian burial sites, and place names in kirkja have an obvious significance. Since a number of these were formed with bolstaðr, which is a name-element for ‘farm’ thought to be in use in the ninth century and not later, the acceptance of Christianity would seem to fall well before 900. On Papa Westray in Orkney, which was known to the Norse as Papa-ey, ‘island of the priests’, the many names of places and fields are all Scandinavian, yet one contains byr or bolstaðr which indicate early colonisation, negative evidence which hints that ‘Scandinavians respected as well as recognised Christian sites and sanctuaries. The Vikings were not fiercely anti-Christian as the Muslims were; the plundering of churches did not mean razing them nor slaying priests. On the contrary Christ, was assumed to be acceptable to the pantheon in Valhalla. p82 Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom by A.A.M. Duncan

Source 11Influence by Christianity and the rate of progress towards conversion is a very difficult thing to monitor. The graves themselves are so disparate and difficult to date that only the very broadest generalizations about the progress of conversion of the Norse settlers to Christianity can be drawn from them. The decline in the numbers of tenth-century pagan graves discovered can tell us only that pagan beliefs were changing, but not how, when and why the Christian religion was adopted. p163 Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford

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Source 12The real adoption of the new religion would be carried through only by decades of contact with practising Christians and by the work of preaching, baptizing, missionary clergy who had the support of the secular authorities in providing back-up when compulsion or retribution were required, and in providing funds for the building of churches. Such a programme was established with the support and encouragement of Sigurd’s son Thorfinn, but was possibly initiated as a result of Sigurd’s formal acknowledgement of the new religion.p70 Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford

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TASKS

1. What are the main sources for the Viking conversion to Christianity?2. Briefly describe Norse pagan beliefs.3. List some of main Reasons why the Vikings converted to Christianity.4. How can archaeology (pagan burials) help us trace the conversion to Christianity?5. What account do the sagas give us about the conversion of Orkney’s Vikings?6. Why did the early Viking raids target Christian monasteries?7. Why must we be cautious when using monastic chronicles as evidence of the

Viking raids?8. Sum up Orkneyinga Saga’s account of the conversion of Orkney.(Sources B

- E)9. What evidence is there of Viking interaction with Christianity? (Sources G – I)10. What arguments do historians put forward to suggest that the conversion of

Orkney may have begun long before the traditional date of 995, and that the conversion may have been a slow process which continued long after? (Sources 9 – 12)