How Christian Were Viking Christians?
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Інститут історії України НАН України
2011
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| Цитувати: | How Christian Were Viking Christians? / E. Melnikova // Ruthenica. — 2011. — Supplementum 4. — С. 90-107. — Бібліогр.: 83 назв. — англ. |
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Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine| _version_ | 1859882488190468096 |
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| author | Melnikova, E. |
| author_facet | Melnikova, E. |
| citation_txt | How Christian Were Viking Christians? / E. Melnikova // Ruthenica. — 2011. — Supplementum 4. — С. 90-107. — Бібліогр.: 83 назв. — англ. |
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| container_title | Ruthenica |
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How Christian Were Viking Christians?
by Elena Melnikova
Once the most religious Emperor took pity on their [the Northmen’s – E.M.]
envoys, and asked them if they would be willing to receive the Christian reli-
gion; and, when they answered that always and everywhere and in everything
they were ready to obey him, he ordered them to be baptized in the name of
Him […] The nobles of the royal palace adopted these Northmen, almost as if
they had been children: each received a white robe from the Emperor’s ward-
robe, and from his sponsors a full set of Frankish garments, with arms, costly
robes and other adornments. This was done repeatedly, and more and more
came each year, not for the sake of Christ but for earthly advantages. They
made haste to come, not as envoys any longer but as loyal vassals, on Easter
Eve to put themselves at the disposal of the emperor; and it happened that on
a certain occasion they came to the number of fifty. The Emperor asked them
if they wished to be baptized. When they had confessed their sins, he ordered
them to be sprinkled with holy water. As there were not enough linen garments
to go around on that occasion, Lewis [Louis the Pious – E.M.] ordered some
old shirts to be cut up and tacked together to make tunics or to be run up as
overalls. One of these was forthwith clapped upon the shoulders of one of the
elder men; and when he had looked all over it for a minute, he conceived fierce
anger in his mind, and said to the emperor: ‘Look here, I’ve been through this
ablution business about twenty times already, and I’ve always been rigged out
before with a splendid white suit; but this old sack makes me feel more like
a pig farmer than a soldier. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve pinched my
clothes, and not given me any new ones, with the result that I should feel a
right fool if I walked out of here naked, you could keep your Christ and your
suit of reach-me-down’.1
This tale about a Viking with extensive experience in being baptized is most
probably a creation of Notker the Stammerer,2 who composed a collection of
anecdotes about the deeds of Charlemagne for his great-grandson Charles the
1 Notker Balbulus, Gesta Caroli Magni. II. 19, ed. by Hans F. Haefele, MGH, SRG n.s., 12 (Berlin:
Weidmann, 1957), pp. 89–90. English translation is from Two Lives of Charlemagne, trans. by Lewis
Thorpe (Baltimore: Penguin, 1969), pp. 168–69.
2 Ian Wood, ‘Christians and Pagans in Ninth Century Scandinavia’, in The Christianization of
Scandinavia: Report of a Symposium held at Kungälv, Sweden, 4–9 August 1985 (Alingsås: Viktoria
Bokförlag, 1987), pp. 36–67 (p. 50).
91How Christian Were Viking Christians?
Fat on the occasion of his visit to the monastery of St Gall in 883. Notker does
not conceal his belief in the traitorous nature of the Vikings and their baptismal
practices being ‘not for the sake of Christ but for earthly advantages’, and the
purpose of the tale is to prove this. However, whether this is pure fiction or a report
of a real event only slightly exaggerated by the author, the tale is representative of
that time in several respects. Firstly, Notker states that the tradition of baptizing
Vikings emerged soon after the Viking raids to Western Europe started. Secondly,
he views the baptism of Vikings as something of a mass phenomenon. Thirdly, he
stresses the pragmatic purposes of the Vikings in undergoing baptism.3 Fourthly,
he considers the Frankish emperors responsible for introducing the Vikings to
Christianity. Finally, Notker accuses the Vikings of ignorance in terms of the
meaning of the sacraments, but at the same time he notes their knowledge of
Christian rituals. Writing in the last quarter of the ninth century, it is possible
that Notker’s portrayal of Louis the Pious’s reign was coloured by events from
later decades; nevertheless his account still provides us with an indication of how
familiar the Vikings were with Christianity.
Every single feature in the account’s description presents a problem in itself,
and some of them have been the focus of previous studies, especially in the last
two decades. One of the most intriguing yet complicated aspects of this issue
is the mental adaptation of Christianity by these northern heathens: what did the
Vikings know of Christianity, how did they appreciate Christian teaching per se
and in comparison with their native beliefs, in what way was Christianity enrooted
in the minds of pagan Scandinavians?4 Some of these questions have been touched
upon in previous scholarship, but mostly in connection with other topics and for
the period after the ‘official’ Christianization,5 so that the Vikings’ early Christian
phase has not been considered as a specific phenomenon.
A discussion of how Christianity was perceived by the Scandinavians in the
ninth and tenth centuries is hindered by the scarcity of contemporary written
sources that reflect their mentality directly. Frankish and Anglo-Saxon annals
3 Likewise suspicious of the ar-Rūs (i.e. Scandinavian) merchants was the Arabic writer Ibn
Khurradadhbih (c. 820 – c. 890) who remarked that the ar-Rūs merchants coming to Bagdad alleged
to be Christians in order not to pay taxes: Ibn Khurradadhbih, Kitab al-Masalik wa’l Mamalik, ed. and
French tr. by Michael J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1889). Russian translation is from Ibn Khurradadhbih,
Kniga putej i stran, trans. by N. Velikhanova (Baku, 1986), p. 124.
4 Cf. the formulation of a similar problem by Anne-Sofie Gräslund, ‘Pagan and Christian in the Age of
Conversion’, in Proceedings of the Tenth Viking Congress – Larkollen, Norway 1985, ed. by James E. Knirk,
Universitetets Oldsaksamlings skrifter, ny rekke, 9 (Oslo: Universitetets Oldsaksamling, 1987), p. 90: ‘What
did Christianity and the church service mean to the people who did not understand Latin?’
5 For a more general approach to the problem, see Möller Håkan, ‘Mentalitet och kristnande: Reflexioner
kring ett tvärvetenskapligt studium – exemplet Jämtland’, in Jämtlands kristnande, ed. by Stefan Brink
(Uppsala: Linne Böcker, 1996), pp. 189–99; Anders Hultgård, ‘Religios förändring, kontinuitet och
ackulturation/synkretism i vikingatidens och medeltidens skandinaviska religion’, in Kontinuitet i kult
och tro från vikingatid till medeltid, ed. by Bertil Nilsson (Uppsala: Linne Böcker, 1992), pp. 49–
103; Henrik Williams ‘Runstenstexternas teologi’, in: Kristnandet i Sverige: Gamla källor och nya
perspektiv, ed. by Bertil Nilsson (Uppsala: Linne Böcker, 1996), pp. 291–312.
92 Elena Melnikova
report a number of cases of Vikings and their leaders being baptized, often in
some detail, but they never address the question of what the state of mind of
the baptized individuals might have been. Icelandic sagas provide many hints
about the Vikings’ attitudes towards Christianity, but the sagas were composed
at a time when Christianity had long been established in the culture, and many
notions of the transitional period had become obscure or incomprehensible and
so were misinterpreted. Some references can be found in skaldic verses of the
tenth century as well as in runic inscriptions of the eleventh century. Although
sparse and sometimes obscure, these references when taken together throw light
on the mental processes that accompanied the Scandinavian’s familiarization with
Christianity. The purpose of this article therefore is to demonstrate the peculiarity
of the Norse perception of Christianity in the pre-conversion period by studying
only one aspect, the image of Christ as it is presented in early sources.
Ways of familiarization with Christianity
The time of ‘official’ Christianization — i.e., that which was brought about by
rulers who decreed Christianity to be the only religion of their countries (such as
Harald Bluetooth in the 960s or Volodimer the Great in 988) — was preceded, as
is now widely acknowledged, by a long ‘pre-conversion period’.6 Contrary to the
‘conversion moment’, which depended heavily on royal power and predominantly
involved the social elite, during the ‘pre-conversion period’ the seeds of the new faith
were spread among individuals of different social standing; hundreds or perhaps
even thousands of Vikings came across various manifestations of Christianity while
raiding and trading in the West and East from the late eighth century onwards.
They saw magnificent churches and cathedrals, observed Christian rites, came
into possession of splendid church artefacts, captured monks and clergymen, dealt
with traders from Christian countries and were in contact with local governors of
various positions, as high up as Frankish emperors and Anglo-Saxon kings. A Rus´
annalist from the beginning of the twelfth century introduces a fictitious episode
that nevertheless characterizes the spontaneous nature of the Vikings’ encounters
with Christianity. He tells that having concluded a treaty with Kievan prince Oleg
after his victorious attack on Constantinople in 911,
6 Definitions for the ‘conversion moment’ and ‘conversion period’ as two stages in the process of
Christianization of the North were proposed by Peter Foote, ‘Historical Studies: Conversion Moment
and Conversion Period’, in Viking Revaluations: Viking Society Centenary Symposium 14–15 May 1992,
ed. by Anthony Faulkes and Richard Perkins (London: Viking Society for Northern research, 1993),
pp. 137–44. This periodization should be supplemented by a ‘pre-conversion period’ preceding the
‘conversion moment’ and lasting for about two centuries from the late eighth century onwards. Three
phases of Christianization process in Norway have also been identified by Fridtjov Birkeli: infiltration,
mission activity and ecclesiastical organization. Fridtjov Birkeli, Norske steinkors i tidlig middelalder:
Et bidrag til belysning av overgangen fra norrøn religion til kristendom. Skrifter utg. av Det Norske
Videnskaps Akademi i Oslo, II. Hist.-filos. kl. n.s. 10 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1973), p. 14.
93How Christian Were Viking Christians?
the [Byzantine – E.M.] Emperor Leo honored the Russian envoys with gifts of
gold, palls, and robes, and placed his vassals at their disposition to show them
the beauties of the churches, the golden palace, and the riches contained therein.
They thus showed the Russes much gold and many palls and jewels, together
with the relics of our Lord’s Passion: the crown, the nails, and the purple robe,
as well as the bones of the Saints. They also instructed the Russes in their faith,
and expounded to them the true belief. Thus the Emperor dismissed them to
their native land with great honor.7
The tale must have been invented by the annalist, but during the talks preced-
ing the conclusion of the treaty, Oleg’s emissaries had to visit Constantinople,
probably several times. The churches and palaces of the largest city of Europe
could not have failed to attract their attention, and the first grains of knowledge
about Christianity must have been absorbed by them. Similar chances presented
themselves for the Vikings everywhere in Western Europe, and as their activities
became more widespread and diverse, such opportunities became more frequent.
The earliest information about baptizing the Norsemen goes back to as early as
the times of Charlemagne, whose expansion northward brought him into contact
and conflict with the rulers of Southern Denmark (Hedeby) in the last decades of
the eighth century.8 Frankish annals and other sources attest to vivid connections
between the emperor and the rulers of Hedeby after Charlemagne’s expansion
into the lands south of the Elbe. These contacts included not only military con-
frontations but also the exchange of emissaries (in 782, 804 and 809 to name but
a few), carrying out negotiations and concluding treaties.9 Charlemagne seems to
have taken advantage of the struggles between the various claimants to the throne
in Southern Denmark, employing different political tools to achieve his goals.
One of these tools was spreading Christianity beyond the Elbe. He dispatched,
or tried to dispatch, several missions to the Danes, the first being an unsuccessful
campaign in 777 followed by a similarly unsuccessful mission in 809. The results
of Charlemagne’s missionary activities seem to be quite modest but it is in this
context that the first baptisms of Danes are reported.
7 Povest’ vremennykh let, ed. by Dmitrii S. Likhachev and Mikhail B. Sverdlov (St Petersburg, 1996),
p. 20. English translation from The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, ed. by Samuel
Hazzard Cross and Olgerd Sherbowitz-Wetzer (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America,
1953), pp. 68–69.
8 Robert Levine, ‘Baptizing Pirates: Argumenta and Fabula in Norman historia’, Mediaevistik, 1991, no.
4, 157–78; Herbert Jankuhn, ‘Karl der Grosse und der Norden’, in Karl der Große: Lebenswerk und
Nachleben, 4 vols (Düsseldorf, 1967), I, pp. 699–707; Elena Melnikova, ‘Ukroshchenie neukrotimykh:
dogovory s normannami kak sposob ikh integratsii v inokulturnykh obshchestvakh’, Drevniaia Rus´:
Voprosy medievistiki, 32 (2008), 12–26.
9 On the diplomatic connections between Charlemagne and the rulers of Hedeby, see Elena Melnikova,
‘Ukroshchenie neukrotimykh’, pp. 13–17. On early missions to Denmark see Reinhart Staats,
‘Missionsgeschichte Nordeuropas: Eine geistesgeschichtliche Einführung’, in Rom und Byzanz im
Norden, I, pp. 9–33.
94 Elena Melnikova
Under the year 807, the anonymous Poeta Saxo relates that ‘a leader (dux) of
the Northmen, called Halfdan (Alfdeni), submitted to the great Emperor, accom-
panied by a host of others, and strove to keep lasting faith’.10 Though the Vita was
written between 888 and 891, its information is mostly based on Annales regni
Francorum and is thought reliable.11 Simon Coupland identifies this Halfdan with
the one who headed an embassy to Charlemagne from rex Sigfried in 782.12 If
this was the case, Halfdan would have had to become acquainted with Christian
culture long before his baptism. Even if this was not the case, the Halfdan of the
Poeta Saxo would have had to have some previous connections with the Franks
to be sure that his coming with ‘a host’ of Danes would be welcomed. The Poeta
Saxo’s wording also suggests that Halfdan commended himself to Charlemagne
(subdidit) and that he was baptized, probably together with his followers.
The same pattern characterizes the baptism of another group of the Danes
two decades later. This episode is much better illuminated in the sources and it
is frequently cited in the context of the ‘Christianization’ of the Danes. In 826,
the Danish rex Harald Klak came to Louis the Pious and was baptized together
with his family and retinue of about 400 warriors.13 That was an act of political
necessity because Harald needed help in his struggle for overlordship in Southern
Denmark and had been receiving military assistance from Louis the Pious since
815. After the baptism, Harald swore homage to Louis and received the territory
of Rüstringen in Friesland as a fiefdom. He returned to Denmark while his son
and a group of followers stayed with Louis. Two years later Harald suffered a final
defeat in Denmark and moved south, settling in his new land.
Frankish, Anglo-Saxon, Byzantine and early Rus´ sources provide quite a
number of other episodes regarding the baptism of Vikings throughout the ninth
and tenth centuries. As a rule, they tell about the baptisms of Norsemen under
two sets of circumstances: either in cases of the commendation of a leader of a
Viking band, sometimes after he suffered defeat (such as Weland in 860–6214),
or as part of the conclusion of a treaty with a Viking chief such as Guthrum who
10 Poeta Saxo, Vita Caroli magni, 4. 226–28, s.a. 807, in Monumenta Carolina, ed. by Philipp Jaffé,
Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum, 4 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1867), p. 600.
11 On sources of the Saxon Poet, see J. Bohn, Der Poeta Saxo in der historiographischen Tradition des
8.–10. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt: University of Frankfurt, 1965); Simon Coupland, ‘From Poachers to
Gamekeepers: Scandinavian Warlords and Carolingian Kings’, Early Medieval Europe, 7,1 (1998),
85–114 (p. 87, note 8).
12 Coupland, ‘From Poachers to Gamekeepers’, pp. 87–88.
13 This episode is attested in Frankish annals, Ermold the Black’s poem In honorem Hludovici impe-
ratoris, Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii, and Adam of Bremen’s Gesta. See Coupland, ‘From Poachers to
Gamekeepers’, pp. 89–93.
14 Weland came to Charles the Bald with his sons, wife and retinue, commended himself to Charles and
was baptized: Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 862, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH, SRG, 5 (Hannover: Hahn,
1883), p. 58. Similarly, in 873 the Vikings asked for permission to pass the winter on an island in
the Loire; Charles the Bald allowed those who agreed to be baptized to stay, while the unbaptized
were ordered to leave: Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 873, p. 124. For the analysis of cases connected with
commendation of Viking leaders in Francia, see Coupland, ‘From Poachers to Gamekeepers’.
95How Christian Were Viking Christians?
was locked up by Alfred the Great in Edington in 878 or Olaf (Tryggvason?) who
won the battle of Maldon and succeeded in imposing conditions on Æthelred the
Unready in 991 but could not manage without an agreement with the king.15 A
more specific case is reported in Byzantine sources concerning a Viking band that
attacked Constantinople in 860.16 Several years after the siege of the Byzantine
capital, Patriarch Photius informed East-Christian bishops that the most savage
and bloodthirsty people of Rhos, who in previous times had dared to raise their
hands against the Empire, had exchanged their pagan and godless faith for the
pure religion of the Christians.17 The baptism of the Rhos became widely known
in the Byzantine world and about a hundred years later Vita Basilii — ascribed to
Constantine Porphyrogenetus and included in the Chronographia of Theophanes
Continuator — relates that the emperor persuaded the Rhos people to accept a
bishop who convinced them to accept baptism with the help of a miracle concern-
ing an incombustible book of Gospels.18 It was not only the chief(s) but also at
least some of the warriors who were converted at this time, and as on other occa-
sions, the leading role in baptizing the Rhos — who are generally considered to
be a warrior band from Kiev under the leadership of Askold (< Höskuldr) and Dir
(< Dýr or Dýri) — belongs to the Byzantine authorities.
Seldom do the sources state explicitly that the baptisms of individual Scan-
dinavians were carried out according to their free will, and if this information
is conveyed it is only in passing, such as the mention of a Dane Sigifrid who
was a Christian and served as an intermediary between the Frankish king and the
Vikings,19 or an unnamed Christian Norseman whose advice helped the Frisians
to repulse the assault of Rodulf in 873.20 With certain caution one might take into
account the information provided by Rimbert that during the first mission of Ans-
gar to Birka in around 829–31 there were some citizens who ‘desired earnestly
to receive the grace of baptism’.21 According to the early Rus´ annalist, by 944
‘many of the Varangians were Christians’.22 A case similar to Notker’s anecdote is
15 Elena Melnikova, ‘Zalozhniki i kliatvy: protsedura zakliucheniia dogovorov s normannami’, in
Imenoslov, ed. by Fjodor Uspenskij (forthcoming).
16 For the compilation of Byzantine and early Rus´ sources together with their analysis, see Pavel
V. Kuzenkov, ‘Pokhod 860 g. na Konstantinopl’ i pervoe kreshchenie Rusi v srednevekovykh
pis’mennykh istochnikakh’, in Drevneishie gosudarstva Vostochnoi Evropy, 2000 god (Moscow: Indrik,
2003), pp. 3–172. On the event itself, see Alexandr Vasiliev, The Russian Attack on Constantinople in
860 (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1946).
17 Kuzenkov, ‘Pokhod 860 g. na Konstantinopl’, pp. 76–78.
18 Ibid., pp. 125–29.
19 Annales Vedastini, s.a. 883, 884, ed. by Bernhard vom Simson, MGH, SRG, 12 (Hannover: Hahn,
1909), p. 54.
20 Annales Fuldensis, s.a. 873, ed. by Fridericus Kurze, MGH, SRG, 7 (Hannover: Hahn, 1909), p. 80.
21 Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, 11, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH, SRG, 55 (Hannover: Hahn, 1884), p. 32. English
translation is from Anskar, The Apostle of the North, 801–865, trans. by Charles H. Robinson (London:
SPCK, 1921), p. 49.
22 Povest’ vremennykh let, ed. by Likhachev and Sverdlov, p. 26; The Russian Primary Chronicle, ed. by
Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzer, p. 77.
96 Elena Melnikova
reported in Annales Bertiniani under the year 876. A number of Northmen were
baptized by Margrave Hugo but after having received baptismal gifts they re-
turned to heathen rituals (pagano more).23
Three main features thus seem to be typical of descriptions in the chronicles
of how Christianity was brought to the Vikings and most probably these features
were also key in the process itself. First, as Notker stresses twice, the initiative
for the conversion lay with Christian rulers or church authorities, especially in
the ninth century. Second, the baptism of a leader of a Viking band was in most
cases a precondition for his submission to, or for the establishment of peaceful
and long-lasting relations with, a Christian ruler. Third, the baptism of a leader
was not usually an individual act: his family (if present) and his followers, at least
his closest retinue, were baptized at the same time, making the whole procedure
a public occasion. Even if it were only a small number of individual Vikings
who had been baptized, their total number was already large enough in the ninth
century that certain notions of Christianity could be transmitted to Scandinavia.
The circumstances in which the Vikings of the ninth and tenth centuries usu-
ally adopted Christianity — their rather short visits to royal courts or negotiations
in the course of their attacks — did not provide opportunities for prolonged in-
structions in Christian teaching.24 In rare cases when we know or can calculate the
time of their stay in a Christian milieu before their baptism, it usually turns to be
not more than a month or two. For example, the accounts of the baptism of Har-
ald Klak in 826 give the impression that the ceremony took place very soon after
his arrival. However, he visited Louis the Pious for the first time in 814 and then
stayed for at least two years (probably more) in Saxony waiting for military help
and opportunity to invade Denmark.25 Elsewhere, Guthrum was told to come with
his thirty followers to Athelney to be baptized; his white garments were taken off
on the eighth day and he spent twelve days more at Wedmore with Alfred cel-
ebrating the occasion.26 It is obvious that the time span between Guthrum’s arrival
and the ceremony of baptism could have amounted to no more than several days.
Princess Olga is supposed to have been baptized in Constantinople most probably
in 957 where she spent at least a month and a half: as related in De ceremoniis by
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, she was received by the Emperor two times on Sep-
23 Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 876, p. 131.
24 On the whole, catechumenate was not a widespread practice in Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries,
according to Alexandra Sanmark, Power and Conversion: A Comparative Study of Christianization
in Scandinavia (Uppsala: Uppsala universitet, 2002), pp. 91–93. Rather, it was more common in the
process of converting Norsemen.
25 Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, 7, p. 26; Annales regni Francorum, s.a. 814, 815, in Ausgewählte Quellen zur
deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, V, ed. by Rudolf Buchner (Berlin, 1956), pp. 141–42.
26 Asser’s Life of King Alfred together with the Annals of Saint Neots erroneously ascribed to Asser, ed.
by W. H. Stevenson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1904) pp. 46–47; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
A Collaborative Edition, ed. by D. Dumville and Simon Keynes, III: MS A, ed. by Janet M. Bately
(Cambridge: D. C. Brewer, 1986), pp. 50–51.
97How Christian Were Viking Christians?
tember 9th and October 18th,27 but she most probably arrived to Constantinople
at an earlier date. If the would-be converts were instructed during this short time,
their information about the new faith would have been necessarily very limited,
concerning only the most vital issues.
Christ — the God of the Christian Vikings
Both the missionaries and church authorities were fully aware of the ignorance
of their new flock in Christian matters and their inability to appreciate Christian
teaching in its complexity as well as its particulars. The case of Harald Klak is a
good example of the attitudes of the preachers to the new converts. The Danish
king is said to have been ‘ignorant and untaught in the faith, and unaware how
God’s servants ought to behave. Moreover, his companions who had been but re-
cently converted and had been trained in a very different faith, paid little attention’
to Christian norms and rites. One of the tasks entrusted to Ansgar, who followed
Harald to Denmark, was ‘to devote the utmost care to his profession of faith and
by their godly exhortations to confirm in the faith both Harald and his compan-
ions who had been baptized together with him, for fear lest at the instigation of
the devil they should return to their former errors, and at the same time by their
preaching to urge others to accept the Christian religion’.28
We do not know precisely what the missionaries taught the new converts but
there are indications that they had to adapt Christian dogma in various ways in
order to accommodate it to the mindsets of those who had been heathen until re-
cently. The practice of accommodating traditional pagan beliefs was sanctioned
as early as 595 by Pope Gregory the Great, who instructed missionaries to the An-
glo-Saxons not only to ban heathen traditions but to substitute them with Chris-
tian ones and imbue them with Christian meaning. Those who had to instruct the
Scandinavian pagans in the Christian faith tried, it seems, to implant only a few
of most essential notions in the minds of the neophytes and even these few ideas
were radically simplified to be intelligible for former heathens, as is attested by
Rimbert. He puts a kind of Credo into the mouth of his ‘perfect convert’, Herigar,
who asks ‘My Lord Jesus Christ’ to cure him ‘in order that these unhappy men
may know that Thou art the only God and that there is none beside Thee’.29 The
main ‘theological’ message of Herigar’s speech is twofold: there is only one God
to be worshipped and this God is Christ. Herigar’s Credo reflects the author’s
own opinion on what a ‘perfect convert’ should know and believe, and Rimbert
27 See Aleksandr V. Nazarenko, Drevniaia Rus´ na mezhdunarodnych putiakh (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi
kul´tury, 2001), pp. 219–310.
28 Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, 7, p. 29. English translation is from Anskar, The Apostle of the North, ed. by
Robinson, pp. 42-43.
29 Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, 19, p. 41. On Rimbert’s presentation of the conversion of Sweden by St Ansgar,
see Wood, ‘Christians and Pagans’, pp. 38–42.
98 Elena Melnikova
consciously identifies God the Father with Jesus Christ. In the first quarter of
the tenth century the English king Edward the Elder obligated the Danes of the
Danelaw to ‘love one God’, and this demand was repeated a century later, in 1005,
by Bishop Wulfstan for probably a newly arrived Norsemen.30 Gro Steinsland has
noted possible parallels between the Christian Trinity and the multitude of angels,
saints, and so on with the numerous figures of the heathen pantheon previously
worshipped by the neophyte Scandinavians, while Per Beskow has suggested that
the notion of Trinity — i.e. the existence of three holy hypostasis of God — could
have been interpreted as a form of polytheism by the heathens.31
The idea of the unicity of the Christian God and his identification with Christ
remained common long into the ‘conversion period’. Amongst the numerous in-
vocations on ‘Christian’ runic stones of the eleventh century, there are never any
mentions of Christ as God’s son, and the interchangeability of the invocations
‘God’ and ‘Christ’ as well as a common prayer to ‘God and God’s Mother’ in-
dicate that for those who ordered runic monuments, God meant Christ.32 On one
occasion this identification is made explicit: the inscription on Vg 186 reads ‘God
help his soul and God’s mother, holy Christ in the kingdom of heaven’.33 The
skalds of the eleventh and even twelfth centuries also identify Christ as the ‘sole’
(einn) God: ‘Christ, sole Prince of Mortals’ (Markús Skeggjason, second half of
the eleventh century), ‘the sole King of the Sun’ (Eilífr Kúlnasveinn, end of the
twelfth / beginning of the thirteenth century).34
The earliest and unique mention of Christ as the son of God dates to the
beginning of the eleventh century. In his Lausavísur composed in about 1001,
Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld (d. 1007) distinguishes between the Son and the Father.
30 Felix Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsaxen, 3 vols (Halle a. Saale: Niemeyer, 1903–16), I, p.
128. See Judith Jesch, ‘Scandinavians and “Cultural Paganism” in late Anglo-Saxon England’, in The
Christian Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England: Approaches to Current Scholarship and Teaching, ed. by
P. Cavill (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), pp. 55–68 (p. 64).
31 Gro Steinsland, ‘The Change of Religion in the Nordic Countries – a Confrontation between Two
Living Religions’, Collegium medievale, 3,2 (1990), 123–36 (p. 126); and Per Beskow, ‘Runor och
liturgy’, in Nordens kristnande i europeiskt perspektiv: Tre uppsatser, ed. by Per Beskow and Reinhardt
Staats (Skara, 1994), pp. 16–36 (p. 22).
32 Sawyer Birgit, The Viking-Age Rune-Stones: Custom and Commemoration in Early Medieval Scan-
dina via (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 140. The usage of the word guð with the verb
hjalpa in conjunctive pl. (hialpin) in several eleventh-century runic inscriptions is explained by Henrik
Williams in the light of an obscure phrase in the prologue to the fourteenth-century Kyrkobalk of the
Södermanland laws where the Christians are called to believe only in Christ ‘because he is threefold in
name, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit’ as a reflection of the notion that Christ had the threefold nature
spread since the time of conversion (Henrik Williams, ‘Runstenstexternas teologi’, pp. 305–6). This
explanation based on a late, ‘absurd from theological point of view formulation’ (Beskow, ‘Runor
och liturgi’, p. 22) has practically no correspondences in earlier texts (the only mention of God the
Father is found in Lausavísur of Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld; see below), which makes Henrik Williams’
interpretation not wholly convincing.
33 For the texts of runic inscriptions see the Database of Runic Inscriptions http://www.nordiska.uu.se/
forskn/samnord.htm under the number given in brackets in the text.
34 Finnur Jónsson, Den norsk-islandska Skjaldedigtning, BI (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1912), pp. 420 and
565 (further Skj.).
99How Christian Were Viking Christians?
He appeals to both Christ and God for favour, not wishing to incur the displeasure
of the Son whose authority was given to him by ‘the Father of the World’ (Krist
vilk allrar ástar, / Erum leið sonar reiði, / vald es á frægt und folder / feðr, einn
ok goð kveðja).35 As this is the only mention of this division for a long period of
time, God the Father seems to be practically unknown before the conversion, and
Hallfreðr displays a familiarity with Christian teaching that is unusual for his
contemporaries. One can agree fully with Per Beskow that Northern Christianity
of the ‘pre-conversion period’ and even much later was characterized by ‘Christo-
monism’.36
The image of Christ for those Norsemen who accepted him as a God seems to
be far from the one current in the Christian world of that time. In skaldic poetry
before 1050 as well as in pictorial art, he appears first and foremost as a strong
and mighty ruler.37 The earliest depictions of him, such as that on the Jelling stone,
portray him as triumphant and glorious. The notion of the suffering Christ was
not conceived by the Vikings and ‘would have been regarded as almost absurd’
by them,38 although they could not have failed to see crucifixes with the suffering
Christ in Western Europe and Byzantium. Furthermore, New Testament values
such as charity and humility were as alien to the Viking Christ as they were alien
to the Viking mentality.
Christ appeared first and foremost as a powerful konung whose authority
spanned the whole world, both earthly and heavenly. This perception permeates
his designations in skaldic verses. Most of the kennings collected by Snorri in
Skáldskaparmál under the heading Kristskenningar are based on the notion
of rulership and contain such terms as konungr and dróttinn. Snorri identifies
kennings such as ‘king of heavens’ (heims dróttinn), ‘king of all things’ (alls
dróttinn), ‘king of sun’ (solar dróttinn), ‘king of the hall of the earth’, i.e. ‘of the
heaven’ (folder hallar dróttinn), and so on. He cites verses that stress the might of
Christ as a ruler: ‘The King of Monks is greatest / Of might, for God all governs’
(Máttr er munka dróttins / mestr, aflar goð flestu, Skapti Thóroddsson, eleventh
century), ‘Christ, sole Prince of Mortals, / Hath power o’er all that liveth’ (einn
stillir má öllu / aldar Kristr of valda, Markús Skeggjason, second half of the
eleventh century).39 A Swedish runic inscription (U 942) names Christ as ‘the
ruler of men’ (gumna valdr) thus underlining his concern for the fates of men.40
Several skalds specify the earthly realm of Christ and single out Rome,
Byzantium and Rus´ as the loci of his special care. Eilífr Goðrúnarson (tenth
35 Skj. BI, p. 159.
36 Beskow, ‘Runor och liturgi’, p. 22. This characteristic of early Christianity in Scandinavia is shared by
Williams, ‘Runstenstexternas teologi’, pp. 305–7.
37 Edith Marold, ‘Das Gottesbild der Christlichen Skaldik’, in The Sixth International Saga Conference
28.7 – 2.8.1985: Workshop Papers I–II (Copenhagen, 1985), pp. 748–49.
38 Gräslund, ‘Pagan and Christian’, p. 87.
39 Skj. BI, pp. 291 and 420.
40 Williams, ‘Runstenstexternas teologi’, p. 304.
100 Elena Melnikova
century) calls Christ ‘Rome’s Mighty Ruler’ (rammr konungr Róms),41 whereas
Arnórr jarlaskáld (eleventh century) spreads Christ’s grace eastward: ‘the Lordly
Warder of Greeks and Gardar’ (snjallan Grikkja vörðr ok Garða).42 Stressing the
particular connection of Christ with Rome and Byzantium (and Garðar = Rus´),
these skalds who lived at the ‘conversion moment’ or immediately after it seem
to have perceived these regions as the two main centres from which Christianity
was disseminated.43
Christ is endowed with functions and qualities appropriate to a konung of the
Viking Age. He is first and foremost a defender (vörðr) of lands and peoples, not
only in spiritual sense but in physical way as well. This notion gave rise to a topos
comparison of a warrior ruler with him as a guardian. Thus, Knut the Great ‘de-
fends the country’ like ‘the keeper of Greeks defends the realm of heaven’ (Knútr
verr grund sem gætir / Gríklands himinríki).44
As a konung, Christ possesses good luck (gipta) which he can transmit to a
person, a konung or a Viking. Þórbjörn dísarskáld (late tenth century) mentions a
Viking who ‘received great luck of the White Christ’ (fekk Hvítakrists hæsta giptu)
after having been baptized.45 Another skald of the same time, Þórleifr járlsskáld,
attributes the victories of the Danish king Svein Forkbeard (d. 1014) in England
to the good luck bestowed on him by God, ‘prince of the sky’s radiance’ (Opt með
œrna giptu öðlings himnis röðla, / Jóta gramr enn ítri / Englandi rauð branda).46
If the representation of Christ as a mighty warrior overlord derived from the
traditional Scandinavian culture and is attested in sources preceding the ‘conver-
sion moment’, his endowment with other functions is witnessed by later texts.
The spread of these notions in the eleventh century, however, may indicate their
emergence some time earlier, i.e. in the ‘pre-conversion period’.
In eleventh-century poetry, Christ is designated as the creator of the world sev-
eral times. Skapti Thóroddsson and Markús Skeggjason proclaimed that ‘Christ’s
power wrought this earth all, and raised the Hall of Rome’ (Kristr skóp ríkr ok
reisti Rúms höll veröld alla) and that ‘the King of the Wind-House fashioned
Earth, sky, and faithful peoples’ (Gramr skóp grund ok himna glyggranns sem
her dyggvan).47 The creation function is attributed to Christ by Snorri too, who
makes Olaf Haraldsson explain to Arnljot Gellini that among other essentials of
41 Skj. BI, p. 144.
42 Arnórr jarlaskáld, Erfidrápa for Harald Harðráði, 19, in Skj. BI, p. 326. On Christian elements in
Arnórr’s poetry, see Diana Edwards, ‘Christian and Pagan References in Eleventh-Century Norse
Poetry: The Case of Arnórr jarlaskáld’, Saga-Book, 21 (1982–85), pp. 34–53 (pp. 42–43).
43 On the significance of Eastern Christianity in the ‘pre-conversion period’, see Från Byzans till
Norden.
44 Þórarinn loftunga, Höfuðlausn, in Skj., BI, p. 298. On poetry dedicated to Knútr the Great see Judith
Jesch, ‘Knutr in Poetry and History’, in International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of
Gerd Wolfgang Weber, ed. by M. Dallapiazza and others (Trieste: Edizioni Parnaso, 2000), pp. 243–56.
45 Þórbjörn dísarskáld, a heroic poem (?), in Skj., BI, p. 135, l. 2.
46 Þórleifr járlsskáld, Drápa on Sveinn Forkbeard, in Skj., BI, p. 133.
47 Skapti Thóroddsson, in Skj, BI, p. 291; Markús Skeggjason, Kristsdrápa (?), in Skj., BI, p. 420.
101How Christian Were Viking Christians?
the Christian faith he is ‘to believe that Jesus Christ created heaven and earth and
all human beings’.48 This concept contradicted the Christian dogma in which the
creation of the world and human beings belonged to God the Father. On the one
hand, the transference of the creation function to Christ — within the framework
of Christian teaching — was necessitated by the fact that the figure of God the
Father was not widely known. On the other hand, in Scandinavian mythology the
same action was ascribed to the supreme god of the heathen pantheon, Odin. As
the sole god of the Christianized Vikings, Christ could acquire the function of the
creator of the world, thus combining similar Christian and heathen concepts.
Another characteristic of the Viking-Age Christ also reflected only in the elev-
enth century was the belief in Christ’s command over souls in the future life.
This idea gained wide acceptance in the eleventh-century texts on rune-stones.
In more than 300 inscriptions there appears a prayer ‘God (= Christ) / God and
God’s mother help his / her soul’.49 In several cases the formula is expanded: ‘God
(or: God and God’s mother) help his (or: her) soul better than he deserved’.50 As
a guardian of the world and mankind, Christ is obviously supposed to take care
of Christians not only in their earthly life but in their afterlife as well, choosing
whether or not to admit souls into paradise: ‘May God and God’s mother help
his spirit and soul, grant him light and paradise’ (U 160, early eleventh century),
‘May Christ let Tumme’s spirit come into light and paradise and into the world
best for Christians’ (U 719, late eleventh century).51 If the notion of Christ being
in charge of paradise emerged in the ‘pre-conversion period’, it might have been
paralleled with Odin as the owner of Valhalla, which was ‘the world best’ for the
warriors fallen in battles.
Exclusively Christian characteristics of Christ that could not be correlated
with heathen equivalents are hardly represented in sources even of the eleventh
century. Runic invocations never address Christ as the Saviour, nor do they reveal
any knowledge of the concept of redemption. Both notions were basic tenets of
Christianity in which Christ was first and foremost the Redeemer of the sins of
mankind as well as of individuals. It is only in one inscription that the idea of
sins finds expression: ‘May God help his spirit and soul and forgive him his guilt
and sins’ (U 323, early eleventh century) but it implies forgiveness and not re-
demption. The versatile complex of notions connected with the idea of salvation
therefore seems to be reduced to only one aspect: Christ’s ability to ensure that the
souls of the deceased are admitted to paradise.
48 Óláfs saga ins helga, ch. 215, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla II, ed. by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson,
Íslenzk fornrit, 27 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1979), pp. 369–70. Cf. ‘It is a great pity that
such a warrior does not believe in Christ, his creator’, ibid., ch. 200, p. 349.
49 Williams, ‘Runstenstexternas teologi’, pp. 292–96. See also Eric Segelberg, ‘God Help his Soul’, in
Ex orbe religionum, ed. by Jan Bergman and others (Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 161–76.
50 Åke Hyenstrand,‘”…bättre än han förtjänade”: En parentes om runstenar’, Tor, 15 (1972–73), 180–90.
51 The author of the latter text seems to be not quite sure about ‘the world best for Christians’ as he
separates it from paradise.
102 Elena Melnikova
Christ and heathen gods
Accepted as the god of the Christians, Christ could occupy different places in
the religious mind of Scandinavian neophytes. He could radically replace heathen
gods and become a single divine force, just as Rimbert describes in the case of
Herigar, Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld declares in the verses chronicling his own
conversion and saga-writers detail in their descriptions of the Icelanders Hjalti
Skegjason and Gizzur the White Teitsson who were active in the Christianization
of Iceland. However, such a final rejection of traditional gods sometimes took place
not without regret,52 which was more typical for the converts of the later part of the
pre-conversion period or for those who spent long periods in Christian countries
like Hakon the Good who was brought up by the English king Æthelstan,53 or
early Rus´ Varangian martyrs who lived permanently in Kiev, were baptized in
Constantinople and were sacrificed to the pagan gods in 983.54
In earlier stages of the Christianization process, Christ is thought to have been
appreciated as another god who could be included in the traditional pantheon. This
seems to have been the case with one of the first settlers in the northern quarter of
Iceland (c. 890), Helgi the Lean, whose ‘faith was very much mixed: he believed
in Christ but invoked Thor when it came to voyages and difficult times’. He must
have become acquainted with Christianity before coming to Iceland because he
‘believed in Christ and called his home after him’ — Kristness. At least one of his
sons might be also of ‘mixed faith’ if not a Christian. He obviously doubted the
belief in Thor, for when Thor’s ‘oracle guided him [Helgi] north of the island […]
Hrolf asked Helgi whether he was planning to sail to the Arctic Ocean if Thor told
him to go there’.55 In Hrolf’s opinion, unlike to Helgi’s, following Thor’s advice
was not obligatory, on the contrary, it might be absurd or even harmful. A similar
situation is attested in the letter of Pope Nicholas I to the Danish king Horic II a
quarter of a century earlier in 864; the Pope thanked Horic for gifts sent to St Peter
52 Hallfred, the skald of Olaf Tryggvason, acknowledged in his verses that his rejection of heathen gods
after the conversion evoked by his patron was a difficult choice. See Steinsland, ‘The Change of
Religion in the Nordic Countries’, pp. 131–32; Russel Poole, ‘The ‘Conversion Verse’ of Hallfreðr
vandræðaskáld’, Maal og Minne, 2002, no. 1, pp. 15–37. Cf. Paul Schach, ‘The Theme of the Reluctant
Christian in the Icelandic Sagas’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 81,2 (1982), 186–203.
53 Under the pressure of his heathen subjects he had to perform pagan rituals and was buried according
to the pagan ritual in a mound. See Sverre Bagge, ‘A Hero between Paganism and Christianity: Håkon
the Good in Memory and History’, in Poetic und Gedächtnis: Festschrift für Heiko Uecker zum 65.
Geburtstag, ed. by Karin Hoff and others (Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2004), pp. 185–207. Some
of the settlers in Iceland from England and Ireland who were Christians, such as Auð the Wise, were
buried in a similar way.
54 The Russian Primary Chronicle, ed. by Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzer, pp. 182–83. For more on the
Varangian martyrs, see Elena Melnikova, ‘Varangians and the Advance of Christianity to Rus in the
Ninth and Tenth Centuries’, in Från Byzans till Norden, pp. 119–24.
55 Landnámabók, in Íslendingabók. Landnámabók, ed. by Jakob Benediktsson, Íslenzk fornrit, 1
(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1968-86), pp. 250-53. English translation is from The Book
of Settlements: Landnámabók, trans. by Hermann Pálsson and P. Edwards (Winnipeg: University of
Manitoba Press, 1972), p. 97.
103How Christian Were Viking Christians?
and at the same time reproached him for worshipping idols.56 In the mid-tenth
century Hakon the Good secured the conversions of ‘the men who were dearest to
him; and many, out of friendship to him, allowed themselves to be baptized, and
some laid aside sacrifices’.57 Those who ‘laid aside sacrifices’ and whose number
is designated as sumir ‘some’, i.e. not very many, seem to accept the two main
provisions of Christianization, the belief in one God — Christ — and the rejection
of pagan gods, while others, though baptized, continued to worship traditional
gods together with Christ.
The reckoning of Christ among pagan gods or at least the belief in both is
supposed to find reflection in combination of symbols belonging to Christ —
a cross — and to Thor — a hammer. The Thor’s hammer from Lungås
(Västergötland) decorated with crosses has been interpreted by Anne-Sofie
Gräslund as an example of this mixed religious beliefs.58 The mixture of pagan
and Christian symbols characterize graffiti on an Islamic coin struck in 910–
30.59 On one side of the coin a large Thor’s hammer is carved in the centre with
a slightly smaller cross to the right. Below the cross there is an inscription in
much smaller runes: kuþ Goð. On the other side, a cross and the word kuþ are
inscribed near the edge of the coin. Two of the runes, ku, are placed between the
branches of the cross whereas the rune þ is located beneath them. It is not only the
combination of a Thor’s hammer and a cross on the coin that attracts attention; the
most interesting feature of this graffiti is the location of the word Goð. In various
forms (kuþ and guð in younger and older futhark) it occurs on many Islamic coins
found in Eastern Europe, on Gotland and in Eastern Sweden, but the question
always remained as to whether the word appealed to the Christian or pagan god
(the latter being most probably Thor, whose name was carved on several coins, in
two cases together with the word goð60 and whose symbol, the hammer, appeared
on about 150 coins).61 On the coin in question kuþ is obviously connected with
the cross, thus meaning Christ. The same combination of a cross and the word kuþ
appears on both sides of one Islamic coin from a Ukrainian hoard with the latest
coin struck in 954/5.62 A very specific case concerns a trapezoidal pendant found
in a burial in the Rozhdestvenskij necropolis (the Perm’ region, Russia) with a
Rurikid symbol on one side and a Thor’s hammer with its handle in the shape of
56 Wood, ‘Christians and Pagans’, p. 49 and note 80. Adam of Bremen thought that Horic II was a Chris tian:
Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, 1. 25 [27] and 1. 29 [31], ed. by Schmeidler, pp. 31 and 35.
57 Hakonar saga góða, ch. 13, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla I, ed. by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Íslenzk
fornrit, 26 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1979), pp. 168–69.
58 Gräslund, ‘Pagan and Christian’, p. 82.
59 Inger Hammarberg and Gerd Rispling, ‘Graffiter på vikingatida mynt’, Hikuin, 11 (1985), pp. 74–75.
For the description of the coin, see Igor Dubov, Igor Dobrovolskii, and Iurii Kuzmenko, Graffiti na
vostochnykh monetakh (Leningrad, 1991), p. 185, no. 422.
60 Hammarberg and Rispling, ‘Graffiter’, p. 71, nos. 16 and 32.
61 Elena Melnikova, The Eastern World of the Vikings (Gothenburg, 1996), p. 86; ead., Skandinavskie
runicheskie nadpisi: Novye nakhodki i interpretatsii (Moscow, 2001), pp. 107–8.
62 Melnikova, Skandinavskie runicheskie nadpisi, p. 151, no. 18.1.
104 Elena Melnikova
the handle of a sword.63 About twenty trapezoidal pendants with Rurikid symbols
are known in the territory of Rus´ and they have been interpreted as a form of
credentials for the emissaries of Rus´ great princes.64 The Rurikid symbol on the
pendant from Rozhdestvenskij necropolis is identified as belonging to Volodimer
the Great who was baptized and decreed Christianity the official religion of Rus´
in 988. The burial is dated to the turn of the tenth / early eleventh centuries, so the
pendant must have been produced, or at least employed after, the Conversion. The
representation of a Thor’s hammer on it points to the actuality of heathen symbols
(and consequently beliefs) among the already Christianized elite of early Rus´.
The practice of combining baptism and heathen beliefs with or without the
inclusion of Christ in the pantheon was a widespread phenomenon for practical
purposes. In the 890s the Arabic writer Ibn Khurradadhbih mentioned that the
merchants of ar-Rūs claimed to be Christians in order not to pay taxes. He doubted
their Christianity but perhaps without justification, for Scandinavian merchants
in Bagdad could be baptized and consider themselves Christians without being
prevented from worshipping pagan gods. A highly tolerant attitude to such
situations is attested in Egils saga:
England was thoroughly Christian in faith, and had long been so, when these
things happened. King Athelstan was a good Christian; he was called Athelstan
the Faithful. The king asked Thorolf and his brother to consent to take the
first signing with the cross, for this was then a common custom both with
merchants and those who took soldiers’ pay in Christian armies, since those
who were ‘prime-signed’ (as ‘twas termed) could hold all intercourse with
Christians and heathens alike, while retaining the faith which was most to their
mind. Thorolf and Egil did this at the king’s request, and both let themselves
be prime-signed.65
In Icelandic sagas written after the twelfth century, the rite of primo signatio is
mentioned more than once in contexts similar to the episode quoted above, while
Rimbert tells of a great number of citizens of Hedeby who were ‘willingly signed
with the cross in order to become catechumens’.66 The Frankish and Anglo-Saxon
annals and chronicles, however, refer to Viking ‘baptisms’ that, if they are described
in detail, are presented as baptismal and not prime-signing procedures.67 In spite
63 Natalia B. Krylasova, ‘Podveska so znakom Riurikovichei iz Rozdestvenskogo mogilnika’, Rossiiskaia
arkheologiia, 1995, no. 2, 192–97.
64 Arkadii A. Molchanov ‘Podveski so znakami Riurikovichei i proiskhozdenie drevnerusskoi bully’,
Vspomogatelnye istoricheskie distsipliny, 7 (1976), 69–91.
65 Egils saga, trans. by W. C. Green (London: Elliot Sock, 1893), p. 88.
66 Rimbert, Vita Ansgarii, 24, pp. 52–53.
67 For general discussion of the problem of prime-signing which I can not discuss here, see Sandholm
Åke, Primsigningsriter under nordisk Medeltid (Åbo, 1965), esp. pp. 23–47; and Else Mundal, ‘Prima
signatio’, in The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010),
pp. 1357–58.
105How Christian Were Viking Christians?
of Rimbert’s explanation of their preference of prime-signing to baptism, which
implies that they made a deliberate choice, it is difficult to say to what extent the dif-
ference between the two rites was realised. In any case, both the prime-signing and
the baptism did not exclude ‘belief in Christ and praying to Thor’ at the same time.
Conclusion
The newly baptized Vikings’ knowledge of Christian teaching seems to have
been very limited in the eighth to tenth centuries. It was deliberately simplified by
preachers and missionaries for the converts to be able to grasp at least some no tions
that were the core of the Christian faith. The first and the most vital was the notion
of a single Christian god — Christ — which had to replace a variety of pagan gods
in the minds of the new converts. However, the way in which the baptized Vikings
of the pre-conversion period interpreted Christ differed radically from the way in
which he was viewed in the established Christian world. Christ was a triumphant
and mighty ruler of heavens, earth and mankind, the warder of Christians and the
guardian of Rome and Byzantium, the two sources of Christian faith. He was also
thought as the master of Paradise. His appreciation seems to have been influenced
to a large extent by heathen traditional beliefs. Like Odin, he was regarded as
the creator of the world and human beings, considered responsible for bestowing
victory and good luck on the warrior lords whom he was said to resemble in terms
of their relationship with their retinue.68
Other Christian personages and concepts seem to be absorbed much later as
they are mentioned only in sources from the late tenth and eleventh centuries,
even then in simplified terms.
The veneration of the Virgin Mary is not directly attested in sources before
the Conversion. According to Snorri Sturluson, Hakon the Good proclaimed the
following rules for converts when he attempted to introduce Christianity into
Norway: ‘they should believe in one God, Christ the son of Mary, and refrain from
all sacrifices and heathen gods; and should keep holy the seventh day, and abstain
from all work on it, and keep a fast on the seventh day’.69 These rules reflect the
traditional concept of Christ as the only God of the Christians and include the
demand to repudiate sacrifices and worship of heathen gods. The information
about the observance of holy days and weekly fasts may well have been Snorri’s
own addition, but equally it might have stemmed from the tradition about Hakon
who was brought up in Christian England and could learn the Christian customs,
68 See the description of Thor as a ‘heaven’s ruler’ (himnisjóli) by Eilífr Goðrúnarson (late tenth century)
in his Þórsdrápa (Skj. BI, p. 141, l. 9). Edith Marold briefly discusses three instances in skaldic poetry
where similar praise is used in reference to Thor, and considers the possible influence of Christian
liturgy: Edith Marold, ‘Die Skaldendichtung als Quelle der Religionsgeschichte’, in Germanische
Religionsgeschichte: Quellen und Quellenprobleme, ed. by Heinrich Beck and others (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1992), pp. 689–90.
69 Hákonar saga góða, ch. 15, ed. by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, pp. 169–70.
106 Elena Melnikova
especially as these two specific prohibitions were part of Christian law.70 The same
may be true of the mention of Mary, but her veneration was widespread both in
Western Europe and Byzantium long before it flourished in Europe in the eleventh
century71 and became known to the baptized Vikings. Nevertheless, the use of her
image seems to be limited to only one of her multiple functions, namely her role
as the Mother of Christ. Her name appears in invocations on thirty-four ‘Christian’
runic stones, always in the formula ‘God and God’s Mother help his/her soul’.72
There are no invocations solely to Mary and quite a number of stones with this
formula are erected by or for women.73 The veneration of the Virgin probably did
not have much appeal to the Vikings with their warrior culture and mentality and
it found wider response among women, who, broadly speaking, have always been
considered to be more willing recipients of Christianity.74 Whether by women or
men, Mary was venerated not as an independent saint but only as the mother of
the Christian God, even in the eleventh century.
It seems that more abstract ideas began to permeate the minds of the Vikings
mostly when they could be correlated with heathen concepts. Christian eschatologi-
cal ideas were very vague and based on the belief of the existence of afterlife of the
soul as reflected in the prayer of Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld for the soul of Olaf Tryg-
gvason: ‘may the spotless Christ have the wise king’s soul, above the world’.75 The
existence of the concept of paradise is witnessed by several eleventh century runic
stones.76 This paradise, however, seems to be imagined as a brightly lit place (cf. the
combination of notions of light and paradise in the above-cited runic inscriptions)
and governed by Christ. Even at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the
Norwegian Homily Book described paradise in the most primitive way by contrast-
ing it with the hell, for while hell was a gruesome location, paradise was a good
place to be.77 This definition echoes the inscription on an eleventh-century rune
stone where paradise is defined as the ‘world best for Christians’. To reach paradise
it seems to have been enough to be simply a Christian, though later clerics insisted
on the observance of moral prohibitions. None of these ideas were an utter novelty
for the Vikings; Scandinavian heathenism developed a highly elaborate concept of
the afterlife with a multitude of other worlds. For these converts, therefore, the dif-
70 Bagge, ‘A Hero between Paganism and Christianity’, pp. 185–207.
71 On the spread of the cult of the Virgin Mary in Medieval Europe, see Marie: Le culte de la Vierge dans
la sociéte médièvale, ed. by D. Iogna-Prat and others (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996).
72 The number of rune stones with a prayer to God’s mother is taken from Gräslund, ‘Pagan and Christian’,
p. 92.
73 Anne-Sofie Gräslund, ‘Kristnandet ur ett kvinnoperspektiv’, in Kristnandet i Sverige, ed. by Bertil
Nilsson, pp. 313–34.
74 Birgit Sawyer, ‘Women and the Conversion of Scandinavia’, in Frauen in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter,
ed. by Werner Affeldt (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1990), pp. 263–81.
75 Skj. BI, p. 157; Edwards, ‘Christian and Pagan References’, p. 39.
76 See above.
77 Gamal norsk homiliebok: Cod. AM 619 4o, ed. by G. Indrebø (Oslo: Dybwad, 1931). See Edwards,
‘Christian and Pagan References’, p. 182.
107How Christian Were Viking Christians?
ference between this previous system of belief and Christianity was simply a case
of reinterpreting these concepts. The concept of a physical life after death in another
world was substituted with the idea of the afterlife of a soul, although it is unclear
in what way the idea of the soul was understood. Various other worlds such as
Valhalla, Hel, as well as less well-defined places such as the green meadow or the
abode of Freya, found close counterparts in the Christian concepts of paradise and
hell.78 Sophisticated notions of Christian theology were thus reduced to their most
general kernels, which turned out to be similar to heathen beliefs. Those Christian
concepts that had counterparts in Scandinavian traditional culture and mythology,
however approximate, seem to have been adopted rather easily, whereas the notions
that were absolutely alien to Scandinavians — such as that of the Trinity or salva-
tion — were commonly ignored.
It is usually stressed that Scandinavian heathenism underwent interpre-
tatio Christiana before being absorbed by Christianity.79 This is true when
we speak of the religious situation in the eleventh century and beyond,80 but
this interpretation seems to be an incorrect one when we turn to the earlier
period,81 when the Vikings were only just starting to become familiar with
Christianity. The representation of Christ as a konung and his endowment with
the qualities and functions of a warrior overlord was one way in which tradi-
tional and Christian concepts were able to interact, which at the early stages
led to the reinterpretation of new notions and images in terms of Norse culture
and in accordance with existing models of Scandinavian mythology. This was
the time of the ‘appropriation of Christianity’,82 and of interpretatio norræna83
of Christian theology.
78 A scholarly emphasis on how Christian theology influenced heathen concepts of the afterlife and other
worlds as they are presented in thirteenth-century sources seems justified, but the original similarities
should be taken into account as well.
79 As one of the latest expressions of these views, see Williams, ‘Runstentexternas teologi’.
80 Surely already at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries there were individuals
familiar with Christian theology like Hallfredr vandræðaskáld and Sighvat Thordarson, the skalds of
the Norwegian missionary kings Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson (see Bjarne Fidjestøl, ‘The
Contribution of Scaldic Studies’, in Viking Revaluations, ed. by Anthony Faulkes and Richard Perkins
(London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1993), pp. 110–120), just as there were genuine
Christians having fully rejected heathendom like Rimbert’s Herigar. However, such cases seem to be
the exceptions rather than the rule.
81 New archaeological finds seem to suggest that a more profound penetration of Christian ideas can
be dated to the middle of the tenth century. A number of examples point to the existence of Christian
communes, such as the isolation of specially enclosed parts in the necropolis of Birka (Gräslund,
‘Pagan and Christian’, p. 91), discoveries of Christian graveyards in Veøy in Romsdal (Norway) from
c. 950 and in Sebbersund and a royal port or proto-town by Limfjord with a small church c. 1000
(Stefan Brink, ‘New Perspectives on the Christianization of Scandinavia and the Organization of the
Early Church’, in Scandinavia and Europe 800–1350: Contact, Conflict and Co-Existence, ed. by
Jonathan Adams and Katherine Holman (Turnhout; Brepols, 2004), pp. 163–75 (p. 166)).
82 The term was introduced by Gräslund, ‘Pagan and Christian’, p. 81; see also Steinsland, ‘The Change
of Religion in the Nordic Countries’, p. 127.
83 Сf. ‘interpretatio Scandinavica’ in Sanmark, Power and Conversion, p. 96.
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| id | nasplib_isofts_kiev_ua-123456789-191071 |
| institution | Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
| issn | 1995-0276 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-12-07T15:52:50Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| publisher | Інститут історії України НАН України |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | Melnikova, E. 2023-06-26T13:03:03Z 2023-06-26T13:03:03Z 2011 How Christian Were Viking Christians? / E. Melnikova // Ruthenica. — 2011. — Supplementum 4. — С. 90-107. — Бібліогр.: 83 назв. — англ. 1995-0276 https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/191071 en Інститут історії України НАН України Ruthenica How Christian Were Viking Christians? Article published earlier |
| spellingShingle | How Christian Were Viking Christians? Melnikova, E. |
| title | How Christian Were Viking Christians? |
| title_full | How Christian Were Viking Christians? |
| title_fullStr | How Christian Were Viking Christians? |
| title_full_unstemmed | How Christian Were Viking Christians? |
| title_short | How Christian Were Viking Christians? |
| title_sort | how christian were viking christians? |
| url | https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/191071 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT melnikovae howchristianwerevikingchristians |