where would Christianity be without the Vikings?

[hallow]

The Vikings played a major roll in the spread of Christianity. Where would Christianity be without them?

[Maisy]

I think the exact same place. My opinion is the Vikings were converted in existing Christian areas so to me they were not really "spreading" the religion themselves. I think they did help strengthen it though in some areas when they stopped fighting it.

An interesting bit of history is in the early Viking Age, Viking traders noted that they suffered losses in trade contracts and deals because the other party was Christian. Christian traders tended to give more business and better deals to other Christians, discriminating against pagans and Muslims. A Viking trader might then wear a cross when he was among Christians only to change it back to his usual Thor’s hammer upon returning home. As long as the Viking trader wasn’t baptized, he could practice both religions, a common practice in Scandinavia for the next few centuries.

It was also common in some places and times for Vikings to worship Jesus, Odin, and Thor at the same time.

[sky]

With or without the Vikings Christianity would have flourished. I live very close to a Viking Settlement (10 Mins walk). A complete Viking Ship was found there whilst digging to build a new road. Still standing in situ is a Boundry Stone dating from 925, it is a large Cross ....
A five mins walk from this Cross there's an Anglican Church which contains a Viking Redstone Font, how it got there is a mystery and still hasn't been solved... It is still used today for Baptisms.

[hallow]

Originally Posted by Maisy

It was also common in some places and times for Vikings to worship Jesus, Odin, and Thor at the same time.

I have read the exact same thing. Makes sense to me. Started as a marketing strategy and then they started to follow???
I have also read there worrier and looting skills played a large part in funding Christian campaigns.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by sky

Still standing in situ is a Boundry Stone dating from 925, it is a large Cross ....
A five mins walk from this Cross there's an Anglican Church which contains a Viking Redstone Font, how it got there is a mystery and still hasn't been solved... It is still used today for Baptisms.

Gosforth Cross and St. Mary's Church.

[sky]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

Gosforth Cross and St. Mary's Church.

Yes thats another John, I've actually seen that in Cumbria, it's amazing. The Redstone Font is a mystery I'd like to know more about but up to now nobody's been able to come up with a plausable idea to how it ended up in the Church....

[hallow]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

Gosforth Cross and St. Mary's Church.

love this kind of history lesson, before I knew nothing about the gosforth cross, so I looked it up, it's cool. Hope people keep talking about things like this.

[Altair]

The ''Vikings'' were only a small part of the world. Christianity spread in different directions..
Christianity would have spread to Scandinavia anyway, with or without Viking raids. Christianity had the advantage of a written language ((superior to runes and word of mouth)), knowledge from 'the south', and was of course by geography and history associated with that knowledge and the wealth ((Rome)) of the south. Over time it became advantageous for rulers to align with all of that, and eventually it became dominant among the populace.

[sky]

For those interested, you can actually check if your Ancestors are descended from Vikings by their Surnames.....
I have 3% Nordic DNA inherited from my Maternal Irish Ancestors who all have Surnames adapted from Viking names and flourished in the area of Dublin.... They were all staunch Roman Catholics.

[hallow]

Originally Posted by Altair

The ''Vikings'' were only a small part of the world. Christianity spread in different directions..
Christianity would have spread to Scandinavia anyway, with or without Viking raids. Christianity had the advantage of a written language

. During this time much of the population couldn't read, so written language didn't do much good anyway. So people still would depend on "storytelling". For some force was used to get people to convert. We still see this today, I call it holy wars. For example of you didn't convert and remained pagan or wiccan you could easily be considered a witch and Lynched or burned at the stake. That was very common in early American history. Funny, early American settlers came for religious freedom only to be faced with that. Glad things are different now! One nation under god meaning Christianity and religious freedom somehow doesn't seem to go together very well. I am not knocking anything, like I said I am glad things are at least a little better now.