Christianization of Scandinavia
History of
Scandinavia
• Stone Age
• Bronze Age
• Viking Age
• Christianization
• Kalmar Union
• Great Northern War
• Monetary Union
• Defence Union
• Nordic Council
The christian cross from the Frösö Rune-
stone, symbolizing the Christianization of
Jämtland
The Christianization of Scandinavia
took place between the 8th and the 12th cen-
tury. The realms of Scandinavia proper, Den-
mark, Norway and Sweden, established their
own Archdioceses, responsible directly to the
Pope, in 1104, 1154 and 1164, respectively.
The conversion to Christianity of the Scand-
inavian people would require more time,
since it took additional efforts to establish a
network of churches. The Samis remained
unconverted until the 18th century.
In fact, although the Scandinavians be-
came nominally Christian, it took consider-
ably longer for actual Christian beliefs to es-
tablish themselves among the people.[1] The
old indigenous traditions that had provided
security and structure since time immemorial
were challenged by ideas that were unfamili-
ar, such as original sin, the Incarnation, and
the Trinity.[1] Archaeological excavations of
burial sites on the island of Lovön near
modern-day Stockholm have shown that the
actual Christianization of the people was very
slow and took at least 150-200 years,[2] and
this was a very central
location in the
Swedish kingdom. Thirteenth century runic
inscriptions from the bustling merchant town
of Bergen in Norway show little Christian in-
fluence, and one of them appeals to a
Valkyrie.[3] At this time, enough knowledge
of Norse mythology remained to be pre-
served in sources such as the Eddas in
Iceland.
It may be a sign of the slowness of the
conversion that many elements of the old
faith, even several of the gods, remained part
of Scandinavian folklore until modern times.
Moreover, during the early Middle Ages
the papacy had not yet manifested itself as
the central Catholic authority, so that region-
al variants of Christianity could develop.[4]
Since the image of a