Viking Age, with a consolidation in the early Middle Ages, and is probably the
most dynamic period in our history. We are dealing with a ‘top–down’ process, where
first kings and chieftains adopted the new religion and Continental culture, which,
eventually, trickled down in society over time.
To exemplify we can study the Norwegian kings Óláfr Tryggvason and Óláfr Har-
aldsson. The former was a youth of royal lineage (of which there were several in Norway
at that time). He had been on the Continent and in England and made himself quite a
reputation and wealth as a mercenary. He also had been baptised in England. That was
the smart way for a pretender to get access to a throne, so that he could come back home
and claim power and the kingship. These youngsters had on their journeys of course
watched and understood how to be and act as a king by the grace of God, also that the
Church was an important ally for a kingdom, and that the document-based church
administration was unsurpassed and utterly useful to rule and administer a kingdom.
Óláfr Tryggvason returned home to Norway at the end of the 990 s and managed to be
accepted as king, first in Trøndelag, then in the rest of Norway. In the early historical
tradition King Óláfr is considered the one who Christianised Norway. The Icelandic
medieval historian Ári froði wrote in his Íslendingabók that Óláfr Christianised Norway
as well as Iceland, and in Ágrip one can read that ‘the five years he carried the king’s
name in Norway, he Christianised five countries: Norway and Iceland and Hjáltland
[Shetland], Orkney and fifth the Faroes’.
Óláfr Haraldsson had a similar background and journey to the crown. Thus, he had
been down to the Continent and offered his services as a warrior to different kings in
their battles, and thereby accrued reputation and wealth. Also he was baptised, accord-
ing to tradition in Rouen in France. After a famous battle at Nesjar, where he defeated
Svein jarl and an army from Trøndelag, he could proclaim himself king of Norway.
Mirroring the Continental kings, Óláfr had by his side an (probably) English clergyman,
Grímkell, who functioned as his court bishop and personal counsellor. In Sweden the
situation was probably similar to that in Norway at this period. One example is King
Emund the Old, who in the mid-eleventh century had a bishop, Osmund, by his side.
A central figure in the traditional historiography of the Christianisation of Scandina-
via is Ansgar, the first archbishop in Hamburg–Bremen’s archdiocese. He has been given
the epithet ‘the apostle of Scandinavia’. This monk of the Benedictine order followed in
827 the Danish king Harald Klak to Denmark, an occasion which traditionally is seen as
the beginning of the Christianisation of Denmark. However, in Vita Ansgarii we read
that Harald, Ansgar and his follower Autbert reached the ‘confina’ of the Danes, hence
approximately ‘border zone’ and not ‘country’ or ‘kingdom’, and furthermore that
Harald did not dare to be in Denmark due to struggle and fighting there, and therefore
he had received the peninsula Rüstringen as a county and ‘asylum’ from Emperor Louis
the Pious. Ansgar’s journey seems hence not to have resulted in any deeper religious
impact on Danish society. Ansgar was perhaps more successful with the Danish king
Horik I, when a church was erected and a priest placed at Hedeby(Haithabu)/Schleswig.
Under the reign of King Horik II another church was established in the town of Ribe. It
is however to be noted that neither of these kings was willing to be baptised.
Ansgar played a special role in the Swedish Christianisation tradition. According to
this, some envoys, sent out by the Swedes, came to Louis the Pious in Germany and said
that many people (gentes) among them wished to become Christian (the story has already
become improbable here!), and that their king would be glad if priests could be sent to
–– chapter 45 : Christianisation and the early Church––