SOURCE: Karras, Ruth Mazo. “God and Man in Medieval Scandinavia: Writing—and Gendering—the Conversion.” In Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages, edited by James Muldoon, pp. 100-14. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

[In the following essay, Karras examines how three thirteenth-century works—the Gesta Danorum, the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson, and Njal's Saga—differ in their accounts of the history of paganism and the advent of Christianity.]

Stories of individual conversions are usually written by the subjects themselves. Such accounts tell us what they experienced and how they interpreted that experience—at least as much of it as they choose to reveal. Stories of the conversions of peoples, however, cannot be written by their subjects. Even if one member of the group in question writes the story, that one person is interpreting the experiences of others. More usually the writer is a contemporary outsider—the missionary rather than the converted—or a group member from a later generation, who has not personally undergone the conversion. These stories do not recount the experiences of their subjects but rather their retellers' visions of those experiences. This pattern is particularly apparent in the spread of Christianity across Europe. Many of the converted peoples did not acquire writing until after their conversion and integration into the international community of Christendom. Hence whatever stories they may have told about their own conversion, the versions that have come down to us are either later or are written by outsiders. What we have, then, are stories of the replacement of paganism by Christianity, written by men who were Christians all their lives and who never knew paganism at first hand.

The conversion of the Scandinavian countries—Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland—to Christianity took place over the course of the tenth and early eleventh centuries (there were earlier efforts as well, but these had little lasting effect).¹ While there are a few contemporary accounts, the greatest literary monuments describing the process date from the thirteenth century.² Scholars have attempted to use these late accounts to determine the nature of pagan belief as well as the converts' understanding of the Christianity they accepted.³ What these accounts really tell us, however, is how the thirteenth-century authors constructed their own version of early Christianity and the paganism that preceded it.⁴ I will explore this question by examining three texts: Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum, Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, and Njal's Saga, an Icelandic family saga.⁵

These accounts create an image of the conversion as the choice by a small group of elite men of one set of beliefs over another. Christianity and paganism were more or less interchangeable: there was no major qualitative difference between the two sets of beliefs. Conversion represented a transfer of loyalty, not an inner transformation, and as such was a matter for men. Women were not significant as political actors in the texts describing the conversion, and therefore their allegiance did not matter to the same degree. I do not propose to discuss here how well this representation fits the actual circumstances of the conversion; rather, I shall focus on its meaning for the authors' own society.⁶

None of these authors was writing a story to stand alone as a conversion narrative. All the passages discussed are part of larger stories, and the authors all had larger purposes in writing. Saxo's account of early Christianity in Denmark, written in part as a reaction to Adam of Bremen, “tries to undermine the claims of the church of Hamburg-Bremen and to justify the superiority of the Danish over the Swedish church.”⁷ Snorri's Heimskringla is fundamentally concerned with royal power; his presentation of Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson as somewhat brutal in their methods may be a criticism of the kings of his own day and their centralizing tendencies.⁸ He renders the changes in religious allegiance as being of the same kind and quality as changes in political allegiance.⁹ The overall theme of Njal's Saga has been variously interpreted and it is not necessary to discuss it here; suffice it to say that even if we accept that the story is a Christian one, of the triumph of humility and of reconciliation over the pagan virtues, the conversion episode contributes to that theme mainly by setting the historical context and allowing Njal's virtue to be highlighted even before the conversion itself.¹⁰ It also—though not as much as some other Icelandic sources—takes the emphasis off Olaf Tryggvason as converter of the Icelanders and places it on their own activities.¹¹ It is a collective decision they make for themselves, not one imposed on them from outside by a Norwegian bully.

All of the three sources discussed here treat conversion as a moment rather than a process. In Snorri's account of Norway, the conversion happens over the course of two reigns, little by little; but for each group that accepts Christ, it is still a moment. Conversion is equivalent to the granting of allegiance. Of course, the country could hardly be called fully Christian for a long time afterward; the customs and aspects of daily life related to paganism were only gradually supplanted, as an institutional church hierarchy was established and began educational efforts.¹² Nevertheless, for these authors it is the act of acceptance of Christianity that matters. It is always possible to present conversion as a single moment when it is the conversion of a nation through its leader. The principle of cuius regio eius religio was grasped, although not enunciated, in the Middle Ages. The extent to which Scandinavia was in fact converted from the top down may have been exaggerated by these writers.¹³ Nevertheless that is clearly how they present it. Missionaries direct their efforts at nations, and when they do concentrate on individuals it is on kings, who can presumably bring their nations with them. Conversion of a country is undertaken through royal power (or in the case of Iceland through a collective decision, prompted perhaps by Norwegian royal power).¹⁴

The understanding of the conversion as presented in these texts in relation to royal power, I argue here, explains two important features of the Scandinavian conversion narratives: their relatively relaxed or noncondemnatory attitude toward pre-Christian religion (as compared to texts from other regions), and the lack of importance accorded to women in the conversion process.

Saxo Grammaticus's laconic account of the initial conversion of the Danes makes no reference to any inner process of spiritual change; conversion for Harald Gormsson involves joining the Christian community (consortium catholicae religionis).¹⁵ Harald around 960 “came to an agreement with Caesar [the German emperor, who was threatening Jutland], embraced the fellowship of the Catholic religion and gave his kingdom peace by means of a spiritual and a secular concord.”¹⁶ Saxo implies that Harald's conversion entailed at least the nominal conversion of his people, though some opposed him “both because he favoured the worship of God, and also because he was imposing unprecedented burdens on the people.”¹⁷ Harald's son Svein returned the kingdom to paganism. The tenth-century Danes, to Saxo, were not basically good people eager for the Christian truth, nor were they devoted to paganism; they were fairly flexible, depending on the wishes of their king.

In contrast to his father, Svein Haraldsson seems to Saxo to have undergone a more personal conversion experience, but this did not apply to his people. After a defeat by the Swedish king Eirik and rejection by potential allies, Svein despaired and called to God out of the depths: “the veil of darkness was torn from his eyes, and he gazed upon the light of salvation.” Svein was baptized and returned to his kingdom. He did not publicly reveal his conversion, however, fearing “the people's vindication of their religious practises.” Eventually he called in a priest named Poppo, who by performing a miracle persuaded the Danes to accept baptism. Poppo placed his hand in a glove of red-hot iron and removed it unscathed.¹⁸ The Danes accepted Christianity as the truth, but again Saxo fails to indicate what it was they were accepting: there is no reference to any doctrine being preached to them at all. They accepted the superior power of the Christian God without knowing anything about him or undergoing any spiritual transformation.

Although Saxo's description of the conversion of the Danes indicates merely a decision to assent to Christianity, as expressed through baptism, Saxo himself does not question the validity of this kind of conversion. In the case of Norway, by contrast, he calls into question the sincerity of the conversion, whether it amounted to “true holiness.” Olaf Tryggvason, the Norwegian king, “was so given up to the taking of auspices and the noting of omens that, even after he had been immersed in the waters of baptism and had imbibed the rudiments of religious discipline, he could not be prevented either by pious example or by authoritative teaching from heeding the admonitions of augurs, and learning the future from wizards. Thus he was void of true holiness, and merely adopted its empty shadow, blighting his professed religion with a ‘superstitious cast’.”¹⁹ Saxo is anti-Norwegian in this section; Icelandic sources give a very different picture of Olaf Tryggvason.²⁰

The more detailed accounts of the conversion of Norway found in the sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson (St. Olaf) in the Icelander Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla (History of the Norwegian Kings), highly literary reworkings of earlier accounts, present a similar vision of conversion as a deliberate choice rather than a spiritual experience.²¹ In the failed conversion of the Norwegian Earl Hakon, the Dane Harald “forced the earl to accept baptism.” Hakon, however, as soon as he was out of Harald's reach, made a great sacrifice to Odin for victory in battle in Sweden.²² It is clear that Snorri does not consider baptism to be entirely the equivalent of conversion, though he does in some sense consider Hakon to have accepted Christianity at least temporarily, since he says that Hakon “renounced” it (kastat).²³ Snorri does not condemn the renunciation. When Hakon died, it was because it was time for the passing of the old ways.²⁴ His un-Christian life led to an evil end (in a pigsty with a slave), but Snorri finds much to admire in the earl and does not editorialize about his fall from grace; he became Christian as a political choice (or necessity).

Perhaps because Snorri, like other Icelanders, credited Olaf Tryggvason with the conversion of Iceland, he represents Olaf as coming to Christianity not through force or political calculation but because of true belief in its efficacy. While harrying in the Scilly Isles, Snorri recounts, Olaf met a wise hermit.²⁵ Olaf heard the hermit prophesy about his future and came to believe him because one part of the prophecy was immediately fulfilled.²⁶

While Snorri presents Olaf's acceptance of Christianity as based on persuasion, knowledge, and understanding, not political advantage, his conversion of others is not as peaceful or as internalized. Snorri depicts him as apostle to the Orkneys: “And when the earl came it was not long before the king commanded him to accept baptism, together with all his people, or else suffer death at once; and the king said he would devastate the islands with fire and flame, and lay the land waste unless the people accepted baptism. And seeing the pinch he was in, the earl chose to be baptized.”²⁷ Olaf's methods in Norway were not much different, beginning in 996 after he was accepted king over all of Norway. He called a council and asked his kinsmen to help him spread the Gospel. “Very soon King Óláf made it clear to all the people that he would proclaim Christianity in all his realm … but those who spoke against it he punished severely, killing some, maiming others or driving them out of the country.”²⁸ He pursued similar policies in other provinces, “and wherever he assembled with the farmers he ordered all to be baptized, and all accepted Christianity, because no one among the farmers dared to rebel against the king; so people were baptized wherever he came.”²⁹

Although Snorri makes clear that both the magnates and the farmers accepted Christianity (which he equates with accepting baptism) solely through force, he never doubts the thoroughness or efficacy of that acceptance. For Snorri, once the acceptance is made, they are Christian; they may relapse into paganism, but that does not mean they were not Christian for a time. Their religious affiliation is not a matter of interior belief but a matter of to whom they have given their loyalty at a particular moment.

In Snorri's account, God helps Olaf out with miracles, yet these miracles do not demonstrate the power or truth of the Christian faith but rather prevent anyone from opposing it. God's assistance to Olaf in this conversion process does not extend to changing hearts and minds but only to determining the political conditions. At an assembly of farmers in Rogaland, the farmers choose a representative to speak against the king, but he is taken with a coughing fit; a second stammers and a third becomes hoarse. The farmers agree to be baptized.³⁰

In Snorri's rendering the conversion of Norway is an instrument of royal policy rather than a result of divine inspiration. His account of the conversion as an inexorable progress is much more systematic than that of the major source he used and reworked.³¹ In another district Olaf persuaded one of the leading men to accept Christianity by giving the man his sister in marriage; the brother-in-law then convinced the rest of the men of the district. At Mærin he destroyed idols of Thor and other gods. Elsewhere the threat of force was sufficient, although sometimes the king did not succeed at first and had to call in reinforcements.³²

To Snorri, placing one's faith in a god is a matter of choice, as can be seen in an account of one of Olaf's failed conversions. Olaf tortured Eyvind Kinnrifa by placing a basin full of hot coals on his belly. Eyvind eventually revealed that he was not human but an evil spirit conjured up by sorcery. Only such a one would be so unreasonable as to reject Olaf's wishes. As Eyvind was dying of a burst belly, Oláf asked him, “Will you now believe [trúa] in Christ?”³³Trúa implies the placing of trust or the making of an alliance, not belief in the sense of being convinced something is true. In the saga of St. Olaf, Gauka-Thorir agreed to baptism in this way: “If I am to believe in some god, what difference is it to me whether I believe in the White Christ or some other god? So now it is my advice that we let ourselves be baptized if the king thinks that it is of such great importance.”³⁴ As Snorri depicts conversion, it is a matter of shifting allegiance, not of internal faith.

Allegiance, in Snorri's writings, is a matter for men, which explains why his vision of conversion mentions women so little. Another failed convert was Queen Sigrid the Haughty of Sweden, with whom Olaf was negotiating a marriage treaty. He demanded that she “be baptized and accept the true faith.” She declined “to abandon the faith I have had, and my kinsmen before me,” although she did not object to her husband being a Christian. Olaf became angry, called her “dog of a heathen,” and slapped her. She threatened that this might result in his death, a bit of foreshadowing typical of Snorri and other Icelandic writers.³⁵ As one of the few women to appear in these conversion narratives, Sigrid is cast in a clearly negative role: she was the enemy of the true faith. Her choice of paganism, however, arose not from a belief that the old religion was true and the new one false but rather from the traditions of her dynasty. For her too, the change of faith is a change of allegiance. As a queen, she is one of the few women who is involved in the system of loyalty and allegiance, and therefore one of the few for whom conversion appears as an issue.

Snorri describes circumstances following Olaf's Christianization of Norway that may make a modern reader question the depth of that conversion, but he himself does not cast doubt upon it. After Olaf's death, the earls governing Norway “were both baptized and accepted the true faith; but during the time they ruled over Norway they let everyone do as he pleased about the keeping of Christianity.”³⁶ And in 1016 when Olaf Tryggvason's godson, King Olaf Haraldsson (later St. Olaf), began to tour the country, “in nearly all settlements along the seashore people were baptized, although most of them were ignorant of the Christian commandments; but in the remote valleys and the mountain settlements people were for the most part altogether heathen; because whenever people were allowed to do as they pleased, the faith which they had learned in childhood became fixed in their minds.” St. Olaf held meetings at which “he had the Christian laws read and also the commandments that went with them,” something Olaf Tryggvason is never depicted as doing.³⁷

That Snorri describes such a superficial Christianization, yet still considers Olaf Tryggvason responsible for much of the conversion of Norway, means that he considers the acceptance of baptism, not a thorough program of education and of Christianization of daily life, to constitute that conversion. Many of his descriptions of Olaf Haraldsson's (St. Olaf's) conversion of different parts of the country follow the same pattern as Olaf Tryggvason's.³⁸

Snorri's account of Olaf Haraldsson reveals that he sees the pagan reaction to conversion as a matter of loyalty rather than one of faith. In the Dales, Dala-Gudbrand (Gulbrasnd of the Dales) opposed Olaf, claiming that his god was more powerful than Olaf's, who could not be seen, and demanded that Olaf's god keep it from raining the following day. God obligingly produced weather miracles on two consecutive days. The pagans still worshipped their idol, until one of Olaf's men struck it and vermin ran out. Gudbrand then admitted, “Great damage have we suffered in our god. But, seeing that he was not able to help us, we shall now believe in the god you believe in.”³⁹ The pagans are devoted to their gods not because of any deep belief system but because they have received benefits from them (or because the gods have desisted from punishing them). When their gods are shown to be ineffective, they accept the god who seems to grant his believers more power. This approach to conversion—demonstrating the power of Christianity by destroying idols with impunity—is hardly unique to St. Olaf or to the conversion of Scandinavia but is common in hagiography and conversion accounts throughout the history of Christianity. Snorri's use of it demonstrates that he views the pagans as making a choice on the grounds of efficaciousness, not logical or metaphysical truth. He does not see them as hypocrites; they simply recognize that the Christian god is strongest.

Snorri describes the conversion of Iceland as a similar process of political calculation. Olaf Tryggvason sent out the Saxon priest Thangbrand as a missionary because Thangbrand was making himself unwelcome at the Norwegian court. Thangbrand converted Sidu-Hall (Hall of Sida), a leading Icelander, by preaching but also became involved in violence, killing three men.⁴⁰ In addition, Olaf made use of native Icelanders who came to his court. Kjartan Olafsson had been favorably impressed with a church service, especially the singing and the bells. When Olaf urged him to become a Christian, Kjartan said that “he would not refuse to if thereby he could gain the friendship of the king.”⁴¹ Despite his personal inclination toward the religion, it was the practical advantage that governed his conversion. Kjartan expected the conversion of Iceland to be carried out in much the same way as was his own, through the calculation of personal advantage; he pointed out that “there are here [in Norway] many influential men's sons from Iceland, and their fathers are likely to afford us great help in this matter.”⁴²

Other Icelandic sources agree with Snorri in presenting conversion as a matter of practical advantage. The conversion of Iceland as described in Njal's Saga agrees in most of the factual details with that in Heimskringla. The five chapters in which it is retold, in the middle of the story, have sometimes been considered an interpolation, and whether or not they form an integral part of the saga, they rely on an earlier written source.⁴³ But this does not obviate their function in the story: the author uses the account of the conversion to enhance his portrait of the character of Njal. When the Icelanders heard of the conversion of Norway, Njal responded, “In my opinion the new faith is much better; happy the man who receives it. And if the men who spread this faith come out to Iceland, I shall do all I can to further it.”⁴⁴ Njal spoke these prescient words before any missionaries arrived; he was presented as a good pagan with some mystical knowledge predisposing him to Christianity.

The saga describes Thangbrand's conversion of Sidu-Hall in terms of advantage, as with the conversions in Norway. Hall asked about the Angel Michael, whose feast Thangbrand was celebrating.

“What power has this angel?” asked Hall. “Great power,” said Thangbrand. “He weighs everything you do, both good and evil, and he is so merciful that the good weighs more heavily with him than the evil.” “I would like to have him as my friend,” said Hall. “You can do that easily,” said Thangbrand. “Give yourself to him in God's name this very day.” Hall said, “I want to stipulate that you pledge your word on his behalf that he shall become my guardian angel.” “I give you my promise,” said Thangbrand. After that, Hall and all his household were baptized.⁴⁵

Thangbrand is persuading Hall not of the truth of Christian doctrine but to make an act of allegiance to a particular saint, just as he might earlier have done to a particular pagan god. He does not explicate the relationship between archangels and the deity or mention Christ at all. Hall, for his part, is clearly not being convinced either by divine inspiration or by reason but rather by an advantage for which he is willing to negotiate a detailed contract.

One person in the saga who is presented as contesting the conversion as a matter of faith rather than allegiance is a woman: Steinunn, with whom Thangbrand got into a debate. “She lectured to him for a long time and tried to convert him to paganism. Thangbrand listened to her in silence, but when she had finished he spoke at length, turning all her own arguments against her.”⁴⁶ She does not fit into the masculine world of decision making the saga writer constructs, but she competes on doctrinal grounds. More convincing to those watching the debate was that Thangbrand was able to hallow a fire that warded off a berserkr (an ecstatic warrior) more effectively than one hallowed by the pagans.⁴⁷ Thangbrand, as in Snorri's account, ultimately failed, largely because of his abrasive and violent personality, and the conversion of Iceland eventually came about because of a decision made at the Althing (the national assembly). That was a rational political decision, a change of allegiance.

The final conversion of Iceland was quite unusual. Like that of many European countries, it was a political decision, imposed from the top down. But Iceland had neither king nor state. Rather, the assembly of the free farmers decided that they needed to have one religion and appointed one man, a pagan, to make the decision for them:

Thorgeir asked to be heard, and said, “It seems to me that an impossible situation arises if we do not all have one and the same law. If the laws are divided the peace will be divided, and we cannot tolerate that. Now, therefore, I want to ask heathens and Christians whether they will accept the law which I am going to proclaim.” They all agreed. Thorgeir insisted on oaths and binding pledges from them; they all agreed to that, and gave him their pledge. “The first principle of our laws,” declared Thorgeir, “is that all men in this land shall be Christian and believe in the one God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—and renounce all worship of idols.” … The heathens felt they had been grossly betrayed, but despite that the new faith became law, and the whole land became Christian.⁴⁸

Once again, conversion is presented not as the result of introspection or divine inspiration but rather as deliberate choice. Men will believe what Thorgeir decides they will believe—not just follow the teachings of a religion, or worship in a certain way, but believe. But this belief is not what we usually think of when we think of Christian faith; it is more like loyalty or fealty, a formal relationship rather than an emotion. For the Icelanders to believe in the Christian god becomes a quasi-contractual obligation.

When the Scandinavians in these accounts shift their allegiance from one or more of the pagan gods to Christ, they do so by assuming an equivalency in function and then comparing the gods' relative strengths. The Christian religion is “better” than the pagan (a formulation used in other places besides Njal's Saga). Christianity is not seen as absolutely true where the other is absolutely false; it is merely more powerful or more efficacious. Christ is the most powerful of many gods, not the only god. These comments about Christianity being the better religion could be considered “antipagan sentiment”⁴⁹ in the simplest sense that the accounts were written by Christians who clearly did believe that Christianity was the better religion and that their ancestors had done the right thing by converting. On the other hand, if one views the sagas and Saxo's Gesta as the artifacts of a culture that by the thirteenth century was thoroughly Christian, what is striking is not the antipagan sentiment but the pro-pagan sympathy, the sense that paganism was not unremittingly evil but just another system that was not quite as good as the one they got later. The descriptions of pagan practices are not condemnatory but are rather matter-of-fact in tone: this is how we used to do things before we found a better way. The sagas are not pagan survivals; they are products of a Christian age, but it was an age that did not cast the pagan past as devilish, just as less fortunate in not having as good a deity to which to give allegiance. Those who persist in pagan practices after the coming of Christianity may be depicted as evil⁵⁰ but not those before the initial conversion. Snorri's concern elsewhere with preserving pagan myth (notably in his Edda) reflects antiquarian, perhaps nationalistic, interest in the pagan past, which keeps him from seeing the conversion as the triumph of total light over total darkness.

I do not want to suggest that there was little difference between paganism and the Christianity the Scandinavians came to accept. Although much of what we think we know about Scandinavian paganism is based on quite shaky evidence, it seems likely that it was not nearly as intellectually or doctrinally sophisticated as Christianity; nor did it have nearly as elaborate an ethical system (although there certainly was a pre-Christian ethos, it is not clear how directly tied it was to religion).

If we do accept that the belief systems were fundamentally different, however, we run into two questions. The first is methodological: if the sources present them as similar, on what basis do we say they are dissimilar?⁵¹ If the sources water down the Christianity they present to make the religions look parallel, how are we to know they did not water down the paganism as well? This set of questions I do not propose to answer here; others have addressed it based on poetic sources that go back to pre-Christian oral traditions as well as on archeological material.⁵²

The second question is, why do Saxo, Snorri, the author of Njal's Saga, and other authors present the religions as basically similar? We must first decide what we mean by similar. There were of course major differences that the texts recognize: one religion was new to the Scandinavians and the other was traditional, one was native and the other foreign, and the new religion had more demanding behavioral standards than the old. The similarity that the texts present is in the nature of belief. Belief is not in a system but in a particular deity or group of deities; it amounts to trust or allegiance. A change in belief involves merely switching the object of one's trust; it does not require divine revelation, although that could be a persuasive factor.

This picture of religious belief and the way it changed has a familiar ring to it. It resembles the ideals behind much of medieval government and military organization. A man gives his loyalty, fealty, allegiance to a lord. If he finds his lord is ineffective, or if coerced, he may switch to another. The authors in question were all writing at a time when these ideas were becoming important in Scandinavian aristocratic social organization. This is not to say that Scandinavia became an idealized feudal society—nowhere in Europe did—but the language was present there as in the rest of Europe, in charters and laws, in romances and allegories. Even kingless Iceland had great magnates who commanded the (sometimes shifting) allegiance of the yeomanry. If “feudal” is too far to go in describing Icelandic society, the model of “instrumental friendship,” the deliberate formation of a relationship for mutual advantage, serves the same function.⁵³ The three authors examined here present Christianity's acceptance as the result of the realistic assessment that Christ would be a more powerful and effective overlord, patron, or instrumental friend than any of the other gods.

This model of the conversion put forward by thirteenth-century authors explains a curious silence in all the accounts: there are no women. There is an occasional pagan woman (Queen Sigrid the Haughty, Steinunn) but none who become Christian. In other Icelandic sagas one may find important Christian women, like Gudrun Osvifsdottir of Laxdæla Saga, who becomes a nun at the end of her life, but they do not participate in the conversion.⁵⁴ In earlier Scandinavian conversion accounts women may appear—in the life of St. Anskar, a widow at Birka and her daughter are important early converts⁵⁵—and in other parts of Europe, even when missionaries aimed at converting kings and through them their people, they often aimed at royal wives as well or converted the kings through their wives.⁵⁶

This does not happen in the thirteenth-century accounts of Scandinavia, because the choice of religion is a matter of allegiance, in which women did not participate. The construction of conversion in such a manner acted to exclude half the population, the half that likely had a great deal of say about the religion practiced in the home and taught to the children. In most cultures women are important as transmitters of cultural and religious tradition, and they may well have been important in the spread of Christianity in Scandinavia, but these texts present religion as a wholly masculine domain.

The suppression in these accounts of any role played by women in the conversion is all the more striking in light of the significant role these same texts attribute to women in pagan times. While there has been substantial scholarly debate over whether the power accorded to women in the Icelandic family sagas and other sources represents reality or not, it is clear that these late sources do depict women as having been more powerful in pagan than in Christian times.⁵⁷ This is in large part a misogynistic, negative depiction. As Birgit Sawyer puts it, “Saxo sought to underline the point that female power, like pagan magic, belonged to a past and imperfect time: the victory of Christianity also meant the conquest of women's power.”⁵⁸ A case like the argument between Steinunnr and Thangbrand, which presents the pagan woman against the Christian man, can thus represent the process of conversion. That process (or moment) meant the overcoming of the bad influence of women, whose power was often used for the stirring up of strife.⁵⁹

The exclusion of women from the conversion narratives had multiple causes: the shift to Christianity was constructed as a question of allegiance and therefore a matter of a relationship between a masculine deity and a masculine worshipper, and at the same time it was constructed as an exclusion of women from positions of power within Scandinavian culture and therefore could not be presented as instigated by women. One may doubt whether the actual process experienced by the medieval Scandinavians was as simple, or as masculine, as the thirteenth-century sources indicate; but the erasure of women from the texts was an integral part of how those writers understood conversion.

Notes

1. The most useful general work on the subject is The Christianization of Scandinavia, ed. Birgit Sawyer, Peter Sawyer, and Ian Wood (Alingsås: Viktoria Bokförlag, 1987). For a more concise account, see Peter Sawyer, Kings and Vikings (New York: Methuen, 1982), 131-43.

2. The most important accounts before that date are the Vita Anskarii by Rimbert, the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum by Adam of Bremen, and the Íslendingabók by Ari Þorgilsson.

3. For a critique of this approach, see Sawyer, Sawyer, and Wood, Christianization of Scandinavia, 18-20.

4. These sources do not go into much detail about the conversion of Sweden; the narratives on the conversion of Sweden have already been thoroughly discussed by Birgit Sawyer in “Scandinavian Conversion Histories,” in Sawyer, Sawyer, and Wood, Christianization of Scandinavia, 88-110.

5. I have Anglicized Icelandic names in the text by removing diacritical marks and the nominative -r endings and by rendering thorn (þ) as th and eth (ð) as d.

6. Most scholars would agree that in the long run it does not fit the actual circumstances at all well: conversion to Christianity, when it came to have some personal and not just external meaning, involved changing both people's daily customs and habits and their basic outlook on life. However, as I shall discuss, the authors in question here were looking at conversion as a moment, not as a long process.

7. Sawyer, “Conversion Histories,” 96; see also Birgit Sawyer, “Valdemar, Absalon, and Saxo: Historiography and Politics in Medieval Denmark,” Revue Belge de philologie et d'histoire 63 (1985): 685-705.

8. Sawyer, “Conversion Histories,” 109.

9. Sverre Bagge, Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 105-7.

10. On the theme of the “noble pagan,” who understands some of the Christian message even before the coming of Christianity, see Lars Lönnroth, “The Noble Heathen: A Theme in the Sagas,” Scandinavian Studies 41 (1969): 1-29.

11. Sawyer, “Conversion Histories,” 108.

12. See Peter Sawyer, “The Process of Scandinavian Christanization in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in Sawyer, Sawyer, and Wood, Christianization of Scandinavia, 80, 83-84.

13. “The Discussions,” in Sawyer, Sawyer, and Wood, Christianization of Scandinavia, 8-9.

14. See Joaquín Martínez Pizarro, “Conversion Narratives: Form and Utility,” in Sixth International Saga Conference Workship Papers II (Copenhagen: Arnamagnæanske Institut, 1985), 813-32, for further discussion of how the sources present central authorities' attempts at conversion by force.

15. The notes in the first volume of Eric Christiansen's translation (Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum Regum Heroumque Historia Books X-XVI, vol. 1, British Archaeological Reports 84 [Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1980]) provide useful guidance as to the sources Saxo used for this part of his work. See also Sawyer, “Valdemar, Absalon, and Saxo,” 687.

16. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, 10:4:1, ed. J. Olrik and H. Ræder (Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1931), 1:272; trans. Christiansen, 7.

17. Ibid., 10:8:2, p. 276; trans. Christiansen, 12.

18. Saxo, Gesta Danorum, 10:11:1-4, pp. 280-82; trans. Christensen, 20-21. The Poppo story comes originally from Widukind of Korvei, and Saxo places it in a different reign than does his source; see Christiansen, 180n.70; Sawyer, “Conversion Histories,” 96-97.

19. Saxo, Gesta Danorum, 10:11:6, p. 282; trans. Christiansen, 22.

20. Saxo gives a more positive picture of Olaf Haraldsson's Christianity: ibid., 10:16:2-3, pp. 288-29; trans. Christiansen, 30-31.

21. On Snorri's sources, see Theodore M. Andersson, “Kings' Sagas (Konunga-sögur),” in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica 45 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 197-238.

22. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 27, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Íslenzk Fornrit 26 (Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornrítafélag, 1941), 259-60; trans. Lee M. Hollander, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967), 166-67.

23. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 33, p. 270; trans. Hollander, 173.

24. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 50, p. 299; trans. Hollander, 193.

25. In a scene common elsewhere in folklore, the hermit is able to determine that the tall, well-dressed retainer Olaf has sent in his stead is not truly the king. Peter Sawyer, “Ethelred II, Olaf Tryggvason, and the Conversion of Norway,” Scandinavian Studies 59 (1987): 302.

26. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 31, p. 267; trans. Hollander, 170-71.

27. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 47, pp. 292-93; trans. Hollander, 189.

28. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 53, pp. 302-3; trans. Hollander, 195-96.

29. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 54, pp. 303-4; trans. Hollander, 196.

30. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 55, p. 305; trans. Hollander, 197.

31. Theodore M. Andersson, “The Conversion of Norway According to Oddr Snorrason and Snorri Sturluson,” Mediaeval Scandinavia 10 (1977): 83-95.

32. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 57, 59, and 65-69, pp. 307-9, 314-18; trans. Hollander, 198-99, 205-8.

33. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 76, p. 323; trans. Hollander, 211. Olaf also tortured one Raud to death by forcing a snake down his throat: Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 80, p. 327; trans. Hollander, 214.

34. Óláfs saga ins Helga 204, in Heimskringla, Íslenzk Fornrít 27, p. 354; trans. Hollander, 494.

35. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 61, p. 310; trans. Hollander 200-1. She later married Svein Forkbeard of Denmark, Olaf's enemy.

36. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 113, p. 372; trans. Hollander, 244.

37. Óláfs saga ins Helga 60, 64, 73, 176, pp. 77, 83, 101, 176; trans. Hollander, 292, 296, 309, 363.

38. E.g., Óláfs saga ins Helga 121, pp. 206-9; trans. Hollander, 387-89.

39. Óláfs saga ins Helga 112-13, pp. 184-90; trans. Hollander, 369-74. For discussion of this episode, see Theodore M. Andersson, “Lore and Literature in a Scandinavian Conversion Episode,” in Idee—Gestalt—Geschichte: Festschrift Klaus von See, ed. Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense: Odense University Press, 1988), 261-84.

40. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 73, pp. 319-320; trans. Hollander, 209.

41. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 82, pp. 329-30; trans. Hollander 215-16.

42. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 84, pp. 332-33; trans. Hollander, 217-18.

43. See Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak: The Acceptance of Christianity in Iceland, with Particular Reference to the Religious Attitudes Prevailing at the Time, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Ethnologica Upsaliensia 4 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1978), 61, on sources; see also Kristni saga, in Biskupa Sögur, ed. Hið Íslenzka Bókmentafélag (Copenhagen: S. L. Möller, 1856), 1:3-32, for a parallel.

44. Brennu-Njáls saga 100, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Íslenzk Fornrít 12 (Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornrítafélag, 1954), 255, trans. Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960), 217.

45. Brennu-Njáls saga 100, p. 257; trans. Magnusson and Pálsson, 218.

46. Brennu-Njáls saga 102, p. 265; trans. Magnusson and Pálsson, 221.

47. Brennu-Njáls saga 103, pp. 267-69; trans. Magnusson and Pálsson, 223. See Ian Wood, “Christians and Pagans in Ninth-Century Scandinavia,” in Sawyer, Sawyer, and Wood, Christianization of Scandinavia, 55, for earlier examples of how the efficacy of Christianity vs. paganism was judged.

48. Brennu-Njáls saga 105, pp. 271-72; trans. Magnusson and Pálsson, 225-26. See Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak, 103-22, for discussion of this incident, which he sees in terms of shamanism.

49. Paul Schach, “Antipagan Sentiment in the Sagas of Icelanders,” Gripla 1 (1975): 109-11.

50. See discussion in Schach, “Antipagan Sentiment,” 119-20.

51. Lönnroth, 24-27, would argue that they both included such a range that they might not have been all that different.

52. For bibliography on the sources for Scandinavian paganism see John Lindow, “Mythology and Mythography,” in Clover and Lindow, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature, 21-67; see also Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak, 16-46, for a discussion of the evidence for pagan practice in Iceland.

53. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, “Friendship in the Icelandic Commonwealth,” in From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, ed. Gísli Pálsson (Enfield Lock, Middlesex: Hisarlik Press, 1992), 205-15.

54. Laxdæla saga 78, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Íslenzk Fornrít 5 (Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornrítafélag, 1934), 228.

55. Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, 20, ed. G. Waitz (Hannover: Hahn, 1884), 44-46.

56. As just one example, Bede's account of the conversion of Edwin of Northumbria, in which the Pope urged Queen Ethelburga to play a role: Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), II.9-II.14, pp. 162-88.

57. Jenny Jochens, “The Medieval Icelandic Heroine: Fact or Fiction?” Viator 17 (1986): 35-50, is the best discussion for the family sagas; Jenny Jochens, Women in Old Norse Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), expands the argument. For Saxo and Snorri see Birgit Strand [Sawyer], “Women in Gesta Danorum,” in Saxo Grammaticus: A Medieval Author between Norse and Latin Culture, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1981), 135-67.

58. Birgit Sawyer, “Women and the Conversion of Scandinavia,” in Frauen in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter: Lebendsbedingungen—Lebensnormen—Lebensformen (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1990), 265. Sawyer points out that although Heimskringla and the family sagas are less hostile to women, they still represent women's active roles as part of the pagan past.

59. Jochens, “Medieval Icelandic Heroine,” 49-50.