The Diffusion of Christianity in the Viking Age
Most of Europe had converted to Christianity at the time, but the Vikings still held on to their gods of the Norse pantheon, including Odin and Thor. When Christian missionaries first arrived in Denmark in the 700s and 800s, it was difficult to convince the Vikings to convert to Christianity. It was not until the 900s that the Vikings began adopting Christianity, and often while still worshipping their old gods. The adoption of Christianity in Denmark occurred gradually and without considerable conflicts. By 1050, the majority of Vikings became Christians.
In the Viking Age, the initial adoption of Christianity was partially due to tangible benefits that the Vikings could receive from converting. Christian European merchants were more prone to engage in business with other Christian merchants, pressuring non-Christian Vikings to embrace Christianity in order to circumvent the discrimination and thrive in the trade network. Here, we have the initial adopters of Christianity in the Viking community.
In class, we discussed diffusion in networks. More specifically, we went over the process in which individuals in a network adopt a certain idea or behavior by the influence of the people around them. We learned that there are several ways to spread an idea further: to add new edges and/or nodes, to lower the threshold, or to increase the number of adopters. As trade continued, Vikings traders were exposed to more Christian merchants, allowing more ties to be formed between the two parties. When Viking traders formed enough ties with individuals with Christian beliefs (theoretically, the number of Christian ties should be greater than the threshold q), the Vikings were likely to adopt the new religion and convert to Christianity themselves. After they were baptized abroad, Viking traders returned home with their new religion. This likely initiated incentives for individuals in the trader’s network, including family and friends, to convert to Christianity as well. As more non-Christian Vikings left their home to trade abroad and returned home with a new religion, individuals found that more of their neighbors had adopted Christianity, pressuring those that have not converted to convert. Eventually, the diffusion process allowed the majority of non-Christian Vikings to become baptized Christians by 1050.
While the diffusion model explains the adoption of ideas by external influence, it does not necessarily transform individuals’ internal beliefs, since many of the baptized Vikings still held onto their old gods. It took a much longer time for the Norse gods to fade out completely from the people’s lives.