Christianity in Viking Age Scandinavia

"The Church landed pen in hand, and as the North became part of the literate European Christian community its vitality was strangely sapped and the Viking Age came to an end"
Although attributing the end of the Viking Age to the Christianization of the Scandinavian countries, as the above quote does, is almost certainly an exaggeration, there can be no doubt that it did bring radical changes to many areas. But why did these countries become Christian? This essay will avoid narrating individual missions and the coincidental political circumstances that led various Kings to convert. Instead it will focus on the general reasons that led people, and indeed entire communities, to adopt Christianity.
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