The Conversion of Norway
Kings of Norway educated in England drew on the experience of English clergy to establish Christianity in their own land.
995-1030
King Athelstan 924-939 to King William I 1066-1087
Kings of Norway educated in England drew on the experience of English clergy to establish Christianity in their own land.
995-1030
King Athelstan 924-939 to King William I 1066-1087
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Norway’s Christian kings had close ties to Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire, to Novgorod and Kiev, the chief cities of Rus’, and above all to England. The authorities in Rome chafed at it, wanting Norway to look to Germany and France instead; but for over two hundred years the bond with England was too strong to break.
NORWAY received its Christianity and its Christian Church from England. The terminology and the peculiar institutions of the Norwegian Church were borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon. The church in Norway was established by kings educated in England, and by Anglo-Saxon bishops.
King Haakon the Good (reigned 935-961) was educated in England at Athelstan’s court.* After he became king he sent to England for a bishop and other teachers and made several ineffectual attempts to convert Norway from heathendom. The work was left for Olaf Tryggvason (995-1000), and he accomplished it with the aid of the sword.* He was converted in England,* and had with him in Norway, Sigurd, an English bishop. Iceland, too, was Christianised from England in Olaf’s reign, largely through Thangbrand, a missionary from England.* Olaf Haraldsson (c. 1016-1030), afterwards St Olaf, also received his Christian education in England. He continued Tryggvason’s labours and organized the church in Norway.
* See Athelstan and the Prince of Norway.
* See The Conversion of Rogaland.
* According to the Norse sagas, Olaf was converted by a hermit in the Isles of Scilly, and later presented to King Ethelred at Andover, England, by Alfheah (pronounced ‘alf-high’) or Alphege, Bishop of Winchester. See The Baptism of Olaf Tryggvason and The Oath of Olaf Tryggvason.
Thangbrand came with Olaf to Norway from England, though Snorro Sturluson describes him as a Saxon priest, “a passionate, ungovernable man, and a great manslayer; but he was a good scholar, and a clever man.” Olaf took him into his service, and in 995, after winning the crown of Norway, appointed him to a church on Moster in Hordaland. Complaints that Thangbrand’s pastoral care consisted of ‘apostolic blows and knocks’ prompted Olaf to send him to Iceland to redeem himself. His buccaneering adventures there are told in Njáls Saga. He returned, having killed three more men, complaining that Icelanders were just too stubborn; but two of his converts, Gizurr the White and Hjalti Skeggiason, persuaded King Olaf otherwise and in 1000 the island’s governing council, the Althing, embraced Christianity and threw their idols over a waterfall. Thangbrand inspired a censorious narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Who converted Norway to Christianity?
Clergy and Norwegian kings educated in England.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Norway was a pagan land. Haakon the Good tried to convert it to Christianity. He had limited success.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IAttempt. IIChurch. IIIMeet.