The Cross Goes North : Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300-1300

37 studies of the adoption of Christianity across northern Europe over 1000 years, and the diverse reasons that drove the process.In Europe, the cross went north and east as the centuries unrolled: from the Dingle Peninsula to Estonia, and from the Alps to Lapland, ranging in time from Roman Britain and Gaul in the third and fourth centuries to the conversion of peoples in the Baltic area a thousand years later. These episodes of conversion form the basic narrative here. History encourages the belief that the adoption of Christianity was somehow irresistible, but specialists show theunderside of the process by turning the spotlight from the missionaries, who recorded their triumphs, to the converted, exploring their local situations and motives. What were the reactions of the northern peoples to the Christian message? Why would they wish to adopt it for the sake of its alliances? In what way did they adapt the Christian ethos and infrastructure to suit their own community? How did conversion affect the status of farmers, of smiths, of princes and of women? Was society wholly changed, or only in marginal matters of devotion and superstition? These are the issues discussed here by thirty-eight experts from across northern Europe; some answers come from astute re-readings of the texts alone, but most are owed to a combination of history, art history and archaeology working together. MARTIN CARVER is Professor of Archaeology, University of York. CONTENTS 6 LIST OF PLATES 10 LIST OF FIGURES 12 Part I Processes of Conversion 16 1 Introduction: Northern Europeans Negotiate their Future 18 2 The Politics of Conversion in North Central Europe 30 3 ‘How do you pray to God?’ Fragmentation and Variety in Early Medieval Christianity 44 Part II Into Celtic Lands 74 4 Processes of Conversion in North-west Roman Gaul 76 5 Roman Britain, a Failed Promise 94 6 Where are the Christians? Late Roman Cemeteries in Britain 108 7 Votive Deposits and Christian Practice in Late Roman Britain 124 8 Basilicas and Barrows: Christian Origins in Wales and Western Britain 134 9 A Landscape Converted: Archaeology and Early Church Organisation on Iveragh and Dingle, Ireland 142 10 Romanitas and Realpolitik in Cogitosus’ Description of the Church of St Brigit, Kildare 168 11 Making a Christian Landscape: Early Medieval Cornwall 186 12 Early Medieval Parish Formation in Dumfries and Galloway 210 13 Christian and Pagan Practice during the Conversion of Viking Age Orkney and Shetland 222 Part III Christianity and the English 242 14 Anglo-Saxon Pagan and Early Christian Attitudes to the Dead 244 15 The Adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon Royal Courts to Christianity 258 16 The Control of Burial Practice in middle Anglo-Saxon England 274 17 The Straight and Narrow Way: Fenland Causeways and the Conversion of the Landscape in the Witham Valley, Lincolnshire 286 18 Three Ages of Conversion at Kirkdale, North Yorkshire 304 19 The Confusion of Conversion: Streanæshalch, Strensall and Whitby and the Northumbrian Church 326 20 Design and Meaning in Early Medieval Inscriptions in Britain and Ireland 342 21 Spaces Between Words: Word Separation in Anglo-Saxon Inscriptions 354 22 Sacraments in Stone: The Mysteries of Christ in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture 366 23 Alcuin’s Narratives of Evangelism: The Life of St Willibrord and the Northumbrian Hagiographical Tradition 386 24 Pagans and Christians at a Frontier: Viking Burial in the Danelaw 398 25 The Body of St Æthelthryth: Desire, Conversion and Reform in Anglo-Saxon England 412 Part IV From the Alps to the Baltic 428 26 From a Late Roman Cemetery to the Basilica Sanctorum Cassii et Florentii in Bonn, Germany 430 27 The Cross Goes North: From Late Antiquity to Merovingian Times South and North of the Alps 444 28 The Cross Goes North: Carolingian Times between Rhine and Elbe 458 29 The Cross Goes North: Christian Symbols and Scandinavian Women 478 30 The Role of Scandinavian Women in Christianisation: The Neglected Evidence 498 31 Runestones and the Conversion of Sweden 512 32 Christianity, Politics and Ethnicity in Early Medieval Jämtland, Mid Sweden 524 33 The Scandinavian Animal Styles in Response to Mediterranean and Christian Narrative Art 546 34 The Role of Secular Rulers in the Conversion of Sweden 566 35 Byzantine Influence in the Conversion of the Baltic Region? 574 36 St Botulph: An English Saint in Scandinavia 580 37 Christianisation in Estonia: A Process of Dual-Faith and Syncretism 586 INDEX 596

In Europe, the cross went north and east as the centuries unrolled: from the Dingle Peninsula to Estonia, and from the Alps to Lapland, ranging in time from Roman Britain and Gaul in the third and fourth centuries to the conversion of peoples in the Baltic area a thousand years later. These episodes of conversion form the basic narrative here. History encourages the belief that the adoption of Christianity was somehow irresistible, but specialists show the underside of the process by turning the spotlight from the missionaries, who recorded their triumphs, to the converted, exploring their local situations and motives. What were the reactions of the northern peoples to the Christian message? Why would they wish to adopt it for the sake of its alliances? In what way did they adapt the Christian ethos and infrastructure to suit their own community? How did conversion affect the status of farmers, of smiths, of princes and of women? Was society wholly changed, or only in marginal matters of devotion and superstition? These are the issues discussed here by thirty-eight experts from across northern Europe; some answers come from astute re-readings of the texts alone, but most are owed to a combination of history, art history and archaeology working together. MARTIN CARVER is Professor of Archaeology, University of York.