How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity (20 page)

In contrast, the Church of Piety pressed for virtue over worldliness and constantly attempted to reform the Church of Power. Starting in 1046, the Church of Piety controlled the papacy for more than a century. Indeed, in 1073 a monk became pope (Gregory VII), and the next three popes also were monks, including Urban II, who launched the First Crusade. Even after the Church of Power recaptured the papacy, it was unable to silence the Church of Piety because the latter retained an unyielding base in monasticism, which had strong family ties to the ruling elites.

In practice, there was a division of labor between the two churches. The task of conversion, especially of pagan territories, was left to the Church of Piety, while the task of administering Christendom was undertaken by the Church of Power.

Christianizing the North

It was monks who converted the German “barbarians,” and subsequently it was monks who undertook to convert the Vikings. Early on, many of the monks who missionized in Viking areas were martyred. But even when it became less dangerous, missionary monks had no choice but to try to convert the nobility and hope that their example would trickle down to the general population.
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The realities of conversion dictated this strategy.
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For generations it was assumed that religious conversions were the
result of doctrinal appeal—that people embraced a new faith because they found its teachings particularly appealing, especially if these teachings seemed to solve serious problems or dissatisfactions that afflicted them. If so, then to convert the Vikings might have been accomplished by preaching to mass audiences. But, surprisingly, when sociologists
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took the trouble to go out and actually watch conversions take place, they discovered that doctrines are of secondary importance in the initial decision to convert. One must, of course, leave room for those rare conversions resulting from mystical experiences such as Paul’s on the road to Damascus. But such instances aside, conversion is primarily about bringing one’s religious behavior into alignment with that of one’s friends and relatives, not about encountering attractive doctrines. Put more formally:
people tend to convert to a religious group when their social ties to members outweigh their ties to outsiders who might oppose the conversion, and this often occurs before a convert knows much about what the group believes.
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Of course, one can easily imagine doctrines so bizarre as to keep most people from joining. It also is true that successful faiths sustain doctrines that have wide appeal. But while doctrines can facilitate or hinder conversion, in the normal course of events
conversion primarily is an act of conformity
. But then, so is nonconversion. In the end it is a matter of the relative strength of social ties pulling the individual toward or away from a group. This principle has, by now, been examined by dozens of close-up studies of conversion, all of which confirm that social networks are the basic mechanism through which conversion takes place.
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To convert someone, you must be or become his or her close and trusted friend. When people convert to a new religion, they usually seek to convert their friends and relatives. Conversion, therefore, tends to proceed through social networks. This dynamic rules out mass conversions in response to sermons. In fact, social scientists have now discarded notions of “mass psychology” and “collective consciousness.”
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A successful mission to a large population takes generations. The first missionaries must slowly form close ties with a few people who, in turn, may be able to attract some of their friends and relatives to the new faith. Of course, this supposes that the missionaries have free access to build such close interpersonal ties and are willing to be patient through many disappointing years. The Christian monks seeking to convert the Vikings had neither access nor time. To venture out among the Viking settlements was apt to be fatal, or at least unavailing, as the locals rejected contact. And
the pressure was on the monks to achieve immediate results, since it was widely believed that if the Vikings could be brought to Christ they would cease their raids and invasions. Consequently, the monks focused on converting Viking rulers or on helping Vikings who had been raised as Christians outside Scandinavia to seize power.
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As early as the eighth century, missionaries began to gather up Danish boys to be baptized and trained.
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The first Scandinavian king to be converted was the Dane Harold Klak, who was baptized in Germany in 826. His motives for becoming a Christian were not religious but political—by doing so he gained the support of the Carolingians. It is not certain that he ever returned to Denmark, but if he did, he was driven into exile the next year. Then, in about 965, Harold Bluetooth, the king of Denmark, was baptized. He, too, seems to have converted to gain Carolingian support. Subsequently Christians were intermittently persecuted in Denmark, and in 1086 King Canute IV was murdered in a church. His canonization as Saint Canute in 1188 is said to mark the triumph of Christianity in Denmark—although there still were few Christians aside from the nobility.

Next, consider Norway. Olaf Tryggvason grew up in England as a Christian. In 995 he seized Norway’s throne, whereupon he attempted to convert the nobility by force, killing some who resisted and burning their estates. This aroused so much opposition that the nobility rebelled and, in the Battle of Svolder (about the year 1000), Olaf was killed. Fifteen years later, another Olaf (Haraldsson), who had been baptized in France, took the Norwegian throne. He, too, used the sword to compel Christianization, sparking rebellion. Driven into exile, he attempted to return after raising a new army in Kiev, but he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Stikklestad in 1030. Amazingly, once Norway was ruled by Christian nobles (converted in Denmark), history was rewritten to such an extent that the murderous Olaf Haraldsson became St. Olaf.

The conversion of the Swedish nobility also involved murder and forced conversions. Late in the eleventh century, Inge the Elder was king of Sweden and an ardent Christian (little is known of him, and nothing of the source of his Christianity). He was driven into exile when he tried to abolish pagan worship. After three years in exile, he returned with a band of armed followers and surrounded a hall in Old Uppsala, where his rival and his court were gathered. Inge and his men set fire to the building and killed all those who exited. Restored to the throne, Inge resumed his persecution of non-Christians.

Despite the success in baptizing Scandinavian kings and nobles, Christianity did not trickle down much among the people. The outward forms of paganism were muted, but the inward forms prevailed. As the great Danish historian Johannes Brøndsted pointed out, it was quite easy for Christianity to become the “public” faith in Scandinavia, “but far more difficult to overcome the complex [pagan] culture beneath.” He quoted a twelfth-century Anglo-Danish monk: “As long as things go well and everything is fine, [the people] seem willing to acknowledge Christ and honor him, though as a pure formality; but when things go wrong,” they turn against Christianity and revert to paganism.
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Or, as the medieval Icelandic saga
Landnámabók
noted, Helgi the Lean “was very mixed in his faith; he believed in Christ, but invoked Thor in matters of seafaring and dire necessity.”
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Brøndsted suggested that to the extent it can be said to have taken place at all, the conversion of Scandinavia occurred “only … when Christianity took over old [pagan] superstitions and usages and allowed them to live under a new guise.”
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Of course, since the baptizing of kings meant that Christianity became a state church, funded by tithes, it did not depend on popular support, and church officials had little motivation to work at convincing the masses. Thus, even today forms of paganism remain surprisingly popular in Scandinavia.
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Insofar as the Church of Power was concerned, it was enough that the Church of Piety had placed Christian state churches in power in Scandinavia. The tithes flowed in and all the formalities were properly observed.

An Organized Religion

Spanning hundreds of medieval states and statelets was a church structure based on geographic units—parishes and dioceses. A parish is the small, local area served by an ordained pastor (sometimes with assistant priests). A diocese is a set of parishes, presided over by a bishop. (An archdiocese is led by an archbishop.) After several centuries, all of Catholic Europe was divided into parishes and dioceses,
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enabling the Church to act as the moral and administrative basis for continental unity.

To some extent, the Church could curb the worst excesses of the nobility—through excommunication, actual or threatened, or even by withholding the sacraments. Hence, Henry IV (1050–1106), the Holy Roman Emperor, was forced to humble himself and walk barefoot through the snow to gain the forgiveness of Pope Gregory VII. Henry’s
conflict with the pope involved the right to name bishops in Germany, but often the issues concerned moral lapses and abuses of power. The king of France was not permitted to go on the First Crusade because he was married to a woman who had not divorced her previous husband. The Church took a constant interest in marriage among the nobility, often blocking divorces or invalidating marriages between couples who were too closely related.

The Church also frequently, and surprisingly effectively, imposed sanctions on rulers who overstepped moral boundaries on mistreatment of their subjects. Consider the notorious case of Fulk III, Count of Anjou (972–1040). Fulk (called “the black count”) was a “plunderer, murderer, robber, and swearer of false oaths, a truly frightening character of fiendish cruelty,” in the words of Richard Erdoes.
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The count had had his first wife burned to death in her wedding dress, allegedly for having sex with a goatherd. For that act, Fulk’s confessor demanded that he make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem—and he went. Soon, however, he reverted to type, and whenever “he had the slightest difference with a neighbor he rushed upon his lands, ravaging, pillaging, raping, and killing.”
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Eventually, Fulk was required to make four pilgrimages to Jerusalem; he died on his way back from the last of them. Despite his relapses, Fulk’s excesses would surely have known no bounds had it not been for the Church’s interventions.

Although few medieval rulers were so extreme as Fulk, it was common for them to combine a tendency to violence and sin with deep religious devotion. By the tenth century Viking and Norman pilgrims were coming to Jerusalem who, it was said, “were very devoted to Christ if not to his commandments.”
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In some cases noblemen were told to make the whole trip to Jerusalem barefooted, and most obeyed.

The Church played other roles as well. With churchmen frequently acting as aides and advisers at royal court, the Church served as a universal diplomatic service, negotiating agreements and mediating disputes among rulers. As was the case during the Crusades, the Church also served as a major lending institution—until replaced by the rise of secular banks in the twelfth century (see chapter 6). Moreover, because of the constant movement of the religious, the Church became the primary conduit of news and gossip to the otherwise isolated courts.

Finally, the Church provided the intellectual life of the medieval West. All educated Europeans had been educated by the Church—all
tutors were clergy or monks. Most music was church music, and all the pipe organs were in churches. Most of the great buildings were cathedrals. The graphic arts were mainly paid for by the Church. Most of the books were written by the religious, and all publications were the work of copyist monks. And, as will be seen in chapter 8, all the early scientists were monks or clergy—including many bishops and even an occasional cardinal.

This was Christendom.

Upside-Down History

For far too long, far too many historians have had a strong preference for empires. Not only have they continued to regret the fall of Rome, but they remember Charlemagne as the man who almost “saved” Europe and restored civilization, but whose heirs undercut his great achievements by subdividing his empire. That Charlemagne was a bloodthirsty tyrant is ignored or rationalized because, as R. H. C. Davis explained, “he was devoted to the cause of Christianity and Roman civilization.”
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Like a true Roman, Charlemagne was devoted to wars of conquest, leading his army somewhere to attack someone in almost every year of his forty-one-year reign. And he demonstrated his devotion to Christianity by pronouncing a death sentence on all who resisted becoming Christians.

In contrast, most historians have dismissed the Vikings as bloodthirsty enemies of civilization. As for the Normans, most historians have assumed that the sophistication shown by William the Conqueror and his nobles reflected their Viking forebears’ rapid assimilation into Frankish culture. In fact, the Scandinavians were as civilized as the Franks, while William the Conqueror was certainly as able as Charlemagne, and considerably more tolerant.

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