The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings Merchants and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe
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About this book
In this book a MacArthur Award-winning scholar argues for a radically new interpretation of the conversion of Scandinavia from paganism to Christianity in the early Middle Ages. Overturning the received narrative of Europes military and religious conquest and colonization of the region Anders Winroth contends that rather than acting as passive recipients Scandinavians converted to Christianity because it was in individual chieftains political economic and cultural interests to do so. Through a painstaking analysis and historical reconstruction of both archeological and literary sources and drawing on scholarly work that has been unavailable in English Winroth opens up new avenues for studying European ascendency and the expansion of Christianity in the medieval period.
