The beginning of the conversion attempts weren't taken seriously at all by the Norse. Missionary monks would come into Norse areas trying to convert them and simply would be ignored.
The conversion attempts began somewhere between 710 AD and 718 AD, when a Anglo-Saxon monk named Willibrord had made unsuccessful attempts to convert the Danes during the reign of King Ongendus (King Angantyr). Nevertheless of his efforts, the Christian faith was simply not appealing to the Norse.
In 725 AD, Willibrord made another attempt and led a mission to Denmark, even though he was well received by the king, his mission had little effect on the general populace.
This did not stop the missionary monks from trying, as they were backed by the Frankish King (Emperor), Charlemagne and other rulers in the Kingdoms bordering south of the Norse. Church missions were built where they could in attempts to convert the populace.
However in the Netherlands, a church in Deventer was sacked and burned by a Saxon expedition in January of 772 AD. This gave the Frankish King Charlemagne the justification (Casus belli) to wage war on the Saxons. The war began with the Franks invading Saxon territory. They conquered and subjugated the Engrians and destroyed the sacred symbol “Irminsul” at Eresburg (near Paderborn, Germany). The Sacred Symbol “Irminsul” represented Yggdrasil, the pillar tree that supported the skies and cosmos and was considered sacred to Odin and the gods. This was a grave insult to the Norse.
When the King of the Franks, Charlemagne, chopped down the Irminsûl, the sacred column or holy tree of the Saxons, it began the Viking Age and relentless raids on Frankish lands. In a series of several ambushes, Charlemagne had also assassinated a...
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...use of this. It was when the National Assembly terminated the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in 1536 AD. The next year, following his victory in the Count's War, he became king as Christian III of Denmark and Norway and continued the reformation of the state church and began to enforce the change in his kingdom. The resistance to this escalated nearly to the point of civil war. It was also during this time of the Protestant Reformation that Iceland had also adopted Lutheranism in place of its earlier established Roman Catholic religion. However, the Reformation in Iceland proved to be more violent than in most of the lands ruled by Denmark.
It wasn't until Lutheranism was firmly in place, that Catholicism was outlawed by Icelandic laws. Outlawed to the point that for more than three centuries no Catholic priest was permitted to even set foot on Iceland.
Samuel Epes Turner, Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/einhard.asp#Saxon War
...17 “Martin Luther” confronted the Catholic Church’s practice of selling indulgences. He placed notices on church doors exposing the corrupted practices. He lived believed good works alone could not earn salvation. The Reformation spread throughout northern Europe. The Catholic Church had no choice but to respond to the Protestant Reformation and they did so in the late 1530s through Spanish reformer “Loyola.” He formed a new religion order, he was the founder of the Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits, and they became the strength of the Catholic Church. This was known as the Counter Reformation.
In addition, there was a moral base where honor and fair dealings, along with personal connections influenced the day-to-day lives of a society. Although the Christian influence almost brought Iceland to civil war, they accepted an arbitrator who decided that all Icelanders were to convert to Christianity. This conversion however was not an easy step to take, as evidenced in the sagas; with the still Paganist ways of killing each other for revenge. Njal's Saga reveals the realism concerning stories about individuals and families during a period of settlements in the late ninth and tenth centuries stretching to just after the conversion to Christianity around 1000 A.D. However, they are not actual histories since they were written long after the events occurred.
In the Beowulf poem, there are numerous instances of characters thanking the Christian God in their lives or praising Jesus or where the poet marvels at how lucky the pagan characters were to have God in their lives even if they did not know of His existence. This may seem contradictory in a lot of ways, and it is that the Beowulf poem is one big game of ‘telephone.’ So after three centuries of oral transmission, after three centuries of being told and retold, and the countless changes that oc...
St. Boniface once again yearned to explore and travel. Through such ventures he could express the meaning of God to non believers and convert as many as possible. After continuos begging, Abbot Winbert gave in and Boniface’s petition was granted. During this journey, Boniface’s first obstacle appeared. “King Radbod, the King of the Frisians, and Prince Charles, the noble Duke of the Franks broke out in ...
Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, reigned during a time of much turmoil and upheaval in Europe during middle ages. Charlemagne’s background and family history contributed much to his rise to power. The triumphs of his past lineage prepared him to take on the task of governing the Frankish Empire, and defending it from invaders. Charlemagne accomplished much during his supremacy. He not only brought education back into medieval Europe, but also invented an efficient way to govern his people. His conquests against the many adversaries of the Holy Roman Empire expanded his empire across the majority of Europe. His conquests also formed strong ties between the Catholic Church and the State. Charlemagne’s drive to convert Europe’s primitive and pagan tribes to Christianity nearly effaced the Saxons, whom he battled with for the majority of his reign. The crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor created a turning point in history. Within years after his death, however, his once great empire amounted to nothing. Charlemagne’s reign as King of the Franks and as Holy Roman Emperor greatly influenced the course of Europe during the middle ages.
“Beowulf,” a heroic epic passed down by word of mouth until the 6th century, tells of a brave soldier who gained glory by defeating different beasts. Beowulf, King of the Geats, chased riches and treasures every chance he got. His pride and desire for glory led him to Denmark to defeat the dreaded Grendel- a demonic beast who seeked vengeance for the intrusion of the Danes. Beowulf
Through combining the spiritual concerns of Martin Luther and ambitions of German monarchy, the Protestant Reformation was produced. Martin Luther, a German theologian, stirred up much controversy when he presented his 95 theses attacking abuses within the church in 1517 (Obelkevich 83). He set the stage for Protestant reform with the idea of Christianity lying in direct communication with God and not direct communication with the Pope. Lutheran reformers claimed the Bible rather than the church as the source of all religious authority. Considerably, many Lutheran followers would have stayed in the church if nonbiblical practices had been eliminated. In 1530, Lutherans and Reformed Christians confessed they could not compromise with Catholics or each other at the Diet of Augsburg (Aston 162).
In 1517, Martin Luther nailed a scroll known as the Ninety-five Theses onto the Catholic church. This list criticized many concepts of the Catholic church. For example, Martin Luther attacked the sale of indulgences, amount of power held by the Pope, and wealth of the church. Ultimately, the church was outraged and excommunicated Luther. This started a rebellion and a revolution. Luther’s goal was not to tear the church apart, but to try and reform the corrupt areas. “Luther did not intend to form a new religion; his struggle had been with Rome. Before he could build, he had to tear down- his religion was one of protest.” After being excommunicated, Luther created his own religion called Lutheranism. Lutheranism relates closely to the Catholic
Beowulf highlights descriptions of pagan religious rituals and the warrior culture the epic poem Beowulf reveals different accounts of paganism, a tradition of the Anglo-Saxon English. When Grendel is attacking Herot, the people and warriors think that they are in danger, so they call to “old stone gods” (175-178). This showed that the people still sacrificed and worshiped the gods of pagan traditions, even though they might have been converted to Christianity. In Beowulf, the author refers to Grendel as a monster, who represents the ultimate evil in this culture because he's the product and sin, of a man who killed his brother. The recurring theme of good vs. evil was a part of paganism because it’s common for a hero (the good) to battle a monster (the evil) in pagan views. Beowulf expresses this but showing the battle between Grendel and the hero Beowulf. The epic poem clearly highlights the beliefs and traditions of paganism, a tradition in which the Anglo Saxons believed in. In the nonfictional text of A History of the English Church and its People, by Bede, no reference is made about paganism
The Roman Catholic Church dominated religion for many years in Europe and became an extremely powerful institution. Over the years, the Roman church became corrupt and immoral in many ways. The development of the Protestant Reformation, Lutheranism, was greatly influenced by political events in the years proceeding the 16th century. The declared aim of the original reformer, Martin Luther, was to restore the Christian faith as it had been at its formation, while salvaging what he considered valuable from the Roman Catholic tradition that had developed during the previous centuries. Luther broke the unity of the Catholic Church forever by exposing their faults and misguided notions. Lutheranism spread quickly due to the availability of the Christian Faith, as well as the close relationship between religion and the state.
Martin Luther established in 95 theses against the Catholic Church in reference to indulgences in October 1517. Lutheranism falls under the Protestant Reformation against the church however, any person who left the Catholic Church was known as a protestant. The corruption of the Church began when priests had concubines and the papacy required money. To make the Christians confident that they were forgiven of their sins the papacy began to sell indulgences...
The Protestant Reformation: What it was, why it happened and why it was necessary. The Protestant Reformation has been called "the most momentous upheaval in the history of Christianity." It was a parting of the ways for two large groups of Christians who differed in their approach to the worship of Christ. At the time, the Protestant reformers saw the church- the Catholic church, or the "universal church- " as lacking in its ways. The church was corrupt then, all the way up to the pope, and had lost touch with the people of Europe. The leaders of the Reformation sought to reform the church and its teachings according to the Scriptures and the writings of the Apostles. They sought to simplify the church by returning to its roots, roots long lost by the Catholic church at the time, or so the reformers believed. After the fall of the Roman Empire, life in Europe declined rapidly into the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were a time of misery and darkness. There were only two socioeconomic classes: the very rich nobility or the very poor peasants. Small kingdoms popped up everywhere, and were constantly at war with one another. Whole libraries were destroyed, and the only people who remained literate were the clergy of the Christian church. Life became such a struggle to survive that, for a period of five hundred years, very little artwork or literature was produced by the whole of Europe. Eventually, around the year 1000, the conditions in Europe began to get better. This marked the beginning of the Middle Ages. The Crusades began as an effort to revitalize the spirits of the people. However, things still weren't very good. Plagues ravaged the land, carried by rodents and destroying whole villages. With th...
Thesis statement: Martin Luther was responsible for the break-up of the Catholic Church Martin Luther was a representative during the 16th century of a desire widespread of the renewal and reform of the Catholic Church. He launched the Protestant reform a continuation of the medieval religious search. From the Middle ages, the church faced many problems such as the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism that hurt the prestige of the church. Most of the clergy lived in great luxury while most people were poor and they set an immoral example. The clergy had low education and many of them didn’t attend their offices.
The Reformation, a schism that took place around the start of the 14th century, occurred due to people being fed up with the Catholic Church’s misuse and exploitation of power. The Church had run into this power through issues that occurred centuries earlier. Following a major disagreement between Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII over who had the right to appoint clergymen in the year 1075, the church and the state fell into a great power struggle. The conflict, which had tarnished the relationship between the two, was finally resolved in 1122 by Pope Calistus II and Henry V. This resolution was sealed between the church and the state by a peace agreement called the Concordat of Worms. Ultimately, however, the Concordat of Worms failed to fix the outstanding issues between the two parties. In fact, it actually brought more theoretical power to the church. As a result, the Church attempted to restructure their control of