Study On The Early Society Of The Viking Age Scandinavia And Its Christianization

“The early Society of Scandinavia in the Viking Age and its Christianization”is a subject which holds a special position on the field of research in the northern European history studies.From the early 9th century to the middle of 11 th century,the Viking Age Scandinavia began to interact with the early medieval European Christian civilization with a large-range.Both of them had been deeply effected by each other.In fact,the precondition of that interation,a web which connected by the natural tunnels,had already been shaped by the envirment from the remote antiquity.The reason that the Vikings could begin their great expedtion in the early 9th century was following a series of historical cllapse of the Mediterrean World.The raise of Islamic civilization,the collapse of the Classical Age,and the centralization of politics,ecnomy and culture in the north part of Western Europe,all of them had created an opportunity for thr Viking expedition.As the counter-strike from the European Christian civilization,secular rulers tried to make Scandinavia Christianized not only to save the west from the raids of northmen on their borders,but alo to gain control of the north.But the movement was limited to the unstablization from the inside of European Christian states.It resulted the hard times from the early 9th century to the middle-late 10 th century on the missionary movement.To those who lived in the early society of Scandinavia in the Viking age,Christianization means the beginning of getting close to the European Christian civilization.However,how to deal with the relationship with the Christian world was the first problem they needed to slove.Firstly,Scandinavians do not want to the power of the empire grow stronger that would interfere the Scandinavia issues.Secondly,there were strong indigenous religion and the power mechanism which grow from it.How the combine the indigenous culture with the Christianity to make it to be used by Scandinavian rulers themselves is the goal for avoiding lose power by the invasion from the south.The chaos of the south was a chance that it would allow the raise of Scandinavia just beside the Christian states.I argue that by trading and raiding for almost a century long,the Vikings collected a huge amount of treasure.If following the old way of establishing a personal relationship by share the treature among the warriors and alliance,the chieftain would only recive a loosen network of relationship.But,when the Christianity began to work as a variate of the society,things would go different ways.The secular rulers would finally find a way which combine with the core of culture of Scandinavia to Christianize their homeland,and became a king with some sort of centralized power at the end.With the beginning of this thesis,I will translating an Old English text which is about the geography of Scandinavia into Chinese,and draw the outlines of Scandinvian unique envirement in Chapter One.Based on this envirment,a view of soul,ancenstral worshipping and the Viking Age halls will show their faces in Chapter Two.By analysising the indigenous religion and the structure of society,I will uncover the core of the Scandinavian culture.In Chapter Three,I will follow the routes of trading and raiding to figure out how they collect treasure in both ways.In the last Chapter,I will explain how the outer force and inner power push the Christianization in Scandinava,and finally reveal the particularity of the Christianization of the Viking Age Scandinvia.When Christianity grew deep in Scandinavia,whom used to be the periphery of the Christiandom became the Centre in the North.The tribal society began to turn into the feudal society.It is also the first step of ‘Europeanization' of Scandinavia in history.