Late and Peaceful: Iceland's Conversion Through Arbitration in 1000

Jochens, Jenny

doi:10.2307/2886763

Cited by 49 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…The worship of the Norse gods, the AEsir, was permitted as long it was conducted in private (Jochens 1999). The old religion soon retreated-albeit formally reinstated in Iceland in 1973-and the mythical creatures of the old merged with both the landscape (nature) and with Christianity.…”

Section: Of Land People and Monstersmentioning

confidence: 97%

Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond

Musharbash¹,

Presterudstuen²

2014

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Section: Of Land People and Monstersmentioning

confidence: 97%

Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond

Musharbash¹,

Presterudstuen²

2014

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“…As important as the conversion event was it has left no clear material traces and therefore lacks the necessary residuality to access through the archeological record. The early history of the church is poorly understood but it has generally been assumed that the development of the institutionalized church and Christian practices in Iceland was a slow process spanning the 11th century (Jochens, 1999;Þorla´ksson, 2005;Stro¨mba¨ck and Foote, 1975;Ve´steinsson, 2000). A bishopric was established at Ska´lholt in the south of the island in A.D. 1056.…”

Section: Conversion and Early Christian Practice In Icelandmentioning

confidence: 99%

An archeology of moments: Christian conversion and practice in a medieval household cemetery

Zoëga

Bolender

2017

Journal of Social Archaeology

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The Christian conversion of Iceland in A.D. 1000 was accompanied by distinct changes in religious practice and ritual places. In the following century, household cemeteries were established at many farms. Examining the early Christian household cemetery at Seyla in northern Iceland, we explore how the establishment, usage, and closure of these cemeteries provide an opportunity to examine how the new religion was realized in Icelandic society. At the same time Seyla represents cemetery management at a household level, which provides rarely witnessed household level social actions. The individual moments discussed can be used to enlighten the agency of family as well as its realization of the social and religious changes of the 11th century. Here, we argue that the isolation and discussion of these specific archeological moments at Seyla add to our understanding of the experiences and actions of early Christian households during a time of religious transformation.

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“…The case we will consider here, the Icelanders' conversion to Christianity around 1000 AD, has traditionally been regarded as an unusually clear-cut example of religious change. Historical sources portray it as a single event, a political decision taken at a national assembly in 999 or 1000 AD (Jochens, 1999), while archaeological evidence has indicated an abrupt cessation of pagan burial practice about the same time (Eldja´rn, 2016(Eldja´rn, [1956; Ve´steinsson, 2000: 45-49). Pagan burial practice as described by Eldja´rn (2016) is quite distinct from the Christian and this has allowed the two paradigms to be contrasted (Friôriksson and Ve´steinsson, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dating religious change: Pagan and Christian in Viking Age Iceland

Vésteinsson¹,

Sveinbjörnsdóttir

Gestsdóttir³

et al. 2019

Journal of Social Archaeology

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Mortuary customs frequently provide the principal archaeological evidence for religious identity. Such customs are often seen as a direct reflection of religion and therefore a change of religion should be expected to result in a change in burial rite. There is growing evidence that the relationship is not so straightforward. In this paper we report results from Viking Age Iceland which challenge the previous view of a relatively clear-cut transition from pagan to Christian burial rites. The implication of our findings is that burial rites cannot be expected to change in lockstep with religious ideas. Burial rites reflect a variety of concerns held by those who perform them – and religion, ideology or cosmology may be the least of those. It is one of the characteristics of institutionalized religions like Christianity that they strive to design rituals and control their performance but the assertion of such control does not have to be coterminous with conversion.

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Late and Peaceful: Iceland's Conversion Through Arbitration in 1000

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond

Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond

An archeology of moments: Christian conversion and practice in a medieval household cemetery

Dating religious change: Pagan and Christian in Viking Age Iceland

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