Introduction: The following article examines the oldest extant
accounts of the conversion of Norway, from the Latin works of the late
twelfth century until Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla from around 1230.
Its aim is not to gain information on what actually happened during the
conversion of Norway, but to obtain some idea of how the tradition about
it developed, what changes were introduced in the understanding of the
conversion during the period covered by the extant works, and finally
what characterized the Norwegian-Icelandic tradition as a whole.
The texts show considerable variation in details but tell essentially
the same story, which runs approximately as follows: The first attempt
at Christianization was made by King Hakon Haraldsson godi (ca. 935-60),
who was brought up at the English court and had become a Christian
there. This attempt was a failure. Most of Hakon’s successors were
Christian but did little to promote the new religion. The main credit
for Christianizing Norway is given to the kings Olaf Tryggvason
(995-1000) and St. Olaf Haraldsson (1015-30). The former is said to have
Christianized the coastal regions and Iceland, whereas the latter
converted the interior and organized the Church, and additionally
re-Christianized the areas where the people had turned away from
Christianity after Olaf Tryggvason’s death. Although Olaf Haraldsson was
the great national saint at the time when these works were composed,
the main figure in the conversion historiography is his predecessor Olaf
Tryggvason. For this reason as well as because of the problems
concerning the relationship between the texts dealing with him, Olaf’s
life and missionary activity will also be the main subject here.
The first stage in the extant accounts of the mission is represented
by three Norwegian texts from the late twelfth century, i.e., Theodoricus Monachus’s Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium (ca. 1180) and the anonymous Historia Norwegie
(second half of the twelfth century), both in Latin, and Agrip (ca.
1190) in Old Norse. From the point of view of narrative, these works do
not contain much more than the minimum referred to above. Theodoricus
does not even mention Hakon godi’s attempts to introduce Christianity,
whereas Historia Nortoegie briefty concludes that he was an
apostate who preferred the earthly kingdom to the heavenly one. The two
Latin works, however, distinguish themselves in other and mutually
different respects. Historia Norivegie, possibly the older of
the two, emphasizes the importance of the conversion by developing the
missionary biography, making the story of the conversion of Norway
almost identical with the way in which Olaf Tryggvason receives God’s
vocation to act as a missionary. The work also contains a long story
about Olaf’s persecution as a child, probably modeled on the Biblical
stories of Moses and Christ.
