Comments by "Seven Proxies" (@sevenproxies4255) on "The Vikings - Origins, Battle, runes and Cerimonial Burial" video.

  1. As a scandinavian, i'm pleased with the accurate details mentioned about my ancestors. However, i'm a little curious about the part where you said that some historians claim that vikings attacked christian monasteries out of "revenge". As far as my knowledge of Swedish history, Christians never made any full scale invasions or conversion conquests of many Scandinavian villages at the time. The conversion mostly happened internally through the influence of scandinavian chieftains, by increased exposure to christian institutions. Like you said, the culture of ancient scandinavians valued two things above most others: force of arms, but also slyness. You'd earn respect by being a capable fighter but also a SMART person. This especially made manifest in the myth of Odin, seen as a chief of the Norse gods, and also the god to embody wisdom and slyness. And what I think ultimately consumed the pagan culture (or at least removed it from being the official religion in scandinavia) was it's own values of strength and slyness. Viking chieftans stood a lot more to gain and secure their own power and influence by converting to christianity than to oppose it at the time. Christianity wasn't just a religion at the time, but also an extensive trade cartel. Christians often avoided trade with non-christian pagans, so even if you stole silver and valuable commodities you'd find yourself cut out from most European markets regardless or how many riches you tried to sell if you couldn't present yourself as a good christian. Ancient scandinavians were a very practical people. Not very prone to sentimental preservation of things that didn't have much use for them. So these combined factors seems to have facilitated the transitioning to christianity, rather than actual conquest and violent conversions. They simply had too much to gain economically speaking to convert, than they stood to gain by sticking to their pagan ways. Although the sincerity of the vikings that did convert could most certainly be questioned (the truly pious scandinavian rulers didn't emerge until much later in history)
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