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Thread: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

  1. #1
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    Default What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    or at least without heavy christian interference in social and political life.

    let's take the scandinavian kingdoms for an example

    1) how would medieval life be like if the danes and norwegians carried on with their old norse religion?

    or let's take the pagan kingdom of lithuania;

    2) what if the papacy/church ignored the bible and had a live and let live policy with pagans? how would a pagan lithuania be like?

  2. #2

    Default Re: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    But we do know what a medieval pagan Lithuania would be like - it didn't convert until 1385. And Iceland didn't convert until 1100. I would say pre- and post-christian Scandinavian society would have looked pretty much alike, simply different prayers, no human sacrifice (which appears to have bee very limited anyway).

    I would be intrigued to see a pagan medieval Italy, France or England would be like - though once again, if we just accept a recognizable historical timeline in which christianity was simply never adopted (and not go into the many speculations about how technology and science would have been much more advanced, or the Roman empire would have survived, etc,) I can't imagine it would have been significantly different - the Roman Empire was moving towards monotheism anyway, and christianity was merely grafted onto existing religous ideas and actually to the point it has more in common with late greco-roman paganism than original nazarene creed. In the north, christianity has only ever been a thin veneer over 'popular religion', so we would simply have Jule rather than Christmas, and would never have taken on the pretence that Easter is remotely christian.

    Of course there is also the possibility that if Mithraism or a similar late pagan monotheism hadn't been adopted Europewide, Europeans may have voluntarily taken up Islam - strongly doctrined monotheistic religions always tend to appeal to societies with messy pagan pantheons.

  3. #3
    Prince of Darkness's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    France, Italy, and the Balkans will be Muslim. The others Pagan.
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    Manco's Avatar Dux Limitis
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    Default Re: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    The Franks hadn't been fully Christianized during the Battle of Tours, so their repulsing of the Muslims doesn't rely that much on it. (without going into the entire glorified raid and overextendign caliphate deal)
    IIRC they were actually one of the tribes slowest to convert.
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    Default Re: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    what about technologically wise?
    would pagan lithuania have had decent cities and cosmopolitan stone streets and etc?

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    Last Roman's Avatar ron :wub:in swanson
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    Default Re: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    Quote Originally Posted by Manco View Post
    IIRC they were actually one of the tribes slowest to convert.
    The Franks? I'm fairly sure they adopted (at least the political elite) Christianity fairly early.

    edit: yep, according to Wiki (I know, I know, but starting point) some of the Franks started converting as early as the 4th century. Though most wouldn't follow until the late 5th century.
    Last edited by Last Roman; September 25, 2010 at 12:35 PM.
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  7. #7

    Default Re: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    The Franks were eary-ish converts, they would be crusading against pagan saxons and slavs by Charlemagne's day. However, like all other European people their christianity was a pretty thin veneer over existing beliefs. I don't think a medieval Europe without christianity would be notably different, exploited peasants would still be paying tithe to a priesthood of some kind - monasticism, clergy etc all have roots and equivalents in the many Eastern-originating monotheisms European rulers were flirting with before Christianity.

    I don't know how developed medieval, pagan Lithuania was, it's a fascinating topic not that well covered in English. But I think like most eastern European countries it would have been far more advanced than western European condescension acknowledged, and being pagan got it a lot of bad press.
    Last edited by Blarni; September 28, 2010 at 04:42 AM.

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    Default Re: What would Medieval Life be like without Christianity?

    well the pagan priests in pagan lithuania got about a third of the spoils from any raids the warriors embarked on; so i hear.

    but would say, pagan vilnius have brick walls, roads and a royal court that had pagan influences as opposed to christian influences?
    how would that have looked?

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