Why Didn't the Church Launch a Crusade On The Vikings?

hello noble ones welcome back to my channel this is the metatron speaking and today we've got a very interesting question so we all know the story of the viking raiders attacking for example lindisfarne attacking anglo-saxon england raiding pillaging plundering so from 793 to 1066 we've got the so-called viking age all of this raiding happened and we know that it didn't only happen in the british isles it also happened with the siege of paris so the question that we've got today is the medieval church was obviously aware of what the norse the norsemen were doing the raid of the monastery of lindensvan in 793 is probably one of the most iconic and for all of you have watched the tv series vikings of course it's very very famous although in the tv series vikings they do make it look as if the north just happened to arrive to land in an area nearby where the monastery was so off the northumbrian coast even though most likely they or they exactly they knew precisely that the monastery was there uh they probably had heard of the monastery in my opinion it was a surgical strike if you will and besides the monastery was founded in 634 by the irish monk aiden we also know from the domesday stone that some people survived the raid at lindisfarne and spoke about it the church obviously knew there are a lot of accounts of catholic voices and spokesmen monks the priesthood in general speaking very badly and we can understand why about the norse so if the church was aware of what the north were doing in christian land why not organizing a full-on crusade to the nordic countries to make all these heathens pay to answer this question properly there are a lot of things that we need to look at and from a political standpoint from an economical standpoint from a religious standpoint but before doing that i'd like to mention the sponsor that made this video possible viking jewelry and the special offer that they have got for you today now as you know i own quite a lot of rings and necklaces from viking jewelry i really like the stuff that they make the stuff that they produce and they are now offering a end of the year special offer for you and christmas at the same time if you will if you want to take advantage of this special offer make sure to use my special code meta 35 for 35 off during the first 48 hours on the thor's hammer collection and the special code meta20 for 20 off during the first 10 days on the whole store you will find both links in the description below and big thanks to viking jewelry for sponsoring this video alright back on our topic first the obvious point the first crusade happens in 1095 well 1096-1099 there also is an unofficial crusade perhaps i'll speak more about that on a different video although i have spoken i do have a video dedicated to the crusades but we do know that now we are a little too early in time i mean if we look at the reasons why pope urban ii started the first crusade in the holy land there is a religious justification for it but the reasons are political strategical and military and also you had the conditions so that something like that could take place the briton that the norse the danes were raiding was not a unified country mercia wessex and by the way wessex had already had a pretty difficult first encounter with the vikings prior to lindensvan states that are already fighting a lot of inner war plus the invaders and in fact as a history with hilbert an excellent fellow historical channel eloquently pointed out on his dedicated video about the vikings in the north one of when the men of wessex tried to take york from the danes the local anglo-saxon bishop sides with the heathen army which already tells you a lot into the sort of inner struggle that were present and were happening at the time also you have to imagine that the middle east jerusalem was a lot easier to sell to the general public for the church of course because it was the birthplace of jesus christ the holiest place on earth and so it makes sense that christendom easily sold the idea of we have the right to go there and take control and take it off the hands of islam and we also have to consider that islam was advancing it was a menace for the rest of europe also the crusader kingdoms that will be born and founded because of the crusades were quite rich it was a way to make money going to scandinavia on the other hand i mean scandinavia or the nordic countries as i should say were not as resourceless as many people try to make them seem but they weren't particularly rich in resources either hence the north going on vikings so it wouldn't have been easy for the church to pinpoint the the norse the vikings as enemies to all of christendom mostly because of course if you speak to the anglo-saxons that were raided and murdered or to the irish for example a specific irish group that was attacked and and lost women because of the of what the norse did then yes of course they would have hated them but then other groups for example probably traded with them and successfully as well so imagine that you were an irish man who was selling slaves to the north and making a good deal of money as far as you're concerned yeah the norse they might be a little weird but they pay well so i have no problems with them also try to sell the idea of demonic norsemen to someone like the byzantine empire that actually recruited the norsemen as bodyguards so as far as they're concerned no problems with the norse it wasn't as easy to depict them as a common enemy but most importantly i think the main reason why the church did not decide to retaliate with a holy crusade is because at the end of the day even though movies try to depict this very distinct line of division between the heathens the pagans and the christians we have to consider it historically speaking a lot of norsemen became christians for example in 871 we have a very famous eden army called the summer army that was joining the great dane army that was already conquering territories around britain and this army was led by king guthrum it's a very important warrior king of the norse who was obviously a pagan and he will have quite a series of battle in the local territories but i think the most poignant battle that i'd like to bring up for our discussion today is the battle of eddington of 878. this is the battle where king alfred manages to defeat king gusrum of the norse and after this defeat king gusrum converts to christianity he is baptized and becomes a christian taking also on a christian name or the christian name of athelstan now we do know that from a historical perspective christianity was spread by the sword and by the book now in this case of course you could say well yeah well they defeated them in battle so obviously was spread by the sword in this case which is kind of true but i'd like to propose a sort of little different um reading i'm not saying that i've got all the truth of course so feel free to disagree and let me know what you think in the comments below and see this is me telling you my own interpretation and opinion very open to hear what you guys think but in my opinion i think king athelstan's conversion was real let me justify that there were a lot of advantages for joining christianity at this period in time economical advantages political advantages even military advantages at the end of the day practical advantages from a trade standpoint if you are a christian trader at this time and you're trading with another christian trader you'll make sure to give him some good deals but if you're trading with someone who's not a christian then you're not going to be as generous with the sort of trade so that makes sense that perhaps some vikings that were trading rather than plundering as some did maybe would wear a cross and pretend to be christians while they were trading with the christians and then remove the cross and put on the symbol of thor when they were among themselves because that actually gave some real practical advantages during trading christian wealth was very much craved by the norse and if you think about it sure you can plunder and raid but then as you can see some battles you will win some battles you will lose instead if you become a christian you sort of partake of that wealth it's an easier way to gain access to christian wealth so this is a sort of a monetary advantage think about it christianity is monotheistic one of the characteristics of a of monotheism is the fact that there is only one god my god your gods are false the north religion instead was polytheistic they were already used to the idea of there are many gods now given it could be that some noise when they were looking at the christian god they thought oh that's a false god that doesn't exist but it could also be that a way that they looked at the christian god was oh yeah another god but he's weak thor is stronger odin is stronger because we are winning in battle and jesus christ is not a stronger store because they're losing but what happens when they win so this is why coming back to king athelstan one of the reasons i say that maybe he really did convert is because from his point of view again he's he's a polytheistic religious person he believes already there are many gods and maybe he's looking at jesus christ as sort of a weaker god but the moment that the christian army defeats his own army and he's at the mercy of these christian leaders and they instead of slaughtering their entire family they say join the christian faith given or we will slaughter i mean we don't know maybe they did that most likely there was a condition maybe he looked at it thinking maybe this jesus christ actually is a strong warrior god and the idea of selling jesus christ as a warrior god i know it might sound strange from our modern perspective because when we imagine a christianity we think of peace and love but medieval christianity was anything but peace and love i mean sure yeah they were preaching that as well but you have to imagine that they had no problems justifying the holy crusades i mean charlemagne was not really into peace and love was he it was all about sword and conquest and if you think about it if you were to read the bible to a norse well if you read the old testament it's all about war and conquest it's all about yahweh being a a warrior god in fact he's even called the lord of hosts he is leading the chosen people into war against other people for territorial control that's something that a norse population would understand very well and given some people might say yeah but the gospel with the gospels jesus christ brings peace and yet there are famous scriptures like the one that says i'm not here to bring peace but i will bring sword and if you read the book of revelations for example to the norse population well there is a lot of michael and angels and war in heaven against the dragon subduing combat so i wouldn't be surprised if when we consider the fact that a lot of norse were converted by the book you know they kind of adapted it because of course if you speak about incarnation if you speak about the body of christ like the catholic principle of the bread turning into the actual body of christ these would have been weird for them to to accept if it maybe even trinity up to a certain point the concept of the original sin would have been foreign but just don't preach these and perhaps start by preaching the war-like part of the bible and i think that the norse wouldn't really have that much of a problem to think yeah let's add one more warrior god into the pantheon we already have which is probably how many did first herald bluetooth king of the kingdom of denmark in 975 will declare himself christian but it will also declare the entirety of denmark christian and i think that this is the key factor that sort of prevented the church as we reached the era of the crusades to decide to to actually have to call a crusade against the nordic countries and against scardinavia because by that time scandinavia was basically becoming completely christian also the official status of for example danish or norse kings as they become christians is exalted you will have churches and monasteries monasteries have got monks monks bishops archbishops they're all literate that's another advantage it's easier to trade it's easier to communicate and bishops oftentimes were actually quite good military advisor and political advisor to have so joining christianity had some real advantages and that's why many norse decided to do it and of course as degeneration go on this idea of believing both the old gods and the new god who gravitated more and more towards the actual monotheistic christianity although that of course took some time but as the new generations are born into it then they probably start looking at the beliefs of their fathers as something old and ancient so generally speaking to sort of uh finish it off i'd like to say that there were obviously material reasons economical reasons political reasons strategic reasons and maybe in some cases even spiritual reasons for which the north decided to join christianity and because this happened on a large scale that's probably one of the reasons why they weren't seen as the enemy anymore or as invaders anymore it was instead a great sort of success or missionary success that they can boast of and gloat about which is probably one of the reasons why we never really had a crusade to take place in those lands but that finishes our video for today i hope that you enjoyed it if you did please remember thumbs up and if you're not your members of this community become a noble one subscribe to my channel for more content from the metatron also remember the special offer from viking jewelry you'll find links in the description below don't miss out a lot of amazing stuff is waiting there for you and remember the metatron at spread is wings [Music] goodbye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Metatron

Views: 455,749

Keywords: Metatron, Armor, Combat, History, Military, Knights, Greeks, Spartans, Romans, Helmet, Beastplate, Sword, Spear, D&D, Role Playing Game, Defense, Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Middle Ages, Castle, Tower, Legend, Gods, long sword, war hammer, lance, battle, siege, short sword, shield, bow, crossbow, arrows, dart, helm, bronze age, iron age, spear, full plate armor, axe, greatsword, scimitar, warrior, barbarian, mounted, strategy, army, jousting, two-handed weapons, horned helmet, helmet, defense, vikings, church

Id: EuzQeIInSEg

Length: 14min 24sec (864 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2020