20% of Medieval Europeans pagan

Could Paganism have co-existed with the European Medieval catholic church for an extended period? I dont mean vikings or peasants paying lip service to old gods--I mean the whole shebang. Jupiter venerated in London, a cult of Set in Constananople, etc. How might this come about?
 
it could not

the olnly plausable chance for such a large non-christian population is if scandinavia and most east europe are never sucesfully christianised, the south france chatars are not exterminated, and the bosnian church has enough folowers for bogumils to survive as a important religious minority in the Ottoman empire

the manichean movement in the balkans was at times strong and included influential figures in the political and religious oligharchy so perhaps if they have more sucess, or capitalise on some criticall political moment they might be stronger and have more folowers, instead of being reduced to one state

other than that id say scandinavia is the olnly real chance, but you said no vikings

i dont know how plausable a long lasting non-christian Kiev is
 
It would be great for crusaders. You can go and kill a lot of infidels/heretics/pagans without really leaving home. It certainly cut the costs of getting one's sins forgiven.

The Venetians and their friends in other Italian cities aren't going to be quite so happy. They made a packet out of transporting crusaders to Outremer.
 
Could Paganism have co-existed with the European Medieval catholic church for an extended period? I dont mean vikings or peasants paying lip service to old gods--I mean the whole shebang. Jupiter venerated in London, a cult of Set in Constananople, etc. How might this come about?

Well, if there are Roman gods in Britain, that would probably mean no London.


The Medieval Catholic Church could not under any circumstances have coexisted with the pagans. No way in hell.
 
It could exist only in localized, rural, syncretic forms as is the case today in much of Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. For example, my Pennsylvania German ancestors practised a folk religion called pow-wow, under the guise of "Christian magic", or casting spells by invoking Jesus' power. But, that was already the case in medieval Europe, and probably isn't what you're looking for.
 
theres also saints, manny of wich are basically baptised pagan gods, but thats not it ider
 
Well it would be very........VERY complicated.

One possibility is a split between the East and West, or West and East. A early schism that leads either the West Church or East church to become polytheist opposed to Monotheist. Myself I imagine a resurgence of the Olympian Gods in the East.

Though the most likely would be Lithuania not being conquered, being able to stave off the Templers. Or maybe Christianity not taking root in remote areas of Europe, the Nordics of Scandinavia, Basques of Spain, up in Switzerland, or Ireland.

Or you could have Nomadic Steppe Tribes (like the Magyars) invading and never commiting.
 
Though the most likely would be Lithuania not being conquered, being able to stave off the Templers. Or maybe Christianity not taking root in remote areas of Europe, the Nordics of Scandinavia, Basques of Spain, up in Switzerland, or Ireland.
In The Hammer and The Cross by Harry Harrison Christianity fails to make headway in Britain and Scandinavia . Instead a neo-pagan religion called the Way develops. The consequences for the English church is dire in that it can not afford to produce even silver coins and make do with lead instead. I have not read the book in years, but the PoD did seem plausible.

Assuming then the Way does become common in Northern Europe, Christianity can still make some ground by taking advantage of superior military technology, such as knights and castles. Christian magnates should certainly be able to conquer southern Britain which would leave the Way holding out in Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia and Iceland, at least until the more vulnerable kingdoms adopt the same technology.

You then get a line a little like the Reconquista in Spain with Christian crusaders pushing north and Way crusaders pushing south. If the latter can hold out long enough, the Reformation and the opening of the New World should lead to an end of hostilities. Way colonists then can swarm across the Atlantic to settle say the Hudson's Bay area, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. As long as they don't bother anyone else sits on the fringes these colonies could well survive until the present day.
 
Though the most likely would be Lithuania not being conquered, being able to stave off the Templers.

Lithuania has not been conquered in OTL either, at least not before it adopted Catholicism. I would see it possible for Lithuania to survive as a Pagan state if somehow the rest of Europe is either pre-occupied elsewhere (longer Middle Eastern Crusades or so) until the Reformation kicks in. Another way might be to have a stronger Mongol presence in Europe that would necessitate an alliance of convenience between a Pagan Lithuania (a small one at that time though) and some Christian states of Central Europe against the Mongols. That way, the common enemy might allow the Christians and Pagans to overcome their differences, at least to the point of wary tolerance. A third option is to somehow have Christianity fail to take root or become absorbed into the local religions throughout northern and eastern Europe - and the Pagan countries stay friendly with each other in a loose anti-Christian alliance.

In any of these cases, I fail to see how a substantial amount of population in predominantly Catholic countries may remain openly Pagan.
 
i just remembered a OTL fact that is wery interesting for this thread

there was in fact a knezevina, or duchy based in the neretva river region encompasing seweral dalmatian islands, as well as considerable mainland territory, that was in fact called on many maps Pagania

it was a pirate state, fircely indipendant, that suceded in defeating greatly superior enemies many times ower
it ewen forced Venice to pay a tribute during the 9th 10th and 11th century

it is sayd the local population stayed true to their faith till the 16th century, seeing christianity as a tool of opresion and forein rule

the area is swampy and the islands are full of lagunes and caves in wich the pirates could hide and attack from, so that the dificult terain and agresive population explain why they were not sucesfully baptised for so long
basically if these were people who had a habit of cutting hands of all prisoners that didnt have enough gold, imagine what they would do to some young priest lost in the swamps
it should also be pointed out these people were some of the most feared and most sucesfull, as well as most inconsiderate and homicidal pirates in all mediteran, and the fact they even survived so long was thanks to their way of life and tactics being so well adapted to guerrila war and organised crime

perhaps more such populations, a couple of stubborn nordic kingdoms for instance, could remain pagan by violently resisting christianisation, and not get exterminated by crusading armies due to climate and terrain going in their favor
then after a few mayor battles won they begin to extend their political influence or ally others into a larger movement of resitance to political and cultural opresion
if they have some luck they might create a few states, small and isolated but indipendant, hat stay pagan for some time


i dont know how large the population was, or how long their indipendance lasted, but it was long and there was at least a couple thousand people living there, not counting slaves and prisoners



olnly problem is there was no "co-existing" with the chatholic church
 
Last edited:
India, anyone??

Monotheistic North, Polytheistic South?

Though, of course, I know little of Indian history, so I don't know how long this state of affairs has been going on. But the fact is, it can happen.

EDIT: A lot of countries were Christianized because of issues of trade. This is because the richest parts of Europe, the former possessions of the Roman Empire, were Christianized first, so if anyone in Northern or Eastern Europe wanted to get in on that, they had to become Christian, because Christians couldn't trade with Non-Christians (same thing happened with Islam). Now, what I assume happened in India was that the Polytheists in the South had no pressing reason to convert; i.e., the Monotheists in the North had nothing they wanted, OR were willing to trade with them. So all we need are a few rich, non-Christian countries in Europe (hard to do because of the way trade worked) and then you can have a significant portion of Europe non-Christian.

Crusades, etc, which come along later, are a different matter, I suppose.

EDIT EDIT: But if the Catholics are Crusading against heathens in Europe, then that means they can't (probably) go Crusading against Muslims in the Middle East, which has all sorts of long-term consequences. Then again, the whole reason for the Crusades was to unite Christianity and keep Christians from fighting one another, so there would probably be no need for Crusades at all ITTL, since Christians would be fighting each other a little bit, but they would be fighting Non-Christians even more.

Also, if the Byzantine Emperor still asks the Pope for help, maybe he'll actually get the help he wanted in the form of Latin mercenaries, rather than a huge occupying force that largely ignored the Seljuks. So, ITTL, we could also have a resurgent Byzantine Empire, always a plus.
 
Last edited:
n.

EDIT: A lot of countries were Christianized because of issues of trade. This is because the richest parts of Europe, the former possessions of the Roman Empire, were Christianized first, so if anyone in Northern or Eastern Europe wanted to get in on that, they had to become Christian, because Christians couldn't trade with Non-Christians (same thing happened with Islam).
But they traded with Non-Christians.

</div>
 
India, anyone??

Monotheistic North, Polytheistic South?

Though, of course, I know little of Indian history, so I don't know how long this state of affairs has been going on. But the fact is, it can happen.

I forget the phrase that Toynbee, e.g., uses, but 'great religions' (to pick a very bad phrase) are immensely resistant to conversion. The main such religions are Christianity, Islam, Budhism - and Hinduism. Judaism and a handful of others count.

When an expanding one of these hits a 'pagan' society, that society tends to convert eventually. When they run into each other, that only happens if one of them has been severely weakened or the new rulers provide particularly strong incentives to convert.

It is easier to have a monotheistic 'great religion' than a polytheistic one, but Hinduism shows the latter is possible.

This, by the way also addresses some of the other threads involving pagan Europe [EDIT - oops, this IS the pagan Europe thread] and pagan Rome. The only way 'paganism' would survive is if it manages to convert itself into a 'great religion' (as 'the Way' did in the Harrison Hammer and Cross books). WRT Rome, the old Greek and Roman gods were dead, it was just a matter of WHO replaced them (Mithras, Isis, Yahweh, etc.).
 
I don't think it can work, because it seems like the more monotheistic a religion is, the more effective it is as a set of memes.

The pagan Roman empire persecuted Christians for centuries without success, while paganism had very little staying power when the empire itself turned Christian. Similarly, Islam could advance against Christianity by conversion, while Christianity could only advance against Islam by outright ethnic cleansing.
 
I don't think it can work, because it seems like the more monotheistic a religion is, the more effective it is as a set of memes.

The pagan Roman empire persecuted Christians for centuries without success, while paganism had very little staying power when the empire itself turned Christian. Similarly, Islam could advance against Christianity by conversion, while Christianity could only advance against Islam by outright ethnic cleansing.
The persecution of Christians wasn't very outrages (in the sense that they were more like pogroms than a sistematic campaign). I don't know any example when Christians converted in mass to Islam without external pressure.
 
The Medieval Catholic Church could not under any circumstances have coexisted with the pagans. No way in hell.

What if someone made them?

In OTL, the Norman kings of Sicily were tolerant of Jews and (worse) Muslims. If the Emperors are able to bend the Popes to their will more often than not, you might have churchmen throwing fits about toleration of (useful) minorities but unable to do anything about it.
 
Top