20% of Medieval Europeans pagan

[Sheltie]

S%^#!

I was gonna do a Pagan Europe thread!

 

[Lysandros Aikiedes]

To do a timeline where Europe remains Polytheist/pagan, you have to choose a prominent culture and begin from there. This culture should ideally be either Imperial Rome or the Germannic tribal confederations. Or, to a lesser extent, Greek or Celtic civilization prior to the Roman conquests. I think the Dacians, before Trajan conquered them, possessed something that looked like an organized religion. The cult of Zalmoxis.

 

[carlton_bach]

Why do you always start interesting threads when I'm gone for a couple of days?

Anyway, I think the only way yopu can get this to work is by keeping the Valentinianic compromise alive. ONce Rome is CHristiamn, it is almost inevitabnle that Euerope would become so - Rome, after all, is the name to conjure with, and when Romanitas is inseparable from Christianitas, the barbarians will buy the package. But imperial Christianity was not always as aggressive or persectution-minded, and following the reign of Julian, for quite a while the unspoken agreement was observed that the church was allowed to enforce its doctrinal purity internally, but leave the pagans bloody well alone. It was first openly called off under Theodosius when he outlawed all pagan sacrifice, but continued to exist in practice until well into the high middle ages (the pope received special taxes to permit sacrifices from subjects on Sardinia and Corsica until at least the eighth century). If the pagan groups were more decisively able to resist, they could at least force a form of toleration. It is still going to be a very difficult proposition - every Christian ruler will face the temptation of making the pagans Christian by whatever means available to get credit in heaven on the cheap - but it could work.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Could you tell us more about Corsica and Sardinia? Leo at some point said for awhile, there were so many pagans in southern Italy that they could not be converted by force.

 

[George Carty]

The persecution of Christians wasn't very outrages (in the sense that they were more like pogroms than a sistematic campaign).

If Roman persecution of Christians isn't severe enough for you, use Tokugawa Japan as your example instead...

I don't know any example when Christians converted in mass to Islam without external pressure.

But Muslims never converted to Christianity even with external pressure. The Catholic Kings didn't convert Andalusi Muslims, they expelled or exterminated them and repopulated their lands with settlers from the north.

 

[Flocculencio]

India, anyone??

Monotheistic North, Polytheistic South?

Wait, what?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

If Roman persecution of Christians isn't severe enough for you, use Tokugawa Japan as your example instead...
But Muslims never converted to Christianity even with external pressure. The Catholic Kings didn't convert Andalusi Muslims, they expelled or exterminated them and repopulated their lands with settlers from the north.

Errr....
They expelled and killed any who wouldn't convert, but I think that a large percentage (majority?) converted, at least nominaly.

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Wait, what?

Only thing I can think that post might have been referring to is when the Mughal Empire was around.

As for the OP, I think the tricky part in keeping Europe 20% pagan is find out some reason why the 80% that's Christian doesn't do everything in it's power to forcibly convert and/or exterminate the remaining pagans. Freedom of religions wasn't a popular idea in medieval Europe.

 

[Flocculencio]

Only thing I can think that post might have been referring to is when the Mughal Empire was around.

Even so the vast majority of Mughal subjects were still Hindu

 

[Chengar Qordath]

Even so the vast majority of Mughal subjects were still Hindu

Exactly. Still, it's the closest India ever was to "Monotheist North, Polytheist South," so that would be my guess as to what the SRT was talking about. Even then, their coexistence wasn't so much a matter of toleration as neither being able to conquer the other, with the semi-exception of Akbar and his syncretic Divine Faith.

 

[Kevin R.]

My ideal POD for the survival of paganism in Europe is something that I'm surprised nobody has brought up yet: the collapse of, or at least a major fight within, the medieval Roman Catholic Church. Make it so that the Western Schism between Rome and Avignon in the late 14th century is not settled peacefully, with the two factions possibly breaking into two Churches. The people, seeing how the Church seems to be breaking apart into territorial factions, will lose faith, and will start joining Cathar-esque cults or reverting to paganism. At the same time, with the fighting between Rome and Avignon taking up the bulk of both factions' focus and burning up their resources, missionary activity in Scandinavia, the Baltic region, and Eastern Europe will grind to a halt, allowing for the pagans there to become more organized and repel Christian influence. By the 17th century, Europe will have pagan countries in the north and east, the various cults will have become the equivalent of the early Protestant churches, and the exchange of ideas with the Islamic world that began with the Crusades will have jump-started the Renaissance. Could this increased religious diversity, combined with the ideas of the Renaissance and the revival of Greco-Roman culture, lead to greater religious tolerance in the present day? How large will the pagan bloc be? What will happen when the various powers - the Catholic factions, the Gnostics, the pagans - start exploring and colonizing? What is the rest of the world in for?

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I never understood Lithuanian pagan exceptionalism. Why were they the historical survivors, while their Baltic neighbors fell to the Christians earlier on?

 

[Tyr]

It would be quite cool as a secret underground thing I think. Just have Christianity be more evil from the start and bob's your uncle.
I really think you need the original stuff surviving, having a revival won't work so well; you need hundreds of years for fully fledged pagan religions to develop. It could happen with medieval euroepan beliefs given a collapse of civilization but not with the church still around.

 

[the_lyniezian]

It would be quite cool as a secret underground thing I think. Just have Christianity be more evil from the start and bob's your uncle.
I really think you need the original stuff surviving, having a revival won't work so well; you need hundreds of years for fully fledged pagan religions to develop. It could happen with medieval euroepan beliefs given a collapse of civilization but not with the church still around.

That would largely mean what you meant by "Christianity". I don't call the original Christianity evil by any stretch of the imagination, unless you are referring to God as evil. On the other hand, I don't think things such as most medaeval Catholicism was exactly good...

 

[the_lyniezian]

Another way one might not have considered yet- stop the Roman establishment from accepting Christianity as a state religion. You might not have a minority of Christians, but it might at least keep either some of the old pagan traditions and institutions going a bit longer, or possibly allow some other cult to fill the vacuum (which, personally, I'd still consider pagan in a way as a lot of these cults were pased on earlier paganesque beliefs. It rather depends on your definition of "pagan"). You would probably get a lot less conversion by coercionn or pagan mixing-or indeed eradication.

 

[Hendryk]

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.

Harrison gets a lot of bad rap as an AH writer, and justifiably so, but it's true that the premise of The Hammer and the Cross was an interesting one. However he overreached by introducing ASB elements (the pagan gods actually exist, there's a bigfoot-type humanoid species in the Scandinavian hinterland) and writing a lame sequel. But the basic idea of a neo-pagan cult that imitates Christianity by giving itself a written canon and sending missionaries around has some potential to it.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Bigfoot-type creatures?

You mean actual Grendels?

 

[Zyzzyva]

I never understood Lithuanian pagan exceptionalism. Why were they the historical survivors, while their Baltic neighbors fell to the Christians earlier on?

I think it just comes down to military prowess: the Teutonic Knights were able to mop the floor with the Prussians, Estonians, Latvians, &c, &c, and weren't able to with the Lithuanians; hence, independant and Pagan Lithuanians. As to why the Lithuanians were so much tougher than their neighbours... I have no idea.

 

[Legolas]

I think it just comes down to military prowess: the Teutonic Knights were able to mop the floor with the Prussians, Estonians, Latvians, &c, &c, and weren't able to with the Lithuanians; hence, independant and Pagan Lithuanians.

That, and slightly differing strategic locations (which also serves as a reason for Zyzzyva's post). The Prussian lands were located on the border of Poland - a Christian/Pagan frontier, if you like. The city of Riga was built on a very convenient location (mouth of a river). Word of these newcomers spreading another religion and persecuting anyone who would not convert spread rather quickly, at least far quicker than the actual military occupation and christianisation of the Baltic lands. By the time the Brothers of the Cross reached Nemunas and the Brother of the Sword went a few hundred kilometers south of Riga, the local populations were already quite unified against this threat. Further expansion of the Orders' lands would have been risking a full-scale anti-Christian rebellion.

 

[Zyzzyva]

That, and slightly differing strategic locations (which also serves as a reason for Zyzzyva's post). The Prussian lands were located on the border of Poland - a Christian/Pagan frontier, if you like. The city of Riga was built on a very convenient location (mouth of a river). Word of these newcomers spreading another religion and persecuting anyone who would not convert spread rather quickly, at least far quicker than the actual military occupation and christianisation of the Baltic lands. By the time the Brothers of the Cross reached Nemunas and the Brother of the Sword went a few hundred kilometers south of Riga, the local populations were already quite unified against this threat. Further expansion of the Orders' lands would have been risking a full-scale anti-Christian rebellion.

So basically, the Prussians got curbstomped back in the 900s, the Latvians and Estoninas got taken down a bit later, but by the time the 'Knights got round to the Lithuanians, they were facing a relatively unified state in opposition?