German tribes remain polytheistic

Charmenlges fail in his conquest of Germany and the conversion
Weren't the Bavarians, Alemanns and Franks over the Rhine already converted though? The only groups that weren't converted were the Saxons and Thuringians and I think the Frisians as well? That's far from being have half of Germany at this point in time.
 
Weren't the Bavarians, Alemanns and Franks over the Rhine already converted though? The only groups that weren't converted were the Saxons and Thuringians and I think the Frisians as well? That's far from being have half of Germany at this point in time.
Yes but he pushed them over the edge
 

Marc

Donor
I would suggest reading up a bit about the rise of the Axial Age, and why entertaining the notion of an old-school polytheism surviving is, if not ASB, may be one of those high sigma events that require multiple "supposings."
There are quite a few articles on it online and in print, including some thoughtful critiques of Karl Jasper's original concept of a profound shift in religion in the civilized world. I would highly recommend Karen Armstrong's book: The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions.

Putting aside the pedantic hat, you all do know that polytheism didn't completely die out in the West, it just became attenuated and sublimated in most communities.
 
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Germanics were still largely pagan down to the end of the Viking age anyway. The Anglo-Saxons and Franks were pagan during their initial invasions. The Lombards still believed in Godan and Frea as Paul the Deacon tells us. The Saxons also remained pagan for the most part until after Charlemagne subjugated them.

In fact, should be pointed out that Western European religion remained with strong pagan survivals. Saint veneration, certain rituals and popular folklore remained largely pre-Christian. Jacob Grimm discovered that a general belief in the goddess Holle/Hulda in Germany and the Swiss Alps was still very strong, in the 19th century. Thomas Hobbes was complaining in his Leviathan about beliefs in goblins and fairies among the general populace. Scandinavian fishermen were supposedly still invoking Njord in the 19th century as well.
 
I would suggest reading up a bit about the rise of the Axial Age, and why entertaining the notion of an old-school polytheism surviving is, if not ASB, may be one of those high sigma events that require multiple "supposings."
There are quite a few articles on it online and in print, including some thoughtful critiques of Karl Jasper's original concept of a profound shift in religion in the civilized world. I would highly recommend Karen Armstrong book: The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions.

Putting aside the pedantic hat, you all do know that polytheism didn't completely die out in the West, it just became attenuated and sublimated in most communities.
He is completely rightbhueg parta of post axel age religion simply adopted parts of pangasims and you would need a new axle age religion to rise to succed it ins own form but it would not be polytheism as we know it there is only one post axel age religion that does that and it morman and it not talk about that mich
 
Germanics were still largely pagan down to the end of the Viking age anyway. The Anglo-Saxons and Franks were pagan during their initial invasions. The Lombards still believed in Godan and Frea as Paul the Deacon tells us. The Saxons also remained pagan for the most part until after Charlemagne subjugated them.
You're talking about a lot of things that were temporally far apart, Clovis converted at the end of the 400's and the Franks largely followed his example, the English started converting en masse around the start of the 600's I believe, the Lombards converted around the same time, and Charlemagne's conquest of the Saxons was in the tail end of the 700's. The end of the Viking Age on the other hand was 1066, several centuries after the last of these events as the conquest of Saxony was roughly contemporaneous with the beginning of the Viking Age, not its end. And of course by this time the Saxons were famously the last pagan holdouts in Germania. And even by the end of the Viking Age not only were all the Germans and English and so on Christian but so were a huge proportion of the Nordics, including the last viking king Harald Hardrada as well as the most famous Norse explorer Leif Ericsson, to the extent that I'm not sure you could even say that the Norse were "largely pagan" in this period, let alone the Germans.
 
Say the German Tribes remain polytheistic

What would be the impact on the migration period
If the migration period still happen as IOTL, it's still likely that peoples whom identity and institutional frames are products (more or less original) of the Roman borders (such as Goths, Franks, Alamans, Burgundians, etc.) will still be Christianized out of sheer integration and encadrement trough Roman cultural and social frames, if Christianity is still adopted as main and institutional religion.
If you manage to prevent Christianity of the empire, however, it's still likely that the religions and cults that Barbarians would adopt would be essentially roman-issued : IOTL they already adopted a lot of roman features even in Barbaricum in their religious approach, the best illustration there would be Mars Thincsus (Mars of the Thing) found both in England and Denmark.

Basically, peoples born out of Roman influence projection in Barbaricum and entering then settling Romania would be still largely Romanized.
 
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