WI: Christianized Skraeling legacy

Vinland survives, etc is a pretty well known trope around here which is really unlikely given the climate factors, but let's say for the sake of argument things go a little better and relations with the neighbors are a little better via trade. If a few local Skraelings end up converting to (Catholic) Christianity and a few are ordained as Priests (I'm not sure if there were any priests in Vinland but let's say there are in this scenario) and it ends up sticking past the Norse colonization effort, what are the consequences?

Historians seem to believe the locals were Beothuk ancestors. At the risk of asking a thousand questions, I have a few key inquiries:

In this case, once the Norse die off, is it possible for a kind of organized Christianity to survive in Newfoundland? Could it retain its Catholic heritage enough without innovation to be recognizable to latter European explorers? Was there enough interplay between the proto-Beothuk and other mainland groups that Christianity would spread elsewhere? What would the long term effect be on the proto-Beothuk society, if any - would there be revolutionary changes?
 
Long answer:
1 )Christianisation wasn't a Norse priority the way it was a Spanish. Look at Sami conversion history.
2) native Christianisation succeeded where hierarchies of a civilization could be seized. The Beothuk were mesolithic hunter-gatherers.
3) and the Norse were not famous for transforming societies they came into contact with into urban mega-centers to change this relation
4) either way, the vinlanders kept to themselves
5) the beothuk had no use for a Script (hell, the norse had only recently found one)
6) no comparable ordination had happened before to my knowledge
 
If the "grave of Jesus" in Japan is any indication after being isolated they will schism so hard as to be unrecognizable.

Though if the Norse have enough of a foundation to convert natives en masse then they'll probably have enough foundation to stick around for a while.
 
In OTL several priests led expeditions over the centuries from Greenland "West" and never returned (or those that did returned multiple years later). It's not inconceivable that some sort of Christianity might be spread somewhere around the gulf of st. lawrence in isolated pockets. But after a few more centuries, if any survives, it would be vastly changed and unrecognizable IMHO.
 
In OTL several priests led expeditions over the centuries from Greenland "West" and never returned (or those that did returned multiple years later). It's not inconceivable that some sort of Christianity might be spread somewhere around the gulf of st. lawrence in isolated pockets. But after a few more centuries, if any survives, it would be vastly changed and unrecognizable IMHO.

I wonder how it would develop. Just because it evolves doesn't mean it's not worth exploring - actually, I think it's even more so.

One has to assume that the early European explorers would be mystified if they encounter natives who appear to follow some schismatic Christianity.
 
I'm not entirely sure it becomes something unrecognizable though I suppose that's likely. How close in contact with the rest of the Eastern Church were the St. Thomas Christians in India?

Maybe one of the PODs we could go with here is that Bishop Erik Gnupsson actually made it to Vinland?
 
Last edited:
What about a different tack: Vinland dies off, but a community of (extremely adventurous) Irish monks come over before they're gone. Say they stay on awhile and manage to convert the locals. Put it on Newfoundland, because on the mainland I think they'd be enslaved or killed inside a few years.

They're never heard from again in Europe. They can't sustain their numbers from Beothuk children they raise or people who trickle in from Greenland, but it keeps the community going for another generation or two.

By that time, we've got livestock raising, farming, mostly Christianized Beothuk with a literate elite. (Lets not give them horses or metal too.) A pretty much completely different society, not a pleasant transition to make. Would have much greater numbers and will go higher. Livestock will be traded and all, but I imagine Beothuk themselves will be moving off the island before European contact.

My limited knowledge of Northeastern Native Americans is that they were really good at war, but, pace the Iroquois Confederacy, were mostly politically disorganized tribes. They're not going to roll over, but the Beothuk could still carve out a piece of the mainland from them.

How much of this is wishful thinking? More probably, agriculture and writing die out with the monks. More probably, the Beothuk mostly just have iconography and a few bits of language and culture. Say inscriptions of random Roman alphabet letters, crosses everywhere, some stories about a man who sounds like Jesus. And when the explorers land, they're greeted in Latin (it's the only Latin phrase they know).

I like either scenario.
 
Top