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The Introduction of Christianity
The embossed gilded copper plate which depicts Harald Bluetooth´s conversion to Christianity by a missionary named Poppo is believed to date from the 13th century.
These contacts with the outside world brought strong cultural influences into the country, not least as regards religion. As early as 700, a missionary named Willibrord sought to bring Christianity to the Danes.
Missionary work was closely connected to politics from the very beginning. As well as wanting to spread Christianity, the Franks wanted to gain a foothold in Denmark, and some of those involved in the fight for the Danish throne proved willing to help.
Harald Klak sought the help of Louis the Pious (Louis I) and prompted a Frankish invasion of Jutland in 815; in 826 he was baptised, but when he was banished from Denmark the following year, his missionary Ansgar failed to make much progress; only 25 years later did he manage to establish churches at Hedeby and Ribe, and these only survived for a very short period of time.
Denmark’s conversion to Christianity more than 100 years later followed strong political pressure from Germany. In 948, Otto the Great nominated bishops for the dioceses of Schleswig, Ribe and Århus under the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen.
Put under such pressure, Harald Bluetooth himself embraced Christianity around 965, but chose to be baptised by a missionary known as Poppo, who did not hail from Hamburg-Bremen, and it is not known whether the bishops who were nominated in 948 ever came to work in Denmark – Harald’s hostile relations with Germany would seem to have made it very unlikely.
This frescoe comes from around 1125-1150 and is found in Todbjerg Church. It shows how hard man had to work to cultivate the soil.
Svend Forkbeard and Knud the Great fetched clergymen to Denmark from England, and Knud probably contemplated connecting the Danish Church to the English, possibly with Roskilde as the archiepiscopal see subordinated to Canterbury just like York.
Around 1060, Svend Estridsen (Svend II) introduced a proper church organisation with eight dioceses: Schleswig, Ribe, Århus, Viborg, Vendsyssel, Odense, Roskilde and Lund.
He also sought to establish an independent Danish archiepiscopal see, but this was not achieved until 1103 when Erik Ejegod (Erik I) made Lund the archiepiscopal see for the whole of Scandinavia.
Niels Lund, Gyldendal Leksikon
The Structure of the Peasant Society
It was previously thought that society was made up of farmers who were all free and equal, who owned smallholdings and who sat on district and national things and had their say in the affairs of their society.
