Kings of Norway Exert Pressure
When Olaf Tryggvason ascended to the crown of Norway, the effort to Christianize Iceland intensified. King Olaf sent an Icelander named Stefnir Thorgilsson back to his homeland to convert his fellow countrymen. Stefnir violently destroyed sanctuaries and images of the heathen gods – this made him so unpopular that he was eventually declared an outlaw. After Stefnir's failure, Olaf sent a priest named Thangbrand (Old Norse: Þangbrandr). Thangbrand was an experienced missionary, having proselytized both in Norway and the Faroe Islands. His mission in Iceland from c. 997–999 was only partly successful. He managed to convert several prominent Icelandic chieftains, but killed two or three men in the process. Thangbrand returned to Norway in 999 and reported his failure to King Olaf, who immediately adopted a more aggressive stance towards the Icelanders. He refused Icelandic seafarers access to Norwegian ports and took as hostages several Icelanders then dwelling in Norway. This cut off all trade between Iceland and its main trading partner. Some of the hostages taken by King Olaf were the sons of prominent Icelandic chieftains, whom he threatened to kill unless the Icelanders accepted Christianity.
In the 11th century, three Armenian bishops, Petros, Abraham and Stephannos are recorded by Icelandic sources as Christian missionaries in Iceland. Their presence has been explained in terms of the service of King Harald Hardrada of Norway (c.1047–1066) as a Varangian in Constantinople, where he had met Armenians serving in the Byzantine Imperial Army.
The Icelandic Commonwealth's limited foreign policy consisted almost entirely of maintaining good relations with Norway. The Christians in Iceland used the King's pressure to step up efforts at conversion. The two rival religions soon divided the country and threatened civil war.
Read more about this topic: Christianisation Of Iceland
Famous quotes containing the words kings of, kings, norway, exert and/or pressure:
“And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, O David...”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Kings 12:16.
“Write about winter in the summer. Describe Norway as Ibsen did, from a desk in Italy; describe Dublin as James Joyce did, from a desk in Paris. Willa Cather wrote her prairie novels in New York City; Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in Hartford, Connecticut. Recently, scholars learned that Walt Whitman rarely left his room.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)
“Freudianism is much more nearly a religion than a science, inasmuch as the relation between analyst and patient has a great deal in common with that between priest and communicant at confessional, and such ideas as the Oedipus complex, the superego, the libido, and the id exert an effect upon the converted which is almost identical with what flows to the devout Christian from godhead, trinity, grace, and immortality.”
—Robert Nisbet (b. 1913)
“He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)