Saints’ Cults in Medieval Livonia
Saints’ cults played a crucial role in medieval society. Although we know very little about the beliefs and rituals of the indigenous peoples of Livonia, either before or after the thirteenth-century conquest, we may assume that the process of Christianization must have caused major changes in their religious practices.
To Be or Not to Be… a Christian: Some New Perspectives on Understanding the Christianisation of Estonia
The Christianisation of Estonia has been a subject of extensive research already for a couple of centuries. Archaeologists generally agree that some elements of Christian religion were present in Estonia already prior to official Christianisation at the beginning of the 13th century.
Did Halley’s Comet Convert the Irish to Christianity?
Many attribute the spread of Christianity in Ireland to St. Patrick. But Medieval history and scientific evidence dating back to 540 A.D. hint at a more cosmic reason.
The effects of Viking activity on Scandinavian society
Three ways in which Viking raids and conquests in western Europe affected Scandinavian society are discussed
The Khazars did not convert to Judaism, historian finds
It has long been believed that the Khazars, a central Asian people, converted to Judaism in the ninth or tenth century. However, a new article concludes that the conversion never took place.
St. Patrick’s Irish Pride
In honour of the day, it seems fitting to throw out some interesting facts about St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint.
Burning Idols, Burning Bridges: Bede, Conversion and Beowulf
This article will re-examine some of the information in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, completed in AD 731, on the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity in the late sixth and seventh centuries.
St. Ninian of Whithorn
My interest here is in finding usable information regarding the centuries before Bede and in the way in which new data, especially the outstanding recent archaeological discoveries at Whithom in Wigtownshire (which is certainly the site of Candida Casal. might support and add to his picture of St. Ninian and the importance of his church at Candida Casa.
Frankish involvement in the Gregorian mission to Kent
This article re-examines the primary documents relating to the sixth century Gregorian Mission to Kent in light of the modern historiographical tradition which claims Frankish hegemony existed over the Kentish Kingdom under Aethelberht’s rule.
The Christianisation of Bohemia and Moravia
The territory of what is now Czech Republic consists of essentially two lands, Bohemia and Moravia.
Religious and Cultural Boundaries between Vikings and Irish: The Evidence of Conversion
If we compare sources from England, the horror with which viking attacks were viewed is immediately apparent. The heathenism of vikings is stressed as one of their dire attributes in Alcuin’s famous response to news of the attack on Lindisfarne in 793. Literary accounts of vikings also became more lengthy and imaginative over time.
How Christian Were Viking Christians?
What did the Vikings know of Christianity, how did they appreciate Christian teaching per se and in comparison with their native beliefs, in what way was Christianity enrooted in the minds of pagan Scandinavians?
Infant Burials and Christianization: The View from East Central Europe
This was the second paper in the Early Medieval Europe I series given at KZOO and another fabulous archaeology paper. It contrasted infant grave sites in early converted medieval Poland and Anglo Saxon England.
Louis the Pious and the Conversion of the Danes
This paper was part of a very interesting session on the Early Middle Ages. The papers covered Eastern European Infant Burial, the archaeology of medieval feasting and conversion. This paper contrasted the conversion policies of Charlemagne versus those of Louis the Pious.
Holding The Border: Power, Identity, And The Conversion Of Mercia
Examining the conversion of the kingdom of Mercia from the perspective of that kingdom’s origins and development and its rulers’ interests and concerns will enable us to understand both resistance and conversion to Christianity in seventh-century England.
From Paganism to Christianity: Transition of the Insular Celts As Seen Through The Archaeological Record
These centuries of tension and adaptation provide the evidence for the interaction of Christianity and Celtic religions, but one must use caution when examining Celtic religion because of potentially biased evidence.
Conversion and Empire: Byzantine Missionaries, Foreign Rulers, and Christian Narratives (ca. 300-900)
For a broader modern audience today, if taken somewhat journalistically, Pusicius’ story is an example that cuts along cultural and religious lines that presumably originate in ancient, political divisions and confirm a “clash of civilizations” thesis.
The Law’s Violence against Medieval and Early Modern Jews
Ken Pennington examines the issue of forced baptism of Jewish children in the legal literature from the Middle Ages to the early modern period.
“Kings as Catechumens: Royal Conversion Narratives and Easter in the Historia Ecclesiastica” by Carolyn Twomey (Boston College)
This is the first paper from the Haskins Conference at Boston College – it focused on Bede’s narratives of Royal conversion.
Coptic Conversion and the Islamization of Egypt
Most recently, Tamer el-Leithy has made a comprehensive study of Coptic conversion during the Mamluk period. In length and depth, this still-unpublished work eclipses the preceding article-length studies. Its subject is focused on conversion among the Coptic upper class in Cairo during the fourteenth century…
The Secret Society: Descendants of Crypto-Jews in the San Antonio Area
The history of the converso Jews began in medieval Catholic Spain, which was constantly wracked with anti-Semitism that, many times, led to mass conversions or massacres of the Jewish population.
Paganism in Conversion-Age Anglo-Saxon England: The Evidence of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History Reconsidered
With the notable exception of R. I. Page, the attitude that historians and archaeologists alike have taken to Bede’s words about the religion(s) of the pre-Christian occupants of conversion-age Anglo-Saxon England has overwhelmingly been to accept what this eighth-century commentator has to tell us.
Petrarch’s “Conversion” on Mont Ventoux and the Patterns of Religious Experience
Petrarch’s letter, with its moments of meditation, its allegorical exploitation of the features in the physical ascent, and its program of classical allusions informing even the geographical descriptions, is much more than a travel narrative.
Black Africans’ Religious and Cultural Assimilation to, or Appropriation of, Catholicism in Italy, 1470-1520
Current scholarship emphasizes that the old model of conversion—of, say, Christianity being actively forced onto passive and subordinate peoples—is no longer satisfactory, and instead prefers to frame the issue around concepts of cultural interaction or cultural transmission, and selective appropriation of the host religion.
The Christianization of Kieven Rus’ and Piast Poland
Although both came from pagan and ethnically Slavic backgrounds, the leaders diverged in the branch of Christianity each chose, although, both conversions took place each region within a similar time frame.