What was the motivation of an average barbarian king to adopt Christianity? Especially interested in the time after Rome stopped being a threat and before it became necessary to form alliances with powerful Christian kingdoms.
What was the motivation of an average barbarian king to adopt Christianity...
Michael Adams
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Noah Hernandez
Depends on the group but mainly monkey see, monkey do. The Goths made up large sections of Rome's army and thus were exposed to Christianity a great deal. Other tribes saw Rome's prestige and decided to copy them or were otherwise subject to conversion attempts by the church.
Tyler Peterson
Early medieval kings were huge romaboos and trying to emulate the Empire's prestige. Most of early medieval political structures were built on the foundation laid by the Romans.
Hunter Taylor
Christianity spread like wildfire once it was legalized. Everywhere it went, it only took a generation or two for the entire population of a town or village to become Christianized.
As it turns out, people don't like endless vendettas and vengeance slayings and prefers communities that work together
Xavier Campbell
>Especially interested in the time after Rome stopped being a threat and before it became necessary to form alliances with powerful Christian kingdoms.
There was never really that time though. There's a smooth continuity of Christian dominance in Europe from Rome/Byzantium to the Franks and other Christian kingdoms. There was never really a time since Theodosius where Christianity wasn't the dominant political current.
Jeremiah Morales
Barbarian tribes were organised in simple structures, people were mainly equal except the chiefs and spiritual leader, they hated romans like a muslim would hate a pig, but they envied them for the way they govern and control mass of people with religion, so they took the religion with gave feudalism, rich kings, wealth, religious armies grew bigger and then middle ages started ...
James Cooper
Either survival or gain in power.
The exception case being actually convinced by the invading religon.
Gavin Davis
The Goths were given a written language by a Greek who had grown up as a gothic slave, simply in order to give them the bible. It probably would have been a powerful incentive to read the bible when it was the first book in their language. Arianism had come to be a kind of national religion for many of the Germanic peoples long before they came to dominate Rome. Conversion to Nicene Christianity came much later for most of them around the 600's, some converted in a futile attempt to get the Byzantines to back their legitimacy, others to try to ease tensions with the Romans they ruled over.
In Justinian's time Rome showered immense stores of gold and other gifts on any peoples who would convert to Christianity, many slavic tribes converted for bribes.
Jason Walker
lol no, 4th century tribes had well established aristocracy and political life
Isaac Hill
It spread in Rome because it was forced and paganism was outlawed.
Owen Wright
No, it spread across 5 major cities (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem) almost as soon as Constantine decriminalized it in the early 4th century, where it filtered down to the suburban and rural areas over the span of about a century, until Theodosius made it the state religion almost 100 years later when virtually the entire population had converted and there were only a few diehard pagan hold-outs remaining.
And yes, the Christians were unfair in a legal sense about having courts blatantly favoring them and looking the other way when temples were looted or statues smashed, but they were still being a lot nicer to pagans than pagans were to them when they were the ones holding the reigns of power
Lucas Martin
If you ignore the pillaging, temple destructions, killings authorized for practicing paganism, the battles the Western empire fought to retain their pagan traditions, the punishment of getting your hands cut off for copying pagan work, etc. Then yes, it was a peaceful conversion just like Charlemagne's conversions and the conversion of the Baltics by the Teutonic crusade.
Chase White
>they were still being a lot nicer to pagans than pagans were to them when they were the ones holding the reigns of power
is that what they teach at sunday school?
Blake Collins
right, because pagans were so much better because they "only" fed Christians to lions or burned them alive for the mere fact that they were Christian
Thomas Fisher
There is no documented case of christians being fed to lions for being christian. That was a punishment for not carrying out ceremonial practices within the empire. It applied to all citizens that didn't carry it out, which could be merely an incense sacrifice.
Direct persecution of christians only happened at a non local level during Nero and a decade in the eastern roman empire during the Great persecution (303-313).
Matthew Myers
>That was a punishment for not carrying out ceremonial practices within the empire. It applied to all citizens that didn't carry it out, which could be merely an incense sacrifice.
That's because Pagan Rome (and Christian Rome, for that matter) was an abominable mess of religion and state married together. Paying your taxes was literally an offering at the temple of Jupiter-optimex. Getting your "mark" (a signed document which acted as a trade license) meant going to the appropriate temple and paying the priest.
They called them "criminals" as a euphemism. In practice it was pagans cruelly persecuting Christians for not abiding by their religious rules. But even that couldn't stop almost the entirety of the army from becoming Christian by the time of Constantine, and after its decriminalization, there was a massive wave of conversion, particularly in the rural areas where there weren't massive temples to be looted and burned, only desperate, poor farmers who had been marginalized by Roman society
Jaxson Wilson
>Christianity spread peacefully in rural areas instantly
False, it was mainly in urban areas, rural areas didn't christianize for another 2-3 centuries, especially in the west
>Military
They had to follow the state religion or be punished under treason , which change to christianity soon after Constantine legalized it and the Emperor's following him enacted anti-pagan laws. Prior to that the military were mainly Mithraists.
>Called christians criminals
Because christians had a nasty habit of purposefully committing crimes so they could be martyred. Roman authority try to avoid them because it was god damn obnoxious, to the point a proconsul is quoted saying, "If you want to die, go jump off a cliff" after a group of christians begged to be martyred.
Connor King
All the posts ITT that try to argue Christianity was adopted for purely political reasons are imposing a post-Enlightenment mindset on medieval people. What I mean is, the fact that converting to Christianity gave one political advantages was seen as proof that the Christian god was superior to the pagan deities. Or when a pagan king was defeated and forced to convert this was also seen as a sign that the Christian god was real. Essentially what I'm getting at is that there were no "purely political" reasons for things in the medieval world because spirituality and politics were still inseparably connected during this time. The existence of the spirit world was taken for granted back then so when Christian kingdoms outperformed their pagan counterparts in literacy, trade, warfare or whatever it was perceived as evidence that the Christian god was at work.
Jordan Collins
>As it turns out, people don't like endless vendettas and vengeance slayings and prefers communities that work together
So why did they do vendettas and vengeance slayings instead of communities that work together? Were they retarded?
Angel Parker
>Full of shit: the post
David James
>No political reasons
If you ignore history, you're absolutely right. Political reasons like trade, political support, not getting slaughtered, and not losing you hier's inheritance were huge motivator's in conversion.
James Miller
>False, it was mainly in urban areas, rural areas didn't christianize for another 2-3 centuries, especially in the west
of course it starts in the urban areas, that was my point: after decriminalization, when they were no longer forced to meet secretly in crypts for fear of political persecution, is when it really begins to explode, and by the time Theodosius made Christianity the state religion decades later the majority of the Roman population was Christian. Even during the reign of Julian the apostate he recognized that the reason Christianity was thriving in rural areas was because they would move into these towns and build a church which invited all, serviced the poorest and most desperate elements of society, and didn't hide their canon behind a pay-wall
>They had to follow the state religion or be punished under treason , which change to christianity soon after Constantine legalized it and the Emperor's following him enacted anti-pagan laws. Prior to that the military were mainly Mithraists.
Literally the reason why Constantine had the Chi-rho painted on his mens' shields was to demoralize Maxentius' army, whose entire body of pedes were Christian except for the officer class By 300 CE the cult of Mithra had been long since eclipsed.
>Because christians had a nasty habit of purposefully committing crimes so they could be martyred.
That's what pagans accused them off in order to legitimize the cruel behavior. Christians were not happy being forced to make an offering to the state temples.
Nolan Gonzalez
>So why did they do vendettas and vengeance slayings instead of communities that work together? Were they retarded?
that's not a simple question to answer. You get that sort of behavior everywhere in the world prior to Christianization, or at least the spread of one of the dominant world religions. Romans suppressed this behavior through application of raw state power, through diasporas of uppity cultures and outright repression, hence the term "pax Romana". Christianity codified this practice of not hunting your neighbors for sport and profit as a cultural tradition, and it was a social development which people rapidly accept when given the option.
Anthony Johnson
>Rome was a majority christuan by theodorius
Fucking incorrect, the Christian hotbeds of the West were AT MOST 50%. It especially spread at this point because paganism was outlawed by a few emperors and now pagans had to worship in private. The difference is this persecution lasted longer.
>Pay-wall
Pagan religions didn't have a paywall. Catholicism later had the indulgence concept.
>Pagans accused them blah blah
Except christians actually purposefully committed crimes to be martyred.
Honestly, what's the point here. Their is so much Christian revisionism on this topic and Christians cannot accept their religion spread violently. Whatever, just ignore history and keep believing guys like Theo and all those christian pillagers, etc were just misunderstood peaceful people. There's a reason no other religion or "heresy" survives in the christian sphere. They were slaughtered.
Ayden Gutierrez
don't bother user.
Adam Ross
>Pagan religions didn't have a paywall
Yes they did. Your faith and potential reward was directly linked to the quality of your sacrifices which meant the poorer you were, the shittier your sacrifice, the less likely you were to get anywhere, and repeat the loop.
This was largely why Christianity spread throughout the poorer parts of the empire. Christ saying wealth didn't matter when it came to the afterlife was particularly popular.
Things like indulgences and the money making aspect of Christianity didn't come until well after late antiquity and early Christianity.
Jonathan Miller
>tfw romanboos are literal faggots
Grayson Morgan
> It especially spread at this point because paganism was outlawed by a few emperors
More outright revisionism. Paganism wasn't outlawed until Theodosius, well after it was decriminalized and allowed to coexist. This was not a luxury that pagan emperors allowed Christians, at best they looked the other way. They thrived in urban areas for a variety of reasons
While pagans fled cities, Christians stayed in urban areas during plague, ministering and caring for the sick.
Christian populations grew faster because of the prohibition of birth control, abortion and infanticide. Since infanticide tended to affect female newborn more frequently, early Christians had a more even sex ratio and therefore a higher percentage of childbearing women than pagans.
To the same effect: Women were valued higher and allowed to participate in worship leading to a high rate of female converts.
In a time of two epidemics (165 and 251) which killed up to a third of the whole population of the Roman Empire each time, the Christian message of redemption through sacrifice offered a more satisfactory explanation of why bad things happen to innocent people. Further, the tighter social cohesion and mutual help made them able to better cope with the disasters, leaving them with less casualties than the general population. This would also be attractive to outsiders, who would want to convert. The epidemics left many non-Christians with a reduced number of interpersonal bonds, making the forming of new ones both necessary and easier
>Except christians actually purposefully committed crimes to be martyred.
Again, they did so for a specific reason: protesting state repression. Christians did not fight against their persecutors by open violence or guerrilla warfare but willingly went to their martyrdom while praying for their captors, which added credibility to their evangelism.
>Honestly, what's the point here
>LARPing neo-pagans need their safe-spaces from consensus history
Dylan Williams
I didn’t say “no political reasons” I said political reasons WERE spiritual reasons because they could not be conceptually separated at this time.
Luis Gonzalez
Maybe it spread because Jesus rose from the dead and everything he said is true.
Nathaniel Morris
>People didn't know what politics were
Open a history book for once, holy shit
>You faith and potential reward were linked to you quality of sacrifice
There is no indo-european religion that dictated you needed to be wealthy for a good afterlife. It was about how you acted in life and served your gods that determined it. Although sacrifice is important, I have not read in a single place that the poor would be cursed for not being able to afford more extravagant sacrifices.
>This was why Christianity spread through poorer parts of the empire
Except it spread through the richest parts, mainly the cities of the East. It didn't take meaningful hold in the West until Paganism was outlawed.
Says the Jew's wife's son worshipper
Constantine allowed pillaging and destruction of pagan temples and Constantinius II enacted the first anti-pagan laws.
What's the source for the rest of your post, such as epidemics and such? First time I ever heard it.
>Christians purposefully committed crimes to rebel against the state
If you commit crimes, you get punished. They weren't being targeted, they were looking to be targeted. Christians were seen as attention whores and obsessed with death at this time. At least going by Marcus Aurelius and other writers.
>Consensus history
You mean history contaminated by writers biased by their faith.
Xavier Moore
Not him, but good job lacking reading comprehension and purposefully omitting a key word. He said, "no purely political reasons", i.e. people didn't convert for just political reasons completely septate from everything else
Christopher Allen
In Ireland, around the 4th-5th centuries, there was a strong degree of interaction between Ireland and Roman Britain. Hoards of Roman silver appear buried in bogs, Roman records report Irish piracy and raiding across the Irish sea (that's how Patrick arrived in Ireland) and there's evidence of Irish auxilleries serving in the continent. Irish dynasties were even set up in parts of Wales and Cornwall, possibly settled there by the Romans as foedorati. There was a kind of cultural hybridisation on both sides of the Irish Sea, with Irish settlement in western Britian and a Romanisation of Irish elites across Ireland, but especially in the east. Irish rulers began to dress like Romans, adopting the contemporary military costume of a cloak fastened by a brooch over a tunic, and even adpted the use of purple as a royal colour (the Old Irish word for purple is a loanword from Latin, and there are dozens of other Latin loanwords from this period). There was also the adoption of writing, particularly in the from of Ogham (though there are some Latin inscriptions, pic related), a script deriving driectly from Latin and used in a way that was probably inspired by Roman monumental inscriptions. Some of these stones record Latin names, though they're written in Irish. Crucially, Romano-British religious practices were also adopted in the most Romanised regions, so that you start to see things like ritual deposition at sacred sites (previously a practices restricted to sacred pools and rivers) and Roman-style inhumations replacing cremations.
Leo Brown
If pagan practices were being adopted, it shouldn't be surprising that Christianity was adopted too, especially considering the missionary nature of that religion. The elites wanted to be a part of the wider Roman world, so when the Roman world became Christian, so did they. And unlike Roman paganism, Christianity actually had its own motivation to spread. When the first bishop was sent from Rome to Ireland in 431 AD, he was sent specifically to the Christians already present there. Saint Patrick's writings, from some point in the 5th century, reveal that he was patronised by local elites and it's likely that his writings, which defended his mission against Christian critics, were aimed at least partially at literate Christians already living in Ireland.
So basically, Christianisation was a part of Romanisation. It was a cultural movement among the elite, not a utilitarian political move.
I only really know about Ireland, but I think similar processes explain why other areas became Christian. You can see a lot of the same things in other Roman frontiers, for example the Germanic and Berber tribes adopting writing in the form of Elder Futhark and Tifinagh. The Norse also converted as their expansion brought them into more and more contact with Christians (in Ireland they converted soon after settling). Culture just generally radiated out of the Mediterranean, and even after Western Rome fell it remained the most influential region in the west. Basically it was similar to how the Japanese adopted from China or the Southeast Asians adopted from Inida; the peripheries adopted from the center, and religion went along as part of a wider cultural package.
Lucas Thompson
>Constantine allowed pillaging and destruction of pagan temples and Constantinius II enacted the first anti-pagan laws.
And Diocletian's persecution was the largest and most severe, often burning Christians alive. And even these top-down approaches would have only affected wealthy Christians/pagans in urban areas, you're ignoring a huge variety of cultural reasons why Christianity spread like wildfire even in places where the ruling class didn't have active reach, like in Ireland or Scandinavian cultures which were the last pagan holdouts in Europe.
>If you commit crimes, you get punished. They weren't being targeted, they were looking to be targeted. Christians were seen as attention whores and obsessed with death at this time. At least going by Marcus Aurelius and other writers.
You're just repeating yourself, and driving to push home this narrative (which their enemies concocted) that Christians welcomed a violent, horrible death. It's just how pagans justified themselves as they were murdering them for the sake of mass entertainment. Christians' protests were over state repression, which in those days was the same thing as religious repression: the Emperors hated them because Christians refused to worship them, which was the same thing as breaking the law. They called them law-breakers because that's what they did to everybody whom they fed to the meat grinders of public entertainment. Christians sacrificed themselves willingly to make a point, praying for the souls of the people leading them to their deaths. That's not the same as looking to be targeted
>sources
>You mean history contaminated by writers biased by their faith.
No, I mean actual academics who are willing to look with an eye unclouded by personal biases and edgy contrarianism
textbooks.com
Nolan White
>proconsul is quoted saying, "If you want to die, go jump off a cliff"
If this is true, please tell me the source.
Noah Campbell
>le 56% face
Aiden Thomas
>You wretches, if you want to die, you have cliffs to leap from and ropes to hang by
Martyrdom and Rome by Boaersock
>Diocletian
Yes, the 10 years the great persecution happened in the eastern Roman empire was terrible.
>Scandinavia
>Peaceful conversion
O boy. That was way later and wasn't peaceful at all.
>I'm saying christians were committing crimes
Because they were, their destruction of pagan property was especially troubling. Being required to make a sacrifice which could just be incense is trivial, ya it's required and politically I don't agree with it, but it was far less rigid than when christianity is in charge. That becomes no other religion or Christian sect is allowed. Rome was historically very tolerant of other religions. And the spike you see in your pic coincides with a period of anti-pagan laws including death for attending sacrifices. Pagan had to practice in private during that time.
>Sources is a Christian author opposed to Darwinism
Pic related
Camden Edwards
Winning a battle or a nagging wife. Usually a combination of the two.