The Evolution of States

by J. M. Robertson

§ 1

When the early history of Scandinavia is studied as a process of social evolution rather than as a chronicle of feuds and of the exploits of heroes of various grades,[638] it is found to constitute a miniature norm of a simple and instructive sort. Taken as it emerges from the stage of myth, about the time of Charlemagne, it presents a vivid phase of barbarism, acted on by powerful conditions of change. The three sections of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden stand in a certain natural gradation as regards their possibilities of political development. All alike were capable only of a secondary or tertiary civilisation, being at once geographically disrupted and incapable, on primitive methods, of feeding an abundant population. In their early piratical stage, the Scandinavians are not greatly different from the pre-Homeric Greeks as these were conceived by Thucydides; but whereas the Greeks came in contact with the relatively high civilisations which had preceded them, the Scandinavians of the Dark Ages had no contacts save with the primitive life of the pre-Christian Slavs, the premature and arrested cross-civilisations of Carlovingian France and Anglo-Saxon England, and, in a fuller and more fruitful degree, with the similarly arrested semi-Christian civilisation of Celtic Ireland, which latter counted for so much in their literature.

But in barbarian conditions certain main laws of social evolution operate no less clearly than in later stages; and we see sections of the Norsemen passing from tribal anarchy to primitive monarchy, and thence to military "empire," afterwards returning to their stable economic basis, as every military empire sooner or later must. Of the Scandinavian sections, Denmark and the southern parts of Sweden (round the Maelar) are the least disrupted and most fertile; and these were respectively the most readily reducible to a single rule. In all, given to begin with the primordial bias to royalism in any of its forms,[639] the establishment of a supreme and hereditary military rule was only a question of time; every successive attempt, however undone by the forces of barbaric independence, being a lead and stimulus to others. It is important to note how the process was promoted by, and in its turn promoted, the establishment of Christianity. The incomplex phenomena in Scandinavia throw a new light on the more complex evolution of other parts of Christendom. Primitive polytheism is obviously unpropitious to monarchic rule; and in every ancient religion it can be seen to have undergone adaptations where such rule arose. In the widely varying systems of Homeric Greece, Babylonia, Egypt, and Rome, the same tendency is visibly at work in different degrees, the ascendent principle of earthly government being more or less directly duplicated in theological theory. Under the Roman Empire, all cults were in a measure bent to the imperial service, and it was only the primary exclusiveness of Christianity that put it in conflict with the State. Once the emperor accepted it, recognising its political use, and conceded its exclusive claims, it became a trebly effective political instrument,[640] centralising as it did the whole machinery of religion throughout the Empire, and co-ordinating all to the political system. To use a modern illustration, it "syndicated" the multifold irregular activities of worship, and was thus the ideal system for a centralised and imperial State.[641] This was as readily seen by Theodoric and Charlemagne as by the rulers at Constantinople; and to such a perception, broadly speaking, is to be attributed the forcing of Christianity on the northern races by their kings.

Compare the explicit admissions of Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. 8 cent., pt. ii, ch. ii, § 5 and note, following on the testimony of William of Malmesbury as to Charlemagne. Other ecclesiastical historians coincide. "Numbers of the earliest and most active converts, both in Germany and England, were connected with the royal households; and in this way it would naturally occur that measures which related to the organising of the Church would emanate directly from the King.... It is indeed remarkable that so long as kings were esteemed the real patrons of the Church, she felt no wish to define exactly her relations to the civil power; the two authorities ... laboured to enforce obedience to each other" (Hardwick, Church History: Middle Age, 1853, pp. 56-57). The same historian (p. 127) describes the Wends of the eleventh century as seeing in the missionary a means for their subjection to Germany, and as "constantly attempting to regain their independence and extinguish the few glimmerings of truth that had been forced into their minds."

Northern paganism, more than the semi-cosmopolitan polytheism of the south in the period of Augustus, was a local and domestic faith, lending itself to separateness and independence, as did the civic and family religions of early Greece and Rome. While there were communal assemblies with specially solemn sacrifices, the popular beliefs were such that every district could have its holy places, and every family or group its special rites;[642] and in primitive Scandinavia a priesthood could still less develop than even in primitive Germany, whose lack of any system corresponding to the Druidism of Gaul is still empirically ascribed to some anti-sacerdotal element in the "national character," whereas it is plainly a result of the nomadic life-conditions of the scattered people. In germ the Teutonic priesthood was extremely powerful, being the judiciary power from which there was no appeal.[643] But an organised priestly system can arise only on the basis of some measure of political levelling or centralisation, involving some peaceful inter-communication. Romanised Christianity, coming ready-made from its centre, permitted of no worship save that of the consecrated church, and no ministry save that of the ordained priest.[644] Only the most obstinately conservative kings or chieftains, therefore, could fail to see their immediate advantage in adopting it.[645]

Naturally the early Christian records gloss the facts. Thus it is told in the life of Anskar (Ancharius) that "the Swedes" sent messengers to the Emperor Ludovic the Pious (circa 825) telling that "many" of them "longed to embrace the Christian faith"—a story for which the only possible basis would be the longings and perhaps the propaganda of Christian captives of some western European nationality. (Cp. Hardwick, Church History: Middle Age, 1853, p. 110, notes, and p. 111.) Still it is admitted that the king was avowedly willing to listen; and the tale of the first acceptance of Christianity in Sweden, even if true in detail, would plainly point to a carefully rehearsed plan under the king's supervision. The admission that afterwards there was a return to heathenism for nearly a century consists entirely with the view that the first tentative was one of kingly policy. See Geijer, c. iii, pp. 34, 35. It was the people who drove out the missionaries; and Hardwick's statement that after seven years Anskar "was able to regain his hold on the affections of the Swedes" is confuted by his own narrative. All that Anskar obtained was a toleration of his mission; and this was given after a trial by lots, on heathen principles (Hardwick, pp. 112, 113; cp. p. 115). The account in Crichton and Wheaton's Scandinavia, 1837, i, 122, brings the king's initiative into prominence. (Cp. Otté, Scandinavian History, 1874, p. 34.) They also note that Charlemagne, in treating with the Danes, "did not attempt to impose his religion" upon them; but they do not glimpse the true explanation, which is that he could gain nothing by helping to organise a hostile kingdom. In point of fact he refused to let Lindger pursue his purpose of converting the Northmen. (Hardwick, p. 108, note 2, citing Vit. S. Lindger.) He had not developed the devotion or the subservience to the Church which in later ages led emperors to force the acceptance of Christianity on a defeated State that remained otherwise independent.

When in a later age Christianity was definitely established in Sweden under Olaf the Lap (or Tribute) King (circa 1000), whose father Erik is said to have been murdered in a tumult for his destruction of a pagan temple, the process was again strictly monarchic, the Diet resisting; but Olaf's substantial success was such as to permit of his annexing Gothland, temporarily conquering Norway, and styling himself king of all Sweden; and his son, Anund Jakob, continuing the profitable policy, earned the title of Most Christian Majesty (Crichton and Wheaton, i, 111; Geijer, p. 39). Even after this the attempt of a bishop (1067) to destroy the old temple at Upsala, resisted by the Christian King Stenkil, but supported by his rasher son Inge, caused the expulsion of the latter by the pagan party under Svend. Only after Inge's restoration by Danish help (1075) was the heathen worship suppressed (Hardwick, p. 116).

As regards Denmark, the historians incidentally make it clear that Harald Klak, usurping king of Jutland (circa 820), wanted to Christianise his turbulent subjects in order to subordinate them, having learned the wisdom of the policy from Louis the Pious; and it is no less clear that the same motive swayed Erik I, who, after having in his days of piratical adventure, as usurper of the Jute crown, destroyed the Christian settlement of Charlemagne at Hamburg, entirely changed his attitude and favoured Christianity when, on the death of King Horda-Knut, he became king of all Denmark (Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 120-23).

So plain was the political tendency of the new creed that after the Christianisation of Denmark by Erik I the nobility forced Erik II to restore the pagan system; but the triumph of the Church, like that of monarchy, was only a question of time. Even kings who, being caught late in life, did not renounce their paganism, are found ready to favour the missionaries; and in Denmark such tolerance on the part of Gorm the Old (d. 941), successor of Erik II, is followed by the official Christianity of his son Harald Bluetooth. Danish "empire" duly follows; and in the next century we find Knut the Great (1014-1035) utterly reversing[646] the pagan policy of his father, Svend[647] (who had been enabled to dethrone his Christian father, Harald, by the pagan malcontents), and dying in the odour of sanctity, "lord" of six kingdoms—Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, Scotland, and Wales.