The Scandinavian lands were the last major area within Western Europe to be brought into Christendom, both in terms of their conversion to Christianity and of their political and cultural integration. Not having been strongly affected by the patterns of Roman law and culture, as well as the emerging patterns of feudal governance that were developing to the south of them in the early Middle Ages, the Scandinavian lands received Christendom as a combined package containing new religious, political, and cultural influences. Beginning in the tenth century Western European influences began to flood into the Scandinavian lands, first to Denmark, and then to Norway and Sweden, in ways that transformed the older Viking cultures of these areas. This book, then, is an introduction to this transformation in Scandinavia, which attempts to demonstrate this whole process in light of the earlier transformations in lands to the south, as well as with reference to the various modern scholarly theories of political development within medieval Europe and the rise of the nation-state. In doing so, the book not only provides insight into medieval Scandinavia, but into the political and cultural processes that were at work throughout Western Europe. This history covers the period from the initial forays of Christendom into the Scandinavian lands, up to the beginnings of the Scandinavian Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Up until the tenth century, the Scandinavian lands were generally organized around the figures of dominant kings and warlords, whose rule was largely dependent on their own personal characteristics, and the relationships they could personally forge with other powerful individuals and groups. The rise and fall of these dominant leaders happened with some regularity, leading to the almost constant shifting of alliances and power. Much of this energy was directed externally, as the Scandinavians ventured into areas of Western Europe and Russia, which minimized its possible negative impacts at home. Still, these processes did not allow for the formation of stable institutions within the Scandinavian lands themselves. Bagge argues that the coming of Christendom (with its religious, political, and cultural elements) transformed Scandinavia by introducing the concept of social, religious, and political stability based not on personal attributes and leadership, but on the development of permanent institutions and structures; in other words, the beginnings of the concept of state and society. Though the implementation of these changes took several hundred years, and occasioned much conflict between the older ways and the new, this transformation had largely taken place in Scandinavia by the thirteenth century (sooner in Denmark, later in Sweden). Medieval Scandinavia demonstrates, to his mind, a fairly remarkable stability and durability made possible by this transformation. Although there certainly were political and military tensions within Scandinavia during this time, internal and external, and the inevitable breaking and making of kings, these sometime chaotic processes were accomplished within a growing framework of religious and political institution-making. Bagge's thesis is that the coming of the ideas of Christendom occasioned the forging of the essential elements of the Scandinavian kingdoms and their territorial boundaries during this period, and that these structures remained remarkably steady in the midst of the upheavals that occurred. Kings were regularly replaced, but the essential elements of monarchy, church, and society took hold, and were not seriously challenged.

This historical study is based mainly on the surviving literary evidence from the period, especially from the various historical sagas of the early period, as well as the historical chronicles of the various monarchs, examples of which tend to increase as the time period develops. These sources are occasionally supplemented by reference to archeological evidence, as well as by ecclesiastical and other documents, by other literary works, and by the growing body of surviving legal documents. Bagge does a fine job of weaving together the evidence from these often disparate sources to provide an accessible and readable narrative, although one works hard at times to keep all the Scandinavian kings and their dynasties in some sort of order. The inclusion of tables of the succession of monarchs within each of the three of the Scandinavian kingdoms would have been a very helpful element to the reader.

Besides demonstrating the development of medieval Scandinavian and its institutions, which he does very well, Bagge has a further purpose; to use medieval Scandinavia as a case study of modern theories of state-formation and transformation in medieval Western Europe. Older views of European state-formation traditionally traced the roots of this process deep into the Middle Ages, while some newer schools of thought dispute this, seeing the process as one that began rather in the Early Modern period, after 1500. In this study, Bagge concludes that in the case of Scandinavia, the process can clearly and definitely seen in the medieval period in question, and that while the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation did indeed change the Scandinavian kingdoms, it did not fundamentally alter the structures already in place in medieval Scandinavia. He also believes that this study of medieval Scandinavia is “a kind of European history in miniature” (7), and can form the basis of study of these processes in other areas of medieval Europe.

All in all, this is compelling and readable work, which provides a fascinating entry into religion, politics, and culture in medieval Scandinavia.