Sweyn Forkbeard - Religion

Religion

Adam of Bremen's writings about Sweyn and his father may have been influenced by Adam's desire to emphasise Sweyn's father Harald as a candidate for sainthood. He claimed that Sweyn, who was baptised along with his father, was a heathen. This may have been true, as much of Scandinavia was pagan at the time, but there are no data to corroborate the assertion. German and French records support that Harald Bluetooth was baptised.

According to Adam, Sweyn was punished by God for leading the uprising which led to king Harald's death, and had to spend "fourteen years" abroad - perhaps a Biblical reference from an ecclesiastical writer, as it refers to the symbolic number seven. Adam purports that Sweyn was shunned by all those with whom he sought refuge, but was finally allowed to live for a while in Scotland. As the Scottish king at the time had a reputation in Europe as a heathen and a murderer, Adam's intention appeared to be to show that Sweyn belonged with heathens and was not fit to rule a Christian country. According to Adam, Sweyn only achieved success as a ruler after accepting Christianity.

Sweyn was tolerant of paganism while favouring Christianity, at least politically. By allowing English ecclesiastical influence in his kingdom, he was spurning the Hamburg-Bremen archbishop. Since German bishops were an integral part of the secular state, Sweyn's preference for the English church may have been a political move. He sought to pre-empt any threat against his independence posed by the German kings. Contrary to Adam's writings, Sweyn did not appear to have re-established paganism. There is no evidence of reversion to pagan burial practices during Sweyn's reign. Whether King Sweyn was a heathen or not, he enlisted priests and bishops from England rather than from Hamburg. This may have been another reason for Adam of Bremen's apparent hostility in his accounts. Numerous converted priests of a Danish origin from the Danelaw lived in England, while Sweyn had few connections to Germany or its priests.

Sweyn must have known that once the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen gained influence in Denmark, the German Emperor Otto II would not be far behind. His Slavic neighbours to the south-east had been all but annexed by Germany once Otto's father Otto I divided their lands into Bishoprics and put them under the "care" of the Holy Roman Emperor. Sweyn may have envisaged the same happening to his own territory.