Gripla - 20.12.2009, Page 23

23A MutAtInG PeRIPHeRy
richer civilization, represented by an aggressive but conspicuously fragile
state, prompted the northerners to move into the european arena. But
when he goes on to describe the Viking campaigns as “a supreme effort to
overwhelm the civilizations of the South, which they encountered on their
warpath, and to establish in their stead a new Scandinavian Civilization
erected on barbarian foundations and unencumbered by reminiscences of a
traditional style or by traces of a traditional ground­plan” (Ibid., 359), he is
vastly overstating his case. there is nothing in his account – nor, for that
matter, anywhere else – to support the idea of a civilizational mission
inherent in the viking expansion.
Toynbee does not think that the “new Scandinavian Civilization” ever
stood a chance against Western Christendom. the civilizational resources
of the adversary were superior and the response was overwhelming. But
the North was conquered by the Church, not by the fraudulently restored
empire that could never live up to its pretensions. As toynbee sees it, the
self­destructive dynamic of Carolingian imperialism left the field open for
a more markedly civilizational – i.e., primarily religious – expansion, and
he obviously does not believe that the German re­evocation of the imperial
ghost changed this constellation in any basic way. His emphasis on the
civilizational character of this final defeat inflicted on northern barbarism
leads him to downgrade the role of converted kings and their violent
assaults on paganism: the rulers traditionally credited with Christianizing
their countries should be seen as figureheads of “a deep and gradual psy­
chological mass-movement which statecraft might bring to a head, but
which it could not have initiated and could not arrest” (Ibid., 353). Examples
of rulers unsuccessfully using their power to enforce religious change are
supposed to validate this claim. But the cases that toynbee mentions are
drawn from very disparate settings, and only a closer study of similarities
and differences could justify any firm conclusions. More importantly, the
dismissive view of individual monarchs implies a more fundamental disre­
gard for kingship as an institution. It plays no role in toynbee’s discussion
of the Scandinavian transformation.
If the outcome of the struggle was a complete absorption of the North
into Western Christendom, where is the evidence for civilizational identity
or aspirations on the losing side? toynbee can only refer to reactive devel­
opments, temporary turns in a losing battle, and this part of his narrative