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the conversion of the north” (Dawson 1974 [1934], 202–217) deals with the
place and role of the nordic region in the making of a Christian europe,
and it is an outstanding example of a detour made to fit into an orthodox
order of things. The framework for Dawson’s analysis is a story of two
barbarian assaults on RomanChristian europe, the Völkerwanderung and
the viking raids. As he sees it, the second came closer to destroying the
heartland from which a mature Europe was to emerge (“Western civiliza
tion was reduced to the verge of dissolution” – 209), but ended with a
more definitive victory of Christian faith and its ideas of order. Dawson’s
description of the background to the second assault still seems instructive:
“... an old and in some respects highly developed culture which yet pos
sessed few possibilities for peaceful expansion. During its centuries of
isolation, it had carried the art and ethics of war to a unique pitch of devel
opment. War was not only the source of power and wealth and social
prestige, it was also the dominant preoccupation of literature and religion
and art” (Ibid., 203). Nordic ideas of kingship were cast in this cultural
mould, and so were the power structures of the kingdoms taking shape on
the eve of expansion.
But taken as a whole, Dawson’s view of late antique and early medieval
history is no longer a serious proposition. New approaches to the
Völkerwanderung, now seen as an aspect of the transformation of the
Roman world, have demolished the original model of the barbarian assault,
and eo ipso its derivative versions; medievalists now seem to agree that tra
ditional accounts of the ninth and tenthcentury invasions (viking, Muslim
and Magyar), and especially the estimates of their impact, were vastly
exaggerated; last but not least, a better understanding of the early medieval
“economy of plunder” has somewhat attenuated the contrast between the
Vikings and the power elites of the societies which they attacked.
For present purposes, the obsolete framework is less important than a
particular twist in Dawson’s use of it. He reconstructs the story of the
showdown between Christian Europe and its northern barbarians in a way
that allows for a very noteworthy sideshow in the Northwest. Nordic –
i.e. mainly Norwegian – colonization of the Northwest Atlantic created a
“maritime empire” that ultimately extended from Greenland and Iceland to
footholds in Ireland, Scotland and england. More importantly, conquest
paved the way for cultural transfer and innovation: “In this way, there