NORDIC CHURCH COLLECTION

The history of the churches of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland, are unique among the Western church. Like Germany and Ireland, they were not part of the former Roman Empire, and did not have the advantage of Latin grammarians and educational system. Ergo, documents from the Nordic countries are often composed in Old East Norse and Old Swedish, rather then the ore universally recognized Latin. For that reason, documents from the Nordic church are poorly circulated outside of Scandinavia. Moreover, the conversation of the northern monarchies did not take place until after the first millennia of Christianity. What does survive most prominently is a series of Papal documents, sundry Norwegian laws, and Vitas regarding the lives of saints, which emerge in the high medieval period. What is more, as a result of the Protestant reformation, the modern Lutheran Churches of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, all downplay their Catholic origin, instead placing their historical emphasis on 16th century era reform figures. In the last century, Catholicism has been de-criminalized and tension has decreased, which has granted some access to historic texts which have been largely neglected for the last five centuries.