Leif Eiriksson - The first European in The New World

I know it wasn't Columbus day by the time i wrote this, but its been a long time since i have written about anything related to the Norse culture and history. So i will be writing about Leif Eiriksson, the first European to step into the unknown New World later called, America.

During the Columbus day, we celebrate the great achievements of this man, no doubt about about it, he really accomplished something extraordinary, however, this day also means the extinction of so many people and cultures, or the events that led to that by the Spanish during this time and the years after when the Portuguese found the south America which was a very hard time to all the indigenous inhabitants all over the Americas.

Nowadays we know of a man who step into this new world 500 years earlier than Columbus, Leif Eiriksson, a Greenlandic settler, the real European ( that we know of so far ) to first enter the New World.

Who was Leif ?

Leif was the son of Erik/Eirik the Red ( Erik Thorvaldsson ), the famous Norwegian, outlawed from his native country for manslaughter, and then fleeing to Iceland to escape justice. When Eirik arrived there, he married Thjodhild, who bore him four children, one of those was Leif, before he was involved in other killing acts, and was outlawed once more. By this time, he fled further west into Greenland, where he remained for three years, waiting for his sentence to expire, and he was the first Norse man to make settlements in that land. After those three years, he returned to Iceland, telling other about the new land he found, which led to more settlers to go there and inhabit the territory. He returned to Greenland, where he built a farm at Brattahlíð near Narsarsuaq today.

Like his father, Leif was an explorer and had already sailed by this time to Norway, where he became the Hirðman* of King Olaf Tryggvason. While Leif was in Norway, he was converted to Christianity, haven't he done so, he would probably had an horrible time before he was killed, for King Olaf often tortured those who didn't want to be christianised, or would torture until they accepted. However his father, Eirik, remained pagan till the end of his days.

Leif knew that there was a land far to the west of Greenland, for another sailor called Bjarni Herjólfsson, had seen the sight of it, and of course to Leif this was an irresistible adventure, and so he mounted hos own expedition. According to legend, His father would also join him in his quest if he hadn't fall from his horse when riding towards the ship, he took this as a bad omen and remained in land. 

It isn't clear into which places he first sailed about into this New land, but it is clear that he went to Newfoundland, where he gave the name of Vinland, the place where he and his crew  built a settlement, which was later named Leifsbúdir after him of course.

Leif returned to Greenland with some grapes and also timber, which was scarce in Greenland, and this need of having wood to build, led to many more voyages into Vinland, however no one remained there to make a living, for they always return to Greenland, back to their homes.

Vinland wasn't empty of course, and there are many accounts of interections between the Norse people and the natives of that land, to whom the Norsemen called Skrælingjar. Leif's brother Thorvald is thought to be the first European to initiate contact and of course the first European to kill the people he met.

All of these findings had little importance to the Norse people by this time it seems, however people talked about it, so it is possible that Christopher Columbus on one of his voyages to Iceland, had heard about Vinland and the other lands to the west, and so he decided to start his own adventure.

Leif finally settled on the family farm in Greenland with his wife Thorgunna and their son Thorgil. It is said he was a wise man who spent his days converting people to the new religion, much to the consternation of his own father who was still a pagan man, however, this was of much delight to his own mother, it was she who built ( or asked to ) the first church in Greenland, Thjodhild's Church.

Leif isn't as well known as Columbus, but in many places his voyages to Vinland are celebrated, as Leif Eiriksson's Day

* The king’s Hirðman was some kind of bodyguard and also an adviser of the King, incorporated into the army.

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How Christianity Came into Europe

Note: This post is about History, European History and how the Christian religion came into Europe, also the drawing to illustrate this, was made by me.

Note2: This was a scheduled Post.





How Christianity came into Europe

In 219 BCE the warrior and commander Hannibal of Carthage, a Roman Province in Northern Africa, after his fathers death, gathered the army in his yound age of 16 years old, and went to conquer Rome in revange of his father's death by Roman hands. He went by land into the Iberian Peninsula, Lusitans of Portugal and Spanish from Spain, helped Hannibal, joining his army, they went to the Pyrenees in northern Spain, the border between spain and mordern france, and there the roman troops were waiting for Hannibal's army, 10.000 romans and all slaughtered, Hannibel continue to go and was helped by the Gauls in ancient gaul todays france, after this many other battles were fought, Hannibel killed many romans, and more romans came to him, till he reached northern Italy, Hannibel won all the battles but he did not reach his goal, to burn down rome, which in that time was not yet an Empire, Hannibal turned back to Carthage, strategically he has lost the war. but with this event, the Romans in reprisal start to kill and conquer all those who could oppose their safety, politics, economy and wealth. So it began the wars of rome against the rest of Europe, and it became a vast empire, the first to go down of course, were the people in Northern Italy an ancient tribe of celts and of course the northern Africa where Carthage was, then the rest of Europe. Among the many people the Romans subjected to their will, came the people of Yahushua ( Jesus Christ ), after they have killed Jesus, many created the new Religion of Christianity, and so many more joined this new faith, and the romans and the Jews were the first ones, changing all the wishes of Jesus and turning this new faith into something that would give them power over all, now it would be easier to conquer all without battle, but through faith, a new religion made by lies, and those lies would convince too many to submit themselves to a new order of power, this was not a religion but politics to increase the roman economy, so this was how christianity started to spread, but a germanic tribe called the Wandalns ( Vandals ) invaded rome and brought it down, so the Roman Empire has fallen and as it was falling apart, so all the roman citys and provinces were falling too. The people that were used to live in a roman way, with all the tecnologhy they brought, were now living in a world were all of those works were falling too, such as the aqueducts that used to bring water to all, now that rome had fallen, no one cared about that, and people start to live in a poor way, with no conditions, nor hygiene, so people start to have many problems, and since Europe belonged to no one now, many tribes became countries and those were fighting to have more land and power, and the people now living in a evil world where food was scarce, battles everywhere, the people were in need of something to save them so badly, no one was there to protect them, and now they were being robbed and murdered.
Meanwhile the franks apeared, the Franks were a West Germanic confederation, uniting the peoples in Magna Germania north and east of the Lower Rhine River. The Frankish identity emerged in the first half of the 3rd century out of various Germanic groups, including the Salii, Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chatti, Chattuarii, Ampsivarii, Tencteri, Ubii, Batavi and the Tungri, who inhabited the area between the Zuyder Zee and the river Lahn and extended eastwards as far as the Weser, but were most densely settled around the IJssel and between the Lippe and the Sieg. From the third to fifth centuries the Frankish armies raided Roman territory and expanded their influence among the Germanic peoples previously living under Roman rule on the left bank of the Rhine. In 358, the Salian Franks came to some form of agreement with the Romans that allowed them to settle in Toxandria (roughly Noord-Brabant, Antwerpen and Vlaams-Brabant). Each tribe within the Frankish confederation consisted of extended kinship groups centred around a particularly renowned and noble family. The importance of the family bond was made clear by the Salic Law, which ordained that an individual had no right to protection if not part of a family. One particular Salian family comes to light of Frankish history in the early fifth century, in time to become the Merovingians - Salian kings named after Childeric's mythical father Merovech, whose birth was thought to be divine. Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, became the absolute ruler of a united Frankish kingdom in 486. He consolidated his rule with victories over the Gallo-Romans and all the other Frankish tribes and established his capital in Paris. After he had beaten the Visigoths and the Alemanni, his sons drove the Visigoths to Spain and subdued the Burgundians, Alemanni and Thuringians. During the period of Merovingian rule, the Franks reluctantly began to adopt Christianity following the baptism of Clovis in 496 CE. Following Clovis' conversion, a number of Franks rallied around Ragnachar, a powerful figure who had played an important role in Clovis' initial rise to power, but their rebellion was crushed. The remaining pockets of resistance within the population were overcome region by region through a quickly expanding network of monasteries. The Frankish church had to come to terms with an established Gallo-Roman clergy that actively spread anti-Germanic propaganda, which has survived in their writings and works of history; it had to Christianise traditional Frankish sensibilities and effectively suppress them; it had to provide a new theological basis for Frankish kingship, which was deeply rooted in Germanic tradition. While the Goths or the Vandals had been at least partly Christianised since the mid-4th century, traditional Germanic beliefs are thought to have flourished among the Franks until well after the conversion of Clovis to Christianity. So as i've written before, King Clovis of the Franks was cristianized just to get power and lands and noble titles, to conquer them all, and that is how france was born, and for the pope in rome this was great, because clovis was spreading thie christian faith to all Europe, by force, by slaughter, by burning, pillaging and killing. And as i've written before, those peopel that were in a great need of help, now play a big role, they needed a miracle, and came a new faith, promising salvation, all they needed! And so easily those became christians too. The Northern countries of Europe were the last to be Christianized because it was hard to go into those places, and because the people there stand in theur old religions and fought to continue to be the people they have always been, to continue their pagan spirit. The Franks tired of getting sieged by the Germanic people, ofered them titles, lands and weath in gold and jewels if they were to be christianized too, in greed for power, they all accepted, but more people accepted to be christians, so they would not be killed, because those who would not convert, were brutaly tortured and killed.
So Europe was now living in a christianized world, but there were still many to conquer, there were still many pagans who needed taxation, people that had to be christianized, to pay to their Christian Kings and ofcourse to give money to the church, then the Black Death came, an horribel plague that was killing all, in every 10, only 2 survived, the church in its wisdom, used this as a propaganda, it was a sign of God, people had to be christians or would suffer and die of the plague of death! So the people in fear, the rest of the people... were fully christianized. This was a summary of what happened, almost 1500 years to christianized all the Europeans, people that used to be free.. have a free will, a free spirit and mind.