Topic: Did the Church kill off the Viking Greenland colony?

[arthwollipot]

    No true Viking would ever bow to any church.   Much less let some idiot church crap cause them to starve to death.

Alas, untrue.

There's an oft-quoted, but probably apocryphal, story about a particular Viking (I think it was attributed to Svein Bluetooth, but I can't be sure of that) who when he set off on a long sea voyage, declared "I'm Christian, by Thor!"

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     I was going for the "No true Viking" thing.

[arthwollipot]

     I was going for the "No true Viking" thing.

I think I may have had my humour gland removed this morning. 

[Shibboleth]

I think this is a bit of a stretch. The Vikings would have never fully embraced the Inuit lifestyle even if they did have contact. Plenty of the Pilgrims died of starvation along with many of the first American settlements and they had plenty of contact with the natives.

I do not think there was one "the cause".

[Vincegamer]

    No true Viking would ever bow to any church.   Much less let some idiot church crap cause them to starve to death.

Alas, untrue.

There's an oft-quoted, but probably apocryphal, story about a particular Viking (I think it was attributed to Svein Bluetooth, but I can't be sure of that) who when he set off on a long sea voyage, declared "I'm Christian, by Thor!"

Don't know about vikings and Thor, but I did in fact hear a man in Hawaii say "I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus and Pele" (Hawaiian volcano goddess in case you don't know).

[Desert Fox]

I think this is a bit of a stretch. The Vikings would have never fully embraced the Inuit lifestyle even if they did have contact. Plenty of the Pilgrims died of starvation along with many of the first American settlements and they had plenty of contact with the natives.

I do not think there was one "the cause".

No. I don't think there is one cause but if you take one powerful one away, then things will change

The Icelanders, unlike the Greenlanders, were able to change

[Ah.hell]

Jared Diamond covered the failure of the settlement in Collapse. I don't remember him invoking the church at any point but certainly the failure of the Norse to adopt the practice of the Inuit was instrumental in the eventual decay and death of the place. Another large factor IIRC was the cooling period that occurred in the late 1300s - 1400s, which transformed the area from a bunch of semi-usable land into icy tundra of death.

I've read that some recent research has called that into question.  Apparently, at least their diets seem to change with the times.  Their trash heaps starting have more and more fish, seal and other marine animals bones. 

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/3805

[Shibboleth]

I think this is a bit of a stretch. The Vikings would have never fully embraced the Inuit lifestyle even if they did have contact. Plenty of the Pilgrims died of starvation along with many of the first American settlements and they had plenty of contact with the natives.

I do not think there was one "the cause".

No. I don't think there is one cause but if you take one powerful one away, then things will change

The Icelanders, unlike the Greenlanders, were able to change

The Icelanders also didn't lose their supply lines or their ability to pillage for their needs. The Vikings in Iceland did not live like Inuit. Because they were not as removed from the more temperate mainlands of Europe they were still able to trade even when all of their crops failed.

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      Climate change is the more realistic reason.

[Ah.hell]

      Climate change is the more realistic reason.

Sure, climate change because god was unhappy at there insufficient adherence to traditional christianity.

[Grimner]

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence...

The cow and the sheep was important in that culture which served them well before the climate got colder. Judging from their dung heaps they didn't fish much and only the really poor folks ate seals.
If "proper meat" was a status thing and the climate change was slow, they could happily have gone thinking that "next year will be better" while their numbers dwindled. Stubborn Viking settlers? Yeah, I can see that with no problem. Just look at all the later Arctic explorers who could not be bothered to learn from the people who lived in the cold - not necessarily due to religion, but sheer arrogance.

I see your church with my monastery, nunnery and "cathedral with bronze bells and tinted glass windows".
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/

Also, check out the effect of trade on this little colony: no iron...

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     It's interesting that as the ice melts, more and more history is revealed.  About the ancient times when the climate was warm.