"The wild men become pious" - Problems of Christianization in Normandy during the early days of mankind

The paper tries to determine, how long it took until the formerly pagan Sca ndinavians became part of Frankish Christendom after they had settled in th e area of later Normandy (911). Did religious conflicts and decisions leave any trace in the sources that usually give a rather schematic account of s uch conversions? The paper takes a comparative view on religious decisions of the Carolingian age and suggests that during the time of the early Norma n chronicler Dudon of Saint-Quentin (990-1015) real conflicts over the Chri stian faith were still possible. 40 years later when William of Jumieges us ed Dudon's account for his own history of the Norman dukes, he couldn't ima gine such conflicts any more (ca. 1050). Thus the sources show the same eve nt-a conflict over conversion to Christian religion-in two successive state ments and interpretations. Their different understanding of the actual pote ntial of the same situation reflects an actual difference in the state of c onversion. William's confident attitude towards Dudon's religious conflict indicates, that Norman Christianity was not seriously challenged any more. The process of conversion was concluded between 1015 and 1050, it took abou t 120 years of four generations.