ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses and compares the conversion narratives of Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus. It demonstrates how Saxo Grammaticus consistently uses and modifies Adam’s narrative to adapt it to his own agenda. The article also discusses conversion narratives from Saxo and an otherwise unknown unknown event in Adam’s Gesta; Thorkil’s journey to the land of giants, and the Danish military expedition into the land of the Wends. These narratives display two radically different portrayals of conversions. The first one focuses on the converted, who are portrayed as independent and able to initiate their own conversion. Conversely, the second one is centred on the converter and the converted is shown as stubborn and unable to access religious truth on their own. In that final case, Saxo, like Adam, used conversion narratives as ideologically loaded foundation myths, justifying the independence of his own church as well as its domination over the Wendish people of the Baltic region.
