page_title: History of the Basques
section_title: Christianization
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Basques / Middle Ages / Christianization
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Pont romain à Ascain. English: Roman bridge in Ascain.
context_page_description: The Basques are an indigenous ethno-linguistic group mainly inhabiting Basque Country. Their history is therefore interconnected with Spanish and French history and also with the history of many other past and present countries, particularly in Europe and the Americas, where a large number of their descendants keep attached to their roots, clustering around Basque clubs.
context_section_description: Despite early Christian testimonies and institutional organization, Basque Christianization was slow. The Basques hung onto their own pagan religion and beliefs (later transfigured into mythology), and were Christianized at a par with the Germanic peoples hostile to Carolingian expansion (8-9th century), such as the Saxons. However, it remained a slow internal process that some scholars have extended up to the 15th century.
  The Christian poet Prudentius sings to the prominent Vasconic town of Calahorra in his work Peristephanon (I) written in the early 5th century, reminding to the town's "one-time pagan Vascones" of the martyrdom gone through in it formerly (305). Calahorra itself became episcopal see in the 4th century, with its bishop holding an authority over a territory that extended well into the lands of present-day central Rioja (Sierra de Cameros), Biscay, Álava, a large part of Gipuzkoa and Navarre. In the 5th century, Eauze (Elusa) is attested as episcopal see in the Novempopulania, but the actual influence of these centres on the different domains of the society is not well known.
  The collapse of the Roman Empire seems to have turned the tide. Basques are not identified anymore with Roman civilisation and its declining urban life after the late 5th century, and they prevailed over Roman urban culture, so that paganism remained widespread among the Basques at least up to the late 7th century and the failed mission of Saint Amandus. However, less than a century later, no reference is made by Frankish chroniclers to Basque paganism in the Frankish assault on Basques and Aquitanians, despite its powerful propaganda value, Odo was even recognised as champion of Christianity by the Pope.
  Charlemagne started a policy of colonisation in Aquitaine and Vasconia after the submission of both territories in 768–769. Enlisting the Church on his side to strengthen his power in Vasconia, he restored Frankish authority on the high Pyrenees in 778, divided the land between bishops and abbots and began to baptize the pagan Basques of this region.
  Muslim accounts from the period of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania and beginning of 9th century identify the Basques as magi or 'pagan wizards', they were not considered 'people of the Book' (Christians). Still in 816, Muslim chroniclers attest not far from Pamplona a so-called 'Saltan', "knight of the pagans", certainly a distorted name maybe referring to Zaldun, literally in Basque "Knight". Later Muslim historians cite Navarrese leaders of the early 9th century (but not only them) as holding onto polytheist religious practices and criticize the Banu Qasi for allying with them.
caption: Roman bridge in Ascain (Azkaine)
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