The Bishop of Bremen was charged with the mission of converting the Scandinavians. Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum was written in the 1070s and illustrates a complete and utter lack of knowledge about the Norse whatsoever. In fact, much of what he writes about life in Scandinavia is lifted from Pliny's Historia Naturalis and the exotic beasts which exist in the realms beyond Roman civilisation. According to Adam, the Norse are bloodthirsty savages who practise human sacrifices to giant gold idols, and mate with Amazons to produce Blemmyæ (headless people with their faces in their chests) and Cynocephali (people with wolf heads). Much of this may come from the fact that Adam and other bishops didn't really care enough about the Norse to do any real research. Unfortunately, with a dearth of other, credible sources, his accounts were actually somewhat believed for much of history.

Both politically and religiously, the HRE tended to be much more focused on the eastern frontier, where there was much more scope to expand into Wendish/Slavic pagan territories.