TWO ROCKS ON PAGAN LANDS: THE ROMANS AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS

-MAGIC, DREAMS, SUPERSTITION-

STUDENT: CHIREA ANA-MARIA

Early Christianity developed in an era of the Roman Empire during which many religions were practiced, which are, due to the lack of a better term, labelled paganism. "Paganism", in spite of its etymological meaning of "rural", has a number of distinct meanings.
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With the spread of Christianity, it has been argued that Christianity was influenced by pagan rituals and mystery religions, in a number of ways: influence on Christian dogma in Late Antiquity, that is, the doctrine of the Christian Church Fathers in the 4th and 5th century, the Nicene and Chalcedonies creeds, including the questions of the Trinity and Christology. Christological disputes continued to dominate Christian theology well into the Early Middle Ages, down to the Third Council of Constantinople of AD 680; influences of Pagan religions Christianized in the Early Middle Ages. This includes Germanic paganism, Celtic paganism, Slavic paganism and Folk religion in general. In the course of the Christianisation of Europe in the Early Middle Ages, the Christian churches adopted many elements of national cult and folk religion, resulting in national churches like Latin, Germanic, Russian, Armenian, Greek and so on. Some Pagan ceremonies became modern holidays as pagans joined the early church. Anglo-Saxon paganism, or as it has also been known, Anglo-Saxon heathenism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the fifth and eighth
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It refers to the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire period, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, as well as philosophic monotheistic religions such as Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism and the "barbarian" tribal religions practiced on the fringes of the Empire.

centuries CE, during the initial period of Early Mediaeval England. A variant of the wider Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, itself encompassed a heterogeneous variety of disparate beliefs and cultic practices. Developing from the earlier Iron Age religion of continental northern Europe, it was introduced to Britain following the AngloSaxon migration in the mid fifth century, and remained the dominant religion in England until the Christianization of its kingdoms between the seventh and eighth centuries, with some aspects gradually blending into folklore. Furthermore, much of what is supposedly known about Anglo-Saxon paganism is the result of the efforts of literary antiquarians in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; in particular, the notion that Old English poetry contains vestiges of an actual, historical preChristian paganism has increasingly been queried by Anglo-Saxonists. As with most religions designated as being pagan by later Christian writers, Anglo-Saxon paganism is presumed to have been a polytheistic belief system, focused around the worship of deities known as the se (singular s). The most prominent of these deities may have been Woden, for which reason the religion has also been called Wodenism, although other prominent gods included Thunor and Tiw. There was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities that inhabited the landscape, including elves, nicor and dragons. Cultic practice largely revolved around demonstrations of devotion, including sacrifice of inanimate objects and animals, to these deities, particularly at certain religious festivals during the year. Pagan beliefs also influenced funerary practices, where the dead were either inhumed or cremated, typically with a selection of grave goods. There was also a magical component to the early Anglo-Saxon religion, and some scholars have also theorised that there may have been shamanic aspects as well. These religious beliefs also had a bearing on the structure of Anglo-Saxon society, which was hierarchical, with kings often claiming a direct ancestral lineage from a god, particularly Woden. As such, it also had an influence on law codes during this period. Looking back to the origins of Roman religion, most of the Roman gods and goddesses were a blend of several religious influences. Many were introduced via the Greek colonies of southern Italy. Many also had their roots in old religions of the Etruscans or Latin tribes. In other words, the old Etruscan or Latin name often survived but the deity over time became to be seen as the Greek god of equivalent or similar nature. An example of such mixed origins is the goddess Diana to whom the Roman king Servius Tullius built the temple on the Aventine Hill. Essentially she was an old Latin goddess from the earliest of times. Before Servius Tullius moved the centre of her worship to Rome, it was based at Aricia. There in Aricia it was always a runaway slave who would act as her priest. He would win the right to
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hold office by killing his predecessor. To challenge him to a fight he would though first have to manage to break off a branch of a particular sacred tree; a tree on which the current priest naturally would keep a close eye. From such obscure beginnings Diana was moved to Rome, where she then gradually became identified with the Greek goddess Artemis. Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities who influenced every aspect of both the natural world and human affairs. Their temples were the visible, sacred, and enduring manifestations of Rome's history and institutions. Romans could offer cult to any deity or combination of deities, as long as it did not offend the mos maiorum, the "custom of the ancestors," that is, Roman tradition. Participation in traditional religious rituals was considered a practical and moral necessity in personal, domestic and public life. Religion was not confined to particular occasions nor sacred places, but permeated daily life and every aspect of society. Some deities were served by women, others by freedmen and slaves. The imported mystery cults were open only to initiates. Some of Rome's cult practices were explained or justified by myths, while others remained obscure in origin and purpose. Latin literature preserves theological and philosophical speculation on the nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero, who was an augur, acknowledged the necessity of religion as a form of social order despite its obvious irrational elements. Religious law offered curbs to personal and factional ambition, and political and social changes had to be justified in religious terms. The establishment of Rome's oldest form of religion, sometimes known as the "religion of Numa," was attributed to Rome's divine ancestors, founders, and kings. Ancient Rome had no principle equivalent to the separation of "church and state". The priesthoods and cult maintenance of major deities, as well as the highest offices of state, were originally the preserve of the patricians, the hereditary elite whose privileges were said to have been chartered by the founding father Romulus himself. Anglo-Saxon paganism was a polytheistic faith, worshipping many deities, who were known as se. The most popular god appears to have been Woden, as "traces of his cult are scattered more widely over the rolling English countryside than those of any other heathen deity"2. The importance of Woden can also be seen in the fact that he was euhemerized as an ancestor of the royal houses of Kent, Wessex, East Anglia and Mercia. In addition, there are
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Brian Branston, The Gods og England, Oxford University Press, 1974, p. 71

traces of Woden in English folklore and toponymy, where he appears as the leader of the Wild Hunt and he is referred to as a healer in the Nine Herbs Charm ("A worm came creeping, he tore a man in two, then Woden took nine Glory-Twigs, then struck the adder, that it flew apart into nine [bits]... [Woden] established [the nine herbs] and sent [them] into the seven worlds, for the poor and the rich, a remedy for all, it stands against pain, it fights against poison, it avails against three and against thirty, against foe's hand and against noble scheming, against enchantment of vile creatures."3), directly paralleling the role of his continental German parallel Wodan in the Merseburg Incantations. The second most widespread deity from Anglo-Saxon England appears to be the god Thunor, who was a god of the sky and thunder and who was "a friend of the common man", in contrast to Woden who was primarily associated with royalty. It has been suggested that the hammer and the swastika were the god's symbols, representing thunderbolts, and both of these symbols have been found in Anglo-Saxon graves, the latter being common on cremation urns. A third Anglo-Saxon god that we know about was Tiw, who, in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem Tir is identified with the star Polaris rather than with a deity, although it has been suggested that Tiw was likely a war deity. Another Anglo-Saxon divinity was Frey, who is mentioned in both The Dream of the Rood and a poem by the monk Caedmon, in both of which he is compared to the later Christian god Jesus Christ, indicating that Frey was perhaps a sacrificial deity.4 Besides the se, Anglo-Saxons also believed in other supernatural beings or "wights", such as elves, and household deities, known as Cofgodas. These guarded a specific household, and were given offerings so they would continue. After Christianisation, the belief in Cofgodas may have survived through the form of the fairy being known as the Hob. Tutelary deities of the household are part of the traditional religions of classical antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion and the Agathodaemon of ancient Greek religion. In Anglo-Saxon England, elves (aelfe) were viewed as malevolent beings who could bring harm to humans. In the 10th century Metrical Charm "Against A Sudden Stitch" (Wi frstice), it states that various forms of sickness, such as rheumatism, could be induced by "elfshot" - arrows fired by elves. They were believed to possess a type of magic known as siden. Alongside the elves, other supernatural beings included dwarves (or dweorgas), ettins (or eoten) and dragons. 'Etaynes' (ettins) and 'wodwos' (wood wos / wildmen) appear in Sir Gawain & the
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Miri Rubin, Medieval Christianity in practice, Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 189 Huton Roland, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp.167-168

Green Knight,5 and these are potentially remnants of Anglo-Saxon belief. The name 'ettin' roughly translates as 'devourer' (eaten / eater) and is cognate with Jotun in Norse mythos. Another important figure in Anglo-Saxon belief appears to be 'thurse' (giant/ogre/monster), given the large number of place-names and folk-stories associated with derived forms (as hobthurse, hobtrash,).6 Forms of dwarf (dwerrow, dwerger, dweorgas etc) are not as well supported in the nomenclature of the English countryside implying that 'dwarfs' were not as widely a held customary belief, however 'bug-' (bugbear, bugaboo, scare-bug etc) and '-mare' (woodmare, nightmare) appear to be better supported and are potentially derived from AngloSaxon words. The name 'hob' remains contentious, with the accepted meaning 'diminutive of Robert' sitting uncomfortably with the large number of apparently old 'hob-' place names (hobhole, hobdell, hobgate etc) in England. Currently, very little is known about the pagan cosmology or world view followed by the early Anglo-Saxons. In the Nine Herbs Charm, there is a mention of "seven worlds", which may indicate that the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons believed in seven realms. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the realm humans live on as Middangeard, (which was cognate to the Old Norse Midgard) and also to a realm called Neorxnawang, corresponding to the Christian idea of Heaven. If the pontifex maximus was the head of Roman state religion, then much of its organization rested with four religious colleges, whose members were appointed for life and, with a few exceptions, were selected among distinguished politicians. The highest of these bodies was the Pontifical College, which consisted of the rex sacrorum, pontifices, flamines and the vestal virgins: Rex sacrorum, the king of rites, was an office created under the early republic as a substitute for royal authority over religious matters, sixteen pontifices (priests) oversaw the organization of religious events, they kept records of proper religious procedures and the dates of festivals and days of special religious significance, the flamines acted as priests to individual gods: three for the major gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, and twelve for the lesser ones, these individual experts specialized in the knowledge of prayers and rituals specific to their particular deity, the flamen dialis, the priest of Jupiter and the vastal virgins were freed of the usual social obligations to marry and bear children, being priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth (The Secret Fire of Vesta was a holy fire in Ancient Rome).

Blair, Peter Hunter; Blair, Peter D., . An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Third ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 6 John Arnott MacCulloch, Eddic Mythology, Archaeological Institute of America, Marshall Jones Company, Boston, 1930, p.324

Though the life of the flamen dialis was regulated by a whole host of strange rules: he was not allowed to go out without his cap of office, he was not allowed to ride a horse, if a person was into the house of the flamen dialis in any form of fetters he was to be untied at once and the shackles pulled up through the skylight of the house's atrium on to the roof and then carried away, only a free man was allowed to cut the hair of the flamen dialis, the flamen dialis would neither ever touch, nor mention a goat, uncooked meat, ivy, or beans, for the flamen dialis divorce was not possible. His marriage could only be ended by death. Should his wife have died, he was obliged to resign. Anglo-Saxon pagans believed in magic and witchcraft. There are various Old English terms for "witch", including hgtesse "witch, fury", whence Modern English hag, wicca, gealdricge, scinlce and hellrne. The belief in witchcraft was suppressed in the 9th to 10th century as is evident e.g. from the Laws of lfred (ca. 890). The Christian authorities attempted to stamp out a belief and practice in witchcraft, with Theodore's Penitential condemning "those that consult divinations and use them in the pagan manner or that permit people of that kind into their houses to seek some knowledge". 7 The pagan Anglo-Saxons also appeared to wear amulets, and there are many cases where corpses were buried with them. As David Wilson noted, "To the early [Anglo-]Saxons, they were part and parcel of the supernatural that made up their world of 'belief', although occupying the shadowy dividing area between superstition and religion, if indeed such a division actually existed." 8One of the most notable amulets found in Anglo-Saxon graves is the cowrie shell, which has been often interpreted by modern academics as having been a fertility symbol due to its physical resemblance to the vagina and the fact that it was most commonly found in female graves. In pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England, legends and other stories were transmitted orally instead of being written down - it is for this reason that very few survive to us today. After Christianisation however, certain poems were indeed written down, with surviving examples including the Nine Herbs Charm, The Dream of the Rood, Waldere and most notably Beowulf. Whilst these contain many Christianised elements, there were certain mentions of earlier pagan deities and practices contained within them. One of the most prominent surviving myths of the pagan Anglo-Saxons was that of the brothers Hengest and Horsa, who are named in historical sources as leaders of the earliest
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Thor Ewing, Gods and Worshippers in the Viking and Germanic World. Tempus, 2008 , 83 Helen L. Parish, William G. Naphy, Religion and superstition in Reformation Europe , 2002, p. 19

Anglo-Saxon incursions in the south of Britain. The name Hengest means "stallion" and Horsa means "horse", reminiscent of the horse sacrifice connected to the inauguration of pagan kings. Romans cherished myths about their city's founding. A myth that probably dates from around 400 B.C. told of the twins Romulus and Remus, offspring of a Latin princess and the god Mars. Although their uncle tried to drown them, they survived under the care of a she-wolf and a woodpecker. Eventually, the twins overthrew their uncle and decided to found a new city on the spot where they had been rescued by the she-wolf. After receiving an omen from the gods about the new city, Romulus killed Remus and became leaderas the gods had intended. Rome took its name from him. 9 The Anglo-Saxon conversion was one of the most difficult for Christian missionaries because paganism was so entrenched into the culture. The Saxons were one of the last Barbarian groups to the converted by Christian missionaries and it was mainly under the threat of death by Charlemagne and with great some inclusions of pagan culture and concessions on the part of the Christian missionaries. The Saxon conversion was so difficult for a number of reasons including their distance from Rome and lack of centralized polity until much later than most other peoples; but also, their pagan beliefs were so strongly tied into the culture in every way it made the conversion much rocky transition. Their sophisticated theology was a bulwark against an immediate and complete conversion to Christianity. So the new theology was translated into terms of Northern life. The survival of a religious faith depends on a continual renewal and affirmation of its beliefs, and sometimes on adapting its rituals to changes in social conditions and attitudes. The observance of religious rites was a public duty rather than a private impulse. Beliefs were founded on a variety of unconnected and often inconsistent mythological traditions, many of them derived from the Greek rather than Italian models.

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