European Paganism

by Dowden; KEN

• ISBN13: 9780415120340
• ISBN10: 0415120349
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

European Paganismuncovers the facts about pagan rituals and worship, presenting the observations of ancient and medieval pagans themselves and the fulminations of Christian fathers and bishops. Many of the sources cited are available in this book in translation for the first time.

Author Biography

Ken Dowden is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Birmingham.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	x
Acknowledgements	xii
Foreword	xiii
How to use this book	xvii
Authors and events: a time-chart	xx
Approaching paganism	1	(24)
Pagans, so primitive	1	(3)
Christian ending	4	(1)
Roman government	4	(4)
Germanic invaders	8	(3)
Beyond the Roman pale	11	(2)
Beyond the Byzantine pale	13	(2)
Evidence	15	(1)
Latin and other languages	15	(3)
Greek and Roman windows on barbarian culture	18	(7)
Dividing the landscape	25	(14)
Location	25	(1)
Focus and area	25	(4)
Physical features (absolute position)	29	(2)
Relative position	31	(1)
Ownership: public and private	31	(3)
Power	34	(1)
The god in the stone?	34	(1)
Strength in numbers: tree, stone, spring	35	(4)
Focus I: spring, lake, river	39	(19)
Spring and well	39	(1)
What a spring is	39	(2)
Prevalence	41	(3)
Purity and health	44	(1)
What happens at springs and wells	45	(4)
Saints, the conversion of the aniconic, and heads	49	(1)
Other water	50	(1)
Lake	50	(1)
River	51	(4)
Water worship	55	(3)
Focus II: stone and tree	58	(20)
Stone	58	(1)
What a stone is	58	(1)
Feelings about stones	59	(1)
Personalising stones	60	(1)
Stones and permanence	61	(1)
Stone as the object of cult	62	(2)
What happens at stones	64	(2)
Tree	66	(1)
What trees are like	66	(1)
Personalising trees	67	(3)
Notable trees	70	(3)
What happens at trees	73	(3)
Pagan tree and Christian objectors	76	(2)
Area I: land	78	(11)
Hill and mountain	78	(1)
What mountains are like	78	(1)
Worship on mountains: lightning and fire	79	(3)
Shore and island	82	(1)
Sea: shore and promontory	82	(2)
Islands	84	(3)
Cave	87	(2)
Area II: growth	89	(28)
Meadow	89	(2)
Grove	91	(1)
What a grove is like	91	(13)
Grove and temple-culture	91	(3)
The feel of natural groves	94	(2)
Grove and garden	96	(5)
Groves and barbarians	101	(3)
Groves and placenames	104	(2)
The power of groves	106	(8)
Ancient groves	106	(2)
Inviolability	108	(1)
On the Dusii demons	109	(2)
Divine ownership	111	(3)
Inside the grove	114	(3)
Technology: statues, shrines and temples	117	(32)
Statues	117	(1)
The place of statues	117	(3)
Impressive statues and Christian destruction	120	(7)
Temple, fanum, ecclesia	127	(1)
What a temple is	127	(1)
The shape of temples	127	(5)
Contents and decoration	132	(2)
Shrines, vocabulary and placenames	134	(2)
Temples in less developed cultures	136	(7)
Continuity	143	(1)
Instances	143	(1)
What are Christians to do with temples or fana?	144	(5)
Destroy the fana!	144	(1)
Build churches!	145	(4)
Christian paganism	149	(18)
Christian knowledge	149	(1)
Textuality: coming down from Sinai	149	(3)
Specificity	152	(4)
What pagans do	156	(3)
Eating and drinking	159	(2)
Dance	161	(2)
Particular customs	163	(2)
New Year's Day	163	(1)
Thursday	164	(1)
The moon	164	(1)
Laurel	165	(1)
Catechism: renouncing what?	165	(2)
Pagan rite	167	(25)
Sacrifice	168	(1)
Why sacrifice?	169	(3)
What to sacrifice	172	(1)
The action of sacrifice	173	(2)
Beyond Sacrifice	175	(1)
Non-sacrificial offerings	175	(2)
How to offer things that aren't alive	177	(1)
Dance and song	178	(1)
Human sacrifice	179	(1)
Human sacrifice is `only' execution?	180	(1)
Battle and hanging	181	(4)
Divination and other reasons	185	(3)
Manipulation of place	188	(1)
Procession	188	(2)
Pilgrimage	190	(2)
Pagan time	192	(21)
Time-reckoning	192	(1)
Lunar months	192	(2)
Intercalation and periods of several years	194	(2)
Weeks	196	(1)
Calendar and festival	197	(1)
A Gaulish calendar	197	(5)
Duration of festivals	202	(1)
An English calendar	203	(3)
Equinoxes and other times	206	(5)
The Calendar of Erchia	211	(2)
A few aspects of gods	213	(11)
Christian contrasts	213	(1)
Pagan plurality	213	(2)
Do the pagan gods exist?	215	(2)
Divine functions	217	(1)
Sets of gods	217	(3)
Lightning	220	(4)
Priests	224	(33)
The need for priests	225	(1)
What a priest is	225	(2)
Priestly specialism, development of the state	227	(2)
Religion in the home, without professionals	229	(1)
Priests and government	230	(1)
King-priests	231	(1)
Kings and priests	232	(2)
Oligarchy in Gaul-`no sacrifice without a philosopher'	234	(4)
Oligarchy at Rome	238	(2)
Temple priests, grove priests	240	(1)
Greece	240	(1)
Germans	241	(3)
Gauls	244	(1)
Divination	245	(3)
Priests and ritual: a common Indo-European inheritance?	248	(3)
The role of women	251	(4)
Conclusions	255	(2)
Cradle to grave	257	(17)
Cradle	258	(1)
Transitions	259	(1)
Illness and crisis	260	(2)
Grave	262	(1)
Normal people	262	(7)
Grand burial	269	(3)
Mounds to marvel at	272	(2)
Unity is the Thing	274	(17)
Gaul: centrality of the shrine	274	(2)
The Germanic Thing	276	(1)
Groves and assemblies	277	(3)
Periodicity and leagues	280	(6)
Human sacrifice and beginnings	286	(3)
The beginning of the world	289	(2)
Afterword	291	(2)
Notes	293	(39)
Bibliography	332	(16)
Abbreviations	332	(2)
Primary literature: general information and where to find a text and translation	334	(4)
Secondary literature	338	(10)
Indexes	348
Index locorum-passages cited or reported	348
Index nominum I-gods, mythic entities and festivals	351
Index nominum II-(real) persons, peoples and places	354
Index rerum-topics and themes	360
Index auctorum-modern authors	366