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Anglo-Saxon Sundays
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Tuesday, 16th August 2011
Reading a historical atlas of Oxfordshire, I can see that the parish church did not develop until 11th and 12th centuries. So it is curious to contemplate pre Norman Conquest worship. The Minsters existed throughout the county at Charlbury, Bampton, Eynsham and of course Oxford. Yet these centres would be beyond walking distance for many in the county?
The creation parishes ties-in well with the development of the University in the C14th, as Colleges were set up in order to produce clergy for the benefactors origin. Exeter College is easy as that was for Devon and Cornwall. Queen's College requires more investigation, which yields the area of Westmorland and Cumbria.
Quite why Oxford attracted a University still alludes me, but one thing for certain is that the land used was of no great benefit to agriculture as the soil was either marsh or a thin barren soil.
Of course what emerged and is now history, haunting the educational system is that a degree became a status symbol! -
Message 2
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Tuesday, 16th August 2011
There were churches in Anglo-Saxon times. Many of them were enlarged or rebuilt bythe Normans, then again during the periodic upsurges in church building, and then wealthy merchants 'bought' a place in heaven by repeating the process
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Message 3
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Wednesday, 17th August 2011
Okay, but who went to church, were tithes collected. Many of these Minsters were built on old pagan sites and some traditions adopted possibly, was the church more relaxed or more formal?
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Message 4
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Wednesday, 17th August 2011
I think you've missed out a chunk of history pre-Conquest. England was already a Christian country and had been for a long time. Yes, quite a few churches were built on what had been pagan sites; the Christian church had almost from the beginning adopted a policy of grafting Christianity on to bits of pagan belief (the main festivals were nearly all at times of major pagan celebration and sacred wells were re-dedicated to a convenient saint). Edward the Confessor was renowned for his piety and there were many religious communities. It didn't have quite the stranglehold that the church acquired by the Middle Ages, but people were devout nevertheless.
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Message 5
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Wednesday, 17th August 2011
The Anglo-Saxon church system was a lot more monastic. Either actual monasteries or groups living communally, ('mynster' is the Old English form of the Latin 'monasterium'). So a monastery, a minster, a school, an old people's home, a spiritual retreat might be descriptions of one and the same thing. They could be very informal; you could form a family monastery, with men and women together (although in chastity).
Rather than run a territorial empire from his HQ, the job of a bishop was to get out and teach. If you couldn't get round your whole area, you recruited 'priests', but a formal division into parishes, each with a resident priest doesn't really start until around the conquest (and even then, few parishes qualified as having a 'priest' as such).
How these pre-conquest institutions paid their way depended on what they were. For example, the community sort usually had been given an endowment of land. Everyone was supposed to give a tithe as a religious duty, but you could choose where that went; it didn't have to go to the church. Taxes like 'plough alms' or 'church-scot' might be charged (payments in kind, not money) and there was a tradition of 'soul scot' (a religious gift from the estate of the dead). Again, it is only around the conquest that all this gets more formalised.
The creation of most of our modern parishes and their churches has to wait until lesser lords decided to go into the church founding business. When they did, who ran their church was up to them, not the bishop. And if your community didn't have a church, then whoever was up for it might lead a service at the 'standing cross' in some field.
(Thank you for allowing me to show-off this knowledge, pinched from the Oxford History 'Anglo Saxon England' volume. Which is not an easy read.) -
Message 6
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Wednesday, 17th August 2011
Thanks, this is the picture I am getting of religious communities serving as focal points for worship. A good example of a Minster school would St Peter's York, founded in 627, but don't go there with the aim of seeing their archive, because during Siege of York in the English Civil War, Cromwell's canon balls hit the school and all their records were destroyed by fire.
Perhaps what I am looking for as Sunday worship recedes in suburban areas at least and many churches closing, is perhaps a new order with similarities to the past. Sunday shopping could well be part of our heritage in the form of milling around together and participating? -
Message 7
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Thursday, 1st September 2011
Getting further into the historical atlas, the popualtion in 1500 was half that of 1300 due to the plague called the Black Death. This helped the establishment of the University as it allowed colleges to buy land and merchants houses cheaply. It was the end of Oxford as manufactoring centre until possibly the rise of the Morris car production.
These days, your no politician until you have had your picture taken at BMW Mini plant? -
Message 8
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 1st September 2011
..I think Dorothy Whitelock in her book in the Penguin series explains that private enterprise encouraged those who could to build churches, and I certainly attended the wedding of one of my nieces in an Anglo-Saxon Church in Oxfordshire..
In many ways the process seems to have been not unlike the Turnpike System that built the road system in the eighteenth century. Where there was an obvious need/market for a Church someone built one and thereby had the right to charge for the use of it and keep the money as a way of recouping the initial investment. In due course if the Church became a "nice little earner" the owner might show himself to be a true Christian by giving the Church some of his wealth or rights or land..
And after all for the Church building to be really effective he would need the occasional attendance of an annointed clergyman.
Of course Medieval Churches had all kinds of other functions and values as well. The market cross is evidence that people making deals often felt safer when it was witnessed by the eye of God.
Cass -
Message 9
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Friday, 2nd September 2011
After all today's problems with international markets, it was probably a fairer system?
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Message 10
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 2nd September 2011
hereisabee
Your last post makes me think of these thoughts that I posted on another thread earlier today.
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And this makes me think of something that I was just earlier reading in Barker's principles of Social and Political Theory (1951) about the fine balance between the coercive State and the voluntary Society...I was interested by Barker's reference to the vogue in the early twentieth century for further English progress" by way of regression back to the epoch of the Middle Ages- that paradise of voluntary groups and Eden of pure society. Groups flourished in the Middle Ages in the absence of an effective State and an operative scheme of law and order; but the price paid for their flourishing was so heavy that men turned by preference to an effective State and sacrificed groups on its altar. Groups flourish today, if with less luxuriance, in the presence and under the shelter of an effective State; and for us to go back to the Middle Ages, in the sense of abandoning an effective State, might mean a sacrifice of the groups we have for groups we should hardly like to have- on such conditions and at such a price."
I thought that was very relevant to the Big Society initiative.. But I recall the general sense of optimism in the years up to 1951 based upon the confidence that, with State leadership and its sponsorship of the boffins of science and technology, there would be an era of progress in the arts of peace, as opposed to the arts of war and conflict that had dominated the first half of the Twentieth century.
I also used a quote from William Cobbett about the need for the little man to have the vote.. He said that , like the sting of the bee, it is only for self defence.
Cass
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Message 11
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Monday, 5th September 2011
Yes the right to vote superseded the right to pray and worship. I can see now the strength of the church and the need for ministers in the 1300 - 1500 era. With death ever-present and the population dwindling, yes I would go to church and pray for my soul and the souls of those who were dear to me.
Perhaps technology has weakened religion, however there is always the latest iphone app?
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Message 12
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Monday, 5th September 2011
We're all educated to some degree now. In a village in mediaeval England, the priest might be the only person who could read and write. Not even the landowners were all literate.
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Message 13
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Monday, 5th September 2011
Sorry, pressed the wrong key!
I should have gone on to say that it's easier for a literate priest to have control over a group of illiterate villagers, full of superstition, some of which was semi-pagan -
Message 14
Posted by Simon de Montfort (U14278627) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
"Thanks, this is the picture I am getting of religious communities serving as focal points for worship. A good example of a Minster school would St Peter's York, founded in 627, but don't go there with the aim of seeing their archive, because during Siege of York in the English Civil War, Cromwell's canon balls hit the school and all their records were destroyed by fire."
..................................which begs the question, which came first? The Minster or the Minster school.?
I think York Minster was originally a church on the site. Obviously Anglo Saxon. It was burnt down once or twice (or more) by the heathen Vikings. It is said that King Edwin of Northumberland had to convert to Christianity to be considered suitable to marry the lovely Princess Ethelburga of Kent.
Of course, Kent was one of the first Kingdoms to become Christian thanks to the efforts of St Gregory & St.Augustine.
To become recognised as a Christian one had to be seen to be baptised. A good viewpoint was (and still is ) the font in the local church. Maybe many churches sprang up ostensibly to house the font.
Incidentally York Minster lost its original font in the Civil Wars when the building was requisitioned by the roundheads as a barracks for the soldiers AND their horses. Fortunately General Fairfax endeavoured to save most of the stained glass windows. -
Message 15
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Wednesday, 7th September 2011
Writing from memory, Edwin had a choice of joining either the Gaelic Church or the Roman Church. He chose Rome on the basis that St Peter held the keys to the gates of heaven, also the lovely Ethelburga no doubt?
Yes baptism meant an identity with the church and king, a soul in sin and redemption through a redeemer. -
Message 16
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Saturday, 12th November 2011
the Christian church had almost from the beginning adopted a policy of grafting Christianity on to bits of pagan belief (the main festivals were nearly all at times of major pagan celebration and sacred wells were re-dedicated to a convenient saint). Ìý
Wells that's a generally held assumption these days, but where is the evidence for it, beyond the possibility of the odd coincidence? As far as England is concerned, we don't know the dates of any pre-Christian festivals. What pagan practices are known to persist from pre-Christian England?
Easter, Pentecost, Ascension, Ash Wedemesday etc , for example, are known to be linked to Jewish celebrations, not pagan ones. -
Message 17
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Saturday, 12th November 2011
Well the Romans had festivals at least, and they did not adopt Christianity until the C4th through the Emperor Constance, who made his claim to be Emperor at York. Sunday was also the day of his previous faith Sol Invictus?
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Message 18
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Saturday, 12th November 2011
The name 'Easter' is supposed to be derived from the name of a pagan goddess of spring, according to Bede
Christmas is celebrated at what had been the Roman Saturnalia and some Christmas traditions like the Yule Log were pagan in origin -
Message 19
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 12th November 2011
It is very obvious that various Festivals of Light across the great religions of the Northern Hemisphere were associated with the widespread realization of the importance of the Sun- and its changing nature..
But certainly the close connection between Christian worship and Medieval life of the land would suggest that the spreading of this Mediterranean and Middle Eastern religion to North West Europe did create a great deal of the imagery and practice of the Christian faith and tied it in with an age-old Northern challenge of surviving the "Dark Side" of the year.
The fact that Islam uses a lunar calendar, which then brings the great festivals at different seasons of the Solar Year would seem to be consistent with the fact that outside of the Temporate Zones the seasons are not quite the same challenge of Life and Death.
Indeed I have just finished reading a book about "The Brownings" and how escaping from places like Florence and Rome for the summer was something of a matter of Life and Death.
The case of Ramadan- for example- is very different from that of Lent.
Surviving the winter was a real challenge for subsistence farmers, and the Winter Christmas Feast was a great excuse for having at least one good meal- and to ensure that the whole community was well-fed. Then by Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday near starvation was almost inevitable, so the Church provided a good excuse to use up the last of fast-disappearing resources and once more to share in communal feasts- rich and poor alike. Then the absence of food could be turned into a "public" and "moral" good, at a time when the signs of coming Spring were a source of Heart and Spirit.
I know that they can have cold nights in Bethlehem but surely a Carol like "In the bleak midwinter" transported Joseph and Mary into the Temperate Zone, just as visual representations commonly showed them as "people like us"- and not Semites, long before the elaborate explanations of H.S. (?)Chamberlain.
In fact the presumptions about the "borrowing" of pagan traditions for Christianity are consistent with the observed historical "borrowings" of Christian missionaries in Latin America.
There it was quite easy to connect the idea of human sacrifice, that was widespread, to the Christian idea that Jesus, as a Son of God, had made the last sacrifice. Aztec beliefs argued that a God had already sacrificed himself on a fire in order to make the present Sun, the fifth Sun after the previous four had all died..
And the Roman Catholic order of the Sacred Heart could be seen as just a progressive movement on from the heart's blood sacrifices as for example at the dedication of the great new temple at Tenochtitlan, not long before Cortes and his expedition arrived.
Cass -
Message 20
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Sunday, 13th November 2011
Christmas is celebrated at what had been the Roman Saturnalia and some Christmas traditions like the Yule Log were pagan in originÌý
Yes, the Twelve Days of Christmas as well as the Christmas Tree is also part of the pagan Yule celebrations.
The rabbit and egg for Easter are both ancient pagan symbols of fertility, and were used in celebration of the rising fertility of the land at the Vernal Equinox. -
Message 21
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Sunday, 13th November 2011
The name 'Easter' is supposed to be derived from the name of a pagan goddess of spring, according to Bede
Ìý
According to Bede, the word Easter derived, in the 7th century, from the name of the Anglo-Saxon month in which it usually fell. He speculates that the name of the month had come much earlier from the name of a goddess whose worship had died out. There isotherwise absolutely no trace of this supposed goddess whatsoever. Of course the festival of the resurrection was already at least 400 years old by that time, Christmas is celebrated at what had been the Roman Saturnalia and some Christmas traditions like the Yule Log were pagan in originÌý
Saturnalia, a harvest festival, was the 17th of December with celebrations to the 23rd at latest. Never included 25th.
The Yule log may well be Scandinavian in origin but is not known to have had any particular religious significance. Customs relating to logs used on winter fires are know from other places as well.. -
Message 22
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Sunday, 13th November 2011
Yes, the Twelve Days of Christmas as well as the Christmas Tree is also part of the pagan Yule celebrations.Ìý
Sorry but the Viking accounts of Yule say nothing about 12 days The saga of Haakon the Good tells of a three day celebration and also relates how the king moved his Yule feast to Christmas to honour Christ. There is no mention in any of the sagas of anything remotely like a Christmas tree.
The tree is almost certainly a Christian symbol relating to the Tree of Life in the book of Genesis and a metaphor for Christ himself, the source of eternal life - also the second Adam. The rabbit and egg for Easter are both ancient pagan symbols of fertility, and were used in celebration of the rising fertility of the land at the Vernal Equinox.Ìý One of the many problems with that hypothesis is that it is known that the idea of the Easter "bunny" originated inGermany as the Easter HARE, which is not a particularly profligate breeder. Another problem is the total lack of historical evidence to back it up. I will, however, observe that eggs form part of the JEWISH Passover meal. -
Message 23
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Sunday, 13th November 2011
In fact the presumptions about the "borrowing" of pagan traditions for Christianity are consistent with the observed historical "borrowings" of Christian missionaries in Latin America.
There it was quite easy to connect the idea of human sacrifice, that was widespread, to the Christian idea that Jesus, as a Son of God, had made the last sacrifice. Aztec beliefs argued that a God had already sacrificed himself on a fire in order to make the present Sun, the fifth Sun after the previous four had all died.. Ìý Doesn't seem to be much about borrowing from the Aztecs there. Making connections between the new faith and what people already knew is not quite the same as borrowing. The idea of sacrifice was well established from the beginning of Christianity - they inherited it from the JEWS. And the Roman Catholic order of the Sacred Heart could be seen as just a progressive movement on from the heart's blood sacrifices as for example at the dedication of the great new temple at Tenochtitlan, not long before Cortes and his expedition arrived. Ìý Christian deovtion to the "Sacred Heart" goes back to the 11th /12th century so is not "borrowed" from Latin America. Pointing out occasional resonances is not borrowing.
So as you have not provided evidence of Latin American "borrowing", your presiumption of earlier borrowings is dubious. -
Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 13th November 2011
Obviously those seeking to make conversions have their own truth already, what were are discussing here is the incidentals and accidentals of communal and collective faith: and missionaries are well-advised not to totally deny the Old Faiths (as Jesus did not deny Judaism.. And the Prophet Mohammed did not deny earlier faiths) As Lord Clarke observed in his series Civilisation starting a new religion from scratch is very difficult, and Christianity did not do so. The skins may have been "too old" but the contents were still recognisably "wine".
The new belief system that "Prophets" offer is usually presented as a new and improved version of a new one that has lost it credibility, and thus offers beliefs more suited to changed times and greater revelation.
But missionaries commonly use old practices- as for example in the Central Americas- as an "entry" into the mind and soul of the people that one seeks to convert. Was it St. Edmund who set out to convert the people of Essex by teaching them fishing with a rod and line?
As for "borowing" more permamently the converted Amerindians were able to bring much of their previous religious practice and imagery into Christianity, in a way that is still very apparent in Latin American worship to those who are familiar with the pre-Columbian rituals. Of course "seek and ye shall find"- and I offer these as examples not as proofs.
Within England I always feel that Guy Fawkes Night was a convenient way for Puritans to dispel with the witchcraft and superstition of the Old Hallow'een and All Souls Day, by moving the old pagan bonfire tradition just a few days from the end of October and the beginning of November to seize on November Fifth.. The new Evil spirits, Satans and like of the "New Faith" were the Papal Antichrist and all his works.. People could burn effigies of Guy Fawkes whereas they might earlier have burned "The Green Man".. Why give up the chance of a good bonfire?
As for Christmas- The remains at Scara Brae seem to indicate that the Ancient people's struggling through the harsh northern winter there built into the structure a means by which it would be possible to see clearly when the Winter Solstice was passed.. And a couple of days to prepare a formal gathering and celebration of the rebirth of the son would seem to be a simple necessity. There seems very little reason otherwise to associate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth with that time of the year: and in fact - as Band Aid reminded anyone and informed those that did not know- "It's Christmastime" in Ethiopia referred to a time two months later.
Cass -
Message 25
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Sunday, 13th November 2011
David, nobody denies that the main roots of Christianity lie in Judaism. However, there are very strong reasons for concluding that the placement and observation of many festivals have links to previous pagan rituals.
And... just a thought. Why are Jewish festivals celebrated at those particular times? Have they too been handed down from earlier beliefs? -
Message 26
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Monday, 14th November 2011
the old pagan bonfire tradition just a few days from the end of OctoberÌý What old pagan bonfire tradition? I have never heard of any historical evidence for one.
These are all castles bulit on sand. They ALL start with the presumption that Christians MUST have adopted pagan practices and then either hunt our obscure references which sound like the might be vaguely related or even, quite oten, make up stories about pagan customs for which there is no historical evidence.
Let's find one pagan festival where, without assuming anything, there is solid historical evidence for Christianity deliberately taking it over. If you cannot do this for even one festival, then the presumption has to be extremely dubious.
Let's start at the beginning. Easter, the earliest known Christian festival. The date of the Feast of the Resurrection (Pascha in Greek) was discussed at the Council of Nicaea c 325 AD. They decided to adopt the Alexandrian method of calculating the date rather than just holding it on the Sunday after whenever the local Jews decided to start Passover. JEWISH origin, not pagan.
Pentecost - named after a JEWISH festival but celebrating a biblical event - the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples. Date linked to Easter. Not pagan
So that's two of the three greatest Christian fesitvals known to be rooted in Judaism, not in any pagan religion. So why not run with a Jewish roots assumption? Christmas - 25th December - OK uses the Roman calendar but it is worth noting that the Jewish fesitval of Hanukkah is held on the 25th Kislev - their winter month. A Romanised Hanukkah? Why not?
Three out of three known to be, or at least possiibly, Jewish in origin.
Why the presumption of pagan roots? Because we inherit the Protestant tradition of regarding the Catholic church as an organisation corrupted by "paganism". The more usual charge was that the church had invented celebrations - they were man-made, not biblical so not truly Christian - which is what "pagan" at the time meant. -
Message 27
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 14th November 2011
David
Much depends upon what you consider as "historical evidence"..
There has been a tendency to regard only written records as clear evidence, and thus the work of people in the Nineteenth Century to record old and dying oral and practical traditions by writing them down can be treated cynically.. Thus for example Thomas Hardy and the West Country bonfires of his "Wessex". Perhaps one can question too all of that endeavour to collect Folk material- thus for example saving/re-inventing Gaelic and much of the Celtic spirit with the old Festivals like Beltane (which may have been a bonfire one).
The Swing Rioters of 1830 were connecting with very ancient roots when the disturbances started after a meeting on November Fifth- a public holiday when rural communities could gather. The hay-stacks and ricks that symbolised current evils were ready-made and perfect bonfires.
You may also dismiss as untypical and unrepresentative the English use of various pagan deities in the names of the days of the week- Sun, Moon and Saturn (heavenly bodies) and Tews (?), Woden, Thor and Frigs.. These were all "Godsdays"- And there continued usage would be consistent with the proposition that you are challenging.
I suppose one might find written evidence in works describing the conversion like perhaps Bede.
As you reveal yourself ultimately as a "conspiracy theorist" I can only accept your freedom to believe what you will.
"Godsday to you Sir".
Cass -
Message 28
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 14th November 2011
G.G. Coulton a major historian of the Medieval Church wrote:
"Already among the Anglo-Saxons the gods were mainly nature-gods; their worship was connected with the holy well, the holy glade in the forest and the holy tree. St Augustine of Canterbury, by the advice that Pope Gregory who sent him, took care not to shock this belief too much. Bede has recorded St. Gregory's message to the first missionaries in England. This ran that the pagan temples in that country should not be pulled down; it being sufficient that the idols in them be destroyed. "Therefore let these places of heathen worship be sprinkled with holy water: let altars be built and relics placed under them: for if these temples be well built, it is fit the property of them should be changed to the service of the true God...And since it has been the custom to sacrifice oxen to the devils they adored, this usage might be refined upon, and altered to an innocent practice..... He that intends to reach to the top of an eminence must rise by gradual advances, and not think to mount at a single leap: thus God, when he discovered himself to the Israelites in Egypt, did not forbid them the customary rites of sacrificing, but transferred their worship from the devil to himself."
Hence the Church accepted the power of the existing practices. They had a very real potency in man's relation with the "pagan gods". But those gods were in fact devils, and the practices once converted to the worship of the one true God would lead people towards salvation.. Hence the Church carried through many pagan practices and superstitions into the Medieval Church and village life.
Cass -
Message 29
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Monday, 14th November 2011
Much depends upon what you consider as "historical evidence".. Ìý Well I do have serious reservations when people quote, as historical evidence, interpretations of oral reports which are supposed to relate to stuff which happened over 1000 years (40-50 generations or more) in the past.
Oral evidence is notoriously unreliable, as I, and many others, have discovered when looking into family history. You may recall the "Who do you think you are?" programme with John Hurt who had been handed down the tale of how one of his ancestors was an Irish noble. He bought into this story, gave his children Irish names, started to explore his "Celtic" roots. It turned out to be, much to his dismay, totally bogus.
A relative of my wife had heard how one of their ancestors was on the staff of Napoleon's army. Untrue. An old man's fantasy.
Folk material? Fine. No problem. It tells you what the people who tell you the stuff believe to be true. Very interesting, but it is also interesting to find out how they came to believe it.
I take a close interest in folk music and it is fascinating to see how quickly songs become part of the "tradition". You will find people in Ireland who will tell you how "Dirty Old Town" is a traditional Irish song about Dublin. It was actually written in 1949 by an anglicised Scot about Salford. Songs collected as "an old traditional song that my grandfather handed down to me" turn out to have been broadside ballads written less than 50 years earlier.
You may also dismiss as untypical and unrepresentative the English use of various pagan deities Ìý Words last an awful lot longer than the ideas or concepts that spawned them. We stil use a whole raft of Anglo Saxon, Greek, and Latin words so the survival of the days of the week and of the names of the months is not surprising or remarkable at all.
a "conspiracy theorist"Ìý LOL. The last thing a conspiracy theorist wants is for people to produce real evidence. Hearsay, gossip, "oral evidence" is much preferred. Perhaps you should look in a mirror. -
Message 30
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Monday, 14th November 2011
GG Coulton - interesting, is it not, that both WIkipedia and a Daily Telegraph article describe him as a virulent anti-Catholic? Looks like a classic example of what I mentioned above.
I do not propose a conspiracy, just a certain set of shared false assumptions.
I am aware of the Pope's letter. I note that the one pagan practice that is mentioned - ritually sacrificing animals - has not in fact persisted, nor is there any evidence that it did. Not sure that his assertion that "the Church carried through many pagan practices" is well supported by one example of a practice that did not "carry through", unless, of course, you presuppose that the Catholic chruch is riddled with "pagan" practices.
I also note that Coulton's quote is also somewhat selective. The letter suggests that they are allowed to have feasts but that they are to be transferred to Christian days of celebration and that, as is mentioned, the animals are no longer to be ritually sacrificed to the pagan gods.
"but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their sustenance"
God is to be praised in the feasting, not in the sacrifice.
-
Message 31
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 14th November 2011
Conspiracy theories are usually concerned with things that those who hold them are of KEY importance to their understanding of the world.. as such the question of Anglo-Saxon sundays or any Christian or religious festivals are not things to which I attach a great deal of importance. And I am only on this thread because someone asked for answers to which I thought I might be able to contribute.
But - as you have raised the Protestant and Roman Catholic theme- I do see clear evidence for what Dorothy Whitelock describes in her book about the Anglo-Saxon origins of English Society, and in particular the impact of Christian conversion in persuading the English to give up the blood feud and to endeavour to build communities based upon the tradition that came to be known as that of Commonweal, especially during the Reformation.
There are no doubt many reasons why England was well-known during the Middle Ages as being a place that largely avoided the bigotry, violence and dogmatism of the Church in Europe, but the tradition of living with a temperate and largely benevolent Nature- which appears to be reflected in the pagan tradition- certainly seems to have influenced Medieval Christianity- in for example Piers Plowman and the Canterbury Tales.
There is certainly a case for an Anglican tradition as a "Catholic" and not a Protestant Church- in accordance with its creed- and with English traditions of trying to live in Good Naturedness with one's neighbours.
Cass -
Message 32
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 14th November 2011
I must say that I see no trace of Anti-Catholicism in Coulton's "Medieval Panorama"- though I have not read his specifically Church histories concerning that period..
He may, however, have shared the views about contemporary Roman Catholicism of Lord Acton and quite possibly studied during the time that Acton was delivering his lectures on Modern History.. Acton was appalled by the Vatican Decrees and the adoption of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, and could not be reconciled, living the rest of his life as a Liberal Roman Catholic.
On the basis of what you have said you might also feel that the evidence for the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary declared c1800 years after the event, and for Papal Infallibility after more than a thousand years of Popes and their histories, must have presented definite challenges of faith for someon like Acton.
But it was an age when so many people were "buying into" the idea of Power vested in Humankind, and I feel sure that Acton had his own spiritual difficulties with his Church in mind- along with historical facts generally- when he made his famous dictum "All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Cass -
Message 33
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Monday, 14th November 2011
Hence the Church carried through many pagan practices and superstitions into the Medieval Church and village life.Ìý
We have Christmas trees, we recognise they probably once had some vaguely pagan significance but now they don't.
Similarly Muslims are quite aware that pagans also came to Mecca and circled the Kaaba. The fact that Muslims follow similar actions today does not make their practices pagan.
Anglo Saxons were just as intelligent as us; they didn't need to be somehow tricked into Christianity. They were quite capable of getting the idea that a festival can carry on but with a different meaning. -
Message 34
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 14th November 2011
hothousemat
Indeed I would suggest that the most successful missionaries have always taken the view that there is much that is admirable in the people to whom they wish to spread their beliefs..
And very often those being missionised have a very intelligent and real appreciation of some of the ancilliary advantages that come with the missionary.
Hence c 1830 Mzilikazi- King of the Matabele- having been visited by a couple of European "peddlars" (Schloon and McKluskie ?) in their ox-wagon on wheels with metal rims, which he carefully studied, while being impressed with their "fire-stick" that killed a large one of his cattle with one bullet, seized on to the news that the Scots missionary Moffat had set up a mission house in a neighbouring region, where he was an accomplished DIY man with his own forge and many "alien" marvels. Mzilikazi sent a team with a "mission" to bring him to Mzilikazi's encampment- on pain of death- as one of the 'indunas' told Moffat.
Much later around the turn of the century the Scots missionary Mary Slessor, sent to a region of Nigeria, was given permission to teach in a village as long as she "taught book".. a tribute to ID's thread on printing.
And in one of many memorable passages by Chief Luthuli he said that Western Civilization was not the property of the white man, but of many peopls who had interracted, and that he knew of no instance in which Africans in such remote places as the land of the Bantu had not reached out to get access to all this wider learning once their isolation had been broken.
Cass -
Message 35
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Monday, 14th November 2011
We have Christmas trees, we recognise they probably once had some vaguely pagan significance but now they don't.Ìý Which is the first explanation people seem to go for when they don't see the reason for something - oh, must be pagan..
One or two snippets of information:
Hippolytus writing in the 3rd century :
"The fruit of righteousness and the tree of life is Christ. He alone, as man, fulfilled all righteousness. And with His own underived life. He has brought forth the fruits of knowledge and virtue like a tree, where of they that eat shall receive eternal life, and shall enjoy the tree of life in paradise, with Adam and all the righteous."
The Tree of Life was the other tree in the garden besides the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. The story says that Adam and Eve were banished to keep them from the Tree of Life - they became mortal.
Christ is known in Christian scripture and tradition as the second Adam.
The first examples of Christmas trees were decorated with fruit and nuts.
The first glass baubles were made in the shape of fruits.
The Oberufher Christmas cycle of mystery plays performed even in recent times started with Adam and Eve in the garden, then went on to the shepherds play (the nativity) and finished with the arrival of the magi.
There is an adequate Christian explanation for the Christmas (or Paradise) tree. -
Message 36
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Monday, 14th November 2011
Indeed I would suggest that the most successful missionaries have always taken the view that there is much that is admirable in the people to whom they wish to spread their beliefs.. Ìý Oh indeed they do but then there is a lot more to people's culture than their religion. Dress, music, food, songs, etc are, in best practice, always respected. African customs of community and hospitality have a lot to teach us. You can tolerate or admire an awful lot of a people's culture without buying into, or adopting, their religious beliefs.
-
Message 37
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Monday, 14th November 2011
There are no doubt many reasons why England was well-known during the Middle Ages as being a place that largely avoided the bigotry, violence and dogmatism of the Church in Europe, Ìý Care to indicate what you have in mind when you talk about the awfullness of the Medieval church in the rest of Europe?
Of course if you want to know more about the peacfeul and tolerant Anglo-Saxon society of England, go talk to the Irish. -
Message 38
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Monday, 14th November 2011
We have Christmas trees, we recognise they probably once had some vaguely pagan significance but now they don't.Ìý Which is the first explanation people seem to go for when they don't see the reason for something - oh, must be pagan..
One or two snippets of information:
Hippolytus writing in the 3rd century :
"The fruit of righteousness and the tree of life is Christ. He alone, as man, fulfilled all righteousness. And with His own underived life. He has brought forth the fruits of knowledge and virtue like a tree, where of they that eat shall receive eternal life, and shall enjoy the tree of life in paradise, with Adam and all the righteous."
The Tree of Life was the other tree in the garden besides the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. The story says that Adam and Eve were banished to keep them from the Tree of Life - they became mortal.
Christ is known in Christian scripture and tradition as the second Adam.
The first examples of Christmas trees were decorated with fruit and nuts.
The first glass baubles were made in the shape of fruits.
The Oberufher Christmas cycle of mystery plays performed even in recent times started with Adam and Eve in the garden, then went on to the shepherds play (the nativity) and finished with the arrival of the magi.
There is an adequate Christian explanation for the Christmas (or Paradise) tree.Ìý
The Christmas tree is northern European in origin.
"The custom of erecting a Christmas tree can be historically traced to 15th century Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia) and 16th century Northern Germany."
Much of northern Europe was pagan right into the 13th century.
-
Message 39
Posted by hereisabee (U2342191) on Monday, 14th November 2011
Thanks for all the posts folks, Cass's message 19 deserves a star. Bringing in Judaism, the obvious connection missed is of course is the Sabbath, 'to rest on the seventh day.
There in no doubt our culture was carried here from the mediterranean. Stories like 'Beauty and the Beast' have Norse origins, but from there can be traced back to the Greeks. Incidentally the carrion crow is no native of Europe, but followed mankind's drift north and west.
However let's keep the thread to leisure and worship between 500 - 1500 AD and have locations like Oxford and York. -
Message 40
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 14th November 2011
David M
Well in many ways how people believe in expressing their joy and sense of the experience of the "divine" and that "peace which passeth all understanding" is all integral to religious belief and practice. Perhaps you know Maupassant's story "Our Lady's Juggler".
As for the Irish experience of the English- it seems to me that is largely based by definition upon those who chose to leave the English commonweal and its communities, like the Puritan Separatists, or in fact were Scottish Presbyterians.. Much of the long tragedy of Ireland involved getting trapped into the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Reformation.. England itself got sucked into that morass too, especially under the early Stuarts. Hence that extreme Puritian "Englishman" , so long despised by the English until his cause was taken up by the Scot Thomas Carlyle, who in his most-un-English proto-Nazi thoughtscape promoted the cult of the strong-heroic saviour- Oliver Cromwell.
Mind you others on the MB have gone further back and have counted the Anglo-Norman barony of the English Pale as "English", though I have read that they proved just as amenable to adopting Irish ways as the original "Normans" had been in embracing French culture and civilization in the eleventh century.
Cass -
Message 41
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 14th November 2011
David M
I did not talk of the "awfulness" of the Church in Europe, but of some of its weaknesses that England was able to avoid..
As I have been married into French society since c1965 I try to be aware of the fact that, as French friends have often pointed out, because England is "on an island", the English have been able to feel master of their own affairs more easily than e.g. the French.
And since we have had a house in France and spend different times of the year there I have become aware of the very different relationship that the French have with Nature.. It is hardly surprising (as Albert Camus wrote in "La Peste") that the French are obsessive about weather forecasts..
And our old neighbour passes on to us pieces of old French country lore. 2008 she told us early on was a year of 13 moons. And strange things happen in such years. 2011 she told us was another year of 13 moons.. 2008 and 2011 two great financial crises? Those peasant wisdoms.
In this context the Black Death does seem to have produced much more violent changes and consequences in the Church in Europe than in England. John Wyclif and the Lollards would probably have been treated very differently on the Continent..
But perhaps they would also- like the Hussites- have behaved very differently. There have been previous exchanges on the MB about the spreading of the Inquisition with the increasing numbers of Christians condemned for heresy and burned (usually I believe by the secular powers- having been condemned as spiritually guilty. There were also signs of extremism in the re-assertion of faith and authority, with movements like the "flaggellants" and the whole controversy about the Babylonish Captivity and the General Councils- power struggles about rank and status, that resulted in Rome setting out to assert the rights of the Pope over and above General Councils in an age of increasing despotism, with the Pope like other despots in England and Europe over the next couple of centuries embracing material splendour of the Renaissance and then Baroque in order to raise Rome by an investment that no other City could possibly rival, so that the Roman people could make sure that the problems that had caused the revolt of Cola di Rienza in 1347 could never occur again.
Interestingly, however, as I posted recently as early as c1437 a great meeting of the French clergy at Bourges had declared General Council's the supreme authority over the Pope, and sanctioned many of those changes that made up the crucial first phase of the Henrician Reformation. From that time it was accepted de facto that the French monarch was the head of the Church in France.
Cass -
Message 42
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
David M:
"We have Christmas trees, we recognise they probably once had some vaguely pagan significance but now they don't"
.
Which is the first explanation people seem to go for when they don't see the reason for something - oh, must be pagan..
One or two snippets of information:....Ìý
My point, which was why I inserted the word 'probably', was that they don't really care.
A symbol is only a symbol if people treat it as such. I doubt if one in ten thousand think of their Christmas tree of having any connection with 'The Tree of Life'. I would suggest that rather more would guess it has some pagan origin, but they are not bothered about the details.
I know that as historians we love to make connections, but it would be completely unrealistic for us to claim that the social habit of buying a plastic Christmas tree today is culturally related to religious worship.
If I have a barbecue next spring, am I celebrating Beltane? Or am I recreating an Israelite sacrifice? Tell me, because I don't know!
Once again, if we can do stuff without it having religious connotations, I don't see why an Anglo-Saxon would have any problem continuing a traditional activity but also being converted to a new religion. -
Message 43
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
hothousemat
There's more to life than headlines.. and very often the festivals that are very special to local communities are local ones.. So, for example, that piece I quoted from Gregory with its mention of feasts applied particularly to the feast of the Saint two whom the converted pagan temple was re-dedicated. Actually one of the things that many early Nineteenth Century Anglicans regretted, when they saw the example of the living tradition nb in Italy, was the way that the Reformation (and perhaps especially the period of Commonwealth rule that even banned the celebration of Christmas) cut England off from the tradition of communal festivals, when Christianity and its spirit took over Italian towns and cut across the kind of social cleavage that was "The Making of the Working Class" in Britain.
So in Medieval England the calendar was punctuated by dozens of special days that had significance within the local community and within farming. Coulton mentions "Plough Monday" as an example of a carry over from pagan "husbandry"- a day when the God's would also put their energy and life into the newly tilled soil.. Our old neighbour in France- a very keen gardener (and one who like my wife believes in "Lunar Planting") still regularly refers to the key saint's days that indicate forthcoming weather/ and or therefore the best time to either plant, harvest, prune etc. In England we have St. Swithin's Day. Such beliefs and knowledge seem likely to have been present before the conversion, since explorers, anthropologists etc have often found similar folk-knowledge in the most isolated and "backward" societies.
Incidentally I am not sure what the present "state of affairs" is, but about 40 years ago I hears on the radio that a weather survey had showed that "THOR'sday" was the wettest day of the week and "SUNday" was the sunniest.
Cass -
Message 44
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
but it would be completely unrealistic for us to claim that the social habit of buying a plastic Christmas tree today is culturally related to religious worshipÌý This is the history MB which is why I am telling you about the historical relationships, and debating with people who propose other historical relationships. If you're not interested in historical relationships, you're in the wrong place.
If you have a barbecue next spring, you're having a barbecue. Lighting fires and cooking food are human universals - as are singing, dancing, giving gifts, putting up various forms of decoration, feasting. People seem to do these wherever and whenever. -
Message 45
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
David M:
This is the history MB which is why I am telling you about the historical relationshipsÌý
No, you are asserting a historical relationship which may or may not exist. Because things have similarities it doesn't follow they are connected - perhaps you are familiar with our fellow poster who explains everything in western history as coming from India? He has a similar technique.
If you look back at post 33, I took issue with the statement:
"Hence the Church carried through many pagan practices and superstitions into the Medieval Church and village life."
I do not see how we can know this - the continuation of a particular activity does not imply that the motivation (paganism) is the same. The fact that we still continue with old customs today while not being aware of, or interested in, their origins is evidence that activities need not be for a reason, beyond habit or pleasure.
More fundamentally, the notion that early Christian missionaries needed to extract our ancestors from paganism by easy stages implies that our ancestors were simpletons (compared with us), easily manipulated.
Not everything is like science where time equates to progress. From my reading, I would say that the Anglo-Saxons had a more sophisticated approach to religion than we do today. They were quite capable of debating obscure points of Christian theology, so if they had thought that Christianity was being tainted by practices that were both pagan and harmful they could (and did) point it out.
We also need to consider that just because Anglo-Saxon Christianity was different to the modern version, it doesn't follow that this was because of left-over paganism. The fact is that their idea of Christianity was not the same as ours. An Anglo-Saxon would argue back that it was our modern version that has become corrupted by pagan and other influences.
If you have a barbecue next spring, you're having a barbecue. Lighting fires and cooking food are human universals - as are singing, dancing, giving gifts, putting up various forms of decoration, feasting. People seem to do these wherever and whenever.Ìý
My point exactly. Ditto the practices found in many different cultures of having a feast at midwinter and celebrating the coming spring. Correlation is not causation. -
Message 46
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
No, you are asserting a historical relationship which may or may not exist.Ìý Well that caveat goes for ALL historical relationships, doesn't it?
I just presented evidence for a relationship between the Christmas tree and Christian ideas linking Christ with the Genesis story of Adam, Eve and the Tree of life. It seems to me to be at least as plausible as any others which have been positted.
Now if you think there are problems with that idea, perhaps you would like to share them with us? -
Message 47
Posted by hotmousemat (U2388917) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
David M
I just presented evidence for a relationship between the Christmas tree and Christian ideas linking Christ with the Genesis story of Adam, Eve and the Tree of life. It seems to me to be at least as plausible as any others which have been positted.
Now if you think there are problems with that idea, perhaps you would like to share them with us?Ìý
The problem with the idea is that it is unnecessary.
I can see similarities between Comanche religious stories and Jewish ones. But I don't think that shows one must derive from the other, nor that the Comanches must have heard of the Jews (or vice versa).
If you are saying that you can see a connection between Genesis and Christmas trees, then fine. If you are saying that the Anglo-Saxons saw the same connection, you need to provide some evidence.
Personally, I think the conclusive word on Christmas trees is to be found in Jeremiah 10, verses 1 to 5, that conclude 'Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.' -
Message 48
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
In terms of written evidence for the persistance of pre-Christian practice, Coulton quotes Medieval churchmen who made a particular point of studying and attacking what they saw as wicked and satanic practices that survived from earlier times..
Of course, the fact that people claimed them to be of "ancient usage" was not necessarily proof that they were truly ancient, though the records show clearly for example the gradual emergence new traditions like the George and the Dragon mystery plays out of earlier stories played out by "mummers". Nevertheless custom and usage was such a fundamental element of the rights and duties of the age that "ancient usage" often had to be proven before it was accepted.
But surely those days when "the Lord of Misrule" was allowed to hold court would have been revealing. As in other societies- like the Hopi Indians of the USA- there was an annual chance to let your hair down and do all those things that would usually be forbidden. As in very heavily conformist societies it is possible to believe that at such times people often reveal themselves in their "true colours".. And then it is often the "old ones" that are the best. Celtic fans singing IRA songs.
But the "body in the Bog" (Peat Bog) seemed to be linked to traditions that still linger on in Norfolk or Lincolnshire(?) in which someone is still hunted and may well (as in a festival still practiced in the Andes before I believe their summer solstice) have been killed as a sacrifice- if caught.
Coulton sums up his section on such fun and games that angered the "pre-puritan puritans" by observing that, if indeed at times people did misbehave conduct themselves disgracefully, surely some of the blame should be shouldered by those who knew, and could have taught, better. But- as he also showed- many ordinary village priests were scarcely worthy of being called "clerics", since many were barely literate, and very frequently were drawn from the simple English peasantry themselves.
PS. Having mentioned Scara Brae and the winter solstice, it seems only fair to mention Stonehenge and the summer solstice.
Cass -
Message 49
Posted by David M (U1723162) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
If you are saying that the Anglo-Saxons saw the same connectionÌý Not sure what Anglo-Saxons have got to do with it as, as far as I know, the Christmas tree did not arrive in Britain until long after the Norman Conquest. Nor are they recorded in mainland Europe until the late Middle Ages.
Christmas trees are connected with Christmas. Christmas is connected with Christ. Christ is connected, in Christian tradition, with Adam.
Jereamiah says nothing whatsoever about Christmas trees. He says a lot about idols. -
Message 50
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 15th November 2011
I understood that the popularity of the Christmas tree in the UK owed a great deal to Prince Albert and the Germanification of High Society-- at a time when the Penny Post created the possibility of Christmas Cards etc.
Cass
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