medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Jim Bugslag <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I dug through my notes, and came across a xerox of an article
referred to in Ralph Merrifield, _The Archaeology of Ritual and
Magic_
an excellent book, i think, with a somewhat off-putting title.
though i don't know what else it could be titled, since it does deal with,
well, The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic.
Merrifield is a serious archaeologist and this book appears to be something of
a summary of the fruits of a long career spent excavating in and around
London.
"summaries of the fruits of long careers" are always worth looking at.
>which refers to "funerary wells", which were apparently in use from the Iron
Age in France right through the Gallo-Roman period, up to the second half of
the 4th century. This was apparently a pagan practice that stopped with the
coming of Christianity. For a highly archaeological description of two such
funerary wells (I'm not actually sure that they were wells per se or merely
deep shafts), see Georges Fouet, "Puits funeraires d'Aquitaine:
Vieille-Toulouse, Montmaurin," Gallia, vol. XVI (1958), 115-96.
"highly archaeological" is one way to describe this dry-as-dust stuff.
barely a page of synthesis, and that pretty sketchy.
from a quick look, i get the idea that these sorts of "wells" were not "wells"
in the English sense (sources of water), but elaborate, purpose-built ritual
pits, into which were thrown --not bodies (i don't see any in the
illustrations accompanying the article)-- but a great variety of objects: pots
and other clay vessels of all sorts(scores of them), combs, hooks (wood &
iron), keys, knives, millstones (?), coins..... all under classifiable under
the rubric "mobilier rituel", apparently.
perhaps there is, buried somewhere in the article(s), some synthetic
speculation about how these items were actually used in the context of this
kind of structure, but life is short and i didn't find it.
while it *may* be that the numerous "throwings down a well" of martyrs which
we find in the hagiographic sources were some sort of vestige of these sort of
ancient (going back to the La Te`ne period??) ritual practices, that seems to
me to be something of a stretch, at least in the context of this article.
unless i'm missing the possibility that the amphorae, etc. were filled with
the ashes of the dead (??), but, even then, this is considerably different
from what we have in cases where folks are just thrown down a (presumably
working) well.
no ?
best from here,
christopher
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