In message Sat, 23 Mar 1996 13:04:47 -0600 (CST),
"Deborah J. Shepherd" <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> When Iceland chose to adopt Christianity around the year 1000, three
> provisos to help ease the transition are often mentioned as part of
> the Althing's decision:
> 1) Icelanders would be permitted to continue worshiping the old gods
> in private.
> 2) Infanticide would still be permitted, at least for a while.
> 3) The eating of horsemeat would continue to be permitted.
>
> Why #3? Did other Christian countries forbid the eating of
> horsemeat? I can understand the functional reason, but is there a
> theological reason for such an injunction? Any suggestions would be
> most appreciated.
It is with some hesitation that I started to write the following lines (or
did someone else already give a reply? mail delivery was not that constant
over here). I am only plundering the footnotes of an article by Rob Meens,
one of my collegues in Utrecht, who has written an article on the famous
Irish inauguration ritual described by Gerald of Wales: the new king of
Kenellcunil has to have sex with a white mare, which is killed instantly
afterwards, cut in pieces and concocted in a bath. Sitting in this bath the
new king has to sip from the water and to eat some of the cooked horsemeat while the onlooking
members of his people participate in this feast. The interpretation of this ritual has raised some
questions (and a lot of disbelief) of course. For the role of the horse
attention has been paid to the connection between horse and kingship, a well
known motive in Indo-European cults and in Ireland (for instance: Y. de
Pontfarcy, `Two late inaugurations of Irish kings' Etudes celtiques 24
(1987) 203-208 and P. Ni Chathain, `Traces of the cult of the horse in early
Irish sources' Journal of Indo-European Studies 19 (1991) 123-131). Rob
Meens himself however points to the obvious fact that horsemeat is
considered as impure in the Irish penitentials (three to four years fasting
as a penance) and in two saints' lives (in one of them the saint transforms
horsemeat into sheepmeat). For the animalia inmundia of course Mary Douglas,
Purity and danger. An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo, 1966
which will give some idea of the Old Testamentic - antropological
background. See also Rob Meens, `Pollution in the early middle ages: the
case of the food regulations in penitentials' Early Medieval Europe 4 (1995)
3-19.
In the Old Testament the eating of horsemeat is allowed, at least not
forbidden. In pre-christian Ireland there seems to have been some kind of
taboo however (A.G. van Hamel, Compert Con Culainn and other stories, Dublin
1956, 26 and 35; Duanaire Finn. The book of the lays of Fionn, ed. E.
MacNeill, London 1988, 129). The same goes for Greece and to some extent for
Rome (letter of pope Gregory II to Boniface, ed R. Rau, Briefe des
Bonifatius etc., Darmstadt 1968, 100). Papal legates blamed the English for
the continuation of their habit/vice of eating horsemeat (synod of 787;
A.Haddan and W. Stubbs eds., Councils and ecclesiastical documents relating
to Great Britain and Ireland III, Oxford 1871, 458).
Good luck!
Bram van den Hoven van Genderen, University of Utrecht.
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