Dear Ingegerd and listmembers,
I was fascinated by your posts on Christian holy wells. On the one
hand, I was tempted to give a compromise answer: that Christian leaders
did both, took over and Christianized existing wells/springs and created
their own (if only to establish a presence and sanctify the waters). On
the other hand, I find the Scandinavian evidence, that there were no
pre-Christian well/spring holy sites and that Christians introduced
them, compelling.
In essence, this northern evidence gives us a test case against
which to measure our theories about Christian interactions with existing
European religions. On the one hand, we could posit that the Christian
founders of holy wells in Scandinavian regions (the Icelandic example is
particularly fascinating) transported the practice from their homelands,
where it was a practice that was an amalgam/adaptation of Christianity
to local practices. Or, could we even go so far as to suggest that holy
waters became a much more Christian practice than anything else, and the
establishment of holy wells and springs in Europe has more to do with
Christianity than the pre-Christian religions ever made of it?
I am not suggesting that pre-Christian religions of Europe did not
have holy wells and springs--the evidence is pretty secure on that
(Christian polemicists castigating the practice, etc). On the other
hand, it seems to prosper under Christianity to such a degree that one
wonders if the concept resonated more fully under Christian practice and
doctrine in the early medieval period (and this would account for the
missionaries who endeavor to transplant the practice into Scandinavia).
I am playing around here with shifting the frame of reference: are we
looking a "pagan" practice with a Christian veneer, as it is so often
portrayed, or are we looking at a practice that, by the 10th century,
had become integrally Christian?
Just some thoughts.
Karen Jolly
--
Dr. Karen Jolly
Associate Professor, History
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
[log in to unmask]
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kjolly
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