Several new points have been brought up in today's comments to this
question:
Susan Carroll-Clark wrote:
"I think it's important to remember that we often associate "the Church" as
being something apart from "the people," when that line isn't always that
clear, as well as forgetting that pagans were likely already used to having
religious figures involved with their "rites of passage"."
I don't actually think that the pre-Christian Norse were particularly used
to having 'religious figures' as such involved in their rituals, apart from
the chieftain/king conducting certain rituals on behalf of society. But
what I think of as private rituals seem to have been conducted by the head
of the family or the most suitable member of the family (cf. the story of
Volsi). It seems to me that this would have given the family a great deal
of control over important ritual functions, which is why I am curious as to
why the Church did not initially try to stamp out such practices.
Jim Bugslag wrote:
"As far as Norway is concerned in this process, I heard a theory
expressed a while ago that the stave churches there were built on
much older pagan holy sites, thus Christianizing pagan worship. They are
certainly not obviously located near centres of population but
are rather isolated. This is not exactly what you were searching
for, perhaps, but certainly might indicate a desire on the part of
Christians to co-opt established pagan practice"
The question of whether the Church built the earliest churches on the sites
of pagan ritual buildings is a classic one in Scandinavian archaeology.
Traditionally, this was thought to be so, until the Danish historian Olaf
Olsen rejected the theory in the 1960s. The only known example, documented
through excavations, is the medieval church at Maere in Northern Troendelag,
Norway, which was built on the site of an earlier building which yielded
so-called 'gold-foil pictures', thought to be amulets portraying the holy
wedding (hieros gamos), which are sometimes found in post-holes of important
pagan buildings. Maere was the main pagan ritual centre of that area before
the advent of Christianity, and it would seem that here the first church was
actually built on the site of, or possibly even utilized, a standing pagan
shrine. Where excavations have been carried out underneath other stave
churches, however, traces have been found of earlier churches, but no pagan
buildings.
In my Ph.D. thesis, as well as a subsequent article, I have, however,
pointed out that although the first churches were not commonly built on the
site of pagan shrines, this was probably due to the fact that in most places
there wasn't a specific building for pagan rituals, as these would normally
have been carried out in the chieftain's hall. So, there is not necessarily
a cult building continuity as such, but there is certainly often a farm or
family continuity, in that central 1st millennium A.D. farms, which can be
assumed to have acted as ritual centres for a community or region, also were
the ones to acquire medieval churches.
As for the remoteness of today's surviving stave churches, I cannot actually
agree (and my English husband and I have visited all but one of them on our
travels in Norway). They may seem remote today, but nearly all of them are
on important farms, which through their names, written sources etc. can be
pinpointed as probable ritual centres in pre-Christian times. It must also
be remembered that in the coastal districts of Norway nearly all
communication was previously by boat, and it is only the modern change to
land-bound travel by road that has changed the relative importance of many
small communities, sometimes completely by-passing, and thus killing off,
what used to be old and important trade and communication centres.
Thanks also for all the interesting suggestions on literature!
Ingegerd H.
Dr. Ingegerd Holand
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|