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One way forward, perhaps, is to examine the various categories of 'holy places' separately - and, indeed, to allow for different interpretations in different ages of what the 'numinous' represented. (A Bronze Age burial mound in England may have had different meanings for its builders on the one hand and its Anglo-Saxon appropriators on the other.) This seems particularly necessary if we must distinguish between invocatory and non-invocatory ritual in successive periods, and between different types of ritual in both categories. One problem, of course, is that sometimes it is difficult to categorise a sacred place. This can be frustrating when attempting to interpret the possible association between a pre-Christian sacred place identified by a place-name element and local veneration of a conversion-period saint, for example. Graham Jones Leicester > > Early Ireland has many cases of Christiansbuilding monasteries,>establishing cemeteries, etc. near or on pagan holyplaces. In Ireland,> though, there doesn't seem to be evidence for Christian leaders> "pre-empting" in the sense of trying to draw pagans into the Church with > the familiarity of the location, as is so eloquently described by > Wallace-Hadrill in "The Frankish Church." Instead, as far as I can see, > there was a generally accepted sense that certain places were particularly > holy--whether pagan or Christian, the Irish knew that one could be in > closer contact with the numinous there. Is there discussion of this for > other parts of Europe? > > Phyllis > > Phyllis G. Jestice > [log in to unmask] > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%