medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Angus,
In this context, "rustic" should probably be understood to mean ignorant,
unsophisticated, and non-Christian, not rustic in our sense. Therefore it
takes in the Suevan aristocracy as well as the Iberoceltic peasant.
As to Martin's use of Latin names, I can think of two possible reasons,
besides what Otfried mentioned:literary convention and ignorance. On the
one hand, the authors may have been reluctant to dignify scruffy local
divinities by mentioning their names in edifying texts. On the other, they
probaby didn't know them. Many of the writers were working in unfamiliar
surroundings, more or less insulated from local customs.
Take Martin's own case. He was a Pannonian by birth (so he may have been a
Celt himself); he arrived in Galicia at about the age of 30; he became
abbot and bishop of Dumio fairly rapidly after his arrival, then archbp. of
Braga. He was deeply immersed in theological debates, converting the
Arians, organizing councils, writing a mirror of princes, etc. How much
time did he have to familiarize himself with native divinities and the
private customs of the countryside? I am skeptical even about the bit of
local colour he injects in his sermon concerning the "days of mice and
moths" (indubitably a peasant custom). According to Salin, the mice motif
appears to have been generalized, but back when I was looking, I couldn't
find any trace of preoccupation in Iberia with insects. By contrast, still
acc. to Salin, the insect motif was fairly common in Pannonian jewellery.
Possibly Martin was extrapolating from what he had seen in his youth, on
the assumption that the ignorant were the same the world over. On the
other hand, the touch about the cairns erected to Mercury seems just about
right, although they could have been intended to him in his capacity of
pscychopomp rather than god of wealth (and wasn't the custom fairly
widespread throughout the Roman world?).
Have you looked at David Johnson, "Euhemerisation versus demonisation. The
pagan gods and Aelfric's De falsiis diis." In T. Hofstra et al., Pagans and
Christians: The Interplay between Christian Latin and Traditional Germanic
Cultures in Early Medieval Europe (Groningen, 1995) 35-62. There's also a
brief discussion at the beginning of Jean Seznec's La survivances des dieux
antiques, reissued in 1993. I think there's an English translation.
Yours,
Bernadette Filotas
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