Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The kingdoms of the Hwicce and the Magonsætan
- 3 Paganism and Christianity
- 4 Early influences on the church
- 5 Varieties of monasticism
- 6 The eighth-century church
- 7 Biblical study
- 8 Letter-writing
- 9 The unseen world: the monk of Wenlock's vision
- 10 Prayer and magic
- 11 Milred, Cuthbert and Anglo-Latin poetry
- 12 The church in the landscape
- 13 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Paganism and Christianity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Map
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The kingdoms of the Hwicce and the Magonsætan
- 3 Paganism and Christianity
- 4 Early influences on the church
- 5 Varieties of monasticism
- 6 The eighth-century church
- 7 Biblical study
- 8 Letter-writing
- 9 The unseen world: the monk of Wenlock's vision
- 10 Prayer and magic
- 11 Milred, Cuthbert and Anglo-Latin poetry
- 12 The church in the landscape
- 13 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The pagan Hwicce and Magonsætan are effectively prehistoric; the main evidence for them and their beliefs lies buried with them in their cemeteries, which are almost confined to the east of the kingdom of the Hwicce, along the Cots wolds and the Avon valley. Modern knowledge of Anglo-Saxon paganism from non-archaeological sources is scanty, for Christians had little reason to record memories and survivals of pagan belief and custom. Yet there are occasional exceptions. An eighth-century prayer book from Worcester contains a number of charm-like texts – Christian equivalents of the amulets with which some Hwicce were still being buried in the seventh century, and of the pagan fylacteria and incantationes forbidden by the Council of Clofesho in 747. One page of this prayer book begins with a prayer asking Christ's protection on every limb of the body. Then, after a doxology in garbled Greek, it concludes:
I adjure thee, Satan, devil, elf (satanae diabulus aelfae), by the Living and True God, and by the terrible Day of Judgment, that it may flee from the man who goes about with this writing with him, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The word for the pagan Germanic sprite may be included to explain or reinforce the Christian demonology. The Christian writers of documents recorded further memories of paganism in the form of place-names alluding to Germanic gods, like Tiw and Woden, or to pagan shrines and sanctuaries (wēoh, hearg); but it is not easy to say how and when the places were associated with the gods, nor when the pagan shrines may have ceased to be used.
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- Religion and Literature in Western England, 600–800 , pp. 54 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990