Anglo-Saxon paganism
Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon heathenism, Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian religion, Anglo-Saxon traditional religion, or Anglo-Saxon polytheism, is the set of religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and 8th centuries AD, during the initial period of Early Medieval England. A variant of Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, it encompassed a heterogeneous variety of beliefs and cultic practices, with much regional variation.
Developing from the earlier Iron Age religion of continental northern Europe, it was introduced to Britain following the Anglo-Saxon migration in the mid 5th century, and remained the dominant belief system in England until the Christianisation of its kingdoms between the 7th and 8th centuries, with some aspects gradually blending into folklore. The pejorative terms paganism and heathenism were first applied to this religion by Christianised Anglo-Saxons, and it does not appear that the followers of the indigenous faith had a name for their religion themselves; there has therefore been debate among contemporary scholars as to the appropriateness of continuing to describe these belief systems using this Christian terminology. Contemporary knowledge of Anglo-Saxon paganism derives largely from three sources: textual evidence produced by Christian Anglo-Saxons like Bede and Aldhelm, place-name evidence, and archaeological evidence of cultic practices. Further suggestions regarding the nature of Anglo-Saxon paganism have been developed through comparisons with the better-attested pre-Christian belief systems of neighbouring peoples such as the Norse.
Anglo-Saxon paganism was a polytheistic belief system, focused around a belief in deities known as the ése. The most prominent of these deities was probably Woden; other prominent gods included Thunor and Tiw. There was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities which inhabited the landscape, including elves, nicors, and dragons. Cultic practice largely revolved around demonstrations of devotion, including sacrifice of inanimate objects and animals to these deities, particularly at certain religious festivals during the year. There is some evidence for the existence of timber temples, although other cultic spaces might have been open-air, and would have included cultic trees and megaliths. Little is known about pagan conceptions of an afterlife, although such beliefs likely influenced funerary practices, in which the dead were either interred or cremated, typically with a selection of grave goods. The belief system also likely included ideas about magic and witchcraft, and elements that could be classified as a form of shamanism.
The deities of this religion provided the basis for the names of the days of the week in the English language. What is known about the religion and its accompanying mythology have since influenced both literature and modern paganism.
Definition
The word pagan is a Latin pejorative term that was used by Gentile Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England to designate non-Christians. In Old English, the vernacular language of Anglo-Saxon England, the equivalent term was hæðen, a word that was cognate to the Old Norse heiðinn, both of which may derive from a Gothic word, haiþno. Both pagan and heathen were terms that carried pejorative overtones, with hæðen also being used in Late Anglo-Saxon texts to refer to criminals and others deemed to have not behaved according to Christian teachings. The term "paganism" was one used by Gentile Christians as a form of othering, and as the archaeologist Neil Price put it, in the Anglo-Saxon context, "paganism" is "largely an empty concept defined by what it is not ".There is no evidence that anyone living in Anglo-Saxon England ever described themselves as a "pagan" or understood there to be a singular religion, "paganism", that stood as a monolithic alternative to Christianity. These pagan belief systems would have been inseparable from other aspects of daily life. According to the archaeologists Martin Carver, Alex Sanmark, and Sarah Semple, Anglo-Saxon paganism was "not a religion with supraregional rules and institutions but a loose term for a variety of local intellectual world views." Carver stressed that, in Anglo-Saxon England, neither paganism nor Christianity represented "homogenous intellectual positions or canons and practice"; instead, there was "considerable interdigitation" between the two. As a phenomenon, this belief system lacked any apparent rules or consistency, and exhibited both regional and chronological variation. The archaeologist Aleks Pluskowski suggested that it is possible to talk of "multiple Anglo-Saxon 'paganisms'".
Adopting the terminology of the sociologist of religion Max Weber, the historian Marilyn Dunn described Anglo-Saxon paganism as a "world accepting" religion, one which was "concerned with the here and now" and in particular with issues surrounding the safety of the family, prosperity, and the avoidance of drought or famine. Also adopting the categories of Gustav Mensching, she described Anglo-Saxon paganism as a "folk religion", in that its adherents concentrated on survival and prosperity in this world.
Using the expressions "paganism" or "heathenism" when discussing pre-Christian belief systems in Anglo-Saxon England is problematic. Historically, many early scholars of the Anglo-Saxon period used these terms to describe the religious beliefs in England before its conversion to Christianity in the 7th century. Several later scholars criticised this approach; as the historian Ian N. Wood stated, using the term "pagan" when discussing the Anglo-Saxons forces the scholar to adopt "the cultural constructs and value judgements of the early medieval missionaries" and thus obscures scholarly understandings of the so-called pagans' own perspectives.
At present, while some Anglo-Saxonists have ceased using the terms "paganism" or "pagan" when discussing the early Anglo-Saxon period, others have continued to do so, viewing these terms as a useful means of designating something that is not Christian yet which is still identifiably religious. The historian John Hines proposed "traditional religion" as a better alternative, although Carver cautioned against this, noting that Britain in the 5th to the 8th century was replete with new ideas and thus belief systems of that period were not particularly "traditional". The term "pre-Christian" religion has also been used; this avoids the judgemental connotations of "paganism" and "heathenism" but is not always chronologically accurate.
Evidence
Surviving primary textual source material derives from later authors, such as Bede and the anonymous author of the Life of St Wilfrid, who wrote in Latin rather than in Old English. These writers were not interested in providing a full portrait of the Anglo-Saxons' pre-Christian belief systems, and thus our textual portrayal of these religious beliefs is fragmentary and incidental. Also perhaps useful are the writings of those Christian Anglo-Saxon missionaries who were active in converting the pagan societies of continental Europe, namely Willibrord and Boniface, as well as the writings of the 1st century AD Roman writer Tacitus, who commented upon the pagan religions of the Anglo-Saxons' ancestors in continental Europe. The historian Frank Stenton commented that the available texts only provide us with "a dim impression" of pagan religion in Anglo-Saxon England, while similarly, the archaeologist David Wilson commented that written sources "should be treated with caution and viewed as suggestive rather than in any way definitive".Far fewer textual records discuss Anglo-Saxon paganism than the pre-Christian belief systems found in nearby Ireland, Francia, or Scandinavia. There is no neat, formalised account of Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs as there is for instance for Classical mythology and Norse mythology. Although many scholars have used Norse mythology as a guide to understanding the beliefs of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England, caution has been expressed as to the utility of this approach. Stenton assumes that the connection between Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian paganism occurred "in a past which was already remote" at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain, and claims that there was clear diversity among the pre-Christian belief systems of Scandinavia itself, further complicating the use of Scandinavian material to understand that of England. Conversely, the historian Brian Branston argued for the use of Old Norse sources to better understand Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs, recognising mythological commonalities between the two rooted in their common ancestry.
Old English place-names also provide some insight into the pre-Christian beliefs and practices of Anglo-Saxon England. Some of these place-names reference the names of particular deities, while others use terms that refer to cultic practices that took place there. In England, these two categories remain separate, unlike in Scandinavia, where certain place-names exhibit both features. Those place-names which carry possible pagan associations are centred primarily in the centre and south-east of England, while no obvious examples are known from Northumbria or East Anglia. It is not clear why such names are rarer or non-existent in certain parts of the country; it may be due to changes in nomenclature brought about by Scandinavian settlement in the Late Anglo-Saxon period or because of evangelising efforts by later Christian authorities. In 1941, Stenton suggested that "between fifty and sixty sites of heathen worship" could be identified through the place-name evidence, although in 1961 the place-name scholar Margaret Gelling cautioned that only forty-five of these appeared reliable. The literature specialist Philip A. Shaw has however warned that many of these sites might not have been named by pagans but by later Christian Anglo-Saxons, reflecting spaces that were perceived to be heathen from a Christian perspective.
According to Wilson, the archaeological evidence is "prolific and hence is potentially the most useful in the study of paganism" in Anglo-Saxon England. Archaeologically, the realms of religion, ritual, and magic can only be identified if they affected material culture. As such, scholarly understandings of pre-Christian religion in Anglo-Saxon England are reliant largely on rich burials and monumental buildings, which exert as much of a political purpose as a religious one. Metalwork items discovered by metal detectorists have also contributed to the interpretation of Anglo-Saxon paganism. The world-views of the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons would have impinged on all aspects of everyday life, making it particularly difficult for modern scholars to separate Anglo-Saxon ritual activities as something distinct from other areas of daily life. Much of this archaeological material comes from the period in which pagan beliefs were being supplanted by Christianity, and thus an understanding of Anglo-Saxon paganism must be seen in tandem with the archaeology of the conversion.
Based on the evidence available, the historian John Blair stated that the pre-Christian religion of Anglo-Saxon England largely resembled "that of the pagan Britons under Roman rule... at least in its outward forms".
However, the archaeologist Audrey Meaney concluded that there exists "very little undoubted evidence for Anglo-Saxon paganism, and we remain ignorant of many of its essential features of organisation and philosophy". Similarly, the Old English specialist Roy Page stated that the surviving evidence was "too sparse and too scattered" to permit a good understanding of Anglo-Saxon paganism.