Heathen hof


A heathen hof or Germanic pagan temple is a temple building of the Germanic religion. The term hof is taken from Old Norse.

Background

Etymologically, the Old Norse word hof is the same as the Dutch and German word hof, which originally meant a hall and later came to refer to a court and then also to a farm. In medieval Scandinavian sources, it occurs once as a hall, in the Eddic poem Hymiskviða, and beginning in the fourteenth century, in the "court" meaning. Otherwise, it occurs only as a word for a temple. Hof also occasionally occurs with the meaning "temple" in Old High German and is cognate with the Old English. In Scandinavia during the Viking Age, it appears to have displaced older terms for a sacred place, vé, hörgr, lundr, vangr, and vin, particularly in the West Norse linguistic area, namely Norway and Iceland. It is the dominant word for a temple in the Icelandic sagas, but is rare in skaldic poetry.
Many places in Scandinavia, but especially in West Norse regions, are named hof or hov, either alone or in combination. These include:
Some placenames, often names of farms, combine the word, such as:
  • Several places in Iceland named Hofstaðir, one the site of a hof excavation.
  • Hofsós, village in Iceland.
  • Norderhov, a former municipality in Norway - dedicated to Njörðr.
  • Torshov, a neighborhood in Oslo and Thorsø, a farm in Torsnes, Norway - dedicated to Thor.
There is also one in England: the village of Hoff in Cumbria, with an associated Hoff Lund, "temple grove."

Changing scholarly views

The nature of Germanic places of worship has long been a subject of scholarly debate. Tacitus wrote in Germania:
The Germans do not think it in keeping with the divine majesty to confine gods within walls or to portray them in the likeness of any human countenance. Their holy places are woods and groves, and they apply the names of deities to that hidden presence which is seen only by the eye of reverence.
There are several sites in the historical period at which heathen rites apparently took place in the open, including Hove in Trøndelag, Norway, where offerings were apparently brought to images of the gods on a row of ten posts, but no trace of buildings was found. Yet Tacitus himself wrote of an image of Nerthus. And in his Annals he refers to a temple of Tanfana. Most older scholars considered that a hof would be a dedicated temple: an independent sacred place, built specifically for ritual proceedings, comparable to a Christian church. By extension, it was also commonly believed that the hofs had been located on the same sites as the churches that had superseded them.
This was the dominant theory until in 1966 the Danish archeologist Olaf Olsen published the results of a comprehensive study of archeological investigations in Iceland and Sweden and of a large number of the oldest Danish churches. He was not able to confirm a single case of a heathen hof underlying a Christian church, and concluded in light of this that a hof could not have been an independent building. Particularly in reference to the Hofstaðir building in Iceland, he suggested the model of the temple-farm: that rather than being dedicated exclusively to religious use, the hofs were also dwellings, and that the word hof referred to the great farm in a rural settlement, at which the most powerful man also held sacrifices and feasts.
However, new archeological discoveries in the late 20th century revealed several buildings in various parts of Scandinavia that do appear to have functioned purely as cult sites. Some of them, for example the hall at Tissø, Denmark, were associated with the aristocracy, but others, for example Uppåkra in Scania functioned as places of assembly for the local population. The temple found in England, at Yeavering, now appears to be an early example of a hall-associated hof, rather than an anomaly.
Gro Steinsland, a historian of Norse paganism, is of the opinion that in effect it was economic resources as much as local tradition that led to the development of dedicated hofs: in the richest areas, actual temples developed, while in poor areas, the spaces that people had were what they used for blót.

Hofs in the written record

Iceland and Norway

In the first chapter, in in heiðnu lǫg, of book four of Landnámabók it is stated that Iceland was divided into four courtdistricts all containing three hofs each.

Sagas of the Icelanders

Chapter 2 of Kjalnesinga saga contains an extended description of Thorgrim Helgason's temple at Hof:
He had a large temple built in his hayfield, a hundred feet long and sixty wide. Everybody had to pay a temple fee. Thor was the god most honoured there. It was rounded on the inside, like a vault, and there were windows and wall-hangings everywhere. The image of Thor stood in the center, with other gods on both sides. In front of them was an altar made with great skill and covered with iron on the top. On this there was to be a fire which would never go out—they called it sacred fire. On the altar was to lie a great armband, made of silver. The temple godi was to wear it on his arm at all gatherings, and everyone was to swear oaths on it whenever a suit was brought. A great copper bowl was to stand on the altar, and into it was to go all the blood which came from animals or men given to Thor. They called this sacrificial blood and the sacrificial blood bowl . This blood was to be sprinkled over men and animals, and the animals that were given in sacrifice were to be used for feasting when sacrificial banquets were held. Men whom they sacrificed were to be cast into a pool which was outside by the door; they called it Blótkelda.

There is a similar passage in Eyrbyggja saga about Thorolf Mostrarskegg's temple at Hofstaðir, which gives more information about the layout of the hof:
There he had a temple built, and it was a sizeable building, with a door on the side-wall near the gable. The high-seat pillars were placed inside the door, and nails, that were called holy nails , were driven into them. Beyond that point, the temple was a sanctuary. At the inner end there was a structure similar to the choir in churches nowadays and there was a raised platform in the middle of the floor like an altar, where a ring weighing twenty ounces and fashioned without a join was placed, and all oaths had to be sworn on this ring. It also had to be worn by the temple priest at all public gatherings. A sacrificial bowl was placed on the platform and in it a sacrificial twig —like a priest's aspergillum—which was used to sprinkle blood from the bowl. This blood, which was called sacrificial blood , was the blood of live animals offered to the gods. The gods were placed around the platform in the choir-like structure within the temple. All farmers had to pay a toll to the temple.... The temple godi was responsible for the upkeep of the temple and ensuring it was maintained properly, as well as for holding sacrificial feasts in it.

''Heimskringla''

's description in Heimskringla of the process of blót repeats the same information about the blood and the bowl, and continues:
... and with were to be smeared all over with blood the pedestals of the idols and also the walls of the temple within and without; and likewise the men present were to be sprinkled with blood. But the meat of the animals was to be boiled and to serve as food at the banquet. Fires were to be lighted in the middle of the temple floor, and kettles hung over them. The sacrificial beaker was to be borne around the fire.

Jan de Vries considered the 100 by 60 foot dimensions and the eternal flame exaggerated; the human sacrifices in a pool by the door, not so much.
Several sagas, including Kjalnesinga saga, also mention hofs being surrounded by a fence.

Sweden

Gamla Uppsala

A Viking Age heathen hof at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden was described by Adam of Bremen around 1070:
That folk has a very famous temple called Uppsala.... In this temple, entirely decked out in gold, the people worship the statues of three gods in such wise that the mightiest of them, Thor, occupies a throne in the middle of the chamber; Wotan and Frikko have places on either side. The significance of these gods is as follows: Thor, they say, presides over the air, which governs the thunder and lightning, the winds and rains, fair weather and crops. The other, Wotan—that is, the Furious—carries on war and imparts to man strength against his enemies. The third is Frikko, who bestows peace and pleasure on mortals. His likeness, too, they fashion with an immense phallus. But Wotan they chisel armed, as our people are wont to represent Mars. Thor with his scepter apparently resembles Jove.... For all the gods there are appointed priests to offer sacrifices for the people. If plague and famine threaten, a libation is poured to the idol Thor; if war, to Wotan, if marriages are to be celebrated, to Frikko.

A note or scholion appended to this passage adds the following description:
A golden chain goes round the temple. It hangs over the gable of the building and sends its glitter far off to those who approach, because the shrine stands on level ground with mountains all about it like a theater.

Another scholion describes natural features near the hof:
Near this temple stands a very large tree with wide-spreading branches, always green winter and summer. What kind it is nobody knows. There is also a spring at which the pagans are accustomed to make their sacrifices, and into it to plunge a live man. And if he is not found, the people's wish will be granted.

Rather than a single tree, the passage that follows on the great sacrifices held every nine years at Uppsala speaks of a sacred grove adjoining the hof, of which each and every tree is sacred and in which the human and animal victims are hanged.
Adam's presumed source, Sweyn Estridsen, was in service as a young man with King Anund Jakob of Sweden, and therefore had the opportunity to personally see the hof at Uppsala. But we do not know how accurately Adam reports what he said. Accuracy concerning heathenry was not his objective in writing his history.