szkoła-i-dom: Anglo-Saxon paganism

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

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 beli…

Evidence: 40 • authority: 72

Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th century, its practitioners model it on the pre-Christian religions adhered to by the Germanic peoples of the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages. In an attempt to reconstruct these past belief systems, Heathenry uses surviving historical, archaeological, and folkloric evidence as a basis, although approaches to this material vary considerably. Heathenry does not have a unified theology but is typically polytheistic, centering on a pantheon of deities from pre-Christi…

Evidence: 25 • authority: 72

Old Norse religion, also known as Norse polytheism or Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into distinct branches. It was replaced by Christianity during the Christianisation of Scandinavia. Scholars reconstruct aspects of North Germanic Religion by historical linguistics, archaeology, toponymy, and records left by North Germanic peoples, such as runic inscriptions in the Younger Futhark, a distinctly North Germanic extension of the runic alphabet. Numerous Old Norse works dated to the 13th-century record Norse mythology, a component of North Germanic religion. Old Norse religion was polythe…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

Religious syncretism is the blending of religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into an existing religious tradition. This can occur for many reasons, where religious traditions exist in proximity to each other, or when a culture is conquered and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in eradicating older beliefs and practices. It frequently involves melding church and state power. Many religions have syncretic elements, but adherents often frown upon the application of the label, especially those who belong to "revealed" religions, such as Abrahamic religions, or any system with an exclusivist approach, seeing sy…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic religions practiced both inside and outside the empire. During the Middle Ages, the term was also adapted to refer to religions practiced outside the former Roman Empire, such as Germanic paganism, Egyptian paganism and Baltic paganism. From the point of view of the early Christians, these religions all qualified as ethnic (or gentile, ethnikos, gentilis, the term translating goyim,…

Evidence: — • authority: 88

Mortuary Practices in Early Anglo‐Saxon England. Abstract This article presents the argument that mortuary practices were mechanisms for the construction of memories and, in turn, the constitution of identities during the turbulent socio-economic, political, and religious transformations of the fifth and sixth centuries ad. Understanding the mortuary process, variability, and change provide the background from which a fuller exploration of later fifth- and sixth-century cremation and inhumation practices can be based. It is possible to glean elements of the complex mortuary processes associated with inhumation. Graves would have provided a rich display, but not a single tableau, since many…

Evidence: — • authority: 80

Early Anglo-Saxon Belt Buckles (late 5th to early 8th centuries A.D.): Their classification and context

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Anglo-Saxon England or early medieval England covers the period from the end of the Roman Empire's rule in Roman Britain in the 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066. Compared to modern England, the territory of the Anglo-Saxons stretched north to present day Lothian in southeastern Scotland, whereas it did not initially include western areas of England such as Cornwall, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cumbria. The 5th and 6th centuries involved the collapse of economic networks and political structures and also saw a radical change to a new Anglo-Saxon language and culture. This change was driven by movements of peoples as well as changes which were happening i…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Saxon paganism, sometimes known as Continental Saxon paganism or Saxon heathenism, refers to the religion of the Saxons before their Christianization in the wake of the Saxon Wars (772–804) of Charlemagne. Distinct from its closely related Anglo-Saxon counterpart, Saxon paganism was a polytheistic belief system and part of the larger Continental Germanic mythology, with a focus on the sacredness of pillar-like objects (such as Irminsul) and sacred groves, many of which were destroyed. After Christianization, monasteries repurposed Saxon beliefs and values in new Christian literature, such as the Old Saxon epic poem Heliand, and used the region as a barrier between Christendom and the Slavic…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Starting in the late 6th century, Anglo-Saxons converted from Anglo-Saxon and Norse paganism to Christianity. The process and timing of their Christianisation varied by region and was not necessarily a one-way process, with the traditional religion regaining dominance in most kingdoms of modern-day England at least once after their first Christian king. Kings likely often converted for political reasons such as the imposition by a more powerful king, to gain legitimacy, and to access book-writing traditions; however, there were also significant drawbacks to the conversion that may explain the reluctance of many kings to be baptised. The first major step was the Gregorian mission that landed…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The settlement of Great Britain by Germanic peoples from continental Europe led to the development of an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity and a shared Germanic language, Old English, whose closest known relative was Old Frisian, spoken on the other side of the North Sea. The first Germanic speakers to settle in Britain permanently are likely to have been soldiers recruited by the Roman administration in Britain in the 4th century or earlier. In the early 5th century, during the end of Roman rule in Britain and the breakdown of the Roman economy, larger numbers arrived, and their influence upon local culture and politics increased. There is ongoing debate about the scale, timing and nature of t…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic settlers who became one of the most important cultural groups in Britain by the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon period in Britain is considered to have started by about 450 and ended in 1066, with the Norman Conquest. Although the details of their early settlement and political development are not clear, by the 8th century an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity which was generally called Englisc had developed out of the interaction of these settlers with…