Pagan Saxon Resistance to Charlemagne’s Mission: ‘Indigenous’ Religion and ‘World’ Religion in the Early Middle Ages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v13i1.33Keywords:
Paganism, Charlemagne, Christianity, Indigenous Religions, World ReligionsAbstract
What is “known” about the interplay between Paganism and Christianity in the Middle Ages grows more problematic with every new scholarly contribution. Recently it has become fashionable to assert that nothing can be known of the earlier oral tradition of Pagans, as all that remain are Christian texts written by Christian clergy who drew upon Biblical models such as Canaanite “idolatry” to depict the Paganism of medieval peoples like the Anglo-Saxons and the Frisians of whose religion they were ignorant. Extreme versions of this position deny the existence of Paganism entirely; this is because all the texts were produced by Christians, and other potential sources of information about Paganism (archaeological evidence, comparative Indo-European parallels, and folklore) are deemed inadmissible. The encounter between literate, urban Christianity and non-literate rural Paganism in early medieval Europe resembles contemporary cases where the claims of “indigenous religions” (e.g. legal actions to establish native title mounted by peoples who were non-literate at the time they were colonized by Europeans) and “world religions” (e.g., missionary religion directly or indirectly facilitating colonialist enterprises) clash. Yet this is rarely recognized within the academic disciplines of history and medieval studies. This article considers the struggle between the Pagan Saxons and the Frankish Christian army of Charlemagne in the late eighth and early ninth centuries as a case study of an indigenous people and religion being crushed by a universalizing world religion promoted by a globalizing colonialist empire. It argues that medieval Christian missionary and colonialist programs were intended to bring about the deliberate obliteration of indigenous Pagan cultures, a fact which is rarely recognized by scholars.References
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Carney, James. Studies in Irish Literature and History. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies: Dublin, 1955.
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Cusack, Carole M. Conversion Among the Germanic Peoples. Cassell: London, 1998.
———. The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
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Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. Carolingian Civilization: A Reader. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1996.
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Goldberg, Eric J. “Popular Revolt, Dynastic Politics, and Aristocratic Factionalism in the Early Middle Ages: The Saxon Stellinga Reconsidered.” Speculum 70 (1995): 467–501. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2865267.
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Hildburgh, W. L. “Representations of the Saints in Medieval English Alabaster Carvings.” Folk-Lore 61 (1950): 68–87.
Horton, Robin. “African Conversion” Africa 41 (1971): 85–108. doi:10.2307/1159421.
Janson, Henrik. “Adam of Bremen and the Conversion of Scandinavia.” In Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, edited by Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood, 83–88. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.
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Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Pagan Survivals and Syncretism in the Conversion of Saxony.” The Catholic Historical Review 72 (1986): 553–72.
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Masuzawa, Tomoko. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
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Scholz, Bernhard Walter. Carolingian Chronicles. Translated Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970.
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Swain, Tony, and Deborah Bird Rose, eds. Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions. Adelaide: AASR, 1988.
Tacitus. Dialogus, Agricola, Germania. Edited and translated by William Peterson. London: Heinemann, 1914.
Talbot, C. H. “St. Boniface and the German Mission.” In The Mission of the Church and the Propagation of the Faith, edited by G. J. Cuming, 45–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Tishkin, Joel E. “Ethnic vs. Evangelical Religions: Beyond Teaching the World Religion Approach.” The History Teacher 33 (2000): 303–20. http://dx.doi. org/10.2307/495028
Tolley, Clive. “Oswald’s Tree.” In Pagans and Christians, edited by T. Hofstra, J. R. Houwen, and A. A. MacDonald, 149–73. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1995.
Van Egmond, Wolfert. “Converting Monks: Missionary Activity in Early Medieval Frisia and Saxony.” In Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, edited by Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood, 37–45. Turnhour: Brepols, 2000.
Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. The Frankish Church. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
Wallach, Luitpold. Alcuin and Charlemagne. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1959.
Willibald. “Life of Boniface.” In The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, edited and translated by C. H. Talbot, 25-62. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1954.
———. Vita Bonifatii, in Monumenta Germania Historiae: Scriptores, Tomus II. Edited by G. H. Pertz, 331–59. Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1829.
Wood, Ian N. “Some Historical Re-identifications and the Christianization of Kent.” In Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, edited by Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood, 27–35. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.
Buchholz, Peter. “Perspectives for Historical Research in Germanic Religion.” History of Religions 8 (1968): 111-38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/462579.
Carney, James. Studies in Irish Literature and History. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies: Dublin, 1955.
Carroll, Christopher. “The Bishoprics of Saxony in the First Century after Christianization.” Early Medieval Europe 8.1 (1999): 219-246.
Cusack, Carole M. Conversion Among the Germanic Peoples. Cassell: London, 1998.
———. The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
Davidson, Hilda Ellis. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.
Dietrich, B. C. The Origins of Greek Religion. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1974.
Duggan, Lawrence G. “ ‘For Force is Not of God?’ Compulsion and Conversion from Yahweh to Charlemagne.” In Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages, edited by James Muldoon, 49–62. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.
Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. Carolingian Civilization: A Reader. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1996.
Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated by Willard Trask. Harmondsworth: Penguin Arkana, 1989 [1964].
Goldberg, Eric J. “Popular Revolt, Dynastic Politics, and Aristocratic Factionalism in the Early Middle Ages: The Saxon Stellinga Reconsidered.” Speculum 70 (1995): 467–501. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2865267.
Guerrero, M. A. Jaimes. “Native Womanism: Exemplars of Indigenism in Sacred Traditions of Kinship.” In Indigenous Religions: A Companion, edited by Graham Harvey, 37-54. London: Cassell, 2000.
Harvey, Graham. “Introduction.” In Indigenous Religions: A Companion, edited by Graham Harvey, 1–19. London: Cassell, 2000.
Hildburgh, W. L. “Representations of the Saints in Medieval English Alabaster Carvings.” Folk-Lore 61 (1950): 68–87.
Horton, Robin. “African Conversion” Africa 41 (1971): 85–108. doi:10.2307/1159421.
Janson, Henrik. “Adam of Bremen and the Conversion of Scandinavia.” In Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, edited by Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood, 83–88. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.
Jones, Prudence. “The European Native Tradition.” In Nature Religion Today, edited by Joanne Pearson, Richard H. Roberts and Geoffrey Samuel, 77–88. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. “Pagan Survivals and Syncretism in the Conversion of Saxony.” The Catholic Historical Review 72 (1986): 553–72.
Low, Mary. Celtic Christianity and Nature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996.
Mallory, J. P., and D. Q. Adams, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
Masuzawa, Tomoko. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
McCone, Kim. Pagan Past and Christian Present. Maynooth: An Sagart, 1991.
McCutcheon, Russell T. The Discipline of Religion. London: Routledge, 2003.
Mol, Hans. “Religion and Identity: A Dialectical Interpretation of Religious Phenomena.” In Identity Issues and World Religions, edited by Victor C. Hayes, 64–79. Adelaide: AASR, 1986.
Murray, Alexander Callander. “Reinhard Wenskus on ‘Ethnogenesis,’ Ethnicity and the Origin of Texts.” In On Barbarian Identity, edited by Andrew Gillett, 39–68. Turnhout: Brepols, 2002.
North, Richard. Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Russell, James G. The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Scholz, Bernhard Walter. Carolingian Chronicles. Translated Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970.
Strmiska, Michael. “The Evils of Christianization: A Pagan Perspective on European History.” In Evil and Wickedness: Media, Film and Popular Culture, edited by Terrie Waddell, 59–72. New York: Rodopi Press, 2003.
Sulpicius Severus. “The Life of Saint Martin.” In Soldiers of Christ, edited by Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head, 1–29. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.
Sullivan, Richard E. Christian Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages. Aldershot: Variorum, 1994.
Swain, Tony. A Place for Strangers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511552175.
Swain, Tony, and Deborah Bird Rose, eds. Aboriginal Australians and Christian Missions. Adelaide: AASR, 1988.
Tacitus. Dialogus, Agricola, Germania. Edited and translated by William Peterson. London: Heinemann, 1914.
Talbot, C. H. “St. Boniface and the German Mission.” In The Mission of the Church and the Propagation of the Faith, edited by G. J. Cuming, 45–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Tishkin, Joel E. “Ethnic vs. Evangelical Religions: Beyond Teaching the World Religion Approach.” The History Teacher 33 (2000): 303–20. http://dx.doi. org/10.2307/495028
Tolley, Clive. “Oswald’s Tree.” In Pagans and Christians, edited by T. Hofstra, J. R. Houwen, and A. A. MacDonald, 149–73. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1995.
Van Egmond, Wolfert. “Converting Monks: Missionary Activity in Early Medieval Frisia and Saxony.” In Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, edited by Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood, 37–45. Turnhour: Brepols, 2000.
Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. The Frankish Church. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
Wallach, Luitpold. Alcuin and Charlemagne. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1959.
Willibald. “Life of Boniface.” In The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, edited and translated by C. H. Talbot, 25-62. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1954.
———. Vita Bonifatii, in Monumenta Germania Historiae: Scriptores, Tomus II. Edited by G. H. Pertz, 331–59. Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1829.
Wood, Ian N. “Some Historical Re-identifications and the Christianization of Kent.” In Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, edited by Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood, 27–35. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000.
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2012-03-09
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How to Cite
Cusack, C. (2012). Pagan Saxon Resistance to Charlemagne’s Mission: ‘Indigenous’ Religion and ‘World’ Religion in the Early Middle Ages. Pomegranate, 13(1), 33-51. https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v13i1.33
