Anglo-Saxon paganism
[2] Both pagan and heathen were terms that carried pejorative overtones,[3] 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.
[7] 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.
[30] 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.
[40] 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".
[45] This would have been easier for those Britons who, rather than being Christian, continued to practise indigenous polytheistic belief systems,[45] and in areas this Late Iron Age polytheism could have syncretically mixed with the incoming Anglo-Saxon religion.
[63] Jesch argued that, given that there was only evidence for the worship of Odin and Thor in Anglo-Scandinavian England, these might have been the only deities to have been actively venerated by the Scandinavian settlers, even if they were aware of the mythological stories surrounding other Norse gods and goddesses.
The animistic character of Germanic belief prior to Christianization, with its emphasis on nature, holistic cures, and worship at wells, trees, and stones, meant that it was hard to counteract on an institutional level of organized religion...
[79] Both secular and church authorities issued condemnations of alleged non-Christian pagan practices, such as the veneration of wells, trees, and stones, right through to the eleventh century and into the High Middle Ages.
[75] However, most of the penitentials condemning such practices—notably that attributed to Ecgbert of York—were largely produced around the year 1000, which may suggest that their prohibitions against non-Christian cultic behaviour may be a response to Norse pagan beliefs brought in by Scandinavian settlers rather than a reference to older Anglo-Saxon practices.
[75] Various scholars, among them historical geographer Della Hooke and Price, have contrastingly believed that these reflected the continuing practice of veneration at wells and trees at a popular level long after the official Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon society.
For instance, writing in the 1720s, Henry Bourne stated his belief that the winter custom of the Yule log was a leftover from Anglo-Saxon paganism, however this is an idea that has been disputed by some subsequent research by the likes of historian Ronald Hutton, who believe that it was only introduced into England in the seventeenth century by immigrants arriving from Flanders.
Situated within a polytheistic cosmos, clouded from us by centuries of Christian theology and Enlightenment rationalism, we can discern the existence of a handful of potential deities, who though long deceased have perhaps left their mark in place-names, royal genealogies, and the accounts of proselytizing monks.
[99][100] Woden also appears as the leader of the Wild Hunt,[101] and he is referred to as a magical healer in the Nine Herbs Charm, directly paralleling the role of his continental German counterpart Wodan in the Merseburg Incantations.
It has been suggested that Woden was also known as Grim—a name which appears in such English place-names as Grimspound in Dartmoor, Grimes Graves in Norfolk and Grimsby ("Grim's Village") in Lincolnshire—because in recorded Norse mythology, the god Óðinn is also known as Grímnir.
It is possible that some of these names had pagan religious origins, perhaps referring to a sacrificed animal's head that was erected on a pole, or a carved representation of one; equally some or all of these place-names may have been descriptive metaphors for local landscape features.
[150] One is a quotation from a letter written in 601 by Pope Gregory the Great to the Abbot Mellitus, in which he stated that Christian missionaries need not destroy "the temples of the idols" but that they should be sprinkled with holy water and converted into churches.
[151] A second reference to cultic spaces found in Bede appears in his discussion of Coifi, an influential English pagan priest for King Edwin of Northumbria, who – after converting to Christianity – cast a spear into the temple at Goodmanham and then burned it to the ground.
[158] "Bede's evidence and archaeology show that sanctuaries associated with royal estates at the end of the pagan period are likely to have been enclosures containing buildings of organic materials, with images of the gods inside.
[162] Blair highlighted evidence for the existence of square enclosures dating from the early Anglo-Saxon period which often included standing posts and which were often superimposed on earlier prehistoric monuments, most notably Bronze Age barrows.
[164] Building on Blair's argument, the archaeologist Sarah Semple suggested that in Early Anglo-Saxon England such barrows might have been understood as "the home of spirits, ancestors or gods" and accordingly used as cultic places.
[167] Supporting this, he highlighted ethnographically recorded examples from elsewhere in Northern Europe, such as among the Mansi, in which shrines are located away from the main area of settlement, and are demarcated by logs, ropes, fabrics, and images, none of which would leave an archaeological trace.
[170] "Let us raise a hymn, especially because He who thrust into Tartarus of terrible torture the ghastly three-tongued serpent who vomits torrents of rank and virulent poisons through the ages deigned in like measure to send to earth the offspring begotten of holy parturition... and because where once the crude pillars of the same foul snake and the stag were worshipped with coarse stupidity in profane shrines, in their place dwelling for students, not to mention holy houses of prayer, are constructed skilfully by the talents of the architect."
[173] Aldhelm had used the Latin terms ermula cruda ("crude pillars"), although it was unclear what exactly he was referring to; possibly examples include something akin to a wooden totem pole or a re-used Neolithic menhir.
[181] The purpose of such poles remains debatable, however; some might have represented grave markers, others might have signalised group or kin identities, or marked territory, assembly places, or sacred spaces.
[189] The folklorist Jacqueline Simpson has suggested that some English folk customs recorded in the late medieval and early modern periods involving the display of a decapitated animal's head on a pole may derive their origins from pre-Christian sacrificial practices.
"[211] Indicating a possible religious belief, grave goods were common among inhumation burials as well as cremations; free Anglo-Saxon men were buried with at least one weapon in the pagan tradition, often a seax, but sometimes also with a spear, sword or shield, or a combination of these.
[220] "These few remarks by Bede show us a people who of necessity fitted closely into the pattern of the changing year, who were of the earth and what grows in it, who breathed the farmy exhalations of cattle and sheep, who marked the passage of time according to the life-cycle of their stock and the growth of their plants or by the appropriate period for offerings to the gods".
[35] The Christian authorities attempted to stamp out a belief and practice in witchcraft, with the Paenitentiale Theodori attributed to Theodore of Tarsus condemning "those that consult divinations and use them in the pagan manner, or that permit people of that kind into their houses to seek some knowledge".
As David Wilson noted, "To the early [Anglo-]Saxons, they were part and parcel of the supernatural that made up their world of 'belief', although occupying the shadowy dividing area between superstition and religion, if indeed such a division actually existed.
[251] The study of Anglo-Saxon paganism began only in the mid nineteenth century, when John Kemble published The Saxons in England Volume I (1849), in which he discussed the usefulness of examining place-names to find out about the religion.
