Germanic or

Saxon Christianity

The Stuttgart Psalter

Introduction

Germanic or Saxon Christianity is a term used to describe a form of the Christian faith that grew out of the Christianisation of the Germanic and particularly the Anglo and Continental Saxon people.

This article is mostly based on a book by the author James C Russell entitled ‘The Germanization of early Medieval Christianity’. It examines the conversion period of both Anglo Saxon and Continental Germanic peoples and concludes that the process of conversion was a two way one. Russell examines the concept of conversion itself and concludes that the Christian missionaries adopted a deliberate policy of emphasising their religion’s similarities with the Germanic pagan or heathen religion and of underplaying the profound differences. Right from the start, the Augustine mission to southern England sought to adapt existing buildings and religious practices rather than to replace them outright. It emphasised physical things such as the veneration of relics and the magical properties of the mass. It portrayed Christ as a heroic warrior in the Germanic tradition, whose magic (literally God’s spell or Gospel) was more powerful than that of the old gods. However, it did not properly explain the total change in world view required by true conversion; in particular the eschatological nature of Christianity as a ‘world rejecting religion’. Early missionaries therefore deliberately hid some of the more radical differences between the two religious systems in an attempt to overcome earlier outright rejection by Germanic pagans of what was seen as an alien religion.

Warrior Christ from a terracotta funerary plaque of central gaul circa fifth or sixth centuries. Cover illustration of James C. Russell’s book: “The Germanization of early medieval Christianity”.

This accommodation was only meant to be temporary and was to be followed by a second phase of ethical and doctrinal change. However, this did not happen to any great extent, partly because of a decline in the catechumenate (religious instructors) and partly because of the sheer vitality of Germanic folk religion. The result was a Germanic folk-religious reinterpretation of Christianity that eventually became the norm throughout western Christendom. This Germanic or Euro-centric folk Christianity remained dominant within western Christianity until relatively recently, although several movements such as the monastic movements and the protestant reformation attempted to reassert the Judaic Christianity of the middle east. However, opposition to Germanic Christianity has grown since the second world war as Churches have sought a more internationalist or universalist approach and one that emphasises the faith’s origins within Judaism. Nevertheless, euro-centric religio-cultural sentiment remains strong within several traditionalist groups even if these have become minority groupings within their respective denominations. Russell argues that opposition to traditional euro-centric Christianity by the mainstream Churches is likely to lead to alienation amongst those Germanic and Euro-folk Christians for whom religiosity and cultural identity are closely related.

Examples of medieval Christo-Germanic syncretism may be found in the development of chivalry and of the Eigenkirche or Propriety Church. This was a church or abbey built on private ground by a feudal lord, over which he retained certain propriety interests, such as nominating clergy. This provided the local dryhtens or chieftains with checks and balances to the power of the, usually Italian, popes. In England, the Royal peculiars have remained propriety churches to this day.

Accommodating Germanic folk religion and the re-interpretation of Christianity

The following extract of a letter from Pope Gregory to Abbot Mellitus in the early days of Augustine’s mission to the English, demonstrates how the Church hoped to retain and adapt ancient folk customs as a way of making Christianity more familiar to the people and of increasing its chances of taking root. This is a process known as inculturation and still used today.

"To my most beloved son, Abbot Mellitus; Gregory, servant of the servants of God. Since the departure of our companions and yourself, I have felt much anxiety because we have not heard of how your journey prospered. However, when Almighty God has brought you to our most reverend brother, Bishop Augustine, tell him what I have decided after long deliberation about the English people, namely that the idol temples of that race should by no means be destroyed; only the idols within them. Take holy water and sprinkle it in these shrines, build alters and place relics in them. For if the shrines are well built, it is essential that they should be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God. When this people see that their temples are not destroyed, they will be able to banish error from their hearts and be more ready to come to the places they are familiar with, but now recognizing and worshipping the true God. And because they are in the habit of slaughtering many oxen as sacrifices to devils, some solemnity ought to be given them in exchange for this. So, on the day of the dedication, or the festivals of the holy martyrs, whose relics are deposited there, let them build themselves huts from the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been converted from shrines, and let tem celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting. Do not let them sacrifice animals to the devil, but let them slaughter animals for their own food to the praise of God, and let them give thanks to the Giver of all things for His bountiful provision”.

Letter from Pope Gregory the Great to Abbot Mellitus, upon his journey to England [AD. 601] – taken from Bede, ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English’ 1:30.

However, an earlier letter from Gregory to the Kentish King Æþelbert, was less accommodating and shows that he would have preferred the pagan temples and holy places to have been destroyed and completely replaced with Christian places of worship. This was the more familiar process that had been used elsewhere in Europe as Christianity gradually spread northwards and westwards. His change of tact owed more to real politique than anything else. He recognised that the pagan faith and traditions of the Saxon English were simply too embedded in the folk culture for a complete replacement to have stood any chance of success. Yet, his policy of inculturation meant that the true nature of conversion was never really understood and ensured that significant elements of the old religion were absorbed into the new. Importantly, the mission of St Boniface to the continental Saxons over 100 years later adopted a similar approach with much the same result.

Religion and socio, ethnic & cultural identity

Broadly speaking, there are two types of religion; folk religion which tends to be ethno-specific and universal religion which proclaims a universal truth to all peoples. Native European religions were folk based, of which the pre-Christian Germanic heathen religions were a part. One of the most important aspects of a folk religion is the folk group itself. A key feature of Indo-European religion is what is often called ‘ancestor worship’, but is really a tribal bonding process that recognises and honours those members of the tribe that have gone before and attaches great significance to the bonds between its living and dead members. This is the basis of an ethnic religion, in which adherents are not just members of a religious community, but are part of the same blood family with blood ties that go back to the distant past. The tribe or folk group thus becomes the basis of the religion, the folk related not just to each other and to their ancestors but to the very gods themselves. The sacredness of the community is expressed in ritual ceremonies that celebrate its relationship with its own exclusive gods and which ‘promote a strong sense of in-group identification and loyalty’ Pearson, R: Introduction to Anthropology 1974. An example of this is the Greek polis, which was originally perceived as a living community, based on ethnic kinship in which as much societal life as possible revolved around the extended family. According to Plato in Laws, the polis religion ‘is not tuned to the needs of the individual... but rather shapes the community, pointing out and expressing its functions through its gods’. This concept of polis would appear to have grown out of the Indo-European tribal institutions and religion.

Like the ancient Greeks, the Germanic people are part of the wider Indo European or Aryan family, although very significant differences have clearly emerged between the different branches of this group. Despite this, it is still possible to identify Indo-European social and religious characteristics which form the basis of social structure and religious mythology and practice of all Indo European peoples. Identifying the impact of these characteristics on medieval Christianity helps to define and quantify the impact of pre-Christian Germanic religion and culture on it. Edgar Polome (Essays on Germanic Religion), for instance, identifies a number of these characteristics. He considers Indo European society to be ethno-centric and patrilineal, essentially based around the patrilineal extended family. Kindred was the cornerstone of this structure – a grouping together of families into clans claiming descent from a common ancestor. Clans were grouped into larger structures or tribes, also based around some common ancestor. Ethnic solidarity was the means by which the tribe or clan defended itself against outsiders and maintained its own security and social systems.

It is generally thought that the oldest Indo European mythology saw a supreme god expressed as Sky Father, who was the creator of the cosmos, protector of the clan and often as the primal ancestor. The Roman historian Tacitus says of the lowland Germanic peoples, ‘In ancient songs, the only kind of record or annal they have among them, they celebrate the god Tuisto born of the earth. To him they attribute a son Mannus as the origin of their people, to Mannus three sons and founders from whose names those nearest the Ocean may be called the Ingaeuones, those in the middle the Herminiones and the rest the Istaevones’.

Wolf’s cross – a Christo-heathen cross

Another characteristic of the Indo Europeans is the tri-partite division of society into priestly, warrior and farming classes. Beowulf, the oldest English poem, starts with the funeral of Scyld Scefing – Shield, the son of Sheaf. This is a mythology that goes back to the dawn of time and is a clear reflection of the importance of and the inter-relationship between the warrior and farming classes. In Norse mythology, the god Rig (probably another name for Heimdall or Hama as he is known in Anglo Saxon English) fathered the three classes of society. The importance of the warrior class both in terms of defending the folk group and of conquering new lands to farm provides the basis for the warrior cult that pervades our pre-Christian folk religion and the Germanic Christianity that grew out of it. These Indo-European, or Aryan, folk religions are often described as ‘world accepting’. This means that the emphasis of society was in the ‘here and now’ and not in some promised after life. The material world was not seen as inherently evil and people just got on with life as best they could. Though there were certainly notions of an after life, this was not the focus of people’s concern. By contrast, Christianity can be seen essentially as a ‘world rejecting’ religion which looks to the promises of an after-life and, at least in its most extreme forms, considers the material world to be evil. These ideas may have grown out of the world rejecting view of the Jewish Essenes and of Gnosticism which often saw the material world as the creation of an evil demiurge rather than the true God. Later Greek Hellenism, which strongly influenced early Christianity, was also world rejecting mainly because it had become distanced from its Indo European origins and fused with eastern mystery religions.

Honour and loyalty

At the heart of the warrior system lay the Germanic notion of honour. This is honour in the sense of glory, splendour or everlasting fame. It was a notion of external approval and praise being granted by the Chieftain and tribe for acts of great courage performed on behalf of the tribe. This externalised concept of honour stemmed from a desire not to be publicly shamed and can be contrasted with the Christian concept of internalised honour based on guilt and personal sin. Central to the Indo-European social system was the idea of war and the heroic warrior cult as a religious practice. This was probably because of the central importance of the warrior to defending the homeland and to winning more territory for the expanding tribe to farm. Thus, the warrior and farming classes were closely inter-related and depended on each other. The warrior code was itself central to the social bonds that defined the tribe and gave it such strength. This was a system based on honour, bravery and the winning of eternal glory. The poem Havamal (attributed to the sayings of Odin or Woden) puts it succinctly: ‘Cattle die, kinsmen die, thyself will soon die; but fair fame will never die for him who wins it’.

No where else was this ethos as strongly embedded into social structure as it was in the Germanic social system. Warriors were bound to their Lord by an oath of loyalty that they could not break. They would be expected to fight for and defend their Lord in battle even if that meant their own death. In fact, surviving a battle in which the King was killed was a great shame to the warrior. However, the King was bound to his warriors by the same code – bound to gain favour from the gods in both battle and agriculture. This ‘favour’ with the gods formed the basis of the Germanic notion of holiness to which the words holy, healthy and hail were originally applied. As the process of Christianisation took hold, so the concept of holiness changed to one of personal holiness.

This concept of loyalty to the warlord and folk group was so central to Germanic society and world view, and so different to the cosmopolitan Christian world view, that the early missionaries simply could not directly oppose it. Instead, they sought to present their religion in a way that was compatible with this world view and then sought to slowly adapt society to true Christian values. However, although this code was to some extent adapted by the advent of Christianity, it remained extremely strong and continued to form the basis of Germanic society witnessed through the development of both the feudal system and of the military orders and chivalry. A principle way that this occurred was through the portrayal of Christ as a victorious Germanic warlord or warrior hero such as Beowulf. Poems such as ‘Dream of the Rood’ and the ‘Saxon Gospel’, The Heliand, portray this very clearly.

Indeed, authors such as Lars Lonnroth (writing in the American Scandinavian Society in 1917) find in Germanic Christianity a sympathy for the old codes of worldly honour and loyalty to the family and tribe, even a reserved approval of the revenge principle. For instance, the C13^th treatise called ‘the King’s Mirror’ from Moral Values in Icelandic Sagas advises:

“keep your temper calm though not to the point of suffering abuse or bringing upon yourself the reproach of cowardice. Though necessity may force you into strife, be not in a hurry to take revenge; first make sure your effort will succeed and strike where it ought”.

In a similar vein, St Odo, abbot of Cluny monastery (d. 944), radically redefined the concept of a virtuous and saintly life by explicitly including the warrior ethos and lifestyle. In defence of this, he states “truly, no one ought to be worried because a just man sometimes makes use of fighting, which seems incompatible with religion”. Here was a clear attempt to not just integrate the warrior ethos into the Christian ethos, but to adapt it to the basic principles of Christian morality – warfare for a higher or just cause and not just for its own sake or for temporal glory.

Russell believes that many of the pre-Christian Germanic values were absorbed into medieval Christianity and that this suggests that many of its own core values, such as cosmopolitanism, its world rejecting ethos and pacifism were either rejected out of hand or significantly adapted to the Germanic world view. In other words, the core values of Germanic Christianity were quite different to those of Judeao-Christianity to which the Churches are currently seeking to return.

Judaeo Christianity as cosmopolitan non-ethnic based universalism We have already seen that Germanic folk religions were ethno centric and strongly based around community of kith and kin. In contrast to this, universalist religions such as Islam or Judaeo-Christianity emphasise a community of believers. The fundamental basis of the Germanic religious and social structure was the blood family – the Cyn. By contrast, Christianity emphasised celibacy and replaced the Cyn with a family of believers. Pagan societies tended to see these non-biological communities as abnormal and dysfunctional. Russell argues that when a cohesive society is invaded or subject to mass immigration, a process of social dis-integration will usually take place. Individuals who once drew strength from their family and tribal ties will begin to feel alone, alienated from their ancestors and tribal bonds. In such a state, the appeal of mystery cults that look not to this world but to the next can be strong. These cults are world rejecting and can be strongly attractive to individuals and societies experiencing a break down of the known world around them. An early example of this lies in classical Greece. Originally, she held to an Indo-European religion the Greeks considered to come from the north. As society changed and became more cosmopolitan, the people began to look eastwards to the world rejecting mystery cults. This process is exemplified in Alexander the Great’s policy of oikoumene (ecumenism or cosmopolitanism). These cults offered a different sense of community – one based on shared belief and practice rather than ethnic ancestry. As the old Cyn structures broke down, so the Church began to take its place by offering food, shelter, education and many other social services that dis-enfranchised people found very attractive.

English White Dragon

World accepting Germanic religion versus world rejecting Christianity

The interaction between Christianity and Indo-European ‘world accepting’ religions did not begin with its expansion into the Germanic lands. By the time of Christ, the classical religions of Greece and Rome had absorbed eastern mystery cults such as Mithraism. As such, their original Indo-European religiosity had become diluted, but nevertheless was still apparent. The meeting of Christianity with these religions had a profound effect on its early development and on some of its main theological positions. This was the point at which Christianity ceased to be a Semitic religion, an off shoot of Judaism, and became something quite different and fundamentally European. The impact of Greek pagan philosophers such as Plato and the Roman hierarchical and legal structures on the development of early Christianity are two examples of this process. As Christianity spread northwards into Europe, it encountered successive waves of increasingly homogenous peoples with increasingly ‘pure’ Indo-European based folk religions. Thus, by the time it encountered Germanic folk religion, it had already been affected by its sister religions of southern and central Europe. Indeed, according to Russell, the most significant effects of the Celto-Germanic Indo-Europeanization of Christianity were the emergence of a sense of a specific European Christianity, which encompassed both a spiritual and political context and included a magical or folk religious undercurrent that pervaded early medieval Christianity.

It is important to understand that pre-Christian Germanic society, whilst sharing common Indo European origins, was fundamentally different to the pre-Christian Hellenistic societies that Christianity first took root in. Those societies had already become cosmopolitan, world rejecting and emphasised gnosis or esoteric knowledge. Germanic religion, at its point of contact with Christianity, was not philosophical but rather a national cult religion as both Greek and Roman religion had originally been. Germanic religion was concerned with the here and now, with the day to day life of the folk – not with philosophising over the nature of the afterlife and how to attain it. It is also important to understand that it is from this perspective that Germanic societies came to terms with Christianity. Germanic religion at the time of conversion was actually very strong and vital. As with the Japanese of modern times, they saw little merit in the new religion and so resistance to it was strong. This is why the Church adopted a process of inculturation and hid the deeper meaning from the people. As a result, those magico-religious aspects of Christianity that had parallels with the heathen faith were emphasised, whilst its world rejecting and ethical side was played down. For this reason, Germanic Christianity emphasised the veneration of objects such as relics, Saints and the magical power of the mass. As Russell puts it, the world accepting, heroic, magico religious, folk centred Germanic world view led to a worldly, heroic, magico religious, folk centred Christianity.

Russell argues that whilst there is a general tendency for folk religions to be supplanted by universal ones, there are occasions where the universalist religion is re-interpreted in terms of the folk religion and culture. Such a situation occurred in Japan between Buddhism and Shinto and also in the Germanic lands. This situation appears to occur when a universalist religion expands into areas where the folk religious culture is solidly entrenched. One of the main reasons for this is that whilst a people may take on the trappings of a new religion, they are not necessarily truly converted to it. In other words, our ancestors may appear to have been converted to Christianity, but in practice this ‘conversion’ was only skin deep.

Failure of the Church to achieve true conversion

The term ‘conversion’ does not simply refer to a change in one’s religious allegiance. In the New Testament, St Peter declares that people should repent and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38) and St Paul declares people should repent and turn to God (Acts 26:20-21). The English word ‘repent’ comes from a Latin translation of the Greek word metanoia to poenitentia, which mean both repentance and penitence. Indeed, the Christian concept of conversion implies a form of repentance from a state of sinfulness and thus the two concepts became intertwined. Furthermore, conversion in this sense implies something more than a one-off event such as being baptized. It implies an on-going and ever deepening process of conversion both at an individual and a societal level.

However, there was a relative absence of a concept of sinfulness in pre-Christian Germanic culture. An absence of any real notion of sin in the Christian sense means that early ‘converts’ to the faith would not have been able to repent of their sins in the sense implied by ‘conversion’. Thus, whilst ‘conversion’ to Christianity amongst the Germanic peoples did mean a change in religious allegiance, there has to be a real doubt about whether this constituted a ‘conversion’ in the real meaning of the word. Whilst individuals may have come to understand the deeper meaning of conversion through repentance, it is extremely unlikely this was true of an entire society. This is important because it means that the behavioural change implied through true conversion did not happen throughout Germanic society. People were baptised, absorbed some of the Christian beliefs and went to Church – but conversion did not go much deeper than a general adhesion to it. Indeed, there is evidence that well into the sixteenth century ordinary people in Saxony had only a very vague knowledge of Christian teaching, but still used sooth sayers, cunning women and other practioners of forbidden arts (MacMullen, R: Christianizing the Roman Empire 1984).

This disparity between Germanic and Judaeo Christian world views is also reflected in their different conceptions of history. This can be seen by comparing the allegorical and moralistic orientation of Augustinian salvation history epitomised in ‘De Civitate Dei’ with the more objective Germanic depictions of historical events set out in say Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied and the Icelandic sagas. Whilst these works were written at a time when Christianity was apparently entrenched in their respective societies, none have the Christian vision of creation and last judgement as end points of time. Neither do they have a providential force acting in secular events. The fall, original sin, guilt, redemption or salvation play no role in them. The ethical integrity of the warrior heroes in these poems is that of the heathen not the Christian religion. Concepts of sin, redemption and salvation history were not simply Christian modifications of the older world view. They were fundamentally new and alien to it. However, this is how Christianity was dealt with by most Germanic people. Christ was simply seen as another powerful god to be added to the existing pantheon, indeed maybe just another expression of existing gods such as Ingeld. Thus whilst true Christianity is something fundamentally different to Germanic folk religion, what took hold in medieval northern Europe was not Christianity but rather a Germanised folk Christianity that retained and adapted large elements of the pre-Christian heathen religion. Christianity requires a conversion of the soul, a repentance and an acceptance of ethical and doctrinal beliefs rather than just intercessory appeals to worldly problems. Germanic folk religion had little concept of the former, but a strong sense of the latter. This was carried into medieval Christianity. Even the Eucharist or Mass was re-interpreted in this way and private intercessory or votive Masses became a feature of Germanic Christianity. The mass therefore became one of a number of ‘good works’ that could intercede for good fortune, a view which marked a radical difference between the early and the mediaeval church of Northern Europe. To this extent, therefore, it can be argued that what actually took place was a syncretic development rather than any real Christianisation.

Inculcating a sense of the need for salvation was very difficult to achieve in a population that had no real concept of sin and therefore of a need to be saved from it. Thus, the central doctrine of Church teaching was essentially lost on the Germanic peoples who were sold the new religion more on the basis that Christ wielded stronger magic than the old gods. Thus, the Church had to convince the people that they needed salvation before they could bring that salvation to them. They did this by emphasising the notion of sin and of eternal damnation for those who did not receive salvation through the Church. This process directly led to the mediaeval obsession with these issues and a change from a world accepting culture to one that saw horror in this world and looked on the prospects of the next with fear.

The Celtic Church may have had a different response to this same question over how to introduce the concept of sin and repentance into a culture that had no real grasp of these concepts what this was. Although branded a heresy, the British monk Pelagius adopted an essentially Stoic position on the doctrine of free will and the essential goodness of nature which is only modified by sin rather than corrupted by it. In this he opposed the conventional position propounded by Augustine of Hippo who believed that nature, though created good, had become so corrupted by sin that virtue is impossible without grace. Augustine’s position was needed in order to argue that humankind cannot find salvation through its own efforts, only by the grace of God through Christ. Pelagius, therefore, was attempting to reconcile a world accepting Celto-Germanic position to that of the world rejecting nature of Judeao-Christianity.

The Germanization of Christian liturgy and observance

Candle with Irminsul motif

The impact of popular or folk culture on clerical culture is found right from the beginnings of the Christianization process. It is evident from the epic poetry and liturgical developments between the seventh and tenth centuries. Roman liturgy spread into the Frankish kingdoms in the eighth century and gradually mixed with native liturgies to produce a hybrid Germano-Roman liturgy which was eventually adopted by Rome as its permanent liturgy in the tenth century. Thus, the classic Latin liturgy used for centuries by the Roman Catholic Church was not an exclusively latin one at all but contained significant elements of Germanic influence. It should more properly be called a Romano-Germanic liturgy. Thus, in England, the old Sarum Mass, its Anglo Saxon predecessors and the Book of Common Prayer which drew much from it, can be seen as at least partly native Germanic liturgy rather than solely Roman. Pre Christian Germanic shrines were designed to house the idols of the gods and to make votive offerings rather than to accommodate large numbers of people in communal acts of worship. It would be possible to view the objects inside the sanctuary from the outside, with the people often processing around it rather than stepping inside. These customs became embedded into Germanic Christian traditions, especially in terms of the display of holy relics and even the Eucharistic wafer to be seen from the outside and of the development of processions around a holy building as part of celebrations. By contrast, Germanic communal feasts and religious celebrations in which people took part were usually undertaken out of doors or in separate nearby buildings.

Josef Jungman goes further and states that in terms of worship, canon law, monastic life and theology, from the ninth century it was the countries to the north of the alps that took the lead. From the tenth century onwards, this tradition spread ever southwards and became the cultural standard in Rome itself (Jungman, J.: the defeat of Teutonic Arianism and the revolution in religious culture in the early middle ages.) Examples given by Jungman of this Germanization include an increase in private votive masses commemorating Mary and the Saints, the increased use of making the sign of the cross at mass and the introduction of silent prayer with folded hands – which is derived from the posture of a vassal pledging fealty to his lord. Devotion to the saints became more profound and widespread, a replacement of appeals to the old folk gods with appeals to the deified saints. He also attributes to Germanic influence the increased emphasis on representing events in Christ’s life in the mass as well as the weekly liturgical cycle. Also attributed to the process of Germanization is the emergence of Christmas as a rival festival to Easter and an increased stratification of clergy and laity, represented by a growing distance between alter and worshippers and the introduction of a communion rail.

Germanic Christianity also placed greater emphasis on objects, such as the cross, the real presence in the Eucharist, the blessed virgin and the scriptures compared to more subtle processes such as spiritual growth to perfection. Pre-Christian Germanic religion had a strong magical component and words were seen as powerful magic in their own right. Indeed, the word ‘Gospel’ has a double meaning. The better known one is from the Anglo Saxon words ‘God Spel’, meaning ‘Good News’. However, there is another meaning which goes deeper into the culture of the Anglo Saxon people receiving this Good News. For ‘Gospel’ can also be seen as deriving from the words ‘God Spel’, meaning God’s magic – literally God’s spell. This play on words was used by the Church to convince Anglo Saxon Kings that their God’s magic (the Bible) was more powerful than the Holy Runes of the Germanic peoples.

The Germanic concept of time

Germanic and Christian concepts of time are completely different. The former developed from the North European cycles of nature and gave rise to a sense of the cyclical nature of time. Germanic religion saw time in terms of things that had already come to pass, things that were now and things which were coming to pass. Fundamental to understanding this concept is the notion of Wyrd which is sometimes explained the Germanic equivalent of fate. Wyrd is the force of the past that helps to form the present and the present that is yet to come – the nearest the Germanics had to a notion of future. Thus, the present and the present yet to come are influenced by the past. The Sisters of Wyrd represent these aspects of time; that which was, that which is and that which should be. The third sister, Sculd, represents this notion of future as that which ‘should’ be, as a result of what has been and what is.

The Christian concept of time, on the other hand, is linear and derives from a Judaic sense of something with a definite beginning (creation) and a definite end (judgement). In rejecting the material world, Judeao Christianity effectively rejects the relevance of the past to the future. Repentance wipes out the sins of the past, salvation offers a future not based on the past. This is a fundamentally different idea of time to that our ancestors were familiar with. It is difficult to underestimate how this linear concept of time, with its rejection of the importance of the past, must have confused our ancestors. Just as trying to understand their cyclical nature of time can be difficult for us today steeped as we are in the Judeao Christian tradition. However, in many respects, the Germanic notion of time remained dominant throughout most of the middle ages, particularly when related to the agricultural year. Christian festivals, with their emphasis on events rather than natural cycles of time, in many respects succumbed to the great pagan feasts of the natural year. Indeed, the liturgical year itself became more relevant to the needs and experiences of the North European farmer. Notions of Wyrd, or fate, remain with us even today.

The Germanic and Christian concepts of Hell

Germanic heathen religion certainly had a concept of the afterlife. Our modern word hell comes from that heathen religion, but its meaning is very different. Usually using just one ‘l’ to distinguish the two, the original ‘hel’ was seen as a place of healing and regeneration. Indeed, the word ‘hel’ is etymologically linked to our words healing, health and whole. In other Germanic languages, it means ‘light’. Something very odd happened with the process of Christianization, resulting from the need to inculcate a sense of sin requiring salvation through grace. As the Middle Ages progressed, so the pre-Christian notions of the afterlife as one of purification and paradise was gradually replaced by a Judeao-Christian concept of it as a terrifying place of eternal torment. Medieval Christians became obsessed with this imagery and with the need of salvation to avoid it. To understand this, is to understand the most important influence on the mind of the medieval European. Another key change to the Germanic world view caused by the Christianizing process was the replacement of pre-Christian notions of fate and destiny (Wyrd) with a world view based on sin, repentance and salvation. We therefore see a situation in which the pre-Christian ideas of the afterlife as a pleasant place of regeneration and purification gave way to Judeao-Christian ideas of an afterlife dominated by a hell of eternal torment and the consequent world view of sin, repentance and salvation to avoid it. Whilst salvation came from God through Christ, it was the Church that determined ones chance of achieving it, giving it a powerful hold over people’s lives and leading to the mediaeval custom of selling indulgences. However, the older Germanic notion of hel as a pleasant place of purification, survived and was absorbed into visions of paradise.

The development of Germanic Arian Christianity

Arianism was first put forward by Presbyter Arius of Alexander (a Greek living in modern day Egypt) who lived between 250 and 336. He believed that the Logos (Christ) was not consubstantial or co-eternal with God the Father, being of a similar rather than the same nature to Him and being begotten by Him at some time before creation – but nevertheless that there was a time when He did not exist. This view conflicted with the Trinitarian position that held that the Father, the Logos and the Spirit to be separate personalities within a single unity of the Godhead; each consubstantial and co-eternal. Commonly known as the ‘Arian heresy’, this position became very popular within the Eastern Church. The Council of Nicaea, which produced the Nicene Creed repeated in Churches throughout the world, was specifically held to counteract Arianism. Whilst it eventually withered away, Arianism and its many off-shoots has never gone away and today forms the basis of non Trinitarian traditions such Unitarianism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, what is important to this study is that as it was declining within the Eastern Churches, Arianism took hold within several Germanic societies, though not amongst the Saxons. As we shall see though, the Germanic Arians were not defined so much by the non Trinitarian doctrine of Arius, but rather by a folk adaptation of it that enabled Germanic societies to maintain their separateness from Roman Catholicism. It is this adaptation of an alien creed into an ethno-centric Germanic folk faith that is interesting to this study rather than to the doctrinal issues themselves.

The first major contact between Christianity and a Germanic people occurred in 376 when the Visigoths, who had occupied the former Roman province of Dacia (modern Romania) in the previous century, crossed the River Danube into the Roman province of Moesia (in modern day Western Romania, Serbia and northern Bulgaria) seeking refuge from the advancing Huns. Russell considers that the leader of one of the larger Gothic tribes, the Tervingi, negotiated with the Arian Christian Emperor of the Eastern Empire and adopted his religion in return for asylum. The Gothic ‘conversion’ was therefore primarily political and, as we saw above, was not a real conversion in the deeper meaning of the word.

Perhaps the most famous exponent of Gothic Arianism was Bishop Wulfila (Ulfila) who had the bible translated into Gothic Germanic. Arianism was spread to many other Germanic tribes over the course of the next few centuries, though not all. The reason many Germanic tribes did accept Arianism had much to do with the fact that it was not the official religion of Rome – which was Trinitarian Catholic Orthodoxy. If they had accepted this version of the faith, they would have been quickly absorbed into the Roman culture – something they had been resisting for centuries. They would also have lost some of their freedom of organisation and tribal power as Priests would have been subject to the Roman power structures, ultimately the usually Italian Pope. Arianism as practised by the Gothic and other Germanic tribes was not as centralised, being organised into more local and independent Churches.

Theology, specifically the Arian denial of the Trinity, was not a central concern to the Germanic Arians. Germanic people in general as noted above, were not especially interested in the convoluted theological arguments of the eastern Churches. They were more interested in the practical benefits of the new religion and these were essentially social and political. Because of this, and because of a lack of any real conversion, Arian Christianity was slow to penetrate the pagan cult practice so long a part of agrarian life. It allowed them the advantages of being part of the wider Christian world whilst retaining a great deal of distinctiveness, their Gothic identity and pride in their ancestors.

Martin of Braga’s catechetical guide, De Correctione Rusticorum (c.574), reveals an interesting insight into ecclesiastical concerns about the considerable heathen survival and recidivism amongst the common folk of the Germanic Suevic Kingdom. Russell argues that, in terms of universal and folk religions discussed above, Germanic Arianism can be considered ‘ a thoroughly indigenous reinterpretation of a universal religion, a Germanization of Arian Christianity’.

Conclusion

As this article has unfolded, it has become difficult to avoid a number of conclusions. The first and most obvious is that contrary to received wisdom, the introduction of Christianity into the Germanic lands produced a fusion of sorts and to the development of a unique folk Christianity that was fundamentally different to the original Judeao Christianity that evolved in the middle east. This fusion produced a form of Christianity that was strongly influenced by Germanic notions of honour, heroism, social structure and devotion to magico religious practices such as votive masses. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion that some aspects of the original pagan religion were incorporated into this folk Christianity in a way that became quite negative and even terrifying. The pagan notion of the afterlife was a place of refreshment and healing, but it became a place or torment and fear for medieval Germanic Christians.

Germanic Christianity was also characterised by hierarchical social structures and unswerving loyalty to one’s superiors. This can be both very effective and very damaging to an organisation depending on the calibre of the leadership. It also led to monarchy as a natural system of Government – not the constitutional monarchies of modern Europe, but the dictatorship of earlier centuries.

One of the most profound consequences of this fusion is that of militarism and the incorporation of the warrior cult. The heroic nature of Germanic culture was in itself a positive aspect of Germanic Christianity and the Germanic Churches sought to use these codes to the good by defining an ethical basis for warfare. However, it cannot be denied that it also led to a sometimes cruel, intolerant and excessive use of force and killing. Many modern pagans like to emphasise the positive elements of the heroic codes of conduct and point to the cruelness of Christian militarism. However, such cruelness is entirely alien to true Christianity and so any tradition that draws from Germanic Christianity needs to clearly address the ethical basis of warfare and of the warrior tradition.

Whilst medieval Christians became obsessed with death and the horrors of hell, a modern faith inspired by this fusion can draw more directly from the pre-Christian Germanic ‘world accepting’ ideas that the world is not inherently bad and that we should enjoy life in the here and now and not worry too much about what waits us in the afterlife. Furthermore, it can and should, look to the original meaning of hel rather than the place of torment it was turned into. The notion of hel as a place of regeneration fits in better with the view of time as being cyclical and the ‘birth, death, rebirth’ cycle that follows from this.

Any modern faith that draws from the syncretism of Germanic Christianity can also be more open about spirit beings, Elfs, land and water spirits and even the old gods themselves as angelic beings. It can honour our ancestors and see them as being able to intercede for us in the next world. Germanic notions of folk and identity – linking ourselves to our ancestors and those of us yet to come – is also an extremely important legacy that our pagan past has brought to Germanic Christianity. In short, the notion of a folk centred ethnic religion that grew out of the contact between Christianity and our ancestors’ pre-Christian traditions is something that will appeal to many people in our modern day.

The following principles emerge as elements of Germanic Folk Christianity:

1. A love of God and His creation without being overly dogmatic

2. An ethno-centric world view based around the patrilineal extended family, clan and folk group

3. A deep regard for ancestors and the continuum of past members of the folk group with the present and those yet to come

4. A deep love of the folk lands and its spirits, saints and legends

5. Loyalty to the head of the extended family, clan and folk group. However, this is a reciprocal arrangement in which the elder or leader has specific duties to the family, clan or folk group in return for that loyalty and headship position

6. Moral code based on modesty that is not weakness, strength that is not arrogance, integrity, courage, industriousness, generosity, fair mindedness and loyalty to family, clan and folk

7. A willingness to fight to defend family, clan and folk when necessary

8. An acceptance of the will of Wyrd, but always in the knowledge that it can be influenced by actions and by trust in Our Lord

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