Paganism in the Middle Ages: Threat and Fascination

264 Pages·2013·10.065 MB·English

by  Carlos Steel (Editor), John Marenbon (Editor), Werner Verbeke (Editor)

PAGANISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES
THREAT AND FASCINATION
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MEDIAEVALIA LOVANIENSIA
Editorial board
Geert Claassens (Leuven)
Hans Cools (Leuven)
Pieter De Leemans (Leuven)
Brian Patrick McGuire (Roskilde)
Baudouin Van den Abeele (Louvain-la-Neuve)
SERIES I / STUDIA XLIII
KU LEUVEN
INSTITUTE FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES
LEUVEN (BELGIUM)
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PAGANISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES
THREAT AND FASCINATION
Edited by
Carlos STEEL
John MARENBON
Werner VERBEKE
LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© 2012 Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers
Leuven, Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium)
All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this
publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any way
whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers.
ISBN 978 90 5867 933 8
D/2012/1869/75
NUR: 684-694
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CONTENTS
Introduction IX
Ludo MILIS
The Spooky Heritage of Ancient Paganisms 1
Carlos STEEL
De-paganizing Philosophy 19
John MARENBON
A Problem of Paganism 39
Henryk ANZULEWICZ
Albertus Magnus über die philosophi theologizantes und die
natürlichen Voraussetzungen postmortaler Glückseligkeit:
Versuch einer Bestandsaufname 55
Marc-André WAGNER
Le cheval dans les croyances germaniques entre paganisme
et christianisme 85
Brigitte MEIJNS
Martyrs, Relics and Holy Places: The Christianization of the
Countryside in the Archdiocese of Rheims during the Merov-
ingian Period 109
Edina BOZOKY
Paganisme et culte des reliques: le topos du sang vivifiant la
végétation 139
Rob MEENS
Thunder over Lyon: Agobard, the tempestarii and Christianity 157
Robrecht LIEVENS
The ‘pagan’ Dirc van Delf 167
Stefano PITTALUGA
Callimaco Esperiente e il paganesimo 195
Anna AKASOY
Paganism and Islam: Medieval Arabic Literature on Religions
in West Africa 207
Index 239
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Hermes Trismegistus lamenting the destruction of Egyptian Religion
La Haye, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, Ms. 10 A 11, fol. 392 ro
© La Haye, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum
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INTRODUCTION
On the cover of this book there is an illustration from a fifteenth cen-
tury manuscript which contains Books I-X of Augustine’s City of God in
the French translation of Raoul de Presles.1 Augustine’s text is illumi-
nated with numerous magnificent miniatures by ‘maître François’, who
was working in Paris around 1480. In The City of God Augustine launches
an extensive attack on paganism and on the philosophers who attempted
to give a rational justification of its practices. As is well known, the occa-
sion for writing this monumental work was the capture of Rome by the
Visigoths under Alaric in 410. Some intellectuals who still adhered to the
traditional religion had argued that such a disaster would never have hap-
pened if Rome had remained faithful to the gods who had transformed it
from a small city into a world power. This argument offered Augustine
the opportunity for a full-scale attack on the old religion and its absurd
and obscene mythology and practices, and above all on philosophy
attempting to justify rationally pagan beliefs and cults. For medieval
scholars the De civitate dei was a real encyclopaedia of paganism, con-
taining a wealth of information on ancient culture, which may explain the
great success of this work in the late Middle Ages. The illustration chosen
for the cover concerns Book VIII, ch. 23-24 (f. 392r). Augustine here
quotes and discusses a long section from the Asclepius (23-24), in which
Hermes Trismegistus foretells ‘with a certain grief and lamentation’ that
‘in a time to come it will become clear that, despite their pious minds and
constant service, the Egyptians have worshipped the gods in vain’. On the
illustration we see Hermes mourning over the destruction of the pagan
idols, which are falling from the pillars on which they were standing. On
the right side we see a priest saying mass and the Christian congregation
worshipping the true God. The contrast between the ruin of paganism and
the flourishing of Christian faith overthrowing the vain superstitions could
not be more vividly expressed. However, one may notice above the altar
again statues, not of pagan idols, but of Christian saints venerated, not
adored as gods. Yes, one may wonder whether we do not have in the
often excessive cult of the saints in the Middle Ages a reminiscence of a
1. The manuscript is preserved in the Meerman collection at The Hague, MMW 10 A
11. We thank the director for permission to reproduce the illustration.
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viii INTRODUCTION
long forgotten and repressed polytheistic element of the pagan tradition.
No image could better introduce the main topic of this volume in which
the persistence, resurgence, threat, fascination and repression of various
forms of pagan culture throughout the Middle Ages is studied from an
interdisciplinary perspective.
This volume contains studies of various different kinds. Some deal with
the survival of pagan beliefs and practices, such as the use of relics to fer-
tilize vegetation, or veneration of horses, others with the Christianisation of
pagan rural populations in the early Middle Ages, or with the different
strategies of oppression of pagan beliefs; some deal with the problems
raised by the encounter with existing pagan cultures outside the Muslim
world, others examine how philosophers attempted to ‘save’ the great phi-
losophers and poets from ancient culture notwithstanding their paganism,
or what could have been the contribution of the archaic pagan theogonies
in the development of philosophy, or how philosophy could be liberated
from its connection with pagan culture; others examine the fascination of
classic ‘pagan’ culture among friars in the 14-15th century or the imitation
of pagan models of virtue and mythology in Renaissance poetry.
The collection of essays in this volume goes back to a colloquium
which took place in two sessions, one in Leuven (organized by the Leu-
ven Institute of Medieval Studies) and one at Trinity College Cambridge
in the summer and autumn of 2007. We were sad to hear, while prepar-
ing the volume for publication that one of the speakers at the colloquium,
Marc-André Wagner, had died. We publish his paper as we received it
at the colloquium with some minor editorial modifications.
The volume opens with a study by Ludo Milis (University of Ghent)
on the ‘spooky heritage’ of ancient paganism. In his introduction, he puts
forward some general considerations on different strategies used by
Christian authorities to impose the new religion on the converted popula-
tion by controlling both collective behaviour and individual conduct (both
external and internal through confession). Yet this imposed system picked
up diverse elements from previous beliefs. Although paganism lost its
social relevance and was confined to restricted fields, pagan reminis-
cences were omnipresent. As Christianity advocated ‘contemptus mundi’
and claimed that full happiness could only be obtained after death, the
older beliefs continued to address various problems of daily life, where
the moral and social standards of the Church did not always offer ade-
quate solutions. Milis illustrates his argument with examples of syncre-
tism and shows the hesitation of clerics in dealing with magic, amulets,
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INTRODUCTION ix
potions, ghosts, impure animals, opening books to foretell the future and
other kinds of future-telling or presages such as horoscopes and astrology,
the birdsong, necromancy and gifted visionary women, using a wide
range of sources (penitential books, laws, chronicles), authorities and tes-
timonies spread over several centuries, areas and circumstances.
Brigitte Meijns (University of Leuven) focuses on the process of
Christianisation in Gaul in the Merovingian period. Starting from a dis-
tinction made by Jean-François Lemarignier, she distinguishes between
conciliar Gaul, which was the more Romanized region, and the Northern
part of Gaul. In the southern part the bishop himself, together with the
priests in the local churches, was responsible for the Christianization of
the rural population. In the Northern part of Gaul we find many monastic
foundations which lived according to the Irish-Frankish Benedictine-
Columban rule; the monks undertook missionary activities on their
domains to combat rural paganism. Lemarignier refined his model in
later publications and Brigitte Meijns qualifies even more the traditional
model of Christianization. She focuses on the archdiocese of Rheims
because recent studies have made evident the role of the local bishops as
key figures in the Christianization of this part of Gaul. Meijns points to
the importance of the loca sanctorum in the process of Christianization.
Sites of cult connected to relics of martyrs suppose the presence of a
group of clerics for the care of these relics, to honour the memory of the
martyr and to fulfil liturgical tasks; they might develop later into a more
institutionally structured community, canons or monks. The life of
Eligius offers an example of such an episcopal initiative for the promo-
tion of the cult of the saints in these burial basilicas.
Edina Bozoky (University of Poitiers) examines the thaumaturgic
power of the relics of saints which were used in the healing of ill or
mentally deranged people and also to fertilise vegetation. The relation
between the blood of the martyrs and the renewal of vegetation are a
recurrent hagiographical topos. The presence of relics renovates nature.
In many practices and the stories related to them we find remnants of
older pagan traditions.
Anna Akasoy (Ruhr-Universität, Bochum) examines the general fea-
tures of paganism such as they appear in Arabic literature composed dur-
ing the first three centuries of Islamic history. As Islam expanded into
Africa and Asia, Muslims encountered religious traditions which presented
themselves in ways not unlike the idolatrous polytheism of pre-Islamic
Arabia, whether literary or authentic. To be sure, many Muslims had
been born into these traditions and then converted to the religion of the
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x INTRODUCTION
conquerors. They were familiar with the beliefs and concepts of their
native regions which were now considered ‘pagan’. But how did those
Muslims who came from the central lands of Islam look at the religious
traditions of the newly conquered territories? What approaches and atti-
tudes can be reconstructed from the texts they wrote? Islamic religion, law
and ethics follow the paradigm of Muhammad’s first community of believ-
ers in the Hijaz. Did this historical situation also provide a matrix for cat-
egorizing non-Muslims which remained valid over the following centuries
and in the different regions of the vast and growing Islamic world? Did
the polytheistic idolatry of pre-Islamic Arabia remain a specific ‘pagan’
culture, or did it turn into an archetypical paganism? What did the notion
of paganism imply for medieval Muslims? In her contribution Akasoy
deals in particular with the Islamic attitude towards the religious traditions
in sub-Saharan West Africa, a subject neglected in modern scholarship.
R. M. J. Meens (University of Utrecht) examines a treatise against
popular irrational – pagan - belief concerning hail- and thunderstorms,
which was composed by Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon in the early ninth
century. In this treatise Agobard argues against the belief in the effective-
ness of tempestarii, who were believed to be able to cause thunder and
hailstorms, Agobard offers an extraordinary detailed description of the
belief in communication with the inhabitants of ships flying through the air
on top of the clouds; they assemble grain for transportation to a land called
Mayonia. According to Meens the tempestarii were not at all pagan, as is
often assumed by scholars, but Christian clerics whose help was sought to
protect the harvest against storms. But even if these people were Chris-
tians, they undermined the authority of a bishop and his financial interests.
Robrecht Lievens (University of Leuven) examines pagan aspects in
the Table of the Christians, a lay guide to Christian faith in Dutch com-
posed by Dirc van Delf, a learned Dominican, who was attached as
teacher and preacher to the court of the Hague between 1391-1404.
Lievens investigates a neglected aspect of the Table, its numerous refer-
ences to ‘pagan’ doctrines and use of pagan authorities side in a treatise
dedicated to the exposition of Christian faith. The chapter on the four
cardinal virtues is filled with examples taken from Antiquity. These vir-
tues are called ‘pagan’ because they are taken from the Ethics of a pagan
philosopher, Aristotle. Dirc also discusses the three daughters of each
virtue, partly inspired by his main source (Compendium theologicae ver-
itatis by Hugh Ripelin of Strassbourg), but with additions from Vegetius,
Plato etc. The chapter on the five pagan commandments formulated by
Pythagoras in concurrence with the ten commandments given to the Jews
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