Like in Olden Days: The Rise of Heathen Europe

Like in Olden Days:
The Rise of Heathen Europe

By Errnge


Prologue- The Last Almost

Rome
A.D. 784:


The news came unexpectedly, as bad news often did. Pope Adrian actually felt a pain in his chest as he read the words, scrawled hurriedly on a thin piece of parchment. By candlelight, Adrian read the letter over and over, almost like a prayer. He had prayed many times today indeed upon hearing; but still, as he lay in his bed, stroking his grey beard, the Bishop of Rome could only just barely keep the water from collecting in his eyes.

Shakily, he finally put the parchment down next to his bed. He was about to blow out the candle, when the pain came back in full force. Like a hammer to his chest, it caused him to cry out. Verily, he curled up and began to sob.

The door soon flew open. His servant, Adrian couldn’t remember his name, rushed to his bedside.

“Blessed Father! Are you ailing?”

“No, my son,” Adrian croaked. Wiping the tears from his eyes, the Pope regained his strength, if only for the boy’s sake. “Indeed, I must say, the Lord does wonders, but I confess, sometimes even I am blind to his purpose.”

“So the whispers are true, Father?”

“What whispers?”

“Blessed Father, all of the servants have been whispering all day about… I fear to speak the words… They have been whispering all day that Carlus, King of the Franks is dead.”

Adrian, forcing a smile, placed a shaky hand on his servant’s head. “Our Lord has called him to join the Saints and Choirs of Angels. Carlus Magnus is no more subject to this earthly realm. He could have been the greatest king in the West since Constantine. He could have ruled the Christians and protected us in a way the Emperors no longer can… Perhaps, he even could have been Emperor one day… If only God had willed it. Go, now, my son. I am only unwell from heart-break. Sleep is what I need. Go, and bid you good night.”

Nodding, the boy left without another word. Adrian couldn’t help but notice the ashen look upon his face as he slipped into the shadows outside the reach of Adrian’s lone candle-flame.

A cold wind from the north blew in through Adrian’s window, blowing out the lone little flame before Adrian could do it himself. As he pulled up his blankets close to his chin and rested his head upon his pillows, he finally tried to sleep. But all night, he would toss and turn, thinking over the words written out in that letter.

…Fallen in battle… An arrow through the eye… Discord erupted in the ranks… Pagans overran the field.
 
Hey everybody, so it's been a while since I contributed some good ole fashioned AH to the site, especially after I abandoned the Weighted Scales (still on hiatus). But this is my new timeline, and I'm guessing you can tell by the tin what it's about. I've got the next update written, and will post it tomorrow, so I hope y'all get excited.
 
This looks quite promising. May I ask, how complete do you intend the resurgence of paganism to be? The development of stable religious structures in Germanic Europe or a revival of the Greco-Roman cults?
 
This looks quite promising. May I ask, how complete do you intend the resurgence of paganism to be? The development of stable religious structures in Germanic Europe or a revival of the Greco-Roman cults?

Thank you.

More focused on Germanic Paganism. At this point in history, it seems that Greco-Roman Cults are quite dead, and unlikely to be revived.
 
So Charlemagne dies during the Saxon Wars. The short-term effects on the survival of Germanic paganism are pretty obvious, but how it survives and thrives long-term is something I look forward to reading about.
 
Thank you.

More focused on Germanic Paganism. At this point in history, it seems that Greco-Roman Cults are quite dead, and unlikely to be revived.

They were still around, circa 8th century, albeit reduced in form. The cult of Isis was still going strong in mainland Greece (I presume it retained some draw as an exclusively-female faith in the face of a predominantly male-dominated church) and there were still Helennic worshippers on Crete during the Emirate of Crete about a cenutry later (I'm less certain of the claims that they constituted a majority of the population, though). There was even a prominent philosopher who got exiled for attempting to preach pagan beliefs a few centuries afterward.

That said, I do agree that the Roman Empire will likely remain solidly Christian. The remaining pagans were largely marginal and irrelevant, with the leadership solidly Christian. God was, after all, used as a foundation for the legitimacy of the Emperors. Still, the total dominance of the Church wasn't in place quite yet.
 
Thank you.

More focused on Germanic Paganism. At this point in history, it seems that Greco-Roman Cults are quite dead, and unlikely to be revived.

The Graeco=Roman pantheon was still worshipped secretly in the countryside of the Byzantine empire till about the 10th century.
 
Let Frankia burn, and unleash the furor teutonicus.

Hmm, I'd forgotten about secret pagans in the Med lands. Surely not powerful enough to turn the tables at this point, but I could see them fleeing to the Northlands, along with Jews and Christian heretics.
 
Angria, Saxony
A.D. 772


From the Sacred Grove, Godji Berthoald could see the flames of Eresburg and hear the cries of war and death. The Franks had come with wrath. It would not be long, everyone knew, that they would come here. The fortress of Eresburg had fallen quickly to the Franks, and with every passing hour refugees from the hill-fort came to the Sacred Grove of the Irminsul with horrific stories, each worse than the next. But with each man that arrived, ashen and bruised, came a warrior for Wodin.

Godji now stood in his white robes and a sword in his hand with at least a hundred men behind him. The smoke-laced wind blew his beard and mustache back over his shoulder. As another man arrived, he said:

“Godji, Karl is coming with his scara bodyguards!”

“Do you have a weapon?” the priest asked, unwavering.

“I have my ax,” the man pointed to an ax hanging from his belt. “But that is all I could grab before my escape.”

“You are young, I hope you did not have a woman for them to take yet.”

“Thankfully not,” the man gave a weak smile.

“Join your brothers,” the Godji said. “Here we will make our stand, and Wodin will be beside us.”

Godja Berthoald looked at the ragtag bunch of survivors and loyalists who mingled behind him in the road. Flanking the dirt road that eventually disappeared into leaf-covered sod were tall oak trees. The Godji had personally tended to them since he was young with his family. In the center of the grove, where the road led and eventually disappeared before, was what the Franks were coming here for: the Irminsul. He recalled stories told by his grandfather, who was Godji of the Irminsul when the apostate Franks were led by Karl the Hammer. He said that when he was a boy, the Irminsul was a massive oak tree that had grown in the Sacred Grove for hundreds of years. Finally, the massive tree died and fell down upon its own weight. From the fallen oak, the Irminsul was carved into a massive pillar and stood upon what was left of the huge oak’s trunk. Upon the pillar were carved images of dragons, wolves, ravens, and the mighty gods fighting with Wodin the Great One at their lead. It told the story of how a great tree connects all nine worlds, and how they all came to be. It was beautiful, the center of worship in Saxony.

As night fell, men lit torches. Godji kept his vigil, standing sword drawn. Just when Godji Berthoald began to wonder if Karl and his Franks would leave the holy wood alone, he saw a pair of ravens fly past.

“Wodin…” He whispered to himself.

“Look, there!” One of the men gathered shouted, pointing into the darkness of the forest. Only, it wasn’t darkness anymore. There, on the road, torches burned as men road on horses.

“Stand tall, men! Wodin stands with us tonight!” The priest shouted. He could feel their weight behind him, lining up to protect the sacred place of worship. “Who comes to the Irminsul?”

Without responding, the men on horses slowed, stopping just close enough to the men so that their faces were visible. At their lead was man who could only be Karl, King of the Franks, apostate and worshipper of a false god. He wore fine chainmail armor and a long red cloak. Atop his strong brow sat a crown-shaped helm. Sheathed at his side was his sword, a deadly weapon so legendary that even in Saxony they knew its name: Joyeuse.

Karl began to speak, but it was in a language none could understand. Latin, the tongue of Romans, flowed from his mouth. When he finished, a man standing beside the Frankish King spoke, this time in Saxon:

“This is Karl, King of the Franks, son of Pepin the Short, son of Karl the Hammer who crushed the infidels at the Battle of Tours. We have come to say unto you that Eresburg has fallen, and soon so shall the rest of Saxony. But he is a merciful king, and does not wish for you all to die this night. Bend the knee, forsake your devils and false gods, and accept Jesus Christ and the One True God. All will be forgiven, and you will leave this wicked place with your lives.”

There was a long moment of terrible silence after that. The only sounds were the crackling of torches, the whispers of leaves in the wind, and the far off screams as Eresburg burned.

“No,” the Godji said finally. “Tonight we will dine in Valhalla and feel the touch of the Valkyries, and our ancestors will lift a—“

He didn’t even get to finish his words before the metallic song of swords being drawn and the thunder of hooves overpowered his speech. Karl led the charge and the Franks slammed into the Saxons. Godji Berthoald found himself surrounded in chaos. A sword swung as his head, and he was just able to block, but the sheer force of the blow knocked him to the ground. He looked up, and watched as his men fell one after another.

He was not sure how he made it to the Irminsul. It all felt like a dream. Blood and dirt darkened his once beautiful white robes, and he fell to his knees before the great pillar. It was only then that he realized that he was the last man alive. He looked and saw as the Franks, some of them now on foot, approached him. Gore shimmered red in the light of their torches. One of them swung a sword, and swung hard. The pain felt unreal, and Berthoald, the Godji of the Irminsul, felt his intestines fall from his gut. He heard the voice of the king from somewhere in the distance:

Incedent!”

And the Franks, laughing, howling, singing even, started throwing their torches. Some of them grouped together to push over the Irminsul.

The whole world was on fire.

As he looked up in the flames, the last thing he saw was two ravens flying above him.
 
They were still around, circa 8th century, albeit reduced in form. The cult of Isis was still going strong in mainland Greece (I presume it retained some draw as an exclusively-female faith in the face of a predominantly male-dominated church) and there were still Helennic worshippers on Crete during the Emirate of Crete about a cenutry later (I'm less certain of the claims that they constituted a majority of the population, though). There was even a prominent philosopher who got exiled for attempting to preach pagan beliefs a few centuries afterward.

That said, I do agree that the Roman Empire will likely remain solidly Christian. The remaining pagans were largely marginal and irrelevant, with the leadership solidly Christian. God was, after all, used as a foundation for the legitimacy of the Emperors. Still, the total dominance of the Church wasn't in place quite yet.

The Graeco=Roman pantheon was still worshipped secretly in the countryside of the Byzantine empire till about the 10th century.

Do you have any sources on this. I'd be very interested to read about it.

So Charlemagne dies during the Saxon Wars. The short-term effects on the survival of Germanic paganism are pretty obvious, but how it survives and thrives long-term is something I look forward to reading about.

:cool: Oh, you will see.

Also looking forward to see more "Heathen" Europe.

Thank you :)

Let Frankia burn, and unleash the furor teutonicus.

Hmm, I'd forgotten about secret pagans in the Med lands. Surely not powerful enough to turn the tables at this point, but I could see them fleeing to the Northlands, along with Jews and Christian heretics.

I don't wanna give too many things away... although because of our discussions you already know things-- perhaps too much things...!
OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!!!!!!
 
Do you have any sources on this. I'd be very interested to read about it.

Well, the philosopher was Georgius Gemistus (who's also referred to by the name Pletho), although I was misremembering, he was in the 14/15th centuries and only advocating a return to the Olympic pantheon instead of Christianity ... that, incidentally, got him exiled. Although it does say something about the popularity of the old religion ... as well as its penetration into the public conciousness.

As for paganism, I'm afraid I can't exactly provide sources. It gets referenced off-hand in a few sources. A sentence here or there. I looked through my books and found a reference to the Quinisext Council (held in 692) that officially condemned a large number of pagan practices, up to and including the wearing of masks of 'detestable Dionysus' during celebrations. Though whether these are merely the traditional trappings of ceremonies or genuine belief is unclear. Another reference is to archaeological finds of magical amulets that only started shifting invocations from pagan deities to saints and angels around the 7th/8th centuries. There was also a mention of John Zonaras, secretary to Alexios Komnenos remarking that Hellenic (pagan) practices remained wide-spread.

And that's about the sum total of what I can offer from what I have. It's not exactly an area that has received much attention from modern scholars, so it remains somewhat ... well, obscure.

Relevant bibliography does reference a few common works, but, as I haven't read any (nor do I have access to them, I checked ... you'd think a university library would have the useful, interesting stuffy, rather than the usual dry trash ;)), I can't guarantee that they'd be relevant to the topic. Anyways, they're:

R. MacMullen; Christianizing the Roman Empire (New Haven, 1984.)
A. Momigliano (ed.) ; The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 1964.)
 
I don't wanna give too many things away... although because of our discussions you already know things-- perhaps too much things...!
OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!!!!!!

Myself, sacrificed for knowledge? I can dig it.

Godji is the Saxon cognate for gothi then? I should have mentioned, gothi also meant chief, it was just in Iceland where chiefs became district priests as well. The Saxons might have called their priests something different, but I won't quibble.

Valhalla was probably a Viking Age poetic invention, a sort of consolation prize for those who died on campaign and couldn't have their body returned to the ancestral lands. Again, I won't quibble because that is just an awesome speech. Also, as far as we can reconstruct arch-Heathen worship priorities, it probably went personal ancestors (as Berthoald mentioned), landwights (spirits of a place, although wight technically meant any being) and then the gods, but the Irminsul would definitely be a special place for the most important worship.

Very good show, sir!
 
Well, the philosopher was Georgius Gemistus (who's also referred to by the name Pletho), although I was misremembering, he was in the 14/15th centuries and only advocating a return to the Olympic pantheon instead of Christianity ... that, incidentally, got him exiled. Although it does say something about the popularity of the old religion ... as well as its penetration into the public conciousness.

At that time, though, wouldn't it have more to do with the classical revival of the medieval scholastics (of whom Pletho was one) rather than an unbroken ancient tradition? I'm no expert on Pletho, but his paganism seems to have grown out of his own classical study and admiration for Hellenistic culture rather than out of anything he encountered in his early life or travels.

If anything, I'd expect there to be less of Pletho's sort of paganism in the eighth century - fewer scholarly eccentrics, and less classical study going on in that part of Europe. On the other hand, as you say, there would be more peasant survivals. That might not be enough to make a difference in the Mediterranean world, but could lead to interesting results in not-fully-Christianized places such as Britain - or, based on the foreshadowing of the prologue, maybe even parts of the Frankish kingdom.
 
At that time, though, wouldn't it have more to do with the classical revival of the medieval scholastics (of whom Pletho was one) rather than an unbroken ancient tradition? I'm no expert on Pletho, but his paganism seems to have grown out of his own classical study and admiration for Hellenistic culture rather than out of anything he encountered in his early life or travels.

If anything, I'd expect there to be less of Pletho's sort of paganism in the eighth century - fewer scholarly eccentrics, and less classical study going on in that part of Europe. On the other hand, as you say, there would be more peasant survivals. That might not be enough to make a difference in the Mediterranean world, but could lead to interesting results in not-fully-Christianized places such as Britain - or, based on the foreshadowing of the prologue, maybe even parts of the Frankish kingdom.

You're probably right. It was a mistake to bring him up (in my defence, I was misremembering when he was around ... I have a bad habit of doing that, I once answered on an exam that Justianian ruled in the 11th century), especially since, well, Pletho is really not particularly relevant to the discussion, he's some seven centuries away. The upper classes were solidly Christian or, more appropriately, closely connected to the Church. Pragmatism, at least initially, though it did foster genuine belief.

That said, Pletho was more of the type pining after the good old days, particularly since we're talking about the tail end of the Empire. A mixture of dissapointment and disillusionment with the existing order, rather than a continuation (I would presume the original faith might have survived that long in some obscure, nearly inaccessible village or two in the back end of nowhere, probably one of the Med islands, but that's hardly relevant or important). There was an intellectual fascination with the old Hellenic culture, though, particularly around Athens, but also the rest of the core territories of the old Hellenic city-states. It was, however, largely the domain of the Church and paganism wasn't brough up much.

Local folk beliefs are another matter entirely. Though, given how hierarchichal the Roman Empire was, they weren't going to change the Empire's religious stance. The Church (and the Patriarch) were too vital for the maintenance of the Emperor's authority.
 
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