Imagining The Pagan Past

Imagining the Pagan Past explores stories of Britain's pagan history. These tales have been characterised by gods and fairies, folklore and magic. They have had an uncomfortable relationship with the scholarly world; often being seen as historically dubious, self-indulgent romance and, worse, encouraging tribal and nationalistic feelings or challenging church and state. This book shows how important these stories are to the history of British culture, taking the reader on a lively tour from prehistory to the present. From the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, Marion Gibson explores the ways in which British pagan gods and goddesses have been represented in poetry, novels, plays, chronicles, scientific and scholarly writing. From Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare to Seamus Heaney and H.G. Wells to Naomi Mitchison it explores Romano-British, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon deities and fictions. The result is a comprehensive picture of the ways in which writers have peopled the British pagan pantheons throughout history. Imagining the Pagan Past will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of paganism.

Imagining the Pagan Past explores stories of Britain’s pagan history. These tales have been characterised by gods and fairies, folklore and magic. They have had an uncomfortable relationship with the scholarly world; often being seen as historically dubious, self-indulgent romance and, worse, encouraging tribal and nationalistic feelings or challenging church and state. This book shows how important these stories are to the history of British culture, taking the reader on a lively tour from prehistory to the present. From the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, Marion Gibson explores the ways in which British pagan gods and goddesses have been represented in poetry, novels, plays, chronicles, scientific and scholarly writing. From Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare to Seamus Heaney and H.G. Wells to Naomi Mitchison it explores Romano-British, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon deities and fictions. The result is a comprehensive picture of the ways in which writers have peopled the British pagan pantheons throughout history. Imagining the Pagan Past will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of paganism.

Late medieval English culture was fascinated by the figure of the pagan, the ancestor whose religious difference must be negotiated, and by the pagan's idol, an animate artefact. In romances, histories and hagiographies medieval Christians told the story of the pagans, who built the cities that Christians appropriated and the idols that they destroyed and replaced. Encounters with traces of pagan culture in the present raised the question of whether paganity had been fully eliminated, or whether it was liable to recur.

This volume contains the proceedings of the first International Colloquium of the Research Centre "Polemikos" that was founded in 2016 by Joseph Verheyden (KU Leuven) and Daniela Müller (RU Nijmegen). The Centre is dedicated to the study of the history of religious polemics. This first meeting, held 14-16 of March 2018 in Leuven, studied a commonly known and broadly used way to discredit an adversary by using labels, in particular the negative label par excellence - that of being "a pagan". For practical reasons, the focus was limited to voices and evidence of Western origin - from the famous adversus Paganos literature to the controversies on native populations after the discovery of the New World and the place and role to be given to more "rationalistic" approaches to the Christian faith in the (early) modern period. The case studies presented here illustrate that the label can receive many different meanings. Among these are the characterisation of the others as strangers or barbarians and the accusation of committing idolatry, but also all sorts of insinuations or claims of immoral behaviour and more outlandish ones that associate these "pagan" others with demonic schemes. The last two contributions have less to do with "fighting" and more with "imagining" paganism, though these two aspects overlap as is shown in several of the essays; hence the choice for "Imagining Paganism" in the general title.

In 911, the French king ceded land along the river Seine to Rollo the Viking, on condition that he convert to Christianity. This work advances our understanding of early Normandy and the Vikings' transformation from pagan raiders to Christian princes. It also sheds light on the intersection of religious tradition, identity, and power.

Decisive argument on the issues under review by one of the leading Anglo-Saxon scholars.

The first comprehensive study of its kind, this establishes Paganism as a persistent force in European history with a profound influence on modern thinking. Wide-ranging and provocative, it will challenge the academic and general reader.Europe's Pagan past captures the imagination, but what is it's historical significance?A History of Pagan Europe is the first comprehensive study of its kind, and establishes Paganism as a persistent force in European history with a profound influence on modern thinking. From the serpent goddesses of ancient Crete to modern nature worship and the restoration of the indigenous religions of Eastern Europe, this wide-ranging book offers a rewarding - often provocative - new perspective of European history.