Jonas of Bobbio and the Representation of Germanic Paganism
Ian Wood
University of Leeds
Germanic Paganism is often thought to be a topic that is well understood (1).
The names of chief deities, Wodan, Tyr/ Tiw/ Tiwaz, Thunor/ Thor, and Frija/ Frea, are instantly recognised, as are stories associated with them. Historians and art-historians, not least Karl Hauck and his followers, have claimed to identify figures in carvings and on bracteates (2), and relate them to legends preserved in later centuries and cultures – not least that of thirteenth-century Iceland. Yet not everyone has been so cavalier with the evidence. Karl Helm, perhaps the most sober student of Altgermanische Religion, insisted on the limits of the evidence, pointing to regional differences, and stressing that we should not automatically make a composite out of such figures as Wodan and Odin (3). Tales related about the Norse gods in the thirteenth century should not be applied automatically to deities recorded in the seventh and eighth. Helm’s caution should be adopted by all historians. The context in which names are to be found, and in which traditions are recorded, should be carefully noted. And attention should be paid to the totality of the evidence, and not just to those names and narratives that immediately catch the eye. With this in mind I wish to consider one of the most famous early references to a Germanic deity: that to be found in Jonas of Bobbio’s Vita Columbani,
written in 643. This, one should note, is our first dateable reference to the god (4). I will set Jonas’ story alongside what else is known of divinities recognised by Germanic peoples in the late Roman, Merovingian and early Carolingian periods. I will not, however, touch on references to such practices as human sacrifice, although Procopius claimed that Franks sacrificed Gothic women and children in the course of their intervention in Justinian’s Italian wars (5). I do not doubt that Germanic peoples had in the past offered human sacrifice: it is well enough attested in the archaeological record, and it is mentioned by Gregory iii, in a letter to Boniface, where he talks of Christians
(1) This is a version of a paper delivered at the University of Florence on 1 December 2017, at the invitation of Giovanni Cecconi. I am indebted to the audience, and especially to Giovanni Cecconi and Francesco Stella, for very useful discussion. (2) John Hines, ‘ Review article : The Final Publication of the Series “ On the Iconography of the Gold Bracteates” and Karl Hauck’s Legacy’, in Medieval Archaeology,
vol. 57, 2013, p. 251-261. (3) Karl Helm, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols, Heidelberg, Carl Winter, 1913-1953. (4) Philip Shaw, ‘ The Theophoric Week in the Germanic Languages’, in Early Medieval Europe, vol. 15, 2007, p. 396. (5) Procopius, Wars, vi, 25, 9, Henry Bronson Dewing, ed., vol. 4, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 1924, p. 86-87.
Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 95, 2018, p. 889-906
