[Northkeep] Medieval religions (Was Heraldic Question)

[Marc Carlson]

Oh, boy -- can I play?

Derek Wilson wrote:
> Weren't so much talking about recorded "pagan" religions so much as
> non-catholic I think. The Crusades pretty much found plenty of Islamics to
> bring the light to in one fashion or another in europe. And of course the
> split between the Greek orthodox and catholics was not one you advertised
> openly if you lived in the others territory. So while the "underground
> religion" of wicca and the church of the ray of light at the 4th fork in the
> river stuff is pretty much based on conjecture...

Actually, it's mostly made up from whole cloth. ("Mostly" in this
case referring to
the difference between ignorance, misunderstandings, and outright
lies)

> ...There were plenty of underground religions depending on where you were and
> when...

Most of them didn't tend to last last long.  Studies of the
underground practice of Judaism in Spain pretty much show a rapid
disintegration of *religious* practice in to "weird things our
family's always done and no one knows why").

> And as far as converting being painless I would venture to guess those who were
> converted during the crusades would contest that notion.

The *Crusades* weren't really into "conversion", but rather
extermination for
reasons attributed to religion.  Totally different topic.  Also,
we should try
to not confuse the religion with the practitioners.  *Conversion*
from the
original pagan practices tended to be because -Christianity-
offered things
that the older religions didn't (the same reason BTW, why modern
paganism is
converting people from Christianity -- you'll notice that there
aren't a lot
of death threats by neo-Pagans if you don't convert.  Conversely,
as with
Christians/Christianity not being interchangeable -- while some
modern Pagans
are total assholes, that doesn't mean that all are, or that we
should judge
the religions based on that [and for the record, for the new
people, while
Diarmaid's a good follower of Rome, Marc is a neo-Pagan, so don't
make
assumptions]).

It's this debate which is why religion is traditionally frowned
on in the SCA,
isn't it?

Marc/Diarmaid
>
> But back on the subject of the motto. It was meant in jest only
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bethor2000 at aol.com [mailto:Bethor2000 at aol.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 3:55 PM
> To: northkeep at ansteorra.org
> Subject: [Northkeep] Was Heraldic Question
>
> Earlier comments posted:
>
> >>well at least in christianized areas.
> >>what about the creative anachronist part?
> AND
> >>Often time those hiding groups of non Christians of Europe
>
> Unless your talking about Latvia and parts of Lithuania then there was no
> recorded "pagan" religion during the historical period we are
> "re-enacting"(to use that term in the loosest and broadest sense).  Sorry
> but
> this underground religion stuff is a modern, New Age creation, just like
> Wicca, it was created during the good old 20th Century, most likely the
> 60's.
>  Did people of Europe have superstitious practices, yea verily.  These are
> well recorded, and generally have some Christian part of a "spell" that
> involves saying the name of a saint or "numeric magic" from a significant
> occurrence in the Bible.  The use of astrology is also very well documented.
> For a look at late medieval practices I'd recommend  K Thomas RELIGION AND
> THE DECLINE OF MAGIC.
> >From what I've read and studied about "pagan" religions of Europe, most
> people had no problem converting to Christianity, because it was a definite
> step up and away from those very brutal practices.  The idea of the
> peaceful,
> matriarchic nature religions is a whimsy.  The studies of the people that
> practiced these religions, through contemporary accounts and modern
> archeology show that these groups practiced human sacrifice and blood soaked
> ceremonies(Norse, specifically, have accounts of ceremonial rape and live
> burials).  Even the Malleus Maleficarum advises that witches are in an
> individual relationship with devils, and not part of some vast underground
> group.
>
> Alton
> "suffer not a witch to live"
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