British Paganism | Contemplative Inquiry

October 13, 2024

BOOK REVIEW: SULIS, SOLAR GODDESS OF THE SPRING WATERS

Recommended especially to two overlapping groups: first, readers interested in Sulis (later Sulis-Minerva) the presiding deity of the hot springs at Bath, UK; second, readers interested in polytheist Paganism in Britain, both ancient and modern. Author Rachel Patterson describes her heart as that of an English Kitchen Witch and her craft “a combination of old religion witchcraft, Wicca, hedge witchery and folk Magic”. Hence in this book she focuses not only on the history of Sulis and her springs but also on how to work with Sulis today.

The hot springs at Bath are the only ones in the country, appearing after the last Ice Age around 12,000 years ago. The people who re-settled the land as hunter gatherers began leaving offerings at the springs around 9,500 years ago. They continued to do so for several thousand years until the appearance of farming. We have no record of their beliefs, but for them the numinous power may well have been the living presence of the springs themselves, rather than a presiding deity.

The farmers, when they came, seem to have left the springs alone. But early in the first century CE a causeway of gravel and mud was placed in the main spring pool. Offerings were made, principally of coins minted by the local Celtic tribe, the Dobunni. Pottery was also found but there were no buildings. In 43 CE the Romans invaded Britain and quickly established themselves in the south. The Dobunni chose peace and an accommodation with the Romans, who soon created a spa, building on top of the natural springs. They adopted the local goddess Sulis, now to be known as Sulis Minerva. A town gradually grew up, named Aquae Sulis (The Waters of Sulis). A temple and sanctuary began to be built in 70 CE. The baths are now well-kept after an up-and-down history, and are open to visitors. See http://www.romanbaths.co.uk.

Rachel Patterson describes how the temple worked in the Roman period. Many of the extant records are written curses from people whose clothes and possessions were stolen while they bathed. They asked the Sulis for retributive action in return for offerings and the lost possessions themselves (1). Patterson also describes the decoration of the temple and artifacts from it. The best known was once called the gorgon’s head but is clearly the head of a male figure. He seems to be associated with a god named Belenus, who may in turn be connected with the legendary King Bladud included in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the King’s of Britain (2,3).

The second half of Rachel Patterson’s book is about working with Sulis. It is a thorough and practical guide for readers who may want to go down that path. It includes sections on making candles and altars dedicated to Sulis; on finding Sulis; building a relationship with her; advice on oath-taking; and the development of rituals and meditations dedicated to her. There is relevant advice on the use of herbs, crystals, forms of divination, petitions and curses. There are sections on animal companions and (pigs and wild boar as the Celtic contribution, owls and dolphins related to Minerva). As a Kitchen Witch, Rachel Patterson also provides a number of recipes.

I have lived both the first and most recent 20 years of my life within a forty mile radius of Bath. I don’t go there very often. But I have known it from an early age and bathed in the waters during the more recent period. There is indeed something magical about them. So I’m glad to see Sulis taken more seriously. There is a familiar problem about limited information from the past and Rachel Patterson discusses this in her book But for me there is enough resonance from the old times, here, to dream the myth onwards. I can’t assess the practical guidance offered in Sulis: Solar Goddess of the Spring Waters because I don’t work in the same way. But I do know it is comprehensive and comes from a seasoned practitioner. It feels to me like a timely addition to the Pagan Portals series, and I am grateful to have it.

(1) Further information about religion in Roman Britain, and its rather transactional nature, can be found in Prof- Ronald Hutton’s Gresham College lecture on Paganism in Roman Britain. See https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/22/12/12/paganism-in-roman-britain/ – where a link to the lecture is provided,

(2) see picture and narrative at https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2021/03/23/the-sacred-head-of-bladud/

(3) For creative treatments of the story of Bladud and the Goddess Sulis, see Kevan Manwaring’s account in The Bardic Handbook and two novels by Moyra Caldecott: The Winged Man and The Waters of Sul

June 9, 2023

HOW PAGAN WAS MEDIEVAL BRITAIN?

How Pagan Was Medieval Britain? is the sixth and final lecture in Professor Ronald Hutton’s Gresham College series on early Pagan history in Britain (1). The simple answer, according to Hutton, is: not as much as was widely believed in the twentieth century, by scholars and the lay public alike. Some thought that full medieval Christianity was an upper class faith, with commoners, especially in the countryside, being ‘cheerful semi-Pagans’, Christian by day and following the old ways by night. Others thought that the two religions ran in parallel, with the latter being necessarily clandestine whilst some of its iconography was visible. Green Man and Sheela na Gig images, often present in the churches themselves, seemed to indicate the survival of a Pagan sensibility at the very least – canny concessions by the Church to the people. Witch persecutions were seen as evidence of an active, surviving woman centred nature religion. Indeed, such ideas influenced cultural and religious developments in the twentieth century itself – specifically, the rise of neo-Paganism; more broadly, the Feminist and Green movements that were dynamically emerging at the time.

However, turning to the medieval period itself, Hutton, does not find evidence of actually existing Pagan religion in the available sources. Witch trials have been carefully examined in recent years, and the victims don’t fit the profile. In Anglo-Saxon times, the legal codes and church councils stopped bothering to forbid Christian converts their old ways by 800 CE. The prohibitions reappeared in the tenth century, in relation to Viking settlers, but ceased again by 1030 CE. In the later middle ages there was serious concern over Christian heretics (Lollards) and some concern over ale-house cynics expressing anti-religious views. In medieval society people tended be nosy about other people’s business and there was social pressure to conform. There are court cases that draw on this kind of informal surveillance, but none concerned with Pagan religious practice. Hutton traces Sheela Na Gig images to the Church in France, saying that they had an anti-erotic intent. Likewise, Green Man, Wild Man and Jack in the Green figures have specific historical origins not concerned with any Pagan deity. Hutton quite reasonably offers no comment on their widely perceived role as archetypal images, because these are outside the remit of the empirical historian. His focus is on self-defined and organised Pagan religion during a specific period in Britain.

But it is true, according to Hutton, that the medieval church offered religious continuity in other ways. The veneration of saints, who were very diverse and numerous, allowed polytheist habits of mind to continue, especially in the realm of petitionary prayer. Individual saints might be local, or specialists in specific forms of help. For many people they seemed more approachable than the persons of the trinity. However in Britain there seem to have been no saints who had themselves once been gods*. Likewise Christians had holy wells, but they were different from the old Pagan ones, rather than the same ones repurposed. The temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath, for example, was left alone. Few temples or ancient religious sites became churches, even though Pope Gregory had recommended this approach when he sent his mission to Kent in 597 CE.

Church attendance was not compulsory in the middle ages. It is estimated that only around 50% of parishioners attended regularly, though they did turn up in much larger numbers for the major festivals. During these, ‘secular revelry’ was allowed, even encouraged, and the festivals raised a lot money for Parish churches, enabling them at times to abolish Parish rates. This widely beneficial outcome was seen as ‘cheating the Devil’. Even on normal days, the Church offered spectacle – with the mass, libations and incense. Local priests came from the people, didn’t have to be literate, and didn’t have to preach. That was done by specialist friars with notable performance skills, often very popular. Additionally, many people belonged to guilds linked to their churches, usually focused around a saint. There were lay religious guilds for both women and men, which had a variety of purposes, officered by their own lay members. Craft guilds performed plays at festival times. This form of Christian culture lasted in Britain until the middle of the sixteenth century, when the old church fragmented into a plurality of new ones over hard-fought time. Different kinds of Christian culture, generally even less Pagan friendly, emerged.

(1) https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/medieval-pagan/

* An exception would be the Gaelic speaking areas in Scotland and Brighid

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February 23, 2023

ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN GODS

This post is based on Ronald Hutton’s third lecture in the Gresham College series on early Pagan history in Britain (1). Hutton notes that the Anglo-Saxons arrived at a later date than the Romans, but with a religion that is less well-known. Why? He explains that it came as a foreign importation that did not mix well with existing traditions, whether Christian or Pagan. Moreover the Pagan Anglo-Saxons left no written records about their own practices, and their conversion to Christianity came too soon for a substantial body of archaeological evidence to accumulate.

Nonetheless the early Anglo-Saxons have had a lasting influence on English culture. They occupied a land that had experienced a major system collapse. A place which had once had towns, stone buildings, country houses, factories, substantial military installations and a money-using, trading economy, now made do with subsistence farming and wooden buildings, ruled over by rival petty kings. On the whole, the Saxons didn’t bring this about. It’s what they found, and they were troubled by the ruins of past power and prosperity as an example of what fate (wyrd) could do. They wondered, too, what had happened to the people (giants?) who had built the now ruined structures that they saw around them. Anglo-Saxon poetry (for example The Wanderer) reflects on this poignancy.

To get glimpses of Anglo-Saxon religion, Hutton says, we look to Roman accounts of their continental ancestors in Germany, narratives from later English Christians, and still later Icelandic sources describing a world view that is seen as cognate with the early English one. Their most important god was Woden, evidenced in place names and the family trees of early English kings. He is described as the King of the Gods, and patron of rulers, voyagers, and skills. He is a wisdom figure who can also be a cunning deceiver and an enchanter. In this he resembles the Norse Odin, the German Wotan – and also, in certain respects, the Roman Mercury. But this doesn’t mean a one-to-one correspondence: Woden, unlike Odin, is shown with the full use of both eyes. Other significant gods were Thunor (with similarities to Thor, Donner, Taranis and Jupiter), Tiu the war god (compared to Mars) and Frigg – goddess of love, fertility and abundance (like Freya, and Venus).

Other gods are named, though we know little about them – Seaxnet, Ing, Geat, Hreda (a goddess of the earth) and Eostre (concerned with dawn and spring). The names of more local and tribal deities are lost. There were sacred places – on hills (Hearg = modern English Harrow) and on level ground, especially near roads (Weoh). There were specific places linked to deities near burial mounds. The only known candidate for a Pagan Anglo-Saxon temple is Yeavering in Northumberland, but even that might be a royal hall. Little is known about the priesthood. There was no equivalent knowledge-bearing class like the Celtic Druids. Kingship was a semi-sacred role and kings could be blamed for disasters. Shadowy non-human figures (elves) co-existed with humans in the world and were seen as harmful. They lacked the glamour found in Irish and Welsh stories about such denizens of the wild places – forests and hollow hills.

We have a wealth of information from grave goods. There is a fairly even split between burial and cremation. Ashes from cremations tended to be kept in urns. These were decorated, primarily with serpent imagery. The swastika was also popular, as a fire image. In the case of inhumations, people were buried facing east, accompanied by grave goods that would be useful for an afterlife. These included crystal and glass beads, combs and razors, belts and knives (as eating utensils). There is relatively little gender distinction in the choice of goods, except that weapons were associated with men. (Even here Hutton notes the revision now being brought about by DNA examination of bones in Scandinavia, and confirming the presence of high status women warriors: could the same be true of the Pagan English?) From the sixth century, the Pagan Anglo-Saxons used burial mounds. Towards the end of the Pagan period, high status burial could be rich and elaborate – the most famous example being at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, first excavated in 1939. This can be seen as a response to growing prosperity and the rise of Christian competition.

597 CE marks the first mission from Rome to the southern English. (Northumbrians were first introduced to the new religion by Celtic monks based in Iona.) In 665 CE the last English kingdom was formally converted. Penda the powerful Pagan Mercian king fought the Christian kingdoms, but for loot, power and glory, not for his religion. He did not stand in the way of his son’s conversion. There were no wars of religion or clearly identified martyrs on either side. Christianity offered many political, diplomatic and commercial advantages to the ruling class. The Christians were highly organised, determined and had a unified creed to rally around. These characteristics seem largely absent on the Pagan side. Official Paganism was over in the Anglo-Saxon world until it faced the Viking invasions that began in the 790s. Even then, the now Christian Anglo-Saxons did everything they could to resist them, partly as a matter of faith.

(1) https://gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/anglo-saxon-gods/