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Germanic paganism - Migration Age

Germanic paganism - Migration Age: Encyclopedia II - Germanic paganism - Migration Age

During the Migration period, Germanic religion was subject to syncretic influence from Christianity and Mediterranean culture (see also Runes, Erilaz). Jordanes' Getica is a 6th century account of the Goths. According to the Getica, the chief god of the Goths was Mars, who they believed was born among them. Now Mars has always been worshipped by the Goths with cruel rites, and captives were slain as his victims. They thought that he who is the lord of war ought to be appeased by the shedding of human bloo ...

Germanic paganism: Encyclopedia II - Germanic paganism - Migration Age

Germanic paganism - Migration Age

See also Anglo-Saxon polytheism

During the Migration period, Germanic religion was subject to syncretic influence from Christianity and Mediterranean culture (see also Runes, Erilaz).

Jordanes' Getica is a 6th century account of the Goths. According to the Getica, the chief god of the Goths was Mars, who they believed was born among them.

Now Mars has always been worshipped by the Goths with cruel rites, and captives were slain as his victims. They thought that he who is the lord of war ought to be appeased by the shedding of human blood. To him they devoted the first share of the spoil, and in his honor arms stripped from the foe were suspended from trees. And they had more than all other races a deep spirit of religion, since the worship of this god seemed to be really bestowed upon their ancestor. - Getica

Saint Columbanus in the 6th century encountered a beer sacrifice to Woden in Bregenz. In the 8th century, the Saxons venerated an Irminsul (see also Donar's Oak). Charlemagne is reported to have destroyed the Saxon Irminsul in 772.

The Anglo-Saxon springtime goddess Eostre is considered by some to be an invention of Bede, in spite of Jacob Grimm's 1835 claim of a continental goddess "Ostara" from whose name he derived Easter (German Ostern).

In the Old High German "Merseburg Incantations" (Merseburger Zaubersprüche), the only pre-Christian testimony in the German language, appears a Sinthgunt who is a sister of the sun's (Sol). She is not known by name in Norse mythology, and if she refers to the moon, she is then different from the male moon (Mani) of Scandinavian mythology.

The Goths were converted to Arianism in the 4th century, contemporaneous to the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire itself (see Constantinian shift). Unfortunately, due to their early conversion to Christianity, almost nothing is known about the particulars of the religion of the East Germanic peoples, separated from the remaining Germanic tribes during the Migration period. Such knowledge would be suited to distinguish Proto-Germanic elements from later developments present in both North and West Germanic.

The Franks, Alamanni, Anglo-Saxons, Saxons and Frisians were christianized between the 6th and the 8th century. By the end of the Migration period, only the Scandinavians remained pagan.