Hello everyone! This is Casimir with the Skald’s Circle again. Today we’ll be talking about the traditions spread throughout Europe.
I had written an article on monks recording stories recently. I admit I’ve been reading a lot of medieval history, and you can’t really separate the Church from medieval history. I would like to share some of the things that I have learned in my own personal studies because, frankly, I find them absolutely fascinating, and also hilarious.
First of all, contrary to popular belief, the Church did not steal anyone’s traditions. This will come as a shock to many — hell, it came as a shock to me when I first found out. The church did not exist within a vacuum. It did not rampage through Europe like some kind of celibate wild hunt, devouring traditions in its wake. Instead it spread rather peacefully (shockingly enough). This is during the early middle ages, pre-crusades mind you. The spread of the church was missionaries going to wherever the winds took them, sometimes literally. It didn’t have much martial might or power, that came later. So, how did the church end up having things like the Christmas tree or fertility symbols around the Easter season? As I said, the church didn’t exist in a vacuum. When the church spread to these areas, and legitimately converted them (forced conversions were not nearly as common as people would like you to believe), they brought their traditions with them because it was merely what they knew. That’s why folk magic wasn’t necessarily against church teachings and continued to be practiced well into the 17th century. The church didn’t bring in these traditions to convert people; the people brought the traditions with them.
My personal favorite anecdotes about this are the specific dates of Christmas and Easter. In the early middle ages, there was no set date for the celebration of Christmas. There are records of nobles telling their children to not be offended when visiting other nobles if they celebrate Christmas at a different time. That changed one day when a king you may have heard of came along. His name of Charles the Great or Charlemagne. You see, Charlemagne didn’t like that Christmas wasn’t uniformly celebrated on the day he wanted to celebrate. So, he went to the Church and told them to issue an edict that Christmas was to be celebrated on the 25th of December. The Church may have been important at that time, but you don’t turn down an order from the Holy Roman Emperor who managed to conquer most of Europe in his lifetime.
Easter on the other hand has a much shorter story. You see, wars in medieval Europe while not nearly as common as Hollywood would have you believe, were common enough that the Church took offense. So they set Easter to, for lack of a better way to describe it, begin the season of war. For once Easter was done, the wars were at least… moderately okay in the Church’s eyes.
I hope you have enjoyed this lesson of History with the Skald’s Circle, and that you found medieval history as fascinating as I do. If you’d like to know more, or perhaps discuss it with me I’m always more than willing (just contact us!). Also, if you have something you would like us to research, please let us know! Until then, I’ll be back next week with another fascinating topic. This is Casimir, signing off, and remember, always check your sources!
Further Reading:
- How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (The Hinges of History)
- Two Lives of Charlemagne
Sources:
- Various sagas (see database: http://www.sagadb.org/)
- Two Lives of Charlemagne