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Germanic Heroic Age
The Germanic (or "German") Heroic Age, so called in analogy to the Heroic Age of Greek mythology, is the period of early historic or quasi-historic events reflected in Germanic heroic poetry. Periodisation The period corresponds to the Germanic Wars in terms of historiography, and to the Germanic Iron Age in terms of archaeology, spanning the early centuries of the 1st millennium, in particular the 4th and 5th centuries, the period of the final collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the establishment of stable "barbarian kingdoms" larger than at the tribal level (the kingdoms of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, the Franks and the Burgundians, and the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain). The Germanic peoples at the time lived mostly in tribal societies. William Paton Ker in ''Epic and Romance'' (1897) takes the "heroic age" as predating the "age of chivalry" with its new literary genre of '' Romance''. Ker would thus extend the Germanic heroic age to the point of Christianizati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Heroic Age
The Greek Heroic Age, in mythology, is the period between the coming of the Greeks to Thessaly and the Greek return from Troy. It was demarcated as one of the five Ages of Man by Hesiod. The period spans roughly six generations; the heroes denoted by the term are superhuman, though not divine, and are celebrated in the literature of Homer. The Greek heroes can be grouped into an approximate chronology, based on events such as the Argonautic expedition and the Trojan War. Over this course in time, many heroes in Greece, such as Heracles, Achilles, Hector and Perseus, came to be prominent figures in Greek mythology. Early heroes Many of the early Greek heroes were descended from the gods and were part of the founding narratives of various city-states. They also became the ancestors of later heroes. The Phoenician prince Cadmus, a grandson of Poseidon, was the first Greek hero and the founder of Thebes. Perseus, famous for his exploits well before the days of his great-grandson, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianization Of The Germanic Peoples
The Germanic peoples underwent gradual Christianization in the course of late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By AD 700, England and Francia were officially Christian, and by 1100 Germanic paganism had also ceased to have political influence in Scandinavia. History Germanic peoples began entering the Roman Empire in large numbers at the same time that Christianity was spreading there. The connection of Christianity to the Roman Empire was both a factor in encouraging conversion as well as, at times, a motive for persecuting Christians. Until the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes who had migrated there (with the exceptions of the Saxons, Franks, and Lombards, see below) had converted to Christianity.Padberg 1998, 26 Many of them, notably the Goths and Vandals, adopted Arianism instead of the Trinitarian (a.k.a. Nicene or ''orthodox'') beliefs that were dogmatically defined by the church in the Nicene Creed. The gradual rise of Germanic Christianity was, at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germanic Mythology
Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism. Origins As the Germanic languages developed from Proto-Indo-European language, Germanic mythology is ultimately a development of Proto-Indo-European mythology. Archaeological remains, such as petroglyphs in Scandinavia, suggest continuity in Germanic mythology since at least the Nordic Bronze Age. Sources The earliest written sources on Germanic mythology include literature by Roman writers. This includes ''Commentaries on the Gallic War'' by Julius Caesar, ''Geographica'' by Strabo, and ''Germania'' by Tacitus. Later Latin-language sources on Germanic mythology include ''Getica'' by Jordanes, ''History of the Lombards'' by Paul the Deacon, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' by Bede, ''Vita Ansgari'' by Rimbert, ''Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianisation Of Iceland
Iceland was Christianized in the year 1000 CE, when Christianity became the religion by law. In Icelandic, this event is known as the ''kristnitaka'' (literally, "the taking of Christianity"). The vast majority of the initial settlers of Iceland during the settlement of Iceland in the 9th and 10th centuries CE were pagan, worshipping the ''Æsir'' (the Norse gods). Beginning in 980, Iceland was visited by several Christian missionaries who had little success; but when Olaf Tryggvason (who had converted around 998) ascended to the Norwegian throne, there were many more converts, and the two rival religions soon divided the country and threatened civil war. After war broke out in Denmark and Norway, the matter was submitted to arbitration at the Althing. Law speaker and pagan Thorgeir Thorkelsson proposed "one law and one religion" after which baptism and conversion to Christianity became compulsory. Ari Thorgilsson's '' Book of the Icelanders,'' the oldest indigenous accoun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the ''Prose Edda'', which is a major source for what is today known as Norse mythology, and ''Heimskringla'', a history of the Norwegian kings that begins with legendary material in ''Ynglinga saga'' and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history. For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of ''Egil's saga''. He was assassinated in 1241 by men claiming to be agents of the King of Norway. Biography Early life Snorri Sturluson was born in (commonly transliterated as Hvamm or Hvammr) as a member of the wealthy and powerful Sturlungar clan of the Icelandic Commonwealth, in AD 1179. His parents were ''Sturla Þórðarson the Elder'' of ''Hvammur'' and his second wife, ''Guðný Böðvarsdóttir''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skald
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally composed on one occasion, sometimes extempore, and include both extended works and single verses ('' lausavísur''). They are characteristically more ornate in form and diction than eddic poems, employing many kennings and heiti, more interlacing of sentence elements, and the complex ''dróttkvætt'' metre. More than 5,500 skaldic verses have survived, preserved in more than 700 manuscripts, including in several sagas and in Snorri Sturluson's ''Prose Edda'', a handbook of skaldic composition that led to a revival of the art. Many of these verses are fragments of originally longer works, and the authorship of many is unknown. The earliest known skald from whom verses survive is Bragi Boddason, known as Bragi the Old, a Norwegian skald of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prose Edda
The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been to some extent written, or at least compiled, by the Icelandic scholar, lawspeaker, and historian Snorri Sturluson 1220. It is considered the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Norse mythology, the body of myths of the North Germanic peoples, and draws from a wide variety of sources, including versions of poems that survive into today in a collection known as the ''Poetic Edda''. The ''Prose Edda'' consists of four sections: The Prologue, a euhemerized account of the Norse gods; ''Gylfaginning'', which provides a question and answer format that details aspects of Norse mythology (consisting of approximately 20,000 words), ''Skáldskaparmál'', which continues this format before providing lists of kennings and ''heit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, Weapons and Ornaments: Germanic Material Culture in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400-750. BRILL, 2001, p.42. Later the term was associated with Romanized Germanic dynasties within the collapsing Western Roman Empire, who eventually commanded the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. They imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms and Germanic peoples. Beginning with Charlemagne in 800, Frankish rulers were given recognition by the Catholic Church as successors to the old rulers of the Western Roman Empire. Although the Frankish name does not appear until the 3rd century, at least some of the original Frankish tribes had long been known to the Romans under their own names, both as allies providing soldiers, and as e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fulda Monastery
The Abbey of Fulda (German ''Kloster Fulda'', Latin ''Abbatia Fuldensis''), from 1221 the Princely Abbey of Fulda (''Fürstabtei Fulda'') and from 1752 the Prince-Bishopric of Fulda (''Fürstbistum Fulda''), was a Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine abbey and Hochstift, ecclesiastical principality centered on Fulda, in the present-day German state of Hesse. The monastery was founded in 744 by Saint Sturm, a disciple of Saint Boniface. After Boniface was buried at Fulda, it became a prominent center of learning and culture in Germany, and a site of religious significance and pilgrimage through the 8th and 9th centuries. The ''Annals of Fulda'', one of the most important sources for the history of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, were written there. In 1221 the abbey was granted an imperial estate to rule and the abbots were thereafter princes of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1356, Emperor Charles IV bestowed the title "Archchancellor of the Empress" (''Erzkanzler der Kaiserin' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hildebrandslied
The ''Hildebrandslied'' (; ''Lay'' or ''Song of Hildebrand'') is a heroic lay written in Old High German alliterative verse. It is the earliest poetic text in German, and it tells of the tragic encounter in battle between a father (Hildebrand) and a son (Hadubrand) who does not recognize him. It is the only surviving example in German of a genre which must have been important in the oral literature of the Germanic tribes. The text was written in the 830s on two spare leaves on the outside of a religious codex in the monastery of Fulda. The two scribes were copying from an unknown older original, which itself must ultimately have derived from oral tradition. The story of Hildebrand and Hadubrand almost certainly goes back to 7th- or 8th-century Lombardy and is set against the background of the historical conflict between Theodoric and Odoacer in 5th-century Italy, which became a major subject for Germanic heroic legend. The fundamental story of the father and son who fail to recog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianization Of The Anglo-Saxons
The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England was a process spanning the 7th century. It was essentially the result of the Gregorian mission of 597, which was joined by the efforts of the Hiberno-Scottish mission from the 630s. From the 8th century, the Anglo-Saxon mission was, in turn, instrumental in the conversion of the population of the Frankish Empire. Æthelberht of Kent was the first king to accept baptism, circa 601. He was followed by Saebert of Essex and Rædwald of East Anglia in 604. However, when Æthelberht and Saebert died, in 616, they were both succeeded by pagan sons who were hostile to Christianity and drove the missionaries out, encouraging their subjects to return to their native paganism. Christianity only hung on with Rædwald, who was still worshiping the pagan gods alongside Christ. The first Archbishops of Canterbury during the first half of the 7th century were members of the original Gregorian mission. The first native Saxon to be consecrated archbis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Battle Of Maldon
"The Battle of Maldon" is the name given to an Old English poem of uncertain date celebrating the real Battle of Maldon of 991, at which an Anglo-Saxon army failed to repulse a Viking raid. Only 325 lines of the poem are extant; both the beginning and the ending are lost. The poem The poem is told entirely from the perspective of the Anglo-Saxons, and names many individuals that Mitchell and Robinson''A Guide to Old English'', 5th ed. by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, Blackwell, 1999 reprint believe were real Englishmen. Mitchell and Robinson conjecture that the lost opening of the poem must have related how Byrhtnoth, an Anglo-Saxon ealdorman, hearing of the Viking raid, raised his troops and led them to the shore. The poem as we have it begins with the Anglo-Saxon warriors dismounting to prepare for battle. A Viking force is encamped on an island that can be reached by a causeway. A Viking messenger offers Byrhtnoth peace if he will consent to pay tribute. Byrhtnoth a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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