The false belief that medieval peasants were somehow pagan, and that paganism survived in medieval Western Europe, is resilient in popular culture. What's sad is that searching for nonexistent paganism obscures what's really interesting - the weirdness of medieval Christianityhttps://twitter.com/DrFrancisYoung/status/1199310876454608898 …
-
Show this thread
-
The only 'pagan' imagery in Britain's churches derives from Classical antiquity (e.g. centaurs), but of course the fact that something derives from a pagan culture doesn't make it pagan; Classical imagery had already been subjected to centuries of Christian reinterpretation
4 replies 9 retweets 157 likesShow this thread -
One might argue, indeed, that any imagery incorporated into a church is ipso facto Christian. What we seem to find hard to accept is that medieval popular Christianity was almost always inclusive of the beliefs people brought to it
3 replies 19 retweets 181 likesShow this thread -
The 19th century has taught us to think of Christianity as exclusionary, and to confuse the practice of Christianity with the institutional church. It was far more complicated than that...
7 replies 20 retweets 186 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @DrFrancisYoung
There is a really amazing monograph called Pagan Survivals, Superstitions, and Popular Cultures by Bernadette Filotas that goes into this idea. I will say that, at least in Britain and Ireland, there may very well have been many non-Christians who did not convert
3 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
But there seems to be some suggestion that “pagans” and Christians just lived side by side, due to burial practices and some vague textual references. The capital-C Church didn’t like it but regular folks probably dgaf that much.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.