|
|
|
|
||
|
|
The Medieval World: Paganism and Magic |
|
|
Note: The "Medieval World" pages were originally written for a friend of mine who was (and still is)
writing a fantasy novel, to provide some background information on how pre-industrial societies actually work. The
text remains unchanged from the original document.
Before the arrival of Christianity, Europe was pagan. However, paganism was not a single set of beliefs, but rather a general view of life that could have many regional variations. It could have priests and temples, but was in essence a set of unorganised folk beliefs rather than a revealed religion. It concerned itself with the earth, growth and fertility because these are the concerns of peasant subsistence farmers, whose lives revolve around agriculture. Their hopes, fears, even their conception of the passing of time are all driven by the agricultural cycle, so the peasant's superstitions and rituals all evolve out of this. Paganism is an expression of a way of life. This is why the church found it so hard to eliminate. They were not fighting an abstract intellectual belief, but rather a set of folk practices that arose from a particular way of life, and which persisted as long as that way of life survived. Hence local saints were prayed to and asked for favours in much the same way local pagan deities had been in pre-Christian days, with the old attitudes and practices simply being translated into the new idiom. Paganism also differed from Christianity in that it involved a magical rather than a religious view of the world. In a religious system of belief, ultimate control of what happens in the world is in the hands of a deity or deities. Humanity cannot control what will happen, and can only gain any leverage over the world by gaining the favour of the god or gods, who may then deign to arrange things favourably for the powerless mortals. In a magical view of the world, however, it is accepted that to achieve a particular result - say, a good harvest - one merely needs to carry out the correct rituals. It assumes that the world is not controlled by an arbitrary power, but by rules of cause and effect. One merely needs to find the right cause for the desired effect. It is therefore a mechanistic universe, with much more in common with the scientific view of the world than the religious one. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Last Updated: 1 Oct 07 |  |
|
|||
 |
|
|
|
|
|||
