Fazioli 2015- Transformation of Sacred Landscapes

Landscape and Identity: Archaeology and Human

Geography

Edited by

Kurt D. Springs

BAR International Series 27092015

Published by

ArchaeopressPublishers of British Archaeological ReportsGordon House276 Banbury RoadOxford OX2 [email protected]

BAR S2709

Landscape and Identity: Archaeology and Human Geography

© Archaeopress and the individual authors 2015

ISBN 978 1 4073 1360 3

Printed in England by Information Press, Oxford

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Contents

List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ ii

An Introduction to Landscape and Identity ............................................................................ 1 Kurt D. SPRINGS

Monuments, Landscape and Identity in Chalcolithic Ireland ................................................. 3 Carleton JONES, Thor MCVEIGH, and Ros Ó MAOLDÚIN

The Contiguity of Court Tombs and Wedge Tombs: Implications for the Continuity of Megalithic Identity in Northwest Ireland ........................................................................ 27

Kurt D. SPRINGS

Social Alterity and the Landscapes of the Upper Great Lakes, 1200-1600 .......................... 47 Meghan C. L. HOWEY

Monumental Civic Architecture Signals Group Identity, Affiliation, and Effective Collective Action: Prospects for Investigation in the Greek Cities of Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Asia Minor as Explored for Roman Aphrodisias ............. 55

Lu Ann WANDSNIDER and Lauren NELSON

The Transformation of Sacred Landscapes: Approaching the Archaeology of Christianization in the Eastern Alpine-Adriatic Region during the First Millennium AD ................................................................................................ 71

K. Patrick FAZIOLI

Greenwashed: Identity and Landscape at the California Missions ....................................... 83 Elizabeth KRYDER-REID

Multivocality in a Controlled Landscape: Memory and Heritage at the Gettysburg National Military Park ......................................................................... 103

J. Loyal STEWART

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF SACRED LANDSCAPES: APPROACHING THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHRISTIANIZATION IN THE EASTERN

ALPINE-ADRIATIC REGION DURING THE FIRST MILLENNIUM AD

K. Patrick FAZIOLI Interdisciplinary Studies, Medaille College, 18 Agassiz Circle, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA

[email protected]

Abstract: This chapter investigates the transformation of sacred landscapes from the Late Roman Empire to the Early Middle Ages in the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region (c. AD 300-1000). While the shifting religious topography of this period has traditionally been seen through the totalizing lens of ‘Christianization’, recent scholarship has highlighted a range of methodological and conceptual limitations with this concept. Most critically, the mechanism that allowed Christianity to rapidly disseminate among the broader population remains under-theorized. This chapter identifies the syncretic blending of Christian and non-Christian beliefs and practices as an underappreciated factor in facilitating the spread of Christianity across Europe and the Mediterranean world in the first millennium AD. Support for this hypothesis is drawn from a range of historical and archaeological data that reveals the complex manner in which Christians appropriated Late Roman and Early Medieval sacred places, landscapes, and objects (spolia). Finally, evidence for the persistence of authentic pagan beliefs and rituals after the rise of Christianity in the late ancient, medieval, and modern eastern Alpine region is critically considered.

Keywords: Late Roman Empire, Late Antiquity, Early Middle Ages, landscape, religion, Christianity, Alps

Introduction

The contributions to this volume investigate the myriad ways in which identity, memory, and power are written in the landscape. This chapter explores these processes within the context of sacred landscapes — those parts of the built and natural environment that ‘connect the individual with the cosmic frame that gives life and meaning’ (Crumley 1999, 270). Specifically, I consider the spread of Christianity across the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region (today encompassing Slovenia, southern Austria, northeast Italy, and northwest Croatia) in the first millennium AD (Figure 1). This region experienced two distinct waves of ‘Christianization’, first during the Late Roman Empire (late 4th and 5th centuries AD) and again in the Early Middle Ages (8th through 10th centuries AD). Despite initial pockets of resistance and local fidelity to pre-Christian cosmologies, this new faith ultimately won the ‘heart and minds’ of the broader population during each of these periods. While historians of Christianity have offered a myriad of possible reasons for this remarkable success, this chapter builds specifically upon recent historical and archaeological work that focuses on Christianity’s ability to absorb and co-opt various aspects of non-Christian religious ideas, practices, artifacts, places, and landscapes into its own ideological framework. I seek to show how the appropriation and transformation of sacred landscapes provides a fruitful avenue for building a more theoretically robust approach to one of the most significant long-term processes in European history.

The chapter begins with a brief sketch of the history of the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region during the first millennium AD, before turning to some of the limitations of this ‘traditional’ narrative, as well as the broader

methodological and theoretical problems with the concept of ‘Christianization’. It then outlines an alternative model for the spread of Christianity building on historical scholarship that highlights the diverse ways in which Christianity re-appropriated various elements of ‘pagan’1 beliefs and practices. The second half of the paper presents an array of archaeological and textual evidence for the syncretic blending of Christian and non-Christian objects, places, and landscapes in the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region. Finally, I consider the possibility of the persistence of pagan practices in the eastern Alps into the medieval, modern, and even contemporary world.

The Traditional Historical Framework

Late Roman and Late Antique Period

The 4th century was a critical turning point in the history of Christianity. In less than one hundred years, this small, often marginalized sect would become the official, and only legal, religion of the Roman Empire. This transformation began when the emperor Constantine I chose to embrace the Christian movement after crediting their God with his victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in AD 312. The following year Constantine and eastern emperor Licinius issued the ‘Edict of Milan’, which officially ended the persecution of Christianity by granting toleration to all the empire’s religions. Even more significantly, Constantine’s conversion to Christianity would establish a precedent followed by all subsequent Roman emperors, with the exception of Julian ‘the Apostate’, who ruled only briefly from AD 361-63. 1 While I acknowledge the derogatory origins of the word ‘pagan’ (Dowden 2000, 3), it is employed here as a useful umbrella term for the various European and Mediterranean traditional polytheistic religions that Christianity encountered during the first millennium AD.

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Figure 1. Map of the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region with selected sites mentioned in text (generated at Google Maps)

By the late 4th century, Christian emperors such as Theodosius I had begun to adopt increasingly exclusivist religious policies designed to eradicate traditional Roman polytheism. Traditional ‘pagan’ rituals and institutions were incrementally outlawed, public temples allowed to fall into disrepair, and even the Altar of Victory was removed from the Senate, an act that dramatically symbolized a new religious orientation for the empire (Fletcher 1997, 38). Over the next half century the religious geography of the entire Roman Empire would be radically transformed (Caseau 1999). In the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region — at that time divided among imperial provinces of Noricum, Italia, and Pannonia — changes in the sacred landscape are evident in the widespread abandonment of pagan temples and appearance of Christian material culture and architecture (Bratož 1989; Ladstätter 2000).

Yet, as Christianity rose to social and political prominence, the Roman Empire was beginning to crumble. Less than a century after Christianity became the state religion, the western half of the empire

disintegrated into a patchwork of ‘barbarian’ kingdoms, due to a fatal combination of prolonged civil strife and external politico-military pressures. The following centuries were marked by prolonged periods of political, social, and economic instability across much of the European and Mediterranean worlds (Halsall 2007). In the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region, the once prosperous and densely populated lowlands were widely abandoned in the fifth century. In the subsequent period, often termed Late Antiquity (c. AD 450-600), the remaining local communities fled to more easily defensible locations in the uplands or along the coast, where they struggled to maintain a ‘Roman’ and Christian way of life (Ciglenečki 1999a).

The Early Middle Ages

Greater stability returned to the region in the late 6th century, when Slavic-speaking groups, under the auspices of the Avar Empire, immigrated into this region from the east, eventually settling in the river valleys (Guštin 2002). While the nature of the relationship between these new

K. P. FAZIOLI: THE TRANSFORMATION OF SACRED LANDSCAPES: APPROACHING THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CHRISTIANIZATION...

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settlers and the ‘indigenous’ Romanized population is shrouded in mystery (Milavec 2009), most upland fortified settlements were abandoned (or, in some cases, destroyed) during the 7th century. Over the next century, this region of Slavic-speaking, non-Christian communities — described in historical sources as ‘Carantania’ — enjoyed some degree of political autonomy, despite being precariously perched between expanding Germanic influence in the west and the powerful Avar and Byzantine empires to the east (Bratož and Kahl 2000). In the mid-8th century, the local Slavic aristocracy was forced to trade this independence for protection from a renewed Avar threat, which eventually brought this region under the political control of Bavarian dukes (Kuhar 1959). Political submission was accompanied by missionary activity from the Archbishopric of Salzburg (Wolfram 1979). Early efforts at Christianization were met with fierce resistance from the local population, who probably identified them as agents of imperial control. However, after the initial opposition was crushed by Duke Tassilo in AD 772, subsequent efforts at Christianization in the 9th and 10th centuries proved much more effective. While the burning of St Maximilian’s church in Bischofshofen (Austria) suggests a continued resistance into this period (Posch 1991), the general population eventually followed the Slavic nobility in embracing the Christian faith (Kuhar 1959; Karpf 2003).

Challenges to Investigating Religious Change

While this ‘standard’ historical narrative for the rise of Christianity during the first millennium AD is surely accurate in broad scope, there is a growing sense among scholars that it remains incomplete. This is due not only to the inherent limitations of the textual and material evidence, but also more fundamental conceptual problems with using ‘Christianization’ as the sole lens through which to consider religious change in the Late Antique and Early Medieval worlds.

Methodological Challenges

Although written documents represent an indispensable source for understanding processes of religious change in the Late Antique and Early Medieval worlds, we must recognize that they disproportionately provide only one side of a complicated story. This is because the vast majority texts defending or promoting traditional polytheism during the Later Roman Empire were deliberately and systematically destroyed by zealous Christians. Reliable textual evidence of early medieval ‘paganism’ is even more limited, since our primary source for non-Christian beliefs and rituals comes from church documents with little interest in offering impartial descriptions of these practices (Dowden 2000). In the eastern Alps, almost all of our historical knowledge for early medieval religious activity comes from the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (‘Conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians’), a document written in the 780s at the Archbishopric of Salzburg. Although scholars are certainly aware of the inherent bias in these

sources, the profound asymmetry in the written record has subtly encouraged generations of historians to adopt the ‘polemics of the victor’ (MacMullen 1997, 2). This makes it difficult not only to reconstruct European paganism in any detail, but also to understand how these communities perceived this new ideology and what factors contributed to their eventual conversion.

In recent decades, archaeological research has proven an important complement to the textual sources for our understanding of the spread of Christianity in the first millennium AD, arguably providing a more balanced picture of the topography of religious belief during this enigmatic period (Carver 2003; Petts 2007). However, as archaeologists are often the first to admit, the material record — particularly as it relates to questions of religion and belief — comes with its own set of ambiguities and limitations (Hawkes 1954). Take, for example, the identification of burials as ‘Christian’ or ‘pagan’. While a variety of elements have traditionally been used to identify religious affiliation (inhumation vs. cremation, presence and type of grave goods, burial orientation, etc.), it is increasingly clear that these characteristics are just as often the product of sociopolitical variables other than religious identity (Young 1999). Moreover, in many instances religious belief and ritual practice leave no discernible material traces. The question of whether any early medieval non-Christian cultic structures have been identified in east-central Europe remains a contentious issue (Macháček and Pleterski 2000; cf. Curta 2008, 162).

Conceptual Challenges

The fragmentary nature of the textual and material evi-dence is not the only reason for our limited understanding of the transformation of sacred landscapes during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. A number of theoretical problems with the concept of ‘Christiani-zation’ must also be recognized. For example, not enough intellectual attention has been given to the mechanism by which Christianity spread in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, since rarely does the textual or material record provide insight into the intensely personal process of conversion. Many traditional church historians have credited the inherent appeal of the Christian message, or the zeal of early proselytizers, to the success of early Christianity. More recently, ‘secular’ scholars have primarily understood its rapid spread as a byproduct of the realpolitik decisions of sociopolitical elite. In other words, once the emperor, king, or nobility decided to adopt Christianity (for politically expedient reasons, of course!), the subsequent conversion of the ‘masses’ is generally regarded as a fait accompli. The assumption of a ‘trickle-down’ effect (Petts 2007, 23) in the spread of Christianity is not only vague and poorly theorized, but it is guilty of reducing religious belief to other factors (e.g. social, political, military). In other words, as William Kilbride has observed:

If Christianity was only ever a veneer, then the lack of mechanisms for its replication and dissemination present us with little real problem. If, however


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unfashionably, we think that at some point at least someone in Europe might have been Christian, or that someone might have made that claim, then we are supposed to believe that the mechanisms that performed this stunt existed entirely outwith the religious frame (Kilbride 2000, 12).

Although we can reasonably posit that some conversions were spurred by genuine spiritual epiphanies, while others were simply pragmatic decisions to facilitate social advancement or avoid persecution, this rather obvious fact does not get us very far. Rather, a complementary ‘bottom-up’ approach to Christianization is needed — one that focuses less on which particular kings decided to convert, and more on reasons why this new religious orientation was able to so rapidly diffuse throughout the Roman, Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic worlds. In order to do this, we need to reject the notion that Christianization was a wholesale change from one distinct, homogeneous, and unchanging cosmology to another, and re-conceptualize it as a syncretic blending of old and new beliefs (Kilbride 2000, 8). While church leadership often perceived a struggle between two incompatible worldviews, in practice, the divisions between ‘Christianity’ and ‘paganism’ were far more blurred, particularly outside of the educated elite (Delumeau 1971; Schmitt 1983). We should also remember, as Pluskowski and Patrick (2003) have pointed out, there was never one authentic or ‘pure’ Christianity, but always multiple, fluid, and heterogeneous Christianities. How these Christianities emerged within the socio-religious framework of the Late Antique and Early Medieval world is the focus of the remainder of this chapter.

Christianization, Syncretism, and becoming a ‘Full Service Religion’

How might we explain the rapid dissemination of Christianity among the broader populations of the Late Roman and Early Medieval world beyond the ‘intrinsic appeal’ of its message, or simply as a ‘trickle down’ from elite conversions? One potentially fruitful alternative was articulated nearly a century ago by the eminent French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs:

Above all when a society transforms its religion, it advances somewhat into unknown territory…Society is aware that the new religion is not an absolute beginning. The society wishes to adopt these larger and deeper beliefs without entirely rupturing the framework of notions in which it has matured up until this point. That is why at the same time that the society projects into its past conceptions were recently elaborated, it is also intent on incorporating into the new religion elements of old cults that are assimilable into a new framework. Society must persuade its members that they already carry these beliefs within themselves at least partially, or even that they will recover beliefs which had been rejected some time ago…Even at the moment that it is evolving, society returns to its past. It enframes the new elements that it pushes to the forefront in a totality of remembrances,

traditions, and familiar ideas (Halbwachs 1992, 86, emphasis added).

This passage explains how social change must always be framed within a group’s perceptions of the past — what Halbwachs famously referred to as the ‘collective memory’. These insights suggest that the rise of Christianity in the first millennium AD must be understood within the wider context of the non-Christian cultures and religions in which it was introduced. We must therefore consider how Christianity was able to take hold within pagan societies, becoming firmly rooted in day-to-day habits and experiences, by acknowledging the ‘totality of remembrances, traditions, and familiar ideas’ among the broader population.

In recent decades, a growing number of historians have taken up this line of inquiry by exploring the myriad ways in which Christianity absorbed, borrowed, and transformed elements of traditional Roman culture and religion into its own metaphysical framework. Roman historian Ramsay MacMullen (1997, 154) has argued that this strategy of appropriation allowed Christianity to evolve into a ‘full service religion’ that could effectively attend to the basic psychological and emotional needs of its adherents. The writings of early bishops reveal that many newly-converted Christians in the Late Roman Empire were skeptical that an all-powerful God would be concerned with the minutiae of their everyday lives. So while pagans could call upon a range of supernatural intercessors to help with daily challenges, Christians had not yet developed their own ‘special language of gestures and symbols in which to express their feelings or their wishes to, or regarding, the divine’ (ibid, 150). Simply put, who could Christians call upon if a family member fell ill, or to ask for a bountiful harvest, or to petition during personal crises? Similar concerns would be expressed as Christianity encountered the indigenous polytheistic religions of the Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic worlds (Russell 1994; Walter 2006).

This psychological desire for divine intermediaries would be met by the Christian cult that developed around the saints and angels (Brown 1981), where, in many cases, the shift from pagan to Christian patrons entailed little more than a change in name. For example, in the early medieval southeastern Alps, the qualities and characteristics of the three most important Slavic gods (Veles, Mokoš, and Perun) were simply transferred onto St Stephen, the Virgin Mary, and St George, respectively (Štular and Hrovatin 2002, 47). Philippe Walter (2006, 183) has argued that in the Celtic world, ‘medieval hagiography was the machine used for Christianizing the old European myths…hagiographic legends or the passions of the martyrs are often nothing but potpourris of features borrowed from folk tradition’ (cf. Kravanja 2006, 54). Alongside the cult of the dead, Christianity also appropriated the pagan calendar, placing liturgical holidays (e.g. Christmas, Carnival, and Easter) on the dates of pagan festivals (Walter 2006). In ritual contexts, the use of altars, bell-ringing, offerings of incense and candlelight, as well as the apotropaic power of placing


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crosses in doorways and the singing of psalms were all borrowed from extant pagan traditions (MacMullen 1997, 103-49). Valerie Flints (1991) makes a similar point in her seminal study of magic in early medieval Europe, revealing how the practice of astrology, belief in the agency of angels and demons, and the mystical ‘power of the cross’ must be understood as an extension of magical thinking already prevalent in the non-Christian worldview of the population.

Documents from early church councils reveal that the ecclesiastical leadership was generally aware of, and often concerned with, the Christian borrowing of pagan beliefs, practices, and mythology (Grinsell 1986; Flint 1991). Yet local bishops were forced to walk a tight line between the enforcement of Christian orthodoxy and making their religion comprehensible and appealing to the populace. This made compromises often a matter of necessity. As Walter (2006, 184) has observed: ‘Christianity would have had no chance of imposing itself in the West if, on certain points of dogma and rites, it had not responded to the religious needs of the converted pagans.’ James Russell (1994, 211) has likewise argued that the spread of Christianity into the Germanic world required a deliberate obscuring of the inherent ideological disparities between Christian and Germanic worldviews in order to expedite the spread of the faith. While church authorities often justified this accommodation by assuming that more rigorous ethical and dogmatic training would follow the initial wave of conversion, this rarely occurred.

Christian Appropriation of Sacred Landscapes: Historical and Archaeological Evidence

Appropriating Sacred Pagan Places

One key strategy for inserting Christianity within the established cosmological framework of European paganism was the appropriation of sacred spaces. The religious topography of pre-Christian Europe was filled with such numinous places; mountains, caves, streams, lakes, trees, and stones were often seen as potential conduits for contact with the preternatural world (Dowden 2000). This sacred geography was deeply embedded in people’s cognitive maps and daily routines — an indispensable component of their spiritual habitus. While such traditions and customs would not be easily forgotten or abandoned, they could be subtly redirected (Grinsell 1986, 27). Although some Christians favored the complete abandonment of pagan spaces, which they viewed as demonic or ritually polluted, many bishops adopted a more pragmatic approach. One of the most famous examples of this attitude comes from a letter sent from Pope Gregory I to the Abbot Milletus of London in AD 601, in which the pope encourages the conversion of pagan temples into Christian sanctuaries with the hope ‘that they should be changed from the worship of devils to the service of the true God.’

When this people (sic) see that their shrines are not destroyed they will be able to banish error from their

hearts and be more ready to come to the places they are familiar with, but now recognizing and worship-ping the one true God (quoted in Howe 1997, 67).

Although the direct transformation of pagan temples into Christian churches was relatively rare, for both practical and ideological reasons (Ward-Perkins 2003; Bayliss 2004), more common was the Christian ‘re-branding’ of pagan sacred places, particularly those associated with nature (Grinsell 1986; Davies and Robb 2002). For example, in his In Gloria Confessorum, Gregory of Tours (AD 538-94) provides an account of a sacred lake on Mount Helarius (France) that the local population would frequently visit to give offerings or animal sacrifices. After preaching against such practices proved ineffective, the local bishop decided to build a chapel to St Hilarius next to the lake, encouraging the local people to use the saint, rather than water god, as their protector and intercessor (Flint 1991, 255). A similar story is found in the village of Divača (Slovenia), where local women having difficulty conceiving would pray for help to the god Triglav at a nearby rock shelter. In response, the church built nearby a chapel to St Francis of Paula, a saint who also assisted with such troubles (Čok 2012, 174). Moreover, the fact that over one-third of all active Christian pilgrimage sites in contemporary Europe are associated with natural places (trees, grottos, streams, and stones) indicates the widespread nature of this practice (Nolan 1986).

There is also growing archaeological evidence for the Christian appropriation of pagan sacred spaces. At the site of Gradina Zecovi near Prijedor in northern Bosnia, an early Christian church was built in the fifth century only a few meters away from where excavations uncovered evidence of a taurobolium ritual, a wide-spread cultic practice in the ancient Mediterranean that involved the bloody sacrifice of a bull to the ‘Great Mother Goddess’ (Ciglenečki 1999b, 25; cf. Duthoy 1969). Similarly, recent excavations at the hilltop settlement of Tonovcov grad in western Slovenia have uncovered traces of a Late Iron Age cult site situated directly beneath a large Late Antique ecclesiastical complex. The presence of fibula fragments, bronze rings, glass beads, military artifacts, and an offering plate — taken with the absence of ceramics — is typical for ritual sites in this region (Božič 2011, 267-69; Milavec 2012, 478). While no structural remains of a sanctuary have yet been uncovered, they may have been destroyed in the construction of the Late Antique churches, or may simply have left a very faint archaeological footprint (Figure 2).

A third example for the Christian appropriation of sacred places is evident at the site of the Hemmaberg in southern Austria, which was the largest and most important Christian ecclesiastical complex in the Late Antique and Early Medieval eastern Alpine region. The discovery of a dedicatory inscription (Weihinschrift) in one of the churches, combined by local toponymic evidence, strongly suggests that a sanctuary to the Celtic god Iovenat was previously located at this hilltop site (Glaser 1982, 12). A local grotto with natural springs below the


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Figure 2. Iron Age artifacts from structure 1 at Tonovcov grad, drawn by D. Knific Lunder. 1 – bronze; 2 – glass; 3-5 iron; 6 – gilded bronze (after Milavec 2012, 479)

site, today dedicated to St Rosalia, provides another example of the transformation of an old pagan sacred place into a Christian shrine, like those described above (Ladstätter 2001).

Appropriating Sacred Pagan Landscapes

The Christian appropriation of pagan sacred geography in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages occurred not only at individual sites, but often across entire landscapes. Archaeologists have explored the impact of Christianity on landscapes in early medieval Scandinavia (Fabech 1999; Andrén 2013), England (Turner 2006; Foster 2008), and Spain (Oubiña et al. 1998), but the most dramatic example comes from the Alpine region of Churraetia, today in eastern Switzerland. Drawing on an array of archaeological research, Randon Jerris (2002) has argued that not only were Christian churches placed on top of pagan ritual sites, but they were also built on astronomically significant places in the landscape. By examining the location of Early Medieval churches on Alpine ‘sun-terraces’ across the region, Jerris was able to demonstrate their alignment with important solar events — such as N55°E and S56°E — marking the precise location of the sunrise on the summer and winter solstices, respectively (Jerris 2002, 94). Jerris further hypothesizes that these churches were all built on top of prehistoric astronomical markers, such as menhirs or megaliths, which organized the pre-Christian agricultural and ritual calendar.

Farther east in the Alps, a similar line of interdisciplinary research has been undertaken by Andrej Pleterski (1996),

who argues that the Early Medieval landscape was organized around the pre-Christian ideology of tročan, which connects the three basic forces of nature with symbolic points in the landscape: (1) fire, oriented towards the ‘high place’ of the thunder god Perun, (2) earth, represented by Veles, god of the underworld, and (3) water, embodied by the goddess Mokoš (see also Čok 2012). Pleterski contends that important sacred places in the landscape (graveyards, shrines, churches, place-names, etc.) associated with these forces are each aligned along a 23° angle, which reflects the angle of the sun from due east and west at the solstices (at midwinter solstice, it is 23° south of east/west, and at midsummer solstice it is 23° north of east/west) (Figure 5). While the names of these places were often switched from pagan gods to saints after Christianization, the basic pattern and structure of the landscape remained largely intact (cf. Kravanja 2006, 54).

Some scholars have been wary of this line of research, and particularly skeptical about the validity of folkloric and philological data for reconstructing Early Medieval religious landscapes (e.g. Curta 2008). While the synthesis of historical, archaeological, and ethnographic datasets has the potential to provide a powerful interdisciplinary model for investigation past landscapes, one cannot afford to ignore the different nature of these categories of evidence. As Pluskowski and Patrick (2003, 43) have warned, projecting folklore back onto the distant past ‘is dangerous because it may reflect potential re-inventions within the framework of the Christian paradigm.’


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Appropriating Sacred Pagan Objects

A final means by which the early church capitalized on the extant ‘power’ of pre-Christian religions was through the incorporation of pagan objects into their physical structures. While the reuse of old materials (spolia) in new architectural constructions was a common practice during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Esch 2011), most known examples were used for political purposes. For example, the emperors Constantine, Theodoric, and Charlemagne all sought out spolia for their monumental construction projects, probably as a way to legitimize their political authority by emphasizing continuity with the past (Brenk 1987). Although less well studied, religious spolia — such as stone blocks featuring inscriptions or images of pagan gods — have been found in Late Antique and Early Medieval churches across Europe. Examples from the eastern Alps include the aforementioned Hemmaberg, where the name of the pagan god Iovenat is preserved on an altar discovered in the Late Antique church (Šašel Kos 1999, 41). Similarly, at the Late Antique site of Rifnik in eastern Slovenia, two stone pillars with inscriptions to the local water divinity Aquo were reused in the construction of an early fifth century church (Bolta 1981; Šašel Kos 2008; Figure 3). A third example in this region comes from the Late Antique ecclesiastical complex at Kučar in southeastern Slovenia, where excavations have uncovered a smashed altar dedicated to Jupiter, which had been reused for one of the smaller podiums in the lower church (Dular et al., 1995, 137; Figure 4). This latter case has striking parallels with an example from Fontaine-Valmont in Hainault (Belgi-um), where a ‘Jupiter-Giant’ column was found suppor-ting a chapel dedicated to St Wido (Dierkins 1998, 42; Faider-Feytmans 1978). It should be noted that the reuse of spolia in churches does not necessarily indicate that they were built directly over pagan sanctuaries. The Aquo pillars at Rifnik, for example, probably originally stood at a shrine alongside a nearby stream (Šašel Kos 2008, 282).

While the propagandistic value of using spolia in political monuments is obvious, why would Christians have deliberately incorporated pagan imagery and inscriptions into their houses of worship? Although it is possible that spolia were simply sought out as high quality building materials, some scholars have argued this practice had more ideologically significant purposes. Incorporating such pagan objects into newly constructed churches may have been an attempt to assign them a new meaning, thereby neutralizing their magical powers (Esch 2011, 26; Camille 1989, 74). Perhaps it represented a ‘symbolic conquest’ over paganism and a ‘conscious statement of the victory of the new religion’ (Schnapp 1997, 88; Dierkins 1998, 42). There is also some evidence that such objects were thought to have the ability to ward off evil spirits (Camille 1992). Whatever the reasons, this practice continued throughout the Middle Ages, and was even brought to the New World by Spanish missionaries, who incorporated the broken remains of pre-Hispanic god idols into Catholic churches across Mesoamerica, under the explicit instructions of Holy Roman Emperor Carlos V (Hamann 2008, 813).

Figure 3. Column dedicated to Aquo from Rifnik (after Šašel Kos 2008, 283)

Figure 4. Smashed Jupiter altar from Kučar (after Dular 1995, 137)


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Figure 5. Orientation of early medieval sites in Bled region, Slovenia (after Pleterski 1996, 172)

Persistence of Pagan Practices?

Looming over the discussion of the Christian appropriation of pagan sacred landscapes is the question concerning the persistence of actual pagan beliefs and practices. It is important to recognize the distinction between the incorporation of pagan rituals and motifs within an explicitly Christian framework extensively explored above, and the continued practice of consciously non-Christian systems of belief. For example, while there are numerous cases of festivals and traditions in the Alpine region that almost certainly have their historical roots in pre-Christian rituals (Kuret 1984; Ciglenečki 1999b; Jerris 2002, 97), this does not mean that the participants in these festivities actively subscribe to a pagan cosmology. I would like to briefly conclude this chapter by considering whether pagan belief systems endured in secret after the advent of Christianity, and, if so, for how long.

While institutional paganism had all but collapsed in the Roman Empire by the end of the fourth century, we

cannot assume that this meant the complete disappearance of pagan practices across the empire (Caseau 2004, 137). Indeed, as adherents to traditional Roman polytheism became increasingly socially marginalized in the urban centers, paganism enjoyed a short-lived revival in the countryside. Worship at nature shrines particularly experienced a temporary renewal, as they constituted the last refuge for pagan piety (Lavan 2011). There is some tantalizing archaeological evidence in the eastern Alpine-Adriatic region for the continued practice of paganism after the Edict of Thessalonica (AD 380) made Nicene Christianity the only legal religion of the empire. The temple to Mars-Latobius at the site of St Margarethen in Laventtal in Carinthia (Austria) continued to be actively used at least until the end of the fourth century, as evidenced by a coin issued during the reign of Arcadius (AD 395-408) (Ladstätter 2000, 222-3). The temple of Isis-Noreia on the nearby Ulrichsberg was not destroyed until the end of the fifth century (Alföldy 1974, 211). Yet, the most interesting case for the persistence of pagan practices comes from the small hilltop settlement of Tinje in Loka pri Žusmu in eastern Slovenia, which


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was occupied from the late fourth through end of the sixth century. What appear to be the remains of a small stone structure were uncovered at the edge of this site. The associated burned animal bones and coin minted during the reign of Valentinius I (AD 367-75) suggest that this may have been used as a pagan sacrificial altar (Ciglenečki 2000, 43). Even more interesting is that this altar is located in close proximity to a contemporaneous children’s graveyard with Christian iconography on the sarcophagi. While we cannot prove the contemporaneity of these two religious traditions, it provides an intriguing possibility for peaceful coexistence or syncretism.

While direct material evidence for pagan practices disappears as we move into the Middle Ages, written sources occasionally allow us to infer the continuation of such beliefs. For example, Early Medieval church councils at Arles (AD 443-52), Tours (AD 567), and Toledo (AD 681) explicitly condemned the worship of springs, wells, stones, or other natural phenomena (Šašel Kos 1999, 23). These prohibitions would only have been necessary if such practices continued among the peasant population. Even as late as the fourteenth century, the bishop at Cividale (Italy) organized a crusade against the inhabitants of the town of Kobarid because they allegedly continued to worship a holy tree and natural spring (Milavec 2012, 484). Of course, it is important to carefully weigh the credibility of accusations of pagan belief, which could be merely false pretenses to malign political enemies or an excuse to suppress a peasant uprising. Nevertheless, it is entirely plausible that small pockets of non-Christian belief could have existed outside the reach of church authorities, particularly in the remote villages of the Alps, which are well-known for maintaining traditional religious beliefs (Guillet et al., 1983). A recent ethnography by Boris Čok (2012) has claimed that non-Christian rituals continued to be covertly practiced in southwest Slovenia well into the nineteenth century! Even more controversially, he has argued that these so-called ‘Old Faith’ traditions were in fact authentic descendants of Early Medieval Slavic paganism, and not simply neo-pagan re-imaginings, such as Neo-Druidism or Wicca, which gained popularity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Almond 2000). While further research is necessary to confirm these provocative conclusions, there is no doubt that pre-Christian religions left a powerful, long-lasting imprint on the European landscape that is still discernible today.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Benjamin Štular and Tina Milavec for providing very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank Rachel Fazioli for her careful editing eye and Kurt Springs for the opportunity to contribute to this volume. All errors and omissions remain the sole responsibility of the author.

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