Pagan and Christian: Religious Change in Early Medieval Europe

144 Pages·2011·0.6 MB·English

by  David Petts

Pagan and Christian
DEBATES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
Series editor: Richard Hodges
Against Cultural Property John Carman
Archaeology: The Conceptual Challenge Timothy Insoll
Archaeology and International Development in Africa
Colin Breen & Daniel Rhodes
Archaeology and Text John Moreland
Archaeology and the Pan-European Romanesque
Tadhg O’Keeffe
Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians Peter S. Wells
Bronze Age Textiles Klavs Randsborg
Combat Archaeology John Schofield
Debating the Archaeological Heritage Robin Skeates
Early Islamic Syria Alan Walmsley
Ethics and Burial Archaeology Colin Breen and Daniel Rhodes
Gerasa and the Decapolis David Kennedy
Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire Kim Bowes
Image and Response in Early Europe Peter S. Wells
Indo-Roman Trade Roberta Tomber
Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership Colin Renfrew
Lost Civilization: The Contested Islamic Past in Spain and
PortugalJames L. Boone
Museums and the Construction of Disciplines
Christopher Whitehead
The Origins of the English Catherine Hills
Pagan and Christian: Religious Change in Early Medieval
Europe David Petts
Rethinking Wetland Archaeology Robert Van de Noort &
Aidan O’Sullivan
The Roman Countryside Stephen Dyson
Shipwreck Archaeology of the Holy Land Sean Kingsley
Social Evolution Mark Pluciennik
State Formation in Early China Li Liu & Xingcan Chen
Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne Richard Hodges
Villa to VillageRiccardo Francovich & Richard Hodges
Pagan and Christian
Religious Change in Early
Medieval Europe
David Petts
Bristol Classical Press
First published in 2011 by
Bristol Classical Press
an imprint of
Bloomsbury Academic
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
36 Soho Square,
London W1D 3QY, UK
Copyright © 2011 by David Petts
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
CIP records for this book are available from the
British Library and the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-0-7156-3754-8
Typeset by Ray Davies
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
www.bloomsburyacademic.com
Contents
Acknowledgements 9
1. Early medieval religion in context 11
2. Approaching religion: archaeology and belief 30
3. Christianity and text 51
4. Deconstructing paganism 73
5. Religions in contact 97
Bibliography 117
Index 139
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To Jane, Isobel and Ned
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Acknowledgements
This book has taken far longer to write than originally in-
tended. This has been for domestic and intellectual reasons.
The former have included two job changes, two house moves
and two children. On the intellectual front, however, it rapidly
became clear that inside this slim book lay a huge and sprawl-
ing volume trying to escape. Much time was spent on writing
text that never made the final cut, although hopefully this will
emerge in other forms further down the line. If the writing of
this book took a long time, many of the ideas addressed here go
back much further. I have been thinking about archaeology and
religion ever since I started a PhD on early Christian burial in
Britain in the mid-1990s, although the frequent appearance of
Martin Carver in this work reflects the profound, if unacknow-
ledged, influence his work had on me as an overenthusiastic
undergraduate over twenty years ago.
Over the last fifteen years I have had a chance to explore and
exchange thoughts about early medieval Christianity and pa-
ganism with numerous colleagues and students. Many may not
even be aware that our discussions have helped shape the
arguments presented here. They have also been more than
helpful in providing practical assistance, particularly in the
shape of off-prints and pre-publication copies of new material –
inevitably exciting and relevant papers and volumes appear in
book catalogues just as one is trying to draw a line under one’s
writing. In particularly I would like to thank Howard Williams
and Sarah Semple in this respect. A special thanks must also
go to Deborah Blake of Bristol Classical Press for astounding
levels of patience.
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