Chapter 5

These few incidental notices of priests give us anything but a complete view of their functions (see Suppl.). On them doubtless devolved also th performance of public prayers, the slaying of victims, the consecration of the kings and of corpses, perhaps of marriages too, the admimistering of oaths, and many other duties. Of their attire, their isignia and gradations, we hear nothing at all; once Tacitus cap. 43 speaks of a sacerdos muliebri ornatu, but gives no details. No doubt the priests formed a separate, possibly a hereditary order, though not so powerful and influential as in Gaul. Probably, beside that sacerdos civitatis, there were higher and lower ones. Only one is cited by name, the Cattian, i.e. Hessian, Libes in Strabo (Aibhj twn Cattwn iereuj), who with other German prisoners was dragged to Rome in the pompa of Germanicus. Of him Tacitus (so far as we still have him) is silent. (5) Jornandes's statement is worthy of notice, that the Gothic priests were termed pileati in distinction from the rest of the people, the capillati, and that during sacrifice they had the head covered with a hat; conf. RA. 271 (see Suppl.). Oðinn is called Siðhöttr, broadhat.

The succeeding period, down to the introduction of christianity, scarcely yields any information on the condition of the priesthood in continental Germany; their existence we infer from that of temples and sacrifices. A fact of some importance has been preserved by Beda, Hist. eccl. 2, 13: a heathen priest of the Anglo-Saxons was forbidden to carry arms or to ride a male horse: Non enim licuerat, pontificem sacrorum vel arma ferre, vel praeterquam in equa equitare. Can this have any connexion with the regulation which, it is true, can be equally explained from the Bible, that christian clergymen, when riding about the country, should be mounted on asses and colts, not horses (RA. 86-88) ? Festus also remarks; Equo vehi flamini diali non licebat, ne, si longius digrederetur, sacra neglegerentur (see Suppl.). The transmission of such customs, which have impressed themselves on the habits of life, would seem to have been quite admissible. I shall try elsewhere to show in detail, how a good deal in the gestures and attitudes prescribed for certain legal transactions savours of priestly ceremony at sacrifice and prayer (see Suppl.). It is not unlikely, as heathen sacred places were turned into christian ones, that it was also thought desirable amongst a newly converted people to attract their former priests to the service of the new religion. They were the most cultivated portion of the people, the most capable of comprehending the christian doctrine and recommending it to their countrymen. From the ranks of the heathen priesthood would therefore proceed both the bitterest foes and the warmest partizans of innovation. (6) The collection of the Letters of Boniface has a passage lamenting the confusion of christian and heathen rites, into which foolish or reckless and guilty priests had suffered themselves to fall. (7) This might have been done in blameless ignorance or from deliberate purpose, but scarcely by any men except such as were previously familiar with heathenism.

Even the Norse priesthood is but very imperfectly delineated in the Eddas and sagas. A noteworthy passage in the Ynglingasaga cap. 2 which regards the Ases altogether as colonists from Asia, and their residence Asgard as a great place of sacrifice, makes the twelve principle Ases sacrificial priests (hofgoðar): skyldu þeir râða fyrir blôtum ok dômum manna î milli (they had to advise about sacrifices and dooms); and it adds, that they had been named dîar (divi) and drôttnar (domini). This representation, though it be but a conjecture of Snorri's, shows the high estimation in which the priestly order stood, so that gods themselves were placed at the head of sacrifices and judgments. But we need not therefore confound dîar and drôttnar with real human priests.

I must draw attention to the fact, that certain men who stood nearer to the gods by services and veneration, and priests first of all, are entitled friends of the gods (8) (see Suppl.) Hence such names as Freysvinr, AS. Freáwine [[[Lord-friend, Fréa's friend]]], Bregowine [[[Prince-friend]]] for heroes and kings (see ch. X, Frôwin). According to Eyrbygg, pp. 6, 8, 16, 26, Rôlfr was a Thôrs vinr; he had a hof of that god on a meadow, and was therefore named Thôrrôlfr, he dedicated to him his son Steinn and named him Thôrsteinn, who again dedicated his son Grimr to the god and named him Thôrgrîmr; by this dedicating (gefa), was meant the appointing to the office of goði or priest. And (according to Landn. 2, 23) Hallstein gave his son as goði to Thôrr. Here we see the priestly office running on through several generations (see Suppl.). However, Odysseus is also called Aioloj filoj aqanatoisi qeoisi, Od. 10, 2; but then in Od. 10, 21 he is tamihj anemwn, director of winds, therefore a priest.

How deeply the priestly office in the North encroached on the administration of justice, need not be insisted on here; in their judicial character the priests seem to have exercised a good deal of control over the people, whereas little is said of their political influence at the courts of kings; on this point it is enough to read the Nialssaga. In Iceland, even under christianity, the judges retained the name and several of the functions of heathen goðar, Grâgâs 1, 109-113. 130. 165. Convents, and at the same time state-farmers, especially occupiers of old sanctuaries (see p. 85, note) apparently continue in the Mid. Ages to have peculiar privileges, on which I shall enlarge in treating of weisthümer [[[legal precedents]]]. They have the keeping of the country cauldron, or weights and measures, and above all, the brood-animals, to which great favour is shown everywhere (see Suppl.)

The goði is also called a blôtmaðr (sacrificulus), bliotr (Egilssaga p. 209), but all blôtmenn need not be priests; the word denoted rather any participant in sacrifices, and afterwards, among christians, the heathen in general. It tallies with the passage in Tacitus about the paterfamilias, that any iarl or hersir (baron) might perform sacrifice, though he was not a priest. Saxo Gramm. p. 176 relates of Harald after his baptism: Delubra diruit, victimarios proscripsit, flaminium abrogavit. By victimarii he must mean blôtmenn, by flamens the priests. He tells us on p. 104, that at the great Upsala sacrifices plausus, ac mollia nolarum crepitacula; Greek antiquity has also something to tell of choruses and dances of priests.  



ENDNOTES:

5. Libes might be Leip, Lêb, O.N. Leifr, Goth. Láibs? A var. lect. has Aibuj.  (back)

6. Just as the Catholic clergy furnished as well the props as the opponents of the Reformation. The notable example of a heathen priest abjuring his ancient faith, and even putting forth his hand to destroy the temple he had once held sacred, has been quoted from Beda on p. 82. This priest was an English, not a British one, though Beda, evidently for the mere purpose of more exactly marking his station, designates him by a Gaelic word Coifi (choibi, choibhidh, cuimhi, see Jamieson, supplement sub. v. coivie, archdruid). Coifi is not a proper name, even in Gaelic; and it is incredible that Eadwine king of Northumbria should have adopted the British religion, and maintained a British priest.  (back)

7. Ed. Würdtw. 82. Serr. 140: Pro sacrilegis itaque presbyteris, ut scripsisti, qui tauros et hircos diis paganorum immolabant, manducantes sacrificia mortuorum.................modo vero incognitum esse, utrum baptizantes trinitatem dixissent an non, &c.----Connect with this the presbyter Jovi mactans, Ep. 25.  (back)

8. The MHG. poets still bestow on hermits and monks the epithets gotes friunt, gotes degen (þegn, warrior). In the Renner 24587, St. Jost is called heiliger gotes kneht (chiht, servant). [See however 'servus dei, famulus dei' passim in the lives of saints].  (back)