[gothic-l] Re: [Germanic-L] Early medieval topoi

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hi Dirk!

>I am not saying that legends are worth nothing. I am saying that we 
>have to understand the evolution and origin of certain topoi that were 
>imbedded in the legends in order to extract the truth. 

As a matter of fact, I posted to this group about a year ago,
something I read in W. Menghin's book, that it was a _Roman_ legend
that Barbarians came from "Scanza" and that this legend was hung
around their necks as soon as they came to Rome.

(because "Scanza" was the only place the Romans had ever heard about
in the far North. It is like me coming to America. Nobody knows
where "Norway" is. And so I have to say I'm from "Europe", which
made no sense to me, because "Europe" isn't a country. And so it can't
be a "home" the same way a country can. But after a while I was stuck
with it, and I just had to nod and say "I'm from Europe". That was
the easiest solution. Otherwise I'd have endless conversations with
every sales person or waiter or cab dribver, or whatever, explaining
about geography and Sweden, and then explaining that Sweden wasn't
Norway, and that Denmark has no mountains etc.. etc..
So there you see how ignorance can "create" an identity, as well
as a place of origin.)


>
>
>
>
>
>> >Jordanes also alludes to a biblical origin of the Goths, which also 
>> 
>> Here I think you are being inconsistent.
>> You refer to Scanza, Troy and "the Bible".
>> So the Goths either came out of Scandinavia, or out of Troy, or out 
>of the Bible???
>
>
>It is not me who is inconsistent here, but the ancient historians who 
>applied different origin topoi that were 'in the air' to the same 
>people. By analysing the topoi used by Jordanes/Cassiodorus we can 
>clarify their intentions. For one thing they had to supply the Scandza 
>topos that any learned Roman senator was expecting for the origin of 
>'barbarians' from the north. The learned Roman would have expected to 
>read about overpopulation, the lengths of days and the harsh climate 
>that earlier geographers had already described. Next, in order to 
>allow for a peaceful acceptance of Gothic rule, Cassiodorus must have 
>been keen to set the Goths on equal footing with the Romans by giving 
>them a Troyan-heritage, which was most admired by Romans. The 
>identification with Magog is only very vague in Jordanes, but moves to 
>the foreground for other authors and had a similar aim I suppose. 
>Also, around was likely a Britannia topos at the time, which Jordanes 
>is also aluding to.
>
Hm.. I ssuppose you didn't understand what I was referring to.
You can say: "There were three topoi(=places?), and they were
Scanza, Troy and Lebanon" (for example).
Or you can say: "The three topoi were the Brahmin Vedas, certain 
Ægyptian sacred scrolls and the Septuaginta."

In the first case you mention 3 geographical areas as "topoi".
In the second case you mention 3 kinds of scriptures; and presumably
certain barabarians can originate in certain types of writing,
but in the latter case it is the idea of them, rather than the actual
people who have come from the scriptures.

Of course in practice, when all we have are certain traditions,
the people themselves and the ideas people may have had about them 
do merge into a kind of mist. But from a logical point of view
the two kinds of topoi are qualitatively different 


>But I think they do contradict each other. The Saxons either came from 
> Macedonia, or from Scandinavia or from Britannia and the Goths were 
>either identical with Magog or they were the decendents of the Getians 
>and Troyans or they came from Scandza. The interesting thing is that 
>the contradictions were acceptable at the time. 

Yes, to us who can sit here with exact maps that objectively
display the globe as fact (e.g. a satellite photo: we "see" the
globe directly. We can even dispense with the idea of a map 
as intermediary), it is a contradiction to say that the Saxons
originate both in Macedonia and Scandinavia.
But for the people back then, who were geographically seriously
misinformed, it may not have been perceived as a contradiction.
That is what I meant.



>> Doesn't the Historia Langobardorum say the Langobards used
>> to live on an island? How can a whole nation come from an island
>> without crossing water? In fact, the "Historia" repeats this many 
>many times.
>
>Yes, I meant the Langobardic histories don't record the actual 
>primodial deed of crossing a large body of water that is important in 
>other legends.

Well, I read through the "oistoria" several times this morning,
looking for a quote I believe I once saw. I didn't find it, but
I did find some odd-looking place names where the Langobards
are supposed to have lived. One of them sounded like "Bornholm".
The other two I am not sure about.


>
>No, I meant that these genuine Germanic legends had similar and 
>interchangeable components, which should make as weary about 
>interpreting too much into the report that, for instance, that the 
>Goths but also the Saxons arrived in 3 ships etc. 
>
Well, that actually is a good point. It was like a kind of
standard story; a "package deal". If you accept one item in the
package, you have to take take all the other items in the package.

For example the "Hengist" and "Horsa" could actually have 
been the poles of the Saxon High seat, that may have been carved with
horses' heads, because that was the Saxon custom. The poles may also
have been symbolic images of certain ancestors. It says the same thing
about Aenaeas too: When he left Troy he carried his father Anchises on
his back, and he also took wuith hime the house gods - presumably
some wooden idols.

You hear the same thing about the Vikings, who chose what place to settle
on Iceland, by casting the carved poles of the high seat overboard
and establishing themselves where the poles drifted ashore. A kind
of sacred oracle, if you like (the random elements, the currents and
the waves) that showed them the best possible place for settlement.
A bit like the oracle Cadmus followed when he founded the city of
Thebes, where his instructions were to follow a white heifer.
So the white heifer, or the wooden poles, represent the divine element
(or oracle) that guides the settlers to the new land.
But the poles also represent the ancestors and are carved with
typical Saxon horses heads, and are called "hengist" and "horsa".
Well that certainly makes sense !

Best regards
keth





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