[gothic-l] Re: Heruls - Religion

[trbrandt at POST9.TELE.DK]

Hi Dirk!

As far as I can se my first mail disappeared in the air, as a later
mail came through 30 minutes ago. Here is a similar version:

--- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at y..., trbrandt at p... wrote:

> > This could be the royal Herulian family -
> > according to Procopius a Gothic tribe. But please keep this out
> > of the argumentation at this stage, as I did not use it.
>
>
> Again, I belief that the name Ases simply means wooden beam or
wooden
> idol, (see Wolfram's  Rom und die Germanen). Tanais is apparently
the
> river that separated Europe from Asia in medieval thinking. I
suspect
> that medieval authors could have re-interpreted the name Ases as
Asia,
> as the meaning for wooden idol was lost.

I answered this in the other posting.

>
> One problem that I see with the Heruls as transmitter of a
Wodan/Odin
> cult to Scandinavia is that by 500AD I would have thought that the
> Heruls had adopted either a form of Christianity or some pagan
Roman
> cults given that they were often employed as mercenaries in the
Roman
> army. The Germanic people which came in direct contact with Rome
> adopted Christianity, with the Eastern tribes tending to adopt
> Christianity even earlier and more thoroughly than the western
tribes.
> It has been argued that the Langobards adopted Arian Christianity
when
> they were subject to the Heruls in Pannonia, possibly through the
> contact with the Heruls.
>

You are guessing too much about the Heruls.

The first Herulian mercenaries were probably Western Heruls (together
with Bataves) known in the 360'ies - and we do not know their
religion. The next 75 years the Eastern Heruls followed the Huns -
probably not leading against Christianity. In 508 the Lombardian
victory in the great battle between these Heruls and the Lombards was
explained by Procopius with the Lombards Christian faith - opposite
the Heruls. After the battle the royal family migrated to Scandinavia
with their supporters and the rest settled in Illyria where they were
forced to baptism by the Romans. This group were the mercenaries
Procopius described with disgust in 553, when he also mentioned their
former host of gods. His description had similarities to the
description Adam of Bremen used about the cult in Uppsala, and there
is no reason to doubt, that the migrating Heruls were pagan. Actually
I believe this to be one of the reasons why they left Southern
Europe, where the Christians were the winners and their Gothic allies
had problems with the Franks.

The story about the Illyrian Heruls, who against the will of
Justinian sent for a candidate of royal blood to the throne from
Scandinavia more than 1000 kilometres away leading to the final
disaster, indicates that this "Christian" group had not totally given
up the remains of a former ancestor cult.

Please read Procopius and not the interpretations of Goffart - as you
remember. You are also welcome at my Website about the Heruls:
http://www.geocities.com/troels_brandt/heruler.html

Regards
Troels



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