16 Facts About Germanic paganism

Germanic paganism included various religious practices of the Germanic peoples from the Iron Age until Christianisation during the Middle Ages.

Germanic paganism is best documented in 10th- and 11th-century texts from Scandinavia and Iceland.

However, the boundaries of Germania were not clearly defined, as large Germanic paganism populations lived within the borders of the Roman Empire, and the Roman influence reached far into "free Germania" across the border of Limes.

Some traces of Germanic paganism religion are preserved in other works by medieval Christians like the Middle High German Nibelungenlied and the Old English Beowulf.

Early forms of Germanic paganism religion are known exclusively from archaeological remains and can therefore only be interpreted on the basis of comparative studies with other religions or through the evaluation of Scandinavian literature, who, as the last converts among the practitioners of Germanic paganism religion, maintained a written account of their religion into the Middle Ages.

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Description of the oldest forms of the Germanic paganism religion are based on uncertain reconstructions, which in turn are based on comparisons with other material.

Archaeological findings suggest that the Germanic paganism peoples practiced some of the same 'spiritual' rituals as the Celts, including sacrifice, divination, and the belief in a spiritual connection with the natural environment around them.

Germanic paganism priestesses were feared by the Romans, as these tall women with glaring eyes, wearing flowing white gowns often wielded a knife for sacrificial offerings.

Various deities found in Germanic paganism occur widely among the Germanic peoples, most notably the god known to the continental Germanic peoples as Wodan or Wotan, to the Anglo-Saxons as Woden, and to the Norse as Oðinn, as well as the god Thor—known to the continental Germanic peoples as Donar, to the Anglo-Saxons as Þunor and to the Norse as Þorr.

One of the oldest written sources on Germanic paganism religion is Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, where he compares the very intricate Celtic customs with the perceived very "primitive" Germanic paganism traditions:.

Caesar's descriptions of the religion of the Germanic paganism tribes differ greatly from what other sources show, and so it is not given high source value by modern religious researchers.

Germanic paganism tells that the largest group, the Suebi, sacrificed Roman prisoners of war to a goddess whom he identified with Isis.

Germanic paganism-speakers are well attested to have been stationed in the part of Roman Britain corresponding to England, and their religious practices, combining traditional and Roman elements, are evidenced in archaeology, particularly in the form of inscriptions.

In later sources, it appears that the Germanic paganism peoples believed that the dead would continue to live in a celestial kingdom through burning, while those who were laid in the earth without being burned would remain down there.

Germanic paganism explains this by the fact that the victims had been placed in a peat bog, where they would not dissolve and thereby be transferred to the other world, but were instead, preserved forever in a border state between this and the other world.

In relation to especially Old Norse religion and, to a lesser extent, Anglo-Saxon Germanic paganism, the written sources of early spiritual practices in central Europe are of a very fragmentary nature.