Polytheism in medieval europe

[Kamard]

Myself, I'd say that about the only thing that medieval Europe and a typical D&D world has in common is swords, land that people walk around on (sometimes), and humans. And then they don't all have swords, land, or humans.

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, there are divergences and anachronisms aplenty, but are you trying to say that the default setting for D&D is not medieval Britain/France? I still think that using the our own history is the easiest and best model on which to base the fictitious pseudo-medieval setting for D&D.

Yes, I'd say that. At best, it's technology somewhere in the same vicinity of medieval Britain/France. The society and culture, however, most definately is not.

 

[fusangite]

Having looked at the whole thread, I have something to add:

The enemy of polytheism is scholarship. A true polytheistic system is made up of stories and myths which are to some degree contradictory. The process of writing down and rationalising polytheism is the beginning of its destruction. The polytheism of the ancient Greeks was a religion largely of the past by the time it was written down and philosophy had taken the place of polytheistic religion. The real religion of Greece in the late classical period was philosophy; Gods like Zeus, Hera, Athena, etc. were already giving way to the Prime Mover envisioned by Aristotle or the creator imagined by Plato. Classical Greece was largely atheistic or monotheistic with the addition of mystery cults like that of Dionysus. Similarly, under the weight of classical scholarship imported from Greece, the Roman polytheistic system also soon began to collapse.

Once one introduces scholastic rigour and logic to a system of thought, the theological truths of polytheism become either inaccessible or nonsensical. Similarly, monotheistic religions in illiterate societies often manifest the characteristics of polytheistic religions.

One has to move east of Persia to see polytheistic traditions that are compatible with literacy and philosophy. Europe has no such example.

So, perhaps it's best to put the question this way: what is the state of scholarship and philosophy in the society you're running? The answer to this question will narrow the range of polytheistic options you can explore.

 

[fusangite]

Yes, I'd say that. At best, it's technology somewhere in the same vicinity of medieval Britain/France. The society and culture, however, most definately is not.

The sociology of D&D is much like the geography of Middle Earth -- aesthetically pleasing but so internally inconsistent it cannot even functions as a stable system.

 

[jgbrowning]

My wife and I are writing a book about this subject. A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe. One of the sections of the book concerns religion.

We think that you can successfully divorce Western Europe from a monotheistic culture. reasons.

1. Monotheism was an integral part of the society, but as said above there was a lot more people not coming even remotely close to a more modern concept of christianity's view on morals.

2. We think the actions of the people during that time period match better with the DnD polytheistic concept than a real active DnD monotheistic god. Especially considering the massive amounts of superstition/paganism that continued even in the most christianized world.

and

3. Religion was just one of many important aspects of society. Everyone said they were of the same religion, but the practice of the religion and the application of the supposed morality of that religion were very different. ie. varied with local customs...


Unfortunatly were probably coming out with this next spring and are going to have to compete with Gygax's book. Not something we wanted to do, but *toot toot* I think our book will be more useful for DM's and Players than his *toot toot*.

joe b.
Expeditious Retreat Press

 

[Turjan]

Well, if we want to consider d20 publications, have a look at the Book of the Righteous. It depicts a polytheistic pantheon, but one of the main options is to use "The Great Church", a unified worship of all gods together. The feeling reminds me very much of a Christian church, especially a catholic one, with the altars of the saints all in one church .

 

[Thorntangle]

Well, if we want to consider d20 publications, have a look at the Book of the Righteous. It depicts a polytheistic pantheon, but one of the main options is to use "The Great Church", a unified worship of all gods together. The feeling reminds me very much of a Christian church, especially a catholic one, with the altars of the saints all in one church .

So far I've heard only good things about this book. I guess it will make its way onto my bookshelf.

 

[mythago]

fusangite, I don't know how correct you are in arguing that philosophy brought down polytheism, but I don't agree that polytheism and scholarship need be incompatible. Heck, some monotheistic religions flourish despite profound internal contradictions.

In Mesopotamia, polytheism was in part a function of the political city-states. Every city-state had its own god, worshipped above others, and military victories/conquests were seen to be the ascendancy of one god over another. Gods were also believed, like humans, to have spouses, children and families.

As a substitute for polytheism in a D&D game trying to be authentically European, you could emphasize the many and hair-splitting distinctions between followers of the One God.

 

[fusangite]

fusangite, I don't know how correct you are in arguing that philosophy brought down polytheism, but I don't agree that polytheism and scholarship need be incompatible. Heck, some monotheistic religions flourish despite profound internal contradictions.

In Mesopotamia, polytheism was in part a function of the political city-states.

Mythago, I didn't mean to suggest that generally polytheism and philosophy are incompatible, just that this seems to have been the case in the West. As you correctly point out, ancient Babylon, like medieval India and China seem to have had no problem with this. But for whatever reason, the way that Europeans think about gods seems to make the co-existence of philosophy and polytheism problematic and unstable.

jgbrowning, I'm intrigued by your book; I gather it's a hybrid of a gaming manual and academic treatise. If you don't mind, I'd love to hear a little more about the project.

I think one term that this discussion seems to be missing is syncretism; while it's typically been a term applied to the hybrid Christian faiths which have grown out of the meeting of pagan indigenous cultures and Christian missionaries, increasingly, Europeans are applying this idea self-reflexively to help explicate medieval Christianity.

Another observation I'll throw into the mix is that our conceptions of God and gods are all filtered through our individualistic worldview. The idea of a peer to peer relationship with a deity or the state is an advent of the last 500 years, growing out of the theology of the Reformation. Max Weber has written an excellent book on this.

To truly understand the interaction of the medieval mind with religion, we must remember that medieval Europe was a corporate society in which people related to authority via their community. The church organization, until the advent of Luther, was viewed as indispensible for ordinary people to relate to God. In the Byzantine world, the state was similarly viewed.

Therefore, in designing a religion for a fantasy world, one might be better served by asking what kind of organizations are involved in the process or worship, how they fit into the rest of society and how people like the characters interact with these corporate entities. Perhaps all this discussion has been too abstract because our modern minds naturally assume that doctrine determines organization; perhaps we should turn this on its head and posit that organization determines doctrine.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

One of the problems with transplanting a pantheon of deities into European culture is a lack of consistent ethical content in most polytheistic pantheons (especially the generic D&D pantheon).

Medieval Europe (more or less) shared a common outlook that they expressed in the term Christendom. Perhaps more importantly, the church was generally on the same page as to what was right and what is wrong.

On the other hand, your typical D&D pantheon includes deities covering the gamut of alignments from CE to LG. Even your typical Western historical pantheon typically has at least one trickster (like Loki) or a variety of gods who are often in conflict with each other. (Aphrodite and Athena for instance or Ares and Apollo). This kind of division in a pantheon changes the way that people interact with it. A straight up replacement of Christianity for a worship of the Mother Pantheon (which presumably has similar teachings except for WRT the divine nature) will only work as long as the pantheon is a single unit. If it is fractious and one god advocates theft while another is the god of the law, then there is no longer a single unified pantheon and you now have to deal with rival temples and belief systems--something more appropriate to classical Greece or Rome than medieval Europe.