The Mediaeval Stage, Volume 1 (of 2)

by E. K. Chambers

The private cult of the fertilization spirit is not, of course, tied to fixed seasons. Its occasion is determined by the needs of the worshipper. But it is noteworthy that the efficacy of some holy wells is greatest on particular days, such as Easter or the first three Sundays in May. And in many places the wells, whether ordinarily held ‘holy’ or not, take an important place in the ceremonies of the village festival. The ‘gospel wells’ of the Rogation processions, and the well to which the ‘Bezant’ procession goes at Shaftesbury are cases in point; while in Derbyshire the ‘well-dressings’ correspond to the ‘wakes,’ ‘rushbearings,’ and ‘Mayings’ of other districts. Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, as well as the Rogation days, are in a measure Christian versions of the heathen agricultural feasts, and it is not, therefore, surprising to find an extensive use of holy water in ecclesiastical ritual, and a special rite of Benedictio Fontium included amongst the Easter ceremonies[404]. But the Christian custom has been moralized, and its avowed aim is purification rather than prosperity.

The ordinary form of heat-charm was to build, in semblance of the sun, the source of heat, a great fire[405]. Just as in the rain-charm the worshippers must be literally sprinkled with water, so, in order that they may receive the full benefits of the heat-charm, they must come into direct physical contact with the fire, by standing in the smoke, or even leaping through the flames, or by smearing their faces with the charred ashes[406]. The cattle too must be driven through the fire, in order that they may be fertile and free from pestilence throughout the summer; and a whole series of observances had for their especial object the distribution of the preserving influence over the farms. The fires were built on high ground, that they might be visible far and wide. Or they were built in a circle round the fields, or to windward, so that the smoke might blow across the corn. Blazing arrows were shot in the air, or blazing torches carried about. Ashes were sprinkled over the fields, or mingled with the seed corn or the fodder in the stall[407]. Charred brands were buried or stuck upright in the furrows. Further, by a simple symbolism, the shape and motion of the sun were mimicked with circular rotating bodies. A fiery barrel or a fiery wheel was rolled down the hill on the top of which the ceremony took place. The lighted torches were whirled in the air, or replaced by lighted disks of wood, flung on high. All these customs still linger in these islands or in other parts of western Europe, and often the popular imagination finds in their successful performance an omen for the fertility of the year.

On a priori grounds one might have expected two agricultural festivals during the summer; one in the earlier part of it, when moisture was all-important, accompanied with rain-charms; the other later on, when the crops were well grown and heat was required to ripen them, accompanied with sun-charms. But the evidence is rather in favour of a single original festival determined, in the dislocation caused by a calendar, to different dates in different localities[408]. The Midsummer or St. John’s fires are perhaps the most widely spread and best known of surviving heat-charms. But they can be paralleled by others distributed all over the summer cycle of festivals, at Easter[409] and on May-day, and in connexion with the ploughing celebrations on Epiphany, Candlemas, Shrovetide, Quadragesima, and St. Blaize’s day. It is indeed at Easter and Candlemas that the Benedictiones, which are the ecclesiastical versions of the ceremony, appear in the ritual-books[410]. On the other hand, although, perhaps owing to the later notion of the solstice, the fires are greatly prominent on St. John’s day, and are explained with considerable ingenuity by the monkish writers[411], yet this day was never a fire-festival and nothing else. Garland customs are common upon it, and there is even evidence, though slight evidence, for rain-charms[412]. It is perhaps justifiable to infer that the crystallization of the rain-and heat-charms, which doubtless were originally used only when the actual condition of the weather made them necessary, into annual festivals, took place after the exact rationale of them had been lost, and they had both come to be looked upon, rather vaguely, as weather-charms.

Apart from the festival-fires, a superstitious use of sun-charms endured in England to an extraordinarily late date. This was in times of drought and pestilence as a magical remedy against mortality amongst the cattle. A fire was built, and, as on the festivals, the cattle were made to pass through the smoke and flames[413]. On such occasions, and often at the festival-fires themselves, it was held requisite that, just as the water used in the rain-charms would be fresh water from the spring, so the fire must be fresh fire. That is to say, it must not be lit from any pre-existing fire, but must be made anew. And, so conservative is cult, this must be done, not with the modern device of matches, or even with flint and steel, but by the primitive method of causing friction in dry work. Such fire is known as ‘need-fire’ or ‘forced fire,’ and is produced in various ways, by rubbing two pieces of wood together, by turning a drill in a solid block, or by rapidly rotating a wheel upon an axle. Often certain precautions are observed, as that nine men must work at the job, or chaste boys; and often all the hearth-fires in the village are first extinguished, to be rekindled by the new flame[414].

The custom of rolling a burning wheel downhill from the festival-fire amongst the vineyards has been noted. The wheel is, of course, by no means an uncommon solar emblem[415]. Sometimes round bannocks or hard-boiled eggs are similarly rolled downhill. The use of both of these may be sacrificial in its nature. But the egg plays such a large part in festival customs, especially at Easter, when it is reddened, or gilt, or coloured yellow with furze or broom flowers, and popularly regarded as a symbol of the Resurrection, that one is tempted to ask whether it does not stand for the sun itself[416]. And are we to find the sun in the ‘parish top[417],’ or in the ball with which, even in cathedrals, ceremonial games were played[418]? If so, perhaps this game of ball may be connected with the curious belief that if you get up early enough on Easter morning you may see the sun dance[419].

In any case sun-charms, quite independent of the fires, may probably be traced in the circular movements which so often appear invested with a religious significance, and which sometimes form part of the festivals[420]. It would be rash to regard such movements as the basis of every circular dance or ronde on such an occasion; a ring is too obviously the form which a crowd of spectators round any object, sacred or otherwise, must take. But there are many circumambulatory rites in which stress is laid on the necessity for the motion to be deasil, or with the right hand to the centre, in accordance with the course of the sun, and not in the opposite direction, cartuaitheail or withershins[421]. And these, perhaps, may be legitimately considered as of magical origin.

With the growth of animistic or spiritual religion, the mental tendencies, out of which magical practices or charms arise, gradually cease to be operative in the consciousness of the worshippers. The charms themselves, however, are preserved by the conservative instinct of cult. In part they survive as mere bits of traditional ritual, for which no particular reason is given or demanded; in part also they become material for that other instinct, itself no less inveterate in the human mind, by which the relics of the past are constantly in process of being re-explained and brought into new relations with the present. The sprinkling with holy water, for instance, which was originally of the nature of a rain-charm, comes to be regarded as a rite symbolical of spiritual purification and regeneration. An even more striking example of such transformation of intention is to be found in the practice, hardly yet referred to in this account of the agricultural festivals, of sacrifice. In the ordinary acceptation of the term, sacrifice implies not merely an animistic, but an anthropomorphic conception of the object of cult. The offering or oblation with which man approaches his god is an extension of the gift with which, as suppliant, he approaches his fellow men. But the oblational aspect of sacrifice is not the only one. In his remarkable book upon The Religion of the Semites, Professor Robertson Smith has formulated another, which may be distinguished as ‘sacramental.’ In this the sacrifice is regarded as the renewal of a special tie between the god and his worshippers, analogous to the blood-bond which exists amongst those worshippers themselves. The victim is not an offering made to the god; on the contrary, the god himself is, or is present in, the victim. It is his blood which is shed, and by means of the sacrificial banquet and its subsidiary rites, his personality becomes, as it were, incorporated in those of his clansmen[422]. It is not necessary to determine here the general priority of the two types or conceptions of sacrifice described. But, while it is probable that the Kelts and Teutons of the time of the conversion consciously looked upon sacrifice as an oblation, there is also reason to believe that, at an earlier period, the notion of a sacrament had been the predominant one. For the sacrificial ritual of these peoples, and especially that used in the agricultural cult, so far as it can be traced, is only explicable as an elaborate process of just that physical incorporation of the deity in the worshippers and their belongings, which it was the precise object of the sacramental sacrifice to bring about. It will be clear that sacrifice, so regarded, enters precisely into that category of ideas which has been defined as magical. It is but one more example of that belief in the efficacy of direct contact which lies at the root of sympathetic magic. As in the case of the garland customs, this belief, originally pre-animistic, has endured into an animistic stage of thought. Through the garland and the posies the worshipper sought contact with the fertilization spirit in its phytomorphic form; through sacrifice he approaches it in its theriomorphic form also. The earliest sacrificial animals, then, were themselves regarded as divine, and were naturally enough the food animals of the folk. The use made by the Kelto-Teutonic peoples of oxen, sheep, goats, swine, deer, geese, and fowls requires no explanation. A common victim was also the horse, which the Germans seem, up to a late date, to have kept in droves and used for food. The strong opposition of the Church to the sacrificial use of horse-flesh may possibly account for the prejudice against it as a food-stuff in modern Europe[423]. A similar prejudice, however, in the case of the hare, an animal of great importance in folk belief, already existed in the time of Caesar[424]. It is a little more puzzling to find distinct traces of sacrificial customs in connexion with animals, such as the dog, cat, wolf, fox, squirrel, owl, wren, and so forth, which are not now food animals[425]. But they may once have been such, or the explanation may lie in an extension of the sacrificial practice after the first rationale of it was lost.

At every agricultural festival, then, animal sacrifice may be assumed as an element. The analogy of the relation between the fertilization spirit and his worshippers to the human blood bond makes it probable that originally the rite was always a bloody one[426]. Some of the blood was poured on the sacred tree. Some was sprinkled upon the worshippers, or smeared over their faces, or solemnly drunk by them[427]. Hides, horns, and entrails were also hung upon the tree[428], or worn as festival trappings[429]. The flesh was, of course, solemnly eaten in the sacrificial meal[430]. The crops, as well as their cultivators, must benefit by the rites; and therefore the fields, and doubtless also the cattle, had their sprinkling of blood, while heads or pieces of flesh were buried in the furrows, or at the threshold of the byre[431]. A fair notion of the whole proceeding may be obtained from the account of the similar Indian worship of the earth-goddess given in Appendix I. The intention of the ceremonies will be obvious by a comparison with those already explained. The wearing of the skins of the victims is precisely parallel to the wearing of the green vegetation, the sprinkling with blood to the sprinkling with lustral water, the burial in the fields of flesh and skulls to the burial of brands from the festival-fire. In each case the belief in the necessity of direct physical contact to convey the beneficent influence is at the bottom of the practice. It need hardly be said that of such physical contact the most complete example is in the sacramental banquet itself.

It is entirely consistent with the view here taken of the primitive nature of sacrifice, that the fertilization spirit was sacrificed at the village festivals in its vegetable as well as in its animal form. There were bread-offerings as well as meat-offerings[432]. Sacramental cakes were prepared with curious rituals which attest their primitive character. Like the tcharnican or Beltane cakes, they were kneaded and moulded by hand and not upon a board[433]; like the loaf in the Anglo-Saxon charm, they were compounded of all sorts of grain in order that they might be representative of every crop in the field[434]. At the harvest they would naturally be made, wholly or in part, of the last sheaf cut. The use of them corresponded closely to that made of the flesh of the sacrificial victim. Some were laid on a branch of the sacred tree[435]; others flung into the sacred well or the festival-fire; others again buried in the furrows, or crumbled up and mingled with the seed-corn[436]. And like the flesh they were solemnly eaten by the worshippers themselves at the sacrificial banquet. With the sacrificial cake went the sacrificial draught, also made out of the fruits of the earth, in the southern lands wine, but in the vineless north ale, or cider, or that mead which Pytheas described the Britons as brewing out of honey and wheat[437]. Of this, too, the trees and crops received their share, while it filled the cup for those toasts or minnes to the dead and to Odin and Freyja their rulers, which were afterwards transferred by Christian Germany to St. John and St. Gertrude[438].

The animal and the cereal sacrifices seem plausible enough, but they do not exhaust the problem. One has to face the fact that human sacrifice, as Victor Hehn puts it, ‘peers uncannily forth from the dark past of every Aryan race[439]. So far as the Kelts and Teutons go, there is plenty of evidence to show, that up to the very moment of their contact with Roman civilization, in some branches even up to the very moment of their conversion to Christianity, it was not yet obsolete[440]. An explanation of it is therefore required, which shall fall in with the general theory of agricultural sacrifice. The subject is very difficult, but, on the whole, it seems probable that originally the slaying of a human being at an annually recurring festival was not of the nature of sacrifice at all. It is doubtful whether it was ever sacrifice in the sacramental sense, and although in time it came to be regarded as an oblation, this was not until the first meaning, both of the sacrifice and of the human death, had been lost. The essential facts bearing on the question have been gathered together by Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough. He brings out the point that the victim in a human sacrifice was not originally merely a man, but a very important man, none other than the king, the priest-king of the tribe. In many communities, Aryan-speaking and other, it has been the principal function of such a priest-king to die, annually or at longer intervals, for the people. His place is taken, as a rule, by the tribesman who has slain him[441]. Dr. Frazer’s own explanation of this custom is, that the head of the tribe was looked upon as possessed of great magical powers, as a big medicine man, and was in fact identified with the god himself. And his periodical death, says Dr. Frazer, was necessary, in order to renew the vitality of the god, who might decay and cease to exist, were he not from time to time reincarnated by being slain and passing into the body of his slayer and successor[442]. This is a highly ingenious and fascinating theory, but unfortunately there are several difficulties in the way of accepting it. In the first place it is inconsistent with the explanation of the sacramental killing of the god arrived at by Professor Robertson Smith. According to this the sacrifice of the god is for the sake of his worshippers, that the blood-bond with them may be renewed; and we have seen that this view fits in admirably with the minor sacrificial rites, such as the eating and burying of the flesh, as the wearing of the horns and hides. Dr. Frazer, however, obliges us to hold that the god is also sacrificed for his own sake, and leaves us in the position of propounding two quite distinct and independent reasons for the same fact. Secondly, there is no evidence, at least amongst Aryan-speaking peoples, for that breaking down of the very real and obvious distinction between the god and his chief worshipper or priest, which Dr. Frazer’s theory implies. And thirdly, if the human victim were slain as being the god, surely this slaughter should have replaced the slaughter of the animal victim previously slain for the same reason, which it did not, and should have been followed by a sacramental meal of a cannibal type, of which also, in western Europe, there is but the slightest trace[443].