As archaeologist Sarah Semple noted, "the rituals [of the early Anglo-Saxons] involved the full pre-Christian repertoire: votive deposits, furnished burial, monumental mounds, sacred natural phenomenon and eventually constructed pillars, shrines and temples", thereby having many commonalities with other pre-Christian religions in Europe. Weapons, amongst them spears, swords, seaxes, and shield fittings have been found in English rivers, such as the
River Thames, although no large-scale
weapons deposits in wetlands have been discovered that are akin to those found elsewhere in Europe.
Places of worship may have had cultic symbolism for the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons. Place-name evidence may indicate some locations which were used as places of worship by the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons. However, no unambiguous archaeological evidence currently supports the interpretation of these sites as places of cultic practice. Two words that appear repeatedly in Old English place names and , have been interpreted as being references to cult spaces, however it is likely that the two terms had distinctive meanings. These locations were all found on high ground, with Wilson suggesting that these represented a communal place of worship for a specific group, such as the tribe, at a specific time of year. The archaeologist Sarah Semple also examined a number of such sites, noting that while they all reflected activity throughout later prehistory and the Romano-British period, they had little evidence from the sixth and seventh centuries CE. She suggested that rather than referring to specifically Anglo-Saxon cultic sites, was instead used in reference to "something British in tradition and usage." Highlighting that while sites vary in their location, some being on high ground and others on low ground, Wilson noted that the majority were very close to ancient routeways. Accordingly, he suggested that the term denoted a "small, wayside shrine, accessible to the traveller". Given that some -sites were connected to the name of an individual, Wilson suggested that such individuals may have been the owner or guardian of the shrine. A number of place-names including reference to pre-Christian deities compound these names with the Old English word ("wood", or "clearing in a wood"), and this may have attested to a
sacred grove at which cultic practice took place. A number of other place-names associate the deity's name with a high point in the landscape, such as or , which might represent that such spots were considered particularly appropriate for cultic practice. In six examples, the deity's name is associated with ("open land"), in which case these might have been sanctuaries located to specifically benefit the agricultural actions of the community. Some Old English place names make reference to an animal's head, among them
Gateshead ("Goat's Head") in
Tyne and Wear and
Worms Heath ("Snake's Head") in Surrey. It is possible that some of these names had pagan religious origins, perhaps referring to a sacrificed animal's head that was erected on a pole, or a carved representation of one; equally some or all of these place-names may have been descriptive
metaphors for local landscape features.
Built structures No cultic building has survived from the early Anglo-Saxon period, nor does any contemporary illustration or even a clear description of such a structure. However, four references to pre-Christian cultic structures appear in Anglo-Saxon literary sources. Three of these can be found in Bede's
Ecclesiastical History. One is a quotation from a letter written in 601 by
Pope Gregory the Great to the Abbot
Mellitus, in which he stated that Christian missionaries need not destroy "the temples of the idols" but that they should be sprinkled with
holy water and converted into churches. A second reference to cultic spaces found in Bede appears in his discussion of
Coifi, an influential English pagan priest for King
Edwin of Northumbria, who – after converting to Christianity – cast a spear into the temple at
Goodmanham and then burned it to the ground. The third account was a reference to a temple in which King
Rædwald of East Anglia kept an altar to both the Christian God and another to "demons". Bede referred to these spaces using the Latin term ; he did not mention whether they were roofed or not, although he chose to use over the Latin term , which would more clearly describe a roofed temple building. However, Bede probably never saw a pagan cultic space first hand, and was thus relying on literary sources for his understanding of what they looked like. Summarising the archaeological evidence, C. J. Arnold concluded that "the existence and nature of possible shrines remain intangible at present". The best known archaeological candidate for a building used in pre-Christian cultic practice is Building D2 at the
Ad Gefrin royal villa complex at
Yeavering in
Northumberland. Inside the east door of the building was a pit filled with ox skulls, which have been interpreted as sacrificial deposits, while two post-holes inside the building have been interpreted as evidence for holding statues of the deities, and the building also showed no evidence of domestic usage, suggesting some special function. Blair suggested that the development of temple buildings in the late sixth and seventh centuries reflects the assimilation of Christian ideas. Other possible temples or shrine buildings have been identified by archaeological investigation as existing within such Anglo-Saxon cemeteries as
Lyminge in
Kent and
Bishopstone in
Sussex. Although Pope Gregory referred to the conversion of pagan cult spaces into churches, no archaeological investigation has yet found any firm evidence of churches being built on top of earlier pagan temples in England. It may be that Gregory's advice was never taken by the Anglo-Saxon Christians, although it is possible that the construction of
crypts and the rebuilding of churches have destroyed earlier pagan foundations. Blair highlighted evidence for the existence of square enclosures dating from the early Anglo-Saxon period which often included standing posts and which were often superimposed on earlier prehistoric monuments, most notably Bronze Age barrows. He argued that these were cultic spaces, and that—rather than being based on a tradition from continental Europe—they were based on a tradition of square enclosure building that dated back to the Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain, thus reflecting the adoption of indigenous British ideas into early Anglo-Saxon cult. Building on Blair's argument, the archaeologist Sarah Semple suggested that in Early Anglo-Saxon England such barrows might have been understood as "the home of spirits, ancestors or gods" and accordingly used as cultic places. According to Semple "ancient remains in the landscape held a significant place in the Anglo-Saxon mind as part of a wider, numinous, spiritual and resonant landscape". Blair suggested that the scant archaeological evidence for built cultic structures may be because many cultic spaces in early Anglo-Saxon England did not involve buildings. Supporting this, he highlighted ethnographically recorded examples from elsewhere in Northern Europe, such as among the
Mansi, in which shrines are located away from the main area of settlement, and are demarcated by logs, ropes, fabrics, and images, none of which would leave an archaeological trace. Arnold suggested that it may be mistaken to assume that the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons carried out ritual activity at specific sites, instead suggesting that such practices occurred within the domestic area. As evidence, he pointed to certain deposits that have been excavated in Anglo-Saxon settlements, such as the deposition of an adult cow above a pit of clay and cobbles which had been placed at
Cowdery's Down. The deposition of human and animal bone in settlement sites has parallels both with continental practices and with Iron Age and Romano-British practices in Britain.
Cultic trees and megaliths Although there are virtually no references to pre-Christian sacred trees in Old English literature, there are condemnations of tree veneration as well as the veneration of stones and wells in several later Anglo-Saxon penitentials. In the 680s, the Christian writer
Aldhelm referred to the pagan use of pillars associated with the "foul snake and stag", praising the fact that many had been converted into sites for Christian worship. Aldhelm had used the Latin terms ("crude pillars"), although it was unclear what exactly he was referring to; possibly examples include something akin to a wooden
totem pole or a re-used Neolithic menhir. Meaney suggested that Aldhelm's reference to the snake and stag might be describing a representation of an animal's head atop a pole, in which case it would be related to the animal-head place-names. North also believed that this snake and stag were animals with pagan religious associations. It remains difficult to determine the location of any pre-Christian holy trees. However, there are cases where
sacred trees and groves may be referenced in place-names. Blair suggested that the use of the Old English word ("tree") in Anglo-Saxon place-names may be a reference to a special tree. He also suggested that the place-names containing ("post" or "pillar") might have represented trees that had been venerated when alive and which were transformed into carved pillars after their death. For instance, both
Thurstable Hundred in
Essex and
Thurstaple in Kent appear to have derived from the Old English , meaning 'Pillar of Þunor'. Archaeologically, a large post was discovered at
Yeavering which has been interpreted as having a religious function. The purpose of such poles remains debatable, however; some might have represented grave markers, others might have signalised group or kin identities, or marked territory, assembly places, or sacred spaces. Such wooden pillars would have been easy to convert into large
crucifixes following the conversion to Christianity, and thus a number of these sacred sites may have survived as cultic spaces within a Christian context. It has also been suggested that the vinescroll patterns that decorated a number of Late Anglo-Saxon stone crosses, such as the
Ruthwell Cross, may have been a form of inculturation harking back to pre-Christian tree veneration. As Bintley commented, the impact of pre-Christian beliefs about sacred trees on Anglo-Saxon Christian beliefs should be interpreted "not as pagan survivals, but as a fully integrated aspect of early English Christianity".
Sacrifice Christian sources regularly complained that the pagans of Anglo-Saxon England practised
animal sacrifice. In the seventh century, the first laws against pagan sacrifices appeared, while in the
Paenitentiale Theodori one to ten years' penance was allotted for making sacrifices or for eating sacrificed meat. Archaeological evidence reveals that meat was often used as a funerary offering and in many cases whole animal carcasses were placed in burials. Commenting on this archaeological evidence, Pluskowski stated that this reflected "a regular and well-established practice in early Anglo-Saxon society". It appears that they emphasised the killing of
oxen over other species, as suggested by both written and archaeological evidence. The
Old English Martyrology records that November (Old English "the month of
sacrifice") was particularly associated with sacrificial practices: There are several cases where animal remains were buried in what appears to be ritualistic conditions, for instance at Frilford, Berkshire, a pig or boar's head was buried with six flat stones and two Roman-era tiles then placed on top, while at an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Soham, Cambridgeshire, an ox's head was buried with the muzzle facing down. Archaeologist David Wilson stated that these may be "evidence of sacrifices to a pagan god". The folklorist
Jacqueline Simpson has suggested that some English folk customs recorded in the late medieval and early modern periods involving the display of a decapitated animal's head on a pole may derive their origins from pre-Christian sacrificial practices. Unlike some other areas of Germanic Europe, there is no written evidence for
human sacrifice being practised in Anglo-Saxon England. Dunn argued that had Christian writers believed that such practices were being carried out, they would have strongly condemned them. But in the view of the historian
Hilda Ellis Davidson, "undoubtedly human sacrifice must have been known to the Anglo-Saxons, even if it played no great part in their lives". She suggested that victims included slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war, and that such sacrifices were only resorted to in times of crisis, such as plagues, famine, or attack. Some historians have speculated that twenty-three of the corpses at the
Sutton Hoo burial site were sacrificial victims clustered around a sacred tree from which they had been hanged. The historian
Ronald Hutton has suggested that the corpse of an Anglo-Saxon woman found at
Sewerby on the
Yorkshire Wolds may have been buried alive alongside a nobleman, possibly as a sacrifice, or to accompany him to the afterlife.
Priests Wilson stated that "virtually nothing" was known of the pre-Christian priesthood in Anglo-Saxon England, although there are two references to Anglo-Saxon pagan priests in the surviving textual sources. One is that provided by Bede, which refers to Coifi of Northumbria. North has backed Chaney's view that kings mediated between the gods and the people on the basis of a lack of any obvious priesthood, although Dunn feels the concept of 'sacral kingship' no longer has much credibility within scholarship; a trend observable in scholarship of the last several decades regarding ideas of
priest kings in several other ancient cultures around the world (for example the
Minoan civilization and
Indus Valley Civilization). One of the inhumation burials excavated at Yeavering, classified as Grave AX, has been interpreted as being that of a pre-Christian priest; although the body was not able to be sexed or aged by osteoarchaeologists, it was found with a goat's skull buried by its feet and a long wooden staff with metal fittings beside it. There have also been suggestions that individuals who were biologically male but who were buried in female costume may have represented a form of
magico-religious specialists in Anglo-Saxon England. It has been suggested that these individuals were analogous to the recorded in Old Norse sources. This possibility is linked to an account provided by
Tacitus in his in which he refers to a male pagan priest who wore female clothing. Campbell suggested that it might have been priestly authorities who organised the imposition of physical penalties in early Anglo-Saxon England, with secular authorities only taking on this role during the conversion to Christianity.
Kings Germanic pagan society was structured hierarchically, under a
tribal chieftain or ("king") who at the same time acted as military leader, high judge and high priest. The tribe was bound together by a code of customary proper behaviour or regulating the contracts () and conflicts between the individual families or
sibbs within the tribe. The aristocratic society arrayed below the king included the ranks of , , and . Offices at the court included that of the
þyle and the
sċop. The title of ("
lord") denoted the head of any household in origin and expressed the relation to allegiance between a follower and his leader. Early
Anglo-Saxon warfare had many aspects of
endemic warfare typical of tribal
warrior societies. It was based on retainers bound by
oath to fight for their lords who in turn were obliged to show generosity to their followers. The traditional idea was that the pagan Anglo-Saxons inherited the common Germanic institution of
sacral kingship. A king () was
elected from among eligible members of a royal family or by the , an assembly of an elite that replaced the earlier
folkmoot, which was the equivalent of the
Germanic thing, the assembly of all free men. The person elected was usually the son of the last king. Tribal kingship came to an end in the 9th century with the hegemony of
Wessex culminating in a unified
kingdom of England by the 10th century. The cult of kingship was central to pagan Anglo-Saxon society. The king was equivalent to the position of high priest. By his divine descent he represented or indeed was the "luck" of the
people. The central importance of the institution of kingship is illustrated by the twenty-six synonyms for "king" employed by the
Beowulf poet. The title of
Bretwalda appears to have conveyed the status of some sort of formal or ceremonial overlordship over Britain, but it is uncertain whether it predates the 9th century, and if it does, what, if any, prerogatives it carried.
Patrick Wormald interprets it as "less an objectively realised office than a subjectively perceived status" and emphasises the partiality of its usage in favour of
Southumbrian kings.
Funerary rites Cemeteries are the most widely excavated aspect of Anglo-Saxon archaeology and thus much information about the funerary aspects of Anglo-Saxon pagan religion has been obtained. One of the aspects of Anglo-Saxon paganism which is the most known most about is their burial customs, discovered from archaeological excavations at various sites, including
Sutton Hoo,
Spong Hill,
Prittlewell,
Snape and
Walkington Wold, with 1200 Anglo-Saxon pagan cemeteries having been found. The pagan Anglo-Saxons had no set form of burial, with
cremation being preferred among the
Angles in the north and
burial among the
Saxons in the south, although both forms were found throughout England, sometimes in the same cemeteries. When cremation did take place, the ashes were usually placed within an urn and then buried, sometimes along with
grave goods. According to archaeologist Dave Wilson, "the usual orientation for an inhumation in a pagan Anglo-Saxon cemetery was west-east, with the head to the west, although there were often deviations from this." Indicating a possible religious belief, grave goods were common among inhumation burials as well as cremations; free Anglo-Saxon men were buried with at least one weapon in the pagan tradition, often a
seax, but sometimes also with a
spear,
sword or shield, or a combination of these. There are also a number of recorded cases of parts of non-human animals being buried within such graves. Most common among these was body parts belonging to either
goats or
sheep, although parts of
oxen were also relatively common, and there are also isolated cases of
goose,
crab apples, duck eggs and
hazelnuts being buried in graves. It is widely thought therefore that such items constituted a food source for the deceased. In some cases, animal skulls, particularly oxen but also pig, were buried in human graves, a practice that was also found in earlier
Roman Britain. Certain Anglo-Saxon burials appeared to have ritualistic elements to them, implying that a religious rite was performed over them during the funeral. While there are many multiple burials, where more than one corpse was found in a single grave, that date from the Anglo-Saxon period, there is "a small group of such burials where an interpretation involving ritual practices may be possible". For instance, at
Welbeck Hill in
Lincolnshire, the corpse of a decapitated woman was placed in reverse on top of the body of an old man, while in a number of other similar examples, female bodies were again placed above those of men. This has led some archaeologists to suspect a form of
suttee, where the female was the spouse of the male, and was killed to accompany him upon death. Other theories hold that the females were slaves who were viewed as the property of the men, and who were again killed to accompany their master. Similarly, four Anglo-Saxon burials have been excavated where it appears that the individual was buried while still alive, which could imply that this was a part of either a religious rite or as a form of punishment. There are also many cases where corpses have been found
decapitated, for instance, at a mass grave in
Thetford,
Norfolk, fifty beheaded individuals were discovered, their heads possibly having been taken as trophies of war. In other cases of decapitation it seems possible that it was evidence of religious ritual (presumably
human sacrifice) or execution. Archaeological investigation has displayed that structures or buildings were built inside a number of pagan cemeteries, and as David Wilson noted, "The evidence, then, from cemetery excavations is suggestive of small structures and features, some of which may perhaps be interpreted as shrines or sacred areas". In some cases, there is evidence of far smaller structures being built around or alongside individual graves, implying possible small shrines to the dead individual or individuals buried there. Eventually, in the sixth and seventh centuries, the idea of
burial mounds began to appear in Anglo-Saxon England, and in certain cases earlier burial mounds from the
Neolithic,
Bronze Age,
Iron Age and
Romano-British periods were simply reused by the Anglo-Saxons. It is not known why they adopted this practice, but it may be from the practices of the native Britons. Burial mounds remained objects of veneration in early Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and numerous churches were built next to tumuli. Another form of burial was that of
ship burials, which were practised by many of the Germanic peoples across northern Europe. In many cases it seems that the corpse was placed in a ship that was either sent out to sea or left on land, but in both cases burned. In
Suffolk however, ships were not burned, but buried, as is the case at Sutton Hoo, which it is believed, was the resting place of the king of the East Angles,
Raedwald. Both ship and tumulus burials were described in the
Beowulf poem, through the funerals of
Scyld Scefing and
Beowulf respectively. It has been considered largely impossible to distinguish a pagan grave from a Christian one in the Anglo-Saxon context after the latter had spread throughout England.
Festivals Everything so far known about the
religious festivals of the pagan Anglo-Saxons comes from a book written by Bede, titled
De temporum ratione ("The Reckoning of Time"), in which he described the calendar of the year. However, its purpose was not to describe the pagan sacred year, and little information within it can be corroborated from other sources. Bede provided explanations for the names of the various pre-Christian festivals that he described, however these etymologies are questionable; it is unknown if these etymologies were based on his pre-existing knowledge or whether they represented his own theories. Casting further doubt over some of his festival etymologies is the fact that some of the place-name etymologies that Bede provides in his writings are demonstrably wrong. The pagan Anglo-Saxons followed a calendar with twelve lunar months, with the occasional year having thirteen months so that the lunar and solar alignment could be corrected. Bede claimed that the greatest pagan festival was (meaning ''Mothers' Night''), which was situated at the
Winter solstice, which marked the start of the Anglo-Saxon year. Following this festival, in the month of (February), Bede claims that the pagans offered cakes to their deities. Then, in
Eostur-monath Aprilis (April), a spring festival was celebrated, dedicated to the goddess
Eostre, and the later Christian festival of
Easter took its name from this month and its goddess. The month of September was known as , meaning
Holy Month, which may indicate that it had special religious significance. The month of November was known as , meaning
Blót Month, and was commemorated with animal sacrifice, both in offering to the gods, and probably also to gather a source of food to be stored over the winter. Remarking on Bede's account of the Anglo-Saxon year, the historian Brian Branston noted that they "show us a people who of necessity fitted closely into the pattern of the changing year, who were of the earth and what grows in it" and that they were "in fact, a people who were in a symbiotic relationship with mother earth and father sky". Stenton thought that Bede's account reveals "that there was a strong element of heathen festivity" at the heart of the early Anglo-Saxon calendar. The historian James Campbell described this as a "complicated calendar", and stated that it would have required "an organised and recognised priesthood" to plan the observation of it.
Symbolism Various recurring symbols appear on certain pagan Anglo-Saxon artefacts, in particular on grave goods. Most notable among these was the
swastika, which was widely inscribed on crematory urns and also on various brooches and other forms of jewellery as well as on certain pieces of ceremonial weaponry. The archaeologist David Wilson remarked that this "undoubtedly had special importance for the Anglo-Saxons, either magical or religious, or both. It seems very likely that it was the symbol of the thunder god
Thunor, and when found on weapons or military gear its purpose would be to provide protection and success in battle". He also noted however that its widespread usage might have led to it becoming "a purely decorative device with no real symbolic importance". Another symbol that has appeared on several pagan artefacts from this period, including a number of swords, was the
rune , which represented the letter T and may be associated with the god Tiw. In the later sixth and seventh centuries, a trend emerged in Anglo-Saxon England entailing the symbolism of a horn-helmeted man. The archaeologist Tim Pestell stated that these represented "one of the clearest examples of objects with primarily cultic or religious connotations". This iconography is not unique to England and can be found in Scandinavia and continental Germanic Europe too. The inclusion of this image on helmets and pendants suggests that it may have had apotropaic or amuletic associations. This figure has often been interpreted as a depiction of Woden, although there is no firm evidence to support this conclusion.
Shamanism, magic, and witchcraft In 2011, Pluskowski noted that the term "
shamanism" was increasingly being used by scholars of Anglo-Saxon paganism. Glosecki argued that evidence for shamanic beliefs were visible in later Anglo-Saxon literature. Williams also argued that paganism had a shamanic component through his analysis of early funerary rites. Summarising this evidence, Blair noted that it was "hard to doubt that something like shamanism lies ultimately in the background" of early Anglo-Saxon religion. He nevertheless highlighted problems with the use of "shamanism" in this context, noting that any such Anglo-Saxon practices would have been different from the shamanism of Siberia. Conversely, Noël Adams stated that "at present, there is no clear evidence of shamanistic beliefs" in Anglo-Saxon England. Anglo-Saxon pagans believed in
magic and
witchcraft. There are various Old English terms for "witch", including "witch" (whence Modern English
hag),
wiċċa, , and
helrūne. The belief in witchcraft was suppressed in the 9th to 10th century as is evident e.g. from the
Laws of Ælfred (c. 890). It is possible that the Anglo-Saxons drew no distinction between
magic and ritual in the same manner as modern Western society does. The Christian authorities attempted to stamp out a belief and practice in witchcraft, with the
Paenitentiale Theodori attributed to
Theodore of Tarsus condemning "those that consult divinations and use them in the pagan manner, or that permit people of that kind into their houses to seek some knowledge". Similarly, the
U version of the
Paenitentiale Theodori condemns those "who observe auguries, omens or dreams or any other prophecies after the manner of the pagans". The word
wiccan "witches" is associated with animistic healing rites in the
Paenitentiale Halitgari where it is stated that: Some men are so blind that they bring their offering to earth-fast stone and also to trees and to wellsprings, as the witches teach, and are unwilling to understand how stupidly they do or how that dead stone or that dumb tree might help them or give forth health when they themselves are never able to stir from their place. The pagan Anglo-Saxons also appeared to wear
amulets, and there are many cases in which corpses were buried with them. As David Wilson noted, "To the early [Anglo-]Saxons, they were part and parcel of the
supernatural that made up their world of 'belief', although occupying the shadowy dividing area between superstition and religion, if indeed such a division actually existed." One of the most notable amulets found in Anglo-Saxon graves is the
cowrie shell, which has been often interpreted by modern academics as having been a
fertility symbol due to its physical resemblance to the
vagina and the fact that it was most commonly found in female graves. Not being native to British seas, the cowrie shells had to have been brought to England by traders who had come all the way from the
Red Sea in the
Middle East. Animal teeth were also used as amulets by the pagan Anglo-Saxons, and many examples have been found that had formerly belonged to
boar,
beaver, and in some cases even humans. Other amulets included items such as
amethyst and
amber beads, pieces of
quartz or
iron pyrite,
worked and unworked flint, pre-Anglo-Saxon coinage and
fossils, and from their distribution in graves, it has been stated that in Anglo-Saxon pagan society, "amulets [were] very much more the preserve of women than men". ==Reception and legacy==