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The right half of the front panel of the 7th-century Franks Casket, depicting the Anglo-Saxon (and wider Germanic) legend of Wayland the Smith. Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon heathenism, Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian religion, Anglo-Saxon traditional religion, or Anglo-Saxon polytheism refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th ...
The new inhabitants practiced Anglo-Saxon paganism, a polytheistic religion in which multiple gods were worshipped, among them Woden, Thor, and Tiw. Woden was the king of the gods, and early English kings traced their ancestry back to him (see Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies). [8] Christianity survived in the Brittonic kingdoms of the west and north.
The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England was the process starting in the late 6th century by which population of England formerly adhering to the Anglo-Saxon, and later Nordic, forms of Germanic paganism converted to Christianity and adopted Christian worldviews.
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
The period of Anglo-Saxon England lasted from circa 410 through to 1066 AD, during which individuals considered to be "Anglo-Saxon" in culture and language dominated the country's demographics and politics. [citation needed] The early Anglo-Saxons had been adherents of religious beliefs now collectively known as Anglo-Saxon paganism.
The Anglo-Saxon period was dominated by two separate religious traditions, the polytheistic Anglo-Saxon paganism and then the monotheistic Anglo-Saxon Christianity, both of which left their influences on the magical practices of the time in a way that was not necessarily mutually exclusive or unsympathetic towards each other's separate traditions.
In modern times, Heathen and Heathenry are increasingly used to refer to those branches of modern paganism inspired by the pre-Christian religions of the Germanic, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon peoples. [113] In Iceland, the members of Ásatrúarfélagið account for nearly 2% of the total population, [114] therefore being nearly six thousand ...
The Anglo-Saxon local saint was a development in a wider and older Roman tradition. [3] The cult of saints had become a centrally important aspect of Christianity from at least the fourth century, when it was criticised by the final pagan Emperor of the Roman Empire, Julian the Apostate. [4]