Irminsul

An Irminsul (Old Saxon, probably "great/mighty pillar" or "arising pillar") was a kind of pillar which is attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxon people. The oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air.[1] The purpose of the Irminsuls and the implications thereof have been the subject of considerable scholarly discourse and speculation for hundreds of years.

Etymology

"The destruction of Irminsul by Charlemagne" (1882) by Heinrich Leutemann.

A Germanic god Irmin, inferred from the name Irminsul and the tribal name Irminones, is sometimes presumed to have been the national god or demi-god of the Saxons.[2] It has been suggested that Irmin was more probably an aspect or epithet of some other deity – most likely Wodan (Odin). Irmin might also have been an epithet of the god Ziu (Tyr) in early Germanic times, only later transferred to Odin, as certain scholars subscribe to the idea that Odin replaced Tyr as the chief Germanic deity at the onset of the Migration Period. This was the favored view of early 20th century Nordicist writers,[3] but it is not generally considered likely in modern times.[4]

The Old Norse form of Irmin is Jörmunr, which just like Yggr was one of the names of Odin. Yggdrasil ("Yggr's horse") was the yew or ash tree from which Odin sacrificed himself, and which connected the nine worlds. Jakob Grimm connects the name Irmin with Old Norse terms like iörmungrund ("great ground", i.e. the Earth) or iörmungandr ("great snake", i.e. the Midgard serpent).[5]

Attestations

Royal Frankish Annals

According to the Royal Frankish Annals (772AD), during the Saxon wars, Charlemagne is repeatedly described as ordering the destruction of the chief seat of their religion, an Irminsul.[6] The Irminsul is described as not being far from Heresburg (now Obermarsberg), Germany.[6] Jacob Grimm states that "strong reasons" point to the actual location of the Irminsul as being approximately 15 miles (24 km) away, in the Teutoburg Forest and states that the original name for the region "Osning" may have meant "Holy Wood."[6]

De miraculis sancti Alexandri

The Benedictine monk Rudolf of Fulda (AD 865) provides a description of an Irminsul in chapter 3 of his Latin work De miraculis sancti Alexandri. Rudolf's description states that the Irminsul was a great wooden pillar erected and worshipped beneath the open sky and that its name, Irminsul, signifies universal all-sustaining pillar.[6]

Hildesheim

Under Louis the Pious in the 9th century, a stone column was dug up at Obermarsberg[7] in Westphalia, Germany and relocated to the Hildesheim cathedral in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany. The column was reportedly then used as a candelabrum until at least the late 19th century.[8] In the 13th century, the destruction of the Irminsul by Charlemagne was recorded as having still been commemorated at Hildesheim on the Saturday after Laetare Sunday.[1]

The commemoration was reportedly done by planting two poles six feet high, each surmounted by a wooden object one foot in height shaped like a pyramid or a cone on the cathedral square.[1] The youth then used sticks and stones in an attempt to knock over the object.[1] This custom is described as existing elsewhere in Germany, particularly in Halberstadt where it was enacted on the day of Laetare Sunday by the Canons themselves.[1]

Kaiserchronik

A late 16th century interpretation of an Irminsul bearing the cult image of a god of war and commerce, from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia

Awareness of the significance of the concept seems to have persisted well into Christian times. For example, in the twelfth-century Kaiserchronik an Irminsul is mentioned in three instances:

Concerning the origin of the Wednesday:

ûf ainer irmensiule / stuont ain abgot ungehiure, / daz hiezen si ir choufman.[9]
"On an Irminsul / stands an enormous idol / which they call their merchant"

Concerning Julius Caesar:

Rômâre in ungetrûwelîche sluogen / sîn gebaine si ûf ain irmensûl begruoben[10]
"The Romans slew him treacherously / and buried his bones on an Irminsul"

Concerning Nero:

ûf ain irmensûl er staich / daz lantfolch im allez naich.[11]
"He climbed upon an Irminsul / the peasants all bowed before him"

Hypotheses

A number of theories surround the subject of the Irminsul.

Germania

In Tacitus' Germania, the author mentions rumors of what he describes as "Pillars of Hercules" in land inhabited by the Frisii that had yet to be explored.[12] Tacitus adds that these pillars exist either because Hercules actually did go there or because the Romans have agreed to ascribe all marvels anywhere to Hercules' credit. Tacitus states that while Drusus Germanicus was daring in his campaigns against the Germanic tribes, he was unable to reach this region, and that subsequently no one had yet made the attempt.[13] Connections have been proposed between these "Pillars of Hercules" and later accounts of the Irminsuls.[1] Hercules was probably frequently identified with Thor by the Romans due to the practice of interpretatio romana.[14]

Externsteine relief and site

On the Externsteine Descent from the Cross relief, the bent structure in the right centre is popularly identified as Irminsul.
Though this may be correct, it is not supported by any contemporary sources.

According to one particularly well-known suggestion, an Irminsul was situated at or near the Externsteine, a famous rock formation near Detmold, Germany. A Christian relief on the Externsteine (see photo above) depicts what has been described as a bent tree-like design at the feet of Nicodemus. This artwork, variously dated to the early ninth to early twelfth century AD, is popularly believed to represent the bent or fallen Irminsul beneath a triumphant Christianity.

While both the artwork and the Irminsul were known to scholars for centuries - Goethe for example discussed the relief in detail[15] -, they were not connected until the 1929 interpretation[16] of lay archaeologist Wilhelm Teudt.[17] In 1934 to 1935, the Ahnenerbe undertook extensive fieldwork in an attempt to uncover material evidence of the use of the Externsteine as a place of Germanic paganism worship, yet no such evidence was found.

Few modern scholars[18] consider it anything but an outright invention of Teudt, who did not provide evidence to back his claims.

Today it is generally accepted by historians that there is no historic attestation connecting the Externsteine to the Irminsul. Certainly, the Eresburg was only about 45 kilometers (c.28 miles) from the Externsteine, and there indeed was an Irminsul "near the Externsteine", but extensive archaeological studies of the Externsteine have failed to yield any material evidence for their use as a sacred site between Mesolithic and pre-Christian times. Thermoluminescence dating of firesites suggests that the site was occasionally used as a rock shelter in Saxon times, but apparently not to the extent one would expect from a major place of worship.[19]

Jupiter Columns

Comparisons have been made between the Irminsul and the Jupiter Columns that were erected along the Rhine in Germania around CE 2 and 3. Scholarly comparisons were once made between the Irminsul and the Jupiter Columns; however, Rudolf Simek states that the columns were of Gallo-Roman religious monuments, and that the reported location of the Irminsul in Eresburg does not fall within the area of the Jupiter Column archaeological finds.[20]

Neopaganism

Neopagan Irminsul symbol.

A depiction of an Irminsul based on the Externsteine relief (shaped back into a vertical position) is used in some currents of Germanic Neopaganism.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Irminsul.

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 d'Alviella (1891), p. 112
  2. ↑ Robinson (1917): p.389
  3. ↑ E.g. Meyer (1910): p.192
  4. ↑ E.g. Farwerck (1970): p.33
  5. ↑ Grimm (1835)
  6. 1 2 3 4 Stallybrass (1882): 116-118).
  7. ↑ According to the Royal Frankish Annals (Anonymus ([790]): chapter 772):
    Et inde perrexit partibus Saxoniae prima vice, Eresburgum castrum coepit, ad Ermensul usque pervenit et ipsum fanum destruxit et aurum vel argentum, quod ibi repperit, abstulit. Et fuit siccitas magna, ita ut aqua deficeret in supradicto loco, ubi Ermensul stabat; et dum voluit ibi duos aut tres praedictus gloriosus rex stare dies fanum ipsum ad perdestruendum et aquam non haberent, tunc subito divina largiente gratia media die cuncto exercitu quiescente in quodam torrente omnibus hominibus ignorantibus aquae effusae sunt largissimae, ita ut cunctus exercitus sufficienter haberet.
  8. ↑ d'Alviella (1891), pp. 106-107
  9. ↑ Schröder (1892): p.81, lines 129-131
  10. ↑ Schröder (1892): p.92, lines 601-602
  11. ↑ Schröder (1892): p.158, lines 4213-4214
  12. ↑ Tacitus ([98]): chapter 34
  13. ↑ Birley (1999:55).
  14. ↑ Rives (1999:160).
  15. ↑ von Goethe (1824)
  16. ↑ Teudt (1929): p.27-28
  17. ↑ Halle (2002)
  18. ↑ See e.g. Matthes & Speckner (1997) for some who accept Teudt's proposal, but note that their work has several serious flaws. For example, they ignore the lack of archaeological evidence for Iron Age use of the Externsteine as a sacred site. Also, their claim that the figure of Nicodemus standing on the design represents the subjugation of the pagan faith (p.191) has been claimed as being based on a mistranslation of Nikodemos (Νικόδημος, "Victory of the people") as "Victory over the [Saxon] people".
  19. ↑ Schmidt & Halle (1999)
  20. ↑ Simek (2007:175-176).

References

  • Adam of Bremen ([1070s]): [Religious beliefs of the Swedes]. In: Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. [In Latin]
  • Anonymus ([790]): Annales regni Francorum [Royal Frankish Annals]. [In Latin] HTML fulltext.
  • Birley, Anthony Richard (Trans.) (1999). Agricola and Germany. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-283300-6
  • Farwerck, F.E. (1970): Noord-Europese Mysteriën ["Northern European mystery cults"]. [In Dutch]
  • d'Alviella, Eugène Goblet (1891). The Migration of Symbols. A. Constable and Co.
  • Halle, Uta (2002): Die Externsteine sind bis auf weiteres germanisch! - Prähistorische Archäologie im Dritten Reich ["Until further notice, the Externsteine are Germanic! - Prehistoric archaeology in the Third Reich"]. [In German] Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, Bielefeld.
  • Matthes, Walther & Speckner, Rolf (1997): Das Relief an den Externsteinen. Ein karolingisches Kunstwerk und sein spiritueller Hintergrund ["The Externsteine relief. A Carolingian artwork and its spiritual background"]. [In German] edition tertium, Ostfildern vor Stuttgart.
  • Meyer, Richard Moritz (1910): Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte ["Ancient Germanic Religious History"]. [In German]
  • Rives, J.B. (Trans.) (1999). Germania: Germania. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-815050-4
  • Robinson, Charles Henry (1917): The Conversion of Europe. Longmans, Green, and Co., London, New York, Bombay and Calcutta.
  • Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer 0859915131
  • Schmidt, Martin & Halle, Uta (1999): On the folklore of the Externsteine - Or a centre for Germanomaniacs. In: Gazin-Schwartz, Amy & Holtorf, Cornelius: Archaeology and Folklore: 153-169. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20144-6 Partial text at Google Books
  • Schoppe, Karl (1947): Die Irminsul, Forschungen über ihren Standort ["The Irminsul. Research concerning its location"]. [In German] Paderborn.
  • Schröder, Edward (1892): Die Kaiserchronik eines Regensburger Geistlichen ["The Kaiserchronik of a Regensburg cleric"]. [In German] Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover. HTML fulltext
  • Stallybrass, James Steven (1882). (Trans.) J. Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, volume I.
  • Tacitus, Publius Cornelius ([98]): De Origine et situ Germanorum ["About the origin and location of the Germanic peoples"]. [In Latin] HTML fulltext at Wikisource
  • Teudt, Wilhelm (1929): Germanische Heiligtümer. Beiträge zur Aufdeckung der Vorgeschichte, ausgehend von den Externsteinen, den Lippequellen und der Teutoburg ["Germanic sacred sites. Contributions to the discovery of prehistory, based upon the Externsteine, the Lippe springs and the Teutoburg"]. [In German] Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Jena.
  • von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1824): Die Externsteine [The Externsteine]. Kunst und Altertum 5: 130-139 [Article in German].
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