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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

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84<br />

TEMPLES,<br />

quoque errore seducti, in perfidiam devenerant, Fotini sen Bonosi<br />

virus infecti, quos, errore depulso, matri ecclesiae reconciliatos veros<br />

Christi fecere servos.<br />

V<strong>it</strong>a S. Willibrordi (f 789), in Acta Bened. sec. 3, p.<br />

609 :<br />

Perven<strong>it</strong> in confinio Fresonum et Danorum ad quandam insulam,<br />

quae a quodam deo suo Fos<strong>it</strong>e ab accolis terrae Fos<strong>it</strong>esland appellatur,<br />

quia in ea ejusdem dei fana fuere constructa. Qui locus a<br />

paganis tanta veneratione habebatur, ut nil in eo vel animalium<br />

ibi pascentium vel aliarum quarumlibet rerum gentilium quisquam<br />

tangere audebat, nee etiam a fonte qui ibi ebulliebat aquam haurire<br />

nisi tacens praesumebat.<br />

V<strong>it</strong>a S. Willehadi (f 793), in Pertz 2, 381 : Unde contig<strong>it</strong>, ut<br />

quidam discipulorum ejus, divino compuncti ardore, /&7ia in morem<br />

gentilium circumquaque erecta coepissent evertere et ad nihilum,<br />

prout poterant, redigere ; quo facto barbari, qui adhuc forte<br />

perst<strong>it</strong>erant, furore nimio succensi, irruerunt super eos repente cum<br />

impetu, volentes eos fund<strong>it</strong>us interimere, ibique Dei famulum<br />

fustibus caesum multis admodum plagis<br />

affecere. This happened<br />

in the Frisian pagus Thrianta (Drente) before 779.<br />

V<strong>it</strong>a Ludgeri (beginning of the 9th :<br />

cent.) 1,8 (In Frisia) Paganos<br />

asperrimos . . . m<strong>it</strong>igav<strong>it</strong>, ut sua ilium delubra destruere corarn<br />

oculis paterentur. Inventum in fanis aurum et argentum plurimum<br />

Albricus in aerarium regis intul<strong>it</strong>, accipiens et ipse praecipiente<br />

45 from the<br />

Carolo portionem ex illo. Conf. the passage c<strong>it</strong>ed p.<br />

Lex Frisionum.<br />

Folcuini gesta abb. Lobiensium (circ. 980), in Pertz 6, 55 : Est<br />

locus intra terminos pagi, quern veteres, a loco ubi superst<strong>it</strong>iosa<br />

(jentil<strong>it</strong>as fanum Marti sacraverat, Fanum Martinse dixeruut. This<br />

is Farnars in Hainault, not far from Valenciennes.<br />

In all probabil<strong>it</strong>y the sanctuary of Tanfana which Germanicus<br />

demolished in A.D. 14 was not a mere grove, but a real building,<br />

otherwise Tac<strong>it</strong>us would hardly have called the destruction of <strong>it</strong> a<br />

levelling to the . ground During the next three or four centuries<br />

we are w<strong>it</strong>hout any notices of heathen temples in Germany. In<br />

the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, as I have shown, we come<br />

upon castra, tcmpla, fana among Burgundians, Franks, Lombards,<br />

Alamanns, Anglo-Saxons, and Frisians. By fanum (whence fanaticus)<br />

seems often to have been understood a building of smaller

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