Line drawing of the inscription from King Fáfila's tomb at Santa Cruz de Cangas
This is another ‘lest old themes be forgot’ post, referring back to one I wrote a while ago about a surprising reference to paganism in ninth-century Asturias. At that point Neville of the eponymous Combate linked in the blogroll showed up to explain that there was other evidence for this, not least an inscription recovered from the mausoleum in which is buried Fáfila, son of Don Pelayo the founder of the royal line of Asturias-León, and second king of Asturias, which records that the church in which he was buried was originally consecrated by a—well, shaman? The Latin is vates—called Asterio. (I feel he should have been called Getafíx, or at least Panorámix, but I guess the mason hadn’t yet heard of the series.) I realise your Spanish may not be up to this, but Neville has now written a full post of his own on the ‘mage Asterio’ and his milieu, which includes photographs of the stone and a full transcription, as well as a link to a scholarly publication of it. The importance of this is that in my post I asked whether someone whom a hostile chronicle called a magus might not, as had then lately been suggested by Celia Chazelle, have thought of himself as a priest. Asterio would appear to tell us otherwise, which means a bit of a rethink for me and perhaps for others. It’s a hundred years before the king I was writing about, but those who warned me not to underestimate residual pagan practices may have been more correct than I was. Sometimes a magical practitioner is just a magical practitioner…
The church of Santa Cruz de Cangas, whence the stone and where the tomb, from Wikimedia Commons
Hmm. Now that I go back over the comments of that post I see that I mentioned an idea for a future post which I’d since completely forgotten. I must pick that one up for you all. So, at least one more to come hey?
A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe 
Un cordial saludo, Don Jhonatan Jarrett.
Tiene que venirse Vd a Asturias, en esta tierra remota hay muchas cosas aún por descubrir, algunas de las cuales incluso no interesa que se descubran.
Por cierto, ¿sabia vd que algunos consideran a Pelagius (marino, hombre de mar) como a un descendiente de la comunidad de Britones en Asturias?
Don Ignacio Gracia Noriega ha escrito un libro interesante al respecto.
Parece ser que Pelagius era un nombre habitual entre los britanos, ya hemos dicho que viene del griego y significa hombre de mar.
En el norte de España parece que se hizo también bastante habitual coincidiendo con el desembarco de los Britones en Asturias y Galicia.
Es una verguenza lo que está sucediendo con nuestro patrimonio, espero que vd nos eche una mano y que toda Europa se entere de lo que está pasando ante la desidia de las diferentes administraciones.
Esta Iglesia de Lillo está a punto de desmoronarse y ¡ES PATRIMONIO DE LA HUMANIDAD!
http://www.lne.es/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2009012800_46_720374__Sociedad-y-Cultura-Miguel-Lillo-borde-ruina
«Tum placuit mihi [Pelayo, obispo de León] ut ínter pauca
bona quibus minus desudebam pro remedio anime mee domum
Dei decorem qui fecerat et locum sedis cui preeram in melius
reformarem. Hoc quippe edifitium quod nunc apparet a quibusdam
estimati fuiset regale palatium, a quibusdam uero fanum
gentilium et antiquis idolorum cultibus inseruisse diuitus, pos
tea, cum iam idola defecissent et ydolis homines renuntiantes
signum fiedei accepissent, uacumm permansisse usque ad tém
pora digne memorie Ordonii regis Legionensis. Hic primus regum
istius prouintie fertur in hac ciuitate episcoporum promouisse
cum usque ad hec témpora sine episcopo et sine sede fuisset.
Tune istud hedifitium quia congruum uidebatur et mirabile, in
honorem Dei et Sánete Maie pro sede abtavit …»”.23
«Nam ad petras et ad arbores et ad fontes per triuia cereolos
incendere quid est aliud nisi cultura diaboli? Diuinationes et
auguria et dies iddum obseruare quid est aliud nisi cultura dia
boli? Ualcanalia et kalendas obseruare mensas ornare et lauros
poneré et pedem obseruare et fundere in foco super truncum frugen
et uinim et panem in fontem mittere quid est aliud nisi cul
tura diaboli? Mulieres in tela sua Mineruam nominare et Ueneris
diem in nuptias obseruare et quo die in uia exeatur adtende
re, quid est aliud nisi cultura diaboli? Incantare herbas ad male
ficia et inuocare nomina daemonum incantando quid est aliud
nisi cultura diaboli? Et alia multa quae longum dicere 2S
«Praecepta haec Domini non in ultione sed ¡n terrore delinquentium
adponentes non monis per hac sententiam promulgamus,
sed cultores idolorum, veneratores lapidum, accesores facularum
et excolentes [sacra] fontium vel arborum admonemus,
ut agnoscant quod ipsi se spontaneae morti subiciunt qui diabolo
sacrifican videntur»32.
«A la exida de Bivar ovieron la corneja diestra
y entrando a Burgos ovieron la siniestra (vv. 11-12)
al exir de Salón mucho ovo buenas aves (v. 859)
Violo en los avueros el que en buena ora cinxo espada
que estos casamientos non serie sin alguna tacha
(vv. 2615-2616)»39
15 JOSÉ MANUEL RUIZ ASENCIO. Colección documental del archivo de la Catedral de
León (775-1230). IV (1032-1109). doc. n°. 1190
23 España Sagrada, Madrid, 1906, t. 15, p. 427
32
” JOSÉ VIVES, o. c, p. 399. Este concilio se celebró en el año 681
40 Colin Smith (Madrid, 1983)
La citación de Vives, sí, es la evidencia verdadera, y utilizado, pienso, también por Barbero & Vigil. El obispo Pelayo, sin embargo, escribiendo tanto más adelante y en tales términos de cliché, pudo haber no tenido m´s de información verdadera que esa misma resolución de consejo. El resto de las referencias que usted ha donado al pie de la página no parece haber traducido correctamente…
El prestigioso historiador Don Jesús Maroñas de la vecina autonomia de Cantabria como vd habrá podido leer en mi post cree que “Panorámix” podría no ser ASTERIO, sino ASTURIO, pues en la letra E la piedra está deteriorada y no se aprecia bien.
Fíjese bien en la piedra, vd mismo puede comprobarlo.
No he entendido bien el problema que vd me indica de los enlaces en mi comentario anterior pues son correctos y si tiene duda vuelvo a ponerlos con indicación expresa de donde están sacados.
Las pervivencias paganas entre los Astures Trasmontanos(Pésicos y Luggones)son de tanta intensidad que las referencias escritas a ellas solo reflejan una mínima parte.
Pero no solo en Asturias sino en todo el norte: Galicia, Cantabria y Vasconia y como todo el mundo sabe subsistieron hasta fechas bien cercanas.
El motivo de esta cuestión no es otro que el de la geografía y el aislamiento y con la Reconquista incluso dichas prácticas se extendiero hacia el sur.
Le dejo un interesante enlace al respecto del doctor Tenrreiro Bermúdez
http://www.blogoteca.com/archetenrreiro/index.php?txtBus=magia&cmdBuscar=Buscar&pag=0&aBuscar=1
I think this reply is worth giving in both languages. First the English and then the Spanish…
I did read the theory of Don Jesús in your post, Neville, but if the drawing of the stone that we have both used is accurate, I don’t see how it can be the case: the character that would be the `E’ in Asterio is straight-backed, and the Vs in, for example, `fidelibus votis’ on the third line are quite different. A pity, but it doesn’t make it any less interesting I think.
The problem with your previous comment was that the numbers following your quotations do not quite match those that you use to identify the sources. So, your quote “nam ad petras…” is numbered 2S, perhaps a typo of 23 which is the España Sagrada cite; but ES is a secondary compilation, what was the text that was being quoted? and so on.
The thing that is most interesting about this evidence, to my mind, is not the survival of pagan practices, which as you rightly say is widely paralleled, including also in England and Germany, but the idea that there might have survived a structure of cult that could sustain some kind of priesthood. In this respect it is similar to the priesthood that we see in the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, which James Campbell has lately been emphasising, but whereas the kings who sustained that were pagans themselves, the kings in Asturias were (notionally) Christian, I assume. It serves to remind us of the many similar narratives that writers like Bede may have elected not to tell.
En español:
Leí la teoría de Don Jesús en tu poste, sino, si el dibujo de la piedra que ambos hemos utilizado es exacto, yo no considera cómo puede ser el caso. El car´cter que sería la ‘E’ en Asterio es derecho de la parte posterior, y los ‘V’, contra adentro, por ejemplo, in ‘votis del fidelibus’ en la tercera línea son absolutamente diferentes. Una compasión! sino no menos interesante, pienso.
El problema con tu comentario anterior era que los números después de tus citas no emparejan los que utilices para identificar las fuentes. Así pues, tu cita ‘nam ad petras…’ se numera 2S, quiz´s un error tipogréfico de 23 que serí la cita del España Sagrada; pero el ES es una compilación secundaria en todo caso ¿Cuál es el texto original? y así sucesivamente.
La cosa que es la más interesante sobre esta evidencia, a mi mente, no es la supervivencia de las prácticas paganas, que como dices correctamente se es paralelo a extensamente, incluyendo también en Inglaterra y Alemania, sino la idea que allí pudo haber sobrevivido una estructura del culto que podría sostener una cierta clase de sacerdocio. A este respecto es similar a la sacerdocio que vemos en la Historia Ecclesiastica de Bede, que James Campbell ha estado acentuando últimamente, pero mientras que los reyes que sostuvieron eso eran los pagans ellos mismos, los reyes en Asturias eran (teóricamente) cristiano. Sirve recordarnos las muchas narrativas similares que los escritores como Bede pudieron haber elegido para no decir.
Quizás me haya equivocado al copiarlos.
Los he sacado de “Reflexiones sobre el paganismo y la cristianización” de Don Lorenzo Martínez Angel, de la Universidad de León.
Está en formato PDF
http://revistas.um.es/medievalismo/article/view/52501/50631
Aha, muy interesante – gracias por la enlaça.
Sorry about necro-ing this, but it intrigued me. The inscription mentioned seems to be a pretty heavily Christian artifact (as one might expect), and I suspect that if one were keen on inaugurating one’s new chapel under the sign of the Cross of Christ (to paraphrase the inscription), one would go to an at-least vaguely legitimate priest. A quick look at DuCange substantiates this – ‘vates’ is used of a definitely Christian hierarchy by Hrabanus Marus and Ermold the Black, so I suspect that your first instinct was right and that this is a priest being poetically described.
Yes, on reflection I think that is as or more likely to be right than what I was proposing here when I was a bit deeper down the rabbit-hole of Asturian peculiarity. I should also have checked Du Cange… Thankyou, Fraser.
Much of the Highlands (of Scotland) seems to have reverted to paganism after the Reformation, when there was a dearth of Gaelic-speaking ministers. That implies that pagan practices had survived for centuries after one might have assumed they would have vanished. I am therefore not too surprised by there being a Druid (if I may so call him) in medieval Spain.
Do you know Graham Robb’s “The Discovery of France”? He leaves me with the impression that pagan practices and superstitions survived there well into the 19th century.
I don’t know the book, but it doesn’t surprise me; one could make the same case of many places if one includes things like the evil eye, throwing salt over one’s shoulder if spilt, and so on. But, like the fact that we call Easter Easter and celebrate the nativity a month before Christ’s likely birthday, yet still experience these as Christian festivals, how witting do these things have to be to count as pagan, rather than just old? The Church has occasionally tried to stamp these sorts of things out, but it’s had far more success in the long run just reframing the belief systems within which people carry them out!
“I don’t know the book”: then make its acquaintance; it’s riveting – one of the best things I’ve read in a decade. It’s not as if you don’t have plenty of spare time, JJ.
Well, quite, I’m only packing up to move house, writing two papers, crunching a load of x-ray data and preparing a new job’s teaching just now after all! I mean, what’ll I do tomorrow?