96-613: The Deceased Correa (in Spanish La Difunta Correa ) is a semi- pagan legendary figure in folk-religion, for which a number of people in Argentina and Chile , especially among the popular classes, feel a great devotion. It has spread, in a limited way, to neighbouring countries such as Uruguay . Every year since its inception in 1840, miracles are said to have occurred at the shrine of La Difunta Correa, and thousands of people have visited there to pay their respects. The shrine
192-518: A manor presided over by a lord or a bishop of the church . Peasants paid rent or labor services to the lord in exchange for their right to cultivate the land. Fallowed land, pastures, forests, and wasteland were held in common. The open field system required cooperation among the peasants of the manor. It was gradually replaced by individual ownership and management of land. The relative position of peasants in Western Europe improved greatly after
288-520: A borrowing of Greek ἔθνος ( ethnos ) via Armenian hethanos . The term has recently been revived in the forms "Heathenry" and "Heathenism" (often but not always capitalized), as alternative names for the modern Germanic pagan movement, adherents of which may self-identify as Heathens. It is perhaps misleading even to say that there was such a religion as paganism at the beginning of [the Common Era] ... It might be less confusing to say that
384-502: A class of subordinate gods/ daimons —see henotheism —or divine emanations . To Christians, the most important distinction was whether or not someone worshipped the one true God . Those who did not (polytheist, monotheist, or atheist ) were outsiders to the Church and thus considered pagan. Similarly, classical pagans would have found it peculiar to distinguish groups by the number of deities followers venerate. They would have considered
480-503: A creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. In Italy, with the fall of the Papal States the process of Italian unification fostered anti-clerical sentiment among the intelligentsia. Intellectuals like archaeologist Giacomo Boni and writer Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo promoted
576-443: A cultural and political invention. He writes: This divide represented a radical departure from tradition: F. W. Mote and others have shown how especially during the later imperial era ( Ming and Qing dynasties), China was notable for the cultural, social, political, and economic interpenetration of city and countryside. But the term nongmin did enter China in association with Marxist and non-Marxist Western perceptions of
672-612: A cultural and scholarly center, with the establishment of the first Muslim university in 717 under Umar II , attracting scholars from across the Islamic world. Although Harran lost its capital status under the Abbasid Caliphate , it continued to flourish, particularly during the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786–809), when its university became a key center for translation and intellectual activity. The local religion, blending elements of Mesopotamian paganism and Neoplatonism, persisted into
768-405: A cultural sense. It retained that meaning for roughly the first millennium of Christianity. This was influenced by Christianity's early members, who were Jewish . The Jews of the time distinguished themselves from foreigners according to religion rather than ethno - cultural standards, and early Jewish Christians would have done the same. Since Hellenic culture was the dominant pagan culture in
864-574: A landlord (the hacienda system), most Latin American countries saw one or more extensive land reforms in the 20th century. The land reforms of Latin America were more comprehensive initiatives that redistributed lands from large landholders to former peasants — farm workers and tenant farmers . Hence, many Campesinos in Latin America today are closer smallholders who own their land and do not pay rent to
960-487: A landlord, rather than peasants who do not own land. The Catholic Bishops of Paraguay have asserted that "Every campesino has a natural right to possess a reasonable allotment of land where he can establish his home, work for [the] subsistence of his family and a secure life". In medieval Europe society was theorized as being organized into three estates : those who work, those who pray, and those who fight. The Annales School of 20th-century French historians emphasized
1056-419: A landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants existed: non-free slaves , semi-free serfs , and free tenants . Peasants might hold title to land outright ( fee simple ), or by any of several forms of land tenure , among them socage , quit-rent , leasehold , and copyhold . In some contexts, "peasant" has a pejorative meaning, even when referring to farm laborers. As early as in 13th-century Germany,
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#17330853567261152-612: A largely pagan city well into the early Islamic period. When the city was besieged by the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate in 639–640, it was the pagan community that negotiated its peaceful surrender. Under the subsequent rule of the caliphates, Harran became a major settlement within the Diyar Mudar region and retained a significant degree of autonomy. During the First Fitna , the people of Harran sided with Mu'awiya I over Ali at
1248-591: A military context rather than a religious one is in Tertullian 's De Corona Militis XI.V, where the Christian is referred to as paganus ( civilian ): Paganus acquired its religious connotations by the mid-4th century. As early as the 5th century, paganos was metaphorically used to denote persons outside the bounds of the Christian community. Following the sack of Rome by the Visigoths just over fifteen years after
1344-435: A particular group of people or set of ideas other than their family and political context. If this is the right view of pagan life, it follows that we should look on paganism quite simply as a religion invented in the course of the second to third centuries AD, in competition and interaction with Christians, Jews and others. Defining paganism is very complex and problematic. Understanding the context of its associated terminology
1440-504: A sacred – although secular – longstanding, unwavering and unchallenged authority with a cross-religious effectiveness over the Albanians, which is attributed to an earlier pagan code common to all the Albanian tribes . Historically, the Christian clergy has vigorously fought, but without success, the pagan rituals practiced by Albanians for traditional feasts and particular events, especially
1536-655: A sense of French nationhood was weak in the provinces. Weber then looked at how the policies of the Third Republic created a sense of French nationality in rural areas. The book was widely praised, but some argued that a sense of Frenchness existed in the provinces before 1870. Farmers in China have been sometimes referred to as "peasants" in English-language sources. However, the traditional term for farmer, nongfu ( 农夫 ), simply refers to "farmer" or "agricultural worker". In
1632-477: A subject in their own right." In addition, Petts notes how various spiritual, religious, and metaphysical ideas branded as "pagan" from diverse cultures were studied in opposition to Abrahamism in early anthropology, a binary he links to ethnocentrism and colonialism. Ludwig Feuerbach defined the paganism of classical antiquity , which he termed Heidentum ('heathenry') as "the unity of religion and politics, of spirit and nature, of god and man", qualified by
1728-481: A theological aspect to an ethnological one, and religions began to be understood as part of the ethnic identities of peoples, and the study of the religions of so-called primitive peoples triggered questions as to the ultimate historical origin of religion . Jean Bodin viewed pagan mythology as a distorted version of Christian truths. Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc saw the pagan religions of Africa of his day as relics that were in principle capable of shedding light on
1824-623: Is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism , or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman Empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not milites Christi (soldiers of Christ). Alternative terms used in Christian texts were hellene , gentile , and heathen . Ritual sacrifice
1920-555: Is called a "Bauer" in German and "Bur" in Low German (pronounced in English like boor ). In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents and obligatory services to the landlord—typically a nobleman. Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside
2016-399: Is commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a collective noun for the rural population in the poor and developing countries of the world. Via Campesina , an organization claiming to represent the rights of about 200 million farm-workers around the world, self-defines as an "International Peasant's Movement" as of 2019 . The United Nations and its Human Rights Council prominently uses
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#17330853567262112-419: Is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century, people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised. The notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others, one of the antitheses that were central to the process of Christian self-definition. As such, throughout history it
2208-436: Is debated. In the 19th century, paganism was adopted as a self-descriptor by members of various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world . In the 20th century, it came to be applied as a self-descriptor by practitioners of modern paganism , modern pagan movements and Polytheistic reconstructionists . Modern pagan traditions often incorporate beliefs or practices, such as nature worship , that are different from those of
2304-452: Is important. Early Christians referred to the diverse array of cults around them as a single group for reasons of convenience and rhetoric . While paganism generally implies polytheism , the primary distinction between classical pagans and Christians was not one of monotheism versus polytheism, as not all pagans were strictly polytheist. Throughout history, many of them believed in a supreme deity . However, most such pagans believed in
2400-496: Is related to pangere ('to fasten', 'to fix or affix') and ultimately comes from Proto-Indo-European *pag- ('to fix' in the same sense): The adoption of paganus by the Latin Christians as an all-embracing, pejorative term for polytheists represents an unforeseen and singularly long-lasting victory, within a religious group, of a word of Latin slang originally devoid of religious meaning. The evolution occurred only in
2496-509: Is situated in the small town of Vallecito, 1160 km from Buenos Aires and 63 km from the city of San Juan. According to popular legend, the husband of Deolinda Correa was forcibly recruited around the year 1840, during the Argentine civil wars. When he became sick, he was abandoned by the Montoneras [partisans]. In an attempt to reach her sick husband, Deolinda took her baby and followed
2592-553: Is the context in which Early Christianity itself developed as one of several monotheistic cults, and it was in this period that the concept of pagan developed in the first place. As Christianity emerged from Second Temple Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism , it stood in competition with other religions advocating pagan monotheism, including the cults of Dionysus , Neoplatonism , Mithraism , Gnosticism , and Manichaeanism . Dionysus in particular exhibits significant parallels with Christ, so that numerous scholars have concluded that
2688-570: The Battle of Siffin in 657, which allegedly resulted in a brutal retaliation by Ali, who massacred much of the population. Under the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), Harran prospered and was selected as the capital by the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II , from 744 to 750. This move may have been influenced by the city's pagan sympathies and its strategic position near the empire's eastern provinces. The city's prominence under Umayyad rule saw it grow as
2784-493: The Black Death had reduced the population of medieval Europe in the mid-14th century, resulting in more land for the survivors and making labor more scarce. In the wake of this disruption to the established order, it became more productive for many laborers to demand wages and other alternative forms of compensation, which ultimately led to the development of widespread literacy and the enormous social and intellectual changes of
2880-559: The Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I , murmurs began to spread that the old gods had taken greater care of the city than the Christian God. In response, Augustine of Hippo wrote De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos ('The City of God against the Pagans'). In it, he contrasted the fallen "city of Man" with the "city of God", of which all Christians were ultimately citizens. Hence,
2976-636: The Enlightenment . The evolution of ideas in an environment of relatively widespread literacy laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution , which enabled mechanically and chemically augmented agricultural production while simultaneously increasing the demand for factory workers in cities, who became what Karl Marx called the proletariat . The trend toward individual ownership of land, typified in England by Enclosure , displaced many peasants from
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3072-545: The French Revolution and saw it as a path to restoring an ancient republic. He took the name Quintus Nautius, claimed Roman priestly lineage, and performed Orphic rites at his home. His followers were mainly his household. In 1799, he published La Thréicie , advocating a revival of paganism in France, condemning Christianity, and promoting universal animation . In the 17th century, the description of paganism turned from
3168-652: The Gheg – Tosk dialectal diversification. Regardless of the Christianization, ancient paganism persisted among Albanians , and especially within the inaccessible and deep interior – where Albanian folklore evolved over the centuries in a relatively isolated tribal culture and society – it has continued to persist, or at most it was partially transformed by the Christian, and later Muslim and Marxist beliefs, that were either to be introduced by choice or imposed by force. The Albanian traditional customary law ( Kanun ) has held
3264-826: The Mani Peninsula —where paganism had endured until the 12th century) encouraged the Medici, descendants of the Maniot Latriani dynasty, to found the Neoplatonic Academy in Florence , helping to spark the Renaissance . In addition Julius Pomponius Laetus (student of Pletho) established the Roman academy which secretly celebrated the Natale di Roma and the birthday of Romulus . The Academy
3360-533: The classical world ; including those of the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes. However, modern parlance of folklorists and contemporary pagans in particular has extended the original four millennia scope used by early Christians to include similar religious traditions stretching far into prehistory . Paganism came to be equated by Christians with a sense of hedonism, representing those who are sensual, materialistic, self-indulgent, unconcerned with
3456-502: The "great tradition" and the "little tradition" in the work of Robert Redfield . In the 1960s, anthropologists and historians began to rethink the role of peasant revolt in world history and in their own disciplines. Peasant revolution was seen as a Third World response to capitalism and imperialism. The anthropologist Eric Wolf , for instance, drew on the work of earlier scholars in the Marxist tradition such as Daniel Thorner , who saw
3552-583: The "imposition of the historically burdened Western contrasts of town and country, shopkeeper and peasant, or merchant and landlord, serves only to distort the realities of the Chinese economic tradition". In Latin America, the term "peasant" is translated to "Campesino" (from campo —country person), but the meaning has changed over time. While most Campesinos before the 20th century were in equivalent status to peasants—they usually did not own land and had to make payments to or were in an employment position towards
3648-450: The "peasant," thereby putting the full weight of the Western heritage to use in a new and sometimes harshly negative representation of China's rural population. Likewise, with this development Westerners found it all the more "natural" to apply their own historically derived images of the peasant to what they observed or were told in China. The idea of the peasant remains powerfully entrenched in
3744-555: The 10th century, though periodic decrees enforced conversions to Islam, especially under Al-Ma'mun in 830. Nonetheless, Harran retained its heterogeneity, with a population that included Muslims, Christians, Jews, and a variety of other religious groups. The medieval church accused sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians and Cathars of participating in pagan fertility rites. Arab paganism gradually disappeared during Muhammad 's era through Islamization . The sacred months of
3840-456: The 18th and 19th centuries. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861, and while many peasants would remain in areas where their family had farmed for generations, the changes did allow for the buying and selling of lands traditionally held by peasants, and for landless ex-peasants to move to the cities. Even before emancipation in 1861, serfdom was on the wane in Russia. The proportion of serfs within
3936-421: The 19th century, Japanese intellectuals reinvented the Chinese terms fengjian ( 封建 ) for "feudalism" and nongmin ( 农民 ), or "farming people", terms used in the description of feudal Japanese society. These terms created a negative image of Chinese farmers by making a class distinction where one had not previously existed. Anthropologist Myron Cohen considers these terms to be neologisms that represented
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4032-590: The 9th century, despite some church ruins from the 4th century indicating early Christian presence. The region's mountainous terrain allowed the Maniots to evade the Eastern Roman Empire's Christianization efforts, thus preserving pagan traditions, which coincided with significant years in the life of Gemistos Plethon . Another safe area for the pagans was the city of Harran which, Despite the persecution of its pagan inhabitants by Byzantine Emperor Maurice, remained
4128-618: The Arab pagans were the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar. After Muhammad had conquered Mecca he set out to convert the pagans. One of the last military campaigns that Muhammad ordered against the Arab pagans was the Demolition of Dhul Khalasa . It occurred in April and May 632 AD, in 10AH of the Islamic Calendar. Dhul Khalasa is referred to as both an idol and a temple, and it
4224-473: The Genoese Il Basilisco (1979–1989), which released several works on pagan studies, and Politica Romana (1994–2004), seen as a high-level Romano-pagan journal. One prominent figure was actor Roberto Corbiletto , who died in a mysterious fire in 1999.The 1980s and 1990s also saw an increasing interest in serious academic research and reconstructionist pagan traditions. The establishment and growth of
4320-513: The Internet in the 1990s brought rapid growth to these, and other pagan movements. By the time of the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, freedom of religion was legally established across Russia and a number of other newly independent states, allowing for the growth in both Christian and non-Christian religions. In the 2000s, Associazione Tradizionale Pietas began reconstructing temples across Italy and sought legal recognition from
4416-531: The Latin pagus , or outlying administrative district. Peasants typically made up the majority of the agricultural labour force in a pre-industrial society . The majority of the people—according to one estimate 85% of the population—in the Middle Ages were peasants. Though "peasant" is a word of loose application, once a market economy had taken root, the term peasant proprietors was frequently used to describe
4512-610: The Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church. Elsewhere, Hellene or gentile ( ethnikos ) remained the word for pagan; and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace. Medieval writers often assumed that paganus as a religious term was a result of the conversion patterns during the Christianization of Europe , where people in towns and cities were converted more easily than those in remote regions, where old ways tended to remain. However, this idea has multiple problems. First,
4608-620: The Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire of the newly Christianizing Roman Empire , Koine Greek became associated with the traditional polytheistic religion of Ancient Greece and was regarded as a foreign language ( lingua peregrina ) in the west. By the latter half of the 4th century in the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire , pagans were—paradoxically—most commonly called Hellenes ( Ἕλληνες , lit. "Greeks") The word had almost entirely ceased being used in
4704-581: The Modernization of Rural France, 1880–1914 (1976), historian Eugen Weber traced the modernization of French villages and argued that rural France went from backward and isolated to modern and possessing a sense of French nationhood during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He emphasized the roles of railroads, republican schools, and universal military conscription. He based his findings on school records, migration patterns, military-service documents and economic trends . Weber argued that until 1900 or so
4800-671: The Moon and Starhawk 's The Spiral Dance opened a new chapter in public awareness of paganism. With the growth and spread of large, pagan gatherings and festivals in the 1980s, public varieties of Wicca continued to further diversify into additional, eclectic sub-denominations, often heavily influenced by the New Age and counter-culture movements. These open, unstructured or loosely structured traditions contrast with British Traditional Wicca , which emphasizes secrecy and initiatory lineage. The public appeal for pre-Christian Roman spirituality in
4896-684: The Roman east, they referred to pagans as Hellenes. Christianity inherited Jewish terminology for non-Jews and adapted it to refer to non-Christians with whom they were in contact. This usage is recorded in the New Testament . In the Pauline epistles , Hellene is almost always juxtaposed with Hebrew regardless of actual ethnicity The usage of Hellene as a religious term was initially part of an exclusively Christian nomenclature, but some Pagans began to defiantly call themselves Hellenes. Other pagans even preferred
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#17330853567264992-467: The Western perception of China to this very day. Writers in English mostly used the term "farmers" until the 1920s, when the term peasant came to predominate, implying that China was feudal, ready for revolution, like Europe before the French Revolution. This Western use of the term suggests that China is stagnant, "medieval", underdeveloped, and held back by its rural population. Cohen writes that
5088-579: The complexities of the French Revolution, especially the fast-changing scene in Paris, reached isolated areas through both official announcements and long-established oral networks. Peasants responded differently to different sources of information. The limits on political knowledge in these areas depended more on how much peasants chose to know than on bad roads or illiteracy. Historian Jill Maciak concludes that peasants "were neither subservient, reactionary, nor ignorant." In his seminal book Peasants into Frenchmen:
5184-485: The concept of "peasant" could imply "rustic" as well as "robber", as the English term villain / villein . In 21st-century English, the word "peasant" can mean "an ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person". The word rose to renewed popularity in the 1940s–1960s as a collective term, often referring to rural populations of developing countries in general, as the "semantic successor to 'native', incorporating all its condescending and racial overtones". The word peasantry
5280-545: The context of the 1848 revolutions , leading to the creation of national epics and national myths for the various newly formed states. Pagan or folkloric topics were also common in the musical nationalism of the period. Paganism resurfaces as a topic of fascination in 18th to 19th-century Romanticism , in particular in the context of the literary Celtic , Slavic and Viking revivals, which portrayed historical Celtic , Slavic and Germanic polytheists as noble savages . Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in
5376-461: The doors. In the chapel located on the top of the hill there is a life-size statue depicting the Difunta lying face to the heavens, with her child at her breast. The sanctuaries are segregated by themes. For instance, one of the chapels is full of wedding dresses offered to the Difunta by women whose prayers to get married were fulfilled. Car registrations and scale-model houses can be found all around
5472-488: The emperor. The growing religious stigmatization of Hellenism had a chilling effect on Hellenic culture by the late 4th century. By late antiquity, however, it was possible to speak Greek as a primary language while not conceiving of oneself as a Hellene. The long-established use of Greek both in and around the Eastern Roman Empire as a lingua franca ironically allowed it to instead become central in enabling
5568-464: The empire had gradually decreased "from 45–50 percent at the end of the eighteenth century, to 37.7 percent in 1858." In Germany, peasants continued to center their lives in the village well into the 19th century. They belonged to a corporate body and helped to manage the community resources and to monitor community life. In the East they had the status of serfs bound permanently to parcels of land. A peasant
5664-628: The fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the Russian Alexander Afanasyev , the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe , and the Englishman Joseph Jacobs . Romanticist interest in non-classical antiquity coincided with the rise of Romantic nationalism and the rise of the nation state in
5760-449: The family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange advantageous marriages for his children. Much of the villages' communal life centered on church services and holy days. In Prussia, the peasants drew lots to choose conscripts required by the army. The noblemen handled external relationships and politics for the villages under their control, and were not typically involved in daily activities or decisions. Information about
5856-619: The figure of the Difunta, creating wayside shrines in many roads throughout the country, with images and sculptures of the Deceased . They there leave bottles of water as votive offerings , "to calm her eternal thirst". Since the 1940s her sanctuary at Vallecito, at first merely a cross on the top of a hill, has been transformed into a small town in which there are several votive chapels (17 as of 2005), full of offerings. The chapels are donated by her followers, whose names are engraved on plates fixed to
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#17330853567265952-514: The fire rituals ( Zjarri ). Pagan Continuity in Mani and Mistra (800–1100) Christianity was introduced late in Mani, with the first Greek temples converted into churches during the 11th century. Byzantine monk Nikon "the Metanoite" (Νίκων ὁ Μετανοείτε) was sent in the 10th century to convert the predominantly pagan Maniots. Although his preaching began the conversion process, it took over 200 years for
6048-602: The folk tale became known, the inhabitants of the nearby areas started visiting Deolinda Correa's grave, building after time an oratory that slowly became a sanctuary. The cultus to the Difunta Correa is that of an unofficial popular saint, not recognised by the Catholic Church . Her devout followers believe her to perform miracles and intercede for the living. The survival of her child would have been her first miracle. Cattle keepers first, then truck drivers, disseminated
6144-499: The foreign invaders were "not of the city" or "rural". The term pagan was not attested in the English language until the 17th century. In addition to infidel and heretic , it was used as one of several pejorative Christian counterparts to goy ( גוי / נכרי ) as used in Judaism, and to kafir ( كافر , 'unbeliever') and mushrik ( مشرك , 'idolater') as in Islam. In
6240-465: The future, and uninterested in more mainstream religions. Pagans were usually described in terms of this worldly stereotype , especially among those drawing attention to what they perceived as the limitations of paganism. Thus G. K. Chesterton wrote: "The pagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else." In sharp contrast, Swinburne
6336-486: The hill to the main sanctuary. Visits to the Difunta Correa's Vallecito shrine take place during the whole year, but they are more numerous during Easter or at All-Souls' Day (2 November) and on dates special to truck drivers and gauchos, mostly in summer. On such occasions, crowds of 200,000 people have been claimed. Paganism Paganism (from classical Latin pāgānus "rural", "rustic", later "civilian")
6432-641: The historical paganism of Classical Antiquity. The 19th century also saw much scholarly interest in the reconstruction of pagan mythology from folklore or fairy tales. This was notably attempted by the Brothers Grimm , especially Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology , and Elias Lönnrot with the compilation of the Kalevala . The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe that
6528-407: The importance of peasants. Its leader Fernand Braudel devoted the first volume—called The Structures of Everyday Life —of his major work, Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Century to the largely silent and invisible world that existed below the market economy. Other research in the field of peasant studies was promoted by Florian Znaniecki and Fei Xiaotong , and in the post-1945 studies of
6624-456: The land and compelled them, often unwillingly, to become urban factory-workers, who came to occupy the socio-economic stratum formerly the preserve of the medieval peasants. This process happened in an especially pronounced and truncated way in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until
6720-488: The largest world religions. Contemporary knowledge of old pagan religions and beliefs comes from several sources, including anthropological field research records, the evidence of archaeological artifacts , and the historical accounts of ancient writers regarding cultures known to Classical antiquity . Most modern pagan religions existing today express a worldview that is pantheistic , panentheistic , polytheistic, or animistic , but some are monotheistic . It
6816-460: The majority to accept Christianity fully by the 11th and 12th centuries. Patrick Leigh Fermor noted that the Maniots, isolated by mountains, were among the last Greeks to abandon the old religion, doing so towards the end of the 9th century: Sealed off from outside influences by their mountains, the semi- troglodytic Maniots themselves were the last of the Greeks to be converted. They only abandoned
6912-549: The modern era has spread beyond Italy, with practitioners found in countries across Europe and the Americas. The most prominent international organization is Nova Roma , founded in 1998, with active groups worldwide. Peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to
7008-430: The narrow meaning of the word from a broad cultural sphere to a more specific religious grouping. However, there were many Christians and pagans alike who strongly objected to the evolution of the terminology. The influential Archbishop of Constantinople Gregory of Nazianzus , for example, took offence at imperial efforts to suppress Hellenic culture (especially concerning spoken and written Greek) and he openly criticized
7104-467: The observation that man in the pagan view is always defined by ethnicity , i.e., As a result, every pagan tradition is also a national tradition. Modern historians define paganism instead as the aggregate of cult acts, set within a civic rather than a national context, without a written creed or sense of orthodoxy . The developments in the religious thought of the far-flung Roman Empire during Late Antiquity need to be addressed separately, because this
7200-550: The old religion of Greece towards the end of the ninth century. It is surprising to remember that this peninsula of rock, so near the heart of the Levant from which Christianity springs, should have been baptised three whole centuries after the arrival of St. Augustine in far-away Kent . According to Constantine VII in De Administrando Imperio , the Maniots were referred to as 'Hellenes' and only fully Christianized in
7296-422: The pagans, before their competition with Christianity, had no religion at all in the sense in which that word is normally used today. They had no tradition of discourse about ritual or religious matters (apart from philosophical debate or antiquarian treatise), no organized system of beliefs to which they were asked to commit themselves, no authority-structure peculiar to the religious area, above all no commitment to
7392-558: The poet would comment on this same theme: "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death." Recently, the ethnocentric and moral absolutist origins of the common usage of the term pagan have been proposed, with scholar David Petts noting how, with particular reference to Christianity, "...local religions are defined in opposition to privileged 'world religions'; they become everything that world religions are not, rather than being explored as
7488-493: The priestly colleges (such as the College of Pontiffs or Epulones ) and cult practices more meaningful distinctions. Referring to paganism as a pre-Christian indigenous religion is equally untenable. Not all historical pagan traditions were pre-Christian or indigenous to their places of worship. Owing to the history of its nomenclature, paganism traditionally encompasses the collective pre- and non-Christian cultures in and around
7584-568: The recasting of Jesus the wandering rabbi into the image of Christ the Logos , the divine saviour, reflects the cult of Dionysus directly. They point to the symbolism of wine and the importance it held in the mythology surrounding both Dionysus and Jesus Christ; Wick argues that the use of wine symbolism in the Gospel of John , including the story of the Marriage at Cana at which Jesus turns water into wine,
7680-716: The restoration of Roman religious practices. In 1927, philosopher and esotericist Julius Evola founded the Gruppo di Ur in Rome, along with its journal Ur (1927–1928), involving figures like Arturo Reghini . In 1928, Evola published Imperialismo Pagano , advocating Italian political paganism to oppose the Lateran Pacts . The journal resumed in 1929 as Krur . A mysterious document published in Krur in 1929, attributed to orientalist Leone Caetani , suggested that Italy's World War I victory and
7776-525: The rise of fascism were influenced by Etruscan-Roman rites. The 1960s and 1970s saw a resurgence in neo-Druidism as well as the rise of modern Germanic paganism in the United States and in Iceland . In the 1970s, Wicca was notably influenced by feminism, leading to the creation of an eclectic, Goddess -worshipping movement known as Dianic Wicca . The 1979 publication of Margot Adler 's Drawing Down
7872-758: The rise of the Gruppo dei Dioscuri in cities like Rome, Naples, and Messina, which published a series of four booklets, including titles such as L'Impeto della vera cultura and Rivoluzione Tradizionale e Sovversione , before fading from public view ..The Evolian journal Arthos , founded in Genoa in 1972 by Renato del Ponte , expressed significant interest in Roman religion. In 1984, the Gruppo Arx revived Messina's Dioscuri activities, and Reghini's Pythagorean Association briefly resurfaced in Calabria and Sicily from 1984 to 1988, publishing Yghìeia . Other publications include
7968-526: The rural population as a key element in the transition from feudalism to capitalism . Wolf and a group of scholars criticized both Marx and the field of Modernization theorists for treating peasants as lacking the ability to take action . James C. Scott 's field observations in Malaysia convinced him that villagers were active participants in their local politics even though they were forced to use indirect methods. Many of these activist scholars looked back to
8064-677: The spread of Christianity—as indicated for example, by the use of Greek for the Epistles of Paul . In the first half of the 5th century, Greek was the standard language in which bishops communicated, and the Acta Conciliorum ("Acts of the Church Councils") were recorded originally in Greek and then translated into other languages. "Heathen" comes from Old English : hæðen (not Christian or Jewish); cf. Old Norse heiðinn . This meaning for
8160-562: The state, drawing inspiration from similar groups like YSEE in Greece. In 2023, Pietas participated in the ECER meeting, resulting in the signing of the Riga Declaration, which calls for the recognition of European ethnic religions. Public rituals, such as those celebrating the ancient festival of the Natale di Roma , have also resumed in recent years. The idea of practicing Roman religion in
8256-568: The term "peasant" in a non-pejorative sense, as in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas adopted in 2018. In general English-language literature, the use of the word "peasant" has steadily declined since about 1970. The word "peasant" is derived from the 15th-century French word païsant , meaning one from the pays , or countryside; ultimately from
8352-499: The term originated from Gothic haiþno ( gentile woman) being used to translate Hellene in Wulfila's Bible , the first translation of the Bible into a Germanic language . This may have been influenced by the Greek and Latin terminology of the time used for pagans. If so, it may be derived from Gothic haiþi (dwelling on the heath ). However, this is not attested . It may even be
8448-551: The tracks of the Montoneras through the desert of San Juan Province . When her supplies ran out, she died. Her body was found days later by gauchos who were driving cattle through. They were astonished when they saw the dead woman's baby was still alive, feeding from her "miraculously" ever-full breast. The men buried her body in present-day Vallecito in the Caucete Department of San Juan, and took her baby with them. Once
8544-448: The traditional rural population in countries where smallholders farmed much of the land. More generally, the word "peasant" is sometimes used to refer pejoratively to those considered to be "lower class", perhaps defined by poorer education and/or a lower income. The open field system of agriculture dominated most of Europe during medieval times and endured until the nineteenth century in many areas. Under this system, peasants lived on
8640-729: The word's usage as a reference to non-Christians pre-dates that period in history. Second, paganism within the Roman Empire centred on cities. The concept of an urban Christianity as opposed to a rural paganism would not have occurred to Romans during Early Christianity . Third, unlike words such as rusticitas , paganus had not yet fully acquired the meanings (of uncultured backwardness) used to explain why it would have been applied to pagans. Paganus more likely acquired its meaning in Christian nomenclature via Roman military jargon (see above). Early Christians adopted military motifs and saw themselves as Milites Christi (soldiers of Christ). A good example of Christians still using paganus in
8736-420: The years following fascism was largely driven by Julius Evola . By the late 1960s, a renewed "operational" interest in pagan Roman traditions emerged from youth circles around Evola, particularly concerning the experience of the Gruppo di Ur . Evola's writings incorporated concepts from outside classical Roman religion, such as Buddhism , Hinduism , sexual magic , and private ritual nudity . This period saw
8832-420: Was an integral part of ancient Greco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry ". During and after the Middle Ages , the term paganism was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a belief in " false gods ". The origin of the application of the term "pagan" to polytheism
8928-822: Was dissolved in 1468 when Pope Paul II orderd the arrest and execution of some of the members, Pope Sixtus IV allowed Laetus to open the academy again until the Sack of Rome of the 1527. After the French Revolution , the French lawyer Gabriel André Aucler (mid 1700s–1815) adopted the name Quintus Nautius and sought to revive paganism , styling himself as its leader. He designed religious clothing and performed pagan rites at his home. In 1799, he published La Thréicie , presenting his religious views. His teachings were later analyzed by Gérard de Nerval in Les Illuminés (1852). Admiring ancient Greece and ancient Rome , Aucler supported
9024-488: Was generally used in a derogatory sense. The term pagan derives from Late Latin paganus , revived during the Renaissance . Itself deriving from classical Latin pagus which originally meant 'region delimited by markers', paganus had also come to mean 'of or relating to the countryside', 'country dweller', 'villager'; by extension, ' rustic ', 'unlearned', ' yokel ', ' bumpkin '; in Roman military jargon , 'non-combatant', 'civilian', 'unskilled soldier'. It
9120-743: Was intended to show Jesus as superior to Dionysus. The scene in The Bacchae wherein Dionysus appears before King Pentheus on charges of claiming divinity is compared to the New Testament scene of Jesus being interrogated by Pontius Pilate . Proto-Albanian speakers were Christianized under the Latin sphere of influence, specifically in the 4th century CE, as shown by the basic Christian terms in Albanian, which are of Latin origin and entered Proto-Albanian before
9216-445: Was known by some as the Ka'ba of Yemen, built and worshipped by polytheist tribes. Interest in reviving ancient Roman religious traditions can be traced to the Renaissance , with figures such as Gemistus Pletho and Julius Pomponius Laetus advocating for a revival, when Renaissance magic was practiced as a revival of Greco-Roman magic . Gemistus Plethon, who was from Mistras (near
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