An allusion to Slavic religious practices is made in the 13th century Franciscan’s Thomas Tuscus‘ Gesta imperatorum et pontificum. The description is probably based on general assumptions about paganism held by the then Christian priests but, given the paucity of Slavic religious material, we’ll take it. The book was modeled on Martin of Opava’s chronicle of the same type (which, itself, is interesting for the antiquity it gives the Slavs) but this reference is seemingly original to Tuscus.
“The Lombards by then had become Christian, yet they still worshipped idols and ancient and great trees and honored pictures of snakes; and to this day, the Slavs, who were a type of a Lombard, as seen with my own eyes, revere ancient trees and when they behold them, worship solitary baby goats.”
Longobardi vero licet facti essent iam christiani, tamen ydola adorabant et arbores antiquas et magnas atque simulacrum vipere excolebant, unde usque hodie Sclavi, qui fuerunt genere Longobardi, sicut ipse oculis meis vidi, antiquas arbores reverentur et cum eas vident, detractis capellis adorant.
Thomas (aka Thomas of Pavia) claims to have travelled throughout Europe, though what he “saw with his own eyes” and where he saw it (Slovenia because Pavia would be closest?) is, of course, debatable. Certainly the pagan goat imagery would have been stereotypical for a Christian viewer. On the other hand, a lone, baby goat seems a bit specific as a cult animal to be entirely made up – and not exactly threatening but rather, perhaps, cutely pathetic.
Slavs’ moment of truth
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Great! Torino say, do you know whether the main stream of science ever responded to the information contained by Tuscus?
What kind of response are you thinking of?
I am thinking of how and if anyone referred to this note at all. After all, Tuscus clearly writes who the Longobards are!
I would not put much credence in what Tuscus thought about Lombards in the 13th century. I do think the religious reference is interesting.
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