As we have seen in tales like The King of Tars religion and race are inextricable from one another– so much so that in highly exaggerated stories like this one, the "black" Sultan of Damascus turns white upon converting to Christianity after losing the "pray-off" to his wife, the "pure white" daughter of the Christian King of Tars.
I have a hypothesis that this feature of Medieval Christendom is not so much one inherent to Christianity itself as much as it might be a holdover from the past of pagan Europeans who had really only begun to be Christianized from around the latter half of the first century CE onwards anywhere north of Rome and southeast of Ireland, which were both largely christianized fairly early on (around the 4th-5th Centuries CE).
In particular, this seems to be something retained from the customs of the Germanic pagans (or "heathens") due to unique characteristics of Germanic religious metaphysics with regards to the nature of the soul and patrilineal descent and whose religion was particularly tribalistic and demanding of lineal purity, even compared to other tribal groups around them, such as the Celts, who were more given to syncretism and mixing with other groups, such as the Romans, as seen in Roman Gaul, Hispania, and Britain (Symbols & Image in Celtic Religious Art, Miranda Green) and more prone to giving greater importance to matrilineal descent, as can be seen in the continental Celtic practice of pairing foreign male gods (usually Roman) with indigenous Celtic female deities (Rosmerta, Sirona, Nantosuelta, Epona, etc.) often depicted with cornucopiae signifying their fertility(Green).
For the Germans (and perhaps the Norse especially) the family line was exceptionally important because a child only received a soul when he was accepted by the father into the Innangard, or "kin-yard/fence, because only then could the ancestors be reborn through his progeny and he himself be reborn as well. For the Heathens, religion really was equivalent with "race".It is unlikely that a concept so integral to the beliefs of the Norse and other Germanic peoples would have been forgotten entirely even after converting to Christianity. While the continental Germans converted piecemeal during the first millennium CE with some tribes becoming Christian during the 400s, such as the Vandals and Goths, and the Franks following a little later, others, especially in Saxony and other parts of Northern Germania, only converted during the 800s, and that too under duress by the Franks, whose king Charlemagne forced them to do so after a protracted war led to the capture and capitulation of the Saxon leader, Widukind. Christianity didn't really reach the North until around the beginning of the second millennium CE, with it not really becoming official until around 1100 nor reaching the interior of the land until around the 15th Century.
There is some reason to believe that beliefs of this kind could have been retained, even after Christianization, especially when one considers the fairly late conversion of a lot of the German tribes. Looking at the stories of early German Christian kings, like Clovis, king of the Franks, they reveal a Christianity that was far more flexible than the later, dogmatized faith, one that could appeal to Germanic pagans like Clovis, who could view Christ or the Christian god as a last resort and a sort of Germanic warrior, a view that is paralleled in the 8th Century Anglo-Saxon poem Dream of the Rood (Cross), in which Christ is seen as a hero who overcomes death.
I have a hypothesis that this feature of Medieval Christendom is not so much one inherent to Christianity itself as much as it might be a holdover from the past of pagan Europeans who had really only begun to be Christianized from around the latter half of the first century CE onwards anywhere north of Rome and southeast of Ireland, which were both largely christianized fairly early on (around the 4th-5th Centuries CE).
In particular, this seems to be something retained from the customs of the Germanic pagans (or "heathens") due to unique characteristics of Germanic religious metaphysics with regards to the nature of the soul and patrilineal descent and whose religion was particularly tribalistic and demanding of lineal purity, even compared to other tribal groups around them, such as the Celts, who were more given to syncretism and mixing with other groups, such as the Romans, as seen in Roman Gaul, Hispania, and Britain (Symbols & Image in Celtic Religious Art, Miranda Green) and more prone to giving greater importance to matrilineal descent, as can be seen in the continental Celtic practice of pairing foreign male gods (usually Roman) with indigenous Celtic female deities (Rosmerta, Sirona, Nantosuelta, Epona, etc.) often depicted with cornucopiae signifying their fertility(Green).
For the Germans (and perhaps the Norse especially) the family line was exceptionally important because a child only received a soul when he was accepted by the father into the Innangard, or "kin-yard/fence, because only then could the ancestors be reborn through his progeny and he himself be reborn as well. For the Heathens, religion really was equivalent with "race".It is unlikely that a concept so integral to the beliefs of the Norse and other Germanic peoples would have been forgotten entirely even after converting to Christianity. While the continental Germans converted piecemeal during the first millennium CE with some tribes becoming Christian during the 400s, such as the Vandals and Goths, and the Franks following a little later, others, especially in Saxony and other parts of Northern Germania, only converted during the 800s, and that too under duress by the Franks, whose king Charlemagne forced them to do so after a protracted war led to the capture and capitulation of the Saxon leader, Widukind. Christianity didn't really reach the North until around the beginning of the second millennium CE, with it not really becoming official until around 1100 nor reaching the interior of the land until around the 15th Century.
There is some reason to believe that beliefs of this kind could have been retained, even after Christianization, especially when one considers the fairly late conversion of a lot of the German tribes. Looking at the stories of early German Christian kings, like Clovis, king of the Franks, they reveal a Christianity that was far more flexible than the later, dogmatized faith, one that could appeal to Germanic pagans like Clovis, who could view Christ or the Christian god as a last resort and a sort of Germanic warrior, a view that is paralleled in the 8th Century Anglo-Saxon poem Dream of the Rood (Cross), in which Christ is seen as a hero who overcomes death.
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