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Alton Priors

Circles under churches

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moss M
moss Sep 29, 2009 14:16:36
Replying to Littlestone

Littlestone wrote:
York Minster is the only church in Christendom ever to have hung mistletoe within its walls - and the fact that it is York Minster means an archbishop must have made the decision.
The question is whether the Church was suppressing or assimilating the older beliefs - perhaps it was doing both in different places at different times; or perhaps, as you quote, "Do not destroy pagan temples, but convert them to Christian use so that the people will feel more comfortable coming there." really was the tactic used and the stones we now see under some churches are indeed the remains of 'converted pagan temples'.
Though this may be wrong 'converted pagan temples' hit something in my mind, Avebury (just down the road) had two French monks from their mother house in France, which was built and incorporated a pagan temple at one time (1st century AD.) So given the rather strange fact that we have two churches situated very close together..why? near to streams and overlooked by Adam's Grave longbarrow, could it be that the supposed stone circle under the church was there, and the powers that be were so horrified by this pagan manifestation that they had to build two churches to keep it suppressed ;)

L Littlestone
Littlestone Sep 29, 2009 14:40:59
Replying to moss

So given the rather strange fact that we have two churches situated very close together..why? near to streams and overlooked by Adam's Grave longbarrow, could it be that the supposed stone circle under the church was there, and the powers that be were so horrified by this pagan manifestation that they had to build two churches to keep it suppressed ;)
Why should the two churches at Alton Priors and Alton Barnes be situated so close together? Well, you could also have had two different communities living side by side; 'Britons' at Alton Priors, close to the spring and stream there, and Anglo-Saxons at Alton Barnes. The Alton Priors church is Norman but may have replaced something earlier. The Alton Barnes church is Anglo-Saxon. There's a wonderful stone path that links the two together by the way. It's not improbable that in the 6th or 7th centuries there'd still be different pagan (British and Anglo-Saxon) and early Christian religions all being practiced within the same area - certainly in an area such as that around Avebury.

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