Chapter 3 examines the blood libel invented by Hyppolitus Guarinoni in 1619, Tyrol, Austria. The fictional murder of the boy, Andreas of Rinn, would have taken place in July of 1462. The accepted explanation for this unusual blood libel is a response to Protestant incursions into the Tyrol area, where Rinn is located. The chapter provides a systemic account of the blood libel, which includes complex responses to drought, plague, famine, along with the continuing influence of pagan magic. These elements created an internal dissonance within the Catholic system that Guarinoni was trying to fortify.

Folk dance remains a diffuse and contested concept and yet its performances and meanings retain contemporary saliency to many people across the world. This chapter reflects on definitional issues, the relationship of folk dance to ritual and folk dance’s embodied ideology in Europe and beyond. Given that nineteenth-century thinking haunts the later literature and manifestations of folk dance, I re-visit Felix Hoerburger’s concepts of ‘first existence’ and ‘second existence’ folk dance, together with their critique and key modifications by Andriy Nahachewsky and Anthony Shay. I consider contemporary ritual folk dancing that draws upon evolutionist theory for inspiration and discuss examples of folk dance as cultural heritage that bear performative testimony to perceived unbroken connections between land, people, gender, race and nation. I conclude by urging both persistent critical interrogation of folk dance as ideology in a global frame and further investigation of the choreographic and artistic relevance of folk dance to its widespread practitioners and audiences.

This chapter explores Augustine’s monumental City of God, written in the wake of the 410 sack of Rome, as a response to critics who blamed Christianity for the empire’s decline. Augustine constructs a dual vision of history structured around two metaphorical cities: the City of Man, grounded in pride and temporal ambition, and the City of God, formed by love of God and oriented toward eternal peace. The chapter examines Augustine’s theological reframing of history as linear, purposeful, and governed by divine providence, in contrast to the cyclical models of ancient historians. It analyzes his critique of pagan religion, his nuanced appropriation of Platonism, and his demonology, all of which served to delegitimize traditional Roman cults while affirming Christianity’s supremacy. At the heart of the chapter is Augustine’s doctrine of predestination and his unsettling insistence on humanity’s dependence on divine grace. The City of God emerges as both a critique of Roman imperial pretensions and a charter for a Christian understanding of time, politics, and salvation, whose legacy would profoundly shape medieval and modern thought.

This chapter focuses on the companion volumes Mystic Trees and Poems of Adoration to explore the ways Michael Field’s poetry changed following Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper’s 1907 conversion to Roman Catholicism. This chapter reviews prior scholarship on Field’s devotional poetry, which has often emphasised the continuity between Field’s pre- and post- conversion work. The chapter builds on this scholarship by arguing that Field’s devotional poetry, informed by their newfound faith, explores new ways of thinking about time, suffering, and the purpose of art. Furthermore, this chapter explores the significance of studying Victorian devotional and religious verse, and the ways women and queer people were able to use the genre to engage with and build upon theological concepts, outside the bounds of ecclesiastical authority.

This chapter discusses the evolution of pagan iconography in Late Antiquity, examining how depictions of traditional gods and rituals changed between 300 and 700 CE. It challenges earlier interpretations that associate this period with artistic decline, instead emphasising continuity and transformation in the representation of pagan themes across various media. Drawing on legal, literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence, the chapter provides a comprehensive perspective on the artistic and religious landscape of the period. It discusses key examples such as the Arch of Constantine, which repurposed older sacrificial motifs, and later fourth-century artworks like the Symmachi ivory diptych, which continued to depict pagan sacrifices despite the growing influence of Christianity. The chapter also examines the selective destruction of pagan imagery, particularly the mutilated reliefs from the Aphrodisias Sebasteion, demonstrating how sacrificial depictions were specifically targeted. The chapter concludes by noting that while sacrificial iconography faded, other pagan motifs – especially those associated with gods like Dionysus and Venus – remained prevalent in mosaics, silverware and textiles. This enduring presence underscores the adaptability of pagan imagery, which continued to influence artistic traditions long after the fall of the Roman Empire.

The introduction deals with the problematic concept of ‘paganism’ and the nature and variety of Europe’s pre-Christian religions, examining concepts such as animism, religious creolisation, ‘shamanism’, syncretism, and the ‘Christianesque’, as well as exploring the difference between conversion and Christianisation. The introduction argues for the use of the term ‘unchristianised peoples’ as the best one to describe its subject. It surveys the historiography of the last pre-Christian peoples and delineates and justifies the book’s chronological and geographical scope. The introduction critiques the concept of ‘pagan survivals’ in the traditional historiography of European religions, arguing for a tighter definition of pre-Christian religions, and outlines the nature and limitations of the sources available for studying pre-Christian cults.

Caesarius was born in the Burgundian city of Chalons-sur-Saône around 470. At the age of seventeen, he entered the island monastery of Lérins. But after a few years he was sent to Arles to regain his health, which he had ruined through intense asceticism. Aeonius, the bishop of Arles and a relative of Caesarius, ordained him to the diaconate and the priesthood, then appointed him the abbot of Trinquetaille, a monastery in the suburbs of Arles. When Aeonius died in 501 or 502, Caesarius succeeded him as bishop, a position that embroiled Caesarius in the politics of the area, in which the interests of the Visigoths, the Franks, and the Gallo-Romans were often in conflict. He became the most prominent bishop in the Gallic church when pope Symmachus of Rome confirmed him as metropolitan and papal vicar for Gaul in 514. He presided over a number of synods and councils in Gaul, the most important being the Council of Orange in 529, which condemned the teaching on grace that predominated in southern Gaul in favor of a modified Augustinian position.

Lucian of Samosata emerges as a complex character through his writings, showcasing a deliberate engagement with ambiguity and boundary transgressions. From his caustic and comedic attitude towards Olympian deities to later categorisations as an enemy of Christianity in the tenth-century Suda lexicon, Lucian remains elusive in his spiritual allegiances as well. Similarly, the diverse reception of his theocentric writings prompts a valid inquiry into the best approach to understanding his work. Situating Lucian within the context of the Greco-Roman author’s perceptions of the divine and scholarly inquiries into Greco-Roman religion, this chapter considers his stance regarding religion in general and Christianity in particular. The chapter suggests viewing Lucian as a social anthropologist studying human perceptions of the divine. By delving into the socio-pragmatics of religious practices, Lucian verbalises long-standing debates, shedding light on the realities of belief and disbelief in the contemporary pagan and Christian divine systems.

The fin-de-siècle aesthetes, of course, react against the moral project expressed in realist novels like Eliot’s and Ward’s. Indeed, Oscar Wilde uses liturgy to attack what he sees as realism’s stunted imagination. But, as this chapter and the next show, aestheticism too is deeply suspicious of how excarnation separates the material and the spiritual. Again, if modernity typically sunders these realms, liturgy joins them. It therefore offers the perfect channel for aestheticism’s veneration of material reality – of beautiful bodies, lovely objects, and stimulating experiences. Such devotion pervades Walter Pater’s novel Marius the Epicurean (1885) – itself a kind of liturgical and aesthetic bildungsroman. Set in second-century Italy, the novel follows the pious Marius, who cherishes the pagan rituals of his boyhood and finds their fulfillment in the early Christian Mass. For Marius, the Eucharist not only sacralizes material objects but also defends matter – specifically the body – against the ritual violence of imperial Rome. Just as Wordsworth depicts industrialism as a liturgy of desecration, Pater sees Roman imperial power in similar terms.

Jesus was a Jewish preacher and, for some Jews, a Messiah. His first followers lived in Jewish contexts. Only gradually did the differences between Christians and the followers of other religions become visible. Thus, there was a parting of the ways between Christians and Jews, but it was never complete. Jews and Christians always observed and influenced each other. Christians also set themselves apart from the many groups they called pagans. Although they believed in the existence of the gods, they considered them to be demons. They also developed their own rituals and created places where they met, so that Christianity became increasingly recognisable as a religion in its own right.

The introduction articulates the problem of the origins of Britain’s folkloric beings and traces the various ways in which scholars have tackled (or sidestepped) the problem, from John Aubrey to the present day. The introduction seeks to explain why scholars became wary of engaging with folkloric origins as a historical question, critiques previous approaches to the history of folkloric beings, and presents the book’s new approach in the context of current methodologies in the study of the history of popular religion. The introduction then outlines the structure of the book

Having previously investigated the political and religious milieux of the north and the south of the Arabian Peninsula, this chapter sheds some light on the history of the Ḥijāz at the time of the rise of Islam. It aims to answer the following questions: what factors made the Ḥijāz a favourable environment for the emergence of a third scriptural monotheism? What was the religious context of sixth- and seventh-century Ḥijāz? What picture emerges from a comparative reading of the epigraphical and literary sources? The chapter discusses the polytheistic milieu of pre-Islamic Arabia immediately after the introduction. This discussion includes an analysis of the Qurʾānic passages which mention pagan idols, and argues the case for the existence of a henotheist Ḥijāz at the end of the sixth century. In the third section, an overview of the scriptural communities documented in the Ḥijāz is given. These scriptural groups heavily influenced and shaped the rise of Islam, as evident from even a superficial reading of the Qur’ān. Finally, section four analyses Muḥammad’s prophetic career.