Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/298

 2^6 The Ancient Teutonic Priesthood.

(i) that the priest of the ancient Germans was not a person endowed with secret knowledge but a tribal official ; (2) that in the North priestly duties were always combined with temporal power. It remains for us to inquire which of the two systems is the older.

It cannot, of course, be denied that the evidence for the continental system dates from a period long anterior to any record of that which obtained in the North. Yet in the North we can find no trace of any system other than that which existed in historical times, and all the evidence points to its antiquity. But can the continental system be a later development of one corre- sponding to that which we see in the North? There are several reasons for at least taking this suggestion into account : —

(i.) The priesthood seems to be an essentially tribal institution. In the private household, and even in the sub- divisions of the tribe, priestly duties are, as in the North, performed by the temporal head. This seems to show that the origin of the priesthood is bound up with the tribe as a whole.

(ii.) In spite of the existence of a priesthood, royalty, where it is found, appears to have a sacred character. Among the Burgundians in the fourth century it was cus- tomary to depose the king in time of famine or military disaster.^ It has been shown above that the Swedes under similar circumstances sacrified their kings. The two customs are clearly of similar origin. Again, that the Merowing kings were sacred is shown by the fact that, like the gods, they were carried to the assembly in a cart drawn by oxen." During the last century of their existence they had practically ceased to have any share in the government, and nothing but the sanctity attached to

' Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii., 5, 14.

- Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. i', cj. Tacitus, Genu. 40 ; Olafs s. Tryggv. (Flat), 278.