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Article: European Paganism.(Review) (book review) (book review)
- Article from:
- History Today
- Article date:
- March 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 History Today Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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European Paganism
The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
Ken Dowden Routledge xx + 367 pp. 45 [pounds sterling] ISBN 0-415-12034-9
`PAGAN' IS A POTENT WORD, evoking a wide range of emotions and views based on one's religious beliefs and understanding of the past. Its original meaning is still the cause of some debate, but it is generally used to describe those pre-Christian religions which the Church had successfully supplanted in all of Europe by the end of the medieval period; religions which were essentially polytheistic, and from the Church's point of view, dependent on `pernicious' magic. But we should not think of ...