On the Origins of Churches and Churchyards of Southern Estonia: The Evidence of Early Grave Finds

IF 0.1 0 ART
H. Valk
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

Data about the earliest history of medieval churches of southern Estonia are fragmentary, being limited to the first mentions of the parish, priest or congregation, or to mostly scanty historical information about the architecture. Some information can also be provided by archaeological grave finds, which often date back further than the first data about the churches. The article presents a brief survey of the finds from the churchyards of southern Estonia, the area of medieval diocese of Tartu, from before ca. 1450 AD. The finds, mostly jewellery and fragments of cremated bones, show that churches were often built on top of old cemeteries from the Final Iron Age, whereby the pre-Christian jewellery items, mostly brooches, rings and bracelets, date mainly from the 11th to the early 13th centuries. If the cases in which the archaeological information is limited or non-existent are excluded, 60% of the rural churches of southern Estonia (9 out of 15) were built on pre-Christian cemeteries. The percentage may even be higher, since archaeological data for more than half of the churchyards is either missing or insufficient for drawing any conclusions. In the cases where major temporal gaps exist between the Final Iron Age finds and the first written or architectural data about the church, the cemetery probably functioned continuously as a village cemetery in the Christian period. The pre-Christian origins of the cemeteries in the churchyards indicate that the local communities were actively involved in choosing the locations for the churches at the time of Christianization. Place continuity also shows that, despite the violent nature of Christianization, the natives of southern Estonia did not oppose having Christian sanctuaries built on pre-Christian cemeteries, and evidently, the continuous use of the former burial site was considered important.
爱沙尼亚南部教堂的起源:早期坟墓发现的证据
关于爱沙尼亚南部中世纪教堂最早历史的资料是支离破碎的,仅限于最初提到的教区、牧师或会众,或者是关于建筑的很少的历史信息。考古墓穴的发现也可以提供一些信息,这些墓穴的历史可以追溯到比关于教堂的最初数据更早的时候。本文简要介绍了公元1450年以前爱沙尼亚南部教堂墓地的发现,中世纪塔尔图教区的地区。这些发现主要是珠宝和火化的骨头碎片,表明教堂经常建在最后铁器时代的旧墓地上,在那里,前基督教的珠宝物品,主要是胸针、戒指和手镯,主要可以追溯到11世纪到13世纪初。如果排除考古资料有限或不存在的情况,爱沙尼亚南部60%的农村教堂(15个教堂中有9个)建在基督教出现之前的墓地上。这个比例甚至可能更高,因为超过一半的教堂墓地的考古数据要么缺失,要么不足以得出任何结论。在铁器时代末期的发现与最早的关于教堂的书面或建筑资料之间存在重大时间差距的情况下,墓地可能在基督教时期一直作为村庄墓地使用。教堂墓地的前基督教起源表明,在基督教化时期,当地社区积极参与选择教堂的位置。地点的连续性也表明,尽管基督教化具有暴力性质,但爱沙尼亚南部的当地人并不反对在基督教之前的墓地上建造基督教的避难所,显然,继续使用以前的埋葬地点被认为是重要的。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.20
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0
期刊介绍: THE BALTIC JOURNAL OF ART HISTORY is an official publication of the Department of Art History of the Institute of History and Archaeology of the University of Tartu. It is published by the University of Tartu Press in cooperation with the Department of Art History. The concept of the journal is to ask contributions from different authors whose ideas and research findings in terms of their content and high academic quality invite them to be published. We are mainly looking forward to lengthy articles of monographic character as well as shorter pieces where the issues raised or the new facts presented cover topics that have not yet been shed light on or open up new art geographies.
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