blessmycottonsocks
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2014
- Messages
- 9,425
- Location
- Wessex and Mercia
Why would the Gauls worship a Norse goddess?
There's evidence that Notre Dame was built on the site of a Temple to Jupiter from when the Romans occupied Gaul. Before that, who knows - wouldn't surprise me if the Romans deliberately built over a site sacred to the Parisii.
The Vikings, under the semi-legendary Ragnar Lodbruk, occupied several major towns in Gaul/Francia, including Paris.
Normandy basically became a Viking enclave and it's not hard to see some Viking heritage there even today.
They obviously brought their Norse religion with them. The evidence is though that the Vikings rapidly adopted Christianity and became Frankified in terms of language and culture.
Unlike the ephemeral effect of the Norse religion in Francia, the Roman pantheon of gods had a far stronger influence and supplanted the old Celtic religion throughout Gaul.
Notre Dame de Paris is thought to have been built on the site of an abandoned Gallo-Roman temple to Jupiter (originally "Dyeu-pater" meaning father-God).
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