AK Römische Kaiserzeit (original) (raw)

Gold in der europäischen Heldensage, 2019

The advance of the Roman Empire into Northern Europe introduced a large influx of material goods to the Germanic tribes, especially gold. At the same time, the encounter with the Roman world stimulated an intensive intellectual exploration of central ideas, manifestations and cultural techniques stemming from Mediterranean high culture, which were then adopted by the Germanic tribes according to their own needs and ideas as well as adapted to their own culture. The gold of the Roman emperors, melted down and reprocessed, forms the material basis of numerous golden prestige and cult objects, a metamorphosis that lingers in the literary tradition of the Germanic tribes. An example of this is the reception of the consular processional road (processus consularis) on gold coins of the Constantinian era when the emperor assumed office. He demonstrates his generosity by distributing money among the people. Indeed, we have not only two literary testimonies from the reign of Chlodovech and Chilperich in Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks: this coin image was also taken up in the north and imitated around the same time on the front of the Norwegian medallion imitation IK 256 from Godøy. Additionally, the myth of the Danish King Hrólfr kraki can be read as a literary echo to the tradition, who scatters the just stolen gold on the run from his Swedish pursuers. The Swedes eventually stop the persecution over their greed for gold. Here a wide curve seems to connect the gold-spreading of the Roman emperor as an expression of his liberalitas to the imitation of the Frankish King Chlodovech and Hrólfr kraki’s golden seed. At the same time, the Norwegian skald Eyvindr skáldaspillir (at the end of the 10th c.) makes an allusion in this context using the kenning fræ Fýrisvalla ‘seed of the Fýris field’ for ‘gold’ in an imaginary complex that associates gold with grain, thereby attributing vegetative properties to the precious metal.