Nemeton
A nemeton (plural: nemeta) was a sacred space of
Attestations in Latin
The word nemeton is explained late in a gloss by
Contemporary description
no bird nested in the nemeton, nor did any animal lurk nearby; the leaves constantly shivered though no breeze stirred. Altars stood in its midst, and the images of the gods. Every tree was stained with sacrificial blood. the very earth groaned, dead yews revived; unconsumed trees were surrounded with flame, and huge serpents twined round the oaks. The people feared to approach the grove, and even the priest would not walk there at midday or midnight lest he should then meet its divine guardian.
Tacitus, son in law of a Roman officer who was probably an eyewitness of the first Roman invasion of Anglesey, reports that when the Romans landed
On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women, in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving brands. All around, the Druids, lifting up their hands to heaven, and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralysed, they stood motionless, and exposed to wounds. Then urged by their general's appeals and mutual encouragements not to quail before a troop of frenzied women, they bore the standards onwards, smote down all resistance, and wrapped the foe in the flames of his own brands. A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails.
Examples
Descriptions of such sites have been found all across the Celtic world. Attested examples include Nemetobriga near Ourense in northwestern Spain, Drunemeton in Galatia, at Medionemeton near the Antonine Wall in Scotland[2] and in mid-Devon there are at least ten Nymet and Nymph place-names in the area surrounding the village of Bow.
- Mars Lucetius ("Shining Mars")Roman Imperial cult in a dedication discovered at Nettleham (Lincolnshire) in 1961. He may have been a god belonging to the tribe of the Corieltauvi.[7]
- A nemeton is in the Roman placename Vernemeton (now Willoughby-on-the-Wolds, Nottinghamshire), in Roman Aquae Arnemetiae (now Buxton, Derbyshire), and in the 1194 reference to Nametwihc, "Sanctuary-Town," (Nantwich, Cheshire).[8]
- In Scotland, nemeton place-names are quite frequent,[9] as they are in Devon, where they appear in numerous place-names containing Nymet or Nympton, and have been identified with the name Nemetotatio in the Ravenna Cosmography near the site of modern-day North Tawton.
- A well known nemeton site is in the Névet forest near Locronan in Brittany (cf. Modern Breton neved 'sanctuary', Welsh nyfed). Gournay-sur-Aronde, in the Oise department of France, also houses the remains of a nemeton. Echoes of the word nemeton survive in many French place-names such as Novionemetum (noviios 'new') that evolved to Nonant, Nonant-le-Pin, etc., *Nemeto-pons, with Latin pons 'bridge' : Nampont and Nemetodurum 'door' or 'forum of the temple' : Nanterre. In Paris, a case has been made for "Namet" in a line of doggerel of about 1270, as the ancient name for the Quartier du Temple on the Right Bank.[10]
- In Ireland, there was a chapel Nemed at Armagh and another on Sliabh Fhuait.[11]
- Nemetons also existed as far east as the Gaulish region of Galatia in Anatolia, where Strabo records the name of the meeting-place of the council of the Galatians as Drunemeton.[12]
See also
- nemus, ancient Roman equivalents
- The Irish mythological figure Nemed
Notes
- ^ a b Koch, p. 1350.
- ^ a b c Green, p. 448.
- ^ Dowden, p. 134.
- ^ Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise : une approche linguistique du vieux celtique continental, éditions Errance, Paris, 2003, p. 233.
- ^ Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003), 2nd edition, p. 200.
- Bernhard Maier, Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture (Boydell Press, 1997, 2000, originally published 1994 in German), p. 207.
- ^ Miranda J. Green. "Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend" (Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1997), p. 142.
- ^ E.Ekwall, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Place-Names (Oxford) 1936:320 col. a.
- ^ W.G. Watson, History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh) 1920.
- ^ Louis H. Gray, "`Et Toz les Bons Sains de Namet'" Speculum 28.2 (April 1953), pp. 76-377
- ^ E. Hogan, Onomasticon Goidelicum (Dublin) 1910, noted by Gray 1953.
- ^ Compare drys, "oak".
References
- Dowden, Ken (2000). European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Routledge.
- Green, Miranda (1996). The Celtic World, part 70. Routledge.
- ISBN 1-85958-036-X
- Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO.
- Carlo di Simone, Celtico Nemeto- "Bosco Sacro" ed i suoi Derivati Onomastici. In: "Navicula Tubingensis: studia in honorem Antonii Tovar, by Francisco J. Oroz Arizcuren, Antonio Tovar, Eugenio Coseriu, Carlo De Simone; Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik, 230. Tübingen, 1984.
