Matres and Matrones
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The Matres (Latin "mothers"[1]) and Matrones (Latin "matrons"[1]) were ancient female deities venerated in North-West Europe from the 1st to the 5th century AD. They are depicted on votive objects and altars that bear images of goddesses, depicted almost entirely in groups of three, that feature inscriptions (about half of which feature Celtic names, and half of which feature Germanic names), that were venerated in regions of Germania, Eastern Gaul, and upper Italy (with a small distribution elsewhere) that were occupied by the Roman army from the first to the fifth century AD.[2]
Information about the religious practices surrounding the Matres is limited to the stones on which their depictions and inscriptions are found, of which over 1,100 exist.[2] The Germanic matres have been connected with the later Germanic dísir, valkyries, and norns attested largely in 13th century sources.[1]
Matres also appear on votive reliefs and inscriptions in other areas occupied by the Roman army, including southeast Gaul, as at Bibracte (illustration) and also in the Romano-Celtic culture of Pannonia, in the form of similar reliefs and inscriptions to Nutrices Augustae, "the august Nurses" found in Roman sites of Ptuj, Lower Styria.[3]
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[edit] Motifs
Matronae were representations of motherhood, often displayed with fertility symbols such as baskets or cornucopias of fruit and bread, or babies. They are usually depicted wearing long garments with one breast bared. Locally they may have been associated with other spheres of influence besides fertility and motherhood. The line between the rather "generic" Mother Goddess(es) and more specific local or insular goddesses such as those just mentioned is quite blurry, and the ancient Celts had a tendency to adapt the nature or sphere of a deity to differing local traditions.
[edit] Worship
Worship of the Matres was especially widespread in Celtic regions, with sculptural finds and inscriptions to them having been discovered in Britannia,[4] Gaul, Germania, northern Italy and Celtiberian northern Spain. Just as the cultus had a wide range of adherents, so were the identities of the Matronae widespread. They differed widely from place to place, with a great many names, some of them expressing their patronage of a locality: Deae Matres (or Matrones), the Suleviae, Alaferhuiae, Aufaniae, Cartovallensiae, Rumaneheihae, Domesticae, Comedovae, Vatviae, and many others. In Glanum, Provence they were called the Glanicae. Their number was most likely influenced by the Celtic tradition of triplism, which deemed the number three to be particularly auspicious. There are numerous singular matronly goddesses of Northern Europe as well, many difficult to distinguish from their related triplicate variety (from whom they may often derive, or vice-versa), while the triadic version are clearly cognate with the Greek Fates and Roman Furies, and the Nordic Norns or Weird Sisters, and survive in caricatured form into relatively modern times as the Three Witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The concept of the Triple Goddess remains important in Neo-Paganism.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c Lindow (2001:224).
- ^ a b Simek (2007:204-205).
- ^ K. Wigand, "Die Nutrices Augustae von Poeticio" Jahreshrift Österreiches Archäologisches Institut 18 (1915), pp 118-218, illus., noted by Susan Scheinberg, "The Bee Maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes" Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 83 (1979), p 2.
- ^ Martin Henig and Paul Cannon, "A Sceptre-Head for the Matres Cult and Other Objects from West Berkshire" Britannia 31 (2000:358-362); a first-century Roman altar unearthed in Micklegate, York, was communicated to the Royal Society in 1753-54 (Francis Drake and John Ward, "An Account of a Roman Altar, with an Inscription upon It..." Philosophical Transactions 48, (1753-54:33-41), at JSTOR.
[edit] References
- Lindow, John (2001). Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515382-0
- Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0859915131
[edit] See also
- Triple Goddess
- Dea Matrona (Matrona)
- Triple deities
- Nehalennia
[edit] External links
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