Eostre and the Matronae Austriahenae

Abstract

The Venerable Bede (672–735 AD) provides our only account of the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, which he claimed to be the origin of the Easter festival name in the English language. In the early nineteenth century the goddess was imagined to have been a pan-Germanic deity renamed Ostara, and subsequently suggested to be the Germanic reflex of a more ancient Indo-European dawn goddess. However, by the latter half of the twentieth century many academics began to question the reliability of Bede’s account, with these doubts now being reflected in wider reference publications. More recently Eostre has been thrown a linguistic lifeline, not as a pan-Germanic or Indo-European deity, but as a local goddess in eastern Kent, said to have been shaped by naming practices that parallel the Romano-Germanic matron cults of the Lower Rhine region. This article re-examines the principal evidence that underpins this ‘local goddess’ theory, offers an alternative explication for the Matronae Austriahenae, and argues that any reinterpretation of Eostre cannot simply ignore or dismiss the one piece of evidence Bede provides about her cult, namely the timing of her month (Eosturmonath) and celebrations.