Topos of Scythia in theMedieval Origogentis

Abstract

The concept of ‘Scythia as an ancestral homeland’ played an important role in the Medieval Origogentis. The narratives about the origin of peoples aimed to contribute the construction of new identities in Europe after the Roman empire declined. Iordanes and Isidore of Seville considered Scythiaas either starting or passing point of the Gothic migrations. Bede the Venerable and anonymous authors of Lebor Gabála Érenn named Scythia as a homeland of the Picts and Scots, while in the IcelandicYnglinga sagait was considered as a native land of the Norse gods. It is widely accepted that the medieval intellectuals used the phonetic similarity of the ethnic and geographical terms Scythae/ Scythia, Gothi, Scotti, Svíþjoð (Sweden) and Scedenig (Scandinavia) to construct links between the new ethnic and political entities, Classical history and biblical genealogy of peoples. This supposition is undoubtedly correct, however, it tends to oversimplify the conditions of the Early Medieval historiography’s development. The aim of the article is to show that the reasons why Scythia became to be considered the ancestral homeland for the Medieval ethnic communities were much more complicated. The author uses methods of the intellectual historyto demonstrate that apart from the Bible, the authors of the Origogentis had to take into account at least two other important narratives. One of them was a still alive in the 8th century Anglo-Saxon Britain and 13th century Iceland epic tradition, which dealt with the presence of the Goths and other Germanic peoples in the North Pontic area. Greek and Roman geography was another narrative, which medieval authors had to regard. This hypothesis determines the scientific novelty of the paper. According to Pomponius Mela, Plinius the Elder and other Classical writers, the lands of Scythia, Scandinavia, mythical Hyperborea, Britain and Ireland made up a single region – northern periphery of the inhabited world. Visualization of Scandinavia as an island laying opposite to Scythia, coming from the Greek and Roman geography, explains why the description ofAsgard in the Ynglinga saga is to a large extent dependent on the Hyperborea’s depictions in the Classical cosmographies. Conclusions. To sum up, one should not consider the stories about the Scythian origin of some Northern and Western European peoples as a complete fiction for at least two reasons. Firstly, some of the Origogentis appealed to the folklore tradition, which, in its turn, preserved a reminiscence of the historically and archaeologically attested events (such as the Gothic migration from the Baltic littoral to the North Pontic area). Secondly, from the viewpoint of educated medieval Scandinavians, British and Irishmen, their own homelands were a part of a single region, neighboring Scythia and being closely connected with it.