The formal conversion to Christianity in 1387 of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania seemingly marked the end of Europe’s last ‘pagan’ peoples. But the reality was different. At the margins, often under the radar, around the dusky edgelands, pre-Christian religions endured and indeed continued to flourish for an astonishing five centuries. Silence of the Gods tells, for the first time, the remarkable story of these forgotten peoples: belated adopters of Christian belief on the outer periphery of Christendom, from the Sámi of the frozen north to the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians around the Baltic, as well as the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia’s Volga-Ural Plain. These communities, Dr Young reveals, responded creatively to Christianity’s challenge, but for centuries stopped short of embracing it. His book addresses why this was so, uncovering stories of fierce resistance, unlikely survival and considerable ingenuity. He revolutionises understandings of the lost religions of the last pagans.

• The first book in English about the late survival of pre-Christian religion in northern and eastern Europe, even after the climacteric Battle of Grunwald in 1410
• Francis Young is an established and internationally acclaimed authority on the history of pre-Christian belief and the intersection between history and myth: both his previous CUP books were academic bestsellers
• Brings entirely new and surprising perspectives to the interpretation of pagan religions in Europe in the period post–1387
• The history of paganism is a subject of considerable appeal and fascination, to readers in several fields: history, religion, myth and folklore, and the history of ideas

Francis Young grew up in Bury St Edmunds, England, and holds a doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge. He has written over twenty books in the fields of folklore and the history of religion and supernatural belief, including Pagans in the Early Modern Baltic (2022), Magic in Merlin’s Realm (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Twilight of the Godlings (Cambridge University Press, 2023). His work has also appeared in History Today, BBC History Magazine and The Catholic Herald, as well as other periodicals. A regular podcaster, and broadcaster on BBC Radio, he is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a lay canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and teaches courses in religious history and folklore for the Department for Continuing Education in the University of Oxford.

Table des matières :

• Introduction
• 1. Europe’s unchristianised edge: who were the ‘Pagans’?
• 2. Mere Christianisation: curiosity and ethnography in the fifteenth century
• 3. (Counter-)reformation in unchristianised Europe: the sixteenth century
• 4. Antiquarians and witch-hunters: the seventeenth century
• 5. Darkness in light: pre-Christian religion in enlightenment Europe
• 6. Folklore and fantasy: the nineteenth-century reinvention of paganism
• Epilogue: pre-Christian, post-Christian?

Informations pratiques :

Francis Young, Silence of the Gods. The Untold History of Europe’s Last Pagan Peoples, Cambridge, Cambridge UNiversity Pres, 2025 ; 1 vol. ISBN : 978-1-00958-657-3. Prix : GBP 25,00.

Source : Cambridge University Press