Frank
Biller
Works authored
This study provides an overview of religious centres in the rural regions of the southern Germania inferior between the rivers Rur and Rhine, the province border, and the road Cologne-Bavai. The great importance of the cult of the matronae is indicated by their number of temples and dedications, which equals the sum of all others. The matronae were ancestral and fertility deities with more than 100 different invocations referring to their character, topographic / field / tree names or groups of persons. Despite earlier claims and the chronological limitation of dedicatory stelae [ca. A.D. 150-250], their cult set in as early as the 1st cent. A.D. and persisted far into the 4th cent.. While high-rank devotees are known in urban centres, the names of donors in the countryside hint at Romanized locals of a Celtic or Germanic descent. The cult practice showed Roman traits involving sacrifices, processions, ritual feasting, temples, cult effigies, and priests. While the veneration of the matronae in the vici of Jülich and Zülpich was “oecumenic” with other gods, cult sites in the countryside were dedicated to local apotropaic deities such as the Ubian matronae.
This study provides an overview of religious centres in the rural regions of the southern Germania inferior between the rivers Rur and Rhine, the province border, and the road Cologne-Bavai. The great importance of the cult of the matronae is indicated by their number of temples and dedications, which equals the sum of all others. The matronae were ancestral and fertility deities with more than 100 different invocations referring to their character, topographic / field / tree names or groups of persons. Despite earlier claims and the chronological limitation of dedicatory stelae [ca. A.D. 150-250], their cult set in as early as the 1st cent. A.D. and persisted far into the 4th cent.. While high-rank devotees are known in urban centres, the names of donors in the countryside hint at Romanized locals of a Celtic or Germanic descent. The cult practice showed Roman traits involving sacrifices, processions, ritual feasting, temples, cult effigies, and priests. While the veneration of the matronae in the vici of Jülich and Zülpich was “oecumenic” with other gods, cult sites in the countryside were dedicated to local apotropaic deities such as the Ubian matronae.
