A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age. Bracteate coins are also known from the medieval kingdoms around the Bay of Bengal such as Harikela and Mon city-states. The term is also used for thin discs, especially in gold, to be sewn onto clothing in the ancient world, as found for example in the ancient Persian Oxus treasure, and also later silver coins produced in central Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germany, and at times other parts of Europe, the beliefs and practices of Germanic paganism varied. Scholars typically assume some degree of continuity between Roman-era beliefs and those found in Norse paganism, as well as between Germanic religion and reconstructed Indo-European religion and post-conversion folklore, though the precise degree and details of this continuity are subjects of debate. Germanic religion was influenced by neighboring cultures, including that of the Celts, the Romans, and, later, by the Christian religion. Very few sources exist that were written by pagan adherents themselves; instead, most were written by outsiders and can thus present problems for reconstructing authentic Germanic beliefs and practices.
Jan Pieter Marie Laurens de Vries was a Dutch philologist, linguist, religious studies scholar, folklorist, educator, writer, editor and public official who specialized in Germanic studies.
Otto Eduard Gotfried Ernst Höfler was an Austrian philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. A student of Rudolf Much, Höfler was Professor and Chair of German Language and Old German Literature at the University of Vienna. Höfler was also a Nazi from 1922 and a member of the SS Ahnenerbe before the Second World War. Höfler was a close friend of Georges Dumézil and Stig Wikander, with whom he worked closely on developing studies on Indo-European society. He tutored a significant number of future prominent scholars at Vienna, and was the author of works on early Germanic culture. Julia Zernack refers to him as "perhaps most famous and probably most controversial representative" of the "Vienna School" of Germanic studies founded by Much.
Continental Germanic mythology formed an element within Germanic paganism as practiced in parts of Central Europe occupied by Germanic peoples up to and including the 6th to 8th centuries. Traces of some of the myths lived on in legends and in the Middle High German epics of the Middle Ages. Echoes of the stories, with the sacred elements largely removed, may appear throughout European folklore and in European fairy tales.
In Germanic paganism, Tamfana is a goddess. The destruction of a temple dedicated to the goddess is recorded by Roman senator Tacitus to have occurred during a massacre of the Germanic Marsi by forces led by Roman general Germanicus. Scholars have analyzed the name of the goddess and have advanced theories regarding her role in Germanic paganism.
Sinthgunt is a figure in Germanic mythology, attested solely in the Old High German 9th- or 10th-century "horse cure" Merseburg Incantation. In the incantation, Sinthgunt is referred to as the sister of the personified sun, Sunna, and the two sisters are cited as both producing charms to heal Phol's horse, a figure also otherwise unattested. The two are then followed by Friia and Uolla, also alliterative and stated as sisters.
Rudolf Much was an Austrian philologist and historian who specialized in Germanic studies. Much was Professor and Chair of Germanic Linguistic History and Germanic Antiquity at the University of Vienna, during which he tutored generations of students and published a number of influential works, some of which have remained standard works up to the present day.
Walter Hugo Hermann Baetke was a German historian of religion who specialized in Germanic studies. He was Professor of the History of Religion at the University of Leipzig.
Helmut Birkhan is an Austrian philologist who is Professor Emeritus of Ancient German Language and Literature and the former Managing Director of the Institute for Germanic Studies at the University of Vienna.
Otto Gschwantler was an Austrian philologist who was head of the Institute for Germanic Studies at the University of Vienna. He specialized in the study of early Germanic literature.
Franz Rolf Schröder, often referred to as F. R. Schröder, was a German philologist who was Professor and Chair of German Philology at the University of Würzburg. He specialized in the study German and early Germanic literature, and Germanic and Indo-European religion. He was for many decades editor of the Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift.
Arnulf Krause is a German philologist who specializes in Germanic studies.
Friedrich von der Leyen was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies.
Benjamin Sigmund Oehrl is a German archaeologist and philologist who specializes in Germanic studies.
Klaus von See was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies.
Heiko Uecker was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. He was Professor of Nordic Philology at the University of Bonn and a known expert on Scandinavian literature.
Wolfgang Golther was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. A professor at the University of Rostock, Golther was a prominent authority on Medieval German literature and Germanic religion.
Elard Hugo Meyer was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic and Indo-European studies.
