Alemanus Hercules

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Alemanus Hercules was an alleged king of Germania who enjoyed divine veneration and was compared to Hercules .

Lore

The historian Johannes Aventinus (1477–1534) wrote a seven-volume Bavarian story ( Annales Boiorum ) that tells many pseudo-historical events. Among them is the naming of a king Alemanus, with Aventine referring to Berossus . This Alemanus Hercules is said to have been the eleventh king of Germania Magna and the invincible forefather and founder of Bavaria. He lived at the time of the Deucalionic Flood. His symbol is the lion and several Bavarian places are named after him, such as Almonstain Castle and the Alemanus river (instead of Alcmoenus, the Latin name of the Altmühl ). In the monastery Reichenau his statue should from ore (still currently Aventine aereus signum have found). The Bavarian Duke Theodo dedicated a grove near Regensburg on the Danube to the divinely revered Alemanus Hercules . Aventine also thinks that the Celts generally call all Germanic tribes “Alemani”, which refers to the French “Allemands”.

reception

This fictional story was picked up by scholars but also stimulated the imagination of laypeople. The Lower Saxon farmer poet Hinrich Jansen (1697–1737) wrote romantic verses singing about Slavic, Nordic and German deities:

Dem Prove, Thor and Zuttiber
To the Allemann, the Herthe,
And many other gods more
Of just such worth
Many a forest must be dedicated
The Thorlof, Hilgwald, Allmans Hayn.

Of these deities, the Slavic Prove and the Nordic Thor are historically guaranteed, with Hertha the Germanic earth goddess Nerthus is meant. Zuttiber is said to have been a Slavic forest god near Merseburg .

The librarian Christian August Vulpius (1762–1827) brought out an imaginative manual in 1826 called Mythology of the German, Related, Neighboring and Nordic Peoples . In it he also lists Allemann , a deified German king, “winner and god of war”, to whom Duke Theodo near Regensburg donated a grove.

Religious studies

Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) already renounced Allemann in his fundamental work Deutsche Mythologie (1835) and later research ignored this pseudo-deity .

Books

  • Johannes Aventinus: Annales Boiorum (1554): liber I, 1; liber III, 1
  • Hinrich Janssen: Complete Poems (1768)
  • Christian August Vulpius: Mythology of the German, related, neighboring and Nordic peoples (1826): Lemma Allemann