Fulltrúi

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Fulltrúi is the name in Old West Norse literature (since the 11th century) for a close confidante or friend. The word is used broadly in the sources to refer to persons such as feudal and followers, to personal friends and confidants, and in Viten ( hagiographies ) to saints of the Church and biblical persons such as the Jesus mother Mary . Furthermore, the term fulltrúi is used for objects and animals. In the New Icelandic language, the term is a name for official representatives and representatives in authorities and administrations such as registrars.

A special application of the term can be found with the old Germanic (Nordic) deities . Here as a henotheistic expression of the relationship between an individual and his particular deity who feels connected to one another ( Thor , Freyr ). In this particular context, the term stands in the scientific research on the Germanic religious history in the area of ​​tension between different evaluations, some of which were subject to a scientific-historical time connection. In research up to the half of the 20th century, the term was regarded as a testimony to a Nordic, yet pars pro toto Germanic “Fulltrúi faith”, which means that the Germans had an individual religious feeling. In the discussion, these assumptions were contrary to the interpretation of the testimonies of the oldest sources - since (late) antiquity - which see the individual with the Germanic peoples with their not only religious identification and feelings in the communal cult of the family and the extended tribal community.

literature

  • Walter Baetke: Christian Fief in the Saga Religion. Reports on the negotiating the Saxon Acad. zu Leipzig, Philol.-hist. Kl. 98, H, 6, 1951, pp. 7-55, here pp. 30-36.
  • Bernhard Maier: The religion of the Teutons. CH Beck, Munich 2004, pp. 32-40.
  • Åke V. Ström, Haralds Biezais : Germanic and Baltic religion. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1975, pp. 197-199.
  • Julia Zernak: Fulltrúi . In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . 2nd supplemented edition. tape 10 . de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 1998, ISBN 3-11-015102-2 , pp. 243–245 ( fee required from De Gruyter Online).