A Reductionist Theory

[poliphilo]

So Stonehenge was once "the A & E of Southern England".  

This latest theory is based on the perception that the Preseli blue stones are what it's all about -and Welsh peasants- even into the modern era- regarded the springs around the blue stones as having medicinal powers.

Tenuous, very tenuous.

But even if we concede that the stones were seen as curative, was this their primary quality, or a by-product of their being holy?  In the normal run of events the holiness comes first.  Lourdes, for instance, is what it is because a Divine personage once appeared there.  The Holy heals, but it heals because it's Holy. 

Pilgrims flocked to the shrine of St Thomas Becket from all over Europe: some of them hoped for physical healing- and a very few of them experienced it- but to call Canterbury Cathedral a medieval A & E would be to miss the point, I think.

Comments

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that Stonehenge would have served a variety of purposes and its primary function was, cynically, to raise the status of the Stonehenge site and its settlement. I base this on nothing more than my observation of other sites of pilgrimage, commerce, politics and sociality: they all attempt to create a centerpiece to draw people there.

Stonehenge: one of the greatest tourist traps ever built.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't disagree with any of that. It's certainly one of the functions of any pilgrimage site to rake in the money.

One of the things I'd really like to know (but never will) is how Stonehenge related to the even more fabulous nexus of Bronze Age monuments at Avebury, just up the road.