Chapter CLXXVI: Section XV: Eormen

The third son of Mannus was said to be Er, a word, perhaps, connected with Tyr on one side, and Ares on the other; for Ertag is the Tuesday of Southern Germany, and Eresburg, now Mersburg, was the centre of the worship of the continental Saxons. The day was, however, also called, in Bavaria and Austria, Ermintag, or Irminstag; and the deity worshipped at Eresburg was Irman, or Ermin; and perhaps the word should be considered as Er-man in conjunction. From him the Herminiones of Tacitus are said to be descended, being chiefly the old Germans and the Franks.

At Eresburg, even up to the eighth century, there stood a great central temple, containing a marble column on which stood an armed warrior, holding, in one hand, a banner bearing a rose, in the other a balance. The crest on the helmet was a cock, on the breastplate was a bear, on the shield that hung from the shoulders was a lion in a field of flowers. Around lived a college of priests, who exercised judgment and made biennial offerings. Before going out to war, the host, in full armour, galloped round the figure, brandishing their spears and praying for victory. Lesser images were carried with the army, and, on its return, captives and cowards were slain, as offerings to the great idol.

This temple was destroyed by Charlemagne, who buried the idol where afterwards stood the abbey of Corbye. In his son’s reign it was dug up, and carried off by the French as a trophy, when the Saxons rose to rescue it and a battle took place, after which it was thrown into the river Innen, but was fished out, exorcised, purified, and made to serve as a candelabrum in the church of Hillesheim.

The battle was called Armansula, and the image Irmansul; whence many have fancied that Irmansul was the chief German god.

_Sul_, or _saul_, is, however, a pillar; and it is a very curious fact that two sacred columns were the penates of every Teuton’s hearth and city. When a migration was decided on by the Scandinavians, a solemn feast was held, the master of the house seated between his two _sulur_, or columns, which he uprooted and carried with him, and, on his approach to his intended home, he threw them overboard, and followed them with his ship, landing wherever they were cast up. It was thus that the situation of Reijkjavik, in Iceland, was determined. Such columns, down to a very late period, stood at the gates of the elder towns in Germany, and were called Ermensaulen, or, sometimes, one the Rolandsaul, the other the Ermensaul.

Eormon, in the Anglian of Beowulf, means universal; _eormoncyn_, the whole of mankind; in old Norse, _jormün_ is the world, and _Jormungandr_ is another name of the Midgard snake which encircles the world. Most likely, the Irmansul thus signified the universal column, the pillar adored by all men; just as the Anglo-Saxons called the great Roman road Eormenstreot, or Ermingstreet, the public road. _Er_, then, would be the divinity, _man_ the human word, and Erman would thus express something revered by all; and thence, the name of the tribes of the Hermiones and Hermunduri, both meaning all the people. Later, the word _jormün_, or _eorman_, came to mean only very large; and, probably, the Saxons of Thuringia had forgotten the original signification of their columns when they gave the single one of Irmansul such an exclusive prominence. Some have tried to explain one pillar as Heermansaul, pillar of the army man, and the other as Raginholdsaul, pillar of firm judgment, as emblems of military and civil power; but though this meaning may have later been bestowed on them, the signification of Eormon is decidedly adverse to this explanation, and it is safest to translate it, when it occurs in names, as public, or general.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │
│Armyn │Armand │Armando │Arminio │
│Armine │ │ │Armanno │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ German. │ Swedish. │ Dutch. │ Swiss. │
│Hermann │Hermann │Hermanus │Herma │
│ │ │Herman │Hermeli │
│ │ │Manus │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ Esth. │ Lithuanian. │
│Jerman │Ermannis │Herm │Ermas │
│ │ │ │Ermonas │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

When the Cheruschi, themselves Herminiones, broke the heart of Augustus by cutting off the legions of Quinctilius Varus, their leader was Arminius, probably Irman or Eorman, though after-generations explained it as Heerman or Armyman. So that the hosts of Hermans, named when national feeling was roused by French invasion, are in his honour; previously, the Dutch Jacob Hermannsen had rendered himself into Latin as Arminius. From Holland the Norfolk name of Armyn must have been imported.

The Germans use, as the feminine, Hermine and Herminie, which properly belong to the Latin Herminius; and the French have made their own form of Armand into Armantine. A Burgundian hermit, Ermin, too, gave St. Ermo to Italy, a name inextricably mixed with Elmo, the contraction of Erasmus; it is the St. Erme of France.

Very early, so as to be almost mythical, was the Thuringian Irmanfrit, or Irnvrit, who hardly conduced to ‘public peace’ by calling in the Saxons; but Hermanfred continued in use in Germany, and was known to the French as Hermanfroi.

The Burgundian version of the great world-girding snake was Ermelind, a name that came to a saintly virgin of the sixth century from whom Ermelinda flourished as an Italian name, being probably common to both Lombards and Burgundians, as both Vandals.

But these Irmins are most frequent in ancient Spain. The Suevi had Hermanrik, or Hermanarico, public ruler, and the Goths, Hermanegar and Hermangildo; the last being the prince who is revered as having been converted from Arianism by his orthodox Frank wife, and whose death, by his father’s persecution, sealed the triumph of Catholicism in Spain. Hermenburga was a princess, offered to, but refused by, a Frank king; and Ermesinda, or, as Southey’s poem calls her, Hermesind, the daughter of Pelayo, carried the blue blood of the Balten to the line of Alfonso. Her name meant public dignity.

Parallel to these the Anglo-Saxons enumerate Eormenric, Eormenburh, Eormenburg, Eormengyth, Eormengild; and after the Conquest there still continue the forms of Eremburga, Ermentrude, and Ermengarde; the last by far the most frequent, and not yet disused in Germany.