Source

Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum

The Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum is Adam of Bremen's eleventh century ecclesiastical history, and it holds the primary source for the famous description of the pagan temple and great sacrifice, or blot, at Gamla Uppsala. It is the correct source for the content of that account, as Adam himself wrote it. Its limit is exactly what its reliability tier reflects: Adam was a Christian cleric writing decades after the events he describes, secondhand and with an evident polemical purpose, and historians dispute how far his account can be trusted as description rather than rhetoric, so a claim about actual Norse temple practice at Uppsala needs a scholarly source alongside this text, not the account taken as neutral eyewitness fact.

Facts

Assessment

Reliability Tier

Adam of Bremen's medieval chronicle is published in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica critical edition series, but medieval chroniclers are known to mix eyewitness and secondhand material, which is why it is classified as contested-reliability primary material rather than at the top tier.

Notes

Adam of Bremen's eleventh-century ecclesiastical history, the primary source for the famous description of the temple and great sacrifice (blot) at Gamla Uppsala. Use for the content of this account of Norse temple practice at Uppsala as Adam records it; a Christian cleric's secondhand, polemical account written decades after the events it describes, and its reliability is contested by historians, so a claim about actual Norse temple practice needs a scholarly source alongside it, not the text taken as neutral eyewitness fact.

Citation

Author

Adam of Bremen

Publisher

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

Source Type

primary text (contested reliability)

Connections

Associated With

Adam

This source names Adam directly: "Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum is Adam of Bremen's eleventh century ecclesiastical history, and it holds the primary source for the famous description of the pagan temple and great sacrifice..."

Source Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae PontificumAdam of Bremen

Norse

This source names Norse directly: "than rhetoric, so a claim about actual Norse temple practice at Uppsala needs a scholarly source alongside this text, not the account taken as neutral eyewitness fact."

Source Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae PontificumAdam of Bremen

Uppsala

This source names Uppsala directly: "and great sacrifice, or blot, at Gamla Uppsala."

Source Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae PontificumAdam of Bremen

Claims Backed By This Source (38 claims)

This source backs 38 claims across the atlas. As facts: 16 well-attested. As cited relationships: 15 holds. Plus 7 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.