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Mesodruidism is the belief that unwritten knowledge of druid lore was preserved in Western European culture as late as the 17th century. The major groves that claim esoteric mesodruidic knowledge are the Ancient Order of Druids and the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. The Reformed Druids of North America made reference to mesodruidism in their founding story as a joke.
Simple proof against esoteric mesodruidism
"The word druid reappears in literature as the result of the increased attention given by scholars to the classical historians, and not as a contribution from popular traditional knowledge." T.D. Kendrick, The Druids, 1928
Works cited by Kendrick:
- 1532: (tr. from French) "If you fancy Mercury to be the first inventor of arts as our ancient Druids believed of old..." Rabelais, Pantagruel. A direct quote of Caesar.
- 1532: Jean Le Febure of Dreux, Les Fleurs et Antiquites des Gaules. Not extant.
- 1563: "The Druides are occupied about holy things: they haue the dooing of publicke and priuate sacrifices, and do interprete and discusse matters of Religion." (Translation of Caesar)
- 1573: Claim: Welsh word for "poets", pryduides, is derived from "druids". False etymology. John Price, Historiæ Brytannicæ Defensio
- 1577: "... the philosophers called Druides, whome Cæsar and all other ancient Gréeke and Latine writers doo affirme to haue had their begining in Britaine, and to haue bin brought from thence into Gallia" Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles
- 1579: Classical claims repeated. Etienne Forcadel, De Gallorum Imperio
- 1585: Druid "aristocracy" ruled Gaul from 1200 BC to AD 16. Noel Taillepied, Histoire de l'Estate et Republique des Druides
- 1598: "A woman ... that was a Soothsayer of them which were called Druides". Barckley, Felicitie of Man
More important claims of mesodruidic origin
- 1618 - England: Druids play the role of bards in Fletcher's Bonduca.
- Mesodruidic truth? This is likely a fabrication, based on what we know of paleodruidism.
- 1650 - Netherlands: In an otherwise scholarly work, a Dutch writer has a remarkably complete image of a druidic grove in his mind's eye. "Although the whole grove was set apart to the Deity, those oaks, nevertheless, which suprassed all the others in the grove, both in height and in beauty, were fenced in round by a peculiar kind of rampart in the fashion of a temple, so that the space within the walls encircling those oaks might be made, as it were, a Holy of Holies ... Within this holy ground, and amid the silence of its groves stood a round-shaped altar which they had constructed of green sods that it might thus best win success for the prayers which they would there offer, and that it might exhibit a common origin with the dark gloom of their temple, and make the gods more propitious on account of the simple nature of the worship." Dissertatio. Esaias Pufendorf, tr. Edmund Goldschmid, Edinburgh 1886.
- Mesodruidic truth? This is a very curious interpolation between quotes of Lucan. I suspect the writer had an active imagination, but there are interesting hints of imposing a naturalist ethic here.
- 1656 - France: Druids gathered in groves, not stone temples. Appendix to Lucan's Pharsalia by de Brebeuf
- Mesodruidic truth? Lucian mentions the groves himself, so all this means is that the image of a grove made sense to the French translator.