Trifunctional hypothesis

This part of the 12th-century Swedish Skog tapestry has, possibly erroneously, been interpreted to show, from left to right, the one-eyed Odin, the hammer-wielding Thor and Freyr holding up wheat. Terje Leiren believes this grouping corresponds closely to the trifunctional division.

The trifunctional hypothesis is a theory that prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society and religion reflected a tripartite ideology ("idéologie tripartite") organized around three functions: the sacral, or sovereign, the martial, and the productive, or economic. These functions were sometimes associated with three social classes or castes: priests, warriors, and commoners (farmers, herders, craftspeople or tradesmen). The trifunctional thesis is primarily associated with the French comparative mythologist Georges Dumézil, who developed the hypothesis across studies of Roman, Indo-Iranian, Germanic and epic traditions, notably in Flamen-Brahman and Mitra-Varuna. In Dumézil's later formulation, the hypothesis concerned a religious and ideological structure rather than a direct reconstruction of three original social classes.