Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Thomas A. DuBois. (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Cult of Saints in Norway before 1200
Saints and their Lives on the Periphery, ed. Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov, 2010
Studies providing a broader overview of the Norwegian saints, including the lesser known, are 2 Ludvig Daae, Norges helgener (Christiania: Cammermeyer, 1879); Sigrid Undset, Norske helgener (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1937); and Else Mundal, 'Helgenkult og norske helgenar ', Collegium medievale, 8 (1995), 105-29. is to trace the development of the cult of saints, both local and universal, in Norway in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as it moves towards the situation about 1200: after two centuries of saints' cults in Norway, more than 150 saints of various categories were formally included in the liturgical calendar of the archdiocese of Nidaros. At the same time four of the five bishops' sees on the mainland were distinguished by a patron saint who became the subject of religious and popular worship, as well as the focus of local literary activity. In a sense the patron saints can best be described as brands or identity markers for their dioceses. This was achieved from different vantage points and through different strategies in the various episcopal sees. For our purpose the situation is best described through the bishoprics of Bergen and Oslo, with an emphasis on the former, which had to struggle the most to achieve the desired goal. Trondheim and Stavanger also had patron saints of their own, but they belonged to slightly different categories than those of Oslo and Bergen: the authority and symbolic effect of St Olaf of Nidaros was so much greater and more substantial than the other local saints that it is difficult to compare the effect. St Swithun in Stavanger was (literally, through his arm bone) imported from England in the twelfth century, and although he in a sense filled the role of a local saint, he will play a minor part in this article. In Hamar there was apparently no need for a distinguishing saintly figure (which in itself is interesting). This chapter will be limited to the cult of saints within the ecclesiastical setting, since the evidence of a more popular cult or belief is scarce. For the same reasons the more mysterious and elusive figures of local sainthood will not be treated here. 2 According to medieval sources, St Olaf was not the first local saint in Norway. The legend of Sunniva and the saints of Selja claims that bones were discovered at Selja, an island off the western coast of Norway, in the late tenth century and that King Olaf Tryggvason (995-1000) and his bishop built a church there. Not long after the death of St Olaf (Haraldson), the outrage over the murder in 1043 of an innocent young man, a merchant's son called Hallvard, on the eastern side of the country, would form the core of yet another cult, with reports of miracles at his grave. In other words, by the middle of the eleventh century three local saints' cults had been established in different parts of Norway: the saints of Selja in the west, St Olaf in central Norway, and St Hallvard in the east.
Saints and Sainthood around the Baltic Sea STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE
2018
S CANDINAVIAN HISTORIANS IN MODERN times have oft en tacitly assumed that saints in the Middle Ages were peaceful. Saints' lives, miracle collections, and pictures and fi gures of saints have been studied to sift out information about daily life, habits, utensils, attitudes toward health, and the like, or saints have been considered political creatures invented or exploited by rulers to enhance their own prestige and strengthen their dynastic line against other members of the family. Th e topic of saints and warfare, however, has been almost totally neglected. Such a connection has fallen outside the dominant socioeconomic historiographical tradition in Scandinavia during the entire twentieth century, and it has somehow aff ronted or at least been disturbing for the strong Lutheran and pietistic tradition in Scandinavia, according to which a good Christian would also do good, pious, and peaceful deeds. Modern historians have sometimes directly blamed medieval saints for not having lived a truly saintly life, and for having come to be venerated as saints in spite of their engagement in wars, the brutality they showed toward the people, or some other indecent behavior. 1 Such an approach misses an important aspect of the medieval Christian understanding of saints, namely that it could be necessary, and therefore a good deed, to be a warrior. Ever since the earliest church, Christian theologians agreed that it was unrealistic to imagine societies without war, because societies here on earth can never be without evil, and it is therefore necessary to fight against evil, both spiritually and physically. 2 Warfare was endemic to medieval societies, also in Scandinavia, and not least in the Baltic where fighting for trade and economy and fighting for mission went hand in hand throughout the Middle Ages.
Saints and their Legacies in Medieval Iceland
2021
Icelanders venerated numerous saints, both indigenous and from overseas, in the Middle Ages. However, although its literary elite was well acquainted with contemporary Continental currents in hagiographic compositions, theological discussions, and worship practices, much of the history of the learned European networks through which the Icelandic cult of the saints developed and partially survived the Lutheran Reformation remains obscure. The essays collected in this volume address this lacuna by exploring the legacies of the cult of some of the most prominent saints and holy men in medieval Iceland (the Virgin Mary along with SS Agnes of Rome, Benedict of Nursia, Catherine of Alexandria, Dominic of Caleruega, Michael the Archangel, Jón of Hólar, Þorlákr of Skálholt, Lárentíus of Hólar, and Guðmundr the Good), using evidence drawn from Old Norse-Icelandic and Latin hagiographic literature, homilies, prayers, diplomas, sacred art, place-names, and church dedications. By placing the medieval Icelandic cult of the saints within its wider European context, the contributions trace new historical routes of cultural transmission and define the creative processes of the accommodation and adaptation of foreign hagiographic sources and models in medieval and early modern Iceland. They provide a clear picture of an Icelandic hagiographic literature and culture that celebrates the splendour of the saints; they also show how an engaging literary genre, which became immensely popular on the island throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, was created.
Constructing a Saint: The Legend of St Sunniva in Twelfth-Century Norway
The Irish-princess-virgin-martyr, St Sunniva, is one of the most enigmatic of Scandinavian saints. The site of her martyrdom, the island of Selja on the west coast of Norway, became an important monastic and episcopal centre during the eleventh century. Towards the end of the twelfth century her relics were translated to Bergen, the new centre of the bishopric, and a hagiographical text was written for liturgical use. This article presents a new reading of the Sunniva legend based on the wider hagiographical, political, and ecclesiastical contexts in which it developed. It argues that the legend, drawing from a continental hagiographical tradition of attributing Irish origins to obscure saints, sought to forge an identity for the bishopric of Bergen in its new royal and ecclesiastical environment.
2022
While medieval Iceland has long been celebrated and studied for its rich tradition of vernacular literature, in recent years attention has increasingly been paid to other areas of Old Norse-Icelandic scholarship, in particular the production of hagiographical and religious literature. At the same time, a similar renaissance has arisen in other fields, in particular Old Norse-Icelandic paleography, philology, and manuscript studies, thanks to the development of the so-called ‘new philology’, and its impact on our understanding of manuscripts. Central to these developments has been the scholarship of Kirsten Wolf, one of the foremost authorities in the fields of Old Norse-Icelandic hagiography, biblical literature, paleography, codicology, textual criticism, and lexicography, who is the honorand of this volume.
The Cult and Visual Representation of Scandinavian Saints in Medieval Livonia
Saints and Sainthood around the Baltic Sea: Identity, Literacy, and Communication in the Middle Ages. Edited by Carsten Selch Jensen et al, 2018
This essay explores the spread and development of the cults of Scandinavian saints in the historical region of Livonia (corresponding approximately to present-day Estonia and Latvia). The discussion focuses on the veneration and visual representations of St Olaf, St Knud (Canute), St Birgitta of Vadstena, St Henry of Finland, and others. The probable conflation of the cult of two different Knuds will be pointed out. Attention will be given to the main centres and promoters of these cults, such as St Canute’s guild, St Olaf’s guild and St Olaf’s church in Tallinn and St Olaf’s guild in Riga. The article points out how some of these saints became identity markers for particular social and ethnic groups or for the representatives of certain occupations. The visual representation of these saints is investigated, as well as the question of how they shaped the local urban environment.
The aim of this paper is to discuss some aspects of early Christianity in Rus', especially the role played by people of Scandinavian descent, known until the end of the tenth century as Rus' and subsequently as Varangians, and whether that role may explain the receptivity of early Christianity in Rus' that still found expression in the twelfth century, for instance in the adoption of a sequence of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian martyrs in the litany of a Russian prayer.1 In that discussion a phenomenon that I have tentatively labelled "Varangian Christianity" will play a major role, as will some reflections on the spread of early Christianity into the territory of present-day Finland prior to its integration into Sweden and the Roman Church as a result of crusades starting in the twelfth century. With regard to Christianity in Rus' as well as in Finland, the veneration of the Norwegian king and martyr St Olav, who is one of the martyrs mentioned in the litany, will also be touched upon.