saints and their lives on the periphery: veneration of saints in scandinavia and eastern europe (c

SAINTS AND THEIR LIVES ON THE PERIPHERY

CURSOR MUNDI

Cursor Mundi is produced under the auspices of the Center for Medievaland Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

Christoper Baswell, Columbia University and Barnard CollegeGeneral Editor

Blair Sullivan, University of California, Los AngelesExecutive Editor

Editorial Board

Michael D. Bailey, Iowa State UniversityW illiam Bodiford, University of California, Los Angeles

Peter Cowe, University of California, Los AngelesFlorin Curta, University of Florida

Elizabeth Freeman, University of TasmaniaYitzhak Hen, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Geraldine Heng, University of Texas at AustinLauren Kassell, Pembroke College, Cambridge

David Lines, University of WarwickCary Nederman, Texas A&M University

Teofilo Ruiz, University of California, Los AngelesZrinka Stahuljak, University of California, Los Angeles

Volume 9

SAINTS AND THEIR LIVES ON THE PERIPHERY

Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe(c. 1000–1200)

Edited by

Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov

HF

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Saints and their lives on the periphery : veneration of saints in Scandinavia and EasternEurope (c.1000-1200). – (Cursor mundi ; v. 9)

1. Christian saints – Cult – Scandinavia – History – To 1500. 2. Christian saints – Cult– Europe, Eastern – History – To 1500. 3. Christian hagiography – History – To 1500.4. Scandinavia – Church history. 5. Europe, Eastern – Church history. 6. Church history– 11th century. 7. Church history – 12th century.I. Series II. Antonsson, Haki. III. Garipzanov, Ildar H.235.2'0947'09021-dc22

ISBN-13: 9782503530338

© 2010, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,without the prior permission of the publisher.

D/2010/0095/110ISBN: 978-2-503-53033-8

CONTENTS

List of Abbreviations vii

List of Tables viii

Introduction: The Veneration of Saints 1in Early Christian Scandinavia and Eastern Europe

HAKI ANTONSSON AND ILDAR H. GARIPZANOV

Part One. Localizing Saints on the Periphery

The Early Cult of Saints in Scandinavia and the Conversion: 17A Comparative Perspective

HAKI ANTONSSON

Saints and Cathedral Culture in Scandinavia c. 1000–c. 1200 39ANNA MINARA CIARDI

The Cults of Saints in Norway before 1200 67ÅSLAUG OMMUNDSEN

Byzantine Saints in Rus’ and the Cult of Boris and Gleb 95MONICA WHITE

Novgorod and the Veneration of Saints in Eleventh-Century Rus’: 115A Comparative View

ILDAR H. GARIPZANOV

The Cult of St Olaf and Early Novgorod 147TATJANA N. JACKSON

Part Two. Contextualizing Hagiography on the Periphery

Anskar’s Imagined Communities 171JAMES PALMER

Ælnoth of Canterbury and Early Mythopoiesis in Denmark 189AIDAN CONTI

Writing and Speaking of St Olaf: National and Social Integration 207LARS BOJE MORTENSEN

Textual Evidence for the Transmission of the Passio Olavi 219Prior to 1200 and its Later Literary Transformations

LENKA JIROUŠKOVÁ

The Attraction of the Earliest Old Norse Vernacular Hagiography 241JONAS WELLENDORF

The Formation of the Cult of Boris and Gleb 259and the Problem of External Influences

MARINA PARAMONOVA

Conclusion: North and East European Cults of Saints 283in Comparison with East-Central Europe

GÁBOR KLANICZAY

Index 305

ABBREVIATIONS

DD Diplomatarium Danicum, 4 series (Copenhagen, 1938–2002)

DN Diplomatarium Norwegicum, 22 vols (Oslo, 1893–1976)

DS Diplomatarium Suecanum, 10 vols (Stockholm, 1829–2004)

MGH Monumenta Germaniae HistoricaCap Capitularia regum FrancorumEpp EpistolaeSRG Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarumSRG ns Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, nova seriesSS Scriptores (in folio)

MHN Monumenta Historica Norwegiae: Latinske kildeskrifter til Norgeshistorie i middelalderen, ed. by Gustav Storm (Kristiania: Brøgger,1880)

PSRL Polnoje sobranije russkikh letopisej, 44 vols, 2nd edn (St Petersburg:Tipografija Aleksandrova; Leningrad: Akademija Nauk SSSR;Moscow: Jazyki slavianskoj kul’tury, 1908–)

VSD Vitae sanctorum Danorum, ed. by Martin Clarentius Gertz(Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1908–12)

TABLES

Table 1, pp. 65–66. Cathedral churches and the cult of saints in Scandinavia priorto c. 1200.

Table 2, pp. 92–93. The feasts of saints celebrated in Norway up to the thirteenthcentury.

Table 3, pp. 238–39. The list of the manuscripts of the Passio Olavi.

Table 4, p. 239. The structure of the text: distinct features.

Table 5, p. 239. Development of the miracle collection: possible phases.

INTRODUCTION: THE VENERATION OF SAINTS IN

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCANDINAVIA AND EASTERN EUROPE

Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov

The eleventh and twelfth centuries were a crucial period in the Christian-ization process in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. In the period followingthe official conversion to Christianity undertaken by rulers like Harald

Bluetooth and Vladimir the Great, Christianized royal courts, aristocratic halls, andepiscopal and monastic centres became the foci of new Christian networks of socialpower and influence. These networks were vital for the establishment of Christianityon the north-eastern periphery of medieval Europe. The acceptance of Christianityin the localities was manifested and displayed through the construction of churches,the erection of stone crosses or Christian rune stones, and the adaptation of othersymbols of the new religion. More importantly, the new Christian norms regardinglife and afterlife began gradually to affect public rituals and social practices such asburial rites, marriage, and eating habits. After acquiring a high social status, Chris-tianity increasingly began to impact social mentalities and political cultures. Inshort, Christian identity turned into a formative social category of identification.

A key aspect in this process was the cult of saints that underwent a similartransformation from an initial limited impact on the Christian foci to a gradualexpansion to other spheres of everyday social life. From this perspective, the devel-opment of the cult of saints and the associated literature in Scandinavia andEastern Europe offers a useful approach to understanding the Christianizationprocess. Such an approach is also relevant in light of the growing interest shown inthe last decades in the cult of saints and hagiography in these regions.

It is fair to say that until the 1970s the cult of saints was a marginal topic inmedieval studies, and one that was primarily the preserve of Catholic historians andliturgical scholars. This state of affairs changed drastically in the 1970s and 1980s,when attitudes towards the subject began to change; the iconic study perhaps being

Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov2

Peter Brown, ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’, Journal of Roman1

Studies, 61 (1971), 80–101.

For Denmark, see also Ellen Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark (Copenhagen: Hagerup,2

1909); and VSD.

For example, see Haki Antonsson, ‘Some Observations on Martyrdom in Post-conversion3

Scandinavia’, Saga-Book, 28 (2004), 70–94; The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim: Architecturaland Ritual Constructions in their European Context, ed. by Margrete Syrstad Andås and others(Turnhout: Brepols, 2007); and Carl Phelpstead, Holy Vikings: Saints’ Lives in the Old IcelandicKings’ Sagas, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies Series, 340 (Tempe: Arizona Center forMedieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007).

See for instance Ye. Ye. Golubinskij, Istorija kanonizatsiji sviatykh v Russkoj tserkvi, 2nd edn4

(Moscow: Imp. Obshchestvo istorii i drevnostej ros. pri Mosk. Un-te, 1903). Georgij Fedotov,Sviatyje drevnej Rusi (X–XVII st.) (Paris: YMCA Press, 1931), is probably the last example of a pre-revolutionary Orthodox ‘spiritual’ approach to the subject, which has been repeatedly questionedby Western scholars in the past few decades.

See for instance Norman W. Ingham, ‘The Sovereign as Martyr, East and West’, Slavic and5

East European Journal, 17 (1973), 1–17; and Gail Lenhoff, The Martyred Princes Boris and Gleb:A Socio-cultural Study of the Cult and the Texts (Columbus: Slavic Publishers, 1989).

Peter Brown’s seminal paper on the holy men in late antiquity. From the 1970s1

onwards, the medieval cult of saints began to be examined within wider religious,social, ideological, and political contexts, as is evidenced by the proliferation ofworks on this topic. Yet it was only gradually that this change noticeably affectedScandinavian academia. It should be remembered that in the post-Reformationperiod the cult of saints was a somewhat marginalized topic in the Scandinaviancountries; following the Reformation a large body of evidence was destroyed orneglected and, in general, the topic was of limited interest to Protestant scholarsin the centuries that followed. A partial exception to this can, however, be observedin the study of national cults of royal saints like St Olaf of Norway and St Knud ofOdense. Yet with the growing interest in saints in medieval studies in general, the2

cult of saints in Northern Europe has in the last few decades attracted increasingscholarly attention. Latin lives and miracle collections, Old Norse sagas, liturgicalmaterial, law codes, and pictorial art have all been utilized to throw a fresh light onthe social and religious history of medieval Scandinavia.3

The process in twentieth-century Eastern Europe has been quite different.Although the cult of saints attracted interest in pre-revolutionary Russia, the topic4

was effectively eliminated from the historical agenda in the Soviet period. Conse-quently, in the 1970s and 1980s studies of the early Russian cult of saints weremostly conducted by Slavists working outside the Soviet Union. It was only with5

INTRODUCTION: THE VENERATION OF SAINTS 3

See for instance V. N. Toporov, Sviatost’ i sviatyje v russkoj dukhovnoj kul’ture, 2 vols (Mos-6

cow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury, 1995–98). On this change and the works written in the first decadeof the renewed interest in early Russian saints, see Simon Franklin, ‘Towards Post-Soviet Pre-modernism: On Recent Approaches to Early Rus(s)ian Hagiography’, Byzantine and ModernGreek Studies, 18 (1994), 250–75. He points out that in that decade ‘[t]he imperative to ignoresaints gave way to the imperative to learn about saints, which in turn gave way to the imperative tolearn from saints’ (p. 275). For a much broader overview of historiography on the early Russianhagiography and the cult of saints, see Paul Hollingsworth, ‘Introduction’, in The Hagiography ofKievan Rus’, ed. by Paul Hollingsworth, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, 2([Boston]: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1992), pp. xiii–xxv.

See for instance S. A. Ivanov, Vizantijskoje jurodstvo (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyje otno-7

shenija, 1994); Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, trans. by Simon Franklin (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2006); and O. V. Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov (Moscow:Pamiatniki istoricheskoj mysli, 2001).

Legenda om den heilage Sunniva og seljumennene, ed. by Vera Henriksen (Selje: Klostergruppa8

i Selje, 1991).

Biskupa sögur, vol. I, ed. by Sigurgeir Steingrímsson and others, Íslenzk fornrit, 15 (Reykjavik:9

Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 2003); and Biskupa sögur, vol. II, ed. by Ásdís Egilsdóttir, Íslenzk fornrit,16 (Reykjavik: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 2002).

the dismantling of the communist regime in the late 1980s and early 1990s that asignificant number of scholars began to turn their attention to the culture of sanc-tity in medieval Rus’. An ‘Orthodox revival’, which started in the 1990s, has led toa proliferation of popular works that have clearly fed a growing public interest inthis field. Yet the boom of studies on saints in modern Russia has been less affectedby the methodological approaches developed in Western academia than has beenthe case in Scandinavia. Some publications have been reprints of pre-revolutionaryworks. Moreover, many students of early Russian saints have simply renewed thetraditions of the pre-revolutionary Orthodox scholarship by discussing earlyRussian saints and sanctity in the contexts of a unique Russian spirituality and theconcept of the Holy Rus’ which, allegedly, survived through one thousand yearsfrom the time of conversion to the collapse of the communist regime. That said,6

however, proper methods of historical and linguistic analysis of specific aspects ofthe early Russian cult of saints have been applied in a number of works.7

As a result of the increasing interest in early Scandinavian and Russian saints,new editions or translations of sources have been published in the past decades,some of which have been aimed at the general public. Examples of such editions inScandinavia are the earliest legends of St Sunniva and the sagas of the native saints8

of Iceland, St Þorlákr Þórhallsson and St Jón Ögmundarson. In Sweden scholarly9


Sancta Birgitta, Revelaciones, ed. by Birger Bergh and others, 8 vols, Samlingar utgivna av10

Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, Ser. 2 (Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, 1967–2002), VII, 1–8.

The Medieval Danish Liturgy of St Knud Lavard, ed. by Michael Chesnutt (Copenhagen:11

Arnamagnaean Commission, 2003); and Knuds-Bogen 1986: Studier over Knud den Hellige, ed.by Tore Nyberg and others, Fynske Studier, 15 (Odense: Odense Bys Museer, 1986).

For example, see Hagiography of Kievan Rus’, ed. by Hollingsworth, pp. 3–134. For the most12

recent overview of Russian critical editions related to the cult of Boris and Gleb, see Natalja Pak,‘O novom izdaniji pamiatnikov Boriso-Glebskogo tsikla sravnitel’no s predydushchimi’, Ruthenica,6 (2007), 397–441.

Christian Krötzl, Pilger, Mirakel und Alltag: Formen des Verhaltens im skandinavischen13

Mittelalter 12.–15. Jahrhundert (Helsinki: SHS, 1994).

Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. by Thomas A.14

DuBois (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2008).

See Paul A. Hollingsworth, ‘Holy Men and the Transformation of Political Space in15

Medieval Rus’’, and Richard M. Price, ‘The Holy Man and Christianization from the ApocryphalApostles to St Stephen of Perm’, in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,ed. by James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1999), pp. 187–213 and 215–39.

interest has been largely, although by no means exclusively, focused on the latemedieval cult of St Birgitta, while in Denmark the cults of the princely saints have10

not been neglected. Thus a new edition of the Ordinale of St Knud Lavard has re-cently been published, and in 1986 a volume on St Knud of Odense was issued tomark the nine hundredth anniversary of his martyrdom. As far as the early Rus-11

sian saints are concerned, St Boris and St Gleb have attracted particular scholarlyattention and the bulk of the hagiographic sources on their cult — as well as on thecult of the first indigenous monastic saint, St Theodosius — have been publishedin both Russian and English. As mentioned, Scandinavian historians have also12

begun to mine this material in search of evidence for social history and what can betermed ‘history of mentalities’. A good example of this trend is Christian Krötzl’sgroundbreaking work that utilized (hitherto mostly neglected) miracula as sourcesfor social history. There has also been a notable shift towards introducing the13

early Scandinavian and Russian cults to a wider international audience. Thus Uni-versity of Toronto Press recently published a collective volume that includes chap-ters on various Nordic saints along with excerpts from their legends and miraclecollections. Chapters on medieval Russian saints have also appeared in represen-14

tative collective volumes dedicated to the cult of saints in early medieval Europe.15

What has been conspicuous by its absence, however, is an overview of the vari-ous developments in this field of study. Also critical for the following chapters —


The conference and some preliminary work on this volume was financially supported by the16

Yngre Fremragende Forskere project ‘The “Forging” of Christian Identity in the NorthernPeriphery (c. 820–c. 1200)’, funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

See especially Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval17

Central Europe, trans. by Éva Pálmai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Among exceptions, one can point to John Lind, ‘The Martyria of Odense and a Twelfth-18

Century Russian Prayer: The Question of Bohemian Influence on Russian Religious Literature’,Slavonic and East European Review, 68 (1990), 1–21.

For an example of such an interdisciplinary study, see A. V. Nazarenko, ‘Chudo sv. Pante-19

lejmona o “russkom korole Haralde”: monastyr’ sv. Pantelejmona v Kölne i semejstvo MstislavaVelikogo (konec XI–nachalo XII veka)’, in Drevnaja Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh (Moscow:Jazyki russkoj kul’tury, 2001), pp. 585–616. For a more general discussion of possible easternChristian influences on Scandinavia, see Från Bysans till Norden: Östlige kyrkoinfluenser undervikingatida och tidig medeltid, ed. by Henrik Janson (Skellefteå: Artos, 2005).

first presented at the international conference ‘Saints and Hagiography acrossNorthern and Eastern Europe’, held at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the Uni-versity of Bergen, Norway, in June 2008 — is the fact that the early cults of saints16

in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe have hitherto been studied as two separatephenomena: the Scandinavian one in the context of Latin Christendom, andEngland and Ottonian Germany in particular, and the Russian one in the contextof Byzantine Christianity. With the partial exception of royal cults, scholars have17

rarely questioned such a division and thus have refrained from examining borrow-ings and influences in the cults of saints across the north-eastern periphery ofChristian Europe. Equally important, few attempts have been made so far to view18

the cult of saints as an integral element in active cultural and political interactionsacross Northern and Eastern Europe from the tenth to the twelfth centuries.19

This wider perspective shall of course include the Christian centres that playeda crucial role in the conversion of Scandinavia and early Rus’ around the year 1000,and which left distinct imprints on the early cult of saints in these regions: mostimportantly Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, the German Empire, andByzantium.

The official conversion of Denmark, which was effectively signified by the con-version of the king, occurred around or shortly after the middle of the tenth cen-tury. King Harald Bluetooth was baptized under political pressure from OttonianGermany, and it was from his reign onwards that pagan practices were outlawedin Danish lands. Although German influence was marked in the late tenth century,the emergence of the North Sea Empire of Knud the Great in the first half of theeleventh century was of considerable import. The English ecclesiastics who came


to Denmark during his reign profoundly influenced the development of Chris-tianity in that kingdom. Thus in Denmark both German and English influenceswere of pivotal importance in the introduction of Christianity and Christianpractices.

The conversion of Norway was mainly effected by Norwegian kings of the tenthand eleventh centuries in tandem with Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics. Saga evidence ofthe thirteenth century tells that King Hakon the Good was converted at the courtof King Athelstan in the first half of the tenth century, while archaeological evi-dence from the western seaboard of Norway attests to some infiltration of theChristian religion in that region. It was the two Olafs, Tryggvason (995–1000) andHaraldsson (1015–30), who combined a conquest or unification of the countrywith the establishment of Christianity in traditionally pagan regions such as Tron-delag. This is the narrative presented by the royal sagas and early Norwegianhistories like Theodoricus Monachus’s The Ancient History of the Norwegian Kings.Even though these narratives were written long after the period of Christianizationand they inevitably exaggerate the achievements of the missionary kings, they leaveno doubt that clerical missionaries had a crucial role in establishing Christianityat a local level. The latter were mainly English, although our written sources men-tion the presence of missionaries from Normandy and Germany and even (in Ice-land) of wandering Armenian bishops. This, however, was a process about whichthe sources are mostly silent.

Unlike in Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, there are few written sources thattell of the conversion of Sweden. There is, of course, Rimbert’s account of Anskar’smissions to the Swedes, but this ninth-century text precedes the actual conversionby some two centuries. The establishment of an episcopal structure in Sweden wasalso a more protracted and ad hoc process than in the rest of Scandinavia. Thismirrors the delayed emergence of strong royal power within both Götaland andSvealand. The influences on the Christianization process in Sweden came fromvarious directions. It is known that some eastern Scandinavians were convertedwhile travelling to early Rus’ and Byzantium, where Norse mercenaries constitutedseparate elite troops known as Varangian guards. Thus some traces of OrthodoxChristianity can be detected quite early on in Sweden, especially on Gotland,although the extent of Byzantine and Russian influence on early Christian Swedenremains a matter of debate. It is also known that missionaries from OttonianGermany were quite active in the eleventh century, and medieval Swedish hagiog-raphy emphasizes the presence of English missionaries in the same period.

The conversion of Rus’ took place in the late tenth century, when Vladimir theGreat and his closest entourage accepted Christianity from Byzantium.


Subsequently, Vladimir and his successors spread the new faith across the realm.Although many details of conversion in the late tenth and eleventh centuriesremain unclear, the impact of Byzantine Christianity on early Russian Christianityis beyond doubt. In the same period there is, however, also evidence of closecontact between early Christian Rus’ and the Latin West. In the late tenth andeleventh centuries early Russian princes cultivated political and cultural contactswith Western European rulers as well as the papacy. Moreover, around the time ofconversion a few Latin ecclesiastics from the West, such as Bruno of Querfurt,visited southern Rus’ with a missionary aim.

The influences from various Christian centres visibly impacted the early cultof saints in Scandinavia and early Rus’. It is necessary to stress, however, that it wasonly gradually that local and national saints appeared in both regions. Thus thecult of saints was initially restricted to the cult of imported saints, particularly uni-versal saints like St Peter and St Paul, St Cosma and St Damian, and St Clement.This exposure to imported saints took three principal forms in the newly convertednorth-eastern periphery of Christian Europe: first, the dedication of new churchesto the saints; second, the importation of their relics; and, finally, the importation,translation, and even adaptation of their legends (and their use in the liturgy).Cults of saints were critical for establishing and strengthening the self-identity ofthe relatively newly converted peoples of Europe. Most notably, notwithstandingthe considerable regional and confessional differences between these lands, theadoption of popular universal saints brought Scandinavia and early Rus’ into acommon Christian cultural zone.

The above-mentioned interplay between conversion and the early cult of saintsin Scandinavia is discussed in more detail by Haki Antonsson in this volume. Hedeals with the cult of ‘classic’ missionary saints in early Christian Scandinavia andargues that the absence and presence of missionary saints and their later remem-brance in this region reflects to some extent the process of the actual conversion.In Norway and Iceland, this process was associated with the mighty kings OlafTryggvason and St Olaf, and consequently the cult of missionary saints was absentin those countries. Instead, the cult of St Olaf, the first native Scandinavian saint,began to spread from the second third of the eleventh century. The situation wasdifferent in Denmark, where two cults of foreign missionaries did appear soon afterconversion. But one of these cults failed soon after its appearance, and the secondremained in the shadow of indigenous royal and princely saints such as St Knud ofOdense and St Knud Lavard. Like in the recently converted countries of Centraland Eastern Europe, royal or princely cults thus became the most high-profilenative cults in Scandinavia. According to Haki Antonsson, it is only Sweden —


which lacked a centralized royal authority to spread Christianity throughout thecountry — that saw the emergence of cults of archetypical missionary saintsfamiliar to continental Europe. He also notices that the lack of Scandinavianmissionary cults originating in monasteries is likely explained by the negligible roleof monasticism in the conversion period and the crucial role played by bishopricsin the early Christian period.

It is noteworthy that the promotion of native saints in Scandinavia roughly cor-responds to the formative period of the episcopal structure in the second half of theeleventh and early twelfth centuries. Initially, emerging episcopal centres becamethe main foci for the culture of sanctity in Scandinavia because the cult of saintswas vital in forging the identity of recently founded bishoprics. The importance ofbishoprics for the early cult of saints in Scandinavia is the leitmotif of Anna MinaraCiardi’s essay. Ciardi surveys the veneration of saints in the cathedrals of earlyChristian Scandinavia and particularly Denmark. Her principal point is that cathe-dral culture was a crucial environment for our understanding of the cult of saintsin Scandinavia, for the cathedral chapters provided this phenomenon with themain milieu in which it was created, preserved, and mediated. Ciardi also arguesthat the cult of saints — including universal, locally venerated foreign, and localsaints — was of paramount importance for cathedral chapters and their everydayexistence. In particular, the cathedral chapters guarded and promoted the cult oftheir patron saints, which is especially noticeable in those cases where the saint inquestion was also local and/or of royal descent. The patron saints functioned asexamples of sanctity and holy intercessors and thus fostered group identity withinthe cathedral communities.

When a bishopric possessed relics of such a prominent saint as St Olaf, thechoice of a patron saint was obvious, and thus the perpetual King of Norwaybecame the patron saint of the Nidaros diocese. In other cases, regional differencesin the choice of holy patrons can be ascribed to foreign influences or simply thedifferent interests and agendas of leading churchmen within the Scandinavianbishoprics. In her essay, Åslaug Ommundsen exemplifies this point by examiningthe choice of patron saints in Norwegian bishoprics and in particular at the cultsof St Olaf in Nidaros, St Sunniva in Bergen, and St Hallvard in Oslo. She arguesthat although these cults developed according to different patterns, in the finalanalysis they served the same purpose of lending authority and credibility to localbishops. Furthermore, through a thorough analysis of surviving liturgical evidence,early Norwegian Christian laws, and early church dedications, Ommundsenprovides a comprehensive overview of the local and universal saints venerated inearly Norway in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In contrast to the established


tradition of emphasizing an Anglo-Saxon impact on early Christianity in Norway,her study shows that the early cult of saints and the related liturgy was shaped byvarious Anglo-French and German influences.

The topic of external influences on the early cult of saints on a periphery is fur-ther discussed in the next essay, in which Monica White deals with the influenceof the Byzantine cult of saints on early Rus’. By examining hagiographic and litur-gical texts, she provides a brief overview of the Byzantine saints venerated in thatprincipality. White emphasizes that even though Byzantine ascetic saints wereknown, they were not widely imitated in early Rus’ due to the establishment ofcoenobitic monasticism, which began with the Kievan Caves Monastery in the lateeleventh century. In this context it is important to observe that from the late elev-enth century onwards, monastic communities in early Rus’ played a greater role inthe cult of saints than they did in Scandinavia. White also argues that the firstindigenous cult of Boris and Gleb was heavily derivative of models provided bymartyrs, who by the eleventh century had become extinct in Byzantium. The cultsof two military saints, St George and St Demetrios, were especially influential inthis respect. By the eleventh century these military saints acquired the role ofimperial protectors. In this role they provided a suitable model for the cult of thetwo princely martyrs, who similarly functioned as the holy protectors of the earlyRussian princely clan, the Rurikids.

Unlike eleventh-century Rus’, there is no sign in Scandinavia of specificallymilitary saints like St Demetrios and St George, although St Olaf and St Magnusof Orkney are said to have appeared to armies prior to battle and promised victory.The role of the cult of saints in crusading and warfare has, however, recentlyattracted scholarly attention. Thus it appears that the cult of St Knud Lavard wasfrom its conception intimately associated with the crusading/imperialist ambitionsof the Danish royal dynasty in the Baltic region. St Erik of Sweden was also retro-spectively put into the service of Swedish expansion in Finland through hishistorically inaccurate ‘crusade’ against the pagan Finns in the 1160s.

Haki Antonsson and White thus emphasize the role of the royal and princelyauthorities in Scandinavia and early Rus’ in promoting and patronizing the cult ofsaints. Although it is far from easy to detect the channels of royal influence, mattersare relatively straightforward in relation to the indigenous royal cults. Thus it isclear that, for example, in Norway St Olaf’s half-brother Harald Hardrada and hissuccessor Olaf Kyrre promoted the cult through various means. Rulers built anddedicated churches to the royal and princely saints, translated their relics, and evenissued coinage with an imprint of their saintly kinsman. Around 1100 King ErikEjegod of Denmark petitioned the pope to recognize the sanctity of his father King


Knud IV, and thereafter he patronized the collegiate community that was estab-lished in Odense to guard the relics. Later in the century the papally approvedcanonization of Knud Lavard and the subsequent translation of his corporal relicsat Ringsted in 1170 was clearly undertaken with the aim of strengthening KingValdemar’s line of the Danish royal dynasty. In Rus’, three ruling sons of PrinceJaroslav took part in the solemn translation of the relics of Boris and Gleb in 1072and promoted them as holy members of the extended princely family. It is note-worthy that when native saints did not have a connection with the royal authority,or at least not an obvious one, the kings were nevertheless associated with the cultsin later writings. Thus in the legend of Sunniva and the Seljumenn it was OlafTryggvason who ‘discovered’ the cult, which had been left unheeded prior to theKing’s arrival; and in the legend of St Theodgarus, a German missionary whose cultemerged in remote south-west Denmark, it is the King who played an importantrole in acknowledging (albeit reluctantly) the authenticity of the cult.

The early Christian network had a high social status, and its foci were also thecentres of political power. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the cult of saints inthe eleventh century and, arguably, well into the twelfth century was first and fore-most the preserve of the ecclesiastical and military elite which, moreover, centredon the high-prestige objects of relics. There is scant evidence that ‘ordinary’ peopleparticipated in the cult of relics. Rather, relics were the prized possession of kingssuch as Sven Estridsen, who is said to have been deprived of a relic of St Vincent byhis nemesis, King Harald Hardrada, at the battle of Nesjar in 1063. The kings ofNorway, of course, jealously guarded the relics of St Olaf. Vladimir snatched therelics of St Clement from Cherson and kept them in the Tithe Church, his futureburial place. Otherwise, bishoprics and archbishoprics were the main depositoriesof relics; for instance, around the middle of the twelfth century the archbishopricof Lund possessed an extensive relic collection that could have competed with thebest in Europe. In 1018, Metropolitan John of Kiev is said to have publicly greetedKing Boleslaw and Prince Sviatopolk with the relics of saints that were at hisdisposal.

Ildar Garipzanov further emphasizes the significance of princely authorities andthe foci of the Christian network for the cult of saints in eleventh-century Rus’. Heargues that princely patronage was of crucial significance for the cult of saints inRus’ in the first century or so following the official conversion. This factor led, onthe one hand, to the princely promotion of universal saints such as St George, StMichael, and St Demetrios, who were chosen as patron saints by some Rurikidsand, on the other hand, to a rapid dissemination of the first native cult of princelysaints, Boris and Gleb. Furthermore, Garipzanov presents evidence from eleventh-


century Novgorod — most significantly, birchbark letters related to the venerationof saints — that suggests that from the late eleventh century onwards someuniversal saints such as St Barbara might have acquired an appeal to people outsideprincely courts and episcopal centres.

The evidence from Novgorod is also interesting in comparison with the cult ofsaints in early Christian Scandinavia as discussed in Haki Antonsson and Om-mundsen. Such a comparative view allows us to conclude that certain universalsaints became popular in both regions from early on. Garipzanov exemplifies thispoint by examining the dissemination of the cults of St Clement and St Nicholasin Scandinavia and northern Rus’ and suggests the intertwined nature of thisprocess. He argues that, notwithstanding the paramount importance of theByzantine tradition for the early Russian cult of saints, evidence surviving fromearly Rus’ suggests that some practices related to the veneration of saints wereinfluenced from Latin Europe. Although the channels of transmission are oftenhypothetical, the importance of the dynastic ties of the early Rurikids and theirpolitical and cultural contacts with Western Europe and Scandinavia in particularare beyond doubt.

In the next essay, Tatjana Jackson turns to another example of the venerationof Western saints in Novgorod, namely the veneration of St Olaf. She emphasizesthe early connection of this Scandinavian cult with Rus’ as evidenced by severalRussian miracles of that saint. In this perspective, it is not surprising that a Varan-gian — that is, Latin — church of St Olaf existed in Novgorod probably from theturn of the twelfth century. Jackson also points to some passages in the twelfth-century Voproshanije Kirika that seek guidance from Archbishop Niphont of Nov-gorod regarding the correct procedure about what to do with locals who take theirchildren to a Varangian priest and about those who want to be rebaptized from theLatin faith into the Orthodox one. According to Jackson, such passages suggestthat this church was frequented not only by Scandinavians, but also by some locals.Finally, Jackson presents some examples of Western clerics visiting early Rus’. ThusGaripzanov and Jackson agree in that the early Christian Russian society was moreopen to Latin Christendom than it was in the following centuries.

The early Christian network was also crucial for the development of the literaryaspect of the cult of saints, namely, hagiography. The ecclesiastical foci of this net-work contextualized this genre on Scandinavian and Eastern European peripheries,either by adapting and translating hagiographic texts imported from Europeancentral regions or by producing original works based on earlier literary models.Such texts fostered in-group commitment and provided a shared identity for themembers of religious communities, and they were intended to draw support for the


new religion among the lay elite and in society at large. To their audiences,hagiographical heroes served as prototypical in-group members with archetypicalattitudes and behavioural patterns to emulate. Consequently, hagiographic worksmay shed light on their intended audiences and the communities and social net-works in which they were created and/or circulated.

James Palmer exemplifies this interplay between the hagiographic text and itsaudience by examining the hagiographic works connected to St Anskar, oftenreferred to as the Apostle of the North. Palmer argues that Anskar’s hagiographicworks and Rimbert’s Life of St Anskar ought to be read within the context of thehagiographic traditions of Hamburg and Bremen and differing senses of identityrelated to this region. Hagiographic stories not only articulated local identities, butalso defined Hamburg and Bremen as communities with a Christianizing missionamong the Scandinavians and Slavs. This project was promoted among adjacentreligious communities like Corbie and Corvey, as well as royal courts. Thus thesenarratives skilfully blended reality and imagination, which for their audienceproduced a meaning-laden world of networks.

Hagiographic discourse also had a profound impact on the early writing ofhistory in Scandinavia and early Rus’. It is a rarely stated fact that the origins ofScandinavian historical writing can be traced to the earliest lives of the Nordicsaints. One only needs to mention Ælnoth of Canterbury’s The Deeds of Sven theGreat and his Sons and the Passion of St King and Martyr Knud, which (excludingrunic inscriptions) is the second oldest preserved work of prose composed inScandinavia. The earliest is the short life written on the occasion of or soon afterSt Knud’s first translation in 1095. In his essay, Aidan Conti deals with Ælnoth’stext, which he places within Denmark’s ‘early mythopoiesis’, and efforts to con-struct its new Christian identity. Conti closely examines the structure of thishagiographic work and its engagement with biblical and classical allusions andconcludes that its composition went beyond the traditional boundaries of a vita orpassio and that it presented a clear effort to place Denmark within the frameworkof Christian history.

The Passio Olavi was another major hagiographic text in Scandinavia, and LarsBoje Mortensen contextualizes this work within the twelfth-century textual cul-ture of this region. He admits that textual culture was in one sense confined to theliterary elite, but argues that the liturgy of the saints and oral stories about themenhanced the impact of writing beyond the sphere of literacy. He also suggests thatthe liturgical festivities surrounding the establishment of the archbishopric ofNidaros in 1152/54 might have constituted a ‘mythopoietic moment’; that is, apoint in time when the entire Norwegian elite committed themselves to Olaf’s


foundational role for the Christian kingdom of Norway. Mortensen also arguesthat the previous research has perhaps been too occupied with the new local cultsand their associated literature and paid too little attention to the numerous univer-sal and foreign saints that became popular in the same period. He finally concludesthat the twelfth-century texts about Olaf need to be studied closer both as testi-mony to the interface between written and oral storytelling about saints and as anindicator of the integration of the lower social strata into common Christianfestivities, and through them, to a Christian identity.

In the next essay, Lenka Jiroušková concentrates on the textual history of thePassio Olavi before 1200 and its subsequent literary development. She emphasizesthat older research has been mistakenly focused on one manuscript, the only one thathas been edited so far; the surviving evidence, on the other hand, shows a muchmore complex textual history than has previously been assumed. Jiroušková presentsthe first complete overview of this textual evidence and concludes that each surviv-ing manuscript transmits a unique combination of a passio-part with a miracle col-lection conditioned by the use of the text. Accordingly, any literary interpretationof the Passio Olavi as regards its literary context, models, and parallels must takeinto account all variants of this text and the history of its transmission.

Hagiography also influenced the beginning of writing in Old Norse. Althoughthis process is admittedly obscure, it is clear that the earliest sagas were heavilyinfluenced by the lives of saints. Most notably, they were concerned with kings whowere either saints, such as King Olaf Haraldsson, or were promoted as semi-saintlyfigures, such as King Olaf Tryggvason. In his chapter, Jonas Wellendorf furtheremphasizes the importance of hagiography for early Old Norse literature. He ex-amines the manner in which imported hagiographic works were contextualized inearly Christian Iceland and adapted for an Old Norse audience. Wellendorf arguesthat previous research on Old Norse literature has been preoccupied with locallyconceived works such as the sagas of kings, the sagas of Icelanders, and eddic andskaldic poetry, while showing scant interest in the translated lives of foreign saints.The latter texts, meanwhile, were the most popular written narratives in Old Norsein the Middle Ages and had a comparatively wide circulation. He observes thatmany of the lives of the martyrs were translated into the vernacular and that theyappear to have been particularly attractive to Old Norse readers. An especiallyubiquitous motif in such texts as Clemens saga was the confrontation of the herowith pagan adversaries and the subsequent destruction of their idols. Wellendorfargues that for audiences in Norway and Iceland, the exoticism and alterity of thepagan rites and beliefs were particularly appealing aspects of the early vernacularhagiography.


Yet as emphasized above, hagiographic works were not only a part of con-current literary traditions in Scandinavia and early Rus’, but they also formed acrucial element in the cult of saints. This is the main thrust of the next essay, inwhich Marina Paramonova discusses the hagiographic corpus related to the cult ofBoris and Gleb and the possibility of external influences on the former. She exam-ines these texts in the context of the developing cult of the two holy brothers in thesecond half of the eleventh and the early twelfth centuries. Moreover, she considersthem as didactic literary reflections, a kind of Fürstenspiegel, for the members of theearly Russian princely clan. The holy princes exemplified the paradigmatic Chris-tian conduct in the framework of the princely clan, and the hagiographic textsrelated to their cult provided the rhetorical model for later didactic narratives forrulers’ and princes’ eulogies. Paramonova also questions the established opinionthat some literary and conceptual models of the Bohemian tradition of St Wen-ceslas affected the hagiography of Boris and Gleb; she argues that such a belief hasbeen based on hypothetical assumptions and that concrete conceptual, literary, andtextual borrowings are exceedingly difficult to verify.

It is only natural to assume that an ongoing debate about the nature and theextent of foreign influences on the early hagiographic texts in early Rus’ and Scan-dinavia will continue. The same applies to the vexed question regarding the contri-bution of hagiography to historical and saga writing. Undoubtedly these debateswill throw fresh light on old problems. However, this much is already clear: theearly lives and legends of the saints associated the history of these newly convertedlands with a sacral history shared by the Christian world. Moreover, as Ælnoth ofCanterbury and other authors of hagiographic texts asserted, the lives and deathsof native saints such as St Olaf, St Knud, and St Boris and St Gleb proved thatScandinavia and early Rus’ were a part of God’s unfolding plan. Indeed, the pres-ence of these saints could be seen as the final seal on the conversion of Northernand Eastern Europe.

Part OneLocalizing Saints on the Periphery

Sven Helander, Ansgarskulten i Norden, Bibliotheca Theologiae Practicae/Kyrkovetenskapliga1

Studier, 45 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989), pp. 25–63.

THE EARLY CULT OF SAINTS IN SCANDINAVIA

AND THE CONVERSION: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Haki Antonsson

This chapter examines the cult of missionary saints in Denmark, Norway,Iceland, and Sweden. It examines manifestation of sanctity in order tohighlight some of the distinctive features of the cult of saints up until

c. 1200. An emphasis is placed on the remembrance of the missionary period; thatis, on the manner in which the missionary past was adapted, or possibly even in-vented, in the writings on the saints. It is argued that both the absence and pres-ence of missionary saints in Scandinavia reflect the nature of the actual conversionand the manner in which it was presented.

Although I do not intend to provide a firm definition of the ‘missionary saint’,it is important nevertheless to address briefly the potential complexity of the term.The classic ‘missionary saint’ is the holy man who leaves his Christian homelandand preaches the Gospel to pagans. Following his death, often through martyrdom,he is considered a saint in the region or country where he worked. St Patrick is anobvious example of this model. In other cases cults of missionaries were introducedor ‘reactivated’ long after the conversion period. Thus the cult of the most illus-trious missionary associated with Scandinavia, St Anskar, is scantily attested to inthe North until the later Middle Ages, when Anskar was promoted in the periodof the Kalmar Union as a pan-Scandinavian patron saint. As we shall see, such a1

‘reactivation’ of the memory of missionary saints appears in Scandinavia within ourtime frame. It is also worth noting that cults of missionaries did not necessarilyappear in regions where the saints had been active and/or martyred. Again the cult

Haki Antonsson18

Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, chap. 40, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SRG, 55 (Hannover: Hahn,2

1884), p. 74.

For an overview of the cult of saints in Scandinavia, see Haki Antonsson, ‘Saints and Relics3

in Early Christian Scandinavia’, Mediaeval Scandinavia, 15 (2005), 51–80.

On saintly rulers as converters, see Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses:4

Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, trans. by Éva Pálmai (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 2002), pp. 114–55.

Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Sanctified Beginnings and Mythopoietic Moments: The First Wave5

of Writing on the Past in Norway, Denmark, and Hungary, c. 1000–1230’, in The Making ofChristian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000–1300), ed. by Lars Boje Mortensen(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2006), pp. 247–73.

of Anskar is a case in point: his cult was undoubtedly of far greater value to thearchbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen than to the Scandinavian churches.

The term ‘missionary saint’ evokes an image of the brave bishop or ecclesiasticwho brings the Word to the pagans with fatal consequences for himself. Themissionaries themselves were certainly aware of this template and in some casesactively sought to live by it. Thus, there is probably no reason to distrust Rimbert’sclaim that Anskar’s main regret in life was the fact that he did not suffer martyr-dom on his missions to the Scandinavians and the Slavs. However, beside this tem-2

plate the relative latecomers to Christianity — Scandinavia, Central and EasternEurope — produced another type of missionary saint, namely the proselytizingprince or king. Medieval sources emphasize and clearly exaggerate the role that3

rulers played in the conversion of their realms. This is certainly the case with StOlaf of Norway, whose missionary work is highlighted in both Latin and OldNorse sagas from the second half of the twelfth century onwards. A similar obser-vation indeed applies to the hagiography on King Stephen of Hungary. Finally, the4

martyrdoms of princely rulers that occurred after the conversion period are pre-sented in the hagiography as secondary conversions, a final confirmation of theplace of the lands they ruled over within the family of Christian kingdoms.5

This chapter focuses on the classic model of missionary sainthood and thelegends of the early ‘indigenous’ saints of Scandinavia. While the stories reveal littleabout the popularity of the cults or how ordinary people interacted with themthrough liturgy, art, pilgrimage, and miracles, the story-patterns associated with thesaints of Scandinavia offer an insight into the choices of the ecclesiastical elite andthe memory it had or wished to present of the conversion of the region.

THE EARLY CULT OF SAINTS IN SCANDINAVIA 19

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, II. 61, ed. by Bernhard6

Schmeidler, MGH SRG, 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1917), pp. 121–22. The English translation is fromAdam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. by Francis J. Tschan, 2ndedn with new introduction and bibliography by Timothy Reuter (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2002), p. 97.

The second stanza of Sigvatr Þórðarson’s Erfidrápa: ‘The giver of gold got all Upplönd and7

there built Christianity, which sword bearers [=men] maintained; previously eleven destroyers ofthe speech of the prince of caves [gold; destroyers of gold=kings] ruled them, but men certainlyredeemed hostages.’ Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. byThomas A. DuBois (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), p. 124.

See Martin Chase, Geisli: A Critical Edition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005).8

Passio et miracula beati Olaui, ed. by F. Metcalfe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), pp.9

67–116; Historia Norwegie, ed. by Inger Ekrem and Lars Boje Mortensen, trans. by Peter Fisher(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2003), pp. 88–101.

Norway

Adam of Bremen implies that King Olaf Haraldsson’s sanctity rested on his mis-sionary efforts among the Norwegians and the posthumous miracles he performedat his Nidaros shrine. Most significantly, King Olaf is martyred fighting a pagan6

cohort at the battle of Stiklestad. It should be observed, however, that the (admit-tedly limited) eleventh-century sources do not follow Adam in emphasizing Olaf’smissionary effort. Thus Þórarinn loftunga’s Glælognskviða (c. 1032) and SigvatrÞórðarson’s Erfidrápa (Memorial Poem, c. 1040) stress the miraculous power ofOlaf’s corporal relic and only briefly allude to the missionary aspect of his career.7

It is also worth noting that the splendid hagiographic poem Geisli, composed in1152/53 to commemorate the establishment of the archbishopric of Nidaros, doesnot dwell on St Olaf’s missionary credentials. Olaf’s role in the conversion of8

Norway is first elucidated in the Passio et miracula beati Olavi (composed probablyin the 1170s) and Theodoricus Monachus’s The Ancient History of the NorwegianKings which both date to the second half of the twelfth century. Indeed, his mis-sionary endeavours are presented as part and parcel of his image as rex iustus andsaint.9

Theodoricus Monachus and the unknown author of the Historia Norwegiaealso associate the missionary work of King Olaf Tryggvason with sanctity. Bothrefer to him as beatus on account of his role in the conversion of Norway and theNorth Atlantic. Thus, Historia Norwegiae describes him as follows:

In the meantime Olav brought all those of his compatriots who lived along the seaboardinto union with the King of Kings, and if the bishop was unable to achieve this with his

Haki Antonsson20

Historia Norwegie, ed. by Ekrem and Mortensen, trans. by Fisher, p. 95. ‘Interim Olauus Regi10

regum reconsilians omnes compatriotos suos in maritimis, et si quos ipse episcopus spirituali gladionequiuit, rex adhibito materiali nobilem cum ignobili, lactentem cum homine sene Christi sub-iugauit imperio. Sicque factum est, ut infra quinquennium omnes tributarios, id est Hatlendenses,Orchadenses, Fereyingenses ac Tilenses, fide preclaros, spe gaudentes, caritate feruentes redderetChristo’ (ibid., p. 94).

For a more detailed discussion of these two cults, see Åslaug Ommundsen, ‘The Cults of11

Saints in Norway before 1200’, in this volume.

Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. by Tschan, p. 161;12

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, III. 54, ed. by Schmeidler, p. 199: ‘Ille igitur dum protexitinimicum, occisus est ab amicis.’

spiritual sword, the king, applying his earthly weapon, led captive into Christ’s empire thenoble and ignoble, the babe at breast and the greybeard. This was effected in such a waythat within five years he made all the tributary territories, that is Shetland, the Orkneys, theFaroes and Iceland, remarkable in their devotion, joyous in their expectations and glowingin their affection for Christ.10

Historia Norwegiae associates the saintly memory of Olaf Tryggvason with the re-gions over which the recently founded archbishopric of Nidaros claimed lordship.By highlighting the role of Olaf Tryggvason and, indirectly, Olaf Haraldsson in theconversion, Historia Norwegiae downplays the part played by foreign missionaries.Indeed, in both the Icelandic and Norwegian sources the two kings dominate theconversion process to such an extent that the only missionaries identified are thosebelonging to the royal entourage.

The cult of St Olaf apart, only two other homegrown cults appeared in eleventh-century Norway, namely the cults of St Sunniva/Seljumen and St Hallvard.11

Neither can be categorized as classic missionary cults of the kind mentioned above.Indeed, a notable aspect of the legends of these two saints is the absence of any mis-sionary element. The earliest reference to Hallvard (or Alfwardus) is found inAdam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. Adam simply tellsthat while Hallvard was ‘protecting an enemy, he was killed by friends’. The12

story-pattern associated with Hallvard in the late eleventh century was developedand embroidered in his legend, which probably dates to the late twelfth century.It recounts how a merchant, Hallvard, was killed on his travels when he came tothe aid of a pregnant woman who had been apprehended for unspecified crimes.However, there is no clash between paganism and Christianity in his legend.Rather, Hallvard is presented as an example of an innocent killed unjustly withina semi-Christian setting. As discussed elsewhere in this volume, Hallvard’s sanctitywas promoted by the bishopric of Oslo from the early twelfth century onwards.


MHN, pp. 155–58; and Oloph Odenius, ‘Ett obeaktat fragment av S. Hallvards legend’,13

(Norsk) Historisk Tidsskrift, 41 (1961–62), 321–31.

It has been argued that the cult of Sunniva was a later twelfth-century invention. Arne Odd14

Johnsen, ‘Når slo Sunniva-kulten igjennom?’, in Bjørgvin bispestol: Frå Selja til Bjørgvin, ed. byP. Juvkvam (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1968), pp. 40–62. For a translation of the Latin legendof St Sunniva, see Thomas A. DuBois, ‘Sts Sunniva and Henrik: Scandinavian Martyr Saints intheir Hagiographical and National Contexts’, in Sanctity in the North, ed. by DuBois, pp. 65–99(pp. 89–92).

The cult did not ‘take off’. For instance, in Norway only two churches are known to have15

been dedicated to St Sunniva. Pernille H. Fredriksen, ‘Helgener og kirkededikasjoner i Norge imiddelalderen’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Oslo, 2004), p. 138.

Conversely, clashes between Christianity and paganism are a key feature of thelegend of St Sunniva, which probably dates from the second half of the twelfthcentury or the first half of the thirteenth century. The legend tells of Sunniva, an13

Irish princess, who escapes with her followers from a pagan suitor. The group es-tablishes a colony on the isle of Selja off the west coast of pagan Norway, but itsoon invites suspicion and the pagan Earl Hakon of Lade visits the isle with hiscohort. Sunniva and her followers call on God to save them from Hakon’s clutches.The prayers of the Christians are answered when a landslide seals them in a cave,hiding them from their pursuers, but with the consequence that their lives areterminated. Whether or not the figure of Sunniva was an invention of the latetwelfth century is immaterial in this context. What is important is the emphasis14

the legend places on the eremitical aspect to Sunniva’s and her companions’ sanc-tity. Thus Sunniva and her followers do not come to Norway to preach the Wordof God, but rather seek solitude to practise their religion in peace. It is only whenthe pagans prevent them from pursuing their vocation that their martyrdom takesplace. The account does not highlight a clash between missionaries and pagans butrather an encounter between Christians who wish to live by their religion and aheathen society that does not tolerate their presence. While the cult of Hallvardwas adopted by the bishopric of Oslo, the Bishop of Bergen translated the relics ofSt Sunniva into his cathedral in 1170.15

It should be noted that although native cults of missionary saints did not appearin Norway (other than that of St Olaf), others were imported. Recent research haspaid particular attention to the cult of St Clement, whose association with thepapacy, missionary work, and indeed seafaring is well attested in the early MiddleAges. Analysis has revealed the presence of St Clement dedications in the earlytowns of Denmark and Norway, namely those established in the eleventh century

Haki Antonsson22

Barbara E. Crawford, ‘The Churches Dedicated to Clement in Norway: A Discussion of16

their Origin and Function’, Collegium Medievale, 17 (2004), 100–31; and Erik Cinthio, ‘TheChurches of St. Clemens in Scandinavia’, Archaeologia Lundensia, 3 (1968), 103–16.

Lesley Abrams, ‘The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia’, Anglo-Saxon17

England, 24 (1995), 213–50.

by the Danish and Norwegian kings. Assuming that the conversion element was16

integral to the cult of St Clement, the attraction to the early Christian Norwegianrulers is obvious. Moreover, as the second pope, St Clement was directly linked tothe prestige of the papacy and thus bypassed any connections with, for example, thearchbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen.

The principal point, however, is that in Norwegian and Icelandic medievalliterature the link between sanctity and missionary activity within Norway wasexclusively associated with St Olaf and King Olaf Tryggvason. Indeed, the twoOlafs often resort to violence and even torture in their conversion efforts. In thisrespect the usual narrative of missionaries suffering martyrdom among the pagansis inverted: violence is the preserve of the Christians among pagans. It is only withOlaf’s death at Stiklestad that the pattern begins to conform to the common Chris-tian narrative of martyrdom.

The complete absence of classic missionary saints in Norway, as loosely definedabove, must surely reflect the nature of the conversion in the country or, at least,how the conversion came to be perceived and presented from the mid-twelfth cen-tury onwards. The missionaries who worked in Norway in the conversion period,most of whom were undoubtedly of Anglo-Saxon origin, did so under royal protec-tion which probably stretched well back into the tenth century. Little is knownabout the work of these missionaries in Norway, not least because the Englishsources are almost silent on the issue. Accordingly, the memory of the work of17

foreign missionaries did not survive or was perhaps deliberately downplayed. Thetwo ‘native’ or home-grown saints of the early Christian period, other than that ofSt Olaf, were figures who had suffered martyrdom not because they preached theGospel among the pagans but because they had not been allowed to live theirChristian life in pagan or semi-Christian Norway.

The legend of a saint is, of course, only one element in the makeup of his cult.Indeed, it is perhaps rather incongruous to discuss the patron saints of Bergen andOslo under the same rubric as that of St Olaf. Whereas Olaf’s cult extended farbeyond the borders of the bishopric of Trondheim, the cults of Sunniva and Hall-vard hardly travelled beyond their own localities. Indeed, the very dominance ofSt Olaf’s cult may well have had a detrimental effect on the emergence of native


The best overview of the Christianization and the establishment of the Church can be found18

in Orri Vésteinsson, The Christianization of Iceland: Priests, Power and Social Change 1000–1300(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Íslendingabók – Kristni Saga: The Book of Icelanders – The Story of the Conversion, trans. by19

Siân Grønlie (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2006), p. 38; Biskupa sögur, ed. bySigurgeir Steingrímsson and others, 3 vols, Íslenzk fornrit, 15–17 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornrita-félag, 1998–2003), I, p. xx.

cults of saints: his role as the converter of Norway made other ‘native’ cults ofmissionary saints superfluous.

Iceland

The conversion of Iceland was largely implemented by the Icelandic ruling elite,namely the chieftains (goðar) who adopted Christianity at the Althing in the year999/1000. The dominant interpretation of this process in the Middle Ages was18

recorded by Ari the Wise in his Book of Icelanders (composed between 1122 and1132). In Ari’s account the pivotal moment in this process came in 999/1000when the Althing decreed that Christianity should be the official religion and thatpagan customs should be banned (albeit with some temporary caveats). Ari andlater Icelandic accounts also acknowledge the role of King Olaf Tryggvason inexhorting and even forcing Icelandic chieftains to bring Christianity to Iceland.Unlike his compatriots later in the century, Oddr Snorrason and GunnlaugrLeifsson, Ari makes no attempt to credit the Norwegian king with sanctity for hisendeavours. While Ari gives foreign missionaries in Iceland short shrift, he em-phasizes the important work of the earliest bishops of Skálholt and Hólar. Thisinterpretation, with some variations, appears in Icelandic sagas from the thirteenthand fourteenth centuries.

Kristni saga, a text usually dated to the mid-thirteenth century, is more expan-sive than The Book of Icelanders in describing the process that preceded the adap-tation of Christianity in the year 999/1000. The saga tells that a certain Saxonbishop, Friðrekr, was the first foreign missionary in Iceland. His brief episodeconcludes with the words that ‘he was truly a saint’. Friðrekr’s saintly reputation19

should be seen in the context of his association with an Icelander by the name ofÞorvaldr Koðránsson (nicknamed the ‘Far-Travelled’). Kristni saga tells that whilein Germany (or Saxony, i.e. Saxland) Bishop Friðrekr met and baptized Þorvaldr.Indeed the saga effectively presents the latter as the initiator of the conversion of

Haki Antonsson24

Íslendingabók – Kristni Saga: The Book of Icelanders, trans. by Grønlie, p. 35.20

Íslendingabók – Kristni Saga: The Book of Icelanders, trans. by Grønlie, p. 51.21

Íslendingabók – Kristni Saga: The Book of Icelanders, trans. by Grønlie, p. xliii.22

See Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘“Saint” Ásólfr’, in Germanisches Altertum und christliches Mittel-23

alter: Festschrift für Heinz Klingenberg zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Bela Brogyanyi and ThomasKrömmelbein (Freiburg: Dr Kovac, 2002), pp. 22–49. Both versions of Ásólfr’s story can be foundin Íslendingabók. Landnámabók, ed. by Jakob Benediktsson, 2 vols, Íslenzk fornrit, 1 (Reykjavik:Hið Íslenska Bókmenntafélag, 1968), II, 61–65.

Iceland: ‘[the story of] how Christianity came to Iceland begins with a man calledÞorvaldr Koðránsson’. Þorvaldr brings Friðrekr to his homeland and in tandem20

they embark on a missionary effort which is partially successful although ultimatelyÞorvaldr’s violent conduct leads to Friðrekr’s return to Saxland. It is of interest tonote that Kristni saga tells that Þorvaldr ‘died in Russia a short way from Pallteskja[Polotsk]. He is buried on a mountain there at the church of John the Baptist, andthey call him a saint’. With Þorvaldr and Friðrekr out of the story the conversion21

is continued by prominent Icelandic chieftains and a certain Þangbrandr, a some-what belligerent German priest. The crucial role of King Olaf Tryggvason is alsonoted (albeit perhaps somewhat begrudgingly).

There is no indication in Kristni saga or any other Icelandic source that cultsof early missionaries were established in medieval Iceland. In fact, the references tothe sanctity of Friðrekr and Þorvaldr are somewhat incidental to the main narra-tive of the saga, and its author displays scant interest in sainthood or the cult ofsaints; Þorvaldr is venerated abroad while Friðrekr’s sanctity is mentioned almost22

in passing. And in general, the saga’s portrayal of the two missionary ‘saints’ is rathertopsy-turvy in its presentation of the interaction between the missionaries and thenative pagans. Thus, while medieval sources from other parts of Europe describehow missionaries suffer violence at the hands of the people they attempt to con-vert, with martyrdom frequently ensuing, in the Icelandic literature the mission-aries (namely Þangbrandr and Þorvaldr) resort to force against the native heathens.

Yet, the Icelandic medieval corpus contains one example of a figure within Ice-land associated with sanctity prior to the official conversion. Landnámabók, TheBook of Settlements, tells of a certain Ásólfr whose story contains elements we haveencountered in the legend of St Sunniva (see above). The story of Ásólfr appearsin two different versions of Landnámabók. In Sturlubók, which was compiled by23

Sturlu Þórðarson (d. 1284), Ásólfr settles in northern Iceland where he builds an‘Ásolf’s hut’, as it is called at the time of writing. The locals grow curious aboutÁsólfr’s means of subsistence and they discover that the river running past his hut


Margaret Cormack, The Saints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400,24

Subsidia hagiographica, 78 (Brussels: Société Bollandistes, 1994), p. 11, interprets the Ásólfrepisodes in Landnámabók as indicating ‘either a defunct local cultus or an attempt to establish anew one’.

is brimming with fish; yet it had previously been barren. When the locals chaseÁsólfr away the river immediately becomes barren once more. Ásolfr suffers furtherpersecution and ultimately he seeks help from a relative, who provides him with adwelling where he ends his life. This account in Sturlubók ends by explaining thata church now stands on Ásólfr’s grave and that he was the holiest of men. Hauks-bók, compiled in 1306–08, gives a more detailed account of Ásólfr, though it differssignificantly from that which Sturlubók gives. Most notably, Ásólfr heads a groupof twelve men who settle under Eyjafjöllum where three of the group die. Hauks-bók, which shows a marked interest in all things Celtic, also reveals that they wereIrish and that during the twelfth century their bones were found and translated toa church.

Neither Sturlubók nor Hauksbók indicate that Ásólfr and his companions en-gaged in any missionary activity. While there is no evidence that Ásólfr was theobject of cultic veneration, he can be compared to saints such as Sunniva and the24

Seljumen in Norway: Christians living in a pagan society and only wishing to beleft alone to practise their faith. These holy figures thus sanctify the pre-Christianlands in which they lived and died. Moreover, whereas the death of Sunniva andher Irish cohort presented the isle of Selja with a history of a proto-monastic com-munity, the account of Ásólfr and his Irish cohort in Hauksbók extended the his-tory of monastic living in Iceland to prior to the official conversion of 999/1000.

The first native saints of Iceland were the post-conversion bishops JónÖgmundarson of Hólar (d. 1121) and Þorlákr Þórhallsson of Skálholt (d. 1193),whose cults appeared around the turn of the twelfth century. The absence of cultsof missionary saints prior to the emergence of these episcopal cults must surelyrelate to the dominant role played by the secular elite in the conversion. Compari-son with Norway is interesting in this context. As in Norway, the work of foreignmissionaries in Iceland appears to have been closely controlled by the secularauthorities. Moreover, the activity of these missionaries has left few traces in thesources; the missionaries mentioned are those who came into conflict with thelocal elite. Thus the Icelandic literary corpus distinguished sharply between sanc-tity and the process of conversion. The missionaries exert violence on the natives,rather than vice versa, and their sanctity is confined to their post-Icelandic careers.

Haki Antonsson26

See, for example, Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney: Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in25

Context (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 149–52.

Although this should be qualified by Ari’s statement that Irish papar or Irish hermits left26

Iceland because they did not want to be associated with the pagan newcomers, Ari makes a pointof noting that they left behind holy objects or relics and by this he very likely means to convey theimpression that Iceland had in some sense been sanctified prior to the official conversion of999/1000. For the most succinct and best argued exposition of this idea, see Marteinn HelgiSigurðsson, ‘Bækur írskar og bjöllur og baglar: Um papa og papadót í Íslendingabók Ara fróða’, inSturlaðar sögur sagðar Úlfari Bragasyni sextugum 22 apríl 2009, ed. by Þórunn Sigurðardóttir(Reykjavik: Menningar- og minningarsjóður Mette Magnussen, 2009), pp. 83–86. I thank theauthor for providing me with a copy of the article prior to its publication.

Michael H. Gelting, ‘The Kingdom of Denmark’, in Christianization and the Rise of27

Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200, ed. by Nora Berend(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 73–120 (p. 99).

The conversion of Iceland and sanctity were, however, united in the person ofOlaf Tryggvason. In the late twelfth century Icelandic ecclesiastics, notably OddrSnorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson, composed sagas of the missionary King which,like the Norwegian chroniclers of the period (see above), present him as a saintlyfigure. Still, there is no evidence of Olaf’s cult in Iceland, or in Norway for that25

matter. Rather, it appears that the Icelandic authors wished to cast an aura of sanc-tity over the King associated with the conversion of Iceland, thus adding a newdimension to the ‘secular’ version of the conversion expounded by Ari in his Bookof Icelanders.26

Denmark

A recent overview of the conversion of Denmark remarks on the near absence ofmissionary saints in the period before c. 1200. This is perhaps surprising given27

that German and English ecclesiastics were present in Denmark from at least themiddle of the tenth century onwards.

In his History of the Archbishops of Hamburg Bremen (composed c. 1075), Adamof Bremen tells of the terrible fate that befell the inhabitants of Oldenburg in 983when the pagan Slavs, prompted by the death of Emperor Otto II, rebelled againsttheir Saxon overlords. Adam singles out one victim, a certain Oddar who was ‘aprovost of the place’ and along with many others suffered gruesome tortures andeventual martyrdom. Adam laments ‘[m]any deeds of this kind, which for lack of


The episode and the direct quotes appear in Adam Bremenis gesta Hammaburgensis, II. 43,28

ed. by Schmeidler, pp. 103–04; and in Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. by Tschan, pp. 84–85.

On King Sven and Adam of Bremen, see Michael Gelting, ‘Elusive Bishops: Remembering,29

Forgetting, and Remaking the History of the Danish Church’, in The Bishop: Power and Piety atthe First Millennium, ed. by Sean Gilsdorf (Münster: Lit, 2004), pp. 169–200; and Erik Arup,‘Kong Sven 2.s Biografi’, Scandia, 4 (1931), 55–101.

See, for instance, Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, III. 50–51 and III. 54, ed. by30

Schmeidler, pp. 194–96 and p. 199; and Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. by Tschan, pp. 156–58, 160–61.

written records are now regarded as fables’. The implied voice is that of Sven28

Estridsen, king of Denmark (1047–74/76), who in this and other instances sup-plied Adam with information which the latter was unable to extract from thearchives of the Hamburg diocese. King Sven, we are informed, knew of Oddar’s29

gruesome death because of the provost’s relation to the Danish royal family. Adamwished to be told about the traumatic events that surrounded the Slavic revolt.King Sven, however, cut him short with the following words: ‘“Stop, son. We haveso many martyrs in Denmark and Slavia that they can hardly be comprehended ina book.”’ Sven was right in relation to the latter region; the Slavs had indeedprovided the Church with martyrs. Sven’s mention of a multitude of saints inDenmark, however, is curious, for Adam of Bremen does not refer to a singlemartyr-saint from that land.

It is not immediately apparent why Adam chose to quote Sven’s words relatingto the ‘martyrs’ of Denmark. It is clear, however, that Adam was keen to sprinklethe blood of holy missionaries over the region which the archbishopric ofHamburg-Bremen claimed ecclesiastical lordship. Their presence in Scandinavia30

and among the Slavs enhanced both the religious and historical claims, if these canindeed be separated, of the archbishopric to be the divinely chosen agent of con-version and Christian organization. It is nevertheless obvious that Adam had noknowledge of missionaries who had paid the ultimate price for performing pastoralduties in Denmark. This arguably explains why he considered it opportune toquote Sven Estridsen and thus provide royal endorsement for the notion that Den-mark, like the other regions under Hamburg-Bremen’s nominal overlordship, hadindeed produced missionary martyrs. Whether King Sven ever actually utteredthese words or others to the same effect must remain a moot point.

Adam of Bremen does, however, mention one emissary of his archbishopric toScandinavia who was associated with sanctity in the conversion period. Adam tells

Haki Antonsson28


Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, II. 4, ed. by Schmeidler, p. 64.

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, II. 26, ed. by Schmeidler, p. 85; and Adam of32

Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. by Tschan, p. 71.


Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, II. 26, ed. by Schmeidler, pp. 85–86: ‘Ceterorum veroepiscoporum vix aliquem sic clarum antiquitas prodit preter Liafdagum Ripensem quem dicuntetiam miraculis celebrem transmarina predicasse hoc est in Sueonia vel Nordwegia.’

The Chronicle of Ribe is edited in Ellen Jørgensen, ‘Ribe Bispekrønike’, Kirkehistoriske Sam-34

linger, 6 (1933–35), 23–33. ‘Tunc sacerdos quidam Friseus Leofdanus factus est primus episcopusRipensis, quem praedicantem plebs incredula persequitur et amnem transuadentem iaculis pere-merunt. Quo per fideles in cymiterio beatae Virginis sepulto super eius sepulcrum tuguriolum estconstructum. Translatus est postea intra paerietes in parte aquilonali ex opposito chori (et longotempore miraculis coruscauit debitis tunc honoribus exaltatus)’ (p. 26).

Ingrid Nielsen, ‘Den hellige Liufdag i Ribe’, in Fromhed og verdslighed i middelalder og35

renaissance: Festskrift til Thelma Jexlev, ed. by E. Waaben and others (Odense: Odense Universi-tetsforlag, 1985), pp. 1–8.

about a certain Liefdag, a Frisian, who had been one of three bishops whom BishopAdaldag of Hamburg-Bremen consecrated in 948 to the newly established Danishbishoprics: ‘Hored for Schleswig, Liafdag for Ribe, Reginbrund for Aarhus’. Later31

in his Gesta Adam refers again to these bishops, although he does not claim thatthey ever assumed office in Denmark. Regarding Liefdag he tells the following:32

‘Of the other bishops, however, the past reveals hardly one as having been thusdistinguished except Liefdag of Ribe, who, they say, preached beyond the sea, thatis in Sweden and Norway, and who was also celebrated for his miracles.’ Adam33

thus mentions Liefdag’s missionary efforts in Norway and Sweden, his posthumousmiraculous powers, and by implication, his saintly reputation. Note, however, thatAdam neither touches on Liefdag’s work in Ribe nor mentions that he lost his lifewhile preaching the Gospel. If Liefdag had suffered martyrdom Adam of Bremenwould certainly have mentioned this in his account.

This considered, it is interesting to note that Liefdag’s martyrdom and mission-ary efforts are highlighted in the so-called Chronicle of the Church of Ribe, a workcomposed under the auspices of Ribe’s cathedral chapter in the second quarter ofthe thirteenth century. In the 1170s the diocese of Ribe began to promote the34

sanctity of Liefdag, its first bishop, and a new cathedral was erected to accommo-date his relics. This activity should be seen against a general trend in twelfth-35

century Denmark of religious houses or bishoprics promoting cults of holy men


See Haki Antonsson, ‘Saints and Relics’, pp. 67–77.36

This is also essentially the interpretation of Niels Skyum-Nielsen, Kvinde og slave: Danmarks37

historie uden retouche (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1971), p. 22.

Jørgensen, ‘Ribe Bispekrønike’, p. 29.38

Birgitte Wåhlin, ‘Thøger af Vestervig’, in Fra tid til anden: Historiske og historiografiske af-39

handlinger, ed. by Helge Gamrath (Aalborg: Historiestudiet Aalborg Universitet, 2002), pp. 55–78.

The dating of the fragmentarily preserved legend is, of course, a problem. A late eleventh-40

century date has been proposed on account of King Sven Estridsen’s involvement. In this case thereference to the papal canonization of Theodgarus would be a later addition. See Gelting,‘Kingdom of Denmark’, p. 105.

and women who had had connections with the localities. For instance, in Ros-36

kilde Bishop Absalon supported the cult of a certain Margaret (d. 1176) who hadbeen murdered in the town by her husband. In the 1180s the cathedral chapter ofViborg promoted the cult of Provost Kjeld (d. 1150) and even sought papalapproval for his canonization. The Benedictine abbey of Ringsted hosted theroyally sponsored cult of St Knud Lavard, while in the 1190s the Bishop of Århuspromoted the cult of Niels, son of King Knud VI, who had died in 1180. It isworth observing that the saints upheld by the Danish religious houses as well as thebishops and kings (and the three cannot be so easily separated) were all contem-porary or near-contemporary figures.

The Chronicle of Ribe tells that Liefdag was killed by pagans of his diocese. Asmentioned the veracity of this story is highly suspect, for Liefdag’s violent end wouldhardly have escaped Adam of Bremen’s attention. It thus appears most likely that thestory of St Liefdag, as told in The Chronicle of Ribe, emerged in the twelfth century.In other words, the bishopric of Ribe, which was in need of a saint with a local con-nection, shaped the vague memory of its first bishop or possibly invented it entirely.37

Their endeavours proved unsuccessful, for according to The Chronicle of Ribe thecathedral burnt down along with Liefdag’s relics. The Chronicle implies that thisdisaster was caused by the Bishop’s failure to acquire papal confirmation of Lief-dag’s sanctity. The principal point, however, is that Liefdag’s cult was unique in38

twelfth-century Denmark: at its heart was a foreign missionary whose martyrdomwas effected against the backdrop of a clash between Christianity and paganism.

Although the missionary credentials of St Liefdag are somewhat suspect thesame cannot be said about another German ecclesiastic, St Theodgarus (or Thøgar),whose cult emerged in the region of Vestervig in north-east Jutland. The date of39

Theodgarus’s legend is uncertain, but a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-centuryprovenance is most likely. The legend tells that Theodgarus, a Thuringian,40

Haki Antonsson30

VSD, pp. 14–19.41

See Haki Antonsson, ‘Saints and Relics’, pp. 75–76.42

worked as a missionary in the entourage of King Olaf, probably Haraldsson. There-after he settled in Vestervig and built a church where he served until his death.Miracles then appeared at Theodgarus’s grave, and after initial obstacles, his sanc-tity was recognized and celebrated by the people of Vestervig. The cult of Theod-41

garus probably originated in the eleventh century, but it was certainly attended bythe Augustinian community that settled in Vestervig around the middle of thetwelfth century and who dedicated their church to the German missionary. Thusthe community could appropriate a saintly figure from the missionary period who,moreover, was associated with pastoral care and holy living.42

St Theodgarus is not mentioned in Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensisecclesiae pontificum, which is perhaps surprising given that his legend tells that KingSven Estridsen played a leading role in recognizing the cult. It is important torecognize that Adam is otherwise diligent in reporting what Sven had to say aboutlocal cults of saints in Scandinavia. Thus the earliest references to St Hallvard, theotherwise unattested cult of St Eric, and apparently, the cult of Seljumen on the isleof Selja are courtesy of King Sven (see below). But Adam’s interest in confessorsaints appears to have been limited, and he focused on martyrs whose blood sancti-fied the cause of Hamburg-Bremen in Saxony among the Slavs and in Scandinavia.Theodgarus seemingly had no connection with the German archbishopric.

Liefdag and Theodgarus are thus the only cases of cults of saints in Denmarkwho lived in the conversion period. There are various reasons why there were notmore cults of this kind. First, the conversion of Denmark was not a violent affairas far as we can tell. The power of the king and his henchmen in the localities wasevidently sufficient to sustain a process which began with full force in the reign ofHarald Bluetooth. It should, of course, be remembered that Christianity had beeninfiltrating Danish society for decades prior to the official conversion of KingHarald. In the newly converted kingdoms and principalities of Europe in the northand east the cults of missionary saints, particularly martyr-saints, could be polit-ically sensitive. The well-known case of Adalbert of Prague stands out in thisrespect. Another example is that of St Bruno of Querfurt, a missionary amongst thePrussians and the Rus’, whose martyrdom — which is recorded in a number ofsources from around Europe — became a bone of contention between DukeBoleslaw of Bohemia and Grand Prince Vladimir of Rus’, with the result that his


Darius Baronas, ‘The Year 1009: St Bruno of Querfurt between Poland and Rus’’, Journal43

of Medieval History, 34 (2008), 1–22.

Helander, Ansgarskulten i Norden, pp. 25–83.44

Lesley Abrams, ‘Germanic Christianities, 600–1100’, in Cambridge History of Christianity,45

vol. III: Early Medieval Christianities, c. 600–c. 1100, ed. by Thomas Noble (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 107–29 (p. 110).

‘But he, the Harold of whom we speak, who first declared Christianity to the Danish people,46

who filled the whole north with preachers and churches, he I say, wounded and driven out, thoughinnocent, for the sake of Christ, will not fail, I hope, to gain a martyr’s palm. He reigned fifty years.His death occurred on the feast of All Saints. His memory and that of his wife, Gunnhild, willremain forever with us. These things took place, we learned, in the days of Archbishop Adaldag;still we could not find out all of the king’s virtues. There are, however, some who affirm that thegrace of healing worked through him both then, while he still lived, and at his sepulcher after hisdeath, and other things equally marvellous; for example, the blind were often given sight and manyother wonders took place’: Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans.by Tschan, p. 73; Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, II. 29, ed. by Schmeidler, p. 87. On thepossibility of an actual cult of King Harald, see, for instance, Niels Lund, Haralds Blåtands død oghans begravelse i Roskilde? (Roskilde: Roskilde Museum, 1998), p. 73.

cult was stillborn and no legend was produced. Indeed one could speculate that43

the Danish kings were reluctant to support the cults of missionary figures whowere associated with the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen. Thus althoughAnskar was not wholly ignored by Lund cathedral in the twelfth century, there isno evidence that his cult was particularly esteemed.44

In Denmark some of the early ‘native’ cults were promoted by religious houses.Most notably the monastic community at Odense attended the cult of King KnudSvensson while the monks of Ringsted served the other princely cult of twelfth-century Denmark, that of Knud Lavard. These and other monastic foundationshad little or no tradition of an association with the conversion of the kingdom toChristianity. This situation can be seen as something of an anomaly in the Chris-tianization process of the second half of the first millennium. Indeed, with the45

exception of St Theodgarus and the (tellingly failed) cult of St Liefdag, the mission-ary past did not serve as a reservoir for indigenous saints.

For the Danish kings the politically most advantageous missionary cult would,of course, have been that of Harald Bluetooth, who apparently was the first Chris-tian king of the Jelling dynasty. Indeed, it has been suggested that Adam’s referenceto miracles taking place at Harald’s tomb in Roskilde indicates the existence ofsuch a cult in the second half of the eleventh century. It should, however, be46

noted that Adam neither quotes Sven directly nor claims to have derived this

Haki Antonsson32

See the excellent overview of Swedish saints in A. Fröjmark, ‘Från Erik pilgrim til Erik47

konung: om helgonkulten och Sveriges kristnande’, in Kristnandet i Sverige: gamla källor och nyaperspektiv, ed. by Bertil Nilsson, Projektet Sveriges kristnande, 5 (Uppsala: Lunne böcker, 1996),pp. 387–418.

A seamless history of the Swedish cults is presented rather uncritically in C. J. A. Opper-48

mann, The English Missionaries in Sweden and Finland (London: Church Historical Society,1937).


Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, III. 54, ed. by Schmeidler, p. 199: ‘Hericus quidam pere-grinus, dum Sueones ulteriores predicaret, martyrii palmam capitis abscisione meruit’. It seemsevident that the term peregrinus refers to an itinerant ecclesiastic. For a discussion of this term, seeFröjmark, ‘Från Erik pilgrim til Erik konung’, pp. 395–97.

information from the Danish king. Adam may have wished to portray King Haraldas a martyr for the cause of the conversion of Denmark in a similar manner as StOlaf in Norway.

Sweden

In Scandinavia it was only in Sweden that cults of missionary saints became anotable feature of the medieval religious landscape, especially as patron saints ofSwedish bishoprics. It is not immediately apparent why this type enjoyed greater47

popularity in Sweden than in the other Nordic countries. It is my contention,however, that two interlinking factors provide us with at least a partial answer tothis question: the distinctive nature of the conversion in Sweden and the memoryof that process.

The dating of the cult of these Swedish missionary saints is not a simple task.48

The fact that a legend of a saint from the High Middle Ages describes his activityin the missionary period does not necessarily signify that there had been a continu-ous history from that period onwards. For example, it appears that the story of StLiefdag was ‘reactivated’ or even invented long after the period of conversion (seeabove). Still, in contrast to the rest of Scandinavia, near-contemporary sources dorecord the presence of missionary saints in eleventh-century Sweden. Thus, follow-ing the testimony of King Sven Estridsen, Adam of Bremen mentions a certainHericus (or Erik) ‘pilgrim’ (‘peregrinus’) who ‘won the martyr’s crown by havinghis head cut off while he preached in the farthest part of Sweden’. Apart from a49

reference to this Erik in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century Swedish vita of St


VSD, p. 83.50

Tryggve Lundé, ‘Eskil’, in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid til51

reformationstid, ed. by J. Danstrup and others, 22 vols (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger,1956–78), IV, cols 48–50.

Toni Schmid, ‘Eskil, Botvid och David’, Scandia, 4 (1931), 102–14 (p. 102).52

Scriptores rerum Suecicarum medii aevi, ed. by Erik Michael Fant and others, 3 vols (Uppsala:53

Zeipel & Palmblad, 1818–76), II, 377–82. A Swedish translation can be found in Tryggve Lundén,

Botvid (see below), nothing further is known about him and there is no indicationof any cult.

Writing in Denmark in the first quarter of the twelfth century, Ælnoth ofCanterbury refers to a certain Englishman by the name Eskil who preached amongthe half-pagan Swedes and suffered martyrdom for his efforts. Eskil’s cult is50

attested in the twelfth century, for his feast day is noted in the so-called VallentunaCalendar of 1198. Another testimony to the cult’s twelfth-century provenance51

is found in a papal letter of 1231 which refers to a church built in St Eskil’s honourin Tuna around 1185 (Tuna later became known as Eskilstuna). Moreover, Tuna52

is also included in a list of bishoprics compiled in the first half of the twelfthcentury, and it appears that Eskil, the missionary who had been active in the region,was adopted as a patron saint by the diocese of Strängnäs. According to the four-teenth-century life of Eskil he was an English missionary who was killed in a paganbacklash when he attempted to scupper a pagan blood-sacrifice. This reputedlyoccurred in the latter half of the eleventh century during the reign of the Christianking Ingi. There are three aspects of Eskil’s cult that should be highlighted. First,the cult appears to have had a continuous history from the missionary period.Second, the clash between paganism and Christianity is encapsulated in Eskil’smartyrdom which takes place in Svealand, a region of Sweden where it is knownthat pagans and Christians coexisted in the eleventh century. Finally, his cult wasupheld by the local bishopric of Strängnäs. Moreover, it is noteworthy that accord-ing to the legend Eskil suffered martyrdom in the vicinity of a Dominican prioryfounded c. 1268. Thus, the memory of the English Eskil served both the episcopacyand an incoming religious order that wished to connect with the locality and itshistory — the point of contact was found in the missionary period.

Conflict between pagans and Christians in late eleventh-century Södermanlandis also the backdrop to the life and martyrdom of St Botvid. The legend of Botviddates from the latter part of the thirteenth century, but there are some grounds forbelieving that it is based on a late twelfth-century version, thus making it one of theearliest pieces of Swedish literature. Unlike the other missionary saints of53

Haki Antonsson34

Sveriges missionärer helgon och kyrkogrundare: En bok om Sveriges kristnande (Storuman: Artos,1983), pp. 247–53.

‘Dum autem corpus b. Botvidi in sepulcro jacuit, tantus timor atque tremor per totam54

Sveciae patriam per annos supradictos homines infideles invasit, ex maxime in domibus convivio-rum suorum, it ut saltantes seque ipsos conscindentes a nullo poterant curare, nisi se permitterentbaptizari, invocantes auxilium b. Botvidi: et ita factum est, ut omnes luci et delubra succissa suntet confracta. Per illos, ut supra diximus, annos et illis locis ecclesiae Dei sunt aedificatae, ubi super-stitiosa daemonum cultura colebatur. Affluentes autem undique veniebant ad sepulcrum eiusinnumerabilis multitude virorum et mulierum infirmantium, caecorum, claudorum, aridorum,febricitantium, qui omnes pristinae sanitati sunt restuti’: Scriptores rerum Suecicarum, ed. by Fantand others, II, 381–82. The translation is taken from Nils Blomkvist, The Discovery of the Baltic:The Reception of a Catholic World-System in the European North (AD 1075–1225) (Leiden: Brill,2005), p. 600.

For instance the late thirteenth-century life of St Helena of Skövde incorrectly claims that55

Pope Alexander III recognized her sanctity in 1164. H. Schück, ‘Notiserna om Elins av Skövdekanonisation’, Personhistorisk Tidskrift, 73 (1977), 61–65.

Sweden, Botvid is of native stock. He converts to Christianity on a trading missionto England, and upon his return he preaches the Gospel in Södermanland, a regionwith which he is subsequently associated. Eventually, however, Botvid is betrayedand killed by his own Slavic slave whom he had intended to set free. Thus Botvid’slegend is set against a background of hostilities between pagans and Christians.Indeed, Botvid’s legend associates his martyrdom at the hand of pagans in the sameregion where St Eskil and the Erik peregrinus were martyred. But there is a twist inthe tale, for Botvid is able to continue his missionary work from beyond or, to bemore precise, at his grave:

During the years when Botvid’s body rested in this grave, such a great fear spread in therealm of the Svear, and particularly in the buildings where they were gathering, that theystarted to dance and tear themselves into pieces, and they could not be cured by anyoneunless they became baptized, praying to St Botvid to help. And thus all sacrificial grovesand temples were cut down and destroyed. During these years and at those places wherethe superstitious worship of demons had been carried out, churches were built.54

Botvid’s legend describes the translation of his relics in 1129 to a church dedicatedto him. According to the legend this ceremony was conducted by the Bishop ofUppsala in tandem with the Bishop of Strängnäs. The legend also tells that Stefan,the first Archbishop of Uppsala, and Vilhelm, the Bishop of Strängnäs, translatedthe same relics to a stone church in 1176. Whether or not the translation was con-ducted in the manner that Botvid’s legend describes is questionable. There seems,55


As argued convincingly in Lars-Olof Larsson, ‘Den helige Sigrid och Växjöstiftets äldsta56

historia: Method- och materialfrågar kring problem i tidigmedeltida kyrkohistoria’, Kyrkohistoriskårsskrift (1982), 68–94.

The text of the longest version of Sigfrid’s legend is published in Ellen Jørgensen, ‘Bidrag til57

ældre nordisk Kirka-og Litteraturshistorie’, Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen (1933),186–98 (p. 191).

For the hagiographic texts on St David, see Scriptores rerum Suecicarum, ed. by Fant and58

others, II, 405–11.

Ellen Jørgensen, ‘Undersøgelser i Sverige af middelalderlige fragmenter, der har tjent som59

omslag over arkivalier’, Historisk tidskrift, 11 (1944), 656–62 (p. 661).

however, little reason to question that Botvid’s cult emerged in the twelfth centuryand was subsequently adopted by the bishopric during its formative period.

In contrast to the cult of Botvid and Eskil those of St David and St Sigfridcannot be traced with certainty to the twelfth century. Indeed, they appear to be‘inventions’ of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries or rediscoveries of figureswho had only vague associations with the localities. Sigfrid is a particularly interest-ing case, as his cult is intrinsically linked with the emergence of the new bishopricof Växjö in southern Sweden in the thirteenth century and the attempts of thisdiocese to forge its own identity in the face of a powerful neighbouring diocese.56

The legend of Sigfrid, which survives in two principal versions, tells how theSwedish king Olof wishes to be enlightened by Christian teaching. He requests theEnglish king to send him teachers. Sigfrid, archbishop of York, is duly appointedto instruct Olof and travels to Sweden with three of his nephews. At Växjö theparty builds a church and preaches the Gospel to the locals. Like Botvid, themissionaries are betrayed by pagans, and the three nephews meet a violent death.57

Their relics are translated to the church at Växjö, a church which King Olofpatronizes and eventually elevates to an episcopal see.

According to the fifteenth-century legend this event inspired English David, acontemporary of Sigfrid, to travel to the same place and to build a church there andeventually a Cluniac abbey at Munktorp in Västmanland. The cult of St David58

was evidently established around the turn of the fourteenth century by the bish-opric of Västerås in the region of Mäleren and does not concern us here. Still, it isinteresting to note that even in the late Middle Ages bishops were drawing on themissionary period to strengthen their episcopal identity. Indeed, in 1463 theBishop of Västerås sought approval from the papacy to translate St David’s relicsto his cathedral.59

Haki Antonsson36

Foreign missionary saints did not, however, monopolize sainthood in twelfth-and thirteenth-century Sweden. Indeed, it was a local woman, St Helena of Skövde,who was promoted by the bishopric of Skara in the second half of the thirteenthcentury; her cult may have been of twelfth-century provenance. Moreover, the cultof King Erik of Sweden emerged in the late twelfth century and was promoted bythe archbishopric of Uppsala in the following century. Nevertheless, it was themissionary period that provided the Swedish Church with a fertile ground in itssearch for local cults of saints.

Concluding Observations

This chapter has focused on the legends of the early saints in Scandinavia, inparticular how they reflect the choice of ‘native saints’ and their associations withthe conversion period.

The first thing to notice is the lack of missionary cults that originated in monas-tic settings. This can be explained by the simple fact that monasticism took rootsin this region after the conversion period proper. However, this does not mean thatreligious houses did not appropriate such cults at a later date. Thus the Augus-tinians of Vestervig appropriated the cult of St Theodgarus in the late twelfth orearly thirteenth century, and a Dominican priory in Strängnäs was linked to thememory of St Eskil. St Sunniva’s martyrdom at Selja was certainly a boon for theBenedictine community that was established on the isle around the turn of theeleventh century, while in Iceland the somewhat obscure Ásólfr became (albeitbelatedly) associated with a proto-monastic community that supposedly existed inthe pre-Christian era. Yet still, in Norway and Sweden the bishoprics were theleading sponsors of the cults of saints who lived in the missionary period. Sig-nificantly, the process took place during the formative period of the episcopalorganization in these countries; that is, from the mid-eleventh century to thesecond half of the twelfth century. Norway saw the appearance of the cults of StOlaf (Trondheim), St Hallvard (Oslo), and St Sunniva in Bergen. In Sweden therewere the cults of Botvid and Eskil in Strängnäs and that of Sigfrid in Växjö. InDenmark, however, bishoprics and religious houses chose to adopt contemporaryor near-contemporary saints such as St Knud of Odense (d. 1086), St Knud Lavard(d. 1131) and St Margaret of Roskilde (d. 1176). The same is true of Iceland, wherethe earliest local saints were post-conversion bishops. Of the Danish cults only thatof St Theodgarus celebrated a figure from the conversion period; the bishopric of


Ribe’s attempt in the late twelfth century to promote the missionary bishop StLiefdag proved to be futile.

In Norway the conversion was exclusively associated with the missionary kingsSt Olaf Haraldsson and Olaf Tryggvason; no missionaries, foreign or native,became the objects of cultic veneration. In Iceland the conversion was similarlyremembered as the achievement of the native elite prompted by the missionary zealof Olaf Tryggvason. In the late twelfth century, Icelandic ecclesiastics composedsemi-hagiographic sagas which portrayed Olaf as a saintly figure but without anycultic veneration.

In Denmark, as in Norway, the conversion was championed by the king, but incontrast to Norway no cult of a missionary king emerged. Unlike in Norway, how-ever, royal involvement in the Christianization process in Denmark has left fewtraces in medieval sources. Also unlike in Norway, two cults of foreign missionariesappeared in Denmark: the above-mentioned cults of St Theodgarus and Liafdag.In general, however, the Danes recruited their native saints from post-conversionroyal and princely figures as well as near-contemporary figures.

It is in Sweden, where the Christianization process was not pushed through bya central authority, that we find cults of archetypal missionary saints of the type asmentioned at the beginning of the chapter. Here the more decentralized nature ofthe conversion and the apparently genuine pagan backlash against Christianity inthe late eleventh century provided bishoprics and religious houses with a reservoirof sanctity that was not found elsewhere in Scandinavia.

I am especially indebted to Haki Antonsson for revising my English and Stephan Borgehammarfor commenting upon the text and for having discussed particular obstacles with me. I am alsograteful to Christian Lovén, who kindly shared with me his as yet unpublished treatise on thecathedral church of Uppsala.

By ‘institution’, I refer to both offices like the papacy and the episcopacy and institutions like1

monasteries, cathedral chapters, and parochial churches. In some cases, Canon Law and othercollections of legal texts may also be distinguished as ‘institutions’.

In many of the works referred to in this article there are indeed substantial reflections upon2

the connection of saints’ cults and the ecclesiastical institutions that promoted cults. A compre-hensive examination of the cult of saints and medieval cathedral culture in Scandinavia andelsewhere is still lacking.

SAINTS AND CATHEDRAL CULTURE

IN SCANDINAVIA C. 1000–C. 1200

Anna Minara Ciardi

When considering the cult of saints in the Middle Ages, we may not im-mediately associate it with ecclesiastical institutions. Rather, many1

other aspects may come to mind: the performance of the cult itself, theimpact on daily life, relics, pilgrimages, the influences exerted on religious art andmusic, the production and dissemination of saints’ lives and religious literature, orthe official and legal processes of the making of a saint. Similarly, when consid-2

ering ecclesiastical institutions, we may not be inclined to specifically think of themas mediators of novelties and innovation, but more as bodies of preservation,characterized by firm traditions and conservative representatives. Nothing of theaforesaid is erroneous. It is true that the medieval cult of saints is full of nuancesand could be approached and dealt with from various angles. It is also true that theinstitutions of the medieval Church tend to be highly conservative. In addition, theconnection between the two may not be considered as the most important or, for

Anna Minara Ciardi40

Cf. Paul Binski, ‘Liturgy and Local Knowledge: English Perspectives on Trondheim Cathe-3

dral’, in The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim: Architectural and Ritual Constructions in theirEuropean Context, ed. by Margrete Syrstad Andås and others, Ritus et Artus, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols,2007), pp. 21–46 (pp. 21–22); and John Blair, ‘A Saint for Every Minster? Local Cults in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. by AlanThacker and Richard Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 455–85.

See Table 1 at the end of this essay for a list of cathedral churches and the cult of saints in4

Scandinavia prior to c. 1200.

For a comprehensive list, see Birthe Carlé and Anders Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède –5

Finlande’, in Hagiographies: histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique latine et vernacu-laire en Occident des origines à 1550, ed. by Guy Philippart, 2 vols, Corpus Christianorum,Hagiographies, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), II, 501–45.

In her article on the early medieval saints’ cults in Scandinavia, the Danish scholar Thelma6

Jexlev briefly refers to the role played by monastic communities in the process of making a saint,not least by producing the hagiography. Elsewhere, she argues that the chapter clergy of Uppsalawas the most fervent advocate for promoting the cult of St Erik. She does not, however, offer anyfurther reflection upon this relationship. Thelma Jexlev, ‘The Cult of Saints in Early Medieval

that matter, interesting part of the topic. Nonetheless, a saint’s cult could not existwithout the approval, confirmation, and intervention of an ecclesiastical institu-tion or its representatives. My point here is that the cult of saints and ecclesiasticalinstitutions were inseparable in the Middle Ages; I would even maintain that onecould not have existed without the other.3

This chapter aims to illustrate the cathedral culture in Scandinavia beforec. 1200 as an environment important to our understanding of the role played bythe cult of saints in this region. By bringing together elements of both ecclesiasticalorganization and its practised ideology, I wish to put forward some ideas about thecathedrals as milieux of mediating, preserving, and creating cults of saints. Theimmediate purpose is to present an overview of Scandinavian cathedral churchesbefore 1200 and the cult of saints affiliated to them. Therefore, neither all cults4

nor all cathedral churches will be thoroughly dealt with. Because of the state of docu-mentation, a particular focus has been laid upon major patron saints in Denmark,of both foreign and local origin. The contemporary and indigenous sources do notpermit far-reaching conclusions about the cult of saints pertaining to the Scandina-vian cathedral churches before the turn of the twelfth century. In fact, the existingcontemporary written evidence rarely provides much information about the cults,their establishment, growth, performance, or the performers. In addition, there5

are no major works dealing specifically with Scandinavian cathedral culture inrelation to saints’ cults from this period. The results presented here should not be6

SAINTS AND CATHEDRAL CULTURE IN SCANDINAVIA 41

Scandinavia’, in St. Magnus Cathedral and Orkney’s Twelfth-Century Renaissance, ed. by Barbara E.Crawford (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988), pp. 183–91 (pp. 183, 185). A projectabout the cults of saints and the Christianization of Scandinavia until c. 1300, with special refer-ence to the institutions and individuals that promoted such cults, is currently being undertaken bySara E. Ellis Nilsson of the University of Gothenburg. I owe her thanks for commenting upon apart of this chapter.

Cf. Kaare Rübner Jørgensen, ‘Archiepiscopatus Lundensis’, in Series episcoporum ecclesiae7

catholicae occidentalis ab initio usque ad annum MCXCVIII, Series 6, Britannia, Scotia et Hibernia,Scandinavia, ed. by H. Kluger (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1992), II, 1–6; and Lesley Abrams,‘Eleventh-Century Missions and the Early Stages of Ecclesiastical Organisation in Scandinavia’, inAnglo-Norman Studies: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1994, 17 (1995), 21–40.

Michael H. Gelting, ‘Elusive Bishops: Remembering, Forgetting, and Remaking the History8

of the Early Danish Church’, in The Bishop: Power and Piety at the First Millennium, ed. by SeanGilsdorf, Neue Aspekte der europäischen Mittelalterforschung, 4 (Münster: Lit, 2004), pp.169–200; and Gelting, ‘The Kingdom of Denmark’, in Christianization and the Rise of ChristianMonarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200, ed. by Nora Berend (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 73–120.

considered more than an attempt at possible ways of categorizing the various saints’cults identified and a small contribution to a relatively little explored field.

The Ecclesiastical Setting

As episcopal sees were established in Scandinavia in the eleventh and twelfth cen-turies, the northern fringes of Europe became incorporated into universal Chris-tendom. Henceforth the newly converted areas came to be recognized as a part ofan occidental ecclesiastical culture. Until 1103/04, when the bishopric of Lundwas elevated to an archbishopric by Pope Paschal II and its bishop became themetropolitan over the whole of Scandinavia, including the Atlantic Isles andGreenland, the area was ecclesiastically subordinated to the archbishopric ofHamburg-Bremen. At the turn of the thirteenth century, three ecclesiastical7

provinces had been established in the north and episcopal sees were being foundedall over Scandinavia.

Since the reign of King Sven Estridsen in the mid-eleventh century, the ecclesi-astical province of Lund, which corresponded to the then kingdom of Denmark,had eight dioceses: Lund, Århus, Børglum, Odense, Ribe, Roskilde, Slesvig, andViborg. The oldest — Ribe, Odense, and Roskilde — had all been founded in thelate tenth century in the period when the Danish kings converted to Christianity.8


Sverre Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, ‘The Kingdom of Norway’, in Christianization9

and the Rise of Christian Monarchy, ed. by Berend, pp. 121–66 (pp. 146, 149–54). Cf. Pernille H.Fredriksen, ‘Helgener og kirkededikasjoner i Norge i middelalderen’ (unpublished master’s thesis,University of Oslo, 2004), pp. 23–32.

Orri Vésteinsson, The Christianization of Iceland: Priests, Power, and Social Change10

1000–1300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 17–57; and Margaret Cormack, TheSaints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400, Subsidia hagiographica, 78(Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1994), pp. 7–12.

Bagge and Nordeide, ‘Kingdom of Norway’, pp. 149 and 151; and Barbara Crawford, ‘The11

Bishopric of Orkney’, in Ecclesia Nidrosiensis 1153–1537: Søkelys på Nidaroskirkens og Nidaros-provinsens historie, ed. by Steinar Imsen (Trondheim: Tapir, 2003), pp. 143–58.

Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, ed. by Georg Waitz, in MGH SRG, 55 (Hannover: Hahn, 1884),12

pp. 13–79; and Adam Bremenensis gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, IV, ed. by BernhardSchmeidler, MGH SRG, 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1917). Most of the written sources about theChristianization of Sweden and its oldest ecclesiastical organization are found in records fromelsewhere, and from Denmark in particular.

Nils Blomkvist, Stefan Brink, and Thomas Lindkvist, ‘The Kingdom of Sweden’, in Chris-13

tianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy, ed. by Berend, pp. 167–213 (179–86, 192–95). On

In the Norwegian kingdom the first steps towards a diocesan organization werealso taken on royal initiative, especially during the reign of King Olaf Kyrre(d. 1093). At about 1100, three episcopal sees existed in the kingdom: Nidaros,Selja, and Oslo. A fourth episcopal see, Stavanger, was founded after 1112. In1152/53, the ecclesiastical province of Nidaros — which included mainland Nor-way, Iceland, the Atlantic Isles, and Greenland — was established and becameindependent from the archiepiscopal see of Lund. In connection with these events,the four dioceses hitherto established were accompanied by Hamar. In Iceland,9

which officially accepted the Christian faith in the year 999/1000, there were twoepiscopal sees: Skálholt (1056) and Hólar (1106). The Orkney, Shetland, and the10

Hebrides (with Sodor and the Isle of Man) were until 1152/53 ecclesiasticallysubordinated to the archdiocese of York. A bishop was seated in Kirkwall from themid-eleventh century. The Faroe Islands had had a bishop of their own from thelate 1070s, and a bishop resided in Garðar in Greenland from 1126.11

The ecclesiastical province of Uppsala — which included Sweden and parts ofwhat is modern-day Finland — was established in 1164, as subordinated to Lund.Apart from the Vita Anskarii and Adam of Bremen’s chronicle of the archbishopsof Hamburg-Bremen (c. 1070), only a handful of sources illuminate the situationbefore 1200. It is evident that Linköping, Sigtuna, (Old) Uppsala, Skara,12

(Eskils-)Tuna, Strängnäs, Västerås, and Växjö were established as episcopal sees inthe course of the twelfth century. In Finland, an episcopal seat was likely13


the hitherto elusive origins of and relation between the episcopal sees of Sigtuna and Uppsala, seeChristian Lovén, ‘Upplands tidigaste stiftsorganisation: Sigtuna och Uppsala’, in Uppsala domkyrka(forthcoming).

On the situation in Finland, see, for example, Jarl Gallén, ‘När blev Åbo biskopssäte?’,14

Historisk Tidskrift för Finland, 63 (1978), 312–24.

Cf. Abrams, ‘Eleventh-Century Missions’; and Stefan Brink, ‘New Perspectives on the15

Christianization of Scandinavia and the Organization of the Early Church’, in Scandinavia andEurope 800–1350: Contact, Conflict, and Coexistence, ed. by Jonathan Adams and KatherineHolman, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp.163–77.

Carlé and Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède – Finlande’, pp. 530–32; Anders Fröjmark, ‘Från16

Erik pilgrim till Erik konung: Om helgonkulten och Sveriges kristnande’, in Kristnandet i Sverige:Gamla källor och nya perspektiv, ed. by Bertil Nilsson, Projektet Sveriges kristnande, 5 (Uppsala:Lunne böcker, 1996), pp. 387–418 (pp. 387–88, 410–11); Anders Fröjmark and Christian Krötzl,‘Den tidiga helgonkulten’, in Kyrka – Samhälle – Stat: Från kristnande till etablerad kyrka, ed. byGöran Dahlbäck, Historiallinen Arkisto, 110 (Helsingfors: Societas Historica Finlandiae, 1997),pp. 121–44; and Thomas A. DuBois, ‘Introduction’, in Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, andCults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. by Thomas A. DuBois, Toronto Old Norse and IcelandicStudies, 3 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), pp. 3–28 (pp. 5–6).

established in the vicinity of Turku towards the end of the century and was movedto Turku during the thirteenth century. It is hard, however, to pinpoint the dates14

when bishops became resident. Even so, we must envisage a situation where theecclesiastical organization in Sweden, including residing bishops, was comparableto the rest of Scandinavia and Europe at about 1200.

Although the establishment of episcopal sees must be considered as one of themost crucial elements in the process of Christianization, the process itself was notcompleted by the appearance of resident bishops. There was also a need to establisha domestic organization with other ecclesiastical institutions, in order both tosafeguard the achievements of the missionary work and to align the existing organi-zation to international standards. Accordingly, the term ‘ecclesiastical organiza-tion’ involves not only institutional phenomena such as bishops, a diocesan andparochial organization, or ecclesiastical institutions and communities. The patternsof ‘organization’ or ‘institution’ inherited from abroad also entailed ideologicalaspects. In fact, it was only through practising traditions and customs — for15

example, the liturgy and the cult of saints — that the ecclesiastical organization wasable to survive. Subsequently, the milieu around the diocesan bishop and his16

cathedral was crucial in this new ecclesiastical environment in Scandinavia. Thecathedral church was the ecclesia maior of the diocese, its heart and its centre.


Cf. Sven Helander, ‘The Liturgical Profile of the Parish Church in Medieval Sweden’, in The17

Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. by Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo:Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), pp. 129–66.

On the development of the institution of cathedral chapters in the Middle Ages, see Henri18

Leclercq, ‘Chanoines’ and ‘Chapitre des cathédrales’, in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et deliturgie, ed. by Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq (Paris: Libraire Letouzey, 1903–53), VII (1913),cols 223–48 and 495–507; Charles Dereine, ‘Chanoines’, in Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographieecclésiastiques (Paris: Letouzey, 1912–), XII (1953), cols 353–58; ‘Canon’ and ‘Cathedral’, in TheOxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, 3rd edn (Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 276–77 and 302–03. For a general introduction to the

Cathedral Culture and Cathedral Chapter

What then is ‘cathedral culture’ and how can it be put in relation to, for example,‘monastic culture’? The performance of the Daily Office was a distinctive mark forthese ecclesiastical institutions. Likewise, both monastic and cathedral cultureinvolved men who took vows in the service of God and were organized in a com-munity for the purpose of fulfilling their duties. But there were differences too.Above all, the culture that evolved in and around the cathedral church was closelyconnected to the person of the diocesan bishop. In addition, the culture surround-ing him involved not only those belonging to a clerical community or holdingecclesiastical offices. This milieu was the centre of the visible ecclesiastical organi-zation that emerged during the period: the parochial organization. The powerwielded at the cathedral church, the life lived there, and the rites performed servedas an exemplar for the rest of the diocese. Subsequently, the episcopal and cathe-17

dral culture played a decisive part in the consolidation of the newly Christianizedsocieties in the north. Together with the legal functions performed by the bishopand the clerical community, cathedral culture probably had a greater impact thanmonastic culture upon the laity.

Clerical communities emerged at an early stage in the development of the epis-copal churches. When trying to define this institution in a European-wide context,however, the degree of independence vis-à-vis the diocesan bishop is fundamental.Initially, these communities should be identified as a part of the bishop’s familia.Gradually, however, they became increasingly more independent and were lateralso recognized as formally, that is, legally, independent of the diocesan bishop. Atleast from the reign of Charlemagne and onwards, those communities were in thewestern ecclesiastical tradition often recognized as institutions in their own right,that is, cathedral chapters. The level of organization, character, and functionsvaried from time to time and in some cases from place to place.18


situation in Scandinavia, see Kauko Pirinen and others, ‘Domkapitel’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikonför nordisk medeltid från vikingatid till reformationstid, ed. by J. Granlund and others, 22 vols(Malmö: Allhem, 1956–78), III (1958), cols 185–201 (cols 185–95).

It has been argued that the performing of specific functions or a certain level of organization19

are decisive; for example, that specific functions performed or a certain level of organization iscrucial for the labelling of those communities. With reference to what can be concluded fromDenmark and elsewhere, we should envisage some kind of organized clerical community servingat the cathedral church, at least as soon as the bishop became resident. It seems therefore futile tofocus on a fixed date or this or that particular function in order to distinguish a proper ‘cathedralchapter’, and even more so as the documentation regarding the Scandinavian setting is scarce. Thelevel of organization is, on the other hand, of more immediate interest.

Cf. Binski, ‘Liturgy and Local Knowledge’, p. 34: ‘Liturgy […] has a certain self-sufficiency:20

it “is” the institution that performs it, rather than something which stands in relation to thatinstitution.’

Cf. Pirinen and others, ‘Domkapitel’, col. 194, who argue that the most important function21

held by the cathedral chapters was to administer the diocese as well as the mensa episcopalis. In asituation of sede vacante, as a consequence of the death, elevation, or resignation of the bishop, thechapter had to perform episcopal duties, except those reserved to bishops, until a new bishop waselected and/or appointed. The First Lateran Council (1123) emphasized the importance ofcanonical elections (Can. 3); the Second Lateran Council (1139) decreed that an episcopal seeshould not be vacant for more than three months (Can. 28).

The most evident example is perhaps the participation in episcopal appointments: from22

being at the beginning of our period employed at best as an ‘advisory board’ to the king, who inaccordance with the then prevailing custom executed the right to appoint bishops, to the twelfthcentury when the right to elect a bishop was exclusively reserved for the cathedral chapter or thepapacy. Cf. cap. 16 of the customary employed by the chapter of Lund c. 1123, i.e. the Consue-tudines Lundenses, which states that the election should be performed by clerics alone, without layparticipation, Lund, Lund University Library, M S 6, fols 92 –123 ; published in Consuetudinesr r

What level of organization is needed for a body of clerics to be properly desig-nated as a ‘cathedral chapter’? My contention is that the clerical community that19

served at a cathedral church and performed various functions should be designatedas a ‘cathedral chapter’ as soon as there are indications of a corporate body, recog-nized and organized with its own regulations and leader, even though it is notexplicitly referred to as a ‘chapter’ except in sources from a later date. Subsequently,it is the locality — that is, the cathedral church — and the variety of functionsperformed there that are the defining elements. With this overarching definitionagreed upon, the following functions can be highlighted:• to perform the daily liturgy of the cathedral church;20

• to counsel and assist the bishop in the diocesan government;21

• to act as guardians and executors of ecclesiastical law;22


Lundenses: Statutter for kannikesamfundet i Lund c. 1123, ed. by Erik Buus (Copenhagen: Detdanske sprog- og litteraturselskab, 1978), pp. 109–78.

In the Middle Ages the cathedral church, with a few exceptions, did not serve as a parish23

church. The institution of prebends, however, entailed to its holder the duties of a vicar. Inaddition, the Augustinians and Premonstratensians were by their vows obliged to fulfil duties ofpastoral care.

Cf. De vita beati Nicolai Arusiensis, ed. by Martin Clarentius Gertz, in VSD, pp. 398–40324

(pp. 402, 405).

Pirinen and others, ‘Domkapitel’, cols 185–95. 25

Tore Nyberg, Monasticism in North-Western Europe, 800–1200 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000),26

pp. 38 and 77; and Bagge and Nordeide, ‘Kingdom of Norway’, pp. 149–50.

DN, II, no. 9.27

• to function as an educational institution of the parochial clergy;• to undertake pastoral and parochial work in the diocese;23

• to function as guardians of the saints’ shrines.24

The earliest cathedral chapters of Scandinavia emerged in Denmark in the1060s and 1070s, namely in Roskilde and Lund. The latest Danish cathedral chap-ter was established in Århus, c. 1190. The pattern familiar from the continent andthe British Isles is observable in Denmark: there were houses of both regular andsecular canons; some were Augustinians (Viborg), Benedictines (Odense), or Pre-monstratensians (Børglum), while others were a mixture of both regular andsecular (Lund), secular (Århus and Slesvig), or secularized during the period(Ribe). By the turn of the thirteenth century, the ecclesiastical organization of25

Denmark was settled.One would have expected the situation to have been similar in Norway and

Iceland, as both were Christianized not long after Denmark. It is true that thediocesan organization with resident bishops, which was a prerequisite of the for-mation of chapters, seems to have come into being around the turn of the millen-nium. The first explicit references to cathedral chapters in Norway are, however,26

from a much later date or from the thirteenth century. To date, scholars dealing27

with Norway are rather uncertain about how to interpret younger references andindeed how to deal with the problem of ‘cathedral chapters’ in general. In relationto the establishment of the ecclesiastical province of Nidaros in 1152/53, a papalletter of a later date refers to how a dean and three archdeacons were designated forthe province. Some have argued that prior to this point in time there were nochapters but mere regular, clerical communities serving at the cathedral churches.Others have opposed this idea and have argued that only secular chapters existed


DN, I, no. 1; Margit Hübert, Nogen undersøkelser om de norske domkapitler væsentlig indtil28

1450, Avhandlinger fra Universitetets historiske seminar, 6 (Kristiania: Grøndahl & Søn, 1922),pp. 17–21; Pirinen and others, ‘Domkapitel’, cols 187 and 195–98; and Bagge and Nordeide,‘Kingdom of Norway’, p. 150.

Pirinen and others, ‘Domkapitel’, cols 198–201; Margaret Cormack, ‘Saga of Bishop Jón of29

Hólar: Introduction’, in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, ed. by Thomas Head (New York:Routledge, 2000), pp. 595–99 (p. 596); and Saga of Bishop Jón of Hólar, trans. by MargaretCormack, in ibid., pp. 601–26. Cf. Orri Vésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland, pp. 5 and 133–43.

Cf. Cormack, ‘Introduction’, pp. 595–96.30

The oldest explicit reference to a regular cathedral chapter in Uppsala is from 1188–97; see31

Jarl Gallén, ‘De engelska munkarna i Uppsala – ett katedralkloster på 1100-talet’, Historisk

in Norway, from the 1250s and onwards. These institutions were in turn assistedby regular (Augustinian) communities in the vicinity of the cathedral, for example,in Trondheim and Bergen. In Iceland the situation was somewhat different. The28

traditional view is that there were no cathedral chapters organized in Iceland untilthe later Middle Ages. The advocates of this interpretation point to the lack ofdocumentation, for there are no immediate references to ‘cathedral chapters’ in thepreserved sources from the period. Moreover, the episcopal elections were con-ducted differently in Iceland, where this normal function of a cathedral chaptercannot be observed. There are, however, scattered references to organized clericalcommunities existing at the cathedral churches of Hólar and Skálholt prior to1200. In some of the so-called bishops’ sagas there are references to persons holdingoffices — for example, magister, archipresbyter, and custos — that are often associ-ated with ecclesiastical foundations like cathedral chapters; elsewhere there are ref-erences to canonical hours being observed at the cathedral. In this context, it is29

especially interesting that some of these references coincide with references to thesanctity of the two local saints of twelfth-century Iceland, bishops ÞorlákrÞórhallsson of Skálholt and Jón Ögmundarson of Hólar.30

There is no reason to believe that the pattern recognized in the rest of Scandi-navia does not apply to the ecclesiastical province of Uppsala. Again, however,documentation is in short supply. The situation in Uppsala has recently beenthoroughly examined by Christian Lovén. He argues that (Old) Uppsala was estab-lished as an episcopal seat c. 1123 and that there are various indications of how theregular cathedral chapter was established before 1164 and perhaps as early as the1150s, before the death of King St Erik of Sweden. Furthermore, Lovén concurswith Jarl Gallén and argues that the oldest cathedral chapter of Uppsala was Bene-dictine, and not Augustinian or Cistercian as has also been argued. In Strängnäs31


Tidskrift för Finland, 61 (1976), 1–21; and Lovén, ‘Upplands tidigaste stiftsorganisation’. See alsoPirinen and others, ‘Domkapitel’, col. 187; and Sven Helander, Den medeltida Uppsalaliturgin:studier i helgonlängd, tidegärd och mässa, Bibliotheca Theologiae Practicae, 63 (Lund: Arcus, 2001),pp. 435–39.

DS, I, nos 194 (Skara, 1200) and 483 (Linköping, 1232). The cathedral of Linköping was32

likely built in the 1120s and completed before 1152, whereas the stone cathedral of Skara wasinaugurated in 1150. See Lovén, ‘Upplands tidigaste stiftsorganisation’; and Lovén, ‘Kloster,klosterliknande inrättningar och klostertraditioner’, Fornvännen, 96 (2001), 243–66 (pp. 244–47).On Linköping, see Herman Schück, Ecclesia Lincopensis: studier om Linköpingskyrkan undermedeltiden och Gustav Vasa, Stockholm Studies in History, 4 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell,1959); and Göran Tagesson, Biskop och stad: aspekter av urbanisering och sociala rum i medeltidensLinköping, Lund Studies in Medieval Archaeology, 30 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2002),pp. 237–41. On Skara, see Christer Pahlmblad and others, ‘Summaries’, in Skaramissalet: studier,edition, översättning och faksimil av handskriften i Skara stifts- och landsbibliotek, ed. by ChristerPahlmblad, Acta Bibliothecae Scarensis, 11 (Skara: Stiftelsen för utgivande av Skaramissalet, 2006),pp. 205–14.

Jarl Gallén, ‘Regulära domkapitel i Sverige och Finland under medeltiden’, Historisk Tidskrift33

för Finland, 23 (1938), 137–50 (pp. 146–50); Gallén, ‘När blev Åbo biskopssäte?’, pp. 314 and318; and Lovén, ‘Kloster’, pp. 245 and 262.

there was a cathedral chapter already in the twelfth century. In the beginning of thethirteenth century secular cathedral chapters were officially recognized in Skaraand Linköping. As episcopal sees they were both older than Uppsala and there areindications that there was some organized clerical activity there before the turn ofthe century, perhaps as early as the first half of the twelfth century when a cathedralwas erected. The later official confirmations may then have concerned the secularchapters alone.32

In Finland, a first cathedral chapter was founded in the first half of the thir-teenth century, perhaps during the episcopate of Bishop Thomas. Even so, the cultof St Henrik was likely established already in the late twelfth century; and as he wasburied in Nousis, the episcopal seat at that time, his cult may have been supportedby the bishop and his clergy. There is, however, no written evidence of aconnection between an organized cathedral clergy and the cult.33

The Cult of Saints and Cathedral Culture

Where, then, does the cult of saints fit into cathedral culture? And in what way didthe cathedral culture provide a milieu for creating, preserving, and mediating cultsof saints? Fundamental was the idea and act of dedication; that is, the consecration


Cf. Binski, ‘Liturgy and Local Knowledge’, pp. 22 and 31–32; Henry Parkinson, ‘Patron34

Saints’, in Catholic Encyclopedia, at <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11562a.htm> [accessed12 December 2008]; and Erik Cinthio, ‘Heiligenpatrone und Kirchenbauten während des frühenMittelalters’, in Kirche und Gesellschaft im Ostseeraum und im Norden vor der Mittes des 13.Jahrhunderts, ed. by Sven Ekdahl, Acta Visbyensia, 3 (Visby: Gotlands Fornsal, 1969), pp. 161–69.Generally on church dedications and on the devotion of saints in Scandinavia, see ‘Dedication ofChurches’ and ‘Saints, Devotion to the’, in Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. by Crossand Livingstone, pp. 462–63, 1444–45; Ellen Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark: Studier overKirkekultur og Kirkeligt Liv fra det 11te Aarhundredes Midte til Reformationen (Copenhagen:Hagerup, 1909), p. 11, n. 3; and DuBois, ‘Introduction’, pp. 6–12. Jørgen Raasted and others,‘Helgener’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon, ed. by Granlund and others, VII (1961), cols 321–41; Carl-Gustaf Andrén and others, ‘Kyrkmässa’, in ibid., IX (1964), cols 675–81; Bengt Ingmar Kilströmand others, ‘Patronus’, in ibid., XIII (1968), cols 144–48 (col. 144); and Jan Schumacher, ‘“Sacrality”and “Holiness”: A Commentary to a Norwegian Research Project’, in Categories of Sacredness inEurope, 1500–1800: Conference at the Norwegian Institute in Rome 11–14 October 2001, ed. byArne Bugge Amundsen and Henning Laugerud, Institutt for kulturstudier, Universitetet i Oslo,2 (Oslo: Institutt for kulturstudier, 2008), pp. 15–22 (pp. 18–21). Schumacher refers to a sermonfor the Feast of Dedication found in the Old Norse Book of Homily from the twelfth century. Onthe relation between the promotion of a local saint and the edifice of a cathedral, cf. Hans Bjørnand Lise Gotfredsen, Århus domkirke: Skt. Clemens (Århus: Århus Domsogns menighedsråd,2005), pp. 33–37; and Binski, ‘Liturgy and Local Knowledge’.

of a church, chapel, or altar in honour of Christ, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary,the Archangels, or a saint. By this act, a church and those affiliated to it were placedunder that saint’s patronage and protection. Apart from the solemn rites inconnection with the consecration itself and its anniversary, this act established acertain relationship — spiritual and physical — between the holy person, theedifice, and those gathering there. The presence of relics visualized and manifestedthis bond. Subsequently, the clergy of the particular church had a responsibility forpreserving and performing both the anniversary of the consecration and theanniversary of the patron saint and his or her day of translation, as well as guardingthe shrine. In connection with the consecration, or more often after some time, thekey patron(s) were in some instances accompanied by additional patron saints whohad gained popularity. As will be shown below, this frequently occurred inScandinavian cathedral settings.34

How, then, were the patron(s) of the church chosen? And what impact did thecult have in general? As regards the first question, there are indeed patterns andtraditions that evolved over the centuries and in which the Scandinavian churchfounders participated. However, the frequency of the dedication to a specific


Cf. Helander, ‘Liturgical Profile’, pp. 131–33; Fröjmark, ‘Från Erik pilgrim till Erik konung’,35

pp. 410–14; and Fredriksen, ‘Helgener og kirkededikasjoner’, pp. 51–93.

On the influence of the English Church on the Swedish Church, see Gallén, ‘De engelska36

munkarna’; and Lovén, ‘Upplands tidigaste stiftsorganisation’. The Danish chronicler Saxo refersto how relics were brought from Jerusalem and Byzantium by Bishop Svend of Roskilde and KingErik Ejegod. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, XII. 1. 5 and XII. 7. 4, ed. by Karsten Friis-Jensen,2 vols (Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og literaturselskab, 2005).

In 1187/88, Archbishop Absalon of Lund summoned a meeting in Lund for the purpose37

of standardizing the liturgy of the (arch)diocese. Cf. Helander, ‘Liturgical Profile’, pp. 131–35 and164–65; and Pahlmblad and others, ‘Summaries’, pp. 211 and 213–14.

It has been suggested that the monastery of All Saints in Lund, which was affiliated to the38

cathedral chapter of St Lawrence by bonds of confraternity, may have produced some of the booksthat were employed by the cathedral clergy. On the situation in Uppsala, see Gallén, ‘De engelskamunkarna’, pp. 13–14; and Lovén, ‘Upplands tidigaste stiftsorganisation’.

Gelting, ‘Elusive Bishops’, pp. 169–70. Cf. Sigurd Kvaerndrup and others, ‘Saints’ Lives’, in39

Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano, Garland Encyclopedias of the

patron often varied between periods, although dedications to Christ, the VirginMary, the Holy Trinity, or the Apostles are found throughout the Middle Ages.35

In terms of mediating and establishing a saint’s cult, the ritual aspect of cathe-dral culture, such as the cathedral liturgy, played a crucial part. In this process, thebishop and the clerical community of the cathedral church must have exerted greatinfluence, and not only upon how the cult was performed and spread. Of certainimportance to the early period is also the fact that the first bishops and their clergywere of non-Scandinavian origin and by their very presence mediated ecclesiasticaltraditions and saints’ cults from abroad. One can mention, for example, the tradi-tion of bishops (and indeed kings) returning to Scandinavia from pilgrimages withprecious relics.36

It is true that liturgical uniformity to some extent was prompted by the ecclesi-astical authorities in the twelfth century. Moreover, the episcopal duty of visitationand the annual clerical synods both brought with them revisions of the liturgicalbooks. Even so, the production of hagiographical literature and liturgical books37

was most likely located in the scriptorium in the vicinity of the cathedral churchor in any of the ecclesiastical institutions affiliated to it. Michael Gelting has sug-38

gested that the establishment of a cathedral chapter guaranteed that the history ofthe cathedral church and diocese was written down, archived, and handed down.Thus, a process of creating, mediating, and preserving took place in the immediatevicinity of the Scandinavian cathedral churches from the turn of the twelfth cen-tury onwards, or in some cases even earlier. Relating to literacy, the cathedral39


Middle Ages, 1 (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 562–65. The most evident examples from Scan-dinavia before 1200 are the Roskilde Chronicle from c. 1138 and the Odense literature composedin favour of King St Knud of Denmark. According to Gelting, the chronicle was written by a canonof Roskilde with the context of a specific political and ecclesiastical situation, i.e. the episcopalelection of Lund in 1137.

Cf. Helander, ‘Liturgical Profile’, pp. 133–35 and 140; and DuBois, ‘Introduction’, pp. 10,40

14, and 19–21.

Helander, ‘Liturgical Profile’, citation on pp. 132 and 135.41

Pope Alexander III (1159–81) admonished bishops who acted independently in this matter42

in order to enhance its control. It was over the processes of making saints, and it was decreed whatparts of the process pertained to the Holy See. Even so, the local bishop, the cathedral church, andthe local cathedral culture remained fundamental to promoting the cult of saints throughout theMiddle Ages. Cf. DuBois, ‘Introduction’, pp. 21–22; and John Blair, ‘The Making of a Local Saint’,in Local Saints and Local Churches, ed. by Thacker and Sharpe, pp. 45–73 (pp. 66–71). On theundertakings of the local bishops and the cathedral chapter in the making of a saint, cf. below onthe cult of Provost Kjeld of Viborg, St Niels of Århus, and Bishop Liefdag of Ribe.

schools established at cathedral churches in this period and closely affiliated to thecathedral chapters should be mentioned. In this milieu generations of clerics wereeducated. In the years of formation, the ritual practice and ideological trainingprobably came to the fore. Gradually, however, legal and administrative trainingbecame fundamental to the cathedral chapters as educational institutions while notleaving the original curriculums behind. The mediating and preserving element inthis process is evident. When new cults materialized at the cathedral church, theywere transmitted to the rest of the diocese as new clerics began their duties withinparochial work and pastoral care. Sven Helander summarizes this element as40

follows:

It became a major task of the cathedral chapter to function as a liturgical corporationbecause of its leading role in worship at the cathedral. The continuing development ofcultic practices was in the hands of the chapter. Its resources — economic and personal —also provided the means for a corresponding development of the cathedral itself, with newchantries and chapter being added for new devotions […]. The liturgical ideal, clearly, wasconformity with the cathedral.41

It is also important to recall the close association from the early days of Chris-tianity of saints’ cults with the episcopacy. This reciprocity between the diocesanbishop and the cult of saints was of a legal nature and can be illustrated by the factthat until the mid-twelfth century the right to approve of a saint’s cult was thepreserve of the local bishop. Thereafter the act of canonization became more andmore dependent upon the politics of Rome.42


Cf. below. See also Fröjmark and Krötzl, ‘Den tidiga helgonkulten’, pp. 124–38; Erich43

Hoffman, ‘Politische Heilige in Skandinavien und die Entwicklung der drei nordischen Reiche undVölker’, in Politik und Heiligenverehrung im Hochmittelalter, ed. by Jürgen Petersohn, Vorträge undForschungen, 42 (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994), pp. 277–324; and Anders Fröjmark, ‘Denordiska helgonkungarna och deras kult intill år 1248’, in Sveriges kyrkohistoria, vol. I, Missionstidoch tidig medeltid, ed. by Bertil Nilsson (Stockholm: Verbum, 1998), pp. 191–98.

On the situation in Denmark, where King St Knud IV was translated to Odense instead of44

Lund, the metropolis, see Carsten Breengaard, Muren om Israels hus: Regnus og sacerdotium iDanmark 1050–1170 (Copenhagen: Gad, 1982); Nyberg, Monasticism, pp. 55–56 and 59–63; andMichael H. Gelting, ‘Da Eskil ville vaere aerkebiskop av Roskilde: Roskildekrøniken, Liber daticuslundensis og det danske aerkesaedes ophaevelse 1133–1138’, in Ett annat 1100-tal: Individ,kollektiv och kulturella mönster, ed. by Hanne Sanders and others, Centrum för Danmarksstudier,3 (Göteborg: Makadam, 2004), pp. 181–229.

Cf. DuBois, ‘Introduction’, p. 12.45

Finally, socio-political and financial aspects of saints’ cults can also be identifiedin the Scandinavian setting. The making of royal saints was the most evident exam-ple of how such aspects materialized in cathedral culture. The promotions of saintslike King Olaf of Norway, King Knud and Duke Knud Lavard of Denmark, KingErik of Sweden, and Earl Magnus of Orkney are the most prominent examples ofhow socio-political action was intimately related to the making of saints and theforging of national identities. Apart from the situation in Denmark, where the43

translations of the princely saints — King Knud IV and Duke St Knud Lavard —took place in Odense and Ringsted, this notion becomes even more manifest as theshrines of those particular saints were located to the cathedral church highest inrank, the archiepiscopal cathedral or, as in the case of Orkney, the local cathedral.44

Even at a lower level, there are indications of how the making of a local saint wassignificant to the local community as well as to the identification of the clergyserving at the cathedral church. This became especially evident as pilgrims broughtvast offerings to the saint’s shrine and thereby provided considerable income forthe local cathedral church and its servants.45

Another element crucial to our understanding of saints’ cults is how to cate-gorize the saints venerated at cathedral churches in Scandinavia in the MiddleAges. The tradition represented in the liturgical books of the Church was manda-tory: apart from the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, the Archangels, the Patriarchsand the Prophets, and the Apostles and Evangelists — who all represent the bib-lical tradition — we also find martyrs, confessors, and virgins, who represent thesanctity of the people of God. The general method employed by Scandinavianscholars dealing with saints’ cults is to organize the saints with reference to what


See, for example, Hoffman, ‘Politische Heilige’; Fröjmark and Krötzl, ‘Den tidiga helgon-46

kulten’; and DuBois, ‘Introduction’, pp. 12–14. Cf. Jørgensen and Lundén, who organize theirsurveys differently, Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark; and Tryggve Lundén, Sveriges missionärerhelgon och kyrkogrundare: En bok om Sveriges kristnande (Storuman: Artos, 1983). See also AndersFröjmark, ‘Från Erik pilgrim till Erik konung’, who on the one hand deals with ‘universal’ and‘local’ saints, and on the other deals with different types of saints, i.e. monastic saints, bishops,laymen, and royal saints like King Erik of Sweden.

For example, this method may establish what type of saint was the most frequently venerated47

within specific contexts in Scandinavia and may also indicate variations in establishment and spreadof a specific type over time and within the Scandinavian setting. On patroni regni, see Kilström andothers, ‘Patronus’, col. 146, who argue that the term patroni regni is not uniform but generallyentails the joint traditions of the various diocesan churches.

Ludvig Daae, Norges helgener (Christiania: Cammermeyer, 1879); Absalon Taranger, Den48

angelsaksiske kirkes indflydelse paa den norske (Kristiania: Den norske historiske forening, 1890);Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark; and Fredriksen, ‘Helgener og kirkededikasjoner’. Cf.Catherine Cubitt, ‘Universal and Local Saints in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Local Saints and LocalChurches, ed. by Thacker and Sharpe, pp. 423–53 (pp. 423–24).

kind of function or social status they had in Church or society before achievingtheir sainthood; namely, as missionary bishops, diocesan bishops, abbots, kings orprinces, or ordinary people. There are indeed good reasons for categorizing saints46

in this manner. This method has, however, a certain inherent risk, as it can focustoo much on ‘national’ and ‘local’ saints’ cults and the shaping of a national and/orlocal identity, potentially at the cost of universal and mutual patterns in saints’cults. Instead, I wish to draw attention to the fact that the saints venerated in47

medieval Scandinavia had both foreign and local origins and represented differentthings to different categories of devotees, institutions or individuals alike. It is truethat many scholars have observed and analysed both foreign and local features inthe saints’ cults established in the period. I believe, however, that new ways of48

identifying saints’ cults will also provide new information about how cults werecreated, mediated, and preserved. One may distinguish new patterns, for example,of foreign influences and contacts that were decisive in the formation of an ecclesi-astical organization and particular ecclesiastical institutions.

Taking into consideration the approach recently applied by British scholars, Iwish here to distinguish various types of saints’ cults established at Scandinaviancathedral churches before c. 1200: first, universal saints, universally venerated;second, foreign saints, locally venerated; and finally, local saints, locally venerated.In the first category I include saints that were part of the communicantes prayer ofthe Canon; that is, the list of saints who were commonly and liturgically venerated


On the distinctions between ‘universal’ and ‘local’ saints, cf. Cubitt, ‘Universal and Local49

Saints’, pp. 423–24. A comprehensive list of saints of Scandinavian origin is found in DuBois,‘Introduction’, pp. 15–19.

Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark, p. 11. 50

in the West. The word ‘universal’ therefore indicates, firstly, that the saint andhis/her cult were of non-Scandinavian origin; secondly, that the cult at the timewas recognized and performed in the major part of Latin Christendom and inmany cases in the Christian East. The second category is less obvious. By ‘foreign’,I refer here to a saint that was of non-Scandinavian origin, whose cult was estab-lished outside Scandinavia and recognized and performed in a Scandinaviancontext prior to 1200. The term ‘locally’ is here used extensively and refers first andforemost to the frequency and spread of the cult at the original site and/or withina Scandinavian setting. The third group of saints’ cults identified consists of saintswho originated in the ecclesiastical provinces of Scandinavia and were first andforemost venerated there at a specific cathedral church, in a certain ecclesiasticalprovince, or in the whole of Scandinavia.49

Universal Saints, Universally Venerated

First, I wish to exemplify cults of ‘universal’ saints that can be observed at cathedralchurches in Denmark before 1200. The cult of a universally venerated saint can beconsidered as a sign that both the cathedral church and the diocese were in a realand conscious communion with the rest of Christendom. As these saints were partof the universal ecclesiastical tradition, a specific mediator or promoter can rarelybe identified. Nonetheless, as the majority of these dedications and cults can beidentified in the early part of our period, it is probable that these were introducedinto Scandinavia by missionary bishops, monks, or clerics of foreign origin.

The most noteworthy example of how the cult of ‘universal’ saints was estab-lished in Scandinavia is St Lawrence, one of the patron saints of the cathedral ofLund. According to Ellen Jørgensen, it is plausible that St Lawrence was alreadyaffiliated with Lund when the oldest cathedral church was built in the 1060s. The50

oldest preserved document about the patronage of the cathedral church of Lundis, however, a copy from c. 1100 of the so-called Deed of King St Knud IV from1085. In this document the King bestows property on the community, whichserves St Lawrence under the leadership of a provost. This royal benevolence in alllikelihood stimulated and nourished the internal as well as external life of the


Latin edition and Swedish translation by Birger Bergh in Gåvobrevet 1085: Föredrag och51

diskussioner vid symposium kring Knut den heliges gåvobrev 1085 och den tidiga medeltidens nordiskasamhälle, ed. by Sten Skansjö and Hans Sundström (Lund: Lund University Press, 1985), pp.14–17.

Consuetudines Lundenses, ed. by Buus, pp. 150–51 (§ 112). On this text, see Erik Buus,52

‘Indledning’, in ibid., pp. 9–106; and Anna Minara Ciardi, ‘Consuetudines Lundenses’, in MedievalNordic Literature in Latin: A Handbook of Authors and Anonymous Works (ca. 1100–1530), ed.by Stephan Borgehammar and others (forthcoming).

The list of relics from the inauguration of the high altar on 1 September 1145 is too exten-53

sive to give a detailed account of. Regarding the inauguration of the crypt church on 30 June 1123and the consecration of St Lawrence on 1 September 1145, see the Memoriale fratrum in Necrolo-gium Lundense, Lund, Lund University Library, MS 6, fols 124 –174 (fol. 147 and 156 –157 ),v v v r r

printed in Necrologium Lundense: Lunds domkyrkas nekrologium, ed. by Lauritz Weibull (Lund:Berlingska boktryckeriet, 1923), pp. 80 and 90–92, and in DD, I.2, no. 46. See also St LaurentiusDigital Manuscript Library, <http://www.ub.lu.se/projekt/st-laurentius-digital-manuscript-library> [accessed 7 November 2008].

community: with this patronage the community had been provided with the essen-tial financial and legal impetus needed by an institution of this kind. In 1103/04,51

Lund became the metropolitan see of Scandinavia. This called for a new cathedral,the elaboration of the episcopal administration, and capable clerical service. Aglimpse of the liturgical life at the cathedral of St Lawrence is provided by thecustomary, the Consuetudines Lundenses, from c. 1120. In the instructions for theoffice of cantor, it refers to the days of, for example, St Lawrence, St Martin (ofTours), and the Feast of Dedication of the then cathedral church as feasts of thehighest liturgical rank.52

On 30 June 1123 the crypt church was consecrated to St John the Baptist andall the Patriarchs and Prophets; on 1 September 1145 the high altar was solemnlyconsecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the great martyr St Lawrence(in honore beatae Mariae perpetuae virginis, et Sancti Laurentii, eximii martiris).The contemporary obituary list refers to a number of relics associated with Christhimself, like the Holy Rood and the hair of and a piece of cloth worn by the VirginMary. In addition, there were pieces from the tomb of Lazarus and of the skull ofJohn the Baptist. Also mentioned are the relics of St Lawrence himself and his coal,de carbonibus eius. An interesting point regarding the universal saints’ cult and53

cathedral culture is that apart from the opening paragraphs of the obituary list,there is no obvious indication of an affiliation either to Lund or to Scandinavia.One would have expected that at least King St Knud IV of Denmark (d. 1086)would have been remembered in Lund, if only because of his previous benevolence


On the discussion of the omission of King St Knud IV of Denmark in Lund and the politics54

of Archbishop Eskil, see Lauritz Weibull, ‘Nekrologierna från Lund, Roskildekrönikan och Saxo:Grunddrag i Danmarks historia under det 12. Århundradet’, Scandia, 1 (1928), 84–112; Breen-gaard, Muren om Israels hus; and Gelting, ‘Da Eskil’.

For an overview of the research on St Olaf and his cult, see Haki Antonsson, ‘The Cult of55

St Ólafr in the Eleventh Century and Kievan Rus’’, Middelalderforum, 1–2 (2003), 143–60.

Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark, pp. 10–12.56

Buus, ‘Indledning’, pp. 11–45; and Ciardi, ‘Consuetudines Lundenses’.57

It would, however, be interesting to look deeper into the fact that St Lawrence was some-58

what of an ‘imperial saint’. Constantine the Great is said to have been the first to observe the cultof St Lawrence, but more interesting is the fact that St Lawrence was ‘imperial’ in that he was thepatron saint of the Ottonians. St Lawrence was rather frequently venerated in Scandinavian cathe-drals throughout our period; cf. Bengt Ingmar Kilström, ‘Laurentius’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon,ed. by Granlund and others, X, cols 348–53; Kilström and others, ‘Patronus’, cols 144–45; Raastedand others, ‘Helgener’; and Fredriksen, ‘Helgener og kirkededikasjoner’, pp. 90 and 139.

towards St Lawrence and its clergy, but also due to the fact that the consecrationin 1145 was a manifestation of the independence achieved from Hamburg-Bremen. Neither St Anskar nor St Olaf of Norway is included. In the mid-twelfth54

century, the cult of St Olaf had spread not only throughout Norway andScandinavia, but over the whole of northern Europe. Instead, it is striking how55

many of the relics listed belong to the Apostolic and Patristic Ages, and howJerusalem and Rome are foremost represented.

How is this to be explained? An initial step is to identify the prototype of thelist. According to Jørgensen both the relics included and the arrangement of thelist points to an influence from Cologne. As there are no known connectionsbetween Lund and Cologne at this point, one still has to ask: who decided that thislist, presumably with all the relics included, would be chosen for the metropolis ofScandinavia in 1145? Ellen Jørgensen confined herself to pointing out that therewas a greater tradition of venerating Roman saints than German saints in Scan-dinavia. Moreover, she observes that direct contact was established betweenDenmark and Rome from the mid-eleventh century and the reign of King SvenEstridsen onwards. Other indications point to a certain Carolingian influence.56

One indication is that the Rule of Aachen (816) was employed by the cathedralchapter in Lund. It has also been suggested that the use of the word capitolium57

instead of capitulum in the customary of Lund, written in the early 1120s, pointsto such an influence. It is futile, however, to speculate how and when such elementsof Carolingian tradition were mediated to Lund. No reliable conclusions can bemade regarding this problem.58


St Nicholas of Myra was transferred to Bari in 1087 and became a popular saint in the59

medieval West. See Cinthio, ‘Heiligenpatrone und Kirchenbauten’, p. 168; and Danmarks Kirker:Århus Amt, ed. by Vibeke Michelsen and Kjeld de Fine Licht, Danmarks kirker, 16 (Copenhagen:Nationalmuseet, 1968–), pp. 1036–37. Cf. Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark, p. 15; HansOlrik, Danske Helgeners Levned (Copenhagen: Skrifter udg. af Selskabet for historiskeKildeskrifters Oversaettelse, 1893–94), p. 299, n. 3; and Bjørn and Gotfredsen, Århus domkirke,pp. 16–17. For a wider perspective on the establishment of the cult of St Nicholas in Denmark,see Ildar H. Garipzanov, ‘Novgorod and the Veneration of Saints in Eleventh-Century Rus’: AComparative View’, in this volume.

De vita beati Nicolai, ed. by Gertz, p. 400. Cf. below.60

According to Hans Bjørn, the change of patron saint of the cathedral from St Nicholas to61

St Clement is somewhat unique: in this period St Nicholas enjoyed more popularity than StClement. Elsewhere, he seems to have ‘replaced’ St Clement as a popular patron saint in thisperiod, whereas the opposite seems to be the case in Århus: Bjørn and Gotfredsen, Århus domkirke,pp. 29–32. On the cult and dedications of St Clement, see Erik Cinthio, ‘The Churches of StClemens in Scandinavia’, Acta Archaeologica Lundensia, 3 (1968), 103–16; and Barbara Crawford,‘The Churches Dedicated to St. Clement in Norway: A Discussion of their Origin and Function’,Collegium Medievale, 17 (2004), 100–31.

Cf. St Swithun of Winchester and his affiliation to Stavanger and the rest of Scandinavia;62

Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St Swithun, Winchester Studies, 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2003), pp. 54–58.

Other examples of ‘universal’ saints’ cults being established at cathedralchurches in Denmark before 1200 are the dedications to St Nicholas and StClement in Århus. Both the older cathedral in Århus and the newer one, erectedin the 1190s, were affiliated to these ‘maritime’ saints. With regard to archaeo-logical evidence, it has been suggested that a cathedral church was dedicated to StNicholas already in the late 1080s and that it might have been endowed with relicsof St Nicholas of Myra by the Danish king Erik Ejegod. The written evidence of59

such an early dedication is, however, from the thirteenth century. In the episco-60

pate of Peder Vognsen, a church of St Clement was built in Århus, which replacedSt Nicholas as its cathedral church. It is uncertain whether the cathedral clergy61

in Århus played a significant role in this process.

Foreign Saints, Locally Venerated

In two cases, foreign saints who were not universally venerated are observed; namely,St Alban in Odense and St Lucius in Roskilde. These cults required a more immedi-ate link to other communities and places. As is the case with the aforementioned62


On St Alban, see John Blair, ‘A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Saints’, in Local Saints and Local63

Churches, ed. by Thacker and Sharpe, pp. 496–565 (p. 510). A Benedictine monastery dedicatedto St Alban was also founded on the island of Selja in the twelfth century; cf. Gallén, ‘De engelskamunkarna’, pp. 6–7.

Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark, pp. 17–18.64

Peter King, ‘The Cathedral Priory of Odense in the Middle Ages’, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger,65

7 (1966), 1–20; and Nyberg, Monasticism, pp. 59–63 and 76. For more on the cult and hagio-graphy of King St Knud, see Carlé and Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède – Finlande’, pp. 509–11.

Cf. Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark, p. 11; and Jens Otto Arhnung, ‘Hvornaar66

knyttedes St Lucius til Roskilde domkirke?’, in Festskrift til Erik Arup den 22. November 1946, ed.by Astrid Friis and Albert Olsen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1946), pp. 44–66.

‘universal’ saints, and considering the nature and the scarcity of the sources, it issometimes hard to identify the process of transmission or mediation.

It is rather well established that the cult of the English protomartyr St Alban wasbrought to Denmark from the British Isles in the days of King St Knud IV, whowas assassinated in 1086. As a new cult evolved after Knud’s martyrdom, the cult63

of St Alban was established, with his relics kept in both the older St Alban churchand the cathedral church. According to Jørgensen, the Danish tradition was to someextent influenced by a German cult of St Alban, as the preserved breviaries note 21instead of 22 July as his feast day. Others have argued that the clerical service at64

Odense cathedral — which was from the late eleventh century organized by Bene-dictine monks from Evesham — played a significant role in promoting the newsaint of Odense, King St Knud IV of Denmark. From his death in 1086, and evenmore after his translation to Odense in 1101, the cathedral was known as the rest-ing place of the national saint of Denmark and the clergy were the guardians of hisshrine. Although the original patron saint was henceforth accompanied by a localsaint and a national symbol, which must have had a great impact on the setting andthe performance of the cult, the cathedral church was in the period neverthelessrecognized as St Alban’s, or as St Alban’s and St Knud’s, and not St Knud’s alone.65

Compared to the cult of St Alban, the cult of St Lucius in Roskilde is shroudedin mystery. In fact, not even the object of the cult has been satisfactorily identified.The question is, which Lucius was venerated and when was his cult established inRoskilde? Some scholars have argued, according to the chronicler Ælnoth, whowrote in the first quarter of the twelfth century, that the translation of St Lucius’sskull took place in the early 1080s and that it was a gift from Pope Gregory VII.Others have suggested the turn of the twelfth century, or even after 1100, as a moreplausible date. In the last third of the twelfth century the obituaries of Lund66


Arhnung, ‘Hvornaar knyttedes St Lucius’, pp. 54–57.67

Cf. Cubitt, ‘Universal and Local Saints’, pp. 448–49.68

Vita et miracula sancti Ketilli, ed. by Martin Clarentius Gertz, in VSD, pp. 260–83. On the69

cult of and liturgical texts on St Kjeld, see Tue Gad, ‘Kjeld’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon, ed. byGranlund and others, VIII (1963), cols 435–37; and Brian Møller Jensen, ‘Sanctus Ketillus’, inMedieval Nordic Literature in Latin, ed. by Borgehammar and others (forthcoming).

exclusively refer to the canons of Roskilde as canons ‘at St Lucius’, rather than ‘atthe Holy Trinity’, which indicates that he had been added as patron saint of thecathedral church and its chapter by that time.67

Local Saints, Locally Venerated

Finally, three examples of the third category suggested should be noted. The firstquestion is, why local saints? Was it not enough to venerate universal saints inorder to incorporate remote parts of the Christian world with the ecclesiasticaltradition of the universal Church? The answer to this question is no: the makingof local saints and promoted cults was an integral ancient part of the history ofChristianity. Above all, the making of a local saint was part of ecclesiasticaltradition that stretched back to the local veneration of the Roman martyrs. In addi-tion, the making of local saints in later periods seems to have been considered ascrucial in the shaping of an ecclesiastical or national identity. It is true that univer-sal saints provided a crucial link to the rest of Christendom and were also popularas intercessors. Even so, local cathedral culture both urged for and was itself fa-voured by the cult of a local saint, and even more if the saint himself had been partof this culture. The fate of a locally promoted cult was, however, precarious.68

The best example from Denmark is the successful campaign of making a localsaint, St Kjeld, out of the former provost at the cathedral chapter. His cult emergedshortly after his death in 1150 and soon gained official approval. This happenedalready in 1188/89, and the cult of Kjeld was propagated all over Denmark andabroad. The legend tells how he at one point was forced to resign his office as69

provost because the brethren deemed him too liberal with the property of thepriory. As St Kjeld visited Rome, Pope Eugene III instructed him to return to hislegally acquired office and admonished his brethren in Viborg to withdraw theirdismissal of their provost. On 27 September 1150, Kjeld died in office as provost


DD, I.2, no. 100; and Vita et miracula sancti Ketilli, ed. by Gertz, pp. 260–71. On the synod70

in Lund, cf. above.

Peder Severinsen, Viborg Domkirke med Stad og Stift i 800 Aar: Festskrift ved Domkirkens71

800 Aars Fest 1932 (Copenhagen: Lohse, 1932), pp. 154–56. According to Severinsen, there wasprobably a commission (in Lund) that undertook the preparatory work of canonization, most likelyon the initiative of Bishop Niels of Viborg, the then eldest among the Danish bishops. The petitionwas signed not only by the local bishop, but also by Archbishop Absalon, the rest of the Danishbishops, and the Danish king Knud VI, as indicated by the wording in the papal response in DD,I.3, 1, no. 150. Furthermore, the somewhat swift compilation may indicate that there is a con-nection between the canonization of St Kjeld and the new liturgical order of the Danish churchinitiated by Bishop Absalon, c. 1187/88.

DD, I.3, 1, no. 150. Cf. Johannes Ferdinand Fenger, ‘St. Kjelds Levnetsløb’, Kirkehistoriske72

Samlinger, 1 (1857–59), 526–37 (p. 536).

Memoriale fratrum (11 July), in Necrologium Lundense, ed. by Weibull, p. 96: ‘Jtem ex hoc73

mundo migrauit bone memorie sanctus ketillus prelates sancte marie Wibergensis ecclesie.’ See alsothe commentaries on pp. 96–97, n. 7; Severinsen, Viborg Domkirke, pp. 154–56; Tue Gad,Legenden i dansk middelalder (Copenhagen: Dansk Videnskabs Forlag A/S, 1961), pp. 172–73;and Gad, ‘Kjeld’. Cf. Liber daticus lundensis vetustior, ed. by Christian Weeke, in Libri memorialescapituli Lundensis: Lunde domkapitels gavebøger: (‘Libri datici Lundenses’) (1889; repr., Copen-hagen: Selskabet for udgivelse af kilder til dansk historie, 1973), pp. 1–335 (p. 248), where St Kjeldis referred to only on 27 September 1150, i.e. the anniversary of his death.

De vita beati Nicolai, ed. by Gertz, p. 408. On the campaign of obtaining papal approval, see74

pp. 406–08; and DD, II.1, nos 146 and 169. On the cult of St Niels of Århus, see Olrik, DanskeHelgeners Levned, pp. 293–94; and Jørgensen, Helgendyrkelse i Danmark, pp. 52–53.

of Viborg. The petition that was sent to the pontiff regarding the sanctity of70

Kjeld was not the mere outcome of a local wish but of ‘the official Danish church’,with Archbishop Absalon and King Knud VI as promoters, supporters, andsigners. In June 1188, Pope Clement III submitted the case back to Absalon, who71

was exhorted to undertake further investigations and, if it yielded the results re-quired, to render his official approval of the cult of St Kjeld. The translation took72

place in Viborg on 11 July 1189, perhaps on the occasion of a synod.73

Something brief should also be said about another person who gained localsainthood in Jutland, namely St Niels of Århus (d. 1180). It is rather certain thatthe emerging cult of the second St Nicholas of Århus was prompted by the cathe-dral chapter there. This particular urge for a local saint was, however, dismissed bythe papal authorities in 1254/55. As the cult of St Niels was not diffused outsideof the diocese of Århus, it is reasonable to speak of St Niels as a ‘local’ saint in theproper sense of the word.74


For a different interpretation of the cult of St Liefdag, see Haki Antonsson, ‘The Early Cult75

of Saints in Scandinavia and the Conversion: A Comparative Perspective’, in this volume.

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. by Schmeidler, II. 4 and 26; and IV. 1, schol. 9876

and IV. 33, schol. 147; DD, I.1, no. 319; Cronica ecclesiae Ripensis, ed. in Ellen Jørgensen, ‘Ribe Bis-pekrønike’, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, 6 (1933–35), 23–33 (p. 26); Bue Kaae, ‘Ribe Bispekrønikei kildekritisk belysning sat i relation til den kirkelige og politiske udvikling i Danmark og Europa’,Fra Ribe Amt, 20 (1977), 489–523 (pp. 492–93). The Cronica ecclesiae Ripensis refers to a Bishop‘Leofdan’, but in accordance with Gelting, the former is henceforth referred to as ‘Liefdag’. OnBishop Liefdag, see Michael H. Gelting, ‘Ripa’, in Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae occidentalis,II, 64–75 (p. 67).

Jørgensen, ‘Ribe Bispekrønike’, p. 26: ‘Quo per fideles in cymiterio beatæ Virginis sepulto77

super eius sepulchrum tuguriolum est constructum.’ The chronicle continues: ‘Translatus estpostea intra prietes ecclesiæ in parte aquilonali ex opposite chori et longo tempore miraculiscoruscauit debitis tunc honoribus exaltatus.’

Jørgensen, ‘Ribe Bispekrønike’, p. 26; Kaae, ‘Ribe Bispekrønike’, pp. 490–91; and Inge78

Skovgaard-Petersen, ‘The Written Sources’, in The Ribe Excavations, ed. by M. Bencard, RibeExcavations, 1 (Esbjerg: Jutland Archaeological Publications, 1981), pp. 21–62 (pp. 25–26).According to the chronicle, Bishop Elias was ‘buried closely to St Leofdan [i.e. Liefdag]’. Jørgensen,‘Ribe Bispekrønike’, p. 28: ‘Mortuo Helia et sepulto iuxta sanctum Leofdanum.’

Jørgensen, ‘Ribe Bispekrønike’, p. 29; and Helge Søgaard, ‘Ribe bispekrønike’, Fra Ribe Amt,79

18 (1973), 260–73 (p. 272, n. 14). Most likely, Archbishop Eskil was aware of Bishop Radulph’spromotion of the cult of Liefdag. In 1172, the year after the death of Bishop Radulph, PopeAlexander III admonished the Swedish king and bishops not to venerate someone as a saintwithout papal confirmation: DS, I, no. 41; Tryggve Lundén, ‘Kanonisering’, in Kulturhistorisktlexikon, ed. by Granlund and others, VIII (1963), cols 215–21 (215–16).

Of a very different character is the cult of Bishop Liefdag of Ribe (d. c. 950).75

Here we find indications of a local cult that was turned down by all ecclesiasticalauthorities but the local bishop. In the second half of the twelfth century, BishopRadulph of Ribe instigated an official confirmation of the cult of his predecessor,but in vain. Bishop Liefdag was the first Bishop of Ribe known by name. Accord-76

ing to the Cronica ecclesiae Ripensis, which was likely composed by a canon at Ribecathedral shortly after 1230, Liefdag was martyred in the town and buried ‘in thecemetery of the Blessed Virgin, where a shelter was built upon his tomb’ and soonafterwards he was venerated as saint. At a later date, presumably before 1162 and77

the death of Bishop Elias, Liefdag’s remains were transferred into the church, andmiracles and signs occurred at his tomb. The chronicler then continues and tells78

of how Bishop Radulph, the immediate successor of Elias, put the shrine of themartyr bishop on the altar but without papal or archiepiscopal permission. As hisshrine was severely damaged in the fire previously mentioned, this was consideredto be a sign of Radulph as unworthy of being the saint’s guardian. There was79


Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. by Schmeidler, II. 26; and ‘Annales Slesuicenses’,80

in Annales danici medii aevi, ed. by Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af kildertil dansk Historie, 1920), p. 133.

On the troublesome personality and episcopate of Radulph alleged in some sources, see81

Gelting, ‘Ripa’, pp. 73–74.

Gelting, ‘Elusive Bishops’, pp. 197–98.82

Gelting, ‘Elusive Bishops’, p. 197.83

Most likely the official petition for Provost Kjeld’s sanctity with the accompanying collection84

of miracles was collected by Bishop Niels and Provost Sven, but also signed by Archbishop Absalon,the other bishops, and the Danish king, Knud VI; see Olrik, Danske Helgeners Levned, pp. 251–52;and Jensen, ‘Sanctus Ketillus’.

DD, I.3, 1, nos 11 and 150.85

almost certainly some kind of cult of the elusive Liefdag at Ribe, and most likelyalready in the tenth century, as mentioned by Adam of Bremen and the AnnalesSlesuicenses. It is also plausible that his cult brought revenues to the cathedral and80

its staff, but it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the significance of thecult in the context of the building of the cathedral. In spite of the references to theholiness of Liefdag made by the chronicler, which reflects an emerging saint’s cult,he is not known to have been venerated as a saint outside of the diocese of Ribe.Why, then, was Liefdag not recognized as a saint? One reason would be if otherecclesiastical authorities but the local bishop had not recognized Liefdag’s sanctity.More plausible is, however, the fact that the promoter of this cult, Bishop Radulph,may not have been in the good books of the Archbishop of Lund. The story of81

the unsuccessful promotion of Liefdag’s sainthood also indicates a transitionperiod: confirmation by the local bishop alone was no longer sufficient to establisha cult of a local saint.82

According to Gelting, ‘the cult of German bishops as missionary saints [suchas Liefdag] would hardly have been encouraged’ if there was not remembrance oftheir deeds. Gelting argues that the cathedral chapter may have had such a func-tion. Evidently, the cathedral community and its members played a vital part in83

the cult of these local saints; in return, the cult was of great importance to thecathedral and its chapter, not least liturgically and economically. As elsewhere, the84

veneration of a local saint entailed vast offerings to his or her shrine and itsservants. Indeed, the distribution of such an income often resulted in quarrelsbetween the bishop and chapter, as both parties were legally entitled to lay claimto part of the offerings.85


Cf. Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, ed. by Schmeidler, II. 60–61, III. 17, and IV. 33.86

Cf. Binski, ‘Liturgy and Local Knowledge’, pp. 42–46.

Finally, a note on the cult of St Olaf: apart from St Birgitta of Sweden (d. 1373),no saint of a Scandinavian origin was the object of a cult like St Olaf’s, at least notin terms of popularity and propagation. According to the definitions given above,St Olaf was a ‘local’ saint, but his cult must be recognized as a ‘universal’ one. In thecontext of this chapter, however, the interesting thing to note is the emergence ofOlaf’s cult soon after he fell at Stiklestad in 1030. This has not been adequately putin relation to the question of who or which ecclesiastical institutions promotedhim as a saint and preserved that tradition. It has been established that the cult wasgranted (archi)episcopal and royal support, but with regard to the rapid spread ofhis cult and the corpus of texts that must have existed already in the eleventh cen-tury, it is reasonably clear that the success of the cult also relied on its institutionalpromotion by erudite men affiliated with Olaf’s shrine in Nidaros.86

Conclusion

In sum, cathedral culture and its affiliated institutions were profoundly importantin providing a milieu for mediating, preserving, and creating saints’ cults in Scan-dinavia before 1200. The formation of a cathedral culture in Scandinavia coincidedclosely with the process of Christianization and the adaptation of a commonecclesiastical culture that was inherited and imported from abroad, and in whichthe cult of saints played a prominent part. In this respect the cult of saints shouldnot only be regarded as a product of cathedral culture, but rather as an element thatwas decisive in the establishment of Scandinavian cathedral chapters and theirfunctioning. Indeed, there are indications that the veneration of a local saint wasclosely associated with the creation of an organized cathedral community or acathedral chapter (in Odense and Uppsala).

The introduction of a saint’s cult was of course dependent not only upon rep-resentatives of cathedral culture, namely the local bishop and the cathedral clergy.In the early period at least, royal promotion and support played a significant partin the process of Christianization. The implementation of saints’ cults in a newsetting required, however, more than royal favour. The bishop and the cathedralchapter acted both as mediators and innovators as they mediated general ecclesias-tical traditions and established cults of local saints. But their mission did not end


By ‘locality’ I here refer to the physical setting, i.e. the cathedral church and its patron87

saint(s), the collection of relics, and, if present, a saint’s shrine.

with the introduction of a saint’s cult; of equal significance was their role in pre-serving the cult in its particular setting.

These processes involved various interlinking elements. I would contend thatthe liturgical celebration was the most significant one, in which the ideology, ritualpractice, and the locality are all represented. Since the cathedral liturgy served as87

an exemplar to the rest of the diocese, its significance cannot be emphasized toostrongly. Closely related to this dimension are other features that belong to cathe-dral culture and the cult of saints. One of them is the art of literacy, which includesthe production of essential texts of historical, liturgical, or hagiographical nature,as well as the founding of a cathedral school and its impact on clerical training.Other dimensions are the legal and financial aspects related to saints’ cults, in-cluding the promotion of a saint and the offerings brought by lay people to thecathedral church. Finally, it should be noted that the making of local saints, royalor ecclesiastical, is likely to have helped to create a particular identity, local ornational.

Finally, in Scandinavia some commonalities and regional variation can be statedin regard to the veneration of three types of saints and their cults: ‘universal saints,universally venerated’, ‘foreign saints, locally venerated’, and ‘local saints, locallyvenerated’. A common feature is that cathedral churches were all originally dedi-cated to universal saints; that is, saints who were familiar to and venerated by com-munities within Latin Christendom in general. In some cases, additional patronsaints were added, either from the beginning or at a later date. In both Denmarkand Norway, some foreign saints who had originally been locally venerated abroadwere also venerated locally in their new context (St Alban and St Swithun). Nosuch cases can be found in Sweden. Furthermore, local saints were locally veneratedin all Scandinavian provinces. Two categories can be identified here: first, princelyand national saints (St Olaf, St Knud, and St Erik); and second, those saints thathad participated in local cathedral culture, where they were later recognized assaints (St Liefdag, St Kjeld, and St Henrik).

To conclude, from the missionary era until the turn of the thirteenth centurythe cults of saints in Scandinavia were reciprocally related to cathedral culture, andthis relation was indispensable in mediating, preserving, and creating not onlysaints’ cults but also ecclesiastical tradition in general.


Table 1. Cathedral churches and the cult of saints in Scandinavia prior to c.1200.*

Cathedral

church

Dedication Additional dedication

and/or local saint(s)

Dating of additional dedications

and/or local saints’ cults

LUND1

Lund V. Mary; Lawrencec. 1060

– –

Århus Nicholas Clement; Nicholas[Niels] (d. 1180)

Clement, a. 1204; Niels, p. 1180

Børglum V. Mary, a. 1200 Thøger a. 1067/1117?2

Odense V. Mary; St Alban,3

a. 1101Knud p. 1101

Ribe V. Mary [Liefdag of Ribe, failed] a. 1070sRoskilde S. Trinitatis, a. 1000 Lucius; Margaret Lucius, a. 1125; Margaret, p.4

1176/77Slesvig Peter, a. 1134 – –Viborg V. Mary, a. 1166 Ketillus [Kjeld] of

Viborga. 1188

NIDAROS5

Nidaros S. Trinitatis, a. 1100 Olaf c. 1031Bergen S. Trinitatis, a. 1100 Sunniva 1170Oslo S. Trinitatis, a. 1100 Hallvard a. 1070s ?Stavanger S. Trinitatis,

1112/25Swithun of Winchester a. 1135 ?

Hamar S. Trinitatis ?,1152/53

– –

Skálholt St Peter ? Þorlákr of Skálholt 1198Hólar V. Mary and

other(s)?6

Jón of Hólar 1200

Kirkwall ? Magnus p. 1135UPPSALA7

Uppsala Lawrence, p. 1134 Erik; Olaf; Henrik Erik, a. 11988

Skara V. Mary, a. 1064 Helena [Elin] of9

Skövde10

1164 ?/1281

Strängnäs Peter & Paul,1100s ?

– –

Linköping Peter & Paul, a.1150s

– –

Västerås V. Mary; John theBaptist, 1271

David of Munktorp p. 1082/transl. 1436?11


Cathedral

church

Dedication Additional dedication

and/or local saint(s)

Dating of additional dedications

and/or local saints’ cults

*a. = ante; p. = post; transl. = translation

Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae occidentalis, II.1

See Sanctus Theodgarus confessor, in VSD, pp. 1–26.2

Cf. above.3

See S. Margareta Roskildensis, in VSD, pp. 388–90. Cf. Jens Otto Arhnung, Roskilde Domkap-4

itels Historie: Tiden indtil 1416: med Altrenes og Kapellens Historie, Roskilde Domkapitels Historie,1 (Roskilde: Erh. Flensborg, 1937), pp. 192–97; and Arhnung, ‘Hvornaar knyttedes St Lucius’.

A Norwegian cathedral church was, in spite of its dedication to the Holy Trinity, often5

referred to as a ‘Christ church’. On the dedications of the cathedral churches of Norway, seeFredriksen, ‘Helgener og kirkededikasjoner’, pp. 12 and 41–50; on Skálholt and Hólar, seeCormack, Saints in Iceland, pp. 194 and 219; Raasted and others, ‘Helgener’, col. 334.

There is a reference to a relic of St Martin of Tours in the Saga of Bishop Jón of Hólar, but it6

is uncertain whether he was a patron saint of the cathedral church of Hólar.

Kilström and others, ‘Patronus’, col. 145.7

Carlé and Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède – Finlande’, pp. 519–20. Cf. Lundén, Sveriges8

missionärer, pp. 294–325. The oldest preserved miracula of St Erik is from the 1270s.

Skara biskopskrönika, MS Holm B 35 (c. 1470). Cf. ‘B 2. Biskopar i Skara biskopsdöme’, in Ivar9

Lindquist, Västgötalagens litterära bilagor: Medeltida svensk småberättelsekonst på poesi och prosa,Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund, 26 (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1941), pp. 44–48.

Carlé and Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède – Finlande’, pp. 520–21. A critical edition of the10

officium and missa by Anders Piltz, in Sven Erik Pernler, S:ta Elin av Skövde: Kulten, källorna,kvinnan, Skara stiftshistoriska sällskaps skriftserie, 31 (Skara: Skara stiftshistoriska sällskap, 2007),pp. 180–217. On Elin of Skövde, see Hans Jägerstad, ‘Helena (Elin) v. Skövde’, in Lexikon fürTheologie und Kirche, ed. by Michael Buchberger and others, 10 vols (Freiburg im Breisgau:Herder, 1957–68), V (1960), col. 208; Lundén, Sveriges missionärer, pp. 102–45 (pp. 138–45); andPernler, S:ta Elin av Skövde, pp. 44, 151–80, and 237–40.

Carlé and Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède – Finlande’, pp. 518–19. Cf. Oloph Odenius,11

‘David, abbot’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon, ed. by Granlund and others, III (1958), cols 28–29; andLundén, Sveriges missionärer, pp. 261–69.

Carlé and Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède – Finlande’, pp. 524–25. Cf. Toni Schmid, Den12

helige Sigfrid (Lund: Gleerup, 1931); and Schmid, ‘Sigfrid’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon, ed. byGranlund and others, XV (1970), cols 185–87; and Lundén, Sveriges missionärer, pp. 172–226.

Carlé and Fröjmark, ‘Danemark – Suède – Finlande’, pp. 521–22. Cf. Aarno Maliniemi,13

‘Henrik, S:t’, in Kulturhistoriskt lexikon, ed. by Granlund and others, VI (1961), cols 452–60;Gallén, ‘När blev Åbo biskopssäte’, p. 323; and Lundén, Sveriges missionärer, pp. 326–56.

Växjö John the Baptist Sigfrid p. 1153 ?12

Åbo(Finland)

V. Mary Henrik; Erik Henrik, transl. 1200s ?13

The imported local saints would, from the point of view of Scandinavia, presumably not be1

perceived as very different from the universal saints: to distinguish on a matter of principle between,for instance, Cuthbert (local, for England) and Nicholas (universal) was not necessarily natural topeople worshipping these saints in Scandinavia. The either local or universal of modern studies issometimes too sharp a division. The medieval approach was probably more a case of safety innumbers, saints serving different purposes; cf. Catherine Cubitt, ‘Universal and Local Saints inAnglo-Saxon England’, in Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. by AlanThacker and Richard Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 423–53 (pp. 448–49).

THE CULTS OF SAINTS IN NORWAY BEFORE 1200

Åslaug Ommundsen

When King Olaf Haraldsson felt the blow of the axe in the battle ofStiklestad in 1030, he could probably not see beyond his own apparentdefeat. However, his death won him eternal life, and the loss of his

earthly throne secured him the title rex perpetuus Norvegie, an outcome in keepingwith the Christian fondness for contradictions. After that day both royal andreligious power in Norway began to be defined around the royal martyr St Olaf.The axe that killed him not only became the symbol of his martyrdom and holystatus, but from the thirteenth century onwards it served as the symbol of Norwayitself, in the paws of the lion in the royal coat of arms.

Wherever Christianity was introduced as the new faith, local figures wereelevated to a holy status once their worldly life was over. The local saints wereliterally closer to home; their relics were within reach, and they could be seen asaccessible mediators. In addition they had, to a higher degree than universallycelebrated saints, the potential to serve as symbols for a region or defined group, or— in the case of St Olaf — a country. This aspect of the phenomenon of saints’cults will in this chapter be seen in connection with the development of a cult ofsaints who were not local and who constitute the large majority: either universalsaints or local saints ‘borrowed’ from other regions. The purpose of this chapter1

Åslaug Ommundsen68

Studies providing a broader overview of the Norwegian saints, including the lesser known, are2

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 Nor-way in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as it moves towards the situation about1200: after two centuries of saints’ cults in Norway, more than 150 saints of vari-ous categories were formally included in the liturgical calendar of the archdioceseof Nidaros. At the same time four of the five bishops’ sees on the mainland weredistinguished by a patron saint who became the subject of religious and popularworship, as well as the focus of local literary activity. In a sense the patron saints canbest be described as brands or identity markers for their dioceses. This was achievedfrom different vantage points and through different strategies in the various epis-copal sees. For our purpose the situation is best described through the bishopricsof Bergen and Oslo, with an emphasis on the former, which had to struggle themost to achieve the desired goal. Trondheim and Stavanger also had patron saintsof their own, but they belonged to slightly different categories than those of Osloand Bergen: the authority and symbolic effect of St Olaf of Nidaros was so muchgreater and more substantial than the other local saints that it is difficult to com-pare 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 therole of a local saint, he will play a minor part in this article. In Hamar there wasapparently 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 reasonsthe 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 atSelja, an island off the western coast of Norway, in the late tenth century and thatKing Olaf Tryggvason (995–1000) and his bishop built a church there. Not longafter the death of St Olaf (Haraldson), the outrage over the murder in 1043 of aninnocent young man, a merchant’s son called Hallvard, on the eastern side of thecountry, would form the core of yet another cult, with reports of miracles at hisgrave. In other words, by the middle of the eleventh century three local saints’ cultshad been established in different parts of Norway: the saints of Selja in the west, StOlaf in central Norway, and St Hallvard in the east.

THE CULTS OF SAINTS IN NORWAY BEFORE 1200 69

For a survey of the research on the relationships between the English and Norwegian Church,3

see Marit Myking, Vart Norge Kristna frå England? (Oslo: Unipub, 2001). The first major workon Christianization in Norway and its dependency on the Anglo-Saxon Church was AbsalonTaranger, Den angelsaksiske kirkes indflydelse paa den norske (Kristiania: Den norske historiskeforening, 1890). Its conclusions were supported in Thomas B. Willson, History of the Church andState in Norway from the Tenth to the Sixteenth Century (Westminster: Archibald Constable,1903); and Henry Goddard Leach, ‘The Relations of the Norwegian with the English Church1066–1399 and their Importance to Comparative Literature’, Proceedings of the American Academyof Arts and Sciences, 44 (1909), 531–60. The latest treatment of this subject is Sverre Bagge andSæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, ‘The Kingdom of Norway’, in Christianization and the Rise ofChristian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200, ed. by Nora Berend(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 121–66.

Øystein Ekroll, Med kleber og kalk: Norsk steinbygging i middelalderen 1050–1550 (Oslo:4

Samlaget, 1997), p. 26.

See the preliminary results presented in Espen Karlsen, ‘Katalogisering av latinske membran-5

fragmenter som forskningsprojekt’, part 2, Arkivverkets forskningsseminar Gardermoen, 2003, pp.58–88; and Karlsen, ‘Liturgiske bøker i Norge inntil år 1300 – import og egenproduksjon’, in Denkirkehistoriske utfordring, ed. by Steinar Imsen (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2005), pp.147–70. A publication with contributions from participants at the workshops in the NationalArchives in Oslo in 2003, 2005, and 2007 is being prepared by Espen Karlsen.

The lengthy and complex process of Christianization in the late tenth and earlyeleventh centuries has attracted a long research history which, for good reason, hasmainly focused on the English impact on the Norwegian Church. However, the3

strong and very visible contacts with and influences from England, combined withthe general western orientation of Norwegian scholarly activity, may have ledpeople to ignore the networks to the south and the east. The influences from theseother regions, although less significant and less evident than those from theEnglish, are now recognized to a greater extent in modern historical research. TheEuropean impulses were to some extent differently distributed on the Norwegianregions. More research needs to be done in this field, but some patterns alreadyseem to emerge. The south-east of Norway appears to be more influenced from thesouth due to the geographical proximity to Denmark. The buildings are to a largerdegree influenced by southern building techniques and style. In addition, recent4

palaeographical research into the earliest book production in the Oslo area seemsto be pointing in the same direction: the earliest produced books in this area fromthe late eleventh century appear to be ‘hybrids’, containing a mixture of Englishand German elements.5

One important phase in Norwegian ecclesiastical history and the saints’ cult wasthe period that saw the establishment of Nidaros as an archbishopric in 1152/53.

Åslaug Ommundsen70

Lilli Gjerløw, Ordo Nidrosiensis Ecclesiae (Orðubók), Libri Liturgici Provinciae Nidrosiensis6

Medii Aevi, 2 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1968).

The eclecticism in the selection of the liturgical material is particularly visible in the Nidaros7

sequence repertory, which has been referred to as ‘a synthesis of the “Southern” and “Western”traditions’, in Gjerløw, Ordo Nidrosiensis, p. 433. In recent years, Lori Kruckenberg has expandedon the relationship between the German and Anglo-French sequence-repertories in Nidaros, inLori Kruckenberg and Andreas Haug, The Sequences of Nidaros: A Nordic Repertory & its EuropeanContext (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2006), pp. 5–44.

Around this time there were increased efforts not only in building and literaryactivities, but also in the organization of the liturgical celebrations. The regionalvariations in religious practice were presumably what made Archbishop EysteinErlendsson (1161–88) begin the work on an ordinal, a standard liturgy for Nidaros,in the 1170s. After his death the work continued, and the Nidaros ordinal was fin-ished about 1200. The ordinal prescribes the liturgical practice for the whole of thearchdiocese, with the feast days, their ranking, and their liturgical elements meticu-lously specified. The liturgical use of the Nidaros archbishopric is one of the few6

fields where the complexity of the influences on the early Norwegian Church hasalready been thoroughly demonstrated, primarily through the work of LilliGjerløw (1910–98). Layers of both German and Anglo-French liturgical materialare discernible in the Norwegian liturgy. In terms of liturgical practice, the Nor-7

wegian Church did not link itself closely with any particular region or centre, butinstead it was highly eclectic, in the sense that desired liturgical elements have beenselected from both the German and the Anglo-French spheres. Thus far, no partof the Nidaros liturgy has been shown to be influenced by the Eastern Church.

The same eclecticism found for the liturgy is also visible as far as the selectionof saints is concerned, although with a stronger emphasis on the Anglo-Frencharea. A large number of saints in the Nidaros calendar (as it is presented in the lit-urgical ordinal from c. 1200 and later sources) are taken over from English calen-dars, like St Cuthbert (20 March), St Dunstan (19 May), St Botulph (17 June), StAlban (22 June), St Oswald (5 August), and St Edmund (20 November). Some orall of the French saints could have been introduced through Anglo-Normanchannels, like St Vedast (of Arras) and St Amand (6 February), St Medard (ofNoyon) and St Gildard (8 June), St Leofred of La-Croix (21 June), St Remi ofReims (1 October), and St Leodegar of Autun (2 October), to mention a few. Nostrictly local German saints seem to be part of the saints in the Nidaros calendar.

As many as sixty saints are represented among the church dedications knownfrom the whole of the Middle Ages, although only 328 out of an estimated 1200


The numbers here are taken from a recent master’s thesis, Pernille H. Fredriksen, ‘Helgener8

og kirkededikasjoner i Norge i middelalderen’ (University of Oslo, 2004), p. 45. Her study buildson the first major investigation into the Norwegian church dedications, Lorentz Dietrichson,Sammenlignende Fortegnelse over Norges Kirkebygninger i Middelalderen og Nutiden (Kristiania:Malling, 1888). Dietrichson’s numbers are to a large extent confirmed by Fredriksen, with somenew additions.

Erik Cinthio, ‘The Churches of St. Clemens in Scandinavia’, Archaeologia Lundensia, 39

(1968), 103–16. For the locations of St Clement’s churches in Trondheim and Oslo, see Ole EgilEide, ‘De eldste norske byenes planmønster’, (Norsk) Historisk Tidsskrift, 54 (1975), 1–21.

Barbara E. Crawford, ‘The Churches Dedicated to St. Clement in Norway: A Discussion10

of their Origin and Function’, Collegium medievale, 17 (2004), 100–31. Crawford’s conclusionabout ‘the apparent lack of interest among the population at large’ (p. 126) is curious, consideringthe scarcity of medieval sources.

medieval churches in Norway have known dedications. The most commondedications of medieval churches are, not unexpectedly, St Mary (sixty-threechurches), St Olaf (fifty churches), St Peter (thirty-three churches), St Michael(thirty-two churches), St Lawrence (twenty-four churches), St Margaret (twenty-three churches), St John the Baptist (fourteen churches), and St Nicholas (thirteenchurches).8

Universal and Local Sainthood in Eleventh-Century Norway

For the eleventh century, there are relatively few sources relating saints’ cults inNorway. For instance, not many church dedications are known in this period.Although as many as a few hundred wooden churches had been built across thecountry in the course of the eleventh century, only a few churches, mainly foundin Trondheim, have known dedications. These were to St Clement (the church towhich St Olaf was brought at the translation in 1031), St Gregory, St Olaf, StMary, and St Margaret (of Antioch).

St Clement’s role in the early phase of Christianization in Scandinavia has beendiscussed, particularly regarding early church dedications. The latest study, pub-9

lished by Barbara Crawford, concludes that the relatively small number of churchesdedicated to St Clement (six) indicates that he was not as widely popular in Norwayas in Denmark and the Danish-settled parts of England. Still, his cult continuedthroughout the Middle Ages, presumably with an emphasis on his maritime role.10

The liturgy of St Clement is particularly interesting because it serves as a goodillustration of how the cult of a saint could be influenced from both the south and

Åslaug Ommundsen72

Lilli Gjerløw, Antiphonarium Nidrosiensis Ecclesiae, Libri Liturgici Provinciae Nidrosiensis11

Medii Aevi, 3 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1979), pp. 29–30. The order of the antiphons at laudsin the office of St Clement corresponds with that of Trier.

The order of the antiphons at matins seems to be borrowed from Århus (whose patron saint12

was St Clement). The antiphons at lauds correspond with English sources, Gjerløw, Antiphona-rium Nidrosiensis, pp. 207–09.

The feast of nine readings represented the second highest ranking in the Nidaros ordinal,13

corresponding with the later term festum semiduplex. The most important feasts (correspondingwith duplex) were celebrated like a feast of nine readings, but with a full vigil, i.e. liturgical celebra-tions on the day preceding the feast day. The less important feasts only had three readings (i.e.simplex).

David Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004),14

p. 345.

No remains of St Margaret’s vita have so far been identified among the Latin fragments in15

the National Archives in Oslo. The Nidaros ordinal prescribes liturgy from the common of a virginmartyr, and the readings could also be taken from the commons. It is therefore not possible to tellwhether the passage about church dedications in her vita was known in Norway. Still, it is notunlikely, since fragments in the National Archives show that her proper office was known here, inone case a manuscript written c. 1200, the other from the fifteenth century; cf. Gjerløw, Antiphona-rium Nidrosiensis, pp. 251–54.

Cf. Table 2 at the end of this essay.16

the west at the same time, and how different traditions could merge in Nidaros.The oldest identified source for St Clement’s liturgy in Norway is a fragment froman eleventh-century antiphoner with German neumes, and with texts relating toGerman uses and to Lund. In the Nidaros ordinal from c. 1200, the celebration11

of Clement appears to be a combination of Danish and English liturgy. In12

addition to the Nidaros calendar St Clement is listed in three of the old law texts,including the older law of Gulathing, although not with a vigil and fasting, whichwas reserved for the highest-ranking saints. According to the Nidaros ordinal, StClement should be celebrated with a feast of nine readings.13

Another saint worth taking a closer look at is St Margaret because of the earlydate and large number of church dedications to this female saint. The reasons forthese dedications may be connected to her vita, which (in some versions) statesthat those who dedicate churches or burn light in her honour will obtain anythinguseful for which they pray. In the Nidaros ordinal she was celebrated with a feast14

of nine readings. Apart from the mysterious Brittifu (Brictiva), she is the only15

virgin-martyr to appear in the Old Norwegian law texts.16


The law is preserved in a manuscript from the first half of the thirteenth century. For an17

extensive study, see Knut Helle, Gulatinget og Gulatingslova (Leikanger: Skald, 2001).

‘Nu ero þæir daghar .xiii. en Olafr hin hælgi oc Grimkæl biskup sættu oc boðu at nonn18

hælghr oc fasta skal firer vera, oc sua þyrma sem sunnudagum’: Sverres Christenret, in R . Keyser andP. A. Munch, Norges gamle love indtil 1387, vol. I (Christiania: [n.pub.], 1846), p. 421.

Konrad Maurer, Nogle bemærkninger til Norges Kirkehistorie ([n.p.], 1893) (originally in19

Historisk tidskrift, ser. 3, 3). I am grateful to Torgeir Landro for making me aware of this problem,and for other useful advice regarding the Norwegian law-material.

The Old Norwegian law texts are useful witnesses to the early cult of saints inNorway, particularly when studied along with the Nidaros ordinal. The law textsprobably reflect a later, twelfth-century development, in spite of the claim in theolder Gulathing and ‘Sverre’s Church law’ that the saints’ feast days were estab-lished by St Olaf and his English bishop Grimkel. The texts divide the feast days17

into two classes, with or without fasting and ‘nónhelg’, that is, vigil. The vigil in18

a liturgical sense means a full celebration on the day before the actual feast day, in-cluding a Mass (and not just starting with the first vesper on the previous evening,as on the ordinary feast days). The list of saints’ days in the law texts that were tobe celebrated with vigils are not surprising for the most important universal saints:St Mary (especially the Assumption, 15 August), St John the Baptist (24 June), StPeter (and St Paul, 29 June) and other apostles, St Lawrence the Martyr(10 August), in most cases St Michael (29 September), and the day of All Saints(1 November). In addition, all the law texts count the celebrations of both Olafand the Selja saints as being of the highest degree.

Another group of saints’ days, which were to be celebrated without fasting andvigils, in liturgical terms appears to correspond with the feasts of nine readings.These feasts started with the first vesper on the evening before, and had nine read-ings during matins (which was the hour of the late night or early morning of thefeast day), from either the legend of the saint or another suitable text, and in somecases with readings from a homily relevant for the Gospel text of the day. The lawsfrom eastern Norway (Borgarthing and Eidsivathing) do not include these. Thesituation is also complicated by the fact that the Gulathing text for the first part ofthe Church year has some feasts as lower rank that clearly should be of higher rank,such as Christmas and Easter, and is for this part of the year therefore not trust-worthy in terms of rank. The feasts mentioned in both Gulathing and Frosta-19

thing without vigils for the first half of the year are those for Paul (conversio Pauli,25 January), Two Apostles (Philip and Jacob, 1 May), and Botulph (17 June). Forthe second half of the year there is some variation between Gulathing and

Åslaug Ommundsen74

See Lilli Gjerløw, ‘Brictiua’, in Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid20

til reformationstid, ed. by J. Danstrup and others, 22 vols (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger,1956–78), II, 241; and Audun Dybdahl, Helgener i tiden (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press,1999), pp. 28–31.

See Table 2 at the end of this essay.21

Still, ‘Brithiva’ for 11 January is found, without Knud but along with other Norwegian22

saints, as an early fourteenth-century addition in a calendar in an English psalter (London, BritishLibrary, M S Harley 745), which was presumably used within the archdiocese of Nidaros for aperiod before being returned to England.

DN, XVII, no. 849.23

Since he wrote a letter of complaint to the Pope in the 1060s about Norwegian bishops being24

either not ordained at all or ordained in England or France ‘for money’ as he puts it, his authoritydoes not seem to have taken proper hold in Norway. See DN, XVII, no. 1.

Frostathing, but both have Swithun (2 July), ‘krossmessa hin oefre’ (exaltatio crucis,14 September), Martin (11 November), and Clement (23 November) with ninereadings without vigil. Frostathing does not mention Knud (10 July) but includesMargaret (20 July).

Among the feasts without vigils we find several feasts for universal saints, likesome feasts for St Mary and some of the apostles, and for Clement and Nicholas. TheEnglish local saints, Swithun and Botulph, could have been celebrated in Norwayat an early date. A mysterious Brittifu mentioned in the Gulathing text may be theIrish St Brigida (1 February), but she could also be an obscure local saint. Another20

entry in Gulathing worth noticing is the celebration of the Danish St Knud (d.1086) for 10 July. Knud is not included in the Nidaros ordinal from around1200. Even though the law texts are found in manuscripts from the thirteenth21

century, they do not seem to have been updated in terms of actual liturgical prac-tice in Nidaros, but seem to follow their own (flexible) tradition. Another exampleof this is a calendar in a law book from around 1300 (Oslo, National Library, MS4° 31). The primary entries in the law book’s calendar correspond rather closely tothe Nidaros ordinal, but both Brittifu (Brettiva) and Knud are found as secondaryentries, most likely motivated by law tradition rather than actual celebrations.22

In the eleventh century Norway was part of the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen,although the German archbishops had to struggle to keep their authority in thenorthern areas. In 1053 a letter was sent from Pope Leo IX to the Archbishop ofHamburg-Bremen, confirming his authority and the unity of the archbishopric.23

The letter was a response to a request from Archbishop Adalbert to confirm,among other things, his jurisdiction of the northern region and his right to ordainthe bishops in his archdiocese. Norway remained a part of the archdiocese of24


These are Matthias (24 February), Philip and Jacob (the younger) (1 May), Peter (and Paul)25

(29 June), Jacob (the elder) (25 July), Bartholomew (24 August), Matthew (21 September), Simonand Judas ( Judas=Thaddeus, not Iskariot) (28 October), Andrew (30 November), Thomas(21 December), and John (27 December).

On 15 August, 8 September, and 25 March correspondingly.26

‘Simul etiam concedimus pallio uti, sicut a predecessoribus nostris dinoscitur uobis conces-27

sum fuisse, id est in natiuitate et in octaua Domini et in epiphania et in purificatione sancte Marie,in palmis, in cena Domini, in die sancto pasche, in ascensione Domini, in pentecostes die, infestiuitate sancti Johannis baptiste, in nataliciis omnium apostolorum, in assumptione, in natiuitateet annuntiatione sancte Marie, in festis beatorum martirum Laurentii et Mauritii et in festiuitatebeati Michahelis archangeli et in festo omnium sanctorum atque beati Martini episcopi et infestiuitatibus sanctorum, quorum corpora requiescunt in ipso archiepiscopatu, et in consecrationeepiscoporum atque ecclesiarum et in uestre ordinationis die’: DN, XVII, no. 849. All translationsare mine unless indicated otherwise.

Hamburg-Bremen until the establishment of the archbishopric of Lund in 1104.In the letter from Pope Leo to Archbishop Adalbert the feast days in which thearchbishop was allowed the use of the pallium are listed. These feast days overlapto a considerable degree with those established in the law texts, since the celebra-tions of the universal saints were more or less the same everywhere. Apart fromChristmas and Easter and the other feasts associated with Christ, there were thefeasts of Mary, Michael the Archangel, John the Baptist, and All the Apostles. Inaddition, the feast days of Lawrence, Mauritius, and Martin of Tours are included.It is reasonable to assume that these days when the archbishop could wear thepallium corresponded with high-degree celebrations. The text reads as follows:

At the same time we grant the use of the pallium, just as it is known to be granted you byour predecessors, that is, on the nativity and the octave of the Lord and on the epiphanyand the purification of St Mary, on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Easter Sunday,Ascension Day, Pentecost, on the feast of St John the Baptist, on the feastdays of all theApostles, on the assumption, the nativity, and the annunciation of St Mary, on the feast25 26

of the blessed martyrs Laurentius and Mauritius, and on the festivity of the blessed Michaelthe Archangel, and the feast of All Saints, and the blessed Martin the Bishop, and in thefeasts of the saints whose bodies rest in the archbishopric, and for the consecration ofbishops and churches, and on the day of your ordination.27

In addition, the archbishop was granted the use of the pallium for the Saturday ofthe Easter week, for the finding of the cross (3 May), and for the feast day of theprotomartyr St Stephen (26 December). Only St Mauritius (22 September) is notmentioned at all in the Old Norwegian law texts. According to the Nidarosordinal, Mauritius’s feast day is to be celebrated as a feast of three readings. St

Åslaug Ommundsen76

‘Paulus in Historia Longobardorum affirmat in ultimis partibus septentrionis inter Scrite-28

fingos in quadam spelunca oceani iacere VII viros quasi dormientes, de quibus est opinio diversa,et quod predicaturi sint illis gentibus circa finem mundi. Dicunt alii ex XI milibus virginibus illucpervenisse aliquas, quarum cetus et naves monte obrutae sunt; ibique fieri miracula. Ubi etecclesiam construxit Olaph’: Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, Schol.145 (141), ed. by Bernhard Schmeidler, MGH SRG, 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1917), p. 266.

Stephen is for the most part not explicitly mentioned in the Norwegian laws, butsince his feast day on 26 December is within the first days of the octave ofChristmas, his day is ‘automatically’ holy.

Another thing worth noticing in the letter from Leo to Adalbert is the impor-tance attributed to local saints. According to the letter the celebration of feast daysof saints with a resting place within the archbishopric would warrant the use of thearchbishop’s pallium, indicating that such saints should be celebrated with a high-ranking feast. This corresponds with the practice of the Old Norwegian laws,where Olaf and the saints of Selja are entered alongside the saints on the very topof the hierarchy: Mary, Michael, John the Baptist, and the apostles. In three of theregional laws Hallvard is also celebrated with a feast of the highest rank.

From Hamburg-Bremen there is also early written evidence regarding thecelebration of local saints in Norway. In the description of Scandinavia in TheHistory of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen (Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiaepontificum) from the 1070s, Adam of Bremen mentions miracles and healingstaking place in Trondheim where St Olaf’s shrine was kept and that Olaf’s feast dayon 29 July was commemorated by all the peoples of the North Sea (Norwegians,Swedes, Goths, Danes, and Slavs). While the cult of St Olaf seems to have been wellestablished at this point in time, the information about the saints of Selja is not soeasy to interpret. One of the scholia tells the following about the saints of Selja:

Paul claims in the Historia Longobardorum that in the Northernmost areas, among theSkridfinns, seven men lie in a cave by the ocean as if they are sleeping. There are differentopinions about them, including that they shall preach for the people there towards the endof the world. Others say that some of the eleven thousand virgins reached those parts,whose company and ships were crushed by a mountain, and that miracles happen there.At that place Olaf also built a church.28

In the continuation of the text it appears that the Olaf in question is understoodas being Olaf Haraldsson, contrary to the legend, which claims that the church wasbuilt by Olaf Tryggvason. The idea about a cave with saints in the North hastriggered associations to Paul the Deacon and his story about the seven sleepers.


The plural form includes an eleventh-century St Erik from Sweden; cf. Haki Antonsson.29

‘The Early Cult of Saints in Scandinavia and the Conversion: A Comparative Perspective’, in thisvolume.

‘Alter quidam, Alfwardus nomine, inter Nortmannos sancta conversatione diu latenter30

vivens, abscondi non potuit. Ille igitur dum protexit inimicum, occisus est ab amicis. Ad quorumrequietionis locum magna hodieque sanitatum miracula populis declarantur’: Adam of Bremen,Gesta Hammaburgensis, III. 54, ed. by Schmeidler, p. 199.

See Table 2 at the end of this essay.31

The saints’ feasts of the lowest rank, those of three readings, amount to as many as ninety-six32

feast days a year.

The second account, referring to some of the eleven thousand virgins, is probablya reference to the Selja saints, although it is a rather vague one.

Adam also mentions St Hallvard, about whom he quotes the Danish king SvenEstridsen (1047–c. 1074/76):

‘Another man, called Hallvard, who for a long time lived out his holy life in secret, couldno longer remain hidden. So while he was protecting an enemy, he was killed by friends.At the resting places of these men large miracles of healing are even today revealed to the29

people.’30

The reference to Hallvard living a holy life ‘in secret’ should probably not beoveremphasized. The brief reference has caused some headache, for instance inrelation to the gender of the inimicus, who in the legend of St Hallvard is a preg-nant woman. Adam of Bremen does not indicate that Hallvard’s body had beentranslated to Oslo at this point. Most likely his cult developed in Lier, and hispotential as a patron saint for the bishop’s see was presumably realized later oraround the turn of the twelfth century.

Law and Liturgy: A Short Comparison

The earliest sources for the organization of the sanctoral celebrations in Norwayare rather late, from the end of the twelfth century or around 1200. If we comparethe Old Norwegian laws in twelfth- and thirteenth-century redactions and theNidaros ordinal from around 1200, it is clear that they do not fully correlate. In31

the official Nidaros ordinal the sanctorale (including the saints celebrated in theChristmas week, who are normally treated in the temporale) includes twelve feastswith a vigil and fifty-eight feasts of nine readings. The Norwegian law texts have32

a lower number of feasts in total, and they are differently graded than in the

Åslaug Ommundsen78

Cf. Table 2 at the end of this essay.33

Cf. Gjerløw, Antiphonarium Nidrosiensis, pp. 273–74, presenting a lectionary with parts34

from nine lessons for the translation of St Olaf, describing his miracles. This text was also editedin MHN, pp. 275–76.

ordinal. Frostathing, for instance, counts thirty-five saints’ feasts, and of thesenineteen are celebrated with a vigil and only sixteen with the second highest rank,presumably corresponding with that of nine readings.33

Only five saints’ feasts are consistently listed as being of the highest rank: StJohn the Baptist (24 June), St Peter and St Paul (29 June), St Lawrence(10 August), the assumption of St Mary (15 August), and All Saints (1 November).St Olaf’s main feast day on 29 July is celebrated with a vigil in all Norwegian texts,although the vigil in the Nidaros ordinal commemorates other saints. The Seljasaints (8 July) were celebrated with a vigil in all the law texts, but not in theNidaros ordinal. However, the calendar in a formerly mentioned law book (OsloMS 4° 31) does instruct a vigil for their feast. This particular calendar is otherwisevery close to the Nidaros ordinal in its primary entries, and it may have been anestablished practice in several places to celebrate the Selja saints with a vigil, notonly in the diocese of Bergen (where we may presume that it was). Hallvard’s feastday sees the highest variation in ranking, from a feast with a vigil in Frostathing,Borgarthing, and Eidsivathing, to merely a feast of three readings in the Nidarosordinal. In the eastern parts of Norway, at least, Hallvard was presumablycelebrated with a vigil. Another feast with varying practice is that of translatioOlavi on 3 August. Only Frostathing describes a high-ranking feast, while theNidaros ordinal only has a commemoratio. There is evidence, however, of this feastbeing celebrated with nine readings, at least in the Trondheim area.34

Other saints are noted in various sources, and a large number of saints were alsocommemorated in the Nidaros ordinal with prayers and songs, in addition to thosewho had their own feast day. Other Scandinavian saints are entered in marginalnotes, either as corrections or later additions, such as St Magnus of Orkney (d.1116/17), St Jón of Hólar (d. 1121), and St Erik of Sweden (d. 1160). The Nidarosordinal does not mention St Knud of Odense even for commemoration.

The Bishops’ Sees and the Holy Trinity

Around 1100 there were three major towns in Norway: Trondheim, Oslo, andBergen. All three towns were purportedly founded by Norwegian Christian kings:


For more information about royalty, urbanization, and Christianization, see Bagge and35

Nordeide, ‘Kingdom of Norway’, p. 143.

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. by B. Aðalbjarnarson, 3 vols, Íslenzk fornrit, 26–2836

(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1951), III, 204 and 208. On the proximity of the churchesto the royal palaces, cf. maps of the medieval towns, for instance in Eide, ‘De eldste norske byenesplanmønster’, pp. 4 and 12.

Cf. DN, XVIIB, nos 197 and 219. See also Arne Odd Johnsen, ‘Biskop Bjarnhard og37

kirkeforholdene i Norge under Harald Hardråde og Olav Kyrre’, in Bjørgvin bispestol: Frå Selja tilBjørgvin, ed. by Per Juvkam (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1968), pp. 11–26.

Knut Helle, ‘Det første bispedømmet’, in Selja: heilag stad i 1000 år, ed. by Magnus Rindal38

(Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1997), pp. 240–51. It has been argued that the Norwegian dioceses inthe Florentine list reflect proceedings in 1103 in connection with the establishment of thearchbishopric of Lund. Only one source, dating to around 1360, adds ‘i Seliu’ to the bishopsbetween Bjarnhard and Nicholas (cf. DN, XVIIB, nos 219–20).

DN, VIII, no. 1.39

Trondheim in the late tenth century by King Olaf Tryggvason, Oslo c. 1050 byKing Harald Hardrada (1046–66), and Bergen c. 1070 by King Olaf Kyrre(1066–93). In the first half of the eleventh century bishops had been part of the35

kings’ entourage. The establishment and growth of the towns meant that thebishops could set up a more permanent residence, which in turn led to a morestructured Church organization and, in time, greater independence from the kings.

King Olaf Kyrre began the building of bishops’ churches in close proximity tohis royal palaces in Bergen and Trondheim in the late eleventh century. The first36

permanent bishop’s see in western Norway, however, seems not to have been in atown, but on Selja, a place presumably chosen because of the saints’ cult alreadythriving on the island. The first Bishop of Selja, Bjarnhard, or Bernard, had beenappointed during the first years of the reign of Olaf Kyrre. After a while Bjarn-37

hard moved to Bergen, presumably instigated by King Olaf, and in doing so herelocated the western bishop’s see to Bergen. It seems that the benefits of Bergenpresented to or envisaged by the Bishop were substantial enough to warrant mov-ing away from the saints’ relics at Selja. It is often claimed that Selja was the officialsee until the translation of Sunniva’s relics in 1170 and that the bishops had theirresidence in Bergen for the sake of convenience. This does not seem to be correct,as Knut Helle has convincingly argued. Among several other sources he refers toa list of Nordic dioceses, often referred to as the ‘Florentine list’, dating back to c.1120, which counts three Norwegian bishops’ sees: Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim,or Alpsa, Biargina, and Nithirosa. In addition, a document sent from Rome, dated38

1154, refers to the western Norwegian bishopric as Bergenensis.39

Åslaug Ommundsen80

Stavanger cathedral was referred to in vernacular sources as Swithun’s church, ‘svithuns40

kirkia’ (DN, V, no. 16). In Latin either Swithun or the Trinity was used: ‘ecclesia sancti Swithunicatedralis Stawangensis’ (DN, III, no. 12), ‘ecclesia sancte trinitatis Stauangrensis’ (DN, III, no. 15).

For the case of Hamar, cf. ‘ecclesia Hamarensis in eiusdem sancte trinitatis honore41

constructa’ (DN, VI, no. 109) and ‘Kristkirkia j Hamre’ (DN, II, no. 4). For Nidaros, cf. DN, II, nos42 and 57, and for Bergen DN, VIII, nos 2 and 4.

Hans Emil Lidén, ‘Domkirken i Bergen og utviklingen av de norske domkirketypene i42

1000–1100 årene’, in Bjørgvin bispestol: Byen og bispedømmet, ed. by Per Juvkam (Bergen:Universitetsforlaget, 1970), pp. 11–40.

Canterbury, Norwich, Twinham, London, Man, Waterford, Dublin, Birsay, Visby,43

Schleswig, Viborg, Odense, Roskilde, and Lund.

By this time two more dioceses had been established: Stavanger in the 1120s,comprising the former southern part of the diocese of Bergen, and Hamar in 1153,in what had been the northern part of the diocese of Oslo. Both cathedrals werededicated to the Trinity, and in Stavanger’s case to St Swithun of Winchester aswell.40

It seems to have been Olaf Kyrre who through his churches in Bergen andTrondheim commenced the custom of dedicating Norwegian cathedrals to theHoly Trinity, sancta trinitas. Of the five cathedrals built on the Norwegian main-land, at least four were dedicated to the Holy Trinity (with some uncertaintyconnected to the cathedral of Oslo), and three of them — Bergen, Trondheim, andHamar — were generally referred to as ‘Christ Church’. Absalon Taranger was41

the first to suggest that the Christ Church dedications could be modelled onChrist Church, Canterbury — which in the Domesday Book (1086) was alsoreferred to as a Trinity church. The question has been discussed by Hans EmilLidén, who refers to a theory presented orally by Arne Odd Johnsen (in Oslo,1969) that Olaf Kyrre saw the Christ Church at Birsey in the Orkneys on his wayhome from Stamford Bridge in 1066. The church at Birsey was built because Earl42

Þorfinnr (d. 1063/64) wished to establish a bishop’s see on the isle. Þorfinnr’smodel may have been a similar endeavour to that of King Sigtryggr’s (d. 1042) inDublin, in that he gave the bishop ground and funding to build a churchconsecrated to the Holy Trinity. Lidén mentions a rather large number of churchesthat are dedicated to the Trinity but referred to as Christ Churches. He also43

points out that the churches in Roskilde and Odense (and possibly Lund) startedout as royal foundations and later became cathedrals. These churches were alsoconstructed in connection with royal palaces and in relation to the establishmentof bishops’ sees. Based on this, Lidén sees a pattern in the eleventh century of kings


Lidén, ‘Domkirken i Bergen’, p. 30. Lidén counts the cathedral in Stavanger along with Bergen44

and Trondheim as built immediately by the royal palace (p. 29). However, what is now referred toas ‘Kongsgård’ in Stavanger was probably the bishop’s residence from the beginning, which conformsto Lidén’s pattern of bishops’ churches begun after 1100 being more independent from the king.

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, III, 204.45

Ekroll, Med kleber og kalk, pp. 160–61.46

Ekroll, Med kleber og kalk, p. 170. 47

And in some cases it is presumed that it was; cf. Fredriksen, ‘Helgener og kirkededikasjoner’,48

p. 42.

building churches for the bishops in close proximity to their palaces. He assumesthat these churches were intended not as cathedrals, but as royal bishops’ churches.However, it should be noted that in the eleventh century the difference betweena bishop’s church and a cathedral was not necessarily noticeable in practice.

Lidén argues that the cathedrals seem to reflect different phases in the bishops’relationship with the king. Before 1100, it seems that the king built the churches for‘his’ bishops, close to his palace. The three cathedrals initiated after 1100 — Oslo,Stavanger, and Hamar — were built in the vicinity of the bishop’s palace, indicat-ing that the bishop at this time enjoyed a more independent status. There also44

seems to be a difference before and after 1100 regarding patron saints. Bergen andTrondheim had the Trinity as their only dedication, but the churches built in thedecades after 1100 — Oslo and Stavanger — were dedicated to their patron saints.

It is sometimes presumed that Bergen cathedral was not completed until 1170.This assumption is probably based on two things: Snorri Sturluson’s remark thatthe work was slow and that the church was not finished at the time of Olaf’s deathin 1093, as well as former ideas about the significance of the translation of St Sun-45

niva that year, which will be discussed below. There was no want of churches in thetown, since a small Trinity Church in wood had been built next to the building siteof the stone church at the time of Olaf Kyrre (and as soon as the eastern part of thestone church was finished, it could be consecrated and used).46

According to tradition, Oslo cathedral was built by King Sigurðr Jórsalafari(1103–30) after his return from a crusading expedition in 1110. Around 1100,three churches dedicated to St Edmund, St Clement, and St Mary had been builtin stone in Oslo. Lidén suggests that St Mary’s church by the royal palace may47

have served as the bishop’s church before the completion of St Hallvard’s church.No source indicates that St Hallvard’s church was ever dedicated to the Trinity.However, there could have been a double dedication, as was done in Stavanger.48

Oslo cathedral seems to have housed the shrine of St Hallvard from an early date,

Åslaug Ommundsen82

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, III, 307–08. 49

Dietrichson, Sammenlignende Fortegnelse, p. 98, lists it as ‘Christkirkja. (Trefoldigheds,50

Olafs) K.’.

Gjerløw, Ordo Nidrosiensis, p. 335.51

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, III, 121. Cf. Dietrichson, Sammenlignende Fortegnelse, p. 98.52

See also Ekroll, Med kleber og kalk, p. 24. He suggests that the Olaf’s church Magnus built for hisfather’s relics may have been made out of wood, since the building material is not specified.

The litany of the saints is a prayer opening with Kyrie eleison, calling for mercy from the53

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (miserere nobis). The following saints are asked for their assistance inprayer (ora pro nobis). The remaining litanies from Norwegian service books are edited: HelgeFæhn, Manuale Norwegicum (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1962), pp. 164–74.

and at least before 1137, when Oslo according to Snorri Sturluson was attackedand people protected Hallvard’s shrine by moving it to a safe place.49

Although the Christ Church in Trondheim was meant to be a resting place forOlaf, the Trinity was the primary dedication. It is sometimes said that NidarosCathedral was also dedicated to St Olaf, but it is hard to find formal evidence ofthis. In the Nidaros ordinal, prescribing the celebration of the dedication of50

Nidaros cathedral on 29 or 30 April, the rubric reads ‘In dedicatione ecclesie sanctetrinitatis’ with no mention of St Olaf. It may not have been necessary to further51

emphasize the connection, since the town in any case was built up around theshrine of St Olaf. In addition, the town already had a church dedicated to St Olaf,which had been built by Olaf’s son Magnus.52

The process of establishing the first cathedrals clearly follows a certain logic: inthe hierarchy presented in the litany of the saints, the Trinity is addressed first,before Mary, the archangels, John the Baptist, the apostles, and all the other saintscalled upon in the prayer. To consecrate the primary church in the diocese to the53

Holy Trinity, and the minor churches to the saints, would be in keeping with theestablished hierarchy of worship.

Still, the effect of the local (and imported) patron saints on the cathedrals ofTrondheim, Oslo, and Stavanger must have been increasingly clear during thecourse of the twelfth century. Certainly for one particular town, Bergen, somethinghad to be done.

From the Saints of Selja to Sunniva, Bergensium patrona

In the northern part of the medieval diocese of Bergen lies the isle of Selja, a placethat grew into a cult site for local saints. The early sources refer only to anonymous


Cf. Arne Odd Johnsen, ‘Når slo Sunniva-kulten igjennom?’, in Bjørgvin bispestol: Frå Selja54

til Bjørgvin, ed. by Juvkam, pp. 40–62 (p. 43).

saints, heilagra manna, or sancti in Selio, the saints of Selja, and the cult seems tohave originated in the presence of bones, with no clear idea of who these saintsmight have been. While the first reported finding was a skull on the beach, more54

bones were discovered in a cave on the island. According to the legend the boneswere found as early as in the late tenth century, during the reign of Olaf Trygg-vason (995–1000). The feast of the Selja saints was celebrated on 8 July, and thisdate was celebrated in Nidaros with nine readings. The transmitted redaction ofthe Latin legend is dated to the late twelfth century and is believed to have beenwritten in connection with the translation of Sunniva from Selja to Bergen in1170. The legend goes as follows:

At the time of the magnificent emperor Otto I (in power 936–73), the blessedSunniva was born in Ireland of royal family. After the death of her father, she didher best to rule her people, primarily guiding them through her own good example.Sunniva soon attracted suitors, among them a heathen tyrant who tried to con-vince her to marry him, first with flattery, then with threats. Eventually she realizedthat the only way to avoid the unwanted suitor was to go into exile. Many of hersubjects, men, women, and children, chose to follow their queen. They embarkedon three small ships with no oars or equipment and set to sea trusting in Godalone. After a long and strenuous journey, Sunniva and her followers reached Selja,where they lived peacefully in the caves, surviving on fish from the sea and servingthe Lord in poverty and chastity. The locals, who were still heathens, thought thatthe foreigners were stealing sheep they had grazing on the island and called uponHakon, the Earl of Lade, to come and kill the mysterious strangers. When the holypeople saw Hakon and his men coming, they went into the caves, and with tearsflowing down their cheeks they prayed to God that he should give their soulseternal peace and provide a tomb for their bodies. Hence the rocks came tumblingdown and buried them all, safe from the rage of the attackers.

After some time, under the rule of Olaf Tryggvason, some merchants sailing bythe island of Selja saw a column of bright light, which led them to a human skullwith a sweet scent. The merchants brought the precious skull to Trondheim, wherethey told the King what had happened. After a while the King and the Bishop wentto the island themselves. Among the rocks on the mountain side they found moresweet-smelling bones, and on the order of the Bishop and with the approval of theKing, a church was built and consecrated, ‘where God provides signs and miraclesthrough the merits of his saints until this day’.

Åslaug Ommundsen84

‘Christiani uero, cum sedula ossa eorum, que reperire potuerunt, congregarent, inuenerunt55

integrum corpus beate Suniue uirginis et martyris, quod inde cum magno honore translatum et inscrinio collocatum est. Acta sunt hec anno gratie nongentesimo nonagesimo sexto. Transacto ueromulto tempore uenerabilis memorie Paulus Bergensis episcopus annuente diuina gratia transtulitmemoratas reliquias beate Suniue uirginis et martyris de insula Selio ad ciuitatem Bergensem annoDomini millesimo centesimo septuagesimo. Que in catedrali ecclesia eiusdem ciuitatis septimo ydusSeptembris honorifice collocate sunt regnante Domino nostro Iesu Christo, cui est honor et gloriain secula seculorum. Amen.’ From the edition by Stephan Borgehammar, ‘Den latinska Sunniva-legenden: En edition’, in Selja: heilag stad i 1000 år, ed. by Magnus Rindal (Oslo: Universitets-forlaget, 1997), pp. 270–92 (p. 283).

Just Bing, ‘Sunnivalegenden’, Historisk tidskrift, 5th ser., 5 (1924), 533–45. For a discussion56

of this, see Johnsen, ‘Når slo Sunniva-kulten igjennom?’.

For a closer analysis, see Jan Erik Rekdal, ‘Legenden om Selja og Seljemennene’, in Selja:57

heilag stad i 1000 år, ed. by Rindal, pp. 102–22.

For a thorough recapitulation of the research history, see Rekdal, ‘Legenden om Selja og58

Seljemennene’, pp. 114–19. In a recent study on Sunniva and Henrik it is claimed that scholars

After this passage, the legend continues with what appears to be an addedafterthought:

But as Christians carefully collected all the bones they could find, they discovered the bodyof the blessed virgin and martyr Sunniva unscathed, and her body was with great venera-tion moved and placed in a shrine. This was done in the blessed year 996. After a long timehad passed, Bishop Paal of Bergen, blessed be his memory, inspired by holy grace translatedthe beforementioned relics of Sunniva, the blessed virgin and martyr, from the island ofSelja to the town of Bergen in the year of the Lord 1170. These relics were respectfully laiddown in the Cathedral of the same town on 7 September by the rule of our Lord JesusChrist, to whom is the honour and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.55

The legend basically contains two different narratives: on the one hand, it tells arelatively coherent story about an Irish princess called Sunniva, who ventured thewaves with her followers. On the other hand, it describes the discovery of anon-ymous human bones and the building of a church. Just Bing was the first to drawattention to the fact that the ninth lesson seems to have two endings: one endingthat reports the miracles at the church at Selja, and another that deals with thediscovery of Sunniva and the translation to Bergen.56

The story is also told in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, an Old Norse translationof a now lost Latin text written by Oddr Snorrason around 1190. In the trans-mitted versions the narrative elements are presented in a different order: thediscovery of bones is followed by the story of Sunniva.57

From an early date it was presumed that the story of Sunniva was a later inven-tion, and the dating of this figure has been discussed for more than a century.58


have been eager to ‘cast as much doubt as possible on the actual existence of the saints in question,the veracity of their legends, and the antiquity of their cults’: Thomas A. DuBois, ‘Sts Sunniva andHenrik: Scandinavian Martyr Saints in their Hagiographic and National Contexts’, in Sanctity inthe North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. by Thomas A. DuBois (Toronto:University of Toronto Press, 2008), pp. 65–99 (pp. 67–68). Here it presented as not only possible,but even likely that a tradition of an anchorite and her followers living on Selja goes back to thetime of Adam of Bremen.

J. Young, ‘Legenden om den hellige Sunniva’, Historisk tidskrift, 5th ser., 8 (1930–33),59

402–13; and Johnsen, ‘Når slo Sunniva-kulten igjennom?’.

Johnsen, ‘Når slo Sunniva-kulten igjennom?’, pp. 43, 47, and 58.60

Stephan Borgehammar, ‘Sunnivalegenden och den benediktinska reformen i England’, in61

Selja: heilag stad i 1000 år, ed. by Rindal, pp. 123–59 (pp. 142–43).

‘Cap. XI. De Civitate Bergensi & seditione ibi facta per Danos. Hæc est civitas regionis illius,62

eminentiori potentia gloriosior, decorata castro regio, reliquiis Sanctarum Virginum adornata: ibiSancta Sunnif, tot corpore in Ecclesia Cathdrali exaltata, quiescit’: De profectio Danorum (Amster-dam, 1684), p. 146.

Scholars have seen similarities between Sunniva and Ursula and the eleven thou-sand virgins, as well as the Irish saint Modwenna. The legend presumably59

developed in stages. The calendars’ entries for 8 July, sancti in Selio, and the rubricNatalicium sanctorum in Selio quiescentium (the feast day of the saints resting inSelja) in the Nidaros ordinal indicate that Sunniva was not introduced when thefeast was first entered into the calendar.

One possible stage in the narrative could have been an association with theeleven thousand virgins by the time of Bishop Bjarnhard and Adam of Bremen, assuggested by Arne Odd Johnsen. He assumes that Adam of Bremen was fairly60

updated on the matter and that the brief scholion, presumably entered by Adamhimself, reflected contemporary ideas about the identity of the saintly bones. If so,the entry was not the result of ‘free association’ on Adam’s part between a story heheard and a story he already knew, namely that of Ursula and the eleven thousandvirgins, as later argued by Stephan Borgehammar. It was rather the result of61

similar associations previously made by the keepers of the saints’ relics in Selja; that‘their’ bones were from a group of holy people, which also included some of theeleven thousand virgins. In this context it is relevant to quote the Profectio Danorumfrom the 1190s. The author mentions that Bergen is adorned with the relics of holyvirgins (reliquiis Sanctarum virginum, in the plural). While this may merely be an62

imprecise introduction to the reference to the shrine of Sunniva, it may also referto relics that were in the cathedral before the arrival of Sunniva in 1170.

Åslaug Ommundsen86

Magnus is also entered, but this does not necessarily point to Magnus of the Orkneys, since63

both Magnus of Füssen and Magnus of Trani are attested in Norwegian liturgical sources; cf.Gjerløw, Antiphonarium Nidrosiensis, pp. 49, 66, and 75.

In the Nidaros ordinal the eleven thousand virgins were celebrated with a feast of nine read-64

ings (21 October), with lessons from their proper legend (lectiones proprie legantur); cf. Gjerløw,Ordo Nidrosiensis, p. 401. Whether earlier manuscript fragments can reveal more about the formalcult of the eleven thousand virgins has not been investigated.

The two oldest litanies in locally written manuscripts are also interesting in thisrespect. One manual dates from the late twelfth century while the other dates fromthe first half or middle of the thirteenth century. In the oldest manual (Copen-hagen, Royal Library, NKS 32) ‘Olaf rex’ is the only local saint. But the last63

entries in the list of virgins are ‘Sancta Ursula cum sodalibus suis’ (St Ursula andher followers) and ‘Sancta Cordula’. Sancta Cordula is said to have been one of theeleven thousand virgins, but she survived the carnage, only to volunteer for martyr-dom on the following day. In the other litany, which dates from around 1250(Copenhagen, Royal Library, NKS 133 f), Ursula has been separated from theeleven thousand virgins and stands alone. Four lines below is ‘Sancta Sunniva’, andright below her again are entered the ‘Sancta undena virginum milia’ (the holyeleven thousand virgins). This shows two things: that named members of the eleventhousand virgins were known in Norway at an early date (although how widely isa matter for debate), and that Sunniva, in one source at least, figures in immediateconnection with the eleven thousand virgins.

If we assume that the legend’s description of unidentified human remains formsthe starting point, during a century a legend could gradually develop from thismotif. That the saints arrived on a ship is a given, since this was an island. Thediscovery of bones in a closed cave would provide the other element: that the saintswere ‘saved’ from a violent attack. And there is one group in particular — namelyvirgins — for whom death is perceived as a better fate than to be attacked by men.It is therefore natural that virgins were believed to form part of the group, andbefore a named protagonist entered the scene, it would be natural to connect themwith the eleven thousand virgins, a legend well known in both Germany andEngland and presumably Scandinavia as well. An association with virgins would64

not necessarily reflect on the term applied for the saints as a group, since a mixedgroup of men and women would still be referred to with the Old Norse term mennand the Latin sancti.

Ludvig Daae, who refers to Sophus Bugge on the matter, discusses possibleGerman influence on the legend, among other things that it is striking that events


Daae, Norges helgener, p. 156.65

Johnsen, ‘Når slo Sunniva-kulten igjennom?’, p. 47; and Borgehammar, ‘Sunnivalegenden’,66

p. 140.

The two other proper offices with a Norwegian origin, the Office of St Olaf and the Office67

of the Holy Blood, have been thoroughly studied and edited; see Eyolf Østrem, The Office of SaintOlav: A Study in Chant Transmission, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Musicologica Upsali-ensia, Nova series, 18 (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2001); and Gisela Attinger and AndreasHaug, The Nidaros Office of the Holy Blood: Liturgical Music in Medieval Norway (Trondheim:Tapir Academic Press, 2004). The Office of the Selja saints from the Nidaros Breviary waspublished by Storm, MHN, pp. 283–90 (the antiphons at lauds were printed on p. 152).

involving only Ireland and Norway were dated through the rule of the Germanemperor Otto I. One could imagine that the Saxon Bjarnhard, the first bishop of65

Selja and Bergen, somehow played a part in the shaping of the legend into acoherent whole, or at least that the process had started while Norway was still partof the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen.

It is reasonable to assume that a Latin version of the legend existed prior toSunniva’s translation in 1170 (as is done by both Arne Odd Johnsen and StephanBorgehammar). This version would in essence have been similar, but possiblystylistically different, and with references to the abbey at Selja. That there were66

in fact older writings, now lost, is indicated by miracles described in the properoffice of Sunniva and the Selja saints. Sunniva is referred to as bergensium patrona,which tells us that the office as transmitted was composed after 1170. Six anti-phons from Lauds refer to miracles, and it is assumed that the composer used nowlost records of miracles as a source for the texts. In four out of six antiphons, the aidcomes from the sancti, and not from Sunniva, which could indicate that at leastparts of the texts derive from records kept at Selja. The single witness to theantiphons, the Nidaros breviary from 1519, is sadly without musical notation,which has made the office unattractive as a subject for musicologists.67

1. Per murum matris gremio| cadens extinctus: cernitur|parenti puer selio| per sanctos vivus redditur.

[Falling over the wall from his mother’s bosom, he appears lifeless,but in Selja the boy is returned to his mother alive, through the saints’ intervention.]

2. In sunnive basilica| pernoctans: ceca natagaudens luce mirifica| virgo redit sanata.

[After spending the night in Sunniva’s chapel, she who is born blindcan enjoy wondrous eyesight, and the virgin goes home, cured.]

Åslaug Ommundsen88

Helle, ‘Det første bispedømmet’, p. 250.68

Johnsen, ‘Når slo Sunniva-kulten igjennom?’, pp. 61–62. Johnsen also assumes that a69

competition between the regions and their saints instigated new strategies in connection with theSelja saints, but he seems to have accepted (wrongly) that Selja was the formal bishop’s see untilSunniva’s translation. He suggests that between 1100 and 1140 the ‘clergy at Selja’ needed a moreappealing identifiable saintly figure.

3. Vir turris cono corruit| sancti salvant cadentemmuro turbo reposuit| fenestras facientem.

[A man fell from the edge of a tower, but the saints saved him as he fell,a whirlwind put him back on the wall when he was making a window.]

4. Matrona paralitica,| ad hos sanctos accessit:domum ope dominica| incolumis recessit.

[A paralytic woman went to the saints,and with God’s help she went home healthy.]

5. Carybdi navis leditur| sunniva imploraturonusta manat: mergitur| dum hec evacuatur.

[A ship is damaged in a maelstrom, and Sunniva is implored for help.Fully loaded the ship floats, and sinks when the cargo is rescued.]

6. Ponte cadens virgo colliditur: ut curetur a sanctis petitur:recidivat dum votum frangitur, voto sospes grato regreditur.

[A virgin falling from a bridge is badly injured and prays to the saints to be healed.As her votive promise is broken she gets worse, but returns unharmed when her promise

is kept.]

Although the office is presumed to have been written after the translation toBergen, the miracles are to a great extent connected to the collective group of saintson Selja. From the miracles we see that the ways of achieving help from the saintsof Selja are through prayer or, better still, pilgrimage to Selja — and even better isspending the night in Sunniva’s chapel. It is more likely that Sunnive basilica refersto the chapel by the cave in Selja rather than the cathedral in Bergen.

One preconception often encountered is that Sunniva ‘made’ the bishop’s seeof Bergen. In fact, it seems more likely that it was the other way around: thebishop’s see of Bergen ‘made’ Sunniva, in order to provide Bergen with the relicsof a patron saint like Trondheim, Oslo, and Stavanger. That the figure of Sunnivacould have been promoted by Bergen in order to obtain a patron saint of its ownwas suggested more than ten years ago by Knut Helle. He concurs with Arne Odd68

Johnsen that Sunniva as a figure appears relatively late, after 1100.69


Cf. Gjerløw, Ordo Nidrosiensis, p. 78.70

Storm edited the two versions known at that time, from the printed Breviarium Nidrosiense71

(1519) and Acta sanctorum (1680): MHN, pp. 155–58. The other versions are edited in Oloph.Odenius, ‘Ett obeaktat fragment av S. Hallvards legend’, (Norsk) Historisk Tidsskrift, 41 (1961–62),321–31; and Gjerløw, Ordo Nidrosiensis, pp. 421–24. The contents of the legend can be found inparaphrase, in Norwegian, in Daae, Norges helgener, pp. 163–69, and, in English, in Gjerløw, OrdoNidrosiensis, pp. 421–22.

From the twelfth to early sixteenth centuries Bergen Cathedral was an im-pressive building, some forty meters in length. Today one needs considerableimagination to envisage Sunniva’s magnificent shrine. One of the impacts of thetranslation on the cult of St Sunniva was that it provided her with a local feast ofher own, on 7 September. Liturgically the difference between the feast on 8 July70

and 7 September is clear: the liturgy for the feast day of the Selja saints is to befound in the commons for martyrs, while the liturgy for the 7 September feast isfrom the commons for a virgin. Thus on the day of her translation Sunniva did nothave to share the attention with her followers.

Oslo and Hallvard

The story of the merchant’s son Hallvard Vebjørnson may well have roots inhistorical events. The Icelandic annals report that Hallvard died in 1043 and pre-sumably some form of cult developed soon after this date. At some point Hallvardwas moved from his original resting place in Lier to Oslo, where he became thepatron saint of the cathedral. The building of Oslo cathedral was completed duringthe first decades of the twelfth century, and it is reasonable to believe that Hall-vard’s body was translated to Oslo at the completion of the church.

The Latin legend is transmitted in four versions with a common textual originof unknown date: two versions are for a feast of three readings, and two versionsfor a feast of nine readings. The core of the legend is as follows:71

St Hallvard, a young merchant related to St Olaf on his mother’s side, tried tohelp a pregnant woman chased by three men who accused her of stealing from oneof them. As Hallvard and the woman were crossing the fiord Dram in his boat, themen caught up with them, and after a heated discussion in which Hallvard tried toestablish the woman’s guilt or innocence, the men shot him in the chest with anarrow. After killing the woman too, the men tried to hide the violent act. Theyburied the woman and then tied a stone over Hallvard’s neck and threw him in thewater, where he was later found floating with the stone still tied to his neck.

Åslaug Ommundsen90

The Latin text reads fortem, but the mention of fons above should justify the emendation to72

fontem.

He shares his youth and innocence and to some extent his royal lineage with the Anglo-73

Saxon saints described by Paul A. Hayward, ‘Innocent Martyrdom in English Hagiology’, inMartyrs and Martyrologies, ed. by Diana Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), pp. 81–92.

The longest version of his legend is on a fragment discovered in Stockholm. Itincludes an inventio, the tale of how the body was discovered: three men walkingby the shore see a burning torch in the sky, underneath which they discover thebody of Hallvard floating in the water. When they see that he floats with a stonetied to his neck, they conclude that he must be holy. The men bring him to theshore, and after further miraculous events they bring the news to Hallvard’s fatherthat he has a saintly son, who gave a blind man his eyesight back and made a wellspring from the ground.72

St Hallvard is a different type of saint than the two discussed previously.According to his legend he was young and innocent, an honest tradesman, whosuffered a cruel injustice while arguing in favour of the law. Although Hallvard’s73

legend has not changed as dramatically as that of the Selja saints, there are elementswhich one could suspect are later additions. It is also worth considering whetherchanges could have been instigated by his function as patron saint for a cathedral,and in effect the diocese of Oslo. According to Daae, a man suffering a brutal andperhaps unwarranted death could be regarded as having saintly qualities, but thequestion is if that would be enough for the patron saint of a diocese. The legend israther ambiguous about the woman’s innocence, although it indicates that thereis no evidence for her guilt. The person that Hallvard defended may not even havebeen a woman in the initial phases, as Adam of Bremen refers to the character asinimicus in the masculine. As soon as the woman is portrayed as pregnant, however,her guilt or innocence becomes almost insignificant, since the unborn child wasinnocent and worthy of protection. Through the presence of an unborn child,Hallvard is no longer just a young man defending an enemy against his friends, buta saint dying in the protection of an innocent soul against a cruel and violent death.

Conclusion

The cult of saints in Norway was, as in the rest of Europe, founded on the cult ofthe universal saints with additional local saints. Bergen was the diocese that seemsto have struggled the most to acquire a shrine holding a suitable patrona in its


cathedral. With Sunniva in place, four out of five dioceses on the Norwegian main-land had patron saints, three local and one imported, with relics resting in thecathedrals. The local patron saints were holy people of different categories: Olafwas the king and martyr who died to save his people; Sunniva was the virgin martyrwho refused a heathen suitor; and Hallvard was the young innocent man, mur-dered while leading an exemplary life. As different as they seem, they have somesimilarities. They all share the power and authority of royalty: Olaf the king,Sunniva the queen, and Hallvard the young nobleman, according to his legend aclose relative of King Olaf. All three saints were honoured with formalized cultsand with suitable legends holding some historical elements interspersed with hagio-graphical topoi. Their cults developed according to different patterns, but endedup serving the same purpose. From the early phases of the permanent bishops’ seeson the Norwegian mainland, the bishops and the local saints lent each otherauthority and credibility. The saints’ importance seems to be founded in theirability to serve the needs of people, royalty, and the Church at the same time.

Åslaug Ommundsen92

Table 2. The feasts of saints celebrated in Norway up to the thirteenthcentury.

Sources:DN — Letter from Pope Leo IX to Adalbert in 1053, DN, XVII, no. 849.GT — Older Gulathing’s law, in Norges gamle love indtil 1387, vol. I, ed. by R . Keyser and P. A.

Munch (Christiania: [n.pub.], 1846), pp. 10–11.SK — ‘King Sverre’s Church law’, in Norges gamle love indtil 1387, vol. I, ed. by Keyser and Munch,

pp. 421–22.FT — Older Frostathing’s law, in Norges gamle love indtil 1387, vol. I, ed. by Keyser and Munch,

pp. 138–39 and 142.BT — Older Borgarthing’s law, in Norges gamle love indtil 1387, vol. I, ed. by Keyser and Munch,

p. 348.ET — Older Eidsivathing’s law, in Norges gamle love indtil 1387, vol. I, ed. by Keyser and Munch,

pp. 377–78.ON — The Nidaros ordinal c. 1200, in Gjerløw, Ordo Nidrosiensis.

Celebrations of saints DN GT SK FT BT ET ON

Brittifu, 11 Jan. xConversio Pauli, 25 Jan. x x x xPurificatio Marie, 2 Feb. x x x x x x xPetri cathedra, 22 Feb. x xMatthias ap., 24 Feb. x x x x x1

Gregorius, 12 Mar. x xAnnuntiatio Marie, 25 Mar. x x x x x xMagnus Orc., 16 April x x add2

Philippus et Jacobus ap., 1 May x x x x (iii)3

Inventio crucis, 3 May x x x x x x (iii)Hallvardus, 15 May x x x x x (iii)Botulphus, 17 June x x x xJohannes bapt., 24 June x x x x x x xPetrus (et Paulus), 29 June x x x x x x xSwithunus, 2 July x x x xSancti in Selio, 8 July x x x x x x4

Canutus, 10 July x xMargareta, 20 July x xJacobus ap., 25 July x x x x xOlavus, 29 July x x x x x x5

Translatio Olavi, 3 Aug. x x x com6

Laurentius, 10 Aug. x x x x x x xAssumptio Marie, 15 Aug. x x x x x x xBartholomeus ap., 24 Aug. x x x x x


Celebrations of saints DN GT SK FT BT ET ON

Referred to as laupars messa.1

Added in the margins of manuscripts of the Nidaros ordinal.2

The two first celebrations of May, Philip and Jacob and the Inventio crucis, are in the Nidaros3

ordinal prescribed with three readings only, but in the calendar of Oslo MS 4° 31 from c. 1300 theyare entered with nine readings. Hallvard had three readings in Nidaros, but presumably ninereadings in both Oslo and Hamar.

The Selja saints are in the calendar of Oslo MS 4° 31 entered with a vigil.4

The feast for Felix, Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrix is on 29 July. The Nidaros prescribes5

that they should be celebrated on the day before, on the vigils of Saint Olaf, along with Pantaleon(28 July).

The main feast for 3 August in the Nidaros ordinal is the Inventio beati Stephani6

protomartyris. A commemoration was to be made for St Olaf for vespers and matins; cf. Gjerløw,Ordo Nidrosiensis, p. 375.

The feast for Thomas of Canterbury is entered in one of the two manuscripts. 7

Nativitas Marie, 8 Sept. x x x x x xExaltatio crucis, 14 Sept. x x x xMatheus ap., 21 Sept. x x x x xMauritius, 22 Sept. x xMichael, 29 Sept. x x x x x x xSimon et Judas ap., 28 Oct. x x x x x xOmnes sancti, 1 Nov. x x x x x x xMartinus, 11 Nov. x x x x xClemens, 23 Nov. x x x xAndreas ap., 30 Nov. x x x x x xNicholas, 6 Dec. x x x x xThomas ap., 21 Dec. x x x x xStephanus, 26 Dec. x x x x x x x (oct)Johannes ap., 27 Dec. x x x x x x x (oct)Infantes innocentes, 28 Dec. x x x x x x (oct)Thomas Cant., 29 Dec. x x x x7

*Darker shading refers to the highest ranking feasts (with nónhelg or vigil), lighter shading to feasts

of middle rank (without nónhelg, but with nine readings).

BYZANTINE SAINTS IN RUS’AND THE CULT OF BORIS AND GLEB

Monica White

The Christian culture of late antiquity produced a spectacular array of saints.Particularly in the eastern Mediterranean, religious fervour inspired actsof bravery and self-mortification which still have the power to astonish

today. During persecutions martyrs cheerfully endured torture and death, and inlater centuries ascetics mortified their flesh through hunger, thirst, exposure, andlack of sleep. These practices continued to develop for several centuries, producingever more extreme forms of self-sacrifice. Late antique hagiography provides evi-dence for both the deeds of the saints and the priorities of their admirers, whooften devoted large sections of their narratives to descriptions of torments, whetherself-inflicted or administered by persecuting authorities. These writings preservedthe memory of saintly martyrs and ascetics as part of the idealized early Christianpast long after they had faded from the Byzantine religious landscape. They alsoallowed the veneration of such saints to continue in newly converted lands, suchas Kievan Rus’, which had not experienced large-scale persecutions or the begin-nings of the ascetic movement. Many ancient saints became well loved in Rus’, andliterary and artistic sources attest to their veneration. But as in contemporaryByzantium, there were few new saints who imitated the early holy men andwomen, and extreme asceticism seems, in particular, not to have been widely pur-sued. Political circumstances led, however, to the revival of the category of martyrin the case of the saintly princes Boris and Gleb. Despite its extinction in Byzan-tium, it proved to be the most appropriate model on which to construct this newcult. Their significant dissimilarities with their predecessors notwithstanding,Boris and Gleb were assimilated into an established group of Byzantine martyrs.

Monica White96

A classic study of some of the most important early sources is The Acts of the Christian Mar-1

tyrs, trans. and ed. by Herbert Musurillo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972; repr., 1979); anintroduction to the history of the period can be found in W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecu-tion in the Early Church (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965); on the development of the idea of martyrdomin Christian thought, see Theofried Baumeister, Die Anfänge der Theologie des Martyriums, Mün-sterische Beiträge zur Theologie, 45 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1980).

See e.g. The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas and The Martyrdom of Agape, Irene, Chione2

and Companions in Acts of the Christian Martyrs, trans. and ed. by Musurillo, pp. 106–31, 280–93.

Athanase d’Alexandrie, Vie d’Antoine, trans. and ed. by G. J. M. Bartelink, Sources3

Chrétiennes, 400 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1994). English translation in Athanasius of Alexandria,

Sainthood in the Early Byzantine World: A Brief Overview

The phenomenon of martyrdom, the first widespread form of sainthood, cast along shadow over the Church in general and the development of sainthood inparticular. This voluntary sacrifice of oneself to one’s enemies, closer than anyother to that of Christ himself, was held in the highest esteem by many Christiansboth before and after Emperor Constantine declared official toleration for the newfaith in 313. Because the persecutions continued intermittently for several1

hundred years and inspired strong reactions from pagans and Christians alike, avariety of sources related to the phenomenon survive. Many hagiographic texts, forexample, incorporate records of trials, showing that at least some Christians whorefused to perform civic duties which they considered to be idolatrous werebrought before baffled judges to account for their actions. The subsequent execu-2

tion of the defendants is likewise recorded by both admiring and unsympatheticeyewitnesses. Although much remains unclear about the scale and consequencesof the persecutions, there can be no doubt that many Christians met their deathsby public execution for their non-conformist behaviour.

When large-scale persecutions ended in the early fourth century, zealous Chris-tians were no longer able to prove their faith by willingly giving up their lives. Withmartyrdom unattainable for most, those determined to sacrifice themselves fortheir faith embarked on internal struggles against temptation and sin. Christianshad already begun to pursue lives of contemplation and prayer before the end ofthe persecutions, particularly in the Egyptian desert. St Anthony went further, liv-ing alone for years at a time and enduring severe privations. Although he gathereda number of disciples during his lifetime, the account of his life by St Athanasiosof Alexandria ensured that he was both well known and widely imitated through-out the Christian world. Following its initial appearance, Christian asceticism3

BYZANTINE SAINTS IN RUS’ AND THE CULT OF BORIS AND GLEB 97

The Life of Anthony, trans. by Tim Vivian and Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Cistercian Studies, 202(Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2003).

On these types of saints, see Hippolyte Delehaye, Les Saints stylites (Brussels: Société des4

Bollandistes, 1923); and Sergey A. Ivanov, Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, trans. by SimonFranklin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). No general study of the grazer phenomenonhas yet been published, but a new edition of the life of Mary of Egypt, one of the most famous ofthese saints, can be found in ‘Life of St. Mary of Egypt’, trans. and ed. by Maria Kouli, in HolyWomen of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. by Alice-Mary Talbot(Washington, DC : Dumbarton Oaks, 1996), pp. 65–93.

Philip Rousseau, Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt (Berkeley:5

University of California Press, 1985; repr. 1999).

Basil the Great, Regulae fusius tractatae and Regulae brevius tractatae, in Patrologia graeca,6

XXXI, cols 889–1052, 1080–1305B. English translation in Basil of Caesarea, The Ascetic Works ofSaint Basil, trans. and ed. by W. K. L. Clarke (London: SPCK, 1925).

Ivanov, Holy Fools, p. 131.7

acquired diverse forms. In the centuries between the end of the persecutions andthe Arab invasions, the pursuit of ever more severe ways to mortify the flesh led tothe appearance of saints such as stylites, who lived on top of pillars for decades ata time, grazers, who ate only what they could find growing in the open desert, andholy fools, who feigned madness and endured constant derision and humiliation.4

Such self-directed forms of asceticism were not suitable for everyone, and insti-tutional monasticism appeared soon after the first hermits. Anthony’s youngercontemporary St Pachomios organized the earliest known communities for menand women in Egypt, and required the inhabitants to engage in communal workand prayer. St Basil the Great, concerned about the potential for itinerant holy5

men to undermine the authority of the institutional Church, discouraged thesolitary life and wrote the earliest surviving rule for monastic communities.6

Hermitic and coenobitic monasticism thus existed side by side in late antiquity andcontinued to do so throughout Byzantine history. Yet they were not alwayspursued by equal numbers of people and did not produce equal numbers of saints.Public and charismatic ascetics such as holy fools and stylites became less commonafter the Arab invasions of the seventh century, which deprived the empire of thetraditional centres of such practices in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. The Church’sefforts to ban potentially subversive practices also discouraged this type ofbehaviour, and canon 60 of the Council in Trullo of 692 stipulated that holy foolswere to be punished. Although these and other types of independent ascetics never7

disappeared completely, the coenobitic life became the most widely practised form

Monica White98

See definitions in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. by Alexander P. Kazhdan and others8

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 1991, 1338, 1341.

On the history of the most important menologion, that compiled by Symeon Metaphrastes,9

see Christian Høgel, Symeon Metaphrastes: Rewriting and Canonization (Copenhagen: MuseumTusculanum, 2002).

of monasticism in the middle and late Byzantine periods (mid-ninth through mid-fifteenth centuries).

The saintly martyrs and ascetics of the past were, however, not forgotten, andthe cults of many remained vigorous long after their practices had faded from livedexperience. The extended vitae of late antique saints continued to be copied andread, and many of them were incorporated into the standardized collections whichbegan to be produced in increasing numbers from the tenth century onwards. Thecompilation of synaxaria (collections of short summaries of many saints’ lives),menologia (collections of longer versions of fewer vitae), and menaia (collectionsof readings, hagiographical notices, and hymns) ensured that they were com-memorated and celebrated as part of the annual cycle of feast days in the medievalOrthodox Church. Vitae were not usually added to these compendia in their8

original form. The entries in synaxaria were short, meaning that many of the saints’deeds were not included; the texts in menologia, although much longer, were oftenrewritten to suit contemporary tastes, meaning that passages could be added,changed, or taken out altogether. Even so, the saints’ inclusion in these volumes9

meant that their names and most important deeds were known to a relatively largeaudience. The comprehensiveness and convenient calendar format of thecompilations meant, moreover, that they were widely used and copied both withinthe empire and beyond its borders. For, although not originally intended as aproselytizing tool, these ‘encyclopaedic’ arrangements of hagiographic texts provedto be an effective means by which to introduce traditions of sainthood to newlyconverted lands, and in particular to Rus’.

A great deal of Byzantine hagiography in a variety of formats was brought to ortranslated in Rus’ between the principality’s official conversion to Christianity inthe late tenth century and the Mongol invasions of the 1230s. There is, however,nothing like a scholarly consensus regarding the scope and extent of this activity.The thorny question of whether individual works were translated in Rus’ orbrought there in translated form from Bulgaria or Mt Athos continues to bediscussed. Furthermore, almost nothing is known about the process of selectingtexts for translation, and very few dates have been established even for works whichare known to have been translated during the period, whether in the Balkans or in


On these questions, see in particular Francis J. Thomson, ‘The Nature and Reception of10

Christian Byzantine Culture in Russia in the Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries and its Impli-cations for Russian Culture’ and ‘“Made in Russia”: A Survey of the Translations Allegedly Madein Kievan Russia’, in The Reception of Byzantine Culture in Medieval Russia (Aldershot: Ashgate,1999), nos I and V.

Ostromirovo Evangelie 1056–1057 goda, ed. by Nikolai Rozov, 2 vols (Leningrad: Aurora,11

1988); and Arkhangel’skoe Evangelie 1092 goda, ed. by T. L. Mironova (Moscow: Skriptorii, 1997).

Mstislavovo Evangelie XII veka: Issledovaniia, ed. by O. V. Kurochkina, E. B. Novikov, and12

L. P. Gorbunova (Moscow: Skriptorii, 1997). A comparison of the Gospel’s mesiatseslov with Greekand other Rus’ texts of the same type can be found in section 2 (pp. 350–571).

Rus’. It would be beyond the scope of the present study to attempt to establish10

all of the ancient saints whose cults became known to the early East Slavs and elu-cidate where and by whom the texts related to them were translated. The evidenceis sufficient, however, to investigate the types of hagiography and other workswhich are known to have circulated in Rus’ (wherever they were translated), as wellas their influence on the development of native forms of sainthood.

The Transmission of Byzantine Saints to Early Rus’ and the Cults ofAscetics

Some of the earliest evidence for the veneration of ancient saints among the EastSlavs comes from two of the oldest extant manuscripts from Rus’, the OstromirGospel of 1056/57 and the Arkhangelsk Gospel of 1092. Both are translations of11

the Greek Gospel lectionary (Slavonic aprakos), a liturgical book which providesGospel readings for the cycle of moveable feasts starting from Easter (sinaksarii)and the cycle of saints’ days and fixed feasts starting on 1 September (mesiatseslov).A basic list of the names of many prominent saints, including a number of earlymartyrs and ascetics, was thus available in Rus’ by the mid-eleventh century. Thecontent of the mesiatseslov was not fixed, however, and other manuscripts showthat it continued to expand over the following decades. The Mstislav Gospel of theearly twelfth century includes, for example, an expanded mesiatseslov which men-tions a number of saints not found in the earlier works. These Gospel books do12

not, however, include any information about the lives of these saints, other than,in some cases, an indication of the category to which they belonged. It is unlikely,furthermore, that the full vitae of all of the saints mentioned in these volumes wereavailable in Rus’ at the time the Gospel books were copied or even long thereafter,and many of them were probably known only by their names.

Monica White100

Aurelio de Santos Otero, ‘Die altslavische Überlieferung der Vita Antonii des Athanasius’,13

Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 90 (1979), 96–106. There are other, though less direct, cluesindicating that Nestor also took inspiration from the vitae of Sabbas the Sanctified and Euthymiusthe Great by Cyril of Scythopolis. See The ‘Paterik’ of the Kievan Caves Monastery, trans. and ed.by Muriel Heppell, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature: English Translations, 1(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. xxii.

The ‘Paterik’, trans. and ed. by Heppell, pp. xx–xxi; and Muriel Heppell, ‘Slavonic Transla-14

tions of Early Byzantine Ascetical Literature’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 5 (1954), 86–100.

V. P. Adrianova, Zhitie Alekseia Cheloveka Bozhiia v drevnei russkoi literature i narodnoi15

slovesnosti (Petrograd: Tipografiia Ia. Bashmakov i Ko., 1917; repr. The Hague: Mouton, 1969),pp. 82–89; G. Podskalsky, Christentum und theologische Literatur in der Kiever Rus’, (988–1237)(Munich: Beck, 1982), pp. 126–34; and A. V. Rystenko, Legenda o sv. Georgii i Drakone vvizantiiskoi i slavianorusskoi literaturakh (Odessa: Ekonomicheskaia tipografiia, 1909).

Uspenskii Sbornik XII–XIII vv., ed. by O. A. Kniazhevskaia, V. G. Dem’ianov, and M. V.16

Liapon (Moscow: Nauka, 1971), pp. 135–60, 177–88, 212–20, 248–53.

Such, to be sure, was not always the case. Despite the general uncertainty whichsurrounds the copying and dissemination of literary works in early Rus’, a numberof extended vitae of ancient saints are known to have circulated prior to the Mon-gol invasion. Not surprisingly, many saints who were widely venerated in Byzan-tium and the west also acquired vigorous cults and relatively full hagiographictraditions in Rus’. Anthony, for example, was well known to his East Slavonicmonastic successors. Although the earliest surviving Rus’ manuscript of his vita wascopied in the fourteenth century, the text was known by the late eleventh or earlytwelfth century, when the monk Nestor used it as a model for his own hagiographicaccount of the life of Theodosius, an early superior of the Kievan Caves Mon-astery. The lives of other desert fathers were also known through Slavonic transla-13

tions of late antique paterika, and all or parts of a number of works, including theHistoria monachorum in Aegypto, the Lausiac History, and the Pratum Spirituale,were available in Rus’. Many other celebrated saints are known to have made early14

appearances, including Alexios the Man of God, Nicholas of Myra, and George.15

Thus, in addition to the inclusion of their names in Gospel lectionaries, thefame of these and other universal saints spread to Rus’ through Slavonic transla-tions of their vitae, which helped transplant their cults to a new country. Yetknowledge of saints in Rus’ was not limited to those who were most widelyvenerated in Byzantium. The Uspenskii Sbornik (miscellany) of the late twelfth orearly thirteenth century includes, for example, lengthy entries for seven earlymartyrs: Irene, Christopher, Erasmus, Theodosius, and the companions Vitus,Modestus, and Crescentia. This choice of saints, which the editors suggest16


Uspenskii Sbornik XII–XIII vv., ed. by Kniazhevskaia, Dem’ianov, and Liapon, p. 10.17

P. A. Rappoport, Russkaia arkhitektura X–XIII vv.: katalog pamiatnikov, Arkheologiia SSSR,18

svod arkheologicheskikh istochnikov, E1–47 (Leningrad: Nauka, 1982); and R. Janin, La Géo-graphie ecclésiastique de l’Empire byzantin, 3 vols (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1953),III.

Vygoleksinskii Sbornik, ed. by S. I. Kotkov (Moscow: Nauka, 1977).19

Menaea Septembris Octobris Novembris: Ad fidem vetustissimorum codicum, ed. by V. Jagiæ20

(St Petersburg: Imp. Academiae scientiarum socius, 1886), pp. 03–15, 0187–192, 43–50; andPutiatina Mineia (XI vek) v kruge tekstov i istolkovaniia: 1–10 maia, ed. by Liudmila Shchegoleva(Moscow: Territoriia, 2001).

Slovar’ knizhnikov i knizhnosti drevnei Rusi X – pervaia polovina XIV v., ed. by D. S.21

Likhachev (Leningrad: Nauka, 1987), I, 377. Most of these manuscripts include readings forbetween one and six months, rather than the entire year.

represents the personal preference of the commissioner, is intriguing. All but the17

first two were not particularly widely venerated: there were, for example, no knownchurches dedicated to them in Rus’ or Byzantium. The same is true of Nifont, a18

bishop of the city of Constantia in Cyprus in the fourth century, whose vitaappears, along with that of Theodore of Studios, in the Vygoleksinskii Sbornik ofthe late twelfth century. The survival of full hagiographic treatments of such19

unsung figures hints at the range of ancient saints who were known in Rus’. Thosewho were in a position to commission manuscripts were apparently able to selectrelatively obscure saints for whom extended vitae were available.

There can, however, be little doubt that most saints, famous or otherwise, wereknown primarily through short entries in liturgical and hagiographic compilations.Translations of these works appeared early in Rus’, and the large number of sur-viving manuscripts attests to their widespread use: as necessary components ofdaily worship, they were part of the basic equipment for any church. The earliestdated Rus’ menaion, for the months of September, October, and November, wascopied in 1095–97, although the undated Putiatina menaion for 1–10 May isprobably about the same age. Almost all of the entries in both works are transla-tions of Greek hymns, a number of which commemorate celebrated martyrs andearly ascetics, including Symeon the Stylite, Thecla, Sergius and Bacchus, Timothy,and Pelagia. In addition to this unusually early evidence for the translation of20

liturgical material into Slavonic, several dozen other parchment copies of Slavonicmenaia are housed in Russian archives. Even more numerous are synaxaria, ofwhich some fifty manuscripts from the fourteenth century and earlier survive.21

This collection became known as the prolog among the Orthodox Slavs, apparently

Monica White102

On the prolog, see Slovar’ knizhnikov, ed. by Likhachev, I, 376–81; and N. D. Bubnov,22

‘Slaviano-russkie prologi’, in Metodicheskoe posobie po opisaniiu slaviano-russkikh rukopisei dliasvodnogo kataloga rukopisei, khraniashchikhsia v SSSR, ed. by Arkheograficheskaia komissiia priotdelenii istorii AN SSSR and others (Moscow: [n.pub.], 1973), pp. 274–96.

Confusingly, the Menologion of Basil II is actually a synaxarion. Its content is similar to that23

of the tenth-century Synaxarion of Constantinople.

Slovar’ knizhnikov, ed. by Likhachev, I, 378–79; and E. A. Fet, ‘O Sofiiskom Prologe kontsa24

XII – nachala XIII v.’, in Istochnikovedenie i arkheografiia Sibiri, ed. by N. N. Pokrovskii and E. K.Romodonovskaia (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1977), pp. 78–92.

due to a misinterpretation of the Greek prologos, indicating a preface in the originaltext. The earliest version of the prolog, of which only a few copies survive, is called22

the Slavianskii Sinaksar’. It is based, with minor additions, on the late tenth- orearly eleventh-century Menologion of Basil II. At some point in the next century23

it was revised, and short edificatory articles from the works of John Chrysostom,the desert fathers, and other authors were added to each entry. This version of theprolog, known as the pervaia redaktsiia (first redaction), circulated most widely inpre-Mongol Rus’. When it was revised again in the late thirteenth or early four-teenth century, both the vitae and the supplementary articles were expanded. Thisversion is known as the vtoraia redaktsiia (second redaction).24

It would be impossible to determine how many more-or-less complete full vitaeof ancient saints were known in Rus’, since many of the relevant manuscripts havebeen lost. There can be little doubt, however, that most saints, at most times, wereknown primarily through collections such as the menaion and prolog. The extendedvita of Nicholas, for example, was probably not available in every church andmonastery, even though copies of it certainly existed. Institutions which did nothave it might, however, have a compilation which would supply at least the basicfacts about him. This, then, was the raw material on which most knowledge ofsainthood was based in Rus’: a limited number of full vitae and paterika, and amore generous supply of compilations. By no means a complete inventory ofByzantine texts, these resources were nevertheless sufficient to inspire and influ-ence the development of native forms of sainthood.

Independent ascetics did not, it seems, serve as models for new saints, althoughthey were widely venerated in early Rus’. It would, of course, be impossible to provethat no solitary ever attempted to live on top of a pillar or alone in the openwilderness. Indeed, the richest source on monasticism in early Rus’, the Paterik ofthe Kievan Caves Monastery, mentions a number of monks who engaged in severemortification of the flesh. This compilation, assembled in the thirteenth century,


The ‘Paterik’, trans. and ed. by Heppell, pp. xviii–xx. The Slavonic text is in Das Paterikon25

des Kiever Hölenklosters, ed. by D. Abramoviè and Dmitrij Tschižewskij, Slavische Propyläen, 2(Munich: Eidos, 1964).

Das Paterikon, ed. by Abramoviè and Tschižewskij, pp. 158–59; translation in The ‘Paterik’,26

trans. and ed. by Heppell, pp. 158–59.

Das Paterikon, ed. by Abramoviè and Tschižewskij, p. 170.27

Das Paterikon, ed. by Abramoviè and Tschižewskij, pp. 18–23; translation in The ‘Paterik’,28

trans. and ed. by Heppell, p. 20.

includes stories about inhabitants of the monastery from the late eleventh centuryonwards, as well as other writings. Some of the discourses describe practices of25

self-denial which would not have been unfamiliar in late antique Egypt or Syria.John the Solitary, for example, ‘shut himself up alone in a confined space in thecave and remained there for thirty years in a life of great austerity. He tormentedhis body by much fasting and wore heavy irons on all parts of it’. Prokhor, like the26

grazers of late antiquity, ate only what he could find growing in the wild and madeloaves from pigweed, which miraculously became sweet because of his piety. The27

monks of the Caves Monastery (and, presumably, other institutions in Rus’ aboutwhich no sources survive) were certainly no strangers to ancient ascetic practices.Some of them doubtless modelled themselves consciously on their predecessors,taking inspiration from translated paterika.

Nevertheless, there were also significant differences between the desert fathersand their successors far to the north. One of these was the predominance of thecoenobitic life in Rus’. All of the monks described in the Paterik were currentmembers of the Caves Monastery or former members who had moved to otherinstitutions. There is, in general, very little evidence from early Rus’ for asceticsliving outside of monasteries, whether as solitaries in the wilderness or as urbanholy men. According to the Paterik, Anthony, the founder of the monastery, didspend time living in isolated contemplation, but he was never far from Kiev.Moreover, he travelled twice to ‘the Holy Mountain’ (generally identified as MtAthos) and lived in a monastery there, and was sent back to Rus’ the second timewith the express purpose of spreading monasticism: ‘The superior summonedAnthony and said to him, “Anthony, go back to Rus’, for God wishes it, and maythe blessing of the Holy Mountain be with you, for many shall become monksthrough you.”’ Anthony assembled a community of monks before retiring to anearby hill, although even then the brethren continued to consult with him.28

Anthony’s story is not dissimilar to that of his Egyptian namesake or other earlyhermits: an early period of isolation followed by the gathering of disciples, and a

Monica White104

On this episode, see Claire Farrimond, ‘Tradition and Originality in Early Russian29

Monasticism: The Application of the Stoudite Rule at the Kievan Caves Monastery’ (unpublisheddoctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000).

The ‘Paterik’, trans. and ed. by Heppell, p. li.30

The ‘Paterik’, trans. and ed. by Heppell, pp. 205–10. There is also a reference to the monk31

Abraham of Smolensk acting in the manner of a holy fool in the late twelfth or early thirteenthcentury, but this is mentioned only briefly in his vita. Ivanov, Holy Fools, p. 255.

Both holy fools and hermits became common in Rus’ and Muscovy in later centuries, once32

the Church was more firmly established. Holy fools, in particular, re-emerged in the fifteenthcentury. Ivanov, Holy Fools, pp. 258–310.

final withdrawal before death. His experience seems, however, to have been theexception rather than the rule, and the other monks described in the Paterik eitherstayed in the Caves Monastery or moved to other institutions.

To be sure, the monastery’s organization was rather fluid in the decades afterAnthony’s retirement, and there seems to have been some experimentation withdifferent arrangements. The superior Theodosius attempted to implement the ruleof the Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople, but this proved impractical and wasabandoned soon after his death. Muriel Heppell observes that after the death of29

the superior Nikon in 1088 a more informal system took shape, in which monkssupported each other in their ascetic discipline and spiritual fathers guided theformation of younger monks. Although less structured than the Stoudite rule,30

this system was still based on a community living together and sharing in work andprayer. Their impressive feats of self-denial notwithstanding, none of the monksdescribed in the Paterik, and certainly none of those venerated as saints, lived incomplete isolation. Although one monk, Isaac, spent some time behaving in themanner of a holy fool, this took place within the monastery rather than indepen-dently in a city, in the manner of most Byzantine holy fools. In any case, he even-tually gave up this way of life. The fact that this and other forms of independent31

asceticism were not widely practised in early Rus’ is perhaps not surprising: Chris-tianity arrived through the established institutional Church of Constantinople,and the faith was spread largely through the foundation of churches and coenobiticmonasteries. Anthony is an example of someone who lived as a hermit for periodsof his life, and there must have been others like him. In the absence of a traditionof itinerant holy men, however, most people seeking the religious life — and ofthose, most who later became saints — entered monasteries.32


The Povìst’ vremennykh lìt: An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis, ed. by Donald Ostrowski,33

Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, 10.1–3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 2003), I, pp. xvii–xviii, lines 80,5–80,6, p. 573; II, lines 121,13–121,14, p. 947.

Byzantine Martyrs and the Cult of Boris and Gleb

Martyrdom, on the other hand, did have a prominent place in the development ofearly East Slavonic religious culture, despite its dormancy in Byzantium. Thepolitical circumstances of the principality meant that it quickly acquired two of itsown martyrs, whose cults were modelled closely on those of a certain subset of theirancient counterparts. Boris and Gleb, the first native saints of Rus’, were theyoungest sons of Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich of Kiev, who oversaw the officialconversion to Christianity in about 988. Although little is known about their lives,it is clear that neither of them fits the traditional mould of martyrs. As victims ofpolitical intrigue rather than persecution, they were not killed for their faith. Theirinnocent deaths nonetheless made a profound impression on some of their con-temporaries, who believed that these sufferings had endowed the brothers withsaintly qualities. In their writings about the new saints, Rus’ clerics found inspira-tion in the cults of martyrs, who were also innocent victims of violence, even if indifferent circumstances. The evidence for Boris and Gleb’s early cult is relativelyplentiful and reveals how traditional aspects of Byzantine veneration of martyrsfound a new outlet in the brothers. Although martyrs were no longer being pro-duced in contemporary Byzantium, this type of sainthood proved to be a fruitfulmodel in Rus’, and churchmen drew on the wealth of texts and images theyinherited from the empire to construct the cults of these new saints.

The historical evidence about Boris and Gleb is scant. They are mentioned inone of the oldest chronicles from Rus’, usually referred to in English as the PrimaryChronicle. This text is thought to have been compiled in 1116 by Sylvester, su-perior of the Monastery of the Archangel Michael in Kiev. His work was probablybased on earlier historical records which no longer survive, and the oldest manu-script of the chronicle dates from 260 years later. According to this source, thebrothers were Vladimir’s sons by a Bulgarian woman and were given the cities ofRostov and Murom, respectively, to rule. Nothing further is known about them33

until their deaths in 1015, and lengthy descriptions of these events are found inthree sources: the entry for that year in the Primary Chronicle, the monk Nestor’sLesson on the Life and Murder of the Blessed Passion-Sufferers Boris and Gleb (here-after the Lesson), and the anonymous Tale and Passion and Enkomion of the HolyMartyrs Boris and Gleb (hereafter the Tale). Although there are inconsistencies

Monica White106

Roman and David were the respective baptismal names of Boris and Gleb, and many writers34

used the names interchangeably. On the composition of these texts and English translations, seeThe Hagiography of Kievan Rus’, trans. and ed. by Paul Hollingsworth, Harvard Library of EarlyUkrainian Literature: English Translations, 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992);Slavonic texts in Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen und liturgischen Dichtungen überdie Heiligen Boris und Gleb, ed. by D. Abramoviè and Ludolf Müller, Slavische Propyläen, 14(Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1967).

George P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-35

versity Press, 1946; repr. 1966), I, 94–110.

Norman Ingham, ‘The Sovereign as Martyr, East and West’, Slavic and East European36

Journal, 17 (1973), 1–17.

among these accounts, it is generally agreed that Sviatopolk, Vladimir’s eldest son,occupied the throne of Kiev after his father’s death in 1015 and ordered theassassination of his half-brothers Boris and Gleb as potential rivals to the throne.Sviatopolk was eventually defeated in 1019 by another half-brother, Iaroslav, whobrought Gleb’s body to join that of Boris at the princely residence of Vyshgorod,which became the centre of their cult. Almost nothing else is known about thebrothers’ veneration until the composition of the Lesson in about the late eleventhcentury. The other texts were probably written over the next few decades, and anaccount of the saints’ miracles, known as the Tale of the Miracles of the HolyPassion-Sufferers of Christ Roman and David (hereafter the Tale of the Miracles),was written some time after the translation of their relics in 1115.34

Despite the early obscurity of their cult, the texts show that the brothers hadgained an enthusiastic following by the late eleventh century. The nature of theiremerging cult has been a matter of considerable scholarly debate. George Fedotovargued that they were venerated as ‘passion-bearers’ (Slavonic: strastoterptsy), orsaints who died in imitation of Christ, rather than as a result of persecutions, as inthe case of martyrs. Despite Fedotov’s assertion that this phenomenon was35

unique to Rus’, Norman Ingham has demonstrated the parallels between thebrothers and other saintly princes of northern Europe whose cults had similarfeatures. While the Scandinavian influence on the cult of Boris and Gleb is36

undeniable, the texts and images associated with their cult reveal that they werealso believed to have significant similarities with early martyrs, and in particular asmall group known as military saints. The fact that the brothers’ deaths did notoccur as a result of religious persecution was not, it seems, an obstacle to theirveneration as martyrs in Rus’. The texts connected with their cult refer to them asboth strastoterptsy and mucheniki, the term applied to ‘traditional’ martyrs, and


Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, p. 7 (Lesson),37

p. 30 (Tale).

Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, p. 6.38

Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, p. 9 (Lesson),39

pp. 32, 47 (Tale).

Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, p. 33;40

translation in Hagiography of Kievan Rus’, trans. and ed. by Hollingsworth, p. 103.

Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, p. 36.41

Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, pp. 56–58.42

they are frequently depicted holding the martyr’s attribute of the cross, as will bediscussed below. A violent death and posthumous miracles were sufficient grounds,it seems, for inclusion in this category, and the churchmen of Rus’ drew ontraditions surrounding the Byzantine cults of martyrs as a way of incorporatingBoris and Gleb into the canon of saints.

To be sure, martyrs were not the only type of holy person to whom Boris andGleb were compared. The authors of their hagiography found a number of modelsfor the brothers’ lives and deaths in scripture and earlier vitae. The Old Testament,for example, provided a wealth of precedents for Boris and Gleb’s experiences.Their status as the youngest sons of Vladimir encouraged comparisons between thebrothers and Joseph and Benjamin, the youngest sons of Jacob. The Lesson, more-37

over, compares Gleb with his baptismal namesake David, also the youngest childin his family. The similarities between Sviatopolk and Cain and the brothers and38

Abel are mentioned on several occasions, and Sviatopolk is compared to Lamech,another fratricidal figure in the Book of Genesis. Even more fruitful than the Old39

Testament as a source of comparisons were earlier Christian martyrs. The Talerelates that when Boris realized he would soon die, he contemplated ‘the martyrdomsand passions of the holy martyr Niketas and of holy Václav — slain in like fashion— and how the father of holy Barbara was her murderer’. These martyrs, all of40

whom were killed by family members, were obvious models for the brothers. Thesame work, emphasizing the similarities between the first martyr and the first saintof Rus’, describes Boris as repeating the words of St Stephen just before his death.41

These comparisons establish the holiness of the brothers’ lives and deaths byshowing their similarities with earlier figures from sacred history. They are alsoshown to have somewhat more complex links with other saints through theirposthumous deeds. In the fourth miracle of the Tale of the Miracles, Boris and Glebheal a lame and dumb beggar who was left out in the cold on St Nicholas’s feast daywhile a Vyshgorod town elder hosted a feast. Both the Lesson and the Tale of the42

Monica White108

Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, pp. 23–2443

(Lesson), pp. 58–59 (Tale of the Miracles).

On Nicholas’s Byzantine cult, see Nancy Patterson Ševèenko, The Life of Saint Nicholas in44

Byzantine Art (Torino: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1983). On stone icons from Rus’, see N. G. Porfiridov,‘Drevnerusskaia melkaia kamennaia plastika i ee suzhety’, Sovetskaia arkheologiia, 3 (1972),200–08.

Karl Krumbacher, ‘Der heilige Georg in der griechischen Überlieferung’, Abhandlungen der45

Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-philologisch und historische Klasse,25 (1911), 1–332.

Hippolyte Delehaye, Les Légendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris: Librairie Alphonse46

Picard et fils, 1909), pp. 259–63.

Miracles also include a story about a woman who stayed home from church on thesame feast day and was punished by Boris and Gleb, who caused her hand towither. She was eventually healed by praying in the brothers’ church. Instead of43

comparing aspects of Boris and Gleb’s lives or deaths to those of Nicholas, thesestories show how they assisted the more ancient saint and helped him maintainorder among the faithful. Nicholas was a particularly well-loved saint in Byzan-tium, and he seems to have been equally popular in Rus’, where stone icons bearinghis image outnumber those of all other saints. The fact that Boris and Gleb are44

shown to be associated with Nicholas is thus no coincidence, as their assistance ofhim must have added to their own prestige and authority.

Further miracle stories, as well as other types of evidence, show an even closerconnection between the brothers and the military saints, in particular George andDemetrios. Both of these martyrs had vigorous cults in Byzantium, although theirorigins are mysterious. The earliest hagiography of George is found in the frag-mentary fifth- or sixth-century Vienna palimpsest, which describes him as a soldierfrom Cappadocia. This and other early sources focus, however, on the spectaculartorments he endured rather than his military service. They relate that he wastortured for seven years by a certain Emperor Dadianos, during which time he diedthree times and was brought back to life. His sufferings aroused the sympathies ofthousands of onlookers, including Empress Alexandra, who declared their faith inChrist and were executed in turn. Only after his fourth death, by beheading, didhe go to heaven and receive his martyr’s crown. Demetrios is first attested in a45

passio written some time before the seventh century, according to which hepreached the Gospel to the citizens of Thessalonika during Maximian’s persecu-tion. The text says nothing about the saint performing military service, yet he was46

transformed into a soldier in a collection of seventh-century miracle stories which


Paul Lemerle, Les Plus Anciens Recueils des miracles de saint Démétrius, 2 vols (Paris: Centre47

National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1979). See in particular miracle nos 13–15.

R . Janin, ‘Les Églises byzantines des saints militaires, II. Églises Saint-Démétrius’, Echos48

d’Orient, 175 (1934), 331–39; and Hieromonk Akakios, Leontos tou sophou panugerikoi logoi(Athens: Ek ton piesterion Nikolaou Rousopoulou, 1868), pp. 125–26, 135–39.

Nicholas Oikonomides, ‘The Concept of “Holy War” and Two Tenth-Century Byzantine49

Ivories’, in Peace and War in Byzantium: Essays in Honor of George T. Dennis, S.J., ed. byTimothy S. Miller and John Nesbitt (Washington, DC : Catholic University of America Press,1995), pp. 62–86 (p. 73).

See Adolf Goldschmidt and Kurt Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des50

X.–XIII. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1934), II, 27, 34–35; and Byzantium:Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from British Collections, ed. by David Buckton (London:British Museum, 1994), pp. 142–43, ill. 153.

describe, among other things, his defence of his native city against invading Avarsand Slavs. Demetrios’s intercessions ensured that Thessalonika became the undis-47

puted centre of his cult, and he had no strong affiliations with the imperial courtor non-Thessalonian saints, such as George, in late antiquity.

Beginning in the ninth century, however, Demetrios and George, along withseveral other saints (in particular Theodore Teron, Theodore Stratelates, Proco-pius, and Nestor) began to attract the attention of successive members of theMacedonian dynasty. These emperors, who presided over Byzantium’s militaryresurgence, pioneered a new and religiously oriented philosophy of warfare whichincluded the cultivation of a corps of divine patrons, the military saints. Leo VI (r.886–912) began the process of recruiting this corps by coaxing the cult of Deme-trios away from Thessalonika, building a palace church in the saint’s honour, andcomposing homilies about him. Leo’s son Constantine VII (r. 913–59) seems to48

have been the first to envision a group of military saints protecting imperial armies:the ivory triptych in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, which he probably commis-sioned, depicts four saints with military associations on the inside of each wing,including George and Demetrios. The inscription on the left side highlights theirprotective role: ‘An emperor had the four martyrs sculpted; with them he puts toflight the enemies by storm.’ This is one of the earliest depictions of a group of49

military saints, and it expresses Constantine’s faith in these martyrs to fight along-side his armies. The work influenced a series of other triptychs featuring similargroups of holy warriors which were made between the mid-tenth and early elev-enth centuries. By the reign of Basil II (976–1025), the role of the military saints50

as the emperor’s protectors was firmly established. The portrait of Basil in his

Monica White110

Ihor Ševèenko, ‘The Illuminators of the Menologium of Basil II’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers,51

16 (1962), 243–76 (p. 273).

For a detailed analysis of the entries in these texts about the military saints, see Monica52

White, ‘Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus’, 900–1200’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Universityof Cambridge, 2004), pp. 87–117.

G. F. Korzukhina and A. A. Peskova, Drevnerusskie enkolpiony: nagrudnye kresty-relikvarii53

X–XIII vv., Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk, Institut istorii material’noi kul’tury, trudy, 7 (St Petersburg:Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 2003); T. V. Nikolaeva, Drevnerusskaia melkaia plastika iz kamniaXI–XV vv., Arkheologiia SSSR, svod arkheologicheskikh istochnikov, E1–60 (Moscow: Nauka,1983), pp. 85, 102–04, 106–07, 109, 141–42, 228–29.

Nikolaeva, Drevnerusskaia melkaia plastika, ill. 3, nos 4 and 6; ill. 16, nos 2 and 8; ill. 17, nos54

1 and 2; ill. 30, nos 6 and 7; ill. 50, no. 4 (George as warrior); ill. 6, nos 4 and 5; ill. 14, no. 1; ill. 17,no. 3; ill. 56, no. 7 (Demetrios); ill. 16, no. 1; and ill. 19, no. 4 (George with cross).

Psalter depicts the Emperor wearing parade armour, flanked on each side by threesimilarly clad military saints. The inscription confirms their prowess in battle whileemphasizing their original status: ‘The martyrs are his allies, for he is their friend.They smite [his enemies] who are lying at his feet.’51

It was in this form that George, Demetrios, and the other military saints werebrought to Rus’: as martyrs who had taken on new duties as the protectors of im-perial armies. As such, they were deemed appropriate models for Boris and Gleb,who combined martyrs’ deaths (or at least a close approximation thereof) withprotection of their kinsmen, the princely clan. The brothers’ lack of military ex-perience during their lifetimes was not an impediment to their posthumousprotective role; indeed, it was a feature they shared with Demetrios and othermilitary saints. Although the Rus’ did not have access to the luxury works of artdescribed above, the hagiographic and iconographic traditions they received fromByzantium allowed the military saints to gain popularity. Prolog and menaion texts,despite their brevity, recounted the stories of their lives and martyrdoms while alsopraising their warrior qualities. The early iconography of the saints from Rus’52

tends to emphasize their identity as soldiers, depicting them wearing armour andholding weapons. The cruciform enkolpia discovered in Rus’, for example, includeeight with depictions of George as a warrior and a further eight with similar por-traits but obscured inscriptions. By contrast, George appears as a martyr on onlyone enkolpion. Stone icons tell a similar story: T. V. Nikolaeva’s study of these53

objects mentions nine which depict George as a warrior and five with Demetriosin this guise, but only two in which George holds a cross.54


Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, p. 50;55

translation in Hagiography of Kievan Rus’, trans. and ed. by Hollingsworth, p. 114.

Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, pp. 59–60,56

24; translation in Hagiography of Kievan Rus’, trans. and ed. by Hollingsworth, pp. 30, 127.

These iconographic conventions do not mean that the saints’ adherents in Rus’were unaware of their status as martyrs, but rather that their warrior qualities werea particularly attractive aspect of their cults. The martial attributes of George andDemetrios are, if anything, even more prominent in the artistic sources from earlyRus’ than in contemporary Byzantine works, indicating a particular fascinationwith this feature. The fact that the hagiographic sources about Boris and Glebmake their most complex comparisons between the new saints and George andDemetrios thus indicates that the brothers were thought to share significantcommon features with their predecessors, including the attributes of martyrdomand military prowess. The Tale, for example, calls Vyshgorod, the centre of Borisand Gleb’s cult, a second Thessalonika. The author continues:

you also fight victoriously on behalf of your fatherland, even as the great Demetrios foughtfor his fatherland, saying, ‘If I was with them while they were rejoicing, then I shall die withthem when they are perishing.’ But the great Demetrios said this of a single town, while youcare and pray not just for one town or even two, but for the whole land of Rus.55

Boris and Gleb are thus shown to be similar to Demetrios, exercising equivalentpowers within their own jurisdiction. The same type of relationship is establishedbetween the brothers and George in the Lesson and the Tale of Miracles. Both textsinclude stories about a blind man who prays to George to restore his sight. Georgeappears to him and says:

Why are you thus crying to me, fellow? If you are in need of sight, I advise you to go to theholy martyrs Boris and Gleb. If they wish, they will give you the sight which you require.To them grace has been given by God to cure and heal every suffering and illness in thiscountry, the land of Rus.56

Although this incident does not have military overtones, it shows that the brothers’relationship with George is different to that which they were shown to have withNicholas. Rather than simply assisting the other saint, they have taken over someof his responsibilities and are performing similar duties in their own land.

Further evidence for the perceived parallels between Boris and Gleb and themilitary saints can be found in liturgical texts about the brothers. The earliest ofthese are attributed to Metropolitan John of Kiev, generally thought to be the firstincumbent by this name, who held office from 1020 to 1035, or possibly his

Monica White112

Gail Lenhoff, The Martyred Princes Boris and Gleb: A Socio-Cultural Study of the Cult and57

the Texts, UCLA Slavic Studies, 19 (Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1989), p. 56; texts in Diealtrussischen hagiographischen Erzählungen, ed. by Abramoviè and Müller, pp. 136–50.

Miloš Velimiroviæ, ‘The Influence of the Byzantine Chant on the Music of the Slavic Coun-58

tries’, in Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, ed. by J. M. Hussey,D. Obolensky and S. Runciman (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 119–47 (p. 131),and Felix Keller, ‘Das Kontakion aus der ersten Služba für Boris und Gleb’, in SchweizerischeBeiträge zum VII. Internationalen Slavistenkongreß in Warschau, August 1973, ed. by Peter Brangand others, Slavica Helvetica, 7 (Lucerne: C. J. Bucher, 1973), pp. 65–73 (pp. 69–72).

Keller, ‘Das Kontakion’, pp. 67–68, and Velimiroviæ, ‘Influence of the Byzantine Chant’,59

p. 136.

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov, Rukopisnyi otdel biblioteki moskovskoi60

sinodal’noi tipografii, Fond 381, no. 113, fol. 5 .v

Nikolaeva, Drevnerusskaia melkaia plastika, ill. 1, no. 1 (Gleb only); ill. 5, no. 1; and ill. 16,61

no. 3; T. V. Nikolaeva, Drevnerusskaia melkaia plastika XI–XVI vekov (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozh-nik, 1968), ill. 4; and V. L. Ianin and P. G. Gaidukov, Aktovye pechati drevnei Rusi X–XV vv., 3 vols

successor in the third quarter of the century. The hymns are not, for the most57

part, original compositions but were translated from Greek hymns to earlier saints.The identity of the saints whose hymns were ‘recycled’ in this manner is significant,since they were thought to have traits in common with Boris and Gleb. Metro-politan John’s office includes, for example, translated passages from hymns to twoother pairs of saints, Peter and Paul and Cyrus and John. It also contains elements58

from services to George, Demetrios, and the military saint Procopius. These59

passages contain no military imagery, instead praising their subjects’ martyrdomand asking for their intercession. The choice of saints from whom to borrow theverses was, however, probably not a coincidence and indicates the importance ofthe parallels between the two groups as both martyrs and warriors. Original litur-gical compositions also reflect this connection: a hymn in a Rus’ menaion praisesthe brothers for their protection of princes in battle, refers to Boris as ‘wondrousand brave warrior’ and adds, ‘a second Thessalonika in the Rus’ land rejoices:glorious Vyshgorod, having in it glorious grace’. As in the Tale, this equation of thetwo cities highlights the similarities between their patron saints.60

The iconography of Boris and Gleb also provides clues about their associationswith the military saints. Although the early iconography of the brothers wasdiverse, they frequently appeared holding crosses in their right hands and swordsin their left, or with one of these attributes. Depictions of this sort are found in avariety of media, including stone, metal, and panel icons as well as princely seals.61


(Moscow: Nauka and Intrada, 1970–98), I, nos 156, 167, 182, 193, 194, 207, 208, 217–20; III, nos219a, 228a, 231B.

See e.g. A. N. Svirin, Iuvelirnoe iskusstvo drevnei Rusi XI–XVII vekov (Moscow: Iskusstvo,62

1972), pp. 58–61; and I. A. Sterligova, Dekorativno-prikladnoe iskusstvo Velikogo Novgoroda:khudozhestvennyi metall XI–XV veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1996), pp. 242–48.

See Klaus Wessel, Byzantine Enamels from the 5th to the 13th century, trans. by Irene R.63

Gibbons (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1969), and L. Pisarskaia, N. Platonova, and B. Ul’ianova,Russkie emali XI–XIX vv. (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1974).

A study of the inverted heart motif along with a list of all known examples can be found in64

Monica White, ‘Byzantine Visual Propaganda and the Inverted Heart Motif’, Byzantion, 76(2006), 330–63.

The only other saints who had this combination of attributes were the holywarriors, who did occasionally appear holding crosses despite the apparent prefer-ence for portraits of them as soldiers. The association of these saints with the62

cross and the sword must have been well known to iconographers, and the appear-ance of Boris and Gleb with the same attributes is unlikely to have been accidental.The iconography of the two groups is not identical: the brothers are usually de-picted wearing their distinctive princely caps and with swords at their hips, whereasthe military saints typically hold their weapons, following Byzantine convention.Nevertheless, the saints’ shared attributes emphasize the importance of theircommon roles and demonstrate their close associations.

Another intriguing iconographic similarity between the two groups is found inthe medium of enamel. This art form was prized in Byzantium and was sold towealthy patrons in Rus’, as well as being manufactured locally. The iconographic63

conventions of Byzantine enamels are, in general, similar to those in other media,but a distinctive pattern found only in enamel appears on the clothing of certainholy figures. Rulers (both biblical and historical), archangels, military saints, anda small number of healer saints are often depicted wearing robes decorated withclosely spaced rows of inverted hearts. The pattern is also associated with Christand the Mother of God, but appears on nearby objects rather than on their cloth-ing, which iconographic convention dictated be plain. The earliest extant examplesof the inverted heart motif date from about the early eleventh century, and it wasapplied with remarkable consistency until as late as the fourteenth century,appearing on imposing works such as the Holy Crown of Hungary and the Palad’Oro, as well as more modest pieces. The pattern was transferred, along with the64

technology of enamelling, to Rus’, where it continued to be applied in the tradi-tional manner but also found a new application in portraits of Boris and Gleb. The

Monica White114

T. I. Makarova, Peregorodchatye emali drevnei Rusi (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), p. 33, nos 2965

(George?), 30, 31, 33; p. 57, no. 84 (Demetrios?); p. 67, nos 99/ 8, 9 (Boris and Gleb, medallionsfrom the Kammenobrodsk hoard); p. 75, nos 120, 121 (Boris and Gleb, medallions from theMstislav Gospels); Velikaia Rus’: Istoriia i khudozhestvennaia kul’tura, ed. by D. S. Likhachev andothers (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1994), p. 127, no. 36a (George?).

brothers appear twice each in enamel portraits from Rus’ wearing clothing deco-rated with inverted hearts. An additional six enamels discovered in Rus’ featureother young male martyrs in robes with a similar pattern. Although most of these65

enamels lack inscriptions, Boris and Gleb are identifiable by their princely hats, andsome of the other martyrs have facial features which are consistent with those ofGeorge and Demetrios. The rules pertaining to the inverted heart motif thus seemto have been known and understood beyond the borders of the empire. The rangeof subjects depicted in Rus’ enamels is smaller than that in Byzantine works, andmost of the figures associated with the pattern in Byzantium are not known in thesurviving corpus. Its appearance on the clothing of the military saints shows,however, that its application was consistent. The addition of Boris and Gleb wasa departure from established Byzantine practice, but indicates that, in the eyes ofcraftsmen and their patrons, the brothers had enough in common with the militarysaints to warrant their depiction in the same distinctive garments.

Conclusion

The circumstances of a new land thus determined the fates of two of the majorcategories of Byzantine saints in Rus’. Martyrs and ascetics, both known primarilythrough compilations of condensed hagiographic texts, exerted dissimilar types ofinfluence. Independent and charismatic holy men, although venerated and in-cluded in Church calendars, were not widely imitated in an environment whichencouraged coenobitic monasticism. The ideal of martyrdom, however, found newexpression in Rus’. The similarities studied above suggest that a small group ofmartyrs, in their new form as military saints, served as fruitful models for Boris andGleb. The churchmen of Rus’, when presented with two native candidates forsainthood, found inspiration in this established type as they constructed the newcult. Through their efforts to model the brothers on the holy warriors, they founda place for these otherwise highly unusual additions to the canon of saints.

I am grateful to Sergejus Temcinas and Haki Antonsson for reading and commenting on thepreliminary drafts of this paper. All inconsistencies in the text remain my own.

On the conversion of the Novgorodians by Vladimir and his people, see V. L. Janin,1

‘Letopisnyje rasskazy o kreshcheniji novgorodtsev’, in Srednevekovyj Novgorod (Moscow: Nauka,2004), pp. 130–43. My focus on the main urban centre of northern Rus’ is mostly due to the factthat in this period Christianity was mainly an urban phenomenon, which affected the countrysidevery little; see Simon Franklin, ‘Literacy and Documentation in Early Medieval Russia’, Speculum,60 (1985), 1–38 (p. 37). On the gradual process of Christianization in Novgorod after officialconversion, see Henrik Birnbaum, ‘When and How Was Novgorod Converted to Christianity?’,Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 12–13 (1988–89), 505–30 (pp. 520–26).

NOVGOROD AND THE VENERATION OF SAINTS

IN ELEVENTH-CENTURY RUS’: A COMPARATIVE VIEW

Ildar H. Garipzanov

This chapter aims to examine from a comparative perspective the venerationof saints in Novgorod — the major urban centre in northern Rus’ — inthe first century after its official conversion in c. 989. The Novgorodian1

evidence will be discussed within two wider contexts that are important for defin-ing the place of Novgorod both in the development of early Christian Rus’ and incultural contacts between Scandinavia and early Rus’. The first context to look atis the more general tradition of the veneration of saints in eleventh-century Rus’and its southern capital Kiev. The preceding chapter emphasizing a Byzantineinfluence is a good starting point here, but the question inevitably arises as to whatextent the Novgorodian material fits the developing culture of sanctity in earlyRus’ in general. The second, wider context is the cult of saints in early ChristianNorthern Europe, which has also been explored in this volume. Since Novgorodwas an important town that connected early Rus’ with Scandinavia, we shall con-template the place of Novgorod in the cultural traffic of saints across Northern

Ildar H. Garipzanov116

This manuscript contains a liturgical book known in the Orthodox Church as the short2

aprakos: its first part provides Gospel readings for the temporal cycle of the liturgical year startingfrom Easter, and the second part, often called menologion, lists the readings for the sanctoral cyclestarting from September. This type of liturgical book corresponds to the gospel lectionary in theCatholic tradition. In general, the Ostromir Gospel follows the liturgical tradition of Hagia Sophiain Constantinople, and it is assumed that its prototype was written in Bulgaria in the first half ofthe tenth century and copied in Kiev thereafter. See A. A. Alekseev, ‘Ostromirovo evangelije ivizantijsko-slavianskaja traditsija Sviashchennogo pisanija’, at <http://www.nlr.ru/exib/Gospel/ostr/alexeev.html> [accessed 5 June 2010].

The question whether the early Russian liturgy was influenced by models from Constanti-3

nople or Jerusalem is less relevant in this regard. The traditional view is that, from the first decadesafter conversion, Russian liturgy followed the Typikon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople; seeM. A. Lisitsyn, Pervonachal’nyj slaviano-russkij tipikon (St Petersburg: [n.pub.], 1911), pp. 1–3, 31,49, and 77–78; and O. V. Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov (Moscow: Pamiatnikiistoricheskoj mysli, 2001), pp. 48–49. For a short overview of liturgical and hagiographic textsrelated to the early Russian cult of saints, see Monica White, ‘Byzantine Saints in Rus’ and the Cultof Boris and Gleb’, in this volume.

For more details and references, see Andrzej Poppe, ‘The Christianization and Ecclesiastical4

Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 21 (1997), 311–92 (p. 341 and p.379, n. 79).

Europe. Although at first glance these contexts may look incompatible, their inter-play will in fact be essential for our understanding of the cult of saints in that town.

The Veneration of Saints in Eleventh-Century Rus’ and Royal Involvement

Following the official conversion of Rus’ by Prince Vladimir in 988, it took somedecades before the culture of sanctity impacted on local society. The liturgical com-memoration of saints in early Russian churches was the first step in this process.Although the earliest surviving Russian menologion (mesiatseslov in Russian) in theOstromir Gospel listing the feasts of saints is dated to 1056–57, it can be hypoth-2

esized that similar liturgical manuscripts might have been in the possession of earlyRussian clergymen soon after the conversion and that they were able to conduct amore or less coherent liturgy of saints according to the Eastern liturgical tradition.3

Yet how familiar was the laity with the holy men of the Christian Church in anewly Christianized society, and to what extent did they appeal to various socialgroups in early Rus’? Considering that the first clerics for the Tithe Church —built in Kiev soon after the conversion — were brought from Cherson and that theearly Russian ecclesiastical hierarchy of the eleventh century were Byzantine Greeks(with one exception), it is likely that the liturgy of saints in the Tithe Church and4

NOVGOROD AND THE VENERATION OF SAINTS 117

On the place of Greek in early Rus’, see Simon Franklin, ‘Greek in Kievan Rus’’, Dumbarton5

Oaks Papers, 46 (1992), 69–81. He thinks (p. 81) that Greek was prominent in the liturgy of majorchurches as late as the second half of the eleventh century.

On St Feodosij, see Gerhard Podskalsky, ‘Der hl. Feodosij Pecherskij: historisch und6

literarisch betrachtet’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 12–13 (1988–89), 714–26.

As noticed by Jonathan Shepard, ‘Rus’’, in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Mon-7

archy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200, ed. by Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2007), pp. 369–416 (p. 387), the dedication of the main palace church inConstantinople, the Pharos, must have served as an example for the royal Tithe Church.

Andrzey Rozwalka, Rafal Niezwiadek, and Marek Stasiak, ‘The Medieval Urban Centre in8

Lublin’, in Polish Lands at the Turn of the First and the Second Millennia, ed. by PrzemyslawUrbanczyk (Warsaw: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, 2004), pp. 357–84 (pp. 363–64).

churches alike was initially performed in Greek and was thus hardly accessible tolocal lay people.5

Furthermore, as in Scandinavia, it was universal saints that were liturgically ven-erated in early Rus’ in the first century after conversion, and some time was neededbefore these early Christian and Byzantine saints became familiar to the local pop-ulace and were adapted to a local cultural milieu. The appearance of the first localsaints is a good sign that Christian sanctity became meaningful for local society, orat least for some sections of it. In the case of early Rus’, the first indigenous cult ofsaints, the royal cult of Boris and Gleb, seems to have developed in the second halfof the eleventh century. Slightly later in the late eleventh century, another localcult, that of Feodosij Pechorskij (d. 1074), developed in the Kievan Caves Mon-astery, expressing a different ideal of sainthood centred on monastic living.6

The fact that the first Russian saints belonged to the local royal clan, the Ruri-kids, illustrates another aspect of the strengthening culture of sanctity in early Rus’:its close connection to royal power. The dedications of early churches founded byRussian princes, as recorded in the Primary Chronicle, also exemplify this link. Al-beit incomplete, the earliest textual references to the construction of large churchesindicate that they were dedicated not to saints, but to the Mother of God and StSophia. Dedications to the Mother of God, Theotokos, were among the earliest: theTithe Church (Desiatinnaja tserkov’) in Kiev (consecrated in 996), another7

church in T’mutarakan’ (founded in 1022), and the church of Bogoroditsy Blago-veshchenija over the Golden Gate in Kiev (c. 1037). A similar pattern of early dedi-cations can be traced in adjacent western regions on the north-eastern peripheryof Christian Europe. For instance, dedications to the Blessed Virgin Mary, theCatholic counterpart of Theotokos, are considered among the oldest in Poland,8


For the latter, see Mary Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England9

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 122–41.

Parallel to Kiev and Novgorod, a third cathedral dedicated to St Sophia was erected in10

Polotsk in the 1050s.

Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, VIII, in Die Chronik des Bischofs Thietmar von Merseburg11

und ihre Korveier Überarbeitung, ed. by Robert Holtzmann, MGH SRG ns, 9 (Berlin: Weidmann,1935), p. 531. There is a slight possibility that the first wooden church of St Sophia was foundedin Kiev by Princess Olga in 952; for details and references, see Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV

vekov, pp. 88–89.

The Novgorodian chronicles report that this church burnt down around the time when the12

stone cathedral was founded: PSRL, III: Novgorodskaja pervaja letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov(Moscow: Akademija Nauk SSSR, 1950), pp. 16 and 181.

For details and references, see V. Ja. Petrukhin, ‘Khristianstvo na Rusi vo vtoroj polovine X13

– pervoj polovine XI v.’, in Khristianstvo v stranakh Vostochnoj, Jugo-Vostochnoj i Tsentral’noj Evropyna poroge vtorogo tysiacheletija, ed. by B. N. Floria (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskoj kultury, 2002), pp.60–132 (pp. 117–18). Andzrej Poppe, ‘Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure’, p. 342,suggests that this pattern of dedications was chosen by the bishops coming from Byzantium, sincededications to Hagia Sophia were mostly given to metropolitan cathedral churches there.

See Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 50–51.14

and the same holds true for early Scandinavia. Yet Marian dedications in Scan-dinavia and Poland most likely appeared under Ottonian and/or Anglo-Saxoninfluences.9

In the 1040s and early 1050s — that is, in the latter part of the reign of Jaroslavthe Wise (Prince of Novgorod, 1010–19, and Grand Prince of Kiev, 1019–54) —the magnificent stone cathedrals of St Sophia were built in the two key towns ofearly Rus’, Kiev and Novgorod. In Kiev, this pattern of dedication can be traced10

back to the first decades of the eleventh century: Thietmar of Merseburg referredto a wooden monasterium of St Sophia, where the Kievan metropolitan John sol-emnly greeted King Boleslaw and Prince Sviatopolk with the relics of some saints(‘cum reliquiis sanctorum’). Likewise, a wooden church of St Sophia might have11

existed in Novgorod from early on. The fact that the monumental cathedrals in12

Kiev and Novgorod were dedicated to St Sophia directly points to the importanceof the Byzantine prototype in Constantinople. This aligns with the fact that the13

earliest Russian liturgical books from the second half of the eleventh century, suchas the Ostromir Gospel and the Arkhangelsk Gospel, were shaped by the liturgy ofHagia Sophia in the imperial capital.14

What was probably typical of the first decades following conversion was to havein a bigger church a side-chapel (pridel) dedicated to a saint. Thus a chapel


Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, p. 100.15

The latter event was so important for the early Russian Church that it was included in early16

Russian menologia (listed under 26 November) along with the consecration of St Sophia of Kiev.For details, see Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 95–100.

Viktor Lazarev, Old Russian Murals & Mosaics from the XI to the XVI Century (London:17

Phaidon, 1966), pp. 67–68. In the late eleventh century, St Demetrios became the patron saint ofthe Rurikid royal dynasty.

For details and references, see V. L. Janin, Aktovyje pechati drevnej Rusi X–XV vv. (Moscow:18

Nauka, 1998), I, 14–43 and 166–73; and V. L. Janin and P. G. Gaidukov, Aktovyje pechati drevnejRusi X–XV vv. (Moscow: Intrada, 1998), III, 13–26 and 113–17.

See also Poppe, ‘Christianization and Ecclesiastical Structure’, p. 355.19

dedicated to St Clement most likely existed in the Tithe Church, and the stoneKievan Cathedral of St Sophia had a side-chapel of St George, the patron saint ofJaroslav. It is only in the records of the mid-eleventh century that the Primary15

Chronicle begins to note churches and monasteries that were founded by Russianprinces and dedicated to specific universal saints. The first such example is a ref-erence to the erection of the church of St George in Kiev by Jaroslav the Wise andits consecration in the years 1051–54. In 1051, Iziaslav Jaroslavich (Prince of16

Novgorod, 1052–54, and Grand Prince of Kiev, 1054–73 and 1076–78) foundedthe monastery of St Demetrios. In the records for the following decades, the chron-17

icle mentions royal sons of Jaroslav building churches and monasteries dedicatedto universal saints like St Michael, St Nicholas, and St Andrew. What is significanthere is that in almost every case each Russian prince dedicated a church to his ownpatron saint, whose name was given to him at baptism. Once chosen, the royal patronsaints were promoted in various ways within society. For instance, early princesplaced the images and names of their holy patrons on their royal seals and in somecases on royal coins: St George for Jaroslav the Wise, St Demetrios for IziaslavJaroslavich, St Nicholas for Sviatoslav Jaroslavich (Prince of Chernigov, 1054–73,and Grand Prince of Kiev, 1073–76), St Andrew for Vsevolod Jaroslavich (Princeof Perejaslavl’, 1054–76, and Grand Prince of Kiev, 1078–93), and so on.18

This evidence for the royal patronage of certain universal saints and the emer-gence of the indigenous royal cult of Boris and Gleb suggests that by the mid-eleventh century the veneration of saints became a tradition that was importantnot only for clergy but also for the royal clan and lay nobility. A few decades later,19

this tradition affected society at large, as shown for example by a new habit ofwearing small icon-pendants with the image of a saint, which started in the


For details, see A. E. Musin, Khristianizatsija Novgorodskoj zemli: Pogrebal’nyj obriad i20

khristianskije drevnosti (St Petersburg: Petersburgskoje Vostokovedenije, 2002), p. 188.

For a short introduction to the birchbark letters as a medium of practical literacy, see Simon21

Franklin, Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus’, c. 950–1300 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002), pp. 35–45.

They are available for visual observation at the website dedicated to the birchbark letters22

from early Rus’ (<http://gramoty.ru>) and have been discussed in V. L. Janin, A. A. Zalizniak, andA. A. Gippius, Novgorodskije gramoty na bereste iz raskopok 1997–2000 gg. (Moscow: RusskijeSlovari, 2004), pp. 6, 97–98, and 104–06; and A. A. Zalizniak, Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt, 2nd rev.edn (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskoj kultury, 2004), pp. 281–83.

V. L. Janin, U istokov Novgorodskoj gosudarstvennosti (Velikij Novgorod: Novgorod State23

University, 2001), pp. 6–23.

Janin, Zalizniak, and Gippius, Novgorodskije gramoty, pp. 5–6. These finds have even allowed24

researchers to identify an official involved in this process in the third quarter of the eleventh

Novgorodian lands at the end of the eleventh century. Functionally, these icon-20

pendants probably corresponded to the protective amulets of older times, andrepresent the growing belief in the protective power of Christian saints. Archaeo-logical excavations in Novgorod carried out in the past decades have also producedsome evidence allowing us to see how saints were venerated there in the eleventhcentury. Birchbark letters, the corpus of which increases every year, provide themost interesting information in this regard.21

Birchbark Letters from Novgorod

Three birchbark letters with the names of saints found in Novgorod in 1999, in thestratigraphical layer of the third quarter of the eleventh century, are of utmostimportance here: nos 906, 913, and 914. All three fragments were found at the22

Troitskij dig, on estate E. This location is significant since this large estate(usad’ba), with a size of 1400 square metres, functioned as an administrative centrein early Novgorod. A princely symbol was carved on one of its wooden elements,which agrees with the evidence of birchbark letters showing that from 1126 thisadministrative complex served as headquarters for a joint court of the Novgorodianprince and city major (posadnik). This estate had an administrative function even23

earlier, in the second half of the eleventh century, when the liturgical fragments inquestion were disposed there. Wooden tribute seals and the content of some birch-bark letters found in these layers indicate that in this period the tribute collectedby local magnates across the Novgorodian land was brought to this place, where itwas divided between the kniaz and the city. Thus, the fact that the above-24


century, mechnik (sword-bearer) Khoten. See Janin, U istokov Novgorodskoj gosudarstvennosti,pp. 48–49.

Janin, Aktovyje pechati drevnej Rusi X–XV vv., I, 35–36; and Janin and Gaidukov, Aktovyje25

pechati drevnej Rusi X–XV vv., III, 113. Regarding the Byzantine cult of St Demetrios and its influ-ence on the cult of Boris and Gleb, see White, ‘Byzantine Saints in Rus’’, in this volume.

mentioned birchbark letters have been found in the administrative centre ofNovgorod links them to its urban political elite.

Liturgical Birchbark Calendar

Birchbark letter no. 913 contains a list of major Orthodox feast days from Sep-tember to early January, which corresponds to the first months of the Orthodoxliturgical year starting on 1 September, namely:• the Nativity of the Mother of God (8 September);• the Exaltation of the Cross (14 September);• the feast day of Apostle Luke (18 October);• the feast day of St Demetrios of Thessalonika (26 October);• the feast day of St Cosma and St Damian (1 November);• the feast day of Archangels Michael and Gabriel (8 November);• the feast day of Apostle Philip (14 November);• the feast day of St Barbara (4 December);• the Nativity of Christ (25 December);• the Circumcision of the Lord (1 January);• the Baptism of the Lord (6 January).The text is written in a calligraphic script, similar to the one used in the contem-poraneous Ostromir Gospel, which indicates that the liturgical calendar was writtenby a cleric either for himself or for another person. The first two and the last threefeasts belong to the great feasts of the Orthodox Church, which suggests a specialelevated status in Novgorod for the saints and archangels, whose feast days arelisted in between. The choice of the holy personages for the list therefore deservescloser attention.

St Demetrios, known in Russia as Dmitrij Solunskij, was the most importantOrthodox military saint, and, as mentioned above, his name was given to IziaslavJaroslavich at his baptism. He placed the name and the image of his patron saintalready on his Novgorodian seals, and must have encouraged the liturgical venera-tion of St Demetrios in Novgorod from early on. The presence of St Demetrios25


Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 214–15.26

PSRL, I: Lavrent’evskaja letopis’, 2nd edn (Leningrad: Izdanie postojannoj arkheograficheskoj27

komissii Akademii Nauk, 1926–27), cols 199–203. On this political conflict and its internationaldimension, see A. V. Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh: Mezhdistsiplinarnyeocherki kul’turnykh, torgovykh, politicheskikh svjazej IX–XII vekov (Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury,2001), pp. 505–58.

Similar to the birchbark calendar, the menologia of the Savva Gospel, written in eleventh-28

century Bulgaria, and of the Arkhangelsk Gospel, written in Kievan Rus’ (1092), mention the feast‘of Michael and Gabriel’; see Savvina kniga: drevneslavianskaja rukopis’ XI, XI–XII i konca XIII veka,vol. I: Rukopis’. Tekst. Kommentariji. Posleslovije, ed. by O. A. Kniazevskaja, L. A. Korobenko, andJe. P. Dogramadzhijeva (Moscow: Indrik, 1999), p. 580; and Arkhangelskoje evangelije 1092 goda,ed. by L. P. Zhukovskaja and T. L. Mironova (Moscow: Skriptorij, 1997), p. 316.

in the birchbark calendar contrasts with the omission of another important Ortho-dox saint, well known in early Rus’: St Nicholas, commemorated on 6 December.St Nicholas was the patron saint of Iziaslav’s brother, Sviatoslav Jaroslavich. It isnoteworthy that another brother of Iziaslav, Vsevolod Jaroslavich, had St Andrewas his patron saint. Yet St Andrew’s feast day on 30 November, which is listed inall earliest Russian menologia, was also absent in the birchbark calendar written26

in Novgorod. The different treatment of St Demetrios, St Nicholas, and St An-drew points to the crucial role of royal patronage for the liturgical promotion ofsaints in early Rus’.

The historical context of the late 1060s and 1070s provides a further explana-tion for these omissions. In these years an open confrontation broke out betweenthe princes Sviatoslav and Vsevolod on the one hand, and Grand Prince Iziaslav onthe other. As a result of their long-lasting conflict, Iziaslav and his family wereforced to flee from Kiev in 1073 to the west, to Poland and Germany. The vacantthrone was occupied by Sviatoslav and, after his death in 1076, by Vsevolod. In thesame year, Iziaslav was able to regain the Kievan throne, but he was killed inanother fratricidal clash in 1078. The absence of St Nicholas and St Andrew in27

the calendar contrasts not only with the presence of St Demetrios, but also of StMichael the Archangel, referred to as Archangel Michael in the OrthodoxChurch. His name was chosen as a baptismal name (Mikhail) by a son of Iziaslav,28

Sviatopolk (Prince of Novgorod, 1078–88, and Grand Prince of Kiev, 1093–1113).Thus, the choice and omission of some saints for the birchbark calendar found inthe administrative centre of early Novgorod shows an obvious bias in favour of thepatron saints of Iziaslav’s clan, which dominated Novgorod in the 1050s and1060s, and against the patron saints of his brothers ruling in the south. Such a biaswas hardly possible in the period when Prince Gleb, a son of Sviatoslav Jaroslavich,


Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh, p. 538.29

He consecrated St Sophia of Novgorod in 1050: PSRL, III, 181. For more details and references30

on this bishop, see Birnbaum, ‘When and How Was Novgorod Converted to Christianity?’, p. 525.

Ostromirovo evangelije 1056–1057 goda, ed. by A. Vostokova (St Petersburg: Imperatorskaja31

Akademija Nauk, 1843; repr. Moscow: Jazyki slavianskoj kultury, 2007), fols 243 and 285 ; andr r

Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 217 and 401.

For details, see I. M. Martynov, Annus ecclesiasticus graeco-slavicus (Brussels: Typis Henrici32

Goemaere, 1863), p. 195.

See M. D. Prisiolkov, Ocherki po tserkovno-politicheskoj istoriji Kievskoj Rusi X–XII vv. (repr.33

St Petersburg: Nauka, 2003), p. 161.

Janin, Zalizniak, and Gippius, Novgorodskije gramoty, pp. 108–09.34

was in control of the town c. 1068–78. This historical context thus suggests the29

years before his arrival, the mid-1060s, as the period during which the birchbarkcalendar was most likely composed.

St Luke is another prominent Orthodox saint whose elevated status in Nov-gorod might have reflected local circumstances. Luka Zhidiata, who was Bishop ofNovgorod c. 1036–55, might have been involved in the promotion of the cult of30

his namesake before the calendar was composed. There were no local saints innorthern Rus’ at that time, and early Novgorodian bishops must have left their per-sonal imprint on the pantheon of saints venerated there.

St Barbara is the only female saint mentioned in the birchbark calendar ofmajor feasts. The Ostromir Gospel, the liturgical book that was produced in KievanRus’ around the same time, mentions two feasts of St Barbara: the traditional oneon 4 December for the holy martyr Barbara, and the second on 7 August for Bar-bara vo Vlakherie. The second feast in the liturgy of Constantinople was dedi-31

cated to the saving of Constantinople from barbarians in 626. Yet while the32

liturgical entry to this feast was transformed from its early Greek original to thesurviving text in Old Church Slavonic, barbarians were confused with St Barbara,which clearly shows the importance of this fourth-century saint from Nicomediafor Slavonic clerical copyists. In the Orthodox world, where she was especiallyvenerated, people invoked her against fire and lightning, and this protective powermay explain her appeal in the wooden towns of early Christian Rus’. In the earlytwelfth century, her relics were brought from Constantinople to Kiev in connec-tion with the first marriage of Grand Prince Sviatopolk Iziaslavich with hisByzantine wife Barbara. Among the Novgorodian elite, St Barbara was venerated33

as early as the first third of the eleventh century, as testified to by a birchbark ‘icon’with an image of St Barbara on one side and Christ on the other (no. 915-I). This34


K. I. Nevostrujev, ‘Issledovanije o evangeliji, pisannom dlia Novgorodskogo kniaza Mstislava35

Vladmirovicha v nachale XII veka, v slicheniji s Ostromirovym spiskom, Galichskim i dvumiadrugimi XII i odnim XIII veka’, in Mstislavovo evangelije XII veka: Issledovanija (Moscow: Skriptorij,1997), pp. 5–649 (p. 397); and Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, p. 204.

Andrzej Poppe, ‘Vladimir Sviatoj: U istokov tserkovnogo proslavlenija’, in Fakty i znaki:36

Issledovanija po semiotike istoriji, ed. by B. A. Uspenskij and F. B. Uspenskij (Moscow: Jazykislavianskoj kultury, 2008), pp. 40–107 (p. 88, n. 126), and Sergejus Temcinas (personal communi-cation), suggest that these lists may well present orders of icons. If they are right, this would indicatethat the saints listed on these birchbark letters were popular enough in Novgorod to have theiricons ordered. At the same time, there is hardly any evidence to confirm the existence of such iconsin early Novgorod in the third quarter of the eleventh century.

‘icon’, or rather a sketch of an icon, was discovered in 2000 in the same estate as thethree liturgical birchbark letters that have been discussed above. The icon has beenplausibly dated to 1029. A particular feature points to a local context: an abbre-viation of ho hagios (saint, a masculine form) is written in front of the names ofChrist and St Barbara, which is wrong in both cases. As noted by Janin and Zaliz-niak, this feature indicates that the composer of this ‘icon’ did not know the precisemeaning of this abbreviation in Greek and considered it a sign of a holy personage.

Although St Philip was mentioned in the liturgical calendar and was universallycommemorated in the Orthodox world, including Novgorod, it is more difficult35

to tackle the question of his popularity in eleventh-century Novgorod. It is easierto answer such a question in relation to St Cosma and St Damian, since there isother evidence pointing to their popularity in eleventh-century Rus’, includinganother liturgical birchbark letter (no. 906).

Birchbark Letters with the Names of Saints

Birchbark letters nos 906 and 914 contain short lists of saints that have been inter-preted by Zalizniak as representing the key words of Dismissal (Otpust), that is, thefinal prayer in the Orthodox liturgy of Mass, with which the celebrant addressesa liturgical audience and invokes Christ, the Mother of God, and some saints bytheir names, and concludes with a reference to ‘all the saints’. The choice of partic-ular saints depends on the time of year and their significance, so the names chosenfor this liturgical formula may also be viewed as an indication that these saints wereof some importance in early Novgorod. The liturgical formulas of Dismissal weremost likely written by or for a celebrant and were thrown away after each of themwas used at a particular Mass.36


Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 191–92 and 373.37

Zalizniak, Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt, p. 283. Their names are written separately in the38

contemporary Ostromir Gospel, fol. 239 .v

For details, see A. A. Medyntseva, Drevnerusskije nadpisi Novgorodkogo Sofijskogo sobora39

XI–XIV veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), p. 116.

On its dating and historical context, see Medyntseva, Drevnerusskije nadpisi, pp. 115–24. She40

read the names of these saints as a reference to the date, their feast day, when Nikola came to StSophia. Zalizniak has offered a linguistic argument suggesting that this inscription referred to achurch dedicated to them in Kiev; see A. A. Zalizniak, ‘K izucheniju drevnerusskikh nadpisej’, inJanin, Zalizniak, and Gippius, Novgorodskije gramoty, pp. 233–87 (pp. 275–76).

V. N. Lazarev, Mozaiki Sofiji Kievskoj (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1960), p. 50.41

Birchbark letter no. 906 mentions the following saints: Peter and Paul, Cosmaand Damian, Father Basil, and Boris and Gleb. The first five were well known inthe Christian world. St Cosma and St Damian became known for their healing ofthe poor and appealed to the world of popular religiosity across Europe. In theOrthodox Church, they were known as ‘unmercenary physicians’ (a type of saintunique to the Eastern Church) and were venerated on 1 November (St Cosma andSt Damian of Asia) and 1 July (those of Rome). The veneration of this saintly37

pair seems to have been well established in Novgorod not only because they werementioned in the birchbark calendar, but also because their names are written asone noun (Kozmodemian) in letter no. 906. A church dedicated to these saints38

existed in Novgorod as late as 1146, but it is less clear whether it existed in the39

mid-eleventh century.Their high status in Novgorod was probably not much different from Kiev.

They are mentioned, for example, in a mid-eleventh-century inscription in theCathedral of St Sophia in Novgorod. This graffito was inscribed immediately afterthe cathedral was built, probably between 1050 and 1054, and represents a dedi-cation to St Sophia from a certain Nicholas (Nikola), who came to Novgorod fromKiev on behalf of Grand Prince Jaroslav and possibly the Church of St Cosma andSt Damian.40

St Peter and St Paul were universal saints par excellence, whose feast day wascelebrated in the Orthodox world on 29 June. In early Rus’, St Peter and St Paulseem to have been highly important saints in both Kiev and Novgorod. Forinstance, the main altar in St Sophia of Kiev might originally have been dedicatedto these apostles. It has even been argued that their icon was one of the two icons41

placed on the templon separating the main altar from the nave in St Sophia ofNovgorod, immediately following the erection of the cathedral in the middle of the


For details and references, see Grigorij M. Shtender and Svetlana I. Sivak, ‘Arkhitektura42

interjera Novgorodskogo Sofijskogo sobora i nekotoryje voprosy bogosluzhenija’, Byzantinorossica,1 (1995), 288–97 (pp. 291–92). On this oldest Russian icon, see V. N. Lazarev, Novgorodian Icon-painting (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1969), pp. 6–7; and Lazarev, Russkaja ikonopis’ ot istokov do nachalaXVI veka (Moscow: Isskustvo, 1996), p. 33, fig. 1.

See for instance The Sacramentary of Metz: Le Mans, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 77,43

fol. 7 .v

Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh, pp. 567–70.44

Valerian Meysztowicz, ‘Manuscriptum Gertrydae filiae Mesconis II Regis Poloniae’, Ante-45

murale, 2 (1955), 105–57 (pp. 123 and 145).

For details and references, see Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh, pp.46

535–36 and 568–69; H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 1073–1085 (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1998), pp. 452–54.

eleventh century. Since frescoes appeared on its inner walls later (after 1108), theicons of the templon were the only images there initially, which stresses theirimportance for the visual programme of the cathedral. This saintly pair is also42

mentioned in the other birchbark letter (no. 914), which seems to correspond withtheir prominent status in Novgorod.

St Peter and St Paul were even more important for the Catholic Church, andthey became the first saints invoked in the list of saints in the Communicantes partof the Roman canon of the Mass disseminated in the Latin West from the ninthcentury, as testified by Gregorian sacramentaries. That is why some scholars con-43

sider the fact that Prince Jaropolk, son of Iziaslav and the Polish princess Gertruda,received the baptismal name Peter as a sign of their conversion to Catholicism. AsNazarenko has shown, this argument is hardly valid. Nonetheless, the choice of44

a baptismal name for the son of the Orthodox prince and the Catholic princessmight have been the result of a religious compromise. St Peter, who was veneratedin both the Western and Eastern Churches, was a good choice for such a compro-mise. The Latin liturgical codex of Gertruda has survived and preserves prayers thatthe Polish princess addressed to St Peter on behalf of her son. It is known that45

Jaropolk visited Rome, where he promised fidelitas to St Peter and asked Greg-ory VII to give him the kingdom of Rus’ as a gift of St Peter. Upon his return toRus’, Jaropolk founded a church of St Peter in the monastery of St Demetrios inKiev, founded by his father.46

St Boris and St Gleb (commemorated on 24 July) are the only indigenousRussian saints mentioned in the analysed birchbark letters. Since their names arenot included in the Ostromir Gospel, their introduction to the early Russian liturgy


The date of the establishment of their cult in early Rus’ is a debated matter. For a recent47

argument in favour of a later date, see Andrzej Poppe, ‘Losers on Earth, Winners from Heaven:The Assassination of Boris and Gleb in the Making of Eleventh-Century Rus’’, Quaestiones MediiAevi Novae, 8 (2003), 133–68. For a more detailed argument for an earlier date of this cult, seeLudolf Müller, ‘O vremeni kanonizatsii sviatykh Borisa i Gleba’, Russia Mediaevalis, 8 (1995),5–20. For a detailed discussion of the cult and all relevant references, see Marina Paramonova, ‘TheFormation of the Cult of Boris and Gleb and the Problem of External Influences’, in this volume.

The feast of two royal brothers is not mentioned in the other early aprakos-gospels from48

Rus’, the Arkhangelsk Gospel (1092), and was included in this kind of liturgical book, for instancein the Mstislav Gospel, only in the twelfth century. See Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov,p. 391. On the dating of the Mstislav Gospel, see N. N. Lisovoj, ‘K datirovke Mstislavova Evan-gelija’, in Mstislavogo evangelije XII veka, pp. 710–19.

On this baptismal name and its connection with the Byzantine emperor Basil II, see for49

instance Andrzej Poppe, ‘The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-RussianRelations between 986–89’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 30 (1976), 195–244 (p. 241). In letter no.906, the saint is mentioned as Father Basil, which B. A. Uspenskij interpreted as a liturgicalreference to Kniaz Vladimir, whose sons, St Boris and St Gleb, are mentioned right after FatherBasil. See B. A. Uspenskij, Boris i Gleb: Vosprijatije istorii v Drevnej Rusi (Moscow: Jazyki russkojkultury, 2000), pp. 44–46; and Uspenskij, ‘Kogda byl kanonizirovan kniaz Vladimir Sviato-slavovich?’, in Istoriko-filologicheskije ocherki (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskoj kultury, 2004), pp. 69–121(pp. 72–73). Andzrej Poppe responds to this hypothesis by pointing out that the liturgical worksof the 1070s and 1080s dedicated to Boris and Gleb never refer to Vladimir as a saint: ‘TheSainthood of Vladimir the Great: Veneration in-the-Making’, in Christian Russia in the Making(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), no. VIII, pp. 1–52 (pp. 48–49). The further problem with this inter-pretation is that Boris and Gleb are not mentioned here by their baptismal names, Roman and

must have taken place between 1057 and 1075, after their cult was established insouthern Rus’. Their mention is thus unequivocal evidence of the official promo-47

tion of this royal cult in early Rus’ during the second half of the eleventh century.48

The solemn translation of their relics to a new church in Vyshgorod in 1072 cor-responds to this time span. Along with some ecclesiastical hierarchs from southernRus’, the three above-mentioned sons of Jaroslav took part in the event. This reli-gious ritual was no doubt used by Iziaslav, Sviatoslav, and Vsevolod to symbolizetheir fraternal peace which, however, did not stop a new cycle of violence frombreaking out between the two warring branches of the Jaroslavichi a year later. Yetall in all the emerging cult of royal princes killed in fratricidal conflict becameespecially relevant for the Rurikids and clerical elite at the time of a dynasticquarrel in the late 1060s and 1070s.

It is noteworthy that in birchbark letter no. 906 Boris and Gleb are mentionedafter St Basil (commemorated on 1 January), who was the patron saint of theirfather, Vladimir the Great. The latter circumstance must have encouraged the49


David, as would have been expected if Father Basil referred to their father. Moreover, ‘Father Basil’was a traditional liturgical reference to Basil of Caesarea, who was also known as one of theCappadocian fathers. See Nevostrujev, ‘Issledovanije o evangeliji’, p. 420. For instance, the OstromirGospel mentions him in the list of feasts as ‘Our Father Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappa-docia’; see Ostromirovo evangelije, fol. 256 .r


pechati drevnej Rusi X–XV vv., III, 125–26.

In this church, the bodies of St Boris and St Gleb were buried in the first half of the eleventh51

century. For details, see Gail Lenhoff, The Martyred Princes Boris and Gleb: A Socio-cultural Studyof the Cult and the Texts, UCLA Slavic Studies, 19 (Columbus: Slavic Publishers, 1989), pp. 38–39.

promotion of this saint in eleventh-century Rus’. In the second half of the eleventhcentury, St Basil became the patron saint of another Russian prince, VladimirMonomakh (1053–1125), who became Grand Prince of Kiev in 1113. Hence, thissaint was placed on his seals, and in sphragistic legends in Greek he is named KniazBasil (Vasilij) Monomakh.50

The connection between St Basil and St Boris and St Gleb becomes more ob-vious when it is considered that the relics of the two holy brothers were first keptin Vyshgorod in the church of St Basil. Hence, it is very likely that this saint was51

included in this formula via his affiliation with the royal martyrs. St Basil aside,birchbark letter no. 906 lists three pairs of saints: St Peter and St Paul (29 June)and St Cosma and St Damian(1 July), both pairs venerated across early Rus’; andSt Boris and St Gleb (24 July), the royal martyrs promoted from Kiev. Their feastdays fall between 29 June and 24 July, which suggests that if the names of saints onbirchbark letter no. 906 were written as the abbreviation of a liturgical formula, theletter must have been composed for a Mass conducted in Novgorod in July, in theperiod when Gleb Sviatoslavich was Prince of Novgorod (c. 1068–78). The officialtranslation of the relics of St Boris and St Gleb in 1072 clearly shows that their cultreceived official support from the ecclesiastical elite and Russian princes. Further-more, the pattern of naming in the family of Sviatoslav Jaroslavich suggests that theholy brothers were especially revered by its members. Two younger brothers ofPrince Gleb received the baptismal names of the royal saints, Roman and David.

Birchbark letter no. 914 lists the following saints: St Nicholas, St Clement, StDemetrios, St Blaise (Volos), St Peter, St Paul, and St Martha. If the letter presentsa liturgical formula, it is less orthodox in structure than the formula in letter no.906 discussed above: the former starts with Nicholas, then lists another saint whosename starts with the letters Mp (it might for instance refer to Mary Magdalene,who is commemorated together with St Martha, or to St Mercurios, who is


Zalizniak, Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt, p. 283.52

This name might have referred to St Martha, the sister of Mary Magdalene and Lazarus,53

another female saint who has been popular in the Orthodox world. Yet it is doubtful that she wasvery prominent in eleventh-century Rus’. From the early Russian menologia, only the OstromirGospel mentions the names of Martha and Mary, but in the feast of five virgin martyrs (6 June).Hence, that entry referred to other female saints. See Ostromirovo evangelije, fol. 276 ; and Loseva,r

Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, p. 356.

For these reasons, the possibility that these names present a list of icons to be ordered cannot54

be dismissed.

See above, note 36.55

His feast is included in the earliest liturgical manuscripts from early Rus’ like the Reims56

Gospel (s. x ); see Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, p. 267. Several liturgical hymns1

dedicated to him are included in the Tiporafskij ustav produced in the late eleventh or early twelfthcentury. See Tipografskij ustav: Ustav s kondakarem kontsa XI – nachala XII veka, ed. by B. A.Uspenskij, 3 vols (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskoj kultury, 2006), I, fol. 57 . I thank Sergejus Temcinasr

for pointing me to this evidence.

B. A. Uspenskij, Filologicheskije razyskanija v oblasti slavianskikh drevnostej (Moscow:57

Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1982), pp. 126–30.

commemorated on the same day as St Clement), and Clement thereafter. Afterthese saints, Ascension (Voznesenije) is mentioned, which, as Zalizniak notes, is aliturgical feature of the Old Russian rite. The list then continues with Demetrios52

and Volos. The names of Apostles Peter and Paul are included at the end of theformula prior to the concluding reference to ‘all the saints’. Finally, the name of StMartha was added after this concluding remark. Altogether, the above-mentioned53

anomalies seem to suggest that such a formula of the Dismissal might have beenwritten ad hoc in a local liturgical context. The liturgical formula can hardly befixed within a liturgical year, since the feast days of the saints mentioned in theformula belong to different months: 26 October (St Demetrios), 25 November (StClement), 6 December (St Nicholas), 11 February (St Blaise), 6 June (St Martha),and 29 June (St Peter and St Paul). Alternatively, as suggested by some scholars,54

it could have presented an order of icons.55

The listing of Volos in letter no. 914 is particularly interesting. St Blaise (Vlasij)was venerated in Russian liturgy from early on, and according to Boris Uspenskij56

the cult of this saint spread widely in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when hebecame famous as the patron saint of domestic animals. In the popular religiosityof early Rus’, St Blaise replaced the pagan god of cattle, Volos, with whom he sharednot only a similar protective function but also similar names (Vlas/Volos). As57

Zalizniak has noted, the fact that Volos was mentioned in this birchbark letter


Zalizniak, Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt, p. 283.58

PSRL, I, cols 179–81. See also Birnbaum, ‘When and How Was Novgorod Converted to59

Christianity?’, pp. 523–24.

For more details and references on St Clement and the earliest stage of his cult before 861,60

see Je. V. Ukhanova, ‘Kul’t sv. Klimenta, papy rimskogo, v istoriji vizantijskoj i drevnerusskojtserkvi IX – 1-oj poloviny XI v.’, Annali dell’Istituto universitario orientale di Napoli: Slavistica, 5(1997), 505–70 (pp. 505–19). I discuss in more detail the dissemination of the cult of St Clementacross early Christian North-Eastern Europe in the following forthcoming article: Ildar H.Garipzanov, ‘The Journey of St Clement’s Cult from the Black Sea to the Baltic Region’, in FromGoths to Varangians: Communication and Cultural Exchange between the Baltic and the Black Sea,ed. by Line Maj-Britt Højberg Bjerg and others (Århus: Aarhus University Press, 2010).

clearly indicates that Volos became a substitute name for St Blaise as early as theeleventh century. Such a substitution might also have been a response to the need58

for accommodating surviving pre-Christian popular beliefs to official Christianity.An entry in the Primary Chronicle illustrates the existence of such beliefs quitewell. In c. 1071 — that is, around the time the liturgical formula was written — asorcerer (volkhv) appeared in Novgorod and caused much turmoil. The chroniclenarrates that he was popular among common people and was opposed only by thelocal bishop and Prince Gleb and his warriors. After all, sorcery and Volos, pro-59

tecting cattle, might still have been popular among common people in Novgorodalmost a century after the official conversion.

The Veneration of St Clement and St Nicholas in Early Rus’ and NorthernEurope

The mention of St Clement and St Nicholas in birchbark letter no. 914 cor-responds to their veneration in eleventh-century Rus’, but this reference is particu-larly interesting when analysed within a wider international context: namely, thedissemination of their cults across Northern Europe.

St Clement

St Clement was thought to be martyred in Crimea, near Cherson, and his cultgradually emerged in the early Middle Ages, when his feast day began to be cele-brated by the Christian Church — on 23 November in the West and 25 Novem-ber in the East. The discovery of St Clement’s relics in Cherson in 861 brought60


For details and references on the discovery of the relics of St Clement and wider historical61

and liturgical contexts, see Ukhanova, ‘Kul’t sv. Klimenta’, pp. 519–46. This event is traditionallydated to 30 January 861, although K. K. Akentjev, ‘O structure bogosluzhebnogo posledovanija,opisannogo v slove na perenesenije moshchej sv. Klimenta Rimskogo: Chast I: Obretenijemoshchej’, Byzantinorossica, 4 (2005), 105–20, offers an argument in favour of 30 December 860.

See PSRL, I, cols 116 and 124; and Slovo o zakone i blagodati mitropolita Ilariona, in62

Biblioteka literatury drevnej Rusi, vol. I: XI–XII veka (St Petersburg: Nauka, 2004), pp. 50–51. Thetraditional view is that they were placed in the Tithe Church in 996, that is, immediately after thechurch was consecrated. Ukhanova, ‘Kul’t sv. Klimenta’, p. 547, points to the reference in thePrimary Chronicle that the translation of the relics of saints to the Tithe Church took place onlyin 1007. PSRL, I, col. 129. She suggests that before 1007 the relics of St Clement were kept in theprincely palace, which might indicate their special role for Prince Vladimir.

For details and references on his cult in early Rus’, see Yu. K. Begunov, ‘Sv. Kliment Rimskij63

v slavianskoj traditsii: Nekotoryje itogi i perspektivy issledovanija’, Byzantinorossica, 4 (2005), 1–61(pp. 10–13). Cf. Dietrich Hofmann, Die Legende von Sankt Clemens in den skandinavischenLändern im Mittelalter, Beiträge zur Skandinavistik, 13 (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 1997),pp. 173–80.

Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, VII, ed. by Holtzmann, p. 74.64

the veneration of this saint to a new level. Some of his relics were placed in thecathedral of Cherson, thus providing a sacred focus for a local cult. The finder ofthe relics, Constantine-Cyril, supposedly popularized the saint in the Slavic coun-tries and brought some of his relics to Rome in 867, which contributed to thegrowing popularity of St Clement in the West. By the ninth century, St Clement61

had been prominent enough in the Roman Church to have his name included inthe Gregorian Canon of the Mass. From that time onwards, his cult gradually spreadacross the Alps first to the Carolingian world and then to Ottonian Germany.

St Clement became a popular saint in early Rus’ soon after conversion. Accord-ing to early Russian sources such as the Primary Chronicle and Ilarion’s Sermon onLaw and Grace, Prince Vladimir the Great brought St Clement’s relics — includ-ing his head — from Cherson to Kiev in 988, and later in his reign they wereplaced in the newly founded royal church, the Tithe Church. There the relics re-62

mained until the twelfth century, when they are mentioned in written sources onceagain. Although the church was dedicated to the Mother of God, the cult of St63

Clement seems to have been so important there that in the early eleventh centuryThietmar of Merseburg even thought that the church was dedicated to St Clementat the time when Vladimir was buried there in 1015. A probable explanation for64

Thietmar’s confusion is that there must have been a chapel dedicated to StClement in the Tithe Church, especially since the Primary Chronicle mentions


See M. Chubatij, Istorija khristianstva na Rusi-Ukraine (Rome: Ukrainian Catholic Uni-65

versity Press, 1965), I, 286; and Petr P. Tolochko, ‘Rom und Byzanz in der Kiever Rus’ im 10–11.Jahrhundert’, in Rom und Byzanz im Norden: Mission und Glaubenwechsel im Ostseeraum währenddes 8.–14. Jahrhundert, ed. by Michael Müller-Wille, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999), II,239–46 (pp. 241–42).

See Begunov, ‘Sv. Kliment Rimskij v slavianskoj traditsii’, p. 12.66

Lazarev, Old Russian Murals, pp. 32, 43–44, and 227–29; and Lazarev, Mozaiki Sofiji67

Kievskoj, pp. 34–35.

For more details, see N. I. Platonova, ‘Srednevekovyj mogil’nik na zemlianom gorodishche68

Staroj Ladogi’, in Sovremennost’ i arkheologija: mezhdunarodnyje chtenija, posviashchennyje 25-letijuStaroladozhskoj arkheologicheskoj ekspediciji (St Petersburg: IPK Vesti, 1997), pp. 67–71; andPetrukhin, ‘Khristianstvo na Rusi’, p. 85.

Novgorodskaja pervaja letopis’ mladshego izvoda mentions the church of St Clement founded69

in Old Ladoga by Archbishop Nifont in 1153; PSRL, III, 215. See also A. N. Kirpichnikov, ‘Posadsrednevekvoj Ladogi’, in Srednevekovaja Ladoga: Novye arheologicheskie otkrytija i issledovanija, ed.by V. V. Sedov (Leningrad: Nauka, 1985), pp. 170–80 (p. 172); and A. A. Medyntseva,Gramotnost’ v drevnej Rusi: po pamiatnikam epigrafiki X – pervoj poloviny XIII veka (Moscow:Nauka, 2000), pp. 131–32.

that Vladimir brought from Cherson to this church not only relics but alsoclergymen, who must have promoted their local cult in the church and in Kiev ingeneral. Thus, the translation of the relics of St Clement, along with the official65

backing of his cult by early Russian princes and clerical hierarchs, must have led toits rapid dissemination in postconversion Rus’.

Begunov has even suggested that in the late tenth and eleventh centuries, thecult of St Clement might have been promoted by the early Russian state and thatthe early Russian Church might have venerated him as its own apostle, a role latergiven to St Andrew. Although such a hypothesis is difficult to corroborate, it is66

clear that St Clement definitely had a special status for the early Russian Church,which found a reflection in the iconographic programme of the Kievan cathedral,St Sophia, created between 1043 and 1046: a mosaic image of St Clement is lo-cated in the lower register of the apse, along with fathers of the Orthodox Church.Such an honourable location was given to the image of St Clement in contradic-tion to a Byzantine iconographic tradition.67

It is unclear when the first church of St Clement was founded in northern Rus’.It has been suggested that a wooden church of St Clement was built in Old Ladoganear an early Christian cemetery that appeared at the turn of the eleventh cen-tury. Yet the first written evidence for the foundation of the church of St68

Clement in Old Ladoga dates to the mid-twelfth century. To the same century69


Medyntseva, Gramotnost’ v drevnej Rusi, pp. 128–34.70

On Joakim, the complicated chronology of his pontificate, and the question of his Cher-71

sonian origin, see Birnbaum, ‘When and How Was Novgorod Converted to Christianity?’, pp.522–24.

Deacon Gregory, who wrote the manuscript, added a concluding note that mentions Ostro-72

mir as its commissioner and naming him blizok of Kniaz Iziaslav (Ostromirovo evangelije, fol. 294).For details and references on the relationship of Ostromir to the Rurikids and his genealogy, seeA. A. Gippius, ‘Skandinavskij sled v istoriji novgorodskogo bojarstva (v razvitije gipotezy Molcha-nova o proiskhozhdeniji posadnichjego roda Guriatichej-Rogovichej’, in Slavicization of the RussianNorth, ed. by Juhani Nuorluolo, Slavica Helsingiensia, 27 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press,2006), pp. 93–108 (p. 94). The early history of the Ostromir Gospel and the place of its production(Novgorod or Kiev) are the matters of a historiographic debate. For details and references, seeMarcello Garzaniti, Die altslavische Version der Evangelien: Forschungsgeschichte und zeitgenössischeForschung (Cologne: Böhlau, 2001), pp. 322–28.

Ostromirovo evangelije, fol. 242 .v73

Ostromirovo evangelije, fol. 263 . The canon for the feast of the finding of the relics of Stv74

Clement plausibly attributed to Cyril (Constantine) has been recently discussed by Vereshchagin. It

probably also belongs a reliquary of northern Rus’ provenance, with the image ofSt Clement and his name Agios Kliment. It is still possible that already in the70

eleventh century a church or a chapel dedicated to the same saint existed in Nov-gorod, since the first Bishop of Novgorod, Joakim (d. 1030), came from Chersonand must have promoted this cult in northern Rus’ at the turn of the eleventhcentury, at the same time as it was done in Kiev. It is noteworthy in this regard71

that the cathedral of Cherson, in which relics of St Clement were originally placed,was dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, and these saints became so important in earlyChristian Novgorod that, as already noted, their icon was placed on the templonin its cathedral of St Sophia built at the mid-eleventh century.

The surviving liturgical evidence shows that in the mid-eleventh century, StClement was an important saint for early Russian liturgy, and Novgorodian liturgyin particular. He is mentioned in the earliest Russian manuscript, the OstromirGospel, commissioned by Ostromir, count of Novgorod. The menologion of this72

aprakos-gospel lists two feasts of St Clement. The first on 25 November is dedi-cated to the passion of the holy martyr Clement of Rome. The date of the feast73

complies with the Eastern tradition, although in the Greek Church the feast of StClement was later moved to 24 November. The second feast on 30 January wasunknown in the Greek liturgical tradition and commemorates ‘the discovery of thetrue relics of St Clement, the fourth Roman pope after Apostle Peter’, with thesame liturgical services as at his feast on 25 November. This second feast is the74


has been preserved in a mineji dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century, which can be attributedto Novgorod or Pskov on a linguistic basis: E. M. Vereshchagin, ‘Vnov’ najdennoje bogo-sluzhebnoje posledovanije obreteniju moshchej Klimenta Rimskogo — vozmozhnojepoeticheskoje proizvedenije Kirilla Filosofa’, Byzantinorossica, 4 (2005), 62–104 (pp. 91–104). Formore details and bibliography, see Ukhanova, ‘Kul’t sv. Klimenta’, pp. 548–51.

Arkhangelskoje evangelije, p. 352; Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, p. 259; and75

Nevostrujev, ‘Issledovanije o evangeliji’, p. 436.

For details, see Medyntseva, Gramotnost’ v drevnej Rusi, pp. 210–11.76

Matthias Zender, ‘Heiligenverehrung im Hanseraum’, Hanseatische Geschichtsblätter, 9277

(1974), 1–15 (pp. 5–6).

Rikard Holmberg, ‘Om Lunds murade vallar’, Historisk Tidskrift för Skåneland, 1 (1979),78

1–23 (pp. 21–23).

Hofmann, Die Legende von Sankt Clemens, pp. 186–202.79

only event of the liturgical day on 30 January, which emphasizes its liturgical im-portance. The fact that this feast is mentioned in the other earliest Russian aprakos,the Arkhangelsk Gospel written in 1092, confirms that this feast was a part of theeleventh-century Russian liturgy.75

The mention of St Clement in the liturgical birchbark letter from Novgorodthus corresponds to the image of this saint being significant in the early Russianliturgy. Moreover, additional evidence confirms that he was a popular saint in earlyNovgorod. His name is written on a contemporary wooden board with the sketchof an icon on both sides, which has been found in Novgorod in the layers of the1070s–80s. It should be considered that such icons were the objects of personal76

worship and usually represented popular saints.In the eleventh century, when St Clement was venerated in Novgorod and

Kiev, the churches dedicated to this saint appeared in Scandinavia and England,which suggests that his cult was disseminated across Northern Europe in the sametime. It is, however, more difficult to explain the precise route of its transmission,and different scholars have suggested the Lower Rhine region, early Rus’, and77 78

England as possible starting points for the dissemination of St Clement’s cult in79

Northern Europe. Considering that the cult of St Clement became popular inWestern Europe and early Rus’ in the same period, there is also the open possibilitythat the cult was disseminated in Northern Europe from the east and west simul-taneously. Erik Cinthio argued for this pattern of dissemination, and he explainedthe earliest Scandinavian churches of St Clement in Oslo and Trondheim by thecontacts that Olaf Tryggvason and St Olaf had with the early Russian princes


For details on those contacts, see T. N. Jackson, Chetyrie norvezhskikh konunga na Rusi: Iz80

istorii russko-norvezhskikh politicheskikh otnoshenij poslednej treti X – pervoj poloviny XI v. (Moscow:Jazyki russkoj kul’tury, 2000).

Erik Cinthio, ‘The Churches of St. Clemens in Scandinavia’, in Res mediaevales: Ragnar81

Blomquist kal. Mai. MCMLXVIII oblata, ed. by Anders W. Mårtensson, Archaeologica Lundensia,3 (Karlshamn: Kulturhistoriska Museet, 1968), pp. 103–16. For more evidence on the dissemina-tion of the cult of St Clement in medieval England and the English connection of early Danishchurch dedications to this saint, see Barbara Crawford, ‘The Cult of Clement in Denmark’, His-torie, 2006, 235–82; and Crawford, The Churches Dedicated to St. Clement in Medieval England:A Hagio-geography of the Seafarer’s Saint in the 11th Century North Europe, Scripta ecclesiastica,1 (St Petersburg: Axioma, 2008). She also suggests that the early church dedications to St Clementin the reign of Knud the Great might have partly been a response to the Norwegian dynasty’sattachment to this cult.

Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide and Steinar Gulliksen, ‘First Generation Christians, Second82

Generation Radiocarbon Dates: The Cemetery of St. Clement’s in Oslo’, Norwegian ArcheologicalReview, 40 (2007), 1–25 (pp. 19–23). For more details on this church, see also Hans-Emil Lidén,‘The Church of St Clement in Oslo’, in West over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expan-sion and Settlement before 1300, ed. by Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor, and Gareth Williams(Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 251–64 (pp. 257–62).

For details and references on the dating of these churches and their connection to early83

Norwegian kings, see Barbara E. Crawford, ‘The Churches Dedicated to St. Clement in Norway:A Discussion of their Origin and Function’, Collegium medievale, 17 (2004), 100–29 (pp. 106–15).Yet she thinks that England and Normandy might have been as influential as Rus’ in the choiceof the patron saint for the first churches in Norway.

Vladimir and Jaroslav, and the dissemination of the cult in Denmark and80

England by the contact that Knud the Great had with Rome. Sæbjørg Walaker81

Nordeide and Steinar Gulliksen have recently redated the foundation of StClement’s in Oslo from between 980 and 1030 to between 996–1000 and 1028,82

which makes it contemporaneous with St Clement’s in Trondheim (built accord-ing to sagas between 997 and 1016). Most importantly, both churches werefounded soon after the Tithe Church was built in Kiev under the order of PrinceVladimir and the relics of St Clement were deposited there in 996. The cult of theholy Roman pope was bolstered by his precious relics, including his head, whichmust have made a strong impression on visiting Varangians.

Considering the significance of the cult of St Clement for the first Christianprinces of Rus’ and its possible importance around the turn of the eleventh centurynot only in Kiev but also in Novgorod, the fact that the first churches built aboutthe same time in Norway were dedicated to St Clement is hardly accidental, espe-cially since ample evidence suggests royal involvement in the construction of thosechurches. Both Olaf Tryggvason and St Olaf travelled to early Rus’ and may have83


Saint Óláf’s Saga, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, trans.84

by Lee M. Hollander (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), pp. 245–537 (pp. 287 and 530).

For details, see E. N. Nosov, ‘The First Scandinavians in Northern Rus’, in Vikingi i slavjane:85

Uchenyje, politiki, diplomaty o russko-skandinavskikh otnoshenijakh, ed. by A. Hedman andA. Kirpichnikov (St Petersburg: Dmitrij Bilanin, 1998), pp. 56–82 (pp. 67–68 and 73–81).

I discuss the dissemination of the cult of St Nicholas across the early Christian North in86

more detail in the following forthcoming article: Ildar H. Garipzanov, ‘The Cult of St Nicholasin the Early Christian North (c. 1000–1150)’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 35 (2010), 18 pp.

noticed the close connection of St Clement’s cult to princely power. The TitheChurch that housed the relics of St Clement was under the patronage of PrinceVladimir, who was buried there after his death in 1015. It is noteworthy thataccording to the Heimskringla, Olaf Haraldsson founded the church of St Clementin the winter of 1015–16, and he was buried there after his death in 1030.84

Vladimir’s relation with the Tithe Church might have served as a model here. Theearly Russian model may also explain why St Clement’s cult in Norway was initiallyconnected with early Norwegian kings, while his fame as a patron saint of sailorsand merchants developed later in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

When the cultural contacts between Scandinavia and early Rus’ weakened, theearly connection between the cult of St Clement and royal power in Scandinaviaestablished after the example of Prince Vladimir and the Tithe Church was lost.With the end of the Viking Age, the influence from the Catholic south, via Nor-mandy and the Rhine region, became more visible in the spread of the cult of StClement in Denmark and England. At the same time, the moving force spreadingthis cult in the Christian North remained the same: namely, Northmen travelingby sea and along waterways. Eleventh-century Novgorod with its recognizableVarangian presence was an important element of this network, and the venera-85

tion of St Clement there made the city similar to other places of Northern Europedominated by Scandinavians.

St Nicholas

St Nicholas was another saint that connected the cult of saints in Novgorod withthe rest of northern Christendom. It is beyond doubt that the knowledge and86

veneration of St Nicholas came to early Rus’ along with other Byzantine saints. Hisfeast on 6 December was celebrated in the early Russian liturgy in accordance with


Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, p. 218.87

For instance, St Nicholas was depicted together with church fathers in the apse of St Sophia88

in Kiev in the 1040s. See Lazarev, Mozaiki Sofiji Kievskoj, p. 34; and Lazarev, Old Russian Murals,pp. 227–29. For a short overview of the veneration of St Nicholas in eleventh-century Rus’, seeGerardo Cioffari, La leggenda di Kiev: Slovo o pereneseniji moshchej Sviatitelia Nikolaja (Bari:Centro Studi e Ricerche ‘S. Nikola’, 1980), pp. 35–41.


pechati drevnej Rusi X–XV vv., III, 115–16.

Uspenskij, Filologicheskije razyskanija v oblasti slavianskhikh drevnostej, p. 31. 90

PSRL, III, 20 and 203.91

Fragments of a bronze frame for an icon of St Nicholas were found in Novgorod, in the92

layers of 1125/30–85/90; see Medyntseva, Gramotnost’ v drevnej Rusi, p. 127.

On the dates of the early reign of Mstislav, see Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ na mezhdu-93

narodnykh putiakh, pp. 548–50.

the Byzantine tradition. The saint was highly respected in eleventh-century87

Kiev, and, as mentioned above, Kniaz Sviatoslav Jaroslavich became the first88

Rurikid to choose the name of St Nicholas as a baptismal name and place it on hisseals. At the same time, Novgorod became the main centre of this cult in Rus’ in89

the twelfth century, and it is now common knowledge that this saint enjoyed morepopularity in the north of medieval Rus’ than in the south. A stone church dedi-90

cated to St Nicholas was founded there in 1113, and the earliest surviving icons91

of this saint were produced in northern Rus’ in the twelfth century. It is impor-92

tant to note that the growing popularity of St Nicholas in Novgorod correlates tothe period when the clan of Iziaslav was no longer in control of that town. Thechurch of St Nicholas was founded by a grandson of Vsevolod Jaroslavich, Mstislav(Prince of Novgorod, c. 1091–95 and 1096–1117, and Grand Prince of Kiev,93

1125–32), and completed by his son Vsevolod (Prince of Novgorod, 1117–36).Furthermore, the growing popularity of St Nicholas in Novgorod in the first

half of the twelfth century corresponds to a similar process in Northern Europe,which throws up the question to what extent the Novgorodian development wasconnected to the west. The traditional view on the transmission of the cult of StNicholas in early medieval Europe can be summarized as follows: it appeared firstin Byzantium and then penetrated southern Italy. By the ninth century, the culthad become known in papal Rome and the Carolingian realm, and a century later


For the classical account on the dissemination of this cult in the early medieval west, see Karl94

Meisen, Nicholauskult und Nicholausbrauch im Abendlande: Eine kultgeographisch-volkskundlicheUntersuchung, 2nd edn, ed. by Matthias Zender and Franz-Jozef Heyen (Düsseldorf: Schwann,1981 [1931]), pp. 56–88; summarized in Werner Mezger, Sankt Nikolaus: Zwischen Kult undKlamauk: Zur Entstehung, Entwicklung und Veränderung der Brauchformen um einen populärenHeiligen (Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, 1993), pp. 17–22.

For details and references see E. M. Treharne, The Old English Life of St Nicholas with the95

Old English Life of St Giles, Leeds Texts and Monographs, n.s., 15 (Leeds: University of Leeds,1997), pp. 34–35.

Meisen, Nicholauskult und Nicholausbrauch, pp. 89–104; and Treharne, Old English Life of96

St Nicholas, pp. 35–42.

See Charles W. Jones, The Saint Nicholas Liturgy and its Literary Relationships (Ninth to97

Twelfth Centuries) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), pp. 10–13 and 64–89; andJones, Saint Nicholas of Myra, Bari, and Manhattan: Biography of a Legend (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 140–44 and 147–49. See also Véronique Gazeau, Normanniamonastica, 2 vols (Caen: Publications de CRAHM, 2008), I, 188–89 and 197.

The saint is listed in litanies in the following manuscripts written at the middle of the eleventh98

century: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 163 and 391. The names of the local saints men-tioned in the first litany link it to Cologne, and the second codex is of Worcester provenance, whichmight also point to an influence from Lower Lotharingia. See Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, ed.by Michael Lapidge (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1991), pp. 64, 79, 107 and 245. On a possi-ble connection of Worcester with Lower Lotharingia, see Jones, Saint Nicholas of Myra, pp. 142–44.

For details and references, see Treharne, Old English Life of St Nicholas, pp. 42–45.99

it spread to Ottonian Germany, which became especially important for the dis-94

semination of the cult of St Nicholas around the year 1000.95

According to the traditional interpretation established by Karl Meisen, the foun-dation of the Norman state in southern Italy made this cult popular in Normandyin the first half of the eleventh century. Consequently, Normans became the mainagents popularizing the cult of St Nicholas in England and Scandinavia. On the96

other hand, Charles Jones has pointed to the cathedral culture of Lower Lotharingiaas the place where, in the second half of the tenth century, the cult of St Nicholaswas developed under a Byzantine influence. It was then transmitted to Normandy,England, and France in the second quarter of the eleventh century. The inclusion97

of St Nicholas in the Anglo-Saxon litanies of saints in the mid-eleventh century,when his cult was first transmitted to southern England, seems to correspond tothe original connection with the middle Rhine region rather than Normandy.98

Yet it is only after the Norman Conquest and under the influence of Normansthat the saint began to be repeatedly chosen as a titular saint for churches andabbeys in England. This fact corresponds to the leading role of Normans in the99


On this event and connections between Normandy and the Normans in Apulia and100

Calabria, see Marjorie Chibnall, ‘The Translation of the Relics of Saint Nicholas and NormanHistorical Tradition’, in Le relazioni religiose e chiesastico-giurisdizionali: Atti del II Congressoo

internazionale sulle relazioni fra le due Sponde adriatiche (Rome: Centro di studi sulla storia e laciviltà adriatica, 1979), pp. 33–41.

On the increasing number of manuscripts with hagiographic works on St Nicholas in the101

twelfth century, see Guy Philippart and Michel Trogalet, ‘L’Hagiographie latine du XI siècle danse

la longue durée: données statistique sur la production littéraire et sur l’édition médiévale’, in LatinCulture in the Eleventh Century: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on MedievalLatin Studies, Cambridge, September 9–12 1998, ed. by Michael W. Herren, C. J. McDonough,and Ross G. Arthur, 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), I, 281–301 (p. 299).

Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh, pp. 358, 557, and 596. The102

Sermon on the Translation of the Relics of Nicholas the Wondermaker, also known as the KievanLegend, was composed in Rus’ soon after the event. For details on this text and the time of itscomposiiton, see Cioffari, La leggenda di Kiev, pp. 43–71.

His seals have survived; see Janin, Aktovyje pechati drevnej Rusi X–XV vv., I, 48.103

See Simon Franklin, ‘Kievan Rus’ (1015–1125)’, in Cambridge History of Russia, vol. I: From104

Early Rus’ to 1689, ed. by Maureen Perrie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp.73–97 (p. 91).

propagation of this cult in Western Europe in the second half of the eleventhcentury. The most influential event in this process was the translation of relics ofSt Nicholas from Myra to Bari in 1087, undertaken by Italian Normans, which100

led to the establishment in 1089 of the Catholic feast (on 9 May) dedicated to thisevent. As a result of these developments, St Nicholas became a popular saint allover Europe during the twelfth century.101

The Catholic feast on 9 May dedicated to the translation of relics of St Nicholasfrom Asia Minor to southern Italy was hardly acceptable for the Byzantine Church.In contrast, it was incorporated into the early Kievan liturgy almost immediately,probably between 1089 and 1093. Although the Kievan metropolitan Nicholas102

(c. 1091–1104) might have promoted the feast of his namesake, the close con-103

tacts of early Rus’ and its rulers with Western Europe must also have contributedto the introduction of the feast in Kiev. In this context the dynastic links of PrinceMstislav Vladimirovich, whom the First Novgorodian Chronicle credited withfounding the first stone church of St Nicholas in 1113, are quite informative here.

His mother was a daughter of the last Anglo-Saxon king Harald, Gytha ofWessex, who had fled to Flanders and thereafter to Denmark to King Sven Es-tridsen before she married Prince Vladimir Monomakh in the early 1070s. In the104

west Mstislav was known as Harald; this name was given to him, most likely by his


A. V. Nazarenko, ‘Chudo sv. Panteleimona o “russkom korole Haralde”: monastyr’ sv.105

Panteleimona v Kolne i semiejstvo Mstislava Velikogo (konets XI – nachalo XII veka)’, in DrevniajaRus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh, pp. 585–616.

On its dating, see Hubert Krins, Die frühen Steinkirchen Danemarks (Hamburg: Universitat106

Hamburg, 1968), pp. 88–89. For problems with its early dedication, see Anna Minara Ciardi,‘Saints and Cathedral Culture in Scandinavia c. 1000–c. 1200’, in this volume.

Erik Cinthio, ‘Heiligenpatrone und Kirchenbauten während des frühen Mittelalters’, in107

Kirche und Gesellschaft im Ostseeraum und im Norden vor der Mittes des 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. bySven Ekdahl, Acta Visbyensia, 3 (Visby: Gotlands Fornsal, 1969), pp. 161–69 (p. 168); ToreNyberg, Monasticism in North-Western Europe, 800–1200 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 66 and206; and Haki Antonsson, ‘Saints and Relics in Early Christian Scandinavia’, Mediaeval Scandi-navia, 15 (2005), 51–80 (p. 64).

Per Beskow, ‘Kyrkededikationer i Lund’, in Per Beskow and Reinhart Staats, Nordens108

kristnande i europeiskt perspektiv (Skara: Viktoria, 1994), pp. 37–62 (p. 54).

mother, in addition to the princely name. Gytha must have influenced the religiousviews of her son, with whom she probably stayed during the last years of her life.Nazarenko has shown that her close ties with the cloister of St Pantaleon atCologne led to the promotion of this saint’s cult in Novgorod, to the extent thatthe saint became the patron saint of Mstislav’s son, Iziaslav. He has also suggestedthat the miracle of St Panteleon involving Harald-Mstislav, which can be dated tothe 1090s and was written down in the cloister of St Panteleon in the early twelfthcentury, influenced the legend that describes the foundation of the church of StNicholas in Novgorod in 1113. It must be remembered here that Cologne was105

one of a few centres in Lower Lotharingia that promoted the cult of St Nicholasacross Northern Europe.

Furthermore, the cult of St Nicholas also disseminated to late eleventh-centuryDenmark, where Gytha stayed before her marriage to Vladimir Monomach. In thisperiod, the first royal son, namely the son of King Sven Estridsen, Niels (King ofDenmark 1104–34), was named after the saint, which means that the name of thesaint was introduced into the Danish royal dynasty almost at the same time as inthe dynasty of the Rurikids. The oldest cathedral church of Århus, built in the1070s or 1080s, might have been dedicated to St Nicholas. The Slangerup nun-106

nery founded by King Erik Ejegod on Sjælland c. 1100 was dedicated to the samesaint, and it hosted his relics. From this time onwards, almost a dozen churches107

dedicated to St Nicholas were founded in twelfth-century Denmark, including thesee of the Danish archbishopric, Lund.108

Similar to Denmark, the first churches dedicated to St Nicholas were foundedin Norway around the year 1100. One of them might have been St Nicholas’s in


Haakon Christie, ‘Old Oslo’, Medieval Archaeology, 10 (1966), 45–58 (pp. 48–50); and109

Lorentz Dietrichson, Sammenlignede Fortegnelse over Norges Kirkebygninger i Middelalderen ogNutiden (Kristiania: Malling, 1888), p. 6. Its dating ‘by 1100’ is uncertain.

The Saga of the Sons of Magnús, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, trans. by Hollander, pp.110

688–714 (p. 699).

This Scandinavian name probably given to Mstislav’s daughter at her birth is indicative of111

tight dynastic links between early Russian and Scandinavian royal houses. For details, see F. B.Uspenskij, Skandinavy, variagi, Rus’: Istoriko-filologicheskije ocherki (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskojkul’tury, 2002), pp. 36–39.

For details and references, see Jonas Ros, Staden, kyrkorna och den kyrkliga organisationen,112

Occasional Papers in Archaeology, 30 (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2001), pp. 172–76; andAnders Wikström, ‘Den svårfångande kronologin: Om gravstratigrafi och problem med dateringenav Sigtunas tidigmedeltida kyrkor’, Hikuin, 33 (2006), 223–38 (p. 226).

Sten Tesch, ‘Kungen, Kristus och Sigtuna: platsen där guld och människor möttes’, in Kult,113

Guld och Makt, ed. by Ingemar Nordgren (Göteborg: Kompendiet, 2007), pp. 233–57 (pp.253–54).

Oslo, which was erected near the royal castle. Another church was built in the109

royal palace in Trondheim, allegedly by King Eystein Magnusson, while his brotherSigurd Jorsalfar (1103–30) travelled to Jerusalem from 1108 to 1111 and visitedSicily and Constantinople among other places. It is also possible that the church110

in question was founded by Sigurd upon his return to Norway, since Trondheimbelonged to his part of the kingdom. Moreover, if relics of St Nicholas weredeposited at the time of foundation, they must have been brought by Sigurd, notEystein. Finally, the wife of Sigurd, Malmfrid, was a daughter of Prince Mstislav,111

who built the stone church of St Nicholas in Novgorod in the very same years.Thus, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that dynastic contacts between the tworoyal families might somehow have been involved in these parallel dedications.

In Sweden, a stone church dedicated to St Nicholas that can now be safely datedto the second half of the twelfth century existed in Sigtuna. At the same time,112

Sten Tesch argues that this church was erected in the first half of the twelfth cen-tury along with six other stone churches, with some degree of coordinated efforton the part of the political authorities. Upon completion these churches createda new sacred street, which must have been used for festal ceremonial processionsfrom the church of St Peter to the church of St Olaf. The church of St Nicholas113

was right in the middle of that street. At the same time, its architectural design isreminiscent of Byzantine provincial churches, and in the early modern period itwas referred to as a Russian church. So there are all kinds of reasons to believe thatthe twelfth-century church most likely followed an Orthodox rite and that the cult


That is why it has been suggested that the church of St Nicholas in Sigtuna was founded114

and owned by Novgorodian merchants, similar to the church of St Nicholas in Visby, which hasbeen dated to the second half of the twelfth century. For details and references, see Ros, Staden,kyrkorna, p. 175.

Andrzej Buko, The Archaeology of Early Medieval Poland: Discoveries – Hypothesis –115

Interpretations, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, n.s., 1 (Leiden:Brill, 2008), pp. 213 and 253–54; and Henryk Paner, ‘The Spatial Development of Gdansk to thebeginning of the 14th Century: The Origins of the Old and the Main Town’, in Polish Lands atthe Turn of the First and the Second Millennia, ed. by Urbanczyk, pp. 15–32 (pp. 23–27).

A Romanesque influence is visible in the design of the western and southern galleries of the116

Novgorodian cathedral. See G. M. Shtender, ‘Pervichnyj zamysel i posledujushchije izmenenija

of St Nicholas most likely arrived in Sigtuna from Novgorod due to intensivepolitical and trading contacts. As in Novgorod, Denmark, and Norway, the cult114

might have had support from the royal power.Thus, the overview of the earliest church dedications to St Nicholas in Scan-

dinavia suggests that, although the veneration of St Nicholas was introduced toearly Rus’ as an element of the Byzantine cult of saints, the special status of thissaint in twelfth-century northern Rus’ and Novgorod in particular was also a partof a more general process of the dissemination of the saint’s cult across the North.Royal involvement and dynastic contacts were more significant in this process thanconfessional divides. Trading contacts via the Baltic were also important. It is notcoincidental that in the same period or slightly later St Nicholas became thefavoured patron saint of early churches founded in newly Christianized Pomerania— that is, along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea on the way from northernGermany and Denmark to Novgorod — for instance, in Kamien and Gdansk.115

In the twelfth century, St Nicholas became a patron saint of sailors and merchantsacross the Baltic, and the prominent position of St Nicholas in Novgorod made itsimilar to its trading counterparts in the Baltic region.

Conclusion

These close cultural contacts of Novgorod with the west and Northern Europe inparticular left other imprints on this northern town. The most illustrative exampleis St Sophia of Novgorod, which was erected in the mid-eleventh century. In thesecond half of the eleventh century this cathedral incorporated some Romanesquefeatures. This Romanesque influence, which did not reach Kiev at the time, mostlikely came to Novgorod via contacts with Northern Europe.116


galerej i lestnichnoj bashni Novgorodskoj Sofii’, in Drevnerusskoje iskusstvo: Problemy i atributsiji(Moscow: Nauka, 1977), pp. 30–54; V. N. Lazarev, ‘O rospisi Sofiji Novgorodskoj’, in Vizantijskojei drevnerusskoje iskusstvo (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), pp. 116–74 (p. 119); and Oleg Ioannisyan,‘Between Byzantium and the Romanesque West: The Architecture of Old Rus’ in the 10th–13thCenturies’, in Rom und Byzanz im Norden, ed. by Müller-Wille, II, 297–323 (p. 310). The onlyeleventh-century church of Kievan Rus’ that experienced a similar Romanesque influence was StSophia of Polotsk, built between 1044 and 1066; see V. N. Lazarev, ‘Iskusstvo srednevekovoj Rusii zapad (XI–XVvv.)’, in Vizantijskoje i drevnerusskoje iskusstvo, pp. 227–96 (pp. 231–32 and 254).

See note 72.117

Lazarev, ‘Iskusstvo srednevekovoj Rusi i zapad’, p. 268; and O. C. Popova, ‘Ostromirovo118

evangelije. Miniatiury i ornamenty’, at <http://www.nlr.ru/exib/Gospel/ostr/popova.html>[accessed 5 June 2010].

O. V. Loseva, ‘Prazdniki zapadnogo proiskhozhdenija v russkikh i juzhnoslavianskikh119

mesiatseslovakh XI–XIV vv.’, Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, 8th ser., 2 (2001), 17–32 (p. 28);and Loseva, Russkije mesiatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 63–75. She also argues against the establishedtradition of seeing these ‘Latinizing’ feasts as deriving from ninth-century Bulgaria. For the latter,see for instance Maria Schnitter and Heinz Miklas, ‘Kyrillomethodianische Miszellen: WestlicheEinträge in den ältesten kirchenslavischen Kalendarien’, in Festschrift für Klaus Trost zum 65.Geburtstag, ed. by E. Hansack and others (Munich: Otto Sagner, 1999), pp. 259–88 (pp. 283–84).

The Christian impulses from Western Europe can also be found in the Ostro-mir Gospel, which, as mentioned above, was commissioned by the Count of Nov-gorod. It is less clear, however, whether the manuscript was produced in that townor in Kiev in the entourage of Prince Iziaslav Jaroslavich and his Polish wife.117

Although its iconography generally follows Byzantine artistic norms, some of itsiconographic elements like illuminated initials with human faces and monsters areunique to early Russian manuscripts and are similar to the artistic traditions ofCarolingian and Ottonian manuscripts. Moreover, as in other early Russian118

aprakos-gospels, its menologion includes some feasts of saints in accordance withthe Latin liturgical tradition. These ‘Latinizing’ feasts have been thoroughlystudied by O. V. Loseva and can be omitted here. She suggests that in religiousterms early Rus’ was much more open to the west than in later periods and that the‘Latinizing’ feasts in the eleventh-century menologia might have been borrowedfrom various sources that resulted from the active cultural contacts of Rus’ withWestern Europe in the time of Jaroslav and his sons. As Michele Colucci has119

emphasized in relation to the perception of Western Christianity in early Rus’,

The fact is that, while on the one hand being tied religiously and culturally to Byzantiumwith firm, manifold bonds, Kievan Rus’ had little or no reason to share the bitter hostilitytoward the Western world that was felt in certain segments of the Greek world. Owing toher own economic and military strength, Rus’ was quite capable of shaping her own


Michele Colucci, ‘The Image of Western Christianity in the Culture of Kievan Rus’’,120

Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 12–13 (1988–89), 576–86 (p. 586). For more details on this image,see Tatjana Jackson, ‘The Cult of St Olaf and Early Novgorod’, in this volume.

For more details on the composition of this legend and its implications and relevant bib-121

liography, see Ludolf Müller, ‘Drevnerusskoje skazanije o khozhdenije apostola Andreja v Kiev iNovgorod’, in Letopisi i khroniki: Sbornik statej (Moscow: Nauka, 1974), pp. 48–63; AndrzejPoppe, ‘Two Concepts of the Conversion of Rus’ in Kievan Writings’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies,12/13 (1988–89), 488–504 (pp. 498–501); V. M. Istrin, Ocherk istoriji drenerusskoj literaturydomoskovskogo perioda (Petrograd: Nauka i shkola, 1922), p. 130; and Tolochko, ‘Rom undByzanz’, pp. 243–45. Istrin and Tolochko after him have argued that the legend might have beencreated in the 1070s. Müller and Poppe have suggested a later period for its composition, betweenc. 1085–86 and 1116.

PSRL, I, cols 7–8.122

particular ideological stance that allowed for a variation in trends and allowed, at times, fora significant degree of openness. This pattern is detectable not only up until the middle ofthe eleventh century, but also after the substitution in Kiev of Iziaslav by Vsevolod, and,in the final analysis, until the advent of the Mongols.120

This statement equally applies to the early Russian cult of saints.To sum up, two specific conclusions can be drawn in regard to the veneration

of saints in early Christian Novgorod and eleventh-century Rus’ in general. Thefirst is that not only specifically Orthodox saints but also universal saints highlyregarded all around Europe and particularly in Northern Europe, like St Clementand St Nicholas, were venerated in early Rus’ and in Novgorod in particular. Fromthis perspective, early Christian Novgorod was not only a key town on the tradingroute connecting Scandinavia with early Rus’ and Byzantium, but also an impor-tant hub in the cultural traffic of universal saints across Northern Europe, in whichScandinavians played a pivotal role. The famous legend about the travel of ApostleAndrew to early Rus’, which might have been created soon after the analysed litur-gical evidence from Novgorod, perfectly corresponds to this eleventh-century121

perspective. In this legend, in order to reach Rome from Cherson on the coast ofthe Black Sea, Andrew moves northward along the Dniepr, stops at the placeswhere Kiev and Novgorod will be established, then travels to the Varangians inScandinavia before finally reaching Rome. At the time when the legend was122

composed, some saints’ cults could have travelled precisely along the legendarynorthern route of Apostle Andrew.

The second conclusion is that three main factors were particularly importantfor the cult of saints in early Rus’. Initially, in the absence of local saints, earlyRussian clergy promoted certain saints like St Clement with the support of princes.


The princely patronage of the cult of saints, which was important in the firstdecades after conversion, became crucial from the mid-eleventh century, whenRussian princes began promoting their patron saints like St George, St Demetrios,and St Michael not only by taking their names as baptismal names and placingthem on official seals, but also by dedicating to them newly founded churches. Theextent of identification with a royal patron saint that developed in early Rus’ wasunknown in the concurrent Latin west. At the time of dynastic quarrels, localprinces were eager to promote patron saints of their own, but were reluctant to givea place of honour to the patron saints of their royal opponents. The promotion ofthe first indigenous royal saints, St Boris and St Gleb, was the logical result of thesetwo factors at work. Finally, certain saints like St Cosma and St Damian, St Bar-bara, and St Blaise seem to have developed a strong appeal to popular religiosity.This factor became especially important from the late eleventh century, and theprominent position of St Nicholas in twelfth-century Novgorod owed as much tohis popularity among the merchants and sailors of the city as to his official pro-motion by local princes.

I would like to acknowledge the financial support of OIFN RAN — Project ‘Istoricheskij opytrazreshenija konfliktov v epochu politogeneza (komparativnoe issledovanie)’ — as well as the assis-tance of my colleagues and friends: Alexander Podossinov, Ilja Sverdlov, Tatjana Rozhdestvenskaja,and Kristel Zilmer.

As Haki Antonsson, ‘The Cult of St Ólafr in the Eleventh Century and Kievan Rus’’,1

Middelalderforum, 1–2 (2003), 143–60 (p. 143), points out, ‘the sources relating to the emergenceof the cult of King Ólafr Haraldsson (d. 1030) of Norway are in decidedly short supply. Essentiallywe rely on two types of sources in reconstructing the historical background to Ólafr’s translatio, or

THE CULT OF ST OLAF AND EARLY NOVGOROD

Tatjana N. Jackson

The present chapter aims to discuss the veneration of Latin saints in north-western Rus’ in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with a particular focuson St Olaf (Óláfr helgi), king and patron saint of Norway (c. 995–1030).

The cult of St Olaf is a wide topic, some aspects of which are discussed in othercontributions to this volume. Hence, this chapter will only briefly touch upon thespread of St Olaf’s cult that resulted in the collection of his miracles and discuss indetail the four ‘Russian’ miracles of the saint preserved in Old Norse-Icelandicsources and the Church of St Olaf in Novgorod. The latter has long been in needof a critical study, notwithstanding that we do not have enough source material todate when exactly the church was founded. What is certain is that a ‘Varangian’ —that is, Catholic — church existed in twelfth-century Novgorod, and that theveneration of a Latin saint like St Olaf was not an exceptional phenomenon there.

‘Russian’ Miracles of St Olaf

Olaf Haraldsson, king of Norway, was killed in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July1030. The process of his sanctification began almost immediately after the battle,1

Tatjana N. Jackson148

local canonisation, in 1031 and the development of his cult in the eleventh century: contemporaryskaldic poetry on one hand and Norwegian and Icelandic writings of the late twelfth and earlythirteenth centuries on the other hand’.

Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. by Francis J. Tschan,2

2nd edn with new introduction and bibliography by Timothy Reuter (New York: Columbia Uni-versity Press, 2002), p. 97. ‘Agitur festivitas eius IIII kal. Augusti, omnibus septentrionalis occeanio

populis Nortmannorum, Sueonum, Gothorum, [Semborum,] Danorum atque Sclavorum aeternocultu memorabilis’: Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, II. 61, ed. byBernhard Schmeidler, MGH SRG, 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1917), p. 122.

There are no surviving books or texts from the eleventh century; still, local liturgical book3

production in Norway is likely to go back to approximately 1070. Cf. Lars Boje Mortensen,‘Sanctified Beginnings and Mythopoietic Moments: The First Wave of Writing on the Past inNorway, Denmark, and Hungary, c. 1000–1230’, in The Making of Christian Myths in thePeriphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000–1300), ed. by Lars Boje Mortensen (Copenhagen:Museum Tusculanum, 2006), pp. 247–73 (pp. 252–54).

Cf. Anne Holtsmark, ‘Sankt Olavs liv og mirakler’, in Festskrift til Francis Bul på 50 årsdagen,4

ed. by Sigmund Skard (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1937), pp. 121–33.

John Lindow, ‘St Olaf and the Skalds’, in Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in5

Medieval Scandinavia, ed. by Thomas A. DuBois (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008),pp. 103–27 (p. 120).

and according to Adam of Bremen by c. 1070 St Olaf’s feast had been ‘worthilyrecalled with eternal veneration on the part of all the peoples of the NorthernOcean, the Norwegians, Swedes, Goths, Sembi, Danes, and Slavs’. The establish-2

ment of St Olaf’s cult resulted not only in the local production of liturgical books,3

but also in the appearance of his life (vita) and a collection of his miracles. The4

miracles performed by Olaf are mentioned already in skaldic poems composedsoon after his death. These are Þórarinn loftunga’s (‘praise-tongue’) Glælognskviða(Sea-calm Poem) dated to 1031–35, Þórðr Sjóreksson’s Róðudrápa (Rood-poem),and Sigvatr Þórðarson’s Erfidrápa (Memorial Poem) dated to the early 1040s. JohnLindow has argued very convincingly ‘that a miracle presented in skaldic languagewas to some ears a more powerful miracle than one recounted in prose or in thelanguage of the church’. Still, skaldic miracles were not a part of written culture,5

and thus we should date the appearance of the miracula not earlier than a centuryafter Olaf’s death. Numerous miracles performed by the King are described in thepoem Geisli (Sunbeam) by the Icelandic priest Einarr Skúlason, which he recitedin Christ’s Church in Nidaros in the winter of 1152–53; this, along with othersource material, indicates the existence of a group of ‘basic miracles’ (‘kernemi-rakler’, 1–10) before the establishment of the archdiocese of Nidaros, which means

THE CULT OF ST OLAF AND EARLY NOVGOROD 149

Cf. Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Olav den Helliges mirakler i det 12. årh.: Streng tekstkontrol eller6

fri fabuleren?’, in Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskrivning i 1100-tallets Norge, ed. by IngerEkrem and others (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2000), pp. 89–107 (p. 97); Mortensen,‘Sanctified Beginnings and Mythopoietic Moments’, p. 257; and Lars Boje Mortensen and ElseMundal, ‘Erkebispesetet i Nidaros: arnestad og verkstad for olavslitteraturen’, in EcclesiaNidrosiensis 1153–1537: Søkelys på Nidaroskirkens og Nidarosprovinsens historie, ed. by SteinarImsen (Trondheim: Tapir, 2003), pp. 353–84 (pp. 363–68).

Carl Phelpstead, ‘Introduction’, in A History of Norway and The Passion and Miracles of the7

Blessed Óláfr, trans. by Devra Kunin, ed. by Carl Phelpstead (London: Viking Society for NorthernResearch, 2001), pp. ix–xlv (p. xli).

Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. by Finnur Jónsson, A: Text efter håndskrifterne, I:8

800–1200 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1967), p. 263.

The English translation is from Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of9

Norway, trans. by Lee M. Hollander (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), p. 530.

that the miracles were ‘perhaps written down in the 1140s, or even earlier’. The6

collection of miracles underwent certain changes thereafter, and after EysteinErlendsson (Archbishop of Nidaros in 1161–88) extended the Passio Olavi andupdated the miracles in the 1170s or 1180s, the collection included forty-nine(fifty) miracles. Alongside the Passio Olavi, Olaf’s miracles are recounted in anumber of vernacular texts, such as the Old Norwegian Homily Book (comprisinga short vita and twenty-one miracles), in the Legendary Saga of St Olaf, in SnorriSturluson’s separate Óláfs saga helga, and in Heimskringla.

All in all there are four miracles of St Olaf that had been displayed in early Rus’.One of them is related by an eleventh-century Icelandic skald alone. The secondone is narrated only in the sagas of St Olaf, while the third and the fourth miraclesappear in both ‘ecclesiastical’ texts and ‘historical’ works (to use Carl Phelpstead’sterminology ).7

The first ‘Russian’ miracle is mentioned only in Erfidrápa Óláfs helga, by theIcelandic skald Sigvatr Þórðarson (c. 995–1045). One strophe of this poem (namely,the 23rd stanza ) is quoted by Snorri Sturluson in his Óláfs saga helga (in a separate8

saga, in Heimskringla, and in compilations) in order to verify his story of Olaf’s hairand nails growing as they did when he was alive: ‘The bishop tended the sanctuaryof King Óláf, clipping his hair and nails, because both grew as they did when he wasliving in this world. As says the skald Sigvat ….’ Here follows the strophe:9

Lýgk, nema Ó� leifr eigiýs sem kykvir tívar,gœðik helzt í hróðri,hárvo�xt, konungs ó�ru.


Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, 2, ed. by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Íslenzk fornrit, 2710

(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1945), p. 406. The prose translation is mine with theassistance of Ilja Sverdlov. Cf. John Lindow’s translation: ‘I lie, if Olaf does not have growth of hairlike live gods of the yew [= bow; its gods = men]; I adorn the king’s envoys [= men] in my praise[= poem]; the hair that grew out of the bright skull of the one who gave sight to Valdamar inRussia maintains itself; he got freedom from injury’ (Lindow, ‘St Olaf and the Skalds’, p. 126).

Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. by Finnur Jónsson, B: Rettet text, I: 800–120011

(Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1973), p. 244; Heimskringla, or the Lives of the Norse Kings,trans. by Erling Monsen and A. H. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), p. 469;and Snorres Kongesagaer, trans. by Anne Holtsmark and Didrik Arup Seip (Oslo: Gyldendal,1934), p. 447.

Omeljan Pritsak, The Origin of Rus’, vol. I: Old Scandinavian Sources other than the Sagas12

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1981), p. 277.

Lindow, ‘St Olaf and the Skalds’, p. 126.13

T. N. Jackson, Islandskie korolevskie sagi o Vostochnoj Evrope (pervaja tret’ XI v.): Teksty,14

perevod, kommentarij (Moscow: Ladomir, 1994), p. 83.

Snorri Sturluson, Krug Zemnoj, ed. and trans. by A. Ya. Gurevich and others (Moscow:15

Nauka, 1980), p. 374.

Snorri Sturluson, Krug Zemnoj, p. 652, n. 174.16

Enn helzk, þeims sýn seldi,svo�rðr, þanns óx, í Go�rðumhann fekk læs, af liósum,lausn Valdamar, hausi.

[I lie not, if I say that Olaf’s hair has grown like on live men. I gladly praise the king’s menin my poem. He cured Valdamarr in Garðar (Rus’) from illness. The hair that grew out ofthe bright skull of the one who gave sight still maintains itself.]10

The strophe thus contains information not only on the growth of Olaf’s hairafter his death, but also on Olaf’s miracle performed in his lifetime. This is how thetext is understood by Finnur Jónsson and translated by Erling Monsen and A. H.Smith and by Anne Holtsmark and Didrik Arup Seip. Hollander’s translation11

was also accepted by Omeljan Pritsak, and this is how John Lindow reads this12

strophe. In my own translation (published in 1994), it is also a miracle performed13

in Olaf’s lifetime. Olga Smirnitskaja’s translation offers a different reading: here14 15

we find ‘a lock’ ‘that healed Valdamarr’, which looks like posthumous relics of StOlaf. However, the accompanying commentary reads as follows: ‘The strophe tellsabout a certain man, Valdamarr by name, who was healed by St Olaf when he wasin Rus’.’ The translation and the commentary are definitely in contradiction.16


E. A. Melnikova, ‘Kul’t Sv. Olava v Novgorode i Konstantinopole’, Vizantijskij vremennik,17

56 [81] (1996), 92–106 (p. 95); and Melnikova, ‘Baltijskaja politika Jaroslava Mudrogo’, in JaroslavMudryj i ego epokha (Moscow: Indrik, 2008), pp. 78–133 (p. 127).

Melnikova, ‘Kul’t Sv. Olava’, p. 95.18

Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. by Finnur Jónsson, B, I, 244. This opinion is shared19

by Lee M. Hollander (Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, trans. by Hollander, p. 530), OmeljanPritsak (Origin of Rus’, I, 277), and E. A. Melnikova (‘Kul’t Sv. Olava’, p. 95).

Holtsmark, ‘Sankt Olavs liv og mirakler’, p. 122, n. 2: ‘jeg leser dette verset anderledes enn20

Finnur Jónsson, Skjd. B. I, s. 244, og tar sammen í Görðum hann fekk læs lausn Valdamar: hannfridde Valdemar i Gardar fro pine’. Cf. O. A. Smirnitskaja’s translation in Snorri Sturluson, KrugZemnoj, p. 374.

Lindow, ‘St Olaf and the Skalds’, pp. 119 and 126.21

Holtsmark, ‘Sankt Olavs liv og mirakler’, p. 122, n. 2. See below about the second ‘Russian’22

miracle.

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, 2, p. 477.23

Snorri Sturluson, Krug Zemnoj, p. 652, n. 174; Melnikova, ‘Kul’t Sv. Olava’, p. 95 (‘a certain24

Valdamarr, a Russian, judging from his name’); cf. Lindow, ‘St Olaf and the Skalds’, p. 119 (‘oneValdamar of Russia’).

Two translations by Elena Melnikova, though they differ in details, leave no17

doubt that she understands this miracle as a posthumous one. Moreover, she statesin her argumentation: ‘This plot, unknown from other sources, is still clear: Olaf’slock, cut off by Olaf himself when he was in Rus’, or kept as a relic by a certainScandinavian (Sigvatr tells also that Bishop Grimkel has cut Olaf’s hair), has healedfrom blindness a certain Valdamarr, a Russian, judging from his name.’18

Scholars are not unanimous in assessing the character of this miraculous heal-ing. Thus, according to Finnur Jónsson, the healing resulted in the restitution ofValdamarr’s eyesight, while Anne Holtsmark thinks that Valdamarr was relieved19

from pain and suffering. According to John Lindow, St Olaf had restored the20

eyesight of a certain Valdamarr in Russia and perhaps cured him of other ills.21

Still, the most complicated issue in this connection is the figure of Valdamarrmentioned by the skald. The study of a broader context is of little help here, asthere is no information in the sagas about any blindness or suffering of a man calledValdamarr who would have been healed by Olaf Haraldsson in Garðar (Rus’).Anne Holtsmark suggests that the skald might have referred to the story of Óláfssaga helga of St Olaf’s healing in Hólmgarðr (Novgorod) a boy with a boil in histhroat, although the boy was not named in the saga. If we check the indexes to22

Heimskringla translations, we may notice that some editors leave the nameValdamarr without any comments. Some note that it is ‘a certain man in Rus’,23 24


Heimskringla, trans. by Monsen and Smith, p. 469: ‘Valdamar, the eldest son of King Jarizleif25

of Russia’; cf. Pritsak, Origin of Rus’, I, 277: ‘Valdamar, son of Yaroslav’.

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, trans. by Hollander, p. 853: ‘Valdamar (king of Gartharíki)’.26

E. A. Melnikova, ‘The Cult of St. Olaf in Novgorod’, in Sagas and the Norwegian Experience,27

10th International Saga Conference, Preprints (Trondheim: NTNU, Senter for middelalderstudier,1997), pp. 453–60 (p. 456).

Passio et miracula beati Olaui, ed. by F. Metcalfe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), passim.28

See Diana Whaley, ‘The Miracles of S. Óláfr in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla’, in Proceed-29

ings of the Tenth Viking Congress, ed. by James Knirk (Oslo: Universitetets Oldsaksamling, 1987),pp. 325–42.

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, 2, p. 387; 3, ed. by Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Íslenzk fornrit, 2830

(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1951), pp. 43–45 and 85–87; trans. by Hollander, pp. 516,561–63, and 588.

while others identify him either with the Russian prince Vladimir Jaroslavich or25

with his grandfather, Vladimir Sviatoslavich.26

‘Whatever the interpretation of the miraculous event may be’, writes ElenaMelnikova, ‘the most important thing about the miracle-story itself is the locali-zation of the event’: a decade after the death of the holy king, an Icelandic skaldtells the story about St Olaf healing a Russian (Valdamarr) in Rus’ (í Görðum). Inher opinion, ‘it is hardly probable that such a story could have originated in themilieu other than Scandinavian residents in and travellers to Rus’. Correspond-ingly, ‘they must have had permanent and tight connections with Norway for thenews of Olaf’s canonization to reach them and for its echo, a story about St Olaf’smiracle, to return to Norway by 1040’. I am afraid this elegant construction27

comes to nothing because of the name Valdamarr used by the skald.The stories of miraculous healings (gaining sight among them) usually have

nameless characters: ‘a certain boy’, ‘a certain matron’, ‘a certain priest’, and so on.Most notably this is the case with the collection of miracles in the Passio Olavi,28

but in the sagas we also encounter situations when ‘a blind beggar gained sight’,‘two blind people gain sight and a mute his speech’, etc. These stories are stereo-29

typical in character, and if they include any names then they are the names of placesand peoples, demonstrating the geographical spread of the miraculous powers ofthe saint. In those cases when an object of Olaf’s miracle is called by name, this isinevitably an atypical miracle. The character is someone well known; for instance,the Norwegian magnate Thórir the Hound (whose wounds were healed by Olaf’sblood), King Magnus the Good (assisted by his father in the battle against theWends), or Harald Sigurdarson (released from prison in Byzantium by a lady onSt Olaf’s request). The saga story of healing the boy with a boil in his throat is30


See note 22 above.31

Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, ed. by Sigurður Nordal and Guðni Jónsson, Íslenzk fornrit, 332

(Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1938), p. 120.

Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning, ed. by Finnur Jónsson, A, I, 201.33

stylistically similar to all other stories of miraculous healings. It is hardly possiblethat this saga character, unlike others healed by Olaf, should have had a name,moreover a name preserved by the skald in oral tradition — that is why I find itdifficult to agree with Anne Holtsmark. But even without any connection with31

the story of healing the boy in Hólmgarðr, the Valdamarr named by Sigvatr isabsolutely atypical of this context. Only the name of someone in fact well knownwould have been mentioned.

All Russian names that we know from the sagas are the names of Russianprinces, their wives, and their children; even Kaldimarr from Bjarnar saga Hít-dælakappa, an invented character with an invented name, is said to be a relative ofkonungr Valdimarr. There are not many of these names, and Valdamarr/32

Valdimarr stands out as this is the name of three Russian princes familiar to thesagas: namely Vladimir Sviatoslavich (Prince of Kiev, 978–1015), Vladimir Jarosla-vich (Prince of Novgorod, 1034/36–52), and Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh(Prince of Kiev, 1113–25). This name also passes on to the dynasty of Danishkings; namely, to the great grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, the Danish kingValdemar I (1157–82). Out of three Russian konungar with the name Valdamarr,the best known is Vladimir Sviatoslavich. Sagas do not give the name of his father,which is not typical, for the sagas are very keen on genealogies. But he sometimesis nicknamed ‘the Old’ in the sagas, which reminds us of ‘Óðinn the Old’, theforefather of Scandinavian gods. Thus, this Valdamarr is thought to be the founderof the Russian ruling dynasty. He is also famous for having been the foster fatherof Olaf Tryggvason: according to the sagas, Olaf had spent about nine years in earlyRus’ at the court of Vladimir Sviatoslavich. Furthermore, he is the only Russianruler mentioned in skaldic poetry: Eyjólfr dáðaskáld says in Bandadrápa (c. 1010)that the Norwegian earl Eiríkr Hákonarson ‘laid waste Valdamarr’s land’ and‘harried east in Garðar’. The situation with the other two Valdamarrs is more33

complicated, as the sagas of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries (with theexception of the S redaction of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar by Oddr Snorrason) con-fuse Valdamarr, a son of Jaroslav the Wise, with Valdamarr, a grandson of Jaroslav.Thus, we can be sure that by the time of Sigvatr Þórðarson the only well-knownRussian figure in Scandinavia with the name Valdamarr was the Russian prince


The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text, ed. by Samuel H. Cross, Harvard Studies34

and Notes in Philology and Literature, 12 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), pp.200–01.

A. V. Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh: Mezhdistsiplinarnye ocherki35

kul’turnykh, torgovykh, politicheskikh svjazej IX–XII vekov (Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury, 2001),pp. 435–50.

Russell Poole, ‘How Óláfr Haraldsson Became St Olaf of Norway, and the Power of a Poet’s36

Advocacy’, in Margaret and Richard Beck Lectures: Icelandic Symposium – University of Victoria.November 20, 2004, at <http://gateway.uvic.ca/beck/media/text/RP-sym-lec-text.htm> [accessed1 May 2008].

Vladimir Sviatoslavich, famous (and this is attested to by the sagas as well) as a rulerwho had brought early Rus’ to Christianity.

In its narration about this prince, the Primary Chronicle includes the story ofhis temporal blindness (‘By divine agency, Vladimir was suffering at that momentfrom a disease of the eyes, and could see nothing, being in great distress’), and of hissubsequent baptism and the return of his eyesight as a result (‘and as the Bishoplaid his hand upon him, he straightway received his sight’). Alexander Nazarenko34

shows that the blindness motif had not been originally present in the so-calledCherson Legend of Vladimir’s baptism, but was added to it from a somewhat olderlife of St Vladimir that might have existed at least in oral tradition. He finds tracesof this hypothetical life in Latin works of the early eleventh century, in particularin the Chronicon by Thietmar of Merseburg (completed before 1018) and the Lifeof St Romuald by Peter Damian (written between 1026 and 1030). Thus, the lifeof St Vladimir seems to have been popular in the first decades of the eleventhcentury.35

The skald Sigvatr was hardly familiar with the dates of the lives of Russianprinces. He barely knew much about Olaf’s trip to Rus’ except that the Norwegianking had left for the court of konungr Jarizleifr Valdamarsson. Sigvatr was hardlybothering himself with chronological accuracy in his poems. Sigvatr himself hadnever been to early Rus’ (according to Austrfararvísur, he travelled no further eastthan to Gautland); neither was he in Norway at Olaf’s court when the King left forRus’, came back, and was killed in his last battle (the skald was on pilgrimage toRome at that time). Sigvatr expressed his sorrow for the killed king in a number oflausavísur, and c. 1040 he composed the Erfidrápa. What is important is that stillin Olaf’s lifetime, as Russell Poole has demonstrated, Sigvatr ‘composed verses(Nesjavísur), pointedly and programmatically associating Óláfr with Christ’. Why36

could not Olaf then, godlike and luminiferous, ‘return eyesight’ (I mean, in


See Lindow, ‘St Olaf and the Skalds’, p. 118.37

E. A. Melnikova (‘Cult of St. Olaf in Novgorod’, p. 456) erroneously insists that this miracle38

story is attested to in the Legendary saga of Saint Olaf only. However, it occurs as well in Snorri’sseparate saga, in Heimskringla, and in compilations.

Phelpstead, ‘Introduction’, p. xliv.39

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, 2, p. 341. The English translation is from Heimskringla,40

trans. by Hollander, pp. 484–85.

Sigvatr’s poem) to Valdamarr í Görðum, as the oral story of Vladimir’s baptism(keeping in mind that Vladimir was popular in Scandinavia) could have beenbrought to the Scandinavian north by those who travelled along the way ‘from theVarangians to the Greeks’? I think that what we observe here in the poem is thehistorical tradition developed from different available stories, but with inevitablechronological mistakes. To my mind, the skald Sigvatr not only synchronized (instrophe 15) Olaf’s death at Stiklestad with the eclipse of the sun (‘as parallel toChrist’s Passion’) — which, as astronomers have calculated, ‘occurred on31 August 1030, little more than a month after the battle’ — but also, based on37

his knowledge of earlier displays of Olaf’s saintly powers to restore sight to theblind (which he mentions in strophe 24), ascribed to the King the restoration ofthe sight of the famous Russian prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich, Valdamarr íGörðum. This chronological contamination is quite evident to us today, but washardly clear to the Icelandic skald and his audience.

The second ‘Russian’ miracle is that of the healing of the boy with a boil in histhroat in Garðaríki (early Rus’). On the one hand, it is not included in the collec-tion of miracles in Passio Olavi; on the other hand, it is the only ‘Russian’ miraclerelated by Snorri Sturluson. This is the miracle mentioned above, the one that38

Holtsmark thought was meant by Sigvatr when he spoke in his Erfidrápa about thehealing of Valdamarr. This story, no doubt, presents Olaf’s miraculous powersduring his lifetime. As Carl Phelpstead has noted, ‘Robert Folz’s comparative studyof European royal saints demonstrates that it is not at all unusual for a royal saintto have few miracles attributed to the period during which he was alive on earth’.39

Moreover, the majority of a royal saint’s miracles would be healings, which is trueof the miracles of St Olaf.

Snorri Sturluson tells that ‘when King Óláf was in Gartharíki, the son of a well-to-do widow had a boil in his throat’. The boy could no longer swallow any food,‘so it was thought he would die. The mother of the boy went to Queen Ingigerth,for she was acquainted with her, and showed her the boy’. A comparison of the40

Legendary Saga and Snorri’s saga demonstrates how the plot developed. In the


Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, 2, pp. 341–42; trans. by Hollander, p. 485.41

Carl Phelpstead, ‘In Honour of St Óláfr: The Miracle Stories in Snorri Sturluson’s Óláfs42

Saga Helga’, in Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 25 (2000), 292–306.

Lars Roar Langslet, Olav den Hellige (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1995), p. 131.43

This is miracle no. 15 in the Latin collection. In my text, I follow the numbering of the mira-44

cles from Lenka Jiroušková, ‘Textual Evidence for the Transmission of the Passio Olavi Prior to1200 and its Later Literary Transformations’, in this volume.

Legendary Saga, Ingigerðr, while addressing the sick boy’s mother to Olaf, stressesthat people did not call him a healer. But the act of healing was followed by theremark that ‘they immediately started calling him thus in the town’. In Snorri’stext, on the contrary, Ingigerðr says: ‘Go to King Óláf. He is the best healer here’,and the woman did so. Although the King asserted that he was no physician, thewoman bade him to apply the remedies of which he knew. By placing some breadon his palm crosswise and making the boy swallow it, Olaf healed the boy. Snorrisummarizes his story with the following words:

The common opinion was then at first that King Óláf had such good healing power in hishands as is ascribed to such persons who excel in the art of having healing hands; but later,when it became known that he performed miracles, this was taken to be a true miracle.41

To answer the question why Snorri had selected only this ‘Russian’ miraclefrom the three miracles in his source, the Legendary saga, we should probably payattention to the conclusion Carl Phelpstead comes to, namely that ‘Snorri recountsthose stories in which there is the most honour to St Óláfr’. In fact, this story is42

the most honourable one, as it deals with the moment when the saint’s miraculouspowers exemplified in his healing abilities were revealed to people.

The Church of St Olaf in Novgorod

In the Middle Ages, churches dedicated to St Olaf were erected in various regions:Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Orkney, the Faroe Islands, theBritish Isles, northern France, Spain, Estonia, and even in Byzantium and earlyRus’. The latter two are considered to be ‘the most exotic places in the long list’.43

A church of St Olaf in Novgorod is mentioned in the Old Norse-Icelandicsources describing two more (the third and fourth) miracles of St Olaf. Both mira-cles are posthumous. The third ‘Russian’ miracle — which occurs in the short andthe long versions of the Passio, the Old Norwegian Homily Book, the Legendary44

Saga, and in Óláfs saga helga in Flateyjarbók — is a miracle connected to the icon


This is miracle no. 20 in the Latin collection.45

Melnikova, ‘Cult of St. Olaf in Novgorod’, p. 457. 46

Melnikova, ‘Kul’t Sv. Olava’, p. 94; Melnikova, ‘Cult of St. Olaf in Novgorod’, p. 454; and47

Melnikova, ‘Baltijskaja politika Jaroslava Mudrogo’, p. 128.

See note 6 above.48

According to Lenka Jiroušková’s analysis (see ‘Textual Evidence for the Transmission of the49

Passio Olavi’, this volume), the third ‘Russian’ miracle belongs to a ‘special branch’ of the earliestmiracle collection and the fourth ‘Russian’ miracle to the second phase of the collection.

See Lenka Jiroušková, ‘Textual Evidence for the Transmission of the Passio Olavi’, in this50

volume.

The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016–1471, trans. by R . Michell and N. Forbes, Camden Third51

Series, 25 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1914; repr. New York: AMS Press, 1970), p. 21; and

of St Olaf at the time of a big fire in Hólmgarðr (Novgorod). The fourth one is amiraculous healing of a dumb slave in the church dedicated to St Olaf in Hólm-garðr. Like the latter miracle, it occurs in the same set of texts, with the exception45

of Flateyjarbók. Elena Melnikova has argued very convincingly that ‘the emphasisplaced on St Olaf’s church in Novgorod and on its priests might indicate the tem-ple origins of miracles 3 and 4 and their emergence among the clergy and theparishioners of the church’. However, she is hardly correct in asserting that these46

two miracles belong to the ‘“canonical” corpus of miracles’. In her opinion, Eysteincompiled his Passio et miracula beati Olavi c. 1170, and soon after 1170 the PassioOlavi was reworked into the Acta sancti Olavi regis et martyris, in which Eysteinstarted the process of the ‘canonization’ of twenty of Olaf’s miracles. Finally, at theturn of the thirteenth century this ‘“canonical” corpus of miracles’ was translatedinto Norwegian as part of the Old Norwegian Homily Book. This hypothetical47

construction looks to be based on the outdated editions of G. Storm (1800) andF. Metcalfe (1881). Recent research has demonstrated that the process had anopposite trend and that the number of miracles was increasing from one redactionof the Passio Olavi to the next. What is important about the miracles in question48

is that they belong to the early collection of miracles. As far as their dating is49

concerned, we can be sure that 1153 is a terminus post quem for both of them.50

Russian chronicles mention a varjazhskaja (‘Varangian’, meaning ‘Scandinavian’)church in Novgorod, albeit without the name of its patron saint, and the earliestmention on record is somewhat earlier than the possible inclusion of the discussedmiracles into the Passio Olavi. Under the year 1152 (6660), the First NovgorodianChronicle reports on a big fire ‘in the middle of the market place’ in Novgorod, inwhich ‘eight churches were burnt down, and a ninth, the Varangian one’. Three51


PSRL, vol. III: Novgorodskaja pervaja letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov (Moscow: AkademijaNauk SSSR, 1950), pp. 29 and 215.

Chronicle of Novgorod, trans. by Michell and Forbes, pp. 31, 58, and 118; and PSRL, III, 37,52

57, 93, 226, 258, and 334.

Unfortunately, we have no traces of St Olaf’s wooden church. Still, archaeological material53

in Novgorod demonstrates Scandinavian influence on Novgorodian church building (see V. JaKonetskij, K. G. Samoilov, ‘K voprosu o vlijanii skandinavskikh traditsij na formirovanie ranne-khristianskoj kul’tury drevnego Novgoroda’, in Proshloe Novgoroda i Novgorodskoj zemli: Tezisydokladov (Novgorod: Novgorodskij gosudarstvennyj universitet, 1996), pp. 5–8).

‘an uar . tauþr . i hulmkarþi . i olafs kriki’ (U 687). See Kristel Zilmer, ‘He drowned in54

Holmr’s sea — his cargo ship drifted to the sea-bottom, only three came out alive’: Records and Repre-sentations of Baltic Traffic in the Viking Age and the Early Middle Ages in Early Nordic Sources,Nordistica Tartuensia, 12 (Tartu: Tartu University Press, 2005), pp. 161–62.

For the discussion and bibliography, see E. A. Melnikova, Skandinavskie runicheskie nadpisi:55

Novye nakhodki i interpretatsii: Teksty, perevod, kommentarij (Moscow: Vostochnaja literatura,2001), pp. 338–39; and Zilmer, ‘He drowned in Holmr’s sea’, pp. 161–62.

Marit Åhlén, Runristaren Öpir: en monografi (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1997),56

pp. 25–27.

incidents involving the ‘Varangian’ church are mentioned in the following twohundred years: it was burnt down once again in 1181 (6689), ‘all the countlessmerchandise was burnt’ there in 1217 (6725), and finally the church suffered froma fire in 1311 (6819) along with other stone churches. Thus, the initial wooden52

church must have been rebuilt in stone after the fire of 1181.53

In the late eleventh or early twelfth century — half a century before the‘Varangian’ church was first recorded in the Novgorodian chronicle — the runecarver Öpir (ØpiR) produced a runic inscription on a boulder at Sjusta in centralSweden, mentioning a certain Spjallboði who ‘died in Hólmgarðr in Olaf’schurch’. This interpretation was proposed by Otto von Friesen and supported54

by other Swedish runologists like Elias Wessén and Sven B. F. Jansson. This read-ing is also shared by Elena Melnikova, Kristel Zilmer, and many others. As for55

the exact dating of the inscription, it remains uncertain. But based upon what isknown about the activity of the carver Öpir, several scholars have argued that hewas active in the second half of the eleventh century and the beginning of thetwelfth century.56

Some thirteenth-century sources (the Novgorodian Schra, Latin and Germanversions of the trade treaty of 1270 between Novgorod and German towns andGotland, and some Russian chronicles) indicate that two foreign yards had existedin Novgorod by the late twelfth century: a German one with the church dedicated


I. P. Andreevskij, O dogovore Novgoroda s nemetskimi gorodami i Gotlandom, zakljuchennom57

v 1270 g. (St Petersburg: Tipographija Treja, 1855), p. 30, n. 93; M. Berezhkov, O torgovle Rusi sGanzoj do kontsa XV veka (St Petersburg: Tipographija V. Bezobrazova, 1879), pp. 58–61;G. Svahnström, ‘Gutagård och Peterhof: Två handelsgårdar i det medeltida Novgorod’, Gotländsktarkiv, 32 (1960), 35–50; and E. A. Rybina, Inozemnye dvory v Novgorode XII–XVII vekov (Moscow:Nauka, 1986).

For details, see E. A. Rybina, Torgovlja srednevekovogo Novgoroda (Velikij Novgorod:58

Novgorodskij gosudarstvennyj universitet, 2001), pp. 175–76.

Rybina, Torgovlja srednevekovogo Novgoroda, p. 175.59

About the Kaufmannskirchen in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, see O. M. Ioannisian,60

‘Arkhitektura Drevnej Rusi i srednevekovoj Skandinavii: Ikh vzaimosvjazi’, Trudy GosudarstvennogoErmitazha, 34 (2007), 99–135 (pp. 107–13 and ills. 3–17). However, I can hardly accept hisdating of this construction to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, as it is based on a non-critical reading of the entry s.a. 1275 in the First Novgorodian Chronicle (ibid., p. 112). This recorddoes not allow us to believe that the wooden ‘Varangian’ church was burnt down in that very year.

E. A. Rybina, ‘Povest o novgorodskom posadnike Dobryne’, in Arkheograficheskij jezhegodnik61

za 1977 god (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), pp. 79–85.

to St Peter and a Gotlandic one with the church dedicated to St Olaf. These two57

yards are also mentioned in late medieval Hanseatic documents. However, there isno doubt among scholars that their location at the time was the same as when theyhad been founded. According to written sources, the German Yard was located to58

the east of Jaroslavovo Dvorishche, opposite the Nikolskij cathedral. Since the sourcesmention conflicts between the visitors of the Gotlandic Yard and the inhabitantsof Mikhajlovskaja Street — located to the south of Jaroslavovo Dvorishche, in thetrading district of Novgorod (Torgovaja storona) near the Volkhov River — it hasbeen suggested that the Gotlandic Yard must have been situated in this street.Archaeological excavations carried out in that part of medieval Novgorod in1968–70 confirmed this assumption. Moreover, Oleg Ioannisian suggests that the59

fragments of a stone construction found there in 1969 could have been the remainsof St Olaf's church erected in the place of a former wooden church. The stonechurch must have been a rotunda, which was typical of the ‘trade’ churches of Scan-dinavia and northern Germany in the twelfth through the thirteenth century.60

After a thorough examination of the Tale of Novgorodian posadnik Dobrynjaand a number of other Old Russian written sources, Elena Rybina has concludedthat the church of St Olaf in the Gotlandic Yard in Novgorod was built in the life-time of posadnik Dobrynja (who died in 1117); that is, in the late eleventh or earlytwelfth century. Thus, the early Russian and Old Norse-Icelandic sources suggest61

the turn of the twelfth century as the earliest date for the appearance of St Olaf’s


Melnikova, ‘Baltijskaja politika Jaroslava Mudrogo’, pp. 130–31.62

In fact, Harald visited early Rus’ twice, in c. 1031–34 and c. 1043–44. For details, see T. N.63

Jackson, Chetyre norvezhskikh konunga na Rusi: Iz istorii russko-norvezhskikh politicheskikh otno-shenij poslednej treti X – pervoj poloviny XI v. (Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury, 2000), pp. 117–55.

M. N. Tikhomirov, Drevnerusskie goroda (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo64

politicheskoj literatury, 1956), p. 381; and A. I. Semjonov, ‘Drevnjaja topografija juzhnoj chastiSlavenskovo kontsa Novgoroda’, Novgorodskij istoricheskij sbornik, 9 [19] (2003), 55–73 (p. 68).

‘10. Îæå áîóäåòü êûè ÷åëîâ�êú è êðåùåíú âú ëàòèíüñêóþ â�ðîó è âúñõîùåòü65

ïðèñòóïèòè êú íàìú? — Àòü õîäèòü âú öåðêîâü ïî 7 äíèè, à òû ïåðâ�å íàðåêú åìîó

èìÿ, òà æå 4 ìîëèòâû ñòâàðÿ è åìîó íà äåíü; […] 16. À îæå ñå íîñèëè êú

âàðÿæüñêîìîó ïîïó ä�òè íà ìîëèòâîó? 6 íåä�ëü îïèòåìüå, ðå÷å, çàíåæå àêû äâîâ�ðöè

church in Novgorod. The suggestion that it was erected at the time of HaraldSigurdarson’s stay in Russia in the second quarter of the eleventh century is based62

on deductive reasoning only and cannot be supported by any source material.63

Even the fact that the thirteenth-century Novgorodian legal document Regulationsof Paving (Ustav o mostekh) contains the place name Garal’dov vymol (Harald’slanding place) at Novgorod’s Torgovaja Storona does not prove King Harald’s64

participation in the erection of the church. To sum up, we can state that the surviv-ing sources strongly indicate that the church of St Olaf existed in Novgorod as earlyas the late eleventh or early twelfth century, but no source material supports thetempting hypothesis that the church was erected at the time of Jaroslav the Wiseby his Swedish wife Ingigerðr and his Norwegian guest Harald Hardrada.

The existence of a ‘Varangian’ church in twelfth-century Novgorod is mirroredin another contemporary source, the so-called Voproshanije Kirika (The Questionsof Kirik, Savva and Ilija, with the answers of Niphont, the archbishop of Novgorod).The three priests asked the Archbishop about the church rules and penances thatvarious religious offences deserve. Their questions are in fact an attempt to adaptthe canonical norms to the everyday life of the Novgorodian Christian community.The questions demonstrate that Novgorodians (and even priests) could interruptfasting and that they did not know how to act in different situations according toChristian norms. Two of these questions directly relate to our topic:

Kirik 10. If someone baptized into ‘the Latin faith’ wants to be rebaptized, to change hisbelief, what should he do? — Let him attend the Russian church for seven days, get aChristian name and read four prayers a day […].

Savva 16. What should be done if there are people who would take their children to the‘Varangian priest’? — These people are considered to be dual believers, and they deservesix weeks of penance (epitimja).65


ñîóòü’: Pamjatniki drevnerusskogo kanonicheskogo prava, vol. I, ed. by A. S. Pavlov (St Petersburg:Tipographija M. A. Aleksandrova, 1880), cols 21–62 (cols 26 and 60).

Russian Primary Chronicle, ed. by Cross, p. 203.66

Reginonis abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon cum continuatione Treverensi, ed. by F. Kurze, MGH67

SRG, 50 (Hannover: Hahn, 1890), pp. 169–72.

Annales Hildesheimenses, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SRG, 8 (Hannover: Hahn, 1878), pp.68

21–22; Annales Altahenses maiores, ed. by E. L. B. Oefele, MGH SRG, 4 (Hannover: Hahn, 1891),p. 9; Annales Quedlinburgenses, ed. by Georg H. Pertz, MGH SS, 3 (Hannover: Hahn, 1839), p.60; Annales Ottenburani, ed. by Georg H. Pertz, MGH SS, 5 (Hannover: Hahn, 1844), p. 4.

Die Chronik des Bischofs Thietmar von Merseburg und ihre Korveier Überarbeitung, ed. by69

Robert Holtzmann, MGH SRG ns, 9 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1935), p. 64.

Gesta archiepiscoporum Magdeburgensium, ed. by W. Schum, MGH SS, 14 (Hannover:70

Hahn, 1883), p. 381.

For a discussion, see A. V. Nazarenko, Nemetskie latinojazychnye istochniki IX–XI vekov:71

Teksty, perevod, kommentarij (Moscow: Nauka, 1993), pp. 112, 119–20, 125–26, and 144–47.

Thus, Voproshanije Kirika demonstrates that by the 1130s there had been‘Varangian priests’ in Novgorod and people who were either ‘baptized into theLatin faith’ or considered taking their children to a ‘Varangian priest’. Hence, it islikely that St Olaf’s church was not at all alien or hostile to local people; on thecontrary, some Novgorodians could have visited it from time to time.

‘The Teaching of the Latins’

The previous discussion has demonstrated that a ‘Varangian’ church dedicated toSt Olaf existed in Novgorod in the early twelfth century. The question then ariseswhether the existence of a ‘Varangian’ — that is, Catholic — church in twelfth-century Novgorod was something exceptional, or whether ‘the teaching of theLatins’ was practised by a section of the local populace.66

Preachers of Christianity came to early Rus’ not only from Byzantium and Bul-garia, but also from Western Europe. The first ‘Latin’ bishop, Adalbert, was sent toRus’ by Otto I c. 961 on the request of Princess Olga. This fact has been registeredin the anonymous (albeit ascribed to Adalbert himself) continuation of the Chron-icon Reginonis Prumiensis, in a number of tenth- and eleventh-century annals of67

Hersfeldensis tradition independent of the latter source, in the Chronicon of68

Thietmar of Merseburg (early eleventh century), in Gesta archiepiscoporum Magde-69

burgensium (mid-twelfth century), and in two official documents dealing with the70

establishment of the archbishopric of Magdeburg in 968. Although the fact of71


H. Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia (London: Allen & Unwin, 1954), p. 43.72

List Brunona do króla Henryka, ed. by J. Karwasiñska, Monumenta Poloniae Historiae, n.s.,73

4 (Warsaw: Pañstwowe Wydawn. Naukowe, 1973), pp. 97–100.

Russian Primary Chronicle, ed. by Cross, pp. 178–205.74

This text must have been added to the chronicle in the late eleventh century. Cf. Andrzej75

Poppe, ‘The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations between986–89’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 30 (1976), 197–244 (p. 209); and Poppe, ‘Two Concepts of theConversion of Rus’ in Kievan Writings’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 12/13 (1988/89), 488–504(p. 496).

Otets Bronislav Chaplitskij, Istorija katolicheskoj tserkvi v Rossii, at <http://residentdevil76

.clan.su/publ/9-1-0-14> [accessed 27 October 2008].

Adalbert’s mission to Rus’ is beyond doubt, Olga’s motives in addressing her requestto Otto I but not to the Pope are less certain. It is difficult to say whether Olga hadin mind purely political purposes — as in a manoeuvre in Russian-Byzantine polit-ical relations — or that she was confident in the unity of the Christian world, in thespirit of the tradition of Cyril and Methodius. For the missionary bishop, however,72

this errand was unsuccessful, since he arrived in Kiev after a two-year delay withOlga’s rule already over and Sviatoslav, a staunch heathen, ruling in Kiev.

Olga’s grandson Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich welcomed another messengerfrom Rome, Bruno of Querfurt, half a century later. In 1008, Bruno was sent byBoleslaw of Poland on a mission to the Pechenegs, and he visited Kiev. Themissionary bishop’s own letter addressed to the German king Henry II has beenpreserved; it was written immediately after the described events, in the autumn of1008. Early Rus’ was located on the routes ‘from the Varangians to the Greeks’73

and ‘from the Varangians to the Arabs’, the result of this being that in this region,mostly due to well-developed trade, the local population came into contact withdifferent belief systems: heathen, Muslim, Christian, and Judaic. This situation isreflected in the Primary Chronicle, which describes Vladimir’s deliberations on thechoice of faith. Although the chronicle states that the people of Rus’ rejected the74

‘German’ faith in the tenth century (the Germans had come to Vladimir as emis-saries of the Pope), this statement is likely to have developed later, since the75

material considered above ‘provides circumstantial evidence of the fact that therewas no essential opposition between the Greek and Latin rites in the ninth andtenth century, and that the Latin missionaries were accepted in early Rus’ at thattime on a par with the Greek ones’.76

The beginnings of monastic life in Novgorod are also thought to be of Latinorigin. At least, the founder of the first monastery in this land, the Antoniev


Skazanie o zhitii prepodobnogo i bogonosnogo ottsa nashego Antonija Rimljanina i o77

prikhozhdenii ot grada Rima v Velikij Nov grad; the earliest manuscripts of this text can be datedto the sixteenth century (Sbornik Solovetskoj biblioteki, no. 834; Sbornik muzejnogo sobranijaGIM, no. 1236). For the latest edition, see Svjatye russkie rimljane: Antonij Rimljanin i MerkurijSmolenskij, ed. by N. V. Ramazanova (St Petersburg: Dmitrij Bulanin, 2005).

Chronicle of Novgorod, trans. by Michell and Forbes, pp. 9–12 and 19; and PSRL, III, 20–22,78

28, 204–06, and 214.

V. O. Kljuchevskij, Drevnerusskie zhitija kak istoricheskij istochnik (Moscow: Izdanie K.79

Soldatenkova, 1871), pp. 306–11.

Still, there are scholars who would completely disallow Andrej’s connection to this text:80

Gerhard Podskalsky, Khristianstvo i bogoslovskaja literatura v Kievskoj Rusi (988–1237 gg.), 2ndedn, trans. by A. V. Nazarenko, ed. by K. K. Akentjev (St Petersburg: Vizantinorossika, 1996),p. 237.

Rozhdestvenskij monastery, is St Anthony the Roman (Antonij Rimljanin,1067(?)–1147). According to his life, Antonij was born in Rome into the family77

of noble well-off citizens and was brought up in Christian devotion. After hisparents had passed away, Anthony gave all he had to the poor and took monasticvows. Anthony left the city of his birth after the Great Schism, when the persecu-tion of the adherents of the Greek (Orthodox) rite in Rome gained strength.Having settled on a desolate seashore, he spent time in endless prayers on a bigrock. On 5 September 1105, a great storm carried the rock with Anthony throughwarm seas, the Neva River, the Ladoga Lake, and the River Volkhov, so that hearrived in Novgorod on the eve of the Nativity of the Mother of God. Thereafter,he founded a monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God at Novgorod’sTorgovaja Storona. Anthony is mentioned repeatedly in the First NovgorodianChronicle. In 1117, ‘the Igumen Anton laid the foundation of the stone church ofthe monastery of the Holy Mother of God’, which was completed in 1119. In1125, the chapel in the monastery named after him was painted. In 1127, ‘theIgumen Anton built a refectory of stone in Novgorod’. In 1131, quite surprisingly,‘Vladyka Nifont made Anton Igumen’. And finally, ‘Igumen Onton died’ in 1147.78

The Life of Antonij is of late origin. Its longer redaction was compiled by themonk Niphont of the Antoniev monastery in 1597 for the ceremony of revealingof St Anthony’s relics. As V. O. Kljuchevskij has argued very convincingly,Niphont had old written sources at his disposal while writing the life. Among themwas a short hagiographic text (prolozhnoe zhitie) preserved in the monasticarchives. The author of this short redaction must have been Andrew (Andrej), in79

whose name the longer redaction was written. Andrej is a real person; he was a80


Gramoty Velikogo Novgoroda i Pskova, ed. by S. N. Valk (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo AN SSSR,81

1949), no. 103, p. 160; and V. L. Janin, ‘Novgorodskie gramoty Antonija Rimljanina i ih data’,Vestnik MGU, Istorija, 1966, no. 3, pp. 69–80.

A. S. Khoroshev, Politicheskaja istorija russkoj kanonizatsii (XI–XVI vv.) (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo82

Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1986), pp. 70–72.

Otets Bronislav Chaplitskij, Kurs lektsij po istorii Tserkvi (St Petersburg: Vysshaja duhovnaja83

seminarija ‘Marija Tsaritsa Apostolov’, 1998), pp. 41–43. For example, see PSRL, III, 289–95, s.a.1240.

V. N. Toporov, Svjatost’ i svjatye v russkoj dukhovnoj kul’ture, vol. II: Tri veka khristianstva84

na Rusi (XII–XIV vv.) (Moscow: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury, 1998), pp. 22 and 42–45.

See A. V. Nazarenko, ‘Neizvestnyj epizod iz zhizni Mstislava Velikovo’, Otechestvennaja85

istorija, 1993, no. 2, 65–78.

disciple of St Anthony. The details of the saint’s life, as they are described in hisvita, have parallels in Anthony’s own testament (dukhovnaja). Thus, we have81

reasons to believe that the veneration of Anthony started as early as the twelfthcentury. Church historians are prone to think that Anthony might have been an82

Irish monk, since the motif of travelling on a rock was not rare in the lives of Irishhermits. Moreover, in their opinion his nickname (Rimljanin, ‘the Roman’) musthave reflected not the place of his birth but instead his Latin devotion, as the peo-ple from Western Europe, such as Germans or Swedes, were called ‘Romans’ by theNovgorodian chronicle. However, some scholars tend to treat Anthony’s ‘Roman83

origin’ as a legendary motif. V. N. Toporov, for instance, calls him ‘an alien local’(chuzhoj svoj) and argues that the idea of presenting him as coming from Romeoriginated in oral tradition and was later included into the saint’s written life.84

Unfortunately, we have no data to prove Anthony’s Roman or Irish origin. Still,the presence of this information in his sixteenth-century life, along with the possi-ble veneration of the saint in the early twelfth century, allows us to suppose that inpopular consciousness the idea of monasticism had western connections. This situ-ation might have resulted from some popularity in Rus’ of St Benedict of Nursia(d. 547), the founder of western Christian monasticism. Traces of this popularitycan be found, for instance, in the Mstislav Gospel (Mstislavovo evangelie), anaprakos-gospel commissioned by Mstislav (Prince of Novgorod in c. 1091–95,1096–1117, known for his active political and cultural contacts with both Byzan-tium and Western Europe ) for a church in Novgorod. Its menologion (mesiatseslov)85

lists the feast of St Benedict not only on 14 March according to the Byzantinetradition, but also on 21 March according to the Latin tradition. Olga Losevaexplains such ‘duplication’ of some feasts by the fact that the saints involved were


O. V. Loseva, Russkie mesjatseslovy XI–XIV vekov (Moscow: Pamjatniki istoricheskoj mysli,86

2001), pp. 66–67 and 72.

N. V. Pivovarova, Freski tserkvi Spasa na Nereditse v Novgorode: Ikonographicheskaja87

programma rospisi (St Petersburg: Dmitrij Bulanin, 2002).

Chronicle of Novgorod, trans. by Michell and Forbes, p. 41; and PSRL, III, 44, 237–38.88

Chronicle of Novgorod, trans. by Michell and Forbes, p. 42.89

Pivovarova, Freski tserkvi Spasa na Nereditse, pp. 56–57.90

Cf. A. I. Sobolevskij, Zhitija svjatykh v drevnem perevode na tserkovno-slavjanskij s latinskogo91

jazyka (St Petersburg: Tipografija A. P. Lopuhina, 1904), pp. 38–54.

Cf. A. Lidov, The Mural Paintings of Akhtala (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1991), fig. 23, diagr. 4,92

no. 6.

considered to be not simply Catholic saints, but those common to all Christianity.She argues that the presence of such ‘Latinizing’ feasts in Russian menologia was theresult of a short time gap from ‘the epoch of the Undivided Church’. Since the86

feast of St Benedict on 21 March is not mentioned in the Ostromir Gospel and theArkhangelsk Gospel from the second half of the eleventh century, its inclusion inMstislav Gospel is in fact impressive, as is his fresco in one of the most famouschurches of the Novgorodian land, the Church of Our Saviour on Nereditsa.87

As the First Novgorodian Chronicle reports under the year 1198:

The veliki Knyaz Jaroslav, son of Volodimir, grandson of Mstislav, founded the stonechurch of the Transfiguration of the Holy Saviour in Novgorod on the hill, called Nere-ditsa; and they began to make it on June 8, on St Fedor’s Day, and finished in the monthof September.88

The immediate cause for the foundation of the church was most likely thedeath of Jaroslav’s two underage sons, Iziaslav and Rostislav, in the spring of 1198.This event must have found reflection in the system of the wall paintings of thischurch (carried out in 1199), which means that the church was founded and89

decorated as a memorial temple. According to N. V. Pivovarova, the choice ofsaints for the frescoes was regulated by a tendency ‘to mark different aspects ofmonastic deed and to point to numerous ways to salvation’. The murals in the90

upper register of the apse present the group of three saints: namely St Acacius ofSinai, St Zosimas of Palestine, and St Benedict of Nursia. The knowledge of thelatter in the Orthodox Church is witnessed not only by the menologia discussedabove but also by a Slavonic translation of his vita. Furthermore, his image was91

included into the mural paintings of the Church of the Mother of God in Akhtala,in Armenia. The inclusion of St Benedict’s image into the system of frescoes in92


Pivovarova, Freski tserkvi Spasa na Nereditse, p. 57.93

To prove this thesis, M. F. Murjanov, ‘K kul’turnym vzaimosvjazjam Rusi i Zapada v XII94

veke’, Ricerche Slavistiche, 14 (1966), 29–41, includes in their number, along with St Benedict,Alexij chelovek Bozhij and St martyr Akakij.

Note also the image of St Clement in the Church of Our Saviour on Nereditsa mentioned95

by Ildar Garipzanov, ‘Novgorod and the Veneration of Saints in Eleventh-Century Rus’: A Com-parative View’, in this volume.

the church of Nereditsa could have been dictated by its monastic character. Pivo-varova suggests that the images of saints around the altar could emphasize theuniversal character of monasticism and demonstrate different facets of monasticdevotion. Thus, there are no grounds to believe, as M. F. Murjanov does, that the93

western saints appeared among the frescoes of Nereditsa as a result of a straight-forward influence from the Latin tradition. On the contrary, the repertory of the94

saints in this church points to a common Christian context of Novgorod in the95

late twelfth century.

Conclusion

To sum up, Old Norse-Icelandic sources have preserved information about fourmiracles of St Olaf that happened in early Rus’ (Garðaríki) and Novgorod (Hólm-garðr) in particular. Two of them, preserved in the skaldic poem and the sagas,happened in Olaf’s lifetime, while the other two miracle stories are posthumousand mention the church of St Olaf in Novgorod; it is likely that they originated inthe circles of the clergy or the parishioners of this church. The church belonged tothe Gotlandic Yard, where merchants from Scandinavian countries stayed duringtheir visits to Novgorod. The church of St Olaf in Novgorod is mentioned in theSwedish runic inscription and by the First Novgorodian Chronicle — though with-out the name of its patron saint — and also by a number of late medieval Russiansources. Yet none of these sources connects the foundation of the church with thetime of Prince Jaroslav the Wise, as has been suggested in the scholarly literature.So, the precise date of its foundation remains an open matter. The original woodenchurch was rebuilt in stone after the fire of 1181. The stone one might have beena rotunda, which was typical of the ‘trade’ churches of Scandinavia and northernGermany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

St Olaf was not the only Latin saint venerated in Novgorod in the eleventh andtwelfth centuries. For instance, the Prayer to the Holy Trinity studied in good detail


John H. Lind, ‘The Martyrium of Odense and a Twelfth-Century Russian Prayer: The96

Question of Bohemian Influence on Russian Religious Literature’, Slavonic and East EuropeanReview, 68 (1990), 1–20.

See V. T. Pashuto, Vneshnjaja politika Drevnej Rusi (Moscow: Nauka, 1968); N. I.97

Shchaveleva, ‘Pol’ki – zheny russkikh knjazej (XI–seredina XIII v.)’, in Drevnejshie gosudarstva naterritorii SSSR, 1987 god (Moscow: Nauka, 1987), pp. 50–58; Nazarenko, Drevniaja Rus’ namezhdunarodnykh putiakh; and T. N. Jackson, ‘Rjurikovichi i Skandinavija’, in Drevnejshiegosudarstva Vostochnoj Evropy, 2006 god (Moscow: Indrik, 2008), pp. 203–27.

by John Lind provides another piece of evidence showing that by the mid-twelfthcentury the veneration of some Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon saints was stillacceptable within the early Russian church. The material discussed in this chapter96

demonstrates that ‘the teaching of the Latins’ was not completely alien to earlyRus’. After all, Christian missionaries from Western Europe visited Rus’ aroundthe time of conversion. In Novgorod, the beginnings of monastic life were thoughtto have been of Latin origin, and the founder of western monasticism, St Benedictof Nursia, was venerated there. Traces of this veneration can be found not only inthe menologion of the Mstislav Gospel, but also in the mural paintings of theChurch of Our Saviour on Nereditsa. In my opinion, one of the main reasons why‘the teaching of the Latins’ was not completely rejected lies in the foreign policy ofthe Rurikids that led to a number of dynastic marriages between the represen-tatives of the Russian princely house and the ruling houses of Europe, and to thebroad contacts of Rus’ with Western and Northern Europe (such as trade contactsand mutual cultural influences). But this problem deserves a special investigation.97

Part TwoContextualizing Hagiography on the Periphery

See recently Patrick Geary, The Myth of Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1

2002); and Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe,ed. by Ildar H. Garipzanov and others, Cursor Mundi, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008). The phrase‘imagined communities’ is taken from Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections onthe Origins and Rise of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). On the shift towards constructionistaccounts of identity in sociology, see Karen Cerulo, ‘Identity Construction: New Issues, NewDirections’, Annual Review of Sociology, 23 (1997), 385–409.

On the history of early medieval Saxony, see now Matthias Springer, Die Sachsen (Stuttgart:2

W. Kohlhammer, 2004); and Matthias Becher, Rex, Dux und Gens: Untersuchungen zurEntstehung des sächsischten Herzogtums im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert (Husum: Matthiesen, 1996).

ANSKAR’S IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

James Palmer

The formation of identities on the frontiers of the Carolingian hegemonywas a process dominated by the views of external observers. Whateverpeople called themselves, it was the expansion of historiographic and

ethnographic traditions which defined the parameters of community labels insurviving sources. In recent scholarship arguments have favoured the view thatethnic identities were constantly constructed and debated, with implications forthe fluidity of identities at a range of local and supra-regional levels. Textual and1

political discourses each shaped the perceived nature and reputation of differentgroups, particularly as political expansion and Latin Christian historiographyreorientated horizons. In Saxony, communities in the late eighth and ninth cen-turies experienced such discourses dramatically as their ‘affinity’ with the FrankishEmpire was forced upon them and quickly institutionalized, through both Char-lemagne’s conquest of the region and the creation of a new Christian topographyof churches and saints’ shrines around which local identities could be defined.2

Hagiography and the cult of saints played a central role in developing new focusedforums in which attachment to new political and religious ideals could be promoted.

James Palmer172

Anskar, Miracula Willehadi, ed. by Alain Poncelet, in Acta Sanctorum, Nov., III (Brussels:3

Société de Bollandistes, 1910), pp. 847–51; Rimbert, Vita Anskarii, ed. and trans. by WernerTrillmich, Quellen des 9. und 11. Jahrhunderts zur Geschichte der Hamburgischen Kirche und desReiches, Ausgewählte Quellen zur Deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, 11 (Darmstadt: Wissen-schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000), pp. 16–133 (Vita, when not otherwise identified). On theearly hagiographical tradition of Hamburg-Bremen, see Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints andthe Evangelization of Europe 400–1050 (Harlow: Longman, 2001), pp. 123–41; and James T.Palmer, ‘Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii and Scandinavian Mission in the Ninth Century’, Journal ofEcclesiastical History, 55 (2004), 235–56.

On networks of holy places, see Sabine McCormack, ‘Loca sancta: The Organization of4

Sacred Topography in Late Antiquity’, in The Blessings of Pilgrimage, ed. by Robert Ousterhout(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), pp. 7–40.

On the notion of hagiographical discourse as a defining feature of the ‘genre’, see Marc van5

Uytfanghe, ‘L’Hagiographie: un genre chrétien ou antique tardif?’, Analecta Bollandiana, 111(1993), 135–88.

In this context the hagiographical traditions of Hamburg and Bremen need to bereconsidered as Anskar and Rimbert, writing against prevailing fashions in the cultof saints, used new saints as figures around whom ideals and identities could coalescein communal imaginations. Different senses of community and belonging, it will3

be argued, were central to the functioning of their hagiographical discourses.This essay will sketch three kinds of identities evident in the sources: that rep-

resented by the power of a saint in a locus sancti, that created by social networks, andthat created by reference to supra-regional groups or gentes. By pursuing senses of4

belonging at these different levels it is possible to provide an intellectual context forcertain motifs in a historiographical tradition as they were put forward to encouragetypes of engagement. Hagiography is by its nature intended to inspire a response inthe reader, which it could manage effectively even if divorced from a working culticcontext. Through imaginative participation in the narrative, the reader is invited5

to identify with some ideas, reject others, and (re)contextualize a range of assump-tions. Identity here could mean any kind of construction of attachment, includingsaintly and other typological figures, ethnic or political institutions, and even per-sonal experience. In short, the ways in which identities are used within hagiographycan play an important part in how the audience engages with the material.

Saints, Saxony, and Bremen

It has long been recognized that Christian identities in Saxony were the productof the infrastructure created in the wake of Charlemagne’s conquest of the region

ANSKAR’S IMAGINED COMMUNITIES 173

Joachim Ehlers, ‘Das früh- und hochmittelalterliche Sachsen als historische Landschaft’, in6

Papstgeschichte und Landesgeschichte: Festschift für Hermann Jakobs zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. byJoachim Dahlhaus and Armin Kohnle (Cologne: Böhlau, 1995), pp. 17–36 (pp. 25–26); andCaspar Ehlers, Die Integration Sachsen in das fränkische Reich (Cologne: Vandenhoeck undRuprecht, 2007).

Eigil, Vita Sturmi, chap. 23, ed. by Pius Engelbert (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 1968), p. 160; and7

Translatio s. Liborii, chap. 2, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, MGH SS, 4 (Hannover: HahnscheBuchhandlung, 1841), p. 150.

Annales regni Francorum, s.a. 785, ed. by Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG, 6 (Hannover: Hahn,8

1895), p. 71. On this narrative, see Helmut Beumann, ‘Die Hagiographie “Bewältigt”: Unter-werfung und Christianisierung der Sachsen durch Karls des Grossen’, in Cristianizzazione edorganizzazione ecclesiastica delle campagne nell’alto medioevo: espansione e resistenze, Settimane distudio della fondazione centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 28 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano diStudi sull’alto Medioevo, 1982), pp. 129–63.

Matthias Becher, ‘“Non enim habent regem idem antiqui Saxones”: Verfassung und Ethno-9

genese in Sachsen während des 8. Jahrhunderts’, Studien zur Sachsenforschung, 12 (1999), 1–31.See also Ian Wood, ‘Beyond Satraps and Ostriches: Political and Social Structures of the Saxonsin the Early Carolingian Period’, in The Continental Saxons: From the Migration Period to theTenth Century ed. by Dennis Green and Frank Siegmund (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer,2003), pp. 271–90. Note also Springer, Die Sachsen, p. 210, where he points out that Sclavi is usedin a similarly impressionistic manner.

See Becher, ‘“Non enim habent regem idem antiqui Saxones”’, pp. 3–4. For example10

Gregory III, Bonifatii Epistolae, no. 43, ed. by Michael Tangl, MGH Epistolae selectae, 1 (Berlin:Weidmann, 1916), p. 68.

Indiculus obsidum Saxonum Moguntiam deducendorum, ed. by Alfred Boretius, MGH Cap,11

1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1883), pp. 233–34. See also Wood, ‘Beyond Satraps and Ostriches’, pp.275–76. On the list, see Adam J. Kosto, ‘Hostages in the Carolingian World (714–840)’, Early

between 772 and 804. Stories such as Eigil of Fulda’s, that Charlemagne divided6

up the administration of Saxony as he went along, were developed over the courseof the ninth century to the point where the region was portrayed by one Paderbornwriter as simply lacking the cities necessary for true bishoprics. This apparent7

administrative ‘clean sheet’ provided a stage for the widely repeated conquest/conversion narrative in which Charlemagne transformed Saxony following thesubmission of the rebellious Duke Widukind in 785. But references to Saxones8

and Saxonia simplified a complex ethnic situation. Frankish and papal sources9

suggest there were a variety of affiliations at work, not all of which the authorsnecessarily understood as more than lists of names. Some groups appear and10

disappear in the sources, for example the Angrari who appeared as a major groupin a list of hostages to be taken to Mainz and fade afterwards. It was not until the11

James Palmer174

Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 123–47 (pp. 142–44); and Janet L. Nelson, ‘Charlemagne andEmpire’, in The Long Morning of the Middle Ages: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies, ed.by Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 223–34.

Becher, Rex, Dux und Gens, pp. 65–67.12

A good account is provided by Richard Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism13

to Christianity 371–1386 AD (London: Fontana, 1997).

See for example Liudger, Vita Gregorii abbatis Traiectensis, chap. 7, ed. by Oswald Holder-14

Egger, MGH SS, 15 (Hannover: Hahn, 1887), p. 73, in which Liudger recalls seeing the agedBoniface in Utrecht when he was just a boy.

Hedwig Röckelein, Reliquientranslationen nach Sachsen im 9. Jahrhundert: Über Kommuni-15

kation, Mobilität und Öffentlichkeit im Frühmittelalter (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2002); and IanWood, ‘An Absence of Saints? The Evidence for the Christianization of Saxony’, in Am Vorabendder Kaiserkrönung: Das Epos ‘Karolus Magnus et Leo papa’ und der Papstbesuch in Paderborn 799,ed. by Peter Godman and others (Berlin: Akademie, 2002), pp. 335–52.

Patrick Geary, ‘The Ninth-Century Relic Trade: A Response to Popular Piety?’, in Living16

with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), pp. 177–93; Julia M. H.Smith, ‘Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia’, in Early Medieval Rome andthe Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed. by Julia M. H. Smith (Leiden: Brill,2000), pp. 317–39.

tenth century that any widespread sense of a Saxon Wir-gefühl is evident in writtensources, and there in relation to political developments. With one exception —12

the Translatio s. Alexandri — Saxon historiography focused unsurprisingly on theestablishment of individual centres or the translation of relics to new locations.Local communities, defined by place and the cult of saints, dominated.

The situation in Saxony vis-à-vis its saints was in many ways unusual. ManyChristian communities in Northern Europe could claim some kind of relationship— imagined or not — with an apostolic or founding saint who had intervened inthe patterns of local life to create new affinities, build a new church, and so forth.13

On the Saxon ‘frontier’ there were a number of popular missionary saints includingSt Boniface (d. 754) and St Liudger (d. 809), who not only could be seen asinaugurating a watershed in local history, but who had also been seen, encountered,and remembered. The difference in Saxony was that most new saints’ cults were14

imported and focused on figures far removed from the recent past. This was15

symptomatic of an opening up of a Roman relic trade under Paul I (pope 757–67),which was extended in the ninth century by the activities of enterprising traderssuch as Deusdona. Communities could have at their centre saints of genuine16

antiquity and therefore authenticity. Early Saxon hagiography is dominated byaccounts of relic translations and the miraculous events which surrounded them,


Friedrich Prinz, Frühes Mönchtum im Frankenreich: Kultur und Gesellschaft in Gallien, den17

Rheinlanden und Bayern am Beispiel der monastischen Entwicklung (4.-8. Jahrhundert) (Munich:Oldenbourg, 1965), pp. 491–93. On Carolingian attitudes to this development, see Paul Fouracre,‘The Origins of the Carolingian Attempt to Regulate the Cult of Saints’, in The Cult of Saints inLate Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. by James Howard-Johnston and Paul AntonyHayward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 143–65.

Vita Willehadi, chap. 8, ed. by Alain Poncelet, in Acta Sanctorum, Nov., III, cols 842–46 (col.18

845). For the argument that the Vita was written in Echternach, see Gerlinde Niemeyer, ‘DieHerkunft der Vita Willehadi’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 12 (1956), 17–35;and against Niemeyer, see Heinz Löwe, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter: Vorzeit undKarolinger, vol. VI: Die Karolinger vom Vertrag von Verdun bis zum Herrschaftsantritt der Herrscheraus dem sächsischen Hause: Das östfrankische Reich (Weimar: Böhlaus, 1990), p. 838.

See James T. Palmer, Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690–900, Studies in the Early19

Middle Ages, 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), chap. 4.

as the power of the saints was imported into a new setting. There was a politicaldimension behind this growth in relic translations. The earlier Frankish cult ofsaints had witnessed cults emerge around figures of factional interest, with somesaints the product of Selbstheiligung (‘self-sanctification’). While many of this17

generation of saints appeared to be good holy men and women, the potential forrival political factions to use the cult of saints as a forum for discourse was unwel-come to those, such as Charlemagne, who wished to promote unity. The predomi-nance of ‘old saints’ in Saxony is symptomatic of the mood nurtured by Charle-magne, whereby new saints were rarely valued as the founders of communities and,by extension, local identities. Early Christian Saxony was in some ways somethingFrankish political and religious figures could attempt to mould. When Anskar andRimbert came to write about ‘recent’ saints — Willehad (d. 789) and Anskarhimself (d. 865) respectively — they chose a mode of hagiographical discoursewhich might speak more directly to their audiences because it operated throughsaints who had worked in the North.

Bremen was one of the earliest locations to be established as a Christian centreas part of Charlemagne’s carving up of Saxony. Hagiographical legend asserted thatBremen had been chosen as an episcopal see by St Willehad shortly before his deathin 789, with the location of the church carefully considered to ensure the mosteffective centre to a bishopric that was to cover lands from the East of Frisia to theElbe River. Bremen’s claims over land in East Friesland was challenged by both18

a redivision of the Frankish Empire in 843 and assertions from the bishops ofMünster that they had rights over some of the same areas through the apostolicwork of St Liudger. This context no doubt pressed upon the author of the Vita19

James Palmer176

Vita Willehadi, chap. 11, col. 846.20

On the potentia of saints’ shrines, see Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and21

Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1981), chap. 6.

Anskar, Miracula Willehadi, pref., col. 847: ‘nunc in temporibus nostris ab eo qui huius22

nostrae, Bremensis videlicet […] suscipiamus pariter ac collaudemus miracula’.

On the functions of healing miracles, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, pp. 113–20.23

Altfrid, Vita Liudgeri, II. 20, ed. by Wilhelm Diekamp, in Die Vitae Sancti Liudgeri, Die24

Geschichtsquellen des Bistums Münster, 4 (Münster: Theissing’schen Buchhandlung, 1881), pp.

Willehadi, who concluded his work with a statement of Bremen’s importance asa locus sancti through Bishop Willeric’s translation of Willehad’s relics to a newbasilica in 789. It was this central geographical point which dominated the Mira-20

cula s. Willehadi, written by St Anskar between 860 and 865 to commemorate thepotentia of the saint through the miracles wrought following a second translation.21

The communities to which the Bishop of Bremen ministered were widely dis-persed, but the church and the saint allowed a point of unity where a single com-munity could be constructed in the imagination. Anskar expressed this unity inspace and time created by praise of the miraculous in his preface: ‘now in our timesand amongst those of ours — namely of Bremen — […] equally we receive andpraise the miracles’. The sense of belonging to Bremen is central and is reiterated22

through further use of the first person plural and emphasis on the church (ecclesiaand basilica) throughout the text. It created a focal point for a community whosetroubles were soothed by the healing miracles performed at the church.23

The geography expressed through Anskar’s stories of the miraculous bound awell-defined world of smaller communities to Bremen. Anskar recalled thirty-fourmiracles and for most he took more care to give a village or pagus with which thestory could be associated. Often beneficiaries were left nameless — a structuralstrategy which created a timeless connection between assorted communities and,at the centre, Willehad and the church of Bremen. The spread of locations ties inwith the claims of the Vita Willehadi to cover Wigmodia, Laras, Rustringerland,and Frisia, which loosely mirrored the definition of territory argued for in the VitaWillehadi. Surprisingly, despite the union between the dioceses of Bremen andHamburg in 848, there was no space for stories which benefitted Christians livingbeyond the Elbe; that was to retain a separate spiritual topography, as we shall see.Likewise, there were no stories of people travelling from far away to seek the inter-cession of Willehad, as there were in near-contemporary vitae about Liudger inMünster or Leoba in Fulda. The saint belonged to a well-defined community, and24


1–53 (p. 51); and Rudolf of Fulda, Vita Leobae, chap. 23, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SS, 15(Hannover: Hahn, 1887), p. 130.

Annales Xantenses, s.a. 851, ed. by Bernhard von Simson, MGH SRG, 12 (Hannover: Hahn,25

1909), p. 17.

Rudolph, Translatio s. Alexandri, chaps 1–4, ed. by Bruno Krusch, ‘Die Übertragung des26

H. Alexander von Rom nach Wildeshausen durch den Enkel Widukinds 851: Das älteste nieder-sächsische Geschichtsdenkmal’, Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen,Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 2 (1933), 405–36 (pp. 423–27).

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, I. 32 (34), ed. by Bernhard27

Schmeidler, MGH SRG, 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1917), p. 36.

Anskar, Miracula Willehadi, chaps 11–12, col. 849.28

the community to the saint. This insularity was partially offset by the sense ofbelonging to a natio omnis fidelium, which could rejoice in the miracles set downby Anskar. An extended sense of community brought together through the storiesand the text fostered the sense that one did not have to know the saint directlybecause he formed part of the fabric of Christendom. The primary audience mayhave been local, but it was still part of the Church as a whole.

The impetus behind Anskar’s work, and his defence of his community’s coher-ence, was the promotion of the cult of St Alexander at nearby Wildeshausen as acult of more than local importance. Wildeshausen was established as a new locussanctus by the Westphalian duke Waltperht in 851 in an apparent attempt to makea statement about how the descendants of Widukind had progressed in Chris-tianity. The Translatio s. Alexandri, written at Waltperht’s request but not25

completed until after 865, speaks of all the Saxons as a single group with a sharedpast and a common cultural heritage, making the cult of Alexander somethingpotentially all-encompassing. But Anskar was keen to avoid Willehad being26

eclipsed by an authentic ‘old saint’, and in the eleventh century Adam of Bremenreported a tradition that Anskar had defended the reputation of ‘our confessor’against the ‘foreign martyr’. The tradition Adam alludes to is no doubt Anskar’s27

Miracula itself, in which three people — a blind man and his step-daughter, anda deaf-mute — prayed in Wildeshausen but only received their health back fullyby subsequently praying to Willehad in Bremen. That the third person came28

from Frisia is evidence that Anskar was concerned about the overlapping audiencesfor the cults of Willehad and Alexander. By including the two saints together, how-ever, he was able to argue for the efficacy of the cult of Willehad alongside oldersaints. In his preface he had drawn comparisons between the miracles experienced

James Palmer178

Anskar, Miracula Willehadi, pref., col. 847.29

Rimbert, Vita, chap. 42, p. 128: ‘in quo solo pene omnium antiquorum vigebant exampla30

sanctorum’. On Anskar’s models of piety, see Wolfdieter Haas, ‘Foris apostolus — intus monachus:Ansgar als Mönch und “Apostel des Nordens”’, Journal of Medieval History, 11 (1985), 1–30.

Relics of Sixtus and Sinicius are listed as arriving at Fulda on 29 September 836 in Rudolf,31

Miracula sanctorum in Fuldenses ecclesias translatorum, chap. 14, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SS, 15(Hannover: Hahn, 1887), pp. 329–41 (p. 339). See also Haas, ‘Forus apostolus’, pp. 16–17.

Brigitte Wavra, Salzburg und Hamburg: Erzbistumsgründung und Missionspolitik in32

karolingischer Zeit (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1991), pp. 303–21, with a text of the charteron pp. 351–54.

On the sack of Hamburg, see Rimbert, Vita, chap. 16; Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 845, ed. by33

Georg Waitz, MGH SRG, 5 (Hannover: Hahn, 1883), p. 32; Annales Fuldenses, s.a. 845, ed. byFriedrich Kurze, MGH SRG, 7 (Hannover: Hahn, 1891), p. 35; and, Annales Xantenses, s.a. 845,ed. by von Simson, p. 14. Sixtus and Sinnicius are named in this context only by Adam Bremensisgesta Hammaburgensis, I. 23 (25), ed. by Schmeidler, p. 29.

in Bremen and those ‘of olden times’ he had praised in his sermons. The anxiety29

that Bremen as a locus sanctus was founded upon ‘new saints’ of uncertain poweralso permeated Rimbert’s portrayal of Anskar, which drew to a close with a lengthydiscussion of how in him ‘the lives of nearly all the saints of earlier times werereproduced’. Anskar and Rimbert had to engage in a prevailing hagiographical30

discourse on sanctity, which emphasized a lack of novelty, in order to create andpreserve the integrity of a spiritual geography centred on Bremen.

The strategy of identifying particular sets of communities with loca sancta wasfurther complicated by the unification of the sees of Hamburg and Bremen in 848.As already mentioned, even Anskar in the 860s seems not to have considered thecult of Willehad to pertain to lands beyond the Elbe. Hamburg had already beenthe destination for its own ‘old saints’: Sixtus and Sinicius of Reims. The transla-tion of the relics was likely to have been overseen by Archbishop Ebbo of Reims,who founded the Frankish mission to Scandinavia and under whom relics were alsotranslated to Fulda in order to extend the community of the saints. A forged31

charter of Louis the Pious’s, which Brigitte Wavra has argued plausibly dates to845x50, identified St Sixtus as the patron and cause of rights granted to Hamburg,and in so doing made a statement about the saint’s integration with the new arch-bishopric’s self-representation. That the cult of St Sixtus subsequently fell to one32

side possibly says much about the sack of Hamburg in 845 and the consequentrehousing of the relics at Ramelsloh, south of the Elbe and thus geographically inWillehad’s territory. Anskar and Rimbert may have begun to doubt the wisdom33

in using second-hand saints to support their missionary enterprises around this


Passio Sixti et Sinicii, ed. by Joannes Stiling, in Acta Sanctorum, Sept., I (Antwerp: Société des34

Bollandistes, 1746), cols 125–29. See also Wilhelm Levison, ‘Zur Würdigung von Rimberts VitaAnskarii’, in Aus Rheinischer und Frankischer Frühzeit (Düsseldorf: L. Schwann, 1948), pp. 610–30(p. 619).

Rimbert, Vita, chaps 1 and 6, pp. 18, 28.35

Epistolarum Fuldensium fragmata, no. 37, ed. by Ernest Dümmler, MGH Epp, 5 (Berlin:36

Hahn, 1899), pp. 517–33 (p. 532).

Annales Necrologici, s.a. 865, 888, 910, ed. by Karl Schmid, in Die Klostergemeinschaft von37

Fulda im frühen Mittelalter, 5 vols (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1978), I, 233–384 (pp. 300, 310, and318). On the sense of community, see now Janneke Raaijmakers, ‘Memory and Identity: TheAnnales Necrologici of Fulda’, in Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by RichardCorradini and others (Vienna: Oldenbourg, 2007), pp. 303–22.

time as the only further evidence for interest in the cult is some verbal borrowingsfrom the Passio Sixti et Sinicii in the Vita Anskarii. Hamburg needed a saint who34

represented mission, and in the Vita Anskarii, and possibly its lost forerunner theLiber visionum, Anskar was to become that saint. Even Rimbert’s account of thedeath scene of Anskar remains curiously ambiguous about where it takes place inorder not to tie the new saint too closely to Bremen alone. The nature of the cultof saints in Saxony not uniquely meant that care had to be taken to determine theauthenticity of the saint, what they stood for, and the holy places they represented.

The relationship between saint, locus sanctus, and local identity was modulatedby a sense of audience. Anskar’s audience, it would seem, was predominantly hislocal communities themselves. Rimbert’s, meanwhile, included friends and acquain-tances further afield. Throughout the Vita Anskarii there are a number of nods tothe stated audience in Corbie with locations of particular events apud nos (namelyin Bremen) or apud vos (namely in Corbie) in order to create a qualitative sense ofexperience divided between the author and audience which, through the subject,ultimately became shared. This was the beginning of a different type of imagined35

community, created through social networks. To the network bound togetherthrough associations can also be included Bishop Solomon I of Constance, whoowned the earliest extant copy of the Vita Anskarii, and Abbot Thioto of Fulda,who invited Anskar and Adalgar of Corvey to join in the Mass for the missionary-saint Boniface. Anskar, Rimbert, and Adalgar were also named in Fulda’s Annales36

Necrologici — generally a more inward-looking compilation — as a symbol ofshared community kept alive through memorial practices. It was in such East37

Frankish circles that the (arch)bishops of Hamburg-Bremen may have hoped forsupport at court in the quest to preserve the unity of their diocese when it was

James Palmer180

Boris Bigott, Ludwig der Deutsche und die Reichskirche im Ostfränkischen Reich (826–876)38

(Husum: Matthiesen, 2002), pp. 111–18.

The only early indication that someone outside Hamburg-Bremen recognized Anskar’s39

sanctity is St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 387, p. 56, where Grimald of St Gall named Anskar in acalendar of East Frankish saints for King Louis the German. On the manuscript, see Arno Borst,Der karolingische Reichskalender, MGH Libri mem, 2, 3 vols (Hannover: Hahn, 2001), I, 189; andEric J. Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under Louis the German, 817–876(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), pp. 170 and 188.

Vita Rimberti, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SRG, 55 (Hannover: Hahn, 1881), pp. 81–100.40

There has been little scholarly interest in the text, but see Andreas Röpcke, ‘Pro memoria Remberti’,in Rimbert, der Nachfolger Ansgars (Hamburg: EB, 2000), pp. 30–56; and Wood, Missionary Life,pp. 134–35.

Vita Rimberti, chap. 24, p. 99.41

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, I. 35 (37) – 40 (43), ed. by Schmeidler, pp. 38–44.42

challenged. But here also lay one of the failures of the hagiographical discourse,38

as few people bought into the sanctity of Anskar (or Willehad or Rimbert).39

Social networks also modified representations of Hamburg and Bremen at alocal level. The anonymous Vita Rimberti, written by a nun of Nienheerse, standsas a reflection of a monastic identity pinned on a collection of saints rather than amissionary one. Although the foundation of Hamburg is mentioned briefly at the40

beginning, the emphasis is on Rimbert as Anskar’s pupil, as Adalgar’s friend, as aguide to the nuns at Nienheerse, and generally as a character imbued with the vir-tues of the monastic life despite his episcopal obligations. The nun of Nienheersedescribed the church in Bremen as a place of saints, specifying where Willehad,Anskar, and Rimbert were buried. The collectivity of the saints’ relics in a phys-41

ical environment provided a sense of saintly unity which is notably absent in theVita Anskarii, which does not even mention Willehad. Audience is again the key:this was for the communities of Nienheerse and Corvey, removed from the intri-cacies of saintly geographies. A community defined by personal interaction,however, has only a limited existence. In the eleventh century Adam of Bremenencountered the Vita Rimberti in Corvey rather than in his own library and didnot find much in its contents that he could use. Instead, he supplemented one storyabout Rimbert releasing slaves with extracts from computistical marginalia andaccounts of Viking attacks from the Annales Fuldenses in order to extend theimportance of saints and missionary activity. It is this missionary identity that we42

shall turn to next.


On the context of universal mission for this development, see Wolfgang Fritze, ‘Universalis43

gentium confessio: Formeln, Träger und Wege universalmissionarischen Denkens im 7. Jahr-hundert’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 3 (1969), 78–130; and Lutz von Padberg, Mission undChristianisierung: Formen und Folgen bei Angelsachsen und Franken im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1995), pp. 69–75.

The Elbe is mentioned as a border with the Sueves in Lucan, Pharsion, II, lines 51–52, ed. and44

trans. by Abel Bourgery, 2 vols (Paris: Société d’Édition les Belles-Lettres, 1926), I, 34.

On the changing role of Hamburg, see Wavra, Salzburg und Hamburg, pp. 216–32, and the45

summary of the archaeological evidence therein. For a recent assessment, see Dirk Meier, ‘TheNorth Sea Coastal Area: Settlement History from Roman to Early Medieval Times’, in ContinentalSaxons, ed. by Green and Siegmund, pp. 37–67.

The debate on the authenticity of the papal documents has generated a substantial literature.46

The sceptical view, attributing forgeries to Adalgar, is put forward in Richard Drögereit, ‘WarAnsgar Erzbischof von Hamburg oder Bremen?’, Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für NiedersächsischeKirchengeschichte, 70 (1972), 107–32. Most of Drögereit’s arguments are rebutted in Wavra,Salzburg und Hamburg, pp. 283–328.

Anskar, Epistolae variorum inde a saeculo non medio usque ad mortem Karoli II. imperatoris47

collectae, no. 16, ed. by Ernest Dümmler, MGH Epp, 6 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1925), p. 163: ‘Iam

Mission and the ‘Ecclesia Nordalbingorum’

The creation of coherent Christian communities centring on Hamburg and Bremenfed into strategies to justify Scandinavian mission as it was defined within an im-pressionistic ethnic geography. Since the late seventh century, the papacy had sys-tematically seen the expansion of Christendom as incorporating named gentes forwhom archbishops were to be established as soon as possible. Bremen, however, was43

not an appropriate centre to represent Scandinavian mission as it had already beendefined more narrowly, even by its own community, while Hamburg had in contrastbeen established in 831/32 specifically to orchestrate missionary activity and thusneeded to take on the imaginative burden. Lying on the far side of the River Elbe —considered an important territorial marker since the days of the Roman Empire44

— Hamburg was a new defensive and political centre beyond a significant frontier,singled out by Louis the Pious from other existing fortified trading points for itsstrategic location. The unification of Hamburg and Bremen in 848 consequently45

created not only the legal wrangles which famously dogged its early history, but alsoa conceptual ambiguity over what the new see actually stood for. A letter by46

Anskar, and later Rimbert’s Vita, both ignored Bremen to assert that Hamburg hadbeen founded as a locus to which could be attached Archbishop Ebbo of Reims’sold papal bull for evangelizing the North, thus institutionalising the mission. It47

James Palmer182

enim Christo propitio et apud Danos et apud Sueones Christi fundata est ecclesia et sacerdotesabsque prohibitione proprio funguntur officio’. Rimbert, Vita, chaps 12 and 13, pp. 42–48.

Pope Formosus, Epistolae, no. 2, ed. by Gerhard Laehr, MGH Epp, 7 (Berlin: Weidmann,48

1928), p. 368.

Johannes Fried, ‘Gens und regnum: Wahrnehmungs- und Deutungskategorien politischen49

Wandels im frühen Mittelalter: Bemerkungen zur doppelten Theoriebindung des Historikers’, inSozialer Wandel im Mittelalter: Wahrnehmungsformen, Erklärungsmuster, Regelungsmechanismen,ed. by Jürgen Mietke and Klaus Schreiner (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994), pp. 73–104 (pp.86–87); and Ildar Garipzanov, ‘Frontier Identities: Carolingian Frontier and gens Danorum’, inFranks, Northmen, and Slavs, ed. by Garipzanov and others, pp. 113–42.

Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Evangelium Matthaei, XI, ed. by Beda Paulus, 3 vols,50

CCSM, 56 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1984), III, 1165.

Garipzanov, ‘Frontier Identities’, pp. 121–25.51

The phrase ‘turmoil of warring princes’ is the characterization of Kerry Maund, ‘“A Turmoil52

of Warring Princes”: Political Leadership in Ninth-Century Denmark’, Haskins Society Journal,6 (1995), 29–47.

was this equation of Hamburg alone with the missionary enterprise which PopeFormosus cited in 892 as a major obstacle to combining the diocese with Bremen.48

Anskar and Rimbert had done little in their writings to project anything otherthan a division of labour between the two sites. As a consequence, the sense ofidentity created for Anskar’s communities was defined by parts rather than awhole. Attaching mission to the very foundation of Hamburg had, as we shall see,special implications for the projection of identities onto the Scandinavian North.

The emphasis on Hamburg needs to be understood in relation to a particularunderstanding of gentes. Whatever divisions existed between different groups inScandinavia, Anskar and Rimbert saw more simply a gens Danorum and a gensSueorum, derived from existing imagined geographies of the North. The idea that49

even the Danes constituted gentes plural is only evident in the thought of Radber-tus Paschasius of Corbie. The simplification of complex political structures into50

tribal or ethnic groupings stemmed from politics, historiography, and missionarytraditions, each of which responded to the others. Frankish kings, in part informedby the clarity of ethnographic texts and Bede, treated Danish leaders as reges untilthe growing complexities and chaos of Scandinavian political order forced arevision of attitude at the courts. The presence of figures definable as kings helped51

to give an imagined structure to the ‘turmoil of warring princes’ of the north.52

Papal preconceptions took similar cues. Talk of the gentes de partibus Aquilonisframed the earliest papal references to Scandinavian mission, drawing on a long


Pope Paschal I, Epistolae selectae pontificum Romanorum Carolo Magno et Ludowico io53

regnantibus scriptae, no. 11, ed. by Karl Hampe, MGH Epp, 5 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1899), p. 69.See also Pope Formosus’s language in his letters arguing against the continuing unification ofHamburg and Bremen in 892: Pope Formosus, Epistolae, nos 1–3, ed. by Laehr, pp. 367–70.

Scandinavian and Bulgarian mission are discussed side-by-side in Nicholas I, Epistolae, no.54

26, ed. by Ernest Perels, MGH Epp, 6, pp. 292–93. References to Gregory and the gens Anglorumin Nicholas I, no. 91, p. 528; no. 93, p. 541; and no. 99, pp. 572 and 590.

Rimbert, Vita, chap. 13, p. 46. It may be the context of missionary jurisdiction that55

Hamburg is dismissively called a quandam civitas Sclavorum in the Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 845, ed.by Waitz, p. 32.

Willibald, Vita Bonifatii, chap. 8, ed. by W ilhelm Levison, MGH SRG, 57 (Hannover:56

Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1905), p. 44.

See on the North Ian Wood, ‘Early Medieval Accounts of the North before the Old English57

Orosius’, in Ohthere’s Voyages: A Late Ninth-Century Account of Voyages along the Coasts of Norway

Roman and missionary history. Gregory I’s preconception that the Germanic53

peoples of Britain formed a single gens to which Augustine’s archiepiscopal statusloosely pertained set a precedent which led in future generations to Sergius I ap-pointing Willibrord as (arch)bishop to the Frisians and Gregory II and IIIentrusting Boniface with the Germani. The power of this tradition in the mid-ninth century is most evident in the thought of Anskar’s contemporary PopeNicholas I, who referred back to Gregory and the Angli on a number of occasionswhile discussing his other missionary concern, the Vulgari. The identification of54

kings — Horik II as rex Danorum and Boris as rex Vulgarorum — helped Nicholasto treat the targets of his own day as distinctive groups but, beyond that, it is notalways clear what information on the North the papacy used to participate in eth-nic discourse at distance. Frankish politics, historiographical tradition, and papalideals each brought something to the construction of northern identities, withAnskar and Rimbert both drawing on and playing to the sensibilities of all three.

A place also had to be found for the Slavic peoples to the East within the mis-sionary model. The bull of Gregory IV recorded in the Vita Anskarii added theS(c)lavi to Hamburg’s targets. Sources from the Frankish court and from Fulda55

consistently called the Slavs allied to the Franks north of the Elbe the ‘Abodrites’,but discussions of the missionary authority in the North evaded such specificity innomenclature. Rimbert preferred to speak more generally of Sclavi, as his mis-sionary hagiographer predecessor Willibald had done a century beforehand.56

Again, the use of impressionistic certainties aided claims to authority over a worldstill defined in the imagination by a classicizing sense of geography and lists ofgentes. The place of the Slavs in this model is given a different dimension by the57

James Palmer184

and Denmark and its Cultural Context, ed. by Janet Bately and Anton Englert (Roskilde: VikingShip Museum, 2007), pp. 60–65.

Wavra, Salzburg und Hamburg, p. 352.58

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, II. 21 (18), ed. by Schmeidler, p. 250.59

On vernacular culture at court, see Wolfgang Haubrichs, ‘Ludwig der Deutsche und die60

volkssprachige Literatur’, in Ludwig der Deutsche und seiner Zeit, ed. by Wilfried Hartmann(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), pp. 203–32. See more generally MatthewInnes, ‘Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingians and the Germanic Past’, in The Uses of the Past inthe Early Middle Ages, ed. by Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2001), pp. 227–49.

Annales regni Francorum, s.a. 785, 804, ed. by Kurze, pp. 71 and 118.61

Arno Jenkis, ‘Die Eingliederung “Nordalbingiens” in das Frankenreich’, in Die Eingliederung62

der Sachsen in das Frankenreich, ed. by Walter Lammers (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge-sellschaft, 1970), pp. 29–58. Archaeology ‘confirms’ the presence of Slavs but is less certain aboutthe disappearance of Saxons: see Wavra, Salzburg und Hamburg, p. 239 and the references there.

forged charter of Louis the Pious, in which the gens Slavorum are equated with theVandali. Modern scholars believed that it was Adam of Bremen who introduced58

the Vandals to Hamburg-Bremen’s northern world when he mistook the Wineti— a generic name for the Slavs — for the Lombard Winili Paul the Deaconequated with the Vandals, but if one accepts Wavra’s early date for the charter thenthe ‘confusion’ goes back to the mid-ninth century. The use of Vandali remains59

a clarification which seeks to transpose a generic Sclavi into a people more familiarfrom Late Roman and early medieval ethnography. Given Anskar’s intellectualcommunities, both at Fulda and at court, such an archaicizing clarification wouldhave been appreciated under Louis the German, where the artifice would haveresonated with intellectuals interested in the relationship between Latin andGermanic vernacular cultures. Hamburg’s missionary identity rested more upon60

particular modes of thought than upon real political or ethnic divisions of pagansin the North.

The prevalence of imagined gentes takes on a new dimension with the literarycreation of a new gens Nordalbingorum to justify the archiepiscopal authority ofHamburg. The Elbe, as we have seen, created a division in Saxony, and there aremany references in the Frankish sources to events in Transalbania Saxonum, pagiTransalbingi, or similar. To this perception the (alleged?) repatriation of Saxons61

from across the river and subsequent handing over of the land to the Abodrites in809 reorientated Frankish attitudes to the region. Frankish annals report a variety62

of meetings and difficulties with Abrodite leaders, notably Duke Ceadrag who


Annales regni Francorum, s.a. 823, ed. by Kurze, p. 162. On the Abodrites, see Bernhard63

Friedmann, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des abodritischen Fürstentums bis zum Ende des 10.Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Duncker und Humbolt, 1986).

Einhard, Vita Karoli, chap. 14, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SRG, 25 (Hannover: Hahn,64

1911), p. 17; Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 838, ed. by Waitz, p. 16.

Springer, Die Sachsen, p. 258, attributes the novelty to the traditions of Bremen and Corvey.65

Drögereit took the use of Nordalbingi rather than Transalbania as proof of the documents’ forgery(Drögereit, ‘War Ansgar Erzbischof’, pp. 378–79), but it has also been argued that this simplyrepresents cooperation between the papacy and Anskar in the mission: see Wavra, Salzburg undHamburg, pp. 290–94.

Rimbert, Vita, pref., p. 16, and chap. 23, p. 74.66

Wavra, Salzburg und Hamburg, p. 352; Rimbert, Vita, chap. 12, p. 44.67

entered into allegiances with both the Franks and Danes to the emperor’s annoy-ance. Danish influence appeared to be strong in the region, with both Godefrid I63

and Horik I making claims there to the Frankish court. Only in the papal archives64

and the historiography of Hamburg-Bremen, however, was it claimed that thepeople between the Elbe and the Danes were a distinct gens, rather than a mix ofSaxons and Abodrites. Pope Nicholas I called Anskar the primus archiepiscopus65

Nordalbingorum in a bull quoted by Rimbert and repeated in the introduction tothe Vita Anskarii. This established Anskar as an archbishop for a specific gens, fol-66

lowing the model of Augustine, Willibrord, and Boniface. The title primus archi-episcopus Nordalbingorum, in keeping Anskar’s authority detached from a specificsee, helped to project the saint’s apostolic character. Moreover, as an imaginativestrategy, the assertion of a distinct gens for Anskar’s archiepiscopal authority side-stepped the legal difficulty presented by the division of Saxony south of the Elbebetween the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne by creating something else towhich they had not already laid claim. In another clause from Anskar’s forgedcharter, again repeated by Rimbert, this was developed with the statement thatLouis the Pious had given Anskar the grand-sounding universa ecclesia Nordalbin-gorum, which he explained included all the regions of the North; the ‘Nordalbingi’were simultaneously to be distinct and yet symbolic of a more overarching con-struction. In short, the representation of northern peoples as identifiable gentes67

supported strategies to justify Anskar as an archbishop over a missionary enterprise.The juxtaposition of ethnic identities and saintly work had resulted in a newidentity centred on Hamburg.

An apparent negative mode of portrayal is introduced by repeated use ofbarbara and nationes barbarae to describe the Danes, Swedes, Slavs, and

James Palmer186

Wavra, Salzburg und Hamburg, p. 352; Rimbert, Vita, p. 42 (‘nationes barbarae’) and passim.68

On the literary representations of a ‘barbarian North’, see now David Fraesdorff, Der barbarischeNorden: Vorstellungen und Fremdheitskategorien bei Rimbert, Thietmar von Merseburg, Adam vonBremen und Helmold von Bosau, Orbis Mediaevalis, 5 (Berlin: Akademie, 2005).

Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, IV. 10, ed. by Wolfgang Hering (Leipzig: Teubner, 1987), p. 55:69

‘et, ubi Oceano adpropinquavit, in plures diffluit partes multis ingentibus insulis effectis, quarumpars magna a feris barbaris nationibus incolitur, ex quibus sunt qui piscibus atque ovis avium vivereexistimantur, multis capitibus in Oceanum influit’.

Bede, Historia ecclesia gentis Anglorum, IV, chap. 2, ed. by Charles Plummer, Baedae opera70

historica, vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), p. 205; Paul the Deacon, Historia Romana, XIV,ed. by Hans Droysen, MGH SRG, 49 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1879), p. 201; Einhard, Vita Karoli,chap. 15, ed. by Waitz, p. 18.

Jerome, In Danielem, I. 3. 1, ed. by Franciscus Glorius, CCSL, 75A (Turnhout: Brepols,71

1964), p. 797. There is no printed edition of Hrabanus’s text save for the prefatory letter: HrabanusMaurus, Epistola, no. 34, ed. by Ernest Dümmler, MGH Epp, 5, pp. 367–69.

Jerome, Epistola, no. 146, ed. by Isidore Hilberg, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum72

Latinorum, 56 (Vienna: Tempsky & Freytag, 1918), p. 310.

Nordalbingians. Such language creates a tension in the Hamburg-Bremen tradi-68

tions because it establishes a distance between the ‘civility’ of the sees and the peo-ples ‘beyond’ over whom they claimed responsibilities. There is, however, a logicto this dynamic of ninth-century ethnic discourse which moves beyond simplepejorative language. The Northern periphery was historically defined by its alterityand barbarism. Caesar’s Gallic Wars was interpolated with a geographical excursuswhich described the peoples who lived on the islands in the mouth of the Rhine asnationes barbarae. The phrase is repeated in assorted but similar contexts: Bede69

used it to denote the peoples beyond the frontiers of Christian kings, Paul theDeacon to characterize the northern peoples subject to Attila, and Einhard todescribe the inhabitants of Germania between the Rhine and Danube. Pertinent70

to Rimbert’s cause, Jerome’s commentary on Daniel — also re-edited in the mid-ninth century for Louis the German by Hrabanus Maurus — identified nationesbarbarae as people who needed to be taught the errors of idol worship. It was also71

a turn of phrase Jerome used in a much-quoted letter about the unity of disparatepeoples when brought together in the Church. The intellectual and textual72

history of describing the north as barbarous thus played a part in conceptualizingexternal missionfields relative to salvation history and historical geography. Thisis amplified by Rimbert’s account of Anskar undertaking the missionary life ‘tovisit foreign nations and talk with unknown and barbarous peoples’, which directs


Rimbert, Vita, chap. 7, p. 32: ‘aliena.expetere […] nationes et cum ignotis ac barbaris73

conversari’.

See further James T. Palmer, ‘Defining Paganism in the Carolingian World’, Early Medieval74

Europe, 15 (2007), 402–25.

Rimbert’s letter is lost but the reply is extant: Ratramnus of Corbie, Epistolae variorum inde75

a saeculo nono medio usque ad mortem Karoli II. imperatoris, no. 12, ed. by Ernest Dümmler, MGH,Epp, 6 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1925), pp. 155–57. On the letter, see Röpcke, ‘Pro memoria Remberti’,pp. 34–36; and Wood, Missionary Life, pp. 252–53.

Adam Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis, IV. 26–27, ed. by Schmeidler, pp. 257–60.76

Haas, ‘Foris apostolus’, pp. 3–4.77

the saint’s activities towards the barbarous. The language of barbarism went73

beyond judgements concerning civility to construct part of the imagined literaryworld of missionary activity. The northern gentes needed to be ‘barbarous’ for the74

patchwork of constructions to work.A sense of being on the margins pervaded Hamburg-Bremen’s sense of its place

in the world. Rimbert’s famous anxiety about whether cynocephali should be thetargets of missionary work speaks to a common theme in the historiography. As75

Ian Wood has emphasized, the Scandinavian world of unknown islands was easilyfilled with prophetic symbolism or the monstrous of the unknown. Confrontationwith the marginal in the mind contributed to a centralization of core values. Thisis one of the dynamics which so attracts modern historians to Adam of Bremen’stext, as his ethnographic passages seamlessly blend literary and oral legend, history,and myth in order to set out what it means for Hamburg-Bremen to be in a posi-tion riddled with tensions: the centre of the edge of the known world. Adam’sfamous account of pagan beliefs focusing on a temple in Uppsala are described asthe practices of gentes barbarae, echoing the words of generations of predecessors.76

In doing so, Adam was recycling language to generate a continued sense of other-ness that extended from the past into his own time. The imagined communities77

of Hamburg and Bremen had long been defined against a northern world that hadbeen plundered for contrasts more than it had been incorporated into Chris-tendom.

Conclusion

The simple conclusion for the communities of early medieval Hamburg andBremen is that, as everywhere, individuals and groups embraced and used identities

James Palmer188

to different effect. A sense of local community brought people together and, whenVikings attacked and rival communities paraded their ‘old saint’, having a localsaint to rally around brought strength and social healing. Hagiographical storiesabout the miraculous articulated a discourse between saints and society whichensured that even people who had never met the saint could join in, benefit fromthe holy potentia, and become part of the first person plural that writers in Bremenso enjoyed using. The articulation of identities in hagiography was also a way inwhich people could set out what they were about for their social networks, in thiscase incorporating Corbie, Corvey, Constance, and the royal court. Representa-tions of sanctity here encouraged outsiders to recognize the value of projects on thefrontiers and to support them however they could. Universality made locallydefined things understandable (even if, in the case of Hamburg-Bremen’s missions,representations of Anskar failed to whip up renewed enthusiasm). And finallythese local communities and social networks were framed by abstract understand-ings of gentes and alterity made concrete through the pursuit of authority. To theirauthors, Hamburg and Bremen were two inwardly defined communities whogained purpose through their proximity to and responsibility towards the Danes,Swedes, Slavs, and even ‘Nordalbingians’. That Anskar and Rimbert paid littleattention to the realities of political or ethnic divisions is not a failing of their out-look; rather, they were engaged in projects of definition which drew on prevailingsimplifying assumptions to create communities in their own imaginations. Localcommunities and ethnic affinities were one kind of reality; imagined communitiesallowed a more wide-ranging and meaning-laden world of networks to be created.

‘Tantos habemus in Dania vel Sclavania martyres, ut vix possint libro comprehendi’: Adam1

Bremensis gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, II. 43, ed. by Bernhard Schmeidler, MGHSRG, 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1917), p. 104.

On the date, see Tore Nyberg, Monasticism in North-Western Europe, 800–1200 (Aldershot:2

Ashgate, 2000), p. 56.

ÆLNOTH OF CANTERBURY

AND EARLY MYTHOPOIESIS IN DENMARK

Aidan Conti

‘We have so many martyrs in Denmark and Slavia that they can hardly be comprised in abook.’ — Sven Estridsen (r. 1047–74/76) in Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensisecclesiae pontificum (c. 1075).1

Despite Sven Estridsen’s reported comments on the abundance of martyrs,Denmark did not produce a local representative until the death of Sven’sson, Knud (the holy, r. 1080–86) in 1086. Knud’s life was marked by

expansive political ambitions; not only did he marry in c. 1080 Adela of Flanders,daughter of Robert I, count of Flanders, thereby connecting himself to a prom-inent continental family, he also continued to press Danish claims in England,participating in a raid in 1069, leading a short-lived invasion in 1075, and planningwith his father-in-law to invade in 1085. However, it was through his death in thefollowing year at the hands of his own rebellious subjects in Odense that Knudarguably achieved his greatest prominence and a much longer-lasting fame. Due inlarge part to the efforts of Erik Ejegod (r. 1095–1103), Knud the murdered kingbecame a martyred saint, a transformation that was realized through a number ofdifferent channels: the active pursuit for papal canonization, which yielded inter-national institutional backing and canonization of the first royal martyr in1099/1100; the development of local ritual activity in Odense, evinced from the2

Aidan Conti190

On the development of the cult and assessment of royal and popular contributions thereto,3

see Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney: A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context, NorthernWorld, 29 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 127–33.

On mythopoiesis and Christianization, see Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Sanctified Beginnings and4

Mythopoietic Moments: The First Wave of Writing on the Past in Norway, Denmark, andHungary, c. 1000–1300’, in The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom(c. 1000–1300), ed. by Lars Boje Mortensen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2006), pp.247–73.

The tablet was recovered in 1582, but lost thereafter; edited in VSD, pp. 60–62; and5

O. Worm, Fasti Danici, 3rd edn with corrections (Copenhagen, 1643), lib. I, cap. IX.

Edited in VSD, p. 76.6

Edited in VSD, pp. 62–71.7

Edited in VSD, pp. 77–136; hereafter, Gesta et passio to shorten the title while preserving8

something of the twofold nature thereof.

Hans Olrik, ‘Studier over Ælnods skrift om Knud den hellige’, Historisk tidskrift, 79

(1892–94), 205–91 (pp. 219–21).

M. Cl. Gertz considered the Epitaphium to be by Ælnoth, in Knud den helliges Martyr-10

historie: særlig efter de tre ældeste Kilder, Festskrift udgivet af Kjøbenhavns Universitet i andledningaf Hans Majestæt Kongens Fødselsdag den 3. Juni 1907 (Copenhagen: Universitetsbogtrykkeriet[J. H. Schultz], 1907), pp. 81–83; and in VSD, pp. 38–42. The present work remains agnostic on

elevation of the King’s remains in 1095 and the translation in 1101 (or 1100) toa newly erected church (following the canonization); and a substantial body ofmaterial written in Latin eulogizing the holy King. Taken as a whole, these3

endeavours reflect a mythopoietical moment, that is, a period marked by theconcerted fashioning of sacred legends, in which local elites in Odense crafted,shaped, and negotiated a new identity for Denmark within the framework of theChristian West.4

The written material devoted to Knud comprises the Tabula Othiniensis, acopper tablet inscribed with the oldest known account of the death of St Knud,placed in the stone sarcophagus in connection with the elevatio of the King’s bodyin 1095 and later moved to the shrine in 1100; the Epitaphium S. Canuti, an in-5

scription consisting of nine Leonine verses, transmitted together with the Tabula;6

the Passio sancti Kanuti regis et martyris, composed between 1095 and 1100 by anunknown author; and Ælnoth of Canterbury’s Gesta Swegnomagni Regis et7

filiorum eius et passio gloriosissimi Canuti Regis et martyris. Although it has been8

argued that the Epitaphium should be considered part of the Tabula, the most9

recent editor treats it as a separate text which is in turn quoted in full in the Gestaet passio. In considering this material devoted to Knud, which might collectively10

ÆLNOTH OF CANTERBURY AND EARLY MYTHOPOIESIS 191

the question. The Epitaphium clearly develops the rhetoric of Knud’s martyrdom, but it isuncertain whether that development can be attributed to Ælnoth.

So Lars Mortensen, ‘Højmiddelaldren, 1100–1300’, in Dansk litteraturs historie, vol. I:11

1100–1800 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2007), pp. 51–90 (pp. 54–57).

See Erich Hoffmann, Die heiligen Könige bei den Angelsachsen und den skandinavischen12

Völkern, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Schleswig-Holsteins, 69 (Neumünster:K. Wachholtz, 1975); and Carl Phelpstead, ‘Pilgrims, Missionaries and Martyrs: The Holy in Bede,Orkneyinga saga and Knýtlinga saga’, in Making of Christian Myths, ed. by Mortensen, pp. 53–81(pp. 65 and 71), which recapitulates some of the main points of previous scholarship.

See Haki Antonsson, ‘Sanctus Kanutus rex’, in A Handbook of Nordic Medieval Latin,13

Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin (forthcoming).

Elisabeth van Houts, ‘The Norman Conquest through European Eyes’, English Historical14

Review, 110 (1995), 832–53; and Hugh Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility,Assimilation, and Identity 1066–c. 1220 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 248,respectively.

be known as Odense literature, scholars have long noticed and emphasized the11

Anglo-Saxon connections, especially with respect to the models of hagiography forAnglo-Saxon kings, most notably Abbo of Fleury’s Passio sancti Eadmundi. These12

literary links were built on human connections: Erik Ejegod brought a group ofBenedictines from Evesham to tend to the martyr’s shrine in 1095/96; the Passiois believed to have been written by an English author; and Ælnoth identifies13

himself as a native of Canterbury resident in Denmark for twenty-four years.Among this collection of Odense literature devoted to Knud, Ælnoth of

Canterbury’s Gesta et passio offers the most elaborate and lengthy exposition of themartyred sovereign in about sixty pages (in its modern edition; approximately tenthousand words) of prose and verse. Some recent scholarship has argued that Æl-noth’s anti-Norman disposition suggests a continued conceptualization of Englandwithin a larger Scandinavian kingdom a half century after the conquest; moreover,perhaps Ælnoth’s‘safe exile in Denmark’ afforded the Englishman more freedomto criticize Norman rule than that enjoyed by his near contemporaries living inEngland. However, the traditonal emphasis has been to regard the work with a14

focus on Knud and his martyrdom, an emphasis reflected in the titles assigned to thework by early editions: Historia Sancti Canuti Regis et Martyris Othoniae Sepulti(in the first anonymous edition of 1602), De vita et passione sancti Canuti RegisDaniae (Ioannes Meursius, 1631), Libellus de vita et passione Sancti Canuti (ThomasBroder Bircherod’s posthumous edition of 1745), Historia vitae et passionis (ActaSanctorum, 1723), and Historia ortus, vitae et passionis Sancti Canuti regis Daniae

Aidan Conti192

Indeed, the inclination to call Ælnoth’s work a life of Knud or hagiography of Knud can blur15

the distinction between his work and the shorter and more circumscribed Passio, especially forthose unfamiliar with the material.

See Phelpstead, ‘Pilgrims, Missionaries and Martyrs’, p. 71; see also Preben Meulengracht16

Sørensen, ‘To gamle historier om Knud den Hellige – og den moderne’, in Knuds-Bogen 1986:Studier over Knud den Hellige, ed. by Tore Nyberg, Hans Bekker-Nielsen, and Niels Oxenvad,Fynske Studier, 15 (Odense: Odense Bys Museer, 1986), pp. 53–60; and Meulengracht Sørensen,‘Om Ælnoth og hans bog’, in Ælnoths Krønike, trans. by Erling Albrechtsen (Odense: OdenseUniversitetsforlag, 1984), pp. 115–39.

See Mortensen, ‘Sanctified Beginnings and Mythopoietic Moments’, esp. pp. 250–52, on17

some of the pitfalls.

Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, Epistola, p. 77, and Epilogue, p. 135.18

Nyberg, Monasticism, p. 56.19

(Langebek, 1774). Yet, as the present title, which is based on headings in the two15

extant manuscripts, as well as more balanced assessments acknowledge, the work ‘setsan expanded version of the Passio sancti Kanuti into a wider historical context byframing it between brief accounts of Knútr’s predecessors and successors’. While16

hagiography and historiography in this period frequently overlap and overemphasison the distinction risks a distorted picture of how the local past was committed towriting, nevertheless there are certain elements typical of historical writing that are17

not strictly speaking necessary constituents for hagiographical accounts. It is theway in which Ælnoth expands the hagiographic framework that had been createdfor Knud that makes his narrative extraordinary and suggests the process involvedwithin the genesis of a mythopoietic moment as a community broadened its effortsto construct its new identity. The following discussion will examine Ælnoth’scontribution and the place of his work within Denmark’s early mythopoiesis byfocusing on the use of Christ-like imagery and allusions to previous martyrs in theOdense literature, the use of other biblical figures therein, and finally the way inwhich Ælnoth employs a knowledge of the classical, non-Christian past to expandthe horizon and write Denmark into a larger Christian picture.

An immediate and detailed historical context for the work remains elusive;what is known about the author is drawn principally from his own words. As hasbeen noted above, Ælnoth states that he is originally from Canterbury and hasresided in Denmark for twenty-four years, but the religious institution to whichhe was attached is uncertain; he refers to himself as the ‘lowest of the ministers ofthe divine office’ (diuini officii ministrorum infimus) in the prologue and ‘thelowest of priests’ (sacerdotum infimus) in the epilogue. He was likely connected18

to the monastic cathedral of St Knud, or the church of St Mary, St Alban, and St19


Olrik, ‘Studier’, p. 206, dismisses this possibility.20

Gertz, Knud den helliges Martyrhistorie, p. 84.21

See Nyberg, Monasticism, p. 56.22

See Olrik, ‘Studier’, p. 205; Gertz, Knud den helliges Martyrhistorie, p. 84, n. 1; and23

Mortensen, ‘Højmiddelalderen’, p. 56.

See Michael Gelting, ‘Two Early Twelfth-Century Views of Denmark’s Christian Past:24

Ailnoth and the Anonymous of Roskilde’, in Historical Narratives and Christian Identity on aEuropean Periphery: Early History Writing in Northern Europe (c. 1070–1200), ed. by Ildar Garip-zanov, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe, 26 (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).

Knud in Odense. Ælnoth may have been part of the contingent of Benedictinesbrought from Evesham to tend to the martyr’s shrine in 1095/96. Alternatively,it has been suggested that he came to Denmark after Erik Ejegod’s meeting withAnselm, archbishop of Canterbury, at the Synod of Bari in 1098, or that he was20

sent for from England by Bishop Hubald that same year. The text mentions two21

former chaplains of the court now serving as bishops, Gerold of Ribe and Arnoldof Roskilde (‘tunc quidem regalis curiê capellanis, nunc autem pontificibusuenerandis, Geroldo scilicet et Arnoldo’), the latter of whom died in 1124, therebyoffering a terminus ante quem for the work. Ælnoth’s presence at the translationceremony marking the saint’s canonization in 1100 (or less likely 1101), but not22

at the elevation of Knud’s remains in 1095, has led literary scholars to date thework broadly to the years around 1120. However, based on the assumption that23

Ælnoth’s exhortation to Niels to show generosity to Knud’s resting place mustantedate Pascal II’s affirmation (dated to 1117) of the privilege to the church inOdense, historians have argued for a date between 1111 and 1117. Moreover,inferring that Gerold’s absence from Ribe on Easter in 1113 indicates that thebishop had already fled in exile to Germany and that Ælnoth would not refer to hisepiscopal dignity thereafter, Michael Gelting argues for a date of 1111/12 for thework. As a result, while it is necessary to acknowledge that Ælnoth could have24

urged Niels to generosity after 1117 and that Gerold could have been absent fromEaster services in Ribe in 1113 for a variety of reasons, nonetheless it seemsreasonable to believe that Ælnoth’s work was completed before 1117 and probablywithin the first few years of the second decade of the twelfth century.

Allusions to the Biblical World in the Gesta et passio

The way in which Ælnoth’s work and earlier material related to Knud borrowedand adapted previous literary traditions regarding royal martyrs, especially those

Aidan Conti194

‘ante aram manibus solo tenus expansis in modum crucis latere lanceatus’: Tabula Othi-25

niensis, p. 61.

‘unus de sacrilegis religiousum regem perfodit lancea. Nam crucis in modum manibus26

expansis ad altare sancti Albani martyris transfixus est in latere cuspidis mucrone’: Passio sanctiKanuti, VII, pp. 69–70.

Epitaphium S. Canuti, p. 76, line 4.27

‘Traditus a proprio sicut deus ipse ministro | Et petiens potum telorum pertulit ictum |28

Lancea nec ne latus ut Christi perforat eius | Eius et ante sacram sanguis sacer effluit aram’:Epitaphium S. Canuti, p. 76, lines 5–8.

According to Gertz’s apparatus criticus, the element of betrayal was added to reworkings of29

the Tabula.

‘ut passionum Christi rex deuotus imitator efficeretur’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XXVII, p. 118.30

from Anglo-Saxon England, and martyrdom more broadly is most clearlydemonstrated in the biblical allusions that augment the narrative. Earlier Odenseliterature, the Passio, Tabula, and Epitaphium, established the groundwork for theChrist-like images of the Danish king. The most graphic image in the rather factualTabula depicts Knud on the ground before the altar with his hands spread in theform of a cross with a lance-wound in his side. The image is repeated in the Passio,25

using identical words (reordered) for the King’s outstretched arms (‘crucis in mo-dum manibus expansis’) and adding fuller narrative elements: ‘One of the wickedmen pierced the religious king with a lance. For with his hands spread in the formof a cross before the altar of St Alban martyr, he was run through by the point ofa spear in his side.’ In both descriptions the comparison to Christ is implied; the26

slightly expanded image in the Epitaphium renders the identification explicit stat-ing that Knud was like Christ in this life as in death (‘Ut Christum vita sic mortefatetur in ipsa’), he was betrayed like God (‘sicut deus’), and his wound was like27

Christ’s (‘ut Christi’):

Betrayed by his own servant, like God,he asked for a drink and endured the thrust of spears;a lance sliced his side like Christ’sand his holy blood flowed before the altar.28

The Epitaphium adds two important elements: 1) Knud’s request for a drink as heis dying which evokes the scene (most clearly set out in John 19. 28–30) in whichthe thirsting Jesus is given a sponge of vinegar immediately before his death; and2) the notion that the martyr’s death came about as a result of betrayal.29

Ælnoth exploits this same imagery to similar effect. Indeed, Ælnoth calls Knudan imitator of the sufferings of Christ. As noted above, he reuses the Epitaphium30


‘rege insignissimo pectore simul ad aram et ore conuerso, quidam ex impiorum caterua lancea31

per fenestram intromissa latus eius perforat et edem sacram sanguine innocentis cruentat […]brachiis in crucis modum extensis membrisque solo ante aram sacram expositis, sanguinis uena exuulnere lateris emanante’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XXVIII, p. 120.

‘uoce adhuc superstite Ihesum interpellat ac spiritum creatori commendans preciosi glebam32

cadaueris sanguine consecratam reliquit’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XXVIII, p. 120.

See e.g. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Kapitler af Nordens Litteratur i Oldtid og Middel-33

alder, ed. by Judith Jesch and Jørgen Højgaard Jørgensen (Århus: Aarhus Universitetsforlaget,2006), pp. 135–38.

See e.g. Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval34

Central Europe, trans. by Éva Pálmai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 152–53;Hoffmann, Die heiligen Könige; and Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney, pp. 23–28.

See Norman W. Ingham, ‘The Sovereign as Martyr, East and West’, Slavic and East Euro-35

pean Journal, 17 (1973), 1–17; Phelpstead, ‘Pilgrims, Missionaries and Martyrs’, p. 71; and EinarrSkúlason’s ‘Geisli’: A Critical Edition, ed. by Martin Chase, Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Series(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), p. 25.

in its entirety at the end of the work, preceding the epilogue. In the main narrative,the vocabulary is varied slightly, but the motifs are identical: with his face turnedto the altar, the King is pierced in his side, on the ground his arms are outstretchedin the form of a cross. In extending the length of the story, Ælnoth’s account pre-31

sents a more dramatic and drawn-out death scene wherein Knud turns to hisbrother Benedict, similarly suffering from wounds, and gives him the kiss of peacebefore falling to the ground. With his last voice he appeals to Jesus, commends hisspirit to the creator, and leaves his earthly body. Indeed, the narrative is charac-32

terized by additional amplified motifs that further the Christ comparison. In theGesta et passio, not only is Knud betrayed, but the Danes become the Jews, and theJudas-like figure of Pipero (corresponding to Eivindr Bifra in Knýtlinga saga andBlakke in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum) is introduced. Similarly, brief notices in the33

earlier Odense literature of Knud’s fulfilment of Christian duties are expandedespecially in reference to his charity to the poor and his munificence towardschurches, characteristics emphasized in other royal martyr biographies. The34

direct comparisons to Christ and imitative nature of the sovereign’s death havebeen noted to such an extent in treatments of other royal martyrs in both the Westand East such as Magnus, Olav, Boris and Gleb, and Wenceslas that the type isoften viewed as a subgenre of martyrdom.35

While the passion of Christ provided a general model for legitimating martyr-dom, previous martyrs offer another source from which more specific images ofholiness emerge. Both the Tabula and Passio emphasize the place of Knud’s

Aidan Conti196

‘rex Kanutus ualde pius, sanctorum exemplis instructus, ad ecclesiam sanctissime uirginis36

Marie et beati martiris Albani animum iterque direxit, sicuti cupiens iamiamque sibi pre ceterisdilecti martiris Albani et per ipsum de partibus Anglorum huc aduecti consortium’: Passio sanctiKanuti, VI, p. 69, lines 2–8.

On the transfer, see Lesley Abrams, ‘The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of37

Scandinavia’, Anglo-Saxon England, 24 (1995), 213–49 (p. 240). It is also possible to read Knud’stransfer of Alban relics as an act imitative of his father Sven who imported St Lucius’s head in 1074,a detail reported by Ælnoth.

‘capulasque reliquirium preciosorum martyrum, Albani scilicet necnon et Oswaldi […] solo38

deiciunt’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XXVIII, p. 120.

On Oswald as a general model for the sovereign martyr, see Ingham, ‘Sovereign as Martyr’,39

pp. 3–4.

martyrdom, namely the church dedicated to Mary and, following the depositionof relics there, St Alban, whereby the very location of the event reminds one ofBritain’s first martyr. The Passio iterates the name of the location three times andas the text leads up to Knud’s death takes advantage of the dedication to under-score the King’s desire to emulate the namesake of the edifice:

the very pious king Knud, taught by the examples of the saints, directed his path and mindto the church of the most holy virgin Mary and martyr St Alban, as if desiring everymoment to deserve the companionship of the martyr Alban, dear to him beyond othersand brought there from the lands of the English by him.36

In contrast to the comparisons between Knud and Christ, the relation to Alban isnot an act of imitation but rather of will. The reported transfer of Alban relicsdepicts the degree to which Knud is presented to have cherished martyrdom; theKing’s claim to martyrdom is substantiated not only by the manner of his death,but by the ardour with which he longed for such a death.37

Ælnoth’s use of Alban in the rhetorical advancement of Knud’s martyrdom ismore restrained, less direct. As Knud is intent in prayer — roughly the same pointin the narrative at which the reference to Alban’s relics appears in the Passio —Ælnoth notes: ‘they [the rebels] threw to the ground the cases of the relics of theprecious martyrs, namely Alban but also Oswald, with a holy cross placed betweenthem’. In this case, the reference to Alban and, as Ælnoth adds, Oswald explicates38

no specific behaviour on Knud’s part but is allusive. Not only do the reliquaries onthe floor hint that Knud may have brought back both sets of relics to Denmark,but at the very moment when the protagonist faces death the audience is remindedof the protomartyr of Britain, Alban, and the first Anglo-Saxon royal martyr,Oswald.39


‘duceque precipuo tam lapidibus (ut Stephano) tunso quam et telis (ut Sebastiano) saucio40

edes sacra tam eius quam et sociorum uulneratorum ac demum occisorum cruore perfunditur et[…] preciositate martyrii eorum iterato consecratur’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XXVII, p. 118.

‘qui Danis de principe patronum, de rege prothomartyrem efficere disponebat’: Ælnoth,41

Gesta et passio, XI, p. 98.

‘Prothomartyrem dico, quia nulla antiquorum relatione didicimus aliquem ex eorum gente42

ante martyris insignitum fuisse’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XI, p. 98.

‘athletam suum de erumpnis presentibus sempiternê quieti inserendum’: Ælnoth, Gesta et43

passio, XXVII, p. 119.

To this end Ælnoth employs two sets of references in portraying Knud’s mar-tyrdom: the features that imitate Christ’s death, that is, elaborations of featurescommon to other earlier Odense literature, and allusions to two martyrs from hishomeland. Ælnoth further broadens the range of references used to augmentKnud’s imitative martyrdom in incorporating two prominent universal saints,Stephen and Sebastian. When the rebels begin their assault on the King and hiscompanions, Ælnoth relates: ‘while the distinguished leader was both pounded bystones (like Stephen) and wounded by spears (like Sebastian), the holy chapel wassoaked not only with his blood but also that of his wounded and stricken com-panions and […] he is recognized as holy by the double price of their martyrdom’.40

This pairing, similar to the reliquaries of Alban and Oswald, comprises once againa protomartyr and a military martyr. The significance of Knud’s death is clear: heis the first martyr of his people, the ideal Christian soldier.

Although the names of Sebastian and Stephen are not repeated, the charac-teristic tags associated with these models are used elsewhere. Ælnoth takes painsto emphasize directly Knud’s role as protomartyr, stating that the King ‘arrangedto produce for the Danes a patron from a prince, a protomartyr from a king’.41

Ælnoth then restates his case: ‘I say protomartyr because by no account have welearned of anyone who has been distinguished as a martyr from their peoplepreviously’. Similar to the manner in which Knud is conveyed as a protomartyr42

by reference to both specific models and generic appellations, Knud is linked totwo specific models of military saints, Oswald and Sebastian, and is referred to asathleta Christi (a champion of Christ) the generic moniker for the type. Accordingto Ælnoth, God called Knud ‘his champion, who was to be thrust from presenttoils to eternal peace’.43

In addition to building on the portrait of holiness found in comparisons toChrist and earlier martyrs, Ælnoth’s narrative weaves a broader set of biblical refer-ences into its picture. Again, the Gesta et passio builds on the techniques employed

Aidan Conti198

‘Vt fratres Joseph, expulerunt hunc in exilium in partes Suethorum, quem preconio uirtutum44

deberent extollere ad celum’: Passio sancti Kanuti, III, p. 64.

‘Ipse autem prudens uelut Jacob consilio Rebecce, id est rationabilis pacientii, utiliter et45

innocenter fratribus cessit, usque dum uirtus diuina eum in pace reduxit’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio,III, p. 64.

On this, see Meulengracht Sørensen, ‘Om Ælnoth og hans bog’, p. 136.46

‘fraternê tamen potius duxit irê cedere quam secundum Thebanos quondam regios pueros47

sempiterni rogi incendijs ob regnandi libidinem sese fratremque concertando admittere’: Ælnoth,Gesta et passio, IV, p. 90.

in the earlier Passio. Therein, one finds a prominent example relating Knud’s exilein Sweden to Joseph’s treatment by his brothers in Genesis 37: ‘Like Joseph’sbrothers, they drove him, whom they should praise to heaven in a proclamation ofvirtues, into exile into the regions of the Swedes.’ The comparison hints at fra-44

ternal strife amongst the sons of Sven Estridsen and accords Knud the place offavourite. Underlying brotherly friction is again suggested in the Passio by invokingthe story of Rebecca’s advice to Jacob — namely that Jacob flee to her brother andwait for the anger of his brother Esau, who thought of killing Jacob because of theblessing of their father (Isaac) (Gen. 28. 41–45), to subside: ‘Also he was prudentlike Jacob with respect to the advice of Rebecca, that is, of reasonable patience, heyielded usefully and innocently to his brothers until divine virtue returned him inpeace.’ Interestingly, Ælnoth’s work does not incorporate the allusions that sug-45

gest strife amongst the sons of Sven Estridsen. Rather Ælnoth alludes to possible46

disagreement among the brothers in specific reference to the disputed successionbetween Knud and Harald Hen (r. 1074/76–80), stating: ‘nonetheless Knud de-cided to yield to brotherly anger rather than, by quarreling, admit himself and hisbrother to the flames of the eternal pyre on account of a lust for royal rule like theroyal Theban youths of old’. The Theban youths of old refer to the sons of Oedi-47

pus, Eteocles and Polyneices, who were unable to rule peaceably. Ælnoth’s depic-tion suggests that Knud’s deferral represents a willful act intended to preventmutual destruction. In the Passio, Knud is portrayed as a favourite son, like Josephand Jacob, whose brothers plot to undermine his position. Ælnoth’s work does notignore competition amongst the sons of Sven, but does not attribute to Knud thestatus of chosen heir. The contrast can hardly be coincidental given Ælnoth’sstudied use of the Passio. The change of emphasis appears to represent a shift fromthe singular purpose of exalting Knud to offering a history of Sven and his sons.

Further evidence of the way in which the Gesta et passio casts Sven and his sonsas a foundational house for Denmark can be seen in the use of other biblical figures


‘dei suffragio rex et gubernator huic populo electus atque constitutus, tamquam David in48

domino confidens’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, III, p. 64.

The Passio also attributes to David and quotes Psalm 48. 13 (V, p. 67).49

‘qui in similitudinem ueri pastoris bestiarum fauces manu forti conterens gregem dominicum50

a uoratu insidiantium a Christo liberandum insinuarat’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, III, p. 88.

‘et Goliad alienigena, ueluti Antichristo diuinis castris insultanti atque singularis occursum51

certaminis offerenti seseque contra et supra deum extollenti, lapide (angulari, siue petra, quêChristus est, de monte sine manibus excisa) percusso et deiecto ac proprii mucronis acie peremptoipsum Antichristum spiritu diuini oris et illustratione magnifici aduentus interimenduminsinuarat’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, III, p. 88.

‘Suegnomagnus ueluti […] Dauid […] hostibus circumquaque deuictis ac inimicis insidi-52

antibus solo stratis, regni felicitate nacta et quietê pacis securitate potita, luxui illecebrosi appetitusadmodum cedens numerosê prolis sobolem in regni sibi iura successuram emisit; quosdamquediuine scientie studiis apposuit, quosdam suis in locis singulis educandos nobilibus delegauit’:Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, III, p. 88.

in Odense literature. For example, the Passio briefly compares Knud to David toassert the divine backing of his rule. According to the Passio, Knud was ‘by theassent of God elected and appointed as king and governor for this people, just asDavid who put his trust in the Lord’. Essentially, the simile uses a phrase from48

Psalm 10. 2 (‘in domino confido’) to present Knud as a God-believing, God-chosen, and uniting king.49

In Ælnoth’s work the comparison to David shifts from Knud to Sven. Thebeginning of the third chapter offers an extended look at the Dane’s endeavoursjuxtaposed to those of David, the strongest of kings and most eloquent of prophets(‘regum […] fortissimus et vatum facundissimus’). Ælnoth reminds the reader thatDavid crushed the throats of beasts that attacked the Lord’s flock and defeated50

the foreign Goliath (a figure of Antichrist according to Ælnoth). So David is51

portrayed in his role as a champion of his people suggesting how Sven protected his(and intimating by extension that the Danes might be considered a flock of theLord) and drove off a foreign champion (perhaps Harald Hardrada). However,Sven is also like David in the numerous progeny he produces to succeed him.52

Thus as a modern David, Sven’s role as a protector from foreign threats andfounder of a line is foregrounded. Moreover, behind the explicit comparison liesthe supposition that the messiah would be a descendant of David, as is reflected inthe genealogies of Jesus found especially in Matthew 1 and also in Luke 3. Throughthe figure of David then, Ælnoth projects a consolidation of power in Denmarkand a line from which holiness will descend.

Aidan Conti200

‘Regum quamplurium, sed et ipsius Salomonis, deuitans lasciuiam’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio,53

III, p. 93.

‘pacis securitas ut Salomonis quondam temporibus uniuersos exhilarabat’: Ælnoth, Gesta et54

passio, XXII, p. 130.

‘Inter homines rerum gestarum exercitio et generis et nominis amplificatione gloriosior ac55

magnificentior haberetur’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XXXIII, pp. 131–32.

On the title, see Three Lives of English Saints, ed. by Michael Winterbottom, Toronto56

Medieval Latin Texts, 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), p. 5.

Consequently, it is appropriate that two of Sven’s sons are compared to Solo-mon, David’s son. In the first instance, Solomon’s example is used to bolster claimsabout Knud’s austerity in that the King avoided ‘the licentiousness of many kings,indeed of Solomon himself’. A rather different attribute of Solomon is evoked in53

speaking of Erik Ejegod’s reign wherein ‘the security of peace gladdened everyoneas in the former times of Solomon’. Although the work cannot be read within a54

strictly typological frame, the rough adherence to Old Testament genealogy issuggestive of the creation of a royal house, a slight shift from Knud as the sole focusof a new Christian mythology.

Yet, that Knud is the central figure is again apparent from the comparison toAbraham, progenitor of blessed nations, found at the end of Ælnoth’s book.Ælnoth notes the two forms of the Danish king’s name Knud (Cnut) meaning‘knot’ and the Latinized Canutus, a form which Ælnoth, reprising a display ofetymological reasoning demonstrated elsewhere in the work, finds appropriate onaccount of his maturity (canities) and his being counted among the canon of saints(‘in canone sanctorum connumerandus’). The name change is construed as parallelto Abraham, who was Abram before entering into a covenant with God (Gen.17. 4). As a result, although his subject is Abraham, Ælnoth speaks of both the OldTestament figure and Knud when he says ‘by the practice of his deeds and theamplification of his people and his name he may be considered the more gloriousand magnificent among men’.55

Allusions to the Classical World in the Gesta et passio

Perhaps Ælnoth’s most dramatic expansion on preceding Knud literature is the in-corporation of references from the classical past. In this respect, the Gesta et passiotransforms the scope of the earlier Odense material as well as that of the hagiog-raphy of Anglo-Saxon royal martyrs that served as a model for Danish depictions.While hagiographical models for Knud, such as Abbo’s Passio sancti Eadmundi,56


‘Sed quid in humanis est omni parte beatum?’ (Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, II; cf. Carmina,57

2. 16. 27); ‘Monumentum êre perhennius exegi’ (Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, Epilogue; cf. Carmina,3. 30. 1).

‘Neque enim ego Danaum classes Dardanis excidium inferentes edissero, non acies Hectoreas58

Mirmidonum armis umbonibus obiectis insigniter obuiantes commemoro; sed quê de gestis religiosiprincipis et deo dilecti martyris probabilibus personis utriusque sexus et ordinis referentibus agnoui,religiosi habitus uiris, Ihesu Christo ibidem insignique triumphatori deseruientibus, obnixe suffragan-tibus posterorum memoriê reseruanda apicibus contradidi’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, Preface, p. 79.

‘ille Troianorum quondam heros, inclitus Priamus […] gentem suam tam diuinitatis auxilio59

quam et robore et prudentia consilij sui ab extranearum incursione gentium strennue protexit’:Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, II, p. 85.

‘Syrenarum cantus auribus obtusis ueloci Euro perflante discurrentes’: Ælnoth, Gesta et60

passio, V, p. 91.

might quote classical sources such as Virgil, Ælnoth refers to antiquity itself,writing the Roman world into the present. The references to classical figures arethe more remarkable given the relative paucity of classical fontes in Ælnoth’s work.Ælnoth’s most recent editor, Gertz, identifies only two quotations from Horace,both of which are rather aphoristic. Indeed, the preface to the work appears to set57

the classical tradition as at odds with the scope of the work:

I do not relate the ships of the Greeks bringing the destruction of Troy, nor do I recountthe Hectorean battle-lines famously meeting the arms of the Mirmidons with their out-thrust shields. But those things I know concerning the acts of the religious prince andmartyr beloved by God just as upstanding persons of either sex and order relate them, menof religious habit, serving in the same place Jesus Christ and the renowned conqueror, Ihave strenuously set these out in favourable words to be saved for the memory of cominggenerations.58

Ælnoth’s protestations to the contrary, classical references dot the landscape ofthe Gesta et passio. For example, Sven in defending against Harald Hardrada at thebattle of the Nissan (1062) is compared to Priam who ‘both through divine aid andthe force and prudence of his judgement protected his people bravely from the in-cursion of foreign peoples’. Elsewhere, it seems Ælnoth employs classical allusion59

as part of stylistic heightening. The fifth chapter offers an extended metaphor inwhich the narrative course of the work is a maritime journey (which connects thechapters that precede Knud to those that focus on him). Therein, the work inturning from Harald Hen’s reign to Knud’s bypasses ‘the songs of sirens with deafears while the swift Eurus (east wind) blows’. Similarly, as was noted above,60

Ælnoth, rather than using biblical references to suggest strife amongst the brothers,uses the figures of Polyneices and Eteocles to elevate the rhetoric of the dispute.

Aidan Conti202

‘Ut enim quêdam ex antiquis referam, Agamemnonem durissimum, bis quinis annis et61

amplius Argiuos bello pelagoque a propriis retinentem, Grecia sustinuit; Hannibalem ferocissimum,nobilium cedibus cruentatum, Ispania pertulit; Herodem atrocissimum, lucis auctorem et uniuerso-rum creatorem persequentem, crimen parricidale paruipendentem, nobiles ergastulis recludentem,lactantium turbam innocuam maternis uberibus abstractam impie iugulantem, Iudea tolerauit;Neronem crudelissimum, materna uiscera ense rimantem, fratrem interimentem, urbem inflam-mantem, eiusdemque senatores urbis et patres orbis exicialiter exterminantem, ipsa mundi caputRoma pati duxit: principem religiosum […] Dacia contumax sufferre non ualuit’: Ælnoth, Gestaet passio, XXVIII, pp. 121–22.

‘Stigiis solum umbris ac Cerberi faucibus dignissime deputandum’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio,62

XXV, p. 115.

The most extensive use of classical figures comes in the form of a list of badrulers who were tolerated by their people (in contrast to Knud, a good kingmurdered by his own people):

Would that I relate some examples from the ancients: Greece bore the harshest Aga-memnon, who for ten years and more kept the Greeks away from their own people in warand on the sea; Spain endured the most savage Hannibal, who was stained by the slaughterof nobles; Judea tolerated the most atrocious Herod, who pursued the author of light andcreator of all things, thought little of parricide, enclosed the high-born in penitentiaries,and wickedly slaughtered the harmless multitude of sucklings who had been snatched fromtheir mothers’ breasts; and Rome herself, the capitol of the world, suffered the most cruelNero, who probed his mother’s innards with his sword, killed his brother, set the city onfire, and exterminated senators of the city and fathers of the region. Obstinate Denmarkwas not able to bear a religious prince.61

In this list, rulers of the pagan classical past are interwoven with others from theChristian era; there is no artificial distinction between the two. Similarly, incondemning the treacherous Pipero, Ælnoth considers the betrayer most worthyof the jaws of Cerberus and Stygian shadows, even as he is compared to the three62

biblical figures responsible for Jesus’s death: Annas, Caiphas, and Pilate.Against this backdrop, Ælnoth’s view on the late arrival of Christianity in the

north is striking. Having woven Christian and classical together in both the list ofwicked rulers and the damnation of Pipero, it is interesting that Ælnoth offerssomething of a similar mix in explaining the late arrival of Christianity to thenorth:

The kingdoms of the north, hidden in the remote parts of the world, far and long remainedgiven over to pagan rites, until divine mercy dragged them out of the depth of error andinfidelity. For after nearly all the kingdoms of the west, which Julius Caesar, the son-in-lawof Pompey the Great, had subjugated to Ausonian (Roman) rule, had submitted theirnecks to Christian laws, those nations which stand in the northern regions on the opposite


‘Regna aquilonis, in remotis mundi partibus abdita, longe diuque paganis tenebantur ritibus63

dedita, quousque ea de profundo erroris et infidelitatis diuina extraxit clementia. Nam postquamfere omnia occidentis regna, quê Iulius Gaius, Magni quondam Pompeij gener, Ausonio subieceratimperio, christianis colla subdidere legibus, nationes illê, quê ex aduerso latere Francorum seuGallorum Saxonumque aquilonalibus consistunt partibus, Suethi uidelicet et Gothi, Normanniatque Isonij, tanto serius fidei signa suscepere, quanto illuc fidei doctores tam pro uictus rerumquepenuria quam et pro barbarorum feritate et innata duricia magnipendebant diuertere’: Ælnoth,Gesta et passio, I, p. 82.

Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, I, p. 83.64

‘piê memoriê Eskillinus episcopus, ex nobilissimo Anglorum orbe deueniens ibique65

euangelium fidei feris et indomitis gentibus denuncians’: Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, I, p. 83.

side of the Franks or Gauls and Saxons, namely the Swedes and Goths, Norwegians andIcelanders, received the signs of faith that much later as the learned men of the faith delayedturning there as much on account of the lack of food and materials as for the savagery ofthe barbarians and their innate hardness.63

Even if Ælnoth confuses minutiae, such as the relationship between Caesar andPompey, the work offers a relatively plausible explanation for the delayed intro-duction and adoption of Christianity in the far northern periphery vis-à-vis otherregions of the West. They lack the civilizing legacy of Roman rule, and individualswere consequently reluctant to take up missions thereto.

Using Knud as the central and centrifugal figure, Ælnoth thus rewrites theintroduction of Christianity. Absent is Anskar, apostle to the north. Nowhere arethe numerous martyrs suggested by Adam of Bremen’s Sven. In Ælnoth’s accountof the Christianization of the north, pride of place is granted to Poppo (‘venerabilismemoriê pontifex’ ) who was responsible for baptizing Harald Bluetooth in64

c. 960. After Poppo, Eskil, who proclaimed the gospel of the faith to the savage65

and untamed peoples, claims a prominent role in the process.

Conclusion

Clearly, Ælnoth’s work contains much information not necessary for a strict hagio-graphic account, and much of its composition suggests an effort to expand theboundaries of a vita or passio. The work expands on earlier Odense literature byaugmenting the Christ-like imagery of Knud’s death and incorporating elementsof both the protomartyr and the athleta Christi type, but also enlarges the frame-work of the narrative. He gives the life of Sven a Davidic quality and broadens thehistorical horizon in accounting for the spread of Christianity and the list of

Aidan Conti204

Ælnoth, Gesta et passio, XI, p. 96.66

On this activity, see Elisabeth van Houts, ‘The Flemish Contribution to Biographical67

Writing in England in the Eleventh Century’, in Writing Medieval Biography: Essays in Honourof Frank Barlow, ed. by David Bates and others (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp. 111–27 (p. 117).

Meulengracht Sørensen, ’Om Ælnoth og hans bog’, pp. 136–39; Meulengracht Sørensen,68

Kapitler, pp. 136–37; and Mortensen, ‘Højmiddelalderen’, pp. 56–57.

Goscelin is believed to have spent significant time in Canterbury after c. 1080 where he wrote69

an account of the translation of St Augustine and his companions (which had taken place in 1091)as perhaps his last work before his death in c. 1099; see C. H. Talbot, ‘The Liber confortatorius ofGoscelin of St Bertin’, in Analecta Monastica: textes et études sur la vie des moines au Moyen Âge.Troisième série, Studia Anselmiana, 37 (Rome: Orbis Catholicus, 1955), pp. 1–117 (pp. 7–10).

wicked rulers (giving Knud comparanda in and outside of divine history). It isperhaps not an accident that the one author mentioned by Ælnoth is Bede, whois considered historiographus of the most noble people of the English. While it66

would be hyperbole to suggest that Ælnoth’s work has anything of the scope, notto say the influence of Bede — nor does it abbreviate Bede in the same manner asother roughly contemporary hagiographers — there is a clear attempt to write67

Denmark into the pattern of Christian history, one that goes beyond simply68

using the figure of Knud the martyr to facilitate entry. In doing so, Ælnoth offersa real link to England, not only in his own person, but for example by replacingAnskar with Eskil, by suggesting the Danes are rightful sovereigns of England, andby adding Oswald’s relics to Alban’s.

Yet one must note that while the Passio sancti Eadmundi has been cited as anAnglo-Saxon model, the author responsible for providing that model (itself relianton Sebastian), Abbo of Fleury, was born in the Orléanais and educated in Paris andReims. In addition, the sort of small-scale history written in eleventh-centuryEngland like the Encomium Emmae and Vita Ædwardi was produced by Flemishwriters. After the first third of the eleventh century (that is, following Ælfric ofEynsham and Byrhtferth of Ramsey) indigenous authors produced little historicalor hagiographical work in England, a vacuum that was filled by Flemish writerssuch as Goscelin of St Bertin and Folcard. This background makes Ælnoth’s workall the more remarkable in light of how Denmark appears to have been perceivedamongst the very Flemish who dominated a literary landscape that Ælnoth, if hisclaim of Canterbury origins suggests any formative time there, was likely to havebeen familiar with to some degree.69

In the Liber confortatorius (c. 1080), a letter written to Eve, a woman who spentpart of her early life at the convent of Wilton and then left England to be a recluse


On Eve and her relationship to Goscelin, see Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, ‘Goscelin and the70

Consecration of Eve’, Anglo-Saxon England, 35 (2006), 251–70.

‘nubunt in exteras nationes, et aliena regna, barbaros mores et ignoteas linguas disciture,71

seuisque dominis ac repugnantibus a naturali usu legibus seruiture, sicut nuper filia marchisiFlandrensium nupsit Cunuto regi Danorum’: Goscelin, Liber confortatorius, ed. by Talbot, p. 41.

‘barbari, libertatis suae iniuriam non ferentes, intra aecclesiam quandam altare amplexum et72

emendationem facti promittentem trucidarunt’: William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum,III. 261, ed. by R. A. B. Mynors and others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), I, 482.

Meulengracht Sørensen, ‘Om Ælnoth og hans bog’, pp. 136–37.73

The most recent editor of Knýtlinga saga argues that the Icelandic author knew Ælnoth’s74

Gesta et passio; Danakonungasögur: Skjöldunga saga, Knýtlinga saga, Ágrip af sögu danakongunga,ed. by Bjarni Guðnason, Íslenzk fornrit, 35 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1982), pp.cxvii–cxxxiv.

in Angers, Goscelin laments the plight of aristocratic women with specific refer-70

ence to Knud’s wife Adela: ‘They marry into distant nations and foreign kingdomsand are to learn barbaric customs and unknown languages, and are to serve violentlords and laws that contradict nature, just as recently the daughter of the Count ofFlanders married Knud king of the Danes.’ Even if one allows for possible sym-71

pathy towards Adela on Goscelin’s part based on their common nationality, theequation of violence and barbarity with Denmark is all the more poignant in lightof the fact that Eve’s father was Danish (a subject which Goscelin himself recog-nized). Moreover, Goscelin’s was not a lone voice as the barbarity of the Danes wasreiterated by English authors as well. William of Malmesbury, whose first ‘edition’of the Gesta Regum Anglorum was contemporary with Ælnoth’s work, calls theDanes barbarians in relation to Knud’s death: ‘the barbarians, finding restraints ontheir liberty intolerable, murdered him (Knud) in a church as he was embracing thealtar and promising amends for the act’.72

In spite of the challenges in writing a people perceived by contemporaries asbarbarous into the civilized world, Ælnoth’s book succeeded, as Preben Meulen-gracht Søresen has argued, in its twofold ambition in providing Denmark a localexample of sanctity and in intertwining the accomplishments of its martyr withinthose of his father and brothers to write the nation into the history of Christen-dom. To modern readers the aesthetic effect may be judged as largely uneven: if73

read as an attempt at history, it lacks the scope and length of predecessors such asAdam of Bremen and contemporaries like William of Malmesbury; if read ashagiography much of the historical framework strikes one as extraneous. Present-day mores, however, offer little explanation for the work’s minimal impact onsubsequent writing in Denmark. The only known reuse of the work appears as74

Aidan Conti206

VSD, pp. 51–52.75

See Inge Skovgaard-Petersen, ‘The Danish Kingdom: Consolidation and Disintegration’, in76

Cambridge History of Scandinavia, vol. I: Prehistory to 1520, ed. by Knut Helle (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 353–68 (p. 354).

extracts in the Nota de martyrizatione sancti Kanuti Regis in a sixteenth-centurymanuscript owned by Peder Olsen (d. 1570), a Franciscan of Roskilde; the detailsmay have been compiled at an earlier, unknown date. Wider dissemination of the75

work may have been circumscribed due to the dedication to Niels (r. 1103–34), thelast king among the sons of Sven. In 1131, Magnus, Niels’s son, murdered KnudLavard, the son of Erik Ejegod, probably to remove the latter from possible succes-sion to the throne, setting off a period of civil strife lasting until 1157 when KnudLavard’s son Valdemar ‘the Great’ became sole regent. During the period of pro-longed dispute, Knud’s reputation may have waned; in the Roskilde Chronicle fromthe 1140s, he is considered a member of the ‘black’ group of kings. Moreover,76

although the Gesta et passio portrays Erik Ejegod’s reign favourably, a workassociated with Niels likely engendered little favour in a period where relatives ofKnud Lavard held the throne for the most part; even if the dedication were to havebeen excised, the association with Niels’s patronage would likely have remainedduring the last decades of the first half of the twelfth century. Thereafter, theambitions of Ælnoth’s work — a history of the Danish kingdom and a legend ofits royal saint — were usurped by subsequent events. In 1168, Denmark earned itssecond martyr in Knud Lavard’s canonization through whom a new dynasty drewits descent. Not long thereafter, Sven Aggesen produced his Brevis Historia RegumDacie (c. 1186/87) and Saxo his Gesta Danorum (c. 1200) offering the highmedieval kingdom new visions of its history.

Dedications of some churches in Denmark to Olaf can with good probability be dated to1

Magnus’s reign in Denmark from 1042 to 1047; see Tore Nyberg, ‘Olavskulten i Danmark under

WRITING AND SPEAKING OF ST OLAF:NATIONAL AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION

Lars Boje Mortensen

The present contribution on storytelling about St Olaf before c. 1200 isintended to serve two connected purposes. First, I shall briefly set out whatI perceive to be the current scholarly situation regarding the broader

relations between extant texts and the organization of the cult, and the relationsbetween Latin and Old Norse texts about Olaf. This part might also help to frame,from a slightly different perspective, Lenka Jiroušková’s subsequent chapter on thecomplex textual transmission of the Passio et miracula beati Olaui.

On this basis I shall, in the second part of the paper, add some suggestionsarising from the general issues raised by the editors of this volume. In particular, Ishall suggest approaches to social readings of the evidence. Although it is certainthat St Olaf became a symbol of national unity for the elite, is it possible to makeassumptions concerning his (and other saints’) importance in the making ofChristian identities across the social spectrum? Can we go beyond the writtenhagiography and make qualified guesses about the oral story-world of saints inNorway during the eleventh and twelfth centuries?

Cult and Written Texts

Although it is certain that some sort of cult developed in Trondheim already in thedecade following King Olaf’s death in 1030 and that it probably took a decisiveturn during the rule of Olaf’s son Magnus the Good (1035–47) and Olaf’s half-1

Lars Boje Mortensen208

medeltiden’, in Helgonet i Nidaros: Olavskult och kristnande i Norden, ed. by Lars Rumar (Stock-holm: Riksarkivet, 1997), pp. 53–82.

An excellent survey is now given by Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney: A Scandinavian2

Martyr-Cult in Context, Northern World, 29 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 103–21. The significanceof the gap in the evidence as an argument against a simple steady growth of the cult from 1030 to1200 was first pointed out by Eyolf Østrem and Lars Boje Mortensen: Østrem, ‘The Early Liturgyof St Olav’, in Gregorian Chant and Medieval Music: Proceedings from the Nordic Festival andConference of Gregorian Chant, Trondheim, St. Olav’s Wake 1997, ed. by A. Dybdahl and others,Senter for Middelalderstudier, Skrifter, 7 (Trondheim: Senter for Middelalderstudier, 1998), pp.43–58; Østrem, The Office of St Olav: A Study in Chant Transmission, Acta Universitatis Upsa-liensis, Studia Musicologica Upsaliensia, n.s., 18 (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2001); Mortensen,‘Olav den Helliges mirakler i det 12. årh.: Streng tekstkontrol eller fri fabuleren?’, in Olavslegendenog den latinske historieskrivning i 1100-tallets Norge, ed. by Inger Ekrem and others (Copenhagen:Museum Tusculanum, 2000), pp. 89–107. See also Lars Boje Mortensen and Else Mundal, ‘Erke-bispesetet i Nidaros: arnestad og verkstad for olavslitteraturen’, in Ecclesia Nidrosiensis 1153–1537:Søkelys på Nidaroskirkens og Nidarosprovinsens historie, ed. by Steinar Imsen (Trondheim: TapirAcademic Press, 2003), pp. 353–84; and Lenka Jiroušková, ‘Textual Evidence for the Transmissionof the Passio Olavi Prior to 1200 and its Later Literary Transformations’, in this volume, withfurther references.

brother Harald Hardrada (1046–66), we know very little about it. In recent yearsa number of studies have clearly pointed out how precarious the early evidence isand what significance the long silence following it might hold.2

Two precious foreign pieces of independent information from around 1070should always be mentioned when discussing the early cult of St Olaf, namely thoseprovided by Adam of Bremen (Book IV, Chapter 23) and by the Norman chron-icler William of Jumièges (Book V, Chapters 11–12). They both made a point oftelling their respective local readers that as far north as Trondheim a local martyrking was still performing miracles. The Saxon author, Adam of Bremen, added thatpeople came from far away in the hope that the saint’s powers could help them.Their point was no doubt to help people admire the wonders worked by the Lordso deeply into what one would think of as barbaricum. Their interesting testi-monies can hardly be taken, however, as evidence of a popular cult. They makemore sense as reflections of an internationally oriented elite pride in the miraculousspread of Christianity. William and Adam did not need much encouragementfrom informants from the Norwegian and Danish warrior elites to make the mostof Olaf’s posthumous powers. All we can deduce is that around 1070, some Nor-wegian (and Danish) chieftains and a few ecclesiastics regarded Olaf’s Christianreputation as important, but that he had hardly become a national symbol yet, letalone a magnet for popular devotion.

WRITING AND SPEAKING OF ST OLAF 209

I am here excepting a few skaldic stanzas that were probably performed shortly after Olaf died3

but were taken down in writing only in the thirteenth century. See Mortensen and Mundal,‘Erkebispesetet i Nidaros’, pp. 354–57; and Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney, pp. 109–12.

For preliminary results of Norwegian fragment research, see Espen Karlsen, ‘Liturgiske bøker4

i Norge inntil år 1300 – import og egenproduksjon’, in Den kirkehistoriske utfordring, ed. by SteinarImsen (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2005), pp. 147–70; Åslaug Ommundsen, ‘Books,Scribes and Sequences in Medieval Norway’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universitetet iBergen, 2007); and The Beginnings of Nordic Scribal Culture, c. 1050–1300: Report from a Work-shop on Parchment Fragments, Bergen 28–30 October 2005, ed. by Åslaug Ommundsen (Bergen:Centre for Medieval Studies, 2005). That local book production had its beginnings in the decadesaround 1070 coincides well with the establishment of a firm episcopal structure during the reignof Olaf Kyrre (1066–93) in Norway and that of Sven Estridsen (1047–74) in Denmark; see SverreBagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, ‘The Kingdom of Norway’, in Christianization and the Riseof Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200, ed. by Nora Berend(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 121–66; and Michael H. Gelting, ‘TheKingdom of Denmark’, in ibid., pp. 73–120. I have elaborated this connection between bookproduction and text composition in ‘Den formative dialog mellem latinsk og folkesproglig litteraturc. 600–1250: Udkast til en dynamisk model’, in Reykholt som makt- og lærdomssenter i den islandskeog nordiske kontekst, ed. by Else Mundal (Reykholt: Snorrastofa, 2006), pp. 229–71; and ‘SanctifiedBeginnings and Mythopoietic Moments: The First Wave of Writing on the Past in Norway,Denmark, and Hungary, c. 1000–1230’, in The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of LatinChristendom (c. 1000–1300), ed. by Lars Boje Mortensen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum,2006), pp. 247–73.

Cf. Aidan Conti, ‘Ælnoth of Canterbury and Early Mythopoiesis in Denmark’, in the present5

volume.

Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 209, fols 57 –90 .r r6

What is particularly important in this context is that we possess no writtenaccounts of Olaf and his miracles before a century after the evidence given byAdam and William from abroad. In fact, it would be strange if anything had been3

written in Norway during the eleventh century, as we now know from ongoingfragment research that it was only in the last quarter of that century that a modestlocal book production in Norway had begun. It is to be expected that taking the4

step from copying standard liturgical books to composing new texts for thosebooks took at least some decades — as we also know from Denmark and Sweden.What could have been expected, though, is hagiographical writing in Latin in thebeginning of the twelfth century, as we can observe in Denmark. But what we have5

is the Passio et miracula beati Olavi in the version of the Oxford manuscript (theonly version edited so far, see below), certainly a Trondheim product of the 1170s6

or 1180s. This dating takes into account probable influences from the Thomas


As suggested by Haki Antonsson, ‘Exile, Sanctity, and Some Late Viking-Age Rulers’, in Exile7

in the Middle Ages: Selected Proceedings of the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds,8–11 July 2002, ed. by Laura Napran and Elisabeth van Houts, International Medieval Research,13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 95–108; and Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney, pp. 60–63.

Cf. Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘The Anchin Manuscript of Passio Olaui (Douai 295), William of8

Jumièges, and Theodoricus Monachus: New Evidence for Intellectual Relations between Norwayand France in the 12th Century’, Symbolae Osloenses, 75 (2000), 165–89.

Passio et miracula beati Olavi, ed. by F. Metcalfe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), p. 104 (in9

the modern, but still unedited, numbering, introduction of miracle 37): ‘Item tractatus AugustiniNorewagensis episcopi de miraculis beati Olaui. Perlectis his, que de uita et miraculis beati Olauinobis antiquitas commendauit, congruum estimamus a nobis quoque, qui eius presentialiter nouispassim illustramur miraculis, que ipsi uidimus aut ueratium uirorum testimoniis uirtuose ad eiusgloriam adeo facta probauimus, futuris generationibus memoranda litteris assignari.’

Now in a bilingual and commented edition by Martin Chase: Einarr Skúlason’s ‘Geisli’: A10

Critical Edition, Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Series (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,2005).

Becket literature, from various information supplied by Theodoricus Monachus’s7

contemporary brief chronicle of Norwegian kings also composed in Trondheim,8

and not least from the reference in some of the miracles to the archbishopric(established in 1152/53) and the explicit authorship of the latter miracles byArchbishop Eystein Erlendsson (1161–88).

As I see it, only the introductory Passio and some of the later miracles (all in theversion given in the Oxford manuscript) were composed by Archbishop Eysteinhimself — in close collaboration with his canons, such as Theodoricus around1180. In his preface to the autobiographical miracles, Eystein openly states that heis adding these miracles to those handed over by ‘antiquity’ (antiquitas). The9

entire miracle collection is furthermore heterogeneous in approach and style, andat least the first ten miracles could represent an old canonical layer. As LenkaJiroušková elucidates some of the textual problems pertaining to the miraclecollection in her chapter in this volume and in her ongoing studies, I shall confinemyself to mentioning just three well-known but suggestive features: first, in thefirst ten miracles there is no mention of an archbishop; second, several of them areetiological stories explaining the presence of a votive gift in the Trondheim church;and third, most of them are also referred to in strikingly similar terms in theimportant vernacular poem Geisli, which had been performed at the inaugurationfestivities in 1152/53. In my mind, this all points to a small miracle collection10

that had been taken down in writing already in the decades before 1152/53. If weguess at a date in the 1120s, 1130s, or 1140s, that would match Eystein’s


For the expansion of building activities in the decades before 1152/53, see G. Danbolt,11

Nidarosdomen: Fra Kristkirke til nasjonalmonument (Oslo: Andresen & Butenschøn, 1997).

To which should also be added the particular Swedish version of some liturgical lessons of12

Olaf’s life (from around 1200 or a little later) unearthed and published by Eyolf Østrem, ‘Om ennyopdaget Olavslegende’, in Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskrivning, ed. by Ekrem andothers, pp. 186–224.

Cf. Jiroušková, ‘Textual Evidence for the Transmission of the Passio Olavi’, in this volume.13

perception of miracles handed down by ‘antiquity’, and it would narrow thehundred years’ gap between the rise of local book production and local textproduction to a more understandable fifty years. However that may be, I considerthe Passio et miracula beati Olavi in the Oxford version as a Trondheim textcomposed in various phases, with highly important additions made by Eystein andhis team around 1180.

A composition just before or around 1180 tallies well with a host of other lit-erary and ideological activities in the decades following the establishment of thearchdiocese, but a hypothetical modest beginning of local writing could be seen inconjunction with the preparation of larger scale building in the 1130s and 1140s,and of putting Trondheim on the map as a fitting Norwegian ecclesiastical metrop-olis. This broad outline can, I believe, accommodate the more complicated series11

of events suggested by Lenka Jiroušková below. Based on the first serious study ofall extant manuscripts, she has already pointed to a richer and more entangledtextual traffic inside and outside of the Nordic countries in the defining decadesaround 1200 (and also in the later Middle Ages).12

Apart from Geisli, texts about Olaf in the vernacular all (except the skaldicstanzas) postdate the Latin writing which, though modest in size, played a founda-tional role and appears to have disseminated quickly. The clearest reflex of the13

Passio et miracula is the adaptation in the Old Norse homily book as well as miraclecollections, in the Legendary Saga of St Olaf, and in other fragments — for whichI do not see any arguments favouring a dating before c. 1200. The writing of kings’sagas with a new wealth of material about Olaf’s deeds during his lifetime allappeared later (with the exception of the fragmentary Ágrip, probably from the1190s).

This does not mean, of course, that stories, songs, and sermons were not circu-lating in a less fixed form before that; but it does mean that a written ecclesiasticaltradition created a general framework for the central role Olaf received in thewritten vernacular literature.


Mortensen, ‘Sanctified Beginnings and Mythopoietic Moments’.14

A recent survey and interpretation of the legal documents is given by Sverre Bagge, ‘Den15

heroiske tid – kirkereform og kirkekamp 1153–1214’, in Ecclesia Nidrosiensis 1153–1537, ed. byImsen, pp. 51–80. Bagge underlines the important coordinating role assumed by ArchbishopEystein.

Telling Stories Across the Social Spectrum

The traditional model of explaining the cult by the growing ‘popularity’ of Olaf inturn triggering political use and ecclesiastical response has in recent decades beenturned on its head. Rather than gradual growth over 150 years, I think mostscholars today would agree that we should read the evidence in terms of definingjunctures and of institutional agency. In a recent comparative study, I have sug-gested that the festivities surrounding the establishment of the archdiocese consti-tuted a mythopoietical moment, a juncture in which the entire Norwegian elite,ecclesiastical and lay, committed themselves to Olaf’s foundational role — a pointof no return in collective memory. After that no one could contest his position14

as patron saint of the emerging ecclesiastical province and the territory of Norway,because it had now been ceremonially cleared in the presence of all importantplayers. Elements of this had probably been launched already in the eleventh cen-tury — although it is hard for us to discern any details. It was around and after thismoment that we can certainly see hectic organizational activity, building, the com-position of local canonical statutes, a passio, a codified local liturgy, a number ofsongs drawn from the legend, a history of kings with Olaf in the centre, a crowningceremonial for the king, and a legal formula by which he receives the land as fieffrom Olaf.15

Both the positioning of the cult during the eleventh century, when ecclesiasticalstructures were very weak, and the defining moment of 1152/53, when fixedbishoprics had been in place for more than half a century and a number of the greatNorwegian families had already picked some of their sons to pursue foreign educa-tion and international ecclesiastical networks, can be seen basically as negotiationswithin the local elite. During the century approximately between 1050 and 1150,the elite in Norway, Iceland, and Denmark had embraced a new kind of ideologicalpower — on top of their economic and military might — and decided to branchinto that power by letting some of their sons pursue peaceful careers througheducation and hence into state-building and integration into the culture of the


This branching out of activities by the Nordic elite is discussed further in Lars Boje Mor-16

tensen, ‘Philosophical Learning on the Edges of Latin Christendom: Some Late Twelfth-CenturyExamples from Scandinavia, Poland, and Palestine’, in Medieval Analyses in Language and Cogni-tion: Acts of the Symposium ‘The Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy’, January 10–13, 1996,ed. by S. Ebbesen and R . L. Friedman, Historisk-filosofiske Meddelelser, 77 (Copenhagen: DetKongelige Videnskabernes Selskab, 1999), pp. 301–13; and Mortensen, ‘The Nordic Archbishop-rics as Literary Centres around 1200’, in Archbishop Absalon of Lund and his World, ed. by KarstenFriis-Jensen and I. Skovgaard-Petersen (Roskilde: Roskilde Museum, 2000), pp. 133–57.

Cf. the editors’ introduction.17

Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen18

Hochkulturen (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1992), p. 57: ‘Anders als durch Dabeisein ist in SchriftlosenKulturen am kulturellen Gedächtnis kein Anteil zu gewinnen. Für solche Zusammenkünftemüssen Anlässe geschaffen werden: die Feste. Feste und Riten sorgen im Regelmass ihrer Wieder-kehr für die Vermittlung und Weitergabe des identitätssichernden Wissens und damit für dieReproduktion der kulturellen Identität.’

international elite. In this way, ecclesiastical discourse can be seen above all as an16

elite phenomenon.17

But if we go to the later miracle section of the Olaf legend taken down in writingin the decades after 1152/53, we have indisputable evidence that local pilgrimsfrom all walks of life, and from towns as well as the countryside, gathered for thegreat annual celebration of Olaf on 28 and 29 July. Many were there to be healedby being close to the shrine and spending time in the hospital. Many more simplywanted to share the common experience and the foremost display of local partici-pation in the great divine order. The social aspect in the recorded stories of healingis thus well documented, in contrast to the vague statements made by Adam ofBremen and William of Jumièges about Olaf’s posthumous miracles shining forth.

So at least in the second half of the twelfth century we have to raise the questionof the integration of the masses into a common Christian identity in connectionwith the cult of St Olaf — the only Nordic cult, as far as I can see, for which cross-social attendance is well documented before 1200 (with the partial exception of StÞorlákr in Iceland, who died in 1193; his miracle collection is very substantial butmainly falls outside this timeframe).

The role of recurrent rituals and celebrations for the forging of a commoncultural memory has been emphasized by Jan Assmann: the only way to get a sharein the cultural memory of an illiterate society is to be there. Occasions for this,namely celebrations, must be provided. Celebrations and rituals through theirregularity provide for the projection and spread of knowledge necessary foridentities and thus for the reproduction of cultural identity.18


Although it did gradually assume that function; cf. Jonas Wellendorf, ‘The Attraction of the19

Earliest Old Norse Vernacular Hagiography’, in the present volume.

The feast of Olaf was of course only one of many such educative and identity-marking experiences. The central celebrations of Christianity — not the leastEaster, with its often elaborate processions and dramatic enactments — and anumber of important old Roman martyrs like Peter, Paul, Lawrence, Clement, andmore are known to have done their part of the work in the North. Assmann speaksof illiterate societies, but his observation holds good for the greater part ofattendees at the great Christian celebrations. The central Christian narratives werespread through preaching, liturgical stagecraft, and church art and, we must sur-mise, simply through retelling in a number of short forms (poetic and prosaic) nowmainly lost. The integration of the lower strata of society was only a literate affairin the last resort: books had to be used by the specialists and displayed as objects ofveneration, and ultimately the masses and a great part of the elite recognized thepower of the book without ever engaging with it in practice. The emergence ofvernacular translations of, for instance, the legend and miracles of Olaf around1200, should be seen, I presume, as an interface tool for the specialists engaging inpreaching and story-telling — not in the first place as products for a reading publicother than the Latin one.19

One question that needs further exploration is the following: what are thedynamics between stories about Olaf and stories about other saints (such as theclassical Roman martyrs) in terms of integrating the broader population? Theadvantages of having a local saint are obvious and have been stressed in muchrecent scholarship. Almost all northern and eastern regions converted during theeleventh and twelfth centuries have one or more strong local saints, so it appearsto have been a necessary condition. The enhanced feeling of contact with thesacred and the bridge provided by the local saint to the universal order must havemade a significant difference for the elite and masses alike. It also made localterritory a part of God’s world, although far away from Rome and Jerusalem. Thesupport of the idea of Norway as Olaf’s fief is a strong expression of this. Thisidentification with the soil can be contrasted to one well-documented case offorced foreign conversion in the North falling just outside this volume’s timeframe,namely the German mission in Riga and its military conversion of Livonians, Letts,and Estonians. Significantly, the dominating metaphor used by the chroniclerHenry of Livonia regarding the territory is terra virginis. No local ethnic agency orpartaking in the universal order was invented; it was imposed by the German


On Henry and the land of Mary, see the classical study by L. Arbusow, Liturgie und20

Geschichtsschreibung im Mittelalter: in ihren Beziehungen erläutert an den Schriften Ottos vonFreising († 1158), Heinrichs Livlandchronik und den anderen Missionsgeschichten des BremischenErzsprengels: Rimberts, Adams von Bremen, Helmolds (Bonn: Rohrscheid, 1951).

Cf. Haki Antonsson, ‘Some Observations on Martyrdom in Post-conversion Scandinavia’,21

Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 28 (2004), 70–94.

Audun Dybdahl, Helgener i tiden, Senter for middelalderstudier, Skrifter, 10 (Trondheim:22

Tapir Academic Press, 1999). In addition, research into the early book culture of Norway (entirebooks, but not least fragments) will no doubt prove of great importance for this field; see note 4above.

settlers that this was the land of the Virgin, just like Palestine was the land of theSon (to be taken by other crusaders).20

Given this and the other obvious advantages of a strong local saint, if circum-stances permitted a peaceful integration of the local people, let me return to myquestion about the relations between stories circulating about Roman martyrs andthe local martyr. My point is that the local martyr only made sense if you hadalready accepted the general pattern of the veneration of Christ and his primarymartyrs. The spread of both kinds of cults could of course go hand in hand, but anyprimacy of the local martyr must be excluded. Christian martyrdom was a simplebut basic narrative structure, which must have enjoyed some currency before onewould want to imagine the fate of a local hero being modelled on it.21

It is not possible to gauge in any direct way how stories about various saintswere actually circulated and among whom, but valuable indirect material is at handin both the liturgical Ordo (though only preserved from c. 1220 in an Icelandiccopy) and in the sections on Christian law in the Norwegian provincial laws.Moreover, church sculptures and paintings and, not least, church dedicationsfurnish us with valuable material, although the dedications are often marred byproblems of dating. For the present purpose I will simply refer to the study byAudun Dybdahl who, however, concentrates on the province of Trøndelag. Thegeneral impression is that Olaf and Mary were the most celebrated saints, and thatthe Roman martyrs plus Michael, John the Baptist, Andrew, and Nicholas werereceiving a lot of attention during the twelfth century.22

If we accept a very loose model that implies that the basic Christian stories —including those of the above-mentioned saints — had some oral circulation duringthe eleventh and twelfth centuries, and that their success was a precondition forthe twelfth-century success of Olaf, then we can proceed to ask questions ofspecific social contexts. Outside the warrior elite with its early Christianization and


On this aspect, see also Ildar Garipzanov, ‘Novgorod and the Veneration of Saints in23

Eleventh-Century Rus’: A Comparative View’, in this volume.

Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,24

1986), I, 396.

internationalization going back to the first half of the eleventh century, I can thinkof two other social groups where we might speculate about the relevance ofChristian saints.

One social group is related to town and trade. Merchants formed a very small23

group in Norwegian society, but it was a dynamic and trend-setting one, and onethat operated hand in hand with the king and bishop in the emerging towns.Again, a contrast with the confrontational situation in Riga as documented byHenry of Livonia in the 1220s might be helpful. Three groups of German colo-nialists had their fates tied to each other in the outpost of Riga — the traders, theclerics, and the warriors. One gets the distinct impression that the two lattergroups would not be there without the initiative of the former. The traders had tocut deals with the locals — and this must have been a primary motive for gettingthem on the Christian side. By which deities should deals between Germans andlocals be sealed? How were oaths to be sworn? Apart from Christ and Mary, thesaints could also have served well here. Christian ideals about peace and theChristian pantheon of saintly figures could fill out the role as guarantors of tradingdeals very well — and also in the probably more peaceful Norwegian trading posts.As sociologist Michael Mann has pointed out, ‘The normative pacification ofChristendom was a precondition of the revival of markets’. This is of course not24

to say that trading routines between adherents of different faiths could not work(as between Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean), but in the Nordicsituation, with a highly organized faith and a more dynamic economy on one sideand with loose networks and a variety of non-integrated beliefs on the other, thepull towards Christian norms is likely to have proven more irresistible.

The other social context of importance for the spreading of Christian storiesto the wider population is to be found in the countryside. With the establishmentof parish churches from the end of the eleventh and throughout the twelfth andthirteenth centuries, Christianity became visible and tangible for everyone. It isnormally assumed for both Denmark and Norway that in the first phase (beforeand during the introduction of the tithe-based formal parish structure), mostchapels and churches were privately financed and run by local farmers of goodmeans (either on an individual or a group basis) — the so-called Eigenkirchen,


For Norway (Trøndelag), see J. Brendalsmo, ‘Kirker og sogn på den trønderske landsvygda25

c. 1000–1600’, in Ecclesia Nidrosiensis 1153–1537, ed. by Imsen, pp. 223–54. For Denmark, seeGelting, ‘Kingdom of Denmark’, p. 87.

Anne Irene Riisøy, ‘Kristenrettene og sosialhistorien’, in Den kirkehistoriske utfordring, ed.26

by Imsen, pp. 59–74.

Mann, Sources of Social Power; and Patricia Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the27

Pre-Modern World (Oxford: OneWorld, 2003).

private churches. This very visible adherence to the Christian cult must in itself25

have been the result of the local landowning elite’s imitation of (and competitionwith) the internationalized super-elite and the ecclesiastical and trading environ-ments of the towns.

In this process, the exchange of Christian narratives must have been one impor-tant element. You would hardly build a chapel or a church without being able totell in short form the key narratives of Christianity and those of the dedicateesaints. With churches in the non-urban landscape and the social, cultic, and finan-cial investment from a critical number of members of the local elites, the integra-tion of the masses into Christian beliefs, rituals, and stories was inevitable. A veryconcrete insight into the social divisions within rural parish life can be found in thepassages of the Norwegian provincial laws dealing with the hierarchy of burialplaces. Those who had shared the economic burdens of the parish church were tobe buried closest to the saint, free peasants who had not contributed further away,and slaves were buried outermost. All were Christians but, as a recent paper byAnne Irene Riisøy argues, with many more dramatic social differences than hasnormally been assumed in nationalistic or romantic scholarship dreaming ofmedieval origins of national democracy.26

It has been argued by modern sociologists and historians like Michael Mannand Patricia Crone that, roughly speaking, the elites and the common people(‘masses’) in premodern societies never shared cultural identities — even if theyhappened to share language(s) and respect for the same gods. In general, the com-27

mon people were despised by the elites, who in fact respected and shared cultureto a much larger degree with elites of other languages and localities. But Chris-tianity and Islam can be said to have tilted this structure in the direction of a morecommon understanding of cultural identity between the social layers, as bothcreeds force or strongly favour universal participation among its own peoples anda sharp sense of boundary towards other faiths. The idea of universal participation,and ultimately, universal redemption or punishment, certainly made for at least anabstract sense of community. This has nothing to do with any democratization of


culture, because privileged access and closeness to the divine was still completelydominated by the elite. However premodern medieval Christianity and Islamremained, the agenda of a cross-social Christian identity became important — interms of the identities strengthened by literary discourse as well. It is important, Ithink, to stress that literary discourse is not only written and elitist, but that it bothwarrants and is inspired from oral storytelling that spans over longer timeframesand across the social spectrum.

So to conclude, I think that the twelfth-century texts about Olaf need to bestudied further — both as testimony to the interface between written and oralstorytelling about saints, in better dialogue with research on the cult of Roman andother saints, and not least as an important indicator of the integration of the lowersocial strata into common Christian festivities, and through them, into a Christianidentity.

I plan to complete extensive research in 2010 on the complete manuscript transmission and1

relations between all versions of the Passio Olavi and its first critical edition. All quotations stemfrom this forthcoming critical edition. The English translation of the passages from the Fountainsmanuscript (CCC) is taken from A History of Norway and The Passion and Miracles of the Blessed

TEXTUAL EVIDENCE FOR THE TRANSMISSION

OF THE PASSIO OLAVI PRIOR TO 1200AND ITS LATER LITERARY TRANSFORMATIONS

Lenka Jiroušková

One of the most important texts of the earliest Latin literature of Norwayis still awaiting its critical edition. Scholars have discussed the text thathas been simply referred to as the Passio Olavi from various standpoints.

However, the focus of their investigations has been on one manuscript, the onlymanuscript to have been edited up to now. But the source material in its entiretyreveals a very complex textual transmission, already in the twelfth century, so thatwe have to ask: what exactly is the Passio Olavi and what form does it take? Anexamination of the textual transmission is not only a matter of tedious philologicaldetails; it also entails asking questions that potentially have considerable conse-quences for research on the cult of St Olaf and its embedding in the historical andcultural context of medieval Northern Europe. It is only by knowing the exacttextual form of the Passio Olavi, its transmission, constants, and variants — allbased on the concrete manuscript material — that we can make a reliable state-ment about its literary context, models, and parallels, as well as about its use. Ananalysis of the text that does justice to both its character and transmission can shednew light on the beginnings of the cult of Olaf, as reflected in the hagiographicaldossier of the saint. This paper presents conclusions based on the first completeanalysis of the source material of the Passio Olavi. In what follows, some of the1

Lenka Jiroušková220

Óláfr, ed. by Carl Phelpstead and trans. by Devra Kunin, Viking Society for Northern ResearchText Series, 13 (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2001). I am very grateful toMichael Gates, Jeremy Llewellyn, and Luciana Meinking-Guimarães for revising the English of theoriginal paper.

It has been several times noted that near-contemporary Norwegian written sources are quiet2

about this early period of the cult of Olaf; Eyolf Østrem refers to two letters, now lost but men-tioned in other sources, that mention Olaf: ‘A letter from Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg,reproaching king Harald Hardråde for using the gifts to the shrine of St Olav for military purposesis mentioned by Adam of Bremen, writing c. 1070 (RegNorv 1 no. 42; Adam III. 17). Somewhatlater (c. 1105), the three Magnusson kings — Sigurd (Jorsalfare), Øystein and Olav — confirm cer-tain rights from the days of St Olav (RegNorv 1 no. 56)’: The Office of Saint Olav: A Study inChant Transmission, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Musicologica Upsaliensia, n.s., 18(Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2001), p. 29, n. 4. All attempts to describe this period are based onlater twelfth- and thirteenth-century sagas and have inevitably limited value; for recent discussion,see Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney: A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context, NorthernWorld, 29 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 103–21. See also Sverre Bagge, ‘Warrior, King, and Saint: TheMedieval Histories about St. Óláfr Haraldsson’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 109(2010), 281–321.

The Englishman Grimkel seems to have played an important role in the establishment of the3

veneration of Olaf as a saint. During his stay in England after Olaf’s death, Grimkel was close toLeofric, bishop of Exeter. Leofric was probably the compiler of the so-called Leofric Collectar thatcontains the first St Olaf office and the donor of the so-called Leofric Psalter to Exeter cathedral.For discussion of the role of Grimkel in this first phase of St Olaf’s cult, see Østrem, Office of SaintOlav, pp. 29–33; and Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney, pp. 106–09.

These are a St Olaf office (Leofric Collectar: London, British Library, MS Harley 2961), three4

mass prayers (Red Book of Derby/Darley: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 422), and somelitanies (Leofric Psalter: London, British Library, MS Harley 863, fol. 109 ; Exeter Pontifical: Lon-v

don, British Library, MS Additional 28188, fol. 3; London, British Library, MS Cotton ViteliusA VII, fol. 18). For the date and provenance of these manuscripts as well as for further discussion,

new lines of questioning that have arisen from the extensive analysis of the manu-scripts will be set out.

St Olaf in Early Written Tradition

In 1031, one year after his death, Olaf Haraldsson was declared a saint by one ofhis missionary bishops, Bishop Grimkel. Both the liturgical as well as the historio-graphical interest in the saintly King Olaf, testified to in written tradition, firstarose outside Norway. The earliest traces of the first cult of Olaf, which seem to2

have been initiated by Grimkel, lead to England: liturgical manuscripts of English3 4

TEXTUAL EVIDENCE FOR THE TRANSMISSION OF THE PASSIO OLAVI 221

see Gunilla Iversen, ‘Transforming a Viking into a Saint: The Divine Office of St. Olav’, in TheDivine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments,Hagiography, ed. by M. E. Fassler and R . A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.401–19; and Østrem, Office of Saint Olav, pp. 28–33.

The lessons in the St Olaf office in the Leofric Collectar were taken from the commune sancto-5

rum. The other early liturgical texts also did not use any special hagiographical dossier of St Olaf;see, especially, Iversen, ‘Transforming a Viking into a Saint’, and repeated in Østrem, Office of SaintOlav, pp. 28–33.

The ‘Gesta Normannorum Ducum’ of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of6

Torigni, V. 11–12, ed. by Elisabeth M. C. van Houts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 24–28(pp. 26–28): ‘Rex etiam Olauus super Christiana religione oblectatus, spreto idolorum cultu, cumnonnullis suorum, ortante archiepiscopo Rodberto, ad Christi fidem est conuersus, atque ab eobaptismate lotus sacroque chrismate delibutus, de precepta gratia gaudens, ad suum regnum estregressus. †Qui, postea a suis proditus et a perfidis iniuste peremptus, celestem regiam intrauit rexet martyr gloriosus, choruscans nunc apud gentem illam prodigiis et uirtutibus.†’

Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, IV. 33, ed. by Bernhard7

Schmeidler, MGH SRG, 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1917), pp. 267–68: ‘Metropolis civitas Nort-mannorum est Trondemnis, quae nunc decorata ecclesiis magna populorum frequentia celebratur.In qua iacet corpus beatissimi Olaph regis et martyris. Ad cuius tumbam usque in hodiernum diemmaxima Dominus operatur sanitatum miracula, ita ut a longinquis illic regionibus confluant hii,qui se meritis sancti non desperant [posse] iuvari.’

Historia Norwegie, ed. by Inger Ekrem and Lars Boje Mortensen, trans. by Peter Fisher8

(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2003). In chap. 18 Olaf is not called ‘saint’ but instead‘beatissimus tirannus Olauus’ (XVIII, 10), ‘socius’ (XVIII, 16), ‘Olauus noster’ (XVIII, 22) and

provenance from the second half of the eleventh century reveal that at this pointin time there was no Latin hagiographical dossier in circulation. From the histo-5

riographical perspective, William of Jumièges in his Gesta Normannorum ducum(between 1050 and 1070) reports on Olaf’s participation in Norman-French con-flicts, his baptism in Rouen, and his death, followed by miracles and virtues. In6

another corner of Europe at around the same time, Adam of Bremen in his GestaHammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (1075/76–80/81) mentions the saintly kingand martyr Olaf and his grave, which is visited by many people from far away andwhere numerous miracles take place.7

Only at the end of the twelfth century is the near hundred-year silence of theLatin Norwegian sources broken: the anonymous and incomplete Historia Nor-wegiae refers to a ‘beatus Olavus’, but concentrates, however, only on the politicalevents of the first years of his reign; the account is interrupted by Olaf’s returnfrom England (without mentioning his baptism) and ends with a list of the Englishbishops brought by him to Norway. Theodoricus Monachus, probably a canon at8


‘victoriosissimus bellator Olauus’ (XVIII, 24); only once, at the end of the preceding chapter, is hecalled ‘beatus’ (XVII, 58).

Theoderici monachi Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, XX, ed. by Gustav Storm,9

in MHN, pp. 1–68 (pp. 43–44): ‘Quomodo vero mox omnipotens Deus merita martyris sui Olavideclaraverit coecis visum reddendo et multa commoda aegris mortalibus impendendo, et qualiterepiscopus Grimkel — qui fuit filius fratris Sigwardi episcopi, quem Olavus filius Tryggva secumadduxerat de Anglia — post annum et quinque dies beatum corpus e terra levaverit et in locodecenter ornato reposuerit in Nidrosiensi metropoli, quo statim peracta pugna transvectum fuerat,quia haec omnia a nonnullis memoriae tradita sunt, nos notis immorari superfluum duximus.’

See, especially, Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘The Anchin Manuscript of Passio Olaui (Douai 295),10

William of Jumièges, and Theodoricus Monachus: New Evidence for Intellectual Relationsbetween Norway and France in the 12th Century’, Symbolae Osloenses, 75 (2000), 165–89. Forfurther discussion, see Østrem, Office of Saint Olav, pp. 34–35; and Einarr Skúlason’s ‘Geisli’: ACritical Edition, ed. by Martin Chase, Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Series (Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, 2005), p. 12. For an overview of the whole discussion, see the unpublishedhandbook-article ‘Sanctus Olavus’ by Lars Boje Mortensen in Medieval Nordic Literature in Latin:A Handbook of Authors and Anonymous Works (c. 1100–1530), ed. by Karsten Friis-Jensen andothers (forthcoming).

The earliest extant vernacular texts to celebrate Olaf’s sanctity — the poem Glælognskviða11

of Þórarinn loftunga (probably 1032) and Erfidrápa of Sigvatr Þórðarson (c. 1042) — were com-posed immediately after the death of the King. See, among others, Matthew Townend, ‘Knútr andthe Cult of St Óláfr: Poetry and Patronage in Eleventh-Century Norway and England’, Viking andMedieval Scandinavia, 1 (2005), 251–79. However, all these vernacular poems only mention Olaf’s

the cathedral of Nidaros and a well-informed local, devotes a small passage to the‘martyr of God’ in his Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium (dedicated tothe second Archbishop Eystein between 1177 and 1188). He relates as generalknowledge information about Olaf’s baptism, his miracles, and his translatio,which he relates was initiated by Bishop Grimkel. In this passage, which has been9

the subject of much scholarly attention, Theodoricus is most probably referring10

to an older and well-known tradition and arguably showing support for a new for-mative phase of Olaf’s cult. This phase probably gained in importance after theestablishment of the archbishopric of Nidaros in 1152/53 and became widespreadwhen the second Archbishop, Eystein Erlendsson, was in office (1161–88). It wasEystein who played an important part in contributing to the expansion and institu-tionalization of the cult, at least in the ‘literary’ realm: if not by himself, then surelyby someone in the circle around him were the first known hagiographical andliturgical sources about St Olaf composed — one of the versions of the Passio Olaviand a new Office.

Twelfth-century Norway also saw the composition of a vernacular narrativeabout the thaumaturgic saint — the poem Geisli (1153) by Einarr Skúlason.11


sanctity in connection with some miracles but without describing his ‘holy’ life as it was made inthe Latin tradition.

For the so-called Oldest Saga, the Legendary Saga of St Olaf, and the Old Norwegian Homily12

Book, see the discussion by Else Mundal in the chapter by Lars Boje Mortensen and Else Mundal,‘Erkebispesetet i Nidaros: arnestad og verkstad for olavslitteraturen’, in Ecclesia Nidrosiensis1153–1537: Søkelys på Nidaroskirkens og Nidarosprovinsens historie, ed. by Steinar Imsen (Trond-heim: Tapir Academic Press, 2003), pp. 353–84 (pp. 373–76).

For a summary of the research until 2000, see Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Recent Research in the13

Legend of Saint Olav’, in Lateinische Biographie von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart: Scripturusvitam. Festgabe für Walter Berschin zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by D. Walz (Heidelberg: Mattes, 2002),pp. 1011–18. Further see Mortensen and Mundal, ‘Erkebispesetet i Nidaros’. For a summary of thecurrent state of research on Olaf, see the unpublished study by Mortensen, ‘Sanctus Olavus’.

For the list of the manuscripts of the Passio Olavi, see Table 3 at the end of this chapter.14

Swedish provenance of the Helsinki fragment is advocated by Michael Gullick. I am very15

grateful to him for checking the paleographical features of the fragment and other manuscripts ofthe Passio Olavi.

Other written vernacular sources began to speak about Olaf later, the oldest ofthem around 1200. It seems to be in the written Latin tradition that the ‘holy’ life12

of King Olaf Haraldsson and his deeds as a Christ and missionary are firstpresented. Any information about the saintly king and his cult found in the Latinliterature of the twelfth century can be gleaned and reconstructed only from theLatin hagiographical dossier of St Olaf — the Passio Olavi.

Surviving Manuscripts of the Passio Olavi Reconsidered

The hagiographical dossier of St Olaf is extremely complex and underwent, in thecourse of its transmission history, numerous transformations. The Passio Olavi ismarked by such strong variability on all levels — from the structure of the text andcontent down to philological details — that debates on the original shape of thetext and the circumstances of its creation are still raging today.13

Nine extant Latin manuscripts were produced from the end of the twelfth tothe beginning of the sixteenth century, yet none originated in Norway. Two14

versions of the Passio Olavi are known: a longer text (A) and a shorter text (B) —the difference between them relates not only to the size of the passio-part, but alsoto the account, selection, and ordering of the miracles. The long version is repre-sented by two twelfth-century manuscripts, one from Scandinavia, probablySweden (H), and the other from Fountains Abbey (CCC); another textual15


Both these versions seem to have been composed outside of Scandinavia. See Gustav Storm,16

Om en Olavslegende fra Ribe, Christiania Vidensk.-Selsk. Forhandl. 3 (Kristiania: A. W. Brøgger,1885).Version C is transmitted in a legendary put together by Herman Greven in Cologne in 1460(Be ) and also in a contemporary translation into Low German: ‘Legendae aliquot de Sancto Olavo1

Rege Norvegiae’, in Scriptores rerum Danicarum medii aevi, vol. II, ed. by J. Langebek (Copenhagen:Godiche, 1773), pp. 529–52. The Passio Olavi in this redaction was included in printed legendarieslike the Historiae plurimorum sanctorum, Löwen 1485 (Copinger 6441) and the Legenda aurea ofJacobus de Voragine, Cologne 1483 (Copinger 6434). Version D is known through the work ofPetrus Mathie in Ribe (K) in Southern Denmark (c. 1460–65) and through one manuscript of thefifteenth century from Magdeburg (Be ) in Northern Germany.2

Passio et miracula Beati Olaui, Edited from a Twelfth-Century Manuscript in the Library of17

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, ed. by Frederick Metcalfe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881).Although the text published by Storm as ‘Acta sancti Olavi Regis et martyris’ (MHN, pp. 125–44)has often been used by scholars, it should not any longer be considered, because it is a secondaryconstruct based on printed breviaries, the edition in Acta Sanctorum, and the vernacular versionin the Old Norwegian Homily Book.

Consuetudines cisterciensium sive fundationis coenobii cisterciensis historia (fols 91 –99 ); andr r18

Thurstini, arciepiscopi Eboracensis, ad Wilelmum Corboys epistola de egressu monachorumFontanensium e cenobio S. Mariae Eboracensis (fols 99 –108 ).V V

witness from England (Yorkshire) from the thirteenth century that has notsurvived in a complete state (O); a late medieval Swedish manuscript (Dr); and anow-lost German one from Böddeken (B*). The short version is represented by atwelfth-century manuscript from Anchin (D) in Flanders and a late medievalmanuscript from Bordesholm (N) in Northern Germany. In addition, there aretwo further redactions of the Olaf material from the late Middle Ages that areclearly related (on the level of wording) to the long version: an observation whichuntil now has escaped scholars. These later redactions (versions C and D) showanother use of the text, which manifests itself in narrative transformations of theoriginal material and its enriching with new motifs from the Bible and sagaliterature. Three extant manuscripts from the end of the twelfth century are16

particularly important for research on the transmission and origins of the PassioOlavi: the manuscripts from Anchin (D) and Fountains Abbey (CCC) and theHelsinki fragment of Scandinavian origin (H).

Scholarship has generally equated the text of the Passio Olavi with a singlemanuscript — the only manuscript edited to date originating from the CistercianFountains Abbey (CCC). One section of this manuscript, copied by a single17

hand, comprises alongside two Cistercian texts a version of the Passio Olavi that18

can be directly linked to the archbishopric of Nidaros; it was composed at least in


For the authorship of this version of the Passio Olavi, see Passio et miracula, ed. by Metcalfe,19

pp. 49–52; and Mortensen, ‘Sanctus Olavus’.

The text in CCC is meticulously outlined with a large number of rubrics: not only do we20

find them at the beginnings of the passio-part and the miracle collection but also by every miraclereport. It is therefore remarkable that a rubric at the end of the last written miracle story as well asan explicit are missing. Furthermore, the Passio Olavi ends in the seventh line on fol. 90 and ther

following text does not begin until fol. 91 ; the two pages might have been left blank in order tor

finish the text of the Passio Olavi at a later date.

Cassiodorus, De origine animae, De institutione, and De orthographia; the lives of Theodo-21

ricus (BHL 8060 and 8066), Sulpicius (BHL 7930), Livinus (BHL 4960 and 4962), and Blasius(BHL 1370). Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis, Subsidia hagiographica,6 and 70 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1898–1901 and 1986).

For a further discussion on D and this account, see Mortensen, ‘Anchin Manuscript’.22

For a description of the fragment and its content, see Arno Malin, Zur Überlieferung der23

lateinischen Olavuslegende, Annales Academicae Scientiarum Fennicae, B 11 (Helsinki: Suoma-laisen Tiedeakatemian Kunstantama, 1920); see also a brief catalogue description by ToivoHaapanen, Verzeichnis der mittelalterlichen Handschriftenfragmente in der Universitätsbibliothekzu Helsingfors, vol. III: Breviaria (Helsingfors: [n.pub.], 1932), p. 30, no. 61.

Malin, Zur Überlieferung, p. 8. The wrong dating and imperfect information about the trans-24

mitted passages of the fragmentary Passio Olavi have repeatedly been adopted by other scholars.

part by Eystein, the second Archbishop of Nidaros, or by someone in his circle.19

It contains the long version of the passio-part and the most comprehensive (pos-sibly unfinished? ), although unique, collection of forty-nine miracles.20

Two further manuscripts from the twelfth century demonstrate that the signifi-cance of the Fountains manuscript should not be overestimated: the manuscriptfrom the Benedictine abbey of Anchin (D) contains, in addition to three works ofCassiodorus and numerous saints’ lives, two Olaf texts copied in the same hand.21

Here the Passio Olavi consists of the short version of the passio-part and a collec-tion of twenty-one miracles, which are directly followed by an excerpt from theGesta Normannorum ducum by William of Jumièges that recounts, among otherthings, Olaf’s baptism in Rouen.22

The third and final source material from the end of the twelfth century is theHelsinki fragment (H). This forms part of an extraordinary breviary — without23

chants, but with readings and prayers that are noticeably long — that obviouslyonce contained the full version of the Passio Olavi with a complete miracle collec-tion: it was not, therefore, an abridged and modified version for liturgical use. Onlya single miracle concerning an English knight has until now been edited from thismanuscript — a supposedly unique miracle narrative that was incorrectly dated tothe thirteenth century by its editor. However, what has not attracted the24


1. Conversion and baptism (P. II. 2, shortened); 2. 1. Olaf’s spiritual enlightenment (P. II. 3,25

shortened); 2. 2. His preaching (P. III. 4, shortened); 3. Olaf’s missionary work (P. V. 6); 4. Olaf’s goodworks for the people (P. VII. 1); 5. Olaf’s flight to Russia (P. VII. 2); 6. The reception by King Jaroslaus(P. VIII. 1); 7. Olaf’s exemplary life in Russia (P. VIII. 2); 8. The return to Norway through Sweden(P. VIII. 3, shortened); 9. Olaf’s search for martyrdom (P. VIII. 5, shortened); 10. The conspiracy ofOlaf’s enemies (P. IX. 4); 11. The backlash of Olaf’s doctrine (P. IX. 5); 12. The battle of Stiklestad(P. IX. 6); 13. Death (P. IX. 7, shortened); 14. The date of the death (P. X. 2, shortened).

Inger Ekrem, ‘Om Passio Olavis tilblivelse og eventuelle forbindelse med Historia Norwegie’,26

in Olavslegenden og den latinske historieskrivning i 1100-tallets Norge, ed. by Inger Ekrem and others(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2000), pp. 109–56.

Most recently, Mortensen and Mundal, ‘Erkebispesetet i Nidaros’, p. 366. Østrem, Office of27

Saint Olav, p. 53, calls to attention ‘the difference between the short and the long vita is rather oneof function than of development in time’.

attention of scholars is the fact that this particular miracle is not only transmittedin three other manuscripts of the Passio Olavi, but also that the Helsinki fragment,in addition to this miracle and two others, contains a fourth miracle narrative, andthat this same selection of miracles is found in another manuscript. The frag-mentary nature of this source is a considerable loss, since this neglected manuscriptmight call into question several of the previous hypotheses concerning the originaltextual form of the Passio Olavi.

These three manuscripts thus transmit two versions of the passio-part: thelonger version (A) and the shorter (B). The differences between the two versionscan be best characterized by their differing contents, resulting from the varyinglengths, and by the stylistic presentation: ten lengthy chapters in A correspond toonly fourteen sentences in B. Version B is limited to the most important events inthe life of Olaf and presents a short, almost catalogue-like narration or résumé.25

These facts are filled out in A by, for example, rhetorically elaborated charac-teristics of Norway and Olaf or, indeed, by Olaf’s virtues, merits, and his strivingtowards ‘heavenly matters’ as manifested in all his works. Such passages are notice-able for their use of numerous abstract nouns, metaphors, theological comparisons,superlatives, and repeated biblical quotations. Thus the difference between thecontents of the two versions does not concern the narrative order or the individualbuilding blocks of the account, but rather only the complementary informationand the descriptive embedding of these building blocks.

Scholars have long argued over the historical priority in the transmission ofthese versions: some have believed the long passio-part to be an extension of theshort one, while others have argued that the short passio-part is an abbreviation26

of the long version. To date there has been no consensus on the issue supported27


The only textual argument was brought by Lars Boje Mortensen; see Mortensen and28

Mundal, ‘Erkebispesetet i Nidaros’, pp. 365–66. A single, presumed inconsistency in the text of theshort B version (suggested by Mortensen) is not, in my opinion, evidence that B was an abbrevia-tion of A. It is more likely that this situation was the result of an individual shaping of the narrativeprogression, which brought textual variants in its wake and thus testifies to a conscious work withthe materials. A detailed analysis will be given in my forthcoming study.

There are not only several scribal mistakes (e.g. ‘penam’ instead of ‘plenam’, M. XIII. 37) but29

also mistakes in morphology and syntax (e.g. ‘indici’ instead of ‘indicio’, M. XIII. 44, or ‘adherent’instead of ‘adhererent’, M. VIII. 1).

by textual argument. An intentional reworking of a short version to include28

biblical allusions and rhetorically elaborated passages is just as conceivable as theconscious abbreviation of a lengthier original by removing such passages, as in B.The differences in syntax, literary style, and contents permit both possibilities.

However, an analysis of the textual variants of the passio-part offers a clearerpicture. In the passages that both versions have in common, the individual readingsof the respective manuscripts straddle the two versions. Thus, for example, the latemedieval sources of both versions agree in certain readings and disagree with theearlier manuscripts, or the late medieval witnesses of version A (in distinction tothe earlier ones) agree with both representatives of version B, and so on. When theHelsinki fragment (H) supplies a concordant passage, it transmits those variantsthat agree with both Fountains (CCC) and Anchin (D). It would therefore seemlikely that the transmission history of the passio-part did not proceed on the basisof two parallel traditions. Rather, a single text of the passio-part stood at thebeginning of the transmission and was then distilled in the individual manuscripts.This text is represented in Helsinki (H), Fountains (CCC), and Anchin (D) in allthe passages that they have in common.

A comparison of the variants in the individual manuscripts and the fact that theFountains manuscript contains numerous errors and individual readings clearly29

suggest that the latter is not the most representative witness to version A. Rather,it is the Helsinki fragment that transmits the oldest and best textual form, sup-ported by the correspondence with the later sources from Yorkshire (now inOxford, O) and Sweden (now in Dresden, Dr). It was almost this textual shape ofversion A, namely of the Helsinki fragment, that became the pattern for versionsC and D from the late Middle Ages. The Helsinki fragment (H) is therefore veryimportant for the transmission history not only of version A, but also of the PassioOlavi as a whole, as the extant miracles demonstrate.


For details, see Table 4.30

The miracles are traditionally counted according to the longest series as they appear in the31

Fountains manuscript (CCC); however, the numbering has only a symbolic significance.

Considering the Passio Olavi as a unit comprising both the passio-part and themiracle collection, all extant manuscripts from this first stage of the transmissionof Olaf’s material differ in the following distinct features:30

• the incipit of the passio-part: regnante illustrissimo rege (‘during the reign of thehighly famed king’) for the long A version and gloriosus rex Olavus (‘the highlyfamous king Olav’) for the short B version;

• the account, selection, and form of the miracles;31

• the miracle about an English knight (miles Britannicus), conventionally num-bered as no. 50 and up to now known only from one manuscript (the Helsinkifragment);

• the initial phrase opere precium est (‘It is worth to touch on a few of the manymiracles’) that opens the miracle collection and is transmitted only inversion A;

• the closing phrase of the miracle collection finem imponamus pagine (‘Let usbring the writing to the end’) that appears in both versions A and B.

The three oldest manuscripts from Fountains (CCC), Anchin (D), and Scandi-navia (H) transmit different combinations of all these features. However, theirplace in the textual history of the Passio Olavi cannot be assessed without includingthe later sources.

It is conspicuous that all the manuscripts (the same applies to versions C andD) contain selected miracles only from nos 1 to 21. Only the miracle collectionfrom Fountains (CCC) includes forty-nine pieces. Four manuscripts containmiracle no. 50 concerning the ‘miles Britannicus’; two of them have the long passio-part (H, O), and two of them the short one (D, N). The remarkable aspect here isthat this particular miracle always appears in combination with the closing phrase‘finem imponamus’: in three manuscripts this phrase directly follows the miracle(H, N, O), and in the Anchin manuscript (D) the miracle is placed in the middleof the collection and separated from the closing phrase. Did both these textualelements belong to the original miracle collection of the Passio Olavi?

Concerning the transmission history of the miracle collection, the Helsinkifragment (H) and the late manuscript from Bordesholm (N) are particularly im-portant: both contain miracle nos 11, 14, 15, and 50 and the closing phrase ‘finemimponamus’ at the end of the collection, and above all, both agree in all readings!


The Yorkshire manuscript from the thirteenth century (O) transmits a similar collection to32

H and N, replacing miracle nos 14 and 15 with no. 12 and adding the initial phrase ‘opere preciumest’ to the collection.

Because of the identical shaping of the text, which differs from all other manu-scripts, it can be assumed that Helsinki (H) once contained miracle nos 1–10.Whether it also contained the initial phrase ‘opere precium’, which is typical ofversion A (and Helsinki has a passio-part of version A), must remain an openquestion. Yet Helsinki (H) and Bordesholm (N) differ as to the version of thepassio-part: it is possibly the first important signal that the transmission history ofthe passio-part must be distinguished from the transmission history of the miraclecollection. Can this assumption be supported by other features?

Miracle nos 11, 14, and 15 narrate about a peasant unjustly hanged and thensaved by Olaf, a woman healed from epilepsy, and the deliverance of Novgorodfrom fire. These miracles, together with the closing phrase, are also transmitted inother manuscripts, which all transmit an identical shaping of the text. This appliesequally to miracle no. 50 about the English knight guilty of matricide and fratricideand to miracle no. 12 regarding the punishment of a presumptuous man.32

11 peasant hanged then saved by Olaf (Norway)

12 presumptuous man punished (Nidaros)

14 woman’s epilepsy healed (Nidaros) one version of the text

15 a city saved from fire (Novgorod)

50 an English knight saved from his punishment (Nidaros)

F closing phrase

However, in the first ten miracles — except report nos 7 and 8 — two distinctversions become apparent. They differ in word order, individual readings, andgrammatical variants. Moreover, some miracles of version A — similar to thepassio-part — reveal supplementary passages: some of them a very short part of asentence, and three miracles whole sentences. Only in miracle no. 5 concerningbread being turned into stone do the versions differ in style. However, the stylisticand textual variance across the versions and the miracles possess, on each occasion,a different quality and varying dimensions. Therefore, there is no unified proce-dure that would be characteristic of each version and that would agree with theprocedure of both versions of the passio-part. All these observations stronglysuggest a separate transmission history of the passio-part and the miracle collection.Moreover, several stages of the development of the collection become clear.


Miracle nos 19 and 20 were probably transmitted in the Bödekken manuscript, now lost.33

Because their knowledge is based only on an old edition, their occurrence in B* and their order inthe miracle collection is not reliable.

1 in vita — Olaf’s vision of a ladder to heaven

(Nidaros)

(short additions in A)

2 a blind man healed by Olaf’s blood (Nidaros) (short additions in A)

3 Olaf helps Duke Guthormus in battle (Ireland) two versions of

the text

(short additions in A)

4 Olaf helps an emperor in battle (Constantinople) (longer additions in A)

5 a bread turned into stone (Denmark) (short additions in A

+ differences in style)

6 a tongue cut off and healed (Norway) (short additions in A)

7 a removed tongue replaced (Nidaros) one version of

8 a misshapen woman healed (Nidaros) the text

9 an English priest healed (Norway) two versions of

the text

(longer additions in A)

10 in vita — Sunday-miracle (longer additions in A)

As in the passio-part, the Helsinki fragment (H) (alongside the Bordesholm (N)and Yorkshire (O) manuscripts) presents in the miracle collection the best andmost widely disseminated shape of the text; Fountains (CCC) and Anchin (D) areeach individual witnesses of both versions A and B. Only these two manuscriptstransmit the rest of the first twenty-one miracles.33

16 stones found for the building of the church (Telemark)

17 a lost child found (Norway)

19 two blind men and one dumb person healed (Nidaros) one version of the text

20 a dumb man healed (Novgorod)

21 a Norwegian king healed (Stiklestad)

13 a young Danish man released from prison (?) two versions + the author’s voice

18 a young man from Ytrøy freed from the power of the

devil (Nidaros)

Whereas miracle nos 16–17 and nos 19–21 show an identical shape with onlya few minor variants, miracle no. 13 and no. 18 stand out from the others: first,they reveal two versions differing in style and the use of prose rhyme and rhythm.Second, the author or redactor makes his presence known.

The narrator of no. 13 speaks in the first person plural about seeing evidenceof a miracle: he saw a young Danish man released from prison who had come to


XIII, 44 in CCC: ‘Hec miracula patulo produntur indici<o>, cum ad gloriam saluatoris34

predictum iuuenem in ecclesia beati martiris eius obsequiis perpetuo mancipatum uideremus et inmembris eius ferramentorum uestigia conspiceremus’ (‘These miracles are proclaimed by a manifestsign, since we have seen (glory be to the Saviour!) the aforesaid youth in the church of the blessedmartyr, dedicated to his service for life, and we have had sight of the marks of the fetters upon hislimbs’: Passion and Miracles, trans. by Kunin, p. 45).

XVIII. 1–7 in CCC: ‘Breuiter quedam perstrinximus, que pro martire suo dominus operatur35

benefitia, set inter cetera non minimum uidetur, quod iam nunc mentes pulsat fidelium. Sicut enimfidelis cuiuslibet anima corpore constat ex natura prestantior, ita eius mors grauior et curatiopreciosior estimanda. Inimicus etenim humani generis, quod in paradiso egit, hoc cotidie nobiscumagere non desinit. Profectus namque singulorum mentibus molitur euellere et ficta sue promissionisblandimenta inferre. Quod enim deus minatur, leuigat, et ad credendum, quod falso promittit,inuitat; honores pollicetur temporales et supplicia leuigat, que deus minatur eterna. Hac elationispeste primus seductus est parens, qua nunc cotidie posteros sauciat incautos. Hoc usus est iaculo,dum quendam adeo praue suggestionis ueneno infecerat, ut creatoris precepti oblitus spiritumsuperbie sequeretur deceptus’ (‘We have briefly touched upon certain works which the Lord hasperformed for his martyr’s sake, but not the least among the rest is a miracle which still moves thehearts of the faithful. For just as the soul of any believer is superior by nature to the body, so is thedeath of the soul deemed to be more grievous and its salvation more precious. For truly what theEnemy of humankind did in Paradise, he does not desist from doing every day among us. For hestrives to tear out the righteousness from the heart of every person and to insinuate the false charmsof his promises. For he makes light of God’s admonitions and urges belief in what he falselypromises; he offers mere worldly honours, and makes light of the eternal punishments of whichGod warns us. Our first parent was deceived by this bane of pride, through which his unwarydescendants are wounded every day by the Enemy. He made use of this dart when he so corrupteda certain youth by the venom of his wicked temptation that, heedless of the Creator’s command,he was enticed to follow the spirit of pride’: Passion and Miracles, trans. by Kunin, p. 48).

X. 1 in CCC: ‘Accedamus ad illud miraculum, quod in ore omnium uersatur, quod, etsi nar-36

rationi nostre inserimus postremum, quantum tamen ad ordinem rei geste primum fuit omnium,que narrauimus’ (‘Let us proceed to that miracle which is on every tongue, on that, although weintroduce it later in the narrative, was nevertheless the first of all that we relate, as far as the orderof events is concerned’: Passion and Miracles, trans. by Kunin, p. 39).

Olaf’s church in Nidaros. The narrator of miracle no. 18 — about a young man34

from Ytrøy who had been freed from the power of the devil during the processionon Olaf’s day — relates again in the first person plural, this time as a redactorreflecting on his writing. Similar reflections, in this case on the chronology of the35

miracles, occur at the beginning of the Sunday miracle no. 10 in vita; but this36

passage is lacking in the Bordesholm manuscript (N). This is no accident, as willbe shown below.

No further examples of the intervention of an authorial voice, speaking frompersonal, indeed historical experience, can be found in the remaining miracles in


XIX. 1 in CCC: ‘Anno igitur, quo beati martiris Olaui basilica nouo principatus et pallii37

uestitur honore, inter crebras populorum confluentias assunt ex longinquo tres debiles uariaegritudine laborantes’ (‘Now, in the year when the church of the blessed martyr Óláfr was newlyinvested with archiepiscopal honour and the pallium, crowded throngs of people gathered there,among them three invalids who had come from a great distance, suffering from afflictions’: Passionand Miracles, trans. by Kunin, p. 50).

XI. 14 in CCC: ‘Cum autem discedente algore uigor menbris accresceret et resumpto spiritu38

paulatim conualesceret, ad sancti martiris limina propere tendit et rem penes se gestam et mul-torum testimonio approbatam ad laudem dei ex ordine eius loci archiepiscopo et fratribus exposuit’(‘When the coldness passed from his limbs, however, their strength increased, and, having regainedhis sense, he gradually recovered. He went in haste to the holy martyr’s shrine, and to God’s gloryrevealed to the archbishop there and to the clergy in turn what had befallen him, which wasconfirmed by the testimony of many’: Passion and Miracles, trans. by Kunin, p. 41).

For the discussion, see Anne Holtsmark, ‘Sankt Olavs liv og mirakler’, in Festskrift til Francis39

Bull på 50 årsdagen, ed. by Sigmund Skard (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1937), pp. 12–133 (reprinted inHoltsmark, Studier i norrøn digtning (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1956), pp. 15–24); Erik Gunnes, Erke-biskop Øystein, Statsmann og kirkebygger (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1996), pp. 208–09; Ekrem, ‘Om PassioOlavis’; Jon Gunnar Jørgensen, ‘Passio Olavi og Snorre’, in Olavslegenden og den latinske historie-skrivning, ed. by Ekrem and others, pp. 157–69; and Mortensen and Mundal, ‘Erkebispesetet iNidaros’. For an overview of the discussion, see Mortensen, ‘Sanctus Olavus’ (in preparation).

See note 27 above.40

the initial twenty-one accounts of the collection. It is true that the healing miracleno. 19 is dated to the year of the establishment of the archbishopric and situatedin Nidaros, but the narrator does not make any reference to this fact or to thearchbishopric itself. And it is true that miracle no. 11 about the peasant unjustly37

hanged makes mention of the archbishop and the canons of Nidaros, but bothbecome figures of the narration and fulfil no other function in the narrative.38

Therefore, only in miracle no. 13 and no. 18 does the author’s voice speak.

Textual Transmission of the Passio Olavi Reconsidered

What picture is provided by all these observations concerning content, textual vari-ants, readings, and style? The miracles have been divided by scholars into differentseries. The widely held approach is to divide them into four major series — nos39

1–10, 11–21, 22–36, and 37–49 (based of course only on the Fountains manu-script, CCC) — and to consider the long A version as the earlier one. On the basis40

of the analysis of the complex manuscript material, especially of the Helsinki


For the possible phases of the miracle collection, see Table 5 below.41

For the same point of view that a small collection of Latin miracles must have already been42

available in Nidaros before 1153, see Holtsmark, ‘Sankt Olavs liv og mirakler’; Gunnes, ErkebiskopØystein, p. 209; Ekrem, ‘Om Passio Olavis’; and History of Norway, ed. by Phelpstead; andMortensen, ‘Sanctus Olavus’.

Indeed, another possibility cannot be ruled out, namely that miracle no. 50 together with43

the closing phrase was purposefully written down at the end of the collection in CCC and that thiscollection remained incomplete, as I have suggested above; see note 20.

fragment (H), I discern another picture: in my opinion, an early stage of the41

miracle collection is represented by the first nine miracles together with miracle no.50, and the closing phrase ‘finem imponamus’ as worded in Anchin (D) or its latercopy from Bordesholm (N) — which means version B — and the Helsinki frag-ment (H). The following arguments led to this assumption: first, the series ofmiracles nos 1–9 (with or without no. 10) are usually connected with the Old Nor-wegian poem Geisli composed for the festivities at the establishment of the arch-diocese in 1153, where the miracles (except nos 8 and 10) are described in a poeticrephrasing. Second, precisely this group is transmitted in all manuscripts, com-42

pletely or in selection; miracle no. 50 and the closing phrase are missing only inFountains (CCC) and in its descendant from Dresden of Swedish provenance43

(Dr). The terminus ante quem of this first collection is the year 1153.A special branch of the transmission, obviously disseminated not only in Scan-

dinavia but also on the Continent, is represented by the Helsinki fragment (H) andthe Bordesholm manuscript (N). Ahead of miracle no. 50 are placed report nos 10,11, 14, and 15. For this early phase of the collection, it is noticeable that there areno traces of a redaction or of the author’s voice. That is why the Sunday miracle invita (no. 10) remains without commentary within the posthumous miracles, as Isuggested above, and why this passage is lacking in the Bordesholm manuscript(N). The fact that this collection was copied some four centuries later in an iden-tical shape shows that this was not an ad hoc selection, but rather an establishedcollection that certainly represents one of the earliest phases of the miracle collec-tion from the second half of the twelfth century. Due to the reference to thearchbishop and the canons of Nidaros in miracle no. 11, the year 1153 must be theterminus post quem of this special branch of the first miracle collection.

This first collection was then enlarged as represented in the Anchin manuscript.Among the new miracles added were the two that connect the text with the arch-bishopric of Nidaros (no. 19 alongside miracle no. 11, which already seems to havebelonged to a special branch of the first collection) as well as the two that contain


The current state of research on the Old Norwegian Homily Book will be presented in the44

forthcoming collective volume Vår eldste bok, ed. by Einar Haugen. For the same topic, see anarticle by Michael Gullick and Åslaug Ommundsen in Scriptorium (in preparation, title notspecified yet).

For this and all other vernacular texts about St Olaf, see Mortensen and Mundal,45

‘Erkebispesetet i Nidaros’, pp. 373–80.

For the miracle selection in O, see note 32 above.46

Or the absence of one of them: in the Passio Olavi from the Old Norwegian Homily Book47

only miracle no. 50 is missing, but the phrase ‘finem imponamus’ still closes the collection.

reflections of the redactor and the intentional reworking of the text (nos 13 and18 and the commentary at the beginning of no. 10). Miracle no. 50 remains in itsoriginal place but is removed from the closing phrase, perhaps because of the corre-lation of the content of miracle nos 9 and 50: in both of them the recipient of themiracle was a British man — in no. 9 a sacerdos anglicus saved from his unjustpunishment, and in no. 50 a miles britannicus saved from his just punishment. Butthe reason for the separation of miracle no. 50 from the closing phrase might bejust a formal one: to preserve the first miracle collection in its original order.

It is no accident that the Old Norwegian Homily Book from approximately 120044

transmits the same collection — still with the closing phrase ‘finem imponamus’ butalready without miracle no. 50 and, moreover, adding the initial phrase ‘opere pre-cium’ and a few passages characteristic of version A to some miracles — all connectedwith the longer version of the passio-part. Exactly this shape of the text seems to be45

the connecting link between the collection represented by Anchin (D) and that rep-resented by Fountains (CCC). The former contains miracle no. 50 and the closingphrase, while the latter lacks these two elements but preserves the initial phrase.

Another similar transitional stage is represented by the Yorkshire manuscriptfrom the thirteenth century (O), which is close to the Helsinki (H) branch; it also46

adds the initial phrase and the commentary at the beginning of miracle no. 10, butstill preserves miracle no. 50 with the closing phrase.

Hence, at the end of the twelfth century the initial phrase was added and themiracles were slightly reworked. The resultant changes — namely the shorter orlonger additions — resemble, to a certain extent, the reworking method of thepassio-part of version A. Perhaps in connection with a further enlargement, theconfiguration of miracle no. 50 with the closing phrase seems to disappear from thetextual transmission of the Passio Olavi. However, the appearance of these selfsameelements in the later Yorkshire manuscript from the thirteenth century (O) andtheir singular absence from the Nidaros tradition suggest that they were either47


For the vernacular Passio Olavi in the Old Norwegian Homily Book and its presumed Latin48

original as well as the Latin Passio Olavi in the manuscript from Fountains (CCC) associated withArchbishop Eystein, see Passio et miracula, ed. by Metcalfe, pp. 1–5 and 49–55. Studies of the onlyextant manuscript of the Old Norwegian Homily Book suggest that it may have been produced inBergen or possibly had a connection with Augustinian houses south of Bergen. Since ArchbishopEystein was the great promoter of the Augustinian order in Norway, in an ideological and indirectsense the Old Norwegian Homily Book can also be connected to his influence and, in this way, toNidaros. However, the vernacular Passio Olavi itself as a translation from Latin (see the unpub-lished master’s thesis by Lena Dåvøy, ‘Den latinske og den norrøne Olavslegenden: Tekstversjonerog oversettelsespraksis’ (Institutt for klassisk, russisk og religionsvitenskap, Bergen, 2002)) seemsto be clearly linked to Nidaros. I owe this information as well as the reference to the publicationson the Old Norwegian Homily Book (see note 44 above) to Åslaug Ommundsen (Bergen) and LarsBoje Mortensen (Odense).

The reason for the disappearance of miracle no. 50 with the closing phrase could simply have49

been the alleged incomplete miracle collection (see note 20 above) represented through the Foun-tains manuscript (CCC), but this thesis requires a more exact analysis of the relationship betweenCCC and the Passio Olavi in the Old Norwegian Homily Book or its possible Latin pattern.

A redactor specifies the value of Olaf’s misdoing with a mention of the ‘great diligence’ with50

which his feast days were celebrated in Norway: M. X. 3 ‘Obseruant enim in Noruegia cum magnadiligentia festos dies, nec ullus aliquid operis magni uel parui facere presumit’ (‘For they observeholy days with great strictness in Norway, nor does anyone venture to do any work then, great orsmall’: Passion and Miracles, trans. by Kunin, pp. 39–40). He adds some words about the traditionand the magnitude of the miracle: X. 8–9 ‘Innouatum est ergo illud miraculum, quod olim apudBabilonem in tribus pueris celebratum est. Ad consumendas uirgule particulas ignis uim naturalemhabuit, nec omnino ledere ualuit innocentis regis manum’ (‘Thus was repeated the miracle of thethree boys that was once acclaimed in Babylon. The fire had its natural power to consume the bitsof stick, yet it was not at all able to harm the hand of the blameless king’: Passion and Miracles,trans. by Kunin, p. 40).

As in miracle report nos 26, 29, 30, 34, 37–39, 41–45, 47, and 49.51

sacrificed during the process of enlargement, or — conceivably — were con-48

sidered problematic on other grounds, such as their content.49

In the last phase of the transmission of the miracle collection, represented bythe Fountains manuscript (CCC), the collection was further enlarged by twenty-eight miracles. Some of the old miracles received new additions, for examplemiracle no. 10 again. In the new miracles an authenticating voice is often present;50

it is a ‘we’ (for the pluralis maiestatis or for a group of authors) who receives votivegifts on behalf of the Church or who has heard a particular story from a personmentioned in the narrative itself. The presence of formulae such as dilectissimi51

fratres (most beloved brothers) and caritati vestre (to your charity) suggest that thetarget audience of the narratives was part of the cathedral milieu; equally, these


For example, at the often quoted beginning of miracle no. 37 Eystein speaks about his con-52

scious linking to an older tradition: ‘Perlectis his, que de uita et miraculis beati Olaui nobisantiquitas commendauit, congruum estimamus a nobis quoque, qui eius presentialiter nouis passimillustramur miraculis, que ipsi uidimus aut ueratium uirorum testimoniis uirtuose ad eius gloriamadeo facta probauimus, futuris generationibus memoranda litteris assignari’ (‘Having read all thoseaccounts which antiquity has entrusted to us concerning the life and miracles of the blessed Óláfr,we deem it fitting that we, who have been personally enlightened by his widespread miracles in ourown day, should also commit to the attention of future generations, in writing, those things whichhave been performed by miraculous powers, to his greater glory, as we have seen for ourselves orhave learnt from the testimony of truthful men’: Passion and Miracles, trans. by Kunin, p. 61). Inthe following, he relates his own experience with the traumaturgic virtues of Olaf: XXXVII. 4 ‘Egoitaque Augustinus per uoluntatem dei in ecclesia beati martiris Olaui episcopalem ad tempussollicitudinem gerens’ (‘And thus I, Eysteinn, was at one time carrying out my Episcopal duties, byGod’s will, in the church of the blessed martyr’: Passion and Miracles, trans. by Kunin, p. 62).

The previous branches of the collection make references to Ireland (3), Constantinople (4),53

Denmark (5), Novgorod (15, 20) alongside Telemark (16), Ytrøy (18), and Stiklestad (21) as wellas an English priest (9), a young Danish man (13), and a Swedish woman (19). CCC adds peasantsfrom Nordmøre (26), Sogna (34), and from Lexa in Fosen (45), the son of a rich man from Angarin Orkdal (28), children from an area south of Dovrefjeld (29), a man by the name of Þorias fromRendal in Østerdal (38), a young man from Uttorge in Helgeland (39), fishermen from Lofoten(?)(43), two men from Estonia (42), two from Chartres (25), and two from Spain (31). Furthermore,a miracle in Ringsaker happened to a Danish man from Lund (41), and another miracle occurredin Iceland (24).

E.g. the last miracle, no. 49, bears testimony about a hospital for pilgrims in Nidaros54

(hospitalis eiusdem ecclesie) in the time of writing down this text.

phrases may point to the identity of the author. Moreover, in miracle no. 37(known as Tractatus Augustini) Archbishop Eystein himself speaks, both as therecipient of a miracle and as the redactor of the collection. The enrichment of the52

dossier’s content is particularly noteworthy: the geographical spectrum of themiracles and the origin of their recipients were enriched, especially by the inclusionof new regions of Norway. Also, the information about Olaf’s cult in Nidaros53

increased, including details about specific liturgical contexts (like a concrete litur-gical feast or commemoration), processions, pilgrimage, and so on. The Fountains54

manuscript bears witness to a special Nidaros tradition of the cult of St Olaf. It was— and this pertains also to Eystein’s achievements in, for example, liturgy andarchitecture — a representative version aimed at propagating not only the saint butalso the archbishopric of Nidaros and, ultimately, Norway at home and abroad.

The Fountains manuscript (CCC) as a witness to this last phase of the trans-mission is unique. A comparison with the other manuscripts clearly suggests that


Fountains does not transmit the representative form of the Passio Olavi as it wasdisseminated throughout Europe during the Middle Ages; the miracles clearlyrecorded in Nidaros are transmitted only in this manuscript. The Helsinki frag-ment (H) and the Anchin manuscript (D) are much more representative.

In interpreting the development of the miracle collection in terms of a processof enlargement, of rounding off, and of elaboration — but, significantly, also as aprocess of consciously reflected redaction — I discern a parallel between theoriginal, short form of the miracle collection and the short, original shape of thepassio-part. Where and when this latter was composed must await further investi-gation. I do not wish to rule out the possibility of a European import. Accordingto this hypothesis, the long version of the passio-part might have been the work ofthe group around Eystein and, thus, the official version of the archbishopric ofNidaros, which would become the blueprint for the new office composed in Nida-ros at the end of the twelfth century.

Naturally, all this remains in the realm of hypothesis and requires furtherexamination beyond the purely textual analysis of the Passio Olavi — for example,in connection with the cultural context of the manuscripts, with liturgical practicesand sources, with Olaf’s veneration in Continental Europe, with Anglo-Saxonhagiography, with the travels of the Norsemen, and more. Nevertheless, severalimportant conclusions have clearly emerged from the preceding survey. First, therewas not only one Passio Olavi, but each still existing manuscript transmits a uniqueresult of the combination of a passio-part with a miracle collection conditioned bythe use of the text. Therefore, to speak about the Passio Olavi as a Norwegianproduct made in the entourage of Archbishop Eystein is, as far as we can now see,true only of the manuscript from Fountains. Second, the transmission history ofthis text is more complex than previously believed and, even though marked outby considerable variance, it does indeed demonstrate certain fixed features thatshould not be ignored. Finally, not only the manuscripts from Fountains (CCC)and Anchin (D) but also the Helsinki fragment (H) and other extant manuscriptsmust be analysed for an adequate interpretation of the hagiographical dossier of StOlaf and its cultural significance.


Passio et miracula, ed. by Metcalfe.1

Malin, Zur Überlieferung, pp. 12–14.2

The text was edited by the Bollandists in Acta Sanctorum, July, 29 (Antwerp, 1731), pp.3

113–16.

The manuscript was known to the Bollandists: Acta Sanctorum, July, 29, p. 89C. ‘Acta Santi4

Mss. habemus duplicia: altera ex Bodecensis coenobii, Ordinis regularium S. Augustini, dioecesisPaderbornernsis […] Altera ex Ms. Ultraiectino sancti Salvatoris. Haec in iis, quae ad vitam Sanctiet martyrium pertinent, consuta sunt fabulis, et istorum temporum ac locorum historiis adver-santur: quam ob causam eatenus ommitenda censuimus.’ Indeed, they did not edit the text of thePassio Olavi but only recapitulated its content and occasionally quoted some wordings. Thesewordings correlate (apart from a few variants) with the other manuscript (Be ) as well as with the1

printed books of version C, so that it becomes sure that this lost text of the Passio Olavi belonged

Table 3. The list of the manuscripts of the Passio Olavi.

version A (= long passio-part, incipit Regnante illustrissimo rege)

CCC Oxford, Corpus Christi College, M S 209, fols 57 –90 , s. xii (last quarter),r r

Fountains Abbey (OCist)/Yorkshire, England, ed. Metcalfe 1881.1

H Helsinki, Universitetsbiblioteket, Fragmenta membranea iii, 61, s. xii ex.,

Scandinavia (Sweden?), partial ed. (of only one miracle) Malin 1929.2

O Oxford, Bodleian Library, M S Rawlinson C 440, fols 187 –194 ; s. xiii; OCistv r

Yorkshire/England, unedited.

Dr Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, M S A 182, pp. 172–77; c. 1400; ‘Liber

Laurentii Odonis’, Sweden, unedited.

B* Böddeken, Codex monasteriensis 20 (Catal. 214. I), fols 206–12; s. xiii; Böddeken

(CanA), diocese Paderborn/Germany — lost.3

version B (= short passio-part, incipit Gloriosus rex Olavus)

D Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, M S 295, fols 94 –108 ; s. xii (last quarter), Anchinr r

(OSB)/Northern France, unedited.

N Heiligenkreuz-Neukloster, M S xii.D.21, fols 1 –6 ; 1500–12; Bordesholmr r

(CanA)/Holstein, Northern Germany, unedited.

version C (incipit Gloriosus martir Olavus)

Be Berlin, Staatsbibliothek – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, M S Theol. lat. fol. 706, fols1

168 –169 , approx. 1460, Cologne, Hermann Greven/Germany, unedited.r v

U* Utrecht, Codex Ultraiecensis, s. xiv ex. — lost.4

version D (incipit In Nederos munitissimo castro)

K Copenhagen, Ny kgl. Samling 40, M S 123, fols 201 –205 ; 1460–65; Ribe, Petrusr v

Mathie, partial ed. Storm 1885.5

Be Berlin, Staatsbibliothek – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, M S Magdeb. 138, fols2

194 –196 , s. xv, Magdeburg/Germany, unedited.va vb


to version C. The Bollandists dated the manuscript of Utrecht to the fourteenth century, but a

later or earlier date of origin cannot be ruled out.

Storm, Om en Olavslegende fra Ribe.5

Table 4. The structure of the text: distinct features.

MS passio-part (Incipit) miracles collection

initial phrase closing phrase

D Gloriosus rex Olavus – 1–9, 50, 10–21 finemimponamus

N Gloriosus rex Olavus – 1–11, 14, 15, 50 finemimponamus

H Regnante illustrissimo rege(P. vi fragm.; P. vii–P. xmissing)

? (1–10), (–)11, 14, 15, 50(M. 1 – M. 11 fragm.missing)

finemimponamus

O Regnante illustrissimo rege Opere preciumest

1, 2, 3(–), (–)9, 10, 11,12, 50 (M. 3 fragm. –M. 9 fragm. missing)

finemimponamus

CCC Regnante illustrissimo rege Opere preciumest

1–49 –

Dr Regnante illustrissimo rege Opere preciumest

1–6 –

B* Regnante illustrissimo rege – 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 19, 20, 3, 5 –

Table 5. Development of the miracle collection: possible phases.

· an early phase of the miracles collection (worded like D, N, H):1–9, 50, finem imponamus

· a special branch (worded like H, N):1–9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 50, finem imponamus

– without traces of the redactor andthe intentional reworking of the text

· a collection enlarged (worded like D):1–9, 50, 10–21, finem imponamus

– with traces of the redactor and theintentional reworking of the text

· transitional stage (Old Norwegian Homily Book):opere precium est, 1–21, finem imponamus


· another transitional stage (O):opere precium est, 1–9, 10, 11, 12, 50, finemimponamus


· a new enlargement of the collection (worded like CCC):opere precium est, 1–49 (M. 50 + finem imponamuslost — consciously left out or text unfinished?)


For the dating of manuscripts, I rely throughout on the datings provided in Ordbog over det1

norrøne prosasprog: Indices (Copenhagen: Den arnamagnæanske kommission, 1989).

A convincing case for interference from translations of Old English texts can be made as well.2

See Christopher Abram, ‘Anglo-Saxon Influence on the Old Norwegian Homily Book’, MediaevalScandinavia, 14 (2004), 1–35.

1226 is the date provided by the colophon to Tristrams saga, a translation and reworking of3

Thomas d’Angleterre’s Tristan. The earliest manuscript preserving this new kind of literature datesfrom c. 1270.

THE ATTRACTION OF THE EARLIEST

OLD NORSE VERNACULAR HAGIOGRAPHY

Jonas Wellendorf

This chapter intends first to give a brief sketch of the hagiography from theearliest phase of Old Norse vernacular literature according to the evidenceprovided by preserved manuscripts of that period. Secondly, it will specu-

late on one possible explanation for the apparent attraction to Old Norse readersof a particular kind of hagiography, namely the lives of the martyrs of the earlyChurch.

The earliest phase of Old Norse vernacular literature is defined here as the firsthundred years of preserved vernacular literature; that is, the period from roughly1150 to 1250. This was a period during which translations from Latin dominated,1

in particular translations of hagiographic narratives and sermons. Towards the end2

of the period a new kind of vernacular literature appeared on the scene, namely theromances translated from French and Anglo-Norman from 1226 and onwards,which caused something of a literary revolution. The first hundred years of the3

preserved manuscript tradition thus make up quite a coherent and homogeneouscorpus, while at the same time providing sufficient material for generalizations.

Jonas Wellendorf242

Such as Jónas Kristjánsson, Eddas and Sagas, trans. by Peter Foote (1988; repr. Reykjavík: Hið4

íslenzka bókmennntafélag, 2007); or Bjarne Fidjestøl, ‘Norrøn felleslitteratur’, in Norsk litteraturi tusen år, ed. by Bjarne Fidjestøl and others (Oslo: Capellen, 1994), pp. 31–129. More represen-tative are Hans Bekker-Nielsen and others, Norrøn fortællekunst (Copenhagen: Akademisk forlag,1965); and Guðrún Nordal and others, Íslensk bókmenntasaga (Reykjavík: Mál og menning,1992–2006).

Thomas J. Heffernan, ‘The Liturgy and Literature of Saints’ Lives’, in The Liturgy of the5

Medieval Church, ed. by Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo: Medieval InstitutePublications, 2001), pp. 73–105 (p. 77).

If one takes a glance at general overviews of Old Norse literature, it is evidentthat they emphasize the genres that consist of locally conceived works in thevernacular (such as the sagas of kings, the sagas of Icelanders, and eddic and skaldicpoetry), at the expense of the works that had a much wider circulation in theMiddle Ages. This unevenness in the coverage of the material is mainly caused by4

the fact that our culture for some centuries has valued originality at the expense oftraditionality and preferred historical accuracy to ethical truths. This considered,it is no wonder that texts such as the translated lives of international saints havebeen shown relatively little interest. Contrary to, for example, the most famoussagas of the Icelanders, the lives of saints normally stress the universal and para-digmatic traits of the saint rather than the unique and distinctive, and the storyline often emphasizes ‘the ethical message of historical events […] at the expense ofthe literal’. While the sagas of the Icelanders might be the unique contribution to5

world literature that clearly demarcates Old Norse-Icelandic literature from otherliterary traditions in the Middle Ages, and indeed other periods as well, the lives ofsaints connect the very same literature with the rest of Western Europe.

Saints’ Lives and Old Norse Literature

Saints’ lives were possibly the most popular narrative written genre in the MiddleAges. The texts we value the most are often preserved in few medieval manuscriptsonly (or sometimes only in post-medieval manuscripts), whereas the lives of saintsare typically preserved in many manuscripts. Thus no less than seventeen manu-scripts containing vernacular versions of the life of St Nicholas are preserved, andmany of these manuscripts even contain the long version, of which the printededition runs to almost 110 pages. With particular reference to this longer version,Finnur Jónsson wrote in his shorter literary history: ‘the longer they [the saint’s

ATTRACTION OF THE EARLIEST OLD NORSE VERNACULAR HAGIOGRAPHY 243

Finnur Jónsson, Den islandske litteraturs historie; tilligemed den oldnorske (Copenhagen:6

G.E.C. Gad, 1907), p. 404: ‘Jo længere de er, desto mere uudholdelige er de at læse.’

See Margaret Cormack, ‘Christian Biography’, in A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Litera-7

ture and Culture, ed. by Rory McTurk (Malden: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 27–42 (p. 29). Cormackquotes an unpublished lecture by the Icelandic manuscript specialist Stefán Karlsson.

Gabriel Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953),8

p. 142.

‘Honum var kostr á boðinn, hvat til gamans skyldi hafa, so�gur eða dans, um kveldit. Hann9

spurði hverjar so�gur í vali væri. Honum var sagt, at til væri saga Tómass erkibiskups, ok kaus hannhana, því at hann elskaði hann framar en aðra helga menn. Var þá lesin sagan ok allt þar til, er unnit

lives] are, the more unbearable they are to read’. The medieval Icelanders and Nor-6

wegians obviously thought otherwise, and the number of medieval manuscriptscontaining hagiographic literature is supposed to outnumber those containingsagas of Icelanders and contemporary sagas.7

This translated literature has chiefly been regarded as important because it waswritten before the more famous sagas of kings or sagas of Icelanders, and it is thusin a chronological sense primary to the texts that are most held in the highest esteem.The germ of Old Norse literature, so it has been thought, must somehow be soughtin this literature. More than half a century ago it was famously formulated by Tur-ville-Petre that ‘the learned literature did not teach the Icelanders what to say, butit taught them how to say it’. But it is worthwhile to emphasize that these texts are8

not only important as antecedents of the golden age saga literature. They shouldalso be important to us because they were important to the people who wrote,copied, read, and listened to them. Still more importantly, hagiography and relatedkinds of literature were the favourite reading material of the Old Norse readers,and what was being read might be equally as important as what was being written.

The popularity of the hagiographic literature is nicely illustrated in a passagefrom Þorgils saga skarða, one of the so-called Sturlunga sagas that describe eventsof the more recent past. The action takes place at the Hrafnagil farm in NorthernIceland in 1257 on 21 January. The main character, Þorgils, comes on horsebackto the farm, where he is well received:

Þorgils was asked to choose what kind of entertainment they should have in the evening,saga reading or dance. He asked which sagas were available. He was told that they had thesaga of Thomas the archbishop, and he chose that one because he loved him more thanother saints. Then the saga was read all the way to the point where the archbishop wasattacked in the church and the crown was chopped off him. People say that Þorgils stoppedat this point and said: ‘This would be a most beautiful death.’ Shortly thereafter he fellasleep.9

Jonas Wellendorf244

var á erkibiskupi í kirkjunni ok ho�ggvin af honum krúnan. Segja menn, at Þorgils hætti þá ok mælti:‘Þat myndi vera allfagr dauði’. Litlu síðar sofnaði hann’: Þorgils saga skarða, in Sturlunga saga, ed.by Jón Jóhannesson and others (Reykjavík: Sturlunguútgáfan, 1946), pp. 104–226 (p. 218). Theorthography of all Old Norse quotations has been normalized according to common practice.

The expression by Walter Ong is quoted by Hans Rudolf Velten, ‘Performativität: Ältere10

deutsche Literatur’, in Germanistik als Kulturwissenschaft: Eine Einführung in neue Theoriekonzepte,ed. by Claudia Benthien and Hans Rudolf Velten (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschen-buch), pp. 217–42 (p. 224).

This description is not to be taken as a historical account of what happenedthat winter evening of 1257, for the whole passage anticipates Þorgils’s own death,which takes place a few pages later in a manner corresponding to that of St Thomasof Canterbury. The anonymous saga author even takes care to spell out the paral-lels between the two historical scenes. But even if this passage is mainly to be seenas a literary device of prefiguration, it is not unreasonable to suppose that therewere people at the time of this saga being written who had saints’ lives as theirpreferred reading matter.

Saints’ lives and other ecclesiastical texts make up the bulk of the earliest pre-served vernacular literature, but at the same time it is important to keep in mindthat this corpus does not reveal much about the very beginnings, either of vernac-ular literature in the North or of the cult of saints. In the period from which ourfirst manuscripts are preserved, Christianity is already firmly rooted in the North,the archbishopric of Nidaros has just been established, and the liturgical practicesare well on their way to receiving a stable form with the ordinal of the archdiocese.It must accordingly be assumed that saints’ lives in Latin and the abbreviations ofsuch lives used for the lections during the night office had been in circulation fora long time already. This means that the translations represent a second traceablewave in the dissemination of the saints’ lives in the North. The first wave consistsof texts in Latin that were both imported and produced locally for liturgical pur-poses and as reading matter. The second wave thus represents the translation ofsome of these texts — the most appealing it must be assumed — into the vernacu-lar. Latin texts on the saints have unfortunately only been preserved as fragmentsused for bindings in post-Reformation accounting books. Moreover, they have notyet been sufficiently catalogued, let alone described or edited. Accordingly, it isvirtually impossible to get an overview of the preserved material unless one haspermanent access to the collections.

In the last decades it has become increasingly clear that ‘literary history nolonger is entirely literary’, as it has been formulated. Questions have been posed10


Philip Roughton, ‘Stylistics and Sources of the Postula sögur in AM 645 40 and AM11

652/630 40’, Gripla, 16 (2005), 7–49, uses the presence or absence of such homiletic sections todistinguish between different groups of lives of the apostles.

‘Nú skulum vér allir biðja várn herra’: Agnete Loth, ‘Et gammelnorsk apostelsagafragment:12

AM 237 b, fol.’, in Afmælisrit Jóns Helgasonar: 31. júní 1969, ed. by Jakob Benediktsson and others(Reykjavík: Heimskringla, 1969), pp. 219–34 (p. 223).

concerning the performative aspects of the text, their modes of reception, and themediality, to mention some. In this connection such questions will be all butignored. No definitive information is available about the nature of audiences orabout the modes of interpretation they applied to the texts — caution is thereforerequired. For example, the idea that vernacular texts were made for the laity whomight not have been able to understand the texts in their original Latin form seemstoo simplistic. In the period of the emergence of Old Norse vernacular literature,Western Europe was witnessing a literary revolution that saw the rise of the vernac-ular language, in some areas for the first time. This was the case with the Old Norseand Old French literature, while the vernacular rose again as a popular medium ofliterature in the English- and German-speaking areas after a period of hibernation.When placed in this larger context, it becomes apparent that an explanation of theevolution of Old Norse literature needs to take other factors into account thansimply the presumed (and perhaps exaggerated) inability of the people of Norwayand Iceland to understand Latin.

The quotation from Þorgils saga skarða above shows that it was not utterlyincredible that the life or saga of Thomas Becket could have been the favouritereading of a non-clerical Icelander and that texts were read aloud. Some of thevernacular versions of lives of saints begin with phrases suggesting they were readaloud on the feast days of the saint in whose honour they were composed. At leastthirteen vernacular saints’ lives have homiletic introductions along the lines of‘Today we celebrate the mass-day of the apostle Bartholomew in the memory ofetc.’. This introduction points to an occasion where the text is being read aloud infront of an audience. However, such homiletic introductions are not found in theearly period with which we are concerned. This might be coincidental, but in somecases it can be convincingly argued that homiletic introductions were added toexisting vernacular texts at a later point in their history of transmission. At the11

same time, homiletic and hortative endings along the lines of ‘now let us all prayto our Lord’ are found occasionally in the early period, for instance, in a Norwegianfragment of the saga of Bartholomew. Thus it is not unlikely that one of the uses12

of a vernacular life was for it to be read aloud during the feast of a saint; perhaps,

Jonas Wellendorf246

‘Mensis fratrum lectio deesse non debet […]. Et summum fiat silentium, ut nullius musitatio13

vel vox nisi solius legentis ibi audiatur […]. Fratres autem non per ordinem legant aut canent, sedqui aedificant audientes’: Regula monachorum sancti Benedicti, Benedikts Regel, ed. and trans. byBrian Møller Jensen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1998), p. 166.

In the Marian miracles, Mary naturally comes to the rescue of the main characters (who are14

male).

but not necessarily, in a church. Another possible occasion and location would beduring meals in monasteries, since the Rule of Benedict, as is well known, pre-scribed reading during meals. The Rule makes no mention of the language in13

which the reading is to be executed, and it might as well have been in the vernacularas in Latin. The use of the vernacular for monastic readings at a refectory becomesall the more likely considering that one of the oldest Old Norse fragments is indeeda fragment of a vernacular translation of the Rule of Benedict. But still, besidesthese hints, the consumption of texts is in the main largely a matter of conjecture.

The Corpus of Vernacular Hagiography

An examination of the early preserved material reveals that saints’ lives and homi-letic literature make up the largest share. If we consider the hagiographical textsonly, they can be further subdivided into the following groups according to theirmain protagonist:• two local saints (Olaf and Þorlákr);• eight apostles and other biblical characters (Andrew, Bartholomew, Jacob, John

the Baptist, Matthew, Paul, Peter, and Stephen the protomartyr);• six early martyrs (Blaise, Clement, Erasmus, Eustace, Silvester, and Vincent);• one doctor (Basil);• three confessors (Brendan, Martin, and Nicholas);• three Marian miracles (Theophilus, Jew lends to Christian, and Romaldus).

Two aspects of this list are particularly conspicuous. Firstly, it does not containlives of female saints, while many vernacular lives of female saints, virgins in par-14

ticular, are preserved from later periods. Secondly, with the exception of the twolocal saints, there are no recent saints on the list. Brendan is usually believed to havelived in the sixth century, and the text about him, which is now quite fragmentary,was in all likelihood not a saint’s life but the Navigatio Brendani, a text that mightbe better thought of as an allegorical story. Besides Brendan and the two local saints,all the other saints are supposed to have lived either in the first or fourth century.


See the index of saints in Lilli Gjerløw, Ordo Nidrosiensis ecclesiae (Orðubók) (Oslo:15

Universitetsforlaget, 1968).

I have used the handy table found in Audun Dybdahl, Helgener i tiden, vol. I: Vitnesbyrd om16

helgenkult i Trøndelag; vol. II: To utenlandske kalendarier brukt i Trøndelag, Senter for middelalder-studier, Skrifter 10 (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 1999), p. 16.

The Icelandic material is surveyed by Margaret Cormack, The Saints in Iceland: Their Vene-17

ration from the Conversion to 1400, Subsidia hagiographica, 78 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes,1994). The Norwegian material is covered in an older survey by Lorentz Dietrichson, ‘Sammen-lignende Fortegnelse over Norges Kirkebygninger i Middelalderen og Nutiden’, Tidsskrift for denevangeliske lutherske Kirke, 3rd ser., 2 (1888), 1–51, 273–319, and 465–512.

This tendency must reflect a preference among the translators, their patrons,or audiences for this kind of saint’s life. A comparison with the ordinal of thearchdiocese makes it apparent that a much wider range of saints were to be cele-brated in the liturgy, such as Agatha, Agnes, Alban, Anthony of Egypt, Augustineof Canterbury, and Augustine of Hippo — just to mention those saints who arenot male martyrs and whose names begin with an A. The Norwegian Christian15

laws also have a section on Christian feast days, and they are usually regarded asreflecting a period before the introduction of the ordinal. In the law of Frostathing,the northern law district of Norway, thirty-two feast days are listed; in addition tobiblical characters and local saints, the feasts of the following saints are listed: Greg-ory, Botulph, Swithun, Margaret, Lawrence, Martin, and Clement. This list is16

also much more varied in the choice of saints, but it is slightly closer to the corpusof translated lives. Another source that can be used to determine the popularity ofa particular saint in this period is church dedications, but they do not show thesame preferences for early Christian male martyrs as do the vernacular lives.17

By comparing the selection of saints in the vernacular hagiography with theselections of the ordinal, the laws, and the church dedications, it is clear that thepreserved translations are not representative of the saints who were generally vene-rated in the archdiocese. Instead, there is a clear bias in favour of fourth-centurymartyrs and biblical characters, who were of course all martyrs as well. This raisesthe question of why these lives in particular were chosen. What did they have thatapparently appealed so much to the Old Norse translators or their commissionersthat the life of a confessor like Anthony or a virgin like Agatha lacked?

It might initially be tempting to think of the blood and gore and the tormentsof the martyrs during their passions as something that would appeal to an audienceof Vikings accustomed to plundering and raping. But at this point in time theViking Age was a thing of the past, and the term víkingr itself had almost becomea term of abuse. The descriptions of the passions can be quite blood dripping, as in

Jonas Wellendorf248

‘En guðs vátr var síðan ho� ggvinn með tveim sveinum fyr utan borgveggi Sebastie’: Blasius18

saga, ed. by C. R. Unger, in Heilagra manna søgur, 2 vols (Christiania: B. M. Bentzen, 1877), I,256–71 (p. 271).

‘En Jósías var algerr í trú domini nostri Jesu Christi ok þegar ho�ggvinn með Jakobo postola19

ok gerðisk saðr píningarvátr Guðs ok fóru þeir baðir á einni stundu til domini’: Jakobs saga, ed. byLudvig Larsson, in Isländske handskriften N 645 4° i den arnamagnæanska samlingen (Lund:o

Malmström & Kompis boktryckeri, 1885), pp. 90–99 (p. 99).

Exceptions are St Martin and St Olaf.20

the life of St Vincent, which is basically nothing more than a long enumeration anddescription of the various torments he suffers; but understatement seems to bemore common, and many texts show restraint when it comes to the description ofthe actual torments. Often they would simply state that the martyr was beheadedoutside the city walls, as in the following example from Blasius saga: ‘Later themartyr of God was beheaded together with two boys outside the city walls ofSebastia.’ In another example from Jakobs saga, just before Jacob is beheaded he18

baptizes one of his persecutors, Josias: ‘And Josias was complete in his faith in ourLord Jesus Christ and was beheaded at once together with the apostle Jacob, andhe became a true martyr of God, and together they travelled to the Lord.’19

If blood and gore are not the main attractions of the translated saints’ lives,what are then? A common feature of many of these texts is the public confronta-tion of the saint with those in power. The protagonist usually brings about thedestruction of pagan temples and idols, either by prayer or through newly con-verted pagans, but he rarely resorts to direct violent action against the idols andtemples. This destruction usually angers the pagan priests — or blótbiskupar,20

‘sacrificial bishops’, as they are often termed in Old Norse — and they approachthe local ruler and persuade him to arrest the saint. This persuasion is oftenfacilitated by the considerable sum of money the sacrificial bishops have collected inadvance. Alternatively, the local ruler might himself be angered by the actions of thesaint and no bribe is necessary. The arrest is followed by an interrogation where thesaint sometimes gives a lengthy exposé of the Christian doctrine and the falseness ofthe pagan belief. The scene invariably ends with the martyrdom of the saint.

This is an easily recognizable sequence of events that can be presented withvarying degrees of elegance and skill by the authors, and the schematic nature of thenarrative must have contributed to the popularity of these texts. But this cannotbe the decisive factor, since the lives of virgins are equally schematic, and they donot seem to have enjoyed comparable popularity. I would argue that it is thesesections dealing with pagan gods and idols and their destruction that caught theinterest of translators and later copyists in particular, since this is a feature that is


The texts without such confrontations are the lives of Basil, Brendan, Þorlákr, and the21

Marian miracles.

Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis, Subsidia hagiographica, 6 and 7022

(Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1898–1901 and 1986).

shared by most of the texts on the list. Sometimes it is even clear that these21

sections are considerably elaborated upon in the Old Norse tradition. This can beseen by a comparison with the known Latin texts about the same saints. Even if theprecise Latin exemplars of the Old Norse translations are not available for a com-parison, some conjectures can be made about the elaborations and innovations thatwere probably introduced in the texts during their transmission in the Old Norsecontext, and not while they circulated in Latin. The best example of this is foundin the Old Norse life of St Clement.

Clemens saga

Clement was one of the first popes and one of the saints whose popularity in theNorth is well attested from an early period onwards. Thirteenth-century traditionhas it that St Olaf (d. 1030) himself founded the Church of Clement in Nidaros.In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, lives of the saint circulated widely as did theaccount of his travels with Peter known under the name Itinerarium Petri but inmodern scholarship usually referred to as the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones. Inthis fascinating text the narrator, who introduces himself with the words EgoClemens (I Clement), tells of his travels with the apostle Peter and gives lengthyexcerpts of Peter’s teachings. These are spiced up with a story in the style of Byzan-tine romances about how Clement’s family was separated and endured hardships,but finally after many years recognize each other in Peter’s large following. Thereunification that follows is reinforced by their now common belief in the God ofPeter’s preaching. The story of the separation and reunification of the family is nottold in chronological order in the Recognitiones but rather through a complexsequence of flashbacks in the seventh and ninth book of the work, which is madeup of ten books in total. A Passio Clementis (BHL 1848) circulated in addition to— and sometimes in conjunction with — the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones.22

This text related how Clement was taken prisoner, accused of blasphemy againstthe Roman gods, exiled to Asia Minor, and finally martyred.

There is good evidence from the earliest phase of the Old Norse-Icelandicliterary history that the Clementine material was popular in the archdiocese.

Jonas Wellendorf250

Oslo, Riksarkivet, Lat. fragm. 714, dated to 1150–1200 in Michael Gullick’s preliminary23

hand-list. The fragments are unpublished and I would like to thank Åslaug Ommundsen forproviding me with photographs. A slightly later fragment containing the beginning of the samelegend is Oslo, Riksarkivet, Lat. fragm. 23.

Dietrich Hofmann, Die Legende von Sankt Clemens in den skandinavischen Ländern im24

Mittelalter, Beiträge zur Skandinavistik, 13 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1997). An Englishtranslation of the text and a discussion of its sources can be found in Helen Carron, Clemens Saga:The Life of St Clement of Rome (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2005).

John the Deacon is perhaps more famous for his life of Pope Gregory the Great (BHL 3641).25

Hofmann’s argumentation is based on the (misguided) preconception that hagiographers26

would not change the chain of events in an account of a saint’s life; see Hofmann, Die Legende vonSankt Clemens, pp. 79–80. But the entire Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, which lists thenumerous versions of saints’ lives, is an argument against this preconception. With this in mind onemay sketch a different development of the life of Clement in Old Norse.

Fragments of his legend are preserved in Latin. The text clearly derives from BHL23

1848, but has been heavily edited, mainly by the excision of text, and divided intolections so it is suitable for reading during the celebration of the night office on thefeast of Clement (23 November). Whether the text of the passio was transformedfor liturgical purposes in Norway or Iceland or somewhere else is at the presentstage uncertain. From what is preserved of the text, it appears to be in tune with themainstream of the Latin tradition.

Turning to the vernacular life or saga of Clement, Clemens saga, the situationis very different. Because of the work’s length and epical breadth, it is immediatelyclear that the Old Norse version is not translated from the liturgical fragment.Clemens saga is a text that is not only entertaining but also interesting from atextual and philological viewpoint. Thirteen years ago it was the subject of amonograph by Dietrich Hofmann, in which great emphasis was put on tracing thesources of the saga.24

The first part of the saga must somehow be derived from the Pseudo-Clementinewritings, and covers the life of Clement from his childhood, via his travels withPeter, to his election as pope. But the material has been completely rearranged andnow appears in ordo naturalis, rather than the ordo artificialis as in the Recogni-tiones. Hofmann finds a model for this approach in a life of Clement initiated byJohn the Deacon and completed by the bishop of Gaudericus of Velletri between25

876 and 882 (BHL 1851) and argues that the Old Norse author, compiler, ortranslator knew this text. The differences between BHL 1851 and Clemens sagaare, however, substantial, and Hofmann accounts for these differences by suggest-ing that the material about Clement also circulated orally in the North.26


Hofmann, Die Legende von Sankt Clemens, p. 114.27

The following passage has been discussed a number of times in the context of Clemens saga.28

Here I will mention Hofmann, Die Legende von Sankt Clemens, pp. 120–27; and Mattias Tveitane,‘Interpretatio norroena: Norrøne og antikke gudenavne i Clemens saga’, in The Sixth InternationalSaga Conference 28. 7.–2. 8. 1985 (Copenhagen: Det arnamagnæanske institut, 1985), pp. 1067–82.

Passio sancti Clementis, ed. by Franciscus Diekamp, in Patres apostolici, vol. II (Tübingen:29

Henricus Laupp, 1913), pp. 51–81 (p. 69).

The identification of the source for the passion section is on the other handrelatively straightforward, since this section obviously is based on the most wide-spread passion of Clement (BHL 1848), the same passion that was used in theliturgical fragments. A complicating factor is that the Old Norse version of thepassion is also preserved in another manuscript fragment (The Arnamagnæan Col-lection, 655 xxviiia 4°, c. 1250–1300). Hofmann edited this fragment for the firsttime in his monograph of 1997. It only covers events found in the Passio Clementisand not the Recognitiones material, and Hofmann argued that it never containedthe complete life. Below I refer to this version as A, while the complete Clemens27

saga is referred to as B.The two differing versions become important because they show how a text was

gradually acculturated through the stages of its transmission in the Old Norsevernacular. A good example of this approach in Clemens saga can be found in thepassage where Clement has converted a great crowd to Christianity. This, as onemight expect, enrages an official, so he pays the powerful men of the region topersecute the Christians. This leads to civil unrest in Rome, and people discussClement and his actions. The pro-Clement wing refers to all the miracles per-formed by Clement, but the crowd that is against him accuses him of wizardry andmore importantly blasphemy. In the Latin version of the passion they say:28

16. 2. Iovem dicit deum non esse, Herculem conservatorem nostrum dicit esse immundumspiritum, Venerem deam sanctam meretricem esse commemorat, Vestam quoque deammagnam ignibus crematam esse blasphemat. 16. 3. Sic sanctam deam Minervam et Dianamet Mercurium simul et Saturnum et Martem accusat.29

[He says that Jupiter is not a god; he says our protector Hercules is an unclean spirit, hecalls the sacred goddess Venus a whore, and Vesta, a great goddess as well, he blasphemesas consumed by fires. Thus he accuses the holy goddess Minerva and Diana and in like wiseMercury and Saturn and Mars.]

Old Norse translators did not follow the same principles of equivalency thatmodern translators do, and even though Clemens saga is far from a word-for-wordtranslation, the way in which these two sentences are translated shows that the

Jonas Wellendorf252

Hofmann, Die Legende von Sankt Clemens, p. 280.30

Simonetta Battista, ‘Interpretations of the Roman Pantheon in the Old Norse Hagio-31

graphical Sagas’, in Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society, ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross, VikingCollection, 14 (Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press, 2003), pp. 175–97 (p. 193).

material must have appealed to the translator in such a way that he felt inspired toelaborate on the passage in a quite striking way. The passage parallel to the Latinjust quoted runs thus in version A:

Segir hann, at Þórr sé eigi guð, ok kallar Óðin óhrein anda ok segir Freyju portkonu hafaverit. Følir hann Frey. Hrøpir hann Heimdall. Lastar hann Loka. Hatar hann Høni. Bo� lvarhann Baldri. Tefr hann Tý. Níðir hann Njo� rð. Illan segir hann Ull. Flimtir hann Frigg.Geyr hann Gefjun. Sekja dømir hann Sif.30

[He says that Þórr is not a god and calls Óðinn an unclean spirit and says that Freyja wasa whore. He derides Freyr. He speaks ill of Heimdall. He blames Loki. He hates Hønir. Hecurses Baldr. He hinders Týr. He derides Njo� rðr. He calls Ullr evil. He ridicules Frigg. Hescoffs at Gefjun. He outlaws Sif.]

Several features should be of interest here. Firstly, the use of the so-calledinterpretatio norrœna is conspicuous, whereby the names of Roman deities arereplaced by names of local Norse deities. This is a quite well-known phenomenonin Old Norse, and in a wider context the same trend is found in the Germanicnames of the days of the week. The correspondences between the Old Norse andthe Roman pantheon are unstable and the Old Norse god Óðinn, who at somepoint in time gave his name to Wednesday, might be used as the equivalent to theRoman god Mercury, as in dies Mercurii, but also to Mars, Jupiter, Hercules, andSaturn. This variance gives us the impression that the identification of gods in the31

respective pantheons was a somewhat ad hoc phenomenon and that no fixedcorrespondences were at hand.

Another noteworthy detail is that the vernacular list is quite expanded incomparison to the Latin one. Whereas nine deities are mentioned in the Latin text,no fewer than fourteen are mentioned in the Old Norse vernacular version. But themost interesting aspect of the list is that it is organized by and tied together withalliterations. Since alliteration is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic oftraditional Germanic poetry, these three features taken together make it quitecertain that the additions found in the Old Norse text are additions that are madein a Germanic language, and presumably in Old Norse, rather than elements takenover from a now lost Latin source. The natural conclusion to draw is that the Latinpassage somehow appealed to the Old Norse translator, or a later redactor/scribe,and inspired him to elaborate on the list.


Martinus saga I, ed. by C. R. Unger, in Heilagra manna søgur, I, 554–74 (p. 569).32

Sulpicius Severus, Gallus: Dialogues sur les ‘vertus’ de Saint Martin, ed. by Jacques Fontaine33

and Nicole Dupré, Sources chrétiennes, 510 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2006), p. 278.

A similar but later example can be found in Fídesar saga, Spear ok Karítasar, ed. by C. R.34

Unger, Heilagra manna søgur, I, 369–76 (p. 370), where the emperor Adrianus accuses the threesisters as follows: ‘Þér […] hafit illyrðt Óðin en lastat Þór ok Baldr, en skammat Frigg ok Freyju okGefjun í orðum, ok lastat o� ll goð vár, ok segit þau ónýt, ok eyðit allri vegsemð þeira’ (You havespoken evil about Óðinn, and criticized Þórr and Baldr, and disgraced Frigg and Freyja verbally andcriticized all our gods and you call them useless and ruined all their honour). The earliest manu-script of the saga is from c. 1350–75. Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog: Indices, indicates that theLatin text closest to the Old Norse is BHL 2971, Hystorie plurimorum sanctorum noviter et labo-riose ex diversis libris in unum collecte (Cologne, 1483). This version has not been available to me.

In comparison with the rest of the text, which is not generally characterized bya heavy-handed use of alliteration, amplification, and elaboration, this section be-comes highly conspicuous. But Clemens saga is not the only text where sectionselaborating on the pagan gods can be found. In another early hagiographic saga,Martinus saga I (The Arnamagnæan Collection, 645 4°, c. 1225–50), a comparablemethod of amplification has been applied, although the alliteration is omitted: ‘Þórkallaði hann heimskan, en Óðin deigan, en Freyjo portkonu’ (He [Martin] called32

Þórr stupid and Óðinn cowardly and Freyja a whore). Establishing which Latintext might have been the exemplar of a particular Old Norse text is always difficult,but for Chapter 36 of Martinus saga I the Latin exemplar seems to have been theDialogii of Sulpicius Severus (BHL 1561). The relevant sentence of the dialoguesreads thus in the Latin version: ‘Mercurium maxime patiebatur infestum, Iouembrutum atque hebetem esse dicebat’ (He suffered Mercury who was extremely hos-33

tile, and said that Jupiter was stupid and languid). Again, the Old Norse text isaugmented in relation to the Latin with the introduction of an extra deity. In Mar-tinus saga I the extension is more modest, but the technique applied is similar.34

Apparently the appeal of the passage blaspheming the heathen gods did not endwith this, and in the other Old Norse manuscript with material relating toClement the passage is elaborated further. This version, B, is preserved in an oldermanuscript than A and is thus chronologically speaking closer to the Latin text.Textually speaking it is, however, more distant from the Latin, and the transmis-sion of the Old Norse passion thus exemplifies the quite typical situation where alater codex is not worse than an earlier one. B elaborates A, not only in this instancebut in many other instances as well. In the following example, the additions havebeen italicized, and they are clearly of a different nature than those in A:

Jonas Wellendorf254

Clemens saga, ed. by Ludvig Larsson, in Isländska handskriften N 645 4°, pp. 33–74 (pp.o35

66–67).

The prose Edda, our main repository of Old Norse myths, even says about Þórr that he is36

the strongest of all gods and humans (‘hann er sterkastr allra guðanna ok manna’); Snorri Sturluson,Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning, ed. by Anthony Faulkes (London: Viking Society for NorthernResearch, 1988), p. 22.

Jan de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, vol. II: Die Götter – Vorstellungen über den37

Kosmos – Der Untergang des Heidentums, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 12, 2nd edn(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1957), pp. 353–54.

Hann segir at Þórr sé non guð, fulltrúi várr ok inn sterksti áss, áræðisfullr ok er nær, hvar semhann er blótinn. En þá ósømð ok óvirðing veitir hann Óðni órlausnafullum ok hvarfsemi, atsjá Clemens kallar hann fjánda ok óhreinan anda. En hann kveðr Freyju portkonu verit hafa.Følir hann Frey, en hrøpir Heimdall. Lastar hann Loka með sløgð sína ok vélar ok kallarhann ok illan. Hatar hann Høni. Bo� lvar hann Baldri. Tefr hann Tý. Níðir hann Njo� rð.Illan segir hann Ull. Flimtir hann Frigg. En hann geyr Gefjun. Sekja dømir hann Sif.35

[He says that Þórr is not a god, our patron (fulltrúi) and the strongest God (áss), enterprisingand present wherever people sacrifice to him. But that unseemliness and disgrace he attributesto the helpful Óðinn in whom we seek refuge, so that this Clemens calls him a fiend and anunclean spirit. He says that Freyja was a whore. He derides Freyr. He speaks ill of Heimdall.He blames Loki with his wiliness and machinations and calls him evil as well. He hatesHønir. He curses Baldr. He hinders Týr. He derides Njo� rðr. He calls Ullr evil. He ridiculesFrigg. He scoffs at Gefjun. He outlaws Sif.]

Clearly the scribe/redactor has elaborated upon the text, not by mentioningmore gods but by assigning further characteristics to the gods already mentioned.In the fiction of the text it is the pagans who speak in this way about their owngods. Many of the qualities they assign to their pagan gods are, however, designa-tions, qualities, and characteristics that we usually find used in a Christian contextby Christians to designate the saints in particular, but also Christ or the Lord. ThatÞórr is the strongest god (áss) would have been common knowledge at the timewhen the text was written; excessive strength is, after all, one of Þórr’s main charac-teristics. But it is more surprising that he is also ‘the one in whom they put their36

trust’ (fulltrúi). De Vries, discussing this term in his Altgermanische Religions-geschichte, argues that the concept of the fulltrúi is a genuine heathen one and givessome examples of the usage of the term in the saga literature. The most relevant37

is perhaps from the saga of Eiríkr the Red, where a certain Þórhallr veiðimaðr, inorder to put an end to the starvation that tries the members of the Vínland expe-dition, performs a pagan ritual in honour of Þórr and states that Þórr, his fulltrúi,rarely has failed him. But De Vries’s arguments in favour of a genuine heathen


Eiríks saga rauða: Texti Skálholtsbókar AM 557 40, ed. by Ólafur Halldorsson, Íslenzk38

fornrít, 4 viðauki (Reykjavík: Hið íslenska fornritafélag, 1985), pp. 422–26.

Mariu saga: Legender om Jomfru Maria og hendes Jertegn, ed. by C. R. Unger (Christiania:39

Brögger & Christie, 1871), p. 70. Further examples can be found in Hofmann, Die Legende vonSankt Clemens, p. 123.

In the Icelandic Homily Book the word fulltrúi appears twice and the meaning seems to be40

‘help’ or ‘support’ but in a more metaphorical sense. The source of this homily is unknownaccording to Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen, The Icelandic Homily Book: Perg. 15 4° in the RoyalLibrary, Stockholm, Íslensk handrit, series in quarto, 3 (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar,1993). The term fulltrui appears twice on fol. 53 , at lines 24–25.r

Theodore M. Andersson, ‘Lore and Literature in a Scandinavian Conversion Episode’, in41

Idee, Gestalt, Geschichte: Festschrift Klaus von See: Studien zur europäischen Kulturtradition, ed. byGerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense: Odense University Press, 1988), pp. 261–84 (p. 278). Afterhaving outlined the background, Andersson turns his attention to the aspects of the episode thatturn it into ‘a good story’.

origin of the term becomes less convincing when the example is read in the contextof the saga in which it belongs. Rather than being a description of a heathen prac-tice, it seems to be an episode that is staged by an author with an ecclesiastic bent,and the food Þórhallr manages to procure by his magical practices turns out to bepoisonous. Thus the famine is not over before the crew members decide to toss thefood into the sea and put their faith in God. A more enlightening use of the same38

term is found in an Old Norse version of the Marian miracle tale known as Lighton Masthead, in which an abbess is asked who her fulltrúi is, and she answers‘Mary’. The preferable translation must therefore be ‘patron’, a term which39

evokes the Christian cult of saints rather than the Old Norse cultic practices.40

Further on, Þórr is said to be present wherever people sacrifice to him. Critiqueof this belief in the presence of the pagan gods in their temples is one of therepeated points of criticism in the antipagan polemics. In such texts, the pagansbelieve that their gods are identical with the idols. The missionary can then showhow the idols are powerless and susceptible to all kinds of physical attacks. Exam-ples of this are legion, but the most developed Old Norse example is found in theDala-Guðbrandr episode of the Legendary Saga of St Olaf, which is preserved in amanuscript dated between 1225 and 1250 (Uppsala, De la Gardie Collection, 8).This episode with its biblical and patristic subtexts has been analysed in detail byTheodore M. Andersson, and his conclusion is that ‘there is little or nothing in theaccount of Dala-Guðbrandr that cannot be located in the biblical, patristic, andhagiographic traditions’. When the pagans themselves describe Þórr as present41

wherever people sacrifice to him, they thus live up to the expectations any medieval

Jonas Wellendorf256

‘Ok eigi þar at eins es hann hvílir at líkam, nema ok horvetna þess es á hans nafn es kallat, sem42

menn verða staddir heimsins í háska eða í sóttum eða í hveregi m[e]insemi þegar es hann biðiamiskunnnar með réttu hugskóti þá fá huggun sinna meina. […] síðan es hann varð biskup gerðisksvá mikill máttr at krapti hans at menn fingu líkn meina sinna þá es þeir ko� lluðu á hann þótt þeirværi á o�ðrum lo�ndum eða mjo�k í fjáska ok sýndisk hann þeim es á hann hétu, stundum vo�kundumen stundum so� fundum ok vas hann þó heima at stóli sínum sem áðr’: Arnamagnænische Fragmente(Cod. AM. 655 40 III–VIII, 238 fol. II, 921 40 IV 1. 2.): Ein Supplement zu den Heilagra mannasögur, ed. by Gustav Morgenstern (Leipzig: Emil Gräfes Buchhandlung, 1893), pp. 6–7.

See Ole Widding, ‘Kilderne til den norrøne Nikolaus saga’ and ‘AM 655 4°, fragment III: Et43

brudstykke af Nicolaus saga’, Opuscula, 2 (1961), 17–26 and 27–33.

reader and listener of a hagiographic text would have of them, since this kind ofdescription of paganism had been a longstanding hagiographical commonplace.

The presence of the pagan gods at their shrines is also of interest when com-pared with the saints, since they are indeed present wherever they are venerated aswell — either in a direct physical sense, since a church might have had relics of thatparticular saint, but also in a less direct sense since their attention is directedtowards anyone who justly calls upon them, even if they lived under distant skiesand no relics were nearby. This distance, in particular when dealing with the saintsof the biblical period or of the early Church, seems to have been a source of con-cern to the Christians of medieval Norway and Iceland, distant as they were fromthe Mediterranean. Perhaps it was this uneasiness that compelled the scribe/authorof an old Icelandic fragment (The Arnamagnæan Collection, 655 4° iii, c. 1200) ofthe life of St Nicholas to add the following lines in the conclusion of a vernacularrendering of a version of the life, translation, and miracles of Nicholas:

And not only where his body rests, but also wherever he is invoked, when people areexposed to the dangers of the world, are sick or in distress in this world or in all kinds oftroubles, as soon as they ask him of mercy with the right disposition, they are comfortedin their troubles. […] since he was made bishop his power became so great that people werealleviated from their troubles when they called upon him, even though they were in othercountries or at great distances, and he showed himself to those who invoked him, some-times while they were awake and sometimes while they were sleeping, and yet he was athome at his episcopal see at the same time.42

This section, which appears to be an addition in the Old Norse text, under-43

lines that the powers of the saints are omnipresent and that help depends on thedisposition of the one who asks for help and not necessarily on the physicalpresence of the saint. Shortly hereafter the manuscript breaks off in the middle ofa sentence, but in later manuscripts from which the ending can be supplied the


‘fyrir heðan Grikklandshaf, bæði um Langbarðaland ok fyrir norðan fjall; frakkar ok saxar,44

valir og englar, danir ok norðmenn, ok allir kristnir dýrka hann sem postula […]. Hans frægð erfarin um allan heim, ok nær í hverja óbygd, eyjar ok andnes ok afdali er komit nafn virðuligs herraheilags Nicholai’: Bergr Sókkason, Nikolás saga, ed. by C. R. Unger, in Heilagra manna søgur, II,49–158 (p. 158).

Hofmann argues that the designations are taken over from a Latin vita of Clemens. This vita45

is only partly preserved in a single Italian manuscript (BHL 1851), and the relevant section is lost.Hofmann’s argument for the use of this vita is quite complicated and rests on the (false)assumption that one would not change the text of saints’ lives because of the high status the genreenjoyed.

Ernst Walter, Lexikalisches Lehngut im Altwestnordischen: Untersuchungen zum Lehngut im46

ethisch-moralischen Wortschatz der frühen lateinisch-altwestnordischen Übersetzungsliteratur (Berlin:Akademie, 1976), pp. 130–31.

author argues that even though Nicholas lived and worked in Greece, he is not onlyvenerated there but also,

on this side of the Aegean Sea, both throughout Lombardy, and north of the Alps, Franksand Saxons, Welshmen and Englishmen, Danes and Norwegians, and all Christians vene-rate him as apostle […]. His fame extends over the whole world, and the name of thehonourable lord, the holy Nicholas, has made it to almost every desolate area, islands andpromontories and remote valleys.44

The saints are thus present wherever they are venerated, just like the pagan gods,but their presence is of a different nature, and they require the right spiritualdisposition rather than sacrifices.

Another interesting addition to the list in Clemens saga is the designations usedto characterize Óðinn. The pagans describe him as ‘full of forgiveness/help’(órlausnafullr) and as one in whom you can seek refuge (hvarfsemi). These twodesignations occur only here in Old Norse, but the ideas that lie behind the termsare of the same kind used in connection with the cult of saints or the ChristianGod. The lausn of órlausnarfullr is often used to translate Latin redemptio45

‘redemption’ or remissio ‘forgiveness’, and lausnari is ‘the saviour’, while hvarfsemi46

recalls Latin words like adjutorium ‘help’, solatium ‘comfort’, and refugium ‘refuge’without being an exact translation of any of them. These are all terms that aremuch more closely connected to the Christian faith than with Nordic paganism.This is at least the impression we get from the available sources.

In order to describe pagan practices from the point of view of the pagans them-selves, the Old Norse author thus uses two strategies: 1) he has recourse to thecommonplaces about the pagan belief in idols from biblical and patristic writers,and 2) he adopts a Christian framework relating to the cult of saints to describe the

Jonas Wellendorf258

cult of the pagan gods. The fact that the author does not apply a more appropriateterminology, whatever that might have been, clearly indicates the kind of knowl-edge people in general would have had about the pre-Christian religious systems.Already at this early stage in the development of the Old Norse literature, less thantwo hundred years after the conversion, the conceptual framework and vocabularyneeded to describe pre-Christian practices seem to be lacking. The author’s onlyoption (maybe even without being aware of it himself) was to use a Christian frame-work. He and his audience knew the names of the old gods and a wealth of myths,as is amply evidenced by the Old Norse mythological texts, but when it came torites, rituals, and religious practices and beliefs more generally, in particular whatthe gods were actually good for in the interactions between men and gods, theirknowledge seems to have been more or less as restricted as the one we possess today.

Conclusion

One of the appeals of these early hagiographic texts must have been the returningscenes where the pagan gods and their idols are overthrown or destroyed by theheroes of these narratives. This would strengthen the believers in their faith, butalready at this early stage in medieval Norway and Iceland it was the exoticism of thedescriptions of the pagan religion that was one of the most appealing aspects of theoldest preserved vernacular hagiography. Besides myths and names of deities, theyknew so very little about pre-Christian rites and rituals, but they could find para-digmatic descriptions of the pagan cult in the hagiographic literature and of coursein the Bible itself, in particular in the book of Daniel and the letter of Jeremiah.Armed with this knowledge of what paganism ‘really’ was, they went on to elaboratethe texts describing pre-Christian cults or compose texts themselves. These descrip-tions, such as the one from Clemens saga, might rest not on a genuine knowledgeof the pagan cultic practices, but on a combination of patristic commonplaces andwell-established Christian paradigms borrowed from the cult of saints.

This attraction of the pagan past does not seem to have evaporated ordiminished with the passing of centuries. Still today, the descriptions of the pre-Christian period are one of the main appeals of the Old Norse literature, and thepagan period still fascinates. Unlike medieval people, however, most readers of suchtexts do not find the biblical paradigms adequate for the description and under-standing of paganism. Whether our terminology and today’s conceptual frame-works are more adequate remains to be seen.

THE FORMATION OF THE CULT OF BORIS AND GLEB

AND THE PROBLEM OF EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

Marina Paramonova

The study of the cult of Boris and Gleb has long since become a top priorityfor Russian medieval studies, partly due to the peculiarities of relatedhagiographic sources. The cult became the earliest case of an officially

established veneration of native Russian saints and generated an extensive literarytradition. Most prominent Russian philologists, textual critics, and historians havebeen engaged in disputes on the origins of texts that belong to the Boris and Glebcycle. Yet for a long time the problem of the cult’s origin used to be reduced toquestions of origin, age, and authorship of individual texts. It is only during recentdecades that the cult came to be viewed as a complex phenomenon that developedwithin a system of various and intricate factors, including the Christian practiceof the veneration of saints, pre-Christian (or non-Christian) beliefs and practices,interaction between the ecclesiastical and secular communities, and a wider contextof European dynastic and royal cults.

The specific historical context in which the cult of the two princely saintsemerged in Kievan Rus’ also raises the question of possible external influences inthis process. Early Rus’ maintained multiple and active relations with neighbouringregions of Latin Europe, where the cults of holy rulers and dynastic saints hadbecome a significant factor in religious and political life. Although some speculationsand suggestions have been made that the early development of the cult of Boris andGleb was connected with contemporary pan-European processes of cultural andpolitical communication, it is mainly the idea of a Bohemian influence — namelyfrom the cult of St Wenceslas — that has received wide recognition starting fromthe nineteenth century. According to this concept, the hagiographic corpus ofBoris and Gleb borrowed some literary and conceptual models from the Bohemiantradition of representing the saintly ruler Wenceslas. This idea, however, is

Marina Paramonova260

On the historiographic context about the canonization of Boris and Gleb, see Ludolf Müller,1

‘Neuere Forschungen über das Leben und die kultische Verehrung der heiligen Boris und Gleb’,in Slawistische Studien zum V. Internationalen Slawistenkongress in Sofia 1963, Opera Slavica, 4(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), pp. 295–317; Andrzej Poppe, ‘La Naissance duculte de Boris et Gleb’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 24 (1981), 29–53; Poppe, ‘Losers on Earth,Winners from Heaven: The Assassinations of Boris and Gleb in the Making of Eleventh-CenturyRus’’, Questiones Medii Aevi Novae, 8 (2003), 133–68, reprinted in Poppe, Christian Russia in theMaking (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), no. VII; and Gail Lenhoff, The Martyred Princes Boris andGleb: A Socio-cultural Study of the Cult and the Texts, UCLA Slavic Studies, 19 (Columbus: SlavicPublishers, 1989), pp. 14–17, 32–34.

For these interpretations, Georgij Fedotov’s concept formulated in 1931 was the point of2

departure. Georgij Fedotov, Svjatye drevnej Rusi (X–XVII st.) (Paris: YMCA Press, 1931). Hisassertion that the model of Christian sanctity represented by Boris and Gleb is essentially ‘Russian’,distinct from the standard concept of sanctity and martyrdom and paradigmatic for all subsequentRussian hagiographical and religious traditions, has been repeated, elaborated, and partly changedin recent interpretations. On the concept of ‘willing sacrifice’, see Viktor Toporov, ‘Ideia sviatostiv Drevnej Rusi: Vol’naia zhertva kak podrazhanije Khristu’, in Sviatost’ i sviatye v Russkoj dukhovnojkul’ture, vol. I: Pervyj vek khristianstva na Rusi (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskikh kultur, 1995), pp.413–508. On the paradigmatic importance of Boris and Gleb for Russian sainthood, see BorisUspenskij, Boris i Gleb: Vosprijatije istorii v Drevnej Rusi (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskoj kultury,2000). On Christian semantics and Byzantine and liturgical motifs, see F. von Lilienfeld, ‘Dieältesten russischen Heiligenlegenden: Studien zu den Anfängen der russischen Hagiographie undihr Verhältnis zum byzantinischen Beispiel’, in Aus der byzantinischen Arbeit der DeutschenDemokratischen Republik, ed. by Johannes Irmscher, 2 vols (Berlin: Akademie, 1957), I, 237–71;Dietrich Freydank, ‘Die Ermordung Glebs: Variationen eines hagiographischen Themas’, in Eikonund Logos: Beiträge zur Erforschung byzantinischer Kulturtraditionen, ed. by H. Goltz (Halle: HaUeWittenberg, 1981), pp. 75–86; Ludolf Müller, ‘Znachenije Biblii dlia khristianstva na Rusi (otkreshchenija do 1240 goda)’, in Ponjat Rossiju: istoriko-kulturnyje issledovanija (Moscow: Progress-Tradicija, 2000), pp. 218–22. On parallels with and differences from the hagiography of St

primarily based on general assumptions concerning cultural exchanges in theregion of the so-called Old Church Slavonic literary tradition and emphasis on thespecific nature of Czech-Russian literary connections in the eleventh century.

The Rise of the Cult: Kinship and Sanctity in Interaction

The recent state of research can be described, on the one hand, as a competitionbetween different reconstructions of ‘the real history’ of the cult’s promotion andestablishment, and on the other hand as a certain stability of interpretations pro-1

vided by the conceptual and semantic model of sanctity generated by the Boris andGleb hagiographic corpus.2

THE FORMATION OF THE CULT OF BORIS AND GLEB 261

Wenceslas and Northern Europe, see Norman W. Ingham, ‘The Martyred Prince and the Ques-tion of Slavic Cultural Continuity in the Early Middle Ages’, in Medieval Russian Culture, ed. byHenrik Birnbaum and Michael Flier (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 31–53;Boris N. Florja, ‘Václavská legenda a Borisovsko-Glebovský cult: Shody a rozdíly’, Èeskoslovenskýèasopis historický, 26 (1978), 82–96; and Andrej M. Ranchin, ‘Kniaz’ – strastoterpec – sviatoj:semanticheskij arkhetip zhitija kniazej Vjacheslava i Borisa i Gleba i nekotoryie slavianskie izapadnoievropejskie paralleli’, in Vertograd zlatoslavny: Drevnerusskaia knizhnost’ v interpre-tatsijakh, razborakh i kommentarijakh (Moscow: Novoie literaturnoie obozrenije, 2007), pp.98–112 and 344–68. For references to Fedotov’s interpretation by scholars looking for somethingother than strictly Christian and religious foundations of the cult, see Michael Cherniavsky, Tsarand People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961); Stephen Maczko,‘Boris and Gleb: Saintly Princes or Princely Saints?’, Russian History, 11 (1975), 68–80; andFranklin Sciacca, ‘In Imitation of Christ: Boris and Gleb and the Ritual Consecration of theRussian Land’, Slavic Review, 49 (1990), 253–60.

The story about the murder and the posthumous religious veneration of the saints is repre-3

sented with great similarity and partial distinctions in the three earliest and most important com-positions of the literary cycle about the saints. These are two lives (the anonymous Narration aboutthe murder of the saints combined with the narration about miracles and the Reading by Nestor)and the Primary Chronicle’s accounts for the years 1015, 1072, and 1115. The order of eventsdescribed below is the same in all the narratives on Boris and Gleb, as is their interpretation. TheBoris and Gleb texts were published several times. For a critical overview of recent publications andprevious editions, see Natalia Pak, ‘O novom izdanii pamiatnikov Boriso-Glebskogo tsiklasravnitel’no s predydushchimi’, Ruthenica, 6 (2007), 397–441. In this article references are made toD. I. Abramovich, Zhitija sviatykh muchenikov Borisa i Gleba i sluzhby im (Petrograd: TipografijaImperatorskoj Akademii Nauk, 1916); and PSRL, I: Lavrent’evskaja letopis’, 2nd edn (Leningrad:Izdanie postojannoj arkheograficheskoj komissii Akademii Nauk, 1926–27); and II: Ipat’evskajaletopis’ (St Petersburg: Izdanie postojannoj arkheograficheskoj komissii Akademii Nauk, 1908).

The dispute about the veracity of Boris and Gleb’s story affects all aspects ofhistorical research on the cult. To begin with, there are doubts about the verydescription of the circumstances under which Boris and Gleb were killed. Thehagiographical legend states that after Prince Vladimir’s death on 15 July 1015,3

his son Sviatopolk, who was in Kiev at the time, decided to assume power and killall his brothers. Sviatopolk’s first victims were his two younger brothers, Boris andGleb, who were murdered in the same year but in different places and under differ-ent circumstances. According to tradition, neither of them intended to struggleagainst their elder brother; indeed, they were ready to resign themselves and evendie so as not to participate in a fratricidal war. Thereafter a prolonged strife beganbetween Sviatopolk and one of the surviving brothers, Jaroslav, which ended withthe latter’s victory in 1019: he occupied the Kievan throne and subsequentlyextended his power over all Russian lands (1036–54). Sviatopolk was remembered


Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 9, 32, and 47; and PSRL, I, cols 132 and 135. On the typological and4

conceptual importance of the account about Cain and Abel for the hagiography of Boris and Gleb,see Uspenskij, Boris i Gleb, pp. 33–37.

Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 44–46; and PSRL, I, cols 141 and 144–46. On the blood revenge5

motif in the Narration, Paremia readings, and relevant accounts in the Primary Chronicle, seeLenhoff, Martyred Princes, pp. 35–36 and 87–91.

N. N. Il’in, Letopisnaja stat’a 6523 goda i iejo istochniki (Moscow: Nauka, 1957); A. M.6

Chlenov, ‘Zur Frage der Schuld an der Ermordung des Fürsten Boris’, Jahrbücher für GeschichteOsteuropas, 19 (1971), 322–46; and Andrzej Poppe, ‘Der Kampf um die Kiever Thronfolge nachdem 15 July 1015’, in Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte: Beiträge zur 7. InternationalenKonferenz zur Geschichte des Kiever und der Moskauer Reiches (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1995), pp.275–96.

PSRL, I, col. 137; and Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 14 and 48.7

Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 17–19 and 54–55.8

in history as a personification of Cain, an outcast sinner doomed to exile, who dieda shameful and painful death somewhere in a wasteland. Jaroslav, by contrast, was4

presented as an embodiment of divine revenge, a powerful and pious ruler.5

This story has been understood and interpreted by researchers with varyingdegrees of scepticism. No one believes in the motivations alleged by the legend;some scholars suggest that Russian authors simply perverted the course of events,for there is a later Old Norse narrative, Eymundar þáttr Hringssonar, that pointsat Jaroslav as the murderer of Boris. Should this be the case, the early Russian6

tradition would appear to be an outright and deliberate distorting of reality ratherthan just an idealized interpretation of it.

Furthermore, numerous versions of the cult’s formation exist, relying ondifferent interpretations of the involved texts (including the problems of theirdating and textual interrelationship) and actual historical events. Thus, accordingto the version embedded in hagiographical texts, after a victory over SviatopolkJaroslav ordered Gleb’s remains to be transferred from the site of the murder toVyshgorod — one of the grand prince’s residences near Kiev — and had themburied there near those of Boris, which had been buried there by Sviatopolk him-self. A series of miracles ensued, persuading Jaroslav and the Kievan metropolitan7

to transfer the remains of both brothers to a church especially constructed for anddevoted to them. On the same occasion, a liturgical feast of saints was establishedin their honour. Later, in 1072, three of Jaroslav’s sons participated in the cere-8

mony of transferring Boris and Gleb’s relics to the recently erected church. Thiswas followed by a series of initiatives on the part of the second and third genera-tions of the Jaroslavichi, such as the renovation of the tombs and the construction


Slightly diverging accounts of the ceremonies of 1072 and 1115 are found in Boris and Gleb’s9

lives and in the chronicles. For an analysis of the sources and historiographic references, see Poppe,‘La Naissance’, pp. 38–51; and Poppe, ‘Losers on Earth’, pp. 162–68.

In addition to the two long lives and accounts in chronicles, this period was marked by the10

creation of two (or maybe even three) services devoted to the saints, their brief lives (prologreadings), so-called historical paremia readings, and a sermon written on the occasion of the trans-lation of the saints’ relics. The best investigation of the manuscripts and textual history of the Borisand Gleb narrations is Sergej Bugoslavskij, Tekstologija Drevnej Rusi, vol. II: Drevnerusskie litere-turnyie proizvedenija o Borise i Glebe (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskikh kultur, 2007).

This discussion partly replaced and partly continued the previous debates about the history11

of the texts.

For a discussion of ‘rules’, formal procedures, and the reliability of the narrative accounts, see12

Poppe, ‘Losers on Earth’, pp. 136–38 and 154–57; Ludolf Müller, ‘Zur Frage nach dem Zeitpunktder Kanonisierung der Heiligen Boris und Gleb’, in The Legacy of Saints Cyril and Methodius toKiev and Moscow: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Millennium of the Conversion ofRus’ to Christianity. Thessaloniki 26–28, November 1988, ed. by Anthony-Emil N. Tachiaos(Thessaloniki: Hellenic Association for Slavic Studies, 1992), pp. 321–39; Lenhoff, MartyredPrinces, pp. 43–46; A. V. Nazarenko and others, ‘Boris i Gleb’, in Pravoslavnaja entsiklopedija, VI

(Moscow: Pravoslavnaja entsiklopedija, 2003), pp. 47–49; A. N. Uzhankov, ‘Svjatyie strastoterpcyBoris i Gleb: K istorii kanonizacii i napisanija zhitij’, Drevniaia Rus’: Voprosy Medievistiki, 2 (2000),28–50; and 3 (2001), 37–49.

of a new church to host the saints’ relics. In 1115, the remains of Boris and Glebwere transferred — for the third time — to this newly built church. Finally,9

during the twelfth century, the cult spread throughout the Russian lands. As to thecomposition of the principal texts of the Boris and Gleb cycle — or, at least, theversions that survived in the subsequent literary tradition — it falls within theinterval between the 1070s and the middle of the twelfth century.10

From the 1960s onwards, the focus of scholarly discussion has turned to theproblem of the official establishment of the princely cult. On the one hand,11

researchers have interpreted references regarding the solemn rituals initiated by thethree generations of the Jaroslavichi based on the ideal model of canonization andthe hierarchically built ideal scheme of a three-stage development of a would-besaint’s cult from local veneration to local and then national canonizations. On12

the other hand, there has been an obvious urge to explain the chronological gapbetween the hagiographically attested establishment of the feast by Jaroslav andMetropolitan John (this event is not dated, but it certainly falls within the intervalbetween 1020 and 1040) and the bulk of the evidence on the ecclesiastical andsocial veneration of the saints that dates back to not earlier than the last decadesof the eleventh century.


As the date of the event is based on assumptions and hypotheses, the purported date varies13

from 1020 to the 1050s; see A. V. Nazarenko, ‘Kievskij mitropolit Ioann I’, Drevniaia Rus’: VoprosyMedievistiki, 3 (2007), 76–77.

That the description of ‘Jaroslav’s act’ reproduces quite precisely and truthfully a formal14

canonization ceremony was a point stated by Ludolf Müller, who engages in polemics with AndrzejPoppe. Indeed, his argument shows a clear understanding of the fact that doubts about the sources’reliability and interpretation arise mainly out of aprioristic viewpoints at the essence of past events,rather than out of a criticism of sources or their dubious reliability. See also Lenhoff, MartyredPrinces, pp. 45–48.

This line of argument is presented most fully and systematically in Poppe’s works.15

Recently Uzhankov, ‘Svjatyje strastoterptsy’, pp. 35–50, has argued that besides Russian16

canonization, there could have been a canonization in Constantinople that concerned the entireOrthodox Christendom. Uzhankov believes that Boris and Gleb’s canonization at this highest leveltook place as late as the 1080s upon a decision made in Constantinople. The other suggestion for

The dispute is focused on whether the ceremony celebrated by Jaroslav or hissons is to be regarded as Boris and Gleb’s official canonization. There is a point ofview that the account in hagiographical texts is authentic (though chronologicallyimprecise) and reliable in its description of the procedure by which the two13

brothers’ cult was officially established; it included exhumation, the confirmationof the remains’ incorruptibility, miracles, the foundation of the church, a solemndivine service, and the establishment of the feast day. From a legal point of view14

it is viewed either as a formal canonization or as a canonization confined to a single(Kievan) diocese. This point of view is corroborated by a variety of predominantlyhypothetical points, such as Boris and Gleb’s first (not extant) life being composedas early as the 1030s (Müller), the establishment of the cult in connection with theprospective creation of the Kievan metropolitan see (Likhachev), or a previoustradition of ‘popular’ veneration in Vyshgorod (Lenhoff).

Another line of argument suggests a later date of official canonization, mostoften 1072. The advocates of this view insist that the episode connected to the15

translation of Boris and Gleb’s relics by Jaroslav’s children most neatly fits the of-ficial canonization rite (Poppe) or the act of ‘national canonization’ (Nazarenko).From this perspective, ‘Jaroslav’s act’ can be viewed either as hagiographically styledevidence of the veneration of Boris and Gleb promoted by Jaroslav or as a formalceremony on a local level. Moreover, this interpretation balances the analyticaldescription of the cult’s formation in canonical, legal, and administrative termswith its description as a social and cultural phenomenon: the formal Church proce-dure becomes logically and chronologically attached to the main body of evidenceon the veneration of Boris and Gleb by princely and clerical communities.16


‘official national canonization’ is the ceremony of 1115; see N. I. Miljutenko, Svjatyje knjazja-mucheniki Boris i Gleb (St Petersburg: Letny Sad, 2006), p. 57.

For the time under discussion, this information basically consists of accounts of Boris and17

Gleb and the chronicle’s entries about the formation of the cult of Feodosij, one of the firstsupervisors of the Kievan Caves Monastery. Presumably, contemporary efforts to establish theveneration of the first Christian Russian rulers, Vladimir and Olga, left traces of the formation ofan ecclesiastical literary legend, but found no reflection in any official procedures as described insurviving written sources. See N. Serebrjanskij, Drevnerusskije knjazeskije zhitija (Obzor redaktsiji teksty) (Moscow: Sinodalnaja tipografija, 1915), pp. 1–80; and Andrzej Poppe, ‘The Sainthoodof Vladimir the Great: Veneration In-the-making’, in Christian Russia in the Making, pp. 1–52.

In the first case, it was connected with Boris and Gleb’s canonization, and in the second with18

the canonization of Feodosij. See Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 19 and 55; and PSRL, I, s.a. 1091, cols209–14, and s.a. 1108, col. 283.

In Feodosij’s case, the chronicle claims the decision was made by the prince. This, however,19

does not exclude the possibility of early veneration in a monastery. In Boris and Gleb’s case, theestablishment of the feast is obviously approved by the metropolitan. Still, all sources describing thethree solemn ceremonies of the translation of the relics emphasize the leading role of the princes,who were sponsors and key figures of these acts.

While research efforts have been primarily aimed at the identification ofcanonical legal procedures, this mode of writing the cult’s history encounters twoserious problems: one of them has to do with the nature of the sources, the otherwith the difficulty in understanding how legal and administrative norms func-tioned in a specific social context.

To begin with, there is no precise data on the formal protocol or exactly definedrules and procedures regarding canonization in Kievan Rus’ at the time (if theyever existed at all); evidence on the evaluation of new saints available in literary andunofficial sources is extremely fragmentary. Speaking of the essence of official17

canonization, Müller has stated laconically that it consisted of the establishment ofa Church feast or entering the saint’s name in the sinodik (calendar). This statementis faultless, for it reproduces verbatim the definitions used by early Russian authors.18

However, to what degree can individual acts of the public veneration of saintsbe considered to have a fixed legal and certain administrative effect? How was thedecision made and implemented, and what consequences did it have for the cult’spromotion and dissemination? Who made the decision: the prince or the Churchhierarch? Was this procedure necessarily a public one, or could the saint’s name19

be entered in the Church calendars in some other way and on other grounds? Towhat extent did the formal canonization as such cause the cult’s popularity withinthe elite and its diffusion all over Kievan Rus’ by the mid-twelfth century?


Lenhoff, Martyred Princes, pp. 32–54. The supposed archaic models that underwent Chris-20

tianization in the course of cult formation include such Scandinavian concepts as a ‘priest-king’ anda dead ruler’s magic power, the native Slavic myths and magic, and popular beliefs in the super-natural abilities of some categories of dead men. For details, see Franklin Sciacca, ‘Royal Farmers:A Folkloric Investigation into Pagan Origins of the Cult of Boris and Gleb’, Ulbandus Review, 1(1977), 3–14; and Edward S. Reisman, ‘The Cult of Boris and Gleb: Remnant of a VarangianTradition?’, Russian Review, 2 (1978), 141–57. On the archaic Slavic beliefs as reflected in hagio-graphic concepts, see Uspenskij, Boris i Gleb, pp. 36–37; Viktor Toporov, ‘Ponjatiie sviatosti vDrevnej Rusi (svv. Boris i Gleb)’, International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics, 31–32(1985–86), 451–70. On the ritual sacrifice of the ruler, see Sciacca, ‘In Imitation of Christ’, pp.253–60. For critical remarks concerning the scholarly tradition of interpreting the evidence ofhagiographic texts as signs of ‘pagan’ cults and beliefs, see Andrzej Poppe, ‘Sv. Gleb na bereze:Zametka o remeslie issledovatelia’, Ruthenica, 6 (2007), 308–12.

A number of characteristic motifs of Boris and Gleb’s lives — for instance, the discovery of21

Gleb’s corpse — resemble motifs found in Anglo-Saxon royal hagiography, presumably of folkloreorigin: a saint’s dead body, abandoned and hidden at an unknown place at a river bank, remainsuntouched by animals and birds; later on, ‘common’ people witness supernatural signs such as light,fire, and voices, which allow people to find the body. See Catherine Cubitt, ‘Sites and Sanctity:Revisiting the Cult of Murdered and Martyred Anglo-Saxon Royal Saints’, Early Medieval Europe,9 (2000), 53–83.

Poppe, ‘La Naissance’, pp. 39–47; Poppe, ‘Losers on Earth’, pp. 157–64; Maczko, ‘Boris and22

Gleb’; Jukka Korpela, ‘I krestisa kosti eju: Zur Vorgeschichte des Martyrerkults von Boris und Gleb’,Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 46 (1998), 161–76 (pp. 161–63); Martin Dimnik, ‘Oleg

The answers to these questions are partly connected with the discussion of whythe cult of Boris and Gleb emerged and what social functions it had. The dominantand almost universally accepted opinion is that it was a political cult. Only a fewresearchers associate its formation with ‘popular’ veneration at their burial placein Vyshgorod and syncretically combined pagan and Christian ideas of the super-natural. The problem about establishing the ‘pagan’ or ‘popular’ roots of the cult20

of Boris and Gleb, however, is that the extant sources render no sufficient evidenceof a mass veneration of the saints preceding the establishment of their cult by theChurch. Hagiographical accounts on widely reported miracles and signs at theburial place, and the saints’ thaumaturgical popularity, can be ranked as typicalhagiographical and biblical topoi — as well as folklore motifs. On their own, these21

stories cannot prove that a popular cult was older than and distinct from the oneestablished by the Church.

In any case, the majority of researchers agree that it was the kin community ofthe early Russian princes and the specific relationships between Vladimir’s descen-dants (the three generations mentioned above) that played the key role in thepromotion of the cult of Boris and Gleb. There is of course a semantic ambiguity22


Svyatoslavich and his Patronage of the Cult of SS Boris and Gleb’, Medieval Studies, 50 (1988),349–70; Paul A. Hollingsworth, ‘Holy Men and the Transformation of Political Space in MedievalRus’’, in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Essays on the Contributionof Peter Brown, ed. by James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1999), pp. 187–214.

Müller, ‘Zur Frage’, pp. 325–28; Poppe, ‘Der Kampf um die Kiever Thronfolge’; Il’in,23

Letopisnaja stat’a, pp. 53–57; and D. S. Likhachev, ‘Povest’ vremennych let (Istoriko-literaturnyocherk)’, in Povest’ vremennykh let, vol. II: Prilozhenija, stat’i i kommentarii (Moscow: Nauka,1950), pp. 5–148 (p. 65).

On the preference given to Boris or Gleb as personal or family patrons, see Dimnik, ‘Oleg24

Svyatoslavich’, pp. 351–54; Hollingsworth, ‘Holy Men’, pp. 188–93; V. N. Bilenkin, ‘“Chtenije”prep. Nestora kak pamjatnik “gleboborisovskogo” kul’ta’, Trudy Otdela Drevnerusskoj Literatury,47 (1992), 54–64; M. Ch. Aleshkovskij, ‘Russkije glebo-borisovskije enkolpiony 1072–1150godov’, in Drevnerusskoje iskusstvo: chudozhestvennaja kultura domongolskoj Rusi, ed. by NataljaDemina and others (Moscow: Nauka, 1972), pp. 104–25.

in the cult’s definition as ‘political’. On the one hand, the initiators of the cult areascribed an allegedly rational motivation that is understandable to us: they are pre-sumed to have created it for certain political ends. On the other hand, this defini-tion puts emphasis on the social and cultural contexts that facilitated the cult’sformation; that is, the practices and beliefs characteristic of the ruling dynasty.

Pragmatic explanations of the establishment of the cult of Boris and Gleb varydepending on how researchers reconstruct the circumstances of its emergence. Theintroduction of the cult, or the veneration that preceded formal canonization, canbe viewed as a purposeful action performed by Jaroslav, who wished to strengthenhis power, delete the memory of his own participation in Boris’s murder, andintroduce Russian ‘national’ saints on the occasion of the establishment of the Kievmetropolitan see. In a similar vein, a pragmatic motivation is ascribed to the acts23

of Jaroslav’s sons and grandsons. The translation of relics in 1072 is interpreted asan action that strengthened the union of three princely brothers (the so-calledtriumvirate of the Jaroslavichi) and testified to the intention of one of them,Iziaslav, to strengthen his own position on the Kievan throne. Thus, the venerationof the saints by princely families has been interpreted as a tool to legitimize andstrengthen their power over their realms.24

Notwithstanding the disputes and speculations about the reasons why theprinces wanted to patronize the cult of Boris and Gleb, it seems obvious that it hada symbolic function as a sign of power and dynastic continuity. From Jaroslavonwards, his descendants initiated significant pious actions, such as the buildingof churches in Vyshgorod dedicated to the saints and the translations of their relics.


They founded or continued the building of the churches, initiated or restricted the transla-25

tions of the saints to a new resting place, and disputed the location of the tombs in a new church.On the conflicts and disputes, see Abramovich, Zhitija, p. 64; and PSRL, II, s.a. 1115, col. 281. Onthe fame of the saints depending on the care of the princes, see Abramovich, Zhitija, p. 60. Thesources are silent about any independent initiatives of the Church institutions or ‘believers’directed towards the promotion of the cult.

In 1072, see Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 21–22 and 55–56; and PSRL, I, cols 181–82. In 1115,26

see Abramovich, Zhitija, p. 65; PSRL, I, cols 290–91; and PSRL, II, cols 281–82.

Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 63–64.27

Sviatoslav’s son finished the construction of the church started by his father. Descendants28

of the princes Sviatoslav and Vsevolod implemented the ceremony that was planned by their fathersand reinterred Boris and Gleb’s relics in a new church in 1115.

Dimnik, ‘Oleg Svyatoslavich’; and Hollingsworth, ‘Holy Men’.29

V. L. Komarovich, ‘Kult roda i zemli v knjazheskoj srede XI–XIII vv.’, in Iz istorii russkoj30

kultury, ed. by A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij, vol. II. 1 (repr. Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kultury,2002), pp. 8–29.

Poppe, ‘La Naissance’, pp. 39–51; and Poppe, ‘Losers on Earth’, pp. 148–66.31

The disputes between Jaroslav’s grandsons concerning individual actions — a sortof competition in piety — signal that the one who occupied the Kievan thronewished to keep control of the cult. At the same time, these actions testify to the25

collective participation of the princely clansmen in the veneration of the holybrothers. The princes, accompanied by their sons, gathered for the solemn trans-lation of Boris and Gleb’s relics. Just like the Grand Prince of Kiev (and maybe26

even against his will), they took care of the saints’ burial places. They founded27

churches in honour of Boris and Gleb in their realms and named their sons afterthem. Rather than just fitting into the dynasty’s tradition, these actions imitatedthose of their predecessors and thus strengthened and emphasized the continuitybetween princely generations. Tombs of saints were places of rivalry, but also of28

reconciliation, association, and the resolution of conflicts. These actions indi-29

cated the elaboration of some of the conventions that defined the mentality andbehaviour of the ruling clan’s members. To some extent, these conventions for-malized the principles of solidarity and hierarchy within the princely lineage.

The origin of the cult of Boris and Gleb has also been associated with theveneration of dead ancestors by members of the ruling dynasty. According to this30

interpretation, the cult emerged as a gradual transition from substantially pagan (ornon-Christian) practices and beliefs related to the worship of ancestors to theveneration of murdered relatives as saints. However, as far as the cult of the holy31


The intertwined nature of patrimonial and religious motifs in the perception of Boris and32

Gleb was fixed in the related hagiographical discourse. Boris and Gleb became saints and ‘relatives’for princes in their invocations; see PSRL, II, cols 576–77 and 636; PSRL, I, col. 479. This traditionwas reflected in the historiographic and hagiographic works and continued throughout centuries.Since the beginning of Vladimir’s cult and long before his ‘official’ canonization, Boris, Gleb, andVladimir formed a steady triad united by both sanctity and blood relationship. See Uspenskij, Borisi Gleb, pp. 45–47.

PSRL, I, s.a. 1044, col. 155.33

A. F. Litvina and F. B. Uspenskij, Vybor imeni u russkikh kniazej v X–XVI vv: Dinasticheskaia34

istorija skvoz’ prizmu antroponimiki (Moscow: Jazyki slavianskikh kultur, 2006), pp. 7–26.

Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 39–40 and 42. For the survival of this practice in the twelfth and35

thirteenth centuries, see Komarovich, ‘Kult roda’, pp. 11–12.

PSRL, I, cols 216–17; and Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 39–40.36

PSRL, I, cols 162, 202–04, 206, 216–17, and 221.37

brothers is concerned, there seems to be no reason to sharply distinguish betweenthe kinship sentiments and the religious ideas.

Rather, they were conceived as saints within the context of the Christianizationof kinship ideas and practices. In other words, the appearance of the princely cult32

became an element in the Christianization of the veneration of ancestors. Theolder practice adapted to the new forms imposed by the ecclesiastical rules andsucceeded in combining traditional and Christian ideas. A symbiosis of patri-monial and ecclesiastical care of the dead was reflected in Jaroslav baptizing theremains of his long since dead relatives, Vladimir’s brothers, and reinterring themin a church in 1044. Centuries after Christianization, the ruling elite preserved33

its tradition of giving princes two names — a ‘patrimonial’ (given in honour of anancestor, as a rule a deceased one) and a Christian one. Quite often, both names34

were inherited from the same ancestor. The invocation of dead relatives not con-nected with their Christian commemoration was another practice that probablysurvived after conversion, as one of the lives of Boris and Gleb testifies, and the35

death of the ruler was described as an act of reunion with his deceased ancestors.36

Of all the events in the private life of a prince that were accompanied byChurch rituals, the chronicles paid greatest attention to his death and funeral.37

The latter was a solemn public event sponsored by an heir of the deceased, andgreat attention was given to the ritual itself and its religious arrangement. Thedeath and burial of a ruler were propitious moments for his glorification, which,as chronicles show, largely praised his Christian virtues. A connection between thecommemoration and glorification of a ruler is evident in one of the earliest


Ludolf Müller, Die Werke des Metropoliten Ilarion (Munich: Beck, 1971), pp. 6–16; Müller,38

‘Illarion und Nestorchronik’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 12–13 (1988–89), 324–45; and Serebri-anskij, Drevnerusskije knjazeskije zhitija, pp. 32–81; and Uspenskij, Boris i Gleb, pp. 41–51 and 79.

The literary model of a just ruler was substantially defined by Old Testament images and39

concepts: a chosen people, a righteous ruler pleasing to God, and a sinner ruler as a punishment tohis people. See Lenhoff, Martyred Princes, pp. 113–15; and Igor’ N. Danilevskij, Povest’ vremennykhlet: Germenevticheskie osnovanija izuchenija letopisnykh tekstov (Moscow: Aspekt Press, 2004), pp.169–74 and 177–79.

It has to be pointed out that saints as heavenly patrons were assigned some typically princely40

functions, such as protecting the people against external enemies and providing help to their de-scendants on the battlefield. Indeed, such functions were associated with certain warrior saints whowere widely venerated and chosen as personal patron saints by members of the ruling dynasty. Onthe association of Boris and Gleb with Byzantine warrior saints as reflected in narratives and icon-ography, see Monica White, ‘Byzantine Saints in Rus’ and the Cult of Boris and Gleb’, in thisvolume.

These motifs seem to be collected mainly on the basis of liturgical texts. On the biblical cita-41

tions and images in the accounts of Boris and Gleb, see Ludolf Müller, ‘Studien zur altrussischenLegende der Heiligen Boris und Gleb’, Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 27 (1959), 314–22; andDanilevskij, Povest’ vremennykh let, pp. 169–80. The authors of these narratives and offices in-

Christian texts of early Rus’, the Praise of Vladimir, which was composed and readby Metropolitan Ilarion, probably at the Prince’s tomb in the Tithe Church about1050. In addition, this text reminds us of another concurrent cultural practice,38

the tendency to reconsider Russian history religiously and include it within thehistory of salvation so that the christened Rus’ was either identified as a chosenpeople or likened to other chosen ones. Rulers played the crucial role in this Chris-tian reconstruction of the past. Olga and Vladimir, the first Christian rulers ofRus’, were compared to apostles and typologically corresponded with Helena andConstantine, the first Christian rulers of the Roman Empire. Early Russian princesand the dynasty as a whole were perceived as the intercessors in their people’srelationship with God — the pledge of its righteousness, religious obedience, andprosperity. These motifs are also present in the hagiography of Boris and Gleb,39

where the two saints are presented as exemplary members of a chosen lineage whosesacred self-sacrifice continued what their father had begun; that is, making all theRussian land Christian, purifying it from sins, and introducing it into the circle ofchosen peoples.40

In hagiographic tradition, Boris and Gleb are represented as exemplary Chris-tians and martyrs, and multiple topics and motifs are employed to associate Borisand Gleb with Christ and martyrs. At the same time, all these religious qualities41


cluded such themes as humility and peacefulness, brotherly love, a willingness to accept death andto suffer innocently, and a readiness to follow divine command and to imitate Christ in preferringthe heavenly kingdom to an earthly realm — the latter being symbolized by the image of thesacrificial lamb.

On the obvious association with Jacob, Joseph, and Benjamin, see Abramovich, Zhitija, pp.42

6–7 and 30; on the chronicle, see Danilevskij, Povest’ vremennykh let, pp. 169–74.

The typological parallels used by the hagiographers are those referring to the biblical cases of43

fratricide (Cain and Abel, Lamech, and Abimelech) or the martyrs murdered by their relatives.

Meanwhile, Sviatopolk’s unrighteousness and guilt are defined by his sinful birth: he is born44

from the pregnant wife of Vladimir’s brother after Vladimir killed him and took her by force. Onthe formation of this legend, see Danilevskij, Povest’ vremennykh let, p. 179; Ludolf Müller, ‘Studienzur altrussischen Legende der Heiligen Boris und Gleb’, Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 63(2004), 23–49 (pp. 34–35).

Abramovich, Zhitija, pp. 128–29; and PSRL, I, cols 202–04, 207, and 307. 45

are inseparable from and sometimes are associated with their conduct as propermembers of the kindred community: they are beloved sons of their father, mem-bers of the ‘blessed’ and ‘righteous’ kin, and loving brothers most closely connectedwith each other. They are ready to obey the elders in the family, namely their42

father and elder brother. Moreover, they are connected with their kinsmen notonly by subordination but also by love. In good faith they carry out the obligationsexpected of an exemplary relative — to lament the deceased, shy away from aggres-sion and hostility, and fulfill the orders. Many ideas and images from religiousrepertoire are used to articulate the ideal norms of kinship, such as fraternal love,which means love to a brother, and obedience and humility. Being obedient to theelder, they become innocent victims of their brother, and they belong to the43

chosen kin because of their proper (legitimate) birth.44

Hagiographic accounts definitely fulfilled some political and ideological aims:to glorify or criticize ruling princes depending on the authors’ biases and toinstruct junior princes to be obedient to their seniors during the period of dynasticconflicts. Yet these texts were mainly didactic literary reflections, a kind of Fürsten-spiegel. The dignity of Boris and Gleb as ideal heroes manifested itself in exemplaryconduct in the framework of kinship relations, via actions and virtues that servedto maintain the kin’s integrity and prevent internal conflicts. These texts thus setthe rhetorical model that thereafter was used in didactic narratives for rulers andin princes’ eulogies.45


On various approaches to the problem of Byzantine influence on early Russian hagiography,46

see Franke Siefkes, Zur Form des Zitije Feodosija: Vergleichende Studien zur byzantinischen undaltrussischen Literatur (Bad Homburg: Gehlen, 1970); Alexander Avenarius, Die byzantinischeKultur und die Slawen: Zum Problem der Rezeption und Transformation (6. bis 12. Jahrhundert)(Vienna: Oldenbourg, 2000), pp. 190 and 194–95; and Gail Lenhoff, Early Russian Hagiography:The Lives of Prince Fedor the Black (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), pp. 8–10. For a criticalreconsideration of the traditional perception regarding the reception of Byzantine culture, seeFrancis J. Thomson, The Reception of Byzantine Culture in Medieval Russia (Aldershot: Ashgate,1999).

Dietrich Freydank, ‘Die altrussische Hagiographie in ihren europäischen Zusammenhängen’,47

Zeitschrift für Slavistik, 28 (1983), 78–85; Haki Antonsson, ‘The Cult of St Olafr in the EleventhCentury and Kievan Rus’’, Middelalderforum, 1–2 (2003), 143–60; Gábor Klaniczay, Holy Rulersand Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, trans. by Éva Pálmai (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 131–33; Franklin Sciacca, ‘The Kievan Cult of Boris andGleb: The Bulgarian Connection’, in Proceedings of the Symposium on Slavic Cultures: BulgarianContribution to Slavic Culture, ed. by Rado Lencek (Sofia: Sofia Press, 1983), pp. 61–67; andMarkus Osterrieder, ‘Das Land der Heiligen Sophia: Das Auftauchen des Sophia-Motifs in derKultur der Ostslaven’, Wiener Slawistischen Almanach, 50 (2002), 5–62 (pp. 42–43).

For an investigation of the early Russian calendars and church service books, with further48

references, see Olga V. Loseva, ‘Periodizatsija drevnerusskikh mesiatseslovov XI–XIV vv.’, Drevnjaja

The Problem of External Influence: St Wenceslas as the Ideal Prototype forBoris and Gleb?

The cult of Boris and Gleb took shape at a time when the perception of politicalpower and its representation were being Christianized. The cult was linked to theruling elite and its practices and attitudes towards the commemoration of ances-tors. Hence it is possible to define it as a dynastic and political cult. As to thetypology of this early Russian cult and any possible external influence on it, theabsence of direct parallels in the Byzantine hagiography and cult of saints makes itnecessary to consider a broader European context of royal sainthood. Possible46

sources of influence have been sought in different regions of Latin and Byzantine-Slavic Europe where the veneration of holy rulers was practised, including Bulgaria,Scandinavia, Anglo-Saxon England, and even France. These hypotheses are based47

rather on the possibility of such influences — connected with cultural and literarycommunication or with the intense international contacts and far-reachingdynastic links of the Rurikids — than on any reliable evidence. Manuscripts do nottestify to any acquaintance of Russian ecclesiastical writings of the time with SouthSlavic royal cults, and mentions of Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon saints in earlyRussian texts are scarce and probably incidental. Moreover, there is no reliable48


Rus’: Voprosy Medievistiki, 4 (2001), 15–37 (pp. 28 and 31); and Loseva, Russkie mesjatseslovyXI–XIV vekov (Moscow: Pamjatniki istoricheskoj mysli, 2001).

On the historical background, the hagiographic works, and the rise of the cult, along with49

references to a huge body of scholarly writings, see Dušan Tøeštík, Poèatki Pøemyslovcù: Vstup Èechùdo dìjin (530–935) (Prague: Lidové Noviny, 1997). For a more general introduction, see H. Kølln,Die Wenzelslegende des Mönchs Christian (Copenhagen: Munksgaard for the Royal DanishAcademy of Sciences and Letters, 1996); and Marvin Kantor, The Origins of Christianity inBohemia: Sources and Commentary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1990), pp. 1–16.

source data to show that, while establishing the cult of Boris and Gleb, Russianprinces or clergy were guided by the examples of any other dynastic cult. Similarpractices of devotion or hagiographical motifs can be with more likelihood re-garded as parallels rather than borrowings. Gábor Klaniczay and Haki Antonsson’sassumptions that the cult of Boris and Gleb could have been used as a model byHungarian and Norwegian rulers of the eleventh century, when the royal cults ofSt Stephen and St Olaf were established, seem to be better founded. Still, what theypoint to as arguments in favour of their hypothesis — the rulers’ personal acquain-tance with the Russian princely milieu and with the dynastic practice of veneratingBoris and Gleb, and some similarity between hagiographical discourses andpractices — leaves doubts as to what extent these facts are relevant to the rulers’assumed intentions, and in the very fact that their foreign experiences led to suchalleged borrowings.

By contrast, Slavists have been almost unanimous in recognizing that the cultof Boris and Gleb took shape under the influence of the Bohemian cult of St Wen-ceslas. Furthermore, the discussion of this topic has been traditionally associatedwith a broader set of problems concerning Bohemian-Russian cultural, literary,ecclesiastical, and political contacts in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Boththemes were formulated in the context of nineteenth-century Slavic studies, andtheir subsequent studying is in many respects based on a number of conventionsconcerning the role of the so-called Bohemian-Moravian literary heritage in theformation of early Russian ecclesiastical literary culture.

Wenceslas, who was one of the first historically known rulers of Bohemia, waskilled as the result of a plot hatched presumably in 929 or 935 by his youngerbrother Boleslaw, who then succeeded the elder brother as Duke of Bohemia. The49

initial stage in the development of Wenceslas’s cult is poorly documented, apartfrom his lives written in the late tenth and the first decades of the eleventh cen-turies. The hagiographic corpus consists of four Latin and two Church Slavonic


For the Slavonic compositions, see Sborník staroslovanských literárních památek o sv. Vaclávu50

a sv. Ludmile, ed. by Josef Vajs (Prague: ÈAVU, 1929). For the Latin lives, see Fontes rerumBohemicarum: Vitae sanctorum, ed. by J. Ermler and J. Perwolf (Prague: Museum královstvíÈeského, 1873).

The so-called Legenda Christiani and the First Slavonic Life of Wenceslas. The origins of these51

two texts were frequently discussed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

St Wenceslas was the patron saint of both the royal dynasty and the entire country of52

Bohemia. Moreover, he was the eternal ruler who only temporarily delegated his power to a princewho was currently occupying the throne. For recent works based on a long-lasting historiographictradition, see František Graus, ‘St. Adalbert und St. Wenzel: Zur Funktion der mittelalterlichenHeiligenverehrung in Böhmen’, in Europa Slavica – Europa Orientalis: Festschrift für H.Ludat, ed.by K.-D. Grothusen and K. Zernck (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1980), pp. 205–31; and DušanTøeštík, Kosmova kronika: Studie k poèátkùm èeského dìjepisectví a politického myšleni (Prague:Akademia, 1968).

A. I. Rogov, ‘Slovanské legendy z doby vzniku èeského státu a jejich osudy na Rusi‘, in Staro-53

slovìnské legendy èeského pùvodu, ed. by A. I. Rogov and others (Prague: Vyšehrad, 1976), pp. 11–53.

In the Arkhangelsk Gospel, RGB, M. 1666, l.132 ob. On the manuscripts and related studies,54

see A. I. Rogov and E. Bláhová, ‘Služba sv. Václavu’, in Staroslovìnské legendy, ed. by Rogov andothers, pp. 219–25 (pp. 219–20).

texts, one of which is a translation (with some changes) from Latin. Of five50

original lives, only two were certainly written by native Bohemians connected withlocal religious and cultural communities. Three Latin lives were written by out-51

siders: missionaries from Regensburg (c. 970), Bishop Gumpold of Mantova (com-missioned by Otto II, before 983), and Laurentius, a monk from Montecassino (inthe 1030s). This fact indicates the participation of German and Italian imperial,ecclesiastical, and political communities in the development of the cult of StWenceslas in the last third of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh centuries.Non-hagiographical evidence of the cult’s development in that period is frag-mentary and inconsistent, and only authentic sources from the eleventh andtwelfth centuries show its transformation into a dynastic and political cult, impor-tant both for the legitimacy of individual rulers and the concept of Bohemianpolitical unity.52

The hypothesis of Czech influence on the cult of Boris and Gleb is connected tothe problem of the reception of the cult of St Wenceslas by the early Russian Churchand the Russian literary tradition contemporary with the formation of the cult ofBoris and Gleb. The commemoration of St Wenceslas is mentioned in one of the53

earliest Russian liturgical calendars (1092), and the service devoted to him has beenpreserved in three manuscripts from the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. A54


Abramovich, Zhitija, p. 33.55

For discussions of its Russian or Bohemian origin, see Svatováclavský Sborník: Na památku56

výroèí smrti knižete Václava svatého, vol. I: Kniže Václav Svatý a jeho doba, ed. by Karel Gruth andothers (Prague: Národní výbor pro oslavu svatováclavského tisíciletí, 1934), p. 88; and Sborníkstaroslovanských literárních památek, ed. by Vajs, pp. 45–46.

A peculiar version of the First Slavonic Legend has been preserved in fourteenth- and57

fifteenth-century Croatian glagolitic collections; see M. Weingart, ‘První èesko-církevneslovanskálegenda o sv. Václavu’, in Svatováclavský Sborník, ed. by Gruth and others, pp. 863–1088.

For the recent state of research, see Avenarius, Die byzantinische Kultur, pp. 110–14.58

A. Florovskij, Chekhy i vostochnye slaviane: ocherki po istorii cheshchsko-russkikh otnoshenij59

(X–XVIII vv), 2 vols (Prague, 1935–47), I, 122–23; Dmitrij Tschižewskij, ‘Anklänge an die Gum-poldslegende des hl. Václav in der altrussischen Legende des Hl. Feodosij’, in Kleinere Schriften,vol. II: Bohemica (Munich: Fink, 1972), pp. 40–54; Avenarius, Die byzantinische Kultur, p. 119;and Rogov, ‘Slovanské legendy’.

PSRL, I, s.a. 980, col. 80; and s.a. 1036, col. 150.60

mention of Wenceslas in one of the lives of Boris and Gleb is included in the oldestmanuscript of the Narration from the late twelfth century. From the end of the55

thirteenth century onwards, short hagiographical narratives on Wenceslas wereincluded in synaxaria (prologs) to be read on the day of his death and the day of thetranslation of his relics, which means that by that time the cult was already rootedin ecclesiastical liturgical practice. The principal evidence for a Bohemian influ-56

ence on Russian literary tradition is the fact that the two above-mentioned ChurchSlavonic lives of Wenceslas were included in the Russian hagiographic corpus. Oneis an original life, of which two versions have survived in a small number of copieswritten in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (the so-called First SlavonicLegend). The other is a translation of Gumpold’s legend (the so-called SecondSlavonic Legend), included in two collections dating back to the late fifteenth andsixteenth centuries. None of these liturgical and hagiographical texts has survivedin the Czech manuscripts. Despite serious disagreement on where, when, and un-57

der what circumstances these texts were written, the majority of researchers agreethat these texts were composed somewhere in Bohemia during the tenth or elev-enth century. It is also recognized that they reached Rus’ by the end of this period58

at the latest.In addition, there is evidence of dynastic and ecclesiastical relations between

Bohemia and Kievan Rus’ in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Early Russian59

sources mention Vladimir’s two Czech wives, and a son of Jaroslav the Wise wasnamed Wenceslas, as were several Russian princes later on. One direct reference60


Cosmas of Prague, Chronica Boemorum, s.a. 1095, ed. by Bertold Bretholz and Wilhelm61

Weinberger, MGH SRG ns, 2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1923), p. 164; Avenarius, Die byzantinischeKultur, pp. 119–20; and Rogov, ‘Slovanské legendy’, pp. 12–14.

Tschižewskij, ‘Anklänge an die Gumpoldslegende’, pp. 43–46; and Avenarius, Die byzan-62

tinische Kultur, p. 122.

A. I. Sobolevskij, Materialy i issledovanija v oblasti slavjanskoj filologii i archeologii: Russkije63

molitvy s upominaniem zapadnykh svjatykh (St Petersburg: Tipografija Akademii Nauk, 1910);Weingart, ‘První èesko-církevneslovanská legenda’; Roman Jakobson, ‘The Czech Part in ChurchSlavonic Culture’, in Selected Writings: Early Slavic Paths and Crossroads (Berlin: De Gruyter,1981), pp. 129–52; and V. Mareš, ‘Die slawische Liturgie in Böhmen zur Zeit der Gründung desBistums’, in Tausend Jahre Bistum Prag – Millenium diocesis Pragensis (Munich: Acker-mannßGemeinde, 1974), pp. 105–12.

Roman Jakobson, ‘The Kernel of Comparative Slavic Literature’, in Selected Writings, pp.64

1–64; Jakobson, ‘The Czech Part’, pp. 135–38; Ingham, ‘Martyred Prince’; Norman W. Ingham,‘Czech Hagiography in Kiev: The Prisoner Miracles of Boris and Gleb’, Die Welt der Slaven, 10(1965), 166–82; and Avenarius, Die byzantinische Kultur, pp. 198–99.

to the translation of the relics of Boris and Gleb to Bohemia in c. 1095 and a num-ber of indirect hints make it possible to assume the existence of contacts betweenthe early Russian Church and Bohemia — the Sazava monastery in particular.61

However, the assumption of Russian-Bohemian ecclesiastical (institutional orpersonal) contacts is mainly based on hypotheses about the origins of individualChurch Slavonic texts on Wenceslas or speculations about their social milieu.62

These facts are usually considered within the context of historiographic conven-tions that developed in Slavic studies in the nineteenth and the first half of thetwentieth century, which have remained authoritative up to the present day. Ac-cording to one such convention, the Bohemian Church Slavonic hagiographic texts— besides the above-mentioned Wenceslas lives, they include a short life (a prologreading) of his grandmother Ludmila — and other literary works that have sur-vived within Russian tradition bear witness to a flourishing Church Slavonic litera-ture in Bohemia in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Bohemian Church63

Slavonic literature is viewed as continuing and developing the Cyrillo-Methodiantradition (in spite of or in the context of interaction with the concurrent RomanLatin culture). Thus, in Bohemia the most ancient common Slavic heritage hadbeen preserved and enriched with new literary compositions. In addition to theextant texts, the existence of numerous lost ones accessible to and used by earlyRussian authors is assumed with certainty. The cult of St Wenceslas is seen as a64

product of the Bohemian Slavonic culture and its contribution to the commonSlavic heritage: seen as a continuation of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition, this cult


Kantor, Origins of Christianity, p. 15; Osterrieder, ‘Das Land der Heiligen Sophia’, p. 42; and65

Jakobson, ‘The Czech Part’, pp. 135–38.

Ingham, ‘Martyred Prince’, p. 32, described this relationship between Bohemian and Russian66

hagiographies in terms of ‘continuity’, instead of traditional ‘influence’, ‘borrowing’, or ‘imitation’.Jakobson (and the majority of the Slavists) assumed that ‘there were no inter-Slavic literary barriersduring the Old Church Slavonic period’; see Jakobson, ‘Kernel of Comparative Slavic Literature’,p. 44. At the same time, the ‘Bohemian influence’ is being interpreted as a channel for the receptionof Latin literacy in Rus’; see G. Revelli, ‘Khristianskie vozzrenija v “Chtenii” Nestora’, Trudy OtdelaDrevnerusskikh Letopisej, 54 (2003), 75–77.

Vratoslav Jagiæ was one of them. The Bohemian-Moravian origin of some texts, presumably67

translated from Latin and surviving in Russian manuscripts, has been questioned recently. It hasbeen suggested instead that these texts reached Russia via the Balkans in the context of Slavic-Greek-Italian contacts; see Francis J. Thomson, ‘A Survey of the Vitae Allegedly Translated fromLatin into Slavonic in Bohemia in the Tenth and Eleventh Century’, in Atti del 8 Congressointernationale di studi sull’alto medioevo (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo,1983), pp. 331–48.

František Graus, ‘Slovanská liturgie a písemnictví v Pøemyslovských Èechách 10 století’,68

Èeskoslovenský èasopis historický, 4 (1966), 473–96; and Tøeštík, Poèatki Pøemyslovcù, pp. 11–14.

marked the beginning of the history of the veneration of holy rulers and laid thefoundation for princely lives as a genre. Thereafter the cult of Boris and Gleb65

continued this Bohemian development, as it was paradigmatically included in thecommon heritage within the universe of the Byzantine-Slavic culture that tookshape at the turn of the eleventh century.66

However, the role played by the Slavonic Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in thedevelopment of Bohemia in the tenth and eleventh centuries does not seem clearat all. Traditionally, historians have been more cautious than philologists, althoughthere are also authoritative sceptics among the latter. The principal Czech his-67

torians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were very cautious about thisproblem. Their judgements ranged from a reserved recognition of the importanceof Slavonic writings as just one factor among others to the overt rejection of itsimportance. Historians have pointed out that generalizations concerning the68

alleged blossoming of a ‘Slavonic culture’ in Bohemia are based on texts that are ofextremely obscure provenance. Moreover, these sources contain no exact indica-tions of a social milieu, institutions, or political forces that could be interested inthe development and preservation of this tradition. The only institution that canbe shown with certainty to have maintained the tradition of Old Church Slavonicwriting and liturgy was the Benedictine monastery at Sazava, which was intermit-tently involved in producing texts in Slavonic between 1033 and 1096. Furthermore,


Rogov, ‘Slovanské legendy’, pp. 17–18.69

The Christian name of Jaroslav’s son mentioned above was Mercurios, according to70

Valentin L. Janin, Aktovyje pechati drevnej Rusi X–XV vv. (Moscow: Nauka, 1970), p. 16.

Loseva, ‘Periodijacija drevnerusskikh mesiatseslovov’, pp. 31–34; and Loseva, Russkie71

mesjatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 63–67. The suggestion that the Bohemian saint was one among amixed group of saints who reached the early Russian ecclesiastical and literary tradition by variousways can be supported by his mention in thirteenth-century manuscripts containing a prayer(which was probably composed in a preceding century) where Wenceslas’s name stands next tothose of Bohemian, Germanic, Scandinavian, and English saints. Sobolevskij, Materialy i issledo-vanija, pp. 36–47; and John H. Lind. ‘The Martyrium of Odense and a Twelfth-Century RussianPrayer: The Question of Bohemian Influence on Russian Religious Literature’, Slavonic and EastEuropean Review, 68 (1990), 1–20.

He is included in one calendar of the eleventh century and in eight calendars produced from72

the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries; see Loseva, Russkie mesjatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, pp. 84–85.Loseva stresses ‘particular’ features of these entries on St Wenceslas and his ‘strangeness’ in regardto the Russian calendars.

the cult of St Wenceslas has been studied in the context of West European royalcults, and the First Slavonic Life has been regarded as an early, if probably not theearliest, text in point peripheral to the Latin hagiographical tradition.

Another (almost) unquestioned assumption in Slavic studies is that in theeleventh century the cult of St Wenceslas was not only known in Kievan Rus’, butthat it also gained widespread popularity and could be traced in the following cen-turies. This assumption is largely based on the overestimation of some evidence69

in the early Russian manuscripts.The facts that a feast and liturgical service devoted to a Bohemian saint were

included in the earliest Russian liturgical books dating back to the late eleventh andtwelfth centuries and that texts of Czech origin were copied in Russian manu-scripts speak in favour of Bohemian influence. This, however, does not tellanything about its exact chronology or social and cultural scale. There is no infor-mation on the territorial, social, or institutional aspects of the veneration of StWenceslas in early Rus’. The use of the saint’s name in the princely family is indica-tive of dynastic contacts, but not necessarily of religious veneration. The recep-70

tion of the cult should be placed instead in the context of the corpus of literary andliturgical texts collected and rewritten in Russian lands in the eleventh and twelfthcenturies. This process was connected with the accumulation of diverse texts ordata on saints, many of which later became marginal or lost their importance forthe literary tradition. I think there was a rupture in the liturgical veneration of71

the Bohemian saint, since he was mentioned in the early calendars only once, and72


Rogov, ‘Slovanské legendy’, p. 25; and Sborník staroslovanských literárních památek, ed. by73

Vajs, p. 50.

Rogov, ‘Slovanské legendy’, p. 33 (the narration about Vasilko Trebovlsky); Tschižewskij.74

‘Anklänge an die Gumpoldslegende’ (Life of Feodosij); and G. Revelli, ‘Staroslovjanskije legendyo sv. Vjacheslave Cheshskom i drevnerusskije knjazheskie zhitija’, in Drevnjaja Rus’ i Zapad:Nauchnaja konferentsia (Moscow: IML, 1996), pp. 24–32 (princely lives as a genre).

Václav Konzal, ‘Komentáø k minejní redakci První slovanské svatováclavské legendy’, in75

Staroslovìnské legendy, ed. by Rogov and others, pp. 122–39 (pp. 128, 130, and 133); and Sborníkstaroslovanských literárních památek, ed. by Vajs, p. 56.

Il’in, Letopisnaia stat’a, pp. 63–65.76

the service dedicated to him does not feature in liturgical manuscripts after thethirteenth century. From the end of the thirteenth century onwards, feast days ofthe saint are mentioned in the sanctoral cycle only in Prologues. It is not knownwhen and where these short hagiographical texts were composed and included inthe Russian Prologue, but they definitely were absent from its first redaction.73

The fact that the two earliest Bohemian lives of the saint survived in a few latemanuscripts, which were produced not earlier than the late fifteenth century,seems indicative of a late actualization of the cult. Meanwhile, their influence onearly Russian literary and hagiographical tradition is widely discussed: researchersbelieve they can detect this influence in a number of hagiographical and annalisticworks, and not just in the lives of Boris and Gleb. But this purported influence74

has found no obvious and indisputable confirmation. The only direct link is onelife of Boris and Gleb listing Wenceslas among other martyrs killed by their rela-tives. Textual borrowings from the Bohemian lives are absent from Russian texts.There are merely similar motifs or plots; hence, any discussion of such influenceremains hypothetical. Moreover, the liturgical service dedicated to Wenceslas wasnot utilized when services in honour of the Russian princes were composed — atleast, nothing of this kind has been mentioned so far in the related literature. Bycontrast, Russian redactions of the First Slavonic Life and Prologue legends on StWenceslas show traces of the influence of the Boris and Gleb hagiography, whichindicates an alignment of the Bohemian story with the circumstances of the mur-der of the two Russian princes. At the level of textual history, the Bohemian cult75

seems to have been perceived through the prism of the Russian one, not vice versa.The influence of the cult of St Wenceslas on Russian tradition has been consid-

ered from different points of view in a number of studies and reproduced in worksthat deal with the Russian cult. The Bohemian cult has been viewed as a kind ofexternal example inspiring those who promoted the veneration of Boris and Gleb,76


Ingham, ‘Martyred Prince’; Revelli, ‘Staroslavianskije legendy’; and Klaniczay, Holy Rulers,77

pp. 131–32.

Jakobson, ‘Kernel of Comparative Slavic Literature’, pp. 39–41. Ingham, Revelli, and78

Runchin suggest that the similarity of Russian and Bohemian lives could be found on the level ofa pattern or archetype model based on the system of themes or concepts. However, these threescholars considerably differ in their identifications of these basic metatextual elements. Meanwhile,all these parallels could be interpreted as ‘commonplaces’ of medieval literary and/or folkloreculture.

Ingham, ‘Martyred Prince’; and Florja, ‘Václavská legenda’.79

For critical remarks, see Uspenskij, Boris i Gleb, pp. 14–15.80

Bugoslavskij confirms the absence of the textual borrowings from Wenceslas’s lives in the81

early Boris and Gleb narrations: Drevnerusskie litereturnyie proizvedenija o Borise i Glebe, pp.246–47. Ingham, ‘Martyred Prince’.

For example, ‘righteous victim’, fire and candles at the grave, ‘prisoner miracles’, the common82

plot elements (Ingham), or the motifs of ‘learning and reading the books’, almsgiving, and suffering(Revelli).

See the short remarks by Lenhoff, Martyred Princes, p. 82, and the analysis of Florja, ‘Václav-83

ská legenda’, who notes the differences between the two hagiographic cycles. This is an issue in itsown right, connected basically with the peculiarity of the rhetorical and generic features of early

or as a religious or socio-cultural model that was transmitted and reproduced onRussian soil. Likewise, Wenceslas’s lives have been regarded as the literary proto-77

type for the hagiography of Boris and Gleb. Furthermore, an influence of the78

Wenceslas hagiography has been seen in the creation of a peculiar model of a mar-tyr saint who deserved Christian veneration because he voluntarily accepted deathat the hand of his brother in order to avoid fratricide. Some scholars have also79

argued for the influence of the cult of St Wenceslas on the formation of certainliturgical practices connected to the cult of Boris and Gleb that were not typical ofthe Russian Church.80

At the same time, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Russian ecclesiasticalor secular elite were familiar with the Bohemian practice of the veneration of StWenceslas. The analysis of hagiographical texts testifies to the absence of directtextual borrowings from the lives of Wenceslas preserved in Russian literary cul-ture. Parallels with Latin texts can either be explained by the use of common81

hagiographical motifs or suggest the existence of some lost written works that82

served as common sources for both Slavonic and Latin texts. The lives of Boris andGleb and of Wenceslas (both Slavonic and Latin) differ in terms of textual struc-ture and rhetoric, to an extent that excludes the possibility of the latter having beena source of textual borrowings or a literary model.83


Russian hagiography as compared with Latin lives. At the same time, even judging by formalcharacteristics, all lives of Wenceslas differ from those of Boris and Gleb: the former narrate indetail about the saint’s life and pious deeds. All of them also feature as important motifs theconspiracy of the nobility, who incite Wenceslas’s brother to kill him. Finally, the saint is invitedby Boleslaus, killed while staying at his brother’s residence and with Boleslaus’s personal partici-pation, and buried in a church that the saint had founded himself. None of these motifs occur inthe Russian lives.

All the lives present Wenceslas as a ‘monk on the throne’ and describe his ascetic virtues,84

deeds of piety, and involvement in religious and ecclesiastical life. For details and references, seeMarina Paramonova, ‘Familienkonflikt und Brudermord in der Wenzel-Hagiographie: ZweiModelle des Martyriums’, in Das europäische Mittelalter im Spannungsbogen des Vergleichs, ed. byMichael Borgolte (Berlin: Akademie, 2001), pp. 249–82.

The motif of hostility of the nobles invented in the first legend (Crescente fide, in Fontes85

rerum Bohemicarum, ed. by Ermler and Perwolf, p. 185), ‘princeps […] perversus est a clericis, et estmonachus’, was continued by following authors.

Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, 19, ed. by Ermler and Perwolf, p. 160 (Gumpold), p. 18786

(Crescente fide), 7, p. 218 (Christianus).

Finally, the particular theme of Boris and Gleb’s lives that glorifies voluntarydeath for the sake of fraternal love and submission to the elder brother is alien toWenceslas’s lives. In the First Slavonic Legend, the death of the saint looks like anartful crime: Wenceslas does not expect to be attacked by his brother (he ‘distrusts’warnings), successfully resists him until Boleslaus’s companions appear to helptheir lord, and then dies while seeking safety in flight. In Latin lives, includingGumpold’s Slavonic translation, Wenceslas’s death rhetorically and conceptuallyfits the standard model of martyrdom. This death is presented as an expected andwell-deserved reward for the ascetic devotee of faith who demonstrates exemplarypiety. Wenceslas’s conflict with his brother and entourage is presented within a84

framework of confrontation between an exemplary Christian and ‘false’ Christians,almost pagans, opposing him. As a true martyr, the saint voluntarily accepts death85

without resistance, although he shows to his brother that he is able to overcomehim. In Gumpold’s legend, which literarily and ideologically is close to Ottonian86

hagiography, this conflict is also conceptualized as confrontation between a justChristian ruler (rex iustus) and a tyrant unlawfully aspiring for power. The onlyinstance of the saint’s brotherly feelings in connection with his approaching deathis presented as an especially pious thought: Wenceslas does not wish to die at thehand of his brother and wants to relieve him of the sin of fratricide. This obviouslycontrasts with Russian lives, in which the princely saints, though praying for theremission of their brother’s sin, are willing to die at his hand in order to


In the Narration, Boris expects to be killed by his brother’s hand; see Abramovich, Zhitija,87

p. 33.

See Thomson’s discussion of Il’in’s ideas about the relationship between the Czech and88

Russian lives in Reception of Byzantine Culture, pp. 190–91.

demonstrate their love and loyalty to him. Thus, although hagiographical models87

of a saint dying at the hand of his brother in the Bohemian and the Russian livesshare some formal features, they are different in essential parts.

To sum up, the formation of the cult of St Boris and St Gleb was conditioned byinternal developments in early Russian society. The cult’s emergence reflected spe-cific political consciousness and practices within the princely clan, in which kinshipconnections remained the main model for settling inner disputes and the mainsource of the clan’s identity vis-à-vis society. The veneration of Boris and Glebserved as the sacralization not only of the ruling dynasty but also of the bonds ofkinship. In the hagiographic representation, the kin relations of the saints werereshaped according to Christian norms and virtues such as peacefulness, humility,obedience, and love. Moreover, these relations acquired their own religious mean-ing and formed a framework within which such Christian virtues could be realized.Hence, the saints became the models not only of exemplary Christian behaviour,but also of the exemplary conduct inside a kin community. At the same time, forthe living Rurikids the saintly patrons remained their heavenly relatives.

A number of studies on the cult’s functions and hagiographic discourse allowmodern scholarship to establish some significant parallels with the Europeandynastic cults. Still, these parallels raise the question of what place the cult of thetwo Russian princes, with its specific discourse and rhetoric of its own, had withinthis wider tradition. So far none of these studies can be considered a final solutionto the question whether one can interpret existing similarities as parallelisms ordirect borrowings, and even in a case as extensively researched as the possible88

influence of the cult of St Wenceslas, the answer has been largely based on hypo-thetical assumptions rather than the strict verification of concrete conceptual,literary, or textual borrowings.

For a general perspective on regional models of sainthood, see André Vauchez, La Sainteté1

en Occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge: d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagio-graphiques (Rome: École française de Rome, 1981), pp. 171–254; for a critical perspective oncultural transfers and ‘entangled history’, see Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann,‘Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung: Der Ansatz der Histoire croisée und die Herausforderung desTransnationalen’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 28 (2002), 607–36; and Werner and Zimmermann,‘Penser l’histoire croisée: entre empirie et réflexivité’, Annales, 58 (2003), 7–36.

For this notion, see Jenõ Szûcs, ‘The Three Historical Regions of Europe: An Outline’, Acta2

Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 29 (1983), 131–84, also published in Civil Societyand the State: New European Perspectives, ed. by John Keane (London: Verso, 1988), pp. 291–332.

CONCLUSION:NORTH AND EAST EUROPEAN CULTS OF SAINTS

IN COMPARISON WITH EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE

Gábor Klaniczay

The cult of the saints, a central feature of medieval Christianity, bearstestimony to, among other things, regional characteristics and differences,cultural transfers, and a complex entangled history of interrelationship and

differentiation within Christendom. My concluding remarks to the present series1

of interrelated enquiries concerning Scandinavian and Russian cults of saintsintend to offer a possible broader framework. Using an overview of the differenttypes of medieval East-Central European saints — principally (but not exclusively)of Latin Christianity — until the thirteenth century, I shall offer a scheme for thecontextualization of the models unfolding from the studies of the present volume.

To begin with, I must give an idea of what I mean when I speak of these vastterritories to be compared. I am referring here to three historical regions. Two of2

these became part of the world of Latin Christendom around the turn of the firstmillennium, providing the most significant expansion of Europa Occidens in the

Gábor Klaniczay284

I have recently discussed Scandinavian and East-Central European parallelisms from this3

point of view in ‘The Birth of a New Europe about 1000 CE: Conversion, Transfer of InstitutionalModels, New Dynamics’, in Eurasian Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries: Crystalli-zations, Divergences, Renaissances, ed. by Johann P. Arnason and Björn Wittrock (Leiden: Brill,2004), pp. 99–130.

The typological similarities of the Russian territories with East-Central Europe are stressed4

by Jenõ Szûcs in ‘Three Historical Regions’, pp. 150–58; and recently analysed in the thoroughcomparative surveys by Márta Font, A keresztény nagyhatalmak vonzásában: Közép- és Kelet-Európaa 10–12. században (Budapest: Balassi, 2005).

Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, ed. by Guyda Armstrong and Ian Wood5

(Turnhout: Brepols, 2000); and András Róna-Tas, The Hungarians and Europe in the EarlyMiddle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History (Budapest: Central European UniversityPress, 1999).

Oskar Halecki, Borderlands of Western Civilization: A History of East Central Europe (New6

York: Ronald, 1952); Halecki, The Millennium of Europe (Notre Dame: University of NotreDame Press, 1963); Francis Dvornik, The Making of Central and Eastern Europe (London: PolishResearch Centre, 1949); Dvornik, The Slavs in European History and Civilization (New Bruns-wick: Rutgers University Press, 1962); Jerzy K³oczowski, Europa s³owiañska w XIV–XV w. (Warsaw:PIW, 1984); K³oczowski, L’Europe du Centre-Est dans l’historiographie des pays de la région (Lublin:Institute of East Central Europe, 1995); K³oczowski, M³odsza Europa: Europa Œrodkowo-Wschodnia w kregu cywilizacji chrzeœcijañskiej œredniowiecza (Warsaw: PIW, 1998); K³oczowski,‘Les Pays de l’Europe du Centre-Est du XVe au XVIIe siècle’, in Histoire de l’Europe du Centre-Est‘Nouvelle Clio’, ed. by Marie-Elizabeth Ducreux and others (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,2004), pp. 106–85; Szûcs, ‘Three Historical Regions’; Henryk Samsonowicz, ‘Histoire de l’Europedu Centre-Est des origines au début du XIV siècle’, in Histoire de l’Europe du Centre-Est, ed. bye

Ducreux and others, pp. 3–105; East Central and Eastern Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. byFlorin Curta (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005).

Middle Ages. The third, the eastern Slavic domain of the Kievan Rus’, adhered to3

Greek Christendom, while developing a significant set of contacts with its westernand northern neighbors. Two formerly dangerous and aggressive enemies, the Scan-4

dinavian Vikings (Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes) on the northern borders and thenomadic Hungarians on the eastern confines, adopted Christianity and foundedkingdoms that sought a place among the European states. The same two centuries5

also witnessed the conversion of the Slavs, the largest ethnicity in Eastern Europe.The specific features of these new regions have been analysed by an ample tradi-

tion of historical reflection. East-Central Europe (Ostmitteleuropa) has been on theagenda since the mid-nineteenth century, and since the 1920s Polish, Czech, Hun-garian, and Romanian historians (such as Oskar Halecki, Francis Dvornik, JerzyK³oczowski, Jenõ Szûcs, Henryk Samsonowicz, and Florin Curta ) have conducted6

many significant studies pertaining to these issues. Following the well-formulated

CONCLUSION: NORTH AND EAST EUROPEAN CULTS OF SAINTS 285

Aleksander Gieysztor, L’Europe nouvelle autour de l’An Mil: la Papauté, l’Empire et les7

‘nouveaux venus’ (Rome: Unione Internazionale degli Istituti di Archeologia storia e storia dell’artein Roma, 1997).

Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change8

950–1350 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993).

Aaron J. Gurevich, ‘Die Freien Bauern im mittelalterlichen Norwegen’, Wissenschaftliche9

Zeitschrift der Universität Greifswald, 14 (1965), 323–36; Gurevich, ‘Space and Time in the Welt-modell of the Old Scandinavian People’, Mediaeval Scandinavia, 2 (1969), 42–53; Gurevich, ‘Sagaand History: The Historical Conception of Snorri Sturluson’, Mediaeval Scandinavia, 4 (1971),42–53; Birgit Sawyer and Peter Sawyer, Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation,circa 800–1500 (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1993); Sverre Bagge, ‘The Scandi-navian Kingdoms’, in New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. V (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1999), pp. 720–42; Tore Nyberg, Die Kirche in Skandinavien: Mitteleuropäischer undenglischer Einfluss im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert: Anfänge der Domkapitel Børglum und Odense inDänemark (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1986); Nyberg, Monasticism in North-Western Europe,800–1200 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000); and Medieval Spirituality in Scandinavia and Europe: ACollection of Essays in Honour of Tore Nyberg, ed. by Lars Bisgaard (Odense: Odense UniversityPress, 2001); The Birth of Identities: Denmark and Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. by Brian PatrickMcGuire (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1996).

L’Église et le peuple chrétien dans les pays de l’Europe du Centre-Est et du Nord (XIV –XV siècles),e e10

Actes du colloque […] de Rome (27–29 Janvier 1986) (Rome: École française de Rome, 1990).

Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge: Aspects juridiques et religieux; Medieval Canonization11

Processes: Legal and Religious Aspects, ed. by Gábor Klaniczay (Rome: École française de Rome,2004).

characterization by Aleksander Gieysztor, these countries were ‘newcomers’(‘nouveaux venus’) who apparently strove to emulate the models of their western7

neighbours, relying upon transferred and adopted ecclesiastical structures, andwithin that and not the least, models represented by the cult of saints. RobertBartlett described this process, relying principally upon Scandinavian examples, asthe ‘making’ and the ‘Europeanization’ of Europe. Recently, significant efforts8

have been invested in order to examine the specificities and the European contextof the ‘Nordic region’, such as the enquiries by Aaron J. Gurevich, Birgit Sawyerand Peter Sawyer, Sverre Bagge, Tore Nyberg, and Brian Patrick McGuire.9

Finally, the closer analogy between the medieval history of Central Europe andScandinavia has been examined with more and more attention recently. Let merefer here to a few examples. A comparative enquiry on the ecclesiastical history inboth regions was organized by André Vauchez in 1986; a conference in Colle-10

gium Budapest co-organized by Bengt Ankarloo and myself in 2001 deliberatedupon saints’ cults and canonization processes in Scandinavia and Central Europe;11

Gábor Klaniczay286

Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’12

c. 900–1200, ed. by Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000–1300), ed.13

by Lars Boje Mortensen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2006).

Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, ed.14

by Ildar Garipzanov and others, Cursor Mundi, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008).

Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney: A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context, Northern15

World, 29 (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. by Thomas A.16

DuBois (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008).

a volume edited by Nora Berend on Christianization and the Rise of ChristianMonarchy was reliant on close cooperation for several years by the Bergen Centre12

for Medieval Studies, the Nordic Network of Medieval Studies, the Prague Centrefor Medieval Studies, the University of Warsaw, and the Central European Uni-versity of Budapest; and finally, two recent conferences organized by the Centrefor Medieval Studies in Bergen addressed related issues. The one convened by LarsBoje Mortensen on The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Chris-tendom targeted an examination of parallels and divergences in medieval history-writing in these regions, and the other conference convened by Ildar Garipzanov13

and Przemys³aw Urbañczyk on Franks, Northmen, and Slavs confronted the dif-ferent relation of identities to state formation in these regions of early medievalEurope. The framework of the present volume continues this series, and it also14

relies on several recent comparative studies on the cult of the saints in this region,such as the monograph by Haki Antonsson putting a Scandinavian martyr-cult incontext or the commented anthology of legend translations edited by Thomas A.15

DuBois. We can say that all these individual and collective works provide an16

ample basis for constituting a sophisticated comparative overview. The questionis: what could be added to the already existing stock of our knowledge by the pres-ent group of analyses? This is what I will try to assess by comparing and contrastingScandinavian and East European cults with those in East-Central Europe.

Types of Saints Venerated in East-Central Europe

In the early Middle Ages, the cult of the saints was primarily the cult of the localpatron, whose relics were kept in the cathedral or the abbey. By the central MiddleAges, the period we are discussing here, the cult of the saints developed into an


For the cult of saints in this period, cf. Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the17

Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); and Thomas Head, Hagio-graphy and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orleans 800–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1990).

Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (London:18

Batsford, 1972); A. P. Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1970).

La conversione al cristianesimo nell’Europa dell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio sull’alto19

Medioevo, 14 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1969).

Richard Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity 371–1386 AD20

(London: Fontana, 1997). Christianizing Peoples, ed. by Armstrong and Wood; and Ian Wood,The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe 400–1050 (Harlow: Longman, 2001).

Theodor Schieffer, Winfrid-Bonifatius und die christliche Grundlegung Europas (Freiburg:21

Herder, 1954).

Robert Folz, Les Saints rois du Moyen Âge en Occident (VI –XIII siècles), Subsidia Hagio-e e22

graphica, 68 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1984), pp. 33–91; and Gábor Klaniczay, Holy

articulated system, filling the calendar in most locations with several feasts of saints— some of these saints universally venerated by the Church, some promoted byspecific ecclesiastical or dynastic exchanges, some related to imported relics, andsome related to emerging new local cults. The interest of historical research is17

mostly — and justifiably — dedicated to the last category, but one has to pay atten-tion to all other cults as well that are accepted as ‘local’ by the presence of the relicsof these ‘imported’ saints. We should not forget: the very first figure of the mis-sionary is that of the stranger coming from elsewhere, bringing a religious teachingto be imparted.

The first category of saints to be examined here, the saints of the conversiontimes, actually shows a combination of cults around ‘local’ and ‘imported’ saints.Hagiographic research can rely here upon a vast literature on conversion: thesyntheses by Henry Mayr-Harting and A. P. Vlasto, the comparative discussion18

made in Spoleto in 1969, the more recent accounts by Richard Fletcher and by19

Guyda Armstrong and Ian Wood, or the systematic set of case studies in the20

volume by Berend, which have identified various subtypes. Successful missionariescould be outstanding bishops like St Martin of Tours or St Patrick of Ireland,venerated as ‘confessor saints’. At the same time, the dangers of the missionaryactivities, the resistance of the pagans, or simply the peril of robbers often cost thelives of these converters — St Boniface is a good example.21

A second subtype of saint of the conversion times is that of the saintly ruler whobecomes an apostle of his kingdom, like Constantine the Great. As in the case of22

Gábor Klaniczay288

Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, trans. by Éva Pálmai(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 62–112.

David W. Rollason, ‘The Cult of Murdered Kings and Princes in Anglo-Saxon England’,23

Anglo-Saxon England, 11 (1983), pp. 11–22; and Erich Hoffmann, Die heiligen Könige bei denAngelsachsen und den skandinavischen Völkern: Königssheiliger und Königshaus, Quellen undForschungen zur Geschichte Schleswig-Holsteins, 69 (Neumünster: K. Wachholtz, 1975).

Martin Homza, Mulieres suadentes: Presviedèajúce ženy (Bratislava: Lúè, 2002).24

Richard E. Sullivan, ‘Khan Boris and the Conversion of Bulgaria: A Case Study of the25

Impact of Christianity on a Barbarian Society’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3(1966), 55–139; Henrik Birnbaum, ‘The Lives of Sts. Constantine-Cyril and Methodius: A BriefReassessment’, Cyrillomethodianum, 17–18 (1993–94), 7–14; and Vladimir Vavøínek, ‘Missionin Mähren: zwischen dem lateinischen Westen und Byzanz’, in Europas Mitte um 1000, ed. byAlfried Wieczorek and Hans-Martin Hinz (Stuttgart: Theiss, 2000), I, 304–10.

missionaries, we have the issue of martyrdom here too — the early Middle Agesoften witnessed converting holy rulers falling victim while in conflict with theirpagan opponents, either in battle or in courtly intrigue; the Anglo-Saxon saintkings (St Oswald, St Edwin, St Edmund, and St Edward) generally belong to thistype. Within this second subtype one must pay special attention to the mulier23

suadens — pious saintly women (a wife, mother, or grandmother) in a royal familywith persuasive capacities (like St Helena, or later St Clotilde) — who manage toconvince the ruler to convert.24

As for East-Central Europe, one has to take into account a conversion activitycoming from two sides: Byzantium and the West, with the first converting mis-sionaries coming from the former. Constantine-Cyril (d. 869) and Methodius (d.885) persuaded Tsar Boris in Bulgaria (d. 889) and Rostislav in Great Moravia totake up Christianity, and their cult subsequently became the foundation of Slavichagiography in the region. At the same time missionaries also arrived from the25

domains of Latin Christendom, from Bavaria, North Italy, and Dalmatia. In theconversion of Czechs, Croats, Poles, and Hungarians, it was already the Latin mis-sionaries who took the initiative, but these diligent western missionaries, somehow,did not achieve the prominence of subsequently becoming venerated as saints.

What East-Central Europe has as conversion saints, instead, is the cult of tworuler-saints: the pious Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia, murdered by his brotherBoleslaw in 929 (or 935), and the apostle king of the Hungarians, St Stephen(1000–38), complemented by the cult of a martyr bishop, St Adalbert, equallyfrom a ruler’s family, whose relics helped the foundation of the Gniezno bishopricin 1000 at the famous encounter of Emperor Otto III and Boleslaw the Brave.


František Graus, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger: Studien zur Hagio-26

graphie der Merowingerzeit (Prague: Nakladatelstvi Èeskoslovenské akademie ved Praha, 1965).

Karl Hauck, ‘Geblütsheiligkeit’, in Liber Floridus: Mittellateinische Studien: Paul Lehmann27

zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet, ed. by H. Bischoff and S. Brechter (Sankt Ottilien: Verlag derErzabtei, 1950), pp. 187–240; and József Deér, Heidnisches und Christliches in der althungarischenMonarchie (Darmstadt: WBG, 1969).

The cult of St Wenceslas has been the object of numerous excellent studies. As the principal28

authority, we should refer to Dušan Tøeštík, Poèátky Pøemyslovcù: Vstup Èechù do dìjin (530–935)(Prague: Lidové Noviny, 1997); cf. more recently, Tøeštík, ‘Translace a kanonizace svatého VávlavaBoleslavem I.’, in Svìtcí a jecích kult ve støedovìku, Sborník Katolické teologické fakulty UniverzityKarlovy, Dejin umìní – historie, 4 (Prague: [n.pub.], 2006), pp. 325–44; in English or German cf.František Graus, ‘St. Wenzel, der heilige Patron des Landes Böhmen’, in Graus, Lebendige Vergan-genheit: Überlieferung im Mittelalter und in den Vorstellungen vom Mittelalter (Cologne: Böhlau,1975), pp. 159–81; Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes, ed. by Marvin Kantor (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 1983); Herman Kølln, Die Wenzelslegende des Mönchs Christian(Copenhagen: Munksgaard for the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1996); and LisaWolverton, Hastening toward Prague: Power and Society in the Medieval Czech Lands (Philadel-phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).

The cult of St Wenceslas was the founding cult of what would become thedominant type of sainthood in East-Central Europe, that of the dynastic cult of theholy ruler. The character of St Wenceslas, described as a martyred saintly ruler byhis legends, was, however, very different from what the saint-type of holy kingslater became. It is not by chance that it was a Czech historian, František Graus,26

who demonstrated that the first phase of the evolution of royal sainthood was nota continuation of pagan concepts of ‘sacral kingship’ in a Christian context, assuggested, for example, by Karl Hauck or József Deér in the 1940s and 1950s. On27

the contrary, the first medieval royal saints (Sigismund, Hermenegild, Oswald, andEdmund) became saints not because of but rather despite their royal dignity (forhaving renounced it or having been violently deprived of it), and above all for hav-ing suffered a Christ-like martyr’s death. St Wenceslas was a true model of this typefor East-Central Europe: the most pious young prince, who refuses to pronouncedeath sentences, destroys the gallows, frees the prisoners, and wants to resign fromhis ducal dignity to become a monk (miles Christi). His sanctity and his martyr’sdeath are labelled in his earliest Latin legend as the ‘growth of Christian faith’(Crescent fide Christiana) among the Bohemian people; that is, as an importantstep towards their salvation. When his brother kills him, it becomes styled as aconfrontation of Christendom and paganism.28

Gábor Klaniczay290

The most recent authoritative study on him is by Gerard Labuda, Œwiêty Wojciech: biskup-29

mêczennik, patron Polski, Czech i Wêgier (Wroc³aw: Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, 2000); inGerman, see František Graus, ‘St. Adalbert und St. Wenzel: Zur Funktion der mittelalterlichenHeiligenverehrung in Böhmen’, in Europa Slavica – Europa Orientalis: Festschrift H. Ludat, ed. byKlaus-Detlev Rothusen and Klaus Zernack (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1980), pp. 205–31; andAdalbert von Prag: Brückenbauer zwischen dem Osten und Westen Europas, ed. by Hans HermannHenrix (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1997).

Cristian Gaºpar (CEU, Budapest) gave an excellent lecture on the thorny issues related to30

the legends of St Adalbert at the Bergen conference, which he intends to publish together with anew English translation of the legends.

Johannes Fried, Otto III. und Boleslaw Chrobry: Das Widmungsbild des Aachener Evangeliars,31

der ‘Akt von Gnesen’ und das frühe polnische und ungarische Königtum (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1989);Fried, ‘Gnesen – Aachen – Rom: Otto III. und der Kult des hl. Adalbert. Beobachtungen zumälteren Adalbertsleben’, in Polen und Deutschland vor 1000 Jahren: Die Berliner Tagung über den‘Akt von Gnesen’, ed. by Michael Borgolte (Berlin: Akademie, 2002), pp. 235–72; and RomanMichalowski, Zjazd gnieŸnieñski: religijne przes³anki powstania arcybiskupstwa gnieŸnieñskiego(Wroc³aw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wroc³awskiego, 2005).

Wenceslas was not very widely known as a duke and became noteworthy aboveall because of the unfolding cult of saint around his person. Adalbert, on the otherhand, was one of the most important ecclesiastical personalities in Europe aroundthe year 1000. A member of the aristocratic family of the Slavnik, the principal29

rivals of the Pøemyslids in Bohemia, Vojtech-Adalbert was the second Bishop ofPrague. Forced into exile after his family had been massacred in Libice in 995, hestayed in Rome in the monastery dedicated to St Alexis and St Boniface. He wasactive in the whole of Europe in the field of ecclesiastical diplomacy, in close rela-tionship with Otto III and Gerbert d’Aurillac. As were many churchmen of histime, he was attracted by an ambition to broaden the territories converted toChristianity and by the glamorous perils of the missionary vocation. In 997 hedeparted to Poland to convert the pagan Prussians and was murdered there. Theaffirmation of his cult was due, above all, to the patronage of Duke Boleslaw, whobought his relics from the pagans, commissioned his legend, and obtained his ele-30

vation in 999. In this enterprise, then, he found a prominent helper in the personof Otto III, who made a pilgrimage in 1000 to the grave of Adalbert, perhaps withthe intention of making him a saintly patron of the whole empire. At the famous‘Gniezno congress’ (much debated recently by German and Polish historians, suchas Johannes Fried and Roman Michalowski ), Otto offered Boleslaw regal titles31

strengthened by the famous holy lance in exchange for the arm relics of StAdalbert.


Alexander Gieysztor, ‘Sanctus et gloriosissimus martyr Christi Adalbertus: Un État et une32

Église missionnaires aux alentours de l’an mille’, in La conversione al cristianesimo, pp. 611–47.

Kelet Közép-Európa szentje: Adalbert (Vojtech Wojciech Béla), ed. by Ádám Somorjai33

(Budapest: METEM, 1994).

František Graus, Die Nationenbildung der Westslawen im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen:34

Thorbecke, 1980).

Wood, Missionary Life, pp. 226–43; and Marina Miladinov, Margins of Solitude: Eremitism35

in Central Europe between East and West (Zagreb: Leykam International, 2008), pp. 67–83.

The essential monograph on him is by György Györffy, István király és mûve (Budapest:36

Gondolat, 1977); an abbreviated version of it is available in English: King Saint Stephen of Hungary(Boulder: Social Science Monographs, 1994). More recently, see Marie-Madeleine de Cevins, SaintÉtienne de Hongrie (Paris: Fayard, 2004); and László Veszprémy, ‘Royal Saints in HungarianChronicles, Legends and Liturgy’, in Making of Christian Myths, ed. by Mortensen, pp. 217–46.

Legendae Sancti Stephani regis maior et minor atque legenda ab Hartvico conscripta, ed. by37

Emma Bartoniek, in Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis Arpadianaegestarum, ed. by Emericus Szentpétery (Budapest: Academia Litter. Hungarica, 1938), II, 375–98.

As underlined by his legend, the principal attribute of St Adalbert has been‘sanctus et gloriosissimus martyr Christi’. But his cult was founded, at the same32

time, upon the combined roles of the saintly bishop and the holy missionary, thetwo most popular saint-types of the early Middle Ages — this is what made himthe emblematic saint of the conversion of Central Europe. Venerated as the mostimportant saint of the Polish Church in Gniezno, he was also chosen to be thepatron saint of the archbishopric of Esztergom (Strigonium), the centre of the newHungarian Church, and later even the role of baptizing St Stephen was attributed33

to him. In 1038, as is well known, his relics were taken by Duke Bøetislav fromGniezno to Prague, and his cult continued to dominate the ecclesiastical life ofboth Slavic countries. Not only is Adalbert considered to be a most influential34

model by modern historians, but he was also immediately perceived so by hiscontemporaries. His second legend writer, Bruno of Querfurt, a disciple of StRomuald, decided to follow the example of St Adalbert and reached the martyr’sfate among the Prussians.35

Now we come to the principal saint of conversion for Hungary, who was, as inthe case of Bohemia, an apostolic holy ruler — St Stephen, the first Christian kingof Hungary. It might be worth noting that he was the first medieval sovereign to36

be canonized without having been a martyr, honoured only in recognition of hismerits in vita as a king. The description of his life in his Legenda Maior demon-37

strates that the merits of a rex iustus can be harmonized with those of a Christiansaint, and that it is possible for a ruler to become a saint if he sides with the

Gábor Klaniczay292

Gábor Klaniczay, ‘Rex iustus: le saint fondateur de la royauté chrétienne’, Cahiers d’études38

hongroises, 8 (1996), 34–58.

Legendae Sancti Stephani regis, ed. by Bartoniek, pp. 398–99.39

Nora Berend and others, ‘The Kingdom of Hungary’, in Christianization and the Rise of40

Christian Monarchy, ed. by Berend, pp. 319–68 (p. 339).

Legendae Sancti Stephani regis, ed. by Bartoniek, pp. 394–95; for an English translation by41

Nora Berend of the third legend on St Stephen by Bishop Hartvic, see Medieval Hagiography: AnAnthology, ed. by Thomas Head (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 375–98.

Libellus de institutione morum, ed. by Josephus Balogh, in Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum,42

ed. by Szentpétery, II, 614–21; and Jenõ Szûcs, ‘King Stephen’s Exhortations and his State’, NewHungarian Quarterly, 30 (1989), 89–105 (with an English translation of the Exhortations).

teachings of the Church. The legend describes that after having acceded to king-ship, Stephen became a champion of the Christian faith, a miles Christi whotriumphed with the help of St Martin and St George. The sources characterizedhim as a ruler with a firm hand but with extraordinary humility at the same time,distributing alms, caring about pilgrims, widows, orphans, and the poor in general;in short, a virtuous Christian of his age. The dominant trait, however, was that38

of sheer force. The nature of the repression needed for the establishment of thenew faith is well illustrated by passages in the Legenda Minor of St Stephen(written towards the end of the eleventh century), describing how he punished theviolators of his Christian laws by hanging the culprits ‘two by two along the roadsof every province of the country. Thus it was that he wanted to make people under-stand that the same would be done to whoever did not abide by the just lawpromulgated by God. The people of the earth heard the judgement that the Kinghad passed, and were filled with fear’. No wonder that such reprisals soon39

provoked two forceful ‘pagan’ rebellions (in 1046 and 1072).40

To counterbalance this grim aspect of royal sainthood, however, let me mentionanother trait underlined in the Legenda Minor of St Stephen: his education andwisdom. ‘He kept judgement and justice before his eyes, according to the word ofSolomon: The wise man also may hear discipline and increase in learning, and theman of understanding acquire government (Prov. 1. 5).’ This reference to the Old41

Testament models of kingship — those related to David and Solomon, so charac-teristic of the early Middle Ages — also dominates the train of thought in theLibellus de institutione morum, a kind of speculum principum dedicated (and prob-ably inspired but not personally written) by St Stephen to his son Emeric.42

With these three major local saints of the conversion in East-Central Europe— Wenceslas, Adalbert, and Stephen — we actually have four saint-types: the


Karol Modzelewski, ‘Europa romana, Europa feudale, Europa barbara’, Bullettino dell’Istituto43

Storico per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano, 100 (1995/96), 377–409; and Modzelewski,L’Europe des barbares (Paris: Aubier, 2006).

Edith Pásztor, ‘Problemi di datazione della Legenda maior S. Gerhardi episcopi’, Bullettino44

dell’Istituto Storico per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano, 73 (1961), 113–40; and AnnaKuznetsova, ‘Signs of Conversion in Vitae sanctorum’, in Christianizing Peoples, ed. by Armstrongand Wood, pp. 125–32.

Marina Miladinov, ‘Hermits Murdered by Robbers: The Construction of Martyrdom in45

Ottonian Hagiography’, Annual of the Department of Medieval Studies at Central EuropeanUniversity, 6 (2000), 9–21.

martyr of faith, the holy ruler, the saintly bishop, and the courageous missionary.In a second, subsequent wave of new cults related to the efforts of stabilizing theresults of the conversion, these types get further confirmed and also complementedby new ones.

The fate of a martyr bishop, St Gellért (Gerard) of Csanád in Hungary, offersinsight into the perilous life of clerics in recently converted territories, where theresistance of the pagans — as eloquently described recently by Karol Modzelewskiin his L’Europe des barbares — was quite strong and violent. Gerard, a monk from43

Venice on a pilgrimage towards the Holy Land, was held up by King Stephen ofHungary and nominated bishop of a more-or-less pagan part of Hungary, thediocese of Marosvár (named Csanád after 1030). He thus became one of the mostactive organizers of the Hungarian Church. During an insurrection of the pagansin 1046 after the death of King Stephen (1038), he was stoned (as a St Stephenprotomartyr), and his subsequent cult became a symbol in the fight against theresidual forms of paganism.44

Besides the martyr’s death as the consequence of a conflict with pagans, therewere also other dangers menacing the Christians living in the vicinity of barba-ricum: the robbers (who had already made a martyr of St Boniface two centuriesearlier). A group of five hermits who strove to implant the new eremitic movementin Poland around 1000 were brutally massacred by a group of robbers. The Vitaquinque fratrum was written once again by Bruno of Querfurt before his departureto the same region, to find a similar fate for himself. (And their relics were stolen45

and carried to Prague by the invading Czechs at the same time from Gniezno, asthose of St Adalbert were.)

In the period when we see the appearance of this new group of martyrs relatedto the expansion of Christendom around 1000, one can generally observe in Italy,Germany, and France the great popularity of a new model of sainthood, that of the

Gábor Klaniczay294

Sofia Boesch Gajano, ‘Alla ricerca dell’identità eremitica’, in Ermites de France et d’Italie46

(XI –XV siècle), ed. by André Vauchez (Rome: École française de Rome, 2003), pp. 479–92.e e

Gotthard P. Lang, ‘Günther, der Eremit, in Geschichte, Sage und Kult’, Studien und47

Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner Ordens, 59 (1941), 3–80; Geneviève Bührer-Thierry,‘Aux marges de la Bavière et de la Bohême: Gunther l’Ermite’, in Scrivere il Medioevo: Lo spazio,la santità, il cibo: Un libro dedicato ad Odile Redon, ed. by Br. Laurioux and L. Moulinier-Brogi(Rome: Viella, 2001), pp. 263–75; and Miladinov, Margins of Solitude, pp. 84–90.

J. T. Milik, Swiety Swierad: Saint Andrew Zoerardus (Rome: Edizioni Hosianum, 1966);48

Marina Miladinov, ‘Dalle laure ai Paolini: le comunità eremitiche in Ungheria nel medioevocentrale’, in Ermites de France et d’Italie, ed. by Vauchez, pp. 389–411; and Miladinov, Margins ofSolitude, pp. 115–27.

Der heilige Prokop, Böhmen und Mitteleuropa, ed. by Petr Sommer (Prague: Filosofia, 2005);49

and Sommer, ‘Svatý Prokop a jeho kult ve støedovìku’, in Svìtcí a jecích kult, pp. 261–83.

ascetic hermit who realized martyrdom without blood. The oriental borderlandsof Latin Christendom represented a powerful attraction for the Italian and Ger-man adherents of these new eremitic movements. Even St Gerard spent some46

time dedicating himself to the solitary exercises of the hermit in Bakonybél, andsomewhat later another saintly hermit arrived at this hermitage, the blessed Gün-ther of Niederaltaich, a Thuringian nobleman who turned to this penitent formof life pro delictis iuventutis. This model was also represented by two Polish-47

Slovak-Hungarian hermits near Nitra, St Zoerard-Andrew and St Benedict, wholived in the first decades of the eleventh century; the latter was murdered by arobber (as the Quinque fratres were). Their extreme ascetic practices, a kind of ‘sac-ralization of the body’ according to some analysts, show parallel influences where,besides the impact of the Camaldolese ideals, the traces of oriental, Maronite ere-mitic practices could also be discovered. The popularity of this ideal in the recentlyconverted territories is illustrated by the fact that the very first Latin legend inHungary — probably in 1064 by blessed Maurus, bishop of Pécs (Fünfkirchen) —is dedicated to these hermit saints, and their penitential chain-belt was obtainedas a precious relic by King Géza I in 1074. Finally, besides departing from a48

similar hermit identity, the important Czech saint Procopius of Sazava (d. 1053)enriches our cluster by yet another type — that of the saintly abbot.49

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, both the Czech and Hungarian cultswere dominated by an amplification of the cult of the dynastic saints. In Bohemiathe cult of Ludmila — the grandmother of Wenceslas, who played an importantrole in his Christian education and suffered a martyr’s death before him — mayhave predated that of Wenceslas, but it developed to a perceptible amplitude only


Medieval Slavic Lives, ed. by Kantor; Tøeštík, Poèátky Pøemyslovcù, pp. 179–81; and Homza,50

Mulieres suadentes, pp. 80–109.

Klaniczay, Holy Rulers, pp. 155–60; and Tamás Lõrincz, Az ezeréves ifjú: Tanulmányok Szent51

Imre herceg 1000 évérõl (Székesfehérvár: Szent Imre-templom, 2007).

André Vauchez, ‘Beata stirps: sainteté et lignage en Occident aux XIII et XIV siècles’, ine e52

Famille et parenté dans l’Occident médiéval, ed. by Georges Duby and Jacques Le Goff (Rome: Écolefrançaise de Rome, 1977), pp. 397–406; and Patrick Corbet, Les Saints Ottoniens: sainteté dynas-tique, sainteté royale et sainteté féminine autour de l’an Mil, Beihefte der Francia, 15 (Sigmaringen:Thorbecke, 1986).

Gábor Klaniczay, ‘L’Image chevaleresque du saint roi au XII siècle’, in La Royauté sacrée dans53

le monde chrétien: Colloque de Royaumont, mars 1989, ed. by Alain Boureau and Claudio SergioIngerflom (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1992), pp. 53–62; andKlaniczay, Holy Rulers, pp. 161–95.

in the eleventh century. In Hungary the cult of St Stephen was initiated by the50

elevation of his remains in 1083, and this opportunity was also used for startinganother cult around the person of his son Emeric, who died young at the age oftwenty-three before he could accede to his father’s throne. The unfolding cult of51

Emeric, besides adding to the cult of St Stephen an opening towards the venerationof an entire beata stirps, became the representative of a new type, the pious and52

virginal young prince who lives in chastity and fully represents the Church’s moralswithin the royal dynasty. Finally, I should mention the considerable broadening ofHungarian dynastic cults in the twelfth century: this regards the cult of St Ladislas,king of Hungary (1077–95), who arranged for the canonization of his royal rela-tives in 1083 and who was canonized in his turn in 1192. His cult quickly becamethe most popular saint cult in medieval Hungary; the tomb of St Ladislas in Nag-yvárad (Oradea) became a popular site of ordeals; the legends and iconographicrepresentations presented him in the style of the century of the Crusades as achivalrous athleta patriae, protector of the country against oriental nomadicaggressors.53

In opposition to what we see in Hungary and Bohemia (and many othermedieval European kingdoms), no dynastic cult of saint emerged in Poland,perhaps because of the eleventh- and twelfth-century divisions within the Piastdynasty and the territorial fragmentation of the kingdom. On the other hand, theirmost important patron saint, the martyr bishop St Adalbert, found a replica in theperson of the assassinated Krakow bishop St Stanislaus, killed in a conflict withBoleslaw II the Bold, king of Lesser Poland in 1079. Even though his cult only

Gábor Klaniczay296

On his cult, see recently Gerard Labuda, Œwiety Stanis³aw biskup krakowski, patron polski:54

Œladami zabójstwa – mêczeñstwa – kanonizacji (Poznañ: Institut Historii UAM, 2000); andAgnieszka Rozÿnowska-Sadraei, Pater Patriae: The Cult of Saint Stanislaus and the Patronage ofPolish Kings, 1200–1455 (Krakow: Unum, 2008).

This problem has been pointed to by Aleksander Gieysztor, ‘Saints d’implantation, et saints55

de souche dans les pays évangélisés de l’Europe de Centre-Est’, in Hagiographie, cultures et sociétés:Actes du Colloque organisé à Nanterre et à Paris (2–5 mai 1979) (Paris: Études Augustiniennes,1981), pp. 573–84.

Tøeštík, Poèátky Pøemyslovcù, pp. 411–15; Annales Pragenses, s.a. 929, ed. by Georg H. Pertz,56

MGH SS, 3, p. 119; and Hedwig Röckelein, ‘Der heilige Vitus: Die Erfolgsgeschichte einesImportheiligen’, in ‘Heiliges Westfalen’ Heilige, Reliquien, Wallfahrt und Wunder im Mittelalter,ed. by Gabriela Signori (Gütersloh: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2003), pp. 19–29.

Mons Sacer 1996–1996: Pannonhalma 1000 éve (Pannonhalma: Pannonhalmi Bencés57

Föapátság, 1996); and Paradisum plantavit: Benedictine Monasteries in Medieval Hungary, ed. byImre Takács (Pannonhalma: Pannonhalmi Bencés Föapátság, 2001).

‘In loco qui sacer mons dicitur, ubi sanctus Martinus, dum adhuc in Pannonia degeret,58

orationis sibi locum assignaverat’: Legendae Stephani, ed. by Bartoniek, p. 409.

György Györffy, ‘A szávaszentdemeteri görög monostor XII. századi birtokösszeírása’, A59

Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Társadalmi-történeti tudományok osztályának közleményei, 2(1952), 325–62; and 3 (1953), 69–104.

emerged in the thirteenth century, his eleventh-century martyrdom could relatehim to the model of St Adalbert.54

After this summary overview of the principal local cults in East-Central Europe,let us cast a brief look upon the ‘imported’ saints. The most important and visible55

among these cults is beyond doubt the cult of St Vitus, a late antique martyr whosearm-relics were translated to Prague from Corvey (which in its turn had receivedthem from Saint-Denis in the ninth century) in 929 as a gift by King Henry I toDuke Wenceslas. In Hungary we may observe the importance of the cult of St56

Martin of Tours, who became the patron saint of the Abbey of Pannonhalma,founded in 996, partly because of his Pannonian origin, which is mentioned57

already in the Legenda Maior of St Stephen.58

The cult of St George and St Demetrios directs our attention to an importantquestion related to the ‘imported’ saints concerning the considerable influence com-ing from Byzantium and the Orthodox domain. The cult of St George in Hungaryis related to the relics acquired by St Stephen on a campaign in Bulgaria, and theveneration of St Demetrios in the Greek monastery of Szávaszentdemeter (SremskéMitrovica) is also related to these contacts. While the cult of St George in Bohe-59

mia — represented in the Prague Castle by the chapel dedicated to him in the latetenth century — may be related rather to Western influence, the Orthodox-Slavonic


Dušan Tøeštík, ‘Slawische Liturgie und Schrifttum im Böhmen des 10. Jahrhunderts:60

Vorstellungen und Wirklichkeit’, in Der heilige Prokop, ed. by Sommer, pp. 205–36; and EmilieBláhová, ‘Literarische Beziehungen zwischen dem Sázava-Kloster und der Kiever Rus’, in ibid., pp.237–55.

Jerzy Józef Kopeæ, ‘Geneza patronatu Maryjnego – nad narodem polskym’, Roczniki61

Humanistyczne, 34 (1986), 275–92; and Klaniczay, Holy Rulers, pp. 139–42.

Karol Dobrowolski, Dzieje kultu œw. Floriana w Polsce do polowy XVI w. (Warsaw: Rozprawy62

Historyczne Towarzystwa Naukowego Warszawskiego, 1923); and Aleksander Gieysztor,‘Politische Heilige im hochmittelalterlichen Polen und Böhmen’, in Politik und Heiligenverehrungim Hochmittelalter: Reichenau-Tagung 1990/91, ed. by Jürgen Petersohn, Vorträge undForschungen, 42 (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994), pp. 325–41 (p. 336).

Halina Manikowska, ‘Le Culte des saints patrons dans les villes dans l’archdiocèse de63

Gniezno au bas Moyen Âge’, in Fonctions sociales et politiques du culte des saints dans les sociétés derite grec et latin au Moyen Âge et à l’époque moderne: Approche comparative, ed. by Marek Derwichand Michel Dmitriev (Wroc³aw: Larhcor, 1999), pp. 161–82.

Maria Starnawska, Œwiêtych zÿyciepo zÿyciu: Relikwie w kulturze religijnej na ziemiach polskich64

w œredniowieczu (Warsaw: DIG-Akademia Polska, 2008).

Szent László és Somogyvár: Tanulmányok a 900 éves somogyvári bencés apátság emlékezetére,65

ed. by Kálmán Magyar (Kaposvár: Somogy Megyei Múzeumok Igazgatósága, 1992).

traditions have been present in Czech Christianity as well. It might also be inter-60

esting to examine how much the popularity of St Nicholas and St Michael in thewhole of East-Central Europe is due to a parallel influence from Byzantium andthe Holy Roman Empire, without speaking of the early emergence in this regionof the cult of the Virgin Mary, also related to both of these spheres of influence.61

In terms of Poland, one might add to these some important urban cults basedon imported relics, such as those of St Florian in Krakow (initiated in 1184), St62

John the Baptist in Wroczlaw, or St Barbara in Kutna Hora. Recently, much63

valuable new research has been done in Poland on the cult of the relics, and64

hopefully similar detailed enquiries will also soon map important documentationin this domain in Bohemia and Hungary (such as the relic donations from Franceleading to the cult of St Aignan in the abbey of Tihany, the burial place ofAndrew I, or of St Gilles at Somogyvár founded by St Ladislas).65

Parallels and Divergences with the North and the East

The chapters in this volume have undertaken a very detailed critical scrutiny of theformation of the cult of saints in Scandinavia and the Kievan Rus’, and they have

Gábor Klaniczay298

Norman W. Ingham, ‘Czech Hagiography in Kiev: The Prisoner Miracles of Boris and66

Gleb’, Die Welt der Slaven, 10 (1965), 166–82; and Ingham, ‘The Sovereign as Martyr, East andWest’, Slavic and East European Journal, 17 (1973), 1–17.

also tried to elaborate analytic tools for assessing the relative weight and impact ofthese cults and their relationship to external influences. Let me first enumerate thepoints I consider relevant for this new overview and make some additional obser-vations on the basis of my East-Central European perspective.

What I consider to be an important new dimension of the present comparativesurvey is that it takes a step beyond the traditional perspective of simply enu-merating and individually presenting the relevant cults of a country in the chrono-logical order of their emergence. In the first place, instead of examining isolatedsets of ‘foreign’ impacts on individual cults, it creates an innovative broader con-text. Whereas the Scandinavian cults of the saints have so far principally beenexamined in connection with the Anglo-Saxon and German influence that shapedthem (on which we also get much further documentation in the present volume)and Russian cults in the context of models coming from the Byzantine domain(here again elucidated by Monica White in this volume), the present enquirybrings these two spheres together. By this token a series of hitherto less observedinterchanges becomes visible between Scandinavia and early Rus’, as well as thepresence of several further elements of Latin Christendom in the cults of saintsdocumented in the Kievan Rus’. On the other hand, some connections taken forgranted become questionable as a consequence of this critical scrutiny, such as themuch discussed ‘Czech connection’ in relation to Boris and Gleb (cf. the preced-66

ing chapter by Marina Paramonova).Besides measuring the degrees of outside and intraregional influence, several

studies concentrate upon the institutional ramifications and the media by whichwe can document how precisely these cults were present and how they had beenpromoted at the different ecclesiastical centres. The royal patronage of the cults ofthe saints and the initiatives taken by bishops are given careful attention. The for-mation and the dissemination of the cults themselves are traced according to threesets of documents. The church dedications assessed by Åslaug Ommundsendelineate the comparable importance of these cults, and this is complemented bynew information to be gained from church liturgy: Ildar Garipzanov exploits theliturgical birchbark calendar of Novgorod. The other set of documents consists ina detailed survey of the textual culture and the philological context of some keytexts such as the Life of St Anskar by Rimbert ( James Palmer), the Passion of St Kingand Martyr Knud by Ælnoth of Canterbury (Aidan Conti), the Passio Olavi (Lars


Nils Blomkvist, Stefan Brink, and Thomas Lindkvist, ‘The Kingdom of Sweden’, in67

Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy, ed. by Berend, pp. 167–213 (pp. 188–89); andThomas A. DuBois, ‘Sts Sunniva and Henrik: Scandinavian Martyr Saints in their Hagiographicand National Contexts’, in Sanctity in the North, ed. by DuBois, pp. 65–101.

Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Constructing the Past: Religious Dimensions and Historical68

Consciousness in Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesie pontificum’, in Making ofChristian Myths, ed. by Mortensen, pp. 17–52.

Blomkvist, Brink, and Lindkvist, ‘The Kingdom of Sweden’, p. 183.69

Boje Mortensen and Lenka Jiroušková), the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pon-tificum by Adam of Bremen (Haki Antonsson), and Old Norse sagas ( JonasWellendorf), not separating their treatment from each other, but rather using onefor contextualizing the other. All this is further framed by an analysis of the hagio-graphic preferences of ‘cathedral culture’ in Scandinavia (Anna Minara Ciardi).

All these investigations confirm the overall importance of one local cult thatbecame quasi universal in this region and even beyond, in northern Rus’, that of StOlaf (Åslaug Ommundsen and Tatjana Jackson). At the same time, they point outthe prominence of some ‘locally venerated universal and foreign saints’, such as StLawrence in Lund, St Clement and St Nicholas in Århus (and also in Novgorod!),St Alban in Odense, and St Lucius in Roskilde, over important but less popularlocal saints such as St Knud of Denmark.

Let me now turn to my own agenda: what can be observed in connection withthese studies with my ‘East-Central European glasses’? I will go in a similar orderas my overview above and start with the ‘conversion saints’. In the first place, Iwould not speak of a lack of conversion saints in Scandinavia; there are slightlymore there than in East-Central Europe. As for the missionaries, one can state asimilarity also underlined by Haki Antonsson between the two Frankish monks,St Anskar and his companion Rimbert and St Adalbert. As well, the other convert-ing saints acting in Swedish territories — the English Sigfrid, Eskil, and Henrik67

— could well be put in parallel with the mission stories of East-Central Europefrom Constantine-Cyril and Methodius to Bruno of Querfurt. As there was arivalry in East-Central Europe between missionaries coming from Byzantium andthose from Latin Christianity (and also there from Bavaria or from Italy), in theNorth one can also discover at least two poles: the German missions and the En-glish ones, a rivalry that can be traced back to the accounts of Adam of Bremen.68

The parallels could further be continued by the martyr’s death suffered by BishopEskil, stoned in the pagan uprising of 1086 in similar circumstances as Gerard of69

Csanád in Hungary in 1046.

Gábor Klaniczay300

Cf. Åslaug Ommundsen, ‘The Cults of Saints in Norway before 1200’, Lars Boje Mortensen,70

‘Writing and Speaking of St Olaf: National and Social Integration’, and Lenka Jiroušková, ‘TextualEvidence for the Transmission of the Passio Olavi Prior to 1200 and its Later Literary Transfor-mations’, in this volume.

Legendae Stephani, ed. by Bartoniek, p. 405.71

János M. Bak, ‘Signs of Conversion in Central European Laws’, in Christianizing Peoples, ed.72

by Armstrong and Wood, pp. 115–24.

Cf. above note 42.73

Veszprémy, ‘Royal Saints in Hungarian Chronicles’.74

Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Sanctified Beginnings and Mythopoietic Moments: The First Wave75

of Writing on the Past in Norway, Denmark and Hungary, c. 1000–1230’, in Making of ChristianMyths, ed. by Mortensen, pp. 247–73 (pp. 252–55).

Klaniczay, Holy Rulers, pp. 134–47.76

Hoffmann, Die heiligen Könige, pp. 58–62.77

The similarities could be continued by the apostolic role played by the twoOlafs and the hagiography of St Olaf Haraldsson, discussed in detail by the presentcontributions. It might be worth comparing them with the role of Hungarian70

rulers in conversion because, besides St Stephen, his father, Duke Géza, should betaken into account here too. Like Olaf Tryggvason, Géza had considerable meritsin the conversion of his own people. He made the first decisive moves; it was hisdecision to invite missionaries and have Stephen baptized and to found the firstChristian monastery in Hungary — but as the legend of St Stephen specifies, hecould not accede to the glory of sainthood because ‘his hands were stained byblood’. Continuing the confrontation, St Stephen’s converting role had been71

more explicit than that of Olaf Haraldsson, expressed by his legislation, by the72

authorship attributed to him concerning the Admonishments to Prince Emeric,73

by the Gesta Ungarorum, and by his legends. (The comparably earlier appearance74

of these written tools of cult in Central Europe than in Scandinavia has beenalready underlined by Lars Boje Mortensen. )75

In the legends, St Stephen of Hungary is presented as a conscious coordinatorof a whole ecclesiastical team of missionaries, from St Adalbert and St Gerard toall of the hermits, who all work with his direction on the integration of Hungaryinto Christendom. He really had to conquer the whole country from more or lesspagan rivals and impose the new faith often with the help of foreign (Bavarian)knights. Olaf Haraldsson, meanwhile, was fighting Christian rivals who were76

made out to be pagan only in his subsequent hagiographic accounts. This, on the77

other hand, puts Olaf Haraldsson’s case in parallel with that of Wenceslas, the


František Graus, ‘La Sanctification du souverain dans l’Europe centrale des X et XI siècles’,e e78

in Hagiographie cultures et sociétés, pp. 559–72.

DuBois, ‘Sts Sunniva and Henrik’; cf. Haki Antonsson, ‘The Early Cult of Saints in79

Scandinavia and the Conversion: A Comparative Perspective’, in this volume.

On the Seven Sleepers, see Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA:80

Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 1–5; on the parallels to Modwenna, see DuBois, ‘Sts Sunnivaand Henrik’.

Sándor Fest, The Hungarian Origins of Margaret of Scotland (Debrecen: Egyetemi Nyomda,81

1943); a CEU Ph.D. student, Katie Keene, is currently writing a new monograph on Margaret’slife and cult.

Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney, pp. 121–27; cf. the studies in this volume by Haki82

Antonsson, ‘Early Cult of Saints’, and by Ommundsen, ‘Cults of Saints in Norway before 1200’.

pagan sympathies of whose mother and brother had also been exaggerated by thelegends.78

Let me also point to some further differences. We do not find any CentralEuropean parallels to the mythological propensities of the cult of St Sunniva andthe martyrs of Selja. Even though their case could be put in a slight relationship79

with the contemporary hermit movement, and the way ‘pagan’ locals were turningagainst them is not unlike the conflicts that the Quinque fratres had to face, andeven though the account of the royal patronage of the cult by Olaf Tryggvason andthe construction of the church at the entry of the rediscovered cave in 996 is sim-ilar to the way Otto III venerated the relics of St Adalbert or the Hungarian Géza Ithose of St Zoerard-Andrew, it actually precedes these cult-patronizing gestures.On the whole, the story rather belongs to the emerging hagiographic romances ofthe twelfth century, and its parallels are rather in late antique or English-Irishlegends (the ‘Seven Sleepers of Ephesus’, St Ursula, and Modwenna). Perhaps one80

might recall here yet another Central European and at the same time Anglo-Saxonparallel, the emerging cult of Margaret of Scotland (whose life also included somemigrations).81

The cult of St Hallvard is also quite a peculiar one: in Central Europe such a82

local saint cult related to a layperson is missing altogether, and there is no evidencethat any such ‘grassroots’ cult could make it to the important role of becoming thepatron of a local bishopric. The local cults in East-Central Europe seem to havebeen related either to higher ranks of royal-ecclesiastical hierarchy or to prestigiousrelics ‘imported’ by them, such as those of St Vitus in Prague or St George inHungary.

Gábor Klaniczay302

Susan Janet Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and83

East Anglian Cults (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Hoffmann, Die heiligen Könige, pp. 58–126; cf. the studies by Aidan Conti, ‘Ælnoth of84

Canterbury and Early Mythopoiesis in Denmark’, and Mortensen, ‘Writing and Speaking of StOlaf’, in this volume.

Tore Nyberg, ‘Autour de la Sacralité Royale en Scandinavie’, Annuarium historiae conci-85

liorum, 27–28 (1995–96), 177–92.

Andrzej Poppe, ‘Politik und Heiligenverehrung in der Kiever Ruœ: Der apostelgleiche Herr-86

scher und seine Märtyrersöhne’, in Politik und Heiligenverehrung, ed. by Petersohn, pp. 403–22.

Let me finally come to the problem of royal-dynastic sainthood, the multiplica-tion of successful royal and dynastic cults in the recently converted northern andeastern regions, where I see the closest parallels between Scandinavia, Kievan Rus’,and Central Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The reason for the prominence of this type seems to be related to the post-conversion situation: the necessity to foster a close alliance between the rulingdynasty of the new Christian kingdom and the local church that was emerging withits support. The help given in Christianization was rewarded by conferring the haloof sanctity on some outstanding figures of these dynasties. As is well known, thefirst ‘breakthrough’ of this model is exemplified by the cult of royal saints in eighth-and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon England. In a similar historical situation, in83

eleventh-century Scandinavia the Anglo-Saxon model was directly influential inshaping the cults of royal saints such as Olaf Haraldsson in Norway and KnudSvensson (d. 1086) in Denmark. These cults typically started during the strife84

surrounding the succession, and subsequently they were instrumental in securingthe ascendance of the branch of the dynasty that tried to capitalize on thepatronage of these cults. Later they became touchstones of the identity of thesenew kingdoms and the Church within them. Yet in a subsequent phase, in the laterMiddle Ages, some surviving elements of pre-Christian mythologies were attachedto these cults, adding to their ethnic flavour.85

What we can learn about the Kievan Rus’, about the cult around the two sonsof Vladimir, Boris and Gleb, who were murdered in 1015, very much confirms thissame image: they did serve the formation of a closer alliance between the localChurch and the Rurikid dynasty and were used by Jaroslav to solidify his power.86

As for Central and Eastern Europe, we can already see the dominance of thissame type of saint cult among the Czechs and Hungarians (and the lack of itamong the Poles). Even if the individual analogies should not be overstressed —the not sufficiently documented nature of the impact of the cult of St Wenceslas


Klaniczay, Holy Rulers, p. 132.87

Haki Antonsson, St Magnús of Orkney, pp. 103–45.88

For these cults, see Hoffmann, Die heiligen Könige.89

Klaniczay, Holy Rulers, pp. 161–93. 90

Erich Hoffmann, ‘Politische Heilige in Skandinavien und die Entwicklung der drei91

nordischen Reiche und Völker’, in Politik und Heiligenverehrung, ed. by Petersohn, pp. 277–324;and Dick Harrison, ‘Quod magno nobis fuit horrori …: Horror, Power and Holiness within theContext of Canonization’, in Procès de canonisation, ed. by Klaniczay, pp. 39–52.

upon the cults of St Boris and St Gleb is rightly criticized by Marina Paramonova— on the whole there are innumerable interrelations. I tried to point out elsewherethat the elevation of Boris and Gleb in 1072 must have provided a model forLadislas on how to initiate and use the cult of saintly ancestors. Several studies in87

this volume also provide data on the mutual influence between Scandinavian andearly Russian cults.

The second phase of the development of these cults maintains the prominenceof dynastic saints. The cult of Boris and Gleb gets complemented in the twelfthand thirteenth centuries by the cult of their grandmother, Olga, and finally also bytheir father, Vladimir, the ‘apostle’ of the Rus’. This dynastic amplification of thefounding cult can also be observed in Scandinavia (with the important differencethat no saintly queen joins the saintly kings and princes there). In Denmark, themartyr prince Knud Lavard joined the rank of dynastic saints (1169), and Niels ofÅrhus (d. 1180), the murdered son of King Knud Magnusson, was also a futurecandidate for sainthood; in Orkney, a similar cult developed around the figure ofa murdered earl, St Magnús of Orkney; in Sweden the cult of St Erik emerged88

around the 1160s. This same period also saw the amplification of the cult around89

Wenceslas and the addition of the cult of Ludmila to that of her grandson, and inHungary the unfolding of the cult of St Emeric, son of St Stephen of Hungary, andthat of the initiator of the first series of canonizations, King Ladislas I, who washimself canonized in 1192.90

Royal sainthood, popular in these regions, began to recruit adherents all overtwelfth-century Christianity. It met, however, increasing opposition from thepapacy. It is not by chance that Pope Alexander III made his claims for the papalmonopoly of the canonization of saints only a few years after the canonization ofCharlemagne by the antipope Paschal III. More than that, his claim was made incriticizing another emerging royal cult, that of the Swedish St Erik (for in allprobability it was his cult to which the Pope alluded in his letter of 1171 or 1172calling him, with his denigrators, ‘a man who died while drunk’).91

Gábor Klaniczay304

The evolution of the model of royal sainthood in the tenth to thirteenthcenturies illustrates that the new Christian cultures of the peripheries, far frombeing passive recipients of a cultural or institutional transfer, developed their ownversions of the cults and the ecclesiastical models they received from the variousreligious centres after their conversion. The emerging autochthonous patterns ledto a new differentiation and new dynamics within late medieval Christendom; theycould themselves become influential models for others in the ‘centre’ or in new‘peripheries’ around the continuously expanding borders of Europe.

INDEX

Aachen, 56, 290Aarhus, see Århusabbey/s, 29, 35, 87, 138, 223–5, 238, 286, 296,

298; see also monastery/monasteriesAbbo of Fleury, 191, 200, 204Abel, biblical figure, 107, 181, 262, 271Abodrites, 183–5Abraham, biblical figure, 200Abraham, monk from Smolensk, 104Abram, biblical figure, 200Absalon, bishop of Roskilde, archbishop of

Lund, 29, 50, 60, 62Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen,

74–6, 92, 220Adalgar of Corvey, 179, 180, 181Adam of Bremen, 19, 20, 26–9, 30–2, 42, 62,

76, 77, 85, 90, 148, 177, 180, 184, 187, 189,203, 205, 208, 209, 213, 220, 221, 299

Adela of Flanders, 189, 205Ágrip, 211Akhtala, 165All Saints, feast of, 31, 50, 73, 75, 78All the Apostles, feast of, 75Alps, 131, 257Althing (General Assembly), 23Anchin, Benedictine abbey, 224, 225; manu-

script of Passio Olavi, 227, 228, 230, 233,234, 237, 238

Andrej, disciple of St Anthony the Roman, 163Andrew I, Hungarian king, 297Angers, 205

Angli, 183Anglo-Norman, 70, 241Anglo-Saxon, 5, 6, 9, 22, 40, 69, 118, 138, 139,

167, 191, 194, 196, 200, 204, 237, 272, 288,298, 301, 302

Angrari, 173annals, 89, 161, 184Annas, biblical figure, 202Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, 193apostles, 50, 52, 73–6, 82, 125, 129, 245, 246,

270aprakos, 99, 116, 134; aprakos-gospels, 127,

133, 143, 164Apulia, 139Arab, 97; Arabs, 162Århus, 28, 29, 41, 46, 57, 60, 65, 72, 130, 140,

195, 299Ari the Wise, 23Arkhangelsk Gospel, 99, 118, 122, 127, 134,

165, 274Armenia, 165; Armenian, 6Arnold, bishop of Roskilde, 193Ascension, feast of, 75, 129ascetic, 9, 95, 103, 104, 281, 294; ascetics, 95,

97–9, 101–3, 114; asceticism, 95–7, 104Asia Minor, 139, 249Ásólfr, early settler in Iceland, 24, 25, 36Athos, 98, 103Attila, 186audience, 4, 12, 13, 98, 124, 155, 172, 177, 179,

196, 235, 245, 247, 258

Index306

Augustine of Hippo, 247Augustinian communities, 30, 46, 47, 235Ausonian, 202authority, 8, 10, 37, 68, 74, 91, 97, 108, 183–5,

188, 289Avars, 109Ælnoth of Canterbury, 12, 14, 33, 58,

189–206, 209, 298

Bacchus, 101Bakonybél, 294Balkans, 98, 277Baltic, 9, 34, 130, 142, 158baptism, 119, 121, 154, 155, 221, 222, 225, 226Baptism of the Lord, feast of, 121Bari, 57, 139, 193Basil II, Byzantine emperor, 102, 109, 127basilica, 87, 88, 176, 232Bavaria, 288, 299Bede, 182, 186, 204Benedictine communities, 29, 36, 47, 58, 225,

277Benjamin, son of Jacob, 107, 271Bergen, 5, 8, 21, 22, 36, 47, 65, 68, 78–85,

87–90, 235, 286, 290biblical, 12, 52, 113, 192, 194, 197, 198, 201,

202, 226, 227, 246, 247, 255–8, 266, 270,271

birchbark letters, 11, 120–30, 134, 298Birsay, 80Bjarnhard/Bernard, bishop of Bergen, 79, 85,

87Black Sea, 144Blakke, 195Blasius saga, 248Böddeken, 224, 238Bohemia, 30, 273–7, 288, 290, 291, 294–7;

Bohemian, 14, 259, 273–80, 282, 289; Bohe-mians, 274

Boleslaw, Bohemian duke, 30, 273, 288Boleslaw I the Brave, Polish king, 10, 118, 162,

288, 290Boleslaw II the Bold, Polish king, 295Bollandists, 238Book of Icelanders (Íslendingabók), 23, 24, 26

Book of Settlements (Landnámabók), 24Bordesholm, Germany, 224, 228–31, 233, 238Borgarthing, law-district of, 73, 78, 92Børglum, 41, 46, 65,Boris, Bulgarian king, 183, 288Bremen, see Hamburg-BremenBrittifu (Brictiva), 72, 74Bulgaria, 98, 116, 122, 143, 161, 272, 288, 296;

Bulgarian, 105, 183; Vulgari (Bulgarians), 183Byzantine, 5–7, 9, 11, 95–9, 102, 104, 105,

107, 108, 111, 113–18, 121, 123, 127, 132,136–9, 141–3, 164, 249, 260, 270, 272, 298

Byzantium, 5, 6, 9, 50, 95, 100, 101, 105,108–10, 113, 114, 118, 137, 143, 144, 152,156, 161, 164, 288, 296, 297, 299

Caesar, 186, 202, 203Cain, biblical figure, 107, 262, 271Caiphas, biblical figure, 202Calabria, 139Camaldolese, 294canonization, 10, 29, 51, 60, 152, 157, 189,

190, 193, 206, 260, 263–5, 267, 269, 285,295, 303

Cappadocia, 108, 128Carolingian, 56, 131, 137, 143, 171, 175Cassiodorus, 225cathedral, 8, 21, 28, 29, 31, 35, 39, 40, 43–66,

80–2, 85, 88–91, 118, 125, 126, 131–3, 140,142, 159, 192, 220, 222, 235, 286; cathedralchapters, 8, 28, 29, 39, 44–8, 50, 51, 56–60,62, 63; cathedral culture, 39, 40, 44, 48, 50–2,55, 59, 63, 64, 138, 299

Catholic, 1, 117, 126, 136, 139, 147, 161, 165;Catholicism, 126

Cerberus, 202chapel, 49, 87, 88, 118, 131, 133, 163, 197,

217, 296Charlemagne, 44, 172, 173, 175, 303Chernigov, 119Cherson, 10, 116, 130, 131, 133, 144, 154Christ, 20, 31, 55, 66, 75, 80, 82, 84, 96, 106,

108, 113, 123, 124, 148, 154, 155, 194–6,197, 201, 215, 216, 223, 248, 254, 261, 266,270, 271; Christ churches, 80; ChristChurch in Trondheim, 66, 80, 82

Index 307

Christian, 1, 4–8, 10–14, 17, 18, 22, 26, 27, 31,33, 35, 39, 41–4, 47, 49, 54, 59, 60, 67, 69,78, 95, 96, 98, 99, 107, 115–17, 120, 123,125, 127, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 140, 143,144, 148, 160, 162–4, 166, 167, 171, 172,174, 175, 181, 186, 190, 191–3, 195, 197,200, 202, 204, 207, 208, 209, 213–18, 243,246–8, 254, 255, 257–61, 265, 266, 269,270, 273, 278, 280–2, 286, 289, 291, 292,294, 299, 300, 302, 304

Christianity, 1, 5–9, 18–21, 23, 24, 29–31, 33,34, 37, 41, 51, 59, 67, 98, 104, 105, 115, 130,143, 154, 161, 165, 177, 202, 203, 208, 214,216–18, 244, 251, 283, 284, 288, 290, 297,299, 303

Christmas, 73, 75–7chronicle/s, 28, 29, 42, 51, 61, 105, 117–19,

130, 131, 139, 154, 157–9, 162–6, 206, 210,261–3, 265, 269, 271; chronicler, 26, 50, 58,61, 62, 214, 263; Chronicle of Ribe, 28, 29

church dedication, 7, 48, 49, 57, 65, 66, 81, 82,117, 118, 125, 140, 196, 206

Circumcision of the Lord, feast of, 121Cistercian communities, 47, 97, 224clergy, 40, 46, 48–50, 52, 56–8, 63, 88, 119,

144, 157, 166, 232, 273clerical, 6, 44–8, 50, 55, 58, 64, 123. 127, 132,

245, 264coenobitic, 9, 97, 103, 104, 114coinage, 9; coins, 119Cologne, 56, 138, 140, 185, 224, 238, 253Constance, 179, 188Constantine VII, Byzantine emperor, 109Constantine the Great, Roman emperor, 56,

96, 270, 287Constantinople, 102, 104, 116–18, 123, 141,

230, 236, 264conversion, 1, 3, 5–8, 10, 14, 17–19, 20, 22–7,

30–2, 36, 37, 98, 105, 115–18, 126, 130,131, 145, 167, 173, 214, 258, 269, 284, 287,288, 291–3, 299, 300, 304

Corbie, abbey, 12, 179, 182, 188Corvey, abbey, 12, 179, 180, 185, 188, 296court/s, royal, 1, 6, 12, 179, 182, 183–5, 188,

193; princely 11, 120, 153, 154; imperial, 109

Crimea, 130Croats, 288crown, 32, 108, 243cult of saints, 1–11, 14, 17, 18, 23, 24, 30, 36,

39–41, 43, 48, 51, 63–5, 67, 68, 73, 90,115–17, 136, 142, 144, 145, 171, 172, 174,175, 179, 244, 255, 257, 258, 272, 283, 285,287, 297, 298

cynocephali, 187Cyprus, 101Cyril of Scythopolis, 100Czech/s, 260, 274, 275, 277, 278, 282, 284,

288, 289, 293, 294, 297, 298, 302

Daily Office, 44Dala-Guðbrandr, 255Dalmatia, 288Danes, 37, 76, 148, 182, 185, 188, 195, 197,

199, 204, 205, 257, 284Dania, 189Daniel, Book of, 186, 258Danish, 4, 5, 9, 10, 22, 27–32, 36, 40, 41, 46,

50, 57, 58, 60, 62, 72, 74, 77, 135, 140, 153,182, 189, 194, 200, 205, 206, 208, 230, 236,273, 289

Danube, 186David Sviatoslavich, Russian prince, 128David, biblical king, 107, 199, 200, 292;

Davidic, 203Denmark, 2–10, 12, 17, 18, 21, 26–33, 36, 37,

40–2, 45, 46, 51, 52, 54–9, 64, 69, 71, 135,136, 139, 140, 142, 148, 156, 182, 184, 189,190–3, 196, 198, 199, 202, 204–7, 209, 212,216, 217, 224, 230, 236, 252, 285, 299, 300,302, 303

Dialogii, of Sulpicius Severus, 253discourse, 12, 172, 175, 178, 180, 183, 186,

188, 213, 218, 269, 282Dismissal, 124, 129Domesday Book, 80Dresden, 227, 233, 238Dublin, 80dynasty, 9, 10, 31, 109, 119, 135, 140, 153,

206, 267, 268, 270, 274, 282, 295, 302

Index308

Easter, 73, 75, 99, 116, 193, 214Ebbo of Reims, 178, 181ecclesiastical, 10, 11, 18, 27, 39, 40–7, 50, 51,

53, 54, 59, 61–4, 68, 69, 116, 127, 128, 149,211–13, 217, 244, 259, 263, 265, 269,272–6, 278, 280, 281, 285, 287, 290, 291,298, 300, 304; ecclesiastics, 5–7, 26, 37, 208

Egypt, 97, 103, 247; Egyptian, 96Eidsivathing, law-district of, 73, 78, 92Eigenkirchen (private churches), 216Eigil of Fulda, 173Einarr Skúlason, 148, 195, 210, 222Einhard, 186Eiríkr Hákonarson, Norwegian earl, 153Eivindr Bifra, 195Elbe, 175, 176, 178, 181, 183, 184, 185Elias, bishop of Ribe, 61, 158enamel, 113, 114encomium, 204England, 5, 22, 34, 40, 53, 67–9, 71, 74, 85, 86,

118, 134–6, 138, 189, 191, 193, 194, 196,204, 205, 220–2, 224, 238, 272, 287, 288, 302

English, 4–6, 19, 22, 26, 32, 33, 35, 39, 40, 50,58, 69, 70, 72–4, 89, 90, 96, 97, 100, 103,105, 106, 135, 138, 149, 155, 191, 196, 200,204, 205, 219, 220, 221, 225, 228–30, 236,241, 245, 250, 278, 289, 290, 291, 292, 299

enkolpion/enkolpia, 110Epitaphium S. Canuti, 190, 191, 194eremitic, 293, 294Erfidrápa of St Olaf, Sigvatr Þórðarson’s, 19,

148, 149, 154, 155, 222Erik Ejegod, Danish king, 9, 50, 57, 140, 189,

191, 193, 200, 206Eskil, archbishop of Lund, 56, 61Estonia, 156, 236; Estonians, 214Esztergom, 291Eteocles, mythical figure, 198, 201ethnicity, 284Europe, 1–5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 18, 24, 30, 41, 43,

56, 69, 90, 106, 115–17, 125, 130, 134–7,139, 140, 142–4, 159, 161, 164, 167, 174,219, 221, 237, 242, 245, 259, 261, 272,283–6, 288–93, 296, 297, 299–302, 304;European, 7, 11, 44, 155, 237, 259, 272, 278,282–6, 295, 298, 299, 301

Eve of Wilton, 204, 205Evesham, abbey, 58, 191, 193Exaltation of the Cross, feast of, 121Eystein Erlendsson, archbishop of Nidaros, 70,

149, 157, 210–12, 222, 225, 235, 236, 237Eystein Magnusson, Norwegian king, 141

Faroe Islands, 20, 42, 156Finland, 9, 32, 42, 43, 48, 66, 156Finns, 9First Lateran Council, 45Flanders, 139, 189, 205, 224Flateyjarbók, 156, 157Flemish, 204Fountains, abbey, 223, 224, 238; manuscript of

Passio Olavi, 219, 223–5, 227, 228, 230,232–8

France, 74, 138, 156, 210, 222, 238, 272, 284,293, 294, 297

Francia, 174, 295Frankish, 171, 173, 175, 178–80, 182–5, 299Franks, 171, 182–5, 203, 257, 286French, 9, 70, 221, 241, 245Frisia, 175–7; Frisian/s, 28, 183Frostathing, law-district of, 73, 78, 92, 247Fulda, abbey, 176–9, 183, 184Fürstenspiegel, 14, 271

Gabriel, archangel, 121, 122, 243Garðar/Garðariki (Rus’), 150, 151, 153, 155,

166Gaudericus of Velletri, 250Gauls, 203Gautland, 154Gdansk, 142Geisli, Einarr Skúlason’s, 19, 148, 195, 210,

211, 222, 233gens/gentes, 172, 181–5, 187, 188Gerbert d’Aurillac, 290German, 5, 6, 9, 10, 24, 26, 29, 30, 56, 58, 62,

69, 70, 72, 74, 86, 87, 158, 159, 162, 180,214, 216, 224, 274, 289, 290, 294, 298, 299

Germani, 183Germania, 186Germanic, 31, 182, 184, 220, 252, 278

Index 309

Germany, 5, 6, 23, 86, 122, 131, 138, 142, 159,166, 193, 224, 238, 293

Gerold of Ribe, 193Gertruda, wife of Iziaslav Jaroslavich, 126gesta, 20, 28, 30, 50, 76, 77, 161, 189–206, 221,

225, 299, 300Géza I, Hungarian king, 294, 301Géza, Hungarian duke, 300Gleb Sviatoslavich, Russian prince, 128Gniezno, 288, 290, 291, 293, 297God, 14, 21, 44, 52, 83, 88, 100, 103, 111, 117,

163, 194, 197, 199, 200, 201, 214, 222, 231,232, 236, 248, 249, 254, 255, 257, 270, 292

Godefrid I, Danish king, 185Goliath, biblical figure, 199Goscelin of St Bertin, 204, 205Götaland, 6Goths, 76, 148, 203Gotland, 6, 158grazers, type of saints, 97, 103Great Schism, 163Greek, 99, 101, 102, 112, 117, 123, 124, 128,

133, 143, 162, 163, 277, 284, 296; Greeks,116, 155, 162, 201, 202

Greenland, 41, 42Gregorian, sacramentaries, 126; canon of the

mass, 131Gregory the Great, see popesGrimald of St Gall, 180Grimkel, English missionary bishop, 73, 151,

220, 222Gulathing, law-district of, 72–4, 92Gumpold, bishop of Mantova, 274, 275, 281Gunnlaugr Leifsson, 23, 26Günther of Niederaltaisch, 294Gytha of Wessex, wife of Vladimir Mono-

makh, 139, 140

Hagia Sophia, of Constantinople, 116, 118hagiographic, 4, 9, 11–14, 19, 35, 96, 98, 100,

101, 110, 111, 114, 116, 139, 163, 192, 203,241, 243, 253, 255, 256, 258–60, 266, 269,270, 273, 275, 276, 280, 282, 299, 300, 301

hagiography, 1, 3, 6, 11, 13, 14, 18, 40, 58, 95,98, 99, 107, 108, 172, 174, 188, 191, 192,

200, 205, 207, 241, 243, 247, 258, 260, 262,266, 270, 272, 279, 280, 281, 288, 300

Hakon, earl of Lade, 21, 83Hakon the Good, Norwegian king, 6Hamar, 42, 65, 68, 80, 81, 93Hamburg-Bremen, 12, 26, 27, 140, 172,

175–88, 208, 220, 244Hannibal, 202Hanseatic, 159Harald Bluetooth, Danish king, 1, 5, 30–2, 203Harald Godwinson, Anglo-Saxon king, 139Harald (Sigurdarson) Hardrada, Norwegian

king 9, 10, 79, 152, 160, 199, 201, 208Harald Hen, Danish king, 198, 201Harald/Mstislav, 139, 140; see also Mstislav

VladimirovichHauksbók, of Book of Settlements, 25Hebrides, 42Hectorean, 201Heimskringla, 136, 149, 151Helsinki fragment, of Passio Olavi, 223–8, 230,

233, 237Henry I, German king, 296Henry II, German emperor, 162Henry of Livonia, 214–16Hercules, mythical figure, 251, 252hermit/s, 26, 97, 104, 164, 293, 294, 300, 301;

hermitic, 97Historia Norwegie, 19, 20, 221Hólar, 23, 25, 42, 47, 65, 66, 78holy fools, types of saints, 97, 104Holy Land, 293Holy Trinity, 50, 58, 66, 78, 80, 82, 166Horace, 201Horik I, Danish king, 185Horik II, Danish king, 183Hrabanus Maurus, 186Hrafnagil, 243Hubald, English bishop, 193Hungarian/s, 273, 284, 288, 291, 292, 293,

294, 295, 300–2Hungary, 18, 113, 148, 190, 209, 291–7,

299–301, 303hymns, 112

Index310

Iceland, 3, 6, 7, 13, 17, 20, 23, 24–6, 36, 37, 42,46, 47, 66, 156, 212, 213, 236, 243, 245, 247,250, 256, 258

Icelanders, 13, 203, 242, 243Icelandic, 2, 20, 22–6, 37, 89, 148, 149, 152,

154–6, 166, 205, 215, 243, 247, 255, 256iconography, 110, 112, 113, 143, 270icons, 123–6, 133, 134, 137, 156identity, 8, 11, 12, 35, 53, 59, 64, 68, 85, 110,

112, 171, 179, 180, 182, 184, 185, 190, 192,213, 217, 236, 282, 294, 302; Christian iden-tity, 1, 12, 13, 213, 218; cultural identity, 217

Ilarion, metropolitan of Kiev, 131, 270Ingigerðr, wife of Jaroslav the Wise, 155Ireland, 83, 87, 230, 236, 287; Irish, 21, 25, 26,

74, 84, 85, 113, 164Isaac, biblical figure, 198Isaac, monk of the Kievan Caves Monastery,

104Islam, 216–18Italian, 139, 257, 274, 294Italy, 137, 138, 139, 288, 293, 299Iziaslav Jaroslavich, Russian prince, 119, 121,

122, 126, 127, 133, 137, 140, 143, 144, 165,267

Jacobus de Voragine, 224Jaropolk Iziaslavich, Russian prince, 126Jaroslav the Wise/Jarizleifr Valdamarson, 10,

106, 118, 119, 125, 127, 135, 143, 153, 154,160, 165, 166, 261–4, 267–9, 275, 278, 302

Jaroslavichi, 127, 262, 263, 267Jaroslavovo Dvorishche, in Novgorod, 159Jelling, 31Jeremiah, Letter of, 258Jerome, 186Jerusalem, 50, 56, 116, 141, 214Joakim, bishop of Novgorod, 133John Chrysostom, 102John, metropolitan of Kiev, 10, 111, 112, 263John the Baptist, 24, 52, 55, 66, 75, 76, 82,

215, 246, 297John the Deacon, 250John the Solitary, monk of the Kievan Caves

Monastery, 103

Joseph, biblical figure, 107, 198, 271Judaic, 162Jupiter, pagan god, 251–3Jutland, 29, 60, 61

Kamien, 142Kiev/Kievan, 9, 10, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106,

111, 115–19, 122, 123, 125, 126, 128,131–5, 137, 139, 142–4, 153, 162, 259, 261,262, 264, 265, 267, 268, 272, 275, 278, 284,297, 298, 302

Kievan Caves Monastery, 9, 100, 102–4, 117,265

kingdom, 6, 13, 31, 41, 42, 126, 141, 191, 206,271, 287, 295, 302

kingship, 289, 292kinship, 269, 271, 282Kirkwall, 42, 65kniaz (Russian prince), 120, 127Knud V (Magnusson), Danish king, 303Knud VI, Danish king, 29, 60, 62, 306Knud the Great, Anglo-Danish king, 5, 135konung/konungar, 153, 154Krakow, 295, 297Kristni saga (Saga of the Conversion), 23, 24Kutna Hora, 297

Ladoga Lake, 163Lamech, biblical figure, 107, 271Laras, 176Latin, 2, 5, 7, 11, 18, 21, 54, 55, 64, 72, 80, 83,

84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 126, 143, 145, 147, 154,156–8, 160–2, 164, 166, 167, 171, 184, 190,207, 209, 211, 214, 219, 221, 223, 233, 235,241, 244–6, 249, 250–3, 257, 259, 272–4,276, 278, 280, 281, 283, 286, 288, 289, 294,298, 299

lauds, 72, 87Laurentius, monk of Montecassino, 274Lazarus, 55, 129lectionary, 78, 99, 116Legendary Saga of Saint Olaf, 149, 155, 156,

211, 255Leo VI, Byzantine emperor, 109Leofric, bishop of Exeter, 220

Index 311

Letts, 214Libice, 290Liefdag, Bishop of Ribe, 28, 29, 30, 32, 37, 51,

61, 62, 64, 65Lier, 77, 89Life of Antonij, 163Linköping, 42, 48, 65litany/litanies, 82, 86, 138, 220literacy, 12, 50, 64, 120, 277liturgical, 1, 2, 8, 9, 12, 50, 51, 52, 55, 59, 60, 64,

68, 70, 72–4, 86, 99, 101, 111, 112, 116, 118,120–4, 126–34, 143, 144, 148, 209, 211,214, 215, 220–2, 225, 236, 237, 244, 250,251, 260, 262, 270, 274, 275, 278–80, 298

liturgy, 7, 9, 12, 18, 43, 45, 50, 64, 70–2, 89,116–18, 123, 124, 126, 129, 133, 134, 136,139, 212, 236, 247, 277, 298

Livonians, 214locus sanctus, 177–9Lombard, 184Lombardy, 257Lotharingia, 138, 140Louis the German, Frankish king, 180, 184, 186Louis the Pious, Frankish emperor 178, 181,

184, 185Luka Zhidiata, bishop of Novgorod, 123Lund, 10, 31, 41, 42, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55,

56, 58, 60, 62, 65, 72, 75, 79, 80, 140, 236, 299

Macedonian, 109Magdeburg, 161, 224, 238Magnus Nielsen, Danish king, 206Magnus (Olafsson) the Good, Norwegian king,

82, 152, 207Mainz, 173, 185Malmfrid, daughter of Mstislav Vladimirovich,

141Man, Isle of, 42Mantova, 274Maronite, 294Marosvár (Czanád), 293Mars, Roman god, 251, 252Martinus saga I, 253martyr, 30, 32, 55, 61, 67, 72, 84, 91, 95, 107,

108, 110, 123, 133, 166, 177, 189, 191,

193–7, 201, 204–6, 208, 215, 221, 222, 231,232, 236, 248, 280, 281, 288, 289, 291,294–6, 299, 303; martyrs, 9, 13, 27, 30, 52,59, 75, 89, 95, 98–102, 105–12, 114, 128,129, 189, 192, 193, 195–7, 200, 203, 214,215, 241, 246, 247, 270, 271, 279, 293, 301

martyrdom, 4, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28–30,33, 34, 36, 58, 67, 86, 96, 111, 112, 114, 191,194–7, 215, 226, 248, 260, 281, 288, 294,296

Mary Magdalene, 128, 129mass/masses, 73, 124, 126, 128, 131, 179, 213,

214, 217, 220, 245, 266Maximian, Roman emperor, 108Mediterranean, 95, 216, 256Memoriale fratrum, 55, 60menaion/menaia, 98, 101, 102, 110, 112menologion/menalogia, 98, 116, 119, 122, 129,

133, 143, 164, 165, 167Mercury, Roman god, 251–3metropolitan, 41, 55, 118, 139, 262, 264, 265,

267Metz, 126Migration Period, 173miracle/s, 2, 4, 11, 13, 18, 19, 28, 30, 31, 61, 62,

68, 76–8, 83, 84, 87, 88, 106–9, 111, 140,147–52, 155–7, 166, 176–7, 208–11, 213,214, 221–3, 225–39, 246, 249, 251, 255,256, 261, 262, 264, 266, 280

miracula, 4, 19, 66, 76, 77, 148, 176, 207, 211missionary, 6–8, 10, 17–37, 43, 53, 54, 62, 64,

162, 174, 178–87, 220, 223, 226, 255, 287,290, 291, 293; missionaries, 6, 7, 17, 18, 20–6,35, 37, 162, 167, 274, 287, 288, 299, 300

monastery/monasteries, 8, 9, 39, 50, 58,102–5, 119, 126, 162, 163, 246, 265, 276,277, 290, 296, 300; see also abbey/s

monastic, 1, 4, 9, 25, 31, 36, 40, 44, 53, 97, 100,117, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 180, 246;monasticism, 8, 9, 36, 97, 98, 102, 103, 114,164, 166, 167

Mongol, 98, 100Montecassino, abbey, 274Moravia, 288; Moravian, 273, 277Mother of God (Theotokos), 113, 117, 124,

131, 163, 165

Index312

Mstislav Gospel, 99, 114, 127, 164, 165, 167Mstislav Vladimirovich, Russian prince, 99,

114, 127, 137, 139–41, 164, 165, 167mucheniki (martyrs), 106Munktorp, 35, 65Münster, 27, 41, 96, 175, 176Murom, 105Muscovy, 104Myra, 57, 100, 139

Nagyvárad (Oradea), 295natio/nationes, 177, 185, 186, 187, 203, 205Nativity of Christ, feast of, 75, 121Nativity of the Mother of God, feast of, 121,

163Necrologium Lundense, 55, 60Nereditsa, Church of Our Savior near Nov-

gorod, 165–7Nestor, monk of the Kievan Caves Monastery,

100, 105, 261Neva River, 163Nicomedia, 123Nidaros, 8, 12, 19, 20, 42, 46, 63, 65, 68–70,

72–8, 80, 82, 83, 85–7, 92, 93, 148, 149, 208,209, 222–7, 229–37, 244, 249; see alsoTrondheim

Niels, Danish king, 29, 65, 140, 193, 206Nienheerse, nunnery, 180Nifont/Niphont, archbishop of Novgorod, 11,

132, 160, 163Nikon, superior of the Kievan Caves Monas-

tery, 104Nissan, 201Nitra, 294nobility, 119, 281Nordalbingi/Nordalbingians, 185, 186, 188Nordic, 4, 12, 32, 79, 211, 216, 257, 285, 286Norman, 5, 138, 208Normandy, 6, 135, 136, 138, 139North Sea, 5, 76Northmen, 136Norway, 2, 5–10, 13, 17, 19–23, 25, 26, 28, 32,

36, 37, 42, 46, 52, 56, 64, 66–8, 71–4, 76–9,86, 87, 90, 92, 135, 136, 140–2, 147–9, 152,154, 156, 183, 207, 209, 212, 214–17, 219,

220–3, 226, 229, 230, 235, 236, 245, 247,250, 256, 258, 302

Norwegian, 5, 6, 8, 12, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, 42,49, 66, 68, 69, 70–80, 82, 86, 87, 89, 91, 135,136, 148, 152–4, 157, 160, 208–12, 215–17,220, 221, 230, 233, 237, 245, 247, 273;Norwegian provincial laws, 215, 217

Norwegians, 19, 76, 148, 203, 243, 257, 284Nousis, 48Novgorod, 11, 115, 118–28, 130, 133–7,

140–5, 147, 151, 153, 156–67, 229, 230,236, 298, 299; Novgorodian, 115, 118, 120,121, 123, 126, 133, 137, 139, 157–61, 163–6

oaths, 216Oddr Snorrason, 23, 26, 84, 153Odense, 2, 4, 7, 10, 31, 36, 41, 46, 51, 52, 57,

58, 63, 65, 78, 80, 189–97, 199, 200, 203,235, 252, 299

Óðinn, Norse god, 153, 252–4, 257Oedipus, mythical figure, 198Ohthere, 183Olaf Kyrre, Norwegian king, 9, 42, 79, 80, 81,

209Olaf Tryggvason, Norwegian king, 7, 10, 13,

19, 20, 22–4, 26, 37, 68, 76, 79, 83, 134, 135,153, 300, 301

Óláfs saga helga, 149, 151, 156Old Church Slavonic, 123, 260, 277Old French literature, 245Old Ladoga, 132Old Norse, 2, 13, 18, 49, 84, 86, 147, 156, 159,

166, 207, 210, 211, 241, 242–58, 262, 299Old Norwegian Homily Book, 149, 157, 224,

234, 235, 239Old Testament, 107, 200, 270, 292Olga, Russian princess, 118, 161, 162, 265, 270,

303Öpir, rune carver, 158Ordo Nidrosiensis (the ordinal of Nidaros),

72–8, 82, 85, 86, 92, 93, 244, 247Orkney, 9, 20, 41, 42, 52, 78, 80, 86, 156, 303Orléanais, 204Orthodox, 2, 3, 6, 11, 98, 101, 116, 121–6,

129, 132, 141, 144, 163, 165, 264, 296

Index 313

Oslo, 8, 20–2, 36, 42, 65, 68, 69, 71, 72, 77–82,88–90, 134, 135, 141, 211

Ostromir Gospel, 99, 116, 118, 121, 123, 125,126, 128, 129, 133, 143, 165

Otto I, German emperor, 83, 87, 161, 162Otto II, German emperor, 26, 274,Otto III, German emperor, 288, 290, 301Ottonian, 5, 6, 118, 131, 138, 143, 281;

Ottonians, 56

Paderborn, 173, 238pagan, 5, 6, 9, 13, 19, 21–3, 25, 26, 33, 37, 129,

187, 202, 248, 253–8, 266, 268, 288–90,292, 293, 299–301

paganism, 20, 21, 29, 33, 256–8, 289, 293palace/s, 79–81, 109, 117, 131, 141Palazzo Venezia, 109Palestine, 97, 165, 215Pannonhalma, abbey, 296Pannonia, 296papacy, 7, 21, 22, 35, 39, 45, 181, 183, 185, 303Paris, 204parish church, 46, 217Passio Olavi, 12, 13, 19, 149, 152, 155–7, 208,

209, 211, 219, 222–8, 232–5, 237, 238, 298,300

Paul the Deacon, 76, 184, 186Pechenegs, 162Pécs, 294Perejaslavl’, 119Peter Damian, 154Peter Vognsen, bishop of Århus, 57Pharos, palace church in Constantinople, 117Piasts, 295Pilate, biblical figure, 202Pipero, 195, 202Poland, 117, 118, 122, 142, 162, 290, 293, 295,

297Poles, 288, 302Polish, 126, 142, 143, 290, 291Polotsk, 24, 118, 143Polyneices, mythical figure, 198, 201Pomerania, 142Pompey, 202, 203

popes, 9, 22, 34, 41, 51, 58–61, 74, 75, 92, 133,135, 162, 174, 182, 183, 185, 249, 250, 303

Alexander III, 34, 51, 61, 303Clement I, see St ClementClement III, 60Eugene III, 59Formosus, 182, 183Gregory the Great, 71, 183, 247, 250Gregory II, 183Gregory III, 183Gregory IV, 183Gregory VII, 58Leo IX, 74–6, 92Nicholas I, 183, 185Paschal II, 41Paschal III, 303Paul I, 174Sergius I, 183Silvester I, see St SilvesterSixtus II, see St Sixtus

Poppo, missionary bishop, 203posadnik (city major of Novgorod), 120, 159power, 1, 6, 10, 19, 30, 44, 67, 83, 91, 95, 117,

120, 123, 136, 142, 156, 172, 175, 178, 183,199, 212, 214, 230, 231, 235, 248, 256, 261,266, 267, 272, 274, 281, 302

prayer/s, 21, 53, 78, 82, 88, 96, 97, 104, 124,126, 160, 163, 196, 220, 225, 248, 278

Premonstratensians, 46Priam, 201Primary Chronicle, 105, 117, 119, 130, 131,

154, 162, 261, 262prolog, 101, 102, 110, 263, 275, 276Prussians, 30, 290, 291Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones, 249Pskov, 134

Quinque fratres, 294, 301

Radbertus Paschasius, 182Radulph, bishop of Ribe, 61, 62Ramelsloh, 178Rebecca, biblical figure, 198Regensburg, 274Reims, 70, 129, 178, 181, 204

Index314

relic/s, 7–10, 19, 21, 26, 28, 29, 34, 35, 39, 49,50, 55–8, 64, 66, 67, 79, 82, 84, 85, 88, 91,106, 118, 123, 127, 128, 130–3, 135, 136,139–41, 150, 151, 163, 174–6, 178, 180,196, 204, 256, 262–5, 267, 268, 275, 276,286–8, 290, 291, 293, 294, 296, 297, 301

rex iustus, 19, 281, 291Rhine, 134, 136, 138, 186Ribe, 28, 29, 37, 41, 46, 51, 61, 62, 65, 193, 238Riga, 214, 216Rimbert of Corbie, 6, 12, 18, 172, 175,

178–83, 185–8, 298, 299Ringsted, 10, 29, 31, 52ritual/s, 1, 50, 51, 64, 127, 189, 213, 217, 254,

258, 263, 266, 269Robert I, count of Flanders, 189Romaldus, of Marian miracle, 246Roman, 56, 59, 126, 131, 133, 135, 164, 174,

181–4, 201–3, 214, 215, 218, 249, 252, 270,276, 290, 297; Romans, 164; Roman martyrs,59, 214, 215; Roman saints, 56

Roman Sviatoslavich, Russian prince, 128romances, 241, 249, 301Romanesque, 142, 143Rome, 51, 56, 59, 79, 109, 125, 126, 131, 133,

135, 137, 144, 154, 162, 163, 164, 202, 214,251, 290

Roskilde, 29, 31, 36, 41, 46, 50, 51, 57, 58, 65,80, 193, 206, 299

Roskilde Chronicle, 51, 206Rostislav, ruler of Great Moravia, 165, 288Rostov, 105Rouen, 221, 225royal, 1, 2, 5–10, 12, 20, 22, 27, 37, 42, 52–4,

63, 64, 67, 79–81, 83, 90, 117, 119, 122, 127,128, 131, 135, 136, 140–2, 145, 155, 188–90,193, 195, 196, 198, 200, 206, 259, 266,272–4, 278, 288, 289, 292, 295, 298, 301–4

Rule of St Benedict, 246runic inscription/s, 12, 158, 166Rurikids, 119, 137, 302Russia, 2, 3, 24, 99, 115, 121, 127, 139, 150–2,

160, 162, 226, 260, 265, 272, 277Russian, 2–7, 9, 11, 14, 99, 101, 104, 106,

116–19, 122, 126, 128, 129, 131–4, 136,

137, 141, 143–5, 147, 149, 151–62, 165–7,259–67, 270, 272–84, 298, 303

Rustringerland, 176

Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, Oddr Snorrason’s, 84saint/s, 4, 7, 8, 11, 17–19, 22–4, 29, 32, 39, 40,

49, 50, 52–4, 56–64, 68, 71–4, 85, 88, 90,107–9, 111, 112, 118, 119, 121–5, 127–9,131, 133–40, 142, 145, 147, 152, 155, 156,164, 166, 172, 174, 176–9, 185, 187–9,193, 206, 208, 214, 217, 219, 220–2, 236,242, 245–50, 256, 263, 265, 266, 278–82,287, 288, 290–2, 294, 295, 302; patronsaints, 8, 10, 17, 22, 32, 33, 40, 49, 54, 56–8,64, 66, 68, 72, 77, 81, 82, 88–91, 112, 119,121, 122, 127–9, 135, 136, 140, 142, 145,147, 157, 166, 212, 270, 274, 291, 295, 296;local saints, 8, 36, 47, 49, 52, 53, 59, 60,62–8, 74, 76, 82, 86, 90, 91, 117, 123, 138,144, 188, 214, 215, 246, 247, 292, 299, 301;universal saints, 7, 8, 10, 11, 53, 55, 58, 64,67, 73–5, 90, 100, 117, 119, 125, 144, 197

St Acacius of Sinai, 165St Adalbert, 30, 161, 162, 288, 290–6,

299–301St Agatha, early martyr, 247St Agnes, early martyr, 247St Aignan, of Orléans, 297St Alban, 57, 58, 64, 65, 70, 192, 194, 196,

197, 204, 247, 299St Alexander, early martyr, 177St Alexios the Man of God/St Alexis of

Rome, 100, 290St Amand, 70St Andrew, apostle, 75, 119, 122, 132, 144,

215, 246St Anskar, missionary saint, 6, 12, 17, 18, 31,

56, 172, 175–86, 188, 203, 204, 298, 299St Anthony of Egypt, 96, 97, 100, 247St Anthony of the Kievan Caves Monastery,

103, 104St Anthony the Roman, 163, 164St Athanasios of Alexandria, 96St Augustine of Canterbury, 183, 185, 204,

247

Index 315

St Augustine of Hippo, 247St Bacchus, early martyr, 101St Barbara, 11, 107, 121, 123, 124, 145, 297St Bartholomew, apostle, 75, 92, 245, 246St Basil of Caesarea, 97, 125, 127, 128, 246,

249St Benedict of Nitra, 294St Benedict of Nursia, 164–7St Benedict of Odense, brother of St Knud,

195St Birgitta of Sweden, 4, 63St Blaise, 128–30, 145, 246St Boniface, 174, 179, 183, 185, 287, 290, 293St Boris and St Gleb, Russian martyr princes,

4, 9, 10, 14, 95, 105–8, 110–14, 117, 119,125–8, 145, 195, 259–82, 298, 302, 303

St Botulph, 70, 73, 74, 247St Botvid, 33, 34St Brendan, 246, 249St Brigida, 74St Bruno of Querfurt, 7, 30, 162, 291, 293,

299St Christopher, early martyr, 100St Clement, pope, 7, 10, 11, 21, 22, 57, 65,

71, 72, 74, 81, 119, 128–36, 144, 166, 214,246, 247, 249–51, 253, 299

St Clotilde, Frankish royal saint, 288St Cordula, of the Eleven Thousand Virgins,

86St Cosma and St Damian, 7, 121, 124, 125,

128, 145St Crescentia, companion of St Vitus, 100St Cuthbert, 67, 70St Cyril (Constantine), 100, 131, 133, 162,

263, 288, 299St Cyrus and St John, 112St David of Munktorp, 35, 65St Demetrios, military saint, 9, 10, 108–12,

114, 119, 121, 122, 126, 128, 129, 145, 296St Dunstan, 70St Edmund, Anglo-Saxon royal saint, 70, 81,

288St Edward, Anglo-Saxon royal saint, 288St Edwin, Anglo-Saxon royal saint, 288St Emeric, Hungarian royal saint, 292, 295,

300, 303

St Erasmus of Formiae, 100, 246St Erik of Sweden, Scandinavian royal saint,

9, 36, 40, 47, 52, 64–6, 77, 78, 303St Eskil, 33, 34, 35, 36, 52, 56, 203, 204, 299St Eustace, early martyr, 246St Euthymius the Great, 100St Feodosij (Theodosius), of the Kievan

Caves Monastery, 4, 100, 104, 117, 265St Florian, early martyr, 297St George, military saint, 9, 10, 100, 108–12,

114, 119, 145, 292, 296, 301St Gerard (Gellért) of Czanád, 293, 294, 299,

300St Gildard, 70St Gilles, 297St Gregory the Great, see popesSt Hallvard, 8, 20, 21, 30, 36, 65, 68, 76–8,

81, 82, 89–93, 301St Helena, mother of Constantine the Great,

270, 288St Helena of Skövde, 34, 36, 65St Henrik (Henry), 48, 64–6, 84, 299St Hermenegild, Visigothic royal saint, 289St Irene, early martyr, 100St Jacob ( James), apostle, 73, 75, 93, 107, 198,

246, 248, 271St John the Baptist, 55, 71, 73, 75, 78St Jón Ögmundarson of Hólar, 3, 25, 47, 65,

78St Kjeld of Viborg, 29, 51, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65St Knud Lavard, Danish duke, 4, 7, 9, 10, 29,

31, 36, 52, 206, 303St Knud of Odense, 2, 4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 31, 36,

51, 52, 54–6, 58, 64, 65, 73, 74, 78, 189,190–206, 298, 299, 302

St Ladislas, Hungarian royal saint, 295, 297,303

St Lawrence, 50, 54, 55, 56, 65, 71, 73, 75, 78,92, 214, 247, 299

St Lazarus of Bethany, 55, 129St Leoba, 176St Leodegar of Autun, 70St Leofred of La-Croix, 70St Liudger, 174–6St Lucius, 57–9, 66, 196, 299

Index316

St Ludmila, Bohemian royal saint, 276, 294,303

St Luke, apostle, 121, 123St Magnus of Orkney, 9, 52, 65, 78, 86, 92,

195St Margaret of Antioch, 71, 72, 247St Margaret of Roskilde, 29, 36, 65St Margaret of Scotland, 301St Martha, 128, 129St Martin of Tours, 55, 66, 75, 93, 246–8,

253, 287, 292, 296St Mary (Virgin Mary), 49, 50, 52, 55, 61, 65,

66, 71, 73–6, 78, 81, 82, 117, 192, 196,215, 216, 246, 255, 297; Marian, 118, 246,249, 255

St Mary of Egypt, 97St Matthew, apostle, 75, 199, 246St Mauritius (Maurice), 75St Medard of Noyon, 70St Mercurios, military saint, 128, 278St Methodius, 162, 263, 288, 299St Michael, archangel, 10, 71, 73, 75, 76, 93,

105, 119, 121, 122, 145, 215, 297St Modestus, companion of St Vitus, 100St Modwenna, Irish saint, 85, 301St Nestor, military saint, 109St Nicholas (Niels) of Århus, 29, 51, 60, 65,

303St Nicholas of Myra, 11, 57, 65, 67, 71, 74,

93, 100, 102, 107, 108, 111, 119, 122,128–30, 136–42, 144, 145, 215, 242, 246,256, 257, 297, 299

St Nifont of Constantia, 101St Niketas, martyr, 107St Olav/Olaf Haraldsson, Norwegian king, 2,

6–11, 13, 14, 18–22, 30, 32, 36, 37, 56, 63,64, 67, 68, 71, 73, 76, 78, 82, 87, 89, 93,134–6, 141, 144, 147–52, 154–61, 166,207, 208, 211, 213, 219, 220–3, 234, 236,237, 248, 249, 255, 272, 273, 299, 300, 302

St Oswald, Anglo-Saxon royal saint, 70, 196,197, 204, 288, 289

St Pachomios, 97St Pantaleon, 140St Patrick, 17, 287

St Paul, apostle, 7, 65, 73, 75, 78, 92, 112,125, 126, 128, 129, 133, 214, 246

St Paurus of Pécs, 186, 294St Pelagia, early martyr, 101St Peter, apostle, 7, 65, 71, 73, 78, 112, 125,

126, 128, 129, 133, 141, 159, 214, 249, 250St Philip, apostle, 73, 75, 92, 93, 121, 124St Procopius of Sazava, 294St Procopius, military saint, 109, 112St Remi of Reims, 70St Romuald, 154, 291St Sabbas the Sanctified, 100St Sebastian, early martyr, 197, 204St Sergius, early martyr, 101St Sigfrid, 35, 36, 66, 299St Sigismund, Burgundian royal saint, 289St Silvester, pope, 246St Sinicius of Reims, 178St Sixtus, pope, 178St Stanislaus of Cracow, 295St Stephen of Hungary, 18, 288, 291–3, 273,

295, 296, 300, 303St Stephen the protomartyr, 75, 76, 107, 197,

246, 293St Sunniva, Norwegian saint, 3, 8, 10, 20, 21,

22, 24, 25, 36, 65, 68, 79, 81–9, 91, 301St Swithun, 57, 64, 65, 68, 73, 74, 80, 247St Symeon the Stylite, early ascetic, 101St Thecla, early martyr, 101St Theodgarus (Thøgar) of Vestervig, 10, 29,

31, 36, 37St Theodore (Fedor) Stratelates, military

saint, 109, 165St Theodore Teron, military saint, 109St Theodore of Studios, 101St Theodosius, early martyr, 100St Theodosius of the Kievan Caves Monas-

tery, see St FeodosijSt Thomas, apostle, 93St Thomas Becket, 93, 210, 243–5St Timothy, early martyr, 101St Ursula, 85, 86, 301St Vedast of Arras, 70St Vincent of Saragossa, 10, 246, 248St Vitus, 100, 296, 301

Index 317

St Wenceslas/Václav, Bohemian royal saint,14, 107, 195, 259, 261, 272–6, 278–82,288–90, 292, 294, 296, 300, 302, 303

St Willehad, 175–8, 180St Willibrord, 183, 185St Zoerard (Andrew), 294, 301St Zosimas of Palestine, 165St Þorlákr Þórhallsson of Skálholt, 3, 246, 249

Saint-Denis, abbey, 296sainthood, 18, 24, 36, 53, 62, 68, 96, 98, 99,

102, 105, 114, 117, 260, 272, 283, 289, 292,293, 300, 302–4

sanctity, 3, 8, 9, 17, 19–30, 34, 37, 47, 52, 60,62, 115–17, 178, 180, 188, 205, 222, 223,260, 269, 289, 302

Saturn, Roman god, 251, 252Savva Gospel, 122Saxo Grammaticus, 50, 56, 195, 206Saxon, 23, 26, 87, 90, 174, 208; Saxons, 173,

177, 181, 184, 185, 203, 257Saxonia, 173Saxony, 23, 30, 171–5, 179, 184, 185Sazava, monastery, 276, 277, 294Scandinavia, 1–9, 11, 12, 14, 17–19, 22, 26, 27,

30, 32, 36, 37, 39–41, 43, 45–7, 49–57, 61,63–5, 67, 69, 71, 76, 77, 85, 86, 115, 117,118, 134–6, 138, 140, 142, 144, 148, 153,155, 159, 166, 178, 182, 196, 206, 209, 213,215, 222, 223, 228, 233, 238, 272, 285, 286,297–303

Scandinavian, 2–5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 18, 21, 26, 40,45, 49, 50, 52–4, 56, 63, 64, 78, 85, 106,134–6, 141, 150–3, 155, 157, 158, 166, 167,172, 181–3, 187, 190, 191, 208, 220, 224,255, 266, 272, 278, 283–6, 298, 299, 303

Scandinavians, 6, 11, 12, 18, 136, 144Schleswig, 28, 80Second Lateran Council, 45secular, 25, 26, 46, 48, 259, 280Selja, Isle of, 21, 25, 30, 36, 42, 58, 79, 82, 83,

84, 85, 87, 88; saints (Seljumen), 10, 20, 25,30, 68, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88,89, 90, 93, 301

Sermon on Law and Grace, 131Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, 76, 301

Shetland, 20Sicily, 141Sigtuna, 42, 43, 141, 142Sigurd Jorsalfar, Norwegian king, 50, 81, 141,

220Sigvatr Þórðarson, 19, 148, 149, 151, 153–5,

222Sjælland, 140Sjusta, 158skald, 149, 151–5skaldic, 13, 148, 153, 166, 209, 211, 242Skálholt, 23, 25, 42, 47, 65, 66Skara, 36, 42, 48, 65, 66, 140Slangerup, 140Slavia, 27, 189Slavic, 2, 27, 34, 106, 112, 128, 131, 183, 195,

260, 261, 263, 266, 272, 273, 276–8, 280,284, 288, 289, 291, 295, 298

Slavnik family, 290Slavonic, 5, 99, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106, 123,

165, 167, 273–81Slavs, 12, 18, 26, 27, 30, 76, 99, 101, 109, 148,

171, 182–5, 188, 284, 286, 287Slesvig, 41, 46, 65Snorri Sturluson, 81, 82, 149, 155, 156Södermanland, 33, 34Sodor, 42Solomon I, bishop of Constance, 179Solomon, biblical king, 200, 292Spain, 156, 202, 236St Sophia, cathedral of, 117–19, 123, 125, 132,

133, 137, 142, 143St Gall, abbey, 180Stamford Bridge, 80Starigard/Oldenburg, 26Stavanger, 42, 57, 65, 68, 80–2, 88Stefan, archbishop of Uppsala, 34Stiklestad, 19, 22, 63, 67, 147, 155, 226, 230,

236Stoudite monastic rule, 104Strängnäs, 33, 34, 36, 42, 47, 65strastoterptsy, 106, 264Sturlubók (of Book of Settlements), 24, 25Stygian, 202stylites, type of saints, 97

Index318

Svealand, 6, 33Sven Aggesen, 206Sven Estridsen, Danish king, 10, 27, 29–32, 41,

56, 77, 139, 140, 189, 196, 198–201, 203,206, 209

Svend Nordmand, bishop of Roskilde, 50Sviatopolk Vladimirovich, Russian prince, 10,

106, 107, 118, 122, 123, 261, 262, 271Sviatoslav Jaroslavich, Russian prince, 119, 122,

127, 128, 137, 268Sviatoslav, father of Vladimir the Great,

Russian prince, 162Sweden, 3, 6, 7, 9, 17, 28, 32–7, 42–4, 47, 52,

53, 63, 64, 77, 78, 141, 156, 158, 198, 209,223, 226, 227, 238, 299, 303

Swedes, 6, 33, 76, 148, 164, 185, 188, 198, 203,284

Swedish, 6, 9, 32, 33, 35, 36, 50, 55, 61, 158,160, 166, 211, 224, 233, 236, 299, 303

Sylvester, superior of the Kievan monastery ofthe Archangel Michael, 105

symbolic, 68, 185, 228, 267synaxarion/synaxaria, 98, 101, 102, 275Syria, 97, 103Szávaszentdemeter (Sremské Mitrovica),

monastery, 296

Tabula Othiniensis, 190, 194, 195Telemark, 230, 236Theban, 198Theodoricus Monachus, 6, 19, 210, 221, 222,

225Theophilus, of Marian miracle, 246Thessalonika, 108, 109, 111, 112, 121Thietmar of Merseburg, 118, 131, 154, 161Thioto, abbot of Fulda, 179Thomas d’Angleterre, 241Thomas, bishop of Turku, 48Tihany, abbey, 297Tithe Church, in Kiev, 10, 116, 117, 119, 131,

135, 136, 270Tours, 55, 66, 75, 287, 296trade, 158, 159, 162, 166, 167, 174, 216Translatio Olavi, feast of, 74, 78, 92Translatio s. Alexandri, 174, 177

Trier, 72Trondheim, 22, 36, 47, 68, 71, 76, 78, 79, 80,

81, 82, 83, 88, 134, 135, 141, 207, 208, 209,210, 211; see also Nidaros

Troy, 201Trullo, 97Turku, 43typikon, 116tyrant, 83, 281

Uppsala, 34, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 47, 48, 50, 63,65, 187

Utrecht, 174, 238

Valdamarr, Russian prince, 150–3, 155Valdemar I, Danish king, 153, 203Vandals, 184Varangian, 6, 11, 136, 147, 157, 158, 159, 160,

161; Varangians, 135, 144, 155, 162Västerås, 35, 42, 65Västmanland, 35Växjö, 35, 36, 42, 66Venice, 293Vestervig, 29, 30, 36Viborg, 29, 41, 46, 59, 60, 65, 80Vienna, 108Viking Age, 136, 247Vikings, 188, 247, 284Vínland, 254Virgil, 201Visby, 80, 142Vita Anskarii, 2, 18, 42, 179, 180, 183, 185Vita Willehadi, 176Vladimir Jaroslavich, Russian prince, 152, 153Vladimir Monomakh, Russian prince, 128,

139, 153Vladimir the Great, Russian prince, 1, 6, 7, 10,

30, 105, 106, 107, 115, 116, 127, 131, 135,136, 140, 153, 154, 155, 162, 261, 265, 266,269, 270, 271, 275, 302, 303

Volkhov, 159, 163Volos, pagan God, 128, 129, 130Vsevolod Jaroslavich, Russian prince, 119, 122,

127, 137, 144, 268

Index 319

Vsevolod Mstislavich, Russian prince, 137Vyshgorod, 106, 107, 111, 112, 127, 128, 262,

264, 266, 267

Waltperht, Westphalian duke, 177Wends, 152Westphalian, 177Widukind, Saxon leader, 173, 177Wigmodia, 176Wildeshausen, 177Willeric, bishop of Bremen, 176William of Jumièges, 208, 210, 213, 221, 222,

225

William of Malmesbury, 205Wilton, 204Wroczlaw, 297Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester, 204

Ytrøy, 231, 236

Þórarinn loftunga, 19, 148, 222Þórir hundr, 152Þórr, pagan god, 252–5

CURSOR MUNDI

All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, basedon reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in theappropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and withoutconflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Boardbefore being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to thepublisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field.

Titles in Series

Chris Jones, Eclipse of Empire? Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in Late-MedievalFrance (2007)

Simha Goldin, The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom (2008)

Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, ed. by IldarGaripzanov, Patrick Geary, and Przemys³aw Urbañczyk (2008)

William Walker, ‘Paradise Lost’ and Republican Tradition from Aristotle to Machiavelli (2009)

Carmela Vircillo Franklin, Material Restoration: A Fragment from Eleventh-Century Echternachin a Nineteenth-Century Parisian Codex (2010)

In Preparation

Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai, ed. bySharon E. J. Gerstel and Robert S. Nelson

‘This Earthly Stage': World and Stage in Late Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. by Brett D.Hirsch and Christopher Wortham

saints and their lives on the periphery: veneration of saints in scandinavia and eastern europe (c

Documents