Pope Leo II, a saint of Catholic identity

 

This blogpost was originally planned for June 28, but was delayed. The date of June 28 is the feast of Pope Leo II, who reigned as pope from 681 to his death in 683. His feast was universal throughout the medieval Latin Church, and it presents an interesting showcase for how saints serve as elements of identity-construction. As I am particularly interested in questions of how identity is constructed, maintained and altered, the feast of Pope Leo II is a small but valuable example for why studying saints is very rewarding when dealing with such questions.  

The surviving information about Pope Leo II is primarily taken from the Liber Pontificalis, the Book of Pontiffs, an overview of the biographies of popes. Given the brevity of his reign, there are not that many details to be gleaned from the book. Leo was known for his skills in Latin and Greek, as well as his musical talents, and his eloquence. The defining event of his papacy was the condemnation of the belief of Monothelitism as heretical. This belief claimed that Christ had only one will, not two, which is seen in the name "monothelitism" which can be translated as "one will". Monothelitism was one of several beliefs circulating within the wider Christian world. 

At this point in time, the Roman Church was still subservient to the emperor in Constantinople, and it was the emperor who consecrated the pope. Consequently, the contact between the Greek and the Latin churches were much closer, and the events within each different language sphere had also impact in the other - although the influence from the Greek to the Latin sphere was much greater than the other direction, since the Greek sphere included the seat of the emperor. 

While the condemnation of Monothelitism was ratified by Pope Leo II, the condemnation itself was the result of the sixth council of Constantinople, which was held in 680. Pope Leo also confirmed the condemnation of Pope Honorius I (r.625-38), who had not condemned Monothelitism and whose lack of action was considered treasonous. It is in this event, this refusal of a particular doctrine, that more than any other aspect of Leo's papacy explains Leo's elevation to sainthood. By confirming the heretical nature of Monothelitism, Pope Leo II appears as a guarantor of the validity of the Catholic doctrine, and as such he becomes a reference point in the formulation of a Catholic identity. 
 
It must of course be emphasised that this rather clinical analysis of the appeal of Pope Leo II as a saint is only part of the story. As with most, if not all, saints, the belief in their sanctity must be understood as stemming from a genuine conviction. The veneration of Pope Leo II must therefore not only be seen in light of the construction of a Catholic identity. Moreover, it is likely that in time the importance of his condemnation of Monothelitism grew somewhat less, especially as he retained a relatively minor position among the universal saints of the later medieval Latin Church. When we find Leo's feast included in a thirteenth-century calendar produced in England, which was later brought to Sweden, we should perhaps not expect that the issue of Monothelitism and its importance in seventh-century Latin Christendom was that well-known among those who celebrated the feast on June 28. Pope Leo II does not appear to have ever held a high status among the saints in the catalogue of the Latin Church in the centuries following his death. Yet even so, the very inclusion of the feast of a relatively minor saint, and its universality, attest to the issue of Catholic identity as one that has played a crucial role in the proclamation of this pope's sanctity. While the avatars of such an identity might increase in number over time, and while some - as Leo - might be relegated to a lesser importance in the wider roster of such avatars, Pope Leo II nonetheless reminds us that saints are crucial elements in the construction of identity.  

Fragment of a thirteenth-century calendar produced in England
Medeltida Pergament Omslag Fr 25593
Photo: Riksarkivet Sverige

References


Encyclopedia Britannica 

Basil Watkins (ed.), The Book of Saints, Bloomsbury, 2016

A personal update, and a new beginning

 

This is just a brief notification about a very happy piece of news from my own life: Ten days ago, I was hired as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, as part of the project "Legitimization of the Elites in Medieval Poland and Norway", a collaboration between the University of Oslo and the University of Warsaw. 

Within this overarching framework, I will spend the next three years researching how the bishops of medieval Norway legitimised their power and their place in society through the cult of saints. This theme will draw on my previous research, but also open up for a lot of new knowledge and new experiences, and I am very much looking forward to start. I am delighted to have this new opportunity, and I will be providing snippets from my ongoing research in the coming years. 

Saint Alban in Odense, part 1 - introductory reflections on the Alban liturgy

Today is the feast of Saint Alban, protomartyr of Britain, who was killed some time in the third century, when Britain was still a Roman colony. The earliest surviving textual testimony to his cult is the inclusion of his legend in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum, and His cult reached its zenith in the course of the twelfth century with the increasing power and wealth of the Abbey of Saint Alban’s.     

In addition to the importance of Saint Alban in England, his cult was also introduced into Scandinavia through different routes. In Norway, a Benedictine monastery at Selja was dedicated to him around 1100, and his cult became connected with that of Saint Sunniva of Selja, one of the three main Norwegian saints of the Middle Ages. The Breviarium Nidrosiense from 1519 contains three lessons for his feast, which summarised his legend. In Sweden, his feast appears in a number of surviving calendars, several of which were produced in England, and a church was said to have been dedicated to him at Säby by the turn of the eleventh century.  

In Denmark, however, his cult appears to have been particularly important in the diocese of Odense on the island of Fyn, which is the focal point of this blogpost. By 1086, a wooden church had been jointly dedicated to Saint Alban and the Virgin Mary, and it was in this year that King Knud IV, later Saint Knud Rex, was murdered by a mob of insurrectionists on July 10. In the saint-biographies written in the span of 1086-c.1120, the description of his martyrdom commonly includes a mention of the relics of Saint Alban, which were toppled in the tumult when the mob broke into the church. These relics were said to have been brought from England by Knud himself. Several of the priests who served at the Church of Saint Alban’s appear to have been English, possibly brought to Denmark in order to maintain the cult at what was then also the cathedral of the city.          

In the course of Knud IV’s relatively short reign, the foundations for a new church in stone was begun in Odense. This work was left incomplete by the time of his death, but it is likely that it was intended to be dedicated to Saint Alban, as a replacement of the old-fashioned wooden church. (Such replacements were common across all of Denmark in the period.) As it happened, the new stone church, which took over the role as the cathedral of Odense, was consecrated to Saint Knud, as Knud was canonised in 1095 and his relics placed in the crypt of the church. The cult of Saint Alban, however, was still maintained at the old church, which appears to have been replaced by a stone church in the course of the twelfth century, as per the ongoing trend of such replacements. This parish church, in turn, became defunct in the course of the sixteenth century, and was eventually dismantled.        

The Church of Saint Alban appear in various sources from medieval Denmark, but it is difficult to ascertain the extent of his cult and its popularity in Odense. The best testimony to the importance of Saint Alban can be found in Breviarium Othoniense, which was printed in three editions, in 1482, 1497, and 1510. This breviary provides a window into the liturgical practices of the diocese of Odense in the Middle Ages, although it must be examined with methodological caution. In the 1470s, the cathedral church of Odense, which had been a Benedictine community, was reformed to a community of secular clerics, and this entailed a change in the liturgy. While liturgical practice previously had followed the monastic use, it was now changed to the secular use, which is shorter. This means that the liturgical offices as they survive in the printed editions of Breviarium Othoniense are reduced from their former size, and therefore only imperfectly reflect the liturgy of previous centuries. Even so, it is in this breviary that we find a best source for the veneration of Saint Alban in medieval Odense.   
The office for the feast of Saint Alban can be found on folios 369r-371v in the 1482 edition. This abbreviated, secular office contains materials for Vesper, Matins, Lauds and Second Vesper. The lessons are taken from Bede, and it is likely that the chants are similar or identical to those sung at Saint Alban’s, England, although I have not yet been able to track down any source to this. 

Breviarium Othoniense, 1482, f.369r

Breviarium Othoniense, 1482, f.369r

While the office for Saint Alban as it survives in Breviarium Othoniense is an abbreviated version to what was performed in, say, the twelfth century, it nonetheless gives a very good idea of the story and image of the saint which was rehearsed by the clergy of Odense every year on his feast day. This liturgical repertoire is especially interesting when comparing to the Norwegian repertoire as found in the near-contemporaneous Breviarium Nidrosiense, where, as mentioned, only three lessons with corresponding responsories are included. This suggests that Saint Alban did indeed enjoy significant popularity throughout medieval Odense, at least among the clergy. This can also be glimpsed from Breviarium Othoniense, if we compare with the materials that precede the feast of Saint Alban, namely those for the feast of SS Gervasius and Protasius (June 19). Here, only three lessons are included, which suggests, again, that Saint Alban was venerated more than just perfunctorily in medieval Odense.        

Since this is an introductory blogpost to my reflections on the place of Saint Alban in Odense, I will not be going into detail about the liturgy itself, as this is something to which I hope to return in later blogposts. However, I will include two images from the 1482 edition of the breviary. From these images, we get a sense of the celebration itself, as these images show the materials for the first Vesper service, usually celebrated around six in the afternoon. The chants are from the office of Saint Alban, and not from the common of martyrs, a repository of liturgical material that could be performed during the feast of a martyr when materials unique to that martyr were lacking. To put it differently, we therefore know that in Odense, Saint Alban was sufficiently important that chants from his own repository were being sung. We also see a rubric specifying that in Saint Alban’s own church, his own hymn was to be sung, whereas outside of this church, the hymn “Deus tuorum”, which is from the common of one martyr, should be performed instead. This is interesting, as it suggests that the cult of Saint Alban was not of the highest rank, or rather that his veneration was not widespread beyond the Church of Saint Alban’s, even though his importance at his own church in Odense is unquestionable.         

More information remains to be extracted from the office of Saint Alban, and eventually I hope to get around to this. But for the present, I will leave this as an opening into the role of Britain’s protomartyr in the history and cityscape of one of Denmark’s largest cities.

A view of the solstice

 

Today is the summer solstice, one of the great markers in the temporal flow of the year, and a day commonly held to be rich in symbolism. For me, this part of June - if not this specific day - has this year become a period of transition. The previous week I had my last day in a three-month employment, which I have briefly mentioned here, and I am currently in a kind of limbo in which I try to tie up loose ends and preparing for the future. Such transition periods are typical in the life of an academic, and from previous experience I know that they tend to be much more busy than anticipated, whatever their length might end up being. While there is a deep uncertainty in such periods that can be deeply unsettling, I have eventually learned to appreciate what moments of beauty may appear, and to enjoy them despite worry, care, uncertainty, waiting, and all the other manifestations of precarity. The summer solstice offered a lovely opportunity this year, as the combination of light, scents and colours provided vistas that conveyed a reassuring, if tenuous, sense of continuity and permanence, a sense that is to be enjoyed in full whenever possible.