The historian's balancing act

 

As mentioned in two previous blogposts, for some time this month I have been preoccupied with preparations for a talk in my home village, in which I provided some facts and some interpretations about its now-lost medieval church. This is not the first talk I have given on this subject, and it is unlikely to be the last. As always happens when I give a presentation to an audience of non-historians – and perhaps especially when I do so in my home village – I am reminded of one of the many under-communicated aspects of being a historian, namely the balancing act that goes into disseminating knowledge to a non-expert audience. This balancing act is something that most experts in most fields either know well or come across sooner or later in their careers, and what I put down in this short blogpost is not new. However, because this balancing act is such a fixture in the work of historians, I have put down a reflection of my own, prompted by an encounter the day before I gave the presentation.         

When I talk about the historian’s balancing act, what I mean is simply this: Since non-experts have some more or less well-defined ideas about history, they are equipped with expectations and preconceptions that influence how they react to the words of experts. How these expectations and preconceptions are put together, and how they influence the non-expert in their encounter with the expert depend entirely on the personality of the individual. Because the result of these pre-existing conditions – for want of a better word – differs so widely from person to person, I do not phrase this description in a derogatory way. Rather, it is simply unavoidable that on any given subject where there exists some knowledge or some information available to the public, there is also bound to be preconceptions. The same goes for any other field, and I myself have plenty of preconceptions about fields beyond my own expertise. These preconceptions, however, are something we as experts communicating to non-experts need to take into account when interacting with our audience, and this is where the balancing act comes in.      

Since history is one of those fields that have a wide mass appeal, it is easy enough to get people interested in topics from that field. However, since history is also generally poorly understood as a scientific discipline, a lot of non-experts tend to be convinced that they themselves can know as much, perhaps even more, than experts. Typically, this belief is founded on a lack of understanding about how we discern between knowledge and information, or how we distinguish between fact and hypothesis. Moreover, there is a widely held idea that when there are gaps in our knowledge, any odd theory or explanation can be offered, as it has not been disproved, and cannot be disproved. The idea that there are degrees of certainty or probability is not nearly as accepted as it should be. Finally, history is often seen as a knowledge about dates and events rather than the interpretation of narrative and sources.      

When describing the non-experts as I do here, I must again emphasise that this is not done out of disrespect or arrogance. My description here is simply based on how non-experts frequently approach the subject of history, and this approach is aided by a misconception of how history is done by experts, a misconception fed by popular culture, alternative culture and lazy journalism.

It should be noted, of course, that a lot of non-experts have a very intelligent and knowledgeable approach to history, and a lot of them do provide interesting insights, interpretations and input that can help the expert to move the research front – to use a Norwegian expression – a few inches further, which is exactly the kind of progress history makes as a discipline. Others are more entrenched in error, and display a kind of pride mixed with scepticism towards experts – a notion currently highly favoured by a number of populist individuals and outlets and thus very wide-reaching – which makes it very difficult, often impossible, to veer them away from their wrong ideas.      

In the course of my public outreach – which, granted, is not extensive – I have met a wide variety of such non-experts, and this is where the balancing act becomes important. In some cases, people have been wrong but in an understandable way, and it can then be very arrogant to simply dismiss their ideas. For instance, a few years ago after I had given a presentation about the lost medieval village church, an elderly neighbour suggested I might find additional information in the papal archives. It is not impossible that this might be the case, but it is highly unlikely. However, as I did not want to simply dismiss the idea but rather nourish his enthusiasm about the possibility of future discoveries – because that enthusiasm appeared to mean a lot to him – I suggested instead that there might be something in Danish archives instead. Personally, I do not believe there is a great chance of such discoveries, but the possibility is absolutely there, since Norway was in a union with Denmark from 1389 to 1521, and later as a puppet state belonging to the Danish king from 1537 to 1660. During the Reformation of Denmark-Norway in 1536-37, the archives and papers of Norwegian churches were confiscated and recycled for their parchment in the Danish-Norwegian administration, meaning that information about Norwegian parish churches could conceivably be found in Danish archives. My point here, however, was to steer a non-expert away from an unrealistic expectation towards a more realistic one, because I think it is important to meet an intelligent suggestion with decency and respect, and also to nourish enthusiasm for the discipline.           

In other cases, however, expertise is met with a kind of strange defiance which can come from a variety of sources, but very often a dislike of experts that itself might have different points of origin, sometimes including an inferiority complex. The day before my presentation I was met with one type of this defiance – and I have not yet been able to assess which type – when one of my fellow villagers walked up to me and declared that he would be attending my talk, and that he had read up on the subject. This declaration was given in a strange kind of defiance which immediately ruffled my feathers, and I suspect that I did not manage to maintain my balancing act as well as I should have. But I was reminded in the aftermath of this very undramatic event that such individuals make the historian’s balancing act very difficult to achieve. The temptation to refer to my own expertise was overwhelming, using my education and degree to browbeat and ridicule an attempt at domineering behaviour. I rarely consider such a response to be useful, however, even though it sometimes has its function. In most cases, such a response only cements the defiance of the non-expert and confirms their deeply-rooted conviction that experts are cliquey and deaf to suggestions from outside their ivory tower – a conviction that, to be fair, is not always incorrect, depending on the expert in question. (And sometimes such browbeating is necessary, such as when someone abuses history for the furtherance of their own harmful views and the spreading of hate.)         

I am not entirely sure how my response was received, and how it should be characterised. Looking back, I suspect it was a form of poorly suppressed irritation bordering on the discourteous, but I am also sure it could have been much worse. I do believe I failed the balancing act to some extent, but the incident did remind me how important it is to try to achieve such a balance between receptive and instructive, and how the balance has to be calibrated afresh for every new situation, and every new individual. As I hope to have many years of public outreach ahead of me, I hope this incident will enable me to improve my balancing skills. 

Saint Olaf in Tanum Church

 

Today is the feast of Saint Olaf, one of the most important saints' feasts in medieval Norway, and indeed in medieval Scandinavia. Killed at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030 and declared a saint the next year, King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway became widely venerated from Iceland to the Baltics, and depictions of him are found in numerous medieval churches. For this year's feast, I bring you this short post featuring one such depiction of Saint Olaf, which is kept at the Oslo Museum of Cultural History. Originally from Tanum Church in Vestfold - a Romanesque stone church from the first half of the twelfth century - this thirteenth-century wooden statue represents the saint-king is shown enthroned with gesturing hands while threading underfoot a man who appears to be in chainmail. The robes, the cape and the crown - perhaps even the beard - all serve to emphasise the royalty of the saint. The absence of his attribute, the axe by which he was wounded in battle, is notable, but for this I have no explanation at present.

Perhaps the most notable feature is the figure lying below the saint's feet. As far as I have been able to ascertain, this figure entered into the Saint Olaf iconography in the thirteenth century, and took different forms throughout the Middle Ages. In this case, we might interpret the figure as a soldier on account of the chainmail, perhaps representing his vanquished enemies, or indeed the pagans he fought against during his reign. Other interpretations are also possible. Most importantly, however, it appears that the meaning of this figure depends very much on how the figure is depicted. Several other thirteenth-century exemplars show a man, while others - some already in the thirteenth century as well - depict a dragon, sometimes with the head of a man and sometimes not. The meaning of this iconography has plagued medievalists for generations, and so far I believe the most satisfying conclusion is that there is no one single interpretation, but several possibilities depending on the figure, the time, and the place of its making.  

Churches of Gloppen in Western Norway, part 3 - the medieval church of Hyen

 

Sunday, July 24, I gave a presentation about the now-lost medieval church of my native village of Hyen in the Western Norwegian fjords, located in the hamlet of Hope. The presentation followed an outdoor church service held at the spot where that church most likely stood in the Middle Ages. This was not the first time a church service had been held in this location since the Middle Ages – there was a similar service in 1995 – but this time the service included the baptism of three children, a sacrament that has not been performed within the environ of the lost church for the better part of five centuries. Despite the rain, it was a momentous and joyous occasion.        

As I am preparing a short piece about the now-lost medieval church in the local parish magazine, I have put together a brief outline of what we know about this church, and what we can surmise from context. 

Raised in 1950, this stone commemorates the lost medieval church of Hyen. The work was initiated by the parish council, and the stone was found a few kilometers further up in the valley from where the church stood

The medieval church of Hyen         

The medieval church of Hyen first emerges in the sources in 1308, in a letter from the bishop of Bergen to the priests of the area. At this time, the Norwegian church organisation was immensely powerful, as it held much land and had a largely close – if occasionally turbulent – relationship with secular power. Several bishops were heavily engaged in the strengthening of ecclesiastical administration and jurisprudence, and one such bishop was Arne Sigurdsson, who became bishop of Bergen in 1295, an office he held until his death in 1314. Arne had studied law in Orléans and was part of a concerted effort to ensure the right living among priests, and that the church received its financial dues.    

The letter from 1308 was written at Gimmestad, a hamlet in the neighbouring fjord of Hyen, where there was a parish church in the Middle Ages (as there still is). Bishop Arne resided here during his visitation in the area, and he wrote this letter to the five priests of the area; Sigvat at Vereide, Bård at Re, Steinar at Austrheim, Kolbein at Gimmestad, and Hallstein in Hyen. Four of these priests were commanded to leave their concubines within five days of receiving the letter, or they would be suspended. Sigvat was suspended effective immediately – perhaps because his church, Vereide, was the richest of the churches in the area, and his status was therefore higher than the others. The practice of priestly concubinage was not uncommon in Latin Christendom, it was not a phenomenon unique to Norway, and it was something which eager reformers such as Bishop Arne wanted to eradicate from the church.

 We do not know exactly what happened after Bishop Arne had issued his letter, but we do encounter four of these priests in another letter from 1310, which suggests that they did either divorce their concubines or somehow managed to avoid suspension by other means. (The simplest explanation is that they separated from the concubines, but we should not exclude other possibilities.) In any case, the letter from 1310 is a response to a supplication by three of the priests of the area which is now Gloppen municipality. The supplication informed the bishop that Sigvat of Vereide had died, and the priests of Gimmestad, Eid, and Hyen asked the bishop to divide the income of Vereide church in such a way as to strengthen the situation for the other parish churches, since they would not have sufficient income to welcome the bishop on his next visitation otherwise. In his response, Bishop Arne rearranged some of the divisions of the parishes and church income, and the priest of Hyen was granted a twelve ‘cophinos’ or hampers – in Norwegian ‘laup’ – from the income of Vereide. That the priest in Hyen was granted this amount of income was because Hyen was the poorest of the parishes, and if the parish of Hyen was subsumed under the parish of Vereide – which it was after the Reformation – the people of Hyen would have a long and difficult road to travel to church. 

The medieval church was most likely located on this crag, where it could be seen by churchgoers coming up the valley by boat across the lake, or coming down the valley along the road that connected the various hamlets of the valley. The location where the churchgoers were believed to go ashore is called 'Kirkjevikja', the church bay. Remnants of a stone dock can be seen, although it is unclear whether this dates to medieval times.

From the supplication of 1310 we catch a somewhat better glimpse of the situation of Hyen parish. The village of Hyen comprises two long valleys and a fjord, and its people still live in far-flung hamlets within a wide circumference. While there were several farms in the hamlets of Hyen, it has nonetheless always had a much more difficult terrain for agriculture than what we find in the neighbouring fjord, and the income from tithes and other dues was not large.

From this starting point, we might also surmise a few other points about the church building. Due to the limited means of the parish, it is likely that it was a wooden church, a so-called stave church. Typically when we talk about stave churches, we think of some of the masterful buildings such as Borgund, Urnes, Hopperstad or Lom. The term ‘stave church’, however, pertains to the building technique and can also include much more humble churches, small, dark, and with room for standing only. It is likely that the church in Hyen was one of these smaller stave churches. Moreover, it is likely that the church was built in the course of the twelfth century, as this was a period when the Norwegian church organisation expanded its infrastructure and erected churches throughout the country. It was in this period that the church of Vereide was built, a church whose stone structure point to the greater income of the priest, and the importance of its location.         

Since the parish of Hyen was poor, we are also left wondering about the number of books kept in the church. Most parish churches were expected to keep a psalter, a missal, and a breviary for performing the basic liturgical services in the course of the church year. It is also possible that the church kept a volume containing the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles – five books typically kept within one volume in the Middle Ages, as the one-volume bibles were not common in parishes, especially not poorer ones. From fragments found in other parish churches in the fjords – albeit richer ones – it appears that even parish churches in the rural villages could possess quite a few liturgical and biblical books, but in the case of Hyen we are left to speculate about what would have been available for the poorer ones.            

The church of Hyen reappears in the sources thanks to a letter from the reign of Bishop Audfinn Sigurdsson (1314-1330), the brother of Arne. In this letter, Ragnhild from the hamlet of Ommedal in Hyen confirmed a testamentary gift which had been given by her mother Unna. The letter of confirmation was witnessed by several men of the village, from several hamlets, and the gift of two cows were to be given to Ivar, called Priest-son, from the hamlet of Hope. It is unclear whether the gift was to the church – which would entail that Ivar had taken over the office of his father Hallstein – or whether it was to Ivar as a private individual. Despite Ivar’s unpropitious situation as the son of a priest, and therefore also a bastard, it is not unlikely that he was given his father’s office. Despite the ideals of the Norwegian bishops, the practicalities of a church spread across a difficult topography such as Norway’s could easily entail a lack of personnel that met the demands of higher ecclesiastics.       

After this letter, we do not know much more about the church in Hyen. The traditional interpretation of its later history was that it fell into disrepair during the Black Death. However, we do not have any concrete evidence for such a fate, especially since it is unclear how strongly the plague ravaged the village of Hyen in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is also possible that it became defunct following the Reformation of Denmark/Norway (1536-37), when the king became the supreme head of the church and reorganised the ecclesiastical infrastructure to do away with poorer parishes and expropriate church property. Until we conduct archaeological excavations of the area, we might never know.

The area around the stone is colloquially known as 'Kirkjegarden', literally 'the church yard', but also the Norwegian term for a cemetery. When the grass was placed on a hayrack to dry, the hayrack placed near the stone was called 'kirkjehesa', or the church hayrack. There are stories that older generations discovered remnants from the medieval cemetery, but these are unconfirmed. 

The temporary church bell

 





Today, I gave a brief presentation about the now-lost medieval church of my native village of Hyen in the Western Norwegian fjords. The presentation followed an outdoors church service, arranged as part of our annual village festival, according to an established tradition. These services are usually in non-consecrated places, but this year the service was held on the site where the medieval church once stood - at least in overwhelming probability. The former church site is located next to one of the neighbourhood farms, and the family of that farm had done a great job to prepare for the service and lent equipment for the occasion. I will write more about this service and my presentation at a later point, but to catch the mood of this unconventional church service, I give you the church bell, suspended from an old walking cane belonging to the farmer family, stuck into the walls of the now-torn-down barn. While the bell was brought by the representatives of the parish church, the arrangement was done through what was readily available on the farm, a mixture of conventional and unconventional that highlighted how such church services are made possible through team work and contributions from the local community. It serves as a good symbol for the occasion, and filled me with great joy.