Old Aker Church, part 2 - the worm

 

In a recent blogpost, I wrote about Old Aker Church and its structure, which is partly comprised of medieval remains and partly comprised of restoration work from the ninteenth and the twentieth centuries. I mentioned, in passing, that one piece of the surviving medieval decoration has survived despite the wear of ages and the tear of restoration, and it is this decoration I present to you here.  

The decoration is not easy to find, and when I was at the church with a group of fellow medievalists we arranged a low-key competition to see who could locate it first. In the end, none of us won the prize because we stood in the right spot, making the guide believe we had found it, when in reality our eyes were much higher up. 

The decoration is to be found close to the base of a rotund structure on the eastern side of the church. It is difficult to see because the defining feature is nearly worn off, making it hard to notice that a stone band stretching along the base of the structure is in fact meant to be a worm devouring its own tail. It is barely noticeable by the jaws extending below and above the band that serves as its body.

How we should understand this decoration is impossible to say with certainty. Since this is a Norwegian church, it is of course tempting to suggest that it could signify the Midgard serpent, Jörmungandr, who circles the orb of the earth. The ecclesiastical context and the Romanesque style might suggest the worm Ourobouros, the symbol of eternity and endlessness. Yet the fluid boundary between folktales and classical lore, between ecclesiastical style and local expressions, not to mention the Christian influence on what we think of as Norse mythology could perhaps warn us not to think in terms of either/or, but that this worm could be understood as both, perhaps even to the same onlookers. 

Saint Edmund the protector - an example from medieval Norway

 

Today, November 20, is the feast of Saint Edmund Martyr, who was killed by Danish raiders in 869/70. His cult became one of the largest cults of a native saint in medieval England, and in the eleventh and twelfth century it was also notable in the Nordic sphere. Since I wrote about the cult of Edmund for my PhD, and how the formulation of his characteristics changed over time, I take the opportunity of today’s feast to connect one of the main iconographic features of Saint Edmund with a reference found in a Norwegian twelfth-century source. If my interpretation of the evidence holds, it suggests that the image of Saint Edmund as it was reformulated at Bury St Edmunds in the late eleventh century was also sufficiently well known in twelfth-century Norway to be a point of reference. 

Towards Hovedøya

The iconographic feature in question is Edmund’s efficiency as a protector and guardian of his territory, who could resort to violent means to carry out his protective role. While the clearest formulation of Edmund the protector first came about in the late eleventh century, the first vita of Edmund, Passio Sancti Eadmundi written by Abbo of Fleury around 985, includes a miracle story that might provide the basis for the later reformulation. This miracle story tells of how a group of thieves broke into Edmund’s resting place at Bury in order to steal the valuables housed there. As the thieves went to their business, they eventually discovered that they were unable to move, and so were discovered the next day by the clergy who served at the shrine. The thieves were subsequently executed by hanging on the orders of the bishop. Abbo remarks that the death of the thieves was an unnecessary tragedy, and the violent aspect of Edmund had apparently not become part of his image at that point. What is important, however, is that it was through Edmund’s merits that God prevented the thieves from moving, and Edmund was then able to protect his property.  

In the late eleventh century, during the abbacy of Baldwin (r.1065-97), Herman the Archdeacon compiled a collection of miracles which also served as a history of the abbey, and especially the period preceding the reform of the church into a monastic house in 1020. Herman recorded a story of how King Svein Forkbeard, the leader of Danish raiders who demanded heavy tribute from the church at Bury, was killed in his bed by Saint Edmund. The killing of the Danish king convinced the raiders to relinquish their demands. With this story, recorded close to sixty years after it supposedly happened, the image of Edmund as a protector had taken a new form. Or, perhaps more accurately, this aspect of Edmund had now been committed to writing and could therefore have a much more tangible impact on the later cult. This impact is notable, both for its early implementation and its longevity. For example, when an office for the vigil of Saint Edmund was added to the already-existing office for the feast-day itself, the story recounted in the four lessons for Matins was that of Edmund’s killing of Svein. The materials for the office were taken from Herman’s account, and although the earliest source of this office dates from the 1120s, it is likely that the office was composed already in the eleventh century. The longevity of Edmund’s reputation as a protector is evident from the wide range of church art that depicts his killing of Svein, but this development is another story, one that is addressed in the two best studies of the cult of Edmund to date, namely Rebecca Pinner’s The Cult of St. Edmund in medieval East Anglia (2015) and Francis Young’s Edmund – in search of England’s lost king (2018).

Towards the abbey church at Hovedøya

In twelfth-century Norway, the cult of Edmund was known, although to what extent is still an unanswered question. The knowledge of Edmund’s cult was due to the close contacts between the Norwegian church and the English church, a contact that had played a signification role in the conversion period of the early eleventh century, and which continued to have an impact on the cult of saints in Norway throughout the twelfth century. One example of this impact is the Cistercian abbey of Hovedøya – Head Island – outside Oslo, which was dedicated to SS Mary and Edmund. The abbey was established in 1147, and became a significant landowner in the Oslo region. It is in relation to this abbey we find our source to the knowledge of Edmund’s role as protector in medieval Norway.         

The source in question is the Registry of Akershus from 1622, an inventory of the records and charters kept at Akershus fortress (see Regesta Norvegica vol. 1, no. 157). One of the records is a letter of donation to the abbey at Hovedøya from the period 1170-78, signed by King Magnus Erlingsson, Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson, Bishop Helge I of Oslo, Earl Erling (the king’s father) and Orm Ivarsson, all of whom were powerful men of the Norwegian kingdom. The letter states that the manor of Frogn, situated north of Oslo, had been given to the abbey of Hovedøya. Moreover, the letter includes the warning that whomever would infringe on the rights and the ownership of the abbey should beware the anger of God and Saint Edmund.

What makes this letter notable is the warning, and the reference to the anger of the saint. To this date, I have not come across a similar formulation in the Norwegian medieval material, and although this does not preclude that it is a common detail of such letters of donations, it is remarkable for how it fits with the image of Saint Edmund that was well established and common by the end of the twelfth century. Granted, that saints could punish those who offended them or who sought to encroach on their territory or their domain is a feature of the cult of saints that was established very early in its history. Punitive miracles are attested early in the literature pertaining to saints. Moreover their role as protectors is often formulated as battle-helpers who provide victory against the enemies of the saint’s clients, and this variant goes back to at least the early fifth century. In Norway, the protective saint was also known in the figure of Saint Olaf, whose role as battle-helper was recorded in the 1150s, and whose punitive miracles were recorded in the 1180s at the latest. There is, therefore, no guarantee that the threat of a saint’s anger in the donation letter should be linked to the image of Edmund the protector as formulated at Bury St Edmunds in the late eleventh century.

The interior of the Church of SS Mary and Edmund, Hovedøya

However, the anger mentioned in the letter is precisely the anger of Saint Edmund. Considering that the Cistercians at Hovedøya were familiar with the legend of their patron saint, and considering that Archbishop Eystein also is likely to have known about it, it would make sense to see this threat as an expression of the knowledge of Edmund’s violent guardianship whenever his territory was threatened or challenged. We do not know of any manuscripts containing the legend of Saint Edmund from twelfth-century Norway, but that absence of evidence is almost to be expected considering that the vast majority of Latin texts produced and/or kept in medieval Norway have been lost. There is, however, one important survival that suggests that Edmund’s role as guardian was known to the Norwegian clergy, at least at the diocesan churches. The survival in question is a fragment from an antiphoner written in Bergen in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. This antiphoner, whose fragments have been digitally collected by scholars at the University of Bergen led by Åslaug Ommundsen, contains an excerpt from the office of Saint Edmund, an excerpt that earned this antiphoner its current name, namely “the Saint Edmund antiphoner”. Pleasingly, at least from the perspective of my argument here, the fragment (NRA Lat. fragm. 1018) contains one of the antiphons for Lauds which recounts the episode of the thieves who broke into Edmund’s shrine. While this miracle antedates the violent version of Edmund’s protective qualities, it is nonetheless a concrete piece of evidence that points to the knowledge of Edmund and his characteristics in medieval Norway. The threat of Edmund’s anger in the donation letter should, therefore, be seen as a manifestation of the idea of Edmund as a violent protector, and that this idea was sufficiently familiar in late twelfth-century Norway to be used in such an official document as a letter of donation.    

Old Aker Church, part 1 - a medieval frame

 
Last week I visited Old Aker church for the first time. Old Aker church - in Eastern Norwegian and Bokmål "Gamle Aker kirke" - is one of the few surviving remnants of medieval Oslo, and one of very few such remnants situated outside of the centre of the medieval town. The church is located on the top of a hill which overlooks the river plain where the now-diminutive river Aker runs into the fjord, and which now is covered by modern Oslo.   

The current stone church was probably built around 1100, possibly on the site of a wooden predecessor, which is a common pattern in Scandinavia. In that period, several stone structures were being erected in medieval Oslo, predominantly the churches whose foundations have now been excavated, but possibly also the royal manor. The emergence of these stone buildings can be understood as a result of both a greater amassing of resources in the area, as well as a stronger and more independent episcopal power, since Oslo was one of the three oldest mainland Norwegian bishoprics.  

Unfortunately, little is known about the history of the church. Its location outside of the city centre and its costly stone edifice both point to an important building. The district, presumably including the church, was donated to the Benedictine nuns of Oslo by Bishop Helge I in 1186, suggesting that the income generated in this district could go a long way of supporting the community of nuns. Beyond this donation, there remain few sources to its earliest history. The most important source is the church itself, or at least what has survived the nineteenth-century restorations. As it stands today, most of the outer walls of the basilica-shaped building belongs to the medieval building programme, shown by the locally quarried limestone. The base of the medieval tower has also survived, but the current tower is a modern reconstruction whose dimensions are drawn from the surviving tower base. Only one piece of decoration from the medieval period has survived, but that will be a topic for a future blogpost. 

The interior of the church is heavily restored, and it is likely that the medieval building was covered by wall-paintings that since faded or were covered by post-medieval Protestants, which in turn might have caused the nineteenth-century restorers to remove all the remains of plaster to get to the naked stone underneath. The restoration work also resulted in the added series of windows in the upper storey. These alterations to the interior has both added a source of light that was not there in the Middle Ages, and at the same time darkened the room my removing the colours of the interior surfaces, colours which would have radiated the light of candles and what natural light could enter through the first storey windows. 

Old Aker church is a very beautiful and peaceful spot, but also one - perhaps to a greater extent than most restored Scandinavian churches I have visited - where the lines between the original edifice and restoration is blurred to the point where it almost ceases to feel medieval.   

A quiet anniversary in celebration of community

Today, November 15, the feast of Saint Albert the Great, is the anniversary of one of the most important events in my life. On this date in 2012, I finished my MA dissertation and submitted it for printing. It was the penultimate stage of a labour that had lasted one semester more than it was supposed to, a labour that enabled me to understand much more than I had imagined, both in terms of scholarship but also on a personal level. Throughout my MA period, I kept thinking about the brief, matter-of-fact aside one lecturer had uttered at an introductory gathering for MA students, namely that it is not always pleasant to get to know oneself better. I experienced the truth of this at several points during my studies. 

Ten years after, I can more fully appreciate the importance of this date, as I can now look back and see what came after. November 15 unlocked the door for my academic future, and December 15, the date of my MA defence, opened it. It was the conclusion of a period of great excitement, but also great frustrations, a period of important lessons and bad habits, a period of solitude and company.

Much of what I am as a scholar today was shaped in that period which came to its transitional point on November 15. I came to learn the importance of academic generosity, as my MA adviser went above and beyond in his guidance, his patience, and his help. I came to learn to trust my own judgement in a way that skirted outside of arrogance, as several of my inklings were proved to be sensible and my work turned out to be quite solid. And, perhaps most importantly, I came to value the importance of community. This last point is perhaps what I stress the most when talking to students today, because to me it was invaluable. 

We were four medievalists finishing our MA that autumn. One of us was on schedule, having begun half a year after the ordinary starting point, and the rest of us were scrambling to put together something coherent as we were nearing the Christmas period. We met often. Three of us, historians, sat in the same cubicle, while the fourth, an art historian, was just a short walk away. While our daily rhythms often varied - I being much more of a night owl and a slow worker, a slow reader, and a slow thinker - but having that community to turn to was invaluable. Knowing that there were people who could help, and also knowing that there were people whom you should help, created a sense of belonging that is absolutely crucial in order to retain one's humanity in the face of immense pressure and uncertainty.  

I will skip further details of the MA process. Or perhaps I will just return to them when I celebrate the ten-year anniversary of my defence in a month. But I will say this: Knowing now that the labour gave me the opportunity to pursue my interests, to gain a range of new experiences, to travel, to meet new friends whom I dearly love, and to earn a living - for the time being at least - makes me all the more grateful that I was able to carry out this labour. And I am grateful that I did not have to do it on my own.