Saint Thomas of Canterbury in Roskilde

 

Today is the feast of Thomas of Canterbury, the archbishop who was murdered by a group of knights in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Following his canonization in 1173, his cult spread quickly along various networks, and became a well-known reference point in Latin Christendom. The cult reached Denmark at a relatively early point. It is not known exactly when - and when it comes to religious impulses, their arrivals can rarely be reduced to a single point in time anyway - but we should expect it to have taken place already in the 1170s. The reason for this early date is that a Canterbury collection of miracles associated with Thomas, mentions a few Danish cases, one of which being associated with the Danish crusade against the Wends that began around 1180.  

The popularity of Thomas in medieval Denmark remains a contentious issue. Only a few, scattered sources have survived, and there has not yet been a research project seeking to map out the development of the cult. Consequently, we do not know whether the cult remained stable in its popularity, or whether it shifted and waned, or whether there were significant local differences. 

From time to time, I have myself delved into the sources pertaining to the cult of Thomas of Canterbury in Denmark, and I am still thinking about what to make of my scattered findings. One thing that has become clear, however, is that in several parts of Denmark, the feast of Thomas was celebrated using the liturgy composed in, and disseminated from, Canterbury, namely the office known as Studens livor. This is an unsurprising discovery, because Canterbury Cathedral was very active in its promotion of the cult of Saint Thomas, and this liturgical office became the standard in many medieval church provinces. However, unsurprising is not the same as uninteresting. That the standard liturgical office was in use in Roskilde diocese - as demonstrated by the 1517 Breviarium Roschildense - suggests that there were contacts between Canterbury and Roskilde in the twelfth century, when the office was composed, and that these contacts left an imprint that lasted throughout the medieval period - largely thanks to the conservative nature of liturgical practice.    

In Breviarium Roschildense, the feast of Saint Thomas of Canterbury begins with an antiphon, which is exactly how Studens livor usually begins. It is a summary of the story of Thomas, describing his martyrdom and its importance, serving - in effect - to inform new listeners about what they are about to hear in greater detail. Below the picture, you will find both a transcription of the Latin and a translation into English by Kay Brainerd Slocum, taken from her excellent monograph Liturgies in Honor of Thomas Becket, to date one of the best monographs on the cult of Saint Thomas.  

Breviarium Roschildense (1517), f.98v

Pastor cesus in gregis medio 
pacem emit cruoris precio. 
O letus dolor in tristi gaudio 
grex respirat pastore mortuo, 
plangens plaudit mater in filio, 
quia vincit victor sub gladio 


The shepherd, slain, in the midst of his flock, 
Purchases peace at the cost of blood; 
Joyous grief in sorrowful praise, 
The flock breathes, though its shepherd is dead; 
Lamenting, the mother rejoices in the son, 
Because he lives, as victor under the sword. 

Christmas in the Ål stave church ceiling

 

At the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, it is possible to behold one of the most exquisite surviving works of medieval art from Norway, namely the ceiling of the ciborium of Ål stave church. The ceiling, visible to the ministrant priest and presumably intended to amplify his voice during sermons, contains a number of Biblical episodes, from Creation to the life of Christ. One of the key episodes is the Nativity, where Mary is shown reclining in a bed and looked after by a servant or a nurse, while Joseph keeps an eye on the manger, with the ox and the ass looking curiously into it. It is possible - although I have not yet read any analysis of this artwork - that the bed in which Mary lies is aimed to convey a sense of royalty. The blanket being in two colours, rather than a single colour, might be seen as foreshadowing Mary's role as queen of Heaven, a role that is made clear in the next episode. Here, we see the Virgin Mary enthroned, an angel attending to her with a thurible, and two of the three kings bringing gifts. The Christ-child sits in her lap, and Mary herself is wearing a crown. 

Ale for Christmas

In Gulatingslova, the law of the Gulathing law province in Norway, there are strict rules for the brewing of ale before Christmas. These rules are listed in chapters 6 and 7 of the so-called Christian law, namely that part of the provincial law that pertained to religious life. In these two chapters, we read that the ale should be brewed before the feast of All Saints (November 1), and it was to be consecrated to Christ and the Virgin Mary, in the hope of a good and peaceful year. Failure or refusal to brew the Christmas ale could incur penalties, at least if the means of your family were sufficient to enable you to brew the quantities prescribed by the law.   

Ale was an important part of the community-building of medieval Norway. Consequently, the rules of Gulatingslova draws up how much ale should be brewed per household, and how many people should brew together. Brewing was, in other words, something that at least three or more people did as a joint effort. However, Norway being as topographically interesting and challenging as it remains to this day, there were also exceptions for those that lived too far away, be it on remote islands or in the mountains. 

The brewing of ale for Christmas has continued to our own times, and in my family we brew our ale every year. Granted, we fail to follow the rules laid down in Gulatingslova, as we start a few days before Christmas Eve, usually the 18th or the 19th of December, and we would have incurred fines . Unlike the Norwegians in the Middle Ages, however, we aim to stop the brewing process before the alcohol sets in, so we bottle the liquid after one or two nights. This year, we let it brew in its keg for two nights.   

The common word for this kind of traditional Christmas ale nowadays is 'sukkerøl', which literally means sugar ale or sugar beer. It is brewed on a syrup of juniper and malt extract, and a lot of sugar. The process involves several steps, the first of which is to go into the woods or bogs to find some juniper twigs which are green and fresh, preferably with some berries on them. Sometimes, this step can be surprisingly challenging, such as when the juniper bushes are covered in snow, or - as happened about two decades ago - if there is an ongoing sickness which turns the juniper needles brown and dead. For this reason, I always tend to make a mental note of where to find good juniper bushes whenever I'm walking about in the village. 

The day after the the juniper twigs have been gathered, the brewing itself commences. The twigs are boiled until the needles turn blackish brown. The keg is filled with boiled water - to ensure that there are no bacteria -, sugar is boiled to a milky syrup, and, when the temperature is low enough not to kill the yeast, all the ingredients are put into the water. As our keg only takes 25 litres, we need to be careful in measuring out how much water is used for the syrups of sugar and juniper. Once mixed, the ale is left to brew at a stable temperature. After two nights, the glorious golden liquid is put on jars and bottles, and are ready to be enjoyed at every meal.  

21,5 of the 23 litres of this year's production

The brewing of ale is perhaps my favourite Christmas preparation. There are probably numerous reasons for this. Partly, it speaks to my sense of connection with the past, the joy of ensuring continuity across generation, to participate in an annual event in which my ancestors once participated, too. There is something about the passing down of knowledge and expertise that I find very pleasing, and perhaps especially because the old-fashioned aspects of the brewing stand in contrast to the many ephemeral and unnecessary elements of the contemporary, consumer-culture Christmas celebration. And, perhaps just as important, it also tastes delicious. 

 

Plains and deep dells - contrasts of reading

 

As I have often emphasized when writing about reading, I do enjoy those occasions when the contrast between what is being read and the place in which the reading is being done, makes both the reading and the surroundings much more memorable. Sometimes, this contrast is serendipitous, as I noted when describing my reading of Orosius a few years ago, while other times it is deliberately orchestrated in the hope that the contrast will serve to etch the experience more deeply into my memory. I November, I orchestrated such a contrast, and it was a great pleasure. 

The occasion was a research trip to Poland, where I stayed for two weeks. Having been to Poland before, I was familiar with the landscape: largely flat, and sometimes very flat. I prepared myself accordingly, and brought with me a novel whose scenes would be a far cry from the Polish fields. The novel in question was Hubroen roper, 'The eagle-owl calls', which was written in 1971 by the Norwegian author Mikkjel Fønhus (1894-1973), famous for his descriptions of the Norwegian wilderness. The novel chronicles the events of a hamlet in the interior valleys of Southern Norway through the last years of a female eagle-owl. Hubroen roper is a lament of the decline of the eagle-owl population in Norway, a decline caused in part by an aggressive policy onn the part of the Norwegian government, which paid a bounty for any raptors and predators that were shot or trapped. Since the narrative follows an eagle-owl, much of the scenery consists of deep dells, ravines and crags - in other words, exactly the kind of landscape with which I am familiar from my childhood. 

The riven topography of the novel provided a pleasant contrast with my surroundings. I read a substantial part of the short novel while sitting on a train to the village of Teresin, about an hour northwest of Warsaw. It was a late November morning, and outside the fields stretched on to some fuzzy-looking treetops on the horizon, which in turn shone black against a muted sunlight. It was a peculiar day. Quite cold, and with clouds that filtered the sunlight in such a way that the sun itself seemed to have drowned, and it felt like sunrise and sunset at the same time, despite being neither. The November fields of Mazovia had little in common with the pine-covered, ice-carved mountains of Southern Norway, and for that very reason both the mountains on the page and the fields beyond the page took a much larger place in my consciousness than they otherwise might have done. The whole affair pleased me greatly as a reader. 

The affair also pleased me as a scholar and as a medievalist. I am currently hired as a postdoctoral researcher on a project aimed at comparing the medieval past of both Norway and Poland. This is a collaboration between the University of Oslo and the University of Warsaw. For the past two years, the project has engendered a lot of discussion concerning the art of comparing one and the same phenomena in two different areas. Poland and Norway have been chosen in part because they have many similarities as medieval polities, but they also have a lot of differences. One such difference is the very landscape. Although Poland does have mountains, a lot of its most important centres of religious and political affairs in the Middle Ages are cities located on the plains. Norway, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Throughout this project, the importance of topography has been raised time and again, and the issue has provided a very useful yardstick when analysing how a phenomenon like the foundation of nunneries or the establishment of cult centres unfolded in both Norway and Poland. Sometimes, life and scholarship converge in pleasing ways, and this was one of those times.    

Monastic typology and institutional identity in Tyniec Abbey

 

As part of a sojourn in Krakow, I joined an excursion to Tyniec Abbey, a Benedictine monastery a short distance southwest of the city. The abbey is beautifully located on a hill overlooking the Vistula River, and was established around the turn of the twelfth century. While the abbey contains many interesting and exciting historical treasures, there was one detail that struck a particular chord in me, and that I wish to highlight here, namely a set of fifteenth-century frescoes from one of the chapels of the abbey church.  

The frescoes in question are located, as can be seen below, in the narrow space between the arc of the chapel entrance and the vaults of the ceiling, and they depict episodes from the life of Saint Benedict. The first scene, starting from the bottom, features a monk holding a book, probably Saint Benedict and his rule. The middle shows a building complex, which is probably intended to be Montecassino, founded by Benedict and the antecessor of all later Benedictine abbeys. The top scene shows Saint Benedict throwing himself into a thorn bush to fight his sexual desires. 

What we see in these frescoes in Tyniec is how the monks understood their institutional identity. As they were Benedictines, the abbey of Tyniec was a descendant of the motherhouse of Montecassino, and they themselves were the spiritual descendants of Saint Benedict. Through these frescoes, the monks were reminded of this bond of kinship which was part of the abbey's history, and they were also reminded about their typological bonds to Saint Benedict, since they were expected to be his imitators. These scenes were educational, both in the way that they situated the abbey within a greater historical narrative, and in the way that it reminded the monks of their duties and their identity as Benedictine monks. Exactly how the historical and the typological connections were activated - either during sermons, in individual contemplations, during teaching, or all of these and more - the frescoes were part of the identity formation that was a continuously unfolding element in the daily life of the abbey of Tyniec.   

Saint Edmund in late-medieval Denmark - a hint from the Odense Breviary

 

Today, November 20, is the feast of Saint Edmund Martyr, a ninth-century king of East Anglia who, according to legend, was killed by invading Danes. His death is commonly dated to 869/70, following the so-called Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The cult of Saint Edmund – on which I have written several times before – grew significantly in the eleventh century, in large part due to royal protection and munificence, and also due to the abbacy of Baldwin (r. 1065-97). Most likely, it was also during the eleventh century that the cult was actively exported abroad. Herman the Archdeacon’s collection of miracles pertaining to Edmund, written in the 1090s, records how relics were brought to Lucca by Baldwin himself. It is also possible that the veneration of Edmund at the Abbey of Saint-Denis outside Paris was initiated by Baldwin, although the earliest surviving traces of the cult there seems to be from the twelfth century.       

Edmund was also brought to Scandinavia. As of yet, we do not know when the cult arrived there, and where it arrived first. Perhaps the most likely candidate would be Denmark, seeing that Bury St Edmunds was reformed into a monastic house during the reign of Knud II of Denmark, Norway and England. Such a thought is tantalizing, and Knud’s attention to the cult of Edmund appears to be unquestionable, even if we apply the necessary filter of scepticism when reading Herman the Archdeacon’s account of this relationship between king and abbey. However, while Knud’s respect for English saints is demonstrable, this respect and attention, perhaps even veneration, occurs in the context of a foreign king seeking legitimacy in a new kingdom. Consequently, there is little reason to think that Knud II brought Edmund to Denmark, although we should not omit the possibility that someone – perhaps a cleric at Bury – sought to disseminate the cult overseas as well. The main counterargument to a dissemination that early is that there was little cult material with which to spread the knowledge of Edmund. Knud II’s English reign (1014-35) was the abbey’s infancy, and despite the king’s patronage we do not know of any large-scale text production taking place at Bury, or any other kind of production pertaining to the material dimension of a saint’s cult, until Baldwin’s abbacy.           
 
What we do know, however, is that in the course of the twelfth century, we find several references to the cult of Saint Edmund in Scandinavia. He appears in several calendars, there are two Norwegian churches dedicated to him, and liturgical fragments show that his feast was being celebrated, although it was not universally important in either of the three Scandinavian church provinces. In Denmark the death of Edmund is a historical reference point in the Chronicon Roschildense from c.1138, and in Iceland – to step outside of the strictly Scandinavian remit – the same is the case for Ari Frodi’s Íslendingabók from c.1130. Due to the general loss of sources – both textual and pictorial – from twelfth-century Scandinavia, we will never have a complete picture of the extent of Edmund’s cult there, but the sources that do remain suggest a wide dissemination which entered into Scandinavia at different times and by different routes.

One question, however, is how the cult of Edmund fared after the twelfth century. From 1200 onwards, we have more surviving source material – although only a small percentage of what was produced – but we have few clues as to the development or spread of the cult of Edmund. Yet there is one late clue – from 1497 – which might shed some light on the late medieval fate of Edmund’s cult in Scandinavia.

The clue in question is a rubric on folio 435r from the 1497 edition of the Breviarium Othoniense. This was the second edition of the printed breviary, the first being in 1482 and which I have not yet checked for the issue at hand. The rubric opens the office for the feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (d.1231, can. 1235), which is on November 19. In this rubric, it is stated that the Second Vesper of Elizabeth’s feast is not to be celebrated, as this is the feast of Saint Edmund. Instead, psalms are to be sung in Edmund’s honour, although it is worth mentioning that the breviary does not contain any texts for Edmund’s feast. What follows the office for Saint Elizabeth is the feast of the dedication of a church.    

Breviarium Othoniense, 1497, f.435r

The note in the rubric, and the absence of any further indications about Edmund’s feast, suggest that Edmund’s importance in the diocese of Odense had dwindled significantly by the later medieval period, and these two elements also suggest how it happened. Elizabeth of Hungary was one of the most universally famous new saints in from the thirteenth century onwards – universally within Latin Christendom that is. Her widespread popularity was due to three main factors. First of all, her canonized status in a period when the papal church was actively asserting its power through its claim to monopoly over canonization. Secondly, the Franciscan order’s network and influence. Thirdly, her inclusion in Jacobus de Voragine’s collection of saints’ legends, Legenda Aurea. Which factor had the greatest impact in Denmark is difficult to assess, although my preliminary guess would be the Franciscan influence.

Due to Elizabeth’s importance, she appears to have eclipsed that of Edmund. Granted, that the rubric does acknowledge Edmund’s feast suggests that he was not entirely superseded, but that the celebration of his feast is marked as being ferial psalms – i.e., an everyday office rather than an office of a Sunday – points to Edmund being kept more for tradition than devotion.     

We – or at least I – do not know when Saint Elizabeth came to replace Saint Edmund. The difficulty of using the Odense breviary is that the monastic community that comprised the cathedral chapter in Odense from c.1100 onwards was reformed into a secular house in the mid-fifteenth century. Indeed, it was most likely this reform which prompted the printing of the Odense breviary in 1482, since the liturgy needed to be adapted to the secular use. Consequently, we cannot know whether rubrics such as this one was copied from an older, monastic breviary, or whether Saint Elizabeth’s replacement of Edmund was part of the reform. The question is complicated by the Franciscans’ strong position in Odense, which has made it entirely plausible that the feast of Saint Elizabeth might have been introduced as early as the thirteenth century.

Ultimately, we cannot say for certain when this replacement took place, but we do see that it took place, and through the replacement we can see how a Danish bishopric responded to changes in ongoing trends within the cult of saints. From this little rubric, we might, therefore, get a better sense of what happened to Edmund’s cult in Denmark.

On minor saints and priorities

 

Every now and again I return to the Swedish medieval calendars that I used to work on in the spring of 2021, and I am reminded of how utterly fascinating it is to put one’s research skills to the test in order to sort out a question of identity, and to sift through available materials in order to advance one step forward. The plethora of names contrasts frustratingly well with the dearth of solid details, and each puzzle provided by the often fragmentary survivals of the calendars is a reminder of a now-lost historical context from which these puzzles emerged, either as veneration of historical persons – however altered by generations of cult activity – or as a scribal error or confusion.

While I have already reflected on the tantalizing opportunities of knowledge and speculation offered by these minor saints (here), today’s work has highlighted to me that much of our current dearth of information is the result of modern-day research priorities. Since research necessarily must be funded, those organizations that provide that funding need to be convinced that a proposed project is worth both the while and, above all, the money. Moreover, since the funding bodies in questions are rarely familiar with the gaps in knowledge or where we need to spend more effort in order to get one, albeit one important, step further, the acquisition of research money requires convincing arguments. Such arguments are typically made using well-known topics or figures, or even buzzwords that are in vogue at any given moment.

Arguing for the funding required to track minutiae in a vast body of surviving medieval manuscript materials that pertain to the cult of saints, however, is difficult to do, because by their very nature such minutiae are not well known, and neither do they have a notable impact on later historical events. Yet these minor saints can still teach us a great deal about the mechanics of cult-making, distribution and dissemination, about the tenacity of stories or the placeholders or echoes of those stories, i.e., the hard-to-identify names, about specific historical moments when the hand of a scribe unwittingly created the starting-point for a non-existent saint through conflation or confusion. In short, knowing more about these minor saints might allow us to understand the cult of saints as a phenomenon in much greater detail.

These reflections are partly the result of the time and effort spent looking for details about saints such as Victor Maurus, Primus and Felicianus, and the elusive Januarius whom I have not yet managed to identify. Some of these are well known in some places (such as Victor Maurus in the Milanese tradition, thanks to Ambrose and his cult-making efforts). Some are widely, if not well, known thanks to their inclusion in canon-making texts such as Legenda Aurea (such as Primus and Felicianus). And others remain difficult to identify (such as Januarius, whichever Januarius he might be). Since relatively little scholarship has been expended on these saints, what available information there is must often be treated with caution, especially because it can be difficult to assess where a specific identification comes from, or what is the basis of a specific claim. The effort with which details about these and other such saints are found and assessed is a constant reminder of how the small things suffer in the shadow of bigger, more shiny ones, and that academia is still very much steered by the attraction to shiny things.  

Detail from Sveriges Riksarkiv Fr 25548

Entries for May 8, May 10, and May 12; these saints are, respectively:

Victor Martyr (Victor Maurus), Gordianus and Epimachus, and Nereus and Achilles

Detail from Sveriges Riksarkiv Fr 25603

Entries for the first halves of May and June

A list for All Saints

In the twelve years I have been writing this blog, I have spent a lot of my time researching saints. While most of my academic output has been restricted to a handful of saints, I have also been aware of the interconnectedness of saints and their stories, and that in order to understand one saint, it is important to know as many saints and their legends as possible. Consequently, I have used this blog both to develop my ideas about the saints of my main research focus, but also to get more acquainted with other saints, especially those that are too far removed from my immediate expertise for me to use them in my own articles.  

Since today is the feast of All Saints, a feast instituted to commemorate also those saints which remain unknown to us - and if there indeed are saints I believe they are unknown to most of us - I have put together a list of some, if not all, of the saints about whom I have written blogposts. Some of these posts are quite old and do not necessarily reflect my current opinion, but together they represent the breadth of my research into the cult of saints. It should be noted that in some cases I have written several posts, but I have chosen to only include one link per saint. Moreover, some posts deal with more than one saint or more than one group or pair of saints, so the same link might appear twice.  


Abdon and Sennen: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/10/narrative-and-saints-lives-part-i-abdon.html 

Agnes of Montepulciano: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/04/santa-agnese-da-montepulciano.html 

Alban of Britain: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2021/06/saint-alban-in-odense-part-1.html 

Anthony of Egypt: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2013/01/st-guthlac-and-st-anthony.html 

Bartholomew: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/08/saint-bartholomew-and-devil-legend-of.html 

Boniface: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/10/saint-boniface-and-miracle-of-fox.html 

Catherine of Alexandria: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2023/04/saint-catherine-of-alexandria-in-erfurt.html 

Cecilia: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2018/11/two-chants-for-saint-cecilia.html 

Charles of Flanders: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-death-of-charles-i-of-flanders-and.html 

Christopher: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2017/02/saint-christopher-in-roskilde.html 

Cosmas and Damian: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/05/cosmas-and-damian-in-anglo-saxon.html 

Edmund Martyr: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-vigil-of-saint-edmund-martyr.html 

Edward the Confessor: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-cult-of-edward-confessor-brief.html  

Erasmus: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-saint-in-pot-saint-erasmus-at-skive.html 

Felix and Adauctus: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2018/08/felix-and-adauctus-added-saint.html 

Fina of San Gimignano: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2013/09/travels-in-tuscany-part-5-blessed-fina.html 

George: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/02/changing-images-of-saint-george-c1100.html 

Gervasius and Protasius: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/08/sanctity-in-milan-part-1-gervasius-and.html 

Gordianus and Epimachus: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-legend-of-gordianus-and-epimachus.html 

Guthlac of Croyland: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2013/01/st-guthlac-and-st-anthony.html 

Hallvard: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/05/saint-hallvard-of-norway.html 

Hulpe: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2022/01/saint-knud-dux-saint-hulpe-and-limits.html 

James the Elder: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/07/santiago-matamoros-at-san-pedro-de.html 

John the Baptist: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-typology-of-decapitation-case-of.html 

John the Evangelist: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-chalice-of-john-evangelist.html 

Kenelm of Mercia: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-tree-and-rod-common-elements-in.html 

Knud Lavard: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-early-cult-of-canute-lavard.html 

Knud Rex: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2022/12/saint-stephen-and-saint-knud-rex.html 

Ladislas of Hungary: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2014/05/slayer-without-dragon-karoly-lotz.html 

Laurentius: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2017/04/distractions-along-thesis-road-antiphon.html 

Leo II: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2021/06/pope-leo-ii-saint-of-catholic-identity.html 

Louis IX: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2013/08/o-decus-ecclesie-comparative.html 

Margherita of Cortona: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/02/santa-margherita-da-cortona.html 

Martin of Tours: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/05/achronicity-and-lives-of-saints-case-of.html 

Mary: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-chant-for-birth-of-virgin-mary.html 

Matthew the Evangelist: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/04/saint-matthews-executioner-possible.html 

Mauritius: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2020/09/saint-mauritius-in-roskilde.html 

Michael the Archangel: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2014/09/chants-for-saint-michael.html 

Nabor and Felix: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/12/sanctity-in-milan-part-5-nabor-and-felix.html 

Nazarius and Celsus: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/08/sanctity-in-milan-part-2-nazarius-and.html  

Olaf: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2020/07/was-saint-olaf-canonised.html 

Peter: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2020/02/saint-peters-chair-feast-of-papal.html 

Protus and Hyacinth: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2020/02/ss-protus-and-hyacinth-in-cornwall.html 

Richard of England: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-apochryphal-saint-king-and-king-who.html 

Rosalia of Palermo: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/09/postcards-from-palermo-part-1-songs-for.html 

Sabinus: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2014/12/saint-sabinus-warrior.html 

Sebastian: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hagiographic-function-of-liturgy.html 

Stephen Protomartyr: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-lost-legend-about-finding-of-saint.html 

Sylvester: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2013/12/pope-sylvester-and-dragon.html 

Thomas of Canterbury: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2019/12/saint-thomas-of-canterbury-in-skive.html 

Tiburtius, Valerianus, and Maximus: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2016/04/narrative-and-saints-lives-part-iv.html 

Ursula and the 11 000 virgins: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2015/12/narrative-and-saints-lives-part-ii.html 

Valentine: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2016/02/narrative-and-saints-lives-part-iii.html 

Verdiana of Castelfiorentino: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2013/11/santa-verdiana-of-castelfiorentino.html  

Wilfrid of York: https://my-albion.blogspot.com/2016/03/saint-wilfrid-and-easter-controversy.html 

Reading in the room - a glimpse from Dublin

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Dublin for the first time, and participated in a seminar (for more on which, see previous blogpost). I have been wanting to visit Ireland for a long time, and as - I believe - most Europeans I have grown up with a range of different cultural impulses that have shaped my idea of the country, its history, and its culture. Thanks to these impulses, Ireland is to me synonymous with books, and one of my priorities was to purchase a collection of Irish poetry. However, I also went about this mission with a certain apprehension about the necessity to keep a certain balance between my enthusiasm for Irish literature in general, and the rather appalling tendency to romanticize and exoticize Ireland, its inhabitants, and its cultural heritage. I wanted to avoid falling into generalizing raptures about how Ireland is a land of letters and how ubiquitous poetry is there. Largely I was successful in this, although Dublin itself did its best to sway me, such as when I walked past a farrier in an alley, over whose door was written a quotation from Seamus Heaney's poem 'The Forge'. 

In the end, I did go to Hogges Figges, and quite excitedly sought out their poetry selection. I was not entirely sure what to expect, so I was ecstatic to find an annotated facsimile of the first edition of William Butler Yeats' collection The Tower. Not only is it a beautiful book, but, more importantly, it was a complete volume of verse, something I have struggled to find in the case of Yeats, since his popularity has ensured that there have been printed many selections and incomplete anthologies, while his individual books have been more neglected. Overjoyed by this find, I went to a pub and sat down to have a cup of tea, whiling away the time in a very pleasant way before meeting a friend for lunch. It was a short while, about half an hour, but there was something at once so quintessential and yet unromanticized about the feeling of reading Yeats in a pub which etched the memory into my brain. 

Lectures from the Festival of History - St Olaf: An international Norwegian Saint (Dublin, 2023)

 
This October, I had the tremendous honour of being invited to participate in this year's Viking Seminar, a part of the annual Festival of History in Dublin. The topic for the seminar was the figure of Saint Olaf and the international character of his cult, as it spread widely across Northern Europe shortly after he was proclaimed a saint in 1031. Participating in this seminar was an absolutely marvellous experience, and I was delighted to be part of the line-up, especially because the various presentations connected very well with one another in terms of the topics and the details explored in them, and also because the line-up was comprised of very lovely people. 

As the seminar was a public event, the lectures were also recorded, and they are available on YouTube, thanks to the Dublin City Libraries. Consequently, instead of repeating my words unduly and unnecessarily, I give you the link for the whole seminar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD059xzw3CA. 

Celebrating Nynorsk, celebrating Jon Fosse

 


Today it was announced that the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature 2023 is the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, and the most likely and anticipated Norwegian candidate to receive the prize. The choice of Jon Fosse was therefore not a surprise, but it was great and very welcome news, and it has made me very happy. My excitement about the prize does not have much to do with Jon Fosse himself. I have so far only read one of his plays - Nokon kjem til å komme (Somebody is going to come) - which is also arguably his best known work, at least in Norway. I appreciate this play more than I can claim to like it, and my satisfaction about having read it stems more from its cultural significance than my personal enjoyment. This is a convoluted way of saying that I do not have a strong personal attachment to Jon Fosse's oeuvre. Nor does my excitement stem from the fact that the recipient is from Norway, as there are numerous Norwegian writers I do not care about - and one that I actively dislike to the point that I would have become genuinely angry if he were to have been chosen by the Nobel committee.

Rather, the excitement I feel today is because Jon Fosse is the first Nobel laureate in literature who writes in Nynorsk, the minority form of the two official forms of written Norwegian. (We have no official spoken form.) Nynorsk is my own primary written language, and one that constitutes a massive part of my own identity as a rural Norwegian, a Western Norwegian, and a speaker of a certain dialect which is most closely aligned with Nynorsk. Moreover, since Nynorsk is a minority form, it is also a form that is constantly struggling against neglect or even overt antagonism from various agents in Norwegian society, such as certain political parties or youth organizations of political parties who wish to remove Nynorsk as a compulsory part of the syllabus in Norwegian schools. Most of the national media in Norway is written in Bokmål rather than Nynorsk - Bokmål being the dominant form and more closely aligned with urban and Eastern Norwegian dialects - and the vast majority of books printed in Norway are in Bokmål. Foreigners coming to Norway have typically been most likely to receive study materials in Bokmål, even if they live in a municipality where Nynorsk is the official form of Norwegian. In short, Nynorsk is under constant pressure. 

Due to the pressure against Nynorsk as a written language and its use within Norwegian society, the choice of a Nynorsk-writing author for the Nobel Prize is to provide a globally accessible recognition of the merits of Nynorsk as a literary language. The choice of Jon Fosse signals to the world, and to us Nynorsk-writing and Nynorsk-promoting Norwegians that we are not alone in acknowledging the value and potential of our language. And while I do not, in my excitement, endorse the Nobel Prize as a cultural phenomenon, or any form of institutionally driven, non-organic type of canon-formation which we see at play in such awards, I very much appreciate how such a prize can provide a much-needed recognition of a language that struggles in the face of an often hostile majority, and how Nynorsk as a language can benefit from the kind of visibility and reference point provided by the Nobel Prize. 

To celebrate today's good news, I bought three bars of 'eventyrsjokolade' (fairy-tale chocolate), a small bar of milk chocolate where the inside of the wrapper contains a short version of a Norwegian fairy tale. One of these was the story of the fox widow, a story to which I feel a personal attachment since I performed in a puppet show version of the fairy tale when I was in kindergarten. While these condensed versions of fairy tales are written in Bokmål rather than Nynorsk, the choice still felt appropriate since it is the only literary sweet we have available. And, as always, they tasted delicious. 

On bluer skies

Since 2012, I have been an active member on Twitter, and in those years I have gained a lot of different experiences, and for the most part these have been immensely positive. Both as a scholar and as a general human being, I have become indebted to a wide range of individuals who have showed me great kindness and helped me improve, both personally and professionally. I hope to be able to continue reaping benefits from Twitter, but the current owner - an emotionally deranged, all-too-powerful, idiotic, destructive man-child with the intellectual capacity of an egg cup - has made the possibility of gaining something good on Twitter increasingly difficult. As things seem to be heading down an even more ludicrous road in the coming weeks, I have created an account on Bluesky just to be able to keep in touch with the friends I have made in the past eleven years, friends without whom I would be infinitely poorer. 

My handle on Bluesky is @hopesteffen.bsky.social. You are all welcome to find me there. 

For the time being, my main activity will remain on Twitter, but I hope that if that particular network does implode in the hands of a faux-genius who has not heard the word 'no' often enough in his life, Bluesky will provide a viable alternative, which can foster the kind of exchanges that have broadened my horizon for eleven years.  

 

Saint Michael in Tønsberg, part 1 - the dragonslayer in the cathedral

 
Today, September 29, is the feast of Saint Michael and all angels. For this year's feast, I present you with a modern representation from the city of Tønsberg in Eastern Norway. In the nineteenth-century cathedral, we find a series of exquisite stained glass widows created by Per Vigeland in 1939. The windows contain depictions of a number of saints and biblical figures, including Saint Michael and Saint Lawrence, as seen below. The pairing of the two saints is curious, as is the fact that they feature in a Protestant cathedral. The cult of saints was abolished in Norway following the Reformation in 1536/37, but there survived numerous references to saints in folklore, stories, as well as historical narratives. In the first half of the twentieth century, the strongest anti-Catholic currents of the 1800s had receded, and Catholicism was becoming somewhat more accepted, despite several strands and pockets of more Puritan-like versions of Protestantism.  

What has made saints so ambiguous in the religious landscape of modern Norway is not only their place in surviving traditions from the Middle Ages, as in the case of using the feast of Saint Peter's Chair (February 22) as a marker of the shift from Winter to Spring. Part of the ambiguity also comes from the surges of interest for medieval aesthetic, not limited to the convoluted carvings of the Norwegian stave churches - the so-called Urnes style - but also the statues and the symbolism of surviving medieval art. There came, in other words, a greater acknowledgement of the Middle Ages as part of Norwegian heritage. The stained glass figures in Tønsberg cathedral might be understood in light of that acknowledgement. 

There is one further aspect that explains the representations of Michael and Lawrence, namely the historical connections of these cults to the city of Tønsberg. In the Middle Ages, a church dedicated to Saint Michael was located on the top of the crag that rises above the city. Today, only its foundation can be seen, but enough to give a good impression of its original size and its importance as a landmark. Its earliest reference in the surviving sources dates to the 1190s, but it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the church is several decades older than that. Its position on the top of the crag shows that medieval Norwegians were familiar with Michael's association with peaks and summits. 

Similarly, medieval Tønsberg also housed a Church of Saint Lawrence. This church was torn down in the 1800s, and the current cathedral was built in the same area. By pairing together the dedicatees of two of Tønsberg's lost medieval churches, Per Vigeland is invoking the city's past, reminding the congregation about what these figures once meant for Christians in Tønsberg. 

In the case of these stained glass windows, moreover, we are also witnessing a form of medievalism. When it comes to saints, it is always difficult to assess whether a modern expression of veneration of a saint - either a medieval saint or a form of veneration expressed through means available in the medieval period - can be considered medievalism, or whether we should understand this as a form of continuity. For Protestant countries, however, we are on somewhat safer grounds, as we can very rarely talk about continuity in the case of saints - although there are exceptions - and in the case of such an elaborate and finely crafted use of saints, the case seems even more certain. 

Saint Michael and Saint Lawrence by Per Vigeland, 1939

Reading-spots, part 4

 

Whenever I am home in my native village, I make it my quest to find new spots in which to read. This quest also applies outside of my village, but since I have spent most of my life among the mountains of home, finding new locations in which I have not yet read requires a bit more effort than elsewhere. Today I was reminded of one of these new places which I discovered in 2021, a year when I spent eight consecutive months at home, and when I spent many lovely hours canoeing along the shore of the lake just behind the house after my paternal grandparents.  

The place in question is a short stretch of stony beach where the shore is sufficiently even and sufficiently low to allow for disembarkation, and where it is also possible to find a comfortable place to relax with a good book. As can be glimpsed from the pictures below, this particular location also has the added virtue of being difficult to see from a distance, as old hazel trees are bending in arches over the shoreline, effectively hiding it from view, and creating a kind of canopy under which it is possible to seek refuge from light drizzles. I brought with me a volume of poetry by one of my favourite poets, Maribel Andrés Llamero, to whose poems I had only been introduced earlier that year. This book, La lentitud del liberto, is full of beautiful, melancholic meditations, and was an excellent companion under the greenwood trees by the lake. 

A different Oslo, or - Novels as historical remnants

 

For several years, I have appreciated the value of novels as windows into the periods in which they were written. By referencing a world known to their contemporary readers but not their future readers, novels are what we might call historical vestiges or remnants, in that they can be used as reliable historical sources if we seek for the right kind of information. 

One example of this function of novels, which I recently came across, is Michael Grundt Spang's Operasjon V for vanvidd ('vanvidd' meaning madness in Norwegian.) Spang (1931-2003) was a crime journalist and wrote several novels. Operasjon V for vanvidd was published in 1968. Although it was turned into a film in 1970, the novel did not make a long-lasting impact in the Norwegian cultural sphere, and Spang is not considered a canonical crime author. Consequently, I am not entirely sure why the novel's title has stayed in my brain ever since I first became aware of it around twenty years ago. Likewise, I do not quite understand what prompted me to borrow this book, although I guess it might have had something to do with my urge to read more Norwegian books. I had only a vague notion of the plot, so I more or less came blind to the novel. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice. 

As I am currently living in Oslo, I want to read as many Oslo-based novels as I can squeeze in among the numerous other books I aim to read in the course of a given years. Luckily, Operasjon V is set in Oslo, and describes a city very far removed from the one with which I have become increasingly familiar in the past two years. The novel contains several familiar place names, but since I have no long-term memory of the city's past and its changes, a lot of the routes described in the book appeared very odd to me, as these are routes that do not appear very logical for someone recently moved to twenty-first-century Oslo. 

The best example of this time-shock, or whatever to call it, came within the first few pages of the book, when describing a Christmas party in a villa near Maridalsvann. This name refers to a lake to the northeast of Oslo, which is the main source of the city's drinking water, and which lies quite a long way away from the city centre. As the clock is nearing half past 8, the host reflects to himself that in about an hour he will have to call a taxi so that some of his guest will be able to catch a plane at 11 in the evening. My first reaction to this detail was disbelief, as I could not imagine how anyone could get from that part of town to the airport in so little time. I was then reminded that not only was the general traffic and the number of passengers on a considerably lower scale in 1968 than what they are today, but the airport was elsewhere, namely very close to the city centre. Nowadays, the Oslo airport is Gardermoen, located around 45 minutes by train from the city centre, and to get there by car will require more time, especially in winter. In 1968, however, the airport was Fornebu, located by the shore of the Oslo fjord, and not a very long way from the main part of the city. I was, in other words, reminded that despite my two years - and counting - in this city, I have not yet begun to understand it, because I have not lived through its changes. Thanks to novels, however, I am gradually getting a better sense of what is currently my home city.    

New publication: 'Helgenerne i Skive. Deres udvalg i kontekst'

 
The end of August saw the publication of a book to which I have been fortunate enough to contribute, namely Dansk senmiddelalder, reformationstid og renæssance [Danish Late Middle Ages, Reformation era, and Renaissance]. The book, edited by Louise Nyholm Kallestrup and Per Seesko-Tønnesen, is a festschrift to my primary PhD supervisor, Lars Bisgaard, who is both a lovely man and one of the leading Danish medievalists of our times.

My contribution is a chapter called 'Helgenerne i Skive. Deres udvalg i kontekst [The saints of Skive. Their selection in context']. The article examines the wall-painting cycle of the Old Church in Skive, Northern Jutland, about which I have written several blogposts. The article provides an interpretation of the selection of saints, suggesting how we might understand the inclusion of some and the exclusion of others.  

The most rewarding aspect of this article was to be able to pay a small homage to a supervisor to whom I owe much more than I can ever repay. I was also very happy that the invitation allowed me to write up an article idea that I had had on my mind since the spring of 2019, following a visit to the medieval church of Skive. As such, this publication is yet another reminder of how such ideas that seem too small or too vague at the time of conception can mature into something interesting and worthwhile, given the opportunity.  

The book, most of whose contributions are in Danish, can be purchased here. 

Dansk senmiddelalder, reformationstid og renæssance 

Ed. by Louise Nyholm Kallestrup and Per Seesko-Tønnesen

(Photo courtesy of Syddansk Universitetsforlag)

The unicorn on the wall - a Bergen mystery

 
On a recent trip to Bergen, I visited Håkonshallen, King Håkon's Hall, which was built on the orders of King Håkon IV of Norway (r.1217-63) following a fire that devastated a large part of Bergen. The hall was finished by 1261, and although it has been heavily restored in the course of the twentieth century, the hall remains one of the greatest examples of secular medieval architecture in Norway. As I was walking by the tall windows and along the many corridors and up and down the many stairs of the hall, I noticed a drawing on one of the walls which immediately caught my attention. The drawing in question clearly shows a unicorn, and it was very pleasing to think that it was a piece of graffiti that had survived the many calamities that have befallen the hall and come down to us through the centuries. However, my critical sense was not lost in tantalizing possibilities of the situation, and I did notice one particular detail that suggests to me that the unicorn is modern rather than medieval. Aside from the lines of the drawing being a bit too white to have survived the disasters of the past, it also looks very similar to one of Bergen's minor yet well known attraction. The attraction in question is a wooden unicorn that hangs on the front of one of the wooden houses at Bryggen, the old quay in Bergen. The figure is iconic, as it is both easy to see as one walks along the quay, and because it has been rendered with great anatomical detail. The two-dimensional unicorn in Håkonshallen, while significantly less well-endowed than its wooden forebear, appears to be a replica of the one in Bryggen, which in turn suggests that the graffiti is of a much more recent date than its placement in the medieval stone building would at first indicate. Despite the disappointment in not finding a medieval unicorn, I am nonetheless quite pleased that the practice of inscribing signs into the stones is a practice that has continued into our own times, a practice that adds additional sediments, however small, to the complex layered history of Håkonshallen.   

The Viking Troll - or, Adventures in medievalism, part 6

 
Being a Norwegian medievalist has made visiting souvenir shops in Norway a very complicated affair. On the one hand, I am always filled with intense embarrassment when I see how my fellow Norwegians market our country to visitors. The mixture of tropes and stock figures for the purpose of earning money and playing on a small register of globally known reference is deeply unpleasant. On the other hand, part of my job is to explore how we in our contemporary world make use of, and think about, the past. Consequently, such souvenir shops are ideal research arenas, because they provide great examples of how we present ourselves to the world, and what ideas about Norway and its past we can expect people from other countries to receive. I therefore do sometimes walk among the grim displays of tat and junk, and I do look closely at the various historical misconceptions brought together in a hodge-podge of confusion and poorly-conceived national pride. Let no-one say I do not suffer for my work. 

Two weeks ago, I was in Bergen and had the opportunity to visit some extraordinary remnants from medieval Norway, things that I hope to blog about later. Several of these remnants served to showcase the complexity and variety of medieval culture, and they also serve to remind the viewer that the Middle Ages cannot be reduced to a handful of stock figures - at least not if the aim is to present a faithful idea of the medieval past. Souvenir shops, and souvenir designers, however, do not use the Middle Ages in ways meant to be accurate, but rather to pander to the preconceptions and expectations of visitors who have been fed a simplistic diet of cultural key words. In order to maximize the effect of these preconceptions - at least so I presume - the various tropes are sometimes blended in ways that have little to with how the ingredients of this blend have had their places and functions in Norwegian cultural history.  

One example of this blend was the Viking troll, which can be seen below. This figure is an incongruous mixture of stereotypical features that are all frequently used in marketing of Norway, its landscapes, and its history. This mixture is also highly anachronistic. We have the troll, which is an old legendary being in Norwegian folklore, but whose depiction here has more to do with nineteenth- and twentieth-century re-imaginings of the troll rather than the more fearsome and downright dangerous visions of earlier generations. There is the Norwegian flag, which was adopted through parliamentary vote in 1821. Then there is the Viking helmet, internationally recognized as such, even though it is fashioned according to the fantasies of nineteenth-century scholars rather than historical reality. In other words, the horns have nothing to do with historical Norse people, but they have everything to do with how we imagine Vikings in our modern times. The helmet also carries the word 'fjord' on it, the quintessential Norwegian word, and perhaps the only one that has gained some sort of international recognition. The sword is presumably part of the Viking attire, and serves to complete the transformation of this lovable troll-boy into a loveable Viking, ready to be an ambassador for Norway, and ready to convince visiting tourists from around the world that they finally get something authentically Norwegian to bring home. What we see, in other words, is a fanciful condensation of elements scattered across the timeline of Norway's history, assembled to bring out the perceived essence of our country and its culture.    

The Viking troll is an interesting case study in cultural stereotypes, and it summarizes how Norway is perceived abroad, as well as how we, or some of us at least, wish to be seen by those outside our country. There is also a calculating logic to this amalgamation. A typically capitalist logic of more being always better, where the customer's attention is drawn to a blend of identifiable ingredients, where each of the individual ingredients is a finished product in and of itself. This is the fried chicken sandwich - where deep fried chicken fillets are used instead of buns - of Norwegian tourism, and just looking at it makes me feel weird. And, as is typical of such blends, the act of blending makes each individual ingredient lose some of their original meanings, as they are decontextualized and then recontextualized to serve different purposes than they originally did. The blending is, however, not my main gripe, but that this blending is purely done in order to boost sales. Had we Norwegians engaged with this blend as part of our self-understanding, I would have been used to it - it would be a kind of cultural evolution or adaptation that aims to serve its own people rather than capering to the tastes of others. In this case, however, we are dealing with the view from outside and those who seek to satisfy and titillate that view. And we see, then, yet again, how medievalism serves to make people reach for a fantasy rather than reality, and how the Middle Ages sell.  

Reading-spots, part 3

 
Nearing the end of my first week in Oslo after two months in the Western Norwegian fjords, I am reflecting on this summer's results in my ever-ongoing quest for finding new places in which to read, to find new reading-spots. While this quest is not limited to my home village of Hyen, it is perhaps especially here that my quest becomes increasingly challenging. Having lived there for the greater part of my life, and returning as often as time and work permit, there are fewer new reading-spots to be found for each passing year. However, as the Norwegian fjords are landscapes of great variety and with numerous nooks and crannies, there are still plenty of places left to find. In this blogpost, I will share one of these places, namely the mountain lake of Langevatnet, which literally translates as 'long lake'. 

Langevatnet is situated on a sort of plateau, although a very hollow plateau, which was carved by the ice millions of years ago. While well above the tree limit, it is not located at the top of the mountain, as the grey and snow-patched rock still rises and curves onwards above this plateau. Even so, it is a strenuous hike, and one that I have not undertaken since I was in my early twenties. Since I had not been there for several years, and since it was a place I came to love in my teens, this summer's hike was a kind of a pilgrimage. As a pilgrim, I was dressed in a hat and carried a stick, and I had brought with me a book of verses that means a lot to me.

When I came to the easternmost end of the lake, I camped in the meagre shadow of a large rock, which can be seen to the left in the picture above. The place afforded me a good shelf on which to sit, and a wonderful view of the lake as it stretched westward. Here, I sat down to read a poem by one of my all-time favourite poets, Raquel Lanseros. I had brought an edition of her collected poems which I had bought in Madrid earlier this year, and I read her poem 'Invocación', Invocation, which is one of my favourite poems, and one from which I find myself reciting whenever I come face to face with something lovely in nature. I selected this poem especially because it has a lot of emotional value for me, and it was one of the first poems I tried to translate from Spanish into Norwegian. (This translation can be found here.) Reading this poem was one of the crowning moments of joy on a trip so full of delight and happiness, and it imbued this reading-spot with a particularly strong sense of belonging.  

Similar blogposts: 

Reading-spots, part 1 

Reading-spots, part 2 

The non-existent manuscript - a brief note on fictional books and bibliomania

Bibliomania manifests in many different ways. One of those ways is to nurture an intense fondness for books that do not exist, save in some fictional universe. Reading about fictional books is a sheer delight to me, partly because I have a great love of the book as a concept and as a manifestation of humanity's creativity and drive towards beauty, and partly because of what the mere existence of such a book implies about the fictional universe in which it exists. To produce a book requires of human skill, necessitates material resources, and can only be done through some sort of infrastructure by which those resources and the skills are brought together. A fictional book, in other words, adds a greater depth to the complexity of a made-up world, just as a real book adds greater depth to the real world. This depth is especially great and wonderful when done with care, and when it serves as a vehicle for displaying the learning and the knowledge of the author of this double fiction of world and book. 

Fictional books are very common in literature. The conceit of having found a lost manuscript from which your own fiction stems, is a playful way of creating a greater degree of verisimilitude in a story. The wonderful and at times wonderfully absurd toying with, and stretching of, the line between fiction and reality in Don Quijote, for instance, is partly done through the claim that the tale comes a manuscript written by Cide Hamete Benengeli. Similarly, Adso of Melk's account of his experiences together with his master William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco's Name of the rose is given a curious and unstable sheen of realism through the prologue of a found and then lost-again manuscript.  

There are many famous fictional books, and I believe it is no exaggeration to suggest that there are even more fictional books that are known to a much more limited number of readers, or that are known only for a shorter period of time and within specific readerships. Some fictional books do transcend the readerships of the real books in which they appear, perhaps because they are discussed and talked about by readers who also write, and thereby become more famous than the real book - the vehicle, as it were, of the fictional book. For instance, the fictional books of the real library of the abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris included by Rabelais in the first book of Pantagruel, has been mentioned by several authors. These mentions mean that there are likely to be readers who will be familiar with the list, and might even know parts or all of it by heart, without actually having read Rabelais. Such famous fictional books are not rare, but there are probably more fictional books which are likely to remain known to a more limited group of readers, or what we might justly call the fandom of a book or a book series. 

What spurred on these reflections on fictional books and my intense delight in them was a recent issue in one of my favourite comic book series, the Italian Western series Tex Willer, which is very popular in Norway. The issue in question - number 708 in Norway, number 748 in Italy - is written by Moreno Burattini and drawn by Michele Rubini. The story deals with the appearance of a blood-sucking monster in Northern Mexico, a chupacabra, or goat-sucker. The title of the issue is 'La mesa della follia', which in Norwegian has been translated roughly as the crag or mountain of horror ('Redselsberget'). This translation, however, is likely to miss one of the points of the original, as 'follia' means madness - as shown by the in-text Spanish name of the mountain as 'mesa del locura', or the mountain of madness. The title is, in other words, a likely nod to H. P. Lovecraft's famous tale. 

The issue is the first of a two-part story, and the it begins with a bag of bones brought to one of the recurring characters of the series, an Egyptian scientist living in Mexico, who is known by the epithet El Morisco. The search of the animal of these mysterious bones leads the scientist to an old abbey, in which he is shown a manuscript who was brought by a traveller. El Morisco analyzes the book, notes that it is written partly in German and partly in Latin, he recognizes alchemical signs, and dates it to the fifteenth century based on abbreviations in the text which, as he says, are typical of that period. The last page of the manuscript, as seen below, shows a drawing of a horrible cat-like beast, with the subtitle 'bestia quae sanguinem sugit', the beast who sucks blood.           

What delights me about this fictional book is partly how it continues a long and wonderful literary game of verisimilitude through the conceit of the found manuscript, and partly how both author and artist are able to create added verisimilitude through details such as the dating of the manuscript based on abbreviations, and on authentic-looking renditions of alchemical signs. Such attention to detail which strikes a chord in a historian such as myself - having worked on late-medieval manuscripts and codicological puzzles - is perhaps especially delightful when we consider the medium, namely a monthly comic book. This statement is not to be taken as as disparaging commentary about monthly comics, I am myself an avid reader of this particular one. Rather, the point is that monthly comic books are often aimed at a month-long readership who will then move on to the next issue, and then the next. While the publishers no doubt expect collectors, and while we should expect that there are several readers who do re-read these issues several times, a comic like Tex Willer is sold in a short-term market where each issue is relatively swiftly replaced with the next. In such a market, attention to detail is no doubt appreciated by many readers, and might even be what attracts several of those readers, but these details are probably not seen as the defining factor of the success of the series. Instead, the success is more likely attributed to the creation of mystery, the gun fights, the heroism of the protagonists, and the setting, the Old West, which still retains such a forceful grip on the European imagination. Because such attention to detail is not necessary, it becomes all the more delightful. This attention to detail comes from some place of love, whether it is a love of literary games, of verisimilitude, of codicology, of authenticity, of the series itself, of creating such nods that only a part of the readership will recognize. And such acts of love that lies in this attention to detail is in itself a form of bibliomania, which in turn adds even more delight to the matter.