Unexpected consequences of saint scholarship

 

Most of my professional life revolves around saints and the imprint of their cult and veneration on society. As a consequence, I easily notice cultural expressions that contain some reference to saints, and as such cultural expressions are plentiful around the globe, I sometimes embark on very unexpected detours into cultural terrain that is new to me. With very few exceptions, these detours tend to be rewarding and to broaden my horizon in new directions, regardless how tenuous the link to saints actually turns out to be. 

One recent case came shortly before Christmas when I noticed the title of a collection of poems by Indonesian poet Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated into English by Tiffany Tsao. The title, Sergius seeks Bacchus, jumped out at me because Sergius and Bacchus are a pair of fourth-century soldier saints. Their popularity in early medieval Christendom is perhaps best demonstrated by the church dedicated to them which was built during the reign of Emperor Justinian (r.527-65), which is still standing in Istanbul and colloquially known as Little Hagia Sophia. The title does indeed refer to these saints, as they have become iconic figures among gay Christians, and the title thereby reflects Pasaribu's Christian background and his sexual orientation. 

The collection of poems is an unexpected consequence of my saint scholarship, but without that scholarship it is possible that this book would have completely passed me by. I am very glad I caught it, however, because the poetry is rich, rewarding, and, as seen already in the opening poem which recounts Pasaribu's coming out, it is devastatingly and beautifully heartbreaking. 

Norman Erikson Pasaribu, Sergius seeks Bacchus (translated by Tiffany Tsao)

Some brief reflections on canon and genius

Among the many bees in my professional bonnet is the issue of canon formation: how some works become singled out as being of particular value and worthy of preservation and perpetuation through subsequent generations. The mechanisms of canon formations are usually shared by whatever type of art we are talking about, whether it is pictorial art, the art of writing, or the art of music. There are several factors that can contribute to a work's entry into a given canon, and there are also several factors that contribute to a work's continued place in that canon, because the canon is also changing. 

In all cases, at least as far as I have seen, canonical status is achieved through patronage and from the decisions of individuals in relevant positions of power and decision-making. The reasons for elevating a work to canonical status, or at least pursuing an attempt to elevate a work to canonical status, can be many and varied. However, in many instances it appears most likely that someone's attempt to elevate a work to canonical status has a lot to do with that person's self-fashioning. In order for that person to be seen as well-read and cultured, the works that they promote to canonical status are expected to reflect some of the grandeur of that status back onto the promoters.  

For a work to achieve canonical status, and for a work to have sufficient canonical lustre to reflect it onto the self-fashioning promoter, the person behind the work must also be elevated. The usual trick in this process is to turn to the idea of genius, the idea that some individuals, seen as working on their own, are so brilliant that they deserve a place in the pantheon provided by the canon. Whether the genius in question is dead or alive is immaterial. What matters is that the declaration of genius serves to generate enough brilliance that it is reflected on those that profess to know about this person's works, that profess to love the work, or who use that work as a prop to appear grand and cultured to an audience. For instance, having the complete works of Leo Tolstoy in the room where you receive guests has a very different meaning that having those works placed somewhere where they are not easily seen. The same goes for hanging Edvard Munch's Scream on the wall where you receive your guests, or playing a recognisable tune from Mozart or Beethoven during a party. To do all these things are not necessarily done without some measure of affinity for these works, and it is not a bad thing to appreciate the works in question. The issue is that genius and canon serve self-fashioning. 

However, because the literary canon, for example, is often constructed with a view towards self-fashioning, there is often very little interest in acquiring understanding beyond the canonical work itself. Every work is engendered in a specific historical and cultural context, and many canonical literary works are somehow related to other literary works. If a literary canon had served to augment our understanding of literature and not just augment the status of the work and those who claim to read it, this relationship between works would have inspired the perpetuation and dissemination of those other, less known, works. 

If the literary canon served as an inroad into the wider-reaching threads of intertextuality and literary connections and genealogies - and to some people the canon does do that - then we would also have urged for the preservation of those other, less well known works. There are two particular examples that come to mind when trying to illustrate how the navel-gazing functions of a literary canon works in practice. The first example is the chivalric romance Girone il cortese, romanzo cavalleresco by Rustichello of Pisa. Rustichello is widely known as the writer who recorded Marco Polo's account of his travels in the East. The canonical status of Marco Polo's Travels is well established, and its impact on later culture is immeasurable, but includes such highlights as Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1972) and the name of a spaceship in the Norwegian science fiction TV series Stowaway (1978). If the canonical status of the Travels had kindled curiosity and desire to understand - at least among those in positions of power and decision-making - we would also have translations and editions of Rustichello's romance. And while such editions have been produced in Italy, there is, for instance, no such edition in some of the most globally impactful canon-formers such as Oxford World Classics or Penguin Classics. The latter publishing house has, on the other hand, issued several editions and translations of Marco Polo's The Travels. 

My second example is Don Quijote, a work that satirises and would perhaps not exist without the romance Amadis of Gaula by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. Yet aside from editions produced in Spain, the romance of Amadis is not, at least to my knowledge, translated into other languages in recent times, and certainly is not included in Oxford World Classics or Penguin Classics. This lack of interest is perhaps especially surprising in the case of Amadis of Gaula, since it is heavily referenced in Cervantes' novel, and since the intertextuality and literary connection is both overt and very strong. If those in position of editorial and financial power sought to enhance our understanding of Don Quijote, for instance its jibes against Amadis of Gaula, they would finance the editing and translation of the work for a wider audience. That this work is not being done is, to my mind, a good example of how ideas around canon and genius tend to be very shallow affairs, usually tightly bound up in issues of self-fashioning and snobbery.      

The Svingerud stone - the world's oldest dateable rune stone

 

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo to buy a book, and also to check whether the world's oldest dateable rune had already been put on display. To my luck, this proved to be the case, and I was able to have my first encounter with the recently-excavated Svingerud stone. 

News of this find broke on January 17, when the museum publicised that excavations in Ringerike had yielded a rune stone found in layers from the first two centuries of the common era. The excavations were carried out in 2021, and for the past years runologists, linguists and archaeologists have examined and interpreted the stone and its several inscriptions. Runologist Kristel Zilmer provided a thorough and fascinating overview of the research process in a thread of tweets (in English), and another overview (in both English and Norwegian) was published on the website of the University of Oslo. A description of the exhibition is found on the museum's website.

The main inscription reads "idiberug", which is interpreted to be a woman's name, although the date of the inscription and the lack of comparable sources mean that is impossible to speak in certainties on this matter. The Svingerud stone - named after the location where it was found - also contains other human-made markings, but these are more difficult to interpret.  

idiberug

The exhibition is located in one of the smallest rooms in the museum's third floor, and it only contains the stone in its two fragments, a poster, and a video running on a loop. The video can also be seen on the museum's website. The smallness of the room is perfect for an exhibition of this kind, and as I entered I could note the excitement among the visitors gathered around the glass case, visitors ranging from around eight to around eighty. A member of staff was on site to answer questions, and as I stood and took it all in, I noted how several of the visitors turned to the guide or talked among themselves, both in Norwegian and in English. (It was especially heartening to learn that an American and his grandchild just happened to be in Oslo in time for the exhibition and had taken the opportunity to go.)  

It was a marvellously joyous occasion, as the buzz in the room was an almost tangible reminder of how much fascination and interest can be found among the members of the public, and how valuable such exhibitions are since they provide both an outlet and a focal point for this enthusiasm. I walked about the room taking photographs, listening to the video and the guide, and seeing the stone from various angles while letting other visitors close to the exhibition case as well. I was smiling stupidly behind my face mask, because I was reminded yet again how much interest people have in the past, and how energising that interest can be.  

The coming years will be very exciting, and I look forward to read the studies coming out from the team working on the Svingerud stone. We are presented with a chance to learn more about a part of Norway's history about which very little is known, and we are able to put our existing knowledge in a much wider context. The fact that this stone pushes the date for the carving of runes in what came to be Norway even further back in time means that we have to expand our chronological frame when thinking about the historical development of this geography. We - scholars, members of the public, the world at large - have an opportunity to learn and broaden our horizon, and this is in and of itself wonderful. 

The joy, the immense joy, in all of this is nonetheless tinged with some bitterness. While new finds are emerging from excavations and studies, while we have a large number of experts in relevant fields, and while we have an unprecedented level of knowledge about conservation, excavation, locating and interpreting the new materials that are found throughout Norway, we are also living in a time when jobs in the relevant fields are cut, funding is reduced, and money and monetisability remain the guiding stars for the people in charge. As a consequence, we are squandering our opportunities to make the most of the combination of expertise and materials, of enthusiasm and a public that is open to the news and the knowledge concerning these finds. I can only hope that we are slowly able to turn this trend and ensure that the requisite research is being done. 

Saint Margaret's in winter

Last Sunday, two friends and I took a trip to a lake called Maridalsvann north of Oslo to visit the ruins of the Church of Saint Margaret. This is a thirteenth-century church located close to the lake shore in the northwestern quadrant, and must once have been the religious centre of a wide remit of farms in the hinterland of Oslo. The church has a small but relatively spacious nave and a small square-walled choir.

To my knowledge, no surviving medieval sources provide any detailed knowledge of the history of the church, and the traditional dating to c.1250 appears to be largely on architectural grounds. Its dedication to Saint Margaret of Antioch is attested in later sources, but it is unclear whether this was the original dedication. If the church was dedicated to Saint Margaret already around 1250, this would be a remarkably early attestation of her cult in medieval Norway. While Saint Margaret was probably known by name in Norway since the official conversion of the country to Christianity in the eleventh century, she was not widely famous until the fourteenth century, when the joint impulses of Legenda Aurea and the cult of the fourteen holy helpers improved her standing. In comparison, the altar of Saint Margaret in Oslo cathedral is first attested in 1329 in a letter of property exchange (although the altar was probably established earlier than that).  

Sufficiently much of the outline of the church remains today that it is possible to get a good impression of its place in the landscape, and of its original splendour. Small though it is, it would probably have been a magnificent building in its prime, visible to travellers between Oslo and the hamlets further north. The ubiquitous snow made for a particularly atmospheric view. 

A model that provides a good estimate of how the church once looked

Somewhere beyond the mist and the lake lies Saint Margaret's Church