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.