Today, 29 July, is the feast of Saint Olaf of Norway. Since I have spent a lot of my academic career researching his cult in the Middle Ages, as well as the modern reception of him and his stories, I am taking this opportunity to write about one of the myriad cases where the figure of Olaf can be used to explore facets of medieval history.
Olaf was king of Norway from 1016 to 1028, and died in 1030 in an attempt to regain the Norwegian kingship. The following year, he was proclaimed a saint by Bishop Grimkell, who had been part of the king's retinue and was in practice the only bishop in Norway by 1031. The cult spread quickly throughout the North Atlantic and the Baltic, and Olaf became particularly popular in the Danish cult of saints. While most of the the sources to the veneration of Olaf in Denmark are lost to us, there are some places where there remain some interesting and significant pockets that indicate Olaf's importance. One such place is Roskilde, and I will illustrate this by way of a piece of art visible in the nave of Roskilde Cathedral.
The scene is an interesting summary of how the Roskilde clergy understood themselves in the Christian cosmology. The central figure is the only one without a nimbus in the scene, and it is likely that he represents the bishop of Roskilde, or perhaps the entire cathedral clergy as a pars pro toto. Below him is the tortured - but as-yet uncrucified - Christ surrounded by the instruments of his passion, an iconographic assemblage that was in vogue in the late medieval period, while above the bishop we find the Trinity represented in a similarly typical late-medieval fashion, with the crucified Christ in the foreground, the Holy Spirit descending upon Christ's head, and God the Father seated in the background. This vertical sequence of figures also situates the Roskilde bishop historically and mystically, as his episcopacy is made possible and given meaning through the sacrifice of Christ, while the bishop might also be understood to occupy the historical here-and-now between the historical event of the Passion of Christ below and the Holy Trinity above which sublimates the mystery of salvation and represents the future end of history. This mystic-historical iconography is very common.
Three other figures, however, who are flanking the Roskilde bishop, comprise a configuration particular to the diocese in question. On the bishop's close left is Saint Olaf, standing atop a dragon in accordance with an iconographic standard that had developed since at least the thirteenth century. Further to the bishop's left is a figure now almost worn away by time, but whose caption tells us that it is Saint Dorothy of Caesarea. Interestingly, she is positioned behind a smaller, cross-legged figure wearing an episcopal mitre, whom she seems to either protect or punish.
To the bishop's right is the cathedral's patron saint, Pope Lucius I, whose relics were brought to Roskilde at some point around 1100, possibly in the episcopate of Svend the Norwegian (d.1088). The combination of Lucius, Olaf and Dorothy is significant, as Olaf appears together with the cathedral's patron and is in effect the sainted pope's second-in-command, while Dorothy appears to take the place of a third but still important member. The Roskilde bishop is thereby protected by a holy bishop, a holy king and a holy virgin, two universal saints representing early Christendom, and a local (albeit near-universal) saint representing the more recent, perhaps even contemporary Christendom. The placement of these figures served to remind the cathedral clergy at Roskilde that they and their institution are guarded by these saints, and that they are owed particular veneration because of their role in the cathedral's history. In a single work of art, the cathedral and its clergy are positioned within salvation history, and also reminded of their duties towards their heavenly patrons.
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