A commemoration of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in the Nidaros liturgy

Today, December 31, is the feast of Pope Silvester I, famous for converting Constantine the Great to Christianity and for defeating a pestiferous dragon hiding in the caverns beneath Rome. However, this blogpost is not about the sainted pope, but about the sainted archbishop Thomas of Canterbury, popularly known as Thomas Becket, who was appointed by King Henry II to the see of Canterbury, was sent into exile in 1164, and was murdered by knights at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 within a year of having returned to England and been reconciled with the king. Thomas was canonised by Pope Alexander III in 1173, lives and liturgical offices were soon written in his honour, and his cult spread to the various corners of the Latin West.

Thomas of Canterbury going into exile
BL MS Royal 2 B VII, psalter, between 1310 and 1320

One of the corners in which the cult of Thomas of Canterbury achieved great popularity was the Norwegian metropolitan see of Trondheim, the centre of the Nidaros Archbishopric which - by the turn of the twelfth century - covered mainland Norway, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Orkney, Shetland, and the South Islands (Hebrides and Man). The popularity of Thomas in Norway was owed in large part to the circle around Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson (r.1161-88) and his successors, who belonged to the same school of ecclesiastical thought as did Thomas of Canterbury, and also Pope Alexander III. These high-ranking ecclesiastics all embraced the reformist ideals that had been formulated in the course of the Gregorian Reform Movement in the eleventh century also throughout the twelfth century.

We do not know exactly how and when  the liturgical celebration of Thomas of Canterbury arrived in Norway, or who brought the liturgical texts that were used, but there were many points of contact between the Norwegian and the English churches in the twelfth century. Moreover, the metropolitan see in Trondheim were probably eager recipients of the cult of Thomas as this gave them another saintly patron in their efforts to establish a Gregorian ideal kingdom in which the king was subject to the church and not the other way around. These efforts were cut short, however, when the pretender Sverre made claims to the throne and emerged victorious in the civil war that raged from 1177 to 1184. Despite this victory, King Sverre and the Norwegian clergy continued to quarrel about the relationship between king and church, and this conflict is likely to have strengthened the importance of Thomas of Canterbury in the Norwegian church province.

There is much to be said about the liturgical celebration of Thomas of Canterbury in Norway, but for the time being I will restrict myself to one single commemoration to exemplify his importance. The commemoration in question is found in the Ordo Nidrosiensis Ecclesiae, a collation of manuscripts from the Nidaros province in which there are found rubrics and notes regarding the details of the liturgical celebrations of the Nidaros churches. It was edited in 1968 by the Norwegian medievalist Lilli Gjerløw.

In the details for the feast of Saint Silvester on December 31, under the heading of the office of Lauds (around daybreak), a number of antiphons are listed that are to be performed in commemoration of important saints of the Christmas season. Among these were Stephen Protomartyr whose feast was on the 26th of December, the child martyrs of Bethlehem whose feast was on the 28th of December, and Thomas of Canterbury whose feast was on the 29th of December.

While the liturgical office, typically attributed to Benedict of Peterborough, was used for the celebration of Thomas' feast in Nidaros, the antiphon used for his commemoration is not from this repertoire but instead from the common of one martyr. These texts from the common of a type of saints comprised a shared repertoire of liturgical chants that were accessible to all of Latin Christendom. When a chant from this common material was used in the celebration of a specific saint, and especially a saint who had been added to the liturgical calendar in recent times, the individual saint's place among his saintly colleagues was emphasised. In the case of Thomas of Canterbury in Nidaros, the chant from the common of martyrs emphasised that he belonged in the collegium of martyrs who had been martyred alone - as opposed to the martyrs who had died as a group (although links between various types could be established through chant as well).

The antiphon by which Thomas of Canterbury was commemorated, was Nisi granum frumentum (CID 003883). The text of this chant is as follows:

Nisi granum frumenti cadens
in terra mortuum fuerit ipsum solum manet

The antiphon applies the imagery of the grain that is being threshed and in that process is being refined. In the liturgy of martyrs, as well as other saints, it was very common to apply imagery that invoked various labours of refinement. This is also seen in the office composed specifically for Thomas of Canterbury, where one responsory describes the exile of Thomas as a gem that is being hammered for six years, meaning that this hardship was part of what proved Thomas' sanctity.


That the antiphon Nisi granum was used in the Nidaros Archdiocese to commemorate Thomas of Canterbury on Saint Silvester's day, is just one of the many examples of Thomas' importance to the Norwegian clergy. It is as yet unclear whether such a commemoration, and this antiphon in particular, was established in the Norwegian liturgy by the metropolitan clergy, or whether it was a practice that was brought from overseas. The latter is more likely, because in the context of the reform movement the clerics sought unity and adaptation of existing practices, not originality or uniqueness. Together with other commemorations throughout the Christmas season in the Nidaros liturgy, the antiphon Nisi granum demonstrates that the cult of Thomas of Canterbury was of great importance in the Norwegian church province.  
 

Saint Olaf and the literature of Nidaros Archbishopric c.1180 - c.1220

Yesterday, June 29^th, was the dies natalis of Saint Olaf, patron saint of Norway. In Norwegian this day is known as "olsok", which comes from "olavsvaka", the wake of Olaf, and in Trondheim the day is celebrated as a part of the Olaf days, a fair held in honour of the saint-king. Saint Olaf is an interesting figure in Norwegian history, and although we have been a Protestant country since 1536/37 and are becoming increasingly secular, Olaf occupies an important place in our national consciousness.

For me, on the other hand, he is chiefly interesting from an academic point of view, since part of my PhD thesis will deal with the medieval cult of Saint Olaf. Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to write about some of the texts about Olaf from medieval Norway, or more precisely, the texts written within the milieu of Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson.

Eystein Erlendsson received the pallium in 1161 and began his office as archbishop of Norway which had been established only very recently after the archbishop of Lund was divided into three. In the course of his office, which he held until his death in 1188, Eystein did his best to establish Nidaros, modern-day Trondheim, as the ecclesiastical centre of Norway. In his first year as archbishop, he consecrated an altar to SS John the Baptist, Vincent and Silvester, and in the course of his career he was deeply embroiled in the political struggels of his time, even leading a brief exile in England in the early 1180s.

An important part of Eystein's effort was the cult of Saint Olaf, who became known in the twelfth century as rex perpetuus Norvegie, meaning that the kings of Norway were seen as vassals of the saint. As a consequence of Eystein's engagement with the cult, there grew up a significant body of literature within or connected to the archiepiscopal court at Nidaros, and furthermore a literature that was at times at odds with the literature steeped in non-ecclesiastical traditions. Books of the latter kind, such as the royal sagas of Snorri Sturlusson, are today most widely famous and widely referred to by the non-academic public. This means that the public debates often give the impression that before Snorri there was nothing, or at best there is a fleeting mention of Passio Olavi, the Latin vita of Olaf's deeds, death and miracles. In this blogpost, I want to present the ecclesiastical literature connected to the cult of Olaf before Snorri's Heimskringla.

The following is a brief introduction to various works written from c.1180 onwards, it is not an exhaustive list of twelfth-century Norwegian literature, and nor does it enter into a discussion about the literature of the Olaf cult prior to 1180, of which little is known with certainty.

The martyrdom of Olaf Haraldsson

Detail from an antependium from an unknown Norwegian church, c.1320-40

Courtesy of Store Norske Leksikon

Historia Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium

The History of the Old Kings of Norway was written around 1180 by a monk belonging to the retinue of Archbishop Eystein who gives his name as Theodoricus Monachus, most likely a latinised form of the Norwegian name Tore. The work is dedicated to Eystein, and although its prime focus is the kings of Norway, here and there we read chapters that treat other issues, such as the age of the world and the placement's of Homer's Scylla and Charybdis in the Norwegian waters. The work is also suffused with references to contemporary learning and recent writers, and it appears that Theodoricus – like his patron Eystein – had received his education in France, for instance in Paris or Chartres. This was not the first Latin historiography written in Norway, but for its effect it might be said to be the most significant: Theodoricus' use of French sources introduced the suggestion that Saint Olaf had been baptised in Rouen, not in Norway as was held by the vernacular tradition. This made its way into Olav's vita which was being compiled at the time and founded the Ecclesiastical tradition in the question of Olaf's baptism.


Passio et Miraculi Beati Olavi

This work has been compiled in several redactions, and the most recent scholarly suggestion is four, the final one being overseen by Archbishop Eystein, who himself dictated one of the chapters in which we learn of a miracle that healed the archbishop himself. This captivating passage – narrated in the first person and with great emotional intensity – led early scholars of the Olaf cult to the conclusion that Eystein had written the entire book himself, which we now know is far from the case. The book is comprised of a short passage of Olaf's passio, and this section might be the oldest and most well known. After that there follows a catalogue of Olaf's miracles which were performed mostly in Norway but also in Ireland, in Russia and as far away as Byzantium where the Varangian guard ensured Saint Olaf's presence also in Constantinople. Some of these miracles are probably from the eleventh century and are referred to in a poem written by the Icelandic cleric Einar Skulasson in 1153 for an assembly of ecclesiastical and secular magnates in Nidaros. The poem is a celebration of Saint Olaf, and is today referred to as Geisli, the Sun-ray, being one of Olaf's many names in the poems.

Passio Olavi was probably compiled from old stories and miracle-reports written down at the shrine in Nidaros cathedral (as suggested by Lars Boje Mortensen). That Archbishop Eystein inserts himself in the narrative shows how deeply invested he was in the project, and it also suggests that many of the other miracles have been reported in Eystein's lifetime. Since Eystein was such a key figure in this compilation, the terminus ante quem for Passio Olavi should be set at 1188, or possibly a few years after, but its end result appears to have been envisioned and orchestrated by Eystein, who may or may not have lived to see it completed.


Officium Olavi

The Passio Olavi was the foundational text for the new liturgical office for Saint Olaf. This was not the first liturgical text to celebrate Olaf – that one is found in an eleventh-century English document known as The Leofric Collectar – but it was an important part of the renewed cult under Eystein. We don't know exactly when the office was written, but surviving fragments tell us that it was in relatively wide circulation around 1220, and given the intensity of veneration under Eystein it is likely that the office was at least begun during his archiepiscopacy. The text is a more or less verbatim rendition of the Passio and the music – as shown by Roman Hankeln – is taken from the office of Saint Augustine, which points to a strong connection to the order of Augustine friars with whom Eystein had come into close contact during his student days in Paris.

Saint Olaf the king

Wooden sculpture from Överselö Church in Sweden, date unknown

Courtesy of Wikimedia

Ágrip af Noregs konungasogum

Extracts from the Sagas of the Norwegian Kings is the modern, academic name given to a vernacular history written c.1190. Little is known of its author or where it was written, but it is possible that it was written in Denmark by a monk belonging to the retinue of Archbishop Eirik Ivarsson, Eystein's successor, who was driven into exile after a quarrel with King Sverre of Norway. The book is a short vernacular account, but it owes its debt to the Latin literature and although it does not go into the specifics of Olaf's baptism, it does belong within the ecclesiastical literature rooted in the archbishop's see at Nidaros.


The Old Norwegian Homily Book

The last example here is like Ágrip only part of the Nidaros literature by extension as it was written in Bergen around 1200, possibly connected to the Augustinian monastery. The book is a collection of sermons or exempla for sermons, and there is still no consensus about whether it was compiled as a guidebook on homiletics or whether the sermons included were actually preached to the lay public. The homily book is written in the vernacular, and it also includes a selection from Alcuin of York's De Virtutibus et Vitiis. For its sermon on July 29 it borrows from Passio Olavi and next to the extract from Alcuin it is the longest text in the collection. This text, too, follows the ecclesiastical tradition by placing Olaf's baptism in Rouen, and from its dependence on Passio it belongs to the wider Nidaros literature.

The Fall of King Olaf ("Kong Olafs fald")

Drawing by Halfdan Egidius for the 1899 translation of Snorri's Heimskringla

Courtesy of Wikimedia

 Concluding remarks

As we see, the literature that grew up around the cult of Saint Olaf at the turn of the twelfth century is quite wide-ranging and numerous, especially considering that Norway was a country whose Latinity very much was in its early stage and where there had only been an archiepiscopal power structure for a few decades. I have here emphasised how various texts have treated the baptism of Olaf Haraldsson, since this is the feature which allows us to see that these texts are connected and form part of the ecclesiastical tradition which in this respect differs from the older, vernacular tradition which is supported by for instance Snorri Sturlusson. This list is also a way of showing that there is much more to Norwegian medieval literature than the sagas of Snorri. 

For similar blogposts, see:

A nineteenth-century hymn for Saint Olaf

A brief history of the twentieth-century church of Saint Olaf in Trondheim