Saint Julian in a fragment - chance survivals, canonicity, and the cult of saints in medieval Scandinavia

 

Much of my research deals with questions pertaining to the cult of saints in medieval Scandinavia. This is a topic that labours under the double-edged problem of having both very few surviving sources - making it difficult to make strong claims about certain questions - as well as such a wide variety of source types, making it difficult to have the required expertise to use all these sources together. Concerning the cult of saints, we know that there were many more sources used and produced in medieval Scandinavia than those we have access to today. The surviving sources have, therefore, provided a skewed sense of the saints venerated by the medieval Scandinavians, as well as the stories told about those saints. Due to the source situation - combined with the nationalistic tilt embedded into the foundations of medieval studies in each Scandinavian country - we have a tendency to focus on the cult of native saints, especially the royal saints. Aside from the biblical saints and the most famous of the early Christian saints - especially Laurentius, who was patron saint of the Church of Lund, which became a metropolitan see in 1104 - there has been relatively little work done on the veneration of the saints less known in our own time. Judging from surviving materials, we have a pretty good idea of how popular and important these famous saints were. But we cannot really know whether some of the saints that we consider minor today were, in actuality, major saints throughout the Scandinavian Middle Ages, or at least within one time period or within one milieu. 

I was reminded of this issue earlier this spring, when I was at the Danish National Archives in Copenhagen to research some manuscript fragments. In one of the boxes I had ordered was the upper part of a two-columned page from a twelfth- or early-thirteenth-century manuscript, the text of which is the saint-biography of Julian Martyr, also known as Julian of Le Mans. The fragment is well known in medieval studies and I have seen it mentioned and analysed several times. It is most likely produced in Scandinavia, probably in Norway, and it is a important witness to the earliest stages of native Norwegian manuscript production. The content of the fragment, however, has received much less attention than its codicological, palaeographical and iconographical aspects. This text provides a very good starting point for reflecting on the state of our knowledge about the cult of saints in twelfth-century Norway.

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Saint Julian was a third-century bishop of Le Mans. Since he was martyred during the heroic age of Christianity in what was later to become France, his cult and his figure appear to have been important elements not only of Le Mans' own identity but also the identity of France as a kingdom having received special divine attention. This kingdom-wide identity was also propped up by the cults of Saint Dionysius of Paris, of Saint Remigius and the Holy Ampulla, and eventually also the cult of Saint Louis IX. The early date of Julian's life and martyrdom also meant that he was included in several early martyrologies and calendars, and his cult was disseminated far and wide. 

In Scandinavia, there are few surviving traces of Julian in the sources. For example, the only sources from Sweden, as far as I am aware, are twelve calendars that contain his feast-day, which is celebrated either on January 26 or Janaury 27. Since most calendars used in medieval Sweden have survived only as fragments, however, the actual number of calendars containing his feast-day was significantly higher. In any case, no other sources are known - not sculptures, not altarpieces, not wall-paintings. I know of no sources from medieval Denmark, although I have not yet checked whether his feast is included in the late-medieval printed breviaries. In Breviarium Nidrosiense, the breviary printed in Paris in 1519 and aimed at the entire Norwegian church province, his feast is not included. In other words, Saint Julian of Le Mans appears to have been virtually unimportant in the cult of saints in medieval Scandinavia. 

However, Saint Julian was at least known, if only in the monastic or ecclesiastical community in which the manuscript containing his passion story was used. We do not know what community this was, but it is likely that the manuscript was a collection of saints' lives produced for - and perhaps at - one of the leading religious centres of twelfth- or early-thirteenth-century Norway. My own hunch is that the original manuscript was a typical hagiographical collection that was used during the Matins of the feast-day of the saints included in the collection. Matins was the divine service in the middle of the night, and it was during this service that the saint was venerated with a liturgical office which included both chants and readings from the saint's biography. The original manuscript, therefore, is likely to have contained the legends of several other saints aside from Julian. 

What, then, are we to make of the inclusion of Saint Julian of Le Mans in this hypothetical, now-lost hagiographical collection. Probably not much. Such collections were typically compiled from available materials, and those materials tended to contain those stories and legends that were widely accessible rather than those which were particularly important to a specific diocese or church province. Put differently, the legend of Saint Julian was sufficiently widespread that it was easy to get hold of. Its appearance in Norway reflects Julian's general canonicity as a saint in Latin Christendom by the late twelfth century rather than the importance of his cult among Norwegian Christians. 

On the other hand, the fact that Julian's legend was available in Norway and accessible at one - if not more - major religious centre should be taken seriously. What happens at such an institution when the available hagiographical material is limited? Do those stories that are available become more important than they otherwise would be? Can the cult of Saint Julian have been strengthened at this institution simply because the clerics or monastics who comprised the institution's community were familiar with his legend? Very likely, because cults tended to be shaped by the personal devotion of those who were part of the veneration of saints at religious centres. Surges in a saint's popularity could be shaped by events that were interpreted as intercession from that saint, it could be shaped by dreams of individuals, of the constant, long-term pressure from exposure to the saint's story. We see this happen in the cult of Edward the Confessor, for instance, whose main promoter before the 1160s was the figure of Osbert of Clare who believed himself to have been healed due to the saint-king's intercession. Might not a similar causality - however imagined - also not affect the cult of a well-known but otherwise not particularly important saint-bishop? 

We do not have any evidence to suggest that the knowledge of Julian's legend made an impact on his cult in medieval Norway. And personally, I do not think it did, simply because this possibility hinges on our knowledge of one sole surviving fragment. However, this reflection is not primarily about Julian or his cult, but about how our ideas about canonicity and the cult of sains is shaped by the chance survivals of sources. The fragment containing part of the prologue of Julian's saint-biography proves that he was known somewhere in medieval Norway, and for at least a period, even if that period might only be the generation of clerics or monastics that first made use of this manuscript. 

As scholars we need to be very careful in assuming that the canon of literature that we imagine today based on the survival of sources is necessarily the same as the canon of literature of the Middle Ages. Indeed, we know very well that the so-called bestsellers of medieval Latin Christendom - such as the Imago Mundi of Honorius of Autun, or the Sententiae of Peter the Lombard - receive much less attention from and are much less accessible to modern readers than works such as Beowulf, which only survives in one single manuscript. The modern medieval canon is, in other words, very different from the medieval medieval canon. Similarly, the cult of saints as we understand it today might have been configured somewhat differently in the Middle Ages, with saints now lost to us or ignored by us having much greater prominence than we will ever know. 

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Notes on productive procrastination

Nick, this is not life experience, this is procrastination at the zoo.
- Winston Bishop, New Girl S02E09

One day, probably in 2012 while I was in my last year of my MA studies I overheard a student telling another student about the word procrastinate, except she called it "procrastrinate", and this novel information was received with what seemed to be amusement and perhaps also recognition. I consider this to be one of the most emblematic encounters I have had with student culture and its early 2010s zeitgeist. This is not to say that I consider my fellow students not to work hard - in fact most students probably work harder than I did during my MA - but at this time "procrastination" had become an emblem of academia, a household term, as it were. This was in no small part thanks to the popularity of PhD Comics, which despite being set in the sciences also resonated with the everyday life of students in the humanities. I remember several print-outs from this comic strip taped to the doors of the cubicles designated for MA students, and Facebook was full of links and updates. In a sense, procrastination appeared to be not only accepted but also expected of someone who wished to take part in the life of higher education. To me, at least, an ambitious MA student with hopes of advancing in the system, it seemed that I was obliged to spend time not being productive, and this was adopted into my MA studies quite early on. For me this was quite easy as both some of my friends and myself had often spent time socialising while we ought to have been working on our dissertation. The first term of the MA in particular, the autumn of 2010, we usually had two-hour breaks with short bouts of research thrown in between. We were already good at procrastination, although it was not until 2011, I believe, that we started to fully embrace the concept or to put the precise word to our way of not working. Around this time, when we adopted the culture of procrastination, it seemed as if many people did the same. This is only natural, as most people will probably have experienced that when you learn a new word you find significant, you suddenly start noticing this word all around you, as if the whole world was also having the same discovery.  

Tomorrow, tomorrow! the crows cry
Woodcut illustration from Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, attributed to Albrecht Dürer
Courtesy of University of Houston

The central place of procrastination in academia is only natural. Much of the day of an MA or PhD student is spent in a small room perusing books or writing stuff on a computer. There is a certain monotony in this that invites escapism of sundry sorts, and if the day happens to be a bit unstructured, or if the progress is hampered by things like faulty or quarrelsome technology or books that are not as helpful as you had hoped, it is easy to fall into procrastination mode. There are various ways to go about this procrastination, and it is frightfully easy to find reasons to do so. In some cases, faux reasoning does not even get a chance to play its part, as it is also easy to merely descend into ennui while staring at your computer screen, blindly giving in to postponement and letting time pass you buy. Other times, you get a helping hand from fellow procrastinators who pick you up into its fold, and with whom you pick up others to form what Jorge Cham has termed the Vortex of Unproductivity.

Courtesy of Jorge Cham

Although it is terribly easy to give in to the sweet allures of procrastination, there are also ways to avoid it, or at the very least procrastinate in a way that is not entirely unproductive. One of the easiest ways to do this if you procrastinate with others is to turn your bacchanalia of not-working into an academic discussion of some kind. Most likely it will not be entirely relevant to your current research, but since it is always good for academics to root around a bit beyond their immediate concerns, such a discussion can be a good way to engage critically with something. If you are procrastinating in your office and left to your own devices, it can seem slightly more difficult to avoid the clutches of non-productivity, but only apparently. One of the tools to escape this is Twitter, either by entering into a discussion with members of its growing academic community, or by tweeting about your latest research that you are currently not doing. As a medievalist it is particularly easy to choose this route, as the medievalist section of Twitter is full of bright and interesting people and also has an interested lay audience, both of whom might be receptive to your reflections on some medieval topic. I for my part spent some of my procrastination time today tweeting about Saint Remigius, the apostle of the Franks, whose feast day is October 1st. This led me to rediscover parts of his legend that are somewhat relevant to my work, and it also allowed me to track down a few great medieval illuminations to attach to my tweets. While Remigius is both temporally and geographically far removed from my own focus on 12th-century Northern European cult of royal saints, he is nonetheless an important figure in the religious history of high-medieval France and its mythology of kingship. Remigius therefore makes for a good point of reference in the construction of sacred kingship, and my bout of procrastination became surprisingly akin to actual research.

An even better way - and I would argue the best way - to be productive while procrastinating is simply to read. This is not to say that any reading is productive procrastination, far from it, but for a medievalist - especially - there is a vast range of literature that can in some ways qualify as research. Academics are required to read widely in order to increase their horizon, and for scholars immersing themselves in the worldview of a culture separated from ours by centuries, it is particularly important to be aware of the complexity and the cultural heritage of that period. Furthermore, a medievalist should be interdisciplinary, so if you are tired of your own part of the field of medieval studies, it is easy enough to pick up an article or a blogpost that touches on medieval history but in a way different from your own. And if this seems too similar to actual work, it's easy enough to find a medieval text that might be far beyond your immediate research interest, but that still might give you some interesting knowledge that you might be able to employ later. Today, for instance, I indulged in Jerome's highly interesting account of Paul of Thebes. Since this is one of the oldest saint biographies, and one which concerns such a central figure in medieval history as Anthony of Egypt, it is a text with which I was required to be familiar. Carolinne White's excellent translation combined with its blissful brevity made it a quick read that also opened up for some reflections of themes such as the monastic renunciation of the world, or the various forms of suffering found in Christian martyrdoms. In other words: what started out as procrastination turned out to be some kind of productivity, and I came away with a clearer conscience.  

Anthony meeting the centaur
Francesco Guarino, 17th century
Courtesy of this website