Cantigas de Compostela, part 2: Santiago the king?

Today, July 25, is the feast of Saint James the Elder, whose main cult centre is Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. The establishment of Compostela as the cult centre of an apostle whose death in Palestine is recounted by the Acts of the Apostles appears to have begun in the ninth century, and flourished into one of the main pilgrimage centres of Latin Christendom in the early twelfth century. One of the reasons for the success of Compostela's emergence as the location of the burial of Saint James the Elder is the plasticity of saints, and how this plasticity was applied to the figure of Saint James, or Santiago. The term 'plasticity' in this context means that the saints can take on a wide variety of roles, and a wide variety of stories can be written about them. Few saints have had such a successfully varied iconography as Santiago, as he is known and venerated as an apostle, a martyr, a pilgrim, and a soldier. I have written a brief summary of this iconography here. Santiago was, however, also subject to other iconographies. In the Miracula Jacobi, the second instalment of the collection of material pertaining to Saint James which is commonly called Liber Sancti Jacobi, we read a miracle account where a Greek bishop, Stephen, claims that James should be called a fisherman and not a soldier, as was then evidently in vogue. The account continues to narrate a vision of Stephen's, in which Santiago appears to him dressed as a soldier, in order to prove that he was wrong to dismiss those who called the apostle a soldier also. This particular story both shows that there were several ideas about how Santiago should be understood in circulation, and also that the authorities at the cult centre saw the need to convince some audiences that Santiago was also a soldier. 

Another iconographical branch of Santiago can be suggested by a thirteenth-century stone sculpture currently housed in the cathedral museum in Compostela. Here, the apostle-pilgrim-soldier-fisherman saint is depicted in a different way, namely as a seated king. The staff on which he rests his hand is probably the pilgrim's staff rather than the sceptre - as it looks nothing like typical depictions of sceptres from contemporary art - so the figure is not solely regal. Perhaps we should understand the crown as signifying Santiago's status as a martyr, since the crown was regarded as the prize for obtaining martyrdom. Yet it is also possible that those who commissioned this statue and accepted its appearance - namely the episcopal authorities - aimed to imbue their patron with a more royal aura. Perhaps, as the royal authority of Castilla and León was undergoing increased centralisation - especially under the reign of Alfonso X (r.1252-84) - the episcopal court of Compostela sought to use this current to evoke the historical kingdom of Galicia, and to make Santiago even more relevant than before.  

Ultimately, I must leave it to the experts on the cult of Saint James the Elder to provide some explanation of this rendition. In any case, it serves as an excellent example of how so much of the cult's success relied on the ability to adapt the iconography to new contexts. 

 

New publication: Holy Bishops, Papal Canonisation and the Legitimisation of Power in Thirteenth-Century Norway and Poland

 
As part of the project where I have been employed for the past three years, I have co-authored an article with my friend and colleague Gregorz Pac, titled 'Holy Bishops, Papal Canonisation and the Legitimisation of Power in Thirteenth-Century Norway and Poland: The Cases of Eystein Erlendsson of Nidaros and Stanislaus of Kraków'. This article explores how Norwegian and Polish ecclesiastics of the 1200s sought to increase the status of their patron saints, and emphasise the legitimacy of their cults, through papal acknowledgement in the form of canonisations. 

The article was published last week in volum 129 of Acta Poloniae Historica, and it can be accessed here, and here.

A song for Saint Swithun - typology and identity in tenth-century Winchester

Today, July 2, is the feast of the deposition of Saint Swithun. In Norwegian tradition, this feast is called 'Syftesok', Syfte's wake, or Swithun's wake, and is included among those feast days on which work is prohibited in the Norwegian provincial laws from the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries. Swithun's place in the law texts might be due to the close contact between the English and the Norwegian church organizations, or it might be a result of the translation of a relic of Saint Swithun to Stavanger sometime in the early twelfth century, following which Swithun also became the patron of Stavanger.

Swithun was bishop of Winchester in the period 852-62, and his body was translated to a shrine in Old Minster, Winchester, on July 15 971. The early cult of Swithun was overseen by his successor Æthelwold (r.963-84), and several texts were composed within the first few decades following the translation. As part of this early cult material, we also find a number of chants which are recorded in the early-eleventh-century manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 473. On the folios 186v-189r, thirteen chants comprise the 'Istoria de S[an]c[t]o Suuithuno', the history of Saint Swithun. Several of these chants are marked as responsories, which are chants to be performed after the reading of lessons during the office of Matins on the saint's feast day. Interestingly, the Istoria does not have a narrative, which is what we often find in chants for Matins, and as the name itself - Istoria - implies. The reason for this lack of narrative is unclear, but it might be a consequence of there being no biographical account of the living Swithun by the early eleventh century. Even though several texts recording the translation and the miracles God was believed to have performed for the sake of Swithun's merits were composed in the early stage of the cult construction, it was not until the late eleventh century that Swithun received his own vita, at least as far as we know.    

Although the Istoria of Saint Swithun is not narrative, it is nonetheless full of interesting details that position the holy bishop in a wider Christian historical framework. One such detail is included in the chant marked as responsory 7 in the Cambridge manuscript. The text of this chant is as follows: 



Ecce uere Israelita, in quo dolus non est inuentus, qui probatus repertus est sacerdos magnus iuxta ordinem Melchisedech. 

Behold the true Israelite, in whom no deceit is found, who is discovered to be a great priest according to the order of Melchisedech.

- Translated by Michael Lapidge (see Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 2003, p. 124) 


What we see here is that Swithun, an English ninth-century bishop proclaimed a saint in the tenth century, is typologically connected to Melchisedech, the priest-king of Genesis, who was seen as an archetype of Christian church leaders. By stating that Melchisedech and Swithun belong to the same social order, and by referring to Swithun as a 'true Israelite', the responsory links the past and the present together, and also England and the Holy Land, in a way that demonstrates how Swithun belongs in God's historical scheme, and how England belongs in the same salvation narrative as does the Holy Land. This kind of historical thinking - where individuals and locations in the present or in a local context were connected to people and places elsewhere in both time and space - was the dominant approach to history in the Middle Ages. By mapping such details, we can therefore see how those who formulated these connections thought of themselves in the grand scheme of things, and how they understood their own identity, either as individuals or, as in the case of the monks of Winchester, as an institution.

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 473, f.188v

 

Cantigas de Compostela, part 1: Saint Stephen or Saint Lucy?

In May, I spent a few days in Santiago de Compostela, a city rich in history and a place important to my own academic interests. In future blogposts, I hope to share several details from the Compostela's multilayered past, and I am collecting these posts under the header 'Cantigas de Compostela', an admittedly clumsy alliterative pun on the famous thirteenth-century collections of songs known as the Cantigas de Santa Maria.  

The first instalment in this new series is a reflection on a type of mystery specific to the scholarship on the cult of saints. As I was exploring the impressive museum of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, I noticed a headless statue carrying two items in a bowl. According to the sign in the museum, the statue is one among several that once decorated one of the cathedral's chapels, and it was made in the middle of the sixteenth century, possibly in a Flemish workshop, or by Flemish masons working in Spain. 

The statue has been identified as Saint Lucy, a virgin martyr from Sicily who was believed to have been killed during the Diocletian persecutions of the early fourth century. Her cult was revivified following the publication of Legenda Aurea written by Jacobus de Voragine in the 1260s, and she features in many works of late-medieval art. At the time of writing, I do not know whether the identification of this statue rests on any information outside what the statue itself provides. For instance, whether there are archival material referencing these statues, earlier descriptions of the chapel from when the head was still attached, surviving fragments, or any other indicators that point in this specific directions. If we consider the statue itself, however, things are less clear.  

The best argument for Lucy as the saint in question is the the bowl containing two items. According to legend, Lucy was blinded, and her eyes became her defining attribute in art, often shown as presented on a plate or a bowl, as in the case of this statue. However, there is also another candidate, namely Saint Stephen, who was stoned to death according to the account given in Acts, and his main attribute in late-medieval art is a selection of stones. The display of these stones can differ according to the medium or the choice of the artists. In statues, the stones are typically held, whereas in paintings or frescoes the stones can be placed elsewhere, as in the case of Carlo Crivelli's rendition, where the stones are balanced on the saint's head and shoulders. In short, we have two saints who are known by their presentation of round or roundish items, and this is all we have to go on in the case of the statue in the cathedral museum. (The clothes do not yield any clues, as without the original paint, which might have included patterns that could have pointed to a specific gender or social position, they are too generic to allow for any conclusions.) 

What about the items themselves? This is, perhaps, the only clue to which we can reasonably cling. Although we should be mindful of the choices of individual artists, or at least different traditions of individual workshops, the number of items is significant. Naturally, Lucy is typically depicted with both her eyes on a plate - even though she is also typically depicted with her eyes in their original place at the same time, because she is a saint and therefore posthumously healed. The stones of Saint Stephen, on the other hand, ordinarily come in slightly higher numbers, either as a pile whose total number is only hinted at by the stones on the top and at the front of the pile, or as three or four held in the saint's hands. While it is possible that an artist or a workshop would depict only two of Saint Stephen's stones, the number does suggest that Lucy might be the correct identification. 

Ultimately, however, we do not know, but the case does serve as a good reminder of how crucial iconography is to the navigation of medieval art, and how sometimes the attribute of a saint might be the only thing that allows us to pinpoint the saint's identity.    

Histories from home, part 4 - an object lesson in wishful thinking

 

Yesterday, I went for a hike in an uninhabited and uninhabitable valley close to the family farm in my native village of Hyen in the Western Norwegian fjords. As far as we know, the valley - named Skordalen, or Cleft Valley - has never been settled by humans, and the main reason for this is the harsh winters that make it very difficult to travel in and out of the valley. Yet as most parts of my native village, this valley has been used by generations of farmers to collect fodder for the animals and food for themselves. Several generations ago, it was common to build various storage buildings throughout the non-arable parts of the village. In these buildings, fodder or turf was placed after it had been gathered, and in the winter, when the snow allowed for easier transport using sleds, the hay or the turf would be brought back to the farm. Each building had its particular use, and so a hay barn was placed in a different place, and also built differently, than a turf house. (Turf was used either for the roof or crumbled up and placed beneath the livestock in the byres to soak up the piss and shit, and to make them have a softer surface on which to lie.) 

Throughout my upbringing, my family has encountered the stone foundations of several such outdoor barns. These stones are all that is left, and can be sometimes difficult to recognise in a terrain already dotted with rocks that have either been left by the ice or a rockslide. Whenever I go hiking in this valley, I always keep a look out for traces that could point to a now-lost outdoor barn. Yesterday, I thought I found one - or rather, I thought I found two - but I also know from experience that I have been wrong about such assessments before. The case about which I am most convinced is pictured below, and I will eventually have to return in order to assess whether these stones are likely to have been moved about and placed against one another by human hands, or whether it is merely a matter of nature running its course. What always makes this a difficult question, is that the farmers would have used stones that were already lying close together, and so the subsequent natural processes will easily shift the stones to such a degree that they look as if they are naturally placed. In this particular case, as pictured below, further studies are required. 

New publication: Legitimizing Episcopal Power in Twelfth-Century Denmark through the Cult of Saints

In my previous blogpost, I announced the publication of a new volume of academic articles, of which I am one of the co-editors. Information about the volume, its content and its general argument can be found here, while the open access edition of the book can be found here.   

Aside from being one of the co-editors, I also contributed with a chapter of my own, titled 'Legitimizing Episcopal Power in Twelfth-Century Denmark through the Cult of Saints', which can be downloaded here. The article is an examination of how the bishops of Odense, Ribe and Lund used the cults of Saint Knud Rex, Liufdag, and Thomas of Canterbury respectively, in order to strengthen their legitimacy vis-à-vis other elite groups of twelfth-century Danish society. The article brought together a number of my academic interests - chiefly the cult of saints, the construction of identity, and Danish history - and was great fun to write, as it allowed me to pursue some old topics and explore some new ones as well. 

This blogpost is prompted by my trip to the post office in my village in the Norwegian fjords, where I picked up my author/editor copy of the book today, and could finally get a physical sense of the labour that took three years to complete. 

 

New publications: The Cult of Saints and Legitimization of Elite Power in East Central and Northern Europe up to 1300

In 2021, I was hired as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, working as part of a project that was a collaboration between the University of Oslo and the University of Warsaw. One of my tasks in this period has been to co-edit a volume of articles together with Grzegoz Pac and Jon Vidar Sigurdsson, based on a conference we co-organized in Warsaw in the autumn of 2021. The volume collects a number of articles that explores how various elites in East Central and Northern Europe. The scope of the volume, and the comparative aim, served as a backdrop for the core purpose of the project itself, which was to explore the way elites in medieval Norway and medieval Poland sought to legitimise their positions in society. The volume includes case studies from both Norway and Poland, but also from several other countries.  

The process has been immensely educational, and, although often tiring and frustrating given the nature of such editorial endeavours where there are so many details to keep in mind, a phenomenal opportunity for seeing how much interesting and novel research is being undertaken in our section of academia. Seeing this book published is both a relief and a joy at the same time. 

A description of the book can be found on Brepols' website, and the book itself is freely available in open access. Each individual article can be found here.  

There are numerous reasons why I am deeply satisfied with this book, and very proud of it. One of these reasons is the introduction - to be read here - which provides both a broad historical context for the cult of saints, and a discussion of the various forms of legitimisation to which the saints were used in the newly-Christianised polities of Northern and East Central Europe.  

I also contributed with a chapter of my own, but this is the subject for a future blogpost. 

The Cult of Saints and Legitimization of Elite Power in East Central and Northern Europe up to 1300