New publication: Spor etter folkeleg kult

Earlier this month, I was notified of the publication of a volume to which I was able to contribute an article. Unfortunately, the publication is not in Open Access, so I cannot link to an online copy. But for anyone who can read Scandinavian languages, I recommend this volume on the cult of saints in the north. A table of content can be seen in the second image, and the book itself can be purchased here.


The volume as a whole offers new studies about the cult of saints in Scandinavia and the wider Northern European world, a subject where a lot of work still remains to be done, and a subject to which this volume provides some very interesting chapters. My own contribution - "Spor etter folkeleg kult – aspekt ved helgendyrkinga av Sankt Knud Rex i dansk mellomalder" (Traces of a popular cult - aspects of the veneration of Saint Knud Rex in the Danish Middle Ages) - is a discussion about popular veneration of Saint Knud Rex of Denmark, the king who was killed during an insurrection in Odense in 1086. As is so often the case when studying medieval Scandinavia, our few surviving sources chiefly pertain to to official cult as overseen by ecclesiastic authorities. Some sources do however allow us to piece together a somewhat general understanding of how the laity could participate in the cult of Saint Knud Rex, and what sources we have to this participation.