Saint Knud Rex and negative cultural memory in twelfth-century Denmark

 
Today, July 10, is the feast of Saint Knud Rex, who was killed in Odense by rebellious Danes in 1086. In 1095, his bones were moved from the floor of the Church of St Alban, where he was buried after his death, to the crypt in the new stone cathedral which was then under construction. A synod of the bishops of Denmark declared him a saint, and the cathedral was dedicated to him. This translation of Knud's relics was the starting point for the official cult of the royal martyr, although I am personally convinced that the clerks at St Alban's in Odense - which was the cathedral church prior to the building of the new cathedral in stone - venerated the murdered king from the day of his killing.  

The early cult of Saint Knud has left a plethora of sources: One commemorative inscription placed in his shrine, one poem, two saint-biographies, and one liturgical office, all composed in the period 1086-c.1120. From the 1130s onwards, the cult's momentum within Denmark was hampered by the outbreak of dynastic strife, which came to dominate the development of Danish history for the subsequent two decades. Since Saint Knud's cult was associated with one part of the struggle, his cult was largely reduced to a local cult centred in Odense, although it was celebrated, and probably with a high liturgical rank, in all Danish dioceses. The details concerning this shift in the cult's importance to the royal family are not needed for this particular blogpost, but some of the articles in this article collection will provide a good sense of the situation.

The main topic of the present blogpost is the matter of Saint Knud Rex's negative cultural memory. While he was venerated in Odense - and accepted as a saint throughout Denmark - there were nonetheless stories about the dead king which cast him in a much more negative light. The oldest surviving witness to this negative memory comes from the Chronicon Roschildense, the Roskilde Chronicle, written by a canon in the diocese of Roskilde around 1140. The chronicle covers the history from the late ninth century until the mid-twelfth century, and the canon's opinion of Saint Knud is quite clear: He had been a strict and miserly king, who burdened his subjects with heavy taxes, and his sanctity was solely due to his repentance in his hour of death. Interestingly, the chronicler refers to Knud's law of taxation as 'nova lege et inaudita', a new and unheard-of law. This expression is also found in Gesta Swenomagni, the second saint-biography about Knud, and one written by Aelnoth of Canterbury in the mid 1110s. In Gesta Swenomagni, however, this term, and the accusation that it contains, is attributed to the rebellious Danes. The Roskilde chronicler has, in other words, probably read this term in a saint-biography but decided to level it against the saint. Importantly, however, the Roskilde chronicler does not deny Knud's status as saint, only the basis for this status.  

That such a negative depiction of a saint is put into writing is interesting, especially because it does not deny the sanctity of the person in question. It is possible that this depiction is based on a tradition that was widespread outside of Odense, at least within the diocese of Roskilde (which covers the island of Sjælland). Considering that the chronicler recorded this opinion close to sixty years after the king's death, at a time when few of those who were adults by the time of Knud's reign can be expected to have still been alive, the negative opinion has been passed down at least one generation. As such, the opinion can be said to have become a cultural memory, kept alive by people who did not themselves experience it, but who learned it from their elders. This negative cultural memory suggests that the cult of Knud Rex began as a top-down enterprise, at least as it was disseminated outside Odense diocese (which covers the island of Fyn and some smaller islands as well). Since the rebellion against Knud spread across all of Denmark, starting in the north of Jutland, we should expect that it was not just in the diocese of Roskilde where this negative cultural memory was vibrant, but also, and perhaps even more strongly, in the Jutland dioceses.    

Saint Knud Rex 
Detail from the wall-painting programme of the Chapel of the Three Holy Kings in Roskilde Cathedral

The Roskilde Chronicle is not the only source to this negative cultural memory concerning Knud. A glimpse of it can be detected in the Historia Compendiosa by Sven Aggesen from around 1180, but the clearest evidence is Saxo Grammaticus' account of Knud Rex in his Gesta Danorum from the turn of the twelfth century. Both Sven and Saxo were patronized by Archbishop Absalon of Lund, who had previously been bishop of Roskilde.

In Gesta Danorum, Saxo lambasts those who still claim that Knud had only merited his sanctity because of his repentance at the hour of dying, and he is making sure that the reader is well acquainted with the holiness of the dead king. We might interpret Saxo's correction of affairs as a way to counteract the historiographical tradition, or it might be seen as a measure aimed at eradicating a more widely held view. To put it differently, we do not know whether Saxo saw this belief as an error still thriving among the laity, or whether he knew of the error from the diocesan church's own historiographical tradition. 

The case of Knud Rex's negative cultural memory provides an interesting counterweight to our understanding of the cult of saints in twelfth-century Denmark. I have argued elsewhere - in a soon-to-be-published article which I will announce on the blog once it comes out - that the cults of Danish saints were strongly local in their reach, and that what we see in official documents such as saint-biographies, liturgical calendars or letters does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the broader width of medieval society.  

With regards to Knud's popularity, however, we are in murky waters. There are sources suggesting he was popular among traders in mid-twelfth-century Denmark, not only from Odense but also elsewhere. There are sources claiming that pilgrims flocked to Odense from all over Denmark. What we do know, however, is that by the end of the fourteenth century, when the Kalmar Union was established under the aegis of Queen Margaret I, Knud gradually came to represent Denmark in the union, and his cult became more widespread throughout Denmark. By that time, the negative cultural memory seems to either have faded or to have been suppressed.