Today, November 20, is the feast of Saint Edmund
Martyr, a ninth-century king of East Anglia who, according to legend, was
killed by invading Danes. His death is commonly dated to 869/70, following the so-called
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The cult of Saint Edmund – on which I have
written several times before – grew significantly in the eleventh century, in
large part due to royal protection and munificence, and also due to the abbacy
of Baldwin (r. 1065-97). Most likely, it was also during the eleventh century
that the cult was actively exported abroad. Herman the Archdeacon’s collection
of miracles pertaining to Edmund, written in the 1090s, records how relics were
brought to Lucca by Baldwin himself. It is also possible that the veneration of
Edmund at the Abbey of Saint-Denis outside Paris was initiated by Baldwin,
although the earliest surviving traces of the cult there seems to be from the
twelfth century.
Edmund was also brought to Scandinavia. As of yet, we do not know when the cult
arrived there, and where it arrived first. Perhaps the most likely candidate
would be Denmark, seeing that Bury St Edmunds was reformed into a monastic
house during the reign of Knud II of Denmark, Norway and England. Such a
thought is tantalizing, and Knud’s attention to the cult of Edmund appears to
be unquestionable, even if we apply the necessary filter of scepticism when
reading Herman the Archdeacon’s account of this relationship between king and
abbey. However, while Knud’s respect for English saints is demonstrable, this
respect and attention, perhaps even veneration, occurs in the context of a foreign
king seeking legitimacy in a new kingdom. Consequently, there is little reason
to think that Knud II brought Edmund to Denmark, although we should not omit
the possibility that someone – perhaps a cleric at Bury – sought to disseminate
the cult overseas as well. The main counterargument to a dissemination that
early is that there was little cult material with which to spread the knowledge
of Edmund. Knud II’s English reign (1014-35) was the abbey’s infancy, and
despite the king’s patronage we do not know of any large-scale text production
taking place at Bury, or any other kind of production pertaining to the
material dimension of a saint’s cult, until Baldwin’s abbacy.
What we do know, however, is that in the course of the twelfth century, we find
several references to the cult of Saint Edmund in Scandinavia. He appears in
several calendars, there are two Norwegian churches dedicated to him, and
liturgical fragments show that his feast was being celebrated, although it was
not universally important in either of the three Scandinavian church provinces.
In Denmark the death of Edmund is a historical reference point in the Chronicon
Roschildense from c.1138, and in Iceland – to step outside of the strictly
Scandinavian remit – the same is the case for Ari Frodi’s Íslendingabók
from c.1130. Due to the general loss of sources – both textual and pictorial –
from twelfth-century Scandinavia, we will never have a complete picture of the
extent of Edmund’s cult there, but the sources that do remain suggest a wide
dissemination which entered into Scandinavia at different times and by different
routes.
One question, however, is how the cult of Edmund fared after the twelfth
century. From 1200 onwards, we have more surviving source material – although only
a small percentage of what was produced – but we have few clues as to the
development or spread of the cult of Edmund. Yet there is one late clue – from 1497
– which might shed some light on the late medieval fate of Edmund’s cult in
Scandinavia.
The clue in question is a rubric on folio 435r from the 1497 edition of the Breviarium
Othoniense. This was the second edition of the printed breviary, the first
being in 1482 and which I have not yet checked for the issue at hand. The rubric
opens the office for the feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (d.1231, can.
1235), which is on November 19. In this rubric, it is stated that the Second
Vesper of Elizabeth’s feast is not to be celebrated, as this is the feast of
Saint Edmund. Instead, psalms are to be sung in Edmund’s honour, although it is
worth mentioning that the breviary does not contain any texts for Edmund’s
feast. What follows the office for Saint Elizabeth is the feast of the
dedication of a church.
The note in the rubric, and the absence of any further indications about Edmund’s feast, suggest that Edmund’s importance in the diocese of Odense had dwindled significantly by the later medieval period, and these two elements also suggest how it happened. Elizabeth of Hungary was one of the most universally famous new saints in from the thirteenth century onwards – universally within Latin Christendom that is. Her widespread popularity was due to three main factors. First of all, her canonized status in a period when the papal church was actively asserting its power through its claim to monopoly over canonization. Secondly, the Franciscan order’s network and influence. Thirdly, her inclusion in Jacobus de Voragine’s collection of saints’ legends, Legenda Aurea. Which factor had the greatest impact in Denmark is difficult to assess, although my preliminary guess would be the Franciscan influence.
Due to Elizabeth’s importance, she appears to have eclipsed that of Edmund. Granted, that the rubric does acknowledge Edmund’s feast suggests that he was not entirely superseded, but that the celebration of his feast is marked as being ferial psalms – i.e., an everyday office rather than an office of a Sunday – points to Edmund being kept more for tradition than devotion.
We – or at least I – do not know when Saint Elizabeth came to replace Saint Edmund. The difficulty of using the Odense breviary is that the monastic community that comprised the cathedral chapter in Odense from c.1100 onwards was reformed into a secular house in the mid-fifteenth century. Indeed, it was most likely this reform which prompted the printing of the Odense breviary in 1482, since the liturgy needed to be adapted to the secular use. Consequently, we cannot know whether rubrics such as this one was copied from an older, monastic breviary, or whether Saint Elizabeth’s replacement of Edmund was part of the reform. The question is complicated by the Franciscans’ strong position in Odense, which has made it entirely plausible that the feast of Saint Elizabeth might have been introduced as early as the thirteenth century.
Ultimately, we cannot say for certain when this replacement took place, but we do see that it took place, and through the replacement we can see how a Danish bishopric responded to changes in ongoing trends within the cult of saints. From this little rubric, we might, therefore, get a better sense of what happened to Edmund’s cult in Denmark.
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