An unexpected re-enactment - a story from the fjords

 

In a recent blogpost, I mentioned that I have been writing short pieces on local history for the parish magazine of my municipality. This is a very satisfying way to dig into the history of my native village, and it has helped me to think more carefully about certain aspects of the local past. One such aspect has been the way people from my village had to travel when going to church. In the period c.1600-1876, my village, Hyen, had no church of its own, so the villagers had to row all the length of one fjord - about eight to nine kilometres -, then half the length of another fjord, and the across that second fjord in order to get to church. And then they had to return the same way. Last year, when doing some research about this watery church road, I accidentally re-enacted part of the voyage. 

It all started when I was talking with a neighbour about these church voyages. As no one alive today has any personal recollection of having to travel back and forth on this arduous journey, I was curious about he - who comes from a hamlet sitated along the fjord - had heard any stories passed down from previous generations. He mentioned that there is a promontory a bit over halfway along the fjord where the churchgoers would lie to, drag their boats ashore, and take a break - especially if the wind was blowing hard against them. This place is called "Kyrkjesvora", or "Kirkjesvøra" in my local dialect, and the name translates literally as "the church ravine". This combination of elements is common in names of promontories here, as there is typically a ravine that terminates at a promontory, and which has brought the materials by which the promontory once came into being. As the ravines are more visible from afar than the promontories, it makes sense to use the ravines in the names of the promontories rather than the other way around.  

When my neighbour told me about this place, I was immediately excited and decided to go and see whether I could find any indications about these past voyages - something like an assemblage of stones to serve as a simple quay or anything that could indicate human activity and that might date from before 1876. I was given directions, but it turned out that I had misunderstood and came ashore one promontory too early, at a place called "Bøasvøra", or "the field promontory", a name possibly indicating that people harvested grass for winter fodder in this place. 

Bøasvøra - where I ended up going

Kirkjesvøra - where I should have gone (about one kilometre further out)

courtesy of norgeskart.no

Even though the research trip ended up being a failure in the sense that I came ashore at the wrong place, it did have some historical value after all. And all things else aside, it was a lovely trip which was pure balm for the soul. The day was cloudless and warm, which made it a perfect opportunity to get out on the fjord in a boat with an outboard engine, and feel a slightly cooler air against the skin. The fjord is particularly beautiful this time of year, as uninhabited western side of the fjord is covered in trees, a belt of forest that is only cut through by brooks and rivers tumbling down towards the sea. It is one of my favourite places to be in the world.   

After about half an hour, I came ashore at the promontory which I thought was the one my neighbour had mentioned. I had brought with me my youngest sister's dog, some reading material, some food, and I spent the next couple of hours exploring, reading, and swimming in lovely shallows just beside the shore. Even though the fjord is never really warm, these shallows do get warmed up by the sun, even on high tide. I had calculated my journey so that I would reach the shore at a time when the waters would be deep enough for swimming. 

My exploration of the area yielded no tangible evidence of human activity that could be ascribed to the historical churchgoers. However, since the landscape was largely unchanged since that period in time, I nonetheless managed to get a sense of how things must have appeared to my antecessors who travelled this way several times a year, and in much more demanding conditions. The view towards the mouth of the fjord, for instance, would have been just as familiar to them.

Looking out towards the mouth of the fjord from Bøasvøra

After a couple of hours, it was time to head back. The sun was still shining, but it was slowly retreating behind the western mountains, leaving the western shore in the shadows but most of the fjord still in its warmth. I got everything back into the boat, pushed away from the shore, and started pulling the starting mechanism of the outboard engine - which, as the reader might remember, had worked perfectly on the way out. This time, however, the engine refused to start. It was not the first time I had had problems with this engine, and it was particularly annoying since it was a new purchase of the summer, and I was beyond furious. Not that I remember them now, but I am pretty sure that my dominant choice of words would have been offensive to my churchgoing antecessors. I cursed and shouted to no avail, however; the engine still refused to start. 

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I would expend far less energy by starting to row homewards than I would in my failed attempts to get the engine going. Consequently, I brought out the oars, sat down on the thwart, and started rowing. As the sun was still beating down along the middle of the fjord, I had to stick to the shadow of the western shore to avoid giving the dog a sunstroke, which made the journey longer by far. It also did not help that the plastic boat I was using had not been made for rowing, and so the progress was far slower than what it would have been if I had used one of the wooden boats my antecessors used when travelling to and from church. In that moment - or rather, in that series of unending successive moments - I envied them. 

From time to time I would try to get the engine running. One time I went ashore to refill the water bottles and give the dog an opportunity to find a seat of ease somewhere. Aside from those times, however, all I did was stare straight ahead and row, and row, and row, and then row some more. Although I had travelled this stretch several times before, this was the first time I had done so without an outboard engine. Consequently, I now learned a lot more about the landscape - mainly for how long a certain section of the shore would curve before I got to a new promontory. 

I remember very little of the journey itself. My main recollection was that I kept staring at one particular ravine which cut through the greenery like a white wound, and which persisted in the vanishing point of my vision for kilometres on end. And I remember the elation I felt when i rounded a small island and lost that ravine from view - I then knew that I was quite close to home.  

I kept rowing. I was never in any danger, as I did have my phone with me, and there were other boats on the fjord whom I could hail if I got into trouble. Moreover, the water was perfectly still, and there was neither wind nor wave to hinder what little progress I made between the oar strokes. Because of these conditions, I decided to keep going as far as I could, to see whether I would be able to get all the way home before my strength failed me. And because I let go of my thoughts - at least any thoughts about how long I had been rowing and how long I had left to row - I was at a sort of peace. And the dog seemed to have the time of her life, as she was able to take in the many scents and smells from the life-laden forests along the mountainside. 

Three hours and about eight kilometres later, I pulled the boat alongside the pontoon from where I had started the voyage earlier that day. As I scrambled the short way from the pontoon to the main road, I was carrying a backpack, I was holding the dog on a leash with one hand, and with the other I was clutch the antler of a deer that I had discovered on my journey. It was around nine in the evening, and for the next few days my arms and - above all - my derriere would remind me of what I had been doing for those three hours. 

Yet I must also confess to a sense of pride that I had managed to complete the journey in this fashion. And I was glad that I had re-enacted part of the historical voyages that my antecessors had undertaken in order to attend church in the neighbouring fjord. While the conditions were very different - especially the fact that their boats were better suited for such travel - I could finally say that I had come closer to understanding this particular chapter in the history of my native village.    

Next time, though, I hope to use a wooden boat. 

The view home, on the way out

Saint Michael in Tønsberg, part 2 - the church on the mountain

 

Today, September 29, is the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. In the Middle Ages, Saint Michael was an important figure in Latin Christian cosmology, as he was the one who would fight Satan at the end of the world, and as he was the one who weighed the souls of the dead. He was often associated with summits and high places, and many - but not all - of Latin medieval churches dedicated to him are found in such places. One example is the Church of Saint Michael in Tønsberg, which is located atop the crag called "Slottsfjellet" (literally, Castle Mount). 

The ruins of the Church of Saint Michael 

In the background is the Castle Mount Tower, built in 1888

The earliest mention of the church is the narrative account titled Profectio Danorum in Hierosolymam (The Journey of the Danes to Jerusalem), which describes a joint Danish-Norwegian failed attempt to travel to the Holy Land to participate in the Crusades. The reference is dated to 1191, but it is likely that the church had already been active for several decades. It was part of a small castle complex, as Tønsberg was one of the residences of the Norwegian kings. This fortified complex is mentioned in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum (c.1206), concerning an episode dated to 1165. Despite the date of the episode, the later date of the account itself provides us no certainty about whether the church had been erected as early as 1165. It is, however, very likely, given that the church would have been a natural part of such a royal fortress as what we find in Tønsberg. The church is believed to have been destroyed during a Swedish attack in 1503

The Church of Saint Michael in Tønsberg raises some important questions about the general cult of the archanagel in medieval Norway. Was the church dedicated to Michael because it was placed on a summit, or should it rather be seen as an indication of Michael's importance to the secular warrior elite of twelfth-century Norway? Was the cult an elite phenomenon in the early phase, or was it always widely popular? The inimitable Professor Judith Jesch has reminded me that there are seventeen runic inscriptions that mention Saint Michael, ranging from Greenland to Gotland, and this points to Michael's wider popularity. Similarly, the sermon for Saint Michael and All Saints in the Old Norwegian Homily Book, probably written in Bergen c.1200, demonstrates that the story was available in the vernacular. Although the text was only available to the clerics for whom it was composed, the sermon itself could be disseminated broadly, providing the populace with the key details of Saint Michael's importance. But this, in turn, leaves us wondering whether the elite cult of Saint Michael - possibly represented by the church in Tønsberg - had a different focus than the popular cult. It has been suggested by Siân Grønlie - in her article '‘Ok er hann sannheilagr’: The Role of Saints in Remembering and Representing Iceland’s Conversion' from 2022 - that one of the strands in the cult of Saint Michael, his martial aspect, might have appealed especially to warriors and crusaders. The general populace, on the other hand, might have favoured his role as the weigher of souls. 

Model of the medieval Church of Saint Michael

A saint is a mosaic of qualities and the venerators might focus on a few or just a single one. Therefore, it is important not to generalise too much when trying to map the cult onto the social fabric of a historical period. The Church of Saint Michael in Tønsberg is connected to the king and his retinue, and the veneration of the archangel might here have been fuelled by his role as the leader of the Heavenly armies. But since there are other churches dedicated to Michael and placed on summites in medival Norway - one example being the church in the monastic complex of Selja in Western Norway - it is possible that the placement of the church in Tønsberg guided the choice of dedicatee rather than the other way around. 

View of Slottsfjellet from Tønsberg city centre

Authoritarianism, generative AI, and the war against reality

 

Quis evadet?  

- Hendrick Goltzius, 1594 

In the past three years, generative AI has infected daily life on a destructive scale. It is a topic that I do not like thinking about, far less writing about, but as so many other scholars working in the humanities, I feel forced into having more or less coherent opinions about why this is something I would rather avoid having an opinion about. There are many reasons, and given time and rage I could write lengthy expositions about each reason. The present blogpost is a rather short tirade, but it hits at one of the key reasons why generative AI both fills me with loathing and also why I feel the need to opine. 

As with so much contemporary technology, generative AI is a gift to perverts and authoritarians - a Venn diagram that is essentially a complete circle - in that it allows its users to bring their inner desires into some kind of life. With AI image generators, prompts can be used to put together collages of obsessions, whether it comes in the shape of apotheosising portraits of their heroes, or naked, sexualised images of individuals over whom they obsess. Typically, these generated images depict things that do not exist, and that cannot exist. This is in and of itself not a problem, since so much of the history of art does exactly that. The problem with AI generated images, however, is that the non-existent things depicted in them serve as weapons in the war which authoritarians are waging on reality. 

One of the key drivers in the promotion of generative AI in society at large is that it can give you things that are impossible. Did your favourite TV show get cancelled? AI can generate new episodes for you. Did your favourite author die? AI can generate new books in their style. Did a loved one die? AI can generate a digital simulacrum for your comfort. Do you want to have sex with a famous person? AI can generate proof that you have done so, with which you might end up convincing yourself that you really have fulfilled that particular fantasy in real life. 

Aside from the individual goals of such desires, this kind of marketing also speaks to something far darker - even though what I have sketched up here is dark as Hell already - and that is a refusal to accept the confines of reality. This technology thrive on the fact that there are some people - often rich, spoiled, and morally, emotionally and intellectually vapid - who do not accept the fundamental tenet of reality, namely that each and every created thing comes to an end. This is one of the great tragedies of human existence, but that is also precisely why the knowledge of things and people being transitory is such an important motivator for cultivating what one finds worth loving and treasuring. The trope from art history known as 'memento mori', a reminder of one's mortality, need not be a heavy load on one's shoulder, but can be channelled into an appreciation of all that is good and enjoyable in this life. But not being able to face mortality means that people try to cheat, escape or avoid their inevitable demise. Generative AI allows these people to think they can actually succeed. 

Not all those who are driven to use generative AI out of fear of reality can be called authoritarians. Some are just immature without the added emptiness of authoritarianism. But authoritarian projects are typically at odds with the fact of death, and so much of authoritarianism is fuelled by the idea that it is possible to treat death as something that happens only to other people. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why it is so easy for authoritarians to inflict pain, suffering and death on others. In any case, a mind unrestrained by the fear of ceasing to exist is dangerous because it is unbridled by an awareness of the confines of reality. Therefore, that mind feels free to unleash impossible projects that through their very impossibility are extremely destructive. Generative AI is such a project, but it is also the tool by which the project is carried out. By generating science-looking texts to support whatever one wants to have supported, by generating images that ultimately defy the very possibility of verification and creates a halfworld where truth and lies are irrelevant entities, by creating visual proof for oneself that what lives in the mind is also alive in the material world, authoritarians of the present moment are well placed for convincing themselves and those around them about the possibility and realism of their ideas and their projects. But ultimately, these generated things are all just parts of an ongoing effort to undo reality - if only in the collective mind and conviction - so that authoritarians have a free pass to do whatever their warped minds have become convinced of. 

This is just one of the reasons that I despise generative AI, but it is one of the most important ones. It is also one of the many reasons why this technology needs to be undone.  

Quis evadet (who escapes it)

- Hendrick Goltzius, 1594 

(Metropolitan Museum of Art, inventory no.: 51.501.4929)

Histories from home, part 7 - the shapes of history

 

This year, I have been working quite a bit on the history of my native village, Hyen, in the Western Norwegian fjords. While I have always been interested in local history, and while I have absorbed much of it in the course of my lifetime, this year marks the 150th anniversary for the consecration of the modern parish church (for more on this, see this blogpost). Due to this milestone, I have been writing pieces for the local parish magazine, looking at different aspects of our church history broadly understood.  

As a friend and I were on a mission to take some photographs for my next piece, I was once again struck by the shape that history takes in the fjords. Because I come from a small village - described in one medieval document as the poorest parish of the area - there are very few written sources that shed light on the numerous lives that have been lived in these valleys and along this fjord. As a historian, I am mainly used to written sources, often combined with a piece of art or a building, or some kind of archaeological remains. These are the familiar shapes that history takes in my work. But as I have immersed myself more in the history of a place where such sources are rare, I have had to look more carefully at other shapes as well. 

Since my latest piece for the parish magazine focused on how people travelled to church from 1876 onwards, I had to look at the roads that cut through the two valleys of the village. In one valley, the first road was built in the 1860s, just before the invention of dynamite, and this one was superseded by the current road which was built in the period 1923-40. We know the dates, and there are still some second-hand memories which have been transmitted orally down to the present. But to understand how everyday life in the village was affected by these roads, it is necessary to see them in the landscape, even though that landscape has often changed dramatically in the intervening years. In short, one of the shapes that history takes in my native village is that of a road. And I have spent a lot of time this year trying to become better acquainted with that particular shape of our past. 

The first plum harvest of the season

 

Two days ago, August 29, I gathered the first plum harvest of the season. Having grown up on a farm, all such first-fruits of any particular type of produce are significant, especially because they provide historical reference points to be compared with those of previous years. Farming has always entailed this kind of chronography. It is a kind that often goes unrecorded, and with the passing of years they tend to blur into one another, leaving only the most remarkable times - whether remarkably late or remarkably early - as fixtures by which to measure future harvests. 

For most of my life, the first-fruits of the numerous berries and other produce which we harvest in my family have not been recorded, at least not systematically. As the climate is changing, however, these various firsts and lasts of the agrarian year take on a historical weight they did not previously have, as the old pattern is now breaking and it remains an open question whether it will be replaced by a new pattern or something more of a chaos. 

The present blogpost, therefore, is simply to provide some kind of record for the present year - if only when it comes to plums, as there have already been numerous other harvests. As a historian, I am used to wading through sources in order to create sense of the past. However, the changes of the present time also reminds me from time to time that I should also be a historian in the non-academic sense, namely a chronographer. I have tried on and off, and I know myself well enough to suspect that the present blogpost will not be the beginning of an elaborate and important historical record. But as a historian, I also know that even such glimpses as provided by one such report can have significance and value. This post, therefore, is both a celebration of the first plum harvest, and a record for comparison in later years. 

The Midgard serpent on another planet - or, Adventures in medievalism, part 8

 

Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement 

- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication 

I forget who first made this point, but the monsters of science fiction and stories about space travel are ultimately drawn from the monsters of the classical and medieval imaginations, transposed to a new frontier once the Earth had been mapped and all continents were known to the map-makers. As a consequence, numerous stories set in space contain recognisable elements from medieval narratives. A quick glance at the front pages of science fiction magazines, for instance, will show many variations on the theme of male hero rescues a woman from a monster. This is the typical damsel in distress, which had many configurations throughout the Latin Middle Ages, and the most enduring iconographical depiction came in the pictorial narratives of Saint George rescuing Princess Alexandra from the dragon. In its turn, this particular story also owed much to Perseus rescuing Andromeda, as well as other similar tales. Space medievalism, therefore, is a fruitful topic of study, and one that I hope will see much more focus in the coming years. 

Recently, I was reminded of this transposition of imaginary beings to worlds beyond our own planet. I have been reading the Norwegian comic book Ingeniør Knut Berg (Engineer Knut Berg), which was created in 1941, in the second year of the Nazi occupation of the country. The comic was written by Hallvard Sandnes (whose pen name was Vigleik Vikli) and drawn by Jostein Øvrelid (whose pen name was Ronald Stone). The series recounts the adventures of the eponymous protagonist, his fiancé Aima - princess of the utopian country Kalimanko located in East Central Asia - and their companions. Starting out as an earthbound picaresque narrative with elements of science fiction, the adventures were eventually brought into space. Notable sources of inspiration include Flash Gordon and Lost Horizon. 

The comic was - and still is - written in Nynorsk, a written language more often associated with traditional poetry, hymns, and lyrical descriptions of nature than with technological fantasies. To me - as a writer in Nynorsk - it is delightful to see what are now very old-fashioned words and turns of phrase used alongside robots and spaceships.  

This being a Norwegian comic, its world is necessarily described through the Norwegian cultural frame of references. Perhaps the best example of how this frame of reference affects the interpretation of the new discoveries on distant planets can be found in albums 14 and 15, which were published in 1956 and 1957 respectively. Here, Knut Berg's spaceship approaches the unknown reaches of the planet Uri, where he and his companions suddenly encounter a sea-beast rising its head through the water. In order to express the consternation of the interplanetary travellers, the narrator states that the beast looked like nothing on earth, and the closest would be the legend of the Midgard serpent. According to Norse mythology, this serpent - Jormungand - encircled the world, and would kill, and be killed by, the god Thor at Ragnarok. 

The beast reminiscent of the Midgard serpent is a reminder that the new is typically interpreted or imagined through the old. In order to describe what has hitherto not been seen, it is necessary to fall back on the familiar images and names. It is this mechanism that has brought the names and stories of old worlds into new ones, and the reason why - for instance - there is a Pacific Island nation named the Solomon islands, or the figure of Santiago Matamoros became Santiago Mataindios in Latin America. Space. This kind of transposition - of filtering the information from one world through a frame of reference belonging to a different world - is both common and unexpected. But because it is so common, it is also easily forgotten. Consequently, we easily forget that we understand the new and the unknown imperfectly, because we force it into a framework that was not built for what we are encountering. Studying this mechanism means that we become less arrogant in our meetings with new information, and better disposed to understand that which is new on its own terms. 

The king shot an arrow - a runic inscription from Sogndal, Norway

 

Last weekend, I made a roadtrip through parts of Sogn, a district that covers both the northern and southern shores and inlands of Sognefjorden, the largest fjord in mainland Norway. This is an area which contains a lot of historical survivals that are of great interest to a medievalist, and in some upcoming blogposts I will write about some of the many medieval monuments encountered along the way. 

The first example is a rune stone from Sogndal, which currently is housed in a glass case. We do not know when the stone was first erected, and what it was meant to commemorate. The inscription is known by its ID number N 386, and a transcription and a translation into English can be found here. It is dated to around 1100, and reads "King Olaf shot between these stones". The text indicates that there once stood a second standing stone in the area, but this is now lost. 

The text does not give any indication of which king is referenced. By c.1100, there had been three kings of Norway named Olaf. Closest in time to the inscription is Olaf III (r.1067-93), whereas Olaf II (r.1015-28) and Olaf I (r.995-1000) had long since become legendary figures about whom many stories were told. Olaf II had also been recognised as a saint since 1031, the year after his death at the Battle of Stiklestad. 

The reference to a shot - presumably with an arrow - is difficult to explain. One hypothesis is that the king shot an arrow in order to decide on a place where a church should be built. The rune stone - or rather, the standing stone with a runic inscription added later - stands close to the location of Stedje Church, a nineteenth-century replacement for the stave church that stood on the same spot in the Middle Ages. Decisions being left to divine intervention or fate such as this one are a typical motif of folktales and medieval hagiography alike. Since both Olaf I and Olaf II were regarded as missionary kings, stories about the founding of churches were often attributed to them. 

What is particularly important about the runic inscription, however, is not whether it refers to the founding of a church or whether it has a different meaning. Rather, the inscription shows that already by c.1100, stories that connected famous but departed kings to a specific locality were already in circulation close to a century after the oldest of the three possible candidates. The story might have been based on old oral accounts, perhaps even an actual historical event, but decades - perhaps an entire century - had passed before someone saw the need to commit this story to writing. As a medium for this message, the carver decided to use an old standing stone that was central to the story, but which had not been erected for the sake of carrying the kind of monumental memorialisation that is typical for rune stones. In short, the inscription provides a glimpse into the evolution of stories that grow and develop outside centralised, authoritative text production, which by c.1100 was mainly overseen by ecclesiastical and monastic groups.  

The person carving these runes might have remembered Olaf III, and it is possible that it was this king who ordered a church to be founded. After all, new churches were built by both secular and ecclesiastical agents throughout the eleventh and the twelfth centuries. However, it is likely that the kind of church-building story most likely to be committed to written memory would concern a church erected in the early Christianisation period, i.e. during the reign of either Olaf I or Olaf II. If so, this would be an event taking place long before the carver of the runes had been born. In this case, the inscription shows the pull of stories, and how these stories - and perhaps also their implication for local identity - excite people and move them to become keepers of memory in one way or another. In this instance, by carving runes on an old menhir.

All in all, we can only speculate about the origins of this runic inscription. Its content suggests to us the importance of history and the desire to commemorate the past. Seen in the context of other written records from eleventh and twelfth-century Norway, we might understand this as a part of a growing concern with fastening history to the material world in order to preserve it for future generations. The inscription is, in other words, a testament to the importance of stories.  

The Stedje stone looking towards Stedje Church

Centuries of history in one picture

The old adage about a picture saying more than a thousand words sometimes rings true with particular force. As I was walking my youngest sister's dog this morning, I was struck by how a simple matter of perspective and framing could serve to summarise centuries of history in a single picture. This happened as we walked the typical route on our shorter walks, which takes us along the innermost bay of the fjord and to one of the rivers that runs into the fjord at its southernmost point. I have seen the views along this route more times than I can count, and I know its various details well enough to recognise any seasonal changes or any oddities that appear. Today, however, I nonetheless noticed, as if for the first time, that at one of the angles along the route, the history of life in the fjords became telescoped into a single contrast. This view is shown in the picture below. In the foreground is an old boathouse which is now on the verge of collapsing. The boathouse itself is not that old - probably only from the mid-1900s - but it represent the kind of infrastructure and the type of wooden boats that were the main mode of fishing and transport for the better part of the past millennium. 

On the other side of the fjord is a shipwright. This was founded in the 1950s, and it is currently one of Norway's leading producers of carbon fibre hulls, focusing mainly on vessels for transport and tourism in the Norwegian fjords. This shipwright grew out of the older tradition of building wooden boats, but represents a new technological reality which is far removed from the framework in which this tradition emerged.  

My paternal grandmother used to say that her generation - she was born in 1912 - was the one generation who had witnessed the most significant changes in the course of one lifetime. Since become a professional historian, I have had many opportunities to see the truth of this, but few times have this truth become more apparent in a single picture such as this one. 

 

The Stiklestad sanctuary ring

This week, I have been in Stiklestad and Trondheim for work, since this is the Saint Olaf festival which culminates on July 29, and which is celebrated in both these places. The festival celebrations at Stiklestad included several very interesting talks, one of which concerned a door ring which was most likely produced locally in the twelfth century. Such rings are often referred to as sanctuary rings, since those who held on to the ring and asked for sanctuary had the right to receive it. 

The iconography of the ring is typical of the period, but the exact meaning of the various components remains uncertain. The serpents that have latched on to the crossbeam by which the ring is fastened to the plate with serrated edge are common representations of evil. However, they also represent the kind of cunning that Christ adviced his disciples to imitate in their preaching, so that they would know when to leave a place due to hostility. The human head with its cleft beard might be seen as representing those that seek sanctuary, captured as it is by the evil of the temporal world. Yet the head might also represent uncivilised, evil people, as long beards are often found among the so-called beard-pullers, which are humans representing heathendom in medieval art. 

The ring is, in short, at one and the same time legible and illegible to us. We understand its function, we are familiar with the individual iconographical elements, but we do not have the knowledge to put those elements into the kind of semiotic totality that would have been well-known among those who might one day have need of such a ring. This beautiful piece of metalwork and craft is, therefore, another reminder that some types of understanding lie just beyond our reach because those things we seek to understand are no longer part of our everyday world. 

The importance of Saint Olaf - the case of the Skjervøy altarpiece

Today, July 29, is the feast of Saint Olaf. He was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, in an attempt to regain his kingship of Norway after two years in exile. The following year, he was proclaimed a saint on episcopal authority, and Olaf become one of the most widespread and popular saints in the Norse North Atlantic and in the Baltic region. The cult underwent several surges of popularity and cult activity, as is the case of all saints. However, because the veneration of Olaf spread far and wide, and because this dissemination happened early and at a point in time when no single cult centre or ecclesiastical authority could control it, the surges of Olaf's cult developed differently at different parts of Latin Christendom. For those of us who research the cult of Saint Olaf, this complexity is both exciting and exhausting, as we have several parallel strands of development. 

Measuring the popularity and importance of a given saint is always difficult, because the surviving source material will rarely provide us with much information. And if there is information, it is usually limited to a specific time period, or it favours the perspective of a particular societal class, or it might do both. In the case of Olaf, the surviving sources allow us to attest to the wide geographic reach and broad societal appeal of his cult. But although he was venerated from Greenland to Estonia, this does not mean that he was always and everywhere equally important. Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, for instance, were cultural geographies with their own native saints. In some cases, Olaf remained more important on what we might call a geography-wide level, but within the different parts of those geographies - landscapes, counties, however you want to call it - a different saint might be more important.  

In the case of Olaf, there is a particularly interesting altarpiece which serves as a very good demonstration of Olaf's importance in the hierarchy of saints. This is an altarpiece from the now-lost Skjervøy Church, located in Troms in Northern Norway. The altarpiece was most likely produced in Northern Germany or the Low Countries and commissioned by the parish priest and probably also high-ranking laypeople of the community. In the centre of the altarpiece is a depiction of God lifting up or supporting the dead Christ, which at the same time communicates the dual nature of Christ - both God and man - and the primary, central position of God in the holy hierarchy of Christian cosmology. On God's right-hand side is the Virgin Mary carrying the Christchild, shown as the second-most important figure in this hierarchy. On God's left hand we find Saint Olaf, holding a ciborium and clutching a now-lost axe (which was his main attribute). The saint-king is standing atop a human-faced dragon, a common aspect of representations of Saint Olaf in medieval art, and its exact meaning is still a matter of debate. 

The Skjervøy altarpiece (after 1515)

Museum of Cultural History, Oslo, C3000

 

In this altarpiece, the importance of Saint Olaf is communicated very clearly: He ranks third in the hierarchy of Heaven, which puts him as the most significant and effective saint in all Creation next to the Virgin Mary, who in turn was regarded as the intercessor above all others. The importance is clear, but we are left with the following question: Importance for whom? Should we infer from this very clear depiction of the top tier of the holy hierarchy that Olaf had a similarly high rank throughout all of the Norse world? Throughout all of Norway? Throughout the diocese? Or just for the parish community in Skjervøy? 

We know from the Breviarium Nidrosiense, a liturgical manual printed in 1519 that set the standard liturgy for the entirety of the Norwegian church province, that Olaf had a high rank. But this standard was set at the metropolitan see of Trondheim, which was also the saint-king's cult centre. Throughout the church province itself, other saints could - and did - rank more highly. Similarly, within Norway, as well as within the diocese of Trondheim - which included the Skjervøy parish - there were communities who turned first of all to other saints. Perhaps the dedicatee of their parish church, or the diocesan patron - such as Sunniva in Bergen or Hallvard in Oslo - or any other saint to whom the a given community felt particularly attached. 

The top of Heaven's hierarchy as depicted in the Skjervøy altarpiece is probably only reflective of Skjervøy and its community. They had commissioned the altarpiece, which meant that they had most likely specified which figures to include. Even within the Skjervøy community, however, we should expect that there were individuals who might accept that Olaf was an important saint, but who turned more readily to other saints for reasons of personal attachment, for instance.  

In short, the Skjervøy altarpiece tells us a lot about Saint Olaf's importance, but only for a very specific community, and at least for the leaders of that community. In this way, the altarpiece is a good example of why the question of importance needs to be approached with great care, lest we exaggerate how popular a given saint actually was. 

The iron pilgrim - an aspect from the cult of Saint James the Elder

Ne wight with him for his assistance went, 

But that great yron groome, his gard and gouernment 

- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (Book 5, Canto 4, Verse 3) 

What did you see? Mere ironwork ... He exists without existing, understand, recruit? 

- Italo Calvino, The Nonexistent Knight (translated by Archibald Colquhoun) 

As today is July 25 - at least in my time zone - I am reflecting on the cult of Saint James the Elder, whose feast is today. One of Christ's closest apostles, he became the focal point of a cult centred in Compostela which surged in the early twelfth century, and which resulted in a plethora of various depictions and interpretations throughout the centuries. There are several images of Saint James the Elder - both in texts and pictorial art - which emphasise different aspects of him. For some, he is the apostle, for others he is the battle-helper, the pilgrim, or the moor-slayer. And for some, he is all of these things and more. This multifacted interpretation of a figure is something that fascinates me, as the various images that co-exist and circulate concurrently are excellent ways of analysing and understanding historical memory of one or several communities. 

Throughout the Middle Ages, Saint James the pilgrim became widely known from the twelfth century onwards, due to a concerted effort from the custodians of the saint's cult at Compostela in Galicia. As they were the keepers of the saint's holy body, they were best situated to offer interpretations of his patronage to the wider world. Through sermons, prose narratives, liturgy and various forms of pictorial art commissioned for the church space, archbishop and his retinue presented the faithful with a composite image of the saint which allowed various audiences different reference points for connecting with the holy man. For some, James' protection of pilgrims was of particular interest, so this aspect was what they emphasised, and it was this patronage they sought when needed. Since the fame of Saint James spread through pilgrims, it is no wonder that so much of the surviving source material of texts and images depict the saint dressed in the characteristic broad hat, carrying the staff and the flask, all of which are emblematic of the pilgrim and - by extension - of the saint and therefore of the connection between pilgrim and saint. This emphasis was a historical interpretation, and a shaping of historical memory. Saint James the pilgrim remains a powerful figure in today's cult, too. 

As I was going through some photos from my first visit to Santiago de Compostela, I came across one picture that caused me to think more carefully about the iconography of saints in genereal. The figure is a machine that allows you to insert coins and imprint a commemorative stamp on them as a keepsake of the journey to one of the largest pilgrimage sites of Latin Christendom. The machine is shaped like a pilgrim, recognisable in its hat and carrying the iconic staff. In this way, a common tourist trap has been dressed up with a local specificity, and it becomes in effect a nexus between images of faith and images of commerce. The commercial interests of the shops borrow the iconography of the religious centre in order to make money. This is a very medieval practice, and not very far removed from the pilgrim badges sold at the various cult centre.   

This nexus beteween the religious iconography of the cult of Saint James on the one hand, and the derivative iconography of local tourism poses an interesting quandary for saint scholars. Because on the one hand, it seems fair to assume that this mechanical pilgrim is not meant to depict Saint James himself, but rather a stylised pilgrim. On the other hand, however, the stylised pilgrim is an iconographical shorthand for Saint James. Those who travel to the shrine at Compostela will immediately recognise the hat-wearing holy man in the various statues and images encountered throughout the city. Even though the stickers on the machine advertise new coin-stamps that depict apostolic, ecclesiastical iconography, most visitors will be aware that Saint James the Apostle and Saint James the Pilgrim are one and the same figure.  

Can we, then, at some level, claim that this metal pilgrim shaped to attract visitors depicts Saint James the Elder? It depends on how we understand iconographical representation. That the two figures - the saint and the pilgrim - are connected is beyond any controversy. But to what extent can a figure be seen as separate from its representative. I believe that this separation is a spectrum, and that it depends entirely on the viewer whether what is seen should be understood as a representational depiction or a direct depiction, whether it is depicting a symbol of the saint or the saint himself. Someone sufficiently well-versed in the iconography of Saint James the Elder but not particularly careful in their observation might take this machine to be a statue of the saint himself - a rather simplistically stylised statue but nonetheless an image of the holy man believed to be buried in the cathedral. A passer-by might offer a prayer to the metal figure, thinking it to be one of those pictorial renditions of the saint that serve to allow for a more tangible point of connection between the earthly and the heavenly. After all, a wooden statue of Saint James would partly have precisely the same function. 

This pilgrim-shaped machine is a reminder that religion is formed in large part by those who practice it, and that individual religious expressions must be understood as elements in the sum total of that religion's history. If someone interprets this pilgrim-shaped machine as a holy statue, the machine becomes such a statue to all intents and purposes, at least for the person who makes that interpretation. For me, a researcher whose analysis is mainly limited to the official, authoritative images of saints and other memorialised figures, these impossible questions about individual expressions of faith provide good reminders that what I study is only part of a greater whole. Reminders that there can at any point exist interpretations of saints to which I will have no access because those interpretations have not been committed to sources. Such reminders serve to keep me from being overly confident in my own analysis, and that is a very good thing. 

Serendipity as method, or - The case for reading broadly

 

Sometimes they stand too near the problem. Often, if a person looks at something very closely he can see a few things more clearly, but the shape of the whole thing escapes him

- Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue

 

After close to fifteen years as a professional medievalist, I remain hesitant about giving advice to students and younger colleagues. Academia has undergone so many changes, has seen so many trends come and go, and has sustained repeated damage from governments and funding institutions. Even though I am still relatively early in my career, the factors that helped me succeed when starting out as a freshly-defended MA are not necessarily relevant in the current climate. And as someone who has witnessed a lot of bad, outdated advice – however well-intentioned – doled out to either myself, colleagues or my generation of medievalists, I am painfully aware that such advice can sometimes lead dangerously astray or serve as a testament to the gulf between those who have secured permanent positions and those who might never be able to do so. Giving advice as an academic, therefore, can be something of a poisoned chalice.

 

There is, however, one advice that I will give unhesitatingly, unreservedly, and even unprompted. That advice is to read broadly, no matter your topic, your field, or your discipline. In academia, there is a widespread and often unspoken assumption that in order to become an expert on your topic, you have to dig deep and only dig deep. In an academic environment tainted both by the perverse logic of business and by the centre-of-the-box thinking of funding bodies, it is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you should not waste time reading what is not immediately relevant to what you are working on at the moment – whether it is for a particular course, a dissertation, or a thesis. You dig deep, you become an expert, and you show that expertise by presenting information gleaned both from the sources and from the secondary literature. But the problem of digging deep without also minding the breadth is that you become very isolated.

 

The idea that you need to be laser-focused on your particular topic in order to be a good academic is a misguided approach to transforming information into knowledge, and converting data into understanding. When starting out as an academic, you do not know enough about your topic to evaluate which source texts or which studies are going to be useful for your analysis. Much like you cannot draw a map of a road until after you have travelled to its end, you do not have the expertise at the beginning that you are going to have at the end of your degree. After all, the whole point of doing an MA or a PhD is to expand your knowledge and increase your expertise so that you are better prepared for the work that lies ahead of you, no matter whether that work is related to academia or not. 

 

Because we do not know what aids our analysis until after the analysis is done, the laser-focus approach to reading means that it is very easy to miss connections that can only be made when looking beyond where the laser is pointing. It is not impossible to get good results by myopically staring at the most relevant material – it is, indeed, frequently done – but that approach is absolutely no guarantee that you will get the best result, or even the result for which you are hoping. Due to the uncertainty of how analytical breakthroughs are made – because they are unique events that depend on the material contained in the analyst’s brain – we are best prepared for making such breakthroughs by reading beyond the confines of one’s chosen topic. Reading broadly is a way of shifting focus away from your main object and thereby seeing that object in a different light. It might be helpful to learn, for instance, that there are cases similar to yours in the vast repository of available historical information. It is healthy to be reminded that no matter how unique your material is, the finiteness of human imagination and creativity means that it is far less unique than you at first might be tempted to believe. In short, reading broadly allows you to situate yourself in a much broader context, which in turn enables you to understand how your topic is unique and also how it is not. Good analysis depends on both these types of understanding.  

 

The fact that we do not know from the onset what reading we need to do in order to make fruitful connections can at times be daunting. It is easy to worry that you are going to miss a text that will give you the one connection you need for your breakthrough. It is easy to become obsessive and turn the virtue of reading broadly into the vice of reading everything. Consequently, it is also important to embrace serendipity as method when setting out to read broadly. Because there is no single solution for how you should read in order to do the analysis you want to do, to have those revelations that allow you to move the state of the art a few inches further, and to allow you to say something new and valuable on the topic at hand. This means that instead of reading everything, you read a bit here and a bit there, waiting for the revelations to come. And when they do not come, you make do with good old-fashioned gruntwork. 

Recently, I was reminded of how reading broadly and applying serendipity as method can be immensely rewarding. Earlier this year, I bought El Diccionario de lugares utópicos [Dictionary of utopian places], edited by Juan Pro and published by Silex in 2022. It can be downloaded as a PDF here. This dictionary is a wonderful resource for anyone working on utopian thinking, and I have spent many hours this summer poring over several of its entries. What prompted the purchase of this book was that I am working on an article on violence in utopian societies, co-authored with a friend of mine. Several of the dictionary’s entries have proved very useful, but since I also want to read the book in its entirety I have also spent time on entries further removed from our topic. 

 

Admittedly, reading entries from a dictionary of utopian places when co-authoring an article on utopian thinking does not qualify as reading broadly, even though some of the entries in question have pertained to times and places very far removed from the scope of the article. But the revelations I experienced when perusing entries on the fringes of relevance for this particular article had nothing to do with it. Instead, I suddenly encountered formulations and key points that allowed me to get a much better understanding of a very different topic.

 

For two forthcoming publications, I am again delving into the cult of saints in medieval Norway. I am particularly interested in the ways in which specific cults enabled elite groups to formulate a vision of a golden age in order to legitimise attempts to recreate that past golden age in the present. This way of manipulating history is a universal feature of human history, and although this manipulation unfolds in a unique way in medieval Norway, its unfolding is not wholly alien to other similar manipulation projects. Consequently, as I was reading about the role of the Inca Empire in modern-day Peruvian utopianism, I encountered a formulation by a Peruvian historian that fitted perfectly into an analytical point that I had tried to put into writing. The contexts of the two topics are of course very different, emerging as they have from unique historical trajectories. Nonetheless, because humans can only seek power in so many ways, the contexts were sufficiently similar that I was able to use one to illuminate the other. 

 

There is a particular joy in embracing serendipity as method. Rather than worrying about whether you are missing any of the important texts pertaining to your topic, you can read beyond your field with a clear conscience, knowing that there is no single revelation to find, and acknowledging that revelations can strike from many different directions. It is impossible to say whether it will come from a study on a very different topic, from a novel, from a poem, or from a comic book. By reading broadly and expanding your frame of reference, you are better suited to catching such connections that might help you strengthen and deepen your analysis. Consequently, there are no wrong turns to make, no wasted pages, no lost hours – everything you read prepares you for receiving the revelations that lurk somewhere in the sum total of human writing. Reading broadly, and aiming for serendipity, are the two best approaches for ensuring that those revelations can be recognised as such. 

Thrice-illumined

 

Western Norway has been a grey castle this June, with mist and grey clouds being constant features throughout almost every day, and also bringing with them torrential showers or milder but more continuous drizzle. As summer arrives, I seek the balcony at the back of my paternal grandparents' house, enjoying its shade until the sun floats into view in the early afternoo, thereby making the place too hot for either work or leisure. This year, however, the rain and cold have induced me to use the porch at the front of the house as a temporary work space. I have done so in previous years, too, but lacking access to the balcony has meant that I have sought porch much more frequently, especially because the dark evenings have provided a good excuse to light the three-pronged candlestick which I keep there. 

Last night, there suddenly broke through a piercing silvery light from the moon as it was climbing the mountain range on the western side of the fjord of my native village, Hyen. This sudden illumination was a drastic change to the heavier light that had preceded it, and it caught my attention immediately. Looking out through the window on the side of the porch, I saw the light of the moon filtered by the clouds, powerful enough to be reflected in the creased surface of the lake behind the house, and I also noted that the window glass in turn reflected the flames of the three candles, as well as the reflection of of one them in the window glass on the front of the porch. It was a lovely moment that made me feel thrice-illumined, and it was a very atmospheric reminder of why I tend to sit in this little nook even when I need to wear a jacket and a blanket - these shifting skies mean that no two evenings are alike in this place. 

A note on reading fragments - or, Why human agency remains important

This week, there has been a lot of publicity around the latest development in the efforts to extract texts from the fire-damaged scrolls from Herculaneum. News outlets tend to focus on the role of AI in the process, not distinguishing between various forms of technology that fall under the broad label of artificial intelligence. As has been pointed out by several commentators on social media, however, the role of artificial intelligence consists of distinguishing ink from papyrus, leaving the actual transcription and identification of the content of the scrolls to human agency. In other words, the main part of the work is done by human researchers with expertise and knowledge. In a post by Dr. Naomi Scott of the University of Bristol, she pointed out that the main work is done by human experts, and posted a quotation from Professor Llewellyn Morgan of the University of Oxford published in a news update from the university in 2025. 

In the quotation from Llewellyn Morgan, there was one particular passage that stood out to me. Morgan likened the pattern recognition by machines to how eighteenth-century copyists who copied what was written on scrolls, but who could not understand the content. This reminded me of an anecdote from my experience with manuscript fragments that really made me understand how experts often need inexpert eyes to help their work progress. 

About nine years ago, I was researching fragments of medieval manuscripts in the special collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark. Most of these fragments were used as bindings, and had been subject to a lot of wear, tear, and years of occasional water damage. Consequently, the texts on these fragments could be very difficult to decipher, as it was often challenging to distinguish a letter from a letter-shaped smudge. In some cases, I also came to realise that my expertise in palaeography and Latin hampered me when the text became too illegible, because I was too focused on the word in its entirety rather than the individual letter, which meant that I often kept searching for one of many possible words that seemed like reasonable option for one specific string of letters. 

In order to better identify the letters, I took close-up photographs of the fragments or parts of the fragments, printed these out, and traced or separated the various letters with a pencil. This method was sometimes successful, but it depended entirely on the state of the fragment, and I was again hampered by the expectations which were leading my gaze. 

I showed some of the pictures to a friend of mine. At that time, he had no experience with medieval manuscripts, palaeography, or Latin. But he is a very good photographer with a keen eye for details, and I thought that he might see things that I did not. This turned out to be the case. As my friend looked at the photographs, he told me very simply what he saw, and I then could focus on that one thing and determine whether this was a letter or simply a letter-shaped smudge. This was a kind of a refocusing, or a recalibration of the gaze, and it was an immense help. In some cases, what my friend saw was irrelevant, but I could only assess this irrelevance after a closer scrutiny, and when transcribing a worn and faded fragment, it is just as important to know which things to ignore. Through his help, I was able to transcribe some lines that had frustrated me for a long time, and I was then able to identify the text itself, which in turn was very important for the general identification of the fragment. 

The exercise was a revelation for me, because it showed very clearly how much help I could get from someone who was not in my academic field or even close to it. In this sense, my friend was doing much of the same job that machines are doing for the Herculaneum scrolls. He was finding patterns, noticing things that I overlooked because I was distracted by the bigger picture. And even though this kind of work would have been done much faster by a machine, the process was also very educational for me and helped me not only to do my work but also to improve my skills as a fragment researcher. As in most things, such research requires a lot of practice, and the kind of slow, incremental progress that my friend and I were doing was what I needed to improve at an early stage in my career as a researcher. 

In many cases, machines are needed to deal with certain aspects of source work, at least for speeding up the process. But sometimes speed is neither of the essence nor very helpful, because it is the slow, trudging pace that helps you improve, making you become an expert through constant practice. In short, human agency is not only still very much needed, it is also to be preferred. 

A woodcut for the Nativity of John the Baptist

I should be in bed, but since it is a summer's night I am staying up longer than is sensible. This night, moreover, is the feast of the Nativity of Saint John, one of few saints in Latin Christianity whose earthly birthday is celebrated, and moreover as his main feast. The eve of Saint John is an important time in European folklore, and there are numerous traditions associated with the night between June 23 and June 24.  

Throughout the Latin Middle Ages, John the Baptist was a famous and popular saint, mainly due to his appearance in the Bible and his important role in the life of Christ. Several churches were dedicated to him, and his iconography made him a recognisable figure in medieval art. He is typically depicted as a wild-haired man dressed in a camel hide, usually holding an image of the Lamb of God, being, as he was, a forerunner for Christ.  

Due to this iconographical tradition, I was rather surprised to come across a rather different representation in March, when I was researching a collection of saints' lives printed in Lübeck in 1492, namely the Passionael by Steffen Arndes. This was the second edition of Passionael, and the printer had commissioned a new set of woodcuts. For the feast of the Nativity of Saint John, the woodcut does not depict the desert hermit typical of medieval iconography. Rather, it highlights the birth of the saint, or rather his childhood. His sainted mother, Elizabeth, is lying in bed while the holy child is bathed by a maid, a situation that neither maid nor child seems very happy about. It is a sweet domestic scene, perhaps reflecting the secular audience of the collection, namely the merchants and artists of Lübeck. 

Steffen Arndes, Passionael (1492)

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.44v

While I was surprised by this iconography, it was not completely novel the world of late-medieval Latin Christian art. The birth of John the Baptist was recounted in the Bible, and it was part of an expanded narrative commemorated through liturgical celebrations in the Middle Ages. From the late fourteenth century onwards, the Latin Church put greater emphasis on the feast of the Visitation of Mary (July 2), and it was established a compulsory feast at the Council of Basil (1431-49). The Visitation commemorated her visit to John's mother Elizabeth while they both were pregnant. According to tradition, John gave a joyful leap in his mother's stomach when he sensed the approach of the coming Messiah. Consequently, the scene depicted in Passionael fits well within the development of the cults of both Mary and John the Baptist in the later Middle Ages. 

One curious thing about the woodcuts in Passionael, however, is that this particular scene was also used for the chapter on the birth of the Virgin Mary, Nativitas Mariae, on September 8. The viewer is only asked to imagine that the mother who has recently given birth is Anne rather than Elizabeth, and that the baby boy in the bath tub is rather the baby girl who would grow up to become the mother of God. The reuse of this woodcut is perhaps primarily due to practical matters, an opportunity to pay for one less item, or perhaps to save time. But it is also a reminder that the reception of iconographical information is flexible. The readers and viewers of Passionael would eventually encounter both these woodcuts and recognise them as the same - after all, these two feasts are not that far apart in the liturgical calendar - but they would have no problem letting this image represent one occasion on one day and another occasion on a different day. The identity of mother and child changes as the occasion changes, but the scene remains the same because that scene encapsulates what is being celebrated on both occasions, namely the birth of a figure central to the life of Christ. This kind of flexibility requires a kind of pragmatism and iconographical literacy that is often overlooked by modern viewers, inculcated as we are that art needs to be individual and unique. As a consequence, we often underestimate the artistic understanding of the people of the Middle Ages. 

Steffen Arndes, Passionael (1492)

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.142r