Saint Julian in a fragment - chance survivals, canonicity, and the cult of saints in medieval Scandinavia

 

Much of my research deals with questions pertaining to the cult of saints in medieval Scandinavia. This is a topic that labours under the double-edged problem of having both very few surviving sources - making it difficult to make strong claims about certain questions - as well as such a wide variety of source types, making it difficult to have the required expertise to use all these sources together. Concerning the cult of saints, we know that there were many more sources used and produced in medieval Scandinavia than those we have access to today. The surviving sources have, therefore, provided a skewed sense of the saints venerated by the medieval Scandinavians, as well as the stories told about those saints. Due to the source situation - combined with the nationalistic tilt embedded into the foundations of medieval studies in each Scandinavian country - we have a tendency to focus on the cult of native saints, especially the royal saints. Aside from the biblical saints and the most famous of the early Christian saints - especially Laurentius, who was patron saint of the Church of Lund, which became a metropolitan see in 1104 - there has been relatively little work done on the veneration of the saints less known in our own time. Judging from surviving materials, we have a pretty good idea of how popular and important these famous saints were. But we cannot really know whether some of the saints that we consider minor today were, in actuality, major saints throughout the Scandinavian Middle Ages, or at least within one time period or within one milieu. 

I was reminded of this issue earlier this spring, when I was at the Danish National Archives in Copenhagen to research some manuscript fragments. In one of the boxes I had ordered was the upper part of a two-columned page from a twelfth- or early-thirteenth-century manuscript, the text of which is the saint-biography of Julian Martyr, also known as Julian of Le Mans. The fragment is well known in medieval studies and I have seen it mentioned and analysed several times. It is most likely produced in Scandinavia, probably in Norway, and it is a important witness to the earliest stages of native Norwegian manuscript production. The content of the fragment, however, has received much less attention than its codicological, palaeographical and iconographical aspects. This text provides a very good starting point for reflecting on the state of our knowledge about the cult of saints in twelfth-century Norway.

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Saint Julian was a third-century bishop of Le Mans. Since he was martyred during the heroic age of Christianity in what was later to become France, his cult and his figure appear to have been important elements not only of Le Mans' own identity but also the identity of France as a kingdom having received special divine attention. This kingdom-wide identity was also propped up by the cults of Saint Dionysius of Paris, of Saint Remigius and the Holy Ampulla, and eventually also the cult of Saint Louis IX. The early date of Julian's life and martyrdom also meant that he was included in several early martyrologies and calendars, and his cult was disseminated far and wide. 

In Scandinavia, there are few surviving traces of Julian in the sources. For example, the only sources from Sweden, as far as I am aware, are twelve calendars that contain his feast-day, which is celebrated either on January 26 or Janaury 27. Since most calendars used in medieval Sweden have survived only as fragments, however, the actual number of calendars containing his feast-day was significantly higher. In any case, no other sources are known - not sculptures, not altarpieces, not wall-paintings. I know of no sources from medieval Denmark, although I have not yet checked whether his feast is included in the late-medieval printed breviaries. In Breviarium Nidrosiense, the breviary printed in Paris in 1519 and aimed at the entire Norwegian church province, his feast is not included. In other words, Saint Julian of Le Mans appears to have been virtually unimportant in the cult of saints in medieval Scandinavia. 

However, Saint Julian was at least known, if only in the monastic or ecclesiastical community in which the manuscript containing his passion story was used. We do not know what community this was, but it is likely that the manuscript was a collection of saints' lives produced for - and perhaps at - one of the leading religious centres of twelfth- or early-thirteenth-century Norway. My own hunch is that the original manuscript was a typical hagiographical collection that was used during the Matins of the feast-day of the saints included in the collection. Matins was the divine service in the middle of the night, and it was during this service that the saint was venerated with a liturgical office which included both chants and readings from the saint's biography. The original manuscript, therefore, is likely to have contained the legends of several other saints aside from Julian. 

What, then, are we to make of the inclusion of Saint Julian of Le Mans in this hypothetical, now-lost hagiographical collection. Probably not much. Such collections were typically compiled from available materials, and those materials tended to contain those stories and legends that were widely accessible rather than those which were particularly important to a specific diocese or church province. Put differently, the legend of Saint Julian was sufficiently widespread that it was easy to get hold of. Its appearance in Norway reflects Julian's general canonicity as a saint in Latin Christendom by the late twelfth century rather than the importance of his cult among Norwegian Christians. 

On the other hand, the fact that Julian's legend was available in Norway and accessible at one - if not more - major religious centre should be taken seriously. What happens at such an institution when the available hagiographical material is limited? Do those stories that are available become more important than they otherwise would be? Can the cult of Saint Julian have been strengthened at this institution simply because the clerics or monastics who comprised the institution's community were familiar with his legend? Very likely, because cults tended to be shaped by the personal devotion of those who were part of the veneration of saints at religious centres. Surges in a saint's popularity could be shaped by events that were interpreted as intercession from that saint, it could be shaped by dreams of individuals, of the constant, long-term pressure from exposure to the saint's story. We see this happen in the cult of Edward the Confessor, for instance, whose main promoter before the 1160s was the figure of Osbert of Clare who believed himself to have been healed due to the saint-king's intercession. Might not a similar causality - however imagined - also not affect the cult of a well-known but otherwise not particularly important saint-bishop? 

We do not have any evidence to suggest that the knowledge of Julian's legend made an impact on his cult in medieval Norway. And personally, I do not think it did, simply because this possibility hinges on our knowledge of one sole surviving fragment. However, this reflection is not primarily about Julian or his cult, but about how our ideas about canonicity and the cult of sains is shaped by the chance survivals of sources. The fragment containing part of the prologue of Julian's saint-biography proves that he was known somewhere in medieval Norway, and for at least a period, even if that period might only be the generation of clerics or monastics that first made use of this manuscript. 

As scholars we need to be very careful in assuming that the canon of literature that we imagine today based on the survival of sources is necessarily the same as the canon of literature of the Middle Ages. Indeed, we know very well that the so-called bestsellers of medieval Latin Christendom - such as the Imago Mundi of Honorius of Autun, or the Sententiae of Peter the Lombard - receive much less attention from and are much less accessible to modern readers than works such as Beowulf, which only survives in one single manuscript. The modern medieval canon is, in other words, very different from the medieval medieval canon. Similarly, the cult of saints as we understand it today might have been configured somewhat differently in the Middle Ages, with saints now lost to us or ignored by us having much greater prominence than we will ever know. 

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Rigsarkivet, Fr. 251

Saint Edmund in the litany - the 1482 Breviarium Othoniense and the cult of Edmund Martyr in medieval Denmark

Today, November 20, is the feast of Edmund Martyr, who was killed by Danish raiders in 869, and whose cult became one of the most important native cults in medieval England. His cult also spread to the Nordic sphere, most likely as a consequence of both deliberate dissemination and frequent contact between the Nordic polities and medieval England. The history of Edmund's cult in the Nordic world is still incompletely mapped and insufficiently understood in its totality, and there are several tantalising clues to suggest that Edmund was perhaps more important than we have hitherto ascertained. 

In October, I was reminded of one such source when I was doing research in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, and I was leafing through the 1482 Odense breviary, or Breviarium Othoniense. This was the first commissioned printed book in the Nordic world, and the second to have been printed - since a pamphlet was finished before the breviary - and it was later superseded by two new editions in 1497 and 1510. The breviary reflected recent changes in the ecclesiastical scene of Odense, as King Christian I had dissolved the Benedictine abbey of Saint Knud, which had served as the cathedral chapter of the Odense bishop. Since the liturgy was no longer performed by monks, it had to be abbreviated to suit the more restrained length of secular offices (nine lessons versus twelve for the most important feasts). As a consequence, the Breviarium Othoniense is a challenging source to the liturgical history of Odense diocese, since it represents a recent rupture in the historical practice. The evidence provided by the liturgical material in the breviary must therefore be weighed carefully before being used to suggest historical trajectories. 

One of the notable aspects in the 1482 breviary is Edmund's placement in the litany, a list of saints placed according to rank within the diocesan church, to be invoked for their intercession. The litany begins on the previous page and opens with prayers to the Virgin Mary, the angels, the apostles, and then the martyrs. The order of the martyrs is an interesting testament to the popularity of the different saints, and one of the big questions concerning this order is whether it reflects an older ranking or more recent changes. It is, for instance, remarkable that Saint Mauritius comes before Saint Olaf, but that is a different blogpost. 

The page shown below, folio 91v, begins with Saint Alban, who was the patron saint of one of the churches in Odense, and whose cult had been brought to the city in the eleventh century - by Saint Knud Rex himself, if we are to believe the hagiographical tradition. His relatively high position among the martyrs is therefore ot surprising. After him comes Saint Olaf of Norway, one of the most important saints in Denmark, but one whose fame appears to have been less intense in the diocese of Odense than in Lund, Roskilde, Ribe, Aarhus, or Børglum. Then comes Thomas, which is Saint Thomas of Canterbury, whose cult in Odense appears to have developed independently of the diocesese of Lund and Roskilde. Then we come to Edmund Martyr. Interestingly, he is before Oswald of Northumbria, whose relics had been brought to Odense alongside those of Saint Alban, according to the hagiographies of Saint Knud Rex.  

The main clue about Edmund's standing in the diocese of Odense is his placement before Oswald. The veneration of Oswald is, as mentioned, well attested in sources from the late eleventh century onwards, but no such evidence can be found for Edmund. In the breviary, his feast is celebrated with six lessons, making it a feast of medium importance, and in the 1497 edition the feast has been largely overshadowed by the feast of Saint Elizabeth (see this blogpost). That Edmund was placed between Thomas of Canterbury - whose cult spread quickly and whose fame rose to phenomenal heights, also in Denmark - and a saint whose relics were an important part of the local religious history of Odense, suggests that there also was a veneration of Edmund going back to the twelfth century, since this is the period in which his cult is most likely to heave undergone a new vogue in Denmark. No churches dedicated to Edmund are known from medieval Denmark, and I do not know of any relics of Edmund in the Odense diocese. The large trove of relics in Sanderum Church, for instance, which is situated close to Odense, does not include such relics (although some of the labels are illegible).  

The evidence of the litany is not extensive and must be treated with caution. The six-lesson office of Saint Edmund points in the same direction, however, namely that before the overhaul of the cathedral liturgy in the 1470s, the veneration of Edmund in Odense was more significant than other available evidence would suggest. It is perhaps time to envision an even greater impact on religious life in Odense from English ecclesiastics. 

Breviarium Othoniense 1482, f.91v

New publication: Sanctus Suithunus

 

As mentioned in my previous blogpost, I am currently working as a co-editor for the online encyclopedia Medieval Nordic Literature in Latin, hosted by the University of Bergen. The encyclopedia was first published in 2012, but there are still several articles missing, and as part of my work I have also worked on some contributions of my own. Today, I have published the second of these contributions, namely an article titled 'Sanctus Suithunus', which contains an overview of two liturgical offices in honour of Saint Swithun of Winchester. 

Swithun became the patron saint of Stavanger diocese in the twelfth century, and his cult was important both in that diocese and in other parts of Norway. Relatively few surviving sources provide insight into the history of the cult, but these two liturgical offices are important and useful starting-points for addressing some of the basic questions concerning the standing of Saint Swithun in medieval Norway. 

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

 

Saint Thomas of Canterbury in Roskilde

 

Today is the feast of Thomas of Canterbury, the archbishop who was murdered by a group of knights in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Following his canonization in 1173, his cult spread quickly along various networks, and became a well-known reference point in Latin Christendom. The cult reached Denmark at a relatively early point. It is not known exactly when - and when it comes to religious impulses, their arrivals can rarely be reduced to a single point in time anyway - but we should expect it to have taken place already in the 1170s. The reason for this early date is that a Canterbury collection of miracles associated with Thomas, mentions a few Danish cases, one of which being associated with the Danish crusade against the Wends that began around 1180.  

The popularity of Thomas in medieval Denmark remains a contentious issue. Only a few, scattered sources have survived, and there has not yet been a research project seeking to map out the development of the cult. Consequently, we do not know whether the cult remained stable in its popularity, or whether it shifted and waned, or whether there were significant local differences. 

From time to time, I have myself delved into the sources pertaining to the cult of Thomas of Canterbury in Denmark, and I am still thinking about what to make of my scattered findings. One thing that has become clear, however, is that in several parts of Denmark, the feast of Thomas was celebrated using the liturgy composed in, and disseminated from, Canterbury, namely the office known as Studens livor. This is an unsurprising discovery, because Canterbury Cathedral was very active in its promotion of the cult of Saint Thomas, and this liturgical office became the standard in many medieval church provinces. However, unsurprising is not the same as uninteresting. That the standard liturgical office was in use in Roskilde diocese - as demonstrated by the 1517 Breviarium Roschildense - suggests that there were contacts between Canterbury and Roskilde in the twelfth century, when the office was composed, and that these contacts left an imprint that lasted throughout the medieval period - largely thanks to the conservative nature of liturgical practice.    

In Breviarium Roschildense, the feast of Saint Thomas of Canterbury begins with an antiphon, which is exactly how Studens livor usually begins. It is a summary of the story of Thomas, describing his martyrdom and its importance, serving - in effect - to inform new listeners about what they are about to hear in greater detail. Below the picture, you will find both a transcription of the Latin and a translation into English by Kay Brainerd Slocum, taken from her excellent monograph Liturgies in Honor of Thomas Becket, to date one of the best monographs on the cult of Saint Thomas.  

Breviarium Roschildense (1517), f.98v

Pastor cesus in gregis medio 
pacem emit cruoris precio. 
O letus dolor in tristi gaudio 
grex respirat pastore mortuo, 
plangens plaudit mater in filio, 
quia vincit victor sub gladio 


The shepherd, slain, in the midst of his flock, 
Purchases peace at the cost of blood; 
Joyous grief in sorrowful praise, 
The flock breathes, though its shepherd is dead; 
Lamenting, the mother rejoices in the son, 
Because he lives, as victor under the sword. 

Saint Edmund in late-medieval Denmark - a hint from the Odense Breviary

 

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.    

Breviarium Othoniense, 1497, f.435r

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.

Typological rejoicing for the feast of SS Peter and Paul

 

Today, June 29, is the feast of SS Peter and Paul, who are among Rome's patron saint, since Rome is both their place of martyrdom and their place of burial - at least according to the medieval tradition. Due to their historical connection to Rome, both Peter and Paul have been key figures in the construction of Rome's Christian identity. This identity has been predominantly orchestrated by the Papacy, but it has also been added to, perpetuated, disseminated and maintained by a range of other historical actors across the social hierarchy of medieval Rome.     

To map the many forms in which Peter and Paul have been used to construct and maintain Rome's identity would require a study of its own and at least one hefty monograph. Even today, Peter and Paul are ubiquitous in Rome, and they continue to provide a cornerstone for the city's identity. In this blogpost, therefore, I will only look at one aspect of this identity construction, one that I encountered by chance while I was preparing a talk on the issue of typological rejoicing. 

Before I return to Peter and Paul, however, it might be necessary to briefly explain what I mean by typological rejoicing. Typology, or the study of types, was one of the main keys through which medieval Christians understood their place in Creation. The term refers to the patterns and similarities - types - that can be found in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the post-biblical period. In other words, typology reveals the pattern in God's plan, and through typological connections a person, a city, an institution, or a country can see itself as a new version of an old phenomenon. This connection across time - a connection divinely ordained - carries prestige as the glory of the earlier iterations, or types, is reflected onto the new iteration, or the antitype. (In this case, 'anti' does not mean contrary to.) 

Typological connections can be sought in many different ways, and one such way is rejoicing. Several biblical versions contain exhortations to rejoice or to be happy. Isaiah 52:9 tells deserted Jerusalem to rejoice because a better future will come, while Paul, in Philippians 4:4 tells the Christians in general to rejoice in the Lord always. Similarly, addressing a city, a country, or a people to be happy is another form of establishing a typological connection through joy. 

Lauds for the feast of SS Peter and Paul

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France - Département des Manuscrits, Latin 1090, f.175v

One such typological connection can be found in the liturgy for the feast of SS Peter and Paul. The above manuscript page - from a late-twelfth-century antiphoner from Marseille, whose content can be found here, and a digitized version of which can be found here - contains chants for the hour Lauds on their feast. Lauds is celebrated around six hours after sundown, and is one of three important services in the daily round of the liturgical office, the performance of which is divided into eight slots in one twenty-four-hour cycle. Lauds is typically where the chants describe miracles of whichever saint is being celebrated on that particular day, and these are described in chants called antiphons, each of which is sung before and after a psalm from the Bible. There is also a hymn, and in our case here, the hymn is called 'O Roma felix', O happy Rome.

Rome is here called happy because it is the resting-place of two such important martyrs as Peter and Paul, two of the most important apostles and two of the most powerful saints in the Latin Christian collegium of saints. Importantly, in this chant, Rome is not only connected to Peter and Paul by way of containing the primary shrines of these two saints, but through its happiness the city is connected to biblical locations which also have reason to rejoice, such as Jerusalem (cf. Isaiah 66:10), Israel (Zephaniah 3:14) and Sion (Zechariah 2:10). Even though the wording is different - 'felix' instead of 'gaude' or 'laetare' - the point remains the same: Happiness brought on by the divine machinations of the Lord, which has ensured that the city or the country or the people can rejoice. 

By calling Rome happy, Rome's identity as a Christian city is further enhanced because its happiness is an echo of biblical events. This echo proves that God protects and guides Rome's progress through history. Moreover, since the happiness is caused by Rome being chosen as the location of two of the most important martyrdoms in Christian history, there is also a connection to the New Testament. This biblical, cosmic background is neatly summarized in the incipit, or opening words, of the hymn: 'O Roma felix'.  

O Roma felix - hymn for Lauds

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France - Département des Manuscrits, Latin 1090, f.175v

Saint Stephen and Saint Knud Rex - the typology of martyrdom in twelfth-century Odense

 
Today, December 26, is the feast of Stephen Protomartyr, one of the relatively few Christian saints attested in the Bible, and one of an even lower number whose death is recounted in a biblical narrative (Acts) as opposed to various apocryphal narratives which is typically the case for the apostles. The story of Stephen is one of the most widely known saint-stories in Latin Christendom, both because he inhabits the important role of being the first martyr, the first blood-witness for Christ, and because his story was disseminated in the Bible and narratives that conveyed stories from the Bible, such as sermons, figurative art, ballads and saint-biographies, most of which are tinged with horrific anti-Semitic rhetoric and imagery. 

Due to Stephen's powerful symbolic importance as the first martyr, he also became a widely used point of reference in the regions where Christianity was newly introduced or at least still a recently-established social force, and especially in the first stories about saints emerging from these younger members of Latin Christendom. For this blogpost, I will provide one example from Denmark, found in the material pertaining to Saint Knud Rex (d.1086). 

Knud Rex was king of Denmark from 1080 to his death in Odense in 1086 following an insurrection. The death of the king was recounted in several texts produced by the clerics of Odense who were attached to the episcopal see, and with the establishment of a Benedictine community in the late 1090s the textual production also came to include a liturgical office to be celebrated on Knud's feast-day, July 10. In this liturgical office, we find one of the most striking examples of how the hagiographers in Odense sought to connect their dead king with the first martyr of Christianity. The example comes from a responsory, a liturgical chant performed after a prose reading in the liturgical office. The chant survives in a late source, the printed Odense breviary from 1482, but we have good reasons to date the composition of the chant to the early twelfth century. The text runs as follows (text and translation taken from my PhD thesis):   


Cum furit exterius
trans execrabile uulgus
interius precibus
dux uacat eximius
misteriisque sacris
munitur spiritus eius
[V] Ut stephanus sanctus saxorum sustines ictus 

When outside rages,
The standing detestable mob
Inside with prayers
The excellent leader is undisturbed
And by the holy mysteries
His spirit is fortified
[V] You sustained the blow of stones, like holy Stephen 


The scene described is the interior of the Church of Saint Alban, to where the king and his retinue retreated when the mob had surrounded the royal manor. The insurrectionists sought to break into the church space, and the saints' lives note that they hurled stones and spears through the apertures in the church wall. What eventually killed the king was a spear through his side, which served as an imitation of Christ. But since the image of a saint is usually composed of features meant to imitate other saints, not just Christ, the composer of the office spelled out in clear words what earlier texts had already noted, namely that as the first martyr of the Danes, Knud Rex shared an affinity with Stephen. The typological link between Knud and Stephen is presented in the verse of the responsory, which is the line before the repetition of an earlier line in the chant. 

The purpose of spelling out the link between the two protomartyrs was twofold. First of all, the performers of the liturgy communicated to the saint in Heaven that they were aware of this link, and that they venerated Knud for this reason as well. To show knowledge about a saint's qualities is, basically, a matter of politeness: to ensure that the saint will continue to serve as their representative in Heaven, the venerators need to demonstrate their worthiness, and this demonstration comes through a spelling-out of saintly qualities. 

Secondly, by spelling out the typological link the office serves to educate younger members of the community of Benedictines  in Odense about the nature of their patron. Making sure that the community knew and understood its patron served both to contribute to the maintenance of institutional identity, as well as ensuring that the saint was properly venerated.  

The case of Stephen and Knud is typical for such areas where there were no previous martyrs, or where reports about previous martyrs were sufficiently uncertain as to allow for the claim that this particular saint was the first martyr of a recently-christianised people and a recently-christianised region. This function of typological guarantor was one that Saint Stephen frequently inhabited during the Middle Ages.  



     

Saint Edmund the protector - an example from medieval Norway

 

Today, November 20, is the feast of Saint Edmund Martyr, who was killed by Danish raiders in 869/70. His cult became one of the largest cults of a native saint in medieval England, and in the eleventh and twelfth century it was also notable in the Nordic sphere. Since I wrote about the cult of Edmund for my PhD, and how the formulation of his characteristics changed over time, I take the opportunity of today’s feast to connect one of the main iconographic features of Saint Edmund with a reference found in a Norwegian twelfth-century source. If my interpretation of the evidence holds, it suggests that the image of Saint Edmund as it was reformulated at Bury St Edmunds in the late eleventh century was also sufficiently well known in twelfth-century Norway to be a point of reference. 

Towards Hovedøya

The iconographic feature in question is Edmund’s efficiency as a protector and guardian of his territory, who could resort to violent means to carry out his protective role. While the clearest formulation of Edmund the protector first came about in the late eleventh century, the first vita of Edmund, Passio Sancti Eadmundi written by Abbo of Fleury around 985, includes a miracle story that might provide the basis for the later reformulation. This miracle story tells of how a group of thieves broke into Edmund’s resting place at Bury in order to steal the valuables housed there. As the thieves went to their business, they eventually discovered that they were unable to move, and so were discovered the next day by the clergy who served at the shrine. The thieves were subsequently executed by hanging on the orders of the bishop. Abbo remarks that the death of the thieves was an unnecessary tragedy, and the violent aspect of Edmund had apparently not become part of his image at that point. What is important, however, is that it was through Edmund’s merits that God prevented the thieves from moving, and Edmund was then able to protect his property.  

In the late eleventh century, during the abbacy of Baldwin (r.1065-97), Herman the Archdeacon compiled a collection of miracles which also served as a history of the abbey, and especially the period preceding the reform of the church into a monastic house in 1020. Herman recorded a story of how King Svein Forkbeard, the leader of Danish raiders who demanded heavy tribute from the church at Bury, was killed in his bed by Saint Edmund. The killing of the Danish king convinced the raiders to relinquish their demands. With this story, recorded close to sixty years after it supposedly happened, the image of Edmund as a protector had taken a new form. Or, perhaps more accurately, this aspect of Edmund had now been committed to writing and could therefore have a much more tangible impact on the later cult. This impact is notable, both for its early implementation and its longevity. For example, when an office for the vigil of Saint Edmund was added to the already-existing office for the feast-day itself, the story recounted in the four lessons for Matins was that of Edmund’s killing of Svein. The materials for the office were taken from Herman’s account, and although the earliest source of this office dates from the 1120s, it is likely that the office was composed already in the eleventh century. The longevity of Edmund’s reputation as a protector is evident from the wide range of church art that depicts his killing of Svein, but this development is another story, one that is addressed in the two best studies of the cult of Edmund to date, namely Rebecca Pinner’s The Cult of St. Edmund in medieval East Anglia (2015) and Francis Young’s Edmund – in search of England’s lost king (2018).

Towards the abbey church at Hovedøya

In twelfth-century Norway, the cult of Edmund was known, although to what extent is still an unanswered question. The knowledge of Edmund’s cult was due to the close contacts between the Norwegian church and the English church, a contact that had played a signification role in the conversion period of the early eleventh century, and which continued to have an impact on the cult of saints in Norway throughout the twelfth century. One example of this impact is the Cistercian abbey of Hovedøya – Head Island – outside Oslo, which was dedicated to SS Mary and Edmund. The abbey was established in 1147, and became a significant landowner in the Oslo region. It is in relation to this abbey we find our source to the knowledge of Edmund’s role as protector in medieval Norway.         

The source in question is the Registry of Akershus from 1622, an inventory of the records and charters kept at Akershus fortress (see Regesta Norvegica vol. 1, no. 157). One of the records is a letter of donation to the abbey at Hovedøya from the period 1170-78, signed by King Magnus Erlingsson, Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson, Bishop Helge I of Oslo, Earl Erling (the king’s father) and Orm Ivarsson, all of whom were powerful men of the Norwegian kingdom. The letter states that the manor of Frogn, situated north of Oslo, had been given to the abbey of Hovedøya. Moreover, the letter includes the warning that whomever would infringe on the rights and the ownership of the abbey should beware the anger of God and Saint Edmund.

What makes this letter notable is the warning, and the reference to the anger of the saint. To this date, I have not come across a similar formulation in the Norwegian medieval material, and although this does not preclude that it is a common detail of such letters of donations, it is remarkable for how it fits with the image of Saint Edmund that was well established and common by the end of the twelfth century. Granted, that saints could punish those who offended them or who sought to encroach on their territory or their domain is a feature of the cult of saints that was established very early in its history. Punitive miracles are attested early in the literature pertaining to saints. Moreover their role as protectors is often formulated as battle-helpers who provide victory against the enemies of the saint’s clients, and this variant goes back to at least the early fifth century. In Norway, the protective saint was also known in the figure of Saint Olaf, whose role as battle-helper was recorded in the 1150s, and whose punitive miracles were recorded in the 1180s at the latest. There is, therefore, no guarantee that the threat of a saint’s anger in the donation letter should be linked to the image of Edmund the protector as formulated at Bury St Edmunds in the late eleventh century.

The interior of the Church of SS Mary and Edmund, Hovedøya

However, the anger mentioned in the letter is precisely the anger of Saint Edmund. Considering that the Cistercians at Hovedøya were familiar with the legend of their patron saint, and considering that Archbishop Eystein also is likely to have known about it, it would make sense to see this threat as an expression of the knowledge of Edmund’s violent guardianship whenever his territory was threatened or challenged. We do not know of any manuscripts containing the legend of Saint Edmund from twelfth-century Norway, but that absence of evidence is almost to be expected considering that the vast majority of Latin texts produced and/or kept in medieval Norway have been lost. There is, however, one important survival that suggests that Edmund’s role as guardian was known to the Norwegian clergy, at least at the diocesan churches. The survival in question is a fragment from an antiphoner written in Bergen in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. This antiphoner, whose fragments have been digitally collected by scholars at the University of Bergen led by Åslaug Ommundsen, contains an excerpt from the office of Saint Edmund, an excerpt that earned this antiphoner its current name, namely “the Saint Edmund antiphoner”. Pleasingly, at least from the perspective of my argument here, the fragment (NRA Lat. fragm. 1018) contains one of the antiphons for Lauds which recounts the episode of the thieves who broke into Edmund’s shrine. While this miracle antedates the violent version of Edmund’s protective qualities, it is nonetheless a concrete piece of evidence that points to the knowledge of Edmund and his characteristics in medieval Norway. The threat of Edmund’s anger in the donation letter should, therefore, be seen as a manifestation of the idea of Edmund as a violent protector, and that this idea was sufficiently familiar in late twelfth-century Norway to be used in such an official document as a letter of donation.    

Pope Leo II, a saint of Catholic identity

 

This blogpost was originally planned for June 28, but was delayed. The date of June 28 is the feast of Pope Leo II, who reigned as pope from 681 to his death in 683. His feast was universal throughout the medieval Latin Church, and it presents an interesting showcase for how saints serve as elements of identity-construction. As I am particularly interested in questions of how identity is constructed, maintained and altered, the feast of Pope Leo II is a small but valuable example for why studying saints is very rewarding when dealing with such questions.  

The surviving information about Pope Leo II is primarily taken from the Liber Pontificalis, the Book of Pontiffs, an overview of the biographies of popes. Given the brevity of his reign, there are not that many details to be gleaned from the book. Leo was known for his skills in Latin and Greek, as well as his musical talents, and his eloquence. The defining event of his papacy was the condemnation of the belief of Monothelitism as heretical. This belief claimed that Christ had only one will, not two, which is seen in the name "monothelitism" which can be translated as "one will". Monothelitism was one of several beliefs circulating within the wider Christian world. 

At this point in time, the Roman Church was still subservient to the emperor in Constantinople, and it was the emperor who consecrated the pope. Consequently, the contact between the Greek and the Latin churches were much closer, and the events within each different language sphere had also impact in the other - although the influence from the Greek to the Latin sphere was much greater than the other direction, since the Greek sphere included the seat of the emperor. 

While the condemnation of Monothelitism was ratified by Pope Leo II, the condemnation itself was the result of the sixth council of Constantinople, which was held in 680. Pope Leo also confirmed the condemnation of Pope Honorius I (r.625-38), who had not condemned Monothelitism and whose lack of action was considered treasonous. It is in this event, this refusal of a particular doctrine, that more than any other aspect of Leo's papacy explains Leo's elevation to sainthood. By confirming the heretical nature of Monothelitism, Pope Leo II appears as a guarantor of the validity of the Catholic doctrine, and as such he becomes a reference point in the formulation of a Catholic identity. 
 
It must of course be emphasised that this rather clinical analysis of the appeal of Pope Leo II as a saint is only part of the story. As with most, if not all, saints, the belief in their sanctity must be understood as stemming from a genuine conviction. The veneration of Pope Leo II must therefore not only be seen in light of the construction of a Catholic identity. Moreover, it is likely that in time the importance of his condemnation of Monothelitism grew somewhat less, especially as he retained a relatively minor position among the universal saints of the later medieval Latin Church. When we find Leo's feast included in a thirteenth-century calendar produced in England, which was later brought to Sweden, we should perhaps not expect that the issue of Monothelitism and its importance in seventh-century Latin Christendom was that well-known among those who celebrated the feast on June 28. Pope Leo II does not appear to have ever held a high status among the saints in the catalogue of the Latin Church in the centuries following his death. Yet even so, the very inclusion of the feast of a relatively minor saint, and its universality, attest to the issue of Catholic identity as one that has played a crucial role in the proclamation of this pope's sanctity. While the avatars of such an identity might increase in number over time, and while some - as Leo - might be relegated to a lesser importance in the wider roster of such avatars, Pope Leo II nonetheless reminds us that saints are crucial elements in the construction of identity.  

Fragment of a thirteenth-century calendar produced in England
Medeltida Pergament Omslag Fr 25593
Photo: Riksarkivet Sverige

References


Encyclopedia Britannica 

Basil Watkins (ed.), The Book of Saints, Bloomsbury, 2016

Saint Alban in Odense, part 1 - introductory reflections on the Alban liturgy

Today is the feast of Saint Alban, protomartyr of Britain, who was killed some time in the third century, when Britain was still a Roman colony. The earliest surviving textual testimony to his cult is the inclusion of his legend in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum, and His cult reached its zenith in the course of the twelfth century with the increasing power and wealth of the Abbey of Saint Alban’s.     

In addition to the importance of Saint Alban in England, his cult was also introduced into Scandinavia through different routes. In Norway, a Benedictine monastery at Selja was dedicated to him around 1100, and his cult became connected with that of Saint Sunniva of Selja, one of the three main Norwegian saints of the Middle Ages. The Breviarium Nidrosiense from 1519 contains three lessons for his feast, which summarised his legend. In Sweden, his feast appears in a number of surviving calendars, several of which were produced in England, and a church was said to have been dedicated to him at Säby by the turn of the eleventh century.  

In Denmark, however, his cult appears to have been particularly important in the diocese of Odense on the island of Fyn, which is the focal point of this blogpost. By 1086, a wooden church had been jointly dedicated to Saint Alban and the Virgin Mary, and it was in this year that King Knud IV, later Saint Knud Rex, was murdered by a mob of insurrectionists on July 10. In the saint-biographies written in the span of 1086-c.1120, the description of his martyrdom commonly includes a mention of the relics of Saint Alban, which were toppled in the tumult when the mob broke into the church. These relics were said to have been brought from England by Knud himself. Several of the priests who served at the Church of Saint Alban’s appear to have been English, possibly brought to Denmark in order to maintain the cult at what was then also the cathedral of the city.          

In the course of Knud IV’s relatively short reign, the foundations for a new church in stone was begun in Odense. This work was left incomplete by the time of his death, but it is likely that it was intended to be dedicated to Saint Alban, as a replacement of the old-fashioned wooden church. (Such replacements were common across all of Denmark in the period.) As it happened, the new stone church, which took over the role as the cathedral of Odense, was consecrated to Saint Knud, as Knud was canonised in 1095 and his relics placed in the crypt of the church. The cult of Saint Alban, however, was still maintained at the old church, which appears to have been replaced by a stone church in the course of the twelfth century, as per the ongoing trend of such replacements. This parish church, in turn, became defunct in the course of the sixteenth century, and was eventually dismantled.        

The Church of Saint Alban appear in various sources from medieval Denmark, but it is difficult to ascertain the extent of his cult and its popularity in Odense. The best testimony to the importance of Saint Alban can be found in Breviarium Othoniense, which was printed in three editions, in 1482, 1497, and 1510. This breviary provides a window into the liturgical practices of the diocese of Odense in the Middle Ages, although it must be examined with methodological caution. In the 1470s, the cathedral church of Odense, which had been a Benedictine community, was reformed to a community of secular clerics, and this entailed a change in the liturgy. While liturgical practice previously had followed the monastic use, it was now changed to the secular use, which is shorter. This means that the liturgical offices as they survive in the printed editions of Breviarium Othoniense are reduced from their former size, and therefore only imperfectly reflect the liturgy of previous centuries. Even so, it is in this breviary that we find a best source for the veneration of Saint Alban in medieval Odense.   
The office for the feast of Saint Alban can be found on folios 369r-371v in the 1482 edition. This abbreviated, secular office contains materials for Vesper, Matins, Lauds and Second Vesper. The lessons are taken from Bede, and it is likely that the chants are similar or identical to those sung at Saint Alban’s, England, although I have not yet been able to track down any source to this. 

Breviarium Othoniense, 1482, f.369r

Breviarium Othoniense, 1482, f.369r

While the office for Saint Alban as it survives in Breviarium Othoniense is an abbreviated version to what was performed in, say, the twelfth century, it nonetheless gives a very good idea of the story and image of the saint which was rehearsed by the clergy of Odense every year on his feast day. This liturgical repertoire is especially interesting when comparing to the Norwegian repertoire as found in the near-contemporaneous Breviarium Nidrosiense, where, as mentioned, only three lessons with corresponding responsories are included. This suggests that Saint Alban did indeed enjoy significant popularity throughout medieval Odense, at least among the clergy. This can also be glimpsed from Breviarium Othoniense, if we compare with the materials that precede the feast of Saint Alban, namely those for the feast of SS Gervasius and Protasius (June 19). Here, only three lessons are included, which suggests, again, that Saint Alban was venerated more than just perfunctorily in medieval Odense.        

Since this is an introductory blogpost to my reflections on the place of Saint Alban in Odense, I will not be going into detail about the liturgy itself, as this is something to which I hope to return in later blogposts. However, I will include two images from the 1482 edition of the breviary. From these images, we get a sense of the celebration itself, as these images show the materials for the first Vesper service, usually celebrated around six in the afternoon. The chants are from the office of Saint Alban, and not from the common of martyrs, a repository of liturgical material that could be performed during the feast of a martyr when materials unique to that martyr were lacking. To put it differently, we therefore know that in Odense, Saint Alban was sufficiently important that chants from his own repository were being sung. We also see a rubric specifying that in Saint Alban’s own church, his own hymn was to be sung, whereas outside of this church, the hymn “Deus tuorum”, which is from the common of one martyr, should be performed instead. This is interesting, as it suggests that the cult of Saint Alban was not of the highest rank, or rather that his veneration was not widespread beyond the Church of Saint Alban’s, even though his importance at his own church in Odense is unquestionable.         

More information remains to be extracted from the office of Saint Alban, and eventually I hope to get around to this. But for the present, I will leave this as an opening into the role of Britain’s protomartyr in the history and cityscape of one of Denmark’s largest cities.

Sources for a conference presentation (30.04.21)

 
As I mentioned in my previous blogpost, I am giving two conference presentations this week. The first of these is tomorrow, where I will be speaking on the third and last day of the Becket conference, the belated 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Thomas of Canterbury in 1170 (as well as the 800th anniversary of the translation of his relics in 1220). 

In my presentation, I talk about the veneration of Saint Thomas in medieval Norway, as evidenced by materials for the liturgical office for his feast-day on December 29. While there are many interesting sources to the cult of Saint Thomas in medieval Norway, my focus is only on the materials from the feast-day office, and not about his translation feast or the materials for the mass. 

The presentation is pre-recorded, and to access it you need to register for the conference. If you have not done so, you might still find this blogpost useful, as the purpose of the post is to provide links to some of the sources that I have used in my research. 

AM 679 4to, f.10r

The first source is AM 679 4to, a thirteenth-century Icelandic manuscript which contains a version of the so-called Ordo Nidrosiense, i.e. a book containing the liturgical feasts celebrated in the Norwegian archiepiscopal province, which included Iceland, Greenland, Shetland, the Orkneys, the Faroes, the Hebrides and Man. This source is invaluable for understanding the yearly cycle of liturgical performance in the churches throughout the Norwegian archdiocese.

The second source is Breviarium Nidrosiense, a breviary containing the materials for the office for the feasts celebrated throughout the liturgical year in the Norwegian church province. The breviary was printed in Paris in 1519, commissioned by Archbishop Erik Valkendorf. The content was most likely drawn - at least in part - from a manuscript of the Ordo, or some similar manuscript used at Trondheim, the metropolitan see of Norway. This means that despite the use of new technology, the content was old and therefore a valuable source to liturgical observance in earlier centuries. 

A digitised edition of Breviarium Nidrosiense can be found on the website of the Norwegian National Library.

A searchable, transcribed edition of the content of the Breviarium can be found on the website Bokselskap. This version is edited by Ingrid Sperber, and it includes an introduction by Espen Karlsen and Sigurd Hardeide, and it is a phenomenally useful tool for any researcher or enthusiast. The edition was published by the National Library for the 500-year-anniversary of the printing of what are known as the first Norwegian (printed) books, and which was celebrated by a series of events throughout Norway in The Norwegian Year of the Book in 2019. 


The third source that I mention, although I do not engage with it, is Missale Nidrosiense, the sister-volume of the Breviarium containing the materials for the mass celebrations in the Norwegian archdiocese. 

A digitised edition can be found at the Norwegian National Library. 

And as with the Breviarium, the National Library has also published a transcribed edition made by Ingrid Sperber, including an introduction by Espen Karlsen and Sigurd Hardeide. And as with the edition of the Breviarium, this edition is an extremely helpful and valuable tool for anyone interested in the medieval liturgy of Norway.



These sources will be mentioned in the course of my talk, and in the event that my presentation, or just the reading of this blogpost, inspires you to explore these sources, here they are gathered on one single plate. Enjoy.

A fragment for the eve of the Resurrection

Today, April 3, is the Easter eve, the day between Christ's death on the cross and His resurrection, and the middle point in the liturgical climax of the Christian year. Due to the importance of Easter in the liturgical celebration of the medieval churches, there survives a great amount of manuscripts containing the texts to be sung or read for that season. I have previously posted examples of such paschal fragments from my work in the special collections at Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek, for instance here. This Easter, I was reminded of the fragment RARA K 284, about which I have previously written here and here, which contains a part of the mass for the Easter vigil. The fragment comes from a missal, and despite its heavily worn lettering, it has been possible to identify the text as belonging to the Book of Jonah, chapter 3, verses 1-6.  

Syddansk Universitestsbibliotek, RARA K 284

 

Syddansk Universitestsbibliotek, RARA K 284

The text from the Book of Jonah points to an important aspect of the use of the Bible both in the Middle Ages and also today, namely the idea that episodes and events in the Old Testament were repeated in the New Testament. This pattern is also known as typology, whereby the anti-type - or the precursor - can be found in the Old Testament, and the type can be found in the New. In the Christian interpretation, therefore, the Book of Jonah contains an anti-type to the story of Christ's resurrection, because Jonah was swallowed by a whale and emerged from it afterwards, just as Christ came back to life. For this reason, the Book of Jonah provided a suitable reading for the liturgy leading up to Resurrection Sunday, and this is what we see in this now-tattered fragment.   

Working with liturgical fragments, part 17 - small beginnings

Today I attended an online workshop on the research on medieval manuscript fragments in the Nordic countries. I myself was merely a listener and not one of the presenters, and it was very inspiring and interesting to be updated on the status quo. It brought my mind back to the manuscript fragments I have been researching during my time in Odense, Denmark, and to which I still turn my attention from time to time. At the library of the University of Southern Denmark (SDUB), new fragments are still being brought to light, and fragments that have been known to the researchers already are receiving renewed attention and have more of their details revealed. As I have mentioned in previous blogposts on the subject - such as here, here, and here - the research on fragments require that the fragments be revisited from time to time as the researcher's experience has been improved. This is true for all research, of course, but perhaps especially so in the case of medieval manuscript fragments that can often be hard to read and that carry many of their secrets in the open, impossible to interpret except by the trained eye.

As we gain experience and become more observant of the smaller details, more adept at reading script nearly obliterated by time and wear, we also become able to gather information from sources we previously thought were completely mute. I was reminded of one such fragment during the workshop, namely a small, badly worn, scrappy liturgical manuscript used as the binding of a seventeenth-century book. I first learned of the book while I was employed at the University of Southern Denmark back in 2017-18, and as there were then several other fragments whose information was less inaccessible, I did not give this fragment its due attention. 

A few months ago, however, my friend and colleague, Jakob Povl Holck, research librarian at SDUB, sent me some pictures of the tattered volume and told me about the information he had actually managed to glean. While we previously were certain of one thing only - that the fragment had belonged to a liturgical manuscript - Jakob had managed to extract quite a few details. These details are now in the processes of being reviewed, and I choose to be very secretive about the results. But what I can say, and what I am very happy to say, is that from a very small and inauspicious beginning, this fragile piece of parchment has proved to be a much more interesting remnant than previously thought. 

Fyens Stiftsbibliotek m04 An43.2 p
Kept by Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek
Photo courtesy of Jakob Povl Holck

Saint Thomas of Canterbury at Lund

Today is the feast of Thomas of Canterbury, better known as Thomas Becket, archbishop, who was killed at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, when a group of knights broke into the church. The murder must be understood against the six-year-long conflict between Thomas and King Henry II of England about the juridical borders and the power balance between church and king, which in turn was part of a power struggle that marked the political discourse of all of Latin Christendom at the time. When the English strand of this conflict culminated with the death of Thomas, he became a figurehead for the reformists of the church who championed the idea of the supremacy of the church not only in spiritual but also in worldly matters, and also the independence of the church from worldly government. Consequently, Pope Alexander III canonised Thomas in 1173, and his cult was disseminated widely throughout Latin Christendom. 

The cult of Saint Thomas of Canterbury came to the Norse world very early, and while we do not know much about the concrete details of the dissemination, we know that there were several routes by which his cult could have travelled to each of the different Nordic countries, such as trade, diplomacy, ecclesiastical connections or monastic networks (in particular the Cistercians). Our earliest sources for Thomas' cult in Denmark can be seen in three stories recorded by William of Canterbury in a miracle collection, while printed breviaries from the Danish archbishopric of Lund can be seen to retain the liturgical repertoire that was imported into Denmark already in the latter quarter of the twelfth century.

While there are many things that deserve to be said about the cult of Thomas in the medieval Norse world, there are also many of those things that need to be more thoroughly researched and that are tied up with various works in progress. So for this blogpost - marking the 850th anniversary of his death and forming part of the hashtag Becket 2020 - I'll limit myself to commenting on a late source that perhaps points to a continuous, or at least long-lasting, popularity around the martyred archbishop in medieval Denmark.  

Breviarium Lundense (Kongelige Bibliotek København, R 665 8°), f.98v

The source in question is a detail I encountered in the breviary of Lund, which was printed in 1517 in Paris. By this time, Lund was part of the medieval kingdom of Denmark - it is now in Sweden - and had been its metropolitan see since 1104. Due to Archbishop Eskil's connection with the reformist movement and the Cistercian order, it is likely that Lund was one of the first religious centres in Denmark, even in the Norse world, that adopted the cult of Thomas of Canterbury. The liturgy used for the celebration of Thomas' feast-day was likely brought directly from Canterbury, and it was retained without any notable changes in the printed breviary from 1517, pointing to the durability and conservative nature of liturgical material.

Yet even though the liturgical content of the printed breviary can, in the case of Thomas of Canterbury, be traced back to the twelfth century, there is one aspect of the breviary that is distinctly contemporary with the book itself, namely the note scribbled along the top margin of the page seen in the picture above. The page, folio 98v, begins with the eighth lesson for the hour of Matins - the liturgical apex of the daily round of hours - in which Thomas' role as a good shepherd is highlighted. The good shepherd is one of the roles of Christ, and every clergyman serving as a shepherd is modelled on Christ in this aspect. When Thomas' role as a good sheperd is highlighted here, the author of the liturgical office - belived to be Benedict of Peterborough - strengthens the sainted archbishop's similarity with Christ, as Thomas not only was a martyr in imitation of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, but also was a shepherd in imitation of Christ as a protector. This lesson caught the attention of some canon or priest - perhaps the archbishop himself - in the early sixteenth century at Lund. And since the Reformation was brought to Denmark in 1536/37, the window for dating the writing of this note is pleasingly narrow. 

The content of the note itself I have not yet managed to decipher, despite some frustrating attempts. The handwriting is not from my period of expertise, and I will probably ultimately have to rely on colleagues for this part. Yet even so, until such time that this is solved, it does nonetheless show that Thomas retained relevance in medieval Denmark as late as the period 1517-36/37, and that his liturgical office continued to be performed and exert an influence on at least some of its listeners centuries after it first was introduced to Denmark.


For other blogposts touching on Thomas of Canterbury, see:


A comparison of the cults of Thomas and Edward the Confessor

The chant Thomas Gemma Cantuarie

A wall-painting in the Cistercian monastery of Chiaravalle, Milan

A liturgical commemoration from the Norwegian medieval liturgical ordo

A fifteenth-century wall-painting in Skive, Denmark

Some reflections on the iconography of Saint Thomas in late medieval Europe