Saint Olaf, Saint Lucius, and Saint Dorothy in Roskilde Cathedral

 

Today, 29 July, is the feast of Saint Olaf of Norway. Since I have spent a lot of my academic career researching his cult in the Middle Ages, as well as the modern reception of him and his stories, I am taking this opportunity to write about one of the myriad cases where the figure of Olaf can be used to explore facets of medieval history. 

Olaf was king of Norway from 1016 to 1028, and died in 1030 in an attempt to regain the Norwegian kingship. The following year, he was proclaimed a saint by Bishop Grimkell, who had been part of the king's retinue and was in practice the only bishop in Norway by 1031. The cult spread quickly throughout the North Atlantic and the Baltic, and Olaf became particularly popular in the Danish cult of saints. While most of the the sources to the veneration of Olaf in Denmark are lost to us, there are some places where there remain some interesting and significant pockets that indicate Olaf's importance. One such place is Roskilde, and I will illustrate this by way of a piece of art visible in the nave of Roskilde Cathedral.  

These restored wall-paintings are found on one of the pillars by the entrance to the choir, and date from the early sixteenth century, when the interior of the cathedral was subject to an extensive redecoration programme. The most famous results of this effort are some of the chapels, where the walls are lavishly decorated with a host of holy figures. The scene shown in the pictures of the present blogpost, however, are more easily missed, but perhaps much more revealing of the priorities of the cathedral clergy around 1500. 

The scene is an interesting summary of how the Roskilde clergy understood themselves in the Christian cosmology. The central figure is the only one without a nimbus in the scene, and it is likely that he represents the bishop of Roskilde, or perhaps the entire cathedral clergy as a pars pro toto. Below him is the tortured - but as-yet uncrucified - Christ surrounded by the instruments of his passion, an iconographic assemblage that was in vogue in the late medieval period, while above the bishop we find the Trinity represented in a similarly typical late-medieval fashion, with the crucified Christ in the foreground, the Holy Spirit descending upon Christ's head, and God the Father seated in the background. This vertical sequence of figures also situates the Roskilde bishop historically and mystically, as his episcopacy is made possible and given meaning through the sacrifice of Christ, while the bishop might also be understood to occupy the historical here-and-now between the historical event of the Passion of Christ below and the Holy Trinity above which sublimates the mystery of salvation and represents the future end of history. This mystic-historical iconography is very common.  

Three other figures, however, who are flanking the Roskilde bishop, comprise a configuration particular to the diocese in question. On the bishop's close left is Saint Olaf, standing atop a dragon in accordance with an iconographic standard that had developed since at least the thirteenth century. Further to the bishop's left is a figure now almost worn away by time, but whose caption tells us that it is Saint Dorothy of Caesarea. Interestingly, she is positioned behind a smaller, cross-legged figure wearing an episcopal mitre, whom she seems to either protect or punish. 

To the bishop's right is the cathedral's patron saint, Pope Lucius I, whose relics were brought to Roskilde at some point around 1100, possibly in the episcopate of Svend the Norwegian (d.1088). The combination of Lucius, Olaf and Dorothy is significant, as Olaf appears together with the cathedral's patron and is in effect the sainted pope's second-in-command, while Dorothy appears to take the place of a third but still important member. The Roskilde bishop is thereby protected by a holy bishop, a holy king and a holy virgin, two universal saints representing early Christendom, and a local (albeit near-universal) saint representing the more recent, perhaps even contemporary Christendom. The placement of these figures served to remind the cathedral clergy at Roskilde that they and their institution are guarded by these saints, and that they are owed particular veneration because of their role in the cathedral's history. In a single work of art, the cathedral and its clergy are positioned within salvation history, and also reminded of their duties towards their heavenly patrons.

Sanctus Lucius

Sanctus Olauus and Sancta Dorothea

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 Knud Rex and negative cultural memory in twelfth-century Denmark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New publication: En sjælden Tycho Brahe-udgave

 
In the spring of 2019, as I was finishing up my time in Denmark and preparing for new adventures, I was doing research on medieval manuscript fragments in the special collection of Roskilde Public Library, together with my friend and colleague Jakob Povl Holck. At this time, Jakob and I were co-authoring an article on two fragments from medieval Denmark, and we were asked by one of the librarians at Roskilde if we could contribute a short note on the fragment from Roskilde on which we had conducted some of our research. The fragment can be seen below, and is found on the item Karen Brahes bibliotek J.1. It was used to bind a first edition of the astronomical treatise De Nova Stella by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. 

The note was set to be published in the annual journal of the historical association of Roskilde. The journal is titled Historisk Årbog for Roskilde Amt (Historical annals for Roskilde county). Although the text was only about two pages and for the most part a description of the fragment and its carrier, I was very happy to be contributing to this note, since it was a way to repay the library and the historical association of Roskilde for the time and effort that had been offered us in the course of our research.

As I left Denmark and the publication of the journal was delayed, I lost track of the progress. Today, however, I found out, to my immense pleasure, that the note was published, and can be accessed online. The note is in Danish, and can be found here. The issue of the journal can be found in full here (although it should be noted that there is an error on the site containing the overview, as I am listed as sole author, while it was written together with Jakob Povl Holck). 

Despite its brevity, I am immensely proud to have co-written this text, and it feels that this is a contribution that actually goes straight to the community for whom this fragment and this book might have greater meaning than most other scholarly communities.

Karen Brahes bibliotek J.1
(Roskilde Public Library)

Saint Mauritius in Roskilde

Today, September 22, is the feast of Saint Mauritius of the Theban legion. According to legend, he was the commander of an Egyptian contingent of the Roman army who were stationed in the Alps during the reign of Diocletian (284-306). These soldiers were Christian, and when they refused to recant their faith, they were all martyred. While the exact number of these martyrs differs from version to version, they are usually counted in the thousands, and this has spawned several offshoots of the cult, where individual members of the troop are said to have survived for a bit longer and become martyrs elsewhere. The large majority of these saints are anonymous. 

The cult of the martyrs of the Theban legion is particularly pronounced in the Alps, and cult centres dedicated to them can be found in all the Alpine countries, as seen in the case of St. Moritz in Switzerland.  Beyond the Alpine region, however, I do not know how well-known was the cult prior to the mid-thirteenth century. It is likely, however, that the inclusion of the legend of Mauritius and his companions in Legenda Aurea by Jacobus de Vorgaine made Saint Mauritius into a saint known throughout all of Latin Christendom. 

One of the Scandinavian witnesses to his cult can be found in the cathedral of Roskilde, which was decorated with extensive wall-painting programmes towards the end of the fifteenth century. In the chapel of the three kings, Saint Mauritius can be see on the wall behind one of the statues of the grave of King Frederik II (d.1588) and Queen Sophie of Mecklenburg (d.1631). Already in the thirteenth century, if not earlier, Mauritius was often portrayed as a black man, pointing to him being from Africa, and his iconography is one of our best sources to how Africans were depicted in Latin Christendom. 


 

Saint Thomas of Canterbury in Skive Church

Today is the feast of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, more commonly known as Thomas Becket, who was killed in Canterbury Cathedral on this day in 1170. The murder of the archbishop at the hand of knights in King Henry II's retinue was a scandal in its time, and even though the English king had not himself ordered the death of Thomas, he was widely blamed for the deed, especially in ecclesiastical circles.

The cult of Thomas spread quickly throughout Latin Christendom. This was in large part due to the network of ecclesiastical figures to which Thomas had belonged, and that shared his reformist views on the relationship between royal and ecclesiastical power that marked the political map of the twelfth century. The key figure in this network was Pope Alexander III (r.1159-81) who had supported Thomas' cause during the archbishop's exile in France from 1164 to 1170. It was Alexander who canonised Thomas in 1173.

Other important reformist figures were the Norwegian archbishop Eystein Erlendsson (r.1157-88) who is largely credited with bringing the cult of Thomas to Norway (see this blogpost), and the Danish archbishop Eskil Christiernson, or Eskil of Lund, who is considered to be responsible for bringing the cult of Thomas to Denmark, in no small part through the Cistercian order to whom both Eskil and Thomas were close. 

The cult of Thomas in medieval Denmark is still a subject that requires more work, and I hope to be able to contribute to this scholarly lacuna in the coming year. As a way to remind myself of the work to be done, I'm sharing with you one late medieval example of the veneration of Thomas in Denmark, namely a wall-painting from Skive Church in Northern Jutland.

Tomae de Cantuarienus [sic]

Wall-painting from Skive Church, Northern Jutland, c.1500

The example in question comes from the Church of Our Lady in the town of Skive in Northern Jutland. The church was built around 1200, and it is commonly known as Skive Old Church to distinguish it from the eighteenth-century church situated nearby, and which appears to be the hub of today's religious life in Skive.

The early history of Skive is uncertain, and the current scholarly consensus is that the town was most likely established around 1100. Its status as a market town - i.e. a town with particular mercantile privileges - was confirmed in a letter from 1326 (see this website), but the status might have been achieved earlier. Judging from the Church of Our Lady, Skive appears to have been an important town by the turn of the twelfth century, and its importance can be explained or measured by three main factors. First of all, Skive lies very close to Viborg, the episcopal see of Central Jutland which was established c.1060 and thus one of the main power centres in the area. Secondly, a royal manor, Skivegård, is mentioned in the survey of King Valdemar II (r.1201-41), the so-called Liber Census Daniae (see here), and points to the town's vicinity to royal power in addition to the episcopal power at Viborg. The third factor is the fish trade which is likely to have brought a lot of money to the town's wealthier inhabitants. These three factors must all be taken into account as possible explanations for the erection of the Church of Our Lady around 1200.

Vor Frue Kirke, Skive

Vor Frue Kirke, Skive, interior, towards the main altar

In the nineteenth century, the Church of Our Lady was about to be demolished, which was the fate of several redundant churches in Denmark at the time. Fortunately, an impressive programme of late medieval wall paintings was discovered in time, and the church was preserved. It is in this programme that we find the aforementioned late medieval depiction of Thomas of Canterbury. 

The interior of Skive Church is filled with a vast array of saints. These saints were painted c.1500, and it is thought that the workshop that executed these paintings was the same, or was at least connected to, the workshop that decorated Roskilde Cathedral (see here, and here). Among these many saints we find Thomas of Canterbury, situated in the vaulted roof between Peter Martyr of Verona (d.1252) and Sebastian. The question then is how we are to understand this as an expression of veneration of Thomas.

The painting of Thomas of Canterbury in Skive is interesting, both because it is one of very few known medieval Danish depictions of him, and also because of its wider pictorial context. Thomas is here one of many saints. On the one hand, these wall-paintings were commissioned by local donors who might have given very specific instructions about which saints to include. It is therefore tempting to see the inclusion of Thomas in light of the wider history of his cult in medieval Denmark. 

On the other hand, we might understand this as just an expression of his general popularity in Latin Christendom at the time. The saints of Skive Church are for the most part universally venerated in the Latin Church and by the time of the programme's execution these universal saints had been venerated for a very long time. Even the youngest of the saints included, Peter Martyr and Roch (whose traditional, but not uncontested, year of death is 1327), became widely celebrated within a relatively short timespan and are therefore unsurprising to see among more veteran saints. Even those saints that are not universally venerated outside the Nordic countries are nonetheless of regional importance, such as Knud Rex (d.1086) and Knud Dux (d.1131) whose cults were established throughout all of Denmark, and Saint Olaf of Norway (d.1030) whose cult was immensely popular throughout the Nordic world. The inclusion of Thomas in this saintly collegium is, therefore, a testament to the contemporary trends within the cult of saints, rather than a stage in a continuum in the veneration of Saint Thomas in medieval Denmark.

Even so, while the depiction of Thomas in Skive Church might not yield much information about his Danish cult, it nonetheless provides evidence of the endurance of his cult in Latin Christendom, and we see both that he was one of the trendy saints even in Northern Europe around 1500, and that he was one of the many ways in which the donors of Skive's wall-paintings sought to express their participation in the religious trends of Latin Christendom.

Similar blogposts

Saint Olaf in medieval Denmark

Thomas of Canterbury in medieval Norway

On the early cult of Thomas of Canterbury

A song for Thomas of Canterbury

Martin of Tours in Skive Church

Saint Michael in Roskilde

Today, September 29, is the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel. Saint Michael is a popular figure in medieval Christian art, where he is most commonly depicted as the leader of God's army in the fight against the rebel angels. This is often portrayed as the winged Michael in battle with a dragon, and it is a scene that can be found in religious art throughout Christendom. It is likely to have inspired the iconography for several saints who have also become famous for battling dragons. This might especially be the case with Saint George, who is often rendered in a way that makes him appear as more or less a Saint Michael sans wings. This can be explained in part by George typically being depicted as an armed knight, which really emphasises his similarity with the armed general of the heavenly cohorts, Michael. The iconographies of other dragon-battling saints might also have been influenced by Saint Michael, either directly or indirectly through such imitators as Saint George. This is particularly likely in the cases of saints where the dragon has not been an instrumental part of the foundational legend. An example of this can be seen in the case of Saint Olaf of Norway, who is often shown with a dragon or dragon-like figure under his feet. Such a scene is not found Olaf's oldest narratives, and the scene is therefore more likely to have been shaped by other influences. A counterexample are scenes of such famous dragonslayers as Saint Margaret of Antioch, who emerged from the dragon after being swallowed, a scene so iconic that it is unlikely to have been inspired by Saint Michael or any more nondescript dragon slaying stories. The same goes for the legend of Saint Martha fighting the tarasque in Provence, where the iconography of a half-swallowed man's legs protruding from the beast's mouth is unlikely to have any immediate iconographical origin from outside the legend itself. I am, however, not familiar with whether there are any studies of these possible connections.   

For the feast of Michaelmas this year, I'm putting up a picture from a bench end in Roskilde Cathedral. The scene was made around the turn of the fifteenth century. 

Michael battling the dragon

Bench end from Roskilde Cathedral, c.1500

Saint Olaf in Denmark - late medieval examples

Today is the feast of Saint Olaf, patron saint of Norway, who was killed in the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030 in an attempt to regain the title of Norwegian king. Throughout the Middle Ages, Olaf was an important saint in the religious landscape of Scandinavia, and his cult flourished outside the borders of both the Norwegian kingdom and the significantly more extensive Norwegian archdiocese. Due to the extensive contact between Norway and Denmark - through trade and political and religious ties - the cult of Saint Olaf was very strong among the Danes, and several churches, chapels and altars were dedicated to him. Part of the reason why the cult of Saint Olaf gained such popularity in Denmark had to do with him being seen as protector of seafarers, which can be seen in some of the miracles associated with him that have been recorded in the saint-biography now known by the title Passio et Miracula Beati Olavi. Another reason for Olaf's popularity in Denmark had to do with one fundamental feature of the Danish cult of saints. This feature was that the cult of native saints in Denmark - i.e. saints who were either Danish by origin or who had died in Denmark - was very regional. Consequently, there were very few Danish saints whose cults had a significant impact throughout all of Denmark.

Saint Olaf and Saint Knud Rex

The Church of Our Lady, Skive, Northern Jutland, c.1500

The two Danish saints that came closest to a Denmark-wide veneration were Knud Rex (d.1086) and Knud Lavard (d.1131, can.1169), but even though both their cults were propagated by the reigning royal dynasty for a period, this was not sufficient to maintain a long-standing popularity throughout Denmark. The popularity of Knud Rex was revitalised with the establishment of the Kalmar Union, where Knud and Olaf became representatives of two of the three union kingdoms (Saint Erik of Sweden was the third representative). As a consequence, Olaf and Knud, and sometimes also Erik, were increasingly depicted together from the late 1300s onwards. This can be seen in the pictures from Skive Church in Northern Jutland, which were executed around 1500, where Olaf can be seen holding his battle axe (which by this point had become a halberd), and Knud Rex holds his sword. It is tempting to suggest that because of Olaf's popularity in Denmark prior to the Kalmar Union, it was perhaps more natural for Danish patrons to commission Olaf and Knud Rex as part of their pictorial programme, while often leaving Erik of Sweden out of it, because he did not have a strong place in the Danish catalogue of saints prior to 1397.

Saint Olaf and Saint Knud Rex

The Church of Our Lady, Skive, Northern Jutland, c.1500

The interior of the Church of Our Lady, Skive

The Church of Our Lady, Skive, c.1200

Due to the regional nature of the Danish cult of saints, Olaf was more widely venerated in Denmark than any native Danish saint. This can be seen in the higher number of dedications of both churches, chapels and altars when compared with the saints native to Denmark. Moreover, while each of the episcopal centres of medieval Denmark had its own patron saint that bound their region to the divinely ordained history of Christendom - as per the historical understanding of medieval Christians - the veneration of Saint Olaf was present in the episcopal cities as well. For instance, in the bishopric of Odense, where Knud Rex had his cult centre, there were two chapels dedicated to Olaf, while in the city itself there was established a hospital shortly before 1437 by the priest Peder Jensen, which was dedicated to the Holy Ghost, Saint Antony (either of Egypt or of Padua) and Saint Olaf.     

Saint Olaf and the dragon

Roskilde Cathedral, c.1500

Also the episcopal city of Roskilde displays several examples of the cult of Saint Olaf, especially from the turn of the fifteenth century. Two wall-paintings featuring the same motif - Olaf trampling the dragon - can be found, one in the chapel of the three magi (above), and one on a column in the nave (below). The city of Roskilde also had a church dedicated to Saint Olaf, and two more such churches were found in the diocese. Many of these examples of the cult of Saint Olaf in Denmark have survived, but many more have been lost, and we must expect the popularity of the king-saint to have been even more significant than we can establish from surviving evidence.

Bishop flanked by Saint Lucius and Saint Olaf

Roskilde Cathedral, c.1500

Sanctus Olauus

Roskilde Cathedral, c.1500

Working with liturgical manuscripts, part 14 - a puzzle in progress

Last week my colleague Jakob Povl Holck and I were on an excursion to the library of Roskilde to investigate a manuscript fragment that was used to bind a volume by the Danish astronomer Tyco Brahe. I had seen pictures of the fragment before, but I was eager to get a chance to have a closer look and to get a better sense of how the book was bound and how the fragment had been folded in the process. I was also eager to look for details not easily caught by a camera, such as small letters hidden where the fragment folds around the edge of the book - letters that might seem inconsequential, but which can sometimes yield just enough information to take an identification of the text from likely to certain.

We were hosted by two of the librarians who generously and kindly let us examine the fragments in all the ways we deemed necessary. Unfortunately, we quickly found that the tight binding of the book discouraged too much poking and prying in order to get to the details hidden in the inner folds, and neither could we open the book without great care so as not to crack the vellum. As a consequence, although I did get a much better sense of the fragment and its text, I returned from Roskilde with an imperfect understanding of how the manuscript folio had once appeared in its undismembered state. Such an understanding is crucial in order to understand the order of the text and thus understand the fragment as part of a lost unit.

Karen Brahes bibliotek, J.1

Karen Brahes bibliotek, J.1

Karen Brahes bibliotek, J.1

 

Since I had been unable to photograph the book in such a way that both the cover - and thus most of the fragment - could be seen in its entirety, I had to resort to a very old-fashioned way to understand the coherence of the fragment, namely by sort out the individual pieces and put them together like a puzzle. This I did by printing some of the pictures we had taken, then cutting away or folding most of the background. The most challenging part was the inside of the covers, where the left and right folds belonged to the opposite side of the folio as the centre, and therefore had to be separated and then moved about. The end result looked like this.

Reconstruction, based on pictures by myself and Jakob Povl Holck

In the present blogpost I do not wish to say much more about the details of this fragment, as that is a work in progress and there is much that remains to be ascertained. Here, it mainly serves as a little glimpse into the combination of digital and analogue labour that is required in order to research manuscript fragments while ensuring that they are not mangled in the process.

Saint Christopher in Roskilde

In May 2016, a friend and I went on an excursion to Roskilde, one of Denmark's episcopal seats, and our primary target for the trip was its cathedral. The current building has undergone several bouts of extension and renovation throughout the centuries, but its oldest part is believed to date from the 1170s, and it is believed that the building was initiated by Bishop Absalon, who in 1177 became archbishop of Lund and thus metropolitan of Denmark. Absalon's stone cathedral replaced older churches on the spot, and it was dedicated to Saint Lucius who also had been the dedicatee of the previous church. Roskilde was an important religious centre in medieval Denmark, and in the 1140s a chronicle was written here, a chronicle now known as the Roskilde Chronicle, or Chronicon Roskildense.

The front of Roskilde Cathedral

The interior of Roskilde Cathedral is lavishly decorated with wall-paintings and sculptures, and most of them dating from the fifteenth-century onwards. There are many wonderful things to relate about these decorations, and in future blogposts I aim to return to several of them. In the present blogpost, however, I will merely give a taste of the splendour which is housed within the cathedral, and to do so I will give you two representations of Saint Christopher, one of the most common saints in medieval European art.

Saint Christopher carrying the Christ-child
Fresco from the chapel of the three holy kings, Roskilde Cathedral
1460s

The legend of Saint Christopher - Christophanes or Christ-bearer - tells of how a pagan soldier, often depicted as a giant and sometimes even as a dog-head, walked about the world in order to find the most powerful master so that he could submit to him. He met the Devil and sought to serve him, until he discovered that the Devil feared Christ. Intent to become a servant of Christ, Christopher sought instruction in the Christian faith, which he received from a hermit. As a form of service to Christ, Christopher stationed himself at a river to ferry people across. Since he was thought to be a giant, he is normally shown wading the river with his passenger sitting astraddle his neck. One day he was ferrying a little child across the river, and mid-stream the child became so heavy that Christopher barely could stand upright. The child then told him that he was Christ, and that the heaviness was the weight of the world which Christ carried. As proof of the child's testimony, he told Christopher to plant his staff in the ground and let it blossom the next day. When Christopher saw his staff blossoming - which is why the staff can be seen to bear leaves and fruits in the medieval depictions - he became a preacher for the Christian faith. He was later martyred for his missionary effort.

Detail from a wooden seat

Roskilde Cathedral

Saint Christopher's role as the patron of travellers ensured his popularity throughout the Middle Ages, and he was often included among the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a late-medieval saint collegium whose members varied throughout Europe. The depictions of Christopher at Roskilde Cathedral are typical examples of his most common iconography.


Bibliography

Farmer, David, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford University Press, 2004

Roskilde Domkirke in Store Danske Leksikon, Gyldendal