How I learned to love reading – the redux version

At its core, this blogpost is one I have been meaning to write for some time, and if I had not seen a particular video clip online today – more on which anon – I would have left this text to stew a bit longer in my brain, and I would have collected some photographs to illustrate it better. However, since I was reminded about some disgusting assumptions that people still entertain about class and reading, I’m publishing the redux version of a personal essay about how I learned to love reading.   

What prompted the writing of this redux version was a video clip where a judge for the Booker price expressed cheerful disbelief about a book club that included a dinner lady and a steel worker. I will not link to the clip, but it can easily be found with some basic searching. The relevant clip is very brief, and at first it might not seem a great offence, but it should be clear to anyone listening that to be mirthfully surprised about two working class individuals reading literature is to entertain a very misguided, erroneous and misguided view of whom literature is for, and how class should be used as a metric for judging individuals. Because class remains a dominant marker in contemporary society, to perpetuate such views is downright damaging, especially in an era when so many education systems and libraries are embattled by defunding and derisive treatment from – mostly right-wing – governments and other social forces. Precisely because arguments against the funding of libraries and public education play on notions about how access to books can be bought, there is also an implicit corollary that if you are too poor to buy books you don’t need or deserve books, or you are just not interested in books. Such arguments tie into many other strands of thinking, all of which tend to involve variants of the idea that people in certain classes do not need, or do not have any interest in, literature. Any such arguments and any such strands are rubbish, and the fact that they are rubbish is demonstrated by my own trajectory towards a love of reading.  



 Since this is the redux version, I’ll go easy on the autobiographical details, and I’ll skip some of the various milestones in my own history of reading. What matters for this text, however, is a general overview of my background. I was born on a farm in the Western Norwegian fjords. On both sides of my family people have been working as farmers, and been engaged in a variety of jobs that would classify as working class. To map the class-belonging of the past three generations is not easily done, however, because a typical aspect of working life in the Norwegian districts for the better part of the past hundred years or so is that one person would have many different jobs in the course of a lifetime, many of which were seasonal, and many served simply to strengthen the buffer against starvation.  

In the history of my love of reading, one important reference point is my paternal great-grandparents. They were sharecroppers, which in the social fabric of rural Norway meant that they did not own the land where they lived, but rented it from an independent, self-owning farm in exchange for services in the course of the agrarian year. Usually, sharecroppers were financially poor, and often had to add to their income by taking on other jobs. My great-grandmother worked as a seamstress, for instance, and my great-grandfather worked as a sexton. But above all else, they were agrarian labourers, and inhabited one of the lowest rungs on the social ladder of the Norwegian districts. In other words, my great-grandparents were the kind of people that certain judges would find implausible members of a book club.    

Yet my great-grandparents did read, and it was part of their reading that formed a part of my own literary trajectory. I never met them, but I grew up on stories from my grandmother and my grandaunt, and a significant, if not large, part of my childhood was spent in their house where my grandaunt lived for most of her life. In this house was, and still is, a book case that contains the majority of my great-grandparents’ library. Much of it is religious literature, as was typical at the turn of the nineteenth century. But there is also a frayed and fragile copy of Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla, a collection of sagas of the Norwegian kings. This copy is from the first printed edition of Gustav Storm’s translation, published in 1899 in two versions, one deluxe and one which was significantly cheaper called “folkeutgåva”, or the people’s edition. The copy in my great-grandparents’ library is the cheaper copy, but this is still a magnificent book with medievalesque woodcut illustrations executed by leading Norwegian artists, and printed in a Gothic type clearly meant to evoke a medieval aesthetic.  

The printing of this people’s edition was part of a multi-pronged nation building that dominated much of Norwegian cultural life in the years before Norway’s independence from Sweden in 1905. As a part of this nation building there was the idea that the Norwegian folk-spirit could be found among the farmers, and it was in the district that the true Norwegian essence had survived centuries of Danish overlordship, and a near-century of Swedish overlordship. While the ideas about the Norwegian folk spirit are deeply problematic and grounded in a dangerous romanticising of poverty and hardship, there was one aspect of this view of the rural communities that proved very valuable: Namely the notion that the people, also in the poor rural districts, would appreciate the great medieval literature as represented by Heimskringla. I do not know whether my great-grandparents received this copy as a gift or whether they bought it, but based on the frayed edges and the weak spine, it was clearly a much-read book. It was in this condition I first encountered it.  

I do not remember exactly when I first came to this book. I have a vague recollection of some party, probably around Christmas, when being in a strange middle ground between relatives who were toddlers and relatives who were adults, I gravitated towards the book case. By this time I must have been around six or seven. I had already learned to love reading, so in a sense the title of this blogpost is rather misleading, but I was still in this heroic age of reading, where new challenges appear frequently, and where the limits of comprehension are being explored and pushed. The grown-up-looking book with arrows on the cover and tantalising illustrations of men armed with swords and helmets drew me in, and I began to read portions of it, not necessarily understanding much of the antiquated text which was more Danish than Norwegian in its orthography, but at the very least I was able to read the captions to the illustrations, and I became engrossed in the book.        

Since I first discovered this copy of Heimskringla, I returned to my great-grandparents’ book case at every family gathering, and my parents eventually bought a more up-to-date edition, with modern orthography and translated into Nynorsk. I read this book frequently, and although I have to this date not yet read it in its entirety, my own copy shows more than enough wear and tear to indicate its heavy use.

As stated, by the time I began reading Heimskringla, I had already learned to love reading, because it was that love which drew me to my great-grandparents’ book case in the first place. That love was certainly strengthened by the books kept in that book case, but it was also developed through numerous other channels. Some of these channels will only be mentioned as a concluding summary here, although in a more comprehensive version of this essay I aim to go deeper into these as well. The point is that my childhood in the Norwegian district was filled with books, books that I read and books that enticed me into more heavy literature, and books that, although I never read them fully, remained reference points on the journey towards a grown-up reader. Just as important, there were also magazines and comics, many of which were no less educational than the grown-up books, and most of which I have returned to in adult life with perhaps even greater pleasure.        

These influences caused me to love reading. My maternal grandparents had a similar book case, filled with bound volumes of children’s magazines and Norwegian literary classics, where I also sought refuge during family gatherings on that side of the family. My paternal grandmother bought me a subscription for one of those children’s magazines that she herself had grown up reading during her sharecropper childhood. My maternal grandfather gifted me many old copies of such magazines, along with various books. My parents bought me comics and books that allowed me to have those first exhilarating moments of advancing through the various stages of reading comprehension. The details are for another time, but for the present it bears repeating that all these initial stages happened within, and were made possible by, a family of farmers and rural workers, where my parents’ generation was the first to have much formal education after the age of 15, and where reading was valued and appreciated.

It is thanks to my rural family that I am the person I am today, and a large part of who I am is an avid reader – of books, of magazines, of comics, of many types of literature. I have been allowed to pursue my love of reading in my professional life, and my reading has shaped me in ways that I hope will prove beneficial in the grand scheme of things. One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in the course of my reading life is exactly this: That people from lower social classes have no less appreciation for and love of reading than those who grow up in middle and upper classes, and are also no less deserving or capable of participating in a reading world. Unfortunately, this lesson still needs to be taught, even in 2022.     
     

The church containing Olaf Haraldsson's first shrine has probably been found

This is pretty exciting. For quite some time there has been an ongoing archaeological excavation in Trondheim, north of the public library in the city centre. Excavations began as a routine check of the area due to plans for a new building on the site. A few days ago, the main city newspaper of Trondheim, Adresseavisa, issued a video report from the dig where they interviewed project leader Anna Petersén. The archaeologists have found a graveyard and the remains of a church altar, most likely from the early part of the eleventh century. The preliminary conclusion is that this is the Church of Saint Clement, and this is where the excitement really kicks in - at least for me.

The Church of Saint Clement was namely the first church in which the body of Olaf Haraldsson was placed after it was exhumed on August 3, 1031. The exhumation was commissioned by Grimkell, an Englishman who was the bishop of Trondheim and who had followed Olaf Haraldsson to Norway. According to skaldic poems written within twelve years of the exhumation, the hairs and nails on the dead king were seen to have continued to grow in death. This, together reports of healings performed on the site, was seen as a sign of Olaf's holiness, and Grimkell declared Olaf to be a saint and had the body translated to the Church of Saint Clement. This was at a point in history when bishops had the authority to proclaim sainthood for dead people. Olaf's body was enshrined in the church and this shrine soon became a site of pilgrimage, and both the enshrinement and the pilgrims are attested to by skaldic poems written before 1043, namely Glælognskvida (c.1032) by Thorarin Loftunga and Erfidrápa (c.1042) by Sigvat Tordsson. A few decades later, the body of Saint Olaf was later moved to the Church of Christ which was built on the site where Olaf was belived to have been buried before his enshrinement in the Church of Saint Clement. The new church, situated where the current cathedral of Trondheim is placed, was commissioned by Olaf Kyrre (ruled 1067-93).

It has long been speculated about where the Church of Saint Clement was to be found, and until the current find it was believed to be somewhere else. Naturally, one always has to be cautious when making claims about the identity of medieval ruins, but here there is a strong likelihood that the identification is correct.

A video and a description of the find in English can be found here:

http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/11/archaeologists-in-norway-church-and-altar-of-viking-king-olav-haraldsson/113227

Bishop Grimkell washes the exhumed body of Olaf Haraldsson
Detail from an altar front, Trondheim, early 14th century

A few final remarks to those of you who have by now read the article:


- The remark that the church was "a wooden stave church" is a pleonasm. All stave churches were made of timber.

- That the find gives credibility to saga accounts is less important than one might think. Snorri Sturlusson is not the first to have written about this, and his sources were in fact the two skaldic poems mentioned above. That these poems, composed so close to the events themselves and known through written records that Snorri relied on, were right about the translation and the enshrinement should not surprise anyone.

- That Olaf was "declared a saint by popular acclaim" might be something Snorri claims, but this is very unlikely to be true. There might have been some knowledge of the Christian concept of sanctity among the Norwegian Christians, but for there to have been commissioned an exhumation of the body, and for the king to have been declared a saint, it was necessary to have episcopal authority at the very least. Nothing of the story as it is found in the early skaldic poems suggests that the first cult of Olaf was a popular cult that was later embraced by the church. On the contrary, the accounts present the story as something entirely orchestrated by the ecclesiastical power, which at that time was Bishop Grimkell. The people did probably embrace the cult quickly, but it was due to Grimkell it all started.

The Saint Olaf altar front in Trondheim

I am currently in Trondheim as a visiting scholar at the department of historical studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The purpose of my sojourn is to connect with colleagues here who have worked a great deal with the material of the cult of Saint Olaf in medieval Norway. This term, I am myself working on a thesis chapter on the literature of Saint Olaf, and therefore it feels very good to be working in the city that once was the cult centre of Norway's most important saint.

One of the great benefits of working on Olaf while residing in Trondheim is the proximity to the remains of the once vibrant cult. Among these remains is an altar front exhibited in the Archbishop's Palace, now a museum of Trondheim's medieval past. In the current blogpost I wish to share this amazing piece of medieval art with you, and at the same time provide a brief description of what it actually depicts. For a more thorough description, see this website (in Norwegian). (All pictures are taken by me.)

The altar front depicts the martyrdom of Olaf Haraldsson, king of Norway from 1015 to 1028. Olaf died 29th of July, 1030 in an attempt to regain political control of the Norwegian kingdom, which by then was under the Danish overlordship of King Knud the Great (d.1035). The final battle was fought at Stiklestad, a bit north of Trondheim, and was interpreted in the medieval literature as a battle between Christians and pagans. Olaf was indeed depicted as a new Constantine, who finally - through his great sacrifice - brought all of Norway into the Christian fold. This image of the great missionary martyr was cultivated in the texts composed towards the end of the twelfth century at the court of the Norwegian archbishop Eystein Erlendsson (r.1161-88) and his immediate successors. (For a brief history of this literature, see this blogpost.)

The image of Olaf as a missionary king has been seriously questioned by modern historians, and there is little reason to buy into the image formulated in the medieval texts. However, what is of interest to me as a historian of the cult of Saint Olaf, is exactly how this medieval image worked and how it was maintained. And in this altar front, we see a very vivid description of how the martyr story was imagined.

The altar front is believed to have been made in or around Trondheim in the period 1320-30. Its four scenes depict four key stages in Olaf's death and canonization. Olaf's canonization took place on August 3rd 1031, when his body was exhumed from its first burial site and then translated to the church of Saint Clement in Trondheim (also known as Nidaros). This translation of Olaf's relics was organized by Bishop Grimkell of Trondheim, a bishop whom Olaf himself had brought to Norway from England when he sailed to his native land in 1015. At this time, the canonization of a saint was an episcopal matter, not something that was decided by the pope or his cardinals.

The story on the altar front must be read from bottom left to top left, then from bottom right to top right. It is difficult to assess the immediate source for the narrative of the altar front. The most likely source is the work now known as Passio et Miracula Beati Olavi, in which Olaf's life, death and miracles were collected into one volume. This Latin volume had received its fourth redaction probably sometime in the 1180s, and should be seen as the official version of the legend of Saint Olaf. However, the first panel includes an episode that is not found - as far as I can judge from Gustav Storm's 1880 edition of the Latin text - in Passio Olavi. It is, however, found in Snorri Sturlusson's Heimskringla, written sometime in the 1220s, but - as will be seen below - there is one significant difference between Snorri and the panel which goes against Heimskringla as the altar front's most immediate source.

In the first panel we see Olaf on his way to Stiklestad and he hands over a bag of coins to a passer-by. Olaf tells the man - a farmer in Snorri's story, but in the panel most likely a priest - that the coins are to be spent on prayers for the souls of the heathens who will fall for the sword of the Christians in the coming battle. The speech scroll in Olaf's other hand might originally have said something to that effect.

The second panel takes place te night before the battle at Stiklestad, and while he is sleeping he receives a dream vision. In this vision Olaf sees a ladder ascending to Heaven - iconographically related to Jacob's ladder, presumably - and on the top of the ladder is Christ calling to Olaf and asking him to ascend to Christ and be happy. In Snorri, Christ does not figure in the vision and Olaf ascends the stairs in the dream. This vision is seen as the premonition of Olaf's martyrdom, and is therefore an important evidence to the idea that Olaf's death was a part of God's plan for which Olaf received his just reward.

The symbols of the evangelists Mark and Matthew

Olaf in the centre of the panel

He is olding the axe of his martyrdom and the royal apple, emblem of his kingship

The lower right panel shows Olaf's death at the hands of his heathen adversaries. In Passio Olavi, very few details are provided concerning the killing of Olaf. Since the Passio is a hagiographic text, aimed at emphasizing the victorious sacrifice rather than the corporeal demise, the text is more focussed on Olaf's soul ascending to Heaven.

One interesting detail to note in this panel is the faces of Olaf's killers compared to the faces of Olaf's own soldiers. While the soldiers of the Christian army have rather bland and plain faces, the faces of the enemies have protruding noses and scowling eyes, in sharp contrast to the Christians in the panel. It could be that these faces are intended to highlight the heathen religion of the antagonists, and it would be useful to compare these depictions with contemporary depictions of Jews and Saracens. Øystein Ekroll, PhD and expert on the medieval cathedral of Nidaros, told me once in conversation that Tore Hund - the man holding the spear - was sometimes said to have been a sorcerer, and that is perhaps what is intended to be portrayed in the panel.

However, before drawing any firm conclusions in this matter, it should be noted that in the first panel there is also a figure with a similarly protruding nose who seems to carry a Christian shield. The verdict awaits therefore a more thorough examination of the material.

The symbols of the evangelists John and Luke

The last panel on the altar front shows the exhumed body of Olaf being washed and sprinkled with holy water. The man with the asperigillus, with which holy water is sprinkled, must be a bishop because of his crozier and bishop's mitre, and this is therefore most likely bishop Grimkell, the one who orchestrated Olaf's translation. The man who washes the body is possibly a deacon, although the crozier in the background might suggest that he, too, is a bishop. In the centre of the panel is a man who appears to hold a book, and this might actually be the Passio Olavi itself, the account of his life, death and miracles.

There are more things to be said about the Saint Olaf altar front, and there are more details to be fleshed out - some of which have already been noted at the aforementioned Norwegian website (here). The panel is a beauitful piece of medieval art, and a great example of the kind of condensed narrative that one often finds in pictorial representations of the legends of the saints.


Similar blogposts

A nineteenth-century hymn for Saint Olaf

The royal saints of Hungary

A miracle of Saint Olaf's

The literature of medieval Nidaros

Amateur theories on the burial site of Saint Olaf

Saint Hallvard of Norway

The early cult of Canute Lavard

Saint Olaf and the literature of Nidaros Archbishopric c.1180 - c.1220

Yesterday, June 29^th, was the dies natalis of Saint Olaf, patron saint of Norway. In Norwegian this day is known as "olsok", which comes from "olavsvaka", the wake of Olaf, and in Trondheim the day is celebrated as a part of the Olaf days, a fair held in honour of the saint-king. Saint Olaf is an interesting figure in Norwegian history, and although we have been a Protestant country since 1536/37 and are becoming increasingly secular, Olaf occupies an important place in our national consciousness.

For me, on the other hand, he is chiefly interesting from an academic point of view, since part of my PhD thesis will deal with the medieval cult of Saint Olaf. Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to write about some of the texts about Olaf from medieval Norway, or more precisely, the texts written within the milieu of Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson.

Eystein Erlendsson received the pallium in 1161 and began his office as archbishop of Norway which had been established only very recently after the archbishop of Lund was divided into three. In the course of his office, which he held until his death in 1188, Eystein did his best to establish Nidaros, modern-day Trondheim, as the ecclesiastical centre of Norway. In his first year as archbishop, he consecrated an altar to SS John the Baptist, Vincent and Silvester, and in the course of his career he was deeply embroiled in the political struggels of his time, even leading a brief exile in England in the early 1180s.

An important part of Eystein's effort was the cult of Saint Olaf, who became known in the twelfth century as rex perpetuus Norvegie, meaning that the kings of Norway were seen as vassals of the saint. As a consequence of Eystein's engagement with the cult, there grew up a significant body of literature within or connected to the archiepiscopal court at Nidaros, and furthermore a literature that was at times at odds with the literature steeped in non-ecclesiastical traditions. Books of the latter kind, such as the royal sagas of Snorri Sturlusson, are today most widely famous and widely referred to by the non-academic public. This means that the public debates often give the impression that before Snorri there was nothing, or at best there is a fleeting mention of Passio Olavi, the Latin vita of Olaf's deeds, death and miracles. In this blogpost, I want to present the ecclesiastical literature connected to the cult of Olaf before Snorri's Heimskringla.

The following is a brief introduction to various works written from c.1180 onwards, it is not an exhaustive list of twelfth-century Norwegian literature, and nor does it enter into a discussion about the literature of the Olaf cult prior to 1180, of which little is known with certainty.

The martyrdom of Olaf Haraldsson

Detail from an antependium from an unknown Norwegian church, c.1320-40

Courtesy of Store Norske Leksikon

Historia Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium

The History of the Old Kings of Norway was written around 1180 by a monk belonging to the retinue of Archbishop Eystein who gives his name as Theodoricus Monachus, most likely a latinised form of the Norwegian name Tore. The work is dedicated to Eystein, and although its prime focus is the kings of Norway, here and there we read chapters that treat other issues, such as the age of the world and the placement's of Homer's Scylla and Charybdis in the Norwegian waters. The work is also suffused with references to contemporary learning and recent writers, and it appears that Theodoricus – like his patron Eystein – had received his education in France, for instance in Paris or Chartres. This was not the first Latin historiography written in Norway, but for its effect it might be said to be the most significant: Theodoricus' use of French sources introduced the suggestion that Saint Olaf had been baptised in Rouen, not in Norway as was held by the vernacular tradition. This made its way into Olav's vita which was being compiled at the time and founded the Ecclesiastical tradition in the question of Olaf's baptism.


Passio et Miraculi Beati Olavi

This work has been compiled in several redactions, and the most recent scholarly suggestion is four, the final one being overseen by Archbishop Eystein, who himself dictated one of the chapters in which we learn of a miracle that healed the archbishop himself. This captivating passage – narrated in the first person and with great emotional intensity – led early scholars of the Olaf cult to the conclusion that Eystein had written the entire book himself, which we now know is far from the case. The book is comprised of a short passage of Olaf's passio, and this section might be the oldest and most well known. After that there follows a catalogue of Olaf's miracles which were performed mostly in Norway but also in Ireland, in Russia and as far away as Byzantium where the Varangian guard ensured Saint Olaf's presence also in Constantinople. Some of these miracles are probably from the eleventh century and are referred to in a poem written by the Icelandic cleric Einar Skulasson in 1153 for an assembly of ecclesiastical and secular magnates in Nidaros. The poem is a celebration of Saint Olaf, and is today referred to as Geisli, the Sun-ray, being one of Olaf's many names in the poems.

Passio Olavi was probably compiled from old stories and miracle-reports written down at the shrine in Nidaros cathedral (as suggested by Lars Boje Mortensen). That Archbishop Eystein inserts himself in the narrative shows how deeply invested he was in the project, and it also suggests that many of the other miracles have been reported in Eystein's lifetime. Since Eystein was such a key figure in this compilation, the terminus ante quem for Passio Olavi should be set at 1188, or possibly a few years after, but its end result appears to have been envisioned and orchestrated by Eystein, who may or may not have lived to see it completed.


Officium Olavi

The Passio Olavi was the foundational text for the new liturgical office for Saint Olaf. This was not the first liturgical text to celebrate Olaf – that one is found in an eleventh-century English document known as The Leofric Collectar – but it was an important part of the renewed cult under Eystein. We don't know exactly when the office was written, but surviving fragments tell us that it was in relatively wide circulation around 1220, and given the intensity of veneration under Eystein it is likely that the office was at least begun during his archiepiscopacy. The text is a more or less verbatim rendition of the Passio and the music – as shown by Roman Hankeln – is taken from the office of Saint Augustine, which points to a strong connection to the order of Augustine friars with whom Eystein had come into close contact during his student days in Paris.

Saint Olaf the king

Wooden sculpture from Överselö Church in Sweden, date unknown

Courtesy of Wikimedia

Ágrip af Noregs konungasogum

Extracts from the Sagas of the Norwegian Kings is the modern, academic name given to a vernacular history written c.1190. Little is known of its author or where it was written, but it is possible that it was written in Denmark by a monk belonging to the retinue of Archbishop Eirik Ivarsson, Eystein's successor, who was driven into exile after a quarrel with King Sverre of Norway. The book is a short vernacular account, but it owes its debt to the Latin literature and although it does not go into the specifics of Olaf's baptism, it does belong within the ecclesiastical literature rooted in the archbishop's see at Nidaros.


The Old Norwegian Homily Book

The last example here is like Ágrip only part of the Nidaros literature by extension as it was written in Bergen around 1200, possibly connected to the Augustinian monastery. The book is a collection of sermons or exempla for sermons, and there is still no consensus about whether it was compiled as a guidebook on homiletics or whether the sermons included were actually preached to the lay public. The homily book is written in the vernacular, and it also includes a selection from Alcuin of York's De Virtutibus et Vitiis. For its sermon on July 29 it borrows from Passio Olavi and next to the extract from Alcuin it is the longest text in the collection. This text, too, follows the ecclesiastical tradition by placing Olaf's baptism in Rouen, and from its dependence on Passio it belongs to the wider Nidaros literature.

The Fall of King Olaf ("Kong Olafs fald")

Drawing by Halfdan Egidius for the 1899 translation of Snorri's Heimskringla

Courtesy of Wikimedia

 Concluding remarks

As we see, the literature that grew up around the cult of Saint Olaf at the turn of the twelfth century is quite wide-ranging and numerous, especially considering that Norway was a country whose Latinity very much was in its early stage and where there had only been an archiepiscopal power structure for a few decades. I have here emphasised how various texts have treated the baptism of Olaf Haraldsson, since this is the feature which allows us to see that these texts are connected and form part of the ecclesiastical tradition which in this respect differs from the older, vernacular tradition which is supported by for instance Snorri Sturlusson. This list is also a way of showing that there is much more to Norwegian medieval literature than the sagas of Snorri. 

For similar blogposts, see:

A nineteenth-century hymn for Saint Olaf

A brief history of the twentieth-century church of Saint Olaf in Trondheim