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. 

Christmas in the Ål stave church ceiling

 

At the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, it is possible to behold one of the most exquisite surviving works of medieval art from Norway, namely the ceiling of the ciborium of Ål stave church. The ceiling, visible to the ministrant priest and presumably intended to amplify his voice during sermons, contains a number of Biblical episodes, from Creation to the life of Christ. One of the key episodes is the Nativity, where Mary is shown reclining in a bed and looked after by a servant or a nurse, while Joseph keeps an eye on the manger, with the ox and the ass looking curiously into it. It is possible - although I have not yet read any analysis of this artwork - that the bed in which Mary lies is aimed to convey a sense of royalty. The blanket being in two colours, rather than a single colour, might be seen as foreshadowing Mary's role as queen of Heaven, a role that is made clear in the next episode. Here, we see the Virgin Mary enthroned, an angel attending to her with a thurible, and two of the three kings bringing gifts. The Christ-child sits in her lap, and Mary herself is wearing a crown. 

Ale for Christmas

In Gulatingslova, the law of the Gulathing law province in Norway, there are strict rules for the brewing of ale before Christmas. These rules are listed in chapters 6 and 7 of the so-called Christian law, namely that part of the provincial law that pertained to religious life. In these two chapters, we read that the ale should be brewed before the feast of All Saints (November 1), and it was to be consecrated to Christ and the Virgin Mary, in the hope of a good and peaceful year. Failure or refusal to brew the Christmas ale could incur penalties, at least if the means of your family were sufficient to enable you to brew the quantities prescribed by the law.   

Ale was an important part of the community-building of medieval Norway. Consequently, the rules of Gulatingslova draws up how much ale should be brewed per household, and how many people should brew together. Brewing was, in other words, something that at least three or more people did as a joint effort. However, Norway being as topographically interesting and challenging as it remains to this day, there were also exceptions for those that lived too far away, be it on remote islands or in the mountains. 

The brewing of ale for Christmas has continued to our own times, and in my family we brew our ale every year. Granted, we fail to follow the rules laid down in Gulatingslova, as we start a few days before Christmas Eve, usually the 18th or the 19th of December, and we would have incurred fines . Unlike the Norwegians in the Middle Ages, however, we aim to stop the brewing process before the alcohol sets in, so we bottle the liquid after one or two nights. This year, we let it brew in its keg for two nights.   

The common word for this kind of traditional Christmas ale nowadays is 'sukkerøl', which literally means sugar ale or sugar beer. It is brewed on a syrup of juniper and malt extract, and a lot of sugar. The process involves several steps, the first of which is to go into the woods or bogs to find some juniper twigs which are green and fresh, preferably with some berries on them. Sometimes, this step can be surprisingly challenging, such as when the juniper bushes are covered in snow, or - as happened about two decades ago - if there is an ongoing sickness which turns the juniper needles brown and dead. For this reason, I always tend to make a mental note of where to find good juniper bushes whenever I'm walking about in the village. 

The day after the the juniper twigs have been gathered, the brewing itself commences. The twigs are boiled until the needles turn blackish brown. The keg is filled with boiled water - to ensure that there are no bacteria -, sugar is boiled to a milky syrup, and, when the temperature is low enough not to kill the yeast, all the ingredients are put into the water. As our keg only takes 25 litres, we need to be careful in measuring out how much water is used for the syrups of sugar and juniper. Once mixed, the ale is left to brew at a stable temperature. After two nights, the glorious golden liquid is put on jars and bottles, and are ready to be enjoyed at every meal.  

21,5 of the 23 litres of this year's production

The brewing of ale is perhaps my favourite Christmas preparation. There are probably numerous reasons for this. Partly, it speaks to my sense of connection with the past, the joy of ensuring continuity across generation, to participate in an annual event in which my ancestors once participated, too. There is something about the passing down of knowledge and expertise that I find very pleasing, and perhaps especially because the old-fashioned aspects of the brewing stand in contrast to the many ephemeral and unnecessary elements of the contemporary, consumer-culture Christmas celebration. And, perhaps just as important, it also tastes delicious. 

 

Plains and deep dells - contrasts of reading

 

As I have often emphasized when writing about reading, I do enjoy those occasions when the contrast between what is being read and the place in which the reading is being done, makes both the reading and the surroundings much more memorable. Sometimes, this contrast is serendipitous, as I noted when describing my reading of Orosius a few years ago, while other times it is deliberately orchestrated in the hope that the contrast will serve to etch the experience more deeply into my memory. I November, I orchestrated such a contrast, and it was a great pleasure. 

The occasion was a research trip to Poland, where I stayed for two weeks. Having been to Poland before, I was familiar with the landscape: largely flat, and sometimes very flat. I prepared myself accordingly, and brought with me a novel whose scenes would be a far cry from the Polish fields. The novel in question was Hubroen roper, 'The eagle-owl calls', which was written in 1971 by the Norwegian author Mikkjel Fønhus (1894-1973), famous for his descriptions of the Norwegian wilderness. The novel chronicles the events of a hamlet in the interior valleys of Southern Norway through the last years of a female eagle-owl. Hubroen roper is a lament of the decline of the eagle-owl population in Norway, a decline caused in part by an aggressive policy onn the part of the Norwegian government, which paid a bounty for any raptors and predators that were shot or trapped. Since the narrative follows an eagle-owl, much of the scenery consists of deep dells, ravines and crags - in other words, exactly the kind of landscape with which I am familiar from my childhood. 

The riven topography of the novel provided a pleasant contrast with my surroundings. I read a substantial part of the short novel while sitting on a train to the village of Teresin, about an hour northwest of Warsaw. It was a late November morning, and outside the fields stretched on to some fuzzy-looking treetops on the horizon, which in turn shone black against a muted sunlight. It was a peculiar day. Quite cold, and with clouds that filtered the sunlight in such a way that the sun itself seemed to have drowned, and it felt like sunrise and sunset at the same time, despite being neither. The November fields of Mazovia had little in common with the pine-covered, ice-carved mountains of Southern Norway, and for that very reason both the mountains on the page and the fields beyond the page took a much larger place in my consciousness than they otherwise might have done. The whole affair pleased me greatly as a reader. 

The affair also pleased me as a scholar and as a medievalist. I am currently hired as a postdoctoral researcher on a project aimed at comparing the medieval past of both Norway and Poland. This is a collaboration between the University of Oslo and the University of Warsaw. For the past two years, the project has engendered a lot of discussion concerning the art of comparing one and the same phenomena in two different areas. Poland and Norway have been chosen in part because they have many similarities as medieval polities, but they also have a lot of differences. One such difference is the very landscape. Although Poland does have mountains, a lot of its most important centres of religious and political affairs in the Middle Ages are cities located on the plains. Norway, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Throughout this project, the importance of topography has been raised time and again, and the issue has provided a very useful yardstick when analysing how a phenomenon like the foundation of nunneries or the establishment of cult centres unfolded in both Norway and Poland. Sometimes, life and scholarship converge in pleasing ways, and this was one of those times.    

Monastic typology and institutional identity in Tyniec Abbey

 

As part of a sojourn in Krakow, I joined an excursion to Tyniec Abbey, a Benedictine monastery a short distance southwest of the city. The abbey is beautifully located on a hill overlooking the Vistula River, and was established around the turn of the twelfth century. While the abbey contains many interesting and exciting historical treasures, there was one detail that struck a particular chord in me, and that I wish to highlight here, namely a set of fifteenth-century frescoes from one of the chapels of the abbey church.  

The frescoes in question are located, as can be seen below, in the narrow space between the arc of the chapel entrance and the vaults of the ceiling, and they depict episodes from the life of Saint Benedict. The first scene, starting from the bottom, features a monk holding a book, probably Saint Benedict and his rule. The middle shows a building complex, which is probably intended to be Montecassino, founded by Benedict and the antecessor of all later Benedictine abbeys. The top scene shows Saint Benedict throwing himself into a thorn bush to fight his sexual desires. 

What we see in these frescoes in Tyniec is how the monks understood their institutional identity. As they were Benedictines, the abbey of Tyniec was a descendant of the motherhouse of Montecassino, and they themselves were the spiritual descendants of Saint Benedict. Through these frescoes, the monks were reminded of this bond of kinship which was part of the abbey's history, and they were also reminded about their typological bonds to Saint Benedict, since they were expected to be his imitators. These scenes were educational, both in the way that they situated the abbey within a greater historical narrative, and in the way that it reminded the monks of their duties and their identity as Benedictine monks. Exactly how the historical and the typological connections were activated - either during sermons, in individual contemplations, during teaching, or all of these and more - the frescoes were part of the identity formation that was a continuously unfolding element in the daily life of the abbey of Tyniec.   

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.

On minor saints and priorities

 

Every now and again I return to the Swedish medieval calendars that I used to work on in the spring of 2021, and I am reminded of how utterly fascinating it is to put one’s research skills to the test in order to sort out a question of identity, and to sift through available materials in order to advance one step forward. The plethora of names contrasts frustratingly well with the dearth of solid details, and each puzzle provided by the often fragmentary survivals of the calendars is a reminder of a now-lost historical context from which these puzzles emerged, either as veneration of historical persons – however altered by generations of cult activity – or as a scribal error or confusion.

While I have already reflected on the tantalizing opportunities of knowledge and speculation offered by these minor saints (here), today’s work has highlighted to me that much of our current dearth of information is the result of modern-day research priorities. Since research necessarily must be funded, those organizations that provide that funding need to be convinced that a proposed project is worth both the while and, above all, the money. Moreover, since the funding bodies in questions are rarely familiar with the gaps in knowledge or where we need to spend more effort in order to get one, albeit one important, step further, the acquisition of research money requires convincing arguments. Such arguments are typically made using well-known topics or figures, or even buzzwords that are in vogue at any given moment.

Arguing for the funding required to track minutiae in a vast body of surviving medieval manuscript materials that pertain to the cult of saints, however, is difficult to do, because by their very nature such minutiae are not well known, and neither do they have a notable impact on later historical events. Yet these minor saints can still teach us a great deal about the mechanics of cult-making, distribution and dissemination, about the tenacity of stories or the placeholders or echoes of those stories, i.e., the hard-to-identify names, about specific historical moments when the hand of a scribe unwittingly created the starting-point for a non-existent saint through conflation or confusion. In short, knowing more about these minor saints might allow us to understand the cult of saints as a phenomenon in much greater detail.

These reflections are partly the result of the time and effort spent looking for details about saints such as Victor Maurus, Primus and Felicianus, and the elusive Januarius whom I have not yet managed to identify. Some of these are well known in some places (such as Victor Maurus in the Milanese tradition, thanks to Ambrose and his cult-making efforts). Some are widely, if not well, known thanks to their inclusion in canon-making texts such as Legenda Aurea (such as Primus and Felicianus). And others remain difficult to identify (such as Januarius, whichever Januarius he might be). Since relatively little scholarship has been expended on these saints, what available information there is must often be treated with caution, especially because it can be difficult to assess where a specific identification comes from, or what is the basis of a specific claim. The effort with which details about these and other such saints are found and assessed is a constant reminder of how the small things suffer in the shadow of bigger, more shiny ones, and that academia is still very much steered by the attraction to shiny things.  

Detail from Sveriges Riksarkiv Fr 25548

Entries for May 8, May 10, and May 12; these saints are, respectively:

Victor Martyr (Victor Maurus), Gordianus and Epimachus, and Nereus and Achilles

Detail from Sveriges Riksarkiv Fr 25603

Entries for the first halves of May and June