Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood in Medieval Northern Europe, c. 1000-1200

292 Pages·2019·2.299 MB·English

by  Lars Hermanson

Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood in Medieval Northern Europe, c. 1000–1200
<<UUNN>>
The Northern World
North Europe and the Baltic c. 400–1700 a.d.
Peoples, Economies and Cultures
Editors
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson (Oslo)
Piotr Gorecki (University of California at Riverside)
Steve Murdoch (St. Andrews)
Cordelia Heß (Greifswald)
Anne Pedersen (National Museum of Denmark)
volume 85
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/nw
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Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood
in Medieval
Northern Europe, c. 1000–1200
By
Lars Hermanson
Translated by
Alan Crozier
leiden | boston
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Cover illustration: Joannes Sambucus’s emblem “Vera amicitia” from Emblemata (1564), SM947, A8v.
By permission of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.
An earlier version of this book was published by the Nordic Academic Press in 2009 as Bärande band.
Vänskap, kärlek och brödraskap i det medeltida Nordeuropa, ca 1000–1200.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 1569-1462
ISBN 978-90-04-40007-8 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-40121-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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Contents
Acknowledgements  ix
List of Illustrations  x
Introduction  1
1 Friendship and Self-Interest  1
2 Friendship as a Research Topic  7
3 Thesis  13
4 The Outline of the Book  15
1 Ideas of Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood in Classical
Philosophy  20
1 Friendship in Theory  20
2 The Terminology of Friendship  22
3 Friendship in Greek Philosophy  24
4 Amicitia in Roman Philosophy  27
5 Friendship in the Apocalyptic Era  31
6 From Classical Philosophy to the Christian Theology of Late
Antiquity  33
7 Summing Up  37
2 Friendship and Social Formation in the High Middle Ages  41
1 Centuries of Upheaval  41
2 Different Friendship Discourses?  43
3 The Ecclesiastical Elite  45
3.1 Collective Identity  47
3.2 Friendship as a Spiritual and Intellectual Concept  49
3.3 Spiritalis Amicitia  51
3.4 The Intellectual Field and the Language of Friendship  53
3.5 Abbot William’s Collection of Letters  56
3.6 The Terminology of Friendship  59
3.7 Living Friendship  61
4 The Secular Elite  64
4.1 The Position of the Aristocracy in Society  64
4.2 The Strategies of the Secular Elite to Legitimize Its
Authority  66
4.3 The Ideal Aristocrat  69
4.4 The Social Environment  72
4.5 The Court as a Political Arena  75
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vi Contents
5 Friendship and the Legitimation of Power in Saxo Grammaticus’
Gesta Danorum  80
5.1 Saxo’s Classical View of History  81
5.2 The Audience of Gesta Danorum  84
5.3 The Spiritual Friendship between Bishop William and Svend
Estridsen  86
5.4 The Friendship between Bishop Absalon and Valdemar I  91
6 Collective Pragmatic Friendship: Alliance Systems and
Politics  97
7 The Practical Benefit of Friendship  101
7.1 Friends and Royal Kinsmen  105
8 Friendship and the Legitimation of Power  106
9 Summing Up  108
3 Friendship in an Oath-Taking Society – A Ritual Perspective  111
1 The Oath-Taking Society  111
1.1 Oaths and Friendship  113
1.2 The Language of Rituals  121
1.3 Ritual Friendship in a Broader Chronological and Geographical
Perspective  126
1.4 Ritual Friendship – Text and Practice  133
2 Summing Up  136
4 Friendship and Lordship in Twelfth-Century Scandinavia  140
1 Different Forms of Government  140
2 Friendship as a Form of Lordship – The Power Structure of
Traditional Society  143
2.1 Power Built Up from Below – The Power Basis of Icelandic
Chieftains  145
2.2 The Debate about Political Development in Norway in the Civil
War Era  147
2.3 Protective Relationships and Military Development  150
2.4 Undermining Lordship – The Struggle for the Throne in
Norway  155
2.5 Friendship and the Political Structure  159
2.6 The Fruits of Vertical Friendship  163
2.7 Friendship – A Free Choice?  168
2.8 Friendship and Mistrust  172
2.9 Power, Reputation, Violence, and Friendship  176
2.10 Friendship – A Two-Edged Sword  180
2.11 The Popular Prince in Heimskringla and Gesta Danorum  183
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Contents vii
3 Friendship and the Christian Ideology of Lordship  190
3.1 Royal Diplomas and the Sacred Order  192
3.2 The Intellectual Debate on the Origin of Power  194
3.3 God’s Friends and Satan’s Henchmen – The Dualistic Conflict
Perspective  198
4 Group Culture and Collective Friendship  201
4.1 The Ideals, Structure, and Function of the Guilds  203
4.2 Brotherhood and Continuity  208
5 Friendship, Brotherhood, and Power Systems in Valdemarian
Denmark  211
5.1 King Valdemar’s Letter to the Gotland Travellers  212
5.2 The Brotherhood List and Medieval Group Culture  215
5.3 The Ideology and Function of European Brotherhoods  218
5.4 Lord and Friend – Lord and Brother?  221
5.5 The Redirection of Gift Exchange  227
5.6 Oaths, Brotherhood, and Lordship  229
6 Summing Up  235
Epilogue  241
1 Why Friendship?  241
1.1 Friendship and Society  241
1.2 Friendship and Legitimation  242
1.3 Friendship and Structural Changes  244
1.4 Friendship as Ideology and Culture  245
Bibliography  249
Index  278
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Acknowledgements
This book was first published in Swedish in 2009. During the last decade re-
search on friendship has become much more firmly established than it was
when I wrote the first edition. The state of research has therefore been updated
and certain clarifications have been added to make this book more suitable for
an international audience. When I was completing the first version, a num-
ber of people assisted with critical scrutiny of the manuscript and insightful
comments to give the text greater logical clarity than it had initially. For this
I am very grateful to Professor Thomas Lindkvist, Gothenburg University, Do-
cent Samuel Edquist, Uppsala University, Professor Brian P. McGuire, Roskilde
University, alas, now the late Professor Birgit Sawyer, Uppsala, Professor Eva
Österberg, Lund University, the personnel at Lödöse Museum, and the mem-
bers of the “State Team” of the Nordic Centre for Medieval Studies under the
leadership of Professor Sverre Bagge. I must thank Docent Wojtek Jezierski,
Gothenburg University, for encouraging me to publish an English translation,
and for providing valuable hints and advice in the course of the work on this
revised version. I would also like to thank the project leaders, Hans Jacob Orn-
ing and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, for giving me the chance to work in the stimulat-
ing research environment at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian
Academy of Science and Letters.
Alan Crozier has translated this text, and I owe him a great debt of thanks
for his exceptional precision, valuable comments, and stimulating dialogue
about the form of the text. The translation would not have been possible with-
out financial support. My thanks go to the following foundations for generous
grants: Konung Gustaf VI Adolfs fond för svensk kultur, Per Lindekrantz’ fond,
Sven och Dagmar Saléns stiftelse, and Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse.
Lars Hermanson
Gothenburg, January 2019
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Illustrations
1 Rune stick from Lödöse, front side  5
2 Rune stick from Lödöse, back side  5
3 Rune stick from Lödöse  5
4 Friendship as a “total social phenomenon”  16
5 The Pitt-Rivers classification system  128
6 Ritual friendship as a “total social phenomenon”  138
7 Cult systems and prayer communities  221
8 Cult systems and spiritual brotherhoods  223
9 Vertical friendship as a “total social phenomenon”  238