Saints and Sainthood around the Baltic Sea: Identity, Literacy, and Communication in the Middle Ages

338 Pages·2018·27.28 MB·English

by  Carsten Selch Jensen

Saints and Sainthood around the Baltic Sea
STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE
Medieval Institute Publications is a program of
Th e Medieval Institute, College of Arts and Sciences
WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
Saints and Sainthood around the Baltic Sea
Identity, Literacy, and Communication in the Middle Ages
Edited by
Carsten Selch Jensen
Tracey R. Sands
Nils Holger Petersen
Kurt Villads Jensen
Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen
Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture LIV
MEDIEVAL INSTITUTE PUbLICATIONS
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo
Copyright © 2018 by the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
are available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 9781580443234
eISBN: 9781580443241
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this book may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or trans-
mitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of
the book.
Every eff ort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations
reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is
advised to contact the publisher.
Contents
List of Figures vii
Preface xi
Part I: Introduction and Methodological Questions
Saints and Sainthood around the Baltic Sea—An Introduction 3
Carsten S. Jensen, Tracey R. Sands, Nils Holger Petersen, Kurt
V. Jensen, and Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen
Th e Elusive Quality of Saints: Saints, Churches, and Cults 13
Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen
Medieval Cults and Modern Inventions: Dorothy of Montau, the
Teutonic Order, and “Katholiken für Hitler” 35
Cordelia Heß
Finnish Saints’ Traditions and Folklore: Interpreting St. Anne, St.
Katherine of Alexandria, and St. Birgitta of Sweden 53
Irma-Riitta Järvinen
Part II: Th e Cult of Saints in Medieval Russia and Livonia
Varangian Saints and Christlike Varangians in Early Rus’
Christianity 79
John H. Lind
Th e Cult and Visual Representation of Scandinavian Saints
in Medieval Livonia 101
Anu Mänd
History Made Sacred: Martyrdom and the Making of a
Sanctifi ed Beginning in Early-Th irteenth-Century Livonia 145
Carsten Selch Jensen
Part III: Saints’ Cults and the Creation of Regional and
National Identities
St. Canute Lavard around the Baltic Sea 175
Nils Holger Petersen
Saints, Gui l ds, and Seals: From Exclusivity to Competition 201
Lars Bisgaard
Saints and Political Identities in Late Medieval Lund and Uppsala 229
Tracey R. Sands
Saints at War in the Baltic Region 251
Kurt Villads Jensen
Saints around the Baltic—Some Remarks, Conclusions, and
Further Questions 273
Felicitas Schmieder
Bibliography 281
List of Contributors 311
Index 315
List of Figures
Figure 2.1. Two royal saints depicted in the vault of Skive Old
Church in northwestern Jutland (Denmark): St. Olav (left )
and St. Canute the King (right). Wall-painting from 1522.
Photo: By author. 14
Figure 2.2. An early sixteenth-century spoon depicting St. Anne
with her daughter Mary and the infant Christ. St. George is
seen on the handle. Photo: Th e Danish National Museum. 16
Figure 2.3. Th e Danish St. Kjeld depicted on a parish clerk’s chair
from Hvidbjerg Church in central Jutland, dating from
1500–1525. Photo: Th e Danish National Museum. 20
Figure 2.4. Th e interior of Lyngby Church seen toward the East.
Th e walls and vaults are completely covered by scenes from the
Passion and saints. Wall-paintings, ca. 1500–1525.
Photo: By author. 21
Figure 2.5. St. Helper in Nustrup Church in southern Jutland
(Denmark), a saint epitomizing the saint as a healer and
counselor. St. Helper belongs to the Wilgefortis tradition of
robed, Christlike fi gures on the cross. Th e sculpture dates
from ca. 1475–1500. Photo: Th e Danish National Museum. 25
Figure 2.6. Th e heavily restored image St. Erik, the Swedish king,
painted in Vittskövle Church (Scania, southern Sweden),
ca. 1475–1500. Photo: Th e Danish National Museum. 26
Figure 2.7. A lead capsule from Nørre Kirkeby Church on the
island of Falster (Denmark) storing remains of the Eleven
Th ousand Virgins. Th e capsule is now kept in the National
Museum of Denmark. Photo: Th e Danish National Museum. 28
Figure 2.8. Th e Elevation of the Host. Replica of a now lost mural
in St. Peter’s Church in Næstved on the island of Zealand
(Denmark), produced aft er the destruction of the image in 1883.
Photo: By author. 29
Figure 6.1. Th e boss with the fi gure of St. Olaf in St. Olaf’s
Church of Tallinn, ca. 1425. Photo: Stanislav Stepashko. 105
Figure 6.2. Th e silver seal (a) and the seal impression (b) of
St. Olaf’s Church, second half of the fi ft eenth century.
Photos: (a) Stanislav Stepashko, (b) Estonian History Museum. 106
Figure 6.3. Th e image of St. Olaf in the indulgence charter
from 1509. Photo: Stanislav Stepashko. 107
Figure 6.4. Relief with the image of St. Olaf on the gable of the
ante-hall of St. Olaf’s Guildhall, sixteenth century.
Photo: Tallinn City Archives. 110
Figure 6.5. Figure of St. Olaf in the altarpiece of the Church of
the Holy Spirit in Tallinn, 1483. Photo: Stanislav Stepashko. 113
Figure 6.6. Map of Livonia with the cult places of St. Olaf. 115
Figure 6.7. Figure of St. Olaf from the island of Ruhnu, ca. 1490.
National History Museum of Latvia. Photo: Merike Kurisoo. 116
Figure 6.8. Seal impression of St. Canute’s guild in Tallinn, fi rst
half of the fourteenth century. Photo: Estonian History Museum. 121
Figure 6.9. Image of King Knud in the statutes of St. Canute’s
guild, ca. 1486. Photo: Tallinn City Archives. 122
Figure 6.10. Relief with the image of King Knud, 1516. Formerly
above the portal of the St. Canute’s Guildhall, now in the Art
Museum of Estonia. Photo: Stanislav Stepashko. 123
Figure 6.11. Coat of arms of St. Canute’s guild, ca. 1550.
(a) Detail from a former door-side stone at the portal of
St. Canute’s Guildhall, now walled in the back of the building.
Photo: Stanislav Stepashko. (b) Drawing of the door-side
stone by Abildgaard, 1754. 124