Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia

482 Pages·2008·3.48 MB·English

by  Thomas Dubois

Sanctity in the North

SAINTS, LIVES, AND CULTS IN MEDIEVAL SCANDINAVIA

With original translations of primary texts and articles by leading
researchers in the field, Sanctity in the North gives an introduction to the
literary production associated with the cult of the saints in medieval
Scandinavia.
For more than five hundred years, Nordic clerics and laity venerated a
host of saints through liturgical celebrations, written manuscripts, visual
arts, and oral traditions. Textual evidence of this widespread and important
aspect of medieval spirituality abounds. Written biographies (or vitae),
compendia of witnessed miracles, mass propers, homilies, sagas and
chronicles, dramatic scripts, hymns, and ballads are among the region’s
surviving medieval manuscripts and early published books.
Sanctity in the North features English translations of texts from Latin or
vernacular Nordic languages, in many cases for the first time. The
accompanying essays concerning the texts, saints, cults, and history of the
period complement the translations and reflect the contributors’ own
disciplinary groundings in folklore, philology, medieval, and religious
studies.
(Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic Series)

THOMAS A. DUBOIS is a professor in the Department of Scandinavian Studies
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2
Toronto Old Norse–Icelandic Series

General Editor
Andy Orchard

Editorial Board
Robert E. Bjork
Roberta Frank
R.G. Poole

1 Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli: A Critical Edition edited and translated by
Martin Chase
2 Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts by Magnús
Fjalldal
3 Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval
Scandinavia edited by Thomas A. DuBois
3
Sanctity in the North

SAINTS, LIVES, AND CULTS IN MEDIEVAL
SCANDINAVIA

Edited by Thomas A. DuBois

4
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2008
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada

www.utppublishing.com
ISBN 978-0-8020-9130-7 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-8020-9410-0 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Sanctity in the North: saints, lives and cults in Medieval Scandinavia/
edited by Thomas A. DuBois.
(Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Includes some text translated from Latin and Nordic languages.
ISBN 978-0-8020-9130-7 (bound) – ISBN 978-0-8020-9410-0 (pbk.)
1. Christian saints – Scandinavia. 2. Christian saints – Cult – Scandinavia.
3. Spirituality – Scandinavia – History – To 1500. 4. Christian literature,
Latin
(Medieval and modern) – Scandinavia – Translations into English. 5.
Scandinavian
literature – Translations into English. 6. Christian literature, Latin
(Medieval and
modern) – Scandinavia – History and criticism. 7. Scandinavian literature –
History and criticism. 8. Christian hagiography. I. DuBois, Thomas A.
(Thomas Andrew), 1960– II. Title. III. Series.
5
PT7257.S22 2007 274.80092’2 C2007-901360-0
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts
Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
6
Contents

Preface
Introduction
THOMAS A. DUBOIS

Part I. Missionary Saints
St Ansgar: His Swedish Mission and Its Larger Context
SCOTT A. MELLOR

Sts Sunniva and Henrik: Scandinavian Martyr Saints in Their
Hagiographic and National Contexts
THOMAS A. DUBOIS

Part II. Royal Saints
St Olaf and the Skalds
JOHN LINDOW

Sacred Non-Violence, Cowardice Profaned: St Magnus of Orkney
in Nordic Hagiography and Historiography
MARIA-CLAUDIA TOMANY

St Knud Lavard: A Saint for Denmark
THOMAS A. DUBOIS AND NIELS INGWERSEN

The Cult of St Eric, King and Martyr, in Medieval Sweden
TRACEY R. SANDS

7
Part III. Holy Bishops and Nuns
Pride and Politics in Late-Twelfth-Century Iceland: The Sanctity of
Bishop Þorlákr Þórhallsson
KIRSTEN WOLF

St Katarina in Her Own Light
THOMAS A. DUBOIS

Part IV. Saints’ Lives in Lived Context
Hendreks saga og Kunegundis: Marital Consent in the Legend of
Henry and Cunegund
MARIANNE E. KALINKE

Better Off Dead: Approaches to Medieval Miracles
MARGARET CORMACK

Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Illustrations follow
8
Preface

Scandinavia is more famous for its pagan era than for its Christian. Or so it
can seem. Many colleges and universities in North America offer courses on
Scandinavian mythology, but few offer instruction on the many centuries of
Christian lore that the region produced between the era of conversions (the
end of the first millennium) and the Reformation. Even when literature from
this period is taught (and the Icelandic sagas certainly do receive coverage),
the focus is often on the most secular aspects of the narratives, or on the
most pre-Christian of elements. Texts that retell or reshape prime narratives
from the Christian world or evince an overtly Christian perspective have
received decidedly less attention from scholars and students, apparently
because these seem somehow less distinctively Nordic. One finds more
about Oðinn than St Olaf, more on Thor than St Þorlákr, more on Viking
battles than on monastic foundations.
The present text seeks to remedy this situation by offering translations and
analyses of works that were vitally linked to the Christian ethos of the
Middle Ages: biographies, ballads, lists of miracles, and plays connected
with the cult of the saints. The contributors to this volume hope that this
work will help further research and interest in this important component of
the artistic and spiritual life of the medieval North.
As editor of this work, I would like to thank the contributors for their
enthusiasm and erudition and for their input and help at various stages of the
project. I would also like to thank Suzanne Rancourt, Humanities Editor at
the University of Toronto Press, for her enthusiasm for the volume, and the
two outside referees for their valuable advice that strengthened the study.
Mike Lange served diligently and with good humour as the editorial
assistant for the work, and devoted tremendous time and care to the project.
Thanks are also due to the Vilas Associates program of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, which helped finance the publication and facilitated
the inclusion of the various photographs that accompany the chapters. All of
the above-named deserve my deepest thanks and my apologies for any
shortcomings in the resulting work.
A note of the spelling conventions used in this text. Wherever possible,
the authors of the articles have opted to use the spellings for saints’ names
standard in the countries with which the saint is most closely associated.
For Iceland, that means that the Old Norse spellings are used, thus Þorlákr
9
rather than the anglicized Thorlac (or the modern Icelandic Þorlákur). On
the other hand, the Norwegian King St Olaf is referred to with the modern
Norwegian spelling of this name. King St Eric is spelled with a c in accord
with general Swedish practice when referring to the saint, and the Danish
King St Knud is spelled in the Danish fashion rather than Cnut, Cnud, or
Canute. We regret the resulting inconsistencies this editorial decision has
occasioned; we believe this was the best compromise in a complicated
situation.
This volume is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Birgit Baldwin
(1960–88), who no doubt would have contributed brilliantly to it had she
had the chance.
Thomas A. DuBois
Madison, Wisconsin

10