Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000-1200 by Christian Raffensperger;

Author:Christian Raffensperger;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY/General, HISTORY/Europe/General, HISTORY/Medieval
ISBN: 9781000921670
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Unlimited)
Published: 2024-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Norway

The first native Norwegian ruling saint, St. Olaf, is essential to begin with because his cult is, from the very beginning, central to the relationship between royal and ecclesiastical power in Norway. Olaf died at the battle of Stiklestadir in 1030 fighting against the forces of King Cnut the Great who had occupied Norway, and who had even made the procession of things to claim the Norwegian throne for himself.147 Despite fighting and dying as a man attempting to regain his kingdom, Olaf's cause became synonymous with that of Norway and he became “rex perpetuus Norvegiae, Norway's eternal king.”148 The creation of the cult proceeded quickly after Olaf's death, and by 1032, there was an extant skaldic poem testifying to the deeds of St. Olaf.149 Heimskringla, though written much later, devotes the longest of its books to St. Olaf, and within that, there are several chapters about Olaf becoming a saint.150 Within those chapters, they date the sainthood of Olaf to 1031, one year after the battle of Stiklestadir, which was when Olaf's body was exhumed by Bishop Grimkel, after hearing reports of its miraculous nature.151 Bishop Grimkel is an important figure in his own right, acting as Olaf's close advisor during his life, as well as a major figure in his sanctification. It is also worth noting that Grimkel was English, as the cult of St. Olaf bears similarities to Anglo-Saxon royal saints’ cults.152 When Olaf's body was disinterred, they found it to be sweet-smelling and that the hair, which had grown, refused to burn, laying the foundation for the king's transition into a saint.153 Soon after, “there occurred many kinds of miracles by the shrine of Saint Olaf.”154

147 John Lindow, “St Olaf and the Skalds” in Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Thomas A. DuBois (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 106. 148 Sverre Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’, c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 146. 149 Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 137. 150 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, transl. Lee M. Hollander (Austin, Tx.: University of Texas Press, 1964), chs. 240–246 (pp. 526–533). 151 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 244 (pp. 527–528). 152 Lindow, “St Olaf and the Skalds,” 106; Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, “The Kingdom of Norway,” 137. 153 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 244 (pp. 528–530). 154 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ch. 244 (p. 530). Olaf's sanctification became a political weapon in the hands of contemporary writers. Aelgyfu, regent for Cnut's son, Sven, in Norway, denied Olaf's sanctity, and she was punished, we are told, by bad weather harming Norway.155 Similarly, her brief time in Norway was paired with an increasing number of miracles at the shrine of St. Olaf, which helped to cement him as a figure of national pride against the Danes, as much as a sainted ruler. Though the latter was certainly essential, as he “became a political ideal for later kings.

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