Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives 9783030544577

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
Lost Connections?
The Project
Structure
Slow Reformations
Migration, Exile and Interconnections
Zones of Circulation: Transfer of Ideas and People
Appropriations and Adaptations
Northern European Reformations Over the Longue Durée
Part I Slow Reformations
2 Reformation on Scotland’s Northern Frontier: The Orkney Islands, 1560–c.1700
Reformed by Bishops?
Environmental Challenges
Witchcraft and “Superstition”
Conclusion
Bibliography
3 The Sidaskipti: Iceland’s Change of Fashion
The Arrival of Reformation
The Death Throes of the Old Faith
The Death of a Bishop and the Passing of Catholic Iceland
Bibliography
4 “Another Age Will Damage and Destroy”: The Radicalised Reformation in Denmark-Norway in the Later Part of the Sixteenth Century
Leniency and Patience
Radicalisation
Upholding the Distance
The Removal of Images in Bergen 1570
Targeting Devotional Life
Closing of Chapels and Churches
Abolishing Devotional Practices and Instruments
Conclusion
Bibliography
Part II Migration, Exile and Interconnections
5 Reformation Across the North Sea: Early Protestant Connections Between Denmark, England and Scotland
Trade, Humanism and Political Struggles
Religious Refugees
Machabeus and Coverdale in Copenhagen
Student Travels and Learned Networks
Conclusion
Bibliography
6 Confessional Migration and Religious Change in the Northern European Reformations
The Migration of Clergy
Conclusion
Bibliography
7 Exiles and Activists: A Comparison of the Counter-Reformation in Wales and Norway
The Change of Religion
The Influence of the Seminaries
The Influence of the Hierarchy
Missionary Writers
The Conditions of Mission
Print and Manuscript
Resurrecting Pilgrimage
Bibliography
Part III Zones of Circulation: Transfer of Ideas and People
8 “Islands Not Far from Norway, Denmark and Germany”: Shetland, Orkney and the Spread of the Reformation in the North
Introduction
Linguistic Diversity in Shetland and Orkney
Language and Reform
Conclusion
Bibliography
9 “Nullus”: The Ending of Conventual Religious Life in Denmark–Norway, England and Wales, Ireland, and Scotland
Dissolutions
Observants
Changes and Claims
Remembering Dissolution
Bibliography
Part IV Appropriations and Adaptations
10 Devotion in Transition: The Practice of Appropriation of Danish and British Medieval Prayer Books
The Alteration of English Prayer Books
The Alteration of Danish Prayer Books
Places of Appropriation
Bibliography
11 The Martyrdom of St Edmund (d. 869) at the Hands of the Danes and Its Legacy in Early Modern England
Edmund, King and Martyr
Edmund and the English Monarchy
Edmund’s Reformation Fortunes
Edmund in Protestant Historiography
Endurance, St Edmund, and St Olaf
Bibliography
12 Seventeenth-Century Ireland and Norway: Peripheral Reformations in Print?
The Late Arrival of Print in Norway and Ireland
Language and Literacy
The Role of Orality
The Experience of Print
Understanding Peripherality
Bibliography
Part V Northern European Reformations over the Longue Durée
13 Books from the British Isles in the Collections of the Eighteenth-Century Norwegian Clergy
Clerics as Officials
What Conformity Meant
‘Desirable’ Books
The ‘Open’ World of the Clergy
Books Originating in the British Isles
Bestsellers—Bayly, Baxter, Dyke and Watson
Conclusion
Bibliography
14 ‘Superstition’ in the Reformation Polemics of England and Denmark-Norway - and the Emergence of Folklore and Popular Religion
Disciplining ‘Superstition’
Reformation and Religious Difference in Denmark-Norway
Catholicism Redefined as Superstitio
Textual and Visual Means for Turning Catholicism into ‘Superstition’
Collocating Witchcraft and Catholicism
Superstition and Folklore
The Disciplinary Afterlife of ‘Superstition’
Bibliography
15 The Missionary Problem in Early Modern Protestantism: British, Irish and Scandinavian Perspectives
The Missionary Problem
The Role of Theology
Near Barbarians and Far Barbarians
Structures and Institutions
Pietism, Evangelicalism and the Unravelling of the Knot
Bibliography
16 Epilogue
Index

Citation preview

Northern European Reformations Transnational Perspectives

Edited by James E. Kelly · Henning Laugerud · Salvador Ryan

Northern European Reformations

James E. Kelly · Henning Laugerud · Salvador Ryan Editors

Northern European Reformations Transnational Perspectives

Editors James E. Kelly Durham University Durham, UK

Henning Laugerud University of Bergen Bergen, Norway

Salvador Ryan St Patrick’s College Pontifical University Maynooth, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-030-54457-7 ISBN 978-3-030-54458-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

This volume has its roots in two workshops, one hosted by Durham University in the UK and the other by the University of Bergen in Norway. We would first like to acknowledge the support that made these events possible, in particular that from Durham University’s Centre for Catholic Studies, and Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies; the Bergen University Fund, the University Museum of Bergen, and the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Bergen; and the Faculty of Theology, St Patrick’s College Maynooth. We also wish to thank those who assisted in the running of both events, including Hannah Thomas, Claire Marsland, Jonathan Bush, the staff of Ushaw College in Durham, and the Director of the University Museum, University of Bergen, Professor Henrik von Achen. We are grateful to those who have helped during the publication process of this volume, including Michael Potterton, who generously assisted with some technical glitches at an early stage of the preparation of this manuscript; Francis Young, who proof-read the manuscript; and the staff at Palgrave for their courtesy, professionalism and patience in guiding the volume through to completion. In particular, we thank Joseph Johnson, Emily Russell and Molly Beck, and the anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful feedback. Finally, we wish to acknowledge the support of those fundamental components of any edited collection: the contributors. It was a pleasure to spend time with them at the workshops discussing this project and we v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

are grateful for their involvement in the volume. Their willingness to work with us as a team has meant that we, the three editors, are (just about…) still talking to each other! In other words, we thank them for proving that that much talked-about, but not always evident, goal can exist: academic collegiality. We hope this volume is a fitting tribute to that.

Contents

1

Introduction James E. Kelly, Henning Laugerud, and Salvador Ryan

Part I 2

1

Slow Reformations

Reformation on Scotland’s Northern Frontier: The Orkney Islands, 1560–c.1700 Peter Marshall

3

The Sidaskipti: Iceland’s Change of Fashion Jack P. Cunningham

4

“Another Age Will Damage and Destroy”: The Radicalised Reformation in Denmark-Norway in the Later Part of the Sixteenth Century Henrik von Achen

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CONTENTS

Part II 5

6

7

Reformation Across the North Sea: Early Protestant Connections Between Denmark, England and Scotland Morten Fink-Jensen

9

137

Exiles and Activists: A Comparison of the Counter-Reformation in Wales and Norway James January-McCann

161

Zones of Circulation: Transfer of Ideas and People

“Islands Not Far from Norway, Denmark and Germany”: Shetland, Orkney and the Spread of the Reformation in the North Charlotte Methuen “Nullus ”: The Ending of Conventual Religious Life in Denmark–Norway, England and Wales, Ireland, and Scotland John McCafferty

Part IV 10

115

Confessional Migration and Religious Change in the Northern European Reformations Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin

Part III

8

Migration, Exile and Interconnections

191

213

Appropriations and Adaptations

Devotion in Transition: The Practice of Appropriation of Danish and British Medieval Prayer Books Laura Katrine Skinnebach

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CONTENTS

11

12

The Martyrdom of St Edmund (d. 869) at the Hands of the Danes and Its Legacy in Early Modern England Susan Royal

269

Seventeenth-Century Ireland and Norway: Peripheral Reformations in Print? Raymond Gillespie

295

Part V

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14

15

16

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Northern European Reformations over the Longue Durée

Books from the British Isles in the Collections of the Eighteenth-Century Norwegian Clergy Gina Dahl ‘Superstition’ in the Reformation Polemics of England and Denmark-Norway - and the Emergence of Folklore and Popular Religion Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark The Missionary Problem in Early Modern Protestantism: British, Irish and Scandinavian Perspectives Alec Ryrie Epilogue Carlos Eire

Index

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377

405

415

List of Contributors

Jack P. Cunningham Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK Gina Dahl Bergen University Library, Section of Special Collections, Bergen, Norway Carlos Eire Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA Morten Fink-Jensen University Denmark

of

Copenhagen,

Copenhagen,

Raymond Gillespie Department of History, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland James January-McCann Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK James E. Kelly Durham University, Durham, UK Henning Laugerud University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Peter Marshall Department Coventry, UK

of

History,

University

of

Warwick,

John McCafferty School of History, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Charlotte Methuen Theology and Religious Studies, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK John Ødemark Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Susan Royal Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, Durham, UK Salvador Ryan St Patrick’s College, Pontifical University, Maynooth, Ireland Alec Ryrie Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, Durham, UK; Gresham College, London, UK Laura Katrine Skinnebach Department of Art History, Aesthetics & Culture and Museology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Henrik von Achen University of Bergen, University Museum, Bergen, Norway

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1

Fig. 1.2

Fig. 1.3

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 4.1

Norwegian altar frontal from Årdal, c. 1325, featuring St. Botolph. Courtesy of Bergen University Museum (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen) Fifteenth-century Lurøy altarpiece featuring (from left to right) St. Thomas Becket, St. Olaf, St. Edmund the Martyr and St. Magnus. Courtesy of Bergen University Museum (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen) Austevoll triptych, c. 1520 with St. Sunniva in the middle. Courtesy of Bergen University Museum (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen) Location of ecclesiastical dioceses of Hólar and Skálholt, Iceland, which fell under the metropolitical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Nidaros (Trondheim) in the sixteenth century (Map by Jack P. Cunningham) Late medieval woodcut on the last page (26) of “Børne Speigel”, written by a former friar, Niels Bredal (c.1500–1579), and published in Copenhagen in 1568 by Mads Vingaard. The book offers advice in rhyme on the proper behaviour of children, and to depict a mother with her child the publisher obviously used a recut old stock depicting a popular late medieval devotional motif, namely a Rosary Madonna combined with the five Sacred Wounds (Photo Royal Library, Copenhagen)

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3

4

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.2

Fig. 4.3

Fig. 4.4

Fig. 10.1

Fig. 10.2

Fig. 10.3

Hieronymus Scholeus, the city of Bergen, 1581. Copper engraving by Franz Hogenberg published in Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, vol. 4 (Cologne, 1588). Inv. no. By 1685b (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet) Adoration of the magi, relief in alabaster, heightened with gold, by one “G. N.” Inv. No. By 9104. Such small images were produced in great numbers in Mechelin in Flanders during the decades around 1600, and exported to many places in Northern Europe, Catholic and Protestant alike. This image came to the University museum from a farm in Sogn and Fjordane (Photo Adnan Icagic, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen) A catechismus altarpiece from the medieval church at Bru on Svanøy, Sunnfjord, 1590. It was transferred to the new timber church when it was erected around 1650. Inv. no. NK 182. The royal arms and titles of king Christian IV are displayed in a prominent place, showing the central role of the monarchy in the national Lutheran church. The altarpiece is still structured like the late medieval triptychs with moveable wings, and it is covered with texts, also on the back. In the corpus the Creed is displayed, flanked by texts related to Baptism and last Supper, the two Lutheran sacraments (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet) The prayer to Thomas Becket and the adjoining image were both defaced during the Henrican rule, most likely as a response to the Royal injunction of 1538. The prayer was restored at some point, but the image remained whitewashed. © The British Library Board, MS Sloane 2683, fol 16v–17r After the reformation all (or most) references to indulgences were erased from Anna Brade’s prayer book, most likely by the later owner, Elsebeth Brade and her husband. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Thott 553,4° The last section of Anna Brade’s prayer book was dedicated to prayers to saints—female saints first, and men after. All images were defaced with a sharp object, here the image of St Jost. The prayer itself remained intact. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Thott 553,4°

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 10.4

Fig. 10.5

This late medieval devotional book was carefully amended by a post-reformation owner. The prayer Ave Maria was deleted throughout. Royal Library, Copehagen, Gl.Kgl.Saml. 1615,4°, fos 27v–28r This small girdle book could be attached to the belt and carried along so that prayers were at all time close at hand. These books were immensely popular on both sides of the reformation. This German specimen was amended and several prayer and instructions were erased by the owner, among others salutations. Here the owner has written “salutatio non oratio est ” in the margin. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Gl.Kgl.Saml. 3423,8°, fo. 27r

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List of Tables

Table 13.1 Table 13.2 Table 13.3

Places of publication of books recorded in von Westen’s library Authors originating in the British Isles in Jarlsberg clerical inventories 1723–1738 Authors originating in the British Isles in Trondheim clerical inventories 1732–1743

329 333 335

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction James E. Kelly, Henning Laugerud, and Salvador Ryan

Lost Connections? A trip to the University Museum of Bergen offers ample evidence of religious exchange between Britain, Ireland and the countries of Scandinavia before the reformations of the sixteenth century.1 For example, there is a model of the Cistercian abbey of Lyse, located some 25 kilometres south of Bergen, which was founded by Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, in the north of England.2 Nearby is a Norwegian altar frontal with, in its centre, a depiction of St Botolph, the seventh-century English abbot and saint, to whom many churches were dedicated in his homeland (Fig. 1.1).3

J. E. Kelly (B) Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] H. Laugerud University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected] S. Ryan St Patrick’s College, Pontifical University, Maynooth, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_1

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Fig. 1.1 Norwegian altar frontal from Årdal, c. 1325, featuring St. Botolph. Courtesy of Bergen University Museum (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen)

A fifteenth-century altarpiece from Lurøy includes a statue of St. Magnus, the twelfth-century Earl of Orkney who so embodied the contact between those islands, Norway and Scotland, in addition to two important English saints, St. Thomas Becket and St. Edmund the Martyr. Between the two English saints stands the martyred Norwegian king St. Olaf, a telling example of the close religious, cultural and politico-economic ties in the North-Sea area (Fig. 1.2). The Austevoll altarpiece of c.1520 depicts the tenth-century Irish St Sunniva, who fled to Norway to escape a pagan marriage (Fig. 1.3).4 Yet for all that contact, both physical and intellectual, limited consideration has been given to the religious experience in this specific geographical bloc during and after the reformations. There were links before the Reformation, so the natural question is to ask: what happened afterwards? Were the experiences of Christians in these countries similar or were the reformations parallel events, not just confessionally but also geographically? Were similar patterns of development at play or did the reformation create different experiences, fracturing any shared methods or paths of reform? It is with the intention of engaging with such questions that this book

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INTRODUCTION

3

Fig. 1.2 Fifteenth-century Lurøy altarpiece featuring (from left to right) St. Thomas Becket, St. Olaf, St. Edmund the Martyr and St. Magnus. Courtesy of Bergen University Museum (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen)

had been brought together, to explore the experience of these northern European countries during the period of reformations in one volume. However, this is not about doing comparative history for the sake of it. As argued above, these nations had historic links that affected each other’s religious culture, belief and practice before the sixteenth century. Yet what happened to these shared religious heritages through the period of reformations has been generally neglected by scholars of the early modern period. As such, this collection represents an attempt to track what happened across these countries. It is not intended to offer a definitive account of the processes of reformation, but instead to highlight several thematic strands that the editors believe can be identified

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Fig. 1.3 Austevoll triptych, c. 1520 with St. Sunniva in the middle. Courtesy of Bergen University Museum (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen)

running through the various chapters. It is hoped that these connections may in turn offer a possible thematic template for scholars to look at the Northern European reformations in the future. Most importantly for the volume at hand, it is these themes, the editors venture, that offer the points of comparison and are common to all of the bloc under consideration, running through the differences and similarities between the reformation processes at play. As mentioned, in no way do we suggest that these themes are definitive; rather, we propose them as one possible way for scholars of the topic and the geographical area to approach the subject, a suggested attempt at commonality. In this light, we suggest six overarching themes that are evident throughout the contributions to this collection. The first of these is the notion that the reformations in Northern Europe were influenced by wider European philosophical and religious movements from outside their locality. Equally, the Northern European reformations in turn influenced developments outside of our geographical remit, underlining a

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INTRODUCTION

5

two-way process. At this point, we have deliberately shied-away from discussing this in terms of centre and peripheries.5 The first issue with this terminology is that it is applied differently to Catholic and Protestant reformations. Perhaps even more pertinently, the question arises of what is a periphery within this area, particularly when considering Protestant reform movements. As an island, is Orkney a periphery? Are towns within central Norway—away from the trading points on its coasts, so more cut-off from potential cultural exchanges—peripheries?6 Rather than be sidetracked by such quandaries, the editors wish, at this stage, to limit this theme to the observations about influences from outside Northern Europe. The second theme very much links to the first: this as a zone of circulation. This idea breaks down into several parts. Perhaps the most obvious is the movement of people, whether as traders or to locations of exile, though this should never be understood as a permanent movement but, once again, as potentially circular. Equally, the place of (temporary) exile also had a huge influence on the type of religio-political outlook imbibed by the individual. Of course, these movements of people could be to areas outside of the region, again stressing our first thematic point above, but they were also between the nations upon which this volume focuses. Perhaps even more commonplace was the transfer of ideas, whether through news, books or oral traditions.7 All the countries considered in this book witnessed these phenomena. The methods, intentions and results may have differed, but it is a key thematic thread that can be seen running through this volume. Adaptation is another core theme that is evident across the Northern European Reformations. Although we have identified it as adaptation, we could just as easily have used the terms inculturation or accommodation. To some extent, these terms are more usually applied by scholars researching the Catholic Reformation and particularly those focussing on Jesuit Studies,8 yet this volume makes clear that the same thing was happening, to different degrees, in the attempts at Protestant reform across Northern Europe. Reformers of whatever religious hue were intent on finding the best way to bring about their vision of religious change and, from the evidence of the chapters in this collection, some form of adaptation to the specific national situation appears to have been the norm.

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That links to our next identified theme: the importance of language. In terms of how this related to religious change, it is evident that, as highlighted above, different strategies were adopted in specific areas based on what was believed most appropriate for a particular country. In some places the issue of language was dictated by what was felt best for a specific audience, whether popular or learned, national or international, but in, for example, Wales, language was a central issue, requiring as it did native Welsh-speakers for the Catholic missionary enterprise there. Nor should it be neglected that these considerations affected the literary culture of the reformations across Northern Europe, the intended audience and the medium employed being explicitly entwined. In short, there was a relationship between religious change and language beyond—and more complicated than—just the shifts from Latin to the vernacular. From language it is easy to link to our penultimate thematic lens through which to analyse the Northern European reformations: namely, the question of identity. It is abundantly clear from the essays in this volume that the people of Northern Europe were dealing with fluctuating national, religious and supranational identities. This balancing act, one could argue, is something not quite so common in the modern world, but it is evident that in the early modern period those experiencing the reformations had to face these challenges and, indeed, expected to do so and frequently proved adept at doing just that. Of course, one could also add regional identity to the mix, which itself links to issues of memory, or continuities and discontinuities, such as the ongoing draw of holy wells or sacred spaces after their official rubbishing by reformers. The situation becomes further complicated by details of ethnicity, such as in Ireland between the Old English Catholics and Gaelic Irish Catholics, or even the differences within an ethnic culture, such as urban and rural Gaelic-speaking Catholics. Equally evident is that religious identity was not fixed, both in terms of how people defined themselves in relation to a belief structure, but also by what was actually understood to be a vital component of a particular faith group. There were clearly different ways of understanding, for example, what it meant to be Lutheran or Catholic in different geographical areas.9 Our final suggested theme encompasses a broad area around the tied issues of religion and politics. Immediately evident throughout this volume is how reform was intrinsically linked with state affairs, in some ways affirming the theory of confessionalisation.10 Political structures were vitally important. This relationship could decide whether it was a

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INTRODUCTION

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slow or hard reformation, whether it was enforced by stringent rules surrounding conformity or seeking a gradual religious shift in a nation’s people. It played a fundamental role in deciding how reform should progress, whether through the eradication of uncomfortable reminders, such as the official disappearance of any mention of St. Thomas Becket from the scene in England, or attempts at accommodation and appropriation, as discussed earlier. Was it enough to abolish some devotional practices or must new ones be imposed? Within that, scholars should not lose sight of the deliberate strategies employed by both Protestant and Catholic reformers. There was not a reliable tactic upon which to fall back or an accidental process to chance upon, but plans set in place. Frequently, across the regions, these attempts were also shaped by wider cultural changes, such as internal migrations, literacy levels or, more pointedly, the professionalisation of the clergy.

The Project This project grew out of a recognition that there are a number of noteworthy parallels (and also key differences) between the experience of the reformations in Denmark–Norway and Britain and Ireland, and that, to the editors’ knowledge, no comparative study covering both Catholic and Protestant aspects existed in the English language which might address this lacuna. While Danish and Norwegian historians, whose English-language proficiency is customarily very high, have no difficulty in accessing countless sources on, for example, the English Reformation, the same is not true for English historians who may wish to do some serious research on the Reformation in the Nordic countries, but for reasons of language, soon become hampered. English-language works certainly exist to provide historians with a useful entry point to the Northern European reformations, but nothing approaching what a serious reformations scholar may desire. Part I of The Cambridge History of Scandinavia. Vol. II, 1520–1870, edited by E. I. Kouri and Jens E. Olesen, deals with ‘Reformation and Reorganisation, 1520–1600’.11 In many respects, this may be regarded as an updated version of Ole P. Grell (ed.), The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform (1995), with many of the same contributors participating.12 In 2010 there appeared James L. Larson, Reforming the North: The Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1545.13 Larson, however, is not a reformation historian

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by training, but a professor of Scandinavian languages. His substantial tome of some 500 pages was recognised by one reviewer as a valuable contribution to wider scholarship, given his decision to publish in English.14 Nonetheless, Larson’s focus was much more on political than religious developments during this period. More substantially, the Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway project, based at the Arctic University of Norway (2013–2017) was established to ‘gain new insights into the progress and effects of the long-term processes of transition which were triggered off by the Reformation in Northern Norway and the adjoining parts of northern Fennoscandia’.15 It adopted a multidisciplinary approach, encompassing the fields of history, art history, religious studies, literary studies and cultural geography. It also adopted a long chronological range, from the late Middle Ages to the 1700s. This project has produced three volumes of essays.16 On 21–22 September 2017, the project organised an international conference in Tromsø which addressed the theme of ‘Northern Reformations’ and, on that occasion, broadened its scope to ask how the cultural, political and economic consequences of the religious change influenced the relationship between Scandinavia, the British Isles and continental Europe. Its papers, focussing on the experience of Protestant reformation, were published online in Nordlit 43 (2019).17 We believe that this book is timely. While, as noted above, there is a dearth of substantial English-language works on reform in sixteenthcentury Scandinavia, there have been no attempts thus far to compare the reformations, both Catholic and Protestant, in Denmark–Norway and Britain and Ireland in a volume of essays such as this one. It is our hope that what we have attempted here will encourage others to open up new fields of comparative reformation research, in Britain and Ireland, as well as in the Nordic countries.

Structure While we have suggested six overarching themes that are interwoven into the various contributions to this volume, it would seem forced to attempt to disentangle them for the purposes of a clear structure. Besides, when it comes to the unfolding of the sixteenth-century reformations, one searches in vain for neat lines. For the sake of convenience, we have divided the collection into five sections but, likewise, these are not meant to be understood as mutually exclusive; indeed, many wholly different

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INTRODUCTION

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arrangements of chapters might have been chosen under a number of alternate headings.

Slow Reformations In the opening chapter of the volume, Peter Marshall shows how the Orkney Islands, absorbed fitfully in the governing structures of the kingdom of Scotland between 1468 and 1611, stood at the geographical and cultural intersection of the British and Scandinavian worlds. Their Reformation (initiated by the last Catholic bishop, Adam Bothwell) may seem to have been quiet and conformist, but it involved a number of particularities of wider comparative interest: the practical challenges of pastoral provision in an archipelagic island community; the declining presence of the Norn language, and potential for cultural as well as vernacular ‘bi-lingualism’; the role of the clergy as both reformers and recorders of a society to which they came in the main as outsiders. The Reformation in Orkney was not ‘resisted’, in the sense of much conscious ideological resistance to the mandates of Protestantism, but a combination of environmental, ethnic, linguistic and cultural factors facilitated an evolutionary survival within Orkney parishes of a range of unorthodox practices and beliefs. In 1550 the last Catholic bishop in Iceland was executed by Icelandic Lutherans and their Danish governors. After this event the country on the outer fringes of the Danish kingdom yielded to a Reformation that had already been established in the other territories of Denmark and Norway. Jack P. Cunningham’s chapter examines contemporary sources and modern scholarship in order to demonstrate that the success of the new movement was based on two principal factors. First, this was a Reformation that was deliberately light on theology, a sidaskipti or ‘changing of fashions’ as it came to be known in Icelandic. Secondly, it was an inevitable consequence of the growing national strength of the state of Denmark that was keener to establish a tighter grip on its territories than it had ever had before. The provost in Lista in Southern Norway, archdeacon Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614), described the state of affairs in Norway some seventyfive years after the Reformation as ‘regrettable, and by no means praiseworthy’, for, ‘in the beginning, the promotors of evangelical doctrine did not only remove gold and silver from churches and monasteries, together

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with vestments and other treasures used in Catholic times, but also illnaturedly destroyed what one could not use’. He went on: ‘Needlessly, they demolished beautiful buildings, burned useful books and documents, destroyed the decorations in the churches, and left the house of God empty. It would have been better if this had not been so, and it did them little good’. While assuring his readers that the Catholic Church certainly represented idolatry and severe error, blasphemy and the corruption of faith, it seems that the humanist in Friis still regretted the vandalism. The history of sixteenth-century Northern Europe has been subject to various ideologically charged narratives. Yet, while one may treat it in light of continuity or discontinuity, of suppression or emancipation, of faith or façade, there can be no denying that a profound and irreversible change of the religious culture in the countries around the North Sea took place during first generations after the Reformation. From a slow transition during the first generation, the reform was driven by a new sense of urgency during the second. Henrik von Achen’s contribution offers a comparative history of the Reformation as process and reality, by describing the radicalisation around 1570, when the patience of the first Lutheran generation was abandoned. Therefore, what Friis reacted to was not so much the situation ‘in the beginning’, but more precisely events unfolding in this second and radicalised phase.

Migration, Exile and Interconnections Close contacts between Denmark, England and Scotland since the Middle Ages facilitated the spread of reformation ideas and the travels of migrants and refugees across the North Sea in the first part of the sixteenth century. The North Sea route offers a corrective or supplement to dominant narratives in Reformation history on at least three counts. In his chapter, Morten Fink-Jensen argues that the Lutheran Reformation in Denmark– Norway did not almost solely come out of Wittenberg, moving from the south to the Nordic countries, but also continually received intellectual input from the British Isles. Secondly, he contends that Reformation initiatives in England and Scotland also took inspiration from contact with Denmark, and that Denmark served as an intermediary for Protestant connections between Germany, England and Scotland. Thirdly, he points out that these connections were to a large degree based on or generated a general Protestant outlook, which sought to minimise or

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sooth confessional or doctrinal strife between Protestants and Protestant nations. Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin examines the role of migrants and exiles in shaping the process of confessional change in Britain and Ireland and in Denmark/Norway. He suggests that neither region was particularly influenced by general population movements arising from direct religiously motivated persecution. However, his chapter does highlight the key role played by migrants on a number of different levels. Clerical education in centres outside these regions was of crucial importance in the development of particular confessional groupings throughout Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia, not least in the development of seminal leadership cadres. In addition, the migrant experience is very evident in the lives of a great number of the authors who produced the key identity texts of the nascent post-Reformation confessions across Northern Europe. He also draws attention to the manner in which religion affected migratory decisions in far more ways than the creation of ‘refugees’ from explicit religious persecution. Rather, particularly evident in Ireland, religion proved an important component in a complex web of motivations influencing both immigration and emigration during the Early Modern period. James January-McCann takes a comparative view of efforts made to keep Wales and Norway Catholic during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He discusses the role of the seminaries in preparing clergy and books in exile for the mission, and places particular emphasis on the use of the Welsh language as a missionary medium. In doing so, he seeks to explain the relative success of the Welsh Counter-Reformation with reference to Norwegian parallels, and to add to the relatively sparse English-language historiography in this field.

Zones of Circulation: Transfer of Ideas and People Charlotte Methuen explores the relationships between the Norwegian city of Bergen and the Shetland and Orkney islands from the 1520s, when Lutheran ideas began to arrive in Bergen, to the 1560s, when Scotland’s Reformed Reformation was introduced and implemented in the Diocese of Orkney (which included Shetland). She identifies some contacts between Shetlanders and Orcadians and leading proponents of the Reformation in Bergen, both lay citizens and clergy, and some concerns about heresy in the Diocese of Orkney, but concludes that

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there is no evidence for a Lutheran impact in the Diocese of Orkney. Her chapter highlights the importance of language, but suggests that the particular form of trade that existed between Bergen, Shetland and Orkney was not conducive to supporting the spread of the Reformation. In his contribution, John McCafferty turns to the dissolution of religious houses during the period of the reformations. Franciscan Observant houses in Oldenburg Denmark–Norway and Tudor–Stuart Britain and Ireland were early and particular targets of dissolution. His chapter argues that a comparative approach to the ending of conventual religious life in the northern realms, based on a number of contemporary chronicles written by friars and ex-friars, offers not only the opportunity to see common trends, but also communicates a good deal about how Observant reform in the period leading up to the Lutheran changes fed into early Protestant thinking. Influential Franciscan voices of the late sixteenth century grouped England, Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia together as a quarter of provinces which had been affected by ‘heretical’ depredations. Their unity of voice is striking, and it allows readers to think of the process of dissolution in terms of trajectory rather than from inside the confines of national historiographies.

Appropriations and Adaptations During the reformations in England and Denmark the circulation of books was an important issue. The leaders of the two realms, and the church authorities appointed to conceptualise and disseminate reforms, were concerned about the content of religious books; not only liturgical ones, but also private devotional books. Both states issued warnings against books with erroneous teachings, and in both there are several extant medieval prayer books that show signs of reuse after the reformation. The owners made attempts to appropriate them according to the new practices of devotion. In her chapter, Laura Katrine Skinnebach examines the practice of appropriation, that is, what changes were made, and in particular how they were made, in order to shed further light on how people internalised the reformation ideals of their respective homelands. St. Edmund was king of the East Anglians in 869 when he was killed at the hands of Danish invaders. He was revered as a saint only a generation after his death and, by the sixteenth century, Bury St. Edmunds had become one of the most important monastic houses and pilgrimage

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INTRODUCTION

13

sites in England. In her chapter, Susan Royal assesses the legacy of St. Edmund’s martyrdom as it came into the hands of church reformers, elucidating the process of adaptation and negotiation which consumed Protestant prayer book editors and historians. The chapter pays special attention to its treatment in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1563), the most influential historical work of early modern England. Returning to the idea of ‘slow reformations’, it argues that the Protestant inculturation in England, like in other parts of Northern Europe, was a protracted process. Raymond Gillespie’s chapter attempts to measure the effects of ‘peripherality’ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by comparing two so-called peripheral regions, Ireland and Norway, using the strategies for religious change in both areas as a point of comparison. The diffusion and use of print provides a measurable approach to this problem. While there are similarities in the approach between the two regions, there are also significant differences. Though print was important in some regions, oral literacy was an equally important strategy for religious reform in, for instance, Gaelic Scotland, sixteenth-century Norway and Ireland. Those continuities allowed the absorption of new ideas, but often left pre-reform religious customs untouched. In regions where continuity was less marked, for example in colonised areas of Ireland, new ideas could be introduced, but were usually not adopted, leading ultimately to a failure of religious change.

Northern European Reformations ´ Over the Longue Duree As the volume opens with the idea of ‘slow reformations’, it closes with three contributions which explore the outworking of this idea over the longue durée. In her chapter, Gina Dahl focuses on the reception of religious ideas among eighteenth-century Norwegian Lutheran clergy. During the early modern period, the clergy had a significant role in terms of instilling Lutheran tenets into the general population. The clergy themselves were also susceptible to measures taken by the government to ensure conformity, such as the official control of the printing presses. However, given the scarcity of printing houses in Norway, learned books had to be imported from abroad, which meant that the transfer of early modern religious ideas, by and large, took place through an international exchange

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of books. In fact, the books of the eighteenth-century Norwegian clergy came from three main areas, namely Protestant parts of Germany, the Netherlands and the British Isles, and books from the latter areas in particular promulgated a significant amount of both Puritan as well as Presbyterian religious thought amongst the Norwegian clergy. Here, too, are to be found themes already explored in previous sections, including appropriations and adaptations within the broader context of zones of circulation and the continuing transferal of ideas beyond the reformation period. In their chapter Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark relate Danish– Norwegian material to the historiography of the reform and acculturation of ‘popular cultures’ in a British, and broader European context. In particular, the authors are concerned with how the notion of superstitio was deployed to construct religious otherness in reformation polemics, and how reformation polemics contributed to the construction of the intellectual categories and objects of the emerging studies of folklore and popular religion. Alexandra Walsham has shown that the British reformation discourse on superstition foreshadowed the study of folklore in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, not least because it was centred on ‘the realm of speech’ seen as ‘the natural habitat’ of superstition. Similarly, this chapter discusses the historical discourses about Catholicism as superstition, and examines the genealogy of one of the constitutive analytical categories of folklore, superstitio, in Denmark–Norway. In the closing chapter, Alec Ryrie considers the northern European reformations ad extra, as it were, and asks why, despite rhetorical commitment to the enterprise, British and Scandinavian Protestants were so slow to engage in cross-cultural mission. After surveying the lacklustre efforts made, he briefly considers the theological obstacles to early Protestant mission, before examining the ‘missions’ to the ‘barbaric’ peoples within these kingdoms’ European territories: the Celtic peoples of Britain and Ireland, and the Sámi of northern Scandinavia. The chapter argues that conformity, civility and state-building were the keynotes of those efforts; that figures like Bishop William Bedell in Ireland who bucked that trend were swimming against the tide; and that that model was exported to the New World. After a brief consideration of missions to slaves in the English Caribbean, the chapter concludes by observing the change of tone in the early eighteenth century and by comparing structural, institutional explanations of this history with theological, conceptual ones.

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In his epilogue, Carlos Eire problematises the use of colour-coded maps to denote religious affiliations in the age of the Reformations, which was replete with constantly changing religious boundaries. Indeed, he argues that the rapid pace of religious change was one of the period’s most salient characteristics, especially in Northern Europe. What the essays in this volume prove, he proposes, are that all maps of the religious landscape of early modern Europe are caricatures at best, for issues of belief and unbelief remain, for the most part, unquantifiable. The process of religious change in Northern Europe was complex and the essays gathered here invite us to shift our attention from the development of national or regional reformations to the broader canvas of areas sharing similar political and social characteristics. He concludes that the approaches adopted here shed light not just on the process of the Reformations themselves, but on significant characteristics of the early modern age as a whole.

Notes 1. The museum was established in 1825, making it one of the oldest public museums in Europe. The museum was later to become the nucleus of the establishment of the University of Bergen. On the museum and its collection see Justin Kroesen, “Encounter: The Kirkekunstsamling at the University Museum of Bergen”. Gesta 57 (2018): 1–4. 2. The Abbey was founded in 1146 when Henry Murdac was abbot at Fountains Abbey. 3. The frontal is from the church of Årdal in Sogn, see: Henrik von Achen, Norwegian Medieval Altar Frontals in Bergen Museum (Bergen: Universitetet i Bergen, 1996), 80–3. 4. St. Sunniva was the patron saint of Bergen and the western part of Norway, and the second most important Norwegian saint after St. Olaf in medieval Norway. See Alexander O’Hara, “Constructing a Saint: The Legend of St. Sunniva in Twelfth-Century Norway”. Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 5 (2009): 105–21. Of course, the exchange of saints’ cults also travelled in the other direction, as is evidenced by the fact that Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, founded by the Norse king Sitruic around the year 1030, possessed the vestments of St. Olaf. See Marie-Therese Flanagan, The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), 222. 5. For examples of discussion framed in such terms, see Simon Ditchfield, “Decentering the Catholic Reformation: Papacy and Peoples in the Early

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6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

Modern World”. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 101 (2010): 186– 208; Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic Europe, 1592–1648: Centre and Peripheries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Some of the contributors, most notably Gina Dahl and Raymond Gillespie, problematise this concept in their respective chapters. For examples of the transfer of ideas and news, see, for example, Joad Raymond and Noah Moxham (eds.), News Networks in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2016); James E. Kelly and Hannah Thomas (eds.), Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange Between England and Mainland Europe, c. 1580–1789: ‘The World Is Our House’? (Leiden: Brill, 2019). See, for example, Silvia Mostaccio, Early Modern Jesuits between Obedience and Conscience during the Generalate of Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615) (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014). For example, outside of the geographical area under consideration, Belgian Jesuits eyed their English counterparts with bemusement and sometimes distress at what they considered major deviations from the Jesuit norm of life: Thomas M. McCoog, “Seventeenth-Century Visitations of the Transmarine Houses of the English Province”, in With Eyes and Ears Open: the Role of Visitors in the Society of Jesus, ed. Thomas M. McCoog (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 96–125. See also Thomas M. McCoog, ‘And Touching Our Society’: Fashioning Jesuit Identity in Elizabethan England (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2013), 197–259. Though, notably when combining this with the previous theme, there could be something akin to ‘self confessionalization’, different groups becoming more entrenched and self-aware as the processes of reformation unfolded: see Peter Marshall, ‘Confessionalization, Confessionalism and Confusion in the English Reformation’, in Reforming Reformation, ed. T. F. Mayer (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 55–6, 64. E. I. Kouri and Jens E. Olesen (eds.), The Cambridge History of Scandinavia. Vol. II, 1520–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Ole P. Grell (ed.), The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). James L. Larson, Reforming the North. The Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1545 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Review by Göran Malmstedt, American Historical Review 116 (2011): 235–36. ‘The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway’, https://uit.no/pro sjekter/prosjekt?p_document_id%20=%20317402 (accessed 7 February 2020).

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16. L. I. Hansen, R. H. Bergesen and I. Hage (eds.), The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Introductory Studies (Stamsund: Orkana Akademisk, 2014); S. H. Berg, R. H. Bergesen and R. E. Kristiansen (eds.), The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Vol. 2: Towards a Protestant North (Hanover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2016); S. H. Berg, R. H. Bergesen and R. E. Kristiansen (eds.), The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Vol 3: The Protracted Reformation in the North (forthcoming, 2020). 17. Nordlit 43 (2017), septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/issue/view/398 (accessed on 7 February 2020).

PART I

Slow Reformations

CHAPTER 2

Reformation on Scotland’s Northern Frontier: The Orkney Islands, 1560–c.1700 Peter Marshall

The Reformations in Scotland and in Denmark–Norway took parallel and separate courses, but there is a sense in which they overlapped, or met in the middle. Geographically, politically and culturally, the “Northern Isles,” the archipelagos of Orkney and Shetland, lay for centuries at the intersection of the British and Scandinavian worlds. Viking settlement was underway there by the early ninth century, and in the Middle Ages Orkney was the centre of a powerful, quasi-independent Norse earldom, encompassing Shetland and much of the north of Scotland.1 Scottish influence increased after the earldom passed into hands of Scots families in the thirteenth century, but the islands remained part of the Norwegian– Danish state until 1468, when Christian I mortgaged them to James III in lieu of the sum promised as the dowry for his daughter’s hand in marriage. In 1472, the Scots parliament annexed the earldom of Orkney to the crown, though the question of ultimate sovereignty remained intriguingly open, and the issue of redemption was periodically raised over the following centuries.2 Only in 1611 was the old Norwegian legal system

P. Marshall (B) Department of History, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_2

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abolished, with the passing of an “Act discharging Foreign laws within Orknay and Zetland.”3 Lying close to the Scottish mainland, but separated from it by the treacherous waters of the Pentland Firth, the islands of Orkney—seventy in number, around a third inhabited—constituted a medieval “frontier zone,” many of whose characteristics endured after the (ambiguous) transfer of sovereignty to Scotland.4 The medieval bishopric of Orkney had been part of the archdiocese of Nidaros, or Trondheim. In 1472, it was relocated by Sixtus IV to the jurisdiction of St Andrews, newly raised to the status of an archbishopric. But the message does not seem to have got through to the authorities in either Orkney or Norway. In 1514, Christian II of Denmark drafted a letter ordering Orcadians to pay accustomed fees to the new archbishop of Nidaros, and in 1520 Leo X complained that monies being sent to Norway from Orkney should have come to Rome for the construction of St. Peter’s. In 1525, Nidaros sent an emissary to Rome to investigate the bishopric’s status, and the 1472 bull was rediscovered. Plans to reassert Nidaros’s rights were, however, soon overtaken by the advent of the Danish Reformation, and by its Norwegian sequel, which Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson of Trondheim stoutly but unsuccessfully resisted.5 Spiritual connections between late medieval Orkney and Norway extended beyond the institutional arrangements of the Church. The cathedral church in Orkney’s capital, Kirkwall, housed the relics of the twelfth-century earl and martyr, St. Magnus, whose cult was diffused widely across the Scandinavian world. In 1441, the tomb was said to be “visited every year by multitudes of pilgrims from divers parts of the said kingdom [of Norway],” and the (Scots) bishop of Orkney, Thomas Tulloch, secured an indulgence from the pope to reward those coming to the shrine on the appropriate feasts and giving alms for the repair of the church.6 Pilgrim traffic was not all in one direction. In 1529, two generations after the transfer of the islands to Scotland, Christian Tulloch of Ness in the parish of St Andrew settled her share of inheritance on her brother, “for sa meikel as I am to pas in pylgramage to the haly Crose of Fann[en] in Norrowaye.” This was almost certainly a reference to the shrine-church of Fana, just outside Bergen, home to a renowned silver crucifix, removed by the Danish Lutheran authorities in 1537.7 Pilgrims travelled along well-established trade routes. In the Middle Ages, and on through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Kirkwall was a key node of Scots-Norwegian commerce, principally the exchange

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of grain for timber. In the period between 1612 and 1650, no fewer than 78 merchants from Orkney were registered as burgesses of Bergen.8 One Orcadian, Jon Thomessøn, rose to become mayor of Bergen by 1543, and was praised by the contemporary Bergen chronicler and Lutheran clergyman Absalon Pederssøn Beyer as “gudfryctig from og retuis” [godly, pious and just].9 From this we might infer, though we cannot be certain, that Thomessøn had become a Protestant. There is an inherited historiographical tendency to think of the lines of early modern cultural influence as running principally south–north. But, as Morten Fink-Jensen and other contributors to this volume ably demonstrate, the east–west dynamic was just as vital for the regions and nations straddling the North Sea. Within the islands themselves (as in Shetland), the principal cultural legacy of Norwegian settlement and lordship was the survival of the distinctive form of Old Norse known as Norn. More so than in Shetland, Norn was ceding ground to the Scots language in Orkney even before the 1468 transfer to Scotland. The last official document written there in Norwegian dates from 1425, and not long after this Scots seems likely to have become (in the words of Ian Peter Grohse) “the preferred vernacular among the peasant elite,” as well as among an influential immigrant class of landowners and churchmen.10 But the demise of Norn was a very protracted one. It was probably spoken by the majority of Orkney’s rural population well into the sixteenth century, and as late as the start of the eighteenth century the visiting Church of Scotland commissioner John Brand could report that in the parish of Harray “there are a few yet living, who can speak no other thing.”11 Norn died out as a spoken language in Orkney, slowly, over the course of the eighteenth century. Into the 1750s and beyond, there are reports of Norn still being used, but as a habit largely confined to the passing generation.12 The decline of Norn ran in parallel with the introduction and implementation of Protestantism in Orkney, but the relationship between the processes is likely to have been complex. Jane Dawson has shown how in the Scottish Highlands Calvinism might successfully coexist with, and even utilise, traditional Gaelic literary culture.13 As Raymond Gillespie argues elsewhere in this volume, Wales can be considered a parallel case, and the old idea that, in order to make headway among indigenous populations, Protestantism required a critical mass of vernacular print is undoubtedly too simplistic. It did, however, require agents and advocates. Not only was Norn never the language of bibles or printed tracts, it seems very likely that it was neither spoken nor comprehended by any of the

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clergymen who served in Orkney in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1605, the Scots jurist Sir Thomas Craig claimed that, though in the preceding century nothing but Norse was spoken in Orkney and Shetland, “the ministers of God’s word now use English in Church, and are well enough understood.”14 The Reformation in Orkney may seem a distinctly niche topic, which to date, perhaps understandably, has attracted scant attention from professional scholars.15 Yet the extent to which multilingualism inhibited the acceptance of new ideas, or lent them lustre as the accompaniment to an ascendant political and cultural force, is a question of distinctly broader interest—applicable, in varying ways, to the situation of both Ireland and Norway.16 Islands, and island archipelagos in particular, have made very little mark on the historiography of the Reformation.17 Yet, usually geographically liminal, and often culturally hybrid and jurisdictionally complex, they can pose challenging questions about the stability of national boundaries and the cohesion of national polities. Islands also bring into focus themes which are often little discussed as part of the dynamics of religious change: the impact of the maritime environment, transport and even weather. In a number of ways, Orkney’s experience can also provide a fresh and revealing perspective on the perennial question of what should count as a “successful” Reformation in the British–Scandinavian context.

Reformed by Bishops? On one level, the success of the Reformation in Orkney seems swift and assured. Orkney was one of a handful of Scottish dioceses, in Gordon Donaldson’s phrase, “reformed by bishops.” The bishop in question was Adam Bothwell, a well-connected Edinburgh clergyman appointed, with proper papal provision, in 1559, who arrived in the islands in the spring of 1560.18 In January 1561, at a meeting in Kirkwall of the hird court, a remnant of the old Norse administration, Bothwell proposed full compliance with the decrees of the Reformation Parliament. It was not well received. In letters to his brother-in-law, Archibald Napier of Merchiston, Bothwell reported how “ane gret multitude off the commonis” angrily rejected the invitation to “be content off mutatioun off religion.” The bishop closed the doors of the cathedral against the mob, and prevented mass being said there. But his opponents brought in their own priest to celebrate the sacrament, and to consecrate marriages “in the auld maner,”

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in a chapel next to the chamber where Bothwell was lying sick. The bishop could not prevent it, he wrote, “without I wald haif committit slauchter.” There had almost been slaughter a few weeks earlier when Bothwell was confronted by another angry crowd on a visit to his estates in Birsay, in the far northwest of the Orkney main island (“the Mainland”). It was instigated by members of the powerful Sinclair family, one-time holders of the earldom. Religious and social discontents converged, in a manner familiar to historians of sixteenth-century popular protest. The tenants had reportedly been put “in beleiff to leiff frelie, and knaw na superiouris in na tymis cumin.”19 There was seemingly little or no popular appetite for Reformation in Orkney. It is possible, as Donaldson speculated, and as Charlotte Methuen explores further in her chapter in this volume, that reforming ideas may have filtered into the islands along Scandinavia trade routes, though there is no very firm evidence for this. A couple of Orcadian Protestants can be found prior to 1560 among the clergy. Andrew Lowson, in exile at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in 1549, was probably the “Andreas Guielmus” for whom Melanchthon supplied a testimonial in 1551, noting that he had been expelled from Orkney by Bishop Robert Reid for his evangelical preaching. James Ka, or Skea, a priest “borne in Orkeney,” fled to England in 1547 “for fear of Burning for the word of God.” Skea may have contracted his heresy in Orkney, but at the time of his flight was serving a cure in Caithness.20 Nonetheless, the events of 1561 seem to have constituted the full extent of overt opposition, and formal Catholic worship in Orkney most likely came swiftly to an end. A quarter of a century later, the General Assembly placed Orkney within the scope of a visitation of highland and northern regions “where the Jesuites and Papists chieflie resort.”21 This, however, was perhaps part of a general cultural suspicion of the unreformed character of “the north,” and there is limited evidence of any sustained Counter-Reformation engagement with the islands.22 In 1605, the Jesuit Superior in Ireland, Christopher Holywood, was being urged from Rome to send priests to Orkney, but confessed he lacked the resources.23 In the 1650s, the Lazarist priest Thomas Lumsden visited the islands as part of a mission circuit encompassing the northern Highlands. It was perhaps as a delayed result of Lumsden’s efforts that in 1686 “Alexander More, Orcadensis” was enrolled as a student in the Scots College in Rome.24 Yet it is clear that no permanent recusant

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community was established, and there would be no settled Catholic presence in Orkney until the mid-nineteenth century. “All today are of the reformed religion” wrote a local clergyman in the mid-1640s. A century later, the ministers of Orkney could report with satisfaction to the General Assembly that “there are no papists within the bounds of this Synod.”25 To this extent, Orkney seems to represent almost the purest form of “quiet” or conformist Reformation. In the view of Gordon Donaldson, the smoothness of transition was both admirable and unusual: “All the indications are that the reformation was moderate in character and avoided needless dislocation … The proceeding was not in conformity with the Scottish reformation as it is usually understood.”26 Yet Donaldson was too inclined to play down the extent of disruption, institutional as well as cultural. It is true that Kirkwall’s great Romanesque cathedral of St Magnus was spared extensive damage, continuing after the Reformation as the main place of Protestant worship. But there is a frustrating silence in the records about what must have been a traumatic local episode: the putting down of the shrine of St Magnus. The cult of Magnus remained strong in Orkney in the sixteenth century: a vision of the saint was reported to have appeared on the battlefield at Summerdale in 1529, when the Orcadian branch of the Sinclair family saw off an invasion from its Caithness cousins. As a boy’s given name, Magnus was exceedingly common: in a sample of early seventeenth-century Orcadian testators, it comes just behind William in popularity, and ahead of James, John and Thomas.27 In 1919, during renovation work in the cathedral, a casket with bones was discovered in one of the pillars. Damage to the skull matched the description of the death of Magnus in the Orkneyinga Saga, and the remains seem likely to be those of the martyred saint.28 It is now impossible to say whether the concealment of the casket was a clandestine act or a low-key reinterment with some measure of official authorization. In either case, the public cult of a revered symbol of local identity came abruptly and emphatically to an end.29 We do not know much in detail either about the establishment of reformed structures of worship, ministry and discipline in the last decades of the sixteenth century. Bothwell was given a superintendent’s commission by the General Assembly in 1563 for “planting kirks &c within his own bounds.” He had already brought in some reform-minded clergy, such as a former monk from Aberdeenshire, Gilbert Foulzie, who served as archdeacon of Orkney. In March 1570, Bothwell boasted how “when

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idolatry and superstition were suppressed, he suppressed the same also in his bounds, preached the Word, administered the sacraments, planted ministers in Orkney and Shetland, disponed benefices and gave stipends out of his rents to ministers, exhorters and readers; and when he was a commissioner visited all the kirks of Orkney and Shetland twice, to the hazard of his life in dangerous storms on the sea.” But this was in defensive response to charges brought against him in the General Assembly–accusations of neglect of his diocese, and of simony, for making over in feu all the lands of the bishopric to Lord Robert Stewart, in exchange for the lands of Holyrood Abbey. Bothwell had already been deprived of his position as commissioner in 1567, when he had conceded that he did not “remain in Orkney all the year, by reason of the evil air.” He does not seem to have visited much, if at all, after the early 1560s. Matters were left in the hands of commissioners like Foulzie, who became the first Protestant minister of the former cathedral.30 Orkney’s last pre-Reformation bishop, the impressive Renaissance prelate Robert Reid, undertook a major reform of the cathedral’s constitution in 1544, insisting on residence from all members of the chapter, and laying out a series of offices and dignities supported by the revenues of appropriated parishes.31 Two decades later, Bothwell’s aim was to persuade the cathedral clergy to serve as ministers in the parishes from which their incomes were drawn, and thus at a stroke re-endow the local parish ministry. In hailing a remarkable pastoral achievement, Donaldson was considerably too sanguine. Even on his own figures, only half of the thirty-four Orkney clergy known to be in office in 1560 can be shown to have continued serving in the Kirk in some capacity. The legal right of existing ecclesiastical office-holders in Scotland to retain two-thirds of the teinds or tithes of a living no doubt increased the temptations of quiet withdrawal. In 1567, there were reported to be only eight ministers in Orkney’s twenty-four parishes, and it is not certain that all of these served in person. They were supported by twelve readers, who could conduct services but not preach, and a couple of exhorters, who could preach but not administer the sacrament.32 After the formal abolition of episcopacy in 1580, separate presbyteries were planned for Orkney and Shetland, though only in 1586 does the Orkney presbytery seem to have been properly established. In the last decade of the sixteenth century, oversight rested with the Edinburgh minister Robert Pont, as commissioner appointed by the General Assembly. He convened a synod for Orkney and Shetland at Kirkwall

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in 1592, and visited again in 1596 to conduct a visitation. As a result, nine Orkney ministers—over two-thirds of the total—had charges said to be “meriting deprivation” (probably for non-residence) laid against them before the presbytery of Edinburgh.33 Establishment of a functioning system of parish kirk sessions is also likely to have been a gradual process. The earliest secure reference is a set of disciplinary ordinances produced by the Sheriff Court in 1615, ordering bailies of each parish to assist ministers and elders in the execution of all “actis and statutes, maid or to be maid in their sessioun of kirk.”34 This took place at a crucial moment politically. The old earldom finally came to an end that year with the execution of Earl Patrick Stewart, after a rebellion in Orkney raised by his son Robert. Patrick’s father, another Robert, was a bastard son of James V, granted the royal estates in Orkney by his half-sister Mary Queen of Scots, and raised to a new creation of the earldom by James VI in 1581. The Stewart earls built for themselves a brace of fashionable renaissance palaces, and a reputation as tyrants.35 Their nemesis was James Law, named bishop of Orkney in 1605 on James VI’s re-establishment of episcopacy. In August 1611, the Orkney ministers collectively resigned their livings to the bishop, in order to be reassigned them at his hand.36 Law’s successor, George Grahame, the bishop from 1615 to 1638, was equally hands-on. He held regular visitations, and presided, at least periodically, over meetings of the kirk session of St. Magnus in Kirkwall, the elders deferring to his judgement on such contentious matters as places of burial and seating within the cathedral.37 Grahame’s resident and activist episcopal ministry, like that of his post-Restoration successors Andrew Honeyman and Murdo Mackenzie, questions the notion that a position on the geographical “periphery” necessarily implies an absence of oversight and jurisdictional drift.

Environmental Challenges If, by the early seventeenth century, a working Presbyterian structure was in place, incongruously presided over by a bishop, the wholesale reform of religious culture in the parishes was another matter. One formidable obstacle was provision for schooling and education. During Bishop Grahame’s visitation of 1627, ministers and elders were repeatedly asked if there was any school in their parish, and delegation after delegation replied there was not. “Without the education of the youth,”

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observed the representatives from Birsay, “the travellis of the minister upon the elder persones are lost.” William Hair, minister of Shapinsay, was disarmingly frank: there was “na schoole in the paroche, nor never was; because the people are puir laboreris of the ground, and thairfoir are content that thair bairns be brocht vp to labor with thame.”38 It was a cause of great concern to the presbytery in 1660 that parishioners “are not carefull, yea unwilling, to put their children to school, whereby parents falsifye their solemne promise made at the baptisme of their children.” Things were not very much better by the time of visitation in 1702. A half dozen parishes now reported having a school, but outside of Kirkwall none possessed any fund for the “incouragement” of a schoolmaster.39 The infrastructural problems of expounding the gospel among largely illiterate rural congregations were seriously compounded by issues of geography and environment. The large and populous islands of Westray and Sanday could boast multiple kirks and at least one resident minister. But this was not uniform across either the northern or southern isles. Conjoining of parishes was common, in continuation of a pattern often present before the Reformation. And the pastoral effects of non-residence were compounded when ministerial charges encompassed more than one island. The provision of pastoral care for Orkney’s most northerly island, North Ronaldsay, was an intractable problem throughout the seventeenth century. The only ordained minister known to have served there, in the 1590s, considered its people “quite ignorant of the Divine Word, because they are rarely or never taught.”40 There were equivalent challenges for the people of Fara, a little island, today uninhabited, in the western approaches to Scapa Flow. In 1645, the presbytery received a petition from its inhabitants, requesting that they be not required to attend the kirk at Walls, but instead be permitted to resort for preaching, sacraments and discipline to the kirk of Flotta, “being most convenient, in respect of the nearness unto that place.” The argument over which neighbouring island Fara folk should go to for worship rumbled on for months.41 Church-going by sea could be distinctly hazardous. It was believed in the sixteenth century that the little island of Switha, just south of Flotta, was formerly inhabited, and that the entire population was drowned in a storm, travelling to Christmas service on a nearby island.42 The ideal was of one shoreline, one kirk, one community. There was a discernible note of pride and satisfaction in the 1627 return subscribed by

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the minister and leading parishioners of Shapinsay that “the parish is not united to any other parish. But is of itself, having one kirk, quhilk serves the people thereof.”43 At the end of the century, the visiting Church of Scotland commissioner John Brand calculated that there were seventeen parish cures in Orkney, but no fewer than thirty-one functioning kirks. He observed that “ministers look upon themselves as more happily posted, who have only one kirk, especially if they have not more kirks in several isles.” The people generally attended their own island kirk, hearing divine service only every second or third week, as it is “expensive and dangerous for them to travel from isle to isle, and sometimes a storm arising they are necessarily detained there.” “Tempestuousness of the weather” was a regular, and seemingly unquestioned, excuse for ministers’ absences from meetings of the Orkney presbytery in the mid-seventeenth century.44 In such a challenging environment, the effects of ministerial neglect were necessarily magnified: in 1643, for example, the presbytery lamented “the deplorable estate of the kirks of Firth and Stenness” on account of the long absence of their minister.45 Despite periodic instances of indolence and non-residence, the ministry in seventeenth-century Orkney was, however, neither notoriously negligent nor incompetent. An abiding impression from the surviving presbytery minutes is of the seriousness with which assembled ministers faced the challenges confronting them, and of considerable efforts to provide at least minimal pastoral cover. Numbers were fairly stable over much of the century. In around 1644, Walter Stewart, minister of South Ronaldsay, composed a chorographic description of Orkney, to accompany Joan Blaeu’s maps of Orkney and Shetland published in Amsterdam a decade later. Stewart reported that “the ministers are in number seventeen in total: three in the southern islands, eight in the Mainland, and six in the northern islands, having care of the churches and matters pertaining thereto, and exercising ecclesiastical discipline on delinquents with great diligence and severity.” In 1684, the cathedral minister James Wallace identified “eighteen Ministers of the blessed Gospel, whereof some have one, some two, and some three kirks, in which the people are edified by the Holy Ordinances, all of them men of great piety.”46 Through the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the ministers represented a fairly cohesive social group.47 After the first years of the seventeenth century, virtually all were graduates, usually of St. Andrews,

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Edinburgh or King’s College, Aberdeen. Some were more socially distinguished—Patrick Grahame of Holm, like Thomas Mackenzie of Shapinsay, was the son of a bishop of Orkney—but there were few gaping disparities of status. Orkney, no less than other parts of the Protestant world, saw a decisive post-Reformation shift away from the characteristic medieval dichotomy of rich beneficed higher clergy and poor salaried parochial curates. Yet what perhaps most distinguished the ministers as a group was their conspicuous position as outsiders and incomers. Of ninety-one ministers appointed to Orkney parishes between 1607 and 1689, only a dozen can be identified as originating from Orkney itself, and nearly all of these were sons of other Orkney ministers. The theme was not entirely new: the late medieval Church was a crucial channel allowing Scots to settle in Orcadian society. It is possible, however, that the stipendiary vicars actually serving parish cures before the Reformation may sometimes have been indigenous.48 If so, that pattern came to an end: there are no traditional Orcadian surnames—Isbister, Drever, Flett, Rendall or Linklater—among the ranks of the seventeenth-century ministers, none of whom bore the quintessential Orcadian Christian name of Magnus. The increasing educational and cultural gap between clergy and parishioners in post-Reformation Europe, Protestant and Catholic, is a familiar historical theme. Whether, in Orkney, that gap was particularly marked by a sense of geographic and ethnic otherness is difficult to say for certain. Seventeenth-century presbytery and kirk session records are regularly punctuated by cases of ministers finding themselves on the receiving end of verbal abuse, though perhaps no more often than one would expect to encounter elsewhere. A 1661 case from South Ronaldsay suggests, however, an underlying potential for native resentment. In the alehouse, a woman accused the minister and his wife of being “ferry-loopers”—the disparaging term still sometimes used in Orkney to denote incomers to the islands.49 A view from the inside of the pulpit was expressed by an earlier South Ronaldsay minister, Walter Stewart, a native of Stirlingshire, and a son of the Laird of Culbeg. Stewart recorded in his chorographic description how the pastors gathered in Kirkwall through the summer months “to transact ecclesiastical business, as in Scotland itself, from which for the most part they come.” Stewart thought well of the intelligence and cheerfulness of Orcadians, observing that “even the country people listen carefully to sermons.” Indeed, he added, patronisingly and revealingly,

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“they either express or try to express the humanity and civility which they have taken from Scots who live among them.”50 Virtually all early modern commentary on the social and religious condition of Orkney and Orcadians were written by outsiders. Stewart, like Wallace towards the end of the century, like the mid-eighteenthcentury historian of Orkney, the Reverend George Low, and like the later clerical contributors to the Old and New Statistical Accounts, was a kind of anthropologist in his own cure. The earliest instance of this is a sixteenth-century Descriptio Insularum Orchadiarum, which survives solely in manuscript copies from the seventeenth century and later. Both the date, and the identity of an author who signs himself only in abbreviation as “Jo: Ben.,” are disputed. But it seems most likely to have been composed in 1592 by the minister John Bonar, a graduate of St Andrews who worked for a time in North Ronaldsay and afterwards served in a series of parishes in the Scottish borders.51 The Descriptio is a curious and fascinating ethnographic document, which relates a number of implausible historical and folkloric traditions about various islands and parishes without obvious adverse comment. But in it Bonar distinguishes between “they,” meaning native Orcadians, and “we,” meaning Scots like himself—noting among the former an habitual use of the Norn greeting “Goand da, boundae,” “when we say Guid day, guid man.”52 A century later, we find Wallace making the revealing comment that “some of the common people among themselves speak Norse.”53 The extent to which Norn represented a distinct cultural space, even a site of resistance, inaccessible to the clergy, is a moot point. A suspected witch on the island of Sanday confessed in 1633 that she had breathed into water to be used for healing purposes, saying she “aundit in bitt”—a Norn phrase which the clerk of the court helpfully “exponit into right language.”54

Witchcraft and “Superstition” Cultural distance between clergy and laity may have played its part in facilitating sporadically intense witchcraft prosecution. At least sixtyfive persons, ninety percent of them women, were judicially accused of witchcraft in Orkney over the course of the seventeenth century, with a couple more in the 1590s, and one in the early eighteenth century— a slightly higher number per head of population than for Scotland as a whole.55

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The islands enjoyed a reputation for sorcery. James VI believed witchcraft to be “most common in such wilde parts of the world as Lap-land and Fin-land, or in our North Isles of Orknay and Schetland.” Patrick Stewart, earl of Orkney, remarked off-handedly in 1609 that “the people ar naturally inclynit thairto.”56 Orkney’s cases were concentrated in the first half of the century, with a spike of twenty-four in the year 1643. Most likely, this was related to the political turmoil of the first civil war, and a desire on the part of the Orkney presbytery to assert itself after the fall of episcopacy and the deprivation of Bishop Grahame. Certainly, the presbytery was heavily involved in the processing of cases, receiving accusations from ministers and kirk sessions, interrogating suspects and referring them to the Sheriff Court.57 A pattern detected elsewhere is sometimes in evidence: the clerical recasting of traditional folk belief in theologically correct demonological terms. A striking instance is the case of Elspeth Reoch, tried for witchcraft before the Kirkwall Sheriff Court in 1616. Reoch was a wanderer, a piper’s daughter from Caithness, who came over to Orkney and established herself as a fortune teller, having been gifted the second sight by “ane fairie man” she first met at a loch-side in Scotland. The indictment, however, declared his real identity: “the devell, quhilk she callis the farie man.” An intriguingly anticlerical detail of Reoch’s reported dealings with the devil is that he “bade hir leave Orkney and go home to her awin contry because this country wes Priestgone, quhilk he exponit that ther was our mony Ministeris in it.”58 In fact, relatively few Orkney witchcraft cases involved such explicitly demonological narratives, though there are references to sabbats in a handful of trials from the 1630s and 1640s. The dominant theme is maleficium, and injury or death to humans or animals. To that extent, the driving force for prosecutions came from communities themselves— though a changed legal framework, with the proximity of kirk sessions, and the hyper-alertness of some ministers, undoubtedly provided new outlets for redress of grievances. Many, perhaps most, cases arose out of practices of magical healing gone wrong, with the client turning accuser. Others involved charming and divination with sieve and shears, for which there was considerable local demand. The presbytery waged a long attritional campaign against “charmers, consulters, abusers and persons guilty of such foule crimes,” passing a new ordinance in 1643 against “the said evils (these being common in this land).”59 There was a perception of laxity under the old episcopal regime. One of the charges brought by

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Orkney ministers against Bishop Grahame at the time of his deprivation in 1638 was that “he did manie tymes (charmers and such lyke being brought before him in the presbyterie) extenuate their faults so farre as he could, saying that all their practices were but trifles, and that he could do as much himself.”60 The mood among the Orkney clergy in the mid-seventeenth century was scarcely one of puritan revolution. Nearly all of them signed a declaration of loyalty to the marquis of Montrose on the occasion of his doomed attempt to launch an invasion of Scotland via Orkney in 1650.61 But there was undoubtedly an intensification of the campaign against magical practices. In April 1644, the presbytery issued an order: “the Elfbelt to be destroyed, in respect it hath been a monument of superstition … and the silver of it being melted, payment to be given out of the box unto the owner for the samyne.”62 Nothing more is known about this intriguing object or its provenance, but the implication is of an apotropaic device, known to be available for loan or hire, and supplying its wearer with protection against the fairies. The campaign against “superstition” in seventeenth-century Orkney proceeded on two fronts: against folk magic and against the cultural traces of medieval Catholicism. Indeed, the distinction between them was often far from clear: charmers used snatches of Latin prayer in their invocations, and the kind of language bringing people in front of the kirk session might include maledictions of the sort uttered by a parishioner of Holm in 1686: “God and sueet St Nicollas turne they eyes in thy neck.”63 In the year preceding the destruction of the Elfbelt, the presbytery enquired about another cultic object. Walter Stewart was “asked anent Saint Peters image quhilk was ordained at the visitation to be burnt?” He replied “that it was done.”64 The church on the east side of South Ronaldsay was dedicated to St. Peter, and the remarkable inference is that the statue had for decades sat undisturbed in the Protestant kirk. Objects could be obliterated, but ingrained patterns of behaviour were less easy to eradicate.65 Pilgrimage was a recurrent concern for the reformed clergy. At the close of the sixteenth century, John Bonar reported how people from many islands would gather in the parish of Harray, at a large church dedicated to Saint Mary, “vulgus vocat the Lady of Grace.” Another church dedicated to the Virgin Mary lay on the little island of Damsay, in the Bay of Firth, west of Kirkwall. This was a place “to which women frequently go when pregnant.”

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Bonar’s most intriguing report concerned the Brough of Deerness, a rocky promontory at the far eastern end of the Orkney Mainland. It was a site of early settlement, and also of a medieval chapel, which Bonar, slipping from Latin into Scots, tells us is called “the Bairnes of Brugh.” Most likely, the phrase is a corruption of the Norn word baenhus, prayer house. Bonar reported how people of all ages, from different islands, gathered to scramble with difficulty up the slope to the chapel. They would walk two or three times around it, making incantations, throwing stones and water behind their backs, and return home claiming to have got what they prayed for. “Here,” he concluded, “they do not worship God purely.”66 Pilgrimage to traditional sacred sites was a disciplinary problem right across Scotland, and much of the Protestant world. But Orcadian cultural recidivism seems to have been of unusually long duration. The Sheriff Court ordinances of 1615 singled out as a priority for bailies assisting kirk sessions the necessity of “suppressing all idolatrie, speciallie of walkis and pilgramages.” The ruling was echoed in an act of the Kirkwall session from 1619, threatening punishment to “sik as gois on pilgrimage.” Bairnes of Brugh, and a barely legible word that may be either Birsay or Damsay, were singled out in this context.67 Such admonitions were remarkably unsuccessful. Wallace, writing in 1684, suggested that votive journeys, “for the obtaining of some good or deprecating of some evil,” to Bairnes of Brugh, and to the chapel at the Brough of Birsay at the opposite end of the Mainland, were still not “omitted by the common people.” Nearly a century later, the minister George Low observed how Orcadians “are wont to vow in any distress a pilgrimage to such or such a church or chapel.” Another site of continuing pilgrimage was the chapel of St. Tredwell on a little island in a loch on the northern isle of Papa Westray. Here, the waters of the loch itself were believed to have medicinal qualities. A tradition recorded in the early nineteenth century held that the first Presbyterian minister in the parish could hardly restrain his people “of a Sunday morning, from paying their devotions at this ruin, previous to their attendance on public worship in the reformed church.” John Brand, the General Assembly’s commissioner, complained at the start of the eighteenth century that local people were actively preserving the walls of the chapel, and making offerings of stones and money—an example of the “heathenish and popish rites” Brand considered to be rampant among Orcadians.68 Historians will naturally call such practices “survivals,” but doing so risks obscuring how social rituals and practices belong by definition to

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the present of their performance, not the past of their putative origins.69 Walks and pilgrimages must have been a dynamic feature of Orcadian culture and belief to have continued for two centuries and more after their formal prohibition. Nor can we assume their meanings remained static. The early travel writer Martin Martin, who visited Orkney in the 1690s, noted that superstitious common people coming to the ruins of St Tredwell’s chapel “never fail … to throw a Stone as an offering before the Door; and this they reckon an indispensable Duty enjoin’d by their Ancestors.” The casting of stones, recorded earlier by Bonar at the Brough of Deerness, also featured regularly in charges against witches, in the context of magical healing. It most likely denotes the idea of transferring sickness or ill fortune into the inanimate object. As Jocelyn Rendall has noted, votive coins (of surprisingly pristine condition) discovered by archaeologists at Deerness date from no earlier than the mid-seventeenth century: their presence may reflect a shift towards intensified ideas of prayer, or thanksgiving for benefits received.70 According to Wallace, it was said of St. Tredwell’s Loch that “it will appear like blood before any disaster befall the royal family.” That sounds very much like a piece of political providentialism generated in the turbulent seventeenth century, rather than a belief handed down from time immemorial.71 The observance of saints’ days was another pre-Reformation custom reconstituting itself over a remarkably long period in the face of consistent official disapproval. In January 1644, George Johnstone, minister at St Magnus, “did rebuke some persons of the vulgar sort from the pulpit for their superstitious observation of Festival and holy days (as they call them).” But four decades later his successor reported it to be a “general custom” that “the day that is dedicate to the Memory of the Saint who is patron of the chief Kirk (where sermon is made) is kept holy by the common people of the whole parish, so that they will not work on that day. And these that live next the smaller chapels do moreover keep holy that day that is dedicated to the memory of that Saint.”72 Among superstitions “continued from the times of popery,” Low noted “an attachment for particular churches, chapels and days.” The observation is corroborated by a late eighteenth-century minister of Sandwick: “the people do no work on the 3rd day of March, in commemoration of the day on which the church of Sandwick was consecrated; and as the church was dedicated to St. Peter, they also abstain from working for themselves on St. Peter’s day.”73

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The prominence, not just of parish kirks, but of chapels, is striking. The sites of over a hundred pre-Reformation chapels have been identified in Orkney, and there are likely to have been more. They largely predate the formalisation of the parish system, and were probably often local places of burial, established by landowners in the first century or so of Norse Christianisation.74 Several ministers compiling parish topographies for the Statistical Account in the 1790s emphasised the remains of chapels as a peculiarity of their district. To James Watson, minister of South Ronaldsay, evidence that “the Roman Catholic Religion had once a firm footing in these isles” lay in the fact that the ruins of seven old chapels were still to be seen in South Ronaldsay alone (there were in fact nine). A South Ronaldsay man, John Budge, appeared before the kirk session in 1660, to confess that “in time of his heavy sickness he went to the old chapel in Grimness called St. Colm’s Chapel.” Although he denied it, he most likely did so at the direction of Katherine Manson, a suspected charmer and witch. Brand’s stark recommendation in 1701 was that the government should simply raze all old chapels, the “nest egg” of superstition.75 Chapels were a feature of the physical and mental landscape across the British Isles, and were often places of interest in postReformation centuries.76 But Orkney’s inflection with the architectural remains of its pre-Reformation past seems both particularly intense and culturally fecund.

Conclusion When the famous Scots evangelist James Haldane undertook a mission to Orkney in 1797 he found it to be a place “as much in need of the true gospel of Jesus Christ, so far as respects the preaching of it, as any of the islands of the Pacific Ocean.”77 That assessment undoubtedly reflects the prejudices of the evangelical awakening against the unspectacular witness of the eighteenth-century church, and clerical jeremiads of this kind do little to justify any glib conclusion that Orkney’s Reformation was a “failed” one. Despite considerable geographical and environmental challenges, early modern Orkney possessed a generally well-functioning system of parish discipline and pastoral provision. Under both quasiepiscopal and unadulteratedly Presbyterian regimes, its clergy manifested a professional esprit de corps which remained more or less intact through the political vicissitudes of the seventeenth century.78 Their labours facilitated among the laity, especially but not exclusively the merchant class of

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Kirkwall, the emergence of a genuine and sometimes profound Protestant piety—such as that manifested by David Covingtrie of Newark (Sanday), father of a future minister on the island, who between January and November of 1662 produced ninety close-written pages of meditation on passages from scripture.79 Nonetheless, in common with other parts of an expansively drawn Scandinavian cultural zone—Shetland, Norway, Iceland, the Faroes— Reformation came to Orkney from the outside and was to a considerable extent implemented and sustained by outsiders. Across the eighteenth century, the great majority of ministers in Orkney parishes came from mainland Scotland.80 After around 1700, few Orcadians remained literally bilingual, in Norn and Scots, but a kind of cultural bilingualism may well have persisted—an ability to attend to the language and mores of the Kirk that did not necessarily displace beliefs and attitudes rooted in the rhythms of the calendar, and in the constructed and natural features of the landscape, rather than in any form of consciously contumacious Catholicism. It would be a stretch to talk about the “spiritual conquest” of the Orkney Islands in the early modern period.81 But parallels with other parts of the world, where an indigenised Christianity both fused and failed to fuse with an anterior system of the sacred, may be worthy of further reflection.

Notes 1. “Orkney and Shetland” are often treated as a single entity. Yet, in addition to being a considerable distance apart, the island groups in the medieval and early modern periods were politically, economically and culturally distinct. The fullest, if dated, account of religious change in Shetland is E. W. Wallis, “The Church in Shetland During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries” (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1940). 2. William P. L. Thomson, The New History of Orkney, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2008), Chapters 12–14; Gordon Donaldson, “Problems of Sovereignty and Law in Orkney and Shetland,” Stair Society Miscellany 2 (1984): 13–40. 3. Alexander Peterkin, Notes on Orkney and Zetland, Illustrative of the History, Antiquities, Scenery and Customs of those islands (Edinburgh, 1822), 63–4. 4. On late medieval Orkney as a political and cultural frontier, see Ian Peter Grohse, Frontiers for Peace in the Medieval North: The Norwegian-Scottish

2

5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

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Frontier, c. 1260–1470 (Leiden: Brill, 2017). See also Barbara E. Crawford, The Northern Earldoms: Orkney and Caithness from 870 to 1470 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2013), chapters 6–9. T. M. Y. Manson, “Shetland in the Sixteenth Century,” in The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland, ed. Ian B. Cowan and Duncan Shaw (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1983), 201–2. On Engelbrektsson, see Halvdan Koht, Olav Engelbriktsson og sjølvstende-tapet, 1537 (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1951). Ian B. Cowan, “Appendix,” in Light in the North: St. Magnus Cathedral Through the Centuries, ed. H. W. M. Cant and H. N. Firth (Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1989), 121–22. See Haki Antonsson, St. Magnus of Orkney: A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context (Leiden: Brill, 2007). Orkney Archives, D24/1/127 (reproduced, with mistranscription of ‘Fannen’ as ‘Forinen’, in J. Storer Clouston ed., Records of the Earldom of Orkney, 1299–1614 [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1914], 209–10); Marin Blindheim, “The Cult of Medieval Wooden Sculptures in Post-Reformation Norway,” in Images of Cult and Devotion: Function and Reception of Christian Images in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe, ed. Søren Kaspersen (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004), 47–8. I am grateful to Jo Rune Ugulen, of the Norwegian National Archives, for assistance in making the identification with Fana. Frances J. Shaw, The Northern and Western Islands of Scotland: Their Economy and Society in the Seventeenth Century (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1980), chapter 12; Knut Helle, Orknøyene i Norsk Historie. The Orkneys in Norwegian History (Bergen: A. S. Centraltrykkeriet, 1988), 23–7. Knut Helle, “‘Lille Jon’ Jon Thomessøn,” in Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, nbl.snl.no (accessed 18 December 2019). Thomson, New History, 190; Grohse, Frontiers, 253. John Brand, A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth & Caithness (Edinburgh, 1701), 17. Hâkon Melberg, Origin of the Scandinavian Nations and Languages: An Introduction. 2-vol. ed. (Halden: Aschehoug and Munksgaard, 1951), 1, 140; George Low, A History of The Orkneys, Introduced by A Description of the Islands and their Inhabitants, ed. Olaf D. Cuthbertson (Kirkwall: Orcadian Ltd, 2001), 45–6. Jane Dawson, “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland,” in Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1620, ed. Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 231–53. Christopher Highley, “The Place of Scots in the Scottish Play: Macbeth and the Politics of Language,” in Shakespeare and Scotland, ed. Willy Maley and Andrew Murphy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 59.

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15. The only academic study (of limited scope) is Gordon Donaldson, “Bishop Adam Bothwell and the Reformation in Orkney,” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 13 (1959): 85–100, revised as chapter 2 of Gordon Donaldson, Reformed by Bishops: Galloway, Orkney and Caithness (Edinburgh; Edina Press, 1987). Of continued value is a trilogy of books by the antiquarian and episcopal priest J. B. Craven: J. B. Craven, History of the Church in Orkney: From the Introduction of Christianity to 1558 (Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1901); J. B. Craven, History of the Church in Orkney 1558–1662 (Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1897); J. B. Craven, History of the Church in Orkney: The Restoration to the Revolution (Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1893). The Reformation, and early modern religion in general, features lightly in the work of more recent local and amateur historians, though there is a helpful brisk overview in Frank D. Bardgett, Two Millenia of Church and Community in Orkney (Durham: Pentland Press, 2000), and an entertainingly anecdotal account in Jocelyn Rendall, Steering the Stone Ships: The Story of Orkney Kirks and People (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2009). 16. On Norway, see Endre Mørck, “The Reformation and the Linguistic Situation in Norway,” Nordlit 43 (2019): 115–26, septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/issue/view/398 (accessed 18 December 2019); on Ireland, see Raymond Gillespie’s chapter in this volume. 17. There is not much to point to here beyond some discussion of the Hebrides in Dawson, “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd,” and (partial) coverage of the Channel Islands in D. M. Ogier, Reformation and Society in Guernsey (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1996). See also Jack Cunningham’s chapter on Iceland in this volume. 18. Duncan Shaw, “Bothwell, Adam (1529?–1593),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/ref: odnb/2961 (accessed 18 December 2019). 19. Mark Napier, Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston (London, 1834), 67– 70. 20. Donaldson, Reformed by Bishops, 20–1; Margaret H. B. Sanderson, Biographical List of Early Scottish Protestants, Heretics and other Religious Dissenters 1407 –1560 (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 2010), 106, 127; Heinz Scheible (ed.), Melanchthons Briefwechsel: Band 12, Personen F -K (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2005), 197; The National Archives, London, SP 50/3, f. 81. 21. Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland, 1560–1618, 3-vol. ed. (Edinburgh, 1839), 2:724. 22. On Protestant anxieties, see Peter Marshall, “The Reformation and the Idea of the North,” Nordlit 43 (2019): 4–24, septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/issue/view/398 (accessed 18 December 2019).

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23. Henry Fitzsimon, Words of Comfort to Persecuted Catholics, Written in Exile, Anno 1607 , ed. Edmund Hogan (Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1881), 121. The English Jesuit historiographer George Oliver claimed that in the early seventeenth century David Galwey SJ “thrice in the disguise of a merchant…. Visited Scotland, the Hebrides, and the Orkney Islands” (Collections Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English, and Irish Members [Exeter, 1838], 229), though it is possible this represents a confusion with the Hebridean island of Oronsay. See James Corboy, “Father David Galwey, S. J. (1579–1634),” The Irish Monthly 72 (1944): 58–67. 24. Pierre Coste, Le Grand Saint du Grand Siècle, Monsieur Vincent, 3vol. ed. (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1932), 2:204; William Forbes-Leith (ed.), Records of the Scots Colleges at Douai, Rome, Madrid, Valladolid and Ratisbon, Vol. 1: Register of Students (Aberdeen: New Spalding Club, 1906), 121. Alison Grey, Circle of Light: The Catholic Church in Orkney since 1500 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2000), 30 interprets a reference to Lumsden celebrating mass in a laird’s house, distributing communion there to fifty persons, including twenty converts, as taking place in Orkney. But this is not the obvious contextual reading, and seems unlikely. 25. James M. Irvine (ed.), The Orkneys and Schetland in Blaeu’s Atlas Novus of 1654 (Ashstead: James M. Irvine, 2006), 27; Clotilde Prunier, “Representations of the ‘State of Popery’ in Scotland in the 1720s and 1730s,” The Innes Review 64 (2013): 192. 26. Donaldson, Reformed by Bishops, 33, 35 27. Thomson, New History, 98; Robert S. Barclay (ed.), Orkney Testaments and Inventories, 1573–1615 (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 1977). 28. John Mooney, “Discovery of Relics in St Magnus Cathedral,” Proceedings of the Orkney Antiquarian Society 3 (1924–5): 73–8. 29. There may be parallels here with the anonymous reburial of the relics of the patron of Norway, St. Olaf, within the cathedral precincts at Trondheim in 1568. See Øystein Ekroll, “The Shrine of St. Olav in Nidaros Cathedral,” in The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim: Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context, ed. Margrete Syrstad Andås, Øystein Ekroll, Andreas Haug, and Nils Holger (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 147–207. 30. Shaw, “Bothwell”; Craven, Church in Orkney, 1558–1662, 34–40. 31. Duncan Shaw, “The 16th Century and the Movement for Reform,” in Light in the North: St. Magnus Cathedral through the Centuries, ed. H. W. M. Cant and H. N. Firth (Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1989), 43–7. 32. Donaldson, Reformed by Bishops, 32–5; Bardgett, Church and Community, 60–5. 33. Craven, Church in Orkney, 1558–1662, 72–5

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34. Robert S. Barclay (ed.), The Court Books of Orkney and Shetland 1614– 1615 (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1967), 26. 35. David Balfour, Oppressions of the Sixteenth Century in the Islands of Orkney and Zetland (Edinburgh, 1859). See also Peter Anderson, The Stewart Earls of Orkney (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2012). 36. Craven, Church in Orkney, 1558–1662, 101–9. 37. Craven, Church in Orkney, 1558–1662, chapters 18–20; Orkney Archives, OCR 14/74 (Kirkwall St Magnus Minutes 1626–1649). On the post1662 bishops, Craven, Restoration to the Revolution, passim. 38. Alexander Peterkin, Rentals of the Ancient Earldom and Bishoprick of Orkney, 3-vol. ed. (Edinburgh, 1820), 3:97, 47. 39. Orkney Archives, OCR/4/2, f. 60v; 1–28 (1702 Visitation, separately paginated). 40. Margaret Hunter, “Jo: Ben’s Description of Orkney,” New Orkney Antiquarian Journal 6 (2012): 36. 41. Orkney Archives, OCR/4/1, 349, 357–8 42. Hunter, “Description of Orkney,” 46. 43. Peterkin, Rentals, 3:47. 44. Brand, Brief Description, 40–1; OCR 4/1, 150, 221, 242, 363. 45. OCR 4/1, 251. 46. Irvine, Atlas Novus, 27; James Wallace, A Description of the Isles of Orkney, ed. John Small (Edinburgh: W. Brown, 1883), 78. 47. The following is based on an analysis of Hew Scott (ed.), Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, Vol. VII, Synods of Ross, Sutherland and Caithness, Glenelg, Orkney and of Shetland (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1928), 201–78 48. A “Scher Wilyeme Flete” (Flett) is one of two chaplains named as witnesses to a land grant in 1447, and a Sir Donald Mansoun (Magnusson) appears in a similar role in 1527: Clouston, Records of the Earldom, 190, 208. 49. J. B. Craven, Church Life in South Ronaldsay and Burray in the Seventeenth Century (Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1911), 37. 50. Irvine, Atlas Novus, 25. 51. A convincing identification is made by James M. Irvine, “Jo: Ben Revisited,” New Orkney Antiquarian Journal 6 (2012): 48–58. 52. Hunter, Description of Orkney, 43. Dicimus… dicunt in Latin original: George Barry, History of the Orkney Islands, ed. James Headrick (London, 1808), 417. 53. Wallace, Description, 40. 54. G. F. Black and Northcote W. Thomas (eds.), County Folklore, Vol. III: Orkney and Shetland Islands (London: The Folklore Society, 1903), 117. 55. See Liv Helene Willumsen, Witches of the North: Scotland and Finnmark (Leiden: Brill, 2013), chapters 5–7.

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56. The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince, Iames (London, 1616), 129; Bardgett, Church and Community, 70. See also Raisa Maria Toivo, Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 57. OCR/4/1, 203–5, 211, 215, 223–4, 228, 235, 250, 255, 260, 278, 292, 300, 317, 340; OCR/4/2, 19r, 47v-48r. 58. Black and Thomas, Folklore, 111–14. 59. OCR/4/1, 232. 60. Craven, Church in Orkney, 1558–1662, 186. 61. Craven, Church in Orkney, 1558–1662, 212–13. 62. OCR/4/1, 282. 63. Alfred W. Johnston (ed.), The Church in Orkney: Miscellaneous Records of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Kendal: privately printed, 1940), 38. 64. OCR/4/1, 249. 65. See also Henrik von Achen’s chapter in this volume. 66. Barry, History, 443, 446; Hunter “Description,” 40–1. 67. Barclay, Court Books of Orkney and Shetland, 26; OCR/14/74, 8. 68. Wallace, Description, 40; Low, History, 33; New Statistical Account of Scotland, 15-vol. ed. (Edinburgh, 1845), 15:117–18; Brand, Description, 54, 57–8. 69. See Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark’s chapter in this volume for enlightening discussion of the extent to which the temporalising of beliefs and practices as belonging to “the past” is itself a product of Reformationera polemic. 70. Martin Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (London, 1703), 367; Black and Thomas, Folklore, 52, 57, 61–2, 64–5, 71, 81, 85, 86, 101; Rendall, Stone Ships, 89–90. 71. Wallace, Description, 24. 72. OCR/14/74, 170; Wallace, Description, 41. 73. Low, History, 53; Old Statistical Account of Scotland, 21-vol. ed. (Edinburgh, 1795), 16:460. 74. J. Storer Clouston, “The Old Chapels of Orkney,” Scottish Historical Review 15 (1918): 89–105, 223–32; J. Storer Clouston, “Old Kirks and Chapels in Orkney,” Scottish Historical Review 15 (1918): 233–240. 75. Old Statistical Account 15: 305; Craven, Church Life, 30–1; Brand, Description, 154. 76. Alexandra Walsham, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 55–6, 103–4, 295, 535–6. 77. James Haldane, Journal of a Tour through the Northern Counties of Scotland and the Orkney Isles, 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1798), 52.

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78. An anti-episcopalian purge of 1698–1700 was, however, unprecedentedly thorough and divisive: J. B. Craven, History of the Episcopal Church in Orkney, 1688–1882 (Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1883), 18–32. 79. Orkney Archives, D2/6/10; Scott, Fasti, 259. The piety of Orkney’s lay elites is illustrated by their surviving monuments: see Spencer J. Rosie, Saints and Sinners: Memorials of St Magnus Cathedral (Kirkwall: The Orcadian, 2015), chapters 6–7. 80. William P. L. Thomson, “The Eighteenth-Century Church in Orkney,” in Light in the North: St Magnus Cathedral through the Centuries, ed. H. W. M. Cant and H. N. Firth (Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1989), 67–8. 81. The now well-established term was popularised by Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523–1572 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1966).

Bibliography Primary Sources Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland, 1560–1618. 3 vols, Edinburgh, 1839. Balfour, David. Oppressions of the Sixteenth Century in the Islands of Orkney and Zetland. Edinburgh, 1859. Barclay, Robert S. (ed.) The Court Books of Orkney and Shetland 1614–1615. Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1967. Barclay, Robert S. (ed.) Orkney Testaments and Inventories, 1573–1615. Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 1977. Barry, George. History of the Orkney Islands, edited by James Headrick. London, 1808. Black, G. F. and Northcote W. Thomas (eds.) County Folklore, Vol. III: Orkney and Shetland Islands. London: The Folklore Society, 1903. Brand, John. A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth & Caithness. Edinburgh, 1701. Clouston, J. Storer (ed.) Records of the Earldom of Orkney, 1299–1614. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1914. Fitzsimon, Henry. Words of Comfort to Persecuted Catholics, Written in Exile, Anno 1607 , edited by Edmund Hogan. Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1881. Forbes-Leith, William (ed.) Records of the Scots Colleges at Douai, Rome, Madrid, Valladolid and Ratisbon, Vol. 1: Register of Students. Aberdeen: New Spalding Club, 1906.

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Haldane, James. Journal of a Tour through the Northern Counties of Scotland and the Orkney Isles. 2nd edn. Edinburgh, 1798. Hunter, Margaret. “Jo: Ben’s Description of Orkney.” New Orkney Antiquarian Journal 6 (2012): 33–47. Irvine, James M. (ed.) The Orkneys and Schetland in Blaeu’s Atlas Novus of 1654. Ashstead: James M. Irvine, 2006. James I and VI. The Workes of the Most High and Mighty Prince, Iames. London, 1616. Johnston. Alfred W. (ed.) The Church in Orkney: Miscellaneous Records of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Kendal: Privately printed, 1940. Low, George. A History of The Orkneys, Introduced by A Description of the Islands and their Inhabitants, edited by Olaf D. Cuthbertson. Kirkwall: Orcadian Ltd, 2001. Martin, Martin. A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland. London, 1703. Napier, Mark. Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston. London, 1834. New Statistical Account of Scotland. 15 vols. Edinburgh, 1834–1845. Old Statistical Account of Scotland. 21 vols. Edinburgh, 1791–1799. Oliver, George. Collections Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English, and Irish Members of the Society of Jesus. Exeter, 1838. Peterkin, Alexander. Rentals of the Ancient Earldom and Bishoprick of Orkney. Edinburgh, 1820. Scheible, Heinz (ed.) Melanchthons Briefwechsel: Band 12, Personen F-K. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2005. Scott, Hew (ed.) Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, Vol. VII, Synods of Ross, Sutherland and Caithness, Glenelg, Orkney and of Shetland. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1928. Wallace, James. A Description of the Isles of Orkney, edited by John Small. Edinburgh: W. Brown, 1883.

Secondary Sources Anderson, Peter. The Stewart Earls of Orkney. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2012. Antonsson, Haki. St Magnus of Orkney: A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Bardgett, Frank D. Two Millenia of Church and Community in Orkney. Durham: Pentland Press, 2000. Blindheim, Marin. “The Cult of Medieval Wooden Sculptures in PostReformation Norway.” In Images of Cult and Devotion: Function and

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Reception of Christian Images in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe, edited by Søren Kaspersen. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004. Cant, H. W. M. and H. N. Firth (eds.) Light in the North: St. Magnus Cathedral through the Centuries. Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1989. Clouston, J. Storer. “The Old Chapels of Orkney.” Scottish Historical Review 15 (1918): 89–105, 223–32. Clouston, J. Storer. “Old Kirks and Chapels in Orkney.” Scottish Historical Review 15 (1918): 233–40. Corboy, James. “Father David Galwey, S. J., 1579–1634.” The Irish Monthly 72 (1944): 58–67. Coste, Pierre. Le Grand Saint du Grand Siècle, Monsieur Vincent. 3 vols. Paris: Desclée Brouwer, 1932. Craven, J. B. History of the Episcopal Church in Orkney, 1688–1882. Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1883. Craven, J. B. History of the Church in Orkney: The Restoration to the Revolution. Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1893. Craven, J. B. History of the Church in Orkney 1558–1662. Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1897. Craven, J. B. History of the Church in Orkney: From the Introduction of Christianity to 1558. Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1901. Craven, J. B. Church Life in South Ronaldsay and Burray in the Seventeenth Century. Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1911. Crawford, Barbara E. The Northern Earldoms: Orkney and Caithness from 870 to 1470. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2013. Dawson, Jane. “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland.” In Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1620, edited by Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Donaldson, Gordon. “Bishop Adam Bothwell and the Reformation in Orkney.” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 13 (1959): 85–100. Donaldson, Gordon. “Problems of Sovereignty and Law in Orkney and Shetland.” Stair Society Miscellany 2 (1984): 13–40. Donaldson, Gordon. Reformed by Bishops: Galloway, Orkney and Caithness. Edinburgh: Edina Press, 1987. Ekroll, Øystein. “The Shrine of St. Olav in Nidaros Cathedral.” In The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim: Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context, edited by Margrete Syrstad Andås, Øystein Ekroll, Andreas Haug, and Nils Holger. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007. Grey, Alison. Circle of Light: The Catholic Church in Orkney since 1500. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2000.

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Grohse, Ian Peter. Frontiers for Peace in the Medieval North: The NorwegianScottish Frontier, c. 1260–1470. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Helle, Knut. Orknøyene i Norsk Historie. The Orkneys in Norwegian History. Bergen: A. S. Centraltrykkeriet, 1988. Helle, Knut. “‘Lille Jon’ Jon Thomessøn.” In Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, nbl.snl.no. Highley, Christopher. “The Place of Scots in the Scottish Play: Macbeth and the Politics of Language.” In Shakespeare and Scotland, edited by Willy Maley and Andrew Murphy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Irvine, James M. “Jo: Ben Revisited.” New Orkney Antiquarian Journal 6 (2012): 48–58. Koht, Halvdan. Olav Engelbriktsson og Sjølvstende-tapet, 1537 . Oslo: Aschehoug, 1951. Manson, T. M. Y. “Shetland in the Sixteenth Century.” In The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland, edited by Ian B. Cowan and Duncan Shaw. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1983. Marshall, Peter. “The Reformation and the Idea of the North.” Nordlit 43 (2019): 4–24. septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/issue/view/398. Melberg, Hâkon. Origin of the Scandinavian Nations and Languages: An Introduction. 2 vols. Halden: Aschehoug and Munksgaard, 1951. Mooney, John. “Discovery of Relics in St. Magnus Cathedral.” Proceedings of the Orkney Antiquarian Society 3 (1924–5): 73–8. Mørck, Endre. “The Reformation and the Linguistic Situation in Norway.” Nordlit 43 (2019): 115–26. septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/issue/view/398. Ogier, D. M. Reformation and Society in Guernsey. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1996. Peterkin, Alexander. Notes on Orkney and Zetland, Illustrative of the History, Antiquities, Scenery and Customs of those Islands. Edinburgh, 1822. Prunier, Clotilde. “Representations of the ‘State of Popery’ in Scotland in the 1720s and 1730s.” The Innes Review 64 (2013): 120–226. Rendall, Jocelyn. Steering the Stone Ships: The Story of Orkney Kirks and People. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2009. Ricard, Robert. The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523–1572. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1966. Rosie, Spencer J. Saints and Sinners: Memorials of St. Magnus Cathedral. Kirkwall: The Orcadian, 2015. Sanderson, Margaret H. B. Biographical List of Early Scottish Protestants, Heretics and other Religious Dissenters 1407–1560. Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 2010. Shaw, Frances J. The Northern and Western Islands of Scotland: Their Economy and Society in the Seventeenth Century. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1980.

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Shaw, Duncan. “Bothwell, Adam. 1529?–1593).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/2961. Thomson, William P. L. The New History of Orkney. 3rd edn. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2008. Walsham, Alexandra. The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Willumsen, Liv Helene. Witches of the North: Scotland and Finnmark. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Unpublished Sources Wallis, E. W. “The Church in Shetland During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1940.

CHAPTER 3

The Sidaskipti: Iceland’s Change of Fashion Jack P. Cunningham

It would be wrong to regard what unfolded in Iceland in the sixteenth century as anything akin to emergent nationalism: it is clear that the people of that island had a strong sense of themselves as fundamentally part of the Norwegian Kingdom under the Danish King. This political unionism extended itself to ecclesiastical arrangements as their two dioceses of Hólar in the north and Skálholt in the south fell under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Nidaros (Trondheim); a patronage that everyone seemed to be entirely comfortable with. That said, the Icelanders were proudly defensive of the degree of autonomy that had been granted them for three centuries and as events transpired it became clear that a significant portion of them regarded these privileges as worth defending. In the end, their resistance was in vain for the principle reason that the enemy they were fighting had changed. Denmark had become an emergent modern state complete with a ruler who aspired to absolutism. Concomitant with this new assertion was a growing perception of the Kingdom as a centralised state. In this climate freedoms were quickly and easily diminished, as old autonomies were transformed into new restraints. Here, however, we encounter something of a contrast between

J. P. Cunningham (B) Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_3

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what took place politically and what happened in the Church. Politically, the domination of Iceland was achieved with an iron fist, whereas what took place confessionally was so subtle that it seemed to go largely unnoticed. Icelanders call their Reformation the sidaskipti, that is a “changing of fashion,” a phrase pregnant with meaning and suggestive of one of the causes of its largely unspectacular triumph. One of its most striking features is that it is remarkably light on theological debate. There were no great controversial texts, nobody marched under religious banners, there was no Marburgundian colloquium and precious few seemed in a hurry to swell the annals of their country with the names of martyrs. This feature was perhaps no accident but rather a tactic of a small cadre of Reformers who facilitated change; if this is the case it was a judicious decision. In keeping their programme of change free from theological theatrics they were able to present its revised rites and dictums as cosmetic and therefore little for the ordinary Icelander to concern themselves with. After all, for a hard-pressed native trying to eke out an existence in an often hostile environment there would have been precious little time or energy to expend on what was, in most senses, nothing more ominous than a fashion change. A small group of Hanseatic merchants were the first to import the Reformed faith to Iceland sometime in the 1520s, but they seem to have had little interest in evangelising the native population. For their own purposes, they built a small Lutheran church on the coast of Faxaflói at some time no later than 1537.1 A guild in Hamburg that called itself the St. Anna-Bruderschaft took it upon themselves to sponsor the project.2 The first intimation that the new faith had made inroads among the Icelanders appears at Skálholt, near to the episcopal throne. It was only natural that the southern diocese would be the first to display signs of Protestant influence given its geographical location and the fact that it possessed the country’s major port. Here, an ecclesiastical administrator named Jón Einarsson preached a sermon between 1524 and 1528, denigrating the invocation of saints as idolatry.3 The narrative accounts of this episode end with Einarsson being sharply reprimanded by his bishop and even being forced out of his church; yet, interestingly, more recent research indicates that Einarsson was much admired by his superior, and curiously his name is never associated with the Reformation in later sources.4 We next hear about the Reformation in 1533 when the Althing (parliament) passed a resolution demonstrating for the first time

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Fig. 3.1 Location of ecclesiastical dioceses of Hólar and Skálholt, Iceland, which fell under the metropolitical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Nidaros (Trondheim) in the sixteenth century (Map by Jack P. Cunningham)

that confessional developments on mainland Europe had not gone unnoticed. The resolution begins with the customary pledges of loyalty to the King of Norway but goes on to vow, in categorical terms, to maintain the holy faith, “which God has given to us, and which the Holy Fathers have confirmed.”5 Among the signatures affixed were both of Iceland’s leading clerics, Bishop Ögmundur Pálsson of the southern diocese of Skálholt and J´on Arason from the diocese of Hólar in the north.6 Shortly after the former set out for Norway where he successfully petitioned the Council of the Realm to endorse the Althing’s stance (Fig. 3.1).7 Interestingly, the first wave of conversions took place close to the episcopal throne as members of Bishop Ögmundur’s household began to fall under the spell of Lutheranism and an active group emerged. These included, Oddur Gottskálksson (whose father had been the previous Bishop of Hólar). He had encountered the Reformation first hand as a student in Denmark and Germany and he became a secret convert

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after much soul searching during which he had prayed for three nights.8 He was little suspected in the Bishop’s household where he became Ögmundur’s trusted secretary. In his spare time, he worked secretly on an Icelandic New Testament with the help of Luther’s translation and Erasmus’s Novum Instrumentum. Though the account in the bishops’ annals which tell us that Oddur’s modus operandi was to hide in a byre whilst he pretended to be transcribing statutes, this is scarcely credible since there would have been no Catholic prohibition of such a work.9 His New Testament was published in Roskilde, Denmark, by the Royal Press in 1540 with a foreword by the Danish King.10 Oddur was drowned crossing the river Laxá on his pony in 1556. Marteinn Einarsson was another key player in the group. He had been raised in England where he attended school for nine years.11 Marteinn was ordained to the priesthood by 1530.12 It is likely that it was through Oddur Gottskálksson that he came to the new faith. Later, he took on the superintendentship of Skálholt and immediately, on taking this position, he went to Copenhagen where he studied evangelical theology for a winter under the tutelage of John McAlpine, the Hans Machabeus Professor of Divinity and former Prior of the Blackfriars in Perth.13 However, all did not end well as Marteinn’s appointment was dissolved by the King in 1556 after he expressed his disquiet when the Crown confiscated ecclesiastical properties.14 Gísli Jónsson was also an important figure who was another son of a priest. He had been sent for an education to Alexíus Pálsson, a prominent priest and later Abbot of Viðey15 and in 1529 Gísli entered the service of the Bishop Skálholt. It is probable that he spent some years in Germany, since contemporary sources tell us that he could speak fluent German.16 Gísli was a productive translator, editor and publisher. He rendered into Icelandic the Margarita Theologica and in 1558 he published Bugenhagen’s History of the sufferings of Christ, translated by Gottskálksson.17 Gísli eventually became the Superintendent of Skálholt in 1558 when Marteinn Einarsson resigned. His assistant Gizur Einarsson was another significant Reformer close to the Bishop. Gizur’s family connections lent him considerable respect in ecclesiastical circles. His aunt Halldóra was Abbess of the Kirkjubaer convent, which made her one of the most powerful women in the country. Gizur showed early academic promise and his aunt, keen to cultivate her nephew’s education, persuaded his bishop to send him to study in Hamburg,18 a decision based on tradition but misguided given

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the ecclesiastical developments taking place in that city. As it transpired, Gizur converted after studying for some years in Germany, during which time he travelled to Wittenberg where he heard Luther and Melanchthon preach. This young group of educated men provided the intellectual foundations of the Reformation in Iceland. They were humanists as well as Reformers and for the most part they had been educated in the heart of Protestant Europe. They held furtive meetings in the house of a sympathiser called Oddur Eyjólfsson.19 There they no doubt provided each other with important support, though little by way of direct vision.20 They could never be described as the “Young Turks” of an Icelandic Reformation that owed its existence much more to the Danish Crown; nevertheless, they were a sincere, well-informed, and often brave group of men. In their own way, they provided a very useful service to the Danish by ensuring a smoother passage for their imposed changes.

The Arrival of Reformation Before his victory in the civil war that was known as the Grevens fejde (Counts’ War), Christian III had already become a convinced Lutheran, who had been tutored by Wolfgang Utenhof, a Wittenberg graduate. He himself had travelled extensively in Germany and been present at the Diet of Worms.21 On his accession he made immediate efforts to introduce his faith to his realms. His parliament passed two measures; the first on 12 April 1536 replaced the old ecclesiastical hierarchy with “Christian” bishops and superintendents. The next year the King issued the Ordinatio Ecclesiatica Regnorum Danie et Norvegiae, a new Church Ordinance.22 Christian had appealed to the Duke of Sachsen for the loan of either Melanchthon or Bugenhagen to assist him in drawing up the new order and he was sent the latter. This was a felicitous choice as Bugenhagen had considerable expertise in such enterprises, having provided similar services in Brunswick, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Pomerania.23 These changes were keenly watched over by Luther himself, and on 12 December that year he wrote to Christian with his endorsement.24 Perhaps the most ominous development with respect to the Icelanders was the financial situation in the Kingdom. The civil war has been described as being “as confusing as it was destructive.” Aside from the army of his main enemy, Christian had been compelled to fight the forces

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of a “bewildering assortment” of peasant uprisings, the city of Copenhagen itself as well as an uprising in Jutland led by a privateer named Skipper Clement.25 After the capture of Copenhagen, Duke Christian had an army numbering between 10,000 and 15,000, an expense he could not for the present dispense with since his victory was still insecure. Normal sources of revenue such as fines, taxes, loans and confiscations had been exhausted, both sides having bled dry their nobles, churchmen and commoners alike. Norway was in a similar strait, and it is little wonder that under these circumstances the future Monarch cast his gaze towards his northern territory and to what he would surely have considered as an under-exploited resource.26 Probably sometime in 1538 the Ordinance was dispatched to Iceland and read in front of the two bishops at the Althing.27 We do not have the response of the parliament, though a circular from this time from Ögmundur cautions his flock against “a certain grey friar [who] preached new heresy and infidelity.” At the same time making plain his disapproval of the Ordinance whose “… beginnings are evil and void of contents, its central part is without measure or bounds and the end is monstrous.”28 In 1539 he wrote a candid letter to the King, though he was prudent enough to omit any mention of the Ordinance: We will maintain the faith and the Church ceremonies that have been agreed upon by our wisest and most learned, and which do not run contrary to the Norwegian laws. But if your Lordship’s government desire to implement any doctrine contrary to our understanding, then we humbly request your Royal Highness may grant us permission to take our leave with our moveable belongings, that we may seek a refuge somewhere in a land which will be shown to us by God.29

Nothing is known of J´on Arason’s response until 1540 when he wrote to the King with his outright rejection of the Ordinance.30 Whilst this was happening, elsewhere events were taking a dramatic turn. The house of the Danish Governor was situated at Bessastaðir, a peninsula in the south in a setting that was often hostile, exposed as it was to harsh gales and in possession of access to only two small farms. To rub salt into this wound, it was close to a well-endowed and well-constructed monastery situated at Faxaflói on the sheltered isle of Viðey.31 This was obviously a jewel in the crown of the diocese of Skálholt, lent added symbolic significance given that Ögmundur had once

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been its Abbot. On Whit Sunday 1539 the Governor’s representative, a German named Didrik van Minden, led a raiding party on the monastery. He rowed across the bay with thirteen retainers and on arriving at the monastery he dispersed the monks whilst appropriating the building and lands.32 Gizur Einarsson had earmarked the monastery for conversion into a school, but his plans were thwarted when the new occupants proved reluctant to relinquish such a prize holding. The dissolution of Viðey may have been small on the European scale of Reformation history; however William P. Ker was correct to point out that in Icelandic terms it compares with the dissolution of Charter House in that it precipitated a process that was to eventually transform the country’s political and religious landscape.33 The incident resulted in a good deal of popular outcry and, in the summer at the Althing, Ögmundur interrogated the Governor’s assistant about the warrant or laws that entitled him to misuse a monastery in the way that he had done. For his part, Didrik allegedly replied that the “pest[ilence] could take the law.”34 The Governor, Claus van der Marwitzen’s response was more restrained as he issued a statement linking the actions to Government policy, “… all monasteries in the state of Denmark and Norway as well as in Iceland, including all possessions have been granted to the Crown, … so that they are to serve his Royal Highness’ mercy and counsel, and will for evermore.”35 Unconcerned by either popular outcry or official sanction, van Minden set off in August with ten men intent on extending the dissolution to both the convent at Kirkjubaer and the monastery of Þykkvabaer in the southeast.36 On the journey, in a clear act of colonial antagonism, he decided to stay the night at Bishop Ögmundur’s residence. Here he was surprisingly well received, yet notwithstanding his host’s curtesy Didrik decided to repay him with verbal abuse forcing the Bishop to warn him that the members of his diocese would not tolerate such behaviour.37 Hearing his words, a priest and counsellor to the Bishop sent word out to the people of the district, informing them of what had taken place. An impromptu boendur force was mustered and local justice was duly administered: van Minden and his men were killed on 10 August 1539.38 The case was presented to an Icelandic jury and the farmers who had taken part were unanimously acquitted. In addition, the court also declared that no wergild (compensatory fine) should be paid since those who had died had done so whilst committing a criminal act.39 The Althing of the following year endorsed this decision and granted Ögmundur a full dispensation. It went on to dismiss van der Marwitzen

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claiming that his criminal acts had disqualified him and made him unfit to receive the royal tax.40 The Governor reacted by dispatching a full report to the King in which he laid the blame for the incident squarely on Ögmundur, accusing him of instigating the boendur.41 By this time Bishop Ögmundur’s blindness had rendered him incapable of his duties and he was forced to elect an episcopal locum. It is an indication of his growing suspicion that he looked outside of his household for the candidate and chose his nephew Sigmundur. Disastrously for the Bishop’s designs, Sigmundur died very shortly after his consecration and Ögmundur was left with little option but to choose Gizur Einarsson who was duly ordered to Copenhagen where he was approved, though not consecrated.42 When Gizur heard of the murder of van Minden he was in Hamburg, seeking an audience with the King as the suggested successor to Ögmundur, who had by now announced his full retirement. The grim news was embellished with rumours that the Bishop of Skálholt, who had ordered the executions fully intended to extend his campaign of murder to the German traders who were wintering in Iceland.43 Gizur obviously felt himself under some threat as an Icelandic ecclesiastic in a German city and he composed an enraged letter to Ögmundur, accusing him of putting his life in danger. Rather oddly, he wrote at the same time to the King and attempted to exonerate his Bishop.44 In 1538 Ögmundur had ordained Gizur a priest indicting that perhaps the old bishop realised the hopelessness of the situation, or perhaps recognising the moderate qualities of Gizur’s convictions he had settled on him as the lesser of all evils; in any event, Iceland now had its first Reformed Church leader. At the Althing the next year he was made unexpectedly welcome and declared the Bishop’s legal successor. For his part, Gizur presented them with the Ordinance along with a royal letter demanding its adoption. This resulted in a heated exchange orchestrated by Bishop Arason until finally the Ordinance was rejected. The Althing then sent a letter to the King signed by twenty-four of its members making clear their position: We have listened to your Majesty’s words through your letters, stating that we should pass judgment on the murderers abiding by proper Norwegian law, of whom your Governor has said that they were drawn into conspiracy by Ögmundur without a cause. But Claus’ [van der Marwitzen] statement has proved to be untrue. For Ögmundur swore a valid oath at the Althing, saying that he never ordered the men to be killed.45

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The letter was set out in courteous language whilst stating clearly that for their part the Icelandic party would prefer exile rather than submission to unlawfulness.46 Affixed was a petition that requested a new government on the grounds that the old one did “not know or keep the law of the land and is not of the Old Norse tongue [Icelandic].”47 The King’s situation compelled him towards conciliation; he not only recalled the Governor, but went so far as to imprison him. The most important development that emerged from the van Minden incident was that it impelled Christian III to adopt a more proactive attitude to his northern territory. His response was fulsome as he sent his emissary, Christoffer Huitfeldt, along with two warships and two hundred soldiers to investigate what he regarded as an act of rebellion. The party arrived in Iceland in May 1541 with three objectives: to oversee the adoption of the new code, to elicit an oath of allegiance from the Althing, and to implement a landshjálp [national relief] that was designed to help alleviate the enormous war debt by the proportional taxing of churches, monasteries and individuals.48 In this he would be assisted by Gizur Einarsson who had been universally accepted by the clergy of the diocese as their sitting superintendent on 28 June 1540; the document of acceptance even included the names of Alexíus Pálsson, Abbot of Viðey, as well as Abbot Halldór of Helgafell.49 It was an impressive declaration of support, however Gizur must have been only too aware that his position would have little substance so long as Ögmundur was still on the scene. Working on his own assumption, Huitfeldt had determined that Ögmundur had personally instigated the crime and on this basis, he ordered the arrest of the aged bishop in an unedifying incident that did little to endear either the Danish regime or make the Reformation more palatable to the Icelandic people. Having been forewarned, Ögmundur had retired for safety to the Monastery of Þykkvabaer. Making his way there, he stopped at the farm of his sister, where he stayed for a while. Whilst there, in either May or June, fourteen men were sent out with orders to arrest him. Ögmundur was dragged from his bed in the middle of the night, roughly treated and sent with little clothing to Bessastaðir where a ship was waiting to take him to Denmark. From the ship the Bishop instructed a priest to lead his captors to his valuables which he had secreted on his sister’s estate. If the pitiful account of what took place is to be trusted, then the Danes were indiscriminate in their plundering. Added to this, his estates and entire fortune were then made forfeit to the Crown.50 Gizur Einarsson is implicated in the event by a letter

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that he wrote in Low German to Huitfeldt which urged him “not to let the old fox loose on the land again … lest the people raise an uproar.”51 Jón Halldórson goes further, claiming that he wrote also to Ögmundur, assuring him that he had nothing to fear from the King’s emissary. If this is the case, then it would seem certain that Gizur was guilty of a serious breach of trust.52 His part in the affair did not go unnoticed, and he was rewarded shortly after when he was sent to Copenhagen where he was examined by their theologians. After apparently satisfying the scholars, Gizur was fully consecrated as superintendent.53 Contemporary records do not agree as to whether Ögmundur died on the journey or survived a few years in the Danish monastery of Sorø.54 In either case, Jón Arason was now the last remaining Catholic bishop in the Danish territories. When the Althing met in the summer of 1541 it did so under the watchful eye of the Danish military as the new superintendent of Skálholt, Gizur Einarsson, placed before it the Ordinance. Both the new landshjálp and the Ordinance were accepted by the southern diocese; though, tellingly, the Bishop of the Northern diocese and his clergy were conspicuously absent.55 Arason had been journeying to the Althing when he had received the news of the arrest of his episcopal brethren, that and the Danish military presence caused him to turn back. In their stead, Jón along with his son Ari, sent a series of letters to the Althing and Huitfeldt. One example is typical of the general tone as it swears allegiance at the same time as rebuking the Crown for not honouring the established laws: This summer we received a letter with our lord the King’s seal stating that his officials would keep the laws and good old Christian customs which have been observed in our land. Trusting to this we began our journey to the Althing from the northern quarter to Kalmanstunga in Borgarfjord. There we received the news that Bishop Ögmundur had been made prisoner against his will and that his property had been taken without judicial proceedings. Therefore, it appears to us that the provisions in the royal letter which his lordship has sent have not been kept. And this we know for sure, that the liberty, privileges and sworn agreements have often been disregarded by the King’s officials in our land.56

Ari endorsed his father by pledging his allegiance, but only in accordance of the old constitution known as Jónsbók, as well as the Gamli Sáttmáli [Old Covenant].57 This letter was additionally signed by most of the leading men of Iceland, with the notable exception of Gizur Einarsson. Ari was at this time one of two Lögmaður [Lawmen], an old and highly

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prestigious position akin to Lord Chancellors. Ari attached to his letter his resignation on the grounds of his “stupidity,” in what would have been conceived of as an insulting gesture.58 In spite of this seemingly catastrophic deterioration in relations the working relationship that developed between Arason and the new superintendent was an unexpectedly good one, and quite possibly the result of a pact. It was an association that Arason was able to describe as an “unbreachable friendship” and even, “fraternal.”59 At this juncture the realm was effectively bisected with the southern diocese entirely under the rule of Denmark. On the other hand, Arason’s diocese, whilst acknowledging the political authority of the Crown, looked to the archdiocese and the cathedral chapter of Trondheim with regard to ecclesiastical matters. Though this arrangement had little practical implications since the King had dissolved the chapter.60 This state of affairs, perhaps unique in Reformation Europe, owed a good deal to the measured approach Gizur took to the Reformation in his diocese. This is not to say Iceland’s first Lutheran superintendent was a Danish stooge. Indeed, there were occasions when he resisted attempts to enlarge Crown holdings.61 In addition, Arason would also have been considered the legitimate incumbent since he had been elected to office by a Catholic bishop; however it was a right that he elected, for the time being, not to assert. On 15 June 1541 Arason called a diocesan council which acquiesced to paying the landshjálp and to assist the royal officials on the condition that they maintained the “Norwegian and Icelandic laws, old liberties and lawful customs.”62 In the late summer Huitfeldt was able to deliver the much-needed money into the royal treasury. Elsewhere, the lawmen Erlendur Þorvarðsson, Þorleifur Pálsson and Pétur Andrésson von Tønsberg passed sentence on the murderers of van Minden who were banished and declared to be at the mercy of the King.63 At Miðdalur in 1542 Gizur read the Ordinance to a meeting of his leading clergy urging them to provide him with a definite response to it. Six priests emphatically rejected the Ordinance including the Abbot of Þykkvabaer monastery. Nevertheless, as they did so, they took care to express their allegiance to the Danish throne.64 It is difficult to say whether the signatories were acting on their own initiative or were representing the views of the general clergy. At the time of these events the total number of priests in Skálholt was 150. That the passage of the Ordinance met with such little Icelandic resistance is perhaps at first surprising. However, it owed its success to a simple but effective feature; that is, it was based on the simple principle that the

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most effective approach would be a programme of general reform in the ecclesiastical mechanisms whilst at the same time brushing over issues of doctrine. This was a shrewd tactical move which aimed to restructure Icelandic Christianity with the minimum of fuss in order that it might provide a foundation for future programmes of evangelisation. For this reason, not only did it employ loose terms over precise edicts but it also retained some features that would have been regarded as highly conservative elsewhere. These including an order of service that was little altered, the retention of many Roman holy days, and even a level of toleration for monks and nuns.65 In terms of promoting more general advances, it decreed that there would be masters in each city and town for the purposes of grounding young people in “reliable teaching.” In ceremonial matters it looked for uniformities, “so that lower differing rites be not followed.” Provisions were made for the clergy and the poor, and “superintendents” were declared to be the true bishops and archbishops of their churches. Ordinations would in future be conducted by superintendents, but with presbyters joining in with the laying on of hands. It went on to provide requisites for the ordination of superintendents which would take place in the church of the principal town of their see, before the altar. The ceremony would be conferred by the provost and five to six neighbouring clergy.66 The maintenance of the superintendent was also provided for as it stated, “The Superintendent with an honest wife and children shall have two maids for domestic purposes, a notary, a groom and four-horse carriage, a page and foster son, with a view to being trained for ordination.”67 On the doctrinal front, it provided the titles of required books as a type of Reformed clerical reading list. Aside from the Bible, they were prescribed Luther’s sermons and Lesser Catechism, Melanchthon’s Apologies and The New Order Book.68 It is indicative of Gizur’s cautious approach to the enforcement of the Ordinance that even the above mentioned priests who had baulked at endorsing it were allowed to continue in office. In the same year Christian summoned Gizur and probably Arason to Court. If the invitation extended to the Bishop of H´olar, he was astute enough to plead sickness as an excuse not to attend. He did however manage to delegate family members to represent his see. His son Sigurður, his son-in-law Ísleifur Sigurðsson and a priest called Ólafur Hjaltason were his emissaries and they came on the understanding that whatever was agreed upon by the parties concerned would be abided

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by, “as far as I can, am permitted, and am able to do.”69 Contemporary sources tell us that the delegation was well entertained and a genuine friendship developed between Gizur and the Hólar party.70 Little is known of what happened during their colloquies, but whether by persuasion or coercion the Hólar delegation added their signatures to the Ordinance. For Ólafur, at least, it was certainly the former since he preached Reformed doctrine on his return to Iceland, and significantly he did so unhindered for several years.71 In return, Arason’s party seems to have obtained a pledge of non-interference in their diocesan affairs in return for substantial taxes.72

The Death Throes of the Old Faith This respectful, if slightly grudging, mutual acceptance between the Lutheran and Catholic dioceses ended at the premature death, aged thirty-six, of Bishop Gizur in 1548. Rather inauspiciously for the supporters of Reform he became ill when returning home from the highly symbolic removal of the Kaldaðarnes Cross, one of Iceland’s most totemic objects of devotion and pilgrimage.73 The vacancy of the see had the effect of drawing out both sides and forcing upon them a situation in which there seems to have been an acceptance that there could only be one victor. The difficulty was exacerbated by the fact that at this junction Denmark had reorganised its ecclesiastical boundaries as part of a programme of dynastic reform. In the process the archiepiscopate of Nidaros had been dissolved, which left Catholic Iceland without a metropolitan overseer. Additionally, it meant that Arason had no ecclesiastical superior other than the Pope. In this situation it was legal for the Bishop of H´olar to assert himself as the senior ecclesiastic with authority over both of the Icelandic sees.74 The Bishop penned an open letter to the country pronouncing his unwillingness to allow the vacant see to be filled under drawn sword. He recalled his people, and presumably his King, to the honourable customs of Norway and Iceland that had survived unbroken for over 500 years, which was in fact the lifetime of the country.75 After this Arason crossed the Rubicon as he decisively convoked a synod at Skálholt in June in order to secure the election of Sigvarður Halldórsson, whose previous office as abbot of Þykkvabaer provided him with suitably conservative credentials.76 The opposition countered this move by selecting Marteinn Einarsson as their candidate.77 Shortly after, each party sent their claimants to Denmark to receive royal

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approval and consecration. Predictably, it was Marteinn who emerged successfully and he was consecrated by the highest-ranking cleric in the kingdom, Peder Palladius, the Bishop of Zealand who used the new service. When he returned to Iceland in 1549 as the new state-approved superintendent of Skálholt, he was the first to be selected and consecrated outside of the Roman Church. It is difficult to conceive how Arason could have anticipated a more favourable outcome for his candidate and the circumstances suggest he was keener to follow legal procedures than he was hopeful of their success. Abbot Sigvarður, who was not even granted access to the throne, evidently decided to throw in his lot with the ruling party and when he died in Denmark two years later he did so as a confirmed Lutheran.78 When superintendent Einarsson returned to his native country he did so bearing a summons for the arrest of Arason. He also carried with him a letter to the Icelandic people which explained the summons on the grounds that “He [Arason] has treated us with disrespect, and in no wise regarded our letters.” It added for good effect, that it had not gone unnoticed by the King that Arason had been conducting confirmations, and “other unspeakable things.” On disembarking, Bishop Marteinn immediately proceeded to the Althing where he convoked a synod which dutifully declared Bishop Jón’s activities in Skálholt as void.79 Arason took a legalistic view of these events, declaring the summons illegal according to the terms of the Old Covenant which forbade royal interference in the community affairs of Iceland. Evidently deciding that attack was the best form of defence, he rode south with an army of 100 men set on taking control of the diocese. Unfortunately for him Skálholt had been fortified by a certain Pétur Einarsson, who was a trained soldier and Marteinn’s brother. The northern band were not expecting such resistance and they were easily repelled.80 In February 1549 the King once more addressed his Icelandic subjects informing them that the Bishop of Hólar had both disobeyed royal summons and been guilty of oppressing the King’s subjects. Consequently, Arason was now outlawed and must not be obeyed, followed or aided by any means.81 A second royal letter that year was addressed to a powerful landowner and brother-in-law of Marteinn named Daði Guðmundsson. In it the King instructed Daði to arrest Arason in order to defray a Danish invasion.82 Arason also received an important communication in the summer of that year that was to lend enormous encouragement to his cause. This was a letter from Pope Paul III who was responding to an appeal from

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his last Icelandic bishop. Arason was not the type of person to let such a missive go unnoticed and he milked the occasion for all it was worth. The papal letter was received amid a highly theatrical ceremony at the cathedral church. Arason, clothed in his richest episcopal vestments and with four priests either side of him, stood before the high altar with his arms raised to heaven as the letter was being read. It ran: Venerable Brother, Greetings and Apostolic blessings. We have received your letter 23 August past, giving full account of your loyalty to God, and your observance and obedience towards us and the Holy See, for which we commend you exceedingly to God’s care. We extol you to unity with the Church in the coming troubles and commend you to the praise of all mankind and to God’s eternal life in heaven.83

This done, the Bishop vowed to God and the congregation that he would prefer death than be unfaithful to the Pope and the Church.84 This gesture was little short of an open liturgical declaration of intent to embark on an all-out confessional struggle. At this point Arason’s boldness can appear hubristic to the point of foolhardiness, given the strength of the Danish army, and when we additionally consider that half the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of his country had already succumbed to the Reformation. However, he may have received a good deal of encouragement from a number of events beyond the boundaries of Iceland including the Emperor’s recent victories at Mühlberg over the Schmalkaldic League (of which Christian III was a member). This may have indicated to Arason that the tide was turning in favour of the old faith. Denmark was already debilitated by an exhausting civil war which may have also suggested that there was little stomach for further hostilities. The Bishop, apparently wrote to the Emperor at this time and although the content is unknown it is easy to conjecture that it was a plea for some kind of imperial assistance.85 Unfortunately for the Bishop, and ultimately Catholic Iceland, Arason sent his letter with a Dutch messenger who was seized in Germany.86 Later that summer, armed with his papal endorsement and no doubt buoyed by the march of events on the Continent, Arason deployed his two sons, Ari and Björn south along with a retinue of 100 men. This time the raiding party managed an early success as they captured Marteinn Einarsson with little trouble at a parsonage beneath Snaefellsjökul as he was returning from an episcopal visitation. Another prize prisoner captured with him was the

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superintendent’s chaplain, a man named Arni. He had been a troublesome leader of the opposition to the Bishop in Skálholt and Arason took obvious pleasure in exacting revenge. Arni was locked in a toilet whilst Arason, an accomplished poet, composed scurrilous rhymes with him as the subject. Marteinn was perhaps treated even more harshly; confined to the monastery of Mödruvellir, he was given the uninviting job of drying cod.87 As they rode on, they sought out Daði Guðmundsson who they discovered was altogether more prepared than the Bishop. Daði and his retinue lay in wait for the northern posse, camouflaged in grey to match the rocks of Sauðafell.88 The H´olar party were ambushed and driven back they returned home with their prize captives.89 Back in their own territory they took the precaution of constructing a fortified retreat whilst they considered their options.90 Arason evidently gained confidence from the relative success of this venture and he began to step up his campaign. This is reflected in a clear indication of a policy shift within his own jurisdiction when he finally took assertive action against Ólafur Hjaltason who had been evangelising since his return from Denmark. Ólafur was promptly deprived of his orders, forcing him to take his case to the Court. In 1550, Arason rode to the Althing with two hundred men; he was followed by Ari and Björn each with one hundred men, a significant force by Icelandic standards. Once there, acting in the capacity of visitor of Skálholt, Arason issued a declaration that threatened to excommunicate Gísli Jónsson if he did not make full satisfaction. Among the charges levelled against him were that he had been heard to make a number of pronouncements abjuring to obey any bishop that might wear a mitre or was a monk. Nor, apparently, was he prepared to submit to any canon law that taught heretical doctrines and that he had foresworn the veneration of the Blessed Virgin.91 On hearing of the threat Gísli followed Ólafur to the sanctuary of the Danish Court.92 The reaction of the Danes to the rebellious Bishop was two-pronged and indicative of the respect they held for his position and his personal qualities. On the one hand, they offered him inducements and on the other they stepped up their show of strength. By now Bishop Peder Palladius was central to the Danish Reformation. He had been a student at Wittenberg and had come to the Danish court on the personal recommendation of Luther. As the King’s adviser, he began to take a keen interest in the Reforming of Norway and Iceland. In March 1550, the Danish Bishop wrote to Arason and whilst he communicated disapproval, he also offered a tempting olive branch. Palladius cautioned against

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putting faith in the Pope, who had in any case died, as perhaps “you have already had news in Iceland, for Mount Hecla often gives intimations of that nature.” After this he went so far as to offer to send explanations that demonstrated the differences between papal doctrines and the dictums of Christ. For the present, he offered papal consecrations, masses and fasts as obvious examples. Palladius then requested him to resend the previous delegation that might, after wintering in Denmark, return to his see the better equipped to enable its Reform.93 More royal letters were sent to Iceland, this time from the King addressing the people of Hólar telling them (falsely) that their Bishop was a declared outlaw by the Althing and urging them to elect his successor.94 It helpfully added that they might find a suitable candidate in Gísli Jónsson.95 Another letter once more urged Daði Guðmundsson and Pétur Einarsson to aid the Governor, Laurentius Mule, to arrest Arason.96 In spite of this flurry of communication, the Bishop of Hólar appeared undaunted as he presented himself at the Althing with his prisoner Marteinn Einarsson. Here he was triumphantly, and in the presence of Laurentius, declared the rightful administrator of Skálholt by a jury of clerics.97 This accomplished the Althing went on to reinstate Ari as Lawman.98 At the proceeding’s conclusion Arason continued to flex his muscles as he journeyed south to Skálholt which, finally, yielded to him without resistance. Once there he reconsecrated the cathedral and obtained from the administrator and his six attendants a declaration of fealty to Rome. He then ordered his men to find the grave of Gizur Einarsson and having exhumed the body it was hurled into a pit.99 All this accomplished, Arason was said to have uttered a sentence that has ensured its place in Icelandic culture when he declared, “Nú hefi ég undir mér alt Ísland, utan hálfan annan kotungs son” [Now all Iceland is in my power, except one peasant and half another].100 After this, the Catholic party sailed over to the dissolved monastery at Viðey and on his arrival he dispersed the Danish occupants and restored the old abbot.101 These actions were repeated at the monastery of Helgafell and, on the completion of certain other episcopal duties, he turned for home in triumph.102

The Death of a Bishop and the Passing of Catholic Iceland Sometime in the autumn of the same year Arason seems to have determined that the moment was right to drive home his recent victories by

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pursuing Daði Guðmundsson, who represented his last significant enemy in the country. His confidence in the success of his mission is demonstrated by the fact that, along with his two sons, he armed himself with only one hundred men. The Bishop had lost little of his status as a leader akin to a powerful chieftain and he would certainly have been capable of raising a much larger force.103 In terms of the rank and file combatants it would be hasty to draw any conclusions with regard their confessional distinctions. The peasantry lived under the much-needed protection of their lord and their obedience was expected to be automatic. The idea of a popular uprising such as the ones that took place in Denmark or Germany was inconceivable. On the other hand, the lay aristocracy stood to gain a great deal by bringing down the ecclesiastical elite, and what conflict there was during 1537–1551 might be summarised as the episcopal estates in combat with the estates of prominent laity combined with the Danish authorities, more akin to tribal warfare than anything else.104 This particular conflict turned out to be one of the last. Arason’s mission failed and his party were captured as they sought sanctuary in a nearby church. The Bishop and his sons were taken to Snóksdalur.105 On 23 October 1550, they were handed over to the Christian Skriver, the Governor’s representative, who was charged by a jury to ensure their safekeeping until the next Althing.106 Daði Guðmundsson, Superintendent Marteinn and Skriver took the prisoners to Skálholt where they discussed the very real problem of keeping such high-profile captives. Icelandic legal processes demanded that they retain Arason and his sons until the next Althing, however this would have meant keeping them throughout the winter. During these months it was common for men from the north to journey south to the fishing grounds, presenting a real threat and one that it was doubtful the captors had the resources to face. The matter was deliberated on over a number of days without resolution until a clergyman by the name of Jón Bjarnason was reported to have said that although he was the most foolish person present he knew of a method of keeping the prisoners. When asked for an explanation he is said to have declared, “The axe and the earth will keep them best.”107 With that it was declared that in spite of the jury’s order they would proceed with the death sentence without a trial. On 6 November 1550 Skriver addressed a gathering to whom he set out the crimes of the prisoners. He accused the Bishop and his sons of setting themselves against the population. Among them he declared that

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many men had journeyed to Denmark to acquire monastery lands and royal benefices only to have their efforts thwarted, “immediately they arrived here in Iceland than Bishop Jón and his sons made the King’s letters null and void, and many poor men had their long journey rendered vain.”108 The following morning Ari Jónsson was the first to be executed. When he saw the axe, he is said to have exclaimed, “Lord is this to be tolerated?” When Christian Skriver nodded Ari added, “Damn you blind idiot! I was addressing my Lord God, not you.”109 Another contemporary source tells us that he approached the block cheerfully asking Marteinn Einarsson to forgive him. His head was severed in one blow.110 Björn Jónsson was next and his execution was altogether less edifying. He begged for mercy until Guðmundson ordered the executioner to get on with his work, it was only complete when four blows had been struck.111 After that it was up to Jón to restore family dignity. As he was led out, he is reported to have asked if he could genuflect before the Blessed Virgin, an image that he had particularly venerated in the course of his life. At the block, the Bishop was offered his life for a recantation, to which he merely expressed a wish to accompany his sons. At the seventh blow of the axe he was dead along with any hope of retaining the Catholic faith in Iceland.112 In this way died the first and last martyrs of the Scandinavian Reformation. Before his execution, he bequeathed to posterity one last epigram as a summary of his final predicament. What is the World? A bitter cheat, If Danes must sit on the judgement seat, When I step forth my death to meet And lay my head at the King’s feet.113

The following year, before the news of Arason’s death had reached Christian III, he had sent four warships containing an army of three hundred men to his northern territory. Half the force were under the command of the renowned captain, Axel Juul.114 When the first two ships landed at Oddeyri they quickly got down to business, setting up a court that condemned Arason and his sons as traitors who had been rightly executed.115 After this, on 15 June the people of Hólar were forced to swear an oath of loyalty to the King. The next day a jury of twentyfour men declared that Arason and his sons had been traitors and that their possessions were to be forfeited to the Crown.116 The Danish force remained in the diocese throughout the summer during which time they

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helped themselves to the treasure of the cathedral and various monasteries.117 In October Ólafur Hjaltason was presented with the diocese by the King and he was duly consecrated by Peder Palladius.118 This invasion, along with the invading force that had captured Bishop Ögmundur ten years previously, demonstrates the growing power of Denmark at this time. From 1262 until 1550, the ruler of the Norwegian Kingdom had been the ruler of Iceland but their role in state affairs was largely peripheral and open to manipulation from all members of the ruling class including the bishopric; a situation that operated on the basic principles of feudalism.119 Once they had settled their internal problems, the House of Oldenburg began to emerge as a more capable force with the financial and technical ability to obtain a tighter grip on their dominions. Christian’s dissolving of the Norwegian Council and his incorporation of the region, together with its vassal Iceland, into Denmark as little more than a province, was in part a punitive measure because of Norway’s support for his cousin Christian II. Denmark was also, in line with other monarchies, moving towards absolutism and Christian III was more than conscious that the removal of an independent ecclesiastical establishment would be conducive to this political ambition. The King became the largest landowner in Iceland, Danish officials grew in numbers and they exerted a new power over day-to-day religious matters, executing heretics and flogging those guilty of persistent absences from services.120 Icelanders had enjoyed nearly three hundred years of relative freedom on the edge of the Kingdom, but faced with such superior invading forces there was little that they could do except to pledge their loyalty and hope that they would not suffer too much from the change in relations. What took place at this time in Scandinavia was mirrored elsewhere, just as Denmark was reducing Norway and Iceland to the status of provinces the principality of Wales was being incorporated into the Parliamentary constitution of England.121 As events turned out, Iceland fared better than the Faroe Islands whose Church was demoted to a deanery within the diocese of Bergen, its episcopal residence was closed down, and two-thirds of its property was confiscated by the Crown.122 In terms of comparisons it might seem tempting to ask why the Reformation in Iceland was so much more successful than that of Ireland, whose situation appears ostensibly similar. However, we need to consider two factors that ultimately set their circumstances apart. First, there is the question of scale: Iceland’s population in the sixteenth century was

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around 40–50,000 compared to Ireland’s 500,000–1,000,000. This was a significant difference, and one that meant that the former was far more susceptible to subjugation than the latter. In addition, the historic relationship between the Icelandic and their Danish governors was fundamentally different to those of the Irish and the English. Indeed, they would only have been similar if the island of Ireland had not been populated until the eleventh century, and only then, by English settlers. One of the reasons that the Irish Reformation failed was because it was imposed by a different race of people, and in a different language; this was not the case with regard to its northern neighbour. Denmark was an emerging military power with the type of modern army that was having such a profound effect on state-building elsewhere.123 This was a force that it could mobilise, which meant that isolation could no longer be relied upon to furnish Iceland with quite such a generous measure of autonomy. The power of local magnates in this new, emerging Europe could only be tolerated if they offered support to the central authority and, concomitant with this development, was the establishment of monolithic state Churches. In these circumstances patronage was fast becoming the surest gateway to privilege. This was a new dictum that was being taught and imbibed in often brutal lessons on the continental mainland, perhaps it was one that after all the Bishop of Hólar, on the far edges of developments, could only have ever been expected to learn the hard way. In 1552 the diocese of Hólar submitted to the Danish throne and accepted the Church Ordinance, indicating that, at an institutional level at least, the sidaskipti was complete.124 There can be little doubt that genuine religious convictions were a motivating factor in the Crown’s campaign; they were convictions, however, that received a considerable spur from the impecunious state of the royal treasury. The fact that this momentous change in the destiny of the Icelandic people was received with sullen apathy was perhaps a dispiriting consideration for the first Reformers, yet in the end it was probably the best that they could have hoped for considering the tepid form in which it had been presented.

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Notes 1. G. Karlsson, The History of Iceland (Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2000),128. 2. V. A. Ísleifsdóttir-Bickel, Die Einführung der Reformation in Island, 1537 –1565 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1995), 135. 3. J. Sigurðsson, Safn til Sögu Íslands. 6-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: S. L. Möller, 1856), 1:75. 4. Ísleifdóttir-Bickel, Reformation in Island, 135–36. 5. N. K. Andersen, “The Reformation in Scandinavia and the Baltic,” in The New Cambridge Modern History, Volume 2: The Reformation, ed. G. R. Elton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), II, 144. 6. J. Þorkelsson and E. Arnórsson, Ríkisréttindi Íslands (Reykjavík: Sigurður Kristjánsson, 1907), 37. 7. K. Gjerset, A History of Iceland (London: Allen and Unwin, 1992), 285. 8. M. Fell, And Some fell on Good Soil (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 90. 9. Karlsson, History, 129. 10. Fell, Good Soil, 91; J. C. F. Hood, Icelandic Church Saga (London: SPCK, 1946), 144. 11. Biskupa Sögur Bókmentafélagsins, ed. J. Sigurðsson and G. Vigfússon. 2-vol. ed. (Copenhagen, 1858–1878), 2:81. 12. Diplomatarium Islandicum, Íslenzkt Fornbréfasafn sem hefir inni að halda bréf og gjörninga, dóma og máldaga, og aðrar skar, er snerta Ísland eða íslenzka menn. 16-vol. ed. (Reykjavík and Copenhagen, 1857–1970), 9:535. 13. Hood, Church Saga, 152. 14. Annales Islandici Posteriorum Sæculorum, Annálar 1400–1800. 6-vol. ed. (Reykjavík: Felagsprentsmiðjan, 1922–1987), 1:102. 15. P. E. Ólason, Íslenzkar Æviskrár frá landnámstímum til Ársloka. 6-vol. ed. (Reykjavík: Hið ÍslenzkaBókmenntafélag, 1948–1952), 2:59. 16. Ibid. 17. P. E. Ólason, Menn og Menntir Siðskiftaaldarinnar. 4-vol. ed. (Reykjavík: Guðmundr Gamalielsson,1919), 2:595. 18. Jón Helgasson, Islands Kirke fra Reformationen til vore Dage: En historisk Fremstilling (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1992), 18. 19. Jón Egilsson, “Biskupa Annálar,” in J. Sigurðsson, Safn til Sögu Íslands. 6-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: S. L. Möller, 1856), 1:77. 20. Ibid. 21. M. Schwarz Lausten, “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway 1520–1559,” in The Scandinavian Reformation: Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, ed. O. P. Grell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 14. 22. O. P. Grell, “Scandinavia,” in The Reformation World, ed. A. Pettegree (London: Routledge, 2000), 266.

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23. J. L. Larson, Reforming the North: the Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1544 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 410. 24. Johann H. Kurtz, Church History. 3-vol. ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1892–1893), 2:139. 25. Paul D. Lockhart, Frederick II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion 1559–1596 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 14. 26. Larson, Reforming the North, 393. 27. Hood, Church Saga, 144. 28. Diplomatarium, 10: 167. His description of Luther’s grey attire is probably due to mistaking him for a Franciscan. 29. Sigurðsson, Safn, 2:503. 30. Karlsson, History of Iceland, 129. 31. Hood, Church Saga, 144. 32. F. Jónsson, Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiae. 4-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Typis Orphanotrophii Regii, 1778), 2:527. 33. William P. Ker, “Bishop Jón Arason,” Saga Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 8 (1913–1914):170. 34. Egilsson, Biskupa, 68. 35. Diplomatarium, 10:200, 201. 36. Karlsson, History, 130. 37. Þorkelsson and Arnórsson, Ríkisréttindi, 52–4. 38. Biskupa Sögur, 2:269–72. 39. Jónsson, Historia Ecclesiastica, 2:522. 40. Diplomatarium, 10:247–48. 41. A. Huitfeldt, Danmarks Riges Krønike. 8–vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1976), 2:1511. 42. Diplomatarium, 10:447–48. 43. Diplomatarium, 10:220. 44. Diplomatarium, 10:205. 45. Diplomatarium, 10:247. 46. Ólason, Menn og, 1:232. 47. Ólason, Menn og, 1:332. 48. Diplomatarium, 10:313. 49. Diplomatarium, 10:244. 50. Biskupa Sögur, 2:273. 51. Diplomatarium, 10:618. 52. Biskupa Sögur, 2:235. 53. Andersen, “Reformation Scandinavia,” 145. 54. Þorkelsson and Arnórsson, Ríkisréttindi, 57. 55. Gjerset, History of Iceland, 289. 56. Sigurðsson, Safn, 2:207. 57. Diplomatarium, 10:625–27.

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58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94.

Diplomatarium, 10:332. Diplomatarium, 11:121–22. Ólason, Menn og, 1:242. Tryggvi Þórhallsson, Gissur Biskup Einarsson og Siðaskiptin (Published by author’s children: 1989), 196–200. Ólason, Menn og, 1:247–52; Þorkelsson and Arnórsson, Ríkisréttindi, 57. Diplomatarium, 10:339. Diplomatarium, 11:133, 134. Larson, Reforming the North, 413. Diplomatarium, 10:95. Ibid. Ibid. Diplomatarium, 11:155–56. Diplomatarium, 10:180. Jón Helgason, Kristnisaga Islands (Reykjavík: Felagsprentsmiðjan, 1927), 2:57. Ibid., 166–67. Karlsson, History, 131. Oleson, “Arason,” 261. Diplomatarium, 11:564. Diplomatarium, 12:120–2. Biskupa Sögur, 1:85. Gjerset, History of Iceland, 295. Diplomatarium, 11:713–16. Saga Islendinga, 1:89. Diplomatarium, 11:691–93. Diplomatarium, 11:700–92. Diplomatarium, 11:695–98. Author’s translation. Ibid. Þorkelsson and Arnórsson, Ríkisréttindi, 71–3. Gjerst, History of Iceland, 294. Hood, Church Saga, 153. Jónsson, Historia Ecclesiastica, 2708–12. Biskupa Sögur, 1:85. Ebenezer Henderson, Iceland (Edinburgh: Waugh and Innes, 1819), 101. Diplomatarium, 11:743–47. Biskupa Sögur, 1: 118–19. Diplomatarium, 9:754–59. The volcanic Mount Hecla was considered to be the mouth of Hell, its eruptions were said to be the greeting of the damned. Ólason, Menn og, 1:307.

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95. Niels Krag and Stephen Stefanius, Den Stormægtigste Konge, Kong Christian III, HansHistorie (Copenhagen, 1778), 2:430, 459. 96. Diplomatarium, 11:750–52. 97. Diplomatarium, 11:781–83. 98. Biskupa Sögur, 1:94. 99. Diplomatarium, 11:790–91. 100. Sigurðsson, Safn til Sögu Íslands, 1:93. It is generally accepted that the ‘half’ peasant is Daði Guðmundsson; we can only guess at the other peasant’s identity. 101. Biskopa Sögur, 2:578. 102. Halldórsson, Biskupasögur Jóns, 1:978–79. 103. Biskupa Sögur, 2:473–74. 104. A. D. Júlíusson, “Peasants, Aristocracy and State Power in Iceland, 1400–1650,” The Centre for Agrarian Historical Dynamics Papers 2 (2007):3–4. 105. Biskupa Sögur, 2:351. 106. Diplomatarium, 11:800–3. 107. Sigurðsson, Safn, 1:95. 108. Diplomatarium, 11:813–20. 109. Biskupa Sögur, 2:450, 719–20. 110. Sigurðsson, Safn, 1:96–7. 111. Biskupa Sögur, 2:323. 112. Biskupa Sögur, 2:324. 113. Ker, “Arason,” 149–71. 114. Gjerset, History of Iceland, 300. 115. Karlsson, History of Iceland, 133. 116. Diplomatarium, 11, 268–77. 117. Diplomatarium, 11, 328–30. 118. Diplomatarium, 12:324–26, 345–46. 119. Júlíusson, “Peasants, Aristocracy,” 6. 120. T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia (London: Allen and Unwin, 1979), 93. 121. Ibid., 86. 122. G. V. C. Young, From the Vikings to the Reformation. A Chronicle of the Faroe Islands up to 1538 (Isle of Man: Shearwater Press, 1979), 56–7; Tom Nauerby, No Nation is an Island: Language, Culture and National Identity in the Faroe Islands (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1996), 106. 123. See Mark Greengrass, “Politics and Warfare,” in The Sixteenth Century, ed. Euan Cameron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 80–1. 124. Andersen, “Reformation Scandinavia,” 145.

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Bibliography Primary Sources Annales Islandici Posteriorum Sæculorum. Annálar 1400–1800. 6 vols. Reykjavík: Felagsprentsmiðjan, 1922–1987. Biskupa Sögur Bókmentafélagsins, edited by J. Sigurðsson and G. Vigfússon. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag, 1858–1878. Diplomatarium Islandicum. Íslenzkt Fornbréfasafn sem hefir inni að halda bréf og gjörninga, dóma og máldaga, og aðrar skar, er snerta Ísland eða íslenzka menn. 16 vols. Reykjavík and Copenhagen: various publishers, 1857–1970. Halldórsson, Jón, Biskupasögur Jóns prófasts Halldórsssonar í Hítardal 1 (Skálholtsbiskupar, 1540–1801), edited by Jón þorkellson. Reykjavik: Sögufélag, 1903–1910. Íslenzkar Æviskrár frá Landnámstímum til Ársloka, edited by P. E. Ólason. 6 vols. Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Bókmenntafélag, 1948–1952. Menn og Menntir Siðskiftaaldarinnar, edited by P. E. Ólason. 4 vols. Reykjavík: Guðmundr Gamalielsson, 1919. Safn til Sögu Íslands og Íslenzkra Bókmenta. 6 vols. Copenhagen: S. L. Möller, 1856–1886.

Secondary Sources Andersen, N. K. “The Reformation in Scandinavia and the Baltic.” In The New Cambridge Modern History, Volume 2: The Reformation, edited by G. R. Elton, 134–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958. Derry, T. K. A History of Scandinavia. London: Allen and Unwin, 1979. Fell, M. And Some Fell on Good Soil. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. Gjerset, K. A History of Iceland. London: Allen and Unwin, 1992. Greengrass, Mark. “Politics and Warfare.” In The Sixteenth Century, edited by Euan Cameron, 58–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Grell, O. P. “Scandinavia.” In The Reformation World, edited by A. Pettegree, 257–76. London: Routledge, 2000. Helgason, Jón. Kristnisaga Islands. Reykjavík: Felagsprentsmiðjan, 1927. Helgason, Jón. Islands Kirke fra Reformationen til vore Dage. En Historisk Fremstilling. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1992. Henderson, Ebenezer. Iceland. Edinburgh: Waugh and Innes, 1819. Hood, J. C. F. Icelandic Church Saga. London: SPCK, 1946. Huitfeldt, A. Danmarks Riges Krønike. 8 vols. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1976. Ísleifsdóttir-Bickel, V. A. Die Einführung der Reformation in Island, 1537–1565. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1995.

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Jónsson, F. Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiae. 4 vols. Copenhagen: Typis Orphanotrophii Regii, 1778. Júlíusson, A. D. “Peasants, Aristocracy and State Power in Iceland, 1400–1650.” The Centre for Agrarian Historical Dynamics Papers 2 (2007): 1–9. Karlsson, G. The History of Iceland. Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Ker, William P. “Bishop Jón Arason.” Saga Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 8 (1913–1914): 149–71. Krag, Niels and Stephen Stefanius. Den Stormægtigste Konge, Kong Christian III, Hans Historie. Copenhagen, 1778. Kurtz, Johann H. Church History. 3 vols. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1892–1893. Larson, J. L. Reforming the North: The Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1544. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Lockhart, Paul D. Frederick II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion 1559–1596. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Nauerby, Tom. No Nation is an Island: Language, Culture and National Identity in the Faroe Islands. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1996. Þorkelsson, J. and E. Arnórsson, Ríkisréttindi Íslands. Reykjavík: Sigurður Kristjánsson, 1907. Þórhallsson, Tryggvi. Gissur Biskup Einarsson og siðaskiptin. Published by author’s children, 1989. Schwarz Lausten, M. “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway 1520– 1559.” In The Scandinavian Reformation: Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, edited by O. P. Grell, 12–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Young, G. V. C. From the Vikings to the Reformation: A Chronicle of the Faroe Islands up to 1538. Isle of Man: Shearwater Press, 1979.

CHAPTER 4

“Another Age Will Damage and Destroy”: The Radicalised Reformation in Denmark-Norway in the Later Part of the Sixteenth Century Henrik von Achen

Abbreviations DI DKL DN NRR

Diplomatarium Islandicum Danske Kirkelove 1536–1683 Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 1018–1570 Norske riksregistranter

Regrettable, and by no means praiseworthy, in the beginning, the promotors of evangelical doctrine did not only remove gold and silver from churches and monasteries, together with vestments and other treasures used in Catholic times, but also ill-naturedly destroyed what one could not use. Needlessly, they demolished beautiful buildings, burned useful

H. von Achen (B) University of Bergen, University Museum, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_4

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books and documents, destroyed the decorations in the churches, and left the house of God empty. It would have been better if this had not been so, and it did them little good.1

This is how the provost in Lista in Southern Norway, archdeacon Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614), described the situation in Norway some seventy-five years after the Reformation. While assuring his readers that the Catholic Church certainly represented idolatry and severe error, blasphemy and the corruption of faith, it seems that the humanist still regretted the vandalism.2 The history of sixteenth-century Northern Europe has been subject to various ideologically charged narratives. Yet, while one may treat it in light of continuity or discontinuity, of suppression or emancipation, of faith or façade, there can be no denying that a profound and irreversible change of the religious culture in the countries around the North Sea took place during the first generations after the Reformation. From a slow transition during the first generation, the reform was driven by a new sense of urgency during the second. Together with the other essays in this volume, this contribution offers a comparative history of the Reformation as process and reality, by describing the radicalisation around 1570, when the patience of the first Lutheran generation was abandoned.

Leniency and Patience In a certain sense, the point of departure is what one might call a microhistorical approach, primarily studying church buildings and their interiors in a certain area and era.3 Eamon Duffy has characterised the Reformation in England as a slow process against an unwilling and resistant population.4 Robert W. Scribner pointed to the fact that in Germany, the change was neither dramatic nor complete, and that pre-Reformation mentalities continued to exist.5 This accurately describes the resilience of the old faith, recently documented by Henning Laugerud in his book on the post-Reformation era in Norway.6 The gradual change, the resilience of the old ways and the long process of transition, seem to be a common feature until the 1560s in Northern Europe, not least around the North Sea (Fig. 4.1). In his contribution in this volume, Peter Marshall discusses aspects of this process in the case of Orkney. Protestant theology of images is not the

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Fig. 4.1 Late medieval woodcut on the last page (26) of “Børne Speigel”, written by a former friar, Niels Bredal (c.1500–1579), and published in Copenhagen in 1568 by Mads Vingaard. The book offers advice in rhyme on the proper behaviour of children, and to depict a mother with her child the publisher obviously used a recut old stock depicting a popular late medieval devotional motif, namely a Rosary Madonna combined with the five Sacred Wounds (Photo Royal Library, Copenhagen)

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primary topic of this text, but the efforts of the authorities to bring about a change of religion and religious life, thereby approaching the existing material culture of Christianity. The essay regards the Reformation as a processual, and, indeed, a generational, phenomenon with an intrinsic cultural dimension—process and result, therefore, a cultural fact.7 For the ruler, a number of political, financial and military considerations played a central role in the Reformation, yet the new religion still provided a necessary normative structure, which had to be accepted and supported if capable of consolidating his or her power. In 1591, the first article in the nobility’s document of homage to King Christian IV (1577–1648) underscored that the unity of the two kingdoms was to be ensured by the Lutheran religion, maintained, enforced and defended.8 At the same time, Anglicanism had a similar role in Elizabethan England. In 1537, the Reformation was introduced in Norway by royal command from King Christian III (1503–1559) in Copenhagen. Right from the start, the King acknowledged the necessity of a gradual transition with little room for force and much for continuity. Financial considerations seemed to be regarded as more important and more acute than the religious dimension of the event—even if royal dominance, financial gain and rejection of the old Church were intertwined. When discussing the visual culture of the first post-Reformation generation, the extent to which the old Catholic ways were initially left alone may be surprising.9 The population remained Catholic, those churches still standing were left alone, it seems with most of their pre-Reformation inventory, church furniture and furnishings intact. Politically, the introduction of the Reformation entailed a suppression of the national independence of the kingdom of Norway. Therefore, with no strong Lutheran movement anywhere, not even in Bergen, the Danish king had to be careful. In a letter of 17 June 1537 to his governor in Western Norway, the Danish nobleman Eske Bille (c.1480–1552), the king issued an instruction on how to proceed with the Reformation: Therefore, We order you to allow parishioners and parish priests in the entire diocese to continue their old ways, and not to appoint new preachers until such time as We have found a good way to do so, that no dismay and discord may arise among the poor, simple and foolish peasantry in the country. Gently and cannily, We shall then provide them with a faith based on better knowledge of the word of God.10

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From the very beginning, this rather lenient procedure was part of the king’s brief for the introduction of the Reformation in Norway. The first Church Ordinance, published in Norwegian in 1539, certainly articulated a clear antagonism to the old devotional practices, but its chapter on Norway just mentioned that for the time being one would have to implement as much as possible of the ordinance.11 In Denmark-Norway, the Reformation showed a certain tolerance towards religious imagery, regarded in the tradition from Gregory the Great as means of instruction, memory and example. In the preface to his Passional in 1529, Martin Luther (1483–1546) himself recommended a pious and educational use of religious imagery, “for the sake of simple folk and children, since they are more easily enabled by images and likenesses than just words or teachings to remember the Divine History.” Thus, the Passional was situated within the late medieval tradition of seeing, contemplating and remembering biblical scenes, in the church and at home12 ; “neither would I regard it bad,” Luther continued, “if one painted such stories with texts at home in the living room or in the smaller rooms.”13 Probably written in 1541, the visitation manual of the superintendent of Sjælland, Peder Palladius (1503–1560), the most prominent cleric in the double monarchy, suggested that parishes “could hang panels or pictures on the walls [of the church], that they may serve as mirrors to the good simple folk in which they might view themselves, but images visited by people who have hung crutches and wax statuettes of children before them, should be removed and burnt.”14 For the first generation, a legitimate use of images in religious life did exist. This relative tolerance towards images in Denmark would a fortiori govern the approach in Norway as well. The result of the attempt of the reformers to bring about change gradually and carefully was that usually the church interiors remained intact for decades, particularly in parish churches outside the cities. If one entered a church in Norway around 1560, one would notice little or no change—even the old priest might still be the same. If a church was demolished, images and furnishings may have been collected and sold off second hand at reduced prices,15 or, if it was simply closed down, one might have left the interior untouched and left it to decay on its own— as demonstrated by a survey in 1559 concerning the former Augustinian monastery in Trondheim, Elgeseter: “The church leaks everywhere, part of the floor is destroyed, some of the choir stalls in the church have come to pieces and are quite ruined; all panels are still in the church, apart from one which was brought to the castle and another having been ruined by

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water dripping into the church.”16 Something similar seems to have been the case in Iceland, where a royal visitation and collection was ordered in 1565.17 In this, and many cases like it, neglect and lack of maintenance were far more immediate threats than iconoclastic fury. The situation in Norway was not unlike England; in both cases the king insisted on reform against the will of the people. According to Duffy, the visitations of 1559 and 1566 in England testified to “a slow and reluctant conformity imposed from above, with little or no evidence of popular enthusiasm for or commitment to the process of reform.”18 Something quite similar was the case in Norway. While Danish rule had succeeded in achieving a political victory, and the king in controlling the wealth of the Church, there were but few signs of having obtained the same effect on the religious life of ordinary people. In Norway, as in the rest of the Nordic countries, the Reformation, or rather reforming the population, was a “long, slow, and winding process.”19 When women in confinement in southern Norway in 1573 still stood before a side altar (St. Anne?) in the church, or a Finnish student at a Jesuit college in 1578 sent home a number of devotional prints, it testifies to old practices still taking place both publicly and privately.20 It was, perhaps, less an amalgamation of old and new, than a layer or veil of official Lutheranism, which for half a century neither mirrored nor represented the faith of a population simply continuing its devotional practices. A more precise characterisation of the interference between old and new as adaptation, appropriation, or inculturation is needed, and in this volume contributions by Laura Skinnebach, Susan Royal and Raymond Gillespie offer material on that topic. Two variants of Christian religion coexisted simultaneously in various layers of society, official Lutherdom among the ruling classes, while the population still adhered to the old faith. In that sense, one can certainly speak of a “Reformation without people” (Laugerud),21 the local church and the old clergy playing an important role in upholding traditional views and practices. In Norway, there seems to have been a strong anti-Lutheran sentiment among common folk until the end of the sixteenth century,22 but it still needs to be studied whether this was a widespread reaction against increasing state interference and discipline, rather than an explicit sign of adherence to the old church. Undoubtedly, the division between a Lutheran ruling class and a more or less Catholic population hindered the permeation of new ideas. In the first decades after 1537, therefore, the general atmosphere certainly suggested that tolerance and a slow pace were prudent. In this volatile situation, where the King and his church

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struggled to have their religious authority recognised by an unwilling population, Lutheran vicars were especially instructed to “abstain from hateful attacks on Papists.”23 In line with this attitude, the Danish synods of Antvorskov 1546 and Copenhagen 1555 suggested a careful and gradual process of religious change. By first severing the attachment to images and objects, these instruments themselves might then be removed without too much commotion. To that end, “the priests should preach diligently against the abuse of images, that they be removed from the heart of the people, then gently extirpated by the church wardens, particularly where people kneel before them, or where other kinds of idolatry take place.”24 The problem was that this did not work well; not in Denmark, but especially not in Norway. Hearts were not easily turned away from the images, and people did not willingly abandon their traditional devotional practices. For the authorities, secular and ecclesial alike, it must have been frustrating to observe the exceedingly slow pace of the process towards a conversion of the population. Denouncing religious imagery, the superintendent in Lund, Skåne, Niels Palladius (c.1510–1560), brother of the Danish leading superintendent, Peder Palladius, voiced the mounting frustration by publishing a strongly worded pamphlet in Latin in 1557, primarily meant for the local Lutheran clergy. Of course, he had to defend Luther and his position concerning images for private use, and insist that iconoclasts (‘Danicé, Billede = Stormere’) had no authority to remove church art. However, his text is largely a rejection of any role images might play in religious life, quasi-echoing the synods when he exhorted pious vicars in the churches to preach carefully against the idolatry of the hearts, cordium idolatria, and define and describe the (old) practices as godless.25 During the first decades after the Reformation, the split between the old and the new religion remained formal rather than real; in an everyday context, it was but a fissure, almost impossible to discern for most people. This hardly visible crack would eventually widen into an unbridgeable gap, continuity giving way to change; a new kind of Christianity, a new denomination. Undoubtedly, the Reformation represented a change in radice, and as Denmark-Norway was isolated from contact with the old Church, the northern German areas as well as England turning Protestant, this development was inevitable. Eventually, experiences of the old Church and its practices became history, slowly but steadily. Therefore, the split between old and new, until now almost invisible for ordinary people, could be widened––and needed to be, should the

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Reformation prevail. In this respect, the leniency of the authorities did not help. In 1564, obviously frustrated about the pace of change, the prominent Danish theologian, Niels Hemmingsen (1513–1600), complained about the fact that “many are (unfortunately, so help us God) so stuck in their wrong Papist ideas, that they will not allow one single idol or image to be removed from their churches.”26 If this was the case in Denmark, it was even more so in Norway.

Radicalisation During the 1560s in Denmark-Norway, the patience of the authorities wore out. Measures that were more radical had to be employed, easier now as a new generation of Lutheran clergy had taken over—no longer more or less convinced converts from the old faith, but agents of change since their frame of reference was firmly situated in the post-Reformation era. There might, however, have been an immediate reason for adopting a radical attitude towards the heritage of the old Church. Natural impatience aside, it became a pressing existential necessity to bring about a decisive and more rapid change as a response to the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Breaking with tradition and the old church was, obviously, no trifling matter, and the financial incentives of the ruling classes were not suited to swaying a population resisting new ideas. Lutheranism, or Protestantism, had to be presented as a matter of salvation or damnation, light or darkness, truth or perversion—as the original Christian faith compared to the old church and its paganism. The problem, then, was the ongoing cleansing of the old church by the council. While upholding the proper use of images, the Tridentine decree on images of 1563 rejected much of what the reformers had objected to; therefore, the deeper force behind the Lutheran radicalisation of attitudes towards the material culture of the old faith may have been the necessity to maintain a sufficient distance between the old and the new religion. This explains why the rejection of images now became a concern for the very salvation of the faithful.27 If the difference between old and new were not sufficient and easy to see, tangible even, the breach with tradition might lack legitimacy; hence the significant change around 1570 with a radicalisation of views on “the popishe sinfull service,” as it was expressed by the royal visitations in England 1559 and 1565. Moreover, from 1566, the new Catholic catechism, which spread the teachings of the council, removed any doubt about the break with the “true Catholic religion which they

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had received from their fathers and retained piously and in holiness,” the impact of the catechism far broader and more direct than the conciliar decrees.28 As Protestantism could no longer be seen as simply authentic, purified Catholicism, it had to be promoted as the only Christian religion, and one would, therefore, have “to strike down and destroy all remnants of the church of the Devil,” according to the zealous Lutheran superintendent in Stavanger, Jørgen Erikssøn (1535–1604) in 1591.29 Now, the Danish authorities reversed the method suggested by the synods of 1546 and 1555; instead of disengaging hearts from images so that the images might be easily removed, images were to be removed to put an end to the idolatry of the hearts.

Upholding the Distance To point out that the old Church had been imperfect was not enough for the reformers; everybody knew that, of course—human weakness was a recognised fact. As the question of true Christianity could no longer be about different ways of worshipping, the very phenomenon of religious diversity of practice became unacceptable; only the perversion of Christianity by the old church could legitimise a break. Trent did not condemn the use of images as such—far from it—as neither had Luther, but it did reject practices, which were excessive, theologically unsound and superstitious—or resulted in a de facto idolatry. On 3–4 December 1563, the 25th session of the council produced a text on images, De invocatione, veneratione et reliquiis sanctorum et de sacris imaginibus, which almost any moderate Lutheran could have written. The Council wanted to have images in the churches, in keeping with ancient tradition; however … not that any divinity, or virtue, is believed to be in them, on account of which they are to be worshipped; or that anything is to be asked of them; or, that trust is to be reposed in images, … And if any abuses have crept in amongst these holy and salutary observances, the holy Synod ardently desires that they be utterly abolished; (…) every superstition when venerating relics or images shall be removed …30

In the papal bull Benedictus Deus of 26 January 1564, Pope Pius IV stated that the decrees of the council were necessary for “confuting heresies, abolishing abuses and amending morals.”31 Accepted by the German

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Catholic princes at the Diet of Augsburg 1566, it is fair to assume that the text on images was reasonably known by then. The Tridentine catechism followed up that very year by admonishing the priests to teach their congregations that the grace of Christ “always precedes, accompanies and follows our good works, and without it we can have no merit, nor can we at all satisfy God.” Likewise, and not least concerning devotional practices, they should take pains to explain the difference between the two kinds of invocation (adoration and veneration), “to remove the possibility of error on the part of the unlearned.”32 For the reformers, it was a problem that the council had moved so close to the moderate Lutheran position. Differences were there, certainly, and undoubtedly, the Catholic Church upheld the tradition, but the distance between the Lutheran reformers and the council fathers was not easy to convey to people still trying to balance old and new. Therefore, the customary use of imagery and devotional instruments in religious life had to be vilified; the new road to salvation in the light of the true gospel had to be contrasted with the old Roman idolatrous way to perdition. To keep the break with tradition legitimate, the Tridentine position may have forced Lutherans to take a more radical stand on imagery and practices. If radicalisation was the answer to the new threat from Rome, impulses needed to be found in more radical quarters, namely from a theology influenced by John Calvin (1509–1564), who rejected the very distinction between veneration and adoration.33 The Lutheran church in DenmarkNorway did not allow Calvinist theology to interfere with dogmatic issues, but it was allowed to influence the general attitude, not least towards images and Catholic devotional life. To dismantle the old ways, this radicalised view was useful and its employment might show just how important was the fight against traditional devotional life. One might expect Lutheranism in Denmark-Norway, or, indeed, the Church of England, to close ranks against Calvinist influence around and after 1560, emphasising their position on a subject like the religious lives of people as something different from Calvinism, insisting on the moderate position of Luther himself. However, this was precisely what the Tridentine position had made so difficult. Instead, it seems that the opposite happened, namely that they moved much closer to the Calvinist position. In a versatile situation where denominational identity was not yet fixed, faced with subjects still fond of their old ways, a sound strategy might be to reject the more radical positions of Protestant competitors, thereby also adapting to the general mood of the population. This approach might also be chosen

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since the question of financial gain, and, indeed, sovereignty as rulers, must be regarded a reasonably settled matter by the end of the 1560s. Yet, this consolidation might become unraveled if the religious legitimacy of the Reformation, and the measures following to promote and ensure its success, had to be questioned because it was reduced to a matter of different tastes and nuances—a variety of attitudes already existing within the late medieval church. In England, the Reformation turned into a political issue where Queen Elizabeth’s legitimacy as rightful ruler and the very cohesion of the monarchy was at stake. The Queen responded by insisting on conformity and tightening the laws against Catholic practice and the expression of dissenting opinions.34 One might say that radicalisation in DenmarkNorway was primarily religiously founded, while in England it was intertwined with major political issues. Facing Calvinism, the Lutheran church could not revert to an almost Catholic position, should the Reformation remain legitimate. Reasons for the undeniable radicalisation have to be investigated more thoroughly than is possible here, but it seems that the strategy of the authorities in Scandinavia was to uphold the Lutheran position on a dogmatic (invisible) level, which meant that Hemmingsen’s theology was rejected. On the other hand, they adopted a radical and almost Calvinist attitude on the devotional (visible) level, as in England, supporting Hemmingsen’s sceptical attitude, which remained an influential current in the 1580s and 1590s. Are we to regard the Tridentine decree on images as an important reason for the change of attitude towards the process of transition, or was the synchrony nothing but a coincidence, or simply a question of the reformers’ patience running out? This essay suggests that Protestant radicalisation in Lutheran or Anglican Northern Europe in various ways may be understood as a response to the Tridentine council. Legitimacy must have been an issue, since, after all, the old faith was no foreign religion, but the faith of the fathers, parents and grandparents; the faith that had built the churches in which the congregation still gathered to worship God and celebrate the divine mysteries on the altars. Avoiding mentioning specific areas in Europe, the Tridentine catechism of 1566 emphasised that many now had broken with the true Catholic religion received from the fathers.35 To people in Northern Europe, it was the faith in which their loved ones had died in the hope of resurrection; and images donated by family and friends; images before which people had knelt pouring out their hopes and fears, seeking consolation

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or bringing thanks; images where candles had been lit, disaster averted and hope restored. Faith was no abstract phenomenon; it was intertwined with people’s lives, embedded in daily life as materiality and actions, body and soul, and if the ways in which faith was lived remained valid, then how could the church itself not remain the valid custodian and guide, giving meaning to them? Only if all these familiar and well-loved devotional practices were truly corrupted and misguiding, leading to perdition; only then could their institutional framework be proclaimed ungodly, and, consequently, the new religion embraced as true Christendom. In this perspective, a more radical rejection of the old ways was needed, the main target being devotional life, and the preferred method being the removal of a significant part of the religious material culture. Even while requiring further study, it seems no coincidence that the Lutheran radicalisation concerning the material culture of faith happened precisely as the Tridentine position was disseminated in Europe. That a change of attitude towards the material culture of religion took place is certain, the radicalisation driven by a logical mechanism: if Rome had drawn nearer to the Lutheran position, the Reformation had to move further away, ensuring that the difference between old and new was substantial enough to legitimise the break. Interestingly, even a moderate Lutheran like Martin Chemnitz (1522– 1586), in the years 1565–1573, published a critical refutation of the Tridentine texts, canon by canon, decree by decree. With some urgency, apparently, he found himself having to take the position of a general rejection of religious images, and he did so pointing out that history proved that any use of images would necessarily lead to idolatry.36 In this, he repeated the argument brought forward by Calvin in his Institutiones,37 underscoring that idolatry was integral rather than incidental to imagery and practices.38 If instigation to idolatry was unavoidable, practices involving images could have no legitimate use in religious life. That the inclination of human nature to idolatry was a point going back to Calvin himself, and later maintained by Chemnitz, became a basic objection to having images at all. Hence, as Skjelderup wrote in his booklet of 1572, quoting Calvin’s Institutiones almost verbatim against the idea that a visible painting or sculpture awakens us to think of God and invoke him: “There is no difference between worshipping God in the images and worshipping the images themselves.”39 The idea of idolatry as intrinsic to religious imagery marked a decisive departure from the relative tolerance of the authorities in the first decades following the Reformation.

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According to Calvin, there could be no religiously legitimate images at all: “God does not compare images as if they were more or less useful,” Calvin stated, “but he rejects all images without exception, pictures and other signs through which superstitious people think that they bring God nearer to them.”40 Undeniably, Chemnitz observed, the Council of Trent shared the traditional idea of the relation between image and prototype prevailing since the council of 787,41 and the Roman Church continued to advocate a use of images which was unavoidably idolatrous. This position left no room for a moderate use of images in religious life, no adiaphora. Where Luther in his Passional had stated that common folk remembered what was seen better than what was heard, a traditional view voiced by Trent as well, Chemnitz insisted that the most efficient method of religious education was not “statues or pictures, but the voice of the Gospel, read, preached and heard.”42 After decades of changing as little as possible to avoid tensions, selling off old church art and furnishings for continued use in churches elsewhere in the diocese, a different and radicalised mood emerged, surfacing quite clearly in Bergen in 1569.

The Removal of Images in Bergen 1570 The conflict in Bergen has been described as a conflict between Protestant positions, a superintendent inspired by Calvin against orthodox Lutherans, rather than between a superintendent and Catholic citizens.43 Nevertheless, the entire event testifies to the resilience of the old material culture, and to a new and more strict rejection of it. Even if the superintendent in Bergen, Jens Skjelderup (c.1510–1582), belonged to the circle around Hemmingsen, it remains a fact, that he had tolerated images and practices for more than ten years until he was forced to act. In February 1568, a royal commission consisting of three Danish noblemen visited Bergen, not to inspect the churches, but to prepare the court of lords later that year (Fig. 4.2). However, the commission was appalled to find such a multitude of images in the churches and complained to the superintendent.44 This was obviously an unfortunate accusation and, responding to the dismay of the commission, Skjelderup summoned a synod in Bergen. Convened in June 1569, the twenty-eight ministers made two rather moderate decisions: “Several wax images still hanging in the churches are to be removed,” and “all images, but those on the high altar, should be gently removed.”45 It testifies to the character of the slow process that more than thirty years

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Fig. 4.2 Hieronymus Scholeus, the city of Bergen, 1581. Copper engraving by Franz Hogenberg published in Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum, vol. 4 (Cologne, 1588). Inv. no. By 1685b (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet)

after the Reformation, and in the largest city of the kingdom, not only were images and side altars still in place but even votive gifts were still hanging there, as a most visible link to the devotional practices of the old faith; the “wax statuettes and crutches” already rejected by Peder Palladius. No destruction of side altars or images is recorded during the eighteen months between the summer of 1569 and the winter of 1570, but a lot was perhaps just removed quietly and without fuss. At Christmas time 1570, the superintendent removed five of the seven images on the high altar in the cathedral, the former Franciscan church. This went further than the synod decision of the previous year. The reason for such a deviation was allegedly that the images were still “worshipped by some old women,” as the palace vicar in Bergen, Absalon Beyer (1528–1575), noted in his diary, using a usual Lutheran trope denoting a dying religious life still lingering on through old superstitious people with their lack of

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knowledge and proper religious erudition.46 Ordinary people, stupid and stuck in their old ways, were generally regarded an obstacle to a smooth transition from old to new. The city council objected strongly to the removal, but the superintendent even declared that the last two images had to go as well. In addition, he let the city council know that in a few days he intended “to present in writing the reasons why such idols should be removed, and what the congregations should think of images in general.”47 Still protesting, the council declared that since the superintendent had done this on his own accord, the citizens would stay away from the services until he had “done to all other images and altars what he had done in the cathedral.”48 Interestingly, the council did not protest against removal of the images from the high altar of the cathedral as such, but objected to the fact that this did not happen everywhere else as well. There is no reason to assume general popular support for the measures taken by Skjelderup, but there is no evidence of any significant popular protest or resentment either. The city council did not defend the images; on the contrary, it just thought it unfair that only the images in the cathedral were to be removed, and not those in the other churches.49 In fact, after only ten days the council caved in, and with the council members back in the pews, Skjelderup could deliver his sermon on why images ought to be removed from churches.50 Obviously, he did not intend to leave alone the altars in the other churches, but if the cathedral showed the way, it would be easier to remove all others.51 In his endeavours to change the visual culture, to propagate a new and different view on images and their practices and escalate the speed of change, the superintendent employed a variety of measures: He called a synod to decide expedient rules for handling imagery in the churches. Then he acted on these rules and even exceeded them. He preached against images to the congregation, on 21 January 1571, and addressed a wider audience by having a theatre piece, a “tragedy” about images, performed in front of the cathedral in August 1571.52 Finally, for a more lasting impact, Skjelderup wrote down his iconoclastic theology in Danish and had it published in 1572 in Copenhagen.

Targeting Devotional Life To bring about a conversion of the population to the new religion of the Lutheran reformers, the devotional lives of people or, rather, the material culture integral to devotional life, emerged as the main target.

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The method, then, was to remove the church buildings from people, and within the churches which remained, remove all instruments of devotion. If removing the hearts from those instruments turned out to be difficult, the authorities aimed at removing the instruments, thereby making the old devotional practices homeless and without support and focus. Largely, late medieval faith had been synonymous with practice, something done; in addition to attending mass, engagement in a number of other devotional and paraliturgical practices embedded in daily life, simultaneously shaping piety and being shaped by it. If practices ceased to exist, were rendered “homeless” as it were, the reformers now assumed that the hearts would eventually forget. The late medieval church interior consisted of a variety of devotional spaces organised around the main space for celebrating communal mass, and a chancel for the clergy. During the day, several masses would be celebrated, at least in major churches. Side altars were not glorified pedestals for decorations; they were used regularly for masses, and they created a devotional space around the altarpiece. Within this public cluster of devotional spaces, private practices gained a communal dimension. Since the thirteenth century, the church interior had changed into a space of the heart and of prayer.53 Here faith “took place,” and the rubrics in prayer books suggested use of imagery in the local church. Interestingly, in 1573, the diocesan synod in Stavanger, in southwest Norway, made it clear that at the reintroduction into church of women in confinement (the “churching” of women), they should not stand before an “idolatrous altar,” obviously a side altar, lest they themselves were regarded as idolatrous people.54 Irene Larking has provided a description of the late medieval situation in the diocese of Norwich, England, which certainly mirrors the situation in Norway in the decades after the Reformation as well, stating “The Roman Catholic faith was revealed through the ubiquitous and multifarious images and liturgical paraphernalia that filled parish churches across the country.”55 In this perspective, a distinction between outward, superficial, acts of faith and a true inner or spiritual disposition made no sense. The complex structure of late medieval piety prevents a simplistic idea of popular devotion, but one basic feature was precisely the practical and material dimension of faith.

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Closing of Chapels and Churches We cannot know to what extent the churches were closed after the Reformation, but protests from the Norwegian peasantry against churches closed outside the Sunday service are known.56 In Sweden, the church ordinance of 1571 explicitly explained the reduction of the number of churches, and the many useless altars, by the fact that such great abuse had taken place in them.57 The closure or demolition of so many churches in Norway would certainly represent an obstacle to the continuity of the devotions, which now became incompatible with everyday life. We do know that this happened all over the country. As early as in 1544, three annex churches were closed down in Indre Sogn in the diocese of Bergen. The problem of annex churches was still an issue at the synod in Bergen 1589.58 In the diocese of Trondheim, which included the northern part of Norway, a special visitation was carried out in 1586– 1588 by a commission appointed by the king, precisely to investigate the situation with so many distant churches. The result of the survey was that “the peasants too seldom heard a sermon and the word of God unless they were willing to travel some miles, which would involve a great difficulty for them.”59 In this situation, daily devotional life would have to take place elsewhere. Another consequence of distant churches with no clergy might also be that the locals were left to use the churches as they wanted, allowing all kinds of illegitimate practices. A letter from King Christian III to Iceland in 1550 testifies explicitly to this, emphasising the concern that many small chapels provided room for traditional practices which were an affront to God. Therefore, the king stated, something had to be done with such chapels.60 Officially, the issue was pastoral concern, and a document attached to the Trondheim-report of 1589 suggested that local peasants be given some training, that they might preside over proper Lutheran services locally when no vicar was available. The authorities did not want to leave the use of churches to the congregations alone. The visitation protocols of the superintendent in Oslo, Jens Nielssøn (1538–1600), encompass a list of 1591/1598 of main churches and annex churches; it showed that, for example, the church at Gran, Hadeland, Oppland, had seven annex churches––now they were all desolate and out of use.61 According to the Icelandic inventories from the later part of the sixteenth century, the number of chapels or churches on Iceland was astounding. In this volume, Jack Cunningham has shed more light on the process of religious change in Iceland. In Norway, the

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so-called beer-churches, ølkircker, where people gathered for socioliturgical events, were to be closed down, as were those churches situated in the vicinity of other churches and, therefore redundant.62 Many chapels which formed parts of farm complexes were closed, and when the density of churches was reduced, their use now limited to the Sunday service, they could no longer function as devotional spaces, particularly not in regions where topography and climate made travelling and distances a considerable challenge. In many cases, then, the local and familiar place of devotion and worship was suddenly removed from people, making their daily practices in the church very difficult to combine with an ordinary working life. The ties between church interiors and the devotional life of people were cut, in a sense, rendering many aspects of popular religious life “homeless.”

Abolishing Devotional Practices and Instruments From the very beginning, the authorities had tried to purge the church interiors of their devotional spaces by removing their constitutive elements, the side altars and with them their images. Removing anything connected with the devotional life of the parishioners was, then, much more than simply a “pragmatic reorganization of sacred space,” but rather a practical attack on traditional devotional life.63 Around 1541, Peder Palladius assumed that many side altars were already demolished, but those still there, he said, should remind the congregation of the great error of their old ways.64 As Eamon Duffy has shown quite clearly, there is no reason to regard ecclesial life in the late Middle Ages as something unpopular or dying out,65 and there seems to be no distinct development away from the material and towards the spiritual,66 materiality forming an integral part of a faith where tangible and intangible united and connected in mutual service. Devotional practices displayed the “mediality of salvation,” texts, images and bodily gestures, etc. were medial contact points between God and men to create what Berndt Hamm has called “proximate grace.”67 As this functionality was no longer accepted, a dismantling of devotional life followed, where hitherto perfectly legitimate practices were rejected. Describing common folk as generally stupid, illiterate and superstitious was the usual approach of the reformers to a population resisting change. Now, those formerly commendable practices were not only superstitious and idolatrous, but defined as sorcery deserving capital punishment, according to a document

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of 1584 lamenting widespread blasphemous practices in the dioceses of Stavanger and Bergen.68 In this volume, Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark have dealt further with this general Lutheran characterisation of popular piety, while Raymond Gillespie has a closer look at the literature actually employed. In England, the visitation of 1559 presented former Catholic local clergy with a recantation formula where all such practices were carefully named. In Denmark, Hemmingsen published a guide to the proper understanding of things in Danish 1570, at length commenting on true and false service (practices). He denounced “the masses of the Pope (who together with Muhammed was considered the main threat to Christianity), vigils, rosaries and much more introduced under the pretense of holiness and called divine service against the entire holy Scripture.” The word “introduced” (haffuer indført ) is important, because it indicated how the Papists had perverted the true Catholic church which had now been restored.69 A large-scale migration of Calvinists to Sweden in the 1560s may have contributed to the radicalisation there, expressed in the detailed rejection of old practices by the Swedish church ordinance of 1571: “All processions where one used to carry images, monstrances, shrines and other sacred objects shall remain abandoned, since all this is pagan and idolatrous.… One should also beware of any other kind of abuse where images have been involved, that you do not adorn them with gold, silver or precious garments etc., that you do not light candles in front of them, use no incense, do not fall on your knees, crawl etc.”70 From around 1560, king and nobility presented as religiously exemplary lives and deaths in epitaphs and sermons, displayed their pietas divina and thereby partially substituted the function of the images of saints while avoiding anything instigating idolatry. Yet, for some time, this remained exercises for the ruling classes, as traditional practices lingered on: as late as 1597, the superintendent in Oslo, visiting the churches at Engedal and Torsby in Bohuslen, eastern Norway, had to remove images, which were still part of religious practices, or address the pilgrimages which continued.71

Conclusion Among the theological issues of the Reformation era, the question of images may not have been terribly important in terms of theology, but of considerable importance concerning practice, which both shaped and expressed faith, encompassing the individual and collective dimensions of

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religious life. Domestic use of religious imagery, suggested by Luther himself, what Niels Palladius still did not dare condemn, was rejected by the second generation of reformers. At the meeting of a synod in Bergen 1584, the successor of Skjelderup, superintendent Anders Foss (1543–1607), felt it necessary to warn against “these Belgian pictures” (Fig. 4.3).72 Such images were small-sized alabaster reliefs produced in great numbers in Mechelen in the southern Netherlands, their motifs mainly biblical and not particularly Catholic. However, they were a disturbing phenomenon, partly because the images were produced in a Catholic area, partly because such religious imagery might well instigate devotional practices at home, and therefore difficult to control. We know from Absalon Beyer, that the old superintendent, Gjeble Pederssøn (1490–1557) around 1550 placed painted canvasses on the walls of his cathedral. They might have displayed texts, but as far as we know, this was an isolated case in Norway.73 Since control over the church interior remained an important issue, Anders Foss called a new synod in Bergen 1589, where the question of images was among topics discussed. Expressing the attitude of this more radical generation, it rejected imagery as such and described in detail how an appropriate altar decoration should be. A new altarpiece ought to present the Word of God to the congregation, literally as it were, by “wonderful sentences from Holy Scriptures,” and the synod even specified which texts to place on the altars, namely the central texts mentioned in Luther’s small catechism. Of course, the painted (or printed) words were themselves images, but to the Lutheran clergy they illustrated the Sola Scriptura of the Reformation, and avoided the risk of instigating idolatry.74 Twenty years earlier, even Hemmingsen had condoned images of the Last Supper or the Passion of Christ on the altar, since this was accepted in Wittenberg.75 In 1589, however, the 17th article of the synod decisions summed up the views of the second post-Reformation generation in a direct and practical way. The decision had immediate effect in the diocese, where such new altarpieces depicting the word were placed on the altars from the very year 1589 and onwards (Fig. 4.4). Similar altarpieces were made in other parts of the country as well.76 The problem with the early seventeenth-century quote by Peder Claussøn Friis, which introduces this essay, is that he seems to have exaggerated the destruction of the old material culture, since the Reformation did not leave the churches in Norway empty. Yet, apparently, it was felt that way,

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Fig. 4.3 Adoration of the magi, relief in alabaster, heightened with gold, by one “G. N.” Inv. No. By 9104. Such small images were produced in great numbers in Mechelin in Flanders during the decades around 1600, and exported to many places in Northern Europe, Catholic and Protestant alike. This image came to the University museum from a farm in Sogn and Fjordane (Photo Adnan Icagic, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen)

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Fig. 4.4 A catechismus altarpiece from the medieval church at Bru on Svanøy, Sunnfjord, 1590. It was transferred to the new timber church when it was erected around 1650. Inv. no. NK 182. The royal arms and titles of king Christian IV are displayed in a prominent place, showing the central role of the monarchy in the national Lutheran church. The altarpiece is still structured like the late medieval triptychs with moveable wings, and it is covered with texts, also on the back. In the corpus the Creed is displayed, flanked by texts related to Baptism and last Supper, the two Lutheran sacraments (Photo Svein Skare, Universitetsmuseet)

even by a zealous Lutheran like superintendent Erikssøn in Stavanger, who had first-hand knowledge of the situation in Bergen in the 1560s and the conflict in 1570. In a funeral sermon 1578, he commends how a noble woman, Elisabeth Litle, supported the cathedral in Stavanger, stating that if others had had only a third of her will, “this beautiful building would never have come to such disrepair or laid so waste as it had been for so long due to great negligence.”77 It makes sense, then, if we read the description by Friis in the context of the radicalisation of the second generation, that Friis too had experienced first-hand. In this perspective, the churches were left relatively empty compared to the

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situation in the 1560s, when he began his clerical career. And now they appeared desolate––even to convinced Lutherans, since “another age had damaged and destroyed.” Even though the destruction was far from total, and though old and new remained mixed for some time, the gap between the two had widened and could no longer be bridged.

Notes 1. Peder Claussøn Friis, Norriges oc Omliggende Øers Sandfærdige Bescriffuelse (Copenhagen: Melchior Marhan, 1632), 90: “Men dette er at beklage/oc ingenlunde at lofue/at mand i den Reformerede Evangeliske Lærdoms begyndelse/icke alleniste borttog aff Kircker oc Kloster/hues Guld oc Sølf oc andre Klenodier/som brugede vare til den Pafuelige Religions brug/met Klæder oc andet saadant/men oc saa slemmelige ødelagde det som de hafde ingen gafn aff/oc nedsloge skiønne bygninger/unødtøftelig opbrende nyttige Bøger og brefue/oc ødelagde Kirckens ornamenter oc prydelser/oc giorde Guds Huse saa megit blotte oc bare/huilcket mand vel kunde værit foruden/oc de hafde der aff heller ey nogit gafn.” The text must have been written before 1613. See nb.no/nbsok/nb/4dd28e0105e0cf43308305d0021b085d?lang = no#9 (accessed 4 January 2019). 2. Ibid., 89. 3. Detailed studies of local conditions and events have proved efficient in terms of tracing the processes of change, cf. Robert Lutton and Elisabeth Salter (eds.), Pieties in Transition: Religious Practices and Experiences c. 1400–1640 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 4. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 3–5, 435–36. 5. Robert W. Scribner, Religion and Culture in Germany (1400–1800), ed. Lyndal Roper (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 276. 6. Henning Laugerud, Reformasjon uten Folk: Det katolske Norge i før- og etterreformatorisk tid (Oslo: St. Olav Forlag, 2018). See also Henrik von Achen, “Reformasjonen og Kirkekunsten i Bergen,” in Fra Avlatshandel til Folkekirke, ed. E. Haug, 43–74 (Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2017), and Henrik von Achen, “‘For the Good of the Crown.’ The Resilience of the Old Ways and the 16th-Century Redistribution of Church Art in Western Norway,” in Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of the Reformations, ed. Salvador Ryan, Laura Katrine Skinnebach and Samantha Smith (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming). 7. Martin Scharfe, Über die Religion: Glaube und Zweifel in der Volkskultur (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004), 74–77. It is not possible to follow Scharfe in his insistence that religion must therefore be regarded as manmade.

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8. NRR 3:198 seq. The document was dated 31 July 1591 (Art. I). Art. XV emphasized the role of the Church Ordinance of 1537 (NRR 3:205). 9. Von Achen, “For the Good of the Crown,” forthcoming. 10. “Dog wille wij etther befallit haffue atj lade alle kyrckernes personer och sogne prester ther offuer alt stygttett bliffue widt theres gammele skicke och ingen ny predicker indsette thennem paa thet att thet icke schall voge nogen forskreck eller wænighedt blant then fattige simple och vforstandige almoe ther vdj landet, førre end vij kunde finde ther andre raadt tiill och saa mett lempe och føge komme thennem tiill nogen bekendelsse och bedre forstandt vdj guds ord”. DN 22:396, letter of 17 June 1537. 11. Kirkeordinansen 1537/1539, “Den Rette Ordinants ” (Copenhagen: Hans Wingaard, 1542), Sig. Kiijj r. 12. Christine Reents and Christoph Melchior, Die Geschichte der Kinder- und Schulbibel (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2011), 59–63. See also Henning Laugerud, “En Reformasjon av Blikket? Skrift, Bilder og Synskultur i det Etterreformatoriske Danmark-Norge,” in Reformasjonstidens Religiøse Bokkultur circa 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, ed. Bente Lavold and Jon Ødemark, 209–43 (Oslo: National Library of Norway, 2017). 13. See Laura Katrine Skinnebach, “Visuell Forandringspraksis: Appropriering af Billeder efter Reformationen,” in Efter Reformationen, ed. Kari G. Hempel, Poul Duedahl and Bo Poulsen, 49–87 (Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2017), 72, 75. Luther, “allermeist vmb der Kinder vnd Einfeltige willen/welche durch Bildnis vnd Gleichnis besser bewegt warden/die Göttliche Geschicht zu behalten/den durch blosse wort oder lere … Denn ichs nicht für böse achte/so man solch Geschichte auch in Stuben vnd kamern mit den Sprüche.” Here the preface in a slightly younger edition, Martin Luther, Ein Betbüchlein mit eim Calender und Passional hübsch zu gericht (Wittenberg: Hans Lufft, 1538), pp. ciij-ciiij. In 1573, the Passional was translated into Danish, but the Luther-text was known in Danish translation from 1531 through Christiern Pedersen, Om vaar Herris død oc pine Och om Billede (Antwerp, 1531). 14. Visitatsbog af Dr. Peder Palladius, Sjællands første Evangeliske Biskop, ed. Arve C. L. Heiberg (Copenhagen: Samfundet for den Danske Litteraturs Fremme, 1867), 21: “tafflerne eller billeder kunde de sla paa veggen, at dj kunde uerre goede eenfoldiges spegel som dj kunde see dennem udj, naar dj uide huem samme billeder erre giorde eller malede effter; uden her findis nogen billeder som mand haffuer giort søgning til och hengde vox børn och krycker for, de schulle borttagis och brendis op.” 15. Henrik von Achen, “Reformasjonen og Kirkekunsten i Bergen,” in Fra Avlatshandel til Folkekirke, ed. E. Haug, 43–74 (Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2017), 57–61.

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16. “Chirckenn Aaffuer altt Rindher, naagiidtt aff gullenn y forscrne Kircke er sønnder nogiidtt aff Stollene y Kirckenn ere sønnder och forderffuidtt, Alle Thaffler ere wdy Kirckenn, wnndennthagenn enn som kam thiill Slotthedtt, enn thaffle er forderffuidtt aff drop som dryber ind y Kirckenn” (DN 21:1088, 840, survey description of 20 December 1559). In 1546, the Crown took over the monastery complex, which later burned down, in 1564. The term ‘panels’ (Thaffler) indicates paintings on wood. 17. Máldagar Gisla byskups Jónssonar, in DI, 13:545–4714 (no. 347), 29 March 1560, and 14:254, 13 April 1565. 18. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 573. 19. Tuomas Lehtonen and Linda Kaljundi, “Introduction,” in Re-forming Texts, Music, and Church Art in the Early Modern North, ed. Tuomas Lehtonen and Linda Kaljundi, 21–37 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2016), 21. 20. Andreas Brandrud (ed.), Stavanger Domkapitels Protokol 1571–1630 (Kristiania: Det Norske Historiske Kildeskriftfondet, 1901), 548 and Oskar B. Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia: Until the Establishment of the S. Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 119. 21. Lehtonen and Kaljundi, Re-forming Texts, Music, and Church Art in the Early Modern North, 23, and the Norwegian title of Laugerud, “Reformasjon uten folk.” 22. See Kaspar von Greyerz, Religion und Kultur: Europa 1500–1800 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2000), 65. 23. DKL, 24, 60. The quote is from the Danish translation of 14 July 1539 of the Church ordinance. On the religious division between rulers and ruled in the sixteenth century, see Tarald Rasmussen (ed.), Å Minnes de Døde: Døden og de Døde i Norge etter Reformasjonen (Oslo: Cappelen Dam, 2019), 120. 24. National synod at Antvorskov, 25 October 1546, and in Copenhagen 12 May 1555. “Presterne skulle flittelige predicke imod alle billeders misbrug, at de motte først tagis aff folckits hierte, oc saa med lempe aff kierckevergerne udryddis, besynderlig huor nogen knefald eller anden affguderi findis endnu der til at skie” (DKL 1:250–251, 461). 25. Niels Palladius, Commonefactio de Vera Invocatione Dei et de Vitendis Idolis (Wittenberg: Peter Seitzius, 1557), p. B3a: “adhibeant diligentiam in depraedicanda cordium idolatria, et taxandis impijs cultibus”; see also pp. B5bb and bbb. archive.org/details/den-kbd-pil-130018101115001/page/n18 (accessed 3 December 2019). 26. Sermon on Palm Sunday in Niels Hemmingsen, Postilla (Wittenberg, 1564; in Danish translation Copenhagen, 1576), quoted in Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen and Hugo Johannsen, Kongens Kunst, 2-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Fogtdal, 1993), 2:194.

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27. Alexandra Walsham, “Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation.” Church History 86 (2017): 1122. 28. Catechismus ex Decreto Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos Pii V jussu editus (Rome, 1566) (translated into German and French in 1568). 29. Jørgen Erikssøn, Jonæ Prophetis skiøne Historia vdi 24. Predicken Begreben (Copenhagen: Stockelman, 1592), p. Bij: “To build the church of Christ and strike down and destroy all remnants of the church of the Devil/which existed in this diocese for such a long time, due to popes and monks” (“at opbygge Christi Kircke/oc saa at nedsla oc ødelegge de læffninger aff Dieffuelens Kircke/som vdi lang tid aff Pawers oc Munckis Folck haffuier verit i dette Stict forsamlit”). 30. De invocatione, veneratione et reliquiis sanctorum et de sacris imaginibus in Concilium Tridentinum: Canones et Decreta 1545–1563, 122–23 (Rome: Documenta Catholica Omnia, 2007). The Latin text reads: … non quod credatur inesse aliqua in iis divinitas vel virtus propter quam sint colendae vel quod ab eis sit aliquid petendum vel quod fiducia in imaginibus sit figenda … In has autem sanctas et salutares observationes si qui abusus irrepserint: eos prorsus aboleri sancta Synodus vehementer cupit … Omnis porro superstitio in sanctorum invocatione reliquiarum veneratione et imaginum sacro usu tollatur. 03d/15451563-,_Concilium_Tridentinum,_Canones_et_Decreta,_LT.pdf (accessed 8 March 2019). 31. Heinrich Denzinger (ed.), Enchiridion Symbolorum, 41st edn (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), 582: necessariae sint … ad confutandas haereses, ad tollendos abusus et emandandos mores. 32. Catechismus ex Decreto Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos (Louvain: Martin van Overbeke 1744), 253: bona opera nostra semper antecedit, comitato et consequitur, et sine qua mirerei et satisfacere Deo nullo modo possumus, and 424: ut tollatur omens error imperitorum, opera pretium crit, docere fidelem populum. 33. John Calvin, Institutio Christianae Religionis (Geneva: Oliva Robertus Stephanus, 1559), 30.2; Inga Lena Ångström Grandien, “Swedish Church Art from the Introduction of the Reformation in 1527 until the Synod in Uppsala 1593.” Baltic Journal of Art History 9 (2015): 90. 34. Paul Arblaster, Antwerp and the World: Richard Verstegan and the International Culture of Catholic Reformation (Leuven: Leuven University Press 2004), 10, 18. 35. Proemium in Catechismus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini, 3: quæ olim veram et catholicam religionen, quam a majoribus accepterat pie et sancta retinebant.

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36. Chemnitz, Martin. Examinis Concilii Tridentini (Geneva: Jakob Stoer, 1641), 693: Usus imaginum in Ecclesia historicus fuit et tolerabilis: consideretur autem, quomodo ad cultum et adorationem imaginum sensim facta fuerit inclinatio et progressio. Further, 694: necessariam distinctionem inter historicum imaginum usum, et interearum cultum et adorationem, confundunt. Atque ex testimoniis si quæ adducunt de historico imaginum usu, statim vel apertè vel obliquè inferunt earum cultum et adorationem. 37. Calvin, Institutio, 25.3: hinc potius descamus quanta sit ingenii ad idololatriam propensio (“let us learn [from this, i.e. the history] how great the inclination of our nature is to idolatry”). 38. Walsham, Recycling the Sacred, 1128, points to the idea behind images as adiaphora as the opposite of this. 39. Jens Schjelderup, En Christelig Underuisning aff den Hellige Scrifft: om huad en Christen skal holde om Affgudiske Billeder oc Stytter vdi Kirckerne (Copenhagen: Matz Vingaard, 1572), 52. The preface is dated 18 April 1572: “Wj opueckis/ved en siunlig Malning oc Billede/at tencke och paakalde GUD,” says the peasant voicing the traditional Catholic position, but the vicar answers: “Der er ingen Skilsmisse/huad heller du dyrcker Billeder/eller Gud udi Billederne.” Originally his text was published together with a text by Rasmus Hanssøn Reravius, Den CXV. Davids Psalme, which was a rejection of images too. Calvin: Institutio, 27.9: Neque interest idolumne simpliciter coolant, an Deum in idolo. 40. Calvin, Institutio, 1.11. Chapter 24.1: Atqui imagines Deus inter se non comparat, quasi altera magis altera minus conveniat: sed absque exceptione repudiate simulachra omnia, picturas, aliaque signa a quibus cum sibi propinquum fore putarunt superstitiosi. 41. Chemnitz, Examinis Concilii Tridentini, 706: non enim expresse dicunt, imagines adorandas et colendas. Negant etiam spem, et fiducium in imaginibus collocandam, sed quomodo hæc intelligi velint, insinuant per ea, quæ de relatione inter imaginem et prototypum addunt et quod se referent ad 7. Synodum. ‘The seventh synod’ is the Second Council of Nicaea 787 where the classical theology of images was settled. 42. Ibid., 691: non de statuis, aut imaginibus: sed de voce Euangelii lecta, prædicata et audita. 43. Nils Gilje,“‘Saa ere nu saadanne Billedstytter døde træ oc stene’: Billedstriden i Bergen 1568–1572,” Tidsskrift for Kulturforskning 10 (2011): 75. 44. In Oslo that year, following a visit from another member of the same commission, Jørgen Lykke, the superintendent, Frantz Berg, issued a pastoral letter to his clergy, admonishing them to cleanse the churches; see Lars Bisgaard, “Sjælens Trøst og Satiren Peder Smed og Adser Bonde: 133 to oversættelser fra 1400- og 1500-tallet,” in Reformasjonstidens Religiøse Bokkultur circa 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, ed. Bente

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45.

46. 47.

48.

49.

50.

51. 52. 53.

54.

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Lavold and Jon Ødemark, 133–75 (Oslo: National Library of Norway, 2017), 160. “Adskillige figurer giorde aff vox oc henge ligeuell ennw i kirckerne skulle borttagis”, and “Alle billeder vden de po høgalterit staa skulle saa sagte borttagis”, according to the diary of Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, on 22 June 1569; articles 3 and 4 of the synod in which Beyer participated (Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, Absalon Pederssøns Dagbok 1552–1572, ed. Ragnvald Iversen [Oslo-Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1963]). In her discussion of the event, Ragnhild Bø seems to have missed the fact that the synod made decisions on both votive images of wax and images on the high altar (Ragnhild Martine Bø, “Material and Immaterial Presence: Engagements with Saints before and after the Reformation in Denmark-Norway,” Mirator 19 [2018]: 87–8, 99). Diary of Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, 28 December 1570 (Pederssøn Beyer, Dagbok, 180). Diary of Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, 8 January 1571: “innen faa dage wil giffue raadit skriffteligen tilkenne huor fore at sodan afguders billeder skal bort tagis, oc at de kunne vide huad the skulle meene om billeder” (Pederssøn Beyer, Dagbok, 181). Diary of Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, 9 January 1571: “før en bispen faar handlit saa med alle andre kirker billeder oc altere her i byen, ligeruis som hand haffuer giort vdi Domkircken” (Pederssøn Beyer, Dagbok, 181). See Nils Gilje, “‘Saa ere nu Saadanne Billedstytter døde træ oc stene’: Billedstriden i Bergen 1568–1572.” Tidsskrift for Kulturforskning 10 (2011): 75. Diary of Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, 21 January 1571: In this sermon he treated the matter at hand, the reason why he had done what he did, the necessity of such a measure, and finally, he recited his Profession on the removal of images: (“vdj huilcken han oc gaff tilkenne først. 1. factum ipsum 2. rationem facti. 3. Necessitatem. 4. recitabat suam Confessionem de idolis tollendis.”) (Pederssøn Beyer, Dagbok, 185). Schjelderup, En Christelig Underuisning aff den Hellige Scrifft, 24. Diary of Absalon Beyer, 14 August 1571 (Pederssøn Beyer, Dagbok, 217). Arnold Angenendt, Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter. 4th edn. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftlige Buchgesellschaft, 2009), 439. See also Duffy, Marking the Hours, 53. Brandrud, Stavanger Domkapitels Protokol 1571–1630, 548. Bø (“Material and Immaterial Presence,” 87–8) does not mention this fundamental function of side altars. Irene Larking, “Renovating the Sacred: The Re-formations of the English Parish Church in the Diocese of Norwich, c.1450–1662,” PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2013, 84.

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56. See Øystein Rian, “Den Paradoksale Reformasjonen.” Teologisk Tidsskrift 3 (2018): 177–87; Øystein Rian, “Reformasjonen som Katastrofe i Norgeshistorien,” in Fra Avlatshandel til Folkekirke: Reformasjonen Gjennom 500 år, ed. E. Haug, 19–42 (Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2017), 27. 57. Then Svenska Kyrkeordningen (Stockholm: Amund Laurentzson, 1571), pp. xlviir: “Effter som härmedh ok stoort misbruk warit haffuer” (“Concerning altars, the ordinance actually accepted more altars than one”). 58. On the synods of 1584 and 1589, see Ingun Montgomery, “Synoden som ett led i Reformationskyrkans inre Konsolidering: Synoderna i Bergen 1584 och 1589,” in Reformationens Konsolidering i de Nordiska Länderna 1540–1610, ed. Ingmar Brohed, 74–95. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1990. On Article 1 of 1589, see Montgomery, “Synoden,” 82. 59. Anne-Marit Hamre, Throndhjems Reformats 1589 Oslo Domkapittels Jordebok 1595 (Oslo: Kjeldeskriftfondet, 1983), 13–104. The royal letter appointing the commission mentioned the problem in the diocese explicitly: many “fanger sielden predichen oc Guds Ord att høre, med minder the nogle mile veigs ville reigse till kircken, thennem icke wden ringe besuering” (Hamre, Throndhejms Reformats, 39). 60. DI 13:11, letter of 20 March 1550: “mange smaa capeller vdj huilcke mangestedz er befrøgtendis av udj skeer stor Gudz fortørnelse.” 61. NRR 1:93; letter of 8 March 1574 referring to a letter by Geble Pederssøn dated 25 January 1544. It concerned the churches Rygge at Aurland, Henjum at Leikanger and Hval at Stedje. See Yngvar Nielsen (ed.), Biskop Jens Nilssøns Visitatsbøger og Reiseoptegnelser 1574–1597 (Kristiania: A. W. Brøggers Bogtrykkeri, 1885), 17. 62. Hamre, Throndhjems Reformats, 30–1, letter from the commission of 1588. So-called “Beer-churches” were probably private churches, perhaps part of major farm complexes, where people used to assemble at socialliturgical events. Many churches were to close down, which “la ner op till andre kircker, och icke behoff giordes att holdes wed lige,” close to other churches and unnecessary to keep (ibid., 41). In Stordal, 6 of 13 churches were to be closed (ibid., 53). 63. As stated by Lehtonen and Kaljundi, “Introduction,” 35. 64. Visitatsbog af Dr. Peder Palladius, 16, 21–2. 65. See Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. For a survey on late medieval spirituality, see also Angenendt, Geschichte der Religiösilität, 68–7. 66. Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 269. 67. Bernhard Hamm, “Types of Grace Mediality in the Late Middle Ages,” in The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe: Images, Objects, Practices, ed. H. Laugerud, S. Ryan and L. Skinnebach, 10–35 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2015), 10–11.

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68. Harald Winge (ed.), Love og Forordninger 1537 –1605: Norsk Lovstoff i Sammendrag (Oslo: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 1988), 204 (no. 496), 21 September 1584; see NRR 2:571–2. See also Laugerud, Reformasjon uten Folk, 171, 247, 310. 69. Niels Hemmingsen, Liffsens Vey: Det er En vis oc Christelig Vnderuisning om huad det Menniske skal vide, tro oc giøre, som det euige Liff vil indgaa (Copenhagen: Laurentz Benedicht, 1570), 170a-88a and 183a: “Pauens messer/vigilier/rosenkrantze oc andit megit som hand haffuer indført ender hellighed ski/oc kaller det Guds tieneste imod den gantske hellige Scrift.” See also Niels Hemmingsen, Commentarii in St. Iohannis Apostoli Epistulas, scripti (Wittenberg: Schleich and Schöne, 1569), 259, addressing the clergy: hoc do consilium, ut ministri verbi ferant historicas picturas , et simulacra, quæ superstitione carent: curent quan-tum possunt, ut mensa Dominica sit ab Idolis munda. 70. Then Svenska Kyrkeordningen, pp. xlixa-r: “All Process thz man haffuer plägat wthbära Beläte, Monstrantz, skrijn och andra helgedoma kaar, skola så bliffua som the nu äro afflagda, Ty alt slijkt är hednisk och Affgudisk.… Man skal ock tagha sigh wahra för alt annat misbruk/som warit haffuer medh Beläte/at man icke henger uppå them gull/silffuer/kosteligh klädher etc. Icke tender liws för them/icke rökier/icke knäfaller/kryper etc.” The ordinance, however, did accept more than one altar in a church. On immigration of Calvinists, see Grandien, “Swedish Church Art,” 90. 71. Rasmussen, Å Minnes de Døde, 20, 89, 140; ‘divine piety’ was mentioned in a Norwegian funeral sermon of 1578, see ibid., 177. On the practices of 1597, see Nielsen (ed.), Biskop Nilssøns Visitatsbøger, 516–17, 551. 72. Ragne Bugge, “Tekstaltertavlene i Danmark-Norge omkring 1600,” in Reformationens Konsolidering i de Nordiska Länderna 1540–1610, ed. Ingmar Brohed, 306–26 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1990), 88; in Article 16 of the 1584 Synod, picturas illas Belgicas. On such images, see Aleksandra Lipinska, ´ Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2014). On the domestic use of instruments of devotion in England, see Tara Hamling, “Living with the Bible in Post-Reformation England: The Materiality of Text, Image and Object in Domestic Life.” Studies in Church History 50 (2014): 210–39. 73. Pederssøn Beyer, Oration, 59: “hand lod oc male de Taffler paa Læret som er fæste til Weggen” (“he had also those paintings on canvas made which are fixed to the walls”). 74. “Synodalia Statuta Proposita Bergis Anno 1589.” Bergens Historiske Forenings Skrifter 57–8 (1952): 217 (Article 17); Schjelderup, En Christelig Underuisning aff den Hellige Scrifft, 58.

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75. Hemmingsen, Commentarii, 259: si autem omnino id efficere nequeant, exemplo Witebergensium, permittant pingi in tabula historiam Coenae Dominicae, lotionis quoque; pedum, et Passionis Domini, si placet. 76. For example: Gaupne church 1589 and Bru church on Svanøy 1590, and Vereide church 1604, all in Sogn og Fjordane, Holdhus 1590 in Hordaland, and 1591 at Modum and 1595 at Heggen, both in Buskerud in the eastern part of Norway. On the so-called catechism-altarpieces, see Bugge, “Tekstaltertavlene i Danmark-Norge omkring 1600” and Ragne Bugge, “Ikonoklasmen i Norge og de norske katekisme altertavlene,” in Tro og Bilde i Norden i Reformasjonens århundre, ed. M. Blindheim, E. Hohler and L. Lillie, 85–91 (Oslo: Universitets Oldsaksamling, 1991), 232. 77. Rasmussen, Å Minnes de Døde, 184, a funeral sermon for the noble woman, Elisabeth Litle (1547–1578), in Stavanger, February 1578. Erikssøn was in Bergen 1559–1566 and 1570–1571. He was a follower of Hemmingsen and married to the daughter of superintendent Skjelderup.

Bibliography Primary Sources Brandrud, Andreas (ed.). Stavanger Domkapitels Protokol 1571–1630. Kristiania: Det Norske Historiske Kildeskriftfondet, 1901. Calvin, John. Institutio Christianae Religionis. Geneva: Oliva Robertus Stephanus, 1559. Catechismus ex Decreto Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos Pii V jussu editus. Rome, 1566. Catechismus ex Decreto Concilii Tridentini ad Parochos. Louvain: Martin van Overbeke 1744. Chemnitz, Martin. Examinis Concilii Tridentini. Geneva: Jakob Stoer, 1641. Concilium Tridentinum: Canones et Decreta 1545–1563. Rome: Documenta Catholica Omnia, 2007. 03d/15451563,_Concilium_Tridentinum,_Canones_et_Decreta,_LT.pdf. Danske Kirkelove 1536–1683 (ed.). Holger Fr. Rørdam. Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie, 1883. Denzinger, Heinrich (ed.). Enchiridion Symbolorum. 41st edn. Freiburg: Herder, 2007. Diplomatarium Islandicum. Íslenzkt Fornbréfasafn sem hefir inni að halda bréf og gjörninga, dóma og máldaga, og aðrar skar, er snerta Ísland eða íslenzka menn. 16 vols. Reykjavík and Copenhagen: various publishers, 1857–1970. Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 1018–1570, online edition, dokpro.uio.no/dipl_norv/diplom_felt.html.

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Erikssøn, Jørgen. Jonæ Prophetis skiøne Historia vdi 24. Predicken Begreben. Copenhagen: Stockelman, 1592. Friis, Peder Claussøn. Norriges oc Omliggende Øers Sandfærdige Bescriffuelse. Copenhagen: Melchior Marhan, 1632. Garstein, Oskar B. Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia: Until the Establishment of the S. Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in 1622. Leiden: Brill, 1992. Hamre, Anne-Marit. Throndhjems Reformats 1589 Oslo Domkapittels Jordebok 1595. Oslo: Kjeldeskriftfondet, 1983. Hemmingsen, Niels. Commentarii in St. Iohannis Apostoli Epistulas, scripti. Wittenberg: Schleich and Schöne, 1569. Hemmingsen, Niels. Liffsens Vey: Det er En vis oc Christelig Vnderuisning om huad det Menniske skal vide, tro oc giøre, som det euige Liff vil indgaa. Copenhagen: Laurentz Benedicht, 1570. Idum, A. R. (ed.). Jacob Madsens Visitatsbog. 4 vols. Odense: Historisk Samfund for Odense og Assens amter, 1929–1932. Kirkeordinansen 1537/1539, “Den Rette Ordinants.” Copenhagen: Hans Wingaard, 1542. Luther, Martin. Der kleine Catechismus fuer die gemeyne Pharherr vnd Prediger. Marburg, 1529. Luther, Martin. Ein Betbüchlein mit eim Calender und Passional hübsch zu gericht. Wittenberg: Hans Lufft, 1538. Nielsen, Jep. Een liden Dispotatz wdaf den hellige Scrifft emellom Borgemester af Malmøø oc her Cantor aff Lundt om retsindige oc christelige prester oc messeprester. Malmø: Oluf Ulrichsen, 1530. Nielsen, Yngvar (ed.). Biskop Jens Nilssøns Visitatsbøger og Reiseoptegnelser 1574– 1597 . Kristiania: A. W. Brøggers Bogtrykkeri, 1885. Norske Riksregistranter, tildeels i uddrag. 12 vols, edited by C. C. A. Lange et al. Christiania: Norsk historisk kjeldeskrift-kommisjon, 1861–1891. Palladius, Niels. Commonefactio de Vera Invocatione Dei et de Vitendis Idolis. Wittenberg: Peter Seitzius, 1557. Pedersen, Christiern. Om vaar Herris død oc pine Och om Billede. Antwerp, 1531. Pederssøn Beyer, Absalon. Absalon Pederssøns Dagbok 1552–1572, edited by Ragnvald Iversen. Oslo-Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1963. Pederssøn Beyer, Absalon. Oration om M. Geble, edited by Oluf Kolsrud and Kristen Valkner. Bergen: J. D. Beyer, 1963. Schjelderup, Jens. En Christelig Underuisning aff den Hellige Scrifft: om huad en Christen skal holde om Affgudiske Billeder oc Stytter vdi Kirckerne. Copenhagen: Matz Vingaard, 1572. “Synodalia Statuta Proposita Bergis Anno 1589.” Bergens Historiske Forenings Skrifter 57–8 (1952): 210–19. Then Svenska Kyrkeordningen. Stockholm: Amund Laurentzson, 1571.

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Visitatsbog af Dr. Peder Palladius, Sjællands første Evangeliske Biskop, edited by Arve C. L. Heiberg. Copenhagen: Samfundet for den Danske Litteraturs Fremme, 1867. Winge, Harald (ed.). Love og Forordninger 1537–1605: Norsk Lovstoff i Sammendrag. Oslo: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 1988.

Secondary Sources Achen, Henrik von. “Reformasjonen og Kirkekunsten i Bergen”. In Fra Avlatshandel til Folkekirke, edited by E. Haug, 43–74. Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2017. Achen, Henrik von. “‘For the Good of the Crown.’ The Resilience of the Old Ways and the 16th-Century Redistribution of Church Art in Western Norway.” In Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of the Reformations, edited by Salvador Ryan, Laura Katrine Skinnebach and Samantha Smith. Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming. Angenendt, Arnold. Geschichte der Religiosität im Mittelalter. 4th edn. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftlige Buchgesellschaft, 2009. Arblaster, Paul. Antwerp and the World: Richard Verstegan and the International Culture of Catholic Reformation. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2004. Bisgaard, Lars. “Sjælens Trøst og Satiren Peder Smed og Adser Bonde: 133 to oversættelser fra 1400- og 1500-tallet.” In Reformasjonstidens Religiøse Bokkultur circa 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, edited by Bente Lavold and Jon Ødemark, 133–75. Oslo: National Library of Norway, 2017. Bugge, Ragne. “Tekstaltertavlene i Danmark-Norge omkring 1600.” In Reformationens Konsolidering i de Nordiska Länderna 1540–1610, edited by Ingmar Brohed, 306–26. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1990. Bugge, Ragne. “Ikonoklasmen i Norge og de norske katekisme altertavlene.” In Tro og Bilde i Norden i Reformasjonens århundre, edited by M. Blindheim, E. Hohler and L. Lillie, 85–91. Oslo: Universitets Oldsaksamling, 1991. Bynum, Caroline Walker. Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe. New York: Zone Books, 2011. Bø, Ragnhild Martine. “Material and Immaterial Presence: Engagements with Saints before and after the Reformation in Denmark-Norway,” Mirator 19 (2018): 84–107. Bøggild Johannsen, Birgitte and Hugo Johannsen. Kongens Kunst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Fogtdal, 1993. Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400– 1580. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992. Duffy, Eamon. Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240–1570. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Gilje, Nils. “‘Saa ere nu Saadanne Billedstytter døde træ oc stene’: Billedstriden i Bergen 1568–1572.” Tidsskrift for Kulturforskning 10 (2011): 73–83. Grandien, Inga Lena Ångström. “Swedish Church Art from the Introduction of the Reformation in 1527 until the Synod in Uppsala 1593.” Baltic Journal of Art History 9 (2015): 75–113. Greyerz, Kaspar von. Religion und Kultur: Europa 1500–1800. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2000. Hamling, Tara. “Living with the Bible in Post-Reformation England: The Materiality of Text, Image and Object in Domestic Life.” Studies in Church History 50 (2014): 210–39. Hamm, Bernhard. “Types of Grace Mediality in the Late Middle Ages.” In The Materiality of Devotion in Late Medieval Northern Europe: Images, Objects, Practices, edited by H. Laugerud, S. Ryan and L. Skinnebach, 10–35. Dublin: Four Courts, 2015. Laugerud, Henning. “En Reformasjon av Blikket? Skrift, Bilder og Synskultur i det Etterreformatoriske Danmark-Norge.” In Reformasjonstidens Religiøse Bokkultur circa 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, edited by Bente Lavold and Jon Ødemark, 209–43. Oslo: National Library of Norway, 2017. Laugerud, Henning. Reformasjon uten Folk: Det katolske Norge i før- og etterreformatorisk tid. Oslo: St. Olav Forlag, 2018. Lehtonen, Tuomas and Linda Kaljundi. “Introduction.” In Re-forming Texts, Music, and Church Art in the Early Modern North, edited by Tuomas Lehtonen and Linda Kaljundi, 21–37. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2016. Lipinska, ´ Aleksandra. Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Lutton, Robert and Elisabeth Salter (eds.). Pieties in Transition: Religious Practices and Experiences c. 1400–1640. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Montgomery, Ingun. “Synoden som ett led i Reformationskyrkans inre Konsolidering: Synoderna i Bergen 1584 och 1589.” In Reformationens Konsolidering i de Nordiska länderna 1540–1610, edited by Ingmar Brohed, 74–95. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1990. Rasmussen, Tarald (ed.). Å Minnes de Døde: Døden og de Døde i Norge etter Reformasjonen. Oslo: Cappelen Dam, 2019. Rian, Øystein, “Reformasjonen som Katastrofe i Norgeshistorien.” In Fra Avlatshandel til Folkekirke: Reformasjonen Gjennom 500 år, edited by E. Haug, 19–42. Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2017. Rian, Øystein. “Den Paradoksale Reformasjonen.” Teologisk Tidsskrift 3 (2018): 177–87. Reents, Christine and Christoph Melchior. Die Geschichte der Kinder- und Schulbibel. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2011.

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Scribner, Robert W. Religion and Culture in Germany (1400–1800), edited by Lyndal Roper. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Scharfe, Martin. Über die Religion: Glaube und Zweifel in der Volkskultur. Cologne: Böhlau, 2004. Skinnebach, Laura Katrine. “Visuell Forandringspraksis: Appropriering af Billeder efter Reformationen.” In Efter Reformationen, edited by Kari G. Hempel, Poul Duedahl and Bo Poulsen, 49–87. Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2017. Walsham, Alexandra. “Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation.” Church History 86 (2017): 1121– 54.

Unpublished Sources Larking, Irene. “Renovating the Sacred: The Re-formations of the English Parish Church in the Diocese of Norwich, c.1450–1662.” PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2013.

PART II

Migration, Exile and Interconnections

CHAPTER 5

Reformation Across the North Sea: Early Protestant Connections Between Denmark, England and Scotland Morten Fink-Jensen

According to the classic narrative, the Reformation in Scandinavia originated in Germany with Martin Luther’s theses against indulgences in 1517. From Wittenberg, the call for reform spread north in the following decades, and in the Oldenburg monarchy of Denmark (including Norway with Iceland, the Faroes and Greenland), the result was the Lutheran Reformation of 1536. Geographically, the movement of cultural and religious influences thus took place vertically between Germany and Scandinavia and, in the main, continued to do so within a Lutheran confessional setting in the aftermath of the Reformation and beyond in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.1 This narrative has rarely been challenged by historians of the Danish reformation, although it has been broadened in recent decades by pointing to the influence on the Danish Reformation of theologians besides Luther, such as Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Bucer, John Calvin

M. Fink-Jensen (B) University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_5

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and above all Philip Melanchthon.2 The importance of German (or even Swiss) influence on Reformation ideas in Denmark is obvious and cannot be underestimated, yet the lure of the south-to-north movement comes with the risk of overlooking or downplaying the importance of cultural and religious contacts horizontally across the North Sea between Denmark to the east and England and Scotland to the west. In a similar way, the search for foreign influence on the Reformations in England and Scotland has traditionally been directed towards events and inspirational sources coming out of Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands rather than the Nordic countries.3 Nonetheless, as I point to in this chapter, there were distinct exchanges of religious ideas and reformation culture between Denmark, England and Scotland in the early reformation years prior to c. 1560 as divines, humanists, students, diplomats and religious refugees frequently bridged the North Sea. The route followed by people or ideas would often extend to Germany with Denmark constituting an important link between Germany and the British Isles. Furthermore, religious connections between Denmark, England and Scotland in the sixteenth century have mainly attracted the attention of scholars studying the second half of the century and the build up to the Thirty Years War. Above all, the marriage of James VI of Scotland to Anna of Denmark in 1591 paved the way for East–West rapprochement and, from 1603, an (at times uneasy) alliance between the houses of Stuart and Oldenburg effectively ruled the North Sea to the East, North and West.4 The political alliance between the two powers rested on a common or general Protestant outlook contrary to—or at least wider than—the Lutheran confessional culture traditionally associated with the influence of the German Reformation in the North. As I argue below, the groundwork for this general Protestant outlook was laid in the early reformation years.5

Trade, Humanism and Political Struggles The exchange of religious ideas could follow well-established trade connections between Scandinavia and the British Isles since the Middle Ages. By the first decades of the sixteenth century, extensive Scottish seaborne trade had led to the settlement of thriving Scottish communities from Bergen in Norway to the major Danish trade ports of Elsinore, Copenhagen and Malmö on the coast of the Sound.6 Quite a few members of the Scottish communities were successful merchants, and in Elsinore where the Scots community towards the end of the sixteenth

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century numbered some 400 permanent residents, several of them can be seen to hold a prominent public office such as mayor, council member, or customs officer of the Sound Toll.7 These communities naturally displayed religious activities, and by the early sixteenth century, Scottish settlers in Copenhagen established a guild and erected an altar dedicated to St. Ninian in the prominent Church of Our Lady. The guild also organised a Scottish inn. After the Reformation of 1536 the altar was abolished, and seven Scotsmen acting as caretakers on 12 September 1539 transferred the altar’s incomes, funds and liturgical vessels to the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in Copenhagen on the condition that two beds in the hospital be reserved for “the Scots Nation.”8 Whoever occupied these beds should be sufficiently provided with “clothing, food, beer, and care.”9 In Elsinore, too, the thriving Scottish community erected an altar. It was placed in St. Olai Church and dedicated to St. Andrew and St. Ninian. As in Copenhagen, the altar’s income was assigned to a hospital after the Reformation.10 Scots had also made their presence felt in the learned world of Denmark prior to the Reformation, and they point to the growing influence of humanist culture in the North. When the University of Copenhagen was founded in 1479, the first dean of the faculty of arts was Peter Davidson (Petrus David de Scotia) of Aberdeen who had previously taught at Cologne. In Copenhagen, he later obtained a doctorate and a chair of theology.11 Davidson died in 1520, and he does not come across as a forbearer of the Reformation; in his obituary the Danish Carmelite monk and humanist Paulus Helie characterised him as a Thomist with a special interest in Aristotle.12 In the medical faculty of the University of Copenhagen Alexander Kinghorn, a relative to Archbishop James Beaton of St. Andrews, became professor in 1513.13 Moreover, in 1520 another Scot, Thomas Alane or Thomas Scotus was appointed professor in the arts faculty in Copenhagen.14 Outside of the University of Copenhagen, the canon Walter Mortimer, a Scot who maybe hailed from Brechin, sometime before 1520 became rector of the Cathedral School of Roskilde. He died sometime after 1534, yet there is no evidence that he had Protestant leanings.15 Nevertheless, along with Peter Davidson, Alexander Kinghorn and Thomas Alane, he gives credibility to Erasmus’s claim in a letter to Wolfgang Capito in 1517 about the flourishing humanist culture in the North and how “that elegant literature which has so long been reduced almost

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to extinction, has now for some time been studied and absorbed by Scots and Danes and Irishmen.”16 The share of Scots in the humanist movement points to a potential for the spread of Reformation ideas from Denmark to Scotland. During the early 1520s, humanists became instrumental in the spread of the Reformation in Denmark.17 King Christian II was supportive of them and their calls for church reform, yet in 1523 he was overthrown and succeeded by his uncle Frederik I. Christian II went into exile in the Netherlands, sojourned at length in Wittenberg, and linked his fight to reclaim his throne with the introduction of a Lutheran Reformation. The ensuing power struggle between Christian II and Frederik I immediately involved Emperor Charles V (whose sister, Elisabeth, was married to Christian II) as well as the princes of Northern Europe, including Henry VIII of England and James V of Scotland. Alexander Kinghorn was a supporter of Christian II, giving up his chair in Copenhagen to follow the King into exile. Christian II would often use him as diplomat in his attempts to win the backing of England and Scotland (or at least loan some money from them). In this, Christian was not very successful. Henry VIII was equally suspicious of his ties to the emperor and his support of the Reformation, and cardinal Wolsey—that arrogant “chief of priests” as one of Christian’s envoys scornfully labelled him in a letter to his master in 1524—efficiently dragged his feet during the protracted negotiations.18 In Scotland, Christian II was somewhat more fortuitous in his negotiations as he was offered asylum, if so needed, but more importantly in 1525, his warships and privateers were allowed to call at Scottish ports, and the Scots were given permission to enter his service.19 This allowed for several prominent Scots, not least James V’s comptroller, Robert Barton, to equip vessels to operate as privateers in the Northern seas in the name of Christian II.20 Yet, as Alexander Kinghorn in 1527 related to Christian II from Scotland, James V was unlikely to ever lend his full support to the exiled king, because “rumour has it in Scotland that Your Grace is severely and strongly absorbed by poisonous Lutheran and heretical teachings.”21 The somewhat more accommodating stance towards Christian II in Scotland than in England reflects Scottish peregrinations and trade connections with Denmark. There were no noteworthy English settlements in Denmark, and there is less evidence of learned Englishmen or academics with connections to Denmark. Only in 1541 did a certain

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Johannes Pomerius become professor of medicine at University of Copenhagen and royal physician. The English doctor, as he was styled, only stayed in Denmark until 1542 and no other information is available about him.22 In 1532, Christian II was captured by Frederik I and imprisoned for the remainder of his life. However, the death of Frederik I in 1533 led to instability and civil war. Lübeck and the Hanseatic League was heavily involved in the Danish conflict, seeking to reinstate Christian II. In an attempt to obtain financial support from Henry VIII, they in 1534 promised him the Danish throne as well as support in the English monarch’s struggle with the Pope.23 In the end, Lübeck was defeated and the throne went to Christian III, the son of Frederik I. As one of his first acts as king in 1536, he imprisoned the Catholic bishops and introduced a Lutheran Reformation. At the king’s request, Johannes Bugenhagen arrived in Copenhagen in 1537 to draw up a new Church Ordinance that closely followed the practise of the Wittenberg reformers. Nevertheless, the Danish Reformation and the Church Ordinance of 1537 caught the attention of westward rulers. In England, Henry VIII received as a gift from Bugenhagen a presentation copy of the Church Ordinance, and the ordinance was studied closely by Thomas Cranmer in the following years as a template for an English church scheme. In the assessment of Diarmaid MacCulloch, of all the various forms of Lutheran worship by then in use, “the one which is closest to the structure of the services set out in his [Cranmer’s] draft scheme is the order in use in the Church of Denmark.”24 In Scotland, James V in 1540 referred to the imprisonment of the Danish bishops in a thinly veiled threat to the Scottish clergy.25 Years later, on the eve of the reformation in Scotland, Sir William Cecil in July 1559 recommended to the Lords of the Congregation that they look to Denmark as a source of inspiration. As Cecil informed them, “I know of no better example in any reformed state than I have heard to be in Denmark”.26 Indeed, a substantial similarity between the scope of the Danish Church Ordinance and the Scottish Book of Discipline can be ascertained. Even if the similarity should not be overstated, when it comes to the origins of the Knoxian constitution—as pointed out by Gordon Donaldson—“a debt to Denmark cannot be overlooked.”27

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Religious Refugees To some degree, the Danish reformation was a culmination of the advances of the early Humanist and Reformation movements during the 1520s, which saw Frederik I gradually increasing his support for the Reformation with the closing of monasteries and appointments of evangelical preachers as incumbents. This allowed for a number of Danish towns to carry out Reformations locally several years prior to 1536, and this turned out to be of importance for Scottish religious refugees. When the Scottish divine Alexander Alesius (Alane) fled his homeland because of his Protestantism, he ended up in the Danish town of Malmö where he was greeted by compatriots. A Protestant Reformation had been introduced in that town in 1529 and Alesius met with the town’s reformers. Alesius later recalled these events in his dedication of a book to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark in 1556.28 After a brief stay in Malmö, Alesius continued to Wittenberg where he arrived in 1532.29 In Malmö, Alesius is likely to have met another Scottish divine, John Gaw (or Gau). He was a student at St. Andrews (as was Alesius), and like Alesius he may have been among the Protestants who sought exile after the execution of Patrick Hamilton in St. Andrews for heresy in 1528.30 However, it is also possible that he relocated to Denmark at an earlier date and held a position as altar priest in a Malmö church with special reference to the Scottish community, and eventually became part of the town’s reform movement.31 Gaw is the first clear example of the Danish Reformation movement influencing the spread of Protestantism in Scotland. In 1533, Gaw translated from the Danish tongue a treatise by the reformer and humanist Christiern Pedersen. It was published in Malmö under the title The Richt vay to the Kingdom of Heuine. The book was an exposition on the Small Catechism by Luther and it contained commentaries on the Ten Commandments, the creed and the Lord’s Prayer. Gaw’s work was based on Pedersen’s Den rette Vey till Hiemmerigis Rige, published in Antwerp in 1531 at a time when he himself was an exile as a supporter of Christian II. Pedersen’s Danish publication was in turn based on Die zwölf Artikel unseres Christlichen Glaubens by the Augsburg reformer Urban Rhegius in 1523, and in which Rhegius had incorporated material from Luther’s writings. In 1532, Pedersen was allowed to return to Denmark where he settled in Malmö. This doubtless led to his personal acquaintance with Gaw and the subsequent translation of Pedersen’s exposition to Scots.

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Gaw had married in Malmö and had lived there long enough to learn Danish. Gaw’s translation is the first known Protestant work to be printed in Scots. It was concluded by An epistle to the noble lords and barons of Scotland, which shows that the book was intended for distribution in Scotland, and that Gaw saw his publication as a way of carrying on the reformation efforts after the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton “quhom thay pat creuellie to the deid bot now he liffis with christ.”32 Yet the book’s impact in Scotland can only be surmised. If the greater part of the edition (as a smaller part probably was intended for sale to the Scottish population in Scandinavia and the Baltic region) was sent over to Scotland then most copies are likely to have been seized by inquisitors, since the import of evangelical literature was outlawed by acts of parliament.33 After the Danish Reformation of 1536, Gaw moved across the Sound to Copenhagen to become curate at the Church of Our Lady. In Copenhagen, he would be able to come across several other Scottish refugees. When the chaplain James Skea of Orkney in 1546 fled the islands because of his Protestant convictions, he was in vain sought after by Scottish authorities, until in 1550 he was discovered to be living in Denmark where Christian III agreed to ask for a pardon for the Orkney chaplain.34 Also George Leslie, earl of Rothes, found a safe haven in Denmark to where he escaped after being accused of being an accessory in the murder of Cardinal Beaton at St. Andrews in 1546 (of which Rothes was eventually acquitted of complicity).35 Although Rothes was not a religious refugee per se, the murder of the Cardinal undeniably had religious implications. Danish religious refugees travelling in the opposite direction to Scotland in the same period were uncommon. However, a greyfriar named Rasmus left Denmark behind about 1540 when the last of the friars’ monasteries was dismantled. He lived somewhere in Scotland for almost twenty years until once more the advance of Protestantism made him a refugee. He died in Louvain in 1578.36

Machabeus and Coverdale in Copenhagen The Scottish religious refugee in Denmark with arguably the most enduring influence in the post-reformation era, was Johannes Machabeus (John MacAlpine). Born around 1500, he was prior of the Dominican convent in Perth 1530–1534.37 Due to his Protestant conviction, he was

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forced to leave for England where bishop Shaxton of Salisbury secured him with a canonry. However, when the Act of Six Articles in 1539 severely dented Protestant reform in England, Machabeus was among the divines who left for mainland Europe. Machabeus reached Cologne in 1539 where he took the bachelor’s degree, and he was in Wittenberg by autumn the following year. At that time, about one thousand students would matriculate per year in Wittenberg, but among them students from Scotland and England were rare.38 In Wittenberg, the University theologians became well disposed towards him, and in December 1541 Bugenhagen sent word to Christian III and chancellor Johan Friis in Denmark that Machabeus was “a learned and pious man, of good judgments, who is well able to serve as Professor of Theology at the University in Copenhagen.”39 The king responded favourably. In March 1542, Luther promoted Machabeus to the doctorate of theology and later that year he arrived in Copenhagen to take up a vacant chair. Machabeus also had the option to secure a position in Strasbourg (with Melanchthon acting as intermediary), but he opted for the Scandinavian connection.40 The presence of a large contingent of Scots in and near Copenhagen may have appealed to him. With the University of Copenhagen situated opposite the Church of Our Lady, the residence of Machabeus was just down the street from that of John Gaw. From 1548 to his death in 1557, Machabeus as theologus primus held the leading chair in the Copenhagen theological faculty.41 He served on the commission of theologians preparing the publication of the first full Danish translation of the Bible in 1550, and his position allowed him to exert great influence on the Danish Church and in particular on the training of Lutheran pastors at the University.42 In this capacity, he is not seen to have been a conventional Orthodox Lutheran, but rather an advocate of eclectic Philippism, which made him well suited to act as a connecting link between Protestants of different sorts in the North.43 On his flight from England in 1539, Machabeus was accompanied by his Scottish wife Agnes Matthewson (or Macheson). Her sister Elizabeth soon after married the Bible translator Miles Coverdale, and this family connection would soon play a politico-religious part in relations between Denmark and England. When his brother-in-law settled in Copenhagen, Coverdale (himself an exile) stayed there for some time, most likely in 1543 prior to his engagement as headmaster of the town school in Bergzabern near Strasbourg in 1544.44 How long Coverdale stayed in Denmark is not clear, but it was long enough for him to become familiar with the

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Danish church ceremonies. His experience led him to compose a short treatise in which he gave a detailed description of the administration in the Danish as well as in some German Churches of the Lord’s Supper, baptism and the wedding ritual.45 Coverdale’s description was intended to convince his English readers that the Danish church order was so agreeable unto God’s word, not varying from the most wholesome doctrine thereof, ye may wish in your hearts to have God’s truths prosper likewise among you in the realm of England.46

He stressed how he wrote of no uncertainties or hearsay but of what he had experienced first-hand and “seen with mine eyes and heard with mine ears.”47 Coverdale’s eyewitness description avoids any strong confessional emphasis, and the basic point of his relation on the Eucharist ritual was to show the importance of bread and wine being ministered to the congregation. The Lutheran doctrine of the real presence was not completely disclosed, yet Coverdale also exhorted the Lord’s Supper in terms more in line with Reformed theology, stressing it as an act of “glorious remembrance.”48 Even if Coverdale’s description of the rituals of the Danish Church placed them in accord with the Lutheran doctrine, the dominant tone of his text fitted with an ecumenical Protestantism where more attention was paid to ceremony than the nature of the elements. To what extent Coverdale’s treatise procured any of the influence hoped for by its author is probably difficult to assess, but it was not universally welcomed by English authorities. In 1546 Bishop Edmund Bonner of London saw to it that the book was condemned and burnt at Paul’s Cross along with all other Coverdale’s works.49 After the death of Henry VIII in 1547, Coverdale returned to England where he found favour with the court during the Protestant upturn under Edward VI. His fortunes were reversed with the accession of Mary in 1553 after which he risked trial as a Protestant heretic. Once more his Danish connections came into good use. At the behest of his brotherin-law Machabeus, Christian III intervened on his behalf and eventually Mary allowed Coverdale to leave for Denmark in February 1555.50 The Lutheran king’s intervention on behalf of the Reformed Coverdale could be seen as a sign of consideration for overarching Protestant ideals, setting aside confessional or doctrinal issues. Such considerations, however, were not a matter of firm principle, but were decided on a case-to-case basis.

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Not all Marian exiles were welcome. When refugees of the Reformed London Strangers’ Church under the leadership of Johannes á Lasco in 1553 arrived in Denmark, they were turned away after a debate between á Lasco and the king’s chaplains had disclosed too stark differences between them on Eucharistic doctrine.51 Perhaps more importantly, á Lasco bringing with him a congregation with expansive potential spelled trouble to Christian III and his advisors. In comparison, the renowned Coverdale and his small household seemed much more manageable.

Student Travels and Learned Networks During his time in Denmark, Johannes Machabeus became an important liaison in theological and educational matters between Denmark, Scotland and Northern Germany. For instance, in August 1544 he wrote to the Wittenberg professor Paul Eber and recommended to him James Balfour (later Sir James Balfour of Pittendreich) and his tutor William Ramsay (future regent of St. Salvator’s College, St. Andrews) who wished to continue their studies in Wittenberg.52 It can be inferred from the letter that Balfour and Ramsay had made a stop in Copenhagen first. There was a trend to this followed by Peter Erskine, son of the laird of Dun, and his tutor Richard Melville, elder brother of the reformer Andrew Melville. After studies under Machabeus in Copenhagen c. 1542–1543, Erskine and Melville continued to Wittenberg.53 Another student of Machabeus was William Christison from Fife who in 1560 became the first Protestant minister of Dundee. Christison had previously lived in Scandinavia, presumably as a religious refugee. In Norway the bishop of Bergen, Geble Pederssøn, assigned him to a teaching position and he went on to study in Copenhagen, probably in 1556–1557, learning Danish in the process. He also attended the university in Rostock before being called back to Scotland.54 It is curious that Christison had received his training at Lutheran universities when he in Scotland proved to be a strong supporter of John Knox and Andrew Melville in the struggle against James VI and the Episcopalians. As remarked by Danish church historian Thorkild Lyby Christensen, it seems to suggest that the theological environment in Denmark–Norway and Rostock of the 1550s was stimulating for “a general sort of Protestantism” without too sharp distinctions between Lutheran and Calvinist views.55 This irenic and eclectic Protestant view, which is also evident in William Cecil’s recommendation of the example of Denmark to the

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Lords of the Congregation, perhaps also accounts for the role played by the humanist Geble Pederssøn in Bergen in Christison’s ScandinavianScottish career. Pederssøn was no orthodox Lutheran, but could better be termed a reformist Catholic by the time he in 1537 was named evangelical bishop in Bergen. Prior to his appointment, he does not appear to have been supportive of the Reformation. When Pederssøn succeeded working within the Lutheran boundaries created for his new post, it was probably because he did not feel the boundaries were too tight.56 A glimpse of learned Protestant networking across the North Sea also presents itself with Christian Machabeus, the son of Johannes Machabeus. Christian had studied in Copenhagen and Wittenberg before he in 1561 matriculated at Cambridge, no doubt utilising his father’s English connections. Edmund Grindal, bishop of London, acted as Christian’s patron and recommended him to Andrew Perne, master of Peterhouse, and Richard Cox, the bishop of Ely.57 In July 1563, he obtained his master’s degree at Cambridge and he was ordained deacon at the Cathedral of Ely. In the same year he took the opportunity to have a Latin commentary on Deuteronomy by his father printed in London. The book bore a dedicatory preface by Christian to bishop Grindal.58 In 1564, Christian Machabeus returned to Denmark to pursue an educationist career including spells as professor at the University of Copenhagen and as rector of the royal school in Sorø. King Frederik II employed his services on a number of embassies, and he took up his father’s role as cultural broker between Denmark, and England and Scotland.59 Letters from Machabeus to German recipients were a source of news about Scottish affairs. Alexander Alesius, the former refugee in Malmö, was among those who relied on information from Machabeus. When Alesius in 1543 became professor of theology in Leipzig, he urged Melanchthon in Wittenberg the following year that “if you have heard any later news in Wittenberg by way of Denmark take care to communicate it to me.”60 It was no doubt the content of letters from Machabeus to Melanchthon, Alesius was curious about. It was also Machabeus who directed the attention of Markus Wagner, the agent of the Magdeburg theologian Matthias Flacius Illyricus, to Scotland in a search for source material for the Protestant ecclesiastical history, The Magdeburg Centuries, of which Flacius was chief editor. Christian III of Denmark even took it upon him to furnish Wagner for his trip to Scotland in 1553 from which he returned with a valuable collection of manuscripts.61

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Among the sources of information from Scotland to Machabeus were the frequent emissaries to Denmark. They included in 1544 John Hay, in 1548–1549 Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount and in 1550 the reinstated George Leslie, earl of Rothes.62 Lyndsay, who combined diplomacy with the writing of poetry, stayed in Copenhagen for the winter 1548–1549 and he apparently became well acquainted with Machabeus. When Lyndsay’s long didactic poem, Ane dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteour, Off the Miserabyll Estait of the Warld (The Monarche), was published in Scotland in 1554, it was, according to the title page, at the expense of Machabeus in Copenhagen. It was “imprintit at the Conmand and Expensis off Doctor MACHABEVS, in Copmanhouin.”63 Perhaps Machabeus appreciated Lyndsay’s satire and viewed its publication as a way to contribute to Protestant reform in Scotland. Lyndsay’s poem incorporated the eschatological notion popular in Protestant circles in the sixteenth century that the history of the world from Creation to Judgement Day could be divided into the four kingdoms or monarchies of The Book of Daniel and that the Reformation forewarned the end of times. The harbinger of this Protestant view of world history was the Chronica of the German astrologer and historian Johann Carion to whom Lyndsay made several references.64 Melanchthon took a keen interest in Carion’s work and he was deeply involved in the first publication of the Chronica in Wittenberg in 1532.65 His involvement in subsequent editions even led to Melanchthon being regarded as the chief author. The chronicle was translated into Danish in 1553 by Jon Turson, a canon in Lund, and printed in Wittenberg the following year.66 Turson had previously studied in Wittenberg and he obtained his master’s degree in Copenhagen in the academic year 1544–1545 when Machabeus was rector. By evidently securing the publication of Lyndsay’s Dialogue in Edinburgh 1554, it could be argued that Machabeus promoted Reformation efforts in Scotland with a succinct connection to the Protestant conception of history among the Melanchthon circle in Wittenberg and its extension in Copenhagen.

Conclusion The partnership of Machabeus and Lyndsay offers an example of how early reformation efforts could lay a groundwork for future collaborations. This is evident from the subsequent publication of Lyndsay’s poem in Denmark in 1591. Relations between Scotland and Denmark had

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been strengthened by the marriage of James VI and Anna of Denmark in 1589, and it led to an upturn in literary and educational relations between the two countries.67 Lyndsay’s Dialogue was translated from Scots into Latin by a Scottish student in Copenhagen, Andrew Robertson of Aberdeen, and then from Latin into Danish by the clergyman Jacob Madsen from Copenhagen.68 The work was printed with a dedication to the Regency Council (ruling on behalf of the minor King Christian IV), and was gracefully received. Andrew Robertson in his dedicatory preface wrote that he had strived to have Lyndsay’s poems translated, since they contained much merriment and wisdom befitting even for this day. Robertson especially lauded Lyndsay for his courage to speak out against what he called the horror of the Catholic faith, which in Lyndsay’s lifetime ruled even the kingdom of Scotland.69 To Robertson and his peers the idea presented itself that powers each side of the North Sea should find common Protestant ground to continue the reformation efforts. Close contacts between Denmark, England and Scotland since the early reformation years lent credence to the positive outcome of such efforts. The various highlighted examples in the present chapter attest to the religious connections and exchanges across the North Sea. They show how communication and travel in both directions across the North Sea facilitated the spread of reformation ideas, and they also show how Denmark would often serve as a link or intermediate station between the British Isles and Germany. In particular, the University of Copenhagen would often take up this role with its close contacts to German Lutheran universities such as Rostock and Wittenberg.70 Finally, these connections were to a large degree based on or generated a general Protestant outlook, which sought to minimise or soothe confessional or doctrinal strife between Protestants and Protestant nations.

Notes 1. For the events of the Reformation in Denmark and Norway, see James L. Larson, Reforming the North: The Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1545 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Martin Schwarz Lausten, “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway 1520–1559”, in The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 12–41; Paul Douglas

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Lockhart, Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 59–77. Recent contributions on the Reformation and its Danish legacy are found in Niels Henrik Gregersen and Carsten Bach-Nielsen (eds.), Reformationen i dansk kirke og kultur 1517 –2017 , 3-vol. ed. (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2017); Per Ingesman and Ole Høiris (eds.), Reformationen: 1500-tallets kulturrevolution, 2-vol. ed. (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2017). Gordon Donaldson, Scottish Church History (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985), 60; Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Sixteenth-Century English Protestantism and the Continent”, in Sister Reformations –– Schwesterreformationen: The Reformation in Germany and in England– –Die Reformation in Deutschland und in England, ed. Dorothea Wendebourg, 1–14 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). Paul Douglas Lockhart, Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559–1596 (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Steve Murdoch, Britain, Denmark–Norway and the House of Stuart, 1603– 1660: A Diplomatic and Military Analysis (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2000); Davis Stevenson, Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding: The Marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1997). This argument is congruent with recent research underlining Lutheran influence in England even after the death of Henry VIII. See Alec Ryrie, “The Strange Death of Lutheran England”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 53 (2002): 64–92; Alec Ryrie, “The Afterlife of Lutheran England”, in Sister Reformations ––Schwesterreformationen: The Reformation in Germany and in England––Die Reformation in Deutschland und in England, ed. Dorothea Wendebourg, 213–34 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010); David Scott Gehring, “From the Strange Death to the Odd Afterlife of Lutheran England”, The Historical Journal 57 (2014): 825–44. James Dow, “‘Skotter’ in Sixteenth-Century Scania”, The Scottish Historical Review 44 (1965): 34–51; Nina Østby Pedersen, “Scottish Immigration to Bergen in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, in Scottish Communities Abroad in the Early Modern Period, ed. Alexia Grosjean and Steve Murdoch (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 135–67. Thomas Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot … Scottish-Danish Relations c. 1450–1707 , 2-vol. ed. (Odense: Odense University Press, 1988), 1:156, 162. On trade relations between Scotland and Scandinavia see also David Ditchburn, “A Note on Scandinavian Trade with Scotland in the later Middle Ages”, in Scotland and Scandinavia 800–1800, ed. Grant G. Simpson, 73–89 (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1990).

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8. Holger Frederik Rørdam, Kjøbenhavns Kirker og Klostere i Middelalderen (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie, 1859–1863), 206–7; Riis, Should Auld, 1:240–41. 9. Rørdam, Kjøbenhavns Kirker, 324. 10. Riis, Should Auld, 1:196–97. The Elsinore altarpiece is on display in the National Museum in Copenhagen. 11. Thorkild Lyby Christensen, “Scots in Denmark in the Sixteenth Century,” The Scottish Historical Review 49 (1970): 129; Riis, Should Auld, 1:113. 12. Christensen, “Scots in Denmark,” 130. 13. Ibid., 132–33; Riis, Should Auld, 2:65. 14. Christensen, “Scots in Denmark,” 134–35. 15. Ibid., 134. 16. Desiderius Erasmus, The Correspondence of Erasmus, Letters 446 to 593 (1516–17): The Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 4, trans. R. A. B. Mynors and D. F. S. Thomson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 264. 17. Morten Fink-Jensen, “Education, Humanism, and the Reformation in Denmark,” in Cultural Encounter and Identity in the Neo-Latin World, ed. Camilla Horster and Marianne Pade, 139–53 (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2020). 18. C. F. Allen (ed.), Breve og Aktstykker til Oplysning af Christiern den Andens og Frederik den Førstes Historie (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1854), 292; Martin Schwarz Lausten, “The Contradiction between Evangelical Faith and the Political Aims of the Danish Exiled King Christian II with Reference to his Relations to King Henry VIII (1523–1559),” in Church and People in Britain and Scandinavia, ed. Ingmar Brohed, 109–21 (Lund: Lund University Press, 1996), 115. 19. Allen, Breve, 346–48. 20. Allen, Breve, 302–5; Steve Murdoch, The Terror of the Seas? Scottish Maritime Warfare 1513–1713 (Leiden: Brill 2010), 93. 21. Martin Schwarz Lausten, Christian 2. mellem paven og Luther: Tro og politik omkring ‘den røde konge’ i eksilet og i fangenskabet (1523–1559) (Copenhagen: Akademisk, 1995), 323 (my translation). 22. Holger Frederik Rørdam, Kjøbenhavns Universitets Historie fra 1537 til 1621, 4-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Den danske historiske Forening, 1868– 1877), 1:579–80. 23. C. Paludan-Müller, Grevens Feide: Skildret efter trykte og utrykte Kilder, 2-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1853–1854), 1:319. 24. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 222–23. 25. David Laing (ed.), The Works of John Knox, 6-vol. ed. (Edinburgh: The Bannatyne Society, 1846–1864), 1:83; Gordon Donaldson, “‘The

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26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

45.

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Example of Denmark’ in the Scottish Reformation,” The Scottish Historical Review 27 (1948): 59. Donaldson, “Example of Denmark,” 58. Ibid., 64. John Gau, The Richt Vay to the Kingdom of Heuine by John Gau, ed. A. F. Mitchell (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1888), xviii–xix. Alesius matriculated in Wittenberg 29 October 1532. The exact date of his stay in Malmö (or his flight from Scotland) cannot be established, but it was likely towards the end of 1531. See John T. Neill, “Alexander Alesius, Scottish Lutheran (1500–1565),” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 55 (1964), 169. On Hamilton see also Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin’s chapter in the present volume. Gau, The Richt Vay, xx. Ibid., 104. Ibid., xxii. Riis, Should Auld, 1:139 and 2:76. On Skea, see also Peter Marshall’s chapter in the present volume. Riis, Should Auld, 1:141–42; Thorkild Lyby Christensen, “The Earl of Rothes in Denmark,” in The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland, ed. Ian B. Cowan and Duncan Shaw, 60–74 (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1983). Riis, Should Auld, 1:152. Ibid., 2:197. There were a total of eight Scottish students in Wittenberg in the period 1519–1544 according to Frederik Bredahl Petersen, Dr. Johannes Macchabæus, John MacAlpine: Scotland’s Contribution to the Reformation in Denmark, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1937, 107–08. Petersen, Macchabæus, 116. Harald Ilsøe, “Christian og Johannes Machabæus. Nogle breve og nogle dansk-skotske forbindelser,” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 7 (1963–1965): 457. Rørdam, Kjøbenhavns Universitets, 1:588. Petersen, Macchabæus, 194. Christensen, “Scots in Denmark,” 138. J. F. Mozley, Coverdale and his Bibles (London: Lutterworth Press, 1953), 9. The information about Coverdale’s first visit to Denmark comes from John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments where it is simply stated to have taken place during the reign of Henry VIII. See Stephen Reed Cattley (ed.), The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, 8-vol. ed. (London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1837–1841), 6:705. Miles Coverdale, The Order that the Church and Congregation of Christ in Denmark, and in many places, countries and cities of Germany, doth

5

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

53.

54.

55. 56.

57.

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use, not only at the holy supper of the Lord but also at the ministration of the blessed sacrament of baptism and holy wedlock, set forth by Myles Coverdale (c. 1544), in Writings and Translations of Myles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, Containing the Old Faith, A Spiritual and most Precious Pearl, Fruitful Lessons, A Treatise on the Lord’s Supper, Order of the Church in Denmark, Abridgement of the Enchiridion of Erasmus, ed. George Pearson, 467–83 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844). Pearson, Writings, 469. Ibid., 482. Ibid., 474. Mozley, Coverdale, 13. Ibid., 19–21; Rørdam, Kjøbenhavns Universitets, 1:594. Oskar Bartel, Jan Łaski (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1981), 163–4; Ole Peter Grell, “Exile and Tolerance,” in Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 165–72; Martin Schwarz Lausten, Biskop Peder Palladius og kirken 1537 –1560 (Copenhagen: Akademisk, 1987), 206–24. Letter reproduced in Ilsøe, “Christian og Johannes,” 467–9. Ilsøe simply calls them “two Scottish students” (Ibid., 458). For the identification of Ramsay as tutor to Balfour, see James Kirk, “‘Melvillian’ Reform in the Scottish Universities,” in The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History, and Culture, ed. Alasdair A. MacDonald et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 284. Thorkild Lyby Christensen, “Scoto-Danish Relations in the Sixteenth Century: The Historiography and Some Questions,” The Scottish Historical Review 48 (1969): 95; Ernest R. Holloway III, Andrew Melville and Humanism in Renaissance Scotland (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 39. Also, when Machabeus was rector in 1544, an unidentified student by the name of Georgius Scotus was looking to become Master of Arts in Copenhagen. See Holger Frederik Rørdam, “Magistre creerede ved Kjøbenhavns Universitet fra Reformationen indtil 1660,” Personalhistorisk Tidsskrift (1882): 118. Holger Frederik Rørdam, “Studerende Skotter ved Kjøbenhavns Universitet”, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 5 (1907–9): 400–2; J. H. Baxter, Dundee and the Reformation (Dundee: Abertay Historical Society, 1960), 24–6; Riis, Should Auld, 2:204. Christensen, “Scots in Denmark,” 139. Ibid., 139; Nils Gilje and Tarald Rasmussen, Norsk idéhistorie, vol. 2: Tankeliv i den lutherske stat 1517 –1814. (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002), 2:86–7. Ilsøe, “Christian og Johannes,” 462.

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58. Johannes Machabeus, Enarratio in Deuteronomium continens singulorum capitum breuem summam et concinnam dispositionum: reverendo ac doctissimo viro domino Ioanne Machabaeo Alpinati, sanctae memoriae, professore & doctore theologo in regia Danorum Accademia Haffniensi, authore (London: Rowland Hall, 1563). A bibliography on Machabeus with notes on surviving letters is found in H. Ehrencron-Müller, Forfatterlexicon omfattende Danmark, Norge og Island indtil 1814, 12-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: H. Aschehoug and Co., 1924–35), 5:270–71. 59. Ilsøe, “Christian og Johannes,” 462–3; Riis, Should Auld, 1:119. 60. Petersen, Macchabæus, 109. 61. Ilsøe, “Christian og Johannes,” 461–62; Michael Brown and Katie Stevenson, “‘Ancient Magnificence’: St Andrews in the Middle Ages: An Introduction,” in Medieval St Andrews. Church, Cult, City, ed. Michael Brown and Katie Stevenson, 1–19 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017), 8. The remaining manuscripts rest with the Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel, Germany. 62. Ilsøe, “Christian og Johannes,” 460–61. 63. David Lyndsay, The Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, 1490–1555, ed. Douglas Hamer. 4-vol. ed. (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1930– 36), 1:197–386. 64. Lyndsay, Works, 3:238–42; Juanita Ruys, “Experience and the Courteour: Reading Epistemological Revolution in a Sixteenth-Century Text,” in Fresche Fontanis: Studies in the Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Scotland, ed. Janet Hadley Williams and J. Derrick McClure, 249–69 (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 257–58. 65. Inger Ekrem, “Drei Versionen von Carions Chronica in Dänemark und Norwegen 1554–1606,” Symbolae Osloenses 73 (1998): 168–69. 66. Johann Carion, Chronica M. Johan Carion, paa thet flittigste sammen dragen, huer mand nytteligt att læse, oc er nu fordansket aff M. Joenn Tursson (Wittenberg: G. Rhau, 1554). An English translation of Carion’s chronicle had appeared in 1550. 67. On the marriage and its political and cultural importance, see Stevenson, Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding. 68. David Lyndsay, Dialogvs Eller En Samtale, Imellem Forfarenhed, oc en Hofftienere, om Verdens elendige væsen, oc begribis vdi fire Bøger om Monarchier. Fordum screffuen paa Skotske, aff… Dauid Lyndsay…, Oc nu nylige transfererit aff Skotske maal paa Latine, ved Anders Robertson født i Aberdijn i Skotland, Oc siden aff Latine paa Danske Rijm ved Jacob Mattssøn Kiøbenhaffn (Copenhagen: Johann Stöckelmann, 1591). See Christensen, “Scots in Denmark,” 144; Riis, Should Auld, 2:200–1. In Copenhagen, Robertson had already in 1590 published a nuptial poem in praise of James VI and Anna; see Lauritz Nielsen (ed.), Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600, 4-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1996), 4:124.

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69. Lyndsay, Dialogvs, preface, fo. iir. 70. Martin Schwarz Lausten, Die Heilige Stadt Wittenberg. Die Beziehungen des Dänischen Königshauses zu Wittenberg in der Reformationszeit (Leipzig: Evangelishes Verlagsanstalt, 2010); Morten Fink-Jensen, “Collaboration and Competition: The Universities of Copenhagen and Rostock c.1500–1650,” in Verknüpfungen des neuen Glaubens. Die Rostocker Reformationsgeschichte in ihren translokalen Bezügen, ed. Heinrich Holze and Kristin Skottki (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 2020), 251–82.

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Dow, James. “‘Skotter’ in Sixteenth-Century Scania.” The Scottish Historical Review 44 (1965): 34–51. Ehrencron-Müller, H. Forfatterlexicon omfattende Danmark, Norge og Island indtil 1814. 12 vols. Copenhagen: H. Aschehoug and Co., 1924–1935. Ekrem, Inger. “Drei Versionen von Carions Chronica in Dänemark und Norwegen 1554–1606.” Symbolae Osloenses 73 (1998): 168–87. Erasmus, Desiderius. The Correspondence of Erasmus, Letters 446 to 593 (1516– 1517). The Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 4, translated by R. A. B. Mynors and D. F. S. Thomson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Fink-Jensen, Morten. “Collaboration and Competition: The Universities of Copenhagen and Rostock c.1500–1650.” In Verknüpfungen des neuen Glaubens: Die Rostocker Reformationsgeschichte in ihren translokalen Bezügen, edited by Heinrich Holze and Kristin Skottki, 251–82. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2020. Fink-Jensen, Morten. “Education, Humanism, and the Reformation in Denmark.” In Cultural Encounter and Identity in the Neo-Latin World, edited by Camilla Horster and Marianne Pade, 139–53. Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2020. Gau, John. The Richt Vay to the Kingdom of Heuine by John Gau, edited by A. F. Mitchell. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1888. Gehring, David Scott. “From the Strange Death to the Odd Afterlife of Lutheran England.” The Historical Journal 57 (2014): 825–44. Gilje, Nils and Tarald Rasmussen. Norsk idéhistorie, vol. 2: Tankeliv i den lutherske stat 1517–1814. Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002. Gregersen, Niels Henrik and Carsten Bach-Nielsen (eds.) Reformationen i dansk kirke og kultur 1517–2017 . 3 vols. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2017. Grell, Ole Peter. “Exile and Tolerance.” In Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, edited by Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner, 164–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Holloway, III, Ernest R. Andrew Melville and Humanism in Renaissance Scotland. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Ilsøe, Harald. “Christian og Johannes Machabæus. Nogle breve og nogle danskskotske forbindelser.” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 7 (1963–1965): 454–71. Ingesman, Per and Ole Høiris (eds.). Reformationen: 1500-tallets kulturrevolution. 2 vols. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2017. Kirk, James. “‘Melvillian’ Reform in the Scottish Universities.” In The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History, and Culture, edited by Alasdair A. MacDonald et.al., 276–300. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Laing, David (ed.). The Works of John Knox, 6 vols. Edinburgh: The Bannatyne Society, 1846–1864.

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Larson, James L. Reforming the North: The Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1545. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Lausten, Martin Schwarz. Biskop Peder Palladius og kirken 1537–1560. Copenhagen: Akademisk, 1987. Lausten, Martin Schwarz. Christian 2. mellem paven og Luther: Tro og politik omkring ‘den røde konge’ i eksilet og i fangenskabet (1523–1559). Copenhagen: Akademisk, 1995. Lausten, Martin Schwarz. “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway 1520–1559.” In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, edited by Ole Peter Grell, 12–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Lausten, Martin Schwarz. “The Contradiction between Evangelical Faith and the Political Aims of the Danish Exiled King Christian II with Reference to his Relations to King Henry VIII (1523–1559)”. In Church and People in Britain and Scandinavia, edited by Ingmar Brohed, 109–21. Lund: Lund University Press, 1996. Lausten, Martin Schwarz. Die Heilige Stadt Wittenberg: Die Beziehungen des Dänischen Königshauses zu Wittenberg in der Reformationszeit. Leipzig: Evangelishes Verlagsanstalt, 2010. Lyndsay, David. Dialogvs Eller En Samtale, Imellem Forfarenhed, oc en Hofftienere, om Verdens elendige væsen, oc begribis vdi fire Bøger om Monarchier. Fordum screffuen paa Skotske, aff … Dauid Lyndsay …, Oc nu nylige transfererit aff Skotske maal paa Latine, ved Anders Robertson født i Aberdijn i Skotland, Oc siden aff Latine paa Danske Rijm ved Jacob Mattssøn Kiøbenhaffn. Copenhagen: Johann Stöckelmann, 1591. Lyndsay, David. The Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, 1490–1555, edited by Douglas Hamer. 4 vols. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1930–1936. Lockhart, Paul Douglas. Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559–1596. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Lockhart, Poul Douglas. Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Thomas Cranmer, A Life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. “Sixteenth-Century English Protestantism and the Continent.” In Sister Reformations—Schwesterreformationen: The Reformation in Germany and in England—Die Reformation in Deutschland und in England, edited by Dorothea Wendebourg, 1–14. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Mozley, J. F. Coverdale and his Bibles. London: Lutterworth Press, 1953. Murdoch, Steve. Britain, Denmark–Norway and the House of Stuart, 1603–1660: A Diplomatic and Military Analysis. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2000.

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Murdoch, Steve. The Terror of the Seas? Scottish Maritime Warfare 1513–1713. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Neill, John T. “Alexander Alesius, Scottish Lutheran (1500–1565)”. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 55 (1964): 161–91. Nielsen, Lauritz (ed.). Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600. 4 vols. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1996. Paludan-Müller, C. Grevens Feide: Skildret efter trykte og utrykte Kilder. 2 vols. Copenhagen, 1853–1854. Pedersen, Nina Østby. “Scottish Immigration to Bergen in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Scottish Communities Abroad in the Early Modern Period, edited by Alexia Grosjean and Steve Murdoch, 135–67. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Petersen, Frederik Bredahl. Dr. Johannes Macchabæus, John MacAlpin: Scotland’s Contribution to the Reformation in Denmark. PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1937. Riis, Thomas. Should auld Acquaintance be Forgot … Scottish-Danish Relations c. 1450–1707. 2 vols. Odense: Odense University Press, 1988. Rørdam, Holger Frederik. Kjøbenhavns Kirker og Klostere i Middelalderen. Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie, 1859–1863. Rørdam, Holger Frederik. Kjøbenhavns Universitets Historie fra 1537 til 1621. 4 vols. Copenhagen: Den Danske Historiske Forening, 1868–1877. Rørdam, Holger Frederik. “Magistre creerede ved Kjøbenhavns Universitet fra Reformationen indtil 1660.” Personalhistorisk Tidsskrift (1882): 117–43, 257–74. Rørdam, Holger Frederik Rørdam. “Studerende Skotter ved Kjøbenhavns Universitet.” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 5 (1907–1909): 400–02. Ruys, Juanita. “Experience and the Courteour: Reading Epistemological Revolution in a Sixteenth-Century Text.” In Fresche Fontanis: Studies in the Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Scotland, edited by Janet Hadley Williams and J. Derrick McClure, 249–69. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. Ryrie, Alec. “The Strange Death of Lutheran England.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 53 (2002): 64–92. Ryrie, Alec. “The Afterlife of Lutheran England.” In Sister Reformations— Schwesterreformationen: The Reformation in Germany and in England—Die Reformation in Deutschland und in England, edited by Dorothea Wendebourg, 213–34. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Stevenson, Davis. Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding: The Marriage of James VI and Anne of Denmark. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1997.

CHAPTER 6

Confessional Migration and Religious Change in the Northern European Reformations

Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin

The role of migration in the religious revolutions of the early modern period was brought into sharpened focus in 2015 when Nicholas Terpstra published a study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century religious refugees which he chose to sub-title An Alternative History of the Reformation.1 Among the notable features of this book is its argument that the expulsion of populations of Jews, Moriscos, Anabaptists, Huguenots and Bohemian and Austrian Protestants was not a peripheral by-product of confessional consolidation but rather the manifestation of centrally important theological, intellectual and political impulses in the European Reformations.2 Terpstra’s study can be situated within a wider web of recent scholarship which has identified that up to a million Europeans may have been forced into exile by confessional pressure in the period between 1500 and 1800.3 Significant mobility of a displaced Dutch population spilled over into both the Rhineland and England during the sixteenth century. In the Iberian peninsula, the kingdom of Aragon, in particular, witnessed

T. Ó. hAnnracháin (B) University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_6

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a notable level of depopulation in the early seventeenth century due to the expulsion of much of the Morisco population. Across central Europe, the policies of Ferdinand II during the 1620s and 1630s pushed into exile large numbers of the nobility of Upper and Lower Austria as well as thousands of Czech Protestants of various religious affiliations. Towards the end of the century, a very large movement of population occurred in France as a result of Louis XIV’s revocation of the edict of Nantes. Few European societies were untouched by the effects of these forced migrations although their influence on certain areas of the continent was more profound than on others. In this regard, the Netherlands has been the subject of particular attention, both because of large population transfer in the course of the Dutch revolt that drove Evangelicals north and Catholics south, and the manner in which the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands subsequently functioned as religious asylums for confessionally dislocated groups and individuals.4 To a significant extent, for instance, much of the institutional spine of both British and Irish Catholicism was transferred to Flanders which provided the site for the training and education of many of the clergy which restructured the postTridentine church across the archipelago. The influence of exiles in the United Provinces was arguably even more profound, not merely in terms of their influential role in restructuring the establishment of the Reformed church, but also in the articulation of narratives which placed religious exile at the heart of the political consciousness of the nascent republic.5 The direct relevance of the Terpstra model of religious refugees to either Denmark/Norway or Britain/Ireland, however, is comparatively limited. England did act as a safe asylum for significant waves of immigrants at various points during the early modern period. During the sixteenth century, large numbers of Dutch and French Protestants flocked across the channel. By 1573, almost ten per cent of the population of London was comprised of foreigners and the number who had entered the kingdom in the previous decade may have amounted to 50,000.6 Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the impact of the Revocation of Nantes and the consequent flight of tens of thousands of Huguenots also had a particularly pronounced impact on Britain which, along with Switzerland and the United Provinces, represented a key destination for French Protestants.7 Somewhat more distant from the Terpstra model of refugees were large numbers of mostly Gaelic Irish individuals who were forced to seek refuge

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abroad in the wake of failed insurrections against Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and who did attempt to portray themselves as forced into exile on account of their resistance to religious persecution. Yet while religion certainly played a part, the main driver of these conflicts was resistance to the expansion of the political and military power of the Tudor state in Ireland.8 The vast majority of the exiles’ co-confessionalists remained within the island and continued to practice their religion without encountering any insuperable obstacles. It seems probable that, had their political objectives been met, very few of those who became involved in the Desmond or Baltinglas rebellions or the Nine Years War would have chosen resistance to the state solely on grounds of religion. A definite contrast existed between such rebels and Nicholas Sander, the English Catholic exile, whose convictions concerning the illegitimacy of Elizabeth’s possession of the throne, and the providential inevitability of the punishment which awaited her and her supporters, prompted his involvement in the Desmond rebellion.9 Particularly in the decade after the battle of Kinsale, however, thousands of Irish fled to Spain where they clustered in Galicia, posing a significant problem for the Spanish state which was slow to force them to return to Ireland for fear that this would imperil their faith. Religion thus did become foregrounded as the reason for exile of this group as it offered one of the securest paths to Spanish charity.10 Interestingly, the reluctance of the Spanish authorities to put the Catholic faith of Irish exiles at risk by forcing their return to a Protestant jurisdiction recalled elements of the contemporary debate about Morisco children in the context of the planned expulsion of that community from Spain.11 A parallel can be seen arguably between the deportation of the Moriscos and the contemporaneous decision of the Jacobean government in Ireland to order the wide-scale expulsion of the “inferior sort” from the precincts allotted to the undertakers in the Ulster Plantation. Willingness to convert and, in the case of some of the Morisco population, proven commitment to the religion of the state, was not sufficient to secure exemption. In both Ireland and Spain, the political justification of the act was based on the potential threat which these groups represented, rather than any proven culpability of communities which had enjoyed the status of subjects for decades. Yet, significant differences obtained in these instances with religious factors exerting greater influence in Spain. While an ethnic identification did pertain in the case of the Moriscos, it was underpinned by deeply held Catholic convictions which

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to some extent were hidden in the published justifications of the action by a disinclination to allow potential Roman interference in the matter. It followed repeated attempts at evangelisation, albeit not in Arabic, of the Morisco population by figures such as Juan de Ribera and a sense of pessimism about the possibility of education as an instrument of conversion in the wake of the poor performance of schools at Granada, Valencia and Tortosa.12 In Ulster, on the other hand, it was the Gaelic rather than the Catholic identity of the population which determined the decision to uproot them. Not only had they been subject to few if any attempts at Protestant evangelisation in the previous decades, but there was evidence of significant willingness on the part of much of the local clerical elite to consider conformity to the state church.13 It also seems clear that much less systematic attempts were made to remove the Gaelic population from the designated areas in comparison with the significant resources which were devoted to Morisco deportation. From a number of perspectives, those elements of the settler population of Ireland who were forced to flee their homes in large numbers in the wake of the 1641 rebellion can be seen as religious refugees and the violence and intolerance to which they were exposed carries resonances of the purgative impulses which Terpstra has identified as such a fundamental aspect of Reformation culture. Significantly, too, observant friars in Ireland, to whom he ascribes central importance in this regard, evidently played a notable role in the definition of sectarian boundaries. Widespread hostility towards the Protestant religion was characteristic of rebel behaviour during the insurrection. A strong disinclination to allow Protestant burial in consecrated ground became apparent in different areas as well as a bitter antipathy towards symbols of Protestant worship, most notably the Bible.14 Perhaps most significantly, it is clear that conversion to Catholicism could serve as a vehicle to protect settlers from attack and expulsion, and the Catholic clergy evidently strove to insist that those Protestants who did embrace the Roman faith were no longer considered legitimate targets. This was evident at Tralee where the Vicar Apostolic of the dioceses of Artfert and Aghadoe, Richard O’Connell, offered protection to any Protestant who opted to convert but made it clear that those who refused would no longer be allowed to remain.15 Widespread evidence from the 1641 depositions indicates that many Protestants did take this option while many others recorded that an offer of this kind had been made to them.16 Yet, while definite parallels can be seen between such behaviours and the religious intolerance

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behind a number of European expulsions, the plight of Irish Protestants in 1641-2 sits somewhat uneasily within the wider thesis advanced by Terpstra. In the first place, rather than a planned state policy of expulsion, what happened in Ireland corresponded more closely to a national pogrom, an outburst with similarities to the violence which erupted across France in the weeks after St Bartholomew’s day in 1572.17 Moreover, while religion provided the normative structure behind the attacks on Irish Protestants, it seems probable that ethnic and economic resentments were at least as important in motivating the attacks. In the vast majority of cases, it was a settler population of relatively recent provenance which was targeted. A concern to seize property and to destroy bonds of indebtedness was at least as salient as desecrations of Protestant scriptures. Both the Catholic clergy, who opposed what they saw as sinful behaviour, and the lay Catholic elite, who were understandably anxious that the popular onslaught against the persons and property of the settler community might transmute into a more general social chaos in which they had much to lose, had good reason to try to use religion as a means of defining and limiting the violence. This was particularly relevant to the rich Old English community in the island who were very anxious to avoid the rebellion developing into an ethnic conflict which could see them targeted by Gaelic rebels without any hope of support from a Protestant administration which was intensely distrustful of Catholics and deeply unwilling to provide them with arms. Nevertheless, both in the sheer scale of the phenomenon, which numbered many thousands of people from every county in the island, and in the subsequent ramifications, the forced mobility of 1641-2 represents a genuinely significant phenomenon. The rebellion of 1641 became a foundational structure in Irish Protestant identity.18 In Sir John Temple’s canonical account of the rebellion, which drew extensively from the evidence of the depositions of the migrants, the uprising was portrayed as “hammered out at the Romish forge” with the Catholic clergy as its principal fomenters and the failure to execute laws to keep their numbers and activities in check presented as a fatal omission in allowing the plot to develop.19 Constantly re-articulated in annual remembrance sermons, the suffering of the Protestant community in flight thus became a vital feature of the identity politics of the Church of Ireland as well as a watchword and a stimulus to action. Ireland too participated in a lesser fashion in the flight of the Huguenots. From the restoration, with the encouragement of James

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Butler, the first Duke of Ormond, Huguenots made their first significant entry into the island but the momentum of the ingress increased from 1681, adding a further tint to the mosaic of Irish Protestantism and with one of the immigrants, Henri Massue de Ruvigny, reaching a position of considerable political importance as Lord Justice. While the direction of travel was towards assimilation into the Church of Ireland, this was not accomplished without the generation of significant tensions.20 In the same timeframe, fewer Huguenots found their way to Scandinavia but the diaspora was not without importance, not least in the creation of intellectual networks which linked Sweden and Denmark to St Petersburg, the German states and the Atlantic world, by collecting and disseminating knowledge.21 Neither Britain/Ireland nor Denmark–Norway, therefore, were untouched by the forces which created the phenomenon of early modern religious refugees although in neither multiple monarchy did this process reach the heights which it attained in other parts of the continent. Yet confessional mobility in early modern Europe can be understood as a far more complex phenomenon than merely the flight or expulsion of religious dissidents in fear of their lives or property from a persecuting state. Indeed, even when consideration is taken of cases such as Iberian Jews, or the Bohemia and Austria of Ferdinand II, or Huguenots in the wake of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, where a clear and definite correlation can be established between the introduction of new religiously directed decrees and the departure of substantial numbers of people, it is clear that religion remained only one of a number of factors which determined individuals’ choices. Finance, knowledge of potential destinations, leadership and enabling networks were all vital in conditioning the choices of those who elected to leave and of the others who chose to remain and reluctantly conform. In the case of Jews expelled from Spain in the last decade of the fifteenth century, for instance, it seems clear that Portugal was chosen as the first destination but then, when it became impossible to continue as openly practicing Jews in the western kingdom, many chose to return to Spanish dominions and accept baptism, presumably because of the perceived unattractiveness of any other option.22 Thus, while it is important not to minimise either the brutality inflicted upon or the hardship endured by such migrants, it is also evident that confessional affiliation was often only one factor, albeit often a dominant one, in the decision even of ‘refugees’ to migrate. The natural tendency of such exiles was of course to emphasise the importance of religion in

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their decisions, both because of its utility in seeking assistance and acceptance within chosen host societies and at a psychological level in terms of giving dignity and agency to their choices. Certainly, both these factors seem to have been at play among the thousands of Gaelic exiles who sought sanctuary in Habsburg dominions in the course of the consolidation of the Elizabethan conquest of the island. Inevitably, however, such religious migrants were frequently faced with a series of choices and forced compromises in their new host environment. Significantly, by no means all of the Dutch migrants to Edwardian England in the early 1550s went on their travels again after his regime was replaced by the militant Catholic monarchy of his elder sister. In this regard, the example of the city of Wesel in the Rhineland offers an instructive parallel: there, a complex series of accommodations between Reformed exiles and their German hosts developed which tended to smother confessional differences in the interests of municipal and commercial harmony until exterior pressures made such positions less tenable.23 Similarly, as Ciaran O’Scea has demonstrated, Gaelic Irish exiles in Spain altered patterns of religious practice to safeguard their position against suspicions of heterodoxy and to bolster their claims to Spanish support as meritorious Catholic victims of heretical aggression.24 Across the continent, parallel with movements of such refugees were other groupings where pull factors seemed to have played an even greater role. In eastern Europe, over the course of a hundred years between 1550 and 1650, the Jewish community in the lands of the Polish/Lithuanian commonwealth more than doubled in size to 350,000, a burgeoning evidently linked to the attractive opportunities which the union was seen to provide. The repopulation of reconquered Turkish Hungary at the end of the seventeenth century provided particular opportunities for Catholic immigrants from other Habsburg lands and from Germany.25 Definite parallels can be seen in this regard with early modern Ireland. The immigration of roughly 100,000 people from Britain to Ireland between 1600 and 1641 seems to have been primarily determined by the level of opportunity which Ireland provided, certainly for the Protestant majority among the immigrants who benefitted from state support on a series of levels, ranging from the provision of lands, to access to administrative positions and to a level of governmental favour which frequently transgressed the soft early modern boundary between normal practice and outright corruption. These Protestant immigrants were entirely foundational to the establishment of Reformed identities in the island, whether

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within the Established church or within the dissenting traditions, and also, arguably, in ensuring that the existing population was not incentivised to conform to the state religion.26 Some similarities may be visible here with regard to Norway where it seems possible that the weakness of the sixteenth-century Norwegian church may have been linked to attempts to keep it securely under control from Copenhagen. In Ireland, however, the immigrant population over the course of a century acquired an extraordinary position of dominance. In terms of engrossing economic and political power, they resembled European colonial groupings in the Americas but in Ireland their dominance over the older colonial community came to rest on religious rather than on ethnic or racial grounds. Thus, a reasonable case can be made that Ireland was the western European country most shaped by confessional migration during the early modern period. Not all of the migrants to Ireland from Britain were Protestants, however. As David Edwards has demonstrated, not insignificant numbers of Catholics from England, Scotland and Wales were also tempted to settle in the western kingdom, not least because of the much milder raft of anti-Catholic legislation which obtained in Ireland from the second decade of Elizabeth’s reign until the Cromwellian conquest.27 With regard to the Catholic minority in the immigrant population to Ireland, a degree of evidence suggests that they played an underestimated role in hardening confessional boundaries in Ireland, as was noted by the bishop of Cork and Cloyne, William Lyon, with regard to the port cities of the south during the 1590s.28 It is germane to note that confessional migration could occur in parts of the continent also when religion figured neither as a push or a pull factor. The development of a substantial Catholic population in Slavonia in the century and a half following the Turkish conquest operated as part of a wider migration of southern Slavs, most of whom were Orthodox in religion. This mobility within Turkish dominions conferred neither religious advantages nor disadvantages but, because religion operated as a key marker of identity, the Catholic component clustered quite heavily in particular villages creating a new confessional mosaic as well as missionary opportunities.29 The heavy immigration of Scots Presbyterians into late seventeenth-century Ulster would appear to have operated according to similar factors in which economics dictated choices of mobility but religion impacted significantly on subsequent behaviours.30

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Confessional migrancy also appears evident in the outflows of both soldiers and merchants from Ireland and Scotland in the course of the seventeenth century. While religion was clearly not the chief engine of this mobility, confessional orientation helped to determine its parameters. It seems clear that Irish mercenaries predominantly went abroad to serve in the armies of Catholic states, which represents a particular contrast with Scotland, where Denmark and Sweden proved particularly attractive. The level of survival, and therefore of either settlement in their host societies or return was relatively low but this does not diminish the importance of the outflow. Many thousands of Irish troops were recruited for French and Spanish service during the 1630s and at least 20,000 went abroad during the early 1650s. Conversely, at least 25,000 Scots were employed in Scandinavian armies during the Thirty Years War.31 The 1650s also saw an important displacement of Irish merchant families. Parallels may be evident here in the experience of some Huguenot merchants whose trading networks provided them with the wherewithal to relocate in the face of conversion pressures in France. The peak in the second decade of the seventeenth century of migration of pedlars, merchants and craftsmen from Scotland to the Polish–Lithuanian commonwealth and the fall after the mid-century was probably not unrelated to the peculiar conditions of religious tolerance available there in the period 1572–1648, and its subsequent gradual diminution.32

The Migration of Clergy Religiously inflected migratory impulses were perhaps most evident among the clergy of Britain/Ireland and Scandinavia. Of central importance in this regard was a relatively small number of leadership figures who came to exercise a disproportionate influence on religious culture. During the Edwardian Reformation, the regime in England hosted hundreds of overseas reformers displaced by Charles V’s victories against the Schmalkaldic League and established a number of them, most notably Peter Martyr Vermigli, Martin Bucer and Jan Laski, in eminent posts in Oxford, Cambridge and the Stranger church in London where they were in a position to exert significant theological influence.33 In Mary’s reign, returned exiles in the person of the primates of Ireland, George Dowdall, and England, Reginald Pole, played a vital role in the restructuring of the Marian church establishments in both kingdoms.34 With the accession of Elizabeth, a series of Catholic intellectuals then sought refuge

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in safer jurisdictions. While these have been most intensively studied for their role in developing colleges and seminaries, which subsequently sustained a much reduced English Catholicism, it can be noted that several of them also made a significant impact on the intellectual development of the wider Catholic church, in particular Nicholas Sander and Thomas Stapleton.35 Across the confessional divide, the influence of those who fled to the continent during Mary’s reign was critical for the subsequent development of the Elizabethan church. Edmund Grindal (London, York and Canterbury), Richard Cox (Ely), John Jewel (Salisbury), James Pilkington (Durham) and Edwin Sandys (Worcester and London) returned from exile and took episcopal appointments with the objective of completing the Reformation of the English church, drawing both on the inheritance of the Edwardian era and the practice of reformed ministry which they had experienced on the continent.36 The tensions between returned exiles of this stamp and others who had not embraced exile under Mary were also a significant factor in the future evolution of the church. In Scotland too, men returning from sojourns abroad, above all John Knox, played a critical role in the remodelling of ecclesiastical structures on Protestant lines. A key figure in Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland was the returned Wittenberg student, Patrick Hamilton, whom he saw as raised up to liberate the Truth of God in Scotland from “thraldome and bondage”.37 Rather than the purges of whole populations, these exiles, however influential they subsequently proved to be, generally represented the flight of small numbers of a (generally clerical) leadership cadre whose consciences did not allow them to conform to the demands of the official establishment and who entertained realistic fears about their safety if they remained. In Scandinavia the role of migrants and exiles was similarly important, but again, less in terms of a mass movement of population into, much less out of, the region, although exiles from the United Provinces sought to settle in Denmark during the sixteenth century and were not without influence. Specific migrants did, however, play a shaping role in processes of religious change. The importance of Wittenburg-educated figures such as Martin Reinhard, royal chaplain to Christian II, Wolfgang Utenhof, the tutor to Christian III, Peter Palladius, the first Lutheran bishop of Sjælland, Nicholas Stecker, evangelical minister in Stockholm, the Petri brothers, Olaus and Laurentius, and the Finnish biblical translator and bishop, Mikael Agricola, is very evident in a Scandinavian context in the spread of Protestantism.38 Scandinavian Catholics, too, looked abroad to

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religious intellectuals, such as the attempt to bring Johannes Eck and Johannes Cochlaeus to Denmark in 1527 and more successfully in the latter part of the century when the Norwegian Jesuit, Laurentius Nicolai, played a central role in the movement of Catholic renewal in Sweden.39 The central figure in opposition both to Christian III and the movement towards Lutheranism in Norway during the 1530s, Archbishop Olav Engelbrechtsson of Trondheim, was driven into exile by the defeat of Christian II’s adherents where he hoped to engineer a reversal of the new king’s ecclesiastical and political settlements with the assistance of Charles V.40 In similar fashion, returned exiles and foreigners also played significant roles within the clerical leadership of the nascent Lutheran churches. At the core of the evangelical movement of the 1520s and 1530s in Denmark were devout preachers such as Hans Tausen, Frans Formordsen and Jørgen Jensen Sadolin who had attended university in Wittenberg. Peder Palladius, who had studied under Luther, during his twenty-threeyear career as bishop-superintendent of Sjælland became a key figure in Christian III’s remodelling of the Danish church. 41 John Bugenhagen, who served as Luther’s pastor in Wittenberg, came to Denmark for three years in 1637 during which time he ordained seven Evangelical Superintendents in a deliberate turning of the back upon traditions of the apostolic succession of bishops, remoulded the university of Copenhagen as a Lutheran institution, and drew up the Church Ordinance of the Danish church. Niels Hemmingsen, who had spent five years in Wittenberg as a student, emerged in the following decades as the pre-eminent figure in Danish homiletics and pastoral theology and was the probable author of the Confessio et ordinatio ecclesiarum Danicarum in 1561.42 The pervasive influence of German universities also made it inevitable that the religious controversies within German Lutheranism made their presence felt in Denmark. By the 1550s and 1560s a distinct Philippist theological interpretation was becoming evident among Danish theologians and the episcopal bench, the product of close contact between Danish students and Philip Melancthon and his sympathisers at the universities of Wittenberg and Rostock.43 Yet Danish resistance to any modification of the Augsburg Confession proved steadfast and this was probably influenced by the sheer volume of migrants, both merchants and refugees, particularly from the Low Countries, which the kingdom’s position between the Baltic and the North Seas attracted, and the concomitant reluctance of the monarchy to allow religious difference become a disruptive influence. The determination to ban controversy

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because of its potential to disrupt the harmony of the kingdom was seen in 1553 when Jan Laski fled England and, with a band of adherents, sought refuge in Denmark but the group’s right to remain was made conditional on an acceptance of the Augsburg Confession. In the 1570s, this commitment to the Confession was sufficient to undermine even Hemmingsen who was forced to renounce his more Calvinist espousal of Eucharistic theology in 1576 and was then removed from his teaching responsibilities at the university in 1579.44 In Norway too, the role of foreigners and foreign-educated Norwegians was considerable in the initial development of the Lutheran church. The presence of Hanseatic merchants in Bergen developed an initial Lutheran community but otherwise enthusiasm for the Reformation was distinctly limited, as is shown in Henrik von Achen’s chapter elsewhere in this volume. From the 1550s, however, the Norwegian products of Lutheran university training in Wittenberg, Copenhagen, Rostock and elsewhere were promoted as superintendents. Individuals such as Hans Gaas in Trondheim, Frants Berg in Oslo, Jens Skjelderup in Bergen and Jørgen Erikssen in Stavanger provided a cadre of zealous, well-educated and pastorally minded figures at the highest echelon of the church, even if the general parish clergy proved resistant to change. In Iceland too, mobility was a key factor in the introduction of the Reformation. Merchants from Hamburg provided the vector for the initial entrance of Lutheranism and the first pastors were German-trained. The single most important figure in embedding Lutheranism in the island was a student of Hemmingsen, Guðbrandur Porlaksson, who served as bishop of Hólar for over five decades, 1571–1627. Jack P. Cunningham sketches the broader context of the reception of the Reformation in Iceland in his chapter in this volume.45 Migrants thus played a seminal and catalytic role in processes of religious change and organisation in both Britain/Ireland and Scandinavia but their influence was not restricted to theological and ecclesiological debates. Experience of exile and transnational perspectives were also particularly important in underpinning the confessional national narratives and compilations which became such a feature of European culture in the era of cuius regio eius religio. In an Irish context, this is particularly evident in the work of a figure such as Philip O’Sullivan Beare. A secondgeneration exile in Spain, he noted that Irish affairs were largely absent from contemporary ecclesiastical histories because external observers did not have access to a Latin text from which to derive stories of the heroic

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sufferings of Irish Catholics. For O’Sullivan Beare, the commemoration of Irish martyrs, confessors, preachers, soldiers, women and murdered innocents probably served a dual purpose: it allowed him to integrate the notion of an Irish experience as a distinctive and meritorious aspect of European Catholicism and it enabled him to situate his own exile and that of his family within this wider narrative.46 Of importance in this regard was the telescoping nature of the account which preponderantly concentrated on relatively recent history. A certain parallel can be glimpsed between the work of O’Sullivan Beare and John Knox’s The History of the Reformation of Religion Within the Realm of Scotland.47 Knox was an even more direct participant in the events which he wished to chronicle in this text. Written in English rather than the Latin which O’Sullivan Beare had chosen in his desire to communicate directly with a cultivated continental audience, the exilic characteristics of Knox’s work are at first glance less immediately apparent. Certainly, continental Europe figured as a source of both education and refuge. In attempting to locate the evidence of Reformation belief in Scotland, on the first page he chose to recount the story of Paul Craw in 1431, a Bohemian, who had derived a pure conception of the Eucharist from Hus and Wyclif.48 Similarly, Patrick Hamilton, a key figure in the early portion of the text, is noted as having imbibed doctrine in Wittenberg from Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon.49 In detailing his own career, Knox also notes such details as his consultation with Calvin in Geneva prior to his decision to attempt to return to Scotland.50 Yet these relatively scant references are outweighed by an almost crushing accumulation of purely Scottish detail. Arguably, however, it is precisely within this ecclesiastically patriotic concentration on Scottish minutiae that the formative nature of Knox’s exile is most clearly displayed. The hunt for the origins and progress of the Scottish Reformation represented an individuation of the Scottish story within the wider history of the triumph of the Godly through God’s providence. Only through an awareness of the titanic world-wide struggle between the forces of Satan and Christ could the Scottish experience be truly contextualised and understood. In England also, competing conceptions of confessional identity owed much to figures such as John Foxe and Thomas Stapleton for whom exile was a crucial and formative experience. The Acts and Monuments were conceived and organised by a group of exiles in Basel, and Foxe’s awareness of international Protestantism was sharpened by his interest in producing a book of Lutheran martyrs during the bleakest period of his

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exile. Even after the accession of Elizabeth he continued to show interest and seek information about “the sacred history of other nations”.51 Along with John Bale, Foxe was the author whom Stapleton was most concerned to contest. Although he noted, writing from Louvain, that he was not always in a position to compare modern local place names with those preserved in the historical record,52 similar to Knox it was not in his explicit references to his exilic experiences that the Englishman’s perspective was most crucially influenced by his sojourns abroad. Rather, Stapleton’s translation of Bede situated English religious history in both a specifically national and a wider transnational context at one and the same time, simultaneously interweaving the sacred and the secular. In the dedicatory epistle, he noted how Roman emperors had come to cherish and uphold Christianity and “the one imperiall crowne of Christendome being parted into severall realms and dominions, the zeale of eche one in the particular provinces, was no lesse to maintaine the unity of Christes church, then when the whole was under the monarchie of one Empire”, before enumerating the bestowing of such titles as Defender of the Faith, Catholic King and Most Christian King.53 English particularity thus existed within a wider unity. True English religion derived from Rome: The Catholicke faith of all Christdome was first planted in our countrie, & and howe the parted faith of protestants hath corrupted the same, the first difference is cleare herin, that our first Catholicke faith we received of the see of Rome…This heresy hath begonne by first departing from that See. The Apostles of our faith came from Rome, the messangers of these schisms beganne first by scattering from the See Apostlike of Rome.54

He presented the gift of Christian faith in a wider transnational context as accorded to different peoples at different times (“God of his secret and right justice suffering the nations to walke on their ways”)55 where it was preserved by some and tragically lost by others as “alas, al the Southe and almost all the East part of the worlde”.56 His desire was to prevent England from traversing this dark path: We Englishmen also these many hundred yeres, kept and preserved sound and whole the precious perle of right faith and beleefe, as longe as we remained stedfast in the faith first plaunted and grafted among us…But after we beganne to alter and…forsook the first pattern of the Christian faith delivered unto us, we have fallen into plenty of heresies, from one

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heresy to an other, from Lutheran to Sacramentary, and so forth, we stande also in danger to fall (as other countries have done before us) from a false faith, to no faith, from heresy to paganisme.57

For an exile of this stamp, the true meaning of English affairs was thus rooted in a consciousness of the world outside England’s borders. The fraught and contested nature of the Irish and British Reformations undoubtedly contributed to the urgency with which figures such as these strove to articulate notions of identity. In Scandinavia, the clearest parallel with developments of this sort was arguably in Sweden where the exiled Magnus brothers, Johannes and Olaus, successive archbishops of Upsala, sought to meld history and national identity into an appeal for Catholic assistance and aid, recasting the influential medieval narrative of Saxo for a post-Reformation confessional purpose.58 Due to its pronounced antiDanish sentiments, the literary production of the Magnus brothers was unlikely to evoke sympathy across the Sound. On the contrary, both in its confessional and fierce anti-Swedish orientation, Hans Svaning’s now substantially lost History of Denmark seems to have been inspired as a direct contrast to the work of Johannes Magnus. Again, the exilic dimension of this work appears to have been significant. Befitting a former student in Wittenberg, Svaning seems to have situated the national narrative of Denmark within a Melancthonian framework of universal history, marked by the animating power of divine justice and by the passage first from paganism to Christianity, then to corrupted Catholicism, and finally to the restoration of true faith in Lutheranism. The historiographical objective of his aspiring successor, Anders Sørenson Vedel, appears to have been identical in this regard, identifying the history of Danish Christianity, in which the triumph of Lutheranism represented the culmination of the restoration of true faith, as the most important element of his planned although uncompleted work.59 Subsequently, the remarkable success of the Reformation and the relative absence of an articulate Catholic counter vision may have allowed for more implicit associations between Lutheranism and Danish–Norwegian identity to take shape gradually, although it is notable that the two major attempts in the seventeenth century to construct a prestigious Latin narrative of the Danish monarchy were entrusted to migrants in the persons of Johannes Pontanus and Johannes Meursius.60

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Beneath the superstratum of religious leaders and theorists, whose careers were moulded and shaped in a great variety of ways by the opportunities, problems and privations which they encountered as a result of their exposure to new intellectual and political environments, was a much larger group of professional clerical migrants who travelled largely for the purpose of education. In Denmark and Norway, the initial pathway to evangelical reform was undoubtedly paved by the almost 1700 Scandinavian students who matriculated at European universities in the period 1451–1535, and it seems clear that the subsequent decline of Catholicism throughout the four Scandinavian domains was affected by the attrition of contact with Catholic universities in the course of the sixteenth century.61 Conversely, both English and Irish Catholicism developed vibrant networks of colleges, which meant that a very large proportion of the priesthood received training on the continent prior to returning to pastoral service in their native countries. Across the continent, this pronounced international dimension marked off the Catholicism of those areas of Europe under the jurisdiction of Protestant states from the territories of Catholic powers62 but it might be suggested that the division between internal and international migrancy in this context should be conceptualised as a spectrum rather than a clear division. All over Europe, the increased emphasis on clerical education in the wake of the Reformation resulted in a heightened mobility which necessarily changed dimensions of the clerical role, and increased their saliency as agents of change and instruction. Nevertheless, in the case of Ireland at least, it is clear that the location of institutions for clerical training on the continent accentuated the role of these clerical migrants as mediators between their native and host cultures.

Conclusion Confessional migrancy was an inescapable aspect of the religious changes which engulfed Europe in the early modern period. Focusing on this dimension possibly offers an alternative lens to what can act as a somewhat static paradigm of confessionalisation in national and sub-national units, and the attempt to consider migrancy on a series of levels can offer a corrective to an over-emphasis on the notion of refugee experience, particularly as exemplified by the narratives of the victims of religious persecution. Neither Scandinavia nor Britain/Ireland can be considered as central regions of religious expulsion during the early modern period,

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but it is evident that confessional mobility was still a crucial shaping factor in the religious evolution of both areas.

Notes 1. Nicholas Terpstra, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 2. See in particular ibid., 72–132. 3. Jesse Spohnholz and Gary Waite, “Introduction,” in Exile and Religious Identity, 1500–1800, eds. Jesse Spohnholz and Gary Waite, 1–7 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014), 2; Benjamin Kedar, “Expulsion as an Issue in World History,” Journal of World History 7 (1996): 179–80, argues that in Europe expulsion reached an institutionalized mode of action without genuine parallels in the rest of the world. 4. Spohnholz and Waite, “Introduction,” 2. 5. Geert Janssen, “The Republic of the Refugees: Early Modern Migrations and the Dutch Experience,” The Historical Journal 60 (2017): 233–52. 6. Lien Bich Luu, “Migration and Change: Religious Refugees and the London Economy, 1550–1600,” Critical Survey 8 (1996): 93. 7. Indeed, a degree of competition manifested itself in terms of refugee relief between England and the United Provinces: John M. Hintermaier, “The First Modern Refugees: Charity, Entitlement and Persuasion in the Huguenot Immigration of the 1680s,” Albion 32 (2000): 429–49. 8. Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, “Guerre de Religion ou Guerre Ethnique? les conflits religieux en Irlande 1500 1650,” Revue historique 649 (2009): 65–97. 9. Nicholas Sander to “the right honorable and Catholike Lords and Worshipfull Gentilmen of Ireland,” 21 February 1581: Original Letters Illustrative of English History, including numerous royal letters: from autographs in the British Museum and one or two other collections ed. Henry Ellis. 4-vol. ed. (London: Harding and Lepard, 1827), 3: 94–7. 10. Ciaran O’Scea, Surviving Kinsale: Irish Emigration and Identity Formation in Early Modern Spain, 1601–40 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 41–6. 11. Mercedes García-Arenal, “Religious Dissent and Minorities: The Morisco Age,” The Journal of Modern History 81 (2009): 888–920. 12. Benjamin Ehlers, Between Christians and Moriscos: Juan de Ribera and Religious Reform in Valencia, 1568–1614 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006). 13. Brian Mac Cuarta, Catholic Revival in the North of Ireland 1603–41 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007).

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14. Deposition of Edward Deane, 7 January 1643, 1641.tcd.i.e./deposition. php?depID?=811040r019 (accessed 14 May 2018). 15. Commentarius Rinuccianus, de Sedis Apostolicae Legatione ad Foederatos Hiberniae Catholicos per Annos 1645–9, ed. Stanislaus Kavanagh. 6-vol. ed. (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1932–49), 1: 311. 16. See for example the deposition of Thomas Muncke, 27 June 1642, 1641.tcd.i.e./deposition.php?depID?=820048r037 (accessed 15 February 2018); Deposition of Elizabeth Hooper, 1 February 1643 1641.tcd.i.e./ deposition.php?depID?=820050r038 (accessed 15 February 2018). 17. Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 545. 18. T. C. Barnard, “The Uses of the 23 October 1641 and Irish Protestant Celebrations,” English Historical Review 106 (1991): 889–920. 19. John Temple, The Irish Rebellion: or, An History of the first beginnings and progresse of the Generall Rebellion raised within the Kingdom of Ireland, upon the three and twentieth day of October, in the year, 1641. Together with the Barbarous Cruelties and Bloody Massacres which ensued thereupon (London: R. White for Samuel Gellibrand, 1646), 66. 20. Raymond Hylton, Ireland’s Huguenots and their Refuge, 1662–1745: An Unlikely Refuge (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005). 21. Suzanne Lachenicht, “Huguenot Immigrants and the Formation of National Identities, 1548–1787,” Historical Journal 50 (2007): 316. 22. Henry Kamen, “The Mediterranean and the Expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492,” Past & Present 119 (1988): 43–4. 23. Jesse Spohnholz, The Tactics of Toleration: A Refugee Community in the Age of Religious Wars (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2011). 24. O’Scea, Surviving Kinsale, 110. 25. Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic Europe 1592–1648: Centre and Peripheries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 89. 26. Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, “Plantation 1580–1641,” in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History, ed. Alvin Jackson, 294–315 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 308–9. 27. David Edwards, “A Haven of Popery: English Catholic Migration to Ireland in the Age of Plantations,” in The Origins of Sectarianism in Early Modern Ireland, eds. Alan Ford and John McCafferty, 95–126 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 28. William Lyon, Bishop of Cork and Ross, to Lord Hunsdon (1596), The National Archives, London, SP/63/182/47. 29. Antal Molnár, Katolikus Missziók a Hódolt Magyarországon I (1572–1647) (Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2002), 101–6. 30. Robert Armstrong, “The Irish Alternative: Scottish and English Presbyterianism in Ireland,” in Insular Christianity: Alternative models of the Church in Britain and Ireland, c. 1570–c.1700, eds. Robert Armstrong

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33.

34.

35.

36.

37. 38.

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and Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, 207–30 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 110. Christopher Smout, “The Culture of Migration: Scots as Europeans 1500–1800,” History Workshop Journal (1995): 108–17; R. A. Stradling, The Spanish Monarchy and the Irish Mercenaries: The Wild Geese in Spain 1618–68 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994); Pierre Gouhier, “Mercenaires Irlandais au Service de la France (1635–1664),” Irish Sword 7 (1965–6): 58–75. Éamon Ó Ciosáin, “Regrouping in Exile: Irish Communities in Western France in the Seventeenth Century,” in Community in Early Modern Ireland, eds. Robert Armstrong and Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006), 133–53; Waldemar Kowalski, “Scoti, Cives Cracovienses: Their Ethnic and Social Identity, 1570–1660,” in British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, 160–1688, ed. David Worthington, 67–86 (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Smout, “Culture of Migration,” 110. Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Putting the English Reformation on the Map The Prothero Lecture,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 15 (2005): 75–95. Henry Jefferies, “Primate George Dowdall and the Marian Restoration,” Seanchas Ardmhacha: The Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society 17 (1998): 1–18; Eamon Duffy, Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (New Haven, NY: Yale University Press, 2009). Stefania Tutino, Law and Conscience: Catholicism in Early Modern England, 1570–1625 (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007); Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic Europe, 158. Scott A. Wenig, “The Ecclesiastical Vision of the Reformed Bishops under Elizabeth I 1559–1570,” Anglican and Episcopal History 70 (2001): 270– 301; Devorah Greenberg, “Community of the Texts: Producing the First and Second Editions of ‘Acts and Monuments’,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 36 (2005): 695–715. John Knox, The History of the Reformation of Religion Within the Realm of Scotland (London: T. Vautrollier, 1587), 19. M. Schwarz Lausten, “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway,” in The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalization of Reform, ed. Ole Peter Grell, 12–41 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 17, 40; E. I. Kouri, “The Early Reformation in Sweden and Finland, c. 1520–1560,” in The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalization of Reform, ed. Ole Peter Grell, 42–69 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 45; see also the chapter by Morten Fink-Jensen in this volume. Ole Peter Grell, “The Catholic Church and Its Leadership,” in The Scandinavian Reformation, ed. Grell, 70–113, at 82–3.

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40. Paul Douglas Lockhart, Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 44. 41. Ibid., 64; the king himself had become enthused for Lutheran theology by his presence at the Diet of Worms: Trygve R. Skarsten, “The Reception of the Augsburg Confession in Scandinavia,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 11 (1980): 95. 42. Ibid., 95–6. 43. Lockhart, Denmark, 1513–1660, 69. 44. Skarsten, “Reception of the Augsburg Confession,” 97. 45. Lockhart, Denmark, 1513–1660, 72–6. 46. Philip O’Sullivan Beare, Historiae Catholicae Iberniae Compendium Domino Philippo Austriaco, Hispaniarum, Indiarum, Aliorum Regnorum Atque Multarum Ditionum Regi Catholico Monarchaeque Potentissimo Dicatum ed. Matthew Kelly (Dublin: John O’Daly, 1850), 3–4. 47. Knox, History of the Reformation of Religion. 48. Ibid., 1. 49. Ibid., 19. 50. Ibid., 212. 51. Quoted in Greenberg, “Community of the Texts,” 703. 52. Bede, The Historie of the Church of England Compiled by Venerable Bede Englishman: Translated out of Latin, into English, by Thomas Stapleton Doctor in Divinitie, ed. Thomas Stapleton (St Omer: John Heigham, 1622), 63 53. Ibid., 21–2. 54. Ibid., 35. 55. Ibid., 38. 56. Ibid., 39. 57. Ibid., 40–1. 58. Johannes Magnus, Historia Joannis Magni Gothi Sedis Apostolicae Legati Suetiae et Gotiae primatis ac Archiepiscopi Upsalensis de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque Regibus qui unquam ab initio nationis extitere, eorumque memorabilibus bellis (Rome, 1554); Olaus Magnus, Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus authore Olao Magno Gotho, Archiepiscopo Upsalensi, Suetiae et Gothiae primate (Antwerp: Christopher Paulinus, 1558); Barbara Sjoholm, “‘Things to Be Marveled at Rather than Examined’: Olaus Magnus and ‘A Description of the Northern Peoples’,” The Antioch Review 62 (2004): 245–54; Julie Maxwell, “CounterReformation Versions of Saxo: A New Source for ‘Hamlet?’” Renaissance Quarterly 57 (2004): 525. 59. Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian IV (1588–1648): Studies in the Latin Histories of Denmark by Johannes Pontanus and Johannes Meursius (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002), 93–108.

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60. Ibid.; Johannes Pontanus, Rerum Danicarum Historia Libris X Unoque Tomo ad Domum usque Oldenburgicam deducta, Authore Joh. Isacio Pontano Regio historiographo. Accedit Chorographo Regni Daniae trastusque, universi borealis urbiumque, descriptio eodem authore. Cum Indicibus locupletissimis (Amsterdam: Johannes Ianssonus, 1631); Johannes Meursius, Ioannis Meursi Historica; Danica pariter et Belgica: uno Tomo comprehensa: Quorum seriem pagina post prefationem ad Lectorem indicabit Operum Omnium Tomus primus (Amsterdam: Guilielmus and Joannes Blaev, 1638). 61. Schwarz Lausten, “Early Reformation,” 16. 62. Ó hAnnracháin, Catholic Europe, 29–74.

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Hylton, Raymond. Ireland’s Huguenots and Their Refuge, 1662–1745: An Unlikely Refuge. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005. Hintermaier, John M. “The First Modern Refugees: Charity, Entitlement and Persuasion in the Huguenot Immigration of the 1680s.” Albion 32 (2000): 429–49. Janssen, Geert. “The Republic of the Refugees: Early Modern Migrations and the Dutch Experience.” The Historical Journal 60 (2017): 233–52. Jefferies, Henry. “Primate George Dowdall and the Marian Restoration.” Seanchas Ardmhacha: The Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society 17 (1998): 1–18. Kamen, Henry. “The Mediterranean and the Expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492.” Past & Present 119 (1988): 30–55. Kedar, Benjamin. “Expulsion as an Issue in World History.” Journal of World History 7 (1996): 179–80. Kouri, E. I. “The Early Reformation in Sweden and Finland, c. 1520–1560.” In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalization of Reform, edited by Ole Peter Grell, 42–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Kowalski, Waldemar. “Scoti, Cives Cracovienses: Their Ethnic and Social Identity, 1570–1660.” In British and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, 1603–1688, edited by David Worthington, 67–86. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Lachenicht, Suzanne. “Huguenot Immigrants and the Formation of National Identities, 1548–1787.” Historical Journal 50 (2007): 309–31. Lockhart, Paul Douglas. Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Mac Cuarta, Brian. Catholic Revival in the North of Ireland 1603–41. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. “Putting the English Reformation on the Map: The Prothero Lecture.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 15 (2005): 75–95. Maxwell, Julie. “Counter-Reformation Versions of Saxo: A New Source for ‘Hamlet?’” Renaissance Quarterly 57 (2004): 518–60. Molnár, Antal. Katolikus Missziók a Hódolt Magyarországon I (1572–1647). Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2002. Ó Ciosáin, Éamon. “Regrouping in Exile: Irish communities in Western France in the Seventeenth Century.” In Community in Early Modern Ireland, edited by Robert Armstrong and Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, 133–53. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006. Ó hAnnracháin, Tadhg. “Guerre de Religion ou Guerre Ethnique? les conflits religieux en Irlande 1500 1650.” Revue Historique 649 (2009): 65–97.

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Ó hAnnracháin, Tadhg. “Plantation 1580–1641.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History, edited by Alvin Jackson, 294–15. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Ó hAnnracháin, Tadhg. Catholic Europe, 1592–1648: Centre and Peripheries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. O’Scea, Ciaran. Surviving Kinsale: Irish Emigration and Identity Formation in Early Modern Spain, 1601–40. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015. Sjoholm, Barbara. “‘Things to Be Marveled at Rather than Examined’: Olaus Magnus and ‘A Description of the Northern Peoples’.” The Antioch Review 62 (2004): 245–54. Skarsten, Trygve R. “The Reception of the Augsburg Confession in Scandinavia.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 11 (1980): 86–98. Skovgaard-Petersen, Karen. Historiography at the Court of Christian IV (1588– 1648): Studies in the Latin Histories of Denmark by Johannes Pontanus and Johannes Meursius. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002. Smout, Christopher. “The Culture of Migration: Scots as Europeans 1500– 1800.” History Workshop Journal (1995): 108–117. Spohnholz, Jesse. The Tactics of Toleration: A Refugee Community in the Age of Religious Wars. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2011. Spohnholz, Jesse and Gary Waite. “Introduction.” In Exile and Religious Identity, 1500–1800, edited by Jesse Spohnholz and Gary Waite, 1–7. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014. Spohnholz, Jesse and Gary Waite (eds.). Exile and Religious Identity, 1500–1800. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014. Stradling, R. A. The Spanish Monarchy and the Irish Mercenaries: The Wild Geese in Spain 1618–68. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994. Schwarz Lausten, M. “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway.” In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalization of Reform, edited by Ole Peter Grell, 12–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Terpstra, Nicholas. Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Tutino, Stefania. Law and Conscience: Catholicism in Early Modern England, 1570–1625. Ashgate: Aldershot, 2007. Wenig, Scott A. “The Ecclesiastical Vision of the Reformed Bishops Under Elizabeth I 1559–1570.” Anglican and Episcopal History 70 (2001): 270–01.

Online Source 1641 Depositions, Trinity College Library, Dublin, 1641.tcd.ie.

CHAPTER 7

Exiles and Activists: A Comparison of the Counter-Reformation in Wales and Norway James January-McCann

At first glance, the situations of Wales and Norway during the sixteenth century appear rather similar. The two countries were both comparatively poor, and located on the periphery of larger kingdoms, respectively England and Denmark, in which political, cultural and religious power was centralised in the capital city. By the time of the Reformation, the native languages of the two countries had lost their official status, and had been replaced by the imperial languages, English and Danish, as the languages of law and government.1 These had also become the languages of religion, as the Reformation had displaced the Latin Mass, and imposed a reformed English or Danish language service on every parish in the realm. The first official translations of the Bible were in place by 1539 in the case of the English “Great Bible”, and by 1550 in the case of Danish, although various unauthorised translations had existed previously in both.

J. January-McCann (B) Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_7

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However, it was not until William Salisbury2 translated the New Testament in 1567, and William Morgan3 completed the work in 1588 that the whole of the Bible became available in Welsh.4 There was no complete Norwegian translation until 1930. Both countries also, at least partly because of their remoteness from their respective centres of government, remained comparatively conservative in religious terms during the second half of the sixteenth century. There was no great welcome for the new religion across large parts of Wales,5 nor in Norway, as is demonstrated in several chapters in this volume.6 However, one should not overstate the similarities between Wales and Norway in every case. Linguistically speaking, for instance, the two countries were in very different situations during this period. In Wales, although the vast majority of the population were monoglot Welsh speakers, the gentry had begun to anglicise, and bilingualism was relatively common in the Marches and in some of the market towns.7 It hardly needs to be stated that Welsh is a very different language to English, whereas the Scandinavian languages are fairly similar to each other today, and were more so during the early modern period. In addition to this, Norway and Denmark were united in 1397,8 far earlier than the Welsh Act of Union in 1536, and as a result of this, the upper classes were all familiar with Danish.9 Norway was also commercially tied into the Hanseatic League, and this, combined with the tendency amongst the Scandinavian gentry to send their sons to Germany for their education, meant that most Norwegians of the status of a craftsman or higher had, at least, some German. These languages also exist as part of a continuum, which Kurt Braunmüller suggests may well have made communication between speakers of Norwegian and Middle Low German relatively simple.10 Studying the Counter-Reformation comparatively in Wales and Norway can therefore help to understand the efforts of the Welsh Catholics better, and lead to a greater understanding of why the CounterReformation proved as successful in Wales as it did. This will hopefully serve to expand the relative lack of a historiography of Catholic Wales in this period.

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The Change of Religion Lutheranism first began to be preached in Denmark in the early 1520s,11 by alumni of Wittenberg who had returned home to share their new religion.12 The Catholic bishops were expelled from Denmark and Norway by order of King Christian III, and an official Lutheran church established in Denmark in 1536,13 the same year as it was proclaimed that Norway was a province in the kingdom of Denmark rather than a separate kingdom under the same crown, as had previously been the case.14 The new church order was extended to Norway the following year, in the face of ferocious opposition from the majority of the country’s senior clergy. Christian III’s intent was for Lutheran episcopal supervisors to replace the Catholic bishops, but this only occurred gradually in Norway.15 Even then, none of the first of these supervisors was Lutheran in truth,16 and, as such, the majority of rural priests continued to celebrate Mass without impediment,17 particularly in the north of the country.18 Indeed, the majority of parish priests during the 1530s, 40s and 50s were Catholic priests who had taken an oath to observe the new ecclesiastical order, and full liturgical conformity was not demanded until January 1568, when Frederik II ruled that ignorance of the new service would no longer be an excuse for retaining the Mass.19 The last Catholic bishop was not driven out of Norway until 1537,20 and because of the Norwegians’ loyalty to the old faith, Christian III was forced to reconquer Norway, and to face several Catholic rebellions.21 A comparatively higher number of Lutheran clerics were murdered during these uprisings, a fact which is rather suggestive of people’s feelings about the new religion. A sense of how superficial the commitment of a large part of the population of Denmark–Norway to Protestantism was can be gained from the suggestion by Oskar Garstein that the majority of the population attended the new service without complaining, but also without really understanding the religious changes, apart from the obvious point that the liturgical language was now Danish, rather than Latin.22 It has also been suggested that certain Catholic practices, such as veneration of the saints, of images, and of relics, survived into the seventeenth century in remote parts of Scandinavia, as discussed in Henrik von Achen’s chapter elsewhere in this volume.23 The same thing was true in England and Wales, as can be seen from the contemporary tendency to date the start of the Reformation from the founding in England of a Calvinesque church, rather

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than from Henry VIII’s break with the Pope in 1532.24 The Norwegian Reformation was a Reformation from above. This was true of Wales, and indeed of the majority of England as well,25 although it must perforce be admitted that some of the most famous Welshmen of the period, such as William Morgan, William Salisbury and Richard Davies,26 had begun working as early as possible to convert their fellow countrymen to Protestantism. Despite their best efforts however, some priests continued to follow Catholic practice in elevating the Host whilst saying the new service,27 and traditional altars were still to be found in some places in Wales into the 1570s.28 Of course, incorporating pseudo-Catholic practices into the new service or failing to follow a royal command to destroy the altar in your church is far removed from participating in an armed rebellion, and I think it is fair to conclude that although the majority of Welsh people were not overfond of the new religion, they were happy enough to attend the parish churches and wait for the official religion of the realm to be changed once again. After all, the constant religious to-ing and fro-ing of Henry VIII’s reign, and the shortness of the reigns of Edward VI and Mary had done little to convince anyone that there would be no opportunity to return the Church of England to papal obedience during Elizabeth’s reign.29 Although the majority of the Welsh were not yet convinced Protestants, they were much more prepared to accept the new religion than were the Norwegians.30

The Influence of the Seminaries The great humanist Desiderius Erasmus complained in 1528 that “learning declines wherever Luther’s ideas are followed”,31 and this was particularly true in Scandinavia, although a decline in applications to university was experienced throughout Lutheran Europe.32 England and Wales were no different, due to the flight to the continent of around a hundred Oxbridge academics, who went on to establish themselves at Douai in the Netherlands, rather than conform to the Elizabethan Church of England.33 One of the most well-known canons of the council of Trent is that which provided for the foundation of seminaries across Europe to train a new, educated, Counter-Reformation priesthood, which would be able to effectively argue Catholicism’s case against Protestant preachers, as well as to provide the Sacraments. The first of these was established in Douai

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by the English and Welsh exiles in 1568.34 Considering Wales’ small population, a high number of Welshmen crossed to the continent to join Douai College, and the other later-founded colleges, over the course of the following hundred years. Thirty-five Welsh students were sent on the Mission from Douai between 1576 and 1603, and the names of another twelve are found in the register of the college at Valladolid in Spain for the first decade of its existence.35 A further eleven were students in the Seminarum Britannicum, later to become the Venerable English College, Rome, during Morys Clynnog’s36 period as Custos.37 The same effort to send young men over the sea to train as priests, in order that they should return and replant the old faith where it had withered, took place in Norway as well during this period. The Norwegians tended to attend the Jesuit colleges in Germany, such as Braunsberg, or Olomouc in Moravia. Thirty-five Norwegians studied under the Jesuits between 1533 and 1622, ten of them at Olomouc,38 and the majority of the rest at Braunsberg.39 It is interesting to note that no Norwegian ever attended the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, which was established specifically for Scandinavian and German students.40 The fact that the papacy grouped Germans and Scandinavians together may well be indicative of the extent to which German was understood and used by the Scandinavian upper and middle classes during this period.

The Influence of the Hierarchy As well as the aforementioned academics, some of the two countries’ senior clergy had fled to Catholic countries as well, and as might be expected, the Welsh clergy in exile became important figures in the campaign to reclaim Wales for the Catholic Church. The most famous amongst them were Morys Clynnog, bishop-elect of Bangor, Gruffydd Robert, Archdeacon of Anglesey, Thomas Goldwell, bishop of St Asaph and Owain Lewys, a lecturer in Law at Oxford, who would later become archdeacon of Cambrai and bishop of Cassano.41 Of the five Norwegian bishops, three died soon after their expulsion, and two conformed to the new settlement, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. By contrast with their Welsh counterparts, there was no opportunity for them to offer leadership or support to a Counter-Reformation mission.42 In his articles in Y Traddodiad Rhyddiaith, the late Geraint Bowen, the first scholar to study the work of the Welsh Counter-Reformationists in any depth,43 divided the Catholic writers into two schools. He called

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the aforementioned “the Milan School”,44 most likely on account of the close relationship between Gruffydd Robert and St. Charles Borromeo, the city’s archbishop, and one of the Counter-Reformation’s most prominent and able humanists.45 It is no surprise therefore, that humanism and Latin literature had such a large influence on their work. Gruffydd Robert believed that Welsh literature was at a loss because of the lack of Welsh translations of the work of the Classical authors, and because, in his opinion, Welsh lacked the vocabulary necessary to properly discuss Renaissance learning.46 It was necessary therefore, to enrich the Welsh language and elevate it to the status of a language of learning, as was done with the other European vernaculars during the sixteenth century. He therefore set out to construct a grammar of the language, written in the form of a dialogue, following the Classical style of authors like Plato. The first part of this work was published in 1567.47 Appended to the grammar is a “metrical catechism”,48 to quote Paul Bryant-Quinn, which includes the Creed, the Ave Maria, the Ten Commandments, the Seven Sacraments and the Beatitudes. It seems likely that the purpose of the grammar was to teach the youth of Wales to sing religious songs, in a Catholic answer to the Protestant tradition of psalm-singing.49 The grammar also places strong emphasis on educating those who wished to speak the language, presumably the missionary priests who would be required to preach in Welsh. Its publication would certainly have allowed the Welsh exiles to discuss theology and Catholic doctrine with sufficient fluency and rhetorical sophistication to argue effectively against the Protestant books.50 The influence of Robert’s grammar on Morys Clynnog’s book, the Athravaeth Gristnogawl (Christian Teaching), published in 1568, is clear to be seen. The Athravaeth is a translation of a catechism attributed to Diego de Ledesma S. J., called Doctrina Christiana,51 which tells us that Clynnog and Robert were aware of the Jesuits’ catechetical work, which was fast winning them notoriety across Europe.52 The Athravaeth was printed in Milan, using Roberts’ orthography, and it is possible that he was the editor. We know that copies succeeded in reaching Wales, as Lewis Evans of Gwent53 referred to it in 1571 as “a small trifling treatise, written by one Clennock at Rome”.54 The 1559 Act of Uniformity ordered everyone in England and Wales to attend their parish church and the reformed service performed there, but Catholics did not begin recusing themselves from the parish services until 1568,55 the year that the Athravaeth was published, so it is possible

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that the book was intended to be read whilst sitting in church, as a means to avoid listening to the Protestant sermon.56 Clynnog was appointed head of the English Hospital in Rome in 1579, when it was transformed into a seminary. He attempted to turn it into a Seminarium Britannicum, in order to provide Wales with a new, educated, Welsh-speaking clergy,57 but this proved less than popular with the College’s English students, who were in the majority. They accused Clynnog of favouring the Welsh over them, particularly his nephew, Morgan Clynnog, as can be seen from the opinion of Ralph Sherwin, the College’s first martyr on the matter: this maketh many of us to wish ourselves Welshmen, because we woulde gladly have so good provision as they, & being countrymen to our Custos, we should all be used a like: excepting Maister Doctors Nephew Morganus Clenokus, he must be in silke, though all the rest goe in a sacke.58

The end result of this disagreement was that the Pope removed Clynnog from office and transferred the College to Jesuit control. A loss of confidence amongst the Welsh, and a decline in the numbers studying for the priesthood followed.59 Although we unfortunately cannot be certain that Owen Lewis wrote any Counter-Reformation texts himself, he attempted to publish at least three. These were intended to be published in Milan under the editorship of Gruffydd Robert. In a letter written in 1579, asking Cardinal Sirleto for financial support to publish Welsh language Catholic books, Lewis mentions the titles of three such texts which had already been prepared for the press.60 Although the books themselves do not survive, their titles, Ynghylch yr Eglwys a Goruchafiaeth y Pab (Concerning the Church and the Papal Supremacy), Ynghylch y Sagrafen a’r Ewcharist (Concerning the Scarament and the Eucharist) and Catecism y Tad Canisiws (Fr Canisius’ Catechism), are clear evidence that they were intended to be sent back to Wales as part of the mission. Goldwell, the last of the four, was present at the Council of Trent, one of two representatives from England (and Wales), the other being Cardinal Pole.61 The Milan school of authors were united by two things, the first being their belonging to a Europe-wide network of influences, and the second that none of them ever returned to Wales. Their influence on the Welsh mission cannot be understated, however. The leadership and scholarly ability they provided were crucial in establishing a strong Welsh presence in the continental seminaries and in providing texts to

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be sent back home in aid of the mission. If Wales was to be successfully re-Catholicised, the work could only be done in Welsh, and the Welsh Church was fortunate that its leadership at such a crucial time, being composed of scholars of national repute, possessed the necessary talents and ability to provide the mission with the scholarly and linguistic tools to proceed.

Missionary Writers The second school of Catholic authors was that of Douai, thus named because the most prominent of them, Robert Gwyn of Penyberth, received his priestly formation there. Gwyn was born c.1545, and joined Douai College in 1571,62 under the influence of Fr. Robert Owen of Plas Du.63 He returned to his native Caernarvonshire five years later, the first Welshman sent on the mission from Douai.64 Cardinal William Allen, head of the College encouraged his students to correspond with their relatives at home, in order to keep them Catholic, or reconcile them to the Church if they had conformed.65 Once printed and distributed more widely, these letters became a useful weapon in the Catholic propaganda campaign. We know that Gwyn complied with Allen’s wishes, and wrote at least three such letters whilst studying at Douai. The earliest two do not survive, but from references to them in the third,66 we can refer to them as Gwrthe’r Gwyr Newydd (The New Mens’ Miracles),67 and Fod Eglwys Grist yn un Corff (That Christ’s Church is one Body). He wrote his third text, Na all fod un ffydd onyd yr Hen Ffydd in 1574, and it is possible that it was sent home to Wales with the first missionaries to leave Douai that year.68 After some four years on the mission on the Llˆyn peninsula and in the diocese of St. Asaph, Gwyn travelled to Rome, and whilst staying there composed Gwssanaeth y Gwˆyr Newydd (The New Mens’ Service), which discusses the necessity for Catholics to embrace recusancy. It is possible that he consulted Robert Persons SJ about the work, as the two of them were in Rome at the same time, writing similar books.69 They were in each other’s company once again in London later in the year, at the meeting in Uxbridge at which it was decided to establish secret presses to print Catholic books in England, rather than having to smuggle them in from the continent.70 The first part of Gwyn’s next book, Y Drych Kristnogawl (The Christian Mirror), was printed on one such press in a cave at Rhiwledyn, outside Llandudno, and as such was the first book ever printed in Wales.71 Whilst working in the South-East in the 1580s, Gwyn

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wrote another text, Coelio’r Saint (Believing the Saints), a response to the Welsh translation of John Jewel’s Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicorum by Morys Kyffin.72 During this time he also translated Francesco Toledo’s Summa Casuum Conscientiae, and Persons’ Manuall of Resolution. Gwyn died sometime between 1591 and 1594, but the details of his death are unknown. As can be seen from his literary canon, Gwyn’s writing was of a purely missionary character. The concern for richness of expression and literary style so archetypal of the Milan school is conspicuous by its absence, as is any attempt to translate Greek and Latin theological terminology into Welsh. The style is highly demotic and informal, as well as being rather homiletic, and his texts are full of English words and turns of phrase. Gwyn was acutely aware of the deficiencies in his written Welsh: Pwy bynnag a ddarlleno hyn o sgrifen pardyned er dolwg y bie y nyr ysgrifen yma, ag na Ryfedded fod kimint o feie, am na welais lyfyr Kymraeg eres dalm, ag ny does geni chwaith un cydymaith y siarad, a hefyd ny chefais onyd vn mis o seibiant y sgrifeny hyn y gid.73

And he seems to have felt somewhat inferior to Clynnog and Robert, since he refers to them as “excellently learned and sensible antiquarians”,74 and states that they could … yn well o lawer gymeryd y matter yma arnyn, pei bai raid, ag heb law y dysgeidieth, am y bod yn gyfarwydd ddigon yn yr iaith Gymraeg y ddangos y meddwl yn heleth ag yn berffaith.75

However, this sense of inferiority did little to prevent him stating bluntly that he considered the Athravaeth Gristnogol unsuited to the nature of the mission, and that he himself knew better than Clynnog and Robert just what sort of books were needed, since he had been living in Wales until recently, whereas the other two were in long term exile and had lost touch with conditions at home.76 As we should perhaps expect of someone trained in as English an environment as Douai College, Gwyn was very much under the influence of contemporary English writers, particularly two of the faculty, Thomas Stapleton and Richard Bristow. Such was the influence of their work on Na all Fod un Ffydd onyd yr Hen Ffydd, for example, that Gwyn went so far as to recycle their arguments and means of constructing them,

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and even to copy large parts of their books into his own work.77 This is entirely opposite to Morys Clynnog’s well-publicised dislike and mistrust of the English.78 Someone who shared Gwyn’s anglophilia was the Norwegian Jesuit Laurids Nilson, or Laurentius Norvegus as he is usually referred to. He was born c.1540 in Tønsberg, an area which rebelled against Lutheranism when Norvegus was around fifteen.79 He became a Catholic in 1559 and joined the Society of Jesus in 1564. He was teaching theology in Louvain in 1566 and studied under Stapleton. He visited Douai in 15712, presumably in order to follow Stapleton, and may possibly have met Gwyn whilst the latter was a student there. He was certainly in contact with many prominent Englishmen on the continent. Norvegus was later appointed to a congregation established by Clement VIII to re-establish Catholicism in northern Europe in 1600 and spent the rest of his life as a missionary in Norway and the Swedish Empire. The importance that he too placed upon writing as a missionary device can be seen from the letter he wrote to Cardinal Bellarmine claiming that conversion “by the printed book and the letter was a surer and more suitable way of converting souls than military conquest”.80 He followed his own counsel, and became a prolific author in Latin, Swedish and Danish. He was rebuked in 1595 for preparing a number of books attacking Swedish Protestantism for publication,81 and in 1598 he wrote a detailed criticism of the 1593 Synod of Uppsala, where it was decided that Lutheranism would be the sole permitted religion in Sweden. On the twenty-second of July 1600 he suggested to the congregation that the Norwegian mission’s priority should be to focus on distributing Catholic texts in Latin and Danish, and persuading more students to join the seminaries.82 He placed the same emphasis on the written word whilst in Sweden as well,83 and as such composed a Latin Confessio for the Scandinavian countries in 1604, and translated it into Danish the following year.84 The work was presented in a catechetical style, and its main thrust was to discuss the basic doctrinal differences between Lutheranism and Catholicism. Norvegus seems to have been quite successful in distributing it amongst the learned and the lay alike. He also attempted to translate the Vulgate into Danish, but this proved unpopular, due to his penchant for strange spellings and archaic phraseology, which made the text unsuitable for those other than scholars who shared his linguistic theories. He also left large portions of the text out.85 As well as this, his Propositiones

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Catholicae adversus omnes huius temporis sectarios was published in 1606, with a Danish translation emerging two years later.86 The reader will doubtless have noticed that all of Norvegus’s translations were into Danish, rather than Norwegian. As mentioned previously, educated Norwegians of this period were all familiar with Danish, and could read the language, as it had been the language of administration for more than a century by this point. It would therefore have been possible to circulate the texts in Denmark as well as in Norway, without having to have them re-translated.87 This is an important difference between Norway and Wales, as it was possible to address the Norwegians effectively in the imperial language, something that would not have been possible in Wales outside a few areas. Although Norvegus was the most prominent Counter-Reformation figure in Norway, and indeed in Denmark and Sweden as well, he was not the only one to attempt to use literature as a device to return Norway and the rest of Scandinavia to the Catholic fold. Indeed, there was a similar effort amongst the Scandinavian seminarians to that master-minded by William Allen in Douai. For example, a letter from a Finnish student to his parents survives, which contains many images of carefully chosen saints and instructions on how to pray the rosary.88 It must be admitted however, that Norvegus had a hand in that campaign as well. Braunsberg College possessed a printing press, and on the first of October 1602 the Danish and Norwegian students (with Norvegus’s help) printed an open letter to the professors of the University of Copenhagen, hoping to start a discussion on whether they were right to reject Lutheranism for Catholicism.89 Despite his literary endeavours, Norvegus’s notoriety in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Scandinavia stemmed just as much, if not more, from the central role he played in a plot which reflected the deepest Protestant fears of Jesuit deceit and subterfuge. As a result of his Jesuit education, and the years he spent teaching philosophy in Louvain, Norvegus’s learning was well-known in Norway and the rest of Scandinavia by the end of the 1570s. It is also worth mentioning that before roughly the year 1602, the Jesuit Colleges were considered politico-religiously neutral in Scandinavia,90 and it was generally recognised that the best and most modern education was to be found in them.91 This explains why Scandinavia did not see the same attempts to hinder people from gaining their education in such places as was seen in England. A lack of higher education was a problem in Scandinavia in the years following the

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Reformation, and indeed in all the newly Protestant countries to varying degrees. Sometimes, as in England, this was because a large proportion of the faculty and student bodies of the universities had fled to Catholic countries rather than conform, and sometimes as a result of the teachings of some Reformers, such as Karlstadt,92 who insisted that an excess of education was a barrier to salvation. The problem was particularly acute in Sweden, as the University of Uppsala was abolished during the Reformation, and not re-opened until 1593.93 As a result, the kings of Sweden needed somewhere to educate Lutheran clergy for the new reformed Church. It was decided to open a new theological school in Stockholm in 1576, the Collegium Regem Stockholmense. The king at the time, who was married to the Polish Catholic princess, Katarina Jagellonica, and who had Catholic sympathies himself. He therefore decided to use the Collegium Regium to attempt to move the Church of Sweden closer to Catholicism, and thus invited Norvegus to run the new school, and to teach theology. After consulting with his superior, Antonio Possevino,94 Norvegus decided to agree, but to go one step further. He established a secret Catholic seminary in the middle of the College, seeking to create a Lutheran clergy that would in truth be secret Catholic priests. The plan enjoyed a modest amount of success, with some of Norway’s recusants sending their sons to Norvegus so that they could gain an education without having to leave Scandinavia and travel to Germany.95 The College’s most able students, and those who appeared religiously conservative, were invited to join the seminary upon receiving holy orders, and an attempt was made to place them in places of influence in the Swedish Church. Everything went as planned until 1580, when Possevino, attempting to persuade the king to openly profess Catholicism, ordered Norvegus and his ex-students to publicly reveal their status as Catholic priests. Things did not go to plan. The King was angered and publicly shamed by Possevino’s rash move, and as a result, the seminary was closed, and Norvegus and all his students sent into exile. This does not seem to have caused Norvegus any loss of confidence, as he simply moved on to Norway to begin the scheme afresh there. Such was his success in Norway, particularly in the south, that at one point even the bishop of Stavanger was secretly a Catholic. Unfortunately, it seems that the only benefit Norvegus’s plan accrued to wider Catholicism, apart from individual conversions, was that the secret priests succeeded in persuading more students to join the Jesuit Colleges.96 Norwegian church doctrine certainly did not become more Catholic.

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The Conditions of Mission But what became of these students once they finished their education? Very few of them returned home as missionaries. One or two went back to Norway to take up livings as Lutheran priests, whilst operating as Catholic priests in secret, but the majority seen to have remained in Germany. Indeed, one of the strangest aspects of the Counter-Reformation in Norway is the lack of Norwegian missionaries. The opposite is true in Wales, as a large number of Welsh missionaries were sent out from Douai and the other colleges, and until 1600 at least, a high proportion of them served in Wales. Even as late as 1679 Welsh priests were being martyred as a result of their activities in Wales.97 By way of comparison, it was suggested to Propaganda Fide that the Norwegian mission should be staffed by priests from Flanders and Germany.98 Another interesting difference with Wales is the way in which missionaries were housed. The iconic image of the Counter-Reformation in England and Wales is that of the Catholic priest hiding in a priest hole, whilst the Protestant authorities search the house for him. This image exists because most missionaries in both countries stayed with Catholic gentry families, using their houses as bases in which to say Mass. Since most missionaries in Norway were foreigners, it was not practical to do this to the same extent. An unfamiliar man from another country would have been too obvious in a gentry house in the Norwegian countryside, whereas a Welsh priest in a similar situation could plausibly claim to be a visitor, or a servant, or at least have some other excuse for being there. Missionaries working in Norway therefore had to be sent to the towns to stay with other foreigners and could only be sent safely to those towns with enough of a foreign-born population to enable them to shelter safely in their midst. This led to the mission being focused on the towns more than was the case in Wales,99 where the missionaries tended to focus their activities on the more remote areas, so that the authorities would be less aware of their activities, and would find it harder to apprehend them.100 This also meant that it was easier for the authorities to portray Catholicism as a foreign religion than was the case in Wales or England,101 since the missionaries, and those who gave them shelter, were foreigners.102 Missionaries in Norway were therefore unable to move around the country with the same amount of freedom enjoyed by their Welsh counterparts. We know that Robert Gwyn for example, stayed in Plas Du in

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Caernarvonshire,103 in Penrhyn Creuddyn near Llandudno,104 at Werngochen near Abergavenny,105 and in Flintshire106 over the course of his career. This would have prevented them from distributing Catholic books and devotional materials to the same extent as was possible in Wales, and it seems likely that the same network of gentry sympathisers did not exist either. Although, considering the Norwegians’ faithfulness to the Catholic Church it is probable that the ordinary people were more favourable to Catholicism than was necessarily the case in Wales.

Print and Manuscript Another difference between the two countries was the use of the printing press. Official use of the press was equally as restricted in Norway as in Wales, which is to say that it was illegal to print books outside London107 and Copenhagen,108 and thus it was necessary to print books abroad and smuggle them into the kingdom. Norvegus and the Norwegian students made great use of the press in their campaign; each of Norvegus’s books was printed. An effort was made to do the same thing in Wales, which met with a certain amount of success; Gruffydd Robert’s Grammar and the Athravaeth Gristnogawl were printed in Milan, and as mentioned above, Owen Lewis had a list of books prepared for the press. In addition to this, Robert Gwyn played a part in the work of establishing two secret presses in Wales. The first part of the Drych Kristnogawl was printed on the first, and it is likely that the second press was intended to print the rest,109 but great use was also made of manuscripts, which does not seem to have happened in Norway to the same extent. A scribal network which supported the work of the traditional bards still existed in Wales at this time, particularly in Glamorgan, and we have two examples of professional scribes who copied various texts by Robert Gwyn for instance. The first was Llywelyn Siôn of Llangewydd110 in Glamorgan, who copied the Drych Kristnogawl, and the second was William Dafydd Llywelyn of Llangynidr111 in Breconshire, who compiled a large manuscript which he named the Lanter Gristnogawl (Christian Lantern), comprised of Na all fod un Ffydd onyd yr Hen Ffydd and Gwssanaeth y Gwˆyr Newydd, and who also copied Coelio’r Saint, possibly from Gwyn’s original manuscript.112 The existence of such a body of professional copyists enabled the Catholic community to produce and disseminate Catholic texts without recourse to printers who were geographically far removed from them, and usually unacquainted with Welsh.113

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In addition to his work as a scribe, William Dafydd Llywelyn was a physician as well, as can be seen from the manuscripts he chose to copy, and the marginalia found in them which suggests that they were copied for his personal use.114 Such a role would have given him the opportunity to travel, and it seems likely that he seized that opportunity to distribute Catholic texts at the same time. We know that tinkers carried Catholic books, images and relics around England in secret,115 and it is hard to believe that Welsh Catholics would not have availed themselves of the same opportunities.

Resurrecting Pilgrimage One opportunity which they conspicuously lacked following the Elizabethan Settlement, however was that of going on pilgrimage. PreReformation Wales had several important shrines, such as that of Our Lady at Pen-rhys, and St. Derfel Gadarn at Llandderfel.116 These were destroyed during the Reformation, with the wooden statue of St Derfel being taken all the way to Smithfield to be publicly burnt. In Na all fod un Ffydd onyd yr Hen Ffydd Gwyn laments the decline of pilgrimage in Wales,117 and upon his return to Wales seems to have set out to rectify the situation. From approximately 1578 to 1580, Gwyn was in North East Wales, and it seems likely that he based himself at Holywell in Flintshire, which in this period became the headquarters of the missionaries in this area.118 On the 24 May 1578 he was invested by the Pope with the power to bless vestments and consecrate portable altars, effectively giving him the powers of a bishop.119 Gwyn was the only Welshman to receive this dispensation, and thus, since the last surviving Welsh Catholic bishop, Thomas Goldwell of St Asaph, was in exile, he to all intents and purposes became head of the Welsh seculars.120 Given this information, it seems unlikely that anyone other than Gwyn would have been responsible for establishing the mission at Holywell. The shrine of St Winefride’s Well prides itself in being the only pre-Reformation shrine to which pilgrimage has continued uninterrupted from medieval times to modern days, however the shrine buildings were defaced under Henry VIII, and the local Catholic church records its first parish priest as being a Jesuit in 1580, at the start of the Jesuit mission to England and Wales. This priest however, arrived to oversee the running of an already functional shrine, possibly due to

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the fact that the shrine’s owners, the Mostyn family of nearby Basingwerk abbey, and the local Pennant family, were Catholics or Catholic sympathisers.121 It must therefore have been re-established by the seculars before his arrival as part of the Tridentine campaign to make use of existing sacred sites for the purpose of re-Catholicising the area, and as such, the likelihood is that this occurred under Gwyn’s stewardship. We know that Gwyn had an interest in pilgrimage, as he had defended the practice in Na all fod un Ffydd onyd yr Hen Ffydd, as mentioned above. As well as devoting a chapter of the book to the importance of pilgrimage, Gwyn regularly emphasises pilgrimage to Bardsey Island as being of equivalent worth to a pilgrimage to Rome,122 which gives a good idea of the importance he placed upon specifically Welsh pilgrimage sites. Since this text was one of the letters written home as part of Allen’s campaign, it is no surprise that in it Gwyn focused on the pilgrimage site most local to his family on the Llˆyn, and it seems likely that he would have been motivated by a similar desire to promote a local shrine on arriving in Flintshire four years later. After leaving Flintshire, Gwyn visited Rome in 1580, and was thus in the city concurrently with another Welsh missionary, Morgan Clynnog. Clynnog, a nephew of Morys Clynnog, entered the English College at Rome in 1579, whilst his uncle was rector. Following the disagreements which led to the elder Clynnog being replaced as rector by an Italian Jesuit, Morgan Clynnog was the first Welsh student to take the missionary oath to return to Wales, on the 23rd April 1579.123 He did not however, return to Wales until 1582, meaning that he and Gwyn were both in Rome simultaneously. Gwyn certainly knew of his uncle, and of the Welsh translation he had made of Diego de Ledesma’s Doctrina Christiana,124 as he refers to them in his work,125 and as he had been preaching in Llˆyn between 1576 and 1578, and had won quite a name for himself amongst local Catholics,126 it is possible that he had encountered the younger Clynnog there. I should at this point issue a disclaimer, in that so far no evidence has come to light which would definitively tell us that Gwyn and Clynnog met whilst in Rome, but it would be odd if two Welshmen from the same part of the country, both afire with missionary zeal, and both engaged upon the same enterprise, had not come into contact with each other. Clynnog was based in South Wales throughout his career, and in 1591 baptised a child in the old shrine of the holy well dedicated to the Virgin at Margam. The shrine had been a popular local pilgrimage point before

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the Reformation,127 and Madeline Gray has argued that the chapel ruins there was a centre of recusant activity and a mass site during the postReformation period.128 As with St Winefride’s Well, the shrine stood near the home of the Turbervilles of Sker, known Catholic sympathisers, and as a result Clynnog could reasonably have expected to work in a degree of safety.129 The two main areas of Catholic strength in post-Reformation Wales, following the decline in recusancy in Llˆyn after Gwyn’s departure,130 were the North East,131 and the South-East,132 and it is possible that Clynnog, inspired by the success of the shrine at Holywell, sought to achieve the same end in the South-East. However, it was not to be, as several of Clynnog’s parishioners from Carmarthenshire were arrested at the shrine that year and questioned, which seems to have ended attempts to revive pilgrimages there. It is possible that distance was a factor in the failure of the pilgrimage, as the main area of Catholic strength was further to the east in Monmouthshire, where the Jesuits were from approximately 1600 based at the Cwm on the Herefordshire border,133 whereas from 1580 onwards both seculars and Jesuits were located in Holywell. Margam’s comparative distance from the centre of Jesuit authority in South Wales would therefore have made it more difficult to reconstitute the shrine after a set-back such as people being arrested there. Interestingly, Robert Gwyn was also present in South Wales whilst Clynnog was attempting to revive the pilgrimage, although he too was further to the east, at Werngochen outside Abergavenny.134 It was whilst staying there that he wrote Coelio’r Saint, of which his original and one copy survive. In this text, he dedicates an entire chapter to pilgrimage, and the existence of the copy, made by William Dafydd Llywelyn, shows that the intention was to circulate the text amongst the Catholic community in South Wales. Once again however, there is unfortunately no evidence to suggest that Clynnog and Gwyn were in contact during this period, although it is interesting to see a defence of pilgrimage being written just as an attempt was being made to revive the practice. It can safely enough be said that Wales and Norway seemed to be promising missionary fields in the 1570s. Protestantism had not yet won wide acceptance amongst the people, particularly in Norway, although as early as 1574 Robert Gwyn warned that the Welsh people needed a thorough education in the Faith if they were not to slide into Protestantism.135 A comparatively large number of students from the two countries were training for the priesthood in the Low Countries, Spain, Rome, Germany and Moravia, and great effort was being made to provide

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Catholic apologetic, polemic, catechetical and moral literature to be sent home to strengthen the resolve of the people. In Wales there was a network of Catholic patrons to shelter the missionaries and support their work, and of scribes to produce copies of their texts. In Norway’s commercial towns there were sufficient Catholic foreigners to provide homes and an excuse for their presence for the missionaries. One advantage enjoyed by the English Mission was the degree of leadership and coordination afforded by the presence in prominent roles on the continent of figures such as Allen and Persons. Whatever high esteem they were held in amongst the Welsh Catholic community, once Clynnog had lost control of the College at Rome, he and Robert were no longer able to offer the same kind of leadership to the Welsh clergy. Without their drive and, following Clynnog’s untimely death, their position close to the papal court, there was no one to insist that Wales’s needs were important, or indeed that they were in any way separate from those of England. The passing of a generation of humanist scholars, as interested in the Welsh language as they were in the cause of Catholicism, coupled with Wales’s position as an integral part of the English Church, would lead inexorably to the loss of a quasi-separate, Welsh-led and Welsh language mission. Whereas between 1570 and 1590 various factors had aligned to provide for the creation of a well-educated Welsh missionary clergy, well-equipped with Catholic texts in their own language, after 1590, the loss of the last Welsh bishops meant that Wales would never be a priority for a Mission centred on England, which hoped for a wholesale return to Catholicism on a national scale. The same was true of Norway, and in the absence of leadership from the exiled bishops, a network of recusant gentry, or a body of seminary-educated clergy strongly aware that they alone could return their country to the fold of the Catholic Church, Norwegian Catholicism declined even further than that of Wales.

Notes 1. P. D. Lockhart, Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 21–3. 2. W. Alun Mathias, “William Salisbury,” in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, (Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959), 818. 3. Glanmor Williams, “William Morgan,” in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959), 656.

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4. It should also be noted that Salisbury’s translation was so esoteric that it might in some ways have done more harm than good. Indeed, the Welsh reformer Morys Kyffin complained that “a true Welshman’s ear could not suffer it”! (Garfield H. Hughes, Rhagymadroddion 1547 –1659 [Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1976], 92). 5. William Raleigh Trimble, The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England, 1553–1603 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), 20. 6. Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 279. 7. Glanmor Williams, “Crefydd a Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg yn Oes y Diwygiad Protestannaidd,” Cof Cenedl 1 (1986): 35–63. 8. K. E. Christopherson, “Hallelujahs, Damnations, or Norway’s Reformation as Lengthy Process,” Church History 48 (1979): 279. 9. Endre Mørck, “The Reformation and the Linguistic Situation in Norway,” Nordlit 43 (2019): 119. 10. Kurt Braunmüller, “Forms of Language Contact in the Area of the Hanseatic League: Dialect Contact Phenomena and Semicommunication,” Nordic Journal of Linguistics 19 (1996): 141–54. 11. Cameron, European Reformation, 276. 12. Ibid., 232. 13. Ibid., 277. 14. Christopherson, “Hallelujahs, Damnations,” 280. 15. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700 (London: Penguin, 2004), 335. 16. The case of Geble Pederssøn, superintendent of Bergen, as discussed elsewhere by Fink-Jensen, is a case in point. 17. Lockhart, Rise and Decline, 73. 18. Trygve R. Skarsten, “The Reception of the Augsburg Confession in Scandinavia,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 11 (1980): 95. 19. P. D. Lockhart, Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559–1596 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 67. 20. Oskar Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia, 3vol. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1991–2), 3:1. 21. Ibid., 28. 22. Ibid., 270. 23. Ole Peter Grell (ed.), The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 10. 24. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005), 462. 25. Eamon Duffy, Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (New Haven, NY: Yale University Press, 2009), 200–2.

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26. For a discussion of the importance of Davies to early Welsh Protestantism, see Glanmor Williams, “Richard Davies, Esgob Tyddewi a’r Traddodiad Protestannaidd,” Llên Cymru 16 (1989): 88–96. 27. Glanmor Williams, “Richard Davies, Bishop of St Davids 1561–83,” Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1948): 156–7. 28. Peter Marshall, Reformation England, 1480–1642 (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 120. 29. E. R. Norman, Roman Catholicism in England from the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 7, 24. 30. Emyr Gwynne Jones, Cymru a’r Hen Ffydd (Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1951), 4. 31. Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, 3:31. 32. Ibid. 33. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 201. 34. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 202. 35. Jones, Cymru a’r Hen Ffydd, 10. 36. Geraint Bowen, “Morys Clynnog,” in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959), 79–80. 37. John Cleary, A Checklist of Welsh Students in the Seminaries (Cardiff: Cardiff Newman Circle, 1958), 3–4. 38. Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, 3:223. 39. Ibid., 386. German universities played a prominent role in the training of Norwegian Protestant clergy as well, as discussed by Ó hAnnracháin elsewhere in this volume. 40. Ibid., 117. 41. Geraint Bowen, Welsh Recusant Writings (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999), 2. 42. For more information on the efforts made by the Norwegian bishops to counter-act the spread of Lutheranism before their expulsion, see Ole Peter Grell, “The Catholic Church and Its Leadership,” in The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 70–113. 43. Amongst Dr Bowen’s numerous publications on Welsh recusancy are Geraint Bowen, “Catecism Douai—Y Fersiynau Saesneg a Chymraeg,” Cylchgrawn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 12 (1961): 18–36; Robert Gwyn, Gwssanaeth y Gwˆyr Newydd, ed. Geraint Bowen (Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1970); T. J. Hopkins and Geraint Bowen, “Memorandwm Morys Clynnog at Y Pab, Gregori XIII Yn 1575,” Cylchgrawn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 14 (1965): 1–34; Geraint Bowen, “Roman Catholic Prose and Its Background,” in A Guide to Welsh Literature: Vol. 3: 1530–1700, ed. R. Geraint Gruffydd, 210–40 (Cardiff: University of

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44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49.

50. 51. 52.

53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

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Wales Press, 1997); Geraint Bowen, “Rhai Defosiynau Reciwsantaidd Cynnar,” Cylchgrawn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 13 (1963): 389–96. This merely scratches the surface of his contribution to the field. Geraint Bowen, “Ysgol Milan,” 79–117. Amongst other things, Robert served as Borromeo’s confessor for several years (Bowen, Welsh Recusant Writings, 3). Ibid., 6–7. Ibid., 8. M. Paul Bryant-Quinn, “Cymaint Serch i Gymru”: Gruffydd Robert, Morys Clynnog a’r Athrawaeth Gristnogawl (1568) (Aberystwyth: Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd, 1998), 5. The spread of Calvinism in the Scottish Highlands was highly dependent on orality, due partially to the lack of a press or a Bible translation into Scottish Gaelic, but also due to the high level of difference between literary and spoken Gaelic during this period. Jane Dawson, “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland,” in Calvinism in Europe 1540– 1620, eds. Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke, and Gillian Lewis, 231–53 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). See also Gillespie’s chapter in this volume for a discussion of Counter-Reformation orality in Irish. Bryant-Quinn, “Cymaint Serch i Gymru,” 4. Ibid., 1. Ibid., 18. For this in an Irish context, see Salvador Ryan, “Continental Catechisms and their Irish Imitators in Spanish Habsburg Lands, c. 1550–c. 1650,” in Irish Europe, 1600–1650: Writing and Learning, eds. Raymond Gillespie and Ruairí Ó hUiginn, 163–82 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013). Julian Lock, “Evans, Lewis (fl. 1565–1571).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8972 (accessed 27 May 2020). Bowen, Welsh Recusant Writings, 14. Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 39. For a deeper discussion of prayer books and devotional practices surrounding them, see Skinnebach’s chapter in this volume. Adrian Morey, The Catholic Subjects of Elizabeth I (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978), 110. Anthony Munday, The English Romayne Lyfe (London, 1582), 59–60. Jason A. Nice, “Being ‘British’ in Rome: The Welsh at the English College, 1578–1584,’ The Catholic Historical Review 92 (2006): 24. R. Geraint Gruffydd, “Dau Lythyr Gan Owen Lewis,” Llên Cymru 2 (1952): 36–45. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 29.

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62. Thomas Francis Knox, The First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douay, and an Appendix of the Unpublished Documents (London: D. Nutt, 1878), 5. 63. Geraint Bowen, “Robert Gwyn o Benyberth,” Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, New Series 2 (1996), 37. 64. Jones, Class, Community and Culture, 9. 65. Geraint Bowen, “Ysgol Douai,” in Y Traddodiad Rhyddiaith, ed. Geraint Bowen (Llandysul: Gwasg Gomer, 1970), 119. 66. James McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd Robert Gwyn”, PhD thesis, Aberystwyth University, 2016, 153, 255. 67. ‘New Men’ was the term used by Gwyn to refer to Protestants, a calque on the Latin nouationes. 68. Peter Marshall, Reformation England, 175. 69. James January-McCann, “Robert Gwyn and Robert Persons: Welsh and English Perspectives on Attendance at Anglican Service,” Recusant History 32 (2014): 159–72. 70. Leo Hicks (ed.), Letters and Memorials of Father Robert Persons S.J.: Vol. 1 (London: Catholic Record Society, 1942), xxxix. 71. R. Geraint Gruffydd, Argraffwyr Cyntaf Cymru, Gwasgau Dirgel y Catholigion adeg Elisabeth (Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1972), 8. 72. Bowen, Welsh Recusant Writing, 39. For Kyffin see Glanmor Williams, “Morris Kyffin,” in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959), 538. 73. “Whoever should read this piece of writing, pardon I beseech you the mistakes in it, and do not wonder that there are so many, for I have not seen a Welsh book in some time, nor have I a friend with which to speak [Welsh], and also I had only a month’s respite in which to write all of this.” McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd,” 1. My translation. 74. Ibid., 2. 75. “… much better take this matter upon themselves, should there be need, and quite apart from their learning, since they are sufficiently familiar with the Welsh language to express their meaning broadly and perfectly.” ibid., 2. My translation. 76. Ibid., 2–3. 77. For a full discussion of the influence of Stapleton and Bristow’s influence on this text, see ibid., xxvii–xxxiii. 78. Bryant-Quinn, “Cymaint Serch i Gymru,” 6. 79. Such rebellions were fairly common in Scandinavia during the early stages of the Reformation. Grell, “Introduction,” 3. 80. Oskar Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia, 3vol. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1991–2), 2:401. 81. Ibid., 2:234.

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82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92.

93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

98. 99.

100. 101.

102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

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Ibid., 2:268. Ibid., 2:403. Ibid., 2:281. Ibid., 2:276. Ibid., 2:305. See Dahl’s chapter in this volume. Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, 2:119–24. See also von Achen’s mention of a Finnish student sending woodcuts to his family elsewhere in this volume. Ibid., 201. Ibid., 289. Ibid., 252. For more information about Karlstadt, see Calvin Augustine Pater, Karlstadt as the Father of the Anabaptist Movements (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984). Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, 3:1. Gordon Cambell, “Antonio Possevino,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance, 635 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation, 3:xxiii. Ibid., 3:72. Phillip Evans, John Lloyd and David Lewis were all executed in 1679 for their missionary activities. All three were from south-east Wales, one of the strongholds of recusancy (Jones, Class, Community and Culture, 84). Oskar Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia (Leiden: Brill, 1992), iv, 74. An ironic echo of the greater success of the Reformation in more urbanised areas of northern Europe as eluded to by Methuen in this volume. William Raleigh Trimble, Catholic Laity, 20. On the contrary, in Wales it was Protestantism which suffered from being viewed as “crefydd y Sais,” the Englishman’s religion. McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd,” 21. For further discussion of the confessionalisation of national identity, see Ó hAnnracháin’s chapter of this volume. Emyr Gwynne Jones, “The Lleyn Recusancy Case 1578–1581,” Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1936), 105. Ibid., 105. Geraint Bowen, “Rhyddiaith Reciwsantiaid Cymru,” PhD thesis, Aberystwyth University, 1978), 83. McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd,” vi. Gruffydd, Argraffwyr Cyntaf Cymru, 5.

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108. Øystein Rian, Sensuren i Danmark-Norge (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2014), 144–8. I am indebted to Prof. Laugerud for drawing my attention to this source. See also Dahl’s chapter in this volume. 109. Daniel Huws, “Wiliam Dafydd Llywelyn,” Y Cylchgrawn Catholig 12 (2000): 24–8. 110. T. Oswald Phillips, “Llywelyn Sion,” in Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig, 602 (London: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1953). 111. Huws, “Wiliam Dafydd Llywelyn,” 24–28. 112. Geraint Bowen, “Gweithiau Apologetig Reciwsantiaid Cymru,” Cylchgrawn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 12 (1962): 323. 113. Hughes, Rhagymadroddion, 47. For the situation in Ireland, see Raymond Gillespie’s contribution in this volume. 114. Huws, “Wiliam Dafydd Llywelyn,” 25. 115. Alison Shell, Oral Culture and Catholicism in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 17. 116. Madeline Gray, “The Well and Shrine of the Virgin Mary at Margam,” Morgannwg 56 (2012): 5. 117. McCann, op. cit., 5. 118. Alexandra Walsham, Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain (Cambridge: Ashgate, 2014), 188. 119. Bowen, Gwssanaeth y Gwyr Newydd, xxxiii. 120. R. Geraint Gruffydd, “Gwasg Ddirgel yr Ogof yn Rhiwledyn,” Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society, IX (1958), 11. 121. Alexandra Walsham, “Holywell: Contesting Sacred Space in PostReformation Wales,” in Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe, eds. Will Coster and Andrew Spicer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 217. 122. McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd,” 273–83. 123. John Cleary, “Morgan Clynnog,” in The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, 78 (Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959), 1114. 124. Bryant-Quinn, “Cymaint Serch i Gymru,” 1. 125. McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd,” 2, 17. 126. Ibid., v–vi. 127. Gray, “The Well and Shrine,” 11. 128. Ibid., 13. 129. Ibid., 15. 130. McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd,” vi. 131. Michael A. Mullet, Catholics in Britain and Ireland, 1558–1829 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1998), 28. 132. Jones, Class, Community and Culture, 84. 133. Hannah Thomas, “Missioners on the Margins? The Territorial Headquarters of the Welsh Jesuit College of St Francis Xavier at the Cwm, C. 1600–1679,” Recusant History 32 (2015): 173.

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134. Bowen, “Rhyddiaith Reciwsantiaid Cymru,” 85. 135. McCann, “Na All Fod Un Ffydd Onyd Yr Hen Ffydd,” 2–3.

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Bryant-Quinn, M. Paul. “Cymaint Serch i Gymru”: Gruffydd Robert, Morys Clynnog a’r Athrawaeth Gristnogawl (1568). Aberystwyth: Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd, 1998. Cameron, Euan. The European Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Campbell, Gordon. “Antonio Possevino.” In The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance, 635. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Christopherson, K. E. “Hallelujahs, Damnations, or Norway’s Reformation as Lengthy Process.” Church History 48 (1979): 279–89. Cleary, John. A Checklist of Welsh Students in the Seminaries. Cardiff: Cardiff Newman Circle, 1958. Cleary, John. “Morgan Clynnog.” In The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, 78. Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959. Dawson, Jane. “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland.” In Calvinism in Europe 1540–1620, edited by Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis, 231–53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400– 1580. New Haven, NY: Yale University Press, 2005. Duffy, Eamon. Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor. New Haven, NY: Yale University Press, 2009. Garstein, Oskar. Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1991–2. Gray, Madeline. “The Well and Shrine of the Virgin Mary at Margam.” Morgannwg 56 (2012): 5–17. Grell, Ole Peter. “Introduction.” In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, 1–11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Grell, Ole Peter. “The Catholic Church and Its Leadership.” In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, 70–113. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Gruffydd, R. Geraint. “Dau Lythyr Gan Owen Lewis.” Llên Cymru 2 (1952): 36–45. Gruffydd, R. Geraint. “Gwasg Ddirgel Yr Ogof Yn Rhiwledyn.” Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society 9 (1958): 1–23. Gruffydd, R. Geraint. Argraffwyr Cyntaf Cymru, Gwasgau Dirgel y Catholigion adeg Elisabeth. Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1972. Gwynne Jones, Emyr. “The Lleyn Recusancy Case 1578–1581.” Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1936), 97–124. Gwynne Jones, Emyr. Cymru a’r Hen Ffydd. Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1951. Hicks, Leo (ed.). Letters and Memorials of Father Robert Persons S.J.: Vol. 1. London: Catholic Record Society, 1942.

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Hopkins, T. J. and Geraint Bowen. “Memorandwm Morys Clynnog at y Pab, Gregori XIII Yn 1575.” Cylchgrawn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 14 (1965): 1–34. Hughes, Garfield H. (ed.). Rhagymadroddion 1547–1659. Cardiff: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1976. Huws, Daniel. “Wiliam Dafydd Llywelyn.” Y Cylchgrawn Catholig 12 (2000): 24–28. January-McCann, James. “Robert Gwyn and Robert Persons: Welsh and English Perspectives on Attendance at Anglican Service.” Recusant History 32 (2014): 159–72. Jones, J. Gwynfor (ed.). Class, Community and Culture in Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1989. Lock, Julian. “Evans, Lewis (fl. 1565–1571).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8972. Lockhart, P. D. Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559–1596. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Lockhart, P. D. Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Marshall, Peter. Reformation England, 1480–1642. London: Bloomsbury, 2012. Mathias, W. Alun. “William Salisbury.” In The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, 818. Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Later Reformation in England. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700. London: Penguin, 2004. Mørck, Endre. “The Reformation and the Linguistic Situation in Norway.” Nordlit 43 (2019): 115–26. Morey, Adrian. The Catholic Subjects of Elizabeth I . London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978. Nice, Jason A. “Being ‘British’ in Rome: The Welsh at the English College, 1578–1584.” The Catholic Historical Review 92 (2006): 1–24. Norman, E. R. Roman Catholicism in England from the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Pater, Calvin Augustine. Karlstadt as the Father of the Anabaptist Movements. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. Phillips, T. Oswald. “Llywelyn Sion.” In Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig, 602. London: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1953. Rian, Øystein. Sensuren i Danmark-Norge. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2014. Ryan, Salvador. “Continental Catechisms and Their Irish Imitators in Spanish Habsburg Lands, c. 1550–c. 1650.” In Irish Europe, 1600–1650: Writing

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and Learning, edited by Raymond Gillespie and Ruairí Ó hUiginn, 163–82. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013. Shell, Alison. Oral Culture and Catholicism in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Skarsten, Trygve R. “The Reception of the Augsburg Confession in Scandinavia.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 11 (1980): 86–98. Thomas, Hannah. “Missioners on the Margins? The Territorial Headquarters of the Welsh Jesuit College of St Francis Xavier at the Cwm, c. 1600–1679.” Recusant History 32 (2015): 173–93. Trimble, William Raleigh. The Catholic Laity in Elizabethan England, 1553–1603. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. Walsham, Alexandra. “Holywell: Contesting Sacred Space in Post-Reformation Wales.” In Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe, edited by Will Coster and Andrew Spicer, 211–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Walsham, Alexandra. Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Williams, Glanmor. “Richard Davies, Bishop of St Davids 1561–83.” Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1948): 147–69. Williams, Glanmor. “Morris Kyffin.” In The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, 538. Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959. Williams, Glanmor. “William Morgan.” In The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, 656. Cardiff: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1959. Williams, Glanmor. “Crefydd a Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg Yn Oes y Diwygiad Protestannaidd.” Cof Cenedl 1 (1986): 35–63. Williams, Glanmor. “Richard Davies, Esgob Tyddewi a’r Traddodiad Protestannaidd.” Llên Cymru 16 (1989): 88–96.

PART III

Zones of Circulation: Transfer of Ideas and People

CHAPTER 8

“Islands Not Far from Norway, Denmark and Germany”: Shetland, Orkney and the Spread of the Reformation in the North Charlotte Methuen

Introduction This chapter considers the relationships between the Norwegian city of Bergen and the Shetland and Orkney islands during the period from the 1520s, when Lutheran ideas began to arrive in Bergen, and the 1560s, when Scotland’s Reformed Reformation was introduced and implemented in Orkney and Shetland. In the context of the Norwegian Reformation, Bergen was a key point of entry for Lutheran ideas in Norway; it was also the closest point of contact to Norway from Shetland and Orkney, and there were close trading links between Bergen and Shetland in particular. Moreover, in the mid-sixteenth century, many (probably the majority) of the islanders will still have spoken Norn, probably bilingually with Scots, and Norn will certainly have been mutually

C. Methuen (B) Theology and Religious Studies, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_8

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comprehensible with Norwegian, and arguably also with Danish and Low German. However, as Peter Marshall observes in his discussion of the Reformation in Norway elsewhere in this volume, there is no evidence that Lutheran ideas had been accepted in Orkney by the time the Scottish Reformation was implemented there in 1560, and the same is probably true of Shetland. This chapter explores why this is the case, given the links to Norway and the importance of trade routes in the spread of the Lutheran Reformation from Germany to Scandinavia, and especially to Bergen. Sources for this period are scarce, so that very little evidence exists to investigate these relationships, and this poses some methodological challenges.

Linguistic Diversity in Shetland and Orkney Until 1468, when they were given to Scotland as part of the dowry of Margaret of Denmark on her marriage to James III of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland had been part of the kingdom of Norway, which was under Danish rule. Scottish influence had long been growing but after the impignoration, contacts to Western Norway continued, particularly to Bergen. Indeed, Imsen concludes, “Shetland was in a certain sense still Norwegian.”1 Orkney’s relationships to Scotland were in contrast probably stronger than to Bergen. However, one factor that connected the populations of the Northern Isles to Norway in a particular way was that of language and specifically, Norn. Norn was a variety of Scandinavian Norse, spoken in both island groups. It was later displaced by Scots, and the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were a time of transition. Documentary evidence indicates that Scots probably became prevalent in Orkney earlier than in Scotland, and legal business in Orkney was already being conducted in Scots in 1438.2 Gordon Donaldson assumed “a time-lag of something like a hundred and fifty years between the point at which the Scots tongue prevailed in Orkney and the point at which it prevailed in Shetland,”3 and that period of transition included the sixteenth century. Even for Orkney, however, Barnes suggests a situation in which Scots was “widely spoken,” but “Norn was the principal language of the islands in the sixteenth century, in the sense that it was the first language of the majority of the population,” and “many understood and used both languages.”4 Ljosland argues that Orkney Scots emerged “between 1468 (the impignoration) and 1560 (the reformation).”5 In Shetland this development probably came later,

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extending into the seventeenth or even the eighteenth century.6 By the early sixteenth century, Scots was probably the language of administration in both Orkney and Shetland, while Latin was the language of the church, and Norn the normal means of communication of the local people.7 The islanders probably functioned as bilingual communities, with immigrant Norwegians learning Scots, and immigrant Scots learning Norn.8 Since Norn formed “part of a West Norse dialect continuum,”9 its prevalence would have given Shetlanders and Orcadians a mutually comprehensible spoken language with Norwegians and Danes.10 The ability to speak a West Norse dialect, moreover, may well have opened up relationships beyond Norway and Denmark, for Kurt Braunmüller asserts that most early modern Norse languages were probably mutually comprehensible with Middle Low German, “the lingua franca of the multinational Hanseatic League”.11 This is important for considering the spread of the Reformation, since Hansa merchants helped to spread evangelical ideas across northern Europe.12 Several of the German Hansa cities were early adopters of the Reformation: Hamburg introduced it in 1528, although the city had already been strongly influenced by Lutheran theology several years earlier13 ; Lübeck, which had close relationships to Bergen, suppressed the mass in June 1530, and adopted an evangelical church order in May 153114 ; Lutheran preachers had been active in Bremen since 1522, although the city did not officially introduce the Reformation until 1534.15 From the 1520s, therefore, a significant proportion of merchants and traders from these Hanseatic cities were potential sharers of Reformation ideas.16 Norn was not a written language, but as Cohen and Twomey point out, “print often had to rely on the oral to promote it,”17 and in many contexts Reformation ideas will first have been shared either through conversations or by reading texts aloud.18 Bilingual speakers of Scots and Norn would have had understood a wider range of read aloud texts than would those who spoke Scots alone: they could potentially understand Bibles, religious books and pamphlets composed in Danish, Norwegian and Middle Low German as well as the English available to speakers of Scots. Körber suggests that around the Baltic “non-Germans” had far less access to Reformation ideas than did the speakers of one of the German languages.19 As speakers of Norn, there is good reason to include Orcadians and Shetlanders among “the speakers of one of the German languages.”

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Language and Reform Linguistic factors, then, would suggest that Orkney and Shetland would be more accessible to Lutheran ideas than other parts of Scotland. However, as Peter Marshall has indicated in Chapter 2 in this volume there is scant evidence of early evangelical influence in either Orkney or Shetland. On the death of Robert Maxwell, Bishop of Orkney, in 1541,20 James V described the diocese of Orkney to Pope Paul III as made up of “islands just under the pole, not far from Norway, Denmark and Germany,” in which “the cause of Catholic faith and law are little observed.”21 By this date, as the pope will have been painfully aware, Norway, Denmark and many of the German territories had rejected papal authority and introduced the Reformation; however, James’s emphasis on the diocese’s vulnerability to reform seems mainly intended to persuade the pope to confirm the appointment of Robert Reid as Bishop of Orkney.22 Once in post, Reid reformed the constitution of St Magnus cathedral in Kirkwall along humanist grounds, emphasising the need of theological instruction, the suppression of heresy and the provision of preaching “in the common tongue” (probably Scots).23 The new constitution highlights theological conflict as an issue to be addressed. It is perhaps significant that James Skea/Kaa and Andrew Lowson/Guilmus were accused of heresy and fled Orkney during Reid’s episcopate,24 and it is conceivable that Reid feared that Orkney and Shetland were particularly exposed to heretical evangelical ideas through the islanders’ contacts with Norway. However, in his previous post as Abbot of Kinloss (which he continued to hold concurrently with his episcopal role), Reid had already shown himself an enemy of heresy, so the concerns expressed in the revised constitution may represent Reid’s own interests rather than being related to the specific context of the Diocese of Orkney. Evidence for personal contacts between Bergen and the Northern Isles in the sixteenth century is provided by Bergen’s town records, which bear witness to associations between individual Orcadians and Shetlanders and evangelical families in Bergen, those of the cathedral clergy. Contact between Bergen and the islands in this period was probably primarily through traders who brought barley and oatmeal, hides, butter, wool, homespun and other woollen products from Orkney and Shetland for sale in Bergen.25 Indeed, until 1580, ships from Orkney and Shetland (unlike ships from elsewhere in Scotland) were permitted to trade tollfree in Bergen, as if they were domestic shipping. However, Orcadians

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and Shetlanders who wished to settle in the city had to apply for citizens’ rights, which could be rescinded, and to that extent they were treated like other foreigners.26 Nonetheless, Ludvig Daae’s reading of Bergen’s records led him to collude that “there was in Bergen a constant influx of young people from the islands.”27 Shetlanders were to be found in the household of the Bergenhus, in trade, and as servants. The Shetlander Anders Monsson was a servant in the household of Vincens Lunge, a key supporter of the Bergen Reformation, although the date of his service is unclear. Nils Hjelt (i.e. Neil the Shetlander) was a member of the household of Jens Skjelderup, Lutheran superintendent of Bergen from 1557 until his death in 1582.28 In 1569, Nils was ordained, later serving at Fana.29 It is not known when he had first settled in Bergen, but it is striking that he was ordained to serve in Norway’s Lutheran Church nearly a decade after the introduction of the Calvinist Reformation in Scotland in 1560. It is possible that Skjelderup himself was interested in Calvinist or Reformed theology, for in 1570, he came into conflict with Bergen’s town council after he sought to remove images from the town’s churches.30 Moreover, in 1571, Torleif Gregoriussen was disciplined for his Calvinist teaching on the Eucharist. Gregoriussen had been sent by the Bergen cathedral chapter to study at the University of St Andrews.31 This was presumably only after the Reformation had been introduced there, in 1560, and therefore at the behest of Skjelderup as superintendent. That Gregoriussen was sent from Lutheran Bergen to Reformed St Andrews rather than to Copenhagen or one of the German Lutheran universities to study offers a reminder that confessional differences may appear clearer to the historian in retrospect than they did at the time.32 However, the resulting controversy about his Eucharistic theology indicates that confessional differences did make themselves felt. Both Gregoriussen and Nils Hjelt provide evidence for contact between Bergen and Scotland’s Reformation, and Nils Hjelt is the only sixteenth–century Shetlander known to have served as a Lutheran priest. Perhaps the most prominent Scot in Bergen’s history in this period was the Orcadian merchant Jon Thomessøn or Lille Jon, who became a citizen of Bergen in the early sixteenth century, making several appearances in the Bergenhus accounts between 1516 and 1522 and becoming a town councillor by 1522.33 Jon Thomessøn was a man of significant means: when on the night of 8/9 November 1523, he and other Scots

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underwent a brutal attack by German merchants, in which his brother-inlaw was killed, he lost goods worth nearly 11,000 marks.34 Thereafter Jon Thomessøn remained in Bergen, although other Scots were required to leave, and by 1543 he had become one of Bergen’s two mayors, a position which he held until at least 1548.35 He was known to be a “godfryctig, from” (god-fearing and pious) man,36 suggesting that he was conforming to the ecclesiastical norms of a town which by then had been officially Lutheran for some years. In the second half of the sixteenth century, at least one Shetland family developed familial links to Bergen’s evangelical clergy through marriage. On 4 August 1566, Mikkel or Michel Jonson, parish priest of Bergen’s cathedral from 1553 until 1572, married “a young girl from Shetland.”37 The girl, whose name is unknown, was the granddaughter of Matts Tierpis, chaplain at Bergen cathedral between 1536 and 1558,38 whose daughter Katherine had married David Sanderson Scott of Reafirth in Shetland at some point in the 1540s.39 David’s sister Anna Sandersdotter was also married to a Bergen citizen, Hans Fybo or Fønbo.40 Another Matts Tierp, presumably Katherine’s brother, served as cathedral chaplain from 1558 until 1571.41 Mikkel Jonson was a colleague of Matt Tierp junior and Mikkel’s wife was probably the younger Matt Tierp’s niece. By the time of their marriage in 1566, the Reformation had been introduced into Shetland, but the marriage between Katherine Mathew’s daughter, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, and David Sanderson Scott must have taken place at a time when Shetland was still nominally Catholic and its priests did not have legitimate offspring. In other Reformation contexts, the marriage of a clergyman—or as in this case, the marriage of a respected member of the community to the daughter of a clergyman— certainly attracted comment,42 but it is not known how David’s marriage to Katharine was received. This slight evidence suggests that some level of contact between Bergen and the Northern Isles continued throughout the sixteenth century, and that the patterns of this contact did not change significantly either when evangelical theology first began to be preached in Bergen in the 1520s or when the Reformation was officially introduced in Norway in 1537. However, it also seems that these contacts did not result in any significant transmission of Lutheran ideas and practices to either Orkney or Shetland. This contrasts with the experience of Iceland, which received Reformation ideas via trade with Hamburg, and where the Reformation took shape under the influence of a group of Icelandic theologians

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who had studied in Wittenberg.43 The situation in Orkney and Shetland appears to have been closer to that of the islands which constituted the Danish diocese of Funen. Grell suggests that “the absence of an evangelical movement” there might reflect the islands’ “relative isolation in geographical terms, situated away from any major trade route,”44 and this would apply also to Orkney and Shetland, which were not closely integrated into the Hansa network. Moreover, as Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin and Morten Fink-Jensen point out elsewhere in this volume, patterns of migration bore complex relationships to religious change.45 In this case, while migration from Orkney and Shetland to Bergen was probably complemented by migration from Bergen to Orkney and Shetland (such as Katherine Mathew’s daughter discussed above), these patterns of movement seem not to have functioned as a channel for religious change. This may reflect the fact that, as Henning Laugerud and Henrik von Achen show, many of the outward trappings of religion initially continued in Norway, and specifically in Bergen, although they might be invested with new meaning.46 It also seems likely that the majority of Orcadians or Shetlanders had only a superficial engagement with or understanding of church ritual: although Orkney and Shetland constituted the diocese of Orkney with an impressive cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney, no religious order had a house in the Northern Isles,47 and there were few parish clergy. Moreover, Robert Reid’s reforms of the cathedral chapter had tended to focus those clergy’s efforts on the cathedral rather than on their parishes. To theologically uneducated laity visiting Bergen, the significance of theological and liturgical changes—or even the fact of those changes—may therefore have been difficult to realise and to assess. Moreover, it is impossible to gauge the extent to which the differing religious cultures of Bergen and Orkney and Shetland were experienced simply as in line with other differences between local cultures, or between rural and urban culture.48

Conclusion The contacts between Orkney and Shetland on the one hand and Bergen on the other may serve to illustrate the distinction between teaching (or deep learning) and the dissemination of information proposed by EstherBeate Körber as a tool for understanding the spread of the Reformation around the Baltic. Luther’s theology, she argues, needed the former, since it “required of its recipients that they make it their own, that they engage

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with it and that they see themselves and their world in a new light.”49 While islanders who settled in Bergen must have had some opportunity to engage deeply with evangelical theology and practice, the same opportunities were not available to Orcadians and Shetlanders who remained on the islands. Moreover, although the sixteenth century saw Orkney’s and Shetland’s trading links with Dutch and German merchants increase, and Brian Smith believes that “The vast majority of Shetland’s trading ties in the period were with Germany,”50 neither Shetland nor Orkney had a significant sea-going merchant class in this period,51 although In consequence, trade tended to be conducted by ships visiting the islands. Klaus Friedland cites evidence for “merchants from Danzig in Shetland from 1487 onwards, from Bremen after 1498, from Hamburg after 1547, from Lübeck after 1562, from Rostock after 1599, from Stralsund after 1601, and perhaps also from the so-called Zuider-Zee cities of Kampen and Deventer after 1498.”52 While Kirkwall in Orkney proved a harbour in a town which could foster personal contacts, Shetland had a very particular pattern of trade, with ships arriving every summer, each anchoring in its own voe [bay], and communication with those on land taking place by small boat.53 This cannot have been conducive to religious debate and exchange in the same way as patterns of trading which required ships and their crews to spend time in a port, with the possibility of dining with local people and visiting the local churches.54 That some such contacts did nonetheless take place, is suggested by the existence of a “very early German communion card,” of the type issued in Danzig in the midsixteenth century, in Dunrossness church in Shetland.55 Overall, however, although there can be no doubt that trading routes helped to spread Reformation ideas, the lack of evidence for Lutheran ideas in Orkney and Shetland suggests that a certain depth of contact was more conducive to the transmission of evangelical ideas. In addition, Orkney and Shetland were rural societies, and in general Reformation ideas established themselves more easily in urban contexts.56 Grell sees “the overwhelmingly rural character of early modern Norway, even when compared with Denmark,” as a key reason for the lack of popular support for the Reformation there.57 Moreover, the dissemination of Reformation ideas was often supported by the presence of either a university or a printing press, neither of which existed in Norway,58 let alone in the Northern Isles, which did not even have a Latin school. Norn, unlike Scots, was not a written language, and Körber suggests that the spread of Lutheran theology and practice was much more difficult

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where there was no written language.59 The most important players in the promulgation of the Reformation were often educated middle-class laity, whose numbers must have been small in both Orkney or Shetland. Although this chapter has investigated the lack of any clear transmission of Reformation ideas between Bergen and the Northern Isles, it nevertheless provides a reminder to the need to look beyond national boundaries—and national historiographies—when discussing the impact of the Reformation. Sixteenth-century Orkney and Shetland existed in a complex network of relationships which linked them to the German Hanseatic cities on the Baltic and to Norway and Denmark as well as to Scotland. The Reformation in the Northern Isles did not take shape in isolation. Rather, it was linked to, and helped to define, the wider experience of Reformation across this whole network.

Notes 1. Steinar Imsen, Da Reformasjonen kom til Norge (Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2016), 108–9. 2. Michael P. Barnes, “Reflections on the Structure and the Demise of Orkney and Shetland Norn,” in Language contact in the British Isles, eds. P. Sture Ureland and George Broderick, 429–60 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991), 447; and compare Brian Smith, “The Development of the Spoken and Written Shetland Dialect: A Historian’s View,” in Shetland’s Northern Links, Language and History, ed. Doreen J. Waugh, 30–43 (Edinburgh: Scottish Society for Northern Studies, 1996), 31; Michael P. Barnes, The Norn Language of Orkney and Shetland (Lerwick: Shetland Times, 1998), 12; Geirr Wiggen, Norns død, især skolens rolle: Kommentar tile n disputt om nedgangen for ded nordiskes språket på Orknøyene og Shetland (Oslo: Novus forlag, 2012); William Thomson, The New History of Orkney (Edinburgh: Birlin, 2008), 240. 3. Donaldson, Gordon. “The Scots Settlement in Shetland,” in Shetland and the Outside World 1469–1969, ed. Donald J. Withrington, 8–19 (Oxford: University of Aberdeen at Oxford University Press, 1983), 9. 4. Barnes, “Reflections on the Structure and the Demise of Orkney and Shetland Norn,” 447. Compare also, for the seventeenth century, Smith, “The Development of the Spoken and Written Shetland Dialect,” 32–3. 5. Ragnhild Ljosland, “The Establishment of the Scots Language in Orkney,” The New Orkney Antiquarian Journal 6 (2012): 70, 77. 6. Barnes, “Reflections on the Structure and the Demise of Orkney and Shetland Norn,” 447–8.

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7. Berit Sandnes, “Fra Norn til Skotsk: Det Norrøne Språkets skjebne på Vesterhavensøyene ca. 1300–1750,” in Grenser og Grannelag i Nordens Historie, ed. Steinar Imsen, 164–75 (Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag, 2005), 167. 8. Sandnes, “Fra norn til Skotsk,” 167. Compare Steinar Imsen, “The Scottish-Norwegian Border in the Middle Ages,” in Region—Provins— Rike: Utvalgte Artikler om Samvirke og Konflikt, ed. Steinar Imsen, 267–81 (Trondheim: Institutt for Historiske Studier—NTNU, 2014), 279; T. M. Y. Manson, “Shetland in the Sixteenth Century,” in The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland: Essays in Honour of Gordon Donaldson, eds. I. B. Cowan and D. Shaw, 200–13 (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1983), 207. The importance of biligualism in both Ireland and Wales has been highlighted elsewhere in this volume by Raymond Gillespie and James January-McCann. 9. Robert McColl Millar, “The Origins and Development of Shetland Dialect in Light of Dialect Contact Theories,” English World-Wide 29 (2008): 240. Originally this dialect would probably have been much more widely spoken, covering Norway, Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, the Scottish Western Isles, the Faeroes, Iceland and Greenland (ibid.). Ruth Sanders points to similarities between Scots and the Scandinavian languages (Ruth H. Sanders, The Languages of Scandinavia: Seven Sisters of the North [Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2017], 36). 10. In Norway, Danish had been the written language since the mid-fifteenth century: from 1450 royal documents in Denmark-Norway were issued only in Danish, and Danish also became the administrative language for the Norwegian bishops, particularly those whose Latin was weak. The Norwegian Reformation was promulgated through Danish translations of the Bible and other ecclesiastical works, and Danish replaced Latin as the ecclesiastical language. Written Danish and Norwegian were closely related in this period; indeed, Ivar Berg asks whether a distinction between “Norwegian” and “Danish” is meaningful in the sixteenth century (Ivar Berg, “Reformasjonen og norsk språkhistorie,” Teologisk tidsskrift 7 [2018]: 173). Endre Mørck, however, comments that the difference between the written language of the Danish Bible and spoken dialectal vernacular Norwegian “was larger than what Luther thought ideal, although the language of the Bible was probably intelligible to Norwegians” (Endre Mørck, “The Reformation and the Linguistic Situation in Norway,” Nordlit 43 [2019], 121; citing Anders Aschim, “Bibelen på morsmålet,” in Trådene i samfunnsveven. Hva har reformasjonen betydd for Norge? eds. Nils Ivar Agøy, Knut Edvart Larsen and Anton Smedshaug, 113–124 [Oslo: Verbum 2017], 118). On the linguistic aspects

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of the Reformation in Norway, see also Kristen Valkner, “Reformasjonens innførelse i Bergen,” in Bjørgvin bispestol: Byen og bispedømmet, ed. Per Juvkam, 167–81 (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1970), 168; Sanders, Languages of Scandinavia, 123–4. Kurt Braunmüller, “Forms of Language Contact in the Area of the Hanseatic League: Dialect Contact Phenomena and Semicommunication,” Nordic Journal of Linguistics 19 (1996): 141–54; compare also Sanders, Languages of Scandinavia, 122, 170, who argues that Low German was an important linguistic influence on both Danish and Norwegian. Martin Schwarz Lausten points to the importance of trading routes for spreading Reformation ideas in Denmark in the 1520s (Martin Schwarz Lausten, Die Reformation in Dänemark (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2008), 33; Martin Schwarz Lausten, A Church History of Denmark (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 91, 96, 142. Otfried Czaika similarly identifies the significance of German craftsmen and merchants for the spread of the Reformation in Sweden (Otfried Czaika, “Das Schwedische Reich in der frühen Neuzeit: Das Werden einer lutherischen Großmacht,” in Der Luther Effekt: 500 Jahre Protestantismus in der Welt, eds. Anne-Katrin Ziesak, Ewa Gossart, Philipp Steinkamp and Katarazyna Nowak, 76–85 (Berlin: Hirmer Verlag, 2017), 77. Rainer Postel, Die Reformation in Hamburg: 1517 –1528 (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1986), 243–50; Arnd Reitemeier, Reformation in Norddeutschland: Gottvertrauen zwischen Fürstenherrschaft und Teufelsfurcht (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2017), 84, 110–11. Johannes Schilling, “Die Reformation in Lübeck,” in Lübeck 1500. Kunstmetropole im Ostseeraum, ed. Jan Friedrich Richter, 45–53 (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2015); Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, Kirchengeschichte Lübecks: Christentum und Bürgertum in neun Jahrhunderten (Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild, 1981), xi–xii. Bernd Moeller, “Die Reformation in Bremen,” Jahrbuch der Wittheit zu Bremen 17 (1973): 51–73. Charlotte Appel and Morten Fink-Jensen observe the importance of trade for the supply of books in the Nordic countries: “frequently readers would … bring books home when returning from travel abroad, and books could be imported directly by collectors … But in general, only limited selections of books were transported inland, especially where ships could not go” (Charlotte Appel and Morten Fink-Jensen, “Introduction: Books, Literacy and Religious Reading in the Lutheran North,” in Religious Reading in the Lutheran North: Studies in Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture, eds. Charlotte Appel and Morten Fink-Jensen, 1–14 [Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011], 5–6). Similarly Alec Ryrie’s evidence for Reformation ideas in mainland Scotland includes a

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17.

18.

19. 20.

21.

22. 23.

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report that “Scottish merchants were buying quantities of heretical books and shipping them to Edinburgh and St Andrews,” and the inventory of an Edinburgh merchant which included a collection of English evangelical books: Alec Ryrie, The Origins of the Scottish Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 30–1. Thomas V. Cohen and Lesley K. Twomey, “Introduction,” in Spoken Word and Social Practice: Orality in Europe (1400–1700), eds. Thomas V. Cohen and Lesley K. Twomey, 1–44 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 17. For example: R. W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 2–3; compare Esther-Beate Körber, “Reformation als Kommunikations- und Verkehrsereignis,” in Aspekte der Reformation im Ostseeraum, ed. Ralph Tuchtenhagen, 15–44 (Lüneburg: NordostInstitut, 2005) 25–9. Körber, “Reformation als Kommunikations- und Verkehrsereignis,” 33. For Robert Maxwell, see William Fraser, Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok, 2–vol. ed. (Edinburgh: privately printed, 1863), 1:403–11, with an inventory of Maxwell’s possessions —including his (remarkably few) books—at his death (406–11). Orchades sunt insulæ fere sub polo, non longe a Norvegia, Dania, Germaniisque sitæ; hae forsan de causa Catholicæ fidei legumque minus observantes (cited according to J. B. Craven, History of the Church in Orkney—From the Introduction of Christianity to 1558, 2nd edn (Kirkwall: W. Peace, 1901), 149. See also William Thomson, The New History of Orkney (Edinburgh: Birlin, 2008), 249; Ludvig Daae, “About Contacts between the Orkneys and Shetland and the Motherland Norway after 1468,” in Two Translations from the Dano-Norwegian, ed. and trans. E. S. Reid Tait, 1–16 (Lerwick: Manson, 1953), 14. For Robert Reid, see Olaf D. Cuthbert, A Flame in the Shadows: Robert Reid, Bishop of Orkney, 1541–1558 (Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1998). For the Latin text, see Alexander Peterkin (ed.), “Appendix” in Rentals of the Ancient Earldom and Bishoprick of Orkney, with some other explanatory and relative documents (Edinburgh: n. p., 1820), 18–25. An English translation can be found in J. Storer Clouston (ed.), Records of the Earldom of Orkney, 1299–1614 (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable for the Scottish History Society, 1914), 363–71. For a consideration of the constitution, see Ronald G. Cant, “The Constitution of St Magnus Cathedral,” in Northern Isles Connections: Essays from Orkney and Shetland presented to Per Sveaas Andersen, eds. Barbara E. Crawford, 105–21 (Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1995); Cuthbert, A Flame in the Shadows, 79– 84, Charlotte Methuen, “Orkney, Shetland and the Networks of the Northern Reformation,” Nordlit 43 (2019): 40–2; Duncan Shaw, “The 16th Century and the Movement for Reform,” in Light in the North: St

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24.

25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30.

31. 32.

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Magnus Cathedral through the Centuries, eds. H. W. M. Cant and H. N. Firth, 37–56 (Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1989), 43–7. For Skea/Kaa, see Gordon Donaldson, “Bishop Adam Bothwell and the Reformation in Orkney,” Records of the Scottish Church History Society 13 (1959): 85; Gordon Donaldson, Reformed by Bishops: Galloway, Orkney and Caithness (Edinburgh: Edina Press, 1987), 20; and compare Thomson, New History of Orkney, 257; Margaret H. B. Sanderson (ed.), Biographical List of Early Scottish Protestants, Heretics and other Religious Dissenters 1407 –1560 (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 2010), 127. For Lowson/Guilmus, see Sanderson, Biographical List of Early Scottish Protestants, 106; Philip Melanchthon, 29 March 1551, in Melanchthons Briefwechsel, no. 6035, R6, 144. See also Peter Marshall’s article in this volume. Knut Helle, The Orkneys in Norwegian History (Bergen: A.s. Centraltrykkeriet, 1988). Ibid. Daae, “About Contacts between the Orkneys and Shetland,” 2. See Vibeke Roggen, “Jens Pederssøn Skielderup,” in Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, nbl.snl.no/Jens_Pederssøn_Skielderup (accessed 27 May 2020). Skjelderup had studied in Copenhagen, Wittenberg and Rostock, where he took his doctorate in medicine. Daae, “About Contacts between the Orkneys and Shetland,” 2. For Nils Hjelt see also Imsen, Da Reformasjonen kom til Norge, 109; compare “Prester i Nordhordland prosti,” genealogi.no/prester-i-nordhordlandprosti/ (accessed 27 May 2020). Thorkild Lyby and Ole Peter Grell, “The Consolidation of Lutheranism in Denmark and Norway,” in The Scandinavian Reformation: from Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, ed. Ole Peter Grell, 114–43 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 125. For Skjelderup’s view on images, which “broadly speaking is in line with Luther’s view on images,” see Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen, “The Arts and Lutheran Church Decoration: Some Reflections on the Myth of Lutheran Images and Iconography,” in The Myth of the Reformation, ed. Peter Opitz, 356–80 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2013), 359; Imsen, Da Reformasjonen kom til Norge, 70. Lyby and Grell, “Consolidation of Lutheranism,” 125. For the tendencies in Reformation history to assume overly defined confessional identities, see Carina L. Johnson, David M. Luebke, Marjorie E. Plummer, Jesse Spohnholz (eds). Archaeologies of Confession: Writing the German Reformation 1517 –2017 (New York: Berghahn, 2017). For the “complex multi-religious and multi-cultural reality” of NorwayDenmark, see also Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark’s chapter in this volume.

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33. Helle, The Orkneys in Norwegian History, 24. Compare also Daae, “About Contacts between the Orkneys and Shetland,” 6. On Thomessøn, see Knut Helle, “‘Lille Jon’ Jon Thomessøn,” in Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, nbl.snl.no/“Lille_Jon”_Jon_Thomessøn (accessed 27 May 2020). 34. For this episode, see James L. Larson, Reforming the North: The Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1545 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 158, who believes that Vincens Lunge instigated the violence, but intended it to be directed against the Bergenhus fortress; compare also Helle, “‘Lille Jon’ Jon Thomessøn.” 35. For the appointment of two mayors from 1540, see Ole Peter Grell, “The Reformation in Norway: A Political and Religious Takeover,” in Aspekte der Reformation im Ostseeraum, ed. Ralph Tuchtenhagen, 121–144 (Lüneburg: Nordost-Institut, 2005), 143. 36. Cited in Helle, “‘Lille Jon’ Jon Thomessøn.” 37. Daae, “About Contacts between the Orkneys and Shetland,” 5; Norske Magasin: Skrifter og Optegnelser Angaaende Norge og Forfattede efter Reformationen, Vol. 1 (Christiania: Johan Dahls Forlag, 1858), 315; compare idem (ed.), Absalon Pederssøn Beyer (ed.). Liber Capituli Bergensis: Dagbog over Begivenheder, isaer Bergen, 1552–1572 (Christiania: Johan Dahls Forlagshandel, 1860), 117. For the dates of Mikkel Jonson’s ministry at the cathedral see “Prester i Nordhordland prosti,” genealogi. no/prester-i-nordhordland-prosti/ (accessed 27 May 2020). 38. See “Prester i Nordhordland prosti,” genealogi.no/prester-i-nordhordl and-prosti/ (accessed 27 May 2020). 39. I am grateful to Brian Smith and John Ballantyne for identifying Katherine Mathewsdaughter and David Sanderson Scott; see Brian Smith, “David Sanderson Scott of Reafirth and His Family,” Coontin Kin 105 (2017): 4–7. 40. David Sanderson Scott’s sister Anna Sandersdotter was married to Hans Fybo or Fønbo, a Bergen citizen. See the conveyance of land signed in Bergen on 16 August 1575, after she was widowed: Norske Magasin: Skrifter og Optegnelser Angaaende Norge og Forfattede efter Reformationen, Vol. 2 (Christiania: Johan Dahls Forlag, 1868), 79. 41. See “Prester i Nordhordland prosti,” genealogi.no/prester-i-nordhordl and-prosti/ (accessed 27 May 2020). 42. See for instance the case of Katharina Schütz Zell in Strasbourg, who wrote a defence of her marriage to the reforming priest Matthias Zell which had caused considerable scandal (Katharina Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung Katharina Schützinn /für M. matthias Zellen /jren Eegemahel,” in Katharina Schütz Zell: Vol. 2: The Writings: A Critical Edition, ed. Elsie Ann McKee, 15–54 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 43. Jens E. Oleson, “Die Reformation im Königreich Dänemark,” in Aspekte der Reformation im Ostseeraum, ed. Ralph Tuchtenhagen, 75–119

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44. 45. 46.

47.

48.

49. 50.

51.

52.

53.

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(Lüneburg: Nordost-Institut, 2005), 114–15. Despite the existence of this group, the Reformation in Iceland took a long time to become accepted (see ibid., 116–17 and Jack Cunningham’s chapter in this volume. Grell, “From Popular, Evangelical Movement to Lutheran Reformation in Denmark,” 53–4, 54–5 (quotation at 55). See Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin’s and Morten Fink-Jensen’s chapters in this volume. Henning Laugerud, Reformasjon uten Folk: Det Katolske Norge i før- og Etterreformatoisk tid (Oslo: St Olav forlag 2018), 135–68; also Henrik von Achen’s chapter in this volume. Diarmaid MacCulloch emphasises the importance of the friars, and particularly the preaching orders, in preparing the ground for the Reformation (Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490–1700 [London: Allen Lane, 2003], 30–4). See also John McCafferty’s chapter in this volume. Evidence from some parts of Germany suggests considerable willingness to join in the services and practices of other communities: see for instance David M. Luebke, “Misremembering Hybridity: The Myth of Goldenstedt,” in Archaeologies of Confession: Writing the German Reformation 1517 –2017 , eds. Carina L. Johnson, David M. Luebke, Marjorie E. Plummer and Jesse Spohnholz, 23–44 (New York: Berghahn, 2017). Körber, “Reformation als Kommunikations- und Verkehrsereignis,” 16. Brian Smith, “When Did Orkney and Shetland Become Part of Scotland? A Contribution to the Debate,” New Orkney Antiquarian Journal 5 (2010): 52. Ballantine and Smith find that ‘Shetland did not develop a strong local mercantile class until the eighteenth century’: Shetland Documents 1195– 1579, eds. John H. Ballantyne and Brian Smith (Lerwick: Shetland Islands Council and the Shetland Times, 1999), xiii. Klaus Friedland, “Hanseatic Merchants and Their Trade with Shetland,” in Shetland and the Outside World 1469–1969, ed. Donald J. Withrington, 86–95 (Oxford: University of Aberdeen at Oxford University Press, 1983), 90. See for instance, Shetland Documents, xiii; James W. Irvine, Lerwick: The Birth and Growth of an Island Town (Lerwick: Lerwick Community Council, 1985), 3–5; Brian Smith, “Shetland, Scandinavia, Scotland 1300–1700: the Changing Nature of Contact,” in Scotland and Scandinavia 800–1800, ed. Grant G. Simpson, 25–37 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1990), 31–2; Hance D. Smith, Shetland Life and Trade 1550–1914 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2003), 7–9; Kathrin Zickermann, Across the German Sea: Early Modern Scottish Connections with the wider Elbe-Weser Region (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 84–5.

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54. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, English merchants and other travellers to Germany and the Baltic can often be found commenting on the churches they visited: Andrew Spicer, “Introduction: Lutheran Churches and Confessional Identity,” in Lutheran Churches in Early Modern Europe, ed. Andrew Spicer, 1–16 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 3–5. 55. Shaw, “The 16th Century and the Movement for Reform,” 39–40. 56. Lausten, Church History of Denmark, 101, concludes for Denmark, for instance, that the Reformation “was a typical market-town phenomenon.” The suggestion that the Reformation was an urban phenomenon was exemplified by the focus of (for instance) A. G. Dickens on the spread of Reformation to cities such as Erfurt, Nuremberg, Strasbourg, “some Haneatic cities,” and the imperial cities (A. G. Dickens, The German Nation and Martin Luther [London: Edward Arnold, 1974], 135–99). This thesis has been widely discussed, and convincing arguments for the Reformation as a movement with an impact in rural areas have also been offered. However, it remains the consensus that the cultural possibilities offered by towns and cities tended to be more conducive to the spread of reforming ideas, particularly when combined with a political interst in securing the town’s independence. For useful explorations of the literature (albeit now somewhat dated), see Gerhard Müller, Reformation und Stadt: Zur Rezeption der Evangelischen Verkündigung (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaft und der Literatur, 1981); Kaspar von Greyerz, “Stadt und Reformation: Stand und Aufgaben der Forschung,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 76 (1985): 6–63; Tom Scott, “Review Article: The Common People in the German Reformation,” Historical Journal 34 (1991): 183–92. 57. Ole Peter Grell, “The Reformation in Denmark, Norway and Iceland,” in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Vol. 2: 1520–1870, eds. E. I. Kouri and Jens E. Olesen, 44–59 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 55, 141–3. See also Imsen, Da Reformasjonen kom til Norge, and Laugerud, Reformasjon uten Folk. 58. Grell, “Reformation in Norway,” 127. Compare also the useful summary of “the political situation and its repercussions for the book trade” offered by Gina Dahl, “The Market for Books in Early Modern Norway: The Case of Juridical Literature.” In Documenting the Early Modern Book World: Inventories and Catalogues in Manuscript and Print, edited by Malcolm Walsby and Natasha Constantinidou, 187–205. Leiden: Brill, 2013), 188– 90. Dahl’s work—including her chapter in this volume and her study. Books in Early Modern Norway (Leiden: Brill, 2011)—focuses on the later period since evidence of book ownership in the sixteenth century is very slight. 59. Körber, “Reformation als Kommunikations- und Verkehrsereignis,” 22–5.

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Sandnes, Berit. “Fra Norn til Skotsk: Det Norrøne Språkets skjebne på Vesterhavensøyene ca. 1300–1750.” In Grenser og Grannelag i Nordens Historie, edited by Steinar Imsen, 164–75. Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag, 2005. Schilling, Johannes. “Die Reformation in Lübeck.” In Lübeck 1500. Kunstmetropole im Ostseeraum, edited by Jan Friedrich Richter, 45–53. Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2015. Schütz Zell, Katharina. “Entschuldigung Katharina Schützinn / für M. matthias Zellen / jren Eegemahel.” In Katharina Schütz Zell: Vol. 2: The Writings: A Critical Edition, edited by Elsie Ann McKee, 15–54. Leiden: Brill, 1999. Schwarz Lausten, Martin. A Church History of Denmark. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002. Schwarz Lausten, Martin. Die Reformation in Dänemark. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlags-haus, 2008. Scott, Tom. “Review Article: The Common People in the German Reformation.” Historical Journal 34 (1991): 183–92. Scribner, R. W. For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Shaw, Duncan. “The 16th Century and the Movement for Reform.” In Light in the North: St Magnus Cathedral Through the Centuries, edited by H. W. M. Cant and H. N. Firth, 37–56. Kirkwall: Orkney Press, 1989. Smith, Brian. “David Sanderson Scott of Reafirth and His Family.” Coontin Kin 105 (2017): 4–7.

CHAPTER 9

“Nullus ”: The Ending of Conventual Religious Life in Denmark–Norway, England and Wales, Ireland, and Scotland John McCafferty

I would like to begin with an anecdote. Just over a decade ago, the Irish Franciscan Observants left the city of Drogheda after almost 800 years. They gave their buildings to the local community for use as an art gallery as a way of recognising and reciprocating with the inhabitants for their donations over the centuries. Those who went to take possession from the friars observed that there were pots soaking in the sink, cutlery scattered on the tables and all the signs of an abrupt or hasty leave-taking. Henry VIII’s commissioners of the latter 1530s when making inventories of former Franciscan houses in Ireland noted that those grey friars had arisen and gone with celerity.1 Twenty-first century dissolution is, of course, a voluntary departure but it has features which are useful in thinking through the ending of conventual life among the Franciscan familia almost five centuries earlier. An untidy kitchen is a place where good housekeeping vied with a small performance of unworldliness. The

J. McCafferty (B) School of History, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_9

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Irish Franciscan chronicler Donatus Mooney, writing about 1614, maintained that the persecution, scattering and subsequent persistence of his confrères were all consequent on their being a mundo valde alieni.2 Drogheda’s art gallery rests on a foundation of restitution or of return of goods to an urban population. This notion of old alms reapplied to the common good or commonweal is not to be underestimated when trying to recover some of the inner sense of an early modern movement across northern Europe which erased some of the most venerable, visible and vocal religious actors from the cityscapes and townscapes of that world.

Dissolutions The phenomenon known to Anglophone historians as the “dissolution” of religious houses occurred with diverse trajectories and outcomes in the Oldenburg, Tudor and Stewart kingdoms.3 All three dynasties, as it happened, had a particular affinity for the Observant Franciscans. James V of Scots wrote to his cousin Frederik I when the Observants were expelled from Denmark begging the latter to take them back and restore them. Again it was James V who took in the eighteen English Franciscan refugees who fled north to his kingdom in 1534 and guarded them against extradition.4 It is possible, though, to go beyond these instances and to take a synthetic view of the demise of conventual life in the northwestern quadrant of Europe by examining themes of expansion and consolidation of dynastic states, the financial pressures created by conflict, evangelical preaching (especially that of ex-religious), anti-mendicancy and urban politics. Until the appearance of the Irish friar Luke Wadding’s twenty-five volume Annales Minorum from 1625–1654, Franciscus Gonzaga’s 1587 De Origine Seraphicae Religionis was the most influential Observant universal history. Gonzaga, a former Minister General, made Ireland, Scotland, England and Dacia (roughly Scandinavia) into a quartet of northern provinces overrun by heresy. Only one of these, he wrote, still maintains resident friars. Gonzaga was particularly goaded by Dacia, which unlike the other three regions, does not even occur in the index. He wonders if it can even still be described as a province of the order since the zeal to destroy even the very record of the friars’ existence by “malign spirits” who sought out and handed over the records of 22 friaries to the flames. For him this was a further instance of the piaculo or sin offering of the heretics.5 Gonzaga’s literary conceit was starkly reflected in the built

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environment. In Roskilde all but three of the town’s twenty churches and chapels fell into disuse after the 1530s and were gradually recycled stone by stone. For Ireland, he gives almost all of his space to the recent (1579) high profile martyrdom of Patrick O’Hely, friar-bishop of Mayo, but blames the dearth of records for the omission of the list of Franciscan houses which is the spine for his normal entries for each province of the order.6 England is given a similar treatment, foregrounding Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn which the Observants there had so opposed, then gliding along a list of martyrs the schismatic Tudor monarch had made. Since Gonzaga had material given to him by the chronicler of the Scottish province, James Hay, that kingdom comes closest of the quartet to having a standard entry in its list of nine houses of the order. Yet there is a sense in Gonzaga, as with other friar historians of the period, that the very houses themselves as places of the Rule, of the accumulated Observance of generations and of the bones of the friars and their friends, have become martyrs to heretical rage. For the Franciscan movement the most sonorous event of 1517 was not Martin Luther’s theological intervention but the Papal Bull Ite Vos which foisted on that endlessly ramifying movement a permanent division—into Friars Minor or Observants and Friars Conventual. 1528 made that division tripartite with a papal approval of the Capuchin branch.7 In his Gonzaga-esque catalogue of Irish houses the scribe Mícheál Ó Cléirigh records the adoption of the strict observance by each community on the island using this phrase: “Conveint X do ghlacadh an Reformasioin”—“Convent X accepted the Reformation.” Ó Cléirigh’s formulation here is indicative of the extent to which the motions of their own orders were at the centre of vision and interpretation for so many friars.8 This cannot have been without effect in a Protestant Reformation where so many of the early charismatic leadership were themselves former friars. Chronologies of change for each of the regions in question were different and so had the potential to affect the kind of change in each. In Denmark King Frederik started to eat meat on Fridays in 1526 which also happened to be the year in which the friars there began to notice that alms were not as nicely forthcoming as before.9 In 1527 Duke Christian was personally involved in the removal of the mendicant orders from Haderslev.10 The Danish Church Ordinance was published in 1537 but by 1532 there were only five or so functioning houses left in that realm.11 Because the English Observants trod so heavily on Henry VIII’s most intimate dreams by plainly preaching the legitimacy of the king’s marriage to

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Catherine of Aragon there was swift truncation rather than slow trajectory for the former lavishly favoured friars. As early as the 1530s the Franciscans of Dundee began to encounter problems. Those difficulties darkened into iconoclastic crisis in the 1540s but still left them a long low road to 1559 when Scotland became Protestant by parliamentary statute.12 Ireland offers an example of a forewarning. As a magnate rebellion had delayed introduction of Henry’s statutory schism by two years until 1536 the friars were unsurprised by the rolling sequence of visitations and small harassments by Archbishop Browne that culminated in direct dissolutions in 1541 and afterwards.13 As early as 1531 the Order’s visitator Francis Faber had been urged by Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire, Eustache Chapuys, to “brew up all there he could … for preservation the Holy See [in Ireland].”14 Since the Observants far outnumbered the Conventuals on the smaller island (and continued to absorb Conventuals into their movement throughout the whole sixteenth century) the English policy of absorbing recollects into conventual communities could not be employed there. The result was that the arc of Irish dispersal and dissolution was longest of all, sweeping across almost seven decades from 1534 to 1601.15 This took place in an atmosphere where a large section of the population very gradually adopted the friars’ own self-construction as a group integral to a de-ethnicising Irish Catholic and Roman identity. Furthermore, the ex-friars actively prominent in the reformation process in Ireland were not natives—both John Bale, bishop of Ossory and George Browne, archbishop of Dublin were imports.16

Observants Reading with the Observant chronicles across a variety of realms, times and spaces offer an opportunity to go a little behind the scenes. Here is a unity of voice. Being Observant was to be a member of a community that, at some point in the past decades or century, had completed a process, often a knotted one, of embracing the strict observance of the Rule of St. Francis or the Regula Bullata of 1223. The Rule is Roman in its beginning and ending: Brother Francis promises obedience and reverence to our Lord Pope Honorius and his successors canonically elected and to the Roman church. Let the other brothers be bound to obey Brother Francis and his successors. [Ch. I, 2–3]17

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Friars, then, are worked into a weave of personal relations that bind them to the Pope through the Poverello. Being always submissive and subject at the feet of the same Holy Church and steadfast in the Catholic Faith, we may observe poverty, humility and the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ as we have firmly promised. [Ch. XII]18

The whole of the Rule is folded up within, and bounded by, these two chapters. Poverty, defining characteristic of the Order and its driving desire, comes in the context of submission to Roman orthodoxy. This intimate interdependence of the Order and the pontificate comes in Bonaventure’s famous account of the dream of Innocent III in his Legenda Major: He [Innocent] saw in a dream as he recounted, the Lateran basilica almost ready to fall down. A little poor man, small and scorned was propping it up with his own back bent so that it would not fall. “I’m sure,” he said, “he is the one who will hold up Christ’s Church by what he does and what he teaches.”19

Bonaventure’s Legenda was the official history of the Order and of the whole movement, the basis of the liturgical offices for the saint of Assisi. Approved by the General Chapter 1263, all other versions were to be destroyed or suppressed. The Franciscan way of life was to be orthodox and Roman. Observants faced with anti-papal rhetoric or action had a sharp-edged choice to make. Some friars apostasised. Of those, a number became influential promoters of the new Protestant movement. This reality weakened any grand narrative of indefatigable resistance to change. Those who wrote histories of the frictions of the sixteenth century had to invoke concupiscence and resort to tropes of heretical infections to make sense of events. But there was a road map for this and it is to be found, as mentioned with Ó Cléirigh, in the manner in which they wrote about the “real” reformation—the reformatio of the Order itself.20 Peder Olsen’s (Olai’s) De Ordine Fratrum Minorum is such a chronicle of reformatio. For him, the key markers of the Observance are poverty expressed through mendicancy, popularity with the laity who seek out their services, exemplary lives which occasionally burgeon into the miraculous, plain preaching of the

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Gospel. Observant poverty is, for Olsen, genuine as opposed to that of the other orders, even such as the conventuals. Reform, in the truest sense, is a constant, something that is always being worked out and worked upon. Olsen (like Donatus Mooney) insists on the accumulation of observant practice at certain sites, which are often marked with the sepulchre of supporters who wish to be associated with these austere friars.21 Those friars had coiled simplicity and erudition into dynamic source of energy and exemplarity. Reformatio, then, conditioned mendicant responses to Protestant reformation. It determined how they saw things. The heads of patrons had been turned. Their hearts had been poisoned by corrupted preaching. The Gospel had been perverted into a mocking parody of the truly evangelical. Reformed rejection of the Papacy was—when witnessed from these cloisters—an attack on the entire Rule itself. There was a snag, of course, to this righteously Observant rhetoric. What made entire and coherent sense to them as a rejection of novelty ricocheted on them as it forced them back into the idealised past. They defended ancient privilege, ancient purity of life and insisted on a continuing debt and alms owed by those living whose dead ancestors were buried in friary ground.22 In 1531 James V wrote fulsomely to Rome on behalf of the Observants against the Conventuals.23 Just at the same time violence against mendicants in general was beginning to show itself on Scotland’s east coast. The biting treatment by the Roman Curia of the Scots Observant James Melville, who wished to join the conventuals gives flesh to Leo X’s alleged quip that the reformation was a spat among friars.24 Donatus Mooney’s early-seventeenth-century Historia of the Irish province is full of interFranciscan gloat. The conventuals are inferior in every sense, their collapse is consequent on their possessions, their ownership of lands, goods, chattels. Renegade friars are always drawn from their cohort.25 Friars who flee, such as those English Observants who flitted over the border to Scotland, or the entire Scottish province to the Continent in 1534, or the communities of the Irish Pale who left the king’s commissioners with empty shells and buried bells, become symbols of constancy to the Order, the Rule and Rome. But inverse figures populate these chronicles—most numerously in the De Ordine Fratrum Minorum—these are the fugitives from conventual life. Hans Tausen’s spectacular 1525 removal of his Hospitaller habit while in the pulpit of the Grey Friar church at Viberg points to something else.26 Those friars who slough off the habit are left with the evangelical component of the Rule, the drive to Gospelled perfection. They do not reject all of the Rule but rather come to see that the Rule is, in effect, for

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everyone. The energy of ex-friars is drawn from their previous passionate adherence to the Rule, something Luther himself alludes to. Here the soundscapes of the early decades of Reform are revealing.

Changes and Claims The anonymous Chronicle of the Expulsion of the Greyfriars [after this: Greyfriars chronicle] is particularly exercised by changes in the soundscape. It winces at the cacophony of alternating sermons with the evangelicals. Those new gospellers who reclaim the friary churches as a civic religious space at the disposal of the citizens of each urbs. They reserve, and this is felt across many accounts of change by regulars, a particular spleen for participatory psalm singing. This democratisation, this plebian praise which supplants the choir cantus. This was an especially sore point as the Observants stressed proper and regular choir order as opposed to the laxity and neglect which prompted the “real” reformatio in the first place. It explains why, in his Historia, Mooney stresses so much the resumption of communal choral office in the reclaimed rural friaries of Kilcrea and Kilconnell during the 1610s.27 Psalm singing was not the only new noise. From the 1520s onwards something else picked up volume. Things were being said that were previously unsayable or previously constricted. It is to be found in the Carmelite Paulus Helie’s 1527 Answer to Hans Mikkelson, in the difficulties of late 1520s Denmark, in the sudden struggle to collect alms and in the attacks on Franciscan images in Scotland in 1543. It is to be found in the language of Fish’s Suplycacyon of 1530, then again in the Beggar’s Summons of 1559.28 Of course anti-fraternal rhetoric had always existed—James V even patronised it—but this was pervasive, popular and spread across all classes of society. Ratcheted up, it contained within it in the serpent’s teeth of thankless former confrères. In print Alber’s heavily reprinted and widely translated (with a foreword by the ex-Augustinian Martin Luther) Alcoran of the Barefoot Friars from 1542 onwards mounted an attack on the devotional thesaurus of the Franciscan familia—Bartholomew of Pisa’s Conformitates.29 Authorities in Denmark, England and Scotland either ignored or even condoned such friar-bashing. In 1538 the conventuals of London went so far as to incorporate it into their “subsmission” with some politique written self-blame: “our wearing of grey coats, disguising ourselves after strange fashions … in girding ourselves with a grydle full of knots.”30

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The ebullient belief of many Irish friars in full restoration of their network of houses is sometimes cited as a peculiarity of the western island but the Danish accounts also manifest a conception of “return” even in the early 1530s. Believing that dissolution was an orderly stateimplemented process can give the impression that such thinking was delusional. Yet the first friaries to “go”—Haddington, Jedburgh and Roxborough on the Anglo-Scottish border as a result of the “rough wooing” and some of those on the edges of the Pale in Ireland—were part of a familiar process of warfare seasonal raiding. It was not unreasonable to expect return.31 Such attitudes carried over into the 1530s and beyond. The actions of friars who lingered in the vicinity of suppressed houses and of those who conformed or renounced their habit but remained in the neighbourhood may have been impelled by the belief that this was a necessary contingent. In Ireland such men have been depicted as heroic lurkers while in Denmark they have been excoriated as spineless turncoats. But they are two sides of the same coin. Donatus Mooney’s chronicle hotly argues that of all the religious orders the Observant province was inconcussus or unshaken.32 This, he contends, is their manifest destiny and the twin result of their poverty and deep bond with the Catholic nobility of Ireland. The shrillness of his insistence on this point, coupled with the side-swipes he takes at a number of contemporary figures, hints at his feelings about and judgment of patrons who failed in their duty. This angry disappointment is borne out by the Scottish, English and Danish experiences because, just as tongues loosened, so did the bonds of care and reciprocation at all levels. James Hay’s chronicle is lukewarm about the royal Stewart dynasty which had been the ancient protectors and promoters of the observance in Scotland.33 Frederik I and Christian III extended protection to many evangelicals, but only to the friars (despite frequent appeals) when they were in direct danger of violence or death. The Greyfriars chronicle repeatedly contrasts ancestral munificence and sepulchre of noble families with their contemporary graspings and negligence. It is particularly biting about Naestved where Chancellor Goyes’s donor ancestors were buried.34 Across the regions in question, civic and state authorities ceased actively guaranteeing traditional rights, privileges and liberties. In England, for example, the law itself, or more precisely a combination of statute law and prerogative, combined to become the instruments of dispossession and closure. Instead, authorities began to admit or even promote counterclaims or directly solicit the Observants’ space for themselves. In 1592, after he had

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ejected an English garrison from the Donegal house, the Earl of Tyrconnell, Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill offered to bear the entire costs of the friary himself since the countryside was so impoverished. The guardian refused–an exemplary insistence on mendicant poverty—but at the same time a shrewd decision not to plump for one patron and discard the intricate weave of middling and humble donors who sustained so much of conventual life.35 It was this network of friends, drawn from all ranks of society, which began to malfunction and unravel in the 1520s, 1530s and 1540s. This left little room for the friars to defend themselves by anything other than an ancient privilege which was, very frequently, a papal privilege. Perceptions shifted and the friars found themselves judged to be surplus. They found themselves reconceived as a group who were squatting unnecessarily on top of the parochial system. Furthermore this was not necessarily a partisan theological view as groups as diverse as Catholic reformers and Zwinglians called for a rationalisation of pastoral infrastructure.36 This is not to argue that the process was entirely one way. Riot against friars was followed by counter-riot in Scotland.37 There were several instances in Denmark where the populace either split or prominent locals, such as those with the inherited founder’s right, defended the Observants; places like Ystad, Kalundberg, Horsens.38 There were many local lords who disliked the approach of central authority as they saw religious houses as part of their sphere of authority. Describing the dispersal at Halmstad in 1531 when the civic authorities stopped Masses the Greyfriars Chronicle offers a long list of goods and other moveables distributed. Some recipients made promises of return and the local pastor, an ex-Franciscan, even got his former community’s biblical concordance.39 What is striking here is the variety—for each of those who promised to hold the goods for the friars should they ever return there are others whose intentions are not clear. The dominant narrative in the Irish context is of active collaboration with a view to restitution as a form of resistance to change. The Danish experience sheds light on instances in Ireland where a civic takeover (Kilkenny) or an individual keeper of liturgical goods (Enniscorthy) may have instead been hedging their bets despite the “heroic” narrative laid on top of their actions by the friar historian.40 Contrariwise, the Irish experience hints that promises of restitution in Denmark were not de facto insincere. When houses were no longer extant, new discourses of martyrdom were apt to be deployed. Martyrdom moved to the bodies of friars who

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became exiles, prisoners and perhaps underwent torture or death. In introducing his quartet of “overrun” realms, Franciscus Gonzaga states that he will give martyrdom accounts where he can find them. While John Forest went to the stake in Smithfield as early May 1538, exile itself lengthened the shadow of dissolution and dispersal for decades to come.41 Willehad of Denmark, having fled to the Low Countries to continue his Observant life, became one of the nineteen martyrs of Gorkum on 9 July 1572.42 In 1631, the Irish friar Patrick Fleming and his companion Matthew Hore were killed by Hussites at Beneschau near Prague.43 These violent “exile” deaths gave emphasis to the lists of those brutalised, shackled or killed in home provinces which were now transformed into missionary lands. There was an enduring sense of loss of Observant territory in Europe and it is likely that this sense contributed to the growing, frequently eschatological, urgency with which the Franciscans approached missions to the New World and Asia.44 Observants across northern Europe experienced a collapse in their relations with their protector dynasties. This was especially noticeable in England where it was, in essence, a personal matter between them and Henry VIII.45 Dissolution also played out to a backdrop of constitutional and dynastic changes. In 1536 Wales was incorporated into England by statute, while in the same year Denmark and Norway underwent effective union under Christian III, and in 1541 Ireland’s status was upgraded to that of a kingdom. In Denmark, the deposition of Christian II in 1523 led to civil war. In Scotland, the death of James V in 1542 and the consequent minority of the six-day-old Mary Queen of Scots caused religious uncertainty. The Observants often experienced the effects of reformation attitudes before the formal adoption of evangelical or magisterial religious change. Their effective demise preceded the princely reformation in Denmark as it did the princely dissolutions in England. Their demise and mass exile preceded the parliamentary reformation in Scotland. Only in Ireland, where the authority of the crown was consistently challenged up to 1603, did the Observant network survive which meant that the province never became extinct unlike its counterparts in Denmark, England and Scotland.46 Slow motion dissolution in Ireland, where closure only became really effective as crown control expanded, meant that mendicant defence of ancient privilege often struck a chord with local populations. This could have easily been the dynamic in Norway.

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Remembering Dissolution The Irish survival has meant that the place occupied by the friars in the general historiography is different to that of other northern realms. There the activity of the friars who emphasised their continuity with those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was harnessed to a cultural politics which sought, after the creation of the Free State in 1922, to deploy discourses of principled resistance, strategic exile and guardianship of cultural identity.47 Elsewhere, the mendicant Observant endgame is written about in terms of marking the closure of one period and a precondition for the beginning of a new church polity. Both approaches are flawed. Medievalists across all of the countries under consideration here have become heavily dependent on the chronicles and histories composed in and around the point of fracture and breaking. They often treat them more like gazetteers and less like the Observant texts that they are. Yet the creation of such works from the later sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century was part of a scholarly response to the trauma of Reformation which simultaneously insisted on the deep, almost organic, medieval roots of the friars and their endless flourishing even when expelled from some parts of Europe. Yet these chronicles themselves spring from both inside and outside the order. The London chronicler and Petrus Olai are now looking back from outside while the Scottish James Hay, Donatus Mooney, Francis O’Mahony, Ó Cléirigh and Gonzaga are working out their understanding of the events of the sixteenth century from inside the cloister. Little work has been carried out to date on the prose of these chronicles, especially on the languages of sin, poison and slavery that run through each of them. The unity of voice in both Observants and, indeed, ex-Observants is very striking. There is no Europe-wide or region-wide study of early modern dissolutions and dispersals. Yet this is a European story with many local permutations. National historiographies have ensured that these friars have been treated, variously, as Danish, English, Irish, Norwegian, or Scots people in habits. Comparing chronicles and other written reactions to the shakings, loosenings and blows that led to dispersal over Franciscus Gonzaga’s four provinces provide evidence of an outlook based on a great knot of personal and institutional relations which allowed friars to be intimately knowledgeable about their immediate questing district and at the same time trained-up in, and heavily active, in the transnational concerns of their Franciscan familia. Many of the tropes that sustained

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the late period of Observant reform—stabilitas, good relations with the laity, lay desire for the services of the friars, the combination of erudition and simplicity of life, the outstanding holiness of individual friars lent themselves to both riposte and rejection by their host towns and cities.

Notes 1. John McCafferty, “A mundo valde alieni: Irish Franciscan Responses to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, 1540–1640,” Reformation & Renaissance Review 19 (2017): 50–63. 2. Jennings, Brendan (ed.), “Brussels Ms. 3947: Donatus Moneyus, de Provincia Hiberniae S. Francisci,” Analecta Hibernica 6 (1934): 18. 3. For broad overviews, see the chapters in Per Seesko, Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, Lars Bisgaard (eds.), The Dissolution of Monasteries (Odense: University Press of South Denmark, 2019); Joyce Youings, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971); Brendan Bradshaw, The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland under Henry VIII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). 4. Alec Ryrie, The Origins of the Scottish Reformation (Manchester: Manchester Univeristy Press, 2006), 41. 5. Franciscus Gonzaga, De Origine Seraphicae Religionis Franciscanus, 3-vol. ed. (Rome: Dominicus Baseus, 1587) 3:851. 6. Gonzaga, De Origine, 3:846–7. 7. Duncan Nimmo, Reform and Division in the Franciscan Order (Rome: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1995), 637–45. 8. Joseph Moloney (ed.), “Brussels Ms. 3410: A Chronological List of the Foundations of the Irish Franciscan Province,” Analecta Hibernica 6 (1934): 192–202. 9. Martin Schwarz Lausten, “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway 1520–1559,” in The Scandinavian Reformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 19. 10. Schwarz Lausten, “The Early Reformation,” 15. 11. “De Expulsione Fratrum Minorum” in Scriptores Minores Historicae Danicae Medii Aevi, 2-vol. ed., ed. M. Cl. Gertz, 2:326–67 (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1922). 12. Ryrie, Origins of the Scottish Reformation, 35, 66. 13. McCafferty, “A mundo valde alieni”; Brendan Scott, “The Religious Houses of Tudor Dublin: Their Communities and Resistance to the Dissolution 1537–41,” in Medieval Dublin VII , ed. Seán Duffy, 214–32 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006). 14. Colmán Ó Clabaigh, The Franciscans in Ireland 1400–1534: From Reform to Reformation (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), 77.

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15. Colm Lennon, “The Dissolution to the Foundation of St. Anthony’s College, Louvain, 1534–1607,” in The Irish Franciscans 1534–1990, eds. Edel Bhreathnach, Joseph MacMahon, and John McCafferty, 3–26 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2009). 16. For Browne’s career, see James Murray, Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland: Clerical Resistance and Political Conflict in the Diocese of Dublin, 1534–1590 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). For a recent view of Bale, see Elizabethanne Boran, “Persecution and Deliverance in Sixteenth-Century Kilkenny: The Vocacyon of Johan Bale (1553),” Old Kilkenny Review 69 (2017): 71–92. 17. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (eds.), Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Saint (New York: New City Press, 1999), 100. 18. Armstrong et al. (eds.), Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 106. 19. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (eds.), Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Founder (New York: New City Press, 2000), 548. 20. Anne Huijbers, “Observance as Paradigm in Mendicant and Monastic Order Chronicles,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, eds. James Mixson and Bert Roest, 111–43 (Leiden: Brill 2015). 21. Petrus Olai, “De Ordine Fratrum Minorum,” in Scriptores Minores Historicae Danicae Medii Aevi, 2-vol. ed., ed. M. Cl. Gertz, 2:279–324 (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1922). 22. Bert Roest, “The Observance and the Confrontation with Early Protestantism,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, eds. James Mixson and Bert Roest, 285–308 (Leiden: Brill 2015). 23. Ryrie, Origins of the Scottish Reformation, 41. 24. Ryrie, Origins of the Scottish Reformation, 31. William Moir Bryce, The Scottish Greyfriars, 2-vol. ed. (Edinburgh: Sands and Co., 1909), 1:104– 5. Melville later withdrew his request and the Pope asked James V to have him arrested. He eventually went into exile in Germany, returning to Scotland as a Protestant preacher in 1535. 25. Mooney’s is a convenient redrawing of history since the most famous of all Irish Franciscans to conform to the Church of Ireland, Miler Mac Craith, was an Observant. Patrick J. Ryan, Archbishop Miler McGrath: The Enigma of Cashel (Roscrea: Lisheen Publications, 2014). 26. Ole Peter Grell, “From Popular, Evangelical Movement to Lutheran Reformation in Denmark: A Case of Two Reformations,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2011): 4–9. 27. “De Expulsione Fratrum Minorum”; Jennings (ed.), “Brussels Ms. 3947”, 69–72.

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28. Schwarz Lausten, “The Early Reformation,” 22–27. Peter Marshall, Religious Identities in Henry VIII’s England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 44–6. Ryrie, Origins of the Scottish Reformation, 31, 153. 29. William J. Short, “The Book of Conformities: Its Printers, Illustrators and Protestant Critics,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 110 (2017): 411–38. 30. The habit was at the very grudge line of the Observant and Conventual fight. It becomes the central symbol of mendicant reclamation of space in seventeenth-century Ireland. 31. C. L. Kingsford, “Appendix: The Letter of Submission,” in The Grey Friars of London (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1915), 217–18. See also Mary Erler, Reading and Writing During the Dissolution: Monks, Friars and Nuns 1530–1558 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 38––65. 32. Jennings (ed.), “Brussels Ms. 3947,” 16. 33. Bryce, Scottish Greyfriars, 2 (2):173–94. 34. “De Expulsione Fratrum Minorum”, 364–5. 35. G. W. Bernard, “The Dissolution of the Monasteries,” History 96 (2011): 390–409. 36. Jennings (ed.), “Brussels Ms. 3947,” 39–40. For this and the effects of closure on urban geographies, see Morten Larsen, “Continuity or Change? The Danish Franciscans and the Lutheran Reformation,” in The Dissolution of Monasteries, eds. Per Seesko, Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, Lars Bisgaard, 105–22 (Odense: University Press of South Denmark, 2019); Panayota Volti, Les Couvents des Ordres Mendiants et leur environnement à la fin du Moyen Age (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2003). 37. Ryrie, Origins of the Scottish Reformation, 41. 38. Ibid., 125; “De Expulsione Fratrum Minorum,” 359–67 for these three friaries. 39. “De Expulsione Fratrum Minorum,” 355–9. 40. Jennings (ed.), “Brussels Ms. 3947,” 44, 82–3. 41. Peter Marshall, “Papist As Heretic: The Burning of John Forest, 1538,” The Historical Journal 41 (1998): 351–374. 42. Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 290–91, 300–03. 43. Elaine Murphy, “Fleming, Patrick,” in Dictionary of Irish Biography, eds. James McGuire and James Quinn, dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage. do?articleId=a3286 (accessed 28 May 2020). 44. Georges Baudot, Utopia and History: The First Chroniclers of Mexican Civilization, 1520–1569, trans. Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano (Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1995); John Leddy Phelan, The Millenial Kingdom of the Franciscans in

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the New World, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970); Steven E. Turley, Franciscan Spirituality and Mission in New Spain, 1524–1599 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014). 45. David Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, Volume 3: The Tudor Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 206–11; Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cromwell: A Life (London: Allen Lane, 2018), 163– 4 for a pithy description of the degree to which Observant preaching at Henry VIII in person irritated Thomas Cromwell. 46. McCafferty, “A mundo valde alieni.” 47. Mary Daly, “A Second Golden Age: The Irish Franciscans, 1918–63,” in The Irish Franciscans 1534–1990, eds. Edel Bhreathnach, Joseph MacMahon and John McCafferty, 132–51(Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009).

Bibliography Primary Sources Armstrong, Regis J., J. A. Wayne Hellmann and William J. Short (eds.). Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Saint. New York: New City Press, 1999. Armstrong, Regis J., J. A. Wayne Hellmann and William J. Short (eds.). Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Founder. New York: New City Press, 2000. “De Expulsione Fratrum Minorum.” In Scriptores Minores Historicae Danicae Medii Aevi. 2 vols. Edited by M. Cl. Gertz, 2:326–67. Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1922. Gonzaga, Franciscus. De Origine Seraphicae Religionis Franciscanus. 3 vols. Rome: Dominicus Baseus, 1587. Jennings, Brendan (ed.). “Brevis Synopsis Provinciae Hiberniae FF. Minorum.” Analecta Hibernica 6 (1934): 139–91. Jennings, Brendan (ed.). “Brussels Ms. 3947: Donatus Moneyus, de Provincia Hiberniae S. Francisci.” Analecta Hibernica 6 (1934): 12–138. Kingsford, C. L. (ed.). “Appendix: The Letter of Submission.” In The Grey Friars of London, 217–18. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1915. Moloney, Joseph (ed.). “Brussels Ms. 3410: A Chronological List of the Foundations of the Irish Franciscan Province.” Analecta Hibernica 6 (1934): 192–202. Olai, Petrus. “De Ordine Fratrum Minorum.” In Scriptores Minores Historicae Danicae Medii Aevi. 2 vols. Edited by M. Cl. Gertz, 2:279–324. Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1922. Wadding, Luke (ed.). Annales Minorum seu Trium Ordinum A S. Francisco Institutorum. 32 vols. Edited by Joseph Maria Fonseca ab Ebora. Rome: Quaracchi: 1931–64.

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White, Newport B. (ed.). Extents of Irish Monastic Possessions, 1540–1541, from Manuscripts in the Public Record Office, London. Dublin: The Stationary Office, 1943.

Secondary Sources Baudot, Georges. Utopia and History: The First Chroniclers of Mexican Civilization, 1520–1569, translated by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano. Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1995. Bernard, G. W. “The Dissolution of the Monasteries.” History 96 (2011): 390– 409. Boran, Elizabethanne. “Persecution and Deliverance in Sixteenth-Century Kilkenny: The Vocacyon of Johan Bale (1553).” Old Kilkenny Review 69 (2017): 71–92. Bradshaw, Brendan. The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland under Henry VIII . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Bryce, William Moir. The Scottish Greyfriars. 2 vols. Edinburgh: Sands and Co., 1909. Conlan, Patrick. Franciscan Ireland. Mullingar: Lilliput Press, 1988. Daly, Mary. “A Second Golden Age: The Irish Franciscans, 1918–63.” In The Irish Franciscans 1534–1990, edited by Edel Bhreathnach, Joseph MacMahon, and John McCafferty, 132–51. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009. Erler, Mary C. Reading and Writing During the Dissolution: Monks, Friars and Nuns 1530–1558. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Franciscan Fathers, The. Father Luke Wadding: Commemorative Volume. Dublin: Clonmore and Reynolds, 1957. Gregory, Brad S. Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Grell, Ole Peter. “The City of Malmø and the Danish Reformation.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 79 (1988): 311–339. Grell, Ole Peter. “The Emergence of Two Cities: The Reformation in Malmø and Copenhagen.” In Die Danische Reformation vor ihrem internationalem Hintergrund, edited by Leif Grane and Kai Hørby, 129–48. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990. Grell, Ole Peter. “The Catholic Church and its Leadership” In The Scandinavian Reformation, edited by Ole Peter Grell, 70–113. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Grell, Ole Peter. “The Reformation in Norway: A Political and Religious Takeover.” Nordost-Archiv: Zeitschrift fuer Regionalgeschichte 8 (2004): 121– 34.

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Grell, Ole Peter. “From Popular, Evangelical Movement to Lutheran Reformation in Denmark: A Case of Two Reformations.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 102 (2011): 4–9. Grell, Ole Peter. “The Reformation in Denmark, Norway and Iceland.” In The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 2, edited by E. I Kouri and Jens E. Olesen, 44–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Gwynn, Aubrey, and Hadcock, R. Neville. Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1988. Hørby, Kai. “Humanist Profiles in the Danish Reform Movement.” In Die Danische Reformation vor ihrem internationalem Hintergrund, edited by Leif Grane and Kai Hørby, 28–38. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990. Huijbers, Anne. “Observance as Paradigm in Mendicant and Monastic Order Chronicles.” In A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, edited by James Mixson and Bert Roest, 111–43. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Knowles, David. The Religious Orders in England, Volume 3: The Tudor Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961. Larsen, Morten. “Continuity or Change? The Danish Franciscans and the Lutheran Reformation.” In The Dissolution of Monasteries, edited by Per Seesko, Nyholm Kallestrup, Lars Bisgaard, 105–22. Odense: University Press of South Denmark, 2019. Larson, James L. Reforming the North. The Kingdoms and Churches of Scandinavia, 1520–1545. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Larsson, Lars-Olof. “Social, Political and Religious Tensions.” In The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 2, edited by E. I Kouri and Jens E. Olesen, 29–43. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Lennon, Colm. “The Dissolution to the Foundation of St Anthony’s College, Louvain, 1534–1607.” In The Irish Franciscans 1534–1990, edited by Edel Bhreathnach, Joseph MacMahon and John McCafferty, 3–26. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009. Lockhart, Paul. Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Lyons, Mary Ann. “The Role of St. Anthony’s College, Louvain in Establishing the Irish Franciscan College Network, 1607–60.” In The Irish Franciscans 1534–1990, edited by Edel Bhreathnach, Joseph MacMahon and John McCafferty, 27–44. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Thomas Cromwell: A Life. London: Allen Lane, 2018. Marshall, Peter. “Papist As Heretic: The Burning of John Forest, 1538.” The Historical Journal 41 (1998): 351–74. Marshall, Peter. Religious Identities in Henry VIII’s England. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

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McCafferty, John. “A mundo valde alieni: Irish Franciscan Responses to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, 1540–1640.” Reformation & Renaissance Review 19 (2017): 50–63. Murphy, Elaine. “Fleming, Patrick.” In Dictionary of Irish Biography, edited by James McGuire and James Quinn. dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do? articleId=a3286. Murray, James. Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland: Clerical Resistance and Political Conflict in the Diocese of Dublin, 1534–1590. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Nimmo, Duncan, Reform and Division in the Franciscan Order. Rome: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1995. Nybo Rasmussen, Jørgen. Die Franziskaner in den nordischen Ländern im Mittelalter. Kevelaer: Edition T. Coelde, 2002. Ó Clabaigh, Colmán. The Franciscans in Ireland 1400–1534: From Reform to Reformation. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002. O’Donnell, Terence. “Father Donagh Mooney OFM: The Franciscan Convent of Donegal.” In Father John Colgan OFM 1592–1658, edited by Terence O’Donnell, 130–54. Dublin: Assisi Press, 1959. Phelan, John Leddy. The Millenial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World, 2nd edn. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970. Roest, Bert. “Franciscans Between Observance and Reformation: The Low Countries (ca. 1400–1600).” Franciscan Studies 63 (2005): 409–42. Roest, Bert. Franciscan Learning, Preaching and Mission c. 1220–1650. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Roest, Bert. “The Observance and the Confrontation with Early Protestantism.” In A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, edited by James Mixson and Bert Roest, 285–308. Leiden: Brill 2015. Ryan, Patrick J. Archbishop Miler McGrath: the Enigma of Cashel. Roscrea: Lisheen Publications, 2014. Ryrie, Alec. The Origins of the Scottish Reformation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006. Seesko, Per, Louise Nyholm Kallestrup and Lars Bisgaard (eds.). The Dissolution of Monasteries. Odense: University Press of South Denmark, 2019. Schwarz Lausten, Martin. “The Early Reformation in Denmark and Norway 1520–1559.” In The Scandinavian Reformation, edited by Ole Peter Grell, 12–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Schwarz Lausten, Martin. “The Distintegration of the Medieval Church.” In The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 2, edited by E. I Kouri and Jens E. Olesen, 19–28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Scott, Brendan. “The Religious Houses of Tudor Dublin: Their Communities and Resistance to the Dissolution 1537–41.” In Medieval Dublin VII , edited by Seán Duffy, 214–32. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006.

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Short, William J. “The Book of Conformities: Its Printers, Illustrators and Protestant Critics.” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 110 (2017): 411–38. Turley, Steven. Franciscan Spirituality and Mission in New Spain, 1524–1599. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Volti, Panayota. Les Couvents des Ordres Mendiants et leur environnement à la fin du Moyen Age. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2003. Youings, Joyce. The Dissolution of the Monasteries. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971.

PART IV

Appropriations and Adaptations

CHAPTER 10

Devotion in Transition: The Practice of Appropriation of Danish and British Medieval Prayer Books Laura Katrine Skinnebach

From a political perspective, the process of reformation in England and Denmark followed very different courses. The English monarchy was characterised by confessional conflict—from Henry VIII’s break with Rome to the protestant reform of Edward VI, succeeded by the Catholic Queen Mary (1553–1558), to the ascension of the protestant Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) who was excommunicated in 1570 by Pope Pius V as a result of the Catholic rebellion in the north of England— which caused a rather pendular confessional process. As a result there was no uniform Protestantism and a Catholic opposition, but a variety of coexisting religious cultures and subcultures with different expectations and responses.1 Different confessions tended to define their identities in response to their ideological opponents, while “allowing for a remarkable

L. K. Skinnebach (B) Department of Art History, Aesthetics & Culture and Museology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_10

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degree of cross-pollination of ideas, imagery, and texts across confessional divides” as Ethan Shagan has stated.2 In comparison, the Danish process is often characterised as one of great consensus on a distinctly Lutheran course throughout the period from Christian III’s recess in 1536, followed by the issue of the Church Ordinance in 1537/39. For this reason, Denmark is often regarded as one of the most thoroughly Lutheranised countries. In both countries alike, the Reformation addressed devotional aspects of religious life and attempted to impinge upon both mind and matter. Devotional practices and ideals were reevaluated, practices of religious perception and sensory interaction were reassessed, and ideas about sacramental presence, divine interaction and religious sentiments were revised and reconceptualized. Liturgical practice and the use of the church was altered, as discussed elsewhere in this volume by Henrik von Achen. Church interiors, religious books, material objects, monasteries and private households were recast and appropriated.3 Images were de-contextualised from the liturgical celebrations and devotional practices they were once an important part of. They were—to use the words of Alexandra Walsham—“denuded” of reverence which was “itself a strategy of sterilization and desacralization that must be situated on a continuum with iconoclasm.”4 Elevation of the host—the pinnacle of the pre-reformation Mass—was sanctioned because, according to the evangelicals, it represented a potential for idolatry.5 But, as recent scholarship has shown, the reformation of religious practice and daily devotion cannot be reduced to the dissemination of ideas from above. It would have been difficult to persuade people to “set aside deeply ingrained devotional habits.”6 Although the Reformation theologians made attempts to communicate and disseminate confessional clarity, and launched comprehensive campaigns that used different media and rhetorical strategies to communicate the new principles of faith, the results were in no way clear cut. Confessional transition was a complex matter. Materiality is, as David Morgan has argued, the matrix in which life and faith happens.7 Material objects are completely enmeshed in cultural practices.8 Books, images, devotional objects and spaces shape, and are shaped by, social interaction with devout practitioners. Material objects represent a crucial formative layer that may potentially influence the devotional lives, practices and memories of individual agents in the social setting. That is, materials and humans are fundamentally interlaced in mutual genesis and

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configuration. In times of religious change, the interaction between material objects and human entities is a field in constant flux and formation. As a result, the change of religious objects plays an important role in the transition of faith and devotion. Material change was not just something that happened on the surface of “things,” but supervened on a much deeper level. Material changes may ultimately change daily social life, religious thought and devotional practice—and vice versa. The study of devotional transition may, then, be greatly informed by investigations of the change of material objects. Prayer books and primers are particularly interesting objects in this respect. These highly personalised devotional objects worked as “mnemonic prompts to activate modes of devotional thought and behavior,” but what happened, then, in times of transition?9 Luther recommended a “strong and godly reformation” of these old prayer books, and during the course of the reformation book owners did indeed make attempts to adjust their personal devotional books so that they could—to some extent—fit within the new ideals of faith.10 They made additions, and removed bits and pieces, or entire sections, using a variety of different techniques, including cutting, covering and scraping unwanted words, prayers and images from the pages of their books. This appropriation of old devotional books may be observed in several counties all over Europe, including both England and Denmark. This chapter examines a selection of reused prayer books and investigates the practice of appropriation they exhibit. That is, how were the books altered, and what do the different practices of alteration tell us about the incorporation of new ideals of devotional practice? The practice of appropriation illustrates how devout men and women responded to the religious ideals communicated in the two countries during this time of transition. The material studied is mainly fine devotional books from the upper strata of society.11 The comparison between objects from both countries will illustrate, that, in spite of different political climates, the practice of material appropriation in the two countries shared many similarities, perhaps owing to the fact that the two realms were in close contact and—as illustrated in several chapters in this volume—constantly exchanged ideas and ideals on how to proceed with the process of reform. But also, most importantly, that appropriation was informed by a profound memory of the “old” faith and religious practices which lay as a modus operandum at the foundation of the religious life of men and women during this period. The appropriation of medieval devotional

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books may be understood as physical expressions and manifestations of the dynamic negotiations of religious, political and social ideas.

The Alteration of English Prayer Books During the years of reform, many English liturgical books and primers were “sanitized.” This has been dealt with by Eamon Duffy in his study of English people and their prayers.12 He has shown that printing, publishing, circulating and owning religious books was submitted to continuous legislation and control, and he has described how this influenced book owners and their religious books. A short overview of the different royal injunctions issued by the rulers of the realm during the course of the first reformation period may help shed light on the religious environment of the period. Furthermore it provides an opportunity to evaluate the dissemination of these injunctions and the degree to which they were actually applied by book owners to their individual books. Already in 1529, Henry VIII issued a proclamation against “malicious and wicket sects” and their “heretical and blasphemous books” and all practices that were contrary to the Catholic faith.13 At this point the proclamation included the adherents of Martin Luther and prohibited “erroneous books, copied, printed, and written as well in the English tongues as in Latin and other languages.” The books had to be delivered to the bishop or ordinary within fifteen days of the issuing of the proclamation.14 The prohibition against ownership of such erroneous books was reinforced in June the following year. The new injunction named specific erroneous books and stated that no one may buy, receive, or have any of the books before named, or any other book being in the English tongue and printed beyond the sea, of what matter soever it be, or any copy written, drawn out of the same, or the same books in French or Dutch tongue [and] no manner of person or persons take upon him or them to print any book or books in the English tongue concerning Holy Scripture […]15

The proclamation also stated that printed books would have to be submitted to examination and approved by the ordinary of the diocese. The proclamation would ultimately provide the King and the church authorities with control of book printing.

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The royal attempt to regulate the content of books lay at the core of the important proclamation of 1535 in which King Henry VIII abolished papal authority in the entire English realm. It stated that church authorities in the diocese should cause all manner prayer, orisons, rubrics, canons in mass books, and all other books used in the churches, wherein the said Bishop of Rome is named or his presumptuous and proud pomp and authority preferred, utterly to be abolished, eradicated, and erased out, and his name and memory nevermore (except to his contumely and reproach) remembered, but perpetually suppressed and obscured …16

An order of 1542 instructed in a similar fashion to purge “all manner of mention of the bishop of Rome’s name, from all apocrypha, feigned legends, superstitious orations, collects, versicles and responses.”17 This latter proclamation would give the authorities the right to control the content of private books. The bishops were, as the proclamation underlines, responsible for ensuring that the proclamation was implemented at all levels of society. But as the practice of appropriation will illustrate, the dissemination was difficult and changes were not even. In 1538 King Henry VIII issued, by advice of his council, an elaborate injunction which attempted to regulate the circulation of books containing “wrong teaching” which echoed the previous proclamations.18 It prohibited books with “annotations and additions in the margins, prologues, and calendars” as well as import of any printed books in English as well as selling, giving and publishing such books.19 All books printed in the English tongue were supposed to be submitted to “examination made by some of his grace’s Privy Council, or other such as his highness shall appoint, they shall have license so to do.” The proclamation, if adhered to, potentially provided the king with all-encompassing control of possession, printing, selling and ultimately reading devotional and religious books. The same proclamation prohibited the veneration of Saint Thomas Becket, stating that … his images and pictures through the whole realm shall be put down and avoided out of all churches, chapels and other places, and that from henceforth the day used to be festival in his name shall not be observed, not the service, office, antiphons, collects and prayers in his name read, but erased and put out of all books.20

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Becket had fallen into disgrace because he had stood against Henry II (1133–1189). His shrine in Canterbury Cathedral had been one of the most important sites of pilgrimage in all Europe and the destruction of his shrine was a blow to the papacy. Disobedience to the proclamation would be “punished at his grace’s pleasure.” Legislation against the circulation and use of specific books continued during the reign of Edward VI. Most importantly it was proclaimed in the 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer that the liturgical books should be defaced and demolished so that “they never hereafter may serve either to any such use as they were first provided for, or be at any time a let to that godly and uniform order.”21 According to Eamon Duffy, the book trade and book owners responded immediately to the challenges posed by the legislation.22 The most obvious result was that in numerous extant primers, the name and image of St Thomas Becket was defaced and purged and the name of the pope was in several cases blotted out.23 Duffy states that “The overwhelming majority of surviving manuscripts and printed Books of Hours show that most Tudor devotees dutifully blotted, scraped or sliced the Pope and Thomas Becket out of their devotions: indeed, the absence of such deletions is a reasonably safe indication that the book was not in use in England in the latter part of Henry’s reign.”24 Furthermore, feast days for specific saints were removed from calendars and so were references to papal jurisdiction over religious affairs in the country.25 One example of this is a Book of Hours from the beginning of the sixteenth century printed on vellum.26 The post-reformation owner has meticulously erased the name of the pope throughout the book. The owner was, however, not troubled with indulgence unless, that is, the pope was mentioned in connection therewith.27 Another example, now in the The British Library is a small and handy (10 × 7 cm) much-used manuscript from the fifteenth century.28 It belonged at some point to the theologian John Brygandyne, but the changes are clearly made by different hands. In the course of time the owner(s) dutifully deleted prayers to Thomas Becket, Beate Thomam, added numerous new devotions and made comments in the margins—in spite of the prohibition to do so according to the injunction of 1538.29 In addition, some owner translated several passages and prayers from Latin to English. The translations followed the approved wording found in the King’s Primer of 1545.30 The new prayers are distinctly focused on Christ and good Christian virtues and were often supplied with new illuminations. Several prayers

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and images were, however, preserved, both in Brygandyne’s book and the above mentioned book from Cambridge. Traditional material existed side by side with additions, alterations and new content. This testifies to the fact that faith and devotion during the years of reform vacillated between the old and the new. However, several prayer books and primers were less thoroughly purged than the ones just mentioned. Some books and the practice of appropriation applied to them, exhibit a delicate balance between change and conservatism. They also unveil a somewhat selective loyalty towards the royal injunctions. One example is a Book of Hours from c. 1390– 1400, originally made in Bruges for the English market.31 The prayer to St Thomas Becket was removed and the accompanying image defaced, perhaps as a result of the royal injunction of 1538. However, at some point in the seventeenth century, the prayer was restored in a new hand and Thomae martyris was reinserted into the calendar (Fig. 10.1). The image was, however, irreversibly destroyed and never restored. Today this defaced image still illustrates the radical iconoclasm exercised on this particular motif. The owner has not removed the entire image, but merely blotted out the face of Becket and the celebrants as well as the entire altar table. This particular practice of erasure leaves the page with visually striking and pronounced white areas that indisputably draws attention to the fact that something is missing, as if pointing to the fact that something wrong has been removed. Only one other change was made to this book. At some point an owner added a long English prayer which stands in stark contrast to the otherwise entirely Latin material. The prayer to Almyghtie God the father (fol 11r and v) is not written in the same hand as the restored prayer to Becket. Besides this, the rest of the book remained unchanged, complete with beautifully illustrated— inspite of widespread iconoclasm in the realm—and overtly traditional Latin prayers to, among others, the miraculous sancta facie (fol. 9v), the Throne of Grace (fol 12v), St Anne Mettertia (fol. 19v), several saints and the Man of Sorrows surrounded by Arma Christi (fol. 65v), with a prayer to the wounds of Christ. Finally, the book concludes with the Office of the Dead with an illustration of two celebrants dressed in traditional vestments (fol. 82v). The fact that books were not always changed according to the royal injunctions is further illustrated—in spite of widespead iconoclasm in the realm—by the changes—or lack thereof—applied to a Latin Book of Hours made in the Netherlands in the end of the fifteenth century.32 The

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Fig. 10.1 The prayer to Thomas Becket and the adjoining image defaced during the Henrican rule, most likely as a response to injunction of 1538. The prayer was restored at some point, but remained whitewashed. © The British Library Board, MS Sloane 16v–17r

were both the Royal the image 2683, fol

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Fig. 10.1 (continued)

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word pape has been erased from the calendar and litany. References to St Thomas Becket have also been purged from the calendar and litany and the suffrage to the saint is cut from the page, leaving only the margins (fols 29v–30r). The adjoining illumination showing St Thomas kneeling in front of the altar is, however, completely intact. The changes applied by this owner were fairly minimal and mainly preoccupied with images. At some point seven full-page illuminations and three small illuminations were cut from the book: one related to suffrage to St Peter and St Paul (fol. 56r), one for the prayer for the image of Christ (fol. 89v) and one on the Seven Last Words of Christ (fol. 93r). Why these particular images were cut out remains unclear. All other images remain intact as well as the otherwise quite traditional prayers and rubrics of the book. The fact that the book survives is a paradox in itself. It belonged—just as the one mentioned just above—to the kind of imported volume the King mentioned in his proclamation of 1530 and reinforced in 1538, but the owner kept them and purged them all the same. Thus, they clearly illustrate the devotional negotiations and uncertainties of the period. The manner of expurgation is of interest here. In the examples mentioned above, there seem to be different practices applied. Suffrages to St Thomas and the word pape were usually completely blotted out and obscured, either with the use of wax, scraps of paper or ink. Other prayers were just casually crossed out, leaving the prayers and words completely visible and readable. The intervention on the name of the pope seems to fit perfectly with the wording of the royal injunction of 1535 which instructed people to obliviate “his name and memory” so that it was “perpetually suppressed and obscured.” Both practices of appropriation, though one more irreversible than the other, represented radical and visually pregnant metaphors of correction. Although the different rulers of the British realm made attempts to extend their censorship all the way into the private domain in order to reform the practice of devotion, it was not completely successful. Continuity was still a substantial force. One explanation may be that the owners of the books made only the most necessary changes set forth in the royal proclamations out of affection for the old faith.33

The Alteration of Danish Prayer Books The alteration and reuse of Danish medieval prayer books has not yet been subject to any systematic study.34 But Danish libraries hold a handful of

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late medieval prayer books that show visible signs of post-reformation use and alterations. Legislation concerning use and circulation of religious books was more minimalist in Denmark when compared to England. The Danish Church Ordinance of 1537/39, which may be regarded as the foundation of the Danish Lutheran church, signed by the Danish king and partly written by the German reformer Johannes Bugenhagen and approved by Luther, provided some—albeit few—instructions concerning devotional books.35 The ordinance was, as Morten Fink-Jensen states in the present volume, sent to England in 1538 and studied by Cranmer as a potential template for an English church scheme.36 The close contact between the two countries may explain why some strategies and practices of appropriation share similarities. The Ordinance states that numerous “filthy books” that have poisoned the minds of lay and learned alike, are from now on prohibited.37 There is, however, no indication of the type of books referred to, or any specific titles as in the British material. In addition the Ordinance states that clergymen may only use books that have been accepted by “wise and learned men.” Approved books included the Bible in translation and books by Luther (the postil and catechism) and Melanchthon, and also copies of the Ordinance. In England, the injunction of 1538 stated in a parallel fashion, that all imported or printed bibles in the English tongue should be submitted to examination by the King and/or his council.38 The Ordinance also states that no new books in Danish, Latin or German, should be printed or imported if they contain anything concerning faith or household, neither handbooks, missals or ceremonial books, unless they have been approved by the authorities and superintendents. 39 We may indeed speculate if there is a link between the Ordinance and the injunction of Henry VIII in 1538 against the import and circulation of books from abroad as well as books containing “wrong teaching.”40 The Ordinance also specifically forbids new books and collects for the mass or ordinary singing and reading unless they have been approved by the High School and the superintendents in advance. The ideals of the Ordinance concerning the use of books were followed up at the National Synod in Antvorskov in October 1546. The proclamation reinforced the authority of the Superintendants in questions concerning the use of books in the parishes under their jurisdiction. They were instructed to remove all impious and harmful books for the benefit of building the church on something else than erroneous teachings.41 There were, however, no clear guidelines concerning what to change or

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how. Neither does the proclamation state any consequences or penalties as we find in the English material. But, as mentioned, the actual changes are largely parallel to the English material. One example is the richly illustrated prayer book commissioned by the noble woman Anna Brade in 1497.42 Anna Brade was abbess of the Birgittine Monastery in Maribo, and according to an inscription in the back of the book, the book was passed on to Elsebeth Brade in 1545.43 The author of the annotation, Elsebeth Brade’s husband, Hans Skovgaard (d. 1564), has also added some prayers to the book.44 At some point after the Reformation, the book underwent a revision. Chosen words, images and passages were crossed out with a sharp object. In general, references to the pope were eradicated—as in the English books—but the main target for the owner of Brade’s book were indulgences. All references to indulgences have scrupulously been erased from rubrics and prayers throughout the book, but in a way that ensures the rest of the text is still readable. A rubric introducing a prayer to the specific cross on which Christ showed himself before Gregory (the Great) mentions indulgences more than once and, thus, the owner has erased a passage both in the beginning and the end of the text (but has left out one in the center of the text) (Fig. 10.2). The fact that the prayer mentions the legend of the Mass of St Gregory, and is directed towards an image, has not been deemed controversial. The small—unaltered—illumination adjoining the prayer shows Christ on the altar bleeding directly into the chalice and thus manifesting the real presence of the Eucharist. In the very beginning of the book, the owner has added a prayer in the margin below the only full-page illumination in the book, an illumination showing the Throne of Mercy. The prayer states “now bless me [with] the rose colored blood that the Virgin Mary shed below her blessed heart” and (on the following folio) “now bless me [with] the five wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ today and every day from evil hours.”45 It is unknown who added the prayer—the handwriting differs slightly from that of Hans Skovgaard—but the fact that it is extant in a book that has been subjected to a censor is interesting. The “Throne of Mercy” was, in Denmark at least, a controversial image. Jacob Madsen, who conducted visitations on the Island of Funen between 1588 and 1604, ordered the church wardens to get rid of such images, which he regarded as foul and nasty.46 In Brade’s book, however, the motif is sanctioned.

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Fig. 10.2 After the reformation all (or most) references to indulgences were erased from Anna Brade’s prayer book, most likely by the later owner, Elsebeth Brade and her husband. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Thott 553,4°

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Images in the first half of the books which contain prayers to Christ, the Trinity and the Virgin Mary have all been left unharmed. The second half of the book contain prayers to various select saints, and although all prayers have been left untouched by the owner, the adjoining images have been crossed over with a sharp object. Clearly, the owner must have been aware of the critique of devotion to saints and intercession set forth by different reformers. But the practice of appropriation does not leave the images completely obliterated. The strokes permit the viewer to perceive the image quite clearly, and to be able to identify and discern every little detail. If not, the accompanying texts—written in a strongly visual language—would have revealed the name and deeds of the specific saint. The effacement does not remove the images but designates the fact that saints should no longer be the locus of devotional attention (Fig. 10.3). Other Danish devotional books exhibit other practices of appropriation. One specific book, originally written for a woman, supposedly a Poor-Clare, was subjected to a kind of censure that appears much more delicate than in Brade’s prayer book.47 The book shows signs of having had several owners after the reformation, but at some point an owner painted over specific words and substituted them with new ones.48 The owner’s main concern appears to have been to get rid of Ave Maria which appears at the end of several prayers, and to reduce the number of Pater Noster prayers to one only to avoid repetition. To this end, the owner painted over the unwanted words with black—now faded into brown—ink, and, occasionally, wrote the substitute word above. The words Ave Maria could for example, be replaced by the “and pray to God” (Fig. 10.4). One of the most composite and hybrid extant Danish prayer books is the book attributed to Marine Lauridsdatter.49 The book is, strictly speaking, not a typical medieval prayer book, but a homemade binding of a cluster of different sections from different books, some with medieval content and others with post-reformation devotional practices. The different sections have been written by different hands and some pages have clearly been trimmed to fit the size of the book so that it would stand forth as a coherent volume. The book seems to have been in use from c. 1500 and contains, among others, prayers (copied) from Luther’s Betbüchlein. In some sections, entire passages and pages have been crossed out. The owner has pruned the book of prayers to saints and the Virgin Mary. The practice of erasure is casual, as if the owner mainly used it to

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Fig. 10.3 The last section of Anna Brade’s prayer book was dedicated to prayers to saints—female saints first, and men after. All images were defaced with a sharp object, here the image of St Jost. The prayer itself remained intact. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Thott 553,4°

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Fig. 10.4 This late medieval devotional book was carefully amended by a post-reformation owner. The prayer Ave Maria was deleted throughout. Royal Library, Copehagen, Gl.Kgl.Saml. 1615,4°, fos 27v–28r

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Fig. 10.4 (continued)

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be reminded of skipping certain pages. The texts below were completely readable. The Royal Library in Denmark is also in possession of a small and handy medieval girdle book.50 All the prayers are written in German and it is uncertain how it ended up in Denmark. Nevertheless, a postreformation owner made attempts to update the book. Several passages have been deleted with light strokes in black ink. Deleted passages include references to indulgence and entire long prayers to the Virgin Mary, but most importantly passages that salute the Virgin or the Lord such as “In honor of the most blessed Virgin Mary we salute the Lord” and “In honor of the most blessed virgin.”51 The owner has explained this choice with a short, but informative annotation in the margins that states: salutatio non oratio est, “salutation is not prayer” (Fig. 10.5).52 Such theological reflections are even more outspoken in a printed version of Christiern Pedersen’s Vor Frue Tider from 1517. Christiern Pedersen was a Danish theologian and author, who wrote several extremely popular devotional books and instructions, among others About hearing the Mass (Om at Høre messe) first printed in 1514. After the reformation, Pedersen—now based on a Lutheran standpoint—continued his production of devotional material and published, among other things, a reworked version of Luther’s Passional.53 The Royal Library in Copenhagen is in possession of a heavily annotated copy of his Vor Frue Tider.54 The reviser crossed out several passages and made numerous comments in the margins of a theological and critical nature. The writer sometimes expresses agreement with the material in the book and states “correct” (‘rett ’) in the margin, and when in disagreement simply writes “incorrect” (‘orett/oret ’). In general, all references to the pope, purgatory and indulgence have been commented on and/or erased. In connection with a rubric that informs the reader about the performance of and benefits from reflections on the Mass of St Gregory, the reviser has stated “indulgence is wrong and does not exist” (“afflat [er] oret och icke alt til ”). The reviser has also deleted references to intercession from the prayers: Peace in Our Lord Jesus Christ, the force and power of his great suffering, virtue and bitterness, have mercy on me, Jesus Christi, the sign of the cross, most holy virginity of the Virgin Mary, all the saint’s blessings, all the angel’s protection, help me.55

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Fig. 10.5 This small girdle book could be attached to the belt and carried along so that prayers were at all time close at hand. These books were immensely popular on both sides of the reformation. This German specimen was amended and several prayer and instructions were erased by the owner, among others salutations. Here the owner has written “salutatio non oratio est ” in the margin. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Gl.Kgl.Saml. 3423,8°, fo. 27r

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The marginal comments state that intercession is untrue (oret ), as blessing comes from God alone and no one else.56 There is an expressed mistrust in outward actions and practices of justification in this copy of Pedersen’s book. The rubric for one specific prayer originally stated that those who read, see, hear or carry the prayer will not suffer death from burning, drowning or wounding on that specific day, nor be hurt on body or soul by the devil or evil men. The passage has been amended in the following way: The following prayer was written by pope Leo and given to his brother, Charlemagne, who was king of France, and anyone who reads, sees, hear, or carries the prayer with him, that day he shall not be murdered, burned, drowned, be wounded or hurt by the devil or be harmed on body or soul by any foul person. He receives, as often as he reads it, 1000 days of indulgence.57

The writer has erased the three final options and stated in the margin that everyone who faithfully prays to Christ invoking his death and suffering will be protected; that is, sometimes he will be protected and sometimes God wishes him to patiently obey in the same manner as Christ and his saints suffered evils.58 Protection is ultimately in the hands of God and prayer is the only communicative potential, as a final line of the comment states: “To see or to carry this prayer or the book will not help.”59 To underscore this point, the critic has not deleted the word reads from the rubric; reading is brought to the fore as the only way to perform this prayer. The owner of the book rejects sensory and material internalisation and mediating potentials. Reading is highlighted as a devotional modus per se, privileged over the other senses. Unfortunately, Pedersen’s book was provided with a new binding in the nineteenth century, which resulted in a fatal trimming of the pages that has left many of the annotations almost illegible. The Danish devotional books exhibit a wide variety of different practices of appropriation, just as does the English material. GkS 1615,4 has obviously been corrected with further use of the book in mind; only very few words have been deleted and new words inserted in order to facilitate an unproblematic reading process. Anna Brade’s book leaves a similar impression. The reviser has deleted specific sentences and paragraphs in a manner that enables continued reading of the running text. The owners of both books have made attempts to cover up small select parts of the

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original text: one with black (now faded) ink, the other by scratching the parchment to remove the red ink from the sheet. In both cases, however, the words and sentences show below the blinding. The owners of the German girdle book and Marine Lauridsdatter’s prayer book have used a much more sweeping approach. Not only specific sentences, but also entire prayers have been deleted. However, the manner in which the prayers are deleted differs radically from the other two examples. The original text is still largely visible below the light-handed strokes, but the moderate ink lines would clearly tell the reader that the prayers below were inappropriate. The owner would have had to leaf through the book in order to locate suitable prayers. In Pedersen’s book, the reviser was concerned with theological issues, in particular questions related to intercession, materiality, purgatory and the sacraments. In contrast to the other books mentioned, the copy of Pedersen’s book does not seem to invite ordinary and daily use. The owner of the book would constantly have to consult the annotations in order to decide if one or the other prayer or devotional practice was “correct” or “incorrect.” This particular book may, thus, display a very different kind of reuse: one may speculate if Pedersen’s book was carefully revised for the purpose of re-publication in a new reformed guise as also happened with numerous English books.60 But the practice of appropriation applied to this book also shows us an example of how a thorough purging of medieval Danish devotional book would look, an example none of the other books are even close to providing.

Places of Appropriation Devotional books from both England and Denmark were adapted to fit the new doctrines of faith introduced during the reformation. The owners of the books in the two countries targeted different content: English owners were careful to eliminate the pope and the abandoned saint Becket and to some extent texts in Latin, whereas Danish owners erased indulgence, the Virgin Mary, images of saints and in the case of GkS 1615,4 the practice of repetitive chanting of prayers. Thus, English owners adhered—in some respects—to legislation, whereas Danish owners—to some extent—made attempts to follow the doctrines of the Lutheran faith communicated in church. Whether the book owners did this willingly or unwillingly is difficult to discern. Collective memory was strong, which was acknowledged by the

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Danish Phillipist Niels Hemmingsen who expressed with great frustration in a postil that the false papist understanding clings to many people who will not allow that a single image or idol is removed from their churches.61 This also lay at the foundation of Luther’s recommendation that churches should proceed with caution in the case of images. This view was adapted by the Danish superintedant Peder Palladius who conducted visitations of Sealand in the 1540s.62 In England the situation was more complex due to the vacillation between different confessions and a much more violent attack on material culture. Here strikes of iconoclasm served to alter the cultural memory—although the owners of the books mentioned above preserved images, save images of Thomas Becket.63 There were, however, several similarities between the two countries which come to the fore in the reused devotional books and in the practice of appropriation exhibited here. The main reason may be that the two reformations were fundamentally inspired by the same sources of origin— that is, the writings of a wide variety of continental theologians—but most importantly, that the two realms were inspired by each other. In terms of recommendations against specific books, and the endeavour to control circulation and production of books, England and Denmark were very much alike. Some book owners seem to have responded to these (more or less explicit and consequential) regulations in a similar manner: they made attempts to prune their books according to the ideals expressed by the reformers in order to appropriate their devotional life to a new religious situation. The examination of the reuse of devotional books above underlines that people in both countries were attached to their old objects and practices of devotion. Devotional books were valuable objects that had been carefully customised and skillfully produced. Sometimes they were handed down to family members for generations and could hold the collective memory and genealogy of an entire lineage. This may explain why owners made such painstaking attempts to preserve these precious books although the content was somewhat dated according to the new devotional winds blowing across Europe. The different practices of appropriation may, however, suggest unequal enthusiasm with the reformation and an inclination towards the old faith. In England and Denmark alike, the reformation was not embraced without reservation. A strong conservatism has been identified in several countries.64 The book owners simply wanted to keep their books and although the books were pruned of

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certain kinds of material, in the main they remained largely unchanged. However, the books dealt with here belonged to owners close to the ecclesiastical authorities who potentially could have received first-hand information about the religious sentiments of the time. The incoherence of the practice of appropriation may, however, have to do with uncertainties. It was not perfectly clear what the new practices of faith prescribed. In England it was not even clear if the reformation would stick or not, whereas in Denmark the main uncertainties had to do with the true interpretation of the words of Luther. The book owners may simply have been in doubt about how to incorporate the new ideals, and the dissemination of these ideals seems to have been far too uneven. This was surely a prominent concern in England where the reformation swung back and forth between different confessional positions. Reformation ideals and practices were in the making. It was a period of transition and the process sparked controversies and inconsistencies as well as ad hoc solutions, which many of the contributions to the present volume illustrate. The different practices of appropriation allude to the lack of consensus—both in terms of what to disseminate and what to do (the debate over images is an example of the latter). Thus, an investigation of the practice of appropriation and reuse of medieval prayer books sheds light on the keeping of this delicate balance, and the perpetual conflict between continuity and change. The different practices of appropriation and their visual manifestations reveal some interesting details about the process of transition. The practice of appropriation in itself makes manifest the unresolved character of the period. All books dealt with above illustrate—from a visual point of view—an aspect of iconoclasm. Dario Gamboni has argued that the term iconoclasm covers a wide spectrum of (destructive) image practices; here, in the words of David Morgan: images, objects, and monuments are replaced, relocated, renamed, placed in storage, modified, updated, destroyed, defaced, banned, confiscated, stolen – all acts of what might be called, in one way or the other, iconoclasm.”65

In a very visual way, devotional books from England and Denmark alike exhibit regulations on the way in which the reader is permitted to think about devotional issues. The owners of the books would be perfectly able to remember the original wording of the rubrics and prayers and the

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nature of specific images even if they were radically eradicated, as in some of the English examples mentioned above. The corrections would, thus, visually point to the fact that the original way of thinking and praying was wrong. Words and sentences in the Danish material are—as in most cases in the English material as well—never completely expunged. The way in which images, prayers and even the name of Thomas Becket were handled stands out.66 Whereas most changes leave the original text legible, Thomas Becket has been completely obliterated. In most instances ‘wrong’ thoughts are lightly crossed out, underlined, commented or painted over, albeit always leaving the text underneath readable almost as if it was an aim in itself to mark and highlight the wrongness. In GkS 1615 the crossed out text-parts are still visible together with the new substitute word; the wrong word substituted with the right. In Anna Brade’s book, the deleted words are still discernible behind the scratches. But most noteworthy is the way in which the skin of the parchment has been lacerated, almost as an invitation to the beholder to perform a similar laceration of wrong thoughts stored in the memory of the mind. The practice of correction presents the wrong thoughts as something the reader himself is supposed to correct through strict (mental) castigation. The original text is still visible through the transparent corrections as testimonies of the wrong thoughts that are supposed to be mentally deleted. The visual result is that pre-reformation ideas and ideals are exposed and paraded as false—and corrected through material recasting. The case of Thomas Becket, however, differs in that his name and memory were blotted out completely in an irreversible way. The parchment was completely whitewashed, or cut out in order to remove all trace of the saint and his deeds. But, in fact, these cleansed and absent pages or sections are in themselves powerful visual testimonies of a defective past and its flawed devotional practice—and the power of the king. Thus, the different books visualised that specific devout practices, figures and memories were wrong and had to be physically as well as mentally eradicated or obliviated. The books express a material didactic of sorts. Changes to these books affected the owners who used them on a daily basis. As anthropologist Alfred Gell has argued, material objects have agency and constantly form and re-form mental and bodily practices, processes and patterns.67 The clash between new ideals and old wellknown practices was, through the use of the altered books, woven into the very fabric of daily devotion, religious practice and collective memory.

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The transformed prayer books balanced between forgetting and remembering and stimulated both.68 The practice of appropriation in English and Danish prayer books illustrates that things were indeed not indifferent in the reformation period, regardless of confessional ideals.

Notes 1. Martin Ingram, “From Reformation to Toleration: Popular Religious Culture in England, 1540–1690,” in Popular Culture in England, c. 1500–1800, ed. T. Harris, 95–123 (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 1987). I wish to thank Charlotte Appel for her very useful comments on the article. 2. Ethan Shagan, “Introduction”, in Catholics and the “Protestant nation”: Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England, ed. Ethan Shagan (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 2. 3. For an overall survey of material, liturgical and devotional changes of Danish churches in the first century after the Reformation, see Laura Katrine Skinnebach, “Family Matters: The Formation of the Early Lutheran Devotional Household,” in Lutheran Theology and the Shaping of Society: The Danish Monarchy as Example, eds. Bo Kristian Holm and Nina Javette Knudsen, 261–82 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2018). 4. Alexandra Walsham, “Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation,” Church History 86 (2017): 1121–54. 5. Kenneth Fincham and Nicholas Tyacke, Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547 –c.1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 13. 6. Micheline White, “Dismantling Catholic Primers and Reforming Private Prayer: Anne Lock, Hezekiah’s Song and Psalm 50/51,” in Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain, eds. Jessica Martin and Alec Ryrie, 93–113 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 94. 7. David Morgan, “Introduction,” in Religion and Material Culture; The Matter of Belief , ed. David Morgan, 1–18 (New York: Routledge, 2010), 8. 8. Igor Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai, 64–91 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998); Liana Chua and Mark Elliot, “Introduction: Adventures in the Art Nexus,” in Distributed Objects: Meaning

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9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17.

and Mattering after Alfred Gell, eds. Liana Chua and Mark Elliot, 1–24 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), 11. Tara Hamling, “Old Robert’s Girdle: Visual and Material Props for Protestant Piety in Post-Reformation England,” in Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain, eds. Jessica Martin and Alec Ryrie, 135–63 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 163. Luther wrote in favour of a reformation of the “old” prayer books: “das sie woll wirdig weren eyner starchen gutter reformacion order gar vertilget weren” (Martin Luther, Eyn bett buchlin; Der tzehen gepott; Das glawbens; Des vatter vnssers; Vnd des Aue Marien (Wittenberg: Johann Rhau-Grunenberg, 1522); see also D. Martin Luthers Werke, 73 vols (Weimar, 1883–2009), 10:2). There are less than 40 manuscript prayer books from pre-reformation Denmark and a larger number of printed books. Most belonged to noble ladies and nuns. England is in possession of a much richer material. Extant today are a stunning number of almost 800 manuscript books of hours made for use in England and the quantity of printed versions made in the years before the Reformation is even more abundant. The English material illustrates that prayer books were produced to fit different purses, and used by various strata of society. For Denmark, see Karl Martin Nielsen, Middelalderens Danske Bønnebøger, 2-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprogog Litteraturselskab, 1954). For England, see Eamon Duffy, Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240–1570 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006). Duffy, Marking the Hours, 147–170. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin (eds.), Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3-vol. ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964–9), 1:181–2 (no. 122). See also Charles C. Butterworth, The English Primers (1529–1545): Their Publications and Connection with the English Bible and the Reformation in England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press, 1953). A number of titles were listed as prohibited, many by William Tyndale. Tyndale produced the first complete translation of the bible into English and was a central figure in the English reformation. In his work The Practice of Prelates he wrote an opposition against Henry VIII and his attempt to divorce Catherine of Aragon. He was arrested and convicted of heresy in 1536. Hughes and Larkin (eds.), Tudor Royal Proclamations, 1:195 (no. 129); Butterworth, English Primers, 13. Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, 1:195 (no. 129). Ibid., 230–1 (no. 158). Quoted from Martha W. Driver, The Image in Print: Book Illustrations in Late Medieval England and Its Sources (London: The British Library, 2004), 200.

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18. Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, 1:270 (no. 186). 19. The English market was from 1536 supplied with more or less traditional prayer books, printed in France by François Regnault, devoid of indulgences and printed in both English and Latin. 20. Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, 1:276 (no. 186). 21. Walsham, “Recycling the Sacred,” with reference to Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, 1:485–6. 22. Duffy, Marking the Hours, 149. 23. For examples, see Driver, The Image in Print, 194–9; Duffy, Marking the Hours. 24. Duffy, Marking the Hours, 152. 25. Walsham, “Recycling the Sacred,” 1131. See also Aude de Mézerac Zanetti, “Liturgical Changes to the Cult of Saints under Henry VIII,” in Saints and Sanctity, eds. Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon, 126–43 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2007). 26. Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, RSTC 15912 (Paris: Kerver/Byrckman, 1511), shelfmark Sss 15 20 (for example fo. lvii). 27. Duffy, Marking the Hours, 154. 28. British Library, London, MS Harley 935. 29. British Library, London, MS Harley 935, fo. 70r. See Duffy, Marking the Hours, 160. 30. According to Duffy, Marking the Hours, 160, with reference to Butterworth, The English Primers. 31. British Library, London, MS Sloane 2683. 32. British Library, London, MS Harley 2986. 33. But, as Dunstan Roberts has argued, some devotional books show signs of owners who seem “purposefully to have gone beyond the minimum requirements of the legislation” (Dunstan Roberts, “The Expurgation of Traditional Prayer Books (c. 1535–1600),” Reformation 15 (2010): 23). 34. Some preliminary studies have been conducted in Laura Katrine Skinnebach, “‘Dhetta ar oret’: Materielle forandringer som praksis og instrument,” Kunst & Kultur 99 (2016): 154–62. 35. Bugenhagen was the architect behind a number of Church Ordinances in Germany, among other Braunschweig (1528), Hamburg (1529) and Hildesheim (1544). The ordinances from Göttingen (1530) and Wittenberg (1533) were based on the former, see Martin Schwartz Lausten (ed.), Kirkeordinansen 1537/39 (Odense: Akademisk Forlag, 1989). 36. See also H. F. Rørdam and A. V. Storm, “Den Danske Kirkeordinans i British Museum,” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1901–3): 335. 37. The section in speaking is from the 1539 edition of the Ordinance and reads in its entirety: “Effterdj der wdi denne tiid dgaa mange skarns bøger, aff huilcke ey alleeniste de wforfarne oc wankundige, men ocsaa de som fuldwel forstaa seg, offte forgiffues, Di maa alle gode Sogne præster

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38. 39.

40.

41.

42. 43.

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bruge de bøger alleniste huilcke wiise oc lerde mend haffue wedtaget, til deris store forderffuelse som dennom skull tillide” (Lausten [ed.], Kirkeordinansen, 230). Butterworth, English Primers, 171–2. “Nogre nye bøger skulle her y wore Riiger ingen wdtryckes aff boge trøckere anten danske, Latine eller Tydske schreffne eller oc paa danske wdsette, Icke heller indføres andersteds wdtrycthe, Synderlig om de indeholder anten det troen anrørende, eller det der hører til Lands eller Steders Regimente oc hwsholdning, met mindre end de tilforne bliffue wdi wor høige Schole offuersiet, Oc faa et got witnesbyrd aff huer Superintendent her wdi Danmarckis Riig” (Lausten [ed.], Kirkeordinansen, 231–2). Cranmer’s debt to the Danish ordinance has been stated by Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 222–3. See also Morten Fink-Jensen’s chapter in this volume. De libris: Ut autem doctrina sincera et uniformis in ecclesiis retineatur, maxime adnitendum est singulis parochis, ut sibi sacra Biblia et reliquos libros utilis, maxime eos, quos præscribit Ordinatio, comparent. Utque occasio impiorum dogmatum eo magis tollatur, superintendentes vel per se vel per præpositum parochis, qui afhuc verteri fermoento fortassis nonulla ex parte delectantur, auferat omnes libros impios et inutiles, qui ad veram ecclesiæ ædificationem nihil conducentes semina errorum tecte in sese continent. H. F. Rørdam, Danske Kirkelove samt Udvalg af andre Bestemmelser, velrørende Kirken, Skolen og de fattiges Forsørgelse 1536–1683, 3-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie, 1883–9), 1:250. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Thott 553,4° (Anna Brade’s/Elsebeth Brade’s Prayer Book from 1497, with owner inscriptions from 1545). Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Thott 553,4º, fo. 214v: “In 1545 my wife, Elsebe Brade, and I were in Maribo Monastery where we spoke to her beloved sister, Birgit Brade, Abbess at the aforementioned Maribo, and she gave her this book, which their dear sister Anna Brade, Prioress in aforementioned Maribo, formerly had had written. God let her soul, with all Christian souls, have mercy. Amen. H. S. K.” (“1545 var min Hustru Elsebe Brade og jeg u Maribo Kloster og talte med hendes kære Søster, Søster Birgit Brade, Abbedisse i førnævnte Maribo, og da gav hun hende denne Bog, som begge deres kære Søster, Søster Anna Brade, Priorisse i førnævnte Maribo, tilforn lod skrive. Gud være hendes Sjæl med alle kristne Sjæle naadig. Amen. H. S. K.”). According to Alfred Otto’s introduction to Middealderens Danske Bønnebøger, Skovgaard added one in 1552 and one in 1554 (Karl Martin Nielsen, Middelalderens Danske Bønnebøger, 2-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab, 1954), 1(1):xxxii. Skovgaard’s handwriting seems to appear more times in the book.

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45. “Nv signe meg thet rosen ffarve blod som iomfru marie vnder sitt welsignede hiærte drog;” and “nv signe meg wor herre iesu christi hellige fem wnder i dag oc hver dag fra alle wnde stunder.” 46. Jens Rasmussen, “Biskop Jacob Madsens visitatsbog 1588-1604,” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1996): 47–72. Jens Rasmussen and Anne Riising (eds.), Biskop Jacob Madsens Visitatsbog 1588–1604 (Odense: Historisk samfund for Fyns Stift, 1995). 47. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS GkS 1615,4° (anonymous owner). 48. The first one to own the book was Lage Brockenhuus (1532–69) and later is was in the possession of his nephew’s wife’s sister, Johanne Skram (d. 1620). In 1677 it was passed on to Niels Jensen Hegelund. 49. Arnamagnean Collection, Copenhagen, MS AM 423, 12°. 50. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Gl.Kgl.Saml. 3423, 8º. 51. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Gl.Kgl.Saml. 3423, 8º, fo. 23v: “In de ere der alder salygste yuncfrowen maryen jubylere wy den heren” 21v and “In de ere der alder salygsten junc.” 52. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Gl.Kgl.Saml. 3423, 8º, fo. 27r. 53. The Passional was included in Luther’s 1529 edition of the Betbüchlein. For further reflections on Pedersen’s work, see Henning Laugerud, “En Reformasjon av Blicket? Skrift, Bilder og Synskulturi det Etter-Reformatoriske Danmark-Norge,” in Reformasjonstidens religiøse bokkultur circa 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, eds. Bente Lavold and John Ødemark, 209–43 (Oslo: Nasjonabiblioteket, 2017); Laura Katrine Skinnebach, “From Medium to Mirror?—Images and their Communicative Potential in Post-Reformation Denmark,” in Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of Reformations, eds. Salvador Ryan, Samantha Leanne Smith and Laura Katrine Skinnebach (Leuven: Peeters Verlag, forthcoming). 54. Vor Frue Tider, Denne tide bog er sat I Liibs I land til Misen aff Melchior Lotther och Corrigeret aff Henrich Smyth fra 1517 (LN 213). The book is bound with I denne Bog leriss at Høre Messe (LN207 8 copy 3), both Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Hielmst 1159 b 8. 55. Christiern Pedersen, Vor Frue Tider, corrigeret aff Mester Christiern Pædersen (Paris, 1514), 313: “Vor herriss ihesu christi fred. Hanss sware piness krafft oc macth. Dygd och bitterhed beware migh. Ihesu cristi korssiss tegen alsomhelligste iomfrow mariess rene iomfrw dom. Alle helgeness velsignelse. Alle engless beskærmelse komme mig til hielp.” 56. Pedersen, Vor Frue Tider, 313: “(Or)ett tÿ vel(sig)nelse (ko)mmer aff gud alenast och ingen anan” (“Wrong for blessing comes from God alone and no one else”). 57. Pedersen, Vor Frue Tider, 315: “Denne effther screffne bøn dictede leo pawe och gaff sin broder ko(n)gen I franckerige som hed Karolus magnus hwo henne læser/seer hører eller bær paa sig da skal hand icke den

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58.

59. 60. 61.

62.

63. 64.

65.

66. 67.

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dag myrdess brendis drucknes eller saar gøriss oc diffuelen oc inthz ont menniske maa skade hannu till liff eller siell Han fonger oc saa offte ha henne læss twsinde daghe till afflad.” Pedersen, Vor Frue Tider, 315: “Then som trolige beder Jesus for sin /(dø)d och pine skall bevare sigh, /(ha)n /bliffver bevaret stondom, och /(stu)ndom vil gud att han skal lyda /(?) mez ett gott tolamod så vel som /(ch)rist(o) och hans helgon lido ont.” “(?) then som seer heller bær thene /bøn heller boken hielper intit.” Duffy, Marking the Hours. Niels Hemmingssen, Postilla (Wittenberg, 1564) (Danish edition 1576): “… den papistiske vrange mening henger … endnu saa hart hos mange /at de icke ville tilstede at der tagis en eniste Affgud oc Billede aff deris Kircker”; cited in Anita Hansen and Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen, “IMO LICET : Omkring Niels Hemmingsens Billedsyn,” in Kirkearkæologi og Kiekkunst: Studier tilegnet Sigrid og Håkon Christie, 181–98 (Øvre Ervik: Akademisk Forlag, 1993). Peder Palladius, En Visitatsbog, Udgiver på nudansk med indledning og noter af Martin Schwarz Lausten, ed. Martin Schwarz Lausten (Copenhagen: Forlaget Anis, 2003). Walsham, “Recycling the Sacred.” See among others Walsham, “Recycling the Sacred;” Alexandra Walsham, “Domesticating the Reformation: Material Culture, Memory and Confessional Identity in Early Modern England,” Renaissance Quarterly 69 (2016): 566–616; Alexandra Walsham, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Jeremy Gregory, “The Making of a Protestant Nation: ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ in England’s Long Reformation” in England’s Long Reformation 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Tyacke, 307–24 (Bristol: UCL, 1998); Caroline Walker Bynum, “Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change our Understanding of Religious History,” German History 34 (2016): 88–112; Peter Sherlock, Monuments and Memory in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008); Marc Foster, Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque: Religious Identity in Southwest Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Koenraad Jonckheere, “The Power of Iconic Memory. Iconoclasm as Mental Marker”, Low Countries Historical Review 131 (2016): 141–54. Gamboni, Dario, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (London: Reaktion Books, 1997); Morgan, David, The Sacred Gaze (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 138. Hughes and Larkin (eds.), Tudor Royal Proclamations, 270–6 (no. 186); see also Duffy, Marking the Hours, 151. Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

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68. Walsham, “Recyling the Sacred,” 27.

Bibliography Primary Sources Arnamagnean Collection, Copenhagen, MS AM 423, 12°. British Library, London, MS Harley 935. British Library, London, MS Sloane 2683. British Library, London, MS Harley 2986. Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, RSTC 15912 (Paris: Kerver/Byrckman, 1511), shelfmark Sss 15 20. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Thott 553, 4°. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Gl.Kgl.Saml 1615, 4°. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Gl.Kgl.Saml. 3423, 8º. Royal Library, Copenhagen, MS Hielmst 1159 b 8 (containing LN207 8 and LN213 8 copy 3): Vor Frue Tider, Denne tide bog er sat I Liibs I land til Misen aff Melchior Lotther och Corrigeret aff Henrich Smyth (1517).

Secondary Sources Appadurai, Arjun. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Butterworth, Charles C. The English Primers (1529–1545): Their Publications and Connection with the English Bible and the Reformation in England. Philadelphia, PA: University of Philadelphia Press, 1953. Bynum, Caroline Walker. “Are Things ‘Indifferent’? How Objects Change our Understanding of Religious History.” German History 34 (2016): 88–112. Chua, Liana and Mark Elliot. “Introduction: Adventures in the Art Nexus.” In Distributed Objects: Meaning and Mattering after Alfred Gell, edited by Liana Chua and Mark Elliot, 1–24. New York: Berghahn, 2013. Driver, Martha W. The Image in Print: Book Illustrations in Late Medieval England and Its Sources. London: The British Library, 2004. Duffy, Eamon. Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers 1240–1570. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Fincham, Kenneth and Nicholas Tyacke. Altars Restored: The Changing Face of English Religious Worship, 1547–c.1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Foster, Marc. Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque: Religious Identity in Southwest Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Gamboni, Dario. The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution. London: Reaktion Books, 1997.

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Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Gregory, Jeremy. “The Making of a Protestant Nation: ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ in England’s Long Reformation.” In England’s Long Reformation 1500–1800, edited by Nicholas Tyacke, 307–24. Bristol: UCL, 1998. Hamling, Tara. “Old Robert’s Girdle: Visual and Material Props for Protestant Piety in Post-Reformation England.” In Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain, edited by Jessica Martin and Alec Ryrie, 135–63. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Hansen, Anita and Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen. “IMO LICET : Omkring Niels Hemmingsens billedsyn.” In Kirkearkæologi og Kiekkunst: Studier tilegnet Sigrid og Håkon Christie, 181–98. Øvre Ervik: Akademisk Forlag, 1993. Hughes, Paul L. and James F Larkin (eds.). Tudor Royal Proclamations. 3 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964–9. Ingram, Martin. “From Reformation to Toleration: Popular Religious Culture in England, 1540–1690.” In Popular Culture in England, c. 1500–1800, edited by T. Harris, 95–123. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987. Jonckheere, Koenraad. “The Power of Iconic Memory: Iconoclasm as Mental Marker.” Low Countries Historical Review 131 (2016): 141–54. Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai, 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Laugerud, Henning. “En Reformasjon av Blicket? Skrift, Bilder og Synskulturi det Etter-reformatoriske Danmark-Norge.” In Reformasjonstidens Religiøse Bokkultur circa 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, edited by Bente Lavold and John Ødemark, 209–43. Oslo: Nasjonabiblioteket, 2017. Luther, Martin. Eyn bett buchlin; Der tzehen gepott; Das glawbens; Des vatter vnssers; Vnd des Aue Marien. Wittenberg: Johann Rhau-Grunenberg, 1522. Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke. 73 vols. Weimar, 1883–2009. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Thomas Cranmer: A Life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Morgan, David. The Sacred Gaze. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. Morgan, David. “Introduction.” In Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief , edited by David Morgan, 1–18. New York: Routledge, 2010. Nielsen, Karl Martin. Middelalderens Danske Bønnebøger. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab, 1954. Palladius, Peder. En Visitatsbog, Udgiver på nudansk med indledning og noter af Martin Schwarz Lausten, edited by Martin Schwarz Lausten. Copenhagen: Forlaget Anis, 2003.

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Rasmussen, Jens. “Biskop Jacob Madsens Visitatsbog 1588–1604.” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1996): 47–72. Rasmussen, Jens and Anne Riising (eds.). Biskop Jacob Madsens Visitatsbog 1588– 1604. Odense: Historisk samfund for Fyns Stift, 1995. Roberts, Dunstan. “The Expurgation of Traditional Prayer Books (c. 1535– 1600).” Reformation 15 (2010): 23–49. Rørdam, H. F. Danske Kirkelove samt Udvalg af andre Bestemmelser, velrørende Kirken, Skolen og de fattiges Forsørgelse 1536–1683. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistorie, 1883–89. Rørdam, H. F. and A. V. Storm. “Den Danske Kirkeordinans i British Museum.” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 5 (1901–3). Schwarz Lausten, Martin (ed.). Kirkeordinansen 1537/39. Odense: Akademisk forlag, 1989. Shagan, Ethan (ed.). Catholics and the “Protestant Nation”: Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005. Sherlock, Peter. Monuments and Memory in Early Modern England. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. Skinnebach, Laura Katrine. “‘Dhetta ar oret’: Materielle forandringer som praksis og instrument.” Kunst & Kultur 99 (2016): 154–62. Skinnebach, Laura Katrine. “Family Matters: The Formation of the Early Lutheran Devotional Household.” In Lutheran Theology and the Shaping of Society: The Danish Monarchy as Example, edited by Bo Kristian Holm and Nina Javette Knudsen, 261–82. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2018. Skinnebach, Laura Katrine. “From Medium to Mirror?—Images and Their Communicative Potential in Post-Reformation Denmark.” In Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of Reformations, edited by Salvador Ryan, Samantha Leanne Smith and Laura Katrine Skinnebach. Leuven: Peeters Verlag, forthcoming. Walsham, Alexandra. The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Walsham, Alexandra. “Domesticating the Reformation: Material Culture, Memory and Confessional Identity in Early Modern England.” Renaissance Quarterly 69 (2016): 566–616. Walsham, Alexandra. “Recycling the Sacred: Material Culture and Cultural Memory after the English Reformation.” Church History 86 (2017): 1121– 54. White, Micheline. “Dismantling Catholic Primers and Reforming Private Prayer: Anne Lock, Hezekiah’s Song and Psalm 50/51.” In Private and Domestic

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Devotion in Early Modern Britain, edited by Jessica Martin and Alec Ryrie, 93–113. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Zanetti, Aude de Mézerac. “Liturgical Changes to the Cult of Saints under Henry VIII.” In Saints and Sanctity, edited by Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon, 126–43. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2007.

CHAPTER 11

The Martyrdom of St Edmund (d. 869) at the Hands of the Danes and Its Legacy in Early Modern England Susan Royal

Exactly 1150 years ago, Edmund, king of East Anglia, was slain by the ‘great heathen army,’ according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.1 This information comprises, in fact, the extent of contemporary detail that we have about his death. As Rebecca Pinner carefully elucidates in her study of Edmund’s cult, however, it is this very absence of concrete particularities surrounding Edmund and his demise which allowed for a cult to flourish.2 Edmund’s cult grew to be one of the most popular in medieval England: the abbey church at Bury, the third-longest Romanesque building in Europe (after Cluny and Winchester),3 became a major shine and pilgrimage destination, and attracted royal patronage. Like all medieval saints, Edmund’s legacy would be reevaluated in the wake of a Christian reform movement skeptical of pilgrimages, religious orders, and the accretion of miraculous stories of clerical provenance. The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, one of the largest and wealthiest religious

S. Royal (B) Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_11

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houses on the eve of the Reformation, was bound to attract the attention of Thomas Cromwell and his commissioners, and Edmund’s own legacy, nurtured by a high-profile cult, was ripe for reappraisal in light of a theology which was uneasy about traditional saints’ narratives. The Reformation in England, like in Ireland, and Scandinavia, and Scotland, saw a process of Protestant inculturation among a mostly traditionalist populace. This essay will address this process of inculturation, investigating the way Edmund’s story is modified and re-cast along reformed lines as England’s history itself was being re-written by firstand second-generation evangelicals. In particular, it will examine the ways that Fabyan’s Chronicle and especially John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments worked to accommodate Edmund’s story into the reformed version of the English past. In England, Foxe’s Acts and Monuments is perhaps one of the most effective ways that Protestants inculcated reformed ideas. First published in 1563 (and printed four times in Foxe’s lifetime: 1570, 1576, and 1583), this substantial volume re-told the history of the English church from antiquity to Foxe’s day. It was printed four times in Foxe’s lifetime and became an immensely popular and influential work in Elizabethan England and beyond. Foxe’s re-interpretation, though, overturned traditional understandings (informed by medieval, mostly clerical, chroniclers), and required some negotiation and creative readings of medieval records. As the work of Laura Skinnebach and of Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark shows in this volume, reformers in Denmark-Norway likewise had to negotiate delicately the Protestant inculturation of long-held traditionalist ideas. This essay will show that Edmund’s legacy endured even in Protestant histories, albeit in a more sanitized version, evidence of the staying power of this influential saint.

Edmund, King and Martyr In order to examine the fortunes of Edmund’s legacy in the Reformation, it will be helpful to delineate the tradition that John Foxe and his fellow Protestants inherited. By the time reformers grappled with Edmund’s legacy, it had developed over roughly six hundred years. Edmund inherited the kingdom of the East Angles from King Æthelweard at an unknown date; numismatic evidence suggests that he reigned for at least several years prior to his death at the hands of Viking invaders in 869.4 According to the Parker manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written thirty years after the event, an invasion force led by Ívarr (‘the Boneless’)

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and an unidentified “Hubba” disembarked at East Anglia in the autumn of 865, overwintering there. Moving toward York the next year, that city was taken by Ívarr and Hubba on 1 November 866. Turning their attention southward again, after incursions into Mercia, the Vikings were back at Edmund’s door in Thetford; there, the king of the East Angles engaged the Vikings and fell in battle.5 Later versions of Edmund’s life and death add to the story, but the foundation stone upon which Edmund’s legend would be built was the earliest hagiography of the king, the Passio sancti Eadmundi by Abbo of Fleury, a monk based at the monastery of St Benoît-sur-Loire at Fleury. On a visit to England (a likely effort to get away after failing to be elected abbot)6 in 985–987, Abbo recorded Edmund’s passio, which included the first embellishments about Edmund’s death. In Abbo’s telling, King Edmund was a peaceful Christian king who decided to be martyred rather than see Christian blood spilt needlessly.7 (Edmund’s biographer, Antonia Gransden, notes that this portrayal “accords ill with the picture conjured up by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” “of a warrior king in a bloody battlefield”8 ). Edmund, Abbo relays, was mocked prior to being tied up to a tree and shot with arrows, the parallels to Christ’s mocking and St Sebastian’s own death by arrows made explicitly. Edmund’s body was then further mutilated: untied from the tree, he was decapitated. The Danes threw the head into brambles near Haegilisdun, and when Christians later searched for the head to bury alongside the body, they found Edmund’s head was crying out to them as they searched, calling out, “Here! Here! Here!” When the search party followed the sound, they were alarmed to find the head between the paws of an enormous wolf. The wolf allowed the head to be taken but followed the party as took it to be buried, and only then returned to the woods, not harming anyone. From this initial story, Edmund’s narrative was enhanced and re-shaped throughout the medieval period, with a new emphasis on Edmund’s virginity, speaking to the enduring draw of this enigmatic and powerful figure.

Edmund and the English Monarchy Exactly how and precisely when Edmund began to be understood as holy has been a source of controversy among historians. Like Oswald, King of Northumbria, Edmund was venerated for perishing in a righteous battle against pagans.9 The earliest proof of the East Anglian king’s veneration comes from memorial coinage issued around a quarter century after

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Edmund’s death.10 Exactly who initiated this cult and who allowed it to flourish has been the subject of some debate. Following Edmund’s defeat, East Anglia formed part of the Danelaw, the Danish-controlled territory in England, and it is in East Anglia and the East Midlands where the coins noting Edmund’s status were likely created, though there are few identifying marks.11 Susan Ridyard has argued that the king’s cult seems to have originated among the East Angles, approved by the Danes who sought to ameliorate relations with the local population who had already begun to venerate Edmund (their conversion to Christianity having the same motivation). Anna Chapman instead attributes Edmund’s veneration to Alfred of Wessex, thereby asserting his own claim to the territory.12 Pinner declines to take a side, noting that whether the minting of the coins (and therefore the beginnings of Edmund’s cult) “originated as an expression of indigenous East Anglian resistance to their Danish overlords, an attempt by the Danes to appease the natives, or an act of West Saxon political subversion,” we may never know; again, her central claim is that this ambiguity acted to perpetuate Edmund’s cult.13 What is clear, regardless of whose auspices under which these coins were minted, they are likely to have had a ruler’s backing. This royal patronage was, in fact, merely the first in Edmund’s long posthumous history. Abbo of Fleury claimed to merely be recording (not creating) Edmund’s passio which the monk claimed had been relayed to Dunstan by Edmund’s former (and now aged) armor-bearer. Significantly, this event took place at the court of King Athelstan, indicating that the passio, in the words of Ridyard, “made no claim to be a product of local hagiography but rather was mediated through the court of King Athelstan and the circle of Archbishop Dunstan.”14 Royal patronage would continue to promote Edmund’s cult. Six years after the childless Athelstan’s brother, Edmund, succeeded the throne in 939, he granted a defined area of surrounding land to the abbey, later known as the ‘Liberty’ of the town. This came with a large degree of local autonomy, such that royal officials were banned from entering.15 It was in the next century that Edmund’s royal benefactions would reach their zenith. If we are unsure whether the Viking invaders who established the Danelaw were the ones to promote Edmund’s cult, we are more certain that it was another Danish intervention, that of King Cnut, which would serve to enhance the status of the martyred king. In 1020, Cnut had the secular clerks who had maintained Edmund’s physical remains replaced with members of the Benedictine order, in 1046

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bestowing upon them a charter of privileges.16 Edward the Confessor, in 1042 and 1043, granted the abbey eight and a half hundreds of West Suffolk, and Henry III wrote to the abbey to let them know he planned to name his second son after the martyr. By 1125, William of of Malmesbury could say, admittedly with an exaggerated flourish, “Even kings, the lords of others, boast of being his [Edmund’s] servants, and make a practice of sending him their royal crowns, and then buying them back for large sums if they need to use them.”17 No wonder then, that Henry VI spent a lengthy visit at the abbey, the occasion of John Lydgate’s Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund which was presented to him in 1434. Edmund, then, enjoyed long-standing promotion by England’s sovereigns.

Edmund’s Reformation Fortunes It is worth spelling out the difficulty of the task that reformers set themselves: Edmund, up to the sixteenth century, had been one of England’s most well-known saints, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk. Francis Young’s work has shown the way that the story of the king-martyr shaped East Anglians’ relationship to their local landscape, recasting prehistoric barrows and tumuli as remnants of Edmund’s fight against the Danes as late as the eighteenth century, for instance.18 Young has also shown the efforts that locals would take in order to create associations with the Edmund despite the likelihood that there were none. In the latter half of the twelfth century, Bishops of Norwich Herfast and Losinga deliberately had attempted to identify themselves with Edmund by creating a rival pilgrimage site at Hoxne, “exploiting the superficial similarity of the village’s name to Hægelisdune” (the supposed site of Edward’s holy demise). It worked, Hoxne becoming a place connected with Edmund’s legacy both among locals and much further afield (with William Camden in his Britannia [1586] repeating that Edmund’s martyrdom took place at Hoxne, not Bury) until the nineteenth century.19 Edmund’s prominence, however, goes beyond his popularity among the common people of Norfolk and Suffolk and even nationally or further abroad.20 His legacy’s endurance is arguably also a consequence of his association with the English monarchy. His own status as king of the East Angles and his long-standing connection to England’s kings only heightened Edmund’s stature among England’s most powerful intercessors.

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Indeed, Edmund, like the saintly kings Edward the Martyr (d. 978) and Edward the Confessor (d. 1066), was embedded into lay religiosity, as evidenced by sixteenth-century primers.21 In William Marshall’s Goodly primer of 1535 (the first primer in English printed with royal support, in the form of Thomas Cromwell’s patronage22 ), the feast day of “Edmunde kynge” is noted, sandwiched between the feasts of St Elizabeth and the Presentation of Our Lady on the 20th of November23 ; this is all the more significant because this edition was more caustic in tone toward Rome’s traditions—including saints’ lives—than his primer of the previous year. Then, Marshall had warned readers of the spiritual perils of reading saints’ legends, “soche prayers as be saynte Brigittes and other lyke, whiche greate promyses and perdons haue falsely aduaunced.”24 In the 1535 primer, Marshall called for “a sharpe reformation” of a religious culture which produced “bokes of … saintes lyves, called Legende auries.” Books of saints’ lives (alongside books of the passion and festivals), according to the primer’s preface, served to “withdraw [the people’s] hertes from his graces maiestie” in favor of the Roman bishop.25 It is perhaps for this reason that the inclusion of Edmund is all the more suggestive: that Edmund made Marshall’s cut as a saint who served to edify, and presumably to draw the hearts of English men and women toward the king and not away from it, speaks to the saint’s firm place in sixteenth-century religious culture, while also reflecting Edmund’s status as a king-saint. Edmund’s place in the calendar, like those of other saints, was eradicated in the prayer books of 1549 and 1552, when the reformation of the church under Henry VIII’s son Edward VI was picking up in pace and intensity.26 Deemed to be unnecessary and even dangerous distractions from God, medieval saints were eradicated from the prayer books printed under the fervent Protestant king, with only a few days in the calendar marking remembrances of the Apostles and select holy men of the early church. Edward’s reforms, however, were shortlived: the 1552 prayer book, for all its furious debate in the making, lasted a mere six months, and Mary I, upon succeeding her brother, immediately set about overturning Edward’s religious initiatives. In the official (but not the only available) primer which received Queen Mary and Archbishop Pole’s imprimaturs, the popular primer produced by John Wayland, the late medieval saints were restored to their familiar places within the old Sarum rite, including “S. Edmunde king” on the 20th of November.27

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But Mary’s reforms, too, would be reversed. When Elizabeth came to the throne, her religious settlement made small but important adjustments to the 1552 prayerbook. In 1560, William Seres’s primer, printed cum privilegio, included a cull of numerous post-millennial holy men and women included in the prayer books of Mary’s reign. England’s royal saints still featured, including Edward the Martyr, Edward the Confessor, and King Edmund, though too should be noted the startling appearance of Thomas Becket’s presence.28 That a symbol of resistance to royal dominion should appear in an official prayer book is perplexing but perhaps points to the sheer endurance of popular saints’ cults at a time of religious flux.

Edmund in Protestant Historiography By the time reformers began to look askance at the legends associated with medieval holy men and women, Edmund’s story had been amplified in the vernacular not only by Lydgate, but by its inclusion in the 1483 English edition of Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend. There, alongside a crude woodcut of a king holding a scepter in one hand and one of the arrows that had caused his death in the other, readers could find the story of “Hynguar and Hubba” who mercilessly “bounden his [Edmund’s] hondes behinde him” and “shotte arowes at him so thyck and many that he was thorugh wounded”—the whole time, shouting out not painful cries but “to gyue laud and praysyng unto almighty god.”29 Although written fifty years prior to that, John Lydgate’s Lives of Ss Edmund and Fremund was not printed during the early modern era. Prior to the works of Robert Fabyan and John Foxe, the most accessible version of Edmund’s life and death in the vernacular would have been the Golden Legend. Readers of Fabyan’s Chronicle would have found a pared down version of Edmund’s story compared to that found in Voragine, in the posthumous 1533 edition of the London chronicler’s work. Nevertheless, in this edition, many of the salient details of Edmund’s martyrdom are present: the Danes arrived in Thetford, Edmund mustered his army but after heavy initial fighting, was forced to flee with the Danes in pursuit. After tying the king to a tree, the Danes shot Edmund to death and beheaded him. In this edition of Fabyan’s Chronicle, Edmund was not just a king, but a holy martyr as well.30 In line with a typical hagiographical trope, Edmund is stoic and selfless: Fabyan puts it that, after the Danes pursued him, “he

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in short whyle after yelded hym selfe vnto the persecucyon of the Danys. And for this blessyd man Edmunde wolde not renye [abjure] or deny Cryste and hys lawys.”31 The subsequent particulars are there in Fabyan: the head calling out and the wolf guarding it until Edmund’s followers found and buried it. Fabyan’s Chronicle underwent changes in line with a more reformed sensibility when it was printed again just a year after Elizabeth’s accession. In the 1559 edition, Fabyan’s narrative of Edmund begins in the same way as that of the 1533 edition: the same phrases are used to describe Edmund’s noble and godly self-sacrifice for the cause of Christ and his laws; this sacrifice is less detailed, but includes that the Danes “caused his head to be smitten from the body, and caste among the thicke of the bushes.”32 Readers are then told, though, that Edmund’s friends, “with greate solemnite, caried the bodie and head vnto Eglydon now called S. Edmundes Bury, and there buried him …”—no mention of the miracles associated with the king’s decapitated head calling out to the search party, nor of its guardian wolf. Intriguingly, Fabyan’s editor clearly felt compelled to mention the miracle tradition associated with King Edmund; the coda to Edmund’s narrative reads “dayly god shewed there manie miracles,” as it had read in the previous edition. That this component of the narrative was left intact suggests that, however squeamish Fabyan’s editor evidently felt about the circumstances of the miraculous discovery of his head, it was a matter of the historical record that God had shown favor to Edmund’s cult and that St Edmunds Bury had become one of England’s premier religious centers. The handling of Edmund’s narrative by Fabyan’s Chronicle informed John Foxe’s account, written thirty years later in a very different religious and political context. Once the flames of Smithfield, where Protestants had been executed for heresy under Mary I, were extinguished, Foxe and others return from exile on the continent. Back in England, Foxe published Acts and Monuments, a fuller account in English of the historical work he had published abroad, Rerum in ecclesia gestarum (1559). In addition to Fabyan’s Chronicle, the martyrologist consulted a number of sources to fully understand Edmund’s life and death: Roger of Wendover’s Chronica sive Flores Historiarum (written continuously between 1188 and 1235), a chronicle attributed to John Brompton, abbot of Jervaulx Abbey (recorded in the mid-fifteenth century), and William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regime Anglorum (largely completed by 1126).

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Edmund’s story appears in the second edition of 1570 and was reprinted without change in subsequent editions.33 Its first telling appears in Book Two, where it sits among the narratives of other kings of the Saxon heptarchy. Though many of these warlord kings were branded “noughty & wicked (whose pernicious examples, being al set on warre and bloodshed, are greatlye to be detested and eschued of all true godly Princes),” Edmund is an exception; Foxe allows that select kings were “very sincere and good,” “although but few.”34 In re-telling Edmund’s story, Foxe relays a detail first recorded in Roger of Wendover’s Chronica. Wendover had enhanced the narrative of events prior to Edmund’s death, describing how a Danish king, Lothbroc, was killed by one of Edmund’s men while marooned in East Anglia due to a storm.35 This precipitated the invasion of Edmund’s lands by Lothbroc’s sons, “Inguar and Hubba,” who gave Edmund the option of fighting or becoming an under-king serving the Danes. Edmund consulted with his council who encouraged him to agree, but instead Edmund declared that he, “the christened king, for love of this temporal lyfe,” would not subject himself to a pagan who had not converted to Christianity. The story in Book Two ends with Edmund’s demise at the ends of Danish arrows and is followed by a diatribe concerning kings who give up their duties to take monastic vows instead. We will return to this later. Edmund’s story also appears in Book Three of Acts and Monuments. Here it sits among the larger narrative of the early Danish invasions from 852. The narrative of Edmund’s martyrdom remains unchanged from its rendering in Book Two, beginning with Lothbroc’s murder and ending with Edmund’s.36 Here, though, Edmund’s narrative does not merely end with his death at the hands of the Danes; once he is shot to death, Foxe continues, “and lastly [the Danes] caused hys head to be smitten from the bodye, and cast into the thicke of the bushes. Which head and bodye at the same tyme was by hys frendes taken vp, and solemnly buryed at the sayd Halesdon, otherwise now named S. Edmunds burye.”37 This is a clear echoing of Fabyan’s version of events, using his Chronicle verbatim in some places. Like Fabyan, Foxe declines to relay the medieval chronicles’ inclusion of the miraculously verbose severed head and the peaceful wolf; Foxe would have agreed with Fabyan’s choice to eradicate those clearly miraculous elements, repugnant as they were to most Protestant sensibilities. Yet, despite Foxe’s endorsement of Fabyan’s version of events, there is an important difference: Foxe does not follow Fabyan’s allowance that “dayly god shewed there [at St Edmunds Bury]

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manie miracles.” Instead, Foxe has shorn Edmund’s narrative of all of the miracles attributed to it since the first generation after Edmund’s death. Instead of a mediator between the divine and man, Foxe’s Edmund serves as an example of Christian fortitude in the face of ungodly men, even at the cost of one’s life. Edmund, then, becomes like most of the other martyrs in Foxe’s book: instead of an exalted king associated with miraculous and known for his great intercessory power, Edmund in the Acts and Monuments merely holds fast to his faith in the face of irreligion, and makes the ultimate sacrifice. One way, then, that Foxe adjusted Edmund’s vita was to eradicate any mention of the miraculous, going one step further than even Fabyan who removed key facets of Edmund’s martyrological tradition. Foxe, however, did more than merely excise miracles. In line with practices of the authors of medieval saints’ lives, Foxe used the story of Edmund’s life and death to impart didactic lessons: the first of these is against monasticism and the second warns kings about the grave consequences of sinful actions. Foxe’s writing, like that of many of his reformist brethren, had an anti-monastic slant. Reformers deplored monastic vows; accused monastic historians of distorting the past; asserted that the religious orders served to create disorder in the common weal; and spoke at length about the sinful behavior of abbots.38 Foxe, then, was loathe to miss an opportunity to take a swing at religious orders, and Edmund’s history, as told by Fabyan, provided the opportunity. Fabyan’s version, as gathered from the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden (d. 1347), had this coda attached to Edmund’s story: “Whan thys Edmunde was thus martyred for the loue that he bare towarde hys master Christ and his lawes, hys brother named Edwoldus setting aparte the likinge and pleasure of the worlde became an Hermit at the Abbey of Cerum in the country of Dorset, albeit that of right, the kingdome belonged vnto him.”39 That Edmund’s brother took a religious vow garnered no comment from Fabyan, but Foxe took the opportunity to make a wider comment about kings “which made them selues Monkes.”40 Foxe, ever critical of the monastic historians that created his source material, makes it clear that while these kings’ monastic vows were “much commended of the Chronicles of that time,” he cannot agree. He writes that if these kings’ motivations were for a simple and less troublesome life, this is not virtuous: “I see not how that excuse standeth with the office of a good man, to chaunge hys publique vocation, for respecte of priuate commoditie.”41 If these kings were impelled by their own safety, Foxe says that they are in fact to be “discommended” for

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forsaking the common weal in preference for their own safety. Foxe then moves to address the last possible motive for a king taking religious vows, and here his Protestant rationale is put so strongly that it is worth quoting in full: If they did it (as most like it is) for holines sake, thinking in that kinde of life to serue & please God better: or to merite more toward their saluation then in the estate of a king, therin they were farre deceaued: not knowing that the saluation which commeth of God is to be measured and estemed, not by mans merites, or by any persecution of life, or by difference of any vocation more of one then an other: but onely by the free grace of the Gospell, which frelye iustifieth al them, that faythfully beleue in Christ Iesu.42

Foxe goes on to say that the more virtuous man would not enter a monastery to avoid the potential worldliness and evil that are part of life in a king’s court; rather, that man would expose himself to the evil and be strong enough to resist it. Why, we might wonder, would Foxe bother including this bit of antimonastic polemic? Thanks to the work of Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, scholars are aware of the paper shortages which plagued the publication of the second edition of Acts and Monuments by John Day in London. Evenden and Freeman show that, as a result, “difficult decisions, and occasional vacillations” and at least one “frantic last-minute debate over what could and should be included in the edition.”43 With this in mind, coupled with Evenden and Freeman showing on how intensively Foxe himself was involved in the publication of this volume, indicates that this material was selected over other material, heightening its importance to Foxe’s overall purpose: redressing traditionalist monastic chronicles, recording the travails of the true church throughout English history, and persuading Catholics to reconsider their doctrinal and ecclesiological positions.44 Foxe’s anti-monastic diatribe appears all the more puzzling given that England’s last monastery had closed in 1540, thirty years earlier. Moreover, the attempts of Mary I to reverse her father’s dissolution orders had ultimately come to nothing. Yet Foxe still found this anti-monastic position worth stating, even as other material was omitted due to the limitations of Day’s paper supply. Several factors may account for this. First, combatting the pro-Roman

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biases of medieval chroniclers was a central part of the reformed historiographical project, encapsulated in this oft-cited quote by the reformer and historian (and, notably, Foxe’s mentor) John Bale: “I wolde wyshe some lerned Englyshe manne (as there are now most excellent fresh wyttes) to set forth the Englyshe chronycles in theyr ryght shappe, as certen other landes hath done afore them, all affeccyons set a part.”45 To Foxe’s eyes, then, Roger of Wendover’s addendum to Edmund’s martyrdom looked like another example of the pro-monastic bias of clerical chroniclers and was therefore necessary to address. Second, it is clear that while Protestants sought to sanitize the account of Edmund’s martyrdom by removing its miraculous components, in order to claim Edmund as part of the true church (which is to say their church), Catholics were by no means ready to relinquish him to them. Five years before Foxe published the second edition of Acts and Monuments, the Catholic theologian Thomas Stapleton had translated into English Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a book which served to remind Queen Elizabeth and her people of the orthodoxy of the Anglo-Saxons, and their close adherence to Rome.46 Stapleton’s positive view of religious orders (later in life he would briefly join the Society of Jesus), can be seen in a splendid woodcut depicting St Augustine’s mission to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons.47 In it, Augustine stands in profile before a group of monks, with their back to the viewer. He is preaching the gospel through images while King Æthelberht of Kent sits on a throne listening. Because the monks stand with their backs to the reader, their Benedictine habit and tonsures are foregrounded. Doubling down on the Catholic claim to Edmund’s legacy (and implicitly the monastery that had been nurtured by it), the church at the English hospice and recently founded college in Rome had by 1585 erected above the altar a magnificent painting by Durante Alberti48 ; the painting, of Christ’s mutilated and crucified body being held by God the Father, features St Thomas of Canterbury, resplendent in his archiepiscopal vestments, and St Edmund clothed in his regalia of state. Both saints are depicted alongside the instruments of their death, Thomas with a sword and Edmund with arrows. The piece boldly fixes these saints within the Catholic tradition, in the face of Thomas Becket’s presence in Elizabethan primers, or Edmund’s (whitewashed) narrative in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments. While the latter separated the monastery and miracles associated with Edmund’s death, observers of Alberti’s painting would have understood both to be part of this martyr’s tradition.

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A final reason Foxe might have included a diatribe against kings giving up earthly rule for spiritual isolation was perhaps because the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had done just that in the late 1550s.49 Suffering from illness, Charles V gradually gave up his many titles, retiring after his final abdication, as Holy Roman Emperor in 1556. That year he left the Low Countries and by February 1557, he had arrived at his last residence, the Monastery of Yuste, where he oversaw improvements in the monastery’s buildings and grounds, worked on his memoirs, and prepared for death.50 This retreat from secular affairs happened only fourteen years prior to the second edition of Acts and Monuments. Whatever his precise rationale, Foxe used Edmund’s story to impart a lesson for kings about the “misconception” that withdrawing from secular rule was an admirable endeavor. Edmund’s death, though, proved a useful way to impart other lessons, too. Its reappearance in Book Three, within a greater narrative of Danish invasions beginning in 852 and continuing until the reign of King Alfred, gives it even more moral significance than the singular story of Edmund’s martyrdom. Set within a wave of Viking invasions, Edmund looks merely like the most admirable of a number of English kings whose demise was God’s judgment for Saxon sins. The notion that the Danish invasions were God’s recompense was not Foxe’s invention, but he chose to relay the idea and comment upon it. Although, as stated above, he consulted multiple chronicles for information about the Danish invasions, he chose to relay this judgment from “a certeine olde writen story, which hath no name”51 (but which Matthew Phillpott and Mark Greengrass convincingly posit was from Matthew Paris’s Flores Historiarum, recently published under Archbishop Matthew Parker’s patronage).52 Foxe’s source blamed the Anglo-Saxons for their own misery at the hands of the Danes and, although Foxe was careful to stipulate that he did not agree with this source in all things (a necessary caveat given that the chronicler had lauded the Saxon predilection for “monkerye”), he did feel the passage worthy of translation in full. Foxe quotes the chronicler, “[I]n processe of time, all vertue so much decayd emong them, that in fraude & trechery none semed like vnto them: Neither was to them any thyng odious or hateful but pietie & iustice: Neither any thing in price and honor, but ciuill warre, and shedyng of innocent bloud.”53 The chronicler goes on to say that the Saxons paid the price with blood, at God’s direction: “Wherfore almighty God sent vpon them pagane & cruel nations like swarmes of bees, which neither spared wemen, nor children as Danes: Norwagians, Gothes, Sueuians,

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Vandals, and Fresians.” Foxe goes on to agree with this assessment of the invasions as God’s vengeance. Foxe, however, adds what he considers to be another reason why “England was scourged of the Danes.” In addition to Saxon irreligion, Foxe blamed the duplicity and violence of the Saxons in their dealings with the native British. Specifically, he accuses the Anglo-Saxons on going back on their promise to spare the British nobles, and cites the massacre of unarmed Welsh monks (at the Battle of Chester in c.615). His summary of the reasons behind the Danish attacks on Anglo-Saxons is to the point: “Wherfore, Gods iust recompens falling vpon them, from that time neuer suffered then to be quiet from forein enemies, till the commyng of William the Normand conqueror. &c.”54 Edmund’s death, then, serves as a warning to the English people: a nation’s collective sin results in God’s harsh judgment. This warning was all the more salient because such an invasion had happened before. Foxe believed that the Britons’ own impiety had caused God’s revenge in the form of the Saxon invasions. Foxe understood the Britons as his mentor John Bale had, Bale himself following the British historian Gildas (fl. 5-6th century) in his indictment of the Britons’ moral laxity, for which God sent the Saxons. Bale writes, “Verye vehement was Gildas beynge than a monke of Bencornaburch not farre from Chestre, in hys dayly preachynges, both agaynst the clergye and layte, concernynge that vyce and soche other, and prophecyed afore hande of the subuersyon of thys realme by the Saxons for yt, lyke as yt sone after folowed in effect.”55 British sins, then, precipitated retribution in the form of Anglo-Saxons, and Saxon sins demanded answer in the form of Viking incursions. Here, it should be noted that the English were not the only ones to understand their history as a cycle of sin and God’s punishment; in fact this sentiment arose in other areas of Northern Europe during the Reformation upheavals. Göran Malmstedt has shown how Swedish peasants informally re-adopted the holy days that Protestant authorities had abolished, in light of their kingdom descending into civil war.56 Likewise, Salvador Ryan has detailed how in Ireland, the Old English author Geoffrey Keating understood God’s punishment of the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman invaders who committed atrocities on the local populace, much as Foxe claimed the Anglo-Saxons were duly chastised for their own evil deeds against the Britons.57

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Edmund’s story, then, performs multiple functions within Foxe’s work: Edmund is a Christian exemplar, much like the other martyrs in Foxe’s book, but exalted due to his princely status. Edmund’s narrative, thanks to the contemporary chroniclers who purported that Edmund’s brother abdicated his duties to become a hermit, also gave Foxe room to air his reformed views on monasteries and give counsel on the duties of kingship from a historical vantage point. Last, Edmund’s martyrdom, set in the context of the wider Danish invasions of the ninth century, served to warn English people collectively: God was watching and would exact a heavy price for the nation’s sins.

Endurance, St Edmund, and St Olaf One fascinating aspect of the Protestant treatment of Edmund’s story is the saint’s endurance. His presence in prayer book calendars; acknowledgement of the miracles associated with his cult by Fabyan’s editor; and his noble sacrifice as a model king in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments all demonstrate the adaptability of Edmund and his martyrological tradition. While Foxe no doubt would have insisted that he was correcting monastic chroniclers’ additions and biases, in fact Foxe added to Edmund’s story by pointing out Saxon atrocities against the British (and therefore explaining God’s act of righteous retribution in the form of Danish invasions). Moreover, obviously Foxe’s own bias pervades his narrative of Edmund. Edmund’s endurance is perhaps not so surprising when seen in the context of other reformations in Northern Europe. Here, Edmund’s legacy in the Reformation era might be usefully compared with that of another royal saint and king slain on the battlefield: Óláfr Haraldsson, later known as St Olaf. Though Olaf was born c.995, well over a century after Edmund’s death, his reign was, like Edmund’s, marked by conflict with the Danes over North Sea territories. Baptized in the winter of 1013–1014 in Rouen, likely as a consequence of joining the cause of the deposed King Ethelred of England,58 Olaf was said to have taken Christianity back to the Norwegian interior when he conquered his homeland in 1015. After years of introducing good laws and converting (sometimes violently) his people to Christianity, Olaf was unable to repel an invasion of Cnut, king of England and Denmark (who had augmented the status of Edmund’s cult); Olaf, unable to mount a defense, fled to Russia in 1028. When Cnut’s regent in Norway died in 1030, Olaf mustered an army and

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returned to Norway to retake his throne. He was killed in battle at Stiklestad on 29 July 1030 at the hands of his own people. He was canonized locally in 1031 by the English cleric Bishop Grimkell (confirmed by Pope Alexander III in 1163) and, like at Bury St Edmunds, a church at Nidaros where his remains were kept grew in importance thanks to a steady stream of purported miracles. Although in his excellent study of skaldic poetry about St Olaf, John Lindow asserts, “Olaf was hardly a martyr king like Edmund of East Anglia, who was killed by Vikings, those quintessential pagans in the eyes of contemporary church writings,” in fact there are multiple parallels, despite the obvious differences59 : miraculously, the hair and nails of both royal saints continued to grow after death60 ; veneration of these men were not merely local (St Edmund’s cult having adherents in Ireland, for instance, and St Olaf’s cult flourishing in England during the 1050s)61 ; their cults’ popularity were likely boosted by disapproval of foreign rule.62 Similar to Edmund, Olaf’s narrative is only scant in contemporary chronicle sources (though skaldic poetry written within a decade of his death relayed miracles and praised his holiness,63 ) specifically the histories of William of Jumièges (c.1070) and Adam of Bremen (c.1068–75), both written in the latter half of the eleventh century.64 The first substantive accounts appear later: the Passio et miracula beati Olavi (c.1175); the anonymous Historia Norwegiae (c.1170–1220); and the fuller account in the works of the Icelandic chieftain Snorri Sturluson’s Óláfs saga helga (c.1225) and Heimskringla (c.1230). These, among other twelfth- and thirteenth-century works (such as Theodoricus Monarchus’ Historia de antiquate regime Novagiensium (1177–1188), solidified Olaf as Norway’s patron saint.65 Even more than Edmund did for England, perhaps, St Olaf epitomized national identity and a strong royal line, the author of Historia Norwegiae declaring him perpetuus rex Norvegiæ, the “perpetual king of Norway.”66 By the time of the Reformation, St Olaf’s shrine at Nidaros was the most important pilgrimage site in Northern Europe. Indeed, Norway’s political and ecclesiastical fortunes would seem to be tied to the saint, the archiepiscopal see established at Nidaros marking its independence from foreign influences in 1152/3, and the expulsion of its archbishop, Olav Engelbrektsson, in 1537, cementing Norway’s full capitulation to Christian III of Denmark at the beginning of the Reformation. This top-down model of princely Reformation parallels with England’s own, further

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making the case for a comparison of the post-Reformation fortunes of Edmund and Olaf. How durable would Olaf’s legacy prove to be? When Archbishop Engelbrektsson abandoned Nidaros Cathedral, it was in poor condition, having been ravaged by fire in 1531 and not rebuilt; Olaf’s shrine was removed and likely taken to Copenhagen, part of a campaign of confiscations of certain religious materials in Scandinavia, especially in Norway and Denmark.67 In place of an archbishop, a local superintendent oversaw a transition to Lutheranism, and Nidaros, once the religious heart of Norway because of the presence of Olaf, no longer held the same authority. Despite, however, this superintendent and an influx of Copenhagentrained churchmen, there is evidence that, like Edmund, Olaf had staying power, both in Norway and further beyond. Tropes found in the vitae of St Olaf, along with St Cnut, have been found within early modern popular ballads in Denmark-Norway,68 and a “well-documented tradition of Swedish image veneration” in the parish of St Olaf in Scania, with a visiting bishop Mats Jensen lamenting that parishioners worshipped the image of St Olaf in 1627.69 This tradition continued in this parish until at least 1777, when the antiquarian Carl Gustaf Gottfried Hilfeling recorded drinking and eating on Olaf’s feast day of 29 July.70 Hilfeling told of offerings given at the saint’s statue in the parish church, and that those wishing to be healed removed Olaf’s ax and rubbed its blade on their bodies. Göran Malmstedt rightly points out how “strikingly similar” this behavior is to medieval practices, and Terese Zachrisson finds similar somatic engagement with Olaf’s sword in the parish of Västra Husby, Östergötland, where it was recorded in 1760 that women were still using this to aid in labor.71 These examples, albeit anecdotal, offer a glimpse of Olaf’s post-Reformation longevity and far geographical reach. Accounting for this is likely what Bridget Heal has termed the “preserving power” of Lutheranism, by which much of the church fabric of Northern European churches was retained in situ, including altars, altarpieces, statues, stained glass, and paintings72 ; these items were preserved for their aesthetic appeal, but also as an overtly anti-iconoclastic statement; perhaps most importantly, they were kept for their didactic capability. This was risky, of course; the “preservation” had the potential to allow laypeople to continue to engage with saints, and Terese Zachrisson’s study of early modern Swedish popular culture shows that it did.73 This study of Edmund shows that ‘Calvinist’ England had its own preserving power, even in the unlikeliest of places, with medieval saints like Edmund

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maintaining a certain status in Protestant prayer books and histories. Unlike in Sweden, however, English devotion to Edmund seems to have bifurcated along confessional lines rather than social status; Catholics continued to revere his divine status as an intercessor while reformers understood him as a martyr of high status but without the miraculous accoutrement added to his story by monastic writers.74 England, then, like Norway-Denmark and other Northern European countries, saw the retention and adaptation of traditional ideas over a protracted and contested Reformation. The preservation of Edmund’s martyrdom in the Protestant tradition could have a good deal to do with his stature as king. A full-length comparative analysis of St Olaf of Norway, and St Edmund of England would test this theory and add to our understanding of Protestant inculturation across the Northern European Reformations.75 What is certain is that Edmund’s death at the hands of the Danes was not forgotten by Protestants, who remembered his feast day and contemplated his edifying martyrdom. Acknowledgements I wish to thank heartily Salvador Ryan and Henning Laugerud for their invaluable support and helpful reading suggestions. I also wish to thank Cardinal Hume Catholic School and the Department of Theology, Durham University, for their support in this research.

Notes 1. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, eds. Dorothy Whitelock, D. C. Douglas and S. Tucker (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1961), 45. 2. Rebecca Pinner, The Cult of St Edmund in Medieval East Anglia (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2015), 6. 3. Ibid., 126. 4. Antonia Gransden, “Edmund [St Edmund] (d. 869), King of the East Angles,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/ 10.1093/ref:odnb/8500 (accessed 27 October 2019). 5. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 46. See also Marios Costambeys, “Ívarr [Ívarr inn Beinlausi, Ingwaer, Imhar] (d. 873), Viking Leader,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/49261 (accessed 27 October 2019). 6. Richard W. Pfaff, “Abbo of Fleury [St Abbo of Fleury] (945 × 50– 1004), abbot of St Benoît-sur-Loire,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/39105 (accessed 17 Aug 2019).

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7. Abbo of Fleury, Passio Sancti Eadmundi: Three Lives of English Saints, ed. M. Winterbottom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 67–87. 8. Gransden, “Edmund.” 9. For the political and religious context of royal Anglo-Saxon kings, see David Rollason, “The Cults of Murdered Royal Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1982): 1–22. 10. Susan Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 214–16. 11. See ibid., 215. 12. Anna Chapman, “King Alfred and the Cult of St Edmund,” History Today 53:7 (2003): 37–43. 13. Pinner, Cult of St Edmund, 5–6. 14. Ridyard, Royal Saints, 224. 15. Pinner, Cult of St Edmund, 2. For these jurisdictional rights and (disputes over) their augmentation, see Antonia Gransden, A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1182–1256 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007), 236– 44. 16. Ibid. 17. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: Volume 1, ed. M. Winterbottom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 246–7. 18. Francis Young, “St Edmund, King and Martyr in Popular Memory since the Reformation,” Folklore 126 (2015): 166. 19. Ibid., 167–9. 20. For Edmund’s popularity abroad, see Pinner, Cult of St Edmund, 3 n.5. 21. For similar adaptation issues in Danish prayer books, see Laura Skinnebach’s essay in this volume. 22. Alec Ryrie, “Marshall, William (d. 1540?), printer and translator,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref: odnb/18153 (accessed 12 August 2019). 23. William Marshall (ed.), A Goodly Prymer in Englyshe, newly corrected and printed (London, 1535), sig. Aiiir. 24. Quoted in Charles C. Butterworth, The English Primers (1529–1545) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 106. Edmund’s name is not in this sparse calendar, which is restricted to the martyrs and holy men of the early church. 25. Marshall (ed.), Goodly Prymer, sig. Aiiiv-Aivr. 26. For the Prayer Book’s place in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century religious debates, see Alan Jacobs and Daren Magee, The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), Chapter 2. 27. John Wayland (ed.), The Primer in Latin and Englishe (London, 1555), unpaginated calendar. On this primer and devotion in Mary’s reign, see

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29.

30.

31.

32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

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William Wizeman, The Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor’s Church (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 33–4. William Seres (ed.), A Primer of Boke of Priuate Praier (London, 1560), sig. b6r (Edmund) and b4r (Becket). I am grateful to Alec Ryrie for this point. Likewise Edmund’s name appears in the popular 1564 primer of Richard Jugge and John Cawood; see The Booke of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacramentes (London: Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1564), unpaginated calendar. Jacobus de Voragine, Here begynneth the Legende in Latyn Legenda Aurea that is to saye in Englysshe the Golden Legende (Westminster, 1498), sig. CCClxxvij. Perhaps readers should expect nothing less; Fabyan’s historical work, finished in 1504, was organized his work into seven parts, each representing a joy of the Virgin. Fabyan shows none of the tendency, occasionally showed by John Foxe in Acts and Monuments and the editors of Holinshed’s Chroncles to separate overtly religious material from more straightforwardly political events. See Susan Royal, “History, Heresy, and Henry V,” in Remembering the Reformation, eds. Brian Cummings and Alexandra Walsham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). Robert Fabyan, Fabyans Cronycle newly Prynted (1533), fo. Cxviir–v. This reflects Fabyan’s own opinion; the words are not found in his source, the Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden. See Joseph Rawson Lumby (ed.), Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, monachi Cestrensis: Together with the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century, 9-vol. ed. (London: Longman and Co., 1886), 6:342–5. Robert Fabyan, The Chronicle of Fabian, whiche he nameth the concordaunce of histories, newly perused (London, 1559), 207. Foxe’s book also included Scottish martyrs; see Thomas S. Freeman, “‘The Reik of Maister Patrik Hammyltoun’: John Foxe, John Winram, and the Martyrs of the Scottish Reformation,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 27 (1996): 43–60. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (London, 1570), 167. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry O. Coxe, 4-vol. ed. (London: The English Historical Society, 1841), 1:306–7. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 198–9. Ibid., 199. See, for instance, myriad passages written by John Bale in The Image of bothe Churches (London, 1548). Fabyan, The Chronicle of Fabian (London, 1559), 207; see this passage repeated nearly verbatim in Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 199. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 167. Rather bizarrely, Foxe’s anti-monastic aside appears in Book Two, which ends at Edmund’s martyrdom and does

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44. 45.

46.

47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

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not have the additional information of Edmund’s taking a religious vow. This detail does, however, appear in Book Three. In Book Two, Foxe explains that there were seven or eight early Saxon kings who became monks, and this commentary lies at the end of his discussion of the Saxon heptarchy, just after Edmund’s martyrdom. It is unlikely, given Foxe’s use of Fabyan’s Chronicle, that Foxe was not considering Edmund’s brother when formulating this aside. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 167. Ibid., 168. Elizabeth Evenden and Thomas S. Freeman, Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 170, 173. Ibid., 311. John Bale, A Brefe Chronycle concernynge the Examinacyon and Death of the Blessed Martyr of Christ syr Iohan Oldecastell the lorde Cobham, collected togyther by Iohan Bale (Antwerp, 1544), sig. A5v. Bede, The History of the Church of Englande, Compiled by Venerable Bede, Englishman: Translated out of Latin into English by Thomas Stapleton student in diuinite, ed. Thomas Stapleton (Antwerp, 1565). Ibid., sig. H3r. I am grateful to John McCafferty for pointing me toward this woodcut. I am grateful to James Kelly for this information. See Carol M. Richardson, “The English College Church in the 1580s,” in The Church of the English College in Rome: Its History, Its Restoration, ed. Andrew Headon, 34–51 (Rome: Gangemi, 2009). I am grateful to Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin for this suggestion. Geoffrey Parker, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019), 460–89. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 198. Matthew Phillpott and Mark Greengrass, “The Danish Invasions to Alfred the Great,” in The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online (The Digital Humanities Institute, Sheffield, 2011), dhi.ac.uk/foxe (accessed 12 December 2019). Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 198. Ibid. John Bale, The Actes of Englysh Votaryes (Antwerp, 1546), sig. C6r. Göran Malmstedt, “In Defence of Holy Days: The Peasantry’s Opposition to the Reduction of Holy Days in Early Modern Sweden,” Cultural History 3 (2014): 114. Salvador Ryan, “Reconstructing Irish Catholic History after the Reformation,” in Sacred History: Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World, eds. Katherine Van Liere, Simon Ditchfield, and Howard Louthan, 186–205 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 203–4.

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58. Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 116. 59. John Lindow, “St Olaf and the Skalds,” in Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Thomas Andrew DuBois, 103–27 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 108. 60. Pinner, Cult of St Edmund, 145; Lindow, “St Olaf and the Skalds,” 106. 61. See Francis Young, Athassel Priory and the Cult of St Edmund in Medieval Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2020). 62. Cnut installed his son Svend as ruler and his wife Ælfgyfu as regent in Norway, a time remembered for its poor harvest and civil unrest; meanwhile, Olaf’s miracle stories flourished. 63. Carl Phelpstead, Holy Vikings: Saints’ Lives in the Old Icelandic Kings’ Sagas (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), 23. I am grateful to Nicola Lugosch for this reference. 64. William of Jumièges, “Gesta Normannorum ducum,” in The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni: Volume 2, ed. Elisabeth M. C. van Houts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 26–9 (Book 5.11–12); Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, trans. Francis J. Tschan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 128 (Book 2:90–4). 65. See Sverre Bagge, “Warrior, King, and Saint: The Medieval Histories about St Óláfr Haraldsson,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 109 (2010): 281–321. 66. “Historia Norwegiae,” in A History of Norway and The Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Óláfr, trans. Devra Kunin (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2001), 17. 67. Anna Nilsén, “Art and Architecture,” in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume 1, ed. Knut Helle, 521–49 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 533. 68. Ragnhild M. Bø, “Material and Immaterial Presence: Engagements with Saints Before and after the Reformation in Denmark-Norway,” Mirator 19 (2018): 101. 69. Terese Zachrisson, “Images, ‘Superstition,’ and Popular Piety in PostReformation Sweden,” Mirator 19 (2018): 114. 70. Malmstedt, “In Defence of Holy Days,” 103–4. 71. Terese Zachrisson, “The Saint in the Woods: Semi-Domestic Shrines in Rural Sweden, c. 1500–1800,” Religions 10 (2019): 10. 72. Bridget Heal, “Visual and Material Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations, ed. Ulinka Rublack, 601–20 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 607. 73. Zachrisson, “Images, ‘Superstition’, and Popular Piety,” 108–18. 74. It should be said that, to make a fuller comparison, this study would have to consider more popular views of Edmund, as Young’s study has

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(see note 18). Nevertheless, Foxe’s book cannot necessarily be designated as ‘elite’ culture, learned as Foxe was; there is substantial evidence that his book made its mark among the illiterate majority. See, for instance, Cynthia Wittman Zollinger, “‘The booke, the leafe, yea and the very sentence’: Sixteenth-Century Literacy in Text and Context,” in John Foxe and His World, eds. Christopher Highley and John N. King, 102–16 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 75. There are, inevitably, further questions to ask, for instance: How did Lutheran theologians grapple with aspects of Olaf’s hagiography? Did any of them struggle to eradicate aspects of Olaf’s tradition like Fabyan did with Edmund’s?

Bibliography Primary Sources Abbo of Fleury. Passio Sancti Eadmundi: Three Lives of English Saints, edited by M. Winterbottom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972. Adam of Bremen. Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, translated by Francis J. Tschan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Bale, John. A Brefe Chronycle Concernynge the Examinacyon and Death of the Blessed Martyr of Christ syr Iohan Oldecastell the lorde Cobham, collected togyther by Iohan Bale. Antwerp, 1544. Bale, John. The Actes of Englysh Votaryes. Antwerp, 1546. Bale, John. The Image of bothe Vhurches. London, 1548. Bede. The History of the Church of Englande, Compiled by Venerable Bede, Englishman: Translated out of Latin into English by Thomas Stapleton student in diuinite, edited by Thomas Stapleton. Antwerp, 1565. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited by Dorothy Whitelock, D. C. Douglas and S. Tucker. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1961. The Booke of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacramentes. London: Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1564. Fabyan, Robert. Fabyans Cronycle newly Prynted. London, 1533. Fabyan, Robert. The Chronicle of Fabian, whiche he nameth the concordaunce of histories, newly perused. London, 1559. Foxe, John. Acts and Monuments. London, 1570. Higton, Ranulf. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, monachi Cestrensis: Together with the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century, 9 vols. Edited by Joseph Rawson Lumby. London: Longman and Co., 1886.

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“Historia Norwegiae.” In A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Óláfr, translated by Devra Kunin, 1–25. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2001. Jacobus de Voragine. Here begynneth the Legende in Latyn Legenda Aurea that is to saye in Englysshe the Golden Legende. Westminster, 1498. Marshall, William (ed.). A Goodly Prymer in Englyshe, Newly Corrected and Printed. London, 1535. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, 4 vols. Edited by Henry O. Coxe. London: The English Historical Society, 1841. Seres, William (ed.). A Primer of Boke of Priuate Praier. London, 1560. Wayland, John (ed.). The Primer in Latin and Englishe. London, 1555. William of Jumièges. “Gesta Normannorum ducum.” In The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni: Volume 2, edited by Elisabeth M. C. van Houts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. William of Malmesbury. Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: Volume 1, edited by M. Winterbottom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Secondary Sources Bagge, Sverre. “Warrior, King, and Saint: The Medieval Histories about St Óláfr Haraldsson.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 109 (2010): 281–321. Bø, Ragnhild M. “Material and Immaterial Presence: Engagements with Saints before and after the Reformation in Denmark-Norway.” Mirator 19 (2018): 84–107. Butterworth, Charles. The English Primers (1529–1545). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953. Chapman, Anna. “King Alfred and the Cult of St Edmund.” History Today 53:7 (2003), 37–43. Costambeys, Marios. “Ívarr [Ívarr inn Beinlausi, Ingwaer, Imhar] (d. 873), Viking Leader.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/49261. Evenden, Elizabeth and Thomas S. Freeman. Religion and the Book in Early Modern England: The Making of Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Freeman, Thomas S. “‘The Reik of Maister Patrik Hammyltoun’: John Foxe, John Winram, and the Martyrs of the Scottish Reformation.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 27 (1996): 43–60. Gransden, Antonia. “Edmund [St Edmund] (d. 869), King of the East Angles.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref: odnb/8500.

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Gransden, Antonia. A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1182–1256. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007. Heal, Bridget. “Visual and Material Culture.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations, edited by Ulinka Rublack, 601–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Jacobs, Alan and Daren Magee. The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. Lindow, John. “St Olaf and the Skalds.” In Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, edited by Thomas Andrew DuBois, 103– 27. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Malmstedt, Göran. “In Defence of Holy Days: The Peasantry’s Opposition to the Reduction of Holy Days in Early Modern Sweden.” Cultural History 3 (2014): 103–25. Nilsén, Anna. “Art and Architecture.” In The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 1, edited by Knut Helle, 521–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Parker, Geoffrey. Emperor: A New Life of Charles V . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019. Pfaff, Richard W. “Abbo of Fleury [St Abbo of Fleury] (945x50–1004), Abbot of St Benoît-sur-Loire.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https:// doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/39105. Phelpstead, Carl. Holy Vikings: Saints’ Lives in the Old Icelandic Kings’ Sagas. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007. Phillpott, Matthew and Mark Greengrass. “The Danish Invasions to Alfred the Great.” In The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online (The Digital Humanities Institute, Sheffield, 2011), dhi.ac.uk/foxe. Pinner, Rebecca. The Cult of St Edmund in Medieval East Anglia. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2015. Richardson, Carol M. “The English College Church in the 1580s.” In The Church of the English College in Rome: Its History, Its Restoration, edited by Andrew Headon, 34–51. Rome: Gangemi, 2009. Ridyard, Susan. The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Rollason, David. “The Cults of Murdered Royal Saints in Anglo-Saxon England.” Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1982): 1–22. Royal, Susan. “History, Heresy, and Henry V.” In Remembering the Reformation, edited by Brian Cummings and Alexandra Walsham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2020. Ryan, Salvador. “Reconstructing Irish Catholic History after the Reformation.” In Sacred History: Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World, edited by Katherine Van Liere, Simon Ditchfield, and Howard Louthan, 186–205. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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Ryrie, Alec. “Marshall, William (d. 1540?), Printer and Translator.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref: odnb/18153. Winroth, Anders. The Conversion of Scandinavia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. Wizeman, William. The Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor’s Church. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Young, Francis. “St Edmund, King and Martyr in Popular Memory since the Reformation.” Folklore 126 (2015): 159–76. Young, Francis. Athassel Priory and the Cult of St Edmund in Medieval Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2020. Zachrisson, Terese. “Images, ‘Superstition’, and Popular Piety in Postreformation Sweden.” Mirator 19 (2018): 108–18. Zachrisson, Terese. “The Saint in the Woods: Semi-domestic Shrines in Rural Sweden, c. 1500–1800.” Religions 10 (2019): 1–15. Zollinger, Cynthia Wittman. “‘The Booke, the Leafe, Yea and the Very Sentence’: Sixteenth-Century Literacy in Text and Context.” In John Foxe and His World, edited by Christopher Highley and John N. King, 102–16. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.

CHAPTER 12

Seventeenth-Century Ireland and Norway: Peripheral Reformations in Print? Raymond Gillespie

Historians struggling to make sense of the bewildering ebbs and flows in religious ideas in Europe over the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have resorted to a number of models to explain these changes. Perhaps the most popular of these is based on the changing geography of reform. While Martin Luther at Wittenberg in central Germany in the early sixteenth century may never have planned the Reformation, as it evolved the movement rapidly became more than another episode in the ongoing late medieval desire to reform the church that had produced the Brethren of the Common Life, the Hussites or the Beguines. Initially, its success rested on the person of Luther and the attractiveness of his ideas, but it soon spread into a much wider world through a network of personal, mercantile and political contacts. While these strategies were clear to contemporaries, later historians have concluded that even more important in the spread of reform was Luther’s utilisation of print. Luther transformed print from a useful technology into a powerful propaganda tool that, combined with the reformer’s powerful personality, became the

R. Gillespie (B) Department of History, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_12

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foundation for what one historian has called ‘brand Luther’.1 Powered by the printing press, this new movement spread out from its origin in central Germany. By 1600 it had spread south and west until it encountered resistance in France and Italy from a Catholicism invigorated by the reforms of the Council of Trent. To the north-west, the magisterial reformation took a much modified version of Luther’s ideas to England and subsequently, through colonial expansion, to Ireland. To the north, Lutheranism seemed to have an unimpeded progress northward through Denmark to Norway and Sweden.2 However, this pattern of diffusion to the edge of the known world was not as simple as it appears. In particular, the shores of this sea of Lutheranism were decidedly problematic. In England, Lutheranism was diluted with Calvinist and other ideas, and in Ireland even this diluted mix had failed to take hold in any meaningful way by 1600. In the following century, there would be signs of reversal and Catholic recovery. In Scotland, the ideas of John Calvin triumphed mainly due to the leadership of the reformers returned from Geneva. Norway, on the periphery of reform, remained at best a lukewarm participant in the process and Catholicism remained strong there into the late sixteenth century as Norway lagged well behind its colonial master, Denmark, in its enthusiasm for the new dispensation.3

The Late Arrival of Print in Norway and Ireland Perhaps it was predictable that the reform process should be a patchy one and that the peripheries would demonstrate much lesser attachment to the new religious ideas than the core. For those historians who have argued for a close link between the spread of Lutheranism and that of print, the diffusion of the printing press should serve as an index of the enthusiasm with which new religious ideas were received. On the periphery of reform, both Ireland and Norway shared a similar history of the evolution of the early modern print trades. In both cases the technology of print came late. As Gina Dahl points out in her chapter in this volume, Norway was the last of the Scandinavian countries to have a printing press, a printing house being established in Christiana as late as 1643. In Ireland, too, the technology of print came late. While a printing press was established in Ireland in 1551, that press printed almost nothing before the 1630s apart from the standard fare of government proclamations and other ephemera, most of which have not survived. The only exceptions to this were the Book of Common Prayer of 1551, a catechism in 1570, an Irish language

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version of the New Testament in 1603 and an Irish language version of the Book of Common Prayer in 1608.4 In both countries, the press was tightly regulated. In Norway, this was achieved through the supervision by Denmark, Norway’s political master, of printing houses and in Ireland by limiting the activities of printers to one man: the king’s printer based in Dublin.5 All this might be seen as the result of the peripheral position of the two countries: the late arrival of modern technology and the reluctance of the core to allow the periphery to have uncontrolled means of spreading what seemed to many to be strange new ideas. None of this would have surprised an early modern observer to whom it would have been clear that the similarity in the pattern of religious change and spread of information reflected similarities in the social, economic and political structures of this northern periphery of Europe. Given Ireland’s position on the edge of the Atlantic world, it is hardly surprising that it should display some of the characteristics of that northern European periphery in the early modern period. Physical environment, together with a low population density, ensured that some of the social and economic arrangements that evolved in Ireland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were remarkably similar to those that emerged in Norway. Some of the population of both Ireland and Norway, the native Irish and the Sámi, were held to contain those from the uncivilised margins and were viewed as such by other social groups. Economically, both Ireland and Norway were underdeveloped and, by the standards of the European core, only lightly commercialised. Both concentrated on the export of unprocessed agricultural products, including fish, timber and live cattle. This produced some remarkable similarities between the two places. The ports along the margins of both Ireland and Norway were the most impressive parts of the urban network with the inland regions acting as feeders of agricultural surpluses to these ports from which they might be exported. Over time the urban network in both countries would expand only slowly and the main engine of change was landlord activity that would shape those urban societies.6 Similarities that might have been clear to contemporaries, however, may turn out to be misleading. Not everywhere on the north-western edge of reform had shared economic structures and the experience of print that Norway and Ireland did. As Jack Cunningham’s chapter suggests, the Icelandic experience of religious change in the sixteenth century was rather more engaged than in either Ireland or Norway. Using print as a rough index of religious change, Iceland achieved more in the

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sixteenth century than either Ireland or Norway. Pastor Jon Mattheusson had established a printing press in Iceland in the early sixteenth century to promote the printing of religious literature, but its activities are rather shadowy. In 1540 Oddur Gottskálkasson’s translation of the New Testament into Icelandic (Norse) was published in Denmark and this was followed by a hymn book in the vernacular. By the early 1570s, the bishop of Hólar had established another printing press in Iceland. Over his career almost 110 books flowed from the bishop’s press, including the entire Bible in Icelandic in 1584, a hymn book and a prayerbook.7 What the case of Iceland suggests is that whatever the reason for the failure of a viable printing press to be established in Ireland and Norway, local politics may have been more important than peripherality. With the Icelandic experience in mind, some contemporaries might have stressed not similarities between Ireland and Norway created by peripherality, but rather differences produced as a result of historical evolution and contemporary cultural need. For instance, the structure of the church that was charged with promoting religious change had evolved in very different ways in the Middle Ages. For instance, Norway had some 414 clerical positions in the middle of the eighteenth century while Ireland had 2492 parishes in the seventeenth century, many of which it could not fill. Other Irish parishes reflected medieval pastoral needs, but by the seventeenth century, with changing population structures, were too small. As a result, their incomes were low and the incumbents were, by necessity, pluralists which created its own pastoral problems in promoting religious reform. At the level of government promotion of religious change there were similarities, but also considerable differences created by historical evolution in the two countries. In some ways the seventeenth-century political relationship between Norway and Denmark might appear comparable to that between England and Ireland, but the comparison is not as neat as first appears. Denmark had annexed Norway in the early sixteenth century and, gradually over the century, the Norwegian political elite was replaced by Danish administrators and royal officials. This partly reflects the Irish experience of the appointment of Englishmen as the Irish lord deputy after 1534 and the increasing number of English officials in Ireland in the sixteenth century. Yet historical circumstances served to differentiate the two processes since Denmark did not introduce settlers in large numbers into Norway in the way that the English administration did through the Irish plantations. Furthermore, linguistically, the jurisdictions

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of Denmark–Norway (where there was a greater mutual comprehension of language) and England and Ireland (where, especially in Gaelic Ireland, there was not) were hardly comparable, as is also pointed out by James January-McCann in the case of Wales in this volume. In the area of ecclesiastical affairs, too, there were considerable differences in the structures of the two countries reflecting differing experiences of reform. In Norway church order was defined by the Danish Church Order of 1537, which included a separate chapter on Norway. Norway did not receive its own Church Order until 1607. In some ways this was the reverse of the Irish experience since until 1634 the confession of the Church of Ireland was not that of the Church of England but rather the Calvinist-inspired ‘Irish articles’ of 1614, probably drafted by Archbishop James Ussher. It was the 1630s before the English ‘Thirty nine articles’ were introduced into the Irish church. These differences crystallised themselves in the reality that, while the relationship of Norway and Denmark was relatively straightforward, the political gyrations of the sixteenth century ensured that Ireland’s position vis à vis England was far from simple. Ireland was a constitutional kingdom, with king, privy council, parliament and the structures of royal government (all defined in the 1541 Act for the Kingly Title) operating within a colonial socioeconomic and cultural framework of landholding, a characterisation that frequently both confused and confounded contemporaries. The politics of religious change in Norway had resulted in a confessional state with Lutheranism at its centre, much in the way that the principles of the Confession of Augsburg had suggested. In Ireland, the Augsburg principles also applied. In the 1530s, the government established a confessional state on the model of England and, at least initially, that initiative appears to have been accepted. However, while the apparatus of the confessional state survived into the nineteenth century, it failed to take effect, so that by the start of the seventeenth century the religion of the majority of the Irish population was clearly not the religion of its ruler. The failure of state-sponsored religious reform allowed Ireland to develop a multiconfessional society within the framework of a confessional state. The result was a series of ineffective compromises and periods of enthusiastic religious reform matched by periods of apathy or benign neglect from the religious authorities.8 These political arrangements had a direct effect on the supply of books, clearly linked to religious changes. The failure of the printing press to establish effectively in Ireland and Norway meant that in both

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places the demand for books for instruction and entertainment was met through imports rather than domestically produced volumes. In Norway, as Gina Dahl’s chapter suggests, this promoted orthodoxy by drawing book imports from centres of Lutheran scholarship or places where local theology could be reconciled with Lutheranism, such as England. In Ireland, because of its multi-confessional status, the demand was for a much wider range of religious books. Ulster Presbyterians, who had migrated from Scotland, wanted works from Calvinist Scotland and Catholics, both Gaelic and English speaking, formed a market for religious books from Catholic Spain and France. All were also served by a growing volume of imports, both legal and illegal, from England. While the state tried to control smuggling, it proved impossible to do so. Rather than controlling the problem of the ineffective workings of the confessional state by providing a central source for of religious literature, the inflow of printed books from diverse sources made the problem worse. In Norway, by contrast, print helped to promote religious cohesion through the import of works from approved sources.

Language and Literacy Understanding the role of peripherality in the northern European reformation must balance geographical reality with historical contingency and the rather different patterns of evolution in each of the countries through the Middle Ages. As a result, print as a mechanism for religious change did not act in the same way across the northern European periphery. At a technical level, two central variables shaped how religious books were encountered in Ireland and Norway: language and literacy. Norway in the early modern world was, with the exception of the far north, essentially a monolingual society (allowing for all the varieties of dialect forms). While Danish assumed a growing importance in the early modern period, it belonged to the same language family as Norwegian and there was enough similarity between them to ensure some level of mutual comprehensibility. Ireland, however, was a multilingual society with Irish and English being two radically different languages. Those who theorised about Ireland tended to use language as a rather crude marker of ethnic identity. Thus Gaelic ethnicity, Irish speaking and Catholicism tended to be rolled into one neat ball of ‘the Irish’.9 While theorists might advance this neat proposition, it bore only a superficial resemblance to reality. Outside the world of theorists, attitudes to and enthusiasm for using the

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Irish language to evangelise waxed and waned. In the 1650s, the 1680s and again in the early eighteenth century, the need for Protestant clergy to minister in Irish was frequently stressed while peaceful periods led to more relaxed attitudes to the need to proselytise in Irish.10 Even the hardline Calvinists of the Synod of Ulster accepted the need to proselytise in Irish in the years after the Jacobite rising of 1715 as they commissioned catechisms and other works in the language.11 There were clearly a number of variables shaping the ways in which the Irish language was used in religious printing in the early modern period. First, there was the fact that other languages were in use in Ireland. Latin, while not universal, had been used by some and was the lingua franca for contact between Irish lords and the Dublin administration. It was also clearly in more widespread religious use. In 1584 it was reported that missals and primers, presumably in Latin, were being confiscated from people in Connacht and as a result the provost marshal was ‘threatened by the greatest curses they have.’12 While these books were certainly not for the lowest social orders, there were clearly enough Latin-reading individuals to make such imports worthwhile. Secondly, a significant body of the Catholic population in Ireland, the Old English of the Pale, spoke English and could be serviced by recusant works smuggled in from England. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, English language catechisms were smuggled into Dublin from Chester. How widespread this practice was is unclear but customs officials certainly seized a number of consignments. This seventeenth-century smuggling activity was built on a much older tradition of smuggling English language Catholic books into Ireland that can be traced into the sixteenth century, so routeways were already well developed.13 By the 1640s, Catholic books in English were widely available in Dublin and could even be purchased, with some discretion, from the king’s printers. By the end of the century, English language Catholic books were readily available in the city. In the, perhaps unusual, circumstances of 1688, one Catholic bookseller, William Weston, advertised his wares including seventeen English Catholic works that he described as being ‘printed and sold’ by him, though he was much more likely to have imported them directly from London. Most of these works were the staple devotional works of the Counter-Reformation that were also available to Englishspeaking Catholics elsewhere in Ireland either through the activities of clergy as book distributors or through other booksellers.14

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The third variable that impacted on language and its role in religious print in Ireland was the existence of a considerable degree of bilingualism in sixteenth-century Ireland, a reality that increased as the early modern period progressed. The level of functional bilingualism no doubt varied a good deal from those who simply knew townland names in Irish to those who could hear and understand spoken Irish fluently. It is clear that there was a high level of linguistic pragmatism that over time gave way to the growth of more complex attitudes and language practices than colonial theorists might have proposed.15 Such bilingualism could well have included translation of English works in print into Irish by those using the work. Catechisms, for example, were not intended for individual use but rather to be used by both religious and laypeople to engage those in their immediate circle and to instruct those who could not read.16 Translation from the world of print to that of orality was widely used by those who sought to demonstrate the use of print among the illiterate. Thus the compilers of a prayerbook made for the use of the Williamite forces in 1696 justified their actions by claiming that, although most of the army was illiterate, ‘a soldier may find a comrade that will read for him’.17 For the bilingual, such reading could well have included translation that would have made English language works available to a Gaelic-speaking population. For all the special pleading, the multilingual nature of Ireland had a retarding effect on the economics of the print trades, particularly in the sphere of religion. Production of books in Irish, as publishers of Welsh books in London discovered, was expensive and usually not possible without a significant subvention from a patron.18 The reasons for these additional costs are complex. Clearly the making of special punches and the casting of type for a new alphabet involved a significant investment, but that was usually an initial capital sum that could be defrayed by a subvention from the government interested in promoting religious change, as was the case in Ireland when the state provided the cost of casting a type for the 1603 New Testament. However, the provision of such a subsidy was clearly not a deciding factor as that type had been donated in 1570 yet the work did not appear for more than thirty years. More serious was the low level of effective demand for printed works in traditional societies. Given the importance of oral literacy in those worlds, levels of reading literacy were low and hence sales of printed works were small. Thus printers were obliged to invest considerable sums in stocks of paper, which had to be imported since it was not made in Ireland,

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on which the return would be slow. Moreover, it was sometimes difficult to see how printers might market their products at all. Levels of commercialisation in Ireland and Norway were low before the middle of the seventeenth century and hence the routes along which books would flow were uncertain. Numbers of Church of Ireland clergy who might act as agents for the sale of books in Irish were limited, thus discouraging printers further. All in all, production of books in Irish, of whatever kind, was a highly risky proposition. Without considerable changes in the structure of the trade or significant investments from patrons there was little incentive to enter the trade of books in Irish, even if translations had been easily available. Rather different strategies would have to be devised to promote the Protestant reformation in Ireland. The second significant variable in the way in which print was consumed was levels of literacy. Print had played a vital part in the Lutheran reformation in the early sixteenth century, and for the promotion of that movement print was a central vehicle. Indeed Andrew Pettegree has described the process as the creation of ‘brand Luther’ largely as a result of print.19 Hardly surprisingly in areas in which the Lutheran reformation held sway, such as Norway, considerable reliance was placed on print as a mechanism of social and religious change with a concomitant emphasis on the importance of literacy. By the start of the eighteenth century, Norwegian church ordinances regularly stressed the need for formal schooling, though this may only be a development of the previous century. Hard data is difficult to come by but the evidence suggests that, in Gina Dahl’s phrase, ‘the ability to read was widespread in early modern Norway’.20 In Ireland, too, data on literacy is hard to come by. One crude measure is the ability to sign one’s name on a lease. This is clearly a distorted measure on two grounds. First, it measures formal literacy within a restricted section of the population, the modestly prosperous who could afford to take leases of land, and secondly it only measures the ability to write. Since writing was a skill taught after reading, and to fewer people, it is a considerable underestimate of the ability to read. Among settlers on the Hill estate in County Down and the Herbert estate in County Kerry rates of signature literacy could rise to over 80% in the later seventeenth century. There is also evidence from legal sources, such as the Tholsel books in Dublin, that this was true in other places. It seems therefore that Irish literacy rates were rather higher than might be assumed. Among the Gaelic Irish community, the figures for literacy appear to be lower but the evidence here is less reliable. The impressionistic evidence suggests that

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literacy among the Gaelic Irish was rising over the seventeenth century with a growth in the number of surviving manuscripts in Irish and some literary references to the ability to read.21 Most of those who achieved literacy in Irish did so through the use of manuscripts, and printed books may well have proved to be a more difficult medium to work in. Certainly, some of the earliest Irish language printed books contained aids to help even the literate understand the text.22 Literacy and language, for all their importance, do not explain why the role of print appears to be different across the countries of the northern European periphery. Print and literacy were simply strategies to effect changes in a religious culture by affecting the way in which the symbols that articulate religious experience in the wider cultural web were understood. As such, they were not characteristic of any one geographical or confessional community. While early modern Protestants may have stressed the Bible as a touchstone of belief and an instrument of mission (hence privileging literacy), they did not ignore oral strategies in shaping religious reform. In Ireland, no church afforded literacy the priority that it had in Norway. The low levels of literacy in Gaelic Ireland, for instance, were not regarded as a problem for Tridentine missionaries. In part, this was because it was recognised that in this cultural world, print and literacy were not seen as significant agents of social change. Jane Dawson, for instance, has pointed out that in the Gaelic-speaking Scottish Gaidhealtachd the Calvinist, Presbyterian reformation powered ahead without the benefit of a Bible in the vernacular and without the benefit of the printing press to produce controversial or devotional literature. She attributes this to the willingness of Gaelic-speaking clergy and aristocracy to mould Calvinism to their own culture with, for example, a relaxed attitude to the supernatural. Calvinism was thus spread through a traditional ‘oral literate culture’ that adapted traditional communication skills to spread the new message rather than inventing new ways of doing this.23 A similar case can be made for Wales. Like Norway, Wales did not have a printing press in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries and relied on London, Oxford or Cambridge for its printing needs. The result was that printing in Welsh for almost any purpose was limited. There were probably no more than 150 books published in Welsh over the seventeenth century and this output was skewed to the years after 1670.24 Admittedly the situation was not as acute as in Gaelic Scotland, since the Bible had been translated into Welsh by 1620, though that was a long and torturous process stretching back to 1563, with the New Testament appearing in 1567 and the Book of

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Common Prayer in Welsh appeared in the same year. However, these were islands of activity in a sea of religious print that, as in Ireland, was largely becalmed in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.25 Despite this, the Welsh Reformation advanced, largely using the Welsh language. As Lloyd Bowen has demonstrated, the making of Welsh political culture before the eighteenth century took place through the Welsh language often using traditional oral techniques, such as poetry, as ways of disseminating political ideas and contemporary news.26 There is every reason to think that religious information travelled in the same way and, because of its traditional methods of diffusion, was adopted by local communities in the same way as in Gaelic Scotland. Thus religious change succeeded despite, not because of, print.

The Role of Orality Those most active in promoting religious change from the world of traditional religion were the Irish Franciscans who spearheaded the Tridentine mission to Gaelic Ireland. They understood the strategy of using traditional oral communication techniques to shape new religious ideas if only because they also undertook the mission to the Scottish Isles in the 1630s and witnessed the strategy first hand.27 Indeed it is possible to pick up traces of this attitude on the Franciscan mission in Ireland. As late as 1690 at Shrule in County Mayo a Franciscan defended the lack of catechetical book learning among the local Catholic population on the grounds that although they knew ‘not as much as they do in other countries, they know enough to be saved’.28 His meaning seems to have been that although local Catholics could not provide replies to questions from the printed catechism as would be expected by Tridentine trained clergy, when judged by their own cultural standards their orthodoxy was demonstrable. Those standards were shaped by traditional and oral explanations of the world. This did not mean that the Irish Franciscans rejected print as a mission strategy. Where they thought it appropriate to use it, they did so. When, for instance, the Irish Franciscans at Louvain wished to convince the European ecclesiastical authorities of the importance of the early Irish saints they turned to print as that was the appropriate strategy to follow. Again, when confronted by print, the Louvain Franciscans could reply in kind. Between 1611 and 1649 they produced a number of devotional works, including a catechism in Irish using a specially cast Irish type. It has usually been assumed that these works were for the Irish mission,

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but there is very little evidence for them circulating in Ireland before the latter half of the seventeenth century, and then mainly in manuscript rather than printed book form. The solution to this enigma seems to be that the catechisms and other devotional works were not produced for the Irish mission but rather for Irish soldiers in the Spanish armies to whom the Louvain friars acted as chaplains. Richard Morres of Templemore in Tipperary certainly saw one of the early catechisms in the hands of Irish soldiers in the Low Countries on his way home from Prague in 1612.29 Clearly, in the context of one of the centres of European print in the early modern period, the Low Countries, it was appropriate for the Franciscans to resort to print for their pastoral strategy while in Ireland other tactics, more appropriate for an oral literature, were deployed. Various strategies of change could modify religious culture in different ways. For instance, oral strategies tended to operate in a conservative way. Oral tradition relied on precedent and experience to demonstrate and reinforce its message. Place lore, for instance, often contained a message about how supernatural powers had acted in the natural landscape by telling stories about the origins of wells or cliffs, stories whose veracity was demonstrated by the everyday world.30 Thus for oral tradition to work effectively, some measure of stability and continuity of population was required to allow new religious ideas to be accommodated to the traditional narrative. While the Presbyterian revolution triumphed in the Gaelic-speaking Scottish Gaidhealtachd it did not prevent elements in the oral world being incorporated into the contemporary oral culture that was used as a strategy for reform. Stories traceable to early sixteenth-century hagiography entered the oral culture of the Scottish Gaidhealtachd at the same time as Calvin’s ideas, and hence the cult of saints was embraced within local Calvinist-inspired worlds.31 In the same way in Norway the lack of a disruptive print culture in the sixteenth century led to the stability, and indeed expansion, of the holy well cult (mainly dedicated to St Olaf) though that was to reverse itself with the expansion of a Lutheran infrastructure complete with print.32 Parts of Ireland, notably the west, met a similar fate with little colonisation or spread of print. Neither Tridentine nor Reformed print penetrated these areas leaving a traditional culture, well adapted to the local world, to absorb new religious ideas slowly. In contrast to this world of continuities other parts of the northern European periphery were severely affected by the radical and disruptive technology of print.33 In some places, such as the north and south of Ireland, this was accompanied by an assault on a traditional

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social structure through colonisation schemes. It was in these parts of Ireland that the easy dissemination of print, either Protestant or CounterReformation, proved influential in affecting the religious change as part of a wider transformative social experiment. It would, however, be wrong to think about oral and printed cultures as exclusive or in continual opposition. In seventeenth-century Ireland some Protestants seeking to create order from their new world found that the offerings from the printed religious literature failed to explain their experiences yet traditional religious practices were attractive. For these there were precedent and proven results, and at least some Protestants adopted them, though sometimes reluctantly and against the railing of the clergy.34 Likewise, in Wales, the holy well tradition survived into the nineteenth century despite attacks from the world of print because of its usefulness in solving everyday problems, particularly medical ones.35

The Experience of Print While a recognition of the differing roles of the book in religious change across the northern European area helps in giving shape to the changing early modern religious cultures, it does not provide a neat index to the fates of religious institutions over the period. Even in areas where print dominated as a strategy for reform, it was used in different ways to suit local circumstances. In Norway, for example, the high degree of cohesion in the Lutheran settlement meant that religious controversy was a matter for the professionals rather than for popular debate, so works of controversy were relatively rare and handled carefully. In England, by contrast, the literature of religious controversy was one of the mainstays of the print trade as the presses turned out some 630 confutational titles under Elizabeth and 7643 in the reign of James I alone.36 In Ireland, by contrast, almost nothing of a controversial nature against Catholicism was published in the early modern period, and attempts to import antiCatholic controversial works met with commercial disaster as they found no buyers in Dublin.37 Likewise, within Protestantism, controversy failed to flare in seventeenth-century Ireland with the earliest signs of printed conflict being the debate between Joseph Boyse and William King, bishop of Derry, in the wake of the Williamite settlement in the 1690s.38 This, of course, does not mean that there was no religious controversy in early modern Ireland. Rather, it suggests that the sites of conflict were not the printing presses but elsewhere. Controversy was not over theological

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points but rather over who might provide the best access to the power of God as revealed in the world. Thus, the absence of controversial works in Norway and Ireland had different roots in different religious settlements. A second case of differences in the types of religious works published in the two countries is provided by the liturgies of the confessions that emerged in the early modern world. Each confession had its own distinctive confessional culture with styles of preaching, praying and singing and these, to some extent, reflected the social order of the communities that the confessions served. The Lutheran reformation, with its concern for popular reform, had stressed the importance of communicating theological ideas in simple ways, particularly through the use of singing.39 The result was that hymn books were an important part of religious publishing in Norway and hymn books were among the first books printed in the Lutheran reformation in Iceland. In Norway, these works often evolved into teaching aids for literacy and sometimes contained more advanced theological statements.40 The initial reform movement in Ireland was less concerned with this level of theological understanding given the magisterial nature of that reformation. While the psalter was available for singing or chanting, all the indications were that it was not much used in a liturgical sense although it may have had a more popular appeal. In the early days of the Irish rising of 1641, there are accounts of psalms being sung at Tuam and other places by settlers under attack.41 Congregational singing in mid-seventeenth-century Ireland was largely the preserve of Presbyterians of Scottish origin in Ulster whose reformation in Scotland had been of a more popular character and had incorporated psalm singing with enthusiasm. Inevitably this had exported itself to Ulster in the late seventeenth century and metrical psalters from Scotland were imported for use in the new Presbyterian congregations founded following the influx of Scottish settlers after 1650. By 1699, when a press was established at Belfast, almost the first book to be printed there was the metrical psalter. It was late in the seventeenth century before others recognised the power of singing and began to produce printed hymnals for the Irish market. In the 1690s the Dublin Presbyterian minister Joseph Boyse produced two hymn books for use in the family and at the holy communion. Again, the godly William Barton’s translation of the psalms suitable for singing was published in Dublin on a number of occasions in the 1690s and in Belfast during the early eighteenth century a number of hymn books appeared that may have supplemented the official Anglican translation of the psalter by Tate and Brady.42 Why hymn books should have become

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more common at this point in the history of publishing religious works in Ireland is, as yet, unclear. It made no impact on the tradition of Scottish Presbyterianism in Ulster and was confined to Presbyterians of English extraction and adherents to the Church of Ireland, which may link it with the gradual weakening of the Calvinist tradition among these groups and the opening up of new approaches to worship. There were clearly significant differences between Ireland and Norway’s experience of print in the shifts in religious cultures in the early modern period but there were also some similarities. Some religious books circulated in both countries. Indeed, it would be unusual if this were not the case. The importance of the Low Countries in the Scottish and London book trades meant that the sort of works being imported into Ireland from Scotland and England were also available in Holland and therefore relatively easily accessible in Denmark and Norway. A good example of the sort of widespread work that exploited these wider markets is Lewis Bayly’s The Practice of Piety, originally published in London. By the 1630s, then in its thirty-sixth edition, it could be found in the collection of books assembled in Dublin by Lady Anne Hamilton and in Limerick Christopher Sexton had a copy in his library. In the 1670s Samuel Ladyman of Clonmel left money in his will to buy copies of Bayly’s work for his friends and in the 1690s the pious Comptroller General in Ireland, James Bonnell, described how Bayly’s work had deeply influenced him when a child.43 The work could also be frequently found in Norway in a Danish translation and in Wales in a Welsh translation.44 Bayly’s work is typical of those texts that can be seen as passing between the various peripheral reformations and, in some way, linking them all. Bayly’s work was devotional, rather than doctrinal or confutational, with a strong moralistic sense and a selection of prayers for various occasions intended for domestic and personal use rather than liturgical. As such it divorced itself from structures and institutions and focused on spirituality, appealing to a basic religious concern across the periphery of northern Europe of the relationship of the reader with God that fuelled the reform process itself.

Understanding Peripherality There is little doubt that early modern religious cultures were moulded by a range of factors. The contexts in which they were shaped and the strategies for shaping them were crucial in understanding how they

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worked. Strategies for change such as literacy, language or a traditional ‘oral literate culture’ varied from country to country. However these were not the sole determinants of how people would think about God and the world. The social and economic framework that peripherality generated inevitably shaped how those views would be formed, as would the medieval experience in particular regions. Viewing the process of change through the lens of the print trades does suggest that Ireland and Norway had very different encounters with the new religious ideas. The two societies reacted to the world of religious print very differently, determined not by a general geospatial situation but by very specific historical outcomes of the reform process in the sixteenth century. Language and literacy were understood in very different ways in the two countries and that shaped the ways in which print was utilised in the reformation process. Again the cohesion of Norway, generated in no small measure by the success of Lutheran reform, can be contrasted with the fragmentation of a colonised Ireland. That fragmentation was not just between Protestant and Catholic, but between various forms of Protestantism, all with their different cultural expressions. However, the small number of commonalities, represented by Bayly’s work, should remind us that the early modern reformations were fundamentally about religion and a concern for people’s relationship to God rather than a striving for political power.

Notes 1. Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther (London: Penguin, 2015). 2. Here I have followed Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided (London: Penguin, 2004). 3. Here I have followed Ole Peter Grell, “Scandinavia,” in The Reformation World, ed. Andrew Pettegree, 257–76 (London: Routledge, 2000), 269– 71. 4. For the development of the print trade see Colm Lennon, “The Print Trade 1550–1700,” in The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Vol. 3: The Irish Book in English, 1550–1800, ed. Raymond Gillespie and Andrew Hadfield, 61–73 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 5. Mary Pollard, “Control of the Press Through the King’s Printers Patent, 1600–1800,” Irish Booklore 4 (1980): 79–95. 6. Compare the essays by Gillespie on Ireland and Finn-Eniar Eliassen on Norway in Peter Clark (ed.), Small Towns in Early Modern Europe

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9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

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(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 22–49, 148–65; FinnEniar Eliassen, “Profit, Power and Private Planning: Landowners and Small Towns in Early Modern Norway,” in Power, Profit and Urban Land: Landownership in Medieval and Early Modern Northern European Towns, ed. Finn-Eniar Eliassen and Geir Atle Ersland, 194–217 (London: Scolar Press, 1996). Gunnar Karlson, Iceland’s 1100 Years: History of a Marginal Society (London: Gardners Books, 2000), 129, 136–37. For this argument see Raymond Gillespie, “Early Modern Ireland as a Multi-confessional State,” in A Companion to Multiconfessionalism in the Early Modern World, ed. Thomas Max Safley, 318–40 (Leiden: Brill, 2011). For example Tony Crowley, Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland, 1537 –2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 9–63. T. C. Barnard, “Protestants and the Irish Language 1675–1725,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993): 243–72. Terence McCaughey, “General Synod of Ulster’s Policy on the Use of the Irish Language in the Early Eighteenth Century,” in Propagating the Word of Irish Dissent, 1650–1800, ed. Kevin Herlihy, 46–62 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998). The National Archives, London, SP63/108/13. Raymond Gillespie, Reading Ireland: Print, Reading and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 63, 147–48, 165–66. See Raymond Gillespie, “Catholic Religious Cultures in the Diocese of Dublin, 1614–97,” in History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin, ed. James Kelly and Daire Keogh, 127–43 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000), 132– 35. For this see Bernadette Cunningham, “Loss and Gain: Attitudes towards the English Language in Early Modern Ireland,” in Reshaping Ireland, 1550–1700: Colonisation and its Consequences, ed. Brian Mac Cuarta, 163–84 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011). For example see Alexandra Walsham, “‘Domme Preachers’? PostReformation Catholicism and the Culture of Print,” Past & Present 168 (2000): 72–123. “Preface,” in The Soldiers Best Exercise (Dublin, 1696). Rheinallt Llwyd, “Printing and Publishing in the Seventeenth Century,” in A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales, ed. Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees, 93–119 (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988), 94–95. Pettegree, Brand Luther. Gina Dahl, Books in Early Modern Norway (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 42. Gillespie, Reading Ireland, 40–42.

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22. Mícheál Hoyne, “Brief Rules for Reading Irish Found in Printed Books, 1571–1863,” Celtica 31 (2019): 219–20, 247, 233–34, 294. 23. Jane Dawson, “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland,” in Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1640, ed. Andrew Pettegree, Alistair Duke, and Gillian Lewis, 231–53 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 24. Llwyd, “Printing and Publishing in the Seventeenth Century,” 93. 25. R. Geraint Gruffydd, “The First Printed Books, 1546–1604,” in A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales, ed. Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees, 55–65 (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988), 57–59. 26. Lloyd Bowen, “Information, Language and Political Culture in Early Modern Wales,” Past & Present 228 (2015): 125–58. 27. Fiona MacDonald, Missions to the Gaels: Reformation and CounterReformation in Ulster and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1560–1760 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2006). 28. Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Rawlinson C439, fo. 6. 29. Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1611–1614, ed. C. W. Russell and John P. Prendergast (London: Longman and Co., 1877), 185; Raymond Gillespie, “The Louvain Franciscans and the Culture of Print,” in Irish Europe, 1600–1650: Writing and Learning, ed. Raymond Gillespie and Ruairí Ó hUiginn, 102–20 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), 107–11. 30. Raymond Gillespie, “Devotional Landscapes: God, Saints and the Natural World in Early Modern Ireland,” in God’s Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World, ed. Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon, 217–36 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010). 31. A. Sneddon, “Folkloric Hagiography in Gaelic Scotland: Saint Columba in Oral Tradition,” Scottish Gaelic Studies 31 (2018): 206–27. 32. I am grateful to Hennig Laugerud for pointing this out to me. 33. For print as a disruptive technology see Elizabeth Eisenstein, Divine Art, Infernal Machine: the Reception of Print in the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 34. Raymond Gillespie, Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 76–78, 117– 21. 35. Francis Jones, The Holy Wells of Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992), 58–87. 36. Figures from Peter Milward Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age and Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age (London: Scolar Press, 1978). 37. Declan Gaffney, “The Practice of Religious Controversy in Dublin,” in The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, ed. W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood, 145–58 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989).

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38. Raymond Gillespie, “Irish Print and Protestant Identity: William King’s Pamphlet Wars, 1687–1697,” in Taking Sides: Colonial and Confessional Mentalities in Early Modern Ireland, ed. Vincent Carey and Ute LotzHeumann, 231–50 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003). 39. Pettegree, Brand Luther, 321–23. 40. Dahl, Books in Early Modern Norway, 40, 51, 55–57. 41. Trinity College, Dublin, MS 817, fo. 201; MS 820, fo. 50v; MS 830, fo. 173v; MS 831, fo. 175v. 42. Raymond Gillespie, “‘A Good and Godly Exercise’: Singing the Word in Irish Dissent, 1660–1701,” in Propagating the Word of Irish Dissent, ed. Kevin Herlihy, 24–45 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998); Raymond Gillespie, “Music and Song in Early Eighteenth-Century Belfast,” in Irish Provincial Cultures in the Long Eighteenth Century: Essays for Toby Barnard, ed. Raymond Gillespie and R. F. Foster, 157–62 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012). 43. Gillespie, Reading Ireland, 143. 44. Dahl, Books in Early Modern Norway, 17, 85; Llwyd, “Printing and Publishing in the Seventeenth Century,” 96.

Bibliography Manuscript Sources Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Rawlinson C439. The National Archives, London, SP63/108/13. Trinity College, Dublin, MS 817. Trinity College, Dublin, MS 820. Trinity College, Dublin, MS 830. Trinity College, Dublin, MS 831.

Primary Sources Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1611–1614, edited by C. W. Russell and John P. Prendergast. London: Longman and Co., 1877. The Soldiers Best Exercise. Dublin, 1696.

Secondary Sources Barnard, T. C. “Protestants and the Irish Language 1675–1725.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993): 243–72. Bowen, Lloyd. “Information, Language and Political Culture in Early Modern Wales.” Past & Present 228 (2015): 125–58.

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Clark, Peter (ed.). Small Towns in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Crowley, Tony. Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland, 1537–2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Cunningham, Bernadette. “Loss and Gain: Attitudes Towards the English Language in Early Modern Ireland.” In Reshaping Ireland, 1550–1700: Colonisation and Its Consequences, edited by Brian Mac Cuarta, 163–84. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011. Dahl, Gina. Books in Early Modern Norway. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Dawson, Jane. “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland.” In Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1640, edited by Andrew Pettegree, Alistair Duke and Gillian Lewis, 231–53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Eisenstein, Elizabeth. Divine Art, Infernal Machine: The Reception of Print in the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Eliassen, Finn-Eniar. “Profit, Power and Private Planning: Landowners and Small Towns in Early Modern Norway.” In Power, Profit and Urban Land: Landownership in Medieval and Early Modern Northern European Towns, edited by Finn-Eniar Eliassen and Geir Atle Ersland, 194–217. London: Scolar Press, 1996. Gaffney, Declan. “The Practice of Religious Controversy in Dublin.” In The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, edited by W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood, 145– 58. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. Gillespie, Raymond. Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. Gillespie, Raymond. “‘A Good and Godly Exercise’: Singing the Word in Irish Dissent, 1660–1701.” In Propagating the Word of Irish Dissent, edited by Kevin Herlihy, 24–45. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998. Gillespie, Raymond. “Catholic Religious Cultures in the Diocese of Dublin, 1614–97.” In History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin, edited by James Kelly and Daire Keogh, 127–43. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000. Gillespie, Raymond. “Irish Print and Protestant Identity: William King’s Pamphlet Wars, 1687–1697.” In Taking Sides: Colonial and Confessional Mentalities in Early Modern Ireland, edited by Vincent Carey and Ute Lotz-Heumann, 231–50. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003. Gillespie, Raymond. Reading Ireland: Print, Reading and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005. Gillespie, Raymond. “Devotional Landscapes: God, Saints and the Natural World in Early Modern Ireland.” In God’s Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World, edited by Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon, 217–36. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010.

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Gillespie, Raymond. “Early Modern Ireland as a Multi-confessional State.” In A Companion to Multiconfessionalism in the Early Modern World, edited by Thomas Max Safley, 318–40. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Gillespie, Raymond. “Music and Song in Early Eighteenth-Century Belfast.” In Irish Provincial Cultures in the Long Eighteenth Century: Essays for Toby Barnard, edited by Raymond Gillespie and R. F. Foster, 157–62. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012. Gillespie, Raymond. “The Louvain Franciscans and the Culture of Print.” In Irish Europe, 1600–1650: Writing and Learning, edited by Raymond Gillespie and Ruairí Ó hUiginn, 102–20. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013. Gillespie, Raymond and Andrew Hadfield (eds.). The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Vol. 3: The Irish Book in English, 1550–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Grell, Ole Peter. “Scandinavia.” In The Reformation World, edited by Andrew Pettegree, 257–76. London: Routledge, 2000. Gruffydd, R. Geraint. “The First Printed Books, 1546–1604.” In A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales, edited by Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees, 55–65. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988. Hoyne, Mícheál. “Brief Rules for Reading Irish Found in Printed Books, 1571– 1863.” Celtica 31 (2019): 213–97. Jones, Francis. The Holy Wells of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992. Jones, Philip Henry and Eiluned Rees (eds.). A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988. Karlson, Gunnar. Iceland’s 1100 Years: History of a Marginal Society. London: Gardners Books, 2000. Lennon, Colm. “The Print Trade 1550–1700.” In The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Vol. 3: The Irish Book in English, 1550–1800, edited by Raymond Gillespie and Andrew Hadfield, 61–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Llwyd, Rheinallt. “Printing and Publishing in the Seventeenth Century.” In A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales, edited by Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees, 93–119. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Reformation: Europe’s House Divided. London: Penguin, 2004. MacDonald, Fiona. Missions to the Gaels: Reformation and Counter Reformation in Ulster and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1560–1760. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 2006. McCaughey, Terence. “General Synod of Ulster’s Policy on the Use of the Irish Language in the Early Eighteenth Century.” In Propagating the Word of Irish Dissent, 1650–1800, edited by Kevin Herlihy, 46–62. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.

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Milward, Peter. Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age and Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age. London: Scolar Press, 1978. Pettegree, Andrew. Brand Luther. London: Penguin, 2015. Pollard, Mary. “Control of the Press Through the King’s Printers Patent, 1600– 1800.” Irish Booklore 4 (1980): 79–95. Sneddon, A. “Folkloric Hagiography in Gaelic Scotland: Saint Columba in Oral Tradition.” Scottish Gaelic Studies 31 (2018): 206–27. Walsham, Alexandra. “‘Domme Preachers’? Post-Reformation Catholicism and the Culture of Print.” Past & Present 168 (2000): 72–123.

PART V

Northern European Reformations over the Longue Durée

CHAPTER 13

Books from the British Isles in the Collections of the Eighteenth-Century Norwegian Clergy Gina Dahl

Clerics as Officials In the early modern period, as part of the dual monarchy Denmark– Norway, Norway was, by and large, a peripheral nation whose main civil officials, the viceroy and the prefects, reported directly to the central administration in Copenhagen. All laws were passed in Denmark, where the main administrative offices were located.1 However, although Norway lacked administrative power, this does not mean that it was entirely lacking in officials, with one of the largest groups being the clergy.2 This layer of society was important in several respects. First, by virtue of its size. In 1750, there were 414 clerical positions in Norway (that is, officially paid positions as ministers and vicars).3 Second, their task was to instil in the general population the main tenets of Lutheran faith. Nevertheless, the clerics faced the same challenge as the lower classes, namely that of conformity: the clergy were supposed to remain faithful to Lutheran beliefs in their personal convictions and

G. Dahl (B) Bergen University Library, Section of Special Collections, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_13

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preaching, as well as in their involvement in the general education of the broader masses. But what was the clerics’ world of knowledge? Through the early modern period, there was a heightened focus on religious orthodoxy, and both internal and external heresies were combated, examples including remnants of Catholicism and Crypto-Calvinism. In the same vein, clerical education was also strengthened. Nevertheless, the clerics obtained much of their knowledge from books, and, as Norway was home to very few printing presses—a result of the government’s urge to supervise the printing presses in order to prevent heresies from spreading—these books had to be imported from abroad. Not only were ideas, then, passed on by people travelling, as commented on in other parts of this volume, but also through the transmission of books,4 and as a result of this particular interchange, the world of learning of the educated population became European more than Danish-Norwegian. In fact, the books that found their way to clerics in Norway originated mainly in three distinct geographical areas, namely Protestant parts of Germany, the Netherlands and the British Isles. This chapter shall, by examining clerical inventories from the period, explore the British legacy on eighteenth-century clerical book collections in Norway,5 a legacy that broadened the clergy’s world of knowledge significantly.

What Conformity Meant After the Reformation, steeping the masses in Lutheran faith and ensuring conformity was the Danish-Norwegian government’s main focus. As such, Lutheranism was enforced by the King through the rapid establishment of a carefully designed Church Ordinance, elaborated by Luther’s close collaborator Johann Bugenhagen (1485–1558) in the late 1530s. The Church Ordinance laid the cornerstones for how the diffusion of Lutheranism was to be executed. As the service constituted the major point of contact between theologians and lay believers, the revision of ceremonies and liturgical life became crucial to the implementation of basic Lutheran creeds.6 Just as the Church Ordinance laid the foundations for a rather slow conversion of the masses, as detailed in Henrik von Achen’s contribution, such laxity was also extended to the appointment of superintendents (bishops), which implies that only those openly in favour of Catholicism were removed. The most practical tools of the superintendents

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in enforcing Lutheranism became the synode and visitas, terms that signify, respectively, assemblies for discussion and visitation practices, conducted in order to supervise the practices of local clerics. These strategies, although not scheduled as obligatory in the Church Ordinance, became important tools in enforcing Lutheranism among the previously Catholic clergy, although they struggled to establish themselves systematically on a broader national level. Solid foundations were also laid by major Lutheran theologians who became decisive in elaborating the new Lutheran theology on Danish-Norwegian soil, notably Niels Hemmingsen (1513–1600) and Peder Palladius (1503–1560). Palladius, who had studied theology for five years at Wittenberg, became the natural leader of the first generation of reformers in Denmark–Norway. Hemmingsen, a professor of dialectics at the University of Copenhagen and a former student of Melanchthon, was also a renowned writer: he produced about one hundred works of which several were translated into German, Danish, English, Swedish and Icelandic. These works, naturally, became highly important in spreading the Lutheran gospel.7 During the seventeenth century, a century that would cast its shadows long into the modern era, the focus on conformity was strengthened even further. As such, the century has generally been classified as that of ‘orthodoxy’, the term referring to a type of theology that dominated the Lutheran universities in the seventeenth century, and whose aim was to construct demarcation lines between Lutheran Protestantism and other confessions. Such lines were drawn according to interpretations of Scripture that developed into all-encompassing systems.8 Famous examples of such major theological interpretations include Johann Gerhard’s (1582– 1637) Loci communes theologici, and on Danish soil, Caspar Brochmand’s (1585–1652) Universae theologiae systema. The particular theology conveyed throughout the period of ‘orthodoxy’ was that of poenitentia, which indicates a particular stress on piety coupled with repentance for one’s sins. This particular style of Lutheran Protestant religiosity, which had put down roots as early as in the late sixteenth century, was based on the idea that faith would be granted through the acceptance of sin as described in the Law.9 Hence, the acceptance of and repentance for personal sinfulness became the ultimate deed and only action possible within a system where faith alone, and no human action, could grant salvation. This poenitentia-style religiosity coincided with a stronger emphasis on church discipline and, as a result, a renewed law of church discipline was passed in 1629. What also undoubtedly

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promoted the incorporation of a poenitentia theology was the period’s growing focus on standardisation: first, education, the framework of which was religious, was rigorously strengthened during the course of the seventeenth century by the twin monarchy; and second, church life was regulated by a new law passed in 1685 on church rituals, which standardised services in Denmark–Norway for the next two hundred years. The official focus on standardisation, which also implicitly aimed at a standardisation of personal piety, also led to the publication of a whole range of catechisms and hymn books that remained influential for centuries. Generally speaking, the seventeenth century thus became one of the most significant periods in implementing pervasive structures that were to shape all levels of religious life. The rigorous nature of the seventeenth-century ‘orthodoxy’ was somewhat attenuated in the eighteenth century by the Pietist current. As with previous movements, the major sources of inspiration for the rise of Pietism in Denmark–Norway were rooted in the country’s close connections with Germany: Danish-Norwegian religious life was primarily influenced by theology as it was formulated at the University of Halle, and Pietism was particularly indebted to the writings of Philipp Jacob Spener (1636–1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663–1727). Both authors reacted strongly against the seventeenth-century theological focus on dogma, while Spener’s stress on the accessibility of the Bible, textual studies and religious meetings in terms of ‘a priesthood of all believers’, closely resembling Luther’s original aims, came to be of major importance to the Pietist cause. Whereas some Norwegian ministers adhered strongly to the Pietist cause, many still clinged to the ‘orthodox’ type of religiosity. Hence, the form through which the broader masses were introduced to Pietist theology was that of ‘state Pietism’, a notion reflecting Christian VI’s initiative to make Pietism an official governmental programme. This programme naturally had repercussions on several levels, not least when it came to missionary activities: a first, but short-lived, missionary collegium was established as early as 1714, and its aim was to convert Jews. Later, Thomas von Westen (1682–1727), the leader of the so-called ‘star of seven’, was appointed head of a project to intensively Christianise the heathen Lapps living in parts of northern Norway. Other Pietistic aims, such as the wider dissemination of edifying literature and the construction of homes for poor children, were also supported financially with

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public funds. The vital stress on Christian education also resulted in the confirmation law of 1736. A change in the intellectual and religious climate may be noted by the 1750s, the period that in the Danish-Norwegian context signifies the beginning of the Enlightenment, which occurred somewhat later than in the broader European setting. Symptomatic of this change was a focus on reason, tolerance and science that engendered a rejection of traditionalism and authoritarianism. The merging of Enlightenment philosophy with theology led to an upsurge in natural religion. The focus of this kind of theology was to stress the compatibility between reason and theology, which implies that Christendom could be judged according to its correlation with reason. Particularly influential in the spread of such ideas in Denmark–Norway was the German theologian Christian Wolff (1679– 1754) whose theology, however, found adherents only among a limited part of the clerical elite.10 As such, both Pietism and natural religion could be seen as currents challenging, but hardly overturning, ‘orthodoxy’. Uniformity, naturally, was instilled in the clergy through their education, the most important corpuses being Latin schools and Copenhagen University. The various Latin schools functioned as pre-schools to Copenhagen University, and here it was the trivium element of the educational curriculum that was stressed. This meant that out of the septem artes liberales, the trivium of grammar, rhetoric and dialectics was practised, alongside a rigorous introduction to Lutheranism. At Copenhagen University, the fundats (charter) of 1539 laid the foundations for an educational pattern that was to gain in influence throughout the seventeenth century, and as a system, it remained almost unchanged for at least 200 years: even after the new fundats of 1732, following the fire of 1728 and the rebuilding of Copenhagen University, only slight alterations were made to the curriculum. Only with the university reform of 1788 did alterations occur in line with the spirit of the Enlightenment.11 Once admitted into the university system, the first step in a future cleric’s theological career was ideally to join the Faculty of Philosophy in order to prepare for admission to the Faculty of Theology: throughout most of the early modern period, the philosophical faculty functioned as a kind of ‘pre-school’ for the other faculties. Here, further stress was put on the trivium and the quadrivium, and in principle, it was not possible to join the ‘higher’ faculty of theology before a certain level of philosophical knowledge had been acquired. Several students, however,

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deliberately skipped the artes-training in order to focus on the more financially remunerative theological studies, this being the reason for the eventual introduction of an obligatory examen philosophicum (1675). Once they had been accepted into the Faculty of Theology, students were exposed to the period’s ‘twofold way’ of educational instruction, namely a focus on Scripture and loci, or, knowledge of the Bible and of the Lutheran articles of faith, a model inherited from Melanchthon. During the seventeenth century, the ‘period of orthodoxy’, this system was maintained, but with minor adjustments: dogmatics, for instance, was strengthened, and polemical theology (or controversiae) was incorporated into it. The importance of controversiae fidei also led to a more lively interest in church history. In the fundats of 1732, no major alterations were made to theology; the only main change was the now fully integrated church history, partly inspired by the Pietist curriculum at the University of Halle.12 Despite the more structural inspiration from Halle, which strengthened for example Copenhagen’s focus on legal studies and political science, little was done to promote Pietist theology. Although Christian VI had created three extraordinary chairs in theology to strengthen the Pietist cause, these chairs were in practice only used for censoring books, revisions to the Bible and theological responses: the only Pietist professor whom students met in Copenhagen was Jeremias Reuss (d. 1777), who lectured in the period 1730–1749.13 Students, therefore, were more likely to meet Pietists and read Pietist writings outside the lecture halls. Therefore, it could perhaps be claimed that religious education institutions continued to a large extent to transmit ‘orthodox’ religiosity.

‘Desirable’ Books The thorough steeping of the clergy in the Lutheran faith was only one way of ensuring that this was also passed on to the broader population. The supervision of printing houses was another. As such, Norway was the last country in Scandinavia to be equipped with a printing house. This was established in Christiania as late as in 1643. Within the twin monarchy, most printing houses were located in Copenhagen or the surrounding areas. For instance, at the end of the eighteenth century, nine Danish towns were equipped with printing houses, while in Copenhagen as many as twenty-one printing houses were operating. In Norway, only three printing houses were functioning at that time.14 The late establishment of

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printing houses in Norway was the result, at least partly, of a centralisation strategy that had a clear religious and political purpose, namely control of the market designed to ensure religious conformity: printing houses could be better supervised if located closer to those people performing that task. Hence, most popular books circulating in Norway were imported from Denmark. And those who sold them were mainly bookbinders, their numbers in Norway by far outweighing the number of printers, and various types of commissionaires and peddlers. Printing houses and other types of bookseller, at least the more stationary ones, were not left untouched by control mechanisms. Instead, printers and other booksellers were granted privileges and monopolies provided they published the ‘right’ religious literature. Other practices could also be carried out: censorship could be enforced, for example, by prohibiting the printing of particular books or by revising a manuscript before, or even after, printing. The open support shown to particular types of literature also made authors themselves conduct a certain amount of strategic self-censorship: by writing officially supported literature, an author’s chances of seeing his or her manuscript appearing in print increased significantly.15 The censorship climate, however, was not static, but one which gradually shifted in focus and intensity throughout the early modern period. Already in the first post-Reformation Church Ordinance, censorship was targeted through the definition of particular books as ‘useful’, examples being the Bible and books written by Luther and Melanchthon. Books other than these (whether printed at home or abroad) were only to be released onto the market after they had been carefully examined by Protestant superintendents.16 Also, the import of books written in the Danish language, but printed in Germany, became illegal as such books, if they ended up in the wrong hands, might cause sectarian turmoil.17 Hence, throughout the Reformation century, the combination of prohibiting the import of particular books and of the open support for ‘good’ literature favoured the distribution of books that promoted religious conformity. In the period between 1600 and 1660, the first half of the ‘orthodox era’, the greater focus on streamlining personal piety, and the efforts made to improve literacy, made censorship strategies even more crucial. Hence, as a general rule, and in line with similar guidelines issued in previous decades, all manuscripts had to be submitted to the official censorship authorities before they could appear in print. The Norwegian Church

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Ordinance of 1607, for instance, required all manuscripts to be censored by the local bishop before they were forwarded to Copenhagen. Similarly, in 1617, the prohibition of the import and sale of theological books which were not in line with Lutheranism was renewed.18 The sale of ‘corrupting’ short stories was also attacked, and in 1633, almanacks containing predictions (often called prognostica) were likewise prohibited.19 During the latter part of the seventeenth century, censorship was strengthened, and now it was also extended to cover writings which criticised the absolutist government. As part of this process, a wide range of privileges and guidelines concerning the printing and selling of books was issued. These, naturally, aimed at curbing dissent as well as protecting the market from nonconformist thinking. In 1667, for instance, the obligatory censorship of all manuscripts before they appeared in print was reaffirmed. In 1672, the prohibition against the import of books written in the Danish language, but printed abroad, was likewise renewed. Resolutions were also continually being passed to ban all non-Lutheran, and particularly Calvinist, literature from Danish-Norwegian soil, and in 1681, printers were again urged to ensure that all literature passed through the censorship procedures before it appeared on the market.20 During the course of the first half of the eighteenth century in particular, censorship restrictions prevailed, and these restrictions operated according to established as well as novel procedures. As a result of the ongoing suspicion of confessions other than Lutheranism, new censorship decrees were introduced in the 1730s, and in 1740 previous printing and import restrictions were again reaffirmed.21 Certain publications in particular were also targeted: a prohibition against the Quaker catechism of Robert Barclay (1648–1690), for instance, was passed in 1723 in order to hinder the spread of radical spiritual literature. The general enforcement of Pietist theology also had repercussions for the world of books: since Pietist religiosity focused on a ‘spirituality of the heart’ that was supposed to have repercussions in everyday life, non-spiritual pastimes such as reading non-religious literature, came to be seen as particularly corrupting. As a result, prohibitions against the sale of ‘corrupting’ short stories were imposed, particularly in northern Norway, while the Pietist theologian Erik Pontoppidan the Younger (1698–1764) went as far as to claim that short stories were ‘prostitution in written form’.22 The sale and proclamation of songs on the streets also became illegal during the Pietist period.23 Only in the latter part of the eighteenth century did censorship practices change in the direction of greater openness, culminating in

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total freedom during the rule of Struensee (1770–1772). This openness, however, was only fully maintained between 1770 and 1773. ‘Heresies in book form’ was thus no loose concept.

The ‘Open’ World of the Clergy Although clerics in Norway were supposed to display conformity, their world of knowledge was much broader than that of the common man. This, naturally, was related to the fact that they were exposed to literature other than that which the various legislations regulating the book market generally targeted. There were two reasons for this. First, the clergy, belonging to the educated level of society, was thought of as not being so easily corruptible as the general population, which meant that they could be exposed to a more varied sample of literature without being ‘corrupted’. Secondly, as the printing presses in Norway, and many of those in Demark as well, only published popular literature for the masses in order to make money, more specialised literature was generally imported from beyond the dual monarchy. In fact, based on inventories, books circulating among the Norwegian clergy came from three networking areas in particular, namely Protestant parts of Germany, the Netherlands and the British Isles. This, naturally, was no coincidence, but resulted from their importance in terms of education and trade. For those upper-class theologians who had the financial means to undertake studies abroad after the obligatory stay in Copenhagen, three main areas would be most regularly visited, namely Germany, the Netherlands and England. Although Germany remained the most important place of study apart from Copenhagen during the early modern period, the importance of England rose dramatically; in the period 1650–1750, Oxford University was the second most visited place after Leiden.24 Such a trend naturally led to the introduction of English religious thought among the future clergy. Similarly, Protestant parts of Germany, the Netherlands and the British Isles were of utmost importance to trade. During the early modern period, Norway was very much intertwined in international trade owing to its natural resources—fish and timber being of prime importance—and the trade was lively25 : of the 614 ships that departed from Bergen in 1780, the city that was Norway’s largest town throughout the early modern period, 277 were Danish, 187 were Norwegian, seventy-three were British and twenty-six were Dutch.26

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How then, did books from abroad reach Norwegian shores? First, learned consumers would return home with books purchased during their travels abroad. Many of them were also in direct contact with booksellers abroad, from whom they ordered books that would be shipped to them or sent by post. Secondly, book orders would also sometimes be sent with travellers or sailors who took part in the lively trade between Norway and other parts of Europe. The specialist literature would also reach the learned classes through other channels. First, foreign booksellers, peddlers or stationary sellers acted as agents for the sale of such works; these often originated in Copenhagen or in other European towns. Second, regular stores could also act as intermediaries in this type of trade, as did, for instance, many of those located in Copenhagen. Thirdly, because of the demand from the educated sections of society for learned literature, foreigners were also occasionally given the right to establish sales offices; none of this trade was supervised by the authorities. And, once they ended up in a specific geographical area, books tended to stay there: the second-hand, local, book market would sometimes circulate the same titles for centuries. Inheritance was also important for book distribution: as the clergy tended to be recruited from ‘learned’ families often of an ecclesiastical background, books could be passed on from one generation to another for a very long time. Books could also be given as gifts. How did the various purchasers stay informed about literary trends and authorships? Apart from travels, correspondence, both national and international, was of prime importance in keeping the more educated people informed about literary trends.27 So too were printed book catalogues and bibliographies, which became increasingly numerous throughout the early modern period. What made their inquiries possible, naturally, was the clergy’s acquaintance with Latin and German, but also with French, English and sometimes Dutch. The importance of these networking areas to book distribution is reflected in the various clerical book collections. Of major importance to book dissemination among the Norwegian clergy were the international fairs held annually in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, and also Leiden and Amsterdam were important as places of origin of books, as were certain cities on the British Isles. This pattern of book distribution is noticeable, for instance, in the book collection of the aforementioned Pietist parson Thomas von Westen, registered in the clerical inventories of Trondheim in 1727 (see Table 13.1). Here, we see that Germany, through Leipzig, but also through Frankfurt, was important, but so was

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Table 13.1 Places of publication of books recorded in von Westen’s library

Leipzig Leiden Copenhagen Amsterdam Basel Frankfurt London Paris Halle Helmstadt Hamburg Wittenberg Oxford Tübingen Jena Strasbourg Rotterdam Antwerp Lübeck Geneva Nuremberg Cologne Hannover Utrecht Ulm The Hague Padua Herborn Bremen Braunschweig Rome Arnsheim Louvain Kiel Rostock Heidelberg Stockholm

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37 32 26 26 20 15 15 14 11 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Dahl, Books in Early Modern Norway, 73–74

Leiden. However, London is also listed in the top seven with respect to book provenience, and also Oxford occurs, very much symptomatic of the period’s transmission of books.

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It should be noted that printing place in the world of books does not always indicate textual origin: although most of the books printed in Germany were written by German authors, exceptions do occur. Several works from the British Isles were passed on to Norway in German translation, Germany thus functioning as the networking area of transmission.28 Sometimes, works originating in the British Isles would also pass through the Netherlands. The book collection belonging to Jens Hansøn Kraft, for instance, a parson in the county of Jarlsberg in southeastern Norway, included in 1722 approximately one hundred volumes of English or Scottish origin. Some of these works were in Dutch translation, such as works by the Puritan cleric and divine Richard Sibbes (1577–1635, Het licht van den himel ), the Puritan preacher and chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680, De ware vrucht de gebeth), Bishop Joseph Hall (1574–1656, Doods alarm) and John Tillotson, archbishop of Canterbury (1630–1694, Predichen). Christi stridten de overvinninge is accredited to Thomas Taylor, probably the London theologian who died in 1632; titles are recorded here in the way in which they were written down in the probate record.29 It should be noted that the origins of the authors whose works were disseminated in Norway slightly changed during the course of the eighteenth century. Before 1750, it seems as if most members of the learned classes purchased books by authors of German, Dutch or British origin, and their books were most frequently written in Latin, followed by German, English and Dutch. After 1750, the number of books printed in Danish increased dramatically, whereas, for instance, the number of works from the Netherlands dropped slightly. However, the number of works of German origin remained high, and also the impact of books from the British Isles continued, although many of them were still to be found in German translation.30

Books Originating in the British Isles The number of books from the British Isles, that is, books originally written by a British author, remained substantial in clerical book collections in early modern Norway. Naturally, some clerics would possess few works of this kind, whereas others would possess many, as did the aforementioned cleric Jens Kraft. A further example of a cleric taking what can be characterised as a keen interest in religious literature from the British Isles was the Bergen

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parson Detlew Lucoppidan. Detlew, the son of a Danish parson, was born in 1653, and took the name Lucoppidan after his place of birth, Lyby. The same year as he obtained a master’s degree in theology, Lucoppidan was appointed parson of the Korskirke in Bergen, and three years later, in 1683, of Bergen Cathedral (Domkirke). A royal decree of 1689 also made him dean of Northern Hordaland, a position in which he remained until his death.31 When he died, Lucoppidan left behind a collection of more than 200 books, mostly, as you would expect, of a theological nature.32 Apart from the general abundance of German theologians, the most striking feature of Lucoppidan’s collection is the important number of works written by authors from the British Isles, many of which reflected the Puritan inspiration that acted both within and outside the Church of England, particularly from the 1550s. The radical Presbyterian stress on preaching and spirituality, an offshoot of Puritanism, also seems to have found its way to Lucoppidan’s bookshelves through various authorships. The Puritans recorded, for instance, include the divine Josiah Nicholls (1555?–1639), deprived of his rectory in Eastwell in 1603,33 represented in Lucoppidan’s collection with the work Abraham’s Faith. The sermons of the Puritan divine Samuel Hieron (1576?–1617) were also listed in Lucoppidan’s collection, as were several books accredited to the Puritan divine Thomas Watson (c. 1620–1686), such as The Christian Charter. The Contemplations and Devotions on our Blessed Saviour’s Death and Passion by the ardent Presbyterian Charles Herle (1598–1659) were also recorded as being in Lucoppidan’s possession, as was The Great Assize, of the Days of Jubilee, a book written by the ejected divine and Presbyterian Samuel Smith (1584–1662?); this highly popular work reached its forty-seventh edition in 1757. Smith, who was active during the civil war, was ejected at the time of the Stuart restoration despite his great fame as a preacher.34 Also listed in Lucoppidan’s collection was the work Annotanes (i.e. The Book of Psalms, Englished both in Prose and Metre, with Annotations opening the Words and Sentences by Conference with other Scriptures ) written by Henry Ainsworth (1572–1622), a nonconformist and the leader of the separatist congregation in Amsterdam, a group also called ‘Brownists’ or ‘independents’.35 Other works from the British Isles also appeared in Lucoppidan’s book collection, for instance several of the posthumously published sermons by Ralph Brownrigg (1592–1659), the Calvinist-inspired bishop of Exeter.36 Also listed was Thomas Adams (1583–1652), represented by his Bunyan-inspired work The Happiness of the Church.37 Jeremy Taylor’s

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(1613–1667) Great Exemplar of the Holy History of Jesus Christ was also included in Lucoppidan’s collection, Taylor becoming bishop of Down and Connor after the Restoration. Some of his works remained popular books of devotion until the twentieth century. Several of John Donne’s (1572–1631) sermons were also included in Lucoppidan’s collection, alongside Catechetical doctrine by Lancelot Andrew (1555–1626), bishop of Winchester. Also recorded was Thomas Bilson (1547–1616), the bishop of Worcester and Winchester who oversaw the printing of the King James Bible, with his work De passione & descensu Christi ad inferos,38 as was Thomas Gataker (1574–1654), who served as prefector at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later became preacher to the society of Lincoln’s Inn.39 A book in Lucoppidan’s collection was also accredited to Gilbert Foliot (c. 1110–1187), a bishop of Hereford and London, namely Expositio in cantica canticorum.40 In general, most clerics in eighteenth-century Norway possessed religious books originating in the British Isles, although the upper layers of the clergy possessed more books of this kind than did the lower ranks. In the south-eastern county of Jarlsberg, the ten clerical inventories listed in the years 1723–1738 included about eighty different authors of this origin (see Table 13.2); the names in this table are written as penned down in the probate record, leaving many of them somewhat misspelled and vague. In other areas, too, religious books written by authors from the British Isles were included, as for instance in the north-western town of Trondheim. In the seven clerical inventories recorded in the period 1732–1743, about forty different authors were included (see Table 13.3). From the lists presented above, it seems clear that the impact of religious literature from the British Isles remained important among the eighteenth-century Norwegian clergy, and that its legacy in terms of religiosity was rather heterogeneous and not necessarily in conformity with official religion at the time.41

Bestsellers---Bayly, Baxter, Dyke and Watson Owing both to travel and books, theological life in Denmark–Norway was inspired by religious life on the British Isles, particularly from the 1650s onwards and well into the eighteenth century.42 However, judging by the distribution of books among the clergy, some authors seem to have gained more importance than others. In fact, four authors stand out as

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Table 13.2 Authors originating in the British Isles in Jarlsberg clerical inventories 1723–1738

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Thomas Adams Isaac Ambrosius Lancelot Andrews Samuel Annest W. Atkins L. Bailey Richard Baker Matthew Barcher Bates Richard Baxter Barclay Peter Berault Robert Boyle Thomas Brightmann Brownley Ralph Brownrige Bufield Anthony Burgesse Jeremiah Burroughs Victorinus Bythner Edmund Calamy Joseph Carl Thomas Carl Joseph Caryl William Cave William Chamberlain Stephan Charnoche Cotton Nathanael Culverwel Martin Day Jeremiah Dyke Daniel Dyke Daniel Fewbly John Forbes John Fox Thomas Fuller Thomas Garzon Thomas Gataker Thomas Godwin Joseph Hall H. Hammon Samuel Hieron

(continued)

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Table 13.2 (continued)

Arthur Hildersham Robert Hill Michael Jermin Samuel Krooche Adam Littleton John Lord Christopher Love Thomas Manton Matthew Meard Joseph Meede Thomas Myriell John Owen W. Perkins Henry Ramsden John Randall Thomas Reese Reynolds Nehemiah Rogers Sanderson Seeker William Selerloch Richard Sibbes Sydrach Simpson Henry Smith Samuel Smith Edward Spark Stapleton George Swinch Jeremiah Taylor Thomas Taylor William Tenner John Tillotson Thomas Varton Nathanael Vincent Thomas Wadswerth Thomas Watson John Wilkins Dahl, “Questioning Religious Influence,” 338

‘bestselling authors’, being listed in a vast number of inventories. These are Lewis Bayly, Richard Baxter, Daniel Dyke and Thomas Watson, all of them Puritans.43 Lewis Bayly (c. 1575–1631), was a Puritan and Anglican bishop educated at Oxford. He was chaplain both to Henry Frederick,

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Table 13.3 Authors originating in the British Isles in Trondheim clerical inventories 1732–1743

Thomas Adams Isaac Ambrosius Lancelot Andrews William Attersoll John Barclay Richard Baxter John Boys George Buchanan John Bunyan Joseph Caryl William Cave William Chillingworth Richard Cumberland William Day John Doughtey Daniel Dyke John Floyd Thomas Fuller Thomas Gataker Thomas Godwin Joseph Hall John Harte John Lightfoot Adam Littleton Joseph Mede Thomas Manton William Outram John Owen (died 1622) John Owen (died 1683) John Pearson William Perkins Nehemiah Rogers Francis Rous Robert Sanderson William Seymar William Slater Thomas Stapleton John Trapp Matthias Virellus Richard Ward Thomas Watson Isaac Watts Dahl, Book Collections of Clerics in Norway, 1650–1750, 214

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Prince of Wales and King James I. In 1616, Bayly was also appointed bishop of Bangor, where he stayed until he died. Lewis Bayly was the author of one of the major early modern European bestsellers, namely The Practice of Piety: Directing a Christian How to Walke That He May Please God, which it is believed was first published in 1611. A second edition was published in 1612.44 The book went through a large number of editions. In England, for instance, a twentyfifth edition was printed in 1630, and in 1735 a fifty-ninth edition was published. However, the book also sold well in other European countries: Practice of Piety went through at least forty-nine Dutch editions, twentyeight German editions and twenty French print runs.45 The first French edition appeared in Geneva as early as in 1625, and the first German one in Zürich in 1629. In 1647, the book was also published in Polish, and it was also issued in Hungarian, Italian, Welsh, Czech, Polish, Romansh and Swedish editions. In 1647, the same year as it was released in Polish, it was also published in Massachusetts in the language of the native peoples of that region.46 Denmark–Norway also had its own edition. In 1646, the book was translated into Danish—the official language of the dual monarchy—by Mette Gjøe, and two more editions followed in 1666 and 1705.47 Naturally, this also made it accessible to the general population. The Danish publishers used the name Praxis pietatis as their short title, the same as the one given to the German editions. A notable author to have his works widely distributed in Norway was the Presbyterian divine Richard Baxter (1615–1692). Baxter first studied at the free school at Wroxeter, where John Owen was his master. Instead of going to university, Baxter stayed at Ludlow castle, passing hours of self-study in the estate’s vast library. Baxter then took up various positions, including as lecturer at the free grammar school at Dudley and assistant minister in Shropshire, before being appointed minister of a church in Kidderminster in 1641. Here, he encountered problems due to his teachings on original sin and his Parliamentary sympathies. In 1660, Baxter left Kidderminster for London, where he served as a chaplain-in-ordinary to King Charles II. Here Baxter was ejected from the clergy for refusing to subscribe to a strict adherence to the Book of Common Prayer, and over the next years he was imprisoned on various occasions for keeping conventicles and preaching without a licence.48 Baxter was a prolific author, with some of his most cherished devotional works being A Christian Directory (1673), A Call to the Unconverted (1657) and The Saint’s Everlasting Rest (1658). According to

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eighteenth-century clerical inventories in Norway, Baxter was also one of the most widely distributed authors from the British Isles; both his The Saint’s Everlasting Rest and A Christian Directory appear in many of the book collections in question. Another of his works that appears is The Crucifying of the World, by the Cross of Christ, first issued in 1658. At least five of Baxter’s works were translated into Danish, but only The Poor Man’s Family Book, originally published in 1674, was issued in several editions. This book was translated into Danish by the Pietist bishop in Trondheim Eiler Hagerup (1684–1743), and given the name En fattig Mands Huus-Bog. His translation was first published in Copenhagen in 1715, and was followed by new editions in 1727 and 1737.49 The book also became a major hit among the laity: according to studies of inventories from the rural population of Sunnmøre, Richard Baxter’s manual was one of the six most widely found edifying books.50 Bayly and Baxter were not the only people who saw their works widely distributed across eighteenth-century Norway. So too did Daniel Dyke and Thomas Watson. The Puritan Daniel Dyke (c. 1580–1614) was born in Essex where his father, William Dyke, was supported by Lady Anne Bacon and her family. Daniel matriculated at St John’s College in Cambridge and received his MA from Sidney Sussex College in 1699. Seven years later, he was appointed a fellow there. His patrons were Lord and Lady Harington of Exton, and Dyke also served as a chaplain to the Haringtons at Coombe Abbey. During his short life, Dyke also served as minister at Cogeshill in Essex but was suspended for nonconformity. Dyke then took up a position as minister in St Albans but was suspended by the Bishop of London for, among other things, his refusal to wear the surplice. All of Daniel’s writings were published posthumously by his brother Jeremiah Dyke, a vicar in Epping. The most famous ones, from the point of view of their distribution in Norway, include his Two Treatises (1616), The Mystery of Selfe-Deceiving (1615) and Certaine comfortable Sermons upon the 124 Psalme (1616). Of these, The Mystery of SelfeDeceiving was translated into various languages: it was, for instance, published in French in Geneva in 1634.51 The book was also translated into Danish by the Danish-born minister Ludvig Winsløw (c. 1674– 1712), and issued in 1706 under the name Hiertets Selfbedragelse eller selfbedragelses Hemmelighed, which also made it available to the broader masses. A second edition came out in 1737.52 As one would expect, the book was stripped of any mention of predestination before it appeared

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on the open market.53 Clerics in Norway, however, did not necessarily possess the Danish language and authorised version; more often, they appear to have purchased the English one. The fourth religious author to have his works distributed quite widely was the Puritan preacher and author Thomas Watson (c. 1620–1686). Watson was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and in 1646, he was appointed preacher at St Stephen Walbrook. During the civil war, Watson proved himself Presbyterian and a supporter of the king. In 1651, Watson was imprisoned due to his participation in a plot to recall Charles II. After his release, Watson was reinstated as vicar of St Stephen Walbrook and gained great fame as a preacher until the Restoration when he was ejected for nonconformity. Watson did, however, like many others, continue to exercise his ministry privately. In 1672, Watson reobtained a licence to preach at the great hall in Crosby House under the patronage of Sir John Langham, where he worked for several years before retiring to Essex.54 Watson wrote several books that were found in Norwegian clerical book collections, such as The Saint’s Delight (1657), The Godly Man’s Picture (1666), The Christian Soldier or Heaven Taken by Storm (1699). Two books out his vast authorship were also translated into Danish, namely Heaven Taken by Storm, published in Copenhagen in 1683 and given the name Den bestormede Himmel, and The Christians Charter, published in Copenhagen in 1689 under the name En Christens Friheds Brev.55 Heaven Taken by Storm was translated by the Norwegian-born parson Peder Møller (1642–1697), whereas The Christians Charter was translated by Peder Tøxen, probably the Danish minister at Varde, Peder Thomsen Tøxen (c. 1640/1645–1705). Naturally, their translation into Danish also made these books available to the broader masses. Although the authors mentioned above—Bayly, Baxter, Dyke and Watson—were the bestsellers in terms of the distribution of books among the Norwegian clergy, it should be noted that they were not the only ones to have their works translated into Danish. The bishop of Peterborough Joseph Henshaw’s (1608–1679) Horae Successivae (1631), for instance, was translated into Danish by the vicar at Voss in Western Norway, Gert Miltzow (1629–1688). Similarly, the works of other authors from the British Isles were widely distributed in Norwegian clerical book collections, but these books were not necessarily of a religious or edifying nature: several eighteenth-century clerical book collections included works by the Welsh epigrammatist John Owen (c. 1564–1622)

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and works by the Scottish writer, satirist and poet John Barclay (1582– 1621), his Satyricon and Argenis in particular. The clergy, thus, had access to a wide variety of books originating in the British Isles, and those books reflected a range of different viewpoints, not only religious ones.

Conclusion During the early modern period, religious conformity was very important to all layers of the Norwegian population. The clergy had a particularly significant role here, being the group in charge of instilling Lutheran tenets into the general population, and, consequently, they themselves were susceptible to the measures taken by the government to ensure conformity. Given the scarcity of printing houses in Norway, and the country’s position on the northernmost fringes of Europe, one might expect the clerical world of knowledge to be just as restricted as the environment in which they were trained. However, if their book collections are anything to go by, this may not have been the case. In fact, the books of the eighteenth-century Norwegian clergy came from three main areas, and through lines of transfer that the authorities did not control: Protestant parts of Germany; the Netherlands and the British Isles. Moreover, the books from these areas were not necessarily of an orthodox nature— a testimony to this being the vast number of works from the British Isles that, for instance, promulgated Puritan as well Presbyterian religious thought among the Norwegian clergy. What the Norwegian clergy made out of these books, and to what degree they identified with their content, we do not know. Whatever they made out of them, the owners of the books must have taken care not to display ideas of nonconformity publicly, as this would have caused them problems with the authorities. However, as Raymond Gillespie reminds us in his article about the print culture in seventeenth-century Ireland and Norway, the reformations were ultimately about people’s relationship to God, and not political issues as such.

Notes 1. The notion of centre and periphery should be commented on. Although Norway was situated on the northern fringes of Europe, and functioned as a peripheral part of the dual monarchy Denmark–Norway, this does

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

not necessarily mean that all parts of Norway were peripheral as such; there was for instance a vivid Norse Sea trade going on between different coastal parts of Norway and other Northern European countries. Discussions problematising our classical perceptions of centre-periphery are also addressed in other articles in this anthology; see for instance the contribution of Raymond Gillespie in this volume on peripheral reformations in print. The early modern administrative world consisted of three types of personnel: the civil administration: the military: and the clergy. For more information, see Anne Hilde Nagel, “Styringsapparatet i Norge på 1700tallet,” in Administrasjon i Norden på 1700-talet, ed. Yrjö Blomstedt et al. (Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget, 1985), 71–144. Schoolteachers, sextons and clerical widows also counted as “clergy.” This particular group of society had its own inventory system that was separate from that of the rest of the population. A cleric could also be judged in matters concerning his own ministry by “prosteretten,” a clerical court dealing with church-related misdemeanours. Several articles in this anthology stress the importance of the transfer of ideas and people through the mobility of for instance merchants, exiles and refugees. As to the travel of people and ideas in relation to Denmark– Norway, see for instance Morten Fink-Jensen’s and Charlotte Methuen’s contributions to this anthology. As little is known about the trade itself, inventories are in fact good historical testimonies to map the influence of religious life in Britain among the Norwegian clergy. Much of the source material in this article are based on my doctoral thesis “Questioning Religious Influence: Private Libraries of Clerics and Physicians in Norway 1650–1760,” Dr.Art. dissertation, University of Bergen, 2007, and the book which I derived from it, namely Book Collections of Clerics in Norway, 1650–1750 (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Some information of book distribution among the early modern Norwegian clergy is also to be found in my Books in Early Modern Norway (Leiden: Brill, 2011). Bernt T. Oftestad, Tarald Rasmussen and Jan Schumacher, Norsk Kirkehistorie (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1993), 95. Nils Gilje and Tarald Rasmussen, Tankeliv i den Lutherske Stat (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002), 128–34. Ibid., 70–74. Ibid., 74 For a discussion of the spread of Enlightenment ideas, see Arne Bugge Amundsen (ed.), Norges Religionshistorie (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2005), 284–89. Ole B. Thomsen, Embedsstudiernes Universitet (Copenhagen: Akademisk forlag, 1975), 28–29.

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12. Willliam Norvin, Københavns Universitet i Reformationens og Orthodoxiens Tidsalder (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1937), 114. 13. Oluf Kolsrud, Presteutdaningi i Noreg (Oslo and Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1962), 226. 14. Sten G. Lindberg, “The Scandinavian Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century,” Wolfenbüttler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesen 4 (1981): 228. For information on the early modern Norwegian book trade, see also Harald Tveterås, Den Norske Bokhandels Historie: Forlag og Bokhandel inntil 1850 (Oslo: Norsk bokhandler-medhjelperforening, 1960). For a history of Norwegian printers, see Gunnar Jacobsen, Norske Boktrykkere og trykkerier gjennom fire århundrer 1640–1940 (Oslo: Den Norske Boktrykkerforening, 1981). 15. Charlotte Appel, Læsning og Bogmarked i 1600-tallets Danmark, 2-vol. ed. (København: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2001), 1:370. 16. Gilje and Rasmussen, Tankeliv i den Lutherske Stat, 48–49. 17. Appel, Læsning og bogmarked i 1600-tallets Danmark, 1:383–84. 18. Arne Bugge Amundsen and Henning Laugerud, Norsk Fritenkerhistorie 1500–1850 (Oslo: Humanist Forlag, 2001), 34. 19. Appel, Læsning og Bogmarked i 1600-tallets Danmark, 1:411. 20. See also ibid., 1:431–34. 21. Amundsen and Laugerud, Norsk Fritenkerhistorie, 168. 22. Jostein Fet, Lesande Bønder: Litterær Kultur i Norske Allmugesamfunn før 1840 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1995), 244. 23. Wilhelm Munthe, Boknåm: Essays for Bokvenner (Oslo: Cammermeyer, 1943), 122. 24. See for instance Kolsrud, Presteutdaningi i Noreg, 208; Helge Kragh (ed.), Fra Middelalderlærdom til den nye Videnskab (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2005), 184–88; and Sten Ebbesen and Carl Henrik Koch, Dansk Filosofi i Renæssancen, 1537 –1700 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2003), 29–32. 25. For more information on Norway and early modern trade, see for instance Øystein Rian, Den Nye Begynnelsen 1520–1660 (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2005), 117; Ståle Dyrvik and Ole Feldbæk, Mellom Brødre 1780–1830 (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2003), 13. 26. Lis Byberg, “Bruke Bøker til Bymann og Bonde: Bokauksjonen i den norske litterære offentlighet 1750–1815,” Dr.Art. dissertation, University of Oslo, 2007, 81. 27. Byberg, “Bruke Bøker til Bymann og Bonde,” 99–100. 28. An examination of the catalogue of books held by the Bergen reading society of foreign literature, printed in 1800 (Fortegnelse over de Böger, som Læseselskabet for udenlandsk Literatur har anskaffet i Aarene 1796–1800, Bergen: Trykt i Hans Kongel., 1800) reveals that the number of books from the British Isles (but translated into German) is noticeable. Similarly,

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29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

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English-language books in Norwegian book collections would sometimes originate beyond the British Isles: the library of the Trondheim merchant Otto Fridrich Owesen, for instance, listed in 1812, shows a predominance of books printed in Dublin. Some of the English-language books were also printed in North America, in cities such as Philadelphia and Boston (see Dahl, Books in Early Modern Norway, 170). Gina Dahl, “Questioning Religious Influence,” 302. Dahl, Books in Early Modern Norway, 168. J. F. Lampe, Bergen Stifts Biskoper og Præster efter Reformasjonen, 2-vol. ed. (Kristiania: Cammermeyer, 1895), 1:50–51. Dahl, Book Collections of Clerics in Norway, 1650–1750, 38–45. Patrick Collinson (revised by Brett Usher), “Nicholls, Josias (c. 1553– 1639/40),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi. org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37809 (accessed 29 May 2020). Edward Irving Carlyle, “Smith, Samuel (1584–1662?),” in Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780 (accessed 29 May 2020). Michael E. Moody, “Ainsworth, Henry (1569–1622),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/240 (accessed 29 May 2020). Mary Wolffe, “Brownrigg, Ralph (1592–1652),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/3716 (accessed 29 May 2020). J. Sears McGree, “Adams, Thomas (1583–1652),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/131 (accessed 29 May 2020). Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, 4-vol. ed. (Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Gleditsch, 1750–1751), 1:1094. Ibid., 2:878–79. Ibid., 2:658. The travel of books among the Norwegian early modern clergy, also meant that other non-conform books circulated. There were, for instance, an important number of Calvinist and Catholic works to be found in clerical book collections of the period (see Dahl, Book Collections of Clerics in Norway, 1650–1750). Olav Hagesæther, Norsk Preken fra Reformasjonen til om lag 1820 (Oslo, Bergen and Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget, 1973), 125–26. The difficulty of defining the vast concept of ‘Puritanism’ is addressed in the introduction to The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700. Here it is stated that “Attempts to define early-modern English ‘puritanism’ and to agree on a common usage for the noun and adjective ‘puritan’ have been going on for well over 400 years … The central reason

13

44.

45.

46.

47. 48.

49.

50. 51.

52. 53. 54.

55.

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why the debate has gone on for so long is that is has proved exceptionally difficult to reach any common ground … The persistence and apparent intractability of the problems surrounding the terms ‘puritan’ and ‘puritanism’ have led some participants in the debate to argue that they should be banished altogether from the historians’ dictionary …”, see Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales, “Introduction: The Puritan Ethos, 1560–1700,” in The Culture of English Protestantism, 1560–1700, ed. Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1996), 1. Nevertheless, Baxter, Dyke and Watson are all included in Charles Pastoor and Galen A. Johnson (eds.), Historical Dictionary of the Puritans (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007). Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, “Practical Divinity and Spirituality,” in The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, ed. John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim, 191–205 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 196. Anthony Milton, “Puritanism and the Continental Reformed Churches,” in The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, ed. John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim, 109–27 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 117. J. Gwynfor Jones and Vivienne Larminie, “Bayly, Lewis (c. 1575–1631),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/1766 (accessed 29 May 2020). Bibliotheca Danica, 5-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1961–1963), 1:405. N. H. Keeble, “Baxter, Richard (1615–1691),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/1734 (accessed 29 May 2020); Pastoor and Johnson (eds.), Historical Dictionary of the Puritans, 46–47. See Bibliotheca Danica, 1:405. The other works issued in Danish were Tvende oppbyggelige Traktater (1738), En alvorlig Opvækkelse af Sikkerheds og Lunkenheds Søvn til Salighedens søgning (1740), Nu eller aldrig, over Præd. B. 9,10 (1740) and En Christens Omgang med Gud (1759). Fet, Lesande bønder, 184. Patrick Collinson, “Dyke, Daniel (d. 1614),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8356 (accessed 29 May 2020); Pastoor and Johnson, Historical Dictionary of the Puritans, 112. Bibliotheca Danica, 1:410. H. F. Rørdam, “Om Kjendskapet til Engelsk Theologisk Litteratur i ældre Tid,” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 5 (1903): 368. Barry Till, “Watson, Thomas (d. 1686),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28867 (accessed 30 May 2020); Pastoor and Johnson, Historical Dictionary of the Puritans, 336– 37. Bibliotheca Danica, 1:436.

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Secondary Sources Allgemeines Gelehrten Lexicon. 4 vols. Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Gleditsch, 1750– 1751. Amundsen, Arne Bugge (ed.). Norges Religionshistorie. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2005. Amundsen, Arne Bugge and Henning Laugerud. Norsk Fritenkerhistorie 1500– 1850. Oslo: Humanist Forlag, 2001. Appel, Charlotte. Læsning og Bogmarked i 1600-tallets Danmark. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2001. Bibliotheca Danica. 5 vols. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1961–1963. Byberg, Lis. “Brukte bøker til bymann og bonde: Bokauksjonen i den norske litterære offentlighet 1750–1816.” Dr.Art. dissertation, University of Oslo, 2007. Carlyle, Edward Irving. “Smith, Samuel (1584–1662?).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780. Collinson, Patrick. “Dyke, Daniel (d. 1614).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8356. Collinson, Patrick (revised by Brett Usher). “Nicholls, Josias (c. 1553– 1639/40).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/ 10.1093/ref:odnb/37809. Dahl, Gina. “Questioning Religious Influence: Private Libraries of Clerics and Physicians in Norway 1650–1760.” Dr.Art. dissertation, University of Bergen, 2007. Dahl, Gina. Book Collections of Clerics in Norway, 1650–1750. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Dahl, Gina. Books in Early Modern Norway. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Durston, Christopher and Jacqueline Eales. “Introduction: The Puritan Ethos, 1560–1700.” In The Culture of English Protestantism, 1560-1700, edited by Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales, 1–31. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Dyrvik, Ståle and Ole Feldbæk. Mellom Brødre 1780–1830. Oslo: Aschehoug, 2003. Ebbesen, Sten and Carl Henrik Koch. Dansk Filosofi i Renæssancen, 1537–1700. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2003.

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Fet, Jostein. Lesande Bønder: Litterær kultur i norske allmugesamfunn før 1840. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1995. Gilje, Nils and Tarald Rasmussen. Tankeliv i den Lutherske Stat 1537–1814. Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002. Gwynfor Jones, J. and Vivienne Larminie. “Bayly, Lewis (c. 1575–1631).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref: odnb/1766. Hagesæther, Olav. Norsk Preken fra Reformasjonen til om lag 1820. Oslo, Bergen and Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget, 1973. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles E. “Practical Divinity and Spirituality.” In The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, edited by John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim, 191–205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Jacobsen, Gunnar. Norske Boktrykkere og Trykkerier gjennom fire århundrer 1640– 1940. Oslo: Den Norske Boktrykkerforening, 1983. Keeble, N. H. “Baxter, Richard (1615–1691).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/1734. Kolsrud, Oluf. Presteutdaningi i Noreg. Oslo and Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1962. Kragh, Helge (ed.). Fra Middelalderlærdom til den nye Videnskab. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2005. Lampe, J. F. Bergen Stifts Biskoper og Præster efter Reformasjonen. 2 vols. Kristiania: Cammermeyer, 1985. Lindberg, Sten G. “The Scandinavian Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century.” Wolfenbüttler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesen 4 (1981): 225–48. Milton, Anthony. “Puritanism and the Continental Reformed Churches.” In The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, edited by John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim, 109–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Moody, Michael E. “Ainsworth, Henry (1569–1622).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/240. Munthe, Wilhelm. Boknåm: Essays for Bokvenner. Oslo: Cammermeyer, 1943. Nagel, Anne Hilde. “Styringsapparatet i Norge på 1700-tallet.” In Administrasjon i Norden på 1700-talet, edited by Yrjö Blomstedt et al., 71–144. Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, and Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget, 1985. Norvin, William. Københavns Universitet i Reformationens og Orthodoxiens Tidsalder. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1937. Oftestad, Bernt, Tarald Rasmussen, and Jan Schumacher. Norsk Kirkehistorie. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1993. Pastoor, Charles and Galen A. Johnsen (eds.). Historical Dictionary of the Puritans. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007. Rian, Øystein. Den Nye Begynnelsen 1520–1660. Oslo: Aschehoug, 2005. Rørdam, H. F. “Om Kjendskapet til Engelsk Theologisk Litteratur i ældre Tid.” Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 5 (1903): 363–71.

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Sears McGree, J. “Adams, Thomas (1583–1652).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/131. Thomsen, Ole B. Embedsstudiernes Universitet. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1975. Till, Barry. “Watson, Thomas (d. 1686).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28867. Tveterås, Harald L. Den Norske Bokhandels Historie: Forlag og bokhandel inntil 1850. Oslo: Norsk Bokhandler-medhjelperforening, 1960. Wolffe, Mary. “Brownrigg, Ralph (1592–1652).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/3716.

CHAPTER 14

‘Superstition’ in the Reformation Polemics of England and Denmark-Norway and the Emergence of Folklore and Popular Religion Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark

The opinion of faeries is very old, and yet sticketh very religiously in the minds of some. But to root that rank opinion of elves out of men’s hearts, the truth is, that there be no such things, …, but only by a sort of bald friars and knavish shavelings so feigned; which as in all other things, so in that, sought to nurse the common people in ignorance, lest, being once acquainted with the truth of things, they would in time smell out the untruth of their packed pelf, and masspenny religion. E. K.’s gloss to Edmund Spenser’s The Shepherd’s Calendar, ‘June’ 1579.

H. Laugerud University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected] J. Ødemark (B) Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_14

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Disciplining ‘Superstition’ This chapter aims to relate Danish–Norwegian material to the historiography of the reform and acculturation of popular cultures in a British—and broader European context.1 It is particularly concerned with how the notion of superstitio was deployed to construct religious otherness in reformation polemics, and how textual and visual means were used to calibrate and communicate new boundaries between officially sanctioned and debunked practices. Moreover, it is also interested in how reformation polemics contributed to the construction of the intellectual categories and objects of emerging studies of folklore and popular religion. Alexandra Walsham has shown that the British reformation discourse on superstition foreshadowed the study of folklore in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, not least because it was centred on ‘the realm of speech’ seen as ‘the natural habitat’ of superstition.2 Similarly, this chapter discusses the historical discourses about Catholicism as superstition, and examines the genealogy of one of the constitutive analytical categories of folklore, superstitio, in the context of Denmark-Norway. The conversion of the religion of the confessional other into unwarranted ‘superstition’—or superstitio—is commonplace in European reformation polemics. From a Lutheran perspective, Catholic ritual practice was debunked as ‘magic’ and ‘idolatry’—traditional sub-classes of superstitio. In a now classic work on the history of European popular culture, Peter Burke commented upon the shifting role of ‘superstition’ in what he calls ‘the reform of popular culture’. According to Burke, changing attitudes towards superstition were characteristic of the transition from the initial phase of the reform (1500–1650) to the second phase (1650– 1800). ‘Before 1650, the dominant meaning seems to be ‘false religion’’, Burke states. Moreover, he also adds that, the ‘term is often used of magic and witchcraft in contexts suggesting that these rituals are efficacious but wicked’. The efficacy of magic and superstitious practices were, however, denied ‘[a]fter 1650, [when], the dominant meaning … came to be irrational fears and the rituals associated with them, beliefs and practices which were foolish but harmless because they had no effect at all [our emphasis]’.3 In contemporary discourses, ‘superstition’ generally refers to beliefs and practices (allegedly) based upon faulty understandings of nature and causality; that is beliefs not warranted by the natural sciences.4 As the

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headword for a broad category of supernatural threats, superstitio was central in the early modern lexicon, but was conceived of as a ‘perversion’ of religion5 ; it did not reference statements about forces and beings without empirical existence, but magical practices with ‘lethal connotations’.6 ‘Superstition’ was thus defined in relation to a religious standard—and not in relation to an ‘autonomous nature’ (from which God and all supernatural agents have been purified) described by the modern natural sciences.7 Gradually, however, the term ‘superstition’ began to refer to misconceptions of nature, seen as ontologically void, and as resulting from a cognitive defect on an individual or collective level and thus given psychological or cultural-anthropological explanations.8 These developments also had consequences for the establishment of ‘popular religion’ and ‘folklore’ as subjects of scholarly study.9 Walsham, then, has shown that the British reformation discourse on superstition furnished the study of folklore in Victorian and Edwardian Britain with categories and objects of study that had been repressed but survived the reformation. Moreover, she also demonstrates the importance of the notion of ‘superstition’ in the British reformation polemics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In Walsham’s own words, Protestant writers were invoking a further aspect of the pre-Reformation concept of superstition – the idea that there was no power inherent in words, signs symbols, or inanimate things to effect marvellous transformations in natural objects – and using it to dismiss not just illicit popular misapprehensions of ecclesiastical rituals and artefacts but the official system of sacraments and sacramentals itself [our emphasis].10

Thus, English reformers accused the medieval (and Catholic) Church of replacing biblical truths with human inventions and false doctrines. A case in point is William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536), who asserted that the pope was the Antichrist and the Catholic Church his false church.11 Another early English reformer Thomas Becon (1512–1567), wrote harsh polemical treatises about the ‘theological fictions’ and impious, ‘unsavoury’ and ‘croked customes’ of Rome.12 John Bale (1495–1563), yet another early English controversialist, furnishes us with a particularly instructive example of the language of superstition and its ambivalences, which we will encounter in the Danish–Norwegian context as well: While ‘popery’ is debunked as a mere human construct, it simultaneously constitutes a religious and cosmological abomination, a sin against God. Bale,

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for instance denounced ‘Antichristes Romyshe relygyon’ in his Yet a course at the Romyshe foxe,13 and further condemned the ‘pestilent tyme of papystrye’ and ‘peuerse profession made unto Antichristes rages rewles’.14 However, this cosmological abomination, the Catholic Church, was also a ‘mere human product’, founded upon human fiction and deceit: Nothing ys here taught but the doctrynes of menne (our emphasis), the beggerlye traycyons and dyrtye dregges of the pope, as holye water makynge, procession goynge, sensynge of Images, and latin wawlynge in the temple, wyth other lyke fylthye fantasyes, which are soche vayne worshyppynges as God doth abhore.15

Hence, the Catholic Church is purely a human construction. Bale, however, does not restrict his attack to the human domain, what we would think of as ‘anthropology’ and ‘culture’. On the contrary, the Catholic Church is vehemently condemned as the ‘Synagoge of Sathan’.16 In the Mystery of inyquyte from 1545, Bale presents the history of this diabolical ‘synagogue’, referencing the Book of Revelation: ‘I wyll shewe the … the mysterye of the greate whore and of ye Beast that beareth her’.17 Next, he traces the decent of the Catholic clergy from Cain through the priests of Baal as well as Judas and Simon Magus. In Bale’s genealogy, there is thus a systematic conflation of ‘popery’ with ‘paganism’—and both with the diabolic.18 Moreover, the power of the ‘popish’ church had been constructed on the false foundation of superstition, here referring to a host of catholic practices, ‘Antichrist borne outwardlye in euery place / with copes / crosses / ceremonyes / and sensynges’.19 There is, then, a symptomatic ambivalence in these British cases of reformation rhetoric. On the one hand, the Catholic Church is construed as an equivalent to the ‘synagogue of Satan’, that is associated with the cult of the Devil himself. On the other hand, we also have an anthropological vocabulary doing the work of denunciation. In this idiom, the ritual practices of Catholicism are mere ‘external’, human constructions. The belief in mere ‘human traditions’ is still, however, considered a ‘heinous sin’, not a mere epistemological or cognitive error.20 Here, then, we also see that the two construals of ‘superstition’ that Burke assigned to different historiographical periods actually appear to be present as discursive possibilities already in the initial reformation polemic, while the anthropological or cultural construal only becomes hegemonic in official discourses during the later periods.

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Reformation and Religious Difference in Denmark-Norway In this chapter, then, we want to both discuss the historical discourses concerning Catholicism as superstition, and examine the genealogy of one of the constitutive analytical categories of folklore, superstitio, in the context of Denmark-Norway. The particularly tight interweaving of religious and royal power in a Lutheran state with imperial ambitions, and with possessions on three continents, actually makes Denmark-Norway a singular case in early modern European history.21 The rulers of the Protestant double-monarchy Denmark-Norway were, since the reformation in 1536/37, relatively successful in creating mechanisms of political and religious control. The Church Order of 1537/39 (Den rette Ordinants ) could be seen as the charter myth for the reformed state. Even before the introduction of autocratic royal power in 1660, the Lutheran politico-religious boundaries between the ‘two regiments’—the secular and the spiritual—were almost wiped out. A crucial aspect of this was that the representatives of the King and the new Lutheran church agreed that the yardstick for subject loyalty was the exercise of the correct religion.22 Thus, religion as a ‘total social fact’, impinged upon the whole fabric of society. In contrast to other reformation countries, for instance Sweden or the various states in Germany, the Danish–Norwegian kings had a relatively clear idea of the Reformation, and were the main driving force behind it in the two countries. This situation is in many respects similar to that of the Reformation in England, but with some obvious differences.23 The imposition of Lutheran state religion and the establishment of religious and political loyalty was carried out in a realm with vast cultural and religious differences. Indeed, Denmark-Norway was a political conglomerate that spanned three continents. It included German, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Sámi and Greenlandic populations, and eventually African and West Indian dominions.24 Hence, cultural and religious plurality is far from new in this state formation (although national histories have tended to forget this). To succeed in binding this variety together in a seamless political and theological fabric, the central power needed to assemble knowledge about what the many differences consisted of, and how they might be encompassed within the theological-political framework that furnished the state with its ideology and upheld the dual piety towards king and God.

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An important instrument for breaking with both ‘popery’ and the prereformation past, and for achieving control over the cultural and religious variety of the present, was the close connection between the monarchy, the clergy and the new institutions of the Church.25 Denmark, with its capital Copenhagen, was the centre of state and cultural diffusion, and in the peripheries, the Church and the clergy under the leadership of the King were important instruments of governance. A consequence of this was that the officially sanctioned theology became the mould for the description and interpretation of cultural and religious difference— and alleged deviance. The authorities were well aware of the fact that the state comprised a complex multi-religious and multi-cultural reality. Thus, the state aimed at incorporating ‘external others’ at the imperial fringes (Sámi, Greenlanders) as well as ‘internal others’ close to the governmental heartland—namely ‘popular cultures’ that appeared to resist the statesupported attempts to reform or acculturate them.26 In the encounter with regional and other differences, it became important to understand local differences in a unified way in order to control ‘superstitions’ considered as religious, epistemic and political deviations from the normative theology that furnished the state with its ideology. Consequently, knowledge of the multitude of religious and cultural differences inside the borders of the ideally unified divine monarchy had to be produced, as both descriptive ‘models of’ the situation in different localities and as normative ‘models for’ their reform or eradication.27

Catholicism Redefined as Superstitio The association between superstition and ‘papism’ goes back to the first Danish–Norwegian reformers, and the derogatory word-cluster ‘heathendom’, ‘papism’ and ‘monkish tales’ appear in Reformation discourse as early as the writings of the leading Danish-Norwegian reformer Peder Palladius (1503–1560) in the first decades of the Reformation in Denmark-Norway. Palladius was the first superintendent of Zealand in Denmark, and in an epilogue to his catechetical exposition of 1546, he writes that he hopes the unfortunate situation in Norway, where the masses are still caught up in errors from papal times, soon will come to an end. Among these errors, he mentions the Saturday observance in honour of the Virgin Mary, whom he calls the outright Chapel of Satan.28 Still other forms of ‘idolatry’ (idolatria) are to be found in the Kingdom of Norway, where there are many blasphemous goings-on: ‘… such as their

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erroneous notions about St. Oloff, and other such things’.29 For Palladius it is clear that all these errors of the papacy lead to eternal damnation.30 Rectifying this is the job of the priests, but they must put their own house in order, he points out, for all those priests who neglect their duty to the pure word of the Gospel and His Royal Majesty’s governance will lead their own people to damnation. ‘[T]his neglect is commited by all those who still betray the poor ignorant people [our emphasis] with their popish mass, which is an outright blasphemy against God … every time they hold the despicable Pope’s Latin mass’.31 With Palladius we already see the whole topology of superstition at work: ‘the simple peasants’, the doctrine of the Catholic Church as ‘devilish trickery’, and a veritable Church of Satan, full of contrived, false and blasphemous notions and practices, and the most significant of these being the worship of false gods—namely, ‘idolatry’. In addition to this topography of error, Palladius also describes Catholic belief as an error with a temporal aspect. The Catholic Church belongs to the period before the clear light of the Gospel reached the Nordic countries and consigned ‘the darkness of papism’ to history. As we shall see in detail below, this assignment of otherness to the past, is fundamental for the making of the folkloric object of investigation. Palladius’s Visitasbok (‘Visitation book’, from circa 1543) is an especially good source on practical aspects of the Reformation and the reform of the ‘folk culture’ in Burke’s sense of the term. The book contains a corresponding diabolisation of the ‘papists’. Here Palladius writes, for example about ‘the pope’s letters of indulgence which belong to the Devil’.32 Later he also describes the making of pilgrimages as something belonging to the Devil, and lists a variety of well-known pilgrimage sites both in Denmark and the rest of Europe. What went on in these places was nothing more than enchantments performed by the Devil that tricked our eyes.33 In his treatment of the altar he says that the side altars were something which belonged to the papists, and one of many ‘errors invented by popes and monks’. The Catholic churches were not houses of God, but ‘dens of the Devil’.34 In Sankt Peters Skib (‘The Barque of St. Peter’) from 1554, Palladius lists in detail all of the baubles with which ‘the Roman pope’ weighted down the barque of Peter (the Church), and he comments on a number of heresies which he claimed were handed down by the ‘papacy’. Here again Palladius states that the doctrine of the Pope’s church was of the Devil, and equates things Catholic with witchcraft.35 He writes, among other

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things, that pilgrimages to holy sites, which the Pope’s church taught were pleasing and honouring to God and which could give relief in Purgatory and lead to eternal salvation, were nothing more than false signs, and of the Devil, and that ‘the books of the papists are filled with such things’.36

Textual and Visual Means for Turning Catholicism into ‘Superstition’ Palladius’s language is entirely in keeping with the ordinary rhetoric of Reformation debates, with its unequivocal demonisation, regularly referring to the Catholic Church in diabolic terms and with apocalyptic metaphors, as we have already pointed out above. This comes quite early on, already with Martin Luther himself. The Pope is the Antichrist and the Catholic Church—the Pope’s church or the papacy—is Babylon. Luther repeats this in numerous contexts, such as, for example in The Babylonian captivity of the Church and To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, both from 1520.37 Such anti-Catholic propaganda was also an important aspect of the Reformation’s visual rhetoric: an active propaganda art that fully exploited new techniques in printing and reproduction. Thus, it is not surprising that the rhetorical figures from Reformation polemics were also given visual expression through pictures and illustrations, in paintings, books and tracts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We find the Pope as the beast of Revelation and as the whore of Babylon already in the Luther Bible of 1534. This also appears as a visual motif in other publications by Luther, as in the Passional Christi et Antichristi with illustrations by Lucas Cranach from 1521.38 In 1545 Luther published a small picture-book with nine illustrations, supplemented by some short texts, with the title Pictures of the Papacy. In picture number five, for instance the Pope and some Cardinals are portrayed as hanged on a gallow, and their souls are being plucked up by little devils. The short text above the picture explains that this is the proper reward for the satanic Pope and his cardinals.39 The Bible was naturally the most important book—and was therefore subject to the most stringent guidelines by the Danish-Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran state. Certain textual and visual features also show up here which were unique to the new religious situation. The Bibles’ illustrations were a mixture of old and new, but they also had some quite clear propagandistic features. The most striking new feature was the royal

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portrait that dominated all bibles from Christian III’s Bible of 1550 to Christian IV’s of 1633–1634. The bibles were enhanced with vignettes for the various books and chapters, both in the Old as well as the New Testament. These were mainly standard motifs and well-known from medieval iconography, but we also find polemic, anti-Catholic motifs and commentary, both in the illustrations and in the so-called glosses to the text. This was especially the case with the vignettes and commentary to the Book of Revelation, such as, for example the printed margin notes on chapter 11 in Frederic II’s Bible from 1589: ‘(Diur) Den Verdslige Paffue’ [‘(Beast) The Worldly Pope’]. That is, the Beast of Revelation is the Pope.40 We find similar examples in Christian IV’s Bible from 1633 to 1634, in a portrayal of the Beast with seven heads and ten horns who worships the dragon and blasphemes God in Revelation chapter 13. In the gloss, we can read the following: ‘The third Woe, which is the Abomination of the Pope in a Worldly Being’.41 Such explanations and marginal notes give the appearance of not merely being an explanation of the word of scripture. Visually and typographically they give the appearance of being part of the authoritative message of scripture and are further supported visually by the evidence of the visible text and illustrations.42

Collocating Witchcraft and Catholicism As we have seen, a preponderance of the official reformist agitation in Denmark-Norway had as its goal the demonising of Catholic practice.43 A radical way of accomplishing this was to connect ‘papism’ with witchcraft. Peder Palladius had already established an association between Catholic belief and witchcraft. The sorcerer, or witch, he writes, ‘knows so many long recitations, which the devil and the monks have taught her’.44 Palladius also plays up this close association in a small pamphlet on possession, in which he writes that the papist sorcerers are merely the Devil’s fools who encourage false worship, invocation of saints and other ungodliness.45 And in several of the witch trials in Norway we find examples of the accused having practiced signeri, a type of ‘white magic’ which often consisted of reciting blessing-prayers over cows on their way to summer pastures, or over fields and meadows, or for the sick. Many of these prayers are easily recognisable Catholic prayers, for example to saints.46 The seminal Danish theologian, Niels Hemmingsen (1513–1600) classified magic as superstition in his treatise Admonitio de superstitionibus magicis vitandis.47 He maintained that the devil was always involved when

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‘popular magic’ worked. Consequently, ‘magical’ practices concerning health and fertility in popular culture were criminalised. When the category came to include ‘folk’ practitioners of magic or witchcraft, a theological rationale for criminal persecution was established.48 As observed above, Walsham underscored that the protestant discourse on superstition was citing a well-established, Catholic model. According to this model words, signs and symbols had no capacity whatsoever to effect changes in natural objects. Indeed, this was also the case with Hemmingsen. Magic, he claimed, did not work due to any causal properties or powers in the spell itself, but because diabolical beings assisted the practitioners. Hence, the spell did not work upon nature but functioned as a call upon evil spirits. The magical practitioners in question could consequently be accused of holding superstitious beliefs, since they thought rituals and human signs could have an effect upon nature.49 Hence, diabolical intervention was actually needed to make inefficient practices and rituals into causes. As Clark has observed, ‘learned’ demonology thematised the ‘natural inefficacy’ of the magical means, and the practitioners’ ‘appeal to cause and effect relationships that were spurious in nature’. It was actually ‘this inefficacy in magic that made it demonic’—and superstitious [our emphasis].50 The collocation of sorcery, ‘popery’ and idolatry in the same category—as a species of superstition—had severe consequences for practitioners of popular magic. The criminal proceedings against Segner Snare illustrate how the idiom of superstition was applied in the courts. In 1581, Segner Snare of Skjelbred faced charges in the Stavanger cathedral chapter.51 According to court records, he had not ‘properly learned’ his ‘elementary lessons’, but instead ‘much vain readings, fables and monks’ tales and dreams of elf-shot [icht], nymphs, trolls and other such things’. Segner Snare himself is described as ‘vain’, which in this context means someone who relied on harmful or erroneous knowledge, that is, superstitio. He is thus a man who prays false prayers motivated by erroneous imaginings contrived and dreamed by ‘monks’, in order to protect himself and others against physical and supernatural ailments.52 Here we see the reformers’ conceptualisation of superstition and things Catholic as human inventions, dreamed up by the Catholic clergy that not only lead ordinary people astray, but also established a contact with diabolical forces. The association of Catholics with practitioners of witchcraft was a wellestablished figure in the latter half of the 1500s. In Fredrick II’s decree of 1584 for the Bergen and Stavanger dioceses, often called the ‘Decree on

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Witchcraft’, a number of practices and phenomena are lumped together under the category ‘witchcraft’. The decree begins by stating that there exists in these two dioceses ‘a great misuse of the name of God among some vain people, who, in their illness, seek means which are unchristian and forbidden by God’s holy word’. Among these ‘unchristian means’, we find ‘having cross drawn on their breast with ungodly invocations, fables and readings and with other vanities and arts of sorcery’.53 To ‘cut a cross on one’s breast’ means to make the sign of the cross, and ‘reading’ in this context means that someone recites (‘reads’) some sort of prayer over, or for, someone. The decree of 1584 is the first DanishNorwegian law against magic or witchcraft after the Reformation, and it contributed to making explicit an association of Catholic beliefs with magic/witchcraft, which is here placed within the same category as superstition, in the legal system.54 The wording is open and general, in some ways ambiguous, and can be directed against multiple matters of a religious nature. They are equally likely to impinge upon various Catholic practices as upon witchcraft and magic—which obviously was the intent. In statements made by the initiator of the decree, the Stavanger Bishop Jørgen Erikssøn (1535–1603) we find the same demonising language. In his collection of sermons from 1592 he claims that the ‘papists’ had misled the people into believing that one could calm tempests and storms by burning consecrated herbs, or subdue devilish forces with the help of incense. This was nothing other than ‘idolatry and dealings in witchcraft’, as so many of the other ‘papist’ errors they had seduced the people with.55 Jørgen Erikssøn places this all in an apocalyptic context. Like many of the reformers, he saw himself as living in the last times. He was clear in his characterisations of the Catholic Church: [W]here the antichrist Pope in Rome with his cardinals, bishops, monks and other vain company, through several hundreds of years of false teaching has seduced many thousands of people away from the path of truth and into the kingdom of the Devil, such that adolatry and disbelief has nearly gained the upper hand.56

Consequently, it was the Catholic Church that was the source of witchcraft and idolatry. The linking together of witchcraft and Catholicism was accomplished in various other ways as well—in contexts other than Denmark-Norway. We shall consider some English examples in order to demonstrate the

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comprehensiveness of this topology of superstition. In reports of spiritual conditions in England from 1570s, we find an elderly nun described as an ‘evell woman’, who taught false doctrine.57 Reginald Scot notes how ‘doting old women’, ‘mothers maids’ and ‘masse preests’ spread such ‘diabolic fables’, and draws a direct connection between Catholic belief and paganism.58 English reformers, such as Henry Holland, compared Catholic belief to pagan magic and veneration of saints to devil worship. Holland here actually cites Nils Hemmingsen’s Admonitio from 1575 and writes that: ‘the Witches in the Church are more wicked then the Heathen Witches, for these abuse the Worde and Sacramentes of God’.59 Others defined Catholics as ‘Satanic swindlers’. The English preacher Richard Bernhard wrote in 1627 that all papists were superstitious and idol-worshippers and were therefore also susceptible to believing in and practising witchcraft, since all the practices of ‘that great whore, the Roman synagogue’ were of devilish origin.60 A vehemently, if somewhat obscure, anti-Catholic pamphlet was the Pandæmonium, or the Devil’s Cloyster by Richard Bovet from 1684. Here the Catholic Church ‘is an Idolatrous Church, not only an Harlot … but also foul, filthy, old wither’d Harlot, and the mother of Whoredom, guilty of the same Idolatry, and worse, than was amongst Ethnicks and Heathen’, and ‘That Popery is a religion ten times worse than all the Heathenish Superstitions’.61 Bovet sees, for instance ‘Image-maintainers’ and use of images as an idolatrous and polytheistic practice from heathen times and merely a superfluous quasi-Christian colouring of heathendom: ‘In this they act exactly as the Holy Scriptures speak of the workings of Antichrist, with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness: and teach up the very Doctrines of Devils’.62 This book also has an interesting frontispiece, where among all the other visual trappings of witchcraft we can also see ‘A Friar raising his imps’. The medieval past was recast in this demonic image, and the many miracle stories about saints and their shrines were now presented by the reformers as satanic deceptions. As Helen Parish has formulated it: With medieval miracles recast as demonic fraud, the Catholic Church could be represented as an insitution headed by papal conjurers and necromancers, preaching doctrines that were shaped by magic and venerating as their heroes saints whose reputation rested on their ability to work false and diabolic wonders.63

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Miracles that had once provided the foundation for the cult of saints were, in reformation historiography, recast as the tools of its destruction. Thus, writers like Tyndall, Foxe, Bale and others, recast two of the most important medieval saints in England, St. Dunstan and St. Thomas Becket, as necromancers and diabolical conjurers of false miracles.64

Superstition and Folklore Superstitio was an actor-category in early modern actors’ own language.65 In this language it functioned as an asymmetrical counter concept; that is, it constituted a cultural and religious field contrary to hegemonic beliefs and practices. The socio-cultural use of superstitio to define groups, practices and forms of knowledge as ‘others’, and subsequently reform them, has received less attention than the intellectual history of the term. This is surprising. Superstitio refers to what we—using a distinction taken from Geertz—will call the ‘logico-meaningful’ content of culture and religion, that is, its semantic aspects. In contrast, counter concepts such as ‘pagan’ or ‘barbarian’ designate groups that are already excluded from the righteous religious society.66 Hence, superstitio is both more focused upon meaning—modes of thinking that characterise a religious or epistemic error—and the ongoing work of boundary maintenance based upon the judgement of whether a form of thought or a ritual practice is ‘correct’ or not. Moreover, in line with Walsham, it is our claim that early modern concerns with superstition created categories and objects that were vital in the formation of folklore and other kinds of cultural and religious inquiry. The work of the Danish-Norwegian theologian and later superintendent of Bergen, Erik Pontoppidan, will illustrate this. In 1736, he published a small volume with the title Everriculum fermenti veteris seu Residuae in Danico orbe cum Paganismi tum Papismi.67 Here he set out to eradicate ‘superstition’ in DenmarkNorway. Everriculum was written for the two-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in Denmark-Norway. In this way, the text also belongs to the ritual time of the anniversary; it celebrates the Reformation and repeats the anti-Catholic rhetoric we have examined above, and at the same time grieves over the fact that the Reformation is not yet completed. This verdict is intrinsically linked to Pietism’s strict demands for sincerity of faith and frugality of life—a theological position that held hegemony in Denmark-Norway during the first half of the eighteenth century.68 As a royal chaplain, Pontoppidan was a key figure in designing the religious

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pedagogy that was directed towards the populace, and which underwent comprehensive institutional revisions during the period in which the text was created. In 1736, compulsory confirmation was enacted into law.69 This became a prerequisite for further education or for assuming any type of civil duty, apprenticeship, military service, etc. Pontoppidan’s catechetical notes, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighet (‘Truth for Godliness’) was the basic text both in the common school as well as in confirmation instruction.70 In 1739 came the decree on common schooling, that is, obligatory school attendance for all children in Norway. The intention of the common schools was broader, but the requirement had a primarily religious motivation.71 In the foreword to Everriculum, Pontroppidan emphasises the necessity of publishing such a book in Latin in order to prevent the ordinary man from picking it up and misusing its content in a way completely contrary to the author’s intent.72 Everriculum was a textual instrument for acculturation—it described religious and cultural practices it wanted to eradicate.73 Arne Bugge Amundsen has claimed that a ‘scheme’ and a ‘canon of superstition’ that is ‘not difficult to recognise as the folkloric central fields’ was established already in Pontoppidan’s acculturation text. Amundsen claims further that the ‘places’ or investigative categories (folk tales, customs, etc.) of this canon of superstitions are upheld in disciplinary folklore at least up until the 1930s (his history ends with the first archivist of the Norwegian Folklore Archives, Reidar Th. Christiansen).74 Pontoppidan’s Everriculum is not unique, however. From the early 1700s, there came several scholarly disputations and pamphlets discussing remnants of heathendom (paganism) and Catholic faith (papism), and which considered both the Danish and Norwegian situations.75 Pontoppidan’s discourse, moreover, formed a part of a far older approach to the construction of religious ‘otherness’. Walsham refers to, among others, Reginald Scot (1538–1599), who had: ‘… a tendency to trace vestigial popery to female credulity, utilizing the phrase ‘old wives tales’ as a synonym for resistance to the Protestant Reformation and identifying the nursery as the seedbed of many mistaken opinions’.76 We find the same figures in E. K.’s gloss to Spenser’s The Shepherd’s Calendar, ‘June’, from 1579 (quoted in the epigram of this chapter). Pontoppidan similarly identified two historical layers of superstitious beliefs. He claimed that pagan fables from the past had been preserved by ‘friars who supplied these mouldy heathen tales with auxiliaries’. In other words, ‘popery’ had functioned as a container for older pagan beliefs

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and practices. Moreover, Pontoppidan identified a contemporary social scene where fables and superstitions were passed on—even 200 years after the Reformation. What he spitefully called ‘lessons in eloquence’ were given in the nursery. This, then, was the socio-cultural scene where the—combined—pagan and ‘papist’ heritage was reproduced.77 In Pontoppidan’s religious history, the population of Denmark and Norway were not Christianised in the eleventh century. Medieval Christianity was only a superficial Christianisation and a confused admixture of some basic Christian truths and a number of papist inventions, a mixture of paganism and Christianity. The Reformation is the true Christianisation of the people of the Nordic countries.78 Catholic Christianity is, for Pontoppidan, merely paganism in disguise, ‘auxiliary troops’ fighting paganism’s dirty war.79 He also invokes other figures used by the reformers. The Catholic priests were that tonsured tribe who, their small brains giving birth to these errors,80 with hell as midwife and by means of cunning deceit and superstition in their abuse of holy things, times and places, were unworthy of the name Christian.81 The Catholic priests may have mainly been stupid and ignorant, with their ‘small brains’, but the plans they devise to mislead an ignorant people also have a demonic origin—obstetrice abysso. Pontoppidan describes them with the expression lena ac Lerna ethnico-papistica, a play on the Latin words for ‘panderer’ and the ‘swamp’ of the Hydra.82 These monks and priests are also whores and flatterers—aspasiarum.83 Paganism, witchcraft and magic, Catholicism and folk-religion are mixed together into the same category. Pontoppidan systematises and confirms the figures we find in Palladius and other early reformers. Pontoppidan strategically locates ‘superstition’ in a female sphere; the ‘pagan and papist’ superstitions in question are defined as a maternal heritage left to posterity.84 It is in the nurseries, gynecæis where one gossips and chatters, and these are the academies in the secret arts— Arcana Academiis. Moreover, paganism and papism are found in ‘the holy places and rosaries of haggish storybooks’.85 The Latin concept anilium that Pontoppidan uses can be translated ‘old biddies’ chatter’ in the sense of superstitious gossip, or ‘old wives’ tales’. In Pontoppidan’s understanding, this feminisation of paganism and Catholicism is also a means of religious ‘othering’, which is transposed to an irrational, unserious, ‘womanish’ and childish domain—in contrast to a rational, serious and manly sphere of Lutheranism. The conceptual pairs ‘papism’ and ‘papal church’ or ‘papacy’ are established in this Reformation polemic

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as distinctly exclusionary concepts. Papism is the false, half-pagan and half-demonic quasi-Christianity, which existed before the Reformation and which now must be fought against and reformed. The papal church or the papacy itself then, is a quasi-church, governed and corrupted by the popes, when seen in the polemical perspective of the reformers. The reformers could not call the Catholic Church a church; it had to be conceptualised as something different—in keeping with the superstition figure. This association of ‘papism’ with the feminine, moreover, is inextricably tied to an attempt to regain religious hegemony. The practical-religious support provided by the Catholic Church with its many rituals and benedictions surrounding the day-to-day affairs of the people, was officially removed by the Reformation of 1536/1537. In this way, beliefs and practices that had permeated Denmark-Norway for more than five hundred years were sought to be illegitimised and redefined as superstitio—and thus placed on the wrong side of the right religion. Here the reformers were following a long-established tradition. Superstitio was an ancient religious counter concept. In ancient Rome, Christianity had been designated as a ‘superstition’, a false and maleficent religio. Lactantius had retained the negative semantics of the concept, but he also reworked its capacity for defining ‘otherness’. Superstitio, he explained, was ‘worship of the false’—that is, all religious activity outside of Jewish and Christian monotheism. Thus, Lactantius also changed the term’s social referent; and construed superstitio as the ‘other’ of the Christian logos.86 For St. Thomas Aquinas, idolatry and divinatory magic (always implying an explicit or implicit pact with the devil) were species of superstition, and as such, they formed sub-classes in an inclusive category of religious ‘otherness’.87 Moreover, St. Thomas Aquinas found the cause of idolatry in the veneration of the creation, nature, at the expense of the creator, of secondary causes at the expense of the first cause. Thus, religious error was also about causality, an idea that survives in contemporary notions of ‘superstition’, which still mainly refer to beliefs and practices based upon erroneous understandings of nature and causality; that is, beliefs not warranted by science.88 Pontoppidan’s topologi of superstitions was thus part of an old religious discourse which is first used theologically to establish an ‘outside’, to ‘define out’ or exclude religious beliefs and practices one would label as heterodox. In the rhetoric of the Lutheran Reformation, the attempt is made to transform the entire Catholic Church into such an ‘outside’. This

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is characteristic of a variety of Danish-Norwegian decrees. In Christian IV’s Forordning Om Muncke oc Jesuviter [Decree on Monks and Jesuits] of 28 February 1624, which contained the ban against Catholic clergy and members of religious orders entering the kingdom, the term superstitiones shows up several times in the characterising of Catholic faith and practice. In the introduction to the decree, for example reference is made to the fact that the ‘errors and superstitions’ of the Roman pope had been abolished many years earlier. The decree goes on to say that both those who gave shelter to such people, as well as those who themselves participated in ‘Roman ceremonies and superstitions’ would be brought to justice. Here Catholic faith and practice is categorised unambigiously as misbelief and false religion.89 The same is true in later legal documents such as King Christian V’s Norwegian Law of 1687. In the sixth book entitled ‘On Misdeeds’, ‘erroneous doctrine’ is defined as ‘papist religion’ and ‘blasphemy and witchcraft’. In other words, these three phenomena are grouped together in the same category as harmful and diabolic.

The Disciplinary Afterlife of ‘Superstition’ Reformation ideas influenced folklore and the history of religion for several centuries—and even today inform the manner in which we construct objects in religious and cultural history. As Helen Parish and William Naphy have asserted, ‘there is … the danger that the constant application of the word [superstition] by early modern Protestant polemicists to Catholicism may have led later historians to use the word as a type of shorthand for pre-Reformation Catholic practices or late medieval and early modern popular religion’.90 Moreover, the ‘old wives’ tales’ Pontoppidan links to the feminine domain of the nursery can be directly related to what the folklorists R. Bauman and C. Briggs refer to as a ‘poetics of otherness’. This poetics construed oral tradition as the cultural opposite of scientific modernity. ‘[O]ral tradition’, they claim, ‘became the foundation of a poetics of Otherness, a means of identifying the premodern Others both within modern society (uneducated, rural, poor, female) and outside it (savage, primitive, “pre-literate”)’.91 Common to both the inner and the outer ‘other’ (peasants and savages), the object of folklore and anthropology is precisely that they are seen as the antitheses of writing and modern scientific logos. But, in addition to this, there is also a temporal aspect, for as the antithesis of modernity, traditional cultural object is also situated in the past. This

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is brilliantly illustrated by the fact that one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology and folklore, E. B. Tylor introduced the notion of the ‘survival’ to replace ‘superstition’, because the last ‘implies a reproach’. He immediately adds, though, that ‘this reproach may be often cast deservedly on fragments of a dead lower culture embedded in a living higher one’ [our emphasis].92 Taking a term from Johannes Fabian, we can say that such tropes place ‘traditional culture’ in an allochrony, another time.93 Thus, religious and cultural differences become temporalised—as when ‘we’ (‘still’) suppose that honour killing committed in our time ‘actually’ belongs to a traditional time which we have left behind and which those who ‘still’ practice the custom will also soon abandon.94 In Pontoppidan’s writings for instance, the ‘folk religion’ and ‘folk beliefs’ of his time are associated with pagan antiquity and the Catholic Middle Ages. He thus establishes an allochrony, and attributes ‘folk religion’ to the historical past. This is similar to the earlier reformation polemics discussed above, where things connected with superstitions are always placed in the past. The premise for this understanding was the idea that something had gone wrong in Christian history (that is, ‘Catholic history’), and that a more ‘original’ and pure Christianity had to be re-established; thus the need for reformation. In this perspective, the historical becomes a problem that must be solved. Superstition is thus not only a different place, but also something belonging to a different time, namely the time before the Reformation.95 However, we also see in Everriculum that there has been a shift in the understanding of ‘paganism’ and ‘papism’, and ‘superstition’. These are no longer explicitly linked to the diabolic, no longer a dangerous threat from someone or something colluding with the Devil, but rather misconceptions, erroneous understandings of reality and not least as remnants from a bygone and more primitive time. Superstitions are cultural constructions and fictions that shape and corrupt the unrefined.96 The term has come to stand for the foolish imaginings of the rude and ignorant masses. In this way, things Catholic are no longer defined as a religious threat, or an (evil) theological competitor, but as foolish untruths and confusing notions which simple people, those who do not know better, go around believing—in short, what we broadly recognise as the modern understanding of what superstition is. The struggle is no longer over theological controversies, but rather becomes a question of public education, and an antiquarian perspective as also noted by Walsham.

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Superstition becomes thus a place, a topos, which can be operationalised in order to mark a boundary between legitimate and illegitimate conceptualisations of reality. This also has to do with constituting a community, in this case within the new Evangelical Lutheran Danish-Norwegian state. It involves self-definition, delineation, the right to judge between good and evil, and the creation of a new fellowship of believers and citizens of a state.97 It is in this shift that ‘folk culture’ and ‘folk religion’ emerge as cultural phenomena, objects of study and relics from earlier times—in new disciplines like folklore, anthropology and the history of religion.98 This conceptualisation—this topos —continues to be fundamental in numerous historical approaches to the Reformation and to the religious and cultural shift it brought about. The topology thrives in most historical-cultural disciplines, including church history.99 One who defines ‘folk religion’ in this way reasons entirely according to and within the tradition of the reformers of the 1500–1600s, and perhaps especially as this tradition was understood during the last efforts at folk culture reform in the 1700s, by for example Erik Pontoppidan, who was marked by religious zeal as well as enlightenment ideals. It is this understanding that has furnished the study of culture and folk culture with its categories, indeed, which to a large extent has constructed folk culture—as the antithesis to a different and more sophisticated elite culture.100 Acknowledgements John Ødemark wishes to express gratitude to the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and letters where the chapter was finished.

Notes 1. On the acculturation and reform approach, and critiscism of it. See Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1994); Hildred Geertz, “An Anthropology of Religion and Magic,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (1975): 71–89; Marko Nenonen, “Culture Wars: State, Religion and Popular Culture in Europe, 1400–1800,” in Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography, ed. Jonathan Barry and Owen Davies, 108–24 (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007); Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978). 2. Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England, 2nd edn (Woodbridge: Boydell,

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

2008), 178–206; Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Burke, Popular Culture, 241. Dale B. Martin, Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 10. Michael D. Bailey, “Concern over Superstition in Late Medieval Europe,” Past & Present 199, Supplement 3 (2008): 115–33. Clark, Thinking with Demons, 474. Lorraine Daston, “The Nature of Nature in Early Modern Europe,” Configurations 6 (1998): 149–72; Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Euan Cameron, Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason, and Religion, 1250–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 241–315. See also Helen Parish and William G. Naphy, “Introduction,” in Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe, ed. Helen Parish and William G. Naphy, 1–22 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). Alexandra Walsham, “Recording Superstition in Early Modern Britain: The Origins of Folklore,” in The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and Present, ed. S. A. Smith and A. Knight, 178–206 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). See Helen Parish, Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church (London: Routledge 2005), 121. On the image of Antichrist in English reformation, polemics see also Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 218–26. See Thomas Becon, The Reliques of Rome (London, 1563), which starts with ‘A Prophecie of Antichrist’ (Walsham, “Recording Superstition,” 181). John Bale, Yet a Course at the Romyshe foxe (Antwerp, 1543), 1. Ibid., 2v. Ibid., 3r. Ibid., 2. This figure is used frequently by many, also by Bale elsewhere in his production such as in his A Mysterye of Inyquyt (Geneva, 1545). See for instance p. 15r and other places in this. Bale 1545, front page, p. 1. Walsham, “Recording Superstition,” 181–83. Bale, Mysterye of Inyquyt, 70v. See also Parish, Monks, Miracles and Magic, 125. Walsham, “Recording Superstition,” 181–82. For an interesting study of ‘superstition’ (vidskeplighet ) as a juridical, religious and cultural category in early modern Sweden see Oja, Linda 1999. On some of the same questions for Finland see: Kaarlo Arffman,

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22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41.

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“Resistance to the Reformation in 16th-Century Finland,” in Lived Religion and the Long Reformation in Northern Europe c. 1300–1700, ed. Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Raisa Maria Toivo, 255–73 (Leiden: Brill, 2017). Nils Gilje and Tarald Rasmussen, Tankeliv i den Lutherske Helstat (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002); Øystein Rian, Maktens Historie i Dansketiden (Oslo: Makt- og demokratiutredningen, 2003); Øystein Rian, Sensuren i Danmark-Norge: Vilkårene for offentlige ytringer 1536–1814 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2014). As Morten Fink-Jensen’s and Laura Katrine Skinnebach’ s contribution to this volume demonstrate. See Peter Marshall and Charlotte Methuen in this volume on the Shetlands, and Jack Cunningham on Iceland. A. B. Amundsen and H. Laugerud, Norsk Fritenkerhistorie (Oslo: Humanist, 2010); H. Laugerud, Reformasjon uten Folk: Det Katolske Norge i før og Etterreformatorisk tid (Oslo: St. Olav forlag, 2018). Burke, Popular Culture; Nenonen, “Culture Wars”. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (Chicago, IL: Basic Books, 1973). Palladius, Peder: En kort Katekismi udlæggelse for de Norske præster (Kristiania, 1900), 84–85. The book was first printed in Copenhagen in 1546. Ibid., 86. Ibid., 88. Ibid., 89. Peder Palladius, Peder Palladius Danske Skrifter, 6-vol. ed. (Copenhagen: H. H. Thiele, 1912–1926), 5:31. Ibid., 5:131–32. Ibid., 5:36, 38. Ibid., 3:89. Ibid., 3:89. On Martin Luther’s understanding of the Antichrist, see: McGinn, Antichrist, 201–8. On this see also Clark, Thinking with Demons, 533. See McGinn, Antichrist, 204. The other illustrations evince the same rhetorical-polemical standard. See R. W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 79–82. Biblia: Det er, Den gantske Hellige Scrifft, paa Danske (Copenhagen, 1589) (Fredrik II’s Bible). Biblia: Det er Den gantske Hellige Scrifft paa Danske (Copenhagen, 1633–1634) (Christian IV’s Bible).

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42. See H. Laugerud, “En Reformasjon av Blikket? Skrift, Bilder og Synskultur i det Etterreformatoriske Danmark-Norge,” in Reformasjonstidens Religiøse Bokkkultur 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, ed. Bente Lavold and John Ødemark, 209–43 (Oslo: Nasjonabiblioteket, 2017), 223–31. 43. See Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk; Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion; Alexandra Walsham, “Idol in the Frontispiece? Illustrating Religious Books in the Age of Iconoclasm,” in Illustrated Religious Texts in the North of Europe, 1500–1800, ed. Feike Dietz, Adam Morton, Lien Roggen and Els Stronks, 21–52 (London: Routledge, 2014). 44. Visitatsbog in Palladius, Danske Skrifter, 5:110. 45. En underuisningh huorledis der kand hanlis met dem som erre besette (originally published in 1547) in Palladius, Danske Skrifter, 1:382. 46. Two such examples are the cases against Maren Lauridsdatter of Grue in 1638 and Helle Jonsdatter of Sandsvær in 1652. See Norsk Folkeminnesamling (NFS), Oslo, Trolldomsprosesser, nr. 127 og nr. 67 respectively. Many of these kind of prayers are collected in Anton Christian Bang, Norske Hexeformularer og Magiske Opskrifter, 6-vol. ed. (Kristiania: I commission hos Jacob Dybwad, 1901–1902). 47. Magica ergo superstitio est (Niels Hemmingsen, Admonitio de superstitionibus magicis vitandis (Copenhagen, 1575), Sig. B1v. 48. Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 3rd edn (Harlow: Routledge, 2006). 49. Nils Gilje, “Djevelen står alltid bak: Demonisering av folkelig magi på slutten av 1500-tallet,” Tradisjon 2 (2001): 107–16; Nils Gilje, Heksen og humanisten: Anne Pedersdatter og Absalon Pederssøn Beyer—en historie om magi og trolldom i Bergen på 1500-tallet (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2003). 50. Stuart Clark, “Witchcraft and Magic in Early Modern Culture,” in Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Vol. 4: The Period of the Witch Trials, ed. Bengt Ankarloo, Stuart Clark and E. William Monter, 97–169 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), 120. 51. Stavanger Domkapitels Protokoll, 1571–1630, ed. Andreas Brandrud, 4 vols. (Christiania: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 1901), 26. 52. ‘Forfengelig’ is here a term for ‘superstitious’. See Kalkar, Ordbog, 1:623–4, 2:877. 53. Fredrik II’s forordning av 1584: Norske Rigssregistranter, bd. II (Kristiania, 1865), 571. 54. Gilje, ‘Djevelen står alltid bak.’ 55. Jørgen Erikssøn Jonæ Prophetis skiøne Historia udi 24: Predicken begreben (Copenhagen, 1592), Sig. S iii, 47b. See Jens C. V. Johansen, “Faith,

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56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64. 65.

66. 67.

68. 69.

70.

71.

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Superstition and Witchcraft in Reformation Scandinavia,” in The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 179. Ibid., Sig. P, 41a. Walsham, Church Papists, 12. Ibid., 185–86. Henry Holland, A Treatise Against VVitchcraft etc. (Cambridge, 1590), Sig. E 1r. Clark, Thinking with Demons, 533–534. Richard Bovet, Pandæmonium, or the Devil’s Cloyster (London, 1684), 44. Ibid., 51. Parish, Monks, Miracles and Magic, 8. To this see also Peter Marshall, “Forgery and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII,” Past & Present 178 (2003): 39–73. Parish 2005, chapter 5, pp. 92–118. Clifford Geertz, “From the Native’s Point of View,” in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology, ed. Clifford Geertz (Chicago, IL: Basic Books, 1983); Quentin Skinner, “Interpretation, Rationality and Truth,” in Visions of Politics, 1:27–56. 3-vol. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). See Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures. Erik Pontoppidan, Everriculum fermenti veteris seu Residuae in Danico orbe cum Paganismi tum Papismi Reliquae in Apricum Prolatae, Opusculum Restituendo Suae, Aliqua Ex Parte, Integrilati Christianismo Velificatorum (Copenhagen, 1736). Pontoppidan was ‘superintendent’ (Lutheran bishop) in Bergen from 1747 to 1754. The book was translated into Danish in 1923 by Jørgen Olrik, motivated by the view that it was an important folkloristic source. See Erik Pontoppidan, Fejekost til at udfeje den gamle surdejg (Copenhagen: Det Schønbergske Forlag, 1923). See Gina Dahl’s contribution in this volume. Confirmation had also been practised earlier, but to varying degrees. On this see Christian T. Engelstoft, Liturgiens eller Alterbogens og Kirkeritualets Historie i Danmark (Copenhagen, 1840), 239–52. See also Torstein Jørgensen et al. (eds.), Gjør døren høy: Kirken i Norge 1000 år (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1995), 296–99. Erik Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighet, Udi Een eenfoldig og efter Mulig Kort, dog tilstrekkelig Forklaring Over Sal. Doct. Mort. Luthers Liden Cathechismo (Copenhagen, 1737). See Gilje and Rasmussen, Tankeliv i den Lutherske Helstat, 313–23; Arne Bugge Amundsen, Norges religionshistorie (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2005).

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72. Pontoppidan, Everriculum, Sig. A2v. 73. See John Ødemark, “‘Ammestuens tale’: ‘Overtro’ og ‘fabel’ i Pontoppidans Feiekost og folkloristikkens forhistorie,” in Or Gamalt, ed. Line Esborg et al., 11–51 (Oslo: Sammenliknende Kulturforskning, 2011). 74. Arne Bugge Amundsen, “Med overtroen gjennom historien: Noen linjer i folkloristisk faghistorie 1730–1930,” in Hinsides: Folkloristiske perspektiver på det overnaturlige, ed. Siv Bente Grongstad, 13–49 (Oslo: Spartacus, 1999); Gilje and Rasmussen, Tankeliv i den Lutherske Helstat, 301–41. 75. See the introduction by Jørgen Olrik in Pontoppidan, Everriculum, iii– xxxii. 76. Walsham, “Recording Superstition,” 186. 77. Pontoppidan, “Proscenium,” in Everriculum. 78. Ibid., Sig. A3 79. Ibid., Sig. A3r. 80. rasæ passim gentis cerebellis (Pontoppidan, Everriculum, Sig. A3r). 81. parturientibus obstetrice abysso (Pontoppidan, Everriculum, Sig. A3r). 82. Ibid., Sig. A4. The reference here is to the twelve labours of Heracles that also figures elsewhere as a motif in this text. The killing of the Hydra living in the marshes of Lerna, was Heracles second labour or task. 83. Ibid., Sig. A4v. 84. hæreditas illa semper posteritas materna (‘inheritance is always a future mother’) (Pontoppidan, Everriculum, Sig. A4). 85. fana ac Rosaria annalium, ut ita dicam, anilium (ibid., Sig. A4v). 86. Dale B. Martin, Inventing Superstition, 1. 87. See S. A. Smith, “Introduction,” in The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and Present, ed. S. A. Smith and A. Knight, 7–55 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Richard Gordon, “Superstitio, Superstition and Religious Repression in the Late Roman Republic and Principate,” in The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and Present, ed. S. A. Smith and A. Knight, 72–94 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). See also Parish and Naphy, “Introduction.” 88. Martin, Inventing Superstition, 10. 89. Forordning Om Muncke oc Jesuviter (Copenhagen, 1624). 90. Parish and Naphy, “Introduction,” 3. 91. Richard Bauman and Charles Briggs, Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 14; see also Walsham, “Recording Superstition,” 183. 92. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, 2-vol. ed. (London: John Murray, 1871).

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93. Bauman and Briggs, Voices of Modernity, 307; Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983). 94. Tord Larsen, Den Globale Samtalen: Om dialogens muligheter (Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2009). 95. This temporality aspect is very clear in the German word for superstition: aberglaube, meaning ‘after-belief,’ notions that linger behind from something old and more ancient, residue from something which is no longer valid and which is outdated. The Norwegian word overtro (‘superstition,’ lit. ‘over-belief’) has a similar double meaning, both something over or outside of faith, and something ‘left over’ from earlier, something that has overlevd (Norw. ‘survived,’ lit. ‘lived-over’). 96. Ødemark, “‘Ammestuens tale’,” 13. See also Burke, Popular Culture, 237 and Clark, Thinking with Demons, 511. 97. Gordon, “Superstitio,” 73–74. 98. See Amundsen, “Med overtroen gjennom historien”; Walsham, “Recording Superstition”; Ødemark, “‘Ammestuens tale’.” 99. For a discussion of ‘folk religion’ as a concept and category, see Salvador Ryan, “The Most Contentious of Terms: Towards a New Understanding of Late Medieval Popular Religion,” Irish Theological Quarterly 68 (2003): 281–90; Salvador Ryan, “Some Reflections on Theology and Popular Piety: A Fruitful or Fraught Relationship,” The Heythrop Journal 53 (2012): 1–11. 100. See for example Eamon Duffy, “Elite and Popular Religion: The Book of Hours and Lay Piety in the Later Middle Ages,” in Elite and Popular Religion: Studies in Church History, ed. K. Cooper and J. Gregory (London: Ecclesiastical History Society, 2006), 141.

Bibliography Manuscript Sources Norsk Folkeminnesamling (NFS), Oslo, Trolldomsprosesser, nr. 127 and nr. 67, cases against Maren Lauridsdatter of Grue in 1638 and Helle Jonsdatter of Sandsvær in 1652.

Primary Printed Sources Bale, John. Yet a Course at the Romyshe Foxe. Antwerp, 1543. Bale, John. A Mysterye of Inyquyt. Geneva, 1545. Becon, Thomas. The Reliques of Rome. London, 1563. Biblia: Det er, Den gantske Hellige Scrifft, paa Dans ke. Copenhagen, 1589.

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Biblia: Det er Den gantske Hellige Scrifft paa Danske. Copenhagen, 1633–1634. Bovet, Richard. Pandæmonium, or the Devil’s Cloyster. London, 1684. Erikssøn, Jørgen. Jonæ Prophetis skiøne Historia udi 24: Predicken begreben. Copenhagen, 1592. Forordning Om Muncke oc Jesuviter. Copenhagen, 1624. Fredrik II’s forordning av 1584: Norske Rigssregistranter, bd. II . Kristiania, 1865. Hemmingsen, Niels. Admonitio de superstitionibus magicis vitandis. Copenhagen, 1575. Holland, Henry. A Treatise Against VVitchcraft etc. Cambridge, 1590. Kalkar, Otto. Ordbog til det ældre Danske Sprog (1300–1700). 6 vols. Copenhagen: Thieles Bogtrykkeri, 1881–1918. Palladius, Peder. En kort Katekismi udlæggelse for de Norske præster. Kristiania, 1900. Palladius, Peder. Peder Palladius Danske Skrifter. 6 vols. Copenhagen: H. H. Thiele, 1912–26. Pontoppidan, Erik. Everriculum fermenti veteris seu Residuae in Danico orbe cum Paganismi tum Papismi Reliquae in Apricum Prolatae, Opusculum Restituendo Suae, Aliqua Ex Parte, Integrilati Christianismo Velificatorum. Copenhagen, 1736. Pontoppidan, Erik. Sandhed til Gudfrygtighet, Udi Een eenfoldig og efter Mulig Kort, dog tilstrekkelig Forklaring Over Sal. Doct. Mort. Luthers Liden Cathechismo. Copenhagen, 1737. Pontoppidan, Erik. Fejekost til at udfeje den gamle surdejg. Copenhagen: Det Schønbergske Forlag, 1923. Stavanger Domkapitels Protokoll, 1571–1630, edited by Andreas Brandrud. 4 vols. Christiania: Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt, 1901.

Secondary Sources Amundsen, Arne Bugge. “Med overtroen gjennom historien: Noen linjer i folkloristisk faghistorie 1730–1930.” In Hinsides: Folkloristiske perspektiver på det overnaturlige, edited by Siv Bente Grongstad, 13–49. Oslo: Spartacus, 1999. Amundsen, Arne Bugge. Norges religionshistorie. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2005. Amundsen, A. B. and H. Laugerud. Norsk Fritenkerhistorie. Oslo: Humanist, 2010. Arffman, Kaarlo. “Resistance to the Reformation in 16th-Century Finland.” In Lived Religion and the Long Reformation in Northern Europe c. 1300–1700, edited by Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Raisa Maria Toivo, 255–73. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Bailey, Michael D. “Concern over Superstition in Late Medieval Europe.” Past & Present 199, Supplement 3 (2008): 115–33.

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Bang, Anton Christian. Norske Hexeformularer og Magiske Opskrifter. 6 vols. Kristiania: I commission hos Jacob Dybwad, 1901–1902. Bauman, Richard and Charles Briggs. Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1994. Cameron, Euan. Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason, and Religion, 1250– 1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Clark, Stuart. “Witchcraft and Magic in Early Modern Culture.” In Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Vol. 4: The Period of the Witch Trials, edited by Bengt Ankarloo, Stuart Clark and E. William Monter, 97–169. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Daston, Lorraine. “The Nature of Nature in Early Modern Europe.” Configurations 6 (1998): 149–72. Duffy, Eamon. “Elite and Popular Religion: The Book of Hours and Lay Piety in the Later Middle Ages.” In Elite and Popular Religion: Studies in Church History, edited by K. Cooper and J. Gregory. London: Ecclesiastical History Society, 2006. Duin, Johs. J. Streiftog i Norsk Kirkehistorie, 1450–1880. Oslo: St. Olav forlag, 1984. Engelstoft, Christian T. Liturgiens eller Alterbogens og Kirkeritualets Historie i Danmark. Copenhagen, 1840. Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. Chicago, IL: Basic Books, 1973. Geertz, Clifford. “From the Native’s Point of View.” In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology, edited by Clifford Geertz. Chicago, IL: Basic Books, 1983. Geertz, Hildred. “An Anthropology of Religion and Magic.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (1975): 71–89. Gilje, Nils. “Djevelen står alltid bak: Demonisering av folkelig magi på slutten av 1500-tallet.” Tradisjon 2 (2001): 107–16. Gilje, Nils. Heksen og humanisten: Anne Pedersdatter og Absalon Pederssøn Beyer—en historie om magi og trolldom i Bergen på 1500-tallet. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2003. Gilje, Nils and Tarald Rasmussen. Tankeliv i den Lutherske Helstat. Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002. Gordon, Richard. “Superstitio, Superstition and Religious Repression in the Late Roman Republic and Principate.” In The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and Present, edited by S. A. Smith and A. Knight, 72–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Johansen, Jens C. V. “Faith, Superstition and Witchcraft in Reformation Scandinavia.” In The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, edited by Ole Peter Grell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Jørgensen, Torstein et al. (eds.). Gjør døren høy: Kirken i Norge 1000 år. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1995. Larsen, Tord. Den Globale Samtalen: Om dialogens muligheter. Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2009. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern, translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Laugerud, H. “En Reformasjon av Blikket? Skrift, Bilder og Synskultur i det Etterreformatoriske Danmark-Norge.” In Reformasjonstidens Religiøse Bokkkultur 1400–1700: Tekst, Visualitet og Materialitet, edited by Bente Lavold and John Ødemark, 209–43. Oslo: Nasjonabiblioteket, 2017. Laugerud, H. Reformasjon uten Folk: Det Katolske Norge i før og Etterreformatorisk tid. Oslo: St. Olav forlag, 2018. Levack, Brian. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 3rd edn. Harlow: Routledge, 2006. Marshall, Peter. “Forgery and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII.” Past & Present 178 (2003): 39–73. Martin, Dale B. Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. McGinn, Bernard. Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Nenonen, Marko. “Culture Wars: State, Religion and Popular Culture in Europe, 1400–1800.” In Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography, edited by Jonathan Barry and Owen Davies, 108–24. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007. Ødemark, John. “‘Ammestuens tale’: ‘Overtro’ og ‘fabel’ i Pontoppidans Feiekost og folkloristikkens forhistorie.” In Or Gamalt, edited by Line Esborg et al., 11–51. Oslo: Sammenliknende Kulturforskning, 2011. Oja, Linda. Varken Gud eller natur synen på magi i 1600- och 1700-talets Sverige. Stockholm: Symposion, 1999. Parish, Helen. Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church. London: Routledge 2005. Parish, Helen and William G. Naphy. “Introduction.” In Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe, edited by Helen Parish and William G. Naphy, 1–22. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. Pettegree, Andrew. Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Rian, Øystein. Maktens Historie i Dansketiden. Oslo: Makt- og demokratiutredningen, 2003.

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Rian, Øystein. Sensuren i Danmark-Norge: Vilkårene for offentlige ytringer 1536– 1814. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2014. Ryan, Salvador. “The Most Contentious of Terms: Towards a New Understanding of Late Medieval Popular Religion.” Irish Theological Quarterly 68 (2003): 281–90. Ryan, Salvador. “Some Reflections on Theology and Popular Piety: A Fruitful or Fraught Relationship.” The Heythrop Journal 53 (2012): 1–11. Scribner, R. W. For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Skinner, Quentin. “Interpretation, Rationality and Truth.” In Visions of Politics, 1:27–56. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Smith, S. A. “Introduction.” In The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and Present, edited by S. A. Smith and A. Knight, 7–55. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978. Tylor, E. B. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. 2 vols. London: John Murray, 1871. Walsham, Alexandra. Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England. 2nd edn. Boydell: Woodbridge, 1999. Walsham, Alexandra. “Recording Superstition in Early Modern Britain: The Origins of Folklore.” In The Religion of Fools? Superstition Past and Present, edited by S. A. Smith and A. Knight, 178–206. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Walsham, Alexandra. “Idol in the Frontispiece? Illustrating Religious Books in the Age of Iconoclasm.” In Illustrated Religious Texts in the North of Europe, 1500–1800, edited by Feike Dietz, Adam Morton, Lien Roggen and Els Stronks, 21–52. London: Routledge, 2014.

Online Sources Kong Christian den V’s Norske Lov. hf.uio.no/iakh/tjenester/kunnskap/samlin ger/tingbok/kilder/chr5web/chr5_06_01.html.

CHAPTER 15

The Missionary Problem in Early Modern Protestantism: British, Irish and Scandinavian Perspectives Alec Ryrie

The Missionary Problem It is perhaps the sharpest point of contrast between Catholicism and Protestantism in the early modern period. Across settled Europe, Protestants and Catholics eventually fought one another to a standstill, their conflicts grinding into an embittered stalemate. But when we widen our lens to the rest of the planet, this equivalence between Catholic and Protestant disappears. This was the age when Catholic missions Christianised two-thirds of the Americas, however superficially; made deep inroads in parts of Africa and Asia; and ran ahead of the colonial project to begin to build Catholic communities in Japan, China and beyond.1 If we did not know better, we might have imagined that early modern Protestants would try to match and counter this audacious bid to extend Antichrist’s realm across A. Ryrie (B) Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, Durham, UK e-mail: [email protected] Gresham College, London, UK © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_15

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the world. In fact, however, until the eighteenth century, and only haltingly even then, Protestants made no sustained or systematic efforts to engage in cross-cultural mission: which I take here to mean the attempt to convert to Protestantism peoples whom European Protestants found alien on the grounds of language and culture. This lacuna is familiar, but it still ought to be surprising. This chapter asks why this particular dog did not bark, at least in the Scandinavian, British and Irish worlds.2 Studying a non-event is tricky, but even if the dog did not bark, it did sometimes grumble in its sleep. A series of episodes did gesture in the direction of Protestant crosscultural mission during these years. These rule-proving exceptions can shed revealing light on the wider failure of British, Irish and Scandinavian Protestants to engage in cross-cultural mission. They will show us that this story can be told in two ways. There are “high” explanations, whose focus is a matter of concepts, ideologies and mentalités; and “low” explanations, which concentrate on institutions, structures and finances. Our question is: which of these explanations for missionary failure is the more fruitful, and how do they interact? Lest the term “failure” seem loaded: I take no position on whether early modern Protestants ought to have engaged in missionary work, but merely observe their own declared intentions. The 1626 charter governing Sweden’s first colonial enterprises promised grandly that, through them, the heathen would be “taught morality and the Christian religion.”3 In 1610, the London preacher William Crashaw could tell the assembled worthies of the Virginia Company with a straight face that their “principal ends” in the New World were “the plantation of a Church of English christians there, and consequently the conuersion of the heathen from the diuel to God.”4 John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, claimed that “the propagacion of the gospell to the Indians” was “the main end of our Plantation,” “the thing we do profess above all.” When the colony was chartered, Winthrop, as its governor, swore “to draw … the natives … to the knowledge of the true God.” The colony’s official seal featured a Native American quoting a momentous verse of the New Testament: St. Paul’s vision of a man from Macedonia calling him to preach the Gospel in Europe for the first time (Acts 16:9). Now the same divine imperative called the settlers to take the Gospel once again towards the setting sun.5 These promises did not go completely unfulfilled. In the colony of New Sweden, the Lutheran pastor Johan Campanius, posted there from

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1643 to 1648, made some attempt at mission to the Lenni-Lenape Indians, and as a result has some claim to be the first Lutheran foreign missionary. He managed to learn some of their language and to explain some simple doctrines, although there is no evidence of his winning any converts, and indeed he concluded that doing so would be almost impossible. Neither the colony’s governors nor Campanius’s own successors showed any interest in his project. He produced a translation of Luther’s shorter catechism in 1648, one of the first European attempts to write down a North American language. It remained unpublished for fifty years, because no one was willing to bear the cost of printing it.6 Missionary efforts in New England progressed a little further. There was a genuinely successful mission on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, and famously, John Eliot, teaching elder at the church of Roxbury near Boston, took on the missionary task in 1646 and became known as the “Apostle to the Indians.” His achievement—a series of “praying towns” for Native American converts who ultimately numbered over a thousand—is real, but also painfully limited. The catastrophic settler-native conflict known as “King Philip’s War” in 1675–1678 put an end to New England’s pretence of peaceful coexistence. More importantly, perhaps, Eliot stumbled into his vocation almost by accident, making his first missionary attempts not because of any deep commitment to the enterprise, but because the enemies of the Massachusetts Bay colony in London were exploiting its (thus far) abject failure to live up to its missionary promises. It is not to diminish his achievement or his commitment to point out the most striking feature of his mission: he served almost entirely alone.7

The Role of Theology The usual suspect for this missionary failure is theological. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination, so goes the argument, made missionary effort seem futile by suffusing the Reformed Protestant world with a complacent fatalism.8 Unfortunately, this almost entirely collapses on closer examination. It is not simply that Calvinists in Europe were, in their heyday, proverbially energetic and effective in winning converts. Even within the Calvinist theological academy, the keenest advocates of mission were often those who were most seriously committed to a hard line on predestination. The most steadfast opposition to the missionary enterprise came

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not from Calvinists but from Lutherans, with their much more muted doctrines of predestination. Yet some theological issues were certainly in play. There were questions about the shape of history, as many Reformed Protestants expected that the conversion of the Jews would have to predate the mass conversion of the heathen, and so expected that any mission now would produce no more than meagre gleanings—unless, of course, they were tempted by the alluring the possibility that the Native Americans themselves might be the lost tribes of Israel.9 There was the surprisingly controversial discussion of whether there was an obligation to convert the heathen at all, which many seventeenth century Protestants, especially Orthodox Lutherans, bluntly denied.10 Underlying all of these apparently theological questions, however, was a more practical concern: the existential struggle with Rome, the lens through which Protestants in the confessional age saw, by necessity, all other matters. Struggling as they were to defend the tenuous safety afforded by the peaces of Augsburg and Westphalia, Protestants in the Empire had taken to heart those treaties’ principle that “no Estate shall try to persuade the subjects of other Estates to abandon their religion.” In this context, as the Huguenot advocate of missions Adrien Saravia observed, the claim that Christ’s Great Commission still obtained could seem like “some Anabaptisticall fancie,” chasing a mirage of heathen converts across the ocean at the cost of unleashing Rome’s all-too-real attack-dogs here and now.11 And even when missionary efforts were made, they tended to be framed as part of the struggle with Rome. Eliot’s bemused Algonquin subjects were made to sit through denunciations of popery.12 When England’s Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was founded in 1701, William III’s charter laid out the motive for preaching to his heathen subjects: “diverse Romish Priests and Jesuits are … encouraged to pervert and draw over Our said Loving Subjects to Popish Superstition and Idolatry.”13 Early modern Catholic missionaries aimed to convert anyone and everyone, but Protestant missionaries really only wanted to convert Catholics.

Near Barbarians and Far Barbarians However, the mentalities which early modern Protestants brought to the missionary enterprise were not only theological and confessional. They also carried very specific baggage from their national contexts. The four

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Protestant monarchies that are our focus here—the Anglo-Irish, Scottish, Danish-Norwegian and Swedish-Finnish states—were the only states whose European borders included significant numbers of people whom they saw as barbarians. The Welsh, the highland Scots and the Gaelic Irish had been Christian by culture and identity for a millennium or more, but were seen by the Anglophone Protestant elites of London, Edinburgh and Dublin as barbaric in lifestyle as well as in speech. The Christianisation of the Sámi of northern Scandinavia was more recent, and—as it appeared from Stockholm, Copenhagen or even Trondheim— more superficial.14 And since early modern Christendom was heir to a long tradition which conflated the categories Christian/civilised and pagan/barbarian, the assumption that peoples like the “wild Irish” were only nominally Christian came naturally.15 We are accustomed to thinking of cross-cultural mission as something that requires the crossing of oceans, but these states’ conceptions of how to deal with the spiritual challenge of barbaric peoples had been learned at home. Wales pointed the way. The so-called Acts of Union of 1536 and 1543 merged Wales into the English state, creating shires and courts on the English model, and leaving the Welsh language—the only tongue of the great majority of the population—with no formal existence. This was not exactly part of the contemporaneous religious Reformations, but nor was the timing a coincidence. The connection was notoriously drawn by William Barlow, the most outspokenly and gratingly Protestant bishop in Wales, who was himself, of course, an Englishman. In a series of letters to Thomas Cromwell, he lamented the “barberouse ignorance” and “inueterate accustomed supersticion” of his flock: there is, he wrote, “no dioces I suppose more corrupted nor none so farre out of frame wt out hope of reformacion.” But he had a proposed solution: education. Arguing for an existing college at Abergwili to be transferred to Brecknock, and a new grammar school and daily lecture on Scripture (in English) to be founded in Carmarthen, he hoped that “the welsh rudeness wolde sone be framed to english cyvilitie” and that “the welsh rudenes decreasynge, Christian cyvilitye maye be introduced.”16 English and Christian were, plainly, synonyms. It did not work out quite as Barlow had hoped. The Welsh language stubbornly refused to die out and was treated as clear evidence of the population’s barbarity throughout our period: as one Englishman put it in 1682, “gibberish is usually prattled throughout the whole Taphydome.”17 But from the English Protestant point of view, Wales still

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looked like a success of sorts.18 Its population conformed to the Protestant settlement, obediently although not enthusiastically. Its gentry were fully brought into the governing class. Apparently if civility and Englishness were imposed on a barbaric people, then, over time, they would conform to English norms, religious, cultural and political. The Sámi territories of northern Scandinavia appeared to teach a similar lesson: that the way to bring civilised religion to barbaric peoples was by patiently imposing structures of conformity on them and waiting for the plaster to set. There had been churches built in northern Sweden-Finland and Norway since the thirteenth century, but they were scattered thinly through a vast and sparsely populated region. A modest late medieval missionary momentum appears to have dissipated following the Reformation. A late-sixteenth-century minister in Finnmark claimed that the coastal Sámi were Christians, of a sort, but that the people of the mountainous interior had “no proper knowledge of God.” The Swedish state took the lead in trying to put this right. From 1559 onwards successive kings ordered clergy in the north to provide at least a skeleton sacramental service to their scattered and nomadic flock. Anders Nilsson, parish priest at Piteå from 1566 to 1593, was one of the first to do so in earnest: Nilsson spoke Sámi and combined his pastoral ministry with a lucrative mercantile trade and with work as a border commissioner for the Swedish crown. He was given formal responsibility for dealing with the Sámi of Piteå and Luleå in 1587, and twenty years after his death it was still being said that the Sámi brought their children to Piteå for baptism by “Anders.” In the early seventeenth century, King Carl IX imposed a county-like administrative structure on his northern territories, much as had been done to Wales in the 1530s, and required that each one should have at least one church. A Sámi school was established in Piteå in 1617; others followed, and some of their graduates went on to study theology at Uppsala and to be ordained. Luther’s short catechism was printed in Sámi in 1667. Denmark-Norway was slower off the mark, but during the seventeenth century successive bishops of Nidaros (Trondheim) began attending to their pastoral provision. The energetic Peder Krog, bishop from 1688 to 1731, oversaw the building of forty-eight new churches in his vast diocese, and undertook four extensive visitations: in 1708 travelling as far as Vadsø on Norway’s Arctic coast, over a thousand kilometres from Trondheim even as the crow flies.19

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The consistent theme of these efforts was ritual and liturgical conformity, including the suppression of indigenous Sámi religion. Krog insisted on the importance of teaching the Norwegian language. Gabriel Tuderus, a Sámi minister in the Kemi lappmark in the late seventeenth century, became notorious for his zeal in finding and destroying the drums used by Sámi shamans, and in sealing up the boasso, or sacred holes, in Sámi tents where the drums were kept.20 In their own terms, these campaigns were successful. A high-profile witchcraft case of 1692, in which an elderly man was arrested in Varanger for the use of a shaman’s drum, arose because he was reported by other Sámi: he was apparently an incomer from the east, and his pagan ways shocked the Christianised people of coastal Norway. But the veneer of conformity did not run very deep.21 A scathing early eighteenth-century account of “the delusions and superstitions of the Lapps” described a people who were by now all baptised, and who attended worship whenever itinerant clergy passed through, but whose lived religion was a mixture of Catholicism and shamanism.22 The Welsh/Sámi model, then, promised success of a sort: slow, painstaking, shallow, but completely without challenge to AngloScandinavian social norms and state-building projects. There was a tantalising alternative offered by highland Scotland. The Gaelic Scots were regarded by lowland governing elites with just as much disdain as the Welsh or the Sámi, but they were a much more powerful element of the Scottish polity, and when the Protestant Reformation came to Scotland in 1559–1560, the Highlanders were participants in the drama, not bystanders. Archibald Campbell, who as both earl of Argyll and also the head of clan Campbell was woven into both lowland and highland power structures, was at the heart of the Protestant cause from the beginning. He also brought large parts of the Highlands into the new religious world with him. His former tutor John Carswell, an amphibious figure who spanned the linguistic divide, was made a Reformed superintendent in 1560 and bishop of the Isles in 1565: in 1567 he produced the first book ever printed in Gaelic, a translation of the Scots Forme of prayers, subtly adapted for Highland use. In the large parts of the Highlands that embraced the new religion, the bardic orders continued to supply the bulk of the clergy, as they had done for centuries, taking Carswell’s Gaelic texts and mediating them to the people. The Highlands’ Reformation was certainly not complete, but it was far-reaching. During the 1640s, the Synod of Argyll was at the forefront of Covenanter ambitions. Scotland’s

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Gaelic Reformation, then, was not really a story of cross-cultural mission at all, but one of indigenous growth.23 Given those two models, it is no surprise that Protestant states chose the low-risk, low-reward option offered by the Welsh/Sámi example. This option was tested to destruction and beyond in Ireland. In 1560, the earl of Argyll had offered the English to bring Campbell influence to bear in Ulster, then the most exclusively Gaelic region of Ireland. But the prospect of empowered, modernised Gaelic Irish subjects with independent political agency, however Protestant they might be, was regarded sceptically in London and with horror in Dublin.24 English control over Ireland would eventually be established the old-fashioned way. Civilisation would come before conversion, even if that meant the prospect of conversion vanishing over the horizon. Hence what ought to be the most surprising of all the mission fields which early modern Protestants left fallow. It is common enough to observe that Ireland was Europe’s most extreme case of religious difference between rulers and population, and to discuss why the Irish Reformation “failed.” In the context of brutal military conquest and plantation, the Welsh model, of Reformation as state-building, never stood much of a chance.25 But at the risk of stating the obvious, one central reason why so few of the Gaelic Irish converted to Protestantism is that there was no significant or sustained effort to convert them. The principal exception to this rule was William Bedell, bishop of Kilmore from 1629 to 1642: a stubborn, learned, idiosyncratic, politically inept and saintly prelate, whose naive projects met a wall of opposition in his lifetime, and after his death were more praised than emulated. The formative experience of Bedell’s life was a stint as an ambassador’s chaplain in Venice from 1607 to 1610. There he befriended Paolo Sarpi, as unorthodox, antipapal and quite possibly atheistic a Catholic as one might hope to find, and also learned that, to Italians, English seemed as barbaric as any Celtic language. When plucked from East Anglian obscurity to be the new provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1627, he arrived with the distinctly un-Irish notion that ministering to the island’s Gaelic-speaking Catholic population did not mean requiring them to renounce their language or their religious identity. He taught himself to read and write Irish Gaelic, although—having long been troubled with deafness and “weakness of … voice”—he was not much of a speaker of the language, and apparently never preached in it. But he did spur others to do so, reviving the lapsed provision in Trinity’s statutes funding Gaelic-speakers

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to be “exercised in the reading of the Scriptures in the Irish language,” and as bishop ordaining Gaelic-speakers whenever possible, including, on several occasions, Catholics whom he had persuaded to convert. He apparently sponsored the publication of a Gaelic-English primer in 1631, and he led a small team who spent the 1630s producing a complete translation of the Old Testament into Gaelic (the New Testament having been published in 1603).26 How much success such a missionary approach might have had is unclear, partly because Bedell’s ministry was cut short by the Irish rising of 1641 and his death, perhaps from typhus, when under house arrest in early 1642; and partly because the accounts of his life ooze hagiographical overstatement. But it does appear that he genuinely won some respect and affection from his Gaelic-speaking flock, whether from his attempts to defend them from his fellow-clerics’ depredations, or from his studiedly theatrical use of episcopal hospitality: one eye-witness recalled that “at Christmas he had the poor Irish to feast and sit about him … that scarse had any whoale cloathes on their backs, or could understand a word of English.” Certainly he received unusually gentle treatment in 1641–1642. At his funeral, not only was his son-in-law allowed to use the Protestant rite for him, but an honour guard of O’Reillys accompanied the coffin, fired a volley over it and cried, Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum!— which could have meant the “best” or the “last” of the English, and likely meant both. His irenic openness to dialogue with Catholics, and his enthusiasm for the Gaelic language, certainly does seem to have won him some converts, at least some of whom stood by the Protestant cause when the storm broke in 1641.27 If there could ever have been an authentic Gaelic Reformation in Ireland, this would surely have been the only way. Yet Bedell was almost entirely isolated within the Anglo-Irish establishment. His clergy closed ranks against him, and he spent a great deal of his time and money as bishop in futile litigation against his own diocesan chancellor, who in Bedell’s eyes was running the church courts as something close to a protection racket and whom he found he could not dismiss. In that case he was largely up against raw self-interest, but his opponents were more than moneygrubbers. His promotion of the Gaelic language was a threat to the Anglo-Irish ascendancy and to the very notion that civility, Christianity and Englishness were intertwined. His reforms at Trinity College prompted howls that “learning and Englishmen” would suffer. His opponents there and in his diocese pointed out that Irish legislation in force since the days of Henry VIII required the

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use of English in any public setting, an aspiration which might have been unrealistic but which could still command lip-service. One of Bedell’s few political victories came in a convocation in Dublin in 1634, where the bishop of Derry tried to close down Bedell’s Gaelic projects with an appeal to the Henrician laws. Bedell was supported, on that occasion at least, by James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, and the convocation ruled that the liturgy should be read in Gaelic when this was the language of the population. It is remarkable that Protestants—for whom vernacular worship was such a core principle—ought to have had to fight this battle, and the victory was an empty one. Ussher’s backing for Bedell was lukewarm, reducing Bedell to tears of frustration as he pleaded for more open support in 1630, and reducing Bedell’s biographer to contorted excuses for the sainted archbishop’s resolute lack of attention to missionary issues. And if Bedell’s supporters lacked all conviction, his opponents had plenty of passionate intensity. Once all the politics and finances are stripped away, at root this was about prejudice. Bedell’s son-in-law recalled once seeing the bishop quizzed by a sceptical Englishman about why he was so keen to reach out to the Gaelic Irish. As Bedell tried to answer, his questioner Christian affection and compassion, plainly, were not enough. looked down stedfastly with derision upon his feet, and being asked why he did so? said, that he was seeing whether my L[ord] of K[ilmore] wore broges or no; thus jearing his Christian affection and compassion towards the poor Irish.28

The barriers to the missionary project in Ireland were laid bare by the matter of the Old Testament. Bedell’s translation project was a target for his enemies. The lead translator, Murtagh King, a Gaelic Irishman who had converted to Protestantism in the early 1620s, was the target of a malicious, perilous and apparently quite unfounded lawsuit in the late 1630s: he was fined £200 and seems to have died in prison or shortly after release.29 The translation was completed—apart from seventeen of the metrical psalms, apparently—and Bedell was attempting to prepare it for publication, but the project was overtaken by the 1641 rebellion. The manuscript, remarkably, survived, albeit as “a confused heap, pitifully defaced and broken,” but like Campanius’s Lenni-Lenape catechism, nothing was done with it for four decades. Its eventual publication in 1685 was the initiative of another intellectually idiosyncratic Protestant,

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albeit this time an Irishman: Robert Boyle, the founding father of modern chemistry and a consistent supporter of missionary projects on both sides of the Atlantic. By identifying a handful of senior Irish churchmen willing to collaborate with him, by maintaining a consistent focus on the project over a number of years, and—not least—by spending a vast amount of his own money, Boyle enabled the reprinting of the Gaelic New Testament and then a first edition of Bedell’s translation of the Old.30 Boyle saw these texts as essential for the missionary project, and his hope that they might be given away to and used by Gaelic-speaking Catholics was a little alarming to some of his allies, who feared that some of his irenic sentiments would “savour too much of popery to pass a protestant press.”31 Boyle’s money and determination, and the sometimes equivocal support of a handful of highly-placed churchmen, was enough to push the project through, but opposition had not gone away. Henry Jones, bishop of Meath and one of Boyle’s strongest allies, had once hoped to seek parliamentary support for a Gaelic Bible, but was surprised by the strength of the reaction: “I found it almost a principle in their politics, to suppress that language utterly, rather than in so public a way to countenance it.” Narcissus Marsh, bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, wrote to Boyle of “the discouragements (and indeed threats) that I have had” because of “the unwelcomeness of this undertaking to many in this country,” and believed that Jones’ successor as bishop of Meath had been intimidated into withdrawing from the project. Andrew Sall, an Irish Jesuit who converted to Protestantism and became Boyle’s most important collaborator, had no illusions about how most Irish Protestants saw the subject: “One of them had the gallantry to tell me in my face, and at my own table, that while I went about to gain the Irish (to God I mean) I should lose the English.” And he made a revealing comparison: Our own apparent but very false brethren … are not ashamed to profess a dislike of our endeavours to convert the natives of this country, upon maxims like those of the American planters, in hindering the conversion of their slaves to Christian religion.32

For some at least of the Anglo-Irish, the situation had now moved beyond looking for civilisation before conversion, and reached a point where civilisation seemed impossible and, therefore, conversion undesirable.

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As Sall’s comparison implies, the “near” and the “far” mission fields were regularly being used to interpret one another. Nicholas Canny pointed out decades ago that the Tudor plantations in Ireland looked to Spanish imperial projects as a model, and that the habit of equating American and Irish “barbarians” stuck.33 The more recent work of Patrick McGhee emphasises how far Native Americans were understood through established European concepts of the “heathen.”34 In 1622, the Puritan educational reformer John Brinsley published a manifesto for grammar schools, whose title page promised that it was directed especially at “those of the inferiour sort, and all ruder countries and places; namely, for Ireland, Wales, Virginia, with the Sommer Ilands [Bermuda], and for their more speedie attaining of our English tongue.” For him at least, the Anglicisation-first template forged in Wales was an exportable model.35 After half a century’s bitter experience of that model’s failure in Ireland, the grimmer lessons learned there were also being exported. King Philip’s War was to New England what the 1641 rising was to Ireland: a reason, or pretext, for the Protestant establishment to see the native population not as ignorant barbarians who might yet be civilised, but as treacherous savages who needed chiefly to be suppressed.36 One New Englander, defending his fellow-colonists against the undeniably correct charge that the missionary effort had been painfully slow off the mark, explained that the colonies’ critics in old England simply did not understand the situation. Such men … know not the vast distance of Natives from common civility, almost humanity it selfe, and ’tis as if they should reproach us for not making the windes to blow when wee list.37

Bitter experience on both sides of the Atlantic had taught early modern Protestants two things: that bridging that distance was a necessary precondition for any real conversions, and that it was exceedingly unlikely to happen. It was only pressure from ill-informed politicians and enthusiasts back home, or from occasional naive idealists like Bedell, that kept the subject alive at all.

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Structures and Institutions A recurrent characteristic of seventeenth century Protestant missionary efforts, such as they were, was the enthusiasm of a handful of isolated individuals. Campanius, Mayhew, Eliot, Bedell, Boyle: this does not exhaust the list of seventeenth century Protestant cross-cultural missionaries, but nor was there very much iceberg beneath that tip. And that recurrent pattern of individual enthusiasm is itself an important part of the story. The early modern Roman Catholic Church’s religious orders were well-funded, well-staffed and deeply grounded institutions which regarded cross-cultural mission as amongst their core purposes. They were able to train, fund, equip, deploy, oversee, support and replace missionaries, and to commit to doing so for decades on end. No early modern Protestant church had institutions even faintly comparable to this. The dissolution of the religious orders at the Reformation cost the Protestant churches the most important institutions, and resources, that might have been used for missionary purposes. This is the underlying cause of the institutional problem of early modern Protestant mission, and it is the slow emergence of alternative solutions to that problem which finally began to turn the tide. This was not simply about resources. In many cases, Protestant ministers had no means of being called to missionary work, and within structures which prized good order and right calling, this was not a minor problem. The New Englanders faced this difficulty in particularly pure form. Congregationalist ministers were equal in status, each called to serve a particular congregation and paid by that congregation. As Thomas Lechford, one of the colonies’ early critics, asked, how can such a church possibly produce missionaries, sent (by whom?) to serve a flock that did not yet exist? “By their principles, no Nation can or could ever be converted.” Lechford meant this as an argument for episcopacy, and indeed the suspicion that advocates of missionaries were in fact merely trying to smuggle in bishops was a recurrent—and not unfounded—suspicion in Reformed circles. Saravia argued for missionaries in service of his argument for episcopacy, not because of any sustained or deep-rooted interest in the subject. But episcopacy was not in itself a solution, not least because standard Protestant theologies of ministry still insisted that ministers had to be called to serve a particular congregation. Saravia shared the common assumption of the need for due calling, and the conviction that self-appointed apostles are “ouer-weening and deceiued.”38

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Perhaps so, but the one seventeenth-century Protestant group who were untroubled by these problems suggests that self-appointed apostles could have their uses. The only calling which Quakers recognised or needed was that of the inner light, and the readiness of all Quakers, men and women alike, to take on a missionary role alarmed their contemporaries. Mary Fisher’s case was only a little more extreme than many of her fellow-Quakers’. This Yorkshire servingmaid moved on from shouting down her minister as he tried to preach and telling the scholars of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, that they were a “Synagogue of Satan” to, in 1655, travelling to Barbados to preach, and thence in 1656 to New England. She and her companion were accused of witchcraft and transported back to Barbados, eventually returning to England. Undaunted, in 1657 she and five others set off for Livorno: their initial plan to go to preach in Jerusalem gave way to an only slightly more realistic scheme to confront both the Pope and the Ottoman Sultan. Astonishingly—at least, if we are to believe her own detailed account of the meeting—she managed to secure an audience with Mehmet IV, encamped with his army at Adrianople. “He and all that were about him received the words of truth without contradiction,” she wrote; “they do dread the name of God many of them.”39 Like Bedell, Fisher had the theological flexibility to treat other religions as half-truths, rather than simply as errors to be stamped out. It must be admitted that the Sultan did not actually become a Quaker, but in Fisher’s first destination, Barbados, the early Quaker missionaries’ impact was marked. Quaker success there was sufficient to bring George Fox himself to the island in 1671, and the community extended to slaves as well as to settlers: the alarmed island legislature felt compelled in 1676 to ban slaves from attending Quaker meetings. Nevertheless, another Quaker evangelist who visited the island in 1681 recorded that “the Power of the Lord Jesus was mightily manifested … even in the Meetings of the Negro’s or Blacks.”40 This extended into advocacy for the spiritual (but not the civil) rights of enslaved people. In 1676 another Quaker missionary to the island, Alice Curwen, bluntly told a slave-holder she had met that “thou hast no right to reign over their Conscience in Matters of Worship,” promising that “the Lord God Almighty will set them Free in a way that thou knowest not, for there is none set Free but in Christ Jesus.”41 Morgan Godwyn, a passionate but lonely Anglican advocate of mission to slaves who spent the 1670s on Barbados, was given a Quaker pamphlet reproaching the island’s ministers for ministering to “the White People

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only, and not to the Tawneys and Blacks”: he was no Quaker, but he accepted the justice of the charge. The slave-holders he had met were alarmed by the “great numbers” of Quakers on the island, infusing their slaves with a “Phanatic’s spirit.”42 The Quakers’ institutional and financial frameworks were only able to provide modest support for the mission: but nor did they do anything to hinder it, and that itself set them apart. Indeed, of all the institutional barriers to cross-cultural mission, none was as formidable as slavery. There simply was no economic model available for running a Caribbean colony in this period that did not depend on slavery. That did not mean that Protestant consciences were at ease on the subject. One way they justified slavery to themselves was to argue—like the governors of the self-conscious Puritan colony of Providence Island, off the coast of modern Honduras—that Africans might legitimately be enslaved “during their strangeness from Christianity.”43 The obvious consequence of this position was that slave-holders actively opposed attempts to make Christians of their “property,” fearing both that their rights over Christian slaves would be restricted, and also that converts might use Christianity to critique or defy their enslavement. The notion that baptism itself might confer freedom had no basis in English law, but remained pervasive, in part because the Dutch Reformed Church did indeed lean towards that position. The result was a decadeslong campaign of reassurance by advocates of slave mission: reassurance, that is, aimed at soothing slave-holders’ fears of what mission might mean. Legislation was passed guaranteeing that baptism had no effect on slaves’ legal status; sermons and treatises affirmed again and again that a Christian slave would, in fact, be a contented, dutiful and obedient slave, and that slave-holders ought positively to welcome mission. And yet it was all to little enough effect. When England’s Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) looked back on its first quarter-century of rather fitful attempts at slave evangelisation, it was forced to conclude that “what hath been done is as nothing.” The principal reason for this remained the steadfast opposition of slave-holders, which rested less on any legal worries than on two pervasive intuitions. Morgan Godwyn, writing in his 1680 pamphlet The Negro’s & Indians Advocate about the wall of opposition his talk of mission to slaves had met both on Barbados and in Virginia, identified the same two issues which the SPG would still be lamenting half a century later. One was the raw prejudice which dehumanising cruelty so easily fosters: the conviction, as Godwyn put it, that “the Negro’s, though in their Figure they carry some resemblances of

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Manhood, yet are indeed no Men.” Godwyn recalled having baptised a thirty-year-old enslaved man, only to be told by his mistress “that Baptism … was to one of those no more beneficial, than to her black Bitch.” The SPG was still observing in 1730 that “some have been so weak as to argue, the Negroes had no Souls.” Even this, however, was no more than cover for a more fundamental problem: the fear, as Godwyn put it, that Christianity would inspire slaves “to mutiny and rebel, to free themselves from Tyranny and Oppression,” or at least to demand time to attend church on Sundays and to have their sworn testimony accepted in court. A great deal of ink was spilled denying the view that slaves “grew worse by being taught, and made Christians ”—“worse” here meaning “less tractable and obedient.” Bishop Gibson of London wrote a circular letter to colonists in 1727 assuring them of “the great Value of those Servants who are truly Religious.”44 Yet we have to recognise that these well-meaning defenders of slave missions were wrong, and that the slave-holders were, in this second sense, correct. Protestant Christianity—almost inevitably accompanied by literacy—did indeed provide enslaved people with an ideological framework and the technical skills to challenge the conditions of their servitude and to assert their human dignity. Slave-holders who wished to continue seeing slaves as their property, not as their spiritual equals, were quite right to suspect that missionary efforts were profoundly threatening. When Andrew Sall compared the Anglo-Irish elite’s view on mission to that of the American planters, this is what he meant. By the early eighteenth century, the failure to establish bishops in Britain’s colonies was regularly being blamed for the lack of missionary effectiveness, but the example of the intra-European missionary projects to the Celtic and Sámi peoples suggests that bishops may not have been a panacea. In Ireland or Norway, bishops like Peder Krog or William Bedell may have had the calling and authority necessary for missionary work; but not the finances, since the bedrock of these churches’ funds was the tithe, and tithe income from unsettled, impoverished peoples was limited. Moreover, the need to collect it meant that the churches were compelled to be at least as concerned with fleecing their flocks as with providing pastoral care for them. It is no accident that the keystone of the late-sixteenth-century Swedish mission to the Sámi was Anders Nilsson, “the wealthiest parson in northern Sweden,” nor that for him, and for many of the other northern Swedish clergy, their primary relationship the Sámi was a trading rather than a pastoral one.45 Bedell was surely

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right to identify his officials’ extractive use of the church courts as a key obstacle to his mission from the very start. His more worldly-wise friends were also evidently right to advise him that a war with those officials could not be won. Even when local structures were not actively hostile to the missionary enterprise in this way, the parochial system of an established church—whose governing fiction was that the population were already believers and church members, and simply needed to be maintained within that state—was a poor fit to a missionary situation. As the Welsh and the Sámi discovered, it lent itself at best to minimal outward conformity. Even a committed bishop like Krog measured his success in churches built, ministers ordained and Norwegian-medium schools staffed, assuming that the correct spiritual consequences would necessarily follow. For most of the seventeenth century, the only institutional structures which could be used to support Protestant missions were the state-chartered trading companies which carried out the early Dutch, English, Danish and Swedish imperial ventures. Some of these companies employed ministers to accompany their merchants overseas. As a basis for serious missionary work, however, it was a slender hope. While the Dutch companies did invest some significant resource, the English and Swedish companies’ lip-service to the Gospel was limited to the pious hope that commerce itself would build international brotherhood, and to the provision of chaplains for their own expatriates: men who might, if like Campanius they were inclined, dabble in a little missionary work on the side, knowing that their commercial employers would “laugh in their sleeues at the sillinesse of such as ingage themselues in such matters.”46 If this was the future of Protestant mission, it would be a long time coming.

Pietism, Evangelicalism and the Unravelling of the Knot Another future was set in motion by Bishop Krog of Nidaros after his visitation to northern Troms in 1705. In a report to King Frederick IV, he appealed for more funds for teachers, warning that otherwise the Sámi of the region might choose to attend Swedish churches instead, weakening Danish–Norwegian control over the far north. The warning did not have the result he intended. The king, who had become Europe’s highest-placed advocate of the new Pietist movement, began to make his

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own enquiries about the region, bypassing Krog. In 1714 the Misjonskollegiet was founded in Copenhagen: a government department under direct royal authority with responsibility for all missionary projects in the territory of the Danish crown. In the same year, seven priests from Krog’s diocese petitioned the king to sponsor a new mission to the Sámi, and in 1716, one of them, Thomas von Westen, was picked by the king to lead it. He founded a new seminary in Trondheim, whose aim was not to teach Norwegian to the Sámi but the Sámi language to missionaries. Von Westen’s personal contribution to the new mission was decisive: he travelled extensively, and by concentrating his missionaries on the fjords—where few churches had been built—and on building Sámi-medium schools, he was able to reach much deeper into the region than any of his predecessors. But what made his impact different in nature from the missionary entrepreneurs of the previous century was that, when he worked himself into an early grave in 1727, the institutions outlived him. He was able to prevent the church from presenting a punitive and exploitative face to the Sámi: for example, ending the death penalty for pagan practices, and preventing the use of churches for the sale of state-licenced alcohol. Krog opposed tolerance for the Sámi language and resented the mission’s incursion into his jurisdiction, but although he outlived von Westen, he was now the isolated figure. His successor as bishop was one of the seven petitioners from 1714, and would go on to undertake fifteen episcopal visitations in twelve years.47 Royal sponsorship made this one of the most robust of the new Protestant missionary institutions, but the innovation underlying it was private pious initiative. This is how the New England mission, such as it was, was sustained. In 1644 an English enthusiast established a £20 annuity to support “the Preacher to the poor Indians in New England,” even though no such person yet existed. That was the beginning of a flood of donations, many sparked by a wave of optimistic pamphlets about Eliot’s early achievements in 1647–1649: one of the first examples of the triangular trade in preaching, improving tales and hard cash between indigenous peoples, missionaries and their home-country supporters. Some £16,000 was raised from private donors to support the New England mission before 1660; the money was invested so as to produce a regular income, which totalled £22 in 1653 and had risen to £800 by 1656, and regular, substantial sums continued to arrive in Massachusetts for the rest of the century. It was used to pay very respectable salaries to the two missionaries, Eliot and Mayhew; to pay for the production of books in

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Algonquin; and to pay for Indian education, including the endowment of the short-lived Indian College at Harvard.48 Like the short-lived surge of private charity aimed at funding missions in Virginia in the 1610s, this came to little enough in its own time, but it was a sign of what was to come. Morgan Godwyn’s lonely advocacy of mission to slaves helped to spur the formation of the SPG in 1701. Eliot’s ministry was likewise said to have inspired Augustus Hermann Franck, the entrepreneurial whirlwind driving Pietism, to look beyond the central European mission field. Frederick IV of Denmark was, again, his indispensable partner: the two German missionaries whom he sent to the Danish colony of Tranquebar, in southern India, in 1706 were sent despite the open opposition of the Danish East India Company. The mission’s funds came from England’s newly-founded Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.49 What set this project apart was not the personal qualities of the missionaries, but their international network of support: it was, as a Welsh chaplain with the British East India Company observed, “the first attempt the Protestants have ever made in that kind.”50 So was the failure of the Protestant missionary effort in the seventeenth century a story of structures, institutions and finances, or a story of theology, of concepts of civility and conversion, and of will? The only answer is: yes. The Protestant churches lacked the institutions to engage in mission; they were slow to create such institutions in part because they did not have the collective will and determination to do so; they lacked that will and determination in part because their institutions provided no space where it could develop, and indeed actively blocked it when it appeared. The two problems—the abstract problem of mindset and will, and the prosaic problem of structures and institutions—were intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Their solution could only come together, and could only have come slowly and haltingly. It ought, perhaps, to be more surprising that it came at all.

Notes 1. Amongst the enormous scholarship on this subject, see the excellent survey in R. Po-chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); also Alison Forrestal and Seán Smith (eds.), The Frontiers of Mission: Perspectives on Early Modern Missionary Catholicism (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

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2. Those worlds are only a part of the story: the single most important site of early Protestant mission, or lack thereof, was the Dutch maritime empire. See Alec Ryrie, “Mission and Empire: an Ethical Puzzle in Early Modern Protestantism,” in Sister Reformations II: Reformation and Ethics in Germany and in England, ed. Dorothea Wendebourg and Alec Ryrie, 181–206 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), on which the present article partly draws: see especially 189–196; D. L. Noorlander, Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019); and the eagerly awaited history of early Dutch religious globalisation by Charles Parker. 3. Trygve Skarsten, “Johan Campanius, Pastor in New Sweden,” Lutheran Quarterly 2 (1988): 49. 4. William Crashaw, A Sermon Preached in London Before the Right Honorable the Lord Lawarre, Lord Gouernour and Captaine Generall of Virginea (London: William Welby, 1610), sig. C3r. 5. Winthrop Papers, Vol. II: 1623–30 (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1931), 145; Alexander Young, Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636 (Boston, MA: Little and Brown, 1846), 142; Richard W. Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians before King Philip’s War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 1. 6. Skarsten, “Johan Campanius”; Thomas Campanius Holm, Description of the Province of New Sweden, Now Called by the English, Pennsylvania, ed. and trans. Peter S. Du Ponceau (Philadelphia, PA: McCarthy and Davis, 1834), 140–41. 7. The best modern account is Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission, 5, 45–51. 8. See, for example, Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 28. 9. Lee Eldridge Huddleston, Origins of the American Indians: European Concepts, 1492–1729 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1967); David S. Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603–1655 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). 10. James A. Scherer, Gospel, Church and Kingdom: Comparative Studies in World Mission Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing, 1987), 67–69; Gustav Warneck, Outline of a History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the Present Time, 3rd edn (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1906), 26–39. 11. Eric Lund (ed.), Documents from the History of Lutheranism, 1517 –1750 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002), 170; Adrien Saravia, Of the Diuerse Degrees of the Ministers of the Gospell (London: John Wolfe, 1591), 47.

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12. New Englands First Fruits in Respect, First of the Conversion of Some, Conviction of Divers, Preparation of Sundry of the Indians, 2. Of the Progresse of Learning in the Colledge at Cambridge in Massacusets Bay (London: R. O. and G. D., 1643), sig. B2r-v. 13. Porter, Religion Versus Empire?, 18. 14. See Raymond Gillespie’s essay in this volume. 15. Timothy Fitzgerald, Discourse on Civility and Barbarity: A Critical History of Religion and Related Categories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 120–23. 16. BL Cotton MS Cleop. E. iv fos 128v, 141r, 142r, 316r. 17. Prys Morgan, “Wild Wales: Civilising the Welsh from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries,” in Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Keith Thomas, ed. Peter Burke, Brian Harrison and Paul Slack, 265–83 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 270. 18. See James January-McCann’s contribution to this volume. 19. Siv Rasmussen, “The Protracted Sámi Reformation—Or the Protracted Christianizing Process,” in The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Introductory Studies, ed. Lars Ivan Hansen, Rognald Heiseldal Bergesen and Ingebjørg Hage, 165–83 (Stamsund: Orkana Akademisk, 2014), 169, 172–74; Dikka Storm, “The Church, the Pietist Mission and the Sámi: An Account of a Northern Norwegian Mission District in the Early Eighteenth Century,” Norwegian Journal of Missiology 3 (2017): 65–66. 20. Christian Meriot, “The Saami Peoples from the Time of the Voyage of Ottar to Thomas von Westen,” Arctic 37 (1984): 377. 21. See Henning Laugerud and John Ødemark’s contribution to this volume. 22. Rasmussen, “Protracted Sámi Reformation,” 175–77. 23. Jane Dawson, “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland,” in Calvinism in Europe 1540–1620, ed. Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis, 231–53 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Jane Dawson, The Politics of Religion in the Age of Mary, Queen of Scots: The Earl of Argyll and the Struggle for Britain and Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 24. Dawson, Politics of Religion, 126–37. 25. Steven Ellis, “Economic Problems of the Church: Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 41 (1990): 239–65, usefully compares the Welsh and Irish cases; see also the classic article by Nicholas Canny, “Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: une question mal posée,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 30 (1979): 423–50, and the rejoinder by Karl S. Bottigheimer, “The Failure of the Reformation in Ireland: une question bien posée,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36 (1985): 196–207. For a more recent treatment of the question, see Henry

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27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

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A. Jefferies, “Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland,” Irish Historical Studies 40 (2016): 158–70. William Bedell Jr., A True Relation of the Life and Death of the Right Reverend Father in God William Bedell, Lord Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland, ed. Thomas Wharton Jones (London: Camden Society, 1872), 4, 15, 44; E. S. Shuckburgh (ed.), Two Biographies of William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore: With a Selection of His Letters and an Unpublished Treatise (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), 126–27, 296; John McCafferty, “Venice in Cavan: The Career of William Bedell, 1572– 1642,” in Culture and Society in Early Modern Breifne/Cavan, ed. Brendan Scott, 173–87 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009). I am grateful to John McCafferty for his guidance on Bedell. Bedell, A True Relation, 80; Shuckburgh, Two Biographies, 129, 160–61, 205. Bedell, A True Relation, 44–45, 174–75; Shuckburgh, Two Biographies, 117–18, 131, 317. Brendan Scott, “Accusations Against Murtagh King, 1638,” Archivium Hibernicum 65 (2012): 76–81. Robert Boyle, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, 5-vol. ed. (London: A. Millar, 1744), 5:606. Boyle’s total investment was certainly over £300 and may have been as much as £700: R. E. W. Maddison, “Robert Boyle and the Irish Bible,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 41 (1958): 97. Boyle, Works, 5:609. Thomas Birch, The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle (London: for A. Millar, 1744), 364; Boyle, Works, 5:605, 614. Nicholas Canny, “The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America,” William and Mary Quarterly 30 (1973): 593–95. Patrick Seamus McGhee, “‘Heathenism’ in the Protestant Atlantic World,” PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019. John Brinsley, A Consolation for Our Grammar Schooles (London: Richard Field, 1622). Pennington, “The Amerindian in English Promotional Literature,” 192– 93. The Day-Breaking, If Not the Sun-Rising of the Gospell with the Indians in New-England (London: Richard Cotes, 1647), 15. Lechford, Plaine Dealing, 21; Saravia, Of the Diuerse Degrees, 48. Sylvia Brown, “The Radical Travels of Mary Fisher: Walking and Writing in the Universal Light,” in Women, Gender and Radical Religion in Early Modern Europe, ed. Sylvia Brown, 38–64 (Leiden: Brill, 2007). Katharine Gerbner, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 50, 58.

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41. Edwin B. Bronner, “An Early Antislavery Statement: 1676,” Quaker History 62 (1973): 47–50. 42. Morgan Godwyn, The Negro’s & Indians Advocate, Suing for Their Admission into the Church (London: J. D., 1680), 4–6, 108. 43. Karen O. Kupperman, Providence Island 1630–41: The Other Puritan Colony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 165–72, especially 168. 44. Godwyn, Negro’s & Indians Advocate, 3, 38, 108, 128, 140; David Humphreys, An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (London: Joseph Downing, 1730), 234–35; Edmund Gibson, Two Letters of the Lord Bishop of London (London: Joseph Downing, 1727), 12. 45. Rasmussen, “Protracted Sámi Reformation,” 172–73. 46. Crashaw, A Sermon Preached, sig. C2r. 47. Dikka Storm, “The Mission Networks and the Religious Situation,” in The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Introductory Studies, ed. Lars Ivan Hansen, Rognald Heiseldal Bergesen and Ingebjørg Hage, 185–207 (Stamsund: Orkana Akademisk, 2014), 193–97; Dikka Storm, “The Church, the Pietist Mission and the Sámi,” 64, 66–68. 48. Jennings, Invasion of America, 233; Cogley, John Eliot’s Mission, 178–80, 208–22. 49. D. Dennis Hudson, Protestant Origins in India: Tamil Evangelical Christians, 1706–1835 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 1–5, 10; Daniel L. Brunner, Halle Pietists in England: Anthony William Boehm and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1993). 50. Mary Clement (ed.), Correspondence and Minutes of the SPCK Relating to Wales 1699–1740 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1952), 58.

Bibliography Manuscript Sources British Library, London, MS Cotton Cleop. E. iv.

Primary Sources Bedell, William, Jr. A True Relation of the Life and Death of the Right Reverend Father in God William Bedell, Lord Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland, edited by Thomas Wharton Jones. London: Camden Society, 1872. Birch, Thomas. The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle. London: A. Millar, 1744.

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Boyle, Robert. The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. 5 vols. London: A. Millar, 1744. Brinsley, John. A Consolation for Our Grammar Schooles. London: Richard Field for Thomas Man, 1622. Clement, Mary (ed.). Correspondence and Minutes of the SPCK Relating to Wales 1699–1740. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1952. Crashaw, William. A Sermon Preached in London Before the Right Honorable the Lord Lawarre, Lord Gouernour and Captaine Generall of Virginea. London: William Welby, 1610. The Day-Breaking, If Not the Sun-Rising of the Gospell with the Indians in NewEngland. London: Richard Cotes for Fulk Clifton, 1647. Gibson, Edmund. Two Letters of the Lord Bishop of London. London: Joseph Downing, 1727. Godwyn, Morgan. The Negro’s & Indians Advocate, Suing for Their Admission into the Church. London: J. D., 1680. Holm, Thomas Campanius. Description of the Province of New Sweden, Now Called by the English, Pennsylvania, edited and translated by Peter S. Du Ponceau. Philadelphia, PA: McCarthy and Davis, 1834. Humphreys, David. An Historical Account of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London: Joseph Downing, 1730. Lechford, Thomas. Plain Dealing, or, Nevves from New-England a Short View of New-Englands Present Government, Both Ecclesiasticall and Civil. London: W. E. and I. G., 1642. Lund, Eric (ed.). Documents from the History of Lutheranism, 1517–1750. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002. New Englands First Fruits in Respect, First of the Conversion of Some, Conviction of Divers, Preparation of Sundry of the Indians, 2. Of the Progresse of Learning in the Colledge at Cambridge in Massacusets Bay. London: R. O. and G. D., 1643. Saravia, Adrien, Of the Diuerse Degrees of the Ministers of the Gospell. London: John Wolfe, 1591. Scott, Brendan. “Accusations Against Murtagh King, 1638.” Archivium Hibernicum 65 (2012): 76–81. Shuckburgh, E. S. (ed.). Two Biographies of William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore: With a Selection of His Letters and an Unpublished Treatise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902. Winthrop Papers, Vol. II: 1623–30. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1931. Young, Alexander. Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636. Boston, MA: Little and Brown, 1846.

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Secondary Sources Bottigheimer, Karl S. “The Failure of the Reformation in Ireland: une question bien posée.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36 (1985): 196–207. Bronner, Edwin B. “An Early Antislavery Statement: 1676.” Quaker History 62 (1973): 47–50. Brown, Sylvia. “The Radical Travels of Mary Fisher: Walking and Writing in the Universal Light.” In Women, Gender and Radical Religion in Early Modern Europe, edited by Sylvia Brown, 38–64. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Brunner, Daniel L. Halle Pietists in England: Anthony William Boehm and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1993. Canny, Nicholas. “The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America.” William and Mary Quarterly 30 (1973): 575–98. Canny, Nicholas. “Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: une question mal posée.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 30 (1979): 423–50. Cogley, Richard W. John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians Before King Philip’s War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Dawson, Jane. “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland.” In Calvinism in Europe 1540–1620, edited by Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Dawson, Jane. The Politics of Religion in the Age of Mary, Queen of Scots: The Earl of Argyll and the Struggle for Britain and Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Ellis, Steven. “Economic Problems of the Church: Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 41 (1990): 239–65. Fitzgerald, Timothy. Discourse on Civility and Barbarity: A Critical History of Religion and Related Categories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Forrestal, Alison and Seán Smith (eds.). The Frontiers of Mission: Perspectives on Early Modern Missionary Catholicism. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Gerbner, Katharine. Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Hsia, R. Po-chia. The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Huddleston, Lee Eldridge. Origins of the American Indians: European Concepts, 1492–1729. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1967. Hudson, D. Dennis. Protestant Origins in India: Tamil Evangelical Christians, 1706–1835. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI, 2000. Jefferies, Henry A. “Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland.” Irish Historical Studies 40 (2016): 158–70. Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976.

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Katz, David S. Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603– 1655. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982. Kupperman, Karen O. Providence Island 1630–41: The Other Puritan Colony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Maddison, R. E. W. “Robert Boyle and the Irish Bible.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 41 (1958): 81–101. McCafferty, John. “Venice in Cavan: The Career of William Bedell, 1572–1642.” In Culture and Society in Early Modern Breifne/Cavan, edited by Brendan Scott, 173–87. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2009. Meriot, Christian. “The Saami Peoples from the Time of the Voyage of Ottar to Thomas von Westen.” Arctic 37 (1984): 373–84. Morgan, Prys. “Wild Wales: Civilising the Welsh from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries.” In Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Keith Thomas, edited by Peter Burke, Brian Harrison and Paul Slack, 265–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Noorlander, D. L. Heaven’s Wrath: The Protestant Reformation and the Dutch West India Company in the Atlantic World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019. Pennington, Loren E. “The Amerindian in English Promotional Literature, 1575–1625.” In The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic and America 1480-1650, edited by K. R. Andrews, N. P. Canny and P. E. H. Hair, 175–94. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1978). Porter, Andrew. Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Rasmussen, Siv. “The Protracted Sámi Reformation—Or the Protracted Christianizing Process.” In The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Introductory Studies, edited by Lars Ivan Hansen, Rognald Heiseldal Bergesen and Ingebjørg Hage, 165–83. Stamsund: Orkana Akademisk, 2014. Ryrie, Alec. “Mission and Empire: an Ethical Puzzle in Early Modern Protestantism.” In Sister Reformations II: Reformation and Ethics in Germany and in England, edited by Dorothea Wendebourg and Alec Ryrie, 181–206. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Scherer, James A. Gospel, Church and Kingdom: Comparative Studies in World Mission Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing, 1987. Skarsten, Trygve. “Johan Campanius, Pastor in New Sweden.” Lutheran Quarterly 2 (1988): 47–87. Storm, Dikka. “The Mission Networks and the Religious Situation.” In The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Introductory Studies, edited

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by Lars Ivan Hansen, Rognald Heiseldal Bergesen and Ingebjørg Hage, 185–207. Stamsund: Orkana Akademisk, 2014. Storm, Dikka. “The Church, the Pietist Mission and the Sámi: An Account of a Northern Norwegian Mission District in the Early Eighteenth Century.” Norwegian Journal of Missiology 3 (2017): 59–75. Warneck, Gustav. Outline of a History of Protestant Missions from the Reformation to the Present Time. 3rd edn. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1906.

Unpublished Sources McGhee, Patrick. “‘Heathenism’ in the Protestant Atlantic World.” PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019.

CHAPTER 16

Epilogue Carlos Eire

Maps can lie to us, especially maps that attempt to depict the geographical outcome of the Reformations of the sixteenth century by assigning different colors regionally to each of the era’s various churches. Traditionally, England gets one color for Anglican, Scotland, the Dutch Republic, and northern Switzerland another for Reformed, Scandinavia and parts of Germany yet another for Lutheran, while poor unwonted Ireland gets some motley collage of colors, variously distributed, for Catholic, Anglican, and Reformed. In some maps, religious minorities such as Huguenots and Anabaptists get their own colors too, scattered over the map of Europe in pox-like splotches of varying sizes, hither and yon, making them seem like viral infections. Such maps ignore the fact that religion cannot be mapped accurately, ever, for very simple reasons: Belief and unbelief, conformity and nonconformity, piety and apathy are as indiscernible as they are unquantifiable or unfathomable. Mapping changes in religion over time is an even harder task, yet the era of the Reformations was itself so rife with constantly changing religious boundaries that one could argue that the rapid yearto-year, decade-to-decade flux of religious change was one of its most

C. Eire (B) Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_16

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salient characteristics, especially in Northern Europe. So, how could any map depict such change precisely, especially over the span of several generations? Religion simply cannot be changed overnight, not even by government fiat or through revolutions. To declare a nation Lutheran is one thing, to actually make it Lutheran is quite another. Religion can only change gradually, for changes in ritual, symbols, beliefs, and ethics require acceptance by individuals and communities, and that acceptance or its opposite—resistance—is an inevitably lengthy process, or more accurately, a skein of various processes, often bewilderingly tangled. This collection of essays is all about the mapping of religious change, literally and figuratively. Literally, its geographical grid is limited to regions between the latitudes of fifty degrees and sixty-six degrees north (roughly, between the southern tip of Cornwall and the Arctic Circle) and the longitudes of twenty-four and a half degrees west and twenty degrees east (roughly, between the promontory of Látrabjarg, Iceland and the Svalbarg Archipelago, Norway). Figuratively, its imaginative grid is that of transitions of all sorts, ranging from the abrupt to the languid, the orderly to the messy, the tranquil to the tragically bloody. As far as this book’s geographical focus is concerned, the Northern lands within its scope shared more in common than lousy weather, long winter nights, and Protestant rulers. They also had historical and economic ties, sometimes even dynastic ones as well. Many essays here provide plenty of evidence of the integral connections between these disparate realms. As a whole, however, what these essays tend to prove over and over is that what links these lands most intensely is their common engagement in a gradual and immensely complex process of religious change. These essays are all about process, about the nuts, bolts and gears of the machinery of change, so to speak, and about the ways in which that machinery functioned and malfunctioned. And all of the essays also highlight how immensely difficult or impossible it was for total or sudden change to happen. Simply put, these essays prove convincingly that all brightly colored maps of the religious landscape of early modern Europe are caricatures at best, or counterfeit historical currency at worst, especially in regard to the sixteenth century and the first half or so of the seventeenth. Consequently, rather than summing up the contents of each essay, which the editors have already done expertly their introduction, this epilogue focuses instead on their collective contribution and on the larger issues addressed by them.

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Nearly thirty years ago, Eamon Duffy proposed in his Stripping of the Altars 1 that the process of religious change in England was far more complex than had been assumed by several generations of historians, and his argument rested solidly on specific bits of evidence gathered from archives and texts that had been ignored or dismissed or never linked together because of their incompatibility with prevailing assumptions. In many ways, the essays here accomplish something similar on a wider scope, with a revisionist edge that is different from Duffy’s, but no less significant or instructive. Unlike Duffy, who challenged revered myths and generations of ostensibly unquestionable scholarship, these essays have fewer previous theses to skewer or myths to shatter, for their comparative focus is wider than Duffy’s and more novel, too, given geographical boundaries involved. Ironically, the very novelty of this book’s wider international focus, which is itself quite a deviation from established patterns of research, might falsely make it seem less controversial or less of a challenge to established assumptions. But missing the challenge offered by this book—which has more to do with the opening of new perspectives than with the demolition of previous assumptions—would be a mistake. Its challenge lies in shifting the main focus of attention from the development of national or regional Reformations to the very process of change that took place in areas that share similar political and social characteristics. The diverse Northern Reformations analyzed here share some significant traits: all involve the creation of new churches by fiat from above, a sudden break with Rome and the medieval past, and mandates from secular authorities for uniform religious change. A second correlate similarity among them is that all these Reformations involved subject states within larger nation states and subject peoples within each of these realms, all of whom were in some way ethnically or linguistically distinct from the elites dictating religious change, and whose culture created obstacles to political and religious uniformity. As England had its Wales and Ireland, so did Denmark have Norway and Iceland, and so did Scotland have its Highlands and Northern Isles. These common similarities run like two threads through the essays consistently, binding them together quite tightly, simultaneously addressing issues of national, regional, and international Reformations, as well of colonial reformations directed from a ruling center and of changes resisted, ignored, negotiated, or adopted in subject peripheries.

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Within these two common political and social traits that bind the Northern Reformations, the essays also shed abundant light on other issues that transcend location and are of immense significance to all of the European Reformations. First and foremost, all the essays, in one way or another, address the key binary polarities found throughout all of Christendom, polarities that pre-dated the Reformations, remained very much in place, and gave shape to all change and conflict in the early modern era, both religious and secular. These key polarities are all interrelated and to some extent inseparable from each other, but can be sorted into three distinct categories for the sake of a clearer comprehension of the processes of change addressed in these essays: The sociopolitical, the spatial and dimensional, and the historical and qualitative. In the sociopolitical realm, where issues of authority are most prominent, one finds the dynamic and often contentious interplay between church and state, clergy and laity, elites and subalterns. As far as culture is concerned, one finds the interplay between what anthropologist Robert Redfield identified as the “great tradition” of the elites and the “little tradition” of commoners, “two currents of thought and action, distinguishable, yet ever flowing into and out of each other.”2 In the realm of the spatial and dimensional, which has everything to do with landscapes and time, one finds an interplay between the local and the universal, the rural and urban, the timeless and finite, the traditional and the new. In the realm of the historical and qualitative, which is chiefly concerned with identity and self-definition, several dichotomies intersect or clash and often cause conflict, especially in the case of the Reformations examined here, between that which is “false” and “true” religion, where one finds church and state aligned against polar opposites to Christianity of various sorts, be it papistry, folk traditions, superstition, magic, devilry, or witchcraft, or even theological heresy, all of which, in one way or another, preceded the reforming present and could be traced to heathens of old or to bad Christians in the ancient or medieval past. The processes of change analyzed here are what some historians have called social disciplining, confessionalism, and confessionalization. Others prefer to call it Christianization.3 These are relatively new terms for a very old subject, and they signify a change in perspective with which most historians nowadays are familiar. Theorizing is what distinguishes the history of the Reformations written since the 1970s, and especially since the 1980s. Much of the theorizing can be traced to German and

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French historians, and to the ascendancy of social history. Simply put, the issue at hand in this book—which could be given various labels—is the effort made jointly by church and state to instill Christian principles into the people of Europe, including those in the northernmost latitudes. It was an uneven process, carried out at various levels, and it ranged from something as simple as teaching children the catechism to something as difficult and complex as wiping out centuries-old beliefs and superstitions. It was also a lengthy process, with no clear endpoint, but most historians agree that it extended, roughly, until the end of the Thirty Years’ War, in 1648, although sound arguments can also be made for stretching this process all the way to the eighteenth century and the dawn of the Enlightenment. Concepts such as confessionalization, social disciplining, and confession building have been analyzed, refined, and criticized extensively. Though these concepts are not invoked here repeatedly, the essays as a whole focus on the processes at the heart of these concepts while avoiding the perils of theory-driven history. In other words, these essays attempt to make sense of a most significant historical development: the increased effort made by church and state in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to encourage and regulate a closer adherence to codes of belief, ritual, and ethics. Some German historians have argued for a process of state building in which early modern civil authorities employed the church and its teachings to create model, obedient citizens.4 This approach differs from that of French historian Jean Delumeau, who prefers to see the process of instructing and policing as an effort to close the gap that had always existed between Christian ideals and social realities.5 Delumeau’s Christianization thesis, which assumes—as many early reformers did—that medieval Christians were still far too ignorant of their faith and too attached to ancestral pagan ways, considers a cultural paradigm shift embraced by both church and state as the defining characteristic of the age. In the long run, it matters little whether one employs terms such as confessionalization, confessionalism, and social disciplining, or one chooses instead to speak of Christianization, à la Delumeau. The approaches represented by these terms aim to analyze the process of changing the religion of the people and improving their behavior, the very stuff of the data summarized and analyzed in these essays. The concepts themselves are immaterial, not just because they are somewhat imprecise and in many cases overlap, but because what really matters most if one wants

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to understand the how and the why of the Reformations can be boiled down to one well-defined issue: the division of European peoples into distinct social groups and political entities that subscribed to particular confessions or creeds, observed certain specific rituals, claimed a specific religious identity, and followed a common code of ethics. In other words, the ultimate value of these essays on the Northern Reformations transcends their geographical focus, principally by providing us with a detailed understanding of the process whereby distinct Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Catholic societies came into being and survived (the Radical churches cannot be considered part of this process because they refused to accept any kind of interrelationship of church and state). Moreover, these essays have plenty to say about the flip side of the reforming coin: that is, the conflict created by the process of change, especially among those dissidents who often surface in these essays, offering resistance in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Norway. Within this conceptual framework, as in the essays here, territoriality plays a key role, as does the civil government. In these theories and in these essays the main subject is territorial state-building, which includes church building. Religion bubbles up to the surface through the process of change, and what emerges is its instrumentality, its role as an efficient tool wielded principally by the state for its purposes, with the willing and eager collaboration of the church. This means that the confessions that emerged in the Northern Reformations can be seen as efficient means of state-building, social disciplining, repression, and control. The churches and their clergy play an essential role here, yes, but principally as instruments of the state and agents who enhance secular power and ensure its survival. Much the same can be said about Christianization, that process analyzed in many of these essays, which also depends on the cooperation between church and state and thus involves and transcends politics simultaneously. In sum, the Northern Reformations examined here reflect the implementation of the reforming ideals of the Renaissance, which called for a closing of the gap between the ideal and the real, and drove many lay and clerical elites into the work of reform. Church and state did not always necessarily work for the same objectives everywhere, but they did join hands in a common effort. While other factors such as the centralization of secular authority and the rise of literacy are key components of the Northern Reformations—and all early modern Reformations as well—these essays make it clear that one of the main driving forces in

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the Northern Reformations was the early modern quest for ideals, which intensified in the wake of the dissolution of medieval Christendom and of the rivalries it spawned among Lutherans, Reformed, Anglicans, and Catholics. The approaches taken here to the Northern Reformations shed light on significant characteristics of the early modern age as a whole and thus offer a useful frame of reference and a conceptual structure for a more nuanced understanding all the Reformations. Three key facts borne out by these essays stand out as most significant: first, that the Reformations of the early modern era were a very lengthy and variegated processes of change; second, that all of the “reforming” that took place during this era involved a close cooperation between church and state, and a blurring of the boundaries between religious and mundane concerns; and third, that resistance to changes imposed from above by church and state is an essential component of the Reformations, largely ignored in master narratives for far too long, and significant enough to deserve much more attention. When all is said and done, the Northern Reformations eventually drove out Catholicism or shuffled it to remote margins, forging a common Protestant culture and identity in the lands surveyed here, despite confessional differences. The odd exception is Ireland, of course, where Catholic resistance endured and prevailed most strongly. And this oddity, in and of itself, proves that generalizing about the process of religious change is at once difficult and perilous, and not just in regard to the Northern Reformations. Five centuries after the onset of the Protestant Reformation, historians still strain to make sense of what happened, exactly, and how it is that the disintegration of medieval Christendom still affects us. The eventual result of the fragmentation caused by the Reformations was the emergence of two very different kinds of Christianity and of two world views and competing identities within Western culture that developed as much from reacting to “others” as from cogently devised theologies and identities. As Protestantism spread throughout Europe and their world view rubbed uncomfortably against that of Catholics, nearly everywhere, the inevitable clash of cultures wreaked unimaginable havoc and bloodshed. Ultimately, relativism, skepticism, and atheism would thrive within the chaotic vortex created by fragmentation. Many factors—material as well as intellectual and spiritual—contributed to the secularization of the West. Searching for a single determinant is not only wrong, but futile. Yet there

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is also no denying the significant role that the fragmentation caused by the Reformations played in gradually turning religion into a private concern rather than a public one, that is, into a matter of personal conviction rather than something imposed on everyone by established authorities. By the late seventeenth century, the role that religion began to play in much of Europe—especially in some of the northern lands analyzed here—might seem familiar to us in the early twenty-first century. Religion was still very much alive and thriving back then, in some of those lands, but increasingly restricted to smaller social and political spaces, bereft of the power to sway governments, impose itself on vast multitudes by law, or extinguish dissent through violence. The fragmentation of Christendom was the most immediate and longlasting effect of the Reformations. This splintering, and the plurality of churches and worldviews created by it, changed Western civilization radically, creating spaces large and small into which all of the other pre-existing secularizing forces could flow. Eventually, these other forces increased in strength and volume—their momentum intensified by the fragmentation itself—and they overflowed from these spaces, gradually submerging ever-larger portions of the fragments, turning what had once been the continent of Christendom into a mere archipelago of islands enveloped by a vast and ever-rising tide of secularism and unbelief. By focusing on the process of change, that is, on the matrix of fragmentation itself, the essays in this volume bring the evolution of local and universal rifts into high relief. Useful as they are for improving our understanding of the Northern Reformations and their uniqueness, it could be argued, and should be argued, that these essays also improve our understanding of all early modern Reformations, and might fittingly give pause to cartographers intent on creating multicolored maps of the religious landscape of Europe at any given point in time.

Notes 1. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992). 2. Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 72. In the 1970s Peter Burke adapted Redfield’s categories for historical use in his Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), Chapter 2. 3. Heinz Schilling, “Confessionalization: Historical and Scholarly Perspectives of a Comparative and Interdisciplinary Paradigm,” in Confessionalization

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in Europe, 1555–1700, eds. J. M. Headley, H. J. Hillerbrand, and A. J. Papalas (Farnham: Ashgate, 2004), 21–36; Joel F. Harrington and Helmut Walser Smith, “Confessionalization, Community, and State Building in Germany, 1555–1870,” The Journal of Modern History 69 (1997): 77–101; Wolfgang Reinhard, “Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and The Early Modern State: A Reassessment,” The Catholic Historical Review 75 (1989): 383–404; Jean Delumeau, Le catholicisme entre Luther et Voltaire (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1971); English translation: Catholicism Between Luther and Voltaire (London: Westminster Press, 1977). 4. Ernst Walter Zeeden, Die Entstehung der Konfessionen: Grundlagen und Formen derKonfessionsbildung im Zeitalter der Glaubenskämpfe (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1965); Heinz Schilling (ed.), Die reformierte Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland (Gütersloh: GütersloherVerlagshaus, 1986); HansChristoph Rublack (ed.), Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1992). 5. Jean Delumeau, Le catholicisme entre Luther et Voltaire.

Index

A Adaptation, 5, 14, 82, 286, 287 B Bale, John, 150, 216, 225, 280, 282, 288, 289, 349, 350, 359, 366 Baptism, 98, 123, 142, 382, 391 Becket, Thomas, 2, 3, 7, 239–242, 244, 255, 258, 275, 280, 359 Benedictine, 272, 280 Bergen, 1–4, 11, 12, 15, 22, 23, 68, 80, 89, 90, 93, 95–98, 107, 116, 124, 125, 148, 179, 191–199, 204, 327, 330, 331, 341, 356, 359, 369 Bible, 23, 60, 122, 140, 161, 162, 181, 193, 200, 245, 260, 298, 304, 322, 324, 325, 354, 355 Bishops, 9, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 31, 42, 50, 52–57, 59–61, 63–67, 119, 122, 125, 144, 146–148, 154, 163, 165, 172, 175, 178, 180, 194, 200, 216, 238, 239, 273, 274, 285, 298, 307, 320,

326, 331, 332, 334, 337, 338, 357, 369, 381–387, 392–394 Books, 2, 5, 8, 10–14, 40, 60, 78, 79, 92, 120, 121, 123, 125, 137, 149, 166–170, 174–176, 181, 182, 193, 201, 202, 206, 236–241, 244–250, 252–263, 274, 275, 278, 280, 283, 286, 287, 290, 291, 298–309, 320, 324–332, 336–342, 353, 354, 358, 360, 363, 367, 369, 383, 394, 406, 407, 409 Bugenhagen, Johannes, 52, 53, 119, 122, 245, 261 C Calvinism, 86, 181, 304 Catechism, 84, 86, 87, 96, 166, 245, 296, 301, 302, 305, 306, 322, 326, 379, 382, 386, 409 Catholic, 5–11, 25, 26, 31, 52, 58, 59, 61, 65, 67, 77, 80, 82, 84, 86, 87, 89, 95–97, 103, 119, 125, 127, 139–141, 143–147,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. E. Kelly et al. (eds.), Northern European Reformations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4

415

416

INDEX

150–152, 162–168, 170–178, 194, 196, 217, 220, 221, 235, 238, 279, 280, 286, 296, 300, 301, 305, 310, 321, 342, 348–350, 353–358, 360, 361, 363, 364, 377, 380, 384, 385, 387, 405, 410, 411 Catholic Reformation, 5. See also Counter-Reformation Clergy, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 25–27, 31, 32, 34, 37, 57–60, 82–84, 92, 93, 95, 96, 103, 106, 119, 138, 140, 141, 145, 148, 163, 165, 167, 172, 178, 180, 194, 196, 197, 301, 303–305, 307, 319–321, 323, 324, 327, 328, 332, 336, 338–340, 342, 350, 352, 356, 363, 382, 383, 385, 392, 408, 410 Colleges, 82, 146, 152, 165, 167, 168, 172, 173, 178, 280, 381 Confessionalization, 6, 152, 183, 408, 409 Conformity, 7, 13, 14, 26, 82, 87, 140, 163, 319–321, 325, 327, 332, 339, 382, 383, 393, 405 Conversion, 51, 55, 83, 91, 140, 145, 170, 172, 272, 320, 348, 380, 384, 387, 388, 395 Counter-Reformation, 25, 162, 164–167, 171, 173, 301, 307. See also Catholic Reformation

D Denmark, 9, 10, 12, 22, 49, 51, 52, 55, 57, 59, 61–69, 81, 83, 84, 95, 115–127, 130, 142, 145–148, 151, 152, 161–163, 171, 192–194, 199, 201, 206, 214, 219–222, 235–237, 245, 252, 255–257, 260, 283–285,

296–299, 309, 319, 325, 352, 353, 361, 395, 407 Dissolution, of the monasteries, 55, 279 Drogheda, 213, 214 Dundee, 124, 216

E Education, 11, 28, 52, 89, 138, 140, 149, 152, 162, 171, 172, 177, 320, 322–324, 327, 360, 364, 381, 395 England, 1, 7, 10, 12, 13, 25, 52, 68, 78, 80, 82–84, 86, 87, 92, 95, 106, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 125, 127, 128, 137, 138, 143–145, 148–151, 153, 161, 163, 164, 166–168, 171, 173, 175, 178, 214, 215, 219, 220, 222, 235, 237, 240, 245, 255–257, 260, 269–273, 275, 276, 279, 280, 282–286, 296, 298–301, 307, 309, 327, 331, 336, 351, 358, 359, 379, 380, 388, 390, 391, 394, 395, 405, 407, 410 Eucharist, 123, 149, 167, 195. See also Lord’s Supper Evangelical, 9, 25, 37, 52, 77, 120, 121, 125, 138, 146, 147, 152, 193, 194, 196–198, 202, 214, 218–220, 222, 236, 270 Exile, 5, 11, 25, 57, 118, 120, 122, 124, 137–139, 142, 143, 145–149, 151, 165, 166, 169, 172, 175, 222, 223, 225, 276, 340

F Faroe Islands, 68

INDEX

Flanders, 97, 138, 173. See also Low Countries Forest, John, 222 Foxe, John, 13, 130, 149, 150, 270, 275–283, 288, 289, 291, 359 France, 138, 141, 145, 254, 261, 296, 300 Franciscan Observants, 12, 213, 215 Franciscans, 12, 71, 90, 213–215, 217, 219, 221–223, 305, 306 Friars Conventual, 215 Friars Minor, 215 G Gaelic, 23, 140, 141, 143, 181, 300, 302, 304, 306, 383–386 Germany, 10, 14, 51–53, 63, 66, 78, 115, 116, 124, 127, 132, 143, 162, 165, 172, 173, 177, 192, 194, 198, 205, 206, 225, 261, 295, 296, 320, 322, 325, 327, 328, 330, 339, 351, 405 Gonzaga, Franciscus, 214, 215, 222–224 Greenland, 115, 200 H Habsburg, 143. See also Holy Roman Empire Hamburg, 50, 52, 53, 56, 148, 193, 196, 198, 261 Hanseatic League, 119, 162, 193 Hay, James, 215, 220, 223 Hemmingsen, Niels, 84, 87, 89, 95, 96, 101, 106, 107, 147, 148, 256, 264, 321, 355, 356, 358, 368 Heresy, 11, 25, 54, 120, 150, 151, 194, 214, 260, 276, 408 Holy Roman Empire, 216. See also Habsburg

417

I Iceland, 9, 38, 40, 49–51, 53–59, 61–65, 67–69, 82, 93, 115, 148, 196, 200, 205, 297, 298, 308, 367, 406, 407 Identity, 6, 11, 26, 32, 33, 73, 86, 140, 141, 143, 144, 149, 151, 183, 203, 216, 223, 235, 284, 300, 381, 384, 408, 410, 411 Inculturation, 5, 13, 82, 270, 286 Ireland, 1, 6–8, 11–14, 24, 25, 68, 69, 139–145, 152, 184, 200, 213–216, 220–222, 225, 226, 270, 282, 284, 296–310, 339, 384–386, 388, 392, 405, 407, 410, 411

J Jesuits, 16, 25, 82, 147, 165–167, 171, 175, 177, 363, 380

K Knox, John, 124, 146, 149, 150, 155, 156

L Language, 6–9, 11, 12, 23, 32, 34, 38, 57, 69, 161–163, 166, 167, 171, 178, 192, 193, 198, 219, 223, 238, 248, 297, 299–302, 304, 305, 310, 325, 326, 336–338, 349, 354, 357, 359, 378, 379, 381, 383–387, 394 Latin, 6, 34, 35, 83, 125, 127, 148, 149, 151, 163, 166, 169, 170, 182, 193, 198, 200, 202, 238, 240, 241, 245, 255, 301, 323, 328, 330, 353, 360, 361 Lord’s Supper, 123. See also Eucharist

418

INDEX

Louvain, 121, 150, 170, 171, 305, 306 Low Countries, 147, 177, 222, 281, 306, 309. See also Flanders Lutheran, 6, 9–13, 22, 23, 50, 53, 59, 61, 62, 78, 80, 82–91, 93, 95, 98, 99, 115, 116, 118, 119, 122–125, 128, 146–149, 156, 163, 173, 191–196, 198, 236, 252, 255, 300, 303, 306–308, 310, 319–321, 324, 339, 348, 351, 354, 378, 380, 405, 406, 410, 411 Luther, Martin, 52, 53, 60, 64, 71, 81, 83, 85, 86, 89, 96, 100, 115, 120, 122, 147, 149, 164, 197, 200, 203, 215, 219, 237, 238, 245, 248, 252, 256, 257, 260, 263, 295, 296, 320, 322, 325, 354, 367, 379, 382 M Magic, 34, 348, 355–358, 361, 362, 408 Martyrdom, 13, 121, 215, 221, 222, 273, 275, 277, 278, 280, 281, 283, 286, 288 Merchants, 23, 37, 50, 116, 145, 147, 148, 193, 195, 196, 198, 201, 206, 340, 342, 393 Migration, 7, 95, 137, 138, 144, 145, 197 Mission, 11, 14, 25, 37, 66, 165, 167–170, 173, 175, 178, 222, 280, 304–306, 377–381, 384, 388–396 Mooney, Donatus, 214, 218–220, 223, 225 N Netherlands. See Low Countries

Norway, 2, 5, 7–11, 13–15, 21, 22, 24, 38, 40, 41, 51, 54, 55, 61, 64, 68, 78, 80–84, 86, 87, 92, 93, 95, 96, 107, 115, 116, 124, 127, 142, 144, 147, 148, 152, 161–163, 165, 170–174, 177, 178, 191–200, 222, 270, 283–286, 290, 296–300, 303, 304, 306–310, 319–328, 330, 332, 336–341, 348, 351, 352, 355, 357, 359–362, 382, 383, 392, 406, 407, 410

O Ó Cléirigh, Mícheál, 215, 217, 223 Olsen, Peder, 217, 218 Orkney, 2, 5, 9, 11, 12, 21–39, 41, 42, 44, 78, 121, 191, 192, 194, 196–200 Oslo, 93, 95, 103, 148, 365, 368 Our Lady, 117, 121, 122, 175. See also Virgin Mary

P Palladius, Peder, 62, 64, 65, 68, 81, 83, 90, 94, 146, 147, 256, 264, 321, 352, 353, 355, 361, 367, 368 Papacy, 165, 218, 240, 353, 354, 361, 362 Pilgrimage, 12, 34–36, 61, 95, 175–177, 240, 269, 273, 284, 353, 354 Poverty, 217, 220, 221 Preaching, 25, 29, 37, 176, 194, 205, 214, 215, 217, 218, 227, 280, 308, 320, 331, 336, 358, 380, 394 Print, 13, 23, 82, 174, 193, 219, 238, 295–297, 300, 302–307, 309,

INDEX

310, 312, 325, 326, 336, 339, 340 Protestant, 5, 7, 8, 10–14, 23, 25–27, 31, 34, 35, 38, 40, 50, 78, 83, 86, 87, 89, 97, 116, 117, 120–127, 139–141, 143, 144, 146, 150, 152, 164, 166, 171, 173, 182, 216–218, 225, 235, 270, 274, 276, 277, 279, 280, 282, 283, 286, 303, 304, 307, 310, 320, 321, 325, 327, 339, 351, 356, 363, 377–381, 383–391, 393–395, 406, 411

Q Quaker, 326, 390, 391

R Refugees, 10, 11, 116, 120, 121, 124, 125, 137, 138, 140, 142, 143, 147, 152, 153, 214, 340 Relic, 22, 41, 85, 163, 175, 365 Religious orders, 197, 220, 269, 278, 280, 363, 389 Rome, 22, 25, 65, 86, 88, 102, 150, 156, 165–168, 176–178, 218, 235, 239, 274, 280, 289, 349, 357, 362, 380, 407

S Saint, 1, 2, 12, 15, 26, 36, 50, 95, 163, 169, 171, 217, 240, 241, 244, 248, 249, 254, 255, 258, 269, 270, 273–275, 278, 280, 283–285, 305, 306, 355, 358, 359 Sander, Nicholas, 139, 146, 153, 201 Schmalkaldic League, 63, 145 Scotland, 2, 9, 10, 12, 21–23, 27, 30–35, 38, 116, 118–122,

419

124–128, 144–146, 149, 192, 194, 195, 199, 201, 214, 216, 218–222, 225, 270, 296, 300, 304, 305, 308, 309, 383, 405, 407, 410 Sermons, 31, 36, 50, 60, 91, 93, 95, 98, 101, 106, 107, 141, 167, 219, 331, 332, 357, 391 Skjelderup, Jens, 88, 89, 91, 96, 107, 148, 195, 203 Spain, 139, 142, 143, 148, 165, 177, 300 Stapleton, Thomas, 146, 149, 150, 156, 169, 170, 280, 289 Superstition, 14, 27, 34, 36, 37, 348–353, 355–366, 383, 408, 409 Sweden, 93, 95, 142, 145, 147, 151, 170–172, 201, 286, 296, 351, 366, 378, 392

T Thirty Years War, 116, 145 Trade, 12, 25, 116, 118, 128, 192, 194–196, 198, 201, 240, 296, 302, 303, 307, 309, 310, 327, 328, 340, 341, 382, 394 Translation, 52, 72, 100, 101, 120–122, 129, 132, 150, 161, 162, 166, 169, 171, 176, 179, 181, 182, 200, 202, 240, 245, 260, 281, 298, 302, 303, 308, 309, 330, 337, 338, 379, 383, 385–387 Trent, Council of, 84, 89, 164, 167, 296 Tridentine, 84, 86–88, 176, 304, 305 Trondheim, 22, 41, 49, 59, 81, 93, 147, 148, 328, 332, 335, 337, 381, 382, 394

420

INDEX

U Ulster, 139, 140, 144, 300, 301, 308, 309, 384 Universities, 97, 122, 124, 127, 147, 148, 152, 164, 172, 195, 198, 321, 323, 327, 336

V Virgin Mary, 34, 246, 248, 252, 255, 352. See also Our Lady

W Wadding, Luke, 214 Wales, 6, 11, 23, 68, 144, 161–169, 171, 173–178, 183, 200, 222, 299, 304, 307, 309, 336, 381, 382, 388, 407 Witchcraft, 32, 33, 348, 353, 355–358, 361, 363, 383, 390, 408 Wittenberg, 10, 53, 64, 96, 115, 118–120, 122, 124–127, 130, 146–149, 151, 197, 203, 261, 264, 295, 321