Religious Reading in the Lutheran North : Studies in Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture [1 ed.] 9781443827676, 9781443826433

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Religious Reading in the Lutheran North

Religious Reading in the Lutheran North: Studies in Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture

Edited by

Charlotte Appel and Morten Fink-Jensen

Religious Reading in the Lutheran North: Studies in Early Modern Scandinavian Book Culture, Edited by Charlotte Appel and Morten Fink-Jensen This book first published 2011 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2011 by Charlotte Appel and Morten Fink-Jensen and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2643-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2643-3

The editors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Lillian and Dan Fink’s Foundation in the preparation of the manuscript.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Books, Literacy, and Religious Reading in the Lutheran North Charlotte Appel and Morten Fink-Jensen Chapter One............................................................................................... 15 Printing and Preaching after the Reformation: A Danish Pastor and his Audiences Morten Fink-Jensen Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 48 Earways to Heaven: Singing the Catechism in Denmark-Norway, 1569–1756 Jon Haarberg Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 70 Printed in Books, Imprinted on Minds: Catechisms and Religious Reading in Denmark during the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries Charlotte Appel Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 88 Much More than Luther: Religious Reading among the Norwegian Clergy, 1650–1800 Gina Dahl Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 112 “A Threat to Civic Coexistence”: Forbidden Religious Literature and Censorship in Eighteenth-Century Sweden Ann Öhrberg Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 133 Genesis in the Longhouse: Religious Reading in Greenland in the Eighteenth Century Thorkild Kjærgaard

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Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 159 Memory and Meaning: The Haugean Revival (1796–1804) and its Place in the History of Reading Trygve Riiser Gundersen Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 191 Popular Education and Religious Reading in Early Nineteenth-Century Sweden Daniel Lindmark Bibliography ............................................................................................ 216 Contributors............................................................................................. 231

INTRODUCTION BOOKS, LITERACY, AND RELIGIOUS READING IN THE LUTHERAN NORTH CHARLOTTE APPEL AND MORTEN FINK-JENSEN

Religious reading is a phenomenon that can be studied in many contexts and cultures across the world and for different historical periods. One area where it is not only possible but also important to investigate the characteristics and patterns of religious reading is the Nordic region, comprising Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Faeroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. Throughout the early modern period religious books dominated the Nordic book markets, and reading was almost exclusively taught to children in a religious or, more precisely, a Lutheran Protestant setting, whether at home, through instruction by a local clergyman or at a proper school. Furthermore, it looks as if the vast majority of the Nordic populations, men as well as women, had reached a basic level of literacy – that is, had acquired enough skill to read printed texts in the vernacular – by the end of the eighteenth century, if not before. It could thus be argued that, relatively speaking, religious reading had an even greater significance in the North than in many other parts of early modern Europe.

The Nordic countries It may be wise to clarify a few facts about geography, politics and languages in the Nordic region from the very beginning: For most of the early modern period (until 1814), Denmark and Norway were ruled by the Danish crown and largely shared the same legislation. Danish and Norwegian were closely related Scandinavian languages (with many

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Introduction

regional variants), but Danish was used as the common written language. All future pastors had to attend the University of Copenhagen, and the Danish and Norwegian book markets were basically one and the same, with most books being printed in Copenhagen until the early eighteenth century, when more local printing presses were established in both countries. The Faeroes and Iceland (which are not specifically dealt with in this volume) were also under Danish rule, as was Greenland, where Pietist mission work and the printing press became key factors in the creation of written Greenlandic (an Inuit language) in the mid-eighteenth century. In the eastern part of the Nordic region, Swedish was the dominant language. For most of the early modern period the Swedish crown controlled Finland, and the majority of books for the Swedish and the Finnish book markets (also books in Finnish, a language unrelated to the Scandinavian languages) were printed in Stockholm. In the northern parts of the Scandinavian peninsula, Sami languages were spoken by the Sami people living on the borders of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.1 Not only language tied the Nordic countries together. The ways in which book culture had been introduced and developed in the course of the Middle Ages were very similar, and the same applies for the advent of the printing press and for the Lutheran reformations. In Denmark, where popular support for the Evangelical ideas was most noticeable, a distinctly Lutheran reformation was established in 1537, and despite being predominantly Catholic, Norway had to abide by the dictates of the Danish crown. In Sweden, a Protestant reformation was much slower in prevailing, and not until 1593 was the Swedish church unequivocally confirmed as Lutheran. Despite these differences in the manner and speed of its introduction, Lutheranism had become firmly established in Scandinavia by the early seventeenth century.2 Other variations were related to geography and patterns of settlement: The western parts, not least Iceland, the west coast of Norway and to some extent Denmark, were in close contact with the British Isles during the Middle Ages, and this had stimulated the development of manuscript culture, especially in Iceland. Connections to Germany, in relation to commerce and church and therefore to culture at large, were manifold throughout centuries, but were not equally strong across the region. And in all countries, clear social and cultural differences can be observed between 1

See Appel and Skovgaard-Petersen, “The Book”, for an outline of the history of book production and book trade in the Nordic region, with further references. 2 Grell, Scandinavian Reformation; Asche, Zeitalter der Reformation.

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educated groups in the cities and larger (coastal) market towns, on the one hand, and rural communities, especially far inland, on the other. Such variations must be borne in mind when dealing with the development of religious reading in the Nordic region. The articles of this anthology will therefore transport the reader to specific times and places in early modern Scandinavia in order to shed light on different aspects of the phenomenon. For a few more pages, however, it may be well worth the reader’s while to take in a bird’s-eye view of the landscape of books and literacy in the North (even if the picture will, inevitably, be rather coarsegrained). Various reasons are also identified that explain why religious reading played such an important role in early modern Scandinavia, and why it invites further investigation.

The preponderance of religious books In the Nordic region, as in Europe in general, medieval book culture had been profoundly shaped by the church, although the late Middle Ages witnessed the spreading of writing and manuscripts to most parts of society. Especially after the introduction of the printing press, the world of books expanded further – quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Printed matter came out in hundreds and sometimes thousands of copies, and the most popular titles in the vernacular appeared in numerous editions. A variety of genres were represented, and no end of topics covered in print. Different formats and lay-outs were applied, depending on genre and expected readership. In places where books had traditionally been collected and used, the libraries that existed in churches, at courts and in manor houses expanded even further. However, in the course of the sixteenth and certainly the seventeenth centuries, printed books also found their way into private Scandinavian households, especially in towns, but gradually in rural settings, too. Nordic clergymen knew Latin, of course, and were part of an international learned culture based on that language. They had learnt Latin from an early age and often continued to read and acquire Latin books. Probate inventories (registers of possession, made after death) allow us to trace patterns of clerical reading culture, and they testify that Scandinavian clergymen also read books in other European languages, notably German. Nevertheless, the majority of books produced, sold and disseminated throughout the Nordic region from the mid-seventeenth century onwards (if not before) were books in the vernacular. Right up until around 1700, the number of titles in Latin would keep up with the total number of new Scandinavian titles published in the Nordic countries. However, when it

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Introduction

comes to the total number of books leaving the printing presses, vernacular publications reigned supreme. Books and pamphlets in the Nordic languages (often translated into Danish or Swedish from Latin or German; languages that men with a privileged background knew) were clearly intended for a wider audience, or for “the common man”, as was frequently stated on the title pages or in the prefaces. Moreover, some books were explicitly published for the increasing number of women who had learnt how to read, though only in their mother tongues. Religious books in the vernacular dominated the stocks of print shops and bookbinder’s workshops. There are many reasons for this predominance, one being the range of direct and indirect subsidies from church and state. These might, for instance, be conferred to initiate a range of religious publications (such as Bible translations and hymn books), to reward clergymen who were active in religious publishing, or to grant privileges to cooperative printers and booksellers. It is important to bear in mind, however, that book markets were essentially commercial, as elsewhere in Europe. Printers and booksellers published and disseminated books that they thought would sell. Despite similarities, conditions were not identical across the European book markets. Books produced in Latin, German and French, and to some extent Italian, English or Dutch, had many potential buyers and could usually be sold in more than one country. Books in these languages were international commodities and could travel over long distances (as can be demonstrated, for instance, when inspecting libraries collected by Scandinavian noblemen or clerics, which were often very international). In contrast, books printed in the Scandinavian languages had a far more limited market. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all books intended for the Danish-Norwegian book market were produced in Copenhagen, where the censorship authorities were based. And, similarly, the printing presses in Stockholm, joined by a few minor presses in other Swedish and Finnish towns, supplied the market for books in Swedish and Finnish. Compared to the more complex situation in other parts of Europe there was a fairly straightforward relationship between supply and demand. Printers and publishers had to target their market with care, because they could not sell their goods anywhere else. Scandinavian book buyers could still pick and choose, albeit within a fairly limited range of titles in the vernacular. Apart from a very small number of Swedish and Danish imprints from Lübeck and Rostock, all books for the Nordic book markets were printed within the linguistic, national, and confessional boundaries of the Scandinavian kingdoms. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, structures of printing and publication began to change,

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with many more provincial presses supplying local markets and censorship authorities being weakened, although the same linguistic barriers still applied. Little wonder, then, that many publishers in both Copenhagen and Stockholm concentrated on a standard repertoire of bestsellers and, especially, “steady sellers.” Many of these were well-established religious books, which were used in schools and churches and also for private devotion: Luther’s catechisms, prayer and hymn books and popular devotional titles by the likes of Philipp Kegel and Johann Arndt. During the eighteenth century a range of new titles, mainly by Pietist authors, established themselves as “new classics.” A fair number of books on more secular subjects appeared as well. From the earliest arrival of the printing press, small, entertaining stories as known from the European bibliothèque bleue had been published, along with almanacs, medical books, and (at least from the early seventeenth century) a selection of practical manuals on cooking, fishing, bee-keeping, and so on. We shall never know the exact figures for what was once published, and the extant copies of these often unpretentious books are clearly not representative of their original share of the book supply. Nevertheless, private inventories and registers of printers’ and publishers’ stocks seem to confirm the general picture: Most editions, and particularly most large editions, on the Scandinavian book markets, with the almanac as the single very obvious exception, were religious books in the vernacular. They appeared in all shapes and sizes, particularly in the inexpensive and widely sold small formats: the octavo, the duodecimo and even smaller sizes. Despite the importance of such books (also) to clergymen, resulting in a presumably high rate of preservation, bibliographical analyses confirm the existence of numerous editions that are now lost. As remarked by a Danish scholar commenting on seventeenth-century Danish hymn books: “One gets a confusing impression of being confronted with scattered pieces of wreckage driven ashore; remnants of a mighty fleet now lost.”3 The dominance of religious books was no doubt more pronounced, relatively speaking, in rural areas compared to towns, and in the peripheral regions of the Nordic countries compared to the capitals of Copenhagen and Stockholm. Here, and in larger towns such as Bergen and Elsinore, supplies of reading material were fairly varied, not least thanks to the presence of foreign booksellers. Frequently readers would also bring books home when returning from travels abroad, and books could be 3 “man (faar) et forvirret Indtryk af at staa over for enkelte ilanddrevne Vragstumper af en stor forsvunden Flaade.” Severinsen, “Salmebøger”, 619.

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Introduction

imported directly by collectors. In most cathedral cities it was also possible to obtain a relatively wide selection of reading matter. This meant that keen book buyers were able to acquire a variety of books, almost no matter where they lived. But in general, only limited selections of books were transported inland, especially where ships could not go. Peddlers carried only small stocks of titles, and it is hardly a coincidence that some of the same titles appear again and again, for instance in small private libraries belonging to Norwegian peasants from the eighteenth century. Accordingly, for many people in the Nordic region the world of books was primarily a world of religious books. Yet the fact that most reading matter dealt with religion does not in itself explain why it may be appropriate to introduce a special concept of “religious reading.” Readers who read books about certain topics do not automatically belong to a separate reading culture. In early modern Scandinavia, however, there are many indications that the acquisition of literacy skills and a familiarity with books took place in, and were profoundly influenced by, religious environments that focused on a limited selection of religious texts. For major areas, and for long periods of time, it is possible to identify “interpretive communities” as well as more specific “textual communities” in the Lutheran North.4

Literacy – levels and varieties Across early modern Europe the process of learning to read and write was often closely connected to the church, as it had been in the Middle Ages. This was certainly the case in the Protestant North. Following the Lutheran reformations, properties belonging to the Church, including clerical schools, were taken over by the Crown in each individual country. Urban grammar schools were regulated in detail and frequently inspected by deans and bishops, one significant reason being that this was where future members of the clergy were instructed in Martin Luther’s small and large catechisms and received their initial training in Latin. The schools also played an important role as institutions that took care of poor children and orphans.5 4 The concept of “interpretive communities” goes back to Stanley Fish, Is There a Text. For a discussion about the contrast to “textual communities”, see Lindmark, Reading, Writing, 219–23. 5 The following outline is mainly based on research by Appel and Markussen (on Denmark), Johansson and Lindmark (on Sweden), Fet and Tveit (on Norway). An important, but no longer quite up-to-date Nordic survey, also covering Iceland, is Guttormsson, “The Development”.

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Schooling was never confined to these grammar schools, however, which were only attended by a small proportion of boys, primarily from towns and from clerical and some noble families. Basic reading skills were most often taught in more informal settings (and it can be shown that before entering a grammar school, many boys had received reading instruction elsewhere). In Denmark elementary teaching was often organized, fully or partly, by the Church. Especially from the 1620s onwards a variety of contemporary sources testify that many members of the lower clergy instructed children in reading as a way to better prepare them for the most important thing: The learning (by heart) of Luther’s catechism. Evidence of other set-ups can be found, too, such as peasants collectively providing board and lodging on a rotating basis, or paying a local schoolmaster a fixed amount per child to teach in a rented room or in his own house. Obviously, such informal teaching did not leave many archival traces behind, and especially instruction in private homes, when parents taught their own children, is difficult to document. Nevertheless, incidental information found in church registers and other sources gives the impression that in all rural and urban parishes some schooling was provided from the late seventeenth century, and in most places long before. And whether the teacher was a cleric or not, the local pastor would test the skills of all young people, as boys and girls had to demonstrate a satisfactory knowledge of Luther’s catechism before gaining access to Holy Communion, thereby obtaining full adult membership status, not only in church matters, but in society as such (including the right to betrothal and to lease a farm). In rural Norway and Sweden, where distances within parishes were often considerable and settlements scattered, home instruction by parents seems to have been particularly widespread. The Swedish Church Law of 1686 explicitly made the head of each household responsible for elementary teaching, and also gave the pastors a supervisory duty to ensure that their parishioners lived up to these demands. Literate laymen could be found long before this date and in Sweden, as in Denmark, there are clear indications of rising numbers of readers throughout the seventeenth century. At any rate, this development seemed to be accelerated by the “reading campaign” that came in the wake of the 1686 legislation. Church examination registers (husforhörslängder), where pastors wrote down their yearly assessments of the literacy and the “catechism knowledge” of all individuals in their parishes, testify that increasing numbers learned to read and acquired this skill before they embarked on systematic rote-learning. In mid-eighteenth-century Sweden – a traditional rural society with only negligible traces of modernization –

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Introduction

approximately 90 per cent of all parishioners, men as well as women, were registered as capable of reading.6 The registers also bear witness to the actual process of change (which naturally did not take place everywhere at exactly the same time or at the same speed). In the seventeenth century, a number of elderly people were still described as illiterate, though with some knowledge of the catechism. Young children, on the other hand, were increasingly reported as being able to read, whereas they had only just begun to learn the catechism by heart. New generations were clearly being brought up with new patterns of teaching, and three consecutive stages of learning took shape, often stipulated in contemporary sources: First actual book-reading, then rote-learning, and finally understanding. In Sweden, rural schools did not become widespread until the early nineteenth century, and it was only in 1842 that a central ordinance prescribed compulsory schooling for all children. In Denmark, as pointed out above, it had been relatively more common to organize proper schools, also in the countryside, not least because the majority of the rural population lived in villages. Central legislation prescribed the organization of schools in all Danish and Norwegian parishes in 1739 (following up on the Confirmation Ordinance from 1736), but these ambitions soon had to be modified. Ambulatory schools were still allowed and became (or rather: remained) the predominant form of schooling in Norway. So despite variations, it was a common feature in the Nordic region that the dissemination of reading skills was not dependent on formal schooling.7 Even so, everywhere the Church, increasingly supported by central legislation, can be seen to have played an active part in creating a population of readers. Another common Scandinavian denominator was the fact that reading and writing were most often taught separately and were regarded as two different activities. The Swedish pastors were interested in promoting reading, or to be more precise: in promoting the ability to read printed books, first and foremost the catechism, in the vernacular – and so this was the ability they registered in their protocols. Some of them commented on writing, too, and such cases confirm, along with other contemporary sources, that far fewer could write. And while women were just as competent readers as men (in some cases even marginally better, according to the church registers), relatively few women had been trained to write themselves. In Denmark and Norway similar patterns can be 6

Johansson, History of Literacy. In Denmark new and more ambitious educational ordinances from the year 1814 (requiring a minimum of seven years’ teaching for all children, though not necessarily in a school) replaced the legislation from 1739.

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Books, Literacy, and Religious Reading in the Lutheran North

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documented, and when parish schools were formally prescribed in 1739, reading and Christian instruction were stipulated as the overriding goals, whereas writing and arithmetic were optional and had to be paid for by the parents. Accordingly, while the Church and, later, the State could be seen to “push” for the spreading of reading in society, to a much greater extent the dissemination of writing was left to “pull factors”, meaning a demand among people, specifically parents, who were prepared to invest money in order to ensure that their children, especially their sons, acquired this useful skill.8 Seen against this background it is hardly surprising that the Scandinavian languages have no single word corresponding to “literacy.” Instead two separate words are used to describe the ability to read and the ability to write: leskunnighet and skrivkunnighet in Swedish, læsefærdighed and skrivefærdighed in Danish (corresponding to Lesfähigkeit and Schreibfähigkeit in German).

From literacy to reading cultures Whereas long traditions of studies into the history of books and libraries and into the history of schools can be found in all Nordic countries, systematic research into literacy in a historical context is a more recent phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Swedish historian Egil Johansson began to publish the results of his investigations into the patterns of literacy rates in early modern Sweden. These findings (on which much of the outline given above is based) attracted considerable attention, also internationally.9 They appeared at a time of great interest in the processes and patterns of literacy, particularly because several theories had established close links between high literacy rates and the processes of modernization. Johansson’s picture of a rural, pre-industrial, but literate population became an important corrective to such theories. In a Nordic context Johansson’s findings also provided important inspiration, particularly in connection with a conference for Nordic historians in 1981. Here, for the first time, historical literacy was placed on the agenda, causing historians from neighbouring countries to take stock 8 The concepts of “push” and “pull” in relation to literacy were introduced by Johansson, History of Literacy. 9 Johansson’s most important publication, The History of Literacy in Sweden, reached a wide audience when included as an article in Graff, Literacy and Social Development, in 1981. An outline of Johansson’s background, methodologies and seminal influence on Swedish research into literacy and education is found in Lindmark, “Four Decades”.

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Introduction

of national research into the topic and in several cases leading to new research.10 Some of Johansson’s peers reacted with scepticism and pointed to the fact that not only had early modern pastors been prone to exaggerate the performance of their parishioners, but the whole phenomenon of literacy had been misunderstood. What Johansson had found was not a real, full or functional literacy, but only a restricted “religious literacy.”11 The Swedish children had been given printed books with words they already knew from Luther’s Small Catechism. In effect, they had simply recognized and reproduced rather than read the printed words. A similar sceptical line of argument was followed, for instance, in connection with studies into eighteenth-century missionary work in Greenland, where it was claimed that the Greenlanders were only “parroting” the texts presented to them.12 Most scholars exploring the history of Scandinavian literacy and book culture have, however, confirmed and in numerous ways supplemented and qualified Johansson’s findings. And whereas “the Swedish case” tended to be referred to as a unique exception, recent publications from Danish and Norwegian scholars show that the widespread ability to read printed books in the vernacular was a general trend throughout the Lutheran North.13 Important inspiration from new international research into literacy, and from general trends in histoire du livre and the new cultural history from the early 1990s and onwards, contributed to placing studies of literacy in broader and at the same time more specific historical contexts. In contrast to the situation in the 1970s and 1980s – when literacy was often regarded as a specific skill that people either possessed or did not possess, and which bestowed a range of more or less predefined capabilities and resources upon its owner – most scholars began to recognize that literacy and reading could be many different things. The activities of reading should not be separated from their cultural setting. Therefore the challenge was to try to understand literacy and reading in a historical context rather 10

Publications from this conference in Jyväskylä, Finland, in Jokipii and Nummela, Ur nordisk kulturhistoria. In 1984, at the subsequent Nordic conference, the topic of elementary writing was pursued, see Skovgaard-Petersen, Da menigmand. A few English articles presenting this research were published in Scandinavian Journal of History 15 (1990). 11 This concept was introduced by Guttormsson, “The Development”, 8. 12 Gad, “Læse- og skrivekyndigheden”, 28. 13 For Sweden, see Lindmark, “Four Decades”, and the extensive bibliography in Graff et al., Understanding Literacy. For Denmark, see Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, and Horstbøll, Menigmands medie. For Norway, see Fet, Lesande bønder and Skrivande bønder.

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than measuring it on a scale of (degrees of) “genuine” literacy. For the same reason, literacy has increasingly been treated as an integrated dimension of cultural studies, rather than as a topic in its own right. Practices of reading have seemed more interesting than literacy levels as such. Several aspects deserve attention when reading cultures are being investigated. Daniel Lindmark has suggested that the following should be considered: 1) the content of reading, 2) the organization of reading, 3) the aim of reading, and 4) the function of reading.14 Perhaps the teaching of reading could be added as an important fifth aspect in its own right, because initial instruction practices may be crucial in shaping reading practices. Furthermore, the interaction between reading and other media should constantly be taken into account, meaning the ways in which auditory and visual aids supported (but in some situations possibly substituted or even rendered superfluous) the communication tied to letters and printed pages. The Lutheran North provides an intriguing framework for scholars interested in investigating the development of early modern reading cultures. Varieties and differences, notably relating to social background, education and gender, can be identified everywhere, but continuities and similarities across time and space are also clearly evident, not least the persisting focus on Luther’s Small Catechism as the cornerstone of religious reading. Some general changes are striking, too, when looking at the entire early modern period. In many post-Reformation Scandinavian households a limited number of books had been available and only the male head of the household had been able to read. Two centuries later this situation had shifted in many places. Now both men and women were often literate, and many more genres and titles were available to ordinary readers. What is more, groups of laymen formed such confident reading or interpretive communities that some of them dared to challenge those who were not only their social superiors, but also theological experts.

The present anthology In this volume we have the pleasure of publishing eight articles on aspects of religious reading in the Nordic countries. The contributions cover developments spanning close to three hundred years (from the midsixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries) in different parts of the region: 14

See Lindmark’s essay “Interpreting Religious Reading”, in his Reading, Writing, 219. An important aspect, though one which cannot be dealt with here, is the way in which religious reading could take on the function of shaping a specific national identity (among Swedish immigrants in North America).

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Introduction

Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Greenland. They all relate to the world of religious reading, as has been outlined in this introduction, but with varying emphasis. Some articles concentrate on the acts and considerations of (clerical) authors, publishers, teachers, and censoring authorities, while others investigate the practical uses and interpretations of religious literature among different groups of readers.15 In the first article, “Printing and Preaching after the Reformation”, Morten Fink-Jensen takes a close look at the Danish pastor Rasmus Hansen Reravius and his activities as an author and translator of devotional literature. Reravius belonged to the second generation of Lutheran clergymen after the Reformation, and especially the elaborate prefaces in his books allow us to see his ideas of how the “the common man” ought to practice and benefit from religious literature. Preaching could not stand alone, but had to be supplemented by printing, reading and singing. The world of oral communication, particularly through singing, is further opened up by Jon Haarberg in his contribution, “Earways to Heaven.” He traces the somewhat overlooked tradition of singing the contents of the catechism, stretching right from the Reformation century to the first half of the eighteenth century, at which time the “catechism songs” composed by the Norwegian clergyman Peter Dass experienced almost unprecedented popularity. By analyzing the numerous printed editions and the great variety of tunes applied, Haarberg sheds new light on the interaction between oral and written media in everyday teaching and devotional life. The spreading in society of the skill to read printed books became an important concern among clergymen in seventeenth century Denmark. In “Printed in Books, Imprinted on Minds”, Charlotte Appel gives an outline of such “catechism policies” and analyses the efforts of two clergymen who tried to take rising literacy standards into account when composing religious literature. She argues that Luther’s Small Catechism was highly influential, not only in its own right, as the children’s first proper book,

15

The idea behind this anthology goes back to a Nordic conference on international print culture, “Published words, public pages”, which was organized by SHARP (The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing) in Copenhagen on 10–12 September 2008. A triple session with a total of eight papers on “Religious Reading in the Nordic countries” was arranged in order to present recent research to an international audience. This seemed especially important given the fact that the majority of scholarly work in this field is still being published in the Scandinavian languages.

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but also because it profoundly shaped expectations as to how a book ought to be composed. The question of what clergymen themselves were likely to read is bound to be a key to understanding the world of books and reading in the Lutheran North. Gina Dahl unlocks the door to seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century book collections of Norwegian clergymen, demonstrating that they contained “Much More than Luther”, as her contribution is entitled. An overwhelming number of different authors in German and other languages were represented, and even though most titles were clearly written by Lutheran theologians, many clerical libraries also contained books by Calvinist (and even some Catholic) authors. In the fifth contribution, “A Threat to Civic Coexistence”, Ann Öhrberg addresses the emergence of a Moravian reading culture in eighteenth-century Sweden, and discusses how the censuring authorities tried to deal with this phenomenon. She demonstrates how a number of “structural glitches” weakened attempts to control the publication and dissemination of Moravian literature, and how these attempts in some cases may inadvertently have contributed to disseminating and thus strengthening this alternative religious literature. Thorkild Kjærgaard moves the scene to eighteenth-century Greenland in his article “Genesis in the Longhouse.” When Pietists began their missionary work in the 1720s, they did not know the native language, and the Greenlanders had no system of written communication. Meanwhile, this situation changed dramatically within a short span of time. Written Greenlandic was moulded on the Bible, as it was created in the process of translating the Scriptures and a number of other religious texts. Also, whereas pictures were initially the crucial medium applied by the missionary workers, literacy spread rapidly, not so much because of a “push” from above, but due to a strong “pull” from the Greenlandic population. Kjærgaard argues that literacy and Bible reading profoundly influenced and in fact revitalized native culture, including legends, which until recently have been interpreted as expressions of original, purely oral and non-Christian traditions. In his contribution “Memory and Meaning”, Trygve Riiser Gundersen delves into the reading culture of the Haugean revival in Norway around 1800. He accounts for and analyses specific, well-documented incidents of laymen demonstrating their use and understandings of religious books, often in opposition to the interpretations of their pastors. In the process, Gundersen also characterizes the scale of Haugean publishing and the many means of disseminating this type of religious literature. Intensive

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Introduction

religious reading was at the heart of the Haugean movement, with the aim of eventually rendering reading superfluous. Daniel Lindmark’s “Popular Education and Religious Reading in Early Nineteenth-Century Sweden” is the final article in this book. Having outlined three levels of religious instruction, upon which Swedish clergymen seemed to agree, and which were linked to specific books (the ABC, the catechism and the exposition), Lindmark focuses on conditions in Kalmar Diocese in order to explore how religious teaching was organized in a number of parishes, and how different books were used – often for a variety of purposes, as was certainly the case with the Bible. The phenomenon of book rewards, which Lindmark also looks at, was used as a means to reward diligence and also to compensate for poverty. When read together, the contributions to the present anthology will no doubt underscore one of the main arguments in this introduction: That “religious reading” was a complex phenomenon, and that it will often be appropriate to speak about reading cultures in the plural. At the same time certain common features and continuities will also become apparent, especially when comparing developments in the Nordic region with those elsewhere in Europe. The legacy of the Lutheran reformations seems to have created a communal frame of reference across the region and, to some extent, across social groups, promoting a specific curriculum of Protestant texts and specific methods of disseminating, deciphering and understanding them. It may be meaningful after all to speak – though not unreservedly so – of a particular approach to religious reading in the Lutheran North.

CHAPTER ONE PRINTING AND PREACHING AFTER THE REFORMATION: A DANISH PASTOR AND HIS AUDIENCES MORTEN FINK-JENSEN

During the 1520s the Evangelical movement had steadily been gaining momentum in the joint kingdom of Denmark and Norway. However, it was not until after King Christian III’s accession to the throne in 1536 that a reformation of the Church was carried out. This was confirmed by the promulgation of the Church Order of 1537, a document that followed the teachings of Martin Luther very closely. Large parts of the text had been drawn up by Johannes Bugenhagen, who had been sent as a special envoy from Wittenberg to Copenhagen after the Danish king originally requested that Luther himself travel to Denmark to ensure that the proposed Reformation would, indeed, be exemplarily Lutheran.1 The Church Order stressed the critical importance of teaching the very basics of true, that is Lutheran, Christianity to the population at large. This was to be done by way of Luther’s catechism, with the instruction of the “the young, the inexperienced, and the unlettered Christians” being singled out as particularly urgent.2 This duty fell to the pastors and, under their supervision, the parish clerks, and it would remain so for centuries to come. However, leading members of the Church soon realized that this was also a demanding task. In Germany, following his visitation of the parishes of Saxony in the 1520s, Luther polemically claimed that the reformers were, in effect, not charged with reforming a wayward, albeit 1

Outlines of the Reformation in Denmark-Norway can be found in Grell, Scandinavian Reformation, 12–41; Lausten, Church History, 85–120. 2 “the wnge oc wforfarne oc wlerde Christne.” Lausten, Kirkeordinansen, 157. All translations are my own, unless otherwise stated.

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Christian, population, but rather with preaching the very basics of Christianity to a heathen people. As he lamented in the preface to his Small Catechism: The common people, especially those who live in the country, have no knowledge whatsoever of Christian teaching, and unfortunately many pastors are quite incompetent and unfitted for teaching. Although the people are supposed to be Christian, are baptized, and receive the holy sacrament, they do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments, they live as if they were pigs and irrational beasts.3

In the opinion of the Evangelical reformers in Denmark-Norway the situation was hardly any different there. Little wonder that they and their successors in the next generation eventually became somewhat disillusioned as the sixteenth century wore on, with the ideal Biblical society that they had undoubtedly envisaged in the wake of the Reformation remaining elusive. Simply preaching the Gospel from the pulpit and rehearsing the catechism with the parishioners was not enough to create a pious Lutheran society. Additional strategies therefore had to be pursued in order to make the spreading of God’s Word more efficient, and use of the printed media was increasingly applied by a number of Danish theologians in their attempts to reach out to, and exert their influence upon, a wider audience than the devout, whose attention they already commanded. This caused a steady increase in publication activities during the latter half of the sixteenth century, relying mainly on Danish translations and compilations of works by German theologians published earlier in the century. The Church supported and acclaimed these activities, as voiced by Niels Hemmingsen, professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen and by far the most influential theologian in Denmark at the time. In 1573 Hemmingsen hailed these authors and translators as “construction workers on the temple of God”,4 and continued: 3 Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. Vol. II, part four: Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 31. 4 “Guds Tempels bygnings mend.” [Jacob Ulfeldt], Mange deylige Sententzers oc Sprocks, aff den hellige Scrifft, Vdleggelse, huor aff mand kand faa Lærdom oc Trøst, huilcke den værdige Herre D: Martinus Luther haffuer screffuet i sin Bibel oc enfoldige Christne til tieniste, vdsæt paa Danske. Met hederlige oc høylærde Herris D: Niels Hemmingsøns Fortale. Disligeste er her ocsaa indført mange Sprock, som aff andre lærde Mend ere forklarede oc vdlagde (Copenhagen: Mads Vingaard, 1573), Hemmingsen’s foreword, sign. 6 v.

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There is much in the holy Bible which simple folk cannot at once understand, wherefore God bestows on many the gift of being able to interpret Scripture. That is: they can take what is shrouded in darkness in one place and explain it by using what is stated with clarity in another, thus combining several passages to give true learning and understanding.5

According to Hemmingsen, Luther and Melanchthon were unsurpassed in this discipline, but since they were no longer among the living, and because they had only written in German and Latin, which most people in Denmark were unable to read, one had to be grateful for the Danish translators. It was thanks to them and their precious books that the public could learn to tell true Christianity from the many heretical teachings which, as Hemmingsen characteristically put it, flourished with the Devil’s aid as a clear sign of the imminent end of the world.6 In the early 1570s, when Hemmingsen’s influence had reached its nadir, one of his close associates was the clergyman Rasmus Hansen with the Latin byname Reravius. He had studied under Hemmingsen, and while serving as a pastor in the late 1560s on his native island of Lolland in southern Denmark, he began translating edifying literature from German into Danish. By 1571 Rasmus Hansen Reravius had moved to Copenhagen, where he took up the position of chaplain at the Hospital of the Holy Ghost. The year 1577 saw him return to Lolland as pastor in the town of Rødby, where he died in 1582.7 Reravius (as I shall call him for simplicity’s sake) was a tireless “construction worker”, and he continually brought new works to market. He oversaw the publication of at least twenty-five different titles under his own name, and if we include reprints and posthumous editions it roughly triples the total number of prints.8

5 “Thi der er meget i den hellige Scrifft huilcket simpel Folck icke strax kunde forstaa, derfor giffuer Gud mange denne gaffue, at de kunde vdlegge Scrifften, Det er, at de kunde det som mørckelige sigis paa en sted, vdlegge met det som klarlige sigis paa en anden sted, oc føre det tilsammen aff atskillige steder, som kand giffue fuld Lærdom oc forstand.” Ibid., sign. 6 v.–7 r. 6 Ibid., sign. 8 r. 7 His date of birth is unknown; it can only be estimated to sometime between 1525 and 1540. Studies of Rasmus Hansen Reravius and his writings have so far only been available in Danish with the most recent treatment being Appel and FinkJensen, Når det regner på præsten, 23–60. A collection of scattered sources documenting the life of Reravius, and extracts from a selection of his works, are found in Rørdam, “Reravius”. 8 Although not entirely up to date, the best bibliographic overview of Reravius’s works is Ehrencron-Müller, Forfatterlexicon, 6:454–57.

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This impressive output reflects his popularity with the readers, but also his close connections with leading members of the Church as well as with the Copenhagen publishers who commissioned quite a few of Reravius’s works. By the time of his death Reravius headed the field of Danish translators of devotional literature, and he can fairly be ranked alongside contemporaries such as Peder Tidemand and Hans Christensen Sthen as one of the entire sixteenth century’s most important purveyors of popular religious literature in Denmark-Norway. This article takes a look into Reravius’s workroom and shows how, pursuant to the Church Order’s demand to instruct the insufficiently edified Christian population, he conceived of his works as resources the common man (menigmand) could use to gain an understanding of Lutheran Christianity by way of reading. Reravius himself observes as much in the prefaces to his books, where he would describe, often in great detail, how his works had been prepared and come about: who had asked or even hired him to perform a translation, the circumstances behind the request, the purpose of the publication, and its intended readership. These prefaces, some only a few pages long, some longer essays, reveal how different publishing strategies could be pursued in order for an editor, translator, compiler, and author such as Reravius to get his Evangelical message across. Analysed collectively, the prefaces demonstrate Reravius’s media awareness, and show how his publications were very much designed as companions or handbooks for the Christian reader, usually addressing not just one specific topic, but also targeting a well-defined segment of the reading population. This segmentation applied not just to men, women, or children in general, but also to specific members of these groups: The head of the family, the expectant mother, the adolescent, the grieving widow or widower, the person afflicted with illness, the couple preparing for marriage, and so on. Furthermore, this article will highlight how Reravius would adopt an overall tripartite “media strategy” to help him achieve his goal of general progress for Christian knowledge and behaviour. The three elements he advocated were the preaching, the printing, and the singing of the Gospel. On several occasions Reravius quite explicitly formulated this strategy, for instance when, in his preface to Det Gyldene Klenod (The Golden Treasure, 1572), he stressed how absolutely essential it was that the Word of God be advanced in a Christian society “both by preaching, writing, and singing, particularly in times like these near the Day of Judgment.”9 A 9 “Denne lærdom giørs saare fornøden behoff, at driffue i den Christne Menighed, baade met Predicken, Scrifft och Sang, synderlige nu vdi denne tid imod den

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fourth, visual addition to the strategy in the shape of reproductions of Biblical stories could also be implemented. Because of Reravius’s prominent position, studying his works reveals what type of religious literature the official representatives of the Lutheran state church in Denmark were seeking to convey to the common man. And given the apparent popularity of many of his works, they also lend insight into reader preferences when it comes to religious literature in the latter half of the sixteenth century. However, rather than investigating the experiences or abilities of readers of religious literature, this article will primarily study the process of providing these readers with relevant religious literature. This process concerned more than the narrow link between author and reader. Book publication depended on a host of other factors constituting a complex interrelationship of the book market economy, and involving authors, translators, patrons, censors, publishers, printers, booksellers, and readers. Fortunately, Reravius sheds light on this process as well, and this shall be my point of departure.

Working with Hemmingsen An example of how closely Reravius followed in the footsteps of Niels Hemmingsen can be found in the book that his mentor supplied with the laudatory foreword quoted earlier. The book ended with an additional acclamatory poem entitled To the Christian Reader, by a certain “R:H:R”, obviously the initials of Rasmus Hansen Reravius.10 This poem complimented the translator, a devout nobleman named Jacob Ulfeldt, for his efforts, but it was also a sales pitch highlighting the usefulness of the book. Whether the reader was seeking solace from sin, feared death, was troubled by the Devil, suffered from an illness, or was looking for instruction on how to become a true Christian, this book, Reravius promised, would provide the necessary (Biblical) guidance and answers. This particular translator was, of course, by right of birth entitled to flattering poetry, but he was also a man whose patronage might benefit Reravius. Moreover, Danish theologians were always anxious to secure yderste dag.” Christopher Lasius, Det Gyldene Klenod, om det fortaffte Faar, Lucæ i det XV. Capit: Vdlagt oc skickelige forklaret, ved M: Christophorum Lasium. Vdsæt paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hanssøn. Met hederlige oc værdige Herris Philippi Melanthonis Fortale (Copenhagen: Mads Vingaard, 1572), Reravius’s preface, sign. 4 v. The book was a translation of Das güldene Kleinot vom verlornen Schaf, originally published in 1556 by the Spandau pastor Christopher Lasius. 10 “Til den Christne Læsere”. [Ulfeldt], Mange deylige Sententzers (see n. 4), sign. Bb 2 v.–Bb 3 v.

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the politically influential nobility’s support for the Church. Several agendas could therefore lie behind these words of high praise. But even so, such sentiments would have come naturally to Reravius, since they fitted in very well with what he aimed to achieve through his own printed works. The majority of his books aimed at providing the reader with answers to the very questions he had commended Ulfeldt (and ultimately Luther, on whose work Ulfeldt’s book was based) for answering. Reravius accordingly considered himself to be one of God’s construction workers, and worthy of Hemmingsen’s praise. It seems likely that it was his connection with Hemmingsen that led Reravius to move to Copenhagen. It was certainly an unusual career move for a clergyman to give up a position (even a poorly paid one) as pastor to become chaplain at a hospital. Hemmingsen had long been looking for a Danish translator for his postil, a large collection of sermons in Latin first published in Copenhagen in 1561. The war that broke out between Denmark and Sweden in 1563 made it too uncertain – with a serious shortage of paper looming – to take on such a sizeable enterprise, and not until 1570, after the war had ended, was a new attempt made to launch the publication. Reravius was hired to carry out the translation, but it did not appear until 1576 under the title Postilla eller Forklaring offuer Euangelia (Postil, or Exposition of the Gospel). In his preface, however, Reravius gives many details about the protracted genesis of the Danish postil, informing the public that he had begun his work five years earlier. This coincides with Reravius’s move to Copenhagen.11 And upon completing the translation of the postil, Reravius left Copenhagen the following year when he returned to Lolland as the newly appointed pastor in Rødby. Hemmingsen had studied five years in Wittenberg, and after becoming a professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen in 1553 he rapidly gained a large following of students who regarded him as Melanchthon’s 11

Probably around this time, c. 1571, Reravius also issued a translation of three small treatises on witchcraft by Hemmingsen: En Vnderuisning aff den Hellige scrifft, huad mand døme skal om den store oc gruelige Guds bespottelse, som skeer met Troldom, Sinelse, Manelse oc anden saadan Guds hellige Naffns oc Ords vanbrug. Item, 33. Propositiones imod Troldom. Der til 33. Propositiones om Spaadom. Screffuit paa latine, aff hederlig oc høylærdt Herre D. Niels Hemmingsøn. Oc udsæt paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hansøn (n.p., n.d.). The first edition is not extant, and the preserved, undated reprint (from the early seventeenth century) has done away with the part of the preface that was undoubtedly included in the original, and which would have contained information about the circumstances surrounding the translation. It is not inconceivable, though, that this was a specimen translation done prior to Reravius’s engagement to translate the postil.

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Danish counterpart. Like Melanchthon, Hemmingsen was held in high esteem throughout much of Northern and Western Europe, and according to one assessment he “may well have been the most notable personality in that [the sixteenth] century within ecclesiastical and cultural life in the whole Protestant world.”12 Even if this statement may seem too bold, it is certainly true that his influence in the Lutheran North was extraordinary. Prior to Reravius’s translation of Hemmingsen’s postil, a German translation was published in Leipzig in 1561, and the following year the Latin edition was also issued in Germany. Both the German and the Latin versions were subsequently printed in more than twenty-five different editions across Germany before 1590. An English translation of the postil appeared in London in 1569 with several subsequent reprints.13 Other books by Hemmingsen enjoyed an equally wide distribution; a testament to his international fame. But Hemmingsen’s repute also brought his downfall. When, in 1574, theologians in Saxony invoked Hemmingsen’s authority in an attempt to ward off accusations of crypto-Calvinism from their Gnesio-Lutheran counterparts, an international crisis threatened. The Elector of Saxony put considerable pressure on King Frederik II of Denmark, and Hemmingsen was forced to retract his exposition on the Eucharist. With their author branded as a Calvinist in disguise, books by Hemmingsen began to leave the printing presses of Calvinist Geneva, and eventually, in 1579, he was suspended from his chair at the University of Copenhagen.14 By then Reravius had already left the Danish capital, and he appears to have been unscathed by Hemmingsen’s fate. Hemmingsen’s suspension also did little to diminish his influence, since his many pupils populated offices both high and low in the Church. However, while working with Hemmingsen, Reravius did appear to have been very well aware of the precarious situation, and he tried to avoid being drawn into the debate surrounding his mentor. As a safety measure Reravius dedicated the postil to Christopher Valkendorf, the highly influential seneschal (rigshofmester), in the hope that Valkendorf “as a patron and guardian [would] afford the book protection, and defend it from envious and vicious people and deriders.”15 Even if the widespread practice of translating 12

Lausten, Church History, 122. Ehrencron-Müller, Forfatterlexicon, 4:8–9. 14 Thorkild Lyby and Ole Peter Grell, “The consolidation of Lutheranism in Denmark and Norway”. Grell, Scandinavian Reformation, 120–22. 15 “som en Patron oc Forsuar, vil saadant Arbeyde tage vdi sin beskytning, oc det imod affuendsiuge oc vanartige Menniske oc Bespaattere forsuare.” Niels Hemmingsen, Postilla eller Forklaring offuer Euangelia, som almindelige om 13

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foreign (mostly German) religious literature in early modern Denmark, as opposed to composing original material, can be seen as a precautionary measure, it did not protect the translator from criticism. The great demand for works by Hemmingsen underlines the Danish theologian’s commercial value. When Reravius summarized the history of the postil, he attested to the book’s good fortune in Germany, where “there have been sold many thousand copies.”16 It was the German publisher Baltzer Kaus who had financed the publication of the Latin postil in 1561, and in all probability he had made a profit from the venture.17 Hoping to repeat the sales success, Kaus was willing to take on the enterprise of publishing the Danish translation at his own financial risk. According to Hemmingsen, Kaus then joined forces with Reravius, who accepted the job as translator after both Kaus and Hemmingsen had offered it to him.18 Reravius tells the story a little differently. In his version, Hemmingsen had quite simply ordered him in 1571 to perform the translation.19 This would Søndage oc andre Hellige dage, predickis i den christne Kircke, vdi Danmarck oc Norge: Først screffuen paa Latine, Oc nu paa det ny offuerseet, oc merckelige forbedret aff Niels Hemmingsen, D: Alle Gudfryctige Christne i Husholdning, Husbonder oc Hustruer, Oc alle andre, som Danskt Tungemaal forstaa kunde, til villie oc tieniste, vdsæt paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hanssøn R: (Copenhagen: Andreas Gutterwitz and Hans Stockelmand’s heirs, 1576), Reravius’s preface, sign. 5 v.–6 r. 16 “oc er saalt der aff mange tusinde Exemplaria.” Hemmingsen, Postilla (see n. 15), Reravius’s preface, sign. 4 v. 17 The draft bill for a revised Church Order of 1561 stipulated that all pastors should own certain books, among them the Bible, Luther’s Small Cathechism, the Loci by Melanchthon, and Hemmingsen’s postil, see Confessio et Ordinatio Ecclesiarum Danicarum Anno MDLXI conscriptae. Den danske Kirkes Lærebekendelse og Kirkeordinans af Aar 1561, ed. Bjørn Kornerup (Copenhagen: Gad, 1953), 123. Although the bill never came into force, it shows that King and Church believed the postil to be indispensable to all pastors, and many of them will probably have been recommended by their superiors (or have felt obliged) to buy the book. 18 “Baltzer Kaus, Borgere oc Bogførere i Kiøbenhaffn, tog sig for, at ville paa sin Bekaastning, lade den prente her vdi Riget … Derfaare giorde hand forening met Erlig oc vellært Mand, her Rasmus Hanssøn, Rerauius, Predickere her i Kiøbenhaffn, at hand vilde samme Postilla vdsætte paa Danske, huilcket hand effter forneffnde Baltzer Kausis oc min begering, tog sig for Hender.” Hemmingsen, Postilla (see n. 15), Hemmingsens’s preface, sign. 2 r.–2 v. 19 “forneffnde Her Doctor befol mig nu paa femte Aar siden, at ieg den skulde vdsætte paa Danske.” Hemmingsen, Postilla (see n. 15), Reravius’s preface, sign. 4 v. Reravius reiterated in 1580 that Hemmingsen had “ordered” him to translate the postil: “min gunstige Herris oc Præceptoris D: Niels Hemmingsøns Postilla,

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seem to imply that Reravius considered himself almost an employee of Hemmingsen, who was otherwise in no position to demand his services outright. Reravius would normally speak of a benefactor or patron who asked or wished for, but did not order, a book to be published.20 Be that as it may, the publication of the Postil, and the introductory words of both Hemmingsen and Reravius, reveal much about the close working relationship between authors, translators, publishers, and printers in sixteenth-century Denmark. Hemmingsen informs us that Kaus, who also ran a publishing business in Germany, promised to have the book printed in Copenhagen so that Hemmingsen might oversee the process on a daily basis.21 Perhaps this also called for Reravius’s presence in Copenhagen, the more so as Hemmingsen supplied him with handwritten additions and revisions of the Latin sermons, which Reravius then had to translate and incorporate into the original text. Reravius is likely to have served as the link between the publisher, the printer, and Hemmingsen. Reravius probably supervised the printing, too, and he definitely did the final proof-reading. He states as much in the postil, where in a remarkable afterword (signed R. H. R.) he takes a swipe at the printer’s inaccuracy. Once again addressing “the Christian reader”, he laments the arduous task of proof-reading, recalling the Greek myth of the giant Argos, who although his head and face were beset with eyes, remained unable to spot the deceiver who eventually slew him. This only goes to show, Reravius says, that one can never be so accurate in one’s work as to avoid errors completely, and that this is more true of the proof reader than of anyone else. He therefore apologizes if he has been unsuccessful in his attempt to eliminate mistakes, but says that this was hardly made easier by the print-shop assistants. They were not always particularly meticulous when transferring the letters from the manuscripts they had before them to the founts of the printing press, “especially”, as he wryly remarked, “when they do not understand the language.”22 Here som ieg effter hans befalning vdsætte.” Michael Bock, Sorgefulde oc bedrøffuede Hierters Vrtegaard, i huilcken der findis mange suale oc velluctendis Vrter, ympede aff HERrens Paradis, saare trøstelige i all Siugdom oc Modgang. Vdsæt paa Danske Aff Rasmus Hanssøn R. (Copenhagen: Andreas Gutterwitz, 1580), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 10 r.–v. 20 Besides Hemmingsen, only the bishop Poul Madsen, who was in fact Reravius’s clerical superior, is referred to as a master who orders Reravius to do things (see below). 21 Hemmingsen, Postilla (see n. 15), Hemmingsen’s preface, sign. 2 r.–2 v. 22 “Thi det er neppelige mueligt, at nogen Corrector skal kunde see saa flitelige til, at der io skal stundem komme nogle vildelser, Huilcket oc tit oc offte der aff kommer, at mand i Prenteriet icke grandgibelige giffuer act paa oc indsætter, huad

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Reravius hinted at the problems that could arise when Copenhagen printers hired journeymen, especially from Germany, to work in their shops. These assistants could not be expected to have any knowledge of Danish, and one can imagine how, when dealing with manuscripts in that language, they must have often been tempted to simply guess at the lettering of a word that was impossible for them to decipher. The fact that Reravius was able to have the printer include such a message can be seen as a subtle way of underlining his point, or perhaps it was the printer’s way of making amends. The translation of the Postil was Reravius’s sole, albeit important, contribution to the publishing of sermons. Having worked as a pastor and chaplain for almost twenty years he must have done his fair share of preaching, and yet he never sought to publish any of his own sermons.

The career path of a pastor Quite apart from Reravius’s obligations towards Hemmingsen, the pastor’s relocation to Copenhagen enabled him to maintain close ties with the Danish book-publishing world. From 1562 – and throughout Reravius’s lifetime – Copenhagen was, by law, the only city in the kingdom of Denmark and Norway where the printing of books was allowed, and in the city only two or three printers would actually be operating at any given time. In Reravius’s day the printers in Denmark were all Germans (or at least German-speaking), the most prominent being Lorentz Benedicht, Mads Vingaard, and Andreas Gutterwitz. Even the leading publisher, Baltzer Kaus, was a native of Germany who had later become a citizen of Copenhagen. Reravius worked closely with all four men, and his publications were roughly divided evenly between the three printers. Being in close proximity to the print shops, he could instantly offer his services to a printer/publisher looking for a translator for a text that was to be put on the Danish market. Furthermore, in Copenhagen he was also in a better position to attract customers searching for someone to translate or write books that were to be marketed as a private enterprise. And as his reputation grew, noblemen and affluent citizens would seek him out with commissions to translate particular texts. On average, Reravius was able to put out about three titles every year, and all works bore dedications to members of the nobility or distinguished commoners. In 1574 Reravius dedicated a book to King Frederik II, in der tegnis oc scriffuis for dem, besynderlige naar de icke forstaa sig paa Tungemaalet.” Ibid., sign. SS 7 r.

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recognition of which the majesty awarded him 100 mark, approximately equal to Reravius’s yearly salary as a chaplain. Although others were presumably less generous than the King, it is very likely that Reravius’s main source of income was, in fact, his sideline as a man of letters. The printers would also have remunerated him in those instances where they themselves had commissioned him to translate a specific text, to compose a verse or a psalm to accompany the work of another author (as in Ulfeldt’s book), or to review a manuscript before it was printed – something Reravius had already done early in his career when he read the proofs of Peder Tidemand’s Huspostil (a Danish translation of Luther’s Hauspostille) prior to its publication in 1564.23 Practically all books published were marketed with an eye to making a profit. Reravius must have been acutely aware of this fact, but that does not necessarily mean that in all instances his books were in demand, or a sought-after commodity. The early modern system of patronage effectively meant that some books were subsidized, which undoubtedly also pertains to several of Reravius’s publications. When members of the nobility took the initiative to have devotional literature or funeral sermons published, they covered the expenses of the printer and also compensated the translator or author for his labour. The readers were usually not initiated into these matters. However, on one occasion, in 1574, Reravius did frankly state that the book’s noble patrons had paid for its translation and printing.24 No doubt, someone like the noblewoman Edel Hardenberg also covered all expenses when she not only commissioned Reravius to translate her preferred book (the Tröstbüchlin aus Gottes Wort from 1552 by the Leipzig theologian Johann Pfeffinger) but, anxious to speed up the publication process, even went so far as to personally contact the bishop of Zealand to obtain the required printing license.25 23

Reravius tells of this in his preface to Vnge Karlis oc Drengis Speiel. The part of the preface containing this information is reprinted in Rørdam, “Reravius”, 33. 24 Martin Luther, Formaning til vor HERRE Jesu Christi Legemis oc Blods Sacramente. Martinus Luther. Vdsæt paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hanssøn Rerauius (Copenhagen: Mads Vingaard, 1574), Reravius’s preface, sign. 8 r. 25 Johann Pfeffinger, En trøstebog aff Guds ord, vdi atskillig suare fristelser oc Hierte sorge, som paa det næste effterfølgendis Blad opregnis, Sammen screffuen aff Johan Pfeffinger D. Vdsæt paa Danske aff Rasmus Hanssøn R. (Copenhagen: Mads Vingaard, 1577), Reravius’s preface, sign. 6 r. In several of his prefaces Reravius noted that his books had passed censorship approval. One example is the preface to Det Gyldene Klenod (see n. 9), Reravius’s preface, sign. [A] 5 r., where he writes that the book was published “with the license and consent of those who are entrusted to rule in these matters” (“met deris beuilling oc samtycke, som ere til betrode at raade vdi saadanne Sager”).

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Among the many details Reravius gives in his prefaces, one recurring feature is an explanation of who requested the work, and why. Several times he tells his readers how a translation has been commissioned by a printer, as was the case with Oeconomia, done after an order was placed with him in 1569 by Lorentz Benedicht (to whom Reravius was, in fact, related).26 Quite often the printers had been commissioned first. In his preface to Den Christelige Ridder (The Christian Knight, 1568/1569), a translation of Vom Christlichen Ritter (1545) by the Württemberg bishop Caspar Huber, Reravius informs us that Hans Skovgaard, a high-ranking nobleman in the Danish chancellery, had contacted Benedicht the printer because he wanted him to publish the book “beautifully” in both German and Danish, and “in good, clear print”, thereby making the book attractive to its readers, compelling them to read in it frequently.27 Reravius also claims to know why the nobleman, to whom he directed his dedication, wanted the book translation published in the first place: mainly as a way of reaching a purely Danish-speaking audience (in this case, young people in particular) that might otherwise be barred from experiencing its godly content: My dear Hans Skovgaard, because I know and in truth have found out how Your Lordship has always had a Christian desire and aspiration for this 26 Johann Mathesius, Oeconomia eller Vnderuisning Huorledis en Husfader skal skicke sig, Tilsammen screffuen ved M: Johannem Matthesium predicker vdi S. Jochimsdal. Vdset paa Danske Rim aff Rasmus Hanssen. R., (Copenhagen: Lorentz Benedicht, n.d.), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 2 r. The preface is dated 29 July 1569 by Reravius, but the oldest extant copy was printed in 1571, cf. Lauritz Nielsen, Boghistoriske Studier til dansk Bibliografi 1550–1600 (Copenhagen, Forening for Boghaandværk: 1923), 100. 27 “at hand samme Bog vilde skickeligen trycke, baade paa Danske og Tydske met god reen stil”, Caspar Huber, Den Christelige Ridder. En Vnderlig Kamp oc Strid, i huilcken en Euangelisk Christen anfectis aff de grumme Helffuedis Bester: Oc huorledis den hellig Aand der imod met sine Gaffuer oc Dyder, trøster oc styrcker den samme Christen, oc paa det siste endelige opholder hannem vdi Krigen. Ved Casparum Huberinum. Vdset paa Danske, ved Erasmum Rerauium Toropium (Copenhagen: Lorentz Benedicht, n.d.), Reravius’s preface, sign. c 3 v. The preface is dated 2 July 1568, which would seem to imply that the book was first printed in that year. This could correspond to an extant edition issued by Benedicht that bears no date. Another edition was issued in 1569, and from that year the edition in German, to which Reravius alluded, is also extant: Der Christliche Ritter. Ein wunderbarlicher kampff der hellischen Bestien, wider einen Euangelischen Christen. Vnd wie dagegen der heilige Geist, mit seinen Gaben vnd Tugenden, solchen Christen tröstet, stercket, vnd endtlich im streit erhelt, Durch Casparum Huberinum (Copenhagen: Lorentz Benedicht, 1569).

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book, and that it might be translated into our Danish tongue … so that more Christians could read and learn this book, who either do not understand German or have a greater preference for reading their own Danish tongue, and [thereby] induce young people to read this god-fearing wisdom.28

It was not Skovgaard himself who had asked Reravius to do the translation, but the printer. This also applied to other books Reravius worked on early in his career. In 1574 he even freely admitted having been the second choice as translator: The nobleman Folmer Rosenkrantz and his wife, Margrete Gyldenstierne, wanted a Danish translation done of Luther’s Vermanung zum Sacrament des leibs vnd bluts unsers Herrn (1530). The commission had been given to a man who was better known than Reravius, namely the hymnodist Hans Thomissøn (Thomesen). However, Thomissøn had died without accomplishing the task, and so the noble couple had approached Reravius with a request to see it through.29 The reason why Reravius wrote this in his preface upon completing the work was probably that it was a clever way of clarifying to friends and colleagues, who may have been aware that Thomissøn had been the first to receive the call, that this was Reravius’s own work. It showed that he was the new number one. But obviously it also attested to the Christian resolve of the noble couple, since they were determined that the work should be “published to the glory of God, and for the service of those who do not understand Luther in his own tongue.”30 This also implied that they did not want the book to appear because they themselves would otherwise be unable to read it. On the contrary, they already knew it quite well, as they could understand German. They had even “read through the book so often that they knew the most important parts of it by heart, which I have heard and seen signs of.”31 To Reravius, memorizing the text to the point of

28

“Kiere Hans Skougaard, fordi ieg veed oc i sandhed haffuer forfaret, at Eders Velbyrdighed haffuer altid hafft it christeligt Hierte oc begæring til denne Bog, at hun kunde bliffue vdset paa vort Danske tungemaal ... paa det at flere Christne kunde læse oc lære den Bog, som enten icke forstaa Tydsken, heller oc haffue større lyst til at læse deris egit Danske maal, oc tilholde vngdommen til saadan Gudfryctige lærdom at læse.” Huber, Christelige Ridder (see n. 27), Reravius’s preface, sign. c 3 r.–v. 29 Luther, Formaning (see n. 24), Reravius’s preface, sign. 7 v. 30 “at hun skulde vdkomme paa Prenten, Gud til ære, og dem til tieniste, som icke kunde forstaa Lutheru[m] paa sit eget maal.” Ibid. 31 “haffue ladet hende vdsætte, icke for eders ege[n] skyld, fordi at i io selff kunde den vel forstaa, oc haffue hende saa offte igennem læst, at i vide mestendelen vden

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making the printed sheets superfluous was seen as a sign that the reader had acquired the true meaning of the book. From the middle of the 1570s at least, Reravius had made enough of a name for himself to attract customers directly, without the printers having to act as middlemen. At one point in 1577 the nobleman Mikkel Sehested had looked Reravius up in Copenhagen, presenting him with a copy of Johann Spangenberg’s Der Gebet Mose (1546), which was a German rendition of Martin Luther’s Latin exposition of Ps. 90. The gift was accompanied by a request that Reravius translate the book into Danish with publication in mind. This was not because Sehested wanted to read it in Danish. By contrast, he had already read the book a number of times in German, so Reravius tells us, as it had given him great comfort while mourning the death of his wife the previous year. Once again, the reason given for translating the book was that it would benefit “Christians here in Denmark and Norway, who cannot understand the Latin and German languages.”32 However, Sehested’s interest in publishing the book was probably also fuelled by his wish to keep the memory of his deceased wife alive. Members of the nobility often acted as patrons sponsoring authors and the publication of their books because it would lend lustre to themselves and their noble lineage. In the seventeenth century, many nobles would honour deceased family members by arranging for the funeral sermon to be published. In the sixteenth century, however, the translation and publication of a volume with an appropriate Christian topic could also serve as a memorial. Besides Sehested, several other members of the nobility approached Reravius. Nobles whose sole concern was not the good of the Danish-speaking common man, but who also (and perhaps equally important) wished to use Reravius’s services to commemorate their loved ones. One example is the translation Edel Hardenberg was so eager for Reravius to complete, which was to be in memory of her recently deceased son. Some of Reravius’s translations appear to have been based on books he had become acquainted with through his customers; books of which he at, det synderligste der vdi er, huilcket ieg hørt haffuer, oc seet tegn til.” Ibid., sign. 8 r. 32 [Johann Spangenberg], Den XC. Psalme, I huilcken Menniskens leffnets kaarthed herlig bescriffuis, den rette Døkaanst flitelige læris, oc alle Stater merckelige vnderuisis, vdlagt oc forklaret ved Doct: Mart: Luth: Vdsæt paa Danske ved Rasmus Hansøn R. (Copenhagen: Andreas Gutterwitz, 1580), sign. Aa 8 r. The title of Spangenberg’s German original was Der Gebet Mose, des Manns Gottes. Der XC. Psalm. Durch, D. Martin Luther in Latinischer sprach ausgelegt, vnd jtzt verdeudscht (1546).

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may well have had no prior knowledge. Evidently, however, he also had a book collection of his own, and on at least one occasion, guests browsing through his library came across something that ultimately led to a publication. The book in question was Würtzgertlein für die Krancken Seelen (1562) by Michael Bock, a pastor from Hagenow in Mecklenburg. In the preface to his translation, which appeared in 1580, Reravius tells of two citizens from the town of Odense who visited him, and how the title caught their eyes “among my books, in my house, and how you both read in it and took great pleasure in it, wherefore you also asked of me that I would render it into Danish.”33 Reravius’s growing reputation also led the Church to entrust him with important publishing tasks. The above-mentioned translation of Hemmingsen’s Postil falls under this heading. Also, in 1574 with the support of the bishop of Zealand, Poul Madsen, Reravius had finished compiling En Ny Bønebog (A New Prayer Book) containing a selection of prayers spanning the entire history of the Church, and whose authors included Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Luther, Melanchthon and Hemmingsen.34 In 1575 another new prayer book appeared, which was intended as a companion to the hymn book that Reravius edited that same year, also at the behest of bishop Madsen.35 In his prayer books, Reravius mostly made use of prayers already available in previous Danish translations. Sometimes he would re-translate 33

“Denne samme lille Vrtegaard dragis eder, vden tuil, vel til minde, kiere Christoffer Lauritzsøn oc Pouel Nielssøn, at i nogle Aar siden vdi Kiøbenhaffn, haffue fundet iblant mine Bøger, i mit Hus, oc i baade haffuer læst der vdi, saa at hun haffuer behaget eder saare vel, Huorfaare i oc aff mig begerede at ieg den vilde udsætte paa danske.” Bock, Sorgefulde (see n. 19), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 9 v.–A 10 r. 34 Rasmus Hansen Reravius, En Ny Bønebog, tilsammen dragen aff de gamle Lære fædre, Augustino, Ambrosio, Cypriano, Bernhardo, &c. Disligeste aff nogle Lærere vdi vor tid, Luthero, Philippo, Hemmingio, Crigerio, &c. Saare nyttelig oc trøstelig at bruge vdi all fristelse oc Nød. Vdsæt paa Danske aff Rasmus Hanssøn Rerauius. Met Hederlige oc Høylerde Herris, D. Pouel Matssøns Fortale (Elsinore: [Peder Huæn], 1611). This is the oldest extant edition, but since it includes the original brief foreword by Madsen and longer preface by Reravius, dated 23 and 25 December 1574, respectively, it can be deduced that the first edition must have been printed (in Copenhagen) shortly after. The extant Elsinore print also contains the information that it is a reissue of an edition from 1606. As noted by Gierow, Bönelitteraturen, 386, this work by Reravius was, to a very large extent, a Danish rendition of a popular prayer book in Low German, Ein nye Christlick vnde nütte Bedeboeck (1561). 35 On this prayer book, see n. 55.

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them prior to publication, and sometimes he would (quite uncontroversially) insert them almost verbatim into his own compilations.36 Reravius’s prayer books were subsequently published in numerous editions (at least until the 1660s), some of which were also supplemented with prayers taken from other prayer books. Moreover, sections of Reravius’s prayer books would sometimes, in their turn, be tacitly incorporated into the works of other editors in what forms a convoluted history of Danish prayer-book publishing that has yet to be fully investigated.37 Yet another prayer book was issued by Reravius in 1582, and since he was not the only editor of prayer books at the time, he felt moved to concede that now there was no longer any dearth of prayer books in the Danish language. This naturally benefited the public (at least those who could read), but quite frankly, Reravius wrote, there was hardly reason to publish any more!38 This statement reflects how his career path had led him to become one of the most successful writers in the service of the Church, but it is perhaps also an indication of his desire to discourage rival authors from venturing into the fecund field of prayer books.

Reaching the audiences In the opinion of the Church, saying prayers were to be an integral part in the daily lives of all men, women, and children, and producing the texts necessary to achieve this end was one of Reravius’s principal duties. The prayer books were set out to include prayers that applied to different but well-defined members of the household and of society. They contained 36

Examples noted by Gierow, Bönelitteraturen, 277, 283–84. A study of a selection of Danish sixteenth-century prayer books, their sources, and their interdependency is given by Gierow, Bönelitteraturen. See also Erik Dal, “Hans Thomissøns Salmebog 1569–1676. En almen orientering og en speciel bibliografi”, Den danske Psalmebog. Aff Hans Thomissøn, Second facsimile ed. (Copenhagen: Samfundet Dansk Kirkesang, 1968), 37–38. 38 “mange ere ocsaa vdscreffne paa vort danske Tungemaal, saa at jeg oc huer met rette maa bekiende, at der (Gud ske loff) ere saa mange oc atskillige herlige slags Bønebøger paa danske, saa vel som paa andre Tungemaal, at ingen vdi dette Rige (besynderlige de som læse kunde) skulle met rette sig kunde vndskylde, at de io paa deris Moders Maal haffue Bøner nock, oc saa offuerflødige, at det icke giordis behoff, at lade nu flere Bønebøger vdgaa på danske.” Rasmus Hansen Reravius, En liden Bønebog, indeholdendis atskillige kaarte Bøner, vdi allehaande Nød oc Trang, oc hos huer Bøn Sententzer aff Scrifften, at trøste sig met, oc anamme Suar aff Gud. Vngdommen oc den menige Mand sammenscreffuen, aff den Christne Kirckis atskillige Lærefæder (Copenhagen: Andreas Gutterwitz, 1582), preface, sign. 6 r.–7 v. 37

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prayers intended to be said by family individuals (such as husbands and wives, brothers and sisters) and by people in all stations of society, ranging from peasants to high-ranking officials. This was a general characteristic of the genre in the sixteenth century, and by no means a feature unique to the prayer books that came from Reravius’s hand. It nevertheless reflects how his publications were intentionally designed to infuse everyday life with godliness, and to make the invocation of God’s help and grace a part of normal living routines. Supplying the entire population with the books necessary to enable worship virtually anywhere, at any time, was also the motive behind the translation of Hemmingsen’s Postil. Hemmingsen had called upon Reravius to translate the postil into Danish because he wanted the book to serve not only those who could understand German and Latin, but “also other Danes and Norwegians, in these praiseworthy kingdoms.”39 But in pursuing this goal, the purpose of the postil was altered. A postil was a collection of sermons covering the entire ecclesiastical year, and such works were originally intended to be consulted prior to a service by pastors seeking guidance and inspiration while preparing their own sermons. Several postils by Lutheran theologians were available in the 1570s, but Hemmingsen’s postil in particular was seen as indispensable by most members of the Danish and Norwegian clergy who, ideally, would already have been familiar with the Latin and/or the German edition. Consequently, they would have had little need for a Danish version. Perhaps the publisher was counting on a good deal of copies being sold to this group anyway. If a pastor wanted to model his Danish-language sermon on a postil, it would obviously be easier if the postil itself were written in Danish rather than Latin or German, from which the pastor himself would have to extemporize. And even if the church authorities considered it a most undesirable practice, there is evidence to suggest that quite a few pastors in the late sixteenth century resorted to merely reading aloud from the pulpit, directly out of Hemmingsen’s postil (of which, we can reasonably deduce, they must have owned a copy).40 With its altered purpose, the main idea behind the Danish postil was to reach a new audience, far beyond the pastors. As Reravius explained, he hoped that it would be used 39

“men oc andre Danske oc Norske, vdi disse lofflige Konge riger.” Hemmingsen, Postilla (see n. 15), Hemmingsen’s preface, sign. 2 r. 40 The bishop of Funen, Jacob Madsen, made several notes about this in his journal of pastoral visitations. Biskop Jacob Madsens Visitatsbog 1588–1604, ed. Jens Rasmussen and Anne Riising (Odense: Udgiverselskabet for Historisk Samfund for Fyns Stift, 1995) 57, 105, 118, 208, 276.

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Chapter One in households and other places where there is a need for it by the common man in these kingdoms, and [thereby] not only be a church-postil to us Danes and Norwegians, but also a house-postil.41

Reravius even imagined that the postil might be used aboard ships, in fishing hamlets, and by the bedridden. In all likelihood a vain hope, since the postil, printed in the unwieldy folio format, was hardly very handy. Still, the Postil became a way of making sermons available to people who, for some reason or other, were prevented from attending church. Considering how important the Church considered the preaching of the Gospel, it was a great concern that certain members of society might be prevented from hearing a sermon for an extended period of time. By turning the postil into a house-postil, these people now had an opportunity to (or, depending on one’s perspective, no excuse not to) read a sermon themselves, or have a sermon read to them by someone else. Again, Reravius’s labours were directed towards providing the population at large with the best opportunities available for adhering to the ideals of the Church. As it has already been made clear, Reravius incessantly pointed out that his reason for translating the texts he did was to reach that part of the population who did not read either Latin or German. Reading Latin was a skill that belonged only to those who had attended grammar school (or received private instruction) for many years – and perhaps also received university training. German was understood by a significantly larger part of the population, not least among the nobility, the artisans and the urban merchants, and also among military and naval personnel, and generally among those living in the border regions of Southern Jutland. The total number would have been considerable; large enough to constitute a Danish market for books in German. That is why it made sense that Hans Skovgaard wanted Lorentz Benedicht to print Der Christlichen Ritter in Danish as well as in German. In one preface Reravius even recommended to “those who can read and understand German” that they should buy a particular book, and he provided sufficient information about author, title, and place of print to enable the reader to look for it at a bookfair or place an order with a bookseller.42 41

“brugis i Husholdning oc andre steder huor behoff giordis hos den Menige mand, oc icke aleniste vere oss Danske oc Norske en Kirckepostil, men ocsaa en Huspostil.” Hemmingsen, Postilla (see n. 15), Reravius’s preface, sign. 4 v. 42 The book in question was Trost oder Seelartzneibuch by Mattheus Vogel (Orneus), which had been printed in Frankfurt am Main in 1571: “Huo som kand læse oc forstaa Tytske, kiøbe sig den skøne trøste Bog, som den Hederlige oc

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This was an exception, and otherwise Reravius was consistent with the early Reformation movement in seeking to make Biblical texts available in the vernacular. Following the view expressed by Hemmingsen, Reravius knew that most people could not be expected to easily and readily understand the translated Bible. Many Bible passages were too “deep and dark to comprehend”, and that was why God had provided Denmark and Germany with learned men who applied themselves diligently “to extract many beautiful streams from the inexhaustible well that is the Bible and the Word of God.”43 Counting himself among those charged with decanting and dispensing from these streams of divine wisdom, Reravius knew that writing in Danish might not, in itself, be enough to arouse the interest of his intended readers. He had to choose an appropriate style, and writing in a language that was too academic, for instance blending Latin and German phrases with the Danish text, was something he wanted to avoid. He therefore purposely sought “to speak in a basic manner, and plainly carry on in pure and simple Danish.”44 How conscientiously Reravius applied himself in using the language best suited for his intended audience is evident from one of the occasions on which he did not act solely as a translator, but also as an author in his own right: His comprehensive rhymed description of the coronation of Høylerde Mand M: Mattheus Ornerus, Guds Ords Tiener vdi Gøppingen haffuer sammen screffuet af Guds Ord, oc lader vdgaa paa Prenten til Franckfurt am Meyn, I det Aar 1571. Huilcket hand kalder Siælens Lægebog.” [Veit Dietrich], Nogle vdualde Sententzer oc Trøstesprock aff Scrifften, huilcke Doct: Mart: Lutherus idelige brugte, Oc der hos Forklaring paa en Text, aff S. Pouels Epistel til de Thessalonicker. Screffne oc tilsammen dragne, Erlig Velbyrdig, Her Peder Skram til trøst, Ved Rasmus Hanssøn R. Met Hederlige Mands, D. Anders Lauritssøns Fortale (Copenhagen: Andreas Gutterwitz, 1581), Reravius’s preface, sign. C 7 r. This book was a translation of Schöne Trostsprüche, für die engstigen Gewissen (c. 1548) by the Nuremberg pastor Veit Dietrich. The book had already been translated into Danish by bishop Peder Palladius in 1550, see Peder Palladius’ Danske Skrifter, ed. Lis Jacobsen. 5 vols. (Copenhagen: UniversitetsJubilæets Danske Samfund, 1911–26), 2:1–43. Reravius’s edition was, however, not only a new translation, but also an expansion of the German publication with a commentary by Reravius on Paul. 43 “effterdi at den hellige Scrifft siunis i mange steder dyb oc mørck at forstaa, haffuer samme Gud ocsaa giffuet oss, saa-vel her i Danmarck som i Tyskland oc andre steder, fine Doctores oc lærde Mend, som met deris flid oc wmage, vddrage mange skøne Becke aff den wtømelige Brønd, som er Bibelen oc Guds ord.” Bock, Sorgefulde (see n. 19), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 7 v.–A 8 r. 44 “at tale enfaaldelige, oc bliffue slæt oc ret ved bar oc bred Danske.” [Dietrich], Trøstesprock aff Scrifften (see n. 42), Reravius’s preface, sign. D 6 r.

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King Frederik II in 1559, and of his marriage to Sophie of Mecklenburg in 1572, as well as her subsequent coronation as queen. Descriptions of these events had already been published in Latin and German, but not in Danish. Wishing to remedy this, Reravius did not confine himself to simply translating one of the available texts, but instead put his own description on offer. Since he had witnessed both coronations in person, as he explains in his preface, he was able to use his own notes of what he had seen and heard.45 And he made a point of writing in Danish, not merely because the coronation ceremony had been conducted in Danish, but also because the common people (den menige almue) had good reason to become acquainted with the many words of wisdom expressed during the celebration – not least the knowledge that heavy burdens rested upon the temporal authorities, wherefore God demanded that the subjects of the kingdom obey them implicitly. This was important to record, as Reravius phrased it, because that which is said only once, but not documented and repeated, will soon be forgotten.46 There was also a special reason behind the use of rhyme, and Reravius employed rhymes (or translated texts in verse) in numerous books: Most people, he said, preferred to read rhymes rather than other kinds of text, and rhymes also stuck better in people’s memory.47

Sound and vision Reading the printed Word of God was to be supplemented with hearing the Word through listening to the pastor preach or hearing, and singing, hymns. Reravius not only noted the importance of singing, but also

45

Rasmus Hansen Reravius, Stormectigste, Høybaarne Førstis oc Herris, Her Frederichs den Andens … Oc Stormectige Høybaarne Førstindis, Fru Sophiæ … Beggis deris Kronings oc Brøllups Historie, huorledis alting sig der vdi haffuer, flitelige paa Danske Rim bescreffuet, Oc nu offuerseet oc forbedret. Aff Rasmus Hanssøn Rerauius (Copenhagen: Lorentz Benedicht, 1576), preface, sign. A 3 r. The first edition of the description was printed in 1574. For a comparison between the literary accounts of the coronation in 1559, see Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, “Beskrivelser af Frederik d. 2.s kroning på dansk, tysk og latin”, in Alenius, Latin og nationalsprog, 11–20. 46 “Det som ickon en gang sigis, oc icke antegnis, repeteris oc igen tagis, kand snarlige gaa aff sinde oc forglemmis.” Reravius, Stormectigste (see n. 45), sign. A 4 r. 47 “Menige mand læser heller Rim end anden Scrifft, de henge ocsaa bedre ved hukommelsen.” Ibid., sign A 3 r.

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composed a number of hymns.48 On several occasions he translated from the Psalms of David, setting his verse to melodies from existing hymns. What clearer indication that that they were meant to be sung? One, for instance, was a psalm published in 1572 as an appendix to a small book on iconolatry written by Jens Skjelderup, bishop of Bergen.49 A telling example of this practice of adding songs to supplement the main prose of a book, which also shows how Reravius envisaged reading and singing going hand in hand, is found in his Golden Treasure. At the end of this exposition on the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15) we find the theme of the book rehearsed once more, much like a summary, but “composed in a song” by Reravius and set to the tune of a well-known hymn.50 By adding the song, Reravius no doubt hoped that the core message of the book would have a prolonged life, as the hymn could be learnt by heart and sung at any given time or day. And when sung, it would be heard, and possibly also memorized, by a much wider audience than those already inclined to read through the book’s prose section.

48 An overview of Reravius’s hymns is provided by Malling: Dansk Salmehistorie, 7:175–78. A number of Reravius’s hymns later entered the hymn books of Kingo (1699) and Pontoppidan (1740), and one even made it into the authorized hymnal Den Danske Salmebog of 1953. See Jens Lyster, “Rødbypræstens dåbssalme”, Lolland-Falsters Stiftsbog (1987), 60–72. 49 Rasmus Hansen Reravius, Den CXV. Dauids Psalme. Non nobis DOMINE non nobis, Vdi huilcken der læris oc tilkiende giffuis, huad Affguders Billeder ere, Disligeste huordanne de ere oc bliffue, som dennem tiene, dyrcke oc beskerme, Vdsæt paa Danske Rim aff Rasmus Hanssøn. Oc siunges met de Noder, som den Psalme: Loffuer Gud i fromme Christne. Printed with Jens Skjelderup, En Christelig Vnderuisning aff den hellige Scrifft, om huad en Christen skal holde, om Affgudiske Billeder oc Stytter vdi Kirckerne, (Copenhagen: Mads Vingaard, 1572). The fact that Reravius contributed to this publication is not necessarily the result of an agreement with Skjelderup. Since the text Skjelderup delivered did not match the sheet number, Reravius may well have been asked by the printer (who lived nearby, and with whom Reravius already had a close working relationship) to produce fitting material to fill up the remainder of the book. 50 The hymn was given a title page of its own with a dedication to a different person (a palace scribe in Norway) than Marine Hans Sadolin, to whom the main text (see n. 9) was dedicated: Det Gyldene Klenod, om det fortaffte Faar, Lucæ i det femtende Capittel. Dictet i en Vise, oc skenckt hederlig oc forstandig Clemen Nielssøn, Slots Scriffuere paa Baahus vdi Norge, sin synderlige gode Ven, til it tienstactigheds Tegn, aff Rasmus Hanssøn. Oc siungis som den Psalme: Guds Søn er kommen aff Himmelen ned. 1572.

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Judging by the subsequent widespread distribution of the hymn, it seems Reravius was right in his conjecture.51 No doubt, Reravius’s greatest contribution to advancing hymn-singing as a daily practice in all households was his completion of an affordable and easily accessible hymn book in the small, handy duodecimo format. This he achieved in 1575 with En ny Psalmebog, met calendario, Oc mange deylige Christelige Psalmer, skickelige tilsammen sæt, oc forbedret. The identification of Reravius as the author of this hymn book is quite recent, but nonetheless of great significance.52 Firstly, it helps us clarify the scope of Reravius’s work as a hymnologist, even implying that a number of hymn books previously attributed to Hans Thomissøn must now be recognized as Reravius’s work.53 Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it once more reveals how Reravius was heavily involved in the Church’s efforts to provide the necessary hymnals, prayer books, and devotional literature at all price levels in order to help (or persuade, or force) the entire population to conduct their lives as devout Lutherans. On the genesis of the 1575 hymn book, Reravius relates how Poul Madsen, the bishop of Zealand, had personally told him to compile a new hymn book to be used by common folk, poor school children and others who could not afford the large and rather expensive octavo hymn book published by Hans Thomissøn back in 1569.54 In effect, this Reravius “budget” hymnal constituted a religious “multipurpose handbook”, as it was bound as a sales item with a fixed set of religious texts, including Biblical passages, Luther’s Small Catechism, The Passion of Christ by Johannes Bugenhagen (both in translations by Peder Palladius), and 51

The hymn or “song” was called Guds søn hand sagde selff disse ord, and it was repeatedly reprinted in Danish hymn books until the middle of the eighteenth century, cf. Malling, Dansk Salmehistorie, 2:319–20. 52 No copy of the first edition is extant, but a later edition (1582) is bound with a prayer book that contains an otherwise unknown, and only partly preserved, preface that must be attributed to Reravius. This preface, dated 1575, contains information on the hymn book that points to Reravius as its author. See Jens Lyster: “Reravs salmebog 1575”, Hymnologiske meddelelser (1976), 1:78–89; idem, “Hans Thomissøns salmebog – mutatis mutandis. Et bidrag til dansk salmebogshistorie 1569–1608”, Hvad Fatter gjør… Boghistoriske, litterære og musikalske essays tilegnet Erik Dal, ed. Henrik Glahn et al. (Herning: Poul Kristensen, 1982), 308–33; idem, “Reravs salmebog 1575. En alternativ halvofficiel billig salmebog for 400 år siden”, Hymnologiske Meddelelser (1992), 1:152–65. 53 See Lauritz Nielsen, Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600. Vol. 3, supplement by Erik Dal (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 1996), entry no. 1420a. 54 An extract of the preface is printed by Dal, Thomissøn (see n. 37), 39–41.

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Reravius’s own prayer book from 1575, En liden Bønebog.55 The hymn book even comprised a calendar, and together these texts served as a complete companion for the faithful Lutheran subject, and especially for “itinerant and wayfaring people, ships’ crews, and others who cannot carry many books with them.”56 This fell very well in line with what Reravius had stated in other prefaces as the purpose of his books, and this time, probably unlike his translation of Hemmingsen’s postil, it appears that he was truly successful in achieving his goal: By 1608, at least ten editions of this handbook had been printed. To supplement the reading, singing, and hearing of God’s Word, a visual communication of the Gospel could also be brought into play. This is evident from Reravius’s Passional (1573), his rendition in Danish of a work by Martin Luther on the Passion of Christ.57 The book was profusely illustrated with woodcuts, and in the preface from the German original, also translated and included by Reravius, Luther explains how children and simple folk could find it difficult to remember or understand the exact 55

Rasmus Hansen Reravius, En liden Bønebog, met atskillige kaartte Bøner, vdi allehaande Nød oc Trang. Vngdommen oc menige Mand tilsammen dragen oc fordansket [1575]. No first edition is extant, but from the fragmentary preface it can be established that the prayer book must have been printed in 1575. This is curiously enough not mentioned by neither Dal nor Lyster, even though the dating of the prayer book preface is used by them to date the publication of the hymn book (see n. 37 and 52). Ehrencron-Müller, Forfatterlexicon, 6:456, conjectures that this prayer book was first printed in 1577 on the grounds that it was identical to a book by Reravius referred to elsewhere as Orationum ad Deum lib. I. 1577. This seems highly improbable, and the Orationum instead appears to be one of Reravius’s lost titles. 56 “vandrendis oc veyfarendis Folck, Skibs folck, oc andre, som icke kunne føre mange Bøger met sig.” Dal, Thomissøn (see n. 37), 39. 57 [Martin Luther], Passional. Vor Herris Jhesu Christi Pinis oc Døds Historie, met skøne oc deylige Figurer, oc Christelige Bøner, huer Christen saare nyttelige at læse. Vdsæt paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hanssøn (Copenhagen: Lorentz Benedicht 1573). The text was originally taken from Luther’s Betbüchlein (1522), which began to appear, from 1529 onwards, in editions that included the Passion, see D. Martin Luthers Werke. 120 vols. (Weimar, 1883–2009) 10, 2:359, 458–70. This book had already been translated into Danish several times, for instance by Christian Pedersen in 1531 and Peder Palladius in 1544, cf. Christiern Pedersens Danske Skrifter, ed. C. J. Brandt and R.Th. Fenger. 5 vols. (Copenhagen 1850–56), 4:587–92; Palladius’ Danske Skrifter (see n. 42), 2:300–14. But Reravius carried out his own translation modeled on a newer German edition: Passio, vnsers Herren Jhesu Christi, Auß den vier Euangelisten gezogen. Mit schönen Figuren gezieret. Mit schöenen Christlichen andechtigen gebeten einem jeden Christen sehr nutzlich zu lesen (1553).

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Word of God in the Bible. Looking at pictures would help them in this matter, and Luther recommended that people copy the pictures onto the walls of their living rooms. That way, literally speaking, they would always keep the Word of God in view. The illustrated Passion was a popular product, and in some of the extant copies the black and white woodcuts of the printed books have been coloured by hand – which may have already been done by the printers, to offer a de luxe edition. At any rate, it is highly probable that any pictures copied and put on private display in people’s front rooms will have been in colour as well.58 In his own preface Reravius elaborates on the Luther-penned preface, and he too emphasizes the necessity of taking a varied approach to spreading the Word of God, in this case the Passion of Christ, to which end he identifies a triple strategy of oral, written, and visual presentation: Firstly, it is of the utmost importance that everyone should gladly and frequently hear the “oral sermon” when the Passion of Christ was “conveyed and cried out from the pulpit.” Secondly, one should carefully and continually read – or have someone read aloud – the Passion of Christ and other books on the subject. Thirdly, it is “of no small usefulness and advantage for children, youth, and common, simple and unlettered people” to have pictures or paintings either in books or in their homes, from which they can gain some understanding of matters that would otherwise elude them. Referring to Luther, Reravius emphasizes that there is nothing wrong with reproducing Biblical images, as long as people refrain from misusing them by resorting to image-worship.59 58

The 1553 edition, printed in Nuremberg, had woodcuts by Virgil Solis, while the woodcuts in Reravius’s translation, according to R. Paulli, Lorentz Benedict. Bogtrykker og Xylograf i København i sidste Halvdel af det XVI. Aarhundrede (Copenhagen: Forening for Boghaandværk, 1920 ), XXXIX, were based on Albrecht Dürer’s Kleine Passional (1509–10). A facsimile edition of Reravius’s translation was printed in Kristiania (Oslo) in 1919 with a foreword (dated 1886!) that contains the incorrect information that the woodcuts are from the Danish Bible of 1550. This is true only of the Biblical quotations. 59 “Oc at mand det diss bedre giøre kand, er det saare nytteligt, at mand gierne oc idelige hører den mundelige Predicken, naar Christi pinis oc Døds Historie, met sin vdretning oc krafft, fruct, nytte, oc gaffn, aff Predickestolen faaregiffues oc vdraabis, At mand ocsaa flitelige oc stedse met actsomhed læser, oc lader læse for sig, Passionalen oc andre Bøger, i huilcke saadant indeholdis oc forklaris. Der til met hører det icke ringe nyttighed oc gaffn, for Børn, vngt folck, oc for de enfaaldige simpel oc wlærde folk, at de haffue faar sig vdi deris Bøger, Stuer oc kammer, herlige smucke Figurer, malninger oc Billeder, i huilcke Christi Historie sættis faar øyen oc affmalis, som Lutherus siger, i sin Fortale som her næst faare staar, Huilcke Figurer oc malninger icke affgaa vden fruct, naar mand dennem met

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The household and its members Besides outlining the various strategies of written, oral, and visual communication – as well as the language and style best suited – to make the population feel increasingly close to the Church, Reravius also had a keen eye for applying these strategies to specific audiences within the population. The Passional was dedicated to a young noblewoman, Birgitte Rosensparre, and it is only one of several examples of Reravius addressing a female readership. The women of the nobility were generally well educated. They were all taught to read Danish, and quite often German, too, but few were able to read books in Latin. Among the well-to-do commoners there also existed an audience of book-reading women. In his preface to The Golden Treasure, Reravius described the wife of his former dean on the island of Lolland, Marine Hans Sadolin’s, to whom he dedicated the book, telling how she “always and repeatedly read in the Holy Bible, and other Danish books that have been extracted from Scripture, which pious Danish women, nay all Christians, should do.”60 Mistress Marine apparently belonged to a group of good and true women (dannekvinder) among whom the reading of edifying literature in Danish was widespread. This group also included Dorthe Hans Dolhus’s, the wife of the royal mintmaster in Copenhagen. In 1572, Reravius also dedicated a work to Mistress Dolhus entitled Trøst och Husualelse, aff Guds ord, for Siuglige Dannequinder (Comfort and Solace, from God’s Word, for Sickly Women), an excerpt translated from the Ehespiegel (Marriage Mirror), a collection of wedding sermons by the Mansfeld dean Cyriacus Spangenberg.61 In his preface Reravius outlined his expectations that the book would be read by these women in their homes, and his hopes that they might use the book’s wisdom to comfort each other during Gudfryctighed, vden vanbrug, beskuer oc anseer.” Luther, Passional (see n. 57), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 1 v.–r. 60 “at I stedse oc idelige læse vdi den hellige Bibel, oc andre Danske Bøger, som vddragne ere aff den hellige Scrifft, huilcket fromme Dannequinder, ia alle Christne, bør at giøre.” Lasius, Gyldene Klenod (see n. 9), Reravius’s preface, sign. 5 v. On female readers in early modern Denmark, see also Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 2:618–27. 61 Cyriacus Spangenberg, Ehespiegel: Das ist, Alles was vom heyligen Ehestande, nützliches, nötiges, vnd tröstliches mag gesagt werden. In Sibentzig Brautpredigten zusammen verfasset (1561). On Spangenberg and other authors within the Lutheran wedding sermon tradition, see Susan C. Karant-Nunn, “ ‘Fragrant Wedding Roses’. Lutheran Wedding Sermons and Gender Definition in Early Modern Germany”, German History 17, no. 1 (1999): 25–40.

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periods of childbirth and confinement, when clergymen could not be present.62 The book explicitly addressed the grave dangers facing all pregnant women in the sixteenth century, and also offered Christian advice to quell their fears. Reravius and his printer assumed that there were enough women possessing both the ability to read and the will and means to pay for a publication of this sort – an assumption that appears to have been correct, since the book was reprinted in 1577. In Unge Karlis Speiel (The Young Men’s Mirror, 1571), a translation of Der jungen Knaben Spiegel (1554) by the Colmar-based playwright and novelist Georg Wickram, Reravius singled out another important audience, namely young people. He professed to know that many adolescents enjoyed reading stories such as the jesting novel Till Eulenspiegel, or the love story Eurialus and Lucretia. However, asserted Reravius, these types of popular literature were basically immoral and would only lead their readers to the sins of villainy and moral laxity.63 Apparently Reravius felt very strongly about this, and he dwelled on the subject in several prefaces. For example in the Postil, where he not only criticized the inaccuracy of the printers, as mentioned earlier, but even took a stab in the preface at printers and booksellers alike. It would be highly desirable, he stated, that they pay more attention to the glory of God and less to money and personal profit, instead of expending their efforts on foolish and blasphemous writings like untrue fables and literature with a roguish, whorish or superstitious content, thereby cheating people out of their money.64 62

“erlige dannequinder som tysk tungemaal icke forstaa, til villie oc tieniste, at de der vdi hjemme vdi deris huss kunde læse, oc der aff faa trøst oc husualelse, vnderuisning oc lærdom. At ocsaa fromme Dannequinder kunde her aff trøste oc husuale huer andre, vdi fødsels nød, huor Aarsage oc leilighed icke saa kand begiffue sig, at Predicanter oc Guds ords tienere kunde være tilstede, oc trøste oc husuale dennem.” Cyriacus Spangenberg, Trøst och Husualelse aff Guds ord, for siuglige Dannequinder, vdi deris bedrøffuelse oc fødsels nød. Disligeste for dem som føde døde Børn, Ocsaa for wfructsommelige Ectefolck. Vdtagen aff M. Cyriacj Spangenbergij Brudpredicken, oc udsæt paa Danske, ved Rasmus Hanssøn (Copenhagen: Lorentz Benedicht, 1577), Reravius’s preface, sign. 6 r.–v. 63 [Georg Wickram], Vnge Karlis oc Drengis Speiel. En nyttelig oc lystig Historie, om to vnge Drenge, den ene en Ridders, den anden en Bondis Søn, Vdi huilcke to der affmalis, huor stort nytte oc gaffn, Studering, lydighed mod Fader, Moder oc Tuctemestere fører met sig. Disligeste huad ont der kommer aff wlydighed, wtuct oc onde Selskab. Vngdommen til gode, udsæt paa Danske aff Rasmus Hanssøn, (Copenhagen: Mads Vingaard, 1571), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 4 v.–A 5 r. On Reravius and Wickram’s novel, see also Brask, Dansk litteratur, 296–301. 64 Hemmingsen, Postilla (see n. 15), Reravius’s preface, sign. 6 v.

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Even so, realizing that this type of literature could attract an audience that might take little interest in the sort of devotional literature Reravius usually translated, he tried to provide an alternative instead. This is why he turned his hand to translating Wickram’s novel about the lives of a couple of boys, or young men, whose very different paths in life were decided by their willingness to obey God, their parents, and the public authorities. The more obedient of the two was successful in life and enjoyed peace of mind, while the more hardened character ended up being executed: A moral tale wholly compatible with the teachings of the Church. Reravius dedicated his translation to the four sons of the nobleman Bjørn Andersen Bjørn, but he wisely stressed that the dedication was meant solely as a token of his respect and gratitude. He obviously did not wish to imply that the noble children were rascals in acute need of heeding the moral of the story. For many years they had already been receiving daily instruction from the “faithful and diligent teachers and castigators which your pious parents have appointed to teach you virtue, piety, courtliness and book-learning.”65 It was the scores of children with a less fortunate upbringing who were meant to learn from the book. This illustrates that Reravius did not mind novels, or even mind publishing novels himself, as long as they were compatible with his views on Christian ethics and a godly society. But just to be on the safe side, lest anyone should get the wrong idea about how the Reverend Reravius spent his time, he pointed out that he had actually completed the translation of Wickram’s work prior to taking up his vocation as a pastor.66 And yet he maintained that the novel served its purpose. If children read immoral books, they should certainly be prevented from reading that particular kind of literature, but not from reading altogether. He therefore suggested that Wickram’s novel be made a part of the school syllabus so that children could be taught to read from it while at the same time learning how to conduct themselves before their parents.67 It is not known whether the 65

“tro oc flittige Præceptore oc Tugtemestere, som eders fromme Forældre haffue eder tilskicket, at oplæris vdi Dyd, fromhed, høffuiskhed oc bogelige Konster.” [Wickram], Vnge Karlis Speiel (see n. 63), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 7 r. 66 Ibid., sign. A 6 r.–v. Reravius also translated a German treatise by Georg Busch on the supernova in 1572. Here, too, he underlined that it was not wrong for a clergyman to write on such matters, since the heavenly object had to be interpreted in a Christian context. Besides, he had been prompted by others to take on the job. See Morten Fink-Jensen, “Tycho Brahes supernova i 1572 set med samtidens øjne. Religiøse og astronomiske tolkninger hos Georg Busch og Rasmus Hansen Reravius”, Fund og Forskning 49 (2010): 61–86. 67 “Her foruden kand ocsaa denne Bog vere gaffnlig, at sette Børn faare i Danske Skoler … thi her aff kunde Børn baade lære at læse, oc der hos see Eksempel,

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book was, in fact, used in Danish schools, but it did prove to be one of his most popular translations, with a reprint appearing as late as 1754. Popularity notwithstanding, he was unsuccessful in his attempts to outshine, or indeed to help undo, Till Eulenspiegel and other titles in the light-literature genre: Regardless of the condemnation expressed by Reravius and other clergymen, such works remained in steady demand throughout the early modern period. Another type of publication from Reravius’s hand was aimed at the family in general, and at individual types of household members in particular. The Table of Duties written by Martin Luther, which was included in his Small Catechism, set out to make all classes aware of their duties to God and to each other, and also sought to make family prayers a daily routine in all households. Many authors followed Luther’s lead and elaborated on the subject, and Reravius was among those in the Lutheran North who picked up on the reformer’s idea by issuing Hus Taffle (Table of Duties, 1572), a translation of a German work, the original title of which is almost as obscure as its author, to whom Reravius simply refers as “a pious learned man by the name of Mattheus Veberus.”68 As is commonly seen in this type of sixteenth-century devotional literature aimed at the common man, the book made use of rhyme and laid down a set of rules (with matching prayers) to be heeded by each class of society, and by each individual member of the household. The Hus Taffle consisted of thirteen such rules targeting, among others, preachers, the congregation, public authorities, and the king’s subjects in general, as well as husbands, wives, children, and servants. The use of rhyme was once again a conscious choice, and, as we have seen him reiterate elsewhere, Reravius claimed that common people preferred verse to prose and also found rhymes easier to remember.69

huorlunde de skulle skicke sig mod deris Forældre.” [Wickram], Vnge Karlis Speiel (see n. 63), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 6 r. 68 “en from lærd Mand ved Naffn Mattheus Veberus.” No information is available on this Weber, or Über. [Mattheus Veberus], Hus Taffle, Huorledis huert Menniske, vdi sit Kald oc stat skal skicke sig, baade mod GVD oc Mennisken. Oc der hos gudelige Bøner for alle Stater. Vdsæt paa Danske, aff Rasmus Hanssøn (Copenhagen: Mads Vingaard, 1572), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 4 v. Reravius also informs his readers that his translation was printed for the first time in 1562, but no copy of that publication is extant. See also Gierow, Bönelitteraturen, 282– 85. 69 “Effterdi at Menige mand vil gierne læse Rim, de henge ocsaa bedre ved Hukommelsen oc ere lættere at beholde, end anden slæt tale.” [Veberus], Hus Taffle (see n. 68), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 4 v.–A 5 r.

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Prior to the Hus Taffle, Reravius had translated another book on the Christian behaviour of household members, namely Oeconomia Oder bericht, wie sich ein Hauszuatter halten sol, written in 1564 by Johann Mathesius, a pastor in Joachimsthal (Jáchymov) in Bohemia.70 This book also contained a selection of rules of conduct put into verse by the theologian Johann Agricola of Spremberg.71 These short proverbs were by no means exclusively Christian, but rather general advice, or warnings along the lines of “haste makes waste”, aimed at young people who had not yet married. They were, for instance, advised to “Shun fornication and drunkenness / Avoid gambling and games no less.”72 The Oeconomia itself consisted partly of prayers directed at individual members of the household (such as a wife’s prayer, a daughter’s prayer, a faithful maid’s prayer, a prayer to be said by children whose father was abroad), and partly of moralizing guidelines in rhyme directed at the head of the family. It was mainly concerned with warning him of the dangers he faced if he did not keep his wife in her place. He must be pious, but she must preferably be silent; that was the safest way to preserve a peaceful household.73

70

Mathesius, Oeconomia (see n. 26). On Mathesius, see also Susan C. KarantNunn, “Kinder, Küche, Kirche: Social Ideology in the Sermons of Johannes Mathesius”, in Andrew C. Fix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn, eds., Germania Illustrata: Essays on Early Modern Germany Presented to Gerald Strauss, (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992), 121–40. 71 The work by Agricola was given a separate title page: Korte Regle, Huorledis mand i sit gantske Leffnit skal skicke sig, Tilhobe samlede Vngdommen til gode, ved Iohan: Agricolam Spremberg. Vdsette paa Danske, oc formerede aff Rasmus Hanssen. R. The original German title was Kurze Reglen für die jungen Knaben und Mägdlein in Reimchen gebracht, and it was also included in the German edition of Mathesius’s book, cf. Gierow, Bönelitteraturen, 271–77. Reravius’s translation even included a poem, Aarsage huor faare det gaar nu saa ilde til i Verden (Reasons for the World’s Current Poor State of Affairs), by the Danzig physician Johann Placotomus. An identical translation of this poem had already been printed by Hans Vingaard in Copenhagen in 1559 as an uncredited appendix to Niels Jensen’s En smuck oc meget nyttelig Børne tuct, being a translation of the Nuremberg pastor Leonhard Culmann’s Zuchtmayster für die jungen Kinder (1529). The inclusion of the poem (with just a few insignificant orthographic deviations) in Reravius’s book years later suggests that Reravius was the original translator of the poem, and this would make it his earliest known contribution to Danish literature. 72 “Sky Horeri oc Druckenskab / Dobbel oc spil holt dig oc aff.” Agricola, Korte Regle (see n. 71), sign. J 4 v. 73 Mathesius, Oeconomia (see n. 26), sign. B 2 r.

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Maintaining “domestic peace” was also the subject of Husfred (1575), a translation of a work from 1546 by Paul Rebhun, a dramatist and pastor in Oelsnitz in Saxony.74 The book provided Biblical examples from which married couples should learn not to fight like cat and dog, but to “live properly to the glory of God, to their own joy, and as an example to others.”75 To facilitate this, the book listed ten rules for husbands and wives to follow. These rules were chiefly based on the admonitions Paul gave in the New Testament, such as 1 Cor. 11, 1 Tim. 2, and Eph. 5, and their core message was succinctly summed up by the motto on the title page of Reravius’s book: “Thou man, love thy wife, and thou woman be thy husband compliant. That makes for domestic peace.”76 Like the Oeconomia by Mathesius, the Husfred taught readers that the Biblical key to a blissful marriage was for the wife to be obedient to her husband – but that the demand for this female subordination, as Rebhun stressed by citing a string of Biblical references, was not to please the husband, but to comply with the will of God, who had created Adam first, and only then made Eve by creating her from Adam’s rib. This type of argument was recurrent throughout virtually all of the sixteenth-century religious literature, and certainly throughout the entire body of Reravius’s works: The will of God involved all aspects of life, and He must be obeyed if the reward of eternal life was to be obtained.

The problems of realization Reravius applied his penmanship to rally behind the Church Order’s call to educate the common man. And by providing this segment of the population in both Denmark and Norway with a host of books containing devotional literature, hymns, prayers, and even Biblical images, he

74 [Paul Rebhun], Husfred. Det er Aarsager aff den hellige Scrifft, som skulle beuege alle Christelige Ectefolk, til at holde Fred oc Endrectighed i deris Husholdning, Vdsæt paa Danske, Aff Rasmus Hanssøn Rerauius (Copenhagen: Andreas Gutterwitz and Hans Stockelmand’s heirs, 1575). The original work in question was Hausfried. Was fur Vrsachen den Christlichen Eheleuten zu bedencken, den lieben Hausfried in der Ehe zu erhalten (1546). On Rebhun, see Gierow, Bönelitteraturen, 290–91, and Paul F. Casey, Paul Rebhun. A Biographical Study (Stuttgart: Franz Steinar Verlag), 1986. 75 “leffue skickelige, Gud til ære, dem selff til Glæde, oc andre til it gaat Exempel.” [Rebhun], Husfred (see n. 74), Reravius’s preface, sign. A 9 r. 76 “Du Mand, haff din Hustru kier, oc du Quinde ver din Husbonde lydig. det giør Husfred.” Ibid., title page.

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explicitly attempted to make the teachings of the Lutheran Church appealing and accessible to an ever wider audience. There is no doubting that he was highly valued by his like-minded contemporaries, and this article has shown how leading officials of the Church, and devout members of the nobility, turned to Reravius as one of the best choices for construing a text with the common man in mind. The fact that the printers continually issued (and reprinted) his works must also be seen as a sign that Reravius reached his intended audience, or at least a part of it. Certainly, the strategy of publishing an increasing number and variety of religious books had its effect. In 1582 Reravius noted that the book market had been virtually inundated with prayer books, which was essentially a good thing, although it may well have limited his own publishing opportunities. Reravius also noted, in 1577, that there had been a remarkable improvement in the circulation of the Evangelical message in general. According to his assessment, apparently one could not enter a home, or even a room, without finding a specimen of religious literature: The Word of God is not only being sincerely preached to us in church from the pulpit, but owing to many learned and diligent men’s labour and trouble, [and] by way of the Holy Spirit’s gift, help, and aid, [the Word] is also so far and widely diffused that it is to be found in all rooms and chambers, in every nook and cranny one comes upon, and in different languages and tongues, for everyone to understand and read.77

Despite the fact that the end of the world was imminent, this was obviously a cause for rejoicing! However, even if it were true that religious literature was as commonly found as Reravius alleged, it does not follow that it was read and understood in the way he wanted it to be. And just because his own books were easily sold, the question remains whether those who bought and read them belonged to the audience he may have been most anxious to reach, namely those whose knowledge of Christianity was most rudimentary. The true believers knew how to read his books, but what about the rest? That was a different matter altogether, and one which elsewhere led Reravius to express how spreading the glad tidings of the Gospel was also an uphill struggle. It left him feeling 77

“icke alleniste retsindelige predickes faar oss i Kircken paa Predicke stolen, Men er ocsaa formedelst mange lærde oc Flitige Mends Arbeyde oc wmage, aff den hellig Aands gaffue, hielp oc bistand saa vijt oc bret vdkom[m]et, at mand kand finde det I alle Stuer oc kammer, I huer vinckel oc vraa, I huor mand kommer, huer paa sin Sprock oc Maal, som hand forstaa oc læse kand.” Pfeffinger, Trøstebog (see n. 25), Reravius’s preface, sign. [B] 2 r.–v.

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resigned, having to accept a limited audience for what he wrote, “hoping that God will, after all, receive honour from it, and that some people will benefit and profit.”78 Here he readily admitted that only some people could be expected to take heed of his writings, and those people constituted an appreciative audience of “good, simple Christians” (gode enfoldige Christne) who already belonged to the Church. “The rest,” he lamented, “who only want to blame and deride, you can never satisfy enough as to deprive them of something to mock.”79 And writing in the preface to the Postil, Reravius recounted how those who were downright ungodly probably did not care what he wrote, since they would always find some excuse not to pay attention, “even if books had never existed.”80 Writing in the Postil, his unhappiness with people who were all too eager to neglect or misinterpret his words probably reflected the heated theological discussions of the 1570s centered on Hemmingsen, and yet it is beyond doubt that Reravius was not impressed with the general state of piety among the population. On several occasions he lambasted the widespread use of magical incantations to heal disease (which he deemed equal to practising witchcraft), and his criticism even extended to the public authorities, whom Reravius accused of being too timid in their fight against this onslaught by the Devil. If a pastor tried to save the souls of his congregation by demanding that they rely on nothing more than prayers, he would immediately be accused of neglecting the well-being of his fellow men, Reravius complained – the clergyman’s concern being to prevent his flock from using what many believed to be the most efficient cures, “wherefore the poor preachers are often blamed by those who are inclined to such superstitious belief, both among parishioners and others.”81 Writing this in 1581, Reravius had himself experienced for a number of years what adversity a pastor might face when dealing with an uncooperative parish.

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“denne Formaning fordansket, forhaabendis at Gud maa io her aff ske nogen ære, oc nogle Menniske faa nytte oc gaffn.” Luther, Formaning (see n. 24), Reravius’s preface, sign. 7 v. 79 “De andre som ickon ville laste oc bespotte, dem skal mand aldrig kunde giøre noget saa ret eller saa gaat for, at de io skulle faa noget at laste.” Ibid., sign. 8 r. 80 “De wgudelige faa vel altid Aarsage, der som der end aldrig vaare Bøger til.” Hemmingsen, Postilla, (see n. 15), Reravius’s preface, sign. 5 r. 81 “derfaare maa de fattige Prester tit høre ilde hoss dem, som til saadant Spøgeri haffuer lyst, baade deris egne Sognefolck oc andre.” [Dietrich], Trøstesprock aff Scrifften (see n. 42), Reravius’s preface, sign. B 7 r.

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While working as a chaplain in Copenhagen, Reravius did not have a parish to attend to, but after becoming pastor (by royal decree) in the town of Rødby in 1577, it is very likely that he tried to make his new parish into a model society adhering to the guidelines of godliness that he himself had set forth in his numerous publications. However, not all his parishioners were receptive to this idea. They resisted to the best of their ability, and a year after his appointment Reravius had to call upon the dean to intervene and come to his aid against a number of named locals who, among a host of other accusations he directed at them, “have assaulted me and are still threatening my life.”82 As a result of these calamities Reravius did not publish anything for almost three years, when things had calmed down. It is probably safe to assume that by then he had learned, the hard way, that giving the population written instruction on how to behave as children of God was one thing. Bringing them to a true realization of the Word was quite another.

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“har gjort mig Vold og endnu undsiger mig paa Livet.” Rørdam, “Reravius”, 10.

CHAPTER TWO EARWAYS TO HEAVEN: SINGING THE CATECHISM IN DENMARK-NORWAY, 1569–1756 JON HAARBERG

Catechism, orality and literacy Book historians exploring the great communications shift in early modern Europe can readily demonstrate the complexities and paradoxes of the transition from popular orality to popular literacy. Understandably, though, they tend to focus on the effects of the new medium rather than on the “tenaciousness of orality” within print culture.1 Investigating the rise of literacy in Northern Europe generally implies studying a vast number of printed texts, in particular catechisms, and not the oral-aural institutions of which these printed texts formed a part. The word catechism itself may serve to remind us that the basic orality is hard to escape, as it is derived from a Greek verb (katƝkhein) meaning “to make hear”, and hence “to instruct orally.” The word echo also derives from that verb. As a term, catechism seems to have first been used in the early sixteenth century, even though the idea or practice of instructing believers in the principal Christian truths must be as old as the Church itself. Reformers certainly wanted to believe that they were reviving an ancient and neglected form of instruction. Thanks to Martin Luther’s small and large catechisms, first published in 1529, the fundamentals of the Protestant Christian faith were available in print. In this way, something that originated as an educational method, and which then became a particular set of texts, went on to emerge as printed matter or, quite simply, a book: “the Little Bible.” The publishing of Luther’s catechisms did not,

1

The expression is Walter Ong’s, Orality and Literacy, 113.

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however, put a stop to oral instruction, nor did it block what my heading refers to as the “earways to Heaven.” Quite the contrary. Teaching the catechism seems to have been organized in more or less the same fashion all over Protestant Europe, including England.2 Standard elements included catechetical sermons on Sundays, mid-week lessons for young people, and prescribed devotions led by the man of the house. The catechetical institutions of Denmark-Norway (note that an independent Norwegian state was not constituted until 1814), and the Danish literature originating from or giving rise to them, have been accounted for by Charlotte Appel in her monumental two-volume work on reading and book markets in seventeenth-century Denmark.3 As in other places, religion and reading skills in Denmark-Norway were inextricably linked to the printed catechisms. The rise of print culture, literacy and universal schooling in Northern Europe is almost unthinkable without the existence of Luther’s Small Catechism. My ambition here is not to rewrite the history of Dano-Norwegian literacy. Instead, I would like to direct the reader’s attention to a somewhat neglected literary genre that displays the dynamic relationship between orality and print in a peculiarly explicit way. In what follows, I shall explore the genre of catechism songs or hymns, which are printed texts meant for oral, musical delivery. How and where were they performed? Who sang them, with or without a book in their hands? And what of the tunes: How did they aid learning and teaching? Simple as these questions may seem, the answers prove rather elusive. We shall have “to pass from the what to the how of reading”, which is, as Robert Darnton has pointed out, “an extremely difficult step.”4

Catechism songs Between 1569 and 1756, eight books of catechism songs were published in the kingdom of Denmark-Norway. Some of them were quite modest, while others were both ambitious and influential, and had especially significant reception histories. (1) In 1569, Hans Thomissøn (Thomesen) edited Den danske Psalmebog, the first Danish hymnal authorized by the king for use in all churches.5 This book, in accordance with Luther’s precept, includes a separate section 2

Cf. Green, “Children in Understanding”. Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:115–219, English summary 2:906–15. 4 Darnton, Cat Massacre, 222. 5 Hans Thomissøn, Den danske Psalmebog, met mange Christelige Psalmer: Ordentlig tilsammenset, formeret oc forbedret (Copenhagen, 1569). 3

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entitled “Catechism”, containing a total of nineteen hymns on the Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the sacraments. Eight of these hymns were written by Luther himself.6 Thomissøn’s collection was used for more than a hundred years, until 1699, when it was replaced by Thomas Kingo’s church hymnal Ny Kirke-Psalmebog.7 Although Kingo, who was the bishop of Odense, did not devote a separate section to catechetical song, he did retain twelve of his precursor’s nineteen catechetical hymns. His hymnal was the main edition used throughout the eighteenth century, and even longer in some parts of the country. (2) The first registered catechism song that was not part of a hymnal, but a separately issued print, is dated 1610. The author provides only his initials: M.R.K. The title, beginning with Ded Kunstrige A.B.C., is quite comprehensive and links this small octavo print (of which the song itself fills five pages) to the teaching of reading.8 (3) The second separate print, consisting of 114 unusually small octavo pages, reveals greater ambitions. The author’s initials on the title page refer to the name of Rasmus Svendsen Ottense (c. 1590–1645) who began his career as a famulus in the service of the influential bishop Hans Poulsen Resen, and who ended up becoming a rural dean in the south of Zealand. As a dean, Rasmus Svendsen made a pioneering effort to establish a publicly maintained school. In addition to the strictly catechetical songs, his book Catechismus Rythmicus, which was published in 1644, includes songs elaborating on the Table of Duties (which formed the last part of most Danish catechisms), as well as hymns meant for morning and evening prayers and other more specific purposes.9

6

Leaver, “Luther’s Catechism Hymns”, 398. Thomas Kingo, Dend Forordnede Ny Kirke-Psalmebog: Efter Hans Kongl. Mayest. Allernaadigste Befalning, af de fornemste Geistlige i Københafn til Guds Tieniste paa Søndagene, Fæsterne, Bededagene, og til anden Gudelig brug i Kircken, udi Danmark og Norge, af Gamle Aanderige Sange Ordentlig indrettet og Flitteligen igjennemseet, og med mange Ny Psalmer forbedret, og iligemaader efter Kongl. Befalning til Trykken befordret af Thomas Kingo D. Biskop udi Fyens Stift (Odense, 1699). 8 [M.R.K.], Ded Kunstrige A.B.C.: Met guds giffne Low ved de X. Guds Bud med mange skøne dyder oc lærdomme, huert Menniske Gamle oc Unge, til en daglig Øffuelse kaarteligen Sanguiss forfattet Aff M.R.K. (Copenhagen, 1610). 9 Rasmus Svendsen Ottense, Catechismus Rythmicus: Børnelærdoms Fem Parter i Rim-Sangvis befattet, met Velsignelse oc Tacksigelse til oc fra Bords, Morgen oc Aften Bøn, Dags Bøn oc Faste Bøn. Nu ydermeere Forbedret med Gudelige og Andæctige Bønner under hver Stycke oc Psalme udi Huustaflen. Sampt med nogle andre nyttige Advarsels Psalmer, med sine Bønner der hos, at bruge i atskillige 7

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(4) Christen Jensen Wiby (died 1686), a pastor in Jutland, published Summariske Rythmiske Erindring, a short “rhythmical” catechism in 1684 (8 pp, octavo). In this instance, however, versification – not song – is the educational tool: “This summary admonition,” the local bishop writes in his imprimatur, “is a means by which the young and simple may quickly understand and not so soon forget their catechism, which is for all children to know.”10 (5) Three years later, in 1687, Lauritz Sommer (born 1629) issued a small book of catechism songs (24 pp, octavo). Sommer was a schoolmaster in Copenhagen. However small, his Catechismi Fem HovedParter must have enjoyed some success, as he managed to put a new and “improved” edition on the market in 1709.11 (6) The jewel in the crown of Dano-Norwegian catechism song is Petter Dass’s posthumously published work Lille Catechismus, Forfatted I beqvemme Sange. From 1689 until his death, Dass (1647–1707) served as a pastor in Alstahaug, 500 kilometres north of Trondheim. When Norwegian national literature was being established in the mid-nineteenth century, Dass was proclaimed the young nation’s Homer, or its Ennius, mainly due to his topographical poem about the northern reaches of the country. Still, the greater part of his poetry is spiritual, and his catechism songs can be regarded as his principal achievement: Forty-eight poems in all explain the five parts of Luther’s Small Catechism, including the Table of Duties. Dass seems to have had the first version of his book ready for the printer in 1698, but for some unknown reason it was not published until 1715, eight years after the poet’s death. Comprising 424 pages in octavo, the editio princeps served as a model for some fifty editions throughout the eighteenth century.12 In fact, the Lille Catechismus, Forfatted I beqvemme Sange was remarkably popular; in some regions only Kingo’s hymnal was more widely circulated. Outside Copenhagen, the book was printed in Aalborg, Bergen and Christiania (Oslo), and some farlige Tider, som er Krigstid, Pestilentzis tid, oc andre flere saasom siugdoms Tider (Copenhagen, 1644). 10 Christen Jensen Wiby, Summariske Rythmiske Erindring Ofver vores Heele Catechismum Oc Børne-Lærdom Til Christelig Welvilligheds Tjenneste Dediceret mine fromme Med-Christne Oc i synderlighed de Unge oc Eenfoldige, Sammenskrefven i Wiby Præstegaard Aff Christen Jensøn Wiby P.L. (Copenhagen, 1684). 11 Lauritz Sommer, Catechismi Fem Hoved-Parter Til Saligheds Brug daglig at øve, Sangviis componered af Lauritz Sommer (Copenhagen, 1687). 12 Petter Dass, D. Mort. Luthers Lille Catechismus, Forfatted I beqvemme Sange, under føyelige Melodier af Petter Dass (Copenhagen, 1715).

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of the songs about the Ten Commandments were issued separately in even more cities. Between 1715 and 1792, an average of one new edition came into print almost every year.13 The work’s exceptional popularity may – at least to some extent – be attributable to the rare poetic quality of the pastor’s work, and to its distinguished musicality and its powerful, popular idiom. (7) Compared to Dass’s work, Jacob Knudsen Schandrup’s songs in Aandelige Sange from around 1725 barely deserve mention (24 pp, octavo).14 Only one of them deals with the five parts of the catechism. Schandrup, who died in 1720, earned his living as a bailiff, but left behind a number of secular, and even frivolous poems. His catechetical poetry is therefore highly atypical. (8) The last poet on this list is Lauritz Albertin Allerup (1723–1797), who ran a school for the poor in Copenhagen before finding work as a parish clerk in northern Zealand. His book of catechism songs, Den sangviis forfattede Catechismus, was first published in 1756 (142 pp, octavo), then again in 1775, supplemented with an additional thirty pericopic psalms. The title page of the first edition points out that the poet himself financed the printing.15 This corpus of Danish catechetical song, which could have included other works as well, is certainly not unique.16 Similar educational poetry probably existed wherever teaching of the catechism was on the Church’s agenda. Marie-Elisabeth Ducreux’s exploration of religious reading in 13

On the publishing history of Dass’s catechism songs, see Haarberg, “Petter Dass”, English summary, 61. 14 Jacob Knudsen Schandrup, Tvende smucke udvalde Aandelige Sange bestaaende 1. I en Morgen-Sang. 2. Een Aften-Sang. 3. En Sang over de fem Catechismi Parter. I smucke og nette Danske Riim forfattede af Jacob Knudsen Skandrup fordum Herritsfoget i Medelsom Lyngherrit i Jydland (Copenhagen, n.d., c. 1725). 15 Lauritz Albertin Allerup, Den første Part Af Den sangviis forfattede Catechismus, Indeholdende Elleve Aandelige Psalmer Eller Poetiske Betragtninger Over De Ti GUds Bud Med Deres Beslutnings Ord Af 2. Mose Bogs 20 Cap. v. 5.6. Udgivet i Trykken Af Lauritz Albertin Allerup (Copenhagen, 1756). 16 Most unauthorized seventeenth-century hymnals include catechism hymns, as do individual poets’ collections of spiritual songs, e.g. Peder Matthissøn Offvid, Aandens Glæde (Copenhagen, 1648); and Johan Brunsmand, Den Siungende Himmel-Lyst (Copenhagen, 1687). The famous Hans Adolph Brorson’s Troens Rare Klenodie (Copenhagen, 1739) represents another such instance, even though Brorson’s hymns are not explicitly termed catechetical. His work includes a section on “the means of faith” (Troens Midler), i.e. hymns on the Ten Commandments, prayer and the sacrament of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. H.A. Brorson, Samlede Skrifter, ed. L.J. Koch, 2:1–58 (Copenhagen: Lohse, 1953).

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eighteenth-century Bohemia may serve as an example. “Sung reading” formed a vital part of the Bohemian culture; hymn books for all kinds of purposes were common and “published in an enormous number of editions and in all formats.” Often, these books also offered the catechism and the liturgical texts “in a form only slightly adapted to the requirements of rhyme.” Ducreux accordingly insists that it is essential to include singing in the study of popular reading, especially in the period when orality was gradually being replaced by literacy: “By means of the hymn or the song, the text took flight from the pages of the book to reach the illiterate or the semiliterate even when [...] they had daily acquaintance with reading.”17

The settings for the singing Generally speaking, the history of catechism song as such does not begin with Martin Luther, although in Denmark, within the Danish church, it probably does. According to Luther, music reigns like a queen over man’s passions; music has, within it, the power to comfort the sad, terrify the happy, encourage the despairing, humble the proud, calm the passionate, and appease those who are full of hate.18 Luther uses song to amplify, so to speak, the word of God to reach every single believer, irrespective of reading ability. In 1529, the printed catechisms could only supplement the oral dissemination of the Word. For centuries, the Word of God remained “the word of hearing” – Hørelsens Ord – in the popular conception, and we know that in some places the catechism was taught orally, even after the reading of print is assumed to have taken over.19 In the autumn of 1523, Luther revealed his plan to write “vernacular psalms for the people, i.e. spiritual songs, so that the Word of God even by means of song may live among the people.”20 Hymnologists explain the reformer’s efforts as primarily liturgically motivated, as the new Protestant service needed hymns that were suitable for congregational singing.21 His hymns were first published as individual broadsides; most of them are essentially catechetical. As they deal with the Ten Commandments, the 17

Ducreux, “Reading unto Death”, 217–19. Luther’s Latin preface to Georg Rhau’s Symphoniae iucundae (1538) in Ulrich S. Leupold, ed., Liturgy and Hymns. Vol. 53 of Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), 323. 19 Cf. Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:187. 20 Letter to Georg Spalatin quoted in Luther’s Works (see n. 18) 53:221. 21 Leaver, “The Sung Word”, 61: “Although the singing of these hymns could and did take place in homes and other non-ecclesiastical settings, Luther saw that they were essentially congregational and liturgical.” 18

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Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the two sacraments, they could in fact be said to anticipate the Small Catechism. Luther’s hymns were translated into Danish very early on. No fewer than thirty of them were included in Hans Thomissøn’s hymnal. The liturgical use of these hymns was confirmed and consolidated by the Church Ritual of 1685, in which a catechism hymn is prescribed at the end (pro exitu) of each service.22 Towards the end of the preface to his Large Catechism, Luther insists on the benefits of catechetical song: For you should not assume that the young people will learn and retain this teaching from sermons alone. When these parts [the five parts of catechism] have been well learned, one may assign them also some psalms or hymns, based on these subjects, to supplement and confirm their knowledge. Thus young people will be led into the Scriptures and make progress every day.23

Luther’s purpose in writing his catechism hymns was, accordingly, not only a part of his efforts to create a German liturgy: He also intended to have these hymns used in Andacht, devotions at home. In a supplementary section of his Small Catechism concerning morning and evening prayers in the home, Luther recommends that morning prayers be concluded with the singing of a hymn, possibly one on the Ten Commandments.24 The two best-known hymns were written by Luther himself. From the very beginning, then, there are at least two settings in which catechism singing took place: the church, and people’s own homes. Johann Rist’s German catechism hymns, published in 1656, explicitly preserve this double aim, the title recommending his Katekismus Andachten for use “in unseren Evangelischen Kirchen” in addition to the usual devotional context.25 Petter Dass’s hymns, which literary historians have liked to think were

22 Danmarks Og Norgis Kirke-Ritual [1685]. Sabro: Udvalget for konvent for kirke og theologi, 1985, 22. 23 Preface to the Large Catechism, translated by James Schaaf, in Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 386. 24 Ibid., 352; cf. Leaver, “Luther’s Catechism Hymns”, 399. 25 Johann Rist, Neue Musikalische Katekismus Andachten, Bestehende in LehrTrost-Vermahnung und Warnungs-reichen Liederen über den gantzen heiligen Katechismus, oder die Gottselige Kinder-Lehre, welchen zugleich zwölf Erbauliche Gesänge über die Christliche Haustaffel, sind beigefüget (Lüneburg, 1656).

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sung by Dass himself during services, are explicitly recommended by the censor “for household use and private devotions”.26 School is a third important setting for catechetical singing. In Denmark, including its Northern province, the teaching of the catechism was laid down in detail by the first Church Order of 1537 and again in the Norwegian Church Order of 1607. Every boy and girl had to attend weekly lessons given by the local pastor or, perhaps more often, by a parish clerk. Historically, this training bifurcates into confirmation lessons and publicly maintained schools in the 1730s: Compulsory confirmation was introduced in 1736 during the Pietistic rule of Christian VI, and a statutory decree of 1739 aimed to ensure that not only children in towns, but all children, were taught to read. Demand accordingly increased for printed ABC-books, catechisms and hymnals. Under these circumstances, the evident confidence that Copenhagen’s printers had in Dass’s catechism songs reached its peak – and in 1736, three printers in sharp competition offered four different editions of his book. Within the corpus of DanoNorwegian catechism song, however, there is no explicit mention of singing in schools. Even so it is worth noticing that two of the authors were school teachers by profession. Lauritz Sommer, whose songs were published in 1687, was a schoolmaster in Copenhagen, as was Lauritz Allerup three generations later. In his preface, Allerup refers to his profession as almost the lowliest of all clerical appointments, and yet the most important one: “Who can deny that the church of God is planted in the schools, and that those who are trusted with business of this kind are also given the greatest pains and inconvenience?”27 Allerup, who calls his songs “educational”, indirectly presents them as answers to a pedagogical challenge, namely that of how to make his pupils remember their

26

My translation of Professor J. Steenbuch’s direction in his imprimatur (31 May 1714), rendered in the editio princeps as well as virtually all subsequent editions: “disse Catechetiske Sange, som till Huus-brug og privat Andagt eragtis tienlige.” The first edition can be studied in a facsimile published by the Petter Dass Museum at Alstahaug (n.d.). 27 Allerup’s preface to Den sangviis forfattede Catechismus: “SkoleholderEmbedet, skiønt det er næsten det allerringeste af de Geistlige Betieninger, er det dog i alle Fornuftiges Tanker et af de viktigste: Hvo kand nægte, at jo GUds Kirke plantes udi Skolerne, og at den største Umage og Besværlighed ligger paa dem, der ere betroede saadanne Embeder.” All translations are my own, unless otherwise stated.

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catechism.28 And Rist’s Katechismus Andachten, it should be noted, was apparently used in German classrooms as well as in private homes.29 From a critical point of view, these three different settings for singing are not merely extrinsic or arbitrary. Each one contributes to the formation of a specific musical and poetic expression, thereby threatening the generic unity of this catechetical poetry. If a poem is primarily intended for liturgical purposes – that is, for worship – it generally addresses God and belongs to the genre of hymns. On the other hand, if the poem is intended for educational purposes, then it addresses pupils or other lay people in need of the catechism and will, in most cases, be termed a “song.” There is nothing to suggest, however, that these two generic categories were kept strictly separate during the period in question. On the contrary, the prints can very well contain both types, alongside one another. Once again, Dass’s book is a good example. His best-known catechism song, “Herre Gud, ditt dyre navn og ære” (“Lord God, thy precious name and honour”), sets out, according to the book’s structure, to explain the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer (“hallowed be thy name”), but it is also a hymn praising God in a manner that its audience might have recognized from the Psalter.30

Memory and understanding Irrespective of the setting in which the singing took place – in church, at school or at home – the question remains of how these songs were sung and learnt by each individual believer. This is the sort of question that will find no clear-cut, definitive answer, but such meagre expectations should not keep us from collecting interesting evidence. The history of reading abounds in peculiar practices and performances that are easily lost with the disappearance of the situation or institution in which they used to take place. The conspicuous lack of scholarly interest in “sung reading” in the period during which popular literacy was spread across Northern Europe could probably be explained by this simple fact alone. A good indication of how the singing or learning process was thought of in the late seventeenth century is given by Petter Dass in his dedicatory preface. He declares his will to serve young people, who “when they have 28

Allerup’s preface to the second edtion of 1775: “De kan altsaa kaldes Lære- eller Undervisnings-Sange.” 29 Krummacher, “Johan Rists geistliche Dichtung”, 152. 30 There is evidence to suggest that Dass first wrote this song as a hymn of praise and only later revised it to be incorporated in his catechism songs, cf. a forthcoming article by Margrét Eggertsdóttir and Jon Haarberg (2010).

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learnt their catechism by reading, will thereafter come to learn it by singing.”31 The goal of both methods, the reading and the singing, is no doubt to help the learner remember, and be able to reproduce the text verbatim.32 In the following paragraph Dass describes the learning process in detail, comparing learning the catechism to a meal: The food is carried in on a dish, the dish is placed on the table, the table is carried into the house. Likewise the Word will be carried into the ear, and further on through the ear to the mouth, and by the mouth it will be carried to the heart.33

If this operation succeeds, the author continues, the hearts of the young will be considered no less than “houses of God” and their ears the very “gates of Heaven.” Thus the Kingdom of God, Heaven on Earth, is located within every believer. The process described does not involve reading in our modern sense, however. The Word is a word of hearing, but it is only by singing it that the believer will be able to internalize it, through understanding and remembering. Dass is certainly aware that memorizing his musical catechism requires hard work. Yet according to the poet himself, committing a song of some 400 lines to memory should be within the bounds of possibility: “A willing horse (however small) may often pull heavy loads.”34 Not so Steen Wirthmann, the poet’s curate and brother-inlaw, who seems to take a more realistic stance with respect to oral-aural distribution. In a eulogy published at the end of the first edition (and 31 “Dernest er og mit Arbeydes henseende til at tienne de Unge, hvilke naar de have lært sin Catechismi Bog læsendes, ville siden vennes til at lære den samme Sjungendes.” Petter Dass, Samlede verker, ed. Kjell Heggelund and Sverre Inge Apenes (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1980), 2:141. 32 Dass’s words might be said to echo those of his precursor, the former Trondheim bishop Anders Arrebo, who in the preface to his metrical version of the Psalter (1623) says: “Blessed are therefore those eyes that truly see King David’s Psalter, those ears that truly listen to it, the mouth that truly reads and sings it and most of all that heart which in the true spirit contemplates and considers it, and governs and adapts its life accordingly.” (“O salige ere derfor de Øyen, som ræt see Kong Davids Psaltere, de øren den ræt høre, den mund den ræt læss oc siunger, oc allermest det Hierte, som den ræt i Aanden offuerveyer oc betracter, oc sit Liff oc Leffnet der effter styrer oc regulerer”). Anders Arrebo, Davids Psalmer 1623 og 1627, vol. 2, bk. 1 of Samlede Skrifter, ed. Vagn Lundgaard Simonsen (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1968), 20. 33 “Maden indbæres paa Fadet, Fadet indbæres paa Bordet, Bordet indbæres i Huuset; Saa vil Ordet indbæres til Øret, giennem Øret indbæres til Munden, gjennom Munden indbæres til Hiertet.” Dass, Samlede verker (see n. 31), 2:141. 34 “En villig Hest bliver (hvor liden den er) ofte tunge Læs mægtig.” Ibid., 2:142.

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subsequent editions) of Dass’s book, Wirthmann writes of the pastorpoet’s parishioners that “The sound of songs set by his pen / the sweetest fruit shall bring them.”35 This poem was evidently written while Dass was still alive, and when the printing of his book was still uncertain. So, according to Wirthmann, the parishioners would have to rely on copying if they wanted to take the songs home. Not everyone would have been blessed with the sort of writing skills this method of distribution required. The notion of the heart as the seat of one’s thoughts and feelings has a long history. It is well known from the Bible in passages such as Luke 6:45: “for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (King James Version). However, in a predominantly oral-aural culture the heart also serves as the seat of memory – as a kind of storage room or thesaurus for information. If what is to be remembered exists in writing, it should accordingly be inscribed upon the heart itself, as set out in Prov. 3:3: “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart.” This perception of memory dominated the oral culture of the European Middle Ages, as accounted for by Mary Carruthers. In fact, today we still sometimes learn a poem or a psalm “by heart.” Expressing that a text was “in our hearts” was understood to be “an adequate synonym for ‘in our memories’.”36 Generally, Dass addresses or refers to his audience as listeners. In his song about the First Commandment, he instantly creates a situation in which a pupil is instructed, orally, by his teacher. Dass describes the teacher beckoning the pupil, to give him God’s Commandments to count upon his fingers. Just as God carved his Commandments on tablets of stone, the pupils should engrave them on their hearts, the teacher says.37 Only once does the poet take his pupils’ reading skills for granted. If you cannot understand what your pastor is actually saying because he mumbles 35

“Ved Pennen maa hans Sanges Liud / Dem yndig Frugt Hjembære.” This poem is regrettably not included in Dass’s Samlede verker; it is, however, included in the facsimile of the first edition (see n. 26). 36 Carruthers, Book of Memory, 44. 37 Dass is certainly aware of more Biblical sources for this expression; moreover, it was used by older contemporaries like Thomas Kingo and Elias Naur. In VinterParten, the first part of his planned hymnal (1689), Kingo calls on Jesus to write his name on his, the poet’s, heart: “O Jesus, write thy name on my heart” (“Skriv dig JEsu paa mit hierte”), see Kingo’s “BRyder frem I hule Sukke” in Samlede Skrifter, ed. Hans Brix, Paul Diderichsen and F.J. Billeskov Jansen (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1975), 4:470, stanza 15, line 1. Elias Naur, in his preface to Zions Sange oc Sucke (Odense, 1688), wishes to “paint” and “print” the image of Christ upon the hearts of his audience, he himself having had his heart “stamped” by the grace of God.

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or his sermon is too complicated, then you have no excuse, as you have your catechism “in print and in your mother tongue”, as Dass maintains in another song.38 Even though the poet envisaged his audience as consisting of listeners and singers, he must have suspected that there were also some readers among them, and consequently a demand for print. Again, one mode of communication does not rule out the others. Another kind of contradiction is demonstrated by the first separate print of a catechism song from 1610. This hymn on the Ten Commandments, which according to the title page should be sung daily, belongs to the socalled alphabetical type, meaning that each verse in each of the twentyfour stanzas begins with a specific letter, following the Dano-Norwegian alphabet from A to its last letter Ø. The real challenge arrives with the letter X, compelling the poet to introduce Xerxes, the king of Persia, as an actor in his narrative. King Xerxes, perhaps somewhat unfairly, is used to exemplify the impious. To appreciate this alphabetical game, the recipient must be a reader. Moreover, perhaps the title page’s guidance to include the work in one’s daily devotions was not meant to be taken too literally. Dass’s point was the same as Thomissøn’s more than a hundred years before: Singing the Word of God contributes to a more “heartfelt” appropriation of the material, and stimulates its memorization. Reading skills are no prerequisite. The editor’s aim is to “advance and retain the Word of God” among the people, song being his preferred medium because poetry and song are learnt quickly by a willing mind, and are also more easily remembered. Even if public sermons should be banned and all good evangelical books should be burnt and torn to pieces, yet the understanding that has been ingrained in the heart by spiritual songs cannot easily be snatched away.39

Singing apparently has a great advantage over reading: Books may be destroyed and sermons are not easily remembered, but when sweet music is added to the words, as Thomissøn puts it a few paragraphs earlier, “the song acquires an additional force and goes deeper into the heart, so that the

38

The song on the Third Commandment, stanzas 22–23: “De [the commandments] staar jo skreven / I Catechismi-Bog. / De er jo bleven / I prent og Moders Sprog?” Dass, Samlede verker (see n. 26) 2:164. 39 Thomissøn’s preface to his Psalmebog (see n. 5): “Fordi Rim og Sang læris snart met lyst/ oc kunde best ihukommis. Om obenbare Predicken end bleff forbøden/ om alle gode Evangeliske bøger bleffue brende oc sønderreffne/ dog kand den forstand som ved gudelige Viser er indgrod i hiertet/ icke saa snart bortryckis.”

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text, which is verily the soul of the song, moves the heart more and is not easily forgotten.”40 If this is really so, who needs print?

Shared singing Coming to terms with the reading practices of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries implies rejecting the kind of dualism that classifies a population into “literate” and “illiterate.” Such an anachronistic dichotomy, I think, can only distort what actually went on, which was most often some sort of shared reading – a variety of practices involving literate mediators and illiterate or semiliterate listeners. When used as a term, “shared reading” sometimes refers to the fact that the same books were read by “popular” and educated readers, but it can also refer to someone reading aloud to a small group of people.41 This sort of reading dominated for many years. According to Reinhard Wittmann, who may be said to simplify the matter, it “constituted the sole form of reading among the rural population and a large section of the urban lower classes too.”42 No doubt, songs could be shared just as easily as prose or verse, if not more so. A literate lead singer had an excellent opportunity to turn listeners into participating singers, and thereby teach them a text that under other circumstances would remain unlearnt.43 All three settings for catechetical singing required literate mediators or lead singers whose institutional roles, I believe, should neither be overlooked nor underestimated. According to the law, the pastor himself or his parish clerk (degn) was responsible for teaching the catechism in church. The documentation available about how the teaching was organized and performed in practice is scarce, and it demonstrates considerable historical and regional variation. However, we do know that singing was an important task for the pastor and also for his assistant. The 40

“Men naar der kommer en sød oc lifflige sang oc Melodie der til (som er ocsaa Guds synderlig gaffue) da faar denne Sang en ny krafft, oc gaar dybere ind i hiertet, saa at Texten, som er saa gaat som Sangens Siel, rører hiertet meer, oc glemmis icke lettelig.” Ibid. 41 Cf. Chartier, “Reading Matter”, 270–72. 42 Wittmann, “Reading Revolution”, 290; cf. Gilmont, “Protestant Reformations and Reading”, 225. 43 Naturally, the listeners may also have had their own copy of the text. Charlotte Appel reproduces an illuminating Dutch copperplate from the mid-seventeenth century representing a group of peasants – some with and some without a print in their hands – gathering around a man singing a song from a printed sheet. Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 2:814.

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Church Ritual of 1685 prescribes that the pastor should recite the Biblical texts by singing them, and that the parish clerk should lead the congregation in hymn-singing.44 Anecdotal material from the Zealand Episcopal Archive reveals that, as late as 1729, the parish clerk’s singing ability could be regarded as even more important than his knowledge of the catechism.45 In his handbook on catechetical teaching from 1636, the bishop Hans Poulsen Resen instructs parish clerks to make their pupils repeat, line by line, what they sing until they know the hymn or song by heart.46 This didactic method – first memorizing the text and then, little by little, recognizing the meaning of each word and letter – was the very method used to teach reading. “Reading” (læsning), which involved repeating text to memorize it word for word, and “book reading” (læsning i bog), the analytical deciphering of unknown text, were two indistinctly different types of literacy, with a variety of intermediate or hybrid forms. What was taught in the early phases of popular literacy was mainly the initial “religious literacy”, as it was known.47 Schoolmasters and teachers were the second important group of mediators, although the borderline between church and school was often non-existent, especially before the extensive school reform of 1739. We may safely assume that singing was quite common at all kinds of schools before (and after) 1739, not least at the grammar schools (latinskoler), whose pupils would make up the local

44 Danmarks Og Norgis Kirke-Ritual (see n. 22), 12–13; Christian den fjerdes recess 1643, 170. Oslo: Den rettshistoriske kommisjon, 1981. 45 Larsen, Bidrag, 38. The evidence of the parish clerk’s role as a singer is often contradictory and deserves more scholarly attention. A Norwegian historian, writing in 1905, imparts an old tale from the west coast about two sisters who could read, and who moreover owned a copy of Kingo’s hymnal. To the great irritation of the rest of the congregation, they sang along with the parish clerk (klokkeren) in church, thus ruining everyone else’s experience of the clerk’s performance. See O. Olafsen, “Naar lærte den almindelige mand i Norge, særlig paa landet, at læse og skrive?” For kirke og kultur 12 (1905): 594. Georg Hansen, on the other hand, who some sixty years ago published a historical monograph on the Danish parish clerk, asserts that congregational singing in the eighteenth century was hopelessly cacophonic, even repulsive, the leader of the singing more often than not being unable to lead. See Georg Hansen, Degnen. Studie i det 18. Aarhundredes Kulturhistorie. (Copenhagen: Schultz, 1944), 132–33. 46 [H.P. Resen], Instructio executionis catecheticæ, secundum Lutherum (Copenhagen, 1636), n.p. 47 Guttormsson, “Religious Literacy”; cf. Appel’s pertinent objection, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:364.

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church choir that performed daily duties during services.48 In most cases the teacher was privileged with respect to books. While leading the singing he could readily seek support for his memory in a printed text, whereas his pupils in most cases had to relate aurally-orally to what he sang. The third group of mediators consisted of conscientious “family fathers” who followed the reformers’ precepts about catechetical education at home. Luther’s firm belief in the priesthood of all believers ultimately made all fathers, or household heads, responsible for the catechetical qualifications of their household members, although in practice, especially in Sweden, the mothers were probably more important.49 All over Protestant Europe, morning and evening prayers became important rituals during which hymnals, prayer books and sermons were much used. Reading or singing spiritual texts aloud together strengthened the family as a group, thereby helping to structure the day and to promote literacy. How much singing actually went on during the Hausandacht or family prayers can hardly be estimated with any accuracy. Nevertheless, judging from the printers’ output of spiritual songs, whether as books or printed sheets (the broadside format was rarely used in Denmark-Norway), we have good reason to believe that singing took place more than reading. It seems obvious that most household heads, when choosing between reading from a Huspostil (a collection of sermons) or singing a spiritual or even catechetical song from the hymnal, or perhaps from Dass’s book of catechism songs, would not hesitate to reach for the songs. The advantages were obvious: First, sermons were not always easy to understand, peppered with words that did not belong to laymen’s vocabulary or employing a syntactical structure that was very demanding, not only of the household audience but of the reader as well. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the songs ensured the audience’s active participation. Later in the eighteenth century, family devotions were more often supplemented or replaced by Pietistic conventicles, which also favoured singing. With the spread of literacy and a steadily rising number of books in circulation, it seems fair to assume that more than one singer may, on such occasions, have had a book in their hands. One of the late eighteenthcentury movements that clearly found strength in Dass’s catechetical songs were the “Strong Jutlanders” (Stærke Jyder) on the east coast of the Danish mainland peninsula. Other areas that were especially fond of Dass’s catechism songs seem to have been the fjords along the northwestern coast of Norway (the county of Sunnmøre).50 48

Lausten, Kirkeordinansen, 161ff. Johansson, “Women and the Tradition of Reading”. 50 Haarberg, “Petter Dass”, 49, 52; cf. Fet, Lesande bønder. 49

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The dualistic conception of popular literacy has inevitably led historians of literature to believe that Dass’s catechism songs were handed down orally from generation to generation, this assumption being supported by the registration, over the twentieth century, of a great number of tunes – so-called folk tunes – set to these songs.51 The immensely popular “Lord God, thy precious name and honour” alone has been sung to approximately fifty different tunes. However, post-romantic literary scholarship has placed more faith in the reading ability of common people and comparatively less in oral traditions. The transmission of Dass’s songs may, in all probability, be better accounted for by a model that had literate singers lead a group in shared singing, which in turn consisted of literates, illiterates and semiliterates. If the tune was missing from the print, or if it was unknown to the singer because it was no longer in common use, or if the print had travelled out of the area where the tune was familiar, then another tune would have to be adapted to the text or simply invented. If not, the songs would be reduced to poems without music, and the singing would be spoiled. Consequently, the large number of folk tunes in existence does not prove that the dissemination of Dass’s songs, or other spiritual songs, relied on oral transmission. Rather, it proves the opposite: that prints were the prerequisite for singing. If the transmission had been oral-aural, the original or first tune would necessarily have been preserved, since in that case the words and the music would have been inseparable.52

The rhetoric of the tunes Regarding the music, the rise of religious song in connection with the Reformation is founded on a principle of recycling: New texts were to be written, set to existing tunes. As a pioneering hymn writer, Luther freely availed himself of tradition, finding both old Catholic and secular tunes suitable for his purposes. Simultaneously, however, he was anxious to draw a firm line of demarcation between religious song and ungodly, even bawdy, secular song. In his preface to the Wittenberg Songbook (1524), he emphasizes the need to get rid of “indecent” secular songs and replace them with something more “salubrious”: Young people could then be taught something of value, “thus combining the good with the pleasing, as is proper for youth.”53 51

A comprehensive catalogue is under preparation by Ivar Roger Hansen, Director of the Petter Dass Museum at Alstahaug. 52 Cf. Havelock, Muse Learns to Write, 29; Ong, Orality and Literacy, 57ff. 53 Preface to the Wittenberg Hymnal in Luther’s Works (see n. 18) 53:316.

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The Reformation song-writers must, nevertheless, soon have found themselves in something of a predicament, since the tunes that held the greatest appeal and could carry the gospel – or the catechism – farthest were not necessarily the most religious ones. Any catechizing poet would be tempted to choose according to popularity. Sheet music would only rarely be practical, and the Church’s Gradual probably did not reach far beyond a small circle of educated people such as pastors and perhaps parish clerks. Contrafacture (or parody) was no doubt an effective poetic strategy: applying a secular tune to a religious text.54 Indeed, this procedure is well documented even before the Reformation, for instance in the English carol, which is traceable back to the secular medieval ballad.55 How, then, did the catechizing Dano-Norwegian poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries relate to this challenge? The majority certainly used well-known tunes, often the catechetical melodies from the hymnal, although there was the odd exception: Lauritz Sommer (1687), for example, also refers his readers to one secular, pastoral tune, as does Lauritz Allerup (1756). And the popular Petter Dass stands out once again. According to the manuscripts preserved, some twenty out of a total of forty-eight songs are set to secular tunes. Only the first edition (published eight years after the poet’s death) does its best to conceal this from the reader, replacing the original reference with a somewhat cryptic one: “To be sung according to its own tune” (“Siungis under sin egen Melodie”). The printer or some other middleman must have had scruples about this, perhaps because he feared repercussions from the censors. We know the songs from an early manuscript version dated 1698, when the local bishop declared his imprimatur, but a revised version did not pass the final obstacle – the Copenhagen Faculty of Theology – until 1714, the year before the songs saw print. What actually happened is still a mystery. There are, however, at least two different kinds of parodic effects employed that may have led to trouble. One pertains to the words or contents of the original tune (1), while the other pertains to the music (2). (1) Introducing the second part of his Aandeligt Sjunge-Koor (Spiritual Singing Choir), which appeared in 1681, Thomas Kingo tries to deal with the unwelcome criticism that had apparently been levelled at the first part (1676): “I know well that there are quite a few people who would like to flog this insignificant product of my humble work, since it is not clad in 54

“Parody” was even used as a hymn book title in Peder Lauridsen’s Parodiae Sacræ: Psalmer at Siunge Gud til Ære, oc gode Christne til christelig oc Gudfryctig øffuelse (Copenhagen, 1617). 55 Greene, English Carols, cxlix; cf. Watt, Cheap Print, 41. With special reference to Sweden, see also Jersild, Skillingtryck, 70ff., English summary 473–74.

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the old and common tunes of the Church.”56 The poet defends himself partly by referring to the practice of his precursors, and partly by explaining his ambition to convert, as it were, the secular tunes from “vain words” to piety: “I have wanted to make these melodious and pleasing tunes so much more heavenly, and your mind (should you think it proper) the more devout.”57 So he continues his old practice, not only because he is following convention, but because he hopes to win over more souls in this way. In his commentary to Kingo’s prefatory apology, Nils Schiørring refers to some instances of song-writers using secular tunes in the years just before Kingo’s great achievement, particularly tunes originating from the popular collection of pastoral songs, Astree Siunge-Choor (The Singing Choir of Astrea) edited by Søren Terkelsen (1648–54).58 It is noteworthy, however, that song-writers publishing their books after Kingo, irrespective of any secular scruples, are acutely conscious of the power the tunes hold over readers. The best-selling pastor Jesper Rachløw, prefacing his Taare-Perse (Tear Press) in 1684, ensures his readers that he has chiefly gone with the old church tunes. But he has also been bold enough to use a few “new” tunes from Kingo, and texts by the Bergen poetess Dorothe Engelbretsdatter, whose book was first published in 1678, for the benefit of readers who may be “moved” (“bevægis”) and “entertained” (“forlystis”) by such renewal.59 Clearly, the choice of tune is a question of rhetorical, that is catechetical, effect, and hence a question of popularity. Fifteen years later (in 1699), Elias Naur, a poet and professor of Greek, emphasizes that he has chosen the simplest kind of church tunes for his Danish version of the Psalter

56

“Jeg veed vel, at der ikke faa skal lade sig finde, som dette mit ringe Arbeidis spæde Foster skal vilde udqviste, fordi det ikke er overklæd med de gamle og brugelige Kirke-Sangis Toner.” Thomas Kingo, Samlede Skrifter (see n. 37), 3:7. 57 “jeg haver dermed vildet giort de velklingende og behagelige Melodier saa meget mere Himmelske, og dit sind (om dig det befalder) dis mere Andægtigt”, ibid. 58 Nils Schiørring, “Melodikommentarer og Melodiudsættelser”, in Kingo, Samlede Skrifter (see n. 37), 7:16. Elsewhere Schiørring mentions the spiritual songs of Johan Brunsmand, published in the same year as the first part of Kingo’s “Singing Choir”; cf. Nils Schiørring, Det 16. og 17. århundredes verdslige danske visesang (Copenhagen: Thaning and Appel, 1950) 1:234-35. 59 Jesper Rachløw, Denne lille Bog, kaldet Taare-Perse, indeholder adskillige gudelige oc aandelige Sange, Gud fornemmeligen til Ære og Sin Næste til Opbyggelse, Eenfoldeligst componerede oc sammen-skrefne aff Hans Kgl. Mayest. Skibs-Præst (Copenhagen, 1684).

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Kingo and Naur thus seem to agree on what motivated their choice of tunes, even though they chose different approaches. They are both perfectly well aware that song-writing belongs to the realm of rhetoric. When, like so many of his contemporaries, Naur made his Psalter into singable poetry, he did so because it must have been obvious to him that songs travel farther and wider than texts without a tune. (2) Be that as it may, the resistance to vernacular tunes should not be explained only as a fear of intertextuality (the tunes carrying with them an echo of the worldly and the impious). There was also a musical problem; a problem of measure or beat. Investigating the controversies related to the use of vernacular tunes for spiritual songs in Germany around 1700, Dianne Marie McMullen demonstrates that the orthodox Lutherans and the radical Pietists took different stances, the former group privileging a disyllabic measure (iambi and trochees, in the terminology of the times), and the latter preferring a trisyllabic measure (anapaests and dactyls). Vernacular tunes were often dances of some sort, involving a certain amount of bouncing (Hüpffen) and hopping about (Springen). Both groups agreed that vernacular tunes, in the words of the church musician Andreas Werckmeister (1691), were “dedicated to the World or to the Devil” (“der Welt oder dem Satan gewidmet”) and should be avoided for spiritual purposes;61 but curiously, the Pietists, who have such a strong reputation for being hostile to dance in any form, actually favoured the dance tunes. McMullen points out that August Hermann Francke himself sharply distinguished between ballroom dancing and dancing for joy before the face of God.62 It seems beyond doubt that this distinction was firmly

60 “at endog Borger og Bønder/ ja Tigge-Drenge og Piger som for intet skal bekomme bogen kand uden ald Hinder siunge med/ og paa en lystig og liflig Maade lockis og ledis til Himmelen.” Elias Naur, Ny Strenge paa Davids Harpe. Eller alle Davids Psalmer paa de letteste Kircke-Melodier udsatte, og paa mange Steder forklarede; med hver Psalmis Indhold og Meening, Navn og Nytte, udi alle Tilfælde, for alle sande Christne, for de Suckende og Sørgende, som for de Lofsiungende i Guds Zion; men for alle Ting Guds hellige og herlige Navn til nogen Ære og Berømmelse, 2nd ed. (Odense, 1699), preface; cf. Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:501. 61 McMullen, “Melodien geistlicher Lieder”, 199. 62 Ibid., 208. The same distinction was, in fact. drawn by Jesper Brochmand, the leading orthodox theologian in Denmark, explaining the sixth commandment; see

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established in Germany. In all likelihood, around 1700 it was having an effect in Denmark as well, although this has yet to be documented. The Pietists made their way into Denmark partly through the predominantly German-speaking Royal Court, where the German “philanthropic” theologian Frantz Julius Lütkens exerted his influence from 1704.63 Returning, then, to the catechism songs of Petter Dass and the question of censorship, one possible explanation does suggest itself. In 1698, when Dass’s book was first submitted to the censors, four professores ordinarii constituted the Copenhagen Faculty of Theology (Henrik Bornemann, Hans Wandal, Hector Gotfred Masius and Hans Bartholin). They all adhered to the brand of Lutheran Orthodoxy in which they had been educated, some of them quite fanatically so. In the late 1690s, three of the professors were appointed members of two different hymn-book commissions. The commission preparing for and revising Kingo’s new church hymnal, Ny Kirke-Psalmebog (1699), saw to it that the authorized book contained no reference to secular tunes. Judging from this policy, it seems more than likely that Dass’s secular tunes made his work vulnerable to the kind of objection any censor would raise against a book of spiritual songs in 1698.64 In 1714, however, when Pietistic theology was no longer unthinkable in Denmark-Norway, the general attitude at the Faculty of Theology was obviously quite different. Dass’s censor, Professor Hans Steenbuch, clearly sympathized with the Pietists. By concealing Dass’s own tune references, the censor was, in fact, able to kill two birds with one stone: First, he could cut the undesirable connection to “the world” with its ungodly songs, and second, by doing this he could preserve the popular tunes with their trisyllabic measures. The case of Petter Dass’s catechism songs instructively shows the great importance of music and song in the semiliterate cultures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His secular tunes turned out to be a stumbling block. Still, the music paved the way for his enormous success; it was the prerequisite for such wide circulation. Interestingly, far more folk tunes have been registered for those songs that were finally printed without a reference to a specific melody than to those that kept their original reference. Thanks, in part, to the many tunes with trisyllabic measure, the eighteenth-century Pietists became the enduring managers of Dass’s orthodox Lutheran song legacy. his Universæ Theologiæ Systema, (Ulm, 1664 [first published Copenhagen, 1633], tom. 2, 62a–b. 63 Glebe-Møller, “Det teologiske fakultet”, 185ff. 64 Regarding the rule of chance in censorship, see Appel, Læsnings og bogmarked, vol. 1:404; cf. Darnton, “Censorship”, 45–46.

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Religious reading – and singing In her recent book on literacy and liturgy in late medieval England, Katherine Zieman shifts her focus from written texts to the oral performance of written texts – to reading and singing – thereby convincingly demonstrating the crucial importance of song to the understanding of medieval and early modern semiliterate cultures.65 The research challenges posed by these cultures arise because the various kinds of reading and singing performances have been lost, whereas the texts themselves still exist. However, by exploring these performances, albeit through written texts, Zieman succeeds above all in broadening our perspective, and thereby adding complexity to the standard conception of medieval literacy – which is that writing simply supplanted oral communication. Clearly, a similar shift of focus is needed in the study of post-Reformation literacy. There is every indication that in the history of reading, the importance of singing is generally underestimated, and that the various historical practices of singing and reading are accordingly under-researched. Charlotte Appel is certainly right in maintaining that printed poetry served as a bridge between the literate and oral cultures: “Just a few copies and readers were able to spread the printed message far beyond the number of literates provided the message was set out in rhyme and verse to well-known tunes.”66 The historian’s task, then, consists of exploring and understanding the institutions and situations in which reading – and singing – took place, especially the roles of the middlemen: the parish clerk, the school teacher and the head of the family. The variety of practices and performances – an area that can only be approached indirectly – is undoubtedly more complex and paradoxical than one is generally ready to accept, not least with regard to the “tenaciousness of orality” inherent in popular singing. In Denmark-Norway during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, religious reading could be practised silently or aloud, with or without music, alone or with a companion or in a group, based on one or more texts or none at all, or in mixed groups of literates, illiterates or semiliterates adapting or simply reproducing the texts, to edify or worship. Different needs, settings and situations produced almost innumerable combinations. The daughter of Christian IV, Princess Leonora Christina, who was jailed for being implicated in her husband’s crime of high treason, spent 65

Zieman, Singing the New Song. Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 2:635: “Få eksemplarer og få læsere kunne sprede det trykte budskab langt ud over de læsekyndiges rækker, når budskaberne var formuleret på rimede vers til kendte melodier.” 66

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twenty-two years (1663–85) in the Blue Tower of Copenhagen Castle. In her memoirs she fully demonstrates the great variety of reading and singing practices that existed even within the confines of a prison cell. She sings from print or from memory, or sings songs that she has written herself (to the tunes of well known hymns), alone or with her maid. She also reads from her hymnal, disregarding the tune. And she even tries to teach her maid to read. Memoirs like those of the princess represent an invaluable type of source material.67 Luther’s Small Catechism has often been called a “Little Bible”, as it presumably contains everything a Lutheran Christian needs to know to be saved. However, another corpus of texts must also be characterized as fundamental to the religious reading culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The widespread distribution of the Psalter, in its vernacular metrical-musical forms, along with hymnals and prints like Dass’s catechism songs, explicitly testifies to the great yet underestimated importance of singing within this culture.68 That literacy and religious education are linked by an abundance of catechetical prints is common knowledge. According to Walter Ong, print paved the way for the catechism and the “textbook”, which provided “memorizable, flat statements” quite different from the “reflections” of oral cultures.69 We have all the more reason, then, not to forget about the sung catechetical poetry, which can only bring complexity and nuance to the issue at hand.

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Leonora Christina, Jammers Minde, ed. Poul Lindegård Hjorth and Marita Akhøj Nielsen (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 1998). 68 In his preface to Johannes Bugenhagen’s edition of the Psalter (1524), Luther had condoned the labelling of the Psalter as a “Little Bible.” This was picked up by Anders Arrebo in the preface to his well-known metrical Psalter. Arrebo, Davids Psalmer (see n. 32), 4. 69 Ong, Orality and Literacy, 131–32.

CHAPTER THREE PRINTED IN BOOKS, IMPRINTED ON MINDS: CATECHISMS AND RELIGIOUS READING IN DENMARK DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES CHARLOTTE APPEL

In early modern Denmark, most of the children who learnt to read acquired this skill in a religious setting. They met the world of letters – and book culture as such – in the specific shape of their ABC-book and Luther’s Small Catechism. In this article I would like to pursue the hypothesis that this had certain consequences. The fact that boys and girls were socialized into the world of books by reading and re-reading a limited number of religious texts must have contributed to shaping their reading habits and conventions. And readers were not the only ones affected. The intimate connection between reading instruction and religious education had a profound impact on the production of reading matter, quantitatively and qualitatively. It obviously meant that the key texts of the prescribed religious curriculum were printed in thousands of copies. The influence seemed to have gone further, however. The teaching traditions set their mark on many other, more “advanced” books by creating a standard for how printed texts should be composed, how arguments were put forward, and even how pages were laid out. On the following pages I will be taking a closer look at the way in which two clergymen reflected, and acted, upon the possibilities and constraints created by the Lutheran tradition of religious reading instruction. First, I shall present a short survey of the way in which basic reading instruction was organized in early modern Denmark, and of how different teaching materials were used in connection with different stages

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of learning. I shall then proceed to my two case studies: the pastor Anders Matthiesen Hjørring, who published a number of books in the midseventeenth century intended for readers at different levels, and the young clergyman Enevold Ewald, who, around 1720, was struggling to target the right levels of literacy in his campaign to spread a Pietist understanding of Christianity.

Literacy and books at different levels Evidence from contemporary sources (church registers, autobiographies, school charters, and so on) informs us that reading instruction in seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century Denmark took place in many different settings. Several towns had a hierarchy of formal and informal schools, ranging from a grammar school and an officially authorized schoolmaster offering lessons in writing, arithmetic and German, to students, craftsmen and sometimes women who simply “kept school”, often in their private homes.1 Wealthy merchants, clergymen and other well-educated citizens often hired a private teacher for their children, as did most members of the nobility. But the place where most children were taught to read in printed books was often linked directly to the church. After the Reformation, the parish clerk (or a curate) was made responsible for the children’s Christian instruction, and in the course of the seventeenth century it became increasingly common to include actual reading instruction in this teaching. In the countryside the involvement of clergymen was probably even more pronounced, although the existing sources (mainly clerical) inevitably give the activities in and around the church a privileged position, whereas informal tuition organized by peasants has left very few traces in the archives. An abundance of indications show that the poorest members of the clergy, parish clerks and their substitutes, often worked as teachers and could use this activity to supplement their modest incomes (because parishioners paid for instruction in more advanced skills such as writing and arithmetic). And from the parishioners’ point of view it was cheaper to use a clerical teacher, rather than financing a school completely on their own. Elementary instruction was therefore frequently organized in a religious environment as far as buildings and teachers were concerned. 1 The following outline is based on results from my dissertation about reading and book markets in seventeenth-century Denmark, see Appel, Læsning og bogmarked (with an extensive summary in English, 2:899–950). See also Appel, “Literacy”. An informative and detailed study of schools in Elsinore, can be found in Pedersen, Almueundervisning.

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Just as important was the fact that often, and certainly among the clergy, reading was fundamentally considered a religious activity. Literacy was to be used as a tool to approach and open up religious literature, and reading instruction was therefore perceived as a necessary introductory step in any good Christian upbringing. Some charters for seventeenthcentury rural schools state that children should be educated in the catechism and in writing, thereby subsuming the activity of learning to read under the concept of religious instruction.2 Whether the children were taught by a clergymen or not, they seem to have been taken through the same stages, and gone through the same specific, religious reading materials in the process of acquiring basic literacy. The very first book that children encountered was the ABC. The oldest extant copy of a Danish ABC-book dates from 1649,3 but it can be indirectly documented that this small imprint was quite common. Registers of printers’ and book binders’ stocks in probate inventories reveal that thousands of copies were available at very low prices.4 The ABC-books, always printed in octavos of 16 pages, consisted of a front page with the alphabet (first in lower case, then in upper case) followed by three short texts: the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. These were texts with which most children were already familiar. They were read aloud at church and used in many other settings as well. No doubt many people had learnt these texts by heart without ever learning to read as such. Indeed, some pastors explicitly stated this in seventeenthcentury church records, wishing to explain why certain – elderly – members of their congregation were unable to read.5 The fact that the words of the three initial texts were already known could probably be used by teachers when helping children to decipher their very first textbook. It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century, or possibly in the 2

For example, “[the parish clerk shall] inform and teach poor school children their catechism and children’s knowledge, and other God-fearing practices, too, as well as teach writing and arithmetic” (“informere og lære fattige Skole-Børn deres Catechismo og Børnelærdom, og anden Gudfrygtigheds Øvelser, saa og at lære at skrive og regne”), concerning the school in Aarestrup in the North of Jutland, founded in 1648, cf. Samlinger af publiqve og private Stiftelser; Fundationer og Gavebreve, edited by Hans de Hofman. 11 vols. (Copenhagen 1755–80), 3:546. For more examples, see Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:212. 3 In fact, there exists only a fragment, printed by Melchior Winckler, Copenhagen 1649, in the Royal Library, Copenhagen. Another seventeenth-century fragment has recently been found, though not specifically identified, at the Bibliothek der Hansestadt Lübeck. See Appel, “When the commonplace”, 39. 4 Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:167. 5 Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:83, 88.

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late seventeenth century, that it became common to include a page in Danish ABC-books featuring separate, systematically listed syllables, and to insert hyphens in the words of the Lord’s Prayer, thus helping the children to crack the reading code.6 The first proper book that children were introduced to was Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. This work appeared in Danish as early as 1532, but the translation by Peter Palladius from 1538 remained the most widespread edition for the next hundred years. Palladius’s version contained the five main parts, organized according to Luther, meaning it began with the Ten Commandments, followed by the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and chapters on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Palladius had also included Luther’s selection of prayers, but not the Table of Duties. The Small Catechism was often printed as a duodecimo of 48 pages. Fortunately, such booklets are not quite as few and far between in library collections as the ABC-books are. But out of the 21 extant small catechisms in Danish dating from before 1600, 19 represent different editions. This clearly demonstrates that our knowledge only covers a fraction of what was once produced. What is more, preserved lists of printers’ and bookbinders’ stocks further confirm that Denmark was virtually saturated with small catechisms in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.7 Several sentences in the catechisms would have been known to many children by heart long before they came to hold a catechism in their own hands. In Luther’s booklet, however, the short or “pure” form of the key texts, such as the Lord’s Prayer, had become firmly interwoven with his comments and explanations. Each of the Ten Commandments, for instance, was followed by the brief question “What does this mean?”, 6

It is impossible to be more specific about the chronology, because there are so few extant ABC-books. The first Danish book to use this method was Jens Jensen Hjørring, En synderlig Ny ABCEET [A special, new ABC] (Copenhagen: Daniel Eichhorn, 1661). This booklet contained several pages with ever longer syllables (combining two, then three, then four letters), which expanded the ABC with another sheet of paper to a total of 32 pages. However, no other prints quite like it are known. From 1731 and 1733 there are preserved Danish ABC-books with one page of syllables, squeezed in between the alphabet and the Lord’s prayer, and these are very similar to an ABC in German printed in Copenhagen in 1705. We cannot be sure to what extent ABC-books from the period 1661–1705 contained lists of syllables for practice. 7 All known Danish imprints from the period 1482–1600 are described with great bibliographical accuracy in Lauritz Nielsen, Dansk Bibliografi 1482–1600. 4 vols. Second edition (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 1996). Evidence of contemporary stocks, see Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:167–68.

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accompanied by an extensive answer. This is why theologians found the text so valuable: It was “a golden treasure”, or indeed the very essence of Christian faith, which Martin Luther – with divine assistance – had distilled from the Holy Scriptures. On the other hand, this also made the text harder to comprehend. It can be demonstrated (especially from 1615 onwards, after the Lutheran Orthodox cleric Hans Poulsen Resen became bishop of Zealand) that many leading clergymen advocated that children be taught to read as a means to acquire true Christian knowledge. Boys and girls were still expected to learn the different parts of the catechism by heart and, ideally, to demonstrate their understanding by being able to answer questions (posed by parish clerks and pastors, and by rural deans and bishops on visitation). Basic literacy, however, meaning the ability to read printed text in the vernacular – first and foremost Luther’s Small Catechism – was seen with increasing frequency as a recommendable instrument.8 During this process, as the clergymen’s ambitions were clearly rising, something happened to the Small Catechism. The zealous Bishop Resen issued a new translation of Luther’s text, and soon additions were made: The Table of Duties became a standard part of small catechisms from the late 1620s and over the following decades, and an appendix with questions and answers for examinations was added, as well. Another appendix with biblical sentences was introduced around 1633. The “small” catechism had expanded and hardly lived up to its name, with editions from this period often consisting of close to a hundred pages. Luther’s catechism had definitely been transformed into a book; a book primarily intended for active reading, to which children proceeded as a second stage after having learnt the basics from their ABC-books. At least this is how many clergymen envisaged the process. Reading the catechism was, of course, supposed to lead children to learn the catechism by heart. Contemporary sources often distinguish between “reading in books”, “reading print” and “reading inwardly”, on the one hand, and “reading outwardly” (that is, by heart) on the other.9 The latter was what really mattered, and this was what clergymen wanted to test when inspecting churches or visiting private households. In addition, however, reading could and should also lead to more advanced religious reading. There are many indications of a widespread consensus among clergymen concerning a recommended “third stage” that was to follow the two initial stages (based on the ABC-book and the small 8

See Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:143–53. The Danish expressions are: “læse i bøger”, “læse prent” and “læse indenad”, in contrast to “læse udenad.” See Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, 1:75–77.

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catechism, respectively), as will be demonstrated in my analysis of Hjørring’s and Ewald’s publications below. Throughout the early modern period a collection of recommended reading matter for young children texts would often be mentioned: David’s Psalter, the gospel book and various hymns. In the course of the seventeenth century, however, a particular genre of books was squeezed into this collection, and was soon being mentioned by clergymen as the obvious first choice after the small catechism itself: expositions of the catechism. From the 1640s onwards, several such books appeared on the Danish and Norwegian book markets. This was a time when the catechism campaign, initiated by Bishop Resen, reached new heights, urging all pastors to keep registers of their young parishioners and the individual progress made in their Christian upbringing. It was also stipulated as an explicit precondition for young people’s permission to take communion and enter into betrothal that they satisfactorily pass a test in their catechismal education.10 Whereas a large proportion of seventeenth-century devotional literature consists of translations (most often from German) into Danish, these new expositions of the catechism were all composed by Danish and Norwegian clergymen. In many cases elaborate prefaces in such books support the impression that the contents were influenced by the clergymen’s own experience from practical, everyday teaching, and that the expositions were intended to be used in a situation where many – and in some places possibly a majority – of the young parishioners were able to read. Some of these printed expositions were published by parish clergymen, primarily to cover local demand. This applied, for instance, to Jørgen Lauridsen Aaskow in Søllerød, north of Copenhagen, and to Knud Sevaldsen Bang in Toten, Norway. The latter explained how his small catechism questions had been circulating in manuscript form, but how parishioners, both young and elderly, had requested a printed edition in order to read it themselves. Other titles were composed by rural deans and bishops, who referred to their experiences (and, not to forget, their influence) as clerical inspectors.11

10

In a letter from 1643 to his chancellor, King Christian IV expressed his expectation that this policy would increase the motivation to learn the catechism among ordinary young people. Cf. Kong Christian den Fjerdes Egenhændige Breve, edited by C.F. Bricka et al. 8 vols. (Copenhagen, 1878–1947), 5:401. 11 Jørgen Lauridsen Aaskow, Catechismi Børns aandelig Melck oc Tyggemad, d.e. D. Mart. Luthers liden Catechism., udi Spørszmaal oc Giensvar [The spiritual milk and chewable food for the children of the catechism, i.e. D. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism in questions and answers] (Copenhagen: C. Luft, 1679); Knud

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The expositions were often given titles that presented them as either “the Christian’s ABC”, implying an easy starting point, or as “breast milk” or “spiritual milk-food” to be easily digested by Christian children. In several of these books the authors can be seen experimenting with different ways of structuring and presenting their explanations of the catechism. Certain similarities are even more striking, however; not least the frequent choice to present the contents as questions and answers. In most cases the authors explained that this was the best and most efficient way to instruct the children and prepare them for oral examination. Last but not least, the expositions were meant to support the process of truly understanding the contents of the catechism. As Daniel Lindmark has suggested: The ABC-book, the Small Catechism and the expositions could be linked to the steps of reading, memorization and comprehension, respectively.12 A further explicit distinction found in contemporary sources (beyond the distinction between book-reading and learning by heart) is made between people who could read only printed texts and people who had also learnt to read handwriting, often while being taught to write themselves.13 It was mainly boys from privileged groups, including well-off peasants, who reached this more advanced level of literacy. Some of the children who had reached the above-mentioned “third stage” (reading expositions and other texts beyond the small catechism itself) probably embarked on learning to write at this point. Others, not least many girls, probably advanced to this higher level of reading skills without ever being instructed in writing. It is important to bear in mind that the “hierarchy of literacies” thus had several dimensions, and that progress could be made in different ways. It is obvious that in the matter of reading print, individuals who had reached a certain stage and level of experience (corresponding to reading an exposition of the catechism) would be able to continue their journey into the world of books. They might move on to further devotional literature or – if given the occasion, the resources and the motivation – to other, more secular texts such as the almanac and popular “pleasant

Sevaldsen Bang, Dend søde oc Velsmagende catechismi Bryst-Melck [The sweet and tasty breast-milk of the catechism] (Copenhagen: C.H. Neuhof, 1681). 12 Lindmark, “Universalism”, 112. 13 “Læse skrift” (read handwriting), in contrast to “læse i bog” (reading in books), and so on. Compare n. 9.

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stories.”14 This does not mean, however, that the previous stages of reading had simply been passed once and for all. The following examples may give an impression of how the reading patterns, created in the world of the catechism, continued to make an impact, also when it came to titles for more advanced reading.

Anders Matthiesen Hjørring and the various stages of religious literacy Anders Matthiesen Hjørring (1609–1678), one of the most productive clerical authors of his time, began serving in 1637 as a pastor at Vartov, the hospital of the Holy Spirit, located just outside the city gates of Copenhagen. Today, he is mainly known as the author of a popular description of the Swedish siege of Copenhagen in 1659.15 This book was not just an account of dramatic events, but an interpretation of the ways in which God had protected the Danish king and his subjects. And most of Hjørring’s writings, like those of his contemporary colleagues, were dedicated to the spreading of true religious beliefs and practices among the population at large. Through his experiences as a pastor he seemed to have acquired valuable information about what worked – and what did not work – in basic religious instruction, and some of his publications were aimed specifically at one or more of the three stages identified above. Around 1644, Hjørring published a new edition of Luther’s Small Catechism, which was soon dubbed “the hospital catechism.”16 It was an extended 14

On these genres of printed literature and their role on the Danish and Norwegian book markets, quantitatively as well as qualitatively, see Horstbøll, Menigmands medie, chapters 10–12; Appel, Læsning og bogmarked, chapters 11, 12, 16. 15 Anders Matthiesen Hjørring, Leyers-Krantz, Det er, huor underlige Gud haffver forsiunet oc bevaret det Kgl. Hus oc Residentze Kiøbenhaffn i denne Beleyrings Tid [Garland of siege, i.e. how marvellously God has supplied and preserved the Royal House and City of Residence, Copenhagen, in this time of siege] (Copenhagen, 1660). 16 The earliest extant copy is: Den liden (eller mindre) Catechismus D. Mart. Luth. For Børrn. Med Børnelærdoms Visitatz i allmindelighed, oc om enfoldig Skrifftemaal, med nogle nyttige Spørssmaal (…), hvortil er lagt Sententzer aff den hellige Skrifft, til Troens Bestyrckelse, for de Eenfoldige, samlet til Meenighedens store Nytte, aff Jesp. Rasm. Brochmand [Doctor Martin Luther’s small (or smaller) Catechism. For children. With visitation of children’s Christian knowledge in general, and about simple confession, with some useful questions […], to which are added sentences of the Holy Scripture, for the simple-minded, collected to the great benefit of the congregation by Jesper Rasmussen Brochmand] (Copenhagen,

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catechism compared to the standard editions of the sixteenth century, which had only five parts (see above). Hjørring had included Luther’s selection of prayers and the Table of Duties, as well as bishop Resen’s instruction concerning visitation and confession, and on top of that – presented as the scoop, and the new catechism edition’s main sales argument – the book contained a selection of biblical sentences collected by Jesper Brochmand, Resen’s successor as bishop of Zealand. In at least two respects Hjørring had made some very deliberate choices in order to reach relatively inexperienced readers. In contrast to other versions of the Small Catechism, which (like Luther’s original version in German) had Luther’s explanations woven into the text of all its parts, the first pages of Hjørring’s catechism presented the five main parts “in pure form.” This meant that the reader encountered the text of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer in the well-known wording from the ABC-book (although beginning with the Decalogue, as organized by Luther). Furthermore, the front page explicitly stated that the book was “After the frequent request of the poor, for the sake of uniformity: printed in large, readable style.”17 In short, this was not a book intended for clergymen and teachers, but for ordinary people. In many ways, however, Hjørring’s catechism with its long line of attachments was a fairly ambitious “second-stage” text book. There were simply more pages for proper reading, and it was this enlarged “small” catechism that came to form the backbone of most other seventeenthcentury catechisms.18 The reason why Hjørring had considered it relevant and important to extend the contents can be found in his preface to another book, published in 1643. This was an exposition of the catechism, that is, a book for the “third stage” of learning, entitled Excercitatio catechetica, or simple, Christian questions.19 On the introductory pages Hjørring explains that he 1658). The preface, dated November 1644, reveals that an earlier edition from this time had existed. A separate copy from 1658, owned by the Royal Library, Copenhagen, has unfortunately gone missing (lost since 1972), but the booklet was also printed as part of En aandelige Kircke- Huus- oc Reyse-Haandbog, (“A spiritual church, house and travelling manual”) edited and printed by Peder Morsing, Copenhagen 1658. 17 “Effter de Fattigis idelig Begiering, for Enigheds skyld: Vdi stor læselig Stjl.” Hjørring, Den liden (eller mindre) Catechismus (see n. 16), title page. 18 See Bang, Dokumenter og studier, 2:177, 283. 19 Anders Matthiesen Hjørring, Excercitatio catechetica, eller enfoldige, christelige Spørgszmaal met deris gensuar offuer Børnelærdom oc Catechismi parter (Copenhagen: Peter Hake, 1643). This small book has only survived in one copy, cut up and inserted into an octavo with blank pages, upon which the full

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has written a more thoroughgoing book because so much progress has been made in catechetical instruction: The small ones in this kingdom know so readily on their fingers [by heart] how to enumerate, word by word, Luther’s catechism, including its explanation, that one’s heart can only rejoice. Yes, not only the small ones, who have got used to this since early childhood, but even the old and wellaged, who make an effort, know so well and readily how to read out and enumerate the catechism and its explanation.20

Because of this, Hjørring was convinced that the situation called for something else, and something more. His new exposition was a small book, a sedecimo of 263 pages, obviously requiring better eyes than the catechism. It was divided into six main chapters, five of which followed the composition of the Small Catechism. The newly added first chapter, however, dealt explicitly with matters that were not covered directly in Luther’s catechism, but which Hjørring felt people ought to know about. It is tempting to interpret this chapter as the result of Hjørring’s practical experience as a Lutheran pastor. It is naturally impossible to tell whether the words echo specific questions asked by members of his congregation, but the answers and explanations are certainly messages that he deemed important to get across to his audience. “Did God desire evilness, since he created what is evil?” “Are you not saying now that God has created the devils and the people who are evil?” “How, then, are they created by God?” “Were the devils not as evil then as they are now?”21 Employing such questions as starting points, Hjørring managed to elaborate on the character and doings of the devil and evil spirits, on the nature of angels, and even on the tricky question of understanding the Trinity (along the lines of “You just mentioned three – biblical sentences referred to in the book have been added, along with further comments. This copy was presented to and censored by two professors of theology at the University of Copenhagen, probably in preparation for the second edition. 20 “de smaa her vdi Riget, vide saa redelig paa deris Fingre, Ord fra Ord Lutheri Catechismum met sin forklaring at opregne, at et Hierte maa der offuer glædis. Ja icke alleniste de smaa, som dertil aff barns Been, er vant, men end oc de Gamle oc velbedagede som ligger sig der effter, vide saa artig oc redelig Catechismum met sin Forklaring at udlæse oc opregne.” Hjørring, Excercitatio (see n. 19), preface. 21 “Haffver da Gud lyst til det onde effterdi hand haffuer Skabt det som Ont er?” “Siger du icke nu at Gud haffuer skabt Dieflene oc onde Mennisker?” “Huorledis ere de da skabte aff Gud?” “Var da Diefflene icke saa onde som de ere nu?” Hjørring, Excercitatio (see n. 19), 7–8.

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does that not mean that there are three Gods?”).22 Most of these subjects were directly dealt with only briefly, if at all, in Luther’s text, and Hjørring had obviously found this wanting in his own teaching. From the second main chapter onwards, the contents followed the Catechism, treating the Ten Commandments, then the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. It is important to note Hjørring’s choice to use a questions-and-answer model. This method of structuring a text had originally been chosen by Luther in his Small Catechism, although in a very formal way – each question simply functioning as a prompt for the subsequent explanation. This was also the formula that had been taken over and developed in Bishop Resen’s “visitation questions” from 1627, which Hjørring had also inserted into his version of the small catechism.23 The phenomenon of composing or presenting textual messages through questions and answers can, of course, be traced far back in time. However, dialogues became particularly popular during the Renaissance and were frequently used in different genres. It is possible to distinguish between different traditions in applying dialogue, and the catechetical style of prompting the reader with very formal “what does this mean” questions is but one of several.24 When reading some of Hjørring’s dialogues, especially in the above-mentioned introductory parts, one may find his dialogues quite open, compared to those in most other texts within the catechism tradition. In several cases the questions in Hjørring’s book seem to be posed by a keen pupil (or an ignorant parishioner) and directed towards the teacher or expert.25 In other 22

“Du neffner jo tre, er der da icke tre Guder?” Hjørring, Exercitatio (see n. 19), 3. Similar catechetical publications, using the model of questions and answers, are known in other European countries. See Green, The Christian’s ABC, especially chapters 1 and 5. 24 See Burke, “Renaissance dialogue”, 3. He characterizes four traditions, the first of which is labelled “the catechism”, in which “the dialogue between student and teacher is little more than a monologue.” Note, however, that Burke’s article focuses on texts with more genuine dialogues. Green, The Christian’s ABC, 18, observes that it may be more appropriate to apply the term “educational” or “instructive”, as the form was rarely as stiff as Burke implies. Considering the importance of the catechist tradition, there may, in my opinion, be good reason to retain Burke’s concept, but also to differentiate within it. Other, more open dialogues could be intended for instruction, too. 25 The questions concerning devils and angles could formally be interpreted both ways. In some of the clearly independent parts of Hjørring’s exposition (that is, parts that do not resemble other contemporary Danish texts on the subject), for instance when he deals with the practical aspects of communion, he has phrased several questions, such as “May I […], while the pastor does….?”, applying the 23

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parts of the book the dialogue is more conventional, with the clergyman enquiring into the layman’s Christian knowledge and beliefs. Excercitatio catechetica thus built on the catechist tradition with regard to both structure and contents. The book was reprinted at least twice, and in the edition from 1700 the clear structure of the book had been underlined: Within the six sections, each question had been given a separate number, and with a more spacious layout it became easier for readers to find the topic they might be looking for.26 Anders Matthiesen Hjørring was also the author of the single most popular Danish manual concerning Holy Communion. It was called Viaticum. Or the words of the Sacrament of the Altar, questionwise expounded with prayers and David’s Psalms.27 The oldest extant copy is from 1666, and its title page announces it to be the third edition of the book. Ten different editions of the book survive, and a further seven editions are supported indirectly by various testimonies. Closer inspection reveals that Viaticum is, in fact, a special, and only slightly revised edition of Hjørring’s chapter on the Lord’s Supper from his Excercitatio.28 Many book titles relating to Holy Communion were in circulation at the time, and it is, of course, impossible to give a definite explanation as to why Hjørring’s book became particularly popular. At least three features are striking, however, when comparing his book to others on the market: First, Viaticum contained a detailed guide to an element that was a matter of some disagreement, namely the private confession preceding the sacrament. Although he did point out that this was by no means intended as a script to be learnt by heart, Hjørring also offered a coherent “ordinary confession“, which readers could use when going to the local pastor for their (typically semiannual) confession and communion.29 Secondly, first person, singular, with clear reference to the pupil or parishioner. Interestingly, these pronouns were changed in the 3rd edition from 1700. The personal ieg (I) had been changed into mand (you/one), possibly to make it fit into the general pattern of catechist literature at the time, and to distinguish it from more personal devotional literature. The uses of personal pronouns in the catechist literature of the early modern period call for further research. 26 Anders Matthiesen Hjørring, Excercitatio catechetica [3rd edition, according to page 2] (Copenhagen: Just Høgs efterleverske, 1700). A second edition, presumably from 1686, is lost. 27 Anders Matthiesen Hjørring, Viaticum. Eller Alterens Sacramentis Ord, spørszmaalsviis udlagt med Bønner oc Davids Psalmer (Copenhagen: Daniel Eichhorn, 1666). Printed as a duodecimo of 196 pages. 28 The section on “Alterens Sacramente”. Only few sentences have been revised or extended. 29 Hjørring, Viaticum (see n. 27), 54–57.

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Viaticum gave detailed advice relating to the everyday practice of these rituals. Focus was as much on behaviour as on doctrines of faith. The book told readers when they were expected to stand or kneel, whether they were allowed to read while the pastor was giving communion to other members of the congregation, and much more.30 Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the contents (as those in Excercitatio) were structured according to the model of questions and answers. This once again created a recognizable pattern and a reader-friendly layout, which broke the text into shorter sections and made it relatively easy to find the contents one might be looking for. What is more, as the questions were posed in the first person, singular, they convincingly presented themselves as expressing the concerns of an ordinary, conscientious parishioner who simply wanted to get things right.31 Hjørring’s manual on Holy Communion was, in many respects, a book for personal devotion in its own right, but it was also in shape and in contents (and, as demonstrated, quite literally) a part of the catechism literature of its time.

Enevold Ewald and the right preparation for Bible reading Two generations later, members of the Danish clergy were still very conscious about the different stages of religious reading, when they wrote and published books. The following example takes us to the region around Tønder, in the south of Jutland (at that time part of the Duchy of Schleswig), around 1720. Enevold Ewald (1696–1754), who later came to play a key role in the Pietist movement in Copenhagen, had just returned to his father’s vicarage in Højst after studying theology in Kiel, Jena, and Halle – the latter of which was the centre of Pietism at the time.32 Being just twenty-four years of age, he was not quite old enough to apply for a pastoral position, and in the meantime he assisted his father in the parish. At this time Ewald published a booklet, which was printed anonymously (and clearly without having been presented to the authorities 30

“Maa ieg icke sidde oc læse udi en Bog, naar andre siunge eller bede med Præsten/eller hører Guds Ord?” Hjørring, Viaticum (see n. 27), 60. 31 Whereas the pronoun was changed in the third edition of Excercitatio from 1700 into “Maa mand ikke…” (“May one not ...”), see n. 25, the first person, singular, was retained in later editions of the independent Viaticum, right until the last (known) edition from 1739. 32 See Graversen, Wajsenhuspræsten. In 1727, Ewald obtained the position as pastor of the Vajsenhus in Copenhagen, which had its own printing press.

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for the required approbation): The right foundation of true Christianity, in the living and salvation-giving knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.33 He wrote a long and illuminating preface about how he intended his book to be used. It was meant as a guide-book to the Bible, helping readers (clearly those who had reached the “third stage”) to advance further in their religious reading: Because even though one may sincerely wish that every man should read the Bible itself in its true context and amalgamation, and in this way edify himself and understand the things which belong to life, then one is aware that only some have got the Bible, or are able to get hold of it at once. Furthermore, it is evident that only very few are capable of reading the Bible correctly; indeed, no one manages to read it with benefit, unless he has beforehand received a simple and good foundation on which, thereafter, he can build.34

The handbook was meant as an “occasion and illumination to understand sermons as well as primarily the Bible itself.”35 In other words, Ewald’s guide intended to bridge the gap between the catechism and the Bible. He did not doubt that people were capable of reading the text, technically speaking, but he was concerned that they did not properly grasp the contents. Therefore they needed his manual to guide them towards a true (Pietist) understanding of God’s words. Ewald also pointed out that those who did not own their own bible could use his handbook as a substitute, given that it contained a large selection of passages from the Scripture grouped systematically.

33

Den sande Christendoms rette Grundvold, i Guds og Jesu Christi levende og saliggiørende Kundskab, 1720. Neither author nor place of print indicated. Most likely the booklet was printed in Tønder, like Ewald’s second book. The only extant copy of the booklet is bound in a contemporary leather binding together with Begyndelses-Elementer, also by Ewald, see n. 36. 34 “Thi endskiønt mand af Hiertet ynsker at en hver maatte kunde læse Bibelen selv i hendes rette Connexion og Tilhobeføyelse, og saaledes opbygge sig og fatte de Ting som høre til Livet, saa er først jo bekiendt at dend mindste Hob har Bibelen, eller formaar saa strax at anskaffe sig den; Dernest er og aabenbar, hvor gandske faae der ere i den Stand, at de kand læse Bibelen Ret, ja aldelis ingen formaar at læse den med Nytte, uden at hand til foren har faaet en eenfoldig og god Grund langt, hvorpaa hand efter Dags kand bygge.” Ewald, Den sande Christendoms (see n. 33), 3. 35 “Og derhen er det og saa meent med dette liden Skrift, at det maatte være saa som en Anledning og et Lyss til at forstaae herefter Predikener saavel som fornemlig Bibelen selv.” Ewald, Den sande Christendoms (see n. 33), 3.

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Now, this may be where Ewald made his big mistake. Or perhaps he simply became too ambitious. In the following year, 1721, a new book appeared, once again printed anonymously, but announced to be for sale in Tønder. It was entitled Elements of beginning in the words of God, i.e. Luther’s Small Catechism, with a simple, yet clear and accurate exposition, composed in questions and answers, as briefly as possible, according to the direction of God’s words. The title page also stated that the book should serve as “an exposition of the little book entitled The right foundation of true Christianity”, and it was composed particularly for the use of the young and the inexperienced.36 The new book was clearly characterized as an exposition of the catechism (or as a “third-stage” book), yet it was also presented as a guide to the previous manual – or an even easier easy-reader. Once again Ewald made an effort to explain himself to his readers: The first book about the right foundation of true Christianity had had the best of intentions. However, as he had realized “the great ignorance and simplicity of the common man”, and above all “the weariness of people’s hearts” (when it came to “contemplating with heartfelt prayers and invocation”), he had attempted to clarify “that which before seemed difficult” by applying a method of questions and answers. He therefore advised his reader to begin with the simple questions and answers (in the new book), and then proceed to the guidebook with passages from the Scripture.37 Jumping from the catechism to the Bible was not easy. Young Ewald had apparently failed in his first attempt when composing an introductory book to the Bible. Now he wanted to try again, and the solution was, of course, to return to the old, tried-and-true model of questions and answers.

36

The full wording of the title page: “Begyndelses Elementer i de Guds-Ord, d.e. Lutheri liden Catechismus, med eenfoldig dog tydelig og nøyagtig Udleggelse i Spørsmaal og Giensvar paa det korteste efter Guds Ords Anviisning forfattet. Til den Ende, at mand deraf maatte søge og faae en levende Kundskab om de Ting, som udkræves af en hver, som vil blive salig. Som ogsaa er som en Udleggelse paa dend liden bog kaldet: Dend sande Christendoms rette Grundvold. Særdelis Ungdommen og de Uforfarne til Nytte opsat. Tryct Aar 1721. Findes til kiøbs hos Peder Ottsen i Tunder.” 37 “Men, da mand erkiender menige mands store Vanvittighed og Eenfoldighed og allermeest deres Hiertes Traaghed, til at efter tencke alt med hiertelig Bøn og Paakaldelse, saa har mand paa denne Maade ved Spørsmaal og Giensvar søgt, at giøre dem det tydeligt, hvad svart synes. Vil nogen nu paa dend Maade, som i same bog i Fortalen vises, lese først disse Spørsmaal, dernæst holde de Sprog eller sententzer, som i Sprog-bogen af Guds Ord fremføres.” Ewald, Begyndelses Elementer (see n. 36), 2.

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We cannot tell how successful Enevold Ewald was in his second attempt. Nevertheless it is interesting to note that a friend and colleague of his, Peter Wedel, who became a pastor in 1722 in Stauning, a parish located a bit further north along the west coast of Jutland, managed to arouse a local Pietist awakening. The rural dean tried to stop him, and Wedel’s distribution of Pietist books (delivered by “a friend” and handed out to the parishioners for free) was among the accusations levelled against him.38 There is an overwhelming likelihood that Ewald was the “friend” who supplied the Stauning pastor with such books. Wedel managed to navigate through the troubled waters and continue his Pietist campaign – albeit more cautiously than before. When, in 1737, the newly appointed bishop of Ribe, Matthias Anchersen, inspected the congregation of Stauning, he commented that “the youth and the whole congregation were numerous, pricelessly instructed and enlightened in their Christianity, almost all equipped with bibles, especially the New Testament. I found the greatest pleasure in examining them.”39 It seems that pastor Wedel, possibly by using the small books from his friend Enevold Ewald, had succeeded in teaching his parishioners to read religious books and to proceed from basic texts to more advanced religious literature – including the Bible itself.

The world of the catechism and the eighteenth-century school curriculum It is evident that both Anders Matthiesen Hjørring and Enevold Ewald were very conscious about how to write and organize their texts for basic religious instruction and further religious studies. They seemed convinced that most people, having learnt to read within the world of the catechism, would find it easier to deal with and understand books that bore a resemblance to the books and the modes of religious reading with which they were already familiar. In course of the seventeenth century, increasing numbers of ordinary Danish men and women had learnt to read printed books as part of their religious education. And everywhere Luther’s Small Catechism was the 38

On Peder Wedel and the accusations against him, see Appel and Fink-Jensen, Når det regner på præsten, 273–311. 39 “Ungdommen og menigheden var meget talrig, kaastelig oplært og opliust i sin Christendom, moxen [næsten] alle forsiunede med Bibler, især med det N. Testament. Jeg fandt den største fornøyelse in examine.” Biskop Matthias Anchersens visitatsbog 1732–38, Landsarkivet for Nørrejylland (Provincial archives of Northern Jutland), Viborg, C4. 844a.

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key text when parents and teachers instructed children in basic reading skills. The fact that ever more people were learning to read – combined with an enthusiasm for the cause of Pietism – may have been part of the reason why the young student of theology Enevold Ewald composed his first and, it is fair to say, rather ambitious guide to a true understanding of the Bible. In his second attempt he returned to the method that many clergymen had used before him: To explicitly integrate and build upon the reading habits and expectations that many people shared because of their intensive and often years-long reading in Luther’s catechism. When King Frederik IV launched a spectacular political campaign in 1721, founding 240 equestrian schools on his royal estates and in many ways opening a new chapter in the history of schooling in Denmark, he was clearly perpetuating well-established teaching traditions when it came to the curriculum and, as far as we can tell, in the methods of instruction as well.40 The focus was on elementary reading and teaching of the catechism, whereas writing and arithmetic were characterized as additional options, for which parents would have to pay extra. Half a generation later, in 1739, King Christian VI ordered rural schools to be established in every parish of his kingdoms, and similar priorities were prescribed. This legislation followed just three years after the king had issued standards for a compulsory confirmation ritual for young people in both Denmark and Norway. All schools were to provide ABC-books, small catechisms, expositions of the catechism, and Psalters and gospel books – as well as a bible for the teacher. At this point in time, “expositions” could no longer be taken to mean a genre of books as such. In connection with the new Confirmation Ordinance (of 31 January 1736), the court chaplain Erik Pontoppidan had been asked to compose a new exposition of the catechism. Pontoppidan was a diligent Pietist clergyman, greatly esteemed by Christian VI, and in 1737 his Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Truth leading to piety) was published at the semi-official printing press at Vajsenhuset in Copenhagen.41 This was the exposition that all royal subjects were meant to read and recite from. By 1743, a full 70 000 copies of Pontoppidan’s exposition had been sold. It was required that 1500 copies should be distributed annually for free to the poor. And so, once again, the necessity to assist young readers on their way from elementary to more advanced reading within the world 40 The classic account of this initiative is Larsen, Bidrag, 196–213. Recently, attention has been drawn to military, fiscal and national interests of the absolutist state in Reeh, Religion and the state, 34–41. 41 The contents and publishing history have been analysed in depth in Horstbøll, “Læsning til salighed.”

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of the catechism had been addressed. Of course, this does not mean that ideals, contents and practices of religious teaching were the same from the early seventeenth century and up to the 1730s. Many changes had taken place, and the teaching of children and young people was often hotly debated. Much research still needs to be done, especially in the field of everyday teaching practices in relation to the described “tradition of the small catechism.” As recent publications have already demonstrated, religious teaching and reading instruction could take place in numerous ways in early modern Scandinavia. A variety of orally based teaching traditions interacted with written means of communication.42 And as soon as one begins to study the patterns and the importance of reading in specific contexts, it becomes evident that one must differentiate between different reading cultures.43 A high proportion of communal teaching practices in Lutheran Scandinavia did not, of course, lead to the same outcome everywhere. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to conclude that early modern Danish clergymen (and kings) largely shared the same conceptions of religious reading throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Children and young people were seen to pass through different stages of literacy, and religious instruction had to be practised at a series of consecutive levels using appropriate textbooks. The Christian ABC-book constituted the starting point (stage 1), leading on to Luther’s Small Catechism (stage 2). Higher-level introductory reading and comprehension (stage 3) were to revolve around expositions of the catechism, along with the Psalter, gospel books and hymns. To read and understand the Bible was the final aim – still according to the ideals of Lutheran authorities. The text at the heart of this religious reading tradition was Luther’s Small Catechism. This book shaped the very process of learning to read (and of understanding the world!), as well as people’s conceptions of what books ought to look like. Of course, many readers, especially those with privileged backgrounds, proceeded to other books and other genres, thus expanding their familiarity with book culture at large. Even so, for many people in early modern Denmark, the catechism would have been not only the initial element, but also the principal constituent in their encounter with the world of books.

42

See especially the article by Jon Haarberg in this volume. Examples would be the Swedish Moravians and the Norwegian Haugeans, studied by Ann Öhrberg and Trygve Riiser Gundersen in this volume.

43

CHAPTER FOUR MUCH MORE THAN LUTHER: RELIGIOUS READING AMONG THE NORWEGIAN CLERGY 1650–1800 GINA DAHL

As other articles in this book have pointed out, one of the central aims of the Danish-Norwegian state in the post-Reformation centuries was to instil the tenets of Lutheran faith in the broader population, an aim that it was relatively successful in achieving. The clergy held a key role in disseminating the “true” Lutheran message to the wider masses. As Luther himself claimed in his Address to the Municipalities: The prosperity of a country depends not upon the abundance of its revenue, nor on the strength of its fortifications, nor on the beauty of its public buildings, but it consists in the number of cultivated citizens, in its men of education, enlightenment and character.1

The various members of the clergy were precisely such men of education, whose main task was to spread religious orthodoxy among the masses. Although ideally they would have constituted an important intelligentsia responsible for the religious education of a society living on the fringes of Europe, just how widely educated were the Norwegian clergy, in terms of the books they read? The principal aim of this article is to develop a profile of what the Norwegian clergy most probably read. One of the greatest problems in undertaking such a study is the lack of sources, as few testimonies of personal reading have been preserved from the period in question. In this article, however, I will try to answer the question from a “diffusionist” point of view, that is, primarily by examining the private

1

Spitz, “Preface”, vii.

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libraries registered in the probate records for members of the clergy and by studying Norwegian book catalogues in the period 1650–1800.2 Before presenting the source material, I will first comment on the educational background of the clergy, and also on the contemporary religious currents they encountered, namely Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism. I will also briefly discuss the various limitations of the source material before outlining the main characteristics of the clergy’s private libraries. What seems evident given the dissemination of books among clerics is that they had a highly international outlook. The clergy in Norway apparently selected books from a wide variety of religious currents and geographical origins, although three areas distinctly stand out: Germany, the Netherlands and England. Of these, Protestant parts of Germany seem to have furnished by far the largest proportion of books.

The clergy as men of education Ian Green has stated that in the Reformation, the new role of the clergy in the religious education of the masses was crucial not just because of the struggle for supremacy between old and new Churches, but also because of the challenges posed by an increasingly literate and critical laity. As a result, much more attention was paid to the education and training of the clergy and to preaching, there was a much greater and more sophisticated use of catechizing and of the printing press, and in many regions the clergy became increasingly involved, directly or indirectly, in the education of the laity on weekdays as well as Sundays.3

These words sum up much of the role that the clergy assumed in early modern Norway. The term “clergy” calls for some clarification, however, as throughout the early modern period this particular layer of society comprised a relatively broad range of religious specialists. In the Danish-Norwegian context, the clergy included bishops (or superintendents), deans, pastors and assistants such as the parish clerk, whilst the wives of bishops, deans and pastors were also defined as members of the clergy, as were grammar2

The presentation of book occurrences among clerics 1650–1750 is based on my Dr. art. thesis Questioning religious influence, published as Book Collections of Clerics. The presentation of clerical book collections 1750–1800 is partly based on a study by Bull from 1916, Fra Holberg til Nordal Brun, and partly on my own examination of various book catalogues, see Appendix A. 3 Green, “Teaching the Reformation”, 156.

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school teachers. In general, all male members of the clergy were involved in the education of the masses at one level or another, through assemblies held on Sundays or other days of the week in rural areas or as teachers at grammar schools. Deans or bishops were also supposed to ensure that the education given within their geographical domains adhered to the proper principles. And although the male members of the clergy were primarily responsible for educating the masses, clergymen’s wives would occasionally be asked for advice, spiritual or mundane. In Norway many of the clerics were Danes, or of Danish ancestry, and due to intermarriage between members of the clergy, and the fact that sons tended to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, a number of large and powerful clerical families emerged. At the core of the education of the laity was the catechism, and the basics of Lutheran Protestantism were instilled in the population by means of manuals such as ABC-books. However, the efficacy of religious instruction could vary significantly between urban and rural parishes. As a general trend, though, education became more structured, and thus more effective, during the course of the early modern period. But religious specialists were not the only people involved in educating the laity: Itinerant or travelling teachers, for instance, also served the broader population, and some of them were not recruited from the clerical classes. Generally speaking, the curriculum offered by the educational system was mainly religious, and on Norwegian soil the establishment of schools with a mainly non-religious curriculum was essentially a feature of the Enlightenment, which in the Norwegian context dates to the period 1750– 1800. As pointed out by Green in the above quotation, the laity was not the only layer of society that needed a proper education. The clergy, too, needed instruction in order to stay on the “right and proper” religious path and thereby instil in the laity the true Lutheran tenets of faith. Hence, the confessionalization process encompassed the entire population, from top to bottom. In terms of institutions, clerics in Norway were predominantly trained at local grammar schools and at the University of Copenhagen. Despite the fact that the curricula at these institutions were adjusted throughout the early modern period, their basic shape dated right back to the Reformation. The University of Copenhagen’s reformed charter of 1539 remained unchanged for almost 200 years, and even in the new charter of 1732, following the devastating fire at the university and its rebuilding, only minor changes were made to the university’s curriculum.4 4

Thomsen, Embedsstudiernes universitet, 1:28–29.

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Similarly, at grammar schools, practices that had been introduced during the Reformation were only slightly altered during the period in question. In Norway the grammar schools were more important than university education, as they remained the only establishments offering a wider curriculum to the population for much of the early modern period, up until the opening of the first Norwegian university in 1813 (Det Kongelige Frederiks Universitet, now the University of Oslo). A grammar-school education, or a similar education provided by a private tutor, was needed for students wishing to enrol at university. Grammar schools varied greatly, however, in the levels they offered. Some schools offered only five levels, whereas others, at least in time, came to offer as many as eight. Students enrolling at university normally came from these “major” grammar schools. Students moved through the various grammar-school levels based on their accomplishments, which meant that they remained at a given level until they could testify that the appropriate curriculum had been properly learned. Grammar schools chiefly focused on the trivium part of the curriculum, which meant that there was a strong emphasis on grammar, rhetoric and dialectics. Of the quadrivium subjects music was also generally taught, due to the importance of singing and music to the Lutheran service. In time, arithmetic was also widely introduced, as were history and geography. Of the trivium subjects grammar was the most important, with rhetoric and dialectics only being incorporated at later stages.5 However, at the core of this training lay the task of instilling Christian faith. Key elements in the first level of grammar-school training included reading the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and the Ten Commandments, as well as acquiring knowledge of the forms of baptism and the Eucharist. The framework of this basic religious training was clearly an extensive focus on Latin and, sometimes at the higher levels, on Greek and Hebrew. As part of this process, pupils read a variety of classical authors. Schools varied in their quality of lecturers and their financial resources, and if books were difficult to acquire, schools could select replacements themselves. As a consequence, although ideally the guidelines were supposed to be followed, they were not always followed to the letter, which meant that there were differences between the various grammar schools in the curriculum offered.6 After gaining acceptance into the university structure (which primarily rested on the student demonstrating his knowledge of the basic articles of 5 6

Jensen, Latinskolens dannelse, 62. Jensen, Latinskolens dannelse, 133–44.

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Lutheran faith, and of Latin), future members of the clergy would start at the university’s “pre-school”, the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1675 an examen philosophicum was introduced at Copenhagen, and in principle this exam was obligatory for students wishing to study at the “higher” faculties of law, medicine and theology. The examen philosophicum was partly introduced in order to prevent future clerics from skipping the philosophical training and instead jumping directly to theology – which of course was more useful when it came to obtaining a clerical position. At the philosophy faculty, students were encouraged to cover the trivium subjects as well as the quadrivium subjects of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, which also included physics, mathematics and ethics. Students sitting for their examen philosophicum were therefore generally examined in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, logic, metaphysics, ethics, arithmetic, geometry and sphaerica, and, from 1676 onwards, were also tested in geography. During the eighteenth century, students also began to be tested in history.7 Once admitted into the Faculty of Theology in Copenhagen, students were exposed to a two-tiered system of learning, which focused on Scripture and on loci, or knowledge of the Bible and of the Lutheran articles of faith, respectively. 8 This system of lecturing was maintained throughout the early modern period, and even the charter of 1732 stressed that the four appointed professors of theology were chiefly to enforce the same curriculum as in previous times, namely knowledge of the Bible and of the articles of faith. Also codified in the charter of 1732 was a fully integrated church history.9 Nevertheless, lectures on ecclesiastical history had already been given long before this date, probably as a result of the Lutheran and post-Reformation interest in historical issues, which aimed to establish their spiritual ancestry or the purity of evangelical doctrine.10 Another area that was strengthened in the seventeenth century was polemical theology (or controversiae), which was incorporated into dogmatics, the study of religious dogma. As with the education provided by grammar schools, however, complaints about the quality of the lectures at Copenhagen were quite frequent throughout the period in question, making it difficult to assess the efficiency of the system. Similarly, it should be noted that it was primarily the higher ranks of the clergy who received a university education, although some of them did not stay there 7

Grane and Jensen, Det filosofiske fakultet, 51. For the education of clerics in the early modern period, see Grane, Det teologiske fakultet; and Kolsrud, Presteutdaningi i Noreg. 9 Norvin, Københavns Universitet, 1:114. 10 Kelley, Faces of History, 169–74. 8

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for more than the required two years (or even less, if they were poor).11 The parish clerks, on the other hand, often had nothing more than a grammar-school education, which meant that there could be a remarkable gap in knowledge between the upper and lower strata of the clergy. Some of the wealthier students were even educated beyond the borders of the dual monarchy, and at the beginning of the early modern period, the most sought-after universities among Danish-Norwegian students tended to be Wittenberg and Rostock, followed by Leiden in the seventeenth century. From 1700 onwards, Halle and Oxford also attracted a number of students.12

The clergy and contemporary religion As shown in the previous section, clerics in early modern Norway were educated in a system where the main emphasis was on Lutheran faith. These religious beliefs were not static, however, despite the fact that the specific creeds remained unchanged. In the period 1650–1800, to which the empirical material presented in this article refers, two major religious movements made their way, to a greater or lesser extent, into the educational system and into Danish-Norwegian society in general. These were Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism. As the very name “Lutheran Orthodoxy” conveys, this particular current had its origins in German Protestant soil, and one of its aims was to put an end to the various doctrinal controversies arising in the wake of the Reformation. Some historians therefore date Lutheran Orthodoxy from the time of the Formula of Concord (1577) to the first quarter of the eighteenth century. According to Robert D. Preus, for instance, Lutheran Orthodoxy represents A) an attempt to preserve the evangelical legacy of Luther’s Reformation; B) an ardent zeal for the purity of the Doctrine Evangelii; and C) a definite confession and doctrinal position.13 In general terms, Lutheran Orthodoxy was characterized by a striving for doctrinal unity, which also led it to engage in polemics. As a result of these endeavours, a number of long, doctrinal writings were published, clarifying the main tenets of Lutheran faith, and often written in a 11

Grane, Det teologiske fakultet, 241. Kolsrud, Presteutdaningi i Noreg, 208; Ebbesen and Koch, Dansk filosofi i Renæssancen, 29–32; and Kragh, Fra middelalderlærdom til den nye videnskab, 184–88. An in-depth survey of the travels of Danish and Norwegian students has been carried out by Vello Helk, Studierejser 1536–1660 and Studierejser 1661– 1813. 13 Preus, Post-Reformation Lutheranism, 27–31. 12

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polemical tone. Another key element of Lutheran Orthodoxy was the specific view that Scripture as the word of God was divinely inspired, which meant that Scripture contained everything necessary for salvation. The period of orthodoxy thus not only witnessed an even more profound interest in bringing the word of God (orally or in print) out to the masses, it also resulted in an abundant production of exegetical works. As a period, Lutheran Orthodoxy can be divided into three phases: Early Orthodoxy, High Orthodoxy and Late Orthodoxy. It can also be divided into three main currents: Strict Orthodoxy, Moderate Orthodoxy and Mild Orthodoxy, depending on their “rigidity” in emphasizing the necessity of doctrine.14 Due to the strong confessional (and also intellectual, geographical and economic) bonds between Denmark-Norway and Protestant parts of Germany, Lutheran Orthodoxy soon became influential in DenmarkNorway. Two professors of theology were most notably responsible for introducing Lutheran Orthodoxy into the university structure and beyond. Their names were Hans Poulsen Resen (died 1638) and Jesper Brochmand (died 1652). One particular feature of the form that Orthodoxy assumed in Denmark-Norway was its stress on the importance of poenitentia to salvation, and its presumption that poenitentia preceded faith. In this way, hearing the word of God and accepting one’s sinfulness became the major prerequisite for salvation within a belief system that disregarded human action as a means to, or an indication of, salvation. As in the German Protestant region, major theological treatises were also produced on Danish-Norwegian soil, one example being the above-mentioned Jesper Brochmand’s Universae theologiae systema (1633). This manual was given pride of place in all theological education, but because of its enormous size, its contents were mainly taught through abridged versions.15 Despite the dominance of Lutheran Orthodoxy (resulting, amongst other things, in the introduction of controversiae into the university curriculum), other religious currents also proved to be inspirational at the time. An ongoing interest in devotional literature by German author-theologians such as the Johann Arndt (died 1621) can be noted, as can an interest in various religious currents originating in England. Particularly these latter currents placed a greater emphasis on feelings and fervency than did Lutheran Orthodoxy, and their influence can be observed from the 1650s onwards, thanks to a growing familiarity with religious writings in English.16 14

Radler, Kristendomens idéhistoria, 177–80. Kolsrud, Presteutdaningi i Noreg, 153. 16 Hagesæther, Norsk preken, 125–29. 15

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Especially during the eighteenth century, Pietism also found a receptive audience among members of the Danish-Norwegian clergy. As with Orthodoxy, Pietism was introduced as a result of the close ties between Denmark-Norway and Germany. Pietism more profoundly stressed external action combined with a more spiritual interpretation of Scripture; an approach that also influenced other religious currents in Europe at approximately the same time. Pietism had its roots in a more mystically inclined brand of Protestantism, and it was a reaction against the marked focus on dogma held by various exponents of Lutheran Orthodoxy. In Denmark-Norway, Pietism was particularly inspired by the works of the German authors Philipp Jacob Spener (died 1705) and August Hermann Francke (died 1727), and the support it received from leading figures at the court of the dual monarchy led to the construction of children’s homes, a more efficient dissemination of doctrinal writings (such as catechisms), a rise in missionary activities, and a further strengthening of the school system. Important in this last respect was the confirmation law of 1736, which aspired to instil a minimum of theological knowledge in the population at large. Despite these efforts, the extent to which Pietism as a religious movement influenced the clergy as such is debatable. After the reopening of the University of Copenhagen in 1732, many professors at the faculty of theology were reluctant to adopt Pietism, and the only Pietist professor that university students would have encountered in Copenhagen prior to 1750 was Jeremias Friedrich Reuss (died 1777). 17 But obviously the students could meet Pietists and read Pietist writings outside the lecture halls. The Pietist influence grew in importance over the course of the eighteenth century, and in the late eighteenth century Pietist clerics found themselves side by side with exponents of an enduring Lutheran Orthodoxy and those adhering to rational theology, the latter being inspired by Enlightenment philosophy. In general, the religious life into which the Norwegian clergy were cast was marked by a proximity to German theology, and especially to Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism. Of those two movements, the former was dominant during the period in question, only ceding ground to Pietism as the eighteenth century progressed.

Inventories, catalogues and book distribution There are various problems involved in establishing the reading profile of members of the clergy in early modern Norway. Firstly, for as mentioned 17

Kolsrud, Presteutdaningi i Noreg, 226.

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in the introduction, few testimonies of personal reading have been preserved from the period under review. Secondly, more studies need to be done on book sales, and more specifically on book imports, which were the main source of the books distributed among the learned sections of society, including the clergy. In general, books in early modern Norway could be purchased from printers, bookbinders and booksellers, and through various types of agents, some of whom worked as itinerant peddlers. As far as overall numbers are concerned, however, there were few printers in Norway prior to 1800, and although there were more bookbinders than printers, many of them primarily sold non-specialist literature targeting the laity, seeking the best possible income: the higher the sales volume, the bigger the profit.18 As a result, the educated strata of society would often use sources other than printers and binders when purchasing specialist literature. Apart from using a range of different sources, the educated classes could also purchase books that were beyond the reach of commoners, thanks to their language skills, superior financial resources and networks of communication. They could, for instance, bring home books from their travels, and they could also directly contact booksellers abroad and have books shipped to them, or sent by courier. Book orders could also be placed with friends or merchants travelling abroad. Still, Copenhagen remained an important centre of book imports. Several Danish printers and booksellers imported books through a wellknown exchange system, and the major fairs in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main were important in this respect. These books would then be distributed across the broader Danish-Norwegian market through the various networks outlined above. Also important to the dissemination of learned literature were the various book auctions, which were mostly held in larger cities and boomed in number, particularly in the late eighteenth century.19 One should also note the importance to book dissemination of two non-commercial sources: gifts and inheritance. The latter may have been of crucial importance to the clergy, as books were probably passed down from father to son(s) within families where similar careers were often pursued. Some means of acquiring books were therefore not necessarily tied to any commercial enterprise.

18 For a general survey of the book trade in Norway, consult Tveterås, Den norske bokhandels historie, and Lindberg “Scandinavian book trade in the eighteenth century”. For a survey of print offices in early modern Norway, see Jacobsen, Norske boktrykkere og trykkerier. 19 For this particular trade, see Byberg, Brukte bøker til bymann og bonde.

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Given the scarcity of testimonies on personal reading and of records of book imports, an alternative method for evaluating the reading culture of clerics in Norway during the period 1650–1800 is to study book distribution. There are, of course, various problems connected with adopting such an indirect and “diffusionist” approach, the main problem being the lack of physical book collections surviving from the period in question. Because of this specific lacuna, establishing a clerical reading profile based on a “diffusionist” approach can only be done by scrutinizing the listing of books in inventories, auction records and printed catalogues of book collections. On the whole, a fair number of probate records for the clergy have been preserved from the period in question, most probably because members of this layer of society had their records kept separately from those of the general population. Because of the clergy’s unique social position, their assets were registered in separate probate records, and according to slightly different registration procedures. Nevertheless, the use of probate records to map book distribution does have its limitations. Firstly, the registration system did not necessarily function as intended, due, for instance, to a lack of officials to accomplish the task. As a result, only a limited percentage of the total number of inventories came to be recorded. Secondly, even in the cases where books were registered, the records were not necessarily flawless. Often the registration of assets was done so shoddily that authors and works are difficult to identify. Sometimes the works are not indicated at all, but merely referred to as “a bunch of old books.” Books in inventories also seem to be less accurately recorded in the eighteenth century, a period during which households grew richer. As this tended to make books relatively less valuable, they were also sometimes less carefully accounted for. 20 In the latter decades of the eighteenth century, however, the number of preserved book catalogues rises, making up somewhat for the shortcomings of the probate records. The majority of these catalogues were printed in the most international city in Norway at the time, namely Trondheim, and most of these printed collections belonged to the upper strata of society, including clerics. As with the probate records, titles listed in catalogues sometimes suffer from inaccuracy. It should also be noted that the listing of various books in probate records and catalogues does not automatically give any indication of personal preferences – in that ownership of a book does not necessarily mean that it was cherished, or even read. In light of these flaws, the 20

Dahl, Mystikkens plass, 50–51.

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various “diffusionist” sources outlined above should not be thought of as “absolute” in terms of their constituting an all-encompassing reading profile for the Norwegian clergy. Despite this, in a field where other sources are lacking they still present valuable information about the body of knowledge that defined a specific group of society; a group that played an important role in the religious education of the masses.

Books owned by the clergy 1650–1750: German predominance What strikes one when looking at Norwegian clerical inventories for the period 1650–1750 is the apparently remarkable number of books in circulation in this northernmost part of Europe. In approximately ninety collections registered in probate records for the clergy across northern, eastern, western and southern Norway over the period 1650–1750, about 10,000 books are listed. This makes for an average of about 110 books per collection. 21 Given the numbers of books in circulation, it seems that clerics in Norway were indeed, at least in theory, the “men of learning” that Luther yearned for. Despite the large number of books in circulation, the various collections were marked by some very specific characteristics. One thing that seems clear, for instance, when looking into the specific collections is the distinct preponderance of German Lutheran authors, which is noticeable in all regions of Norway, rural and urban. This naturally mirrors the close religious, educational, geographical and economic ties between Protestant parts of Germany and Denmark-Norway. This German predominance also reflects the paucity of books of Danish-Norwegian origin that appear in the various collections; books which would often be written in Danish, the dual monarchy’s official language. Although the German influence is highly evident in all of the book collections investigated, various differences in book distribution between specific geographical areas can be discerned. Firstly, there tended to be more books in collections belonging to members of the clergy who resided in urban areas, probably as a result of the easier access they had to viable distribution channels. Cities or urban districts would, for instance, be home to a higher number of agents, and would also generally be centres of international trade. Similarly, most major book auctions were held in cities. Secondly, the upper ranks of the clergy tended to possess larger and more varied book collections than the lower ranks. By and large, the books 21

Dahl, Questioning religious influence.

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belonging to the clergy were of a religious nature, which implies that only a minority of the books owned by the clergy covered non-religious topics. Interestingly, though, the clerics who possessed the largest number of nonreligious books generally belonged to the higher-level clergy. The upper ranks of the clergy also tended to possess a broader range of religious books, for whereas all clerical collections included catechisms and devotional books, collections belonging to the upper classes tended to include a higher proportion of large exegetic or dogmatic works. And so we see that despite the overall German predominance on the bookshelves of the Norwegian clergy, there were geographical and social differences in the size of the collections and in their contents. Another distinguishing feature of the German impact across the different collections is the very large number of authors who had their works distributed in Norway. This indicates that the early modern market for authors and printers was quite broad, which is also reflected in the various book collections owned by members of the Norwegian clergy. This is noticeable, for instance, in the western, coastal city of Trondheim, which apparently had a highly prosperous book market. The fourteen book collections registered in Trondheim clerical inventories in the period 1697–1743 feature the names of around 190 different German Lutheran authors.22 The term “Lutheran” is used here in a very broad sense, in that it includes authors suspected of crypto-Calvinism and also comprises several authors who, either in their own time or by later theologians, were deemed to be non-mainstream. Take Andreas Osiander the Elder, for instance, who was at the centre of the Osiandrian controversy over the issue of the righteousness of faith before God, and who in this context is included in the group labelled “Lutheran.” The large number of German authors whose works were distributed across Norway is also evident in other regions, an example being the south-eastern county of Jarlsberg, situated by the Oslo Fjord. In the Jarlsberg inventories covering the years 1704–38, for instance, approximately 140 different names appear (see Appendix B), a number relatively similar to that of the German theologians registered on shelves in the city of Trondheim.23 That said, one should also note that the number of different authors (including the overall numbers of works) would have been lower in more rural areas, which naturally had less well-stocked book markets. In the northern Norwegian rural districts of Troms and Senja, for instance,

22 23

Dahl, Questioning religious influence, 227–85. Dahl, Questioning religious influence, 297–320.

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only about ninety German Lutheran authors were listed in the probate records for the clergy covering the years 1697–1753.24 Despite the fact that a significant number of German authors had their works distributed across Norway, some authors’ books were more widely distributed in one specific locality than others. In other words, even if the works of several authors reached the remotest corners of Norway, the works of some appear to have circulated more widely in certain geographic areas than in others. This naturally implies that each locality took on its own book distribution profile. In the county of Jarlsberg, authors such as Leonhard Hutter, Friedrich Balduin, Hartmann Creide and Luther seem to have enjoyed a particularly receptive audience in the period 1704–38 (see Table 1),25 while in the rural, southern Norwegian region of Nedenes the champion in terms of book distribution was Hartmann Creide, a pastor in Augsburg.26 Some of the authors – such as Conrad Dieterich, Johann Heermann and the above-mentioned Hartmann Creide – who appear to be “best-sellers” based on book distribution, have generally received relatively little attention in Norwegian scholarship. Creide seems to have reached quite a wide audience with the work Nosse me & nosse te, and with his Meditationes and his postil. Dieterich, meanwhile, a superintendent living in Ulm, who was highly celebrated in his own time, had his catechism widely distributed across Norway, as well as his works on logic and rhetoric. The works of the famous German poet and hymn writer Johann Heermann also reached an important level of distribution in Norway, at least among the clergy.

24

Dahl, Questioning religious influence, 368–69. Dahl, Questioning religious influence, 336–37. 26 Dahl, Questioning religious influence, 344. 25

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Table 1: German Lutheran “best-sellers” in the county of Jarlsberg 1704–38 Listed 11 times Listed 10 times Listed 9 times Listed 8 times Listed 7 times Listed 6 times

Leonhard Hutter (died 1616) Friedrich Balduin (died 1627), Hartmann Creide (died 1656), Martin Luther (died 1546) Conrad Dieterich (died 1639), August Pfeiffer (died 1698) Johann Arndt (died 1621), Felix Bidemback (died 1612), Johann Heermann (died 1647), Heinrich Müller (died 1675) Georg Albrecht (died 1647), Philipp Melanchthon (died 1560) Reinhard Bakius (died 1657), David Chytraeus (died 1600), Johann Gerhard (died 1637), Aegidius Hunnius (died 1603), Johann Tarnow (died 1629)

One noticeable feature of Table 1 and of Appendix B is that most of the authors listed belonged to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which means that they belonged to the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Many of the authors listed also wrote theological works characteristic of Lutheran Orthodoxy, an example being Johann Gerhard, whose Loci theologici was found in several collections. The distinguished theologian Leonhard Hutter was also represented in several book collections with his Compendium locorum theologicorum, and Aegidius Hunnius, who wrote on most of the articles of faith,27 had several works distributed across Norway. Another prolific writer, Balthasar Meisner, had the works Christologia Sacra and Anthropologia Sacra in various clerical libraries. Overall, a wide range of German authors wrote works that were distributed across Norway, although some were more popular in certain areas than in others. These authors, however, generally belonged to the school of Lutheran Orthodoxy, and Early and High Orthodoxy in particular. This would seem to indicate that German Lutheran Orthodoxy was the most pervasive religious current among clerics up until 1750, at least based on the books registered in the probate records for the clergy.

27

Preus, Post-Reformation Lutheranism, 50.

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Changes after 1750 According to a 1916 study of the book titles owned by the educated strata of society in Enlightenment Norway (1750–1800), including clerics, slight differences are evident in the field of religion. Firstly, regarding the origin of books, the German predominance continues, although the number of books written in the vernacular by domestic authors rises. 28 Secondly, there is a notable decline in the preponderance of Lutheran Orthodox authors. This does not mean that such authors vanish from people’s libraries, but rather that they come to be challenged by the growing importance of Pietist authors, amongst others. Various rational theologians also appear more frequently in late eighteenth-century book collections.29 My own study of around fifty late eighteenth-century printed book catalogues relating to the educated layers of society, including clerics, revealed similar tendencies, most notably a greater variety of works belonging to different religious but predominantly German, traditions. 30 Moravian writings are particularly widely distributed in the catalogues relating to the clergy, which indicates that such works might have constituted a cherished part of the broader Pietist curriculum. This probably also goes for the works of Jacob Boehme, which are likewise frequently found in such late eighteenth-century book collections. Also noticeable in late eighteenth-century collections is the significantly larger number of works on ecclesiastical history. Naturally, such books were also found in book collections registered prior to 1750, some of the most widely distributed authors being Eusebius, Johannes Carion (Chronica) and Johann Sleidanus (De statu religionis, De quatuor summis imperiis). As such, ecclesiastical history constituted a major weapon in the early modern battle over proper tradition, and for Protestants, and for Melanchthon in particular, history was seen as a precious tool in the consequent endeavour to establish a viable Lutheran church tradition. 31 During the course of the seventeenth century in particular, chairs in ecclesiastical history were established across Protestant universities, and in Denmark ecclesiastical history also received attention within the clerical curriculum. Where book distribution is concerned, however, the number of works on ecclesiastical history seems to expand more significantly in the latter part of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the period’s strong 28

Bull, Fra Holberg til Nordal Brun, 31. See the list of “best-selling” authors made by Bull, Fra Holberg til Nordal Brun, 234–35. 30 For a list of these specific book owners, see Appendix A. 31 Breisach, Historiography, 166. 29

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interest in historical issues and their meaning to society. Cassirer refers to this evolution as “the conquest of the historical world”, and in the Norwegian setting this evolution is reflected in a massive increase in the number of historical works, including those on ecclesiastical history.32 This growing importance of ecclesiastical history is reflected in the book collection belonging to Frederik Nannestad, prolific author and, from 1758, the bishop of Christiania (Oslo). 33 Nannestad’s library was auctioned off in 1778, four years after he died.34 The auction catalogue lists the books according to their size and content, and under the heading Biblia, ecclesiastical history is given a great deal of space (see Table 2). Works on Historia Sacra & Ecclesiastica in quarto, for instance, include 206 titles (entries 578–784), whereas in octavo, the same category comprises as many as 383 titles (entries 71–454). Although other categories included an even larger number of works, the space given to ecclesiastical history is indicative of the growing interest in historical issues (including church history) seen from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Table 2: Categories of religious works in bishop Nannestad’s collection (1778) Biblia, in quarto Biblia Ebræa & Græca: 1–29 Lexica Biblica & Concordantiæ: 30–38 Commentarii Biblici: 39–454 Patres & Opera Theologica: 455–577 Historia Sacra & Ecclesiastica: 578–784 Theologia Dogmatica, Moralis & Polemica: 785–1274 Jus Ecclesiasticum & Ritualia: 1275–1298 Biblia, in octavo Biblia & Concordantiæ: 1–70 Historia Sacra & Ecclesiastica: 71–454 Theologia Dogmatica & Problematica: 455–594 Theologia Moralis, Ascetica & Naturalis: 595–929 Theologia Scholastica, Polemica & Mystica: 930–1233 Theologia Catechetica, Exegetica & Critica: 1234–1542 Theologia Homiletica: 1543–1796 Jus Ecclesiasticum & Ritualia: 1797–1844 32

Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 197. Index bibliothecae beati Friderici Nannestad: qvae publica auctione venibit Christianiae die 6to Februarii 1778 in aedibus pastoris Laurentii Christiani Nannestad, The National Library, Oslo (NBO, NA/A 5015). 34 Ehrencron-Müller, Forfatterlexicon, 6:56–59. 33

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As concerns the works on church history found in late eighteenth-century book collections, like the other theological subcategories they comprise a variety of different writings. Recurring authors include Carion and Sleidanus, as well as Eusebius. However, newcomers also feature in late eighteenth-century collections, as exemplified in the library of Johan Plate Bruun, a clergyman who concluded his career as pastor of the Nykirke in Bergen. 35 This particular collection was auctioned off in 1772, shortly after the owner’s death, and it contained a total of 124 books in folio, 405 in quarto and 681 in octavo. 36 Of these volumes, about 130 were on history, which in the late eighteenth century was a much broader category than today. At that time, “history” would have included, for instance, works on geography and statistics as well as travel accounts and fiction. A noteworthy and significant feature of most of the clerical collections is the predominance of works on church history written by German authors; a predominance that is also reflected in the selection of works on church history in Bruun’s collection presented in Table 3.37

35

Ehrencron-Müller, Forfatterlexicon, 2:112–13. Catalogus over afgangne Sal. Johann Plate Bruun forhen værende Sogne-Præst til Nye-Kirkens Menighed udi Bergen, hans efterladte Bøger, som til sist udi May eller først i Junii neskommende Aar 1773 ved offentlig Au[c]tion til den Høysbydende bliver bortsolgt, The National Library, Oslo (NBO, NA/A 5182). 37 As the books in this specific catalogue are listed according to size and not content, it is difficult to fully identify the titles covering church history. A range of general historical works on Scandinavian and broader European history, for instance, has not been listed in Table 2, although these works might very well have included much material on religious, or ecclesiastical, history, Christian (including Roman Catholic) as well as “heathen.” For these reasons, my list of works in Table 3 should not be regarded as “absolute.” 36

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Table 3: Examples of works on ecclesiastical history in the collection of Johan Plate Bruun Arnold, Gottfrid: Unparteyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie Bingham, Joseph: Origines ecclesiasticae Buddeus, Johann Franz: Historia ecclesiastica Echard, Laurence: Ecclesiastical history Eusebius: Historia Ecclesiastica Heidegger, Johann Heinrich: Historia papatus Kortholt, Christian: Historia ecclesiastica Lange, Joachim: Historia ecclesiastica Majus the Elder, Johann Heinrich: Historia Reformationis Micraelius, Johann: Historia ecclesiastica Sarpi, Paolo: Historia Concilii Tridentini Schmidt, Johann Jacob: Einleitung zur biblischen Historie Seckendorff, Weit Ludwig von: Commentarius historicus et apologeticus de Lutheranismo Tentzel, Wilhelm Ernst: Historischer Bericht vom Anfang und Fortgang der Reformation Of the names listed in Table 3, two German authors, in particular, seem to have penned works on church history that enjoyed a fairly wide distribution among the broader Norwegian clergy. These were Joachim Lange (died 1744) and Johann Franz Buddeus (died 1729), both of whom were theologians at Halle. However, Scandinavian works on ecclesiastical history also appear regularly in the late eighteenth-century book collections of the clergy, mirroring the general increase in the dissemination of works written in the vernacular. The most popular books seem to have been Almindelig Kirke-Historie, written in Danish by the Copenhagen professor and polymath Ludvig Holberg (died 1754), and Annales ecclesiae danicae by the Bergen bishop, and later head of the University of Copenhagen, Erik Pontoppidan (died 1764). Another work that appears in most clerical book collections of the period is Det Siellandske Clerisie, about clerics in Zealand, by the Danish pastor Detlev Zwergius (died 1757). But Christian history was not the only religious tradition that received attention. Historical introductions to Islam and Judaism also regularly appear in the various collections, although in more limited numbers. In Bruun’s collection, for instance, Jewish history is covered by the work Historia religionis judaeorum, written by the rabbi Moses Levi. Also symptomatic of this interest in non-Christian religions is a steady rise during the late eighteenth century in the distribution of various editions of

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the Quran in clerical libraries. Works on geography, a subcategory of “history”, also become more common in the various late eighteenthcentury book collections. Some of these works, naturally, dealt specifically with “holy” geography, examples of such titles in Bruun’s collection being Geographia sacra and Biblischer geographus. Generally, the predominance of German authors and works are the most prominent feature of Norwegian clerical libraries in the period 1650– 1800. As to the content of these books, however, slight changes can be seen taking place over the course of the eighteenth century. After 1750, the body of books in clerical libraries becomes more diverse, which means that other traditions than Lutheran Orthodoxy also become more deeply embedded in the different collections. For instance, a higher number of Pietist works appear in late eighteenth-century collections, and the group of authors writing on rational theology also expands. Furthermore, in the eighteenth century the number of works on ecclesiastical history is on the rise. Although these changes were real, they should not be exaggerated: Clerical libraries after 1750 remained highly German in outlook, and the works of a number of Orthodox authors continued to enjoy widespread distribution, despite the apparent diversification of the theological curriculum.

Non-Lutheran books from the Netherlands and England Even though works written by German Lutheran theologians dominated the various collections examined, books from other countries also found their way to Norway. Books from two countries in particular – the Netherlands and England – seem to have been widely distributed among Norwegian clerics. This meant that books conveying a theology that was not necessarily Lutheran were also being disseminated among the Norwegian clergy. As there were more books among the upper layers of the clergy than the lower, non-Lutheran religious books were often, but not always, found in greater numbers in these collections. Whether these books were used as sources for engaging in polemics (controversiae), or for personal spiritual purposes, or merely as a means to become acquainted with other parts of the Christian legacy, one cannot know. However, the steady flow of these works might indicate that some members of the Norwegian clergy did not necessarily confine Christianity within a rigid confessional framework. On the whole, religious books from the Netherlands seem to have been relatively widely distributed in the book collections of the Norwegian clergy, and the majority of these were written in the Latin language. In the

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diocese of Bergen, for instance, Dutch Calvinist authors, or authors with strong professional ties to the Netherlands, appear in most of the collections registered around 1700, examples being Caspar Sibelius (died 1658), Franciscus Ridder (died 1683), Hendrik van Diest (died 1673) and Johann Cloppenburg (died 1654).38 Several Dutch authors also appear in early eighteenth-century clerical inventories in Trondheim, such as Johannes Hoornbeck (died 1666), David Knibbe (died 1701), Friedrich Spanheim the Elder (died 1649) and Caspar Streso (died 1664).39 Yet two authors stand out as “best-sellers” in terms of having their works distributed throughout Norway: Ridder and Sibelius. In some areas their works were distributed at the same rate as those of Luther. As to the books written by Caspar Sibelius, a delegate to the Synod of Dort, one volume seems to have been particularly popular among the Norwegian clergy, namely his collected works published in folio in Amsterdam in 1644. Fransiscus Ridder, a Reformed minister in Rotterdam who achieved great fame across Europe during his own lifetime, similarly wrote several works that were distributed throughout Norway, one example being his HuisCatechisatie. Several Cocceians also had works found across the country, most notably Johannes Cocceius (died 1669), Herman Witsius (died 1708) and Campegius Vitringa (died 1722). One of the most frequently owned Bible editions, according to the various probate records, was also written by a Calvinist. This was the annotated New Testament edition published by the Arminian theologian Stephanus Curcellaeus (Etienne de Courcelles, died 1659) at the Remonstrant Seminary in Amsterdam. Books by Calvinists outside the Netherlands also ended up among the Norwegian clergy, including works by John Calvin himself (died 1564), Theodore Beza (died 1606) and Charles Drelincourt (died 1669). Apart from Curcellaeus’s edition of the Bible, the Latin Bible translation by Immanuel Tremellius (died 1580), a Reformed convert from Judaism, also seems to have been greatly admired among the Norwegian clergy. A wide range of English, and some Scottish and Welsh, authors also had works distributed among the Norwegian clergy. Several of these, though far from all, were Puritan-Calvinists. The Puritan preacher Thomas Watson (died 1686) was highly popular, as was the Anglican bishop Lewis Bayly (died 1631), who reached a fairly wide audience in Norway through his devotional “best-seller” Practice of Piety. The divine Richard Baxter (died 1691) also seems to have been cherished by Norwegian clerics, as 38 39

Dahl, Questioning religious influence, 135,165. Dahl, Questioning religious influence, 230, 286.

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was the Puritan minister Daniel Dyke (died 1616). Dyke, in particular, reached a significant audience among the Norwegian clergy through his work Nosce te ipsum (Mystery of Self-Deceiving), which was translated into Danish in 1706. Although most Norwegian clergymen possessed at least some books of English (or Scottish or Welsh) origin, some had quite a substantial number of such works, even to the extent that most of their collection seems to have originated from these countries. This was probably the result of the connections these specific clergymen had abroad, whether personal (through travels or previous studies abroad) or impersonal (agents, book orders, etc.) in nature. As many of these books were written in English, it is natural to assume that their purchasers must also have had a fair command of the English language. This may be why members of the upper ranks in the clerical hierarchy possessed the largest number of English works. Less theological works by popular authors such as John Owen (died 1622) and John Barclay (died 1621) also made their way from the British Isles. Owen reached a wide audience with his epigrams, some of which were polemics against Roman Catholicism, and so did Barclay through his “best-sellers” Satyricon and Argenis, works with satirical and political overtones. Some of the books belonging to the Norwegian clergy were also of Catholic origin. However, such works seem to have originated outside England, Germany and the Netherlands. The Catholic author whose works were most widely distributed among the Norwegian clergy appears to have been the Franciscan mystic Diego de Estella (Didacus Stella, died 1578), who wrote De contemnendis mundi vanitatibus, and also penned a commentary on Luke. Some of the spiritual and devotional works of Luis of Granada (died 1588), a highly renowned Dominican friar, were also spread among parts of the clergy, as were works by prolific authors such as Jeremias Drexel (died 1638) and Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (died 1621). It should be noted, however, that the number of books of nonLutheran origin appears to have declined slightly over the final decades of the eighteenth century, because works by Pietists and rationalist theologians, who were often German, or even Danish-Norwegian, gained ground.

Concluding remarks Luther felt that a country’s glory depended on its number of “cultivated citizens, […] its men of education, enlightenment and character.” Did clergymen in Norway possess these qualities? Whatever their personal character, it seems clear that clerics in Norway were at least “enlightened” in terms of the books they owned. Despite the small number of printers in

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the country, they apparently had access to a wide literary world, if we are to judge by the numbers of books in their collections. Naturally, book distribution varied both geographically (between urban and rural areas) and socially (among the various layers of the clerical hierarchy), but on the whole, the Norwegian clergy had access to a relatively large number of books, most of which dealt with religious subjects. These books were also written by a variety of very different authors, and they ranged from instructional manuals to elaborate dogmatic treatises. What, then, can be said more specifically about the clerical reading culture in Norway over the period 1650–1800? One certainly cannot automatically equate book ownership with reading. Yet if we regard the patterns of book distribution as symptomatic of a possible, and credible, reading culture, we can infer some general characteristics. Firstly, it seems obvious that the clerical reading culture was international. In this particular respect, it is fair to claim that the clergymen in Norway were not merely Danish-Norwegian, but indeed European in their orientation. Secondly, and as a result of this outward-looking orientation, Norwegian clergymen were exposed to the same literary trends and developments as their peers in other countries. An example would be the growing interest in historical issues (including ecclesiastical history) that took place particularly during the eighteenth century. That said, however, book distribution in Norway seems to have been confined within certain limits: Most books owned by clerics originated in German Lutheran areas, which meant that it was German Lutheran trends, and most conspicuously Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism, that primarily reached Norwegian shores. This dependency on German developments seems natural given the religious and geographical proximity of Denmark-Norway to Germany. Similarly, Germany was an important networking area with respect to education and trade. Because of this particular closeness, German religious trends also influenced the Danish-Norwegian educational system of the day. However, clerics in Norway also owned non-Lutheran books, chiefly from the Netherlands and England – two other countries that were also important when it came to education and trade. Although we do not know for sure how these books were used, it seems as if clergymen in Norway were relatively open-minded when it came to their reading culture. Consequently, clergymen in Norway do indeed appear to have been the sort of “educated” men of learning that Luther called for, although it should be noted that their spiritual and intellectual scholarship seems to have stretched beyond the boundaries of Luther’s original aims, and of Lutheran Protestantism as such.

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APPENDIX A Owners of book collections printed in catalogues 1750–1800 Abbreviations – Gunnerus: Gunnerus Library, Trondheim. NBO: The National Library, Oslo. Bildsöe, Christopher, 1751 (NBO, NA/A 5189); Schelderup, Ove, 1760 (NBO, NA/A k 7989); Hoff, Ole Hannibal, 1761 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 27); Schjelderup, Peder, 1762 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 30); Grüner, Gustav, 1763 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 17); Kiestrup, Lauridtz, 1763 (NBO, NA/A 6945); Lund, Lauritz, 1765 (NBO, NA/A 5359); Tønder, Niels, 1766 ( NBO, NA/A 6943); Schmettow, Waldemar Hermann, 1767 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 80); Wiring, Henrik, 1769 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 31); Bolt, 1769 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 67); Feddersen, Nicolai, 1769? (NBO, NA/A a 6841); Storm, Niels Nissen, 1771 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 24); Hansell, Thomas, 1772 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 64); Thode, Jacob, 1772 (NBO, NA/A 5152); Bruun, Johan Plate, 1772 (NBO, NA/A 5182); Storm, Caspar Herman, 1772 (NBO, NA/A c 6774); Nachschov, Johan Christopher Gram, 1774? (Gunnerus, HA, Box 26); Hagerup, Jochum, 1775 (NBO, NA/A I 1333); Nannestad, Frederik, 1778 (NBO, NA/A 5015); Wolff, Simon, 1778 (NBO, NA/A 5153); Hammer, Hannibal, 1778 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 33); Rohweder, Christian von / Sehested, Margaretha Sophia / Schlanbusch, Friedrich Leegard von, 1782 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 28); Svaboe, Jens Henrich, 1784 (NBO, NA/A 4522); Rachløw, Børre Henrich, 1786 (NBO, NA/A 6951); Tønder, Ebbe Carsten, 1786 (NBO, NA/A b 1361); Winther, Johannes, 1788 (NBO, NA/A 5155); Hjort, Peder, 1789 (NBO, NA/A 6908/76); Monrad, Søren Seerup, 1789 (NBO, NA/A c 9846); Tislef, Hans, 1789 (NBO, NA/A 4500a); Bang, M. F., 1790 (NBO, NA/A 5179); Ewensen, Lorentz, 1790 (NBO, NA/A 4523); Nordahl, 1790 (NBO, NA/A 6894); Rosum, Joachim Frederik, 1791 (NBO, NA/A 6950); Bull, Owe, 1791 (NBO, NA/A 5181); Bahnesen, Paul, 1793 (NBO, NA/A 6968/4); Hagerup, Søren, 1793 (NBO, NA/A 6968/3); Hjort, Hans, 1793 (NBO, NA/A 6968/2); Holch, Ole, 1793 (NBO, NA/A 6968/1); Speilberg, Hans, 1793 (NBO, NA/A 5184); Bohm, Jens, 1794 (NBO, NA/A 6968/5); From, Niels Godske, 1794 (NBO, NA/A 6968/8); Buschmann, A., 1794 (NBO, NA/A 6968/9); Lemvig, Jens, 1794 (NBO, NA/A 6968/6); Hammond, Hans, 1794 (NBO, NA/A 6946); Gartner, Hans, 1796 (NBO, NA/A 6949); Tonning, Henrik, 1796 (NBO, NA/A 6968/11); Tyrholm, 1796 (NBO, NA/A 6968/10); Lachmann, 1797 (Gunnerus, HA, Box 39); Busch, Daniel, 1798 (NBO, NA/A 6968/12); Hagerup, Christian Fredrik, 1798 (NBO, NA/A 5171).

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APPENDIX B German Lutheran authors listed in the Jarlsberg clerical probate records 1704–38 Johann Samuel Adami, Johannes Affelmann, Conrad Agricola, Lambert Alard, Valentin Alberti, Georg Albrecht, Johann Arndt, Sebastian Artomedes, Johann Avenarius, Reinhard Bakius, Friedrich Balduin, Christopher Barbarossa, Bartholomaeus Battus, Felix Bidemback, Johann Binck, Martinus Bohemus, Johann Botsak, Johannes Brenz, Johann Franz Buddeus, Johannes Bugenhagen, Heinrich Bünting, Stats Buscher, Georg Calixt, Abraham Calov, Sethus Calvisius, Samuel Benedikt Carpzov, Andreas Celichius, Christian Chemnitz, Martin Chemnitz, David Chytraeus, Michael Cluver, Christoph Corner, Daniel Cramer, Hartmann Creide, Johann Conrad Dannhauer, Christoph Dauderstadt, Conrad Dieterich, Johann Michael Dillherr, Adam Doegen, Matthaeus Dresser, Ludovic Dunte, Heinrich Eckard, Paul Egard, Joachim Emden, Johann Conrad Feuerlein, Johann Heinrich Feustking, Christoph Fischer, Matthias Flacius, Johann Flittner, Johann Forster the Younger, Wolfgang Frantze, Philipp Heinrich Friedlieb, Simon Geddicus, Martin Geier, Johann Gerhard, Salomon Gesner, Salomon Glassius, Zacharias Grapius, Gerhard Grave, Albert Grawer, Daniel Gribner, Matthias Hafenreffer, Johann Ludwig Hartmann, Jacob Heerbrand, Johann Heermann, Jacob Heilbrunner, Valerius Herberger, Tilemann Heshus, Caspar Heunisch, Johann Himmel, Christian Hohburg, Aegidius Hunnius, Nicolai Hunnius, Leonhard Hutter, Johannes Jan, Philipp Kegel, Balthasar Kerner, Johann Kiesling, Peter Kirchback, Johann Friedrich Koenig, Christian Kortholt, Barthold von Krakewitz, Hieronymus Kromayer, Johann Abraham Kromayer, Johann Andreas Kunad, Johann Ludwig Langhans, Friedrich von Lanckisch, Michael von Lanckisch, Lucas Loss, Martin Luther, Georg Major, Johann Heinrich Majus, Christian Matthiae, Balthasar Meisner, Philipp Melanchthon, Friedrich Just Mengewein, Balthasar Mentzer, Johann Matthaeus Meyfart, Peter Michaelis, Johann Micraelius, Georg Moebius, Heinrich Müller, Philipp Nicolai, Lucas Osiander the Elder, Johann Jacob Otto, Simon Paulli, Heinrich Pipping, August Pfeiffer, Moses Pflacher, Johann Georg Pritz, Andreas Prückner, Johann Andreas Quenstedt, Adam Rechenberg, Jacob Reineccius, Johann Rist, Georg Rost, Heinrich Roth, Samuel Rüling, Johann Adam Schertzer, Sebastian Schmidt, Christian Scriver, Nicolai Selneccer, Erhard Snepff, Johannes Spangenberg, Paul Stockmann, Victorin Strigel, Gregor Strigenitz, Johann Tarnow, Nathanael Tilesius, Matthias Vogel the Elder, Matthias Vogel the Younger, Michael Walther the Elder, Matthias Wasmuth, Gottfried Wegner, Johann Weihenmayer, Georg Weinrich, Hieronymus Weller, Jacob Weller, Jacob Werenberg, Johannes Wigand, Johann Winckelmann.

CHAPTER FIVE “A THREAT TO CIVIC COEXISTENCE”: FORBIDDEN RELIGIOUS LITERATURE AND CENSORSHIP IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SWEDEN ANN ÖHRBERG

When one begins to look at how censorship functions in different societies – today and also in former times – it soon becomes clear that questions of censorship are often complex in nature. There are many elements to consider, for example the gap between laws and how they are put into practice under different circumstances, how text (in the broadest sense of the word) is interpreted, and how authorities, media, senders and recipients interact in a censorship process. In the following I would like to present a case study of censorship in eighteenth-century Sweden. This case sheds light on the way in which different factors undermined the authorities’ attempts to control what was seen as harmful religious literature. My topic is not hegemonic repression as such. I am mainly interested in demonstrating how a group of Swedish religious dissidents, the so-called Moravian movement (Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde), managed to circulate their texts despite the authorities’ attempts to stop them through laws, regulations, surveillance, censorship, and other means. Different factors worked together so that Moravian literature did reach its audience, thus promoting an empowerment process. Through this case study from early modern Sweden, I intend to discuss some key questions regarding the nature of censorship: What were the motives behind censorship? What can censorship express or reveal about a society and its distribution of power? Who was considered to be the “competent” or “mature” reader? And how was the position of the “unqualified” reader gendered or socially branded?

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Recent research shows the necessity of embedding discussions of censorship within a wider context.1 Studies focusing on laws and regulations cannot provide a full understanding of how censorship works. Taking this into account I intend to adopt a threefold perspective in my deliberations. First I shall pay attention to structural factors by giving an account of how censorship was organized, and how the Moravians found ways to avoid it (and also how laws and regulations were implemented or not implemented). Secondly, I shall consider questions of how Moravian texts were interpreted, both by Moravians themselves and by the authorities. Thirdly, I shall focus on prevailing views of the intended readers of Moravian literature, and on how this affected censorship. It is my intention to demonstrate that an understanding of censorship as performative in early modern Sweden will be enhanced by this kaleidoscopic approach.

Religion and politics in eighteenth-century Sweden In a regulation from 1735, which was introduced to restrain the radical Pietistic movement and is considered to be the most repressive of all Swedish eighteenth-century legislation on religious matters, “differences and disorder” are seen as the equivalent of social instability and commotion: [M]any heresies and opinions against the pure Evangelical teaching have unfortunately been noticed, which, if they increase and spread, would cause differences and disorder not only in the congregation, but also when it comes to civic coexistence [...] the rightful religion and its service is the strong foundation for a rightful, harmonious and durable regime.2

Fifteen years later, the authorities faced new problems relating to religious dissidents. The Moravian movement, which had reached Sweden in the 1

Regarding research on the early modern era in England, Germany and France with this focus, see Clegg, Elizabethan England and Jacobean England; Darnton, Comparative Perspective and Forbidden Best-sellers; Dutton, Censorship and Authorship; McElligott, Print and Censorship; Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation; Lærke, Use of Censorship; and Tortarolo, “Censorship”. 2 “[Å]tskillige irrige, och emot then rena Evangeliska Läran stridande meningar skola sig beklageligen insmygt, hwilcka, thär the fingo til taga och sig widare utbreda, stor split och oreda, icke allenast uti Församlingen, utan och uti then Borgerliga sammanlefnaden [...] then rätta Religionen och Gudstiensten är then största och kraftigaste grundwal til ett lofligit, samdräcktigt och waracktigt Regemente.” Kongl. maj:ts nådige Stadga Och Påbud, Til Hämmande Af hwarjehanda willfarelser, och deras utspridande, emot den rena Evangeliska Läran. Gifwit Stockholm i Råd-Cammaren den 20. martii 1735 (Stockholm, 1735).

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late 1730s, was strengthening its influence. When, in 1751, the newly crowned king Adolf Fredrik affirmed his royal decree to the country (kungaförsäkran), the very first paragraph asserted his loyalty to the one and only true religion, “the pure Evangelical doctrine” of Luther (rena Evangeliskt-Lutherska läran). In the next paragraph another imperative was declared: No-one of any other religion than that decreed above [...] who is infected by fanaticism, nor anyone who utters sympathies for evident ungodliness or despicable atheism, shall be eligible for official duty or service to the state.3

The situation at this point seemed to be critical, in that deviance in religious matters, fanaticism or even atheism had evidently seeped into the very core of society: the civil service and even the state itself. The texts cited above bear witness to the great importance attached to religious affairs in eighteenth-century Sweden. During this period, religion lay at the very heart of society and was intimately intertwined with the political order. Lutheran Orthodoxy, which was the religion enforced, was also a crucial part of Swedish national identity. To be a Swede was to be a Lutheran. Therefore, when different religious revivals reached Sweden from the end of the seventeenth century onwards, they were regarded as challenging the very fabric of society – and consequently the authorities, both clerical and secular, acted in different ways to stop them.4 It must, however, be underlined that things did not remain static throughout eighteenth century. The idea that all Swedes should be joined together in one church was gradually undermined, as was the idea of the political order being intertwined with the religious. A first step towards freedom of religion was taken in 1741, when members of the Reformed Church and the Anglican Church were granted the right to freely practise their faith in Sweden. The reasoning behind this was mainly economic, as Sweden needed foreign labour and capital, but this liberalization nevertheless marked a turning point in the general attitude towards the monopoly of the Lutheran Orthodox church.5 Other changes related to the 3 “Ingen af annan Religion, än then, som förbemäld är […] som är med swärmerie besmittad, mindre någon, som sig til uppenbara ogudaktigheter och förargeligit Atheisterie slår och märka låter, skal brukas i något Riksens Embete eller Tienst.” Swea konunga-försäkran (Stockholm, 1751). 4 Politics and religion with regard to the Moravian movement is discussed in Öhrberg, “Den smala vägen”. 5 Lenhammar, Sveriges kyrkohistoria, 39–40.

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handling of religious matters also indicated that a new era was dawning. Church historian Harry Lenhammar, for instance, notes that as the century progressed there was a growing tendency for religious cases to be handled by secular rather than religious authorities.6 This is one example of the consequences of state interests gradually being separated from the Church and Orthodox Lutheranism. In addition, the demands for religious freedom and tolerance grew stronger during the eighteenth century, and a process of secularization began. On the other hand, the Church did not remain passive, but sought to maintain or regain its influence. And because the surveillance and control of subversive religious texts was one of the most important means for the church to maintain its influence on society, censorship consequently became an important arena for this process of change.7

The organization of censorship Sweden had a system of pre-censorship, and religious literature was monitored through a system of double censorship, involving both the religious and the secular authorities. When, in 1766, freedom of the press was introduced for secular literature, the publication and sale of religious literature remained subject to control and was never completely free at any time during the eighteenth century. Censorship of religious literature was seen as one of the most important weapons against heretical infection, and texts that were produced by dissidents were never to reach innocent readers. Up until 1766 censorship was regulated by laws and edicts and carried out by the censor librorum, which was a civil service department set up in 1686. It was headed by one man, and situated in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. This censor-in-chief answered to another civil service department, the so-called Kanslikollegium, to which he was also obliged to submit pro memoria of complicated matters. The most difficult cases were handed over to the government (Kunglig Majestät). Censorship was further regulated in the rules for the chancellery in 1719 and 1720.8 The censor librorum had a large burden resting on his shoulders. Not only was it his task to oversee the import of books and monitor what was on the market in the rest of Europe. He also had to keep an eye on all the 6

Lenhammar, Tolerans och bekännelsetvång, 32. Cf. Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 124. 8 Leonard Bygdén, introduction to G. Benzelstjerna’s Censorsjournal 1737–1746, ed. L. Bygdén and E. Lewenhaupt (Uppsala, 1884–85), xi, xiv; Nordstrandh, Pietismens litteratur, 10–11. 7

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booksellers in Stockholm and, most importantly, carry out an examination of texts in advance, before printing was permitted. Censor librorum was not the only one who kept an eye on religious literature, however. A division was upheld between the censorship of secular and religious literature, respectively. Members of the clergy were the first line of control for all religious literature, and throughout the century this literature was to be thoroughly monitored by the clerical authorities, and by consistories attached to the Cathedral chapters and the universities. Within the consistories, representatives of the clergy and teachers from the gymnasia and universities would read religious literature (scribal publications included) that was to be published, imported or put up for sale. They were then supposed to submit a report to the censor librorum.9 However, as will be explained below, the censorship of religious literature did not always work as intended. It also became far more complicated than the censorship of secular texts, mainly because of the division between different censoring authorities and individual censors.10 The penalties for those who wrote, translated, performed, published and circulated forbidden religious texts ranged from exclusion from civil service professions and heavy fines to imprisonment or, in the gravest cases, exile. But generally, when dealing with texts seen as confessionally disputable or heretic, a distinction was made between those who “disturbed the order of society”, which was seen as a minor offence, and those who persisted in “seducing others with their words”, thereby converting the innocent into heretics. The former category was to be warned by the local pastor, scolded and cajoled into returning to the rightful Evangelical doctrine; the latter category was to be immediately reported to the chapter, which could then judge whether the case could be handled by a consistory or was so grave that it ought to be handed over to the secular courts.11 The policy of persuading individuals who questioned Lutheran Orthodoxy rested on the idea that in such cases, souls were in danger of being lost to God, which must be prevented. Moreover, when saving such lost souls, persuasion and cajoling must be done without forcing a decision, as that would have contradicted the Lutheran belief in free will. In her dissertation on the Swedish Pietistic movement during the 1720s, 9 Bygdén, introduction (see n. 8), xiii; Nordstrandh, Pietismens litteratur, 17; Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 110–11. 10 Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 109. 11 Stadga Och Påbud (see n. 2), § 4; Lenhammar, Tolerans och bekännelsetvång, 32–33; Brohed, Stat, religion, kyrka, 144–68.

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historian Carola Nordbäck points out that this was an important principle among the clergy. Furthermore, in this respect the Lutheran Orthodox pastors were in agreement with the Pietists. Every individual had the right to “ease of conscience” (not to be confused with freedom of religion), and therefore true faith could never be forced upon anyone. The free will of the individual, however, was always secondary in comparison to the general good of society.12 The pattern that Nordbäck describes can be observed when the Moravians entered the scene and the authorities consequently took the same measures against them. This ultimately led to a system whereby those suspected of heresy were subjected to endless proceedings handled by the clergy, in which the suspects were questioned and interrogated at length. In these proceedings the role of argumentation and persuasion is striking, one purpose being to move the Moravian in question to recant and return to the rightful path. As mentioned, the Moravian movement had reached Sweden in the late 1730s, but it took some time before the Moravians were seen as a significant threat to “civic coexistence”, as the phrase went in the 1735 edict. In the 1740s the authorities became aware that the movement was spreading rapidly, and that it challenged Lutheran Orthodoxy. Since the Moravians were forbidden to practice their faith at meetings or by forming congregations, their most effective weapon was to spread the Word. They did this via literature and other media – oral, handwritten and printed – employing a variety of genres such as sermons, religious songbooks, devotional manuals, and circular letters. Soon the production, import, publication and circulation of Moravian literature flourished. For example, according to a contemporary source, by the late 1740s the various editions of the Swedish Moravian songbook, Sions Sånger (The Songs of Zion), had reached a grand total of 18 000 copies, which indicates its enormous popularity, even among those who were not directly active in the Moravian movement.13 The authorities reacted slowly at first, but from the end of the 1740s they did all they could to stop the publication and circulation of what they saw as religiously (and therefore also politically) subversive texts. The Moravians used the usual means to avoid censorship, including illegal imports and the unlicensed printing of material, written or oral dissemination of subversive texts, and the circulation of literature through their networks. In addition, the authors of this literature were, to a very large extent, unknown to their readers, although those in the inner circles 12 13

Nordbäck, Samvetets röst, 147ff. Dovring, Sions sånger, 1:51.

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of the movement knew their identity. Many texts had been circulated in manuscript form within these circles prior to printing, and in the manuscripts the authors’ names were often revealed.14 Sometimes Moravian publications were provided with false approbation (imprimatur), as in the 1747 edition of The Songs of Zion. Obviously, censorship also had some effect on how the song collections were edited. By the end of the 1740s The Songs of Zion had been cleansed of some of the more offensive Moravian wordings – such as descriptions of Jesus and the Holy Spirit as Mothers. This was the price that must be paid for later editions to be granted printing permission.15 Regarding the New Songs of Zion from 1778, the problem was solved insofar as the songs were printed in Copenhagen (as mentioned above, religious literature was not included in the edict from 1766 concerning the freedom of the press). The production, import, printing, circulation and sale of Moravian books continued, and so, in spite of the authorities’ attempts to stop it, an abundance of offensive or forbidden Moravian literature reached a wide readership.16 To some extent this had to do with the Moravians’ active and successful methods of avoiding censorship, but there were other factors at work, too.

Structural glitches One important factor was that the system of censorship itself could actually benefit the Moravians. In discussing this phenomenon I would like to introduce the term “structural glitches” to explain how the complicated structure of religious censorship could be a hindrance to its effective implementation. There are chiefly five problem areas, or structural glitches, that weakened the effectiveness of censorship: 1) lack of coordination, 2) lack of competence and preparedness, 3) censors turning a blind eye, 4) difficult working conditions for censors, and finally 5) lack of consensus between different authorities or censors.17 14

Karin Dovring discusses the different printed editions of The Songs of Zion in comparison to handwritten collections of Moravian song. She also points out that no print manuscripts have been preserved. Ibid. 1:41 and passim. Regarding letters and other forms of handwritten literature within Swedish Moravianism, see Öhrberg, “Den smala vägen” and “Strömfelt Sisters”. 15 Dovring, Sions sånger, 1:146. 16 This was a common pattern. For other examples from earlier revivals, see Nordstrandh, Pietismens litteratur, 21ff.; and Henning, De religiösa rörelserna, 56–57. 17 These glitches have certain similarities with the practices of censorship during the Enlightenment as discussed in Lærke, “Introduction”, 13ff.

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1. Lack of coordination. Because more individuals were involved in the process of religious (as opposed to secular) censorship, the potential for unofficial, unclear or contradictory decisions was greater. Someone wishing to obtain permission to print (an author, printer/publisher or bookseller) could apply with a number of different people. This made it easier to seek unofficial approval from a censor who might be sympathetic towards the Moravian movement, or who might even be a member of the same network. Authors, for instance, could use personal contacts and approach a member of a consistory to obtain a confidential “statement of assurance” to which they could then refer. The authorities were aware of this, and in a royal decree dated 2 May 1751 the government, addressing the Swedish consistories, court of appeal and other authorities, underlined that the responsibility to censor theological publications could not rest solely with individual clergymen, but was a task for a consistory.18 This was not a phenomenon unique to Sweden. It can be compared, for example, to Edoardo Tortarolo’s observations on censorship in late eighteenth-century Germany. Here cases were divided between individual censors, who sometimes had their own agendas, which caused the whole institution of censorship function as “a highly informal, case-to-case system.”19 2. Lack of competence and preparedness. Not every censor had sufficient competence to identify subtle theological messages hidden in texts. What might seem to be a harmless devotional book or a collection of sincere, pious songs could reveal its controversial content to those capable of reading between the lines.20 Especially when a new movement was emerging, the sources show an observable ignorance and a lack of preparedness to identify what was going on. One example relates to the printing permission granted to one of the Moravian bestsellers from the 1740s, a translation of the German theologian David Hollaz’s Evangelische Gnaden-Ordnung (in Swedish Nådenes Ordning). This “ordinance of grace” had been translated and published by the (Moravian) printer Johan Christoffer Holmberg, and the Swedish translation was read and approved by the bishop Eric Alstrin, who at the time was chair (præses) of the Consistory in Stockholm. At this point neither Alstrin nor the Consistory fully grasped the great significance Hollaz’s book held for the Moravians. In 1749, however, they were warned about Hollaz’s publication, and later 18 Levin, Religionstvång och religionsfrihet, 281–82; Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 109. 19 Tortarolo, “Censorship”, 135. 20 A censor’s lack of compentence could also be exploited by authors of secular literature. Bygdén, introduction (see n. 8), xvii.

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editions were consequently prohibited.21 The same Alstrin read and approved a burial sermon (likpredikan) written by a Moravian pastor named Thore Odhelius, and read over the Moravian pastor Jonas Hellman. On 20 November 1741, Gustaf Benzelstjerna, censor librorum at the time, found himself able to send it to the printer,22 despite the fact that the sermon was highly Moravian in its content.23 When, in February 1743, Johan Christoffer Holmberg sought approval for the first part of The Songs of Zion, he himself went to see the censor librorum, Benzelstjerna. In his censor’s journal Benzelstjerna wrote how he had met with Holmberg and said to him that the songs were of a poorer quality than those in the authorized hymn book. But on the other hand, Benzelstjerna did not object to the publication, “as many not known to us have been practising their faith with their [the songs’] aid.” Therefore, on the condition that they receive the approval of the Consistory of Stockholm, the songs could be published.24 The Songs of Zion went to print, one main reason being that it had already reached a sizeable readership! The relevant passage in the journal additionally offers an example of how the censors not only monitored political, ideological or religious content, but also commented on language and form per se. According to the journal, Benzelstjerna said to Holmberg that the hymns in The Songs of Zion could serve a purpose, as they had been corrected. Robert Darnton has reminded us, apropos of censorship in eighteenth-century France, that censorship in this context also had an aspect of sanction and approval; it “was not simply a matter of purging heresies. It was positive – a royal endorsement of the book and an

21

Bygdén and Lewenhaupt, Benzelstjernas censorsjournal (see n. 8), 166; Nordstrandh, Pietismens litteratur, 6–7, 18. Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 110, points out that Alstrin was less dogmatic in his Lutheran Orthodoxy than his predecessor. 22 Bygdén and Lewenhaupt, Benzelstjernas censorsjournal (see n. 8), 163. Gustaf Benzelstjerna, who had become royal librarian in 1732, was censor from 1737 until his death in 1746. 23 Thore Odhelius, Bekymrada Och Ängsliga Själars Tröst, En Trogen Christi Tjenare, Then I Lifstiden Wäl-Ärowördige och Höglärde Herren, Herr MAG, JONAS HELLMAN, Igenom en stille och salig Död then 20. februari År 1741. gick til sin ro, och then 6. Martii påföljande uti en ganska folkrik Församling uti S:t Mariæ Magdalenæ Kyrko beldesagades til Sit hwilorum Uti en Christelig LikPredikan förestälte enfaldigen TH. L. ODHELIUS (Stockholm, [1741]). 24 “Doch som dessa wore effter nödtorfften corrigerade och åtskillige obekante hade öfwat sin andakt dermed, så kunde de, emädan Consistorium dertil samtyckt, utgifwas.” See Bygdén and Lewenhaupt, Benzelstjernas censorsjournal (see n. 8), 194.

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official invitation to read it.”25 The same can be said of eighteenth-century Sweden. With regard to some of these examples, it is also worth observing that the mechanism at work was what scholars of censorship call “analogical reading.” This term is applied when a censor preferred to look the other way, if the content of a text did not formally cross certain normative boundaries. Richard Dutton describes such phenomena in his study of censorship in early modern England: It is a central contention in my arguments about the censorship of the period that early modern readers (and by this I mean to comprehend theatre audiences) read plays and other texts analogically, often ‘applying’ quite exotic fictions to contemporary persons and events. And that censors were quite aware of the fact, but usually chose to ignore it unless they deemed the ‘application’ to be too transparent or provocative.26

3. Censors turning a blind eye. “Analogical reading” was one thing, but it was an altogether different matter when a censor deliberatively authorized a controversial text because he sympathized with the content. Sometimes we see the fox guarding the henhouse. Many of the Moravians were, in fact, recruited among the clergy, and from time to time we find such Moravians in the consistories. When the first edition of The Songs of Zion was published in 1743 it had been approved by Johan Gustaf Hallman, who had read it on behalf of the Consistory of Stockholm. He may have been ignorant of the theological implications of the contents, but on the other hand he may also have been favourably inclined towards Moravianism. One indication of the latter is his eager defence of the songs’ high standard; another that in the following year Hallman married Agnes Regina Christiernin, whose family included a number of practising Moravians.27 A more obvious example is that of Anders Carl Rutström, a polemical, productive and dynamic Moravian pastor and author, who was a member of the Consistory of Stockholm for no less than seven years.28 4. Difficult working conditions for censors. Although Sweden was a relatively small country with an undeveloped book market compared to many other European countries, one soon realizes that the task at hand for the censorship authorities was enormous. Sometimes the burden of reading and monitoring literature was overwhelming. This was especially true for 25

Darnton, Comparative Perspective, 9. Dutton, Censorship and Authorship, xi. 27 Dovring, Sions sånger, 1:42ff., 171–72. 28 Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 110, 115ff. 26

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the authorities in Stockholm, as most of the printing houses in Sweden were situated here, as were the majority of booksellers.29 The censor librorum had an enormous task, as pointed out by book historian Leo Bygdén in his article on Benzelstjerna: “One must be amazed at the number of duties that rested upon one man’s shoulders.”30 Moreover, the regional control was inefficient and underdeveloped in certain parts of Sweden, and there were local variations regarding how censorship was exercised. The control in the countryside could be less effective or arbitrary, given that printers, authors and the local consistories were sometimes situated far away from the censorship authorities in Stockholm.31 5. Lack of consensus between different authorities or censors. Lack of consensus on different levels was perhaps one of the most important structural glitches. In some cases different members of a consistory would disagree.32 On other occasions disagreement occurred between authorities. Compared to the Lutheran Orthodox consistories, which were often more doctrinaire, the political civil service department known as the Kanslikollegium was more willing to allow the printing of Moravian literature. The most obvious example of this difference was when the Kanslikollegium decreed that it would be better to allow new editions of The Songs of Zion, the argument being that this made it easier to keep things under control.33 The Consistory of Stockholm, however, reacted with indignation. Also, it did not exactly calm things down when Nils von Oelreich, censor librorum 1746–66, attacked the consistory for granting permission to print The Songs of Zion in the first place.34 Other players, such as the clergy in the Swedish parliament or individual clergymen who acted without a formal mandate, also wanted their say in the various censorship matters. Sometimes the clergy in Parliament wanted to forestall decisions, and there are indications that at times they acted as a censoring authority. They were, of course, an important group whose opinion on different matters could be taken into account by the censorship authorities.35 In addition, with regard to how censorship of religious literature ought to be handled, there were power

29

Bygdén, introduction (see n. 8), xiii; Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 110–11. “Man må häpna öfver den massa göromål som enligt instruktionerna hvilade på en mans skuldror.” Bygdén, introduction (see n. 8), xiii. 31 Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 111; cf. Lext, Bok och samhälle, 63–71. 32 Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 116–17. 33 Dovring, Sions sånger, 1:112 n. 37. 34 Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 134ff. 35 Nordstrandh, Pietismens litteratur, 18. 30

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struggles in the parliament between the clergy and the other three estates, or classes (the nobility, the burghers and the peasants).36 The idea of Protestant religion as the foundation of the nation was put into question during the second half of the eighteenth century, and this became apparent in the conflicts arising between secular and religious authorities. What had seemed to be a foolproof system of double censorship actually became an ever-greater problem. As the gap between the secular and religious authorities gradually widened, they sometimes fought over the right to censor texts that could be interpreted as both secular and religious. These were, for instance, certain academic dissertations, texts with both religious and political content, and Enlightenment publications (Helvetius’ De l’esprit being one of many examples). The question was: Who had the authority to censor texts such as these?37 The conflict came to a head in 1747 when censor librorum von Oelreich frankly declared that he would no longer consult the Consistory of Stockholm regarding religious literature, as he considered himself competent to judge in these matters.38

Interpretations of the Word The mid-eighteenth century represents a turning point with regard to the censorship of Moravian literature. The newly appointed archbishop Henric Benzelius initiated what can very well be described as the last grand crusade for a cause already lost when, in 1748, the Swedish authorities launched a campaign against the Moravians. The battle of the Word had begun. During this crusade the most important weapon used by the authorities was the publishing of voluminous texts with the purpose of providing evidence and bringing accusations against the Moravians for misconceptions in religious matters, and even for heresy.39 This strategy had proved efficient, both in Germany and in Sweden, when Lutheran Orthodoxy had been threatened by Pietism earlier in the century.40 No costs were spared in the new campaign, and the extensive anti-Moravian texts were distributed among the clergy, the members of Parliament and members of the consistories. Naturally, the Moravians reacted promptly and wrote texts to defend themselves, but these where immediately stopped from 36

See, for example, Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 114. Bygdén, introduction (see n. 8), vii–viii; Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 112ff. 38 Burius, Ömhet om friheten, 126. 39 The debate is discussed in Dovring, Sions sånger, 1:100–25. 40 Nordstrandh, Pietismens litteratur, 23–37; Stoeffler, German Pietism, 57–71. 37

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being printed. Paradoxically, however, the protests were published as appendices to the anti-Moravian publications, and one can therefore follow the debate from both sides. In the course of the debate, the focus of the accusations shifted to the wrongful wordings of the Moravians. And as the various collections of The Songs of Zion reached a large audience, the Moravian songs came to be the centre of attention. One way of showing the harmfulness of the Moravians was to count the number of offensive words in the song collections.41 This tactic was first used by Johan Kumblæus. He was an assistant pastor who had been assigned by archbishop Benzelstjerna to make a Swedish translation of an anti-Moravian book written by the German theologian Johan Georg Walch, entitled Theologisches Bedencken von der Beschaffenheit der Herrnhutischen Secte (A theological treatise on the nature of the Moravian sects). In a footnote to his translation of Walch’s book, Kumblæus reported on the frequency of certain words in the Moravian songs, thus proving how harmful the songs were.42 The words mentioned related, first and foremost, to the Passion of Christ, but also to the Moravian view of the Holy Trinity. This could ultimately be connected with beliefs regarding Law versus Grace, the latter of which was crucial in Moravian theology. Detailed descriptions of the suffering, all-forgiving and loving Christ were therefore constantly being presented in Moravian literature. Via detailed descriptions of the Passion of Christ, readers were supposed to feel His suffering for themselves, thereby reaching the stage of salvation.43 The Moravians defended themselves with creative counter-arguments, one of the most notable being the claim that there were no differences between their texts, primarily the songs, and those authorized by the Lutheran Orthodox church. For the Moravians, one way of supporting this claim was to compare Moravian texts with those that met with the approval of the church, thus making a kind of frequency study of the presumed wrongful wordings. When such comparisons surfaced, the authorities did not do as one might expect: simply silence things down. Instead, they replied scrupulously to every study produced by the Moravians. One reason may have been that the battle of the Word had to be won at all costs, as many clergymen actually became Moravians.

41

For a discussion on the contents of these songs, see Öhrberg, “Imagery of God”. Johann Georg Walch, Theologiska Betänkande Om Then Herrnhutiska Sectens Beskaffenhet, trans. Johan Kumblæus (Stockholm, 1749), 217–24. 43 This technique is discussed in Öhrberg, “Imagery of God”. 42

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Two such cases merit special mention. In 1751, an anonymous person sent an open letter to the members of the Consistory in Stockholm, the Kanslikollegium, and the Government, respectively. In this letter the writer compared The Songs of Zion with the approved Swedish hymn book from 1697. If the orthodox Lutherans claimed, as indeed they did in their antiMoravian texts, that Moravian songs were overflowing with words referring to the blood and wounds of Christ, then this frequency study provided evidence that the same could be said of the Swedish hymn book.44 The Government and the Kanslikollegium immediately requested the Consistory of Stockholm to give their expert opinion on the matter. They, in turn, claimed that the anonymous Moravian letter-writer had taken words and notions from the writings of Luther and the Swedish hymn book out of context, and twisted them to suit his own purposes.45 The consistory invoked the Bible, arguing that it contained no evidence that Christ was called “a carpenter’s son”, as he was in The Songs of Zion. By referring to Christ as a carpenter’s son, the Moravians were implying that Christ was human and born in sin.46 Moreover, the consistory maintained that in the Bible Christ is called “the Easter lamb”, not simply “the lamb”; and that, what is more, he was the shepherd, not the lamb.47 Their most important argument was that the Moravians’ constant mention of blood and wounds produced harmful images in the mind, and that this sort of wording was used without due respect to religion.48 A similar frequency study from 1754 can be found in a manuscript collection at Uppsala University Library. The author had counted the words relating to blood and wounds in the Swedish hymn book, his purpose being to defend The Songs of Zion.49 This text is more thorough than the first letter, and the arguments are summarized in seven paragraphs. These can be divided into two main categories: firstly, custom (the discussion of the Passion of Christ is not new), and secondly, theology (the wounds and blood of Christ are the foundation of all Christian 44

Stockholms Stads CONSISTORII Utlåtande Til Kongl. Mj:ts och Riksens Höglofl. CANCELLIECOLLEGIUM öfwer … Swar Uppå Magister KUMBLÆI Påminnelser etc. (Stockholm, [1751]), 3–4. 45 The letter is found in N1976, Uppsala universitetsbibliotek (Uppsala University Library). See also CONSISTORII Utlåtande (see n. 44), 7. 46 CONSISTORII Utlåtande (see n. 44), 8. 47 Ibid., 17–18. 48 Ibid., 12. 49 “Wår Herres och Frälsares Sår och blods Theologie Såsom Then igenfinnes uti then Swänska psal[m]boken…”, 28, N1976, Uppsala universitetsbibliotek (Uppsala University Library). Cf. Dovring, Sions sånger 1:167.

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religion).50 The Consistory of Stockholm was not impressed, however. The main thing was not just what was said, but rather, when and how it was said. According to the consistory, the Moravians used imagery related to the Passion of Christ throughout the whole year, and in wrongful ways.51 These examples show how the Moravians tried to gain approval for their songs by defeating the Lutheran Orthodox clergy through their own arguments. In retrospect, the Moravians’ persistent struggle may seem fruitless, or perhaps even naïve. Obviously the Church did not have the slightest interest in letting go of its prerogative when it came to the right of interpreting the Word. But the main point was that certain individual clergymen, who were sympathetic towards the Moravians, could be reached and persuaded to join the movement. Moreover, the Moravians fought for their essential right to ease of conscience.

The battle for the innocent readers Other important factors that influenced censorship had to do with the recipients of the texts: the readers. During the second half of the eighteenth century, socio-economic changes led to the rise of the public sphere – although at this time it was only in its embryonic stage. This led to an increase in the use of the printed media, and to changes in the way readers were perceived. The Moravians followed in the footsteps of earlier movements, primarily the Pietists, with whom the Moravians shared their comparatively egalitarian views and practices. The true believers were all seen as able to bear witness to their experience of salvation, even to the extent that women were granted the right to preach.52In addition, Moravian texts where written and read by members of all social strata, not only by the elite. Although the texts sometimes dealt with theologically complicated matters, the intended readership included domestic servants and craftsmen as well as clergymen and members of the nobility. The Swedish authorities, by contrast, were a far cry from sharing these relatively egalitarian views. In several argumentative texts – the abovementioned translation of Walch being just one of many examples – we therefore see how distinctions were made between those who were sometimes labelled “the learned” (de lärda) as opposed to the common, 50

“Wår Herres och Frälsares Sår” (see n. 49). cf. Dovring, Sions sånger, 1:123. 52 Otto Uttendörfer, Zinzendorf und die Frauen (Herrnhut: Missionsbuchhandlung, 1919), 29, 62. 51

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meek or innocent readers (de enfaldiga). The intended readers of the publications that the Church produced as part of the battle of the Word were the former. It goes without saying that this readership group was exclusively male. We must remind ourselves that those publications also contained Moravian texts, as the intended “learned” reader was seen as being capable of judging the contents for himself. Moreover, due to the same logic, both clergymen and members of the elite had the privilege of importing controversial literature for their own use, if the Kanslikollegium approved of the books in question.53 That is one reason why the authorities sometimes published records and proceedings from trials against, and interrogations of, Moravians. One such significant case involving a Moravian concerns the previously mentioned pastor Anders Carl Rutström, who was put on trial (and ultimately exiled). The authorities printed and distributed records from Rutström’s interrogation, as well as his sermons.54 It was, however, a different matter when a certain printer, Peter Hesselberg, published these records and sermons on his own initiative.55 Within days he was summoned before the Consistory of Stockholm. In his defence, Hesselberg feigned innocence and took the moral high ground, claiming that this kind of publication was forbidden according to the Section 1 of the Swedish freedom of press act dating from 1766. He then added that it was, in fact, a bookkeeper named Olof Ackerman who was responsible for the publication. The case was passed on to the secular authorities, who decided that all 1000 copies of the heretical publication that had been printed and distributed to the booksellers in Stockholm must be tracked down and handed over to the Consistory.56 Ackerman then wrote a fiery pamphlet in which, referring to the freedom of press act of 1766, he claimed that his actions in the matter could not be forbidden, as his publication was aimed for the eyes of the general public (allmänhetens

53

Nordstrandh, Pietismens litteratur, 5. See, for example, Kongl. Maj:ts och Riksens Swea Hof-Rätts Dom, AdvocatsFiscals-Ämbetet uti Högbemälte Hof-Rätt, och Doctor Anders Carl Rutström (Stockholm, 1766). 55 All publications (35) in the so-called Rutström affair are listed in Fullständig Förteckning på de af Trycket utkomne Handlingar uti Doctor Rutströms ReligionsSak (Stockholm, 1770). 56 Theol. Doctoren Anders Carl Rutströms Religions-Processer [Handlingar rörande Rutströmska religionsprocessen] (Stockholm, 1768), 2:1–2. 54

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ögon). Hesselberg promptly printed this pamphlet,57 but neither Hesselberg nor Ackerman was subject to further prosecution. The intriguing question is why the authorities ever printed texts with a dubious content in the first place. The publishing strategy was, however, of the utmost importance, and it is possible to identify a twofold purpose at work. First and foremost, it was essential that clergymen themselves did not become Moravians, and through these publications they were to be convinced that the Moravian movement was evil. The successful recruitment of clergymen to Moravianism had to be prevented at all costs, and in a royal decree from 1751 it was underlined that if a clergyman was found to be spreading this wrongful heresy, he must be dealt with very severely.58 Secondly, this publishing strategy was based on the fact that key persons of influence – mainly pastors, but also teachers, civil servants and members of Parliament – were to be armed with arguments. It was seen as vital that members of the clergy could obtain information about heresies. How else could they argue against them? The technique of argumentation was taught to them during their training for the priesthood, “controversy theology” being an important part of their education and examination. By learning to defend and refute both sides of an argument (pro et contra), future pastors were expected to learn how to recognize heretical points of view, contradict them and prevent them from spreading.59 The regulations from 1748 concerning examination for ordination stipulate that a clergyman must be able to “show detailed knowledge of new conflicts and heresies, and of how one can teach and persuade those who are sympathetic towards them.”60 But this knowledge had to be updated constantly. As for the secular authorities, they also needed information about heresies, and this information was circulated from the church authorities through different channels. Whereas “learned men” were perceived as being able to judge for themselves, the “common, innocent and meek” readers, by contrast, certainly had to be protected from Moravian texts, as they were more likely to be 57

[Olof Ackerman], Skrif- och Tryckfrihetens Förswar Emot Stockholms Stads Consistorii, Inför Hans Kongl. Maj:t, Gjorda Försök Emot Utgifwandet af Doct. Rutströms Predikningar och Andeliga Skrifter (Stockholm, 1768). 58 Lenhammar, Tolerans och bekännelsetvång, 33. 59 Sveriges kyrkolag av år 1686 jämte dithörande stadganden, som utkommit till den 1 jan. 1928, ed. G. Lizell and E. Leufvén (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1928), 116–17. 60 “[G]e utförligare besked om de nya stridigheter, och uppkomna villosatser, samt huru de som därav intagne blivit, undervisas och övertygas böra.” Quoted from Bexell, “Prästutbildning”, 19.

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easily seduced. This notion also recurs in the campaign against the Moravians referred to above. One typical example can be observed in the above-mentioned letter from the Consistory of Stockholm to the Government in 1751, which states that it is highly dangerous to use descriptions of wounds and blood as frequently as the Moravian songs do. This kind of language did not create the proper religious feeling; it merely set off the imagination, which was seen as especially harmful to the common people (de enfaldiga), who supposedly had no means of seeing through the sophistry.61 Here we find what was, perhaps, the most important argument against The Songs of Zion: The clergy’s monopoly in matters of faith must not be questioned in public and before commoners, as this could undermine the authority of the church, thus disrupting the social order. The pastor Eric Beckman, one of the authors mobilized in the crusade against Moravianism, wrote that readers of Moravian texts could, in the worst instance, be struck with fanatical delirium, a condition of the spirit that especially affected those who were weak of faith or simple-minded. The fanaticism in Moravianism, said Beckman, particularly revealed itself in the Moravians’ songs with their “strange words, formulations [and] in many places peculiar form and rhymes.”62 Moravian authors defended themselves against the idea that they could, or would, harm innocent readers. One example of this is an illegally printed and circulated “letter” that reached its readers in 1750, known as “the letter from Reval”, supposedly printed in the city of Reval in the Baltic region.63 According to its anonymous author, the purpose of this letter is to defend the “divine truths” (gudomeliga sanningar) of The Songs of Zion. The contents of these songs are then described poetically with reference to the Bible as “delightful flowers filled with nothing but honey” (med idel honung upfylda härliga blomster) – but, the reader learns, these flowers are now in danger of being poisoned. The letter also emphasizes that it is being written 61

CONSISTORII Utlåtande (see n. 44), 4. “[S]ällsamma ord, utlåtelser [och i] then på rätt många ställen rätt besynnerliga sammansättningen och metren.” See Erik Beckman, Anmärkningar Öfwer M. ARVID GRADINS, Til, Herrnhutiska Partiets Seder och Förswar, Emot Inledningen Angående Herrnhutiska Secten, Kringspridde Skrift (Stockholm, 1749), 132. 63 The foreword is dated Reval, 14 November 1749, but a contemporary source claims that the manuscript may have been written in Stockholm and then printed in Copenhagen. See Carl Christopher Gjörwell, “Anteckningar af Carl Christopher Gjörwell om sig sjelf, samtida personer och händelser 1731–1757”, Samlingar til Skånes historia, fornskunskab och beskrifning (1873). 62

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Counter-writings are needed, the author continues, against the “sophistry” that is found in the Lutheran Orthodox critique of The Songs of Zion. The same arguments are used on both sides: Both assert that they are acting on behalf of the meek and innocent readers, and that they have a mission to contradict what is as assumed to be sophistry (deceptive phraseturning). In other words, both sides ostensibly have the same attitude towards the sensibilities of the simple-minded and defenceless reader. We should bear in mind that during the eighteenth century, this Swedish adjective – enfaldig – was used as a positive designation for the innocent and natural, although it could also be used pejoratively to mean simple, narrow-minded or stupid.65 In all events, the term was usually socially loaded and associated with the lower classes in society, the commoners. The difference between the orthodox Lutherans and the Moravians was that the latter more pronouncedly regarded innocence as essential to their movement; as they associated this quality with the ability to receive salvation in a direct way. Within Moravianism, it was faith, not reflection or deeds, that formed the foundation for rightful salvation. Consequently, the notion of being “simple-minded” or “common” could be interpreted in a most positive way. To be simple-minded was to become childlike in a biblical and spiritual sense. We can observe the same positive attitude towards qualities, such as this capacity, that were seen as typically female.66 Another thing that separated the Lutheran Orthodox church from the Moravian movement had to do with the way common people were allowed to act in public. When the innocent Moravian reader had reached the final stage of salvation, he or she would be seen as capable of expressing and giving testimony of this blessing in speech or writing. And in this way, new songs could be written and sung.

64

“[F]ör de enfaldigas skull, hwilkas sinnen ofta förwillas af ett blott skien til sanningen. Et uplyst förstånd behöfwer thet icke, och ännu mindre ett uti nåden befästat hierta.” Foreword to Swar uppå Comministerns wid St Mariæ Församling i Stockholm, Herr Mag. JOHANN KUMBLÆI, Uti Thes öfwersättning af Dr. Walchs Theologiska betänkande om Herrenhutiska sectens beskaffenhet (Stockholm, 1750), [l]. 65 Johannisson, “Namn på känslor”, 21–22. 66 Öhrberg, “Imagery of God”, 3–4. The topic of gender and Moravianism is further discussed in Öhrberg, “Strömfelt Sisters”.

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Final discussion One main problem for the Swedish authorities in maintaining religious censorship during the mid-eighteenth century stemmed from their organization of censorship; what has been referred to in this article as “glitches” in the system. But the difficulties were also a consequence of prevailing notions about readers and the interpretation of texts. Consequently, censorship in this article has been discussed from a threefold perspective, which considers the organization of censorship, views about readers, and interpretations of the texts themselves. In my discussions of the Swedish authorities’ efforts to bar Moravian literature, and of the Moravians’ attempts to avoid censorship, it can be fruitful to employ Michel de Certeau’s distinction between the contradictory terms “tactical” and “strategic”, with regard to the possibilities for acting and gaining power. In his well-known book The Practice of Everyday Life, de Certeau writes: I call a strategy the calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships that becomes possible as soon as a subject with will and power (a business, an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated. It postulates a place that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority composed of targets or threats […] can be managed. [...] By contrast with a strategy [...] a tactic is a calculated action determined by the absence of a proper locus. [...] The space of a tactic is the space of the other. Thus it must play on and with a terrain imposed on it and organized by the law of a foreign power.67

By introducing the idea of exercising tactical as opposed to strategic power, I would like to stress the dynamics in, and the paradoxical nature of, the censoring system. It would seem that the authorities’ strategic position was privileged, but here I have shown its limitations. Although the Swedish Moravians lacked a “place” of empowerment, they nevertheless explored a variety of tactical possibilities that helped them to manoeuvre under fairly repressive circumstances. One thing can be emphasized: The authorities were, in many ways, restrained by the demands for total control as far as unity in religious matters was concerned, and this was the reason why Moravian activity was sometimes ignored. It was better to hush things up and pretend that no problem existed, rather than to make a fuss about it. The stress that was placed on the individual’s right to ease of conscience also constrained the interventions that were possible. Lastly, 67

de Certeau, Everyday Life, 35–37.

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the bureaucracy surrounding censorship, its organization and a gradual process of secularization undermined its being effectively implemented. There is a paradox embedded in the fact that this (comparatively) repressive system seemed to be progressive in its use of the printed media. When the authorities published official documents quoting Moravian texts, it evidently never occurred to them that if these Moravian texts were printed and spread all over the country, it would be easier for sympathetic readers to get hold of them. One main reason for this was the prevailing perception of readers. In the sources quoted here, it appeared to be unthinkable that commoners might read and comprehend such theological material as that written by learned men addressing other learned men; this was something that benefited the Moravians. A factor associated with this was the formation of the public sphere, which, among other things, entailed the incorporation of new groups of readers, as well as expanded use of the printed media. In one of the textual debates, we saw how the Moravian bookkeeper Ackerman appealed to the general public. It definitely seems that, by the end of the eighteenth century, the Swedish state’s ability to maintain its control over knowledge and information was waning.

CHAPTER SIX GENESIS IN THE LONGHOUSE: RELIGIOUS READING IN GREENLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY THORKILD KJÆRGAARD

Most of Greenland – the immense, wedge-shaped, ice-covered island in the north-eastern corner of the American hemisphere (2.2 million sq km) – was practically devoid of human habitation in the eighteenth century. Along its long northern coast, one of the world’s northernmost land masses located only 750 km from the North Pole, there lived a small, isolated tribe of two to three hundred people, unknown to the world and unfamiliar with the world. The polar Eskimos thought of themselves as the only people on earth; hence, when they received their first visit, in 1818, they thought that the strangers and their ships, two British naval vessels under the command of Sir John Ross (1777–1856) were from the moon.1 Just as sparsely populated were the more than three thousand kilometres of Greenland’s eastern coast. Here had dwelled a relatively numerous population in the 1500s and 1600s,2 but by the 1700s only a few hundred souls remained. Unlike their fellow tribespeople in the far north, however, they were not totally unaware of the world. Periodically, wreckage would wash up on the coast, for instance from sunken European whaling ships.3 The southern indigenous groups also had sporadic contact with the west coast around Cape Farewell (latitude 59° 30’), Greenland’s southernmost point, which allowed people to swap tales of incredible things, such as 1

Rolf Gilberg, “When the ‘Moon Beings’ visited The Only People in the World: The first ethnographical notes on the Inughuit, a North Greenlandic Inuit People”, in Cultural and Social Research in Greenland 95/96 (Nuuk: Ilisimatusarfik, 1996), 54–72. 2 Rix, “Nordøstgrønlands tidligere befolkning”. 3 Mikkelsen, Eskimoers Historie, 25–32.

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houses as high as mountains on the other side of the ocean.4 The first European to meet the people inhabiting Greenland’s east coast, dangerous and difficult to reach because of huge ice masses, was the British naval officer Douglas Charles Clavering (1794–1827), who in 1823 encountered a small, frightened group on what is now Clavering Island (latitude 74° N).5 Only the west coast of Greenland, running along the Davis Strait and facing Canada (Baffin Island and northern Labrador) across the water, was inhabited in a true sense. Here on the coastal tip, between Cape Farewell in the south and Upernavik in the north (lat. 72° 30’), there was a population in the early 1700s of between five and eight thousand people. They had no written language, and lived in a stagnant, ossified, unchanging society that earned its livelihood mainly by hunting large marine mammals and some reindeer. To use an expression borrowed from Claude LéviStrauss, this was a “cold” society. A century later, by the early 1800s, everything had changed. The population still consisted of seal and reindeer hunters, but the people had now acquired a written language, a literature and a collective memory about themselves. From tribes of hunters had emerged a people that was self-aware and had a distinct national identity. The “cold” society had become “hot.” In this sweeping process of change, religious texts played a decisive role. The Greenlandic written language owes its existence to religious texts, for the written language was created in order to pave the way for such texts. Moreover, the entry of religious texts opened the window to a world with innumerable motifs and inexhaustible expressive, emotional and compositional resources that had not formerly been available.

Texts Disregarding the reading of letters, all texts in Greenlandic and – as a consequence of that – all reading in Greenlandic before 1800 was religious reading. The earliest known non-religious text in Greenlandic is a treatise from the early 1800s about the resuscitation of drowning victims. This document, which was probably translated from a Danish original, was

4

Jens Rosing, “Sangen om ‘det menneskegjorte fjeld’ ”, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1968): 171–80. 5 Douglas Charles Clavering, “Journal of a Voyage”, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 9 (1830): 21–24.

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never printed, but disseminated as handwritten copies and placed at sites where it was assumed that the information might prove useful.6 The religious texts came to Greenland with Christianization and the establishment of a Greenlandic written language, following the arrival of Hans Egede (1686–1758) on 3 July 1721. Egede, later known as “the Apostle of Greenland”, came with his wife, four children and a considerable number of helpers. The first text in Greenlandic that actually worked and was understood by the population was a translation of the first ten and a half chapters of Genesis (1–11:9).7 This text began with the Creation, moving on to the Confusion of Tongues and the Diaspora after the Tower of Babel. On 6 November 1724, Hans Egede read these passages aloud to the inhabitants on what are, today, the uninhabited Kook Islands, located in the skerries off outside of what we now know as Nuuk. At that time, more than forty families resided on the Kook Islands, wintering in seven communal longhouses. Hans Egede had visited them several times before, sailing there from the nearby Island of Hope (Igdluerúnerit), his first base in Greenland. The reading proved to be a success, and Egede wrote in his diary that the Greenlanders were especially pleased to hear about the Creation of the World and the Flood. 6

Gad, History of Greenland, 3:391. Near the end of the 1700s there appeared several dissertations in Danish on the resuscitation of people who had drowned (cf. Bruun, Bibliotheca Danica, 1:856), and this is probably one of these texts. As the Greenlandic translation is not preserved, it has not been possible to determine which one. 7 Kalaallisut, which is the Greenlanders’ own term for their language, belongs to the family of Inupik languages, the eastern branch of the Eskimo languages that were, and to some extent still are, spoken in the expanse stretching from the extreme north-eastern corner of Siberia, across Alaska and Canada, and over to Greenland. At the time of Hans Egede’s arrival in Greenland, in 1721, the Eskimo languages, which were all unwritten, were unknown to European philology, aside from a few simple word lists. Greenlandic was the first Eskimo language whose vocabulary and complex grammar were systematized and described, and which obtained a written language. For this purpose Hans Egede and his collaborators, no doubt in order to ensure greater readability and greater agreement between the printed and the handwritten texts, chose Latin characters rather than the Gothic script that predominated in Denmark and Norway at the time. The early scientific description of Greenlandic, one of the highlights of Danish-Norwegian linguistics, has been described several times, most recently in Bergsland and Rischel, Pioneers of Eskimo Grammar. The first printed Greenlandic dictionary was a three-language Dictionarium Grönlandico-Danico-Latinum (Copenhagen: Frid. Kisel, 1750), compiled by Hans Egede’s eldest son Poul (1708–89). Poul Egede was also the author of the first printed Greenlandic grammar, Grammatica Grönlandica Danico-Latina (Copenhagen: Frid. Kisel, 1760).

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After three-and-a-half years of painstaking efforts and equally painful setbacks – as he tried to explain himself in his incomprehensible Greenlandic to laughing, head-shaking Greenlanders – Hans Egede, working with his son Paul and a small, close-knit staff, had at long last made sufficient progress that the Word could be used as a form of communication. Until then, Egede had relied in his missionary work on pictures, songs, costumes and rituals, which can be used without a common language. Especially, and with great ingenuity and significant success, he had relied on pictures – picture reading – as a substitute for words.8 With the success on the Kook Islands, a new and hitherto unknown language had opened itself to the world, waiting to be used for the benefit of the Greenlanders, for praising the king (who, in 1724, was still Hans Egede’s old protector Frederik IV, King of Denmark and Norway), and for worshipping God. Egede decided right then and there, “with the Lord’s help to begin to translate one of the evangelical Stories, and what further, to their [the Greenlanders’] edification can serve, as much as the opportunity will allow me to compose in their language.”9 And so he did. Just six months after his triumphant reading on the Kook Islands, Hans Egede had produced an anthology of Greenlandic texts spanning no less than 170 pages. During June 1725, he completed it so that it could be shipped to Copenhagen.10 Included here, aside from the breakthrough text from the year before, were a number of pericopes from the New Testament, ordered in accordance with the textual sequences of the Danish-Norwegian Church: The Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38), the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:18–25), the shepherds in the field, the song of the angels, the circumcision and the name-giving of Jesus (Luke 2:1–40), followed by the flight to Egypt, the massacre of children in Bethlehem, the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, the accounts of John the Baptist, the 8

Kjærgaard and Kjærgaard, “Prints and pictures”. “med Herrens Hielp at begynde paa en af de evangeliske Historier at vertere, og hvad viidere som til deris [grønlændernes] Opbyggelse kand tiene, i deris Sprog at befatte, saa vitt Leyligheden mig vill tillade.” Hans Egede, Relationer fra Grønland 1721–36 og Det gamle Grønlands ny Perlustration, ed. Louis Bobé (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 1925), 150. 10 “Ti till Ellefve Capitler udaf Skabelsens-Bog. Ofversatt udj Grønlændernis Sprog for at viise hvor vitt Mand er avangerit udj Sproget, og hvad endnu fattis, førend Mand fuldkommeligen kand forestille dem Troen og dend Sande Guds Kundskab”. The Royal Library, Copenhagen, Ledreborg 339 4º. For more on this manuscript, which still awaits a critical edition, see Flemming A.J. Nielsen, The earliest Greenlandic Bible: a study in the Urtext from 1725 (forthcoming). 9

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baptism of Jesus, and the marriage at Cana. It further includes the account of the Pharisee Nicodemus, who seeks out Jesus at night and learns that “everyone who believes in him shall have eternal life” (John 3:1–15). The Passion was lacking, probably because Egede’s project was pressed for time. At the end of the manuscript is a brief Greenlandic catechism, followed by a prayer book (both updated editions of former attempts, sent down to Copenhagen, from June 1724),11 a collection of admonitions, a word list and a first attempt at a Greenlandic grammar. In the years that followed, the translation work continued under the leadership of Hans Egede and his eldest son Poul, who with his younger brother Niels (1710–82) and their two sisters Kristine (1714–86) and Petronella (1716–1805) were the first Europeans who spoke fluent Greenlandic. During the 1730s, the few painstakingly translated pages that Hans Egede had presented to the inhabitants on the Kook Islands in 1724 grew to hundreds of pages, copies of which moved up and down the coast. From the Old Testament, the first three books of Moses were completed in the years 1737–39.12 As for texts from the New Testament, the gospels of Matthew and Mark had been fully translated by 1739.13 From the outset, the elaboration of brief, pedagogically oriented texts, especially a suitable Greenlandic catechism, was central to Hans Egede’s efforts. The first preparatory work can be traced to 1723,14 and as mentioned, an extant manuscript entitled Begyndelses-Elementer till dend Christelige Kundskab for de Grønlandske Cathecumener (Beginning elements to the Christian knowledge for the Greenlandic catechumens) is dated to June 1724. In the daily missionary work this linguistically deficient text, which monolingual Greenlanders probably found incomprehensible, can hardly have been very useful. Gradually, however, the Greenlandic catechism was improved, and in the early 1730s the text – now augmented to include the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and a summary account of the Genesis story of Creation, in addition to about forty questions and answers in the traditional pattern so commonly seen in catechisms15 – had reached a level where it could be used. When, in 1734, 11

“Begyndelses-Elementer till dend Christelige Kundskab for de Grønlandske Cathecumener”. Printed in Egede, Relationer (see n. 9), 132–40. 12 Christian Wilhelm Schultz-Lorentzen, “Det grønlandske nytestament”, in Norske misjonærer som bibeloversettere, ed. Hans Chr. Mamen (Oslo: Egede-Instituttet, 1950), 13. 13 Schultz-Lorentzen, “Det grønlandske nytestament” (see n. 12), 14. 14 Printed under the title “Grønlændernis Sprog” in Egede, Relationer (see n. 9), 72–74. 15 See, for example, Green, The Christian’s ABC.

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the young Andreas Bing was to take up the newly created position as missionary in Qasigiannguit in the Disko Bay, he received a handwritten copy of Hans Egede’s catechism, which he used diligently.16 But this was not to be the final text. Just a year later, the Greenlandic catechism would be “corrected and improved”, this time by Poul Egede.17 Even as the work on this catechism continued, extending over decades, other catechisms were also brought into circulation. In 1738, Poul Egede translated Luther’s Catechism with explanations with some psalms into Greenlandic,18 and the following year he also translated Erik Pontoppidan’s newly published, and officially authorized exposition of the catechism, entitled Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed udi en eenfoldig ... dog tilstrekkelig Forklaring over Doct. Morten Luthers Liden Catechismo (Truth leading to piety in a simple ... but sufficient exposition of doctor Martin Luther’s Small Catechism).19 Pontoppidan’s exposition was widely used and became the first book to penetrate into virtually all Greenlandic homes. This occurred in the 1760s, when it became customary in all districts to give a copy of the exposition to children in the upper grades – a handwritten copy, it should be added; for nearly forty years would pass before it was printed, in 1777, as Katekismus Tersa Illinniarkàutikset Gudemiglo.20 In some districts, among them Nuuk, it was the missionary 16

Ostermann, Nordmænd paa Grønland, 150. Ostermann, Nordmænd paa Grønland, 151. 18 Henrik Christopher Glahn, “Fortegnelse paa Sal. Biskop Paul Egedes Skrivter”, Minerva (1790): 193–207. 19 Poul Egede, Continuation af Relationerne betreffende den grønlandske Missions Tilstand og Beskaffenhed, forfattet i Form af en Journal fra Anno 1734 til 1740 (Copenhagen: Johann Christoph Groth, 1741), 147, 163. The translation work lasted from 1 April to 20 June 1739. 20 The full title was: Katekismus Tersa Illinniarkàutikset Gudemiglo, Pekkorseiniglo Innungnut nalegæksennik, pilluarsinnàngorkullugit nunamètillugit, annekluarsinnangorkullugilllo Tokkob Kingorngagut (Copenhagen: Kongelige Vaisenshuses Bogtrykkerie, 1777). There had been some dissatisfaction with Poul Egede’s translation of Pontoppidan’s exposition, which led to several duplicated efforts. The translation used in the Nuuk mission district, for example, was done by Rasmus Bruun, a Nuuk missionary in 1752–60. That used for the first printed edition, appearing in 1777, was done by Egil Thorhallesen, a Nuuk missionary in 1767–73 and one of Rasmus Bruun’s successors (Katekismus Tersa, [v–vi]). Thorhallesen’s translation did not please his colleagues either, and when, in 1790, the task to provide a new edition of Truth leading to piety in Greenlandic fell to the former Paamiut missionary Otto Fabricius, he cast aside Thorhallesen’s translation and began all over again. Otto Fabricius’s new translation from 1790 was subsequently reprinted three times (in 1797, 1818 and 1833). 17

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and his assistants who ensured that the necessary number of copies of this fair-sized volume – about 100 pages – were produced.21 In other places the schoolchildren would copy the text themselves, as part of their instruction, and the missionary would bind together the manuscript pages in order to make them look like “real books.” This was the case in Ilulissat, for instance, where the energetic missionary Jørgen Sverdrup resided in 1764– 73.22 The same practice was followed by Sverdrup’s counterpart in nearby Ilimanaq, Hans Egede Saabye, who was a son of Hans Egede’s daughter Petronella.23 As a true religious entrepreneur Hans Egede was always looking for new possibilities. At one point he became aware of “bible history”, biblical stories adapted to appeal to children, a genre that had appeared on the European continent in the 1600s. We do not know exactly when, but presumably in the 1730s or 1740s he translated the German schoolmaster Johann Hübner’s Zweymal zwei und fünfzig auserlesene Biblische Historien (1714) into Greenlandic.24 The translation was never printed, but apparently it was used in various locations, for example in the Sisimiut mission district.25 When, in 1818, the ageing Otto Fabricius printed a Greenlandic bible history, Bibelingoak Merdlainnut (Little Bible for Children), the groundwork was laid. In any case, Fabricius’s bible history, the first book in Greenlandic to feature pictures, became immensely popular.26 Hans Egede left Greenland in 1736, and throughout the 1740s he gradually withdrew from his role as leader of the Greenland mission. Poul Egede, who had to leave Greenland for health reasons in 1740, increasingly turned to editorial and linguistic work. The two leading figures in working to build a Greenlandic literature had departed, but this had little impact on the production of texts, which for the remainder of the 1700s gradually increased, corresponding roughly to the steadily growing number of mission stations and missionaries. The first mission station outside Nuuk was built in Qasigiannguit in 1734. In 1750 there were four 21

Katekismus Tersa (see n. 20), [v–vi]. Ostermann, Den norske grønlandsprest, 80–81. 23 Saabye, Journal in Greenland, 179–80. 24 Josias Lorck, Beyträge zu der neuesten Kirchengeschichte in den Königl. Dänischen Reichen und Ländern. 2 vols. (Copenhagen and Leipzig: Friedrich Christian Pelt, 1756–58), 1:86. On Johann Hübner’s Bible history, which reached the entire Protestant world, see Bottigheimer, Bible for Children, 40–41 and other places. The first Danish edition was printed in 1728. 25 Gad, History of Greenland, 2:319. 26 Kleivan, “Undervisningsbøger”, 152–54. 22

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stations, each with a staff of missionaries and catechists. By 1775 this had grown to ten, covering the entire known territory of Greenland, with the exception of the southernmost stretch down towards Cape Farewell. With the founding of a mission in Nanortalik in 1797, the two-thousandkilometre chain stretching from Upernavik in the north to Cape Farewell was completed.27 Among the first to take up where Hans and Poul Egede had left off was Ambrosius Buch (missionary in Paamiut 1747–54). Buch composed a frequently used work on “die Leidensgeschichte des Heilands aus den Evangelisten zusammengezogen.”28 Along with Buch, Niels Brønlund Bloch (Qasigiannguit and Ilimanaq 1747–54) wrote a much-used though now lost catechism exposition.29 Rasmus Bruun (Nuuk 1752–60) made an impact as a hymn composer and hymn translator, a genre also cultivated by Hans and Poul Egede, and by Poul’s younger brother Niels Egede.30 Later in the century we find people such as Henrik Christopher Glahn (Sisimiut 1763–71), Egil Thorhallesen (Nuuk 1767–73), Peter Andreas von Cappelen (Uummannaq 1783–92) and the above-mentioned Otto Fabricius (Paamiut 1768–73), all of whom contributed translations and texts within various genres of religious and edifying literature. In addition to the Danish-Norwegian missionaries’ writings in Greenlandic, there were also texts produced by others. Most important in the eighteenth century were the Moravian (Herrnhuter) missionaries. With the approval of the new Danish-Norwegian King Christian VI, who was friendly to the mission but sceptical of Hans Egede, they arrived in Greenland in 1733, setting themselves up at a place they called New Herrnhut, not far from Hans Egede’s mission station in Nuuk.31 In 1735, two years after their arrival, we come across enthusiastic German missionaries translating “schriftmässige und deutliche Worte” about conversion and mercy into Greenlandic,32 and in 1738 we find the missionary Johann Beck busy translating the New Testament.33 Finally, outside the exclusive circle of missionaries there were the mission assistants, the catechists (kateketer), many of whom were stationed 27 Lidegaard, Grønlands historie, 105. As mentioned below, there was also a Moravian (Herrnhuter) mission in Greenland from 1733. The Moravian mission stations, of which three existed by the year 1800, are not included. 28 Lorck, Kirchengeschichte (see n. 24), 1:85–86. 29 Henrik Christopher Glahn, Anmærkninger over de tre første Bøger af Hr. David Crantzes Historie om Grønland (Copenhagen: Gerhard Giese Salicath, 1771), 139. 30 Langgård, “Hans Egede og den grønlandske skønlitteratur”. 31 Vollprecht, “Brüdermission in Grönland”. 32 Ostermann, Den grønlandske Missions og Kirkes Historie, 78. 33 Kjærgaard and Kjærgaard, Ny Herrnhut i Nuuk, 22.

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in far-off settlements removed from the main towns, in the vast, thinly populated, and – especially in winter – inaccessible mission districts. The catechists in these outlying areas would only meet their missionary in person twice a year, or less in adverse conditions. The rest of the time it was the catechists themselves who were in charge of religious duties. It was they who carried out the daily drudgery of mission work and ensured the continuity, while the missionaries, with their high salaries and annual contracts, “nurtured their comforts in the warm corner behind the stove.”34 In the beginning most catechists were young Danish or Norwegian men of low social standing, who after a brief training period at Hans Egede’s Seminarium Groenlandicum in Copenhagen were sent off to Greenland. Later on, recruitment took place locally, and for shorter or longer periods of time several missionaries even ran veritable institutions of learning for promising young people, with programmed curricula and fixed teaching schedules.35 In and around the catechist group we find the seeds of indigenous intellectuals, among them Arnarsaq (c. 1716–post-1788), Hans Púngujôq (c. 1720–post-1750), Poul Grønlænder (c. 1720–65) and Mathias Aronsen (1762–1800). The first two are not known as authors of independent writings. However, serving as linguistic advisors for Poul Egede they achieved an enduring influence on the formation of the Greenlandic biblical language.36 From the hand of Poul Grønlænder we have several letters that are important to Greenlandic cultural history, and from that of Mathias Aronsen there once existed a translation of Bible excerpts into Greenlandic (a work that is regrettably lost).37 One of the 34

“pleiede deres Magelighed i den lune Krog bag Ovnen.” Niels Giessing Wolf, “Om de nærværende Hindringer for det Grønlandske Missionsvæsens Fremme, og Forslag til at afværge dem”, in Videnskabelige Forhandlinger ved Siællands Stifts Landemode, ed. Peter Hans Mønster and Carl Frederik Gutfeldt. 3 vols. (Copenhagen: Andreas Seidelin, 1812–18), 2:546–47. 35 Ostermann, Nordmænd paa Grønland, 212. 36 It was no easy task to transfer the biblical text from a language based in an ancient Middle Eastern peasant society, where patriarchs rode on camels through the desert sands, into a language whose cultural horizon was a primitive, seminomadic hunter society in a cold, treeless land with bitterly cold, six-month winters, and where almost all resources – food, fuel, and clothing – had to be obtained from the sea. The fact that it proved possible to preserve the poetic and expressive strength of the biblical text in its Greenlandic linguistic garb is a feat achieved by Arnarsaq and Hans Púngujôq, among others. 37 Frandsen, “Literacy and Literature”, 73. Aronsen sent the manuscript to Copenhagen in the hopes of getting it published there. Along with hundreds of other priceless documents from Greenland, it was lost in the Copenhagen fire of 5– 7 June 1795.

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European-born catechists, Jens Pedersen Mørk (1721–80), translated sermons by various German theologians into Greenlandic, including texts by Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705), known as “the father of Pietism”, and the popular Conrad Friedrich Stresow (1705–88).38 For a long time the Greenlandic texts existed only as handwritten manuscripts, although some of these were disseminated in great numbers of copies. This is true of Hans Egede’s 1724 translation of the first ten and a half chapters of Genesis, which reached every corner of the country and was used in school instruction from the 1730s.39 It is also true of Pontoppidan’s exposition, which was produced in hundreds of copies (today all lost). The first printed work in Greenlandic was an ABC-book (1739). The title page has the letters written out, one by one: first the vowels, then the consonants. The following pages present various vowelconsonant combinations, which are then combined so that they form the Lord’s Prayer.40 In 1742, under the Latin title Elementa Fidei Christianæ, appeared the first genuine book with Greenlandic text. The title page bore Hans Egede’s initials. Within its total of 84 pages, the book contained a brief review of the basic Christian teachings, an ordo salutis (order of salvation), Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, probably in Poul Egede’s translation from 1738, some questions and answers, some hymns, and the 38

[Hans Egede Saabye], Brudstykker af en Dagbog holden i Grønland i Aarene 1770–1778 af Hans Egede Saabye, ed. Hother Ostermann (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 1942), 82. 39 Niels Egede, Tredie Continuation af Relationerne betreffende den Grønlandske Missions Tilstand og Beskaffenhed, forfattet i Form af en Journal fra Anno 1739 til 1743. Med hosføyed Designation over den Grønlandske Ungdoms Forfremmelse i christelig Kundskab, saavel Døbtes som Udøbte Catechumenorum ved Colonierne Christians-Haab og Got-Haab (Copenhagen: Johann Christoph Groth, [1744]), 129–38. 40 It deserves to be noted that this Greenlandic ABC-book is, in itself, a pedagogical program. First, it shows how one learns to read. This is done by pointing out each letter for itself, then different alphabet combinations, and pronouncing their phonetic value; a method used since the Middle Ages, perhaps even longer, and which has continued up into the twentieth century (Manguel, History of Reading, 72). The ABC-book then reveals why one should learn to read: to obtain access to the religious texts and the divine truth that the letters carry when properly arranged. From the following decades we have several Greenlandic ABC-books, most of them composed as described here. See Kleivan, “Undervisningsbøger”, 146, and P. Lauridsen, Bibliographia Groenlandica eller Fortegnelse paa Værker, Afhandlinger og danske Manuskripter, der handle om Grønland indtil Aaret 1880 incl. (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 1890), 199, no. 3. The combination of ABC-book and a brief religious text (the Lord’s Prayer or the catechism) is well-known in Europe. See Green, The Christian’s ABC, 65.

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baptism ritual for children and adults. Two years later, in 1744, the four gospels were printed under the title Evangelium okausek tussarnersok, followed in 1758 by a new edition, this time including the Acts of the Apostles. Then, in 1766, followed the entire New Testament – Testamente Nutak – with “explanations, parallels and exhaustive summaries” by Poul Egede (new editions appeared in 1794 and 1799). This accounts for the Bible production in the eighteenth century. The Old Testament, the first narratives of which had been introduced to the Greenlanders by Hans Egede back in 1724, was not printed in Greenlandic until well into the nineteenth century, and then only in fragments, beginning with the Book of Genesis in 1822.41 With Ivngerutit okko 119, edited by Rasmus Bruun in 1761, the Danish-Norwegian mission got its own hymn book containing hymns written by Hans Egede, Poul Egede, Niels Egede, Niels Bloch, Peder Egede (a nephew of Hans Egede) and Rasmus Bruun himself (a new, expanded edition was published in 1788). Up until that time the handwritten texts had had to suffice, supplemented from 1742 with the small collection of hymns printed in Hans Egede’s Elementa. Otherwise, as was the case in several places, including Nuuk,42 worshippers could use Illei-inneit Ingverautikschengvoennik karalin okausiennik, a collection of Greenlandic hymns that the Moravians had miraculously succeeded in publishing as early as 1747, just fourteen years after their arrival (with new, expanded editions in 1754 and 1759). The book historian Niels H. Frandsen, dealing with the period 1791– 1850, has shown that the Greenlandic prints were published in large print runs, and were almost all produced in Copenhagen and paid for by the Missionskollegium (department for propagation of the gospel; in existence from 1714 to 1848). Frandsen is cautious about giving exact numbers, but the level may well in most cases have been between two and three thousand copies.43 Concerning the print runs for the first generation of 41

This was followed by the Book of Psalms (1824); Isaiah (1825); Proverbs (1828); The Book of the Twelve Prophets and the Book of Daniel (1829); Exodus, Deuteronomy, Job, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Ruth (1832); Joshua, Judges, the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings (1836). In its entirety the Old Testament was not available in Greenlandic before 1900. 42 Ostermann, Danske i Grønland, 63. 43 In the period 1791–1850 in Northern Greenland, with a population of about 3000, the Missionskollegium distributed more than 21 000 books, 5000 of which were ABC-books, 4500 catechisms, 3600 expositions and 4800 hymn books. See Frandsen, “Literacy and Literature”, 69–90. Of the two Greenlandic inspectorates (Northern and Southern), North Greenland was the smaller, and it is therefore safe

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printed books (1739–90), it is impossible to say anything certain, partly because most of the Missionskollegium’s archive was destroyed in the Copenhagen fire of 5–7 June 1795. All we know is that books seem to have been in great demand from the outset. According to the missionary H.C. Glahn, there was a veritable hunger for books in Greenland44 – a claim which can be supported by the fact that Hans Egede’s Elementa Fidei Christianæ from 1742 was unobtainable in the 1770s, and transcribed copies were being produced.45 Also the hymn book from 1761 was after a few years impossible to get hold of.46 The extent of the total text production in Greenlandic in the 1700s is difficult to estimate. With a single prominent exception,47 only printed texts have been preserved. Beyond dictionaries and grammars, there are about 1500 pages. Added to this are the lost writings. Some of these writings have already been mentioned: Poul Egede’s translation of the first three books of the Old Testament, Hans Egede’s translation of Hübner’s bible history, Ambrosius Buch’s writings on the sufferings of Christ, Bloch’s catechism exposition, Aronsen’s Bible translation, and Jens Pedersen Mørk’s translation of some of Spener’s and Stresow’s sermons. However, the list is much longer. From Jacob Johan Lund we know that in 1726 Poul Egede translated his father’s Alle Søndags- og Fest-Evangelier (All Sunday and celebratory gospels) into Greenlandic.48 From Niels Egede’s hand there supposedly existed “a small book [about] the first truths of the Christian religion” in the form of a conversation between a

to assume that in the years 1791–1850 a shipment of at least one thousand books was sent to Greenland annually. This required very generous print runs. Figuring an average of 20 persons per longhouse, which is probably a low estimate, suggests that the Greenlandic population was dispersed among some 400 houses during the winter months. Accordingly, there would have been at least two new books for every house every single year between 1791 and 1850. 44 Henrik Christopher Glahn, Forsøg til en Afhandling om Testamenter til almindelig men i Særdeleshed til Grønlands Nytte (Copenhagen: Author, 1769), 42. 45 Egil Thorhallesen, Beskrivelse over Missionerne i Grønlands Søndre Distrikt hvilken han som Vice-Provst visiterede i Aarene 1774–1775 (Copenhagen: Hoffenbergske Etablissement, 1914), 94. 46 Gad, History of Greenland, 3:329. 47 See n. 10. 48 Jacob Johan Lund, Første Missionnair paa Grønland, Biskop Hans Egedes Levnet (Copenhagen: Gerhard Giese Salicath, 1778), 100. Lost in the Copenhagen fire of 1795.

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Christian and a pagan Greenlander.49 H.C. Glahn authored an edifying treatise in 1768–69 called Testamentetab Okalluktue (Stories of the New Testament),50 and Otto Fabricius produced “The Order of salvation, composed according to the understanding of the simple Greenlanders” in 1774, which he endeavoured to have printed, but without success.51 Jesper Brodersen, primarily remembered as the author and publisher of the first book printed in Greenland – a small collection of liturgical choir hymns from 1793 for the use of the congregation in New Herrnhut52 – is presumed to have translated “great portions of the Holy Scriptures” into Greenlandic.53 To create a proper picture of the encounter between religious writings and the Greenlanders of the eighteenth century, when handwritten and printed texts intermingled and replaced each other in a way no longer known today, one must keep in mind that not only does our current knowledge include only a fraction of the total amount of texts, but also that the time perspective was longer than the printed literature indicates. By the year 1800, the little, unimposing ABC-book from 1739, Greenland’s oldest printed work, was sixty-one years old. However, it was more than seventy-five years since Hans Egede had read aloud from the Old Testament to the inhabitants of the Kook Islands and copies of religious texts had begun to migrate up and down along the coast. Aside from the Bible, the main part of the Greenlandic text corpus from the 1700s consisted of translations of Danish and German religious and edifying texts. There were also independent contributions, however, especially a significant production of hymns. Several of the hymns that are sung today in Greenlandic churches originated in the 1700s.

49

Poul Egede and Niels Egede, Continuation af Hans Egedes Relationer fra Grønland samt Niels Egede: Beskrivelse over Grønland [1770], ed. Hother Ostermann (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 1939), ix. 50 Missionær i Grønland Henric Christopher Glahns dagbøger for aarene 1763– 64, 1766–67 og 1767–68, ed. Hother Ostermann (Copenhagen: Hoffenbergske Etablissement, 1921), 95. 51 Gad, History of Greenland, 2:319. 52 Tuksiautit akioreeksautikset (Nuuk: Zu Neuherrnhut, 1793). 53 Knud Oldendow, “På Opdagerfærd efter et grønlandsk Tryk”, in Læsningens Glæde: 69 Kulturpersonligheder fortæller om Bøger i deres Tilværelse, ed. Hans Bagger, E. Grønholt Pedersen and Volmer Rosenkilde. 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Den danske Antikvarboghandlerforening, 1960), 2:100. See also Michael Hauser, Liturgical Texts and Hymns used by The Mission of The Moravian Brethern in Greenland. An Annotated Bibliography (unpublished manuscript 2003, University Library of Greenland, Nuuk).

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Literacy As is known from other illiterate peoples, the Greenlanders were profoundly impressed by the Europeans’ reading and writing skills, which they wished to acquire for themselves.54 Poul Egede gives an unforgettable account of a seal-hunter in the Qasigiannguit district, who sent him a letter in 1736, through some middlemen. This communication took the form of a thick cane, on which soot and train oil had been used to paint two strokes resembling the letter “V” in the certain expectation that Poul Egede would understand that the hunter desired to purchase a pair of blue trousers.55 Denmark-Norway, with its compulsory schooling and other obligatory measures, focused on the “push” effect when it came to teaching people basic reading skills – which, according to the Lutheran tradition, they must acquire. Contrary to this, the missionaries in Greenland, where compulsory measures toward the indigenous population were not applied, not even when it came to schooling,56 had to rely on the “pull” effect, meaning the Greenlanders’ own desire to learn to read and write.57 As would soon be revealed, this voluntary approach proved entirely adequate when sufficient texts, teachers and other basic needs were made available.58 The first Greenlanders who learned to read were a group of boys Hans Egede took in and taught at the Island of Hope; at the same time, the boys taught Greenlandic to Egede and those working with him. From the 1730s, when mission activities began to take root, the schools expanded along with the mission stations, both Danish-Norwegian and Moravian. The teachers were the missionaries, assisted by a growing complement of catechists and “teaching mothers” (læremødre), all of whom were recruited from the local population. A record from 1792/93 shows that at that stage there were about seventy catechists and thirty “teaching

54 Axtell, “Power of Print”. See also Hans Hertel, ed., Verdens litteraturhistorie, vol. 4, 1720–1830 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1994), 377. 55 Egede, Continuation (see n. 19), 37. 56 Compulsory schooling was first introduced in Greenland after 1953, when Greenland was administratively converted into a Danish county, corresponding to a French “overseas department” (département d’outre mer). 57 The distinction between ‘push’ and ‘pull’ effects is borrowed from Johansson, “The History of Literacy in Sweden”, 154–55. 58 This is not the place to undertake a comprehensive history of schooling. In general, the reader is referred to volumes two and three of Gad, History of Greenland. See also by Finn Gad, “Vestgrønlandske undervisnings- og skoleforhold”, and “Læse- og skrivekyndigheden”.

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mothers” instructing the children in a population totalling about 8000.59 If we include the ten Danish-Norwegian missionaries, not to mention the eight Moravian missionaries in place in 1792 and their “national helpers”,60 who were also involved in educational affairs, we reach a ratio of one teacher for every 70–75 inhabitants. This is a high degree of coverage compared to Denmark-Norway, where the corresponding ratio at the beginning of the nineteenth century was one teacher per 175–200 inhabitants.61 In most cases the pedagogy was as simple as the ABCbooks, but as a whole it was considerably friendlier than was customary in Denmark and Norway. Corporal punishment of the pupils, which was widespread in the missionaries’ home countries, was not utilized in Greenland. The only form of punishment we know of is the withdrawal of privileges, such as it was practised in the Moravian mission school in New Herrnhut, where food was taken from children who were deemed lazy, with the message that they “besser lernen solle[n].”62 Achievement was rewarded, and it was important that all children had pleasant memories from the school. It is in this light that we must view the great work carried out in connection with the distribution of Pontoppidan’s exposition. In general, the desire to learn among the children was great, also in the Moravian schools: “Sie [the children] konnten sich nicht satt lernen und fingen an einen neuen Weyhnachts-Lied, darinnen [missionary] Johann Be[c]k die Geschichte von Jesu Geburt verfasst hat, auf die Melodie: Lobt Gott ihr Christen allzugleich etc.,”63 and the parents were supportive: “They [the parents] were seen to carry the little children to school, through the deep snow, and fetch them away,” as a slightly astonished Hans Egede Saabye writes in his diary.64 It goes without saying that the results were excellent. Already at the end of the 1730s there was talk of all the talented young Greenlanders of both sexes, who so quickly learned to read and who liked to write letters.65 59

Gad, “Vestgrønlandske undervisnings- og skoleforhold”, 28–29. Heinz Israel, Kulturwandel grönländischer Eskimo im 18. Jahrhundert. Abhandlungen und Berichte des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde, Dresden, 29. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1969), 202. 61 Steen Steensen Blicher, Viborg Amt. Bidrag til Kundskab om de danske Provindsers nuværende Tilstand i oeconomisk Henseende, 12. (Copenhagen: Det kongelige Landhuusholdningsselskab, 1839), 7–14. 62 Israel, Kulturwandel grönländischer Eskimo (see n. 60), 133. 63 David Cranz, Historie von Grönland. 3 vols. (Barby: Heinrich Detlef Ebers, 1765–70; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1995), 2:996–97. 64 Saabye, Journal in Greenland, 178. 65 Gad, “Læse- og skrivekyndigheden”, 208. 60

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A theme thus arose that can be traced among Danish missionaries and pastors far into the twentieth century, namely that Greenlandic children not only equalled European children in intelligence, but that they were both more intelligent and better behaved than their European peers. In the 1760s, all young Greenlanders could read, apart from those in the two southernmost districts (Oaqortoq and Nanortalik) and those in Upernavik in the far north, where the mission did not arrive until the 1770s.66 Objections have been raised that it was never tested whether the children could read an unfamiliar text, but only whether they could read texts they already knew, and that generally too much emphasis was placed on rote learning. The children simply mimicked their teachers. In the final analysis, some say, it was little more than a giant “magic trick.”67 This argument, eagerly promoted by the Danish historian Finn Gad, is anachronistic. The purpose of instruction in the Nordic school of the 1700s was not to teach pupils to read extemporaneously from an unfamiliar text. That type of demand arose a century later.68 Nor was the purpose to obtain training in critical reading. The purpose was to inculcate Christianity through the acquisition of the essential religious texts: essential for this life and the hereafter. According to the standards of the day, any pupil who could recognize and read a previously seen printed text, and thereby rather than “reading” the text could use it as a “memory aid”, could be said to be reading.69 If this criterion is applied, then all Greenlanders, or at least nearly all of the children and youth, learned to read as the mission gained ground. By the year 1800, when the missions covered the entire known area of Greenland, all Greenlanders could read according to the standards of their times,70 and many could do much more. Otherwise it is difficult to explain what the Greenlanders wanted to do with the many books that they acquired through the missionaries and (from 1776) through the Royal Greenland Trade Department. As concerns the critique of rote learning, which quite correctly characterized the Greenlandic schools in the 1700s, and which would also continue to mark Greenlandic schooling in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, one can say, firstly, that rote learning was also used in schools outside Greenland. In Denmark, for example, rote learning was still common in schools as late as the 1950s. Secondly, there is good reason to 66

Glahn, Afhandling om Testamenter (see n. 44), 42. Gad, “Læse- og skrivekyndigheden”, 206. See also Kleivan, “Undervisningsbøger”, 145. 68 Vagn Skovgaard-Petersen, “Literacy in the Nordic Countries”, 5. 69 Manguel, History of Reading, 60. 70 Frandsen, “Literacy and Literature”, 76. 67

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recall that if the reader knows a text by heart, then the text can be carried everywhere, and no one can take it away. The texts a person knows by heart “keep you company on the day you have no books to read”,71 and in times of trouble, and moments of danger, they become “a mental sanatorium and source of energy, a defence against the danger of losing one’s mind faced with isolation and struggle”, as it has been said by two Icelandic historians.72 Moments of extreme danger may be relatively rare in Europe, but they do occur, and in such moment texts learned by heart have rendered great service. Who has not heard about prominent European university professors in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War who kept up their spirits, and those of their fellow prisoners, by reciting Virgil and Euripides from “the library of their memory”?73 In a seaborne hunting society like that in Greenland prior to 1950, with a staggering number of fatal accidents, extreme danger was a daily, everpresent phenomenon. For centuries, the death rate among young males in Greenland has corresponded to what Europe has only known in times of war or other exceptional events. Since the 1700s, innumerable anonymous Greenlandic seal-hunters have mobilized the strength necessary to withstand long, lonely, arduous and dangerous kayak trips on unstable, winter-dark seas by reciting the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer and singing hymns, as they had learned in school.74 Finally, rote learning could be used as a short-cut for adults who wanted to conquer the new world of texts, but who did not want to take the long, agonizing path through literacy. An example of how this could be done comes from Lichtenfels, located a hundred and fifty kilometres south of Nuuk. It is a cold, windswept place facing the Davis Strait; a place on which the Moravians took pity in 1758 and built a mission station. The children and the unwed youth naturally learned to read quickly, but for some of the adults the task proved insurmountable. Nevertheless, in order to enable the converts to take part in the song instruction program – which, according to good Moravian custom was instituted to teach the congregation to sing hymns in praise of the Lord – the German missionaries invented a 71

Manguel, History of Reading, 64. Magnússon and Olafsson, “Barefoot Historians”, 193. 73 Manguel, History of Reading, 64. 74 For a literary version, see Bodil Kaalund, Einar Lund Jensen, Inge Lynge and Robert Petersen, ed., Hans Lynge. En grønlandsk kulturpioner (Copenhagen: Rhodos, 2006), 177. Parallel examples can be found in the Arctic exploration literature, see Janice Cavell, “Lady Lucy Barry and Evangelical Reading on the First Franklin Expedition [1819–22]”, Arctic. Journal of the Arctic Institute of North America 63, no. 2 (2010): 135. 72

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special method of rote memorizing adapted to the Greenlandic communal longhouse: “Abends kamen viele, singen zu lernen. Die nicht lesen können, setzen sich in eine Reihe, ein jedes behält eine Zeile, die lernt zuhause eines wieder von dem andern, und so fassen sie geschwind einige Werse.”75

Impact Before the arrival of Hans Egede in 1721, the Greenlandic culture was an oral culture. After his arrival, it became increasingly influenced by a literate culture based on religious texts. The cultural encounter took place through the individual’s reading, which eventually, after the emergence of the single-family dwelling and modern sources of light, would become the dominant way of reading. But alongside individual reading there was a collective forum for the encounter between the old oral culture and the new literate culture: the crowded, poorly lit Greenlandic communal longhouse, where the inhabitants came together as winter approached, and where they resided until the light and the warmth returned and they could move out into their summer tents. In the winter dwelling, each family had its own little enclosed area, separated from the neighbouring families’ area by stakes at both sides, and sometimes by loosely hanging skins. The main piece of furniture was a platform bed, which was supported against the back wall and which filled the area in its entire breadth. In front of the bed, facing a narrow common passage, was a cooking area and a train oil lamp. Body heat and the constantly burning lamps ensured a high temperature in the narrow houses, even when outdoor temperatures were very low. The inhabitants went practically naked, the women dressed only in a tiny loincloth. During the winter all social life took place indoors, in the communal longhouse. Here the residents cooked their food and ate it, here they relieved themselves (the urine, which, among other things, was used as shampoo, was collected in large tubs, overwhelming visitors with a nearly unbearable stench – to which, it has been said, guests quickly became accustomed). Here the children slept alongside the adults; here life began, and life ended. And it was here, in the evening, after the men had returned from their perilous, exhausting hunting expeditions, that stories were swapped while clothing, boots, hunting implements and kayaks were inspected and repaired. It was in just such a densely packed, steamy longhouse, filled with expectant, oily-skinned faces, that Hans Egede presented his translation of 75

Cranz, Historie von Grönland (see n. 63), 2:996–97.

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the first chapters of Genesis in November 1724, winning the hearts of his fascinated audience with the wondrous accounts of the Garden of Eden, the Flood and the Tower of Babel. And it was in such longhouses that the new texts that the Europeans would bring to the country in the years to come would stand their test. The oral recitation followed a fixed pattern right from the outset, regardless of whether the reading was conducted by a European missionary, a native catechist, or one of the house’s residents, perhaps a quick-witted child or youth. In many respects the scene was reminiscent of the way in which the European peoples first encountered the printed word in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, be it in the French veillés,76 German Abendstuben,77 Danish bindestuer,78 or Icelandic kvöldvaka,79 where groups of villagers gathered to spend the long winter evenings working while stories were told, or read aloud from a book if there was someone present who possessed a book and the skill to read it. It says a great deal about the narrative and poetic powers of the Bible and other religious texts that despite formidable linguistic difficulties, they not only succeeded in the longhouses, but also spawned an intense, public discussion that was almost Habermasian in nature. The dialogue could take on different forms, ranging from simple explanations of the biblical geography to profound discussions of actual historical and theological questions. The story of the Flood, which was contained in the excerpt of the Old Testament that Hans Egede had read aloud on the Kook Islands in November 1724, was a huge sensation and rapidly became known everywhere. Poul Egede reported how Greenlanders brought him whale bones and other fossil evidence to show that the water had once been at a higher level than it currently was.80 The fact that the women traditionally received the seal ribs when the hunt was distributed was brought in as a possible collective memory that woman had been created from Adam’s rib.81 One question that caused the missionaries serious difficulties was the apparently unequal distribution of worldly goods. How could the Greenlanders believe in God’s wisdom and goodness when, during the 76

Davis, Society and Culture, 201–02. Schenda, “Lesen und Erzählen”; idem, “Vorlesen”. 78 Steen Steensen Blicher, E Bindstouw. Fortællinger og Digte i jydske Mundarter (Randers: Elmenhoff, 1842). 79 Magnússon and Olafsson, “Barefoot Historians”, 183. 80 Poul Egede, Efterretninger om Grønland uddragne af en Journal holden fra 1721 til 1788 (Copenhagen: Kongelige Vaisenhuses Bogtrykkerie, [1788]), 27, 175. See also Kjærgaard, “Grønland som del af den bibelske fortælling”, 84. 81 Kjærgaard, “Grønland som del af den bibelske fortælling”, 77. 77

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winter, they saw the sun disappear below the horizon? To this question, Poul Egede responded that if the sun permanently held itself over the northern lands, then the southern lands would perish from cold. Therefore, the wise God has made it so that the countries which lay lifeless in the winter, when the sun returned once more could be resuscitated and bring forth food both for man and beast; and as their [the Greenlanders’] land [being rocky land without topsoil] was not suitable for growing grain, of which bread was made ... so He had richly provided them with all manner of living creatures both on land and at sea, as suitable food for all of them; and because the sea creatures should not live in the deep waters of the great ocean where they could not or dared not go with their small boats, so He, in His wisdom, had ensured for this land’s inhabitants that food grew along their rocky shores: insects, reptiles and small fish that other large types of beasts feed upon: such as small whiting, salmon, cod, rose-fish, after these follow seals, hooded seals, and then white whales, narwhals, halibut, whales of all kinds, as well as fowl during certain months of the year and in certain places, in such numbers west of the sea as clouds on the horizon, so that they can cover the sea, as does the grain in our countries, and the Heavenly Father gives them this abundance from the sea, because it is from the sea that they gain sustenance.82

Another difficult question was the Old Testament patriarchs’ improper conduct, including their casual attitude towards monogamy.83 Poul Egede 82 “at dersom Solen bestandig holdte sig over de nordre Lande, saa maatte de Sydlige forgaae af Kulde. Derfor har den vise Gud saaledes giort det, at de Lande, som laae ligesom uden Liv om Vinteren, kunde ved Solen igien oplives, og skaffe Føde baade for Mennesker og Fæe; og da deres [grønlændernes] Land [som klippeland uden muldlag] ei var beqvemt til Kornavling, hvoraf Brød blev lavet … saa havde han rigelig forsynet dem med allehaande levende Kreature baade til Lands og Vands til passende Føde for dem alle; og paa det Havdyrene ikke skulde opholde sig paa Dybet i det store Hav, hvorhen de ei kunde komme eller vove sig med deres smaae Baade, saa havde han efter sin Visdom saaledes sørget for dette Lands Beboere, at der voxte Føde ved deres Strand paa Klipperne for Insekter, Kryb og Smaae Fiske, som andre større Slag opholde sig efter: saasom smaa Billinger, Lax, Torsk og Rødfisk, efter disse følger Sælhunde, Klapmydser, derefter Hvidfiske, Enhiørninger, Helleflynder, Hvalfiske af alle Slags, ligeledes Fuglevildt visse Maaneder af Aaret og visse Steder, i saadan Mængde Vesten fra Havet, som Skyer ved Horisonten, at de kan skiule Havet som Kornet hos os paa Landet, og saadan Overflødighed giver den himmelske Fader dem af Havet, fordi de deraf have deres Ophold.” Egede, Efterretninger om Grønland (see n. 80), 198– 99. 83 Egede, Efterretninger om Grønland (see n. 80), 117.

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reacted to this critique by suspending his translation of the Old Testament,84 resulting, as already mentioned, in the Old Testament not being printed in Greenlandic until the 1800s,85 and not appearing in its entirety until 1900. This is only one of several pieces of evidence that the dialogue between missionaries and Greenlanders was not to be taken lightly. Similar proof lies in the much-discussed “Habakuk affair”, an eschatological revivalist movement led by a seal-hunter named Habakuk and his wife Maria Magdalene. This movement lasted from 1787 to 1791 and caused serious disruption in the region around Maniitsoq two hundred kilometres north of Nuuk.86 The spark that set the Habakuk affair aflame came from the otherwise little known Danish-Norwegian missionary Niels Hveysell (1752–1829), who had been in the area since 1784. Hveysell stubbornly refused to respect the congregation’s wish to continue to use the Moravian hymn book from 1747, which they had been using for a generation or more. He insisted that they change over to the hymn book published by the Danish-Norwegian mission. Matters came to a head when, instead of entering into a dialogue with the congregation and the catechists (who were local people and supported their own folk), Niels Hveysell escalated the conflict by refusing to give communion to those who had protested while at the same time appealing to the authorities in Copenhagen to obtain a statement by the Missionskollegium on the Moravian hymn book. The relationship between the missionary and the congregation broke down, and in 1787 Habakuk and Maria Magdalene, who, through a series of visions, had received evidence of being specially chosen for the short time that was left, given that “Doomsday was at hand”, declared themselves prophets and took the lead in the affairs of the congregation, organizing it loosely according to Moravian principles. This attracted nearly all the region’s inhabitants and threw the Danish-Norwegian mission into a serious crisis. The Habakuk movement lasted four years, after which it began to collapse, primarily because of the womanizer Habakuk’s violent and dictatorial behaviour toward the members of his congregation.87 The Habakuk affair demonstrated that in the Greenland of the 1700s, there was no getting around the people’s court of the longhouse. This 84

Egede, Efterretninger om Grønland (see n. 80), 161–62. And this was not in Poul Egede’s translation, which must therefore be counted among Greenland’s lost literary treasures. 86 Söderberg, Profetens roll; Lidegaard, “Profeterne i Evighedsfjorden”. 87 Gad, History of Greenland, 3:324–39. The Habakuk movement died out on its own. Had it arisen in Denmark or Norway, it would probably have been repressed by intervention from the authorities. 85

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applied to Hans Egede, who without complaint appeared before that court in 1724. It likewise applied to Niels Hveysell, who was judged in absentia when more than sixty years later he attempted to replace the longhouse’s equalizing, dominance-free dialogue with the language of power. Matters continued to be dealt with in this manner far into the next century. Only with the gradual disappearance of the communal winter longhouses, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, did things change.88 In addition, the Habakuk affair, which began as a conflict about a hymn book (that is, a religious text) demonstrated that religious reading in the 1780s had become an autonomous social – and theological – force of such importance that under the proper circumstances, it could bring the local social order to its knees. Critics of Christianization in Greenland have argued that the process occurred as a monologue emanating from Hans Egede and his followers, and that the mission forced the old oral culture into the defensive and sought to silence it. This is a misunderstanding. The missionaries, alone in the longhouse among scores of native Greenlanders in the midst of the polar winter night, could not force anything upon the people. Christianization was not a monologue, but a dialogue during which the foundation of a special “Greenlandic theology” was laid, and the oral culture was not silenced. On the contrary, through the written word the Greenlandic oral culture was enriched and strengthened with a host of new themes and motifs that had hitherto been unavailable. In interaction with the printed word, the oral culture was revitalized, as is also known from European settings.89

Religious texts and the renewal of oral tradition in Greenland Between 1859 and 1863, the governor (inspektør) of Southern Greenland, Hinrich Johannes Rink (1819–93), who was also an internationally known glaciologist and geologist, published Kaladlit oƸalluktualliait. kalâdlisut kablunâtudlo (Greenlandic folk tales, written down and told by natives). This four-volume work, from the inspectorate’s own printing house in Nuuk, featured Rink’s own, at times somewhat abbreviated, Danish parallel translation.90 This publication brought Greenland into the exclusive 88

Ostermann, Nordmænd paa Grønland, 242. Schenda, “Semiliterate and Semi-Oral Processes”, 131, 134–37. 90 In 1866–71 an expanded Danish-language edition appeared in two volumes without the Greenlandic basic text: Eskimoiske Eventyr og Sagn efter de indfødte 89

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group of countries that now had their own treasury of folk tales, which – so it was believed – could be traced back to the earliest times. The collecting of folk tales had begun in Germany, where the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm had published their Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1812–15. Soon afterwards, a Dane named Just Mathias Thiele published Danske Folkesagn (Danish folk tales), which appeared in the years 1819 to 1823. At the very last moment, before it was destroyed by modernity and Christianity – represented in Greenland’s case by a petty, intolerant mission that detested everything that had to do with paganism – an age-old narrative tradition had been rescued from destruction, downfall and oblivion. So said the Brothers Grimm, so said J.M. Thiele, so said H.J. Rink, and so said the many other European and North American scholars who have since preoccupied themselves with folk tales. Since the end of the 1800s it has occasionally been claimed, most famously by the well known Austrian, Czech-born folklorist Albert Wesselski (1871–1939), that the introduction of written materials into an oral cultural environment resulted in a strengthening of the oral environment, and not in its being weakened.91 Nevertheless, such points of view have always met with violent opposition from defenders of “the people” and the timeless oral tradition. All attempts to argue for top-down, non-völkische theories have been cast away and deemed heretical. Scholars who claim that folk tales, myths and legends are “a literary treasure, which has very seldom been improved by the people”, and that “the people do not produce; they reproduce” have been dismissed.92 Without exception, the “oralists” have triumphed over the “non-oralists.” When it comes to the Greenlandic materials, at no time has there been any attempt to introduce Wesselski-inspired views. The “oralist” orthodoxy has predominated, and continues to predominate; something anyone can find convincing evidence for by consulting the most recent major publication in the field, namely the prominent Danish eskimologist and folklorist Kirsten Thisted’s monumental work “Således skriver jeg, Aron.” Samlede fortællinger og illustrationer af Aron af Kangeq (“Thus I write, Aron.” Collected stories and illustrations by Aron of Kangeq), which appeared in two splendid volumes from 1999. Nothing has changed

Fortælleres Opskrifter og Meddelelser. This edition was translated into English in 1875 as Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. It is also partly or fully translated into a number of European languages. The Danish and the English-language editions have both been re-issued several times. 91 Bottigheimer, Fairy Tales, 113. 92 Kiefer, Albert Wesselski, 39, 45.

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since H.J. Rink wrote his introduction to Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo in the 1860s. It is tempting to try to apply Wesselski’s ideas, which were taken up by Rudolf Schenda in the 1990s,93 and by the American fairy-tale researcher Ruth B. Bottigheimer in the new millenium, on the Greenlandic material. If one views the Greenlandic folk tales not as echoes from the earliest times, invented by an unlettered folk and then passed along by word of mouth from generation to generation, but as “an artistic tale of a cultured folk”,94 one can easily explain the otherwise inexplicable fact of the Greenlandic narrative tradition’s spectacular superiority over what is known from other, non-Christian or very recently Christianized Eskimo peoples. This superiority immediately comes to the fore when H.J. Rink’s collection of Greenlandic myths and legends is compared with the poor and fragmentary texts from Eskimo groups in Canada, which the famous polar explorer Knud Rasmussen brought home from his celebrated Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–24) by dogsled from Greenland, all across Canada and Alaska to Siberia.95 And bear in mind that this is despite the fact that Rasmussen generally did not shy away from embellishing his texts.96 Also, the enigma of why the Greenlandic myths and legends, presumably centuries old, have such a striking number of recent elements (guns, conversion to Christianity, Europeans) and an unmistakable Christian-coloured ethic, which has been so difficult to explain away,97 evaporates if one abandons the idea of viewing the corpus of texts collected by H.J. Rink as a faithful reproduction of ancient oral Eskimo tradition. Instead, we should consider the Greenlandic folk tales as evidence of the cultural miracle that took place when the Greenlanders’ rudimentary and elementary oral tradition met the European-Christian religious literature’s inexhaustible supply of sophisticated motifs, 93

Schenda, Vom Mund zu Ohr. Kiefer, Albert Wesselski, 52. 95 Knud Rasmussen, Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos; idem, Observations on the Intellectual Culture of the Caribou Eskimos. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–24, vol.7, 1–2 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1929–30). 96 Kirsten Thisted, Som perler på en snor. Fortællestrukturer i grønlandsk fortælletradition – med særligt henblik på forholdet mellem de originale og de udgivne versioner (Nuuk: Ilisimatusarfik, 1993), 19–20, 114–32. 97 “On many points, Christianity and the Eskimo way of life were excellently compatible,” as it is soothingly stated by Kirsten Thisted in her “Således skriver jeg, Aron.” Samlede fortællinger og illustrationer af Aron af Kangeq. 2 vols. (Nuuk: Atuakkiorfik 1999), 1:56. 94

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expressions and emotions, endowing the oral tradition with a new and vast foundation of resonance, enabling it to be renewed, reinvigorated and refined into texts of high literary quality. Ever since the Brothers Grimm published their famous Kinder- und Hausmärchen, it has been stated again and again that all folk tales were retrieved directly from the people. The informants were simple, ordinary folk, the two German brothers repeatedly assured their readers. However, as convincingly shown by Ruth Bottigheimer, the truth was manipulated by the Brothers Grimm: The picture was not nearly as clear as they would have us believe.98 The same applies to Greenland. The narratives that H.J. Rink and his followers have depicted as being retrieved directly from the mouths of Greenlandic folk turns out, upon closer inspection, to stem mainly from catechists. These people were not simple hunters, but the new elite in Greenlandic society (and also the Greenlanders who stood closest to the religious literature and knew it best). Even the harshly-criticized and denigrated missionaries, who have been accused of causing the death of a centuries-old oral narrative tradition, pop up when one digs a bit deeper, although not as suppressors of the oral tradition and of the folk tales, but as their protectors. Two important examples are Peder Kragh (missionary in Aasiaat 1818–28), who gathered comprehensive collections of Greenland folk tales in the 1820s – material that Rink later used – and Christian Heilmann Rosen (Nuuk and Qaqortoq, 1858–68), who was a serious competitor to Rink. Both Peder Kragh and Christian Rosen were subsequently written out of the grand narrative about how the Greenlandic folk tales were rescued from oblivion. What H.J. Rink collected in the 1850s was not a centuries-old tradition, or – as the archaeologist and eskimologist Count Eigil Knuth (1903–96) confidently asserted99– a thousand-year-old common Eskimo tradition on the verge of being exterminated by Christianity, modernity and hostile missionaries. On the contrary, Rink’s collections of folk tales bear witness to the life-giving effect that Christianity in general, and the religious texts in particular, have had on Greenlandic culture since 1721.100 If, indeed, the folklore establishment could be persuaded to give the religious literature its due, and to give the missionaries their due, we might be free at last of hoodwinking readers, and additionally obtain a more profound understanding of Greenland’s cultural history.

98

Bottigheimer, Fairy Tales, 28–32. Thisted, “Således skriver jeg, Aron” (see n. 97), 1:66. 100 I hope, at a later date, to return to this question, which can only be most briefly touched upon within the framework of this article. 99

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The most supreme treasure The religious texts, with the Bible as the pivotal document, at one and the same time gave Greenland a common cultural language, a common literature that in the 1800s would achieve a level rivalling that of the European nations, and also a history based on the idea of Greenland as a part of the biblical narrative.101 They also paved the way for new cultural and practical competence, primarily in the areas of reading and writing skills, but also in singing, playing, drawing and painting.102 In the 1800s, at a time when scores of other North American indigenous peoples were collapsing, or were being ruthlessly assimilated linguistically and culturally into the Anglo-American world, Greenland stood out as the one outstanding exception, the place where everyone could read and write, the place where the people maintained both its original language and its proud hunting traditions rooted in a distant past. When, on 7 July 1766, the first copies of Poul Egede’s complete translation of the New Testament arrived in Sisimiut on a ship from Copenhagen, the local missionary, Henrik Christopher Glahn, wrote in his diary: “The ship came, and with this ship, Greenland obtained the most supreme treasure it could ever receive: the translated New Testament of Professor Egede.”103 It is difficult not to agree with Glahn, at least if one extends his statement to apply not only to this particular document, but to the entire body of religious texts that flowed into Greenland from 1721, initiating a process that forged the great island’s scattered groups of hunters and gatherers into the modern Greenlandic people. – Translated by Steven Sampson

101

Kjærgaard, “Grønland som del af den bibelske fortælling”, passim. Kjærgaard and Kjærgaard, Ny Herrnhut i Nuuk, 39–80. 103 “Skibet kom og Grønland fik med Skibet den ypperste Skat, det nogensinde kunde faae, det Nye Testamente af Hr. Professor Egede oversatt.” Glahns dagbøger (see n. 50), 40. 102

CHAPTER SEVEN MEMORY AND MEANING: THE HAUGEAN REVIVAL (1796–1804) AND ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF READING TRYGVE RIISER GUNDERSEN

Let us begin with a story. It takes place on a farmstead called Skoe, located in Bø, a rural village in the Telemark region of Southern Norway. Our setting is the dark, low-ceilinged main room of the farmhouse in the late 1700s. The room is full of people, full almost to bursting, and it is hard to breathe. Among those assembled is a peasant named Nils Olsson Langedal, from the neighbouring village of Seljord. Nils Olsson was better known to the people in the room as “Strong Nils.” He was a giant of a man, and his great deeds were legendary. It was commonly said in those days that the mountain villages of the Telemark maintained a special bond with olden times. And so – folks said – you could still sometimes come across real giants there, a living testimony to Norway’s lost Golden Age.1 Nils Olsson was one of these giants. To this day, on the grounds of Seljord Church there lies a great boulder, hardly shy of 600 kilos, that Strong Nils is said to have lifted in his prime. While serving as a young soldier in the early 1750s, Nils helped to build the crown’s new coastal fortress at Stavern. As the story goes, he scared the officers out of their wits by lifting a huge slab of granite on his own; a slab which six soldiers together had hardly been able to budge. “Nils sank into the ground up to his ankles, but he had no trouble holding the stone”, as his biography recounts.2 1

See Hans Jacob Wille, Beskrivelse over Sillejords præstegiæld i øvre Tellemarken i Norge (Copenhagen: 1786), and also Hans Reynolds, Telerne i den norske hersoga (Kristiania: 1909), 28–39, for a review of some of these giants in the traditional folklore. 2 “Nils sank ned i jorda til ankelen, men steinen klarte han fint.” O.A. Øverland, Sterke-Nils (Kristiania: Det Norske Aktieforlag, 1902).

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By the time our story unfolds, however, Nils had grown old and frail. The calendar reads 1799, just a few years before Nils Olsson Langedal will pass away. And yet to attend this evening he has walked all the way from Seljord to Bø, trudging the 30 or so kilometres to see and hear a certain Hans Nielsen Hauge: a 28-year-old peasant-preacher from Smaalenene, near the Swedish border, the man whose name has been on everyone’s lips for so long. Hauge had travelled far and wide across the country in recent years, but this was his first visit to this particular part of the Telemark. And now the two men were to meet in the crowded room at Skoe farmstead: Strong Nils and Hans Nielsen. Both were men of renown, both were endowed with powers beyond the ordinary, and each in his own way stood apart from the people around them. We can imagine them taking stock of one another as they meet. We do not know the exact course of events that evening, but at some point – I like to envision this happening after Hauge has delivered the evening’s speech, after the assembly has sung songs, after they have read the Bible or the postil and prayed together, as the tradition tells us was common procedure at Haugean meetings 3 – after all this, the preacher works his way through the crowded room towards the big old man on the bench. Hauge stops in front of Nils Olsson, silent. Then, he slowly lays a hand upon his head and proclaims: “Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy is everlasting. He does not delight in the strength of the horse, nor take pleasure in the legs of a man.” 4 All is quiet for a moment. Then Strong Nils begins to weep.

The problem of reading – and the Haugean enigma What is “reading”? What sort of practices unfold during the act of reading? Everyone who has immersed themselves in the history of reading knows how difficult it is to answer these questions. But they also realize how important they are, their significance reaching far beyond what we readily think of as “the domain of reading.” Consider the story of Hans Nielsen Hauge and Nils Olsson Langedal. There is little indication that this account primarily has to do with reading – which it does, nonetheless. One of the aims of this article is to show 3 See, for instance, the descriptions of meetings given in Heggtveit, Den norske Kirke, 166, 186, 207. 4 “Takker Herren, thi hans Miskund varer evinderlig. Han har ikke lyst til Hestens Styrke eller Mandens Kraft.” Hans Nielsen Hauge og Telemark (Notodden: Haugekomitéen i Telemark, 1999), 30.

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how. In order to succeed, however, we must first get a grip on the general significance of reading, and on its mode of operation within the Haugean revival movement in Norway, as well as the relationship between Haugean reading and the entire field of popular religious reading in early modern Denmark-Norway. Haugeanism was a broadly founded popular movement, and within a few short years around 1800 it managed to shake fundamental social and religious structures in the Danish-Norwegian absolutist society. 5 The Haugean revival is one of the most exhaustively treated phenomena in Norway’s history, often said to herald the mass movements that would profoundly change Norwegian society in the 1800s: the labour movement, temperance societies, the evangelical “home mission” movement, the New Norwegian movement, and so on.6 Hans Nielsen Hauge himself (1771– 1824) is probably the closest thing Norway has to a Lutheran national saint. His breakthrough was indeed impressive. Hauge dated his own conversion to the spring of 1796. Just a few months later he began working as a lay preacher and published the first of his innumerable writings. In the years that followed, Hauge widened his outreach activities, at the same time publishing a steady stream of new pamphlets and edifying literature. Soon other preachers also began travelling in Hauge’s name. In 1798 Hauge visited Kristiansand, Stavanger and Bergen, on Norway’s west coast. In 1799 he travelled northwards to Trondheim, making it as far north as Tromsø in 1803. He also spent nearly six months in Copenhagen in 1800, where four of the city’s print shops were kept running at full speed for months to publish sufficient numbers of the movement’s books.7 Back in Norway after his stay in Copenhagen, Hauge also set in motion a remarkable effort to establish industrial and trading activities directly linked to the movement. 8 In 1801 a group of Haugean friends founded a paper mill near Eiker, outside Drammen, modelled on factories 5

Haugeanism also continued to play an important role in Norway later in the 1800s after the first heady enthusiasm had quieted down. This article, however, focuses on the early and most dramatic phase of the movement, from 1796 and up to the arrest of its leader, Hans Nielsen Hauge, in 1804. The brand of Haugeanism that was resurrected following Hauge’s release in 1814 was of a very different and more institutionalized nature. 6 For an overview of this field and a discussion of the Haugeans’ significance in this context, see Hans Try, Assosiasjonsånd og foreningsvekst i Norge. Forskningsoversyn og perspektiv (Øvre Ervik: Alvheim and Eide, 1985). 7 Bang, Hans Nielsen Hauge, 222. See also Ilsøe, Bogtrykkerne i København, 171– 72. 8 For an overview of the financial activities of Hauge and the Haugeans, see Breistein, Hans Nielsen Hauge.

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that Hauge had seen in Denmark. When, in 1802, Hauge officially joined the citizenry of Bergen as a merchant, that part of the business picked up speed. At this point the Haugeans were operating trade routes along the coasts of West and North Norway, purchasing several large properties, and investing in ships and industrial equipment. On top of that, the movement obtained its own printing facility in 1803 when some Haugean friends took over the print shop in Kristiansand – one of just four print shops in Norway at the time. No wonder the authorities begin to worry. Finally, in the autumn of 1804, things came to a head when the peasant leader Hans Nielsen Hauge was arrested on explicit orders from the chancellery in Copenhagen. Judging from a letter Hauge sent in the summer of 1804, at this time the lay preacher had concrete plans to expand the revival to Denmark and across the border to Sweden.9 Hauge’s arrest put a temporary stop to the movement and to its plans for expansion. The preacher himself was imprisoned for a number of years before the long-drawn-out case against him ended, not far short of an acquittal: On 23 December 1814, the lay preacher was sentenced to pay a fine of 1000 riksdaler for violating the socalled Konventikkelplakat (an ordinance governing religious assembly, which prohibited religious meetings held without the supervision of clerics, and for having used “coarse invectives” against the clergy in his writings. Despite the obvious importance of the Haugean revival and all the attention it has received among historians of later times, the Haugean movement still remains enigmatic in many ways. What sort of phenomenon are we dealing with here? A network encompassing many thousands of people, men and women, spanning virtually all of Norway, from Malangen in the north to Lista, about 1000 km further south. 10 A complex and exceptionally dynamic organization that had no contemporary counterpart, much less any actual example upon which it could model itself – arising in a Danish-Norwegian society in which all autonomous alliances among the common people were expressly and emphatically forbidden, and where organizations and societies were rare even among the bourgeoisie. 11 A

9 Cf., for instance, Brev frå Hans Nielsen Hauge, ed. Ingolf Kvamen. 3 vols. (Oslo: Lutherstiftelsens Forlag, 1971–74). 3:224, 228, 281. 10 For an overview of the movement’s geographical scope in 1804, see Bang, Hans Nielsen Hauge, 366–68. 11 For a discussion of the various measures taken to counter the organization of commoners, see, for instance, Dørum: “Hvordan kullbøndene seiret” [How the coal peasants were victorious], 409–11. Incidentally, the examples Dørum gives do

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community of faith, and of communication, and of action. A community that had its own mechanisms for schooling, for migration and job swaps, for credit and cooperation, for marriage and alliance-building, for the purchase and sale of full-rigged ships, manors, merchant houses, fishing stations, and mills. And a literary community – with a system for producing and distributing texts that was vastly, immensely more efficient than anything else existing in Denmark-Norway before 1814. It is reasonable to assume that at least 150 000 printed Haugean texts were published during the eight-year period from 1796 to 1804, sold or handed out to a Norwegian population numbering just over 800 000, and distributed across the entire country through the Haugean friends’ network of preachers, door-to-door salesmen and ordinary believers.12 And moreover – last but not least – it was a community of reading. “There are, you know, so many exceedingly fine books that are written by people driven by the Spirit of the Good Lord, and that follow the Bible, which is the Main Book,” as Hauge writes in the conclusion of his very first book, Betragtning over Verdens Daarlighed (Contemplation on the Foolishness of the World) from the summer of 1796.13 In fact, he declares, just a few words are needed for preaching the Gospel in this age of books: “Act according to what you read!” 14 It is like a catchword for the movement that is to come. In short, Haugeanism was far more than a revival in the traditional sense of the word. However, the movement’s distinctive features are not always clearly expressed in the literature on the subject. One thing still lacking is a basic outline of the Haugean movement’s recruiting patterns and social profile. The only comprehensive empirical study of the Haugeans’ financial and industrial activities was written in 1955. So far, no one has attempted to compile a total overview of the Haugean communication network and literary system. And as for reading in the not include the Ordinance Governing Religious Assembly, although it obviously belongs within this context. 12 All in all, Hauge published 20 titles prior to 1804, which appeared in a total of 63 editions before his arrest. According to Hauge’s own information from 1816, during this period each of his book editions ranged from 2000 to 5000 copies. All other references to the number of printed copies of Haugean texts seem to confirm Hauge’s information, cf. Brev frå Hans Nielsen Hauge (see n. 9), 1:17; 212. 13 “Det er nu saa mange overmaade herlige Bøger, som er skreven af den gode Guds Aands drevne Mennesker, og følger Bibelen, som er Hovedbogen”, Hans Nielsen Hauges skrifter, ed. Hans N. H. Ording. 8 vols. (Oslo: Andaktbokselskapet, 1947–54), 1:96. 14 “Giører efter det I læser!” Ibid.

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movement, it has hardly even been mentioned, although its significance ought to be obvious. The Haugeans themselves had no name for the sort of organization they were developing in their early years. They had no term for the sort of phenomenon their movement represented. In Copenhagen even the authorities were so perplexed that in 1804, after eight years of observing the Haugean expansion, they were forced to send out a questionnaire to all the Norwegian parishes to obtain information about this strange thing that was going on – information that was subsequently used as the basis for the criminal proceedings against Hauge. Even so, the common folk belonging to the lower classes in Norway had their own names for the converts. Labels that signalled the features most readily noticed by those around the converts were “Prayer-men”, “Prayer-sayers”, “Holy men.” “Rascals from the east country”, they said with contempt in the village of Kvinherad in West Norway. But more common than any other epithet was “Readers.” “The readers.”15 “Finally I began, through prayer and reading in the holy Gospel and other Christian books, to gain both more knowledge about the will of God, and a stronger desire to do His will wholeheartedly,” Hans Nielsen Hauge explains, writing about the months preceding his conversion. 16 Samson Traa of Bergen, who would later become a Haugean leader himself, tells of how he came across “two books, recently printed, and written by Hans Nielsen Hauge. When I read in these books I liked them, and thought that I should like to speak with him and see whether he lives by what he teaches.” 17 Meanwhile, Jens Hansen, a fourteen-year-old boy from the village of Biri in south-eastern Norway, hears about the lay preachers of Smaalenene from his schoolteacher, who knew “someone who had recently been to town, and who had bought a book called God’s Wisdom”, Hauge’s second book. The teacher “borrowed it and read to us from it, at which I became deeply moved and felt a powerful longing to speak with such a person, one who had undergone such a change of mind.” 18 The

15

Cf. Mannsåker, “Hauges motstandarar”. “Endelig begynte jeg ved Bøn og Læsning i den hellige Skrift og andre christelige Bøger, at faae mere saavel Kundskab om Guds Villie som Lyst til at giøre den af ganske Hierte.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:125. 17 “2 Bøger, nylig trykte, og skrevne af Hans Nielsen Hauge; da jeg læste i disse Bøger syntes jeg godt om dem, og tænkte det skulde være godt at faae tale med ham, og se om han lever efter det han lærer.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:198. 18 “en der nylig havde været i Byen, der havde kjøpt en Bog kaldet Guds Viisdom [Hauges andre bok]”, and “laante den og læste i den for os, hvorover jeg blev 16

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movement, the Haugean life in faith, is an intricate mosaic of such acts of reading, experienced either individually or in fellowship, either with or without a book, in silence alone or out loud in front of a congregation of believers. These acts of reading contain the seed from which grows not only the sense of community that Haugeanism can offer, but also the personal delight that imbues all things with meaning – as when, in 1800, a peasant woman named Gunhild Høyord came across one of Hauge’s books that her husband had bought: “I read in it well and good and got a taste of the Truth, which was undeniable in my heart, and I rejoiced that there were still things that could be improved in the world.”19 From that point on, there was no going back.

The reader’s rules of conduct Readers, explains the French theorist Michel de Certeau in a famous passage on the anthropology of reading, are not like writers. While writers are “founders of their own place, heirs to the peasants of earlier ages now working on the soil of language […] – readers are voyagers; they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write.”20 This is a distinctly French way, but also a very beautiful way of describing the transitoriness that we associate with reading as a practice. De Certeau evidently struck a note that rang true, and yet at the same time his description is false. Presumably he was aware of this, too: As a cultural and church historian, de Certeau knew full well that the nature and perception of reading had always been determined by cultural and historical factors. Furthermore, he must also have known that his description of reading as something unstable and idiosyncratic mirrors, above all, our own historical experiential framework. The Haugeans viewed the question of reading in a very different light. Certainly they also experienced reading as quite similar to entering a strange and overwhelming territory. In the Haugean texts, however, reading never appears to be random or purely subjective. Rather, it is portrayed as an activity that is collective in nature, and rigidly prescribed in practice. What is more, and I will return to this below, in the eyes of the converts reading was always obliged to be a kind of writing as well, an onmeget rørt, og længtes mæget efter at faae tale ved en saadan, der havde faaet et saadant forandret Sind.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:206. 19 “læste jeg vel i den, og fik en smag af Sandhed, som var uimodsigelig i mit Hjerte, og glædede mig over, at noget kunde forbedres endnu i Verden.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:164. 20 de Certeau, Everyday Life, 174.

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going production of meaning rooted in the shape and content of the basic text. Given all this, it is perhaps fitting that the act of reading by which, tradition has it, the Haugean movement was founded took place precisely in a field, on a spring day in 1796. On a farmstead called Tune outside Fredrikstad, the peasant’s son Hans Nielsen is enthusiastically ploughing (or writing) the plot of land – all the while “singing by heart”, as he puts it, a verse from the seminal Pietistic psalm entitled “Jesu din søde forening at smage” (“Jesus, to taste thy sweet joining”). It is during this reading aloud in the field that the Norwegian peasant’s son experiences having his “mind so uplifted to God that I had no sense of myself, or can express what happened in my soul.”21 In the days that followed, he felt “a particular desire to read in the Holy Scripture, especially Jesus’ own teachings, and a new light to understand it, and tie together all the learnings of God’s men to that one goal that Christ is come as our Saviour, and that by his Spirit we were to be born anew.”22 It is worth noting that at the same time as he began this new type of reading, Hauge also began to write, incessantly, with pen and ink on paper, during his work breaks on the farm. Two and a half months later, around Midsummer’s Eve, he left for Christiania (now Oslo) to seek out a printer named Jens Ørbek Berg in the street of Stortingsgata. Hauge is ready to step into the printed public sphere of what was then a provincial town in the Danish-Norwegian kingdom. Also enclosed in Hauge’s knapsack were his savings, ready to pay the printer – and the manuscript for his book Contemplation on the Foolishness of the World. The knapsack additionally held a well-worn copy of a tiny book printed in Copenhagen many years earlier, which Hauge had decided to have reprinted because he valued it so highly, and also because he had never seen any other copy than the one his parents owned. This booklet, in octavo format, was entitled Evangeliske Levnets-Regler, hvori paa en kort, eenfoldig og tydelig Maade Den Rette Stie, og sandfærdige Vey til Livet bliver Anviist (Evangelical Rules of Conduct, in which, in a Short, Simple and Clear Manner, Directions are Given to the True Way to Life). According to the title page dating from 1740, the text was translated from a German original into Danish by Ludolph Henrik Lillie, and the booklet 21

“Sind saa opløftet til Gud, at jeg ikke sandsede mig, eller kan udsige hvad der foregikk i min Siel.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:127. 22 “en særdeles Lyst, til at læse i den Hellige Skrift, i sær Jesu egen lære, samt et nyt Lys til at forstaae den, og sammenbinde alle Guds Mænds Lærdomme til det ene Maal, at Christus er kommen til Vor Frelser, og at vi skulle ved hans Aand fødes paa nye.” Ibid.

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was printed by N.H. Møller in Lille Kongensgade street in Copenhagen. For the new edition, Hauge added a brief text he had penned himself, a Betænkning over Herrens Bøn Fader Vor (Consideration of the Lord’s Prayer), which was a couple of pages long.23 The booklet in Hauge’s knapsack was about reading. “Let the Holy Scripture be the sole rule of your faith and your life. Never let yourself be turned away from the devout reading of the morning, evening and midday prayers or of the prayer books,” as the Rules of Conduct text begins.24 The rules then proceed to sketch out an entire set of directions for living, structured in twelve items that build upon a person’s proper interaction with the Word in their daily life. The booklet makes it amply clear that the Haugean revival owes an obvious debt of gratitude to the already established religious reading culture in Denmark-Norway and to its two most important sources. On the one hand, there was the commercial market for religious texts of all shapes and sizes – managed by players who were strictly profit-oriented, such as Møller the printer, and the translator Ludolph Henrik Lillie. These capitalist agents nonetheless promoted and upheld some of the most central values in DanishNorwegian culture. 25 On the other hand there was the actual catechism tradition, including the entire set of complementary norms and cultural skills that went with it. The text of the Lord’s Prayer that Hauge commented upon was not merely one of the five original and main constituent parts of the Small Catechism. It was also the first text that each and every ordinary reader would encounter in their reading instruction, on the second page of their ABC-book, just after the title page with its display of the alphabet in small and capital letters. No other specific undertaking receives as much attention in these texts from the summer of 1796 as reading does. It is important to note, however, .

23

Not a single one of the many people who later interpreted Hauge really cared very much about the Rules of Conduct publication. Even so, of the two texts Hauge had printed early in the summer of 1796, this booklet turned out to be the most successful by far. In the eight years up to 1804 alone, the booklet appeared in no less than eight editions, each probably counting two to three thousand copies – resulting in a total of close to 20 000 copies of this booklet alone prior to Hauge’s arrest. 24 “Lad den Hellige Skrift Være din Troes og Levnets eneste Regel. Lad dig aldrig fravende ved Morgen- Aften og Middags Bønnens eller ved Bønne-Bøgernes andægtige Læsning.” 25 Lillie would later make his mark on Danish printing culture as a writer, printer and newspaper editor, cf. Ilsøe, Bogtrykkerne i København, 148–50, and the first volume of T. Vogel-Jørgensen, Berlingske Tidende gennem to hundrede Aar 1749– 1949. 4 vols. (Copenhagen: Berlingske Forlag, 1949).

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that this use of books is never presented as a means for achieving personal growth or as a channel for receiving new cultural impulses, which is the way we usually regard reading today. The purpose of reading was the same, whether we are talking about the preaching of penance in Hauge’s Foolishness of the World, his ruminations on the words of supplication in his brief text about the Lord’s Prayer, or the Rules of Conduct with its prescribed instructions for prayer, psalm-singing and self-reflection. The purpose was: repetition, reading the same text over and over again, until the defining sphere of one’s life and the text would finally blend into one. “I will learn from it for as long as I live,” as Hauge says of the Small Catechism in Foolishness of the World.26 So at the very core of this new revival there was a deep-seated religious conservatism. “In what does your teaching consist?” Hans Nielsen Hauge was asked in the spring of 1798 by Søren Christian Hagerup, justice of the peace in Christiania, after the lay preacher was arrested for holding illegal religious meetings in Norway’s principal city. “Precisely the one we have in our small catechism and the Bible,” the peasant’s son replied.27 An eyewitness at one of Hauge’s public meetings in the spring of 1797 recalls how the preacher stood on a high fence before hundreds of people and exhorted them to abide by the catechism, which he called “the little Bible.” A few days before this, Pastor Teilmann of Rakkestad had heard Hauge preaching at one of the farmsteads in the area. His essential text? “I have no clearer recollection than one of him explicating, on that occasion, the Lord’s Prayer,” the slightly bewildered pastor declared under interrogation many years later.28

The elite of religious reading Here, then, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, while the philosophy of the Enlightenment and the bourgeois public sphere are at last beginning to have an impact on Norwegian culture, we witness the rise of a massive popular movement that is directly founded on the most orthodox brand of old catechismal piety. Few things seem to have been more important to the Haugeans than appearing as old-fashioned, intensive readers, in keeping with the classic definition set out by Rolf Engelsing.29 26

Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 1:96. “Just den, vi har i vor lille katekismus og Bibelen.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:10. See also Bang, Hans Nielsen Hauge, 134. 28 “Jeg mindes ikke rettere, end at han den gang forklarede Fadervor.” Bang, Hans Nielsen Hauge, 88. 29 Cf. Engelsing, “Perioden der Lesergeschichte”. 27

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This phenomenon is a paradox at multiple levels. If Haugeanism was merely about confirming the most ingrown preconceptions in reading culture, and if these preconceptions were so conservative, then how can we explain the monumental religious changes brought about by this revival? If Hauge and his followers genuinely felt that the Small Catechism was sufficient material for believers to “learn from” for as long as they lived, then why did they find it so imperative to continually disseminate new texts among the common classes, to an extent that was hitherto unseen? And are the Haugeans’ enormous publication projects even meaningful at all, if religious reading among the general public was as rudimentary as many critics would have us believe? Another striking feature has to do with the Haugeans’ own preferences when it comes to written culture. Most studies present the ideal of the intensive reader, as upheld in catechismal piety, as a primitive stage in the history of reading, a first rung on the ladder leading upwards and forwards – through school reforms, the emergence of the printed public sphere, and the general modernization of society – to a fully developed, public reading capability that took shape during the 1800s. The Haugeans do not fit into this model. Hauge himself came from a writing and reading family, and early on impressed those around him with his reading skills.30 Judging by the preserved biographies of Haugeans, extensive reading in childhood was a common trait among many of the converts. The body of Haugean correspondence is huge, and it also bears witness to advanced writing skills within the movement. When the revival began to pick up speed, the Haugeans additionally demonstrated great familiarity with the norms of secular written culture: They read newspapers and took part in public debates; they kept themselves informed about new government ordinances and market developments; they started factories and ran businesses; they actively used writing to interlink the entire heterogeneous organization that was the Haugean revival.31 The Haugean publication project indeed expressed the movement’s natural, competent and deliberate use of the codes of printed culture.

30

While preparing for his confirmation, the young Hauge so impressed the local pastor, Gerhard Seeberg, with his knowledge that “he [the pastor] often called upon me to read aloud to my peers, calling me the little Schoolmaster, also flattering me by saying that I should someday become a pastor, etc.” [“han tog mig ofte fram at læse for mine Jevnlige, og kaldte mig den lille Skoleholder, smigrede mig ogsaa med, at jeg skulde blive Præst m.m.”] Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6: 65. 31 For an analysis of Haugeanism as a community of written communication, see Amundsen, “Books, Letters and Communication”.

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In other words, all these findings strongly suggest that this revival recruited its members among an elite layer of the common classes; not “elite” in social terms, but certainly in terms of book learning. Yet even so, these people chose to subscribe to what appears to be an archaic reading ideal. Instead of embracing the broad possibilities of the new written culture, the converts turned towards the secrets of the “little Bible.” It seems that for the Haugeans, conservative catechismal piety was a conscious choice that defined their reading culture, and not a matter of making a virtue of necessity. The prominent Haugean leader Ole Torgersen Svanøen (1781–1860) is a telling example. In 1804, while still a young man, he was appointed by Hauge as operating manager of the Svanøen manor on Norway’s west coast, and so was made responsible for running the Haugean farm and factory there. In 1814, Svanøen was one of three Haugeans in the Norwegian constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll. He subsequently sat as a member of parliament at the Storting from 1814 up until 1842. All the information we have about him shows that he was an extremely strong and resourceful individual. Still, when describing the time around his confirmation, Svanøen remains as loyal as ever to the norms of catechismal piety: In my 17th year I, like others, as was customary, was to renew the promise of my baptism; and so I greatly wished to read, especially to read by heart; and so I learned Luther’s catechism, excerpts from Doct. E. Pontoppidan’s exposition, some psalms from Kingo’s church hymnal, as well as some of David’s psalms, etc., and on top of that I was able to answer the pastor, both using my mental faculties and according to the book, and thus was the first among the 60 confirmands.32

The point in this context is not the mnemonic gifts belonging to a 16-yearold youth, which were not necessarily extraordinary in his day. The point is the chronology in the account of education and personality formation that Svanøen gives us, but also the choice that we witness. The implication is that the confirmand had learned to read from a book long before he began his instruction with the pastor. It is not until he reaches this, his “17th year” however, that he begins to “read by heart” in earnest. In this 32

“I mit 17de Aar skulde jeg som andre, efter Sædvane, fornye mit Daabes Løfte; jeg fik altsaa stor Lyst til at læse, især at læse udenad; jeg lærte altsaa Luthers Cathechismus, Udtog ad Doct. E. Pontoppidans Forklaring, endeel Psalmer i Kingos Psalmebog, saavelsom nogle af Davids Psalmer m.m. og kunde dertil godt svare Præsten, saavel efter Forstanden, som efter Bogen, og var altså den første af 60 Confirmantere.” My emphasis. Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:178.

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case, book reading was not like a layer of overlying varnish on top of an already orally acquired religious material, as it is usually described in connection with catechismal piety. Quite the contrary: Svanøen could already read – and the decisive shift while he is preparing for his confirmation is his transition to a new kind of reading, and to a different and intimate relationship to the religious text. He associates this shift directly with memorization. Not until the confirmand’s desire to “read by heart” is awakened can he truly “learn” the catechism, Kingo, and so on – so that when the day of his confirmation dawns, he can answer the questions of the pastor both using his “mental faculties and according to the book” and receive the pious admiration of those around him.

The Haugean reading experience What experiences of reading underlie such thinking? Perhaps this question can best be answered by looking at the actual Haugean texts. We most frequently come across the ideals of catechismal piety in the form of static prescriptions in the devotional literature. However, the massive body of Haugean texts – produced for and by commoners, appearing in numerous genres, and wielding enormous cultural clout – gives us a unique opportunity to see these ideals in motion, as a conglomeration of extraintensive readers attempted to set them out in practice at the dawn of the nineteenth century. This also makes it easier to see what types of personal meaning such catechismal piety had to offer those who followed these practices, be it the peasant’s son Hans Nielsen Hauge, the youth Ole Torgersen standing before his pastor, or the aged Nils Olsson Langedal at the Skoe farmstead, tears running down his cheeks. Let us briefly return to the meeting of Hauge and Strong Nils. Naturally, we only have indirect information about the actual oral preaching that went on in Haugean circles. Nevertheless, what we do know tells us that the traditional sermon, meaning the preacher’s speech to the converts, was only one element in the multidimensional religious linguistic practices at Haugean meetings. Another element that was at least as important, if we are to believe the sources, was the conversation, or perhaps more precisely the personal address: an intimate sermon, addressed to a single individual, with wording aimed precisely at triggering an emotive reaction in that particular person. The extensive anecdotal material surviving after Hans Nielsen Hauge speaks of many meetings along the lines of the preacher’s meeting with Strong Nils, where

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he stops, gazes and speaks in a manner that profoundly shakes up the addressee.33 It is tempting to explain these accounts in terms of Hauge’s personal charisma, and of his legendary ability to find the right word at the right time. This explanation is not fully satisfactory, however, mainly because of the sheer number of such accounts in the Haugean sources, in which the external circumstances for the statements vary tremendously. In 1816, Hauge published a collection of biographical accounts for key figures in the Haugean movement, which appeared as part of a book entitled Om Religiøse Følelser og deres Værd (On Religious Feelings and their Value). All of these accounts are brimming with stories of such sermonizing personal addresses with formats similar to the phrases Hauge spoke to Strong Nils. These are sentences that zero in on decisive aspects of the believer’s life, shaping his or her way towards conversion. Interestingly, only a minority of these accounts stem from meetings with Hans Nielsen Hauge. Occasionally, another Haugean preacher offers the words of release, as when Gunhild Høyord pays a Sunday visit to Sebile Sørum and causes her to break down in tears by quoting Paul’s letter to the Hebrews: “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.” 34 At other times the sentence is delivered by someone who has no preaching authority at all, and sometimes purely by chance. In one such coincidence, Ole T. Svanøen overhears one of his peers in the next room singing the psalm “Skulle jeg min Gud ei prise” (“Should I not praise my Lord”). 35 Another random episode has Karen Odland’s Bible falling open at the pages in the Gospel of St Matthew, showing the passage where Jesus warns his disciples that one of them will betray him.36 In actual fact, by far the most frequent kind of converting address in these accounts is unrelated to any sort of external speaking subject, as in the following example. “It sometimes happened that I felt a hearty joy; among other things at the saying that came to me: Think upon God in all of your ways, and then He will lead you down the right path,” as Sebile Sørum writes when recounting her earliest childhood experiences of faith. “In this I became even more joyful, so that my heart was uplifted.” 37 Or consider another voice, another quotation, and a

33

Cf., for instance, the testimonies collected in Bang, Hans Nielsen Hauge, 106–08. Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:161. 35 Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:180. 36 Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:175. 37 “Det hendte undertiden, at jeg følte en hjertelig Glæde; blandt andet kom det Sprog for mig: Tænk paa Gud i alle dine Veie, saa skal han føre dig paa ret Vei,” 34

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completely different destiny: “Finally, the fourth question according to the Table of Duties came so strongly upon me, with such an unutterable feeling of misery, that I had deserved God’s anger and disfavour.” 38 Or what of this variation on the theme, with frightening insistence in the darkness: “Once, in the night, I sat in my bed and prayed God to tell me what I was to do, and then this passage came to me: Teach them to abide by all that I have commanded you […]. I found myself to be too lowly for this, and I thought ‘This is something that comes up from within yourself’. But once again this passage came to me: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them.”39 We have heard of Hans Nielsen Hauge’s own conversion in a field. Ole T. Svanøen also recounts how, while sowing his father’s field on a spring day, he finds himself “crying mightily” because of religious scruples: “Then came to me these words: He who sows with tears shall reap with joy. And then it was as if it had been said to me: Be confident. You have been forgiven your trespasses.”40 Karen Odland, while spending a moment alone during a community dance, suddenly experiences how it seemed “so vain to see the sinful revelry, and I thought: ‘The ungodly blows away, like chaff before the wind’.”41 In a very different scenario, D. Magnusen sits absorbed in his handiwork – making shoes for his family – when the crucial words come to him: “Then the psalm came into my head: Improve thyself, O dearest soul, and know with thee the Lord means well; bestows upon thee mercy great, while standing guard at thy heart’s gate.”42

and “I dette blev jeg endnu gladere, saa mit Hierte var Opløftet.” My emphasis. Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:160. 38 “Tilsidst kom det fjerde Spørsmål etter Huustavlen saa meget over mig, med saadan Jammerfølelse, som ei kan udsiges, at jeg havde fortjent Guds Vrede og Unaade.” My emphasis. Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:165. 39 “Engang om Natten sad jeg i Sengen og bad Gud sige mig hva jeg skulde gjøre, saa kom dette Sprog for mig, lærer dem at holde alt jeg haver befalet Eder […], dette syntes jeg var for ringe til, og tænkte, det er Noget, som kommer op fra dig selv; men atter kom dette Sprog for mig: Mine Faar høre min røst, og jeg kiender dem.” My emphasis. Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:160. 40 “Da kom for mig de Ord: den som saaer med Graad, skal høste med Glæde, og da det ligesom skulde være sagt til mig: vær frimodig, dine Synder ere dig forladne.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:185. 41 “saa forfængeligt at see den syndige Suus, og jeg tænkte: den Ugudelige blæser bort som Avner for Vind.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:171. 42 “Da faldt den Psalme Mig for: Bedre dig o kiære Sjæl, Gud med dig det mener vel, Mod dig han en stor Naade gjør Og staaer for dit Hjertes dør.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:157.

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Technically speaking, all these accounts tell about acts of reading. As we can see, all of the decisive addresses in these personal conversion accounts are based on concrete textual passages. They are fragments of text taken from the Bible, the catechism, or hymnals, but transplanted into a given story to speak directly to each convert’s own experiential reality. Generally, the autobiographies of the Haugeans portray a life whose daily fabric is interwoven with texts, in an ongoing dialogue with the language of religion. The believers can actively seek out this language – while they read books, converse with other converts, attend worship services, hold devotions at home, or participate in Haugean meetings. Seemingly, though, the holy words have their strongest impact when they spring to mind spontaneously, as an unavoidable part of everyday life. “Early in the morning, take a great and powerful evangelical phrase of God’s Word into your heart,” recommends the anonymous author of the Evangelical Rules of Conduct that Hauge published in the summer of 1796. “Take pleasure in the same thing the whole day long, and rejoice in the sweet grace of Jesus Christ.”43 The Haugeans are living out a similar practice when they allow themselves to be surprised by the word of the Lord in the middle of their farm work, in the dark of night, or in the hot and breathless break while dancing with friends. Never does the Scripture speak to them so clearly as in these situations. However, in order to achieve such intensity of emotion, the believers must first have succeeded in disengaging the texts from the books and from public preaching, storing them in a completely different place, within themselves – internalized in the heart and memory of each believing reader. Little wonder, then, that this particular process in itself was always catechismal piety’s most significant practical and pedagogical challenge.

The logic of intensive reading The Small Catechism “is like unto a key to the right understanding of all of His books, and to the unadulterated meaning of the entire holy Scripture and the Bible,” as the mighty bishop Hans Poulsen Resen asserted in 1628 in his instructional work on Dr. Morten Luthers lidle Catechismi oc BørneLærdoms Visitatz (Visitation of Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism and Children’s Teachings) – one of the core texts for catechismal piety in a Danish-Norwegian context. Upon the catechism would be built not only 43

“Om morgenen tidlig tag et evangelisk Kraft- og Magtsprog af Guds Ord i dit Hierte” ... “Fornøi deg dagen igiennem ved det samme, glæd dig vid Jesu søde Naade.” Cf. n. 23.

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the life of the individual, but also the Christian state, Resen believed. It was to be like “a true foundation and earthwork, with the living power of God’s spirit to be found with it.”44 However, one single precondition was absolutely critical if the process was to succeed: The text must cease to simply exist as letters written in a book. Rather, it had to be fully actualized and appropriated by readers throughout the kingdom, “truly be learned and become contained in the innermost heart and spirit, with all of its parts and the right words, for all God-fearing and Christian endurance,” as Resen wrote.45 Most literature on the history of schools and reading that deals with the pedagogical programme of catechismal piety has applied an unspoken assumption: that the reasons for its strong emphasis on repetition and learning things by heart were purely practical – rooted in a wish to control, in detail, the knowledge acquisition of the populace, but rooted above all in the need to adapt to the poor reading skills of the common people. From this line of reasoning follows the seemingly obvious link between learning-by-rote and automatic processes, between rote learning and a lack of understanding. It is not always easy to find support for this point of view in the actual early modern text culture itself. The Danish-Norwegian devotional literature of the 1600s and 1700s is full of references to the words Moses spoke to the Israelites after passing the Ten Commandments on to them (Deut. 6:6–7): “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” This passage is most often used to justify the devotional programme of catechismal piety, and to underscore the responsibility that lay with the family heads to propagate and perpetuate the proper learning within their own households. 46 However, this piece of Scripture can be understood equally well as a description of the ideal nature of the religious text in this 44

“er som en Nøgel, til alle hans Bøgers rette forstand, oc dend gandske hellige Skriftis oc Bibelens u-forfalskede meening,” and “ret fundament oc grundvol, med Guds-Aands leffuende kraft ad findis derhos.” H.P.R [Hans Poulsen Resen], Dr. Morten Luthers lidle Catechismi oc Børne-Lærdoms Visitatz (Copenhagen: Salomon Sartor, 1628), preface. 45 “ret læris oc befattis i inderste Hierte oc Aand med alle sine Parter oc rette ord, til ald Guds fryct og Christelige Bestandighed.” Ibid. On Resen’s significance, see Appel: Læsning og bogmarked, 1:143–48. 46 Cf., for instance, Erik Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Copenhagen, 1737), question 31. Hans Nielsen Hauge also quotes this passage of the Scripture to justify his own activities, cf. Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 1:78.

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particular culture: that of an ever-present linguistic possibility, constantly ready to be actualized by the believer – be it through song, prayer, conversation or inner reflection, anywhere, and at any time, day or night. In a model such as this the focus necessarily moves from the physical text itself to the writings that each individual can only carry with them in their memory; that which is retained in each reader’s “innermost heart and spirit, with all of its parts and the right words,” as we have seen Resen express it. This is why a man like Ole T. Svanøen could perceive bookreading itself as a secondary element in a person’s religious instruction. It becomes simply a step on the path towards that which is the actual goal of catechismal piety: memorization, the mental treatment and continuous oral reproduction of the text. “Is everything decided when such a public religious service is ended?” the child naively asks the teacher in question 133 from Erik Pontoppidan’s exposition of the catechism entitled Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Truth to Piety) – a text that every eighteenth-century Danish-Norwegian reader of the common people would have had to struggle on their own to learn by heart. “Nay, we must later, through prayer, reflection and tribulation, impress the truth the more strongly upon our hearts, and in this internal temple, which is a quiet spirit, serve God, thank Him, and take his Word right close to heart.”47 We come across this logic again in the vast majority of the small religious rule books that were in more than ample supply on the book market, and which, in the same manner as Hauge’s Rules of Conduct, attempted to sum up the virtues of catechismal piety for the common reader. “When the apostle says: Let the Word of Christ live amongst you, then that is a parable,” established the manual entitled En Christelig HuusFader (A Christian Head of the Household) from 1735. The parable “gives us clarification in two matters: 1. That we must both have [the Word] in our hearts and houses, and have it in our churches. 2. That through diligent reading it must be so familiar to us as one that lives in the house with us.”48 This same reasoning also crops up in a booklet from 1724 called 47

“Er alting afgiort, naar saadan offentlig Guds-Tieneste er til-Ende?” and “Ney, vi maae siden ved Bøn, Betragtning og Prøvelse indrykke Sandheden kraftigere i vore Hierter, og i denne indvortes Tempel, som er en stille Aand, tiene Gud, takke ham, tilbede ham, og tage hans Ord ret nær til Hierte.” Pontoppidan, Sandhed (see n. 45). 48 “Naar Apostelen siger: Lader Christi Ord boe iblandt eder, da er det en lignelsetale” and “giver os betydning paa to ting: 1. At vi maae saavel have [Ordet] i vore hierter og huse, som i vore kirker. 2. At det ved flittig læsning skal være os saa bekendt, som den der boer i huset med os.” En Christelig Huus-Fader, Eller Velmeent Formaning Til Alle gudfrygtige Huus-Fædre, hvorledes de med deres

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Aandelige Huus-Offer (Spiritual House-Offering) – although this time it is even more picturesquely linked to the practice of intensive reading: It would be desirable if all godly books that the Christian souls use were arranged after the manner of the […] postil in which a devout widow, beset by many a cross and great hardship, had read so assiduously that from constant use it […] had become quite yellow and old, and yet it was so familiar to her that in a twinkling she could open it and find all the most remarkable things therein.49

Let us recapitulate: The aim of reading within this paradigm is to render the book superfluous. We are to read until we reach a point where the book’s text becomes merely a prop for our memory, an external confirmation of the text that has been inscribed upon our heart and reiterated in our daily life. We are to read until we leave the book behind, like a landscape on paper from which we have departed, but which we know so well that our reading is only about the joy of returning once again to the book’s pages to revisit “the most remarkable things” (meaning those things worth bearing in mind) – central passages that we made our own long ago, through our devotional work. This, I would venture to claim, is the moral and the logic of intensive reading in the early modern Nordic religious text system. This is the logic that Ole T. Svanøen acts out while preparing for his confirmation. And this was also the logic that Hans Nielsen Hauge adhered to when he gave his earliest reading instructions to converts in his Contemplation on the Foolishness of the World in the summer of 1796: But those of you, my friends, who wish to believe and emulate the holy Scripture, the Bible […] I then admonish you that you have no doubt of it either, but read in it along with the small catechism, doing this not once but

Huus dagligen skulle tiene GUD (Copenhagen: Vajsenhuset, 1735), 58–59. This book was first published in Danish in 1675, but it appeared in three different editions during the 1730s. 49 “Det var at ynske at alle gudelige Bøgger, som de Christne Siæle bruger, vare saa indrættede, som den […] Postille hvilken en gudelig og med meget Kaars og Modgang betvunget Enke saa flittig havde læst, at den af den idelig Brug […] var ganske guul og gammel, og dog var den hende saa bekiendt, at hun i en hast kunde opslaa og finde alle de merkværdigste Ting derudi.” My emphasis. Aandelige Huus-Offer, bestaaende af tolf Lefnets-Regler, hvilcke som Nyttige Middeler til at befordre Gudfrygtighed ere af Chr. Scrivers Siæle-Skat tilsammendragne (Copenhagen: P.J. Phoenixberg, 1724), from § 9 of the book.

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Memoria and catechismal piety There are a variety of key issues to consider here. We are dealing with reading skills and techniques during the early modern period. We are dealing with the relationship between orality and writing, text, speech and memory in the Danish-Norwegian society of the 1600s and 1700s. Also, we are dealing with the functions of the book and written texts in culture. In all of these areas it is easy to get our own concepts mixed up with the perceptions that held sway in societies that are less writing-based than our own. “Oral methods of reading and composition overlapped,” as Brian Stock said when commenting on Late Antiquity in Rome – another culture in which reading, memory, speech and text still blended into one another: “The audience ‘read’ what was ‘heard’ and ‘known’: the public reading was a ‘commemoration’. We possess an inadequate vocabulary for describing the oral qualities of such readings.”51 The medieval historian Mary Carruthers underscores the same complexity – and stresses the same danger of historical misunderstandings: A book is not necessarily the same thing as a text. ‘Texts’ are the material out of which human beings make ‘literature’. For us, texts only come in books, and so the distinction between the two is blurred and even lost. But, in a memorial culture, a ‘book’ is only one way among several to remember a ‘text’. […] So the book itself is a mnemonic, among many other functions it could also have.52

The testimonies from the Haugean revival seem to confirm the more detailed explanations from Stock and Carruthers, even in an early modern context. The basic distinction between orality and writing is not necessarily the most fruitful tool if we are to comprehend the reading practices related to catechismal piety. Generally speaking, catechismal piety has suffered from a prevailing tendency to judge it based on the categories applied in later times – 50

“Men de mine Venner som vil troe og giøre efter den hellige Skrift Bibelen […] saa formaner jeg eder, at I heller ikke tviler derpaa, men læser deri med den lille Cathechismo, og det ikke een gang, men mange, og bed om den Hellige Aands Oplysning, at de kan aandelig lære at forstaae det.” My emphasis. Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 1:104. 51 Stock, Augustine the Reader, 5–6. 52 Carruthers, Book of Memory, 8.

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whether these relate to the assessments of the pedagogical reformers who, in the 1700s and 1800s, attempted to institute a new kind of reader training, or to our own modern concepts of skills in reading, writing and the use of texts. However, the extensive scholarly research done over the past decades into the history of books and reading, specifically in the field of reading culture in early modern Europe, ought to have made it easier to understand the tradition of Nordic catechismal piety more on its own terms. One of the possible starting points for such a new analysis is, in fact, the very study by Mary Carruthers mentioned above, which deals with the rhetorical memoria tradition as it developed from Antiquity and up to the Late Middle Ages. 53 Unlike previous studies of this subject matter, Carruthers’ does not focus primarily on memoria as a theoretical discipline.54 Instead she concerns herself with tracing a set of general ideas and practices associated with reading, and with the memory’s mode of operation in the memoria tradition; practices which, over time, came to greatly influence Western culture. Her work should thus also have an immediate relevance outside the period she herself is studying – not least to a field like early modern reading culture, where the links back to the devotional life and text material of the Middle Ages are so obvious. Carruthers describes four central features in the memoria tradition that may also shed some light on catechismal piety as a method for acquiring and storing knowledge. We have already touched upon the first feature, namely the tendency to regard the book primarily as a mnemotechnical tool – as one of many potential receptacles for a text that, otherwise, could also be stored mentally, read meditatively, and passed on to others orally. The second feature has to do more specifically with the technique of memorization. One aspect shared by all of the memorization methods Carruthers describes is a preference for cutting up the text into short, easily manageable sequences, which are then committed to memory – in exactly the same way as Haugean readers and the Danish-Norwegian devotional literature consistently deal with the text of the Bible as a collection of disjointed aphorisms and sayings rather than as one continuous text; fragments that can later be reorganized depending on the needs of one’s memory and the given situation.55

53

Carruthers, Book of Memory; idem, Craft of Thought. The classic study on this is Yates, Art of Memory. 55 Cf. Carruthers, Book of Memory, 7: “The fundamental principle is to ‘divide’ the material to be remembered into pieces short enough to be recalled in single units and to key these into some sort of rigid, easily reconstructable order.” 54

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The importance of the third point is mainly one of principle – albeit it is also equally well known from the early modern sources. It has to do with another idea previously mentioned, namely that it is the memorization of a text that constitutes its actual realization, the true goal of writing. As Carruthers sums this up: “A work is not truly read until one has made it part of oneself [through memory] – that process constitutes a necessary part of its ‘textualization’.” She then proceeds to describe this in a way that could just as well have been used to explain the role of memory and memorization in the Danish-Norwegian catechismal ideology: Memoria was part of litteratura, indeed it was what literature, in a fundamental sense, was for. […] It was in trained memory that one built character, judgment, citizenship, and piety. Memoria also signifies the process through which a work of literature becomes institutionalized – internalized within the language and pedagogy of a group.56

Hans Poulsen Resen could not have agreed more. The most important of Carruthers’ four points is, however, the last one, which concerns the medieval understanding of memory as a creative process – an integrated part of the reader’s own production of meaning. The true aim of the memorization effort is not the actual storage of information, but the fact that storage enables the memorizer to personally reuse the text. No one would wish to retain quotations in their memory without at the same time knowing how to retrieve these text bites again. That is why, in reality, memoria belongs to the rhetorical discipline of inventio (the study of how the speaker finds his material), as Carruthers points out. Memoria, she explains, is the fundamental mechanism that enables us to search our consciousness for axioms, themes and figures that have been handed down to us, thereby allowing us to assemble them into a new linguistic totality. “Memoria is most usefully thought of as a compositional art. The arts of memory are among the arts of thinking, especially involved with fostering the qualities we now revere as ‘imagination’ and ‘creativity’.”57 In Carruthers’ material, memorization is never just about passive reception and recitation. Even in the simplest memorization, the reader is obliged to actively code the text fragments, so that the quotations can later rise to the surface during meditation or in the composition of new texts. Both the committing to memory and the reuse of text bites must therefore be understood as fundamentally creative processes, in which readers’ ability to establish new and meaningful links 56 57

Carruthers, Book of Memory, 9. Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 9.

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between the quotations in their conceptual world is continually being put to the test. The reading commoners of the early modern period did not share the sophisticated mnemotechnical framework used by the medieval monastic reader as described by Carruthers. Catechization itself was an exceedingly primitive, mechanistic technique of learning by rote. On the other hand, the religious readers in Denmark-Norway had the entire religious literature plus the preachings and teachings of the church to help them remember. For what was a life of Lutheran piety other than a continuous effort to imbue the various religious texts with meaning, depth and character – so that the believers themselves could make use of them in their own lives? As Pontoppidan emphasized, “we must […] through prayer, reflection and tribulation, impress the truth the more strongly upon our hearts.” Rhetorically speaking, what he is describing is precisely such a dual process of memorization and composition: In private devotions, the believers must simultaneously repeat and write anew the words of preaching for themselves, so that in their own hearts they can see the truth carried within the text. “As the Word is read, each person shall thus take such axioms well to mind that either write something particular in them, or which can more rightly concern him according to his particular condition, benefit and occasion,” recommends the anonymous author of A Christian Head of the Household.58 “When a piece of the Scripture is read or heard, then each person shall absorb it thus, as though it were said to himself. By this means each person can be well edified by every piece in the Word of God.”59 The explicitly mnemotechnical dimension in the believers’ devotional life is most clearly expressed in the casuistic devotional literature of the Baroque period. It is a literature that organizes prayers, sermons, or biblical text sequences according to recurring situations in daily life, one purpose of this being that the words will later be triggered automatically in these particular situations.60 In reality, however, it is fair to take the same 58 “I det Ordet læses, skal enhver særdeles ta saadanne sprog i god agt, som enten forfatte noget særdeles udi sig, eller hannem efter hans særdeles tilstand, nytte og leylighed mer kand angaae.” En Christelig Huus-Fader (see n. 26), 62. 59 “Naar et stykke af Skriften bliver læst eller hørt, da skal enhver saaledes optage det, som det var sagt til hannem selv. Ved dette middel kand enhver meget blive opbygget af hvert stykke i GUds Ord.” Ibid. 60 One motivation behind the structure used in Christen Ferring’s book from the 1640s, Aandelige Time-Glass (Spiritual Hour-Glass), which is constructed as a series of biblical contemplations linked to each of the clock’s twelve hours, is that “Allegorier, Parabler og Lignelser er baade lette å forstå og gode og ihukomme,

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perspective on the bulk of the sermonizing discourse. For instance, even the most dim-witted Danish-Norwegian reader or church-goer would intuitively associate the story of the Israelites’ walking through the Red Sea with baptism, or think of a household devotion when coming across the quote: “These words, which I command you today, shall be upon your heart.” The fixed patterns found in the sermonizing and devotional literature would, quite unavoidably, have laid down the premises for these readers’ memory and associational mental make-up. In this connection, however, intensive readers like the Haugeans were anything but dim-witted. The vast majority of ordinary readers would hardly have consistently lived up to the norms of intensive reading. But the characters portrayed in the Haugean biographies must be understood as virtuosos in the field of catechismal piety. They were readers who had been immersing themselves in religious language for years and who had, at their disposal, not only a huge mental library of text fragments, but also an infinite number of possible combinations of these fragments. They were also capable of pairing snippets of text with their own life experiences – accentuating things that were of special concern to them according to their “particular condition, benefit and occasion.” And thus, in reality, these readers also possessed an extraordinary power to generate new meaning out of the firmly established religious language, by virtue of continuously retrieving the language and applying it in novel and very personal situations. It is by accessing this power of memory that Ole T. Svanøen experiences his redemption, as he is working in the field, thinking of the tears and the seed, and suddenly feels the words rushing into him. It is this power that can keep believers awake at night, as one compelling phrase after another comes to them in the darkness: “and then this passage came to me …” And it is the same power Hans Nielsen Hauge describes when looking back many years later upon his early years as a preacher and writer, thinking of all the strange and foreign thoughts that filled him then:

besynderlig efterdi de ere efter de 12 klokkeslett forestillet. Thi når de tit og ofte repeteres og igientages, som og disse 12 timer repeteres, da kand disse allegorier snarere ihukommes og læres uden ad.” [“Allegories, parables and similes are both easy to understand and good to remember, particularly since they are represented after the 12 strokes of the clock. For when they are oft repeated and reiterated, as also these 12 hours are repeated, then these allegories can more quickly be remembered and learned by heart.”] Danish quote from Appel, “Når du sår dit korn”, 239. On the casuistics, see also, for instance, Hansson, Språk för själen; Lindquist, Den svenska andaktslitteraturen, 258–69.

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While I was setting down my first writings, many Bible sayings came into my mind that I did not know I had read, unless perhaps in my childhood, and detailed sentences that arrived into my thoughts, whence I do not know; indeed, both when I was writing and speaking for the edification of others, it fell so easily to my memory to perform and tie together godly speeches that I knew not whence they came, and many who knew me as a layman were filled with wonderment at it.61

Memoria and Haugeanism Approaching the issue from the perspective of the memoria tradition can shed new light on a number of the Haugeans’ religious experiences and practices. It is hardly coincidental, for example, that so many of the converts describe their actual conversion as a breakthrough in reading, experiencing a new level of depth, strength and intensity in their understanding of the religious language. We have already heard Hauge describe this as his “desire to read in the Holy Scripture” in the spring months of 1796, his discovery of a “new light to understand it, and tie together all the learnings of God’s men to … one goal”62 – as well as this abundance of new “Bible sayings [that] came into my mind that I did not know I had read.” The principles of memoria also help us to understand the structure underlying the sermonizing texts of Hauge and the Haugeans. To the bewilderment of broadly educated, sophisticated contemporary readers, these texts developed associatively and cumulatively rather than following a line of reasoning. They unfolded through the incessant linking of new passages from the Bible, which followed one after the other, precisely after the manner in which the meditative memory operates. 63 The common background of these Haugean texts, which are all rooted in the memorizing practices of catechismal piety, also provides an explanation of their astonishing similarities: Even new converts would very quickly be able to

61

“Da jeg skrev paa mine første Skrifter da faldt mig mange Bibelsprog paa Sinde, som jeg ikke vidste jag havde læst, uten muligt i min Barndom, og grundige Sætninger, som jeg ikke vidste hvorfra de kom mig i Tanker, ja baade naar jeg skrev og talede til Opbyggelse for andre, da faldt det saa let for min Hukommelse at udføre og sammenbinde gudelige Taler, saa jeg ikke vidste hvor de kom fra, og mange der kjendte mig for en læg mand, forundrede sig derover.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:131. 62 See n. 22. 63 For a more detailed description of this rhetoric in Hauge’s early texts, see Gundersen, Om å ta Ordet.

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write letters or conduct speeches that gave the impression of an intimate knowledge of the revival’s rhetorical patterns.64 Certain Haugean book publications can also be linked to the memoria tradition. In 1798, Hauge published Anviisning til Nogle Mærkelige Sprog i Bibelen (Instruction on Several Remarkable Sayings in the Bible), following this up two years later with Tilæg til Bibelanviisningen (Supplement to the Bible Instruction). These two booklets are nothing but an interminable list of Scripture passages, 2260 in all, listed with just the first words of each quotation, but with complete text references and appearing in the order they are presented in the Bible itself. Commentators have wondered what purpose Hauge could have intended these two publications to fulfil, but seen in the light of our context here, they are less enigmatic: The two Bible instructions obviously belong within one of the oldest and most well-established genres of religious and rhetorical texts springing from the memoria tradition. They are, quite simply, commonplace books: rhetorical topics, treasure troves, collections of set phrases that the speaker – or the reader – may find particularly useful or “remarkable” (that is to say, memorable or noteworthy, in the sense in which we saw this word used earlier). Learned men had been keeping and using such books for hundreds of years. Here, again, we see Hauge and his two Bible instructions revealing some of the surprising connections linking medieval monastic practices, the literary Renaissance ideals, and the early modern devotional life among the common people.65 Perhaps now we are also able to see more clearly what it is Hans Nielsen Hauge is doing when he meets Strong Nils in the crowded room at Skoe. He is remembering. He is quoting. And he is also composing; composing a personal sermon, improvised on his own, for the nowweakened giant. “Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy is everlasting,” the lay preacher begins – quoting 1 Chronicles, 16:34. “He does not delight in the strength of the horse, nor take pleasure in the legs of a man,” he continues, once again quoting the Bible, this time the Book of Psalms, 64

See, for instance, the newly converted rural sheriff Iver Monssen’s letter to the provost Erich Steenbuch, dated November 1799, which is reproduced in Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 2: 194. It is likewise interesting to observe the similarities between the Haugeans’ written rhetoric and the rhetoric we find in parallel, but independent revivals in Denmark, cf. the examples collected in Niels Thomsen, De stærke jyder og Haugeanerne. Breve fra en vækkelse (Copenhagen: Gad, 1960). 65 On the connection between the memoria and commonplace traditions, see Carruthers, Book of Memory, 174–88. On the commonplace tradition from the Renaissance and later, see Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books; Crane, Framing Authority.

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147:10.66 Face to face with Strong Nils, Hauge retrieves two separate bits of text, then reassembles them into a new linguistic entity that is precisely adapted to the recipient, to his situation, and to the relation Hauge wishes to create between himself and Nils Olsson. The medium for this process is the preacher’s own memory – and the various constellations of writings, interpretations and life experiences that have inscribed themselves there over time. The role of Strong Nils is more complex. Initially he is the listener, who receives the two sentences as a statement made to him in particular, and is touched by the travelling lay preacher’s words of consolation. It could be that the words themselves are what made such a strong impression on him, for it is fully possible to understand Hauge’s address without having the slightest idea of their biblical context. Even so, considering Nils Olsson’s reaction, the most probable explanation is that he has, in fact, understood what Hauge is doing with his words, and that he is conscious of this and is touched by the very complexity of the communication. If that is the case, then there are also a number of other roles that come into play for Strong Nils. He is, simultaneously, the one who is receiving the consolation from Hauge, recognizing the sentences as part of the Scripture, as God’s words to him (thereby also partially taking the position of the reader in the given communicative situation), and appreciating the skill exhibited by Hauge in being able to retrieve and combine these sentences. Regarding the question of Hans Nielsen Hauge’s own authority as a preacher, the statement he directs at Nils Olsson is also performative. It is not merely preaching but also, on Hauge’s part, a demand that his words be regarded as preaching, a demonstration of the capacity for reading and believing that characterizes one who is called to teach. However, this performative aspect is of no value without Nils Olsson – for without a listener who accepts the validity of the linguistic act, the performativity is meaningless. This is the last of Strong Nils’s roles in the dialogue: that of the listener with the power to approve the ambitious form of expression that Hauge lays claim to, and to accept the religious authority that the address demands for itself. And that, too, is what brings on the tears: The old man had walked many miles to see whether this person was the one he had been waiting for. Now he understood that all his effort had been worthwhile. The Haugeans were religious virtuosos, as we have seen, yet at the same time in their capacity as preachers they were completely dependent on recognition from a larger circle; from an audience of readers among the 66

See n. 4.

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common people who were well enough acquainted with the codes of catechismal piety to understand the rhetorical mechanisms that the Haugeans set in motion – even though these readers themselves were not necessarily able to juggle religious language the same way the lay preachers did. Without the participation and complicity of the common religious reader, the Haugean sermons and texts would have been of little value. The fact that the Haugean revival spread so quickly and so widely also testifies to the continued strength of catechismal piety and its ideals among the Norwegian common people, even at the end of the 1700s, on the very threshold of the modern age.

Epilogue: Reading as conflict It should be remembered that the strong position these ideals enjoyed did not mean they were uncontroversial. Quite the contrary, in fact. The history of reading teaches us that reading is always a cultural construction, and is continually subjected to historical changes. Something that is perhaps less obvious to many is that reading is also often political in nature – a locus of central cultural, social or value-based conflicts. This is certainly true of the period we are dealing with here. During the final decades of the 1700s we can see how the ideals that had supported early modern religious reading among the common people in Denmark-Norway came under increasing cultural pressure from above. A series of school and church reforms as well as an ongoing pedagogical debate were openly questioning the didactics and core texts of catechismal piety. 67 At the university in Copenhagen, rationalist theology was on the rise. During the 1780s, a book by the court chaplain Christian Bastholm entitled Forsøg til en forbedret Plan i den udvortes Gudstjeneste (Attempt at an Improved Guideline for the Worship Service) gave rise to a heated debate about the need for modernizing and secularizing the liturgy of the church.68 In 1798, the new enlightenment-era publication Evangelisk-Christelig Psalmebog (Evangelical-Christian Hymnal) was finally approved for use in congregations all across Denmark-Norway. The dogmas of the old days were gradually becoming the superstition of the new era, as new ideals of reading were becoming more firmly entrenched. Looking at the enlightened clergy’s assessment of Haugeanism during the years around 1800 we can see how these conflicts have a direct impact. The pastors themselves were fully aware of the link between the 67 68

See Markussen, Visdommens lænker. Cf. Kornerup, “Oplysningstiden”, 397–409.

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devotional reading handed down from earlier times and the Haugean practices – and they did not like it. Hauge’s numerous writings contain “mystical fanaticism”, as the bishop Matthias Bonsach Krogh asserted in 1804, adding “but this is also found in other [books] which, unprotested, are in the hands of the common people, and which will remain there until better illumination supplants them.”69 The poet and pastor Claus Frimann concurred: Of such malformed foetuses as this postil of Hauge’s, one would wish the common people to be spared, for it has more than enough already of mysticism and superstition in the old devotional books, which – as we unfortunately see – are constantly being born anew through new editions, and which so mightily obstruct the propagation of purified taste and the spirit of enlightenment among them.70

Ultimately, these conflicts were to have fatal consequences for Hauge’s project. All indications show that the specific cause for his arrest in the autumn of 1804 was a communication to the chancellery in Copenhagen sent by Peder Hansen, the bishop of Kristiansand diocese, in which Hansen pointed out a series of blameworthy circumstances relating to the revival movement, including its business undertakings and attacks on the clergy. Several of these points were later pursued in the indictment against Hauge. However, the item that Hansen himself referred to as the basis for his letter was a report he had received earlier that year from a certain Pastor Heiberg of Rennesøy. This report recounted a number of conflicts between the pastor and the Haugeans in the village. And what was the topic of these conflicts? The Haugeans’ consistent sabotage of the patriotic reading association that Pastor Heiberg, at the behest of the bishop, had attempted to establish in the local community. 71 In other words, the intensive readers had resisted the dictate of extensive reading – and they would have to pay the price. So even though the obligation of Haugeanism towards the traditional reading culture is a key to understanding its

69

“Mystisk Sværmerie” … “men dette findes og i andre [bøger], der upaaankede er i Almuens Hænder, og vil blive det, indtil bedre Oplysning fortrænger dem.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:54. 70 “For saadanne vanskabte fostere, som denne Hauges Postil, maatte nok Almuen forskaanes, da den har saa nok tilforn af Mystik og Overtroe i de gamle Andagtsbøger, der stedse, – som man desværre ser – ved nye Oplag fødes paa nye, og saa vældeligt hindre renset Smag og Oplysning Aand at udbrede sig blandt den.” Original text quoted after Aarflot, Tro og lydighet, 28. 71 Cf. Byberg, Biskopen, bøndene og bøkene, 59–62.

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success, this obligation also, in its own way, contributed to the revival’s demise. There is a major historical paradox beneath these conflicts. When, in the 1620s and 1630s, the bishop Hans Poulsen Resen actively professed how excellent the Small Catechism was for instructing and educating the common people, he was evidently motivated by an ambition to discipline the people. Even so, much of the evidence suggests that at the same time Resen was formulating a set of ideals for reading that he himself shared and practiced, rooted in the principles of the memoria tradition. Later, moving forward to the years around 1800, this had ceased to be the case. It was no longer the university-trained clergymen who were mnemonic magicians, but the lay people themselves. As the clerics increasingly moved away from the ideals of catechismal piety during the 1700s, a new field of possibilities began to emerge in the Danish-Norwegian cultural landscape, with a potential that the Haugeans very consciously exploited: The potential for catechismal piety to become counter-culture. Now – be it only for a brief moment in history – the old tools of discipline could be refashioned into tools for generating conflict and cultural autonomy. It is this very last point we must focus on when again recalling the conversation between Hans Nielsen Hauge and Strong Nils: Its antagonistic quality, its resemblance to a battle. The preacher employs his memory and his biblical expertise to conquer an opponent who, we must imagine, held an exceptional position in the local society. We come across similar battle scenarios time and again in the Haugean sources. In those scenarios, however, the opponents are no longer hesitant peasants, but representatives of the authorities. When confronting the power exerted by the pastor, the bailiff or the sheriff, Hauge and the other Haugean preachers consistently resorted to the power they could access by means of reading and using their memory: the power of biblical Scripture. This power may not have been very tangible. In principle it nevertheless remained unassailable, as was, indeed, made painfully clear to a succession of frustrated authority figures: “But tell me, how have you built [your house], that it could fall so quickly?” Hauge enquired of two pastors and a ringer in Nes in the Hallingdal valley, who had accused the lay preacher of ruining their work in their village. “It seems your building did not stand upon the rock.” As the peasant’s son later stated in his memoirs, hinting at his contentment with the victory: “After that they bade me leave again, although earlier they had ordered the sheriff to arrest me.”72 We find 72 “Hvorledes haver I da bygget, naar det saa hastig kunde falle?” ... “Eders Bygning har da vist ikke staaet paa Klippen” ... “Derefter bad de meg at gaae igien,

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the same triumphant undertone in Hauge’s description of a far more decisive confrontation, this time with none other than the bishop Johan Christian Schønheyder (1742–1803), which took place during the official village assembly at Melhus in December of 1799. On this occasion the bishop, who had long been annoyed with the peasant preacher, sought to strip Hauge of his authority once and for all: [The bishop] claimed that I should not speak the word of God, or speak of religion […] He claimed, from 1 Cor. 7, that every man should abide in his calling. I responded: ‘The subsequent verse clarifies the apostle’s meaning with this: Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.’ He said: Be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. Jas. 3. I replied [this]: that everyone could teach, everyone give direction, everyone edify, 1 Cor. 14.73

This exchange plays itself out like hand-to-hand combat – a duel between two men who are equally capable wielding the finely honed weapon of the biblical quotation. The drama and fast pace in this confrontation makes it easy to forget the most remarkable aspect of the whole scenario: the fact that this son of a peasant is actually engaging in battle. That he is retorting, fighting back. Without hesitation this young, autodidact man is raising his voice against one of the Danish-Norwegian church’s most erudite and most highly respected figures, the aging Bishop Schønheyder – a man who, while still a student, had impressed all of Copenhagen with his ability to read no fewer than 11 different languages, five of which he also spoke.74 And now here was the bishop, at a loss for words. This episode bears witness to how radically religious language, if appropriately applied, could sweep authority aside. We can hardly wonder at the fact that lesser men than Schønheyder – men who were also less important, and less well-versed in the Bible – could react with fury or violence against the Haugeans’ particular and peculiar brand of passive endskiønt de forhen havde beordet Lensmannen at arrestere mig.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:23. 73 “[Biskopen] paastod at jeg ikke skulde tale Guds Ord eller om religionen […], han paastod af 1. Cor. 7, at hver skulde blive i sit Kald. Jeg svarede: det efterfølgende Vers oplyser Apostelens Mening dermed: Er du en Tjener saa bliv i Tjenesten, men kan Du blive fri, saa brug det heller. Han sagde: vorder dem ikke mange Lærere, at I skulle ikke faa des overflødigere Dom, Jak. 3. Jeg svarede: at alle kunne lære, alle formane, alle opbygge, I Cor. 14.” Hauges skrifter (see n. 13), 6:17–18. 74 Dansk biografisk Lexikon, ed. C.F. Bricka. 19 vols. (Copenhagen, 1887–1905), 15:441.

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linguistic resistance. Or that an audience of commoners could be swept off their feet by the thrill of witnessing such audacity. In Bergen sat another ageing bishop who had been through a close encounter with Hauge and the Haugeans: the former writer and dramatist Johan Nordal Brun (1745– 1816). He had little sympathy for the world-view and the rhetorical habits of the converts. And yet Brun was enough of a transitional figure between the old era and the new to clearly understand the root causes of the Haugeans’ success, and to identify the cultural watershed they represented: They [the Haugeans] had no talent, unless one would so call it, to know a great quantity of the Bible by heart; and yet it is a talent I would still heartily wish for our graduates and new pastors, most of whom without paper could hardly quote a phrase using the Bible’s own words, and who give us muddled excerpts thereof.75

– Translated by Heidi Flegal

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“De [haugeanerne] have intet Talent, uden man vilde kalde det saa, at vide en Hoben udenad af Bibelen, et Talent dog allikevel, jeg hjertelig vilde ønske vore Kandidater og nye Prester, blandt hvilke de Fleste udenfor Papiret neppe kunde citere et Sprog med Bibelens egne Ord, og giver os deraf forplumrede Uddrag.” Quoted after Aarflot, Tro og lydighet, 26.

CHAPTER EIGHT POPULAR EDUCATION AND RELIGIOUS READING IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY SWEDEN DANIEL LINDMARK

Popular education in early modern Sweden served as an integral part of the country’s established religious reading culture. Organized by the Lutheran Church, popular education augmented lessons in reading and Christian doctrine with a selection of religious texts. Popular education aimed at providing the population with the skills necessary for reading and understanding these books. Popular education thus created and maintained a religious reading culture founded upon a carefully chosen set of books.1 In this article, I will present the Swedish system of popular education, paying particular regard to the books employed. Which books were used in popular education, and how were they used? After presenting the basic literature and its role in the educational system, I will survey other books in use, and discuss the practice of book rewards. The empirical basis of the article is generally restricted to replies from pastors to a questionnaire that the State Committee on Education distributed in 1813. At the outset, the present essay utilizes responses from the rural parishes of Kalmar Diocese, but the subsequent analyses of book distribution, reading interest and book rewards will take into account numerous questionnaires submitted by 1

The history of religious reading in Sweden is closely connected to Egil Johansson’s groundbreaking research. See Johansson, History of Literacy. Interpretations of Johansson’s contributions to the research field, as well as presentations of the research infrastructure he created at Umeå University, can be found in Lindmark, Alphabeta Varia; Graff et al., Understanding Literacy; and Lindmark, Reading, Writing. Studies of specific books used in popular education are represented by Wilke, ABC-Bücher in Schweden (ABC-books); Lilja, Den svenska katekestraditionen (catechisms); and Pleijel, Olsson and Svensson, Våra äldsta folkböcker (hymnals and Bibles).

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pastors throughout Sweden.

The ecclesiastical system of popular education Since the Middle Ages, popular education in Sweden had been based on orally transmitted texts such as the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and a variety of other prayers. Lessons were aimed at teaching the texts most central to church services and private devotions. Even after the Reformation, popular education would maintain this course, evident in the design of the oldest ABC-books, which continued to transmit the traditional texts in printed form. The seventeenth century was characterized by confessionalization, which attempted to solidify national solidarity through a more potent confessional unity. The teachings of Luther were to be embraced by the entire population, a project which required a special, concerted effort. An increase in the dogmatic subject matter of popular education could not be built on oral transmission, but rather demanded more effective teaching techniques. Towards the end of the century, a literacy campaign was undertaken which, in just a few generations, would transform the subjects of the Swedish crown into one of the most literate peoples on earth. The increased amount of material employed in ecclesiastical education led to a two-stage development of the ABC-book texts, essentially identical with the fundamental texts in Luther’s Small Catechism, but complemented by a series of questions and answers. The first stage was a special edition of the catechism itself, and the second was the “exposition of the catechism” (katekesutvecklingen), a book of questions and answers that delved deeper into the catechism’s teaching. Olaus Svebilius’s work Enfaldig Förklaring öfwer Lutheri lilla Catechismum (Simple Explanation of Luther’s Small Catechism) came into common use after its publication in 1689, though it was not granted official approval until 1773. The model can be said to mirror the oral, Socratic teaching tradition, even if the deductive method of developing elementary doctrines into increasingly more complicated dogmatic positions belonged more to the textbookbased teaching tradition. The division of the material into three different levels, or categories, corresponded with the progression of skills, from reading directly from a text through memorization to reading comprehension. Initial literacy was achieved in the encounter with the ABC-book’s texts, many of which were already known by heart to any child taking reading lessons. The Small Catechism was to be memorized, and its subsequent explanation served to test and develop the child’s understanding of the material read. This

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tripartite division had been recommended in the Church Law of 1686, which specified that catechism lessons were to be conducted in concert with home testing carried out by the local cleric, the test results being entered into a special ledger divided into categories of proficiency according to a grading system. During the course of the eighteenth century, the desired skills in this concentric, three-step pedagogy came to be widely designated “reading” (innanläsning), “reciting from memory” (utanläsning), and “comprehension” (begrepp), the last of which referred to the ability to process the material, to create and understand categories of thought. Even more succinctly, the content of popular education could be expressed as: the child “reads” (läser) and “understands” (förstår). In that case, however, the term “reads” would embrace the dual meaning of reading both “from a book” (innan) and “without a book” (utan), so to speak. This bolstering the content of popular education during the eighteenth century was followed by changes to the rungs in the skills ladder. This meant that not only were the words of Luther’s text to be committed to memory, but also the explication and additional texts such as Luther’s Table of Duties (hustavla) and the Athanasian Creed. This development reflects a pedagogical conundrum, with voices protesting that the amount of text ought to be limited but the skills themselves accentuated. The introductory instructions to the catechism of 1810 state quite clearly that memorization was not to be carried out at the cost of literacy and understanding. The charter of the parish school in Ljungby emphasized that in class, the teacher was to accustom the children to “constantly thinking about what they read”,2 encouraging them to “strive to grasp word-understanding”,3 that is, to take in the literal meaning of each word. However, some contracts stipulated that the teacher be paid a wage after each book was completed, which sped up lessons in a manner detrimental to allowing skills to develop, particularly insofar as “grasping the concepts” was concerned.4 This new emphasis on skills was manifest in the changes made to the disposition of the church examination registers (husförhörslängder) kept in the decades around the turn of the century (allowing for time differences from diocese to diocese). Where once the notations were structured in a meticulous system of columns according to 2

“ständigt tänka på det de läsa.” “vinnlägga sig at fatta orda-förståndet.” Addendum to reply from Ljungby. The 1812 State Committee on Education (1812 års uppfostringskommitté; hereafter cited as SCE 1812), Documents from the Consistories, EIIb:6, p. 113. National Archives, Stockholm. 4 “vid begrepens danande.” Reply from Smedby. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 185. 3

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the various catechism texts, new headings were being used to reflect different skill sets: reading, reciting from memory, and comprehension. Responses to the questionnaire received from Kalmar Diocese indicate that reading, reciting by heart, and comprehension are indeed the categories by which the clerics rated children’s educational progress. Anders Fornander of Gärdlösa comments that “the children, with very few exceptions, both in reading aloud and recitation, as well as in comprehension, are satisfactorily advanced.”5 Comprehension was especially close to the hearts of the clergy. The majority of lessons were, of course, conducted in the home, either by the parish clerk (klockare) or in other informal manners, and they seldom went beyond practising reading and memorizing the catechism. It thus fell to the pastors at catechetical meetings in the homes and in church (husförhör and kyrkoförhör), especially when preparing children for their First Communion (nattvardsläsning), to complement the lessons with the correct understanding of the material read. The responsibility of the pastor is made clear in the questionnaire submitted by Nils Rosendal of Runsten, who relates that during Shrovetide, the parish clergy take pains to impress upon the children a “correct and distinct comprehension of the blessed teachings.”6 The aim was to get the children to see the truth and benefits of gaining knowledge of Christianity, enabling them to apply this “to life and daily intercourse.”7 It is this practical application of the Faith that becomes an increasingly important aim of lessons taught in the latter half of the eighteenth century. To fulfil that aim, lessons had to appeal to the pupils’ intellect and their will, which is evident in oft-used expressions like “enlightenment of the mind and improvement of the heart.”8 No Kalmar pastor articulated the benefits of catechism lessons as eloquently as Henrik Johan Gummerus of Högby. He begins by reporting that lessons organized by the congregation preparing children for First Communion (“scripture school”, skriftskola), are designed “in a manner suitable to both intellect and will”,9 and goes on to praise the new catechism of 1810, which not only contains all necessary knowledge, but is furthermore 5

“Ungdommen, med högst få undantag, så väl i innan- och utanläsning, som ock i begreppet är försvarligt avancerad.” Reply from Gärdslösa. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 143. 6 “rätta och tydliga begrepp i salighets Läran.” 7 “uti lefvernet och dagliga umgenget.” Reply from Runsten. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 150. 8 “förståndets upplysning och hjärtats förbättring.” 9 “på ett för förståndet och viljan lämpligt sätt.”

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so accessible and intelligible to each and every one, so rich in enlightenment of the mind and inducements for the heart to seek its betterment, especially when the teacher with discernment recites and extrapolates on all the elementary notions extant therein, that I for my part wish to follow them, and consider that the knowledge of Christianity and ethics, acquired thereof, corresponds to the needs of the members of this congregation.10

The demand for more time dedicated to ethics was the main driving force behind the new catechism in 1810. Here, the word “ethics” (sedoläran) is used to denote mankind’s duties to God, himself and his fellow man; the moral law which could be perceived as the very core of all religions, but which in Christianity had achieved its most consummate form.

Popular education: the responsibility of parents, parish clerks and pastors The Church Law of 1686 declared three groups to be responsible for the education of the children of each parish: parents, parish clerks and pastors. In Sweden, parish clerks generally received little pay, so they were usually compelled to support themselves by farming and performing tasks such as blood-letting and inoculation. They were therefore not the most reliable group from which to recruit teaching staff. In their responses to the questionnaire, pastors confirm that they are familiar with the provision concerning their clerks’ pedagogical duties, and state the reasons why these duties are, quite obviously, not being fulfilled as the law intended. Suitability for teaching does not always seem to have been the highest of priorities when hiring a parish clerk. In some parishes the clerk was old and infirm, and the pastors express their intention to recruit qualified teaching staff when the serving clerk retires. In places like Åby, Kristvalla, Madesjö, Borgholm, Köping and Runsten, clerks are reported to be fulfilling their teaching duties, although the degree of fulfilment is unclear. If nothing else, these vague formulations reflect the perplexity the clergy felt at the imperfect observance of the crystal-clear intent of the law. In 10

“så enkel och fattlig för hvar och en, så rik på upplysning för förståndet och bevekelsegrunder för hjertat till förbättring, hälst Läraren med urskillning uppläser och utvecklar alla deri befintliga enkla begrep, att jag för min del önskar i alla delar kunna föllja dem, och anser äfven i anledning deraf de kunskaper i Christendomen och sedoläran, som derutur hemtas vara svarande mot invånarnes behof i denna Församling.” Reply from Högby. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 122.

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Döderhult, Söderåkra, Högby and Persnäs, the clerks tested the pupils’ grasp of the catechism in Sunday schools, while in Förlösa, Torsås and Glömminge they apparently did so in connection with the preparation for First Communion. It may well be that only in Ås and Ventlinge were the clerks conducting anything that could be justly characterized as “teaching”, for it is here we learn that, “as an unconditional task”,11 the parish clerk was responsible for lessons, which nevertheless stretched no further than plain and clear reading from the catechism, Bible and hymnal, as well as reciting by heart the holy truths of the religion according to Dr. Luther’s catechism and Dr. Svebelius’s explanation, in addition to a proper singing of the church hymns.12

However, in the parish of Ås and Ventlinge the sheer number of children had meant that more schools had to be built. In addition, in Ås the organist and cantor Jonas Collin took the helm of a school that also gave instruction in penmanship, arithmetic and music. In 1813, the majority of the schooling done in Kalmar Diocese took place in private homes, as evidenced in the numbers culled from the submitted questionnaires. “Most are taught by their own parents” states the reply from Kristvalla,13 while lessons in Mönstrås are almost exclusively “in the hands of parents and relatives.”14 The situation is the same in Böda, where lessons are attended to “either by the parents themselves, or by an elderly matron living in the house.”15 Perhaps the extent to which parents have assumed this responsibility is best expressed in this response from Löt, a village that had no educational facilities at all. Hence, the parents have, for many years, been accustomed to teaching their children to properly read from a book and to recite the catechism of Doctor 11

“såsom en ovillkorlig pligt.” “som likväl icke sträkt sig längre, än til redig ock tydelig innan läsning uti Cateches, Bibel ock Psalmbok samt färdig utanläsning af religionens heliga sanningar efter D. Lutheri Cateches ock D. Svebelii Förklaring jämte Kyrkopsalmernes rigtiga afsjungning.” Reply from Ås and Ventlinge. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 183. 13 “De fläste undervisas af Föräldrarna sjelfva.” Reply from Kristvalla. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 49. 14 “lemnad i Föräldrars och anhöriges händer.” Reply from Mönsterås. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 65. 15 “antingen af föräldrarna sjelfwa, eller af någon Inhyses äldre hustru.” Reply from Böda. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 119. 12

Popular Education and Religious Reading in Early 19th-Century Sweden 197 Luther and the Explanation of Svebelius, and those who can count and write have, in addition, taught not only their own children, but even those of their neighbours.16

And as a matter of fact, the local pastor, Jonas Ekström, claims in his response to be very pleased with the results, in the form of solid reading skills and a sound grasp of the tenets of the Christian religion. The responsibility of the parents is also evident in parishes where either the clerk is in charge of teaching, or some other form of schooling exists. In Döderhult many parents chose not to take advantage of the “itinerant schools” (ambulerande skolor) that would pass through. In Dean Bäckström’s assessment, the parents exhibited keenness and efficiency, so that “it appears no other source of schooling with similar success can be imagined.”17 Pehr Hultén of Torsås, however, was of a very different opinion, bemoaning the fact that parents took over teaching from the itinerant schoolmasters far too early on, indeed even before their children had learned to read. In doing so “most of the parents are their own children’s schoolmasters, and since still ignorant and feeble-minded themselves pass this on to the children.”18 In most congregations some sort of informal education was offered, which usually meant that some member of the community, most likely an elderly person who was beyond performing strenuous physical labour, took on the job in exchange for a small remuneration. Sometime such arrangements were resolved formally at parish assemblies or sanctioned by the pastor, but others appear to have arisen more spontaneously on the initiative of a single individual. It was often women who undertook to give the children lessons, as was the case in Källa, where lessons were attended to “either by the parents themselves, or by a matron with lodgings in the village, whom the pastor has interrogated and found most capable.”19 In many instances the quality of the teaching left much to be desired. 16

“Föräldrarne, hafva derföre, ifrån lång tid tillbaka, varit vana vid, at sjelfve lära sina Barn redigt läsa i Bok samt utan till Doctor Lutheri Cateches och Svebelii Förklaring, och de som kunna räkna och skrifva, hafva ej endast häruti undervist sina egna Barn, utan äfven andras.” Reply from Löt. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 130. 17 “synes ej någon annan Skoleinrättning med önskad framgång kunna påtänkas.” Reply from Döderhult. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 71. 18 “äro de fleste föräldrar altjämt sjelfve Barnens Läromästare och såsom sjelfve okunnoge och klene blir altid fölgden samma hos Barnen.” Reply from Torsås. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 89. 19 “antingen af Föräldrarne sjelfva, eller af någon innom byen eller Roten boende Inhyses Hustru, som af Pastor blifvit förhörd och dertill mäst tjenlig ansedd.” Reply from Källa. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 117.

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While Eric Hoflund, the dean of Källa, could write that “the majority of children in this congregation read quite clearly both from a book and from memory”,20 Pastor Lindwall of Ryssby nevertheless stated that the children who lived furthest from the schoolhouse received instruction from other individuals, women in particular, though this amounted to little more than “poor reading from a book” and reciting from the catechism, “just as wretchedly.”21 Many of the responses from Kalmar Diocese are not merely long and detailed. On several points they also contain information unique to the material as a whole. This is certainly the case with Dean Segrelius’s meticulous account of confirmation classes in Förlösa. His exhaustive description can also be cited as a typical example of the clergy’s responsibility for popular education. After the “schoolmistresses” (läromästarinnorna) selected by Segrelius had trained the children in reading and Christianity according to the catechism, the dean took over responsibility for pupils aged twelve and thirteen who displayed sufficient skills. For two or three years the children attended a kind of three-class confirmation school held by the dean at the vicarage, each year for two to three weeks around Midsummer. Classes ran six days a week, beginning between six and seven in the morning each day with hymns and morning prayers. Reading took up the rest of the morning, with a fifteen-minute break for breakfast at eight. After lunch at noon, class was recessed until one-thirty in the afternoon. The boys and girls played separately, and the dean noted contentedly that “this recess has encouraged their childishness, so that they are perfectly willing and happy to read for the remainder of the day.”22 Lessons continued until six in the evening, when supper was served. Naturally, grace was said at all meals. After dinner, the day’s reading was reviewed and examined, and Dean Segrelius took the opportunity to explain terms and concepts like article or sacrament. The day concluded as it began, with hymns and prayers, and after being admonished not to squabble on the way, the children were sent home with their homework. When autumn approached, the children returned for a refresher course, which meant that they needed to retain what they had learned in the summer, especially since the examinations were held before an audience. At the age of fifteen, sixteen or seventeen, the pupils could 20

“Störste delen af Ungdomen innom denna Församling läsa ganska redigt både i Bok och utantill.” 21 “en ömklig Läsning i Bok” and “lika eländigt.” Reply from Ryssby. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 39. 22 “Denna fritimma har uppmuntrat deras barnslighet så, att de blifwit rätt williga och muntra att läsa hela dagen sedan.” Reply from Förlösa. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 45.

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ask to receive Holy Communion themselves for the first time. Lessons in Dean Segrelius’s confirmation school consisted of Luther’s Small Catechism and its exposition, although the most gifted pupils also received instruction in Luther’s Table of Duties, the Athanasian Creed and the Penitential Psalms of King David. The lessons themselves, intended to “familiarize the children with the sayings” and make them “understand what they mean”, were tailored to each child’s individual capabilities insofar as “memory, intellect and understanding” were concerned.23 The division into classes reflects the level of each child’s ability to pick up and retain this knowledge, with the “quick, the middling and the slow each to his own.”24 Lessons continued until the children had succeeded in committing the entire catechism to memory. They were also taught Bible verses, especially those quoted in the catechism, and near the end of their schooling they were taught how to navigate all the books of the Bible. This aspect of their education was one that “amused them to no end.”25 A number of psalm verses from the Hymnal of 1695 were usually learned by heart: 30:3, 41:6–7, 43:3, 86:4, 99:2, 107:5, 144:4–5, and 200:5, as well as psalms 95, 112, 143, 198, 247, 260 and 261 in their entirety. Each day hymn 330, the Children’s Hymn by Jesper Swedberg, was sung at evening prayers, which concluded with verse four of hymn 241. This information about the role of hymns in education is quite unique, offering us a glimpse into exactly which sections of the hymnal were being imprinted upon the minds of children learning literacy around 1813.

The hymnal, the Bible and other religious narratives As described above, popular religious literature was not restricted to ABCbooks and the catechism.26 Religious texts that enjoyed increasing popularity as reading material included the hymnal and the Bible, even though the latter would not become widespread until the nineteenth century, when Bible societies began distributing large numbers of the holy book. In contrast to the Bible, the hymnal was already in mass circulation by the seventeenth century. Normally each household would have two hymnals: one for the women and one for the men, in accordance with the strict division of the sexes at church services. The practical function of the 23

“lära känna talesätten”; “begripa orda-förståndet”; and “minne, förstånd och fattningsgåfwa.” 24 “De fortgående, medelmåttiga och långsamma hwar för sig.” 25 “roat dem otroligt.” 26 A more comprehensive Swedish-language version of this section has previously been published in Lindmark, Puritanismen och lättsinnet, 33–38.

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hymnal made it a significant volume of popular literature that was in steady demand. The thousand-odd pages of the hymnal’s 1695 edition offered a wide array of subject matter for community singing, reading practice, and advanced studies in Christianity. In addition, of course, it also fulfilled an important function for children preparing for their First Communion, as clearly demonstrated in Dean Segrelius’s questionnaire response. In Järvsö Parish, a part of Uppsala Diocese, the parish school extensively used hymn texts as reading material for its second graders, while pupils in the first grade did exercises in their ABC-book, and the Bible and texts in Latin script awaited third graders. Second-grade lessons were restricted to reading the catechism; and after ten run-throughs, the pupils were expected to have committed it to memory. Alongside this, the hymnal fulfilled an important function with its broad variety of texts. Before lunch all read the catechisms, and after lunch all read the church hymns, the Gospels, the Story of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, the Description of the Destruction of Jerusalem & c. and the Discourses on the Excuses of the Impenitent.27

Comparable syllabuses based on religious literature can be found in other congregations. Skara Diocese reported that a number of its parishes structured their lessons in accordance with three fundamental texts: the ABC-book, the catechism and the hymnal. This applied to classes taught by the parish clerks of Vånga, Edsvära and Kvänum, according to the curate. The children of the peasantry, of both sexes, enjoy common lessons in reading, whereupon no other books of reading exercise are used than an ABC-book, catechism and hymnal; and thus payment is taken in accordance with the status of the parents, but is most usually 16 Shilling Banco for each of the named books.28 27 “Alle före middagar läsas Catecheserne och alle efter middagar läsas KyrkoPsalmerne, Evangelierna, Christi Pinas, Uppståndelses Himmelsfärds Historia, Beskrifningen om Jerusalems Förstöring m.m. och Betracktelserne om de Obotfärdiges Förhinder.” Reply from Järvsö, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 1005. 28 “Allmogens Barn, af båda könen, njuta af dem gemensam underwisning, uti innan läsning, hwarwid inge andre böcker til läse-öfning nyttjas än A,b,c Bok, Cateches och Psalmbok; och är betalningen härföre olika efter föräldrarnes olika wilkor, men wanligast är 16 sk:r Banco för hwarje af de nämnde Böckerna.” Reply from Vånga, Skara Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 999.

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The situation was similar in Gökhem, although the parish clerk’s lessons there were three times as expensive, at one riksdaler per book. The fact that the textbooks came to be seen as identical with the lessons is not surprising, considering the ecclesiastical pedagogical tradition’s fixation on books. In all likelihood, teaching of the hymnal was confined to reading exercises and community singing, which were the duties of the parish clerk as stipulated by the Church Law of 1686. When the responses to the State Educational Committee’s questionnaire were being composed in 1813, large-scale Bible distribution in Sweden had only just begun. The task was primarily undertaken by the Evangelical Society, founded five years earlier, and by the Swedish Bible Society, founded in 1812. Numerous references to their activities can be found in the submitted questionnaires. The Consistory of Linköping discussed the lack of suitable books at their institutes of learning, identifying price as the decisive factor. In its memorandum, the Consistory expanded its conclusion to include the limited access its pupils had to the Bible. Despite the commendable efforts of the Evangelical Society to make the Bible available to the general public at quite a low cost, they have not been able to prevent Swedish Bibles climbing to the high price of approximately 4 riksdaler Banco, which has resulted in very few of our school children and youths owning this noble and most necessary of books.29

Even so, the demand for Bibles remained great throughout the countryside at that time, and the clergy served as channels for Bible distribution by collecting subscriptions and sending orders to publishers and Bible societies. Housed in the archives of Husie Parish, Lund Diocese, is a “List of the fellows of Husie Parish in the county of Oxie, who requisitioned the Bible published by the blessed Bible Society, or some part thereof.”30 This list, drawn up on 5 September 1815, incorporates fourteen Bibles and five testaments, one Old and four New. Among the subscribers we find Mrs. 29

“Oagtadt Evangeliska Sällskapets berömwärda Omsorg, att till ganska lågt pris hålla Bibeln allmänheten tillhanda, har detta icke kunnat hindra, att Swenska Biblar stigit till det höga pris af omkring 4 Rd:r B:co, hwilket gjort, att ganska få af härwarande Gymnasii och Scholae Ungdom äga denna förnämste och nödwändigaste Bok.” Memorandum from the Linköping Consistory. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 6. 30 “Förtekning på de Ledamöter af Husie Pastorat i Oxie Härad, som requirerat den af Höglofl. Bibelsällskapet utgifne Bibel, eller någon del deraf.” Parish meeting minutes, 1808–1860, KI:1. Husie Church Archives, Malmö Municipal Archives.

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Savarin and Mr. Kockum, both persons of rank, along with six tenant farmers, two smallholders, four soldiers, one miller, one vaccinator, one parish tailor and one shoemaker. Interestingly enough, the subscription list was complemented with a “List of those who, within Husie Parish, own a Bible or not, & c.”, which had been drawn up in conjunction with the book order.31 Of the village’s 197 households, apparently 67, or every third household, had access to a Bible. Including the copies ordered, Husie Parish had 60 Bibles and 7 testaments. Divided among its 329 inhabitants over fifteen years of age, this would mean that every ninth person had access to a Bible. The heads of almost all households state unequivocally that they wish to acquire a Bible. Smallholder Andreas Andersson “wishes to receive a Bible and will pay for half”, while his peer Hans Larsson explains that he “wishes to own a Bible but is destitute.”32 However, far from everyone who expresses an interest in obtaining a Bible actually signs up to buy one. Nevertheless, the comments express a strong popular demand. A report from Knäred Parish in Gothenburg Diocese also testifies to a palpable interest in the Bible, making it apparent that Bible reading was not at a premium in popular education. Since the adults had often grown up without access to a Bible and were therefore largely unfamiliar with major parts of its contents, they were easily surpassed by their children’s own thirst for Biblical knowledge. In Knäred there was a boy named Sven Jönsson of Dyreborg, who has shed light throughout the village with his insights; he has read, with deep reflection, the Prophecies of Daniel and Revelations of John with the commentary and explanations of Newton, Bengel and Jung; he was the first to request a Bible from the Evangelical Society, whereupon thirty-four copies were sold in the parish.33

Though it is made very clear that this was an exceptional case, its inclusion is still intended to indicate the surging demand for Bibles and the widespread interest in Bible studies in the parish. What purpose did the Bible serve as a teaching aid? The quotes from 31

“Förtekning öfver De, som inom Husie Pastorat, som äga Bibel eller intet, m. m.” “önskar få en Bibel och vill betala hälften”; and “villig att äga Bibel men är utfattig.” 33 “Sven Jönsson i Dyreborg, som spridt ljus uti Byen genom sina insigter; han har med djup eftertanka läsit Daniels- Prophetior och Johannis Uppenbarelse med Newtons, Bengels och Jungs anmärkningar och förklaringar; Han war den förste som begärde af Evangeliska Sällskapets Biblar då sedermera Trettiofyra Stycken såldes i Pastoratet.” Reply from Knäred, Göteborg Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:5, p. 1184. 32

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Ås and Ventlinge, Kalmar Diocese, clearly show that, first and foremost, the Bible served as a means to practise reading. This can be verified by numerous other responses to the questionnaire. For example, in Silbodal, Karlstad Diocese, “the hymnal and other books of worship and prayer, including the Bible” are used “to practise reading.”34 There are, however, examples of congregations where the Bible fulfilled another function in the early stages of reading. Daniel Segrelius of Förlösa Parish, Kalmar Diocese, reserved the three final days of confirmation training for Bible studies. The exercises were intended to make “[the children] learn all the books of both the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible by heart, and then look up quotations in each book.”35 According to Segrelius, these exercises were much appreciated by the pupils. Otherwise in popular education, Bible reading occurred with more regularity in the formally organized schools. Using templates established by Catholic schools and firmly rooted in the Lutheran teaching tradition, the day in many municipal and parish schools began and ended with Bible reading, prayer and hymns. In the parish of Borgsjö in Härnösand Diocese, according to school regulations, the headmaster was to read the customary prayers on his knees like the children each morning and evening, as well as standing to sing an appropriate verse from the hymnal, in order thereby, as is fitting, to begin and end his work in godliness, and awaken and prepare a divine solicitude in the children. And he ought also, when they get somewhat ahead in their reading, after discharged prayers and song, to choose a whole or half chapter from the New Testament, to be read aloud by them in turn.36

Here it is clear that the texts used for teaching were also to be used in daily 34

“Psalmboken och andra Andagts och Böneböcker, äfven Biblen”; and “till öfning vid innanläsningen.” Reply from Silbodal, Karlstad Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 441. 35 “lära sig utan till alla Böckerna i Bibelen både i gamla och Nya Testamentet, och sedan slå upp språk i hwarje Bok.” Reply from Förlösa, Kalmar Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 47. 36 “morgon och afton med Barnen på knän sjelf föreläsa de brukliga morgon och aftonbönerna, samt upstående afsjunga en tjenlig vers utur Psalmboken, för att härmed, såsom tilbörligt är, börja och sluta sitt verk i Gudi, samt väcka och bereda hos Barnen en Gudelig åhåga. Och bör äfven, när desse komma sig något före i innanläsning, efter förrättad Bön och sång, ett helt eller halft Capitel utur nya Testamentet, tourvis af dem med hög röst upläsas.” Addendum to reply from Borgsjö, Härnösand Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 831.

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devotions. Bible reading would come to frame the school day in many schools, even simpler, itinerant ones.37 This type of edifying devotional study was something distinct from the more knowledge-oriented lessons in Biblical history, which is evident in the account from the school for the poor in Västerås, where each day began “with prayer and Bible recitation – then from spelling and reading to the catechism and Biblical history.”38 Lidköping Municipal School in Skara Diocese prioritized the practical aspects of Bible reading. When a pupil had read a chapter from the Bible at morning prayers, usually from the New Testament, the teacher would offer an explanation: “The Christian faith is represented not only in a theoretical, but particularly in a practical manner; so that the teacher’s endeavours thereupon scrupulously aim at making the faith active in his disciples’ conviction to improvement and virtue.”39 In other words, Bible reading was intended to improve the pupils’ morals. As a result of their theological orientation, some clerics were more actively involved in distributing Bibles and encouraging reading, particularly those who harboured Pietist or (even more so) Moravian sympathies. There are reports of congregations where Sunday schools functioned as Bible study groups. In his dissertation on Moravianism in southern Sweden, Hilding Pleijel drew particular attention to the work of the Moravian pastor Christian Schönbeck of Riseberga in north-western Scania. After coming to the vicarage in 1813, he founded Sunday schools in two of the parishes. In a letter to the Evangelical Society dated 1 June 1815, Schönbeck states that he occupies close to 400 children every weekend with Bible reading and a simple exposition. But even many older people visit the school, and I have made it mandatory for the previous years’ candidates for Confirmation to attend as listeners.40 37

In the reply from the parish of Snöstorp, Göteborg Diocese, it is reported that “prayers are held in the mornings and evenings by some of the older children, when a chapter from the Bible is read” (“mornar och aftnar göres bön, af någon af de äldre barnen, och läses et Cap. uti Bibelen”). Reply from Snöstorp, Göteborgs Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:5, p. 1175. 38 “med Bön och Bibel Läsning – sedan från stafning och innanläsning till Catechesen och Bibliska historien.” Memorandum from Västerås Consistory. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 903. 39 “Christna Läran föreställes icke bara på ett Theoretiskt utan särdeles på ett praktiskt sätt; så att Lärarnes bemödanden sorgfälligt derpå riktas att göra Läran verksam på Lärjungarnas öfvertygelse till förbättring och dygd.” Reply from Lidköping Town School, Skara Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 842. 40 “Nära 400 barn syslosättas alla helgedagar med Bibelläsning och en enfaldig

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The classes conducted on Sunday afternoons, and primarily aimed at children between the ages of seven and fifteen, are described in detail in Schönbeck’s response to the 1812 questionnaire, which states that their purpose is not limited to the transmission of knowledge but also embraces its “practical effect on the heart and life.”41 Nor does Schönbeck neglect to point out that the New Testaments used at the Sunday school were paid for out of his own pocket. Although doubtless the ABC-book, the catechism, the hymnal, and the Bible were the most central books of the church, they were by no means the only ones used for educational purposes. Curate Ullerman of Hammarö in Karlstad Diocese listed the books he used to complement those fundamental texts. “The books, used in this connection, are – aside from the ABC-book – the new catechism, small children’s books and the Bible, and in many places biblical history and some book of sermons.”42 Lessons in biblical history represented a pedagogical move away from dogmatic material in favour of narratives; a move that characterized a number of eighteenth-century currents of educational thought. In many cases it was a decision pertaining to the preferred form for the children’s first encounter with the Christian teachings. According to the deductive method used in the catechism, one would proceed from a basic thesis that was then expounded upon using the words of the Bible as proof. The inductive method, on the other hand, would focus on the narrative material, from which the dogmatic theses could subsequently be extrapolated. Thus, biblical history reflected a growing interest in using narrative material for educational purposes. The “small children’s books” that Curate Ullerman mentions were, more than likely, the moralistic story books that became so popular at the turn of the eighteenth century. In the 1770s, Societas Suecana Pro Fide et Christianismo began disseminating edifying stories about the conversion of children, but it was not until the founding of the Evangelical Society in 1808 that exemplary tales were made available in popular editions for the masses. Such tracts were often used as a reward in the classroom. In Tegelsmora, Uppsala Diocese, “the prize for diligence and incitement to virtue is comprised of some books for förklaring. Men äfven så många gamla bevista också Scholorna, och för de förledna årens Catechumeni har jag gort det til en pligt at vara tilstädes som åhörare.. Quoted from Pleijel, Herrnhutismen i Sydsverige, 277. 41 “användbarhet uppå hjerta och lefverne.” Reply from Riseberga, Lund Diocese. SCE 1812. EIIb:4, p. 1487. 42 “De Böcker, som härvid nyttjas, äro: Utom A, B, C, Boken, nya Catechesen, små Barn Böcker och Bibeln samt på flera ställen Bibliska Historien och någon Postilla.” Reply from Hammarö, Karlstad Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 334.

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the needy. In addition there is now also an abundant supply of the edifying literature of the Evangelical Society, serviceable to this great purpose.”43 This information leads us to study the phenomenon of book rewards more closely.

Book rewards: “The prize for diligence and incitement to virtue” When children were rewarded in education in the early nineteenth century, it was almost invariably in the form of a book.44 Monetary rewards were common in the grammar-school system, but in popular education similar rewards were offered only on rare occasions. On what qualities did popular education place a premium? In one word: diligence. At Piteå Grammar School, Härnösand Diocese, apprentice fees (djäknepengar) were gathered in a kitty to be awarded “to all the school’s children pro loco, diligentia et paupertate.”45 The principle according to which cash amounts were awarded is clearly laid out in one of the surviving lists. The head of the graduating class received the most, after which amounts decreased, in descending order of class and achievement. So apparently, although the odd exception to the rule does seem to have been motivated by poverty, sums were given more pro loco et diligentia than pro paupertate. Umeå Grammar School in Härnösand Diocese kept a running account, recording how much of the money was designated to grades, diligence and poverty.46 Yet here, the principle was that all the pupils were to share the money, which evidently was not the case everywhere.47 43

“Flitens belöningar och dygdens upmuntran bestå uti några böcker åt behöfvande. Desutan är också nu en ymnig tilgång af Evangeliska Sällskapets upbyggeliga skrifter, tjenande för detta stora ändamål.” Reply from Tegelsmora, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 490. 44 A more comprehensive Swedish-language version of this section has previously been published in Lindmark, Puritanismen och lättsinnet, 38–44. 45 “efter antaget bruk til hela Scholæ ungdomen pro loco, diligentia et paupertate”, i.e. in accordance with position (in the ranking), industry and poverty. Reply from Piteå Grammar School to questionnaire sent out from Kanslersgillet (The National Agency of Education), 12 April 1802. Documents concerning the specific secondary schools, Piteå, GIbh:1, Härnösand Consistory Archives. The Provincial Archives of Härnösand. 46 List of distributed apprentice fees (djäknepengar) at Umeå Grammar School, 14 June 1814. Documents enclosed to the minutes of the Härnösand Consistory, E III:131, Härnösand Consistory Archives. The Provincial Archives of Härnösand. 47 So, for instance, at Uppsala Cathedral School. J. A. Linder’s Diary, Vol. 1,

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Paying out cash rewards to deserving pupils also occurred in early nineteenth-century popular education. Skerike Parish School in Västerås Diocese employed the same criteria as the public schools: The school fund was used for “small rewards for children who distinguished themselves, in support of penurious parents, and, moreover, for encouragement at catechetical meetings for children who have displayed an aptitude to learn.”48 The categories were identical to the ones used at the public school, which is explained by the fact that Skerike was also a prebendal parish for the history lecturer in Västerås. Otherwise it was common that rewards were bestowed for a pupil’s progress, usually at a spring assembly at the end of the school year. On the other hand, the parish schools in Rasbo and Kil Parish in Uppsala Diocese paid out “bonuses” both autumn and spring. “At the end of both terms, examinations are conducted by the pastor, in the presence of the church wardens, and rewards of books and money are made.”49 In Offerdal, Härnösand Diocese, the children were not rewarded for their studies by the parish school. “But when the children begin attending the so-called parish catechetical meetings, it happens that the clergy on that occasion encourage some bright, diligent and moral children with a coin or book.”50 Here, the pupils to be rewarded are those who distinguish themselves with their lively intellect alongside diligence and high moral standing. At Lagga Parish School, Uppsala Diocese, the pastor and the schoolmaster award “useful books to the most accomplished” out of their own pockets,51 Memories 1783–1813, p. 9. The Research Archives, Umeå University. 48 “små prèmier för Barn, som utmärkt sig, till understöd för fattige föräldrar, och, hwad däröfwer, till upmuntringar wid husförhören för Barn, som wisa läragtighet.” Reply from Skerike, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 919. 49 “Vid båda Terminernas slut hålles examen af Pastor, i närvaro af kyrkovärdarne, och utdelas prémier i böcker och penningar.” Reply from Rasbo, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 269. 50 “Men när Barnen börja bevista de så kallade Rot- och Husförhören, så händer, att Presterskapet dervid med någon Penning el:r bok upmuntrar någre qvicka, flitiga och sediga Barn.” Reply from Offerdal, Härnösand Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 875. 51 Reply from Lagga, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 701. This corresponds very well with the following statement in the school instruction: “Once every year, just before the Midsummer, examinations of the schoolchildren, after the completion of services, shall be held in the presence of the congregation and its pastor by a qualified Dean. On said occasion, rewards in the form of catechisms, hymnals or Bibles ought to be presented to the cleverest Children.” (“En gång hwarje År, näst före Midsommaren skall Examen hållas med Skolungdomen, hwilken, efter slutad Gudstjenst, uti hela Församlingens och dess Kyrkoherdes

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and at Gnarp Parish School, also in Uppsala Diocese, “fines levied on neglectful parents can also be used to purchase good devotional books, which should be offered as reward books to the cleverest candidates for Confirmation.”52 In Havdhem, Visby Diocese, the pastor considers simply graduating to a higher grade to be sufficient reward in itself, along with the public announcement in church of “who among the confirmed children, during the time of their instruction in the Holy Communion, distinguished themselves with diligence and willingness to learn.”53 Beyond this distinction, the pastor normally “rewarded and encouraged” what he perceived as “the children most diligent in reading” with a prize in the form of “useful books for the most proficient of them.”54 Although many a clergyman paid for such rewards themselves, many parishes absorbed the price of the books.55 Private donations were also made to support this worthy cause.56 Only in exceptional cases is proficiency rewarded in popular education, and when this does happen, it is invariably rewarded as a conjugate to diligence.57 Diligence appears to be the cardinal virtue of popular

närvaro af wederbörande Contracts Prost anställes. Wid samma tillfälle böra Belöningar af Catecheser, PsalmBöcker eller Biblar till de skickligaste bland Ungdomen utdelas.”) Addendum to reply from Lagga, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 704. 52 “pliktpenningarne för försummelige Föräldrar äfven kunna användas till nyttiga andagts böckers inköp, som böra utdelas till belönings-böcker åt de skickligaste Läs-barnen.” Parish Meeting Minutes from Gnarp, 3 October 1813. Addendum to reply from Gnarp, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 1074. 53 “hvilka af de konfirmerade barnen, under tiden af deras nattvards-undervisning, utmärkt sig för flit och läraktighet.” 54 “belöna och uppmuntra”; “den i läsning flitigare ungdomen”; and “tjenliga Böcker till de mäst skicklige.” Reply from Havdhem, Visby Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 1090. 55 In Film, Uppsala Diocese, the parish had used the proceeds from two collections to buy reward books. Reply from Film, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 499. 56 “Encouragement and rewards have not been lacking. The owner of Stora Ekeby in particular has proven a shining example by dispensing money and books of both religious and economic content at the annual parish catechetical meetings.” (“Upmuntringar och belöningar hafva icke felat. I synnerhet har Egaren till St. Ekeby årligen vid Husförhören genom utdelande af pengar och böcker så i Religieusa som oeconomiska ämnen, häri gifvit ett vackert efterdöme.”) Reply from Stora and Lilla Rytterne, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 996. 57 Among others, see the reply from Karlstorp, Växjö Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:5, p. 292.

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education and its reward is good, wholesome reading.58 “Distinguished, diligent children in Ingarö School receive, as a reward and further encouragement, a Bible or some other spiritual book,” Värmdö Parish in Uppsala Diocese reports,59 while at Ålem School in Kalmar Diocese, “a man who wishes to remain anonymous has, on occasion, with the donation of a book, sought to encourage the diligent.”60 Sollentuna Parish School in Uppsala Diocese records that “rewards consisting of books and coins are dispensed by the master to diligent and moral children at examinations.”61 Even though the rewards might sometimes consist of tracts from the Evangelical Society or other printed matter,62 the books dispensed were most often the basic texts of popular education. The reward system in effect at Forsmark Industrial School in Uppsala Diocese serves as a typical example: “Those who distinguish themselves through diligence and good manners will receive, at the Midsummer examinations, prizes of books, being the catechism, hymnals, Bibles & c.”63 Because the prizes were often textbooks, the boundary between rewards for diligence and compensation for poverty was sometimes unclear. The distribution of free books to the poor was common, both where textbooks and the new tractate literature were concerned. Responses to the state questionnaire overflow with examples of subsidized school fees and teacher’s wages as well as free textbooks for children from poverty-stricken homes. In the parish of Fryksdal in Karlstad Diocese, the 58

Other rewards were also offered. Stora Tuna School in Västerås reports that not only books but also “pencils, paper and other sundries were handed out” (“Pennor, Papper och dylikt utdelas”). Reply from Stora Tuna, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 1316. 59 “Utmärkt flitige Barn i Ingarö-Schola bekomma såsom belöning och till ytterligare uppmuntran en Bibel eller annan andelig Bok.” Reply from Värmdö, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 872. 60 “En man som wil wara okänd, har understundom, med skänk af en bok, sökt upmuntra den flitige.” Reply from Ålem, Kalmar Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 59. 61 “Vid Examina utdelas premier bestående i böcker och penningar av Patronus åt flitiga och sediga barn.” Reply from Sollentuna, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 717. 62 In Film, Uppsala Diocese, “books like Ödman’s Hymns and Sturm’s Spiritual Exercises are given as rewards” (“utdelas belöningar af Böcker ss. Ödmans Sånger Sturms Andaktsöfningar m.fl.”). Reply from Film, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 499. 63 “De som utmärka sig genom flit och ett beskedligt upförande, få, vid examen Midsommars tiden, belöningar i Böcker, såsom Catecheser Psalmböcker, Biblar m:m:” Reply from Forsmark, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 551f.

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children of the poor also attended the itinerant school. “They are always given ABC-books and catechisms by the pastor, from the stores of the poor-relief fund.”64 Leksberg Parish in Skara Diocese also reported that children received free “ABC-books, catechisms and occasionally hymnals” paid for by poor-relief funds.65 The unclear nature of these gifts becomes even more conspicuous when we consider the fact that the same fund paid for book rewards and distributed alms. In Torp Parish, Härnösand Diocese, Dean Huss allotted a bushel of grain from his own storerooms in order “in part to provide the poorest of the children with books and the monthly school-teacher fee, in part to confer upon the most diligent and well-behaved disciples some small prizes, thereby encouraging intramural competition.”66 This boundary issue becomes most sharply delineated in cases where parish funds were commandeered for book rewards. In the parish of Kolbäck in Västerås Diocese, the “Poor-Children’s Fund” defrayed the expenses of rewarding reading skills, which meant that even non-needy children benefited from poor-relief measures. Hence, the congregation decided “that no payment from the Poor-Children’s Fund shall hereafter go to other children than those who, in addition to being in need, read correctly, well and plainly from a book.”67 Dean Hallander’s reply to the 64

“Desse få altid Abc böcker och Katcheser af Prästen ur fattigkassans förråd.” Reply from Fryksdal, Karlstad Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 387. Poor children in Sillerud, Karlstad Diocese, were taught by wandering schoolmasters just like their peers, but “for these children ABC-books and catechisms were purchased with such funds as were gathered annually at the Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide collections” (“för dessa inköpas A.b.c böcker och Catecheser af de medel, som årligen genom Collecten samlas Jul- Påsk och Pingestdagar”). Reply from Sillerud, Karlstad Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 448. 65 “abc-böcker, Catecheser och stundom psalm-böcker.” Reply from Leksberg, Skara Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 1156. 66 “dels kunna bispringa de fattigaste Barnen med Böcker och den månatliga afgiften till Skole-Läraren, dels kunna tilldela de flitigaste och sedigaste Lärjungarne några små præmier, såsom uppmuntringar till inbördes täflan.” Reply from Torp, Härnösand Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 819. 67 “att ingen utdelning utaf Fattig-Barn-Cassan skall hädanefter ske till andra Barn, än dem, som, jämte det de äro i behof, läsa rent, wäl och tydeligt i Bok.” Extract from parish meeting minutes, Kolbäck, 6 May 1798. Addendum to reply from Kolbäck, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 992f. However, the minutes continue, “The congregation also considers favourable to our purpose, that if some child at an unusual age has learned to read a book well, that child may, at one time or another, enjoy some reward and encouragement, even though it is not otherwise in particular need thereof.” (“Församlingen anser tillika för godt och till ändamålet bidragande, att om något barn wid owanlig ålder har lärt läsa wäl i Bok, det må, för

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questionnaire shows how this blurred line between prizes and poor relief was dealt with in practical terms, because in his parish of Kolbäck an intricate system of rewards was in effect, based on public examination of reading proficiency and the number of errors made. The names of the children who displayed the steadiest reading skills were announced in church, where the prize-worthy pupils also received their book rewards. The youngest of them receiving rewards for the very first time each received the Crown Prince’s children’s book. Those rewarded for the second time each received a hymnal, and those awarded a third commendation received a copy of the New Testament or, in lieu thereof, Sturm’s prayer book.68

When a prize went to a pupil who did not qualify for poor relief, the dean persuaded the parents to return the value of the book. Since this meant that all deserving children could now be rewarded, Dean Hallander considered himself as having created the conditions under which prizes would be perceived as “an honour, not some form of poor relief.”69 The most significant consequence of the system of rewards is said to be the fact that “sound competitive spirit has been aroused”, which in turn vastly improved literacy in the congregation.70 The manner in which the curate of Kolbäck hid the stigma of “poor relief” shows the delicacy called for when handling the conflict between the principle of using parish funds only for the needy, and the practice of awarding book rewards to all deserving pupils, regardless of need. This elegant solution soon found its way into other regions. In Stora Skedvi, Västerås Diocese, a private endowment was used to buy “so-called smaller Bibles”, of which “some were used as prizes for poor school children who above others excelled through virtue and diligence, the rest going to selected but penurious penitents at their first Communion.”71 Given that the criteria included en eller annan gång, njuta någon belöning och upmuntran, ehuru det egenteligen icke är uti synnerligt behof.”) 68 “De yngste, som första gången belönades hafwa undfått hwarsin KronPrinsens Barnabok. De som andra gången undfingo belöning hwarsin Psalmbok, och de som 3:dje gången njöto en sådan heder hafwa fått hwarsitt Nya Testamente eller i brist deraf hwarsin Sturms Böne-bok.” Reply from Kolbäck, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 977. 69 “en heder, icke någon fattiggåfwa.” Reply from Kolbäck, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 977f. 70 “den nyttigaste täflan blifwit wäckt.” Reply from Kolbäck, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 978. 71 “så kallade smärre Biblar”; and “en del användes till præmier åt torftigare

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poverty, being awarded a prize for ability ought to have made the children’s attitude to such a reward ambivalent at best. Moreover, the fact that the reward system only concerned those who excelled was naturally a problem. Daniel Segrelius of Förlösa, Kalmar Diocese, recounted how he handled this delicate matter in his classroom. The poorest I have rewarded during reading time, some with books, and all with small presents of lesser value, though the diligent more, the most diligent the most. Thereby, those who are sluggish and slow to learn to read have not been forgotten, but [presented] with smaller gifts, which often meant so much that owing to this they are tempted thereafter to read more diligently, and better than before.72

Although diligence and other virtues were considered well worth rewarding, the practice was a bone of contention at the outset of the nineteenth century, when two completely divergent ideologies clashed. Those in favour of rewards were positively disposed towards the spirit of competition that the system had succeeded in instilling in Kolbäck, Västerås Diocese. Competition was perceived as a healthy motivational tool, since it promoted the cardinal virtue of diligence. This conclusion was apparently reached in the parish of Levene in Skara Diocese, where the children were examined in Church semi-annually, and those who “from one time to the next showed the greatest diligence” were awarded a catechism. This meant that “everyone competes to win the prize, as they say daily: I shall read well so I will receive a new catechism from the pastor.”73 One of the best examples of this unreserved approval of rewards in popular education appears in a deed of gift from 1784, which served to establish an endowment in Gistad, Linköping Diocese. Reward engenders Skolbarn hvilka framför andra utmärka sig genom dygd och flit, de öfriga åter tilldelas godkända men fattiga Skriftebarn vid deras första Nattvardsgång.” Reply from Stora Skedvi, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 1408. 72 “De fattigaste har jag födt under läse-tiden, dels begåfwat med böcker och alla tillhopa med små skänker af mindre wärde, dock de flitiga mer, de flitigaste mäst. Därwid hafwa de tröga, och swåra att lära läsa likwäl icke blifwit förglömde, men med mindre gåfwor, som ofta gordt så mycket, att de därigenom blifwit låckade till att därefter läsa flitigare och bättre än förut.” Reply from Förlösa, Kalmar Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 44. 73 “som från den ena gången till den andra wisat största flit”; and “att alla täflar för att winna priset, i det de dageligen säga: Jag skall läsa braf, så får jag en ny cateches af Prästen.” Reply from Levene, Skara Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 918.

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competition, “that desire which is noble and most useful to our race”, which is seen as a “profit to society, which thereby obtains wholesome members.”74 In contrast to this sanguine appreciation of a system that used rewards stood the opinion that virtue was its own reward; an opinion discernible in many of the questionnaires in such wording as “the rewards consist of the feeling of virtue, fear of God, and honour that one seeks to impress upon the children”,75 or “rewards are not proffered, other than that the diligent and conscientious is admired, commended and encouraged.”76 Similar thoughts are disclosed with greater clarity in the respective responses from Hassle, in Skara Diocese, and Mora, in Västerås Diocese, where the children receive no other reward than “that [which] their awareness at having fulfilled their duties gives”77 or the “satisfaction and delight, which is felt in displaying the benefits they have harvested through conscientiousness and hard work.”78 The most straightforward reply of all comes from Kumla, Västerås Diocese, where “the promising and diligent are encouraged by the knowledge, gained from the abiding enjoyment and certain reward, which tranquil and Christian values grant to those who cultivate them.”79 Likewise in Borås, Skara Diocese, where the children are reminded that God is omnipotent and “that virtue, especially in a good conscience, carries its own reward, and vice its own penalty.”80 Jonas Svedbom, headmaster of Härnösand Grammar School, delivers 74

“detta ädla och för vårt Slägte nyttiga begär”; and “vinning för Samhället, som derigenom erholler nyttiga medlemmar.” Addendum to reply from Gistad, Linköpings Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 350. 75 “Belöningarne bestå för öfrigt i den känsla af dygd, Gudsfruktan och heder, som man söker inprägla hos Barnen.” Reply from Varv, Skara Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 1065. 76 “Andra belöningar gifvas icke, än att de flitige och sedige utmärckas, berömmas och uppmuntras.” Reply from Husby, Uppsala Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:1, p. 610. 77 “den medvetandet af uppfylde pligter gifver.” Reply from Hassle, Skara Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 1201. 78 “tilfridsställelsen och nöjet, som ärfares wid föreställningen af nyttan de skördat af sedigheten och fliten.” Reply from Mora, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3. p. 1229. 79 “den välartade och flitige upmuntras med skäl, hämtade af den waraktiga Förnöjelse och säkra Belöning, som den stilla och Christeliga dygden skänker sine dyrkare.” Reply from Kumla, Västerås Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:3, p. 1466. 80 “at Dygden, särdeles i et godt medvetande, altid har sin belöning med sig, och Lasten sitt Straff.” Reply from Borås Municipal School, Skara Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:2, p. 871.

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one of the most lucid arguments in favour of restricting “external” rewards, which in his school are limited to “encouraging cheers, commendations and promotion to the next grade.” Note however, that these rewards are passed out with great economy, lest they should awaken the envy of the disciples instead of laudable competition and ambition, or, worse yet, should destroy the possibility of a pure and unselfish interest in knowledge and learning, which, if it is awakened early enough in the mind of the young, can be a more powerful incentive to diligence and industry than any and all external rewards.81

Thus, for Svedbom, a clear antagonism exists between external reward and internal drive. He and his allies strive to define “internal rewards” based on their perception of virtue as a reward in itself. This is apparent in the description of the situation at Barkeryd itinerant school in Växjö Diocese. No so-called special rewards are mentioned, given or dispensed. The socalled reward lies in the lessons themselves and their leading to virtue, through the true knowledge and fear of God. And when any particularly precious book is dispensed in encouragement, it is done in church by the pastor in full view of the congregation, designated to lead the people to receive everything as a bounty from the gentle hand of the Lord.82

So it was that emphasizing the internal reward, attainable by the enlightened mind through exercising virtue, led to external rewards being redefined as pure gifts of grace. The eloquent defenders of virtue’s internal rewards thus represent a powerful counterweight to those who advocated external rewards as a means of fostering noble competition on the racetrack of popular education.

81

“uppmuntrande bifall, beröm, och uppflyttningar”; and “Dock användas dessa belöningar med mycken sparsamhet, af farhåga, att derigenom väcka afund hos Disciplarne i stället för en berömlig täflan och ambition, eller ock, hvilket vore ännu sämre, tillintetgöra möjeligheten af ett rent och oegennyttigt interesse för kunskaper och lärdom, som, om det tidigt väckes i ynglingens sinne, skall blifva en kraftigare driffjäder till flit och arbetsamhet, än alla yttre belöningar.” Reply from Härnösand Grammar School, Härnösand Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:6, p. 565. 82 “Ingen så kallad främmande belöning nämnes, gifwes eller utdelas. Den så kallade belöningen ligger i sjelfwa underwisningen och ledningen till dygd, genom Guds sanna kännedom och frucktan. Och när någon Bok, särdeles dyrbar utdelas till upmuntran, sker det af Pastor i församlingens åsyn uti Kyrkan, under benämningar som leda folket at emottaga alt, såsom en ren nådegåfwa ur Herrans milda hand.” Reply from Barkeryd, Växjö Diocese. SCE 1812, EIIb:5, p. 206.

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Concluding remarks At the outset of the nineteenth century, popular education in Sweden was organized according to the system developed in the seventeenth century and ratified by the Church Law of 1686. The majority of lessons were conducted at home by parents and other relatives, and their efficacy was monitored by the clergy in the form of regular examinations. The involvement of parish clerks in teaching was limited; instead, home schooling was complemented in many regions with parish schools also offering to teach penmanship and arithmetic, in addition to the fundamental subjects reading and religion. Popular education concentrated on a few central texts: ABC-book, catechism, hymnal and Bible, although other books were also used to practise reading. Book rewards handed out to diligent pupils usually consisted of catechisms, hymnals and Bible extracts, with the new tractate literature also serving an important function in that respect. Popular education was an ecclesiastical matter, and its purpose was to make its children and teenagers into full-fledged members of the congregation. After public examinations and confirmation, the children were ready to receive their First Holy Communion. Their participating in services and passing recurring exams consolidated this knowledge into life-long learning. Consequently, popular education in early nineteenth-century Sweden was an integral component in a religious reading culture based on a certain set of books used both in household devotions and church services. Embracing all members of society, this universal reading culture continued to serve as a common denominator, even when it was increasingly challenged by competing reading cultures that were religious or secular in nature. Even after 1919, when Luther’s Small Catechism was no longer mandatory reading in the public school system, the catechism and hymnal continued to play an important part in elementary school religious education. In practice, it was only after the Second World War that the long-standing connection between popular education and religious reading culture in Sweden finally became a thing of the past.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Charlotte Appel, Dr Phil, associate professor of early modern history at Roskilde University. Her research areas include the history of literacy and education, the history of the book and ecclesiastical and cultural history, primarily in Denmark. Appel has served as an assistant editor on the Oxford Companion to the Book (2010), and she is presently working as an author and chief editor of a multi-volume history of elementary schools in Denmark, a project based at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. E-mail: [email protected] Gina Dahl, Dr Art, holds a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Archeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. In 2007, Dahl defended her doctoral dissertation “Questioning religious influence – Private libraries of clerics and physicians in Norway 1650–1750”, published as Book Collections of Clerics in Norway, 1650–1750 (Brill, 2010). She is currently writing on the dissemination of travel books and fictional literature in Enlightenment Norway. E-mail: [email protected] Morten Fink-Jensen, PhD, associate professor of history at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, and affiliated research fellow at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. He has published on the cultural history of religion and science in early modern Denmark, including the article Medicine, Natural Philosophy, and the Influence of Melanchthon in Reformation Denmark and Norway (2006). Fink-Jensen is presently one of several authors working on a multi-volume history of Danish schools. E-mail: [email protected] Trygve Riiser Gundersen, MA, writer, critic and publisher, is currently working on his PhD thesis at the University of Oslo on the literary culture of the Haugean revival, seen in the context of popular reading and the printed public sphere in eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway. Gundersen has published on Haugeanism, textual theory and the emergence of the public sphere in Denmark-Norway, and was recently one of the main contributors to

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Contributors

the first volume (covering the period 1660–1880) of Norsk presses historie 1660–2010, a four-volume history of the Norwegian press. E-mail: [email protected] Jon Haarberg, Dr Art, professor of comparative literature at the University of Oslo, is currently preparing a critical, annotated edition of the seventeenth-century poet Petter Dass’s catechism songs. He has previously published on semiotics, parody and the history and rhetoric of textual scholarship. In 2007, Haarberg completed a one-volume history of world literature (in collaboration with Tone Selboe and Hans Erik Aarset). E-mail: [email protected] Thorkild Kjærgaard, Dr Phil, head of the Department of Cultural and Social History, Ilisimatusarfik/University of Greenland (Nuuk). His books include The Danish Revolution, 1500–1800. An Ecohistorical Interpretation (Cambridge University Press, paperback 2006). Prepares (with Kathrine Kjærgaard) a book on biblical pictures in Greenland since 1721. E-mail: [email protected] Daniel Lindmark, PhD, professor of educational history and history didactics at Umeå University, Sweden, and associate professor of church history at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. His research interests include the history of literacy, religious history, Saami studies and history textbook revision. Recent English-speaking publications are Reading, Writing, and Schooling: Swedish Practices of Education and Literacy, 1650–1880 (2004); Ecclesia Plantanda: Swedishness in Colonial America (2005); Technologies of the Word: Literacies in the History of Education (2008; edited with PerOlof Erixon and Frank Simon); and Pietism, Revivalism and Modernity, 1650–1850 (2008; edited with Fred van Lieburg). E-mail: [email protected] Ann Öhrberg, PhD, associate professor of literature at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research revolves around the history of rhetoric and Swedish eighteenth-century literature, mainly regarding female authors, gender issues and religious rhetoric. Öhrberg’s study about the views on rhetoric and gender within Swedish cultures of politeness, “Between the Civic and the Polite. Classical Rhetoric, Eloquence and Gender in late Eighteenth-Century Sweden”, will appear in Metamorphoses of Rhetoric. Classical Rhetoric in the Eighteenth Century, Otto Fischer and Ann Öhrberg (eds.), a forthcoming publication in the Studia Rhetorica Upsaliensia series. E-mail: [email protected]