The Social Consequences of Literacy in Medieval Scandinavia 2503514502, 9782503514505

Table of contents :
Maps ix
Illustrations xi
Abbreviations xv
Preface xvii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Literacy before 1200: Religious Conformity and a New Elite Identity 15
Chapter 2. Literacy 1200-1350: The Construction of Great Organizations 36
Chapter 3. Literacy 1350-1536: The Emergence of a Broad, Literate Elite 157
Conclusion 241
Bibliography 257
Index 277

Citation preview

THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF LITERACY IN MEDIEVAL SCANDINAVIA UTRECHT STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERACY

11

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UTRECHT STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERACY General Editor Marco Mostert (University Utrecht) Editorial Board Gerd Althoff (Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster) Michael Clanchy (University of London) Peter Gumbert (University of Leiden) Mayke de Jong (University Utrecht) Rosamond McKitterick (University of Cambridge) Arpád Orbán (University Utrecht) Armando Petrucci (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) Richard H. Rouse (UCLA)

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THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF LITERACY IN MEDIEVAL SCANDINAVIA by

Arnved Nedkvitne

H F Page 3

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Nedkvitne, Arnved The social consequences of literacy in medieval Scandinavia. – (Utrecht studies in medieval literacy ; 11) 1.Literacy – Social aspects – Scandinavia – History – To 1500 – Congresses 2.Learning and scholarship – Scandinavia – History – To 1500 3.Scandinavian literature – History and criticism 4.Civilization, Medieval 5. Scandinavia – Social conditions 6. Scandinavia – Social life and customs 7. Scandinavia – Civilization 8. Scandinavia – Politics and government 9. Scandinavia – Church history I. Title 302.2'244'0948'0902 ISBN 2503514502

© 2004, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication 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 publisher. D/2004/0095/57 ISBN 2-503-51450-2 Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper.

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Contents Maps Illustrations Abbreviations Preface

ix xi xv xvii

Introduction

1

The Scandinavian Background The European Background Administrative and Narrative Literacy Latin and the Vernacular in Medieval Scandinavia Who was Literate? Intended and Unintended Consequences of Literacy

3 8 10 11 12 13

Chapter 1. Literacy before 1200: Religious Conformity and a New Elite Identity

15

The Historical Background Hagiographies – A Modification of the Traditional, Oral Way of Communicating Norms? Use of Literacy to Standardize Liturgy and Religious Beliefs The King’s Administrative Literacy: Foreign Correspondence and Laws The Annals and the New Understanding of Time The Rise of the Chronicle as the Narrative of the Whole Elite Did Literacy Have Important Social Consequences before 1200?

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17 20 22 25 28 30 33

Contents

vi

Chapter 2. Literacy 1200-1350: The Construction of Great Organizations Gregorian Church Reforms and Ecclesiastical Uses of Administrative Literacy Bishops’ Use of Visitation and Synod to Communicate Orally with the Lower Clergy Use of Writing by Bishops to Give Legally Binding Instructions to a Larger Public Administrative Literacy and Church Jurisdiction Use of Literacy to Create Judicial Conformity in the International Post-Reform Church Ideological Conformity among the Clergy Created through Systematic Use of Literacy What Did the Church Communicate to Illiterates through its Liturgy? Sermon and Confession: Oral Communication of Written Knowledge Did Parish Priests Have Sufficient Skills to Transform Literate Knowledge into Oral Communication? Accounting in the High Middle Ages: Written Registers Combined with Oral Explanations Literacy and the Power of the Reformed Church in Medieval Society The Emerging Scandinavian States’ Uses of Administrative Literacy The Royal Chanceries The King’s Communication with his Subjects in Non-Judicial Affairs Was Normally Oral Imitation of Ecclesiastical Financial Administration by the Crown When and Why Were Laws Committed to Writing? Did Writing Stimulate a More Generalizing Understanding of Laws? Written Evidence in Court Cases – For Whom Was it Useful? Literacy and its Role in Centralizing the Judiciary Literacy in the Judiciary – Do the Extant Sources Deceive Us? State and Literacy in the High Middle Ages Identities and Norms in the Scandinavian Narratives of the High Middle Ages Iceland and the Rest of Scandinavia Identities and Norms of the Reformed Church: God’s Meek Men in a Pacified Society From Hagiographies to Sermons – The Emergence of a More Literate Mind? Identities in the Sagas of Icelanders: National or Familial? Social Norms in the Sagas of Icelanders: Respect for Legal Rights and Social Distinction

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36

38 38 41 42 44 47 50 55 58 63 65 67 68 71 74 75 83 85 94 103 104

106 106 109 111 115 121

Contents

vii Identities in the Kings’ Sagas: Icelandic and Norwegian Traditions The Norms of the Kings’ Sagas: The King’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence and Jurisdiction Identities and Norms in Sturlunga Saga: Pre-State Iceland Without Heroes The Social Background of the Icelandic Saga Tradition of the Thirteenth Century The Continued Clerical Dominance in Denmark The Swedish Narrative Tradition – A Late Development The Written Narrative: Reconciling Norms The Social Consequences of Narrative Literacy

Conclusion

123 130 133 137 139 142 145 147 151

Chapter 3. Literacy 1350-1536: The Emergence of a Broad, Literate Elite The Church’s Decreasing Innovation in its Use of Administrative Literacy New Accounting Methods – Imported from the Curia? Papal Power and the Written Word in Scandinavia in the Late Middle Ages Did Prayer Books for Lay People Prepare the Way for the Reformation? Reinforcement of the Vernacular as an Administrative Language by the State and Merchants The Royal Chanceries Taken over by Laymen Use of New Accounting Methods by the Crown Transition from Latin to the Vernacular in the Swedish and Danish Judiciary Merchants’ Use of Literacy to Become More Competitive The Rise of Vernacular Schooling

157 158 158 162 164

168 168 172 177 179 184

Private Uses of Vernacular Literacy Literacy and Personal Prestige among the Nobility Landowners’ Use of Literacy for Accounting on Their Own Estates How Important Was Literacy to Peasants? Gender

188 188 192 192 201

The Rise of the Courtly Narrative The Clergy as Passive Recipients of European Literate Culture The Written Courtly Narrative – Public and Patrons

211 211 214

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Contents

viii The Written Courtly Narrative’s Image of the Ideal Knight and Courtier The Written Courtly Narrative and the Rise of Swedish Nationalism The Written Courtly Narrative – Entertainment or Propaganda? The Orally Transmitted Ballad and Popular Culture Administrative and Narrative Literacy The Private Letter and Literacy’s Potentiality as an Instrument for Political Opposition Conclusion

218 220 225 225 234 235 237

Conclusion

241

Organizing State, Church and Trade Using Oral Communication Literacy as a Means of Preserving Norms and Institutionalizing Social Practices Literacy as a Means to Better Social Control, with Less Use of “Legitimate Violence” Literacy’s Ability to Make a Complex Society Predictable Literacy and Social Cohesion Literacy’s Role in Promoting Social Cohesion on the National and European Levels Literacy and the Emergence of New Class Differences Did Literacy Have Similar Consequences in All Societies?

Bibliography Index

241 242 244 245 246 250 253 254

257 277

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Maps 1. Scandinavian dioceses and cathedral cities from the twelfth century to the Reformation. 2. Scandinavia in 1397. Map based on Margrete 1. Nordens Frue og Husbond, ed. Poul GRINDERHANSEN (Copenhagen, 1997), p. 425. 3. Population density in medieval Scandinavia. Map based on Margrete 1, p. 126. 4. Episcopal residences in the Norwegian church province 1153-1266. Map courtesy of Aschehoug Publishers, Oslo.

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Illustrations 1. Runes carved by the fugitive Sigurd Jarlsson on one of the doorposts of Vinje stave church in 1194. Photo: University Museum of Cultural Heritage, Oslo. 2. Codex Regius, the main manuscript for the Eddic poems (the Poetic Edda). Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland. 3. Dalbyboken, the oldest extant book written in Scandinavia. Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. 4. Manuscript of canonical prayers with music from Nidaros Cathedral. Photo: www.kb.dk/elib/mss/Add47-2; KB MS Add. 47.fol, fol 6v. 5. Page of Saxo’s Latin history of the Danes, with corrections in the margins assumed to be in Saxo’s own hand. Photo: http://base.kb.dk/manus_pub. 6. Page from a Latin Bible written in France ca. 1250 bought by the Dominican convent of Haderslev in Denmark. Photo: http://www.kb.dk/elib/mss/skatte. 7. A Psalter which belonged to the parish church of Kvikne, Norway. Photo: National Library, Oslo. 8. Sequence from a mass sung for the celebration of the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury. Photo: Michael Sheard.

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Illustrations

xii

9. A page from the Norwegian Book of Homilies from ca. 1200. Photo: Den Arnamagnæanske samling, University of Copenhagen. 10. A book from the library of the Dominican convent in Sigtuna with a medieval chain. Photo: Uppsala University Library. 11. Lectern from the fifteenth century, Uppsala Cathedral. Photo: Kurt Eriksson. 12. Land register (jordebok) for church property written for the Bishop of Bergen. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. 13. Letter from 1297 issued by Duke Hakon. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. 14. An ordinance issued by the Norwegian king addressed to his officials “and all other men who see or hear this letter”. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. 15. A book containing the regional law of Jylland (Jyske lov) written ca. 1490. Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. 16. The first pages of a table of contents from a copy of the regional law of Jylland (Jyske lov) written ca. 1280. Photo: http://base.kb.dk/manus_pub, page 2. 17. Two pages from the same manuscript of the regional law of Jylland. Photo: http://base.kb.dk/manus_pub, page 25. 18. The oldest extant Scandinavian charter issued by the Danish king Erik Emmune in 1135. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. 19. Written verdict issued in 1366 by a Swedish royal judge. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm.

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Illustrations

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20. The oldest extant Swedish charter issued by the Archbishop of Uppsala in the 1160s. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. 21. A charter written on 13 June 1292 settling a dispute about a property line between two farms. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. 22. An agreement from 1319 between the Bishop of Stavanger and his chapter concerning landed properties. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. 23. Letter protecting a killer until the investigation of his case is concluded. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. 24. Latin inscription on Løvel bridge between Viborg and Ålborg in Jylland from the thirteenth century. Photo: Jens Vellev. 25. Two Icelandic saga manuscripts. Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland. 26. Page from Möðruvallabók (ca. 1350) containing eleven sagas of Icelanders. Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland. 27. Flateyarbók, a saga manuscript written in Iceland 1387-1394. Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland. 28. The chronicle of the Cistercian monastery of Øm in Jylland. Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. 29. Prayer book written in Denmark in 1497. Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. 30. Iron-clad wooden chest from the parish church of Ferring in Jylland, Denmark, fifteenth century. Photo: National Museum, Copenhagen. 31. A cabinet made in 1473 belonging to the chapter of Roskilde cathedral.

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Illustrations

xiv Photo: Jens-Jørgen Frimand. 32. Wax tablets from Gdansk dated 1406-1440. Photo: National Museum, Copenhagen.

33. Letter box for the shoemakers’ guild in Odense, Denmark, 1519. Photo: Odense City Museums. 34. Stockholm’s Book of Memory 1474-1478. Photo: Lennart Ploom, Stockholm Stadsarkiv. 35. Jesus arrives at school accompanied by Mary, a painting from Tuse parish church, Sjælland, Denmark, ca. 1450. Photo: www.kalkmalerier.dk. 36. The statutes of the masons’ guild in Stockholm from 1487. Photo: Royal Library, Stockholm. 37. Letter from ca. 1300 in which a landowner living in the rural community of Voss in western Norway authorizes his representative to sell a farm. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. 38. Marginal drawing from a codex of the Swedish national law, written ca. 1440 in Åbo, Finland. Photo: Royal Library, Stockholm. 39. Abraham with eyeglasses in a wall painting from Torshalla church in Uppland, Sweden, ca. 1450. Photo: Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm. 40. Page from a book containing the regional law of Skåne written in runes. Photo: Den Arnamagnæanske samling, University of Copenhagen.

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Abbreviations DD

Diplomatarium Danicum, 1. række 1. bind (Copenhagen, 1938) and subsequent volumes. Translated into Danish in: Danmarks riges breve, 1. række 1. bind (Copenhagen, 1975) and subsequent volumes

DN

Diplomatarium Norvegicum I-XXII, ed. C. C. A. LANGE et al. (Oslo, 1849-1995)

DS

Diplomatarium Suecanum, ed. Bror HILDEBRAND et al. (Stockholm, 1829-1976)

GNH

Gamalnorsk homiliebok, ed. Gustav INDREBØ (Oslo, 1931); Norwegian translation: Gammelnorsk homiliebok, trans. Astrid SALVESEN (Oslo, 1971)

Hkr

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni AÐALBJARNARSON, 3 vols. (Reykjavik, 1979: Íslenzk Fornrit 26-28); English translation: Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, trans. Lee M. HOLLANDER (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1964; 2nd ed. 1995)

KLNM

Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, 22 vols. (Copenhagen, 1956-1978)

Ll

Den nyere Landslov, in: NGL II (Christiania (Oslo), 1848), pp. 1-178; Norwegian translation: Magnus Lagabøters landslov, trans. Absalom TARANGER (Oslo, 1979; 1st ed.: Kristiania (Oslo), 1915)

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Abbreviations

xvi NBL

Norsk biografisk leksikon, ed. Edvard BULL et al., 19 vols. (Oslo, 1923-1983)

NGL

Norges Gamle Love, 5 vols. (Christiania (Oslo), 18461895)

Njáls saga

Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Einar Ól. SVEINSSON (Reykjavík, 1954: Islenzk Fornrit 12); English translation: Njal’s Saga, trans. Magnus MAGNUSSON and Hermann PÁLSSON (Harmondsworth, 1960)

NMD

Norske middelalderdokumenter, ed. Sverre BAGGE et al. (Oslo, 1973)

RN

Regesta Norvegica, 7 vols. (Oslo, 1978-1997)

Saxo

Saxonis Gesta Danorum, ed. J. OLRIK and H. RÆDER, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1931-1957); English translation of books 1-9: The history of the Danes books I-IX, ed. Hilda Ellis DAVIDSON and trans. Peter FISHER (Cambridge, 1996); English translation of books 10-16: Danorum regum heroumque historia: books X-XVI, trans. Eric CHRISTIANSEN, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1980-1981); Danish translation: Saxos Danmarkshistorie, trans. Peter ZEEBERG (Copenhagen, 2000)

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Preface he purpose of this book is to analyze the impact of literacy on Scandinavian medieval society. No other such book exists today, neither for Scandinavia as a whole, nor for the individual Scandinavian countries. However, it is my hope that this book will contribute to the increasing interest in medieval literacy. As the term ‘literacy’ includes the written word used for administration as well as in literature, both have been included in this book as a means of analyzing the social consequences of literacy. The starting point will be administrative literacy because the social consequences are most evident there, and because this aspect has been largely neglected in earlier works. While previous scholarship on medieval Scandinavian literacy has tended to focus on the history of literature, this book takes a new approach in discussing the interaction between administrative and narrative literacy. I discuss only those linguistic and literary aspects which can be considered to have had an important social impact. For the period before ca. 1350 the main emphasis will be on Norse saga literature, and for the later period on the Swedish and Danish courtly tradition, because these genres best illustrate the interaction between literature and society in the two periods, and because they are most likely to be of interest to scholars of literacy generally. In writing this book I had two main groups of readers in mind – firstly, the growing number of medievalists engaged in studying the spread of literacy in different parts of medieval Europe, and secondly, university teachers and students of Scandinavian history, literature and language in Scandinavia and abroad. I hope both will find this presentation of literacy’s first 500 years in Scandinavia useful. But my highest hope is that the book will promote greater interdisciplinary understanding between philologists, literary historians and social historians, because literacy has to be an interdisciplinary field. Literacy is an interesting

T

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starting point for researchers who find it fruitful to cross the borders between disciplines without losing sight of their own special fields of study. The maps have been made by the Institute for the Historical Geography of the Church in Poland, Catholic University of Lublin. Finally, I would like to thank Betsy van der Hoek who corrected and improved the original English text that I composed. But of course, any infelicities or errors remain my own. Department of History, University of Oslo, February 2003.

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Map 1. Scandinavian dioceses and cathedral cities from the twelfth century to the Reformation. Lund was the see of the archbishop for all Scandinavia 1103-1153. Norway was granted a separate archbishopric in 1153, Sweden in 1164. After that time Lund was an archbishop’s see for Denmark only.

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Introduction hen literacy is introduced into a society where earlier communication has been exclusively or predominantly oral, social consequences are bound to follow. The nature of these consequences is the subject of this book. More specifically, the questions to be considered are these: who introduced literacy into Scandinavian medieval society, what their motives were for doing so, and what social consequences literacy had in both the short and the long term. Before ca. AD 1000, Scandinavia1 was pagan and the only literacy was runic. There were Danish, Norwegian and Swedish kingdoms, but their borders were unstable and diffuse and pagan worship was organized by local chieftains. Long-distance trade was organized by merchants traveling to distant markets using barter or coins but no writing. There seems to have been a rich tradition of oral poetry. Kingdoms, organized religion, long-distance trade and a transmission of narratives could exist without literacy. By the close of the Middle Ages, Scandinavia was organized in two strong states, Denmark and Sweden. This consolidation was the result of developments which had taken place over the five preceding centuries. A fundamental cause was evidently the concentration of military power in the hands of the monarch and the subsequent pacification of society. But in recent years historians have focused on another factor, the increasing use of writing. At the time of the Reformation the three Scandinavian church provinces were well-organized parts of the Western Church. The ecclesiastical and lay elites had a literate education,

W

1 “Scandinavia” in this book will be used in the sense of “where Scandinavian languages are spoken”. In practice this area included present day Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the Faeroes, Shetland and Orkney. In Finland and northern parts of Norway and Sweden the people spoke Finnish and Saami languages, but the officials spoke and wrote Scandinavian languages. The special situation in these areas will not be the included in this book.

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Introduction

2

which enabled them to follow contemporary trends in European culture. By the time Spanish and Portuguese seafarers opened up America and Asia for European trade, Scandinavia was part of a European trade network organized by Hanseatic, Dutch and native Scandinavian merchants with the help of writing. After 1150 Scandinavia had a literary tradition of its own, inspired by European models and written by clerics and secular magnates. All this added up to a Europeanization of Scandinavia.2 How important was literacy in this process? At the present stage of research it would be too ambitious to seek a full answer to these exciting but comprehensive and difficult questions. The aim of this book is rather to initiate such a discussion on a broader scale than has been achieved up to now. The present interest in these questions in Scandinavia has been partly inspired by Michael Clanchy’s book From Memory to Written Record, which examined literacy and its consequences in the English state in the period 10661307.3 The church’s uses of the written word and the social contexts of medieval literature have, however, always attracted the interest of Scandinavian medievalists, and the ‘linguistic turn’ of the last decades has reinforced it. But to date there has been no study of the social impact of literacy on Scandinavian society, neither for Scandinavia as a whole nor for individual countries. Books and articles discussing limited aspects of these questions will be introduced below in the respective chapters. The book with the widest perspective is Inger Larsson’s Svenska medeltidsbrev (Swedish medieval charters) which examines charters issued by secular authorities and individuals, that is letters connected to the judicial process, in the period ca. 1175-1425.4 Larsson’s background is that of a philologist, and her main interest is the emergence of vernacular Swedish as a widely-used written language in the fourteenth century.5 But her study has a social perspective as well: she examines who issued and distributed charters, and points out the central role of the king and his local judges.6 She 2

Per INGESMAN and Bjørn POULSEN, “Danmark i senmiddelalderen: demokratisk europeisering?”, in: Danmark og Europa i senmiddelalderen (Århus, 2000), pp. 9-23. Carl Fredrik HALLENCREUTZ, När Sverige ble europeiskt (Stockholm, 1993). 3 Michael T. CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record. England 1066-1307 (2nd ed.: Oxford, 1993; 1st ed. 1979). In this book the revised, second edition is used. On the tradition created by Clanchy, see: Marco MOSTERT , “New Approaches to Medieval Communication?”, in: New Approaches to Medieval Communication, ed. IDEM (Turnhout, 1999: Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 1), pp. 15-37, p. 34. 4 Inger LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev. Om framväxten av ett offentlig skriftbruk innom administration, förvaltning och rättsutövning (Stockholm, 2001), particularly pp. 10, 14 and 255. 5 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 14. 6 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 19-122.

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also demonstrates that judicial documents were increasingly given standardized names, expressing greater familiarity with their use.7 The role of church, trade, literature and other narratives are largely outside the scope of her study, leaving the central question of the present study unanswered: what were the social consequences of literacy? This book has been divided into three chronological chapters. Chapter I starts with Christianization ca. AD 1000 and ends with the Gregorian church reform which was implemented in Scandinavia from ca. 1150/1200. In this first period the church alone was the main force behind increasing literacy. Chapter II leads up to the Black Death (1349), which in Scandinavia marked a definite end to the period of expansion for the organized church. In this second period both church and state were the main social powers behind increasing literacy. Chapter III ends with the Reformation in 1527 (Sweden) and in 1536 (Denmark and Norway). In this last period state and trade were the two main powers behind new uses of writing. This division in three periods does not suit all problems equally well, and one has to think in terms of long periods of transition.

The Scandinavian Background Socially significant literacy was introduced to Scandinavia by the Christian church. In the Viking Age (roughly 800-1000) many Scandinavians visited southern Christian countries, and Christianity must have been increasingly well known in Scandinavia. Some of the first settlers in Iceland 870-930 came from the British Isles and were Christians. Denmark is considered a Christian country from 965, the year the Danish king Harald Bluetooth was baptized. The Norwegian king Hakon the Good (ca. 935-960) was brought up in England and was the first Scandinavian king to be baptized, but he had to abandon attempts to convert his subjects.8 Norway first had a period of peaceful Christianization, but the final conversion was completed by forceful means in 995-1030. The Icelanders made a resolution at the Althing to convert in AD 1000. In Sweden the process was more gradual and peaceful, the first Christian king being baptized just before AD 1000. However, pagan sacrifices continued in Uppsala as late as the 1080s.9

7

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 123-228 and 242. The Danish king Harald klak was baptized in 826 but was deposed the following year. It is uncertain how much of Denmark he ruled. 9 Bertil NILSSON, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 1 (Stockholm, 1998), p. 133. 8

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Map 2. Scandinavia in 1397. The main difference with the present-day borders is, that in 1645 Sweden conquered the provinces of Halland from Denmark and Jämtland from Norway, and in 1658 Skåne (Scania) and Blekinge from Denmark and Viken (Bohuslän) from Norway. Lund was the see of the Archbishop of Denmark, but is today a Swedish town. Finland was part of Sweden all through the Middle Ages (Map based on Margrete 1. Nordens Frue og Husbond, ed. Poul GRINDER-HANSEN (Copenhagen, 1997), p. 425).

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The Gregorian church reform movement made itself felt around the middle of the twelfth century and resulted in conflicts between church and state in Scandinavia as everywhere else in Europe. After about 1300 these conflicts subsided and the situation became more stable. In the final decades of the Middle Ages the state strengthened its position in relation to the church, culminating in the Reformation in Sweden in 1527 and in Denmark/Norway in 1536. The Reformation was imposed from above by the kings; there is little or no evidence of disloyalty to the Roman Catholic church among the public before that time. In the pre-literate and pre-state Viking age (ca. 800-1000) the rulers of Scandinavia were chieftains and kings whose authority was normally no more than local. The local peasant communities, including the chieftains, met at Thing assemblies where disputes were settled – if possible. These chieftains and kings also organized the Viking raids to the British Isles and other parts of Europe, bringing Scandinavia in close contact with the outside world. At the close of the Viking age a process of state-building began. The first step was the creation of realms united under one king. In Denmark this seems to have happened in the second half of the tenth century. In Norway and Sweden this process took place in the decades after AD 1000. The power of the new Danish kingship was shown in its rule over England during the reign of Knut and his sons 1016-1042. But Scandinavian kings of the period were constantly on the move, and capital cities did not emerge in Scandinavia until ca. 1400. The second stage in the state-building process was the formation of state organizations with central and local officials who controlled the judicial and administrative structures of the realm. This was a slow and gradual process starting in the twelfth century, first in Denmark and Norway and somewhat later in Sweden. Iceland, however, continued to be governed by chieftains and local Thing assemblies until it became part of the kingdom of Norway in 1264. The state-building process meant a gradual centralization of power. Finland was incorporated into Sweden in the twelfth century, and in 1264 Iceland became subject to Norway. Norway, in turn, was united first with Sweden in 1319

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and then in 1380 with Denmark. By this time the kings of Denmark and Sweden had divided Scandinavia between them. The rest of the Middle Ages was dominated politically by the efforts of the Danish kings to unite all Scandinavia under their rule, but these efforts finally failed in the 1520s. The third important link between Scandinavia and Europe was provided by the merchants of the northern European trade network. The Vikings were also traders, traveling between marketplaces like Ribe, Hedeby, Birka, Kaupang, and foreign ports around the North Sea and the Baltic, using coins but no writing. Before ca. 1100 they seem to have traded primarily in slaves, furs, cloth, weapons and luxury products in limited quantities. In the period that followed, however, a specialized mass production of goods for export started in Scandinavia: stockfish from northern Norway in the first half of the twelfth century, herring from Skåne in the second half of the same century, and metals from the Stockholm area in the thirteenth century. This development was evidently connected to the appearance in Scandinavian ports of foreign merchants primarily from Germany. After 1250 some of these merchants settled in Scandinavian towns and gradually introduced new and more modern ways of conducting trade. Denmark within its medieval borders was Scandinavia’s largest country, incorporating an extensive portion of modern Sweden. Its population before the Black Death has been estimated at approximately one million. Norway is assumed to have had ca. 450,000, with Sweden somewhere in between.10 Scandinavia was hit hard by the Black Death (1349) and subsequent pestilences, but the fall in population differed geographically.11 Medieval Denmark, as the largest country in Scandinavia, had the richest agricultural resources and closest contact to the continent. Impulses from outside Scandinavia usually arrived there first. In the early Christian Middle Ages these impulses came mainly from England. Links to Germany had always been present, and they became increasingly dominant through the archbishop’s see in Bremen as well as through close contacts between the Danish, Swedish and German courts and the Hanseatic merchants who settled in Scandinavian towns

10 11

Birgit SAWYER and Peter SAWYER, Medieval Scandinavia (Minnesota, 1993). See infra: Chapter 3, p. 157.

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Map 3. Denmark within its medieval borders was by far the most populous of the Scandinavian countries. Population estimates are uncertain, but this map of great and small urban centres brings out the same point. The greatest population density is to be found on the Danish islands and in Skåne, which are the most fertile regions in Scandinavia. Copenhagen is situated near the center of this fertile belt (Map based on Margrete 1, p. 126).

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in increasing numbers from ca. 1250.12 In the first part of the Christian Middle Ages Scandinavians imported ideas, social organizations and technologies, making their society more similar to the rest of Europe. By the final centuries of the period, it is more fruitful to regard Scandinavian developments as part of changes taking place all over Europe. This perspective is also relevant for literacy.

The European Background When Scandinavians started to write using the Roman alphabet around AD 1000, this writing system already had a long history and was well established further south in Europe. The western church was a literate organization from the very start, and continued to be so all through the so-called Dark Ages. The Carolingian state and its successors (ca. 750-1000) used writing in its central administration and its correspondence with the church and the counts who headed local administration. Most aristocrats at court and the local counts were literate, even if some of them may have had access to written material through clerics who read the documents aloud.13 The same pattern applies to English state administration up to 1066.14 In the centuries that followed, from ca. 1100 to 1500, the two most literate large organizations in Europe were the church and the English state. The Roman curia expanded its uses of writing strongly from the end of the eleventh century onwards. That was the result of the Gregorian reform movement and the pope’s efforts to create religious and organizational conformity in the Roman church.15 This development reached the Scandinavian churches around 1150.

12

This section on Scandinavian social history is based on: Jerker ROSÉN, Svensk historia 1 (Stockholm, 1969). Per INGESMAN, “Kirken i samfundet”, in: Middelalderens Danmark, ed. Per INGESMAN et al. (Copenhagen, 1999). SAWYER and SAWYER, Medieval Scandinavia. NILSSON, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 1. Danmarks historie 1, ed. Inge SKOVGAARD-PETERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1977), particularly pp. 329-330 and 393-394. 13 Rosamond MCKITTERICK, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), chapter 6. Janet L. NELSON, “Literacy in Carolingian government”, in: The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond MCKITTERICK (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 269-271. 14 Susan KELLY, “Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word”, in: The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, pp. 36-62, p. 61. Simon KEYNES, “Royal government and the written word in late Anglo-Saxon England”, Ibidem, pp. 226-257. 15 CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 60-61.

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From ca. 1100, use of writing for state administration became more widespread in England than on the continent.16 This was evidently a result of the Conquest in 1066: England’s new Norman lords used literacy to obtain control over their Anglo-Saxon subjects. Equally important was that after 1066, the English king held large possessions across the Channel and became involved in protracted wars with the much larger country of France. The king had to mobilize English resources, and literacy was an important administrative instrument. England finally lost its continental possessions in 1453, but in the process it had acquired Europe’s most literate state administration. Scandinavian state administrations were influenced by English bureaucratic practices, but after 1300 the English influence grew weaker.17 German influence had been important all along. The first German prince to create his own chancery was Henry the Lion from ca. 1144, and in succeeding decades others followed suit. The twelfth century was a period of strong expansion for administrative literacy in Germany as well as England, but in England it seems that this expansion took place on a higher level. Parallel to this development there was an increase in secular literature in Latin and a breakthrough for vernacular literature in German as well as French.18 In the fifteenth century the use of writing again made a great leap forward all over Europe, and this was at least partly due to two important innovations. Paper had been known in Europe from the eleventh century, but began to be mass-produced for the first time in the fifteenth century. Writing materials, therefore, became cheaper.19 The second innovation was of course printing, which began in Mainz in 1445. The first books were printed in Denmark in 1482, in Sweden in 1483 and in Iceland in 1530. Before 1536, printed books were mostly for liturgical and school use and printing had limited consequences for the spread of literacy.20 Imports of technologies and bureaucratic practices are important for an understanding of the uses of writing in Scandinavia. But even more essential to our understanding were the social needs in Scandinavian society prompting these imports. The development of literacy in Scandinavia has to be understood as an interaction between both these factors.

16

CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 3, 35 and 60-61. See infra: Chapter 3, pp. 173-174, 178, 180-182.. 18 Joachim BUMKE, Höfische Kultur (Munich, 1999; 1st ed. 1986), pp. 617-637, particularly pp. 630-631. 19 See infra: Chapter 3, p. 186. 20 Svend DAHL and Volmer ROSENKILDE, ”Bogtryk”, in: KLNM 2, cols. 35-45. 17

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In using writing in state administration Scandinavia was centuries behind England, medieval Europe’s most advanced country in that regard. In England the central administration used letters in its communication with local officials as early as AD 900; in Scandinavia such letters were probably not used until ca. 1200. In England the central administration developed systems of standardized routine letters and systematic archive practices ca. 1200, which was not done in Scandinavia until ca. 1500.21 The local administration in England was using writing systematically from the end of the thirteenth century,22 preceding such a development in Scandinavia by about 200 years.23 Writing was put to the same administrative uses in Scandinavia as in the rest of Europe, and parallels to most narrative genres can be found in Germany and France. But that does not make it less interesting to consider the social needs that prompted the importation of literate practices just at that time, and what consequences these new practices had for Scandinavian society.

Administrative and Narrative Literacy According to the Oxford Dictionary, literacy is defined as ‘the ability to read and write’. The main interest of historians is how and in which fields this ability was used. Consequently, the possible meanings of the term in historical literature have broadened since the subject came into vogue in the 1980s and 1990s, and it is today often also used in the sense of ‘the degree to which the written word is used in a certain society and for a certain purpose’.24 In this book the term is used in its extended sense and includes both meanings. European research on literacy has tended to go in two distinct directions. Administrative literacy is understood in this book as the degree to which the written word is used for practical purposes in administration and trade. Literature has constituted a field of its own. The dividing line between the two is not clear. In this book, literature has been categorized with other narratives such as saints’ lives, sermons, annals, chronicles, and private letters and called narratives. Narrative literacy is understood as the degree to which the written word is used to communicate narratives.

21

CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 66-73. See infra: Chapter 3, p. 172. CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, Chapter 2. 23 See infra: Chapter 3, pp. 172 and 177. 24 MOSTERT, “New Approaches to Medieval Communication?”, pp. 23-25. In this latter sense ‘literacy’ has the same meaning as ‘Schriftlichkeit’ in German. 22

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The subject of this book is not literacy in itself, but the social consequences of literacy. It goes without saying that the social consequences of administrative and narrative literacy are different, but there are also parallels and connections between them. Comparing the consequences of administrative versus narrative literacy initiates a new discussion in Scandinavia. Some medieval narratives are fiction and some are a description of events presented as real. Both types are usually normative, showcasing the conduct of an ideal man or woman. Imposing norms on contemporary society was an important social function of all narratives. The sagas are on the borderline between history and fiction. Since our subject is the social consequences of literacy, the problems of distinguishing between history and fiction are usually not important. Where this distinction is significant, it will be addressed in context. The three chapters will discuss the material chronologically, each chapter starting with administrative literacy because it is the subject most neglected in previous research and because it reveals the social consequences of literacy most clearly. The discussion will then turn to the question of whether the same social groups produced both narrative and administrative writing. What were the combined social effects of the two forms of literacy?

Latin and the Vernacular in Medieval Scandinavia The archbishopric of Nidaros (modern Trondheim) governed the churches of Norway and Iceland. There, Old Norse was used as the administrative language by church and state all through the Middle Ages, except in correspondence with foreign countries. In Denmark, Latin was used as administrative language by the state until about 1370. In Sweden (including Finland) Latin was used until about 1340. In the decades that followed there was a gradual transition to the vernacular. The stronger position of the vernacular in Norway and Iceland can be explained by English influence on the Norwegian church in the Christianization period. In England before 1066, Old English was the main administrative language for state and church, it was therefore natural for the English missionaries to encourage use of the vernacular in Norway as well.25 In Denmark and Sweden, on the other hand, German influence via the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen was stronger, and in those countries administration was in Latin.

25

KELLY, “Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word”, pp. 51-62.

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What were the consequences of this linguistic difference? It must have been easier to learn reading and writing in Norway and Iceland at least before 1340/70. It is reasonable to assume that the Old Norse language area had a higher literacy rate among laymen than the rest of Scandinavia in this period, but there is no evidence to support (or disprove) this view.26

Who Was Literate? Modern research in medieval literacy is careful to distinguish between the use of written material on the one hand, and personal skills in reading and writing on the other. A nobleman holding high office in state administration could send and receive letters even if he was personally unable to read or write. A clerk in his service could read letters aloud to him and draft his replies from dictation. A peasant could have a letter at the bottom of a chest proving that he was the owner of his farm, even if he himself was unable to read the letter. But if he knew the content, he could have it read aloud by a priest or a literate neighbour when the need arose. Icelandic magnates owned manuscripts containing religious and other literature, but only one literate person in the large household was needed to read it aloud in the evenings to the others. The separation between dictating a letter and the actual writing was so institutionalized that not even a literate bishop wrote his letters himself: The [later] Bishop John of Børglum was a laudable man in all ways, and excelled both in the performance of his duties and his virtues. I observed him when he was Bishop Gunnar’s youngest clerk. When Bishop Gunnar wanted something to be written, I heard him say to John: “John, take your inkhorn and follow me!” John at once fetched his parchment and ink, sat down at the bishop’s feet and wrote what he dictated.27

Literacy could be important to the organization of society and spreading information even if only a small minority of specialists knew how to read and write. A parallel can be found in the modern situation where only a small minority understands how a computer is constructed, but many use computers 26

Lars LÖNNROTH, Tesen om de två kulturerna: Kritiska studier i den isländska sagaskrivningens sociala förutsetningar (Uppsala, 1965), pp. 52-53. Cf. Loftur GUTTORMSSON, “Island: Læseferdighed og folkeuddannelse 1540-1800”, in: Läskunnighet och folkbildning före folkskoleväsendet = XVIII Nordiska Historikermötet: Mötesrapport III (Jyväskylä: 1981), pp. 123-191, p. 131. 27 Thorkil DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, in: Dansk litteraturhistorie 1, ed. Søren KASPERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 130-156, p. 144.

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actively, and the whole population feels the consequences of the digital revolution.

Intended and Unintended Consequences of Literacy In recent decades, literacy has become an important field of research among medievalists. On the social level the inspiration has been the great changes in communication technologies taking place in our own time, and the experiences of western aid workers trying to promote literacy in developing countries. On the scientific level it is part of the so-called ‘linguistic turn’ in history and social sciences in general. How do language and communication technologies influence social development and mentality? The focus has been on the transition from oral to written communication. There has been a running debate between those who think that literacy must have similar and important consequences in all societies where it is introduced, and others who consider writing to be a technology used for specific purposes which carries the consequences the users want it to have. The anthropologist Jack Goody is prominent in the first group. In his view, large organizations like church and state can exist in an ‘oral’ society, but there will be narrow limits to their size, and they tend to be unstable and have a rather short life. Literacy makes such organizations larger and more permanent. On an individual level, people learning through the spoken word tend to think in individual, concrete instances and events. Literacy makes people think in a ‘generalizing’ way using abstract, universal concepts. These consequences of literacy are similar in all societies, and are “unintended consequences”.28 Similarly, Walter Ong has argued strongly that “writing and print alter states of consciousness”.29 This kind of technological determinism has a long tradition in medieval historiography. Feudalism has been explained by the invention of the stirrup, the Viking raids by the construction of the longship, et cetera. The weak point in this kind of analysis is that it neglects to ask why these new technologies were so widely used. They oversimplify the situation by failing to take into account the fact that new technologies were part of a larger social development. The anthropologist Brian Street has criticised Goody for “his determination to attribute to literacy per se characteristics which are clearly those of the social order in which it is found”.30 He sees literacy as “a social product that has arisen 28 29 30

Jack GOODY, The Logic of Writing and the Organisation of Society (Cambridge, 1986). Walter J. ONG, Orality and Literacy (London, 1982). Brian STREET, Literacy in Theory and Practice (Cambridge, 1984), p. 6.

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as a result of political and ideological processes and institutions and its particular form has to be explained in terms of such processes. […] This shaping depends on political and ideological formations and it is these which are responsible for its consequences too”.31 He could be interpreted as saying that literacy had only the consequences which those who introduced it wanted it to have. Street here comes close to denying that “unintended consequences” of literacy exist. Both Goody’s and Street’s methods for analysing literacy and society have certain strengths and weaknesses. It is important to focus on the social groups behind the introduction of literacy. Why did they introduce literacy, and what were their intentions? But equal attention must be paid to the consequences, both intended and unintended. Did church, state and merchants achieve what they had hoped for when they introduced literacy? Did literacy have unintended, long-term consequences which were not foreseen by those who introduced it? If literacy had only the consequences church, state and merchants intended, writing must be considered as one of many instruments which these groups used to obtain their social goals. The instrument is of limited interest; priority has to be given to the intentions of the social group. But if literacy had important unintended consequences, then literacy has an interest in itself, and comparative studies in the consequences of literacy become interesting.32 Earlier discussions of the consequences of literacy have centred on contrasting the pre-literate Greece of Homer to the literate Greece of Plato and Aristotle.33 Scandinavia provides another example of general interest.

31

STREET, Literacy in Theory and Practice, p. 65. See: Peter BURKE, History and Social Theory (Cambridge, 1992), p. 100. Burke thinks that Goody’s critics “modify rather than undermine the central thesis”. 33 Jack GOODY and Ian WATT, “The consequences of literacy”, in: Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 27-68. ONG, Orality and Literacy. 32

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Literacy before 1200 Religious Conformity and a New Elite Identity riting was first introduced to Scandinavia in the form of runes. The runic alphabet was created around AD 200, evidently by a German or Scandinavian speaker who could write Latin and Greek, the two languages most in use in the Roman Empire. The runic alphabet is characterized by its straight lines which are either perpendicular or slanting, but never horizontal. This made them easier to carve on wood and stone, and that was almost certainly the inventor’s intention. Scandinavian runes in the pagan period seem to have been used mainly on memorial stones raised to deceased persons or for magic-religious purposes. But because wood is perishable, shorter messages carved on wooden sticks may have been more common than the surviving material suggests. However, as current research does not suggest that the use of runes in the pre-Christian period was so widespread that it influenced the organization of society, and since the philologist Terje Spurkland has recently published an excellent introduction to what he calls “runacy”,1 it will suffice here to make only a passing mention of this earliest form of Scandinavian literacy.

W

1

Terje SPURKLAND, I begynnelsen var fuþark (Oslo, 2001). Bjarne FIDJESTØL, et al., Norsk litteratur i tusen år (Oslo, 1994). Stig Ørjan OHLSSON, “Why did not the Vikings go on writing as their ancestors did?”, in: Medeltida skrift- och språkkultur, ed. Inger LINDELL (Stockholm, 1994), pp. 79-102.

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Illustration 1. The reign of King Sverrir (1177-1202) was the most intense period during the civil wars in Norway. Sigurd Jarlsson was one of the rebel leaders, and after a defeat in 1194 he fled into the mountains and came through the remote rural community of Vinje in Telemark. He carved the following runes on one of the doorposts of Vinje stave church: “Sigurd Jarlsson carved these runes on the Saturday after St. Botolf (18 June) when he fled to this place and refused to make a settlement with King Sverrir, who had killed his father and brothers”. This is political propaganda, written on a church doorpost where many people would see it. Sigurd presents his struggle with King Sverrir as a feud in which Sigurd sought a just revenge for the killing of his closest relatives. He used runes because they were easier to cut in wood. Photo: University Museum of Cultural Heritage, Oslo.

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The Historical Background Annual pagan rites were organized by local chieftains or petty kings, but by the end of the pagan period rulers over larger areas had also laid claim to this prerogative. When the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish kings and their courts converted to Christianity in the decades before AD 1000, they organized a church under their leadership, assisted by missionary bishops. On the local level it was mostly local magnates who built and owned the first churches. In this period both secular and religious administration at the local level were concentrated around the chieftains and at the Thing assemblies. The government of church affairs was thus divided, with the king at the centre and the traditional chieftains on the local level. The church headed by the king was gradually organized according to the European pattern. From about 1050, the Scandinavian bishops were subordinated to the archbishopric of Bremen, and in the second half of the eleventh century Denmark and Norway were divided into permanent bishops’ sees with stone cathedrals. This development reached Sweden in the twelfth century. Scandinavia was gradually divided into parishes starting in about 1100. In 1103, an archbishopric for all Scandinavia was founded in Lund in Denmark. The archbishopric of Nidaros was founded in 1153 in Norway and its boundaries extended to Iceland, Orkney, the Faeroes and Greenland. Sweden had an archbishop of its own in Uppsala from 1164. The present chapter will close with the breakthrough of the Gregorian reform (ca. 1150-1200), which started a new era characterized by an independent church organization and the rivalry between church and state. The tension between the pagan and Christian religions and local and central political organizations makes the period from ca. 1000 to 1150/1200 interesting for the study of orality and literacy. The most important use of writing in this period was connected to the efforts of the elite to create religious conformity. How did the church communicate its message to illiterate laymen?

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Map 4. Episcopal residences in the Norwegian church province 1153-1266. In addition to the 5 dioceses in mainland Norway, the bishops of Orkney (Kirkwall), Faeroes (Kirkjuböur), Greenland (Garðar) and the two on Iceland (Skálholt and Hólar) also belonged to the Nidaros province. The Bishop of Man had a divided allegiance between Nidaros and York. Map courtesy Aschehoug Publishers, Oslo.

Illustration 2. Codex Regius is the main manuscript for the Eddic poems (the Poetic Edda); it was written in Iceland ca. 1280. Many of the poems, particularly those describing pagan gods, are assumed to have been composed before christianization in AD 1000, at a time when the rituals honouring these gods were still practiced. The poems were transmitted in an oral tradition, and were written down some time before the oldest extant written copy from 1280. The poems are semantically divided into stanzas and verses, but are not visually arranged as such in the manuscript as they are in modern editions. Pauses are indicated by punctuation and capital letters. The manuscript was evidently meant to be read aloud or learnt by heart by an experienced reader. Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland.

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Hagiographies – A Modification of the Traditional, Oral Way of Communicating Norms? The pre-Christian communities of early Scandinavia, accustomed to faceto-face, oral communication, had a deeply rooted narrative tradition. In Iceland, these narratives were preserved orally until the thirteenth century, when they were finally written down. The narratives were in the form of poems that told of gods, kings and great warriors, the so-called Eddic and skaldic poetry. For example, Lokasenna or ‘Loki’s Quarrel’ belongs to the group of Eddic poems which have the pagan gods as their subject. The god Loki enters a hall where the gods are assembled for a banquet. He addresses them one by one, giving a short (and insulting) description of their appearance and alluding to one or several myths which tell about past deeds of the god in question. A person who knew this poem by heart would know the names of the most important deities and have clues to myths about them. The poem tells the story of individuals or concrete events, without any attempt to generalize or theorize on divinity, kingship or warrior bravery. In the so-called skaldic poems composed in the pagan period, great warriors are often presented as protected by the gods. Hákonarmál describes the last battle of the Norwegian king Hakon the Good in AD 960. He fought heroically against his enemies and won the battle, but lost his life. Then the skald presents a new scene in the hall of the god Odin where preparations are made to receive the dead hero. We hear a dialogue between the gods and the welcoming words for Hakon. The Eddic poems (about gods and mythic heroes; mostly found in the collection known as the Poetic Edda) and skaldic poems (about historical warrior heroes; from Old Norse skáld, ‘court poet’) have in common that they present individuals in concrete situations often with a dialogue. These narratives present behavioural norms, but in the form of individuals performing great deeds which should be imitated, or people behaving unwisely and being punished for it.Norms are implicitly demonstrated rather than explicitly stated and generalized. That is exactly what we should expect in a pre-literate society, according to Goody.2 Do the literate narratives in the subsequent period preach general norms more explicitly, as should be expected according to Goody’s theory? The earliest priests do not seem to have preached as part of their masses; they limited themselves to performing the liturgy – in Latin. It is doubtful 2

See supra: Introduction, p. 13.

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whether laymen had Christian doctrine explained to them in abstract terms to any significant degree. This kind of preaching seems to have become important later, around 1200.3 But reading saints’ lives seems to have been important from the very beginning. Saints’ feast days were observed, and pilgrimages to St Olaf are described in contemporary poems from the 1030s. The oldest Christian ‘normative narratives’ seem to have been hagiographies, or ‘saints’ sagas’ (Heilagra manna sögur), as they were called in Old Norse. A normal hagiography of the period started with a description of the life of the saint and ended with an enumeration of the saint’s posthumous miracles. It demonstrated which virtues the saint represented and proved his supernatural powers. Legendary hagiographies were the most commonly read form of narrative in the Scandinavian Middle Ages, and have been preserved in large numbers. Old Norse legends of the saints have been edited in four volumes of about four thousand pages.4 They were read or paraphrased from the pulpit on the saint’s feast day, and Icelandic chieftains owned private copies which were read aloud in the living room in the evening for religious edification.5 Most legends were translations. The oldest known narrative composed in Scandinavia is the life of St Knut written in about 1095 in Odense by an English cleric; another was written ca. 1115, also by an Englishman.6 The first legend composed by a native Scandinavian was probably Passio Olavi written by Archbishop Eystein of Nidaros around 1170, in Latin. The genre of saint’s legend has some common characteristics with the pagan poems mentioned above. Both tell a concrete story with a norm implicit in the narrative. The difference is that the legend also moralizes explicitly. Even so, the legends show a concrete way of thinking, which according to Goody is typical for illiterates. The widespread use of these legends in the earliest period may be understood as an effort on the part of the clergy to make themselves understood to their illiterate congregations. But there was an important difference between orally transmitted poems in the Eddic tradition and written hagiographies. The transmission of the first was controlled by an audience of warriors and peasants. The hagiographies were 3

See infra: p. 55. C.R. UNGER (ed.), Mariu saga (Christiania (Oslo), 1871). IDEM (ed.), Postola sögur (Christiania (Oslo), 1874). IDEM (ed.), Heilagra manna sögur, 2 vols. (Christiania (Oslo), 1877), 5 Several examples in: Sturlunga saga, ed. Örnolfur THORSSON, 3 vols. (Reykjavík, 1988); English translation: Sturlunga Saga, trans. Julia MCGREW and R. George THOMAS, 2 vols. (New York, 1970-1974); Danish translation: Sturlunga saga, trans. Kr. KÅLUND, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1904). 6 Karsten FRIIS-JENSEN, “Litteratur og bøger”, in: Middelalderens Danmark, ed. Per INGESMAN et al. (Copenhagen, 1999) pp. 314-333, pp. 316-317. 4

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transmitted in written form between literate priests, but orally to illiterate laymen. The control of norms through narratives had been centralized and was controlled by the clergy.7

Use of Literacy to Standardize Liturgy and Religious Beliefs An even more important use of literacy in the earliest period was connected to the church’s efforts to standardize the rituals, creating a liturgy in Latin according to the norms of the international church and the local diocese. Pre-Christian religious beliefs were expressed in orally transmitted myths, approved by the local audiences which heard them. The priesthood does not seem to have been a separate profession; rituals were performed by magnates according to custom. It is hard to imagine any control of the rituals and contents of the myths apart from the local audience. The missionaries of the tenth century brought with them books. The basic beliefs of Christianity were found in the Bible, and the rituals were written down in books of liturgy such as the missals.8 The oldest extant manuscript in Scandinavia contains the four gospels in Latin and a list of passages to be read on particular feast days. It was probably written in Dalby in Skåne shortly after 1060. Dalby was a bishop’s see from 1060 to 1066.9 The “Dalby book” had North German models. Before 1150 Scandinavian clerics who were educated abroad, mostly went to German monastic schools. The two first Icelandic bishops Isleif and Gizur (1056-1118) went to school in a convent in Herford in Westphalia.10 Danes in the same period went to German monasteries like Hildesheim, Hersfeld and Fulda.11 The new religion transferred the control of religious rituals from local magnates, and the control of the beliefs from local narrators of myths to a clergy controlled by the king. If Christianity had not been a ‘religion of the book’, it is hard to see how priests supported by the king could have standardized rituals and religious beliefs in his realm. Control of clergy and religious practices was an important element in the power of the kings in this early period. 7

See infra: p. 57. Helge FEHN, “Missale”, in: KLNM 11, cols. 642-644. 9 Hilding JOHANSSON, “Dalbyboken”, in: KLNM 2, cols. 626-627. NILSSON, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 1, p. 116. FRIIS-JENSEN, “Litteratur og bøger”, p. 315. 10 Jónas GISLASON, “Universitetsbesøken i utlandet føre 1660: Island”, in: Nordisk historikermøte 18. Møtesrapport I (Jyväskulä, 1981), pp. 119-140, p. 124. 11 Vello HELK, “Universitetsbesøken i utlandet føre 1660: Danmark”, in: Nordisk historikermøte 18. Møtesrapport I (Jyväskylä, 1981), pp. 7-65, p. 27. 8

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Illustration 3. Dalbyboken is the oldest extant book written in Scandinavia. It is assumed that the book was produced at Dalby, near Lund in Skåne, in the 1060s. Dalby was a bishop’s see for a short time in the 1060s. According to information given in the book itself, church institutions in this town owned the book later in the Middle Ages. The book contains the four gospels, and there are miniatures of all four evangelists; St John is illustrated here. The model for this type of book production is to be found in northern Germany. At this time Scandinavia was part of the Archbishopric of Bremen (Merete Geert ANDERSEN, “Dalbybogen”, in: Levende ord og lysende billeder: Essays, ed. Erik PETERSEN (Copenhagen, 1999), pp. 63-66.). Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. KB Gl. Kgl. S. 1325 4o.

In Iceland, local magnates owned the churches and the clergy were their servants. The control of religious orthodoxy was in the hands of the law community at the Althing and the bishops; the Norwegian king had no influence in the matter. The authority of the written texts created uniform rituals and religious beliefs regardless of the form of government.

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Illustration 4. Canonical hours or prayers to celebrate the arrival in Nidaros Cathedral of a gold ring with a drop of Christ’s blood in it. This event happened on 12 September 1165, and every year on this day this liturgy was celebrated in the cathedral. The booklet with the liturgy for this ‘Feast of the Holy Blood’ comprises five leaves (folios). Only the parts of the liturgy which were unique to this particular day are written in the booklet. The page illustrated here shows some of the canonical prayers which were sung seven times a day and once during the night in all major churches. This is the end of vespers, sung at about 4 p.m. After the prose text without music follows the beginning of the night office (nocturns) sung at 2 a.m. Both music and text are included in the manuscript. The composer did not create music and text himself, but selected and copied it from existing liturgy and made minor changes where necessary. This is a prestige manuscript which was written and used at the archbishop’s see in Nidaros (O. EDWARDS, “Kirkens musikk før reformasjonen”, in: Norges musikkhistorie 1 (Oslo, 2001), pp. 57-90, pp. 70-71). Photo: www.kb.dk/elib/mss/Add47-2; KB MS Add. 47.fol, fol 6v.

The King’s Administrative Literacy: Foreign Correspondence and Laws The church’s effort to standardize religious beliefs and liturgy was one way in which literacy found its way to Scandinavia. The other was kings’ efforts to obtain political control of their realms. In this early period the same clerics wrote the church’s and the king’s letters. But the church’s literacy was a precondition for the king’s, because his secretaries were priests. According to a Welsh decree the priests at the king’s court should be “ready and unintoxicated at the king’s need, to write letters and to read them”.12 The same must have been demanded from their Scandinavian counterparts. Danish and Norwegian kings were introduced to secular uses of writing in England. King Knut made extensive use of written documents during his reign in England 1016-1035, but not when acting in matters purely Danish.13 In AD 991 Olaf Tryggvason made a written treaty with the English king Æthelred concerning peace and payment of Danegeld. Four years later, Olaf became king of Norway.14 Snorri’s saga of King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway (reigned 1015-1030) describes several diplomatic missions between Olaf and neighbouring kings. 12 Sioned DAVIES, “Written text as performance: The implications for Middle Welsh prose narratives”, in: Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies, ed. Huw PRYCE (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 133-148, p. 136. 13 Cf. DD 1.R I. 14 DN XIX, No. 1. DD 1. R I, No. 350.

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King Olaf once sent his marshal (stallari) Bjorn on an important peace mission to the Swedish king. The first leg of the journey was to take him to Earl Ragnvald, who ruled western Sweden. King Olaf gives his ambassador a sword and a gold ring “which Earl Ragnvald gave me this summer [...] these objects he will recognize”. Bjorn is then to ask for the earl’s support in the mission to the Swedish king. When Bjorn comes to the earl he presents the two objects or tokens as instructed and is recognized as King Olaf’s ambassador, and his oral message is accepted as King Olaf’s words. On the next and most difficult leg of the journey to the Swedish king, the Norwegian ambassadors receive a new token from Earl Ragnvald’s wife to the Swedish king’s daughter, and she helps them to gain access to her father.15 Contacts between Norway and Sweden were organized in the traditional, oral way. At the same time, King Olaf receives a letter from King Knut in England demanding that Olaf take Norway as a fief from Knut. The ambassadors from England first give their message orally, then hand over sealed letters “and they said exactly the same”.16 King Knut communicates with his fellow kings in a more ‘modern’ way, but it is difficult to see that this change had important social consequences. This combination of orality and literacy continued to the end of the Middle Ages. A detailed instruction has been preserved for a messenger whom the captain of Akershus castle near Oslo sent to the king in Copenhagen in 1535. When the messenger was received by the king, he was to give him a letter, which the king would read immediately. “When the king has read the letter he will no doubt ask if you have been instructed to give further information.” Then the messenger was to inform the king orally about the treacherous activities of the Archbishop of Nidaros. The latter information was too sensitive to be included in a letter.17 By the time Danish rule in England ended in 1042, Scandinavian kings were familiar with correspondence with foreign monarchs and dignitaries. At that time the monarchs had clerics at their court who were able to read and write such letters in Latin. The Norwegian king Magnus sent a letter to the English king in 1043.18 The first known letter mentioning the Swedish king is a written agreement concerning the frontier between Sweden and Denmark which is thought to date from ca. 1050.19 Letters from the pope to the Danish and Norwegian kings are known from the 1060s, and there are letters from the Arch15 16 17 18 19

Hkr, The Saga of St. Olaf, c. 68-72. Hkr, The Saga of St. Olaf, c. 131. RN I, No. 25. DN XII, No. 554. Hkr, The Saga of Magnus the Good, c. 36. Peter SAWYER, När Sverige blev Sverige (Skara, 1991), pp. 21-22.

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bishop of Bremen to the people of Iceland from the same period.20 The first known letter from the pope to the king of Sweden dates from 1080.21 How important were these letters between monarchs? Earlier, kings and magnates had communicated orally through messengers. Written letters were more formal, and must have contributed to a development where the king gradually acquired a monopoly of communication with foreign monarchs. In the Viking period (ca. 800-1000) it had been unproblematic for a magnate to equip a private army and enter the service of a foreign king. In the period that followed, such an act gradually came to be regarded as tantamount to treason. The main reason for this was of course the concentration of military power in the hands of the kings. But exchanges of letters between monarchs must have helped formalize the Scandinavian royal claims to sovereignty and make Scandinavia part of a European state system. More important in the state-building process was the use of the written word in legislation. A detailed discussion of this question will be left to Chapter 2. It is probable, though subject to some debate, that Norwegian ecclesiastical law had been put into writing by the 1020s, and secular law by the 1040s. It is beyond doubt that the Icelandic laws were written down in about 1118.22 There are no indications that Danish and Swedish laws were committed to writing before 1170. The saga tradition gives the impression that Christianization was particularly violent in Norway. According to the sagas, Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson used their military powers to eradicate all remnants of paganism during their lifetime, in the period 995-1030. The missionary bishops who followed the kings from England may have thought it would be easier to enforce the Christian laws if they were put into writing and read aloud at the Thing assemblies. The model for the use of the vernacular in written laws existed in Anglo-Saxon England and was well known to the English missionary bishops.23 But why did the Danish kings choose not to have their laws written down in the vernacular? They also knew the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Perhaps there was less resistance to the new religion there and the people were better pre20

Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum, ed. Bernhard SCHMEIDLER, Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte: Magistri Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (Hannover, 1917: Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum 2), IV, c. 36 and III, c. 17, with “Scholion” 69 to this chapter. Hungrvaka, ed. Jón SIGURÐSSON and Gudbrand VIGFUSSON (Copenhagen, 1858: Biskupa sögur 1), pp. 57-86, c. 2. DD 1. R II, No. 6. 21 HALLENCREUTZ, När Sverige ble europeiskt, p. 71. 22 See infra: Chapter 2, pp. 75-76. 23 For more on this problem, see infra: Chapter 2, pp. 75-83.

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pared. The king and his missionary bishops may have felt it was easier to insert the new Christian laws into the oral legal tradition.

The Annals and the New Understanding of Time The clergy used writing in a conscious effort to standardize religious beliefs and liturgy. These efforts largely had the intended consequences. But did the introduction of literacy in this early period also have important unintended consequences? In pagan Scandinavia knowledge about the past was transmitted orally, and this continued into the Christian era. Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, tells us that the Danish king Sven Estridsen († 1076) “kept all the great deeds of the barbarians in his memory, as if they were written.”24 But in an oral tradition, a strict chronology was difficult.25 Events were usually situated in the reign of a certain king or in a distant mythic past and orally transmitted genealogies enumerated the kings in chronological order. Past events were connected to kings who followed each other in a chronological order. The earliest annals represent the first effort on the part of the Scandinavian literate elite to create a written transmission of important past events. They were organized chronologically, by years after the birth of Christ. The oldest known Scandinavian annals are the ‘Colbaz annals’ written from ca. 1137 at the cathedral of Lund, which at that time was the archbishop’s see for all Scandinavia. The tradition of keeping annals started at the ecclesiastical centre, but before 1250 other Danish church institutions had taken up the practice.26 The Swedish annalistic tradition seems to have been imported from Denmark in the decades after 1250. One of the oldest known Swedish annals was started in Denmark, and shortly after 1254 transferred to a newly founded Swedish Dominican convent.27 From Norway no annals are known. The oldest known Icelandic annals

24

BUMKE, Höfische Kultur, p. 613, quoting from Adam of Bremen, Gesta, II, c. 43: omnes barbarorum gestas res in memoria tenuit, ac (si) scriptæ essent. 25 ONG, Orality and Literacy, pp. 139-155. 26 FRIIS-JENSEN, “Litteratur og bøger”, p. 326. 27 Gunnar T. WESTIN, “Årböcker”, in: KLNM 20, cols. 429-435. Herulf NIELSEN, “Årböcker: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 435. Jacob BENEDIKTSSON, “Årböcker: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 435-437.

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were started around 1280.28 The geographical expansion thus gives a neat chronological pattern from Lund in 1137 to Iceland ca. 1280.29 For the ecclesiastical institutions where they were written, at least one purpose of these annals was a practical one. Annals gave short notices year by year of events which were thought to be important. The appointments and deaths of abbots, bishops or kings were important for the dating of the institution’s letters and bringing to light false documents. Honourable events in the history of the monastery, cathedral or the church in general could be a source of power and prestige. Past events in the relationship to secular powers could also be of importance in future conflicts. The annals were narratives, but they were nevertheless part of the church’s administrative literacy, giving useful information. But the annals were also an effort on the part of the clerics to create order in their understanding of the history of mankind. By connecting recent secular events to years after the birth of Christ, the clerics could connect important local, secular events to the great events of Christian universal history. Here the Creation, the Incarnation of Christ and the Judgement were the main events. Icelandic clerics started writing annals in about 1280, but their tales began much earlier, often in a distant mythic past. Information about religious history was taken from the Bible, and some annals start by dating God’s creation of Adam.30 Information about European history was taken from ancient and medieval authors. The material for early Icelandic and Norwegian history was taken from sagas. The annals of Ryd monastery in Denmark (end of the thirteenth century) used excerpts from Saxo’s history of the Danes for the earliest period.31 In recent decades there has been a discussion about the understanding of time in medieval Europe, concentrated around the two concepts of cyclical and linear time. The first implies that events tend to repeat themselves, as they do in the seasonal cycle of the year, or in the ages of every man during a lifespan. The second implies that time has a starting and ending point, the most evident example being life starting with birth and ending with death. Did literacy change the elite’s understanding of history from cyclical to linear?32

28 Jónas KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas (Reykjavík, 1997), pp.186-187. WESTIN, “Årböcker”. NIELSEN, “Årböcker: Danmark”. BENEDIKTSSON, “Årböcker: Island”. 29 According to KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 186, the Icelandic tradition of writing annals started among parish priests, but the evidence for this is lacking. 30 Islandske Annaler, ed. Gustav STORM (Christiania (Oslo), 1888), p. 79. 31 FRIIS-JENSEN, “Litteratur og bøger”, p. 326. KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 187. 32 Jacques LE GOFF, “Temps de l’église et temps du marchand”, in: IDEM, Pour un autre Moyen Age (Paris, 1977), pp. 46-65.

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In the oral tradition, history appeared as a series of rulers or other officeholders, some good and some bad. This concept includes a cyclical understanding because the good rulers tend to perform the same kind of actions, and so do the bad. At the same time, each ruler is different and follows his predecessor chronologically, so the linear understanding is therefore also present. But the Christian understanding strengthened the linear element. It imposed Creation, Incarnation and Doomsday as chronological vantage points for history, and literacy made it possible to put local events into the same linear frame. The increasing linear emphasis also had a practical side. In Hákonar saga the king’s birth is dated according to the birth of Christ, the reigns of the popes, the emperors, the Swedish king, the Danish king and the Norwegian king. The Europeanization of the Scandinavian elite made it necessary to have a way of dating events which could be used by the subjects of all kings and princes, and also in the history of church and religion. Using the birth of Christ as a universal reference point was a practical tool. The writing of annals declined in Sweden after 1350, and in Iceland the last annals, those of Skálholt Cathedral, were terminated in 1430.33 There were at least two reasons for this. The annals recorded information which could be useful to church administration, but more reliable and comprehensive information of this type was to be found in the archives of church and state from 1400 onward. The annals also recorded events which were important to the church’s prestige, but another genre, the chronicle, was better suited to this purpose.

The Rise of the Chronicle as the Narrative of the Whole Elite The art of the skalds was closely associated to pagan religion. The god Odin was supposed to have introduced the art of skaldic poetry. The main purpose of the poems was to praise warriors who, if killed in battle, became Odin’s companions in the next life.34 After Christianization these skaldic poems seem to have waned in popularity. The skaldic language made extensive use of metaphors from the pagan religion. They became largely incomprehensible for Christians, and Christian skalds had problems composing new poems with these metaphors. Stripped of the intervention of pagan gods these poems tended to become rather dull and dry enumerations of battles and standardized words of praise for bravery. After 33

Jacob BENEDIKTSSON, “Nýi annáll”, in: KLNM 12, col. 391. See especially the poems Hákonarmál and Eiríksmál, ed. Finnur JÓNSSON, Den norskislandske skjaldedigtning B, volume 1 (Copenhagen, 1912), pp. 57-60 and 164-166. 34

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Christianization the mastery of the skaldic art seems to have been limited to a few poets, mostly Icelanders, with a declining audience. But why did the skalds not renew their art by adapting their poems to new values? The reason may be in the purpose for which skaldic poetry was designed. The skalds praised one value only, bravery in battle. But after Christianization, loyalty to Christian norms became equally important. The norms and ideals for the king and his courtiers became more complex. This was difficult to achieve in poems, which had to be short and standardized in order to be easily remembered in an oral tradition. Attempts were made to write skaldic poems on Christian subjects. The best known example is Geisli, written by the Icelander Einar Skulason in praise of St Olaf ca. 1153.35 But despite these efforts, a literate author who wanted to describe complex moral choices expressed himself more easily in chronicles. The chronicle as it developed in Denmark and Sweden and the saga genre in Iceland and Norway both had their closest non-Scandinavian models in the European chronicle. The first work in the saga tradition was Ari Thorgilsson’s Islendingabók, written 1122-1133.36 The Roskilde Chronicle from 1139-1143 is the first known chronicle in the Danish-Swedish tradition.37 Before 1200 the main Scandinavian literary centres were the archbishops’ sees, primarily Lund but also Nidaros; less is known about literary activities in Uppsala. Lars Boje Mortensen has argued that the archbishops and their clerics produced literature for a small public of prelates and courtiers. The purpose was to confirm their self-image as the religious and military leaders of the emerging Danish and Norwegian states, and justify their right to power.38 Chronicles and other literature were also written at other ecclesiastical centres, such as monasteries. Before the Gregorian reform at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the church and its leaders played a crucial part in having these chronicles written, both as authors and as commissioners. But this does not mean that the clerics used literacy to defend the church’s interests only. In the earliest period, the king was considered to be the head of the church. Bishops and priests regarded him as their leader. Archbishop Absalon (1177-1201) commissioned the two great histories of the Danes which were written ca. 1185-1200.39 Both the au 35

JÓNSSON, Norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning, pp. 427-445. Islendingabok, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (Reykjavík, 1986: Íslenzk Fornrit 1), pp. 1-28. 37 Roskildekrøniken, ed. M.Cl. GERTZ (Copenhagen, 1917-1918: Scriptores minores historiæ Danicæ medii ævi 1), pp. 1-33. 38 Lars Boje MORTENSEN, “The Nordic archbishoprics as literary centres around 1200”, in: Archbishop Absalon and his World, ed. Karsten Friis JENSEN and Inge SKOVGAARD-PETERSEN (Roskilde, 2000), pp. 133-157. 39 Sven Aggesen, Brevis historia, ed. Martin Clarentius GERTZ, En ny Text af Sven 36

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thors, Sven Aggesen and Saxo Grammaticus, had a good clerical education, probably from French universities. Saxo may have been a consecrated priest, but Sven probably was not.40 Archbishop Eystein of Nidaros (1161-1188) commissioned the monk Theodoricus to write a history of the ancient Norwegian kings in Latin. Two other histories of the Norwegian kings and the Norwegians were probably also written by clerics at the see of Nidaros at this time.41 The priest Ari Thorgilsson explicitly says that he had been invited by the two Icelandic bishops to write his Islendingabók, which is a chronicle of Icelandic magnates.42 His main emphasis is on the lay chieftains in the pagan period; after AD 1000 he focuses on the bishops. Other sagas seem to have been written on the initiative of monasteries. Around 1190, the monk Odd from the monastery of Þingeyrar wrote an idealized saga of King Olaf Tryggvason, who christianized Iceland.43 The initiative for writing the first sagas and chronicles came from prominent ecclesiastical figures, even if they recorded the history of secular kings and magnates. Some chronicles were evidently written to defend a party in an ongoing political conflict. The Roskilde chronicle defends the future archbishop Eskil against the enemies of his political line; Eskil himself may have been the author.44 Sverris saga is a polemic against Sverrir’s rival, Magnus Erlingsson, and other enemies of the king. But normally the propaganda is more subtle, presenting its heroes as honourable and admirable. Many of the early chronicles combine an interest for kingship and the church, presenting an idealized image of both. The histories of the Norwegian kings written by clerics give particular and positive attention to the two christianizing kings Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson. Both Sven Aggesen and Saxo aimed to show that the Danish monarchs and the magnates surrounding them had been honourable warriors. But for Saxo it was also important to Aggesøns Værker gengiven paa Grundlag af Codex Arnæmagnæanus 33, 4To (Copenhagen, 1916). Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ed. J. OLRIK and H. RÆDER, Saxonis Gesta Danorum, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1931-1957). 40 Pil DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2 (Copenhagen, 1998), pp. 56-76. FRIISJENSEN, “Litteratur og bøger”, pp. 318-322. Inge SKOVGAARD-PETERSEN, “Saxo”, in: KLNM 15, cols. 49-56. Erik KROMAN, “Sven Aggesen”, in: KLNM 17, cols. 501-502. 41 Theodoricus Monachus: Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, ed. Gustav STORM (Kristiania (Oslo), 1880: Monumenta Historica Norvegiæ), pp. 1-68, p. 67. Ágrip, ed. B. EINARSSON (Reykjavík, 1985: Íslenzk Fornrit 29), pp. 1-54. Bjarne FIDJESTØL et al., Norsk litteratur i tusen år (Oslo, 1994), pp. 91-92. 42 Islendingabok, p. 3. 43 Oddr Snorrason, Saga Olafs Tryggvasonar, ed. Finnur JÓNSSON (Copenhagen, 1932). 44 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 47-50. Cf. Herluf NIELSEN, “Roskildekrøniken”, in: KLNM 14, cols. 427-428.

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give the church a central place in Danish history. Saxo underlines the common efforts of king and church in giving Denmark proper laws. Some historians have been surprised that the church is not more prominent, taking into consideration that both author and commissioner were ecclesiastics.45 Theodoricus expresses his desperation concerning developments in Norway in the civil war period after 1130 and ends his book in that year. He does not explain why, but it is possibly because of the open conflict between church and state which developed in the latter part of the twelfth century. In his book about the Icelanders, Ari devotes most of his pages to their Christianization and the subsequent development of the church. The early chroniclers promote an ideal of cooperation between secular and ecclesiastical authorities. Jónas Kristjánsson notes that the writings of the church in the earliest period were produced “almost exclusively [...] for practical educational purposes”.46 In a certain sense this is true. But prior to 1200, the church saw it as its duty to teach people not only religious doctrines, but also secular social norms. Before the church reform movement and the international court culture exerted its influence, the written chronicles present an elite of warriors and clerics united around the king, working to defend the realm and give it good laws and a proper religion.

Did Literacy Have Important Social Consequences before 1200? In the period between Christianization and the Gregorian reform, literacy was largely a monopoly of the church and its clerics. This was the case not only in Scandinavia, but in the Low Countries and Eastern Europe as well.47 Important social changes took place during this period. Most of these changes were connected to the increasing social influence of the state and the church, both of which in this early period were led by the king. The main force behind this development was the increasing monopolization of legitimate violence in the hands of the king. But as shown above, some importance should also be attributed to the use of literacy. 45 Vésteinn OLASON, Dialogues with the Viking Age (Reykjavík, 1998). DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 67-73. 46 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 115. 47 Marco MOSTERT, “Veelkleurige religie en zakelijk schriftgebruik”, in: Geschiedenis van Holland tot 1572, ed. Thimo DE NIJS (Hilversum, 2002), pp. 149-196. Anna ADAMSKA, “The introduction of writing in Central Europe”, in: New Approaches to Medieval Communication, ed. Marco MOSTERT (Turnhout, 1999: Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 1), pp. 165-189, 174 and 188.

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Illustration 5. Saxo’s Latin history of the Danes, the Gesta Danorum, was written ca. 1200, but the text as a whole is only known from an edition printed in Paris in 1514. But in 1863 four leaves were found in the binding of a printed book in the public library of Angers, containing an excerpt from the Gesta Danorum dating from ca. 1200, with corrections in the margins. These corrections are assumed to be in Saxo’s own hand. Saxo was given the nickname ‘Grammaticus’ because of his elegant and correct Latin. The copy shows that Saxo meticulously reworked the wording of his text (PETERSEN, Levende ord og lysende billeder: 1: Katalog, p. 20). Photo: http://base.kb.dk/manus_pub. KB NKS 869 g 4o.

Writing was most important in creating religious conformity. By later standards this uniformity was on a superficial level; the emphasis was on the liturgy and narratives of saints to be imitated or at least venerated, and in both of these areas literacy was important. Writing was used by the state as well as the church in foreign correspondence, legislation and ordinances. But systematic efforts to control jurisdiction and legislation through literacy did not start until the final years of the twelfth century. Finally, written chronicles helped to create an elite identity among warriors and priests surrounding the king. The foundation was in place for the construction of the two great organizations of church and state in the period that followed.

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Literacy 1200-1350 The Construction of Great Organizations he period to be discussed in this chapter was one of the most important, perhaps the most important, time of organization-building in Scandinavian history. Starting around the middle of the twelfth century, church and state created separate, great organizations that transformed Scandinavian society. Both organizations reached down to the local peasant and urban communities through parish priests, royal judges and bailiffs, and changed social norms and practices. Seen in a long-term perspective, church and state had common objectives: an end to the feuds of the local warriors and the transfer of social control from local authorities like chieftains and Thing assemblies to central authorities like kings and bishops. But at the same time, the two organizations competed for power and influence. Why did this process of organization-building begin in the twelfth century? By this time, Scandinavian kings had neutralized local magnates to a degree which made state-building possible. State-building is, however, a phenomenon found all over Northern Europe in the twelfth century; the impulses must therefore have come from abroad as well. By the middle of the twelfth century, the Scandinavian church had created a basic organizational framework with dioceses and parishes within permanent boundaries, at least in Denmark and Norway. But the decisive impulse came from the Gregorian reform movement which swept through Catholic Europe at this time. The reformed church had the ambition of constructing a strong and united church organization independent from the state and with close links to the papal curia. The Gregorian reform movement started in France and Italy in the eleventh century and spread all over Western Europe from the papal curia. The creation

T

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of the Danish archbishop’s see – which originally included all Scandinavia – in 1103, the creation of the Norwegian see1 in 1153 and the Swedish see in 1164 gave the three countries direct links to Rome. The development of church organization according to the Gregorian model started in Denmark under Archbishop Eskil (1138-1177), and there were periodic open conflicts between church and state from 1161. Similar developments took place in Norway under Archbishop Eystein (1161-1184) with conflicts between state and church from 1177. In Sweden this happened almost a century later.2 The twelfth and thirteenth centuries also saw town life and trade flourish. Foreign merchants with their literate practices frequented Scandinavian ports and towns. Stockfish from Lofoten, herring from Skåne and metals from Stockholm appeared in markets all over Northern Europe. Scandinavia was integrated into a North European trade network. Native merchants in this period used written letters and accounts only to a limited degree; for this reason, a discussion of the social consequences of literacy in trade will be deferred to the next chapter. Before the Gregorian church reforms reached Scandinavia in the late twelfth century, it is difficult to draw a line between the administrative literacy of the state and that of the church. The king was in practice head of the church, and the pope accepted this fact by addressing letters concerning church affairs to him. The clergy had a monopoly on literate knowledge and manned the king’s chancery. After the Gregorian reforms, however, the church had the ambition of constructing a strong and united church organization independent from the state with close links to the papal curia. State and church in Scandinavia gradually created separate, literate administrations with their own staff. I will discuss the administrative literacy of these two institutions separately, starting with the church.

1

Including Iceland, Orkney, the Faeroes and Greenland. DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og Medieudvikling”. Hal KOCH, Den danske kirkes historie, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1950-1962), I, pp. 121-136. NILSSON, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 1, pp. 142-150. The Gregorian Church reform is discussed in all textbooks on medieval history. 2

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Gregorian Church Reforms and Ecclesiastical Uses of Administrative Literacy Bishops’ Use of Visitation and Synod to Communicate Orally with the Lower Clergy

The basic unit in the church organization was the diocese. Permanent dioceses with cathedrals in Scandinavia were created in the eleventh century, in a period when literacy had yet to take firm root in the region. Many oral procedures established then continued in the following centuries. In Norway and Iceland the bishop and parish priests of the diocese originally met at the annual legislative Thing assemblies where representatives of the peasant community and the king were present. But in the late twelfth century the diocesan synods developed as specialized assemblies.3 They were held every year in the cathedral, lasting three days. In Sweden all priests of the diocese were obliged to attend with the exception of those needed to maintain a minimum of religious services at the parish churches. In the provinces of Lund and Nidaros there was a representative system. Here conflicts between clergy were dealt with through formal jurisdiction if necessary. Ordinances and laws from king or church authorities were made known to the priests. Practical information could also be given, like the date of Easter for that year.4 In the earliest period, communication at the synod was probably purely verbal. During the thirteenth century written documents became increasingly important.5 Much of the information distributed was in the form of documents read aloud, and important judgements and orders were written down by those concerned. In the 1430s priests on Öland in Sweden were asked to bring paper and writing equipment to synods in order to write down important texts issued

3 Troels DAHLERUP, “Om landemodets ælde”, in: Ordet, kirken og kulturen, ed. Carsten BACH-NIELSEN et al. (Århus, 1993), pp. 130-140. Troels DAHLERUP, “Synode”, in: KLNM 17, cols. 630-636. Sigurd KROON, “Synode: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 636-640. Erik GUNNES, “Synode: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 640-641. Jacob BENEDIKTSSON, “Synode: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 641-643. 4 DAHLERUP, “Synode”. KROON, “Synode: Sverige”. GUNNES, “Synode: Norge”. BENEDIKTSSON, “Synode: Island”. Sven-Erik PERNLER, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 2 (Stockholm, 1999), p. 26. Troels DAHLERUP,“Kommunikation i ældre tid”, in: Nætverk – ord, billeder og handling i kommunikationssamfundet (Århus, 1983: Aarhus Universitet, Årbog fra Det humanistiske fakultet), pp. 32-37, pp. 34-35. 5 DAHLERUP, “Om landemodets ælde”, p. 130 and 135.

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by “the archbishop and his suffragan bishops and the secular lords of the realm”.6 Communication ca. 1300 was in both oral and written forms. The bishop was also obliged to visit the parish churches of his diocese every third year. The bishops largely fulfilled their duties in this respect, but the frequency of their visitations is difficult to judge. During these visitations the bishop made stops at a few main churches, each time for two to four nights.7 The local priests and laymen then could come to the bishop with their business, complaints or court cases. The bishop could also ascertain that the parish priests had the necessary books to officiate the liturgy and perform other religious duties, and he could find out about the priests’ conduct from the locals. On these occasions he could give decisions, which are referred to in the sources as ‘admonitions’ (admonitio) and at other times regular court ‘judgements’ (sentencia). The term admonitio was used for orders based on church teachings or doctrines not reflected in civil law. For example, when the husband of a noblewoman named Ragna became a monk, the Bishop of Bergen ‘admonished’ her to take a vow of chastity even if she did not enter a convent. A sentencia was a decision based on the law, as when the Bishop of Bergen judged the marriage of a couple named Erik and Steinvor to be valid.8 Usually these admonitions or judgements were given orally, but sometimes they were written down, probably because one of the parties wanted it or because the bishop wished to give his decision more weight.9 A collection of 509 letters from the see of Bergen has been preserved from the period 1305-1342.10 At this time the bishop had several scribes. He had an archive containing letters he had received, and a book or registrum which mainly included important letters he had written himself or received, and which he needed in his daily work.11 The archbishop was to control the activities of the bishops in his province, and he was a link between the pope’s international church and these local bishops. Archbishops held provincial synods with their suffragan bishops at more or less regular intervals. In Nidaros after 1280 the decisions taken there were put 6

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 252. RN IV, No. 254. Anna Elisa TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme i første halvdel av 1300-tallet (unpublished MA thesis: University of Bergen, Department of History, 1987), p. 497. 8 RN III, Nos. 622-623. DN I, No. 123. DN III, No. 83. 9 RN III, No. 479. RN IV, No. 583. 10 In medieval terminology a combination of a registrum and a formularium. Bjarne BERULFSEN, “Bergens kopibok”, in: KLNM 1, cols. 475-476. 11 TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme, pp. 32-33. 7

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into writing, and the suffragan Bishop of Skálholt published them in his diocese “to be respected by all priests and consecrated men in the diocese of Skálholt.”12 The suffragan bishops had to visit the archbishop once a year, but this was usually done through a representative.13 But the Bishop of Bergen, at least, had other ways of communicating with his archbishop which combined orality and literacy. One of the canons at the cathedral of Nidaros functioned as an ambassador for the Bishop of Bergen to the ‘court’ of the archbishop. This ambassador received frequent letters from Bergen with questions for information and instructions about services to be performed.14 The Bishop of Bergen and the Archbishop of Nidaros also corresponded directly. The letters partly contained business – such as an instruction from the archbishop to repair a derelict parish church – and partly general information about politics and persons.15 The archbishops were expected to visit the suffragan bishops at regular intervals. The Archbishop of Nidaros personally visited the dioceses of his suffragan bishops in Norway.16 To remote dioceses like Iceland, Greenland and Orkney he sent visitatores.17 When these visitatores returned, they gave written reports. One such report has been preserved, written by Ivar Bardsson who visited Greenland in 1341/2. He reported that the so-called western, or rather northern settlement with all its churches had been abandoned, and the Norse inhabitants killed by the Eskimos.18 Troels Dahlerup has shown that oral-literate communication was effective in spreading information from the pope at the top down to laymen at the parish level. The pope proclaimed the year 1350 to be a jubilee by sending a letter about it to all archbishops in Latin Christendom. The archbishops, in turn, either used the provincial synod to inform their suffragan bishops, or alternatively sent a messenger with a transcript of the pope’s letter. The suffragan bishop then informed the priests when they were present at the next diocesan synod, probably by reading a transcript of the pope’s letter aloud. The last step would be for the parish priest to inform his parishioners orally from the pulpit. 19 This line of 12

TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme, p. 15. RN IV, Nos. 387, 392 and 454. 14 RN V, Nos. 193 and 272. 15 RN V, Nos. 386 and 445. 16 RN V, No. 527. 17 RN V, No. 476. 18 Det gamle Grønlands beskrivelse, ed. Finnur JÓNSSON (Copenhagen, 1930). 19 Present at the synod in Denmark were representatives of the parish priests in each herred of the diocese. Among them was normally the so called herredsprovst. They reported back to each priest at local priests’ guilds (calendae) held at least three times a year. Whether this last 13

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communication could in theory be purely oral from the archbishop down to individual laymen. But writing could be brought in by making transcripts, except for the final reading from the pulpit which had to be oral. In summary, the bishop and the archbishop mainly used oral communication in their routine administrative work, but supplemented this with letters when it was necessary or facilitated their duties.

Use of Writing by Bishops to Give Legally Binding Instructions to a Larger Public Parish priests were usually given information or instructions orally at the annual diocesan synod or at visitations. Sometimes, however, these instructions were given in written form. What was the reason for the variation? During a visitation in 1321, the Archbishop of Nidaros held a meeting in Vågan with all priests from Hålogaland in northern Norway. On that occasion he issued a written instruction on the payment of cathedraticum by all priests in Hålogaland.20 On another occasion, the Bishop of Bergen sent a written summons to his own chapter, instructing them to send a representative to a provincial synod in Nidaros.21 He sent several letters to priests living in Bergen, his own town, ordering that they should read out the excommunication of certain of their parishioners in their churches.22 In all these cases the written letter did not replace an oral instruction, but was given in addition to it, to make it more binding, more difficult to ignore. On some occasions the bishop did not find it sufficient to give information orally at a synod, trusting the parish priests to formulate the message in their own words from the pulpit. He gave the parish priests letters to be read aloud in the church. The Bishop of Bergen also had particularly important ordinances written on tablets, which were exhibited in the cathedral and the major parish churches.23 The reason could be that the bishop did not trust the priest to give the right information if doing so was contrary to the priest’s interests. That might have been the case in 1310 when the Bishop of Bergen modified the boundaries between parishes changing the priests’ incomes, or in 1306 when he reporting to the ‘grass-roots priests’ was done orally by memory or by reading aloud is not clear. See: DAHLERUP, “Kommunikation i ældre tid”, pp. 32 and 34. 20 RN III, No. 325. RN IV, No. 120. 21 RN V, Nos. 118 and 542. 22 RN III, Nos. 369 and 564. RN IV, Nos. 18, 17 and 20. 23 TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme, pp. 173-174.

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decided which incomes a certain parish priest was to receive.24 Another kind of problem arose in 1339 when a parish priest became ill with leprosy but refused to abandon his parish. The Bishop of Bergen then sent a letter to all men of the parish telling them that the sick priest had been given six days to leave the parish, and a new priest had been appointed in his place.25 Several letters contained instructions concerning taxes. If the parishioners refused to pay, the bishop’s next step might be to give them a written instruction in order to increase the pressure, and perhaps prepare for excommunication. In one case the conflict concerned a demand to pay a tithe on nuts. In another the bishop supported a strict priest who imposed such hard penances on his parishioners in confession that they refused to perform them.26 These examples show the double function of literacy in the relationship between bishop, priests and laymen. In most cases it was a means in the hands of the bishop to ensure the correct enforcement of his own legally binding instructions. But it could also be a way of making visible (or audible?) the support of the bishop for the authority of a parish priest in a confrontation with his parishioners. In both cases it was a means to enforce church authority.

Administrative Literacy and Church Jurisdiction The bishop evidently felt literacy to be most necessary in church jurisdiction. If an order was likely to be contested and end up in court, the bishop was careful to give it in writing. At the synod of 1307, the Bishop of Bergen gave a verbal order to parish priests to stop keeping mistresses in their houses.27 Later in the year the bishop visited Kinsarvik and discovered that the parish priest of Kinsarvik and three neighbouring priests had disobeyed this order. The bishop decided to send the four priests letters suspending them from office, and ordered them to send the women away within fifteen days. Writing was used even if all the guilty priests probably were present in Kinsarvik where the bishop sat writing, and had received the verbal order from the bishop already.28 Writing was used here not to overcome long distances, but to prove that due notice had been given before a process of deposition.

24 25 26 27 28

RN III, No. 683. RN III, No. 332. DN V, No. 229. RN III, No. 799. RN IV, Nos. 624 and 670. RN V, No. 215. RN III, No. 440. RN III, Nos. 624 and 626.

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The judicial reasons for using writing is evident in the way cathedraticum, a tax paid by the clergy to the bishop, was collected in the diocese of Bergen. The priests paid the tax to the district priests (fylkesprester), and received receipts. These had to be brought to the annual synod in Bergen to be checked. Priests lacking receipts were prosecuted.29 The bishop served as judge in several types of cases, and frequently used parish priests to take written evidence.30 Here the use of writing could have a double purpose. It was more practical to take up evidence on the spot in the parish than to make all the witnesses travel to the see, and secondly it was important to have the evidence written down as a documentation for the judgement in case of appeals. Like lay judges, bishops wrote transcripts of their verdicts. As potential parties in legal conflicts, bishoprics and other ecclesiastical institutions acquired a large number of letters or charters proving a legal title to land or other property. The majority of extant letters produced by the medieval Scandinavian church belong to the latter category. Related to these judicial uses of writing were complicated or controversial appointments to ecclesiastical office, where a legal conflict might be expected to follow. Higher ecclesiastical authorities regularly tried to override the rights of their subordinates in such cases. This was done 1321/1322 when the Archbishop of Nidaros appointed two parish priests in the diocese of Orkney, setting aside the normal rights of the Bishop of Orkney in such cases, or in 1307 when he set aside the rights of the Bishop of Stavanger in a similar case.31 The priest appointed by the archbishop then travelled to the Bishop of Orkney, presented his written appointment, and demanded to be instated. This often resulted in conflict, but without the archbishop’s sealed letter, the priest would have had little or no chance of success. All potentially controversial cases could end up in court, in extreme cases at the papal curia. Then it was important to have written documentation on what had happened earlier.32

29

TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme, p. 507. RN III, No. 325. RN IV, No. 568 (Uggdal) and RN III, No. 657. See also RN III, No. 298 and No. 315 (Stedje). 31 RN IV, Nos. 130 and 150. RN III, No. 430. 32 RN IV, No.1089. 30

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Use of Literacy to Create Judicial Conformity in the International Post-Reform Church Literacy helped to secure the church’s legal rights and position within each country. But it was equally important in the popes’ efforts to create judicial conformity in the western church. The Gregorian reforms had their background in the decline of secular authority in Germany, Italy and France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which led to churches being exploited by local lords. Leading prelates, including the pope, felt they had to build an international organization to protect the church’s interests, and the weakness of the state at that time made it feasible. The church did not base its political strength on armed power, but rather on a strong organization which could exert political pressures and exploit tensions between secular rulers. This demanded a large degree of solidarity and internal conformity within the church. Papal laws and decrees and the jurisdiction to make them respected was the fundamental organizational framework which kept the international church together after the reforms. After 1140, the curia started editing codices which modern historians call canon law. Canon law had two main purposes. The first and most important purpose of canon law was to regulate the conduct of members of the clergy and prescribe how conflicts between them should be solved. For the church to remain independent, it was imperative that it be able to solve its own conflicts. If a prelate who felt aggrieved sought support from kings or other secular authorities, this would undermine the independence of the church. Canon law also defined the duties of the different categories of clergy, which was important if the clergy were to maintain respect among laymen. Secondly, canon law was a means to change secular society in the direction the Gregorian church reformers wanted. Popes and bishops tried to change secular law in the different European countries so that it conformed to canon law in areas including marriage, sexual offences, inheritance, wills, and holidays. The church tried to draw as many conflicts as possible concerning these questions to the church courts, but here the church often met stiff resistance from secular authorities. Even so, the Scandinavian church functioned with little secular interference for three centuries (ca. 1200-1500) and had considerable influence on secular legislation. Would this success have been possible without the systematic use of literacy? The church edited a large number of written codices containing church law. Commentaries on the law were written at the law faculties of the universities.

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These law books were diligently studied by the future leaders of the church. Most Scandinavian future prelates who extended their university studies beyond the usual artes studied canon law; some also studied Roman law.33 Knowledge of canon law was clearly held to be an important qualification for high church office. Pal Bardsson, Archbishop of Nidaros 1333-1346, held a doctorate in both canon and Roman law from Orléans.34 The scant information about books owned by the clergy indicates that they mainly possessed books they needed in their work: the lower clergy had books of liturgy, and the higher clergy books on theology and above all law.35 Laurentius, Bishop of Hólar 1324-1331, never went to a university, but studied canon law in Nidaros. According to his saga, that was his main qualification for becoming a bishop.36 The pope as supreme authority sanctioned the church’s laws. Detailed laws were retained in exactly the same form by a large number of clerics all over Western Christendom. It is difficult to see how the pope could have created this legal uniformity without the distribution of written legal texts through the schools. The pope was also the ultimate authority when it came to interpreting the laws. Verdicts could be appealed to the curia, whose interpretation of canon law was final. In these appeals it was important that testimonies and reports from earlier stages followed the case. It is difficult to see how this system could have functioned if the appeal judges did not have access to written reports. Without the extensive use of literacy, it is doubtful whether the legal authority of the church could have remained coherent above the level of the province (archbishopric).

33 HELK, “Universitetsbesøken: Danmark”, p. 28. Sverre BAGGE, “Universitetsbesøken i utlandet føre 1660: Norge”, in: Nordisk historikermøte 18. Møtesrapport I (Jyväskylä, 1981), pp. 141-165, pp. 148-151. Lars NILÉHN, “Universitetsbesøken i utlandet føre 1660: Sverige”, in: Nordisk historikermøte 18. Møtesrapport I (Jyväskylä, 1981), pp. 167-208, p. 172. 34 BAGGE, “Universitetsbesøken: Norge”, p. 145. 35 Emil OLMER, “Boksamlingar på Island 1179-1490 enligt diplom”, Göteborg Högskolas Årsskrift 8:2 (Göteborg, 1902), pp. 1-84, pp. 57-64. Tryggvi J. OLESON, “Book collections of medieval Icelandic churches”, Speculum 32 (1957), pp. 502-510. Oscar Albert JOHNSEN, “Norske geistliges og kirkelige institutioners bogsamlinger i den senere middelalder”, in: Sproglige og historiske afhandlinger viede Sophus Bugges minde (Kristiania (Oslo), 1908), pp. 73-96. Ellen JØRGENSEN, “Studier over danske middelalderlige bogsamlinger”, Historisk tidsskrift 8. Række 4. Bind (Copenhagen, 1912-1913), pp. 1-67. 36 Laurentius saga, ed. Jón SIGURÐSSON and Gudbrand VIGFUSSON (Copenhagen, 1858: Biskupa sögur 1), pp. 787-877, c. 36, p. 836.“Soga om biskop Laurentius”, trans. Kjell V ENÅS, in: Den norrøne litteraturen VI (Oslo, 1963), pp. 111-180, p. 156. Historien om biskop Laurentius på Holar, trans. Jørgen HØJGAARD JØRGENSEN (Odense, 1982), pp. 106-107.

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Illustration 6. Page from a Latin Bible written in France ca. 1250. The book was bought by the Dominican convent of Haderslev in Denmark (founded 1253), perhaps through one of the friars who studied at the University of Paris. In 1310 the Dominican organization in Scandinavia was headed by Brother Knut. In a notice on the front page he tells us that in this year he bought the book from the convent in Haderslev with money he had received from the Norwegian king. Scandinavians imported numerous religious and secular books from France, Germany and England in the medieval period. Photo: http://www.kb.dk/elib/mss/skatte.

Law was the main field for the Scandinavian church’s administrative literacy. Through the law, the church defended its legal interests against laymen, avoided conflict between church institutions in each country, and integrated the Scandinavian provinces into the international church organization. Literacy was a necessary precondition for the legal and judicial work which took place in all these areas.

Ideological Conformity among the Clergy Created through Systematic Use of Literacy The judicial-administrative unity of the post-reform church was accompanied by growing religious conformity. Christianity was from the very beginning a ‘religion of the book’; however, the medieval church before 1150 regarded as authoritative not only the Bible but also other holy books, including the church fathers and a large number of other saintly authors. In these books theologians could find many sometimes contradictory answers to their questions. Dogmas were few and Christians had, in practice, great liberty to think what they wanted about God and the universe. An example of this is the understanding of life after death. The only firm doctrines were the existence of heaven and hell, the coming Judgement Day, and valid membership in the church as a minimum requirement for salvation. There were many theories about the geography of the next world and how to ensure a good life after death. Church authorities did not see these contradictory theories as a problem. Having a ‘book religion’ did not mean that ready answers to all important religious questions were to be found in books, but rather that the answers were founded on quotations from holy books.37 37

Arnved NEDKVITNE, Møtet med døden i nordisk middelalder (Oslo, 1997), pp. 48-67 and

94-112.

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The Gregorian reform created greater ideological conformity across Catholic Europe by expanding the number of dogmas. In this effort there was a division of labour between the universities and the curia. The university theologians debated the questions and arrived at a consensus, and afterwards the pope promulgated it as a dogma of the church. Purgatory is a good example. It is mentioned by the pope and church father Gregory the Great (?540-604), but up to ca. 1150 it was only one of several theories about the destiny of the soul after death. University theologians debated the question at the end of the twelfth century; in 1240 the faculty of theology at the University of Paris condemned the strongest alternative theory about a sleep or rest between the moment of death and Judgement Day, and purgatory was made a dogma by the church council in Lyon in 1274.38 Writing played a crucial role in this process. The theologians expounded their theories in writing so that other theologians at universities, in monasteries or at bishops’ sees could consider them, compare them to earlier theories and possibly express their own opinions. A written, public exchange of views took place. At the universities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries teaching was based on authoritative texts, and the ‘scholastic’ pedagogical method was designed to compare and reconcile these texts. The teacher posed a question and quoted what the Bible and other authoritative texts said about it. Often the answers could seem contradictory, but it was the task of the teacher to show that the different authorities could be reconciled and a consensus reached on religious truth. It was of course unacceptable to conclude that the texts of saintly authors contradicted the Bible or each other.39 Comparing written texts can potentially reveal differences, and thus create debates and free, independent thought. But comparing written texts also has the potential to create generalized ideas which make all variations special cases of the general idea. Both these qualities of writing were realized at the scholastic universities. Open debate went on within certain limits, and generalized religious doctrines were created about life after death, the sacraments, the categorization of sins and other subjects. The long process of discussion among leading theologians leading to a consensus would have been impossible without written texts. The church put massive weight behind its dogmas by creating the impression that the Bible and all theological authorities were in agreement on an issue. Those who doubted could read the large and thorough summas written by the leading scholastic 38 39

NEDKVITNE, Møtet med døden, p. 67. Jacques LE GOFF, Les intellectuels au moyen âge (Paris, 1985; 1st ed. 1957).

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theologians which proved that the official dogmas included the views of all church authorities of importance. These ideas spread north via the visits of Scandinavian canons, mendicant brothers and monks to European universities. The University of Paris was founded in the middle of the twelfth century, and Scandinavians visited it from the very beginning. Absalon, the future Archbishop of Lund (1177-1201), Eystein, the future Archbishop of Nidaros (1161-1188), and Thorlak, the future Bishop of Skálholt (1178-1193), all studied in Paris in their youth.40 Absalon’s and Eystein’s successors did the same. The Swedish clergy seem to have started later, in the middle of the thirteenth century. Towards the end of the High Middle Ages there were four Scandinavian colleges or lodgings in Paris. A college for students from Denmark was founded in or before 1275; the Uppsala diocese founded one in 1291; a college for the Linköping diocese was founded in 1317, and one for the Skara diocese before 1329. In 1329, Uppsala college was the largest with fifteen students, Linköping the smallest with three students. All four colleges were abandoned before or immediately after the Black Death.41 Finnish students are known at foreign universities (i.e. Paris) from 1313.42 After Thorlak, evidence of Icelandic university students are few and uncertain.43 The Scandinavian students were mainly financed by their home institutions, and the Icelandic bishoprics were poor. Individual Scandinavian theologians could participate in the international debate described above as professors at foreign universities,44 but these debates did not take place at Scandinavian institutions. Scandinavian cathedrals and their clergy used their literacy to receive, understand and teach new ideas from Europe. The majority of the books in their possession were those needed in their daily work. Canons and bishops personally owned or had library access to books on canon law and to a lesser degree secular law, theology including Bibles, medicine and collections of sermons. The libraries of monasteries and cathedrals also had a selection of hagiographies, which could also be found in parish chur-

40

HELK, “Universitetsbesøken. Danmark”, p. 27. Þorláks saga, ed. and trans. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON and F. YORK POWELL (Oxford, 1905; reprinted 1976: Origines Islandicae 1), pp. 458-502, chapter 4.2. 41 Henrik SCHÜCK, “Svenska Pariserstudier under medeltiden”, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift 1 (1900) pp. 9-78. NILÉHN, “Universitetsbesøken. Sverige”, p. 169. 42 Simo HEININEN, “Universitetsbesøken i utlandet føre 1660. Finland”, in: Nordisk historikermøte 18. Møtesrapport I (Jyväskulä, 1981), pp. 67-118, p. 68. 43 GISLASON, “Universitetsbesøken. Island”, pp. 125-27. 44 Allan KARKER, “Latinsk litteratur”, in: KLNM 21, cols. 264-266.

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ches. Parish priests would only have access to most of these books when they went to the cathedral school or visited the bishop’s see.45 The ideological conformity achieved by the Gregorian reform movement was the result of a process of discussion and consensus which cannot be imagined without writing. Preservation of identical knowledge of many complex dogmas at all cathedrals not only throughout Scandinavia, but all over Western Europe is inconceivable without written theological textbooks and systematic teaching based on these books.

What Did the Church Communicate to Illiterates through its Liturgy? The parishes created a powerful organizational framework for preaching the Christian message to laymen. Church-building in Scandinavia started immediately after Christianization. Denmark was first to be officially converted, in AD 965. According to Adam of Bremen, by the 1070s there were 300 churches in Skåne, 150 in Sjælland (Zealand) and 100 in Fyn.46 The earliest churches were constructed by magnates, the king, and local communities on their own initiative. A concerted effort to divide all Scandinavia into parishes having fixed incomes from tithes began around 1100. The process was completed in Denmark ca. 1150, in Norway and Iceland somewhat later in that century, and in Sweden perhaps as late as 1250.47 Celebrating mass and other divine services was the most important part of the parish priest’s duties. Laurentius, who later became Bishop of Hólar, was in his early years a visitator in Iceland and examined the skills of the parish priests. He put the main emphasis on their ability to sing the mass in Latin and read Latin. Several priests were dismissed because of their incompetence in these areas. Later, when he was bishop, he had to examine those he was to consecrate as priests. Reading and singing the mass were again the most important qualifications.48 Giving the celebration of mass the highest importance among a priest’s qualifications was in accordance with the norm found in England at the time.49 45

See supra: note 35. Ann Cathrine BONNIER, “Det tidiga kyrkobyggandet”, in: Nordisk historikermøte 23. Møtesrapport III. Kyrka – samhälle – stat (Tammerfors, 1997), pp. 83-98, p. 85. 47 BONNIER, “Det tidiga kyrkobyggandet”, p. 89. Jacob BENEDIKTSSON, “Sogn: Island”, in: KLNM 16, cols. 380-381. NILSSON, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 1, p. 106. 48 Laurentius saga, c. 19, p. 811 and c. 48, p. 851 (Norwegian translation, pp. 131 and 172). 49 Eamon DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars (New Haven, 1992), p. 57. 46

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The priest was supposed to have a book in front of him when celebrating mass, and bring his liturgical books to the synod for examination.50 The purpose was to make the liturgy of the diocese uniform, and changes were added to the text.51 The parish churches really possessed such books, and if damaged, they were replaced.52

Illustration 7. A Psalter which belonged to the parish church of Kvikne, situated in a remote valley in the mountainous region between Trøndelag and eastern Norway. Both the manuscript and its wooden cover are from ca. 1200. The book was evidently made locally for practical use and does not show any consideration for prestige. A Psalter contains the psalms of David as found in the Bible. Parish priests in theory had to observe the canonical hours, which meant that they were supposed to pray seven times during the day and once during the night. The psalms were the backbone of these prayers, and the Psalter was necessary for clerics who did not know the psalms by heart. Lay people also recited psalms in their prayers. Photo: National Library, Oslo. Ms. 8 102. 50 51 52

NGL III (1849), p. 265. The text says handbok = manuale. PERNLER, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 2, pp. 25-26. TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme, p. 479.

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The books owned by parish priests were almost exclusively volumes they needed in their work. The standard library for a parish church and its priest was a missal and a breviary, which were used for the mass and the daily canonical prayers. The books which the parish priests communicated orally to their parishioners were mainly liturgical. When it came to other books, Danish parish priests were better equipped than Norwegian, and town priests better equipped than their rural colleagues. A few had books of saints’ lives, sermons, and law codices.53 The mass was a ritual full of symbolism from a literate culture, presented by a priest who spoke Latin. For obvious reasons, there are no narratives describing the illiterate parishioners’ impressions of the church’s liturgy. Were they passive spectators to something strange and incomprehensible? Was there a gap between the literate culture of the priest and the oral culture of his audience? Sven-Erik Pernler has discussed the question, and he thinks the parishioners participated in the ritual in a manner which made the mass meaningful to them. He finds the main support for his view in an edifying book called The Soul’s Comfort (“Siælinna tröst”), translated from German in Vadstena monastery in ca. 1420 for the benefit of laymen. The author encourages laymen to participate by instructing them when to kneel, rise to their feet, make the sign of the cross, and when to say prayers they were supposed to know by heart. According to Pernler all this made the mass a meaningful ritual even for illiterates.54 This view is, however, open to question. The Soul’s Comfort is a normative source; its purpose is to present an ideal for how a layman can participate in the ritual, not a description of how laymen actually behaved. And it is striking how the author concentrates on action rather than explaining the deeper symbolic meaning. Secular rituals initiated by laymen like those performed when entering various kinds of contracts consisted of comprehensible words and actions: for example, a certain number of witnesses were summoned, the two parties held hands, and one of those present recited their agreement in the vernacular. It must be open to question how church rituals based on literate culture really were experienced by illiterates. Our interest is the social consequences of literacy; it

53 JØRGENSEN, “Studier over danske bogsamlinger”, pp. 55-58. Jørgensen cites a “priest from Ribe” who owned 17 books. In reality he was the head of the school in the town (K. ERSLEV, Testamenter fra Danmarks middelalder indtil 1450 (Copenhagen, 1901), p. 74). For Norway, see: JOHNSEN, “Norske institutioners bogsamlinger”. Gustav STORM, “Den bergenske biskop Arnes bibliotek”, Historisk tidsskrift 2. rekke 2. bind (Christiania (Oslo), 1880), pp. 185192. For Iceland: OLMER, “Boksamlingar på Island”, pp. 57-64. OLESON, “Book collections”. 54 Sven-Erik PERNLER, “En mässa för folket?”, in: Mässa i medeltida socken (Skellefteå, 1993), pp. 102-122.

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is reasonable to assume in that regard that liturgy read and sung from an open book gave illiterate laymen a mystic respect for the written word.

Illustration 8. Sequence from a mass sung for the celebration of the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury, possibly composed by the English abbot Benedict of Peterborough. This sheet of parchment was written before 1250 and was found in 1973 under the wooden floor in the choir of the parish church in Lom. This is a medieval stave church situated in a remote valley in the diocese of Hamar. One must assume that this sheet of parchment has been used by a priest or choir boys, standing in the church’s choir and singing the mass on St Thomas’ Day, 29 December. One of the singers either lost it or deliberately shoved it through a crack in the wooden floor. A book containing the liturgy for the whole year was called a missal. Each parish church was to possess a copy, and the missal was probably the most common book in existence in medieval Scandinavia. This sheet was probably never part of such a book, but was copied from it for practical use. It contains several mistakes, and seems to have been copied rapidly by a person with a poor knowledge of Latin. Photo: Michael Sheard. University Museum of Cultural Heritage, Oslo C 34738/52.

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Illustration 9. A page from the Norwegian Book of Homilies from ca. 1200. This book, and a similar Icelandic book of homilies, are the oldest extant books in a Scandinavian language. It was written in Bergen, probably in a monastery. This is an example of a manuscript meant to be read aloud by a cleric familiar with written texts. The sermon is not divided into paragraphs to make it easier to grasp the content, but punctuation and capital letters are used to indicate how the reader should use his voice. There is a hole in the parchment, evidently a production mishap. Since this is not a prestige manuscript, the hole was no problem. Photo: Den Arnamagnæanske samling, University of Copenhagen. AM 619 4to fol. 37r.

Sermon and Confession: Oral Communication of Written Knowledge Although this mystic respect may have created a distance between clergy and illiterate laity during the mass, the reformed church did manage to speak to the understanding of illiterate laymen. Knowledge of Christian doctrine was mainly given through sermons and later through conversations preceding the sacrament of confession. In the early period before 1150 the parish priests do not seem to have preached much, if they did so at all. But at the end of the twelfth century, the church began to put a stronger emphasis on the importance of preaching. This of course was a consequence of the reformed church’s efforts to create a systematic theology and explain to every layman the essence of these doctrines. This was done mainly through sermons. At the cathedral the future priests had the opportunity to listen to the best preachers in the diocese,55 collections of sermons were available. Two collections of homilies from ca. 1200, one from Iceland and one from Norway, have been preserved. The Norwegian collection is assumed to have been written in a monastery in Bergen because some of the sermons are addressed to a congregation of monks.56 In the fifteenth century, Vadstena produced collections of sermons which they lent to parish priests;57 other monasteries may have given the same assistance to parish priests as well. The preaching in parish churches seems to have been rather simple: a text from the Bible or another church au-

55

Hilding JOHANSSON, “Predikan”, in: KLNM 13, cols. 420-425. Anne RIISING, “Predikan: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 425-427. Einar MOLLAND, “Predikan: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 427-429. 56 Erik GUNNES, “Innledning”, in: Gammelnorsk homiliebok, trans. Astrid SALVESEN (Oslo, 1971), pp. 9-17, pp. 16-17. Trygve KNUDSEN, “Homiliebøker”, in: KLNM 6, cols. 657-666. 57 Roger ANDERSSON,“Undervisning och utbildning”, in: Sveriges kyrkohistoria 1 (Stockholm, 1999), pp. 221-231, p. 231.

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thority was read aloud in the vernacular and explained58 Once a trainee priest had learnt this technique through imitation and instruction, he would probably be able to compose his own sermons. The problems of the clerics in coping with the new demand made upon them to preach can be guessed from scattered comments in the Icelandic bishops’ sagas. Thorlak (1178-1193) made an effort, but without much success: “Bishop Thorlak often preached sermons and this was a great trial to him, for he was slow and hindered of speech”.59 Bishop Pal (1195-1211) had been a lay chieftain, and thus accustomed to speaking in great assemblies, but he does not seem to have felt confident preaching in church. “Bishop Pal would seldom, in comparison with the former ways [...] preach a sermon, for he thought they would appreciate a sermon more if they rarely heard one.” He preached regularly on only four of the most important feast days of the year, “and on other days only when he thought it necessary to say something”.60 Reading aloud from a book of sermons may have been common for those who had access to such books, probably because it was easier. Gisli was a priest at the see of Hólar. He preached by reading from a book he had before him on the pulpit. Gisli justified this by saying that the congregation relied more on holy books than on him. The idealizing saga author assures us that it was indeed so.61 But even priests who composed their own sermons might rely on notes on wax tablets while preaching. While the Danish Saint Kjeld was preaching a sermon and the light went out, he was able to continue preaching in the darkness, as we are told by his admiring hagiographer.62 From 1290 onwards, synods in all the Scandinavian church provinces repeatedly ordered priests to preach every Sunday.63 The minimum requirement in Nidaros was one sermon every month. Fines were levied on clergy who did not comply.64 Preaching by then had become an indispensable part of divine service. A Flemish priest was denied a post at one of the parish churches in Trondheim

58

PERNLER, “En mässa för folket?”, p. 112. JOHANSSON, “Predikan”, p. 421. Þorláks saga, c. 9.7 (p. 481) and c. 7.2 (p. 474). 60 Páls saga, ed. and trans. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON and F. YORK POWELL (Oxford, 1905: Origines Islandicae 1), pp. 502-534, c. 11.1 (p. 523). 61 Jóns biskups saga, ed. Jón SIGURÐSSON and Gudbrand VIGFUSSON (Copenhagen, 1858: Biskupa sögur 1), pp. 213-260, c. 23, p. 235 (English edition and translation, c. 10.1; Norwegian translation, p. 93). 62 KOCH, Danske kirkes historie 1, pp. 342-343. 63 JOHANSSON, “Predikan”, p. 424. RIISING, “Predikan. Danmark”, p. 426. NGL III (1849), pp. 241, 266 and 288. 64 NGL III (1849), p. 282. 59

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because he was unable to preach in a language which his parishioners could understand.65 Being a good preacher earned prestige; one of the Icelandic priests of this period is called a “splendid preacher”.66 But preaching well was not so important that bad preachers were considered unfit for office. When Laurentius was visitator in Iceland, several priests were defrocked for not celebrating mass properly, but none because of their preaching. Laurentius was not a good preacher himself; he insisted on bringing a Dominican friar who was skilled in preaching with him on his visitation. But his colleague at the see of Skálholt, Jon Halldorsson, is called a “splendid preacher”; he had studied in Paris and Bologna and made use of exempla in his sermons. Some of the sermons were written down and have been preserved.67 The purpose of sermons was to change the thoughts and actions of the listeners so that their salvation could be assured. They gave “understanding and comfort” to the good, and “fear and reprimands” to the evil. Many were moved to repentance and penance.68 Internalization of the church’s norms was the ultimate goal of the preacher. The sermon was the last link in the effort of the reformed church to spread its theology from Rome and Paris to every layman in Western Europe. And this last link was oral. Confession was the second main instrument used by the reformed church to inculcate illiterate laymen with written doctrines. Confession and remission of sin is the main theme of many of the thirty sermons in the Norwegian book of homilies from ca. 1200. Annual confession was made compulsory by the international church in 1215, and was instituted in Norwegian law in 1268. The priest probed laymen’s religious knowledge as part of confession. Confession was of course oral. Only serious cases were written down by the local priests and sent to the bishop, because in such cases remission could only be given by him. Some very serious cases were passed on to the Roman curia.69 A large number of books were written by leading theologians instructing priests on how to pose the right questions in confession, but these books were not in the possession of ordinary parish priests. They must have learned through instruc65

Laurentius saga, c. 11, p. 801 (Norwegian translation, p. 121). Laurentius saga, c. 27, p. 822 (Norwegian translation, p. 142). 67 Laurentius saga, c. 37, p. 838 (Norwegian translation, p. 157-158). 68 Jóns saga, c. 23, pp. 235-236 and c. 27, p. 239 (English translation, c. 10.1 and c. 12.3; Norwegian translation, pp. 93 and 97). Laurentius saga, c. 44, p. 846 (Norwegian translation, p. 167). 69 Torstein JØRGENSEN, Brev til paven:Norske forbindelser til Den hellige stol i senmiddelalderen (Stavanger, 1999). RN III, Nos. 298, 308, 315, 319 and 374. 66

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tion from older priests at the cathedral schools and by imitating their own confessors. The sermon and the confession were the last links in the chain of communication from the papal curia and the University of Paris down to laymen, and they were oral. In these areas, the reformed church depended on the ability of the parish priests to communicate orally the book-anchored essentials of the Christian message. After 1200, transforming the written word into personal oral communication began to make new and higher claims on skills of the clergy.

Did Parish Priests Have Sufficient Skills to Transform Literate Knowledge into Oral Communication? Before the Gregorian reform the most important skill for a parish priest was to sing and read the liturgy. After 1200 preaching and confession demanded additional skills and a better knowledge of theology. Well-educated parish priests were essential if the church was to succeed in changing the minds of laymen. The ‘exam’ for those seeking priesthood was a series of questions asked by the bishop before he consecrated them. There was no compulsory schooling for future priests. Many were only taught by older parish priests. The highest level of education available to them, in practice, was the cathedral school. All Scandinavian cathedrals established schools between 1100 and 1300, but we know little about their development.70 University education for parish priests was rare indeed. Were the parish priests up to their task of communicating written ideas and generalizing theology to illiterate laymen? The best source for the education of future priests in Scandinavia is the Icelandic bishops’ sagas. A pupil began his career when his parents sent him to a parish priest to learn Latin and sing the mass. Among the future bishops, Thorlak went to Oddi in the company of his mother. Laurentius went to stay with a relative who was priest; Jon grew up at Breiðabólstaður near the church, and Pal was born at Oddi. The priest and saga author Einar Hafliðason, who never became a bishop, was son of the priest at Breiðabólstaður. All of them had close relatives who were priests, or parents who lived close to the parsonage. After some years at a parsonage the cleverest or luckiest of the schoolboys were sent to the school at the cathedral. Thorlak and Pal, who were schoolboys 70 Bror OLSSON, “Katedralskola”, in: KLNM 8, cols. 347-349. Aarno MALINIEMI, “Katedralskola: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 349-351. Lilli GJERLØW, “Katedralskola: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 351-353. Magnus Már LÁRUSSON, “Katedralskola. Island”, Ibidem, cols. 353-354.

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at Oddi, do not seem to have studied at the cathedral school at all, but they nonetheless became bishops. Oddi, though, was special as a prominent centre of learning; among its other pupils was Snorri Sturluson. In Bishop Jon’s time (1106-1121) all the “best” priests in Hólar diocese are said to have attended school at Hólar for a while, some in their childhood, some as adults.71 When the see of Hólar was founded, two new buildings were indispensable, the cathedral and a school.72 Around 1330 there were always fifteen or more pupils at the “excellent” school at Hólar.73 The future Bishop Kleng was twelve when he came to Hólar, and this may have been a normal age.74 It is a commonplace in the sagas that the idealized schoolboys were eager to acquire knowledge. Laurentius often spent his time reading while the other schoolboys were playing. The schoolmaster sometimes let him take over the teaching, and at 22 he became schoolmaster at the see.75 About Thorlak we are told a similar story.76 Thirst for knowledge evidently gave prestige among the clerics. The curriculum was practical knowledge for future priests: Latin (grammar), preaching (rhetoric) and the skill of debating (logic). Responsible for the teaching were the schoolmaster and the master of the choir. The Swede Gisli and the Frenchman Rikine had these functions at Hólar ca. 1120.77 Around 1330 both positions were filled by Icelanders.78 Some pupils had sufficient knowledge of Latin to be able to read Roman classics; the future Bishop Kleng read Ovid’s Ars amandi when at school at Hólar.79 We are told that a woman called Ingun was also a teacher there, and corrected the schoolboys’ Latin exercises. Parallels to this are to be found elsewhere in Europe. In the Dutch town of Gouda a woman worked as a teacher in a town school in the fifteenth century, but this was exceptional.80

71 Jóns saga, c. 27, pp. 239-241 (Norwegian translation, p. 98; English translation, c. 12.4c. 12.5). 72 Jóns saga, c. 27, pp. 235-236 (Norwegian translation, pp. 92-93; English translation, c. 10.1). 73 Laurentius saga, c. 44, pp. 846-847 (Norwegian translation, p. 167). 74 Jóns saga, c. 27, pp. 240 (Norwegian translation, p. 98; English translation, c. 12.5; in the manuscript used here the bishop’s age is not mentioned). 75 Laurentius saga, c. 4, pp. 792-793 and c. 6, p. 795 (Norwegian translation, p. 114). 76 Þorláks saga, c. 3.2-3, p. 461. 77 Jóns saga, c. 23, p. 235 and c. 27, p. 239 (Norwegian translation, pp. 93 and 97; English translation, c. 10.1 and c. 12.4). 78 Laurentius saga, c. 44, p. 846 (Norwegian translation, pp. 166-167). 79 Jóns saga, c. 24, p. 238 (Norwegian translation, p. 95; English translation, c. 11.5). 80 MOSTERT, “Veelkleurige religie en zakelijk schriftgebruik”, pp. 183-185.

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Illustration 10. A book from the library of the Dominican convent in Sigtuna, with a medieval chain. Libraries that were accessible to many often had their books chained to the lecterns. The early monastic libraries were a place for keeping books, not for reading them. But in the thirteenth century a new kind of library appeared, initiated by the mendicant orders. This was the consultation library, with the books chained to the reading desk. The library no longer had any connection with the archive of documents belonging to the institution. Libraries grew and were often housed in an oblong hall with rows of desks or lecterns in parallel files, leaving an open corridor in the centre. Here books were not only kept but also consulted and read. The mendicants admitted outside visitors to their libraries, including pupils from cathedral schools.81 Photo: Uppsala University Library. Uppsala University Library C 222.

The monasteries often had masters who taught the monks and nuns. At one point in his life, Laurentius was master at three Icelandic monasteries – Ver, Munkaþverá and Þingeyrar. He spent one year in each of the first two, and ended up by being accepted as a monk with a special duty to teach at Þingeyrar. His pupils were primarily monks, but also clerics and boys from the neighbourhood.82 After their studies many of the pupils, perhaps the majority, were consecrated as priests by the bishop. The consecration might be regarded as a recognition that they had acquired sufficient learning to work as priests. The families of the schoolboys often put pressure on the bishop to consecrate their sons. The pressure might be difficult to resist if the father was a powerful man.83 The bishop then could be torn between the need to have a competent clergy and the need for powerful political allies. The archbishop evidently understood the problem, because he sent visitatores who checked the knowledge of the priests. On such occasions parish priests could actually be dismissed for lack of knowledge.84 The bishops’ sagas are normative sources, and they idealize the protagonist. When it comes to the other characters and Icelandic church organization, they are sufficiently realistic for us to accept the main features as a fairly accurate representation of the situation. The Icelandic bishops’ sagas give the impression

81 Armando PETRUCCI, Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy (New Haven and London, 1995), pp. 139-140 and 205-206. 82 Laurentius saga, c. 28-30 and c. 33 (Danish translation, pp. 89-91, 93-94 and 100-101). 83 Þorláks saga, c. 11.1, p. 489. Páls saga, c. 4.3, p. 509. 84 Laurentius saga, c. 19, p. 811 (Norwegian translation, p. 131; Danish translation, p. 71).

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Illustration 11. Lectern from the fifteenth century, length 3.5 metres. It seems to have been built in the small chamber in Uppsala Cathedral where it still stands. The chamber must have served as a library for the cathedral clergy. Photo: Kurt Eriksson.

that the church took the task of educating their priests seriously. Knowledge gave prestige, and the priests were sufficiently educated for the demanding task of communicating abstract written religious knowledge orally to illiterates. Was the church, then, able to communicate its message to illiterates effectively? The answer to that question depends on the intended effect. The purpose of liturgy was not to communicate knowledge. A ritual based on Latin texts was

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used to create respect, distance and awe in illiterates. Liturgy made visible and audible the mystic and incomprehensible power of God and his literate priests. After the Gregorian reforms, the church sought in addition to teach religious knowledge to laymen and internalize religion in a way previously seen almost exclusively among the religious elite. Writing was used to work out clear doctrines and improve priests’ education. But equal efforts were made to improve the oral communication of this knowledge to illiterates through an intensification of preaching and confession. By combining literacy and orality, the church obtained respect and distance in relation to the laity combined with a growing understanding among the flock of the basics of the church’s theology.

Accounting in the High Middle Ages: Written Registers Combined with Oral Explanations Literacy was a necessary precondition for the church’s judicial as well as ideological power. The third pillar of the church’s power was economic. In Scandinavia, the property of local lay landowners before 1100 was concentrated around their manors. The knowledge of their entitlements and dues was kept in the memories of their own bailiffs and the local community.85 But the incomes of the large European churches were mainly derived from land rents and tithes collected from wide areas. How important was writing in the creation of a church economy of a European type in Scandinavia? The churches’ dues in land rents and tithes did not vary from year to year. This made it possible and useful to have registers of the incomes theoretically due in a normal year, what could be called a normative register. But it was not felt equally important to have an account of what was actually received in a specific year, since this usually would vary little from what was due according to the normative register. The usual way of collecting incomes of this type in the High Middle Ages would be that a bailiff or another person was given the task of collecting certain incomes from a certain area. The accountant at the cathedral or monastery would know from his register how much the bailiff theoretically should receive. If the bailiff came back with less, he had to give an oral explanation of why he had not received the full sum. When the sources tell that somebody ‘gave an account’, no more than an oral explanation may be meant. This was a combination of orality and literacy which served its purpose for incomes of the type which the church received in the High Middle Ages. 85 Karen SCHOUSBOE, “Literacy and society in medieval Denmark”, in: Literacy and Society, ed. Karen SCHOUSBOE and Trolle LARSEN (Copenhagen, 1989), pp. 149-168.

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In the pages that follow, the term ‘register’ will be used for a list of incomes theoretically due in a normal year, and ‘account’ for a list of incomes actually received in a specific year. The oldest known Norwegian land register is that of Munkeliv monastery from ca. 1175.86 The oldest Icelandic register of a church’s incomes (máldagi) is that from Reykholt parish church starting in 1185. The interaction between orality and literacy is shown by the demand in the oldest Icelandic codex Grágás that the written máldagi should be read aloud publicly once a year at the church to which the incomes belonged and at the local Thing assembly. The legal obligation to pay the dues depended on the oral tradition, not the written word.87 In Sweden, the Bishop of Skara and Vårfruberga monastery made registers of land at about the same time. The earliest known Danish land register was made by officials of the Duke of Schleswig before 1202.88 Written registers made it possible for bishops to centralize economic control of ecclesiastical institutions in their dioceses. Originally each parish church and monastery kept a register of its property and incomes locally; this information was kept in written form from the end of the twelfth century. The bishop checked these lists when on visitation. The local church could not sell its property without the consent of the bishop. But in about 1300 the bishops seem to have stepped up their control by making copies of these local lists and keeping them in a book (jordebok) at their see.89 Ca. 1316 the Bishops of Oslo and Bergen both initiated a register of church property for which they were responsible. These are the oldest known comprehensive lists of church property in Norwegian dioceses.90 The Bishop of Hólar is known to have kept a similar register from at least 1318.91 Likewise, it became standard procedure in the diocese of Århus after 1312 for the local church to have one register and the visiting dean

86 Halvard BJØRKVIK, “Eit kyrkjeleg godskompleks i mellomalderen”, Heimen 14 (1967), pp. 51-70. 87 Magnus Már LÁRUSSON, “Máldagi”, in: KLNM 11, cols. 264-266. 88 Poul RASMUSSEN, “Jordebog”, in: KLNM 7, cols. 634-637. Jan LIEDGREN, “Jordebog: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 637-642. Gunnar FRITZELL, “Jordebog: Skåne”, Ibidem, cols. 643-645. Arvo SOININEN, “Jordebog: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 645-646. Lars HAMRE, “Jordebog: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 646-653. Magnus Már LÁRUSSON, “Jordebog: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 653-654. Poul RASMUSSEN, “Valdemars jordebog”, in: KLNM 19, cols. 456-460. 89 Lars HAMRE, “Eysteins jordebog”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 105-110. TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme, p. 55. 90 HAMRE, “Eysteins jordebog”. Finn HØDNEBØ, “Bergens kalvskinn”, in: KLNM 1, cols. 474-475. Bjögynjar Kalfskinn, ed. P.A. MUNCH (Christiania (Oslo), 1843), pp. 2-3. For Bergen see: TRYTI, Kirkeorganisasjonen i Bergen bispedømme, p. 50. 91 LÁRUSSON, “Máldagi”.

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another of the parish church’s landed property.92 The authoritative knowledge of which property belonged to the church was no longer preserved in the combined oral and literate tradition in the parish, but instead transferred to the purely literate repository of the bishop’s register. In the fifteenth century episcopal land registers were being used as evidence in court cases in Norway and Iceland.93 Written land registers meant a gradual change in who gave the church a legal title to landed property. Originally this title was given by illiterate laymen in the local community through their oral testimonies, then by a combination of these laymen’s testimonies and the local church through its written documents, and finally by the clergy at the cathedral through their written charters and land registers. Writing was used to transfer economic control upwards.

Literacy and the Power of the Post-Reform Church in Medieval Society The Gregorian reform of 1150-1200 was a watershed in the Scandinavian churches’ use of administrative literacy. Before that time literacy seems mainly to have been used in liturgy, to translate saints’ legends, write some church correspondence and to assist the king. The church continued to rely mainly on oral communication in routine business. The bishop met his subordinate clergy at visitation and synod, and the parish priest had no choice when communicating with his mainly illiterate parishioners. But after 1150-1200 the reformed church intensified its use of writing in three main fields: the judiciary, preaching, and finance, in that order of importance. These were also the three mainstays of the church’s power in medieval society: a unified organization held together and defended by laws, acceptance by laymen of the church’s religious authority, and a strong economic position.

92

Lars BISGAARD, “Sogn, fællesskab og gavegivning i dansk senmiddelalder”, in: Danmark og Europa i semiddelalderen (Århus, 2000), pp. 336-360, p. 340. 93 LÁRUSSON, “Máldagi”. HAMRE, “Eysteins jordebog”. Lars HAMRE, “Jordebog: Norge”, in: KLNM 7, cols. 646-653. See also: DN III, no. 400.

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Illustration 12. Land register (jordebok) for church property, written for the Bishop of Bergen. Work on the register started ca. 1316, but the extant manuscript was written and finished shortly after 1350. The page shows the possessions of the parish church of Kinn. The right-hand column has the heading “Parish of Kinn” (Kindsgield), and the lines below give the names of all the farms belonging to the church, one farm on each line. The first four lines read: These lands belong to the church in Kinn. [The parsonage of] Kinn including the right to hunt seals. [The farm of] Skorpu [pays in land rent] three [laup of butter]. [The farm of] Inner Reksten [pays in land rent] nine [laup of butter]. Three laup is about 45 kg., and this is the amount which the tenant of Skorpu had a legal obligation to pay per annum. But the landowner did not necessarily receive this sum every year. Crop failure or other problems could create a situation obliging the church in Kinn to accept less. A land register (jordebok) gives the sum theoretically due in a normal year, not the sum actually received in a specific year. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. Bjögynjar Kalfskinn fol. 16.

The state chiefly founded its power on “a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence” in Max Weber’s words. The reformed church did not command military power. Its power was founded on ideological indoctrination, systematically defended judicial and economic rights, and its ability to exploit tensions between states and great lords. For this approach to work, it was essential to have an organization with a strong cohesion; as we have seen, literacy was vital for keeping this organization unified in ideology and law.

The Emerging Scandinavian States’ Uses of Administrative Literacy At the start of the twelfth century all three Scandinavian kingdoms were ‘realms’ in the sense that they were geographical areas each united under one king. A state is, however, more than a realm. Max Weber defined a state as an organization which has a monopoly on legitimate violence within a certain area. At the beginning of the twelfth century, kings normally had control over legitimate violence at the top level. By the end of the next century, bailiffs – some of them living in castles – represented the king in local communities. The presence of such local representatives of royal authority prepared the ground for statebuilding in other areas. In the period up to 1350 the king became responsible for the court system and enforced its verdicts. Judgements were originally passed by

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juries recruited from the local Thing community. In Norway, judges or lagmenn were appointed by the king from ca. 1160. In Sweden, where judges were known as lagmän or häradshövding, they were appointed jointly by the king and the local peasant communities. In Denmark the king had his own court – the retterting – which had become institutionalized by 1300, and its itinerant judges competed with the courts at the Thing assemblies.94 At the beginning of the fourteenth century the king also had obtained a strong influence over the appointment of officials administering the Thing assemblies. The vernacular term for these Danish judges was landsdommer.95 These officials with close ties to king and church had the power to make people submit their cases to them, and respect the verdicts given. The duty of participating in the peasant militia (leidang) was replaced by permanent royal taxes between 1200 and 1250. The king became the head of a state organization which commanded extensive powers and resources. The growing state organization made increasing use of literacy. After the breakthrough of the Gregorian church reform at the end of the twelfth century, the king no longer automatically commanded the services of the church’s clerics, and he gradually started to organize his own staff of clerks.96

The Royal Chanceries The kings’ chaplains were the first royal secretaries. Their main duties were to supply the king’s need for religious services, but in addition they also wrote his letters, monitored the content of letters written in his name by other clerics, and read aloud to him the letters he received. They were present when the king issued important documents: in 1085, King Knut of Denmark donated landed properties to the cathedral in Lund, and among the witnesses was his chaplain. 94

Henrik LERDAM, Kongen og tinget (Copenhagen, 2001), p. 21. Gerhard HAFSTRØM, “Lagman: Sverige”, in: KLNM 10, cols. 150-151. Yrjö BLOMSTEDT, “Lagman: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 151-152. Torfinn TOBIASSEN, “Lagman: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 153-162. Magnus Már LÁRUSSON, “Lagman: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 162-163. Jerker ROSÉN, “Landsting”, Ibidem, cols. 293-296. Gösta HASSELBERG, “Domare: Sverige”, in: KLNM 3, cols. 149-151. Yrjö BLOMSTEDT, “Domare: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 151-153. Poul MEYER, “Domare: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 153-155. Per NORSENG, “Lovmaterialet som kilde til tidlig nordisk middelalder”, in: Kilderne til den tidlige middelalders historie (Reykjavík, 1987), pp. 4877. Ole FENGER, “Med lov skal land bygges”, in: Middelalderens Danmark, ed. Per INGESMAN et al. (Copenhagen, 1999), pp. 52-63. LERDAM, Kongen og tinget, Chapters 2 and 4, particularly p. 203. 96 See supra: pp. 36-37. 95

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Royal chaplains were considered trusted representatives of the king, making sure written documents reflected the will of a king who could not himself read the documents.97 From the 1140s the Danish king gave one of his clerics the title notarius regis, making him solely responsible for the king’s correspondence. In 1161 the Danish king seems to have separated the clerics responsible for correspondence from those responsible for religious services. The leader of the former group was given the title of chancellor. In Norway the title of chancellor is known from 1208, and in Sweden from the 1220s.98 The emergence of an organized chancery under the leadership of a chancellor came earliest in Denmark. In the thirteenth century the chancellor was usually a bishop, and the responsibilities of his ecclesiastical rank meant he could no longer follow the king on his journeys. The chancellor kept the royal seal and had the right to seal letters on the king’s behalf from the time of Valdemar Atterdag (1340-1375).99 Even the lower officials and the daily leader of the chancery (in Denmark called the vice-chancellor) were ecclesiastics, though some officials were recruited for particular duties.100 But the development of a royal chancery is easiest to follow in Norway, where the kings’ sagas follow the actions of kings and magnates chronologically up to 1264. The last of these sagas describes the life of King Hakon Hakonarson (1217-1264). Ninety-nine letters are mentioned in this saga, 71 of which are sent to or from the king. Most of the twenty-eight remaining letters are sent to or from the archbishop or Earl Skuli, who led an unsuccessful rebellion against the king. The reason these three are so overwhelmingly represented in the correspondence mentioned in the saga is assumed to be that the saga author, Sturla Thordarson, had access to their archives when he wrote his saga in about 1265. Long passages are cited from several of the letters.101 One may conclude from this that the king, magnates of the royal family and bishops had at their disposal 97

DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, p. 145. DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, p. 146. LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 34. Gottfrid CARLSSON, “Kansli: Sverige”, in: KLNM 8, col. 239. Herluf NIELSEN, “Kansli: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 239-241. Johan AGERHOLT, “Kansli: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 241-243. Gottfrid CARLSSON, “Kansler: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 232-234. Herluf NIELSEN, “Kansler: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 234-235. Johan AGERHOLT, “Kansler: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 235-239. 99 DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, p. 146. 100 CARLSSON, “Kansli: Sverige”. NIELSEN, “Kansli: Danmark”. AGERHOLT, “Kansli: Norge”. 101 Narve BJØRGO, “Om skriftlege kjelder for Hákonar saga”, Historisk tidsskrift 46 (Oslo, 1967), pp. 185-229, pp. 197-201. 98

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clerks who wrote their letters and maintained an archive of ingoing and outgoing correspondence. One should not think in terms of a well-organized chancery at this time. The king travelled constantly between Nidaros (Trondheim), Bergen, Tønsberg and Oslo. Some of his scribes were chaplains travelling with him on the ship, and others were cathedral canons and other priests in the towns where he stayed. In the thirteenth century some chancellors were magnates, and some were men with a clerical education who could later become bishops. The king had in his service two or three permanent scribes (notarii), but others could be called in for particular tasks. The permanent scribes were laymen and could later be promoted as royal officials and end up as local judges or bailiffs. Up to about 1300 the king’s letters in Latin to foreign addressees seem to have been written by English clerics, but after that time there is evidence that at least some of them were written by Norwegians.102 The Swedish chancery had a similar loose organization up to ca. 1275.103 After about 1280 in both Norway and Sweden, the king’s use of writing in his administration became so extensive that a more permanent arrangement was necessary. At first the Norwegian king would depend upon his fourteen private royal chapels situated all around the coast, and in 1308 he obtained a papal privilege for them (kongelig kapellgeistlighet). In 1314, however, he chose to locate his chancery and chancellor at the largest of these chapels, Mariakirken in Oslo, adjacent to the royal residence. The chancellor was the dean of Mariakirken, and he kept the great seal. The king himself kept the smaller seal when travelling.104 After 1319 Norway was unified with Sweden, and plans for a single Norwegian chancery were abandoned.105 In Sweden there was a marked increase in the number of letters issued by the king in the period 1320-1340. In 1347, the Swedish king received a privilege from the pope to appoint a number of clerics who were to receive a salary from the church but work for the king, probably in his chancery. This has been considered as the founding date of the first permanent Swedish chancery.106 It is not clear where the king kept his archives. He must have some records with him on his ship, but he could also entrust the archives to local royal offi102 Eivind VÅGSLID, Norske skrivarar i millomalderen (Oslo, 1989), pp. 749-752. CARLSSON, “Kansli: Sverige”. NIELSEN, “Kansli: Danmark”. AGERHOLT, “Kansli: Norge”. 103 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 32-35. 104 Sverre BAGGE, Den kongelige kapellgeistlighet 1150-1319 (Bergen, 1976). IDEM, “Kanslerembedet og Mariakirken i Oslo 1314-1350”, in: Oslo bispedømme 900 år (Bergen, 1974), pp. 143-162. 105 Grethe Authen BLOM, Norge i union på 1300-tallet (Trondheim, 1992), pp. 184-185. 106 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 63-63 and 249.

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cials or ecclesiastics. King Sverrir (1177-1202) left some of his money with the Cistercians at Hovedøy in Oslo for safekeeping, and he may also have entrusted them with parts of his archive.107 In Denmark and Sweden, where bishops were appointed as chancellors from the thirteenth century, the bishops’ sees may have held the royal archives. All three countries had officials with a special responsibility for correspondence in the thirteenth century. However, the development of this post in Denmark and Sweden differed from the situation in Norway, because in Denmark and Sweden bishops held the office of chancellor all through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Church officials were probably a more natural choice as clerks in Sweden and Denmark because the administrative language was Latin.108

The King’s Communication with His Subjects in Non-Judicial Affairs Was Normally Oral Medieval Scandinavian kings travelled constantly between the main towns of their realms meeting local people. Royal officials were obliged to visit the king annually, and probably did so when the king stayed in a town in the district. These personal encounters usually made correspondence between king and local officials unnecessary. There does not seem to have been any need for written communication between king and local officials concerning routine, non-judicial business. Such letters have not survived, and there is reason to believe that they never existed.109 This corresponds well with the situation in the church. But the sagas do describe collective letters being sent from the Norwegian king to local royal officials: “From the king to all sheriffs (syslemenn) around Bergen”, and return letters “From all the king’s vassals (lendmenn) in Viken” to the king. Such letters were sent in extraordinary circumstances, and usually concerned military mobilization or extraordinary taxes; in such cases there was no time to wait for the annual meetings. In 1275 the Swedish king sent a written summons to call his magnates to a meeting, threatening that “all those who stay 107

BJØRGO, “Om skriftlege kjelder”, pp. 224-227. Didrik ARUP SEIP, “Diplomspråk”, in: KLNM 3, cols. 91-97. 109 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, does not distinguish between judicial and purely administrative letters, but she makes no mention of letters of the latter type for Sweden in this period. The situation is similar in Norway. For Denmark the question does not seem to have come under discussion. 108

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Illustration 13. In this letter from 1297, Duke Hakon, who exercised royal authority in a third of Norway, tells his local official in Stavanger that he has given the chapter at the cathedral there a building site to be used for a school, and he instructs his official to measure the site. Cases involving both the central and local administration would normally be settled orally when the king visited the town on his continual voyages along the coast. This case was perhaps settled in writing because it had judicial implications. Letters from the king to individual officials were called ‘closed letters’ to distinguish them from ‘open letters’ addressed to all. In this case, the duke writes that he will issue an open letter making the donation public when he has received the necessary information. This is an informal letter; the king’s small seal has been lost, but was attached to the strip of parchment seen on the picture to have been cut off in a simple manner from the letter. The purpose of the seal was to convince the local official that the letter was genuine. In the open letters shown on pages 73 and 92, the purpose was also to reinforce the authority of the instructions through the appearance of the letter and its seal. See also illustration on page 193. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. DN III no 41, compare RN II No. 865.

at home and neglect to appear without a legitimate reason shall lose their heads and movable property”.110 Proclamations to all the king’s subjects could be made orally when the king was present in the district, but the king also sent open letters to all his subjects in a certain district to be read aloud at several Thing assemblies: “to all people of Inner Trøndelag”, “to all Icelanders”. Earl Skuli also wrote letters to “all men in eastern Norway”.111 In Denmark, it had become standard procedure by 1250 for the king to send proclamations by letter to local Thing assemblies to be read publicly.112 The same goes for Sweden, where letters concerning extraordinary taxes and similar matters were addressed to the local communities, but sent to the local officials to be read publicly. When the Swedish king planned to visit a town, a letter announcing his impending arrival seems to have been sent to the 110

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 42. BJØRGO, “Om skriftlege kjelder”, pp. 198-200. 112 DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og Medieudvikling”, p. 149. 111

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Illustration 14. The king used charters to give all his officials general instructions. In 1297 the Norwegian king issued an ordinance addressed to his officials “and all other men who see or hear this letter”. He ordered them to give special protection to native and foreign pilgrims on their way to or from St Olaf’s shrine in Nidaros. They should be permitted to graze their horses on the traditional pastures, to use ferries over lakes and rivers, and they should not be made to pay more than the usual prices for goods and services. This is a formal, open letter with the king’s great seal on it, conveying the message that the king’s full authority was behind it. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. DN I No. 87.

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local official who read it aloud at a Thing assembly. Royal officials travelling in the king’s service had the right to transport and provisions, and they brought with them official letters confirming their rights. If the peasants were not able to read these letters, they had to take them to the local priest to have them read aloud. Another literate person in the local community who could help the peasant in such matters was the local judge (häradshövding, landsdommer).113 In Hákonar saga, which is set in the period 1217-1263, 71 letters are mentioned to or from the king, most of which are addressed to individual magnates or bishops who were not his officials.

Imitation of Ecclesiastical Financial Administration by the Crown Before about 1350, the organization of state finances in the Scandinavian countries was modelled on that of the church.114 Copenhagen and Stockholm did not become capitals until around 1400, and before that time the kings travelled more or less constantly between their royal residences, which were mostly in towns. When the king arrived in a town, his local officials in the surrounding area were expected to be present for consultations and reporting. An official who collected the king’s taxes had to present an account to his superiors. In 1273 all Norwegian sheriffs (syslemenn) were expected to do so once a year. They began by telling what the permanent incomes in their fiefs had been when they were given the office, and how the incomes had subsequently increased or diminished. Next they had to give an account of any incomes that fluctuated annually (veitsler).115 It is unclear whether these accounts were oral or written, but they were most likely oral, in line with how the church seems to have kept track of similar sources of income at the time. The king’s treasurer probably had a written register of sums to be expected from each district (sysle). The oral account described above apparently took its point of departure from the sum considered to be the norm, and the official had to answer for any deviations. The earliest such register still in existence is King Valdemar’s land register from 1231. It is a list of the king’s fixed incomes giving the total sum due from each district, but not specified for each taxpayer. It was evidently written for the use of royal officials116 The church used written land registers from the end of the twelfth century; the Danish king’s officials 113

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 41-42, 46, 68-69, 99, and cf. p. 19. See supra: pp. 63-65. 115 NMD, pp. 126-127. 116 RASMUSSEN, “Valdemars jordebog”. 114

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used them at the time of King Valdemar’s land register (ca. 1230-1250). There is no reason to doubt that royal officials in the other countries also used them. Oral accounting is best suited to incomes that vary little from year to year. The king demanded extra taxes in certain areas when extraordinary needs arose, and in these cases it must have been difficult or impossible for the king’s treasurer to verify what the bailiffs (syslemenn) had actually received from the peasants. A combination of written registers and oral accounting dominated financial administration in the Scandinavian High Middle Ages. It seems to have been introduced by the church and imitated by the state, but was really better suited to the church’s needs. The system worked best for an economically conservative organization whose main concern was to receive the same sum from the peasants every year, not a dynamic state which relied on extra taxes when extraordinary needs arose and which sought to expand its incomes in the long term.

When and Why Were Laws Committed to Writing? One of the most important social developments in the period 1150-1350 was that state and church took over the control of the judiciary from the local Thing communities. Behind this development was of course increasing concentration of military power in the kings’ hands. How significant was literacy in this process? Originally the laws were transmitted orally through prominent members of the Thing assemblies; this was the special duty of the lagmann.117 The first step to make the judiciary literate was to put the laws into writing, but it is not clear when this happened. The body of regional laws for western Norway (the Gulathing law) states repeatedly that the sections concerning religion, the so-called Christian laws, were given by King Olaf Haraldsson and his English missionary bishop Grimkell at a Thing on the island of Moster. Recent research indicates that this meeting took place in 1022.118 The law itself does not say whether the Christian laws were written down at that time or only preserved in oral tradition. However, the Norwegian saga tradition centred at the see of Nidaros from the 1180s onward explicitly says they were written down at the command of King Olaf.119 The first codification of the whole law, both the secular and religious 117

NORSENG, “Lovmaterialet”, pp. 60-63. LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 39. Magnus RINDAL, “Dei norske mellomalderlovene”, in: Skriftlege kjelder til kunnskap om nordisk mellomalder, ed. IDEM (Oslo, 1995), pp. 7-20, p. 8. 119 Theodoricus Monachus: Historia regum Norwagiensium, c.16. Passio Olavi, ed. F. Metcalfe (Oxford, 1881), pp. 70-71 (Norwegian translation, p. 18). 118

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sections, is attributed to Olaf’s son King Magnus (1035-1047) in both the Icelandic and Norwegian saga traditions. This law is contained in a codex called Grágás, which was preserved in Nidaros (Trondheim) 150 years later, in the 1190s.120 This saga account has been questioned by some historians, who have argued that it was common in the Middle Ages to attribute laws to saintly kings. The historian Ebbe Hertzberg proposed a date of 1100 for the codification,121 but no conclusive arguments have so far been given to reject the saga tradition. There were literate clerics at the Norwegian court in the period 1020-1040, and writing was already being used at that time for religious purposes and in foreign correspondence. The bishop prosecuted violations of the Christian law, and for this purpose he was present at the larger Thing assemblies (lagting).122 It must have been useful for him to bring along the Christian laws in writing. The Christian laws were new to Norwegian society, and the missionary bishops must have found it unsatisfactory to let these unfamiliar precepts be transmitted in an oral tradition. The English missionary bishops knew written codices from their homeland. The oldest surviving texts in the Anglo-Saxon language written in the Roman alphabet date to the seventh century.123 They were written by missionaries from the continent, building on a tradition of runic literacy.124 A similar situation may be imagined in Scandinavia, and the tradition of writing Old Norse in the Roman alphabet may have been begun by English missionaries. In Iceland the Althing decided to have the Icelandic laws written down in 1117, and this was done the following winter at the farm of the magnate Haflidi Masson. The information is reliable, because it was mentioned by Ari the Learned in Íslendingabók a few years later. This is the first known piece of writing in Old Norse in Iceland,125 but Icelandic clerics of course wrote Latin

120 Sverris saga, ed. Gustav INDREBØ (Kristiania (Oslo), 1920), c. 117. Hkr, The saga of Magnus the Good, c. 16. Cf. Frostatingslova, trans. Jan Ragnar HAGLAND and Jørn SANDNES (Oslo, 1994), pp. X-XI. This Norwegian Grágás should not be confused with the Icelandic codex of the same name. 121 Ebbe HERTZBERG, “Vore ældste Lovtexters oprindelige Nedskrivelsestid”, in: Historiske afhandlinger tilegnet professor dr. J.E. Sars (Kristiania (Oslo), 1905), p. 63. 122 KROON, “Synode: Sverige”. GUNNES, “Synode: Norge”. BENEDIKTSSON, “Synode: Island”. 123 KELLY, “Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word”, p. 58. 124 KELLY, “Anglo-Saxon lay society and the written word”, pp. 36 and 58. 125 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 118.

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Illustration 15. This book containing the regional law of Jylland (Jyske lov) was written ca. 1490 by a professional scribe called Jens Nilsen from Horsens in Jylland (Erik PETERSEN, Levende ord og lysende billeder. Den middelalderlige bogkultur i Danmark. 1. Katalog (Copenhagen, 1999), p. 44). It was evidently used by a judge who carried it with him on his journeys to local Thing assemblies, where court meetings often took place outdoors. The volume is small and easy to handle, only 13 x 10 cm. It has a posebind (‘bag binding’), meaning that the skin cover extends beyond the lower edge of the book, as shown in the picture. The judge could carry such a posebok (‘bag-book’) easily by clutching the bag. He could also tie the knot of extended skin cover to his belt. When he needed to consult the law while sitting or standing outdoors, he could reach for the book hanging from his belt and open it without having to fetch it from the bag. The book also includes a glossary to the Jylland law, a good, practical help for an itinerant judge. Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. KB Rostgaard 6 Octavo.

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before that time.126 As mentioned above, the Christian law was probably codified in the vernacular in the time of King Olaf Haraldsson (St Olaf), and it is therefore likely that Icelandic clerics read and wrote Old Norse back in the eleventh century. In Denmark and Sweden written codices in the vernacular came later; Denmark’s first vernacular church law dates to around 1170 and the secular laws to ca. 1200, and Sweden’s to around 1220.127 This did not mean, however, that the written version was given precedence over the oral tradition from that time. There seems to have been a gradual transition from private notation of oral law to official codices authorized by king, Thing or church. In Denmark the church law of Sjælland was issued in an authorized agreement between archbishop and peasants as early as 1170, but all manuscripts of secular law from before 1241 are private, that is, not authorized by Thing and king.128 In Sweden all law manuscripts from before 1296 are private.129 But private manuscripts often beIllustration 16. The regional law of Jylland (Jyske lov) was the first written Danish law to be officially approved by the king (in 1241). This copy was written around 1280, and has evidently been used actively by a royal official. The first pages contain a table of contents, making it easier to find a particular section. The law is divided into three books, which again are divided into paragraphs. The title of each book is written in red ink, the number and title of the paragraphs are written in black. This table of contents facilitated rapid consultation in court. Photo: http://base.kb.dk/manus_pub, page 2. Royal Library Stockholm, Codex Holmiensis C 37.

126

KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, pp. 115 and 118. OLASON, Dialogues with the Viking Age, p. 44. 127 FENGER, “Med lov skal land bygges”, p. 57. Sigurd KVÆRNDRUP, “Kristning og feudalisering”, in: Dansk litteraturhistorie 1, ed. Søren KASPERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 115-378, p. 172. Stig IUUL, “Jyske lov”, in: KLNM 8, cols. 50-51. Erik KROMAN, “Valdemars sjællandske lov”, in: KLNM 19, cols. 460-462. Erik KROMAN, “Eriks sjællandske lov”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 34-36. Jens Ulf JØRGENSEN, “Skånske lov”, in: KLNM 16, cols. 81-83. Jarl GALLÉN, “Kyrkorätt”, in: KLNM 10, cols. 1-5. Stig IUUL, “Kyrkorätt: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 5-6. ROSÉN, Svensk historia 1, p. 125. Gösta ÅQVIST, “Västgötalagarna”, in: KLNM 20, cols. 337-341. Stig IUUL, “Landskabslove”, in: KLNM 10, cols. 228-231. Jan LIEDGREN, “Landskabslove: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 231-233. Barbro SÖDERBERG, and Inger LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy i ett disglossiskt och digrafiskt perspektiv (Stockholm, 1993), pp. 5354. 128 KVÆRNDRUP, “Kristning og feudalisering”, p. 172. 129 IUUL, “Landskabslove”. LIEDGREN, “Landskabslove: Sverige”.

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Illustration 17. These two pages show how the law paragraphs are presented in the manuscript reproduced on page 78. The headings of the paragraphs are in red ink. Paragraph 17 (written as xvij), page 25 top right, has the heading Of kone kerer sik waldtaken (‘If a woman claims she has been raped’). The text of the paragraph follows underneath, in black ink. Even here the layout aims to facilitate rapid consultation. All three pictures on pages 77, 78 and 80 confirm the impression of codices meant to be used effectively by practicing judges. The codices were actively used to promote the officially approved legislation. Photo: http://base.kb.dk/manus_pub, page 25. Royal Library Stockholm, Codex Holmiensis C 37.

longed to royal officials, and they could serve the king’s interests even if not formally approved by him. Codification in Denmark started around 1170, at a time when King Valdemar the Great and Archbishop Absalon sought to extend their control over Danish society. Swedish codification started in Västergötland, the westernmost province, around 1220. This may partly be due to influence from the west – Norway, Denmark and perhaps England. The man who is credited with having organized and given a written form to the laws of Västergötland for the first time is Eskil, who was lagmann of that province from 1217 to 1227; his wife had previously been married to a prominent member of the Norwegian royal family.130 But this was also a time when the Swedish kings sought to create an administrative unit from the three provinces of Västergötland, Östergötland and Svealand. It is probably no coincidence that Eskil was the brother of Earl Birger, who later, as regent, did more than anyone else to consolidate state power in Sweden in this period. The brothers had their family roots in Östergötland.131 In Eskil’s case the distinction between private and official transcriptions of the laws is more of theoretical than practical interest. Originally the laws were transmitted orally between members of the Thing assembly, existing in their mutually approved form in the collective memory. A written codex was easier for the king to control. The king’s or his official’s copy could gradually obtain the status of the ‘authorized version’ of the laws. The leader of the Thing, the lagmann, became a royal judge and official in Norway ca. 1160, and in Sweden ca. 1300; the Danish landsdommer came under the

130 Edvard BULL, “Håkon Galen”, in: Norsk biografisk leksikon 5, ed. IDEM et al. (Oslo, 1931), pp. 160-161. 131 See infra: p. 142.

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strong influence of the crown before 1300.132 Written laws and royal judges seem to have come later in Sweden and Denmark; the Norwegian king seems to have obtained firm control at an earlier stage. With a written codex in his possession, it was easier for the king to press for changes even if they had to be formally approved by the Thing. Orally transmitted laws tended to reflect what trustworthy members of the Thing thought was right, whereas written codices documented the king’s understanding of justice. When the laws had been written down and formally approved as the ‘authorized version’, they were treated as the final expression of social justice, and not changed. But the king did issue amendments or rettarbøter which were used in the judiciary on equal terms with the law proper. Most of them were elaborations on or additions to the existing law, but some could also change it. In 1316, after the process of codifying the laws was completed, the Norwegian king sent a letter to the officials and inhabitants of Oslo ordering them to include certain provisions in their urban law. If they disapproved, they were still required to obey, but were permitted to write and explain to the king why they disagreed. Then the king would decide whether the relevant provisions should be changed.133 Writing in this case made it possible to order the inhabitants of Oslo to add new sections to their law. Since the king’s judge possessed an authorized version of the law, it was not possible in practice to refuse such orders. The new way of enforcing decrees presupposed an interaction between orality and literacy. New church laws from the bishop were read aloud to congregations on Sundays. New laws from the king were read aloud outside the church or at Thing assemblies.134 Church and state used writing to spread identical laws over a large area, and combined written laws with oral communication to make these laws known locally to illiterates. Why this increasing use of literacy in legislation? If we are to believe Anders Sunesson, the Danish king’s chancellor and later archbishop from 1201 to 1222, the main reason was to prevent conflicts from arising due to ambiguous laws. A written codex would make clear what the law actually said. The historian Thorkil Damsgaard Olsen also stresses that Scandinavian society became more complex after 1150, making it necessary to create new laws more often. 132

HAFSTRØM, “Lagman: Sverige”. BLOMSTEDT, “Lagman: Finland”. TOBIASSEN, “Lagman: Norge”. LÁRUSSON, “Lagman: Island”. HASSELBERG, “Domare: Sverige”. BLOMSTEDT, “Domare: Finland”. MEYER, “Domare: Danmark”. ROSÉN, “Landsting”. NORSENG, “Lovmaterialet”, pp. 48-77. FENGER, “Med lov skal land bygges”. LERDAM, Kongen og tinget, p. 203. 133 NGL III (1849), No. 49b. 134 SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy, pp. 138-142.

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Royal legislation was effective for this purpose.135 There is no reason to doubt that maintaining peace in a changing society was an important motive for state and church. Even so, as the discussion above makes clear, literacy also helped to concentrate judicial power in the king’s hands. Written laws made many social norms more explicit and accessible for people from outside the local community. This made it easier for the king and his men to know those social norms and make changes to them, and also ensure that the new and changed laws really were observed. Detailed knowledge of important social norms combined with military power made it possible for the emerging state to control and change important social norms. This process seems to have started earlier in Norway than in Denmark and Sweden, but the end result was the same. The fact that the Norwegian state and church used the vernacular rather than Latin for administrative purposes from the start facilitated the use of writing as a means to control legislation. But the different linguistic situation was itself due to the fact that Norway seems to have been Christianized in a more aggressive way by warrior kings assisted by Anglo-Saxon missionaries. The missionary bishops may have seen written Christian laws as a useful tool for changing the traditional habits of a recalcitrant people. This may be an example of literacy used as an instrument to obtain certain ends in the short term, but it had important unintentional long-term consequences as well.

Did Writing Stimulate a More Generalizing Understanding of Laws? Written laws evidently made it easier for the king to control legislation. According to Jack Goody, writing also strengthened the king’s power in an indirect and unintended way by causing the law to be understood in a more general manner. The traditional way of formulating and using laws is illustrated by a case from Uppland in Sweden. The law stated that “if a man servant is ordered by his master to climb a tree, and he falls down and is killed, then his master is to pay a fine of 20 marks.” This law was used in a court case where the mistress of the house had ordered her maid to help her move a large kettle, and the maid fell into the kettle and suffered severe burns from which she died. The ‘master story’

135

DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, p. 152.

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in the law was applied in a case which had certain similarities, but was not exactly the same.136 But times were changing. In the Gulathing codex, there is a section concerning those who eat meat on Fridays. The extant manuscript is from ca. 1250, but the section in question is much older. It may in fact be one of the sections given by Bishop Grimkell in the 1020s.137 The section first states that eating meat is prohibited on Fridays. If a person is eating meat, and another person enters the room and asks why he is eating meat on a Friday, and the first person has meat in his mouth, he shall take it out of his mouth and say as follows: “I ate this because of ignorance; I did not know what day it was”. Then he shall go to confession and not be liable to pay a fine for it [to the bishop].138

In about 1170, up to 150 years after the Gulathing laws, Archbishop Eystein of Nidaros revised the Christian laws. The section concerning meat on Fridays was rewritten as follows: “If a man eats meat on a Friday and it is done because of ignorance, then he shall go to confession, but shall not pay a fine to the bishop”.139 The difference between the two versions is that the first tells a story to explain what ignorance is. The second simply uses the abstract word ‘ignorance’ and evidently leaves it to the judge or confessor to decide if the case before him involves ignorance. The two sections illustrate the difference between laws in what Goody would consider an oral and a literate tradition. The first tells a story which is easy to remember and pass on by word of mouth in an oral tradition. If a similar situation occurs, this story will be remembered, and interpretations and reactions will be based on the story in the law. This procedure is well adapted to a situation where the judges and other persons involved are illiterate and not accustomed to abstract thinking and general concepts. The later version of the section is well adapted to a situation where the judge is literate. The law gives its norms in general terms and leaves it to the professional, literate judge to apply it to individual cases. 136

Carl Ivar STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, in: Ny illustrerad svensk litteraturhistoria 1 (Stockholm, 1955), pp. 35-121, p. 51. The court case is from 1490, but shows old practices stemming from oral traditions. 137 The introduction to this long section says that some of it was given by St Olaf and some of it was given later. The age of the sentence quoted here is thus not given in the text. 138 Gulatingslova, ed. Rudolf KEYSER and Peter Andreas MUNCH (Christiania (Oslo), 1846: NGL I), pp. 1-118, I, c. 20. 139 Frostatingslova, ed. Rudolf KEYSER and Peter Andreas MUNCH (Christiania (Oslo), 1846: NGL I), pp. 119-258, II, c. 38.

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This method of understanding the law was obviously to the king’s and bishop’s advantage. It gave power to those who were authorized to formulate the general laws and appoint the professional judges and priests who interpreted it. A jury of twelve illiterate laymen is not the most suitable forum for a discussion of how to interpret general concepts. The generalizing trend in legislation strengthened the position of the king’s literate judges.

Written Evidence in Court Cases – For Whom Was it Useful? Written evidence in court cases was mainly of two kinds, transcripts of the verdicts in earlier court cases and confirmations of legal rights to property. Three larger studies have so far been made on the use of literacy in the judicial process. Barbro Söderberg and Inger Larsson have examined cases in which Swedish medieval laws required the use of writing,140 and Inger Larsson has separately examined the uses of Swedish medieval charters.141 Elisabeth Aronsen’s study includes both what the law demanded and what was actually done in terms of writing. Her study concerns the county of Telemark in Norway and the period 1300-1450.142 The main emphasis of all these studies is on royal legislation. How does the increasing use of charters in the judiciary fit into a Scandinavian context? In Denmark there is no known legislation which imposed the use of writing in court cases. It was the duty of the parties to provide oral or written evidence of their legal rights;143 the motive for using writing was the self-interest of property owners and the parties in legal conflicts. As early as 1140, the Danish king gave privileges in written form to the monks of Næstved monastery, and gave a long and verbose reason for doing so: Because of the devil’s work and our own sins we have fallen from the source of eternal wisdom into this vale of tears and misery. Here we have, among other things, been burdened with the deficiency of forgetfulness. We can hardly remember recent events, much less events of the distant past. But the almighty and loving God, who always takes care of us, has given us an admirable remedy. With the help of writing we can remember agreements and gifts which believers have given the holy church for the remission of their sins. What could 140

SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy. LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev. 142 Elisabeth ARONSEN, Skrift og rett: Utviklingen av en skriftkultur i Telemarks rettssystem i perioden 1300-1450 (Unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 1999). 143 DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Analfabetenes oprør”, in: Dansk litteraturhistorie 1, ed. Søren KASPERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 381-191, p. 391. 141

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have been lost because of failing memory, is kept because of the living writing. Therefore the admirable custom has been introduced that there shall be documents with legal and trustworthy witnesses to agreements which are necessary for the holy church. If there are dissolute and quarrelsome persons who try to use violence or injustice, documents with testimonies of those who issued it can then be submitted. All adversaries can then be dismissed.144

The first initiatives to use written legal titles to protect one’s own property came from the church. As early as 1085 the Bishop of Lund had a donation of land from the king put in writing.145 In the succeeding centuries, an increasing number of such charters followed in Denmark. From 1085 to 1169, forty-two letters confirming the transfer of land or other economic rights are registered in Diplomatarium Danicum. All the recipients are church institutions, and we must assume that the charters were issued on their initiative and probably written by their clerics. Twenty-one of the donors were other churches, twenty were kings and one is a duke (hertug) – the magnate Buris Henriksson, a member of the royal family who on this occasion founded a Cistercian monastery. He is the first known person outside the circle of prelates and kings to be involved in the practice of written evidence. But even in his case it must have been the ecclesiastical recipient of the gift who insisted on a written record being made.146 Charters were introduced by the church, and prelates asked their donors to give a written confirmation of their gifts. . As discussed above, church institutions began keeping land registers from the end of the twelfth century. The church’s written charters and land registers obviously had consequences for lay landowners. A layman in a legal dispute with a church which had written titles to its land could lose his case if he did not have written titles of his own. Similarly, the winning party in a court case would realize that it was to his advantage to have the judgement in writing.147 There was a dynamic in the situation. The first known charter confirming rights of laymen was issued in 1202-1214 by the king for the citizens of Ribe. There are more uncertain indications that such letters were also issued in the reign of King Knut VI (1182-1202). The charters in question were issued by the royal chancery.148 Throughout Scandinavia charters were first introduced to protect church

144

DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, p. 144. FRIIS-JENSEN, “Litteratur og bøger”, p. 316. 146 DD 1. R I and II. The figures are based on counting the relevant letters printed in DRB, which is a translation of DD. Buris Henriksson’s charter: DD 1. R II, No. 152. 147 ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, p. 166. 148 DD 1. R IV, No. 54. DD 1. R III, No. 109. 145

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property, but laymen seem to have taken up the practice around 1200 in Denmark and about 80 years later in Sweden, as will be discussed below. In England the situation was the same as in Denmark. Michael Clanchy argues that writing for administrative purposes increased gradually in England from 1100 to 1300 because royal servants found it useful. There was no conscious policy on the part of the king and his advisers to promote the use of writing through legislation.149 In Norway legislation seems to have played a more important part. In 1273 the king ordered that “all important verdicts, particularly those concerning murder and maiming” should be written down. In 1308 the royal judges (lagmenn) were ordered to have all their judgements written down in letters to be given to the parties in the case. The judge was also to write his verdicts in a protocol for his own use. The first national Norwegian legal codex of 1274 prescribed that “all agreements which people make concerning marriages, transfers of land, urban houses and sales worth more than 10 marks” should be written in sealed charters, naming witnesses. The purpose is explicitly said to be that such charters might be needed in later court cases.150 In Telemark written verdicts start to appear after 1306, and in the period that followed it seems to have been standard practice to issue such letters.151 In Norway as a whole the number of preserved letters increases dramatically from the 1270s to the 1340s.152 The number of charters giving legal titles to property increased from the 1290s.153 This could be interpreted as a consequence of the 1274 legislation. But written titles to property were used before the law was passed, though this is true almost exclusively when a church or prominent royal official was one of the parties.154 There is also a time lag between law and practice. The Norwegian law requiring written titles to land was issued in 1274, but in many parts of the country it was not put into practice by peasants until the 1290s; in peripheral Telemark the law was not observed until the 1360s.155 Not all royal orders concerning literacy were obeyed; Norwegian judges were or149

CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, Chapter 2. Ll VIII, c. 11. NGL III (1849), No. 25. 151 ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, pp. 103 and 106. 152 Tine Berg FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet og loven i ryggen (unpublished thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 1997), p. 8. 153 ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, p. 132. EADEM, “Innføring av praktisk skriftkultur i norsk seinmiddelalder – et ledd i sentraliseringsprosessen”, Historisk tidsskrift 80 (Oslo, 2001), pp. 419-443. 154 See RN. 155 ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, p. 134. 150

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Illustration 18. The oldest extant Scandinavian charter was issued by the Danish king Erik Emmune in 1135. In gratitude for a victory over his enemies, the king donated land to the cathedral chapter of Lund, which was then the see of the archbishop of all Scandinavia. At this time property transactions were normally made validated through an oral ceremony in the presence of witnesses. One must assume that the chapter of Lund wanted this donation in writing, and that one of the canons wrote the charter to be sealed by the king. The canons probably feared that a future king would rescind the gift. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. DD 1. række 2. volume No. 63.

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dered to keep protocols of verdicts in 1308, but no protocols are known until 1572. Marriage contracts continued to be oral despite royal ordinances.156 Aronsen concludes that two conditions were necessary for writing to be practised in the judicial process in Norway. The king must have ordered it, and the persons in question must have found it to their advantage to follow the command.157 There was no automatic connection between law and practice. In Sweden there is no legislation on the subject in the Västergöta laws from ca. 1220; according to the Östergöta laws (ca. 1280), written records were to be used in the sale of royal lands. In 1350, the first national Swedish law was issued which prescribed that all judgements and all land transfers should be written down, and that these records should be in the Swedish language.158 Was the Swedish legislation followed by a sharp increase in the use of charters, as was the case in Norway? The increase in the number of preserved letters in Sweden starts at about the same time as in Norway – the 1270s – and flattens out again at about the same time, in the 1350s.159 This means that in Sweden, the increase in the use of charters came before the legislation, so the legislation therefore cannot have been its cause. The main purpose of the legislation seems to have been different in Sweden and Norway. The main concern of the Norwegian law of 1274 was that agreements with a judicial value should be written and not oral, and the legislation preceded and probably caused an increase in the use of charters, or at least contributed to it. In Sweden, the national law (ca. 1350) which imposed written charters in Swedish came after an increased use of charters in the judiciary in the preceding period. The Swedish law’s main concern seems to have been that the charters should be written in Swedish and not Latin as this would facilitate the work of the courts, where the judges and other laymen present had a poor knowledge of Latin. The law was in fact followed by a sharp increase in the use of Swedish in the judiciary.160 But the kings of Sweden and Norway had a common desire for a judiciary which made a wide use of the written word, and their means to obtain it was legislation. Literacy seems to have been introduced to the judiciary in Sweden in much the same way as in Denmark, but with a delay. In Sweden the oldest known charter is from the 1160s. For the next hundred years all the beneficiaries of charters were churches, and the initiative to have the charters in written form must have come from the beneficiaries. Not until after 1280 do we find charters 156

ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, p. 98. ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, p. 168. 158 SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy, pp. 106-108. 159 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 254. 160 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 254. 157

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Illustration 19. According to the Norwegian national law of 1274 and the Swedish national law of ca. 1350, royal judges were obliged to give parties to a lawsuit a letter containing the verdict. This charter was issued in 1366 by a Swedish royal judge with another royal official as co-judge, and both sealed the letter. It decided a conflict about the payment for a horse. However, the majority of the preserved charters concern land transactions. They gave legal title to valuable property, and they were preserved by peasants in their storage chests even if they were illiterate and could not read the documents themselves. Such charters were for private, practical use, and have an informal, unimposing appearance. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. DS No. 7390.

issued for the benefit of laymen to prove legal titles to property.161 Even during the great expansion of legal literacy in 1280-1350, the overwhelming majority of the charters concerned churches and clerics; in the remaining cases magnates were involved.162 The law of 1350 seems to have been the necessary incentive for peasants to begin taking the trouble to have their legal titles set in writing. In the period 1350-1400 a few peasants had their legal titles recorded in charters, but the number of charters for men and women from peasant as well as craft communities in towns increased significantly after 1400.163 In Sweden the driving force behind the introduction of writing in the judiciary in the first phase was the church; the magnates then felt obliged to follow suit to protect their own interests. After about 1350 the king took the initiative through his legislation. The main consequence of his action was to have the charters written in the vernacular, and consequently make them more accessible to laymen and particularly the peasants. The increase in peasant charters should be seen at least partly as a consequence of the royal legislation. The use of charters in Scandinavia increased in the period 1280-1350 regardless of royal legislation. The county of Holland (The Netherlands) also saw similar development in the same period.164 In North Italian cities, however, the great increase started earlier, in the decades after 1150.165 The causes should therefore be discussed in a Northern European context, which would widen the 161

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 20, 26, 34-35 and 47. LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 100. SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy, p. 126. 163 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 112-113. 164 MOSTERT, “Veelkleurige religie en zakelijk schriftgebruik”, p. 185. 165 Irmgard FEES, Eine Stadt lernt schreiben: Venedig vom 10. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 2002), pp. 195-199. 162

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Illustration 20. The oldest extant Swedish charter was issued by the Archbishop of Uppsala in the 1160s. A woman named Doter had become a nun and had donated land to the monastery of Viby. Her son objected, because he considered this part of his inheritance. The Archbishop of Uppsala intervened, and the son was obliged to accept the donation. The letter recording this more or less voluntary agreement was sealed by the archbishop and the king. At this time, land transactions were normally made through an oral ceremony (see also above, the charter on p. 88). The church probably wanted this donation in writing because it violated traditional laws or customs of inheritance in peasant communities. It is a formal letter sealed by the supreme secular and spiritual authorities in Swedish society; it is addressed to “all people living now or in the future”. Writing was used in this case to change the oral customs of peasant society to the advantage of the church. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. DS No. 51.

scope beyond the limits of this study. However, the reason for the increased use of charters can certainly be connected to the reorganization of state and church jurisdiction and administration in the period. In Norway and Sweden the king’s legislation regarding literacy proved beneficial to the interests of the church and other landowners. This policy has its parallels in Merovingian and Carolingian France, where the state also actively promoted literacy through legislation.166 Both king and church worked actively to introduce written evidence. As the church began using written documents as evidence, laymen were obliged to do the same. The king could also promote literacy through his legislation, as was done in Norway and Sweden. Both church and crown must have found written evidence to their advantage, but governments probably used legislation more actively at a less advanced stage in the development of administrative literacy. Church institutions sought to protect their property and make their economic situation more predictable. The king’s motive was also to make the judicial process more predictable. Evidence given in the form of a written deposition was less subject to change than evidence preserved in the memory of men. A verdict was easier to enforce by royal officials if it could be presented to the losing party in indisputable terms in a letter. But this also strengthened the king’s control of the judiciary. The king’s courts were respected by laymen largely because the king was able to enforce the verdicts. Writing enhanced the king’s ability to do this without conflict. 166

MCKITTERICK, Carolingians and the Written Word, pp. 66-75.

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Making a verdict acceptable to the people was not only a question of commanding a superior force. For the judiciary to function without conflict, it was also essential that the people accepted its decisions as legitimate. The judiciary had two ways of justifying and legitimizing its activities. There was a strong Scandinavian tradition which regarded the people as the keepers of social legitimacy: important political and judicial decisions had to be approved by the people. Therefore, court officials were at pains to include members of the local communities in the process, as this would strengthen courts’ claims to represent justice and legality. Secondly, the king could be seen as keeper of legitimacy, so it was also important that the king and his representatives be included in the process and recognize the verdicts as just and in accordance with the law. Originally a transfer of property was made legal orally by a ceremony where the parties shook hands in the presence of witnesses while the agreement was recited aloud. To this could be added other ceremonies. Skeyting, a legal ceremony for transferring property, is known in all Scandinavian countries, but is given its most detailed description in the Norwegian Gulathing law. The seller and buyer visited the property to be sold. The seller collected soil “from beneath the four corners of the fireplace and the ‘seat of honour’ (andveges sæte) in the hall, from the border between field and meadow and between pasture and wood.” The buyer held out a corner of his cloak (the word skeyting derives from Old Norse skaut, meaning the corner of the cloak) and the seller put the soil into it in the presence of witnesses as a symbol that the land had been transferred.Later the two met at the Thing assembly and the witnesses confirmed that the skeyting had been performed. Those present at the Thing confirmed the transaction as legal by clutching their weapons (vápnatak).167 The ceremony of vápnatak could be used to make any agreement legal at the Thing or elsewhere in the presence of witnesses. In Sweden it was called skaptafærd. Those present could clutch their own weapons, either a sword or any other weapon. Several men could also clutch the same weapon – for practical reasons this had to be the shaft of a spear.168 The introduction of writing did not abolish the ceremony of handshaking in the presence of witnesses. In Norway the oldest written titles to property were statements by witnesses that this oral procedure had taken place: in this way the 167

Gulatingslova, c. 292. Lars HAMRE, “Skøyting”, in: KLNM 16, cols. 155-164. Gerhard HAFSTRÖM, “Skøyting: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 164-166. Ole FENGER, “Skøyting: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 166-167. 168 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 199-202.

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demands of orality and literacy were satisfied at the same time. These charters were issued by the witnesses who in this way had the same function in a written procedure as they had in the oral one. At least in Telemark this double method of legitimizing property transfers continued all through the Middle Ages.169 Charters issued by witnesses were common in Norway and Iceland. Although they were made elsewhere in Scandinavia as well, charters issued by the seller or donor were more common there. This difference is probably due to the fact that in Norway and Iceland the letters were written in Old Norse, and in Denmark and Sweden in Latin. In the first case it was more natural to let the witnesses speak just as they would have done in court. In the second case it was more natural to use types of letters known from Roman law, which made the use of writing more dependent on the clerics.170 The church also tried to appropriate the oral, secular ceremonies. In 1211 a layman confirmed his gift of land to the monastery of Vä in Skåne by performing a skeyting over/on the altar of St Mary in the monastery in the presence of the archbishop (… dimidiam partem portionis sue confirmavit scotando super altare sancte Marie).171 It is not quite clear from the text what actually happened. The layman may have placed some soil on the altar as a symbolic confirmation of his gift to the monastery, but in the Scandinavian languages å skøde/skjøte (Latin scotare) gradually came to signify issuing or handing over a charter transferring property. The layman may have put a charter on the altar. Apart from property transfers, court verdicts were also very important to have in writing, as they could help the winning party to have the verdict enforced. Literacy seems to have become part of court routine in this aspect from the fourteenth century,172 but oral evidence about earlier court cases continued to be accepted. In exceptional cases the court could actively seek to have oral testimonies written down instead of hearing them in court. This could be done if there was a reason for hearing testimonies away from the location where the court proceedings took place, e.g. in conflicts about borders between farms.

169

ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, p. 153. EADEM, “Innføring av praktisk skriftkultur”, pp. 427-

429. 170 Lars HAMRE,“Skrift og samfunn: Eit møte mellom nytt og gammalt: Små refleksjonar om eit stort emne”, in: Rett og historie: Festskrift til Gudmund Sandvik, ed. Dag MICHAELSEN and Knut SPRAUTEN (Oslo, 1997). Lars HAMRE, “Vitnebrev”, in: KLNM 20, cols. 214-219. Stefan KARLSSON, “Vitnebrev: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 219-220. Allan KARKER, “Vitnebrev: Danmark”, Ibidem, col. 220. Jan ÖBERG, “Vitnebrev: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 220-222. 171 DS, No. 141. 172 At least in Norway and Sweden; see: Jan LIEDGREN, “Dombrev”, in: KLNM 3, col. 162. Lars HAMRE, “Dombrev: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 163-165..

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Illustration 21. This charter was written on 13 June 1292 in Kvinesdal, a remote rural community in the diocese of Stavanger, Norway. It was issued by the twelve witnesses (two priests and ten laymen, of whom the latter were probably local peasants). The witnesses declared that they had walked along the disputed property line between the two farms of Eikeland and Gullestad. Two local farmers swore on the book as to where the boundary line had run in living memory, according to what they had heard from old people. An agreement was reached, and the witnesses gave a detailed description of where the line should run. So far, this is a written description of an oral procedure. In Norway and Iceland charters were often composed of statements by witnesses that they had been present when an oral ceremony took place. The charter was probably written by one of the two priests. In conclusion the witnesses declared that “to witness this agreement we sealed this letter, those of us who had a seal”. It turned out that five of the twelve witnesses had a seal. The seals have been lost, but the seal owners were probably the two priests and three of the ten laymen. In 1292 there were oral and written ways of creating a legal title to a property, and the peasants preferred to do it both ways. In the local community the testimony of ‘good men’ relating what old people had said carried greatest weight; in the king’s court the peasant would be best served with a written charter. The farmer at Eikeland kept this charter in his storage chest. In 1627 there was again a dispute concerning this boundary line, and on 25 June of that year, the letter was read aloud on an islet which was one of the boundary marks between the farms. At that time the charter was probably the sole authority for the boundary; an oral tradition independent from the written one is hard to imagine. In 1847 the owner of Eikeland donated the letter to the Norwegian National Archives. By then the charter had been in the possession of the farmers of Eikeland for 555 years; it had become worn and lost its 5 seals, as the photograph shows. But during all that time, the farmers had no doubt felt that the written charter was a guarantee for the integrity of their property. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. DN I No. 81.

The great increase in the writing of charters in Sweden and Norway came in the decades 1280-1350, but these charters do not seem to have been actively used on a larger scale in court cases until after 1400. Written titles to property were used in court procedures side by side with oral witnesses all through the period, and there is nothing to suggest that written and oral testimonies were evaluated differently.173 There was a pragmatic combination of orality and literacy and no traces of a tension between the literate procedures of the elite and the oral procedures of the people.

173

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 191.

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Illustration 22. An agreement from 1319 between the Bishop of Stavanger and his chapter concerning landed properties. The letter is issued by the two parties themselves, an alternative to charters issued by witnesses. The former is typical for Denmark and Sweden, the latter for Norway and Iceland. To prevent falsifications, such charters could be issued in ‘Cirographus’ form. The agreement was written twice on a piece of parchment, and between the two copies the word CIROGRAPHUS was written in capital letters. Then the parchment was cut in two through the word Cirographus, each half bearing a copy of the agreement. Both halves were sealed by both parties, each of the parties receiving his half of the parchment. On later occasions the authenticity of the document could be verified by putting the two halves together. The two seals gave an extra guarantee against falsification. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. DN III No. 116.

The royal courts sought to legitimize verdicts both ways, but even so, the use of writing in the judiciary tended to reinforce the king’s claim to being the keeper of legality. In all three countries written laws strengthened the king’s ability to change the laws, which in turn must have reinforced the concept of law as a domain of the king. Written judgements also enabled the state to monitor verdicts without having to consult witnesses from the local community. It became easier for local royal officials to assist winning parties and for losing parties to appeal verdicts to the king. Written evidence also strengthened the position of the literate judges in a more indirect and unintentional way because it promoted a new and critical way of evaluating evidence. In a court case based on oral testimony only, the person who could muster the largest number of legal witnesses would prevail. Behind this was the idea that what ‘most people’ thought must be true. When two documents contradicted each other, the judge had a more difficult job. He would first make a formal examination of the charters: did both have the legal minimum of two seals? Letters were dismissed if they failed to meet formal requirements. If both charters were legal, the royal judge had to make an evaluation of the content of the letters, and this was new in Scandinavian secular courts. A jury of twelve illiterate peasants would hardly be able to make this critical evaluation; it could only be done by a literate judge.174 A direct effort by the authorities to control judicial rights through writing is seen most directly in the Swedish national law of 1350. All land transfers were to be confirmed by local courts in countryside and towns, and a judge was to issue a charter (fastebrev) confirming that the transfer had taken place in the 174

ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, pp. 111-123.

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presence of named witnesses from the local population.175 This did not prevent the parties from issuing other documents on their own initiative, but the fastebrev was now the key legal document needed to prove a claim. An alternative in urban communities was to have the transfer written into the town register. The model for this public registration of land transaction was evidently the town register of the Hanseatic towns of Germany. Such official confirmations of land transactions were not required in Denmark and Norway, where charters issued by the seller or by the witnesses were sufficient; in those countries the courts did not involve themselves in private land transactions. This transfer of authority did not necessarily undermine the judicial rights of individual peasants. Writing also protected the individual and increased the predictability of court decisions. A peasant who had a title proving his ownership of his farm was independent of the memory of his fellow peasants, who could be influenced by powerful men and personal animosities in the local community. The most effective way of maintaining respect for the law was to have it internalized in the minds of the subjects, each individual disciplining himself. Did literacy play a part in this process? Writing could be used to create routine procedures which were known to all and prevented feuds from breaking out due to misunderstandings. The most standardized use of charters in the Norwegian Middle Ages is to be found in cases of homicide. The killer had to follow set procedures if he wanted to enjoy the king’s peace and escape the revenge of the relatives of the dead man. At each stage in the procedure he had to acquire a document from the king’s chancellor, the local royal official or the dead man’s family. Illustration 23. Jacob of Marsta had committed a killing, but he submitted his case to the royal court. The Swedish king ordered a local royal official to examine the case, and on 12 February 1354 issued the letter opposite, protecting the killer until the investigation had been concluded. This is a Swedish parallel to the ‘letter of peace’ issued by Norwegian kings. The letter is addressed to “all men” and is therefore called an open letter, but it concerns the legal status of one individual for a limited period. It is therefore shorter and less formal than the charters on pages 73 and 92. The king has used a special royal seal, the sigillum ad causas or judicial seal. Photo: Kurt Eriksson, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. DS No. 4999 175 Jan LIEDGREN, “Fastebrev”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 194-196. Poul MEYER, “Fastebrev”, Ibidem, col. 197. Jan LIEDGREN, “Stadsbok”, in: KLNM 16, cols. 652-654. Lars SVENSSON, “Tänkebok”, in: KLNM 19, cols. 195-199. LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 141-154.

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First the killer had to travel to the king’s chancellor to get a ‘letter of peace’, a standard document. It protected him from revenge for a limited period. The killer took this letter to the local royal official, who investigated the case, then wrote a letter giving certain standardized information on the case, the ‘letter of evidence’. This document was brought back to the king or his chancellor. He passed judgement and decided the size of the fine to the state. On the condition that the killer paid the fine within a certain time limit, he was given the king’s peace. All this was written down in a standardized ‘letter of permission to remain in the land’ (landsvistarbréf). The local official received the fine and issued a receipt. Finally the local royal official organized negotiations between the killer and the family of the dead man to decide the amount of compensation due. When the compensation was paid, the relatives issued a final ‘letter of settlement’, and the case was closed.176 All these letters were more or less standardized, the purpose evidently being to prevent local feuds and promote respect for the royal courts. The key to the procedure was a standardized use of literacy; it would be clear from the letters if the procedure had been broken. The procedure was backed up by the threat of the use of force by the king and the relatives of the man who had been killed. In every local community many people would know what had to be done if a man was killed. It made society more manageable, and those who followed the king’s laws knew their rights would be protected if the procedure was properly followed. This procedure is only known in Norway, but it nevertheless illustrates the social consequences of literacy. Standardizing and internalizing legal procedures was a precondition for controlling feuds without the king having to resort to force in too many cases. With standardized procedures which allowed every man and woman to know what had to be done if a murder occurred, literacy changed mentalities and helped to centralize judicial control with a minimum of conflict.177 As Jack Goody pointed out, the introduction of literacy had unintended consequences which may be as important as the intended ones. The judiciary was the most literate part of royal administration in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. The main problem for the Scandinavian states in the period 1100 to 1350 was an internal one – great nobles and local communities who wanted to keep judicial and military power local. Written laws and evi-

176 177

ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, pp. 55-63. ARONSEN, Skrift og rett, pp. 42-94. EADEM, “Innføring av praktisk skriftkultur”, pp. 436-

440.

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dence were an effective means for the king to obtain control over local jurisdiction with a minimum of conflict.

Literacy in the Judiciary – Do the Extant Sources Deceive Us? In this chapter I have argued that the most extensive use of literacy in Scandinavia in the High Middle Ages was in the judiciary and connected to the judicial process. But could the surviving source material be deceptive? The quantitative dominance of judicial documents could be due to the fact that these documents were preserved more carefully than other types of documents in succeeding centuries. A law, an ordinance, a register of duties to be paid or a legal title to property could be useful in future disputes or court cases, and had to be preserved. A written message from one person to another contemporary person often had no value after it was read, and was scrapped. In an article from 1999, Mary Garrison maintains that “informal letters, letters by the laity, ephemeral business notes […] and love letters” are grossly underrepresented in the extant material: “… entire categories of written communication either do not survive or else are barely attested”. Her main argument for this view is that in archaeological excavations in Bergen, Novgorod and other towns, large numbers of wooden sticks with short messages in runes have been found. Similar messages on parchment may also have been common, but have not survived. Although she does not say so explicitly, she could be seen as arguing that the use of literacy was dominated by informal letters of no future value, at least in the first part of the Middle Ages.178 This is an interesting hypothesis which has to be taken seriously, but we must also consider other alternatives. The alternative view is that the same circumstances that made it important for people to preserve judicial documents after 1350 also made it important to have them written before 1350. In medieval society it was important for church, state, landowners and peasants to be able to defend their judicial rights. Written documents were useful instruments for preserving the memory of such rights, as this chapter has shown. Therefore judicial documents had first priority when literacy was introduced in secular society in the High Middle Ages, and they had first priority when people decided which documents to preserve in the centuries that followed. 178 Mary GARRISON, “‘Send more socks’: On the mentality and the preservation context of medieval letters”, in: New Approaches to Medieval Communication, ed. Marco MOSTERT (Turnhout, 1999: Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 1), pp. 69-99, p. 69.

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The importance and value of having informal messages in writing must have been questionable for medieval Scandinavians. There was no postal service; a letter or short message on a stick or parchment would have to be carried by a messenger. The messenger could also give that same message orally. As shown in Chapter 1, a messenger usually handed over the letter and gave an accompanying oral message. Formal and informal letters and messages were not essential in the same way judicial documents were. There was not an urgent need for such letters, nor was there a need to preserve them. The personal letter did not become really important to Scandinavian society until regular postal services were established in the early modern period. An argument that formal and informal messages dominated Scandinavian literacy would also need the support of empirical evidence, and such evidence is difficult to find. The second most important category of written material preserved from the Scandinavian Middle Ages was written material used by the Roman Catholic Church in liturgy and preaching. After the Reformation most of it became useless. Following Mary Garrison’s argument, one might imagine that this material would be destroyed and therefore be lost to us. In fact, significant quantities of liturgical material, hagiographies, sermons, et cetera have been preserved. It is reasonable to assume that if informal letters were produced in large quantities, more of them would have been preserved by individuals and institutions who would have had a variety of reasons for doing so. To sum up, there is no doubt that judicial documents were better preserved in the centuries after 1350 than ‘informal messages’. Even so, the empirical evidence does not support the view that letters and messages were the most important use of literacy in the High Middle Ages. The largest category of surviving written material is connected to the judicial process, and informal and formal non-judicial messages are few. This probably also reflects the use of writing in Scandinavian medieval society; informal messages were of secondary importance. With regard to the social consequences of literacy, regardless of the quantities and types of written documents produced, there can be no doubt that judicial uses of literacy had more important social consequences than private messages.

State and Literacy in the High Middle Ages Writing was not predestined to create a strong state. Irmgard Fees in her study of Venice has shown that the use of writing in administration and trade had a breakthrough there and in other North Italian cities in the decades after

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Illustration 24. Latin inscription on Løvel bridge between Viborg and Ålborg in Jylland, from the thirteenth century. The bridge, made of granite, is said to have been constructed on the initiative of ‘King Erik’ – probably Erik Plogpenning (1241-1250). It was evidently made to facilitate the movement of the king’s armies, but one must assume that private travellers and the local community also considered the bridge beneficial. The inscription can be seen as propaganda or publicity for the expanding state. The bridge itself contributed to the king’s monopolization of legitimate violence, and the inscription gives an example of writing used to strengthen the king’s prestige. Photo: Jens Vellev.

1150.179 The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were also the great period for the communal movement in these cities, and she argues that literacy was a precondition for citizen participation in town administration. The merchants had parttime administrative duties, and this would have been difficult or impossible without a literate elite. The citizens used their literacy in trade and for participation in local administration, and both were strengthened by it. In this case literacy opened up for stronger citizen participation and a less authoritarian govern-

179

FEES, Eine Stadt lernt schreiben, p. 138.

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ment.180 But because social conditions were different in Scandinavia, the consequences of literacy for the relationship between state and citizens was different. The main power base for the state was the right to ‘legitimate violence’, and the centralization of the judiciary would be unimaginable without it. Writing was not indispensable for the king’s routine administration, and written registers were not necessary for assuring an economic base for the state. However, written records made it simpler to collect the taxes and made rates more predictable for both the taxpayer and the state – and therefore more acceptable to the peasants. Literacy contributed to the creation of an economically stable state. Literacy was important above all in the reorganization of the judiciary. The basis for this reorganization was the state’s physical power to ensure the court’s decisions were respected. But writing was also important in giving the state control over the content of the laws, the role of the judge and the evaluation of the evidence. But it is equally significant that literacy brought about this centralization with a minimum of conflict. Writing made it possible to let the traditional laws and oral procedures continue in a modified form in the king’s increasingly literate judiciary. Literacy also caused people to think in terms of general laws and individual applications of those laws, which strengthened the hand of the king and his judges. Literacy helped to create routine procedures, which in the long run became internalized in the minds of the people, for example in murder cases. The increasing monopolization of legitimate violence made the centralization of the Scandinavian judiciaries possible and perhaps unavoidable. But the extensive use of literacy allowed kings to appropriate this power without having to seize it by violent means.

Identities and Norms in Scandinavian Narratives of the High Middle Ages Iceland and the Rest of Scandinavia In the thirteenth century, Iceland probably had around 50,000 inhabitants,181 a mere fraction of the Scandinavian total of about two million. The medieval literary tradition of Iceland is nevertheless more widely known and discussed today than that of the other Scandinavian countries. Even outside Scandinavia, modern readers continue to enjoy certain medieval Icelandic works, notably the 180 181

FEES, Eine Stadt lernt schreiben, pp. 197-198. Gunnar KARLSSON, Iceland’s 1100 Years (London, 2000), pp. 44-51.

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Eddas, the sagas of Icelanders (Islendingasögur) and Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla. Saga literature attracts great interest in Scandinavian studies throughout the world. The discussion in this section will therefore focus chiefly on Icelandic literature.182 The Icelandic language changed little between 1150 and 1700. Consequently, Icelanders were able to read their medieval manuscripts longer and as a result were motivated to preserve them better than their contemporaries in other Scandinavian countries. This helps to explain why more medieval manuscripts containing literature have been preserved in Iceland, but it is does not explain the differences in the quality of Icelandic literature. The contribution of historians to this discussion must be to examine the social function of literature. Iceland’s historical development up to 1264 differed from the pattern found in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Can the unique Icelandic situation be explained by written narratives having a different social function than they had in the rest of Scandinavia? Scandinavians began to settle on the virtually uninhabited North Atlantic island of Iceland in about 870. Most of them came from the western coast of Norway, and a few from Scandinavian settlements in the British Isles. The elite in the new society were the warriors, able-bodied heads of households and their sons. Eventually, twenty to forty chieftains divided the island between them and all peasants had to be the liegeman (þingmaðr) of a chieftain. The Althing was a central Thing for all Iceland, but there were also local Thing assemblies where chieftains and peasants met at least once a year. But the Althing lacked executive powers, its decisions were often not respected, and it was up to the parties whether they wanted to submit their conflicts to the juries at the Thing. Most of the conflicts seem to have been settled by private agreements, but many ended in violent feuds. Iceland was cristianized by a decision of the Althing in AD 1000, and had its own bishops by 1056. In 1153 they were subordinated to the Archbishop of Nidaros (Trondheim), Norway. Up to 1297, all local churches in Iceland were owned and controlled by private chieftains or peasants, but in the subsequent period authority over them was divided between local churchowners and the bishops. The organized church had less authority in Iceland than in the rest of Scandinavia because of the power of the churchowners. The Althing’s decision to accept Christianity in AD 1000 came after pressure from the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason. This pressure from the Norwegian king was part and parcel of the ongoing political, ethnic and economic ties that 182 A short and well-informed presentation of Iceland’s medieval history is to be found in: Gunnar KARLSSON, Iceland’s 1100 Years (London, 2000), pp. 9-86.

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linked Norway with Iceland and drew Iceland increasingly into the political orbit of Norway. Many Icelandic chieftains and peasants visited the Norwegian court and individually became the king’s liegemen, which evidently gave them increased honour when they returned home. However, the Norwegian king had no officials in Iceland, did not collect taxes there and had no control of the Icelandic judiciary before 1264. In that year, Iceland formally became part of the Norwegian realm. Before that date there was no central executive power in Iceland, which remained a pre-state society up to 1264. The emerging state and church were the main forces behind social change in the rest of Scandinavia after about 950. Iceland, on the other hand, retained up to the thirteenth century the pre-state social structures which had existed throughout Scandinavia in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but which had gradually been transformed in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under pressure from the state and a stronger church. After 1264 Iceland gradually became a state society like the rest of Scandinavia. The saga author Sturla Thordarson was appointed as the first royal judge in Iceland. This social situation makes Icelandic saga literature of special interest for our subject. Several of the saga authors belonged to the chieftain class, and most sagas have chieftains and warriors as their main characters. The local chieftain is therefore richly represented, but we also find the clerics and courtiers who are popular characters in the literature of the other countries. Saga literature represents a wider social scale than contemporary genres in other countries, giving a richer and more complex social picture. How do we connect a narrative to the social understanding or mentalities of a certain social group? A possible line of argument could be that the narrative was authored by a person belonging to a certain group. This, however, presupposes a modern understanding of the role of the author. In the Middle Ages, the patron normally had an active role in deciding the content of the narrative. In a discussion of the interplay between narrative and society, there can be little doubt that it is more fruitful to focus on the patron, as the narrative was written to satisfy him. His social position and intentions give the best clues to an understanding of the intended and real public, the effect of the text on that public and its wider social consequences. In this way the saga genres used in this chapter can be connected to different social groups. The Bishops’ sagas describe in an idealized manner the lives of historical bishops and express the values of the clergy. The Sagas of Icelanders describe the lives of semi-historical chieftains and warriors and express their values. Finally, the Kings’ sagas describe the lives of kings and society as seen from the point of view of the courtier.

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In the following pages I will discuss in turn how the church, the king and the local warrior society used their narratives to present their identities and norms. I will then consider how these efforts fit in with their use of administrative literacy.

Identities and Norms of the Reformed Church: God’s Meek Men in a Pacified Society The best expression of the identities and norms of the Scandinavian church are to be found in hagiographies written in Scandinavia. As mentioned in Chapter I, hagiographies seem to have been used in preaching from the period of Christianization onward. The first known hagiography to be written in Scandinavia was that of the Danish St Knut in 1095. In the period before the Gregorian reform the most important Scandinavian saints were kings or members of the royal family, and they were used to give prestige to their royal lineage. The St Knut mentioned above was king of Denmark. Another St Knut was Knut Lavard († 1131), who was a duke (hertug) and the father of King Valdemar the Great. St Olaf, whose hagiography was written ca. 1170, was the Norwegian king Olaf Haraldsson, and in Sweden, King Erik († 1160) was venerated as a saint. This phenomenon of royal sainthood indicates that before the Gregorian reform, the king was in practice seen as the head of the church, even by the clergy. The early clerical saints were missionaries or martyrs, and should not necessarily be connected to the efforts to raise the status of the reformed clergy. An example is Bishop Henrik of Uppsala, who was martyred in 1156 while working to convert the pagan Finns. After the victory of the church reform, however, the bishops evidently used sainthood to enhance the prestige of their churches; most of the new saints were bishops and other prelates. The first of them was St Kjeld, the dean of the Viborg Cathedral in Denmark, who died in 1150 and was canonized in 1189. The Danish abbot William of Æbelholt († 1203) was a prominent representative of the new reforming ideas; he was also canonized and his Life written.183 An effort was made between 1229 and 1268 to have the most prominent Norwegian reformer, Archbishop Eystein, canonized, but it came to nothing.184 But the shift to primarily clerical saints is best known in Iceland. The main task of the pro-reform bishops there was to liberate the church from the dominance of secular chieftains, many of whom up to that time had been ordained as 183 184

DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur. Middelalder 2, p. 54. Tryggve LUNDÉN, “Kanonisering”, in: KLNM 8, cols. 215-221.

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priests. That practice now ended, and the restriction of ordination created a stronger organizational and ideological unity among the clergy. Bishop Thorlak of Skálholt (1178-93) started the process, and by 1240-1270 the Icelandic church began to assert itself as an independent institution, separating itself from secular society185 Bishop Thorlak was made a saint shortly after his death and his Life was written ca. 1200-1210. Jon was the first Bishop of Hólar, and his successor Gudmund (1203-1237) fought for the liberties of the church against the magnates. Both were venerated as saints and had their sagas written 12001250. These three sagas are modelled on European hagiographies. The Icelandic church also idealized its leaders without making them saints. Bishops’ sagas were written about bishops who did not become canonized. The saga of the Bishops of Skálholt up to 1175 (Hungrvaka) and the saga of Bishop Pal of Skálholt were both written ca. 1210-1215. Later came the sagas of Bishops Arni (ca. 1310) and Laurentius (ca. 1350).186 These four sagas do not contain miracles, setting them apart from typical hagiographies. Laurentius’ conflicts with the chapter of Nidaros Cathedral, other Icelandic bishops, and priests of his diocese are described in realistic detail. We are told that his main qualification as a prelate was his expertise in canon law; a hagiographer would no doubt have presented the matter differently. But the bishops were idealized in the sense that they were presented as patterns for how good bishops, good clerics, and by extension good Christians should live.187 All the bishops’ sagas are explicit about the bishops’ virtues. They were strangers to egoistic self-assertion. The office of bishop was a service and a duty to the community, not a source of glory. They controlled their anger, all aggressiveness was banned, and obedience, modesty, and patience were important virtues. Society was to be held together by mutual love, so they accordingly showed love and charity to their fellow human beings, to those both above and below them in the hierarchy, and were sociable and friendly to all men. The bishops were to be ‘meek’ men, but when they defended the cause of God, religion, and the community, they were to be strong and steadfast. Even so, they were to punish and chastise with charity, not with a desire for revenge.188

185

Orri VÉSTEINSSON, The Christianisation of Iceland (Oxford, 2000), pp. 245-246. Magnus Már LÁRUSSON, “Páls saga biskups”, in: KLNM 13, cols. 90-91. IDEM, “Hungrvaka”, in: KLNM 7, cols. 88-89. 187 Jóns saga, c. 27, pp. 239-242 (Norwegian translation, pp. 97-99; English translation, c. 12.1-12.6). 188 Marlen FERRER, Emosjoner i norrøn tid: En mentalitetshistorisk studie i emosjonelle reaksjoner hos 1200-tallets mennesker i Norge og på Island (unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 1999), chapter 3. 186

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The bishops’ sagas were evidently meant to reinforce the identity of the clerics. Their intended public was the clergy, and the virtues extolled by the sagas would create clerics who cooperated with each other to defend the interests of the church. Clerics who lived according to these ideals would also distinguish themselves morally from ordinary laymen. The clergy were supposed to follow these norms to a higher degree than laymen, and therefore stand out as examples for lay society. But the norms were valid for all Christians, not only the priests. If practiced by laymen, these ideals would create a more pacified and hierarchical society. That was the kind of society which the church – and the state – wanted. The bishops’ sagas do not simply present rules for priests and laymen like so many articles in a law. They present men and women who try to put these norms into practice in Icelandic society as well as disobedient clerics who do not live up to Christian ideals, and chieftains and kings who followed their own interests and other norms. The good bishops have to instruct them and struggle with them. The narratives present not only a Christian identity and Christian norms, but also problems which could arise when these norms are put into practice and how the problems can be solved. The narratives of the bishops’ sagas and the Christian laws complemented each other. The narrative presented identities and norms, demonstrating through the characters and situations how a good Christian could practice them. The Christian laws also presented identities and norms, but gave punishments to those who refused to obey. The bishops as the supreme church authorities controlled both through their literacy.

From Hagiographies to Sermons – The Emergence of a More Literate Mind? As shown in Chapter 1, saints’ legends seem to have been used in preaching from Christianization onward. To the listeners, the form of these legends was probably not fundamentally different from oral myths about the pagan gods. These concrete narratives were well-adapted to the understanding of an illiterate audience.189 The writing of new hagiographies declined in Scandinavia at the end of the thirteenth century. To the last part of the thirteenth century belong the late versions of the hagiographies of Bishop Gudmund, King Erik and Bishop Henrik written in Sweden.190 The last spate of hagiographic writing in Scandinavia was 189 190

See supra: pp. 20-22. Toni SCHMID, “Erik den helige”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 13-16. Jarl GALLÉN, “Erik den

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connected to the Birgittine order. These writings include the legends of Birgitta herself, Nikolas Hermansson, Petrus Olavsson and Catharine of Vadstena.191 After about 1200, the papal curia required a written Life and miracles of a saint to begin the process of canonization. In Iceland, where the sources are richest, the last bishops’ sagas were written ca. 1310 (Arni) and 1350 (Laurentius), neither of whom was a saint. Few translations of foreign saints’ lives seem to have been made after about 1250, even though the older ones were recopied and elaborated upon.192 It seems that saints and their legends grew less important in the church’s preaching after ca. 1250-1300. But from about 1200 the sermon was given a new importance, and this development continued in the centuries that followed. Was this due to progressively more literate minds among the priests and their congregations? Before 1200 the priests preached to their congregations only on rare occasions, and the content of these sermons have to be understood in this context. The oldest preserved fragment of a Scandinavian sermon is from Iceland and dates to around 1150. Two books of homilies survive from ca. 1200, one Norwegian and the other Icelandic. Most of them are vernacular paraphrases of foreign Latin homilies, and many were unlikely to be understood by illiterates. They explain Bible texts and church doctrines in a rather abstract and general manner. The frequent references to and quotations from the Bible, sometimes in Latin, presuppose a certain ‘cultural capital’ in the congregation. It must have been difficult for illiterate churchgoers listening to them to understand what a sacrament or a sin really was. Who was the intended public for these earliest sermons? In theory, it included all Christians: “Learned men shall tell the congregation what they find in holy books, and the congregation shall be attentive and preserve the knowledge in their hearts.”193 But a literate education was a precondition for understanding many of the sermons, or at least it would have been an advantage. A few of the sermons are addressed to a congregation of monks. Other sermons are directed to ordinary people and are given headings like “Sermon to the People”, “A Necessary Sermon”, “A Very Necessary Sermon” or “A Very Necessary Warning”.194 They are more concrete and direct, commanding the congregation to helige: Finland”, Ibidem, col. 16. A. MALINIEMI, “Henrik, St.”, in: KLNM 6, cols. 452-460. 191 Tue GAD, “Legende”, in: KLNM 10, cols. 413-421. Ole WIDDING and Hans BEKKERNIELSEN, “Legende: Norge og Island”, Ibidem, cols. 421-423. 192 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 139. 193 GNH, p. 42 (translation, p. 54). 194 Sermo ad populum; sermo valde necessaria; admonitio valde necessaria.

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obey Christian norms and morals, threatening the disobedient with hell and promising heaven to those who obey.195 These earliest homilies seem to address two kinds of audiences. The first kind of audience was literate and had understood and internalized Christian norms. The second kind had not internalized and did not practice these norms, and had to be threatened to obey. The latter kind of audience may have included literates and illiterates, but the more direct and concrete language suggests that the preacher was eager to get the message specifically to illiterate members of the congregation. Statutes ordering parish priests to preach every Sunday were issued from 1290 in the province of Nidaros in Norway and from 1312 in the province of Lund in what was then Denmark. The sermon was now used in a more determined effort to internalize Christian norms in illiterates as well as literates. The Dominicans introduced to Scandinavia a new way of preaching by exempla, entertaining stories intended to make abstract doctrines concrete.196 A Dominican from Bergen, Jon Halldorsson, became Bishop of Skálholt in 1322. He was famous for his use of such stories or exempla, and some of them were later collected in a book. One of the stories is said to have taken place while he was studying in Paris. One day in class, the teacher left the room leaving his book open on his lectern. Jon was curious, so he went up to the lectern and read a chapter. While he was reading, a terrible storm broke out. The teacher came rushing back to the classroom, asking who had read in his book. Jon admitted what he had done and the teacher pardoned him, but warned him to take care what he was reading. Then the teacher read from the book, and the storm was silenced. The moral evidently was that only people who are properly educated and authorized should read books concerning supernatural and holy subjects.197 The earliest known Danish and Swedish sermon collections are from ca. 1300 and belong to the new tradition using exempla. They were written in Latin and had to be translated by the preacher before being used. 198 The greatest pro195 Hilding JOHANSSON, “Predikan”, in: KLNM 13, cols. 420-425. Anne RIISING, “Predikan: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 425-427. Einar MOLLAND, “Predikan: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 427-429. KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 128. Ian KIRBY, “The Bible and biblical interpretation in Medieval Iceland”, in: Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. M. CLUNIES-ROSS (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 287-301, p. 294. GUNNES, “Innledning”, p. 16. 196 Arnved NEDKVITNE, Oslo bys historie 1 (Oslo, 1991), pp. 294-295. 197 H. GERING, Islendzk æventyri 1 (Halle, 1882). Inger Johanne ULLERN, Tiggerordenene i de norske middelalderbyene (unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 1997), pp. 74-79. 198 Anne RIISING, “Prædikensamlinger”, in: KLNM 13, cols. 545-548. Hilding JOHANSSON, “Prædikensamlinger: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 548-549. Oloph ODENIUS, “Exempel”, in: KLNM

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ducer of written sermons in the late Middle Ages was the monastery of Vadstena, from which more than 75,000 pages of sermons have been preserved. The sermon writers of Vadstena made ample use of exempla, continuing the Dominican tradition. Vadstena’s nuns and monks copied collections of sermons and lent them to parish priests.199 By this means, exempla translated from Latin or composed according to European models were widely disseminated among Scandinavian laymen from the pulpit. In Iceland these stories were also retold in an oral tradition and called æventyri or fairy tales; the same probably happened elsewhere in Scandinavia.200 The European literate tradition of the exemplum influenced the popular oral tradition of the fairy tale. The church reached its public. For our subject of orality versus literacy the difference between the hagiography and the sermon is interesting. The hagiography is a concrete story, but there are general moral lessons to be drawn which may be implicit or explicit. In the sermon, on the other hand, the point of departure is usually an abstract moral lesson, but short narratives are used as examples to explain the abstract doctrines. The narratives are subordinated to the explicitly discussed general norm. The earlier narratives depicting idealized people (like hagiographies) were well suited to presenting implicit norms to illiterates; sermons were better suited to explaining explicit, abstract doctrines. The growing importance of the sermon following the Gregorian reforms was evidently a result of the church’s efforts to explain its ever more abstract doctrines to laymen. In a larger context this change in emphasis from the concrete to the abstract illustrates the usual shift, as described by Goody, which occurs when literate communication obtains domination in a field of knowledge. The church and the university theological faculties produced an increasing number of new doctrines, which were largely communicated through books. But the growth of a literate lay elite was also important; they were often the intended public for the preachers’ explanation of the abstract doctrines. However, some of the exempla were so concrete that even illiterates may have been able to grasp the general doctrines. Behind the growing importance of the sermon after the Gregorian reforms was the church’s increasing ambition to control the ideology of laymen. Reformers wanted to impart to the congregation a more concrete understanding of 4, cols. 90-96. Anne HOLTSMARK, “Exempel i vestnorsk litteratur”, Ibidem, cols. 97-98. 199 RIISING, “Prædikensamlinger”. JOHANSSON, “Prædikensamlinger: Sverige”. PERNLER, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 2, p. 231. Monica HEDLUND, “Medeltida kyrko- och klosterbibliotek i Sverige”, in: Helgerånet, ed. Kerstin ABUKHANFUSA et al. (Stockholm, 1993), pp. 25-36, p. 34. 200 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 145.

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the right way to salvation, making it possible for laymen to make the right choices in more situations. The church’s ambitions for power and the dynamics of increasing literacy were both at work. They are not alternative explanations; rather, they both contribute to our understanding of the rise of the sermon.

Identities in the Sagas of Icelanders: National or Familial? Narratives used in preaching were written according to an international pattern. For more original narratives we must turn to those describing secular society. This is particularly the case with writings commissioned or composed by Icelandic magnates. What was the social background to sagas of Icelanders like Njáls saga and Egils saga Skallagrímssonar? Nationalism exerted a strong influence over medieval research throughout Scandinavia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Iceland, this influence is particularly evident in the writings of the influential ‘Icelandic school’ of literary historians, with Sigurður Nordal (1886-1974) as its most prominent spokesman. They understood the sagas as an attempt to create an Icelandic national identity. This desire to create an identity, in the view of the Icelandic school, came about because of the threats to Icelandic cultural and political independence after 1200 through the power ambitions of the international church and the Norwegian king. The Icelandic people felt a need to reflect on Icelandic identity and the result was the sagas of Icelanders and other sagas, written mostly by prominent laymen but also read by peasants.201 The saga writers also wanted to represent general conflicts common to all people in all ages, which made the sagas an important contribution to world literature. Remnants of this academic tradition remain alive today among many Icelandic, Danish, and British medievalists. Vésteinn Ólason explains the origins of saga writing in Iceland as “the search for identity in the new world with which they had come into contact through the church”.202 Preben Meulengracht Sørensen writes about “… the Icelandic emigrant people’s demand to define themselves as a nation with a place in the world and in Christian world history”.203 The nation was united by a sense of honour which was specifically Icelandic.204 201

Jesse L. BYOCK, “History and the sagas: The effect of nationalism”, in: From Sagas to Society, ed. Gísli PÁLSSON (Enfield Lock, 1992), pp. 43-60. 202 OLASON, Dialogues with the Viking Age, p. 48. 203 Preben MEULENGRACHT SØRENSEN, “Social institutions and belief systems of Medieval Iceland”, in: Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret CLUNIES ROSS (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 8-29, p. 14. 204 Preben MEULENGRACHT SØRENSEN, Fortelling og ære (Århus, 1993), pp. 121-123.

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Illustration 25. Two Icelandic saga manuscripts. Behind is Möðruvallabók from ca. 1350 with a wooden cover. It is by far the largest manuscript of the Sagas of Icelanders or Islendingasögur, containing eleven different sagas. In front is a manuscript from ca. 1300 with a cover of sealskin containing only Njáls saga, which is the best known of these sagas. The Sagas of Icelanders were composed in the period 1220-1320 by clerics and laymen in Iceland. They concern Icelanders who lived in the period 900-1030, two to four centuries earlier. Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland (AM 132 fol. and GKS 2870 quarto).

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Diana Whaley sees “defining a national identity” as the main social motive behind saga writing.205 Jónas Kristjánsson is on safer ground when he says that the sagas have been important in creating an Icelandic national identity in recent centuries; he does not claim that that was their purpose or effect in the thirteenth century.206 Historians today consider ideas of nationhood to be a relatively recent development, and convincing evidence is needed if one wants to understand the search for national identity as the motive behind literary creativity seven or eight hundred years ago. Strong arguments can be advanced against the view that sagas were an attempt to create a national identity in the face of ecclesiastical and imperialistic encroachment. In the sagas of Icelanders, the Christianization of Iceland is considered as an important and positive event, and no anti-ecclesiastical tendencies are to be found. One or several of the heroes in almost all of the sagas of Icelanders go to the court of the Norwegian king, and this is presented as giving honour to the Icelander. An anti-royal tendency is evident in only one of the sagas, Egils saga Skallagrímssonar. The probable author of this anonymous saga was Snorri Sturluson, who above all others glorified the Norwegian royal line in his Heimskringla. The anti-royal tendency in Egils saga probably derives from the oral traditions about Egil which Snorri used as his source material. Egil’s negative attitude to Norwegian royalty must be considered an idiosyncrasy not typical of the attitude found in the family sagas. Landnámabók is a book containing the names, ancestry and notable deeds of the first settlers in Iceland. Some have gone far in regarding this work as a sign that the Icelanders understood themselves as one nation constituting itself through the settlement. But the book was called ‘The book of settlements’ in the plural, and is “an aggregation of local and family histories”, founded on orally transmitted lineages from the local communities.207 No effort is made to present the settlement as a collective undertaking; conflicts are more prominent than collaboration in the stories of the first settlers. It evidently gave prestige to belong to one of the founding families, and the purpose of the work may well have been to establish which thirteenth-century Icelanders had the right to claim this honourable descent. The Icelanders of the thirteenth century seem to have understood themselves more as an aggregation of separate families than as one national community. 205 Diana WHALEY, “A useful past: Historical writing in medieval Iceland”, in: Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret CLUNIES ROSS (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 161-202, p. 177 (cf. p. 193). 206 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 203. 207 WHALEY, “A useful past”, p. 174.

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Illustration 26. Page from Möðruvallabók (ca. 1350), containing eleven Sagas of Icelanders. The cover of the book is shown in illustration 25. It is not a prestige manuscript, and was evidently intended to be read either aloud or silently by an experienced reader. In Sturlunga Saga there are several descriptions of thirteenth-century chieftains possessing manuscripts of ‘saints’ sagas’, or hagiographies, which were read aloud in the evening for entertainment and edification. Manuscripts of Sagas of Icelanders were probably used in a similar way. Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík. AM 132 fol.

Opposition to the nationalist tradition was voiced more than thirty years ago by Lars Lönnroth, who sought to understand the sagas against a European background. He found that the sagas were mostly commissioned by laymen but written by clerics, the same distinction between lay employer and clerical author found elsewhere in contemporary Europe. Kings’ sagas were mostly commissioned by Norwegian kings, sagas of Icelanders by Icelandic magnates, and bishops commissioned sagas about their predecessors and saints.208 Even if most sagas were authored by clerics, a few educated laymen like Snorri Sturluson and Sturla Thordarson also wrote sagas, but in these cases it is not clear what they actually did themselves and what they commissioned clerics to do. A distinction should be made between the patron, the person who dictated, and the one who wrote the words on parchment. They could be three different persons, but it was also possible for one person to combine two or three of these functions. The patron could limit himself to paying the clerk and leave the composition to him. But the patron also could take a more or less active part in the composition, and some of them evidently dictated the text to their clerk. Educated magnates who wrote books on their own can also be found in continental Europe; one example is Joinville, who completed his biography of St Louis in 1309. Lönnroth found that what the Norse called saga mostly corresponded to what in Europe was called ‘chronicle’ and ‘biography’.209 Lönnroth did not discuss the motives of the magnates who commissioned the sagas or the social function of saga literature, but it is implicit in his argument that the motives were the same as elsewhere in Europe. Other medievalists who are sceptical of the nationalist tradition have explicitly addressed the question of saga writers’ motives. In her book Prolonged Echoes, the Australian Margaret Clunies Ross argues that not only the Sagas of Icelanders but also the 208

LÖNNROTH, Tesen om de två kulturerna. The same arguments are restated by this author in: European Sources of Icelandic Saga-Writing (Stockholm, 1965). MCKITTERICK, Carolingians and the Written Word, p. 238. 209 LÖNNROTH, Tesen om de två kulturerna, p. 30.

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Fornaldarsögur (‘sagas of ancient times’, also known as ‘legendary sagas’) were produced by the leading Icelandic families of the thirteenth century to glorify their ancestors210 and prove their traditional property rights and powers in certain parts of Iceland.211 Torfi Tulinius also connects the social background of saga writing to the attempt of the Icelandic aristocracy to justify their social status in the face of challenges from Norwegian courtiers and the prelates of the Icelandic church.212 In the opinion of the present writer, the focus on aristocratic identities is a fruitful approach to understanding the relationship between the sagas of Icelanders and Icelandic society. No patron or authors have been definitely identified for any of the sagas of Icelanders. But indirect evidence makes it probable that many of the patrons were magnates who wanted to glorify their own lineage. The first of the important family sagas is Egils saga, which was probably written by Snorri Sturluson. He was one of Egil’s descendants, and Snorri lived for some years at Egil’s farm Borg.213 The same motive can be attributed in some measure to Icelanders writing kings’ sagas. Snorri’s foster-father Jon Loptsson at the farm of Oddi was the grandson of the Norwegian king Magnus. Perhaps Jon was behind his fosterson’s interest in and knowledge of the Norwegian kings. The same lineage of Oddi also claimed descent from the Danish kings, which could be the motive behind the writing of several sagas with Danish subjects.214 It is possible that the Norwegian king commissioned Snorri to write Heimskringla, but Snorri could at the same time increase the honour of his foster family. The writing of kings’ sagas started before the sagas of Icelanders. With such a paradigm before them, Icelandic magnates may have thought it desirable to have their lineage glorified in the manner of kings. Egils saga, possibly the oldest of the family sagas, describes several generations in the same lineage in a way that is reminiscent of the Kings’ sagas. The sagas of Icelanders have as their main interest the identity of the Icelandic magnates, and describe warriors living in local communities – less exalted characters than the usual fare of medieval chronicles. The authors gleaned their material from local, oral narratives, and the saga narratives are more realistic 210

Margaret CLUNIES ROSS, Prolonged Echoes (Odense, 1998), pp. 103-113. CLUNIES ROSS, Prolonged Echoes, pp. 85, 89, 91 and 93. 212 Torfi TULINIUS, “The matter of the North: Fiction and uncertain identities in thirteenth century Iceland”, in: Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret CLUNIES ROSS (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 242-265, 264 and 258-262. 213 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 255. OLASON, Dialogues with the Viking Age, p. 53. 214 TULINIUS, “The matter of the North”, p. 258. See infra: p. 127. 211

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both in their characterizations and their descriptions of the social and material framework. That makes them unique in a European context.

Social Norms in the Sagas of Icelanders: Respect for Legal Rights and Social Distinction The purpose of the patrons of the sagas of Icelanders was, at least in many cases, to enhance the prestige of their own lineage. But in doing so they also presented idealized characters fulfilling the norms of society in an exemplary manner. They were ideals not only for their own descendants, but for all members of Icelandic society. The discussion of the norms of the sagas of Icelanders has been concentrated around the concept of ‘honour’, defined as “the value which an individual has in the eyes of other members of his society and in his own eyes.”215 Honour was a particularly important social concept in Iceland before 1264, and this was connected to the absence of an effective system of law enforcement. It was left to individuals to prosecute the criminal offences others had committed against them, and it was difficult to win a case if the adversary was a powerful man or had powerful friends. Even if a plaintiff managed to secure a legal verdict in his favour, there was no state power to enforce it. In such a society, strong norms about honourable conduct helped to create respect for the laws. An analysis of words and actions characterized as ‘dishonouring’ or ‘defamatory’ in the sagas shows that nearly all concerned either bodily harm, theft, words of abuse or seduction of women. All of these ‘defamations’ are at the same time violations of the law. Society or ‘others’ expected a man who had been defamed to demand reparations or take revenge, and they normally supported him in this effort. To defend one’s personal honour against defamation was therefore at the same time a defence of the rule of law.216 The concept of honour in this sense created a basic respect for and equality before the law. Even so, some people acted more honourably than others and this created a moral hierarchy. In a pre-state society the social hierarchy was not made visible by state offices and distinctions. Consequently, honour-creating social distinction became all the more important. What actions and behaviours gave some 215

MEULENGRACHT SØRENSEN, Fortelling og ære, pp. 187-188. The theme of defamation in the sagas is discussed in: Eirik HAAKSTAD, “… hann skal vera hvers manns niðingr”. Ære og ærekrenkelse i norrøn middelalder (unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 2001). 216

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men distinction and honour above others? The answer to this question provides an image of the ideal chieftain. He had to be a brave warrior; the sagas give long and detailed descriptions of the blows given and the wounds received, and warriors’ strength and courage are commented upon. It also gave honour to have a large network of powerful relatives and friends who could be mobilized in the form of armed bands. The same network could also be mobilized for peacemaking: it was honourable to create peace between feuding factions. Law was the only field of systematic secular knowledge. A man with juridical expertise is described with reverence, and it gave power to win one’s own court cases and settle those of others. Great banquets which lasted several days and where the host gave his guests good gifts at their departure was a kind of conspicuous consumption which gave him great prestige. But even qualities which could not be translated directly into power gave honour, like having visited the courts of prestigious kings, being a religious man or having a good appearance.217 Most of the qualities mentioned above could only be met by chieftains or the richest and most powerful farmers.218 In pre-state Iceland there were two kinds of honour. The first was an egalitarian honour whose social consequence was to uphold respect for the law in a society where this could not be done by the state. The second was an ‘honour of distinction’, the social consequence of which was to justify social differences and the power of chieftains over the farmers in their districts. The written norms of the sagas of Icelanders strengthened a sense of honour which already existed in the oral tradition. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen called his book on the subject Narrative and honour (Fortelling og ære). In his opinion, the authors of the sagas aimed through their writings to preserve for posterity the memory of honourable actions. Sturlunga saga contains an illustrative story to this effect which takes place in 1232. The two brothers Thord and Snorri are ambushed and surrounded by their enemies, and their situation is hopeless. However, they refuse to surrender, because “they said that if they did, there would be no subject for a narrative”.219 The word for ‘narrative’ is frásagnir, which contains the root saga, meaning ‘what is said’ or ‘what is told’. Sagas were narrated to hold up for the present and future the heroic deeds of 217 For a discussion of qualities considered honourable, see: Ian MILLER, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking (Chicago, 1990). MEULENGRACHT SØRENSEN, Fortelling og ære. HAAKSTAD, “… hann skal vera hvers manns niðingr”. Torill M. SANDBERG, Kvinner og ære: Kjønnsperspektiv på æresdiskursen i norrøn middelalder (unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 2001). 218 This is explained in more detail in: MILLER, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking. 219 MEULENGRACHT SØRENSEN, Fortelling og ære, p. 329. Sturlunga saga, c. 235, p. 338 (Danish translation, I, p. 387).

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one’s forefathers – and foremothers, because women were also described as honourable.220 Narratives about the heroes of the past existed in Iceland from the time of the settlement. Why were they written down in the thirteenth century? The obvious reason is that this was the century when the Icelandic secular elite became literate, and they put into writing what they considered to be important to remember. But why did they select these very stories about the heroic deeds of the ancestors to be retold and remembered by future generations? As shown above, one motive was to give the heroes’ descendants an honourable identity. Could another motive have been to uphold the ancient, good norms of pre-state Iceland, which were in danger of being regarded with disrespect in favour of the new norms of church and court? For some it probably was. Our subject is not primarily the intentions of the patrons and authors, but the social consequences of the texts. And the sagas of Icelanders must have contributed both to giving the descendants of the heroes an honourable identity, and to upholding the norms of pre-state Icelandic society. Thus, the sagas of Icelanders had social consequences on least at three levels. First they increased the honour and prestige of the descendants of the saga heroes. Secondly, by presenting warriors as heroic and visits to the Norwegian court as honourable, the author justified the social power of the social group which was able follow these norms best, the chieftains. The patrons of the sagas defended in contemporary society the power and prestige of both their family and their social group. Finally, the sagas gave equal prestige to all individuals, even peasants, who respected the legal and honourable norms presented. The social consequences of the church’s and the secular chieftains’ narratives were similar. First they defended the prestige of the social group which was best able to fulfil the norms in question, the clergy and the warrior-chieftains respectively. Secondly, the narrative indoctrinated all who listened to the narrative with the same norms.

Identities in the Kings’ Sagas: Icelandic and Norwegian Traditions Up to 1264 Iceland was unique in a Scandinavian context because its ruling class consisted of independent chieftains. Even so, Icelanders in this period wrote kings’ sagas. Historians of literature have traditionally regarded the ideological message of the kings’ sagas, which expressed the values of Norwegian 220

For more about women and honour, see: SANDBERG, Kvinner og ære.

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state society, as antagonistic to the sagas of Icelanders, which expressed the values of pre-state Iceland.221 Icelanders and Norwegians of the thirteenth century may have understood this relationship differently. Although impossible to verify, it is generally assumed that Snorri Sturluson wrote both the most famous of the kings’ sagas, Heimskringla, and one of the most readable of the sagas of Icelanders, Egils saga Skallagrímsonar. Icelandic chieftains visited the king’s court, swore loyalty to him and became his liegemen, and the honours they received at the Norwegian court gave them prestige at home in Iceland. After ca. 1200, leading chieftains actively sought the support of the king in internal power struggles. They received official titles like lendr maðr ‘landed man, baron’ or jarl ‘earl’ and swore to bring Iceland under the Norwegian crown. The traditional warrior norms found in the sagas of Icelanders were on the defensive as the norms of king and court won wider acceptance. But this should not be understood as one group of magnates being opposed to another. Most Icelandic and Norwegian aristocrats of the thirteenth century had internalized the old warrior values, but at the same time many of them had visited the court and respected its norms. The sagas of Icelanders present society from the point of view of the local Icelandic chieftain, but show great respect for the court’s values. The kings’ sagas present society from the point of view of the courtier, but with respect for traditional warrior values. This makes it easier to understand why the same author could write in both genres. The historiography of the Norwegian kings had two origins, one Icelandic, the other Norwegian. The cultural heritage of Icelanders served as good material when they composed skaldic poems for the Norwegian kings. The position of court skald evidently carried great prestige, and the sagas contain numerous stories about Icelanders who made their fortune at the Norwegian court in this way. But the high-flown praise of the skaldic poems may have been difficult to understand and obscure for most members of the king’s body of retainers. In practice, the position of storyteller may have been as important, even if it carried less prestige. The subjects of these stories were often former kings and magnates, and a thorough knowledge of their deeds was definitely an advantage for Icelanders seeking a position at court. As one king’s saga relates: It happened one summer that an Icelander, who was young and nimble, came to King Harald Hardradi and asked for hospitality. The king asked him if he had any sort of learning, and he said he could tell stories. The king said he would receive him, but that he had to provide 221

See supra: pp. 115-117.

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entertainment at any time the king asked. He did so and became popular among the retainers. They gave him clothes, and the king presented him with weapons.222

The Icelander’s Christmas entertainment for the hirð, or body of king’s retainers, was the story of King Harald’s adventures in Byzantium in daily instalments from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night. The king was well pleased and gave him good remuneration “and he became a prosperous man”. The story is said to have happened around 1060. The Icelandic magnate and skald Sturla Thordarson also started his career in the Norwegian king’s service as a storyteller 200 years later.223 Saxo Grammaticus, the thirteenth-century Danish historian, mentions an Icelander called Arnold who entertained the Danish king Valdemar I with stories about ancient heroes. According to Saxo, Icelanders were “well known for collecting stories about the exploits of other peoples” and “transmitting them to later generations”.224 Chieftains who were not skalds and storytellers also visited the Norwegian court, and they must have regarded the history of the old kings as part of their ‘cultural capital’. These orally transmitted stories should not be regarded as coherent and chronological biographies, but rather as short stories told about famous kings known to all.225 Written royal historiography started with the two priests Ari Thorgilsson ‘the Learned’ and Sæmund Sigfusson ‘the Wise’ around 1130. These two men wrote brief descriptions of the lives of Norwegian kings from Harald Fairhair onwards. Later, other writers followed with biographies of the kings Sigurd Slembe (ca. 1150), Olaf Tryggvason (ca. 1190) and Olaf Haraldsson (St Olaf, ca. 1190). The latter two biographies, and possibly all three, were written by clerics. The first comprehensive king’s saga, Morkinskinna, was written in about 1220 and covered the period 1030-1157. It focuses less on the life of the ruling king than the later sagas, giving extensive, independent descriptions of the lives Norwegian chieftains, and shows particular interest for Icelanders visiting the Norwegian court. Morkinskinna seems to have had a lay patron, but the author may have been a monk. This is a tradition of kings’ sagas written by Icelanders for Icelanders.226 Even if the biographies are written about kings and cover the whole life of a monarch, they retain much of an oral, episodic character. 222

Morkinskinna, ed. C.R. UNGER (Christiania, 1867) (English translation, pp. 222-223). Sturlunga saga, c. 493 (“Sturlu þáttr”) (English translation, II, pp. 493-498; Danish translation, II, pp. 330-335). 224 Lars LÖNNROTH, “Den oldnordiske kultur”, in: Dansk litterturhistorie 1, ed. Søren KASPERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 13-112, p. 22. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, XIV, c. 36.2. 225 ONG, Orality and Literacy, chapters 3 and 6. 226 See: Morkinskinna (English translation), Introduction, pp. 1-2 and 66-83. 223

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Illustration 27. Flateyarbók was written in Iceland in 1387-1394, but some pages were added about a century later. Its main content is sagas of ancient Norwegian kings. This is the largest of all the saga manuscripts, and it is a prestige manuscript written for an owner who was conscious of his own cultural status. This can be seen by comparing it to Möðruvallabók and the Codex Regius, shown on page 19 and 118. In the introduction it is said that Jon Hákonarson – a well-to-do Icelandic farmer – commissioned the manuscript, that two priests wrote it, and that one of them painted the illuminations. Icelandic medievalists have hypothesised that Jon Hákonarson intended to present the manuscript to King Olaf Hákonarson who was the last king of the ancient Norwegian royal lineage. But he died in 1387, and his successor belonged to another lineage, so the manuscript remained in Iceland. A comparison of the Codex Regius, Möðruvallabók and Flateyarbók demonstrates the diversity of Icelandic saga manuscript production. The quality of the work depended on the manuscript’s intended use. Photo: Arnamagnean Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Sagas written by Icelanders for Icelanders about the Danish kings show similar characteristics. Early in the thirteenth century an Icelander wrote Skjöldunga saga about the mythic Danish kings of the Skjöldung line up to 950. Knytlinga saga, about the descendants of Knut, is a continuation of Skjöldunga saga possibly written by Olaf hvitaskald, brother of Sturla Thordarson, who visited the Danish court and died in 1259. These sagas followed the Danish royal line. But the Icelanders also wrote separate sagas about great Danish warrior chieftains. In Jómsvíkinga saga, written early in the century, the Icelandic author glorified a group of Danish warriors opposed to the Danish king. The semi-legendary protagonist of Ragnars saga Loðbrókar is a Danish Viking chieftain raiding in England. These sagas were written in the thirteenth century for Icelanders in Icelandic and are preserved in Icelandic manuscripts only.227 The Danish historiographer Saxo subordinates the histories of independent warriors like Ragnar Lodbrok and the Jomsvikings to his great master story of the lives of Danish kings presented in chronological order; no Danish chronicles from this period have secular magnates as their main characters. This may partly be explained in view of the intended public: Saxo wrote for Danish courtiers. But according to the theories of Walter Ong, the longer and clearer story line in Saxo can be attributed to his being more removed from the oral tradition and to a larger degree part of the church’s literate tradition.228 Comparisons of Icelandic sagas written for an Icelandic audience with the historiographical tradition else227 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 163-165. LÖNNROTH, “Den oldnordiske kultur”, pp. 105-109. TULINIUS, “The matter of the North”, p. 246. 228 ONG, Orality and Literacy, chapter 6.

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where in Scandinavia shows that the Icelandic literary tradition was different. The Icelanders regarded the independent chieftain as a heroic and admirable person and found it natural to idealize him whether in Iceland, Norway or Denmark. The Norwegian tradition of kings’ sagas was different from the Icelandic; it was focused on the royal line in a similar way to the Danish tradition. In the last decades of the twelfth century, a Norwegian tradition for writing royal historiography emerged in which both the authors and their patrons were ecclesiastics.229 At the same time, King Sverrir (1177-1202) commissioned his own saga. By 1180 to 1200, ecclesiastical and royal patronage were already competing with one another. The background for this development is that King Sverrir became locked in a bitter struggle with the church, which allied itself to his rivals. All the ecclesiastical sagas stop before the reign of Sverrir; the aim may have been to idealize earlier kings as a contrast to the usurper Sverrir. Faced with this situation, the king decided to have the history of his own reign written. It is the first example in Scandinavia of a king being the patron of a saga or chronicle of his own reign. Sverrir commissioned the Icelandic abbot Karl of Þingeyrar to do the job. He probably wrote the first part of the highly polemical saga in the 1180s, finishing the last part around 1210 after Sverrir’s death.230 In the case of Sverris saga the patron was the king and the author a cleric. Was this typical of the situation in the thirteenth century? We are best informed about the working conditions of the Icelandic magnate and saga writer Sturla Thordarson. He was staying at the Norwegian court when King Hakon Hakonarson died in the Orkneys in 1263. His successor, King Magnus, asked Sturla to write Hakon’s saga. It appears that Sturla accepted the commission because he wanted to improve his rather weak standing at court at that time.231 Later, around 1280, he started to write King Magnus’ own saga, of which only a fragment has been preserved. In the Norwegian court tradition the first complete saga of the kings up to 1177 is Fagrskinna, probably written in Trondheim ca. 1225 by either an Icelandic or a Norwegian scholar. It was possibly commissioned by King Hakon Hakonarson who wanted the history of his predecessors before Sverrir written. 229

See supra: Chapter 1, p. 32. Ludvig HOLM-OLSEN, “Sverris saga”, in: KLNM 17, cols. 551-558. KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 153. 231 Sturlunga saga, c. 493 (“Sturlu þáttr”) (English translation, II, pp. 493-498; Danish translation, II, pp. 330-335). 230

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It is characterized by a disciplined focus on the kings, quite different from Morkinskinna.232 The best known of all sagas of the Norwegian kings, Heimskringla, was written by the Icelandic magnate Snorri Sturluson a few years later. He stayed several times at the Norwegian court, and obtained the title of lendr maðr with special responsibility for bringing Iceland under the Norwegian crown. It is possible that he wrote Heimskringla at the request of the king, even if our sources say nothing about it. It is at least probable that he had a public of courtiers in mind; he has the same disciplined focus on the kings as Fagrskinna. The Böglungasögur cover the period 1202-1217. They were evidently written for a Norwegian public, but here we have no clues either to patron or writer. The tradition of writing kings’ sagas ended with King Magnus’ saga around 1280.233 Historiography written for the Norwegian court flourished in the period from 1180 to 1280. All known patrons were kings, the first known author was an Icelandic abbot, and the two other known authors were Icelandic lay magnates who visited the Norwegian court. There are several particular characteristics of this saga genre. The royal line is idealized by giving the kings explicitly positive characteristics and implicitly by showing the kings as practicing and defending good customs. But the kings’ sagas also created identity in a more subtle way, through the structure of the narrative. The saga authors had at their disposal an oral tradition consisting of many shorter and longer stories about individual kings, magnates and fellow Icelanders. The written genre demanded that the author create a more coherent narrative, a chronological description of the life of the king concentrating on his military achievements. Through this written, narrative structure the listeners were implicitly told that the king was the head of society: all important social phenomena should be understood in the light of his actions. He was the nucleus of an emerging identity which included all the subjects in his realm. Around 1200 the Norwegian king started to create an administration separate from the church, partly consisting of literate laymen.234 In a parallel development, the traditional hirð of warriors and priests was slowly transformed into a court where literate men and women of the laity also had their place. This new court sought an identity. The written kings’ sagas must be seen as an effort to create it. The patrons were both kings and Icelandic magnates, and the desire for

232 Bjarni EINARSSON, “Fagrskinna”, in: Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Philip PULSIANO et al. (New York, 1993), p. 177. Eyvind FJELD HALVORSEN, “Fagrskinna”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 139-140. 233 KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, pp. 147-178. 234 See supra: pp. 67-68.

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a new identity must have been felt both by the king and magnates who visited his court.

The Norms of the Kings’ Sagas: The King’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence and Jurisdiction It goes without saying that kings’ sagas, like most medieval texts, are normative creations favouring the patron. But there is disagreement as to how strong this normative element really is. Sverre Bagge has postulated that Snorri’s Heimskringla (ca. 1230), Sverris saga (ca. 1210) and Hákonar saga (ca. 1265) all describe royal power as it really was in thirteenth-century Norwegian society.235 Bagge examines the relationship of the king to his courtiers and warriors, and the sagas may indeed provide useful descriptions of that aspect of life at court. But in other areas, the kings’ sagas were definitely normative. The royal line is always presented as honourable. The king is only very seldom criticized. King Harald Fairhair is criticized for falling in love with the beautiful Snofrid so passionately that he neglects the government of his country.236 Snorri also compares St Olaf Haraldsson to his half-brother King Harald Hardradi. St Olaf uses his power to reinforce Christianity, forces magnates and commoners to respect the laws and punishes severely those who violate them. King Harald, on the other hand, ravages and plunders to obtain honour, subjects as many people as he can to his power, and finally is killed in England, a country belonging to another king.237 The implicit criticism of Harald is evident, but exceptional. The kings are portrayed as extending the power of the state and the royal line by honourable means, and the saga authors accept this long-term goal without calling it into question. In the sagas of Icelanders, violence in the defence of the warrior’s own interests gives honour. In the kings’ sagas a royal monopoly on violence is the norm; this is most clearly illustrated in the last of them, Hákonar saga, written ca. 1265. 238 In contrast to what we see in the sagas of Icelanders, force used in the service of king or lord is legitimate but force used to defend personal inter235

Sverre BAGGE, Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla (Berkeley, 1991). IDEM, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed (Odense, 1996). 236 Hkr, Haralds saga hárfagra, c. 25. Ágrip, c. 3-4 (Norwegian translation, pp. 21-23). 237 Hkr, Haralds saga hárfagra, c. 100. 238 The following discussion of the attitude to violence is mainly based on: Anton RYGG, Fra spontanitet og voldsglede til selvkontroll og avsky for vold? (unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of Histiory, 1997).

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ests is illegitimate. Individual conflicts are to be settled through the king’s intervention. The King’s Mirror, which was written at the court of King Hakon Hakonarson in about 1250, explains: You shall fear and shy away from all manslaughter, except in legitimate punishments and real battles. But if your lord orders you in a legitimate way to participate in a battle, you shall not shy away from it more than any other just and good work.239

The king orders the execution of one of his own warriors because he had used unauthorized violence against civilians. We are told that the king used violence when it was necessary, not because violence in itself gave honour.240 On several occasions the king pardons and protects vanquished enemies. In the feud against Earl Skuli, he orders his men to respect the sanctity of the church and women; the latter must be taken to signify that enemy women were not to be violated or killed.241 Avoiding violence was honourable in the eyes of the author. Did this attitude develop into an internalized aversion to all violence? In Hákonar saga there are no detailed descriptions of the wounds the warriors inflict on each other, with one exception. During Earl Skuli’s rebellion in 1239 one of the king’s local officials is attacked on his farm, but escapes by climbing a ladder onto a church roof. He sits there all night in the cold of midwinter, and at daybreak he is half dead with cold. He asks for mercy from his attackers, but is denied. One of the attackers then climbs the ladder and stabs at him with a spear. The unfortunate man then slides down the roof to the ground and dies, “… but blood and intestines were left on the church’s roof. That was the third summer after King Hakon had arranged for the consecration of the church”.242 The scene is deliberately described so as to create revulsion in the listener; there is nothing heroic or honourable about this violence. Did the saga author normally refrain from detailed descriptions of violence because the audience at the court of King Magnus found it unpleasant or dishonourable? The contrast to the sagas of Icelanders is striking.

239

Konungs skuggsiá, ed. Ludvig HOLM OLSEN (Oslo, 1983), p. 59 (Norwegian translation,

p. 119). 240

Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, ed. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON, in: Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles (London, 1887: Rerum Britannicarum medii ævi scriptores 88; reprint 1964), c. 114 and c. 152. 241 Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, c. 208 and c. 237. 242 Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, c. 202.

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The degree to which a negative attitude toward violence had been internalized at court cannot be verified, and there was apparently a gap between norm and practice. But the norm is evident from the sagas: violence is a necessary evil which has to be authorized by the king; private violence is illegitimate. Thus, the attitude of the kings’ sagas reflects Max Weber’s definition of a state as “an organization with a monopoly on legitimate violence within a certain geographical area”. As noted above, the concept of honour was crucial in the minds of characters in the sagas of Icelanders. Honour was also significant in the kings’ sagas, but had a different meaning. In the sagas of Icelanders, the first social function of honour was to create respect for the legal rights of individuals. By defending their own honour, prestate Icelanders punished criminals and created respect for law in society. Hákonar saga, however, promotes the king’s authority. Disputes are to be submitted to the king’s courts, or in the case of magnates to the king personally. A person who is harmed by another man should not consider it an offence against his honour, but rather a breach of law, which it is the king’s duty to punish. It is honourable to let the king’s justice prevail. Feuding is dishonourable; it shows an attitude which is beneath the dignity of a good courtier, and destabilizes court and society. But the saga does not conceal the existence of a gap between norm and practice. Magnates kill men who have offended them, and the revenge can strike innocent relatives of the offender, but the conflicts usually end with the king intervening and making a settlement.243 The second social function of honour in the sagas of Icelanders was to justify social hierarchy, particularly the power of the chieftains. According to the norms of Hákonar saga, however, the magnates were to look to the king for honour and power; he is the source of titles and social status. When King Hakon gives one of the officers in his army the title of lendr maðr ‘landed man’, promoting him to noble status, he comments that the officer has “hewn himself into a lendr maðr”. The man was probably different from the great landowners who made up most of the nobility.244 Fighting skills led to social status only if recognized by the king. The ideological message of the kings’ sagas was that the royal line was honourable, and therefore it gave honour to serve the king. The king had a monopoly on legitimate violence, and all legal disputes were to be submitted to the royal courts or the king in person; private violence was dishonourable. This was 243 244

Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, c. 102 and c. 157. Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, c. 149.

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a clear break with the pre-state mentalities of the sagas of Icelanders where every household had to fend for itself through feuds if necessary. The thirteenth-century Icelandic saga tradition is often represented as unique, and in certain respects it was. However, Gabrielle Spiegel has demonstrated the benefit of analyzing French royal historiography using some of the same perspectives as saga scholars.245 Before the reign of Philippe Auguste (1180-1223), French nobles were united by warrior values which nobody questioned. These norms were expressed in chansons de geste and rhymed chronicles performed orally; they united the assembled aristocrats around common values. The literary tradition in France before 1180 was much more developed than in the area where Old Norse was spoken, but skaldic poetry fulfilled many of the same social functions for their audiences as French chansons de geste and rhymed chronicles did for theirs. In France after 1180, more power was concentrated in the hands of the king, and the aristocrats were torn between the identity and norms of the warrior and those of the courtier. In the thirteenth century a historiographical tradition grew up which tried to reconcile these two norms. Some chronicles were written from the perspective of the expanding court, showing the traditional warrior norms to be ineffective. Other chronicles were written from the viewpoint of the traditional warrior norms, but nevertheless paying full respect to the courtly values.246 The parallel to the Scandinavian situation is evident.

Identities and Norms in Sturlunga Saga: Pre-State Iceland without Heroes Sturlunga saga is in reality a collection of sagas covering the period 11201262 in Iceland’s history. It was written by different authors over a period of about a hundred years, usually a few decades after the events took place. The central saga is Sturla Thordarson’s Islendinga saga, written after Iceland had become part of the Norwegian kingdom in 1264. The sagas of Icelanders overall give an idealized image of Icelandic society and its chieftains. This is not the case for Sturlunga saga, and definitely not for Sturla Thordarson’s Islendinga saga. Why was this so? An earlier Icelandic scholarly tradition regarded Sturla as an Icelandic nationalist who wanted to defend pre-state Icelandic society, and others have found an anti-royal tendency 245

Gabrielle SPIEGEL, The Past as Text (Baltimore, 1997), pp. 195-212. The comparison with French royal historiography is based on: SPIEGEL, The Past as Text, chapters 10 and 11. 246

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in Islendinga saga.247 But this does not really explain the lack of norms and ideals which makes the saga so unlike most medieval narratives. Guðrún Nordal’s explanation is that Sturla Thordarson had a negative attitude to the violence of pre-state Icelandic society because it conflicted with his Christian norms.248 Gunnar Karlsson, on the other hand, sees a tension between a purely secular longing for peace and the violent ideals and practices of Icelandic society. Sturla was opposed to the practices of pre-state Icelandic chieftains, particularly their violence.249 An alternative view would be to regard Sturla Thordarson as living in a period of transition between a pre-state and a state society. He probably wrote Islendinga saga in the 1270s when he was a royal official in a state society.250 As the king’s judge in Iceland he had overall responsibility for the judiciary; he had stayed for several years previously at the court of the Norwegian king, and there is no reason to doubt that he shared the social norms and values of that milieu. He described pre-state Iceland, but no longer believed in the norms of its people. Islendinga saga is without heroes because Sturla and his audience no longer shared the norms and values of pre-state Iceland.251 In the sagas of Icelanders violence is described as heroic, but in Islendinga saga Sturla “describes battles and wounds with such minute accuracy that it is bound to raise the disgust of all normal people”.252 In the saga, Earl Gizur orders an enemy to be executed, and after the first blow he puts his fingers into the open wound in the executed man’s throat to make sure it was deep enough to kill him.253 Olaf Brynjolfsson’s death is described as follows: Snorri hit Olaf in the throat making a hole in the larynx; he also gave him a blow in the face, which cut away a part of the helmet and one eye and crushed his jaw, and also gave him a large wound in his leg. Birning gave him another wound. Thorvard hewed into his neck so that his spinal marrow could be seen.254 247 Jacob BENEDIKTSSON, “Sturlunga saga”, in: KLNM 17, cols. 355-359. Úlfar BRAGASON, “Sturlunga: a political statement”, in: The Audience of the Sagas: The 8th International Saga Conference 2 (Göteborg, 1991), pp. 315-322, pp. 320-321. 248 Guðrún NORDAL, Ethics and Action in Thirteenth-Century Iceland (Odense, 1998), chapter 5. 249 Gunnar KARLSSON, “The ethics of Icelandic saga authors and their contemporaries”, in: The 6th International Saga Conference, Workshop Papers 1 (Reykjavík, 1985), p. 390. 250 BENEDIKTSSON, “Sturlunga saga”. 251 This is the view expressed in: RYGG, Fra spontanitet og voldsglede til selvkontroll og avsky, pp. 99-104. 252 KARLSSON, “Ethics of Icelandic saga authors”, p. 389. 253 Sturlunga saga, c. 490 (English translation I, p. 447; Danish translation II, p. 325). 254 Sturlunga saga, c. 210 (English translation I, p. 213-214; Danish translation I, p. 349).

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In the sagas of Icelanders, the warriors are normally killed in heroic battles, but in Sturlunga saga they are more often captured and executed as defenceless victims, and there is nothing heroic about it. Torture is described several times. In one passage, the chieftain Orækja is captured by his enemy Sturla Sigvatsson. The latter orders a man to put a knife into Orækja’s eyes, and afterwards to castrate him. Looking at the castration, Sturla tells his victim to think of his wife. This suggests a sadistic pleasure on the part of Sturla.255 Violence is also done to women during attacks on enemy farms: one woman has her breasts chopped off and later dies of her wounds. The thirteen-year-old daughter of the author, Sturla Thordarson, survives a nightly arson attack on the farm of Flugumýri where her husband and many others are killed. Sturla tells us that she was in a state of shock after the experience.256 Before great battles in the saga people had dreams, but not heroic dreams of honourable deeds to be performed on the battlefield. On the contrary they were horrific visions of bloody heads talking of death and destruction and ugly bloodstained hags tearing off men’s heads, shreds of flesh hanging down. Violence and battles are not connected to heroism but rather to fear of death and maiming, anguish, chaos and insecurity.257 That was probably an understanding shared by many Icelanders in the 1270s when they considered in retrospect the violent final phase of pre-state Iceland. Traditional warrior honour was important in pre-state Icelandic society, and hierarchical honour was important at the Norwegian court. But in the last phase of Icelandic pre-state society as described in Sturlunga saga, there was no universal agreement as to what was honourable. Peasants and lesser chieftains still defended their traditional rights; if they were violated it was an offence against their honour, and justified revenge. But the new and powerful chieftains who had stayed at the Norwegian court and learnt new and hierarchical codes of honour thought it in their power to punish lesser men for disobedience, and this led to conflict. A good example from the saga involves the powerful chieftain Kolbein the Young and one of his followers, a man called Thorstein. The latter on one occasion refused to support Kolbein in a feud, but instead proposed to mediate a peace. Kolbein “swore and pushed his spear against Thorstein but Thorstein parried the attack. Kolbein then drew his sword, but Orækja held him and others sought to calm him, but Kolbein was furious.”258 According to 255

Sturlunga saga, c. 265 (English translation I, p. 299; Danish translation I, p. 433). Sturlunga saga, c. 218-219 and c. 413 (English translation I, pp. 226-230 and 403; Danish translation I, pp. 362-363 and II, p. 206). 257 RYGG, Fra spontanitet og voldsglede til selvkontroll og avsky, p. 90-92. 258 Sturlunga saga, c. 249 (English translation I, pp. 274-275; Danish translation I, p. 409). 256

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Kolbein’s hierarchical norms the lord should be obeyed without question. Thorstein, however, regarded himself as a free man who could choose whether he wanted to support Kolbein or act as a neutral mediator. Sturlunga saga presents a violent society with weak and conflicting norms where raw power is the deciding factor. Sturlunga saga “dwells on the violence and the greed for power characteristic of the lives of the thirteenth-century leaders.”259 The difference between right and wrong is obscured in a manner which is not typical of medieval narratives. In the last fifty years of Icelandic pre-state society, at least three different sets of norms and three concepts of honour competed for supremacy: religious norms, traditional warrior norms and hierarchical courtly norms. They could sometimes complement each other in society and in the minds of individuals – it was possible for a man to be religious, courteous and a good warrior. But norms often cancelled each other out. After his farm has been attacked and burnt, the chieftain Gizur starts a feud against the arsonists. Bishop Henrik of Hólar orders him to stop the feud in the name of church, king and social peace. But Gizur and his allies understand the bishop as taking sides in the feud, which a bishop is not supposed to do, and they refuse to take notice. In this way the bishop’s moral message loses its authority and Gizur loses the moral glory of being recognized by all as fighting for his just revenge. The reader is left with the impression of a struggle without norms and ideals. Islendinga saga differs sharply from the sagas of Icelanders in this respect – unlike the moral clarity of the sagas of Icelanders, Islendinga saga’s characters are locked in an egoistic and cynical power struggle. Sturla’s motives for writing the saga can only be surmised. He may have wanted to describe and explain his personal role in the struggle leading up to Iceland’s submission to the Norwegian king, and also give an honourable presentation of the role of his defeated relatives, the Sturlungs, without offending the victors. But Sturla’s purpose is not essential to our discussion of the social consequences of the narrative. A chronicle which does not provide a normative viewpoint is unusual in a medieval context. But Islendinga saga could be describes as indirectly normative in that it promoted the norms of a pacified state society by describing the alternative in a negative manner. There are no conflicts between the norms set forth in the two sagas which Sturla is known to have written. Behind Islendinga saga are the same ideals we find in Hákonar saga. By painting a dark picture of pre-state Iceland, Sturla indirectly shows the advantages of a more pacified state society. 259

Jesse L. BYOCK, Medieval Iceland (Berkeley, 1988), p. 61.

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The Social Background of the Icelandic Saga Tradition of the Thirteenth Century The Scandinavian saga tradition must be seen in the context of a number of social and literary developments. Our purpose here is to analyze the connection between narrative literacy, administrative literacy and social developments. This makes it necessary to keep the main focus on the social context without neglecting the purely literary impulses. First, the saga tradition was a continuation of the two hundred years old tradition of Icelandic skalds visiting Norwegian and Danish courts and composing poems in praise of the rulers. Knowledge about ancient kings, heroes and skalds was transmitted among skalds from generation to generation. The two best known Icelandic authors of kings’ sagas are Snorri Sturluson and Sturla Thordarsson, both of whom were also skalds. The Norwegian monk Theodoricus, who wrote a king’s saga in Latin, and the Danish historiographer Saxo both mention Icelanders as important sources.260 This made it natural for the Norwegian king to commission Icelanders to write sagas for him. Secondly, the administrative language of state and church in the Norse language area (Norway, Iceland, Orkney, et cetera) was the vernacular, not Latin as in most other Northern European countries in the thirteenth century. This must have made literacy more accessible to laymen, and favoured narratives on secular subjects. Icelandic chieftains also had special functions in the administration of their private churches all through the thirteenth century, which made it desirable and necessary for them to acquire a literate education. But this cannot be the full explanation. Most sagas had Iceland and Icelanders as their subject, so the main reason for the interest in saga writing must be found in Icelandic society. Iceland, as we have seen, was unique in that it lacked a state administration. The main secular use of administrative literacy in the rest of Scandinavia from 1100 to 1300 was to promote the state and church monopolies of legislation and the judiciary. Iceland also had its written laws, but lacked a state organization to back them up. The decisions of the Thing assemblies were not always respected; feuds, negotiations and mediations were more common ways of solving conflicts.261 The absence of an administrative power to impose court verdicts meant that moral norms promoted through the concept of honour were all the more important in maintaining the rule of law. The sagas helped to retain the memory of honourable deeds, and in so doing they also held 260 See supra: p. 125. Theodoricus Monachus, Historia regum Norwagiensium, ‘Prologue’ and c. 1. 261 See: MILLER, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking.

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up norms for future generations.262 To maintain that sagas were written because they were needed to create respect for social norms in a stateless society is a functionalist perspective which might nevertheless have some relevance. Thirteenth-century Icelandic patrons, authors and audiences must have felt their ancient norms to be under pressure and weakly defended as a result of Iceland’s lack of an executive power and a well functioning judiciary. Icelanders must have considered it particularly important to present their norms forcefully through narratives because the alternative ways of defending them were ineffective. A weakly developed administrative literacy made narrative literacy more important. The last and probably the most important reason for the strong position of the saga tradition in Iceland was connected to the fact that the pre-state Icelanders of the thirteenth century practiced norms and a code of honour which were out of step with those of Norway and the rest of Northern Europe. By the thirteenth century, feuding chieftains were generally a thing of the past in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the major European kingdoms. Feuding was condemned and considered to be dishonourable by the church and the new courtly culture. But the Icelandic chieftains obtained their prestige and power from this very feuding. The Icelandic warrior class and particularly the chieftains therefore had an identity problem. Their social practices were not accepted as honourable by the increasingly powerful church and by the courtiers whom they visited in Norway and other countries. Several episodes in Sturlunga saga depict the feuding warriors going to confession after a killing to receive the church’s pardon for their sin. The sagas of Icelanders could be seen as an effort on the part of individual families and the warrior class as a whole to give themselves a positive identity. The narratives were meant to demonstrate that feuding warriors’ practices in Iceland were honourable. Feuding in Iceland did not prevent them from being good courtiers when in Norway, and those who lived into the Christian era became good Christians. Because the cultural identity of the Icelandic chieftain was so out of step with the aristocracy in most other European countries, the chieftains may have felt a particular need to defend their way of life through idealized narratives. The norms of church, court, and the warrior class were able to coexist throughout Europe at this time. Christian and courtly social norms both had a basic foundation of social peace and hierarchy, which made their coexistence relatively unproblematic in the thirteenth century, but the norms of the feuding chieftains were definitely problematic in relation to the norms of church and court. Idealized warriors, courtiers and clerics are found in the literature of all European countries at this time, but the Icelandic elite must have felt 262

MEULENGRACHT SØRENSEN, Fortelling og ære, p. 187. See supra: pp. 107-108.

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the moral tensions more strongly than the aristocracies in the rest of Scandinavia. Because the ideals to be followed were not self-evident, these stories must have been of greater interest to them. The flowering of saga literature in the thirteenth century should be understood as a continuation of the Icelandic skaldic tradition, a well-developed vernacular literacy among magnates and a compensation for the lack of a state with its administrative literacy. The most fundamental reason for Icelandic interest in saga writing was that tensions between church, courtly and warrior norms was felt most strongly in Iceland’s unique social situation.

The Continued Clerical Dominance in Denmark In Denmark, the thirteenth century saw no continuation of historical writing in the tradition of Saxo for a public of laymen. King and court alike no doubt felt that Saxo had given them proof of their honourable ancestry. Saxo’s Gesta Danorum was regarded as the final word on ancient Danish history, and no revision was needed. Whether it was even possible after Saxo is a matter of debate; a successfully written history like Saxo’s usually has the effect of drying up the oral tradition. Saxo’s history ends in 1185. Danish historiography continued beyond that date, of course, but only in the form of annals written in Latin by clerics for other clerics. The purpose of the annals was evidently to give useful information about concrete events for ecclesiastical institutions. They lack idealized, coherent descriptions which could inform laymen about good and evil norms in an entertaining and instructive manner. The best known are the Annals of Ryd, the Jutish Chronicle and the Older and Younger Zealandic Chronicles, all written between ca. 1250 and ca. 1370. The first three were written in monasteries.263 These works start with a short summary of early history based on Saxo and existing annals, followed by a chronological account of later events. These annals and chronicles express the social understanding of the clerics themselves. Their main subject is the Danish kings and their political conflicts, and they sympathized with the king or pretender who could bring peace and

263

Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, Erik KROMAN (Copenhagen, 1980). Herluf NIELSEN, “Jyske krønike”, in: KLNM 8, cols. 49-50. IDEM, “Rydårbogen”, in: KLNM 14, cols. 516-518. IDEM, “Sjællandske krønike”, in: KLNM 15, cols. 325-326. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur:Middelalder 2, pp. 88-98

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Illustration 28. The chronicle of the Cistercian monastery of Øm in Jylland. These pages was written in 1216, but the chronicle continued to be supplemented for more than a hundred years thereafter. The chronicle provides a narrative of the early history of the monastery up to 1280, and transcripts of charters which were important to the monastery. The manuscript satisfied both practical needs and the need for historical identity. Cistercian manuscripts are austere, without illuminations or decorated initials. The large capitals and the headings, both in red, and the division into paragraphs, were meant to make reading faster and easier. Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. KB E. don. Var 135 4o.

protection to the church. The Annals of Ryd and the Old Zealandic Chronicle were both written by Cistercians, and interest in Cistercian affairs is evident in the text.264 Monks also described the struggles of their own monasteries. Five Scandinavian monastic chronicles have been preserved, all of them Cistercian. Four are from the Danish monasteries of Øm, Sorø, Ryd and Vitskøl, and the fifth is from the Norwegian monastery of Lyse. All were written to defend or increase the prestige of the respective monastery. The most comprehensive of 264 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 51-52. Herluf NIELSEN, “Klosterkrøniker”, in: KLNM 8, cols. 546-547.

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them is the chronicle of Øm monastery (the Exordium carae insulae), which covers the years 1207 to 1267. It defends and explains the position of the monks in their struggle against royalty and the Bishop of Århus, who tried to exploit them economically.265 The Annals of Ryd were written at a time when the monks had returned to their monastery after a conflict with the Bishop of Schleswig, and they wanted to document their previous rights. The purpose of the Sorø chronicle was to retain the memory of the monastery’s founders, who were among the most prominent aristocrats of twelfth-century Denmark.266 The most original of the Danish church chronicles was written by a cleric at the archbishop’s see of Lund about his master, Archbishop Jens Grand. The chronicle describes his imprisonment by the king in 1294, his two years in jail and his escape to Rome. The description of the injustices done to the bishop and his chapter is personal and detailed. It shares some features with hagiography; at the end the pope says in the presence of his prelates that many saints in heaven have suffered less for God’s cause than Jens Grand.267 Danish historiography – and narrative literacy in general – has some distinctive features compared to the West Norse tradition. First, the Danes wrote in Latin, not the vernacular. Secondly, Danish historical writings and narrative literature were patronized and written not by laymen, but exclusively by clerics, and the intended public was also clerical. Thirdly, Danish narratives followed European patterns more closely. The three characteristics were evidently connected. In the time of Saxo and Archbishop Absalon at the end of the twelfth century, the church used historiography to create a common identity for the secular as well as the clerical elite. In the period that followed, from ca. 1200 to ca. 1350, narrative literacy was dominated by the church’s efforts to consolidate its own identity. Danish narrative literacy in this period was more clerical in its outlook than in the other Scandinavian countries. 265 Øm klosters krønike, ed. Martin Clarentius GERTZ (Copenhagen 1918-1920: Scriptores minores historiæ Danicæ medii ævi 2), pp. 153-264. 266 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, p. 51. Gottfrid CARLSSON, “Historieskrivning: Sverige och Finland”, in: KLNM 6, cols. 587-591. Herluf NIELSEN, “Historieskrivning: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 591-595. Anne HOLTSMARK, “Historieskrivning: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 595-597. Björn THORSTEINSSON, “Historieskrivning: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 597-602. NIELSEN, “Klosterkrøniker”. Ellen JØRGENSEN, Historieforskningen og historieskrivning i Danmark indtil aar 1800 (Copenhagen, 1964), pp. 46-50. The short chronicle of Lyse is described in: Monumenta Historica Norvegiæ, ed. Gustav STORM (Kristiania (Oslo), 1880), p. XXXXIX. 267 Herluf NIELSEN, “Jens Grands fængselskrønike”, in: KLNM 7, col. 572. Sigurd KVÆRNDRUP, “Det feudale stændersamfund”, in: Dansk litteraturhistorie 1, ed. Søren KASPERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 426-475, pp. 432-433.

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142 The Swedish Narrative Tradition – A Late Development

As in Denmark, the first longer texts to be written in the vernacular in Sweden were laws. The laws were recorded in the vernacular in Denmark from about 1170. In Sweden the first laws to be committed to writing were those of the province of Västergötland, called the Äldre Västgötalagen (the Older Law of Västergötland).268 Eskil, the lawman of Västergötland from 1217 to 1227, is usually given the credit for this codification. He is praised in the chronicle of the lawmen of Västergötland for having reorganized and edited the law, even if he is not explicitly said to have done so writing. The earliest narrative literature written in Sweden is three short ‘chronicles’ added to manuscripts of the Äldre Västgötalagen.269 The author is not named, but there is nothing to suggest that he was a cleric. The chronicles are secular in their outlook, and have more in common with a register of properties than with religious preaching. The bishops are more praised for good economic management than piety. Historians have suggested Eskil, the lawman of Västergötland, as a likely author.270 He belonged to the high aristocracy, was an educated man and was the brother of the regent of Sweden, Earl Birger. He could be seen as representing the emerging Swedish central state administration, writing down the traditions of Västergötland for the benefit of king and regent. The three chronicles give short biographies in the vernacular of the kings of Sweden, Bishops of Skara and the lawmen of Västergötland respectively. Each chronicle is about two to three printed pages long. Normally we are told where the man was born or lived, where he is buried; his father or another relative may be named and sometimes a short normative assessment is given, and we are told what he is most remembered for. A typical example reads, “The second lawman was Bjorn kjalke. He was from Medelby. He was buried in a barrow, because he did not know the holy Christian faith. On this same barrow now stands the belfry of Medelby parish church.”271 The ‘chronicles’ basically consist of lists of office-bearers. The little information given about each person was presumably 268

See supra: p. 81. Sture BOLIN, Om Nordens eldsta historieforskning (Lund, 1931), p. 141. The owner of the law manuscript with the chronicle additions was the priest of Vidhem. 270 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 42 and 68. Bernt OLSSON, Litteraturens historia i Sverige (Stockholm, 1995), p. 17. For the text of the chronicle of the lagmen, see: Sveriges litteratur 1, Carl Ivar STÅHLE (Stockholm, 1968), p. 17. Ernst NYGREN, “Biskopslängder”, in: KLNM 1, cols. 628-630. CARLSSON, “Historieskrivning: Sverige och Finland”. NIELSEN, “Historieskrivning: Danmark”. HOLTSMARK, “Historieskrivning: Norge”. THORSTEINSSON, “Historieskrivning: Island”. ÅQVIST, “Västgötalagarna”. 271 Sveriges litteratur 1, p. 19. 269

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gleaned from oral tradition; the chronicles seldom give coherent narratives. Their function was to help people remember the names in the right order; the best way to remember Bjorn was that his barrow still could be seen in Medelby. The chronicles are at the very root of the Swedish secular narrative, which started not by imitating texts in foreign languages, but by writing down oral tradition.272 There is only one additional example of Swedish narrative writing before 1280, the so-called Guta saga, written ca. 1220 in the ancient Scandinavian language of Gotland known as Old Gutnish. Its main focus is the relationship of the inhabitants of Gotland to the Swedish king and the Bishop of Linköping, stressing that the Gotlanders were a free people making their own choices. The author was probably a priest. The patron is assumed by some to have been the Danish archbishop Anders Sunesen, but it is hard to see how the content of the saga benefitted the see in Lund.273 The Gotlanders were a special case in this period; their cultural and political independence was threatened by mainland Swedes and Germans in Visby.274 Clerical narratives in Latin were a later development in Sweden. The tradition started with the hagiographies of St Erik and St Henrik, both of which were composed in Sweden ca. 1260-1300.275 Swedish narratives before 1280 had a regional outlook. Two of Eskil’s chronicles from ca. 1240 had local dignitaries as their subject, the bishop and the lawman. The third presented the national kings, but it was evidently written for a provincial public in Västergötland. The contemporary Guta saga written by a cleric of Gotland had a similar outlook.276 This pattern reflects an elite identity which was still regional. A Swedish court using narratives to define its identity does not seem to have emerged until ca. 1300, more than a century later than in Denmark and Norway. The flowering of Swedish medieval historiography came after 1320; it was connected to the court and had laymen as patrons and authors.277 Swedish historiography and other written narratives on secular subjects have some unique characteristics compared to Norway and Denmark. First, the transition from orality to literacy happened later in Sweden, and only two short works survive from before 1300. Secondly, before 1300 neither the royal court nor 272

Ivar LINDQUIST, Västgötalagens litteräre bilagor (Lund, 1941), p. 11. STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 66. 274 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 68. Elias WESSÉN, “Gutasagan”, in: KLNM 5, cols. 602-604. 275 SCHMID, “Erik den helige”. GALLÉN, “Erik den helige: Finland”. MALINIEMI, “Henrik, St.”. 276 See supra: p. 81. 277 See infra: p. 216. 273

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powerful ecclesiastical institutions patronized narrative literacy; both the preserved narratives had a regional, not a national outlook. Thirdly, these narratives are written in the vernacular by one layman and one cleric, which is closer to the West Norse pattern – the dominance of clerics in producing literature is not as strong as in Denmark.278 These Swedish characteristics should be seen in the light of the fact that a centralized state developed late in Sweden. The three provinces of Västergötland, Östergötland and Svealand were not permanently united into a single kingdom until about 1150, and a strong state organization did not appear until ca. 1250 under Earl Birger.279 Lay magnates did not organize themselves into a court until the time of Magnus Ladulas (1275-1290).280 During his reign, writing began to be used more extensively for administrative purposes.281 Latin was the administrative language all through the thirteenth century. The only men who used written material in Swedish in their work were the lawmen and only after ca. 1220. 282 Others probably did not receive any systematic education in vernacular writing, and Latin was difficult for laymen to master to a degree that would allow them to write longer narratives. Eskil the lawman’s linguistic skills are good in shorter passages; he is said to have received an education as good as that of learned clerics.283 But he does not even try composition on a larger scale. However, lack of linguistic competence among laymen does not provide a full explanation for the late development of secular narratives in Sweden. There were clerics writing in Latin; Latin hagiographies were composed in Sweden from about 1260. Kings and magnates could have commissioned clerics to write historiography and other secular narratives. When the court finally decided to begin commissioning literature in about 1300, authors were found who could write in Swedish. The basic reason for the slow development of secular literature in Sweden was not so much lack of linguistic competence among powerful laymen, but rather their lack of interest.

278

About this Swedish development, see: STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 37-

41. 279

SAWYER and SAWYER, Medieval Scandinavia, pp. 230-232. STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 55. 281 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 35-51. 282 Lars LÖNNROTH, “Ättesamhällets textvärld ca. 800-1300”, in: Den svenska litteraturen 1 (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 33-56, pp. 51-52. CARLSSON, “Historieskrivning: Sverige och Finland”. NIELSEN, “Historieskrivning: Danmark”. HOLTSMARK, “Historieskrivning: Norge”. THORSTEINSSON, “Historieskrivning: Island”. SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy, p. 144. 283 Sveriges litteratur 1, p. 20. 280

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This lack of interest should be considered against the backdrop of the literate education enjoyed by the elite in Scandinavia. In this period, laymen received their literate education in ecclesiastical institutions with priests as their teachers. In these schools the elite were instructed not only in reading and writing, but in a certain social ideology. Literate courtiers who had received their education at a church institution had been taught to reason in abstract terms and were receptive to the church’s arguments. The church set forth ideals regarding the way kingship should be exercised. Kingship was to be justified not only through military power, lineage and the consent of the Thing. Literate laymen had been taught to make moral demands on all men wielding power. The idealizing and normative kings’ sagas can be seen as an effort to justify kingship in the face of the church’s moral demands, and the king’s intended public evidently was his own courtiers and magnates. A literate education created interest for written narratives about kings and magnates wielding power. In thirteenthcentury Sweden, however, there is an obvious connection between the slow development of a centralized state organization, weak administrative literacy, limited literate education for the elite and lack of interest in idealizing, coherent narratives with a moral message.

The Written Narrative: Reconciling Norms The sagas are normative in the sense that they present norms to be followed by their listeners and readers. But the situations portrayed in sagas are complex; readers are often presented with several norms in the same narrative. The resulting moral conflicts or choices are not discussed explicitly. To follow the good norms may cause personal pain and suffering, but there is usually no doubt as to which course of action to follow. The hero Gunnar in Njáls saga asks himself whether he is more of a coward than other men, because he feels a repugnance each time he has to kill people. But there is never any doubt in his mind that he has to kill “when honour is at stake”. But does Gunnar’s question reveal a subconscious tension in the saga author’s mind between warrior honour and the church’s and king’s ideals of a pacified society?284 The night before an important duel, the hero Hallfred in Hallfreðar saga receives a message that his king and religious mentor Olaf Tryggvason has been killed. He is stricken with grief, cancels the duel and goes to bed. Some people blame him and interpret his reaction as cowardice, but his rival Gris, who had 284 Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Einar Ól. SVEINSSON (Reykjavík, 1954: Islenzk Fornrit 12), c. 54, p.139 (English translation, p. 135).

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himself served foreign kings, understands Hallfred’s decision. The saga author is evidently trying to portray to his readers a conflict between warrior norms on the one hand and religious and courtly norms on the other. The latter norms were of a higher order and had to take precedence.285 In these two cases we are presented with alternative courses of action, and are made to understand why the hero had to choose as he did. But saga authors rarely suggest a tension between alternative norms in this way. Gudrun in Laxdæla saga organizes vengeance for her slain husband Bolli; later in her life she becomes the first nun and anchoress in Iceland. There is no suggestion that there was a conflict between the two. The saga authors tended to reconcile norms rather than focusing on moral choices or dilemmas.286 In the literary universe of each saga, explicit moral conflicts are rare or absent. But an analysis of thirteenth-century saga literature as a whole reveals that the moral and normative message varies from saga to saga. The difference is to be found between the three genres of sagas of Icelanders, kings’ sagas and bishops’ sagas, but also between different sagas of Icelanders. In Egils saga Skallagrímssonar, traditional warrior honour definitely takes precedence over courtly reverence for royalty; in Hallfreðar saga it is the other way round. And even in Hallfreðar saga there is a development in Hallfred’s mind. At the start of the saga, when he is in the service of King Olaf Tryggvason, he is given the task of blinding a man who has refused to obey the king’s order to become a Christian. He finds, however, that his victim is an honourable man according to warrior norms, and decides to put out one eye only. The final and overall message of the saga is nevertheless unequivocal – Hallfred ends up by espousing the norms of church and king. He understands the true values at the end of his life.287 Reading sagas helped thirteenth-century audiences think about how to choose the right actions in an increasingly complex moral situation. This complexity did not mean a pluralistic attitude to moral choices; only one choice was the right one, at least on the conscious level. Literature gave examples which helped people to reconcile social norms and identities. This may have made the transition to a state society morally and culturally less problematic than it otherwise would have been. 285

Hallfreðar saga, ed. Einar Ól. SVEINSSON (Reykjavík, 1939: Islenzk Fornrit 8), c. 10, p. 192 (English translation, pp. 52-53; Norwegian translation, pp. 292-293). 286 The question is discussed more thoroughly in: FERRER, Emosjoner i norrøn tid, chapter 2. 287 Hallfreðar saga, c. 6, p. 166 (English translation, p. 39; Norwegian translation, p. 280). See: FERRER, Emosjoner i norrøn tid, p. 164.

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Chapter 1 examined how oral narratives – Eddic and skaldic poems and þættir (short stories) – usually told concrete stories about men and women who followed one norm, usually warrior bravery or religious reverence. To describe a more complex moral situation, a longer, written narrative like the chronicle or saga was more suitable. A complex society created moral choices, which in turn inspired longer, written narratives. Administrative literacy made it possible to create a more complex society; narrative literacy reconciled moral tensions created by this complexity – or at least contributed to a reconciliation. This elaborates and supplements the views of the philologist Torfi Tulinius mentioned above regarding the need for Icelandic chieftains to justify their social status. According to Tulinius, characters in the family sagas are presented as having ‘uncertain identities’. Thirteenth-century Icelandic magnates were uncertain how to justify their claims to distinction.288 I think the tensions in the minds of saga characters should be seen rather as the result of conflicting identities and norms of a more general character in Icelandic society, and Norse society as a whole. Rather than terming identities and norms ‘uncertain’, we can better describe them as complex. This implies that it was possible for individuals to reconcile several identities and norms in their minds at the same time. They were confronted with a complex moral situation, and the saga authors and the authors of other literary texts tried to create order through the interactions of characters and events in their narratives.

The Social Consequences of Narrative Literacy In recent decades, narratives and their significance in the societies in which they were produced has been a central theme in the methodological debates of historians. Most of the initiators of these debates have been linguists, philosophers and above all literary historians rather than social historians. Prominent among them have been theorists like Jacques Derrida and others who often style themselves poststructuralists or postmodernists. Historians who are sceptical of this ‘linguistic turn’ have often been at pains to point out the difference between the methods of literary historians and social historians. Even so, many historians have found the new ideas fruitful, especially historians who use literature and other narratives as source material to discuss mentalities, attitudes, identities, and values.289 288 289

TULINIUS, “The matter of the North”, pp. 258-259. SPIEGEL, The Past as Text, p. 19.

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The most extreme postmodernist position is that historical social reality does not exist; past societies should be considered as texts, or in Derrida’s words, “il n’y a pas de hors-texte”.290 No practicing historian, even those who call themselves postmodernists, have to my knowledge defended such a position. By calling both past social reality and the literary representations of that reality ‘text’, historians and historians of literature deprive themselves of the tools to analyze the relationship between text and society. An historian must begin with the premise that social reality does exist, otherwise his analysis becomes that of the history of texts, which is the task of the historian of literature.291 Another radical stance is that social reality exists, but language constructs this reality. According to Gabrielle Spiegel, those defending this position “begin from the premise that language is somehow anterior to the world it shapes”. Humans in their understanding of the world depend on the concepts in their language; they cannot understand social realities which the language does not give them concepts to understand. Changes in language will cause changes in thoughts and action. This position “views language not as a window on the world it transparently reflects, but as constructing that world, that is, as creating rather than imitating reality”.292 As mentioned in the introduction to this book, Walter Ong could be interpreted as holding similar views; he has focused on the different psychological processes of those who acquire their knowledge through written and oral language: The present-day phenomenological sense of existence is richer in its conscious and articulate reflection than anything that precedes it. But it is salutary to recognize that this sense depends on the technologies of writing and print, deeply interiorized, made a part of our own psychic resources.… [Writing and print] store what we know in ways which made it quite inaccessible and indeed unthinkable in an oral society.293

Ong analyzed literature, but Jack Goody came to similar conclusions by comparing religious and legal texts in oral and written traditions.294 Language 290

Quoted from: SPIEGEL, The Past as Text, p. 8. Views sympathetic to these are found in: Patrick JOYCE, “History and postmodernism”, in: The Postmodern History Reader, ed. Keith JENKINS (London, 1997), pp. 244-249, p. 247. 291 SPIEGEL, The Past as Text, pp. 17-18. 292 SPIEGEL, The Past as Text, p. 4. 293 ONG, Orality and Literacy, pp. 154-155. Ong also says (p. 154): “It would appear that the development of modern depth psychology parallels the development of the character in drama and the novel, both depending on the inward turning of the psyche produced by writing and intensified by print […]”. 294 See: GOODY, Logic of Writing, chapters 1 and 4.

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structures thought and action – in the present book this method has been used to analyze whether written language produced a more generalizing trend in thought. This approach has proved fruitful in this particular field,295 but the method has its limits, and many important social changes and differences clearly had other causes. People who spoke or wrote the same language thought differently on important subjects. Norms and identities found in the saga genres were different, because the social environment in which their authors and public lived, was different. Peasants did not create written texts, but they were part of oral narrative traditions. We may expect the peasants’ code of honour to have been different from that of court, church and warrior chieftains because their material environment was different. No social historian has ever been in doubt that the material environment creates mentalities and motivates socially important actions. I have stressed above that the gradual monopolization of legitimate violence was an important basis for the authority of state and church. The written word was not simply an impersonal agent producing unintended consequences. Church, state and others made active use of literature and documents to present and impose norms and ideals; language was an instrument. At the same time people from all social classes had other instruments to impose their will or change their social position.296 Society influenced the narratives, and the narratives influenced society. Even if the literary historian Preben Meulengracht Sørensen did not go as far as Ong and Goody, he was convinced that the sagas of Icelanders had important social consequences: “The literary world of the Islendingasögur was an ideal, and the ideal became a model. At the time when they were written, the sagas probably shaped (formede) as strongly as ever actions and narratives of contemporary society.”297 When confronted with such claims, we must consider what significance and importance written texts may have had to preserve or change social realities.298

295

See supra: pp. 83-85, and infra: pp. 154-156. Lawrence STONE, “History and postmodernism”, in: The Postmodern History Reader, ed. Keith JENKINS (London, 1997), pp. 255-259, p. 258. 297 MEULENGRACHT SØRENSEN, Fortelling og ære, p.332. 298 SPIEGEL, The Past as Text, p. 24-26. These theories have been used by many to analyze the relationship between the historian’s narrative and the society which he analyzes. But the theories are also relevant for the relationship between actions and thoughts of people in past societies and the texts which those societies produced, and it is the texts which are most relevant in our context. However, the vagueness of these theories and the variations between authors remains problematic. 296

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As shown above, narrative literacy imposed norms and reinforced identities, but it also reconciled tensions between these norms and identities. However, this could also be done by many other forms of socialization, education and coercion. How important were the social consequences of narrative literacy in Norse society? First let us consider religious identities and norms. Laymen must have been given a strong feeling of belonging to a Christian community when they were present at divine service and received the sacraments at regular intervals all through their lives. The clerics were members of church organizations like monasteries, cathedrals or other collegiate churches, and parish priests met at synods once a year. Christian norms were taught by parents from childhood, and were imposed on recalcitrant laymen and clerics through legal means for serious sins or, for less serious sins, through the sacrament of penance. To learn how to reconcile the demands of religion and secular society would be part of any normal socialization process for laymen as well as clerics. The narratives nevertheless played their part. The church made systematic use of narratives through legends and sermons preached from the pulpit to reinforce attitudes created by socialization and legislation. These narratives made clear the difference between good and evil people and must have created a consciousness in the congregation of belonging to a Christian community opposed to the forces of evil. The narratives also gave concrete examples of how the Christian norms should be practised. Narratives describing prominent bishops and monastic communities were primarily meant to be read by clerics, and must have strengthened the sense of identity already present among the members of these institutions. The king’s men had a common identity because they had all received a title or office from the king. For shorter or longer periods they would live and drink together at the king’s court or hirð. The king’s and state’s norms were primarily enforced through legislation, but they were also spread by voluntary imitation. When visiting the court, magnates learnt how the most prominent men in the realm behaved, and it gave prestige to behave likewise. Peasants and townsmen met the king’s norms through legislation and jurisdiction, but also by imitating the king’s men. The written narratives commissioned by the king were primarily meant to be read aloud for members of his court. They were probably particularly important for people who felt they belonged to the court community, but rarely visited it and did not hold a royal office. This may have been so for many Icelandic magnates. For the large majority of the kings’ men in Scandinavia the narratives probably were of marginal importance for keeping their court identity alive. The

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Swedish court seems to have managed without written narratives up to about 1300, but an oral tradition about the king’s ancestors evidently existed. The impact of the narratives was also limited by the fact that they only were read by the king’s men, not by ordinary peasants and townsmen. The social consequences of the king’s narrative literacy were evidently limited compared to the consequences of his administrative literacy used in the judiciary and administration. In a warrior society as exemplified by pre-state Iceland, identities in relation to family and fellow warriors were primarily created through socialization. Men lived in households with their families and participated in feuds with other warriors. A warrior society’s social norms were communicated partly through laws, partly through the concept of honour; the two often overlapped. The difference between the honourable and the shameful was learnt mainly through socialization, but idealizing narratives may have been more important to the warrior than to clerics and courtiers. Kinship groups and warrior alliances did not create large organizations like church and state, so narratives may have meant more. These narratives were normally transmitted orally, and were only written down from the end of the twelfth century. In thirteenth-century Scandinavia, both administration and narrative were transformed from oral to literate processes, and narrative literacy was most significant where administrative literacy was least significant. With the possible exception of Iceland, narrative literacy was probably of marginal importance for the formation of social identities and norms. Narrative literacy should be seen mainly as confirming identities and norms already imposed more effectively by other means. Even if narratives created new mentalities to a limited degree, they reflect and are rich sources for mentalities created through socialization and other means. The Norse saga tradition is of particular interest because it is so complex and portrays society from so many perspectives. It gives a unique insight into the complex mentalities of people in medieval Scandinavia – and in thirteenthcentury Europe in general.

Conclusion The period covered in the two first chapters of this book saw a veritable Europeanization of Scandinavia. This process has been described on three levels: organization-building, ideologies and mentalities, and finally economy. Literacy played more or less important roles on all these levels, but there were

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also a number of other factors at work. How important were the social consequences of literacy? On the organizational level, literacy was important in the construction of the two great organizations of church and state. Essential here was the transfer of judicial powers from the local Thing communities and local chieftains to the two new organizations. Control of legislation and jurisdiction made the exercise of power more permanent and predictable. Church and state made their most comprehensive use of literacy in this area. By 1300 all the Scandinavian countries had written laws authorized by the king which, in practice, could only be changed or supplemented with the king’s approval. Keeping written records of judges’ verdicts became common practice all over Scandinavia during the fourteenth century. In the same period it became common practice to write legal titles to land and other important property. These written procedures helped to transfer control from the illiterate members of the local, oral Thing communities to the literate royal and ecclesiastical judges in several ways. Having laws, verdicts and evidence in writing also helped to prevent conflicts between state and church jurisdictions; their competing courts often caused problems. Written laws and procedures made it easier to draw clear demarcation lines. Another precondition for the transfer of judicial authority was the acceptance of the people, and the main reason they accepted the king’s jurisdiction was because it was more effective. The main problem of the pre-state judiciary was that people did not always appear in court when summoned and often refused to accept its decisions. King and church had the power to impose respect for the courts mainly because of the king’s increasing monopolization of legitimate violence, but having the verdicts in writing, in indisputable terms, helped as well. The centralized judiciary made society more predictable even for peasants. Max Weber’s definition of the state as an organization with a monopoly on legitimate violence within a certain area only provides part of the picture for Scandinavia. The construction of the great organizations of church and state was achieved by the use of legitimate violence and literacy. Literacy by itself did not lead to the centralization of the judiciary, but was a vital element in the process. Literacy’s second great field was the establishment of uniform ideologies, whether these ideologies involved common religious beliefs or the warrior’s and courtier’s ideas and mentalities. These ideologies were also formed by socialization, daily conversations and interactions between people. Socialization in the Middle Ages was generally a conservative force, but if the social environment changed, socialization could also make people receptive to new ideas.

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Literacy was essential to religious indoctrination. At the universities the church produced uniform doctrines, and on the local level priests preached them to laymen in parish churches. The whole system depended on written communication and a literate clergy. It is difficult to identify any systematic indoctrination of secular social values in Scandinavia before the advent of state schooling in the early modern period. The third method of creating ideological uniformity was through oral and written narratives. Early orally-transmitted poems and short stories about great warriors and kings were continued in written, idealizing sagas and chronicles about kings, bishops, monasteries and chieftains. With the possible exception of the church’s hagiographies and sermons, which should be seen as part of the church’s systematic indoctrination, narrative literacy does not seem to have created new identities and norms. But narratives made it possible to present more complex ideologies and use examples to show how the demands of religion and secular society could be reconciled. On the economic level, church and state established estates with properties spread over large areas after European models. Accounting techniques in the form of written registers (jordebøker) were imported from Europe, and made the administration of these properties more effective. But the economic exploitation of peasants by an elite was not new in the period in question, and could also be organized orally. An equally important part of the economic Europeanization was the closer integration of Scandinavia into a Northern European trade network. Commercial literacy will be discussed in detail in Chapter III. In the High Middle Ages commercial literacy was used mainly by foreign traders, especially Hanseatic merchants. Scandinavian merchants do not seem to have adopted literate practices to a significant extent until the Late Middle Ages. In this chapter we have considered the influence of literacy on social organizations and explicit ideologies. Did literacy also influence ways of thinking, mentalities, which were more or less implicit and subconscious to medieval Scandinavians? Did the increasing use of literacy have unintended, long-term consequences of this kind? In the introduction to this chapter I presented Goody’s view that literate people have a more generalizing way of thinking than illiterates. The theory is difficult to verify because the Old Norse oral culture is lost to us, and we know it only indirectly through written evidence. But it is possible to follow a tradition from the first time it was put into writing and influences from oral sources

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were most pronounced, through to subsequent developments whereby the tradition became more purely literate. By following developments in several written traditions in this way, it should be possible to analyze whether increasing literacy had similar influences on all these traditions. The oldest known religious narratives in Scandinavia are the orally transmitted Eddic poems. They tell stories about pagan gods or meetings between gods and men. There are implicit norms in these poems, but the poet never moralizes explicitly.299 Christian norms in the earliest period were presented to laymen through legends of holy men and women, and their form could be seen as congruous with the presentation of pagan myth. They were written narratives to be read aloud, and like the pagan poems they tell concrete stories with implicit norms, but also moralize explicitly, pointing out norms to be imitated. The legends use general and abstract terms like ‘sin’, ‘evil’ and ‘grace’, but these are subordinated to the concrete story. Saints’ legends were used in preaching all through the Middle Ages, but were evidently most important in the earliest period.300 After the Gregorian reforms, the church increasingly formulated general doctrines in writing and left it to parish priests to explain in sermon and confession how these doctrines should be applied in individual cases. Of particular interest are the sermons with extensive use of exempla introduced in Scandinavia by the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century and widely used in the Late Middle Ages. The sermon seeks to explain an abstract norm or concept using short narratives as illustrations to make the moral message concrete. The abstract, generalizing message structured the sermon, and the concrete narrative was subordinated.301 This bears out Goody’s view that literacy leads to a more generalizing way of thinking. As literacy was more widely used by church and laymen, the concrete narrative was increasingly subordinated to generalizing norms. In the older period, legal norms were often presented as concrete narratives inserted into the laws. In the case of criminal law the story might illustrate the crime, procedure and punishment. The story was intended to be imitated or at least serve as a guideline. As literacy spread, the regulation of social behaviour was increasingly defined by written laws, which were formulated as general norms using general concepts like ‘ignorance’. It was left to literate, professional judges (ecclesiastical and royal) to apply them to individual cases. A

299

See supra: p. 20. See supra: pp. 21-22 and pp. 111-112. 301 See supra: pp. 55-57 and pp. 111-115. 300

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generalizing way of thinking in legislation was combined with increased individual discretion in the application of the laws. Secular narratives in the oral tradition were short and gave often incoherent information about persons and events. The oral tradition of the twelfth century included short stories about past kings, magnates and other historic persons, partly in prose (þættir), partly in verse (skaldic poems). There were orally-transmitted lists of kings, bishops, lawmen and other high dignitaries which often contained brief descriptions of personal characteristics, usually referring to one norm, like warrior bravery, wisdom or religious piety. The transition from oral to written transmission of historiography in the thirteenth century meant a change to literate genres imported from Europe: chronicles, biographies and ‘king’s mirrors’. Scandinavians inspired by the new genres reorganized and added to stories from the oral tradition, making them more coherent, to create longer written sagas.302 Þættir, skaldic poems and lists of dignitaries from the oral tradition were used as source material and subordinated to an overall structure, which in the case of kings’ sagas was chronological based on events in the king’s life. The textual structure of the saga would impose on the reader the impression of a hierarchical social order with the king at the top. The sagas of Icelanders portrayed their heroes from youth to old age, so the author had to present a consistent personality. The development from oral to written historiography implied a more generalized way of thinking. A further step in this direction is taken with the Norwegian The King’s Mirror from ca. 1250 and the Swedish On the Government of the Realm by the King and his Officials (Um styrilsi kununga ok höfdhinga) from ca. 1330. Here the ideal government is discussed in general terms with some examples taken from real life and many more from the Bible. The author of The King’s Mirror stresses in general terms that a judge should show clemency if the culprit shows humility and repentance. As an example the author tells the story of King David, who had Uriah killed in order to marry his wife Bathsheba. But David showed true repentance and humility, and God forgave him.303 The structure of The King’s Mirror is created by an abstract sequence of arguments, with small narratives being used to illustrate the main points. This is the same dichotomy between generalizing norm and concrete story that one sees in sermons using exempla and in discussions on theological questions read by Scandinavian clerics. In The Kings’ Mirror, however, the technique is used for discussion of secular subjects for a public of laymen. This is a long way from the concrete stories 302 Judy QUINN, “From orality to literacy in medieval Iceland”, in: Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret CLUNIES ROSS (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 30-60. 303 Konungs skuggsiá, p. 88 (Norwegian translation, p. 167).

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about heroic kings in Eddic poems, and shows a development towards a generalizing way of thinking of the kind one might expect based on the theories of Jack Goody. Texts were increasingly organized based on a general norm or idea citing individual cases subordinate to it, which shows a development towards a more generalizing way of thinking. We must assume that this was not only an external form expressed in writing. Pupils and readers who acquired knowledge through generalizing texts must have come to think in more general terms, at least on subjects they had been taught at school or read about in books. In the long term they must have done so also with other subjects. Literacy contributed to the Europeanization of Scandinavia with regard to social organizations, the economy and explicit ideologies. But literacy also had unintended, subconscious consequences which made it significant in varying degrees on all levels examined in this chapter.

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Literacy 1350-1536 The Emergence of a Broad, Literate Elite he dynamic force behind the spread of literacy in the High Middle Ages had been the concerted efforts of church and state to control the Scandinavian societies judicially and ideologically. In the Late Middle Ages (1350-1536) both institutions continued what they had already achieved and organized. Nevertheless, after 1350 developments in a number of fields took so many new directions that it is justified to regard it as a new period in the use of literacy. In 1349 the Black Death struck Scandinavia, and periodic pestilences recurred all through the period. Norway and Sweden were hard hit; the population was reduced to perhaps half. In Jylland in Denmark the consequences were also severe. Land rents fell and weakened the economic basis of the church, the greatest landowner, allowing peasants to keep more of their produce. From the crisis emerged a more socially confident peasant community. In the fertile eastern isles of Denmark, however, population and settlement hardly seem to have been affected at all. Landowners strengthened their judicial control of the peasantry and reduced them to a serf-like status.1 The Scandinavian national churches were increasingly integrated into the papal bureaucracy, but the curia does not seem to have had a coherent policy apart from securing revenues. Consequently the influence of pope and church

T

1 Anders BØGH, “Feudalisering og bondekommunalisme”, in: Danmark i senmiddelalderen, ed. Per INGESMAN et al. (Århus, 1994), pp. 88-105. Erik ULSIG, “Bonde og godsejer ved slutningen af dansk middelalder”, in: Danmark i senmiddelalderen, ed. Per INGESMAN et al. (Århus, 1994), pp. 106-122. Svend GISSEL, “Forskning om den senmiddelalderlige agrarkrise”, in: Danmark i senmiddelalderen, pp. 25-39.

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on national policies stagnated. The state, however, continued to expand and reinforce its social control. After ca. 1400 the king exerted a strong influence over appointments to important ecclesiastical offices through cooperation with the pope. Culturally, many prelates were attracted to the secular royal courts. The state also improved its economic base, and at the end of the period it imposed new taxes. Socially there emerged a class of merchants and craftsmen in the towns, consisting partly of German immigrants. They introduced new ways of organizing large-scale trade using writing, and a tradition of active participation in the political affairs of their home town. These burghers and a peasant elite in the countryside were engaged by the state as part-time officials and aides at grass roots level. The burghers and the peasant elite were a central link between the elite and the common people in social status and in participation in the affairs of state. By 1380 both Icelanders and Norwegians had become subjects of the Danish crown, and only two kingdoms remained in Scandinavia. The period up to 1521 was dominated politically by the efforts of the Danish king to create a union which included Sweden as well. In this struggle the two states increasingly mobilized the economic resources of their subjects for military purposes. Literacy became an instrument in their effort to create an effective financial organization. The two most important dynamic forces spreading literacy in this period were the state and the merchants. But let us first take a look at the church, which had been the main importer of literate procedures in the High Middle Ages.

The Church’s Decreasing Innovation in Its Use of Administrative Literacy The Roman Catholic church in the period 1300-1536 functioned in many ways like a state, with the pope as its prince and Western European clergy as its citizens. The curia sought acceptance for its right to tax the local clergy and control appointments to ecclesiastical offices.

New Accounting Methods – Imported from the Curia? In the High Middle Ages the church controlled its incomes through written registers of normal incomes (e.g. jordebøker), and the bailiff had to give an oral

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explanation if the sums collected were smaller or larger. The first papal tax was ‘Peter’s pence’, paid annually by all households to the parish priests, who passed them on to the bishop, who in turn sent them to the curia. The traditional way of accounting must have been sufficient here because the sum expected was the same every year.2 Such registers were less useful for taxes which were not permanent. The irregular papal taxation of the Scandinavian clergy started at the Lateran council of 1215, when a tax of 5% was imposed on all ecclesiastical incomes. But the most intensive efforts were made 1274-1372 in the guise of financial support for the pope’s crusades against the infidel.3 The pope openly used his judicial powers and threats of excommunication to force recalcitrant clergy to pay up.4 The main resistance to these taxes came from kings who considered them as competition for their own taxation of their subjects. From the 1340s the kings received a large part of the papal taxes, often half. Problems were also encountered in getting the local clergy to pay. A significant part of the pope’s revenues covered the costs of the papal tax collectors who toured Scandinavia, and the cost of changing poor Scandinavian coins into international currencies. The curia received small sums from the Scandinavian taxes, and after 1372 they were discontinued.5 In getting these taxes respected, the pope relied mainly on the threat of excommunication and his alliance with the king. It is hard to see that the written form of the papal demands played an important part. But the fact that the letters were sent in identical form to all, or at least a large part, of Western Christendom may have made the pressure more intense and strengthened respect for the papal demands. Even so, writing played an important role in ensuring that the taxes arrived safely in Rome. Papal accounts from Scandinavia are preserved in the Vatican archive from 1282 onwards. They are the oldest known accounts written in Scandinavia, ‘account’ being understood as a list showing what was actually

2

Herluf NIELSEN, “Peterspenge”, in: KLNM 13, cols. 249-252. Carl STRANDBERG, “Peterspenge: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 252-253. 3 KOCH, Danske kirkes historie 2, p. 141. Herluf NIELSEN, “Korstogsavgifter”, in: KLNM 9, cols. 218-220. 4 Bullarium Danicum, ed. A. KRARUP (Copenhagen, 1932), No. 720. RN I, No.123. 5 KOCH, Danske kirkes historie 2, pp. 141-142.

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received and/or spent during a certain period.6 Accounting gave church authorities a tool to monitor incomes which varied from year to year. Few accounts are preserved from Scandinavian church organizations like cathedrals and monasteries before 1500. Is it because few were written or because they were not considered worth preserving? The earliest were written 1388/1389 by the bailiff of the Bishop of Ribe, Denmark at a manor called Brink.7 The first known accounts from Uppsala Cathedral date to 1417.8 From monasteries, the earliest extant accounts seem to be those of Vadstena in Sweden written by the monastery’s bailiff (syslemann) in 1466, and the earliest from Denmark are from Skovkloster 1467-1481.9 After 1500, comprehensive bishops’ accounts are preserved in all the Scandinavian countries from Uppsala, Linköping, Roskilde and Trondheim.10 In the Late Middle Ages literacy and particularly written accounts were increasingly used in the administration of the parishes. Back in the twelfth century the maintenance of the parish church had been the responsibility of the church owner, in most cases a magnate. This arrangement continued in Iceland to the end of the Middle Ages.11 In all the other countries the church transferred this responsibility during the thirteenth century to the churchwardens (kirkeverger), usually a committee of local peasants. Alternatively one layman or the parish priest could have the responsibility.12 The earliest use of writing in parish administration was imposed from above, and its purpose was correspondence with the bishop. In Norway it was common procedure for churchwardens to receive a written appointment from the bishop, and a quittance when they resigned their duty, exonerating them 6 Carl Göran ANDRÆ, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper”, in: KLNM 9, cols. 671-673. C.A. CHRISTENSEN, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 673-674. Lars HAMRE, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Norge”, Ibidem, col. 674. For the difference between an account and a register, see supra: p. 64. 7 Bjørn POULSEN, Bondens penge (Odense, 1990), pp. 28-49. 8 Göran DAHLBÄCK, Uppsala domkyrkas godsinnehav, (Stockholm, 1977), p. 11. 9 Lars Arne NORBORG, Storföretaget Vadstena kloster (Lund, 1958), pp. 18 and 155. ANDRÆ, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper”. CHRISTENSEN, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Danmark”. HAMRE, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Norge”. 10 For references to editions of sources, see: ANDRÆ, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper”. CHRISTENSEN, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Danmark”. HAMRE, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Norge”. 11 Magnus Már LÁRUSSON, “Fabrica: Island”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 120-122. 12 Troels DAHLERUP, “Kirkeværger”, in: KLNM 8, cols. 410-412. Lars HAMRE, “Kirkeværger: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 412-415, particularly p. 414. Gerhard HAFSTRÖM, “Kirkeværger: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 415-419. Aula OJA, “Kirkeværger: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 419-420.

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from future financial claims.13 If a churchwarden neglected his duties and the church fell into disrepair, the bishop could write a letter to him asking for a written explanation. The reason for using writing in this case was that the matter could end up in court.14 The churchwarden could only alienate church property with the permission of the bishop.15 When a new parish priest took over, he made a statement about the goods at the parsonage, and promised to leave to his successor goods of the same value. This declaration usually seems to have been made orally in the presence of witnesses, but one such declaration has been preserved in writing.16 In Norway, churchwardens were required by law to give an account to the bishop each year, but in practice it seems that this was done when the bishop came on visitation every third year.17 ‘Making an account’18 probably meant that the warden gave an oral statement of incomes and expenses.19 In Denmark the audit seems to have been done every year by the dean or a canon from the cathedral. Lars Bisgaard concludes that the annual account was most likely oral.20 In Sweden the account was given annually to an assembly of the laymen of the parish, most likely orally.21 In Denmark more than twenty written accounts have been preserved from local churches, the oldest from 1372-1387, but most of them from after 1490. The most common contents are lists of the church’s landed property, cattle, silver, debts, capital and gifts received during the year.22 Peasants do not seem to have written these accounts themselves. Of four such accounts examined, one was written by a canon auditing the wardens and two were written by parish priests probably on behalf of the wardens. Only the last, from Malmö, seems to have been written by the wardens themselves, who were literate merchants. In Sweden in 1425, the Archbishop of Uppsala ordered the churches of Jämtland to keep written accounts which could be audited by the bishop when on visitation. Such accounts have been preserved from even earlier; accounts 13 DAHLERUP, “Kirkeværger”. HAMRE, “Kirkeværger: Norge”. HAFSTRÖM, “Kirkeværger: Sverige”. OJA, “Kirkeværger: Finland”. 14 DN X, No. 42. 15 DAHLERUP, “Kirkeværger”. HAMRE, “Kirkeværger: Norge”. HAFSTRÖM, “Kirkeværger: Sverige”. OJA, “Kirkeværger: Finland”. RN V, No.1128. Cf. RN IV, No.623. 16 RN V, No. 665. 17 HAMRE, “Kirkeværger: Norge”, pp. 413 and 415. 18 Old Norse: hefuer giort reikningh. DN II, No. 693. 19 DN V, No. 159. 20 BISGAARD, “Sogn, fællesskab og gavegivning”, pp. 340 and 357. 21 DAHLERUP, “Kirkeværger”. HAFSTRÖM, “Kirkeværger: Sverige”. BISGAARD, “Sogn, fællesskab og gavegivning”, pp. 338-339. 22 BISGAARD, “Sogn, fællesskab og gavegivning”, p. 341.

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survive for Funbo parish church from 1395 and for Kumla parish church from 1421. The latter were written by the parish priest in Swedish but with some Latin words. He wrote on his own behalf and that of the church wardens, as they administered the church’s finances jointly.23 The parish organization was essentially run on an oral basis. In financial administration, churchwardens and parish priests used writing occasionally to keep a record of the church’s incomes and properties. The bishop and his representatives used it more systematically to audit the churchwardens and the parish priest. Should the church be seen as the initiator in the use of written accounts in Scandinavia? It seems that the curia’s tax collectors were the first to use accounting techniques from at least 1282 onwards. But this did not lead to a comprehensive and immediate use of accounting in the national Scandinavian churches. In the states’ finances accounting started to become widespread after ca. 1400, but the inspiration did not come from the church.24 After ca. 1350/1400 the innovative uses of literacy in accounting came from the state rather than the church.

Papal Power and the Written Word in Scandinavia in the Late Middle Ages Next to accounting, the church’s most important new use of literacy in the Late Middle Ages was connected to the curia’s attempts to control appointments to ecclesiastical office through so-called papal provisions. Pope and king cooperated with each other: the king recognized the pope’s right to make appointments and impose monetary charges when instating them, but the pope in most cases appointed the king’s candidate. This practice increased in Scandinavia under Pope John XXII (1316-1334). It undermined the rights the Scandinavian clergy had struggled with secular authorities to acquire in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.25 The pope would hardly have been able to exercise his power to issue provisions without the help of written communication. In October 1329, Pope John XXII issued provisions for four clerics from the province of Nidaros who were evidently present in Avignon. One of them received a letter stating that he was 23 ANDRÆ, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper”. CHRISTENSEN, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Danmark”. HAMRE, “Kyrkliga räkenskaper: Norge”. Kumla kyrkas räkenskapsbok 1421-1590, ed. Jonas SAMZELIUS (Uppsala, 1946), pp. XIX-XLV and LXXXVIII-XC. 24 See infra: pp. 172-173. 25 INGESMAN, “Kirken i samfundet”, p. 107.

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to be installed as canon in Trondheim. Another was already a canon in Bergen, but was to receive another clerical office in that town. A third was already a canon in Oslo, but was in addition to receive the first available parish church in the diocese of Oslo. A fourth was already a canon in Orkney, but was to receive an additional canonry at the cathedral of Caithness. At the same time the pope sent letters to prominent prelates in the province of Nidaros and in France. They were made responsible for the correct implementation of the pope’s provisions.26 In Avignon the applicants were given letters, which they later presented to the bishops in Trondheim, Bergen, Oslo and Caithness. Their claim for these offices would not have carried the same weight if they had given an oral message of the favours obtained in Avignon. And the controlling prelates could not have functioned without literate communication; they could not be expected to travel the long distance to a recalcitrant bishop and correct him orally. Writing was a precondition for such a provision system to function. Literacy did not create the pope’s power to make provisions, but permitted it to be used more effectively and extensively. From 1150 to 1300, the papacy successfully used a literate organization to create religious conformity and uniform church judiciaries and administrations in the Scandinavian countries. The local clergy supported Rome – the papal programme strengthened their prestige and power. However, the papacy was opposed by the secular powers. From 1300 to 1520 the papacy used the same literate organization to create a system of taxation and appointments to ecclesiastical offices controlled by Rome. This transfer of power from the cathedral clergy and monastic communities to the curia was not in the local clergy’s and the states’ interest. The papacy ultimately failed in its efforts. The power of the pope’s written word in the long run was not strong enough to enforce commands that were contrary to the interests of the local clergy and the increasingly powerful states. Literacy was a necessary precondition for papal taxation and provisions. Writing is a form of communication which makes it possible to give commands over long distances and to give a large number of people identical information on many and complex questions. But there had to be a power behind the written message. The power of the sender and the interest of the recipient decided whether the pope’s literacy actually made people act in the way he wanted, echoing Brian Street’s assertion that the effects of literacy are shaped by the intentions of the ‘political and ideological formations’ that introduce it.27 26 27

RN IV, Nos. 701-708. See supra: pp. 13-14.

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Did Prayer Books for Lay People Prepare the Way for the Reformation? During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, church preaching increasingly sought to make laymen take individual responsibility for their own salvation. The message was given orally through sermons and confession; few of the laity at that time were able to read books. But literacy increased during the fifteenth century, particularly in Denmark and Sweden.28 After 1350, laypeople used their improved literacy to read religious literature; this should be seen as a continuation of the movement towards religious individualization started by the church a couple of centuries earlier. Did private reading prepare the way for religious opposition and the Reformation, as some have maintained?29 Aristocrats often owned liturgical books in Latin like a missal and breviary, which are assumed to have been used by their private chaplains. As early as 1200, however, prominent members of the aristocracy also owned prayer-books for their private use. In this early period a private prayer book contained the psalms of David and was known as a Psalter. Ten Psalters owned by Scandinavians are known from the period 1150-1350; all of them were written in France, England, or Flanders. The owners of these Psalters would have been members of the royal families or the high aristocracy. Many Psalters were owned by women; other Psalters might have been owned by the church. This pattern probably reflects the spread of literacy, which was limited primarily to the aristocracy at that time. All these early prayer-books were written in Latin. Some have questioned whether lay owners were able to read them, but St Birgitta was certainly not the only Scandinavian woman who received a literate education at the beginning of the fourteenth century and could read at least vernacular texts.30 In any case, they had clerics in their service who could translate for them. In the period that followed, the pattern changed. From 1350 to 1450 only three Psalters are preserved, but all were written in Scandinavia, at least two in Birgittine monasteries. But Psalters were gradually superseded by prayer books containing more personal prayers for a variety of needs and purposes.31 From the 1320s aristocratic women owned collections of Latin prayers to St Mary. A 28

See infra: pp. 198-199. E.g. Susan Groag BELL, “Medieval women book owners: Arbiters of lay piety and ambassadors of culture”, in: Women and Power in Middle Ages, ed. Mary ERLER et al. (Athens, 1988), pp. 149-187. 30 Birgitta FRITZ, “Privata böcker och boksamlingar under folkungatiden”, in: Helgerånet, ed. Kerstin ABUKHANFUSA et al. (Stockholm, 1993), pp. 37-45, pp. 42-45. 31 Tue GAD, “Psalter”, in: KLNM 13, cols. 583-595. Claes GEJROT, “Anna Karlsdotters bønbok”, in: Medeltida skrift- och språkkultur, ed. Inger LINDELL (Stockholm, 1994), pp. 15-16. 29

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large number of prayer books in the vernacular dating from 1450-1536 are preserved both in Denmark and Sweden; after 1495, prayer books were also printed. These books were more poorly illustrated than those from the High Middle Ages, indicating that the owners belonged to lower social groups. Of the eighteen extant Danish prayer books, six are books of hours, where the central element is the cycle of canonical prayers which all clerics were obliged to pray every day. The remaining twelve contain a varied and often unsystematic selection of prayers. Often the authors made their books attractive by promising questionable spiritual benefits to those who prayed: “The following prayer is to be found in the book of St Birgitta. It was prayed by a robber in his last hour, and it saved him from the pains of hell.”32 From Sweden an equally large number of prayer-books have been preserved, most of them produced at Vadstena. On the eve of the Reformation similar books were produced all over Northern Europe “in multiple editions in thousands, in formats ranging from the sumptuous to the skimpy, and varying in price from pounds to a few pence”. 33 Almost all private owners of prayer books were women. All the Danish prayer books mentioned above seem to have been made for women, most of them aristocrats. About twenty prayer books are preserved from the convent of Vadstena for the private use of the nuns.34 The church encouraged parents to teach their daughters to read, and to give them reading material which could help to save their souls. Two letters by the church father Jerome on the subject were widely read in the Middle Ages. “Read often and learn as much as you can”, he wrote to a young girl. He wrote to a mother about how to teach her daughter to read. Her ABC-book, he wrote, should be the Bible.35 An edifying book with a wider purpose than just offering a selection of prayers was The Soul’s Comfort, which also contained an explication of the Ten Commandments. It was translated from German into Swedish at Vadstena around 1420, and was distributed widely. One of the chapters describes how to behave in church when attending mass. The reader is told when to rise to his feet, sit and kneel, and when to make the sign of the cross. At certain places in the mass he was to ‘read’ his prayers, but these were not supposed to be per-

32

Middelalderens danske bønnebøger 1, ed. Karl Martin NIELSEN (Copenhagen, 1946), p. 128 and XXI-XXXVI. 33 DUFFY, Stripping of the Altars, p. 209. 34 GEJROT, “Anna Karlsdotters bønbok”, pp. 15-16. 35 Nanna DAMSHOLT, “Læs ofte og lær så meget du kan! Om kvinders læse- og skrivefærdighed i middelalderen”, in: Kirkehistorier, ed. Nanna DAMSHOLT et al. (Copenhagen, 1996), p. 57. BELL, “Medieval women book owners”, p. 162.

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Illustration 29. Prayer book written in Denmark in 1497 for Anna Bradisdatter, who was a nun in the Birgittine convent of Maribo. She belonged to an aristocratic family from Skåne.36 The book contains short prayers. The first prayer on the page opposite is headed in red ink A Beautiful Prayer to St Apollonia. The prayer itself reads as follows: O thou chosen and dignified virgin of Jesus Christ St Apollonia, offer up your prayers to the Lord for my load of sins, so that I shall not be tortured so severely with headache and toothache for my trespasses. Pray for us, St Apollonia, that we may be given eternal joy. This is a prayer for practical help against headache and toothache, but at the same time for the remission of sins. This manuscript had a different readership and purpose from the collection of homilies shown on page 54. It was written for an aristocratic woman, so it is no surprise that it should convey prestige and distinction. This is seen in the beautiful handwriting, the use of red ink in the headings, the simple but charming marginal paintings and the harmonious appearance of the whole page. But the beauty of the calligraphy and layout may also have helped Anna to contemplate the content of the prayer, to make it heartfelt and intense. The headings and large initials in red ink and the illuminations depicting saints – including St Apollonia with a tooth in her hand – may also have had the practical purpose of making it easier to find the right prayer. The clear and large hand, with few lines on each page and the division into short prayers, may have made the text easier to read for those who were less trained in the art of reading. But this would not have been a problem for Anna, who was a literate nun. Photo: Royal Library, Copenhagen. KB Thott 553 4o.

sonal; the book gives the texts. The author makes no effort to explain the spiritual meaning of the different stages of the mass. We are left with the impression that the main purpose of the author was to create conformity in external behaviour, not to give the reader a profounder understanding of the spiritual meaning of the mass or present new religious ideas.37 Printing came to Scandinavia in the 1480s,38 and is often presented as having broken the monopoly on religious information formerly held by the church: laypeople got the opportunity to read on their own and form their own opinions, which prepared the way for the Reformation.39 The reality was different. The 36

PETERSEN, Levende ord og lysende billeder. 1. Katalog, p. 46. GAD, “Psalter”. Jarl GALLÉN, “Bönböcker”, in: KLNM 2, cols. 505-508. Hans H. RONGE, “Siælinna thröst”, in: KLNM 15, cols. 307-310. JØRGENSEN, “Studier over danske bogsamlinger”, pp. 60-64. PERNLER, Sveriges kyrkohistoria 2, p. 247 and 252. IDEM, “En mässa för folket”, pp. 102-122. GEJROT, “Anna Karlsdotters bønbok”. 38 See supra: p. 9. 39 Trond Berg ERIKSEN, Budbringerens overtak (Oslo, 1987), pp. 80-81. 37

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handwritten prayer-books mentioned above were never controlled or censored by the church, and were written and copied on private initiative. It was easier to spread unorthodox views in manuscripts than in printed books. Prayer books read in Scandinavia on the eve of the Reformation did not contain unorthodox views. Those who read religious books did so to save their souls, not to learn new and exciting theories on man and God. The Scandinavian church had used writing for 500 years to indoctrinate laymen with its message. At the close of the Middle Ages the wide elite of literate laymen – and women – had internalized the teachings of the church and accepted its doctrines. Even if private reading of religious books did not sow dissenting views in the minds of laymen, they were part of the long-term development of religious individualization. In Scandinavia this process began around 1200 and continued into the early modern period. Literacy was important for church development in the Late Middle Ages. The two most important changes in this period were the inclusion of Scandinavia in the papal bureaucracy and increasing religious individualization. Literacy was essential for the first change; for the second it was an important factor. But these new uses of literacy did not have significant consequences in other sectors of society.

Reinforcement of the Vernacular as an Administrative Language by the State and Merchants After ca. 1350, state administration and trade were the most dynamic forces in the spread of literacy in the Scandinavian countries.

The Royal Chanceries Taken Over by Laymen In Denmark and Sweden, the new uses of literacy came from the top, from the king and his chancery. In the High Middle Ages the chancellor and most of his staff were clerics who also worked as priests in the king’s service or had a position in the church. After 1400 an increasing number of them were laymen and after 1500 the chancery staff became more professional, in Denmark as well as Sweden. The Late Middle Ages saw a secularization and professionalization of royal chanceries.

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In Sweden for most of the Late Middle Ages there was no single archive and chancellor responsible for the whole realm. The kings considered their correspondence as their private property and brought parts of it along with them on their journeys, but how the rest of their archive was kept could vary. The first two kings who had a correspondence of some importance (ca. 1275-1318) carried with them the letters most used, but letters which were important but rarely used were deposited at the cathedral in Uppsala. Sweden was governed by regents from 1318 to 1331, and the archive seems to have been deposited at Linköping Cathedral, whose bishop was one of the regents. King Magnus (1331-1363) had four chests of letters in the castle of Båhus in 1346; he had probably deposited another part of his archive in Stockholm. From 1363 to 1434 Sweden had first a German and then a Danish king, and they did not keep a separate Swedish chancery.40 Leading Swedish prelates and secular magnates organized themselves into a ‘council of the realm’ (riksrådet). Sometimes this body formed a counterweight to the king; in other periods it governed alone. Sweden was governed by the council from 1434 to 1441, and the Bishop of Strängnäs held an important position there. Both chancery and archive were kept at his cathedral; a registrum, a book containing copies of important correspondence, was maintained as well.41 Sweden again had a foreign king from 1441 to 1448, but letters of lasting importance for the realm were kept at Uppsala Cathedral. King Karl Knutsson and the council of the realm competed for power from 1448 to 1470; each had their own chancery and archive. When in power, King Karl had his chancery at the castle of Stockholm, which at this time emerged as the country’s capital. The Archbishop of Uppsala was the leading man in the council of the realm, and the archive was at his cathedral.42 From 1471 to 1520 the council of the realm was in power, but the authority to keep a chancery and an archive was divided between three authorities: the regent (riksföreståndare), the Archbishop of Uppsala and the Bishop of Strängnäs. In the periods when there was a regent, he kept a chancery and archive of his own.43 Documents which regulated the relationship between king and aristocracy were kept at the archbishop’s cathedral in Uppsala. But the

40 41 42 43

SCHÜCK, SCHÜCK, SCHÜCK, SCHÜCK,

Rikets brev och register , pp. 561-562. Rikets brev och register , p. 564. Rikets brev och register, p. 565. Rikets brev och register, pp. 411-449.

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Illustration 30. Iron-clad wooden chest from the parish church of Ferring in Jylland, Denmark, fifteenth century. It was used for the church’s valuables, including documents and liturgical books. The king preserved his charters and other written material in similar chests, and could transport them by ship or wagon when travelling between the residences in his realm. At the time of the Reformation in the 1530s, the documents of the monasteries in the diocese of Oslo were stored at Akershus castle. A description of them from 1622 gives an impression of medieval archival practices. The documents were kept in a room with stone vaulting, probably to protect them from fire, and were stored in six chests and two boxes. The charters from the monasteries of Hovedøy, Nonneseter, and Verne were kept in three separate chests; perhaps before the Reformation these chests of documents had been kept at the respective monasteries. In each chest were many smaller ‘boxes’ (esker), probably made of wood, or ‘packets’ (packeeter), probably bundles of documents held together with a cord. There were also drawers in the chests. Each box, packet, and drawer was marked with a letter of the alphabet. There must have been a register for each chest indicating what a box or packet contained. If the same archival practices were used in the medieval monasteries, the monks and nuns should have had a fair chance of finding the documents they needed in their storage chests. Photo: National Museum, Copenhagen.

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Illustration 31. This cabinet was made in 1473; it belonged to the chapter of Roskilde cathedral. Behind the doors were drawers filled with documents. As the photo shows, the contents of each drawer were recorded on the front of the drawer. The state administrations needed larger archives than this. Preserved medieval offices in the town hall of Lüneburg show how drawers were put in cupboards which were built into the wall or how archive boxes were placed on shelves (cf. G. DAHLBÄCK, I medeltidens Stockholm (Stockholm, 1987), p. 60). Photo: Jens-Jørgen Frimand.

main chancery and archive was at the cathedral of Strängnäs. A registrum of outgoing letters was also maintained there, and the Bishop of Strängnäs had the title ‘chancellor of the realm’ (rikens kansler).44 Not until the 1520s did the new and strengthened monarchy of Gustav Vasa (1521-1560) create one central chancery with archive and registers of outgoing correspondence. King Gustav had archives which had previously been kept at the cathedrals of Strängnäs, Uppsala, or Linköping either transported to Stockholm or copied.45 Throughout 44

SCHÜCK, “Svenska Pariserstudier under medeltiden”, pp. 389, 405 and 593. SCHÜCK , Rickets brev och register, pp. 254, 256 and 567-568. Jan LIEDGREN, “Arkiv”, in: KLNM 1, cols. 212-232. Erik KROMAN, “Arkiv: Øvrige Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 232-236. CARLSON, “Kansli: Sverige”. NIELSEN, “Kansli: Danmark”. AVERGOLT, “Kansli: Norge”. 45

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these developments, only the kings’ and regents’ chanceries were secularized. In 1451 a layman was appointed as the king’s chancellor for the first time.46 In Denmark the state archive was originally at the castles of Vordingborg and Kalundborg, but ca. 1500 they were concentrated at the castle of Copenhagen. Up to about 1400 the staff of the chancery was exclusively made up of clerics, partly because the kings’ correspondence was in Latin. After 1400 a growing part of the correspondence was in Danish and the chancery was increasingly staffed by lay ‘secretaries’. The great reorganization and institutionalization of the chancery came under Christian II (1513-1523). Instructions for the chancery are preserved from his reign. The incoming letters were to be handed out to different clerks according to geographic provenance, and afterwards put into archive cabinets. The outgoing letters were to be registered and their main content written in copybooks. Such registers are known as early as the reign of Christian I (1448-1481), but from 1523 they are preserved continuously.47 They parallel the English chancery rolls, which started around 1193. Scandinavian developments were thus 300 years behind the English.48 After ca. 1515/1525, Denmark and Sweden both had chanceries staffed by professional laymen in the king’s service.

Use of New Accounting Methods by the Crown By 1350 the Scandinavian kings had obtained top-level control of all secular jurisdiction in their realms. Now followed a competition between the Danish and Swedish states for supremacy in Scandinavia. Mobilization of military and financial resources in this struggle became the main priority. The fastest growing part of the king’s administration in this period was connected to state finances. The result was increasing use of writing in non-judicial and particularly financial administration. Before ca. 1350, accounting in Scandinavian state administration always seems to have been oral in the sense that written registers only gave the norm, and the bailiff explained discrepancies orally.49 Around 1350 at the latest, the 46 CARLSSON, “Kansli: Sverige”. NIELSEN, “Kansli: Danmark”. AGERHOLT, “Kansli: Norge”. 47 Troels DAHLERUP, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie 6 (Copenhagen, 1989), p. 238 and 240. CARLSSON, “Kansli: Sverige”. NIELSEN, “Kansli: Danmark”. AGERHOLT, “Kansli: Norge”. 48 CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 68-73 and 152. 49 See supra: pp. 74-75. According to LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 69, there is evidence in King Magnus of Sweden’s will from 1346 that those receiving the king’s incomes

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use of writing had been extended to include quittances from the king to the bailiff. In 1350 King Magnus had ‘heard and had’ (audita et habita) the account of Ingemar Ragnvaldsson concerning what he had received and paid while he was bailiff of Skara, and in return issued a written quittance.50 The wording implies that the accounting was oral. This is further illustrated in a letter from Queen Margareta, the de facto ruler of the Scandinavian countries, to her fosterson King Erik in 1405. She ordered the young King Erik not to ‘hear or receive accounts’ from the captains of the royal castles in Norway or ‘give them letters of quittance in return’, because she had reserved for herself the right to ‘hear their accounts and give them letters of quittance’. The normal procedure between the monarch and the captains at this time evidently was that the captain gave an oral account, handed over the surplus in money or in kind, and received a written quittance in return.51 As early as the twelfth century in England, sheriffs had to give annual written accounts of the money actually received, the so-called Pipe Rolls.52 The practice was introduced to Scandinavia from Germany, and was first used in extraordinary circumstances. The first known accounts were written in Latin in Sweden 1365-1367 by the bailiff Raven von Barnekow to the then king Albrecht von Mecklenburg, both Germans. They were evidently written to prove that von Barnekow’s expenses were far larger than his income in those years, and that the king owed him money.53 It was probably not the practice among Scandinavian royal officials to write accounts at this time, but gradually written accounts developed from being the exception to being the rule. The King of Sweden from 1363 to 1389 was also the Duke of Mecklenburg in Germany, which explains the early use of such accounts in Sweden. The first known accounts written by a native Scandinavian royal official in the vernacu-

were to give written accounts to the king’s representatives every year. But the will states that the latter should ‘each year receive and hear accounts’ (hwart aar rækneskap taka oc hora), which implies that the accounting was to be oral (DS No. 4069). Larsson’s discussion of the subject (e.g. p. 96) shows that she does not distinguish between a land register (jordabok) and an account (räkenskap). See also: LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 170-171. 50 DS, No. 4610. 51 NGL 2. rk. I, p. 79. 52 CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 66 and 92. Encyclopedia Britannica Online (2003): “Pipe Rolls”. 53 Erik LÖNNROTH, Statsmakt och statsfinans i det medeltida Sverige (Göteborg, 1940), pp. 156-164. Arthur PEETRE, “Länsräkenskaper: Sverige”, in: KLNM 11, cols. 111-113. Merete DAHLERUP, “Länsräkenskaper: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 113-114. Rolf FLADBY, “Länsräkenskaper: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 115-117. Aulis OJA, “Länsräkenskaper: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 117-118.

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lar are from the captain of the Swedish castle of Borgholm to the queen 14221425.54 In Denmark the surviving accounts (lensregnskap) start getting numerous from around 1450, particularly in Schleswig-Holstein. From the time of Christian II in Denmark (1513-1523) and Gustav Vasa in Sweden (1521-1560) the chancery received annual written accounts from the captains of the royal castles and copied them into their own books. The main principle of accounting was that each kind of goods was entered in separate parts of the book, detailing the incomes and expenses in money, grain, butter, fish et cetera separately. In this way the captain would know the quantities of each item there were supposed to be in his cellar or in his coffer at the end of the accounting period. These are comprehensive and detailed accounts, and are preserved in increasing numbers from ca. 1520 onwards.55 But these annual or semi-annual written accounts did not exempt the captains of the royal castles from appearing at the chancery. The Danish captain of Bergenhus castle 1514-1523, Jørgen Hanssøn, was in Copenhagen at least once a year, some years twice. He and other captains of the royal castles personally handed over the accounts and the surplus in money and goods.56 After 1400 the kings reduced their travelling and resided more permanently in their capitals, although the Danish king continued to spend much time in Schleswig. Fewer royal visits combined with a stronger desire for central control resulted in an increasing stream of letters between the capital and local officials, particularly after 1500. But this should not be seen only as a transition from orality to literacy in the royal administration. The captains of the castles also had to come to the capital more often and appear in person for oral consultations with the king. The king’s demand for increasing control of his local officials led to more oral communication through visits in the capital, but above all to more written communication through correspondence and written accounts. So far we have discussed the use of writing between the king and the captains of the royal castles. But what about the relationship between these captains (høvedsmenn) and the bailiffs (fogder) they had in their service? The latter did 54

PEETRE, “Länsräkenskaper: Sverige”. DAHLERUP, “Länsräkenskaper: Danmark”. FLADBY, “Länsräkenskaper: Norge”. OJA, “Länsräkenskaper: Finland”. 55 LÖNNROTH, Statsmakt och statsfinans i Sverige, p. 246. PEETRE, “Länsräkenskaper: Sverige”. DAHLERUP, “Länsräkenskaper: Danmark”. FLADBY, “Länsräkenskaper: Norge”. OJA, “Länsräkenskaper: Finland”. 56 Bjørn Saxe UTNE, “Høvedsmannsinstitusjonen i det nordafjelske Norge 1500-1524”, Bergens historiske forenings skrifter 72/73 (1973), pp. 7-224, p. 170.

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the actual collecting of taxes in the local communities, and they prosecuted crimes and collected fines. In the extant accounts for Akershus castle in Oslo from 1528, eleven bailiffs are mentioned. They resided a large part of the year at the castle, and did not have a permanent residence in the district they were responsible for. When on duty there, they rode with their armed assistants from farm to farm and slept in the houses of the peasants. In such circumstances it goes without saying that there was no need for correspondence between the captain of Akershus castle and his bailiffs. The bailiffs in the 1520s did not write accounts for the fixed annual incomes they received from the peasants as they were supposed to be approximately the same as in years past. But the incomes which did vary from year to year, like fines and extra taxes, were written down in detail with the names of the individuals who had paid them. These detailed accounts from the bailiffs were handed over to the captain of the castle and passed on by him to the chancery in Copenhagen.57 They gave the chancery a fair chance to check what the bailiffs were doing. The most prominent feature in the development of the Scandinavian states’ administrative literacy in the Late Middle Ages was the transition from oral to literate accounting. Why this development? Oral accounting functioned fairly well when the incomes were fixed. That was the case in the High Middle Ages for the church and to a large extent for the state. In the Late Middle Ages the struggle between Denmark and Sweden gradually became more intense, and for the Swedish state it was, in the end, a question of survival. At the same time, professional soldiers and firearms made wars more expensive. The solution was to impose additional, heavier taxes in wartime. They had to be collected without alienating the peasants, so it was important for the local bailiffs to be seen as honest. Larger taxes varying annually and fears of peasant rebellions all increased the need for a more detailed monitoring of local officials, and here writing was a useful instrument. The increasing incomes and powers of Scandinavian kings from 1500 to 1536 have traditionally been ascribed to an increasing tax burden. Historians have also pointed to the fact that a larger number of the royal castles were given out as ‘fiefs of account’ (regnskapslen), where the captain was only allowed to keep enough of the castle’s earnings to cover his own expenses, plus a fixed wage. In our context it should be asked whether the ‘fief of account’ would

57

NEDKVITNE, Oslo bys historie 1 (Oslo, 1991), p. 390.

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Illustration 32. Wax tablets from Gdansk dated 1406-1440. The photo shows two tablets of a set of more than fourteen. The frame is made of wood, and the black surface was covered with wax. A metal stylus was used to write on the wax. Changes were easily made by rubbing the wax smooth and rewriting – almost as easy as making changes on a computer! The tablets in this picture were used by a tax collector in the town of Gdansk. Most of the taxpayers would be the same from year to year, but the sums paid could change, so a wax tablet and stylus were more practical than parchment and ink, apart from being much cheaper.58 Several fragments of wax tablets have been found in archaeological excavations in Scandinavia, but this well-preserved set from Gdansk better illustrates how they functioned. Photo: National Museum, Copenhagen. NM Catalogue No. 10387.

have been possible at all without the gradual increase in accounting and letterwriting. Stricter control – made possible by literacy – prevented too much of the increasing tax revenue from ending up in the pockets of local officials. The numerous secular scribes in the king’s chancery and the royal castles, and the literate bailiffs writing accounts on their itineraries between villages and local communities, presuppose an extensive literacy among laymen in the king’s service, even at a local level. In Scandinavia this was a new phenomenon in the Late Middle Ages. In England the barons were largely literate before 1200, and by 1300 the same could be said for the local gentry and knights.59 The local elite became literate at least 200 years later in Scandinavia; in this respect Scandinavia was at the margin of Europe.

Transition from Latin to the Vernacular in the Swedish and Danish Judiciary The great expansion in the use of writing in the judiciary took place before 1350 in all Scandinavia. In the Late Middle Ages the most important novelty in judicial literacy was a transition from Latin to the vernacular both in Denmark and Sweden. In Sweden, laws were written in the vernacular from the 1220s. This was the first time the Swedish language was written in the Roman alphabet rather than runes. Open letters from bishop and king were frequently written in Swedish from the 1280s, probably because they were read publicly for laymen who did not know Latin.60 The oldest preserved charter written in Swedish is a mort 58 59 60

Margrete 1. p. 320. CLANCHY, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 76-78. SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy, pp. 106-108. ARUP SEIP,

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gage of land from an aristocratic woman in 1330, and the first sale of land between two private persons written in the vernacular dates to 1348.61 In 1347 the king published a written verdict in Swedish for the first time.62 The emergence of vernacular documents in the judiciary in the 1340s must be understood in the context of the sharp rise in the use of Latin documents in the preceding period. From the 1280s to the 1340s the use of Latin documents had become increasingly important in the judiciary and involved more people who did not know Latin.63 For a judiciary that involved ordinary peasants and townsmen to function well, the relevant documents had to be understood by all parties when read aloud in court. The Swedish king had a ready example of how this could function in Norway, where judicial documents had always been issued in the vernacular. In about 1350 the king issued a national law (landslag) which demanded that all property transfers and verdicts were to be written in the vernacular. A couple of years later he issued an urban law (stadslag) requiring that all property transfers be written down in the town’s registry (stadens bok) in Swedish by the town clerk, who was to be a Swede and not a German. At this time there was a significant minority of Germans in Swedish towns.64 The laws were largely observed, and from 1352 onwards an increasing number of charters were issued as prescribed in Swedish.65 The types of judicial documents were diversified and given Swedish names.66 After 1360 Latin letters grew rare, and after 1400 Latin was a language used only among churchmen and to foreign addressees. In Denmark Latin had a stronger position, but laws began to be written in the vernacular from the 1170s. Magnates and royal officials needed them in their work, and they were also read aloud for laymen at the Thing assemblies; neither group understood Latin.67 The laws, however, were an early exception in the use of the vernacular. From 1371 onwards there are a few charters in Danish which were used in court cases; these are from the area east of Øresund and were evidently inspired by Swedish practice. From 1377 the chancery started writing some letters in Danish, probably inspired by Queen Margareta, “Diplomspråk”. 61 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 106 and 128-129. 62 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 60 and 128-129. 63 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 76-77 and cf. p. 254. 64 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 58-59. 65 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 86. 66 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 124-189. 67 DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, pp. 154-155. KVÆRNDRUP, “Kristning og feudalisering”, p. 172. KROMAN, “Valdemars sjællandske lov”. NORSENG, “Lovmaterialet”, pp. 53-54.

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who knew Swedish and Norwegian practice. After 1400 Danish appears in charters west of Øresund as well, and after 1425 most letters were written in the vernacular all over Denmark. From 1461 the title herredsskriver appears; this official was to be present at the sessions of the local courts in the countryside and give the parties a transcript of the verdicts in Danish. The presence of this part-time official demonstrates that administrative literacy in the vernacular had become an institutionalized part of the local administration of justice.68 Increasing use of literacy in the judiciary promoted the use of vernacular languages. Large numbers of charters in private possession confirming legal titles to property made peasants feel that written documents and literacy were important for them and their households. The letters had to be in the vernacular in order to make them comprehensible to the lay owners and those attending court proceedings. Such documents had always been in the vernacular in Norway, and their number exploded from the 1290s. In Sweden their number also increased from the same period, but they were not written in the vernacular until after 1350. In Denmark, charters in the vernacular were common after 1400.69 In Sweden and Denmark this marks the beginning of the use of the vernacular in state administration, an important event in the development of the native language in both countries.70 In Norway and Iceland it was not equally important in this respect because Norse had been the administrative language from the very beginning.

Merchants’ Use of Literacy Becomes More Competitive Up to about 1400, church and state were the main agents for the spread of literacy in Scandinavia. But in the Late Middle Ages, native Scandinavian merchants increasingly used writing in their work. They became a dynamic force in the spread of literacy independently from church and state. The following discussion will be concentrated on Norway, because the question seems to have been little discussed in the other Scandinavian countries. In Venice and other North Italian cities long distance merchants started to use writing in their trade in the decades after ca. 1150. The first stage seems to have been that writing was used to record debts and other obligations which had a potential for ending up in court. A credit was given to a customer or a busi68

DAHLERUP, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie 6, p. 318. ARUP SEIP, “Diplomspråk”. The herredsskriver is different from the herredsfoged. 69 See supra: pp. 87-91. SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy, p. 147. 70 SÖDERBERG and LARSSON, Nordisk medeltidsliteracy, pp. 146-148.

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ness partner and this was recorded in a charter. When the debt was settled, the charter was handed back. This use of writing should be seen on the background of the political position of the merchant elite in their home cities. In the period 1100-1300 this elite participated extensively in urban government by having part time administrative and political functions. Judicial literacy was needed and practised in both urban administration and trade. The merchants mostly used notaries but they could also write their own charters.71 The next step was to use writing for non-judicial purposes like accounting and business correspondence. The first extant account book written by a North Italian (Florentine) merchant is from 1211.72 North European merchants used little writing before ca. 1250. They travelled in person from market to market, where they bought and sold goods for money or exchanged one commodity for another. This method of trade did not require writing. Scandinavian merchants were active in this kind of foreign trade all through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Norwegians who went abroad to trade were often the servants of bishops, monasteries, magnates or the king. English customs accounts show that Norwegian traders’ visits in England were irregular, years passing between each visit. The merchants could hardly be called professionals.73 But after 1250 the merchants of the Hansa towns used writing in their longdistance trade as a normal and regular part of their work.74 Norwegian merchants were not complete strangers to this practice. At the beginning of the fourteenth century English merchants were buying goods in England for Norwegian merchants and the communication between the two was written.75 But for Norwegians this was the exception; for the Hansa merchants it was regular practice. Writing made it possible for one merchant to buy and sell goods on behalf of other merchants living in other towns. A merchant would receive goods and an accompanying letter telling him what prices were acceptable for the goods and what to buy in return. In his return letter the merchant would inform his correspondent about prices and quality. He would keep a written account on goods bought and sold on behalf of the other. An example of this is the cooper71 72 73

FEES, Eine Stadt lernt schreiben, p. 137-174. FEES, Eine Stadt lernt schreiben, pp. 137, 172 and n. 228. Arnved NEDKVITNE, Utenrikshandelen fra det vestafjelske Norge (Oslo, 1983), pp. 230-

245. 74 Ahasverus von BRANDT, Geist und Politik in der Lübeckischen Geschichte (Lübeck, 1954), p. 323. NEDKVITNE, Utenrikshandelen, pp. 230-232. 75 NEDKVITNE, Utenrikshandelen, p. 243.

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Illustration 33. Letter box for the shoemakers’ guild in Odense, Denmark, 1519. Here they kept their statutes, account book, privileges and other charters. The box is made of metal, probably to protect it from fire. Normally aldermen would keep their guild’s documents in their private homes. Similar letter boxes of metal may have been used by church wardens, private merchants, or landowners, who also kept important written material but in limited quantities. Photo: Odense City Museums.

ation of three Hansa merchants in the Bergen trade. Johan Sina was a rich Lübeck merchant, a councillor in his hometown where he bought grain to be shipped to Bergen. Hermann Hesse lived in Bergen and administered the trade with Norwegian fishermen. Simon Hake lived in Bruges; his duty was evidently to sell stockfish he received from Bergen and buy cloth to be sent to Bergen. When he died in 1460 he left an account book of the trade he had done on behalf of the two other merchants.76 With their literacy, Hanseatic merchants created networks which the Scandinavian merchants could not match. Writing was also a precondition for extending credit. In the Bergen trade Hanseatic merchants are mentioned as extending credit to Norwegian fishermen for the first time in 1359. It goes without saying that the debt had to be in writing if the Hanseatic merchant was to keep track of 44 to 130 debtors, which are 76

NEDKVITNE, Utenrikshandelen, p. 133.

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the figures given by the two first extant lists of debtors from 1473 and 1578. The merchants got help from the local bailiffs if they had problems getting their money back, or if a fisherman died in debt. Writing must have been necessary if a contested claim was to be accepted by the courts.77 Literacy made it possible to buy and sell through a commission agent and give credit. Both were necessary for merchants in an international network of long-distance traders. There is agreement among Scandinavian historians that the Hanseatic merchants’ systematic use of writing was an important, probably the most important, cause for their dominance in Northern Europe after 1250.78 But a technological advantage of that kind does not last forever, and gradually the Scandinavian merchants started to catch up. In Denmark, Hanseatic merchants started settling in towns all over the country after ca. 1370; an increasing number found it to their advantage to register with the authorities as Danish citizens, thus enjoying the same trading rights as Danish merchants and paying their taxes in Denmark. In Oslo local merchants started expanding their trade after 1440, and many of them, perhaps the majority, were German and Danish immigrants. Hanseatic merchants started settling in Stockholm and other Swedish towns after 1250, and after two or three generations in Stockholm they were considered as Swedes by the authorities.79 In the fifteenth century the Scandinavian towns acquired a native merchant class which used writing just like merchants in German and Dutch towns. This happened at the same period that elementary schooling in the vernacular became common in Danish and Swedish towns, and literacy began to be used more extensively in local administration.80 By the end of the medieval period it seems that even trading peasants wrote accounts. In 1544-6 Anders Ogels, the son of a peasant living in the village of Høyer in Jylland, wrote an account book of his trade in Hamburg, Ribe and Skåne in what was then Denmark, and with neighbouring peasants and fishermen in several coastal villages.81 He could hardly have managed his wide-ranging trade without literacy. But how typical was Ogels for Scandinavian peasant

77

NEDKVITNE, Utenrikshandelen, pp. 268 and 272-277. Poul ENEMARK, “Hansan: Danmark”, in: KLNM 6, cols. 201-207. Aksel E. CHRISTENSEN, “Danmark”, in: Hansestæderne og Norden (Århus, 1957), pp. 55-96, p. 74. NEDKVITNE, Utenrikshandelen, pp. 245-246. 79 CHRISTENSEN, “Danmark”, pp. 89-92. ENEMARK, “Hansan: Danmark”, col. 205. Göran DAHLBÄCK, I medeltidens Stockholm (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 52-53 and 57. NEDKVITNE, Oslo bys historie 1 (Oslo, 1991), pp. 365-380. 80 See infra: pp. 184-186. 81 POULSEN, Bondens penge, pp. 50-77. 78

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Illustration 34. Stockholm’s Book of Memory 1474-1478 is a record of the decisions of Stockholm’s town council. The council was the highest judicial court in the town and many of the entries are verdicts or confirmations of legal titles to property. The private account books of Stockholm merchants may have had a similar appearance. Photo: Lennart Ploom. Stockholm Stadsarkiv, Stockholm stads tänkebok 1474-1478 BoR 1, pp. 120-121.

traders at the end of the medieval period? He lived in the southernmost part of Denmark, writing in German, and his account book started eight years after the Reformation. But it is probable that a peasant elite at the end of the Middle Ages had literate skills, which by that time were common in the towns. Was increased literacy the cause of Scandinavian merchants’ expansion into foreign markets? Or was it the other way round? Did Scandinavian expansion into distant markets make commission trade and credit necessary, in turn forcing merchants to activate a literate knowledge which many of them already possessed? Did it persuade them to give their sons a literate education and pay for elementary schools in their hometowns? The relationship of cause and effect

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is difficult to distinguish. But town schools, a systematic use of writing in trade, and expansion into foreign markets were definitely interrelated developments. But behind both the acquisition of literate learning and the start of longdistance trading was the merchants’ will to increase their own incomes and social standing. Literacy was an instrument used to this end. The introduction of writing in commerce illustrates how literacy could be seen as a necessary element, but not the sole cause of important economic and social developments.

The Rise of Vernacular Schooling In the earliest period the purpose of schools was to educate priests, and schools were mainly located at cathedrals or monasteries. In a few big cities without cathedrals, there were schools administered by the clergy of the larger parish churches. The school of St James’ Church in Visby is known from 1225, and the one in Söderköping from 1349, but the best known are those of the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen from 1247 and Storkyrkan (‘The Great Church’) in Stockholm from 1315.82 All these schools seem to have been institutions for the education of clerics, like the cathedral schools.83 But in the fifteenth century the number of schools skyrocketed.84 The new so-called town school (stadsskole) was financed by the town, often through a special tax. The teachers were usually appointed and paid by the town council, but given a stamp of approval by the clergy of the town. The schools were often connected to one of the parish churches. Their purpose was to give secular education in vernacular literacy and arithmetic. Some pupils became merchants, artisans or clerks in secular administration, but they could also proceed to an ecclesiastical education at a cathedral school. These schools start to appear in Denmark from 1406 (Malmö), in Sweden perhaps somewhat earlier. Without these new schools, the expansion in secular literacy after 1400 would hardly have been possible.85 82

In the Middle Ages, Storkyrkan was a parish church in Uppsala diocese. It became the cathedral of the newly created Stockholm diocese in 1942. 83 Vagn SKOVGAARD PETERSEN, “Skole”, in: KLNM 15, cols. 631-637. Herman SCHÜCK, “Skole: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 637-639. Einar MOLLAND, “Skole: Norge”, Ibidem, col. 639. Jakob BENEDIKTSSON, “Skole: Island”, Ibidem, col. 640. Jarl GALLÉN, “Skole: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 640-641. Göran DAHLBÄCK, I medeltidens Stockholm (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 146-147. Jan MÖLLER, Borger i middelalderens København (Copenhagen, 1980), p. 147. 84 DAHLERUP, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie 6, p. 319. 85 DAHLERUP, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie 6, pp. 318-320. SKOVGAARDPETERSEN, “Skole”. SCHÜCK, “Skole: Sverige”. MOLLAND, “Skole: Norge”. BENEDIKTSSON,

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Illustration 35. Jesus arrives at school accompanied by Mary. A painting from Tuse parish church, Sjaelland, Denmark, ca. 1450. In the fifteenth century, many boys from elite families were introduced to literacy by their mothers. Tuse was in the countryside, so the next step for a boy there would be to become a choir boy at the local parish church and receive instruction in Latin and liturgical song from the parish priest. In larger towns the boys would also have access to a town school, which is evidently what the painter had in mind here. The pupils appear to be sitting outdoors, but the artist apparently understands them to be sitting inside the building in the background. The master of the school does not look like a priest, but rather like a professional teacher. In his left hand he holds a bundle of birch twigs for spankings; in his right hand is a special rod (ferle) to rap the boys’ knuckles. Jesus at school is a well-known theme in medieval iconography. Medieval social groups often sought holy men and women as models or protectors for their activities. This painting could be interpreted as an attempt to make Jesus a model for contemporary schoolboys. When Jesus was twelve, he was so wise that he could discourse with the ‘doctors’ in the temple (Luke 2:46). Photo: www.kalkmalerier.dk.

“Skole: Island”. GALLÉN, “Skole: Finland”. Thomas RIIS, “Danske byers fremvekst og udvikling i middelalderen”, in: Urbaniseringsprosessen i Norden: bind 1, Rapport til Det 17. nordiske historikermøte Trondheim 1977 (Trondheim, 1977), pp. 79-81.

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These schools are unknown in Norway and Iceland. From 1380 Norway and Iceland were under Danish kings who ruled from Copenhagen. In Norway in the century before the Reformation, an increasing number of Danish noblemen were appointed as captains of the castles, and an increasing number of their subordinate bailiffs (fogder) were also Danish. Traditionally this has been attributed to national preferences by the Danish kings. But it may also have been due in some cases to the better literate skills of the Danes, at least among the candidates for the subordinate positions. How can the increasing ability to read and write and use of writing after 1400 be explained? A tradition represented by Troels Dahlerup and Else Roesdahl view it as a result of new technologies. Paper was introduced to Scandinavia in about 1400 and made it much cheaper to put information into writing. This in turn triggered off a series of events giving a new role to literacy.86 Printing was another innovation from the 1480s. Schousboe, on the other hand, is sceptical of such technological explanations. She considers cheap paper as a ‘necessary prerequisite’ for the proliferation of written texts, but not its cause.87 A long-term perspective supports the latter view. There was a continuous increase in the uses of administrative writing from Christianization to the Reformation. A fuller understanding of this development should take its point of departure in social needs for literacy. In the fifteenth century, administrative writing had reached a level which made it difficult to produce enough parchment and wax tablets for new users. In fourteenth-century France, parchment of middle quality was five times as expensive as paper.88 But paper had been known in Europe from the eleventh century; it was the increased demand for writing materials after 1400 that made paper a mass article in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Social needs led to the proliferation of written texts in the fifteenth century, as was discussed above. But paper was a necessary precondition. The rise of vernacular administration and vernacular schooling in Sweden and Denmark was clearly connected to similar developments in the North German Hanseatic towns. The transition from Latin to the vernacular in town administration there took place ca. 1330; from 1369 the Hansa organization started writing its decisions and resolutions (Hanserecesse) in Low German. Schools taught the children of the burghers Latin from ca. 1250; these schools were connected to parish churches and administered by priests. But after about 1350, a new type of ‘German writing schools’ emerged which taught the chil 86

DAHLERUP, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie 6, p. 314. Else ROESDAHL, “Skrift og bog”, in: Dagligliv i Danmarks middelalder (Copenhagen, 1999), p. 242. 87 SCHOUSBOE, “Literacy and Society in Denmark”, p. 158. 88 Jean FAVIER, Dictionnaire de la France médiévale (Paris, 1993), “Papier”.

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Illustration 36. The statutes of the masons’ guild in Stockholm from 1487. The statutes had to be confirmed by the town council, and in this case the statutes were even written by the town clerk. The masons seem to have hired a professional painter, Albertus Pictor, to paint their alderman on the first page. The caption reads, “Tordh the master mason who is now the alderman”. The handwriting is clear and easy to read, with few lines to each page, making the text more accessible to the guild’s officials, whose literate skills may have been limited. The painting is in red and green, the same colours as the ink of the handwriting on the following page. Picture and text together have an aesthetic value, conveying the dignity and prestige of the master masons’ guild to the masons themselves and to others. Photo: Royal Library, Stockholm. KB Handskrift B 601, fol. 1v-2r.

dren of merchants and artisans reading and writing in the vernacular and elementary arithmetic. The earlier Latin schools and the later German writing schools were normally controlled by secular authorities.89 The same development is found in Holland; from the fourteenth century there were an increasing number of town schools controlled by the town council. Boys normally went to school between the ages of seven and fifteen.90 89 Johannes SCHILDHAUER, Die Hanse (Leipzig, 1984), pp. 178-180. Von BRANDT, Geist und Politik, p. 15. 90 MOSTERT, “Veelkleurige religie en zakelijk schriftgebruik”, pp. 183-185.

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In Swedish towns, particularly in Stockholm, there were numerous immigrants from Hanseatic towns and they appeared in increasing numbers in Denmark as well. Germans occupied half of the seats in the town councils up to 1471. It is reasonable to assume that the idea of a vernacular administration and schooling came from these German immigrants, but the ideas were accepted because similar social needs arose in Scandinavian towns. In the great Italian commercial cities the secular schools were organised differently, dominated by private teachers. Elite families partly hired a tutor who came to their homes to teach their children. But after ca. 1200 some private teachers organised their own schools where they received boys (and a few girls) who could pay the fee. These secular schools became numerous after ca. 1300, one century earlier than the rise of urban schools (Stadsskoler) in Scandinavia. In smaller Italian towns schools organised by local governments were more common, probably because private teachers found it economically less rewarding to work there.91 The Scandinavian urban schools fit into a North European, but also to some degree a general European pattern.

Private Uses of Vernacular Literacy Literacy and Personal Prestige among the Nobility Scandinavian kings and their courtiers used literacy from the eleventh century, but in the first period they had serving clerics who read and wrote for them. In the Norwegian state administration the vernacular was used from the very start, which made literacy more accessible. In the thirteenth century at least some of the lay magnates who had positions in the central administration were literate. A couple of magnates from ca. 1300 had studied law in Bologna, but they seem to have risen in the royal administration precisely because of their education; they did not belong to old lineages.92 Among the local officials around 1300, some had previously worked in the royal chancery and were definitely literate.93 The King’s Mirror, written at the Norwegian court in about 1250, does not mention literacy as important for a future king or courtier, and among the warriors at court literacy did not carry prestige. The future king Hakon Hakonarson

91 92 93

FEES, Eine Stadt lernt schreiben, pp. 190-194. BAGGE, “Universitetsbesøken: Norge”, p. 151. They were lagmenn and syslemenn. VÅGSLID, Norske skrivarar i millomalderen, p. 752.

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(1217-1263) was an orphan, and his guardian let him be taught ‘book learning’ from the age of seven. When he had gone to school for some time, the earl (his guardian) asked: “What have you been learning, Hakon?” “I have been learning to sing, my lord,” Hakon answered. “You shall not learn singing – you shall become neither priest nor bishop,” the earl replied.94

But despite these condescending remarks about literate knowledge, Hakon must have continued his schooling. We know that he and at least some of his courtiers did understand Latin. King Hakon V (1299-1319) was even able to make a speech in Latin.95 In an international perspective this is not extraordinary; in France and England, princes gave their children a literate education from the twelfth century.96 In Sweden Latin was the administrative language up to ca. 1350. Before this time, sources such as Erikskrönikan (‘Erik’s Chronicle’, ca. 1325) and translated French romances from ca. 1300-1310 do not assume that noblemen could read and write. There can be no doubt, however, that at least some of them did, although the silence of the sources suggests that it did not give prestige. Literacy belonged to the world of the clerics and gave prestige to priests and women only. It was not compatible with the self-image of a brave knight. This attitude gradually changed. After 1350 and even more after 1400, personal skills in reading and writing must have been a precondition for high office in the Swedish king’s administration. In the translated work Konungastyrelsen from the 1330s, literate skills are included among the positive attributes of kings and nobles.97 Royal officials were expected to be able to understand the letters and accounts written in their name.98 But idealizing chronicles written in Sweden continued to neglect literacy, showing it still did not carry prestige.99 Not until Karlskrönikan from the 1450s, and Schacktavelslek and Sturekrönikan from the following decades, did idealizing literature assume that noblemen could read and write. 94

Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, c. 5. Laurentius saga, c. 16. Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, c. 329. 96 BUMKE, Höfische Kultur, p. 600. 97 Sven-Bertil JANSSON, “Attityder til literacy: Nogra exempel ur svenskspråkliga texter från senmedeltiden”, in: Medeltida skrift och språkkultur, ed. Inger LINDELL (Stockholm, 1994), pp. 103-120. 98 Lars LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, in: Den svenska litteraturen 1 (Stockholm, 1987), pp. 93-123, p. 96. Thorkil DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Dansk som skriftsprog”, in: Dansk litteraturhistorie 1, ed. Søren KASPERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 392-403, 392 and 402403. 99 JANSSON, “Attityder til literacy”, pp. 103-120. 95

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In Denmark before the Reformation, aristocratic boys received the education of a knight. The main emphasis was on piety, equitation, the arts of war and courtly behaviour (gudsfrygt, krig og rytteri). They received some basic instruction at home before going to the household of another nobleman at the age of eleven or twelve to learn more, and at the age of about fifteen they were given the title of squire. If the opportunity arose, a young squire could continue his education at the court of a foreign prince. The literate part of his education was limited to elementary reading, writing and arithmetic. Many squires after ca. 1500 wrote private letters in their own hand, but the orthography and style were somewhat helpless. Some nobles were still illiterate, but the last normally intelligent nobleman who is known to have been unable to read or write was Mogens Rosenkrantz, who died in 1560. By that time the knightly education was on the decline and the literate aspects of education became more important; the higher nobility started to send their sons to foreign universities as a normal part of their education. The motive for this new interest in education is explicitly said to be esteem among colleagues and advancement in state service. The nobleman Eske Bilde in 1534 wrote to his son: “You have certainly seen yourself that a person who lacks good knowledge is despised by every man”.100 Seen in a longer perspective, these post-Reformation developments were only one step in the gradual improvement of literacy of laymen. This process of improvement began around 1200. In Denmark it improved significantly when the vernacular became the administrative language around 1400. Laymen began to write private letters in increasing quantities around 1450-1500. But why this great leap forward after the Reformation? Before that time there were two alternative educational paths for the sons of the elite, the knightly and the ecclesiastical. This created barriers as to how much literate education a son could receive without losing his knightly identity. After the Reformation the number and social status of clerics fell drastically, while at the same time the state’s need for literate administrators at all levels rose. The result was a better-educated nobility – learning was no longer connected to church service. But this was a postReformation development and as such is outside the scope of this study.101 Scandinavian developments had their parallels in other parts of Europe. The authors of Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies also point out the Late Middle Ages as breakthrough for a ‘literate mentality’:

100 Hans BJØRN, “… ganske venligen tilskrevet i egen hånd”, in: Riget magten og æren, ed. Per INGESMAN and Jens Villiam JENSEN (Århus, 2001), pp. 334-368, p. 354. 101 The discussion above is based on: BJØRN, “… ganske venligen tilskrevet i egen hånd”.

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[…] there is a good case for supposing that it was only in the later Middle Ages, and then only to a limited extent, that the Celtic countries [Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Brittany in France] witnessed the emergence of the kind of literate mentality argued by Michael Clanchy to have developed in the twelfth and thirteenth-century England as a consequence of the administrative demands of lords and rulers. Moreover, in Celtic societies extensive recourse to documents in administration appears to have resulted from the imitation or imposition of literate modes originating outside them, primarily in England and France.102

This observation seems to be relevant for Scandinavia as well. Clanchy has demonstrated that English barons and court nobles around 1200 made extensive use of the written word in their administrative work. It is difficult to accurately compare the use of writing and the ‘literate mentality’ among English, Celtic and Scandinavian nobles because the existing studies use different sources and perspectives. At the present stage of research it is nevertheless realistic to assume that the Celtic and Scandinavian ‘fringes’ of Europe were two to three centuries behind England in the use of writing in central administration. A study by Paul Saenger focuses on France and individual familiarity with written material. French lords rarely practiced silent reading before ca. 1350, letting their clerks read for them instead. This changed in the period that followed. The secretaries of King Charles V (1364-1380) wrote drafts of important documents and submitted them to the king, who read them and made corrections with his own hand. He was also the first French king to create a royal library, which was located in the Louvre. The greater familiarity with the written word was not limited to the king. The available literature in vernacular French proliferated, and its typography shows that it was to be read silently by laymen. Orthography became more standardized; the scribes started to leave spaces between the words to facilitate understanding, punctuation became more systematic and more illustrations were inserted in the texts. This indicates that the lay public was expected to read and not hear the texts.103 The study mentioned above would suggest that most Danish nobles lacked this kind of familiarity with silent reading and written texts until the sixteenth century, but only systematic comparisons can verify whether this was really so.

102 Huw PRYCE, “Introduction”, in: Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies, ed. IDEM (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 1-14, p. 8. Llinos Beverley SMITH, “The impact of literacy in late medieval Wales”, in: Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies, pp. 202-222, 213 and 217. 103 Paul SAENGER, “Lire aux derniers siècles du Moyen Age”, in: Histoire de la lecture dans le monde occidental, ed. G. CAVALLO and R. CHARTIER (Paris, 1997), pp. 165-171.

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In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, church and state officials increasingly had to write accounts of the actual incomes their institutions received in taxation and land rents, and this is the means by which they learnt accounting methods.104 In the fifteenth century lay magnates started doing the same and kept similar written accounts for their private manors and lands. The Danish magnate Sten Basse was a politician in the king’s service 14081448, and in this capacity made extensive use of written material. It is not known to what degree he did the writing himself or left it to the scribes he had in his service. In royal service, lay magnates had used writing since at least the thirteenth century, but the use of writing in their private finances seems to be a new development. Sten Basse had extensive estates all over Sjælland and Fyn which were administered by his bailiffs. They wrote accounts of the money and goods they received on Sten’s behalf. Another magnate, Mourids Gyldenstierne (1446-1503), occasionally rode in person with a scribe and ten retainers to collect his rents. The diary of his scribe is extant.105 The magnate Hartvig Krummedike personally kept a register, also still extant, of his Norwegian landed property; this register was constantly revised through the years 14561474.106 Schousboe argues that the estates of Danish magnates in the fifteenth century were more scattered than in the thirteenth, and that maintaining such widely spread holdings would have been impossible without writing. But the results of her analysis of the background for this development are ambiguous, because she attributes the changes partly to the Black Death. It remains an open question whether the increasing use of written accounts among private landowners really had important social consequences.107

How Important Was Literacy to Peasants? Increasing administrative literacy influenced the lives of ordinary people like peasants and artisans even if they themselves were unable to read or write. They could be compared to passengers crossing the Atlantic in a large ocean liner. Only a few crewmembers know how to operate the machinery and navi104

POULSEN, Bondens penge, pp. 30-49. See supra: pp. 172-177. SCHOUSBOE, “Literacy and society in Denmark”, pp. 163-165. 106 Ole J. BENEDICTOW, Hartvig Krummedikes jordegods (Oslo, 1970), p. 9. 107 SCHOUSBOE, “Literacy and society in Denmark”, p. 168. 105

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Illustration 37. In this short letter from ca. 1300, a landowner living in the rural community of Voss in western Norway authorizes his representative or attorney to sell a farm. There is only one seal, that of the seller. The letter was to be presented to the buyer to prove that the attorney was empowered to act on the seller’s behalf. Private landowners and other individuals in the elite gradually copied the ways in which the state administration used charters and other letters. The external forms of this letter are similar to the unimpressive, closed letters which the king sent to his local officials. Compare this letter with the royal letter with similar content shown on page 72. Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo. DN II, No. 61.

gate, but all the passengers benefit from their skills. The lives of illiterate peasants were influenced indirectly by literacy in several ways. Economically peasants normally produced for themselves most of what their families consumed; in this aspect, literacy was of no importance. But most peasants also sold part of their produce for money. If this took place at a nearby market for cash, no writing would be involved. But if they sold their goods to a merchant in a nearby town, they could receive credit and their names would be written into a ledger. At the end of the Middle Ages a significant part of the Scandinavian peasantry had gone even further, producing for foreign markets through intermediaries. That was so for North Norwegian and Icelandic cod fishermen, Danish herring fishermen, and Swedish miners. Long-distance exchanges of this magnitude depended on credit, commission trade, and a literate international network, as we have seen above. Part of the production had to be paid to church and state. When meeting the tax-paying peasants, the bailiff would have a written register of fixed incomes,

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and he would write an account of the extraordinary taxes. Tenants paid land rents to a landowner who probably would consult a written register. Justice seen from the peasants’ point of view was also to a large degree literate. In his storage chest the peasant might keep court verdicts or legal titles to his land. In court he would meet a judge who based his verdict on a written law. If manslaughter occurred in the local community, he would probably know that a certain procedure involving the writing of letters had to be followed if further bloodshed was to be avoided and the case settled. In Norway the law codex in use in the Late Middle Ages had been written by King Magnus (1274), and completed with ordinances by his son Hakon V (1299-1319). The peasants on some occasions mention these kings with great reverence as holy legislators. Peasants in the county of Vestfold wrote in a letter to the king in 1424: “We submit our cause to your majesty, to the Norwegian Law codex and ordinances given to us by the holy kings Magnus and Hakon”.108 The same codex was on other occasions called “The Law of St Olaf” by peasants of the Late Middle Ages. King Olaf’s law is presented as unifying all Norwegians, making them different from the intruding Danish and German officials who did not know that law.109 St Olaf’s law created a law community, which appeared as the basis for a proto-nationalism. This unifying law was written, and the peasants gave it a mythic dimension by associating it to Norway’s holy king, even if it in fact was given by King Magnus 250 years after St Olaf’s death. But the ideas of the peasants were real enough, and as such are interesting to modern historians. Jurisdiction for the peasants was also connected to the local community. Minor conflicts were solved without the use of writing by fellow peasants or by local persons of authority through voluntary arbitration. The basic principles of the law were holy and written, but the practical application of it was often oral. The Christian religion must largely have appeared to the peasants as a ‘religion of the book’. The liturgy was read from books, sermons were often read from collections of homilies or wax tablets, and the ultimate religious truths were to be found in the Bible and other holy books. Did this lead to a religious respect for the written word? The Icelandic priest Gisli said that he preferred to read his sermons because the congregation then had more confidence in what he said.110 But there is little other evidence to suggest that the written word in itself carried greater authority than the spoken word. In 1308 the Bishop of Stavanger accused a peasant of 108

DN I, No. 696. NEDKVITNE, Oslo bys historie 1, p. 403 110 See supra: p. 56. 109

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having cheated him of some land. The bishop sent a letter to the peasant’s parish priest, who was ordered to read it aloud in church every Sunday until the peasant obeyed.111 This was a common procedure; the Bishop of Bergen did the same for German merchants who refused to pay the tithe in the way the bishop demanded.112 Priests also received the same treatment. The parish priest of Selje in Bergen diocese moved away from his parish and hired a vicar to take his place. The bishop refused to accept this arrangement, and wrote a letter to a priest in a neighbouring parish ordering him to travel in person to the recalcitrant priest, and read aloud three times a letter ordering him to move back to Selje.113 Did the bishop here exploit a religious respect for the written word? Did the listeners hear not only the parish priest’s voice, but also the bishop’s voice and perhaps also the voice of God when they had the letter read to them? In all these instances the written letter also had an implicit threat of a future court case. The letter was also the voice of the jurist. It is reasonable to assume that the listener feared the future court case more than he feared the written word in itself. The power behind the written word created respect – not the word in itself, nor the book as a material object. People feared the powerful social organizations behind these words and books. In the 1250s the Danish state had created a bureaucratic routine of warning people who refused to accept the decisions of the royal courts. They would receive three letters, giving increasing fines and shorter time limits to comply with the courts’ decisions. The process would end with confiscation of the recalcitrant man’s property.114 A similar process ending up in confiscation of property can be seen in Norway.115 The peasants held in religious awe not only the Christian religion, but also the laws of the land, and both were written. But this did not result in a religious respect for writing as such. The Scandinavian peasants of the Late Middle Ages were members of local communities which largely functioned without literacy. Most of what they consumed was produced on their own farms or obtained by bartering at local markets. They had local procedures for arbitration of conflicts. There were social networks in the local communities. One might argue that these local networks were most important in the daily lives of the peasants. Even so, great literate organizations and networks shaped the Scandinavian nations and their 111

RN III, No. 460. RN III, Nos. 577 and 587. 113 RN IV, Nos. 159 and 162. 114 DAMSGAARD OLSEN, “Mission og medieudvikling”, p. 149. 115 NEDKVITNE, Oslo bys historie 1, p. 245. 112

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place in Europe, penetrating ever deeper into the daily lives and the minds of ordinary people, even the illiterate. Swedish peasants had a legal duty to provide transport for the king’s men. The Law of Västmanland (Västmannalagen, ca. 1296-1347) has the following to say on the subject: “If someone travelling on the king’s business arrives in a village carrying letters allowing him to demand horses, he shall go to the rättar. The latter shall go with him to the priest who shall read the letter.”116 The rättar was a peasant who performed minor tasks for royal officials; the law text above assumes that he would be illiterate. The village was able to handle written material even if no peasant could read because the parish priest offered his literate services to the local community. At this time all correspondence emerging from the Swedish chancery was in Latin. The parish priest of Ålby in Linköping diocese (1318-1335) wrote a formulary, or a book containing letters to be used as models for future letters. The priest wrote letters not only in his ecclesiastical capacity, but also for his lay parishioners. The formulary contains a formal proposal of marriage, invitations to a wedding, positive and negative answers to the invitation, letters for sending a son to school at the cathedral or elsewhere, property transfers, inheritance, mortgaging property, a ‘wanted’ notice for a thief et cetera.117 All letters were written in Latin, which meant that even the recipients had to ask their local priest for help. This way of exchanging letters presupposes that few were written, and that the parish priest would be on hand to offer his services. Two other Swedish formularies have been preserved from the first half of the fifteenth century, both written by priests who served local parishes early in their lives but later became monks at Vadstena. They are written in Swedish, and practically all letters concern church business.118 By this time correspondence was normally written in Swedish and schooling had become more widespread among laymen. Perhaps parish priests had ceased to function as secretaries for the peasants to the same extent as they had done a century before. Is it possible that this role had been taken over by a local elite of laymen? The first literate laymen in local communities were the king’s officials – in practice his judicial officials. The local or regional judge was in Norway the lagmann, in Sweden the lagmann and häradshövding and in Denmark the landsdommer and herredsfoged. Lagmenn and landsdommere were responsible for a large region; the herred or härad was a local unit, but many judges trav116

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 19 and 41-42. LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 223-225. 118 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 225-228. 117

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elled and visited local communities. Swedish regional judges received ordinances to be read publicly from the end of the twelfth century, and from ca. 1250 they began issuing judicial documents themselves. Similar developments took place in Norway and Denmark.119 Could these local judicial officials read and write? As shown above, at this time both the king’s court officials and local peasants made use of the literate services of the clergy; the local judges could have done the same. In a royal ordinance from 1308 it is assumed that the Norwegian lagmann paid a cleric or clerk (klerk) who accompanied him when he travelled in the countryside passing judgements in court cases. The cleric’s legal duty was to write down the verdicts, hand over copies to the parties, and write the verdict in a booklet (I kuaterni) for the judge’s later use.120 By the end of the thirteenth century, however, written material in the judicial process had become so important that it is difficult to see how a local judge could administer a court case without being able to read documents. We know that at least one of the Swedish lagmenn from the beginning of the fourteenth century had gone to school; it is reasonable to assume that was the case for others as well.121 Some of the Norwegian lagmenn started their career as scribes in the royal chancery.122 Michael Clanchy has demonstrated that in England the barons and court officials were literate at the end of the twelfth century, the knights and the local officials a century later. This pattern could have its parallels in Scandinavia, but a quantification is difficult. How many of the court officials were literate in 1200? How many local royal officials could read and write a century later? The extant source material is not sufficient to answer these questions. However, it is evident that around 1300 writing was used more extensively in English than in Scandinavian local administration. In Scandinavia it was used almost exclusively in the judiciary, whereas in England it was also employed in other areas of the royal administration. Reading and writing and the active use of these skills came to local communities through the parish priest, the local judge and the merchant in the nearest town. As shown above the activities of these literate groups influenced the lives of peasants and townsmen. Did some peasants move a step further, learning to 119

HASSELBERG, “Domare: Sverige”. BLOMSTEDT, “Domare: Finland”. MEYER, “Domare: Danmark”. LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 79-85. 120 NGL III (1849), No. 26. 121 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 98-99. 122 VÅGSLID, Norske skrivarar i millomalderen, pp. 749-752. CARLSSON, “Kansli: Sverige”. NIELSEN, “Kansli: Danmark”. AGERHOLT, “Kansli: Norge”.

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read and write themselves? Indications for literacy among peasants are ambiguous. The use of runes supports the view that there was a literate peasant elite. After ca. 1100 runic letters had phonetic values corresponding to Roman letters. One must assume that those who knew how to write runes could also understand how to write Norse with Roman letters. Many extant inscriptions are written with a knife on a piece of wood, and the best known of these are from Bergen. Many of them are informal messages evidently written by ordinary people. ‘Gyda says you should go home’, says one rune-stick from Bergen dating to about 1300. It is reasonable to assume that the receiver of this message sat in a tavern, and that Gyda was his wife. He was probably an ordinary townsman; it is highly unlikely that he was a cleric or a magnate. But what about peasants? A piece of wood from about 1300 was found under the floor of the parish church in Lom. This church is in the countryside, several days’ riding from the nearest town. It was evidently written by a young man and given to a girl on a day when both of them were in church. ‘Havard sends God’s greeting and his friendship to Gudny. It is my intention to ask for your hand, if you don’t want to be with Kolbein. Think about your marriage, and let me know your will.’ This message presupposes that both Havard and Gudny were literate.123 After 1290, numerous letters are issued in local communities all over Scandinavia recording the transfer of property or other events with legal consequences. As mentioned above, in Norway and Iceland these charters were written in Norse and issued by the witnesses who were present.124 Frequently only peasants are named as witnesses, and if nobody else was present, a peasant must have written the charter. It is, of course, possible that a priest was present and wrote the charter without being mentioned among the witnesses, but this seems strange. A priest was a valuable witness, a person of authority. If he was present, why not mention him as a witness? The sources are ambiguous, but Norwegian philologists have assumed that a minority among the peasants after 1300 were able to write at least standardized letters. They must have possessed models for how such letters should be composed.125 In Sweden and Denmark this may have happened somewhat later because in those countries such letters were written in Latin up to about 1350 and 1370 respectively. In the fifteenth century a member of the peasant community called the herredsfoged issued the necessary charters at local court sessions in Denmark. It is reasonable to assume that 123

SPURKLAND, Begynnelsen var fuþark, pp. 166-168, 203 and 210. See supra: p. 95. 125 Sigurd KOLSRUD, Heidmarksbrev (Kristiania (Oslo), 1914), p. 17. 124

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a minority of men and women in peasant communities were literate towards the close of the Middle Ages, but the majority of peasants did not learn to read until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.126 Literacy was a rare skill, and could become a source of social advancement for peasants. In the Late Medieval centuries the king delegated minor administrative tasks to prominent members of the peasant communities. In Norway and Sweden this official was known as a lensmann, in Denmark a herredsfoged.127 In Norway a larger number of peasants and townsmen were also given the title of lagrettemann. This entitled them to be co-judge in court cases, but was largely used as an honorary title. Literacy was useful for them in their work, and it was probably in this peasant elite that literate candidates were to be found. What motivated peasants to teach themselves or their children to read and write? A number of peasant manuscripts of mixed content have been preserved in Denmark from the post-Reformation period. These manuscripts mainly contain accounting records; in this period many peasants sold part of their produce at local markets, and some even bought and sold at distant markets and wanted to keep a record of their transactions. The oldest of the manuscripts goes back to 1544,128 but it is not possible to trace this kind of peasant literacy back to the Middle Ages. It is more realistic to see it as a by-product of the commercial revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.129 The church made no systematic effort to teach peasant boys and girls to read and write. The parish priest needed choirboys to assist him during the mass, and they were taught how to read Latin texts. Some of them continued their schooling outside the parish and ended up as priests, but it is reasonable to assume that some of them remained in the parish and formed a small elite of literate peasants. A person who knew how to read Latin could certainly also read the vernacular. A literate father could in turn teach his sons and daughters to read and write if he considered it to be useful. All things considered, how126 See: Läskunnighet och folkbildning före folkskoleväsendet = XVIII Nordiska Historikermötet: Mötesrapport III (Jyväskylä: 1981), particularly the contribution by: Egil JOHANSSON, “Den kyrkliga lästraditionen – en konturtäckning”, pp. 193-224, pp. 205-210; and: GUTTORMSSON, “Island”, p. 131. LÖNNROTH, Tesen om de två kulturerna, pp. 52-53. 127 Rolf FLADBY, “Lensmann”, in: KLNM 10, cols. 505-506. Herluf NIELSEN, “Lensmann: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 506-508. Gerhard HAFSTRÖM, “Lensmann: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 509512. Aulis OJA, “Lensmann: Finland”, Ibidem, col. 512. Magnus MÁR LÁURSSON, “Lensmann: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 512-513. 128 See supra: pp. 182-183. 129 Writing Peasants, ed. Klaus-Joachim LORENZEN-SCHMIDT and Bjørn POULSEN (Landbohistorisk selskab, 2002).

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Illustration 38. A number of law codices have miniature paintings and drawings. Most of them illustrate the content of the paragraphs or emphasize the royal authority behind the law. But some have marginal drawings expressing the personal opinions or fantasies of the scribe or later users. This codex of the Swedish national law was written ca. 1440 in Åbo, Finland, which at that time was part of the Swedish realm. It shows a peasant carrying a royal bailiff and a landowner on his back, and according to the caption he says: “Shame on you, how heavy you are!” These were turbulent times in Sweden. Parts of the Swedish aristocracy rebelled against Danish rule, and the peasantry periodically supported them. The scribe, who was probably in the service of the captain of Åbo castle, may have had sympathies with the peasants. This is a rare early example in Scandinavia of writing being used to express anti-authoritarian opinions. Photo: Royal Library, Stockholm. KB Cod. Holm B 172, fol. 70 v.

ever, it is difficult to see the church as an important motivator behind peasant literacy. From the 1290s, local and regional judges issued documents in increasing quantities. In Sweden, the national law (Magnus Erikssons landslag) from ca. 1350 clearly sought to make the peasants part of this literate organization. Legal documents were to be written in Swedish so that the peasants could understand them when they were read aloud. All property transactions had to take place in the presence of witnesses from the local community – in practice, peasants – and the procedure was to be put in writing. Peasants were to receive a written copy of the verdicts in their court cases. After 1350, and particularly after 1400, an increasing number of peasants were witnesses or parties in court cases and had their own seals. A peasant who possessed a seal must have used it several times during his lifetime, as a witness or party in a court case or when he issued a document himself.130 Many peasants would keep titles to their farms or other important property in their storage chests at home. Participation in these procedures where charters were used gave peasants a familiarity with the written word which must have motivated some of them to educate their children or themselves in reading and writing. The scant sources indicate that in the late Middle Ages, the royal judiciary motivated a peasant elite to become literate.

Gender Did the increasing use of administrative literacy change the position of women in relation to men in Scandinavian society? In our context it is most relevant to examine the judicial aspect of this question. Did administrative 130

LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 110-113 and 121.

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literacy improve or weaken the ability of women to defend their social rights and position? It goes without saying that it is highly problematic – if not impossible – to reconstruct pre-literate judicial procedures, because all our sources are written and therefore belong to a period when writing was used. The transition from oral to written procedures was, however, gradual and was not completed during the Middle Ages, so it is possible to identify procedures which were more or less predominantly oral or literate. The best source for the norms of a pre-literate judiciary is Grágás, the laws of pre-state Iceland (up to 1264), and a corresponding body of sources for how these laws were enacted in practice is the sagas of Icelanders.131 Literacy in law is illustrated in the written laws of Norway, Sweden and Denmark from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; actual practices in charters from the same period. In the oral law community of pre-state Iceland, women were barred from formal positions in the judiciary. A jury of farmers (dóm) at the Thing assemblies pronounced formal verdicts. Women could not take part in this jury. The jury was advised in legal matters by the lögsögumaðr or ‘law-speaker’, who was supposed to know the law by heart. Young boys learnt the laws systematically from men who were law experts, normally their fathers or stepfathers. We must assume this was an education which could take years, and which prepared a boy to become a law-speaker or chieftain later in life.132 Girls whose fathers were law experts could also acquire a certain knowledge of the law, and this could help them later in life.133 Women were not allowed to speak at the Thing assemblies, and consequently were unable to conduct their cases themselves; they had to be represented by the head of their household or an advocate. Normally a wife would have separate property which her husband could not alienate, even if he represented her in court cases. If there was a dispute over an event that had taken place, the court in the oral period sought to make clear what was ‘notorious’ – i.e. the commonly held opinion, and for this purpose a jury of neighbours (kviðr) was assembled. Here

131 The earliest version of Grágás was written in 1118. The earliest preserved versions date from ca. 1260, but describe procedures which were largely oral. The sagas of Icelanders were written in the thirteenth century when the Icelandic elite was literate, but describe judicial practices in which practically no written procedures were used. 132 Gro Enerstvedt SMENES, Formidling i et kjønnsperspektiv (unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 2000), pp. 39-40. MILLER, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, p. 226. 133 SMENES, Formidling i et kjønnsperspektiv, pp. 40-42.

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women were excluded.134 Because of the importance of the kviðr and the emphasis on notoriety, individual witnesses who had special information were less important, but they were heard. Grágás does not explicitly prohibit women from appearing as witnesses, so it is reasonable to assume that a female witness would be heard.135 In the oral period formal legal proceedings were the domain of men; the male head of the household represented his womenfolk and other household members. Thus far we have considered formal legal proceedings, but the sagas give the impression that most conflicts were settled informally through private negotiations or mediation. Here women could play an important part. Settlement negotiations took place to some extent at the Thing assemblies where a few women were present, but more often they were held in private homes where the women were always present. Sound judgement, wisdom, knowledge and eloquence were qualities that gave honour and prestige to saga characters. Many women in the sagas are portrayed as having these qualities, and for that reason men listen to their advice.136 In some cases men are reluctant to take action because the case might end in a feud that could endanger their lives and property. The women then remind their sons and husbands forcefully of their duty towards their household and kin. A woman had little formal status and few rights in the judicial process, but the sagas suggest she had ample opportunities informally to influence her male relatives in their legal actions, and she often used them. Did the increasing use of writing change this situation? Women’s informal influence probably decreased in this period because fewer cases were negotiated between private persons in private homes, and more cases were decided in the public sphere by the courts or royal officials. Was this compensated by a stronger position for women in formal judicial procedures? The royal courts grew more attractive to plaintiffs, and more legal conflicts were handled by the public, literate courts. As shown above, the increasing use of literacy was the result of – and paralleled – the development of stronger state control of the judiciary. The king had the power to make the verdicts respected, and he had an interest in criminal cases being brought to a conclusion, because he had a legal right to part of the fines.

134

Else MUNDAL, “Kvinner som vitne i norske og islandske lover”, in: Sagnaþing helgað Jónasi Kristiansyni (Reykjavík, 1994), pp. 593-602, p. 600. 135 Sigurður LINDAL, “Vitne: Island”, in: KLNM 20, cols. 206-210. 136 SMENES, Formidling i et kjønnsperspektiv, pp. 67-88.

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Women still could not hold formal offices or positions, and judges and cojudges were always men. Even so, women could now appear in court as plaintiffs or defendants representing their own interests, but in this aspect there were significant differences between the Scandinavian countries. In Norway and Iceland (after it adapted Norwegian laws in 1271/1281), women could appear before the court and bring a suit or defend their rights. Of all Norwegian charters describing court cases in the period 1274-1370, one or both parties were women in 27% of the charters.137 Women appear equally often as plaintiffs and defendants.138 Both men and women were allowed to employ an ombudsmann or advocate to conduct their case. Only some of the cases with a female defendant or plaintiff went all through the judicial process and ended in a verdict. Of the women involved in these cases, one third used an ombudsmann, most often their husband. In some cases women were ombudmenn for others, most often minors in their care; in a few cases they also represented adult men. In the latter case the woman would have a higher social standing than the party she represented.139 Women could appeal their cases to the top of the judicial system.140 It should also be added that women won their cases more often than men!141 In Norway and Iceland the literate royal judicial system gave women a more independent position compared to the earlier courts where procedures had been oral. In Denmark and Sweden the situation is less clear. “When husband and wife are married and have slept one night in the same bed, he is her målsmann and shall defend her and sue on her behalf in judicial conflicts.”142 Thus reads the Swedish national law from ca. 1350, and court practice shows that women were always represented by men. In Denmark, the law stipulated that a woman could not represent herself or her household in court. In practice, however, it was possible for her to do so if she had her husband’s authorization, and widows and married women are seen to represent their households and themselves. A woman who was the victim of a crime had the right to sue the criminal herself.143 Medieval Scandinavians probably saw these differences between the 137

FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, p. 74. FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, pp. 80-81. 139 Ll, c. 8.8. FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, p. 94. 140 FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, p. 84. 141 FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, pp. 88-89. 142 Magnus Erikssons stadslag, ed. H.S. COLLIN and C.J. SCHLYTER (Stockholm, 1862: Samling af Sweriges gamla Lagar 11), Giftermålsbalken VIII. Per-Edwin WALLÉN, “Husbonde: Sverige”, in: KLNM 7, cols. 96-99. Stig IUUL, “Husbonde: Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 99-100. 143 LAHTINEN, Ainu, “ ‘So the respectable widow sold her land to him’: Gender, marriage and property transactions in fourteenth and fifteenth century Finland”, in: Family, Marriage and Property Devolution in the Middle Ages, ed. Lars Ivar HANSEN (Tromsø, 2000), pp. 107-115. 138

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legal traditions as less significant than we do – the main thing for them was that the interests of the household were defended. The apparently stronger position of women in Norway and Iceland may have been due to a stronger secular legal tradition in the West Norse language area. In the evaluation of evidence, the increasing influence of literate, royal judges meant a shift of focus from ‘notoriety’ to what had actually happened. The jury of male neighbours who informed the judges of the commonly held opinion in a matter grew less important. The literate judge had a freer position: he heard individual witnesses and evaluated their reliability. In literate royal jurisprudence there were two kinds of witnesses, and women were treated differently in these two cases. The first type of witnesses were those who were formally called upon to be present and verify that everything happened according to the law during the judicial process. Norwegian law did not bar women from being witnesses in such cases, but in practice it rarely happened. In the relevant and extant charters from 1274 to 1370, only 5% of witnesses (five individuals) were women. The second type of witnesses were those who happened to be present when a crime took place, or happened to have some relevant knowledge. Of these witnesses, 21% (24 individuals) were women.144 There is nothing in the charters to suggest that women’s testimonies were given less weight than men’s; no corroboration from male witnesses was needed. The situation in Sweden and Denmark may have been similar, but this is unclear.145 The officials evidently thought that men were better suited to working in the law courts, but they did not mistrust the judgement of women. The position of women in the formal judicial process evidently did not deteriorate with the introduction of literacy; if anything it rather seems to have improved. So far we have examined the formalized public sphere of court procedures, and the impression is that this was considered to be a male sphere, but if practical considerations made it desirable, women could be given a role. Private property transactions could be considered as part of the judicial process because the documents produced were to be submitted to a court if the transaction was contested. Property transactions were, however, less public and formalized than the Ragnar HEMMER, “Rettergang: Sverige och Finland”, in: KLNM 14, cols. 120-131. Jens Ulf JØRGENSEN, “Rettergang: Alment og Danmark”, Ibidem, cols. 114-119. Stig IUUL, “Husfru: Danmark”, in: KLNM 7, col. 136. Grethe JACOBSEN, Kvinder, køn og købstadslovgivning 14001600 (Copenhagen, 1995), pp. 220-222 and 231-232. 144 FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, pp. 112-113. 145 Hilde SANDVIK, Kvinners rettslige handleevne på 16- og 1700-tallet (Oslo, 2002), pp. 41-42. JACOBSEN, Kvinder, køn og købstadslovgivning, pp. 221 and 235.

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court procedures, and not surprisingly it is here that women made the most extensive use of administrative literacy. Tine Berg Floater has registered all Norwegian charters, which name buyers and/or sellers of property during the period 1274-1370. Women acting alone constitute 14% of the buyers and sellers. In an additional 20% of the cases women and men acted together; this was usually a married couple but some documents also record mothers and sons. In the remaining 66% men acted alone, but 11% of these men had obtained the prior consent of their wives to the transaction.146 Women were particularly eager to have their wills in writing. Thirty-five wills from the secular Norwegian elite have been preserved for the period 1277-1536; in 31% of the cases the testator was a woman.147 In Sweden before 1420, about 25% of all testators were women.148 When the will was written, a priest would almost always be present. The presence of a cleric and the writing of a judicially valid document must have given women a freedom to donate their property to whomever they wanted, even if their heirs were opposed to it. Women who issued or made use of charters seem to have belonged to the landowning elite.149 Persons who possessed their own seals must be assumed to have used them more than once, because people who rarely issued documents or served as witnesses could let others seal a document on their behalf.150 In the period 12741370 in Norway only fifteen women are known to have put a personal seal to a document, which is a tiny proportion of the known seals. All of them seem to have belonged to an elite with landed properties to be taken care of. When other women issued documents, they let others seal them.151 The pattern in Sweden is similar. The oldest preserved Swedish charter in the vernacular was issued and sealed in 1330 by Ingrid Magnusdotter, who belonged to the high nobility.152 Women belonging to artisan households in Stockholm were apparently without seals of their own.153 Witnesses had to be present at private property transac146

FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, pp. 132-133. Siri SKAARET, Mellom-menneskelige forhold i norsk senmiddelalder (unpublished MA thesis: University of Oslo, Department of History, 2001), p. 121. An elite testator is here understood as a man whose title indicates that he was of the rank of knight or squire, or a woman whose title indicates she was the wife of a knight or squire, or that they had a close relative with such titles. 148 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 117. 149 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 104-108. 150 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 118-119. 151 FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, pp. 129-130. 152 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, pp. 106-107 and 112. 153 LARSSON, Svenska medeltidsbrev, p. 113. 147

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tions, and it was possible to choose between men and women. Men were almost always chosen; only sixteen women appear in the extant charters, a minute fraction of the recorded witnesses.154 Private property transactions and the judicial process discussed earlier give the same impression when it comes to women’s role. There were few formal laws barring women from participating, but the dominant men – and probably the women as well – nevertheless saw this as a male sphere. Where men and women were understood as being able to do the job equally well, men were preferred. But if there was a good reason to choose a woman, that was also possible. This was particularly true for witnesses who had relevant knowledge in a court case, for women who wanted to defend their property and other interests in court, or who bought, sold, or gave away such property. There seems to have been more flexibility with regard to the judicial position of women after the introduction of literacy. Did this make a difference in the economic position of women? The household was the basic economic unit in Scandinavian society, and all its members were intent on defending its economic interests. Even so, a woman in a literate judicial system might have been in a better position to defend her dowry, which was her separate property, in case of disagreement with her husband. In the oral period this had been the duty of her father or other relatives. The most important consequence must have been more intangible. For as far back as one can tell, Scandinavian women had the right to hold property; they were therefore ‘legal entities’ and could be sued in court. But in the earliest, oral period they could not defend their own interests in court: they were not litigants.155 The royal judges with their literate procedures gave women a limited admittance to the formal, judicial sphere, most importantly as litigants, and this could be said to have begun a long process towards greater judicial equality between the sexes. What was the driving force behind this development? In the eyes of the king and his officials the main social dividing line must have been between the state and its officials on the one hand and the subjects on the other. They were inclined to think in terms of state authority versus individuals. A royal judge had power and authority which made it possible for him to treat the king’s subjects more or less as equals before the law – with some exceptions. He could use his good judgement and discretion, and include in the judicial process those persons which he considered to be useful to making the royal courts function 154 155

FLOATER, Med nøkkelen i beltet, p. 141. ULF JØRGENSEN, “Rettergang: Alment og Danmark”

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effectively. This way of thinking made him inclined to see men and women in terms of their relation to the conflict and its resolution, and gender differences became secondary. This opened up avenues for judicial equality between the sexes in an increasing number of areas. The most important single factor in this development was the increasing power and authority of the king and his judges. Did the increasing use of literacy in law also contribute to the process? The written word depersonalized the judicial process and consequently made it more gender-neutral. The judge’s duty was to apply a generalizing written law reasoning in terms of abstract judicial definitions. The evidence before him was increasingly in the form of charters. It was less natural to think in terms of men and women when both presented their case in court through the same type of written documents. Writing created a framework for thinking in abstract terms, relating the case to the written law and evaluating the evidence according to formal and judicial criteria, irrespective of the individual character of the persons behind the charters. In that way, writing did help to open the way for judicial equality. Literacy contributed to the transfer of dispute settlement from the private sphere, where women had more influence, to the public sphere, where they had less; in this sense literacy worked to their disadvantage. But at the same time it helped to give women a more active role in the formal, public part of the judicial process. In the long run there can be little doubt that this more active public role had the greatest social consequences. Women’s use of literacy was not limited to the judicial sphere. Literacy had a twofold effect on women’s religious engagement just as it had on their judicial position. In the pagan period most religious rituals seem to have taken place in the private hall of the chieftain in the presence of his retainers and peasants under his protection. The chieftain officiated at the rituals, but we also are told that priestesses (gyðjur) participated, although we do not know how common this was and what type of role they played. The pagan rituals were half public, half private, and this made active female participation natural. The Christian church delegated all rituals to professional priests. Laywomen and laymen were excluded, but in a transitional period they were allowed to build and administer private churches on their farms. The literate elite of priests excluded the laity from the opportunity of officiating in rituals.156 Even so, an elite of literate laymen and above all laywomen in the Late Middle Ages gradually found a 156 On this subject, see: Else MUNDAL, “Den doble verknaden av kristininga for kvinnene i den norrøne kulturen”, in: Nytt om kvinneforskning 23/2 (1999), pp. 65-78, p. 69.

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private way to participate more actively in religious worship through the reading of prayer books, as we have seen. The pattern in the religious sphere resembles that in the judiciary. Literacy first helped to empty the private sphere of important social functions, and consequently to marginalize women. In a second phase women gradually learned to use the literacy of state and church, and therefore regained a more active role. Their active use of literacy, however, had a greater social significance in the judiciary than in religion. Medieval Scandinavian women were concerned with defending their judicial rights and saving their souls, but they made a wider use of their literate skills than that. The transmission of narratives is a third field where women seem to have lost status at the transition from orality to literacy. In the pre-literate period there were public and formal types of literature composed and maintained by skalds. Skaldic poems were performed in the prince’s hall to praise his warrior bravery, and with very rare exceptions skalds were men. The patrons of such literature were also mostly men but the audience probably included both sexes.157 There were also informal transmissions of narratives, and here women played a part. Snorri Sturluson tells us that he based his Heimskringla on oral narratives from several people, among them Thurid, a ‘wise woman’ who was the daughter of the chieftain Snorri the Priest.158 The central role of women in the oral transmission of Scandinavian ballads and other popular literature in later centuries is well known. Christianization created a literate elite of men, and they took over the most prestigious tasks of literary composition and presentation. As we have seen, in the High Middle Ages this literature was written with king and church as patrons and was strongly normative. It had a public character even if it was read in private homes. There is nothing to suggest that a significant portion of the literature composed in Scandinavia 1100-1350 was written by women. It is, however, a moot point whether this meant a marginalization of women. The most prestigious literature to be performed on public occasions had been composed and performed almost exclusively by men in the oral period as well. But the informal oral narratives were also increasingly written down, and convincing arguments can be made that by being written down, a narrative tradition was drawn out of the private sphere where women transmitted and transformed it, and into the male-dominated public sphere. This happened to the prose narra157

Else MUNDAL, “Kvinner og dikting: Overgang frå munnleg til skriftleg kultur – ei ulukke for kvinnene?”, in: Förändringar i kvinnors villkor under medeltiden (Reykjavík, 1983), pp. 1125. 158 Heimskringla, Snorri’s Foreword.

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tives about kings when they were written down as sagas in the thirteenth century. The transition from orality to literacy probably meant a loss of position in the literary field for women – at least up to about 1300. After 1400 lay literacy improved; this included women, who used their skills to cultivate literary interests. Two large Swedish manuscripts from the middle of the fifteenth century illustrate this. The oldest of them is called Lady Märta’s Book and belonged to an aristocratic woman who died in 1448/9. The book was written by her brother, who was archdeacon and later Bishop of Strängnäs. The manuscript contains four translated courtly romances (Flores and Blancheflor, Ivan the Lion Knight, Duke Fredric of Normandy, and Nameless and Valentine), three Swedish historical chronicles (Erikskrönikan, Lilla rimkrönikan, and Prosaiska krönikan), the Chanson de Roland in translation, moralizing narratives like Tundal’s vision and the Quarrel of Christmas and Fast and finally a satire directed against abbots. Lady Märta’s daughter, Elin († 1494/1496), probably owned another manuscript titled Lady Elin’s Book. She had all the narratives in her mother’s manuscript be copied into her own book, but added a few in the same genres, among them The Converted Jew and the Devil.159 In the later centuries of the medieval period, the courtly tradition became the most prestigious field of literary creativity in Scandinavia. Further south in Europe women were important in this tradition, above all as patrons and public, but also as authors. Throughout Europe, there was a trend for aristocratic women to be interested in literature, probably more so than men.160 Elite men used their literate skills primarily for administrative purposes, while elite women used their literacy more to pursue cultural and religious interests. Lady Märta’s and Lady Elin’s books suggest that Scandinavia was no exception. But how representative were they? Did improved skills in reading and writing help Scandinavian women to regain some of ground they had lost in the literary field, just as they had done in the judicial and religious fields? This question and others will be considered in the next section on the courtly narrative.

159

Patrik ÅSTRØM, “The Manuscripts of Skemptan”, in: Master Golyas and Sweden, ed. Olle FERM and Bridget MORRIS (Stockholm, 1997), pp. 235-254. Per-Axel WIKTORSSON, “On the Scribal Hands in the Manuscripts of Skemptan”, Ibidem, pp. 257-267. 160 BELL, “Medieval women book owners”.

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The Rise of the Courtly Narrative In the Late Middle Ages, the administration of the Scandinavian states was expanded and made more literate, while the church’s administrative literacy stagnated. The number of laymen who actively used administrative documents increased to include lower royal officials, merchants, and a peasant elite, and education in vernacular literacy improved. More individuals used literacy for their personal advantage: they wrote accounts of their personal incomes, exchanged private correspondence, held written legal titles to their private property and read prayer-books. Increasing state influence, a larger literate public and increasing individualism – can these developments also be found in narrative literacy?

The Clergy as Passive Recipients of European Literate Culture All church institutions had libraries. Even the smallest parish churches would normally own a missal and possibly other books necessary for performing the liturgy correctly. In addition, individual priests owned books privately. Our knowledge of these book collections is limited, but occasionally lists have been preserved, and some copies have survived in libraries. The largest late medieval library may have been that of Vadstena, from which 500 books have survived.161 The clergy used most of these books in their work; there are very few books that give evidence of cultural interests beyond that. Classical Roman authors were read in Latin classes, and textbooks included excerpts from Cicero, Sallust, Ovid, Horace, Virgil, Lucian, Juvenal and others. But these authors were also read outside of class for entertainment. The later Bishop Kleng read Ovid’s Ars amandi when at school at Hólar, without the bishop’s permission.162 The prelates probably read those classics partly because they offered an example of good Latin language, and partly because they enjoyed it. Scandinavian clerics owned books by authors from classical antiquity:

161

OLESON, “Book collections”, p. 504. Gottfrid CARLSSON, “Bibliotek”, in: KLNM 1, cols. 521-525. Aarno MALINIEMI, “Bibliotek: Finland”, Ibidem, cols. 525-526. Ludvig HOLM-OLSEN, “Bibliotek: Norge”, Ibidem, cols. 526-527. Magnus Már LÁRUSSON, “Bibliotek: Island”, Ibidem, cols. 527-530. 162 Jóns saga, c. 24, p. 238 (English translation, c. 11.5, p. 555; Norwegian translation, p. 95).

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Illustration 39. Abraham with eyeglasses in a wall painting from Torshalla church in Uppland, Sweden, ca. 1450. This is the first picture of spectacles in Scandinavia. The oldest written evidence tells us that a monk in Vadstena monastery ca. 1415-1436 repaired, and perhaps made, eyeglasses for a man outside the monastery. Spectacles were apparently invented in Italy around 1300. They may have come to Scandinavia shortly afterwards, but growing literacy after 1400 must have increased the demand for them. They made it possible for people to read longer into their old age, and must have been of particular advantage to aging clerics. Photo: Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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Virgil, Ovid, Seneca and others.163 The interests of Scandinavian prelates followed the trends in Western European intellectual centres. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Scandinavian clerics wrote books on secular subjects for a secular public, mainly the histories of kings and magnates of their own country. In the Late Middle Ages there were still a few clerics who engaged in this type of writing, but by that time most authors of secular histories were laymen. Clerics do not show much interest in reading books on secular history either; only a few Norwegian prelates owned vernacular saga books, and the same is true of Denmark and Saxo’s history. Even in Iceland, manuscripts of sagas other than hagiographies are few in number among the books of the clergy. But as late as 1525 the cathedral of Hólar owned Njáls saga, Sverris saga and Hákonar saga.164 Ecclesiastical culture separated itself increasingly from the secular culture centred at the courts. The prelates seem to have followed with interest the incipient humanism in Italy and elsewhere in the final decades of the Middle Ages. Around 1500 the humanist impulses generated increased interest in classical antiquity, which now also included Greek authors in Latin translation. Books by Italian humanists like Petrarch and Æneas Sylvius and an occasional short story by Boccaccio are also found.165 Swedish and Danish prelates were most receptive to humanist impulses. The number of classical, and by around 1500, Italian authors, is smaller in the libraries of prelates in Norway and Iceland. Even so, the chapter of Nidaros Cathedral owned books by the Italian Platonist philosopher Marsilius Ficinus and by Erasmus of Rotterdam (Adagia).166 We may conclude, then, that in the Late Middle Ages the clergy focused their non-professional reading on books which permitted them to follow the intellectual trends in contemporary Europe. There were definitely fewer creative authors among them than there had been in earlier centuries, and narrative literacy on secular subjects was now centred at the courts. This shift is a parallel to what happened in administrative literacy.

163

JØRGENSEN, “Studier over danske bogsamlinger”, p. 32. LÁRUSSON, “Bibliotek: Island”. KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, p. 115. OLMER, “Boksamlingar på Island”, pp. 57-64. 165 JØRGENSEN, “Studier over danske bogsamlinger”, pp. 14-15. JOHNSEN, “Norske institutioners bogsamlinger”, pp. 73-96. 166 CARLSSON, “Bibliotek”. MALINIEMI, “Bibliotek: Finland”. HOLM-OLSEN, “Bibliotek: Norge”. LÁRUSSON, “Bibliotek: Island”. JOHNSEN, “Norske institutioners bogsamlinger”, p. 93 164

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The changes in literary fashion in Scandinavia in the Late Middle Ages can largely be attributed to the increasing influence of European courtly literature. The main theme of courtly literature was love, but presented in a way that had social implications. The courtly ideal stressed courteous and civilized behaviour, particularly to ladies, and obedience to one’s lord. The true knight should help those in need – again, particularly ladies but also the poor. These were ideals well suited to emerging states trying to organize pacified societies. Warrior bravery was important, but in the service of others: lords, ladies and other people in distress. Religion is not prominent, but is present in the form of respect for clerics, religious practice and a general charity, which in its roots is Christian. The courtly ideal is often explained as a fusion of the traditional warrior ideals and the church’s social norms.167 Courtly literature composed in the Scandinavian languages was concentrated around two main genres: the orally transmitted ballad and the written, rhymed chronicle. In addition came the translated verse novels or romances. The courtly values and narratives originated in twelfth-century France. Sven Aggesen was a layman and had studied in France. In his History of the Danes, written ca. 1190, he described members of the royal family in a manner reminiscent of the French courtly tradition. Even so, he did not use a translation of the French word courtoisie, but the corresponding word urbanitas from classical Latin. Pil Dahlerup considers this to be the first introduction of the courtly ideal (høviskhed) to Denmark – and Scandinavia.168 A systematic introduction of written courtly literature to Scandinavia started at the court of King Hakon Hakonarson in the 1220s with translations of romances from French and German. The romances were introduced to a Swedish public in 1303-1312 through the Eufemiavisor (‘Eufemia’s poems’). Many members of the Danish court at this time had German as their mother tongue and German was widely used at court, making it probable that the courtly literature was probably in that language as well.169 By 1320 the written courtly narrative was introduced in all three countries. The intended public for this literature was the courtiers; the narratives were read aloud for a noble audience. Erikskrönikan (ca. 1325) has the following to say to its public: “Those who have not heard this story before may hear it now. Pay attention, all those who want to hear graceful words and entertainment 167

Stephen JAEGER, The Origins of Courtliness (Philadelphia, 1985). DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 59-62. 169 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, p. 238. 168

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before we go to the dining table.”170 But the reality for the reader may have been less gracious. Brother Robert translated the French verse novel Elis and Rosamunda for the Norwegian court in the 1220s. At one point he interrupts the narrative and addresses himself directly to the audience: To receive good knowledge is better than to fill one’s stomach. It is permissible to sip from the goblet while the saga is told, but not to drink without measure. It is an honour to read when the audience listens, but it is an effort to no avail if nobody pays attention.171

Or is there a chance that courteous behaviour had improved during the hundred years between these two works? Courtiers could bring these narratives home with them. Icelandic magnates visited the Norwegian court before 1319, but few visited the Swedish and Danish courts in the subsequent period. The verse novels existed in Iceland partly as prose translations, partly as rímur, a local Icelandic literary tradition. Rímur are long narrative poems divided into stanzas, with complicated patterns of rhymes and alliteration.172 In this way, courtly narratives reached a public that had never visited a royal court. This was exceptional, however; the written courtly narratives usually did not reach outside aristocratic circles. All known patrons of these courtly narratives were kings or prominent members of the court nobility. King Hakon Hakonarson made the first known effort in the 1220s. He commissioned Brother Robert to translate the French verse novel Tristan and Isolde into Norse in 1226; several other romances and the short stories (lais) of Marie de France followed later.173 In 1286, the Norwegian baron Bjarne Erlingsson visited Britain and had an originally French poem about ‘Lady Oliv and her son Landres’ translated from English to Norse.174 The first known translations of French courtly literature into Swedish came in 130312. The Norwegian Queen Eufemia, born in Germany, commissioned the translation of three French romances into Swedish, probably for her daughter, who was to be married to the Swedish Duke Erik.175 Later others continued the work: 170

Erikskrönikan, ed. Sven-Bertil JANSSON (Stockholm, 1986), p. 27. STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 54. 172 FIDJESTØL, Norsk litteratur i tusen år, pp. 110-123. Stephen A. MITCHELL, “Fornaldersögur”, in: Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Phillip PULSIANO et al. (New York, 1993), pp. 206-208. Peter A. JÖRGENSEN, “Rímur”, Ibidem, pp. 536-537. KRISTJÁNSSON, Eddas and Sagas, pp. 369384. 173 FIDJESTØL, Norsk litteratur i tusen år, p. 103. 174 Fredrik PAASCHE, Norsk litteraturhistorie 1 (Oslo, 1957), p. 488. 175 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 61. 171

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around 1380 the great Swedish magnate Bo Jonsson patronized the translation of Alexanders saga.176 No romances seem to have been translated into Danish until the 1470s; as mentioned above, Danish courtiers may have been satisfied with the German versions.177 It is probable that these translations were part of a conscious effort on the part of kings and prominent nobles to civilize Scandinavian courtiers. In 1226 the Norwegian civil wars had just come to an end, and the king may have wanted to change the habits of his magnates. Lars Lönnroth sees the translation of the Eufemiavisor as a conscious effort on the part of Queen Eufemia to civilize the court where her daughter was to live.178 Part of the Swedish-Norwegian king’s library was housed at Båhus Castle from about 1341 to 1346. Most of it was juridical literature, but among the books were also copies of Yvain the Lion Knight and Duke Fredric of Normandy, which were two of the Eufemiavisor.179 The Scandinavians soon started to compose literature of their own in the courtly style. The verse novel (romance) was the main genre in the European courtly tradition but none were composed in Scandinavia with the possible exception of the Icelandic rímur. Scandinavian authors concentrated on one written genre, the verse chronicle, and its patrons were kings and prominent court nobles. The development of the Scandinavian verse chronicle can be followed from its start with the Erikskrönikan, composed ca. 1320. Its metre and style were taken from French verse novels, and the Eufemiavisor inspired its language. The main character was the murdered Swedish duke Erik, and its main purpose was to defend the dead duke whose son had inherited the throne.180 A probable patron is Matts Ketilmundsson, the regent of Sweden 1318-19, and a partisan of Duke Erik.181 In the century that followed, several Swedish verse chronicles in the courtly style were written, all of them defending the struggles of the national independence faction in civil wars against opponents who were often allied to the Danish king. The leader in the national struggle, King Karl Knutsson, was the patron of Engelbrektskrönikan and Karlskrönikan describing the struggle against the Danes 1389-1452. Both were probably written by clerks in his chancery.182 176

STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 89. KVÆRNDRUP, “Det feudale stændersamfund”, pp. 468-469. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 238-239. 178 LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, p. 99. 179 DS, No.3484. DN III, No. 202. RN V, No. 318. 180 LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, pp. 104-108. 181 Sven-Bertil JANSSON, Medeltidens rimkrönikor (Stockholm, 1971), p. 135. 182 Jerker ROSÉN, “Karlskrönikan”, in: KLNM 8, cols. 290-294. Engelbrektskrönikan, ed. 177

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Denmark produced only one verse chronicle, Rimkrøniken, written ca. 1460-77 by Cistercian monks at Sorø for a larger public. It was clearly inspired by the richer Swedish tradition, but its ideological message was different. It gave credit to the Danish kings for their efforts to create a Scandinavian union – a response to the message of the Swedish chronicles. The patrons mentioned in the introduction are King Christian I and the Bishop of Roskilde, who was the king’s chancellor. It is not clear whether they took the initiative to commission the chronicle, or whether the book was only dedicated to them.183 Thus, Scandinavian written courtly literature was patronized by kings and great nobles and written for a public of courtiers. The written Scandinavian courtly narrative had European models which it copied closely. The verse novels were translations from French or German. The rhymed chronicles imitated the language and versification of the translated romances, and the genre and the style was borrowed from German chronicles.184 The written Scandinavian courtly narratives nevertheless had a limited measure of originality. Carl Ivar Ståhle underlines the fact that Erikskrönikan has a realism which distinguishes it from the Eufemiavisor and contemporary foreign literature in the same genre. The only miracle in Erikskrönikan is connected to the murdered Danish king Erik Plogpenning, who was venerated as a saint.185 Scandinavian courts and cathedrals did not distinguish themselves through cultural creativity. Scandinavia was at the periphery of Europe with poor material and intellectual resources, and therefore at the receiving end of religious and courtly impulses from France, Italy and Germany. The authors of the chronicles in many cases were chancery clerks; none were professional poets. The environment for creative originality was simply not present. On the other hand, one should bear in mind that patrons wanted the chronicles to be as close to the European models as possible. French and German courtly culture carried prestige. A Scandinavian court that managed to imitate these patterns would distinguish itself, as did individuals who were familiar with this international court culture. The king wanted his courtiers to distinguish themselves from their less exalted fellow countrymen and share an international European culture. Individual noblemen wanted to participate in a culSven-Bertil JANSSON (Stockholm, 1994), p. 17. 183 Den danske rimkrønike 2, ed. Helge TOLDBERG (Copenhagen, 1958), pp. 1-2. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, p. 101. 184 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 60 and 71. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 104-105. 185 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 72.

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ture which distinguished them from peasants, burghers and smaller landowners. Written courtly chronicles were read mainly by courtiers and were intended to create a court identity. In other European countries women were prominent as patrons and public for the verse novels. This was so to some extent in Scandinavia also; the German-born Queen Eufemia patronized the translation of the first romances into Swedish. Even so, courtly literature may have been more an affair of state than in other countries. The kings used this literature to pacify the warrior nobility and to make their courts part of a prestigious international court culture. The prestige of the court culture was due to its form, but the chronicles also had a political message.

The Written Courtly Narrative’s Image of the Ideal Knight and Courtier Saga literature of the thirteenth century had been characterized by tensions between the norms and identities of church, state and warrior society. At the Scandinavian courts of the fourteenth century, the ambition was to harmonize these tensions and create a national court culture. The attitude to warrior violence is the same as that of Hákonar saga: it was justified only against the enemies of king and state. In return, the king was to create peace and prosperity for his loyal subjects, “vite å gøre sin allmue gavn”. This differs from the earlier warrior ideal where violence motivated by personal revenge could give honour.186 Respect for Christian norms is important, but little attention is devoted to the subject. Religion manifests itself in the form of moral precepts to be followed by a good courtier. King Birger is compared to Judas when he captures and kills his brothers, and the sufferings of the latter are compared to those of Christ. There are also frequent references to the punishments in hell awaiting evildoers.187 Religion is absorbed and integrated into the courtly culture by appearing as concrete moral norms. The tension between religious and secular norms that occasionally appears in the sagas is no longer present. The most explicit and tangible way of uniting loyalties to state, church and the warrior community was a crusade under the leadership of the king. Eriks-

186

STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 72-74. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 103-106. 187 JANSSON, Medeltidens rimkrönikor, pp. 207, 153-154 and 165. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 105-108.

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krönikan is at great pains to present foreign wars – particularly in Finland – as crusades wherever possible, and much space is devoted to the subject.188 How does the ideal knight appear in the written chronicles and romances of the Late Middle Ages? The only work to be composed in the courtly style in fourteenth-century Scandinavia was Erikskrönikan. In the introduction the author presents his three supreme values: God, nation and knighthood. But the focus of his narrative is on the good knight, and his purpose is to show that Duke Erik and his followers were ideals of true knighthood. The ideal knight and courtier had to be powerful and able to make his power visible. Duke Erik attacked Danish Skåne in 1307, capturing the brother of the Danish king, burning peasants’ farms, and forcing the peasants to take refuge in the woods. This is presented as an honourable demonstration of power.189 Matts Ketilmundsson, who was probably the patron of the chronicle, showed a different kind of knightly bravery. During a ‘crusade’ against the Orthodox Russians, the two armies confronted each other at each side of a river. Matts rode to the middle of a bridge and challenged a Russian to come and fight with him in single combat, but none appeared. This is the kind of vainglorious behaviour the translated romances are full of, but which is rare in the native chronicles. Erik never enters into a hopeless fight. When the king finally captures the two dukes, Valdemar puts up a fight, but Erik tells him to put down his weapons since all resistance is in vain.190 Even so, both kinds of power demonstrations were honourable, according to the chronicle. It was also honourable to be rich and show it through conspicuous consumption. After a failed attempt to obtain the daughter of the Norwegian king in marriage, Duke Erik returned to Konghelle and held banquets for his retainers. Wine and mead, beer and cider were on the table. I have never seen more sumptuous food and drink than he had there. The duke and his retainers wore courtly and appropriate attire, which they also presented to the jongleurs. The banquet hall was decorated in a courtly fashion. […] This food and drink they had originally prepared for the wedding.”191

Erikskrönikan contains numerous descriptions of beautiful buildings, objects, clothes, and personal appearance, all inspired by the translated Eufemiavisor where such descriptions are even more prominent. The descriptions of battles 188

JANSSON, Medeltidens rimkrönikor, pp. 184, 186 and 204. Erikskrönikan, p. 120. 190 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 74. Erikskrönikan, p. 157. 191 Erikskrönikan, p. 118. 189

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are rather different from those found in saga literature. We are given detailed information on the preparations for King Erik’s crusade against the pagan Finns – we read that when the crusaders came ashore, their shields and helmets shone over the land. But the battle itself is given short shrift: “The pagans lost and the Christians won”.192 To be joyful and show it to others was also characteristic of the good knight. When the Swedish knights came to Oslo and saw the beautiful princesses who were to marry Duke Erik and his brother, they “laughed in their hearts”. And during the wedding feast, the duke and all the company were full of joy. But the evil knight might also laugh at others’ harm. King Birger “clapped his hands and laughed” when he had captured his brothers and preparations had been made to kill them.193 In Alexanders saga, translated under the patronage of the Swedish magnate Bo Jonsson ca. 1380, the ascetic Brahmins of India are presented in an unfavourable light because they despise the gift of life. A good knight should seek the joys of this world: action, creativity, thirst for knowledge, music, dance, beauty and corporeal joys.194 This praise of the senses was introduced to Scandinavia through the courtly tradition. The good knight was also an emotional man. But the emotion of love is conspicuously absent from the verse chronicles. In the French romances and the translated Eufemiavisor love is the central theme. Duke Erik sought to marry the Norwegian princess Ingeborg, and finally succeeded. The author here had an opportunity to present the duke as a courteous and honourable lover. But Duke Erik’s marriage plans are presented as an instrument in his political game, and nothing more. The literary topos of courtly love was not important in the Scandinavian verse chronicles. Author and public must have felt that the chronicle should concentrate on norms which were important in the public sphere. Courtly literature of the fourteenth century largely followed this pattern; however, the tradition clearly changed its focus around 1400, and new ideals came to the fore.

The Written Courtly Narrative and the Rise of Swedish Nationalism Erikskrönikan was written in the 1320s, and is the earliest courtly narrative composed in Scandinavia. In the introduction the author tells us that one of his aims is to demonstrate that Sweden has “a knighthood and good heroes”. The 192

Erikskrönikan, p. 31. Erikskrönikan, pp. 145 and 159. 194 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 89. 193

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chronicle reveals a tension between the values of the community of courteous knights and the king’s power as a sovereign monarch. The orders from the king are only to be obeyed if they are in harmony with the codes of knightly honour. King Birger had “an evil heart” – he planned to kill his brothers, and asked the good knight Sir (Herra) Knut to help him. But Knut refused, saying the act was dishonourable. The king’s and the knight’s actions are here judged according to the same code of honour. The king nevertheless killed his brothers, and harmony was not re-established until the murdered Duke Erik’s son was elected king; the chronicler tells us that “God and the men of Uppland wanted it to be so”. The knighthood, not the king, is here seen as God’s hand in Swedish society.195 Erikskrönikan justifies rebellion against the king. Some have seen Erikskrönikan as a political pamphlet whose main purpose was to demonstrate that the Swedish king should be chosen by election and not inheritance. This was a central demand in the political programme of the Swedish nobility. However that may be, the chronicle defends the norms and power of the knights.196 In Konungastyrelsen, written perhaps a decade later, it is repeated time and again that the king has duties towards his subjects. He is to govern in a way that reflects honour on himself and defend the peace and liberty of his subjects. Konungastyrelsen is mainly inspired by Aegidius Romanus’ De regimine principum, but the unknown Swedish author emphasizes more than Aegidius the King’s duties towards his sunjects and his responsibility for their wellbeing.197 Neither Erikskrönikan nor Konungastyrelsen gives the king the same exalted position as Hákonar saga or the Norwegian The King’s Mirror. In this early phase the Swedish nobility used narrative literacy to defend its norms and honour against the king, as the Icelandic magnates did a hundred years before. The difference was that the Icelandic magnates were decentralized at their farms and had different social norms than the Norwegian court. The Swedish knighthood was centralized at court, and king and knighthood shared the same courtly culture and narratives. The norms as reflected in the courtly narratives gradually changed in favour of the strong king or leader. The translated Alexanders saga, patronized by the Swedish magnate Bo Jonsson ca. 1380, has a clear idealization of the strong king; there is no admiration for the personal courage of warriors.198 195

Erikskrönikan, pp. 153, 156 and 180. JANSSON, Medeltidens rimkrönikor, pp. 147-156. JANSSON, Medeltidens rimkrönikor, p. 156. 197 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 82-83. 198 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 89. 196

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At the beginning of the next century the nation emerged as the supreme value, the change being prompted by the enmity between Sweden and Denmark. The Swedish nation was present even in Erikskrönikan, but here the author identified the ‘nation’ with ‘the Swedish knighthood’ – the peasants were insignificant.199 The idealization of the Swedish nation understood as both peasantry and nobility, combined with an heroic image of the national leader, characterized the written courtly narratives of the fifteenth century. In 1434-1436 Englebrekt Engelbrektsson led a Swedish rebellion against the Danish/German King Erik. Engelbrekt was murdered in 1436, and immediately afterwards a chronicle was written by clerics belonging to the council of the realm (riksrådet), which had supported the rebellion. Engelbrektskrönikan follows Erikskrönikan in justifying a rebellion against the king. But there is a difference because Engelbrekt is idealized as the national representative of the people, liberating his country from foreigners: “Our Lord who is in heaven, reward him for having given Sweden his faith! Virgin Mary, help him with your intercession to a reward in heaven!”200 After Engelbrekt’s death Karl Knutsson, a member of the high nobility, was appointed regent and was later elected king. He had a chronicle written under his own supervision. The author may have been a monk in a Stockholm monastery, and the chronicle was copied in Karl’s own chancery. “God helped him and showed him great benevolence so that he could resist the power of the Danes, Norwegians, the Swedish traitors and the Germans paid by the Danes.” The chronicle is rather crude propaganda; it does not have an impressive degree of objectivity or literary quality. The main ideological message of Karlskrönikan is that Sweden is a nation, and Karl Knutsson is the national leader.201 “Karl was now the sovereign leader and the people loved him. He did what good he could for his people, and they always loved him in return.”202 The last of these biographies of national leaders was Sturekrönikan covering the period 1452-1496. It continues the tradition of Karlskrönikan.203 Closely connected to these two chronicles is Frihetsvisan ‘The Song of Liberty’ from 1439. Its author was Bishop Thomas, a member of the council of the realm. Frihetsvisan describes the lawlessness under the Danish king Erik and portrays Engelbrekt and Karl as the liberators of the people. It ends with a praise of liberty as the highest social value, an evident attempt to rally the 199

STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 69 and 73. LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, p. 111. 201 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 91-96. ROSÉN, “Karlskrönikan”. 202 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, p. 95. 203 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 102-103. 200

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Swedish people not only around Karl, but also around common values.204 In all these fifteenth-century works there is a tension between the need for a strong national leader and the rights of the nobility as the leaders of the people. Swedish nationalism, intensifying under Danish pressure, expressed itself in the will to trace the history of Sweden back to a mythic past. This had been done in Denmark by Saxo in about 1200 and by Snorri Sturluson for Norway ca. 1230. One tradition took its point of departure not in the king, but in the Swedish people, and sought to demonstrate that the Swedes were descended from the Goths. The Prosaiska krönikan ‘Prosaic chronicle’, written in Karl Knutsson’s chancery around 1457, presented the Swedes for the first time with a coherent history of their ancestors from the Deluge through impressive Gothic conquests in Europe, Asia and Egypt and up to Karl Knutsson. Eric Olai wrote his Cronica regni gothorum in Latin ca. 1470 trying to convince a European public of the Swedish people’s Gothic roots. The author was a canon in Uppsala, and the patrons were probably King Karl and the chapter of Uppsala Cathedral. He saw Uppsala as the traditional capital of the Goths, and gave much attention to the church’s role in Swedish history.205 Lilla rimkrönikan, ‘the Small Rhymed Chronicle’, is a popular presentation of Swedish kings from Erik, the first king of the Goths who lived in the time of Abraham, to King Christoffer (d. 1448). Each of the 62 kings gives a short biography of himself. The German-born King Christoffer says that “If I had not died so young, the realm would have suffered more. Nobody regretted it when I died in Helsingborg.” The Chronicle was probably patronized by Karl Knutsson.206 The long series of Swedish rhymed chronicles could be seen as part of an educational effort to create a Swedish national identity. At the same time they reflect the ambition of kings and regents to create a strong monarchy – King Karl wanted to convince his readers that Sweden needed a strongman of his calibre. The Swedish nobility did not see this as a good idea, and opposed it. The civil strife was prolonged, had nationalist overtones, and was therefore well suited to a polarization of good against evil. Despite these tensions, the chroni-

204

Karl-Ivar HILDEMAN, “Frihetsvisan”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 640-641. IDEM, “Ballad och vislyrik”, in: Ny illustrerad svensk litteraturhistoria (Stockholm, 1955), pp. 223-274, pp. 268269. 205 Ernst NYGREN, “Cronica regni Gothorum”, in: KLNM 2, cols. 603-604. STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 98-102 206 STÅHLE, “Medeltidens profana litteratur”, pp. 99-100. Gottfrid CARLSSON, “Lilla rimkrönikan”, in: KLNM 10, cols. 568-570.

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cles educated the Swedish nobility and people to think in terms of loyalty to a national king.207 In Denmark, nationalism was not in the interests of king or nobility; a unionist policy served their interests better. The kings were half German and had lands in northern Germany; they succeeded in incorporating Norway, and worked hard to do the same for Sweden. There was no nationalist Danish narrative tradition in the Late Middle Ages. The only original chronicle in Danish from the fifteenth century is Rimkrøniken, which was finished in the 1470s and possibly patronized by the king. The form of the chronicle imitates the Swedish Lilla rimkrönikan: each Danish king enters and gives a short biography of himself. Good kings create peace and prosperity for their people and live according to Christian norms.208 Even if the chronicle is pro-unionist, it is hard to interpret it as an effort to make unionist propaganda. The purpose was rather to popularize historic knowledge which had previously been available only in Latin. Read aloud, the chronicle made the honourable history of the Danish kings available even to illiterates.209 The written courtly narrative was introduced in Scandinavia as an idealization of knighthood, but in the fifteenth century the courtly tradition developed into a propaganda medium for the emerging, strong Scandinavian monarchies, particularly in Sweden. This development parallels that of administrative literacy. In the 1350s, the Swedish kings ordered judicial documents to be written in Swedish to make them more accessible to all laymen. Even if the purpose was primarily practical, one of the consequences was to make the state judiciary more popular and national. After 1400, and particularly after 1500, the Scandinavian monarchies started to make even the non-judicial part of their local administration more literate, and the connection between the local and central level was systematized through a more comprehensive use of accounting, correspondence and archives. Both administrative and narrative literacy were used to make the Scandinavian monarchies stronger.

207 Hans H. RONGE, “Rimkrönikor”, in: KLNM 14, cols. 303-305. Jerker ROSÉN, “Erikskrönikan”, in: KLNM 4, cols. 28-34. Eyvind Fjeld HALVORSEN, “Høvisk litteratur”, in: KLNM 7, cols. 308-313. Hans H. RONGE, “Høvisk litteratur: Sverige”, Ibidem, cols. 313-315. Helge TOLDBERG, “Høvisk litteratur: Danmark”, Ibidem, col. 315. LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, p. 108. 208 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 99, 103 and 105-107. 209 LÖNNROTH, “Den oldnordiske kultur”, pp. 105-110. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 109-110.

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The Written Courtly Narrative – Entertainment or Propaganda? The courtly narrative is presented as entertainment. “Pay attention, all those who want to hear graceful words and entertainment before we go to the dining table”,210 says the author of Erikskrönikan. The verse novel Yvain the Lion Knight, one of the Eufemiavisor, promises “entertainment (skämtan) for those who will listen”. And Konungastyrelsen encourages kings and other great lords to employ “merry jongleurs and minstrels” (lekare och sångare) to entertain themselves and their retainers at table to prevent intoxicated men from “saying things which are not useful.”211 Sven-Bertil Jansson takes the medieval authors literally, and argues against those who consider Erikskrönikan to be didactic.212 But even if the purpose was to entertain, the social consequence may have been didactic. By idealizing the good courtier, the author makes him a pattern to be imitated. There is no doubt that the written courtly narrative had a function in the process of late medieval state-building. In the earliest phase it spread the norm of courteous and pacified conduct within the aristocracy. The qualities of the ideal knight have been described above: warrior bravery but always in the service of a lord or lady, respect for social norms and the commandments of religion. The idealization of the courteous knight served to pacify the feuding chieftains and their warrior retainers and create a more peaceful society. But even the king had to respect those norms, and the nobility used the courteous ideal to limit the arbitrary powers of the increasingly powerful king. Even the king had to respect the law to make state power acceptable to his subjects. During the fifteenth century the ideal knight receded into the background, and centre stage was now occupied by the national leader. In this second phase, the idealization of the national leader strengthened loyalty to the national king, particularly in Sweden, and helped to pave the way for the strong monarchies of the Renaissance.

The Orally Transmitted Ballad and Popular Culture The ballad was the oral branch of the Scandinavian courtly tradition. The main social consequence of the written courtly narrative was to strengthen the identity of the elite around the king. The oral ballad had its origins at court, but 210

Erikskrönikan, p. 27. LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, p. 95. 212 JANSSON, Medeltidens rimkrönikor, p. 215. 211

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gradually spread to peasant communities. It had the potentiality, therefore, to popularize court mentalities and identities among the populace. The ballad was originally a song intended to accompany men and women dancing in a long row. At the end of the fifteenth century couple dances became increasingly popular, and they were better accompanied by instruments like fiddles and pipes. The ballads were no longer sung among aristocrats. The peasants, however, continued to sing them up to the nineteenth century, but no longer as dance songs.213 The orally transmitted ballad and the written verse chronicle were both imported from France and Germany. In 1989 the Swedish folklorist Bengt Jonsson advanced a theory that the ballad was first imported to Norway in the thirteenth century, and came to Sweden early in the fourteenth century and Denmark in the 1470s.214 The basis for the theory was the idea that the oral ballad was imported at the same time as the oldest known translations of written romances.215 The theory has won acceptance among Norwegian medievalists, but not among the Danish!216 Most Danish and Swedish medievalists think rather that the oral ballad was imported independently from the written translations. It was sung to accompany dances, and was probably imported to Scandinavian courts from German courts, which in turn imitated French courts. The origin was probably the carol, a French court dance. This oral import is thought to have arrived during the thirteenth century in all Scandinavian countries. Soon new ballads were composed taking place in a familiar Scandinavian setting, but in the imported courtly style. In the next phase these oral ballads and dances found their way down the social ladder to the local nobility and peasant communities.217 The ballads were imitated because they were associated with the court and distinguished those who sang and danced to them. Since practically none of these ballads were written down until the postmedieval period, it is not possible to give an exact dating for their arrival in the region. The earliest basis for a dating is the fact that from the 1280s, Scandina213

HILDEMAN, “Ballad och vislyrik”, p. 249. LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, p. 115. Bengt R. JONSSON, “Bråvalla och Lena”, Sumlen (1989), pp. 49-118. 215 For the dating of these translations, see supra: pp. 214-216. 216 FIDJESTØL, Norsk litteratur i tusen år, p. 120. Olav SOLBERG, Norsk folkedikting (Oslo, 1999), pp. 70-73. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, p. 114. On Sweden, see: LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, p. 116. 217 HILDEMAN, “Ballad och vislyrik”, pp. 251-252. Sigurd KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, in: Dansk litteraturhistorie 1, ed. Søren KASPERSEN et al. (Copenhagen, 1984), pp. 476-546, pp. 517-520. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, p. 114. Bengt R. JONSSON, “Balladdiktning”, in: KLNM 1, cols. 316-321. LÖNNROTH, “Det høviska tiltalet”, p. 116. 214

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vians began to compose ballads on contemporary themes. The ballad about Marshal Stig was probably written shortly after the murder of King Erik Klipping in 1286, and the one about Earl Alv Erlingsson shortly after his death in 1290. The first quotation from a ballad with its tune is found in a manuscript from Skåne dating to ca. 1330: “Last night I dreamt a dream about silk and wonderful brocades”.218 At present it is safest to assume that the oral ballad was known in Scandinavia in the second half of the thirteenth century, the same century as the first imports of written courtly narratives. Who composed these ballads? Who imported the genre to Scandinavian courts and how was it communicated down the social ladder to peasant communities? In Denmark it seems mainly to have been professional, itinerant jongleurs or leikare, at least in the first phase. Several of these performers, men and women, singers and players, would travel together visiting courts and towns, and perhaps also the residences of magnates in the countryside and villages. They crossed national boundaries, which explains why many of the same ballads are found throughout Scandinavia and other North European countries.219 The ballads they performed could be translated or composed by the singers themselves. When King Erik Klipping was killed in 1286, there was a German Minnesänger called Master Rumsland at his court, and he found the dramatic event a suitable subject for a ballad. The Danish court was half German, so it is natural that German minstrels like Master Rumsland found a receptive audience there. In Denmark the professional jongleurs are seen as the main composers of ballads in the medieval period. Pil Dahlerup thinks their main public was aristocratic because the songs reflect aristocratic moral problems and served to strengthen their identity.220 Gradually local singers from peasant communities learned to sing and compose ballads. The main subjects were still love and honour, but the stories were now set in a community of prosperous farmers.221 The jongleurs could have been active in spreading the ballads to peasant communities; besides the court, 218

KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 527-528. HILDEMAN, “Ballad och vislyrik”, p. 246. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, p. 151. 219 KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 528-535. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 149-150. 220 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 150-151 and 233. 221 KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 528-535. DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 149-150 and 213-214.

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Illustration 40. Runes were used side by side with the Roman alphabet up to the fourteenth century. From the twelfth century, the phonetic value of the runes converged with those of Roman letters. Those who wrote runes were also able to write a vernacular text with Roman letters. The difference was that runes were easier to cut in wood and stone, and Roman letters easier to write on parchment (cf. pp. 15-16 ). Around 1320, someone in Skåne wrote a book of about a hundred pages, all in runes. This book contains the regional law of Skåne, a list of Danish kings and a description of the border between Denmark and Sweden. To judge from the book’s content the author may have been a member of the secular elite working in the Danish royal administration. At this time Latin was the administrative language in Denmark, but the laws were written in the vernacular. The author may have felt it natural to use runes when he wrote in the vernacular, particularly if he wrote the law for his own use. His experiment with runes on parchment for longer texts was not followed by others. This so-called Codex Runicus is also remarkable because it contains the oldest preserved quotation from a Scandinavian ballad, “Last night I dreamt a dream about silk and wonderful brocade”. As can be seen in the photo, the writer has even included the music. This confirms the impression of the author as a member of the secular elite. Photo: Den Arnamagnæanske samling, University of Copenhagen. AM 28 8vo, fol. 99 v.-100 r.

they also had a public in the villages.222 But the ballads could also find their way from court to villages without the help of jongleurs, through what is often called ‘sinking’. Aristocrats and servants working in aristocratic households, most of them women, learnt the oral ballads by heart, and passed them on to peasants in their local villages. Gradually the peasants started to compose ballads reflecting peasant values. The ballad genre had ‘sunk’ from the elite to the peasants. In Sweden and Norway the professional jongleurs seem to have played a more modest part in importing and spreading the ballad. Swedish historians put less emphasis on professional jongleurs in the first phase; they believe that the earliest composers were members of the aristocracy, and the ballad tradition was continued by peasant composers in a later phase.223 Norwegian research tends to emphasize even more that both composers and public belonged to peasant communities. That is not surprising – after 1319 Norway had no court and the ballads were not written down until the 1840s. At that time the ballad definitely only existed in peasant communities. Some Norwegian literary historians have seen the origin of the first oral ballads in written 222 223

KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 533-539. HILDEMAN, “Ballad och vislyrik”, p. 252.

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literature. The purpose was to transform subjects known from the literate tradition into oral dance-songs, and the written sources were translated verse novels, Eddic poems or Norse sagas.224 Even if some ballads did borrow their subjects from written narratives, the ballad was an international, oral genre, imported to Scandinavia by professional jongleurs and spread orally from court to court. Oral literature of high quality could be created independently from written traditions, and writing was not a necessary precondition for cultural imports, which also took place in the pre-literate period. In the Late Middle Ages the ballad strengthened the identity of the aristocracy as well as the peasants, and transmitted values between the two social groups.225 Peter Burke has shown that in the early modern period both elite and common people participated in what is usually called ‘popular culture’.226 The ballad seems to have functioned in that way even in the Late Middle Ages. The oral ballads in this period created cultural links not only between social groups, but also across Scandinavian borders. Many of the same ballads are found in all Scandinavian countries. Jongleurs and the mechanism of ‘sinking’ made the ballad a medium for spreading values to people belonging to all social groups. According to Pil Dahlerup the ballads are “predominantly non-didactic”. Many of them have as their main subjects “abductions, rape, illegitimate children, mistresses, evil stepmothers, unfeeling fathers, incest, sadism, jealousy, abductions from nunneries, murder and suicide”. Some have unrealistically happy endings, such as the story of a bride who is in trouble because she is not a virgin, but on the wedding night it turns out that her former seducer is her present husband. This is “commonplace literature” with no other purpose than to entertain and excite.227 Kværndrup points out that both kings and priests are often portrayed in a negative manner; the ballads were not normative in the sense of idealizing rulers. Order is often created by destiny, which is sometimes presented as God’s will. The ballads’ public were not critical of royalty and clergy in general, but they submitted individual kings and priests to a moral judgement like all other members of society. Ballads were often normative in the sense that they distin224 FIDJESTØL, Norsk litteratur i tusen år, pp. 118-123. SOLBERG, Norsk folkedikting, pp. 7073. These authors seem to go even farther and think that in Scandinavia the ballad as a genre originated in Norway. This theory is not generally accepted; see: David COLBERT, “Ballads”, in: Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Phillip PULSIANO et al. (New York 1993), pp. 29-31. Sven-Bertil JANSSON, “Ballads. Sweden”, Ibidem, pp. 33-34. 225 KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 533-539. 226 Peter BURKE, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978). 227 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 150-151 and 204-205.

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guished between right and wrong, but the rulers were not always the ones who were in the right.228 Some of the ballads are explicitly normative, such as those describing conflicts involving named kings, queens and magnates. In several ballads about King Valdemar, the king is portrayed as a sadist and his queen as a sorceress who, among other things, burned the heroine Tove to death in a sauna. Marshal Stig, who murdered King Erik Klipping in 1286, is presented in a sympathetic light, as are Queen Margareta and King Christian II. The ballads describe political struggles and conflicts between named kings and nobles and give moral judgements on their actions; in this they resemble the written verse chronicles. It is assumed that from the 1280s onwards these ballads were roughly contemporary with the events they describe.229 They were composed by jongleurs at court to defend one of the struggling factions, or by poets in peasant communities to articulate popular attitudes to the events. The ballads rarely give explicit judgements, but idealizations and condemnations are often implicit in the text. The main theme of the ballads is love, and it is always the ideal that a couple in love should be allowed to marry. The force opposed to the marriage might be a father who has other plans for his daughter, or a powerful man or woman who seeks to win a partner through the use of force or magic. All through the Middle Ages there was a tension between family and individual in matters of love and marriage, and the ballads defended the individual. But the church also defended the right of individuals to choose their own marriage partners in this period, and the ballads indicate that this norm now had been internalized, at least among the women and men dancing and singing those ballads. But the norms also dictated that love should be sincere – seducers are condemned.230 The defence of family honour as well as personal honour is also important. There is a tension between family honour and the right of the individual to choose a marriage partner.231 This must have been felt among peasants as well as aristocrats. Several ballads idealize men and women who had brought shame upon their families. A majority of Scandinavian ballads take place in aristocratic or court circles.232 Some of them could be read as textbooks on courtly behaviour. The 228

KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 539-542. KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 523-528. 230 DAHLERUP, Dansk litteratur: Middelalder 2, pp. 190-196 and 199. KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, p. 486, 489 and 536-537. 231 KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, p. 495. 232 SOLBERG, Norsk folkedikting, p. 25. 229

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women are ‘proud maidens’ with long, fair hair, wearing silk and furs and making embroideries using gold threads on silk. The men drink wine, play chess, wear scarlet and furs, ride with gold spurs on their boots, hunt with dogs and hawks, live in stone houses, defend their honour and above all treat women courteously.233 The Danish historian Sigurd Kværndrup thinks these ballads reflect the values of what he calls ‘the village squires’ (landsbyvæbnerne). They were in a position between the court and the village, and the values of both are reflected in the ballads. I think it is more fruitful to regard these so-called ‘knightly ballads’ (ridderviser) as having originated at court, but gradually having sunk from the aristocracy to the peasantry; the oral transmission allowed the ballads to be gradually modified. The peasantry also composed new ballads in the same genre. In this way, the ridderviser had an imprint of both courtly and peasant values. The peasants evidently thought it was exciting to sing about the high and mighty, people whom they only knew from a distance, just as modern films often depict higher social circles. Through the ballads, peasants became acquainted with the norms of court society. The next step was applying those courtly norms to villagers as well, demonstrating how good and noble people should behave.234 Many ballads were evidently composed for a peasant public, and their norms were those of peasant society. Characteristics of such peasant ballads are a belief in trolls and giants and an admiration for fighters with superhuman powers. Attitudes to love, marriage, religion and the supernatural seem to have been similar in peasant and aristocratic communities. The idea of ballads as an expression of the peasants’ own norms is stressed particularly in Norway, where the court disappeared after 1319.235 To sum up, the majority of the ballads had a normative message, even if it was normally implicit rather than explicit. Many ballads held up courtly behaviour as an ideal, and so spread these values to grass-roots peasant communities. This must have strengthened the peasants’ respect for noble men and women who were able to behave in this way. But many of the values were general human values and relevant to all members of society: the equality of all people before God’s and men’s laws, charity, the right of lovers to marry, the importance of defending family and personal honour. The ballads combine hierarchy and equality before moral laws. The ballad was part of a popular oral culture

233

HILDEMAN, “Ballad och vislyrik”, pp. 235-237. KVÆRNDRUP, “Folkevisen”, pp. 543-546. 235 SOLBERG, Norsk folkedikting, pp. 180-183. 234

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which included all members of Scandinavian society, and values presented there were relevant to all.236 The written part of court culture was the translated romances and the verse chronicles discussed above. Chronicles and ballads were contemporary and part of the same court culture, the former written and the latter oral. According to Goody’s theories, one would expect the chronicles to have a more generalizing character. Is this so? We have seen that the ballads were normative, but the norms were implicit in the narrative. They tell a concrete story where the individuals behave honourably or shamefully, but the story is not explicitly used to illustrate a general and universal truth. However, the author of the written Erikskrönikan (ca. 1325) starts his epic by presenting his general values. He gives praise to God and to his beautiful homeland Sweden: here live good and heroic knights and princes, and by listening to the chronicle one will understand that this is so. The chronicle is presented as an exemplification of the author’s values: God, nation and knighthood. The chronicle ends with Magnus being elected king of Sweden and Norway. “That honour he still has – God and the men of Uppland wanted it to be so.”237 ‘The men of Uppland’ here signifies ‘the Swedish knighthood’. Engelbrektskrönikan (ca. 1440) has the same kind of introductory generalization, telling us that “foreigners should not govern the realm”. The Swedes elected the Danish queen Margareta as their leader (höffdinge), which was unwise and contrary to Swedish law. The troubles and conflicts which followed are the subject of the chronicle. The chronicle is an exemplification of a general truth.238 The Danish Rimkrøniken (1470s) has each Danish king enter the stage and tell the story of his own life. The king often starts by giving a generalizing theme followed by a concrete story. Valdemar the Great begins as follows: “It is true as is said in the Bible that a realm in which dissent arises shall be laid waste. I realized that when Denmark in my time had three kings at once.”239 This resembles the Dominican style of preaching ‘by examples’, which by the Late Middle Ages had become a common approach for many Scandinavian priests. Rimkrøniken was written at the monastery of Sorø, and the monks have used this generalizing ecclesiastical form on a secular subject.240 236

My understanding of ‘popular culture’ here follows: BURKE, Popular Culture.. Erikskrönikan, pp. 27 and 180. JANSSON, Medeltidens rimkrönikor, pp. 147-156. 238 Engelbrektskrönikan, p. 25. 239 KVÆRNDRUP, “Det feudale stændersamfund”, pp. 444-445. 240 See supra: pp. 113-114. 237

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The generalizing character of the chronicles could be understood as a desire on the part of the royal patrons to make explicit propaganda – the authorities could not control ballads, but they did control the chronicles. The author could give explicit moral lessons, a rather simple way of getting his point across. Or he could let the characters in their narratives express the generalizations in a more sophisticated manner. An alternative explanation would stress the literate tradition to which written courtly literature belonged, as a generalizing way of thinking will be part of any literate tradition. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive, however; written narratives were better suited for propaganda purposes. The written courtly chronicles were controlled by state authorities and were intended for courtiers, giving the king the opportunity to influence attitudes there. The oral ballads had all social groups as their audience, and therefore had a wider potential to contribute to ideological state-building. The problem was that the contents of the oral ballads were impossible to direct. Popular oral culture was free of state control.

Administrative and Narrative Literacy By 1300 all the Scandinavian kingdoms had a central administration which was literate and made extensive use of writing. In the final decades before the Reformation the central administrations were strengthened by an increase in personnel, the systematic use of archives and a more prolific correspondence. More important was that the central bureaucracy took a firmer control of local administration using written documents and accounts. In the fifteenth century reading and writing in the vernacular was taught in an increasing number of schools in Danish and Swedish towns. In the final decades of the Middle Ages there was an elite of local officials and merchants who could read and write, and even a peasant elite seems to have been literate. One might think this would lead to an increased interest in written narratives among laymen outside the court. There was evidently an increased readership for prayer books, and some of the readers were women who were neither nuns nor ladies-in-waiting. But the readers of such books were only a small minority; laymen still received almost all their religious knowledge orally from the clergy. Most of the secular written literature was evidently meant for a public of courtiers. Possible exceptions were the rhymed chronicles from Sweden written around 1450 and from Denmark twenty years later. The rhymed chronicles

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presented the kings of the two respective countries in a rather short and simple format, indicating that the narrative was meant to be read aloud to a public with little or no education. Written narratives in the vernacular may at this time have started to find their way outside the circle of those who belonged to or visited the court. However, written, secular narratives for a public outside court and church circles were mainly a development belonging to the post-Reformation period. Outside the court, literacy in the Late Middle Ages was an instrument for administration, not for narratives or ‘literature’. This may indicate that the literacy of the common people in this period was sufficient in some cases to read and in a few cases write standardized letters and accounts, but not to read longer narratives. Narrative literacy was mainly used to create a stronger identity among the elite at court. In the communication of court values from court to peasant communities, literacy had practically no importance. Here the courtly ideals were mainly communicated through oral ballads and, of course, through imitation of social superiors.

The Private Letter and Literacy’s Potentiality as an Instrument for Political Opposition So far an overwhelming impression has emerged of administrative as well as narrative literacy supporting the norms, values, power and incomes of the elite. But literacy also had the potential to liberate people from authority. Jacques le Goff has pointed out that the universities created a public debate on important theological questions as early as the twelfth century, a debate which was partly oral – within the individual universities – and partly literate and Europe-wide through letters and books.241 Within the limits created by its dogmas, the Roman Catholic church permitted and even encouraged a debate on important religious, philosophical, legal, and social questions. Le Goff has called the university professors participating in this debate Europe’s first intellectuals. No such public debates took place in Scandinavia, and the foundation of the two first Scandinavian universities in Uppsala (1477) and Copenhagen (1479) did not change this.242 But if public debate was lacking, did private letters permit exchanges of views between people outside the circle of powerful court officials? There is a 241 242

Jacques LE GOFF, Les intellectuels au moyen âge (Paris, 1985; 1st ed. 1957), pp. 7-69. See supra: pp. 47-50.

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book still extant from the see of Bergen which contains copies of 509 letters sent and received by the bishops between 1305 and 1342.243 Many of the addressees were ecclesiastical or lay magnates. Official business concerning appointments to high office, court cases and meetings are mixed with business we would call private.244 The private letter as a separate genre had not been developed. As an expression of their friendship the magnates often exchanged gifts – useful goods like food, iron, equipment for ships, boats, foreign cloth, wine, horses, dogs or falcons. They exchanged news about recent deaths, who was intriguing against whom, conflicts between the king and great lords of the realm, what had been said at this or that meeting, or wars in Sweden, Denmark, England, France and Italy. They also asked each other for advice and gave recommendations for protégés. Bishop Hakon regularly ended his letters to the magnate Bjarne Erlingsson by sending greetings to Bjarne’s wife, sister, daughters and parents.245 These letters also illustrate the interplay between literacy and orality, because they often ended by saying that the messenger carrying the letter would give further information. The oldest extant private letter written in Norway, and probably in Scandinavia, was written ca. 1161-1172 by an English-born woman married to a Norwegian magnate. The addressee was her brother who was abbot at St Victor in Paris. She had been informed that many Norwegians came to St Victor with greetings from her and her husband, asking for hospitality. But most of these greetings were false, and she asks her brother to send her some tokens which she can return with those men who really come from her.246 This woman evidently wrote letters, but she also used an older system of oral messages and objects to identify the messenger. The private letters of the Bishop of Bergen were written in the vernacular. In the period 1300-1350 all correspondence between magnates in Sweden and Denmark would have been in Latin, which probably few lay magnates were able to write. However, no private letters survive from Denmark before 1400, with the possible exception of the half-official, half-private letters of Abbot William of Æbelholt. After 1450 private letters in Danish start to appear, and after 1500 the numbers explode. The magnates corresponded with each other in the same type of half-public, half-private letters as Abbot William. The magnate Eggert Frille 243

See supra: p. 39. Bjarne BERULFSSEN, Kulturtradisjon fra en storhetstid (Oslo, 1948), p. 155. 245 BERULFSSEN, Kulturtradisjon fra en storhetstid, pp. 138-148. For the actual letters, see: RN IV and V. 246 RN I, No. 137. 244

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wrote to his wife about everyday problems concerning food and clothes and gave news about the war he was fighting in. The exchange of news was important in these letters.247 But the writers rarely expressed their opinions on or evaluation of political events. In the decade before the Reformation, the last Norwegian Catholic archbishop, Olav Engelbrektsson, tried to organize resistance against the plans of the Danish kings. His archive of letters has been preserved. He might have used correspondence to organize a network of Norwegian magnates for the protection of the Roman Catholic church and Norwegian independence through the council of the realm (riksråd). But this does not seem to have happened. The reason is probably that it was too dangerous: magnates were executed for disloyalty to the Danish king.248 Literacy is an instrument for liberation only if the rulers permit a public debate, even if it is within narrow limits, as the church did in the universities from 1100-1300 and l’ancien régime did in eighteenth-century France. The exchange of letters in Norway 1304-1342 and in Denmark after 1450 was not used as a means to debate important questions of public interest. It had more the character of exchange of information and personal network-building. But it nevertheless created a public sphere among leading magnates which was not dependent on their physical presence at the king’s court. This circle of penfriends did not cross frontiers; Swedes and Danes did not participate in the network of the Bishops of Bergen, for example. Could this have contributed to the beginnings of a national identity among the king’s leading subjects?

Conclusion In the High Middle Ages (1100-1350), the most important social consequence of literacy had been its contribution to the construction of the two great organizations of church and state.249 In the Late Middle Ages (1350-1536) organization-building within the church stagnated, while the state continued to strengthen its social control. The pope’s overall control of the Scandinavian church was nevertheless increased. The curia imposed taxes on the clergy and made appointments to 247 DAHLERUP, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie 6, p. 315. SCHOUSBOE, “Literacy and society in Denmark”, pp. 156-157. BJØRN, “… ganske venligen tilskrevet i egen hånd”, p. 341. 248 On this period: Lars HAMRE, Norsk politisk historie 1513-1537 (Oslo, 1998). 249 See supra: Conclusion to chapter 2, pp. 151-156.

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important clerical offices through papal provisions. Literacy played a key role in this process.250 However, these developments concerned the relationship between the Scandinavian clergy and the pope, and had limited social consequences for Scandinavian secular society. The state, however, continued to strengthen its control of local communities. By the end of the High Middle Ages (ca. 1350), the kings had dominated the judiciary. In the Late Middle Ages the most important developments were the reinforcement of the state’s financial basis and administrative control. Literacy was also a major factor in this process. Between 1350 and 1500 written accounts were increasingly used by local officials, and by ca. 1520 the captains of the royal castles had to send in detailed written accounts annually to the exchequer (rentekammer). At the same time correspondence increased in volume, and the keeping of documents and accounts at the chanceries was systematized. Control at the centre was strengthened, and penetrated further down in the local communities. In both these processes administrative literacy played an important part. An important part of ‘nation-building’ is the creation of common norms and values. Beginning in the thirteenth century a secular court culture emerged, imported from and inspired by France and Germany. The courtly written literature presented norms which were meant to harmonise relations and avoid conflicts among nobles at court. These written narratives do not seem to have been read outside the court. Courtly values were nevertheless spread down the social ladder to peasants and townsmen through oral ballads, whose audience included courtiers and peasants alike. This secular court culture could be seen as the starting point for the development of Scandinavian national cultures distinct from the international church culture and the warrior culture of the High Middle Ages. Literacy played an important role in reaffirming these norms and values among the literate courtiers, but was not important in spreading them to people outside the court. Writing also helped to make Sweden and Denmark linguistically homogenous as vernacular literacy with a more or less standardized spelling became more widespread through better schooling. In the High Middle Ages, the most potent force in the Europeanization of Scandinavia on the organizational, ideological, and financial levels was the church. In all these areas literacy had played an important part.251 In the Late Middle Ages, trade and merchants took over as the most innovative force in this field. After ca. 1250 foreign merchants started to use writing in their Scandinavian trade, which permitted them to integrate Scandinavia more firmly into a 250 251

See supra: p. 163. See supra: p. 152.

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Northern European trade network. In the fourteenth century native Scandinavian merchants also started to use written accounts and letters. This took the integration process further, and was an important basis for the proliferation of town schools after 1400. The royal administration had made a major contribution to Europeanization in the High Middle Ages, and this process continued in the Late Middle Ages. The imported court culture strengthened the secular process of Europeanization from the thirteenth century onward. Now let us turn from the influence of literacy on social structures to the uses the individual could make of his or her competence in reading and writing. In the High Middle Ages literacy had primarily been a skill for those belonging to church and clergy. Even before 1300 many laymen were literate, but for them it did not carry prestige. This changed in the Late Middle Ages as literacy became an instrument for individual advancement and distinction for laymen. During the Late Middle Ages the royal administration became literate and made extensive use of writing from the top level right down to the grass roots. The higher up one was on the social scale, the more writing was used. Nobles still had to have family connections and landed property to have a chance at a career, but administrative skills – among them the ability to handle written documents – were increasingly important. On the lowest level, peasants and townsmen in the High Middle Ages had been integrated in the royal administration through the Thing, which functioned as a meeting-place between the people and the king’s men. Here communication was oral. The Thing gradually lost its importance, and in the judiciary and administration the king preferred to make use of selected members of the peasant elite. They were given the prestigious titles of lensmenn, lagrettemenn or herredsfoged and assisted the local bailiff in his duties; probably many of them were chosen because they were literate. Literate merchants served as town councillors. Literacy may have made communication between the state and local communities more hierarchical, with a literate local elite as mediators. To be literate was an instrument for social advancement and prestige at all levels in the royal administration. Economically, those at the top used literate skills more than those lower down the social ladder, and literacy was associated with wealth. In urban communities the richest long-distance merchants used writing the most. Landed property gave prestige, and even minor landowners gradually acquired legal titles to their property. Accounting was useful for all landowners, but for the richest with properties spread over a large area, it was indispensable.

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On the religious level, the High Middle Ages had seen a dichotomy between priests and laymen, the former preaching for the latter. In the Late Middle Ages there emerged a body of lay persons who were acquiring religious knowledge through private reading of prayer books. Some laymen even possessed ‘books of hours’ which contained canonical prayers originally meant for clerics. Most of the readers seem to have been wives of royal officials and merchants. They constituted a literate religious elite of laywomen who were better qualified to understand church doctrine than others. Literacy contributed to the creation of a more coherent social hierarchy and became a means for individual distinction for women as well. From the individual’s perspective literate knowledge became an instrument in the search for power and riches. In major Danish and Swedish towns schools teaching reading, writing and elementary arithmetic were available for all who could afford it. Young future merchants could continue their education in foreign towns, learn other languages and more specialized business correspondence. Youths aspiring to the priesthood could go on to cathedral schools and eventually attend university abroad. Would-be clerks in the royal administration could start work immediately after leaving school, while those aiming higher could follow the clerical pattern and go to cathedral schools. Most of the highest offices were given to nobles, and the majority of them had received no more than an elementary private education; only a few went to university. For all these young men, a literate education was a means to obtaining a position giving power, a good income and prestige. Persons of authority in church and state were literate, and so were the merchants. The most literate of them held the highest positions. Literacy, power and riches became associated. This created a material basis for regarding literacy as a mark of social distinction even among laymen. Pierre Bourdieu has maintained that cultural skills can give social prestige, social advancement, and power.252 Late medieval literacy is an early example. In the High Middle Ages literacy had been used as a ‘pulpit’ to indoctrinate religious beliefs and impose a centralized judiciary. In the Late Middle Ages it continued to be an instrument for strengthening the power and riches of state and church. But gradually literacy also became a mark of distinction and an instrument for social advancement. Literacy was beginning to function both as a pulpit for the authorities and as a ladder for individuals.

252 Pierre BOURDIEU, Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste (London, 1984; original edition: Paris, 1979).

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Conclusion hen literacy is introduced into a society where communication has previously been exclusively or predominantly oral, what are the resulting social consequences? This was the general question posed in the introduction to this book.

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Organizing State, Church and Trade Using Oral Communication As early as the eleventh century, the states of Denmark, Sweden and Norway existed within their medieval borders – before writing was used on a larger scale to organize them. The kings were itinerant, constantly travelling between towns and royal estates, consuming locally collected taxes, holding meetings and assuring themselves of the loyalty of officials, magnates and peasants. It was possible to keep the Scandinavian states together without literacy, relying on what Max Weber called the use of ‘legitimate violence’. Scandinavian bishoprics with clear boundaries were established by about 1100, in a period when the Scandinavian churches used the written word almost exclusively for liturgical purposes, and rarely for organizational communication. The bishops held synods with local priests every year and visited the parishes in person every third year. At these face-to-face meetings legal conflicts were adjudicated, useful information given, and problems discussed. Scandinavian long-distance trade was not organized through the use of literacy until the end of the thirteenth century, when it was introduced by Hanseatic merchants. Even before that time there existed an important trade in herring from Skåne and stockfish from northern Norway and an incipient export of metals from Stockholm. Long distance trade could be organized orally by travelling in person to a certain market, exchanging goods without credit or in spe-

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cial cases trusting the other party to pay when they came back the following year. It was possible to organize kingdoms, bishoprics and long-distance trade without literacy. The king could keep his realm united and pacified relying on personal loyalties and the exercise of legitimate violence. But it is one thing to do what is possible when there are no alternatives; making the best choice when alternatives do exist is a different matter. There was a steady increase in the use of writing in the five centuries between Christianization and Reformation. Those who introduced it must have found it to their advantage to do so.

Literacy as a Means of Preserving Norms and Institutionalizing Social Practices State, church, and trade continued to depend largely on oral organization and networks all through the Middle Ages, but writing was used in certain areas. Before examining the areas that were affected by growing literacy, let us first briefly delineate certain relevant aspects of literate communication. Writing is usually said to be a technology of communication,253 but how does one define communication? In our context the term covers two uses of writing which are fundamentally different. First there is communication with contemporaries; the letter is the most obvious example. The second is storing information; this could be understood as a communication with posterity. Registers, accounts, laws, judicially binding agreements, religious doctrines and literature are typical examples. If the intended future reader is the writer himself, he communicates with himself. If the intended future readers are priests or royal officials of the future, he communicates with his successors in the organization in which he works. These two uses of writing are basically different and therefore a distinction should be made in terminology. In the following pages I shall reserve the term ‘communication’ for communicating with contemporaries, and ‘communication with posterity’ will be referred to as ‘storing information’. But these two uses were certainly not equally important in medieval Scandinavia. They were not produced in equally significant quantities, nor did they both have important social consequences. There is no doubt that storing information was by far the most important use of writing. ‘Communication’ in the 253 Communicatie in de middeleeuwen, ed. Marco MOSTERT (Hilversum, 1995).New Approaches to Medieval Communication, ed. IDEM (Turnhout, 1999: Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 1).

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restricted sense defined above was a secondary use. There were no postal services in Scandinavia in the Middle Ages; a letter always had to be carried by a messenger. This messenger also could give a message orally, and indeed letters of the period often say that the messenger would give further information. The written letter was an advantage because it gave a more accurate message, but it was, strictly speaking, not indispensable. Writing was sometimes used for communication and storing information at the same time. Merchants living in different towns bought and sold goods for each other, sending accounts of their transactions. The captains of castles at the end of the Middle Ages sent accounts to the central administration totalling 100-200 pages in modern print. Here storing information and communication were combined. But there is no doubt that writing was used in these cases because the information was impossible to memorize, not because it had to travel long distances. Storing information was the basic reason for using writing in the Scandinavian Middle Ages. The medieval writers found it worthwhile to store information for two main reasons. The first and most obvious reason was that the information was so comprehensive that it was difficult to remember. The second was if the information contained an agreement between several persons, and someone could have a motive for changing the agreement. The latter motive for storing information in writing was the most important in the High Middle Ages. The earliest information to be put into writing in Scandinavia was liturgy and other religious information which church leaders wanted to be universal and not subject to personal modification by priests and laymen. The earliest secular information to be put into writing was the law; later, legal titles to property and judicial verdicts dominated. The main purpose for recording this information in writing was to avoid future conflicts. But gradually more information that did not contain any agreements, but simply was impossible to remember, was stored in writing. In the century before the Reformation detailed and nominal accounts became increasingly common, and after ca. 1520 became a routine in the royal administration. Native Scandinavian merchants made increasing use of written accounts during the later centuries of the medieval period. Literature and chronicles were put into writing in the twelfth century, and increasingly so in subsequent centuries. Thus, the earliest and most important use of writing in the Scandinavian Middle Ages was to retain the memory of ‘agreements’ in the broadest sense of the word. They were written down to avoid future conflicts about what these agreements actually involved. What does this tell us about the forces behind the introduction of literacy in Scandinavia?

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Literacy as a Means to Better Social Control, with Less Use of ‘Legitimate Violence’ Medieval Scandinavia, like most societies, was kept together by norms and institutionalized social practices. In the earliest period these norms and practices were remembered and maintained by smaller oral communities such as neighbourhoods, Thing communities and the king and his retainers. But the Icelandic sagas show that the strongest magnates could bend these norms and practices to their own advantage. These ‘agreements’ were the first to be put into writing, and they made up the bulk of written material for centuries afterward. Having written norms had obvious and important social consequences. First, it became possible for king and church to control these norms and institutionalized social practices, and to change and standardize them. Secondly it became more difficult for local magnates to make use of strong-arm tactics to get their way. The norms were there for all to read and this opened the way for intervention from forces outside the local community, like the king and church. The written word made the social norms explicit and open to control by a superior external force. Legitimate violence and literacy complemented each other. Written norms contributed to social pacification. The most comprehensive use of literacy was in the judiciary, where the traditional Thing assemblies and the courts of king and church competed for authority. The basic strength of the king’s court was that he could use legitimate violence to force a recalcitrant opponent to accept a verdict. Written verdicts made it easier for local officials and central authorities in church and state to help the winning party by executing the claim made good by the verdict. This made the king’s court attractive to people who sought redress. Written laws, verdicts and legal titles to property also made it necessary for the judges to be literate. At the traditional Thing assemblies judgements were passed by juries of illiterate peasants. When it came to handling written material, the ecclesiastical and royal judges were definitely at an advantage. They gradually obtained greater jurisdiction in the country through a combination of legitimate violence and literacy. The second important use of literacy was the imposition of religious norms. The clergy had received their knowledge through a comprehensive schooling up to university level. Centrally controlled ideological conformity over a large area would have been impossible without written doctrines spread through the church’s schools.

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Thirdly, literacy affected the accounting and revenues of national organizations. Taxes in pre-literate Scandinavia tended to be arbitrarily imposed when the authorities needed them. Written registers assured church and state of permanent incomes from a large area. This was a precondition for two such large and permanent organizations to exist. In societies organized through oral communication only, it was possible for the rulers to control and change norms and institutionalized social practices through the use of legitimate violence. Literacy made it easier to do this by peaceful means. First it made norms and institutionalized practices explicit so that they could consequently be controlled and changed in more detail than if they had been preserved only in the memories and practices of men and women. Secondly, by committing these norms and institutionalized practices to writing, it followed that only members of the literate elite fully understood them, and this made it easier for ordinary people to accept that the literate elite enforced and changed them. State and church could control the social fabric with less legitimate violence.

Literacy’s Ability to Make a Complex Society Predictable In pre-literate Scandinavia, norms were learnt by socialization, by encountering the reactions of others. People listened to narratives about gods and heroes and oral laws often in the form of short narratives to be imitated. The norms were not very explicit or clearly formulated. In a society with few social groups and little mobility this did not necessarily create problems. Scandinavian society became increasingly complex in the period 10001536, with greater social and geographic mobility. New social groups like clergy and professional merchants interacted with the traditional groups. The explicit written laws and religious doctrines were better adapted to this new society than the traditional orally-transmitted rules. They made it easier for people to familiarize themselves with norms which they did not know from socialization. This made the situation more predictable for people who visited communities they did not know or moved into social groups where they had not grown up. Explicit and written norms are of course more predictable than vaguely-formulated oral ones. Norms and social practices made explicit and predictable in writing also made it easier to handle complex situations. Law was probably the field where writing was most widely used. Here several organizations were active: the local Thing assemblies, the king, the

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bishop, and the pope. Without writing this complex division of legislation and jurisdiction over a large area would hardly have been possible. Economic rights and obligations also grew more complex. The property rights to farms became more divided and great landowners like churches collected small sums from many peasants living over a large area. This would have been difficult without written registers. Merchants traded in many commodities which they had to buy in markets spread all over Northern Europe. Placing orders by letter was a much more practical alternative than making personal trips to organize these complex exchanges. On the religious front, scholastic theologians created an increasing number of dogmas and doctrines which were taught in numerous church schools and spread throughout Christendom in written form. Literacy helped to organize a society which was becoming increasingly complex socially, economically, legally and ideologically. The ability to function more effectively in an increasingly complex society and even promote and exploit that complexity for one’s own advantage has often been the main objective in introducing new communication technologies, from writing to the Internet. Increasing complexity and interdependence in society are connected developments. Was literacy important in creating stronger social cohesion?

Literacy and Social Cohesion State, church and merchants used literacy to increase control and predictability in their separate fields. But the social consequences of literacy were more extensive and important than the sum of these intended effects – literacy also had indirect and unintended consequences. Many historians, including Michael Clanchy and Jack Goody, have maintained that literacy made social practices more standardized and strengthened social cohesion.254 The most fundamental effect was that the written language was standardized and made accessible to more people. Latin was meant to be used by a small clerical elite only, and was used by this elite to indoctrinate and administer the illiterate people. From ca. 1200 in the West Norse area and from the fourteenth century in Sweden and Denmark, the written vernacular languages were standardized and taught to laymen. Beginning in the early fifteenth century, an extensive network of schools was created in Danish and Swedish towns to teach 254 Michael T. CLANCHY, “Literacy, law and the power of the state”, in: Culture et idéologie dans la genèse de l’état moderne, ed. Jean-Claude Marie VIGUEUR and C. PIETRI (Rome, 1985: Collection de l’école française de Rome 82), pp. 25-34. GOODY, The Logic of Writing.

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laymen vernacular literacy. The earlier Latin literacy was adapted to a vertical communication between ruler and subjects. The extensive vernacular literacy opened up the opportunity for horizontal written communication between members of a broad elite and a social cohesion based on writing. Members of the Norwegian elite corresponded frequently as early as 13001350, and after ca. 1500 the Danish and Norwegian elite kept up an extensive correspondence with family and friends. They exchanged information about family as well as political matters, but never used writing to create systematic networks. The basis for their friendship was personal, oral ties, often created at court or at meetings, and these may have been strengthened by correspondence. It is nevertheless difficult to see that this horizontal, literate communication had important social consequences. Only with the appearance of cheap, printed leaflets and newspapers in the eighteenth century did horizontal written communication independent from state and church start to have important social consequences in Scandinavia. As literacy among the elite increased after 1400, literate laymen and laywomen were able to choose their information more freely, and even more so after printed books appeared in Scandinavia around 1480. Religious books became accessible, and communication through letters possible. One might imagine that this would liberate the literate elite from the priest in the pulpit, allowing the literate laymen to adopt unorthodox views if they wanted to. But it did not work out that way; readers chose books that propagated the same doctrines as the priests. Literacy did not create new horizontal solidarities based on common reading. It is difficult to see that the increased freedom of information had any significant social consequences before the Reformation. If literacy created greater horizontal cohesion, it must have been indirectly. Michael Clanchy has stressed that writing is a powerful instrument to ‘standardize and depersonalize’ language and social practices. He takes as his example how the common law of England gradually replaced a diversity of local feudal laws and treated all the king’s subjects as equals before the law. Clanchy calls standardization ‘the political characteristics of literacy’.255 The same process can be observed in Scandinavia. The judiciary and other branches of state administration gradually became more standardized within each country. It was in the king’s interest to treat all his subjects according to the same standardized procedures. The church standardized religious beliefs and rituals. Commercial correspondence and accounting standardized trade practices. This increasing standardization of social practices over large geographic 255

CLANCHY, “Literacy, law and the power of the state”, p. 28.

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areas would have been unimaginable without literacy; the same is true for the sense of community and cohesion which resulted from it. The intention of standardized written procedures was to make it easier for state and church to control their subjects. But it also made it easier for the subjects to tell whether church and state were following standard practices – literacy introduced control from below. It goes without saying that this control from below was only possible if those who exercised ‘legitimate violence’ permitted it, and the state all through the Middle Ages thought it advantageous to give peasants and other subjects a monitoring function particularly in the judiciary. They evidently thought it would increase the peasants’ trust. In the long run, standardization of social practices opened up the possibility for democratic control and cohesion. Literacy promoted a new generalizing way of thinking which obviously also benefited social cohesion. Goody has emphasized that illiterates tend to see social behaviour as a large number of individual events, where some events and persons are more exemplary and should be imitated. In a literate society, people tend to distinguish between explicit, general norms expressed in abstract terms on the one hand, and their application in concrete, individual cases on the other. There was a development towards a generalizing way of thinking in medieval Scandinavia.256 If the subjects thought that their society was ruled by general norms, it obviously created cohesion among those who shared these norms. In the long term the generalizing way of thinking was a precondition for an open debate on important political and religious questions. If the bone of contention was whether Hakon or Skuli should be king, there would be no point in a public debate; the question had to be decided by arms. But if the issue was a general principle like the existence of Purgatory or the importance of indulgences, such general questions could be – and in this case were – debated by theologians at universities. A generalizing way of thinking is of course a precondition for all scientific analysis of society and nature. The origin of this way of thinking in the High Middle Ages is not due to literacy alone, but the new interest in literacy in recent decades has enabled us to see the development from that perspective. Violent struggles between factions create social tensions, while peaceful debates on general principles create cohesion. So far the focus has been on literacy and social cohesion in the state societies of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. But the example of Iceland demonstrates that writing can create social cohesion even in a pre-state society. In Iceland, administrative literacy was weakly developed. A centralized, literate administration did not exist, and written laws existed but lacked an external mechanism 256

See supra: pp. 154-156.

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for enforcement. In that situation Icelanders must have considered it particularly important to present their norms forcefully through narratives because the alternative ways of defending them were ineffective. Exemplary narratives had been important all over pre-literate and pre-state Scandinavia, both in law and religion. In Iceland the narratives of the pre-state society continued to be important after the secular elite had become literate. They were written down in the form of sagas, and created social cohesion around common values and norms. The central theme in the sagas was honour, and the honourable man was a model for others. The Icelanders’ traditional understanding of honour had an important social function. Most offences against a man’s honour were also violations of law. By defending their own honour, the pre-state Icelanders also punished criminals and created respect for law. Up to 1262 the chieftains of Iceland lived according to a warrior code of honour which by that time was out of step with the courtly ideals of the aristocracy in Norway and most other European countries. At the Norwegian court they encountered other norms. A courtier who was harmed by another man was not supposed to consider it an offence against his honour, but a breach of law which it was the king’s duty to punish. Feuding was considered to be beneath the dignity of the good courtier. The church also confronted the Icelandic chieftains with an ideal of Christian charity and a pacified society. It became important for Icelanders to convince themselves that they lived according to ideals which were good and honourable even if they were different. Saga authors wanted to demonstrate that feuding in Iceland did not prevent Icelandic warriors from being good courtiers when in Norway, and the warrior heroes of the sagas of Icelanders became good Christians if they lived into the Christian era. But the less idealized sagas written about contemporary people and events show that traditional warrior honour on the one hand and Christian and courtly values on the other often cancelled each other out. That was, however, not how it should be. The intention of exemplary saga narratives was to unite the members of Icelandic society around three sets of norms and concepts of honour which all were good, showing how it was possible for a man to be religious, courteous and a feuding warrior at the same time. Literacy helped to create social cohesion. The conscious efforts of church, state and merchants to increase control, predictability and standardization within their separate fields were most directly significant. Indirectly, however, the standardized written language and the general standardization of norms and social practices strengthened social cohesion in society as a whole. The exemplary narrative contributed to ideological cohesion in all the Scandinavian countries, but was particularly important for Icelandic chieftains.

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Literacy’s Role in Promoting Social Cohesion on the National and European Levels Literacy helped to create social cohesion, but it did so at different levels. In the High Middle Ages literacy was a driving force in the integration of Scandinavia into a Western European religious organization. Increasingly literacy was used to create national states, but all through the Middle Ages literacy was used at both levels. There were also communities with a strong cohesion at the local level, but their communication was oral. Judicial and administrative power and authority was gradually drained from these local, oral communities to the larger ones organized through literacy. Church and state increasingly concentrated their organizations within national borders. By the end of the Middle Ages, written language, judiciary and secular administration had the same borders as the kingdoms.257 In 1536 the Reformation nationalized even religion and church organization. These standardized procedures and ideas created cohesion and permanence. Even in periods with weak central government, the judiciary, religious services, local administration and the written language continued to function as usual. What kept the standardized procedures going was to a large extent the force of the written word: written laws, written verdicts and titles to property had to be respected, religious services according to written instructions had to be continued, local officials functioned according to their written instructions. And when the central government again strengthened its grip, it could only do so within those traditional boundaries. By the close of the Middle Ages, the Danish and Swedish kingdoms had a ruling class which felt united around the king and ruled a society which was more complex and predictable than 400 years earlier. The ruling elite had mechanisms to change society without using violence, and without destroying its cohesion. Literacy was a precondition for this development. Literacy was important to the rise of the Scandinavian states. But writing was not a technology designed to create strong states. It also held those states in check by contributing to the Europeanization of Scandinavia. A rather simple definition of ‘Europeanization’ might be “increasing communication between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe”. Literacy obviously facilitated this kind of Europeanization. A language understood across borders 257 With the exception of Iceland, which had its own written language but by then was part of the Danish kingdom.

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was crucial to a flow of information. Latin was the international ‘book language’, understood by clerics in all countries. Europeanization can also be defined as “integration into a larger European organization or network.” The church embraced this kind of Europeanization as an explicit programme. It created a system of parishes intended to reach even the remotest regions with doctrines formulated in Rome and Paris. The church’s systematic indoctrination, organized by means of writing, created a fundamental ideological conformity in Western Europe. But the church was not the only European network. Merchants used writing to facilitate their participation in the exchange of goods throughout Northern Europe. From the fourteenth century, Scandinavian towns gained a literate, native merchant class which integrated Scandinavia into an international trade network. I have also chosen to give Europeanization a third, political definition – as a decentralized power structure which is typically European. This decentralized power structure is found both within each nation and between nations. The Scandinavian kings did not hold total power within the boundaries of their states; they had to compete for power with church, council of the realm (riksråd) and local Thing communities. In the competition between church and state, religious indoctrination and control was crucial for the church; it gave power in itself and prevented the state from using military force against the church. In law, writing was an instrument in the competition between church and state, but it was also a means for these two literate organizations to wrest control of the judiciary from the local, mostly oral Thing assemblies. This tended to be a peaceful struggle between literate organizations, which made it possible for opposing jurisdictions and ideologies to flourish in a society where the crown had a monopoly on legitimate violence. An important effect of this struggle was that literacy grew important. All elite groups used it and developed it for their own advantage, and consequently made society as a whole more literate. Similar competitions between state, church and local communities are found in most Western European kingdoms in the Middle Ages. Then there is the power struggle between nations. In Scandinavia there were three, later two states competing for power, and after ca. 1300 this competition developed into a struggle for survival. Competition forced kings to keep up with the other(s) by importing organizational practices and technologies that had proved successful in strengthening other states. They imported not only weaponry and fortification engineering, but also literate organizational practices. In so doing, Scandinavian kings made their own states more like other European states. The Scandinavian states were all on the same technological and organizational level, and their kings and councillors reasoned along the

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same lines and shared the same religion and social norms. Communications between the two countries of Sweden and Denmark-Norway were easy because the literacy levels were similar and both Latin and the vernacular were available as languages of communication. The elite in one country knew very well what happened in the other. This struggle between states indirectly favoured both literacy and Europeanization. This perpetual competition on equal terms produced wars, but it also produced progress. The Scandinavian states learned from each other and were also forced to keep an open door to Europe. They could never permit themselves the luxury of becoming isolationist. The efforts of the Scandinavian states towards Europeanization did not aim at an organizational and ideological conformity in the same systematic way as the church had done, but the effect was the same. This ‘progress through competition’ made possible by easy communication between nations is often said to be characteristic of the whole European state system. The European states imported innovations for fear of becoming inferior to their neighbours. The distinctly European nature of this decentralized power structure can be thrown into relief by contrasting it to a well-documented power structure outside Europe, that of China. The Chinese emperor and his officials had no competitors for power. There was no independent church or neighbouring rival state. The emperor’s problem was controlling his own officials, and his main competitors for power were imperial officials who were disloyal and corrupt. In an article from 1997, Richard Britnell shows that the Chinese emperor repeatedly ordered a more extensive use of writing in state administration for control purposes. But there is little evidence that this was put into practice to any degree.258 Was the reason that in China, writing was used to monitor the very officials who were supposed to be writing the documents? Corrupt officials had no interest in producing such records. Swedish officials, on the other hand, had an interest in making the Swedish state strong – otherwise it might be swallowed up by Denmark, as Norway had been. The Europeanization of Scandinavia in the Middle Ages was part of a larger process, the emergence of the modern European state system. It was characterized by several competing centres of power. In the High Middle Ages these centres were state, church, local communities and magnates within the borders of each state; after about 1400 it became increasingly a competition between states. An organizational structure that functions according to written, explicit rules can be adopted or imitated – from church to state, or between nations. A 258 Richard BRITNELL, “Records and record-keeping in Yuan China”, in: Pragmatic Literacy, East and West, 1200-1330, ed. IDEM (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 167-188.

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competition in which all parties seek the most effective literate organization will result in strong states, but also in states which are similar. Literacy created administrative, ideological and mental conformity across European borders.259

Literacy and the Emergence of New Class Differences In pre-state Scandinavia the ruling class had consisted of the chieftains and their armed followers. This situation prevailed in Iceland quite up to 1262. Social prestige however, was not based solely on armed power, but also on concepts of honour and shame, and these were partly presented through narratives. These narratives were first communicated in an oral tradition, but beginning in the thirteenth century many of them were composed into written sagas. The honourable norms were relevant for all warriors, but some individuals were better able to practice them than others. The majority of these honourable men were chieftains. The sagas of Icelanders and the oral narratives that preceded them justified the power of the chieftains and class differences in pre-state Scandinavian society. Starting around AD 950, Scandinavian kings gradually began to concentrate all legitimate violence in the hands of the state. Violence was institutionalized and was no longer a basis of power for individual chieftains and warriors. Service of the state and church gradually grew more important as a source of riches, power and prestige. This service could still be military – nobles served as commanding officers in the king’s army – but non-military administrative skills grew more important. Literacy increasingly became a key to a career and social prestige. From the very start literacy had been a precondition for a career in the church, and from the thirteenth century the king’s officials had to handle an increasing volume of written material. From ca. 1400, native Scandinavian merchants used literacy extensively in their work, particularly those engaged in long-distance trade. The higher up on the social ladder, the more necessary literary skills became. Even literate peasants could be given tasks or part-time offices in local jurisdiction and parish administration, and could give their fellow peasants a 259

Competition as the main force behind the development of new communication technologies is still relevant today. The new electronic communication systems are developed by multinational companies competing on the global market. But they are also developed by superpowers competing in space programs and creating global networks of military communication and intelligence. The precursor of the Internet started in 1969 as an American defence intelligence network (Encyclopedia Britannica Online (2003): “Internet”).

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helping hand in writing standardized letters. Individual social advancement was increasingly based on literary skills, even if riches and noble lineage continued to be important. European courtly literature was introduced in the Scandinavia courts in the thirteenth century, and the courtly tradition dominated Scandinavian literary creativity for the next two centuries. The courtly ideal emphasized that social distinction should be based on non-aggressive, courteous behaviour and service to others. This ideal went hand in hand with the growing importance of literacy as a means to social advancement. Literacy was part of a wider social development where cultural skills like literacy and courtoisie grew increasingly important as marks of social distinction and class differences.

Did Literacy Have Similar Consequences in All Societies? In this book it has been argued that writing was an instrument used by organizations and social groups to promote their own interests. The main factor that prompted them to use writing was competition with other organizations and social groups. Church and state expanded their authority at the cost of the traditional oral Thing communities. The church competed with the state for power, and Sweden with Denmark. There was competition between native Scandinavian merchants and their German counterparts. Brian Street is right in emphasizing that literacy was always introduced and used by certain social groups and organizations because it was to their advantage. Does this necessarily contradict Jack Goody’s view that when literacy is introduced into a society, it starts a chain of events which sooner or later will have similar consequences like ‘great organizations’ and a more generalizing way of thinking? It has been shown above that the increasing use of literacy by multiple organizations and networks had unintended consequences. Most of them tended to increase complexity and reinforce social cohesion within each kingdom and to ‘Europeanize’ Scandinavia. Similar developments are found in other European societies, possibly for the same reason. Writing was not used in all cases where it was possible to use it, but only where the users found it to their advantage to do so. In China, where the political power relations were different, literacy was used differently. Literacy was not predestined to create strong, hierarchical states and church organizations. In North Italy widespread literacy in the elite was a precondition for the communal movement in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, where the central element was

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citizen participation in urban administration and political decisions.260 But in Scandinavia the social conditions were different. Scandinavians chose to use writing in the same situations as their North European neighbours did: to build church and state organizations and mercantile networks. This can be explained by the fact that the social conditions were rather similar. There was a competition between state, church and local communities in all countries, and a competition between merchants. When social conditions were similar, the advantages in using literacy were similar. In societies where different social groups compete for political power, religions seek to strengthen their ideological base, and merchants compete for business, literacy will strengthen those who are most skilled in using it. When introduced to similar societies, literacy will have similar social consequences. Street’s and Goody’s models for understanding the social consequences of literacy do not necessarily exclude each other.

260

FEES, Eine Stadt lernt schreiben, pp. 195-199.

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Bibliography Printed Sources and their Translations Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum. Latin text in: Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte: Magistri Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, ed. Bernhard SCHMEIDLER (Hannover, 1917: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum 2); English translation in: History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. Francis J. TSCHAN (New York, 1959); Norwegian translation in: Adam av Bremen, trans. Bjørg TOSTERUD DANIELSEN and Anne Katrine FRIHAGEN (Oslo, 1993). All editions and translations have the same division into books and chapters. Ágrip, ed. B. EINARSSON (Reykjavík, 1985: Íslenzk Fornrit 29), pp. 1-54; English translation and Old Norse text in: Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum, ed. and trans. M.J. DRISCOLL (London, 1995: Viking Society for Northern Research, Text Series 10); Norwegian translation in: Ågrip, trans. Gustav INDREBØ (Oslo, 1973). Íslenzk Fornrit and the English translation have the same division in chapters. The Norwegian translation has no chapter divisions. Akershusregisteret af 1622: Fortegnelse optaget af Gregers Krabbe og Mogens Høg paa Akershus Slot over de derværende breve, ed. G. TANK (Kristiania (Oslo), 1916). Bjögynjar Kalfskinn, ed. P.A. MUNCH (Christiania (Oslo), 1843). Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Einar Ól. SVEINSSON (Reykjavík, 1954: Islenzk Fornrit 12); English translation: Njal’s Saga, trans. Magnus MAGNUSSON and Hermann PÁLSSON (Harmondsworth, 1960). Both have the same chapter divisions. Bullarium Danicum, ed. A. KRARUP (Copenhagen, 1932). Den danske rimkrønike 2, ed. Helge TOLDBERG (Copenhagen, 1958).

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Den nyere Landslov, in: NGL II (Christiania (Oslo), 1848), pp. 1-178; Norwegian translation: Magnus Lagabøters landslov, trans. Absalom TARANGER (Oslo, 1979; 1st ed.: Kristiania (Oslo), 1915). Diplomatarium Danicum, 1. række 1. bind (Copenhagen, 1938), and subsequent volumes. Translated into Danish in: Danmarks riges breve, 1. række 1. bind (Copenhagen, 1975) and subsequent volumes. Diplomatarium Norvegicum I-XXII, ed. C. C. A. LANGE et al. (Oslo, 18491995). Diplomatarium Suecanum, ed. Bror HILDEBRAND et al. (Stockholm, 18291976). Egils saga Skallagrímssonar, ed. Einar Ól. SVEINSSON (Reykjavík, 1954: Islenzk Fornrit 12); English translation: Egil’s saga, trans. Hermann PÁLSSON and Paul EDWARDS (Harmondsworth, 1976). Engelbrektskrönikan, ed. Sven-Bertil JANSSON (Stockholm, 1994). Erikskrönikan, ed. Sven-Bertil JANSSON (Stockholm, 1986). Frostatingslova, ed. Rudolf KEYSER and Peter Andreas MUNCH (Christiania (Oslo), 1846: NGL I), pp. 119-258; English translation: The Earliest Norwegian laws : Being the Gulathing law and the Frostathing law, trans. Lawrence M. LARSON (New York, 1935), pp. 213-405; Norwegian translation: Frostatingslova, trans. Jan Ragnar HAGLAND and Jørn SANDNES (Oslo, 1994). Gamalnorsk homiliebok, ed. Gustav INDREBØ (Oslo, 1931); Norwegian translation: Gammelnorsk homiliebok, trans. Astrid SALVESEN (Oslo, 1971). Gulatingslova, ed. Rudolf KEYSER and Peter Andreas MUNCH (Christiania (Oslo), 1846: NGL I), pp. 1-118; English translation: The Earliest Norwegian laws: Being the Gulathing law and the Frostathing law, trans. Lawrence M. LARSON (New York, 1935), pp. 35-210; Norwegian translation: Gulatingslovi, trans. Knut ROBBERSTAD (Oslo, 1981). Guta Saga, The History of the Gotlanders, ed. Åke HOLMBÄCK and Elias WESSÉN (Stockholm, 1943: Skånelagen och Gutalagen 4), pp. 291-295 (followed by: “Førklaringar” (Explanations), pp. 296-322); Edition of the Old Swedish text and English translation: Guta Saga, The History of the Gotlanders, ed. and trans. Christine PEEL (London, 1999: Viking Society for Northern Research 12). Hallfreðar saga, ed. Einar Ól. SVEINSSON (Reykjavík, 1939: Islenzk Fornrit 8); English translation: “The saga of Hallfred the troublesome scald”, ed. Alan BOUCHER, Iceland Review 19 (Reykjavik, 1981), pp. 22-57; Norwegian translation: Norrøn saga 1, trans. Charles KENT (Oslo, 1992), pp. 263-296.

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Historia Norvegiæ, ed. Gustav STORM (Kristiania (Oslo), 1880: Monumenta Historica Norvegiæ), pp. 69-124; English translation and Latin text: Historia Norwegie, ed. Inger EKREM and Lars Boje MORTENSEN, trans. Peter FISHER (Copenhagen, 2003); Norwegian translation in: Norges historie, trans. Astrid SALVESEN (Oslo, 1990), pp. 17-38. Hungrvaka, ed. Jón SIGURÐSSON and Gudbrand VIGFUSSON (Copenhagen, 1858: Biskupa sögur 1), pp. 57-86; English translation and edition: Hungrvaka, ed. and trans. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON and F. YORK POWELL (Oxford, 1905: Origines Islandicae 1), pp. 425-458; Danish translation: To islandske bispekrøniker, trans. Agnete LOTH (Odense, [1989]). All have the same chapter division. Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar; ed. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON, in: Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Descents of the Northmen on the British Isles (London, 1887: Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores 88; reprint 1964); English translation: The Saga of Hacon, trans. Sir George W. DASENT, in: Icelandic Sagas and Other Historical Documents Relating to the Settlements and Ddescents of the Northmen on the British Isles 4 (London, 1894), pp. 1-373; Norwegian translation: Håkon Håkonssons saga, trans. Kr. AUDNE (Oslo, 1963). Chapter divisions are the same in the Old Norse edition and the translations. Islandske Annaler, ed. Gustav STORM (Christiania (Oslo), 1888). Islendingabok, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (Reykjavík, 1986: Íslenzk Fornrit 1), pp. 1-28. Jóns biskups saga, ed. Jón SIGURÐSSON and Gudbrand VIGFUSSON (Copenhagen, 1858: Biskupa sögur 1), pp. 213-260; English translation and Old Norse text: ed. and trans. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON and F. YORK POWELL (Oxford, 1905: Origines Islandicae 1), pp. 534-567; Norwegian translation: Soga om Jon den heilage, trans. Kjell VENÅS, in: Den norrøne litteraturen VI (Oslo, 1963), pp. 72-110. The Old Norse edition and Norwegian translation share the same chapter divisions; the divisions in the English translation are different. JÓNSSON, Finnur (ed.), Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning B, volume 1 (Copenhagen, 1912). Konungs skuggsiá, ed. Ludvig HOLM OLSEN (Oslo, 1983); English translation: The King’s Mirror, trans. Laurence Marcellus LARSON (New York, 1917; repr. 1973); Norwegian translation: Kongespegelen, trans. Alf HELLEVIK (Oslo, 1965). Laurentius saga, ed. Jón SIGURÐSSON and Gudbrand VIGFUSSON (Copenhagen, 1858: Biskupa sögur 1), pp. 787-877; English translation: The Life of

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Laurence, Bishop of Holar in Iceland, trans. Oliver ELTON (London, 1890); Norwegian translation: “Soga om biskop Laurentius”, trans. Kjell VENÅS, in: Den norrøne litteraturen VI (Oslo, 1963), pp. 111-180; Danish translation: Historien om biskop Laurentius på Holar, trans. Jørgen HØJGAARD JØRGENSEN (Odense, 1982). The Old Norse edition and Norwegian translation have the same chapter divisions. Magnus Erikssons landslag, ed. H.S. COLLIN and C.J. SCHLYTER (Stockholm, 1862: Samling af Sweriges gamla Lagar 10); Swedish translation: Magnus Erikssons landslag i nusvensk tolkning, trans. Åke HOLMBÄCK and Elias WESSÉN (Stockholm, 1962). Magnus Erikssons stadslag, ed. H.S. COLLIN and C.J. SCHLYTER (Stockholm, 1862: Samling af Sweriges gamla Lagar 11); Swedish translation: Magnus Erikssons stadslag i nusvensk tolkning, trans. Åke HOLMBÄCK and Elias WESSÉN (Stockholm, 1966). Morkinskinna, ed. C.R. UNGER (Christiania (Oslo), 1867); English translation: Morkinskinna, trans. T. ANDERSSON and K.E. GADE (Ithaca and London, 2000). Norges Gamle Love, 5 vols. (Christiania (Oslo), 1846-1895). Norske middelalderdokumenter, ed. Sverre BAGGE et al. (Oslo, 1973). Oddr Snorrason, Saga Olafs Tryggvasonar, ed. Finnur JÓNSSON (Copenhagen, 1932); English translation: The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, trans. T. ANDERSSON (Ithaca, 2003); Norwegian translation: Soga om Olav Tryggvason etter Odd Munk Snorreson, trans. Magnus RINDAL (Oslo, 1977). Páls saga, ed. and trans. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON and F. YORK POWELL (Oxford, 1905: Origines Islandicae 1), pp. 502-534. Passio Olavi, ed. F. Metcalfe (Oxford, 1881); English translation: A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Olafr, ed. C. PHELPSTEAD and trans. D. KUNIN (London, 2001); Norwegian translation: Passio Olavi, trans. Eiliv SKARD (Oslo, 1970). Regesta Norvegica, 7 vols. (Oslo, 1978-1997). Roskildekrøniken, ed. M. Cl. GERTZ (Copenhagen, 1917-1918: Scriptores minores historiæ Danicæ medii ævi 1), pp. 1-33; Danish translation: Roskildekrøniken, trans. Michael GELTING (Århus, 1979). Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ed. J. OLRIK and H. RÆDER, Saxonis Gesta Danorum, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1931-1957); English translation of books 1-9: The history of the Danes books I-IX, ed. Hilda ELLIS DAVIDSON and trans. Peter FISHER (Cambridge, 1996); English translation of books 10-16: Danorum regum heroumque historia: books X-XVI, Eric

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CHRISTIANSEN, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1980-1981); Danish translation: Saxos Danmarkshistorie, trans. Peter ZEEBERG (Copenhagen, 2000). Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni AÐALBJARNARSON, 3 vols. (Reykjavik, 1979: Íslenzk Fornrit 26-28); English translation: Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, trans. Lee M. HOLLANDER (Austin, 1964; 2nd ed. 1995). Numerous translations into Scandinavian languages. All editions and translations have identical chapter divisions. Sturlunga saga, ed. Örnolfur THORSSON, 3 vols. (Reykjavík, 1988); English translation: Sturlunga Saga, trans. Julia MCGREW and R. George THOMAS, 2 vols. (New York, 1970-1974); Danish translation: Sturlunga saga, Kr. KÅLUND, 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1904). Sven Aggesen, Brevis historia, ed. Martin Clarentius GERTZ, En ny Text af Sven Aggesøns Værker gengiven paa Grundlag af Codex Arnæmagnæanus 33, 4To (Copenhagen, 1916); English translation: The Works of Sven Aggesen: Twelfth-Century Danish Historian, trans. Eric CHRISTIANSEN (London, 1992); Danish translation: Historiske Skrifter overs. efter den paa Grundlag af Codex Arnæmagnæanus 33, 4to restituerede ny Text, trans. M. Cl. GERTZ (Copenhagen, 1916-1917). Sveriges litteratur 1, ed. Carl Ivar STÅHLE (Stockholm, 1968). Sverris saga, ed. Gustav INDREBØ (Kristiania (Oslo), 1920); English translation: Sverrissaga: The Saga of King Sverri of Norway, trans. John SEPHTON (London 1899, reprint 1994); Norwegian translation: Den norrøne litteraturen 4, trans. Halvdan KOHT (Oslo, 1962). The editions and translations have the same chapter divisions. Theodoricus Monachus: Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, ed. Gustav STORM (Kristiania (Oslo), 1880: Monumenta Historica Norvegiæ), pp. 1-68; English translation: The Ancient History of the Norwegian Kings, trans. David and Ian MCDOUGALL (London, 1998); Norwegian translation: Historien om de gamle norske kongene, trans. Astrid SALVESEN (Oslo, 1990), pp. 45-96. All editions and translations have the same chapter divisions. UNGER, C.R. (ed), Mariu saga (Christiania (Oslo), 1871). — (ed.), Postola sögur (Christiania (Oslo), 1874). — (ed.), Heilagra manna sögur, 2 vols. (Christiania (Oslo), 1877). Þorláks saga, ed. and trans. Gudbrand VIGFUSSON and F. YORK POWELL (Oxford, 1905; reprinted 1976: Origines Islandicae 1), pp. 458-502. Øm klosters krønike, ed. Martin Clarentius GERTZ (Copenhagen 1918-1920: Scriptores minores historiæ Danicæ medii ævi 2), pp. 153-264; Danish

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translation: Øm klosters krønike, trans. Jørgen OLRIK (Århus, 1912; reprint, 1997).

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Indices Index of names Scandinavia, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are not included in the index since they occur directly or indirectly on most pages. Persons mentioned only in examples taken from narratives or charters are likewise excluded. Absalon, archbishop of Lund (11771201) 31, 49, 81, 141 Adam of Bremen, German chronicler 28, 50 Aegidius Romanus (Giles of Rome), Italian scholastic theologian (1243-1316) 221 Aeneas Sylvius, Italian humanist 213 Akershus castle near Oslo 26, 170, 175 Albertus Pictor, Swedish painter and book illuminator 187 Albrecht von Mecklenburg, duke of Mecklenburg and Swedish king (1363-1389) 173 Anders Sunesson, Danish archbishop (1201-1222) 82, 143 Anders Ogels, Danish peasant trader 182 Anglo-Saxon, see: England Ari Thorgilsson, author of Islendingabók 31, 32, 33, 76, 125 Arni, bishop of Skálholt (1304-1320) 110, 112

Aronsen, Elisabeth, medievalist 85, 89 Avignon 162-163

Norwegian

Bagge, Sverre, Norwegian medievalist 130 Bergen, Norwegian diocese and town 39-43, 55, 64, 67, 70, 103, 113, 163, 174, 181, 195, 198, 236, 237 Berg Floater, Tine, Norwegian medievalist 206 Birger, Swedish earl and regent (12501266) 81, 142, 144 Birgitta, Swedish saint 112, 164, 165 Birka, Swedish Viking town 6 Bisgaard, Lars, Danish medievalist 161 Bjarne Erlingsson, Norwegian magnate 215, 236 Boccaccio, Giovanni 213 Bo Jonsson, Swedish magnate 216, 220, 221 Bologna 57, 188

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278 Borgholm, castle on Öland in Sweden 174 Bremen, archbishopric 6, 11, 17, 23, 27, 28, 50 Britnell, Richard , English medievalist 252 Buris Henriksson, Danish magnate 86 Børglum, Danish diocese 12 Båhus, castle and province in medieval Norway, today part of Sweden 5, 169, 216 Caithness, Scottish diocese 163 Catharine, Swedish abbess and saint (1331-1381) 112 Celtic “fringe” of Europe 190-191 China 252, 254 Christian I, Danish king (1448-1481) 172, 217 Christian II, Danish king (1513-1523) 172, 174, 231 Clanchy, Michael, English medievalist 2, 87, 191, 197, 246, 247 Clunies Ross, Margaret, Australian medievalist 119 Codex Runicus, manuscript from Skåne 229 Copenhagen town and castle 7, 26, 74, 172, 174, 175, 184, 185, 235 Dahlerup, Pil, Danish medievalist 214, 227, 230 Dahlerup, Troels, Danish medievalist 40, 186 Dalby, temporary diocese in Skåne in the 1060s 22, 23 Damsgaard Olsen, Thorkil, Danish medievalist 82 Derrida, Jacques, French linguist 147, 148 Dutch merchants 2, 182

Eddic poems (the poetic Edda) 18, 20, 21, 107, 147 Eggert Frille, Danish magnate 236 Egils saga Skallagrimssonar 115, 117, 120, 124, 146 Einar HafliSason, probable author of Laurentius’ saga († 1393) 58 Einar Skulason, Icelandic skald (ca. 1090-1160) 31 Elin, Swedish aristocratic woman and book-owner 210 Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, Swedish rebel leader († 1436) 222 Engelbrektskrönikan, the chronicle of Engelbrekt’s life 216, 222 England (including Anglo-Saxon) 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 21, 25, 26, 27, 47, 50, 53, 70, 75, 76, 81, 87, 127, 130, 164, 172, 173, 177, 180, 189, 191, 197, 215, 236, 247 Erasmus of Rotterdam 213 Eric Olai, Swedish prelate and author († 1486) 223 Erik Emmune, Danish king (11341137) 88 Erik Plogpenning, Danish king (12411250) 105, 217, 219 Erik Klipping, Danish king (12591286) 227, 231 Erik of Pomerania, king of all Scandinavia (1396-1439) 173, 222 Erik, Swedish king and saint († 1160) 109, 111, 143, 220, 221 Erik, Swedish duke (1282-1318) 189, 214-216 Erikskrönikan, biography in verse of Erik (ca. 1325) 189, 210, 214225, 233 Eskil, archbishop of Lund (1138-1177) 32, 37 Eskil, lawman of Västergötland (12171227) 81, 142, 143, 144

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Eufemia, Norwegian queen (12991312) 215, 216, 218 Eufemiavisor, three French verse novels (Yvain the Lion Knight, Duke Fredric of Normandy, Flores and Blancheflor) translated into Swedish on her initiative 214220, 225 Eystein, archbishop of Nidaros (11611188) 21, 32, 37, 49, 84, 109 Faeroes 1, 17 Fagrskinna, saga of Norwegian kings 128, 129 Ferring, parish church in Ribe diocese 170 Fees, Irmgard, German medievalist 104 Finland 1, 5, 11, 201, 219, 220 France 9, 10, 32, 37, 44, 47, 59, 93, 133, 163, 164, 186, 189, 191, 214, 215, 216, 217, 220, 226, 236, 237, 238 Frihetsvisan, Swedish poem (1439) 222 Funbo parish church in Uppsala diocese 162 Garrison, Mary, American medievalist 103-104 Germany 6, 9, 10, 11, 16, 22 , 23, 44, 47, 52, 100, 143, 158, 165, 169, 173, 178, 182, 186, 187, 188, 194, 195, 214-218, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 238, 254. See also Hansa merchants Gesta Danorum, see: Saxo Grammaticus Gizur, bishop of Skálholt (1082-1118) 22 Gizur, Icelandic earl (1209-1268) 134, 136

le Goff, Jacques, French medievalist 235 Goody, Jack 13, 14, 20, 21, 83, 84, 102, 114, 148, 149, 154, 156, 233, 246, 248, 254, 255 Gotland 143 Greece 14, 15, 213 Greenland 17, 37, 40 Gregory the Great, pope (590-604) and saint 48 Grimkell, English missionary bishop (mentioned in Scandinavia 10141046) 75, 84 Gudmund, bishop of Hólar (12031237) and saint 110, 111 Gustav Vasa, Swedish king (15211560) 171, 174 Guta saga, the chronicle of Gotland 143 Hakon the Good, Norwegian king (ca. 933-960) 3, 20, Hakon Hakonarson, Norwegian king (1217-1263) 69, 128, 131, 132, 188, 189, 215, 248 Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, the saga of Hákon’s life 30, 74, 130, 131, 132, 136, 213, 218, 221 Hakon Magnusson, Norwegian duke and king (1299-1319) 72, 194, 214 Hakon, bishop of Bergen (1332-1342) 236 HallfreSar saga 145-146 Hamar, Norwegian diocese 53 Hansa (German) merchants 2, 6, 100, 153, 179-184, 186, 187, 241 Harald Fairhair, Norwegian king (ca. 872-932) 125, 130 Harald HarSraSi, Norwegian king (1046-1066) 125, 130 Hartvig Krummedike († 1476), Danish magnate 192 Hedeby, town in Viking age Denmark, today in Germany 6

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280 Heimskringla, see: Snorri Sturluson Henrik, bishop of Uppsala and saint († 1156) 109, 111, 143 Henrik, bishop of Hólar (1247-1260) 136 Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony 9 Hertzberg, Ebbe, Norwegian medievalist 76 Hólar, diocese in Iceland 56, 59, 64, 110, 211, 213 Holland, see: Netherlands Hovedøy, monastery in Oslo diocese 71, 170 Isleif, bishop of Skálholt (1056-1080) 22 Islendingabók, a history of Iceland before 1118 AD 31, 32 Italy 36, 44, 91, 104, 179, 180, 188, 212, 213, 217, 236, 255 Ivar Bardsson, author of a visitation report from Greenland (1340s) 40 Jansson, Sven-Bertil Swedish medievalist 225 Jens Grand, archbishop of Lund (12891327) 141 John XXII, pope 162 Joinville, Jean de, French magnate and chronicler (1225-1317) 119 Jon, bishop of Hólar (1106-1121) and saint 58, 59, 110 Jon Hakonarson, Icelandic magnate 127 Jon Halldorsson, bishop of Hólar (1322-1339) 57, 113 Jon Loptsson, Icelandic magnate († 1197) 120 Jonsson, Bengt Swedish folklorist 226 Jutland (in Danish Jylland) 77, 79, 105, 140, 157, 170, 182 Jämtland, medieval Norwegian province, today in Sweden 5, 161

Kalundborg, castle on Sjælland 172 Karl Knutsson, Swedish king (14481470) 169, 189, 216, 222, 223 Karlskrönikan 189, 216, 222 Karl, Icelandic abbot and saga author 128 Karlsson, Gunnar, Icelandic medievalist 134 Kaupang, Norwegian Viking town 6, Kinn, parish in Bergen diocese 67 Kjeld, Danish prelate and saint († 1150) 56, 109 Kleng, bishop of Skálholt (1152-1175) 59, 211 Knut, king of England (1016-1035) and Denmark (1018-1035) 5, 25, 26 Knut, Danish king (1080-1086) and saint 21, 68, 109 Knut VI, Danish king (1182-1202) 86 Knut, Danish duke and saint († 1131) 109 Knut, head of the Dominican order in Scandinavia (ca. 1310) 47 Kristjánsson, Jonas, Icelandic medievalist 33, 117 Kumla, parish in Sweden 162 Kvikne, parish church in Nidaros (Trondheim) diocese 51 Kværndrup, Sigurd, Dan ish medievalist 230, 232 Landnámabók 117 Larsson, Inger, Swedish medievalist 2, 85, 173 Laurentius, bishop of Hólar (13241331) 45, 50, 57, 58, 59, 61, 110, 112 Linköping, Swedish diocese 49, 143, 160, 169, 171, 196 Lom, parish in Hamar diocese 53, 198 Lund archbishopric, situated in medieval Denmark, today in

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Sweden 5, 17, 18, 23, 28, 29, 31, 38, 49, 68, 86, 88, 113, 141, 143 Lyse, monastery in Bergen diocese140 Lönnroth, Lars, Swedish medievalist 119, 216 Løvel, bridge in Jutland 105 Magnus the Good, Norwegian king (1035-47) 26, 76 Magnus Barefoot, Norwegian king (1093-1103) 120 Magnus Erlingsson, Norwegian king (1161-1184) 32 Magnus the Lawmender, Norwegian king (1263-1280) 128, 129, 131, 194 Magnus Ladulås, Swedish king (12751290) 144 Magnus Eriksson, king of Sweden (1319-1363) and Norway (13191355) 169, 173, 201, 233 Malmö, town in medieval Denmark, today in Sweden 184 Marsilius Ficinus, Italian humanist 213 Margareta, queen and regent of all Scandinavia (1389-1412) 173, 178, 231, 233 Mainz 9 Maribo, convent in Odense diocese 167 Marie de France, English poet 215 Matts Ketilmundsson, Swedish regent (1318-1319) 216, 219 Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben, Danish medievalist 115, 122, 149 Mogens Rosenkrantz, Danish nobleman († 1560) 190 Morkinskinna, saga of Norwegian kings 125, 129 Mortensen, Lars Boje, Danish medievalist 31 Mourids Gyldenstierne, Danish magnate (1446-1503) 192

Munkeliv, monastery in Bergen diocese 64 Märta, Swedish aristocratic woman and bookowner 210 Næstved, monastery in Roskilde diocese 85 Netherlands 2, 33, 59, 182, 91, 187 Nidaros (today Trondheim) archbishopric 11, 17, 21, 25, 26, 31, 32, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 49, 56, 73, 75, 84, 107, 110, 113, 160, 162, 163, 213 Trondheim town 56, 70, 76, 128, 160, 163 Njáls saga 115, 116, 145, 213 Nonneseter, nunnery in Oslo diocese 170 Nordal, GuSrun, Icelandic medievalist 134 Nordal, SigurSur, Icelandic medievalist (1886-1974) 115 Novgorod 103 Oddi, Icelandic parish 58-59, 120 Oddr Snorrason, Icelandic monk and saga author 32 Odense, Danish diocese 21, 181, Olaf Hakonarson, Norwegian king (1380-1387) 127 Olaf Haraldsson, Norwegian king (1015-1030) and saint 21, 25, 26, 27, 31, 73, 75, 77, 84, 109, 125, 130, 194 St.Olaf’s law 194 Olaf hvitaskald, Icelandic skald and saga author († 1259) 127 Olaf Tryggvason, Norwegian king (995-1000) 25, 27, 32, 107, 125, 145, 146 Olaf Tryggvason’s saga, see: Oddr Snorrason

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282 Ólason, Vésteinn, Icelandic medievalist 115 Olav Engelbrektsson, archbishop of Nidaros (1523-1537) 237 Ong, Walter 13, 127, 148, 149 Orkney 1, 17, 37, 40, 43, 137, 163, Oslo, diocese and town 26, 64, 70, 82, 163, 170, 175, 182, 220 Ovid, Roman poet 59, 211, 213 Pal, bishop of Skálholt (1195-1211) 56, 58, 110 Pal Bardsson, archbishop of Nidaros (1333-1346) 45 Paris 35, 47, 48, 49, 57, 58, 113, 236, 251 Pernler, Sven-Erik, Swedish medievalist 52 Petrarch, Francesco 213 Raven von Barnekow, sheriff of Nyköping and Dalarna in Sweden 173 Reykholt, parish in Iceland 64 Ribe, Danish diocese 6, 52, 86, 160, 182 Rimkrøniken, Danish chronicle (1470s) 217, 224, 233 Robert, monk who translated courtly literature from French to Old Norse (1220s) 215 Roesdahl, Else, Danish medievalist 186 Roskilde, Danish diocese 160, 171, 217 Roskilde chronicle 31-32 Rumsland, German Minnesänger or minstrel at the Danish court in 1286 227 Russia 219 Ryd, monastery in Schleswig diocese in medieval Denmark, today in Germany 29, 139-141

Saami, people 1 Saenger, Paul, American medievalist 191 Saint Victor, monastery in Paris 236 Saxo Grammaticus, Danish chronicler 29, 32, 33, 35, 125, 127, 137, 139, 141, 213, 223 Schleswig-Holstein, today part of Germany, before 1864 part of Denmark 64, 141, 174 Schousboe, Karen, Danish medievalist 186, 192 Selje, parish in Bergen diocese 195 Shetland 1 Sjælland 50, 79, 185, 192 Skálholt diocese in Iceland 30, 40, 49, 57, 110, 113 Skara, Swedish diocese and town 49, 64, 142, 173 Skuli, Norwegian earl and pretender (1189-1240) 69, 72, 131, 248 Skåne (Scania), province in medieval Denmark, today Sweden 5, 6, 7, 22, 23, 37, 50, 167, 182, 219, 227, 229, 241 Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic saga author (1178-1241) 25, 59, 107, 117, 119, 120, 124, 129, 130, 137, 209, 223, Sorø, monastery in Roskilde diocese 140, 141, 217, 233 Spiegel, Gabrielle, American medievalist 133, 148 Spurkland, Terje, Norwegian medievalist 15 Stavanger, Norwegian diocese 43, 72, 97, 99, 194 Sten Basse, Danish magnate 192 Stockholm town and castle 6, 37, 74, 169, 171, 182, 183, 184, 187, 206, 222, 241 Storkyrkan (The Great Church) in Stockholm and its school 184 Street, Brian 13, 14, 163, 254, 255

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Strängnäs, Swedish diocese 169, 171, 210 Sturla Thordarson, Icelandic saga author (1214-1284) 69, 108, 119, 125, 127, 128, 133, 134, 136, 137 Sturekrönikan 189, 222 Ståhle, Carl Ivar, Swedish medievalist 217 Svealand, the regions around Lake Mälaren inland from Stockholm 81, 144 Sven Aggesen, Danish chronicler 32, 214 Sven Estridsen, Danish king (10471074) 28 Sverrir, Norwegian king (1177-1202) 16, 32, 71, 128 Sverris saga 32, 128, 130, 213 Söderberg, Barbro, Swedish medievalist 85 Söderköping, Swedish town and its school 184 Theodoricus, Norwegian monk and chronicler 32, 33, 137 Thomas, bishop of Strängnäs in Sweden († 1443) 222 Thingeyrar, Icelandic monastery 32, 61, 128, Thorlak, bishop of Skálholt (11781193) and saint 49, 56, 58, 59, 110 Thurid, woman in the Icelandic oral, narrative tradition 209 Torshalla, parish in Uppsala diocese 212 Trondheim, see: Nidaros Tulinius, Torfi, Icelandic medievalist 120, 147 Tuse, parish in Roskilde diocese 185 Tønsberg 70

Uppland, a province north of Stockholm and around Uppsala 83, 212, 221, 233 Uppsala, archbishopric and town 3, 17, 31, 49, 62, 93, 109, 160, 161, 169, 171, 184, 223, 235 Vadstena, convent in Linköping diocese 52, 55, 112, 114, 160, 165, 196, 211, 212 Valdemar I the great, Danish king (1157-1182) 81, 109, 125, 233 Valdemar II “the victorious”, Danish king (1202-1241) 74-75 Valdemar Atterdag, Danish king (1340-1375) 69 Verne, monastery in Oslo diocese 170 Viborg, Danish diocese and town 105, 109 Viby, monastery in Uppsala diocese 93 Vinje, stave church in Hamar diocese 16 Visby 143, 184 Vitskøl, monastery in Viborg diocese 140 Vordingborg castle on Sjælland 172 Västergötland in Sweden 81, 89, 142144 Vårfruberga, monastery in Skara diocese 64 Vår Frue (Our Lady) church in Copenhagen and its school 184 Vä, monastery in Lund diocese (Skåne) 95 Weber, Max 67, 132, 151, 241 Whaley, Diana, English medievalist 117 William of Æbelholt, Danish abbot and saint († 1203) 109, 236 Öland in Sweden 38, 174

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284 Øm, monastery in Århus diocese 140, 141 Östergötland in Sweden 81, 89, 144 Åbo (today Turku), castle and town in Finland 201 Århus, Danish diocese 64, 141

Index of matters Words like “state”, “king”, “church” or “bishop” are not included because they occur directly or indirectly on most pages accounting 63-65, 74-75, 158-162, 172-177, 192 Althing (annual Thing assembly for all Iceland) 3, 23, 76, 107 ambassador/messenger 26, 27, 40, 104, 236, 243 annals 10, 28-30, 139-141. See also “chronicle” archives annals and archives 30 chests for archives 170 cathedrals 39, 69, 171, 237 kings 10, 69, 70-71, 169-170, 171, 172, 224, 234 merchants and craftsmen 181 monasteries 61, 170 peasants 91, 97, 193, 201 ballads 225-234 Bible 22, 29, 47, 48, 49, 55, 112, 155, 165, 194, 233 Bishops’ sagas, sagas written in Iceland ca. 1210-1350 about Icelandic bishops who reigned between 1056 and 1331, 58-63, 109-111 Black Death 3, 6, 49, 158, 192 book ownership

parish churches and individual parish priests 39, 45, 49-50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 61, 62, 97, 114, 170, 194, 196, 211-213 bishops and other cathedral clergy 45, 49-50, 56, 164, 211-213 monasteries and monks 47, 49-50, 60-61, 64, 114, 164, 211-213 kings 216 Laymen 52, 77, 79, 119, 164-168, 197, 229, 247 laywomen 164-168, 208-210, 240, 247 books for practical use and as objects of prestige 18-19, 35, 51, 53, 55, 64-65, 77, 78-81, 118-119, 126127, 140, 167, 176-177, 183, 187. See also “prestige” book of hours, Old Norse tiSabók (A book containing the canonical prayers. Its pattern is the breviary, but it is shortened and adapted for the use of lay people) 165. See also “liturgy” and “breviary” breviary (a book containing “canonical” prayers to be sung or said seven times a day and once at

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night by all clerics, this is a book to be used by clerics) 52, 164. See also “liturgy” and “book of hours” canon law, see: “Christian laws” capital cities 5, 74, 169, 174, 223 Carolingian empire 8, 93, chancellor 68-71, 82, 100, 102, 168172, 217 chancery 9, 37, 68-71, 86, 168-172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 188, 196, 197, 216, 217, 222, 223. See also “royal chapels” charter (letter which gives a legal title to a property or a right) in general 2, 73, 85-93, 94-103, 140, 170, 180 legislation ordering the use of charters 85, 87, 89, 91, 99-100, 178 oral judicial procedures legitimising property transfers 65, 94-103, 202 peasant societies 192-201 vernacular charters in Sweden and Denmark 177-179 women 177-178, 201-208. See also “letter” and “correspondence” Christianisation of Scandinavia 3, 11, 14, 17, 18, 22, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 50, 83, 107, 109, 111, 117, 186, 209, 242 Christian laws and their codification 27-28, 38, 75-76, 79, 82-84, 111 canon law 44, 45, 49, 52, 65, 67 chronicle 10, 30-33, 35, 119, 120, 127, 128, 133, 136, 139 - 143, 147, 153,155,189, 210, 214 - 224, 226, 231, 233, 234, 243. See also “annals”

Cirographus, a method for verifying charters 99 Cistercians 70, 86, 140, 141, 170, 217, 233 classical literature (Roman and Greek) 14, 15, 59, 211, 213 Ovid 59, 211 clerk or scribe, in Latin notarius (a person who writes for others) 12, 68-71, 77, 119, 172, 177, 180, 184, 191, 192, 197, 201, 217, 240 town clerk 178, 187 communication, a definition 242-243 correspondence (letters which have as their main purpose to communicate information to other living persons) church 11, 12, 25, 35, 38-41, 42, 43, 65, 69-70, 160, 161, 177, 195, 196 papal 26-27, 37, 40, 159, 162-163 commercial 37, 179-184, 239, 240, 247 state 8, 10, 12, 68-74, 82, 100102, 168-179, 191, 193-196, 224, 234 foreign correspondence 11, 25-27, 35, 70 private 40, 103-104, 190, 211, 235-237, 196, 198, 247 social consequences of correspondence 242-243. See also “letter” and “charter” craftsman/artisan 91, 158, 181, 184, 186, 187, 192, 206 dating writings 29-30, 38 doctrines and dogmas of the church 47-50, 235, 246, 55-58, 63, 111115, 153-154, 168, 244-247, 251 Dominicans 28, 47, 49, 61, 113, 114, 233

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286 education, see: schools English (Old English) language 11, 12, 27, 76, 215 exchequer (camera) as a permanent, bureaucratic institution led by the camerarius, developed after the Reformation, and is not discussed in this book. For control of incomes by the state and other institutions, see: “accounting”. exempla used in sermons 57, 113-114, 154 used in secular texts 155-156, 233. See also “sermon” eyeglasse 212 Fastebrev 99-100 forgeries 29, 236 formulary (a book containing letters to be used as patterns for future letters) 196 generalizing thinking 13, 20, 48, 58, 83-85, 145, 149, 155-156, 208, 233, 234, 248, 254 gospels 22-23. See also “liturgy” Gregorian church reform 3, 5, 8, 17, 31, 33, 36-37, 38, 44, 47, 48, 50, 55-63, 65, 68, 109, 114, 154 guild 40, 181, 187 hagiographies (saints’ lives) 10, 20-22, 35, 49, 52, 56, 65, 109-115, 119, 141, 143, 144, 154, 213, 217 history and historians, see: “saga” and “chronicle” homily, see: sermon humanists 213 inscriptions 16, 105, 198

judiciary and literacy 25-28, 41-47, 75106, 130-133, 162-163, 177-179 jongleur (lekare), professional actor and musician 219, 225, 227, 229231 kings’ sagas (sagas describing Norwegian kings from the mythic origins up to 1264, written between ca. 1170 and 1265, mainly by Icelanders). 123-133 land registers (jordebok) 63-67, 74-75, 86, 105-106, 153, 159-162, 172177, 192, 245, 246 Latin language church 20-22, 32, 47, 50-53, 58, 59, 62, 112-114, 143, 144, 162, 164-165, 185, 198, 199, 211-213, 251 Danish and Swedish secular society 11-12, 177-179, 35, 71, 89, 95, 105, 139-141, 143, 144, 172, 173, 177-179, 189, 196, 198, 214, 223, 229, 236, 252 Norwegian and Icelandic secular society 11-12, 26, 70, 76, 83, 137, 189 transition from Latin to the vernacular 9, 15, 89, 177-179, 186, 198, 224, 229, 246-247. See also: “vernacular” laws, see: judiciary “legitimate violence” and its interaction with literacy 33, 67, 105, 106, 130-133, 149, 152, 241, 242, 244-245, 248, 251, 253 letter, I have tried in this book to distinguish between letters which had as their main purpose to communicate information to one or several living person(s), and letters which were written mainly

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to store information. The two categories largely correspond to what is usually called “correspondence” and “charters”, see: 242-243. See also “charter” and “correspondence” library 49, 52, 61-62, 191, 211, 216 literacy, a definition 10 literacy (=ability to read and write) of laymen 12-13, 119-120, 184-210 liturgical books 9, 20, 22-25, 35, 39, 45, 50-55, 58, 62-63, 65, 104, 164, 170, 185, 194, 211, 241, 243. See also “missal”, “book of hours”, “breviary”, “gospels”, “psalter” and “music” magnate 12, 17, 22, 23, 32, 50, 69, 70, 74, 76, 86, 89-91, 115-120, 123130, 132, 139, 144, 145, 147, 155, 160, 169, 178, 188-192, 215, 216, 218-225, 227, 231, 235-237, 242, memory, see: oral communication merchants (and trade)1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 14, 37, 104, 105, 153, 158, 161, 168, 179-184, 186, 188, 193, 197, 199, 211, 234, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 249, 251, 253, 254, 255 messenger, see: ambassador minstrel (singer), see: “jongleur” and “music” Minnesänger (German troubadour) 227 missal (book containing the masses for a year) 22, 52, 53, 164, 211 monasteries in general 48, 49, 146, 163, 212 accounting 63, 64, 160 annals, chronicles and sagas written in monasteries 29, 31, 32, 125, 137, 139, 140, 141, 150, 153,

217, 222, 233 charters 85-86, 93, 95, 170, 196 education in monasteries 61, 184 libraries 47, 61 sermons, psalters, prayer books and other religious literature written or used in monasteries 52, 55, 57, 112, 113, 114, 164, 165, 167, 233, 234 studies abroad 22, 49 trade 180 use of spectacles 212 music and song 25, 50, 58, 185, 189, 220, 222 ballads 225-234 nationalism 115-120, 133, 194, 220225, 238, 250-253 nobility, see: magnate oral communication versus literacy is a central theme in all chapters. Here is indicated where the main discussions can be found. accounting in church and state administration 63-65, 74-75, 172177 accounting on private estates 192 education without writing 202 judiciary 75-106, 177-179 oral roots of written narratives 2022, 117-121, 123-130, 139, 142145, 147, 153-156, 229-230 peasant societies 192-201 rituals for the transfer of property 94-95 sermons and liturgy 20-22, 55-63 trade 179-184 women and the oral tradition 201210 written and oral narrative traditions influence each other 114, 139, 209, 225-234

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288 oral communication for administrative purposes, see: visitation, synod and travels paganism 1, 3, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 27, 30, 109, 111, 154, 208, 220 paper 9, 38, 186 parish parish organisation in Scandinavia 17, 37, 50 accounting 64, 65, 159, 160, 161, 162 chests for the church’s books and archive 170 church wardens 254 educational level of Scandinavian parish priests 58-63 letters from their bishop 41-42, 194-195 liturgy 50-53 parish as part of European network 251 parish priests appointed by written papal provision 43, 162-163 parish priests and diocesan synods 38, 40 parish priests read and write for their parishioners 196 parish priests take written evidence for use at the bishop’s court 43 parish priests as teachers 58-59, 84-188, 199 sermons 40, 55-58, 111-115, 154 visits by bishop 39, 40 written tablets in parish churches 41 Individual churches, see: Ferring, Funbo, Kinn, Kumla, Kvikne, Lom, Selje, Torshalla, Tuse. See also “book ownership” peasants 192-201

pope 8, 26-27, 30, 36-37, 39, 40, 43, 44-50, 57, 58, 70, 112, 141,157163, 168, 237-238, 246, 251 population 6, 25, 157 prayer book (a book containing a variety of prayers to be prayed on different occasions and for different purposes) 164-168, 209, 234, 240. See also “book of hours” and “psalter” prestige and the written word 29-30, 105, 115-123, 139-141, 218 prestige manuscripts 25, 51, 55, 119, 127, 167, 187 literate skills and prestige 57, 59, 62, 188-191, 209-210, 239-240, 253 Bourdieu and culture as social distinction 240. See also “books for practical use ...” printing 9, 167, 186, 247 psalter (a book containing psalms from the Bible) 51, 164 See also “book of hours” and “prayer book” reading aloud 8, 12, 18, 21, 25, 27, 38, 4041, 53, 55, 56, 68, 72, 74, 82, 91, 97, 119, 150, 154, 177, 178, 188191, 195, 196, 214-215, 224, 234235 silently 26, 59, 64, 164-168, 188191, 211 Reformation 1, 3 , 5,122, 164, 165, 168, 170, 183, 185, 186, 189, 190, 199, 234, 235, 237, 242, 243, 247, 250 Roman alphabet 8, 76, 177, 198, 229 Roman law 45, 95

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romances (French verse novels) 189, 210, 214-220, 225, 226, 230 royal chapels as proto-chanceries 2528, 68-71, 76, 164 runes 1, 8, 15, 16, 76, 103, 177,198, 229 saga (a narrative written in the Old Norse language, corresponding to what in other West European countries would be called “chronicle” or “biography”) social background 106-109, 115121, 137-139 social impact of saga (and other) literature 145-151, 152-156, 246250 sagas and European literature 3033, 119-123. See also “bishops’ sagas”, “kings’ sagas”, “sagas of Icelanders”, “Sturlunga saga” sagas of Icelanders, in Icelandic Islendingasögur (sagas written in Iceland ca. 1220-1320 about Icelanders who lived ca. 8701050) 115-123 saints’ lives, see: hagiographies schools in general 9, 45, 58-63 145, 153, 156, 184-188, 189, 196, 197, 238, 240, 244, 246 parish schools 58-59, 184, 186 (see also Oddi, Our Lady in Copenhagen, Storkyrkan in Stockholm, Söderköping, Visby) town schools 182, 183, 184-188, 234, 239, 240, 246 monastic schools 22, 60-61 cathedral schools 50, 52, 58-62, 72, 184, 185, 189, 196, 197, 199, 211, 240, 244, 246

private education 165, 185, 188, 190, 240 women and schools 59, 164, 202, 209-210 beating at schools 185 social consequences of education 1, 33, 58, 62-63, 70, 112-113, 119, 137, 142, 144, 145, 183, 184-186, 188, 189-190, 201, 209-210, 223, 234-235, 240 See also: university education seal 26, 43, 69, 70, 72, 73, 87, 88, 91, 93, 97, 99, 100, 116, 193, 201, 206 sermon 10, 49, 52, 55-58, 111-115, 150, 153, 154, 156, 164, 194 collections of sermons 55, 57, 112, 113-114, 167, 194. See also “exempla” skaldic poetry 20, 30, 31, 124, 125, 127, 133, 137, 139, 147, 155, 209 skaptafærd (a ritual to make an agreement legal) 94 skeyting (a ritual to transfer property) 94-95 spectacles 212 standardisation of social practices as a consequence of literacy 3, 22-25, 35, 64-65, 72, 87, 100-103, 191, 198, 235, 238, 244, 246-250, 254 in oral, skaldic poems 30, 31 Sturlunga saga (a collection of sagas written on Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries about Icelanders who lived in the same period) 133136 symbolic objects, see: “skeyting” synod 38-41, 50, 56, 150, 241. See also oral communication table of contents in books 78-79 Thing assemblies 3, 5, 17, 23, 27, 37, 38, 64, 68, 73, 75-83, 84, 94, 107,

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290 137, 145, 152, 178, 202, 203, 239, 244, 245, 251, 254 time and literacy 28-30 trade, see: merchants travels by magnates and officials to the king’s court 71-74, 108, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 129, 130, 137, 138, 150, 174, 215, 235 by kings to local communities 69,-70, 71-74, 170, 174, 241 by merchants to foreign markets 1, 6, 179-184, 241. See also oral communication unintended consequences 13-14, 28, 83, 102, 149, 154, 156, 246, 254 university education 44, 45, 48, 49, 58, 114, 153, 190, 235, 237, 240, 244, 246, 248 Paris 32, 47, 48, 49, 58 Orléans 45 Bologna 57, 188 Uppsala 235 Copenhagen 235 See also schools

179, 182, 184-188, 196, 201, 206, 210, 215, 218, 224, 238, 252 Old Gutnish (Gotland) 143 German spoken and written in Scandinavia 182, 158, 173, 178, 182, 186-188, 214, 216, 224, 227 Viking age 3, 5,6,27 visitation by bishops 38-41, 42, 50, 57, 61, 64-67, 161, 241. See also oral communication witnesses 43, 52, 68, 85, 87, 88, 94103, 161, 198, 201 women as witnesses 202-207 women and literacy 91, 123, 129, 131, 135, 164-165, 189, 201-210, 225234, 240 judiciary and titles to property 201-208 literature and historiography 209210, 218 religion 208-209 schooling 59, 164

vápnatak, a ritual to make an agreement legal 94 vernacular languages in general 9, 11-12, 27-28, 52-53, 56, 95, 112, 141, 144, 179, 188191, 199, 211, 213, 229, 234-237, 246-247 Danish 79, 141, 164-165, 172, 177-179, 182, 184-188, 238, 252, 216, 224, 236 Old Norse (Iceland and Norway) 11-12, 21, 27-28, 76, 79, 83, 112, 137, 139, 185, 198, 205, 215 Swedish 2, 79, 81, 89, 91, 142, 143, 144, 155, 162, 164-165, 177-

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