Royal saints

"Jutta of Sangerhausen. A ‘new saint’ in the wake of Elizabeth of Thuringia?

Jutta of Sangerhausen (Thuringia/Germany) is a less known representative of the religious movements of the 13th Century Western Europe, a lay woman who spent the last four years of her life as anchoress in the neighborhood of the town Kulm in Prussia (today: Poland) and probably died in 1260. There is no reference to her neither in HERBERT GRUNDMANN’s standard work about the “Religious movements in the Middle Ages” (Berlin 1935/Darmstadt 1977) nor in the books written by KURT RUH and BERNARD MCGINN about the history of mysticism in Western Europe (see Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, Vol. 2, München 1993 and The Flowering of Mysticism, New York 1998). Not even ANNEKE B. MULDER-BAKKER mentioned Jutta in her recent publication about the “Lives of the anchoresses” (Philadelphia 2005). The reason for this ignorance may be the lack of a modern edition of the sources about Jutta. Now, that a new edition appeared last year (ed. by PETER GERLINGHOFF, Sangerhausen 2006) we finally have the opportunity to situate Jutta in her historical context. Some scholars are of the opinion that Jutta modelled herself on the Hungarian princess and Thuringian countess Elizabeth, a contemporary and compatriot of Jutta who died in 1231 and was canonized as early as 1235. The purpose of this paper is to prove the validity of this claim. My methodological procedure will be a textcritical one. Such an approach is inevitable because all the sources came from the 16th and 17th century. The question is: Couldn’t have been Jutta a ‘new Elizabeth’ before the 17th century? Or do we have to do with a ‘falsification’? In other and less provocative words: Is Jutta a ‘sainte construite’?"

This thesis examines the cults of three royal saints whose cults flourished in the period c.1050-c.1200. The three saints are Edmund of East Anglia (d.869), Olaf of Norway (d.1030) and Knud Rex of Denmark (d.1086). Through an examination of the texts produced at the respective cult centres - with a particular focus on saints' lives and liturgical texts - the thesis explores how the overseers of the cults shaped the textual images of their patron saints. This exploration also formulates how each cult centre used such texts to formulate the cult centre's place within a local history as well as a universal Christian history. In this, I have sought to explain how the religious institution that served as the centre of a cult formulated an institutional identity for itself through the textual production centred around the institution's patron saint.

This is a work-in-progress and differently structured version of the article: "ST ADALBERTUS DOMESTICUS. PATTERNS OF MISSIONING AND EPISCOPAL POWER IN POLAND AND SCANDINAVIA IN THE ELEVENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES" Acta Poloniae Historica
119, 2019

This article explores the ways episcopal milieus on the northeastern peripheries of Europe created and renewed their identities and symbols of episcopal authority by domesticating their immigrant saints during the high Middle Ages. By comparing the examples of holy bishops arriving to Poland and Sweden (St Adalbert, St Sigfrid, St Henry) it studies the episcopal mythopoesis, that is, creation of foundational myths and mythologies as well as their adaptation to specific local needs and changing historical circumstances. The article further probes to what extent these mythopoetic efforts were original or imitative in respect of the Western European episcopal centers and other peripheries. How similarly or differently did the bishops in the “old” and “young” Europe respond to the question: what beginnings do we need today? And what role did the appropriation, commodification, and domestication of holy bishops’ images and body parts play in providing answers to this vital question?

Keywords: bishops, hagiography, episcopal attributes, relics, mythopoesis, secondary mythologization, domestication, taming, holy husbandry, St Adalbert of Prague, St Sigfrid, St Henry of Finland, Gniezno

Abstract:
The early deanery churches in Uppland – arguments in a royal battle for prestige.

A charter from 1164–67 mentions a dean (prepositus) in each of the three earliest towns in the province of Uppland, Sigtuna, Enköping and Östra Aros (present day Uppsala). Further sources show that each of the three old ”folk lands” of Uppland was one deanery (fig. 1). In the middle of the 13th century, the deans were absorbed by the newly established secular chapter at Uppsala cathedral, 5 km from Östra Aros. At the end of the century, new rural deans were established, but their districts were much smaller.
  The Sigtuna dean had Saint Peter’s church, now a ruin (fig. 2). It must have been begun much earlier but was finished during this period. In Enköping, the deanery church was Saint Mary’s, now the town church (fig. 3). Its oldest parts are late Romanesque, and it seems to have been erected during the deanery period. The architecture of the deanery church in Östra Aros, Saint Mary’s, is not known.
  Two features differed the deanery churches from the ordinary parish churches. They had a special income, from 1244 two pennies every year from each yeoman in the folk land. The original fee was probably one penny. That they needed this is explained by their second special feature: the deanery churches lacked a parish. This means that they did not have the normal income of a church. After the disappearence of the deaneries, in the second half of the 13th century, parishes were created for the three churches.
  A ”dean’s penny” is also known from two districts in the neighbouring Strängnäs diocese, and since these districts lay across the water from Uppland the fee was probably influenced from there. The dean’s penny is not known from the rest of Scandinavia, and parallells in the rest of Europe seem hard to find. The lack of a parish has parallells among cathedrals.
  Churches for large territories were hardly erected through local initiative, and the introduction of a new tax also points to a central authority. Furthermore, at least one of the deanery churches lay on land owned by the Crown. The reason that this highly organised system was created was probably political. In 1153, a papal delegate was sent to Sweden to create a new achbishopric. According to the Danish chronicler Saxo (circa 1200) the Swedes could not decide where to place it. However, in 1164 Uppsala was elevated to an archbishop’s see. The reason for the 1153 failure was probably that there were two kings who ruled jointly, Sverker (circa 1131–1156) and Erik (circa 1151–1160). Sverker was based in the province Östergötland and must have supported the candidacy of Linköping. Erik was martyrized in Östra Aros and was, according to his 14th century saint’s legend, responsible for the erection of Uppsala cathedral. There are also indications that he founded a regular chapter there. The deanery organisation can be explained as a part of Erik’s campaign to have the archbishopric placed in Uppsala.

RESUMEN: Teniendo en cuenta la acción misericordiosa de Dios en los hombres y la respuesta de éstos a Dios, se pasa revista tanto al don de la conversión (fruto de la misericordia divina) como a las obras de misericordia impulsadas por esa misma conversión. Mencionando a varios conversos famosos, son recordados desde una visión cronológica otros más desconocidos, destacando algunos testimonios recientes y ciertos casos especiales de acción misericordiosa de Dios.  PALABRAS CLAVE: Conversión, misericordia, obras de misericordia, caridad.
ABSTRACT: Using as a point of departure the merciful action of God toward human persons and their response to God, this article examines both the gift of conversión (as a fruit of divine mercy) and the works of mercy undertaken as a result of this conversion. A number of famous converts are mentioned, with emphasis on recent testimonies and certain special instances of the merciful action of God. KEY WORDS: Conversión, mercy, works of mercy, charity.

In the 14th and 15th centuries St Erik became the national saint of the kingdom of Sweden. This era of his cult was - more or less - over after the Swedish Reformation during the 16th century. However, 19th-century National Romanticism re-discovered St Erik as a national figure. As such he featured less obvious than other "heros" of the Swedish Middle Ages like Birger Jarl or Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson. Yet, the paper argues, a number of traces can be found which give evidence of strong national feelings of certain circles of Swedish society towards St Erik. Those traces include the controversy over the source-critical thesis on St Erik by Knut Stjerna, the role of the saint in the restauration of the cathedral of Uppsala and in the decoration of the Stadhus of Stockholm.

The paper introduces the various effects that the political efforts of the Hungarian Angevin Dynasty (14 th century) to promote dynastic saints had on name-giving. Namely, since the promotion of the cults of family saints strengthened the prestige and legitimation of a royal house, it was a typical means of politics for new dynasties. The founder of the Hungarian Angevin Dynasty, King Charles I was the offspring of the Neapolitan Angevins through his father and the Hungarian Árpád Dynasty through his grandmother, Queen Mary of Naples. It is small wonder that he used the cults of their Hungarian and Neapolitan saintly relatives as a political device in his struggle for the throne and this practice was not only continued but even consummated and used for other purposes by his successors. The royal support of the cults is well reflected in the name-giving strategies of the dynasty on the one hand (as dy-nastic name-giving also bears strong political connotations). On the other hand, it had an impact on the frequency of the names of Hungarian dynastic saints (Saints Stephen, Emer-ic, Ladislaus, Elisabeth and Margaret) in the population of the time, too. The most significant change can be detected in the popularity of the name László 'Ladislaus', the name of the most deeply venerated family saint and, additionally, the most venerated knight saint. While the names István 'Stephen', Erzsébet 'Elisabeth' and Margit 'Margaret' were already among the most fashionable ones at the time of the dynasty's rise in Hungary (i.e. at the beginning of the 14 th century) due to other saints behind the names, László was a name of average frequency and became the 5 th most frequent name among noblemen within a few decades.

A paper in Swedish on the multitude of places of worship in Uppsala dedicated to the same saint, king Erik of Sweden. The backgroun was partly that Saint Erik, killed in 1160, was predecessed by a monk with the same name who was killed a century earlier. Another reason was that in 1273 Uppsala Cathedral was moved to a new location. Finally, the legend differed between the site where Erik was wounded and a spring started flowing and the site where he was executed, and at both sites a chapel was built. It appears that this richness in devotional sites had no parallels - Canterbury Cathedral had a number of stations devoted to Thomas Becket, but they were all situated within the Cathedral.

A hagiographic text, like any other text intended to tell a story, crystallize the memory it carries in a determined form and perspective. It is well known that history changes as time, place and contexts change. If it is true that every society builds the saints it needs and models itself on their image (Delooz), then the hagiographic "discourse" (De Certeau) is essentially dynamic by its inherent nature, as it is a performative action meant to affect reality and direct it in a specific sense (Van Uytfanghe). Not infrequently hagiographic texts act as “myths of foundation”, crediting new institutions, orders, kings or dynasties and anchoring them in revered, often charismatic memory. This continuous interchange between society and depiction of sanctity allows also the most ancient and apparently stable models to face unending processes of re-actualization. This requires a number of “adjustments” often resulting in real “rewritings”. It is clear both on a strictly literary level (Goullet) and on monumental, iconographic, liturgical levels. In this regard, the rise and affirmation of sacred royalty can be seen as a paradigmatic example. It appears somehow as a “rewriting” of previous models, coming from different cultural and religious contexts, but then it evolves repeatedly together with cultural, religious and politic changes in the environments that use it as an extraordinary tool of communication, pressure and power.

The most popular biography of St. Edward the Confessor.

Aelred of Rievaulx’s Vita sancti Ædwardi Regis et Confessoris was written on request of Laurence, abbot of Westminster, soon after the canonization of King Edward in 1161, and was presented to King Henry II on the occasion of the translation of the body of the saint on the 13th of October 1163. Preceded by a biography written by an anonymous author for Edward’s wife, Queen Edith, and by the clearly hagiographical biography written by the prior of Westminster, Osbert of Clare, in 1138, Aelred’s Vita enriched the hagiographical dossier of the saint with new miraculous episodes and was also endowed with strong political messages. It soon became the official biography of the saint and its fortune is witnessed not only by the number of manuscripts that contain the text, but also by the fact that all the successive biographies of the saint were directly or indirectly dependent on it.
This first critical edition of the Vita provides a text based on the best manuscript witnesses together with the editio princeps of a versification of the Vita written by an anonymous poet few years later.
Francesco Marzella obtained his PhD from the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane (SUM, Florence) and was postdoctoral fellow at Università degli Studi dell’Aquila. His main research field is Anglo-Latin Literature (12th and 13th century).

(Contardo d'Este: dynastic saint and co-patron of Modena. The coins, witnesses of the Contardian cult)

"Memorie scientifiche, giuridiche, letterarie" dell’Accademia nazionale di scienze, lettere e arti di Modena, serie VIII, vol. XIX, fasc. II, 2016, pp. 535-548.

The iconography of St. Contardo of Este, pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela, is documented in Ferrara and Modena. In the 16th century we have several representations in Ferrara, though unconvincing and in-consistent with the saint’s biography. In worship, developed in Modena in the 17th and 18th centuries, the image of St. Contardo is inspired by St. James the Great, suitable to his biography and death in Broni (1249), as in painting and sculpture. Similarly on coins struck for the mint of Mo-dena by dukes Rinaldo I and Francis III (1707-1762), he is displayed as the patron saint of the Este’s dynasty and the capital of the Dukedom.

At the Swedish church of Södertälje south of Stockholm, a cult of a local saint, Queen Ragnhild, presumed founder of the church, is known from 15th C. sources. The information concerning her identity is confused in the sources, but she is thought to have lived at the end of the 11th and/or beginning of the 12th C.
Apart from having founded Södertälje church, Queen Ragnhild is said to have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and 15th C. murals depict her as a pilgrim.
The publication of Vitis aquilonia by the exiled Catholic Johannes Vastovius in 1623 led to a renewed interest in St. Ragnhild, and Södertälje church is currently referred to as St. Ragnhild's church.