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The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Lesley Abrams
Lesley Abrams
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University of Cambridge
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Extract

St Anskar, a monk of Corbie and Corvey, is often referred to as the ‘Apostle of the North’. In 826 he was attached to the retinue of Harald, king of Denmark, upon the king's baptism at the court of Louis the Pious; Anskar was sent to evangelize first the Danes, who were an increasing threat to the northern border of the Empire, and then the Swedes of the Mälar region, whose rulers may have hoped for imperial favour. If the mission of Anskar and his immediate successors had significant and enduring effects beyond his death in 865, however, they have so far failed to make themselves known to historians. The see of Hamburg-Bremen, of which Anskar was the first archbishop, had indeed been given responsibility for the northern mission-field, and successive popes renewed their theoretical support for this goal; but activity, let alone success, was not conspicuous for many years thereafter. The conversion of the Scandinavian peoples had to wait, and when it came the impetus was not from Hamburg-Bremen alone. Rather, the story of the Christianization of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from the later tenth century through the eleventh is one with a significantly English cast and an English script, although the German church – and maybe others – never quite withdrew from the stage. Scandinavian historians have long been concerned with this missionary activity of Anglo-Saxon churchmen, but it has attracted undeservedly less interest and attention on this side of the North Sea.

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Research Article
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Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 24 , December 1995 , pp. 213 - 249
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Anskar's Life was written by his successor Rimbert: see Vita Anskarii auctore Rimberto, ed. Waitz, G., MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum (henceforth SS rer. Ger.) (Hannover, 1884)Google Scholar; Robinson, C. H., Anskar: the Apostle of the North 801–865 ([London], 1921).Google Scholar

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5 For a summary of the evidence, see P. Sawyer, ‘The Process of Scandinavian Christianization in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, ibid. pp. 68–87.

6 See B. Sawyer, ‘Scandinavian Conversion Histories’, ibid. pp. 88–110, and B. and Sawyer, P., ‘Adam and the Eve of Scandinavian History’, The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Magdalino, P. (London, 1992), pp. 37–51.Google Scholar

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14 The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. and trans. Campbell, A. (London, 1962), p. 52.Google Scholar

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16 Oda, archbishop of Canterbury (941–58), and Osketel, archbishop of York (956–71).

17 Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R.A.B. (Oxford, 1969) V.9 (p. 476).Google Scholar

18 See Page, R. I., ‘How Long Did the Scandinavian Language Survive in England? The Epigraphical Evidence’, England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 165–81.Google Scholar

19 Spellings of personal names have been standardized according to the conventions of this journal.

20 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.72 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 220, trans. Tschan, p. 180).Google Scholar

21 For a convenient summary of Norwegian and Icelandic historical writing, see [E.O.] Turville-Petre, G., Origins of Icelandic Literature (Oxford, 1953), esp. pp. 81–108 and 166–227.Google Scholar Skaldic poetry which described the deeds of kings was composed from the ninth century but not recorded in writing until much later; for a survey of the genre, with selected translations, see Turville-Petre, E.O.G., Scaldic Poetry (Oxford, 1976).Google Scholar A series of sagas written in Iceland about Norwegian kings incorporated material from this earlier poetry and prose and wove a substantial narrative around it; see Andersson, T. M., ‘Kings' Sagas’, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. Clover, C. J. and Lindow, J., Islandica 45 (Ithaca, NY, 1985), 197–238Google Scholar, and Whaley, D., ‘The Kings' Sagas’, Viking Revaluations, ed. Faulkes, and Perkins, , pp. 43–64.Google Scholar

22 Hákon's status as Æthelstan's foster-son is identified in three late twelfth-century texts: Historia Norwegiae, in Monumenta historica Norvegide, ed. Storm, G. (Christiania, 1880), pp. 104–5Google Scholar, Theodoric's Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium (ibid. p. 7), and Άgrip (Άgrip af Nóregs konunga segum, ed. Jónsson, F. (Halle, 1929), p. 5).Google Scholar The fostering is also featured in the thirteenth-century saga by Snorri Sturluson, Haralds Saga ens hárfagra, contained in his great saga collection, Heimskringla (ed. Aðalbjarnarson, B., 3 vols., Íslensk fornrit 26–8 (Reykjavik, 1941–1951))Google Scholar: Hollander, L. M., Heimskringla. History of the Kings of Norway (Austin, 1964), at pp. 92–3.Google Scholar R.I. Page has suggested that the use in Sighvat Thórðarson's Bersoglisvísur (probably dating from the 1030s) of an epithet describing Hákon as Æthelstan's foster-son may be the earliest identifiable reference to the relationship: ‘The Audience of Beowulf and the Vikings’, The Dating of Beowulf, ed. Chase, C. (Toronto, 1981), pp. 113–22, at 113–15Google Scholar. As far as I am aware, no English source mentions Hákon's presence in England, although William of Malmesbury referred to a diplomatic mission from King Harald. See below, n. 23.

23 According to William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum Anglorum (composed in a series of editions from c. 1125 to 1145), Harald Fairhair sent ambassadors to Æthelstan with a richly furnished ship: Willelmi Malmesbiriensis monachi de gestis regum Anglorum libri quinque, ed. Stubbs, W., 2 vols. (London, 1887–1889) I, 149 (ch. 135)Google Scholar; Page, , ‘The Audience’, pp. 115–16.Google Scholar Peter Sawyer has drawn attention to a confused tradition of an alliance between Æthelstan and Otto I against Denmark in the Casus S. Galli of Ekkehard IV: ‘Rikssamlingen i England og Sverige sammenlignet med den norske rikssamling’, Rikssamlingen og Harald Hårfagre (1993), pp. 131–46, at 131–2.Google Scholar For Ekkehard's text, see St. Galler Klostergeschichten, ed. Haefele, H. F. (Darmstadt, 1980), p. 170 (ch. 81)Google Scholar. Page has noted other examples of continental princes fostered at Æthelstan's court: ‘The Audience’, pp. 113–15.Google Scholar For Æthelstan's foreign associations more generally, see Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 343–7.Google Scholar

24 See above, n. 22.

25 Hákonar saga góða, ch. 13; Hollander, , Heimskringla, p. 106.Google Scholar

26 The poet not only described the explicitly pagan arrangements of Hakon's burial but commemorated the king's staunch defence of pagan sanctuaries: Hákonar saga góða, ch. 32; Hollander, , Heimskringla, pp. 125–6.Google Scholar Page has warned us to remember, however, that the poem (and presumably the burial) may have been commissioned by Hákon's widow, who may not have been Christian: ‘The Audience’, p. 114, n. 10.Google Scholar

27 London, British Library, Add. 17450, at 5v. See Blows, M., ‘A Glastonbury Obit-List’, The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey. Essays in Honour of the Ninetieth Birthday of C.A. Ralegh Radford, ed. Abrams, L. and Carley, J. P. (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 257–69.Google Scholar

28 De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesie, ch. 67; The Early History of Glastonbury. An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury's ‘De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie’, ed. and trans. Scott, J. (Woodbridge, 1981), p. 138. It may be worth keeping in mind the possibility that Sigefridus could have been bishop of Norwegians outside Norway – in England, for example, or Ireland.Google Scholar

29 As Peter Sawyer has pointed out, the reference to Edgar relates only to the first part of the list; Sigefridus appears between Ælfwold (bishop of Crediton) and Æthelwold (bishop of Winchester), who died in 972 and 984, respectively: ‘Ethelred II, Olaf Tryggvason, and the Conversion of Norway’, Scandinavian Stud. 59.(1987), 299–307Google Scholar, reprinted in Anglo-Scandinavian England: Norse-English Relations in the Period before the Conquest, ed. Niles, J. D. and Amodio, M., OE Colloquium Ser. 4 (1989), 17–24, at 23, n. 1.Google Scholar

30 Birkeli, F., ‘The Earliest Missionary Activities from England to Norway’, Nottingham Med. Stud. 15 (1971), 27–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other scholars have identified Glastonbury's Sigefridus with Sigurd, a bishop at Olaf Tryggvason's court in the late 990s: see Willson, T. B., History of the Church and State in Norway from the Tenth to the Sixteenth Century (London, 1903), pp. 355–7.Google ScholarLeach, H. G. instead assumed that the Glastonbury monk was sent first to Norway by King Cnut to be bishop of Niðaros and in 1030 went to Skara in Sweden: Angevin Britain and Scandinavia (Cambridge, MA, 1921), p. 83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This freedom of interpretation derives in part from an apparent multiplicity of Sigfrids. See below, n. 44.

31 For a recent summary of the past and present treatment of the Kings' Sagas as historical evidence, see Bagge, S., ‘From Sagas to Society: the Case of Heimskringla’, in From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, ed. Pálsson, G. (Enfield Lock, 1992), pp. 61–75.Google Scholar

32 In his poem, Vellekla, composed c. 986, Einar Skálaglamm praised the resumption of pagan sacrifices by the successor of the sons of Erik, Jarl Hákon: Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, ch. 16; Hollander, , Heimskringla, p. 155.Google Scholar The baptism -in England of Erik's sons and their destruction of pagan shrines in Norway are mentioned in Snorri's Haralds saga gráfeldar, ch. 2; Hollander, , Heimskringla, p. 131.Google Scholar

33 So-called ‘cavalry graves’ appear to continue in eastern Norway longer than in the west of the country, and early graves with ‘Christian indicators’ have been found in Rogaland in the south west. I am grateful to Barbara Crawford and Torstein Jørgensen for information on this subject. The question of the decline of pagan burials and its association with religious change is raised by L.C. Nielsen (with respect to Denmark): see ‘Hedenskab og kristendom. Religions skiftet afs pejlet i vikingetidens grave’ (‘Paganism and Christianity. The Change of Religion as Reflected in Viking Age Graves’), in Fra stamme til stat i Danmark 2. Hevdingesamfund og kongemagt, ed. Mortensen, P. and Rasmussen, B. M., Jysk Arkaeologisk Selskab Skrifter 22.2 (Aarhus, 1991), pp. 245–67 (English summary, pp. 265–7).Google Scholar

34 Birkeli, , ‘The Earliest Missionary Activities’; see his Norske steinkors i tidlig middelalder (Oslo, 1973) for a full description, with illustrations, of the monuments discussed.Google Scholar

35 For Olaf's missionary role in Norway and Iceland, see Ari's Íslendingabók, written in the 1120s: Íslendingabók. Landnámabók, ed. Benediktsson, J., 2 vols., Íslensk fornrit 1.1 (Reykjavik, 1968), ch. 7Google Scholar; The Book of the Icelanders, ed. and trans. Hermannsson, H. (Ithaca, NY, 1930), p. 64.Google Scholar Olaf's shotgun conversion of Sigurd the Stout, earl of Orkney, is described in Snorri's Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (ch. 47; Hollander, , Heimskringla, pp. 188–9)Google Scholar and in the saga of the Orkney earls written c. 1300: Orkneyinga Saga, ed. Guðmundsson, F., Íslensk fornrit 34 (Reykjavik, 1965), ch. 12Google Scholar; Pálsson, H. and Edwards, P., Orkneyinga Saga: the History of the Earls of Orkney (Harmondsworth, 1981), pp. 37–8.Google Scholar

36 Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, chs. 62–3; Hollander, , Heimskringla, pp. 201–3.Google Scholar

37 Ibid. chs. 68–76 (pp. 207–11).

38 Theodore Andersson has emphasized the artificial aspect of the saga accounts of Olaf's role in the conversion of Norway by comparing two differing versions: see ‘The Conversion of Norway according to Oddr Snorrason and Snorri Sturluson’, Med. Scandinavia 10 (1977), 83–95.Google Scholar

39 Andersson, T. M., ‘The Viking Policy of Ethelred the Unready’, Scandinavian Stud. 59 (1987), 284–95Google Scholar; reprinted in Anglo-Scandinavian England, ed. Niles, and Amodio, , pp. 1–11.Google Scholar See also P. Sawyer, ‘Ethelred II’.

40 ASC s.a. 994 CDE: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 128–9 (text)Google Scholar; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, et al. , p. 83 (translation).Google Scholar

41 Andersson, , ‘The Viking Policy’, esp. pp. 8–10.Google Scholar

42 Gesta 11.37 and IV.34 (ed. Schmeidler, pp. 98 and 268, trans. Tschan, pp. 80 and 214). In Odd Snorrason's saga of King Olaf, the bishop is called Jón-Sigurd: Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar, ed. Jónsson, F. (Copenhagen, 1932), chs. 28 [19] and 81 (pp. 98 and 246).Google Scholar

43 ‘Through deep perils of the sea and heathen nations’: Chronicon abbatiae Rameseiensis, ed. Macray, W. D. (London, 1886), pp. lix–lxGoogle Scholar; the date is established by a reference to Eadnoth, abbot of Ramsey from 993, who became bishop of Dorchester in 1007 × 1009. Goscelin wrote between 1087 and 1091, basing his work on an earlier Life, composed c. 1020 (ibid. pp. xxxi–xxxii).

44 Susan Edgington has pointed out in this context that Snorri Sturluson's Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar associates a Bishop Sigurd with Olaf's mission (ch. 80; Hollander, , Heimskringla, p. 213)Google Scholar and that the Greater Saga of Olaf Tryggvason (composed in the mid-thirteenth century) identifies him as an Englishman: Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, ed. Halldórsson, O., 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1958–1961) I, 249 (ch. 107)Google Scholar; The Saga of King Olaf Tryggwason who Reigned over Norway A.D. 995 to A.D. 1000, trans. Sephton, J. (London, 1895), p. 154.Google Scholar Following C.J.A. Oppermann (The English Missionaries in Sweden and Finland (London, 1937), p. 61, n. 231)Google Scholar, she has identified this, Olaf Tryggvason's, Sigurd (also called Jón-Sigurd: see n. 42), with the Sigfrid who evangelized in Sweden and allegedly converted the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung after 995; she has suggested that Sigurd/Sigfrid was the bishop mentioned at Ramsey, who may have returned to England after Olaf Tryggvason's death and spent time at the abbey before embarking on the next stage of his missionary career, in Sweden: Edgington, S., ‘Siward – Sigurd – Sigfrid? The Career of an English Missionary in Scandinavia’, Northern Stud. 26 (1989), 56–9.Google Scholar ‘Siward’ may represent the name Sigeweard, not Sigefrith (Sigfrid), however; and there are in any event rather too many Sigfrids in the field (including Glastonbury's: see n. 30 above) for any identification to be secure. Two commemorationson April 5 and February 15 – may suggest the existence of at least two (Blows, , ‘A Glastonbury Obit-List’, p. 264)Google Scholar. On Sigefrith/Sigfrid, see further below, pp. 233–4.Google Scholar

45 Bjørgvin bispestol. Frå Selja til Bjørgvin, ed. Juvkam, P. (Bergen, 1968)Google Scholar; Bjørgvin bispestol, Byen og bispedemmet, ed. Juvkam, P. (Bergen, 1970)Google Scholar; Radford, C.A.R., ‘St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, and the Development of the Cathedral in Northwest Europe’, in St Magnus Cathedral and Orkney's Twelfth-Century Renaissance, ed. Crawford, B. E. (Aberdeen, 1988), pp. 14–24, at 20–3Google Scholar; Crawford, B., ‘Birsay-Peel-Selja. Three Norse Bishops' Seats on Off-Shore Islands. A Comparative Study’, in Kirkearkeologi og kirkekunst. Studier tilegnet Sigrid og Hákon Christie, ed. Lidén, H. E. et al. (Oslo, 1993), pp. 21–35.Google Scholar

46 A Latin version of Sunniva's story was written in Norway after 1170 (the date of her translation to Bergen): see Acta sanctorum in Seljo, in Monumenta, ed. Storm, , pp. 147–52.Google Scholar The story also appeared in Odd Snorrason's Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, composed in Latin c. 1190; Odd's text has been lost, but thirteenth-century manuscripts of vernacular translations survive; see Turville-Petre, , Origins, pp. 190–4.Google Scholar For Selja and the Sunniva legend, see Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar, ed. Jónsson, , pp. 96–103.Google Scholar

47 See below, pp. 240–2.

48 B. E. Crawford, ‘Holy Places in the British Isles: Some Parallels to Selja’, in Christianity in the British Isles: the Roman and Celtic Background. I am grateful to Barbara Crawford for allowing me to see her article in advance of publication.

49 On Olaf Haraldsson's career in England, see Encomium Emmae reginae, ed. Campbell, A., Camden 3rd ser. 72 (London, 1949), pp. 76–82Google Scholar; translations of some of the poetry celebrating his achievements can be found in EHD, ed. Whitelock, , nos. 12–13 (pp. 332–4)Google Scholar. See also Campbell, A., Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1971), pp. 8–12.Google Scholar

50 For Snorri's version of his career, see Óláfs saga helga: Hollander, , Heimskringla, pp. 245–537.Google Scholar

51 Gesta 11.57 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 117–18.Google Scholartrans. Tschan, , p. 94).Google Scholar

52 Rodulf's appointment as abbot of Abingdon is noted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (s.a. 1048 E and 1050 C: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 171–2 (text)Google Scholar; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, et al. , p. 116 (translation)).Google Scholar There he is identified as a relative of the king, but, as Stenton pointed out (Anglo-Saxon England, p. 463)Google Scholar, his connection is more likely to have been with Emma. In the Historia monasterii de Abingdon, he is referred to as having long held episcopatum apud Norweiam gentem: Chronicon monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Stevenson, J., 2 vols. (London, 1858) I, 463–4.Google Scholar Manuscript B of John of Worcester's Chronicon likewise calls him episcopus de Norwagia gente (Monumenta Historica Britannica, or Materials for the History of Britain from the Earliest Period, ed. Petrie, H. and Sharpe, J. (London, 1848), p. 604, n. 4)Google Scholar. According to Íslendingabók, a Bishop Hródólfr spent nineteen years in Iceland (ch. 8; ed. and trans. Hermannsson, pp. 54 and 67). If this is the same man, he could have gone to Iceland after Olaf Haraldsson's death in 1030 and proceeded from there to England in the late 1040s. A name, scratched in dry-point runes of Scandinavian type in the margin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 57 (on 30v), a manuscript known to have been at Abingdon by the 1040s, may be the work of Abbot Rodulf or perhaps a companion from Scandinavia. I am indebted to Tim Graham for drawing my attention to this manuscript and for showing me his as yet unpublished article on the inscription. Svein Aggesen may have been confusing two Rodulfs when he claimed that another Bishop Rodulf– who occupied the see of Schleswig from 1026 to 1047 and had been appointed by Cnut – was from England: see Scriptores minores historiae Danicae medii aevi, ed. Gertz, M. C., 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1922) I, 122–5 (ch. 9)Google Scholar; ‘A Short History of the Kings of Denmark’, The Works of Sven Aggesen, Twelfth-Century Danish Historian, trans. Christiansen, E. (London, 1992), p. 64Google Scholar; and Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae occidentalis ab initio usque ad annum mcxcviii, 6th ser. 2, ed. Kluger, H. (Stuttgart, 1992), 105–6.Google Scholar

53 Norges innskrifter med de yngre runer, ed. Olsen, M., 5 vols. (Oslo, 1941–1960) IV, 280–6 (no. 449)Google Scholar; Hagland, J. R., ‘Kulisteinen – endå ein gong’, in Heidersskrigt Nils Hallan på 65–årsdagen 13. Desember 1991, ed. Alhaug, G. et al. (Oslo, 1991), pp. 157–64Google Scholar. The dating to 1034 by dendrochronological analysis of surviving timbers of a bridge with which the stone was associated, combined with the inscription's reference to the conversion twelve years before, may suggest that conversion occurred in 1022.

54 See below, pp. 226–9.

55 Gesta III.17 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 160.Google Scholartrans. Tschan, , pp. 127–9).Google Scholar

56 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the presence at Stamford Bridge of a Norwegian bishop; he may have been from Orkney (whose earls accompanied Harald), but as he is not identified by name the possibility that he was one of Harald's bishops cannot be dismissed: ASC s.a. 1066 D: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 199 (text)Google Scholar; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, et al. , p. 142 (translation).Google Scholar

57 King Æthelstan may have supported Otto I against Denmark (see above, n. 23); and late in the century King Æthelred's support of Olaf Tryggvason may have aimed in part to divert to Scandinavia the attention of Svein Forkbeard, king of Denmark since 987, whose army was making its presence felt in England. See ASC s.a. 994 CDE: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 126–7 (text)Google Scholar; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, et al. , p. 83 (translation)Google Scholar; see also Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell, , pp. l–liv.Google Scholar and Sawyer, P., ‘The Scandinavian Background’, in The Battle of Maldon: Fiction and Fact, ed. Cooper, J. (London, 1993), pp. 33–2, at 41–2.Google Scholar

58 For Poppo's baptism of Harald, see Widukind, Resgestae Saxonicae III.65, Die Sachsengeschichte des Widukind von Korvei, ed. Lohmann, H.-E. and Hirsch, P., 5th ed., MGH, SS rer. Ger. (Hannover, 1935), pp. 140–1.Google Scholar

59 Gesta 1.59 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 57–8Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 51)Google Scholar. See also ibid. 11.3 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 63–4, transGoogle Scholar. Tschan, , p. 56)Google Scholar for Adam's claim that Harald accepted baptism as a result of his defeat by Otto I, mentioned below. A victory by Otto II may have been incorrectly attributed to his predecessor.

60 Sawyer, P., ‘Swein Forkbeard and the Historians’, Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to John Taylor, ed. Wood, I. and Loud, G. A. (London, 1991), pp. 27–40, esp. 32.Google Scholar

61 Adam of Bremen, Gesta 11.41 (ed. Schmeidler, p. 101, trans. Tschan, p. 83). Gotebald is described as ab Anglia ueniens. He was recorded in John Wilson's English Martyrologe (1st ed., [St-Omer] 1608; 3rd ed. 1672) under 5 April (p. 88), where the date of his death was given as 1004. Campbell criticized Wilson's as ‘a highly imaginative account’ and the source of ‘a number of … erroneous or unfounded statements concerning Gotebald’ which made their way into Michael Alford's Fides regia Anglicana (vol. Ill of his Fides regia Britannica (4 vols., Liège, 1663)), p. 437; see Encomium Emmae, ed. Campbell, , p. liv. However, Alford's much embellished account seems to owe little to Wilson, whose first and third editions (the only ones I have seen) supplement Adam's information with little more than the date of Gotebald's death.Google Scholar

62 The extent of these regions – and the degree of superiority – is debated. See Lawson, M. K., Cnut: the Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century (London, 1993), pp. 89–102Google Scholar; Sawyer, P. H., ‘Knut, Sweden, and Sigtuna’, Avstamp för en ny Sigtunaforskning, ed. Tesch, S. (Sigtuna, 1989), pp. 88–93Google Scholar; and idem, ‘Cnut's Scandinavian Empire’, The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. Rumble, A. R. (London, 1994), pp. 10–22.Google Scholar

63 See Heslop, T. A., ‘The Production of de luxe Manuscripts and the Patronage of King Cnut and Queen Emma’, ASE 19 (1990), 151–95Google Scholar; Lawson, , Cnut, pp. 117–60.Google Scholar

64 Heslop, , ‘The Production of de luxe Manuscripts’, p. 158Google Scholar; but see Dumville, D. N., English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 38–48.Google Scholar

65 The only monastery firmly attested in Denmark before 1100 is Odense (founded in 1095; see below, pp. 238–40). According to Matthew Paris, the Norwegian monastery of St Benedict at Holm (Niðarholm, outside Trondheim) was established by King Cnut in the 1020s: Matthaei Parisiensis … Chronica majora, ed. Luard, H. R., 7 vols. (London, 1972–1983) V, 42Google Scholar; as far as I know there is no confirmation of this thirteenth-century tradition. If monastic communities were established at the Danish sees in the reign of Cnut, they seem to have left no record. Apart from Odense, the foundation dates of the communities attached to the bishops’ churches are unknown, and they are generally assumed to have been established in the late eleventh or early twelfth century (most commonly as secular, not monastic, chapters).

66 Adam of Bremen, Gesta 11.55 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 115–16Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 93).Google Scholar

67 Barlow, F., The English Church 1000–1066: a History of the Later Anglo-Saxon Church, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 232–3Google Scholar; Æthelnoth is said to have consecrated the first bishop of Dublin, Dunan or Donatus, c. 1028, and two Welsh bishops, one for Llandaff and one for St Davids. See Gwynn, A., ‘The First Bishops of Dublin’, Reportorium Novum: Dublin Diocesan Hist. Record 1 (1955/6), 1–26, at 4–9, and Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1869–1878) I, 287–8.Google Scholar

68 Gesta II.55 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 115–16Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 92–3)Google Scholar. Svein Aggesen, in his ‘Short History’, described Gerbrand as the first bishop of Roskilde (in Zealand) (ch. 9, Scriptores minores, ed. Gertz, II, 122–5Google Scholar; The Works of Sven Aggesen, trans. Christiansen, , pp. 64 and 126). Svein Aggesen omitted Bernhard and Reginbert from his account but named Rodulf as Cnut's (English) bishop of Schleswig. See above, n. 52.Google Scholar

69 Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, R. Hist. Soc. Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968) (hereafter S), no. 958.Google Scholar

70 Lund, N., ‘Cnut's Danish Kingdom’, The Reign of Cnut, ed. Rumble, , pp. 27–42, at 42.Google Scholar

71 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.55 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 116Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 93)Google Scholar. Cnut's entry in Bremen's confraternity book is recorded as an addition to Adam's Gesta: scholium § 37 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 112Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 91).Google Scholar

72 Christensen, A., ‘Archbishop Asser, the Emperor, and the Pope: the First Archbishop of Lund and his Struggle for the Independence of the Nordic Church’, Scandinavian Jnl of Hist. 1 (1976), 25–42, at 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.64 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 123Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 99).Google Scholar

74 Lawson, , Cnut, pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

75 S. 1390.

76 As may have been Gotebald, the bishop appointed by Svein Forkbeard (see above, n. 61): Larson, L. M., Canute the Great 995 (circ)-1035 and the Rise of Danish Imperialism during the Viking Age (New York, 1912), p. 190Google Scholar. On Henry, , see below, p. 229; he may have been Norman. I am grateful to Paul Bibire for his opinion on these names.Google Scholar

77 Lawson, , Cnut, p. 137.Google Scholar

78 Ibid.

79 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.36 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 96–7Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 79); the information about Cnut is added in scholium §25.Google Scholar

80 Óláfs saga belga, ch. 217; Hollander, , Heimskringla, p. 505Google Scholar; Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.79 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 136Google Scholar, trans. Tshan, , p. 108).Google Scholar

81 Adam of Bremen Gesta IV.8 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 235–6Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 191–2)Google Scholar; Watt, D.E.R., Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae medii aevi ad annum 1638, 2nd draft, Scottish Record Soc. ns 1 (Edinburgh, 1969), 247.Google Scholar

82 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.37 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 98Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 80).Google Scholar

83 The date of the union is variously recorded. See May, O. H., Regesten der Erzbischöfe von Bremen (Hannover, 1937), no. 42 (p. 14)Google Scholar, and Wood, , ‘Christians and Pagans’, p. 38Google Scholar. See also Seegrün, W., Das Erzbistum Hamburg in seinen älteren Papsturkunden (Cologne, 1976), pp. 35–44.Google Scholar

84 May, , Regesten, no. 18 (p. 8)Google Scholar. Ebbo fell from power when he supported the wrong side later in the 830s. A second charter was issued to Anskar (sans Ebbo) by Pope Nicholas I in 864; ibid. no. 42 (pp. 13–14). On Anskar and Ebbo, see Seegrün, , Das Papsttum, pp. 18–39.Google Scholar

85 May, , Regesten, no. 18 (p. 8)Google Scholar. ‘All the people of the North and East’ were included for good measure. Edgar Johnson accused Archbishop Adalbert (1043–72) of working over the see's old documents to produce this version (‘Adalbert of Bremen: a Politician of the Eleventh Century’, Speculum 9 (1934), 147–79, at 177)Google Scholar. Aksel Christensen instead has attributed the tampering to Archbishop Adalbero (1123–48), motivated by the dispute at the beginning of the 1120s over the recent creation of an archdiocese at Lund (‘Archbishop Asser’, p. 34).Google Scholar

86 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.6 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 65–6Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 57)Google Scholar; May, , Regesten, nos. 105 and 110 (pp. 29–30)Google Scholar. On the archbishops after 936, see Glaeske, G., Die Erzbischöfe von Hamburg-Bremen als Reichsfürsten (937–1258) (Hildesheim, 1962)Google Scholar. For the Danish dioceses, see Adam's Gesta, ibid., and Seegrün, , Das Papsttum, pp. 43–7Google Scholar. They were apparently created before the ‘official’ conversion of the Danish king and people, very probably to enhance the status of Hamburg-Bremen, and originally had no resident bishops. See Sawyer, B. and Sawyer, P., Medieval Scandinavia from Conversion to Reformation, circa 800–1500 (Minneapolis, 1993), p. 107Google Scholar. N. Refskou has discussed the Ottonian diplomas of the 960s to 980s relating to these dioceses: ‘Der retslige indhold af de ottonske diplomer til de danske bispedømmer’, Scandia 52 (1986), 167–210 (English summary, 349–50).Google Scholar

87 As mentioned above, Poppo does not appear to have been associated with Hamburg-Bremen; nor was the missionary bishop mentioned by Bruno of Querfurt (see below, p. 232).

88 Adam of Bremen claimed that Grimkel had been Olaf's legate to Unwan, and that later the king sent ‘messengers with gifts to our archbishop, entreating him graciously to receive [Olaf's English] bishops and to send his bishops to him [Olaf], that they might strengthen the rude Norwegian people in Christianity’: Gesta IV.34 and II.57 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 268Google Scholar and trans. Tschan, , pp. 214 and 94–5)Google Scholar. T.B. Willson interpreted Olaf's attitude towards Hamburg-Bremen in a political light: initially Olaf had been aloof, due to Hamburg-Bremen's association with his enemy, King Cnut; once Cnut was in power in England, however, Olaf was forced to turn away from that country and apply to Hamburg-Bremen for assistance with his missionary endeavours: History of the Church and State in Norway, p. 70.Google Scholar

89 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.64 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 125Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 99–100)Google Scholar; Maurer, K., Die Bekehrung des norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthume in ihrem geschichtlichen Verlaufe quellenmässig geschildert, 2 vols. (Munich, 1855–6) I, 597–8.Google Scholar

90 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.55 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 116Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 93).Google Scholar

91 Ibid. II.50 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 111–12Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 89–90).Google Scholar

92 Johnson, , ‘Adalbert’; Glaeske, Die Erzbischöfe, pp. 55–97.Google Scholar

93 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.11 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 151Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 122).Google Scholar

94 May, , Regesten, nos. 230 and 241 (pp. 55 and 57–8).Google Scholar

95 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.17 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 159–60Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 127–9).Google Scholar

96 ‘In some measure defective in ecclesiastical discipline’: Diplomatarium Norvegicum, ed. Storm, G. et al. (Christiania, 1902–1913) I.i, no. 1 (pp. 1–2) (1061 × 1066)Google Scholar. The letter was included in condensed form as a scholium (§69) in Adam of Bremen's Gesta (III.17 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 160Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 129))Google Scholar. The previous scholium (§68) stated that Harald sent his bishops to Gaul and received many who came from England (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 160Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 128)Google Scholar. The return to Norway of Bishop Bernhard binn saxlendski after Harald's death may indicate improved relations; see below, p. 240.

97 Ibid. III.15 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 155–7Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 125).Google Scholar

98 Ibid. I.58–62 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 57–60Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 51–3).Google Scholar

99 Ibid. II.25 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 83Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 69–70)Google Scholar. Adam commented that Harald Bluetooth's contemporary in Sweden, King Emund Ericsson, was favourably disposed to the Christians who went to his lands. Adam's account of Scandinavian political relations in this period is biased and apparently flawed, but his reference to Christians – not specified as missionaries – entering Sweden may be more acceptable. On the other hand, he may simply have been making an assumption on the basis of the alliance between the Swedish king and the admirably Christian Danish ruler, whose conversion Adam consistently highlighted.

100 Ibid. II.41 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 101Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 83).Google Scholar

101 Ibid. II.57 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 118Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 94).Google Scholar

102 Monumenta Poloniae historica, n.s. 4.3 (Warsaw, 1973), 105–6Google Scholar; the letter is also quoted by Lundström, H. in Fynd och forskningar. Kritiska utflykter på den Svenska kyrkohistoriens område (Uppsala and Stockholm, 1912), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

103 See B. Sawyer, ‘Scandinavian Conversion Histories’.

104 Saxo claimed that a Bishop Bernhard went from England to Norway and then to Lund, where as bishop of that see he was responsible for Olof's conversion: Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum X.xi.6 (ed. Olrik, J. and Raeder, H., 2 vols. (Copenhagen, 1931–1957) I, 282)Google Scholar; Saxo Grammaticus: Danorum regum heroumque historia, Books X–XVI. The Text of the First Edition with Translation and Commentary in Three Volumes, ed. and trans. Christiansen, E., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1980) I, 22 and 182.Google Scholar See also Sawyer, B., Scandinavian Conversion Histories, pp. 97–8.Google Scholar

105 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.58 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 118–19Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 95).Google Scholar

106 There are several versions of Sigfrid's Life, the earliest dating from the thirteenth century; for the texts, see Scriptores rerum Suecicarum, ed. Fant, E. M. et al. , 3 vols. in 6 (Uppsala, 1818–1876) II.i, 344–76Google Scholar. Three versions (only the last naming King Mildred) were also edited by Schmid, T.: ‘Trois légendes de Saint Sigfrid’, AB 60 (1942), 82–90.Google Scholar

107 Birgit Sawyer has pointed out the possible significance in this story of the choice of York, which was embroiled in controversy with Canterbury over primacy; the Swedish church – itself subject to Lund – may have had cause to identify with York's resistance: ‘Scandinavian Convetsion Histories’, p. 102.

108 Schmid, T., Den belige Sigfrid (Lund, 1931)Google Scholar. Oppermann, , The English Missionaries, pp. 73–83Google Scholar, summed up the legends of this Swedish tradition. See also Sawyer, B., ‘Scandinavian Conversion Histories’, pp. 101–4Google Scholar, and Larsson, L.-O., ‘Den helige Sigfrid och Växjöstiftets äldsta historia’, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift (1982), 68–94.Google Scholar

109 Adam of Bremen, Gesta II.62 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 122Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 97–8)Google Scholar; Wilson, The English Martyrologe (1st ed.), s.a. Jan. 18. The date of his death is given there as c. 1034.

110 David's cult was limited, according to Oppermann, (The English Missionaries, pp. 115–17)Google Scholar, to the diocese of Västerås. He appears in Wilson's English Martyrologe under 15 July; the third edition (1672) added the information that he was a Cluniac. More commonly culted as abbot than bishop (The English Missionaries, p. 113)Google Scholar, he was credited in the (late) Historia S. Davidis abbatis et confessoris with the foundation c. 1030 of the first monastery in Sweden, at Munktorp (near Västerås): Scriptores rerum Suecicarum, ed. Fant, et al. II.i., 405.Google ScholarOppermann, (no doubt sensibly) dismissed this as ‘legend’ (p. 113).Google Scholar

111 Scriptores rerum Suecicarum, ed. Fant, et al. Il.i, 405–8 (lectiones 1 and 2)Google Scholar. It is possibly only a coincidence that Wenlock (on the Welsh border) was refounded from Cluny in 1080–1. I should like to thank Peter Jackson for this suggestion.

112 Ælnoth, the English biographer of Denmark's St Cnut, identified Eskil as an Englishman in the proem of his passio, written in the early years of the twelfth century: Vitae sanctorum Danorum, ed. Gertz, , p. 83Google Scholar. For the story of Eskil's martyrdom, see Oppermann, , The English Missionaries, pp. 107–9.Google Scholar

113 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.15 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 155Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 125).Google Scholar

114 Later medieval tradition linked Osmund with St Sigfrid, one of whose many nephews he is said to have been, and whose English nationality he is (only sometimes) said to have shared; see Wordsworth, J., The National Church of Sweden (London, 1911), p. 79Google Scholar. The reliability of this information is naturally very suspect. Adam of Bremen says nothing about Osmund's country of origin.

115 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.15 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 156Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 125)Google Scholar. On the place of Osmund's consecration (Polonia), see Arne, T. J., ‘Biskop Osmund’, Fornvännen 42 (1947), 54–6Google Scholar, and Sawyer, P. H., Kings and Vikings. Scandinavia and Europe AD 700–1100 (London, 1982), p. 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

116 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.15 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 155–6Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 125–6).Google Scholar

117 Schmid, T., Sveriges Kristnande: fran verklighet till dikt (Stockholm, 1934), pp. 61–6Google Scholar; Sawyer, P., Kings and Vikings, p. 141Google Scholar. Carl, Hallencreutz (Adam Bremensis and Sueonia: a Fresh Look at ‘Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum’ (Uppsala, 1984), pp. 26–7)Google Scholar has portrayed Osmund as ‘an early spokesman of the emerging reform movement’ because he condemned Bishop Adalward for lacking sigillum apostolici on his mission to Sweden; Osmund's apparent failure to obtain consecration in Rome, however, suggests that the situation was not so clear-cut.

118 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.16 and 77 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 157–9 and 224Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 126–7 and 183).Google Scholar

119 Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, E. O., Camden 3rd ser. 92 (London, 1962) II.99 and III.50 (pp. 168–9 and 293). Osmund appears to have exercised omnia episcopalia even at Ely.Google Scholar

120 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.74–6 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 221–2Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 181–2).Google Scholar

121 The text was recorded by Adam: ibid. III.75 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 221–2Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 181–2).Google Scholar

122 Ibid. III.17 [scholium § 68] (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 160Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 128)Google Scholar, and IV.34 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 269Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 214).Google Scholar

123 Ibid. III.77 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 223–4Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 183).Google Scholar Bishops ‘consecrated elsewhere’ in addition to Bernhard and Asgot included Meinhard, Osmund and ‘many others’.

124 Ibid. For a description of Adalbert's tactical generosity and lavish gifts to bishops and to the legates of eastern kings, see III.72 (ed. Schmeidler, , p. 220Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 180).Google Scholar

125 Johnson, , ‘Adalbert’, esp. pp. 162–79.Google Scholar

126 Sawyer, P., ‘The Organization of the Church in Scandinavia after the Missionary Phase’, Harvard Ukrainian Stud. 12/13 (1988–1989), 480–7, at 481Google Scholar. For Adalbert's consecrations, see Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.77 and IV.23 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 222–4 and 254Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 182–3 and 204–5)Google Scholar. See also Sawyer, B., ‘Scandinavian Conversion Histories’, pp. 92–3.Google Scholar

127 Adam of Bremen, Gesta III.76 and IV.23 [scholium § 136] (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 222 and 255Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 182 and 205).Google Scholar

128 This according to the unreliable list of Skara's bishops in a text compiled in the midthirteenth century in West Götaland, of which a copy from c. 1300 survives: see Lindquist, I., Västgötalagens litterära bilagor, Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund 26 (Lund, 1941), 44–8Google Scholar. Hereward allegedly had a wife and children in England, whom he supported with Skara's episcopal revenues. I am grateful to Paul Bibire for his help with the translation of this text. On the list, especially its unreliability, see Sawyer, P., The Making of Sweden (Alingsås, 1989), p. 14.Google Scholar

129 Svein was one of Adam of Bremen's informants for his History: Gesta II.55, III.72 and IV.21 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 116, 220 and 250Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 93, 180 and 202)Google Scholar. Adalbert had visited Svein in 1052 or 1053 to re-establish good relations after objecting to the king's marriage. They ‘feasted each other sumptuously on eight successive days’ to confirm their alliance: ibid. III.18 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 161–2Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , pp. 129–30)Google Scholar. Thereafter the king and the archbishop co-operated in the reorganization of the Danish dioceses: ibid. III.25 (ed. Schmeidler, , pp. 167–8Google Scholar, trans. Tschan, , p. 134–5)Google Scholar; see also Johnson, , ‘Adalbert’, pp. 157–8Google Scholar, and Christensen, , ‘Archbishop Asser’, p. 29.Google Scholar

130 Das Register Gregors VII, MGH Epist. select. 2, ed. Caspar, E., 2 vols. (Berlin, 1920–1923) II, ep. 51 and 75 (I, 192–4 and 237–8)Google Scholar, the first translated by Emerton, E., The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII. Selected Letters from the Registrum (New York, 1932), pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

131 Das Register Gregors VII, ed. Caspar, , V, ep. 10, and Vll, epp. 5 and 21 (II, 361–3,464–5, and 497–8)Google Scholar; the last trans. Emerton, , The Correspondence, pp. 152–4Google Scholar. See also Christensen, , ‘Archbishop Asser’, p. 29Google Scholar, and idem, ‘Denmark between the Viking Age and the Time of the Valdemars’, Med. Scandinavia 1 (1968), 28–50, at 38–41.Google Scholar

132 Das Register Gregors VII, ed. Caspar, VI, ep. 13 (II, 415–18); The Correspondence, trans. Emerton, , pp. 136–7.Google Scholar

133 Das Register Gregors VII, ed. Caspar, VIII, ep. 11 (II, 530).

134 Ibid. IX, ep. 14 (II, 592–4); trans. Emerton, , pp. 184–5.Google Scholar

135 Christensen, , ‘Archbishop Asser’, pp. 29–31Google Scholar. Erik's visit was commemorated by the poet Mark Skeggison in his ‘Eiriksdràpa’: Corpus Poeticum Boreale. The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue, ed. and trans. Powell, F. Y., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1883) II, 235–6Google Scholar. For the elevation of Lund, see Diplomatarium Danicum, 1st ser., II, nos. 28–30 (pp. 62–7), Skyum-Neilsen, N., ‘Das dänische Erzbistum vor 1250’, Kirche und Gesellschaft im Ostseeraum und im Norden vor der Mitte des 13. Jarhunderts, Acta Visbyensia 3 (Visby, 1967), 113–38Google Scholar, and Seegrün, , Das Papsttum, pp. 108–33.Google Scholar

136 Diplomatarium Danicum II, nos. 57–61 (pp. 109–17)Google Scholar. On the dispute, see Seegrün, , Das Papsttum, pp. 133–45.Google Scholar

137 For the elevation of Trondheim, see Diplomatarium Norvegicum VIII, ed. Unger, C. R. and Huitfeldt, H. J. (Christiania, 1874), no. 1 (pp. 1–4)Google Scholar; for the degree of control exercised by Lund over the archdiocese of Uppsala, established in 1164, see Diplomatarium Danicum II, no. 153 (pp. 285–8)Google Scholar. See also Seegrün, , Das Papsttum, pp. 146–99Google Scholar, and Kumlien, K., ‘Mission und Kirchenorganisation zur Zeit der Christianisierung Schwedens’, Vorträge und Forschungen 12 (1965–1967), 291–307.Google Scholar

138 See Nyberg, T., ‘St Knud and St Knud's Church’, in Hagiography and Medieval Literature. A Symposium, ed. Bekker-Nielsen, H. (Odense, 1981), pp. 100–10.Google Scholar

139 Hubald was consecrated by the bishop of Lund some time after 1086: Necrologium Lundense. Lunds domkyrkas nekrologium, ed. Weibull, L. (Lund, 1923), pp. 98 and 113Google Scholar. He is first recorded at Odense around 1095. His name is of German appearance, but Cornelius Hamsfort identified him as an English Benedictine in his Series episcoporum Otthoniensium e diplomatibus et tabulis collecta: Scriptores rerum Danicarum medii aevi, ed. Langebek, J., 9 vols. in 8 (Copenhagen, 1772–1878) VII, 216–43, at 218Google Scholar. See King, P., ‘The Cathedral Priory of Odense in the Middle Ages’, SBVS 16 (1962–1965), 192–214, at 193–4.Google Scholar

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141 He described himself as ‘Cancia Anglorum metropolitana urbe editus’ (‘raised in Kent in the metropolitan city of the English’): Vitae sanctorum Danorum, ed. Gertz, , p. 77.Google Scholar

142 Copenhagen, Gl.kgl.sam. 1595 has been tentatively identified as one manuscript which may have travelled from Evesham to Copenhagen at this time: The Copenhagen Wulfstan Collection, ed. Cross, and Morrish, Tunberg, p. 60.Google Scholar

143 The inscription on Cnut's tomb may betray the English origin of its author. According to H.G. Leach, four of the names (of the men killed with the king) exhibit Anglo-Saxon spelling: Angevin Britain, p. 78Google Scholar. For the inscription, see Vitae sanctorum Danorum, ed. Gertz, , pp. 60–2.Google Scholar

144 See Bergsagel, J., ‘Songs for St. Knud the King’, Musik & Forskning 6 (1980), 152–66Google Scholar. I am greatly indebted to Dr Bergsagel for allowing me to see his research in progress on the relationship between Danish and Anglo-Saxon musical and liturgical practice.

145 Vitae sanctorum Danorum, ed. Gertz, , pp. 116 and 120.Google Scholar

146 Gesta abbatum monasterii sancti Albani, ed. Riley, H. T., 3 vols. (London, 1867–1869) I, 13–19Google Scholar. See King, , ‘The Cathedral Priory of Odense’, pp. 6–8Google Scholar, for the confusions in Matthew's story.

147 ASC s.a. 1070 E: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 205–7 (text)Google Scholar; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, et al. , pp. 151–3 (translation).Google Scholar

148 Hohler, C., ‘The Cathedral of St. Swithun at Stavanger in the Twelfth Century’, JBAA 3rd ser. 27 (1964), 92–118, at 104–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baker, E. P., ‘The Cult of St. Alban at Cologne’, ArchJ 94 (1937), 207–56Google Scholar; Levison, W., ‘St. Alban and St. Albans’, Antiquity 15 (1941), 337–59, esp. 338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

149 Bjørgvin bispestol, Frå Selja til Bjørgvin, ed, Juvkam, , p. 113Google Scholar; see Hungrvaka (Origines Islandicae, ed. and trans. Vigfusson, G. and Powell, F. Y., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1905) I, 432) for Bernhard's feud with Harald and his service under Olaf (including a trip to Rome).Google Scholar

150 I am indebted to Alf Tore Hommedal for information on recent excavations at Selja.

151 According to the Historia regum, a Lincolnshire man called Turgot, imprisoned after the Norman Conquest, escaped and fled to Norway on a merchant ship. There he attracted the attention of King Olaf Kyrre. A pious man who was keen to acquire ecclesiastical learning, the king took Turgot on as a master of psalmody. When Turgot returned to England in the late 1070s he entered the community at Wearmouth: Historia regum, chs. 161–2; Symeonis monachi opera omnia, ed. Arnold, T., 2 vols. (London, 1882–1885) II, 202–4.Google Scholar

152 Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar, ed. Jónsson, , p. 103.Google Scholar

153 Radford disagreed with N. Nicolaysen's early date for the earliest stone remains of the church of St Alban, proposing instead that they dated from the second quarter of the twelfth century; he suggested that the extant clautral buildings of c. 1300 may have had wooden predecessors (‘St Magnus Cathedral’, p. 23Google Scholar; Nicolaysen, N., Om ruinerne på Selje. Foreningen til norske fortidsmindesmaer ker bevaring (Oslo, 1892), pp. 3–4)Google Scholar. Hohler expressed dissatisfaction with his own proposed date (also the second quarter of the twelfth century) and hoped for evidence to push it back a century earlier to the ‘saga date’: ‘The Cathedral’, p. 109.Google Scholar

154 Ibid. pp. 104–6.

155 Ibid.; see also Baker, ‘The Cult of St. Alban’.

156 Gallén, J., ‘De engelska munkarna i Uppsala – ett katedralkloster på 1100–talet’, Historisk tidskrift för Finland (1976), 1–21, at 6–7. St Cnut's sister married Olaf Kyrre.Google Scholar

157 Hohler, , ‘The Cathedral’, pp. 92–3Google Scholar. Reinhald was a victim of Norwegian politics and was hanged by order of the king between 1128 and 1135: Morkinskinna, ch. 67, ed. Jónsson, F. (Copenhagen, 1932), p. 401.Google Scholar

158 Hohler, , ‘The Cathedral’, pp. 93–4.Google Scholar

159 Ibid.

160 Ibid. pp. 94 and 109–18.

161 Seegrün, , Das Papsttum, pp. 146–70.Google Scholar

162 Gallén, ‘De engelska munkarna i Uppsala’. The chapter had apparently been secularized by the early thirteenth century.

163 Vita S. Botvidi, Scriptons rerum Suecicarum, ed. Fant, et al. II.i, 377–82.Google Scholar

164 Ealdred, abbot of Abingdon, for example, was accused of conspiring with the Danes c. 1069 and imprisoned: Chronicon monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Stevenson, J., 2 vols. (London, 1878) I, 485–6, and II, 283.Google Scholar

165 Oppermann, , The English Missionaries, p. 119.Google Scholar

166 Knowles, D., The Monastic Order in England, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1963), p. 164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

167 French, J., The Cistercians in Scandinavia (Kalamazoo, MI, 1992), pp. 77–98.Google Scholar

168 Ibid. pp. 27–76. See also Macguire, J. P., The Cistercians in Denmark (Kalamazoo, MI, 1982)Google Scholar, and Leach, H. G., ‘The Relations of the Norwegian with the English Church, 1066–1399, and their Importance to Comparative Literature’, Proc. of the Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences 44 (1908–1909), 531–60, esp. 540–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also idem, Angevin Britain, pp. 80–1.Google Scholar

169 If the Gesta abbatum of St Albans is to be believed, Anketil was an Englishman who was said to have gone to Denmark early in the twelfth century, where he became celebrated as a goldsmith; on returning to England he became a monk of St Albans and constructed a shrine for the saint's translation in 1129: Gesta abbatum S. Albani, ed. Riley, I, 83–5Google Scholar. For Øystein's exile at Bury, see Roger, of Howden, , Chronica magistri Rogeri de Hovedone, ed. Stubbs, W., 4 vols. (London, 1868–1871) II, 214–15Google Scholar. For Matthew Paris's mission to St Benedict at Holm, outside Trondheim, see Chronica majora, ed. Luard, V, 42–5.Google Scholar

170 Leach, , ‘The Relations’, pp. 556–8.Google Scholar

171 According to his Life (ch. 10), when Anskar was attacked by pirates en route to Sweden he lost nearly forty books (ed. Waitz, , p. 32Google Scholar; Robinson, , Anskar, p. 47)Google Scholar. A letter from Hrabanus Maurus describes the books which he sent to Gautbert, one of Anskar's successors as missionary to the Swedes: ‘unum missale cum lectionibus et euangeliis unumque psalterium et librum Actusapostolorum’ (Epistolae Karolini aevi III, MGH, Epist. 5(Berlin, 1899), 523).Google Scholar

172 Knowles, , The Monastic Order, p. 68.Google Scholar

173 See above, pp. 218 and 221.

174 The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis X.6, ed. and trans. Chibnall, M., 6 vols. (Oxford, 1968–1980) V, 220. Chibnall called this an overstatement. See above, pp. 240–2.Google Scholar

175 I am most grateful to David Dumville for his palaeographical advice and to Alicia Corréa for acting as my liturgical consultant and for allowing me to see her paper, ‘Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia: the Liturgical Evidence’, in advance of publication. See further below, p. 246.

176 Only four complete or near-complete manuscripts have been identified (ibid.).

177 Gjerløw, L., Adoratio Cruets. The Regularis Concordia and the Decreta Lanfranci. Manuscript Studies in the Early Medieval Church of Norway (Oslo, 1961)Google Scholar, and her ‘Fragments of a Lectionary in Anglo-Saxon Script Found in Oslo’, Nordisk tidskrift för bok-och biblioteksväsen 44 (1957), 109–22Google Scholar; see also Corrêa, ‘Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia’.

178 See above, n. 142.

179 Stockholm, Kammararkivet Mi. I (Gneuss, H., ‘A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100’, ASE 9 (1981), 1–60, no. 936).Google Scholar See Schmid, T., ‘Om Sankt Swithunmässan i Sverige’, Nordisk tidskrift för bok-och biblioteksväsen 32 (1944), 25–34Google Scholar, and Dumville, D. N., Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England: Four Studies (Woodbridge, 1992), p. 88. I am grateful to Alicia Corre¯a for information on these fragments.Google Scholar

180 I have discussed the question of early ecclesiastical organization more fully elsewhere: see Abrams, L., ‘Eleventh-Century Missions and the Early Stages of Ecclesiastical Organisation in Scandinavia’, Anglo-Norman Stud. 17 (1994), 21–40.Google Scholar

181 For example, excavations of St Clement's (now St Jørgensbjerg) at Roskilde (built c. 1040) revealed Anglo-Saxon architectural features: Roesdahl, E., The Viking Age in Denmark (London, 1982), p. 182. The influence on Stavanger Cathedral of English Romanesque has already been mentioned (see above, p. 242).Google Scholar

182 Else Roesdahl has attributed the so-called ‘charcoal graves’ at Lund to English influence: ibid. pp. 179–80.

183 On the formulas of Norwegian royal letters, which parallel English usage, see Harmer, F. E., ‘The English Contribution to the Epistolary Usages of Early Scandinavian Kings’, SBVS 13(1946–1953), 115–55, esp. 149–50Google Scholar. Harmer suggested, on the basis of the extant Norwegian charters of the thirteenth century, that the earliest charters (now lost) were modelled on Anglo-Saxon writs (pp. 144–5); see also Norske diplomer til og med år 1300 (The Oldest Norwegian Diplomas down to 1300), ed. Hødnebø, F., Corpus Codicum Norvegicorum Medii Aevi folio ser. 2 (Oslo, 1960), 22–3Google Scholar. Danish and Swedish charters, on the other hand (the first to survive being issued by Cnut the Holy in 1085: Diplomatarium Danicum II, no. 21 (43–52)), show German influence (Harmer, , ‘The English Contribution’, pp. 144–5).Google Scholar

184 Hellberg, S., ‘Tysk eller Engelsk mission? Om de tidinga Kristna lånorden’, Maal og Minne (1986), 42–9.Google Scholar

185 Beskow, P., ‘Runor och liturgi’, Nordens Kristnande i europeiskt perspektiv. Tre uppsatser av Per Beskoa & Reinhardt Staats, Occasional Papers on Med. Topics 7 (Skara, 1994), 16–36.Google Scholar

186 Næss, J.-R., ‘Runensteinen fra Eik i Sokndal’, Stavanger museum arbok 82 (1972), 45–66Google Scholar, and A. Liestøl, ‘Innskrifta på Eiksteinen’, ibid. 67–76. Liestøl dated the inscription to the eleventh century and drew attention to two words which he interpreted as kous [þ]aka, which he related to Old English Godes þances. This (not unusual) Old English phrase appears in an eleventh-century text (associated with Wulfstan) on forms of penance, Be dædbetan, which praises the charitable act of bridge-building ofer deope wæteru and ofer fule wegas. As bridge-building frequently was a matter for congratulation on Scandinavian runestones, the possible echo in the inscription of a phrase found in the penitential text may be significant. For the Old English text, see Fowler, R., ‘A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor’, Anglia 83 (1965), 1–34, at 29. I should like to thank Andy Orchard for discussing these texts with me.Google Scholar

187 see above, pp. 239 and 243. In particular, John Bergsagel's work has illustrated the Danish context. On the Anglo-Saxon cults, see Rollason, D., Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar, and Ridyard, S. J., The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England. A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar

188 See Toy, J., ‘The Commemorations of British Saints in the Medieval Liturgical Manuscripts of Scandinavia’, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift (1982), 91–103.Google Scholar

189 The mass for Birinus is in Oslo, Riksarkivet Lat. frag. 209. nos. 1–6 + 239, nos. 6–7 (H. Gneuss, ‘Supplement to the List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100’ (forthcoming), no. 1039); see Correēa, A., ‘A Mass for St Birinus in an Anglo-Saxon Missal from the Scandinavian Mission-Field’, Mediaevalia 18 (1995) (for 1992) (forthcoming); Swithhun's mass appears in Stockholm, Kammararkivet Mi. I.Google Scholar

190 By 1045 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's C-text used the word balig in the annal recording Olaf's death; ASC s.a. 1030 C: Two Chronicles, ed. Plummer, I, 157 (text)Google Scholar; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, et al. , p. 101 (translation)Google Scholar. On the date of the C-text; see Dumville, D. N., ‘Some Aspects of Annalistic Writing at Canterbury in the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries’, Peritia 2 (1983), 23–57, at 27–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the early stages of the cult of Olaf, see especially Ordo Nidrosiensis ecclesie, ed. Gjerløw, L. (Oslo, 1968), pp. 124–8, and Corrêa, ‘Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia’.Google Scholar