Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia

by Thomas DuBois

Overview

With original translations of primary texts and articles by leading researchers in the field, Sanctity in the North gives an introduction to the literary production associated with the cult of the saints in medieval Scandinavia.

For more than five hundred years, Nordic clerics and laity venerated a host of saints through liturgical celebrations, written manuscripts, visual arts, and oral traditions. Textual evidence of this widespread and important aspect of medieval spirituality abounds. Written biographies (or vitae), compendia of witnessed miracles, mass propers, homilies, sagas and chronicles, dramatic scripts, hymns, and ballads are among the region's surviving medieval manuscripts and early published books.

Sanctity in the North features English translations of texts from Latin or vernacular Nordic languages, in many cases for the first time. The accompanying essays concerning the texts, saints, cults, and history of the period complement the translations and reflect the contributors' own disciplinary groundings in folklore, philology, medieval, and religious studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802094100
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	07/07/2007
Series:	Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Series (TONIS) Series , #3
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Thomas A. DuBois is a professor in the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents

Preface     vii
Introduction   Thomas A. Dubois     3
Missionary Saints
St Ansgar: His Swedish Mission and Its Larger Context   Scott A. Mellor     31
Sts Sunniva and Henrik: Scandinavian Martyr Saints in Their Hagiographic and National Contexts   Thomas A. Dubois     65
Royal Saints
St Olaf and the Skalds   John Lindow     103
Sacred Non-Violence, Cowardice Profaned: St Magnus of Orkney in Nordic Hagiography and Historiography   Maria-Claudia Tomany     128
St Knud Lavard: A Saint for Denmark   Thomas A. Dubois   Niels Ingwersen     154
The Cult of St Eric, King and Martyr, in Medieval Sweden   Tracey R. Sands     203
Holy Bishops and Nuns
Pride and Politics in Late-Twelfth-Century Iceland: The Sanctity of Bishop Porlakr Porhallsson   Kirsten Wolf     241
St Katarina in Her Own Light   Thomas A. Dubois     271
Saints' Lives in Lived Context
Hendreks saga og Kunegundis: Marital Consent in the Legend of Henry and Cunegund   Marianne E. Kalinke     307
Better Off Dead: Approaches to Medieval Miracles   Margaret Cormack     334
Bibliography     353
Contributors     375
Index     379

Editorial Reviews

‘The book is rich and well written. One of its main merits is that is explores an understudied topic deserving of more attention inside as well as outside the field of Scandinavian Studies.’—Federico Zuliani, Canadian Journal of History: vol 45: Autumn 2010

From the Publisher

‘The book is rich and well written. One of its main merits is that is explores an understudied topic deserving of more attention inside as well as outside the field of Scandinavian Studies.’

Canadian Journal of History: vol 45: Autumn 2010 - Federico Zuliani