I redaksjonenTherese FoldvikInge KnudsenRaymond JohansenRune FlatenSofie Martine AsklieGard Johansen

Trykk: KopiPartner AS, Sandefjord Forsideillustrasjon:Layout/design : Sulaiman Daud Thorleif Sjøvold: Oseberg http://soli.suxos.org funnet og de andre vikingskipsfunn. Oslo, 1964Trykket med støtte fra Kulturstyret, SiO

Forfatterinstruks:Artikler mottas på e-post til vellum-tidsskrift@hf.uio.no. Artiklene skrives på skandinaviske språk eller engelsk. Maksimum lengde er 6 sider inkludert illustrasjoner. Artiklene skrives med 11/2 linjeavstand i skrifttype Times New Roman str. 12. Vi ønsker ikke noter, men en kortfattet litteraturliste og kildehenvisninger til bilder. Vennligst oppgi e-postadresse og hvor i studiet du befinner deg (bachelor, master etc.) Redaksjonen korrekturleser artiklene før trykking, eventuelle større endringer skjer i samråd med forfatteren.

Lyst å bidra? Ta kontakt med redaksjonen

vellum-tidsskrift@hf.uio.no

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Innhold Eigi skal höggva! – fra redaksjonenAv Inge Knudsen ......................................................... 4

Medieval Academic Social Film Club ......................... 6

Vellum -The Writing Material and our PeriodicalAv Raymond Johansen ................................................. 7

Falcon: A Well-Known Product of the North in the Middle Ages? Av Takahiro Narikawa.................................................. 1�

Riksarkivets samling av membranfragmenter.En enestående kilde til middelalderens norske bokkultur Av Ernst Bjerke .......................................................... 24

Skriftens betydning for middelalderens TelemarkAv Elisabeth Aronsen .................................................. 32

The McDonaldization of NidarosAv Amy E. Robertson .................................................. �9

Entering Paradise by fire or charcoal? A glimpse of burial customs in the Viking and Medieval AgeAv Kristian Omnes ...................................................... 49

Tverrfaglige middelalderstudier – liv laga?Av Terje Spurkland ...................................................... 60

Av Inge Knudsen

Bladet du nå har i hånden er histor-isk. Første nummer av vikingtid og middelaldertidsskriftet Vellum, fra middelaldermiljøet ved Universite-tet i Oslo er en realitet. Mange har kanskje undret seg over at ingen tok opp tråden etter at Middelalder-forum gikk inn i 2004. Vellum vil ikke begynne der Middelalderfo-rum slapp, men heller bygge på den lesten Middelalderforum startet opp ved å være et tidsskrift som ikke bare retter seg mot studenter, men også drives og til dels også skrives av studenter.

Det er ikke tilfeldig at det er akku-rat nå Vellum ser dagens lys. Både Bachelor- og Masterprogrammene står i dag ovenfor en situasjon der omstrukturering og nedleggelse truer i en ikke alt så fjern fremtid. At studieretninger og fag legges ned eller omstruktureres er noe som skjer ved alle utdanningsin-stitusjoner, men når ledelsen ved

Humanistisk Fakultet ønsker å legge ned et så rikt og aktivt miljø som vårt er det grunn til å stille spørsmål om de egentlig er klar over hva de er i ferd med å gjøre. Som Snorre sa den fatale dagen i badet når Gissur løftet øksen til hugg, ønsker vi at Vellum skal være en oppfordring til fakultetet: ”Eigi skal höggva!”Det er ikke til å stikke under en stol at nettopp denne situasjonen i seg selv er mye av redaksjo-nens drivkraft for å starte opp arbeidet med Vellum. Vi vil vise at vikingtid og middelalderpro-grammene består av aktive stu-denter og ansatte som ikke er klare for å legges ned.

Vårt mål med Vellum er derfor å vise alle middelalderinteresserte det mangfoldet av interesser vi som er knyttet til programmene står for, hva vi er interessert i og hva vi jobber med. I tillegg er det redaksjonens innstendige ønske at Vellum ikke bare skal være en fornøyelse å lese, men at bladet også skal virke som en inspiras-jonskilde for alle som vil dele av sine kunnskaper om vikingtid og middelalder ved å bidra med artik-ler og stoff.

Eigi skal höggva! – fra redaksjonen

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Foruten å takke alle de som har bidratt med innsendt materiale til dette første nummeret av Vellum er det en som fortjener en spesiell takk: Therese Foldvik. Therese er både den som kom med ideen om et tidsskrift og den som bærer de tyngste børene i redaksjonen. Takk!

Hilsen alle i redaksjonen

Gard, Raymond, Sofie, Rune, Inge og Therese

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På studietur i St. Andrews

MedievalAcademicSocialFilmClub Spring 2007 IAKH, Blindernveien 11, seminar room 2 All films show at 18.00

This term the films have a focus on heroes. IAKH has promised to support the Filmclub with pizzas, so please bring your own beverage and join in for three nights of historical enlightment.

06.02 EXCALIBURKing Arthur finds his way. This is a magnificent visual blend of history. It builds a bridge between the search for the Holy Grail and the concept of the sacred ruler.

06.03 EL CIDThe Spanish hero. Charles Heston and Sophia Lauren front the reconquista. An epic movie were El Cid at the end of the film is an old and worn man who’s last battle is carried out when he is dead, mounted on the horse supported by a pole tied to his back. Sophia Lauren refused to age, so she looks stunningly 25 through the decades.

20.03 ALEXANDER NEVSKYThe Russian hero. The story about how the Russians beat the German knights. A great piece of storytelling closely link to the contemporary political situation.

Welcome John McNicol

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Vellum -The Writing Material and our Periodical

By Raymond Johansen

The Christening of “Vellum”When faced with the task of coming up with a name for this new medieval studies periodical, there were in my opinion three premises that had to be met; the name should be related to medi-eval Europe, it should be catchy, and it should be short and easy to remember. Working from these premises I dismissed several sug-gestions I received from friends, “Medieval Times” and “The Daily Crusader” among others. At last hearkening back to the semester when I took an introductionary course in Latin, I recalled the word vellum, which I encountered in connection with our reading of medieval manuscript texts. Often used a synonym for parchment, vellum can refer to either a blank slate of parchment to be filled with text, or to a parch-

ment that has already been cov-ered in writing, waiting only to be read. This is in essence also what the periodical “Vellum” will be; a channel for students of medieval Europe on bachelor and master level to either get their own texts published, or to read those of their fellow students. One minor grievance is of course that the periodical will be printed on paper and not on parch-ment, due to financial restrictions and the animal rights movement.

The Rise and Fall of Parchment as a Writing MaterialAs already mentioned vellum is commonly perceived as being a synonym for parchment, yet this is not an entirely correct use of the term. The word vellum refers exclusively to the skin of a calf, and whereas this was a prized material for the making of parch-ment it could also be made from the hides of animals as various as cows, goats, rabbits and even squirrels, depending on the qual-ity desired of the finished product. Henceforth I will therefore refer to parchment instead of vellum. By the time scribes were copying their first works onto parchment in Europe, animal skins had been used as a writing mate-

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rial for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Per-sians and Jews all wrote on hides, although at this stage the manufac-turing process was most likely still so primitive it was only possible to write on one side of the sheets. Proper parchment as we know it was not invented until about 200 BC, in the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor, from which parch-ment derives its name. The bright minds of Pergamon achieved this by soaking raw animal hide in limed water, which dissolved fats and made remnants of hair and flesh loosen from the skin. The hide was then suspended on a rack to dry, while being scraped and cleaned further, before being rubbed with finely grained chalk and lastly smoothed over with a pumice stone. The advent of parchment did not however have any immedi-ate impact on the written culture, and the material known as papy-rus, made from the reeds of the plant by the same name, continued to be the most widely used for centuries still. The transition to parchment in Europe began with the early Christians, who at first seem to have been alone in favour-ing it over the papyrus. There are several theories on why this was

so, none of which really exclude the other. Parchment was without a doubt a more solid material to work with than the papyrus; one could make corrections by eras-ing with less risk of destroying the sheet. If prepared properly it presented a smoother surface to write on as well. Taking into ac-count the missionary activities of the early Christians, parchment had the ability to survive even if exposed to harsh travelling condi-tions and it was more endurable in humid climates, whereas papy-rus had a tendency to rot outside the hot and dry climate of Egypt. Perhaps most importantly though; parchment entailed the first bind-ing of written works into books rather than scrolls, the codex form we still use to this day. These were more practical for the early Chris-tians, especially those on mission, who depended on being able to rapidly look up specific parts of the Bible. Starting to realise this, the manufacturers of papyrus at-tempted to adopt the codex form, but the material proved far less suitable for this than parchment. Despite all these I would say obvi-ous advantages to parchment as a writing material; another theory claims the Christians began using

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it merely because the Roman state prohibited them from acquiring papyrus sheets. In any case the Christians carried with them parchment as an integral part of their written culture, and when their faith rose to prominence in the 4th century parchment also began supersed-ing papyrus in many regions of the Roman Empire. Less than two centuries later the Western Em-pire was dissolved, with it went the state apparatus that had been responsible for the import of pa-pyrus from Egypt. Following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century import from this re-gion was complicated further, and subsequently papyrus as a writing material more or less seized to ex-ist in Europe. One could say then that the transition to parchment was a major stroke of luck for Europe, as it unlike papyrus could be produced locally in an average European agrarian community. Parchment and Christianity became inextricably intertwined in the following centuries; the pur-pose of parchment was primarily preserving the sacred texts. The same period saw a rapid decline in the ability to read and write, literacy increasingly becoming a monopoly of the Church, which

emerged as the carrier of Europe’s written culture. Especially the monasteries filled this role, as islands of learning in an illiter-ate world, where the Bible, the works of the Church Fathers and certain Classical pagan texts were copied by monks from parch-ment to parchment. This was done painstakingly and meticulously by hand, following the thoughts of St. Benedict of Nursia and Cassi-odorus Senator, who both claimed that the deed of transcription was in itself spiritually beneficial. The parchment, if not in itself holy, could be sanctified through the inscription of sacred texts. It seems to have been a widespread superstition that if a piece of parchment carried any holy words, then it would also be put in connection with God. A manuscript from the 11th century gives the advice that, if one suffers from a fever, it might help to tie a strip of parchment from a sacred manuscript around the throat. This might explain the habit of many crusaders, who put a scroll of parchment with a sacred text underneath their hauberks. It should also be said that if Europe in the high middle ages had long been populated by an overwhelming majority of illiter-

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ates, parchment as a writing mate-rial can be seen, despite its perks, to have contributed to keeping literacy exclusive. Acquiring the raw materials necessary to pro-duce parchment was an expensive undertaking, usually only manage-able by those who could rely on the Church organization or some secular patron for financial sup-port. In an age where the ambi-tions of the common man were restricted by necessity to merely keeping himself and his family fed, a single book made of parch-ment would require the amount of somewhere between a hundred and two hundred animal hides. Even so, by the time we reach the later Middle Ages, litera-cy had grown far more widespread among laymen than a few centu-ries past. This led to an increasing demand for cheaper books which the parchment “industry”, if one will, had neither the cost-effec-tiveness nor the productivity rates to answer. There was now, how-ever, an alternative to parchment; paper, and it was sold at one sixth the price of parchment. It is sur-prising to see then how paper, just like parchment before it, despite its usefulness underwent a rather slow rise in popularity. Invented in 105 AD in China,

paper was at first kept secret, but the Arabs managed to learn the technique in the 8th century. With them it travelled to the areas of southern Europe under Arab do-minion, most notably the southern the half of Iberia, and by the 12th - no later than the 13th century – western Europeans knew how to make paper. France initiated its own paper production in the 14th century, Germany in the 15th with England, the Low Countries and Scandinavia following sub-sequently. Paper was, in other words, readily available by the late Middle Ages, yet still parch-ment retained a high status, paper sometimes being regarded with outright disdain. There were numerous reasons for this attitude towards paper, be-sides the usual scepticism against anything new impacting society. It was too thin and fragile, criti-cal scribes used to working with parchment would claim. The more religiously minded would point out that paper had reached Europe through Muslims and Jews; it was the writing material of infidels, while parchment had been the choice of the early Christians and the Church Fathers. Parchment also carried with it the aura of social prestige, perhaps especially

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now that there was a cheaper al-ternative. Paper on the other hand seems to have been considered entirely improper as a material for documents of some importance; matters of state and correspond-ence between princes for instance. If a person in the higher strata of society received a letter on paper it might even be taken as an insult, as if the one who sent it did not acknowledge or was ignorant of the recipient’s position. When in 1367 the king of Denmark sent a letter of correspondence to the Hansa Guild on paper, they out-right refused to answer it on the grounds that it was not written on a fitting material. Likewise, although paper had been used in the Holy Roman Empire for minor documents of state since the 13t century, Frederick II decreed in 1231 that all important documents were to be written on parchment. It is reminding of the situation with papyrus and parchment, to see how paper gradually super

sedes parchment as the primary writing material from the second half of the 15th century onwards. By the end of the 16th the transi-tion was more or less complete. A major propeller of this develop-ment was Johann Gutenberg’s in-vention of movable type printing, producing the first printed Bible in 1455. Paper was the ideal material for use with the printing press, and of the 180 bibles that were printed in 1455 only a few were on parchment. This, combined with an ever increasing demand for more and cheaper books, more or less handed the death sentence to parchment as the main writing material of Europe. Only monks who practiced the art of book illumination continued to work with parchment, its surface being more suited to painting than paper, and readers would in their books of printed paper happen upon the occasional page of painted parch-ment for some time still.

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Literature

Deibert, Ronald J.: Parchment, printing, and hypermedia: com-munication in world order trans-formation. Columbia University Press, 1997 New York

Holm-Olsen, Ludvig: Med fjærpenn og pergament: vår skrift-kultur i middelalderen. Cappelen, 1990 Oslo

Shailor, Barbara A.: The medieval book. University of Toronto Press, 1991 Toronto

About Raymond Johansen

Raymond Johansen has a bach-elor degree in Vesteuropeiske Middelalderstudier, and is now attending the master program Nordic Viking and Medieval Cul-ture. He is also a member of the editorial team of Vellum.

Lyst til å bidra?Neste nummer kommer i august 2007.

Deadline er 1. juli.

Ta kontakt med redaksjonen:

vellum-tidsskrift@hf.uio.no

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Falcon: A Well-Known Product of the North in the Middle Ages?By Takahiro Narikawa

Introduction Emperor Frederick II of Hohens-taufen, one of the most illustrious figures in high medieval Germany, also establishes a considerable reputation as an intellectual with scientific keenness, as demonstrat-ed in De arte venandi cum avibus (The Book of Falconry), suppos-edly completed in ca. 1245. This monumental work about medieval falconry is extant in two reduc-tions, and consists of six books: Habits of the birds in general (Book I), Diverse birds of prey (Book II), How to use the lure on disciplining the hawks (Book III), How to chase the crane with the gyrfalcon (Book IV), How to chase the heron with the saker (Book V), and Waterfowl hawking with the peregrine falcon (Book VI). In Book II, Frederick esteems the gyrfalcon (falco rusticus) as the best among all the rapacious birds for falconry, and refers to their home as following: ‘Whereas some of them [gyrfal-cons] nest on the inland crags, oth-

ers do on the cliffs along the coast. The latter are better and nobler than the former, which nest away from the shore. They nest on the high cliffs in the North-Atlantic Isles, especially in a certain island, situated between Norway and Greenland, and called ‘Island’ in German. It means ‘the land bound in ice’ in Latin. ’ Thus Frederick II estimates the gyrfalcon from Iceland especially highly among the gyrfalcons of different origins. Rapacious birds for the falconry, especially gyrfal-cons were very prestigious as well as costly goods in the High Mid-dle Ages, since the falconry es-pecially associated itself with the knighthood and the princely court from the twelfth century on and got regarded as an embodiment of the courtly culture. According to Oggins’ calculations, two-third of the gyrfalcons purchased by the medieval English crown cost more than £2, ca. 10% of the an-nual income of the knight. Nordic countries, esp., Norway and the North Atlantic Isles, had been re-garded as a home of such precious birds from the eyes of the Euro-pean mainlanders until the middle of the thirteenth century. This short article considers this problem on the export of the

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Nordic hawks, particularly gyr-falcons, from a point of view of ‘Integration of Scandinavia into Europe’. From which channel did Frederick II get the information that associates falcons with the Northern lands? Moreover, who, or what institution was involved in the export of the birds of prey, and contributed to the intensi-fication of the communication between Scandina-via and the Eu-ropean mainland as a background for Frederick’s account? Unfor-tunately this topic has largely escaped the attention of the Scandinavian historiography: Even Hofmann’s classical article, issued nearly half a century ago, seems to have been seldom noticed by historians in Scandinavia. Now it is time to focus on this problem again, in the light of the recent surge of the literature on medieval falconry both in English and Ger-man.

Place of Origin of the Northern Falcons: Norway or the North Atlantic Isles?At first I would like to emphasize the necessity of differentiating Norway and the North Atlantic Isles (Iceland and Greenland) as a home of hawks, although few previous studies treat them together. Oggins notes that the

medieval Europe-ans actually clas-sified gyrfalcons into three, i.e.: ‘Norwegian’ gyr-falcons, which are the smallest and darkest, gray ‘Ice-landic’, and white ‘Greenlandic’ ones. Whereas the first category, ‘Nor-wegian’ hawks, are frequently mentioned in the primary sources from twelfth cen-tury on, we seldom come across the

identification of the second and third categories as an origin of the falcons, in the early sources, as Frederick explicitly mentions in his De arte venandi. Certainly Norway is known as a place of origin of falcons,

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especially gyrfalcons among the Englanders under the Norman and Angevin kings: In the Pipe Roll of Henry II, the account-ing records of the Exchequer, we come across several entries of the payment in regard to the hawks and gyrfalcons, which suggest the continual relationship of trade between England and Norway also in regard with hawks and falcons, as Nedkvitne presumes. The old-est source indicating the import of the Norwegian falcons in England dates to the late eleventh century, and maybe further back to the Anglo-Saxon times. On the other hand, we can discern only two entries in the Pipe Rolls concerning the pay-ment to the ‘Icelandic gyrfalcons’ (girofalcon Islandensis). Aside from these two entries in the Pipe Roll, The History and Topography of Iceland by Gerald of Wales is the oldest source that associates Iceland with the gyrfalcon. The work includes the following entry from the chapter about the North-ern Isles: ‘Iceland is the largest island of the Northern Isles…its people has the clergy (sacerdote) as their king, and the bishop is their prince. Hence the bishops kept both the secular and the ecclesiastical

jurisdiction in his hand. This land yields gyrfalcons, goshawks, and falcons, and exports them. ’ This emergence of the idea that identified the North Atlantic Isles, further away from the European mainland than Norway, as a place of origin of birds of prey, esp. gyrfalcons from ca. 1200, is not limited to the sources by the hand of European authors. According to Snorri, Icelandic falcons were an expensive gift and suitable even for the tribute to the Norwe-gian king, St. Olav. The author of King’s Mirror, contemporary of Frederick’s work in Norway, mentions white hawks, probably gyrfalcons, as a precious product of Greenland, and adding the sug-gestive passage, such as ‘but the locals themselves don’t know how to use them’. It is very likely that the author wrote this passage un-der the influence of the vogue for European falconry, introduced to the court of Håkon IV Håkonson. Hence we trace the process of gradual spread of the knowledge that identifies Norway, or espe-cially the North Atlantic Isles, as a place of origin of the rapacious birds for falconry among both Scandinavian and European au-thors from the late twelfth century on. Certainly the rise of interest in

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‘European’ trend of falconry, both in Europe and Scandinavia, con-tributed towards this ‘populariza-tion’ of the North. Alternatively it is also possible to suppose that the accounts of the thirteenth century European authors reflect the in-tensified communication between Scandinavia and the European mainland: In this context, falcon export from the North represents the broader current of ‘integra-tion of Scandinavia into Europe’. From this latter point of view, it is important to explore who or what institution was involved in this export of the rapacious birds for falconry from Scandinavia.

2: Who/ What Institution was responsible for the export of the Falcons?It is usually assumed that the falcons, or more precisely gyr-falcons, were employed as diplo-matic gifts between the princes, or even the kings. The ecclesiastical magnates, who prohibited keep-ing the falcons in his household or accompanying him on his jour-ney, were no exceptions. Pope Innocent III admonished Hubert Walter, the famous archbishop of Canterbury, not to receive any gifts (including hawks) from the enemy of the Church, interdicted

Norwegian king Sverre. Johnsen argues that the gift of falcon con-tributed drastically to the improve-ment of the relationship between Norway and the Angevin empire, and even enabled him to get their support in form of both food and knights. Alternatively some scholars, especially those who study eco-nomic history, emphasize the role of Hanseatic merchants mainly from Lübeck and Low Countries (Brügge) as carriers of the fal-cons: According to the fourteenth century record, the merchants of Lübeck was to pay 12 Icelandic hawks every year as an annual tax to the Empire. It corresponded to ca. 350 aurei, or 50 tons of grain, and even the 12 hawks were prob-ably not all the birds the mer-chants purchased. Also one me-morial altar in Brügge was erected for the commemoration of the soul of a certain falconer, who prob-ably served the king of Norway at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is not sure, however, how we can trace these Scandina-vian connections with hawks back to the thirteenth century. It is important to note the fact in this juncture that even the kings of Norway didn’t always keep enough falcons at their disposal:

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King Håkon IV pleaded with Henry III, king of England, to allow the late arrival of the ad-ditional gyrfalcons in his corre-spondences, on the ground that he troubled himself to delegate his emissaries in Iceland to obtain the hawks for Henry’s use. It took two more years for them to fulfill the task trusted to them and return to the king because of the com-municative problem, caused by the icebergs. Thus direct access to the source of the birds must have been of utmost impor-tance. Instead of them, I would like to point out the active involvement of the Norwegian church and her churchmen with the trade of Nordic birds since the very early period: In fact, both of the two entries in the twelfth century English sources which deal with the Icelandic gyrfalcons are payment to a certain English clergy, named Hamelinus, al-though it is impossible to trace his origin and activity further mainly

due to the lack of the sources. Moreover we can discern the eminent figures in the Norwegian and Icelandic church, such as Páll Jónsson, bishop of Skálholt, and Nikolas Arneson, bishop of Oslo and notorious leader of the Cro-ziers, as givers of the falcons. The Icelandic Church, together with the archbishop and church of Nidaros, has enjoyed the special relationship with the falcons at

least since the late twelfth century. The ac-count of Gerald of Wales on Ice-land may reflect such relation-ship between the church and the falcons. Moreo-ver this connec-tion seemed to continue beyond

the official subjugation of Iceland to the Norwegian crown. Arni Þorlaksson, bishop of Skálholt (r. 1261-98), received a letter from the archbishop Jon Raude of Ni-daros, which requested him to de-fend the ancient privileges of the Icelandic church to trade sulfur and hawks freely against the new trespass of the royal officials. It is not difficult to imagine that Ice-

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landic subjugation and incorpora-tion under ‘Norwegian dominion’ caused a clash of interests between the Church and the Crown, which now aimed at regulating the trade of hawks. Special exemption as for the gathering of hawks within the ecclesiastical property, found in Jónsbók, must have been in-serted against this background. In clause 7 of the Concordat of Tønsberg (1277) we can also discern the agreement between the Church and the Crown which must have been relevant to this conflict: ‘Similarly it should be permitted the archbishop and his successors to purchase the birds, i.e. gyrfal-cons, gray hawks, and goshawks (gerofalcones griseos et austures), as their predecessors have been hitherto admitted. ’ At least it is clear that this stipulation dates back to the privileges granted by Pope Celestine III to the church of Nidaros (1194), although the latter text lacks the explicit reference to the gyrfalcon. Blom assumes that this clause was inserted on the purpose of not conflicting with royal interests, but her hypothesis is unlikely because the Norwegian crown didn’t claim the privilege of treating hawks as a royal preroga-tive (regalia) until well into the thirteenth century. Alternatively

we can suppose two possibilities: This passage derives either from the exception of the general ban to the higher clergy of holding the falcons decreed in the third Lat-eran Council (1179), or from the favor to the newly founded Nor-wegian Church by Cardinal Nico-las Breakspear, who was born in England, one of the central places for medieval falconry, as Johnsen argues in his doctoral dissertation. We don’t have decisive sources to decide which hypotheses are more plausible, but the second is very attractive, since it signifies the keenness of the archbishop of Nidaros both on observing the canonical prescription and on defending the economic interests of the church. The Church of Nidaros was also confirmed by the Pope to hold one ship which was exempted from the taxation for the Icelandic trade from the very early phase on since the establishment of the archbishopric. Falcons from the North Atlantic Isles were probably brought to the European mainland first through this line, run by the Norwegian church, together with the information about their home, which culminated in the form of the passage in Frederick’s De arte venandi. This intensified ecclesi-

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astical communication between the North Atlantic Isles and Norway, and further the European mainland, is behind the rise of the interest of European authors towards the North, albeit in a somewhat indi-rect way.

Les ia rei iliuro nunum invemur opostro es Caterni ripseria et que remus C. Nam P. Catriosteri inum te tuit. As cam detruris; num mendi is? Ci pors esi casdam terficaed maxim oruroru ntimorivives es-sis, more, P. Simmo Cuppl. Opio, nonsuli cultur habus et L. Udemei cora sceps, merum dendiente dit omnit; huit; num, vis ex sili signost anunum.Batum morum fatu con dione etentiliur ina, tum at iam re vius auc tum nihilic ipserrio, pos claris? O tam.

Cae nonferces condea me condel-larbis larbit vo, popublique mandi patum in sent? Noster ipterum pre, C. Palego tarec vero vitrum alis ommo in Itatum inte conferis sulicioctus ius hora mor implicae, Catica ex sa viu eriste porenit. Bi conterbis, patum sid Catrum intesse ntiaederet; hocus coerceps, comnirmil vid ditio consignoc, quem publiam patuus condicia inclego horacistrio es hae adhus,

This essay is partly based on the paper presented at the sixth regular meeting of the Hanseatic Historical Study Group in Japan, which held at Chuo Univ., in Tokyo, on Dec. 03, 2005. The author is deeply indebted to editors of this magazine for their patience and assidu-ity, and also to my academic advisor in UiO, director Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, for his kind advice and encouragement. All errors, regardless of fact or interpretation, remain the author’s fault, however.

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Literature

DN: Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 22 bd. Christiania, 1847-1976; 03 Apr. 2004, Dokumantasjons- pro-jektet, 02 Sep. 2006.

Willemsen, Carl A. (hrsg.) 1973: Das Falkenbuch Kaiser Friedrichs des Zweiten, De Arte venandi cum avibus: Zwölf Faksimile-Drucke aus dem Codex M. Palatinus Latinus 1071, Der Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana. Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz.

Dimock, James F. (cra.) 1964 (1867): Giraldi Cambrensis opera, v: Topographia Hibernica et Ex-pugnatio Hibernica (RS). Kraus Rep., Nendeln (org. London).

Vilhjálmr Finsen (utg.) 1974 (1852-83): Grágás, 3bd. Univer-sitetsforlag, Odense.ÍF: Íslenzk fornrit, xvii: Biskupa sögur, iii, rit. Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir. Reykjavík: Hið Íslen-zka Fornritafélag, 1998.

Óllafr Halldórsson (utg.) 1970 (1904): Jónsbók: Kong Magnus Hakonssons Lovbog for Island, vedtaget paa Altinget 1281 og Réttarbœtr, de for Island givne retterbøder af 1294, 1305 og 1314.

Universitetsforlaget, Odense.

Holm-Olsen, Ludvig (utg.) 1970: Utvalgte stykker av konungs skuggsiá. Universitetsforlaget, Bergen.

NgL: Norges gamle Lov, 5 bd., red. Rudolf Keyser og Peter A. Munch. Christiania, 1846-1895.

NMD: Norske middelalderdoku-menter, red. Sverre Bagge, Syn-nøve Holstad Smedsdal, og Knut Helle. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo. 197�.

Hollander, Lee M. (trans.) 1990 (1964): Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway. Univ. of Texas Pr., Austin.

Behrman, Thomas 1996: “Norwe-gen und das Reich unter Hákon IV. (1217-1263) und Friedrich II. (1212-1250).” In: Susanne Kra-marz-Bein (hrsg.): Hansische Lit-eraturbeziehungen (RGA-E 14), S. 27-50. de Gruyter, Berlin.

Benham, J. E. M. 2004: “Philip Augustus and the Angevin Em-pire: The Scandinavian Connex-ion.” Mediaeval Scandinavia 14 (2004): 37-50.

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Blom, Grete A. 1967: Kongemakt og privilegier i Norge inntil 1387. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo.

Fried, Johannes 1997: “Friedrich II. als Jäger.” In: Rösener 1997b, S.149-166.

Friedland, Klaus 1984: “The Hanseatic League and Hanse Towns in the Early Penetration of the North.” Arctic 37: 539-43.

Galbraith, V. H. 1952: An Intro-duction to the Use of the Public Records. OUP, London.

Haskins, Charles H. 1921: “The ‘De arte venandi cum avibus’ of the Emperor Frederick II.” Eng-lish Historical Review 36 (1921): 334-55.

Helle, Knut 1968: “Anglo-Nor-wegian Relations in the Reign of Håkon Håkonsson (1217-1263).” Mediaeval Scandinavia 1: 101-114.

Hofmann, Gisela 1957-58: “Falkenjagd und Falkenhandel in den nordischen Ländern während des Mittelalters.” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 88: 115-49.

Johnsen, Arne Odd 1945: Stud-ier vedrøende kardinal Nicolaus Brekespears legasjon til Norden. Fabritius, Oslo.

Johnsen, Arne O. 1970: Kong Sverre og England 1199-1202 (Avhandlinger utgitt av Det Nor-ske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo II. Hist. –Filos. Klasse. Ny Ser. 13). Universitetsforlaget, Oslo.

Kattinger, Detlef 1996: “Skandi-navisch-flandrische Handelsbez-iehungen im hohen und späten Mittelalter.” In: Nils Jörn, Werner Paravicini, und Horst Wernicke (hrsg.): Hausekaufleute in Brügge, iv: Beiträge der Internationalen Tagung in Brügge April 1996, S. 237-47. Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M.

Leach, Henry G. 1921: Angevin Britain and Scandinavia. Harvard UP, Cambridge.

Marritt, Stephen c2006 [forth-coming/ on revision]: “Drogo the Sheriff: A Neglected Lost Ro-mance Tradition and Anglo-Nor-wegian Relations in the Twelfth Century.” Online Early Article for Historical Research <doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2006.00375.x>, 30 May 2006, Blackwell Synergy, 12

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Sep. 2006.http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2006.00375.x

Nedkvitne, Arnved 1983: “Uten-rikshandelen fra det vestafjelske Norge 1100-1600.” Doktoravhan-dling ved UiB.

Norseng, Per G. 2000: “Fra far-mannen Ottar til hansakjøpman-nen Bertram Bene: Synspunkter på kilde- og methodproblemer i studiet av handel.” Collegium Medievale 13: 11-77.

Oggins, Robin S. 2004: The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England. Yale UP, New Haven.

Paravicini, Werner 2003: “Tiere aus dem Norden.” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mit-telalters 59¬-2: 559-91.

Rösener, Werner 1997a: “Jagd und höfische Kultur als Gegen-stand der Forschung.” In: Rösener 1997b, S. 11-28.

Rösener, Werner (hrsg.) 1997b: Jagd und höfische Kultur im Mit-telalter. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen.

Szabó, Thomas 1997: “Die Kri-tik der Jagd: Von der Antike zum Mittelalter.” In: Rösener 1997b, S. 167-229.

Van den Abeele, Baudouin 1990: La fauconnerie dans les lettres françaises du XIIe au XIVe siècle (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia Ser. 1; Studia 18). LeuvenUP, Leuven.Vaughan, Richard 1982: “The Arc-tic in the Middle Ages.” Journal of Medieval History 8: 313-342.

Walz, Dorothea 1994: “Das Falkenbuch Friedrichs II.” Micro-logus 2 (1994):161-90.

About Takahiro Narikawa

Belongs to the M. Phil. course of Nordic Viking and Medieval Culture, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo. He took M. Litt. in European History (2004) at Graduate School of Humani-ties and Sociology, the University of Tokyo, by his master thesis which treats the involvement of the church with the Danish ‘Civil War’ during the 1130s. Now he studies the ecclesiastical adminis-tration of the metropolitan of Ni-daros during the thirteenth century.

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HFSU (Det humanistiske fakultets studentutvalg) er i første rekke en interesseorganisasjon for studentene ved HF. HFSU representerer alle studenter ved HF ovenfor fakultetsledelsen og administrasjonen, og fun-gerer som studentenes talerør utad.

HFSU organiserer også Studentforum ved HF, som er en møteplass for alle studentrepresentantene ved HF. Trenger du hjelp eller er du inter-essert i å jobbe med denne typen saker er det bare å kontakte oss. Mer informasjon finner du på http://www.hf.uio.no/hfsu/

Verv 2007

Leder: Junjie Cao Nestleder I: Knut Kasbo Nestleder II: Tor Ivar Hansen Studieansvarlig: Ingrid Eitrem Forskningsansvarlig: Thomas André Syvertsen Internasjonalt ansvarlig: Linn Marie Krogsrud Informasjonsansvarlig I: Therese Foldvik Informasjonsansvarlig II: Wenche Åsheim

Kontor: Seminarrom 5, Sophus Bugges HusKontortid: 12.30-13.30Telefonnr: 22 85 78 66E-post: hfsu@hf.uio.noWebside: http://www.hf.uio.no/hfsu/

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Riksarkivets samling av membranfragment-er. En enestående kilde til middelalderens nor-ske bokkulturAv Ernst Bjerke

I Riksarkivet på Sognsvann oppbevares en av de mest interes-sante, men dessverre også en av de minst kjente kildesamlingene til norsk middelalder. Det dreier seg om en samling bestående av henimot 6.000 middelalderske membranfragmenter, altså rester av bøker skrevet på pergament eller vellum. Samlingen inne-holder alt fra dobbeltblad (bilfolia) til små stykker med noen linjer tekst. Den klart største andelen av fragmentene – omtrent 5.000 – stammer fra latinske kodekser. Resten av samlingen stammer fra norrøne bøker av forskjellig slag. Denne skjevheten i språkfordelin-gen er trolig også representativ for utbredelsen av bøker på norrønt og latin i middelalderen. Av de latin-ske fragmentene stammer de aller fleste fra liturgiske bøker, skjønt også annen litteratur forekommer, mens de norrøne representerer såvel gammelnorske lovbøker,

som sagahåndskrifter, jordebøker og annet. De norrøne fragmentene tiltrakk seg tidlig stor oppmerksomhet, og mange av dem er etterhvert blitt registrert og publisert. Allerede på 1880-tallet laget Ingvald Und-set en katalog over den norrøne samlingen, som med visse tillegg fremdeles er ibruk. Den langt betydeligere samlingen av latinske fragmenter har frem til nylig ligget forholdsvis upåaktet, vanskelig tilgjengelig og dårlig registrert. For noen år siden ble det imidler-tid opprettet et samarbeidsprosjekt mellom Riksarkivet og Senter for middelalderstudier ved NTNU, som ledd i det internasjonale prosjektet Liturgisk musik i det medeltida Nidaros sedd inom sin europeiska kontext. I Oslo fikk dr. Espen Karlsen og førstearkivar Gunnar Pettersen oppgaven med å skape en omfattende og detaljert katalog over den store og uversik-tlige samlingen. Fragmentene i Riksarkivets samling er de bevarte restene av middelalderens norske bøker og biblioteker. De stammer i første hånd fra bøker som befant seg i statlig eie etter reformasjonen, men mange var allerede da gamle, og hadde levd liv i privateie og andre samlinger før de endte opp

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i bibliotekene ved skoler, klos-tre, domkapitler, katedraler og sognekirker. Fragmentene blir dessto mer interessante ettersom vi vet svært lite om bokeierskap og bokproduksjon i Norge i midde-lalderen. For den eldste tidens del er dette områder som nesten ikke kan belyses med andre kilder. Det er først fra det fjortende århundre av at diplommaterialet og enkelte boklister begynner å fortelle om hvilke bøker som fantes rundt omkring i landet. Nå og da får man etterhvert høre at en og annen geistlig etterlot enkelte bøker til en eller annen institusjon. Særlig opplysende er disse kildene ikke, da det som regel bare er tale om missaler, breviarier, dekretaler og lignende, naturligvis uten videre spesifikasjon. I tiden før bøktrykkerkun-sten ble oppfunnet og trykte bøker etterhvert begynte å gjøre seg gjeldende på markedet, var ingen bok lik den neste. Bøker var av vesen individuelle og unike. Det var tale om bøker i forskjellige håndskrifter og skriverhender, skrevet på materiale av varierende kvalitet, utstyrt med forskjellig utsmykning, såvel i grad som i stil, og med forskjellige kommen-tarer. Boken som i et diplom kun omtales som et evangelarium, kan

derfor like godt ha vært et insulært praktsykke fra det niende århun-dre, som en amatørmessig avskrift besørget av en eller annen land-sens prest. Det er her fragment-materialet kan utdype forståelsen av hvilke bøker som fantes rundt omkring i kister, på hyller eller lenket til bokstoler i hjem, klos-terbiblioteker eller sognekirker. Fragmentene gir ikke opplysnin-ger som kan knytte dem til be-stemte individer eller institusjoner, men i visse tilfeller er det mulig å avgjøre hvor i landet bøkene fan-tes da de ble ødelagt. I alle tilfeller gir materialet et enestående innb-likk i den middelalderske religiøse og lærde kulturen. Fragmentmaterialet stam-mer i all hovedsak fra bindene med lensregnskaper i Riksarkivet. Bøker som hadde mistet sin bruksverdi var helt siden antikken blitt gjenbrukt til forskjellige formål, enten som palimpsester (renskrapede og gjenbrukte bøker) eller også i helt annen hensikt. Pergament og vellum var kostbare handelsvarer, og dersom det ikke lenger var interesse for tekstene, kunne bøkene skrapes rene og brukes på nytt, eller skjæres opp til bruk i innbinding av andre bøker, til oppstiving av bispehat-ter, hylser (kardus) for skytevåpen

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og annet. Et ofte sitert eksempel er en kongelig befaling fra 1634 om innsamling av gamle bøker som skulle brukes for å lage fyrverkeri i anledning av prins Christians bryllup. Etter reformasjonen mistet de gamle pergamentskodeksene sin verdi i Norge fordi de var knyttet til den katolske religion-sutøvelsen, var skrevet på norrønt (et etterhvert uforståelig språk), eller ble erstattet av trykte bøker. Således begynner den regelmes-sige oppstykkingen av katolske liturgiske skrifter allerede noen år etter reformasjonen, mens de norrøne lovtekstene stort sett fikk være i fred frem til utgivelsen av Christian IV.s norske lov femti år senere. Paradoksalt nok er det trolig oppstykkingen av disse bøkene til bruk som innbindings-materiale som har reddet de siste restene av middelalderens bokarv her til lands. I tiden etter reformas-jonen ble store mengder av gamle norske middelaldermanuskripter ført ut av landet. Noen av dem kan finnes igjen i utenlandske biblioteker, men mange er også tapt; ikke minst i da Københavns universitetsbibliotek brant i 1728 og store deler av den nordiske middelalderlitteraturen gikk opp

i flammer. Dersom bøker ikke ble brukt til innbinding, kunne de ende opp som kardus til kanoner og fyrverkeri. I Sverige er det siste kjente eksemplet på gjenbruk av en middelalderkodeks et juridisk håndskrift fra det fjortende århun-dre som ble brukt til å binde inn et militært regnskap ved midten av det nittende århundre. Over en lang periode et-ter reformasjonen ble det på stor målestokk konfiskert gamle bøker i kirkelig og statlig eie for bruk til innbinding av lensregnskapene. Dette skjedde imidlertid ikke bare i Norge. Også i de andre nordiske landene har man kunnet bygge opp store samlinger av mem-branfragmenter ved å gjennomgå rekkene med gamle offentlige regnskaper. Den finske samlingen, oppbevart ved Helsingfors uni-versitetsbibliotek rummer omtrent 10.000 fragmenter, og i Sverige lister fragmentkatalogen opp et tilsvarende antall. Det finnes også andre samlinger av fragmenter i Norge; ikke minst ved stat-sarkivene, Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oldsakssamlingen, Gunnerusbib-lioteket i Trondhjem, Universitets-biblioteket i Bergen og Deichman-ske bibliotek. Det sies at allerede Hen-rik Wergeland under sin tid som

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Bureauchef i Rigsarkivet skal ha fattet interesse for fragmentma-terialet. Det var imidlertid først hans etterfølger, riksarkivar Chr. C. A. Lange som begynte en mer eller mindre systematisk innsam-ling av fragmentene festet til de mange forskjellige bindene med regnskaper i arkivets samlinger. På denne tiden – midt i nasjonsbyg-gingsfasen – knyttet hovedinter-essen seg naturligvis til de norrøne fragmentene. P. A. Much kjente til bruddstykker av oppunder 20 lovbøker, samt av 25 sagahånd-skrifter. Femti år senere kjente man fragmenter fra henholdsvis 67 og 36 bøker, omtrent der tallet ligger idag. De latinske fragmen-tene ble også viet en viss – men betydelig mindre – interesse som et samlet vitnesbyrd over forfed-renes religiøse og litterære liv, og spesielt lokket restene av litugiske bøker med noter. Studiet av litur-gisk musikk var også temaet for prosjektet som nå har sørget for katalogiseringen av den latinske samlingen. Opp gjennom det tyv-ende århundre ble det gjort en rekke forsøk på å katalogisere den latinske fragmentsamlingen. Den første virkelige ordningen av materialet ble besørget av Oluf Kolsrud, som samlet fragmentener

funnet i samme regnskap i egne konvolutter. Dette er fremdeles den grunnleggende strukturen i samlingen. Siden var det spesielt Lilli Gjerløw som beskjeftiget seg med materialet; riktignok i forbin-delse med sin egen forskning, men relutatet av hennes inventering ble blant annet en mye benyttet hånd-skrevet katalog. En av de hovedsakelige oppgavene for dem som nå har arbeidet med katalogiseringen av fragmentmaterialet har vært å identifisere fragmenter som stammer fra samme bok; altså å rekonstruere bøkene så langt det lar seg gjøre. For den norrøne samlingens del ble dette arbei-det tidlig satt igang, men når det gjelder de latinske fragmentene, forbindes arbeidet først og fremst med Gjerløw og til det pågående forskningsprosjektet. Blant de latinske fragmentene i Riksarkivet har man således ved å knytte flere fragmenter sammen kunnet rekon-truere over fire hundre liturgiske bøker av forskjellig slag. Fremde-les finnes det noen tusen fragment-er som ikke er blitt identifisert og inndelt i bøker. Rekonstruksjonsarbei-det kan også kaste lys over hvor i landet de forskjellige bøkene stammer fra. Enkelte av de litur-

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giske bøkene kan, dersom de for eksempel inneholder tekster forbundet lokale helgener, knyttes til bestemte bispedømmer el-ler kirkeprovinser. For resten av materialet er det vanskeligere å ut-tale seg om hvor bøkene har vært ibruk. Imidlertid viser det seg at fragmenter fra samme bok fra tid til annen finnes heftet til forskjel-lige regnskaper fra samme sted. I slike tilfeller er det nærliggende å slutte at boken er blitt skåret opp lokalt, om ikke av fogdene, så i det minste sentralt i lenet, etter at regnskapene ble sendt inn til lensadministrasjonen. Den søkbare databasen som nå er under utarbeidelse er foreløpig ikke offentliggjort, og det gjenstår fremdeles endel arbeid. Utvalgte forskere har imidlertid i tråd med Riksarkivets prinsipper fått adgang til å bruke den. Så langt er det kun blitt reg-istrert fragmenter av bøker knyttet til messen, og databasen dekker derfor stort sett samlingens in-nhold av missaler, gradualer, pon-tifikaler, ordinarier, sakramentarier og psaltarier. Det som gjenstår representerer hovedsakelig den ikkeliturgiske litteraturen, blant annet fragmenter av Vergil, Sal-lust, Donat, Augustin, Gregor den store, Jacobus de Voragine, Isidor

av Sevilla, Birgitta, Mathias av Linköping, Robertus de Tumbale-na, samt en rekke andre middelal-derforfattere. Blant de liturgiske frag-mentene er enkelte svært gamle, og synes å være bragt til landet allerede under misjonstiden. Det eldste missalematerialet stammer da også stort sett fra England. Den latinske samlingen inneholder fragmenter fra så langt tilbake midten av det niende århundre, men også langt nyere. Det finnes derfor også et innslag av trykte bøker (paleotyper) på pergament. Av naturlige årsaker er de eldste norrøne fragmentene fra trettende århundre; det tok tid før norrønt etablerte seg som bokspråk. Så langt har arbeidet med de latinske fragmentene allerede kastet nytt lys over etableringen av skrift i Norge. Det er nemlig funnet rester av missaler som med all sannsynlighet er skrevet her i landet allerede rundt 1070-1080 og utover tidlig 1100-tall. Et utvalg fragmenter som repre-senterer seks av disse missalene bærer et svært enhetlig preg, og stammer sannsynligvis fra samme skriptorium (skriverstue). De er trolig skrevet i Norge i tiden rundt år 1100. Teksten i disse missal-ene er representerer en utrent,

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men typisk nordtysk hånd, mens notene er klart engelske i stilen. Messebøkene er derfor eksempler på en blandingsstil som man ikke kjenner annenstedsfra. I tillegg kommer det at skriverhendene varierer mellom missalene, mens notene i flere av dem synes å være skrevet i samme hånd. Bøkene må derfor være produsert i et skripto-rium med flere skrivere, men i en overgangsfase, mens man hentet direkte forbilder i utenlandske bøker og før det ble utviklet en mer sikker og enhetlig stil. Riksarkivets samling av membranfragmenter inneholder interessante spor etter kristningen og europeiseringen av Norge. Den representerer den middelalderske, katolske religiøse og lærde kul-turen i landet; den norske delen av middelalderens felleseuropeiske kulturarv. Fragmentene gir innb-likk i den kultursfæren Norge som kristent europeisk land tilhørte før reformasjonen, da mange av båndene med kontinentet ble brudt, og kulturlivet istedet fikk sitt hovedfokus mer snevert rettet mot Tyskland. Fragmentene viser på en enestående måte hvilke kul-turelle og handelsforbindelser lan-det hadde gjennom middelalderen. De viser hvor påvirkningene kom fra, og likeledes hvilke deler av

det europeiske kulturlivet og lit-teraturen som nådde Norge, og i større eller mindre grad var med på å forme den hjemlige kulturen. Ettersom den representerer major-iteten av de bøkene vi har fysiske rester av, er Riksarkivets frag-mentsamling, som Espen Karlsen skriver, ”en hovedkilde til norsk bokhistorie i middelalderen.”

Litteratur

Boken i Finland. Utställning i Nationalmuseet i anledning av bokens jubileumsår 25.8. – 31. 12.1988, Helsingfors 1988.

Helgerånet. Från mässböcker till munkpärmar, Kerstin Abukhanfu-sa & al. (red.), Borås 1993.

Johnsen, Oscar Albert: ”Norske geistliges og kirkelige institus-joners bogsamlinger i den senere middelalder”, i Afhandlinger videde Sophus Bugges minde, Kristiania 1908.

Karlsen, Espen: ”Liturgiske bøker i Norge inntil år 1300. Import og egenproduksjon”, i Den kirkehis-toriske utfordring, Steinar Imsen (red.), Trondhjem 2005.

Pettersen, Gunnar og Espen

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Karlsen: ”Katalogisering av latin-ske membranfragmenter som for-skningsprosjekt”, i Arkivverkets forskningsseminar Gardermoen 2003, Arkivverkets Rapporter og retningslinjer nr. 16, 2003.

http://www.arkivverket.no/manedens/des2003/hovedside.html

Om Ernst Bjerke

Forfatteren er vit.ass. og mas-terstudent i historie ved UiO, faglitterær forfatter, samt redaksjonsmedlem i tidsskrift-ene argument og Fortid.

Om Vellum

Vellun er et tidsskrift drevet av studenter, for studenter og andre som er interesserte i vikingtid og middelalder.

Visjonen med et eget middelaldertidsskrift for studenter og andre knyttet til miljøet, er å skape et levende og samlende miljø. Vi håper at et slikt tidsskrift vil vise hva som skjer i miljøet, både blant forskere, studenter og foreninger, og at det vil fungere som en felles plattform for alle med samme interesse.

Har du noen kommentarer eller spørsmål, ta gjerne kontakt med oss på mail: vellum-tidsskrift@hf.uio.no

Takk til alle som har bidratt til det første nummeret!

Therese Foldvik

Mange takk til Espen Karlsen, Nasjonalbiblioteket, som har bid-ratt med opplysninger om kata-logiseringsprosjektet. Fremstill-ingen bygger dessuten i hovedsak på hans og Pettersens artikkel.

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Skriftens betydning for middelalderens Tele-markAv Elisabeth Aronsen

«tede Þa mik fram Þrinnæ lagar orskurdær Aslakær at Griotgardær vildi eikki haldæ ok eit satmalæ bref sæm hær er vidær fest ok at brefuom skodadom ok jnvyrdæ jvir lesnom ok annes at Þeir haua oftæ firir logom voret ok aldrege Gri-otgardær logh haldæ ok Þa voro Þeiræ reter stepno dagar Þa syntis mik ok ollo godo folke han retæn laghær Þriotær ok allungis jllæ forbrotet eftir laugom Þy dømde ek med lagar orskurdi at ænndæ merkki skulu veræ sæm Steinæ suor og systir hans gek…» Overstående er utdrag fra et domsbrev fra 1402 som forteller om en disputt om hvor grensen mellom to eiendommer gikk. Aslak legger brevbevis mot Grjotgard fram for lagmannen. Det er tre domsbrev og ett forliks-brev som Grjotgard ikke tidligere har respektert. På bakgrunn av disse brevene får Aslak enda en domsavgjørelse til sin fordel. Kan dette tas til inntekt for skriftens store betydning i Telemark på dette tidspunkt? I forkant var det

nemlig avhørt vitner, blant an-net tre stykker som ved en de-lesgang avholdt på gården for en (tydeligvis lang tid tilbake) hadde hørt eldste bonden i bygda fortelle hvor grensesteinene lå rundt 1330, altså sytti år tilbake i tid. Denne bonden ”Steinæ” får også siste ord hos lagmannen. Muntligheten og den menneskelige hukommelse stod tydeligvis fortsatt sterkt, sam-tidig er dette brevet det siste av de bevarte domsbrevene i perioden 1300-1450 som vitner om bevis-føring på gamlemåten.Følgende er bygget på min hovedoppgave om utvikling av en skriftkultur i Telemark for perioden 1300-1450. Forandret innføring av skrift middelalderens Telemark? Skrift er en teknologi som muliggjør oppsamling av kunnskap utenfor den menneskel-ige hjerne og forenkler kommu-nikasjon mellom mennesker over tid og avstand. For oss moderne mennesker er skrift så inkorporert i tilværelsen at det byr på vanske-ligheter å forestille seg hvordan det ville ha vært uten skrift. Skrift er en av forutsetningene for naturvitenskap og derav den teknologiske utviklingen. Skrift har muliggjort filosofi og annen humanistisk vitenskap, skjønnlit-teratur og ikke minst de store

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verdensreligionene. Det er klart at selv om skriftkulturen ikke ble så altomfattende i denne perioden har den medført endringer. Spørsmålet må heller være i hvilken grad skriftkulturen forandret samfunnet og hvor mye av endringene som skyldes egenskaper ved skriften selv?

Det er ikke mange norske studier av skrift. Leidulf Melve har gitt en god oversikt over ”skriftens verdenshistorie”. Arnved Ned-kvitne har konsentrert seg om den skandinaviske middelalders skrifthistorie. Ellers så har den engelske historikeren Michael T. Clanchy skrevet om praktisk bruk av skrift i middelalderens England, av mange regnet som et hovedverk om temaet. Studier av skrift henger sammen med studier av fravær av skrift. Sosialantropol-ogen Jack Goody studerte muntlig og skriftlig kultur hos for oss primitive folkegrupper. Goody med flere påstod blant annet at skrift hadde innvirkning på den enkeltes mentale evner, abstrak-sjon er om ikke umulig så mye vanskeligere for en analfabet.Goody ble så fascinert av den store virkning inntreden av skrift fikk i disse muntligbaserte sam-funn at han muligens tilla skrift

isolert sett for mye endringspot-ensiale. Goodys hovedopponent Brian Street representerer ”en ideologisk retning” og han plas-serer merkelappen ”brudd” på Goody. Debatten mellom til-hengere av hver sin retning har sikkert klargjort, men nok også avsporet skriftforskningen. Kort oppsummert (se også Melve): Street betoner skriften som et middel og leter etter forklaring på endringer i motivene til de som besitter middelet. Representanter fra ”bruddsynet” kritiserer ”ide-ologistene” for relativisme. En mellomvei der en anerkjenner alle de sosiale og økonomiske faktorer rundt innføring og utvikling av skriftkultur, men samtidig holder et så klart fokus som mulig på hvilke følger skriftbruk gir ibereg-net de uttilsiktede, er nok den mest fruktbare. Så tilbake til Telemark.Telemark har fått karakteris-tikken ”Norge i miniatyr” pga. sin varierte topografi og geografi. Det omfatter både store øde områder i øvre og vestre del og sentrale om-rådene rundt Skien. Denne varias-jonen borger for representativitet. I Telemark hersket det i år 1300 en overveiende muntlig kultur, men inntreden av skrift innenfor spesi-fikke felter fikk i løpet av en 150 års periode helt distinkte følger.

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Hvordan påvise dette? Skrift er både studieobjekt og kilde, ikke bare til skriftligheten men også muntligheten. De eneste kilder til den muntlige kultur, eller til pros-essen med å innføre skrift, er altså de samme skrifter som forteller om skriftbruken. Vi kan ikke som Goody observere og intervjue in-nbyggerne, den muntlige kulturen må finnes i det skriftlige materi-alet.

I min oppgave begrenset jeg meg til den rettslige sfære av den enkle grunn at det er herfra det er bevart kilder. Av de 305 bevarte diplomer som relaterer seg til Telemark innenfor perioden 1300-1450, er fordelingen etter funksjon slik: Eiendom: 48%Juristiksjon: 35%Kirke: 11%Sentralmakt: 4%Handel: 2%

Eiendomsbrevene som utgjør den største andel, er brev som bevitner salg og makeskifte av eiendom, en brevkategori tilhørende den rettslige sfære. Skifte av eiendom-srett til jord var av stor betydning for de det gjaldt, og i likhet med i dag var det ikke en ren privatsak. Det moderne samfunnet ønsker å kontrollere samt beskytte eien-

domsretten. Så også middelal-dersamfunnet, men med en svak statsmakt ble samfunnet konstitu-ert av fellesskapet. Det var derfor avgjørende at dette fellesskapet anerkjente transaksjoner. Ikke bare i det de ble gjennomført, men også for ettertiden. At dette kunne være en utfordring skjønner vi av Aslaks langvarige kamp mot den mektige Grjotgard innledningsvis. Hvordan sikre retten i et skriftløst samfunn? Eiendomsoverdragelser skulle som for eksempel ekteska-psinngåelser skje etter et fastlagt mønster. Ved å følge reglene ble transaksjonen ikke bare gyldig, men også tydeliggjort. Tydelig-gjøring, dvs. det å være sikker på at informasjonen ble forstått in-nebar en trygghet mot senere dis-putter. Vitner garanterte for at den ble husket. Formene ble nedfelt i lovverket: ”Over alt hvor folk kjøper bygårder eller jordegods el-ler makeskifter hus eller skip eller andre verdifulle ting, da skal man kjøpe med håndslag og med 2 eller flere vitner og med hjemmelsbor-gen.” Det hele tok form av en seremoni. Partene holdt hveran-dre i hendene. Så ble salgsbetin-gelsene og annet relevant lest opp. Var eiendommen skyldfri, hvilken stand var gården i og var betaling mottatt? Eiendommen skiftet med

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dette eier for evighet fra selger og hans arvinger (de kunne altså ikke kreve eiendommen tilbake når faren var død) og til kjøperne og hans arvinger (salget var altså ikke personavhengig). I visse kulturer har deltakerne hoppet over gjerder, øst jord i kjøpers kappe etc. men dette er ikke kjent fra Telemark. Vitnene kunne senere bevitne at de hadde sett og faktisk også hørt håndslaget.

Systemet hadde svakheter. Vit-ner lever ikke evig. Fellesskapet støtter bare individer til en viss grad. Hva hvis en la seg ut med naboene, hvor sikker var eien-domsretten da? Rettssystemet i Telemark og resten av landet var i perioden 1300-1450 dels fundert på bygdefellesskapets ”sedvane” og dels på kongemakten repre-sentert med sysselmann og senere fogden, lensmann, lagmann og de mange lagrettemenn. De siste var riktignok også en del av bygdefel-lesskapet. Lovene ble nedskrevet på 1100-tallet, trolig med utspring i sedvanerett. Grunnprinsippene i den praktiske rettshåndhev-elsen i denne periode var å veie vitneutsagn mot hverandre. Det ble stilt krav til vitnene, begrepet ”vattbærr” i lovverket, direkte oversatt som ”vitnefør”, viser

dette. Man kunne søke forlik, dommerne skulle iht. loven bestå av en gruppe på 6 eller 12 i en dômr. Sysselmannen kunne også gripe inn gjennom de mer uregle-menterte men sikkert effektive ”sysselmannsforlik”. Neste skritt var å stevne motstanderen inn for lagmannen i Skien.Her møttes den muntlige og skrift-lige kulturen. Før 1400 hadde alle tatt med seg levende vitner, etter den tid ble det ført brevbevis. En av de siste sakene som ble ført ”på gamlemåten” dreide seg om fisker-ettigheter i Slemdal 90 år tilbake. To menn over 80 år og to over 60 år vitner. En av 80 åringene referer også hva han hadde hørt fra sin far. Lagmannen hadde tidligere vært på grenseoppgang på stedet og fått de samme opplysninger. Disse var bevart i muntlig tradis-jon gjennom slektsledd og stam-met fra en mann som var fylt 80 år før svartedauden. Hukommelsen i denne muntlige tradisjonen var altså svært god, men en er fristet til å tenke at det sikkert hjalp å ha goodwill for å oppnå dette resulta-tet hos lagmannen.

Den som vant saken fikk i likhet med Aslak brev med domsavsigelsen. Domsbrev er i likhet med de mer private eien-

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domsbrevene konforme og referer hva som ble sagt under rettsmøtet. Som nevnt ble det etter 1400 van-lig med hjemmelsbevis i form av brev. Lagmannens skriver fikk da en enklere jobb, ettersom hjem-melsbrevenes innhold ikke ble referert i domsbrevet. Muligens var dette for å spare tid og krefter, hjemmelsmannen ville jo selv fort-satt ta vare på sitt hjemmelsbrev sammen med domsbrevet. Det kan også avspeile en manglende evne til å trekke ut substansen og for-midle budskapet på en kortfattet måte. Referatstilen er også karak-teristisk for hjemmelsbrevene selv. En lav andel (10 av totalt 89 brev) er såkalt dispositive, dvs. at det framgår klart at brevutstedelsen er det rettsstiftende element. Selger-en er også direkte talerøret i disse brevene og formulerer seg for ek-sempel slik: ”at ek hauur selth…” Den overveiende vanligste form var at brevet inneholdt et nøyaktig referat av salgsseremonien gitt av vitnene. Seremonien finner fortsatt tilsynelatende sted, det nye er at man har et brev som vitner om den.

”at mit varom j stovonne vti Bø krossmessodagen vm varet a ii are ok xx rikis okars vyrdleks herra Hakonar med guds nad Noreks ok

Svia kononks saom ok høyrdvm a handarband… Ellers fantes mellomformer som her i 1368 der ”...saghom ok h/oe/yrdum at Rauder Rolfue son vidergek þui at han hafde sælt...” Brevet er ikke dispositivt, det er ikke selger som uttaler seg, ei heller vitnebrev fra en muntlig salgsseremoni. Enda fjernere fra det muntlige er vi kommet i Høy-dalsmo i 1441. Her består brevet av en kunngjøring fra to lagret-temenn om at Ogmund Ormssön hadde solgt en eiendom. De har verken ”hørt eller sett salget”. Telemarkingene så nok nytten av å ha sine rettigheter skriftfestet selv om det hersket forvirring hvordan det best kunne gjøres. Den muntlige kulturen satt også hardt i.

Statsmaktens kontroll av eiendom-sretten hadde i tillegg en sikker-hetsmessig side. På delesgangen til Aslak og Grjotgard kom det til håndgemeng som viste Grjotgards temperament. Nå gikk det bra denne gangen, men vi vet at Grjot-gard også var drapsmann. Telemarkingene er iht. tradisjonen sammen med for eksempel hal-lingdølene kjent for å ha kniven løst i sliren. Jeg lar denne på-standen hvile, bare konstaterer at

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i perioden 1300-1450 ikke er noe som tyder på ulik fordeling av drap mellom flatbygdene i nedre Telemark og det ”uregjerlige” øvre Telemark. Det interessante i vår sammenheng er skriftens rolle i konflikthåndter-ingen. Drapsbrevene vitner om et system for nådesbevisning til drapsmenn, såkalt landsvist som etter hvert ble så rutinepreget at det passer inn i definisjonen på byråkrati. Riktignok begrenset til tilfeller som hadde skjedd ”uforskyldt” – i praksis vil det si ikke overlagt/planlagt. Kongens kanselli utstedte gridsbrev til drapsmannen. Ved siden av å gi ett års vern mot hevndrap, in-neholdt brevet klare instrukser til kongens ombudsmann; sysselman-nen. Han skulle arrangere prov-sopptak og besvare spørsmålene i gridsbrevet skriftlig. Hvis dette var tilfredsstillende (jeg fant aldri eksempler på det motsatte), utst-edte kanselliet et varig vernebrev med landsvist. Rutinen forhindret ikke at det ble begått drap, men den økte forutsigbarheten og stop-pet voldsspiralen som drap kunne utløse. Rutinen ble standardisert underveis gjennom perioden på 150 år. Dette mener jeg har klar sammenheng med skriftens mu-ligheter.

Så hva kan vi si om betydningen av denne skriftkulturen og hva skyldes egenskaper ved skrift i seg selv? Innføring av skrift i eiendomsforvaltning for å sikre rettigheter og dermed redusere konfliktnivået ble initiert av kongemakten. Landsloven (1274) påbyr alle å skriftfeste sine avtaler. Kongen står også bak lagmannens domsbrev. I en omfattende ret-tarbot av 1308 påbys lagmannen å gi alle brev på sine dommer, riktignok krever rettarboten at han også skulle føre protokoll noe som antageligvis ikke ble fulgt. Det er også kongemakten som tar initia-tiv til landsvistrutinen.Dette stemmer bra med ideolo-gisynet til Street. Det er mektige aktører som innfører skrift og klare motiver bak bruken av den. Samtidig, vi befinner oss i en peri-ode der statsmakten blir svakere og ser samtidig en klar stigning i brevproduksjon og standardiser-ing av de skriftlige rutiner. Det er derfor lite fruktbart å underkjenne at også skrift i seg selv er årsak til bedret rettsikkerhet for den en-kelte og mindre uro i samfunnet. I de tette bygdesamfunnene var en selvfølgelig avhengig av fellesska-pets velvilje, men med eiendom-srettighetene festet på pergament trygt forvart i kista hadde individet

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en friere stilling. Skriftkulturen virket altså mot desentraliserende bygdekrefter og styrket individetsog statsmaktens stilling.

Litteratur:

Aronsen, Elisabeth. 1999. Skrift og rett: Utviklingen av en skrift-kultur i Telemarks rettsliv i peri-oden 1300-1450, Hovedfagsop-pgave i historie ved Universitetet i Oslo; Se også Innføring av prak-tisk skriftkultur i norsk senmid-delalder – et ledd i sentralisering-sprosessen, Historisk tidsskrift, 2001

Melve, Leidulf. 2001. Med ordet som våpen: Tale og skrift i vestleg historie, Samlaget, Oslo

Nedkvitne, Arnved. 2004. The social consequences of literacy in medieval Scandinavia, Turnhout, Brepols

Clanchy, M.T. 1979. From Mem-ory to Written Record. England 1066-1307, London 1993 (Black-well).

Goody, Jack og Ian Watt 1968. “The Consequences of Literacy”,

i Goody, Jack (red.), Literature in traditional societies, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) og Goody, Jack 1986. The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press).

Street, Brian V. 1984. Literacy in theory and practice, Cambridge (Cambridge University press). Og Social Literacies: Critical Ap-proaches to Literacy in Develop-ment, Ethnography and Education, London og NYork (Longman).

Om Elisabeth Aronsen

Cand.philol H.99 med “Skrift og rett : utviklingen av en skriftkultur i Telemarks rettssystem i perioden 1300-1450”. Skrev også en ar-tikkel i Historisk Tidsskrift 2001, 80: 419- 443 “Innføring av prak-tisk skriftkultur i norsk senmid-delalder – et ledd i sentralisering-sprosessen”. I dag har hun flyttet over fra humanistene til “naturis-tene” på Naturhistorisk museum der hun blant annet fungerer som lederassistent for direktøren.

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The McDonaldization of NidarosBy Amy E. Robertson

IntroductionIt is not likely that Ray Kroc, founder of the McDonald’s fast food chain, knew the extent to which his burger empire would influence the world. Explored by George Ritzer in The McDonaldi-zation of Society, it becomes evi-dent that the wriggling tentacles

of McDonald’s corporation now exert their influence globally and have become the accepted tem-plate for many corporate giants found in today’s economic mar-

ket. This infiltration is not contained solely within corporate structure, but it has also profoundly af-fected consumer mentality and the entire process of globalization. Conceptual-ly, however, this assimila-tion of all facets of society into corporate mentality is not new, and is in fact exemplified by the church province of Nidaros—par-ticularly during the latter half of the twelfth and into the early thirteenth centu-ries. In this study, the four aspects of McDonaldiza-tion (predictability, ef-ficiency, calculability, and

control) will be used as a theo-retical model for understanding the transition of Nidaros from a small tenth century kaupang to an ecclesiastical empire; which more or less developed itself into a medieval corporation exhibit-ing similarities to the modern day corporate structure of the McDon-

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ald’s fast food chain. The concept of McDonaldization, as proposed by Ritzer, is simply a redevel-opment of Weber’s theories on bureaucracy and rationality. How-ever, material directly extrapolated from the theories of Weber will not be incorporated directly into this study. Rather, only the re-constructed theoretical framework taken directly from Ritzer’s work shall be employed.

Precursory Elements Feeding into the Adoption of a Corporate Mentality at Nidaros.The late tenth century into the early thirteenth century at Nidaros was characterized by tremendous growth and expansion, both of which led to the introduction of corporate mentality and what could be construed as the Mc-Donaldization of Nidaros. This McDonaldization can be partially attributed to the placement of St. Olav’s shrine at Nidaros in the mid-eleventh century, which led to Nidaros becoming a mecca for pilgrims; and also to the establish-ment of a metropolitan bishop’s see (1152-53) which, due to its ecclesiastical ties, guaranteed a cultural and economical basis for growth and status for Nidaros. Additionally, in the 1140s dur-

ing the Gregorian Reform, there is a major shift in the Trøndelag region’s system of fylkes and høgendes churches. Rather than being privately owned and grant-ing the responsibility of appoint-ing priests and collecting income to the private church owners, there is a move to a centralized church system, directly resulting in the structuring of corporate mental-ity of which Nidaros was key disseminator. It is worthwhile to consider that perhaps the most defining event leading up to the McDonaldization of Nidaros was the increasing emphasis on indul-gences by the Catholic Church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Indulgences were a major source of income for all churches during this period and Nidaros was no exception, especially considering that pilgrimage of religious ad-herents seeking penance, healing, or forgiveness at the grave of St. Olav was a key factor in the flour-ishing economy of the Nidaros church province particularly under the direction of bishop Øystein Erlandsson.

Bishop Øystein as the Ray Kroc of NidarosAfter the first decade of the estab-lishment of the archbishop’s see in

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Nidaros, a series of reforms were introduced. Who was the master-mind behind these? It was none other than Bishop Øystein Er-landsson, who utilized his position quite cleverly, not only acting in the capacity of archbishop but also as a sly politician and savvy CEO. These reforms included new rules on patronage, church rights, and the introduction of celibacy. Ironi-cally enough, the church happened to be composed of higher clerics whose interests were served by the new reform. This is not to men-tion the fact that the Archbishop of Nidaros received a quarter of the tithes, which as has already been established was the most impor-tant source of revenue for the church. While there is no precise estimate of the wealth of Nidaros during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is evident by the magnificent architecture of the archbishop’s palace, the Nidaros cathedral, and Steinvikholm castle that tremendous revenue had to be generated in order to fund such undertakings.Also, it is imperative to note that during Øystein’s time as bishop, he spent a great deal of energy promoting the cult of St. Olav. This promotion can be likened unto Ray Kroc’s development

of an appealing mascot or front man for the McDonald’s corpora-tion such as Ronald McDonald or the Hamburglar. Critical to the legitimization of St. Olav as a key figure to the development of a type of corporate structure at Nidaros was Øystein’s focus on turning Nidaros into a factory of liter-ary production during the second half of the twelfth century, which included a narrative attempting to legitimize the canonization of St. Olav.6 Religious historians have even gone so far as to describe the period from 1161—88, when the church was under the direction of Øystein, as a type of Golden Age (not to be confused with golden arches), where the church was able to extend itself in the spheres of politics, society, and cul-tural life. What exactly does this mean? In laymen’s terms, Bishop Øystein and his associates, like Ray Croc were those profiting off of the implementation of church reforms; while people flocked to the gravesite of St. Olav, trading money for miracles and soul insur-ance—all the while not realizing they were being assimilated into a calculated, corporate schema cleverly hidden under the guise of religiosity. How exactly does this dissemination of the theological

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ideology as it pertains to Nidaros and the grave of St. Olav apply to the theory of McDonaldization? In order to affectively answer such a question one must place the four aspects of McDonaldiza-tion within the context of Nidaros, the first of which I will address is predictability.

PredictabilityPart of the key to the success of McDonald’s corporation, accord-ing to Ritzer, is found in the fact that the products and services offered by location are virtually identical in any location, be it Japan or Texas. Often the inter-action between customers and employees is scripted and allows little leeway for variance, as it is one of the major principles behind McDonald’s ideology to stray from giving the consumer sur-prises that they neither desire nor do not expect.If one examines the churchyard at Nidaros, a similar phenomenon becomes apparent. After examin-ing the Frostaþing Law, as pre-sented by Brendalsmo in “Land-scape of the Dead”, it becomes evident that the Christian Church, too, implemented a similar pat-tern of predictability evident in Christian burial practice. Within

the law code, it is clearly stated that it is the right of all eligible Christian members of society to be buried in the consecrated earth of the churchyard; thus making it predictable for those Christians adhering to religious dogma that there would be no surprises await-ing them in the afterworld.

An even more assured way of eliminating unpredictability by the church at Nidaros was in the clear violation of church policy that there should be no segre-gation within the graves of the churchyard to denote social status. Archaeologists have discovered that it was common practice to bury the king’s barons and family members on the east or southeast side of the churchyard. Further out from these aristocrats were the wealthy landowners, then the common farmers, followed furthest out by freedmen and liberated kinsmen. Slaves were outside the churchyard fence, men on the south and women on the north.10 This system, though a clear infraction of the established church policy, provided living church patrons with even more of a sense of security by assuring them that even in the afterworld their standard of living and posi-

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tion of societal prominence would in no way be compromised. Just as a McDonald’s hamburger is uniform with lettuce, onions, pickles, tomatoes, and special sauce, so too were churchyards of the Middle Ages. As supported by the landscape of the churchyard at Nidaros, it appears as though the layout of the graveyard served as a comfortably supplanted pneumon-ic device, reminding the onlooker of the consistent structure of the church which ensured the security of his soul.

ControlAnother important aspect of McDonaldization is control, and Ritzer puts control in terms of nonhuman technology. He defines technology not only as machines and tools but also materials, skills, knowledge, rules, and procedures—saying that human technology is controlled by peo-ple, whereas nonhuman controls people. The McDonald’s corpora-tion’s efforts to control are aimed at both employees and customers. Through increasingly effective implementation of technology, Ritzer argues that corporations gain control over individuals by reducing their behavior to noth-ing more than a sequence of

machine-like activities—after all, control through a technology is far simpler and eliminates unpredict-ability.The church at Nidaros was not above implementing such meth-ods of control. Rather than us-ing actual machines as a method of control, the church chose to utilize the nonhuman technology of the supernatural as a method of controlling both the clergy and the pilgrims to Olav’s tomb. While it simply cannot be known whether or not miracles were actually tak-ing place at the reliquary of Olav; that really is not the issue. What is clear is that the church was able to build-up an entire industry sup-porting Nidaros through the ex-ploitation and control of people’s conscious minds by encouraging them to believe that miracles and soul salvation were a possibility at Olav’s reliquary, whether or not any miraculous events were indeed occurring. Evidence of this spreading belief is suggested in St. Olaf’s Saga where it is said that the people of Trondheim spoke amongst themselves of the mira-cles that had happened at the grave of St. Olaf attesting to his saint-hood. Give the people a curiosity, cause, and hope and an empire of belief is built with or without the

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actual structure to support it.

Calculability and EfficiencyThe third and fourth aspects of McDonaldization are calculability and efficiency. These two shall be discussed together since, in the case of Nidaros, they go hand in hand. Calculability is exhibited when a company puts emphasis on the quantitative aspects of the products they sell. An approach such as this preys on an individu-al’s need to feel as though he is getting a huge return for little investment. For instance, Ritzer states that in the McDonald’s society individuals often conclude that a trip to a fast food chain, such as McDonald’s will take less time than eating at home.14 This calculation can be either right or wrong, what is essential to success of the idea is that the constitu-ents actually believe that they are somehow saving time. Efficiency is contingent on the belief that eat-ing at a McDonald’s restaurant is the “optimum method” for getting from hungry to full.Similarly, pilgrims to Nidaros were likely looking for the most efficient way to be healed, find redemption, or become the object of some miraculous occurrence. Indulgences from the church were

like the McDonald’s restaurants of the world. They ensured that for little effort (a series of penitent actions, a certain some of money, or a pilgrimage to the reliquary of a saint) an individual’s soul would have endless security or at least partial safekeeping, even if only for the time being. Making the pilgrimage to the reliquary of St. Olav not only served to redeem one’s soul, but there was the additional possibility of an unexpected miracle. If healed, an individual would have received huge dividends for relatively little invested. Who could have resisted such an efficient means of ensur-ing the status of one’s soul in the afterworld? Additionally, it is not entirely implausible to believe that the church, at least in some capacity, furthered the supernatural control mechanism by advocating pil-grimage as a potential means of soul transmigration. What more efficient way to redeem the soul than to assume characteristics of a deceased saint? The Encyclopedia of Religion defines ‘transmigra-tion’ as the process by which after death, either a spiritual or an ethereal, subtle, and thinly mate-rial part of the personality,

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having left the body that it previ-ously inhabited, “migrates” and enters (i.e. is reborn in) an-other body (human or animal) or another form of being (plant or even inanimate objects. Perhaps the most applicable facet of transmigration, as it pertains to Nidaros, is that transmigration can be used to explain facets of the personality of a certain person by considering him as the rein-carnation of a deceased person with similar traits. This character adoption is seen as an opportunity to accumulate more merits and to redeem oneself for past sins.Just as modern day pilgrims line the drive-thru lane seek a bit of the happiness which is assured provid-ing they are loyal to McDonald’s corporation; the pilgrims to the shrine of St. Olav also sought a bit of happiness through the most effi-cient means. Could it be possible that pilgrims to Nidaros believed that after a visit to the tomb of St. Olav they would have actually acquired little bits of Olav himself and would therefore never again be in a position of needing to seek redemption due to the assimila-tion of the saint like qualities Olav himself exhibited? Thus, a single visit to Nidaros could provide the ultimate dividend, a type of

insurance for the soul, in both an effective and efficient way. Interestingly enough, there is a peculiar aspect in the actual construction of Nidaros cathedral, which could be direct evidence as to the importance of efficiency within the church paradigm. In the 1180s, the aged, square chan-nel was replaced by an octagonal high choir, a central building with a high altar and the shrine of St. Olav located in the central room were surrounded by an ambula-tory. This ambulatory is an unu-sual construction and would allow the pilgrims to literally ambulate around the reliquary.18 Was this ambulatory constructed in order hopes of herding visitors to Ni-daros through the shrine in a faster and more efficient manner?

ConclusionAs we have seen there are simi-larities between the entire church province of Nidaros and the cor-porate operations of McDonald’s. While it is impossible to come to any specific conclusions as to whether or not the early Catholic Church actually had any direct influence on the corporate struc-tures implemented today, we have seen it demonstrated that there

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exists some degree of similarity between the set-up and execution of the church at Nidaros and the McDonald’s fast food giant. What is of utmost importance is that it is quite possible to see, through the lens of the theoretical framework of McDonaldization, the power the Catholic Church exerted in Scandinavia as adequately evi-denced at Nidaros. The discussion presented in this study can be used as a template to frame discussions surrounding the possibility and implementation of early medieval corporate structures as suggested by Nidaros. It might also be pos-sible for one to reconsider facets

Illustration:Viking to Crusader, Scandinavia andEurope 800-1200. Uddevalla 1992.

of early medieval mentality, such as consumerism, by assessing the Catholic Church as a corporate structure integral not only to the religious community of the Mid-dle Ages but to the organization of society as a whole. Regard-less, what has been established is that the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages must have had some semblance of corporate mental-ity in order to disseminate itself throughout Europe as effectively as it did. It is through an explora-tion of this corporate mentality identified with the church that we will likely come to a better under-standing of consumer mentality of the Middle Ages.

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Literature

Brendalsmo, A. Jan. 1993 (Aug.). “The Landscape of the Dead: Was Burial in the Parish Churchyard Obligatory in the Middle Ages?,” 53—60.

McLees, Christopher. 2001. “Trondheim” in Medieval Archae-ology: An Encyclopedia, Pam Crabtree (ed.). Garland Publish-ing, Inc.: New York.

Werblowsky, R.J. Zwi. 1995. “Transmigration” in The Encyclo-pedia of Religion, vol. 15, Mircea Eliade (ed.). Simon and Schuster MacMillan: New York.

Imsen, Steinar (red.). 2003. Ec-clesia Nidrosiensis 1153—1537: Søkelys på Nidaroskirkens og Nidarosprovinsens Historie. Tapir Akademisk Forlag: Trondheim.

Larson, Laurence M.. 1935 (Sept.) “Problems of the Nor-wegian Church in the Eleventh Century” in Church History. vol. 4, no. 3., 159—172.

Ritzer, George. 2004. The Mc-Donaldization of Society: Revised New Century Edition. Pine Forge Press:

Thousand Oaks: MD, 2004.

Shaffer, Robert W.. 1992 (Dec.) “Learned Discussions of Indul-gences for the Dead in the Middle Ages” in Church History, vol. 61, no. 4., 367—381.

Sturlsson, Snorri. Heimskringla: ”St. Olaf’s Saga,” 526.

About Amy E. Robertson

Amy E. Robertson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in the United States from Ball State Uni-versity and a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Oslo. She is a scholar in the area of Nordic, Viking, and Medieval Culture, specializing in the study of history of religions and mentali-ties.

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Vikingmarked og Norrøne sommerleker Gudvangen 20 – 22 juli 2007

200 vikinger fra 12 nasjoner Fighting, leker, idrett, vikingskip Skaldskapskurs – og konkurranse

Åpningstider 12 – 18 www.vikingvalley.no

Besøk Alle tiders! Karl Johans gt 14 – vikingartikler og smykker.

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Entering Paradise by fire or charcoal? A glimpse of burial customs in the Viking and Medieval AgeBy Kristian Omnes

Perhaps one of the most vivid and illustrative accounts about a Viking burial, takes place at Volga, in today’s Russia. The story is retold by Ibn Fadlan, who was sent to the king of the Bulghārs by Caliph al-Muqtadir in the year 921 A.D. Let us start with Ibn Fadlan’s description of the burial ritual: On the day when he [the chief-tain] and the slave-girl were to be burned I [Ibn Fadlan] arrived at the river where his ship was. To my surprise I discovered that it had been beached and that four planks of birch and other types of wood had been erected for it. Around them wood had been placed in such a way as to resem-ble scaffolding. Then the ship was hauled and placed on top of this wood. They advanced, going to and fro <around the boat> utter-ing words which I did not under-stand, while he was still in his grave and had not been exhumed.

Then they produced a couch and placed it on the ship, covering it with quilts <made of> Byzantine silk brocade and cushions <made of> Byzantine silk brocade. […]When they came to his grave, they removed the soil from the wood and then removed the wood, exhuming him <still dressed> in the izār in which he had died. I could see that he had turned black because of the coldness of the ground. […] Surprisingly, he had not begun to stink and only his colour had deteriorated. […] They carried him inside the pavilion on the ship and laid him to rest on the quilt, propping him with cush-ions. Then they brought alcohol, fruit and herbs and placed them beside him. Next they brought bread, meat and onions, which they cast in front of him, a dog, which they cut in two and which they threw onto the ship, and all of his weaponry, which they placed beside him. They then brought two mounts, made them gallop until they began to sweat, cut them up into pieces and threw the flesh onto the ship. They next fetched two cows, which they also cut up into pieces and threw on board, and a cock and a hen, which they slaughtered and cast onto it. […]Then the deceased’s next

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of kin approached and took hold of a piece of wood and set fire to it. […] He ignited the wood that had been set up under the ship after they had placed the slave-girl whom they had killed beside her master. Then the people came forward with sticks and firewood. Each one carried a stick the end of which he had set fire to and which he threw on top of the wood. The wood caught fire, and then the ship, the pavilion, the man, the slave-girl and all it contained. A dreadful wind arose and the flames leapt higher and blazed fiercely. One of the Rūsiyyah stood beside me and I heard him speak-ing to my interpreter. I quizzed him about what he had said, and he replied, “He said, ‘You Arabs are a foolish lot!’” So I said, “Why is that?” and he replied, “Because you purposely take those who are dearest to you and whom you hold in highest esteem and throw them under the earth, where they are eaten by the earth, by vermin and by worms, whereas we burn them in the fire there and then, so that they enter Paradise immediately.” […] “Because of the love which my Lord feels for him. He has sent the wind to take him away within an hour.” Actually, it took scarcely an hour for the ship, the firewood,

the slave-girl and her master to be burnt to a fine ash. They built something like a round hillock over the ship, which they had pulled out of the water, and placed in the middle of it a large piece of birch on which they wrote the name of the man and the name of the King of the Rūs. Then they left.

In this abbreviated version of Ibn Fadlan’s account of the burial of a chieftain at Volga, there are at least two characteristic traits of burial from the 10th Century which are should be mentioned in this context: firstly the use of a ship, and the secondly the use of fire and cremation. Both these traits could be said to be typical for Viking burials, but that is not the whole truth. Viking burials consisted of a varied repertoire of traditions, also including flat-mark burials and inhumation burials, which is the end-product of the burial ritual. An aspect with rituals is that they contain much more than has been or will be empha-sised here. The material remains excavated by archaeologist can not tell us much if not interpreted in a context that may elucidate the remains and artefacts. One important aspect that Ibn Fadlan reminds us of with his story, is that

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the burial was taken care of by the society, so in the end it is the com-munity’s wishes and actions that are acted out and not necessarily the deceased’s intentions. The reliability of Ibn Fadlan’s story as a source for Viking burial customs has been debated, as well as the Viking’s presence and con-tribution in the creation of Russia. One positive aspect of Ibn Fad-lan’s account is the authenticity to his story as told by a foreigner. Regardless of the cultural origin of the eye-witness, the story tells the reader how an outsider regarded a burial in the 10th century. This is also something that scholars in general and archaeologists in particular are doing when they are excavating remains of past socie-ties, and thus making us all outsid-ers.

In this article I will present differ-ent burial customs from the Viking and medieval age with a few ex-amples gathered from the Nordic countries. If nothing else is speci-fied, my examples are from Nor-way. It is always easier to explain and see particularities and simi-larities when applying a compara-tive view, which is also what will be done here between Viking and medieval burial customs. When

this is said, my intentions are not to state something fundamentally new, but to present some of my many thoughts regarding burial customs and to give the uninitiated a short overview. In a Norwegian context it is usually said that the Viking age started in the year 793 with the attack on Lindisfarne monastery and ended with king Olav Har-aldsson fall at Stiklestad in the year 1030. Thereafter the me-dieval age started, which ended with the Protestant Reformation in 1536. These accurate years do not reflect reality when it comes to how mentality actually changed over time, which is something that also can be reflected in burial cus-toms. Soon after 1030, King Olav Haraldsson became the national saint of Norway, and the tomb of St. Olav was highly venerated and several pilgrimages went to the Nidaros Cathedral in the medieval age. But now we are getting ahead of ourselves. What was a typical Viking burial?

Burial mounds and flat graves. Perhaps the most magnificent Viking ship that still exists is the Oseberg ship, from Vestfold County in Norway. The ship is approximately 22 meters long,

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and 90% of the original ship is preserved. The Oseberg ship has been dendrochronological dated to around 820 A.D. The burial cham-ber that was placed on the ship has been dated to 834 A.D. Because the burial was made for a woman, and because of the lavishly fur-nished grave, the grave has often been referred to as the burial of a Viking-queen. It is believed that only a queen would be worthy of burial of this splendour. A theory has been advocated that the burial could also be for a völva or a sibyl. This is based among other things on the findings of a staff, and textiles with mythological decorations which can be associat-ed with Freyja-cult. Except from the fact that the grave contained the remains of a woman, it is the amount of grave-gifts, to make it easier for the woman in the next life, which makes the grave so typical for the Viking age. Another trait with this grave is the burial mound over the grave.Burial mounds were a typical trait with Viking burials, but this tradition can also be traced back in history, i.e. as far as the Bronze Age, but from when cairns are more common. The work effort invested in erecting a mound must have been tremendous. From Den-

mark the two perhaps most known mounds are found at Jelling on Jutland. Excavations of these mounds have revealed that they were built in several stages, over several years. The point is that not anybody could have a mound erected over his or her grave as a hopefully everlasting memory. As stated above, the theories regard-ing the woman in the Oseberg grave state that she could perhaps be a queen or a völva. The völva would have gained great respect in a district if she could help the people with a good harvest and so forth. But, the rituals concern-ing the dead did not always end after the grave was finished. There is evidence that several of the mounds were broken into. The ex-planations vary from necromancy to ancestral cult.

The two mounds at Jelling it is said were built by king Harald blue-tooth in memory over his father Gorm and mother Thyra. The mounds are still visible today on each side of the church at Jelling. Excavations on the site have revealed older constructions that can be dated to the Bronze Age. Jelling is one of the places in Scandinavia where it has been suggested that cult place continu-

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ity might have taken place. One aspect and argument for this view is that king Harald allegedly converted to Christianity after the visit of the missionary Poppo in the mid-10th Century, after which he removed his father’s remains from the burial chamber in the north-mound, dendrochronologi-cally dated to 958-959 A.D., and reburied the remains of king Gorm inside the church. This reveals two interesting traits: The first is burials inside churches, and the second is graves without mounds. The first tells us that Christian cul-ture was being adapted also to the earlier pagan world. The reasons for Harald to become a Chris-tian and rebury his father can be related to political reasons as well as religious ones, but to go into these thoroughly is not the topic of this article. The burial inside the church indicates several things. The church in some way replaces the mound as a religious canopy, but inside the church there is just the floor between the deceased and the people. The grave is flat.Flat graves are rarely mentioned when Viking burials are discussed, one reason being the difficulty in finding these graves. Another is that the focus that has been on excavating the large grave

monuments. When flat graves are mentioned it is often in as-sociation with Christian burial customs, which to certain consent could be correct. From the Viking age there has been found in the county of Rogaland several more or less flat graves containing the remains of individuals laid to rest. Such graves are called inhumation graves and can be compared to cremation graves, which is graves containing cremation-ashes. It has been argued that these Viking burials from Rogaland are an example of a society that has been influenced by Christian burial practices without actually fully accepting Christianity. Towards the end of the Viking age and during the early medieval age, around the year 1000 A.D., cultur-al and religious compromises must have been agreed upon. Perhaps the best examples of religious-pragmatism in this context is the agreement at the Icelandic Alþingi in the year 999/1000, were Chris-tianity through the law-speaker and chieftain Torgeir Torkelsson was made the official religion of Iceland. As is stated above, the perhaps most typical Viking burial custom was the erection of mounds. If that is correct, would it not be justified to expect several

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mounds on Iceland, the island where many Vikings settled? The fact is that there are no mounds on Iceland, boat graves are rare and cremation burials have not been found. The Icelandic Viking burial consisted of a shallow pit covered with a low mound of earth and/or stones. These graves are almost unrecognisable compared to the size of the mounds of the graves at Oseberg and Jelling.

Christian burialsCremation burials were one of several burial customs in the Viking age. Ibn Fadlan’s account of his experience is perhaps one of several ways cremation burials could be carried out. According to the man Ibn Fadlan spoke with, the reason to cremate the dead was to hasten the journey of the dead to the next world, where he would be met with all kinds of pleasures. This could almost sound like the Christian idea of heaven, were the faithful and chosen ones will enter. One of the churchyards that have been excavated in later years is at the Hamar Cathedral Point, in Hedmark County. The excavations took place in the years 1991 and 1992. After these two field seasons were over, almost 500 graves in a trench that circled

around the Cathedral had been excavated. What was a typical Christian burial? There are several traits that are typical for Chris-tian burial customs and differ from the burial customs from the Viking age. Whereas the Christian graves are oriented east-west, the Viking burials can be oriented in all kinds of directions, but it has been stressed based on observa-tions from Björkö in Sweden, that a north-south orientation of graves can be a pagan feature. A Chris-tian burial usually had no grave-goods, but a Viking burial could have several things. In the Viking age each individual had to take care of himself, but a Christian would be taken care of by God. Even though there should not be any artefacts in the grave, different things have been found, e.g. seals. Seals have also been found in two of the graves excavated at Hamar, a churchyard approximately used for 400 years after the establish-ment of the Hamar diocese in 1152. Through the medieval age it was also heavily debated in what state the bodily remains would be on the Day of Judgment, when the body and soul would be reunited. Church comments and scholars would advocate that if God once had the power to create mankind

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of ash, he would also be able to re-create the body in the grave. Based on this, it is interesting to see that the French king Charle-magne forbade cremation burials in the 9th Century. The reason for this action was to easier distin-guish Christians from pagans, and because cremation was a pagan ritual. From cremation to the use of charcoal in burialsConcerning the treatment of the human remains it was inhuma-tion graves that became the typi-cal Christian burial custom. Even though objects were not supposed to be placed inside the grave, this was not always followed. From approximately 800 to 1100 there was a tradition for deposing charcoal in European graves. This could be a thin layer of charcoal the body was placed on. This is an ideal definition of charcoal burials, as a minimum characteristic there must be more than a few spots of charcoal. In the medieval age the custom with using charcoal in graves is especially associated with monastic graveyards. In several of the graves excavated at Hamar there has been found charcoal in the graves, and also in the grave-fillings. When we

consider that there was a monas-tery at the Hamar Cathedral Point, it could be from there that the charcoal burials have their origin. As to reasons why charcoal has been placed in graves, the expla-nations have been several, varying from the removal bad odour from decomposing bodies, to indica-tions of piety. What I would like to propose here is the possibility of some sort of cult continuity from the Viking age when cre-mation burials were common. Could it be that people in need of some extra religious credit at their death-bed, for some reason not able to confess and get ab-solved for their sins, got charcoal with them in the grave instead of being cremated, as this was not part of the Christian traditions in the medieval age? The charcoal could represent a cremation burial, and in a Christian context shorten the stay in purgatory on the way towards heaven. It is here suiting to end with the answer Ibn Fadlan gets when he asks about why they set fire to the burial ship:Because you [Arabs] purposely take those who are dearest to you and whom you hold in highest esteem and throw them under the earth, where they are eaten by the earth, by vermin and by worms,

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whereas we burn them in the fire there and then, so that they enter Paradise immediately.

Viking burial traits vs. medieval burial traitsTo sum up what has been said about burial customs in the Viking and medieval age, there are sever-al traits that can be considered, but the main thing is to see these in context, something that it has not been possible to do to any great extent in this article. As an overview it can be said that while both cremation and inhuma-tion graves existed in the Viking age, only inhumation graves sur-vived. In the medieval age it was only the wealthiest or most es-teemed that had mounds built over them in the Viking age, something that can compare to royal tombs in the medieval age, but for most people the burial was confined to a flat grave. It is also

possible that charcoal stayed on in Christian times as a substitute for the earlier pagan cremation burials. While a person from the Viking age could be granted some objects that would be useful in the afterlife, the grace of God was enough for a Christian. On the Day of Judgment, Christ would return from the east and therefore the graves needed to be placed in such a fashion that the dead should face towards Christ. The pagan grave orientations in the Viking age could be everything else than the Christian east-west orientation, and different unknown connota-tions. This is just the tip of an iceberg concerning interpretations of grave features and burial customs; it is by implementing different sources that the better answers will surface.

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Literature

Ariès, Philippe. 1981. The Hour of our Death. Translated from French by Helen Weaver. Alfred A. Knopf. New York.

Brendalsmo, A. Jan and Gun-nhild Røthe. 1992. Haugbrot eller de levendes forhold til de døde – en komparativ analyse. META 1992/1-2:84-119.

Bonde, Niels. 1997. Dendro-chronological Dating of the Viking Age Ship Burials at Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune, Norway. In Archaeological Studies 1995: Pro-ceedings of a conference on the Applications of Scientific Tech-niques to the Study of Archaeol-ogy. Editors A. Sinclair, E. Slater and J. Gowlett. Oxbow Books.

Daniell, Christopher. 1997. Death and Burial in Medieval England. 1066-1550. Routledge. London.

Gräslund, Anne-Sofie. 1980. The Burial Customs. A Study of the Graves on Björkö. Kungl. Vit-terhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien. Stockholm.

Grälund, Anne-Sofie. 1985. Pagan and Christian in the Age of Con-version. In Proceedings of the

Tenth Viking Congress, Larkollen 1985. Editor James E. Knirk. Uni-versitetes Oldsaksamling. Oslo.

Hägglund, Bengt. 1981. Teologins historia. En dogmatisk översikt. Gleerups. Malmö.

Hærnes, Per. 1995. Kristen in-nflytelse i Rogalands vikingtid. In Møtet mellom hedendom og kris-tendom i Norge. Redaktør Hans-Emil Lidén. Universitetesforlaget. Oslo.

Ibn Fadlān and the Rūsiyyah. Translated by James E. Mont-gomery; Internet Cite: http://www.uib.no/jais/v003ht/03-001-025Montgom1.htm. Read: 16. December 2006.

Ingstad, Anne Stine. 1995. Ch. 15:The Interpretation of the Oseberg-find. In The Ship as Symbol in Prehistoric and Medieval Scandi-navia. Editors Ole Crumlin-Peder-sen and Birgitte Munch Thye. The National Museum of Denmark.

Jón Viðar Sigurðsson. 2003. Kristninga i Norden. 750-1200. Det norske samlaget. Oslo.

Koch, Hanne Dahlerup. 1991. Re-sultater fra de arkeologiske utgrav-

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ningene på kirkegården omkring domkirkeruinene på Hamar 1991. In Fra Kaupang og bygd 1991. Hedmarksmuseet og Domkirkeod-den. Hamar.

Krogh, Knud J. 1993. Gåden om Kong Gorms Grav. Historien om Nordhøjen i Jelling. Vikinge-kongernes monumenter i Jelling. Bind I. Carslbergfondet og Na-tionalmuseet. Poul Kristensens forlag.

McNicol, John. 1997. Plasser-ing av de første kirkene i Norge i forhold til de første kultstedene. En historiografisk studie omfat-tende tide etter 1830. Norges forskningsråd. KULTs skriftserie nr. 98.

Müller-Wille, Michael. 1982. Köningsgrab und Köningsgrab-kirche. Funde und Befunde im frühgesichtlichen und mittelalter-lichen Nordeuropa. In Berich der Römisch-Germanischen Kommis-sion 63. Verlag Philipp von Zab-ern. Mainz am Rhein.

Pedersen, Ellen Anne. 1999. Tusen års historie i kirkegårdens dyp – fra utgravningene ved Hamar Domkirkeruin 1988-1992. In Uni-versitetets Oldsaksamling Årbok

1999. Oslo.

Sawyer, P. H. 1981. Kings and Vikings. Scandinavia and Europe AD 700-1100. Routledge. London.

Sellevold, Berit Jansen. 2001. From Death to Life in Medieval Hamar. Skeletons and Graves as Historical Source Material. Acta Humaniora nr. 109. Unipub forlag. Oslo.

Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir. 2004. The Awakening of Christianity in Iceland. Discovery of a Tim-ber Church and Graveyard at Þórarinsstaðir in Seyðisfjórður. GOTARC. Series B No 31. PhD Thesis. University of Gothenburg. Gothenburg.

Thompson, Victoria. 2004. Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England. The Boydell Press.

Om Kristian OmnesSkriver masteravhandling i midde-lalderstudier, tema er gravskikk på Hamar i middelalderen. Har mellomfag i religionshistorie og arkeologi, som inngår i hans cand.mag.-grad.

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Tverrfaglige middelal-derstudier – liv laga?Av Terje Spurkland

Først vil jeg gratulere med lanser-ingen av et nytt studenttidsskrift, Vellum. Det er både prisverdig og imponerende at studentene i den nåværende situasjonen går ak-tivt ut for å vise at dere slett ikke betrakter tverrfaglige middelalder-studier på Det humanistisk fakultet i Oslo som liggende på sotteseng og at dere vil være offensive i den fasen vi nå er inne i. En fase som blir svært så avgjørende for hva som skjer med dette studiet i fremtiden. Her kommer en liten statusrapport slik jeg betrakter situasjonen fra mitt ståsted. Middelaldersenteret er en saga blott. Det opphørte i realiteten i og med omorganiseringen av fakultetet, som resulterte i at Mid-delaldersenteret høsten 2005 gikk opp i en høyere enhet i IAKH (Institutt for arkeologi, konserver-ing og historiske studier) og ble en undervisningsavdeling i dette instituttet. Her viste det seg fort at det tildelte ressurser ikke ville strekke til for å holde liv i et faglig forsvarlig undervisningstilbud i middelalderstudier. Det førte til

at det ble innført opptaksstopp på bachelorprogrammet i 2006. Den vanskelige ressurssituasjonen har ikke bare vedvart, den ble stadig verre, og fakultetet så seg nødt til både å forlenge opptaksstoppen på bachelorprogrammet til 2007 og stoppe inntaket av internasjonale studenter på masterprogrammet med øyeblikkelig virkning. Par-allelt med denne utviklingen, eller som et resultat av den, begynte lærerstaben på middelalderavde-lingen å søke seg bort fra IAKH. Karl Johnsson hadde jo allerede flyttet til ILN (Institutt for lingvis-tiske og nordiske studier) i og med omorganiseringen, og nå fikk denne fremsynte svensken følge. Jeg flyttet til ILN nå i høst, Gro Steinsland flytter til ILN ved semesteroppstart over nyttår, og Signe Horn Fuglesang og Chris-tian Keller går da til IKOS (Insti-tutt for kulturstudier og oriental-ske språk). Michael Benskin er også på flyttefot, han går antakelig tilbake til ILOS (Institutt for litter-atur, områdestudier og europeiske språk). Vi blir da sittende ikke så langt fra hverandre i Henrik Wergeland og P.A. Munchs hus. Jon Vidar Sigurdsson blir sittende i Blinderveien 11 enn så lenge. Er så middelalderprogrammene å betrakte som nedlagt? Formelt sett

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er de ikke det. Vi ligger liksom på været og håper at situasjonen vil bedre seg. Vi er forpliktet til å sørge for at alle som har startet både bachelor- og masterprogram-met skal ha mulighet til å fullføre et fullverdig studium. De bach-elorstudenter som har lagt opp et studieløp med tanke på å ta en master skal også få mulighet til det. Studietilbudet vil imidlertid bli en minimumsløsning. Det vil bli en kraftig reduksjon i engelsk-språklige MAS-emner, i og med at vi har tatt en pause i opptaket av internasjonale studenter. De som kan følge norskspråklig under-visning, må i større grad titte over gjerdet for å se om det på andre programmer og institutter gis emner som kan gå inn i emneopr-teføljen deres. Er det noen som får problemer med å fylle opp en emnegruppe, må dere ta kontakt slik at vi i fellesskap kan se hvilke muligheter vi har. Skulle det bli behov for det, vil vi lage ad hoc løsninger tilpasset den enkelte. I dette perspektivet ser situasjo-nen kanskje ikke så lys ut. Men det er noen lysglimt i enden av tunnelen. Det ene glimtet heter ”internasjonalisering”. Masterpro-grammet i middelalderstudier har vært et av fakultetets fyrtårn når det gjelder internasjonalisering, og

dette fyrtårnet vil fakultetsledelsen ikke uten videre slukke helt. Det er nedsatt tverrfaglig komité på fakultetet som skal utrede fakulte-tets engelskspråklige studietilbud på masternivå. I denne komiteen sitter jeg, og som studentenes rep-resentant møter Karoline Kjesrud fra vårt masterprogram. Gruppen skal innen 1. februar levere en innstilling med forslag til fakulte-tet om hvilke av fakultetets fago-mråder som bør ha et mastertilbud på engelsk. Det er helt klart at tverrfaglige middelalderstudier vil være et av forslagene. Så er det opp til fakultetet å vurdere våre forslag og eventuelt ta dem til følge.

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En annet lyspunkt heter ILN, som er det instituttet hvor Karl Johnsson, Gro Steinsland og jeg vil holde hus. Dette instituttet uttrykker stor velvilje overfor middelalderstudier, både når det gjelder forskning og undervisning. Det er også herfra middelalder-programmene i den umiddelbare fremtid vil ha sin faglige basis. Siden ILN er et institutt for språk og litteratur, er det først og fremst norrøn filologi som her blir for-bundet med middelalderstudier. Men det er norrøn filologi i en vid betydning av ordet. Vi kan godt omformulere det til norrøne tekststudier. Det vil bli gitt mange emner med prefikset NFI, både på norsk og engelsk som vil kunne gå inn i et fremtidig middelalder-program, både på bachelor- og master-nivå. Det betyr at midde-lalderprogrammene i større grad vil bli tekstorientert enn tidligere. Da tenker jeg ikke bare på norrøne tekststudier, mens også keltisk og angelsaksisk. Vi vil likevel opprettholde dette som et tverrf-aglig studium. Christian Keller vil fortsette med Nord-Atlanteren fra sitt ståsted. Problemet er kun-sthistorien, middelalderhistorien og middelalderlatinen. Signe og Jon Vidar skal ha forskningsfri, og Jan Schumacher er tilbake på

Menightesfakultetet. Får vi imi-dlertid overbevist noen kunsthis-torikere, historikere og en klassisk filolog om lykken i å bidra til et tverrfaglig middelalderprogram, vel da er vi på skinnene igjen og kan gi full gass fremover.

Det sterkeste lys i tunnelen er imidlertid årets tildeling av fors-kningsmidler fra Forskningsrådet. Der har Anne Irene Risøy fått et treårig post.doc.stipend om ”Et komparativt blikk på fredløshetens innhold, funksjon og utvikling i Nord-Atlanteren ca. 900-1200”. Dessuten har Karl og jeg, sam-men med historikeren Hans Jacob Orning ved høyskolen i Volda fått midler til et fireårig forskningsprosjekt ”Translation, Transmission and Transformation. Old Norse Romantic Fiction and Scandinavian Vernacular Literacy 1200-1500”. Her skal vi ansette to doktorgradsstipendiater, arrangere seminarer, invitere gjesteforskere og gjesteforelesere. Prosjektet vil generere stor aktivitet som også vil komme studentene til gode, blant annet i form av forskning-srelaterte studietilbud. Prosjekttit-telen kan oversettes og tabloidis-eres til ”Riddersagaene møter Fornaldersagaene og søt musikk oppstår”, og forskergruppen blir

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allerede omtalt som ”Karl & co.”. Vi kan derfor konkludere med at til tross for at tverrfaglige mid-delalderstudier i den senere tid har seilt strekt motstrøms, finnes det også tiltakende krefter medstrøms, som gjør at vi i grunnen ikke trenger å betrakte oss som lagt på sotteseng. Vi tar noen hvileskjær ved inngangen til 2007, og ved utgangen av dette året kan vi igjen ha skiftet takt og akselererer mot realiseringen av et tverrfaglig mid-delalderstudium som kan være vel så innholdsrikt, faglig utfordrende og interessant som det dere en gang startet på.

Og med disse enkle ord gjenstår det for meg å ønske alle midde-lalderstudenter et riktig godt nytt studieår. Og skulle mismodigheten senke seg over studiehverdagen deres, er det bare å stemme i refrainet fra kampsangen til Karl & co:

Vi ska’ klara av’etbåde gammal och ung,om vi enastog sputtar i nävarnaRATTATATA!

Terje SpurklandProgramleder

64

NR.1 Januar 2007 vellum-tidsskrift@hf.uio.no

Neste nummer kommer i august 2007 Deadline 1. juli