Archive for marts, 2012

mar 29

Passion in Prague

One of the more evocative places in Prague is the Jewish churchyard and the Altneuschul, the oldest active synagogue in Europe. Built in gothic style in 1270 it was the scene of a terrible pogrom in 1389.

That year was especially dangerous for the Jewish community as the Jewish Pesach (Passover) and the Christian Pasqua (Easter) coincided. Traditionally, this made mob violence more likely as Christians became enflamed by the hateful renderings of the Passion of Christ with the medieval tradition for virulent blaming of the Jews, while the Jews were busy organising their festivities; amongst those the baking of matzoh, which dough Christian myth claimed was mixed with the blood of Christian children.

As usual the Jews were forbidden to appear in public between Holy Thursday and Easter. However, the Jewish quarter in Prague was at this time (as later) crammed with people some of which were Christians and at some point on Holy Saturday a procession worked its way through the tiny allies carrying the host to a dying Christian. Somehow this became the proverbial spark when the Christians afterwards claimed that stones had been thrown at them, spilling the host on the ground. Whatever the truth behind this, it ended in a terrible tragedy as some of the Jews were hauled into town in or- der to be punished. Come Easter Sunday Christians, not satisfied with this, swarmed into the Jewish quarter armed with stones, swords and axes. After the quarter was set ablaze, the Jews took refuge in the Altneuschul, where they started to “sanctify the name” (Kiddush ha-Shem) by killing first their children and afterwards themselves. Rather than submitting to a down- right massacre or forced baptisms this was the traditional way out since Roman persecutions.

The death toll has recently been calculated to be around 4 – 500, approximately half to two-thirds of the Jews in Prague at that time.

And then the looting began. Unfortunately the king, who was highly dependent on the income from the taxation of the Jewish Community, afterwards ordered the amassed valuables delivered at the castle. One source claimed that values to the amount of five barrels of silver ended up in the coffers of the king. Some even hinted at the king having been personally involved in the instigation.

The pogrom in Prague does not fall into the general pattern of European pogroms, neither the early ones connected with the crusades and perpetrated by Muslims as well as Christians or the later wave prompted by the Black Death. It was just one of those recurrent infamous events, which from time to time would blot the history of medieval Europe. But which it is especially important to remember in so far as people today can go and visit the actual place, where the horrendous killings took place. Even today a special lament or elegy, Et Kol ha-Tela’ah asher Mea’atnu, composed by Rabbi Avigdor Kara after the killings, is read at Yom Kippur in Prague. Another reason to remember this particular pogrom is a text, which was produced in the after- math: The passion of the Jews in Prague, which has recently been the object of a meticulous study by the church historian Barbara Newman.

This curious text – the Passion – must be classified as a parody, although it in no way possesses the humorous aspects, which we connect with this genre. Nevertheless, it is still a parody in so far as it tells the story of the events in  Prague with the Jews in the role of Jesus, but with the added twist, that the killing of them (as opposed to him) was totally righteous!

Source for the parody are texts from the bible, primarily the gospels of St. Mathew and St. John, from which lengthy passages are picked, and transformed. Over 90 biblical verses are cited, although often reversed or twisted. For instance the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane is reversed like this: While the actual saying (according to Matthew) is “Yet not as I will, but as you will”, the ringleader of the Christian mob exclaims that the outcome of the violence, will not be as the Jews “want, but as we will”.

According to Barbara Newman such twisting creates a literary space for the reader, who is constantly reminded of the radical nature of the “real” passion, which echoes the story about the passion of the Jews in Prague. Onone hand there is the Passion in Prague about the Jews, who the mob believed “had it coming”, a bunch of mercenary rioters and the ruthless magistrates. On the other hand there is the Passion of Christ.

Newman is of the opinion that this sounding board – the biblical passion – radically undermines the points, the author of the Prague Passion tried to make. She believes, that the anonymous author “saw the events in Prague as renewing the Savior’s vengeance against the Jews”. In Barbara New- mans words, the formula for the parody, which he picked – the passion of Christ – created a “textual unconscious that, despite the author’s best efforts, allows the grace of irony and pity to seep through”.

Whether the anonymous author was conscious about this – which is not the opinion of Barbara New- man – is not easy to ascertain in so far as the Passion is currently unavailable apart from a translation into Czech. In her forthcoming book: “Medieval Crossover: Reading the secular against the Sacred”, we are promised a translation into English and the possibility of addressing these questions will become widely possible.

Which is important. One reason is the curious fact, that one of the manuscripts containing the Passion from Prague, according to Barbara Newman, stems from the Cathedral and contains a number of anti-Hussite works.

It is well known that the early protestant reformer Jan Huss, 1369 – 1415, is presumed to have had friendly dealings with the Jews in Prague and especially the afore- mentioned Rabbi Avigdor Kara. And on the gravestone of Avigdor Kara – the oldest in the cemetery in Prague, his father is given the epithet of martyr. He was presumably killed in the massacre.

One wonders, whether the parody was more than just a parody on the Passion of Christ. Maybe it was an elegant parody on the hate-speech of the burghers in Prague around 1400. One might even wonder: Did Jan Huss or one of his friends write it? Presumably he was already studying at the University during the fateful Easter of 1389 and must have seen the happenings up close. And felt disgusted!

The Passion of the Jews of Prague. The Pogrom of 1389 and the Lessons of a Medieval Parody. Barbara Newman
Church History, 2012 81: 1-26

Gentile Tales. The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews. By Miri Rubin. University of Pennsylvania Press 2003

Jewish Synagogue in Prague

Jewish Heritage in Prague

mar 27

The Rylands Haggadah

From the calling of Moses to the crossing of the Red Sea, the drama of the ancient Israelites’ exodus from Egypt is presented in The Rylands Haggadah.

The Haggadah is one of the central texts of Rabbinic Judaism. Its use on the first nights of Passover by Jews all over the world from Alaska to Zimbabwe continues a tradition reaching back into antiquity. The so-called Rylands Haggadah is a masterpiece from 14^th century Catalonian Spain. During the last eight months it has been painstakingly conserved in order to preserve the pigment and gold, which was starting to flake. Comprising 57 lavishly decorated vellum leaves, the treasure was acquired by Enriqueta Rylands in 1901, as part of the world famous Crawford collection of manuscripts. Normally it resides at the John Rylands University Library at Manchester University.

However, from March till September 2012 the precious “Rylands Haggadah” will be exhibited at the Metropolitan in New York. Each month, the Haggadah will be open to a different page, affording visitors the exceptional opportunity to follow the artist’s telling of the Exodus story. Works of art from the Museum’s own collection, made for Christian use but depicting the saga of the Hebrew people, will suggest the larger, medieval context of biblical storytelling in which the Haggadah was created.This is the third in a series of installations focusing on one masterwork of Hebrew manuscript illumination from a national or international collection. The previous installations featured the Washington Haggadah (on view April 5–July 4, 2011) and Lisbon’s Hebrew Bible (on view November 22, 2011–January 16, 2012).

“This manuscript is one of the finest Haggadot in the world. It is important for its intrinsic beauty and for various textual details, but it is also a key source for the study of the illumination of Hebrew manuscripts in general. It shines a light on the tradition of Biblical illustration among the Jews of the Middle Ages and on the cross-fertilisation between Jewish and non-Jewish artists within the medium of manuscript illumination, said Rylands Collections and Research Support Manager John Hodgson recently to Manchester University News.

The installation in New York is made possible by The David Berg Foundation.

The Rylands Haggadah
Medieval Jewish Art in Context
The Metropolitan, New York
March 27–September 30, 2012

Digitised edition of the Ryland Haggadah

mar 23

Walraversidje

Close to airport of Osteende, Belgie, lies a proper hidden gem, the Walraversijde archaeological site.

The excavation of the deserted medieval fishing village of Walraversijde started in 1992. Due to the ravaging wars at the beginning of the 16th and 17th century the village had de facto been deserted. Hence, when archaeologist started digging, they were able to uncover a vide variety of material culture, which characterised this fishing community in the Middle Ages. Part of these rich findings have together with inspiration from amongst other sources the painted interiors of the Flemish Primitives resulted in a faithful recreation of four houses anno 1465.

A visit starts with an audio-visual presentation in which the history of the Domain of Raversijde is evoked by means of virtual reality technology. Then follows a walk through the reconstructed medieval landscape, which takes the visitor to four fisherman’s houses: the house of the rich ship-owner, the house of the fisherman’s widow, the house of the fisherman and his family and the fish smokehouse cum bakery.

This is followed by a ‘transitional experience’ where visitors move from a ruin of a village house to an archaeologist’s working space, thus returning to the 21st century. The excavation site is some metres away, exactly on the spot where the four fisherman’s houses were discovered.

The visit to the site ends with an exhibition in the museum buil-ding, where some of the original objects are displayed in their context by means of the latest interactive techniques.

Walraversijde
Already in the 12th century a number of fishermens’ settlements existed along the coast. At that time the larger towns and ports had important fleets and organised off-shore ventures in the new lucrative marine enterprises. Walraversijde seems to have started as nothing but a seasonal mooring place, probably organised by the Counts of Flanders. Here large catches of herring and flatfish were landed and processed – either by drying, smoking or salting, using the local marine salt.

During the 13th and 14th century the built environment consisted of small dispersed groups of houses. Somewhat later the village moved inland and prospered due to the exploitation of the local resources: fish in the sea, peat for the saltworks and part-time labour from the populous inland. However, due to the extensive peat-digging, the dunes started drifting. Further, the coast was hit by the devastating St. Vincentius flood of 1394, which basically left the village in front of the dunes on the beach. Once more it was moved back. Due to the wars in the 16th and 17th century this settlement was eventually deserted, which left a virtual “plum” for the archaeologists.

What surfaced was a picture of a flourishing community with a large group of people, half of whom were away from home for along time. At the top were the Schliepiden, the captains and owners of the fishing vessels. These were manned with up to 20 free fishermen, who brought their own nets and had a share in the profits. These fishing enterprises were highly commercial.

An important precondition for success was access to local knowledge about pilotage or guidance of ships through the estuaries, the location of “good” fishing spots, the tackle and the conservation methods. Later, when fishing on the Doggersbank started, capital and investment in large fishing vessels came from the nearby cities like Oostende.

At that time Walraversijde consisted of around 100 houses, a common “draeyplats” for rope-making, the brewery, the local inn and from around 1435, a chapel. The settlement was quite compact, leaving no room for gardening or small household farming. People lived off the sea and the fish.

Brick was the dominant building materials of the thatched houses. The flooring was either made of bricks or just plain clay covered with sand. If the houses were large (more than a 100 m2) they were usually characterised by brick latrines, brick walls, red painted plastering and coloured glass windows. The heating device was situated against the wall or very close to the wall. Artificial light was made with bronze chandeliers or ceramic oil-lamps. In many houses Spanish lustre wares from Valencia, Màlaga and Sevilla were found, probably stemming from payment for piloting. As is usual for villages close to the shore, the material culture was also marked by income from privateering, wreckages and beach-combing.

All this and much more may be studied at the recreated village and in the museum.

Walraversijde Museum
Nieuwpoortsesteenweg 636,
Oostende, Belgie

At the English wikipedia entrance for Walraversidje, five research articles may be downloaded

mar 23

Fish Fight Anno 1000

Last year celebrity cook, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, called for a pan-European Fish Fight. The aim was to get the European Council to ban the discards of side-catched fish, daily thrown overboard due to the current system of quotas. As of now nearly 800.000 people have signed this petition on www.fishfight.net.

Last week (19.03.2012) the question of discards was discussed at a meeting in the European Fisheries Council. Although there was general agreement about the issues at stake, the Southern European member states once more argued for a complex step-by-step approach. The conclusion was that there was a need to identify species, which should be exempt from the general ban; species, which were not threatened with overfishing and thus not endangered by the habit of discard. It seems, however, that the question was not raised, why such by-catch should be discarded at all. If the fish taken as by-catch does not belong to threatened species, could it not just be landed? To the suspicious Europeans it all sounds very much as a way to once more find a loophole for allowing the praxis to continue. Add to this the fact that the Commission a few days before had (once more) fined Spain for overfishing of horse-mackerel, blue whiting and monkfish and imposing the fines on individual boats. However, representatives of the Spanish fishing industry said that these fines converted to cuts would only lead to an increase in discards, as horse-mackerel is often caught as by-catch.

It is well known that the European fisheries are very heavily subsidised. And moreover that most of the income ends up in the pockets of a few so-called fish-barons or fish-lords. For instance it has been estimated that the former agreement between Europe and Morocco about fishing quotas off the West Coast of Northern Africa has had serious consquences for the local people, the Saharawis, whose land is unlawfully occupied by the Moroccans; and that the income from these agreements has primarily lined the pockets of only 100 huge Spanish Vessels = 0.9% of the total fleet.

What is less well known is, that the concepts of environmental degradation, overfishing, authorities trying to install regulations, and the existence of veritable fish-lords are nothing new. All four elements existed in Antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages.

Environmental degradation
Up until the year 1000 the environmental pressure was not huge. The population in Europe was still sparse and mostly sustained by local subsistence economies based on fairly extensive forms of agro-pastoralism. From around the year 950 – 1000 a number of important changes began to take place. First of all the population started to grow. Hitherto pristine forests were slashed and burned, while the land was turned into tilled and farmed. Soil erosion and alluvial deposition was the direct consequence; bare fallow, the enlarged open fields and ploughing with the slope created silted waterways. Added to this was the introduction of watermills which impeded not only navigation, but also the movement of migratory fresh water fish. These changes created two new consumption profiles among the elites in Europe.

The saltwater fisheries
In Northern Europe the sporadic consumption of fresh water fish like salmon shifted towards the consumption of Marine species like herring and cod. Investigations of collections of fishbones at diverse locations in England has shown how the shift from freshwater to saltwater fish consumption took place inside a few decades around the year 1000. Cod was primarily fished by the Norwegians and shipped as stockfish. The trade in this commodity around 1000 was enabled by new shipbuilding techniques resulting in larger vessels with double carrying capacity. A little later salting, barrelling and shipping herring became a widespread economic activity along the Baltic Coast creating an important export venture for the Hanseatic League plus Scandinavia.

The carpe ponds
In the Middle and Central Europe the widespread silting of rivers, streams and lakes on the other hand created the opportunity for the introduction of the medieval carpe industry with its industrial complexes of huge fishponds known from the Danube basin; a fish-farming industry, which was later exported to the North West and came to dominate in Poland, Central Germany and along the large rivers of central France.

Thus, while people in Southern Europe continued to fish the Mediterranean, Northern and Central Europe post 1000 – 1100 experienced new possibilities for eating marine species of fish at a larger scale, while Central Europe began to farm carpes at a huge scale. At the same time the consumption of a number of traditional freshwater species became heavily reduced. One of them, the river sturgeon, practically became extinct.

Controversial delicacy
These changes may have had something to do with the dietary prescriptions introduced during the continuous reformations, where ascetic reformers tried to (re)install more proper ways of life in their monasteries or amongst their flocks. However, in principle these reforms always built on the

rule of St. Benedict, which ordai-ained a sparse regimen of bread, vegetables, cheese, oil, fowl and fish, but no meat from quadropeds; a regimen, which in time became the norm for ordinary people during Advent, Lenten and on other fast days. But fish was never declared an obligatory dish on fast-days and was in fact generally an expensive delicatessen enjoyed by the elites. Amongst some ascetic ecclesiastics in the 11th and 12th century it was accordingly considered a decadent pleasure to be avoided at all accounts.

Although the idea of eating fish at Lenten and on other of the obligatory days of fasting without doubt did contribute to create vigorous markets in the middle ages, it seems that this explanation for the new consumption patterns is not sufficient. Rather some of these changes –e.g. the shift around 1000 in England from freshwater to saltwater fish – were so rapid that other explanations must be proffered. Primarily the growing urbanisation and the accompanying trade, characterising the coasts of England at that time, are seen as the best explanations. Later the same explanations led to the discovery, overfishing and finally total collapse of the cod at Newfoundland.

Whatever the explanation, there is no doubt that human exploitation of both freshwater and seawater resources had wide-reaching impact on the environment both in the middle ages and later on.The “pristine” character of yesteryears fishing waters is thus a myth. This should, however, not in any way be understood as an invitation to stop the fish fight of the 21century!

mar 17

My name is Patrick

My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person and the least of all the believers…

Today is the day of St. Patrick. It is also yet another day marked by the horrible sufferings in Syria. Remembering this, it is well worth (re)reading the words, which St. Patrick wrote to Coroticus:

“So I don’t know which is the cause of the greatest grief for me: whether those who were slain, or those who were captured, or those whom the devil so deeply ensnared. They will face the eternal pains of Gehenna equally with the devil; because whoever commits sin is rightly called a slave and a son of the devil. For this reason, let every God-fearing person know that those people are alien to me and to Christ my God, for whom I am an ambassador: father-slayers, brother-slayers, they are savage wolves devouring the people of God as they would bread for food. It is just as it is said: The wicked have routed your law, O Lord — the very law which in recent times he so graciously planted in Ireland and, with God’s help, has taken root.” (From The Epistola to Coroticus)

The quotation is from the new translation of the writings of St. Patrick published on the Internet as well as a kindle-book. The edition is furnished by the Royal Irish Academy in connection with a new homepage filled with translations, scholarly resources and high quality information about what we in fact do know about the Irish saint from the 4th – 5th century; which is – alas – not very much, when all the embellishments of the following centuries of hagiographical reworking of the legends are subjected to scientific evaluation.

If in Dublin this afternoon it might be worthwhile to get a ticket to St. Patrick’s Cathedral where the book is formally launched. The programme will include an introduction by Pádraig McCarthy (translator of the Confessio), a reading of the Confessio (in Latin and English) by Dr Anthony Harvey and Ruth Hegarty (Royal Irish Academy) and a performance by members of the Chapel Choir, Trinity College Dublin (Conductor, Margaret Bridge), of extracts from the medieval office of St Patrick, edited byDr Ann Buckley from 15th-century manuscripts from the Library of Trinity College.

May Name is Patrick…

mar 14

Gokstad Viking Village

Experts have found a hitherto unknown Viking Settlement near Gokstad, which looks like buildings along a market

Using a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometer, surveys have revealed a Viking-age settlement in Sandefjord in Gokstadhaugen, eastern Norway. With at least 15 buildings and an 80-metre long street and a port, it is an impressive conglomeration of buildings, which looks much like a market street.

However, the archaeologists are not only excited about the new discovery. They are also pleased that new technology improves the possibilities of making major discoveries without cumbersome and expensive digs.

NIKUoversikt 4small 300x279 Gokstad Viking Village

Work at Gokstad has been going on for a couple of years. Researchers are trying to see if they can establish a context to the amazing shipburial, which was found in 1880 before modern technologies were standard. The ship was found because local farmers began digging for antiquities. This alarmed the first Norwegian State Antiquarian, Nicolay Nicolaysen, who initiated and conducted a scientific excavation of the mound. Apart from the 23 m long, well-preserved ship with a wooden burial chamber built behind the mast, the grave included the incomplete remains of a male skeleton, wooden furniture, a sledge, a tent, and equipment for riding, sailing and household. Also bones from horses, dogs and fowl were found as well as the broken-up parts of three smaller boats. The burial had been looted in ancient times, which was possibly the reason for the lack of weapons and personal objects. The finds were transported to Oslo, where they became part of Oldsaksamlingen. Currently they are on display in the Viking Ship Museum at Bygdøy.

Nicolaysen briefly published the find already in 1882 in what was little more than a catalogue. Since then research on Gokstad focused primarily on the ship and the boats; and on attempts to identify the buried person in historical sources. In 1993, however, the Gokstad ship and burial was dated by means of dendrochronology to the last decade of the 9th and the first decade of the 10th centuries respectively. And in 2007 a second important step was taken when the lead coffin with the bones of the Gokstad man, reburied in the mound in 1928, was removed from its stone sarcophagus and brought to the University of Oslo for research and future storage. An anthropological examination produced evidence of a male person in his 40s, about 181 cm tall and of extreme physical constitution. Several marks of peri-mortal blows from slashing weapons showed that the man had been killed, probably in battle. He may also have suffered from a tumour leading to acromegaly.

A research project, Gokstad revitalized, has since then been initiated by the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo. The aim is to bring the Gokstad find into the forefront of current Viking Age research and to increase its value as cultural heritage. Up until now, the find has had an apparently isolated position, both as archaeological monument in the landscape, and as a cultural historical phenomenon. Although sporadic archaeological investigations and chance finds since the 1880′s have demonstrated that the surroundings around Kongshaugen are rich in other contemporary structures, it has until now had a tentative character. Apart from analyzing the landscape – which so far has yielded the impressive new information – the entire Gokstad find – the mound, the animals, the objects and the deceased – will be viewed as a single, monumental manifestation and deciphered in order to discover what the intention was behind the burial. At the core of the Gokstad revitalised project thus stands the goal to create a context around the burial, and to give an archaeological answer to the question Who was the Gokstad man?

mar 11

Krásna Hôrka Burns

Yesterday Krásna Hôrka Castle in Slovakia burnt down…

In 1318 the village of Krásna Hôrka was sold to the Batisz family. They started to build the first castle on the limestone hilltop. First it was a medieval fortified donjon. The present heavily fortified building was erected in the 16^th century after 1540 during the Turkish invasions. History tells of the owners, the Bebeks as “thievish knights” who used to steal church bells and cast canons from them and the castle had a magnificent collection of canons and other weaponry on show. Further the Bebeks were well-known forgers and his secret mint has hitherto been on show in the upper or “old” castle. Later the Bebeks joined up with the Turks and fought the emperor. In 1567 the last Bebek died, and the imperial court administered the castle. In 1642 the castle was donated to one of its castellans, Matthias Andrássy, who embarked upon a rebuilding. The result was the so-called lower castle, a small pleasant renaissance addition

The last extensive rebuilding of the castle was carried out in 1770s, where the majestic south-eastern bastion called Dobogó was turned into a chapel. In the 19^th century the family left to live elsewhere, and the castle was turned into a family museum. In 1945 the castle was expropriated and in 1948 declared a national cultural property. Since 1996, the castle has been administered by the Slovak National Museum, as part of Museum Betliar. Although filled with a mix of diverse left-overs from former times, the castle has been considered well worth a visit due to its location and architecture.

Get a glimpse here of the – probably – lost glories of Krâsna Hôrka

mar 7

Courtly Culture

One of the puzzling things in the medieval history of Scandinavia is the difference historians have found between the cultural outlook at the courts of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Why did the Norwegian court so manifestly catch on to the ideals of courtly culture, while the courts of Denmark and Sweden apparently lacked behind. This is the question raised by a Norwegian historian in a recent article.

According to Marlen Ferrer medieval courtliness has too often been reduced to a kind of literary fiction as witnessed by the popular courtly romances and their stories about courtly love. Instead “courtoisie” should be thought of as encompassing eloquence, generosity, nobility, good manners and as opposed to being vulgar, mean, ugly and base. As such it should be recognised as a specific culture inculcated at court in order to further peaceful coexistence at a time when violence might quickly erupt.

Two explanations for the cultural adaptation of this new behavior or new culture has traditionally been given. One – by Jaeger – claims that the ideas were introduced by clerics, who increasingly were tied to the gradually more centralized courts of kings. Another explanation – by Duby – is that the widespread ideas of courtliness were the result of the gradual fusing of the culture of the crusader knights with those of the lesser gentry.

The idea brought forward by Marlen Ferrer is, that both explanations seems to be applicable in Scandinavia from the 11th to the 14th century; which helps to explain the apparent differences between the three countries, which historically were enmeshed in each other

In Norway courtliness seems to have caught on at an early time. Already in 1226 the Norwegian king, Håkon Håkonsson, commissioned a translation of “Tristams Saga” by a cleric, brother Robert. This was followed by a number of other translations of the Arthurian tales as well as the work of Marie de France. It has been suggested that the Norwegian king initiated these translations to make his court adapt the prestigious chivalric ideals and ideology, which played such an important part in the other European courts. Further the court produced a unique source, the Konungs Skuggsjá – the Royal Shield, which is a dialogue between the king and his son, advocating the new, more “mild” behavior. As opposed to this none of th pan-European literature was translated into Danish or Swedish until much later.

Marlen Ferrer suggests that the prevalent courtly literature in Norway in the 13th century was the result of a conscious royal policy, destined to increase the king’s authority though it’s application of a religiously motivated ethos. As opposed to this, the tradition in Denmark was much more diverse, while that of Sweden was hardly existing until courtliness was introduced by Queen Euphemia in 1302 – 12 through the translations into Swedish of the so-called “Euphemia visorna”.

Several reasons why Denmark caught on so late may be syggested. For instance it seems plausible that one reason was the prevalent use of the German language at the Danish court. The songs and the Romances has simply been enjoyed in this language. However, there exists a tradition of ballads in Danish, which might be dated to the 14th century and which is part of the international literary tradition. These ballads and verses cannot be univocally tied to the court of the Danish king. Instead they seem to be celebrating the courtly life at the manors of the nobility. This ties, according to Marlen Ferrar, in with the fact that the Danish Kingdom was actually gradually falling apart between 1223 and 1325. Not until 1350 does it make sense to talk about a strong Danish state. Courtly culture and traditions did set their mark upon life in medieval Denmark. This however was not linked to the Royal court as in Norway, where the local nobility was economically much more dependent upon the existence of a strong state and royal office.

The article is interesting as a kind of well-argued piece of micro-history. However, one question is not put forward: Might the different outplays simply have to do with the different inclinations and orientations of the major personalities performing their roles as kings (or queens)?

Håkon Håkonsson was born in a war-torn society plagued by armed gangs and warlords, and died the undisputed ruler of a large and internationally respected kingdom. At his court, chivalric romances and Biblical stories were translated into the old Norse language, while Håkon presided over several large-scale construction projects in stone, which was a novelty in Norway at that time. (The great hall, which he had built at his palace in Bergen (Håkonshallen) can still be seen today.)

As opposed to this Denmark after 1241 suffered from a series of civil wars and internecine strifes, escalating into a de facto devolvement of the kingdom after 1326, when the country was governed by a series of German counts, to which the country was literally pawned.

Read more:

Ferrar, Marlen: State Formation and Courtly Culture in the Scandinavian Kingdoms in the High Middle Ages. In: Scandinavian Journal of History 2012, 37:1, 1 – 22

Ferrer, Marlen (2008): Emotions in motion. Emotional diversity in 13th century Spanish and Norse society. Doktoravhandling, Universitetet i Oslo.

Jaeger, Stephen: The Origins of Courtliness – Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939 – 1210. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania press 1985

Duby, Georges: The Three Orders: feudal Society Imagined. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1980. (French: 1978)

Sverre Bagge: From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom. State Formation in Norway, c. 900-1350. Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010

Archive for marts, 2012

Passion in Prague

The Rylands Haggadah

Walraversidje

Fish Fight Anno 1000

My name is Patrick

Gokstad Viking Village

Krásna Hôrka Burns

Courtly Culture

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