Post-classical history

Chapter 17. Cnut’s Gift of a Swithun-relic to “Dacia”: A Gift to Denmark or Norway?

Eldbjørg Haug

Whereas the previous chapter has dealt with King Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy generally, this chapter will study his relationship with the cult of St. Swithun in Scandinavia and particularly Norway.¹ My point of departure is a statement from the Vita S. Swithuni episcopi et confessoris (Life of St. Swithun the bishop and confessor) in the Latin legendary in the manuscript known as British Library, Lansdowne 436, according to which it is “immo in Dacia quo pars reliquiarium eius a rege Cnutone est translata” (indeed in Denmark whither some of his relics were translated by King Cnut).² Michael Lapidge considered the statement to be “a crucial piece of evidence for the cult of St. Swithun in Denmark.”³ However, there are no other written sources to corroborate or falsify the information in this Vita. The aim of this chapter is therefore to see if we can trust this record of Cnut bringing a relic of St. Swithun to Denmark. In general, there is reason to be critical of a narrative whose focus is on miracles connected to the cult of a saint. Stories of this kind lie beyond empirical method and source criticism. On the other hand, the statement itself may be corroborated if we take into consideration all relevant sources for the cult of St. Swithun in medieval Denmark and its tributary lands.

Cnut and St. Swithun in England

Cnut’s background as a Viking conqueror supports his image as a mighty monarch and successful politician.⁴ He had an important relationship with the English church. His role as legislator, his interaction with Winchester, and his generosity to the church are particularly interesting. Archbishop Wulfstan of York issued extensive legal codes during the reigns of both Æthelred and Cnut, in which both kings appear in a favorable light. It has been argued that Cnut’s legislation was mostly a confirmation of older laws, but continuity was important in a society that was exhausted by war and faced a new dynasty.⁵ Cnut was cautious in his approach to the clergy and to the people of Wessex, for whom Winchester was the political centre. His visit to the tomb of Edmund Ironside in Glastonbury Abbey at the beginning of his reign seems to have been a gesture of reconciliation.⁶ The same, at least where his archbishop of Canterbury was concerned, can be said of his part in the translation of the relics of St. Ælfheah from London to Canterbury; Cnut seems to have been in his father’s retinue when this archbishop was killed in the presence of several of the men who later became close to Cnut.⁷ Timothy Bolton has observed that Cnut’s interaction with the church of Wessex after 1020 “is marked by his benevolence.”⁸

Cnut’s interest in saints and their relics lies at the heart of this chapter. He gave a precious reliquary to the Old Minster’s relic of St. Birinus.⁹ Evesham got the relics of St. Wigstan.¹⁰ Abingdon received a gold and silver reliquary for the remains of St. Vincent, valued at sixty pounds of silver.¹¹ The relics of St. Ælfheah were translated to the Old Minster and Christ Church in Canterbury, which also received relics of St. Bartholomew and perhaps the relics of St. Wendreda.¹² Westminster received a finger of St. Ælfheah, an arm of St. Ciriacus, a relic of St. Edward, king and martyr, and some bones of St. George.¹³ St. Mildred’s relics were translated from Thanet to St. Augustine’s in Canterbury.¹⁴ Cnut also gave his consent to the relics of St. Felix being transferred from the royal manor of Soham to Ramsey Abbey.¹⁵

Let us take a closer look at the statement, in folios 91v–95r of BL, Lansdowne 436, that a relic of St. Swithun was translated to Denmark. In full, chapter 6 of the Vita reads:

Tanta deinde illuc miraculorum copia in omni genere ualitudinum exhibita est, quantam nulla memoria hominis ante illud tempus alibi factam attingere potest. Nec solum ibi ob sancti sui merita diuina fiebant miracula, immo in Dacia quo pars reliquiarum eius a rege Cnutone est translata, et in Schirburnia ubi ymago eius extitit erecta – ubicumque etiam eius suffragia pie fuerunt innotata, optata sequebantur remedia. De quibus – quamuis multa in libro translacionis et miraculorum eius contineantur – breuitatis causa pauca hic subnectantur.¹⁶

[So great the supply of miracles was shown for all sorts of illnesses that no man’s memory can treat of the like being accomplished anywhere else before this time. Not only did miracles take place there, where their saint had done his divine service, but also indeed in Denmark where some of his relics were translated by King Cnut, and in Sherborne, where a statue of him was raised – and in all places also, where supplications to him have piously been indicated, the hoped-for remedies have followed. Of which – however many of his translation and miracles be kept in the book – for brevity’s sake only a few are subjoined here.]¹⁷

The narrative about Swithun in Lansdowne 436 is one of ten accounts in as many preserved manuscripts to include a Vita s. Swithuni. This anonymous vita enjoyed the widest circulation of any saints’ vitae up to the invention of printing. All ten manuscripts of St. Swithun’s Vita are copied from unidentified exemplars now lost. There are only broad and occasional affiliations between the surviving manuscripts, a divergence which, according to Lapidge, suggests that many more have existed. A stemma to St. Swithun’s Vita is for this reason impossible.¹⁸

BL, Lansdowne 436 is a collection of some 27 lives of Anglo-Saxon saints that have not survived in any earlier form.¹⁹ This is a beautifully illuminated manuscript from the mid-fourteenth century, probably a transcript of the original collection. Lapidge and Michael Winterbottom used this manuscript in their edition of Wulfstan’s Life of Æthelwold of Winchester. Rosalind Love used it in her edition of the Vita S. Birini, whose author was the same as the anonymous author of Vita S. Swithuni and Miracula S. Swithuni; St. Birinus was also connected to Winchester.²⁰

A characteristic feature of the text is that the compiler frequently took considerable liberties with the texts he copied. The saints’ vitae are abbreviated and redacted in various ways, and most of the texts in the collection are best described as redactions rather than copies of the vitae they represent. Lansdowne 436 may represent the work of one single redactor.²¹ It is worth noting that the manuscript was written in or for the Benedictine nunnery of Romsey in Hampshire, which belonged to the diocese of Winchester. Presumably the compiler was either a nun in Romsey, or a monk writing for this house. At any rate, a pertinent hypothesis is that he or she had access to manuscripts from Winchester which are now lost. A full investigation of the manuscript might provide more clues as to what and how old those now lost sources, including the original Vita s. Swithuni, may have been, but nothing more seems to have been done since 2003.²²

The first three chapters of Swithun’s Vita in Lansdowne 436 are taken almost verbatim from the Gesta pontificum Anglorum (Deeds of the bishops of England), which was written by William of Malmesbury in ca. 1125. Most of the remainder, chapters 4–5 and 7–14, is an abbreviated version of the Miracula S. Swithuni, which was compiled in the very last years of the eleventh century. Since the Lansdowne 436 Vita s. Swithuni cannot be older than William of Malmesbury’s Gesta, it is clear that the original Vita was written after 1125. The compiler mentions that he or she had access to a book on saints’ translations and St. Swithun’s miracles. This fits with the Miracula S. Swithuni and the possibility should not be excluded that the compiler may have had other sources now unknown to us.

Concerning the saint, we know very little of Swithun, except that he was consecrated as bishop of Winchester on October 30, 852 and died on July 2, 863. His cult started on July 15, 971, which was the day his relics were translated by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester (963–984) into the Old Minster from the prominent stone sarcophagus lying outside the building’s west door.²³ It is significant that the translation took place during Æthelwold’s reform of the English church in ca. 975. Swithun was the central saint in Winchester during Cnut’s reign in 1016–1035, and so the king must have considered the cult to be important, even if nothing is known of any veneration of St. Swithun by King Cnut. It has been suggested that he was buried not far from this saint’s tomb in the Old Minster.²⁴ The statement on Cnut’s translation of Swithun to “Dacia” in Lansdowne 435 can be neither corroborated nor disproved. Let us then turn to the receiving end of the gift and start with “Dacia,” or Denmark, to see if we can find any traces of the relic there.

A Cult of St. Swithun in Denmark?

Some traces survive of a Danish cult of St. Swithun during the Middle Ages. Unlike the situation in England, no Danish annals or chronicles mention the saint.²⁵ Out of the liturgical material, John Toy has registered two calendars in Danish archives that mention the saint, but neither is of Danish origin. One of them is Thott 143 2°, the “Folkunga-Psalter,” a treasure of the Royal Library in Copenhagen, which consists of the calendar in which St. Swithun’s mass is cited, a cycle of full-page illuminations from the life of Christ, and the Book of Psalms. The Psalter is one of more than 4,000 manuscripts bequeathed by Otto Thott (1703–1785) to the Royal Library in Copenhagen. It was produced in England during the latter part of the twelfth century. Two added notes indicate that it was used by Dowager Queen Mechtilde of Holstein (ca. 1220–1288) in her second marriage (to the Swedish earl Birger Magnusson, ca. 1210–1266), and that it followed her when she returned to Denmark as a widow.²⁶ The other calendar with St. Swithun, AM 733 4° Kal, presently in the Arnamagnaean Institute in Copenhagen, was made for Apostelkirken (the Church of the Apostles), in Bergen, which was the main royal chapel in Norway as opposed to Mariakirken (St. Mary’s Church), which was the royal chapel in Oslo.²⁷ It was formerly part of the large codex AM 322 fol. which was used in Norway up to 1604. In 1714 it was registered in the catalogue of Christian Worm’s collection of books. He offered the codex to the Icelandic antiquarian Árni Magnússon who broke it into two parts and gave the calendar its present signature.²⁸

None of these calendars was used in Denmark in the Middle Ages. However, Swithun’s deposition on July 2, his translation on July 15 and, most astonishingly, his ordination as bishop on October 30, are recorded in the Ribe martyrology.²⁹ The manuscript which contains this text, KB, Gl. Kgl. Saml. 849 fol., was written in the winter 1284–1285 and was a copy of the second edition of Usuard’s martyrology. Although it cannot have been imported during the reign of Cnut, the fact that St. Swithun’s mass days are written into the martyrology in the manuscript could point to the Danes’ having a cult of this saint. The Ribe martyrology was also used as a necrology to ensure that annual masses were sung for those listed on their proper day of death. This is the reason why there are some additions to Usuard’s martyrology of saints, and probably also why St. Swithun’s three days of masses and commemoration were written into the manuscript.

Although Swithun is mentioned among the confessors in as many as three litanies in Denmark, two of them were never used in the Danish church,³⁰ while there is only one preserved manuscripts of Danish use in the archives. The Reformation cleared the churches of altars and relics. Some of them are remembered in medieval inventories or in the names of medieval churches, but no such sources on Swithun are known from Denmark.³¹ The Reformation made the liturgical books obsolete and it was mainly the good-looking ones that were preserved. Nonetheless, the pages of the less interesting books were widely used by bookbinders in the post-Reformation era, in which respect the accounts of royal income are particularly worthy of study.³² So far, chapter 6 of BL Lansdowne 436, folios 91v–95r, cannot be corroborated by the known evidence from Denmark, but the Danish fragments have hardly been investigated and we should not exclude the possibility that some of them may yet reveal traces of a cult of St. Swithun.

At the same time, there is another interpretation of “immo in Dacia quo pars reliquiarium eius a rege Cnutone est translata,” the crucial sentence in Lansdowne 436. The Latin name of Denmark was Dania, whereas Dacia was the name of a province that the Roman emperor Trajan established in Transylvania, now in present-day Romania. In AD 271, the original Dacia was discontinued by Emperor Aurelian, who divided it into the provinces “Dacia ripensis” and “Dacia mediterranea.” The capital of the latter is now Sofia. These changes gave room for misunderstanding concerning Dacia’s geographical borders, as may be seen in Orosius’s Historia adversus paganos, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, and Jordanes’s De origine actibusque Getarum, in which Dacia is identified with “Gothia.”³³ All three works were well known in England, with the Anglo-Saxon rewriting of Orosius being perhaps the most popular, through its extensive description of the Germanic world. By the Middle Ages the term “Dacia” had come to mean “Denmark” in continental ecclesiastical circles, even while the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, fully aware of the greatness of the legendary Denmark, still used “Dania.”³⁴ The Annales Ryenses from ca. 1300 is the first Danish chronicle to write “Dacia” as a synonym for “Dania” in its description of Denmark as “Dani … regnum, quod nunc Dania uel Dacia dicitur” (the kingdom of Dan … which is now called Dania or Dacia).³⁵ In 1228 the general chapter of the Dominican Friars in Paris established “Dacia” as one of four new provinces.³⁶ This “Dacia” covered not just Denmark but all Scandinavian church provinces, because most convents when it was established were held to be Danish.³⁷ The Scandinavian Franciscan Friars also used the term “Dacia” for their Scandinavian province.³⁸ Later, the pope called the region of the Scandinavian minor papal penitentiaries “Dacia” in spite of the fact that this region also covered Sweden and Norway.³⁹ The reason was probably linguistic, that the Old Norse, Old Swedish, and Old Danish languages were all known as dǫnsk tunga (the Danish tongue). These examples, however, show that the church often used “Dacia” in a wider sense, both geographically and politically, reflecting more than just the similarities between the Scandinavian languages.

The political borders of Scandinavia in the early Middle Ages were not fixed. The historical Denmark comprised the landscapes of Skåne, Halland, and Blekinge, which have been part of Sweden since 1645, and Southern Jutland, which became a German possession after the Dano-Prussian war in 1864. Until the thirteenth century Danish kings controlled or attempted to control Viken, the south-eastern part of Norway, which was easy to reach by sea from Denmark. After ca. 1000, King Sveinn Forkbeard, Cnut’s father, controlled all Norway through the earls of Hlaðir, and Cnut did the same from 1028 until his death in 1035 through his English wife Ælfgifu and their son Sveinn. For a European cleric, the term “Dacia,” meaning Denmark, could cover all of Cnut’s lands in Scandinavia and more. So, my interpretation of “Dacia” in Lansdowne 436 is that this name refers to Cnut the Great’s Scandinavian “thalassocracy,” his vast sea-connected empire which, from 1028 to 1035, also covered Norway.

The Relic in Stavanger

There are good reasons to look to Norway to study the cult of Swithun outside England. Our question is whether the Norwegian cult of this saint may be connected to Cnut. To answer this, let us first take a brief overview of his cult in Norway. Stavanger Cathedral possessed the only known relic of the saint in Scandinavia. Moreover, outside England this was the only church to have Swithun as its patron saint. St. Swithun is mentioned many times in Norwegian diplomas, but mainly as a synonym for this cathedral. The cathedral’s Day of Dedication was July 2, the Day of Swithun’s Deposition, which was the main mass and was celebrated with an octave. This was also a day of popular celebration, often combined with a market day.⁴⁰ Swithun’s Day of Translation on July 15 was also celebrated. Elsewhere, after the “Divisio apostolorum” and the Annunciation of Virgin Mary were introduced in the late Middle Ages, the cult of Swithun was reduced to commemorations in litanies, the only exceptions being Winchester, Évreux, and Stavanger. Winchester Cathedral, which held the main relics of the saint, was, of course, the main site of the cult, but Évreux is also significant, because it possessed St. Swithun’s head from the fifteenth century onwards.⁴¹

The Swithun office shows that the saint was venerated in Norway up to the Reformation in 1537.⁴² The most recent evidence of the relic itself is an inventory of Stavanger Cathedral’s holy relics which, since it was dated in 1517 “widh sancte Swytwns tidh” (around the time of St. Swithun),⁴³ was written in that year between July 2 and 22 perhaps in one of the five days (July 9–14) between the two feasts. The document tells us that Bishop Hoskold (1513–1537) asked specially for the relic of St. Swithun and examined his shrine. In the inventory, the first relic listed is an “armlegh” (upper arm) of St. Swithun.⁴⁴ To examine the relic, the bishop must have opened the reliquary. Most likely, it was carried in a procession on July 2.⁴⁵

The commemoration of Swithun on October 30, was well known in Norway. The evidence is the record of a sale of property in the cartulary of Munkeliv, a Benedictine monastery in Bergen, “er gort var Suitunar messo aftan om haustit a xiiij are rikis vars vyrdhuligs herra Magnusar Noregs Swia oc Gota konungs” (which was written on the mass of Swithun in the autumn of the fourteenth year of our honoured lord Magnús, king of Norway, the Swedes and the Goths [i.e., 1332]). This is published with records from the cartulary in volume XII of Diplomatarium Norvegicum. The editors, C. R. Unger and H. J. Huitfeldt-Kaas, were puzzled by the autumnal dating, as the main Swithun masses occurred at midsummer. As they were not aware of the feast on October 30, they dated the document to July 14(?), 1333.⁴⁶ With knowledge of the third feast, the dating is intelligible: it must refer to October 30. Moreover, this dating shows that St. Swithun’s third feast was commemorated not only in Stavanger, but also in Bergen, and presumably in the whole church province. Nobody would date the document of a property transaction to the day of a saint who was hardly known. October 30 fell two days before All Saints’ Day, if another reference was needed.⁴⁷

The Norwegian historian Lilly Gjerløw presumed that the cult in Norway was not older than the list of saints in the Gulathing law, which dates from the middle of the twelfth century. This is the oldest source to mention a Swithun cult in Norway, which, it is assumed, would have started when the first permanent see in Stavanger was established in ca. 1125.⁴⁸ Gjerløw based her date for the establishment of the episcopal see on comments by Orderic Vitalis (1075–1142) concerning King Sigurðr Jórsalafari (“the Crusader”) Magnússon (ca. 1090–1130), “Qui defunctis fratribus superstes diu regnavit, et episcopatus ac cænobia monachorum, quæ antecessores ejus non noverant in regno Nordico constituit” (who survived his two brothers to reign for many years [after 1123], and who established bishoprics and monasteries, which had been unknown to his ancestors, in the kingdom of Norway).⁴⁹

What do we know about how and when the Swithun relic was acquired? In 2003, when Lapidge summed it up, the prevailing view was that the see of Stavanger was established in the 1120s by a Bishop Reinald (or Reginald), who was an English Benedictine.⁵⁰ From a rhymed office, which links the communities of Winchester and Stavanger and may be from the twelfth century, it can be inferred that Bishop Reinald came from Winchester and that he brought the relic of St. Swithun with him from there to Stavanger.⁵¹ Lapidge took note of a Winchester canon named “Reinnaldus” who appears in a list of monks in Hyde Abbey during the time of Abbot Osbert (1124–1135). Reinnaldus, who was described as a “conuersus,” meaning a newcomer, may be identical with the later bishop of Stavanger.⁵²

In 1964 the English historian Christopher Hohler objected to this inference that Bishop Reinald, formerly a monk of Winchester, brought the relic of St. Swithun to Stavanger: “Winchester cathedral priory was a distinguished and well-conducted house at relevant dates [i.e., ca. 1125], and no monk from there would have been allowed simply to wander off to Norway.”⁵³ Hohler found it inconceivable that Reinald had received an arm-bone from St. Swithun’s relics, because there are no parallels with any other high-profile prelates from the beginning of the twelfth century ever having received anything similar for their churches.⁵⁴ Furthermore, if Reinald had originated from Winchester, he would have been venerated as a martyr and saint, because later he had the misfortune to be hanged by King Haraldr gilli.⁵⁵ There were no recorded openings of the saint’s shrine in Winchester between 1093 and 1150. Hohler therefore suggested that the Romanesque basilica was consecrated between 1125 and 1150 and received its relic of St. Swithun when the Norwegian church province was founded in 1152–53, with the bishop of Stavanger as the first archbishop.

Lapidge took issue with Hohler’s rejection of the prevailing view. During the episcopate of Henry of Blois (1129–1171), the relics of Swithun were displayed within Winchester Cathedral, a decision which probably gave more than one opportunity for the shrine to be opened and a relic acquired.⁵⁶ Lapidge, however, was not aware that Hohler, a long time before (on which more below), had reconsidered his view.⁵⁷ Moreover, there is a chronological problem with Lapidge’s reasoning, for if Bishop Reinald became bishop of Stavanger during the Winchester episcopate of Henry of Blois, the earliest he could have come there would have been 1129, one year before the death of King Sigurðr. This is rather late if we are to believe the chronology of the king’s last years, for according to the lost *Hryggjarstykki, which was a source for both Heimskringla and Morkinskinna for this period, Bishop Reinald had been in Stavanger for some time by the time the king divorced the queen and remarried in 1128.⁵⁸ One might imagine that Reinald visited Winchester and acquired the relic before he was hanged in Stavanger in 1135, but this seems highly improbable.

The Archaeological Evidence of Stavanger Cathedral

The history of Stavanger Cathedral, based on archaeological excavations and art history, indicates an explanation other than the prevailing view of the origin of St. Swithun’s cult in Norway. The church as seen today dates from the last years of the thirteenth century. After a devastating fire in 1272, Bishop Arne of Stavanger (1277–1303) decided to pull down its west tower and replace it with a porch with a monumental entrance, and to replace the old choir with a larger one. Since then, the cathedral has been restored many times, most radically as a Gothic cathedral in 1869, when the Romanesque chancel arch was pulled down.

The architect Gerhard Fischer, who founded medieval archaeology as a discipline in Norway, began a thorough investigation of the building in the 1930s. Under the vestibule he found the foundation of the tower, which is mentioned in Bǫglungasǫgur as a refuge for the sheriff of Stavanger, when he had to flee his king’s enemies in 1205. Moreover, this is the first time the relic of St. Swithun is explicitly mentioned: when the sheriff had to surrender and was promised mercy on condition that he would never fight against the enemy king again, he took an oath on the shrine of St. Swithun.⁵⁹ Fischer’s discovery of the tower’s foundation sustained this narrative.

The cathedral was then and still is missing a transept between the choir and the nave, and Fischer pointed to this absence as its most unusual feature. Fischer’s main impression was that its walls were stylistically Anglo-Norman, and that the work had started before 1100.⁶⁰ Originally, the cathedral was a Romanesque basilica. Fischer presented his results in 1964, the same year Hohler published the aforesaid treatise on Stavanger Cathedral that he had written for an English-speaking audience.⁶¹ He and Fischer had discussed several points concerning the basilica, but neither of them read the other’s manuscript before publishing his own study.⁶² In general they agreed, but Hohler compared details in the capitals of the pillars with three Anglo-Norman churches. He established that the best and apparently the only parallels to Stavanger Cathedral are the cathedrals of Norwich and Ely, together with Castle Acre Priory. The building of Castle Acre started in 1089, Norwich in 1086, and Ely in 1081:

The first Stavanger mason presumably learned his craft on a building designed in the 1080’s at the latest. The second mason would seem to have learned his at a date not earlier than the building of the nave of Norwich … c. 1115. … the first and second Stavanger masons were clearly for a time working side by side.⁶³

Hohler explicitly maintained that Stavanger Cathedral’s architecture had nothing to do with Winchester. The similarities between the pillars of the different churches led him to conclude that Stavanger was consecrated as the last church of this kind, well into the twelfth century.

Church-building masons, however, always started by building the choir with the main altar, which always turns to the east. This was the oldest part of the Stavanger basilica.⁶⁴ When the choir was finished, and the altar consecrated, the church could be used for mass. Thus, in Stavanger the building of the basilica did not start with the Romanesque pillars at the west end of the church. After reading Fischer’s monograph, Hohler reconsidered his results in a new article and dated its basilica to ca. 1105.⁶⁵

The Norwegian art historian Marit Nybø has supported these results. In her doctoral thesis she demonstrated that the cathedral of St. Alban at Selja, situated at the northernmost part of the west coast of Norway, was built as a basilica; it is usually dated to ca. 1100. Christ Church in Bergen, which was destroyed in 1531, was also a basilica, and the three churches used masons from the same workshop.⁶⁶ From what we know of the monumental buildings of the last decades of the eleventh century, she suggested that King Óláfr kyrri (the Quiet) Haraldsson (r. 1067–1093), was not only famous for initiating the construction of Christ Church in Bergen, but also started building the basilicas in Stavanger and Selja.

In this way it is reasonable to suppose that the basilica of Stavanger was built in around 1100, to be used by the bishop of Selja when he visited what became the diocese of Stavanger, the southernmost part of his bishopric.⁶⁷ When the choir was finished, the cathedral was probably consecrated in the reign of Magnús berfœttr (“Barelegs,” 1093–1103), whereby it might seem clear that Cnut had nothing to do with its dedication to St. Swithun.

In spite of this, there is more archaeological evidence which may date the dedication to before the time the basilica was consecrated. An excavation under the late-thirteenth-century Gothic choir has uncovered holes from pillars of a wooden structure. Over the holes was a layer of charcoal from a fire, probably from the structure. The charcoal is dated to ca. 700–ca. 1100. Moreover, the excavation uncovered Christian graves (i.e., oriented west–east, without worldly goods) above the charcoal. The two oldest remains have been dated to 680–890 and are counted among the oldest Christian graves in Norway.⁶⁸ The most recent remains date to the end of the twelfth century. In other words, this excavation uncovered a Christian churchyard which was in use for a century or more before, as well as after, the building of the Romanesque basilica of Stavanger.⁶⁹ Next to the basilica was a memorial cross raised to commemorate the mighty “landed man” or baron Erlingr Skjálgsson (ca. 960/975–1027), on whom I shall say more below. It is reasonable to suppose that Erlingr was buried in the churchyard and that his memorial cross was linked with an altar.

Old and recent diggings in Stavanger indicate that the locality was far more than an ordinary farm in the Viking Period and early Middle Ages. It has been tentatively suggested that Stavanger was a regional nodal point for ships in naval defense, with a þing assembly held in the churchyard, and that it was most probably also a seasonal port of call and a marketplace.⁷⁰ Although there is no archaeological evidence of a church in the Christian graveyard before the raising of the Romanesque basilica, it seems likely that Stavanger had a church during the late lifetime of Erlingr Skjálgsson.

A final indication of its translation to Stavanger at an early stage is St. Swithun’s relic itself. The earliest recorded dispersal of a Swithun relic in Winchester was in 1006, when Bishop Ælfheah of Winchester became archbishop and left for Canterbury Cathedral, for he took Swithun’s skull with him there. Lapidge finds it hard to believe that he had the permission of the monks of the Old Minster to do so, and thus “his act must count as one of the great furta sacra of the English Middle Ages.”⁷¹ In my view this theft, holy or not, sets the terminus post quem for the transfer of this relic from Winchester to Stavanger.

Nonetheless, Archbishop Ælfheah’s furtum sacrum may have opened a Pandora’s box: there are many bones in a human skeleton and at least fourteen English churches claimed to have a relic of St. Swithun by the fifteenth century. The relic in Stavanger was an “armleg” (upper arm),⁷² a large bone which would be very different in size from a small bone from a toe, finger, hand, or foot; any of these could more easily go missing when the reliquary in Winchester was opened. It is hard to believe that Reinald or any other bishop could remove a relic as big as an upper arm in around 1125: such an act would have required a man of real political power. Hohler admitted that a bishop “might have been sent as a matter of high policy, Malchus bishop of Waterford was in fact trained at Winchester. But he is not known to have been given a relic of St. Swithun.”⁷³ Could St. Swithun of Stavanger, in this case, be connected with the Anglo-Saxon mission to Norway after 1006? Let us consider the liturgical evidence.

The Swithun Masses

In 1519 Archbishop Erik Valkendorf of Nidaros issued Missale Nidrosiense, the Nidaros ordo, to be used in all churches in the Norwegian province. It was the first printed book in Norway, and the archbishop’s aim was to replace all old handwritten liturgical books with a modern liturgy.⁷⁴ Although Missale Nidrosiense does not contain any office of St. Swithun, the office of the Translation of St. Swithun, July 15, was retained in the Breviarium Nidrosiense, which was also printed in 1519.⁷⁵ In the late Middle Ages, Swithun’s Day of Deposition was superseded by the Visitation of Our Lady, but in Stavanger, it was retained until the Norwegian reformation in 1537 and used for the deposition as well as the translation throughout the Middle Ages.⁷⁶

Hohler was the first to take note of the printed liturgy having the characteristic collect “Deus qui iubar.” The prayer was in use before the Norman Conquest and must have been written after ca. 1000 when a different office was used in Winchester.⁷⁷ The collect is otherwise known only from Winchester Cathedral. With the “Decreta Lanfranca,” Archbishop Lanfranc’s liturgical reform ca. 1085, the Swithun liturgy of Winchester left out “Deus qui iubar.” On the other hand, Archbishop Øystein Erlendsson retained this old hymn when he reformed the liturgy of the Norwegian province in the 1170s, and it remained in use in Stavanger and in the Norwegian church generally throughout the Middle Ages.⁷⁸ The possibility may not be excluded that the Swithun-office was written in 1006, when the saint’s skull was translated to Canterbury, or shortly thereafter.

The printed breviary of Nidaros was not the only liturgical evidence for the cult of Swithun in the Norwegian church province. Once more Iceland has given proof for what was lost in Norway, in that Swithun’s office has been found in a Reykjavík fragment of the “Pater Noster Psalter” from the late thirteenth century, one which is “probably the oldest extant Icelandic antiphoner written according to the use of the Nidaros Ordinary.”⁷⁹ Swithun’s Day of Deposition is recorded in a calendar from ca. 1200.⁸⁰ One fragment of “Missale Scardense,” which was written ca. 1470, gives the collect “Deus qui electi confessoris tui et episcopi suithuni” for July 2.⁸¹ Moreover, a notice in the annals of Skálholt (ca. 1300) has added the saint’s death for the year 863, which is interesting when compared to the silence on Swithun in the Danish annals.⁸²

From the veneration of St. Swithun in Stavanger and Iceland, the liturgical evidence of Norwegian provenance in Denmark,⁸³ and also from the appropriateness of October 30, Swithun’s Day of Consecration, for dating a document in Bergen, we can conclude that the saint was venerated all over the Nidaros archbishopric. It is improbable that the relic was obtained in Stavanger when the basilica was consecrated around 1100. It seems more likely that it ended up in Norway before Lanfranc reformed the liturgy.

Who Brought the Relic of St. Swithun to Stavanger?

This conclusion makes it reasonable to suppose that the cult of Swithun in Stavanger and Norway started with Cnut’s translation of the relic, according to the claim in Lansdowne 436. It may have arrived in Stavanger via Denmark, but Occam’s razor tells us to seek simpler explanations. Hohler ruled out the possibility of a relatively unknown bishop bringing the relic to Norway ca. 1125, but the situation was different for the missionaries from Wessex who went to Norway from 1006 to 1066.

The first of these was Gotebald, who died in 1021 at the latest. Gotebald was called to work in Denmark by King Sveinn, Cnut’s father, but he was also active in Sweden and particularly in Norway.⁸⁴ On the other hand, it seems unlikely that Gotebald brought the relic of an Anglo-Saxon saint to Stavanger: Lund or Roskilde were better suited for such a gift. King Óláfr Haraldsson (r. 1015–1030), the later saint, brought four English bishops to Norway on his arrival in 1015: Sigurd, Grímkell, Rudolf, and Bernhard. The last of these was immediately sent to Iceland, for which reason he may be excluded. In 1030 Rudolf also went to Iceland, to Bœr in Borgarfjǫrðr, where he lived for nineteen years probably as a missionary bishop.⁸⁵ He then returned to England and became the abbot of Abingdon.⁸⁶ It has been suggested that Rudolf was a relative of the English royal family.⁸⁷

Grímkell is the best known of King Óláfr’s bishops. In 1024 he was the brain behind the assembly in Moster in which the king issued ecclesiastical laws for all Norway. Bishop Fridtjov Birkeli identified him with the “Grimcytel” who became bishop of Selsey in 1038 and was a relative of Archbishop Æthelnoth of Canterbury (1020–1038); they both belonged to the local aristocracy of Devon, although, as the Norse form of his name would indicate, Bishop Grímkell had kin in Norway as well. Birkeli presumed that he was a Benedictine in Canterbury before he went to Norway.⁸⁸ He seems to have been lower in rank than Rudolf when they were in England.⁸⁹ Neither man should be considered as “relatively unknown,” but only Rudolf, a bishop, could have had access to the relic of Swithun in Winchester. Still, there are no sources which connect him to the relic.

The only bishop with both a known connection to King Cnut and a history of service in Norway was a certain Sigurd or Sigfrid. He is recorded as Cnut’s bishop in the autumn of 1015.⁹⁰ In 1028, when Cnut arrived in Norway, Sigurd was in his retinue and became bishop of the personal guard of the king’s sister’s son, Earl Hákon Eiríksson, who was to rule Norway on behalf of his uncle.⁹¹ However, Hákon died soon after, and Bishop Sigurd continued in the same position under young King Swegen (or Sveinn) Cnutsson and his mother, Ælfgifu. Shortly after King Óláfr fell at the battle of Stiklastaðir (Stiklestad in Verdal in Trøndelag) on July 29, 1030, Bishop Sigurd fled to England.⁹² It may have been he, earlier in his career, who had the opportunity to commit a furtum sacrum from Winchester before going to Norway.

When considering the kings of Norway who could have purloined a relic of St. Swithun in this way, we may rule out King Magnús inn góði, who was king of Denmark from 1042 but never went to England, as far as is known. We may also exclude his uncle and co-ruler from 1044, Haraldr harðráði Sigurðarson. Although Haraldr tried to conquer England in 1066, he fell in battle at Stamford Bridge and never ruled in Winchester. Norway’s best-known missionary king, Óláfr II inn helgi Haraldsson, presents a more complex picture. He participated in the Viking attacks on England in 1009–1012. When Sveinn Forkbeard died in 1014, the English recalled King Æthelred, and Óláfr served him.⁹³ The old Danish king had dominated Norway as the overlord of the Norwegians, in alliance with the earls of Hlaðir and other Norwegian magnates; insofar as the large estate at Hlaðir (Lade) was the sea-port of Nidaros, the earls controlled the first urban settlement of Trondheim. When Óláfr Haraldsson sailed to Norway in 1014 or 1015, won the battle of Nesjar in 1015 and became king of Norway, it was with the blessing of King Æthelred that he did so.

The question is whether Óláfr brought a relic of St. Swithun with him to Stavanger from England. It is hard to imagine. The magnate Erlingr Skjálgsson (d. 1027) was married to the daughter of King Óláfr Tryggvason (r. 995–1000). From his estate at Sóli (where Stavanger’s Sola airport is today), Erlingr controlled the west coast of Norway on behalf of the king and was himself called king of the hryggjar. The coastal regions up to Trøndelag had been Christianized since the second half of the tenth century. Erlingr was a former supporter of Sveinn Forkbeard, but after Nesjar he accepted Óláfr Haraldsson as his king. Óláfr, however, tried to reduce Erlingr’s authority and power and the two men became hostile to each other. Erlingr once more joined forces with Cnut, but was killed in battle against Óláfr on Christmas Eve 1027.⁹⁴ The memorial cross next to Stavanger Cathedral, which has been mentioned above, is significant in this context. It was raised by a priest who carved runes in memory of his lord by the name of Erlingr, “es einn vas úr arni véltr” (who alone was driven from his hearth by deception).⁹⁵ The runes are now blurred and partly erased, but Aslak Liestøl identified the priest as Erlingr Skjálgsson’s chaplain Alfgeirr. He found the meaning of the wider runic inscription to be “Skjalgr’s nimble son who was without deceit, remained for a long time alone on the deck in the stern of his empty ship.”⁹⁶ Liestøl associated the inscription with the famous half stanza in the skaldic poem of Sigvatr Þórðarson in memory of Erlingr Skjálgsson: “einn stóð sonr á sínu / snarr Skjalgs, vinum fjarri, / í lyptingu lengi / lætrauðr skipi auðu” (Alone stood Skjalgr’s bold son, far from friends, guileless, long on the after-deck of his empty ship).⁹⁷

Conclusion: Cnut’s Gift to Stavanger

Taking into consideration that new sources might cast more light over Cnut’s gift, I will not rule out the possibility that a church in Denmark received the relic of St. Swithun, but Stavanger seems more likely. Erlingr Skjálgsson was allied with Cnut the Great and remained loyal to him. His death by treachery is significant. The memorial cross points to resentment, which for a shrewd politician provided a situation in which a relic to the church of the deceased would honor his memory and benefit the donor. The archaeological evidence points to an early, wooden church at the same place as Stavanger Cathedral, in which the only known relic of St. Swithun in Scandinavia was placed. The liturgical evidence shows a cult of St. Swithun in Norway which was older than 1066. “Dacia” in BL Lansdowne 436 refers to Cnut the Great’s Scandinavian thalassocracy, not only Denmark. The evidence presented in this chapter tends to show that the relic of St. Swithun was translated by Cnut, and that political considerations were behind the act. Cnut had access to the shrine of St. Swithun. My conclusion is that he had both the power and the authority to remove a large relic of the saint, perhaps with the help of Bishop Sigurd, and to present it to the church in Stavanger as a gesture of respect to Erlingr Skjálgsson, the great chieftain who had lost his life to a common enemy.

Notes

Acknowledgments: I have over the years received important information and discussed several topics of relevance to this chapter with colleagues and friends, some of whom have passed away. I extend my thanks, in alphabetical order, to Haki Antonsson, Roberta Baranowski, Timothy Bolton, Jan Brendalsmo, Margaret Cormack, Øystein Ekroll, Alison Finlay, Astrid Forland, Clas Gejrot, Ildar Garipzanov, Erin Goeres, Trine Haaland, Eyvind Fjeld Halvorsen, Anne-Marit Hamre, Lars Ivar Hansen, Hallvard Haug, Alf Tore Hommedal, Steinar Imsen, Torstein Jørgensen, Espen Karlsen, Halvor Kjellberg, Lars Løberg, Anne-Hilde Nagel, Jinty Nelson, Richard North, Paula Utigard Sandvik, Daniel Sheerin, and Steinunn J. Kristjánsdóttir.

BL, MS. Lansdowne 436, fols. 91v–95r (including Vita, chap. 6) is published in Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 701–3; see pp. 58, 613, 680–83.

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 58, 701, 791.

See for example the conclusion in Lawson, Cnut: England’s Viking King, 193–202.

Lawson, Cnut: England’s Viking King, 59–65; Bolton, Empire of Cnut the Great, 83–86.

Bolton, Empire of Cnut the Great, 95.

ASC (DEF), s.a. 1023; Lawson, Cnut: England’s Viking King, 33; “Translatio Sancti Ælfegi,” ed. Rumble and Morris, 285, 294–315.

Bolton, Empire of Cnut the Great, 95.

Annales Monasterii de Wintonia, ed. Luard, 16.

Lawson, Cnut: The Danes in England, 243.

Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Stevenson, I, 433; II, 291.

ASC (D), trans. Swanton (s.a. 1023); “Translatio Sancti Ælfegi,” ed. Rumble and Morris, 287; Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 78–79 and n. 9, 80.

Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 87–88.

“Translatio Sancti Ælfegi,” ed. Rumble and Morris, 287.

“Translatio Sancti Ælfegi,” ed. Rumble and Morris; Cnut: England’s Viking King, 32–33, 65, 111–47; Bolton, The Empire of Cnut, 79–80 and n. 9, 82–83, 87–88, 90, 95–98.

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 701–3.

I extend my thanks to Espen Karlsen for helping me in the translation from Latin of this passage.

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 623, 626.

The author did not have the opportunity to study BL MS. Lansdowne 436, and the description of the manuscript is based on Ellis, Douce, and Petty, Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts, 121; Grosjean, “Vita S. Roberti,” 335–43; Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 622–27 and 699–701.

Wulfstan: Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, clxxxi; Three Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives, ed. Love, liv–lx, lxxxii; Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 611–12 and 624.

Wulfstan: Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, clxxxi; Three Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives, ed. Love, liv–lx, lxxxii; Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 623.

Wulfstan: Life of St. Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge and Winterbottom, clxxxi; Three Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives, ed. Love, liv–lx, lxxxii; Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 611–12 and 624.

For the historical Swithun and the translation, see Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 3–24.

Crook, “‘A Worthy Antiquity,’” 173–176.

Roskildekrøniken, ed. Gelting, 42–43, 48–49, 50–51.

English Saints in Liturgies, ed. Toy, 4; http://www2.kb.dk/elib/mss/treasures/midal/thott_143.htm.

For another view, see English Saints in Liturgies, ed. Toy, 167, who holds that it was used in Mariakirken (St. Mary’s Church) in Oslo.

AM 733 4° Kal. is a part of the manuscript AM 322 fol., but was given a separate signature by Árni Magnússon. Gustav Storm described it as “d) Calendarium Romanum” of AM 322 fol., in Norges Gamle Love, IV, 506–9. The text is printed in the footnote across 507–9.

See Andersen, “Missale- og martyrologietraditioner,” 79–89; English Saints in Liturgies, ed. Toy, 168.

KB, NKS 133 4° Lit, and Thott 143 2°. Manuale Norvegicum, ed. Fæhn, 162, 171; English Saints in Liturgies, ed. Toy, 4, 168. Was KB, Thott 143 2o originally used in Norway?.

An example from Denmark is Odense Cathedral, which owned a relic of St. Alban.

Pettersen, “From Parchment Books to Fragments,” 48–49. For an interesting example of how the parchments were used, see Gottskálk Jensson, Kjeldsen, and Stegmann, “A Fragment of Norwegian Royal Charters,” 3, 6, and figs. 1 and 2.

Gallén, “Dacia”; Halvorsen, Dominikus, 224–25 and 290 (nn. 508–10).

Halvorsen, Dominikus, 226.

Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, ed. Kroman, 150 (line 7).

Monumenta ordinis fratrum, ed. Reichert and Frühwirth, III, 3, 18; Handlingar rörande Dacia, ed. Karlsson, 5; Gallén, La Province de Dacie, 12–15.

Halvorsen, Dominikus, 179.

Gallén, “Franciskanorden,” columns 563–67.

Vatican Archives: Introitus et exitus. Camera Apostolica Nr. 2, fols. 7v–8v, and Registrum avinionense 198, fol. 485v. See Göller, Die päpstliche Pönitentiarie, 140–41; Brilioth, Den påfliga beskattningen af Sverige, 113; Gallén, “De skandinaviska penitentiarierna,” 58–69; Haug, “Penitentiaries, Scandinavian.”

Andrén, Otto, Gjerløw, Magnus Már Lárusson, and Maliniemi, “Kyrkmässa,” columns 677–79.

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 60; John Crook, “Rediscovery of St. Swithun’s Head at Evreux,” 61–62.

Breviarium Nidrosiense, ed. Valkendorf, 894–98 (calendar: fol. v recto; litany: fol. h.vr, officii: fol. pp. Iijr and fol. ccc. ijv–iiijv); Hohler, “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 23–25. See Ordo Nidrosiensis Ecclesiae, ed. Gjerløw, 361–62, 367.

DN, IV, no. 1074 (2 July 1517): https://www.dokpro.uio.no/perl/middelalder/diplom_vise_tekst.prl?b=4545&s=n&str=.

DN, IV no. 1074 (2 July 1517). Although Hohler, in “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 24, maintained that the relic was only part of an arm bone, it was the upper arm: see Heggstad, Hødnebø, and Simensen, Norrøn ordbok, 33, s.v. “armleggr.”

A parallel is the translations in Winchester cathedral during the episcopate of Henry of Blois (1129–1171). See Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 37–38.

DN XII, ed. Unger and Huitfeldt-Kaas, 62 (no. 81; July 14?, 1333).

Halvor Kjellberg (pers. comm.).

Norges Gamle Love, ed. Keyser and Munch, I, 10–11 (§§17–18). Gjerløw, “Kalendarium II,” column 99.

Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis: Vol. 5, ed. Chibnall, 220–21 (Book X).

Reinald was the first bishop of Stavanger, according to all lists of the province’s bishops: see Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes Erkebiskoper og Biskoper, 186–88, 231. Reinald appears unnamed in Saga Magnús Blinda ok Haralds Gilla (chap. 8), for which see note 53 below. For the English translation, see: Snorri Sturluson: Heimskringla, trans. Finlay and Faulkes, III, 176. Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 56.

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 56, 128–34.

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 56–57. The first Norwegian studies on this are in Brøgger, Stavangers historie i middelalderen, 27, and Daae, “Om Stavanger stift i middelalderen,” 293.

Hohler, “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 24.

Hohler, “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 48–52, at 50 (Norwegian summary).

There is more on this in Morkinskinna II, ed. Ármann Jakobsson and Þórður Ingi Guðjónsson, 161–66, at 162 and n. 2 (chap. 90), and Saga Magnúss blinda ok Haralds gilla, in Heimskringla III, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, 279–302, at 287–88 (chap. 8).

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 37–38 and 56, n. 199.

Hohler, “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 25.

Morkinskinna II, ed. Ármann Jakobsson and Þórður Ingi Guðjónsson, 150–51, at 151 (chap. 87); Heimskringla III, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, 287–88 (chap. 8).

Soga om birkebeinar og baglar, ed. Magerøy, 37.

Fischer, Domkirken i Stavanger, 20–43.

Hohler, “The Cathedral of St. Swithun at Stavanger.”

For acknowledgments, see Hohler, “The Cathedral of St. Swithun at Stavanger,” 92, n. 1.

Hohler, “The Cathedral of St. Swithun at Stavanger,” 115.

Fischer, Domkirken i Stavanger, 30.

Hohler, “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 37.

See Nybø, Albanuskirken på Selja.

From the chronology, Bjarnvarðr, Swegen and Magne are the only bishops who celebrated mass in the Romanesque basilica before Bishop Reinald. See Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes Erkebiskoper og Biskoper, 219.

Perry Magnor Rolfsen, Arkeologisk undersøkelse 1967–68; Denham, “Commingled Human Remains From Stavanger Cathedral,” 132; Høgestøl and Sandvik, “Skjeletta frå Stavanger domkyrkje,” 170, 172, 174–75.

Høgestøl and Sandvik, “Skjelett frå Stavanger domkyrkje,” 172.

Brendalsmo and Paasche, “Stavanger – før det ble en by.”

Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, 38, 40.

DN, IV, no. 1074 (2 July 1517).

Hohler, “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 24.

Missale pro usu toti[us] regni Noruegie, ed. Valkendorf, Engelbrektsson, and Sigurdsson.

Breviarium Nidrosiense, ed. Valkendorf, 894–98; aee also Ordo Nidrosiensis, ed. Gjerløw, 361–62, 367.

Ordo Nidrosiensis, ed. Gjerløw, 361 and n. 2.

Hohler, “Remarks on the Cathedral of Stavanger,” 23–25; see also Toni Schmid, “Om Sankt Swithunmässan i Sverige,” 25–34; “Problemata,” 184–86.

Ordo Nidrosiensis, ed. Gjerløw, 29–30, 87–90.

Liturgica Islandica, ed. Gjerløw, 112.

Liturgica Islandica, ed. Gjerløw, 58, 70–71; see also 98–100 and 191–208, at 207; Gottskálk Jensson, “Latin Hagiography in Medieval Iceland,” 902–29.

Ordo Nidrosiensis, ed. Gjerløw, 361, n. 2. Liturgica Islandica, ed. Gjerløw, 60.

Islandske Annaler indtil 1578, ed. Storm, 174.

A calendar from St. Mary’s Church in Oslo (AM, MS. 733 4° Kal) and one litany (KB NKS 133 4° Lit, Thott 143 2°); see note 30 above.

Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes Erkebiskoper og Biskoper, 191.

There is no evidence that he founded a monastery: see Haki Antonsson, and Guðrún Sveinbjarnardóttir, Review of Leitin að Klaustrunum, by Steinunn J. Kristjánsdóttir, 204–5.

Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes Erkebiskoper og Biskoper, 192.

Birkeli, Tolv vintrer, 159–61.

Birkeli, “The Earliest Missionary Activities,” NMS 15 (1971): 27–37; Tolv vintrer, 159–61. On Archbishop Æthelnoth’s relations with Cnut, see also Bolton, Empire of Cnut, 80–82.

Birkeli, Tolv vintrer, 159–61.

Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes Erkebiskoper og Biskoper, 193.

Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes Erkebiskoper og Biskoper, 193. Lawson, Cnut: England’s Viking King, 98.

Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes Erkebiskoper og Biskoper, 193.

Lawson, Cnut: England’s Viking King, 93–94; Williams, “Thorkell and the Bubble Reputation,” 145.

Sawyer, “Cnut’s Scandinavian Empire,” 17–18. Bolton, Cnut the Great, 155.

Liestøl, “252 Stavanger III,” 253, 257.

Liestøl, “252 Stavanger III,” 253, 257. The memorial stone is now in Stavanger museum. The inscriptions are interpreted by Oluf Rygh, Carl Johan Sverdrup Marstrander, and Aslak Liestøl.

“Sigvatr, Flokkr about Erlingr Skjálgsson,” ed. Jesch, 633. See also Jesch, Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age, 264.

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