From Viking to Saint: How the Liturgy of St. Olav Created the Patron Saint and Eternal King of Norway
By Andrew Casad
Published Online (2002)
Introduction: In the year 793 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records: “on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.” The Norsemen thus received their introduction to the rest of Europe for having sacked one of Christendom’s most hallowed monasteries. Saint Aidan had founded this Holy Island, Lindisfarne, in 635 on land granted by Oswald, King and Saint of Northumbria. Two centuries later one such seafaring raider was himself canonized and can be found listed in litanies with King Oswald.
This transformation of a Viking into a Saint and the conversion of his people to Christianity raise important questions. How could a Viking be transformed into a Saint? What was the relationship between this transformation and the spread of Christianity into these lands? These questions can be answered in part by turning to the early liturgical practices of the Norwegians. Much of early Norwegian liturgy was borrowed from other places, which could only have been brought about through the type of cultural exchange the Viking expeditions made possible. The integration of indigenous and borrowed aspects of liturgical celebration by the medieval Norwegians additionally sheds important light on the process of inculturation of Christianity.
In addressing these questions, this paper will examine the historical context, drawn in large part from the sage of the Norwegian Kings, Heimskringla, penned by Snorri Sturluson in the early thirteenth century. The liturgial manuscripts used by the medieval Norwegians and the sources from which they were drawn will then be addressed. A study of how the liturgical texts came to bear on the historical context and created the Saint and King of Norway, St Olav will be undertaken. Finally, I will make some remarks as to the contemporary relevance of this study.
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