Reviewed by Lena Liepe

Transcription

1 The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim. Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context. Utgitt av Margrete Syrstad Andås, Øystein Ekroll, Andreas Haug, Nils Holger Petersen (eds.), Ritus et Artes. Traditions and Transformations 3. Turnhout ISBN Reviewed by Lena Liepe Despite the apparent fact that churches, including cathedrals, are constructed for specific purposes, namely to provide a physical frame for the execution of the various rites and acts demanded by the Christian cult and liturgy, such aspects have rarely been seriously considered in the scholarly research on Scandinavian medieval architecture. The monuments have usually been treated primarily as art historical and archaeological objects, with the main interest directed towards their building history, including possible international connections as regards formal characteristics, and sometimes also towards the buildings as manifestations of political, secular and/or ecclesiastical, processes. An ambitious effort to compensate for this lack of a more comprehensive view of the churches in their totality, i.e. as built structures providing room for cult and ritual, is made in the anthology The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim. Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context. In altogether eight articles plus an introduction, various manifestations of medieval cult and liturgy are examined in relation to the grand Gothic cathedral of Trondheim. The volume is the outcome of a conference in Trondheim in 2004, co-arranged by the Centre for Medieval Studies at NTNU (the Norwegian University of Technology and Science) and the Centre for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals at the University of Copenhagen. In the Introduction, the main objectives of the volume are specified. Its focus is defined as architectural history in its interaction with liturgical history and other features of social history of the time (pp. 1 2), with an aim to balance generalized, internationally oriented perspectives on liturgy and architecture against circumstances specific for the region, or for the Cathedral. Further, the history of the Cathedral is reviewed in brief, and recent scholarship on the subject of the Cathedral is mentioned. Also, as way of theoretical prelude and a reflection over the inevitable distance that exists between ourselves and the cathedral and liturgy in their original context, the Introduction makes a reference to Hans-Georg Gadamer s distinction

2 Andås m.fl. (eds.): The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim 191 between the concepts of Spiel and Gebilde, or play and structure, as a means to separate between the medieval liturgical ritual as a function experienced by those who participated in it on a daily or weekly basis on one hand, and as art, studied by scholars and, at least in part (such as the chant), enjoyed by an audience of today, on the other. Even though these theoretical considerations do not to any noticeable degree surface in the following, a desirable degree of intergration of the eight studies into a whole is secured by means of cross-references, and above all by the fact that several of the authors approach related themes from sligthly different angles. Most explicitly theoretical is Paul Binski in the opening article, Liturgy and Local Knowledge. English Perspectives on the Trondheim Cathedral. Binski s contribution is directed towards the aim stated in the Introduction, to weigh the general, or universal, aspects of Christian liturgy against what Binski himself terms local knowledge, i.e. the consciousness, memories and mythologies of individuals and communities who participated in the concieving and shaping of the cathedrals. In criticism of the formalistic approach towards medieval architecture that have been taken in much previous research, and using anthropological theory as a point of departure, Binski sketches three case studies of English Gothic cathedrals where architectural details are interpreted as manifestations of locally defined patterns of thinking in a cultic, if not always strictly liturgical, context. Further, he points to features in the Cathedral of Trondheim where a similar analysis of a possible relation between the aesthetics rather than the liturgical function of the architecture and the symbolic thinking and behaviour of the local community, might be tried out. The following article by Margrete Syrstad Andås presents a study of a number of rituals that took place place in the liminal zones of a medieval cathedral: above all in the porches, the portals, and the areas immediately connected to these. The anthropological framing, as well as Andås evocation of the concept of the religious memory of the worshipper as a fundamental prerequisite for the rituals to gain meaning, links up to Binski s insistence on the imagination and emotions of the participating subjects as a central feature. The underlying interest in Andås analysis, as in Binski s, is directed towards the involvement of the individual partaking in the rituals, rather than on the liturgy or the architectonic structure per se. At the same time, her survey of seven different kinds of rituals, located to the liminal zones, of the church building, offers comprehensible insights into the concrete use of the physical space of the cathedral; a reading experience that is as rare as it is stimulating. In the second half of the article, the exterior sculpture of the north transept porch and the south chancel porch of the Cathedral of Trondheim is interpreted iconographically and discussed in relation to liturgy and to the contemporary political and religious context. The analysis paves the way for the general conclusion that from an

3 192 Reviewed by Lena Liepe anthropological and sociological point of view, dichotomies such as inclusion/exlusion, inside/outside, and sacred/profane, offer the basis for an understanding of the rituals taking place at the liminal zones of the cathedrals. At the same time, inside a theological frame of thinking the same rituals refer specifically to the fundamental Christian conception of salvation versus damnation, and to law and jurisdiction as manifestations in this world of the final judgment. The notion of liminality that lies at the core of Andås analysis is articulated also in the opening section of the following article, a paper by Jens Fleischer on external pulpits as a feature of medieval architecture, and more specifically on the eventuality that St. Michael s chapel, situated on the first floor of the porch in the north transept of the Cathedral in Trondheim, functioned as an external pulpit. In Fleischer s words, external pulpits form part of a liminal space defined by the meeting of the sacred space and the secular world (p. 127), and he further extends the phenomenon of liminality to include a definition of the walls of the church as a connecting medium similar to a membrane. Fleischer s interpretation of the iconography of the St. Michael s chapel comply with that of Andås in the previous article, but the various themes that are brought up in the paper do not lead to any definite conclusions concerning the initial hypothesis that the chapel might have functioned as an external pulpit. The challenges that the meagreness of the source material has to offer the scholar wishing to reconstruct the the physical setting of the cult of St. Olav, are illustrated in Øystein Ekroll s article on The Shrine of St Olav in Nidaros Cathedral. Ekroll gives an exhaustive survey of all available information concerning the circumstances for the construction of the shrine of St. Olav and of the Octagon, i.e. the polygonal easternmost part of the Cathedral that housed both the shrine and the main altar. The shrine or rather shrines, since the relics during the course of the Middle Ages came to be enclosed by no less than three casings is described as far as the sources allow; the appearance of the saintly body according to different sources is accounted for; and what is known about the fate of both shrine and body during and after the Middle Ages is recorded. In addition, Ekroll formulates a number of theories: he proposes that the second shrine, known from a description by Snorri Sturluson, was made on the initiative not of Olav s son Magnus as Snorri claims, but rather of King Magnus Erlingsson (reigning ), although the reasons for Ekroll s disclaiming of Snorri s information are somewhat unclear; the original grave of St. Olav is tentatively located to the banks of the river Nid; the remains of a decorated stone frieze are suggested to have belonged to the base of the third shrine; and a rock crystal, found in the Steinvikholm castle where St. Olav s shrine was dismantled in the 1540s, is presented as possibly the last surviving remnant of the shrine. Howe-

4 Andås m.fl. (eds.): The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim 193 ver, in all these cases the hypotheses are left unproven, since no independent evidence exist to either support or refute Ekroll s assumptions. In Zu den Obergeschosskapellen am Querhaus der Kathedrale von Nidaros und ihrer liturgischen Nutzung, Klaus Gereon Beuckers returns to the question of the functions of the chapels in the transepts, previously touched upon by Jens Fleischer with regard to St. Michael s chapel in the porch of the north transept. In addition to the factual results of Beuckers investigation, indicating that the transept chapels were given temporary liturgical functions during the (re-)building of the choir and nave of the Cathedral, it is worth noticing his assertion that the liturgical sources, such as the so-called Ordo Nidrosiensis the thirteenth-century ordinal of the province of Nidaros do not provide sufficient information for the establishing of the specific use of the chapels. He instead turns to the patrocinia of the chapels, and suggests that the chapels of the southern transept might have been related to the baptismal font which he tentatively locates to the southern transept, while the northern upper-storey chapel might have fulfilled the function of an Easter sepulchre and a storage place for utensils used in liturgical plays enacted at Easter. The last three articles all confirm Beuckers observation that Ordo Nidrosiensis cannot be used as a source for the actual liturgical practice of the Cathedral, among other things because it was compiled for use not only or specifically in the Cathedral, but in the entire province, including Iceland where all but one of the surviving copies originate. In The Ritual of Palm Sunday: Reading Nidaros, David Chadd argues that the liturgical texts, in this case the processional rubric for the Palm Sunday procession in Ordo Nidrosiensis, should be interpreted as just that, namely as texts, or discourses; meaning that they are constructed to communicate the authority of tradition and instructions for the appropriate liturgical practice to the churches around the province, rather than as, in Chadd s own words, to provide us with eyewitness accounts of real events (p. 270); and that they are by nature historical relics, conditioned by the specific circumstances of the moment in which they were concieved. Thus, Chadd s analysis of the Nidaros Ordinal in the context of thirty analogous sources from around Europe, leads him to the conclusion that it should be read as a chronologically layered document, containing elements from older, Anglo- Saxon sources that had influenced the Use of Nidaros at an earlier stage. Christopher Hohler s posthumously published text The Palm Sunday Procession and the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral (originally written in 1990) merits its place in the anthology on account of the close similarity between the west fronts of Salisbury Cathedral and the Cathedral of Trondheim respectively. When Hohler cautions against linking specific liturgical feasts directly to architectural features (in this case the singing of the Gloria laus et honor on Palm Sunday and the gallery above

5 194 Reviewed by Lena Liepe the west porch of Salisbury Cathedral), he anticipates the standpoint taken by Paul Binski earlier in the book; and when he draws attention to the general unreliability of liturgical texts as sources to actual liturgical practice, the reader is reminded of David Chadd s definition of the texts as discursive constructions, testifying to timespecific historical circumstances. In the last article of the volume, Baptismal Practices and Understanding in Medieval Nidaros, Nils Holger Petersen agrees with the previous authors that the Ordo Nidrosiensis has little to say about the liturgy actually performed at the Cathedral, and further questions if a generally accepted Nidaros Use on the whole was followed in the province in the thirteenth century. Petersen s survey of five baptismal rites recorded in Norwegian sources, however, causes him to conclude that even if no uniform Nidaros liturgy was established in the province at the time, there seems to have existed a degree of insight into the meaning of baptism, theologically and culturally, on what Petersen terms a spiritual level of reception that legitimates to view architectural arrangements in the light of theological ideas and intepretations. The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim. Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context is a welcome step towards the exploration of the medieval churches in Norway and elsewhere not in disciplinary isolation, but through the application of an integral perspective that comprises both the visual appearance and aesthetics of the architectural features, the use for which the churches were built, and the wider historical setting of which they formed part. The range of thematics is wide, from broad approaches towards the basic principles of liturgy in theory and practice, to a close reading of historical sources concerning singular arrangements at the Cathedral. With one or two exceptions, the contributions are kept on a level that makes them accessible not only for experts but also for a lay audience, or at least for readers with a general knowledge about medieval culture, if not the finer subtleties of cult and liturgy. A final critical remark should be made about the editing of the text: this reader has not been able to spot any typing errors, but a number of markings and instructions from the proof reader remain, here and there words are missing, and in one case a reference to an illustration consists of question marks. Still, these slips no doubt caused by last-minute haste do not lessen the general appeal of the volume s lay-out and editorial finish.

6 Andås m.fl. (eds.): The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim 195 Lena Liepe (b. 1962) is full professor in art history at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Tromsø; Her main area of research is Nordic and North European medieval art and architecture. Among her published works are an analytical survey of the building of stone churches in Northern Norway during the Middle Ages (Medieval Stone Churches of Northern Norway. The Interpretation of Architecture as a Historical Process, 2001), a study of the iconography of body and gender in Scandinavian pictorial art from the twelfth to the sixteenth century (Den medeltida kroppen. Kroppens och könets ikonografi i nordisk medeltid, 2003), and a number of articles on theoretical and methodological issues connected to the interpretation of medieval imagery. At present, she is engaged in a project on Icelandic medieval book painting.