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The Anchin manuscript of

Passio Olavi (Douai 295), William of Jumièges,

and Theodoricus Monachus: New evidence for intellectual relations
between Norway and France in the 12th century

Lars Boje Mortensen

To cite this Article

Mortensen, Lars Boje(2000) 'The Anchin manuscript of

Passio Olavi

(Douai 295), William of Jumièges,

and Theodoricus Monachus: New evidence for intellectual relations between Norway and France in the 12th century',

Symbolae Osloenses, 75: 1, 165 — 189

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The Anchin manuscript of

A I

(Douai 295),

William of Jumi

ges, and Theodoricus Monachus

New evidence for intellectual relations

between Norway and France in the 12th century

Inger Ekrem in memoriam

29.4.1938-4.3.2000

Lars Boje Mortensen

The ms. Douai, Bibl. mun., 295 (end of the 12th century) is not only one
of the two earliest textual witnesses to the of cial legend of the Norwegian
royal saint, Olav († 1030), Passio Olaui, it is also a remarkable edition in its

own right because it offers a long quotation from a unique source, almost
contemporary with Olav: William of Jumièges’s Gesta Normannorum ducum

V.11–12 (ca. 1050–1070). It is shown that the ms., copied in northern France

(Anchin), must derive from a Norwegian source and thus offers valuable new
evidence of intellectual connections between Norway and northern France
in the late 12th century. A dif cult passage from Theodoricus Monachus’
brief History of Norway (ca. 1180)—which draws on exactly the same para-

graphs of William of Jumièges—is also analysed. It is suggested that Theodo-
ricus, together with archbishop Øystein (1161–1188) and other high-ranking

Norwegians, played an important role in the formation of a Norwegian cor-
pus of of cial texts around 1160–1180, including the Passio Olaui.

When the Nordic countries were drawn effectively into the cultural and reli-
gious sphere of the Latin West, this happened roughly in two phases: an “im-
migrant” period during which the establishment of ecclesiastical institutions
was initiated or supervised by invited foreigners, and an “emigrant” period
when sons of the local elite were sent abroad to study and to create or main-
tain international networks in order to return with enhanced administrative
and symbolic powers.

The phases cannot be dated precisely for the whole

region, but in Norway, Iceland and Denmark the shift took place during the
rst half of the twelfth century; around 1150 we have reached a level of eccle-
siastical organization where people of local extraction and foreign schooling

165

Symbolae Osloenses 75, 2000

Cf. Mortensen 1999.

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Lars Boj e M orten sen

For examples and further references on Nordic students abroad up to ca. 1200 see Munk

Olsen 1997 and Mortensen 1999.

Catalogue 1878, 156.

Catalogus 1901, 369–70.

Metcalfe 1881; Storm’s ignorance of this ms. is less excusable because its contents were clearly

signalled already in 1852 in the standard catalogue by Coxe, 82–83.

dominated the system with ease: new immigrants—like the cistercians or the
mendicants—were allowed but controlled by existing local ecclesiastical in-
stitutions, not simply protected by a single chieftain as in the “immigrant” or
missionary period.

In the latter half of the twelfth century Norwegians (including Icelanders)

maintained intellectual and ecclesiastical relations mainly with England and
northern France. The case for important contacts was strongly put by Arne
Odd Johnsen in his small book on the historian Theodoricus Monachus
from 1939. Not only did he show that the Norwegian writer completed his
modest Latin chronicle around 1180 after having studied in France, he also
discovered two Norwegian ‘Theoderici’ in the obituary of St. Victor in Paris,
one of whom was likely to be identical with the historian, namely Tore Gud-
mundarson (archbishop of Trondhjem 1206–1214) or Tore (bishop of Hamar
1189

/90–96). Moreover he published, in an appendix, letters and various ex-

tracts from calendars and martyrologies which, among other things, point to
a sporadic presence in Northern France of the cult of the royal Norwegian
saint Olav (Haraldsson † 1030).

The Anchin Passio Olaui
In the present paper I would like to discuss a piece of evidence not used by
Johnsen, i.e. one of the two oldest extant textual witnesses to Passio Olaui, the

manuscript Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, 295, copied in the rich Bene-
dic tine abbey of Anchin (diocese Arras, close to the present Belgian border)
in the last quarter of the twelfth century. An analysis of this manuscript will
not only have a direct bearing on the understanding of the transmission of
the text of Passio Olaui and of Norwegian-French relations, but also an indi-

rect one on the work and personality of Theodoricus Monachus.

Although brie y described in the still valid catalogue of the Douai collec-

tion from 1878,

a detailed knowledge of the multi-textual contents of ms.

295

only became available with the anonymous Bollandist analysis of hagio-

graphical manuscripts in Douai from 1901.

Thus one of the most important

textual witnesses to Passio Olaui was unknown to Gustav Storm when prepar-

ing the Monumenta historica Norwegiae, published in 1880, and to Frederick

Metcalfe who discovered the importance of the other late twelfth-century
witness, Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 209 and published its text in 1881.

166

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A I

, William of Jum i

ges, and Th eod oricus Mon ach us

The existence of the Douai text gradually became known to Norwegian
scholars, perhaps only after Arno Malin published a Finnish fragment of the
Passio Olaui in 1920 also signalling the Bollandist publication. In any case, a

photostatic copy of the relevant part of the manuscript was made for Riks-
arkivet in Oslo. Since then Lilli Gjerløw referred to the manuscript in vari-
ous articles and was aware of its Anchin origin.

In October 1999 I consulted

the manuscript in situ with the following results.

Ms. Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, 295 is a modestly sized book of 22,5

x 15 cm. According to the modern foliation the number of leaves runs to
131

, but disregarding a later yleaf and various foliation errors, the medieval

codex turns out to have numbered 134 leaves.

The shifts of quiring and layout clearly show that the codex originally was

made as four separate booklets:

I: ff. 2–48 – Cassiodorus, De origine animae, De institutione & De

orthographia (mutilus, a quire is probably missing at the end)
II: ff. 49–93 – Saints’ lives (Theodoricus, Sulpicius)
III: ff. 94–109 – Passio Olaui
IV: ff. 110–131 – Saints’ lives (Livinus, Blasius)

The four elements are not contemporary. I is earliest, from the rst half or
middle of the twelfth century, II and III are both from the end of the twelfth
century,  whereas  IV is  written  by two  hands  of which  the  last  (126v–131r)
dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Shortly after the copying
of the last life (Blasius) the booklets must have been bound together as they
are now, because a thirteenth-century  hand on f. 2r has listed  the contents
including the Blasius life. Before that the saints lives were probably used in
their separate form for approximately half a century (they seem rather worn
on their outer leaves), and then became bound with Cassiodorus  and each
other.

Without an expert paleographical study of the Anchin scriptorium (a fea-

sible project as about 150 twelfth-century Anchin manuscripts survive in
Douai)

it is impossible to prove that the entire manuscript (or certain parts)

167

Gjerløw 1967, 561–562 & 1968, 125; she is followed by Anne Heinrichs 1993, 447.

I am grateful to Birger Munk Olsen for giving his opinions on the script of the Passio Olaui

part. His dating (12. ex.) has already been used and referred to in Mortensen 2000a and Ekrem
200 0

The pagination runs: ‘2–15, 15bis, 16–120, 120bis, 121, 121bis, 122, 122bis, 123–131’; references

are given to the existing pagination.

Cf. Gerzaguet 1997, 164 and 167–169 where he gives a list of scribes so far identified.

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Lars Boj e M orten sen

Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda 1986, 283–88.

Cf. Gerzaguet 1997, 155.

Johnsen 1939, 110 and 1951, 249, cf. V. Leroquais 1924, 352.

For the versions of Passio Olaui see Ekrem 2000 and Mortensen 2000a.

were actually produced at Anchin. We know for sure, however, that it must
have been there already in the rst half of the thirteenth century: in another
Anchin manuscript (Douai 212) we nd a list of readings (lectiones) recom-

mended to the monks which includes the entry “in libro Cassiodori paruo”
—a tting description of Douai 295 in contrast to another larger volume of
Cassiodorus.

The volume’s choice of well-established early medieval and

partly local saints is hardly surprising at a Benedictine abbey of the region.

Olav does not t into this picture, but interest in the Norwegian saint can be
con rmed by notes in other Anchin manuscripts. Already Johnsen referred
to two entries at July 29, the feast of Olav, in Anchin manuscripts,

and to

this can be added similar notes in a kalendarium from the latter part of the
thirteenth century, Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, 541, (f. 3bisr & 110r).
Even better, in the same codex we nd a calendar with a key to the Anchin
library, and under July 29, “Olaui” (f. 133v) we read: “In libro Cassiodori par-
uo”—i.e. the same designation of the codex that was given by the reading-
list and which is a perfectly understandable description of our volume.

No doubt, therefore, prayers were meant to be sent from the Anchin com-

munity to Olav on his feast day, and the librarian also envisaged that some-
one would look for Olav’s life to read from. Let us take a closer look at the
third fascicle of the codex, the one containing Passio Olaui.

The sixteen folios (ff. 94–109) consist of two regular quaternions (un-

numbered). The Passio Olaui runs from 94r–108v and gives what is prob-

ably an early version of the text with a very brief life, 22 miracles, and an
epilogue.

On ff. 108v–109v the dossier on Olav is completed by an excerpt

from William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum ducum (written in the de-

cades ca 1050–1070) V.11–12, where Olav is mentioned as taking part in
Norman-French con icts, and, more importantly in this context, as having
received baptism in Rouen. The whole codicological element is uniform; it is
decorated with green, red and light blue initials, ruled in lead, laid out with
one column of 25 lines, sized 18 x 11 cm.

Space has been left for rubrics before each miracle of the Passio Olaui, but

these were never lled in; only the incipit rubric was done (94r): “Incipit

passio beati Olaui Gloriosi Regis et Martiris.” The excerpt from William is
totally integrated and here space is also left for rubrics. The two texts t the
two quires well and there are no signs whatsoever that the William excerpt
was added because there was space left. The excerpt ends six lines down on

168

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A I

, William of Jum i

ges, and Th eod oricus Mon ach us

On account of a number of corrupt Norman place-names, Van Houts 1992, lxvi.

109

v and was certainly copied from an exemplar (possibly just a draft) to-

gether with the Passio Olaui.

The whole element was written in one hand, a nice, consistent and regu-

lar, rather large, late twelfth-century Carolingian minuscule from northern
France. The scribe had enough space at his disposal. There are few abbre-
viations, even the nasal stroke is rarely used (it sometimes has an unusual
crossed form). The occasional and unsystematic caude on ‘e’, dots on ‘i’ and

hyphens are in a slightly lighter ink and seem to have been added after the
rst round of working, perhaps even somewhat later. A very curly 7-sign for
et dominates over the occasional ampersand. Some features are quite conser-

vative: there is still a majority of straight d’s and many straight r’s after o.
There are no instances of juncture (Bogenverbindung). The text was corrected

by the scribe himself (see esp. f. 105v line 1–2).

The excerpt from William of Jumiéges is found in no other manuscript

of Passio Olaui and it gives several clues. The rich and varied diffusion of

William’s History of the Norman Dukes has been thoroughly investigated by

Elisabeth van Houts in her edition (1992 & 1995). By collating the excerpt,
which is not used by van Houts, with her text and apparatus the following
emerges. The excerpt does not follow the most widespread version (and up-
date) of William’s text, that made by the Norman monk Robert of Torigni
in the decades ca 1139–1159 (version F), but rather the rarer version D which
van Houts places outside Normandy in the decades after 1106.

The Douai

excerpt, however, displays some telling variants in the rendering of Nordic
names: instead of “Olauum scilicet Noricorum et Lacman Suauorum” (V.11)
it reads (f.108v) “Olauum scilicet Noruagie et Lacman Sueuorum”, thus sub-
stituting the more precise and current ‘Noruagia’ and ‘Sueui’ for learned
Roman names. The excerpting of this piece as an addition to the text of the
Passio, and the changes made in the names re ect a Norwegian viewpoint.

Before speculating more about the excerpt, however, we should rst ask:
Why was the Passio Olaui copied and kept at Anchin at all?

Although the most widely-known Nordic saint in the high middle ages,

Olav was little known in other places in Europe in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. July 29 was already occupied by various other saints (e.g. Simpli-
cius, Felix, and Lupus) and Olav does not gure in any of the great multi-
volume continental legendaries organized according to the calendar such as
the Legendarium Francogallicum and the Magnum Legendarium Austriacum.

Nor does he seem in this period to have entered (with one exception, see
below) the more handy martyrologies such as the standard one by Usuardus

169

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Lars Boj e M orten sen

Østrem 1998.

Nyberg 1997.

On this gap see Østrem 1998 and Mortensen 2000a.

Cf. Ekrem 2000 & Mortensen 2000a.

Annales Egmondenses, ed. G. H. Pertz 1859, 464. For the dating of this part of the Annals I

rely on Gumbert 1990. The Egmond miracle is analysed in Mortensen 2000a.

(Carolingian, but incessantly copied and edited in the high middle ages). As a
new, medieval saint he in no way matches the likes of Thomas Becket whose
cult spread very quickly and widely after his death in 1170. Recent research
has shown that the English evidence for the cult of Olav around 1050–60
can be put down to the in uence of a single powerful English ecclesiastic,
Grimkel, the bishop brought to Norway by Olav himself. After Grimkel the
English evidence disappears.

A number of Danish churches were dedicated

to Olav in the eleventh century, and this was probably also due to an initia-
tive from above, namely from Olav’s son, Magnus the Good, who was also
king of Denmark (1042–47) and fortunate enough to be active exactly in the
period when many churches were built and dedicated.

In the 1060s and 1070s the cult was ourishing suf ciently in the Nordic

countries to be mentioned separately by two foreign historians with an inter-
est in Scandinavia, William of Jumièges and Adam of Bremen; But then there
is a gap in the textual sources until the establishment of the Norwegian arch-
diocese in 1152 in Trondheim (Nidaros).

Around this event and especially

in the following decades during the reign of archbishop Øystein Erlendsson
(1161–88) much literary and other evidence is available, not least the Passio

Olaui itself in its various versions, of which the oldest probably dates from

around 1150.

Theodoricus’ History belongs to this group of texts as it is

dedicated to Øystein. It is also in this period that we have a few pointers to a
recognition of Olav’s powers in England and on the continent. I shall leave
out the English evidence—the most important of which is the longest known
version of Passio Olaui in the already mentioned Corpus Christi manuscript

(copied at Fountain’s Abbey, Yorkshire)—and just bring the scraps of conti-
nental evidence together which might give a little more context to the Anchin
manuscript.

In the Annals of Egmond (Holland, on the North Sea coast) a recent

miracle performed by Olav is told at length under the year 1165. This part of
the Annals was written contemporarily (around 1170) and the miracle narra-
tive is the result of information from a Danish or Norwegian monk passing
by Egmond.

From the same diocese (Utrecht) we possess another piece of evidence

from the middle of the twelfth century. In a copy of Usuardus’ Martyrologium

170

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, William of Jum i

ges, and Th eod oricus Mon ach us

Overgaauw 1993 vol. II, 861 suggests on indirect evidence that the entry was copied from an

English exemplar.

The manuscript is described at length by Overgaauw 1993 vol. I, 516–523.

Hardarson 1995, 9–37 & Boserup 2000 with further references.

Hardarson 1995, 22.

Johnsen 1939, 102–103 & 1951, 252.

Johnsen 1939, 110 quotes four of these; his readings and datings are not always correct; in

my opinion, based on a consultation of the manuscripts, the seven references to St. Victor
manuscripts should be (datings in brackets):
1

. Paris, Bibl. Mazarine, 347. Breviarium (13 (2)) f. 372v at July 29: “Olaui martyris” [not

checked by me].

. Paris, Bibl. Nat., lat. 14811. Kalendarium (13 (2)) f. 4r: “IIII [kal. aug.] ... Felicis uel Simplicii

martyris. Oclaui [sic] martyris” [the whole line is written on erasure in a contemporary
hand].

made shortly after 1138 at the chapter of St. Mary of Utrecht (S’Gravenhage,
Museum Meermanno Westreenianum, 10 B 17) the last entry under July 28
(sic = IIII kal. aug.) is (f. 34v): “Item natale Olaph regis Danorum”. The
entry is copied in the same hand as the rest of the text with no problems
about space and thus probably derived from the exemplar; but there, or in
a still earlier copy, it must have been an addition. The wrong date and the
title “King of the Danes” could point to a vague, perhaps oral, origin for the
entry.

However that may be, it is the earliest instance of updating Usuardus

by adding Olav I have been able to trace (without any systematic investiga-
tion).

Relying on the painstaking research by Overgaauw, it is safe to say

that nowhere else in the dioceses of Utrecht and Liège was Olav mentioned
in liturgical calendars.

The most persistent evidence for inclusion of Olav in calendars on the

Continent in this period is that unearthed by Johnsen for St. Victor in Paris,
an institution otherwise well known for its in uence on and relation with the
Nordic countries.

The sister of the abbot of St. Victor, Ernis (1162–1172),

was married to a Norwegian nobleman, and the abbot’s correspondence with
his sister makes it clear that visits by Norwegians were rather frequent.

Archbishop Øystein, the two Tores and archbishop Erik Ivarsson (1189–1205)
corroborate this picture: St. Victor’s was undisputedly the most important
house in France for leading Norwegians staying for shorter or longer periods.
In 1220 and 1221 archbishop Guttorm temporarily deposited the Peter’s pen-
nies collected in Norway in the treasury of St. Victor—a practice likely to go
back to the twelfth century.

These ties are re ected in the liturgical record.

In seven St. Victor calendars and martyrologies copied in the thirteenth cen-
tury we nd Olav mentioned on July 29.

There is good reason to suppose

171

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Lars Boj e M orten sen

. Paris, Bibl. Nat., lat. 14811. Martyrologium (13 (2)) f. 441vb at July 29: “Olaui martyris

oratio”.

. Paris, Bibl. Nat., lat. 14673. Kalendarium (13 (1)) f. 68r at July 29: “... Felicis, Faustini et

Beatrice. [a contemporary hand added above the line]: “Olaui martyris”.

. Paris Bibl. Nat., lat. 14673. Martyrologium Usuardi (13 (1)) [Added much later (14–15) in

the margin:] “Sancti Olaui regis et martyris”, [but below a contemporary hand had written:]
“Item natalis sancti Olaui regis et martiris”.
6

. Paris Bibl. Nat., lat. 14506. Kalendarium (12/13) f. 264r: “IIII kl [aug.] Felicis. Simplicii.

Faustini et Beatricis” [a contemporary hand has added:] “Olaui martiris memoria”.

. Paris Bibl. Nat., lat. 14506. Ordo ecclesiasticus (12/13) f. 312r: “IIII kl [aug.] S. Felicis

Simplicii Faustini et Beatricis” [a contemporary hand has added:] “Olaui martiris memoria”.

With the possible exception of items 6) and 7) in the above note dating from the turn of

the century, and of Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 15024 , ff. 1–53 a Martyrologium (12 ex.)
from St. Victor (Cf. Ouy 1999 vol. II, 482, cat. no. EEE 17) which I have not checked.

Sources quoted by Johnsen 1939, 108–109.

that he would have been added in the latter half of the twelfth century when
Norwegian-French relations began to pick up—but such earlier St. Victor
manuscripts have probably not survived.

An arresting detail is known about archbishop Erik: he donated a piece of

St. Olav’s shirt and a sum of money to St. Victor.

In such relations gifts

were no doubt exchanged as a routine matter, and donations were invested
for an eternal harvest. It was of course a common practice that local and for-
eign magnates paid for post mortem-prayers. The relic of St. Olav also indi-

cates the importance attached to St. Victor by the Norwegians. Not only did
they enrich the reliquary to gain respect from their hosts, they also secured
continuous contact with their saint. Other relics may have preceded the piece
of the shirt. We have no clear evidence of what kind of celebration took place
on July 29 at St. Victor in this period, whether just a commemoration (“me-
moria” as two notes have it, see above) or perhaps a more elaborate service
with readings from the legend etc. We would at least expect the latter among
Nordic clerics present. In that case we should also expect a text of some ver-
sion of Passio Olaui. Despite a good survival rate of St. Victor manuscripts

and several library lists, this evidence eludes us so far. We should have liked
to see a liturgical library key with reference to a text on Olav, like the one we
have in Anchin. For St. Victor we have a lot of evidence of Norwegians and
their promotion of St. Olav, but no text of the Passio Olaui (which is very

likely to have been there), in Anchin the situation is reverse. Again, what was
Olav’s business there?

There is nothing to indicate a special relation between the regular canons

of St. Victor and the benedictines at Anchin. A secondary “in uence” from

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, William of Jum i

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Paris to Anchin in regard to the selection of saints does not seem a promising
explanation, nor does Anchin seem to have been in uenced by its more im-
mediate surroundings. If we look at the diocese of Arras for awareness of St.
Olav, Anchin turns out to be a special case. B. Delmaire has gone through
the existing liturgical calendars from the diocese and established what saints
were included, and he does not report any other presence of Olav.

An explanation of the Anchin record of St. Olav should, in light of the

above, be sought in some sort of direct connection between Norwegians and
the abbey of Anchin. We know from the thirteenth century that Norwegians
travelling to France preferred to go by ship to Flanders.

A look at the map

will con rm that Anchin could well have been a regular stop-over for Nordic
travellers to Paris. In the twelfth century Anchin was a major and very rich
abbey of the region with numerous formalized institutional and personal
con fraternities.

Apart from these it would be natural to assume less formal-

ized arrangements with, for example, Nordic travellers. In fact we nd a very
prominent twelfth-century Nordic ecclesiastic in an Anchin list of people rec-
ommended for prayers (Douai, Bibl. mun., 888, f. 143rb):

“hesquilus, archi-

episcopus dacie”—i.e. Eskil, the controversial archbishop of Lund (1137–1177)
who had numerous and important French connections and ended his days as
a monk of Clairvaux (1181/1182). Eskil was commemorated by other northern
French houses (Clairvaux, Sainte-Geneviève (Paris), St.-Victor (Paris), St.-
Remi (Reims)),

and his inclusion in the Anchin prayers must re ect a do-

nation made by Eskil—in return for regular hospitality. Eskil was a frequent
traveller. If this route was taken by Eskil, and Nordic relations were already
established, it would not be too daring to suggest that important Norwegians
regularly included Anchin in their itinerary, and that this would explain
the otherwise mysterious manuscript of Passio Olaui and its apparent use at

Anchin in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

If I am right in supposing that the Anchin text of Passio Olaui owes its

existence to Norwegian travellers from the second half of the twelfth cen-
tury, this means that its exemplar is likely to have been close to an of cial
Trondheim version. Such travellers were high-ranking people who probably
had access to the latest authoritative description of miracles reported at Olav’s
shrine in Trondheim.

One could guess that Øystein or someone from his

circle had cultivated ties with Anchin in the 1160s or 1170s and given the lo-

173

Delmaire 1994; on p. 360 (vol. II) there is survey of saints of July.

Johnsen 1951.

Gerzaguet 1997, 200–212.

Cf. Gerzaguet 1997, 324.

Harðarson 1995, 20.

See Mortensen 2000a for the composition and presumably centralized control of the miracle

collection.

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Lars Boj e M orten sen

Theodoricus, ch. 13.6–13.8 in the paragraph numbering of the forthcoming edition by Egil

Kraggerud (in Storm’s edition ch. 13, p. 22, l.3–10). My quotation adapts most features from
the preliminary text of Kraggerud.

Translation by McDougall & McDougall 1998, 17.

cal monks an exemplar to copy. Thus a textual base for readings on July 29
would be in place, not least for Norwegians or other Nordics the next time
they passed by, and the local monks would always have a spiritual connection
with prospective Nordic guests by cultivating a most important manifestation
of the divine. While this must remain speculation, we have another clue to the
position of the Anchin manuscript (or its exemplar) among Norwegian intel-
lectuals during these decades, namely the excerpt from William of Jumièges
added to the Passio Olaui.

William of Jumièges and Theodoricus Monachus
The central chapters of Theodoricus monachus’ brief History of Norway are

devoted to Olav (ch.s 13–20). His main point is to emphasize the historical
and symbolic signi cance of the king’s martyrdom as the decisive event for
the  christianization  of  Norway.  He  also  discusses  some  “trivial”  historical
points,  for  example  the  correct  year  of  the  event  and  the  correct  place  of
Olav’s baptism. He obviously attaches some signi cance to these problems
and presents himself as a serious researcher, although he cannot always come
up with certain results (the year of Olav’s death is, with some uncertainty,
determined  as  1029).  Regarding  Olav’s  baptism  Theodoricus  reports  that
some have placed it in Norway and some in England:

Sed et ego legi in Historia Normannorum, quod a Roberto in Normandia
Rothomagensi metropolitano, baptizatus fuerit. Constat enim, quod
Wil lelmus, dux Normanniæ, adsciuerit eum sibi in auxilium contra
Rober tum regem Francie, cognomento Capet (qui fuit lius Hugonis
Capet, nobilissimi ducis), qui duci Willelmo una cum comite Flandrensi
bellum inferre parabant. Nitebatur enim eum expellere a Normannia, eo
quod antecessores ejus ui extorserant provinciam a rege Francorum.

But I, for my part, have read in the ‘History of the Normans’ that he was
baptized in Normandy by Robert, Archbishop of Rouen. For it is certain that

duke William of Normandy took him with him to help him in his ght against
king Robert of France, whose by-name was Capet (he was the son of the most
noble duke Hugh Capet), when together with the count of Flanders Robert
was preparing to wage war against duke William. In fact he was trying to drive
William out of Normandy, because his ancestors had wrested that province
from the king of France by force.

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Douai, Bibl. mun., 295, f. 94r.

Skard 1933, 369.

Johnsen 1939, p. 21: “Theodoricus’s ord gir nærmest uttrykk for at versjonen om Olavs dåp

i Normandie skyldes en litterær opdagelse ca. 150 år efter helgenens død. [...] Umulig er det
derfor ikke at Theodoricus virkelig er den første nordmann som først er kommet over vers-
jonen om Olavs dåp i Frankrike, samt at teksten i “Acta S. Olavi” i overensstemmelse dermed

er blitt endret noe efter fremkomsten av hans arbeide.”

Damsgaard-Olsen 1965, 49–50.

This is a key passage, fraught with problems. They can be gathered under
two headings: 1) What is the relation between Theodoricus’ “discovery” of
Olav’s baptism in Rouen and the reporting of this fact in the opening of the
Passio Olaui itself? (“Gloriosvs rex Olauus ewangelice ueritatis sinceritate in

Anglia comperta dem toto admisit pectore et ad baptismi gratiam in urbe
Rothomagi deuota animi alacritate conuolauit.”).

2) How did Theodoricus

manage to arrive at this strange combination of historical gures and events
that spreads over almost a century? These two main dif culties are, as we
shall see, connected and both bound up with an interpretation of the Anchin
text and its excerpt from William of Jumièges.

If, as most scholars believe, Passio Olaui, or rather an early version of it,

pre-dates Theodoricus’ History (which must have been completed after 1177),

and if the text included, in its pre-1177 state, the passage about Olav’s bap-
tism in Rouen, we are faced with an enigma: Either Theodoricus presents his
discovery in bad faith, or the detail about Rouen must have been inserted
into the various versions of Passio Olaui improbably late for a text that we

have two major textual witnesses to before 1200 and a number of liturgical
fragments etc. shortly after 1200. Eiliv Skard tried to get around the prob-
lem by a rather arti cial reading of Theodoricus’s words as if they were ad-
dressed only to the dedicatee: “I too, like you Øystein, am aware of the pas-
sage etc.”

Johnsen also admitted to confusion on behalf of his hero, but he reached

a different conclusion: “It is almost as if Theodoricus voices the opinion that
the story  of  Olav’s  baptism  in  Rouen  is  due  to  a literary  discovery  ca  150
years  after  the  death  of  the  saint  [... on  the  growing  contact  with  France
in  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century].  It  is  thus  not  impossible  that
Theodoricus  really  is  the   rst  Norwegian  to  have  come  across,  in  France,
the  story  of  Olav’s  baptism,  and  that  the  text  of  “Acta  S.  Olavi”  [=Passio

Olaui] has been adjusted after the publication of his work”.

With more

consistency, Thorkil Damsgaard-Olsen held the same view: Given the of cial
character of Theodoricus’s work—its dedication to the archbishop, its local
knowlegde and pioneering spirit—it would be unthinkable that Theodoricus
claimed to have discovered something which was already widespread in the
readings of the liturgy of St. Olav.

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Holtsmark 1967, 585; I am not quite sure what she thinks about William’s role: “Det er

neppe grunn til å tro at det først var Theodoricus monachus som i overenstemmelse med

Vilhelm av Jumièges lar Olav bli døpt i Rouen [...]”. The relative clause is ambiguous.

Cf. Røthe 2000, 174–177.

On the other hand, we have a number of scholars who—along with

Skard—doubt that Theodoricus could have had any in uence on the text
of Passio Olaui. Anne Holtsmark 1967 simply states that there is no reason

to believe in Theodoricus’ primacy when, in accordance with William, he
places Olav’s birth in Rouen.

In his biography of Øystein, Erik Gunnes

1996

takes the view, current since Skard 1932, that Øystein is the sole author

of Passio Olaui and that he composed it before Theodoricus wrote his his-

tory; hence he reads Theodoricus’s passage as a cautious borrowing from
Øystein’s prologue to the Passio: Øystein’s straightforward statement that

Olav was baptized in Rouen is a matter of dispute, but it can be corrobo-
rated by Theodoricus’s new reference to William of Jumièges—in reality a
variant of the reading by Skard. The commentary to Theodoricus by Foote,
McDougall and McDougall 1998 is somewhat vague and self-contradictory
on this point. They also take for granted that what is transmitted as Passio

Olaui is the work of Øystein; in the introduction (p. xix) Foote writes

that “The Passio  and the Historia  show no decisive  signs  that either  in u-
enced  each  other”,  whereas  McDougall  and  McDougall  comment  on  the
Rouen passage in the Historia by saying: “This account is echoed in Eysteinn
Erlendsson’s  Passio  Olaui ....”. More  recently  Ekrem 2000 and Mortensen
20 00

a have challenged Skard’s views and argued for a multi-layered and

multi-author understanding of the Passio. In passing we also discussed the

problematic passage—I shall return to those viewpoints in the conclusion.

One important point has been overlooked by previous commentators. The

story of Olav’s baptism in Rouen could have come from one and only one
source: William of Jumièges’ Gesta Normannorum ducum. The great local

historical interest in Olav that we see documented in the period ca 1150–1250
re ects no local (oral or written) source saying so (and the fact was ignored in
Old Norse sagas).

There was no historical writing in Scandinavia in Olav’s

lifetime nor, approximately, for the next hundred years; nor could any con-
ceivable interests  be served by fabricating such an event in the twelfth cen-
tury.  In  lack  of  a  local,  northern,  written  tradition  centered  on  Olav,  the
baptism in Rouen could only have been recorded by a Norman source fairly
close to the events;  if the source did not have a special interest  in  Olav, it
would have to have one in Norman history, in the history  of the Norman
capital, Rouen, and in the salutary effect of Norman rulers on their heathen

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van Houts 1992 gives a very plausible evaluation of William’s information in book V (vol.

I, p.li): “The correlations established above, however, between the areas of Normandy about
which William provides particularly detailed information and the areas in which [the abbey

of] Jumièges held property, suggest quite strongly that he relied to a great extent on the testi-
mony of people with first-hand knowledge of events, and the authenticity of his account is
much enhanced thereby. Even where he is writing about events which took place near the

Norman border, but in an area where Jumièges held property, his account is extremely valu-
able. [...] we may trust [...], also his stories in the same chapters about the Scandinavian war-
lords Olaf and Lacman.”

van Houts 1992, xcv–cxxvi.

Ekrem 2000, 148 hints at a possible use of William’s history by the anonymous author of

Historia Norwegie (probably from second half of the twelfth century, and, according to Ekrem
1998

as early as the mid-twelfth century), but there are no exact parallels, as she herself admits.

In fact, one would expect William’s Rouen evidence to have been used in ch. 18, had the

author known of it.

Nordic allies. The Norman historian before William (i.e. Dudo) was too

early to record the baptism, the Norman historians after William (Orderic,
Robert of Torigni) wrote approximately a century after events, and in fact
just made editions of William for the early periods. It is of no consequence
here what kind of local tradition William was drawing on for Olav’s baptism
ca 40 years earlier,

the point is that in the twelfth century (as today) this

particular piece of information was to be found nowhere but in William’s
History.

This means that whoever entered the information in the Passio Olaui is

bound to have done exactly the same as Theodoricus and as the redactor
of the exemplar of the Anchin manuscript, namely to have compared tradi-
tional knowledge about the baptism of Olav with Gesta Normannorum du-

cum V.11–12. I shall return to some probable scenarios for how this came

about once I have reviewed  the evidence  for the other  problematic side  of
the quoted passage, but it is at least safe to say the following. The scholar(s)
behind  the  discovery,  whether  made  once  or  several  times  independently,
must have been from Norway and interested in documenting the life of Olav.
Furthermore,  it  is  very  probable  that  the  discovery  was  made  in  northern
France  or  in  the  Anglo-Norman  kingdom  sometime  between  ca  1150  and
1180

. The site is determined by the spread of William’s text in the eleventh

and twelfth centuries—it was con ned to those two regions.

It is not en-

tirely impossible that a text of William could have been imported into some
Nordic library at some point before ca 1150, but there is no evidence for
this (e.g. existing manuscripts, items in book-lists or quotations in Nordic

authors before Theodoricus

); and from what is known about the spread

of William’s text and the intellectual relations between the Nordic countries

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Saxo’s main models were texts studied abroad or copied for home use for writing the his-

tory (Cf. Friis-Jensen, 1999). The number of contemporary and earlier foreign texts used by

Theodoricus can hardly have been in place in Trondheim around 1170 as suggested by Foote
in McDougall & McDougall 1998, x. Johnsen 1939 contains the main evidence against this;
the arguments are elaborated by Mortensen 1999 & 2000c; in fact, we would be forced to as-

sume a “shadow”-Theodoricus collecting the same books in France around the same time.

Cf. Mortensen 1999 & 2000b.

Van Houts 1995, note 3 ad locum (vol. II, 24–25).

and France before the mid-eleventh century, it would be surprising. A con-
temporary with Theodoricus, Saxo Grammaticus, was using Dudo’s Norman

History; but it was exactly such exotic foreign texts that Saxo and Theodoricus

had to go abroad to nd and use.

The terminus post quem results from the

following considerations. It is with the establishment of the Norwegian archi-
episcopal see in 1152 / 1153 that we can see the Passio Olaui tradition arise.

The rst versions of the life and the miracle collection go back to this period;
most of the reported miracles are to be dated after the establishment of the
archiepiscopal see. Other important texts were written during the 1150s and
1160

s (e.g. the Canones Nidrosienses); and it is, generally speaking, in the

same period that we can glimpse the rst collective efforts at establishing a
learned milieu at Trondheim by sending Norwegians abroad, especially to
northern France.

To sum up: It cannot be ruled out that some Norwegian

scholar came across William of Jumièges’s work about, say, 1120, and thus
had the information on baptism in Rouen entered in a hypothetical proto-
Passio Olaui, but all the textual and circumstantial evidence points to the two

or three decades after ca 1150.

Let me now take a look at Theodoricus’s peculiar combination of histori-

cal gures in our passage. Both Storm 1880 and McDougall & McDougall
1998

have noted that Theodoricus gives a muddled account based on Gesta

Nor mannorum ducum V.11–12. For those with access to modern reference

tools  it  is  easy  to  catch  Theodoricus  off  guard:  Robert  was  indeed  arch-
bishop of Rouen in the right period (989–1037) and Robert (II, the Pious),
son  of  King  Hugh Capet  (987–996, here  confused  with  his  father,  Count
Hugh the Great († 956)), also reigned in France (996–1031), but the Norman
duke  in  question  must  have been  Richard II  (996–1026)  and  not  William
(Longsword,  ca.  927–42)!  The  unnamed  Count  of  Flanders  sounds  like
Arnulf I  (918–65) who, in  fact, killed  William Longsword,  but is  almost a
century too early to have conspired with king Robert the Pious against the
Normans.

How does this relate to William’s account in V.11–12 (itself chronologically

confused

)? V.11 opens with the statement that the (Norman) duke sent for

Olav and Lacman to help him against Count Odo (II of Blois, 996–1037).

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The  military  success  of  the  viking  chieftains  and  how  they  were  received
with honours by Richard in Rouen are described; next (V.12) we hear that
the  French  king  Robert  summoned  Duke  Richard  and  Count  Odo  to  be
reconciled because he feared for the safety of France. When Duke Richard
had agreed  to  the truce  he returned  to  the Scandinavian  kings  (in  Rouen,
presumably). At the same time Olav converted to Christianity at the urging
of Archbishop Robert. He was baptized and later slain as a martyr in his own
country.

We must now ask: was this passage of William’s—identical to the one

excerpted in the Anchin manuscript—suf cient for Theodoricus, or did he
draw on other sources, and possibly, a more extensive study of Gesta Norman-

norum ducum? There is no doubt that Theodoricus used exactly this text—as

stated before, this was the only source placing Olav’s baptism in Rouen; the
naming of the archbishop also derives directly from William. Furthermore,
we  recognize  King  Robert’s  involvement  in  Norman  matters,  although he
appears much more friendly in William than in Theodoricus. But how have
the wrong duke (William) and the wrong count (of Flanders) crept in? One
possibility  to consider  is that Theodoricus  knew only the excerpt (V.11–12)
and  not  the  whole  text  of  William.  The  excerpt  begins  with  an  unnamed
duke as subject of the rst sentence.  In fact Richard is the subject of book
V and dominates  the action so much that long passages  simply imply him
or  write  ‘dux’  as  the  grammatical  subject;  no  one  reading  the  beginning
of  book  V  would  be  left  in  doubt  as  to  which  duke  we  are  dealing  with.
But the omission  of the  name must have been an irritant  to  some  readers
because versions  A, B, E, and F often add the name after ‘dux’, not, how-
ever, the D text which  the Anchin  excerpt  follows  (it is  not  possible  from
Theodoricus’s  wording  to  determine  which  version  he  used).  One  could
add that Theodoricus does not mention the author, but simply talks about
‘Historia Normannorum’. The Anchin excerpt was planned to have an initial
rubric (at the end of the Passio Olaui text, f. 108r), but the text was never en-

tered on the two lines left free; it could have said something like this ‘de bap-
tismo sancti Olaui de Historia Normannorum’—in any case William need
not have been speci ed as the author. A full version D (as also B, C, E, and
F), however, did include the preface to book one where William names him-
self. Such considerations could favour the view that Theodoricus knew only
the chapters V.11–12 and not the entire work, and that this led him astray as
to the identity of the duke.

However, there are other elements in Theodoricus’s text which are still left

unexplained, e.g. the introduction of the count of Flanders. And it would ac-
tually be dif cult for Theodoricus to ignore the identity of the Norman duke,
as he is mentioned by name once in all versions available for this passage (the

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Historiae III.ix.39; I quote the edition and translation of John France, Oxford 1993, 162–163:

“Hic nempe quondam, iunctus Arnulfo Flandrensi comiti, expetens per legatos Willelmum
Rothomagorum ducem uelut ad familiare pacis colloquium, promittens se ex parte regis
Francorum etc.”

France 1993, xcvii–cvi.

rst period of V.12 “Rex ... Robertus, audiens ... ducemque Ricardum...”, f.
109

r in the Anchin excerpt). Therefore, by insisting that Theodoricus could

only have known the excerpt and not its context in the Gesta Normannorum

ducum, we can still not account for our text. Other sources or other factors

must have led Theodoricus to change William’s text.

One clue is provided by the French chronicler Rodulfus Glaber who

wrote his self-obsessed, theologizing and chronologically very inept Historiae

during the years ca. 1030 to his death in 1046. He is not particularly con-
cerned with Normandy or Normans and he never mentions any contempo-
rary Scandinavian chieftain by name. But when writing about Count Odo
II of Blois (the rst name appearing in Gesta Normannorum ducum V.11) he

says that Odo’s grandfather Theobald “in complicity with Arnulf, count of
Flanders, once sent messengers to William, duke of Rouen, calling him as
to a friendly peace-conference and pretending he had useful things to tell
him on behalf of the king of the Franks etc. [William is lured into a trap]”.

Here we   nd some of the other elements in  Theodoricus’s story: The  alli-
ance of the French King and the Count of Flanders against Duke William;
furthermore there  is  a  link,  although indirectly,  to  count  Odo  mentioned
in the William passage. The story of Arnulf’s trap for Duke William is also
told by Dudo and repeated by William of Jumièges (III.11–12), but the simi-
larity to Theodoricus is somewhat less striking: the French king is not men-
tioned,  nor is  any Odo  who  might have misled Theodoricus  into  creating
a link  between  mid-10th-century  events  and  early  eleventh-century  ones.  I
do not think there is any evidence that Theodoricus knew or used Rodulfus
directly—his text was little known even in France it seems;

but it is some-

thing like this that Theodoricus must have blended into William’s account.

It is not possible to get to the bottom of Theodoricus’s story, but my

point so far is that we are dealing with an interpretation of events, not just a
muddled rendering of Gesta Normannorum ducum V.11–12. It is an interpre-

tive condensation of it with elements of one or more other accounts similar
to  the  one  found  in  Rodulfus  Glaber  or  perhaps  in  William  himself.  To
sum up: Theodoricus does not appear to have studied William of Jumièges
tho roughly from cover to cover; but, on the other hand, we have to accept
that he substituted  Duke William for Duke Richard knowingly, even if he
had only known  an excerpt of V.11–12. It seems to me that Theodoricus at

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Theodoricus quotes Sigebertus by name once (in the prologue); he complains himself about

the inaccuracy of datings in the tradition (ch. 20).

least knew some of the context. In V.11–12 Robert is not called archbishop of
Rouen, only archbishop, and his af liation is not self-evident from that pas-
sage alone; but in IV.19 he is introduced as the new ‘Rotomagensis archiepis-
copus’.

To get some perspective on all these details, let us try to put ourselves in

Theodoricus’ shoes. A major problem for medieval historians, especially pio-
neering ones such as Theodoricus, was to calculate and reconcile a number
of local chronologies. Datings anno domini were available but not regularly

used in narrative historiography. The strictly chronological literature in the
tradition of Jerome, Isidore, and Bede gave a good initial framework (even if
they disagreed among themselves), but for more modern events one was at
the mercy of Sigebert of Gembloux (up to 1111) and a few others.

For events

and rulers not mentioned  by Sigebert, e.g. those from Norman and Nordic
history, it was up to oneself to combine something plausible. To leaf through
Dudo or William of Jumièges must have been a rather discouraging experi-
ence: a maze of names, places and wars without any chronological sign-posts.
Names of rulers from foreign regions presented not the least dif culty. It was
not easy to be sure which Odo, which Robert etc. various sources talked about.
To give just one example: the brilliant twelfth-century historian  William of
Malmes bury, faced with Norwegian history, happily confuses Harald Hårfagre
and  Harald Harderåde  (Gesta  regum III.260), even though they  ruled more

than hundred years apart and in spite of the fact that Harderåde had had some
signi cance for recent insular history (appr. 60 years before William wrote).
Then as now, foreign names and foreign traditions are confusing unless you
decide to study them properly. Theodoricus’s interpretation need not have
been undertaken in bad faith against the authority of William of Jumièges; it
was rather an attempt to make sense of William in the light of other accounts
Theodoricus had read, or perhaps heard, an attempt without any intention of
studying Norman and French history properly.

The combination arrived at by Theodoricus did serve a purpose. The main

point was to provide Olav’s baptism with some sort of context that would give
plausibility to his newly found evidence: that Olav was summoned to con-
tribute to a long-term struggle between Normandy and the Capetian king of
France did not diminish the importance of the Norwegian king. Theodoricus
did not set out to probe deep into Norman and French history, rather he was
happy to give his Norwegian audience a taste of foreign affairs that looked
convincing and was glorious for Olav.

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Skard 1933, 369 & Gunnes 1996, 216.

Conclusion
It is now time to attempt to join the various threads. Do the three sources
introducing William of Jumièges’ testimony—Theodoricus, the text of Passio

Olaui, and the Anchin edition—represent a common effort, or are they in-

dependent? And in each case: what are the consequences to be drawn for our
understanding of Passio Olaui and its transmission? How should we evalu-

ate Theodoricus’ “discovery” and his relation to his dedicatee, archbishop
Øystein? And nally, what do the Anchin manuscript and the other evidence
discussed add to our understanding of late twelfth-century intellectual rela-
tions between Norway and France?

One scenario would make Theodoricus a marginal gure at a consider-

able distance from the composition and transmission of Passio Olaui. This

would mean that we could easily connect the Anchin excerpt of William
with the Passio without bothering directly about how Theodoricus ts in: at

some early point during the composition of the legend, perhaps as early as
ca 1150, some centrally placed Norwegian scholar would have become aware
of William’s testimony, added the excerpt to a copy of Passio Olaui (giving

rise to other copies  such as the Anchin ms.) and included the sentence de-
scribing  Olav’s baptism in the text itself.  This chain of events implies that
Theodoricus  was  either  insincere  or  ignorant.  Either  he already knew  that
Olav’s baptism was recognized as having taken place in Rouen, and had per-
haps consulted a copy of the Passio Olaui with the William excerpt attached,

and still chose to present it as his own discovery, or he simply did not know
that other Norwegian scholars had made the same discovery and that it was
already an established fact in the of cial legend.

It is necessary here to make a detour into a textual problem, because some

scholars think that Theodoricus does not actually claim to have made a dis-
covery. The problematic phrase is the opening of the quoted passage: Sed et

ego legi in Historia Normannorum.... One would perhaps expect Sed ego legi

... as a more straightforward way of staking the claim of discovery. Skard and

Gunnes seem to take the et as attached exclusively to ego (“I too”) thereby

interpreting Theodoricus’s words as a slightly critical dialogue with the dedi-
catee Øystein (the supposed author of Passio Olaui) to the effect that “I can

con rm your statement etc.”, or “I have also studied William and know as
well as you etc.”

There is nothing wrong in saying sed et (three other in-

stances in Theodoricus, ch.s 3, 18, 22) as a variant for sed etiam (no other

instances; Theodoricus prefers uerum etiam, ch.s 10, 22) in classical or medi-

eval Latin, nor does an isolated reading of this phrase forbid us to take the

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McDougall & McDougall 1998 (see above for full quote): “But I, for my part, have read...”

Astrid Salvesen 1969, 60: “Etter hva noen sier, lot kongen nå både Olav og hans mor døpe,
andre hevder at Olav ble døpt i England, men selv har jeg lest i Normannerens historie at han

ble døpt i Normandie av Robert, erkebiskop til Rouen.”

Cf. Mortensen 1999 & 2000b.

et as a reinforcement of ego alone. But in its context such an understanding

becomes problematic. Some place Olav’s baptism in Norway, Theodoricus
says, alii contendunt eum in Anglia baptizatum; sed et ego legi etc. The adversa-

tive sense of the whole period is clear: In contrast (sed ) to these theories I

have also (et) come across another one etc. Thus, we should take the et with

the entire claim. If we do not, the ego will not contrast properly with any-

thing in the context, but if we do, it contrasts nicely with alii.

What strains this reading somewhat is that we have to accept legi as a par-

allel to contendunt, both signifying a theory and its different modes of trans-

mission. The existing translations gloss over this dif culty, without, however,
distorting the text signi cantly.

The proper translation should include an

“also”: “But I, for my part, have also  read...” “also” pointing  slightly  awk-
wardly beyond the act of reading towards the content of the claim. This is,
I think, acceptable, and less troubling than the implication that Theodoricus
here  suddenly  and  uniquely outside  the dedicatory  letter addresses  himself
only  to  the dedicatee  (who, moreover, no longer counts as the sole author
of Passio Olaui), or, hypothetically, to a group of readers all expected to be

familiar with the History of the Normans. (Interestingly, this is the only in-
stance in the entire work where Theodoricus uses ego for the narrator, other-

wise he says nos—a feature that warrants the emphasis in the translation “I,

for my part, ...”).

Whichever way one goes, it can hardly be denied that Theodoricus here

thinks he introduces new evidence. In the present scenario, therefore, we
have to face the question of his motive. To my mind ignorance cannot possi-
bly be pleaded: Theodoricus was well-versed in Norwegian matters in general
and, of course, highly interested in Olav. But whether one chooses ignorance
or insincerity—both interpretations emphasize Theodoricus’s isolation. He
would, then, not be part of a team working in Trondheim to establish and
strengthen the new ideological centre of Norway.

Such a scenario I nd very improbable; my arguments are, however, cir-

cumstantial (but numerous!):

) In small and pioneering intellectual milieus like the Nordic ones of the

twelfth century, a dedication is prone to re ect contact and, perhaps, col-
laboration between author and dedicatee (cf. Saxo Grammaticus). We are
not in a world where many authors compete for the limelight, but rather in
one where elite members themselves formulate elite ideology.

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Ch. 20 (Storm 1880, 43–44), ch. 20.12–13 in the forthcoming edition by Kraggerud.

Vandvik 1959 no. 12, § 5 (p. 68 + commentary p. 174); cf. Vandvik 1955.

Cf. Mortensen 1993 & 2000c.

Cf. Mortensen 1999 & 2000b.

) The contents of Theodoricus’ History tally so well with other of cial

written efforts of the time that one should expect the author to be an insider
rather than an outsider (cf. Bagge 1989 & Mortensen 1993). Theodoricus’
emphasis on Olav and his taking for granted that everybody knows the story
of Olav’s translation to Trondheim

point in this direction. So does, for ex-

ample, his discussion of Olav’s baptism which is concluded with a parallel to
the baptism of Constantine the Great (XIII.10): We should not be bothered
too much about differing views on the place and date of Olav’s baptism since
ancient authors even differ as to the baptism of Constantine: “et adhuc sub
iudice  lis  est  quis  uerius  scripserit” (“and  it  is  still  not  decided  who  wrote
the truth”). Øystein had asked the Pope exactly this question as we can see
from  an  answer  written  by  Alexander  III  (dated  between  1164  and  1181):
“Baptismum autem Constantini non ab Eusebio, set a beato Siluestro credi-
mus  celebratum” (“We  believe  that Constantine  was  baptized  by  the holy
Sylvester rather than by Eusebius”).

Theodoricus’ wording seems to re ect

this answer in the “adhuc sub iudice lis est”; at least the coincidence is easiest
to explain if we take Theodoricus to be part of Øystein’s circle.

) From Theodoricus’ work alone Johnsen concluded that he had studied

in Northern France, a conclusion that can be strengthened by more recent
research into the textual history of the foreign works Theodoricus refers to.

To go abroad to study was, in this period, a privilige of the elite.

It would

be strange if the author of an historical account centered in Trondheim, with
an elite background, did not participate in more or less overlapping local elite
networks. It is much more dif cult to explain how an isolated author or an
outsider would reach the position to write as Theodoricus does.

) Johnsen’s identi cation of Theodoricus with Tore Gudmundarson

(archbishop of Trondhjem 1206–1214) or Tore (bishop of Hamar 1189/90–96)
is in itself very plausible (as we know that these two were prayed for at St.
Victor in Paris). If the reasoning in 3) above is valid, the identication with
one or the other is further corroborated. Accepting the identi cation creates
even more problems for an “outsider”-view of Theodoricus: someone who
ended up as bishop or archbishop is more than likely, in the elite culture of
the twelfth century, to have been an insider all along.

In another scenario one could try to side Theodoricus and the Anchin

excerpt against Passio Olaui. It is perhaps tempting to imagine Theodoricus

working on his own in France, discovering William of Jumièges and mak-

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ges, and Th eod oricus Mon ach us

Douai, BM, 295 f. 94r; the wording is similar in all other known manuscripts containing the

legend. I am drawing on a first collation made by Inger Ekrem.

Harðarson 1995, 24.

His name Monachus may be a later addition or it may simply refer to the canons’ regular

life; the problems are discussed in Mortensen 2000c. In placing Theodoricus here I agree with

i.a. Gunnes 1996, 199.

Cf. Skånland 1969.

ing a copy of Passio Olaui with the excerpt attached in the 1170s—an ‘edi-

tion’ that only spread to a few French monasteries such as Anchin and never
reached Norway. The dismal history of medieval book collections in Norway
allows us to state almost anything we like about possible Norwegian editions
of Passio Olaui. As there is almost no evidence, and certainly none of twelfth-

century  complete  legends  such  as  preserved  in  the  Anchin  and  Fountains
Abbey manuscripts,  we can easily assume that both go back to  Norwegian
exemplars.  But  such  speculations  are  needless  because,  as  I  have  tried  to
show  above, the  connection  between  the  composition  of Passio  Olaui and

the Anchin edition including the excerpt cannot be broken: whoever wrote
the words “Gloriosus rex Olavus [...] ad baptismi gratiam in urbe Rothomagi
deuota animi alacritate conuolauit” at the beginning of the legend,

cannot

have done so without Gesta Normannorum ducum V.11–12. Hence there is

more than a good chance that the William excerpt circulated in Norway—
and it is certain that Theodoricus cannot have been responsible for an Anchin
edition without any contact with Norway or the Trondheim edition(s) and
transmission of Passio Olaui.

This leads us to a third scenario, and, in my opinion, a much more prob-

able one,  although not  entirely  free  of problems. In this  I want  to  see  the
three pieces of evidence as a result of common, institutional efforts, in which
Øystein  and  Theodoricus  play key  roles. They are the named and perhaps
most important persons, but I should like to emphasize that they are not to
be seen as two individual authors temporarily working together; rather they
are ‘team leaders’ of a small group of Norwegian intellectuals, elite  church
politicians  and  ambassadors,  in  dialogue  with  other  learned  milieus,  espe-
cially in France. Much of the learned communication probably goes through
Victorine  channels;  sometime  during  the  reign  of  Øystein  (1161–1188)  the
community  of  Augustinian  canons  (probably  Victorines)  was  founded  in
Helgeseter at Trondheim as the cathedral chapter, possibly in imitation of St.
Victor and the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris.

Theodoricus was prob-

ably a regular canon in this institution when he wrote his history.

The new administration’s activities began to unfold shortly after Øystein’s

accession in 1161; these include the Canones Nidrosienses, in uenced by Gra-

tian’s Decretum,

the unique coronation oath for King Magnus Erlingsson

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And they should be compared to Jørgensen 2000, Østrem 2000, and Mortensen 2000a.

(1164), building activity and much besides. Theodoricus’ History cannot have
been completed before 1177. He must have stayed in France for some time
before that date—around 1170 cannot be widely off the mark. His main task
was not to write the modest History, but to study law and theology and to be
part of the archbishopric’s international relations. What should he do if, as
a nebengeschäft, he wanted to collect some historical knowledge relevant for

Norway? There are no bibliographies and no handbooks for sources. He asks
around. Someone is so helpful as to show Theodoricus William of Jumièges’
voluminous History of the Norman Dukes; perhaps he has more than a hunch

that Norwegian history may be discussed there. With the help of this learned
French brother Theodoricus comes across the pages where Olav is mentioned
in passing; immediately he copies them and shares the news with his fellow
Norwegians in France. At the same time he interviews French acquaintancies
about the historical context of Olav’s baptism. He hears various suggestions
but ends up deciding on the muddled account quoted above.

Next, perhaps back in Norway a few years later, he publishes his ndings

by attaching the William quotation to a copy of the legend of Olav. He dis-
cusses the matter with other scholars in Trondheim and they agree to enter
the new facts about Olav’s baptism into the authoritative exemplar(s) of the
legend. He also writes his Norwegian History where he puts the matter in
a scholarly fashion: different stories about the place of Olav’s baptism circu-
late, but I have found good evidence for Rouen.

Could it have happened like this? The main dif culty seems to be chrono-

logical. As stated above, an early version of the Passio Olaui is thought to have

existed by ca 1150. The only evidence for this is the Old Norse poem Geisli

which was probably recited at an inauguration festivity for the archbishopric
in 1153; some of the miracles of St. Olav are here told in a fashion so similiar
to the rst series of miracles reported in the Passio Olaui that it is natural

to assume that they existed in a written form before 1153. This goes only for
the initial miracles, however, not for the introductory life, which could have
been edited a little later. Ekrem 2000 suggests four main phases for the de-
velopment of Passio Olaui from the rst around 1150 (including a short life)

to the last in the 1180s, trying to take into account various versions of the
life and the somewhat uctuating miracle collection. Her conclusions must
be regarded as tentative, based as they are on preliminary probings into the
manuscript material.

I shall not go deeper into this territory here, but I

have to restate the following point, already surfacing in Ekrem (2000) and in

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Mortensen (2000a) because we had lively discussions about it—discussions
which, due to sad circumstances, were never brought to a close.

The earliest certain evidence we have for a legend including a version of

the introductory life, are the Anchin and the Fountains Abbey manuscripts,
both  dated  12.  ex.  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  versions  included  in  these
manuscripts “left the house” as late as 1170 or perhaps even 1180. At least it
cannot be ruled out that the phrase about Rouen was added around this time.
Ekrem denied this possibility because she thought it was too late for such an
insertion  to sway the entire liturgical tradition  known from thirteenth  cen-
tury fragments as  well as  printed  of ces from the early 16th century  which
certainly  have  a  medieval  origin,  even  if  hard  to  determine.  But  a  similar
point  could be made about the long  rhetorical  version of the life, which  is
placed by Ekrem as the second version (she suggests no exact date other than
after 1152 / 1153), but which could equally well date from around 1170 or even
1180

: this version also in uences the same array of sources. So far I agree

with Damsgaard-Olsen 1965: I think it is quite possible that around 1170
Theodoricus could still in uence the text of the nascent Passio Olaui, even if

it was only by having added one sentence.

Even if this last scenario does not appeal to everyone, I hope to have shown

that the Anchin manuscript must be a major element in any equation includ-
ing the work of Theodoricus and the composition and transmission of the
Passio Olaui. On a wider scale, and regardless of such an equation, the Anchin

manuscript also brings new evidence for the contents and channels of the
pioneering intellectual traf c between Norway and Northern France in the
later twelfth century.

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