Medieval Norwegian leather goods

Sticking with the subject of historic footwear - and some of it again on the large side - an excavation of the area of a medieval harbour in Oslo has revealed on the waterlogged site a very impressive collection of some 200 medieval shoes of varying sizes.. There are also knife scabbards and a number of belt purses and maybe handbags. Writing that makes me wonder if one can envisage a medieval Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism …..

Getting back to hard, or in this case soggy, archaeological facts the discovery is reported upon by Live Science at Thousands of leather shoes, bags and sword scabbards discovered during dig in medieval harbor in Norway

Bicentenary of the Norwegian Constitution

Today is the bicentenary of the Norwegian Constitution, agreed at Eidsvoll in 1814 under the short-lived rule of King Christian Frederick - later King Christian VIII of Denmark.

The Consititution, amended over the years but still the same basic text is the second oldest written constitution still in force - that of the United States being the oldest. In Europe only those of Poland composed in 1792, of revolutionary France and the Cadiz Constitution of 1812 for Spain are older, but no longer in force. Unlike the other Scandinavian monarchies whose constitution are agreements on how the country is governed under the Crown rather than complete codes of governance Norway followed a more radical route which has seemingly served it well, both before the 1905 proclamation of independence from the rule of the Swedish dynasty under King Oscar II and then under King Haakon VII and his descendents since 1906.

There is an online article about the constitution at Constitution of Norway and the full text can be read at The Constitution - Complete text - Stortinget.

There is a Norwegian government website article about it at  Why we celebrate 200 years of the Norwegian Constitution and there is information about the annual celebrations at Norwegian Constitution Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is then an opportunity to express greetings and good wishes to my Norwegian friends both in Norway and in the UK and to wish them a very happy Constition Day.

Arms of the King of Norway

Image: Wikipedia

A corner of London that is forever Norway

On Monday evening I went up to London to dine at the Norwegian Church in London, which is located in Rotherhithe. The invitation came through my good friend Fr Martin Stamnestro, whom I first knew when we were both members of the congregation at Pusey House, and when he was doing his doctorate. Having served as Sacristan at Pusey he was received as a Catholic just after I was, and is now the priest at Ålesund (Aalesund) in his native Norway. He tells me that his parish is the size of Norfolk. 

I have posted abou him before in Ordination in Oslo, Ordination in Norway tomorrow and Fr Stamnestro's Ordination and First Mass.

 
Fr Martin is on a brief visit to this country and was staying at the Norwegian Church, whose Pastor and Chaplain, the Rev.Torbjørn Holt, I had met frequently through Fr Martin when we were all in Oxford -  Torbjørn was then based here as Chaplain to Norwegian students in the UK. the invitation was to dine and to sleep over and return on Tuesday. I felt able to relax my Lenten discipline as I was travelling, and receiving hospitality, and it was also the ninth anniversary of my reception as a Catholic.

The church is near the Bermondsey tube station so the journey was easy, and I found myself at a dinner party whose other guests included another old Pusey friend who is now a Catholic and a barrister in London, the local Anglican vicar and his curate, who himself was a more recent Sacristan of Pusey House, and members of the Norwegian community, some of whom I had met before when I visited the church at Easter 2007. This was the beginning of an evening of very generous and graceful hospitality in the Chaplain's very handsome flat, which is situated on the first floor of the church building. We had lively and cheerful discussion about most topics under the sun - and in religious terms a true and generous ecumenical friendship was once again very apparent.

 St Olav's Church Rotherhithe

Image:tony-dingle.blogspot.co.uk

There has been a Norwegian church in London since the late seventeenth century and was originally a seaman's mission. The present church itself dates from 1927, the foundation stone having been laid the year before by Crown Prince Olav - later King Olav V  -  and during the Second World War was accorded pro-Cathedral status , and used by the exiled King Haakon VII and his government.

Today it is very much a Norwegian cultural centre in London, as are the other Scandinavian churches for their respective national communities, and as can be seen here.

Therte is an article about the church and its ministry here and another with good pictures of the building and its furnishings here. 

On Tuesday I joined in a hearty Scandinavian style breakfast of cold meat and cheese  before travelling with Torbjørn and Martin by taxi across London, dropping Torbjørn off at Church House for ameeting before going to Brompton Oratory where Martin had arranged to say Mass. Very unfortunately I was unable to stay for that as I had to be back in Oxford by mid-afternoon and the taxi-ride had taken longer than any of had expected, and we were running late. However we plan to meet today for lunch when he is here in Oxford.

A most enjoyable break with good friends in London, and almost a foreign holiday in itself.

St Olaf's day

A year ago I wrote about the cult of St Olaf or Olav, the patron saint of Norway in my post St Olaf. Readers may be interested to look at these medieval depictions of the saint, and also seek his intercession for all those caught up in the tragic events of a week ago in Norway

St Olaf

Today is the feast day of St Olaf, the patron saint of Norway.

It is a good occasion upon which to send my greetings to my Norwegian friends and an opportunity to share the notes on St Olaf from John Dillon on the Medieval Religion discussion list. As with the recent post on another Scandinavian saint, St Bridget,I have not bothered converting the links. They include some wonderful images of medieval art - Norway has preserved some superb examples of English inspired or influenced high medieval art, of the sort that was lost in England itself in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

St Olaf, from a frontal c.1320-30 now in Trondheim cathedral

Olaf of Norway (d. 1030). Olaf II Haraldsson became king of Norway in 1015, reconquered areas that had been under the control of Danes and Swedes, and effected, partly by force, the conversion to Christianity of his then still largely pagan country. A rebellion forced him from his throne in 1028; he died two years later trying to regain it. Olaf was buried at what much later became Trondheim. His son Magnus promoted his veneration as a saint and built a chapel at his grave. In 1075 that chapel was replaced by a cathedral (now the cathedral of Nidaros). The later twelfth-century archbishop of Nidaros, St. Eystein (also spelled Øystein; latinized as Augustinus) wrote the Passio preserved in O.'s Office (BHL 6322, 6324). A paper on it by Eyolf Østrem is here:
http://hem.passagen.se/obrecht/leeds99.htm

Olaf's mid-thirteenth-century statue at Tyldal kirke in Østerdalen:
http://home.broadpark.no/~jantaule/helgener/helgener.htm
http://aomoi.net/blog/arkiv/960
An English-language site on the much rebuilt cathedral of Nidaros:
http://www.nidarosdomen.no/english/nidaroscathedral/
Olaf's spring in the cathedral:
http://www.trondheim.com/content.ap?thisId=1117611476
An illustrated, English-language page on the cathedral's early fourteenth-century St Olav altar frontal (thanks again to John Shinners for sharing this with the list two years ago):
http://www.niku.no/olavsfro/english/1_olavs.htm

Some Olaf -related visuals outside of Norway:
a) Olaf in the mid-fifteenth-century vault paintings in Överselö kyrka in Strängnäs kommun (Södermanlands län):
http://tinyurl.com/2tl5qx
b) Olaf on the fifteenth-century rood screen at St Michael, Barton Turf (Norfolk):
http://tinyurl.com/5vaj5w
c) An English-language page on, and some views of, the originally mostly fifteenth-century St Olave's church in Chester (restored, 1859):
http://tinyurl.com/ks27ee
http://tinyurl.com/nu5znz
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clivester/3356470592/sizes/l/
and here is another image of Olaf from Chester cathedral:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3019188421/
d) An English-language page on, and some views of, the originally late medieval St. Olav's church in Tallinn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Olaf%27s_church,_Tallinn\
http://pilt.delfi.ee/en/show_original/7634059/
http://tinyurl.com/25xcgsj
http://tinyurl.com/25jnpsc
http://tinyurl.com/23pccaz
Many views of the church are here (follow the sequence of thumbnails near the bottom):
http://fotoalbum.ee/photos/katikrt/61605311/