New Directions Series
Saints and Politics in the Kalmar Union Period
Communications 202
Tracey Sands is a Ph.D. graduate of the Department and a former faculty member of the University of Colorado Department of German and Slavic.
The era of the Kalmar Union, which united all of the Nordic kingdoms and their possessions under the rule of a single monarch from the end of the fourteenth century into the 1520s, was certainly one of the most contentious periods in Nordic history. Although there is a good deal of material to document the major political events of the period, there is relatively little documentation of the thinking of individuals, even of those who played important roles in these events. To a great extent, this may arise out of the fact that medieval Scandinavians were not in the habit of keeping journals, nor of writing personal letters that outlined their political philosophies and the motivations for the actions that they took. While textual sources, not least in the form of rhymed chronicles, certainly exist, they are more likely to reflect propaganda concerns than to provide insight into the thinking of individuals. It is Sands’ contention, however, that in spite of the relative lack of textual sources, other kinds of sources exist that provide us, often in surprising ways, with a window into the concerns, affiliations, and alliances of high-ranking individuals, and in some cases, of institutions (such as cathedral chapters) at particular points in time. One such approach, which in itself requires working with a wide range of different sources, is to examine the medieval cult of the saints.
As products of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment tradition, many of us forget that the idea of a fundamental separation between religion and other aspects of life would have been utterly foreign to medieval people. For them, spiritual concerns, focusing mainly on the salvation of the soul, were fully integrated with every aspect of daily life and thought. Saints were regarded both as examples of virtue to be emulated when possible, and, perhaps even more importantly, as intercessors who could plead the case of a devotee in his or her hour of need. Undoubtedly because of these two important functions, saints could also be, and often were, enlisted as symbols and patrons of political positions and agendas — concepts that most of us today would consider part of the secular realm — embraced by their devotees. Certainly the Protestant Reformation, which was set in motion in Scandinavia during the early and mid-sixteenth century, led to the destruction of much of the evidence for medieval religious belief and practice, including perhaps as much as 75 percent of the manuscripts and books once found in medieval Swedish libraries and book collections. In spite of this, however, there is a surprisingly rich trove of information on the cult of the saints in the late Middle Ages - if we know how to look for it. While people seldom left written records to explain their political positions, Sands contends that there are cases in which it is possible to discern aspects of political thought by examining the ways in which saints are portrayed, called upon, or referred to in texts and images.
Sands addresses some specific examples of the ways in which the cult of the saints can help us to understand some of the complexities of late medieval Swedish political thought. She will also discuss the methodologies she have developed for studying this complex set of problems.