Creating a Crusader Saint 1 Creating a Crusader Saint – Canute Lavard and Others of that Ilk Divine approval of righteous warfare is an old phenomenon in Western Europe, going back to the sign that Emperor Constantine saw in the sky and through which he conquered in 312.1 Long before this episode, the Israelites were waging wars on behalf of “The Lord of Heaven’s armies” as God designates himself in the Old Testament, and the Maccabees saw angels riding on horses and getting intervening in the battles and protecting the just warriors (II Mac 10,29-30).2 In the Middle Ages, saints were invoked before great, decisive battles, they sometimes participated directly themselves, and they did so more and more often after the eleventh and especially the twelfth century. The crusades were understood by contemporaries to be the most holy of all wars, and they certainly did not lack support from above.3 After the sermon of Pope Urban II in Clermont in 1095, armies gathered in the spring of 1096 from all corners of Europe and began the long march towards Jerusalem. When in 1098 they were besieged in Antioch by a much larger Muslim army, they rode out of the city to fight, encouraged by the miraculous finding in St. Peter’s church of the lance that had pierced the side of Jesus when he hung on the cross. When they approached the Muslims, heaven opened, and an army of dead crusaders came riding out to fight together with the living ones, led by St George and St Demetrius. The crusaders received divine help from heaven, and with much greater right than had the Maccabees, the historian Guibert of Nogent remarked in 1108. The Maccabees had fought for circumcision and pork, the crusaders for cleaning the polluted churches and expanding the faith, and they had given their blood for Christ.4 After the bloody conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, crusading became 1 In Eusebius of Caesarea’s (died 339): De vita Constantini, lib. I, cap. XXVIII-XXXI, Patrologia graeca vol. 20, col. 939. 2 For the use of the Maccabees in later crusading ideology, see Mary Fischer: The Books of the Maccabees and the Teutonic Order. Crusades, 4, pp. 59-71. Fischer 2005. 3 Jonathan Riley-Smith: The First Crusade and the Idea af Crusading, 1986; Tyerman, Christopher: Fighting for Christendom: holy war and the crusades, 2004; Christopher Tyerman: God’s War. A New History af the Crusades, 2006. 4 Guibert of Nogent: Dei gesta per Francos et cinq autres textes, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, 1996, lib. 6, cap 9. 2 Creating a Crusader Saint popular among the classical saints.5 The cult of the Warrior St George followed the crusaders back to Western Europe. St Nicolas began to work miracles by helping crusaders from southern Italy to escape from Muslim prisons. In Spain, St James of Compostela had his vita re-written in the early 1120’s and became the spiritual leader of the Reconquista, of the crusades against the Iberian Muslims. But he also became the practical leader and for centuries was seen repeatedly leading heavenly and earthly armies into battle, and he gained a new byname, Santiago Matamoros, St James the Moor-killer. Even the peaceful Bishop and etymologist Isidor of Seville began the twelfth century during to ride out on his white horse in front of the crusaders from León and secure victory for them.6 Saints were reshaped and understood in a crusading context. A similar pattern is recognizable for several of the new saints who were created during the twelfth century,7 and it will be suggested here that Canute Lavard could be understood from this perspective. The eleventh and twelfth centuries were the great epoch of royal saints, especially in Northern Europe. Several of these became associated with the crusades, although for some of them their actual engagement was sometimes tenuous, at best. Let us begin with some concrete examples. The first concerns the German Roman Emperor Henry II who had died on 13 July 1024. He was the founder of several dioceses, the most important being Bamberg where he was buried. He conducted several wars against the Polish Duke Boleslaw, which are described in the contemporary chronicle by Thietmar of Merseburg whose narrative is political history and not much concerned with any religious mission. Henry is taking action and fighting and often victorious, and 5R.I. Morris: Martyrs on the Field of Battle before and during the First Crusade. Diana Wood (ed.): Martyrs and Martyrologies, 1983, p. 79-101; Christopher Holdsworth: An “Airier Aristocracy”: The saints at war. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6, 1996, p. 103-122. 6 Angeles García de la Borbolla: La hagiografía de Frontera. Los santos como defensores de un espacio a partir de los relatios hagiogríficos peninsulares (siglos XII-XIII). O. Merisalo (ed.): Frontiers in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of the Third European Congress of Medieval Studies, Jyväskylä, 10-14 June 2003, 2006, p. 675-691. 7 Robert Folz: Les saints rois du moyen âge en Occident (VI e-XIIIe s.), 1984; Gabór Klaniczay: Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses. Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, 2002. For a later periode, see M. Cecilia Gaposchkin: The Making of Saint Louis. Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, 2008.  Creating a Crusader Saint 3 now and then Thiemar added that this happened ‘with the help of God’ or similar phrases. Some miracles are recorded, but they are included to convey a moral or religious message in general and not connected to Henry’s warfare. Thietmar thus provides us with a point of departure from which to explore how the life of Henry was re-written, and how he was turned into a crusader.8 Adam of Bremen, writing in the 1070’s, remarked that Henry had a reputation for holiness – iustitia et sanctitate insignis – but gives no further details.9 In 1145, however, an ecclesiastic in Bamberg had written a vita of Henry as a preparation for his canonization, which took place on 12. March 1146. This vita was expanded and elaborated for the translation a year later, on 13 July 1147 in Bamberg.10 The date was chosen because it had been the day Henry had died more than a century earlier, but it was also conveniently close to another important date, 15 July, the day of the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. It is probably sheer coincidence that Henry’s feast day in 1668 was actually was moved to 15 July and only moved back to the 13th in 1969.11 The participants in Bamberg Cathedral in the great canonizing ceremony in 1147 may have noted the connection between these two dates, the 13th and the 15th of July, because the translation was timed to be the opening or overture to German crusading. Christian Edessa had fallen to the Muslims on Christmas day 1144, and a general appeal for help and support for the Holy Land was circulated to every corner of Europe. When the German King Conrad III had his emissaries in Rome in 1145 to present the vita of Henry, Pope Eugenius III was formulating his great crusading bull Quantum predecessores, which was issued on 1 December. Soon after Henry had been canonized in the spring of 1146, Bernard of Clairvaux began his prolonged preaching tour in the North, in which one of the most successful, and moving, moments was when on 27 December Conrad took the cross at a huge public ceremony in Speyer. When Conrad had celebrated 8 Thietmar von Merseburg: Chronik, hrs. Werner Trillmich, 1970. 9 Adam of Bremen: Adami Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, ed. J.M. Lappenberg, 1876, lib II, cap. 54. 10 Die Vita sancti Heinrici regis et confessoris und ihre Bearbeitung durch den Bamberger Diakon Adelbert. M. Stumpf (Hrsg.), Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, 69, 1999, p. 225-334. 11 Calendarium romanum, Rome, 1969, p. 97 and p. 130; also on http://www.binetti.ru/collectio/liturgia/missale_files/crg.htm and http://www.binetti.ru/colf/13_07.htm. 4 Creating a Crusader Saint Easter in Bamberg in 1147, he left for the Holy Land shortly before the translation of Henry in July.12 In this new-written vita, Henry was depicted as the anointed king, but not being content with the temporal kingdom, he ‘longed for the sufferings’ and began to wage war ‘to gain the crown of immortality’. The whole tone is distinctly different from the earlier descriptions of Henry’s deeds. He devoted all his energy to the expansion of the Christian cult, and he began to enrich the churches with possessions and with ornaments. Henry now began to collect the armies – with wording from the book of Maccabees – and set out against the Slavs, and he fought with the sword of St Adrian – the soldier from the imperial guard who had been convinced of the truth of Christianity and martyred in the fourth century, an appropriate warrior saint for Emperor Henry. The intention of Henry, according to the vita, was to subdue the barbaric nations to the Roman Empire and under the Christian faith.13 Before a decisive battle, Henry prayed to St Lawrence, St Adrian, and St George, all important warrior saints who had been venerated in the German Empire for centuries, but whose cult grew immensely in this first century of crusading. Suddenly, Henry actually saw these three saints in front of his own army, side by side with the Archangel Michael, dispelling the enemies before them so that victory was ensured without the spilling of Christian blood. Now, in 1146, Henry experienced exactly the same as had the first crusaders in 1098 outside Antioch. A miracle of which there were no traces in Thiemar’s narrative a hundred years earlier. After the conquest of the Slavic area, the landscape was sacralised by the founding of new churches and monasteries, so “Bamberg was protected from every side by churches and saints’ monuments laid out in the shape of the Cross, and every day was celebrated the officium for the crucified Christ and for Bamberg’s first founder, Henry”.14 The see of Bamberg was established, it is 12 Jonathan Phillips: Papacy, Empire and the Second Crusade. Jonathan Phillips & Martin Hoch (eds.): The second crusade. Scope and consequences, 2001, p. 15-31. 13 Vita Henrici, cap. 4. 14 ”Sic locus Babenbergensis ecclesiis et patrociniis sanctorum in modum crucis undique munitus Christo Iesu crucifixo cottidianum et sedulum celebrat officium et servitium pro primo suo fundatore, Heinrico …” Vita Henrici, cap. 7.  Creating a Crusader Saint 5 stated directly, “to destroy utterly the paganism of the Slavs, and so that the Christian name should forever be held in splendid memory” – ut et paganismus Sclavorum ibi destrueretur et christiani nominis memoria perpetualiter inibi celebris haberetur.15 It is also claimed in the vita that Henry II got from the Burgundians the holy lance, the ‘key to the Lord’s passion.’16 It may actually have happened a hundred years before the time of Henry II, when it was given to Henry I.17 But now it was transplanted to the career of Henry II and fulfilled a function in the context of the vita, because the story would immediately have reminded the listener about the holy lance which the crusaders had found in Antioch, and that secured them victory over the infidels. Henry was displaying other good deeds fitting for a saint, e.g. that he loved his wife as a sister and did not know her carnally, or that he married his sister to Stephen of Hungary in an attempt to convert that country to Christianity. In reality it had already been converted when this marriage took place, but that was conveniently forgotten in the 12th century vita. The overall impression of Henry’s career that the vita intends to convey is neatly summarized towards the end: per arma iusticie omnia bella feliciter consummavit – “By the arms of justice he concluded all his wars fortunately”.18 Henry had become a warrior of religion, fighting against paganism, with many of the characteristics of a true crusader. Less than twenty years later, a similar canonization took place, that of Charlemagne, at the instigation of the Emperor Frederic I Barbarossa and of King Henry II of England. It happened in 1165 during complicated circumstances politically and ecclesiastically, and Charlemagne was canonized by Frederic’s “own” pope, Pascual III, and not by Alexander III who eventually became the generally accepted pope. It meant that later Charlemagne was not recognized as a saint by the church, and all ecclesiastical acts completed by Pascual were 15 Vita Henrici, cap. 9. 16 Vita Henrici, cap. 16. 17 Maurice Zufferey: Der Mauritiuskult im Früh- und Hochmittelalter. Historisches Jahrbuch 106, 1986, p. 23-58. 18 Vita Henrici, cap. 28. 6 Creating a Crusader Saint condemned and annulled by the Third Lateran Council in 1179.19 This was, however, impossible to predict in 1165, and contemporaries – at least in the Empire – must have considered it a perfectly normal and authoritative canonization. Charlemagne was no bad choice for at crusader saint. In the years preceding the First Crusade, he had been seen in several places in France,20 and in the hectic and feverish atmosphere while the march towards Jerusalem was in preparation, rumours circulated that Charlemagne would join the army and take over the command of it. He became a point of reference, when later crusade preachers were to urge their audience ‘to continue the work of their illustrious ancestors’, that is to imitate what Charlemagne and his heroes had done.21 In 1146-47,22 when King Conrad had Henry II canonized as a preparation for his crusading, the French King Louis and abbot Suger had commissioned a series of painted windows in the Church of Saint Denis in Paris, showing scenes both from the First Crusade and Charlemagne as a defender of the faith, and fighting the Saracens in the Holy Land, where he had actually never set foot. Charlemagne was, therefore, not unknown as a crusader icon, when Barbarossa and Henry suggested he be canonized in 1165. The bull explaining the reasons for the canonization23 – apparently formulated by Barbarossa – opens by describing Charlemagne as a ‘propagator of the glory of the Christian name’, as founder of churches and bishoprics and monasteries, not only on this side of the sea, but also in transmarinis partibus – ‘in the regions across the Sea’, that is in the Holy Land. It continues that Charlemagne was a true apostle, and concerning the conversion of the barbaric 19 G. Alberigo et al. (eds.): Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, 1973, Concilium Lateranense III, can. 2, p. 211. 20 Ekkehardus Uraugiensis: Chronicon universale. Patrologia Latina, 154, col. 497-1059, her col. 970. 21 Barton Sholod: Charlemagne in Spain. The Cultural Legacy of Roncevalles, 1966, p. 91-110; Gabriele Matthew: An Empire of Memory. The Memory of Charlemagne, the Franks, and Jerusalem before the First Crusade, 2011. 22 Most probably 1146-47, cf. Jonathan Phillips: Defenders of the Holy Land. Relations Between the Latin East and the West, 1119-1187, 1996, p. 192; but possibly 1158-59, cf. Elizabeth A. R. Brown and M. W. Cothren: The Twelfth Century Crusading Window of the Abbey of Saint Denis. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 49, 1986, p. 1-40. 23 Acta Sanctorum January 28th. Iohannes Bollandus (ed.): Acta Sanctorum Januarius, 2, 1643, p. 874-891. The first part includes Einhard’s Vita from the 9th century, the documents pertaining to the translatio in 1165 begins at p. 888. Modern edition in H. und I. Deutz: Die Aachener „Vita Karoli Magni“ des 12. Jahrhunderts, 2002.  Creating a Crusader Saint 7 peoples, he was a fortis athleta,24 a strong sportsman. Or rather, the word athleta in this context is paraphrasing Saint Paul for whom the sportsman was the warrior of God, and the prize to be won was the incorruptible crown of martyrdom (I Cor 9, 24-25.) The bull continues by explaining that Charlemagne converted a great number of peoples to the Christian faith ‘with word and sword’. Charlemagne was not himself killed by the sword but could, nevertheless, be considered a martyr because of his lifelong struggles and sufferings, and because of his ‘daily wish to die to convert the unbelievers’ voluntas moriendi quotidiana pro convertendis incredulis. The description goes on and towards the end it is related that the night after Charlemagne had been translated, three mighty candles with splendid light were clearly visible in the sky above the church where the translation ceremony had taken place. Barbarossa also commissioned the writing of a new vita of Charlemagne. While the old vita of Einhard had concentrated on Charlemagne’s political achievements and coronation as emperor, on his building activities and to some extent on his personal life, the new one added and emphasized Charlemagne’s effort to spread Christianity.25 It incorporated or to a very large extent consisted of the first seven chapters of Pseudo-Turpin, a long narrative about Charlemagne’s wars in Spain around 800 and allegedly written by Bishop Turpin who – allegedly – participated in these wars and with his sword killed infidels with efficiency and with joy.26 This fantastic tale is unknown until it appears in the Codex Calixtinus, to some extent compiled but mostly simply invented in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in the early 1120’s.27 It connects Charlemagne with Santiago and the fight against Saracens, and actually claims that Charlemagne conquered all Spain and made all Muslims convert to Christianity. Parts of Pseudo-Turpin’s narrative were incorporated into the 24 In conversione gentis barbaricae fortis athleta fuit, et verus apostolus. 25 Cf. also Matthias Tischler: Tatmensch oder Heidenapostel. Die Bilder Karl des Großen bei Einhart und in Pseudo-Turpin. K. Herbers (Hrsg): Jakobus und Karl der Große. Von Einhards Karlsvita zum Pseudo-Turpin, 2003, p. 1-37. 26 L. Vones: Heiligsprechung und Tradition. Die Kanonisation Karls des Großen 1165, die Aachener Karlsvita und der Pseudo-Turpin. K. Herbers (Hrsg): Jakobus und Karl der Große. Von Einhards Karlsvita zum Pseudo-Turpin, 2003, p. 89-105. 27 Walter Muir Whitehill (ed.): Liber Sancti Jacobi, Codex Calixtinus, 1-2, 1944. Sholod 1966, p. 110-28. 8 Creating a Crusader Saint liturgy at Santiago, and now in 1165 it came to function as a hagiographical text explaining how Charlemagne had demonstrated that he was a saint. He had converted Muslims by force. He had become a true crusader, and he now repeatedly became an example to be emulated. Emperor Frederic I Barbarossa did so, not only immediately after the canonization but also when he left for the Third Crusade in 1189. King and Emperor Frederic II did so in the early 13th century when he promised to go on crusades and liberate the Holy Land. A similar development, but from a very different beginning, can be observed for the Hungarian royal saints, whose engagement in the crusading movement grew markedly over the centuries. The first is Ladislaus who died in 1095, the year the crusades had been launched by Pope Urban.28 Because of his miracles, there were attempts in the second half of the twelfth century to gain papal recognition of his sainthood, but it was only in 1192 that he was officially canonized by Pope Celestin III.29 It happened with the support of King Bela III who was brought up at the Byzantine court, who had supported Frederic Barbarossa when the emperor – at long last – went on crusade to the Holy Land in 1189, and who had himself taken the cross and promised to liberate Jerusalem although he did not succeed in fulfilling his vow before his death in 1096. The canonization of Ladislaus took place at a time when crusading was high on the agenda in Hungary.30 The first vita of Ladislaus is short and general. It explains with erudition that his name means ‘the gift to the people’ and refers to some of the miracles that were to be expected from a saint. Afterwards, it continues by explaining how the king had taken a vow to go to Jerusalem where Jesus had given His blood for our redemption, and where Ladislaus would now fight with his blood against the enemies of the Cross of Christ – ipse ibi sanguine suo contra inimicos Crucis Christi 28 Klaniczay, 2002, p. 173-194. 29 Acta Sanctorum June 27, p. 284-294. 30 Apparently his canonization was not undisputed. Some had protested that he had killed far too many Christians; cf. Kertész Balázs: Megjegyzések Szent László kanonizációjához. Laskai Osvát második Szent László-sermójának forrásproblémája. Magyar Könyvszemle, 122, 2006, also on http://epa.oszk.hu/00000/00021/00050/Ksz2006-3-01.htm  Creating a Crusader Saint 9 dimicaret. The leaders – duces – from France, from Lorraine, and from the German realm had decided to join ‘the army of God’ to Jerusalem, and they all agreed unanimously to choose Ladislaus as the leader of their expedition. However, before the crusader army reached Hungary, Ladislaus fell ill and died. The interesting point here is that Ladislaus had actually died already 29 July 1095, full four months prior to Urban’s sermon in Clermont. It is impossible that he could have been involved in the crusading preparations, he cannot have been suggested as leader, and he had been buried long before the crusader armies in the spring of 1096 marched towards the Balkans and Hungarian territory. Ladislaus the crusader is a prime example of the invention of a pious tradition, a hundred years after his death. This understanding of his life was believed, repeated, and greatly expanded upon. A much longer vita from the later middle ages31 related of glorious battles, divine support, angels appearing and indicating where to build cathedrals in thanks for victories. It continues by relating about the burning zeal of Ladislaus to join the crusade to Jerusalem, moved also by the preaching of Peter the Hermit who had returned from a pilgrimage and described the atrocities of the Muslims. 300.000 Christians armed themselves and began the march. The vita tells how ambassadors representing all the crusade-leaders begged Ladislaus to take command of the expedition, but in the end the German emperor delayed it all, and Ladislaus died before he had had the chance to liberate Jerusalem. This later vita actually re-dates the crusades to have begun in 1094,32 which makes it just possible that Ladislaus could have been involved and decided to participate. A fine example of how a conscious humanistic historian noted a chronological inconsistency and found a logical explanation that solved the problem while respecting tradition – the crusades had simply been wrongly dated for 400 years. Others showed less regard for chronology. The Hungarian Franciscan Osvald de Lazlo, who died 1511, gave a long and inspired sermon in the early 16th century in which he made a fervent crusader even of king Stephen of 31 By Antonius Bonfinius, died 1505. His Ladislaus-vita in Acta Sanctorum, June, p. 287-294. 32 p. 293. 10 Creating a Crusader Saint Hungary.33 Also Stephen wanted to spill his blood where Christ had given his to atone for our sins. Together with his brother in law, the aforementioned Henry II of Germany, Stephen had fulfilled his crusading vow and gone to Jerusalem to fight the Saracens. The enemies were utterly defeated, and the rich booty was used to found churches in the Holy Land and a hospital in Constantinople for Hungarian pilgrims to the Holy Land. The interesting thing in this sermon is obviously that Stephen died in 1038 and Henry in 1024, generations before the crusades began. Osvald combined facts and figures with little restraint in his sermons and illustrates how important it was to attribute crusading engagements to medieval rulers, throughout the Middle Ages, and how important it was to have a crusading king in the dynasty. During the 12th century, a number of royal saints were created and became crusaders, and a number of rulers and dynasties promoted the cult of crusader saints of the family. There were, however, several exceptions to this general pattern. Here just two will be briefly touched on. The first concerns the English king Edward the Confessor, who had died in 1066. Very soon, a popular cult seem to have developed around his grave in Westminster, and in 1138 a new vita was written to emphasize his sanctity and have him papally canonized, but this did not happen until done by Pope Alexander III in 1161, upon the request of King Henry II.34 For this occasion, Ailread of Rievaulx composed what became the most well-known and widespread vita of Edward.35 Edward was a good and pious king, and Ailread elaborates on how he married, because that is expected from king, but how he loved his wife as a sister and lived with her in celibacy and therefore had no sons to inherit the throne. There is no crusading in the narrative of Ailread although he was a Cistercian and as such closely attached to the proliferation of the crusading 33Oswaldus de Lasko: De sancto Stephano rege Hungarorum I. Sermones de sanctis Biga salutis intitulati, http://sermones.elte.hu/szovegkiadasok/latinul/laskaiosvat/index.php?file=os/os076 34Bernhard W. Scholz: The Canonization of Edward the Confessor. Speculum 36, 1961, p. 38-60. Henry Richards Luard (ed.): Lives of Edward the Confessor: I. La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei. II. Vita Beati Edvardi Regis et Confessoris. III. Vita Æduuardi Regis qui Apud Westmonasterium Requiescit, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi scriptores, 3, 1858. 35 Aelreadus: Vita s. Edwardi regis et confessoris. Patrologia latina 195, col. 737-90.  Creating a Crusader Saint 11 movement. There are obvious occasions which could have been transformed into a sort of proto-crusading, but they are not exploited in this vita. England was in chaos when Edward was born, the sword reigned, priests and bishops were killed, altars desecrated etc. England had been given into the hands of the infidels (gentes). But now God had shown mercy upon His people and chosen Edward as king, ‘to put an end to the Danish fury’. His conflicts, however, are not presented as religious wars, or as wars of the cross. Similarly, Edward appears in a vision to Harald Godwinson before the battle at Stamford Bridge in 1066 and promises him victory. This decisive battle is designated as a ‘just war against the Barbarians’, but again, Ailread does not take up the potentialities of using allusions to crusading. Instead, we hear at length about the more usual healing miracles. In a vision, Edward learns the exact location of the seven sleeping martyrs in Ephesus and communicates it to the Byzantine emperor, and all are stupefied by the divine grace bestowed upon him. When Edward dies, wars arise in Europe, and Syria succumbs to the pagans.36 The Middle East is therefore not totally absent from the mind of Ailread, but Edward in no way becomes a crusader. One could of course argue that Edward really had not been a great warrior king so it was simply difficult to turn him into a valiant crusader. It may be part of the explanation but does not account for the fact that there seem to have been no efforts to turn other English figures into crusaders either – some historians have speculated why king Henry II of England did not attempt the canonization of King Arthur, who would have been a worthy match for Charlemagne. In any case, it did not happen, which means that not all countries in the 12th century created crusading kings. The second and parallel example is Portugal which had a glorious history in the 12th century as a crusading nation and which was emphasized by Pope Alexander III in 1179 when he recognized Afonso Henriques not only as duke, but henceforth as king of Portugal. The papal grace is bestowed upon Afonso Henriques “who has rendered innumerable services to the Holy Mother Church by exterminating fearlessly, with strenuous effort and military braveness the 36 Vita Edwardi, co. 768-69. 12 Creating a Crusader Saint enemies of the Christian name and by expanding diligently the Christian faith.”37 There do not seem, however, to have been any attempts to create royal crusading saints in Portugal. It may simply not have been considered necessary because there were a number of adequate alternatives. Around 1170, the cult of the belligerent Santiago de Compostela was greatly extended with the creation of the knightly Order of Santiago, which became very widely diffused in Portugal.38 In 1173, the relics of St Vincent were transferred to the cathedral in Lisbon at a time when Vincent had undergone a transformation from peaceful martyr of the early church to contemporary crusading warrior saint, similar to that of Santiago, and Vincent now became patron saint of Portugal. 39 And last, but not least, there was actually a canonization, in 1173, of a figure who with some right may be claimed to be a parallel to the royal saints. This was Rosendo, who had been bishop in war-torn Galicia in the 10th century, whose situation much that on the Iberian Peninsula in the late 12th century with renewed Muslim invasions. A vita was composed which stressed that Rosendo had been of royal descent, that he had led the defense against Viking attacks, and that he had ‘with divine grace liberated the fatherland – the patria – of Portugal from the invasion of the Saracens.’40 All of this is pure invention, as far as we can judge now from the meager source material on the earlier period, but the vita induced Cardinal Hyacinth to let the bishop of Porto canonize Rosendo in 1173. Hyacinth had for almost twenty years actively supported crusades on the Iberian Peninsula and had himself taken the cross and offered to lead a crusader army.41 In 1191, Hyacinth was elected pope and took the name of Celestin III. In 1195, he confirmed his own canonization of Rosendo, he canonized Ladislaus of Hungary, and he may even have been involved, as a cardinal, in the canonization of Edward of England. 37 Manifestis probatum, Patrologia latina 200, col. 1237-1238; 8: Centenàrio do reconhecimento de Portugal pela Santa Sé (Bula “Manifestis probatum”, 23 de maio de 1179), 1979, p. 231-2. 38Derek W. Lomax: La Orden de Santiago, 1170-1275, 1965. 39 Aires Augusto Nascimento e Saul António Gomes (eds.): S. Vicente de Lisboa e seus milagres medievais, 1988. 40 Antonio García y García: Estudios sobre la canonistica portuguesa medieval, 1976, pp. 157-72 Rosendo’s vita and Hyacinth’s canonization bull. 41 Smith, Damian J. Smith: Saint Rosendo, Cardinal Hyacinth and the Almohads. Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 1, 2009, p. 53-67.  Creating a Crusader Saint 13 By way of conclusion, we shall now turn to Canute Lavard and argue briefly that there was an attempt to present him as a crusader saint, like other of his contemporary royal saints. This was certainly not his sole function – saints were good for almost everything, but crusading was an important element in the 12th century, for Canute Lavard too. The earliest vita from the 1130’s is known only in fragments today, but they are interesting for their crusade setting. It is explained that the town of Ringsted has been so named, because it is situated in the middle of Sealand, surrounded on all sides by the ocean, as by a ring.42 This is a description in terms of the medieval mappa mundi with Jerusalem at the center and the ocean around it, forming the edge of the world. It is an attempt, on the part of the vita, to turn Ringsted into the Jerusalem of Sealand, and Canute Lavard into the defender of Jerusalem. Canute was of royal descent, and all the vitas including this first and fragmentary one explain how his father, King Erik Ejegod, had led a crusade43 to the Holy Land shortly after the First Crusade and died on his way, on Cyprus. Canute became ruler over the Abodrites, a population in what is now Northern Germany comprising both Christians and pagans. The vita describes how Canute conquered lands and established churches and donated to them books and liturgical gowns,44 exactly as it was said of Henry II of Germany. The passio in the much longer liturgy prepared for the canonization of 1170 opens with a fanfare placing Canute centrally as crusader: “Blessed the man whose head is crowned by the Lord, and whom the Lord surrounds by the wall of salvation and whom He equips with the shield of faith and the sword to defeat the infidels and all enemies of the Lord”45 - Beatus vir cuius capiti dominus coronam imposuit muro salutis circumdedit. scuto fidei et gladio muniuit ad expugnandas gentes et omnes inimicos. The liturgy continues by describing, among other pious and just deeds, how Canute brought peace to the Danes and faith to the pagans, how he forced the pagans to turn away from their vain and 42 M.Cl. Gertz (ed.): Vitae sanctorum danorum, 1908-1912, p. 240. 43 A peregrinacio – there is a long tradition among Danish historians for translating the word as a ’pilgrimage’, but that is unfounded. 44 Vitae sanctorum danorum, p. 223. 45 John Bergsagel (ed.): The Offices and Masses of St. Knud Lavard (+ 1131). (Kiel, Univ. Lib. MS S.H: 8 A.8o), 2010, 2, p. 2. 14 Creating a Crusader Saint empty rites, and how he forced them to believe in Christ: Pacem Danis et paganis fidem sanctus contulit/ quos a vanis et prophanis ritibus recedere/ et in Christum credere compulit sub pacis federe./ Duci Danorum sub iure regio honorem exhibit Sclavorum legio.46 The formulation of “credere compulit” is interesting, because since the earliest time of the Church forced conversion had been considered illegal and theologically impossible. “Everything else, you can do against your own will, but to believe you can only do it if you believe it”, Augustine had stated, and his formulations were incorporated in Canon Law from the mid twelfth century and quoted by several popes.47 However, use of force had been justified and allowed both by Pope Eugeius III and by the theological authority of Bernhard of Clairvaux in 1147-48, precisely in the case of crusading against the Slavic pagans in the Baltic.48 Similarly, the new vita for Charlemagne in 1165 also had no restrictions whatsoever on the use of force to convert Muslims, and one of the swords was even swung by a bishop. Canute had brought salvation to his people, and in the liturgy from 1170 he was a warrior of Christ or of the Lord, a miles Christi or Domini and an athleta Christi or Domini.49 These were common designations for martyrs, but in the twelfth century they were very often also used for crusaders and crusader martyrs. Canute was killed by his cousin Magnus. In the oldest vita from 1130’s, it is stated that Magnus lured Canute to a meeting with the pretext that he was embarking on a crusade and wanted to ask Canute to protect his wife and children while he was away – Magnus simulat se Ierosolymam iturum, et vxorem ac prolem commendat Duci -- and killed him.50 In the vita from 1170 this information has been left out, and when Canute asks why Magnus is armed, he replies that he is afraid of being attacked by one of his enemies.51 In the mid 1180’s, the historian Sven Aggesen explains how Canute met Magnus ‘sub vexillo 46 The Offices and Masses, p. 16. 47 Augustinus: Tractatus in Ioannis Evangelium, 26, 2. Patrologia latina 35, col. 1379-1976, her col. 1607; Decretum Gratiani, Pars II, c XXXIII, q. 5, c. 33, in Emil Friedberg (ed.): Corpus Iuris Canonici, 1, 1879, col. 939. 48 Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt: The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147-1254, 2007, 32-33. 49 The Offices and Masses, p. 2; p. 12 50 Vitae Sanctorum Danorum, p. 237. 51 The Offices and Masses, p. 17.  Creating a Crusader Saint 15 crucis’, the technical term for ‘with the crusading banner’.52 Now it was Canute who had become a crusader, and no longer Magnus. This change in the framing of Canute’s death over 50 years illustrates neatly how the crusading motif was applied during this episode and elaborated and re-formulated. A number of other elements connect Canute Lavard to the crusading movement: He was canonized onat the request of his son, Valdemar, immediately after the conquest in 1168 of the huge, pagan cult center of Arkona on Rügen. Cistercian missionary monasteries were established in the newly conquered areas in Mecklenburg and Vorpommern and consecrated on Canute’s feast day. An early iconography depicts Canute with cross banner and lance, reminiscent of the lance at Antioch. Among his miracles it is related, how he liberated Christian captives from heathen prisons.53 They are all recognizable and parallel to what other royal crusading saints were capable of doing. Canute was canonized with the approval of Pope Alexander III and at the request of King Valdemar I. It happened at a time when crusading was high on the agenda in Denmark. The pope praised Valdemar in 1169 as the “Shield of faith” because he had created peace and expanded Christianity,54 with formulations anticipating those Alexander would apply only few years later in the bull recognizing Afonso Henriques as king of Portugal. Canute was canonized in 1170, and the same summer Danish expeditions extended further east along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea.55 In September 1171, Alexander issued a series of letters to ecclesiastical and lay authorities in Scandinavia in which he expanded the missionary area to the most Eastern part of the Baltic and promised all who took the cross to fight against Estonians and Finns the same indulgence as those fighting for Jerusalem, and martyrdom and direct access to heaven if they died during battle.56 King Valdemar’s effort as a crusader was emphasized in the canonization liturgy of 1170. His achievements after he became sole ruler in 1157 are 52 Sven Aggesen, Brevis historiae regum dacie. M.Cl. Gertz (ed.): Scriptores minores historiæ danicæ medii ævi, 1917-22, 1, p. 94-141, her p. 132-33. 53 Ane L. Bysted, Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen, and John H. Lind: Jerusalem in the North. Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100-1522. 54 Diplomatarium Danicum, 1938-, I:2 no. 189. 55 Saxo: Gesta Danorum, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen, 2005, 14.40.3. 56 DD I:3 no. 27; cf. Fonnesberg-Schmidt 2007, 54-65. 16 Creating a Crusader Saint described thus: Rex igitur Waldemarus, uictoriosus, paganos ad fidem, fideles ad pacem, pacificos ad securitatem prouocauit – “King Valdemar the Victorious called the pagans to the faith, the believers to peace, and the peaceful he gave security.”57 Exactly the same characterization was expressed 12 years later when Valdemar had died and was buried with a leaden plaque next to his head stating that Hic iacet danorum rex Waldemarus primus sancti kanuti filius sclavorum potens expugnator - here lies the king of the Danes, Valdemar the First, son of Saint Canute, the mighty conqueror of the Slavic peoples.”58 Canute had become a crusader, because his son was, and vice-versa. As other such royal saints of the high Middle Ages, Canute had an afterlife and was venerated throughout the Middle Ages, and his story was re-told also into the early modern times. He became depicted in two very different ways. In the late 15th century, the catholic liturgy was turned into a moralistic play about loyalty and faithfulness towards the king. The text was in Danish, but the persons were introduced in Latin. It seems to have been inspired by the early vita, because Magnus lures Canute into following him into the forest of Haraldsted by claiming, that he had decided to go, not on a crusade to Jerusalem, but on a pilgrimage to Rome.59 There are no hints in the text about Canute being a crusader. The total opposite picture of Canute was presented a hundred years later, in an international context much closer to crusading than late medieval Denmark. As a concluding example I would like to present a relatively unknown work, namely the tragic play from 1675 by Nicolaus Avancini, high ranking Jesuit and prolific writer.60 It is entitled “The tragedy of Canute”, consists of 87 pages, and was almost certainly intended for performance at the imperial court in The Offices and Masses, p. 36 57 Illustrated in J. J. A. Worsaae, Kongegravene i Ringsted Kirke aabnede, istandsatte og dækkede 58 med nye Mindestene ved Hans Majestæt Kong Frederik Den Syvende, 1858, planche XI and XII. 59 Leif Stedstrup (ed.): Ludus de sancto Canuto duce. Et spil om Hellig Hertug Knud Lavard. En diplomatarisk udgave af håndskriftet Thott 1409,40, 2005, p. 81: ”Aff hiertens grunndt estu fuld fast, Min bag haffuer ieg nu till dig kast. Thi dette bør mig aff rette, Dette er nu min store attraa, For gud skyldt ieg til Rom vill gaa.” The manuscript is from c. 1570, but the text is from the late 15th or early 16th century. I would like to express my gratitude to Børge Juulsgaard who has drawn my attention to this 60 work.  Creating a Crusader Saint 17 Vienna, with a huge choir of, probably, Jesuits.61 It is part of a series of great tragic figures in history, including Cyrus, Semiramis, and the unlucky Swiss duchess from the 13th century, St Idda. They all formed part of the very popular genre of the Jesuit Ordensdrama, which aimed at the religious education of the lay audience and, as part of the Counter Reformation, teach true Catholicism.62 The introduction is a fairly accurate description of the historical background, but then the story takes off. Canute comes back from his crusades in the Baltic and is so happy to have reached his fatherland, that he commands his Black Muslim slaves on the ships to form a choir and sing of joy and to praise him.63 We must imagine the stage in Vienna filled with singing Jesuits, all in blackface and wearing turbans. To win the favor of King Niels, Canute gives him as a present the two slaves Muhammad and Osman who would prefer to stay with Canute, but are ordered to obey the ruler. They later reveal the plot of Magnus to King Niels, who praises the Muslim faith as ‘white and clean’,64 which must have sounded a bit surprising in Vienna in 1675, with the Ottomans at the gates of the city and the great siege of Vienna only eight years away. The drama includes ample references to the contemporary political situation including discussion about dominium maris baltici, the Danish-Swedish rivalry over the Baltic Sea. Magnus is afraid that Canute’s victories will provoke the Swedes to break a peace treaty, but King Niels responds that “Dominium over the sea is free, for me as well as for the Swedes.”65 This was exactly the reason why the European powers intervened repeatedly in the 17th century to ensure that neither Denmark nor Sweden alone could control access to the Baltic through the Sounds, but that they could balance each other, so the waters could be kept open for all nations. King Niels also adds in this drama, that Danes and Swedes must keep together against their common enemy, Thracia. What exactly Avancini meant by Thracia, is uncertain. Maybe he was referring to the Turks on the Balkans? 61 Nicolaus Avancini: Tragediæ, 1675, p. 204-291. 62 Christoph Nebgen: Religiöses Theater (Jesuitentheater). Europäische Geschichte Online, 2010, http://www.ieg-ego.eu/de/threads/europaeische-medien/medien-des-religioesen- transfers/christoph-nebgen-religioeses-theater-jesuitentheater#Quellen. 63 Avancini, p. 205. 64 Avancini, p. 260. 65 Avancini, p. 207. 18 Creating a Crusader Saint The drama continues in the style of the newly invented opera, for a very long time, with women dressed up as men and all played by Jesuit monks. The just crusader Canute is killed unjustly, and revenged with sword and fire. The conclusion as formulated by the Holy German emperor is that imperial laurels should be mixed with the pilgrim’s palm leaves, and fear with love. Canute probably had been a crusader when he was alive – at least it would be very unlikely that he was not strongly influenced by the ardent crusading spirit of his time, although we have very few sources with which to estimate to what extent he actually was. But it is certain that during the time from when he was murdered until he was canonized he became depicted as a crusader, like other royal saints of the 12th century. This rewriting and elaboration of his life continued throughout the Middle Ages and afterwards, even to the point where he could, in the late 17th century, become a truly European crusader and act on the stages of Vienna.