Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2003, Qupperneq 14

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Michael Chesnutt
altar in the Benedictine monastic church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at
Ringsted, and on the same occasion Valdemar’s young son, named Knud
after his grandfather, was formally declared heir apparent. As may also
be read in the Older Zealand Chronicle, these ceremonies took place in
the presence of ‘crowds of monks, clerks, laymen, and most devout ma-
trons who cried aloud and said: “Blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ who
has raised St Knud to be patron of Zealand!’”3
Knud Lavard’s ‘addition to the catalogue of the saints’, as the papal
buil calls it, was celebrated liturgically on two separate feast days in the
middle ages. One of these was January 7, the day of his murder (Passio),
the other June 25, the day of his reburial at the high altar in Ringsted
(Translatio). However, the source drawn on in the Old Icelandic
Knytlinga saga knew nothing about a January celebration: the saga says
that [l]ifldtsdagr hans er einni nott eptir inn prettanda dag jola, en nu er
honum haldinn messudagr um alla Danmgrk inn næsta dag eptir Joans-
messu baptista å sumarit.4 Since Pope Alexander had explicitly appoin-
ted ‘the day next after the feast of John the Baptist in the summer’, June
25, as the dies natalis,5 making no mention whatever of January 7, the
additional practice of commemorating Knud Lavard on the day of his
murder must be due to ideological considerations. The killing of the
duke was a political assassination, not an act of religious persecution,
and the Holy See carefully observed this distinction. The inclusion of
both feasts in most Danish liturgical books seems to reflect the ambition
of church leaders allied with the royal family to promote the saint’s cult
as a martyr in spite of the Pope’s decision and the historical facts.6
3 SMHDII41, s.a. 1170; also in Vitae Sanctorum Danorum (n. 9 below) 220. There is a treat-
ment of the solemnities in Ringsted from the perspective of ecclesiastical history in Carsten
Breengaard, Muren om Israels hus. Regnum og sacerdotium i Danmark 1050-1170, Copen-
hagen 1982,304-19.
4 Bjami GuSnason (ed.), Danakonunga sQgur (Islenzk fomrit 35), Reykjavfk 1982
[KnytlBG], 255 (Knytlinga saga ch. 92).
5 DD 1:2 (as n. 2 above), lines 18-19: vt diem natalis sui septimo kalendas Iulii celebretis.
The headnote in the edition has the infelicitous paraphrase: “Hans fødselsdag, 25. juni,
skal fejres som hans festdag” (346). According to excerpts from a much earlier authority,
Robert of Ely, the duke was bom in March or April (VSD 234—35, cf. n. 9 below).
6 A parallel case is the early patriotic enthusiasm for the companions of St Knud the King,
whom King Erik Ejegod apparently included in his application for canonisation in 1098;
here, however, Danish opinion eventually had to acquiesce in the Pope’s decision. Cf.
M. Cl. Gertz, Knud den Helliges Martyrhistorie særlig efter de tre ældste Kilder. En filo-
logisk-historisk Undersøgelse, Copenhagen 1907, 50-52, 72-74, 92-98.