Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2003, Page 70

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Michael Chesnutt
(cf. K 764-65 ne domus Dei diucius pastoris pateretur iniuriam). Other
clues that the author did not fully comprehend what he was writing about
are the readings K 108 cimiterium (cf. pp. 23 and 29 above) and 277-78
Skaniensis (cf. note to the text), both seemingly errors in the archetype.88
His failure to specify any of the miracles worked at the saint’s grave also
suggests that he was ignorant of the work of Robert of Ely, which would
be remarkable had he actually been at Ringsted.89
Perhaps the author of the Vita was not a monk at all, but a secular
clerk employed at Roskilde or Lund? Nor, if he was a monk and a for-
eigner, was Ringsted the only place where he could have been recruited:
the Cistercian abbey at Sorø, dear to the hearts of the Hvide family and
the site of Absalon’s burial in 1201, had English abbots throughout the
last third of the twelfth century.90 Nor indeed, if he was a foreigner, need
he have been English: he could have been a Frenchman hired by Peder
Sunesen or his brother Anders, who were together at Roskilde in the
1190s and had both studied in Paris, and who alongside Abbot Vilhelm
at Æbelholt in North Zealand exemplify the strong French influence on
Danish aristocratic and ecclesiastical culture at this period.91 The allite-
rative mannerism conspicuous in the prose of the Vita is not a mark of
nationality (and was incidentally adopted by Sven Aggesen, who most
likely also studied in France).92
The Vita altera, whether quoted in full or in abbreviated form, sup-
plied lessons for all recensions of the Office of Knud Lavard and thus
fumishes a terminus post quem for the liturgy. A date for the Vita as such
is harder to establish. Whereas it is generally and persuasively counted
among the sources known to Saxo Grammaticus,93 the evidence for its
having been used before him in Sven Aggesen’s Brevis historia (? ca.
1190) is illusory.94 When Sven characterises the saint as a lamb, (mitis-
88 For other historical inaccuracies in the Vita see Reich 230.
89 Cf. Usinger 24 and Waitz2 8 with n. 3. Gertz (loc. cit.) avoids this issue by referring to
the paucity of our knowledge of Robert’s text.
90 Cf. McGuire (n. 53 above) 74, 92, 272.
91 Cf. Kai Hørby, “Anders Sunesens liv,” in: Sten Ebbesen (ed.), Anders Sunesen. Stor-
mand — Teolog — Administrator — Digter, Copenhagen 1985, 11-25, here 14, 20.
92 Cf. p. 28 above; SMHD I 58; Jørgen Olrik (transi.), Krøniker fra Valdemarstiden,
Copenhagen 1900-01, 27.
93 Waitz1 10-16; Reich 233-38; Usinger 24-25; Gertz VSD 175.
94 This in contradiction to Gertz (as previous note). For the date and sources of Sven Agge-
sen’s history see Karsten Christensen, Om overleveringen af Sven Aggesens værker,
Copenhagen 1978, 10-11.