Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2003, Page 71

Liturgy of St Knud Lavard - Introduction
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simus) agnus, exposing himself to the fury of the wolves, luporum ra-
biem (SMHD I 132,3 = 133,2-3), the reference may be directly to the
Bible (Lc. 10:3 ego mitto vos sicut agnos inter lupos) rather than to the
Vita (K 370 tamquam ouis innocens ad mactandum ductus, for which cf.
Is. 53:7c sicut ovis ad occisionem ducetur). Two parallels not to the
prose of the Vita but to the versified parts of the liturgy may just as well
imply that the versifier has read Sven Aggesen as vice versa: Knud
Lavard on his way to meet his fate is called (intrepidus) Christi athleta
by the prose author; his soul at death is said to be released from carnis
ergastulo (SMHD I 130,30 = 131,23; 132 = 133,7-8); parallel locutions
occur in a rhymed antiphon and respond of the liturgy (K 213 miles tuus
et adletha\ 427 De carnis ergastulo fidelis anima, etc.).95 The Older
Zealand Chronicle - and just possibly Knytlinga saga and the Annales
Lundenses - testify to the circulation of the Vita down to the middle of
the thirteenth century but do not help fix its time of writing.96 The only
secure point of chronological orientation is in faet the extant continua-
tion of the Roskilde Chronicle from after 1200 (see p. 13 with n. 22
above). The pious fiction of Knud Lavard’s martyrdom surely also pre-
supposes the retirement in 1177 of Archbishop Eskil, who had been
chief exponent of the ultramontane position in connection with the
canonisation campaign (cf. K 756-58, 787-88).
My own conjecture is that the Vita altera was written in the period ca.
1180-1200 at a location that was not Ringsted - and by an author who
may or may not have been Danish - for Archbishop Absalon or some
other influential patron. The narratives of the Passion and the Transla-
tion were probably drafted as two independent entitities, but there is not
sufficient evidence to deny unity of authorship.97 Subsequently Absalon
(or Anders Sunesen, who occupied the archiepiscopal see from 1201 to
1223) may have lent authority to the compilation and distribution within
the archdiocese of a proper liturgy including lessons borrowed from the
95 The metaphor of the ‘athlete of Christ’ is, however, a hagiographical commonplace, oc-
curring e.g. at VSD 119,25 (Ailnoth), 150,19 (liturgy of St Knud the King), 281,37 (legend
of St Kjeld), 314,18 (legend of Abbot Vilhelm).
96 See inter alia KnytlBG cxlvi-cxlviii, clxxix-clxxxiv, and for the Annales Lundenses
Reich 231-33, Gertz VSD 182, 218-19.
97 Note that only the Passion may have been available to the redaetor of the Older Zealand
Chronicle (and to the compilers of the Annales Lundenses). Unity of authorship is asserted
by Waitz1 8 (with stylistic reservations) and unequivocally by Reich 230-31 (emphasizing
vocabulary common to the Passion and Translation). Cf. Gertz VSD 173.