The place of the thirteenth century in the history of human achievement is a subject upon which scholars have not yet come to a general agreement. There can be no doubt that it was, on the whole, an age of progress in many fields; but there is much in its history that points to stagnation, if not to actual decline. From a superficial study of its annals one might be led to class it with the lesser centuries; most writers are inclined to rank it lower than the fourteenth century, and perhaps not even so high as the twelfth. It was in this period that the crusading movement finally flickered out and the Christian world was compelled to leave the cradle of the holy faith in the hands of the infidel. In the thirteenth century, too, the medieval empire sank into hopeless inefficiency and all but expired. The papacy, which more than any other power was responsible for the ruin of the imperial ambitions, also went into decline. Whether the loss in authority and prestige on the part of the holy see was compensated by a renewed spiritual energy in the church at large may well be doubted: what evidence we have would indicate that the religion of the masses was gross and materialistic, that ethical standards were low, and that the improvement in clerical morals, which the church had hoped would follow the enforcement of celibacy, had failed to appear.
Yet the thirteenth century also had its attractive figures and its important movements. The old social order was indeed crumbling, but in its place appeared two new forces which were to inherit the power and opportunities of feudalism and reshape social life: these were the new monarchy, enjoying wide sovereign powers, and the new national consciousness, which was able to think in larger units. In England the century saw the development of a new representative institution, which has become the mother of modern legislative assemblies. The Italian cities were growing rich from the profits of Oriental trade; in the Flemish towns the weaver’s industry was building up new forms of municipal life; the great German Hansa was laying hold on the commerce of the northern seas. In the realms of higher intellect, in science, philosophy, and theology, the age was a notable one, with Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas as the leaders, each in his field. The century also meant much for the progress of geographical knowledge, for it was in this period that Marco Polo penetrated the mysterious lands of the Far East.
As the historian looks back into this age, he is, therefore, able to find broad traces of much that is regarded as fundamental to modern life. Of first importance in this regard is the employment of popular idioms in literary productions. French literature saw its beginnings in the eleventh century with the chansons de geste, songs of valorous deeds from the heroic age of the Frankish kingdom. In the next century the poets began to use the themes of the Arthurian legends and sang the exploits of the famous British king and the knights of his Round Table. A little later came another cycle of poems based on the heroic tales of classical antiquity. The twelfth century witnessed a parallel movement in Germany, which at first was largely an imitation of contemporary French poetry. The poets, however, soon discovered literary treasures in the dim world of the Teutonic past, in the tales of the Nibelungs, in the heroic deeds of Theodoric, and in the exploits of other heroes.
Thus in the first half of the thirteenth century there was a large body of French and German verse in circulation. The verses were borne from region to region and from land to land by professional entertainers, who chanted the poems, and by pilgrims and other travelers, who secured manuscript copies. In the course of time the new tales reached the Northern countries, and it was not long before the Northmen were eagerly listening to the stories of chivalrous warfare, militant religion, and tragic love, that they had learned in the southlands.
The Northern peoples thus had a share in the fruitage of the later middle ages; but they also had a share in their achievements. Politically as well as intellectually the thirteenth century was a great age in the Scandinavian countries. The Danish kingdom rose to the highest point of its power under Valdemar the Victorious, whose troubled reign began in 1202. Valdemar succeeded in extending the territories of Denmark along the entire southern coast of the Baltic Sea; but the greatness was short-lived: after the defeat of the Danes by the North Germans at BÖrnhoved in 1227, the decline of Danish imperialism began. In Sweden, too, men dreamed of conquest beyond the sea. Under the leadership of Earl Birger, the most eminent statesman of medieval Sweden, Swedish power was steadily extended into Finnish territory, and the foundations of Sweden as a great European power was being laid.
During the days of Valdemar and the great Birger Norway also reached its greatest territorial extent. After a century of factional warfare, the nation settled down to comparative peace. All the Norwegian colonies except those in Ireland, were definitely made subject to the Norwegian crown: these were the Isle of Man, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. In every field of national life there was vigor and enterprise. And on the throne sat a strong, wise, and learned monarch, Hakon IV, the ruler with the “great king-thought.”
The real greatness of the thirteenth century in the North lies, however, in the literary achievements of the age. It is not known when the Old Norse poets first began to exercise their craft, but the earliest poems that have come down to us date from the ninth century. For two hundred years the literary production was in the form of alliterative verse; but after 1050 there came a time when scaldic poetry did not seem to thrive. This does not mean that the interest in literature died out; it merely took a new form: the age of poetry was followed by an age of prose. With the Christian faith came the Latin alphabet and writing materials, and there was no longer any need to memorize verse. The new form was the saga, which began to appear in the twelfth century and received many notable additions in the thirteenth. The literary movement on the continent, therefore, had its counterpart in the North; only here the writings took the form of prose, while there literature was chiefly in verse.
These two currents came into contact in the first half of the thirteenth century, when the men and women of the North began to take an interest in the Arthurian romances and other tales that had found their way into Norway. In this new form of Norwegian literature there could not be much originality; still its appearance testifies to a widening of the intellectual horizon. In addition to sagas and romances the period was also productive of written laws, homilies, legends, Biblical narratives, histories, and various other forms of literature. It is to be noted that virtually everything was written in the idiom of the common people. Latin was used to some extent in the North in the later middle ages, but it never came into such general use there as in other parts of Europe. In the thirteenth century it had almost passed out of use as a literary language.
In our interest in tales and romances we must not overlook the fact that the thirteenth century also produced an important literature of the didactic type. For centuries the Christian world had studied the encyclopedic works of Capella, Cassiodorus, and Isidore, or had read the writings of Bede and his many followers who had composed treatises “on the nature of things,” in which they had striven to set in order the known or supposed facts of the physical world. The thirteenth century had an encyclopedist of its own in Vincent of Beauvais, who produced a vast compendium made up of several Specula, which were supposed to contain all the knowledge that the world possessed in science, history, theology, and other fields of learning. The age also produced various other Latin works of the didactic sort, of which the Historia Scholastica of Petrus Comestor was perhaps the most significant for the intellectual history of the North.
Norway had no encyclopedist, but the thirteenth century produced a Norwegian writer who undertook a task which was somewhat of the encyclopedic type. Some time during the reign of Hakon IV, perhaps while Vincent was composing his great Speculum Majus, a learned Norseman wrote the Speculum Regale, or King’s Mirror, a work which a competent critic has characterized as “one of the chief ornaments of Old Norse literature.”[1] Unlike the sagas and the romances, which have in view chiefly the entertainment of the reader, the King’s Mirror is didactic throughout; in a few chapters only does the author depart from his serious purpose, and all but two of these are of distinct value. The purpose of the work is to provide a certain kind of knowledge which will be of use to young men who are looking forward to a career in the higher professions.
As outlined in the introductory chapter, the work was to deal with the four great orders of men in the Norwegian kingdom: the merchants and their interests; the king and his retainers; the church and the clergy; and the peasantry or husbandmen. In the form in which the King’s Mirror has come down to modern times, however, the first two divisions only are included; not the least fragment of any separate discussion of the clerical profession or of the agricultural classes has been found. It is, therefore, generally believed that the work was not completed beyond the point where the extant manuscripts close. Why the book was left unfinished cannot be known; but it is a plausible conjecture that illness or perhaps death prevented the author, who was apparently an aged man, from completing the task that he had set before him. It is also possible that the ideas expressed in the closing chapters of the work, especially in the last chapter, which deals with the subject of clerical subordination to the secular powers, were so repugnant to the ecclesiastical thought of the time that the authorities of the church discouraged or perhaps found means to prevent the continuation of the work into the third division, where the author had planned to deal with the church and the clergy.
In form the Speculum is a dialog between a wise and learned father and his son, in which the larger part of the discussion naturally falls to the former. The son asks questions and suggests problems, which the father promptly answers or solves. In the choice of form there is nothing original: the dialog was frequently used by didactic writers in the middle ages, and it was the natural form to adopt. The title, Speculum Regale, is also of a kind that was common in those days.[2] Specula of many sorts were being produced: Speculum Ecclesiae, Speculum Stultorum, Speculum Naturale, and Speculum Perfectionis are some of the titles used for writings of a didactic type. The German Sachsenspiegel is an instance of the title employed for a work in a vulgar idiom. There was also a Speculum Regum, or Mirror of Kings, and a century later an English ecclesiastic wrote a Speculum Regis, but the writer knows of no other work called the Speculum Regale.
It is an interesting question whether the King’s Mirror was inspired by any earlier work written along similar lines. Originality was a rare virtue in the middle ages, and the good churchmen who wrote books in those days cannot have regarded plagiarism as a mortal sin. The great writers were freely copied by the lesser men, thoughts, titles, statements, and even the wording being often taken outright. It is, therefore, difficult to determine the sources of statements found in the later works, as they may have been drawn from any one of a whole series of writings on the subject under discussion. The writer has not been able to make an exhaustive examination of all the didactic and devotional literature of the centuries preceding the thirteenth, but the search that has been made has not proved fruitful. There is every reason to believe that the author of the King’s Mirror was an independent thinker and writer. He was doubtless acquainted with a large number of books and had drawn information from a great variety of sources; but when the writing was actually done he had apparently a few volumes only at his disposal. In the region where the work seems to have been composed, on the northern edge of European civilization, there was neither cathedral nor monastery nor any other important ecclesiastical foundation where a collection of books might be found.[3] It is likely, therefore, that the author had access to such books only as were in his own possession. But he came to his task with a well-stocked mind, with a vast fund of information gathered by travel and from the experiences of an active life; and thus he drew largely from materials that had become the permanent possession of his memory. This fact, if it be a fact, will also help to explain why so many inaccuracies have crept into his quoted passages; in but very few instances does he give the correct wording of a citation.
There can be no doubt that the author had a copy of the Vulgate before him; at least one Biblical passage is correctly given, and it is quoted in its Latin form.[4] It has also been discovered that he had access to an Old Norse paraphrase of a part of the Old Testament, the books of Samuel and of the Kings.[5] It is likely that he was also acquainted with some of the works of Saint Augustine, and perhaps with the writings of certain other medieval authorities. Among these it seems safe to include the Disciplina Clericalis, a collection of tales and ethical observations by Petrus Alfonsus, a converted Jew who wrote in the first half of the twelfth century. The Disciplina is a somewhat fantastic production wholly unlike the sober pages of the Speculum Regale; nevertheless, the two works appear to show certain points of resemblance which can hardly have been accidental. The Disciplina is a dialog and the part of the son is much the same as in the King’s Mirror. In both works the young man expresses a desire to become acquainted with the customs of the royal court, inasmuch as he may some day decide to apply for admission to the king’s household service.[6] The description of courtly manners and customs in the earlier dialog, though much briefer than the corresponding discussion in the Norwegian treatise, has some resemblance to the latter which suggests a possible relationship between the two works.
The Norwegian author may also have used some of the many commentaries on the books of Holy Writ, in the production of which the medieval cloisters were so prolific. Of the influence of Petrus Comestor’s Historia Scholastica the writer has found no distinct trace in the King’s Mirror; but one can be quite sure that he knew and had used the Elucidarium of Honorius of Autun. The Elucidarium is a manual of medieval theology which was widely read in the later middle ages and was translated into Old Norse, probably before the King’s Mirror was written.[7] But our Norwegian author was not a slavish follower of earlier authorities: in his use and treatment of materials drawn from the Scriptures he shows remarkable independence. Remarkable at least is his ability to make Biblical narratives serve to illustrate his own theories of Norwegian kingship. He was acquainted with some of the legends that circulated through the church and made effective use of them. He must also have known a work on the marvels of Ireland[8] and the letter of Prester John to the Byzantine emperor,[9] in which that mythical priest-king recounts the wonders of India. But the chief source of his work is a long life full of action, conflict, thought, and experience.
The importance of the King’s Mirror lies in the insight that it gives into the state of culture and civilization of the North in the later middle ages. The interest follows seven different lines: physical science, especially such matters as are of importance to navigators; geography, particularly the geography of the Arctic lands and waters; the organization of the king’s household and the privileges and duties of the king’s henchmen; military engines, weapons, and armour used in offensive and defensive warfare; ethical ideas, especially rules of conduct for courtiers and merchants; the royal office, the duties of the king and the divine origin of kingship; and the place of the church in the Norwegian state.
In one of his earlier chapters the author enumerates the chief subjects of a scientific character that ought to be studied by every one who wishes to become a successful merchant. These are the great luminaries of the sky, the motions and the paths of the heavenly bodies, the divisions of time and the changes that bring the seasons, the cardinal points of the compass, and the tides and currents of the ocean.[10] In discussing these matters he is naturally led to a statement as to the shape of the earth. All through the middle ages there were thinkers who accepted the teachings of the classical astronomers who had taught that the earth is round like a sphere; but this belief was by no means general. Bede for one appears to have been convinced that the earth is of a spherical shape, though he explains that, because of mountains which rise high above the surface, it cannot be perfectly round.[11] Alexander Neckam, an English scientist who wrote two generations before the King’s Mirror was composed, states in his Praise of Divine Wisdom that “the ancients have ventured to believe that the earth is round, though mountains rise high above its surface.”[12] Neckam’s own ideas on this point are quite confused and he remains discreetly non-committal.
But if the earth is a globe, there is every reason to believe in the existence of antipodes; and if there are antipodes, all cannot behold Christ coming in the clouds on the final day. To the medieval theologians, at least to the larger number of them, this argument disposed effectually of the Ptolemaic theory. Job does indeed say that God “hangeth the earth upon nothing,”[13] and this passage might point to a spherical form; but then the Psalmist affirms that He “stretched out the earth above the waters,”[14] and this statement would indicate that the inhabited part of the earth is an island floating upon the waters of the great Ocean, by which it is also surrounded. This belief was generally maintained in the earlier centuries of the classical world, and it had wide acceptance in the middle ages. There were also those who held that beyond and around the outer Ocean is a great girdle of fire. It is likely, however, that many believed with Isidore of Seville that it is useless to speculate on subjects of this sort. “Whether it [the earth] is supported by the density of the air, or whether it is spread out upon the waters ... or how the yielding air can support such a vast mass as the earth, whether such an immense weight can be upheld by the waters without being submerged, or how the earth maintains its balance ... these matters it is not permitted any mortal to know and they are not for us to discuss.”[15]
There can be no doubt that the author of the King’s Mirror believed in the Ptolemaic theory of a spherical earth. In speaking of our planet he uses the term jarÐarbollr,[16] earth-sphere. In an effort to explain why some countries are hotter than others, he suggests an experiment with an apple. It is not clear how this can shed much light on the problem, but the author boldly states the point to be illustrated: “From this you may infer that the earth-circle is round like a ball.”[17]
Toward the close of the medieval period there were certain thinkers who attempted to reconcile the spherical theory with the belief that the inhabited part of the earth is an island. These appear to have believed that the earth is a globe partly submerged in a larger sphere composed of water.[18] The visible parts of the earth would rise above the surrounding ocean like a huge island, and the Biblical passages which had caused so much difficulty could thus be interpreted in accord with apparent facts. It is quite clear that the author of the King’s Mirror held no such theory. In a poetic description of how the eight winds form their covenants of friendship at the approach of spring, he tells us that “at midnight the north wind goes forth to meet the coursing sun and leads him through rocky deserts toward the sparse-built shores.”[19] The author, therefore, seems to believe that the earth is a sphere, that there are lands on the opposite side of the earth, and that these lands are inhabited. He also understands that the regions that lie beneath the midnight course of the sun in spring and summer must be thinly populated, as the sun’s path on the opposite side of the earth during the season of lengthening days is constantly approaching nearer the pole.
But while the author seems to accept the Ptolemaic theory of the universe, he is not able to divest his mind entirely of current geographical notions. There can be no doubt that he believed in the encircling outer ocean, and it is barely possible that he also looked with favor on the belief that the whole was encompassed by a girdle of fire. On this point, however, we cannot be sure: he mentions the belief merely as one that is current, not as one accepted by himself.[20]
It was commonly held in the middle ages that the earth is divided into five zones, only two of which may be inhabited. This was a theory advanced by a Greek scientist in the fifth century before our era,[21] and was given currency in medieval times chiefly, perhaps, through the works of Macrobius.[22] At first these zones were conceived as belts drawn across the heavens; later they came to be considered as divisions of the earth’s surface. It will be noted that our author uses the older terminology and speaks of the zones as belts on the heaven;[23] it may be inferred, therefore, that he derived his information from one of the earlier Latin treatises on the nature of the universe.[24] For two thousand years it was believed that human life could not exist in the polar and torrid zones. Even as late as the fifteenth century European navigators had great fear of travel into the torrid zone, where the heat was thought to grow more intense as one traveled south, until a point might be reached where water in the sea would boil. The author of the King’s Mirror seems to doubt all this. He regards the polar zones as generally uninhabitable; still, he is sure that Greenland lies within the arctic zone; and yet, Greenland “has beautiful sunshine and is said to have a rather pleasant climate.”[25] He sees quite clearly that the physical nature of a country may have much to do with climatic conditions. The cold of Iceland he ascribes in great part to its position near Greenland: “for it is to be expected that severe cold would come thence, since Greenland is ice-clad beyond all other lands.”[26] He conceives the possibility that the south temperate zone is inhabited. “And if people live as near the cold belt on the southern side as the Greenlanders do on the northern, I firmly believe that the north wind blows as warm to them as the south wind to us. For they must look north to see the midday and the sun’s whole course, just as we, who dwell north of the sun, must look to the south.”[27]
On the questions of time and its divisions the author of the King’s Mirror seems to have had nearly all the information that the age possessed. He divides the period of day and night into two “days” (dÆgr) of twelve hours each. Each hour is again divided into smaller hours called ostenta in Latin.[28] Any division below the minute he apparently does not know. The length of the year he fixes at 365 days and six hours, every fourth year these additional hours make twenty-four and we have leap year.[29] The waxing and waning of the moon and the tidal changes in the ocean are also reckoned with fair accuracy.[30]
Medieval scientists found these movements in the ocean a great mystery. Some ascribed the tides to the influence of the moon;[31] others believed that they were caused by the collision of the waters of two arms of the ocean, an eastern arm and a western; still others imagined that somewhere there were “certain cavern-like abysses, which now swallow up the water, and now spew it forth again.”[32] The author of the Speculum has no doubts on the subject: he believes that the tides are due to the waxing and waning of the moon.[33]
In his discussion of the volcanic fires of Iceland he shows that on this subject he was completely under the influence of medieval conceptions. He has heard that Gregory the Great believed that the volcanic eruptions in Sicily have their origins in the infernal regions. Our author is inclined to question, however, that there is anything supernatural about the eruptions of Mount Etna; but he is quite sure that the volcanic fires of Iceland rise from the places of pain. The fires of Sicily are living fires, inasmuch as they devour living materials, such as wood and earth; those of Iceland, on the other hand, consume nothing living but only dead matter like rock. And he therefore concludes that these fires must have their origin in the realms of death.[34]
The author has a suspicion that earthquakes may be due to volcanic action, but he offers another explanation, though he does not give it as his own belief. Down in the bowels of the earth there is probably a large number of caverns and empty passages. “At times it may happen that these passages and cavities will be so completely packed with air either by the winds or by the power of the roaring breakers, that the pressure of the blast cannot be confined, and this may be the origin of those great earthquakes that occur in that country.”[35] In this theory there is nothing new or original: the belief that the earth is of a spongy constitution and that earthquakes are caused by air currents is a very old one, which can be followed back through the writings of Alexander Neckam,[36] the Venerable Bede,[37] and others, at least as far as to Isidore.[38] The elder Pliny, who wrote his Natural History in the first century of the Christian era, seems to have held similar views: “I believe there can be no doubt that the winds are the cause of earthquakes.”[39]
The chapters that deal with the northern lights are interesting because they seem to imply that these lights were not visible in those parts of Norway where the King’s Mirror was written. The editors of the Christiania edition of this work call attention to the fact that there have been periods when these phenomena were less prominent, and suggest that there may have been such a period in the thirteenth century.[40] The author discusses these lights as one of the wonders of Greenland, and the natural inference is that they were not known in Norway. But it is also true that he speaks of whales as if they were limited to the seas about Iceland and Greenland, which is manifestly incorrect. It is likely that the author merely wishes to emphasize the fact that the northern lights appear with greater frequency and in greater brilliance in Greenland than anywhere in Norway. He gives three theories to account for these phenomena: some ascribe them to a girdle of fire which encircles the earth beyond the outer ocean; others hold that the lights are merely rays of the sun which find their way past the edges of the earth while the sun is coursing underneath; but his own belief is that frost and cold have attained to such a power in the Arctic that they are able to put forth light.[41] In his opinion cold is a positive force as much as heat or any other form of energy. To the men of the author’s time there was nothing strange in this belief: it seems to have been held by many even before the thirteenth century that ice could under certain conditions produce heat and even burn.[42]
Among the author’s scientific notions very little that is really original can be found. It is Riant’s belief that he drew to some extent from Oriental sources, the lore of the East having come into the North as the spoil of crusaders or as the acquisitions of Norwegian pilgrims.[43] It may be doubted, however, whether the Saracenic contribution is a real one: almost everything that the author of the Speculum Regale presents as his belief can be found in the Latin scientific manuals of the middle ages. He alludes to the writings of Isidore of Seville, and there can be little doubt that he was acquainted with the ideas of the great Spaniard, though he does not accept them all. His ideas as to the shape of the earth and the probable causes of earthquakes may have been derived from the writings of the Venerable Bede, or from one of his numerous followers. The divisions of time are discussed in many of the scientific treatises of the middle ages, but the division of the hour into sixtieths called ostenta is probably not found in any manual written before the ninth century; so far as the writer has been able to determine, ostenta, meaning minutes, first appears in the works of Rabanus Maurus.[44]
The discussion of these scientific notions has its chief value in showing to what extent the Norwegians of the thirteenth century were acquainted with the best theories of the age as to the great facts of the universe. The author’s own contribution to the scientific learning of his time lies almost exclusively in the field of geography. “Beyond comparison the most important geographical writer of the medieval North,” says Dr. Nansen, “and at the same time one of the first in the whole of medieval Europe, was the unknown author who wrote the King’s Mirror.... If one turns from contemporary or earlier European geographical literature, with all its superstition and obscurity, to this masterly work, the difference is very striking.”[45] This is doubtless due to the fact that our author was not a cloistered monk who was content to copy the ideas and expressions of his predecessors with such changes as would satisfy a theological mind, but a man who had been active in the secular world and was anxious to get at real facts.
Among the chapters devoted to scientific lore the author has introduced several which are ostensibly intended to serve the purpose of entertainment; the author seems to fear that the interest of his readers is likely to flag, if the dry recital of physical facts is continued unbroken. It is in these chapters, which profess to deal with the marvels of Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and the Arctic seas, that he introduces his geographical data. In the description of Greenland are included such important and practical subjects as the general character of the land, the great ice fields, the products of the country, wild animals, and a few facts from the economic life of the people. In the chapters on Iceland the author limits himself to certain physical features, such as glaciers, geysers, mineral springs, volcanoes, and earthquakes. He also gives a “description of the animal world of the northern seas to which there is no parallel in the earlier literature of the world.”[46] He enumerates twenty-one different species of whales[47] and describes several of them with some fulness. He mentions and describes six varieties of seals[48] and also gives a description of the walrus. The marvelous element is represented by detailed accounts of the “sea-hedges” (probably sea quakes) on the coasts of Greenland, the merman, the mermaid, and the kraken.[49] But on the whole these chapters give evidence of careful, discriminating observation and a desire to give accurate knowledge.
For all but the two chapters on Ireland the sources of the author’s geographical information are evidently the tales of travelers and his own personal experiences; of literary sources there is no trace. The account of the marvels of Ireland, however, gives rise to certain problems. It may be that the Norwegian geographer based these chapters on literary sources that are still extant, or he may have had access to writings which have since disappeared. It is also possible that some of the information was contributed by travelers who sailed the western seas and had sojourned on the “western isles;” for it must be remembered that Norway still had colonies as far south as the Isle of Man, and that Norsemen were still living in Ireland, though under English rule. When Hakon IV made his expedition into these regions in 1263, some of these Norwegian colonists in Ireland sought his aid in the hope that English rule might be overthrown.[50]
It has long been known that many of the tales of Irish wonders and miracles that are recounted in the Speculum Regale are also told in the Topographia Hibernica by Giraldus Cambrensis. The famous Welshman wrote his work several decades before the King’s Mirror was composed; and it is not impossible that the author of the latter had access to the “Irish Topography.” Moreover, the Speculum Regale and the Topographia Hibernica have certain common features which correspond so closely that literary kinship seems quite probable. The resemblances, however, are not so much in the details as in the plan and the viewpoint. In the second book of his “Topography,” Giraldus recounts “first those things that nature has planted in the land itself;” and next “those things that have been miraculously performed through the merits of the saints.”[51] The author of the King’s Mirror has adopted a similar grouping. After having discussed some of the wonders of the island he continues: “There still remain certain things that may be thought marvelous; these, however, are not native to the land but have originated in the miraculous powers of holy men.”[52] This correspondence in the general plan is too remarkable to be wholly accidental; at least it should lead us to look for other resemblances elsewhere.
In his general description of Ireland the author of the Norwegian work calls attention to the excellence of the land and its temperate climate: “for all through the winter the cattle find their feed in the open.”[53] Giraldus informs us that grass grows in winter as well as in summer, and he adds: “therefore they are accustomed neither to cut hay for fodder nor to provide stables for the cattle.”[54] Both writers emphasize the fact that grapes do not grow on the island. In both writings attention is called to the sacred character of the Irish soil, which makes it impossible for reptiles and venomous animals to live on the land, though Giraldus has his doubts as to the supernatural phase of the matter. Both writers add that if sand or dust is brought from Ireland to another country and scattered about a reptile, it will perish.[55] Both characterize the Irish people as savage and murderous, but they also call attention to their kind treatment of holy men, of whom the island has always had many.[56] In fact, every statement in the King’s Mirror as to the nature of the land and the character of the inhabitants can be duplicated in Giraldus’ description of Ireland, except, perhaps, the single observation that the Irish people, because of the mildness of the climate, often wear no clothes.
But even if Giraldus’ work is to be regarded as one of the sources which the Norwegian author may have used in writing his chapters on the Irish mirabilia, it cannot have been the only or even the principal source. The account of these marvels in the King’s Mirror does not wholly agree with that of the Welshman’s work. In some instances the wonders are told with details that are wanting in the earlier narrative. Frequently, too, the Norwegian version is more explicit as to localities and gives proper names where Giraldus has none. It also records marvels and miracles which are not found in the Topographia Hibernica.
In an edition of the Irish Nennius the editor has added as an appendix a brief account of the “Wonders of Ireland,” many of the tales of which have interesting parallels in the King’s Mirror. There is also a medieval poem on the same theme[57] which contains allusions to much that the Norwegian author has recorded with greater fulness. Neither of these works, however, can have been the source from which the chapters on Ireland in the Speculum Regale have been derived.
The learned editors of the Christiania edition of the King’s Mirror reached the conclusion that the author did not draw from any literary source but derived his information from current tales and other oral accounts.[58] This is also the opinion of Dr. Kuno Meyer, the eminent student of Celtic philology.[59] Dr. Meyer bases his belief on the form of the Irish proper names. As written in the Speculum Regale they can not have been copied, as the spelling is not normally Irish; he believes, therefore, that they show an effort on the author’s part to reproduce phonetically these names as he heard them spoken. But this theory ignores the fact that in writing them the author employs combinations of consonants which are unusual to say the least. Combinations of ch and gh are used in writing nearly all the Irish proper names that occur in the King’s Mirror and the gh-combination is found nowhere else in the work.[60] It was probably coming into the language in the century to which the work is credited, but the author uses it only as indicated above. It seems likely, therefore, that he had access to a written source, though it is also likely that he did not have this account before him when the writing was actually done. As has already been stated, the author seems to have written largely from memory, and his memory is not always accurate.
Having discussed the subjects which he considers of chief importance for the education of a merchant, the learned father proceeds to describe the king’s household and its organization, the manners which one should observe at court, and the business that is likely to come before a king. For the part which deals with the royal court, it is probable that no literary sources were used. The author evidently wrote from long experience in the king’s retinue; he is not discussing an ideal organization but the king’s household as it was in Bergen and Trondhjem in his own day. If he drew from any written description of courtly manners, it may have been from some book like Petrus Alfonsus’ Disciplina Clericalis, which has already been mentioned[61] and which seems to have had a wide circulation throughout western Europe in the later middle ages.
The chapters that are devoted to the discussion of the duties and activities of the king’s guardsmen, to the manners and customs which should rule in the king’s garth, and to the ethical ideas on which these were largely based are of great interest to the student of medieval culture. They reveal a progress in the direction of refined life and polished manners, which one should scarcely expect to find in the Northern lands. The development of courtesy and refined manners may have been accelerated by the new literature which was coming into Scandinavia from France and Germany, a literature that dealt so largely with the doings of knights and kings;[62] but it was probably not so much a matter of bookish instruction as of direct imitation. The Northmen, though they lived far from the great centers of culture, were always in close touch with the rest of the world. In the earlier centuries the viking sailed his dreaded craft wherever there was wealth and plunder and civilized life. After him and often as his companion came the merchant who brought away new ideas along with other desirable wares. After a time Christianity was introduced from the southlands, and the pilgrim and the crusader took the place of the heathen pirate. And all these classes helped to reshape the life of courtesy in the Northern countries.
It is difficult to overestimate the influence of the crusader as a pioneer of Christian culture in Scandinavia, but it seems possible that the pilgrim was even more important in this respect. It was no doubt largely through his journeys that German influences began to be felt in the Scandinavian lands, though it is possible that the wide activities of the Hanseatic merchants should also be credited with some importance for the spread of Teutonic culture. It is told in the King’s Mirror that a new mode of dressing the hair and the beard had been introduced from Germany since the author had retired from the royal court.[63] It is significant that the routes usually followed by Norwegian pilgrims who sought the Eternal City and the holy places in the Orient ran through German lands. As a rule the pilgrims traveled through Jutland, Holstein, and the Old Saxon territories and reached the Rhine at Mainz. It was also possible to take a more easterly route, and sometimes the travelers would go by sea to the Low Countries and thence southward past Utrecht and Cologne; but all these three routes converged at Mainz, whence the journey led up the Rhine and across the Alps. It will be noted that a long stretch of the journey from Norway to Rome would lead through the German kingdom. Concerning the people of the Old Saxon or German lands an Icelandic scribe makes the following significant remark: “In that country the people are more polished and courteous than in most places and the Northmen imitate their customs quite generally.”[64]
The cultural influences which followed in the wake of the returning crusaders were no doubt largely of Frankish origin. As a rule the crusading expeditions followed the sea route along the coasts of France and the Spanish peninsula; thus the Northern warriors came in contact with French ideas and customs in the Frankish homeland as well as in the Christian armies, which were largely made up of enthusiastic and venturesome knights from Frankland. The author of the King’s Mirror urges his son to learn Latin and French, “for these idioms are most widely used.”[65]
One of the reasons why the son wishes to master the mercantile profession is that he desires to travel and learn the customs of other lands.[66] In the thirteenth century the Norwegian trade still seems to have been largely with England and the other parts of the British Isles. It is also important to remember that the Norwegian church was a daughter of the church of England, and that occasionally English churchmen were elevated to high office in the Norwegian establishment. It is likely that Master William, who was Hakon IV’s chaplain, was an Englishman; at least he bore an English name.[67]
Information as to foreign civilization and the rules of courteous behavior could also pass from land to land and from court to court with the diplomatic missions of the time. The wise father states that envoys who come and go are careful to observe the manners that obtain at the courts to which they are sent.[68] Frequent embassies must have passed between the capitals of England and Norway in the thirteenth century. It is recorded that both King John and his son Henry III received envoys from the king of Norway, and that they brought very acceptable gifts, such as hawks and elks,[69] especially the former: in twelve different years Hakon IV sent hawks to the English king.[70]
Embassies also came quite frequently from the imperial court in Germany. It was during the reign of Hakon IV that the Hohenstaufens were waging their last fight with the papacy, and both sides in the conflict seemed anxious to secure the friendship of the great Norwegian king. The Saga of Hakon relates that early in the king’s reign “missions began between the emperor and King Hakon.”[71] In 1241, “when King Hakon came to the King’s Crag, that man came to him whose name was Matthew, sent from the emperor Frederick with many noble gifts. Along with him came from abroad five Bluemen (negroes).”[72] Just how acceptable such a gift would be in medieval Norway the chronicler does not state. There can be no doubt, however, that Hakon returned the courtesy. The saga mentions several men who were sent on diplomatic errands to the imperial court. One of these emissaries had to go as far as Sicily, “and the emperor received him well.”[73]
The relationship with the other Scandinavian kingdoms was more direct. The King’s Mirror states that occasionally kings find it necessary to meet in conference for the discussion of common problems; and that on such occasions the members of the various retinues note carefully the customs and manners of the other groups.[74] These meetings were usually held at some point near the mouth of the GÖta River, where the boundaries of the three kingdoms touched a common point. In 1254 such a meeting was held at which Hakon of Norway, Christopher of Denmark, and the great Earl Birger of Sweden were in attendance with their respective retinues.[75]
The kings of the North were not limited, however, in their diplomatic intercourse to the neighboring monarchies; their ambassadors went out to the remotest parts of Europe and even to Africa. Valdemar the Victorious, in his day one of the greatest rulers in Christendom, married as his first wife Dragomir, a Bohemian princess who brought the Dagmar name into Denmark, and took as his second consort Berengaria of Portugal, Queen Bengjerd, whose lofty pride is enshrined in the Danish ballads of the age. Hakon IV married the daughter of his restless rival, Duke Skule; but his daughter Christina was sought in marriage by a prince in far-away Spain. The luckless princess was sent to Castile and was married at Valladolid to a son of Alfonso the Wise.[76] Louis IX of France was anxious to enlist the support of the Norwegian king for his crusading ventures and sent the noted English historian Matthew Paris to present the matter to King Hakon.[77] The mission, however, was without results. Norwegian diplomacy was concerned even with the courts of the infidel: in 1262 an embassy was sent to the Mohammedan sultan of Tunis “with many falcons and those other things which were there hard to get. And when they got out the Soldan received them well, and they stayed there long that winter.”[78]
An important event of the diplomatic type was the coming of Cardinal William of Sabina as papal legate to crown King Hakon. The coronation ceremony was performed in Bergen, July 29, 1247. At the coronation banquet the cardinal made a speech in which, as the Saga of Hakon reports his remarks, he called particular attention to the polished manners of the Northmen. “It was told me that I would here see few men; but even though I saw some, they would be liker to beasts in their behaviour than to men; but now I see here a countless multitude of the folk of this land, and, as it seems to me, with good behaviour.”[79] If the King’s Mirror gives a correct statement of what was counted good manners and proper conduct at the court of Hakon IV, the cardinal’s praise is none too strong.
As a part of his discussion of the duties and activities of the king’s henchmen, the author describes the military methods of the age, arms and armour, military engines and devices used in offensive and defensive warfare, and other necessary equipment.[80] He also discusses the ethics of the military profession to some extent. This part of the work has been made the subject of a detailed study by Captain Otto Blom of the Danish artillery, who has tried to fix a date for the composition of the King’s Mirror on the basis of these materials.[81] It is not likely, however, that the work describes the military art of the North; such an elaborate system of equipment and such a variety of military engines and devices the Norwegians probably never knew at any time in the middle ages. It is the military art of Europe which the author describes, especially the war machinery of the crusades. One should not be surprised to find that he had knowledge of the devices which were employed by the Christian hosts in their warfare against the infidel in the Orient. The crusades attracted the Norwegian warriors and they took a part in them almost from the beginning. The fifth crusade began in 1217, the year of Hakon IV’s accession to the kingship. Several Norwegian chiefs with their followers joined this movement, some marching by land through Germany and Hungary, while others took the sea route. One is tempted to believe that the author was himself a crusader, but it is also possible that he got his information as to the military art of the south and east from warriors who returned from those lands.
From the subject of proper behavior and good breeding the author passes to a discussion of evil conduct and its effect on the welfare of the kingdom. Many causes, he tells us, may combine to bring calamities upon a land, and if the evils continue any length of time, the realm will be ruined.[82] There may come dearth upon the fields and the fishing grounds near the shores; plagues may carry away cattle, and the huntsman may find a scarcity of game; but worst of all is the dearth which sometimes comes upon the intellects and the moral nature of men. As a prolific source of calamities of the last sort, the author mentions the institution of joint kingship, the evils of which he discusses at some length. His chapter on this subject is an epitome of Norwegian history in the twelfth century when joint kingship was the rule.
According to the laws of medieval Norway before the thirteenth century, the national kingship was the king’s allodial possession and was inherited by his sons at his death. All his sons were legal heirs, those of illegitimate birth as well as those who were born in wedlock. When there was more than one heir, the kingship was held jointly, all the claimants receiving the royal title and permission to maintain each his own household. Usually a part of the realm was assigned to each; but it was the administration, and not the kingdom itself, which was thus divided. It is readily seen that such a system would offer unusual opportunities for pretenders; and at least three times in one hundred years men whose princely rights were at best of a doubtful character mounted the Norwegian throne. It is an interesting fact that two of these, the strenuous Sverre and the wise Hakon IV, must be counted among the strongest, ablest, and most attractive kings in the history of Norway.
Though there had been instances of joint rule before the twelfth century, the history of that unfortunate form of administration properly begins with the death of Magnus Bareleg on an Irish battlefield in 1103. Three illegitimate sons, the oldest being only fourteen years of age, succeeded to the royal title. One of these was the famous Sigurd Jerusalemfarer, who took part in the later stages of the first crusade. About twenty years after King Magnus’ death, a young Irishman, Harold Gilchrist by name, appeared at the Norwegian court and claimed royal rights as a son of the fallen king. King Sigurd forced him to prove his birthright by an appeal to the ordeal, but the Irishman walked unhurt over the hot plowshares. Harold became king in 1130 as joint ruler with Sigurd’s son Magnus, later called “the Blind.”[83] Three of his sons succeeded to the kingship in 1136. During the next century several pretenders appeared and civil war became almost the normal state of the country. Between 1103 and 1217 fifteen princes were honored with the royal title; eleven of these were minors. The period closed with the defeat and death of King Hakon’s father-in-law, the pretender Skule, in 1240.
It was the history of these hundred years and more of joint kingship, of pretenders, of minorities, and of civil war, which the author of the King’s Mirror had in mind when he wrote his gloomy chapter on the calamities that may befall a state. Perhaps he was thinking more especially of the unnatural conflict between King Hakon and Duke Skule,[84] which was fought out in 1240, and the memory of which was still fresh at the time when the King’s Mirror was being written.
Of the king and his duties as ruler and judge the Speculum Regale has much to say; but as these matters offer no problems that call for discussion, it will not be necessary to examine them in detail. Wholly different is the case of the king’s relation to the church, of the position of the church in the state, of the divine origin of kingship, of the fulness of the royal authority. On these questions the author’s opinions and arguments are of great importance: in the history of the theory of kingship by the grace of God and divine right and of absolute monarchy, the Speculum Regale is an important landmark.
In the discussion of the origin and powers of the royal office, the King’s Mirror again shows unmistakably the influence of events in the preceding century of Norwegian history. So long as the church of Norway was under the supervision of foreign archbishops, first the metropolitan of distant Hamburg and later the archbishop of the Danish (now Swedish) see of Lund, there was little likelihood of any serious clash between the rival powers of church and state. But when, in 1152, an archiepiscopal see was established at Nidaros (Trondhjem) trouble broke out at once. The wave of enthusiasm for a powerful and independent church, which had developed such vigor in the days of Gregory VII, was still rising high. Able men were appointed to the new metropolitan office and the Norwegian church very soon put forth the usual demands of the time: separate ecclesiastical courts and immunity from anything that looked like taxation or forced contribution to the state. At first these claims had no reality in fact, as the kings would not allow them; but in 1163[85] an opportunity came for the church to make its demands effective. In that year a victorious faction asked for the coronation of a new king whose claims to the throne came through his mother only. The pretender was a mere child and the actual power was in the hands of his capable and ambitious father, Erling Skakke. The imperious archbishop Eystein agreed to consecrate the boy king if he would consent to become the vassal of Saint Olaf, or, in other words, of the archbishop of Nidaros. Erling acquiesced and young Magnus was duly crowned. It was further stipulated that in future cases of disputed succession the final decision should rest with the bishops.[86] The state was formally made subject to the church. It must be noted, however, that it was not the head of Catholic Christendom who made these claims, but the chief prelate of the national Norwegian church. The theory was doubtless this, that if the pope is superior to the emperor, the archbishop is superior to the king.
The new arrangement did not long remain unchallenged. In 1177 the opposition to the ecclesiastical faction found a leader in Sverre, called Sigurdsson, an adventurer from the Faroe Islands, who pretended to be a grandson of Harold Gilchrist, though the probabilities are that his father was one Unas, a native of the Faroes.[87] Sverre’s followers were known as Birchshanks, because they had been reduced to such straits that they had to bind birch bark around their legs. The faction in control of the government was called the Croziermen and was composed of the higher clergy with an important following among the aristocracy. Sverre’s fight was, therefore, not against King Magnus alone but against the Guelph party of Norway. For half a century there was intermittent civil warfare between the supporters of an independent and vigorous kingship on the one side and the partisans of clerical control on the other. King Sverre’s great service to Norway was that he broke the chain of ecclesiastical domination. The conflict was long and bitter and the great king died while it was still on; but when it ended the cause of the Croziermen was lost. The church attained to great power in the Norwegian state, but it never gained complete domination.
Sverre was a man of great intellectual strength; he was a born leader of men, a capable warrior, and a resourceful captain. When it began to look as if victory would crown his efforts, the archbishop fled to England and from his refuge in Saint Edmundsbury excommunicated the king. But exile is irksome to an ambitious man, and after a time the fiery prelate returned to Norway and was reconciled to the strenuous ruler. Eystein’s successor, however, took up the fight once more; and when Sverre made Norway too uncomfortable for him, he fled to Denmark and excommunicated his royal opponent. A few years later, Innocent III, who had just ascended the papal throne, also excommunicated Sverre, and threatened the kingdom with an interdict.[88] But the papal weapons had little effect in the far North; the king forced priests and prelates to remain loyal and to continue in their duties. No doubt they obeyed the excommunicated ruler with great reluctance and much misgiving; but no other course was possible, for the nation was with the king.
The militant Faroese was a man with strong literary interests; he was educated for the priesthood and it is believed that he had actually taken orders. He was eloquent in speech, but he realized the power of the written as well as of the spoken word. It is a fact worth noting that among the Northmen of the thirteenth century learning was not confined to the clergy. While the author of the King’s Mirror urges the prospective merchant to learn Latin and French, he also warns him not to neglect his mother tongue. King Sverre replied to the ecclesiastical decrees with a manifesto in the Norwegian language in which he stated his position and his claims for the royal office. This pamphlet, which is commonly known as “An Address against the Bishops,” was issued about 1199 and was sent to all the shire courts to be read to the freemen. It was a cleverly written document and seems to have been very effective. In spite of the fact that the king was under the ban, the masses remained loyal.
Between the political theory of the Address and the ideas of kingship expressed in the King’s Mirror there is an agreement which can hardly be accidental. It is more likely that we have in this case literary kinship of the first degree. It has been thought that King Sverre may have prepared his manifesto himself, but this is scarcely probable. Some one of his court, however, must have composed it, perhaps some clerk in the royal scriptorium, for the ideas developed in the document are clearly those of the king. It has also been suggested that the Address and the Speculum Regale may have been written by the same hand;[89] but the only evidence in support of such a conclusion is this agreement of political ideas, which may have originated in a careful study of the earlier document by the author of the later work.
King Sverre’s Address begins with a violent attack on the higher clergy: the bishops have brought sorrow upon the land and confusion into holy church. This deplorable condition is ascribed chiefly to a reckless use of the power of excommunication. In this connection the king is careful to absolve the pope from all guilt: his unfortunate deeds were due to ignorance and to false representations on the part of the bishops. It is next argued that excommunication is valid only when the sentence of anathema is just; an unjust sentence is not only invalid but it recoils upon the head of him who is the author of the anathema. In support of this contention the author of the manifesto quotes the opinions of such eminent fathers as Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great, and other authorities on canon law. It will be remembered that the king himself was under the ban at the time. The author argues further that his view is supported by reason as well as by the law of the church. Bishops have been appointed shepherds of the flocks of God; they are to watch over them, not drive them away into the jaws of the wolves. But if a bishop excommunicates one who is without guilt, he consigns him to hell; and if his decree is effective, he destroys one of God’s sheep.
From this subject the Address passes to the nature of the royal office. “So great a number of examples show clearly that the salvation of a man’s soul is at stake if he does not observe complete loyalty, kingly worship, and a right obedience; for kingly rule is created by God’s command and not by the ordinance of man, and no man can obtain royal authority except by divine dispensation.” The king is not a secular ruler only, he also has holy church in his power and keeping. It is his right and duty to appoint church officials, and the churchmen owe him absolute loyalty the same as his other subjects. Christ pointed out the duty of church officials quite clearly when he paid tribute to his earthly ruler, one who was, moreover, a heathen.[90]
It will be seen that the Address puts forth four claims of far-reaching importance: kingship is of divine origin and the king rules by the grace of God; the power of royalty extends to the church as well as to the state and includes the power to appoint the rulers of the church; disloyalty to the king is a mortal sin; an unjust sentence of excommunication is invalid and injures him only who publishes the anathema. On all these points the King’s Mirror is in complete agreement with Sverre’s manifesto.
In the course of the dialog in the Speculum Regale the son requests his father to take up and discuss the office and business of the king; for, says he, “he is so highly honored and exalted upon earth that all must bend and bow before him as before God.”[91] The father accounts for the power and dignity of kingship in this way: men bow before the king as before God, because he represents the exalted authority of God; he bears God’s own name and occupies the highest judgment seat upon earth; consequently, when one honors a king, it is as if he honors God himself, because of the title that he has from God.[92]
The author evidently realizes that statements of this sort will not be accepted without further argument, and he naturally proceeds to give his doctrine a basis in Biblical history. The reverence due kingship is fully illustrated with episodes in the career of David. So long as God permitted King Saul to live, David would do nothing to deprive him of his office; for Saul was also the Lord’s anointed. He took swift revenge upon the man who came to his camp pretending that he had slain Saul; for he had sinned against God in bearing arms against His anointed. He also calls attention to Saint Peter’s injunction: “Fear God and honor your king;” and adds that it is “almost as if he had literally said that he who does not show perfect honor to the king does not fear God.”[93]
To emphasize his contention that kingship is of divine origin, the author cites the example of Christ. The miracle of the fish in whose mouth the tribute money was found is referred to in the Address as well as in the King’s Mirror. Peter was to examine the first fish, not the second or the third. In the same way, and here the argument is characteristically medieval, “every man should in all things first honor the king and the royal dignity; for God Himself calls the king His anointed.”[94]
But, objects the son, how could Christ who is himself the lord of heaven and earth be willing to submit to an earthly authority? To this the father replies that Christ came to earth as a guest and did not wish to deprive the divine institution of kingship of any honor or dignity.[95] The author evidently deems it important to establish this contention; for if Christ submitted to Caesar as to a rightful authority, the church in opposing secular rulers could scarcely claim to be following in the footsteps of the Master.
It seems to be a safe conclusion that the doctrine of the divine character of kingship as developed in the King’s Mirror is derived from King Sverre’s Address, unless it should be that the two have drawn from a common source. There is nothing novel about Sverre’s ideas except the form in which they are stated; fundamentally they are a return to the original Norwegian theory of kingship. The Norwegian kings of heathen times were descendants of divine ancestors. They recognized the will of the popular assemblies as a real limitation on their own powers, but no religious authority could claim superiority to the ruler. The king was indeed himself a priest, a mediator between the gods and men. The Christian kings for a century and a half had controlled the church in a very real manner; they had appointed bishops and had also on occasion removed them. The claim of the archbishop to overlordship was therefore distinctly an innovation. The king makes use of arguments from the Bible to support his theory, not because it was based on Scriptural truths, but because to a Christian people these would prove the most convincing.
In his statement of the fulness and majesty of the royal power, the author of the Speculum Regale goes, however, far beyond the author of the Address. So complete is the king’s power, “that he may dispose as he likes of the lives of all who live in his kingdom.”[96] He “owns the entire kingdom as well as all the people in it, so that all the men who are in his kingdom owe him service whenever his needs demand it.”[97] These sentences would indicate that the author’s position lies close to the verge of absolutism. But Norwegian kingship was anything but absolute; the king had certain well-defined rights, but the people also had some part in the government. Professor Ludvig Daae has put forth the hypothesis that the author of the King’s Mirror was acquainted with the governmental system of Frederick II in his Italian kingdom, which he governed as an absolute monarch.[98] There may be some truth in this for there is no doubt that the character of Frederick’s government was known to the Northmen; but it is also possible that the theory of absolute monarchy had a separate Norse origin, that the insistence on divine right in the long fight with the church had driven the partisans of monarchy far forward along the highway that led to practical absolutism. Less than a generation after the King’s Mirror was composed, the newer ideas of kingship appear in the legislation of Magnus Lawmender. Kings have received their authority from God, for “God Himself deigns to call Himself by their name;” and the preamble continues: “he is, indeed, in great danger before God, who does not with perfect love and reverence uphold them in the authority to which God has appointed them.”[99] This is the doctrine of the Address as well as of the Speculum; the significant fact is that the principle has now been introduced into the constitution of the monarchy. It is possible that the author of the King’s Mirror states an alien principle; but it is more probable that he merely gives form to a belief that had been growing among Northmen for some time.
On the question of the validity of excommunication the teachings of the Speculum Regale are in perfect accord with those of the Address. The uncompromising position and methods of Innocent III had given point to an exceedingly practical question: was a Christian permitted to obey a king who was under the ban of the church? Generally the church held that obedience under the circumstances would be sinful. The author of the Speculum distinguishes closely, however, between just and unjust sentences of excommunication. God has established two houses upon earth, the house of the altar and the house of the judgment seat.[100] There is, therefore, a legitimate sphere of action for the bishop as well as for the king. But an act is not necessarily righteous because it emanates from high authority either in the church or in the state. If the king pronounces an unjust judgment, his act is murder; if a bishop excommunicates a Christian without proper reasons, the ban is of no effect, except that it reacts upon the offending prelate himself.[101]
After the author has thus denied the right of the church to use the sword of excommunication in certain cases, there remains the question: has the king any superior authority over the church? The answer is that the king has such authority; and the author fortifies his position by recalling the story how Solomon punished Abiathar the high priest, or bishop as he is called in the King’s Mirror. In reply to the young man’s inquiry whether Solomon did right when he deprived Abiathar of the high-priestly office, the father affirms that the king acted properly and according to law. The king is given a two-edged sword for the reason that he must guard, not only his own house of judgment, but also the house of the altar, which is ordinarily in the bishop’s keeping. Abiathar had sinned in becoming a party to the treasonable intrigues of Adonijah, who was plotting to seize the throne of Israel while his father David was still living. Inasmuch as the high priest had attempted to deprive the Lord’s anointed of his royal rights, Solomon would have been guiltless even if he had taken Abiathar’s life. The author also calls attention to the fact that Abiathar was elevated to the high-priestly office by David himself.[102]
On the question of the king’s right to control episcopal appointments the King’s Mirror is also in agreement with the earlier Address. On the death of Archbishop John, the Address tells us, “Inge appointed Eystein, his own chaplain, to the archiepiscopal office[103] ... without consulting any cleric in Trondhjem, either the canons or any one else; and he drove Bishop Paul from the episcopal throne in Bergen and chose Nicholas Petersson to be his successor.” Doubtless the philosopher of the King’s Mirror, when he wrote of the fall of Abiathar, was also thinking of the many Abiathars of Norwegian history in the twelfth century, especially, perhaps, of the bishops of Sverre’s reign, who had striven so valiantly to rid the nation of its energetic king. There can be no doubt, however, that he regarded the hierarchy as inferior to the secular government. A bishop, who unrighteously excommunicates a Norwegian king and attempts in this way to render him impossible as a ruler, forfeits not only his office but his life.
There was another problem in the middle ages which also involved the question of ecclesiastical authority as opposed to secular jurisdiction, the right of sanctuary. There can be no doubt that in the unsettled state of medieval society it was well that there were places where an accused might find security for a time at least; but the right of sanctuary was much abused, too frequently it served to shield the guilty. The King’s Mirror teaches unequivocally that the right of sanctuary cannot be invoked against the orders of the king. As usual the author finds support for his position in the Scriptures. Joab fled to God’s tabernacle and laid hold on the horns of the altar; nevertheless, King Solomon ordered him to be slain, and the command was carried out.[104] Solomon appears to have reasoned in this wise: “It is my duty to carry out the provisions of the sacred law, no matter where the man happens to be whose case is to be determined.” It was not his duty to remove Joab by force, for all just decisions are God’s decisions and not the king’s; and “God’s holy altar will not be defiled or desecrated by Joab’s blood, for it will be shed in righteous punishment.”[105] And the author is careful to emphasize the fact that God’s tabernacle was the only house in all the world that was dedicated to Him, and must consequently have had an even greater claim to sacredness than the churches of the author’s own day, of which there was a vast number.[106]
There was a Norwegian Joab in the first half of the thirteenth century, who, like the chieftain of old, plotted against his rightful monarch and was finally slain within the sacred precincts of an Augustinian convent. Skule, King Hakon’s father-in-law, was a man of restless ambition, who could not find complete satisfaction in the titles of earl and duke, but stretched forth his hand to seize the crown itself. In 1239 he assumed the royal title, but a few months later (1240) his forces were surprised in Nidaros by the king’s army, and the rebellion came to a sudden end. Skule’s men fled to the churches; his son Peter found refuge in one of the buildings belonging to the monastery of ElgesÆter, but was discovered and slain. After a few days Duke Skule himself sought security in the same monastery; but the angry Birchshanks, in spite of the solemn warnings and threatenings of the offended monks, slew the pretender and burned the monastery.[107] This was an act of violence which must have caused much trouble for the king’s partisans, and it is most likely the act which the author of the King’s Mirror had in his thoughts when he wrote of the fate of Joab.
Writers on political philosophy usually begin their specific discussion of the theory of divine right of kingship when they come to the great political theorists of the fourteenth century.[108] The most famous of these is Marsiglio of Padua, who wrote his Defensor Pacis in 1324. In this work he asserted that the emperor derived his title and sovereignty from God and that his authority was superior to that of the pope. Some years earlier William Occam, an English scholar and philosopher, made similar claims for the rights of the king of France. Earlier still, perhaps in 1310, Dante had claimed divine right for princes generally in his famous work De Monarchia. Somewhat similar, though less precise, ideas had been expressed by John of Paris in 1305. But nearly two generations earlier the doctrine had been stated in all its baldness and with all its implications by the author of the King’s Mirror; and more than a century before Dante wrote his work on “Monarchy” Sverre had published his Address to the Norwegian people. So far as the writer has been able to determine there is no treatise on general medieval politics, at least no such treatise written in English, which contains even an allusion to these two significant works.
The ethical ideas that are outlined in the Speculum Regale are also of more than common interest. On most points the learned father preaches the conventional principles of the church with respect to right and wrong conduct, and as a rule his precepts are such as have stood the test of ages of experience. He emphasizes honesty, fair dealing, careful attendance upon worship, and devotion to the church; he warns his son to shun vice of every sort; he must also avoid gambling and drinking to excess.[109] In some respects the author’s moral code is Scandinavian rather than Christian: in the emphasis that he places upon reputation and the regard in which one is held by one’s neighbors he seems to echo the sentiment that runs through the earlier Eddic poetry, especially the “Song of the High One.” “One thing I know that always remains,” says Woden, “judgment passed on the dead.”[110] And the Christian scribe more than three centuries later writes thus of one who has departed this life: “But if he lived uprightly while on earth and made proper provision for his soul before he died, then you may take comfort in the good repute that lives after him, and even more in the blissful happiness which you believe he will enjoy with God in the other world.”[111] And again he says: “Now you will appreciate what I told you earlier in our conversation, namely that much depends on the example that a man leaves after him.”[112]
The author is also Norse in his emphasis on moderation in every form of indulgence, on the control of one’s passion, and in permitting private revenge. His attitude toward this present world is not medieval: we may enjoy the good things of creation, though not to excess. On the matter of revenge, however, his ideas are characteristically medieval. Private warfare was allowed almost everywhere in the middle ages, and it appears to have a place in the political system of the Speculum Regale. But on this point too the author urges moderation. “When you hear things in the speech of other men which offend you much, be sure to investigate with reasonable care whether the tales be true or false; but if they prove to be true and it is proper for you to seek revenge, take it with reason and moderation and never when heated or irritated.”[113]
The theology of the King’s Mirror, as far as it can be discerned, is also medieval, though it is remarkable that the Virgin and the saints find only incidental mention in the work. No doubt if the author had been able to complete his treatise as outlined in his introduction, he would have discussed the forms and institutions of the church at greater length and we should be able to know to what extent his theological notions were in agreement with the religious thought of the age.
In this connection his theory of penance and punishment for crime is of peculiar interest. He makes considerable use of Biblical narratives to illustrate his teachings and refers at length to some of the less worthy characters of Holy Writ, including certain men who suffered death for criminal offenses. Almost invariably he justifies the punishment by arguing that it was better for the criminal to suffer a swift punishment in death than to suffer eternally in hell. Apparently his theory is that a criminal can cleanse himself in his own blood, that a temporal death can save him from eternal punishment. The idolaters who were slain by Moses and the Levites[114] “were cleansed in their penance and in the pangs which they suffered when they died; and it was much better for them to suffer a brief pain in death than a long torture in hell.” The sacramental efficiency of the death penalty seems also to extend to the one who executes punishment: for those who assisted Moses in the slaughter sanctified their hands in the blood of those who were slain. In the same way “a king cleanses himself in the blood of the unjust, if he slays them as a rightful punishment to fulfil the sacred laws.”[115]
There can be little doubt that this doctrine of the death penalty also shows the influence of the great civil conflict which ended with the death of Duke Skule in 1240. During a century of factional warfare there had been much violence, much slaughter, much “swift punishment.” Applied to Norwegian history the author’s argument amounts to a justification of the slaughter at ElgesÆter; for Skule and his partisans had rebelled against the Lord’s anointed. The hands of the Birchshanks were cleansed and sanctified in the blood of the rebels; but the author also has this comforting assurance for the kinsmen of the fallen, that their souls were not lost: Skule and his companions were cleansed from their sins in the last great penance of death.
It may also be that this same long record of violence, treason, and rebellion was responsible for the prominence that the King’s Mirror gives to the duty of obedience. In the political ethics of the work obedience is the chief virtue and the central principle. Conversely disobedience is the greatest of all sins. When Saul spared the Amalekites, whom the Lord had ordered him to destroy, he sinned far more grievously than did David when he dishonored Uriah’s wife and afterward brought about Uriah’s death; for Saul neglected to carry out the commands of God, and “no offense is graver than to be disobedient toward one’s superiors.”[116]
The King’s Mirror is a medieval document; it was in large part inspired by the course of events in Norway during the century of the civil wars; it records the scientific and political thought of a certain definite period in Norwegian history. But even though the author of the work must be classed among the thinkers of his own time, his place is far in advance of most of his fellows. His outlook on the world is broader than that of most medieval writers. In matters of science he is less credulous and less bound by theological thought than others who wrote on these subjects in his own century or earlier. On such questions as the cause of earthquakes and the source of the northern lights he shows an open-mindedness, which is rarely met with in the middle ages.[117] For the author’s view of life was not wholly medieval; on many subjects we find him giving utterance to thoughts which have a distinctly modern appearance. His theory of the state and its functions is distinctly unorthodox. But it is probably in the field of education where the great Northman is farthest in advance of his time. In his day the work of instruction was still in the hands of the church; and the churchmen showed no great anxiety to educate men except for the clerical profession. The King’s Mirror, however, teaches that merchants must also be educated: they must learn the art of reckoning and those facts of science that are of interest to navigators; they must study languages, Latin, French, and Norwegian; and they must become thoroughly acquainted with the laws of the land. But the author does not stop here: a merchant should also educate his children. “If children be given to you, let them not grow up without learning a trade; for we may expect a man to keep closer to knowledge and business when he comes of age, if he is trained in youth while under control.”[118]
The identity of the author of the Speculum Regale has never been disclosed. Anonymous authorship was not uncommon in medieval Norse literature: many of the sagas were written by men whose names are not known. In the thirteenth century, however, it had become customary for writers to claim the honors of authorship. Our philosopher of the King’s Mirror clearly understood that his readers would be curious to know his name: if the book, he tells us in his introductory chapter, has any merit, that should satisfy the reader, and there is no reason why any one should wish to search out the name of the one who wrote it.[119] Evidently he had a purpose in concealing his identity, and the motive is not far to seek.
After the death of King Sverre (1202) the conflict between the king and the hierarchy ceased for a time. The church made peace with the monarchy; the exiled bishops returned; and the faction of the Croziermen disintegrated. After a few years, however, the old quarrels broke out anew. On the accession of Hakon IV the church yielded once more, though the prelates did not renounce their earlier claims. In 1245, when plans were being made for King Hakon’s coronation, the bishops put forth the suggestion that the king should, on that occasion, renew the agreement of 1163, which gave the bishops control of the succession. But the great king refused. “If we swear such an oath as King Magnus swore, then it seems to us as though our honor would be lessened by it rather than increased.”[120] He flatly asserted that he would be crowned without any conditions attached to the act, or the crown “shall never come upon our head.”
After the arrival of Cardinal William of Sabina, who had been sent by the pope to officiate at the coronation, and while preparations for that joyous event were going forward, the subject was brought up once more. On the suggestion of the Norwegian bishops the cardinal asked the king to take Magnus Erlingsson’s oath; but the king again refused, and the cardinal decided that “there is no need to speak of it oftener.”[121] The king was crowned and there was peace between the two great forces of church and monarchy, at least so long as Hakon lived. Sometime not long before or after the coronation of the great king (1247) the King’s Mirror seems to have been written. It is clear that such ideas as are enunciated in this work with respect to the submission of the church to the authorities of the state can not have been relished by the hierarchy, and perhaps they were just then somewhat unwelcome to the secular rulers as well, since a discussion of this sort might tend to renew ill feeling and stir up strife. Consequently the author may have thought it wiser to remain anonymous.
Earlier students of the Speculum Regale have believed that the author was some local chieftain, who had spent his more active days at the royal court, but who had later retired to his estates and was spending his declining years in literary pursuits. Various efforts have been made to find this chieftain,[122] but with no success; there is no evidence that the lords or crusaders who have been suggested as probable authors had any literary interests or abilities. There can be no doubt that the author was at one time a prominent member of the royal retinue; he asserts in several places that such was the case.[123] He is, furthermore, too thoroughly familiar with the organization of the royal household to have been an occasional courtier merely. At the same time it is not likely that he was a secular lord; it seems impossible that he could have been anything but a churchman. He knows the Latin language; he is well acquainted with sacred history; he has read a considerable number of medieval books. It is quite unlikely that the various types of learning that are reflected in the chapters of the King’s Mirror could be found in the thirteenth century in any scholar outside the clerical profession. He could not have been one of the higher ecclesiastics, as the prelates belonged to the faction of the Croziermen. The Speculum Regale was evidently written by a member of the Norwegian priesthood, though it is possible that he belonged to one of the minor orders. But at all events he was a professional churchman.[124]
There was an old belief in Norway that the work was written at King Sverre’s court, perhaps by the priest-king himself;[125] but this theory is wholly without foundation. Professor Ludvig Daae, believing that only a few Northmen possessed the necessary qualifications for the authorship of such a work as the King’s Mirror, concluded that it must have been written by Master William, one of the chaplains at the court of Hakon IV.[126] Master William was evidently a man of some erudition; he held a degree (magister) from a European university; he must have traveled abroad and was no doubt a man of experience; he lived and flourished in the period when the work must have been composed. But there is no shred of evidence that Master William actually wrote the King’s Mirror or that he was interested in the problems that are discussed in this work.
More recently A. V. Heffermehl has made an attempt to prove that the author so long sought for was Ivar Bodde, a Norwegian priest, who seems to have played an important part in the history of Norway in the first half of the thirteenth century as an influential member of the anti-clerical party.[127] Much is not known of Ivar Bodde, and nearly all that we do know comes from a speech which he is reported to have delivered in his own defence in 1217.[128] He entered King Sverre’s service “before the fight was at Strindsea,” which was fought in the summer of 1199. This was also the year in which King Sverre seems to have issued his famous Address. “I had good cheer from the king while he lived, and I served him so that at last I knew almost all his secret matters.” In King Inge’s reign (1204-1217) he served in the capacity of chancellor: “and that besides, which was much against my wish, they relied on me for writing letters.” During the same reign he also served as Prince Hakon’s foster father, and was consequently responsible for the education of the great king.[129] Ivar was also skilled in military arts: he was a warrior as well as a priest.[130] He was apparently twice sent to England on diplomatic errands, first to the court of King John, later to that of Henry III.[131] He withdrew from the court in 1217. In 1223 he reappears as one of the king’s chief counsellors. After this year nothing is known of Ivar Bodde.
The author of the King’s Mirror was a professional churchman who belonged to the anti-clerical faction; he was a master of the literary art. Ivar Bodde was a man of this type; nothing is known of his literary abilities, but it is clear that a man who was entrusted with the king’s correspondence can not have been without literary skill. There seems to be no reason why Ivar Bodde could not have written the King’s Mirror, and he may also have had a hand in the preparation of Sverre’s Address; but that he actually did write either or both of these important works has not yet been proved; there may have been other priests in Norway in the thirteenth century who stood for the divine right of Norwegian kingship.
From certain geographical allusions it is quite clear that the work was written in Norway and in some part of the country that would be counted far to the north. The author mentions two localities in the Lofoten region and he shows considerable knowledge of conditions elsewhere in Halogaland;[132] but it is evident that he did not reside in that part of the kingdom when he was at work on his great treatise. It is generally agreed that the home of the Speculum Regale is Namdalen, a region which lies northeast of the city of Trondhjem and which touches the border of Halogaland on the north.[133] This conclusion is based on certain astronomical observations on the part of the author, namely the length of the shortest day, the daily increase in the length of the day, and the relationship between the length of the sun’s path and the sun’s altitude at noon of the longest and the shortest day.[134] The Norwegian astronomer Hans Geelmuyden has determined that if the author’s statements on these points are to be regarded as scientific computations, they indicate a latitude of 65°, 64° 42´, and 64° 52´ respectively. All these points lie within the shire of Namdalen.[135] As the author can scarcely have been much more than a layman in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, the agreement as to results obtained is quite remarkable.
The problem of place is relatively unimportant, but the question of the date of composition has more than mere literary interest. There is nothing in the work itself which gives any clue to the year when it was begun or completed. It seems evident, however, that it was written after the period of the civil wars, though while the terrors of that century of conflicts were yet fresh in the memories of men. For various other reasons, too, it is clear that the King’s Mirror was composed in the thirteenth century and more specifically during the reign of Hakon IV.
The allusion to the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus,[136] whose reign began in 1143, gives a definite date from which any discussion of this problem must begin. It is also clear that the work was written after the church had begun to lay claim to power in the government of the state, which was in 1163.[137] The author looks back to an evil time when minorities were frequent and joint kingships were the rule;[138] but the period of joint rule virtually came to a close in 1184 when Sverre became sole king; and the last boy king whom the author can have taken into account was Hakon IV, who was thirteen years old when he was given the royal title. It therefore seems evident that the King’s Mirror was written after 1217, the year of Hakon’s accession.
On the other hand, it is also quite evident that the treatise can not have been written after the great revision of the Norwegian laws which was carried out during the reign of Magnus Lawmender. The new court-law, which was promulgated about 1275, is clearly later than the Speculum Regale: the fine exacted for the death of a king’s thegn, which is given as forty marks in the King’s Mirror, is fixed at a little more than thirteen marks in Magnus’ legislation. In 1273 the law regulating the succession to the throne made impossible the recurrence of joint kingships; but the principle of this arrangement appears to have been accepted as early as 1260, when the king’s son Magnus was given the royal title. Another decree, apparently also from Hakon’s reign, which abolished the responsibility of kinsmen in cases of manslaughter and deprived the relatives of the one who was slain of their share in the blood fine, also runs counter to methods described in the King’s Mirror, which states distinctly that kinsmen share in the payment.[139] It is therefore safe to conclude that the work was written some time between 1217 and 1260.
The earliest attempt to date the King’s Mirror was made by the learned Icelander, Hans Finsen. In an essay included in the SorÖ edition (1768) he fixes the time at about 1164.[140] J. Erichsen, who wrote the introduction to this edition, doubts that it was composed at so early a date; impressed with the fact that the work reflects the political views of the Birchshank faction, he is inclined to place the date of composition some time in Sverre’s reign or in the last decade of the twelfth century.[141] The striking resemblance between the ideas expressed in the treatise and the guiding principles of Sverre’s regime led the editors of the Christiania edition to the same conclusion: 1196 or soon after.[142] And so it was held that the work is a twelfth century document until a Danish artillery officer, Captain Otto Blom, began to make a careful study of the various types of weapons, armor, and siege engines mentioned in the work. His conclusion, published in 1867, was that the King’s Mirror reflects the military art of the thirteenth century and that the manuscript was composed in the latter half of the century, at any rate not long before 1260.[143] This conclusion has been accepted by Gustav Storm,[144] Ludvig Daae,[145] and virtually all who have written on the subject since Blom’s study appeared, except Heffermehl, whose belief that Ivar Bodde was the author could not permit so late a date, as Ivar, who was a man of prominence at Sverre’s court about 1200, must have been an exceedingly aged man, if he were still living in 1260. Heffermehl is, therefore, compelled to force the date of composition back to the decade 1230-1240.
The weakness of Captain Blom’s argument is that he supposes the military art described in the Speculum Regale to be the military art of the North at the time when the work was written. If all the engines and accoutrements that the author describes ever came into use in the North, it was long after 1260. Nearly all the weapons and devices mentioned were in use in southern Europe and in the Orient in earlier decades of the thirteenth century; some of them belong to much earlier times. If certain engines and devices which Captain Blom is disposed to regard as mythical are left out of account, it will be found that only three items fail to appear in illustrations from the earlier part of the thirteenth century; and it would not be safe to assume that these were not in use because no drawing of them has been found.
Viewed against the background of Norwegian history, those chapters of the King’s Mirror which deal with the nature and the rights of monarchy and with the place of the church in the state take on the appearance of a political pamphlet written to defend and justify the doings of the Birchshank party. The motives for composing an apology of this sort may be found at almost any time in the thirteenth century but especially during the decade that closed with the coronation of Hakon IV. It will be remembered that the author of the King’s Mirror discusses the calamities that may befall a kingdom as a result of joint rule.[146] But in 1235, after one of Earl Skule’s periodic attempts at rebellion, his royal son-in-law granted him the administration of one-third of the realm. The grant was ratified the next year with certain changes: instead of a definite, compact fief the earl now received territories everywhere in the kingdom. In 1237 Skule was given the ducal title and to many men it seemed as if the curse of joint kingship was about to afflict the land once more. Two years later the partisans of the duke proclaimed him king: like Adonijah of old he tried to displace the Lord’s anointed.[147] But after a few months came the surprise of Skule’s forces in Trondhjem and the duke’s own tragic end in ElgesÆter convent.[148] It will be recalled that the author defends King Solomon’s dealings with Joab and lays down the principle that the right of sanctuary will not hold against a king.[149] The rebellion of the Norwegian Adonijah was in 1239; he died the death of Joab in 1240. Three years later the believers in a strong monarchy were disturbed by the news that the bishops had revived the old claim to supremacy in the state. Soon after this series of events the political chapters of the King’s Mirror must have been composed.
In 1247, the year of Hakon’s coronation, the hierarchy was once more reconciled to the monarchy, and nothing more is heard of ecclesiastical pretensions during the remainder of the reign. It would seem that after this reconciliation, no churchman, at least not one of the younger generation, would care to send such a challenge as the King’s Mirror out into the world. One of the older men, one who had suffered with Sverre and his impoverished Birchshanks, might have wished to write such a work even after 1247; but after that date the surviving followers of the eloquent king must have been very few indeed, seeing that Sverre had now lain forty-five years in the grave. It is therefore the writer’s opinion, though it cannot be regarded as a demonstrated fact, that the closing chapters of the King’s Mirror were written after 1240, the year when Duke Skule was slain, perhaps after 1243, in which year Norwegian clericalism reasserted itself, but some time before 1247, the year of Hakon’s coronation and final reconciliation with the church.
In the centuries following its composition the King’s Mirror appears to have had wide currency in the North. When the editors of the SorÖ edition began to search for manuscripts, they found a considerable number, though chiefly fragments, in Norway and Iceland; and traces of the work were also found in Sweden.[150] Thus far twenty-five manuscripts have come to light; “some of them are extensive, but many are fragments of only a few leaves.”[151] Copies of the work were made as late as the reformation period and even later.
The first mention of the Speculum Regale in any printed work is in Peder ClaussÖn’s “Description of Norway,”[152] the manuscript of which dates from the earlier years of the seventeenth century. But more than one hundred years were still to pass before this important work was brought to the attention of the literary world. Early in the eighteenth century, however, great interest began to be shown in the records of the Old Northern past. The great Icelandic scholar and antiquarian, Arne Magnussen, had begun to collect manuscripts and was laying the foundation of the Arnamagnean collection, which is one of the treasures of the Danish capital. Among other things he found several copies and fragments of manuscripts of the Speculum Regale. No effort was made to publish any of these before the middle of the century was past; but about 1760 three young scholars began to plan editions of this famous work. The first to undertake this task was Professor Gerhard SchÖning,[153] a Norwegian by birth, who was at the time rector of the Latin school in Trondhjem but later held a professorship in the Danish academy at SorÖ. SchÖning began the preparation of a Latin translation of the work, which he planned to publish along with the original version; but his work was never completed. About the same time an Icelandic student at the University of Copenhagen, Hans Finsen,[154] later bishop in his native island, projected an edition, but was unable to carry out his plans for want of a publisher, and turned his materials over to others. The third and only successful attempt at publication was made on the suggestion of a recently organized association of Icelandic scholars known as “the Invisible” society. This association requested Halfdan Einersen,[155] rector of the Latin school at Holar, one of the members and founders of the “invisible” body, to prepare an edition. An Icelandic merchant, SÖren Pens, generously offered to bear all the expense of publication.[156]
Rector Einersen prepared the text from the best available Icelandic manuscripts. He also made a Danish translation and a Latin paraphrase of the same and forwarded the whole to Denmark to be published. The materials were given into the editorial charge of another learned Icelander, Jon Erichsen, teacher of jurisprudence at SorÖ Academy. Although Jon Erichsen’s name does not appear on the title page, it is quite clear that the general excellence of the work is in large measure due to his careful collation of Einersen’s text with manuscripts to which the Icelandic rector had not had access. Professor Erichsen discarded Einersen’s Danish translation and prepared one of his own. He also found place in the volume for a dissertation by Hans Finsen, which was first published in 1766, and in which the learned theologian discusses various literary problems, such as the authorship of the work, the date of composition, and the like. All these materials were brought together and published at SorÖ in 1768. On the whole the SorÖ edition is an excellent piece of work. The Icelandic text was made with great care and reveals the fact that the editors were possessed of a critical insight which for the time was remarkable. The Danish translation is somewhat stiff and literal and does not always follow the laws of Danish syntax; but it is generally accurate and retains an unmistakable flavor of the Old Norse original.
Except for some assistance rendered by Professor SchÖning, the first edition of the King’s Mirror was the work of Icelanders. The Norwegians were also beginning to show some interest in their medieval past; but Norway was still a part of the Danish monarchy, the political and intellectual center of which was Copenhagen, and for half a century longer the Norwegians were unable to do anything to promote the publication of historical materials. However, four years after the SorÖ edition had come from the press, a society of Norsemen at the University of Copenhagen was organized, the purpose of which was to further the cause of Norwegian autonomy. After Norway in 1814 resumed her place among the nations of Europe, it was only natural that Norwegian scholars should be attracted to the Old Norse treasures of the middle ages. So far as the means of the impoverished state would allow, publication of the sources of Norwegian history was undertaken. The first Norwegian historian of distinction was Rudolf Keyser, professor in the University of Christiania. In his efforts to draw the attention of his countrymen to the glories of earlier centuries, he was soon reËnforced by his younger contemporary, the fiery and industrious scholar and investigator Peter Andreas Munch, who, though his work is somewhat marred by the fervor of his patriotism, has not yet found a superior among the historians of the North. Soon a third was added to these two: Carl R. Unger, a man of remarkable abilities as a linguist. These three now undertook to edit a series of Old Norse texts, among which was the King’s Mirror, which was published under the auspices of the University of Christiania in 1848.
The Christiania edition is based on the main manuscript of the Speculum Regale, the manuscript 243 B of the Arnamagnean collection. This was produced in Norway some time during the last quarter of the thirteenth century, perhaps not long after 1275.[157] As the manuscript was incomplete in part, the editors also made use of the copies which had been made the basis of the earlier edition. Inasmuch as the materials to be used had been copied at different times and consequently reflected various stages of linguistic development, it was thought desirable to normalize the orthography: and in this part of their task the editors made use of a fragment which was thought to belong to a somewhat earlier date than the main manuscript.[158] If this belief is correct, the Christiania edition must, in respect to orthography, be a comparatively close approximation of the original manuscript.
In 1881 a third edition prepared by the German philologist Otto Brenner was published under the title Speculum Regale, ein altnorwegischer Dialog. Brenner based his text on the Norwegian manuscript 243 B, but he also made use of the Icelandic copy (243 A) and of some of the older fragments. His edition consequently includes all the materials that had been used in the earlier editions. It was Brenner’s purpose to prepare a text which should give the Norwegian version in its original form, so far as such a restoration is possible. Though scholars are not agreed that Brenner achieved his purpose, all have acknowledged the value of his work, and since its publication his version has been regarded as the standard edition.
Two years ago (1915) the University of Illinois published, under the editorial direction of Professor George T. Flom, a photographic reproduction of this same manuscript, 243 B. This important linguistic monument has thus been made accessible to scholars in its original form. Professor Flom has also prepared the Old Norse text of the manuscript, which makes a part of the publication, and has prefaced the whole with an extended introduction in which he discusses the history of the manuscript, marginal addenda, abbreviations, and other paleographic and linguistic problems.
Until very recently the Danish version prepared by Jon Erichsen for the SorÖ edition was the only translation of the Speculum Regale into a modern language.[159] But a few years ago the first part of the work was published under the title Kongespegelen in the form of a translation into New Norse, a language of recent origin based on the spoken dialects of Norway. As these dialects are closely related to the original idiom of the North, such a translation can be made with comparative ease. The work has recently been completed, and in most respects the New Norse version proves to be a very satisfactory translation.
Some years ago a number of American scholars who have interests in the fields of Scandinavian history, language, and literature united to form a Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. The founders believed that the purpose of the organization might be in part achieved by encouraging the publication of some of the great Scandinavian classics in English translation. It was on the suggestion of this Society that the writer undertook to prepare the present version of the King’s Mirror. The translation is based on the text of the Christiania edition, the readings of which have been consistently followed, except in a few instances where the scribe does not seem to have copied his manuscript correctly; in such cases the most satisfactory variant readings have been followed.
