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ABSTRACT
The Næstved Calendar (Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, E don. var. 52 2º), an illuminated manuscript produced at the Benedictine monastery of St Peder at Næstved (also called Skovkloster) ca. 1228–1250, is known for transmitting historical information in the form of the older Næstved annals, as well as information pertaining to various persons related to the community. However, the composition of the calendar which gives the manuscript its name has received little attention. An analysis of the feasts in the calendar reveals a strong influence from the Low Countries, more specifically the areas today covered by Belgium and Northern France, but little to none of the English and German influence usually seen as typical of high medieval Danish calendars. The article proposes two possible explanations for the calendar’s composition: the influence of the Flemish and Northern French connections of the Danish elite in the Valdemar Era (1157–1241), most famously exemplified by members of the Hvide family such as Peder Sunesen (d. 1214), and Næstved’s own contacts, forged through the town’s position as a centre of trade. In both scenarios, the saints’ presence should be seen in the context of greater mobility and increased connections with the continent in the Valdemar Era.
Acknowledgements
This article has benefited from discussions with several people, including but not limited to Erik Alstrup, Steffen Hope, and members of the History Department at Ghent University and of the Centre for Medieval Literature at University of Southern Denmark. I wish to thank Ben Allport, Kirsi Salonen, Steffen Hope, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts. I also thank Ben Allport for creating the map in .
Figure 2. Map of the Low Countries and Denmark. (Image created by Ben Allport).
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. For a detailed description of the contents of the manuscript, see Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 25–65.
2. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, discusses the manuscript at length as a central source of the history of the Næstved Benedictines. Bohn, “En palæografisk undersøgelse”, analyses the hands in the manuscript, dating them to the extent it is possible, and corrects several of Helms’s assumptions. See also Nielsen, Danmarks Middelalderlige Haandskrifter, p. 67–70.
3. Gelting, “The kingdom of Denmark”, p. 100.
4. Gelting, “The kingdom of Denmark”, p. 100–101
5. See for instance Halonen, “Medieval Nordic Calendars”, p. 145: ‘The Danish church was influenced throughout the Middle Ages from two directions: the German and English lands. […] The English and German influence has been shown in many features, such as the introduction of saintly cults’; or Antonsson and Garipzanov, “Introduction”, p. 5–6: ‘Although German influence was marked in the late tenth century, the emergence of the North Sea Empire of Knud the Great in the first half of the eleventh century was of considerable import. […] Thus in Denmark both German and English influences were of pivotal importance in the introduction of Christianity and Christian practices’.
6. As pointed out by one of the anonymous reviewers, there is a possibility to use quantitative methods to analyse large numbers of calendars, thus potentially uncovering similar patterns amongst regions and/or religious orders (see Heikkilä and Roos, ‘Quantitative methods’, and Halonen, ‘Medieval Nordic Calendars’). As far as I know, no such quantitative study exists of calendars from the Low Countries, but this in itself has no bearing on the identification of regional saints, whose cults are rooted in the Low Countries, and whose presence in the Næstved Calendar forms the subject of the present analysis.
7. Raasted, “Kalendarium II: Danmark”, col. 133.
8. See for instance Petersen, “Orate pro nobis”.
9. Definition from the site of the journal The Medieval Low Countries: https://www.brepols.net/series/MLC (accessed 27.03.2023).
10. The centre of a cult is usually linked to a saint’s burial place, even if he or she was born elsewhere (cf. Gjerløw, “Kalendarium II”, col. 96). The transfer of relics could entail a new cult centre beyond the original tomb; see Thacker, “Loca sanctorum”.
11. On the distinction between universal, regional, and local cults, see Gjerløw, “Kalendarium II”, col. 94–97.
12. Gjerløw, “Kalendarium II”, col. 96.
13. The manuscript is available digitally here: http://www5.kb.dk/permalink/2006/manus/18/dan/ (accessed 11.04.2022).
14. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 30
15. Bohn, “En palæografisk undersøgelse”, p. 47.
16. Christian Jensen, Illustrated Greek and Latin Manuscripts, cited in Bohn, “En palæografisk undersøgelse”, p. 44. Nielsen, Danmarks Middelalderlige Haandskrifter, p. 67, supports this dating, as does the present author on palaeographical grounds.
17. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 109–110
18. Diplomatarium Danicum series 1, II, no. 64
19. Diplomatarium Danicum series 1, II, no. 75
20. Diplomatarium Danicum series 1, II, no. 78
21. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 117; Neergaard and Beckett, Næstved, Herlufsholm, p. 18–22, 27–32.
22. Cf. Hans Jørgen Helms’s remark that one cannot assume that the monks of ‘the remote, tucked-away’ monastery were up to date with the latest fashion (‘man kan ikke gaa ud fra, at Munkene i det afsides, hengemte Skovkloster altid har været med paa sidste Mode’; Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 32).
23. See the list in King Valdemar’s Census Book of towns in Zealand and their taxation (Kristensen and Poulsen, Danmarks byer, p. 122).
24. Hybel and Poulsen, The Danish Resources, p. 233
25. Of the ‘Low Country saints’ commemorated in the Næstved Calendar, the (mainly late medieval) calendars for Lund and Roskilde only include Gertrude, Lambertus, Remigius, and Quintinus (Grotefend, Zeitrechnung II, p. 226–229 and p. 232–234).
26. Jørgensen, Fremmed Indflydelse, p. 79–83
27. Jørgensen, Fremmed Indflydelse, p. 82–83. Warren defines Lotharingia as ‘a term which corresponds geographically to the South Netherlands, or to Belgium, and part of Germany west of the Rhine, and the French and German provinces of Flanders, Picardy, Artois, Alsace, and Lorraine; ecclesiastically, to the province of Cambray, including the dioceses of St. Omer, Tournay, Arras, Cambray, Namur; the northern part of the province of Rheims, including the dioceses of Soissons, Amiens, Laon; the province of Trèves, including the dioceses of Trèves, Metz, Verdun, and Toul; the southern part of the province of Mechlin, including the dioceses of Antwerp, Bruges, Ypres, and Ghent; and the western part of the province of Cologne, including the dioceses of Cologne and Liège’ (Warren, The Leofric Missal, p. xxi).
28. ‘“Lothringen” er et Land, hvis Grænser i Følge Sagens Natur ere flydende; kun saa meget kan siges, at Gælden er størst til Egnene nærmest Havet; jo mere vi fjerne os mod Øst, des mere fremmede blive Omgivelserne. Næstvedkalenderen er udgaaet fra et Benediktinerkloster, men Ordenens Sympatier præge den i langt mindre Grad end dens Hjemstavns kære Helgener’ (Jørgensen, Fremmed Indflydelse, p. 83). Despite the somewhat ambiguous wording, Jørgensen is doubtless referring to the Scandinavian saints of the manuscript (Knud Lavard, King Knud, Olav, Kjeld) rather than the ‘Lotharingian’ ones, given the calendar’s undisputed origins in Næstved.
29. An example is St Donatian’s Church in Bruges, which owned a considerable number of relics from Biblical saints and Roman martyrs (Weale, “Reliques conservées”).
30. For instance, by contacts with early missionaries from England, Germany, or other areas; or by travels to a range of cultic centres across Christendom, from where manuscripts and/or relics could be imported. As stated by Gjerløw (“Kalendarium II”, col. 94), the more universally popular a feast (or a cult) is, the less useful it tends to be for historical analysis.
31. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 638; Stadler, Heim, and Ginal, Vollständiges Heiligen-Lexikon, vol. 5, p. 65–68)
32. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 21; Stadler, Heim, and Ginal, Vollständiges Heiligen-Lexikon, vol. 1., p. 118)
33. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 32; Butler, Lives of the Saints, p. 68.
34. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 744; Butler, Lives of the Saints, p. 66–67.
35. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 744; Butler, Lives of the Saints, p. 67–68.
36. Butler, Lives of the Saints, p. 99–100.
37. Bethmann, “Annales Blandinienses”, p. 25.
38. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 284.
39. Carlvant, Manuscript Painting, p. 375.
40. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 273; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 416.
41. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 71; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 106; https://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/asoisson (accessed 21.04.2022).
42. https://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/asoisson (accessed 21.04.2022)
43. Butler, Lives of the Saints, p. 25–26; http://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/remaclus (accessed 22.04.2022)
44. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 417; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 589.
45. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 106; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 158.
46. There are several saints called Germanus, but the one commemorated in the calendar is most likely Germanus of Auxerre, whose translation feast is on 1 October (Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 430). On the other hand, a relic list from St Donatian’s Church in Bruges mentions ‘De sancto Germano episcopo Capue’, that is Germanus of Capua, whose feast was on 30 October (Weale, “Reliques conservées”, p. 201). Kerstin Carlvant, noting that the names of Remigius, Germanus, Vedastus, and Bavo usually appear together in calendars, appears to accept the identification of the Germanus commemorated on 1 October with the bishop of Capua (Carlvant, Manuscript Painting, p. 378).
47. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 94.
48. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 609.
49. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 627; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 841–842.
50. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 250.
51. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 318. (which lists Hubert’s feast day as 30 May); Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 492–493; https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07507a.htm (accessed on 25.04.22)
52. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 772; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 589 and 1039; https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15645a.htm (accessed on 25.04.22). Arguably, Willehad (8 November), another Anglo-Saxon missionary working in Frisia, could be included amongst the Low Country saints, though I have chosen to put him in the German category here, as he is first and foremost associated with Bremen.
53. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 772; Ellis Nilsson, ‘Creating Holy People’, p. 12.
54. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 434; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 613; http://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/livinus (accessed on 25.04.22). There is a strong possibility that Livinus was identical to or conflated with another saint, Lebuinus of Deventer, whose feast is on the same day and whose biography was used by the monks of St Bavo’s to launch the new Livinus cult in the 11th century (Coens, “L’auteur de la Passio Livini”; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 613). Given the overall orientation of the Næstved Calendar, as well as the naming of Livinus as ‘m[arty]r’, it is probable that the entry indeed refers to the Flemish Livinus rather than Lebuinus of Deventer.
55. Coens, “L’auteur de la Passio Livini”, p. 288–292.
56. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 201; Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary, p. 312–313; http://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/eligius (accessed on 25.04.22)
57. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 13; Martin, “Airy”; http://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/averdun (accessed on 25.04.22)
58. Watkins, The Book of Saints, p. 539; http://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/nikreims
59. Weale, “Reliques conservées”, p. 200.
60. Vidas, ‘Devotion’, p. 185.
61. The Sunesen Psalter also includes Aldegunde of Maubeuge (30 January), counted by Vidas amongst the French saints (Vidas, “Devotion”, p. 185).
62. Vidas (“Devotion”, p. 186) includes Brigid of Kildare (1 February) and Magnus the Martyr (19 August) amongst the feasts celebrated in the diocese of Roskilde, feasts which are also found in the Næstved Calendar. These feasts are fairly common, but their inclusion in the Calendar (and in the Sunesen Psalter) certainly with fit the provenance of Roskilde. On Lucius and Margrete, see Petersen, “Orate pro nobis”, p. 30–32; on the translation of the heads of Eufrosina and Florentia, see Jexlev, ‘Vor Frue Kirkes relikvier’, p. 31–34.
63. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, p. 139–141.
64. Unlike the regional saints whose cults were common enough to almost be universal (e.g. Remigius, Lambertus), several of the saints of the Næstved Calendar (including Arnulfus, Ansbertus, Gaugericus, Foillan, Livinus, Piatus, and Agericus) are not found in the Swedish calendar material, nor in the late-medieval Norwegian Breviarium Nidrosiense. I thank Steffen Hope for this information.
65. Jørgensen, Fremmed Indflydelse, p. 83.
66. Gjerløw, “Kalendarium II”, col. 97.
67. Münster-Swendsen, “Educating the Danes”, p. 160–161.
68. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 33–34.
69. On prayer confraternity and Næstved, see Heilskov, “The Bodil Family”, p. 38–41 (note that the author accepts the identification of ‘monte sancti Petri’ as referring to Erfurt).
70. Bohn, ‘En palæografisk undersøgelse’, p. 32.
71. On the composition of the Cluniac sanctoral, see Bonnin-Magne, “Les coutumiers cluniciens”, p. 86–87.
72. The calendar scribe was possibly responsible for the coloured frames on each leaf, which are also found elsewhere in the manuscript (f. 7 v), as well as for the tables where the annals are added (f. 2 r–3 v). It is also possible that the scribe carried out the illuminations, one of which shows Peder Bodilsen, the monastery’s founder, receiving a key from St Peter (f. 4 v).
73. See for instance Ciardi, “Saints and Cathedral Culture”, p. 50; Gelting, “The kingdom of Denmark”, p. 100; or Antonsson and Garipzanov, “Introduction”, p. 5–6.
74. Such an explanation has been offered for the “German influence” in the so-called Colbaz Calendar (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Codex lat. theol. 149 fol.), namely that it was based on a calendar brought home by Eskil from his stay in Hildesheim (Jørgensen, Fremmed Indflydelse, p. 81–82).
75. Nyborg, “Gothic ivory sculpture”, p. 31.
76. Nyborg, “Gothic ivory sculpture”, p. 36.
77. Nyborg, “Gothic ivory sculpture”, p. 36.
78. Nyborg, “Gothic ivory sculpture”, p. 31. On the connections between the Hvide family and French or Flemish churchmen, see below.
79. Myking, “Ter Doest, Lund”.
80. The two manuscripts in question are Brugge, Openbare Bibliotheek, MS 403 (with a provenance from Ter Doest) and Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque de l’agglomération, MS 716 (with a provenance from Clairmarais).
81. By Arild Huitfeld (1602) and Johannes Meursius (1631); see Gertz, Vitae Sanctorum Danorum, p. 48.
82. Myking, “Ter Doest, Lund”, p. 135–136.
83. Myking, “Ter Doest, Lund”, p. 134. On the question of whether post-medieval usage of Danish parchment from dismembered manuscripts reflects medieval provenance and to what extent, see Gelting, ‘The problem of the provenance’, which shows that the presence of a monastic library in a given area heightens the probability that parchment would be locally sourced.
84. Myking, “Ter Doest, Lund”.
85. Myking (“Ter Doest, Lund”, p. 131) suggests a date in the late twelfth century; Åslaug Ommundsen dates the fragments to the years around 1200 (Ommundsen, “Danish Fragments in Norway”, p. 203). If Dolbeau’s suggestion (“Nouvelles recherches”, p. 445) that the Legendarium Flandrense was compiled in the early thirteenth century is correct, the fragmentary manuscript should probably be dated to the first couple of decades after 1200.
86. Myking, “Ter Doest, Lund”, p. 136–137.
87. Myking, “Ter Doest, Lund”, p. 120–123.
88. Liebman, “Remarks on the manuscript tradition”, p. 68, n. 50.
89. Myking, “Ter Doest, Lund”, p. 122–123.
90. Diplomatarium Danicum, series 1, VII, no. 59. I thank Erik Alstrup for drawing my attention to this document.
91. https://danmarkshistorien.dk/vis/materiale/peder-sunesen-ca-1161–1214/ (accessed 04.05.2022).
92. Mulvad, “Dronning Bengerd”, p. 14–15. While Theresa played a part in arranging Ferrand’s marriage to Joan, Countess of Flanders, it is not known whether she had any connections to Danish royalty, and for that reason alone I would suggest the Sunesen brothers as more likely intermediaries.
93. Mulvad, “Dronning Bengard”, p. 15.
94. Dolbeau, “Nouvelles recherches”, p. 445–454
95. The inclusion of Godehard (d. 1038) could potentially be due to the influence of Bishop Eskil of Roskilde, the later Archbishop of Lund, who studied in Hildesheim in his youth. While Godehard was not officially canonized until 1131, at which point Eskil was back in Denmark, he was presumably revered locally in Hildesheim before that point. (See also Ellen Jørgensen’s theory that Eskil brought home a calendar from Hildesheim that served as an exemplar for the Lund manuscript presently in Colbaz; Jørgensen, Fremmed Indflydelse, p. 82). At any rate, the veneration of Godehard in Denmark falls into a different category from that of Ansgar and Willehad, who are associated with Hamburg-Bremen and the earlier period of the Danish Church.
96. For a transcription of the list, see Langebek, Scriptores IV, 320–322; see also Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 60 for a translation of parts of the contents.
97. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 59 and 62; Kræmmer, “Skjalm Hvides efterslægt”, p. 568. The calendar also has the death of a Johannes Ebbesen entered on 5 December in a hand from ca. 1300, whom it could be tempting to identify with the nephew of Peder and Anders Sunesen by that name, marshal of King Valdemar II (d. ?1232). However, the Johannes Ebbesen of the calendar is called ‘mo[nachus] et sacerdos quondam prior’, whereas Johannes Ebbesen the marshal is not known to have such a background. Annals place his death in 1232, the same year he gifted a farm to the abbey of Æbelholt (Kræmmer, “Skjalm Hvides efterslægt”, p. 588).
98. Diplomatarium Danicum series 1, VII, no. 176.
99. Nyberg, Monasticism, p. 106. Nyberg theorized that the new foundation at Næstved offered an ‘apolitical’ alternative to the Benedictines of these cities, whose abbeys were being used to legitimize royal pretensions (Nyberg, Monasticism, p. 106–107).
100. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 110. While it is tempting to point to Helias as an influencing factor on the Næstved Calendar, he cannot, at the very least, be solely responsible for it: not only does his time in Roskilde precede the production of the manuscript by a century, but the Calendar lacks any mention of Donatian (14 October), the patron saint of Helias’s home church.
101. Diplomatarium Danicum series 1, II, no. 64.
102. Diplomatarium Danicum series 1, II, no. 78.
103. Riis, “Autour du mariage”, p. 352–353. I thank Erik Alstrup for making me aware of this article.
104. Riis, “Autour du mariage”, p. 352.
105. On Næstved and the Hanseatic trade, see Hansen, “Die Stadt Næstved”.
106. For an edition of this text, see Gilliodts-Van Severen, Cartulaire, p. 19–21, and Höhlbaum, Hansisches Urkundenbuch III, p. 419–420, n. 1. The former dates the text to ca. 1200, the latter to the last third of the thirteenth century. The text itself refers to France, Poitou, and Gascony as separate entities, which points to a date in the early thirteenth century, but also to contacts with the Mediterranean area, which might suggest a later date (Hybel and Poulsen, The Danish Resources, p. 373, n. 72).
107. Hybel and Poulsen, The Danish Resources, p. 374–375.
108. Diplomatarium Danicum, series 1, III, 124–26, no. 82; Hybel and Poulsen, The Danish Resources, p. 377; cf. Diplomatarium Danicum series 2, I, no. 64.
109. Hybel and Poulsen, The Danish Resources, p. 357.
110. Diplomatarium Danicum series 1, VI, no. 122; Delaissé, “The Cistercian Network”, p. 274.
111. Diplomatarium Danicum series 2, I, no. 35 and 36.
112. Kirby and Hinkkanen, The Baltic and the North Seas, p. 72.
113. https://digiberichte.de/travel/?ID=1&FID=385&N=NL&suchen1&Vollname=Br%C3%BCgger_Itinerar, accessed 04.05.2022. The itinerary describes how to travel from Lubeck to Scania via the southern part of Jutland (now part of Germany), Ribe, and westwards around Funen and Zealand; Næstved is not mentioned explicitly, but the listing of Korsør, Slagelse, Roskilde, and Copenhagen implies a familiarity with the towns of the Roskilde diocese.
114. Diplomatarium Danicum series 2, III, no. 257; King Erik VI Menved grants the same in a charter from the following year, applying it to all of Denmark (Diplomatarium Danicum series 2, III, no. 277).
115. However, from a list in the Næstved Calendar of the monastery’s benefactors (f. 8–11), we know that there was indeed a ‘Petrus Flæmingh’ (f. 9 v) amongst the monks at the time around 1400. While ‘Flemming’ May have become a family name at that point, it is still suggestive of a (former) background from Flanders. According to Langebek (Scriptores IV, p. 295, n.o), Petrus is mentioned in documents from 1396, 1400, and 1406; see also Bohn, ‘En palæografisk undersøgelse’, p. 6.
116. ‘Quodnam & ubi sit illud Monasterium, quod Mons S. Petri dictum fuit, informari cupio’ (Langebek, Scriptores IV, p. 302).
117. Helms, Næstved St. Peders Kloster, p. 243, 245.
118. Bohn, “En palæografisk undersøgelse”, p. 31. Bohn offers a detailed analysis of this hand, which he terms the ‘Hemming hand’ after the oldest name belonging to a member of the Bodil family entered by this hand (Bohn, “En palæografisk undersøgelse”, p. 19).
119. That the Sint-Pietersabdij was known in Denmark at least in the early twelfth century is revealed by Ailnoth’s Gesta Swenomagni regis et filiorum eius, where it is said that King Knud’s spouse Adele wanted to bring her husband’s body to Flanders and bury him in this abbey (Gertz, Vitae Sanctorum Danorum, p. 127–128).
120. Carlvant, Manuscript Painting, p. 367–382.
121. According to Carlvant, Scolastica is fairly common in Flemish Psalter calendars (Carlvant, Manuscript Painting, p. 370).
122. Juliana often appears in calendars from Bruges and Flanders (Carlvant, Manuscript Painting, p. 370). Saint Donatian’s owned one of her relics (Weale, “Reliques conservées”, p. 201).
123. Willibrordus founded the see of Utrecht, but is also mentioned in some 13th-cent. Bruges Psalter calendars; he was the second patron of Eeckhout abbey in Bruges, which was founded on land within the parish of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw, over which the cathedral chapter of Utrecht had patronage rights (Carlvant, Manuscript Painting, p. 380–381).
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Synnøve Midtbø Myking
Synnøve Midtbø Myking (b. 1985) is a postdoctoral researcher employed at the Department of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen. During the period 2020–2022 she conducted research stays at the Centre for Medieval Literature, University of Southern Denmark, and the Department of History, Ghent University. Her postdoctoral project “Flanders, Norway, and Denmark: Relations and Intertextual Exchanges in the High Middle Ages (2020–2023)”, funded by the Research Council of Denmark, examines the contact between high medieval Flanders and Scandinavia and its impact on manuscript culture.