Adam of Bremen

Il XVII secolo incorpora forse il nucleo più significativo nel processo di sfruttamento in senso patriottico delle Antichità germaniche e nella conseguente riscoperta del mito del “Nord” scandinavo a opera dell’Uma-nesimo protestante. Inaugurata dalla fioritura del Goticismo – fenomeno eterogeneo talora equivocato con la rivolu¬zione estetica che fa capo a Th. Warton e H. Walpole –, quella riscoperta concorreva in realtà alla costru-zione di immagini identitarie, messe in moto, oltre un secolo prima, dalle riflessioni di Biondo Flavio. Ciò fu possibile grazie alla presenza di un movimento europeo di eruditi-antiquari e alla fusione di due discipline (la filologia e l’archeologia) fondate su dati concreti – il documento scritto (o inciso) e il reperto –, attraverso i quali le diverse spinte “nazionalistiche” alimentarono l’equivoco di una translatio studiorum a Nord delle Alpi e di un anacronistico “restauro” del passato di natura eminentemente ideologica.

Adam of Bremen was one of the most important chronicles of the eleventh century. He wrote a chronicle Gesta Hamburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum. This work is full of information. Many of them are about northern Europe, Iceland, Greenland and the mysterious Vinland. However, the question is what is true, what has been taken from other sources, what content has survived to our time.

This paper presents criticism of the source in the context of Vinland. On individual examples, we explain what elements of the chronicler's description were taken, and what might be original. In addition, we try to answer a question about the multiple processing and borrowings of one source content by other documents. Finally, we hypothesize that the work of Adam of Bremen contributed to the creation of Vinland's vision in the written sagas.

The article shows a characteristic duality in the perception of the pagan Slavs. The authors of chronicles and  the lives of saint Otto perceive them as dangerous barbarians, yet they attribute positive traits, particularly hospitality. The  pagan priests are described as particularly hideous. It is emphasized by describing their ignominious death. (The page numbers in this paper are not equal with those published in "Mare Integrans".)

Even gods are not always above bureaucracy. Societies very different from each other have entertained the idea that the heavens might be arranged much like an earthly bureaucracy, or that mythological beings might exercise their power in a way that makes them resembles bureaucrats. The best-known case is the Chinese “celestial bureaucracy,” but the idea is also found in (to take nearly random examples) Ancient Near Eastern cosmology, the Hebrew Bible, Late Antiquity, and modern popular culture. The primary sources discussed in this essay pertain to an area of history where bureaucracy was historically underdeveloped, namely medieval Scandinavia. Beginning with the Glavendrup runestone from the 900s, I examine a way of thinking about divine power that seems blissfully bureaucracy-free. Moving forwards in time to Adam of Bremen’s description of the temple at Uppsala (1040s–1070s), I find traces of a tentative, half-formed bureaucracy in the fading embers of Scandinavian paganism. In the 1220s, well into the Christian era, I find Snorri Sturluson concocting a version of Old Norse myth which proposes a novel resolution between the non-bureaucratic origins of his mythological corpus and the burgeoning bureacratization of High Medieval Norway. Although my focus is on medieval Scandinavia, transhistorical comparisons are frequently drawn with mythological bureaucrats from other times and places. In closing, I synthesise this comparative material with historical and anthropological theories of the relationship between bureaucracy and the divine.

A draft version of the published paper  „The Early Kings of Norway, the Issue of Agnatic Succession and the Settlement of Iceland“, Viator. Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 47:3 (Autumn 2016), 171-88.

The early Norwegian kings are scarcely attested in sources earlier than the twelfth century, in contrast to the rich and varied descriptions of them from twelfth-and thirteenth-century sources. It will be argued that the historical narrative of their reign had direct relevance for at least two contemporary issues during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One was the precedence of sons of kings in the order of succession to the Norwegian throne. This claim was strengthened by the genealogical lines of the Norwegian kings which existed from the 1120s or 1130s onwards and demonstrated that the Norwegian monarchy had always passed to heirs in the direct male line. Another important issue was the aspiration of the Norwegian kings to extend their rule to Iceland in the thirteenth century. Paradoxically, at this very time the view gained ground in saga narratives that Icelandic settlers had been opponents of the earliest Norwegian kings.

(NOTE: Inevitably, this thesis deals with some fairly specialised topics, and the work of Ian Wood or James Palmer is a far better place to begin when dealing with many of the issues it covers. This is especially true of the section on Rimbert. I am convinced that the methodology section and the chapter on Adam of Bremen touch on some rather clever (if wholly unoriginal) ideas, but I am equally convinced that I have failed to do anything more than hint at these ideas and their implications. Two of Bruno of Querfurt’s three works are now available in translation and are well worth reading. Sadly, there is currently a dearth of Anglophone scholarship on him; Darius Baronas, Marina Miladinov, Cristian-Nicolae Gaşpar, and Ian Wood are some notable exceptions. But there is so much more to be said about Bruno, despite his unforgivably impenetrable Latin.)

This thesis explores the varying ways in which otherness was imagined and constructed in two clusters of medieval missionary texts: Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii and Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, from the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen; and Bruno of Querfurt’s Passio Sancti Adalberti episcopi et martyris, Vita vel passio Benedicti et Iohannis sociorumque suorum and Epistola ad Heinricum Regem.

Missionaries and the authors who described their work were uniquely concerned with those who lay beyond the geographical, political and spiritual boundaries of Christendom. Accordingly, they provide our principal sources for understanding how such groups were represented. In the first instance, this thesis is concerned with descriptions of groups physically located outside the Carolingian, Ottonian, and Salian Empires, particularly in the Scandinavian and Slavic worlds. But given the fluidity and interconnectedness of early medieval identities, it also encompasses representations of marginalised groups within Christendom such as slaves, women, heretics, Jews and political enemies.

Following a brief introduction, the thesis begins by setting out the theoretical foundations of an understanding of otherness based on the expectation of variety. This forms a response to the totalising claims of many recent discussions of otherness. This is followed by a close analysis of each text, beginning with the Hamburg-Bremen material, before moving on to Bruno of Querfurt’s works. The aim is to reflect the peculiar dynamics of each work and, consequently, discussions of these authors’ literary and exegetical concerns form a substantial part of this study. Their presentation of groups within Christendom has also been emphasised; sometimes the other was closer to home. The thesis concludes by emphasising the conceptual variety revealed in each work. Key themes can be identified, but the presentation of otherness in all of these texts is far more diverse and conceptually fragmented than is usually appreciated in existing scholarship.

Viene indagata la presenza dei mirabilia nei Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum  di  Adamo di Brema (sec. XI). L'interesse verso il meraviglioso (cristiano, magico, naturale, mostruoso),  emerge a più riprese nelle pagine dello storico tedesco e non sembra avere eguali né nella letteratura a lui contemporanea, né in quella delle generazioni a lui immediatamente precedenti.

In this article an attempt has been made to explore the political motivations behind the dynastic connections between Denmark and Russia in the early twelfth century. So far this has not been done, although it can hardly be accidental that the two half brothers, sons of King Erik († 1103), Knud Lavard († 1131) and Erik Emune († 1137) in succession married two daughters, Ingeborg and Malmfred, of Mstislav Vladimirovich, first prince in Novgorod, later in Kiev.
Both Knud and Erik grew up while their uncle Niels was king, and both became involved in a contest for the succession together with King Niels' son, Magnus.
Married since c. 1117 to Ingeborg Mstislavna, Knud Lavard was well-connected to both Kiev and Novgorod, where his brother-in-law was reigning prince from 1117 to 1136. As earl in the southern border region Knud Lavard had in the late 1120s managed to acquire a power base among the neighbouring Slavonic peoples. In order to counter this the King c. 1128 arranged a marriage between Magnus and the Polish Princess, Richiza, daughter of Boleslaw III. A joint Danish-Polish campaign against one of Knud's Slavonic allies was the immediate result.
The first stage in the contest ended, when Magnus killed an unarmed Knud 7 January 1131. A week later, Ingeborg gave birth to Knud's son, the later Valdemar I the Great († 1181). Valdemar was named after his great-grandfather, Vladimir Monomakh. According to the Knytlinga Saga Valdemar was not only born at his Russian grandfather's court but also spent his childhood in Russia, possibly with his uncle in Novgorod. Knytlinga's account has generally been ignored but an analysis of the sources supports its accuracy.
After the murder of Knud, Erik Emune staged an uprising against the King, which after three years of civil war ended in Erik's victory and the deaths of both the King and Magnus. In the course of the war Erik Emune restored the Danish-Russian alliance by marrying Ingeborg's sister, Malmfred, widow of the Norwegian King Sigurd († 1130). This probably secured Erik Novgorodian support, and the imprisonment in 1134 of Novgorodians in Denmark, recorded in the First Novgorod Chronicles, must have been a countermove by King Niels.
The confrontation between the two systems of alliances did not end with Erik's victory. After the deaths of her husband and her father-in-law, Magnus' widow, Richiza, must have returned to her father, where she soon married Prince Volodar Glebovich of Minsk. Volodar Glebovich was a member of the Polotsk dynasty, which in the 1120-30s fought for its very existence against Vladimir Monomakh and Mstislav Vladimirovich. Already in 1119 Vladimir Monomakh had taken Minsk from Volodar's father, and in 1129 Mstislav forced the remainder of the Polotsk dynasty into exile in Constantinople, dividing their residences among his relatives. After Mstislav's death in 1132, however, the Kievan state quickly disintegrated, and the Polotsk dynasty could stage a political come-back. In marrying Volodar Glebovich, then probably in exile in Poland, Richiza entered into an alliance directed against the coalition between Erik Emune and the Monomakhovids, still ruling Novgorod.
The political rationale behind this alliance must have been to provide her young son, Knud Magnusen, with an alternative powerbase to the one Ingeborg's young son, Valdemar Knudsen, had in the alliance with the Monomakhovides in Novgorod, when they, in the next generation, were to contest the succession to the Danish throne.
The disintegration of the Kievan State after 1132 and the expulsion of Vsevolod Mstislavich from Novgorod in 1136, followed by the deaths of Erik Emune in 1137 and Boleslaw III in 1138 removed the political foundation of these alliances. All three states were notably weakened and from now on little could be gained from forming alliances on this scale. Russian princes now seldom sought spouses outside Russia, while the Danes from now on mainly entered into Scandinavian alliances. This is probably the reason for the divorce between Richiza and Volodar. The alliance made little political sense, at least as far as Knud Magnusen's pretensions to the Danish throne were concerned. Richiza's third marriage with the Swedish king, Sverker († 1155), must by now have offered Knud far better possibilities.
This aspect of the dynastic alliances has been overlooked, because a majority of modern historians accepted Nikolaj von Baumgarten's erroneous belief that Richiza's second husband was the semi-mythical Novgorodian prince, Vladimir Vsevolodich, i.e. Ingeborg's and Malmfred's nephew. Scandinavian sources, which alone know of this marriage, agree, however, in naming him Valada, Valadhr, Valadar, which is inconsistent with a Vladimir. Baumgarten, however, thought the names Volodar and Vladimir interchangeable and assumed that Richiza's second husband had to be dead before she could have entered her third marriage with the Swedish king, Sverker († 1155). We know, however, from two independent sources that the second husband was still alive long after Sverker had died.
It may surprise that Danish-Russian dynastic relations could be so close well into the 12th century, long after the Great Church Schism had split the Greek and Roman Churches. The presence of a number of Scandinavian saints in a contemporary Russian twelfth century prayer proves, however, that the schism did not yet extend to Northern Europe. That only happened in the late twelfth century. For this, cf. John H. Lind: The Martyria of Odense and a Twelfth Century Russian Prayer. To the Question of Bohemian Influence on Russian Religious Literature, Slavonic and East European Review 68:1 (1990), pp. 1-21.
In Appendix A the view of a number of Russian and some Scandinavian historians that the Danish king, Sven Estridsen, after the defeat of Harald Hårderåde in 1066, married his widow, the Russian princess, Elisabeth Jaroslavna, is disproved. According to Adam of Bremen, the widow in question was the mother of King Olav Kyrre. She was not the Russian princess but the Norwegian Tora. In Appendix B it is shown that the assumption that the Danes raided Finland c. 1170 is based on 1) the misconception that Richiza had married Vladimir Vsevolodich of Novgorod, rather than of Volodar Glebovich of Minsk; 2) a failure to observe that Saxo described the same event as a raid to Venden c. 1177/8.

After this survey we can assert that neither Adam of Bremen nor the Scandinavian sources describe for what Sven has become most famous in posterity, namely his involvement in English politics,  the extension of the Danish monetary system and his contributions to the Danish Church, not least in making it independent of the German archbishop. For knowledge about this we must turn to other sources than the Scandinavian history writers.
As a contrast to the Scandinavian sources the other sources present the picture Rome had of the Danish king. To the papacy Sven Estridsen appeared as a powerful ruler and very important ally. Thanks to the papal opinion of king Sven we can better understand Ælnoth’s overwhelming ovation of Swenomagnus, Sven the Great, a picture that is conspicuous by its absence in Scandinavian histories and sagas. Of course we will never know what Sven Estridsen was really like as a person, but several unanimous fragments of the sources treated here anyway give the contures of a purposeful and persistent practial politician, known for his literary learning, his honesty and great engagement for the Church.

During his life Olaf Haraldsson the Saint, king of Norway from 1015 to 1030, faced the enmity of Knud the Great, king of England and Denmark, who in 1028 forced him to exile and conquered his reign. In recounting the strife between the two kings, the Norwegian chronicles and the Old Norse sagas side with Olaf, while the Danish sources show some uneasiness caused by Knud's indirect involvement in the martyrdom of his enemy. Thus, in the Danish works the outcome is a difficult and somewhat ambiguous balance between the king who created the Empire of the North and exalted Denmark above all other nations, and the one who, after his canonization in 1031, became the most popular and renowned saint in Scandinavia.

The subject of this article is the emergence of the term Norðrlönd in Old Norse textual culture, the different meaning and functions of this term, and its connection with the idea of a Northern people who shared certain features, such as a common language, history, and identity. This will be explained through analysis of the precise meaning of the term Norðrlönd within medieval discourse, in particular with regard to how it was used in the Scandinavian lingua franca. A secondary aim is to explain its connection with related concepts in other languages, for example, Latin. In order to achieve this, an analysis will be made of how the term was used and in what context. In addition, the influence of power structures on the term and their uses will also be analysed. A third consideration will be how the inhabitants of Norðrlönd were defined, in other words, who was included and who was not. This study of medieval discourse is qualitative rather than quantitative, as befits the nature of the documentary sources consulted. The primary sources themselves, and the information they provide, is the major focus of the study. Through careful analysis of the term Norðrlönd and its use in contemporary texts, the dominant discourse concerning the North in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages will be elucidated, as will the creation of an image of the North and a specific Nordic identity.

An investigation into tenth-century Ottonian imperialism across the Elbe-Saale, tracing the roots of present-day conceptions about the "Saxon March," comparing those conceptions to material and charter evidence, and concluding with an analysis in light of Widukind's narrative describing Wichmann the Younger's mid-century rebellion.

Full title:
‘Fears, Sights and Slaughter. Expressions of Fright and Disgust in the Baltic Missionary Historiography (11th-13th centuries)’, in: Per Förnegård, Erika Kihlman, Mia Åkestam, Gunnel Engwall (eds.), Tears, Sighs and Laughter. Expressions of Emotions in the Middle Ages, Conference Series: 92 (Vitterhetsakadmien: Stockholm 2017), pp. 109-137

ABSTRACT
Having already dedicated a corrected version of the by now lost original manuscript of Gesta Hammaburgensis to Archbishop Liemar in 1075, Adam of Bremen continued modifying the text until 1081, possibly even until 1085. His revisionary work consisted predominantly in the incorporation of so-called scholia: additional comments, noted in the margin of the manuscript or integrated into the main text. Eventually, those earliest annotations were subject to dynamic alterations by later scribes and editors according to their own ecclesiastical and highly political agenda. In the light of their ambiguous authorship and partly contradictory content, this chapter aims to explore how medieval and modern scholarly tradition approached and perceived the scholia within a plethora of editions and translations over the course of a millennium. Through contrasting and contextualizing the manuscript transmission, special emphasis in this paper is placed on the environment in which the scholia were produced and deliberately eliminated. This, in turn, permits one to draw conclusions regarding the multi-faceted scribal motifs, intentions, and reading practices that were immanent to medieval and modern scholiastic activity.

There seems to be a continuous difference of opinion between historians and church historians
on one hand and archaeologists on the other regarding possible influence on early Christianity
in Scandinavia from the Eastern Church. This calls for a discussion of the different scholarly traditions
in interpreting the source material that will lead up to some reflections on the roots of early
Christianity in Finland.

Benché considerata meno nobile dell'idromele e del vino, la birra occupa un posto di rilievo nel mondo scandinavo medievale: secondo la mitologia norrena, infatti, essa era sacra al guerriero, e la poesia eddica ci mostra divinità come Odino e Thor alle prese con questa bevanda, di cui sono elencati i vari nomi. Le saghe confermano l'importanza della birra, che in epoca pagana aveva un ruolo centrale sia nelle celebrazioni religiose, e in particolare nei sacrifici durante i quali era consumata insieme alla carne di cavallo, sia, in generale, nelle feste e nelle occasioni conviviali. La lingua norrena, con i suoi numerosi vocaboli composti con la parola öl, «birra», conserva le tracce di tale centralità, che si mantenne anche dopo la conversione al cristianesimo ed è visibile nelle disposizioni con cui le leggi norvegesi del XII secolo ne regolarono scrupolosamente la produzione e il consumo; ancora all'inizio del XIII secolo, infine, i papi dovettero intervenire per vietarne l'uso improprio, o meglio l'abuso, in ambito sacramentale.
Obiettivo del presente contributo sarà dunque uno studio diacronico del ruolo avuto dalla birra nella società scandinava dei secoli IX-XIII, e si avvarrà di fonti di tipo diverso, come poemi eddici, saghe, testi giuridici e diplomi papali, confrontandole inoltre con testimonianze provenienti dal mondo anglosassone, in particolare con il Beowulf.

Although considered to be less noble than mead and wine, ale occupies a prominent place in medieval Scandinavia: according to the Norse mythology, beer was sacred both to the warriors and the gods, and it has many names. The sagas confirm such an importance: in pagan times, the beer had a central role in the religious celebrations, and especially in the sacrifices, during which it was consumed along with the horse meat, but it was important too in all other kind of feast. After the conversion to Christianity, some laws strictly regulated the production and drinking of beer; still, in the thirteenth century, the popes had to take action to prohibit the improper use, or rather abuse, of beer within the sacraments.

This talk entitled 'Scandinavian proper names in Adam of Bremen's text' is devoted to Scandinavian onomastics and its reflexions in the corpus of Adam Bremensis (late XIth century).
Адам Бременский — немецкий историк конца XI в., который первым подробно рассказал европейцам о Скандинавии. Его сочинение "Деяния архиепископов Гамбургской церкви" написано по-латыни и содержит множество имен собственных. Хотя во времена Адама единая латинская номенклатура для скандинавских топонимов и антропонимов еще не сформировалась, бременский хронист передает большинство из них последовательно в форме, близкой к скандинавской.
Одним из  главных принципов  передачи скандинавской топономастики  была фонетическая запись звучания конкретных словоформ,  как их слышал Адам. Этот принцип, однако, не мог быть единственным, поскольку хронист нуждался в правилах склонения имен и создавал некоторую нормализацию, опираясь на сведения о морфологических классах скандинавских имен.

Both translations use the chapter divisions which correspond to the Roman numerals in Schmeidler's edition of the work as will this thesis. Tschan's translation of Adam's narrative will henceforth be abbreviated as AB; Schmeidler's edition and the Swedish translation as Adam Bremensis and Adam av Bremen respectively. Gerald of Wales,

In eleventh-century Denmark, the memory of the pagan kings of the Danes of the previous centuries was treated in many different ways: practices and choices of oral and written memory, oblivion and reinterpretations can be identified. We illustrate those varied strategies in three main contexts: oblivion, as exemplified by the work of Ailnoth; the use (or lack of use) of genealogy in the reign of Knud the Great and his sons; reinterpretations of past reigns by King Svend Estridsen, as described in the work of Adam of Bremen.

This article aims to examine the narrative of the Amazons as part of a political and ethnic discourse. It pays particular attention to the connection between the tale of the Amazons and the history of the origins of the Goths. The Historia Augusta and Jordanes’ Getica are among the most significant sources for shedding light on the versatility and the popularity of the saga of the Amazons. It also highlights the authors’ lexical strategy of identifying the ancient Amazons with one or more barbaric groups. This cultural operation allowed them to integrate the old story of women warriors into their historical narrative. In the last part of this article, the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum is taken into consideration, stressing continuities and discontinuities in Adam of Bremen’s use of the tale of the Amazons.

This article focuses on one aspect of pleasure in the Sagas of Icelanders: the pursuit of pleasure by a saga character, the warrior-poet Þormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld Bersason. The parameters of this interpretation are therefore limited to the action of Fóstbræðra saga, the saga of the sworn brothers, and analysis is focused on the decision-making processes of the warrior-poet Þormóðr, a character who is depicted in the saga as having lived during the early part of the tenth century. Þormóðr lusts after several women in the saga, pursuing pleasure, but he seems incapable of loving them. This analysis will therefore test a virtue-ethics framework that could be applied more widely to saga characters in future studies. Þormóðr provides us with a case study in Aristotelian akrasia. This warrior-poet loves, lusts, and is a subject of pathos in two senses. Þormóðr is foremost subject to his own pathos, his passion, which results in his lack of deliberation before making certain decisions. Þormóðr is therefore impetuously akratic. Þormóðr is also a poet, and thus is adept at evoking pathos in his audience for rhetorical effect, as the reader can see in his skaldic verses. The focus in this article is on pathos in the first sense, that which has to do with the weight of the character’s own passions and how they affect his actions. The aim is to provide an account for why his appetite for pleasure is so great that he consequently lacks the ability to deliberate and act according to reason when it comes to his relationships with women.

Moderation: Julia Heinzel Henri Hoor Karolingische Wandmalereifragmente aus Bremen. Grenzen und Möglichkeiten einer Raumverortung Ausgehend von einer Anzahl an bemalten Wandputzfragmenten, die bei archäologischen Grabungen im Bremer St. Petri-Dom geborgen wurden, soll der einstigen Wandbemalung der ersten karolingischen Domkirche in Bremen nachgegangen werden. Lassen sich trotz des bruchstückhaften Charakters der Objekte Aussagen zum Bildprogramm, zur Malerei und deren Arrangement im Raum treffen? Vergleichsfunde aus anderen nordwestdeutschen Kirchen der Karolingerzeit erlauben eine Annäherung an den einstigen Raumeindruck dieses ältesten Steingebäudes Norddeutschlands.

This presentation will address two of the main methods with which the eleventh-century historian, Adam of Bremen, described both individuals and nations in his opus Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum. Adam was a canonicus and a schoolmaster of the unified Archbishopric of Hamburg and Bremen between the late 1060s and the mid 1070s. These were particularly trying years for Adam's church, and his Gesta was composed in an attempt to meet these challenges. Adam strove to demonstrate that his see had allies and sympathizers, even if the actual state of affairs was always more complicated. To this end, he developed a unique writing process, which allowed him to identify and emphasize friendly entities. This paper will examine the methods Adam used in his narrative approach and in his work with the sources that enabled him to achieve his goals as an author.

This paper was part of a double session on spiritual nourishment in the peripheries, and served in part as a framework for the other papers. In my paper I look at how the biblical and the Graeco-Roman typologies of the north were transmitted into and applied in medieval hagiography. The paper argues that both these typologies could be merged to emphasize the wildness of the north, and that these typologies were both used - but with slightly different emphasis - with the emergence of the writing of sacred history in Latin in twelfth-century Norway