Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe (Queenship and Power)

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QUEENSHIP AND VOICE IN MEDIEVAL NORTHERN EUROPE

10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher

QUEENSHIP AND POWER

This series brings together monographs and edited volumes from scholars specializing in gender analysis, women’s studies, literary interpretation, and cultural, political, constitutional, and diplomatic history. It aims to broaden our understanding of the strategies that queens—both consorts and regnants, as well as female regents— pursued in order to wield political power within the structures of male- dominant societies. In addition to works describing European queenship, it also includes books on queenship as it appeared in other parts of the world, such as East Asia, Sub- Saharan Africa, and Islamic civilization. Editorial Board Linda Darling, University of Arizona (Ottoman Empire) Theresa Earenfight, Seattle University (Spain) Dorothy Ko, Barnard College (China) Nancy Kollman, Stanford University (Russia) John Thornton, Boston University (Africa and the Atlantic World) John Watkins (France and Italy) Published by Palgrave Macmillan The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History By Charles Beem Elizabeth of York By Arlene Naylor Okerlund Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry By Linda Shenk The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I By Anna Riehl Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth By Anna Whitelock and Alice Hunt The Death of Elizabeth I By Catherine Loomis Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe By William Layher The French Queen’s Letters (forthcoming) By Erin Sadlack Renaissance Queens of France (forthcoming) By Glenn Richardson



Series Editors: Carole Levin and Charles Beem

William Layher





Copyright © William Layher, 2010. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–10465–5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Layher, William. Queenship and voice in medieval Northern Europe / William Layher. p. cm.—(Queenship and power series) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–0–230–10465–5 (alk. paper) 1. Queens—Scandinavia—History—To 1500. 2. Monarchy— Scandinavia—History—To 1500. 3. Margrete I, Queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, 1353–1412. 4. Euphemia, Queen, consort of Haakon V, King of Norway, 1270–1319. 5. Agnes, Queen, consort of Eric V, King of Denmark, d. 1304. 6. Middle Ages. I. Title. DL44.1.L39 2010 9489.0230922—dc22

2010002662

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: September 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.



All rights reserved.

Aristotle, De anima II.8.420b5



A voice is a sound with significance.



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Acknowledgments

ix

Map of Medieval Northern Europe

x

Introduction

1

The Royal Families of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden

10

One

Three Nordic Queens

13

Two

Sound, Voice, and Vox: The Acoustics of the Self in the Middle Ages

29

Three “You Danes Must Do as I Say . . .”: Queen Agnes and the Regicide of 1286

53

Four

Voicing and Legacy: Queen Eufemia of Norway

91

Five

Margareta of Denmark and the Voice of Identity

131

Afterword: The Queen’s Two Voices

173

Notes

185

Bibliography

217

Index

235



CONTENTS




I

owe a great debt of thanks to Eckehard Simon and Stephen Mitchell, both of Harvard University, for years of advice and insightful feedback, and for their cheerful encouragement. They set me on the path that brought me to this book. I also wish to thank my colleagues, Ann Marie Rasmussen and Sally Poor, for asking detailed questions about voice and female lordship and urging me to think more deeply about the methodologies we bring to bear in the study of medieval culture. I profited greatly from these conversations, and should any errors of judgment remain in this book they are mine alone; I can only say that I listened as hard as I could. To my jogging partner at Washington University—thanks for the early-morning workouts, which helped keep this project on track. Above all else, my heartfelt affection goes out to my wife, Karin, whose support was unflagging even though she had to wait far too long for this to be finished. This book is dedicated to her.

Permissions The cover photo depicting Queen Agnes in St. Bendt’s Church, Ringsted (Denmark) is copyright Dale C. Carr, 2009. Used by permission. The map of medieval northern Europe and the charts of the royal dynasties of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are copyright William Layher, 2010. Used by permission.



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



I

nstead of a formal introduction: a retrospective. The impetus for this book was born out of the fruitful collision of several different realizations.

We Need to Think More about the Variability of Medieval Queenship Thanks to decades of scholarship by insightful and dedicated scholars, we now know a great deal about medieval queenship in prominent kingdoms such as France and Aragon, we have become familiar with the lives of noblewomen that lived in Thüringen and England and the Netherlands, and the politics of female rulership in Burgundy and Portugal have been made known to us as well. Yet in spite of the considerable distances separating these courts, all of them lay well within the medieval European cultural mainstream. The lives of these queens and the rulership they exercised were far from identical to one another, but taken in the aggregate they give a false impression of queenship’s sameness. By comparison, we know very little about queenship as a political institution on the periphery of medieval Europe, such as in Scandinavia. Because courtliness came relatively late to Scandinavia—the first documented use of the Swedish term riddara [knights] dates from the late thirteenth century, for example—the cultural prominence of noblewomen at court was likewise slow to develop. This lateness makes the Scandinavian evidence distinctive inasmuch as the queens (together with their courts) had to grapple with the new chivalric ideology that complemented earlier models of female rulership. While outlines of a history of medieval Scandinavian queenship have already been traced, no detailed synthesis of the evidence has yet appeared.1 This book does not propose to fill that gap, but instead speaks from the edge toward the middle. It offers lessons about modalities of self-representation in medieval queenship, drawing them in large part from the process of cultural transfer in



INTRODUCTION

2

Queenship and Voice: Northern Europe

Power and Authority Are Contested Attributes for Medieval Queens—Even More So When Male Lordship Is Compromised For many historians, social historians, and humanists, the study of medieval queenship is intrinsically also a study of power: how it was used, channeled, amassed, or suppressed. The exercise of power by medieval queens is typically measured according to the yardstick of potestas—reconstructing what the queen did, determining what changes she was able to enact, and evaluating where she was successful or in which circumstances she was unable to prevail. This book, too, is concerned with queenship and the exercise of power, but what interests me most is the connection between power and authority in the construction and exercise of female lordship. This is a topic that Earenfight has considered at length in publications about medieval queens in Spain and Aragon,2 and Kimberly LoPrete has likewise called attention to the “peculiarly feminine forms of influence” that queens could bring to bear in crisis situations.3 Influence is not the same thing as power, of course, yet influence seems to be what medieval queens had in abundance—provided, of course, that it was predicated upon an authority that was imbued in them through their status as a consors regni [queen regent] or in some other manifestation of divided lordship. In the vast majority of historical examples, the authority of a medieval queen is predicated upon the tacit acknowledgment of the king’s power. But what happens when that model breaks down? This book examines a small corpus of cases from thirteenth- and fourteenthcentury Scandinavia, in which the ruling power of the king was impeded or ineffective—a lapse of male lordship that, in turn, exposed the fragile underpinnings of queenship as a political institution. These interruptions took different forms. For Agnes it began with the assassination of the Danish king, her husband, in 1286. For the Norwegian queen Eufemia it was a crisis of succession in Norway due to the fact that she and King Hákon had only one child—a daughter. For Margareta it was the fact that for twenty years the foreign-born king of Sweden, Albrecht III of 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


which the three queens of this study—Agnes of Denmark (d. 1304), Eufemia of Norway (d. 1312), and Margareta of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (d. 1412)—were deeply engaged.

3

Mecklenburg, had ruled as an oppressive overlord that was desperately out of touch with his Swedish subjects and did not even speak Swedish. In the absence of effective male leadership, the “soft power” that is intrinsic to queenship was difficult to implement; the playing field had changed. Thus the leading interest of this book concerns the ways in which Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta sought to assert their own power through the effective augmentation of their own authority. This authority was conveyed by the effective use of the voice as a tool for royal representation— more on this in a moment.

In the Study of the Poetics of Royal Representation, the Eye Is Not Everything. What About the Ear? A great deal of recent work in medieval studies has been devoted to the pictorial turn or the iconic turn, establishing visuality and the gaze as leading paradigms for cultural and historical analysis. As discussed in chapter two, constructing hierarchies of power and courtly authority in the Middle Ages was often accomplished through disciplining the gaze and marshaling the visual appeal of courtly ostentation. Popular didactic treatises such as der Welsche Gast (early fourteenth century) warned German courtiers about the dangers of undisciplined vision or gawking, while rulers—both male and female—were urged to modulate the movements of the body so as to present spectators at court with a harmonious and well-crafted public spectacle. According to the poet of the Welsche Gast, lords are expected to act in an exemplary fashion, so as to set the correct tone at court. If the courtiers cannot see their masters, the political and moral ordo at court is undermined. Wir muezzin sehen durch den tac an ir herren waz man sol tuon. ist daz ir tuot wol, wir volgen harte gern daz guot [We must be able to see by light of day, in the example you lords set, what things a man ought to do. If you do that which is proper, we will gladly follow it]4

Since power and lordship are for naught if they cannot be demonstrated, cannot be made visible, the act of Inszenierung [choreography] in the pomp and circumstance of the affairs of state 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Introduction


became a political necessity in the Middle Ages. The public staging of processions, tournaments, feasts, and spectacles at court, the elaborate rituals of welcoming and departure, and the performative use of ceremonial clothing, royal gesture, and expression all exploited existing economies of vision and spectatorship and reinforced the status quo of the lord–vassal relationship. When Gerd Althoff points out that visual representation was not only ubiquitous but absolute and inescapable in the medieval court, we realize the extent to which public demonstrations of power began to supplant other modes of lordship and authority. As the court increasingly becomes reified as a Schauplatz of power, vision, in turn, is valorized as the primary conduit by which these hierarchies of power are communicated and reinforced.5 But what does this paradigm overlook? What happens to political authority when the traditional modes of visibility at court are disturbed, or dysfunctional? How is lordship affected if the standard mechanism of its display—courtly representation—cannot be brought to bear? What are the implications for female rulership when hierarchies of vision break down and the court literally does not know where to look? This book attempts to provide some answers for these questions, as it calls attention to new and unprecedented modalities of courtly representation that were predicated not upon the eye but upon the ear. If the act of looking was a “cultural practice as well as a physiological process” in the Middle Ages6 I submit that listening was as well. Further, we will see that by harnessing the acoustic reach of sound and the embodied representation of the voice, queens were able to exert political influence effectively at court despite the lack or breakdown of male authority. This book presents evidence confirming the importance of auditivity as a mode of cultural and historical analysis. This approach, it is granted, must grapple with a number of serious methodological challenges that visuality does not face, foremost among which is the impermanence of sound. Although vision, too, is a physiological process that is culturally constructed and not fully recoverable, there is a wealth of material culture surviving from the Middle Ages that is still before our eyes. We can look at these items and reconstruct their value in medieval economies of visuality and vision, pondering the degree of overlap between the medieval gaze and the modern. For sound, such direct mediation is impossible. And yet, through a careful interrogation of literary 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


4

5

texts produced for courtly audiences in medieval Scandinavia, we can evaluate how hearing—or more directly, how the process of listening (as a kind of attuned hearing)—functioned as an acoustic equivalent to “the gaze” in medieval Europe. The dynamics of power that are mediated by hearing differ from those that are commonly ascribed to the gaze. One such difference concerns gender. For much of courtly society in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, the gaze is characterized as masculine. It looks at what it wants to; the gaze has agency. Not so with hearing. The ear has no such capability, no means of acting transgressively, no process by which it can listen in one direction. It cannot close itself off as the eyelid shuts the eye. If, for the courts of medieval Europe, the power of hearing were to be evaluated on the same crude scales of masculine vs. feminine that determine the gender of the gaze, then it seems logical to conclude that hearing skews toward the feminine. By the same measurement, the voice, in contrast, falls to the masculine end of the spectrum. This evaluation is not valid in the physiological sense, in reference to the voice’s timbre or inflection, but simply by reason of its acoustic range. Sound is the most obstinate of the five senses. It penetrates the ear and even the body of the auditor. Sound has a relentlessness that denies agency to those caught in its acoustic field; they cannot regulate their exposure to it except by removing themselves utterly from its reach. In a real sense, because sound dominates its auditors it denies them the choice to subjugate themselves. This marks a crucial distinction between the ear and the eye, between hearing and the gaze—the former is involuntary while the latter is voluntary, and therefore easily exploited in the political economies of medieval Europe. And yet, sound is much more than a blunt instrument. This book makes the argument that sound can likewise function as a vehicle for royal power. Sound accomplishes this not by bludgeoning the auditor into submission, but by appealing to the ear to grant an audience; to encourage the act of listening instead of hearing. Through the skillful instrumentalization of sound and voice, the queens of this study were able to create and exploit distinct listening communities in medieval Scandinavia that were receptive to the queens’ political goals. By drawing in (as well as pushing back) the courtly ear, queenship articulated itself in new ways in the Nordic Middle Ages. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Introduction

6


Although this book is deeply engaged with the historical record surrounding three Nordic queens, it does not view the evidence with a historian’s eye. By the same token, even though the inquiry focuses on literary texts that were circulating in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Scandinavia, it is not a study of representations of queenship in the sagas, in chronicles, or other medieval genres.7 Instead, I draw our attention to the queens themselves as literary patrons. I make the case that Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta sponsored the composition and public performance of literary works that articulated the queen’s objectives during moments of acute political crisis at their courts. Through a detailed investigation of these literary texts—didactic poems, courtly romances, and an extravagant political allegory featuring lions and foxes and hapless geese—the complexities faced by female rulership come into sharper focus. The inquiry is guided by these monuments, but its goal is to consider more than what the works say about the political realities that Queen Agnes faced after the assassination of the Danish king, for example, or about the accusations of misrule that the Old Swedish allegory King Albrecht levels at the king. I mean to consider what audiences heard in these works in their thirteenth- to fifteenth-century context, and to evaluate, further, the ways in which the queens’ literary patronage marshaled not the power of the gaze but the grasp of the ear. While the goal of any scholarly inquiry is to read between the lines, as it were, I am proposing that it is possible to do far more in these specific cases; namely, to attempt to listen between the lines as well.

How Should We Understand the Voice? In many discussions of literary works and their historical production the term “voice” is typically used as a metaphor. It appears as a synonym for authorial style or narrative approach (e.g., Hemingway’s voice), as a verb denoting the act of revealing (“to voice concern”), or as a paraphrase for the status of agency (“to give voice to”). There is a broad body of research into the voice as a philosophical or phenomenological construct and an agent of the Self as well, as discussed next. These metaphors appear in this book as well, and yet the focus strives at all times to remain with 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Instead of Queenship in Literature, Queenship through Literature

7

the medieval voice as an acoustic phenomenon; that is, as something that is linked with processes of audition, cognition, and social inclusion. The challenges to this approach are evident. To begin with, the book is structured around a series of written texts and literary works that appear to slumber on the manuscript page, inert and still. Whatever voices might have flowed into the text and been captured in written form have long fallen silent. Reanimating the voice from such dry material is therefore a matter of interpretation—analysis, that is, that rests in the eye (or the ear?) of the beholder. In this attempt we run a similar risk to that which Dr. Frankenstein faced when he zapped his creature on the slab and jolted it to life again. Can the end result—a text that speaks again!—really embody the grace and nuance that dwelt naturally in the material, in its own time? In proceeding further, there are several paths to follow that will lead us out of these methodological tangles. Our understanding of the acoustical dimensions implicit in the act of reading in the Middle Ages offers one such pathway. To read in medieval Europe meant to read aloud. Because we know that texts were read as much with the ear as with the eye, reading took place in a three-dimensional common space; the text was voiced, and therefore public. Through the voice of the reader, the author spoke again—and for this reason, all medieval texts are suffused with a latent vocality that, at times, was transformed into a real and audible vocality through the act of reading. A similar act of vocal proxying can be assumed with regard to the medieval poets who performed at court. As we shall see with Queen Agnes of Denmark, the performances she commissioned in the aftermath of her husband’s assassination broadcast the queen’s message to elite Danish audiences. A close look at these poems confirms that there are acoustical realities in these medieval stanzas that are invaluable for the reconstruction of female lordship in medieval Denmark. It is only through the public act of performance during the winter of 1286–1287 that these poems were able to carry out the political work they were meant to do in Denmark. The fact that these poems were composed and performed by a foreign poet from Germany who sang in Middle Low German instead of Old Danish adds an additional dimension to the complexities of voice in this contested cultural space. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Introduction


For Queen Eufemia of Norway and the courtly romances attributed to her patronage, the translation of the texts into a different vernacular represented a “voicing” that was forward-looking in its political appeal. I argue here that Eufemia had the romances translated into Old Swedish rather than the Old Norse-Icelandic idiom of her court in order to appeal to a particular listening community that had not yet come into existence, namely the Swedish courtiers that would serve her young daughter, Ingeborg, as soon as she was wed to a prominent Swedish nobleman. The romances, then, serve as a repository for the royal voice—a distinctly Swedish voice—that Ingeborg will assume as a noblewoman in medieval Sweden. The texts ring out “in our tongue,” as the prologues assert; and with that pronoun, thanks to her possession of the romances, Ingeborg would likewise be able to claim membership in that community. Our third queen, Margareta of Denmark, encourages us to move beyond the concept of the solitary voice and consider, instead, that every voice is implicitly a polyvocal phenomenon. The discussion here focuses on the ways in which different voices of authority— royal, clerical, and prophetic—commingle in the contested political atmosphere of late-fourteenth-century Sweden. The poem I associate with Margareta, King Albrecht, is an Old Swedish poem of less than 200 lines that contains a stinging political allegory that criticizes the king of Sweden, the foreign-born Albrecht III of Mecklenburg, who took the throne in 1364. While the poem does not mention Margareta by name, it is nevertheless highly congruent with the diplomatic and political overtures that she made to a number of Swedish barons in 1388, roughly a year before Danish troops marched into Sweden and defeated Albrecht’s forces—overtures, namely, that recast Margareta’s Danish voice as a Swedish one and reassured the barons that her cause was theirs. We shall see that allegiances and vernaculars run in parallel in this set of written charters. A further congruence between voice and political allegiance rests in the peculiar “echo effect” that we observe in years after 1375, when the Latin revelations of the Swedish mystic St. Birgitta were translated into Old Swedish and put into circulation at Vadstena and other ecclesiastical centers. As Birgitta’s visions were brought back into the idiom in which they were originally composed, her series of political revelations that excoriated the previous king of Sweden, Magnus Eriksson, took on a new relevance under King Albrecht; the same critiques 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


8

9

of royal misrule could still apply, decades later. There are thematic parallels between these revelations and the poem King Albrecht that encourage us to question whether Birgitta’s prophetic voice was being drawn upon as an alternate voice of authority during the last years of Albrecht’s reign. Two additional dimensions of voice keep us within the text of King Albrecht. The first concerns the valence of the royal voice. In the allegorical text the king is shown during a highly dramatic scene to be unable to speak Swedish. This marks a fatal undercutting of his royal persona, for the text makes it clear that the authority to govern rests in the proper sounding of voice. And lastly, at the end of the poem, the text speaks directly to the “noble lady queen”—that is, to Margareta—and asks her to come into Sweden and deliver the kingdom from misrule. Here we are confronted with a text that voices an appeal on the literary level that echoes the political invitations Margareta had secured from the Swedish barons during the final year of Albrecht’s reign. In this historical context we see that text, voice, and political realities are intertwined.



Introduction

1216–1250

1252–1259

1250–1252

1244–1287

1244–1287

1287–1319

1249–1286

1273–1290

1320–1332

1285–1330

1340–1375

1387–1412

1340–1380

1385–1387



1202–1241

1244–1287

1263–1280

1261–1283

1244–1287

1280–1299

1300–1312

1299–1319

1297–1354

1302–1318

1301–1361 1302–1318

1316–1364

1388–1412

1317–1370?

1340–1380

1381–1387



1223–1263

1274–1290

1250–1275

1290–1319

1301–1361 1302–1318

1244–1287

1302–1318

1316–1364

1317–1370? 1362–1364

1362–1364

1364–1389

1385–1387



1248–1266

CHAPTER ONE

T

his chapter introduces the three queens of this study. They are Queen Agnes of Denmark (1256?–1304), Queen Eufemia of Norway (1285?–1312), and Queen Margareta of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (1353–1412). While Margareta is well known as one of the most formidable queens of late-medieval Europe, the other two, Agnes and Eufemia, are surely unfamiliar to most scholars working in the field of medieval queenship. Some research has been done on Queen Eufemia due to her significant engagement as a literary patron in early-fourteenth-century Norway—she sponsored the translation of a series of French and German courtly romances—but the scholarship has focused exclusively on Eufemia’s cultural interests, leaving questions about her political impact and her rulership as queen unasked and unanswered. Queen Agnes of Denmark is perhaps even more obscure than her contemporary, Eufemia. Despite its focus on three prominent queens in medieval Scandinavia, this book does not aspire to present a history of Nordic queenship in the Middle Ages. Nor is its goal to provide an exhaustive treatment of these three queens. Instead, the inquiry presents a series of case studies, focusing on specific moments of political crisis that each of the queens had to confront. In their responses to these challenges, I argue, we begin to see a number of commonalities between Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta, in that each of them sought to gain political advantage from the targeted “broadcast” of an authoritative ruling voice in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It is in the connections between voice, text, and authority—or, more appropriately, in the harmonics that ring out from this productive tension—that new aspects of female lordship in the Middle Ages manifest themselves. Before we can proceed, however, we must first understand how the lordship exercised by Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta was set and defined by the dynasties in which they lived and reigned, and 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


THREE NORDIC QUEENS

14


consider how the crises each of them faced were ones that could not be solved through diplomacy or the exercise of power alone.

Agnes was born shortly after 1250—the exact year is unknown—in the northern German duchy of Brandenburg. By the year of her death in 1304, she had become one of Denmark’s most powerful noblewomen. In that year, the scribe of the medieval Danish chronicle Annales Lundenses recorded the passing of Agnes, the widowed queen and queen mother of Denmark. The necrologue takes note of the three different modes of female lordship that Agnes held during her lifetime: Obiit domina mater regis, quondam Dacie regina.1 Agnes was a domina by right of her birth as a noblewoman in Brandenburg; she bore the title of mater regis as the mother of Denmark’s sovereign Erik VI; and in the eyes of posterity she was quondam Dacie regina because she had been the consort of her husband, Erik V, from 1273 until November 22, 1286, when Erik V was brutally assassinated in Denmark—an event that plunged the kingdom into crisis. The murder of Erik V led to a perilous destabilization of the Danish monarchy. It threatened to pass the crown to another branch of the royal family, bypassing her young son Erik VI as the successor to his father. In the months that followed, Agnes, thrust into the political spotlight, faced a daunting challenge. In Denmark, kingship was restricted to members of the royal family, but succession was not guaranteed solely by bloodline; the Danish ruling council of stormænd [literally “big men”] had to approve the succession by vote or acclimation. In November 1286, it was doubtful that Agnes’ eldest son, Erik VI, would have received the support of the stormænd, as he was only twelve years of age and therefore too young to assume the throne. In addition, the electors of the realm that determine the succession were divided in their loyalties. Some supported the royal family, while others preferred a rival, Valdemar IV, from a different lineage of the Danish aristocracy.2 Rallying the Danish electors and barons to her cause was Agnes’ utmost priority. But because the status of her own lordship in the realm was unclear in the months following the assassination, her political authority was compromised. Was she already a queen regent? Or just a king’s widow? Or rather the mother of an underage crown prince? With the monarchy hanging by a 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Queen Agnes of Denmark

15

thread and the realm shaken by an assassination that remained unresolved and unavenged, Agnes turned to an alternative channel of royal representation—that of literary patronage—in order to assert her authority as a ruling woman in Demark and seize the political advantage. Agnes was the eldest of four children born to Johan I of Brandenburg and his second wife, Jutta, whom he had married in December 1247. The duchy of Brandenburg wielded considerable influence along the northeastern arc of German-speaking Europe in the middle of the thirteenth century, and it held close diplomatic alliances with a number of prominent German political dynasties. Brandenburg’s ties with Denmark were particularly close, as Johan’s first wife was Sophia of Denmark, a daughter of the powerful Danish King Valdemar II. She died in September 1247, having given birth to four sons and a daughter. With his second marriage, to Jutta of Saxony, Johan I had again secured an advantageous match. Jutta was daughter of Duke Albrecht I of Saxony, a prominent figure in northern Germany and direct descendant of Henry the Lion of the Welf (Askanier) dynasty. Because Agnes left no trace in the historical record until the occasion of her marriage to King Erik V of Denmark in November 1273, we must use that event to estimate the date of her birth. Their first child, Erik VI, was born in 1274, which indicates that Agnes had reached the age of menarche when she married the Danish king. If we assume that Agnes was at least thirteen years old at the time, her birth date would fall somewhere within the years 1256–1261.3 Agnes’ husband, the Danish crown prince Erik V, was no stranger to the Brandenburgian court. He had spent the years 1262–1264 in Brandenburg, temporarily exiled from the Danish kingdom during a period of intense political strife. The years Erik spent in Brandenburg kept him isolated from the power struggles among rival factions in the Danish royal family that had already claimed the lives of two previous kings of Denmark— both of them Erik’s uncles—in 1250 and 1252. The bitterness had flared up again in 1259, when Erik’s father, Kristoffer, took ill and died suddenly after receiving Communion host and wine from a bishop that was ill-disposed toward the crown; naturally, this led to rumors that the king had been poisoned. Kristoffer’s sudden demise left Denmark with neither a king nor a clear successor. Because Erik V was only ten years old when his father died in the summer of 1259, he had not yet reached the age of majority. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Three Nordic Queens


At once, Erik’s mother, Queen Margareta Sambiria, a northern German noblewoman from Pommerania, took on the duties of queen regent for her young son and sought to defeat the opposition through military engagement. The forces loyal to the young king were quickly overwhelmed, however, and in June 1261, Erik V and Margareta were taken prisoner and dispatched to Hamburg. A treaty signed in Hamburg in 1262 granted Margareta her freedom, and she returned to her duties as queen regent of Denmark. Erik V, however, was not released. Instead, Margareta’s young son was exiled to Brandenburg, where he remained as a political hostage with his uncle, Johan I, until Margareta fulfilled all of the conditions of her negotiated release. Erik’s residency in northern Germany was surely in his own best interests as well, for it was unsafe for him to return to Denmark as prince regent. He could return only as king. In 1264, when the final conditions of the Hamburg settlement were met, Erik V, now almost fifteen years old, won his release from Brandenburg, in large part due to his promise to take Agnes, described in the Chronica Jutensis as the sororem marchionis Brandenburgensis, virginem pulcherrimam, as his wife when she reached a suitable age. Johan I clearly held the upper hand in the negotiations; the fact that Erik renounced any dowry for Agnes on the event of their marriage can be interpreted as an acknowledgment of the weak Danish position in the years around 1264.4 For Erik, a marriage to a northern German noblewoman made a great deal of political sense in this turbulent period. In the second half of the thirteenth century it was no longer profitable for Denmark to look northward toward the Nordic “old world” for strength and stability. The royal family of Sweden, for instance, had been wracked by a decades-long conflict over succession, and both Sweden and Norway were lagging far behind the rest of Europe in their appropriation of courtly culture and in opportunities for trade. Instead, Denmark turned its gaze southward. Thus we see in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the emergence of a new trend in marriages with noblewomen from northern Germany. Several Nordic kings had taken northern German wives during an earlier period in the late twelfth and early to mid thirteenth century—King Knut IV of Denmark married Gertrud von Sachsen (Welf dynasty) in 1177, while his brother Valdemar II married Dagmar of Bohemia in 1205—but after 1250 there is evidence of a definitive pattern. Marriages with noblewomen from Holstein, 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Brandenburg, Pommerania, Saxony, and Schwerin strengthened Denmark’s strategic alliances against Mecklenburg and other rival powers in the Baltic region, and helped to secure economic influence with the cities in the emergent Hanseatic League. In addition, these marriages offered linguistic and cultural access to the preeminent courts of northern Germany. In one branch of the Danish royal line, for example, four out of the six sons of King Valdemar II married northern German noblewomen: Knut married a Pommeranian duchess (name unknown) around 1230, Abel was wed to Mechthild of Holstein in 1237, Erik IV to Jutta of Saxony in 1239, and Kristoffer married Margareta Sambiria of Pommerania in 1248. At least one of Kristoffer’s legitimate male descendants in each of the next three generations married a German noblewoman: Erik V wed Agnes of Brandenburg in 1273, their son Kristoffer II married Euphemia of Pommerania in 1307, and the son from that union, Erik, married Elizabeth of Holstein in 1330. The political dynamic was similar, albeit somewhat less consistent, in the royal families of Sweden and Norway.5 One can only speculate about the amount of contact Erik V had with the young Agnes during his captivity in Brandenburg in 1262–1264. When his exile began, Erik was thirteen years old, Agnes perhaps as young as two. Assuming that two of the prominent children at the Brandenburg court did indeed interact, however, we can be reasonably sure that they would have conversed with one another in Middle Low German. Because Erik’s mother, Margareta, was a Pommeranian noblewoman, it is likely that he was exposed to his mother’s northern German tongue at a young age. In addition, the three years that Erik spent in political captivity or exile in Hamburg and Brandenburg make it all the more certain that Erik learned Middle Low German with a reasonable degree of fluency by the time he returned to Denmark.6 Agnes and Erik V were married in 1273, when he was twentyfour years old and in the fourteenth year of his reign. With the marriage, Agnes took the title of queen of Denmark and Wendland, and duchess of Estonia. She bore Erik V three sons and four daughters during the thirteen years of their marriage, before he was brutally killed on November 22, 1286, by unknown assailants. The assassination set the stage for Agnes’ rise as a powerful queen in medieval Denmark—a rise that, I argue, was mediated through, and predicated upon, the authority of a performative voice that was not entirely her own. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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In the chapter that follows I explain how Agnes, in the aftermath of the murder of her husband in 1286, marshaled the power of the performative voice in order to “broadcast” a series of political poems that condemned the regicide of Erik V and urged the Danes to repudiate the murderers. I argue here that Agnes used literature as a tool of statecraft, and provide evidence that she was the sponsor of six political poems condemning the Danish regicide of 1286 that are preserved in the fourteenth-century Jenaer Liederhandschrift.7 These poems—composed not in Danish but in the northern German dialect of Middle Low German—were performed by one of the most prominent didactic poets of latethirteenth-century Germany, Rumelant von Sachsen. As we shall see, Rumelant’s poems articulated Agnes’ political goals in an innovative and culturally significant way, expressing them in an ostensibly foreign dialect (Middle Low German) that nonetheless held great cultural and political resonance for elite courts toward the end of the thirteenth century. It is also relevant that Middle Low German was both Rumelant’s and Agnes’ native tongue—a semblance that raises interesting questions about the degree of cultural or political “distortion” that may ensue when the patron’s voice is taken up into the voice of the poet. In the discussion about these poems and Agnes’ involvement with them, I suggest that Agnes used performances at court to transform a queen’s innate cultural lordship into a robust and sovereign political lordship of a type that was unprecedented in the North—a lordship that is voiced through the poet rather than by the monarch herself, one that is performed orally instead of visually (through the “language” of courtly ceremony) or textually by means of a written royal decree. In the acoustic sense, Agnes voiced herself into a position of power.

Queen Eufemia of Norway Eufemia, like Agnes before her, was born into the northern Germany aristocracy. She was raised at the Baltic court in Stralsund, near the island of Rügen. Given her status as queen of Norway (1299–1312), it is incongruous that she left almost no trace in the diplomatic records of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Although Eufemia was celebrated in her own time as the patron of a sizeable corpus of literary works in the vernacular, comprising some 12,000 lines of rhyming verse, the only known 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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document bearing her signature and seal is a charter drafted by her husband Hákon V on June 22, 1300, granting land and privileges to the church of St. Mary in Oslo. Eufemia served as a witness to the bequest.8 Aside from this charter, Eufemia appears fewer than ten times in the diplomatics of the Norwegian monarchy. The last of these was issued on August 31, 1314, two years after Eufemia’s death, confirming the privileges Eufemia had bequeathed to the church of St. Mary in Oslo, her burial place.9 The earliest historical reference to Eufemia does not mention her by name. It appears in a Latin communiqué that was drafted in January 1299 by an official in the Hanseatic League and dispatched to the head kontor in Lübeck. Among other items, the letter reports that emissaries from Norway are expected soon in Stralsund, a wealthy trade city on Germany’s Baltic coastline, in order to bring “the daughter of the lord of Rügen” to marry Duke Hákon of Norway.10 This “lord of Rügen” was the influential nobleman Witzlaw II of Rügen (d. 1302), whose court was in Stralsund. No record of Eufemia’s birth survives, and we do not know how old she was at the time of her engagement. Since the wedding took place in the spring of 1299 and her only child—a daughter, Ingeborg—was born in 1301, it follows that Eufemia must have been at least thirteen when she married Hákon V in Oslo. The Hanseatic report identifies Eufemia as filiam principis Rujanorum, but this kinship cannot be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.11 Nothing is known about Eufemia’s mother—not even her name—and the written sources from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Rügen are not only sparse and fraught with gaps but also, on occasion, mutually contradictory. Depending on how the conflicting accounts of Eufemia’s genealogy are reconciled, Eufemia could have been Witzlaw’s daughter, or perhaps his granddaughter, or even his foster daughter. The discrepancy appears to have taken root during the middle of the fourteenth century, some fifty years after Eufemia’s death. In earlier accounts, such as the Hanseatic letter of 1299 or the written testament of Witzlaw II that was drafted shortly before his death in 1302, the relationship is stated unambiguously to be that of a father and daughter. In his testament, Witzlaw II refers to Eufemia as domine regine norwegie filie mee predelicte [her majesty the queen of Norway, my beloved daughter]—the same expression of kinship Witzlaw II used in his testament to refer to his other daughters Margareta and Helena, about whose parentage there 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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is no doubt.12 The nature of his relationship with Eufemia grows murkier in the younger sources, however. In one manuscript of the fourteenth-century Detmar Chronik, a Middle Low German chronicle about Baltic affairs and the city of Lübeck, the account of Eufemia’s engagement in 1299 identifies her as the daughter of two different men: do wart koning . . . hertoghe Haquin, de nicht langhe dar bevoren hadde nomen des greven dochter van Reppin, de was dochter des vorsten van Ryen [Duke Hákon became king [in 1299], who not long before had married the daughter of the count of Ruppin, who was daughter of the lord of Rügen]. The dual identification in this chronicle presents a vexing interpretive crux. If the account in the Detmar Chronik is taken at face value, then it is possible that the chronicler—who may have had access to information now lost to us—is giving an accurate account of Eufemia’s parentage by listing her father (or father figures) in sequence. Under this scenario, Eufemia could have been born as the daughter of Günther I of Lindow-Ruppin (d. 1284) but then raised at the Stralsund court by a foster father, Witzlaw II, after the death of Günther I. While this scenario is possible, it is unsupported by the (admittedly spotty) historical record, and the scholarship has not yet identified any strong family ties between the houses of Lindow-Ruppin and Rügen that might have encouraged a fosterage of this kind; nor has any plausible explanation been advanced for why Eufemia, as a young girl, would have been sent to Stralsund. The younger manuscripts of the Detmar Chronik perpetuate the notion that Eufemia was not Witzlaw’s daughter, but they do so in a manner that smoothes over the discontinuities in her lineage. Ultimately, it is not until the sixteenth century that Eufemia is reclaimed for the house of Rügen. A manuscript of Detmar Chronik that was copied in 1512 identifies Eufemia as the daughter of Günther I of Lindow-Ruppin but also as the dotterdochter des vorsten van Ryen [granddaughter of the prince of Rügen].13 This adjustment from daughter to granddaughter marks an admirable attempt at filial reconciliation; if only it were true. Eufemia’s relative obscurity, prior to her marriage into the Norwegian royal family, may well have contributed to the factual errors that manifested themselves in the fourteenth-century chronicle. The contradictory statements in the transmission of Detmar Chronik may also indicate, as some have suggested, that Detmar had been poorly informed about the identity of this noblewoman from a relatively minor northern German noble 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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family, and thus the discrepancies in the manuscript record are evidence of subsequent attempts to set the record straight.14 In her reconstruction of the textual history of Detmar Chronik, Scheil suggests that the initial description of Eufemia as des greven dochter van Reppin must have been discovered to be inaccurate at an early stage of the manuscript transmission, at which time a factual correction—the words de was dochter des vorsten van Ryen—could have been added as a marginal or interlineal gloss. Once the correction had entered the manuscript record, Scheil concludes, younger redactions and copyists likely made the best of a confusing passage, either by blending the two entries into a single statement, in the same order in which they appeared on the page, or by making a logical emendation (changing Eufemia from dochter to dotterdochter of Witzlaw II) in the copy at hand. Regardless of how the mistakes entered the historical record, the lack of corroborating evidence from that period makes it impossible to prove or disprove any theories about Eufemia’s parentage based on available sources. The only surety rests in blood—and indeed, it was not until an investigation was made into the degrees of consanguinity at the thirteenth-century court of LindowRuppin that some clarity was brought to the issue of Eufemia’s descent. Prohibitions against consanguineous unions all but rule out the possibility that Eufemia was the daughter of Günther I of Lindow-Ruppin. By the same criteria, Eufemia could not have been the maternal granddaughter of Witzlaw II of Rügen. Thus we should acknowledge that the testament Witzlaw II signed only two days before his death in 1302—naming Eufemia as his daughter—offers the most accurate account of their relationship.15 The fact that the name Eufemia was a family name in the Rügen dynasty (and not in the Lindow-Ruppin aristocracy) adds even more credence to the notion that she was the legitimate offspring of Witzlaw II. He probably named her Eufemia after his own mother. Eufemia’s ties to Rügen and to Witzlaw II were politically advantageous for Norway at the turn of the fourteenth century. Prior to this, since the establishment of the kingdom in the tenth century, Norway had traditionally considered its sphere of influence to lie to the west, encompassing England, Scotland, the Scottish islands, Iceland, and the Faeroes. As late as the 1290s, the Norwegian monarchy remained keenly interested in maintaining alliances with this region, as demonstrated by the fact that King 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Erik Magnusson, the elder brother of Hákon V, was twice married to Scottish noblewomen—in 1281 to Margaret of Scotland and in 1293 to Isabel Bruce, the daughter of Sir Robert de Bruce. It is equally significant that Hákon himself attempted to follow this same trend, seeking an alliance with the Scottish aristocracy in the final years of the thirteenth century before ultimately abandoning the attempt and turning his sights toward the East and toward Rügen. Hákon’s marriage to Eufemia of Rügen altered the balance of power in the region. Since the middle of the thirteenth century Rügen had been a stalwart ally of Denmark, practically a vassal state of that kingdom. Because of its prominent location along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, Rügen was considered a linchpin territory for dominance in the region. With Eufemia’s marriage into the Norwegian royal family, however, Rügen’s status as a reliable Danish ally was shaken. The political influence of Witzlaw II was now drawn westward into the North Sea, and Hákon put this alliance to the test in the summer of 1300, as he sailed with the Norwegian fleet along the western coast of Sweden—with Eufemia on board the king’s ship—as a prelude to negotiations for a peace treaty with Denmark. If Eufemia left few traces in the political landscape of fourteenth-century Norway, her cultural legacy was as vast in scope as it was unique. She is recognized as the patron of a trio of literary works, translations of courtly romances in Old French and Middle Low German, which appeared during her reign. These romances are remarkable for several different reasons. First, because they were not translated into Old Norwegian, the language of her court, but rather into Old Swedish—an East Norse dialect that was intelligible to her courtiers in Oslo yet still sufficiently foreign to preclude easy comprehension. Second, because they were set into couplets of rhyming verse, the first narrative works in the North to break from the predominant tradition of saga prose. Third, because the production of the romances was undertaken not merely for reasons of entertainment but to secure the continuity of the Norwegian monarchy during a period of dynastic vulnerability. At Eufemia’s direction, the romances were voiced in the foreign idiom of Old Swedish in order to further her husband’s political goal of marrying Ingeborg, their only child, to a Swedish nobleman. These romances therefore provide a rare insight into the interplay of vernacular and voice in fourteenth-century 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Queen Margareta of Denmark Margareta, at the height of her powers the union queen of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, died suddenly of the plague on October 28, 1412, while on board a ship in Flensburg harbor. Her final days were dedicated to the expansion and security of the Danish kingdom, and her goal in Flensburg was to secure pledges and treaties from the Hanseatic merchants assembled there. She never received them, succumbing to the disease before the negotiations had run their course. This was a rare (if posthumous) setback for Margareta, who is justly celebrated as one of the most formidable medieval queens of her era.16 Margareta was born princess of Denmark in 1353, the youngest child of Heilvig of Schleswig (d. ca. 1374) and King Valdemar IV (ca. 1320–1375). By the year of her birth, Valdemar IV had brought the kingdom of Denmark back onto secure footing after a tumultuous interregnum. In a real sense, Valdemar’s ascension to the throne in 1340 marked a restoration of the monarchy, albeit through violent means. Valdemar was crowned on June 21, 1340, after the regent, Gerhard III of Holstein, had been killed in a popular uprising. The name Margareta bore great significance in the Danish royal dynasty. In 1298, her grandfather’s sister Margareta—a daughter of the Danish King Erik V—married the king of Sweden, Birger Magnusson. The second Margareta in the Danish royal family was her paternal aunt, the sister of Valdemar IV, who married Margrave Ludwig V of Brandenburg. Princess Margareta, the future union queen born in 1353, was the fourth child to receive that name. Preceding her was a sister, also named Margareta (1345–1350), who had died in childhood. The fact that the same name was used again in 1353 for the next daughter to be born illustrates its symbolic value in this line of the Danish royal house. In 1363, at the age of ten, Margareta was married to the King of Norway, Hákon VI Magnusson (1341–1380, king 1355–1380), who from the period 1362–1364 also reigned as co-monarch of Sweden. Through her marriage to Hákon VI, Margareta was 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Scandinavia, into modalities of cultural authority and lordship in the North, and the ways in which sound—specifically, the ringing rhymes of these romances—can draw the ear and exert political influence.


queen of Norway and—for a time at least—the titular queen of Sweden as well. They had only one child, a son named Olof, who was born in 1370. When King Valdemar IV of Denmark died in 1375, only one of his six children—Margareta—survived him. One of his sons and two of his daughters had died in childhood, while the other son, Christoph, duke of Lolland, lived to be twenty years of age but never married; he died in 1363. Another daughter, Ingeborg, survived to adulthood and married Duke Heinrich I of Mecklenburg, bearing him four children; but she, too, died young, at the age of twenty-three in 1370. The sole male heirs to Valdemar IV were his two grandsons—one born to Margareta, the other to Margareta’s sister Ingeborg. She had married Duke Albrecht II of Mecklenburg, and the elder of the two grandsons was Ingeborg’s son Albrecht IV of Mecklenburg, whom Valdemar named in a treaty as his heir. It appears that the treaty was never properly ratified, however, and the Danish barons and electors were not predisposed to accede to the deceased king’s wishes. Despite the fact that Albrecht IV had equal claim to the crown and had already reached the age of majority, a few weeks after Valdemar’s death, the Danish royal council elected the other grandson, Olof, as king of Denmark, and placed him under the guardianship of his mother due to his young age. The Danish barons had good reason to support Olof instead of Albrecht IV, because another Mecklenburgian nobleman—his uncle Albrecht III—had been elected king of Sweden in 1364, and neither the Hanseatic League nor the Danish barons saw any advantage in increasing Mecklenburg’s control over the Baltic region by granting it the Danish throne as well. In November 1375, following the death of her father Valdemar IV, Margareta began to assert a claim to the title of queen of Denmark. She signed charters under the title “by the grace of God the queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway,” which she used in alternation with the more conventional title “by God’s grace the queen of Norway and Sweden, and the daughter and heir of lord Valdemar.” 17 At Olof’s coronation in 1376, his charter was signed by the new king and his parents: . . . Olauus dei gracia Danorum, Sclauorum, Gothorumque rex . . . Haquinus, dei gracia rex Suecie et Norwegie, et Margareta, eadem gracia regina ibidem . . .18 When Olof’s father Hákon VI died in 1380, the Norwegian title passed to Olof as well. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Nearly a year later, on August 3, 1387, Olof died suddenly at the age of 17 following a brief illness. Since the death of Hákon VI in 1380, Margareta had ruled in Denmark and Norway as a queen regent with a royal council, holding the monarchy for Olof until he reached the age of majority. Before his death Olof had set his sights on Sweden as well, asserting a claim to the throne through his descent from Hákon VI; in 1385, for example, he signed a charter under the claim to be ret arving til Sveriges rige [lawful heir to the kingdom of Sweden]. Olof’s death was a calamity for the antiMecklenburgian faction, for Hákon VI had left no other heirs and Olof himself had neither married nor sired any children. Thus the lawful successor to the Norwegian throne appeared to be none other than Albrecht III—the current king of Sweden—and in Denmark the succession seemed destined to pass to Albrecht IV of Mecklenburg, the son of Margareta’s sister Ingeborg. This scenario would have brought about the unification of all three Nordic kingdoms under Mecklenburgian rule. Olof’s death exposed the hidden vulnerabilities in the Danish laws of succession, but Margareta’s options were limited.19 There was no provision in medieval Danish law for a woman to ascend to the throne, which meant that Margareta could not simply assume the titular authority she had repeatedly claimed for herself in her royal charters. Instead, the Danish laws stipulate that a new (male) king must be elected. This election never happened. What took place instead, one week after Olof’s death, was a complex series of negotiations and proclamations that set the scene for Margareta’s eventual rise to power as the union queen of all three of the Scandinavian kingdoms. With the vote of the Danish stormænd, Margareta was named the titular head of the Danish kingdom and recognized as futlmechtech fruwe . . . husbunde . . . gantze righens af Danmark formunder [sovereign lady and head of the household, and guardian of the entire kingdom of Denmark].20 Hers was a unique and unprecedented status, one with no foundation in Nordic law. Significant in this definition of Margareta’s rulership is the way in which gender is reflected (and deflected) in the roles she shall play as sovereign of Denmark. Margareta will wield the power and authority of a man (she is husbonde [lord] of the Danish realm, here stylized as if the kingdom were an estate), but as the fuldmægtige frue [sovereign lady] of Denmark, her power finds expression in terms that are gendered female. In addition, she shall act 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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as the formynder in Denmark [guardian of the kingdom], a genderneutral term. While Margareta’s unprecedented powers may well have been richly deserved on account of the “great wisdom God had given her,” according to a fifteenth-century chronicle, it is certain that the political calculations of the Danish stormænd played a significant role in this decision.21 Albrecht IV of Mecklenburg still held a valid claim to the throne of Denmark, and the concerns held by the Danish barons and the Hanseatic League in 1375 about the ascendancy of Mecklenburg still remained twelve years later. In light of these tensions, it appears that the nomination of Margareta to reign as the sovereign lady of Denmark sidestepped the prohibitions in the medieval law code against solitary female rule, yet held true to other prevailing customs for reigning women in the North—namely, that their authority is rooted in their status as queen regent. This holds true even for the situation in 1387, after the death of Olof, for in the documents appointing her to the throne Margareta was promised the fealty of the Danish barons “until the day when she and we agree to elect and appoint a king, with her and our advice and full will—and [we] will not deprive her of our service and help until she with our own will refers us to the king, who she and we choose with her and our advice and will.”22 According to this provision, Margareta will reign as the placeholder for a son who is yet to be named; she is in a real sense a queen regent in absentia. In granting Margareta the right to name her own successor, the stormænd simultaneously limit her ability to place him upon the throne without their consent. After receiving sovereign authority in Denmark, Margareta began turning her sights northward toward Sweden, where decades of misrule had left the Swedish nobility polarized and antagonistic against the Swedish king, Albrecht III of Mecklenburg. Whereas in decades past Margareta had claimed for herself the title of queen of Sweden, based on her husband’s rule in that kingdom during the interregnum of 1362–1364, in the 1380s she took steps to check Albrecht’s power in some borderline territories in Scania where Sweden and Denmark held competing claims. When a group of influential Swedish stormän sent her a letter in 1388, asking for her to intervene in Sweden’s affairs and liberate them from Albrecht’s oppressive rule, Margareta seized the opportunity. Following a series of negotiations with the rebellious Swedish stormän, Margareta sent an army into southern Sweden in February 1389. At the battle of Falköping, her forces defeated 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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1389: Die beati Mathie apostoli procurante et auxiliante Deo, in cuius manu pendet omnis victoria, commissum est grande bellum inter regem Suecie Albertum et Danos, in quo corruerunt multi milites et militares vidilicet dominus Parow, capitaneus Norwegie, et Fikko, capitaneus Kalmarnensis, milites strennui et alii quamplures ex utroque latere, et captus est rex Suecie Albertus et filius suus Ericus ac comes Holsacie Gerardus et comes de Repiin cum 20 militibus et aliis non paucis nobilibus, qui omnes per nobilissiman reginam Margaretam missi sunt captivi in Daciam videlicit reges in compedibus et nobiles eorum in manicis ferreis; Deo laus in secula, qui dedit victoriam inopinatam in manu femine.23 With the help and aid of God, in whose hand all victory lies, on the day of St. Matthew the Apostle a great battle was fought between the king of Sweden, Albrecht, and the Danes. In the course of this battle many knights and armed men fell, such as lord [Henrik] Parow, leader of the Norwegians, and Fikko, the bailiff of Kalmar, and other valiant men from both sides. Albrecht, the king of Sweden, was captured together with his son Eric, and Gerhard the count of Holstein and the count of Ruppin, with twenty knights and others no less noble than they. And all of them were sent as captives by the noble Queen Margareta into Denmark, the king in shackles and his noblemen in iron fetters. Praise be to God, who delivered this unexpected victory into a woman’s hand.

This chronicle entry from the Danish Annales Scanici characterizes Sweden as a gift that God has placed into a woman’s hand. As argued in chapter five, however, I suggest that it was not the hand but the voice that laid the groundwork for Margareta’s victory in 1389—or more precisely, the voice and the ear. Because the backing of the Swedish barons was crucial for Margareta’s success, she had in the months prior to the invasion in February 1389 exchanged a series of signed charters with the barons, promising to respect Swedish law and return the kingdom to its former greatness if they grant her their support.24 These charters purport to speak for Margareta, bringing her assurances to the Swedish people “as if I myself am speaking to you”—boilerplate rhetoric, perhaps, in the language of medieval diplomacy, except for the fact that Margareta’s sovereign voice was a Danish voice and the charters were drafted and circulated in Swedish. Through this transformative act, which altered her political voice to make it more palatable to Swedish audiences, we glimpse something of the importance 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Albrecht and took him prisoner. The events of the battle were recorded in a Danish chronicle from the province of Scania.


of vernacularity and the power of citational speech in this latemedieval setting. Additional examples of Margareta’s instrumentalization of voice as an agent of politics become audible in the verses of an Old Swedish political allegory that was written shortly before Albrecht III was defeated by Margareta’s forces. I offer some evidence that this allegory can be linked to a Swedish ally of Margareta—perhaps one associated with Vadstena, center of the Birgittine order in Sweden—and suggest that it advanced her political goals in much the same way as did the charters she sent into Sweden in advance of her invasion in February 1389. In this brief, rhyming poem, known by the title King Albrecht, echoes of the prophetic rhetoric of St. Birgitta lend the political critique an added resonance of female authority.



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SOUND, VOICE, AND VOX: THE ACOUSTICS OF THE SELF IN THE MIDDLE AGES

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hat is voice? How is the voice embodied in—and expressive of—the self? In what way can the voice function as an agent of self-fashioning? And to what extent is the political voice (such as that of a medieval queen) a mediated phenomenon? These questions guide the inquiry in this chapter and lay the foundation for the discussion about the constitution of the queen’s political status in medieval Scandinavia. We begin by examining medieval theories about the body and the voice, about the distinction between vox and sonus, and about the embodied and ensouled voice. An overarching concern is to understand how the audible voice is able to express—or transfer? or invoke?—a sense of authority.1 The voice is a complex cultural phenomenon, one that resists attempts by modern as well as medieval commentators to limit and define it.2 It is far too easy to stipulate that, as the vocal expression of self, voice simply is. Rather, it is more accurate to state that the voice happens: it is an acoustic event that is birthed in the body yet emanates from it; it travels through space yet remains insubstantial; and through the ears of the auditors—which include the speaking self as well—the voice enters the body again. Produced by the body, voice is inextricably linked to the corporality of the body as well: its timbre and volume, its dynamics and overtones (both harmonic and emotional alike) serve to project the materiality of the speaking body into a cultural space. And because the voice moves—it is dynamic, it imposes itself upon the listener— voice is likewise more than the acoustic equivalent of gesture. It has both an insistence and a persistence that signify far more than that which the body, acting in silence, can express.



CHAPTER T WO


It is likewise an oversimplification to speak of the voice, for there are many different iterations of it. We are intimately familiar with the personal voice, the ruling voice, the gendered voice, the proxy voice, the appropriating voice, the citational voice, and many others, yet because the voice is coexistent with speech, we cannot—except in the rarest of cases—discuss the reach and agency of the voice without consideration of the language spoken. For the historical period examined in this book, the Nordic kingdoms during the late thirteenth century to around 1400, the vernaculars of Old Swedish and Middle Low German took on a signal importance as agents of political and social affiliation, and therefore the role played by the vernacular voice—a voice that speaks to others who speak likewise, a voice of consonance—will be carefully considered. As an acoustic phenomenon, the voice creates a sense of sonic community that has audible and palpable limits. But as we shall see, by manipulating the cultural properties of the voice and altering the parameters of its “broadcast” the political voice is able to exclude as much as include, to separate out as much as draw in. Reconstructing the poetics of the medieval voice is the task of this chapter; establishing the parameters by which the queen’s voice can become audible is its overarching goal.

The Eye and the Ear The voice, like any sound, travels outward from its source. Hearing thus aids us in localizing objects in space. Vision accomplishes this as well, but there are important epistemological differences between visual and acoustic processes of localization. To begin, vision implies distance; the things we see remain “out there.” Audition, in contrast, presupposes an unsettling closeness. The linear distances separating the viewer and the object are clearly and instantaneously perceived by the eye, but the ear, in contrast, is notoriously unreliable at assessing distance acoustically. Heard sounds, as Smith points out, “penetrate the body of the listener,” resonating not only in the ear but also in the ribcage and in the bones of the skull. Every sound that reaches the ear is therefore doubled, it is simultaneously “out there and in here at the same time.”3 The essential duality that is intrinsic to sound—the fact that its acoustic properties originate at the source but also resonate 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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outward through space—has implications for the power of acoustic representation in medieval Europe. A fundamental contrast between vision and hearing as sensory perception can be defined as the difference between distancing and bringing near, between vision as a positional and hearing as a relational cognition; that which is seen is held apart, but that which is heard cannot be kept at a distance. Commenting further on the difference between sight and hearing, Handel argues that listening “is centripetal; it pulls you into the world. Looking is centrifugal, it separates you from the world.” 4 Because of its ability to separate and hold distinct, the eye holds a privileged place in the establishment and reification of hierarchies of power, as demonstrated in the Middle Ages by the ostentation of courtly ceremony, the performance of rituals, or the rhetoric of displeasure that colors medieval lyric whenever the courtly lady refuses to glance at the supplicating poet; in each case, the viewing subjects are estranged and kept “in their place” through the power of the gaze. It is the linearity of sight that enables the construction and reification of visual hierarchies of power in the Middle Ages.5 Sound, by contrast, is not linear, and thus it seems ill-suited to carry out the hierarchizing work of vision. Unlike the eye, the ear cannot be directed to one particular vector, because sound fills its environment, reaching all ears equally and privileging none. In spatial terms, a sound creates an auditory field that resembles a sphere, with the epicenter marked by the origin of the sound—by a handclap, the bark of a dog, the strike of a church bell. The boundaries of its reach are delineated by the perceptual thresholds of hearing.6 Sound is therefore characterized by its surroundability and its continuity: it resonates, echoes, reverberates, and enfolds the listener. This should not imply that sound—or the voice—is incapable of fixating the listener, however, nor should we assume that acoustic representation is necessarily imprecise, fuzzy, or approximate. The concept of the three-dimensional acoustic field offers us a useful model for understanding how sound can nevertheless serve as a medium for the expression of power, for depending on how these acoustic fields are created or manipulated, the listener is by turns granted access or shut out—not because of the audibility or the inaudibility of any particular sound, but rather due to the degree to which that sound holds cultural or political resonance for the auditor. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Sound, Voice, and Vox


At its most basic level, then, the act of listening “is accepting presence.”7 To listen is to expose the self to these resonances, embracing them and incorporating them in the literal sense. For this reason listening is not the same as hearing. The latter term describes a physiological process involving the anatomy of the ear and the cognitive processing of the relevant areas of the brain; it is sensory reception. Listening, in contrast, presupposes a degree of contact and intellectual engagement that goes beyond the corporeal. By connecting listening with presence, Smith highlights the degree to which sounds are suffused with an immediacy unlike that which pertains to the distances invoked by visual perception. Sound brings near, it serves as a medium; it conveys presence. Voice and presence are likewise intimately connected. But the voice, as a special subcategory of sound, raises additional questions. Can a voice be merely listened to, or is the voice inevitably heard? How is presence created, mediated, or embodied through the voice? And since the voice is usually heard by an Other, what remains of the Self when it enters the acoustic field through the voice—and what happens to this Self when the voice that carries it is not its own? In each of the chapters that follow I engage with these questions, analyzing how a queen’s political voice is constituted and broadcast, and and I trace the resonances of royal authority that persist even when the queen’s voice is separated from her person. Instead of documenting examples of royal speech in thirteenth- to fifteenth-century northern Europe, this book attempts to broaden the inquiry by going past the actual voices that Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta spoke with and considering, instead, how their political calculations and royal prerogatives were brought into the public sphere—into the acoustic spaces of the Nordic courts—through the voices of poets, translators, and scribes who served as proxies for the queens themselves. By focusing on this performative essence, on the piggyback dynamic of the queen’s voice-within-voice, we are able to discern how the twin notions of presence and embodiment enable voices to carry out political work in the Middle Ages. We shall see that the connection between voice and embodiment is durable and enduring. A key argument of this book holds that the queen’s voice can survive the act of proxying through others and still remain viable. Thus I want it to be clear that these poets—Rumelant von Sachsen, the translator of the Eufemiavisor in Norway, or the anonymous fifteenth-century author of King 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Albrecht—were not merely speaking for the queens whose interests they represented, but in a real sense speaking as them; speaking with the queen’s tongue, in other words. Acknowledging this transference of voice from one throat to another does not require us to assume a priori that the queen’s voice is therefore intrinsically disembodied or estranged, nor do the disassociations between the poetic tongue and the queen’s actual voice require us to adopt a deconstructed theory of the voice. I suggest instead that the royal voice has a permanence, a persistence, but also a fundamental flexibility that allows it to be channeled, archived, and embodied in written media such as charters, political poems, or courtly romances and yet still remain audible and politically authoritative.

Sonus and Vox Sound is perplexing. Even the word itself is difficult to pin down. In the philosophical and musical tracts of the Middle Ages, the word sonus is used to signify the vast field of undifferentiated sounds that are not meaningful in any specific sense.8 But there are limits to what the term sonus can encompass. Sonus was not used to denote “noise,” however, for there was no Latin expression for this type of undifferentiated disquiet. Instead, noises in Latin were described precisely, according to their qualities: terms such as strepitus [crash], clamos [outcry], crepitus [clatter], convitium [angry outburst], timulus [tinkling], and fragor [crashing] indicate that sounds are classified on the basis of their acoustic signature. The English word “noise”, probably derived from an Anglo-Norman root, has an uncertain etymology that could be linked to “nausea” or to the root of the term “noxious”—an acoustic phenomenon, in other words, that is disorderly, disorienting, unpleasant.9 For the medieval West, questions about the nature of sound led back to Aristotle, whose writings on the phenomenology of sound and hearing in De Anima were highly influential. Aristotle’s discussion of sound as one of the five external senses—alongside smell, sight, taste, and touch—is found in sections 419b4–420a2 in the second book of De Anima.10 This work, one of the pioneering studies on the phenomenology of the senses, was chiefly known through paraphrases and commentaries rather than in its entirety. Up until the 1260s, the transmission of De Anima was accomplished through the translations authored by Arabic 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




intermediaries such as Avicenna (980–1037), Algazel (1058–1111), and Averroes (1126–1198).11 Aristotelian phenomenology was also disseminated through influential commentaries on De Anima penned by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas in the early to mid-thirteenth century. The foundation of the Aristotelian understanding of sound holds that it is caused by motion. Without movement, however diffuse or subtle, there can be no sound: Actual sound is always of something in relation to something and in something; for it is a blow that produces it. For this reason it is impossible for there to be sound when there is only one thing; for the striker and the thing struck are different. Hence the thing that makes the sound does so in relation to something; and a blow cannot occur without movement.12

Sound is said to be caused by percussion or by movement: by the clapper striking the bell, by a glass shattering on the floor, by the wind whistling through the bare branches of a tree. In order for sound to be produced there must be at least two objects brought into contact with one another, for if there is only one object no sounds will be generated; this would leave us with the famous Zen koan that asks, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” Boethius follows Aristotle in associating sound with motion and percussion, but he alters the definition by characterizing sound as “a percussion of air” that “remains intact up to the point of hearing.” These “pulsations” of air are what the ears detect, not sound per se, for sound exists only inasmuch as it is carried by air.13 Albertus Magnus introduces a further refinement, underscoring the mediated nature of sound by defining it as a “cleavage in the motion of air” that exists with and within it; sound is that which is produced and carried by motion, not necessarily solely through percussion.14 The subtle distinctions introduced by Boethius and Albertus Magnus are carried further by Thomas Aquinas, who rejects Aristotle’s notion that motion and sound are one. Instead, for Aquinas sound is caused by the air being struck and put into motion. Because sound is created by the striking of air rather than the collision of two objects, that which can be heard is by definition only indirectly connected to the objects being struck; it is only in the air that sounds become audible. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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The variability of sound is determined by the manner of percussion and the physical properties of the objects that strike one another. Whereas flat, smooth, thin, and rigid materials like bronze are highly sonorous, other objects such as wool, hair, or sponge are not. No matter how hard or how swiftly these soft objects are struck, they still fail to produce much (if any) sound, for, as Aquinas suggests, the porous and flexible material lacks sufficient rigidity to produce the “pulsations” of air Boethius considers necessary for the creation of sound.15 The difference between bronze and wool as sounding objects reinforces the extent to which percussion and motion are truly the agents of sound. This is proved by a counterexample—a bell touched softly with a wooden mallet—which brings forth a small sound that is proportional not to the materials of the objects (wood and metal) but instead to the force of the strike. This same example, a bell struck softly, demonstrates that sound occupied a tenuous position in the medieval theory of sensory perception. Sound is not intrinsic to its object, and it does not reside in matter in the same way that other sensibles did—such as the color red being innate in a ripe strawberry, or spiciness within a Szechuan peppercorn, or, for that matter, the heat in a flame or the stink in sulfur. Aquinas takes note of these differences, observing that “Color, smell, flavor and tangible qualities [touch] have a permanent and fixed existence in their subject . . . [but] sound is caused by motion. It does not have a fixed and stable existence in the subject, but consists as a kind of impression.”16 Because sound is produced only through change (immutatio)—either as the result of motion or percussion—its origins prove difficult to define, and the medieval West continued to grapple with its elusiveness. A sense of frustration is palpable in Albertus Magnus’ review of past writings on the issue of sound, when he writes that propter hoc auctoribus non invenitur expresse determinatum, quid sit sonus [none of these authorities is able to define exactly what sound is].17 There is no consensus in the learned writings of the medieval West because sound is paradoxical: it is as much a medium as a sensible phenomenon, it exists in two places at once (at the source and in the air) and its amplitude and quality can vary to an extent that other sensibles, such as touch (ice is always cold), cannot. And finally, because sound is created only through motion and percussion, the potentiality of sound that rests innate in every 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




object dwells there in silence, not simply inert but essentially nonexistent. In a very real sense, sound remains un-sound until it is sounded. The ontological crisis caused by sound’s elusiveness is rooted in the realization that all sound is essentially disembodied. There is nothing intrinsically “stony” in the clank of two river rocks against one another, nothing “wooden” reaching the ears in the sound of a falling tree thumping upon the ground, because the objects give off nothing of themselves when they make sound. This stands in marked contrast to the medieval understanding of vision, taste, and smell as sensory phenomena, that each of these perceptions conveys some essential element of the object’s quality to the eyes, nose, or tongue—be it tiny rays of “greenness” from the lily pad that shine into the eyes to form the color green, or invisible particles of lavender from the blossoming fields that register in the nose as an odor. These qualities emanate per se from the objects themselves without any external impetus.18 By contrast, one of the unique properties of sound is its detachment, what we might term its estranged resonance. This is, in other words, the paradox that obtains when the ear perceives the chime of the church bell to be the sound of the bell rather than what it actually is: the sound of the air—Boethius’ “pulsations” again— set into motion by the striker banging the edges of the oscillating bell. It seems, in sum, that the agency of sound is predicated upon a deceptive and elusive bait-and-switch, in that the mind believes it is hearing objects that do not actually produce the sounds we hear. At least on the conceptual or metaphysical level this would seem to severely limit the effectiveness of sound as a medium of cultural or political representation. If that which is heard is not actually present, then how can sonus—or, for that matter, the voice—convey presence? Aristotle had an answer for this. He maintained that the voice is indeed embodied in a way that sound is not; or rather, to be precise, that the voice is not as much embodied as it is ensouled. In De Anima, the voice is characterized as a special subcategory of sonus. It is believed to carry with it the breath of spirit of its speaker, the pneuma that rests at the core of the soul and gives it life. Voice therefore conveys to the auditor an articulation of the soul itself. One of the first commentators on the distinction between vox and sonus was Regino of Prüm (ca. 900), who wrote in his De harmonica institutione about the importance of the soul 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Quamquam itaque omnis vox sonus sit, non tamen omnis sonus recte vox dici potest. Ea igitur creatura, quae vitali spiritu asspiratur, vocem reddit, quae vero pulsu, ictu vel flatu inpellitur, sonum.19 Although every iteration of vox is considered to be a sound, not every sound can be called vox. For every ensouled creature that draws breath has vox, but that which is struck or plucked or blown through produces sonus.

Aristotle’s statement about the relationship between speech and written language as universal symbols of the soul is a familiar one for scholars of rhetoric and semiotics, but the root of this argument rests, once again, in the ways in which the soul is manifested in the voice. For Aristotle, the common ground for the articulation of vox is found in the soul. Now spoken sounds [i.e., those uttered by the voice] are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of spoken sounds. And just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of—affections of the soul—are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of—actual things—are also the same.20

In the Aristotelian sense, only ensouled beings can have vox because only they are imbued with the pneuma of spirit. Musical instruments such as the pipe or lyre can approximate vox when played skillfully, yet because these are soulless objects their emulation of the voice falls short of the true standard. Some animals, too, are capable of producing vox in their barking, lowing, or roaring, but bloodless animals such as insects or crustaceans cannot emit vox, and neither can fish, for none of these breathe by means of respiration and therefore they lack the quality of pneuma.21 Despite the fact that vox is a distinct form of sonus, the production of voice takes place according to the same parameters that apply to sound. Vox is also created by the movement of air caused by percussion, in De Anima this is defined as “the striking of the inbreathed air upon what is called the windpipe due to the soul.”22 These last words—due to the soul—remain enigmatic in Aristotle’s description, and Aquinas, observing that Aristotle’s definition of the production of vox was somewhat incomplete, attempted to fill the gap. In his commentary, Aquinas responds 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


as a characteristic of the voice.


to a number of different problems relating to sound (among them, whether it is preferable to define sound as motion or as the result of motion) and clarifies the involvement of the soul in the production of voice. Aquinas first recapitulates Aristotle’s view before inserting his first caveat about the causation of vocal sound. Dicit ergo primo quod, quia vox est sonus animati et ex illa parte qua aerem respirat, omnis autem sonus est ex aliqua percussione aeris, sequitur quod vox sit percussio respirati aeris ad arteriam vocalem; quae quidem percussio fit ab anima que est in hiis partibus, id est principaliter in corde. Quamvis enim anima sit in toto corpore ut est forma animalis, tamen vis eius motiva est principaliter in corde. Datur autem hec diffinitio per causam: non enim vox est percussio, sed sonus ex percussione causatus.23 So first, because a vocal sound is the sound of something with soul and it comes from the part by means of which one breathes in air, whereas every sound comes from air’s being struck, Aristotle says it follows that sound is the striking of air breathed in against the windpipe. This striking is produced by the soul that is in these parts—i.e., chiefly in the heart. For although the soul is in the whole body . . . nevertheless its motive force is chiefly in the heart. This definition, however, is given in terms of the cause. For it is not that sound is striking, but that sound is caused by striking.24

For Aquinas, the defining feature of vox is the engagement of the soul in the torso (the heart) that sets the air into motion. This perspective is thoroughly Aristotelian in nature, but Aquinas appears to take issue with the fact that De Anima fails to explain how the soul becomes engaged in the production of voice. This deficit is addressed in Aquinas’ next segment of his commentary, under the heading “That a vocal striking comes from the soul.” It is here that Aquinas makes explicit how vox and vocal production are linked to the agency of the soul. Oportet enim, ad hoc quod sit vox, quod verberans aerem sit aliquid animatum et cum ymaginatione aliqua intendente ad aliquid significandum; oportet enim quod vox sit sonus quidam significatiuus, vel naturaliter vel ad placitum, et propter hoc dictum est quod huiusmodi percussio est ab anima. [ . . . ] Et sic patet quod vox non est percussio respirati aeris, sicut accidit in tussi, sed id cui principaliter attribuitur causa vocis est anima que utitur isto aere, scilicet respirato, ad verberandum aerem qui est in arteria ad ipsam arteriam; aer ergo non est principale in vocis formatione, sed anima que utitur aere ut instrumento ad vocem formandam.25



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For if there is to be a vocal sound, what forces the air [i.e., against the windpipe] must be something with a soul, along with some imagination intending to signify something. For a vocal sound must be a certain significant sound, either naturally or by convention. This is why it was said that a striking of this sort is “by the soul.” [ . . . ] And so it happens that vocal sound is not the striking of air breathed in, as happens in the case of a cough. Rather, we chiefly attribute the cause of vocal sound to the soul that uses the air (the air breathed in) in order to force the air in the windpipe against that windpipe. Therefore the principal source of a vocal sound’s production is not air, but is rather the soul that uses the air as an instrument in forming the vocal sound.26

In Aquinas’ model, the two objects striking one another to create sound are the aspirated breath and the windpipe. But not any aspirated breath will do. The cough, for example, fails to rise to the status of vox because as an involuntary contraction of the larynx it lacks the intentionality that only the soul can convey. It uses the vocal cords, but not the soul that can make them speak. Voice, then, is defined as a vocal sound meant to convey the thoughts or intentions of the intellect. The Aristotelian formulation of this principle (which remained influential through the end of the Middle Ages) therefore defines voice as a sound with significance. In the paraphrase by Albertus Magnus this concept appears as Significativus quidem sonus est vox.27 Later commentators debated the nature of this significance. One of these, a thirteenth-century scholar of music theory, articulates the series of interlocking questions about voice, the soul, and the intellect. Viso de sono in generali videndum est de quadam eius specie famosa, scilicet de voce; et hoc secondum particulas positas in eius diffinitione. Primo de particula prima: quod vox est sonus animati? Secundo queritur de illa particula principali que dicit, quod vox est sonus animati, et hoc cum ymaginatione significandum? Iuxta hoc queritur de illa particula que dicit, quod significativus sonus quidam est vox?28 Having investigated sound in general, we must investigate a certain remarkable type of sound, namely voice, and we must do this according to the clauses laid out in its definition. The first point of inquiry concerns the first clause, that voice is the sound of a being with a soul. The second point of inquiry concerns that important clause which states that voice is the sound of a being with a soul




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The summary in this treatise harmonizes the Aristotelian viewpoint with the refinements introduced by Aquinas by arguing that vox est repercussio aeris respirati facta ab anima ad vocalem arteriam circa partes pulmones cum ymagine significandi [Voice is the repercussion of respirated air moved by the soul to the vocal artery in the windpipe, which signifies something of the intellect].29 The agency of the soul as an instigating force is secured. Roger Bacon’s discussion of the nature of voice elaborates further on the connections linking voice with the intellect. De voce intelligendum est quod non generatur ex collisione duri com duro sed ex motione spirituum ad vocalem arteriam, et in hoc differt a sono inanimatorum, sed etiam cum ymaginatione, quod non fit in sono inanimatorum. Et videtur . . . quod omnis vox esse significativa. Sed considerandum est quod significare potest esse dupliciter, aut communiter aut proprie. Communiter est idem quod representare aliud, sicut effectus representat causam suam, et sich vox prolata representat similitudinem et ideam suam in anima proferentis, sicut domus facta representat ideam eius in anima, et hoc modo significat eam, et sic omnis vox prolata significat, id est, representat seipsam conceptam et ymaginatam apud proferentem. Si sumatur significare proprie secundum quod dicitur vox significativa naturaliter vel ad placitum, sic non est significativa. De tussi vero, intelligendum est quod generatur in apertione gule et oris et exspiratione, et propter hoc non figitur aer neque tenetur in tantum ut formentur littere vel sillabe in eo ad vocalem arteriam, sed est sonus non figuratus neque formatus in litteris.30 Voice must be understood not as that which is produced by the collision of something hard with something hard [i.e., by two sonorous objects] but rather by the motion of breath toward the windpipe, and in this respect it differs from the sound of inanimate things, but also in respect of imagination, that which does not occur in the sound of inanimate things. And it seems . . . that every voice has signification. But it must be considered that the word “to signify” has two meanings, a common one and a proper one. The common meaning of “to signify” is the same as “to represent something else”: just as an effect represents its cause, so too does a voice that is brought forth to represent its likeness and form in the soul of the one who brings it forth; just as a built house represents its form in the soul (sc. of the builder), and in this way “signifies” it, so too does every voice that is brought forth “signify,” 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


and moreover with an imagination directed towards signifying something. Alongside this there is a point of inquiry concerning the clause which states that voice is a sound with signification.

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that is, “represent,” itself as conceived and imagined in the mind of the one who brings it forth. If “to signify” is used in its proper sense, according to which a voice is said to have signification naturally or by convention, then voice does not have signification. But a cough must be understood as that which is produced in the opening of the throat and mouth and exhalation, and on account of this the air is not checked nor restrained to such a degree that letters or syllables are thereby formed for the windpipe, but rather it is a sound neither shaped nor formed in letters.31

The limits of vox are thus drawn according to intelligibility and intentionality. Lacking these, the voice is just a sound. Just a sound—but nevertheless a powerful and beguiling one. For Augustine, the beauties of the human voice were a source of irritation and a stumbling block for the contemplative soul.32 While Augustine’s mistrust of sensuality is on the one hand broadly congruent with the reservations expressed in the letters of St. Paul about the weak and willful flesh, his suspicions about the voice do not originate there. It is clear from De civitate Dei that Augustine welcomed music’s ennobling influence as an expression of divinely ordained harmony; there is much in it to gladden the heart and the soul.33 Augustine refers to the “. . . rhythm of relationships, the ‘harmonia’ as the Greeks would say, whereby the whole body, inside and out, can be looked at as a kind of organ with a music all its own.” This passage suggests a figurative rather than a literal interpretation, for there is little praise here for music as an acoustic phenomenon.34 Rather, Augustine celebrates the orderliness and proportion of music as a metaphor for proper relationships that resound in concert with one another when attuned to God. Augustine’s foremost concern rests with the seductive power of the vox corporis, the audible voice emanating from throat and tongue. It is when the speaker or singer takes delight in the vox corporis that the soul is led astray, and as a result of this waywardness the pure and incorruptible voice of the intellect—the vox mentis—is unable to speak unencumbered, even though its speech remains silent, never manifesting itself acoustically as audible sound at all.

Vox as Embodiment While there was widespread agreement among medieval authorities that the voice is an ensouled sound, the notion that the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




acoustic properties of the voice nevertheless possessed a physical reality was advanced already by Vitruvius (d. circa 15 BC). Vitruvius maintains that the voice carries within it the physical trace of the soul, suggesting that vox is much more akin to a material substance than simply a sequence of parcels of air. By describing voice as vox autem est spiritus fluens aeris, e tactu sensibilis auditu [the flowing breath of the air, perceptible to the hearing by means of touch], Vitruvius constructs a model of acoustic perception in which the voice stimulates the ear as touch does the skin. Thus it is not only in the metaphysical sense but also in the physiological sense that actual contact takes place. What makes Vitruvius’ theory distinctive is his argument that vox is able to transmit the physical essence of its object—the speaker—in a way that sonus is incapable of doing: the anima which gives the voice its resonance is physically present in the “flowing breath of air” that enters the ear of the listener. According to this definition, vox exists not only as an ensouled phenomenon but also as an embodied presence. This model never entered the mainstream of medieval thought, and the predominant theory upheld the essential non-corporality of vox. At the same time, however, if we acknowledge the persistence of the soul as the agent of the voice and the workings of the intellect as its inspiration, there is certainly ample justification for regarding the voice as a medium of presence. Regardless of how it is defined—as spiritus or anima or as ymaginatione—if that which resonates in the voice reaches the ear and moves the listener, then it follows that vox, alone among all possible iterations of sonus, conveys something of the sounding object—the speaker—to the auditor. This principle of the conveyance of presence through voice is crucial for the argument advanced in this book: that the voice serves as the articulation of authority. In order to continue in this line of reasoning we must first consider how the voice was understood in the Middle Ages as a medium of presence, one that transmits to its listeners the ymaginatione of its source.

Vox Articulata The Latin term vox had a narrower semantic range than sonus, but it was likewise used to delineate far more than simply the spoken voice. Several different types of vox are discussed in the literature, some human and some reserved for beasts, some intelligible and some unintelligible. In the wake of Aristotle’s writings in De 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Anima about the nature of the voice, vox was regarded as a sound with significance, and yet the nature of that significance—what form it took—was rarely defined. As we shall see, the medieval understanding of the voice as a sound that resonates with the ymaginatione of the speaker is predicated to a large extent upon the voice’s intelligibility. There is, therefore, a hierarchy of the voice: that which can be understood and acted upon stands as the highest degree, while that which is audible yet unintelligible—such as speech in a foreign language or the moanings of a delirious invalid—represent a lesser form of voice. The significance of vox as a vehicle for lordship in medieval northern Europe is therefore deeply caught up with the issue of language—specifically, with the cultural and political alliances that are articulated and defined through the use of the vernacular. With regard to “vernacular politics,” the thirteenth century was a particularly vibrant era for this region of medieval Scandinavia, for this period saw not only the development of Old Danish and Old Swedish as literary languages but also the introduction of Middle Low German, the trade language of the Hanseatic League, as a third and trans-regional “vernacular” for elite cultures across the North.35 Somerset and Watson have demonstrated the importance of approaching vernacularity as a complex matrix of social and cultural self-identifications caught up in language and measured out in degrees of language difference. Instead of upholding the typical hierarchies that relegated the vernacular to the bottom of the cultural scale—low culture vs. high, unlearned vs. learned— their research encourages us to seek out new metaphors of difference that cannot be broken down into convenient dichotomies. Some common definitions of vernacular include: 1. A subaltern or local language or style, one accessible to a particular, generally nonelite, group.36 2. A national language that acts as a focus for the cultural and political aspirations of a people and their rulers, for underprivileged and privileged alike: the mother tongue.37 3. Vernacular as neither local nor national, but universal: the common tongue.38 In the first definition, the relevant distinction is drawn between learned and unlearned language, whereby the latter is typically classified as vulgar, provincial, rustic, rudimentary, natural, or 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




carnal. What makes this distinction difficult to uphold in the courts of thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Scandinavia is the existence of overlapping vernaculars, each with their own adherents and speakers, each with their “in group” and their “outsiders.” In later chapters we will examine the role played by Middle Low German as a literary language in late-medieval Denmark, and consider further why the Norwegian court of Hákon V wanted literary works that “sounded Swedish” in the early fourteenth century; and lastly we will discuss how Swedish poets and translators exploited the vernacular instabilities that undermined the reign of the German-born king of Sweden, Albrecht III, who was toppled from the throne in 1389. In each of these cases, Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta took steps to broadcast their political objectives— cloaked as they were in literary verse or formulaic language—in a vernacular that was held in higher regard than the idiom that was spoken by ruling elites. In these examples the foreign tongue (the encultured tongue) takes a higher status. The second definition cited argues that the vernacular is tied to place and belongingness: it is the idiom that is spoken here. For the Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish courts, however, vernacularity cannot be tied to one specific national tongue that is localized within the borders of each kingdom, for each of the courts had contact with other Nordic or non-Nordic vernaculars that overlapped with the national language and complicated the relationship between language and loyalties. In this plurality of vernaculars, then, lay a wealth of opportunity for new modalities of political representation, for vernaculars assert a specific orientation; they pull their speakers into alignment with the cultural and political factors that exist wherever that tongue is spoken. For queens, too, who often married across linguistic and cultural borders, the issue of the intelligibility of the voice is likewise a charged issue. The language in which the queen “speaks” in the works sponsored by her court connotes a great deal of cultural and royal authority; it seeks to ingratiate as well as to discipline. Vernacularity, then, takes vox into the realm of speech, and with this step comes our focus on speech as a political agent.

Vox and Intelligibility: How to Speak Some of the earlier commentators on voice such as Isidore of Seville, Boethius, and Alcuin addressed the relationship between 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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vox and speech. Isidore divided vox into two distinct categories, vox articulata and vox confusa. The former is the voice of rational human beings, while the latter, vox confusa, represents the sounds produced by beasts and birds that draw breath yet utter sounds that are too disorderly or undifferentiated (cf. confundo “mixed”) to convey meaning. Isidore’s explanation of the difference between the two breaks the distinction down to the interplay between sound and signifier. If the writer is able to transcribe the vocalizations by using the Latin or Greek alphabet, then the voice is defined as articulata; if not, the voice is described as confusa with regards to its representability (articulata est, quae scribi potest, confusa quae scribi non potest).39 Alcuin’s elaboration upon this model attempted to shore up a weakness in Isidore’s analysis of the nature of the voice. Alcuin acknowledges that some types of vocalization can indeed be transcribed with the letters of the alphabet even though the utterance, as written, reveals no specific meaning. For this reason Alcuin introduced in his Grammatica the terms litterata and illiterata, which deal exclusively with the question of written transcription. [Vox] articulata est, quae copulata atque coarctata cum sensu profertur, ut: Arma virumque cano [ . . . ] Inarticulata, quae a nullo sense profiscitur, ut crepitus, mogitus. Litterata, quae scribi potest; illitterata, quae scribi non potest.40 The vox articulata is that which is brought forth linked or bound up in meaning, such as “I sing of arms and the man” [ . . . ] The vox inarticulata is not linked to any such meaning, such as a rattling noise or a rumbling sound. Litterata is that which can be written, illitterata that which cannot be written.

In Boethius’ De musica, the speaking voice is characterized as vox continua, by which is meant that the speaker is free to modulate his or her voice according to the rhythms and intonations of natural speech and not according to any fixed pattern or modality, such as those that governed medieval plainchant. Boethius describes the singing voice, in contrast, as vox cum intervallo suspenda, a voice that is limited or “caught” within a specific tonality or plainchant mode. Because the musical vox is not an improvisatory one—the harmonies and modes upon which medieval music is predicated are neither haphazard nor tolerant of deviation—it differs from the vox articulata of speech, which remained free from any formal restrictions regarding pitch, interval, or tonality.41 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




Rationality and writability remain the predominant qualities by which vox was evaluated in the medieval West. The late-medieval treatise Nova musica by Johannes Ciconia represents the fullest flowering of this approach. The distinctions Ciconia draws evaluate the voice according to the categories articulate vs. inarticulate (i.e., does the voice convey verbum, or “the sense [or meaning] of a sound”) as well as literate vs. illiterate (i.e., is it possible to transcribe the sound in letters). For the sake of comparison the four divisions are reproduced here, with a “+” signifying the presence of a quality, “–” its absence. If a vox is . . . + articulate + literate + articulate – literate – articulate + literate – articulate – literate

Æ the sounds of intelligible language, such as “arma virumque cano”, “Pater, mater” “Petrus, Johannes,” etc. Æ the moaning of the sick (a call for help or signal of pain), men whistling to call a dog (beckoning) Æ “crox, cra cra”, the voices of crows, some birdsong, some animals Æ rattling, lion roaring, oxen lowing, creaking of doors, grinding of teeth, rustling of trees42

The fourfold distinction expands upon the earlier definition of articulate (as denoting an utterance that can be captured in written language) by introducing a subtler test, namely whether or not the vox conveys an intelligible meaning. With this focus on verbum, Ciconia safeguards against the possibility that some obviously human and therefore significant vocalizations such as whistling, clicking, or groaning—sounds that carry meaning yet do not use words—might fall into the omnibus category of confusa and thus be classified as a lower category of vocalization, below that of birdsongs, which, notwithstanding the fact that they are formally classified as inarticulate, still manage to remain rational in their use of pitches and repeated sonic patterns. The concern about verbum as the fundament of human speech explains why the intelligible vox must be placed at the highest level of the hierarchy. As Leach explains: “the utterance must itself be verbally meaningful (and not just rational because its pitches are numerate or literate); second, it must 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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be generated intentionally from the sensus mentis of a rational speaker, which means that he or she must be human and selfconsciously deploying the faculty of reason.” 43 Leach’s summary of these refinements in the understanding of vox clarifies that by the end of the fourteenth century, “meaning is now privileged over writability.” 44 The establishment of a hierarchy of vox by medieval music theorists provides a useful model for framing the investigation of how voice and vernacular intersected in the courts of medieval Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The act of speaking is revealed as being only the first impulse in the hermeneutics of the voice. Equally important (to medieval music theorists and philosophers as to us) is the intelligibility of that voice: its reception by the ear. It is the act of hearing that closes the hermeneutic loop. The premise of this book holds that there was a great deal of political advantage to be won in thirteenth- to fifteenthcentury northern Europe in the manner in which the queen’s voice is made audible: in which literary forms, through which intermediaries, and in which idiom. Let us consider, for example, the decision by Queen Eufemia of Norway to sponsor the translation of courtly romances into Old Swedish rather than Old Norwegian, the language of her court. Here the cultural power of the queen’s literary patronage is embedded in a corpus of romances that through their use of a foreign vernacular are made strange to the courtiers at the Oslo court. The works— among them a version of Chrétien’s Yvain and the Old French Flores och Blanzeflor—are quite literally in the wrong voice. At the same time, however, the Old Swedish versification used in these romances is suffused with an ideological and cultural resonance that is highly attractive to the Swedish noblemen whom Eufemia seeks to win as potential suitors for her infant daughter. On the one hand Eufemia’s sponsorship of a translation into Old Swedish represents a deliberate estrangement, an improper utilization of the royal vox that neglects the prevailing idiom of her court. Her allegiances, it is plain to hear, are suspect; the voice of sovereignty has been devalued. But seen from the opposite side of the equation, from the perspective of the Swedish nobility, the Eufemiavisor function as the vehicle for a new and politically engaging vox that draws the ear—and the political goodwill—of a new audience of influential courtiers that are attuned to its significance. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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The discussion thus far demonstrates that, in the medieval West, voice is not synonymous with power. It is granted that the voice, like all sounds, is imbued with an essential aggressiveness and immediacy—it invades the ear, which cannot be closed off from it—but the act of speaking, which brings the significance of the soul into the acoustic sphere, also represents an exposure of the self. The vulnerabilities that are constituted in the voice and in the act of speaking are a central theme in Mladen Dolar’s discussion of the contested relationship between voice and embodiment. His approach, highly informed by Lacanian analysis, stands in opposition to Zumthor’s more robust assessment of the voice as an aggressor. Zumthor argues that the voice demonstrates in equal measure “exhibition and gift, aggression, conquest, and hope for victory over its adversary [ . . . ],” 45 while with Dolar, a focus on the vulnerability of speech allows the inquiry to sidestep the default position of most evaluations of voice in literary or cultural contexts, which is to regard the voice as a tool for measuring the speaker’s strengths or weaknesses—a tendency that is all too visible in medieval studies, perhaps most especially in studies of medieval women where the classic dichotomy that contrasts agency to speak vs. prohibitions against speech remains the dominant paradigm.46 I call attention to this paradigm not to deny the reality that the medieval West enacted a vast array of anti-women discourses and injunctions against women’s speech that restricted a woman’s ability to voice herself as a man would, but following Dolar we are justified in asking whether “speaking strongly” or “speaking despite . . .” or “barred from speaking/voiceless” were indeed the only relevant choices. Drawing on the notion of extimité, Dolar argues that the voice is an uncanny phenomenon that projects and exposes in equal measure, for “. . . the sender of the voice, the bearer of vocal emission, is someone who exposes himself, and thus becomes exposed to the effects of power which not only lie in the privilege of emitting the voice, but pertain to the listener. The [speaking] subject is exposed to the power of the Other by giving his or her own voice, so that the power, domination, can take not only the form of the commanding voice, but that of the ear.” 47 To speak, then, is to create one’s own Other in the guise of the listener. Dolar argues that the auditor’s power of



Embodiment and the Vernacular

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hearing trumps the speaker’s ostensibly privileged status, for if beauty rests in the eye of the beholder, why shouldn’t the ear of the auditor likewise have some degree of agency over that which it hears? If we consolidate Dolar’s views with those of Boethius, Alcuin and other medieval authorities we recognize that it is in reception—not merely in the act of speaking—that the voice is able to manifest its innate power. Dolar’s notion of the listening Other complicates the function and influence of vernacularity in this multilingual context in medieval northern Europe. The provocative use of an improper vernacular (in Eufemia’s case) is one example that won political advantage for the Norwegian court. Another example can be found in the political instrumentalization of the mystical discourse of Birgittine prophecy in late-fourteenth-century Sweden, which worked to Margareta’s advantage in her campaign against Albrecht III. A third rests in Agnes’ patronage of the poet Rumelant von Sachsen, whose native tongue was not Danish but Middle Low German, the same idiom that Agnes spoke as a northern German noblewoman. Each of these choices overcame cultural divisions predicated upon language. By deliberately engaging not with the Other but with the Similar, by bringing about a series of self-exposures in acoustic terms, the queens helped to define the listening communities that were sympathetic to their political messages. These auditors were not just hearing the queens, but rather listening to them.

Voice and Speech: Remnants of the Word The pioneering work on voice as a constitutive element of medieval poetics was done by Paul Zumthor. He introduced the concept of “vocality” as a challenge to uncritical scholarly assumptions about oral-formulaic composition and orality (however loosely defined) as a universal characteristic of medieval literary practice.48 The debate about orality, oral-formulaic composition, and the relationship between tradition and innovation in the poetic or epic mode is a lengthy one, and cannot be adequately summarized here.49 The term “vocality” is nevertheless useful, inasmuch as it draws attention to the valence and influence of the poetic utterance in medieval literary culture. By conceptualizing the poetic voice as the medium within which the performer and the audience are united in a single performative/interpretive unit, Zumthor is able





to define the “referential force” of a poem as being determined by the “contact between the people bodily and together present at the performance.” 50 In Zumthor’s model, the voice is therefore intrinsically citational and performative, a transmitter of connotations and inferences anterior to it. In its acoustical context it is resonant with shades and nuances of inflection that only its primary audience, the medieval listener, could fully appreciate— meanings that are only partially recoverable (or audible?) from the written sources that survive. Our attempts to reconstruct the acoustic presence of the medieval voice thus lead inevitably (and inelegantly) to the written record. With respect to the presence of the medieval voice in that medium, the difference between orality and vocality as conceptual models is analogous to the difference between bricks and clouds. A defining principle of oral-formulaic theory holds that discrete poetic phrases and highly typified narrative set pieces (otherwise known as formulas) are cited by the poet—perhaps unknowingly—and embedded in new works. Not only do these formulas anchor the work within the living tradition, but they also serve as touchstones for modern critics seeking to evaluate a work’s indebtedness to its tradition. Like grave goods unearthed in an archaeological excavation, oral-poetic formulas identify the When and the Where a medieval work fell silent upon the manuscript page. Zumthor’s interest in vocality inverts this approach. Instead of focusing on that which has allegedly survived in the written text, set and mortared into place by the handworker poet, the critic’s attention is directed toward that which has faded away: to the lost sound of the poet’s performative voice. While it cannot be denied that poetic formulas (regardless of whether or not they represent “orality”) make visible the poetic matrix within which the work lived and moved, our awareness of them is mediated of necessity through the written text, a medium that cannot convey the depth and sonority, the realms of inflection and nuance conveyed by the poet’s voice. Zumthor insists upon the reality of these resonances, inflections, and overtones embodied in the performative voice, even if they are unrecoverable. The medieval text thus transmits “nothing but an empty form” that presents a “profoundly distorted” view of the richness of the medieval performance.51 Our inability to discern this vanished potential is unfortunate, yet unavoidable. Unlike poetic formulas, which can be isolated, cataloged, and cross-referenced to such an extent that 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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they begin to resemble genetic markers in a poetic genome, vocality stands for a host of cultural and acoustic significances bound up in voice that are unrecoverable. Whatever shared sonic sentiment once existed between poet and audience is irretrievably lost, as all sounds inevitably are when they fade to nothingness. Medieval texts, in Zumthor’s view, are “carriers of a discourse that we no longer hear.” 52 Acknowledgement of this loss is no cause for despair. Instead, here likes the justification for the contradictory optimism in Zumthor’s concept of vocality, and its most pressing methodological challenge. Just because these discourses are inaudible does not mean they have been erased; indeed, the texts continue to be “carriers” of meaning over and above the textual, even if the discourses once transmitted and received vocally are now mediated through the written record. What I propose in the chapters of this book is to consider additional dynamics of “carrying” in medieval poetic practice that differ from those postulated by Zumthor. While the concept of vocality is driven by assumptions about the existence of a lost and irretrievable harmonic that once existed between medieval poet and medieval audience, my focus, in contrast, is on the resonances of an alternate harmonic, one that was modulated—above all in overtly political works in the Middle Ages—in the acoustic interplay between the voice of the poet and the voice of the patron. The dynamics of medieval literary performance that brought the work into the acoustic field, especially the modalities by which the performative voice was articulated, received, and interpreted in the courtly settings of medieval Scandinavia, are of greater interest here. Instead of asking how a poet “gives voice” to the patron’s political and cultural objectives, we must consider the voice in its literal sense, as an audible phenomenon possessed of a resonant embodiment. In the situations faced by the medieval queens of this study—each of them responding to a political or dynastic crisis—I demonstrate how Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta capitalize upon the mediating and acoustic properties of voice to articulate their political agendas through an act of proxy speech. The poet does not speak for the queen as much as the queen speaks through the poet, the embodiment of her lordship remaining not just metaphorically audible and resonant. Thus, to turn Zumthor’s notion of “carrying” back upon itself, I suggest that the resonances transmitted by the poet’s performance involve a great deal more than the literary or cultural overtones in which the medieval work lived and 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




breathed. The performance of works suffused with unquestionably political and partisan sensibilities also transmit—in a very real sense—the essence of the patron’s voice. Understanding the scope and limits of the queen’s political voice in the medieval North requires us to pay closer attention to the interplay between the poet’s performative voice and the underlying vox mentis of the patron. As argued earlier, medieval music theory and natural philosophy articulated a set of parameters that defined vox as an acoustic phenomenon that was more than a sound yet less (in some circumstances) than a vehicle for intelligible speech. Of critical importance is the notion that vox is the conveyance of intellect through the workings of the mouth, lips, throat, and— above all—the soul. Due to its ensoulment and its production in the windpipe, vox is therefore, in contrast to sonus as “sound,” hardly disembodied—but what remains to be seen, in later chapters, is to what extent royal authority (the ymaginatione of the queen) can be vocalized and broadcast through the throats and mouths of others: through the poets who speak with them and for them.

Conclusion Having traced the theorization of vox from its Aristotelian definition through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, some questions remain. Aristotle’s definition of voice as a sound with significance proved to be remarkably durable despite centuries of adaptation and commentary. Its fundamental veracity was never seriously challenged. But with reference to the medieval queens of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, who mobilized the voice as an agent of political power, we may well ask not what significance is heard but whose significance is made audible in the voice, for inasmuch as the voice is not synonymous with power neither is it synonymous with the Self. Thus we must adjust our approach to inquire not only into the phenomenon of speaking but also into the highly charged matter of “speaking with” in the Nordic Middle Ages—to examine how the voice is channeled through intermediaries, competing idioms, different registers of articulation and intelligibility. On these wavelengths, above all others, the queen’s political voice became audible.



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“YOU DANES MUST DO AS I SAY . . .”: QUEEN AGNES AND THE REGICIDE OF 1286

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ueen Agnes of Denmark was widowed on November 22, 1286. On this date her husband, King Erik V, was assassinated after having spent the day hunting on the Danish peninsula of Jutland, near the town of Viborg. According to contemporary accounts, the king had retired for the evening and was lying in his bedchamber. The attackers struck under cloak of darkness. After the deed, the assailants melted away into the countryside and were never apprehended, although six months later an inquiry held by the Danish royal council found several leading men of the realm—who were almost certainly innocent of the deed—responsible for the king’s death. These men were banished from Denmark. A succinct overview of the murder, its consequences, and its impact on the Danish monarchy is found in a Low German chronicle, the fourteenth-century Detmar Chronik from the city of Lübeck. A passage for the year 1286 records the identities of all of the prominent male actors in this sordid crime—the victim, his sons, his rival, the perpetrators, and the foreign king that grants exile to the accused murderers. It does not mention Agnes. In deme sulven jare in sunte Cecilien nachte wart koning Erik van Denemarken van sinen mannen mordet uppe sineme bedde. dre sone he let: Eriken, Christophere unde Woldemere. Erik dat rike besat unde wart in deme winachten cronet. he was vil jung; des wart de hertoghe Woldemer van Sleswic vormundere des rikes. ume den mord des koninghes ward de marschalk Stich besproken unde vordreven ute deme lande, unde mit eme vele der besten Denen. de enthelt de koning to Norweghen.1 In that same year on the night of St. Cecelia, King Erik of Denmark was murdered in his bed by his men. He left three sons: 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


CHAPTER THREE

Queenship and Voice: Northern Europe Erik, Christopher, and Valdemar. Erik was granted the kingdom and was crowned during Christmas. He was very young; thus Duke Valdemar of Schleswig was named the guardian of the kingdom. For the murder of the king, Marshal Stig was blamed and banished from the land, and with him many of the best Danes. They were taken in by the king of Norway.

It is the nature of chronicles to be brief, to distill a series of events into a few choice sentences, and this account from Detmar Chronik is no exception. The compressed narrative in this entry presents a seamless sequence of events that gives the impression that the murder, the succession, the judicial proceedings, and expulsion of the alleged conspirators played out in Denmark in just a short time. In fact, the process took several tumultuous months, from late November 1286 through the festival of Pentecost in May 1287, when the banishment was proclaimed and the regency for the young Prince Erik VI began. Because the murder of Erik V changed the nature of Agnes’ lordship utterly, we need to examine it closely and evaluate its impact on the expression of Danish royal power. The entry in the Detmar Chronik about the regicide of 1286 will serve as our introduction to the historical, political, and cultural discourses that confronted Agnes during this moment of crisis. Only after the facts of the matter have been established can we read between the lines, as it were, to discover how Agnes’ response to the murder sought to move Danish elites toward a specific course of action. As we shall see, she accomplished this by speaking to her Danish subjects in a language that was not their own.

In deme sulven jare in sunte Cecilien nachte wart koning Erik van Denemarken van sinen mannen mordet uppe sineme bedde The account in the Detmar Chronik confirms what more than a dozen Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and German annals have reported about the murder: that on the night of November 22, 1286, the 37-year-old king of Denmark was brutally stabbed to death while sleeping in his bed in the town of Finderup, near the cathedral at Viborg, Denmark. Although the Detmar Chronik assigns the blame for the king’s murder to sinen mannen [his own retainers], in actuality the assassins were never brought to 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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justice. The crime is still, to this day, considered an unsolved case.2 Given the conspiratorial nature of the murder, fabulation soon began to color the reports in the Danish and German chronicles— much of it unflattering to the late king, who was held in low esteem by the monks and scribes that kept the monastic chronicles in Denmark. One chronicler summed up the reign of Erik V in a few bitter phrases, writing that the king “did much that was evil in despoiling churches . . . he neglected the laws of Jutland . . . and let the monasteries that his father had founded for himself and for the good of his heirs be despoiled by dogs and horses.” 3 Such injustices against the church—be they real or exaggerated—were hardly grounds for murder, but a more serious charge is leveled by the Annales Lubicenses, a Lübeck chronicle from the early fourteenth century. This chronicle passes on a rumor that Erik was killed on account of his lascivious ways; the deed was done causa suae incontinitiae, ut dicitur.4 Another chronicle, the Annales Dano-Svecani 826–1415, builds upon this negative assessment of the king’s character. It reports that the murder was an act of vengeance against a king who had assaulted and deflowered many of the kingdom’s noblewomen—among them (allegedly) the wife of Stig Andersen, the king’s marshal, a man who was later banished for his alleged involvement in the murder.5 The accusation of lasciviousness echoes through the account in the Chronica Jutensis as well. In this fourteenth-century chronicle from Jutland, the scribe explains that the fatal blows that Erik received were carefully targeted and loaded with symbolic meaning. According to this chronicle, Erik was “killed by men in his own retinue near Viborg, as he slept in his bed, in the night of Saint Cecilia in the year 1286, in the twenty-seventh year of his reign. He was buried in the cathedral at Viborg. He was dealt fifty-six mortal blows, of which none landed below the chest save one.” 6 Unusual in this account is the scribe’s exactitude in recording the precise number of blows, fifty-six in all, that struck the unfortunate king. After providing this one critical detail, however, the scribe of Chronica Jutensis declines to be more specific, preferring to leave it to the reader’s powers of deduction to determine where on Erik’s prone body the single, solitary strike below the chest must have landed. There is no independent confirmation in the historical record that any of the charges leveled against Erik V in the Danish 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Queen Agnes and the Regicide of 1286


and northern German chronicles were rooted in fact. Instead, the accusations of lasciviousness, adultery, and impiety likely take their inspiration from an unflattering folk etymology of the peculiar nickname that Erik V came to receive after his death. Given the onomastic tradition in the Danish royal family to reuse a small series of names in every generation (Erik and Valdemar, especially) it was common for contemporary sources to distinguish predecessors from successors through the use of a distinctive cognomen. The roots of these names are occasionally obscure. While the grandfather of Erik V, Valdemar II (d. 1241) was known as Valdemar Sejr [the victor], for example, his uncle Erik IV was called Plogpennig [plow-penny]. The tradition continued after Erik V as well: his son Erik VI was known as Erik Menved [one knows, or perhaps “certainly”], while the nephew of Erik VI, who reigned as king of Denmark from 1340–1375, was known as King Valdemar IV Atterdag [second-day]. The earliest record of a nickname for Erik V is found in the Annales Ripenses from the monastery at Ribe, in which the last entry is dated 1323. In the account about the murder in 1286, which is assumed to be relatively contemporary with the event, Erik is called Rex ericus . . . qui dicebatur Gleppingh [the one known as Glepping].7 This is yet another instance (together with the ut dicitur phrases recorded elsewhere in Danish sources) of a monastic record book preserving the common opinions of the day. The etymology and meaning of the term Glepping is disputed. It might have some connection to clipped sheepskins (known as Klepping), although for what purpose is unclear. Another etymology would link the name to the minting of underweight or counterfeit coinage, which could convey the notion that Erik was guilty of “clipping” the edges of coins at the royal mint. Another theory holds that the surname is derived from the verb glippen [to blink], which would characterize Erik V as a shifty-eyed and untrustworthy king. In light of Erik’s perceived infamy in the postmortem sources, however, the most accurate assessment would link the surname Glepping to the Old Norse-Icelandic verb glepja, meaning “to confound or beguile.” Following this etymology, the deceased king had earned the reputation of “the deceiver” or, if we take inspiration from the charges of lasciviousness leveled against him in several contemporary accounts, perhaps the surname should more accurately be translated as “the seducer.”8 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Despite the relative ubiquity of the surname “Glepping” in Danish sources, there is no indication that it was used during Erik’s lifetime. It appears to be a posthumous invention, an epitaph set upon the reign of a king who was, by any sober judgment of the historical evidence, mistrustful of the power of the church and antagonistic toward the Danish barons. The charges of sexual misconduct contained in the medieval Danish chronicles may therefore be a cipher for deeper, less comprehensible tensions that colored the memory of Erik V. Notwithstanding the accuracy of the charges, however, they presented Agnes with significant challenges in her quest to rally the Danish barons to support her son in the months following the murder in 1286, because the candidacy of Erik VI as the successor to the throne depended in large part on how Erik V was remembered. Thus we will see that the process of memoria that began during the winter of 1286 sought not only to commemorate the king as the rightful sovereign in Denmark but also to rehabilitate him in the eyes of his subjects. In order to counter what was spoken in Denmark about the murdered king (dicitur quod . . .), Agnes had to introduce an alternative voice into the political arena.

[D]re sone he let: Eriken, Christophere, unde Woldemere The Detmar Chronik now turns to the matter of royal succession. Agnes bore Erik V three sons—Erik in 1274, Kristoffer in 1276, and Valdemar after 1277 (the exact date is unknown). The succession would not have been contested had the murder of Erik V occurred only a few years later, when Erik had reached the age of majority. But in 1286, Erik, the eldest, was only twelve years old and therefore too young to assume the throne as rex regens in his own right. Despite the steps that Erik V took to secure the legitimacy of his young son in the years prior to the murder, the lordship of the prince-designate rested on a weak foundation. In the late thirteenth century, Denmark had an elective monarchy, although the elections were largely pro forma. The electors of the Danish kings were the stormænd [lit. great men], among them the lesser nobles, landed aristocracy, and other elites of the realm. The lordship of the stormænd as political entity was recognized in Danish law, and in particular the stormænd exercised control over the election of kings, a 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




constraint on royal power that held it—in theory, if not in practice—in check. By the middle of the thirteenth century, their influence over the election and coronation of Danish kings was largely ceremonial, however, for beginning with Valdemar II many kings began to name their chosen successors during their reign. These young princes, still well below the age of majority, were presented to the stormænd for acclimation, thus securing the pledge of Danish elites to acquiesce to the king’s wishes in matters of succession. This is what occurred in 1259, when Erik V was presented at the age of ten for acclimation by his father, Kristoffer. In a fourteenth-century Latin genealogy of the Danish kings, the event is described with the words regem cum communi consensu omnium heroum designavit et omnium militum facto eidem hominio designatum confirmavit.9 In this context, the verbs designavit and confirmavit reveal much about the balance of power in Denmark in the latter half of the thirteenth century. Erik V tried, and failed, to win the same acclimation for his own son, Erik VI, in 1276. The king was unable to secure the approval of one of the prominent lords of the realm. When the two-year-old Prince Erik VI was announced as successor by his father, the king’s chancellor, Stig Andersen, publicly disapproved of this action and refused to endorse it.10 This was one of the early signs that relations between Erik V and the stormænd were strained, and that the succession of his son, Erik VI, was the chief source of their discontent.

Erik dat rike besat unde wart in deme winachten cronet. he was vil jung; des wart de hertoghe Woldemer van Sleswic vormundere des rikes The chief rival for the Danish throne in the aftermath of the assassination was a cousin of Erik VI, Duke Valdemar IV, grandson of King Abel of Denmark (d. 1252). In 1283, Valdemar IV was named duke of Schleswig by the stormænd—an honorific title that, according to Danish custom, identified him as the preferred candidate to succeed the king. The Danish Chronica Jutensis notes that in the months following the murder in November 1286, Valdemar’s political position was considerably stronger than that of Agnes, the widowed queen. And while the crown passed (provisionally, at first) to the young Erik VI in the aftermath of the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Ericus . . . successit patri in regno. Qui quia multum iuvenis erat, dux Valdemarus, habens fautores plerosque nobiles regni, iuveni regi multum insidiabatur.11 Eric . . . succeeded his father as king. But because he was very young, Duke Valdemar, having a majority of supporters amongst the nobles of the realm, did much to harry and undermine the young king.

The Danish annals have no record of a coronation ceremony for Erik VI during Christmas of 1286, although the wording of this chronicle entry suggests that some degree of formal succession had taken place, with Duke Valdemar IV as regent. Notwithstanding this agreement, Valdemar’s belligerence during the interregnum period soon flared up into armed conflict. The Chronica Jutensis records that Agnes, together with a small number of noblemen, stood loyally by the young king. Duke Valdemar, in response, launched an assault that took them prisoner. Sed regina Agnes, mater regis, prudenter se gerens, ac aliqui nobiles, quorum corda Deus tetigerat, constanter pro rege stabant. Propter quod dictus dux habens secum pociores regni, occurrit regine in Skalskøør [ . . . ]. Sed pugna ibi orta inter homines regine et ducis, dux cepit reginam; que infra paucos dies per subtilitatem manus ducis evasit.12 But Queen Agnes, the king’s mother, conducting herself wisely, stood firm with the king together with other nobles whose hearts God had touched. In response the aforementioned Duke, having the best men of the realm on his side, clashed with the queen at Skelsør [ . . . ]. During the battle at that place between the queen’s men and those allied with the Duke, he captured the queen. But within a few days she escaped the Duke per subtilitatem manus.

The chronicle notes that Agnes was soon able to escape from captivity per subtilitatem manus—[through a clever deception, lit. “a deft touch”] but the significance of this remark is unclear. It could be interpreted as a testament to Agnes’ resourcefulness in the defense of her young son or an indication of her strong will, but there is perhaps also the whiff of an old stereotype about feminine wiles and the unconventionality of female power. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


assassination, Valdemar committed himself to a vigorous opposition, as noted in the Chronica Jutensis.

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Entries from the year 1287 in two Danish chronicles indicate that the stormænd were divided over the topic of the murder of Erik V. Orta est magna dissensio inter meliores regni de morte regis.13 . . . stante gravi dissentione inter procures regni de morte regis.14

The chronicles offer no specifics about the nature of the controversy or the source of the “grave disagreements” that had so captured the attention of the stormænd. We can surmise, however, that since none of the killers had officially been captured, there was surely a great deal of chatter among elites in Denmark about the facts of the murder and about possible suspects among the opposition. But it is equally possible—indeed, probable, given the uncertainties surrounding the issue of royal succession at the time—that the differences in opinion were not solely retrospective in nature (i.e., “who did it?”) but also fueled by anxieties about the future (i.e., “what shall we do about it?”). In accordance with medieval Danish law, the stormænd would soon be compelled to act in response to the murder once the issue of succession came to the fore; they would be forced to choose sides. Because the aftershocks from the assassination were still rumbling through the Danish political landscape, choosing was risky. Whoever stood unprotected, on uncertain political ground, could easily be toppled once the Danehof, the annual Danish parliament, convened and the final decision on the future of the monarchy was reached. According to tradition, the Danehof was held at Pentecost each year, and in 1287 this fell on the first Sunday in May. No protocol has survived from that meeting, but the results of the judgment condemning the murderers of Erik V has survived in multiple sources. The Danehof rallied behind the young Erik VI, and nine alleged conspirators were blamed for the murder of Erik V.15 These men were Count Jacob of Halland (the cousin of Erik V), Stig Andersen (the former marshal of Erik V), the knights Niels Hallandsfar, Peter Pørse, Peter Jakobsen, Åge Kakke, Niels Knudsen, Arvid Bengtsen, and the king’s chamberlain Rane Jønsen. The Annales Lundenses claims that this decision was unanimous (pace ex consensu totius regni ipso die penthecostes).16 Following the verdict, the men 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


ume den mord des koninghes ward de marschalk Stich besproken unde vordreven ute deme lande, unde mit eme vele der besten Denen. de enthelt de koning to Norweghen

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were banished from Denmark and prohibited by treaty from taking refuge in lands ruled by Denmark’s allies. Thus it came that eight men associated with the crime left Denmark and were formally received into the protection of the Norwegian crown by King Eirik II Magnusson and his brother, Duke Hákon Magnusson on June 25, 1287.17 The issue had been laid to rest. In winning the support of the Danish barons, Agnes had to overcome significant challenges to her lordship from Valdemar IV, the favorite of the stormænd, even as she attempted to convince those same stormænd to support the dead king’s chosen successor, the young Erik VI, against the pull of Danish law and tradition. In the next section I will argue that Agnes’ success on the political front was due in large part to her ability to project her voice—through the mediation of a poet—into the political and legal discourses that dominated Danish courtly society at the time. She accomplished this by sponsoring the composition of a series of political poems that were performed in Denmark by a northern German poet named Rumelant von Sachsen, one of the most prominent didactic poets of the late thirteenth century. Rumelant’s verses excoriate the murderers and condemn the brutal regicide: they speak directly to the Danish people and tell them what they must do. In these poems we find a remarkable demonstration of the extent to which poetry and the voice—specifically, a northern German voice—emerged as potent vehicles for royal authority in thirteenth-century Denmark. At the same time, however, the degree of consonance between Agnes’ political speech and Rumelant’s performative speech must be carefully considered, because both of them spoke Middle Low German as their mother tongue. Although Rumelant speaks as her proxy in these poems, it does not follow that Agnes’ voice is therefore delivered unchanged—or more precisely, acoustically unenhanced—to the ears of her Danish subjects. I argue that the cultural wavelengths of Rumelant’s stanzas condemning the murder broadcast something of Agnes’ royal voice as well. Her voice, then, was caught up in his: a complex yet affecting political and cultural harmonic.

Rumelant von Sachsen Rumelant von Sachsen (his surname means “The Saxon”) was one of the most prolific didactic poets in the medieval German tradition.18 Rumelant’s poetic corpus contains 108 Sprüche [didactic 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




poems] and 3 Minnesang stanzas, which are preserved in four manuscripts: the Codex Manesse (C), in the Jenaer Liederhandschrift ( J), in the Wolfenbüttler Fragment, and in the Maastrichter Fragment.19 The series of six stanzas about the Danish regicide are found only in J. Rumelant is best known for his broad corpus of Spruchdichtung (from Spruch “speech, declamation”), which comprises one of the three main genres of medieval German lyric, alongside Minnesang and the religious or devotional lyric. The earliest Spruchdichtung stanzas date from the years around 1200, but the genre reached its full bloom only toward the middle of the thirteenth century.20 In matters related to form, style, diction, performance, and milieu, Minnesang and Spruchdichtung held much in common: a stanzaic form, the use of complex rhyme schemes, a distinctive melody and sung performance in a courtly setting, and, to a large extent, a common lexicon of courtly terms and rhetorical turns. The thematic distinctions between the genres were by no means absolute in thirteenthcentury practice; Spruchdichtung stanzas praising the Virgin birth or calling for piety and humble repentance are not uncommon, and even the topic of love—if approached from a distance and presented didactically—could serve as the subject of a Spruchdichtung stanza. Many of the didactic poets styled themselves as itinerant singers that traveled from court to court, performing their stanzas before generous patrons and audiences eager for instruction and courtly entertainment. A classic turn of phrase by the earlythirteenth-century poet Walther von der Vogelweide defines the purpose of this lyric genre: the poet’s role was to instruct his listeners wie man zer werlte solte leben [the proper way to live in this world].21 A stanza by another thirteenth-century didactic poet, der Meißner, reflects upon the itinerant lifestyle of most Spruchdichtung poets even as it finds a sense of moral superiority in the poets’ mission. Ez vraget maniger, waz ich kunne. Ich spreche ich bin ein lerer aller guoten dinge. Unde byn ein ratgebe aller tugent ich hazze schande. We dem, der myr eren vergunne. Ich bin vurstendienist of gnade lied ich singe. Unde byn der eren pilegrym secht in manigem lande.22 Many men ask me what I do: I tell them that I am a teacher of all good and proper things and a defender of virtue. I despise whatever is base.



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The conservative and moralistic tone that is characteristic of Spruchdichtung can easily be demonstrated in Rumelant’s corpus. His poems that praise das recht leben [the proper way of life] ( J10) or den wert der feindschaft der bösen [the virtue of being despised by evil men] ( J57) instruct the audience on the proper adherence to noble virtues, while other stanzas that are firmly rooted in religious didaxis offer the audience an allegorical interpretation of Christ’s Passion ( J1), a warning to refrain from sin ( J12) and to remain steadfast in the faith ( J64), or to avoid the stumbling block of pride ( J94). Gnomic wisdom is passed on by means of exempla, such as one about a blind man carrying a candle ( J42); another describes a mounted knight who endures the curses of the peasants walking the road ( J82). Rumelant identifies himself in stanza J37 as a saxsen or native of Saxony. In this region of northern Germany—as in Brandenburg as well—Middle Low German was common as a mother tongue. His self-description as a northern German poet rings true when we look closely at the language of his stanzas in J and W (and, to a certain extent, in C as well), for Rumelant’s verses exhibit a considerable number of Low German features.23 Based on these indicators, some level of Middle Low German influence on Rumelant’s poetic idiom must be assumed, even if he did not use Middle Low German consistently (or exclusively) in every performance situation throughout his career. But for the texts under consideration here—the murder stanzas about Erik V—I will show that Rumelant used Middle Low German vocabulary to deliberate effect: both to assist the comprehension of his Danish audience and to further capitalize upon the political status that Middle Low German enjoyed in medieval Denmark. The stanzas that Rumelant composed in the aftermath of the murder of Erik V in November 1286 are probably among his last poems; they are certainly the last that can be dated with any certainty.24 These six stanzas denouncing the murder of Erik V are preserved on leaves 58r and 62rv of the Jenaer Liederhandschrift. Because Rumelant’s corpus is not available in a reliable edition,25 I will cite the poems from J, with the number indicating the stanza’s position within Rumelant’s section. Thus the stanza with the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Woe to him who refuses to honor me! I am a servant to my masters, I sing in the hope of reward and travel as a pilgrim in search of honor, lo, in many lands.


incipit on 58r Alle kunige vursten herren ritter knaben knechte will be cited as J78, with the other stanzas beginning at 62r as follows: Untruwe slichet also eyn mvs ( J101), Daz eyn getruwe steter man ( J102), Die tenschen morder haben den pris ( J103), Sie mügen wol küne recken syn ( J104), Ir morder prûbent uwern mort ( J105).

In Defense of the Monarchy: Poet, Patron, and Audience Rumelant’s stanzas J78 and J101–105 deliver a stinging indictment of the Danish murderers and the cowardly conspirators who lurked in the shadows and refused to come forward.26 These stanzas are Scheltsprüche [invective poems], a sub-genre of the didactic lyric in which the poet directs his ire at the injustices and vulgarities of medieval life. The poet condemns that which the audience and patron find to be deserving of condemnation. But as we will see, the unsettled political atmosphere in Denmark after the murder of Erik V complicated the hermeneutic of disapproval that made the Scheltspruch an authoritative expression of social mores and commonly held beliefs. For Rumelant to carry Agnes’ voice in this Danish context was not only unprecedented, it was also at odds with the poetic tradition in which Rumelant worked. The typical Scheltspruch exerts a strong normative influence. Elsewhere in his poetic corpus Rumelant rails against the lottenritter [worthless knights] ( J6), wânprofeten [raving prophets] ( J29), wuchere [usurers] ( J43), the kargen herren [stingy lords] ( J45, J48), the grozen herren valsch [the untruthfulness of the powerful] ( J85), or the vices of gyricheit, nyt, und haz [greed, envy, and hatred] ( J93). Rumelant’s critical eye was not focused solely on the rich and influential elites at court, however; he also composed stanzas that targeted fellow poets such as der Marner and Meister Singauf, whom he accused of failing to live up to the expectations of the poetic tradition. Here, Rumelant’s sharp tongue again comes into play as he pokes mean-spirited fun at his contemporaries with thinly disguised anagrams (ren ram [Marner] rynt [cow], J38) and taunting elaborations on their names, as he did to the rival poet Singauf: Singof sing abe singe hyn sing her (“Singauf [lit. sing up] sing down sing here sing there,” J87).27 Despite the fervor of Rumelant’s rhetoric in the typical Scheltspruch stanza, the sentiments expressed there are not indicative of the poet’s own views. The poetic rebukes of stingy lords and 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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loose morals, the fulminations about lawlessness on the streets and the false prophets on the byways, the critique of robber barons and swindlers and the general collapse of the medieval ordo, and even the criticisms of other poets—all of these were tropes in the itinerant poet’s repertoire, arrows in the quiver, ready to be loosed at a target in accordance with the demands of the genre and the expectations of the patron and audience. Poets earned their reward—Rumelant refers to the getruwer herren milten ougen [the generous gaze of a loyal patron] ( J47)—through the artful turn in language and the call for the restoration of order. Innovations in the lêre [lesson, teaching] that the stanza delivers were unwelcome and counterproductive, for only in matters related to poetic artistry or kunst was innovation expected, and even celebrated. A poorly chosen, unconventional, or idiosyncratic lêre, in contrast, runs the risk of displeasing the patron and offending the audience—a step that itinerant poets were reluctant to take. Because Spruchdichtung stanzas were carefully crafted to engage the ideological, theological, moral, or didactic concerns of the patron and the audience at court and give expression to them, a poet’s own views were subordinated to those held by the public. And while the poets style themselves as teachers, counselors, and masters of didactic wisdom (they styled themselves as lêrer, meisterpfaffe, râtgeber), their stanzas merely remind the audience of that which it already knows to be true. When the poet says “I,” his audience hears implicitly the pronoun “we.” 28 And herein lies the difficulty that Agnes faced in the winter of 1286/1287: the fact that her condemnation of the murderers would be broadcast to audiences that sympathized with the assassination. Entries in the Annales Reyensis and Annales Ripenses indicate that Danish elites disagreed about the murder of Erik V, and while all men of good reputation would certainly agree that murder was a sin, and regicide especially abhorrent, during the winter months of 1286 the Danes were hardly united on what this specific murder meant for the future of the Danish monarchy, or how the Danish stormænd should react to it. The polarization of Danish audiences complicated Rumelant’s task greatly, because the differences of opinion made it impossible for the poet to fulfill the traditional role of giving voice to the communis opinio, for such did not exist. Whatever lêre Rumelant might draw from the murder would be bound to displease significant portions of his audience. In this Danish context, the essential reflectivity of the Spruchdichtung 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




genre has become a liability rather than an asset. Rumelant could not serve as the didactic mouthpiece for the concerns of the entire court, because the process of identification that Spruchdichtung audiences typically engaged in was no longer valid. In the murder stanzas J78 and J101–105, therefore, we see the emergence of a different political tactic, one that acknowledged the special circumstances of the times and sought to transform the polarization of Danish audiences from a liability into an asset. Rather than attempting to seek consensus or to build bridges within the Danish community—by all accounts a nearly impossible task, given the political tenor of the times—Rumelant uses these stanzas to further polarize his Danish auditors, forcing them to choose sides. Instead of reflectivity, Rumelant offered a new and sharply drawn didacticism, one that was articulated through a poetic voice that no longer presumes to speak for the masses. Instead, it speaks, above all, for the patron. Phrases like Nv helfet rechen vns den mort [now help us to avenge this murder] and Swelich tenscher wil vnsculdich syn der tü daz ich in lere [whichever Danes wish to remain innocent, he shall do as I say] make effective use of pronouns “us,” “I,” and “he” as points of reference that help to define two distinct groups of Danish subjects: those who choose to be on “our” side and stand with Rumelant and Agnes, and those whose allegiances lie elsewhere. In Rumelant’s stanzas we catch a glimpse of the political challenges that Agnes faced. By the same token, they demonstrate how the queen, through Rumelant, critiqued them and sought to master them through the power of the performative voice. As we examine the poems individually in sequence, we shall keep our eye (and our ears) on those passages that make audible the voice of a queen in crisis.

Murder Stanzas: Text and Commentary J78 Alle kvnige. vursten. herren. ritter. knaben. knechte. In tzwen vnde sibentzich sprachen iüden. heyden. kristen. alle pfaffen. vnde leyen. lantgebur. al menschendiet Nv helfet rechen vns den mort durch got vnde durch daz rechte. Vil me wen durch des küninges tot daz reht geriht irschelle. Dem kvnige dem syn selbes volc mortlichen tot geriet Getruwen tensche livte rechet.



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uwern kvninc des habet ir lob vnd ere. Die morder meldet vnde sprechet. An ir lib daz sich ir heil vürkere Swelich tenscher wil vnsculdich syn der tü daz ich in lere. Der sol die morder helfen telgen vientlichen sere. Daz ir laster mere. Da von sing’ ich ü. diz liet. All kings, princes, lords, knights, servants, and peasants in seventy-two languages; Jews, Christians, Pagans; all clergy and laymen, farmers, all humankind—now help us avenge this murder for justice’s sake and to please God as well (more so than on account of the king’s demise), so that a proper judgment might resound. The king, whom his own people treacherously betrayed to death; loyal Danish persons, avenge your king! For this you shall earn praise and honor. Denounce the murderers and accuse them of criminal deeds, to the ruination of their souls. Whichever Danish person wishes to remain innocent, he must do as I instruct him. He should help with deadly earnest to eliminate the murderers, so that their guilt may increase. That is why I sing you this song.

This stanza opens with a universal call for sympathy and assistance, drawing the attention of the world to the deplorable situation in Denmark. Rumelant’s address encompasses all social hierarchies (alle künige vürste herren . . .), languages (In tzwen vnde sibentzich sprachen), religions (iüden heyden kristen), and professions (pfaffen vnde leyen), ending with an appeal to all of humanity in general terms (al menschendiet). Only in the second half of the stanza does Rumelant narrow the scope of his call by indicating that the murder had taken place in Denmark. But here again, the pattern set in the opening lines is maintained: Rumelant calls out to the Danish people, identifying them twice by name with the phrases Getruwen tensche livte [loyal Danish persons] and Swelich tenscher [whichever Danish person . . . ]. The rhetorical touches in this stanza reveal the contours of Agnes’ political strategy, namely to instill in the Danes an awareness of themselves as a poetic audience, but also as members of a cloud of witnesses to a great crime. Stanza J78 emphasizes the point that the regicide is not just an internal matter. The death of Erik V cannot be dismissed as the latest outbreak of the long-standing antagonisms within the Danish royal line that had already cost the lives of four kings in forty years. Rather, the killing is characterized as an event with a global audience: all eyes will now be on Denmark, watching to see what the response will be. By characterizing the assassination as a 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




crime that demands a just verdict, moreover, Rumelant works to counteract the natural tendency toward passivity that spectatorship often conveys, both among the public at large and among the stormænd in particular, who likely viewed caution and noninvolvement as the safest responses. Indeed, Rumelant’s denunciation of the murder in line six—that the king was murdered by syn selbes volc [his own people]—can also be understood as an accusation of collective guilt: that not only the king’s servants but also the Danish public as a whole is complicit in the crime. Yet after laying the guilt for the murder at the feet of every Danish subject, Rumelant quickly retracts the charge. Those who wish to prove their lack of involvement in the conspiracy are called to do so. The loyal (getruwe) Danish subject who desires to remain beyond reproach (unsculdich) is told exactly what he must do: der sol die morder helfen telgen vientlichen sere [he shall help with deadly earnest to eliminate the murderers]. The division of the audience into “good” Danes and “bad” Danes in J78 is a classic strategy of political propaganda. In this Danish context, however, it is an accurate reflection of the seriousness of the challenge facing Agnes and Erik VI in the months following the murder. Because the assassination of Erik V was carried out by unknown assailants that were still at large, the existence of subterranean intrigues and a broad conspiracy of silence stands as certain. Thus it was not only difficult for Agnes to know who was “good” in the first place, for the historical record suggests that Agnes could not prevail in the struggle against Valdemar IV and others with the cadre of “good” Danes upon whom she could rely; they were in the minority, as the Chronica Jutensis notes for the year 1287.29 The sole hope for political victory was to create more “good” Danes by changing the perception of the murder in Danish circles. Rumelant accordingly calls for those who are innocent of this shameful crime (or wish to demonstrate their innocence, regardless of previous engagements) to help to expose the murderers. The poet underscores the call for action in the last line of the stanza, which offers a blunt summary of his purpose in Denmark: “That is why I sing you this song.” In stanzas J101 and J102, Rumelant calls for a new definition of political loyalty in Denmark, one that is ruled by universal laws of virtue rather than the traditional bonds of family loyalty. Central to the stanza is the new courtly ideal of triuwe, which can be translated as “loyalty” or “mutual debt of service.”30 Here, Rumelant 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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warns the Danes that loyalty comes with risk.

Untruwe slichet also eyn mvs. In valsches mannes hertzen hus. Der sie myt willen huset Der wenet daz er werde rich. Vnde slynt den angel girichlich. her voxs der wile ir muset. So rat ich daz ir vmme sen. Ir mugent beslichen werden of der weyde. Da ir vûrliesen uwern balc. Schynt man den vngetruwen scalc. Ich troste mich der leide. Like a mouse, unfaithfulness creeps into the heart of a deceitful man. Whoever willingly shelters treachery like this fancies himself a lucky man, and lunges hungrily for the hook that snares him. Sir Fox, while you are out hunting for mice, I advise you to look carefully about you, for something may creep up on you in the hunting-fields when you depart from your sheltered pathway. If the disloyal scoundrel is killed and skinned, I’ll shed no tears over that. J102 Daz eyn getruwe steter man. Vil scalkes list weiz vnde kan. Des wil ich ym wol gvnnen Nicht meister tu die spruche hyn. Myn truwer mut myn steter syn. Sol nymmer valscheit kvnnen Neyn steter vriunt getruwer helt du must wol scalcheit wizzen unde pruben So kanstu scalken widerstan. hastu ir liste die sie han. Du ne solt ir doch nicht uben. That a loyal and upstanding man might be well versed in trickery and deceit—this is something that I will surely grant him. “That cannot be, master, cast this verse aside! My loyal heart, my noble thoughts will never turn to falsehood!” No, dear friend, steady hero; you must be able to recognize falsehood and to know its nature. Only thus will you be able to confound the deceivers, since you know the same tricks as they do. But you must refrain from actually committing an evil deed.



J101


One of the highest virtues in the medieval German spectrum of courtliness, triuwe was the key ideological engine of the Arthurian romances and courtly novels of medieval Germany. But triuwe in the courtly sense of “ethical behavior” was for the most part an unknown commodity in late thirteenth-century Denmark, because Nordic audiences had received only limited exposure to it.31 Even though several of the epics and romances of medieval France and Germany had begun to appear in Old Norse translation in the years around 1250, the Norwegian translators minimized or deleted many of the references to courtly virtues such as constancy, generosity, modesty, loyalty, and honor, which undergirded those source texts. Before Rumelant can exhort his audience to embrace the new courtly virtue of triuwe as an ethical standard, then, he must first instruct his Danish audience on what it is. Rumelant accomplishes this by describing what triuwe is not. The stanza opens by characterizing its opposite, untriuwe [disloyalty, unfaithfulness] as a creeping mouse, as vermin—it is something that will burrow into the heart of a deceitful man. Once infected or corrupted by this deadly vice, the false-hearted man is transformed into something much more treacherous for the realm: a betrayer, a conspirator, and a rash and impetuous sinner. The mice are not the only representative beasts in this stanza, however, for the fox is also present, stylized as a mouse hunter. Yet even though the fox is stylized as the enemy of the mouse, the comparison is not meant to be complimentary. In medieval folklore the fox was a trickster figure and troublemaker, one whose highest priority is self-preservation. The fox’s antagonism toward the mouse is therefore not motivated by ideology, but by hunger in the broadest sense, and when this dynamic is considered in light of the turbulent state of the Danish monarchy in the winter of 1286, Rumelant’s foxes and mice appear representative of leading actors in Denmark. The disloyal mice that creep into the hearts of otherwise neutral men represent the agitators and conspirators that plotted the murder of Erik V and sought in the months afterward to “infect” others with their disloyalty. The foxes, in turn, represent the stormænd, whose political alignments with one of the two leading factions of the Danish royal dynasty were determined chiefly by issues of self-interest, and only secondly by other allegiances; it is they who wander the fields of the Danish political landscape, seeking to still their hunger by 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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devouring whatever prey (of whichever political affiliation) that crosses them. The conceit of the stormænd playing the role of foxes in the Danish realm is not far-fetched. Clashes between the stormænd and the Danish kings had been ongoing for decades. A lasting truce that was reached in 1282 culminated in a haandfestning [treaty, agreement; lit. handbinding] between Erik V and the stormænd that granted the barons significant rights and increased their influence. One of the clauses in the haandfestning was the stipulation that the barons would no longer be considered the king’s men, but rather “the best men of the realm,” a subtle shift in allegiance that loosens the bonds of loyalty toward the king even as it strengthens the responsibility they bear for the prosperity of the kingdom. Rumelant’s warning to the foxes is, in essence, Agnes’ warning to the stormænd. The animal imagery that is everpresent in J101—the mice burrow and creep, the foxes lope along their pathways before entering the meadows, the bait dangles on the fishhook until the foolish man lunges for it—makes use of metaphors of infiltration, pursuit, and predation in order to illustrate the hunter vs. hunted dynamic that held sway in Danish political circles during the winter of 1286. Rumelant tells his audience that it is not always possible to determine who is the hunter and who is the prey, however, for this stanza also demonstrates that the mice representing untriuwe are far from harmless, even if they are devoured by the foxes. Instead, they pose a grave threat to the well-being of the foxes that hunt them, for their treachery is infectious, and ultimately fatal. A key term in understanding Rumelant’s wordplay is the verb slîchen [to creep, slide, sneak up on]: treachery creeps like a mouse into the heart of a false man. Vigilant foxes may indeed capture and eat the mice, but in the act of swallowing them the foxes (that is, the stormænd) become beslichen in turn, when the mice that represent treachery slide into their bellies. In the end, the very same untriuwe that the mice embody will come to rest in the hertzen hus [the chambers of the heart] of the foxes that swallowed them. The overarching message of the stanza is clear: the fox that traffics in disloyalty runs the risk of being infected with the same disease. And once infected, it will then be caught, killed, and skinned—a fitting punishment for traitors. Agnes needed allies to stand with her against the forces aligned with Valdemar IV. In stanza J102, Rumelant engages in a stylized 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




dialog with Agnes’ supporters. Here the poet returns to the theme that resounded in stanza J78, the importance of triuwe. An innovation in this stanza is the introduction of a new virtue, stæte [solid character], which is mentioned twice—both times, notably, in combination with triuwe. The ideal baron of the Danish realm is therefore the getruwe steter man (line 1) and a steter vriunt getruwer helt (line 7) that is able to recognize the telltale signs of treachery and treason in the stormænd and therefore oppose them. But note Rumelant’s closing line: Du ne solt ir doch nicht uben [this you should not do]. The parting comment underscores the distinction between the true scoundrels—the conspirators—and those who use deception and intrigue to expose them. In the latter case, their familiarity with scalkes list is merely an inoculation, a small exposure and internalization of deception and intrigue that prevents an overall infection and corruption of the hero: the stanza, then, functions as a reply to and amplification of the themes articulated in J101. Every baron in the winter of 1286/1287 had to make a choice, sooner or later, about where he stood. And as long as the murderers were not yet exposed, the scurrying mouse of disloyalty was still on the run and a threat to the political health of the realm. The demands of the interregnum require that loyal Danes—those who wish to be recognized as a steter vriunt getruwer helt to the monarchy—must look carefully about them, with eyes that are truly open to any sign of intrigue or deception. They must be able to recognize the signs of danger, and choose their path wisely. J103 Die tenschen morder haben den pris. Tzu morde neman ist so wis. Da man sol kvninge mordhen. Sie mordent gerne vnde kvnnenz wol. Den hoesten mort man prisen sol. Tzu ivtlante in dem nordhen. Dar ist begangen mortlich mort. sie kvnden iren kvninc vnsanfte wecken. Of eynen bette da her slief. Sexs vnde vivnftich wunden tief. Durchstachen ym die recken. The Danish murderers deserve the highest honors, for none others are so skilled in murder as they are. When it comes to murdering



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This is the only stanza in which Rumelant sings explicitly about the details of the murder. The location in Jutland is mentioned, as is the time of the attack, the defenselessness of the victim, and the number of wounds. Regardless of whether these details were factually accurate—the significance of the number fifty-six in Nordic folklore will be discussed later—their purpose seems clear. Much akin to a modern-day political attack ad, this stanza introduces an inflammatory and highly slanted version of events into the public discourse surrounding the murder. In a closer analysis of the stanza’s dynamic and the themes underlying it, we recognize Agnes’ intention to speak on a moral but also on a symbolic level to the Danish public. The drumbeat repetition of the word mort in this stanza, which occurs, with some variation, seven times in seven lines, had a signal function in late-thirteenth-century Danish history. It is not much of an exaggeration for Rumelant to claim, with bitter irony, that the Danes mordent gerne vnde kvnnenz wol [murder gladly and know their business], for three out of the four most recent kings of Denmark had been killed by political rivals. In 1250, Erik IV was put to death by his younger brother Abel in a cold-blooded and humiliating murder that saw Erik’s bound and headless corpse tossed like garbage into the waters of Schleswig harbor. Abel succeeded his brother Erik IV onto the throne of Denmark, but he soon met his own death in a battlefield skirmish in 1252. The next king, Kristoffer, the father of Erik V, died suddenly in a suspected poisoning. The last in this infamous line was Erik V, who assumed the throne in 1259. The sequence of words like morder, morde, mordhen, mordent, and phrases such as mortlich mort has a historicizing function. It underscores the villainy of the crime and places it unmistakably among the ranks of the other Danish regicides in the recent past. The murder is therefore not a harbinger of new tribulations in the Danish body politic; it is, rather, a continuation of an old and infamous pattern. If we consider the rhetorical impact of this sequence, it also reveals Rumelant’s virtuosity as a poet. He



a king, they murder gladly, and they know their business well. This grandest murder should indeed be praised. In Jutland, in the north, a murderous murder was committed. They awoke their king most ungently, on a bed where he slept. Fifty-six deep wounds the heroes thrust through him.


demonstrates his mastery of kunst within the genre by the fact that each of the variations on the word “murder” is in a different grammatical case or verb conjugation. Yet despite the rhetorical brilliance of this stanza, its sledgehammer repetition on the word mort is not merely for show, nor is its purpose to document the facts of the murder that had taken place. Indeed, the sequence also resonates on a symbolic level, one that was finely tuned to appeal to Rumelant’s medieval Danish audience. The symbolism rests in the use of numbers, especially the number fifty-six. It is neither arbitrary nor by accident that the stanza claims that Erik V was struck by fifty-six blows. That number is highly significant in medieval Denmark, because it functions as a coded reference to the act of conspiracy in Nordic folklore. Fifty-six is divisible by seven, and in the Scandinavian ballads and medieval Icelandic sagas the number seven takes on a sinister significance: when seven men depart at night on an unknown errand, for instance, the expectation is that a killing will soon take place. The link between the number seven and conspiracies to commit murder is strengthened by entries on the medieval Swedish annals, such as the one in the Annales Sigtuensis (ca. 1302) about the murder of Erik V in 1286. The annalist elaborates on the nocturnal setting of the murder in Finderup, and notes that seven hooded assassins crept in and extinguished the candles just as Erik was preparing for bed.32 The folklore of the number seven colored a late-medieval entry in the Annales Dano-Svecani 826–1415 (ca. 1500) as well. Here, the account on the murder of Erik V claims that Erik received not 56 but 70 wounds from his attackers—a tenfold multiplier from the number seven.33A hapax phrase in one of the late-medieval Danish ballads about the murder of Erik V gives added support to the notion that the number seven was part of the memoria of this famous murder. The ballad reports that the conspirators who killed Erik V numbered over a hundred: de ware vel siu og siusinds-tiue [they were seven and seven times twenty], a total of one hundred forty-seven men.34 Such a large and unwieldy mob is difficult to reconcile with the notion of a dark-of-night conspiracy to murder a king. It is therefore worthy of consideration whether the Old Danish phrase siu og siusinds-tiue in the ballad manuscript is actually a garbled version of an older and more symbolic phrase siu og siusindesiu [seven and seven times seven], a multiplication and addition of the dreaded seven-motif against itself. This can be expressed by the mathematical formula (7 + (7 x 7))—which totals fifty-six. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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The earliest reference to the fifty-six wounds of Erik V is found in Rumelant’s stanza J103. The stanza must have been composed in the interim period between the murder and the election of Erik VI as king in the spring of 1287. Rumelant, a northern German poet, would not have known of the significance of the number seven in medieval Nordic folklore, and would not have been able to absorb that discourse into his stanza unless someone—his patron—had informed him of it. In this stanza, moreover, we hear something of Agnes’ idealized Danish voice in Rumelant’s stanza, a voice that gives the stanza the authenticity that a northern German poet would otherwise not be equipped to produce on his own. Using folklore and the cultural power of the ominous seven-fold conspiracy motif made it possible for Agnes to rebut the notion that the murder of her husband might have been justified, as a number of chronicle entries from around 1300 suggest. The murder of Erik V cannot stand as an act of justifiable homicide of a lecherous and tyrannical king, the stanza argues, because the conspirators that stabbed him fifty-six times were committing murder—the only crime that the number seven can represent. Thus we see that Rumelant did not compose his poems as an outsider, as a German discoursing from a distance about a remote event; instead his stanzas reflect the Danish point-of-view, address the Danish people directly, and contain privileged information about several matters—the question of royal succession, of royal authority and legal jurisdiction, of criminal prosecution—which are specific to the Danish perspective and can only have been given to him by his patron or by agents working alongside Agnes to defend the monarchy. The tensions between the monarchy and the stormænd had been brewing for years before the murder in 1286. The political landscape of medieval Denmark was dominated by the occasion of the annual royal assembly, at which the king, his retinue, and all of the leading lights of the realm would appear—the stormænd, bishops, lords of neighboring lands, and other lesser nobles. There, royal edict, new laws, legal judgments, and other matters of national importance would be adjudicated or made public; it was also the setting for the election of kings. Erik V attempted to shield himself from the collective grievances of the stormænd by holding his parliaments only at irregular intervals until 1280, but in that year a coalition of stormænd forced him to hold the Danehof or parliament annually at Pentecost every year, with the traditional 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




meeting place set at Nyborg, on the peninsula of Jutland. One of the rights accorded to the stormænd is relevant for the context of Erik’s murder. According to the haandfestning, Danish nobles could, if accused of a capital crime, confirm their innocence by swearing a public oath; and if convicted, they had the option of accepting exile as punishment, instead of imprisonment. In the final two stanzas that Rumelant composed about the regicide, issues of guilt and punishment are addressed directly. J104 Sie mügen wol küne recken syn. Daz ist an irme lebende schyn. Die ez mit den handen taten. Ir varwe vnd ir gelaz ist hin. Sich hat vurwandelt al ir syn. Diez myt in haben geraten. Die ne wizzen sich nye heynen rat. Sie gerent dem ivngen kvninge by tzu stande. Sie willent syn vnschuldich noch Vnde bieten vûr ir tenisch loch. Neyn ez wirt anders gande. They may have been brave heroes indeed, but it is plain to see on their very bodies, on those who did it with their hands—that their healthy color and their disposition has faded. And the others, those who conspired to advise them, have undergone a complete change of heart. They do not know whence they should turn. They plan to stand behind the young king, act as though they were innocent, and swear oaths upon their Danish laws. No, this will go differently. J105 Ir morder prubent uwern mort. wie groz eyn mortlich svndenhort In uwer kameren hordet. Set uwer kvninc was uwer knecht Der u gewalt gab vnde recht. Den habet ir gemordet. Des sit ir ymmer me vursmat von allen gnaden vreudelos gescheiden. Der mort ist uwer heilvurtrib. Man git daz krutze of uweren lib. unde slet uch sam die heiden.



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You murderers, think again about this murder you’ve committed. How immense a fatal burden of sin now lurks in the chambers of your hearts. Behold, your king was your servant. It was he who gave you authority and justice. Him you have murdered—and for this you shall be forever despised, and all mercies denied to you. This murder is your salvation’s undoing. The protection of the Cross should be denied to you, so that you could be slain just like the heathen.

In stanza J104, Rumelant reiterates the distinction drawn in a previous stanza between the murderers and those who planned the murder but did not commit it. Rumelant first addresses the situation faced by the ringleaders that organized the murder. He claims that they don’t know what to do next (die ne wizzen sich nye heynen rat) and notes their desire to stand with the young king and maintain their innocence (Sie gerent dem ivngen kvninge by tzü stande. Sie willent syn vnschuldich noch). In the next line, however, Rumelant anticipates the legal defense planned by the criminals, and in the phrase Sie gerent dem ivngen kvninge by tzü stande . . . sie bieten vür ir tenisch loch rests a key indicator that Rumelant’s Danish audience must have been familiar with Middle Low German. The word bieten is not Middle High German bîten [to delay, to expect], but rather Middle Low German bîten [pull toward, pull on].35 The word loch in line 10 does not mean “hole” in this context; instead, loch is a Low German loan from the Danish lag meaning “law.” Line 10 loch, then, is Middle Low German lach [law, court; cf. MLG lochding, Old Norse lögþing, judiciary court].36 Rumelant’s verb phrase using bieten vûr therefore means “to proclaim innocence” in a legal context, especially when used in conjunction with legal matters (cf. ON lögbjóða, “to order, prescribe by law”). This line acknowledges that “[the murderers] will plead innocent according to their Danish law,” presumably to seek a pardon for their actions. Rumelant’s denunciation of this legal maneuver—neyn, es wirt anders gande— seeks to discredit this strategy before it is even invoked. The reference to tenisch loch in this stanza was likely inspired by the recent adoption of a new legal standard in Denmark, just two years before the murder took place. According to a clause in a treaty that Erik V signed in 1284 with a group of cities and principalities in northern Germany, all members of the alliance pledged to honor a common legal code that prohibited oaths of innocence in murder cases.37 The treaty also expressly forbids member cities from granting asylum to accused murderers from elsewhere in





the alliance. (This explains why the accused men went into exile in Norway, as that kingdom was not a signatory.) By signing this treaty in 1284, Erik V effectively nullified the rights and freedoms the stormænd had won in an earlier haandfestning from 1282, which stipulated that they, together with the king, would help to adjudicate serious capital crimes such as murder, manslaughter, or rape through the swearing of oaths before a jury. In this stanza Rumelant calls for the accused murderers to be judged not according to the traditional Danish legal code, which would likely have acquitted them once a sympathetic jury was seated, but rather in accordance with a new international standard that did not permit the swearing of oaths (as stipulated by the tenish loch) in cases involving murder. Thus, Rumelant’s stanzas upheld the legal and moral legitimacy of the new judicial process. Those who desire to appear blameless or unsculdig will have no recourse to the traditional Danish laws that had pardoned murderers for all too long. “No, this will go differently” is Rumelant’s final word to the murderers, whose sin has ruined their salvation and whose only appropriate fate is to be put to the sword.

The Poetic Voice in 1286 It was for literary reasons, not political ones, that no Danish poet was brought to the court to mediate the crisis of succession and defend Agnes’ political goals. In the late thirteenth century, the Danish poetic tradition was ill-equipped to reflect and shape public opinion in the populist, artistic way that German Spruchdichtung had done for almost a century.38 To this date, political poetry in Denmark had been composed only in Latin. Two examples of this—the Planctus de captivitate regum Danorum (1223) that expresses shock at the capture of King Valdemar II while on crusade in Estonia, or the Planctus de statu regni Danie (1329) about the troubled regency Denmark endured under Count Gert of Holstein—were written by learned clerics for their peers.39 The Planctus of 1223, which mourns the capture of King Valdemar II Sejr in Schwerin, opens with the stanza Plange, primatus Dacie Quondam clarus in acie: sed nunc tua militia vili torpet pigritia.



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Composed more than 100 years later, the Planctus of 1329 shows a more complex rhyme scheme but little development in political outlook. Geme, plange mesto more dolorosa Dacia! quia probo protectore cares et audacia, Gens erat fortissima virtute clarissima: stravisti, vicisti populum emulum per terrarum spacia. Moan and grieve with a gloomy heart, O sorrowful Denmark, for now you lack your virtuous protector and your courage. The populace was strong and bright with virtue; now scattered and defeated, a people struggling for a place among the nations.

Despite the fact that the composition of these poems was precipitated by moments of acute political crisis, the verses had no measurable transmission outside of clerical circles and were never intended to sway public opinion. Another reason why Agnes did not engage a Danish poet for this political task is because the vernacular tradition was still in its infancy in late-thirteenth-century Denmark. There is fragmentary evidence of some early attempts at religious poetry or hymnody in Danish during the early fourteenth century, but these poems were for clerical or devotional use.40 Danish vernacular poetry was particularly slow to develop because of the long-standing pan-Scandinavian dominance of Icelandic literary traditions, and the cultural conservatism at the Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish courts that valued Icelandic literary traditions above their own, native products. We should therefore ask: if not a Danish poet in 1286, why not an Icelandic skald? Saxo Grammaticus mentioned the literary skills of Icelanders in the preface to his Gesta Danorum (early thirteenth century) and 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Make lament, O Primacy of Denmark, once so proud and cleareyed. For now your courage is struck dumb with fear and indolence.


poets from Iceland were by far the most numerous practitioners of Old Norse skaldic verse. From its origins in the ninth century, skaldic poetry was composed on nearly every topic under the sun, including the praise and blame of royalty (an approximation of the task at hand here in 1286), so at first glance, a skaldic response might seem like a reasonable alternative for the Danish court. But a skaldic poet would have faced serious obstacles in this multilingual literary context.41 The standard language of skaldic poetry, Old Icelandic, would have been considered an exotic dialect in thirteenth-century Denmark due to the gradual separation of Old Scandinavian into East Norse (as spoken in Denmark and Sweden) and West Norse (as spoken in Norway and Iceland), which, by the end of the thirteenth century, was quite acute; at best, both dialects were mutually intelligible with some difficulty.42 Yet despite increasing linguistic separation, Icelandic poets continued to find patronage at Scandinavian courts to perform skaldic poems in Old Icelandic as late as 1260, because Icelandic poetry at the royal courts of Scandinavia was regarded as an antiquarian delicacy and as such was admired more for its connections to the past than its relevance for the present. Characteristic for skaldic poetry is the extensive use of kennings, a substitution of two or more words—often mythological or battle references—for a single noun. These poetic ornaments and other related circumlocutions presuppose a high degree of linguistic sophistication on the part of the audience, which must be able to comprehend even the most obscure references in order to discern the poet’s message. In addition, the cramped constraints of the skaldic dróttkvætt stanza (eight lines of alliterative and assonant verse) encouraged the skalds to invent new kennings and new turns of phrase—to such an extent that many skaldic poems seem to be composed less “about” the incident in question than “after” it, commemorating not the event itself but rather the poet’s range of emotional responses to it.43 As a result, skaldic stanzas often shed more light on the poet than the events that inspired them. This is not at all what Agnes would have wanted for poems about the murder of Erik V, and certainly not if there was any risk that her audience would fail to understand the political urgency of the moment. There is another factor to consider, that of the legal restrictions in the Icelandic law code governing skaldic composition and performance. This is relevant not because Icelandic or Norwegian 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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legal codes were in effect in Denmark (hardly likely) but because those laws expressly prohibit the composition or performance of poetry for polemic personal use. The skaldic tradition was shaped by these legal constraints, and could not easily disregard them. For example, the medieval Norwegian law codex called Jónsbok (1281) lists in the section entitled “On skaldic usage” (um skáldskaparmál) the penalties that a poet may face for composing insulting, slanderous, or shameful verses about another man.44 The laws punish infractions according to the quantity of verse composed, and make a distinction between a poet who composes four lines or less (half of a dróttkvætt stanza) or one who composes more than four lines; the longer defamations incurred stricter penalties. In comparison to the standard dróttkvætt stanza of eight lines, Rumelant’s stanzas about the murder and its aftereffects run to forty-five lines in total. The rigid honor codes of medieval Icelandic society led to the creation of a poetic tradition that could praise and flatter openly, but criticize only if shielded under many layers of complex kennings, double entendres, and clever syntactical displacements. If an Icelandic skald had performed at the Danehof of 1287, his poetic tradition would not have equipped him to name (or hint at the identities of ) the attackers or to give details of the murders, nor could he have adequately related the context of the poem to current events; furthermore, the dense and convoluted imagery of dróttkvætt would have completely undermined the swift and decisive call to action that Agnes desired. The queen needed poems with an immediate impact, not ones that were old-fashioned, obscure, and voiced in the idiom of the Nordic past.

Agnes as Queen If the surviving sources give an accurate account of Agnes’ reign as queen of Denmark, she did not involve herself in the business of Danish statecraft in the years before 1286. No charters or letters signed by Agnes exist for the first thirteen years of her reign (1273–1286), nor is she named in any of the royal correspondence from that period. The Danish chronicles and annals take hardly any notice of her in the years before the murder, listing only one brief entry from the year 1273—Ericus rex duxit reginam Agnetam— marking the occasion of Agnes’ marriage to Erik V.45 His assassination in November 1286 prompted a sudden and dramatic change in Agnes’ degree of political involvement as queen of 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




Denmark. In the three years following the murder, Agnes became deeply engaged in managing the affairs of state. From 1286–1290 she issued eleven letters and charters, and she is mentioned as a witness to an additional nine; in addition, she is the recipient of at least one letter from her half-brother in Brandenburg. These letters reveal different facets of her status as a ruling woman and show the degree to which her authority was caught uneasily in an in-between status, at all times carefully negotiated over and against the authority of her young son. In the letters Agnes drafted in the years 1286–1290, she refers to herself as Agnes dei gracia Danorum Sclavorumque regina, the feminine form of the title used by her husband, Erik V. Some variation in the wording of her title did occur, especially when it seemed politically advantageous to do so—for example in letters that were sent to the Estonian city of Reval (today it is called Talinn) which at the time was under Danish rule. In these letters, Agnes underscores her particular authority over that province by appending the phrase et ducissa Estonie to her customary title.46 Agnes’ son Erik VI also used the title Ericus dei gracia Danorum Sclavorumque rex et dux Estonie in his early correspondence, even though he had not yet reached the age of majority. His young age is likely the reason why, in the months following Erik’s election, his letters and charters were rarely if ever dispatched upon his authority alone. Almost all of them were either co-signed by other signatories with independent authority or witnessed by influential vassals whose reputation was known throughout the Baltic region. In one telling example from May 28, 1287—the first day of Erik’s official reign— Agnes and Erik sent identical charters to St. Michael’s Church in Reval. One copy bore Erik’s signature, while Agnes signed the other copy. This dual-issue correspondence is an isolated occurrence (no other mother-son parallel charters survive in the Danish record from this period), but its symbolic value was considerable in its time. These twin charters from May 28 were issued to confirm the privileges that Erik V, their deceased husband and father, had conveyed upon St. Michael’s church in Reval, and the letters were signed on the very day that Erik was elevated to the throne by the stormænd. The drafting of dual charters was doubtless a political tactic intended to help underscore the continuity of lordship— from father to son via the mother—in the Danish royal line.47 A similar procedure was followed with two letters issued on the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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following day. In Erik’s letter of May 29, 1287, he again follows in his father’s footsteps, confirming the privileges that Erik V had granted to a Cistercian convent in Reval. The witnesses to that letter were Erik’s maternal uncle Otto IV of Brandenburg, Erik’s paternal cousin Valdemar IV of Schleswig, his father’s long-standing ally and vassal Witzlav II of Rügen, and other persons of rank in Denmark. Agnes’ letter of the same date was sent on her own authority—no witnesses are mentioned—to the same convent in Reval, but the content of this letter differs significantly from what Erik VI had written. In her letter, Agnes gave the convent royal permission to make those purchases that were necessary for the expansion and upkeep of the property. Here again, an interest in maintaining continuity appears to be the highest concern: the young Erik VI reiterates what his deceased father had already done, while Agnes—the sure-footed voice of royal stability—gives the convent direction toward its future growth. In the months after the murder, as we have seen, Agnes did much to foster the lordship of her young son. In her correspondence, Agnes makes a point to mention the involvement of Erik VI in affairs of state, such as in a letter dated March 30, 1287—before the Danehof had convened—that was sent to the Danish representative in Reval, Fredrik Moltke. This letter informs the governor that Agnes’ decision regarding the salvage rights of shipwrecks in Estonian waters was reached ex consensu karissimi filii nostri Erici regis Danorum illustris et communi assercione nostrorum consiliatorum [with the consent of our beloved son Erik, the illustrious king of the Danes, and by the acclimation of our counsellors].48 Because this letter was issued before the royal election at the Danehof in 1287 that clarified the nature of Erik’s lordship as king, it reveals a great deal about the negotiated status of Agnes’ royal authority in the final months of the interregnum. The letter was issued in Agnes’ name, which implies that her lordship was recognized as primary, even if it was not absolute. Agnes did not enjoy the sovereign privileges of a regina regens in Denmark; instead, the letter takes pains to point out that other voices had entered the decision-making process, and that both the young Erik VI and the queen’s royal counselors had given their consent to the decision announced in Agnes’ name. This letter of March 30 also indicates the direction of future developments: Agnes’ reference to Erik as karissimi filii nostri Erici regis Danorum reminds the reader of their kinship even as it sets down in writing—for the first time—the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




title, throne, and sovereignty that she hoped to win for her son at the upcoming election. As Erik’s lordship increased in Denmark, Agnes retreated more and more into the background. After 1287, she was no longer obliged to stand as a co-signatory to Erik’s letters, nor was she mentioned as a witness. Instead, Agnes is characterized as Erik’s advisor. In a letter from 1288 that Erik sent to the convent of St. Clare in Roskilde, he informs the convent about a decision that was reached de consensu et voluntate dilecte matris nostre [with the consent and will of our dear mother]. Another charter refers to judgments that were made in presencia dilecte matris nostre [in the presence of our dear mother].49 It is noteworthy that Erik refers to Agnes as “mother” but never as “queen” in these letters—a subtle yet unmistakable sign that by 1288 it was necessary to portray Erik’s lordship as being able to stand independently. Thus while it was politically expedient for Agnes to refer to Erik in the months following the murder as karissimi filii nostri Erici regis Danorum, using his full title, for Erik to do the same with Agnes in the years 1288–1290 would have represented a grave undermining of his own lordship. Seeking out maternal advice is one thing; seeking the consent of a queen is quite another. These letters demonstrate that Agnes acted as a queen regent for Erik VI in the aftermath of the murder in 1286, even though there is nothing in the historical record to indicate that she was lawfully invested with that authority by the Danish stormænd. Indeed, it is fairly certain that investiture was a moot issue in this case, because the medieval Danish laws make no provisions for female rule of any kind, not even for regencies; there was no lawful procedure by which Agnes could be formally recognized as queen regent in Denmark.50 And yet, female regencies did occur in Denmark, in practice if not in name, and one justification for their existence may have been taken from a brief passage in the medieval Danish laws regulating the inheritance of widows with young children. In most cases of inheritance, the property is passed through the male line, with the male relatives of the deceased man inheriting his goods and property according to their degree of kinship: in the closest circle stood the legitimate sons, in the second circle of kinship the brother, in the third the father, in the fourth the grandfather, and so on. Women were bypassed almost completely in matters of inheritance during the thirteenth century; only in isolated cases did a woman inherit property directly from a man. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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One exception to the gendered exclusion of women from inheritance in the medieval Danish legal tradition recognized the special status of widows that cared for legitimate children who were too young to inherit from their deceased father. Under this scenario, the medieval laws of the Danish province of Jutland stipulate that thet konæ methen hun wil sitæ meth hennæ fatherløs børn umanneth oc ugift. tha ma men ei barn fra hennæ takæ. En thæræ iord skulæ tho laghæ werhie gætzlæmen at wetæ oc til sinnæ men. oc werhiæ them met loghæ. of ennen kallær a. Mother takæ tho allæ horæ ther af gaar.51 As long as a widow who cares for her fatherless children remains without a man and unmarried, the children shall not be taken away from her. But their legal guardians shall take possession of their land, shall guard over it and supervise it, and stand by the children with oaths should any man raise a claim against them. The mother, however, shall enjoy the profits from the land and rule over it as she sees fit.52

This provision of the law establishes a power-sharing arrangement between the solitary widow and the legal guardians (lovlige værger), who represent the long-term financial interests of the children. The guardians, in all likelihood male relatives of the deceased, have de facto control over the children’s land—the word besiddelse denotes occupation as well as possession—but they do not take ownership of it, as would have happened in a typical inheritance procedure in medieval Denmark. Instead, the land is held for the children by the widow, who receives the income and other benefits that accrue from the land holdings. The law is vague about the exact nature of her authority as a widow, for she is granted the authority to råde derover, som hun vil, but this wording is (perhaps intentionally) broad and unspecific. It grants the widow free reign to exercise her dominion over the land—and by extension, over other matters related to the children’s welfare—as she thinks best. It should be noted, finally, that this provision in the medieval Danish laws does not distinguish among women on the basis of social status; there is no stipulation that this clause granting widows special authority over the land and welfare of their minor children cannot be applied to queen or commoner alike. Although the medieval Danish law of royal succession makes no mention of widows, dowagers, or consorts, I suspect that the special status bestowed upon widows who remain unmarried and devoted to the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




interests of their minor children formed part of the cultural justification for female regency in the late thirteenth century. This legal loophole in the medieval Danish laws is just one example among many that can be brought to bear on the topic of the disputed legitimacy of female rulers in the Middle Ages. For Agnes, there was no question of her queenship being sanctioned by law, for the Danish legal code of royal succession did not provide for female rulership as regina regens. And yet, despite the law code’s prohibitions, Agnes did act as a lord in medieval Denmark, which suggests that even though queenship was not recognized de jure, queens nonetheless could assume de facto authority over the affairs of state—provided, of course, that they were widowed and could claim to be acting in the best interests of a minor child. This brings us to the issue of Agnes’ rulership in the months after the assassination. Did Agnes rule “in her own right” in Earenfight’s terms, in the months following the murder in 1286? The charters and letters discussed here suggest that she did not. We have seen that Agnes’ lordship was divided, shared, negotiated, and skillfully interwoven with the ascendant authority that was emergent in her young son, Erik VI. Further, we recognize that Agnes’ rule was also limited in a temporal sense. Once Erik reached the age of majority in 1290, the final impediment prohibiting his lawful rule was removed. Even as a widow, then, Agnes was not free from the shadow of male authority, both past and future. On the one hand, the lingering, negative associations surrounding her deceased husband’s lordship continued to complicate the royal succession (those rumors about Erik V that the chronicles recorded ut dicitur . . .), while on the other hand Agnes witnessed and encouraged the nascent lordship of her adolescent son. Her own status was influenced by both of these factors during the brief interregnum that lasted from November 22, 1286, until the election of Erik VI on May 1, 1287. Agnes’ example suggests that the legitimacy of female rule can be augmented through the prudent use of royal titles and the careful stage managing of political power in, through, and on the behalf of a young child. These actions do not convey authority in and of themselves, however, for as Bettina Elpers points out in the case of maternal regencies in medieval Europe, the authority resting in the mother takes its legitimacy from the very act of its seizure. It was neither institutionalized nor codified in law; in these cases, female lordship simply began.53 For Agnes, the incarnation 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Agnes as Literary Patron This chapter argues that medieval literary patronage was a medium for the cultural, political, and representational voice of the patron. This assertion is hardly new. And yet, Agnes’ experience highlights some aspects of female lordship and political representation that are hardly ever visible in the lives of medieval noblewomen—and what calls them into such sharp focus is the urgency of the crisis in Denmark (which played out over a just a few months in the winter of 1286 and spring of 1287) and, paradoxically, the intrinsic transitoriness of her patronage. She did not sponsor the creation of a thing, like a psalter, a painted altarpiece, or an embroidered vestment; her patronage led to the emergence of a new voice in Denmark. The contrast between Agnes’ accomplishments and those of other female patrons of medieval literature is defined by the physical materiality of the book. Research by John Carmi Parsons and others has called attention to the significant role that queens played in the copying and distribution of manuscripts across the courts of Europe.54 Their role was indeed significant, but not central, for Parsons characterizes the literary patronage of medieval noblewomen as a sideline activity, a mode of cultural production undertaken in support of their husbands’ political goals and in concert with the overall cultural profile of the king’s court. This stands in contrast to the situation Agnes confronted following the murder of her husband, for in the winter of 1286 the king’s court was no longer a viable institution; the queen had no king with whom she could act in concert. Another contrast concerns the nature of a queen’s cultural patronage as typically linked to the production of objects: to alter pieces, vestments, and to manuscripts as well. In terms of literary patronage, the voice of the female patron of the Middle Ages was therefore, in the overwhelming majority of cases, a written and a texted voice—not an oral and performative voice, such as that which resonated in Rumelant’s performances in Denmark in the winter of 1286 and early 1287. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


of her political voice, bringing it from the written medium of charters and letters into the acoustic medium of poetic speech, was accomplished in much the same way that female regencies began in medieval Europe. Necessity was the mother of invention.


Who was Rumelant’s patron? Since these stanzas sharply condemn the assassination of Erik V and bolster support for the young successor to the Danish throne, Erik VI, it is clear that Rumelant’s unnamed patron was on the monarchist side of the conflict. Hugo Yrwing names Duke Valdemar IV of Schleswig, a long-standing antagonist of Erik V, as the patron of the poems Rumelant composed in 1286. Certainly Valdemar IV had the most to gain by the murder, yet Rumelant’s eulogy for the tragically murdered king is politically antithetical to the sort of poem Valdemar IV would have paid for.55 Reinhold Schröder casts his vote for another Brandenburg lord, Agnes’ half-brother Markgraf Otto IV “mit dem Pfeil,” in whose company, he argues, Rumelant may have traveled to Denmark in 1287.56 It is true that the whereabouts of Otto IV are unknown from January through June of 1287, but if Rumelant had traveled from Brandenburg to Denmark with Otto IV to attend the Danehof at Pentecost in 1287, that implies that Rumelant would not have had sufficient opportunity to perform his poems before a Danish audience in time for them to take effect; the poems were surely in circulation before the Danehof was in session. Furthermore, Rumelant’s poems display an intimate knowledge of Danish law, of specific details of the crime, and of the Danish political context, suggesting that his patron—not only his financier, but also his source of inspiration—was Danish, not German. Bumke and Winge both pursue this line of argument, suggesting that the young Erik VI had been Rumelant’s patron. While the poet’s financial remuneration may well have come from the royal treasury, the task of engaging an internationally known poet of Rumelant’s status was both culturally and politically beyond the grasp of an adolescent Danish prince.57 In my view, the best candidate for patron of these poems is Agnes herself. The evidence linking Agnes with the murder stanzas in manuscript J is compelling, even if they do not name her directly. Born into the Brandenburg dynasty and married to Erik since 1273, Agnes was ideally situated to bridge the gap between Danish and Low German sensibilities. In light of the vigorous political and military defenses Agnes mustered for her son Erik VI after the murder, it is quite feasible that she also contracted with a Low German Spruchdichter to begin a literary campaign in Denmark that would bring her voice and her political sentiments to the ears of the Danish aristocracy before the vote was held on the issue of royal succession. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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This focus on the Rumelant poems examines the extent to which the concept of “broadcast” compliments the formation and exercise of lordship and authority through the medium of the performative voice. As attested by the poet’s wordplay, complex rhyme schemes, and direct references to Danish legal terminology in these stanzas, Rumelant did not engage in a bastardization of the poetic craft for this foreign audience. Instead, Rumelant brought the full cultural “weight” of Spruchdichtung to bear on the political situation in Denmark, in pure and unadulterated form. Let us recall that with the rise of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Holstein, and Lübeck as leading economic and military powers in the Baltic region, the importance of Middle Low German as a new language of commerce and prestige at the close of the thirteenth century—within Denmark as well as elsewhere—is without question. Through the performance in Middle Low German Rumelant helped to define a listening community of cultural elites in thirteenth-century Denmark, one that was receptive to the new and prestigious idiom of Middle Low German and—presumably—receptive to the sentiments expressed there. In these six courtly stanzas, Agnes issued the statement that the murder was not simply a domestic crisis but also a cultural crisis, a deed that was unworthy of a nation that eagerly sought to embrace the courtly innovations of its neighbors.58 And lastly, we must consider the crucial fact that Rumelant’s poetic stanzas ring out in the same Middle Low German idiom used by the queen herself. The acoustic and linguistic consonance between poet and patron only served to underscore the fact that Rumelant’s poems functioned as a proxy for the queen’s own voice. Not only the message, but also its vehicle were identical. By using poetry to create new communities of inclusion in latethirteenth-century Denmark, Agnes was able to transcend the limitations of her gender and the prohibitions that the law code of medieval Denmark had placed on her lordship in the aftermath of the assassination of Erik V in 1286. Muted by the law, Agnes nevertheless actualized the cultural power of female lordship by speaking through the voice of the poet to her loyal subjects; not to command them, but to persuade them to offer their support to her cause. With the performance of these poems, Agnes was able to reach elite listeners that otherwise would have remained beyond her reach.







VOICING AND LEGACY: QUEEN EUFEMIA OF NORWAY

D

uring the thirteen years that Eufemia reigned as queen of Norway (1299–May 1, 1312), she gave birth to one child—a daughter, Ingeborg, in 1301—and sponsored the translation of three courtly romances into Old Swedish verse. At first glance, this cursory overview of Eufemia’s life seems unreasonably reductive, but it does not overlook much. The historical record is extremely thin, as fewer than a dozen Norwegian charters survive that mention Eufemia or give insight into her royal directives. Given the scarcity of sufficient documentation, reconstructing the political biography of this fourteenth-century Scandinavian noblewoman is an impossible task; there is far too much that we do not know.1 And yet, Eufemia is hardly just a faceless queen. Although her name evokes only dim acknowledgment from historians of the Nordic Middle Ages, Eufemia is wellknown to scholars of medieval Scandinavian literature for her remarkable literary legacy—her sponsorship of the trio of courtly romances that, as argued later in this chapter, took on an expressly political function in the early years of the fourteenth century. It is therefore entirely appropriate to mention Eufemia’s daughter in the same breath as the courtly romances, for the two are intimately connected. It is widely assumed that Eufemia’s engagement as a literary patron had a great deal to do with her daughter’s betrothal and subsequent marriage to a prominent Swedish prince. The common view of Eufemia’s patronage holds that by sponsoring the translation of these romances into Old Swedish instead of Old Norse, the language of her court, she practiced a type of cultural diplomacy that sought to bind the foreigner to her court with literary gifts in his native tongue. This scenario, of literature 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


CHAPTER FOUR


as gift, is surely plausible, but I intend in the pages that follow to set out an alternate view of the genesis and political importance of these romances. My argument takes two parts. First, I suggest that the translation of these three romances, known to the scholarship as the Eufemiavisor or “Eufemia poems,” was inspired less by external events than it was by internal concerns about the continuation of the Norwegian dynasty. Second, I will argue that the romances were voiced in Old Swedish in order to maximize their cultural value for Eufemia’s daughter, Ingeborg. Central to this interpretation is the recognition that the origin and translation of the Eufemiavisor is entirely bound up in the particulars of the Norwegian succession in the years after 1301, for the only child born to Eufemia and her husband, Hákon V, was a daughter. Had Eufemia given birth to more than one child, or had the only child been a son instead of a daughter, it is safe to assume that the three romances would not have been translated into Old Swedish. They would likely never have been produced at all.

Eufemia and the Eufemiavisor The cultural novelty of the Eufemiavisor is fourfold in nature. The first innovation concerns language. The Eufemiavisor are the first narrative works in Old Swedish. They are not the oldest works of any type to be written in Old Swedish, however, for this language, which branched off from the western variants of Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian by the ninth century, is richly documented in runic inscriptions on Swedish soil., The romances were also preceded by other works of Old Swedish prose, such as devotional works and hagiographical texts or the codification of the medieval Swedish provincial laws in manuscript form (the eldest of which is from Västergötland province, dating from the first half of the thirteenth century). What is distinctive in the Eufemiavisor is their use of Old Swedish as a literary vehicle, because this idiom had not previously seen use outside of didactic, historical, or religious contexts.2 A second innovation in the Eufemiavisor is their composition in rhyming verse instead of prose. Here again, isolated precedents in native literary and poetic contexts can be identified, such as in a few runic inscriptions that were probably carved in the twelfth century, but these monuments used Old Swedish in an ornamental and non-narrative context. The predominance of 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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prose narration in the medieval North was set and reinforced by the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, and it continued in Sweden as well until the start of the fourteenth century. A third innovation in the Eufemiavisor is the fact that the romances appear to be the first vernacular texts to be translated in Norway for the edification of an audience that was neither Icelandic nor Norwegian. And lastly, they are the oldest works of literature in the North that can be associated with a female patron. The first of the Eufemiavisor was probably Herr Ivan Lejonriddaren (“Sir Ivan, the Knight with the Lion”), which was completed in 1303. The Old Swedish text is a relatively faithful rendition of Chrétien’s Yvain, but it is unclear which version of the Old French text was used as a source. Herr Ivan was not the only romance of Yvain in circulation at the Norwegian court—it was preceded by Ívens saga, which was translated into Old Norse prose around in the middle of the thirteenth century—but the younger version in Old Swedish appears to be an independent rendition of the tale.3 The second work translated during Eufemia’s reign was a bridal-quest romance known as Hertig Fredrik af Normandie (“Duke Fredrik of Normandy”). It probably appeared in 1308, but the exact dating of this translation is disputed. The majority of the seven surviving manuscripts claim the work was finished in 1308, but two manuscripts indicate that the text was translated earlier, in 1300 or 1301. As a romance, Hertig Fredrik is an unruly pastiche, its narrative marked by the occasionally haphazard juxtaposition of narrative tropes drawn from the bridal-quest and Arthurian traditions. According to the epilogue of the romance, the Old Swedish Hertig Fredrik was translated from medieval German source, but this text (which was likely composed in Low Germany or the Rhineland area) is lost and no trace of it has ever come to light. We do not know how this source text reached the Oslo court in the early years of the fourteenth century. A German manuscript of the source for Hertig Fredrik may have been in Eufemia’s possession when she came to Norway in 1299, or, alternately, it could have reached her in Norway by way of her father’s court in the Baltic city of Stralsund.4 The last of the three epics linked to Eufemia’s patronage is Flores och Blanzeflor (“Floris and Blancheflour”), which appeared in 1312. Based on a version of the Old French romance Floire et Blanchefleur, the Old Swedish translation appears to borrow some 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Eufemia: Voicing and Legacy


scenes or details from the Old Norse prose version Florés saga ok Blankiflúr as well.5 The translator of the Eufemiavisor—a person skilled in several vernaculars of medieval Europe—is anonymous.6 Because the translation of the Eufemiavisor is so deeply indebted to the precise alignment of specific cultural, literary, and political factors at the Oslo court in the early fourteenth century, however, there is good reason to conclude that only a small handful of men would have possessed all of the necessary prerequisites. One candidate that fits the profile remarkably well is Peter Algotsson, a well-educated Swedish diplomat and nobleman from a distinguished family in Västergötland. Son of a lawman and brother of a bishop, Peter was made a canon of Skara cathedral in 1278. His career soon turned to politics, however, and in 1279 he became the chancellor of the Swedish king Magnus Ladulås. Peter may well have been involved in diplomatic errands for the Swedish monarchy as early as 1273, as there is a letter from Duke Johann of Braunschweig attesting that a certain Petrus Camerarius was sent there from the Swedish court in order to negotiate a marriage contract—presumably because Peter had a university education (later documents name him magister Petrus) and some facility with the German language. Peter Algotsson was forced into exile in 1288. He left his position with the Swedish court and sought refuge in Norway because his brother had committed a serious crime—abducting a bride and fleeing the kingdom with her—in which Peter may have been implicated as well. Once in Norway, Peter soon was taken into diplomatic service there. In the early 1290s, Peter was sent to the courts of England and Scotland to negotiate marriages for the Norwegian king. These diplomatic errands confirm that Peter was held in high regard, and, further, that he had deep and first-hand knowledge of the chivalric ways of different courts in medieval northern Europe. Confirmation of this is found in a letter sent in 1293 from the English King Edward I to Peter, thanking him in very warm terms for the falcons and hawks Peter had sent as a gift.7 The idea that Peter Algotsson may have been the translator of the Eufemiavisor has been debated before, but no corroborating evidence has yet come to light.8 The fact that Peter’s last charters were signed in the 1290s hints at the possibility that he had died before Eufemia came to Norway. A brief entry found in an Icelandic annal from the early fourteenth century—a death notice 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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recording the passing of “Bishop Peter of Skara in Götaland” in 1299—would seem to offer confirmation of the premise that Peter was dead before the Eufemiavisor were translated, but there is good reason to approach this annal with caution.9 Peter was canon, not bishop, in Skara, and a comparison with other Norwegian and Icelandic annals for the year 1299 suggests that this death notice was not for Peter Algotsson but rather for the old Bishop Peter of Västerås, who died in northern Norway in 1299.10 If Peter Algotsson was not the translator of the Eufemiavisor, somebody very much like him must have been in Oslo: someone with an intimate knowledge of foreign languages and their customs, a long-standing record of diplomatic service to the monarchy, and a position that kept him at the Oslo court as an intimate of the royal house. With regard to Peter’s literary abilities, it is certainly worth mentioning that Peter’s older brother, Brynolf Algotsson, bishop of Skara, is known as the first poet in medieval Sweden to compose rhyming verse in Latin. A flair for literary composition may have run in the family.

Eufemia’s Work Each of the Eufemiavisor tales ends with an epilogue that names Eufemia as the literary patron. These passages give insight into the translation process and the date of composition, and they illuminate the process by which the romances took shape in Old Swedish under Eufemia’s royal imprimatur. Of critical importance for our discussion of translation as a political act is the way in which the epilogues characterize patronage—especially literary patronage—as a means of strengthening the bonds between sovereign and subjects. The Old Swedish romances celebrate the fact that the queen has given “us” something that was meant for “our” ears only. This is evident in the epilogue to Herr Ivan, which stipulates that the text was translated into “our tongue.” Þa þusand vinter, þry hundraþ ar fran Guþs føþilse liþin var ok þær til þry, i þæn sama tima varþ þæsse bokin giorþ til rima Eufemia drotning, þæt maghin I tro læt þæssa bokena vænda svo af valske tungo ok a vart mal




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When one thousand winters, three hundred years and another three had passed since God’s birth, this book was put into verse. Queen Eufemia, you may believe me, had this book translated [lit. turned] from the French tongue into our language. God have mercy on the noble lady’s soul. She was queen of Norway for thirteen years by the grace of God. Now this book is finished.

The epilogues of Hertig Fredrik af Normandie and Flores och Blanzeflor also attest to Eufemia’s direct involvement as sponsor of the translations. The final lines of Flores och Blanzeflor inform the audience that this epic was completed shortly before Eufemia’s death. Nu hafuer thenne saghan ænda. Gudh os sina nadher sændæ! Thesse bok loot vænda til rima Eufemia drøtning ij then tima litith før æn hon do. Gudh gifui henna siæll nadher ok ro, swa ok them, ther hænne giørdhe, ok allom them, ther bokena hørdhe. (2181–88) Now this tale is ended. May God send us His mercy! This book was translated [lit. turned] into rhyme by Eufemia the queen, just before she died. God grant her soul mercy and peace, and may He likewise grant it to them who made the book and to all who heard it.

The most detailed of the three epilogues is found at the end of Hertig Fredrik af Normandie. Here the poet explicates the textual history of the romance in considerable detail. Her medh ændis thenne sagha. Gudh giffui os swa wara dagha j thenne werldh ændhe at wi wardhom kændæ bland helge mæn j himmerik och liffuæ j glædi æverdelik! Thenne bok j hær høræ



Guþ naþe þe ædla frugho sial þær drotning ivir Norghe var maþ Guþs miskun þrættan ar. Nu ær þæsse bok til ænde. (6431–41)

hona loth keysær Otte gøra och wendhæ aff walsko j tytzt mall gudh nadhæ thæss ædhlæ førstæ sial! Nw ær hon annan tiidh giordh til rima nylikæ jnnan stuntan tima aff thyzko och j swænskæ thungo thet forstanda gamble och ungæ. Hona loth wændæ a thetta mall Eufemiæ drøtning, henne sial giffui gudh j himmerike medh ænglom nadher æwerdhelika for allæ the dygd och ære hon giorde mædhen hon war hære til gudh och werldhen badhæ; thy war off stor skadhæ at hon matte ey lenger liffuæ, nær wenir och frender bliffuæ. Tha thusændh vinter och iii.c aar fra gudz føtzlo lidhin war och ther til viij aar och manade twa war thæsse bok diktad swa som hon kan at thydha them hona lyster lydhæ. Iach wil thet ther medh ændæ. Gudh os sine nadher sændæ och giffuæ allom them bokena hørdhe swa och them ther hona giordhe glædhi for wtan ændæ tha them skal dødhen hændæ, then hona skreff fangæ och swa. Jach tror til idher j sighin jaa. Amen. (3274–3310) Thus the tale is ended here. At the end of our days in this world, may God grant that we be counted among the holy men in Heaven, and live in eternal happiness! This book you now hear was commissioned by Otto the Emperor, who had it translated [lit. turned] from French into the German language. May God be merciful to that noble ruler’s soul!11 Recently it was set again into rhyme, a second time, from German into the Swedish tongue—a language that both old and young understand. Queen Eufemia had it translated into that language, may God in Heaven grant her soul eternal mercies with the angels, for all of the gracious and honorable things she did, for God and for the world alike, while she was alive. It was a great misfortune that she did not live longer, as friends and relatives must remain behind. When one thousand winters and three


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Queenship and Voice: Northern Europe hundred years had passed since God’s birth, and then eight years and two months, this book was finished [lit. versified], so that any who wish to listen to it may certainly learn from it as well. I will let it stand with that. May God send us His mercy, and give to all those who heard the book, as well as to those who made it and those who wrote it, gladness without end at the moment of their deaths. I trust that you all will say “yes.” Amen.

The historical witness of these epilogues is difficult to assess. It is unclear whether the epilogues were composed at the same time as the romances themselves—that is, in 1303, 1308, and 1312—or at some later date. If they had been part of the manuscript transmission from the outset, it is unfortunate that no trace of this original wording survives in any of the twelve extant manuscripts; the epilogues invariably speak of Eufemia in the past tense. It is possible, however, that the epilogues existed in an abbreviated form before her death on May 1, 1312, and were later expanded and emended in a posthumous gesture of memoria for the deceased queen. Of particular interest in these epilogues is what the passages reveal about literary production in early fourteenth-century Scandinavia. That significance, notably, is measured in acoustic terms, for all three of the epilogues make direct reference to the listening communities that surround these works. Those who read the romances or hear them read aloud are welcomed into a privileged group. With the identical phrase in each of the epilogues, God’s blessings are invoked ok allum þem þær bokena hørþe [upon all those who listened to the book] (Herr Ivan 6444, Hertig Fredrik 3305, Flores 3621). The poet of Hertig Fredrik goes further still, privileging those within the scope of the voice with information about the origin of the tale and its appearance at the Norwegian court. By informing the audience that Thenne bok j hær høræ [this book you are listening to now] was originally associated with an illustrious patron, Kaiser Otto, before it underwent a remarkable process of literary transformation that brought it to Norway, the chain of royal legitimacy and cross-cultural patronage is shown to be continuous: from French to German to Swedish and thus into the ears of its audience. In a similar sense, the vernacular becomes a political instrument that promotes a sense of ownership at the Oslo court. The Old Swedish tongue challenges national identities and differentiations. The epilogues make it clear that the romances belong not



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to the court or the Norwegian courtiers but, in broader terms, to those listening communities able to comprehend them. In Herr Ivan the poet states that the translation was accomplished by turning the tale af valske tungo ok a vart mal [from the French tongue into our language], a locution that neglects to specify what, exactly, is meant by vart mal. Further, the epilogue to Hertig Fredrik explains that the Old Swedish romance stands as the end result of a two-fold process, according to which the French tale was first translated into German (och wendhæ aff walsko j tytzt mall) and then subsequently into Swedish (aff thyzko och j swænskæ thungo)—a language that, incongruously, is said to enjoy a universal appeal: thet forstanda gamble och ungæ [both old and young understand that]. The fact that Old Swedish was a minority dialect at the Oslo court of Hákon V stands at odds with the poet’s claims to universality. Nonetheless we see how the Old Swedish poetic voice serves as a vehicle to foster a sense of community that transcends the national and linguistic borders of the Norwegian kingdom. Even though the romances are translated in Oslo, their resonance is meant to spread far afield. Therefore the translation of this romance and the other Eufemiavisor lays the foundation for a literary tradition that will not be limited to a small circle of linguistic insiders at the royal court in Oslo. Instead the texts will be heard by “both old and young” across Sweden as well. In this case, the Eufemiavisor represent a prescient allocation of the royal imprimatur—of the royal voice—in literary works composed in the same East Norse dialect that Ingeborg could one day claim as her own.

Voicing If voice is a determinant of the cultural and political value of the Eufemiavisor, then we must consider how the Old Swedish voicing of the romances survived a third process of linguistic and political transformation. During the 200 years of their manuscript transmission, the Eufemiavisor did not remain in Oslo. By the early years of the sixteenth century, all three of the romances had undergone a secondary translation from Old Swedish into Old Danish.12 Although the two languages are quite similar to one another, holding a number of morphological and linguistic features in common, the anonymous Danish translator faced some degree of political and linguistic difficulty when the epilogues of the source





manuscripts begin to refer to Eufemia, her literary objectives, and the inclusive notion of “the Swedish tongue” (j swænskæ thungo) as a marker of belongingness. On a semantic level, the closing verses of the Old Danish Herr Ivan, for example, are relatively innocuous, in that the epilogue explains that the translation took place aff walskæ twnge och pa wort mall [from the French tongue into our language]. This is the same identical phrase found in the Old Swedish versions, but for the readership and audience of the Danish version the meaning of wort mall has undergone a conceptual and national shift. While the phrasing of the line remained intact in the Old Danish translation (indeed, not a word was changed from its source), the audience is given a misleading account of the translation process and Eufemia’s engagement as a literary patron. The epilogue refers to Eufemia as a queen (Ewfemia droningh, v. 6397) but it does not associate her with the kingdom of Sweden; and what is more, the innocuous phrase describing the translation being done “into our language” now seems to imply that this language was—and had always been—Danish. A different series of linguistic/cultural dissonances confronted the Danish translator of Hertig Fredrik. Here, the text was altered to minimize Eufemia’s role in the production of the romance. The ten lines of the Old Swedish epilogue that refer to her patronage (3287–3296) are deleted, and another conceptual stumbling block in the epilogue—the specific reference to Hertig Fredrik being translated aff thyzko och j swænskæ thungo [from German into the Swedish tongue]—is likewise emended to obscure the fact that the text had ever been Swedish at all. Rather, the Old Danish poet provides an alternate history of the romance’s origin. nw ær hwn wend i stakad timæ jen anen tid sat i rymaæ aff tysk och i danska tunge (2405–7)13 Now it is translated again and set to rhyme a second time from German into the Danish tongue

With this minor emendation, the Danish audience listening to the text (thenne bog som i hawer hørdh, 2401) is enveloped seamlessly within a paradigm of voice-broadcast-reception in Old Danish that is identical to that which was obtained at Eufemia’s court. The fact that the Old Danish version gives an inaccurate account 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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of the romance’s origin—the Danish text was never translated from the original German—is inconsequential; the poet had little choice but to emend his source in order to make the romance conform to its new (Danish) context. Because the dissonances had to be eliminated in order to preserve the value of the romance as a literary work in Old Danish, we see clearly the extent to which textual fidelity gives way to political and cultural expediency. The intrinsic worth of the Old Danish romance rests, therefore, in the credibility of its claim to speak in “our tongue.” The example of the Old Danish redactions illuminates the extent to which voicing can be variable. Yet despite its variability, the romance sacrifices nothing of its cultural power. This phenomenon reinforces the central claim in this book that, in this cross-cultural region of medieval northern Europe, the audible voice is valorized as a marker of identity and medium for political influence. In the sections that follow I explore further the connection between voice, royal authority, and the establishment of literary communities in the medieval North. My intent is to construct a model that explains how cultural engagement through literary patronage can be transformed into a potent tool of statecraft. First, however, we require more data. In order to fully grasp the scope of Eufemia’s accomplishments, which were deeply influenced by the political dynamic in early fourteenth-century Norway and Sweden, we must understand that her interest in literary patronage was neither ad hoc nor unprecedented. Instead, I maintain that the political and ideological value of the Old Swedish romances rests predominately in their voicing, and that the appeal of the voice was, for Eufemia’s political context, the most effective way of influencing new listening communities and strengthening the position of a Norwegian royal dynasty that faced a crisis of succession. This crisis was precipitated not by the lack of offspring, as Hákon V and Eufemia had a child in 1301, but by the gender of their only child: a daughter, Ingeborg. A closer look at the legal and dynastical challenges that Hákon V and Eufemia faced in the early fourteenth century because their young daughter was an only child shows clearly how cultural mediation and literary patronage were aspects of a broader political initiative to enhance Ingeborg’s status as a noblewoman. As we shall see, Hákon V accomplished this by revising the Norwegian laws of royal succession after Ingeborg was born, breaking with centuries of legal prohibitions against female rule and enabling legitimate daughters—in some 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




circumstances—to inherit the throne. I submit that Eufemia, likewise, undertook the translation of the Eufemiavisor in order to further the goals of a Norwegian dynasty that was poised to enter uncharted waters. Eufemia accomplished this by creating works of unprecedented cultural value, by sponsoring the production of texts that were translated into Old Swedish not as gifts for foreign suitors but, in contrast, as investments in Ingeborg’s cultural representation that will reap cultural dividends for her once she is wed to a Swedish nobleman. With this in mind, we turn now to the political and strategic complexities of early-fourteenthcentury Scandinavia, and the quest to find a suitor for Eufemia’s daughter.

Betrothal The young princess Ingeborg was engaged to Erik Magnusson, duke of Södermanland, on September 29, 1302. The arrangement was finalized at a meeting in Solberga (near the SwedishNorwegian border) that was attended by the king of Sweden and other leading men from both kingdoms. At the time of the engagement, Ingeborg was not yet two years old, while her betrothed, one of the preeminent noblemen of Sweden, a younger brother of the Swedish king, was twenty.14 The engagement was a token of a new spirit of cooperation between the Swedish and Norwegian kingdoms, one that likely signaled the desire to check the ascendancy of Denmark as a regional power. At the same time, however, Hákon V may well have encouraged a union between his daughter and Erik Magnusson because his potential son-in-law was a rival to the Swedish crown; it gave him a bargaining chip with Sweden as well. Under the proper circumstances this alliance could also reign in the aspirations of the Swedish king, Birger Magnusson, to extend Sweden’s influence westward, all the way to the Göta älv near Göteborg, close to the Norwegian border. With the betrothal of Ingeborg to Erik Magnusson, Hákon V was able to check two of his rival kingdoms with one stroke. By promising Ingeborg to Erik Magnusson, Hákon took steps to end Norway’s political isolation. In the decades prior to the engagement, Norway had become marginalized in economic as well as cultural terms. By the end of the thirteenth century the courts of Denmark and Sweden had made common cause on 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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many issues of domestic and regional importance, and the bond between the two kingdoms was reinforced by intermarriages within the Swedish and Danish royal houses: the Danish King Erik VI married Birger’s sister Ingeborg in 1296 and Birger himself took Erik’s sister Margareta as his wife in 1298.15 As a result of this Danish-Swedish alliance, the axis of influence across the eastern Scandinavian and Baltic regions had a pronounced North/South orientation, stretching from the Finland holdings of the Swedish crown southwest toward the Mälardalen/Uppland seat of power for the ruling dynasty of Sweden, further southward to the wealthy merchant towns near the Øresund and into Copenhagen and the rest of Denmark. Westward of this line of influence, the kingdom of Norway—though rich in Atlantic territories such as Iceland, Greenland, the Faeroes, and some of the Scottish islands—was isolated from the dynamic center of the Nordic world. From this peripheral position Norway could not, as yet, hope to challenge Denmark for supremacy in the region. The betrothal of Ingeborg to Erik Magnusson suggests nevertheless that the territories in eastern and south-central Sweden over which Erik had lordship played a role in Hákon’s political strategy: Erik Magnusson would be poised to act as a buffer against the possibility of Danish aggression and expansion in the territories near Scania. A secondary goal for Hákon V may have been to capitalize on Erik’s antagonistic relationship with his brother, King Birger of Sweden, as a means of improving Norway’s position in the event that Birger died or was deposed.16 Or perhaps not. The charters, treaties, and other records from this period do not present a coherent view of what Hákon’s strategic objectives might have been, and the tactical responses of Erik VI and Birger Magnusson are equally puzzling. The overall dynamic is one in which grand schemes and secret alliances between the Nordic kingdoms are repeatedly undone through bad luck, bad faith, and poor judgment. As described by the historian Sverre Bagge, “the events of the period 1302–1319 show a bewildering mass of moves and countermoves in war and peace, and alliances and peace treaties that were broken almost as soon as they were concluded.”17 Acknowledging the difficulties faced by historiographers of this period, Bagge draws upon the notion of game theory as a means of making sense of the “move and countermove” tactics so prevalent in the inter-Nordic conflicts during the first decades of the fourteenth century. The prospect 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




of winning Ingeborg’s hand added a unique twist to this strategic quest. And with so much at stake in 1302—Ingeborg was the only eligible, unmarried daughter of a Scandinavian king at that time—the state of affairs resembles nothing less than a grand game for the Norwegian throne. Whoever wins Ingeborg wins Norway as well. But Ingeborg was not easily won. One complicating factor in the long engagement between Ingeborg and Erik Magnusson was the issue of Ingeborg’s minority; she was still a young girl. The years of delay before Ingeborg reached the age of sexual maturity provided ample opportunity for Erik Magnusson and Hákon V to clash on a number of issues. This they did, repeatedly. At times the political objectives of Hákon V and Erik Magnusson fell into alignment, but overall the ten-year span of the engagement was defined more by discord than by common cause. The betrothal to Erik Magnusson reached its high point during the years 1305–1307, when the strategic interests of Hákon V converged with those of Erik Magnusson and Erik’s brother Valdemar, duke of Finland. Engaged in a power struggle with the third brother, King Birger Magnusson of Sweden, the two brothers seized the initiative in the autumn of 1306. On September 29 of that year they captured King Birger at his estate in Håtuna, imprisoning him and taking control of the kingdom. Birger’s ally, Erik VI of Denmark, soon intervened, and by Christmas of 1306 Danish troops had marched into Sweden. Erik VI was unable to force the dukes to capitulate, but the brothers signed an armistice and released Birger from captivity. The situation soon returned to the status quo ante. Soon afterward, the pendulum swung in the other direction. Apparently eager to curry favor with his future father-in-law, Erik Magnusson issued a public letter to the Norwegian people in February 1307, pledging his support for Hákon V, whom he praised as magnificus princeps carissimus pater noster in Christo dominus Haquinus rex Norwegie illustris [the magnificent prince, our beloved father in Christ, Hákon, the illustrious king of Norway]. In another portion of the letter, Erik dedicated himself to strengthening the eternal bonds of affection between Norway and Sweden, pro bono pacis et perpetue concordie condicta sunt inter regna Norwegie et Swecie [for the sake of peace and perpetual concord amongst the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden].18 But only a short time later, in the summer of 1307, the relationship between Hákon V and Erik Magnusson soured again. The engagement was suspended, with Hákon and Erik 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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at an impasse about which Norwegian holdings would be transferred to Erik’s lordship once the marriage was sealed. According to a Swedish chronicle from the early fourteenth century called Erikskrönikan, a posthumous account of Erik Magnusson’s life and deeds, Erik went to Norway in 1307 to discuss the matter but met with little success.19 Hertogh Erik skipade sinne reed om Olaffs messo til Norigis, ok tenkte han at wara wiis at han skulle fanga sina møø ok møtte konungenom i Kraxøø. Tha stodh konungsins dagtingan swa: ‘Kan jak ey Wardbergh ater faa, tha kant tw ey myn dotter fanga hwar epter torff mik tha langa.’ Tha sagde hertogh Erik: ‘Viltu hona ey giwa mik, Gud giffue henne lycko æ hwo hona faar, Wardbergh faar tw ey ather i aar ok tess at sidher attu swa lather.’ Tha vænde hertugh Erik ather til Konungælle . . . . (2675–2690) Duke Erik traveled by ship to Norway around the feast of St. Olaf, and, under the impression that he would get his lady [Ingeborg], he met the king at Kraxö. The king’s demand was this: “If I cannot have Warberg back, then you shall not have my daughter.” Duke Erik answered, “If you don’t want to give her to me, then may God grant her happiness with whomever ends up with her; you shall not have Warberg back this year.” At that Erik returned to Kongahelle ( . . .)

Although the two men agreed to meet again in the spring of 1308 to discuss the engagement, their relations had not improved. A Munka holmen møttes the. Them sampdo ey weel a badhom. Hertugin haffde wel warith med nadhom han hopnade konungsins dotter faa ok konungen han wille ey saa. (2883–87) They met at Munkholmen, but failed to reach agreement with one another. The duke had been very courteous—he hoped to win the king’s daughter. But the king refused.





By 1308, the relationship between Hákon V and Erik Magnusson reached its nadir. The betrothal was in jeopardy, and Erik Magnusson besieged Oslo, causing Hákon to seek an alliance with an unlikely rival, Erik VI of Denmark, just to drive Erik Magnusson back from the city. Against Eufemia’s wishes (utan synne hustru loff, 3103), Hákon called off the engagement. A new suitor for Ingeborg was sought, and the Norwegian princess was engaged to Erik’s younger brother Magnus, duke of Finland.20 The engagement to Magnus lasted only a few months before Erik was again chosen as Ingeborg’s betrothed, but this momentary suspension in 1308 was not an isolated occurrence. Several years later, in 1310, the betrothal was broken off again due to unresolved political disputes. As a consequence, both parties were quickly engaged to others: Erik Magnusson to Sophie of Werle, a northern German noblewoman, while Ingeborg, now nine years of age, was pledged to King Birger’s son Magnus Birgersson.21 But this, too, eventually passed and the engagement to Erik Magnusson was reestablished for the final time in 1311. They married in the summer of 1312, shortly after Eufemia had died. Let us now return to Eufemia’s role as queen consort in Norway and consider her engagement as a literary patron as one additional factor in the “move and countermove” dynamic that defined Norwegian affairs during the period 1302–1312. It is clear from the historical record that Erik Magnusson was Hákon’s favored candidate to win Ingeborg’s hand. Nevertheless, political aspirations cannot hold sway against political realities, and despite Hákon’s efforts the engagement was suspended twice, with Ingeborg engaged to a rival suitor each time. Erik Magnusson was hardly an indispensible player in this game, because even without him the political objectives of the Norwegian monarchy might still be realized. In light of these considerations, the only constants in this political intrigue seem to be Ingeborg herself and the prize of the Norwegian crown. The Eufemiavisor, furthermore, ought to be considered as a third token in this game, for in the disputed cultural space of this Norwegian/Swedish border zone, the romances undoubtedly possessed great cultural (and therefore also political) value. In the sections to follow we will examine how the translations strengthened Ingeborg’s hand by underscoring the legitimacy of female power in the Norwegian and Swedish kingdoms. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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The Norwegian historian P.A. Munch was the first to argue that the translation of each of the Eufemiavisor can be linked to specific political events at the Norwegian court.22 Munch suggests that the romances were intended as gifts and diplomatic tokens of good favor during the long-standing and often problematical engagement between Ingeborg and Erik Magnusson, and this hypothesis of diplomacy through literary production has established itself as the scholarly communis opinio in the question of the origins of the Old Swedish epics. The role typically assigned to Eufemia in this dynamic, that of the gracious and warmhearted queen, has likewise never been called into question.23 The hypothesis is admittedly attractive, for the chronology of the translations appears to coincide well with the rise and continuation of the engagement between Ingeborg and Erik Magnusson, with Herr Ivan appearing only a year after the betrothal was formalized in 1302. It is tempting to regard the translation as part of a cultural offensive to ingratiate a new suitor with the Norwegian court and welcome him into its cultural orbit. Similarly, the third and last of the trio of Old Swedish romances, Flores och Blanzeflor, can also be brought into connection with Erik and Ingeborg, in that the epilogue states that the translation was completed in the spring of 1312, just a few months before Ingeborg and Erik were finally married. Although the epilogue is not a contemporary witness to the political events of 1312, it suggests that the translation may have been intended to commemorate their union—a crowning achievement following a long and arduous engagement. If the chronology of the Eufemiavisor seems to parallel the inception and conclusion of the engagement to Erik Magnusson, the tone and subject matter of the romances themselves can also be associated with the different phases of the engagement. Is it just a coincidence that the first romance, Herr Ivan, recounts the adventures of a hero who learns to bide his time? Was it purely by accident that the third and final romance, Flores och Blanzeflor, celebrates the union of a pair of long-separated lovers that is finally (after many years of delay) permitted to wed? Despite the attractiveness of the scenario that regards each of the Eufemiavisor as a roman á clef that responds to the rise and fall of Ingeborg’s engagement to Erik Magnusson, there are compelling reasons to question the accuracy of these assessments. To



Translations—For Erik?


begin, there are unresolved questions about the sequence of the Eufemiavisor during the period of the engagement. While the datings of Herr Ivan (1303) and Flores och Blanzeflor (1312) are secure, it is unclear whether Hertig Fredrik was indeed the second in the series. Some manuscripts of Hertig Fredrik indicate that it was finished in 1300 or 1301, instead of in 1308. This early dating—if it is accurate—threatens the coherence of the entire paradigm, for if the translation preceded Ingeborg’s engagement to Erik Magnusson then the romance could not possibly carry out the task of political mediation that the Eufemiavisor are often assumed to have performed.24 But even if the later dating of 1308 is credible, a more serious concern with Hertig Fredrik has to do with its subject matter and its unsuitability as a literary reflection of the state of the engagement during the years 1307–1308. When viewed against the backdrop of protracted political conflict between Erik and Hákon V, it is difficult to comprehend how a bridal-quest romance like Hertig Fredrik—one that celebrates the daring abduction of a foreign princess from the clutches of her suspicious father—might have served to advance the strategic goals of the Norwegian court. Hertig Fredrik constructs a model relationship between father-inlaw and son-in-law that is fraught with tension and violent confrontations; in the romance the hero is even tied to the stake to be burned in a public execution. (Thanks to a magic ring, Fredrik escapes.) The text, in short, would seem to exacerbate the tensions that existed between Hákon and Erik during this period, rather than easing them. And if Eufemia’s actions as a literary patron were indeed motivated by her affection for Erik Magnusson and her desire to see the engagement fulfilled in marriage—it is noteworthy in this context that Erikskrönikan claims that the queen was fond of her future son-in-law, that she “held him dear in her heart” (Hon haffde han i sith hierta kär, 1925)—then the translation of Hertig Fredrik would seem to work contrary to that goal. What of Eufemia herself? The caveats evaluated here call attention to problems with the chronology of the Eufemiavisor and highlight the perils of speculation about what ostensible message the romances were meant to convey during this time of political instability. But irrespective of the dating of the romances or their perceived connection to the changing fortunes of Ingeborg’s engagement, we must still confront the gender bias in the scholarship’s assumptions about Eufemia’s literary patronage—that she was driven by emotion rather than by political calculation. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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The fact that the Erikskrönikan claims Eufemia held Erik “dear in her heart” is insufficient justification for concluding that the romances could only have been designed to bolster Erik’s flagging interest in a union with the Norwegian monarchy, or that Eufemia’s strategy with the translations ran counter to the goals her husband had set. In the section to follow, therefore, I advocate for a conceptual break, a decoupling of the Old Swedish translations from the historical trajectory of Erik Magnusson’s engagement to Ingeborg. I do not reject the notion that the translation into Old Swedish was a cultural act that is suffused with great political meaning. But by the same token the dynastic context under which Eufemia was operating in the early years of the fourteenth century strongly suggests that the romances were not directed solely outward—as a “broadcast” toward Erik Magnusson—and furthermore, we should likewise question the notion that the Eufemiavisor were meant for his ears only. Even though Erik Magnusson was the eventual beneficiary of their cultural novelty, it is my proposition that the romances were translated in order to bolster the political value of Eufemia’s daughter as the heir not only to a kingdom (more on that in a moment) but also as the inheritor of a literary corpus of great value to Swedish audiences. The link between the Eufemiavisor and Ingeborg is strengthened by the parallels I see between Eufemia’s sponsorship of the Old Swedish romances and Hákon’s efforts on the legal front to enhance the lordship of his only daughter through a revision of the Norwegian laws of royal succession. For this reason, instead of regarding these translations as manifestations of a queen’s so-called “soft diplomacy” that worked in opposition to the efforts of Hákon V, who often took a hard-line stance against his future son-in-law, the Eufemiavisor stand as a complement to Hákon’s efforts to secure an advantageous match for Ingeborg. The romances, like the castles and fortifications that Erik and Hákon bickered over, stand as visible (and audible!) representations of lordship in a Swedish context.

Inheritance When Hákon V became king of Norway in 1299, the laws governing royal succession were still bound by the provisions established in the Hirðskrá, a Norwegian law code produced at the court of his father, King Magnus Hákonsson (r. 1263–1281).25 Norway was 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




an inherited monarchy, and according to the Hirðskrá the crown can pass only to the legitimate male descendants of the seated king. The order of succession was determined according to the degree of male kinship, with the eldest legitimate son of the Norwegian king ranked highest, in the first position, the eldest paternal grandson occupying the second position, and so on through the male line. At all times, through the twelfth degree of succession, the principle of legitimate descent from the king applies without exception. Restrictions excluding illegitimate offspring are not absolute, however; the seventh degree of succession stipulates that the king’s eldest illegitimate son may also become king, “provided that he is not conceived through adultery or incest or breach of kinship; nor shall he be king unless he swears an oath upon the law that the king had publicly verified his patrimony.”26 The only provision for succession through the female line occurs in the eighth degree. According to this clause in the legal code the eldest legitimate son of the king’s daughter may become king—but only if that daughter of the king was also legitimate. The Hirðskrá makes it clear that royal authority shall only be placed into male hands. The extent of the prohibition against female rule is underscored by a statement in the final clause of the law, where provisions are made for succession in the event that none of the aforementioned twelve degrees of kinship could be satisfied. Should this occur, “then the eldest one in the royal line who can claim inheritance to the crown, according to the common rule of inheritance in the law book, shall be king, male but not female.” 27 The stipulation in this final clause, karl en ei kona, offers much more than just a clarification of the rather ambiguous phrasing in an earlier passage, that the crown shall pass to “the eldest one” (hinn elzsti) with a legitimate claim. Although the intentions of the law code can be inferred from its use of the masculine form of the definite pronoun (hinn) in this passage, which produces the meaning “the oldest one (that is male),” the final statement karl en ei kona rejects unambiguously any possibility that the Norwegian monarchy—even under extraordinary circumstances—could be invested in a woman. Hákon V removed this prohibition from the inheritance laws in 1302, two years after the birth of his only daughter. In a proclamation made with the consensus of some of Norway’s prominent lords, such as the archbishops of Nidaros, Stavanger, and Oslo, 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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En su er hin siaunða erfð er dotter konongs skilgeten hin ælzsta ein tekar konongsðomen.28 This is the seventh degree of inheritance, that the oldest legitimate daughter of the king shall alone rule the kingdom.

This momentous change was not the only adjustment Hákon made to the gendered prohibitions against female succession. According to Hákon’s revision, female succession was permitted in the twelfth degree of kinship as well. The list of acceptable kin relationships for the twelfth degree is very brief, however, for only those who can claim kinship through a male progenitor—such as the eldest legitimate sister of the king, a paternal aunt, or the fraternal niece of the king—are eligible to assume the throne if no suitable male candidates could be found.29 Notable in the revision of the seventh degree is the way in which it defines the lordship of the king’s daughter over and against the gendered language of the law code. None of the previous entries, concerning the first through sixth degree of succession, saw the need to explain how masculine lordship is passed on in the succession. In those earlier clauses, royal authority is conveyed immediately, automatically, and absolutely: as soon as the law has identified the proper candidate, hann skal konongr vera [he shall be king]. The masculine terms in this crucial passage (he, king)— surely as venerable as they were uncontroversial—presented a problem. For obvious reasons, the masculine term konongr cannot apply in Hákon’s revision to the seventh degree, concerning the king’s daughter, as it is a gendered term. But there was no comparable legal term for “queen” in Old Norse to replace it. (The term dróttning [queen] did see use as a ceremonial and dynastical title, but a queen’s status was not recognized in medieval Norwegian law.) Because older collocations of the medieval Norwegian laws made no provisions for female rulership except to prohibit it—let us recall the final clause in the Hirðskrá, for example—there was not only a lack of legal precedent but also a lack of appropriate terminology to describe the type of female lordship permitted under this revision of the law code. In his revision to the laws of royal succession Hákon meets these challenges—of precedent, of terminology, of outright prohibition—by focusing not on status, but on actions: on the exercise of 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Hákon instituted a change in the seventh degree of succession.


lordship and the embodiment of royal rule. In medieval Norwegian law, the laconic formulation hann skal konongr vera that denotes the transfer of authority from the king to his male successor leaves the process entirely uncommented upon; kingship simply is. In the seventh degree of succession, however, the revision permitting a daughter to succeed her father envisions a different and much more dynamic process. According to the terms of the seventh degree, the daughter shall take (tekar < taka [to take, seize]) royal authority. The verb taka has strong connotations for the process of royal succession in medieval Scandinavia, especially in Sweden, an elective monarchy, for freeborn landholders in the province of Uppland had for generations enjoyed the rights guaranteed them in the provincial law code to taga ok vräka konungen [to take and to dismiss the king] in elections.30 With the use of the word taka in this Norwegian context, the amended law code acknowledges that the process as well as the dynamic of royal succession differs when a woman stands to inherit the throne. The clause directs the eldest legitimate daughter to assert a de jure claim for sovereign authority that is defined not through the investiture with a royal title (as is the case with male succession, that “he shall be king”) but rather by the exercise of royal prerogatives. In such cases sovereign authority does not simply coalesce around the candidate. Rather, the woman is directed to stake a claim to the mantle of power: she shall seize the konungðomen—an infrequent and highly significant synonym for “kingdom” used here to underscore the singular nature of female lordship. This word calls to mind the monarch’s authority to act as highest judge (cf. dómr [court] dómsorð [sentence]) over the entire realm. The daughter who assumes the throne according to the seventh degree of succession shall not merely become sovereign but, instead, is directed to act as sovereign. And yet, while the wording of this clause entitles the daughter to assume the powers of rulership, it leaves the issue of her authority in suspension. Sovereignty, in this instance, is something that is appropriated in the personal sense (the verb taka) rather than something that is in the abstract sense (the verb vara, [to be]). The semantic distinction points at a disparity between sons and daughters in the degree of sovereignty afforded them by the medieval Norwegian laws. Daughters like Ingeborg, should they inherit the throne, assume powers that are not reinforced by custom, precedent, or legal writ, and this crisis of legitimacy taints their rulership—even in the theoretical sense—with connotations 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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of being ad hoc, extraordinary, or even presumptuous. The revision grants them the power, but not the authority, of rulership. Five years later, in 1308, Hákon V moved again to reinforce his only daughter’s position in the plan of royal succession. On June 17, 1308 he issued a royal proclamation that addressed the issue of the legitimacy and authority of female rule, admonishing the Norwegian people to remember the fealty and obedience that his subjects owe him as king. In this legal document Hákon V declared that, in the event of his death, this fealty is to be carried over onto his descendants and onto Eufemia. Nu biodum ver ydr j guds nafne, alla handgæinna menn vara at þer hallmølæt eighi konunge ydrum ok samðykkir eigj þæim sem a. mælla honum, verið han helldr med godum ordum ok ser spakir ok tryggir med hans þegna. fullu hardir ok skylldugir till at ræfsa med syslumonnum vpp a. þa er till þers gera, Sua minnum ver ydr vpp a. þann kærlæika sem þer erot skylldugir gudj ok afspringj Magnus konungs. at þer ser dyggir æiginnar konu dottur varre Ingibiorgu en ver kunnum fra falla adr en gud gefuer oss nokorn annan erfwingia. ok halldir drotninngena Eufemiam till þers rættar sem ver hafuum gæfuit henne med opnu varo brefue ok samðykt byskupanna ok annara hina bæzstu manna, ok fylgir þæire skipan sem ver hafuum gort vm geymslu konungdomsens. æftir þui sem þer vilær andsuara firir gudj a. doma degj, ok af honum taka eilifua ambun. Var þetta bref gort j Tunsbærghia. Botolfswaku dagh þa er liðnir varo fra burd vaars herra Iesu Christi. m. vætra. ccc. ok atta vætr a. niunda are rikis vars ok insiglat oss sealfuum heauerandum Thorgæir Tofua son klørkr var ritaðe.31 Now in God’s name we bid you, the king’s retinue, not to speak ill of your king, nor to sympathize with those who rose up against him. Seek rather to serve him with honorable words, and be wise and trustworthy when dealing with his subjects, but also harsh and determined to punish those stewards (of the realm) who oppose you. Therefore we remind you of the affection that you are dutybound to render unto God and the offspring of Magnus the king [the father of Hákon V], that you remain loyal to your lady, our daughter Ingeborg, if we should die before God grants us another heir. And you shall accord Eufemia those privileges that we have given her through public writ and the approval of bishops and other noblemen of the realm. And you shall follow their orders that we have done for the guardianship of the kingdom. For you all must give answer before God on Judgment Day, and receive an eternal reward. This letter was written in Tunsberg on the day of St. Botolph, when one thousand three hundred and eight years




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A remarkable feature of this letter is the justification Hákon provides for the rulership of women in Norway. In the event that Hákon dies before producing another heir, a regency will be established that is predicated not on the writ of law but on the bonds of affection for the young princess Ingeborg—affection, moreover, that Hákon claims is her due because of her descent from the masculine line in the royal family. The edict of 1308 underscores the dynastic legitimacy of female rulership, entrusting to it—to his daughter, and then only secondarily to his queen—the guardianship of the kingdom should male rule be interrupted. As a political document, this letter is notable not only for the fact that it assigns real political authority (and not just political power) to the daughter of the king, but also because Hákon appeals to the sense of affection, duty, and loyalty that is due to all descendants of King Magnus Hákonsson—the afspringj Magnus konungs—not just to the sons exclusively. This document thus appears to work in tandem with the revision of the law of succession in 1302. If the first revision established a legal basis for female rule in Norway, the proclamation of 1308 legitimized the concept of female lordship by emphasizing the continuity of the royal line, irrespective of gender. With both steps, Hákon moves to strengthen Ingeborg’s position as a noblewoman within the Norwegian hierarchy, granting her the power to succeed him on the throne as well as the authority to rule that was her due as the direct descendant of a previous king. In similar fashion, the translation of the Eufemiavisor into Old Swedish amounts to a “revision” of established precedent, one that fostered the articulation of a new cultural authority that had not previously existed. Before we can recognize how the Eufemiavisor and the Old Swedish narrative voice could help to enhance Ingeborg’s status in the eyes of the Swedish nobility, we must review the extent to which literary patronage functioned as an expression of lordship in Norway during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is time to turn our attention to the courtly sagas that were translated during the reign of an earlier king of Norway, Hákon IV (d. 1262), examining these literary works not only as vehicle for cultural transfer but also as a medium for royal 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


had passed since the birth of Christ, and in the ninth year of our reign. We have sealed this letter with our own hands, and our clerk Horgeir Tufvesson was the scribe.

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representation. In the years after 1303, Eufemia follows in the footsteps of Hákon IV but, as we shall see, in political and ideological terms the Eufemiavisor break from the courtly paradigms that were established during Hákon’s reign, when the riddarasögur [courtly sagas] were translated into Old Norse. The closest political corollary to the Eufemiavisor was not one of the riddarasögur such as Ívens saga or Tristrams saga, but rather an objectively un-literary text of courtly instruction from the middle of the thirteenth century that is known as the Konungs skuggsjá [King’s Mirror], a didactic work in Old Norse in the speculum principis tradition. In this text, as in the Eufemiavisor, royal authority is represented and reified in acoustical terms: the audience does not merely hear the text, it hears itself being stylized as a group of auditors that desires to hear the text that the court has produced. Unlike the riddarasögur, then, the Eufemiavisor worked in innovative ways upon the ear.

Rulership and Riddarasögur Described by Mathew of Paris as a vir discretus et modestus atque bene litteratus, King Hákon IV directed the first riddarasögur [courtly sagas] to be translated into Old Norse.32 The source texts, romances composed predominantly in Old French, probably reached Norway by way of the Anglo-Norman courts of Britain.33 The surviving texts confirm that Hákon’s patronage was vast in scope and closely attuned to the literary fashions of latetwelfth- and early-thirteenth-century France. The subject matter for the riddarasögur was drawn from the matière de Bretagne, the matière de France, and the matière de Rome, and from other historical and heroic sources. The matière de Bretagne was represented by Ívens saga (a translation of Chrétien’s La Chevalier de la Charette), Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar (a translation of Thomas’ Tristan), Möttuls saga (a translation of an anonymous Old French fabliau known as the Lai de cort mantel or Le Mantel mautaillié), and by the collection of Old French lais (many of them attributed to Marie de France) known as the Strengleikar. Hákon IV is believed to be the patron of a number of additional riddarasögur as well, among them Erex saga and Parcevals saga, both based on Chrétien’s romances Erec et Enide and the La conte del graal, but the manuscript transmission can only be traced back to younger Icelandic redactions. From the matière de France came translations of chansons de geste such as Elie 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




de St. Gille (Elis saga), Boeve de Haumtone (Bevers saga), and a conflation of several epics about the deeds of Charlemagne (Chansons d’Otinel, Chansons d’Aspremont, Chansons de Roland, Le pèlerinage de Charlemagne), which were combined with material drawn from the Latin Pseudo-Turpin chronicle to produce Karlamagnús saga.34 The matière de Rome was represented by Alexanders saga (the translation of which likely began during the final year of Hákon’s reign), and possibly also by Trójumanna saga, which concerns the fall of Troy.35 Another prominent riddarsaga from the years around 1250, Þiðreks saga, was not translated from Old French or Latin sources. Instead, it is a translation of German narrative material about Dietrich von Bern and the Nibelungen, the composition of which suggests that another genre—which we might call the matière d’Allemande—was likewise popular at the Norwegian court.36 The scholarship has had a difficult time conceptualizing the emergence of the Old Norse riddarasögur without resorting to the vocabulary of decline, diminution, and loss.37 While the genre as a whole was innovative in the North and—at least in its broader outlines—in step with the cultural currents of medieval Europe, the courtly sagas do not quite measure up; there is much that was lost in translation. It is indisputable that the riddarasögur are shorter than their Old French or Latin sources, at times considerably so, but a mere comparison of length gives a misleading impression of the relationship between source and translation. A closer examination shows that the sagas are shorter in highly significant ways. As a text corpus, the riddarasögur tend to redact or omit narratorial interjections, to streamline discourse, and to avoid engagement with the complexities of amor courtois. Although these literary elements are definitive for the romance genre in the medieval European vernaculars, they appear highly out of place in a Norse saga tradition that valued narrative economy, linearity, and clarity of plot. It is tempting to regard the exclusions and emendations within the riddarasögur as evidence that the translations sought above all to entertain the Norwegian court in the style to which it was accustomed: the translators deliberately trimmed or redacted the extravagancies in the source texts in order to bring them into conformity with the prose tradition that had already been established in other saga genres in Norway. But there is good reason to question whether the drive to provide skemmtan [entertainment] at the court of Hákon IV was indeed the dominant factor underlying the translation of the riddarasögur. Instead, as 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Leach demonstrated over seventy years ago, the courtly sagas also fulfilled a didactic function, and numerous passages have been identified that suggest that the romances were sponsored, in one classic description, “by Hákon as much for profit as for pleasure, to instruct those who surrounded him, in the ideals and customs, accoutrement and ceremonials of chivalry.” 38 In the words “for profit as for pleasure” lie echoes of the venerable poetic dictum prodesse et delectare, which asserts that literature ought to be useful as well as delightful. That thirteenth-century audiences took pleasure in the riddarasögur is apparent from the prologues to several of the texts translated under Hákon IV. The opening lines of Strengleikar state that the translations were meant to delight and instruct their audiences by presenting tales from the distant past that nevertheless contain useful lessons for the courtiers at Hákon’s court. ok fyrir þui at i fyrnskunni gerðuzc marger undarleger lutir ok ohæyrðir atburðir a varom dogum. þa syndizc oss at frœnna verande ok viðrkomande þæim sogum er margfroðer menn gærðo um athæve þæirra sem i fyrnskunni varo ok a bokom leto rita. til ævenlægrar aminningar til skæmtanar. ok margfrœðes viðr komande þioða at huerr bœte ok birte sitt lif. af kunnasto liðenna luta. Oc at æigi lœynizsk þat at hinum siðarstom dogum er gærðozk i andværðom. Sua ok at huerr ihugi með allre kunnasto ok koste með ollu afle freme ok fullgere með ollum fongum at bua ok bœta sialvan sec til rikis guðs með somasamlegum siðum ok goðom athævom ok hælgom lifsænda. And because many marvelous things and events unheard of in our time took place in olden days, it occurred to us to teach men living and those to come these stories, which men of great learning made about the deeds of those who lived in olden days, and which they had written down in books as an everlasting reminder, as entertainment, and as a source of great learning for posterity, so that each man could amend and illumine his life with the knowledge of past events, and so that that will not be concealed in later times which happened in the remote past, and so that everyone might consider with full knowledge and strive with all his strength, and accomplish and achieve with every opportunity to prepare and improve himself for the kingdom of God by means of fitting behavior and good deeds and a holy life’s end.39

A different claim is made in the prologue to Möttuls saga. With this tale, a bawdy fabliau about a chastity test at King Arthur’s 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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Nú segir þessi bók frá einum kynligum ok gamansamligum atburð er gerðiz innan hirðar hins dýrliga ok hins fræga Artús kóngs er hafði allt England ok Bretland frjálst undir sik. En þvílík sannindi sem valskan sy´ndi mér þá norrænaða ek yðr áheyrendum til gamans ok skemtanar svá sem virðuligr Hákon kóngr, son Hákonar kóngs, bauð fákunnugleik mínum at gera nokkut gaman af þessu eptirfylgjanda efni. This book tells about a curious and amusing incident that took place at the court of the illustrious and renowned King Arthur, who held all England and Brittany in his sway. And this true account, which came to me in French, I have translated into Norwegian as entertainment and diversion for you, the listeners, since the worthy King Hákon asked me, ignorant though I be, to provide some entertainment through the following story.40

The prologue acknowledges that the tale is “curious and amusing,” but these qualities do not mean that the work as a whole is frivolous or bereft of value. Instead, Möttuls saga shows us that the one unmistakably exemplary feature of the tale (its bawdy nature notwithstanding) is Arthur himself. Notwithstanding the fact that the Old Norse translator repeatedly claims that the text was written down for the purposes of entertainment and diversion (einum [ . . . ] gamansamligum atburð . . . til gamans ok skemtanar . . . at gera nokkut gaman), if there is any instruction to be found in Möttuls saga that might lead to the edification of a Norwegian audience it is mediated through the characterization of King Arthur, who is praised in the opening lines of the tale as the epitome of a wise and courteous sovereign. Artús kóngr var hinn frægasti höfðingi at hverskonar frækleik ok allskonar drengskap ok kurteisi með fullkomnu huggæði ok vinsælasta mildleik svá at fullkomliga varð eigi frægari ok vinsælli höfðingi um hans daga í heiminum. Var hann hin vaskasti at vápnum, hinn mildasti at gjöfum, blíðasti í orðum, hagráðasti í ráðagerðum, hinn góðgjarnasti í misskunnsemd, hinn siðugasti í góðum meðferðum, hinn tiguligasti í öllum kóngligum stjónum, guðhræddr í verkum, mjúklyndr góðum, harðr illum, miskunnsamr þurftugum, beinisamr bjóðendum, svá fullkominn í öllum höfðingskap at engi illgirnd né öfund var með honum ok engi kunni at telja lofsfullri tungu virðuligan göfugleik ok sæmnd ríkis hans. King Arthur was the most renowned ruler with regard to every aspect of valor and all kinds of manliness and chivalry, combined



court, providing entertainment for the Norwegian court appears to be its sole purpose.

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with perfect compassion and most appealing mildness, so that in every respect there was no ruler more renowned or blessed with friends in his day in the world. He was the most valiant man at arms, the most generous with gifts, the gentlest in words, the cleverest in his designs, the most benevolent in mercy, the most polished in good manners, the noblest in all kingly craft, god-fearing in his undertakings, gentle to the good, harsh to the wicked, merciful to the needy, hospitable to the companionable, so perfect in his entire authority that neither ill will nor malice was found in him, and no one could adequately laud the splendid magnificence and honor of his realm.41

The opening lines of Ívens saga follow in this same vein, celebrating the deeds of King Arthur and holding him up as an exemplary ruler of England and Rome, Hinn ágæti kóngr Artu´rus réð fyrir Englandi, sem mörgum mönnum er kunnigt. Hann var um síðir kóngr yfir Rómaborg. Hann er þeira kónga frægastr er verit hafa þann veg frá hafinu ok vinsælastr annarr en Karlamagnus. Hann hafði þá röskustu riddara er í váru kristninni. The excellent King Arthur ruled England, as is known to many. After a time he became king of Rome. He was the most illustrious of the kings who lived on this side of the ocean and the most popular other than Charlemagne. He had the bravest knights who lived in Christendom.42

In the riddarasögur Arthur appears as a sovereign whose court was second to none. This prologue hints at the subtle outlines of a political agenda that may well have inspired the translation of the riddarasögur. Their focus on the excellence of Arthur introduces a model of nobility that was politically advantageous for Hákon IV in the first half of the thirteenth century. The translation of the earliest riddarasögur took place during a difficult period for the monarchy, when the young King Hákon IV was attempting to unite the kingdom and end the feuding between rival factions of the nobility. It was not until the 1240s that Hákon succeeded at this task and brought stability to Norway. Viewed from this perspective it is significant that the riddarasögur characterize royal lordship not as the triumph of the powerful but as the judicious exercise of an authority that is well deserved. Making Norwegian audiences aware of King Arthur’s preeminence and leading them to 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




acknowledge the authority that emanates from it—this may well have been the didactic thrust of even the most fantastical or outlandish of the riddarasögur translated under Hákon IV. Questions about the genesis of the riddarasögur in thirteenthcentury Norway and their political usefulness to the court have long preoccupied the scholarship, and these discussions are valuable for the parameters they establish in matters related to royal representation and cultural transfer. In his analysis of specific deficits and modalities of didacticism in the riddarasögur, Gert Wolfgang Weber argues that the stylistic and narrative reductions evident in the riddarasögur reflect the political culture of thirteenth-century Norway. Because Norway had an exceedingly underdeveloped feudal system, in comparison to France and Germany, there was little demand among the aristocracy and courtiers of Norwegian society for a chivalric literature of representation; Norwegian noblemen had no need for this kind of “literary mirror.” 43 Thus the foreign texts were “stripped bare of their feudal ideology” in Old Norse translation, leaving behind leaner, more linear narratives that had much in common with native genres and the fairy tale.44 A focus on didacticism runs through several articles on the riddarasögur by Geraldine Barnes.45 Barnes advances the view that the Old French romances and other courtly tales were reshaped by Norwegian translators so as to “instruct the nobility in the more practical ideals and duties of chivalry by means of examples in a palatable literary form.” 46 Exemplification, not reflection, was the motivating force. Barnes goes on to address the diminution of the chivalric ethos in Old Norse translation, by explaining that [ . . . ] for thirteenth-century Norwegian translator-adaptors, the perception of the roman courtois appears to have been very different: in their hands, its “problematic” side disappears altogether. While the Old Norse versions of French chivalric romance are, by medieval standards, faithful to the letter of their originals, the spirit of these riddarasögur is another matter altogether. A lack of interest in love and the mechanics of its psychology, and in internal monologue, leads to the loss of the major thematic component of roman courtois [ . . . ]. Broadly speaking, the Old Norse versions of Arthurian romance have more in common with didactic than with fictional chivalric discourse. A combination of literary and historical factors has shaped a distinctively Norse conception of chivalric romance in which exemplification is the keynote.47



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In contrast to Weber, who sees the stylistic reductions of the riddarasögur as motivated primarily by genre constraints and the Norwegian court’s unwillingness to assimilate the cultural aesthetic of the Arthurian romance, Barnes maintains that the courtly saga was not translated as a mirror of society, but rather as a speculum of courtliness and courtly virtue; in it one sees what ought to be. Barnes’ argument proceeds from a social angle, suggesting that Hákon’s interest in works of chivalric literature could have been intended to compensate for the “sense of cultural inferiority” in thirteenth-century Norway.48 By bringing the texts popular in France and Anglo-Norman England to the Norwegian court, Hákon IV is able to raise the cultural profile of his court and initiate contact with the broader currents of medieval chivalric representation. A third perspective on the origin and appeal of the riddarasögur splits the difference between entertainment and didacticism. In her discussion of the didactic aspects in Parcevals saga, Susanne Kramarz-Bein defends a viewpoint that has much in common with Barnes’ opinion that the riddarasögur served as a vehicle for the transmission of courtly ideals to Norway. But didacticism was hardly the overarching goal in every instance, as KramarzBein demonstrates through a review of Parcevals saga, Möttuls saga, and some of the Strengleikar, for these texts contain a wealth of episodes—above all, scenes of a comedic or parodistic tone— that resist our attempts to discern an ideological intentionality. Kramarz-Bein suggests that these incongruities are essentially trivial. Far more useful, for the purposes of royal representation, was the saga’s representation of an idealized court that is equipped with noble knights who are united under a rex justus. The courtly sagas therefore reinforce the notion of an ennobled and ennobling monarchy that reflects a flattering light back on the aspirations of the Norwegian royal line.49 In support of this argument, Kramarz-Bein points to the types of translated sagas that appeared at the Norwegian court during the thirteenth century, observing that the lives of many famous kings were represented— from Charlemagne (Karlamagnus saga) to Alexander (Alexanders saga), from Arthur (the translated riddarasögur) to Gunnar and Þiðrik of the Nibelungen legend (Þiðreks saga).50 The translations may well have provided models of kingship to admire.51 This position is echoed and enhanced by Schnall, who sees in the translated riddarasögur a cloaked message that is comprehensible to a 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




discerning audience. In these translated romances the hierarchies intrinsic to the Arthurian world are held up as legitimate and exemplary, and worthy of emulation by king and court.52 The impact and appeal of the Eufemiavisor cannot be evaluated according to the same parameters of didacticism and entertainment encoded in narrative form. Given the fact that by 1300 the Norwegian court had surely assimilated the lessons of courtliness embedded in the riddarasögur translated during the 1240s and 1250s, the didactic angle did not apply; what more could be taught about the nobility of heroes and the driving force of chivalry that was not already available in Oslo, such as in the Old Norse Ívens saga or Flóres saga? This does not mean, however, that the Old Swedish romances were therefore devoted exclusively to the process of skemmtan and devoid of edifying intent—even though their intended audiences surely took delight in these unique and unprecedented works of medieval literature. Let us consider instead a third angle: that the Eufemiavisor conveyed a distinct didactic message that is not transmitted episodically (through scenes of literary exemplification) nor by images of noble kingship but rather through the sound of the work as a whole, by its unprecedented intrusion into the acoustic field of the royal court. In order to understand the appeal of the Eufemiavisor as political works in early fourteenth-century Scandinavia, we must look beyond the limits of the texts themselves and seek an alternative paradigm, one that considers the works as acoustic objects and not merely as assemblies of narrative episodes. The appeal of Kramarz-Bein and Schnall’s theories concerning royal representationality in the riddarasögur—that the didactic thrust of the romances was articulated more as a gestalt than as a finely grained message—is that they call attention to the political dimensions of literary patronage and the hierarchies that exist between patron and audience. Drawing on these paradigms, let us now return to the Eufemiavisor, mindful of their status as unique cultural signifiers. We will see that the romances, in their acoustic materiality at the Oslo court, were vehicles for the expression of royal munificence.

Echoes of Authority in the Norwegian Court One of the most direct constructions of royal authority in medieval Norwegian literature is not transmitted in the riddarasögur. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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It is found, rather, in Konungs skuggsjá [King’s Mirror], which was written during the reign of Hákon IV around 1250. Here, in a work written for the court that nevertheless remains free from the abstractions of courtly literature, a new model of royal authority and justification for courtly fealty is advanced. As with the Eufemiavisor, the text of Konungs skuggsjá enhances the monarch’s lordship through the skillful representation of voice as a vehicle for cultural and political affiliation. Both texts construct and exploit listening communities for political advantage. Konungs skuggsjá is a fascinating and untidy work. It is firmly located in the Mirror of Princes tradition, but by virtue of its unusual structure and broad range of topics—the text provides information about trade winds and North Sea navigation, the topography of Greenland, walruses and kraken, siege engines and proper grooming, proper diction at court, and the fall of Lucifer— Konungs skuggsjá stands apart from all other representatives of the medieval genre.53 Its singularity is emphasized by the fact that the work, according to its prologue, should be known by two different titles. One of them is Konungs skuggsjá (skugg [shadow] + sjá [to see, thus the term is a Norse neologism for “mirror”]) while the other title, which the prologue claims is a “beautiful name” (fagert namn) designed to entice the readership to peruse its content, is in Latin. But here, again, irregularities complicate the issue, for this Latin title, Speculum regale, breaks with the conventions of the speculum tradition that identify the works through use of the genitive case (speculum humanæ salvationis, speculum principis, speculum astronimæ). It is possible that the title of Speculum regale and the work as a whole, which over lengthy passages is more akin to an encyclopedia septentrionalis than a guide to royal governance, may have been influenced by the writings of Vincent of Beauvais, whose Speculum maius from the middle of the thirteenth century was known in Norway. Notably, the Speculum maius is subdivided into three books entitled Speculum Naturale, Speculum Doctrinale, and Speculum Historiale—all of which feature the same adjectival derivation (-ale) reproduced in the Old Norse designation Speculum regale.54 Despite the similarity in the titles, however, the Speculum maius was not a source for Konungs skuggsjá, and much of the material in the Old Norse text (especially that concerned with the topography and natural history of the Northern world) is unique. Konungs skuggsjá is transmitted in nearly sixty manuscripts. The oldest fragments are Norwegian, dating from the second 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




half of the thirteenth century, while the oldest complete manuscript, the Norwegian codex AM 243b, was completed in the years 1260–1270.55 Although its date of composition remains unclear, clues within the text suggest that Konungs skuggsjá could not have been written before 1247, the year of Hákon’s coronation as king of Norway, nor later than 1262.56 Its author, most likely a cleric at the Norwegian court at Bergen, declined the opportunity to name himself in his work. This Old Norse text was probably composed for the edification of the two young sons of Hákon IV, Hákon the young (1232– 1257) and Magnus Hákonarson (1238–1280). A Latin redaction of Konungs skuggsjá that was prepared in the early fourteenth century for Ingeborg—Eufemia’s daughter—shows that the text continued to be considered relevant for the upbringing of courtiers and the education of the nobility in the fourteenth century as well.57 The prologue makes no mention of the king’s sons, however, nor do the chapters give any indication that these princes constituted the ideal readership of the work. Indeed, an early passage in Konungs skuggsjá claims that the work was not composed for any particular king or member of the royal family, but for all courtiers at the Norwegian court. For that reason, the title of the work should not be construed as an impediment on its use. Enn þo at þat nafn sé helldur a ad kongs skugsion sé kallat þa er hun skiput ollum og þar med heimilld suo sem almenningur þui at huerium er kostur j a siá er vill (2) In spite of the name chosen for this work—the King’s mirror—it is nevertheless meant for all, equally, for everyone shall be free to look inside as much as he desires to.

The anti-elitist tone in the prologue stands at odds with the title of the work as a whole, and this discrepancy has been cited as evidence that the prologue was an interpolation by later Icelandic redactors and therefore not part of the text originally composed at the Norwegian court. The fact that the prologue is missing in the Norwegian codex AM 243b and only extant in younger, predominantly Icelandic manuscripts has fueled the debate over whether the prologue was part of the work from its inception.58 While the status of the prologue as a whole remains unclear, the tenor of the phrase cited, together with its underlying sentiment, does in fact reflect Norwegian courtly ideologies of the years 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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before 1250: that is, that the wisdom contained in Konungs skuggsjá ought to be widespread amongst the hirð of royal retainers since it was through them and their loyalty that Hákon IV was able to establish and maintain political advantage.59 The opening sentence of the prologue to Konungs skuggsjá states that the text is dedicated to the uplifting of the Norwegian court. This proposition is reinforced on the poetic level through the repeated use of tropes of verticality, ascension, and downfall. The prologue begins with the narrator casting his gaze over the breadth of human activity. Observing that many have wandered onto easy paths that lead downward into perdition, the narrator acknowledges that some lack the stamina to climb up again to the high road, to the detriment of their souls. þá sá eg mikinn fiolda mædast j villi stijgum. þeim er frá kolludu Gudligum þiodgotum. og leiddu j villu og osidu og tyndust allir j obyggiligum dolum. þeir er þá stigu giengu er mest lágu forbreckis. þuiat þeir þreyttust af langri mædu lángs vegar og hofdu eigi brecku megin til vppgongu og eigi fundu þeir gagnstigu þá er þá mætti leida til þioduegar sidar. (1) . . . and I saw a vast multitude walking wearily along the paths that slope downward from the highways of virtue into error and vice. And all those who followed them on that pathway perished in desolate ravines; for the long, wearisome road had fatigued them, and they had not enough strength left to climb up again, nor were they able to find the bypaths that led back to the highways of virtue.60

The “vast multitude” living in error and vice certainly includes the courtiers or members of the hirð in Norway who serve Hákon IV. Those that had fallen, the narrator continues, did so for various reasons. Among the causes he mentions are ignorance, laziness, fear of ridicule, and a general malaise of perversity and wickedness. Yet the overarching reason appears to be the lack of righteousness and guidance that can only come from the teachings of a benevolent father. In short order, the narrator explains that he, fearful that he himself might stumble and fall from the proper path, seeks out his father and asks him for instruction. En med því at fadir minn var lifandi ok unni mier vel, sá villda eg helldur at leita hans ráda giordar en eg tæki þat rád med skiotu aliti er honum syndist eigi. Og rann eg til fodur mijns skyndiliga og birta eg firi honum alt mitt erindi. (1) 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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The father graciously agrees to instruct his son—the narrator—in all aspects of human wisdom and knowledge. But before the first chapter begins, the narrator provides additional details about the genesis of the work. He returns to the issue of those courtiers adrift in the hirð who lack the moral instruction that fathers ought to provide. He states that without it, the courtiers are adrift, easily tempted into vice, susceptible to moral and social downfall. In the next section of the prologue the narrator uses a deft rhetorical move to transform this host of un-fathered (and therefore rudderless) men at court into functional “sons” of this single idealized father. He maintains that this book, Konungs skuggsjá, was composed in order to disseminate the father’s lessons at court, and to create a repository of wisdom to which all who seek enlightenment might come. As was the case with the riddarasögur, the composition of Konungs skuggsjá uses narrative models to facilitate the creation of a male ideal of benevolent authority. In this text it is an idealized father, to whom all ears can listen. Enn þá er eg hafdi feingit nog andsvor og viturlig af munne mijns fodurz vm alla þá hluti er eg spurda. þá voru nær staddir gofgir menn og spakir. þeir er heyrdu mijna spurningu og hans viturlig og sannlig andsuor. þá bádu þeir þess at eg skillda alla ockra rædu skrifa og j bok setia at eigi yrdi su ræda suo skiott med tionum sem vier þognudum. helldur væri hun þá morgum sijdan nytsamligt gamann. er eigi mætti hallda skemtan af oss sialfum er nær yrdi staddir þeiri rædu oh heyrdu. Enn eg giorda bædi eptir bæn þeira og rádum. og studderadi eg mikit j þeim ollum rádum med athugasamligu minne og setta eg allar þær rædur j eina bok. (1–2) But when I had received my father’s wise and sufficient replies to everything that I had asked, certain astute and worthy men, who had heard my questions and his wise and truthful answers, requested that I write down all our conversations and set them in a book, so that our discussions should not be lost as soon as we stopped speaking, but . . . prove useful to many who could derive no entertainment [skemtan] from us who were present at these conversations. So I did as they advised and requested. I pondered deeply those speeches and, working from memory, set them all in a book.



Inasmuch as my father was still living and loved me well, I thought it would be better to seek his counsel than after a slight consideration to reach a decision that might displease him. So I hastened to my father and laid the whole problem before him.61

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This, then, is a voice of authority that is literally embodied in the literary process. Although Konungs skuggsjá articulates a strictly hierarchical worldview, it is notable that the work places not the king but the father at the apex of Norse society. In this work it is the courtier’s father who is the source of all wisdom, a font of knowledge, a learned guide to Norse custom and trade and, not least of all, a benevolent pater familias for all of the men of the Norwegian hirð. Dignity, discernment, and good judgment—all of these are, according to Konungs skuggsjá, qualities to be learned and perfected rather than traits that are simply inherited. The person from whom they are learned is the father, and the father’s status is emphasized by the voicing of the very first statement in the opening section of the text: the son addresses his father with the words goðan dag, hærra minn [Good day, my lord]. The acknowledgement of lordship marks the beginning of fealty. This review of constructions of authority in Konungs skuggsjá and in the riddarasögur reveals a common theme in their political representation. The didacticism of these literary works lies to a significant extent in their efforts to instruct the courtiers of thirteenth-century Scandinavia on how to subject themselves to legitimate authority. If this found expression in the courtly sagas through their documentation of idealized examples of chivalric and heroic excellence, in Konungs skuggsjá it lay, rather, in the artful presentation of the father’s advice on courtly and worldly affairs—advice, namely, that the courtiers already desired to hear. But in ideological terms the texts were very similar. The didactic thrust of the riddarasögur sought less to encourage courtiers to imitate Ivan’s exploits as an Arthurian hero than to discipline those in the audience to adopt the same sense of fidelity that the Arthurian knights held toward Arthur. For Konungs skuggsjá, in turn, the appeal to the father’s voice as the source of wisdom creates a similar type of political hierarchy that derives its authority from the eagerness of the courtiers to hear it. Where the riddarasögur offer portraits of illustrious rulership, Konungs skuggsjá, in contrast, presents the accumulated wisdom of the ages, responding to the unspoken concerns of the hirð by vocalizing them “in our tongue,” as it were. The courtiers, tellingly, are not merely receptive to the father’s voice; the text styles them as desperate in their longing to hear it. Thus the Konungs skuggsjá constructs an idealized hierarchy of power that works on the acoustic plane: by the play of the voice and the grasp of the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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Conclusion: The Catch and Turn of the Authoritative Voice The attitude of disciplined listening that is idealized in Konungs skuggsjá brings us back to the issue of Eufemia’s political engagement during the first years of the fourteenth century. Can the translation of the romances be evaluated according to the same parameters that applied to the riddarasögur under Hákon IV? Were they likewise intended to merely entertain and instruct a Swedish audience? The evidence leads us in another direction, away from shallow entertainment or lessons in courtly instruction. Neither in literary terms nor in cultural or political contexts did the riddarasögur serve as models for the translation of the Old Swedish romances. By the year 1300, courtliness and chivalry had already become commonplace among the Scandinavian nobility. The diplomatic seal used by Erik Magnusson, for example, depicts him armed for the joust and astride a charger: identical, in other words, to the types of seals that were common among northern German noblemen during the same era. Despite their innovations in literary style, the Eufemiavisor ultimately had no lessons in courtly demeanor to transmit to their audiences. A key aspect of their cultural appeal was set acoustically, by a type of sound that was unprecedented (and perhaps even inconceivable) in medieval Scandinavia: the sound of an end-rhymed narrative. And yet, this avant-garde narrative style was not merely the harbinger of a new sensibility, for in its acoustic signature it also hearkened back to an older and much more authoritative narrative modality, one that likewise held considerable value for Norwegian audiences in the decades before 1300. As discussed earlier, the concept of rhyming verse was not entirely unknown in the medieval North. Prior to the translation of the Eufemiavisor, end-rhymed verse had seen sporadic use in skaldic poems and in runic inscriptions, and it does occur in a few non-narrative contexts in Sweden. These isolated cases signal a willingness to experiment with alternate versifications within the constraints of the Nordic tradition, but they in no way prefigure the composition of a full-fledged narrative epos. In the years before 1303, the idea of end rhyme was certainly known in 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


ear. The act of listening—to the sagas, to Konungs skuggsjá, to the Eufemiavisor—is an act of submission.

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the North; what was new in the Eufemiavisor is the use of rhyming couplets as a narrative vehicle.62 Already by the decades around 1250 the Court Style of saga prose—an Old Norse narrative discourse characterized by its elevated tone—had set the parameters for the narration of the riddarasögur. The translated sagas would incorporate foreign words and concepts, underscore emotional passages through the judicious application of alliteration, and attempt (to the extent possible) to faithfully render the Old French and Latin tales into the native idiom—but at all times, without fail, the sources were translated into prose. The rhyming verses of Chrétien’s Yvain were translated into Old Norse prose, for example, thereby losing the acoustic signature of the courtly romance—the end-rhymed couplet—that was known in the North yet not embraced there. With the Eufemiavisor, the literature at the Norwegian court accomplished the final stylistic breakthrough that had eluded it since the days of Hákon IV. This sense of sonic reconciliation that was finally achieved between the Old French sources and the Old Swedish translations challenges our understanding of the Eufemiavisor as innovative literary works. Although the mechanics of Old Swedish versification were indeed unprecedented at any of the Nordic courts, with this novel use of end rhyme the romances translated under Eufemia’s direction sounded—for the first time in the North—as they were intended to sound: as they did on the Continent. Their new voicing brought them into conformity with the established courtly standard, and the political implications of this are clear. From the East—from Sweden—comes the pinnacle of courtly refinement. The “turning” of the romances into Old Swedish verse represents the acoustic and political equivalent of the “mirroring” phenomenon that Weber proposed as an explanation for the composition of the riddarasögur in thirteenth-century Norway— but there is a crucial twist here, as well. While they are undeniably courtly works, the Eufemiavisor did not take shape in order to reflect a favorable light back on the audiences who will enjoy them. Rather, by creating romances that spoke “in our tongue” (as the epilogues repeatedly assert) Eufemia used the texts themselves to call a receptive—and politically attuned—audience into existence where none had existed previously. Viewed from this perspective, the Old Swedish romances appear to be simultaneously performative as well as invocational: they caught the ears of Swedish courtiers at the Norwegian court even as they established 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




parameters of belonging, allegiance, and cultural/political affiliation that would continue to reap dividends for Ingeborg and her descendants. With the Eufemiavisor, the Norwegian queen had established a courtly literature, and a lasting cultural and political legacy, for the benefit of her daughter and her heirs.



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MARGARETA OF DENMARK AND THE VOICE OF IDENTITY

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he previous chapters have shown how medieval queens marshaled the acoustic reach of the poetic voice to reach new audiences and realign the dynamics of power in their kingdoms. Here we will again focus on the voice as a political instrument. The inquiry begins a review of events that took place in the year 1388, just before Queen Margareta of Denmark invaded Sweden, captured Albrecht III, and was granted rulership by the Swedish barons over the entire kingdom. In the pages to follow I will suggest that sound played a significant role in her conquest of Sweden, and in particular I want to highlight the way in which vernacularity was seen as an asset to be exploited, as well as a liability to be guarded against. Among the texts subjected to close analysis are some royal charters drafted by Queen Margareta and her Swedish allies; a number of revelations by the prominent fourteenth-century Swedish mystic St. Birgitta that have a sharply political focus; and lastly, an Old Swedish allegorical poem critical of the Swedish King Albrecht III, that, I argue, can be linked to Margareta’s conquest of Sweden. Above all, I hope to demonstrate how these texts helped to bring the voices of prominent women like Queen Margareta and St. Birgitta into this contested political landscape, and to determine what influence, what kind of resonance these voices had in late-medieval Sweden.

The Vernacular Voice: Albrecht III of Sweden and King Albrecht In Sweden during the latter decades of the fourteenth century, language was politics. One of the driving causes of this dynamic was the fact that the crown of Sweden had passed out of Swedish hands; or more precisely, that a rebellion against King Magnus 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


CHAPTER FIVE


Eriksson had brought a foreign-born nephew of the seated king, who did not speak Swedish, to the throne. The story of this conquest began on November 10, 1363, as Albrecht III of Mecklenburg set out by ship from Warnemünde and sailed northward across the Baltic with a contingent of Mecklenburgian troops. By the spring of 1364, Albrecht III was king.1 In the years preceding the Mecklenburgian invasion, the Swedish barons and electors of the realm—wearied by political intrigue, angered by a corrupt monarchy, and apprehensive about the growing threat of Danish expansion across southern Sweden and Scania—intervened to check the power of the Swedish king. The long reign of Magnus Eriksson, who had ruled for over forty years, was interrupted in 1361 when a group of stormän forced him to cede much of the kingdom to his son, Hákon Magnusson, the king of Norway. For two years father and son ruled Sweden jointly, until the stormän again grew displeased with the oppressive monarchy and began to look for alternatives. They found their candidate in Mecklenburg. On November 29 or November 30, 1363, the young nobleman Albrecht III of Mecklenburg, a nephew of the Swedish king, sailed into Stockholm harbor with a fleet of warships. He had arrived to become king. A document prepared on the same day by the city council and Bürgermeister of Stockholm does not address him by this title, however. In pledging their loyalty to Albrecht, the city officials refer to him as nostrum verum et delictum dominum [our true and just lord], but not as king.2 This cautious formulation reflects sound political judgment, for the bargaining chip of the royal title would be withheld until Albrecht and the allied stormän had succeeded in deposing Magnus Eriksson—a task that they accomplished within a few weeks Albrecht’s election in February 1364 marked the culmination of a grand strategy that was devised by his father, Albrecht II of Mecklenburg, and several of the leading stormän of Sweden. Seeing that circumstances were ripe for change in Sweden, due to widespread dissatisfaction with Magnus Eriksson’s reign, Albrecht’s ambitious father made common cause with a group of exiled Swedish barons. Both parties would profit from a purging of the Swedish kingdom and the installation of a new sovereign on the throne. The father would achieve his goal of expanding the Mecklenburgian orbit across the Baltic region, while the Swedish barons and other powerful men in Sweden—several of whom had 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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been exiled by Magnus Eriksson—likely envisioned a successful return to Sweden and a substantial expansion of their own power, which was only to be expected during the reign of a young and inexperienced monarch that had never set foot in Sweden previously. In this, the barons were greatly mistaken. Albrecht had a claim to the throne of Sweden that was defensible, if not entirely legitimate, for it failed to satisfy all of the legal requirements for royal succession. Sweden, in contrast to Norway, was an elective monarchy. As proscribed by Swedish law, the legitimacy of rulership was conveyed only by the electors of the realm, the lagmen [lawmen] who served in each of the provinces of Sweden. Although royal blood bestowed certain advantages in the royal succession in Sweden, it did not guarantee a successful elevation to the throne—unlike in Norway, where the Norwegian laws enumerated a hierarchy of succession down to the twelfth degree of kinship and bestowed rulership immediately upon the closest viable heir. Royal succession in medieval Sweden ceded some key advantages to the lagmen and other electors, who were not constrained by the demands of the bloodline; indeed, direct kinship with the seated king was not a prerequisite for candidacy. According to the medieval Swedish Landslag, the legal code instituted under Magnus Eriksson shortly after 1350, eligible candidates for the throne are those men born in Sweden that are preferably, but not exclusively, sons of the king. Huilikin en af inrikis föddum, ok hælzt af kunungæ sunum æn þe til æru, (Huilikin) af allum þessum laghmanna röstum, ællæ ok flestum laghmannum til næmdum, varþer til kunungx takin, skulu fornæmde laghmæn han til kunungx dömæ.3 Whichever [candidate] born within the kingdom, and preferably one of the king’s sons, is there assembled, and has received the majority of the votes cast and is named by the most lawmen as elected to be king, he shall be pronounced by those aforementioned lawmen as king.

Albrecht was related to the royal dynasty through the maternal line. His mother, Eufemia Eriksdotter, who married Albrecht II of Mecklenburg in 1336, was the sister of the Swedish king Magnus Eriksson. Matrilinear descent is not expressly forbidden by the Landslag, which in any case mentions the sons of the king as a preference (hælzt af kunungæ sunum . . .) rather than an injunction. Far more serious, however, was the issue of his foreign birth. Albrecht 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


Margareta of Denmark: Voice of Identity


was born in Mecklenburg, and on this subject the laws are perfectly clear: the king shall be born in Sweden. But even this proved no obstacle to the electors of the realm. The election of Albrecht III took place before February 15, 1364, as that is the date of his earliest charters issued as king of Sweden.4 Thus began the twenty-five-year reign of Albrecht of Sweden, an epoch characterized by severe political repressions, the exploitation of Swedish farmers and landowners, and the establishment of an overlord class of northern German noblemen who ruled with impunity in Sweden as sheriffs, wardens, and other administrators. The circumstances that led to Albrecht’s election in 1364 were a precursor to Margareta’s rise to power in Sweden in 1389. In both cases, the electors of the realm broke from the rule of law and custom and selected candidates who, according to a strict construction of the Landslag, would be ineligible for the rulership of the kingdom. Securing the loyalties of the stormän, then, becomes the key factor for Swedish politics in the fourteenth century. Because the legitimacy of royal rule is subject to a vote, sovereignty can only be wielded as long as the barons are unable or unwilling to support a challenger. There was royal power in abundance in fourteenthcentury Sweden; authority, in contrast, was a rationed resource. For Albrecht III the situation was even more tenuous, for the barons that had brought him to Sweden in 1363 turned against him in the latter part of the 1380s. The death of prominent Swedish nobleman Bo Jonsson Grip on August 20, 1386, marked a seismic shift in Sweden’s balance of power. In his lifetime, Bo Jonsson Grip had been the wealthiest and most powerful nobleman in Sweden, and a key ally of the crown, with nearly half of the kingdom owned, controlled, or leased to him. Notable in his testament is the unprecedented and audacious clause that prohibited King Albrecht from repossessing the fiefdoms and other assets that had been granted to the deceased. Instead of following Swedish law, which would have returned many of his assets to the crown, Bo Jonsson Grip appointed a group of eight Swedish noblemen and two bishops to manage his estate in trust, thus keeping most of his castles, which were valuable military strongholds, out of the king’s hands.5 Despite a series of legal and tactical maneuvers, the king was unable to prevail against the trustees. The failure to repossess the landholdings of Bo Jonsson Grip was a blow to Albrecht’s power. A subsequent challenge to the king’s authority was delivered in the latter part of 1388, when 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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a political allegory ridiculing King Albrecht III began to circulate near Vadstena. It was this text—and in particular its intriguing use (and misuse) of the voice—that marked the final chapter in Albrecht’s reign. This text, known as King Albrecht, is introduced next.

King Albrecht in Verse The Old Swedish poem known as King Albrecht is a response to the injustices that Albrecht visited upon Sweden.6 The poem, composed in end-rhyming verse, is brief, only 225 lines in length. Despite its brevity, King Albrecht gives remarkable insight into the state of Swedish mentalities in the late fourteenth century. It attests to widespread disaffection with the unpopular king, articulates a number of frustrations about lawlessness and the abuse of Swedish peasants, and expresses the fervent hope that Albrecht’s cruel hold on Sweden would soon come to an end. Questions about the dating of the poem, and about its historical and political context, are perennial topics of concern in the scholarship.7 Although the text of King Albrecht offers clues that the poem was composed late in Albrecht’s reign, the details are subject to interpretation; a precise dating remains elusive. For example, it is notable that the poem makes no reference to Albrecht’s defeat in 1389—an event the anti-Mecklenburgian poet would hardly have overlooked. This indicates that the work must have been composed before the decisive battle at Falköping. On the other hand, the information in verses 212–213 of King Albrecht clouds the issue. Here the poet claims that the king had already left the kingdom: “Had he only listened to good advice of the Swedish barons, he would still be in Sweden” (Han haffde warit i Swenige än, my emphasis). The meaning of these verses is unclear. One interpretation would see them as confirmation that King Albrecht had been composed (or perhaps redacted) after the Swedish king had been deposed. This interpretation is difficult to reconcile with the historical record, however, for after his defeat at the battle of Falköping, Albrecht was held captive at various castles under Margareta’s control, some of them near Stockholm. In no real sense did Albrecht leave Sweden following Margareta’s victory. It is more accurate, I believe, to see these verses as referring to the situation just before the battle of Falköping in February 1389. They offer independent confirmation of what we know from 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




Albrecht’s diplomataria about his whereabouts in 1388, for during the final six months of that year Albrecht was indeed abroad in Mecklenburg, seeking pledges of financial and military support for the battle against rebellious Swedish stormän that he likely thought was imminent. Albrecht returned in December of that year to Sweden. His absence during much of the latter part of 1388 may well have influenced the remark made by the poet in lines 212–213. If we consider the dating of the poem in the context of Albrecht’s foreign travel, then, the notion that King Albrecht was inded composed during the final months of 1388 is strengthened. The poet made a point to emphasize the fact that the rash and unwise king had already abandoned his kingdom. We do not know where the poem was composed, but it appears to have a close affinity to the Birgittine cloister of Vadstena. The oldest manuscript copy is found in a Vadstena miscellany (Cod. Holm D4) that dates from the first decades of the fifteenth century, and the association with Vadstena is strengthened by the fact that the diction of the poem shows strong parallels to devotional discourses, to the medieval sermon tractate, and to some specific themes in Birgittine mysticism. Perhaps the poem was composed by a well-read cleric with ties to Vadstena.8 In a later section of this chapter I will put forward the argument that Margareta, though she may not be the direct patron of King Albrecht, should be considered as the pseudo-patron of the poem, for its message is entirely consistent with her political goals as it speaks to Swedish elites about the malaise that has settled over their country. Supporting evidence drawn from Margareta’s correspondence, especially her communications with sympathetic Swedish stormän in 1388, confirm that the queen sought the crown of Sweden and had taken steps to assure the barons that her rulership would be just, proper, and in conformity with medieval Swedish law—three aspects of rulership that Albrecht (as the text explains in detail) had failed to uphold. We shall see, lastly, how King Albrecht played a role in this diplomatic overture, in that it attempts to close the loop of political communication that had been ongoing sub rosa between Margareta and her allies in Sweden by placing into the mouth of a Swedish poetic subject the fervent wish that someone—such as the edela frw Drotning [noble lady queen]—would come to Sweden’s aid. Margareta’s defeat of Albrecht, which took place in February 1389, was still months away when the poem was composed, but the promise of 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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it resonates already in King Albrecht. The “noble lady queen” that will bring deliverance to Sweden is stylized less as a conqueror invading from without than a benevolent liberator responding to an invitation from within. The text, notably, speaks its welcome to her as an authoritative ruling woman.

King Albrecht in Context The poem known as King Albrecht is transmitted in two versions, only one of which is complete. The incomplete version of the poem is found on leaves 229v–230v of the Vadstena miscellany Cod. Holm D4, which dates to the early fifteenth century. This copy is fragmentary, preserving only the first 116 lines of the poem; the remainder was lost when the manuscript was damaged (or leaves were removed) in the sixteenth century. The poem is prefaced in the Vadstena manuscript by a heading at the top of 229v that highlights its relevance as a commentary on Swedish history. The heading reads, in a fifteenth-century hand, hær byriæs aff swerikis rike [here begins (a text) about the kingdom of Sweden]. The poem survives in its entirety in printed version from the year 1616. The printer was Johannes Messenius, a historian and antiquarian in Stockholm who worked as a royal archivist. In his 1616 publication of the Old Swedish Erikskrönikan, Messenius printed the complete text of King Albrecht as a preface to that volume, under the heading En lustigh Lijknelse / om Swerige och K. Albrecht / för tw hundrade åhr sådan sammansatt aff them Gamblom An amusing portrait / of Sweden and King Albrecht / set to verse two hundred years ago by our forebears.

Messenius had broad access to manuscript archives and other sources in Stockholm, and it is certain that he had Cod. Holm. D4 in his possession as well. But the Vadstena codex D4 was already defective and incomplete by the early seventeenth century when Messenius consulted it, and he could not have used that manuscript copy as the sole source for his edition. Another intact version of King Albrecht, now lost, must have been in circulation in Stockholm at that time. King Albrecht is a strident political poem that bristles with invective, denunciation, outrage, and ridicule. The most effective 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




indictment of Albrecht’s misrule is articulated obliquely, however, in an allegorical representation. The allegory consists of a brief tale about a beautiful garden that is watched over by a guardian. This guardian neglects his duties, and whether through carelessness or indifference he lets a group of wild beasts enter the garden and destroy it. At the end of the allegory the poet delivers an explication of its meaning: the verdant garden is Sweden, the guardian is Albrecht, and the wild beasts that enter the garden and ravage it are the Mecklenburgian lords whom Albrecht had appointed to positions of power and influence in Sweden. The poem’s representation of events is borne out by the historical record, which documents the harsh political, social, and economic realignments that Sweden was forced to endure when the kingdom was overrun, as it were, by the foreign administrators that Albrecht brought with him.9 A Swedish chronicle from the early sixteenth century, Olavus Petri’s En swensk chrönike, looks back at this era and gives an account of Albrecht’s takeover following the imprisonment of the deposed King Magnus Eriksson in 1364 konung Magnus sattes i fängelse på Stocholms slott sedhan han i sex och fyratiyo åår hade konung warit, och saat han i siw åår i fängelse, och konung Albrect läät bestalla all the slott som höllos honom til handa, doch kunde han icke winna them, Men han och hans fadher gambla hertog Albrect som i någhor åår war her i landet sin son til hielp, kallade mykit fremande folk her in i landet til at intagha the slott och feste ther medt, som höllos konung Magnus til handa, Och thet främande folkit förderffuade landet i grund med gestningar, gerder, och skatt öffuer skatt offuer skatt, Så at både bönder och bårgare wordo platt vtharmade.10 King Magnus was imprisoned in Stockholm fortress after reigning as king for forty-six years, and he sat in prison for seven years. King Albrecht ordered all of the castles that used to belong to him [Magnus] to be taken, but he could not conquer them. So he and his father, the old duke Albrecht, who had spent several years here in Sweden helping his son, brought many foreigners into the country so that they might win over those castles that were loyal to king Magnus. And these foreigners laid the country waste with pillaging, campaigns, and tax upon tax upon tax, such that the farmers and burghers were soon completely impoverished.

The indignant repetition of the words skatt öffuer skatt offuer skatt in this passage from Olavus Petri’s chronicle indicates that the sting of Mecklenburgian oppression was still a powerful political memory in Sweden, more than 130 years after Albrecht had been 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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defeated in battle in 1389, for the very reason that the excesses of Albrecht’s northern German administrators, barons, mercenaries, and advisors—foreigners all—had been so gratuitous, and so predatory. Themes of invasion and of predation resonate strongly in King Albrecht, too, but the figurative language equating the Mecklenburgian overlords with wild beasts did not originate with this poem. This equivalency was established already in the first years after Albrecht came to power in late 1363 and documented in an entry in the Diarium Vazstenense from Vadstena, which states that in 1364 the Mecklenburgians descended on Sweden “like birds of prey” that “tyrannized” the countryside (Tunc aves rapaces preoccupaverunt cacumina monicum; nam Theutonici tyrannizaverunt in terra multis annis).11 In a similar vein, a remark in a planctus written in 1366 at the St. Klara convent in Stockholm complains about Albrecht’s royal wardens prowling about like ravenous wolves among the sheep.12 The imagery remains consistent in all accounts: Sweden is the defenseless prey, helpless against the aggressive, foreign beasts. King Albrecht adjusts this paradigm somewhat by using botanical metaphors instead of bestial ones—Sweden is a garden, not a herd of sheep—but the underlying dynamic of victimization remains consistent.

King Albrecht and the Beasts of Mecklenburg A closer look at this text shows how it undermines the king’s authority and sets the stage for the renunciation of allegiances to the crown. King Albrecht opens with a dedication to the Virgin Mary and an appeal to Christ for eloquence (1–6). After bidding the audience to be silent—wilin i gifwa liwdh en litin stwnd (7)—the poet spins a tale about a beautiful garden that is filled with fruit trees, bejeweled bushes, wondrous spices, and other delights. The garden is watched over by an overseer (höffdinghe [chieftain or lord]) who is tasked with keeping the garden secure. But this overseer grows weary of his assignment, and lets down his guard. Suddenly, wild animals come into the garden—wolves and panthers, bears and lions, foxes and wlwalla—and they strip the branches bare, uproot the bushes, and devour every flowering plant down to the twig and the thorn (8–66). The discourse shifts in verse 67, as the poet invokes a common rhetorical trope of “turning” (Nw wil iak miin ordh om wænda, 67) 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




to begin the exposition of the allegory. Again the poet asks for silence, oc wil iak idhir nw thetta thydha [so that I may interpret it for you] (69). The audience is told that the garden is Sweden, now suffering under an oppressive German occupation (71), and that Albrecht is the höffdinghe who neglected his garden (77). The jewels on the bushes stand for Sweden’s natural resources of copper and iron that are excavated and shipped off to Mecklenburg, while the spices that used to grow in the garden—nutmeg, cardamom, Melegueta pepper—represent the cheese, meat, and butter that Swedish farmers once produced in abundance, before the Mecklenburgians arrived; now, the larders of the Swedish peasants stand empty. The explication of the allegory continues for over 100 lines (71–187), although not all of it is, strictly speaking, expository. Numerous passages criticizing the coarseness of the Mecklenburgian mercenaries, the greed and arrogance of King Albrecht, and the questionable honor of German women stray considerably from the characteristic sobriety of the allegorical genre. The situation in Sweden is described as desperate, with the Swedish king—embodiment and final guarantor of law and justice—hopelessly corrupt and disinterested in governance of any sort. This is made clear in the poem’s scornful climax, in which the lazy and arrogant King Albrecht dismisses the petitions that Swedish farmers have brought forward. The farmers plead with Albrecht to enforce the laws, saying Söte Herra Konung i skipen oss rätt [Sweet lord king, please give us justice]. But Albrecht’s reply, rendered in this poem in his native tongue of Middle Low German, drips with condescension and the arrogance of a foreign overlord who does not even speak the language of his subjects. With the words Ick kan / trowen / nicht beter / leue knecht [I really can’t do any better, dear boy], Albrecht absolves himself of all responsibility (204–08). The closing sequence of the poem (220–25) asks for God’s blessings upon all those who would free oss ([us], the Swedes) from oppression, and bids the audience to respond by saying Amen. In King Albrecht, the richness of the garden of Sweden is contrasted sharply with Albrecht’s inability to appreciate or defend it. Indeed, the plentitude of Sweden’s natural resources seems to have intoxicated the weak-willed king to such an extent that he was no longer able to carry out the monarch’s highest duty under medieval Swedish law—to defend the sovereignty of the kingdom.13 This is the sole explanation that the poet provides as to how Albrecht 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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could fail to exercise oversight over the Mecklenburgian “beasts” that stripped the nation bare: that the ædhla frwkt [luscious fruit] in Sweden’s garden had become so plentiful that Albrecht no longer recognized its worth (36–38). Thus the priceless garden became worthless in Albrecht’s eyes, and the beasts that Albrecht once had kept outside of the garden—in his private menagerie, so to speak—are allowed to roam free, with catastrophic results. thy lot han ther in siin otama diwr som ær wlwalla oc oskælik creatwr panteer oc leon oc oskælik diwr flere thy at fruktin skulle ödhas thæs mere ther kom om sidhe badhe wlwa oc biorna swa at ey bleff atir vtan riis oc thorna Then he let his wild animals in, elephants and beasts so fierce. Panthers and lions and other ferocious creatures. And then—this damaged the fruit even more—the wolves and bears followed, so that nothing was left save twigs and thorns.

The explication of the allegory spells out the significance of each marauding animal. The lions and panthers represent the king’s foreign advisors (137), while the wolves and bears stand for the Mecklenburgian dukes and noblemen whom Albrecht brought to Sweden, where they ruled with a cruel hand (148–50). The foxes, the last of the animals to be mentioned, stand for a different category of oppressors. The foxes stand for turncoat Swedes who have joined the Mecklenburgian regiments in Sweden and terrorized the countryside, raiding farmsteads in search of “geese” (a crude sexual pun for young maidens) to be stuck upon the “spear” and roasted. The poet dwells for a moment on these fox-like Swedish mercenaries, the legodrängar, spinning a scene-within-a-scene that plays on these vulpine appetites to comic yet also shocking effect. Like the fox, the goose also holds a special significance in this political allegory. The relevance of the goose for the poem’s dynamic of predation is based not only on what the animal represents (defenseless Swedish farm girls) but also on how the connotations of the word “goose” function as a marker of identity. In lines 160–87 of the explication, the poet delivers a monologue attributed to one of the legodrängar, as the lad—dressed in a shabby suit of armor— bursts into a Swedish farmhouse and shouts at the inhabitants. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




This entire scene in King Albrecht is incongruous, in that the mercenary’s bluster and his gluttonous demands for more meat and drink stand in contrast to the allegorical mode used in the rest of the piece. There is perhaps more than a touch of satire in the poet’s description of a boorish farmhand dressed in a threadbare shirt and rusty sword who gives himself over to his own fantasies of plunder and power, but the mercenary’s association with the fox in this scene renders him entirely unsympathetic. Jak wil ider tyda aff then Rääff Som wäl weet både hool och grääff Ther meenar iak med then legodräng Som haffuer fördärffuat både åker och äng The willia alle til Hoffua rijda Wid bondans kornladu at strijda Fick han eena kogerbysso och pijla uti Tå skulle iw bonden til skogen fly Spangat bälte och krusat håår Rostad swärd / och ståålhandske wid hans låår Rijder i gård / och går i stuffua Sidan wil han fattiga bonden truffua: Hustru / huar är tin unga höna Then skal tu ey länger för mik löna Ligger hon sik i bänck eller pall Bär henne fram / och äggen all Hon sitter ey så högt å rang Jak slår henne nider med min spwiz stang Haffuer tu ey meer än eena gaass Then skulom wij i apton haffua til kraass. Han beder uptanda fempton lius Han drycker och skrölar i fullan duuss: Thet monde the edela bönder sörija At legodrängiar skola tolkin leek upböria (160–83) Now I want to explain to you what the fox represents, he who knows every hill and hole. With him I mean the farmworker who has let both field and meadow go to waste. They all want to ride to the Hof [this is a play on words for the German terms “court” as well as “farm”] and take a joust against the farmer’s haystack. If he got his hands on a crossbow and some bolts, that would truly be a reason to flee into the forest. Curly haired and dressed in a thin belt, with a rusty sword and steel gauntlets hanging at his hip, he rides into the farmstead and enters the hall. Then he starts to harass the impoverished farmer. “Woman—where is your young hen? Don’t



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try to hide her from me any longer. If she’s lying on the bench or in the bed—carry her before me, with all her eggs as well. She’s not so high and mighty that my sharp spear can’t pin her down. Don’t you have more than one goose? The taste of that will surely delight our lips tonight.” He orders fifteen candles set alight, and like a brute he drinks and shouts. It is a great cause of sorrow for the farmers that the farmhands pull these kinds of stunts.

For the poet to describe the young girl as a “hen” is unremarkable and rather innocuous in Old Swedish, but the wordplay takes on an overtly sexual charge when the mercenary makes direct reference to his sharp spear that will pin her down [lit. beat her down] if he has the chance to wield it. Far more sinister are the implications of the word “goose” in this context, for in medieval Sweden this term was a slang word for “cunt.” 14 In using this scatological term—a word that the Mecklenburgian occupiers would likely not have known—the mercenary exposes himself as an insider turned outsider, that most uncanny of betrayers. Instead of calling for a meal, the Swedish mercenary is issuing a threat of sexual assault that his landsmen would understand all too clearly. This brief scene, set apart from the rest of King Albrecht through first-person narration and a change in tone, is not at all the trivial interlude the scholarship generally considers it to be. The mercenary’s monolog is, in contrast, vitally important to the political message of the poem as a whole. It addresses the political instabilities endemic in late-fourteenth-century Sweden, where nationalities and allegiances became confused under a Mecklenburgian rulership that, despite its legitimate claim to the throne, failed to wield its authority justly. The legodrängar were Swedish by birth, but in their decision to join up with the German-speaking militias of the Mecklenburgian lords in Sweden, a line was crossed. The oppressed are now aligned with the conquerors, the overlords— arrogant, aggressive, threatening—and while their voice remains Swedish their mentality is entirely Other.

Queen Margareta in King Albrecht The poem makes no mention of Margareta by name, nor is there any reference to Danish affairs in the text if King Albrecht. There is an allusion to Margareta in the latter part of the poem, however, which is cloaked in the guise of an appeal to an unnamed “noble




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Gud giffue edela frw Drotning ära Hielpe ther til at them måtte galgan bära Låter läggia å reep / och herda å fast Wända tät knuten som ladet brast (205–08) May God bless the noble lady Queen! Help that these [men] will be strung up on the gallows. Heave up the rope and hustle the magistrates here, bind the knot so tightly that the gallows-beam bursts.

This characterization of Margareta as Sweden’s liberator, as a queen who acts with God’s blessing to cleanse the kingdom from injustice, presents her in the most favorable light. That this line can only refer to Margareta is confirmed by the historical context in the latter part of 1388, as there was no other queen in the medieval Scandinavian region who was in a position to bring political deliverance to the Swedish noblemen. Linking Margareta to this reference to the edla frw Drotning is therefore preferable to another possible interpretation of this line—that the “noble lady Queen” might refer to the Virgin Mary. While the phrase is not inconsistent with the way in which Mary is addressed in devotional texts from the Swedish Middle Ages, this reading cannot be reconciled with the political overtones of the passage. It would be highly irregular for a Swedish poet to appeal for Mary’s aid in the execution of political opponents; the Queen of Mercy does not do such things. Once the topic of vengeance has been introduced in line 206, by mentioning the gallows upon which the oppressors shall be hung, the poet switches registers again. Leaving behind the invocational mode that he used to call upon Margareta for swift intervention, the poet continues in the first person and directs his remarks to the stormän within Sweden. Here, the poet speaks directly to the leading men of the realm, urging them to heed his suggestions about how to resolve the problems caused by the mercenaries in the kingdom—among them, certainly, a fair number of Swedish turncoats. The poet’s first impulse is to call for indiscriminate violence; only later does he present a more sensible strategy. Edla Herrar i Swerige rada Wilde the lyda mine rada Legodrängia i fyra lute skipta



lady Queen,” to come to Sweden’s aid and assist in the restoration of order.

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Jak wille underlika thera hoffue lypta Förrste lata sända til greep Then andra skulle the offra til reep Trijdie skulde tå bondanom tiäna Och ey länger sina frändir röffua aller räna Fierde måtte tå rijda til hoffua Sidan måtte bonden Gudi loffua At i Swerige war kommen then sid At hwar komme åter til sin egen idh (209–20) Noble lords in the Swedish council: If you choose to follow my advice divide the mercenaries into four groups—though how I wish I could “lift up their heads” [a play on words for hanging] in a spectacular way. The first group shall be pressed into armed service. The second shall be condemned to hanging.The third group shall serve the farmers and no longer plunder and pillage their friends. The fourth shall ride to court. Then the farmer will praise God that the old ways are followed in Sweden and all have returned to their proper tasks.

The poet speaks here about the restoration of order as it used to be: a returning (återkomma) to those values and mores that used to hold sway in Sweden. In this, the use of the word sid is significant. This term (cf. OIc siðr), which means “custom” or “manner,” refers to conduct that is entirely appropriate for the persons living in that time and place; it evokes notions of conformity with the inborn standards of behavior, as demonstrated by antonyms in Old Icelandic such as ósiðr [ill-breeding] and siðlausa [unmannered]. But can Swedish traditions be upheld or restored by a “noble lady queen” of foreign birth? Indeed, that is exactly the claim this poem makes in its final lines. In scene after scene in King Albrecht, the Swedish people are shown to be unable to halt the predation that had overwhelmed the kingdom. Even those farmers who are granted permission to present their petitions at court are met with a curt dismissal; their last hope—the law—has failed them. And yet, although the humiliations and sufferings that Sweden has endured under King Albrecht are discussed in great detail, the tone is far from despairing. In the opening lines of King Albrecht, the poet asks the audience’s indulgence, and assures them that listening to this work “will raise your spirits” (thz i mattin idher thæs gladhare göra, 6). Once the allegory and interpretation have been brought to an end (189), the poet marks the transition by appealing to the “noble lady Queen” 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




and the Swedish council to restore justice with brisk efficiency. And again in the closing lines of King Albrecht, the poet returns to the theme of deliverance. Here the poet bids God’s blessings upon “those” who will free Sweden from its oppression—not to bring about a new ruling order but, in contrast, to restore Sweden to its former glory. Gudh giffue them glädi får utan ända Som allan ofrid wille fran oss sända Til at fanga dygd och ära Som Sweriges almoge haffua kära (220–23) May God grant eternal bliss to them who seek to free us from all strife, so that we may again enjoy the dignity and honor that the Swedish people hold dear

The concluding lines of the poem make it clear that deliverance, when it comes, will not be a solitary phenomenon. The poet invokes God’s blessings on them, a plural pronoun: a final reference to the constellation of forces that together can bring relief from Albrecht’s oppressive rule, namely the queen and the stormän acting together. The kingdom of Sweden thus appears to be overrun, with no hope of deliverance from within. This marks a telling indictment of Albrecht’s misrule, for as mentioned earlier in this chapter, King Albrecht introduces the notion that the king was unable or unwilling to defend the sovereignty of the kingdom. This characterization is not just a poetic abstraction of Albrecht’s failures on a personal level, for it draws significant political power from its allusions to the legal and territorial obligations of kingship that Albrecht did not uphold during his reign. According to the medieval Swedish law code it is the king’s prerogative to preserve and defend the borders of the kingdom of Sweden. This is made clear in the opening sections of the “King’s Law” portion of Magnus Erikssons Landslag, which states that “the king shall use his royal authority to maintain the borders as they are, so that none of the aforementioned [lands] come to be diminished or decreased for the king who comes after, for he shall be bound to attempt to reclaim them.” 15 In addition to protecting the integrity of the kingdom’s boundaries, the king is charged with protecting the health of the body politic as well. To this end the law prohibits the king from allowing foreigners to serve 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Fiarþe æt [han] rike sino suerike skal styra ok raþa meþ inlænzskum mannum ok ei vtlænskum, æfter þy sum gamul lagh ok rikisins ræter hauer af alder varit; ok [ei] ma vtlænzskar man i raþa hans takas [ . . . ]16 The fourth [article] states that he shall lead and govern his kingdom of Sweden with the help of inborn men and not with foreigners, in accordance with what the ancient law code and the laws of the kingdom have stipulated from olden days. And no foreign men may be taken up into his council [ . . . ]

Albrecht III did not heed the law in this instance, but he was hardly the only Swedish king to face accusations of neglecting the security of the kingdom. His predecessor, King Magnus Eriksson, was also criticized for failing to recognize the dangers of allowing foreign noblemen to assume positions of power in Sweden. What is notable about the charges of royal misconduct against Magnus Eriksson is their source: the revelations of the Swedish mystic St. Birgitta (d. 1373). A number of her visions employ the same rhetoric of security and protectionism that is found in King Albrecht—both speak of the need to seal off the kingdom against predatory beasts. In her revelations from the 1350s, Birgitta warned King Magnus Eriksson that the crown must be defended against predation from without, and in the section to follow I show how some of her political visions characterized the kingdom of Sweden as an enclosed space threatened by beasts (deceitful foreign princes) who seek to harm and devour it. I maintain that these stylistic similarities are not accidental, and that the use of beast imagery in King Albrecht was not merely an amplification of the standard rhetoric of predation that was operative in Sweden following the Mecklenburgian succession. Instead I suggest that the poet of King Albrecht took inspiration from the Old Swedish versions of Birgitta’s revelations, which in the 1380s were just beginning to reach vernacular audiences in Sweden. In a very real sense I am proposing that King Albrecht harnesses the echoes of these political revelations, appropriating Birgitta’s mystical voice as a cipher for Margareta’s royal voice.

Birgitta and the Political Voice Birgitta Birgersdotter (1302–1373) was born into an aristocratic family of jurists and royal councilors that was politically well 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


in positions of power at court.


connected in Sweden. Birgitta’s father, Birger Persson, was the lagman [lawspeaker and judge] of the province of Närke on Sweden’s eastern coast, and her mother Ingeborg was herself the daughter of a lagman with close ties to the royal dynasty.17 In 1312, following the death of her mother, Birgitta moved to the home of her uncle, who was the lagman of Östergötland; he later was elevated to the highest position of Royal Counselor of the realm. It is believed that Birgitta’s first childhood visions began around this time, though there is no evidence that these early visions were recorded or brought to the attention of confessors in the church. In 1316 or slightly afterward, Birgitta married Ulf Gudmarsson, who later became the lagman of Närke after the death of Birgitta’s father. Together they had eight children. Birgitta’s political connections won her access to the Swedish court. She spent several years between 1335 and the early 1340s serving as the magistra to the queen of Sweden, the foreign-born Blanche of Namur, tutoring her (according to one account) in the Swedish language.18 The turning point in Birgitta’s life came only days following the death of her husband in 1344 or 1346. Already recognized for her acts of piety and her ascetic lifestyle, Birgitta, now a widow, announced that she had received a vision calling her to be the sponsa et canale of Christ. This vision was confirmed and validated by several influential confessors, among them Magister Mathias, the canon of Linköping cathedral; Prior Petrus of the influential Cistercian monastery of Alvastra in eastern Sweden; and Petrus Olavi of Skänninge. Over the next several years, which Birgitta spent at Alvastra, she received many revelations, the validity of which was confirmed by her confessors, especially Magister Mathias, who had them translated into Latin. In the jubilee year of 1349, Birgitta left Sweden and went with Prior Petrus on a pilgrimage to Rome. Birgitta never returned to her homeland, dying in Rome in 1373. Birgitta’s revelations did not concern themselves only with moral or theological issues. It is notable that the first of Birgitta’s revelations circulated by Magister Mathias, her confessor, is highly political in nature: it is a vision of the divine retribution that shall be visited upon Sweden’s courtiers and noblemen in punishment for their wickedness.19 As the daughter and niece of the lagmen of Närke and Östergötland and the widow of another lagman, Ulf Gudmarsson, Birgitta’s views on rulership and the monarchy are undeniably traditional, and her standards—not 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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only theologically, but also politically—were high. While in her early years Birgitta was a supporter of King Magnus Eriksson, even working at his court, in her later years, having grown dissatisfied with Magnus Eriksson’s policies and stung by his moral laxity while on the throne, she became a vocal antagonist of the king and one of his sharpest critics, accusing him of being the servant of the devil, a rex iniquus, and a tyrant. She issued strident condemnations of Magnus’ disregard for papal authority, his contempt for Swedish law and custom, and his mismanagement of military campaigns in the Baltic that had weakened Sweden instead of strengthening it.20 Although Birgitta was alive during Albrecht’s conquest of Sweden in late 1363, there is no record in her corpus of revelations that she took notice of this change in the monarchy. Nevertheless, as we shall see, there is good reason to suspect that her revelations about unjust kings, which never named names and consistently referred to the monarch in neutral terms like iste rex or kongen [this king], took on a new relevance in the years after Albrecht III took the throne. The critiques and admonitions of corrupted kingship that she leveled decades ago during the reign of Magnus Eriksson were once again all too appropriate for the state of affairs in Sweden under Albrecht III, and the generic language of the revelations (iste rex) provided no difficulties in simply substituting one king for another; what was said about Magnus Eriksson at that time could also be said about Albrecht III. The next section of this chapter will consider what effect these visions had once they appeared in Sweden in the vernacular—that is, once Birgitta’s body (her relics) and her voice (the Old Swedish versions of her revelations) were reintroduced to Sweden at the prominent monastery at Vadstena, epicenter of the Birgittine movement, during the final years of Albrecht’s reign.

Translatio Corporis Toward the end of her life, Birgitta asked her confessor in Rome, Alfonso of Jaén, to begin assembling her works into a coherent corpus. This was accomplished around the time of her death in 1373. Latin translations of her visions, prayers, orations, and other devotional texts were collated into a series of twelve volumes, known collectively as the Revelaciones. The corpus is further subdivided into the Liber caelestis I–VII, the Liber caelistis Imperatoris 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




ad reges (sometimes recognized as book VIII of the Liber caelestis), and four supplementary volumes entitled Regula Salvatoris, Sermo angelicus, Quattuor orationes, and the Revelaciones extravagantes. This Latin corpus is the primary witness to her visions. By the 1380s, an Old Swedish corpus of revelations began to appear at Vadstena, but with very few exceptions this parallel transmission is secondary to the Latin. These Old Swedish visions, known collectively as the Uppinbarelser, are essentially vernacular “re-translations” of the Latin revelations, and in matters of content and syntax they follow closely the Latinate diction of the Revelaciones.21 It is likely that the return of Birgitta’s body to Sweden after her death in Rome—her holy relics were enshrined in Vadstena in 1374— sparked a new interest in the vernacular roots of her prophetic visions in that country. With the founding of a new religious community at Vadstena in 1375 and the establishment of the Birgittine Order during the 1380s, the production of an Old Swedish corpus of Birgitta’s revelations became an urgent desideratum. We must consider what effect this translatio, in multiple senses of the word, had on Birgitta’s prophetic voice. Claire Sahlin calls attention to the way in which the female prophetic voice of the Middle Ages was frequently caught in a “double-bind” of limitation and suspicion. Not only was there a long-standing prohibition against female preaching, but the consequence of this ban served also to compromise the authenticity of the messages delivered through the woman’s tongue and pen. Since public demonstration of prophetic or visionary gifts was not possible (or hardly ever so), church authorities worked diligently to filter the woman’s voice through a series of compensating strategies for them to vouchsafe the message despite its origins as a gendered voice: thus the important mediating role played by father-confessors, authoritative prefaces that accompany the manuscript transmission, and so on.22 The female prophetic voice, in end effect, was far more often read than heard. In Birgitta’s case, an anecdote that was noted in the Acta et processus cononizacionis beate Birgitte gives insight into the degree of her involvement with the textual production of her own visions. The Acta, which was written shortly after Birgitta’s death in preparation for her beatification, report that she worked in the vernacular: she would write brief passages from her revelations upon wax tablets, which she then handed over to scribes to translate into Latin, while at other times she would dictate—again in 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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the vernacular—while a male confessor translated her words into Latin, phrase by phrase, as a scribe kept a protocol of the confessor’s translation. The Acta suggest that Birgitta’s decision to write some visions while dictating others could have been motivated by her physical well-being at the time of revelation, with the spoken word apparently being less taxing. The words that were given her from God she wrote down in her mother tongue with her own hand when she was well and she had us, her father confessors, make a very faithful translation of them into Latin. She then listened to the translation together with her own writing, which she herself had written, to make sure that not one word was added or subtracted, but was exactly what she had heard and seen in the divine vision. But if she was ill she would call for her confessor and a scribe . . . whereupon . . . she spoke the words to him in her native language in a kind of attentive mental elevation, as if she was reading them in a book, and then the confessor dictated these words in Latin to a scribe, and he wrote them down in her presence. When the words had been written down she wished to hear them and she listened very carefully and attentively.23

The account in Acta demonstrates that Birgitta did not relinquish control over her words once they had been spoken. Instead she is shown to be actively engaged in checking the sense and meaning of the Latin translation against its Old Swedish source, ensuring that the final product gave an accurate representation of the words she had written or dictated only moments previously. This description reinforces the notion that Birgitta was firmly entrenched at the verbal center of her prophetic enterprise. The voice—whether her own or that of the confessor reading the translation back to her—serves as the guarantor of the authenticity of her visions. In Birgitta’s case, the parallel transmission of the Revelaciones and the Uppinbarelser poses serious challenges to any attempt to isolate Birgitta’s voice in the visions associated with her. The manuscript filiations in the Revelaciones are extremely complex, with multiple scribes, redactors, and editors engaged in the production of the texts. Only after Birgitta’s death were the Latin redactions assembled into a canonical set of visions, and even this authoritative edition omits several (admittedly controversial) exemplars. It is telling for the political developments that swept across Sweden in 1388 and 1389 that this is the same point in time at 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




which the Uppenbarilser were being produced in Vadstena under the supervision of Bishop Nils Hermansson, transformed and retrofitted into the Old Swedish diction with which Birgitta was intimately familiar. By re-voicing Birgitta in the idiom she once spoke, the monks at the politically well-connected monastery at Vadstena were fashioning a mystical discourse of affinity and consonance, one in which the prophetic voice seeks engagement with its vernacular audience. The re-translated Birgitta was therefore not simply an echo of herself; rather, the Uppenbarilser served to expose Birgitta as a speaker, in contrast to the Revelaciones (which continued to circulate throughout Europe) where Birgitta is presented much more distinctly as an author.

Beasts and Borders During her lifetime, Birgitta received several revelations about the proper exercise of kingship. Chapters 15, 16, and 17 of book VIII of her Revelaciones reproduce a trio of these visions. Here, Birgitta uses beast metaphors and animal imagery to call the king’s attention to the danger of foreign influence. In each case, Sweden—be it the nation or personified in the monarchy itself—is stylized as facing a threat from without. Only the wise and pious administration of a good king can save it. If good judgment and moral leadership is lacking, a lax or unjust king will surely allow the enemy to slip inside the gates, thus ensuring that the realm will be lost. A common thread in these revelations is their concern about infiltration by foreigners and the deceptions worked by corrupt advisors at court. In revelation 16 of Book VIII, Birgitta informs the king that Christ forbids him from taking untrustworthy men into his royal council. Passages from this revelation appear below. In order to more accurately reproduce the dialogic and citational nature of Birgitta’s revelations, in my translations I have enclosed the divine voice (of Christ, or the Virgin Mary) in quotation marks. Christus forbiwdhir enom konung at han skal ey taka til raadh gifwara en smekiara oc trolkarl thy at han är girughir oc swikfullir ok hötir honum än han gör ther amot Capitulum xvi GWz son talar til sina brudh aff enom smekiara oc trolkarl hulkin en konung ville ophögia oc taka j sit raadh sighiande Thänne mannin som 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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thu känner ther konungin vil nu taka til sin radhgifwara är varghir Än huat pläghir varghin göra vtan swika ok gripa ok swälgha Thy sighir jak at vil han finna min vinskap tha vakte sik ok skili sik vidh hans vinskap ok vmgängilse ok vnne honum ey minzsta fiät aff jordh som han bedhis aff honum Oc ey hiälpe honum mz sinom mannom ällir gafwom thy at han hawir enfald ordh oskällikin thörst oc swiklikit etir j hiärtat.24 Christ forbids a king to take a flatterer or charlatan as an advisor, for such a man is greedy and deceitful and will threaten him if he is challenged. Chapter 16. God’s son speaks to his Bride about a flatterer and charlatan whom the king wanted to take into his council, saying “This man whom you know, whom the king wishes to take him as an advisor, is a wolf. And what does the wolf do but deceive and attack and devour. Thus I say to him that he will please me by guarding himself against this man, casting off his friendship and seeking no contact with him, nor should he give him an inch of the land that he might request. Neither should he give him charge over any of his men or other things, for though his words are simple he has a burning thirst and a deceitful poison in his heart.” 25

Birgitta’s revelation draws on the same imagery that appears in the Old Swedish King Albrecht. Both stress the necessity of keeping the king’s inner circle uncorrupted and free from interlopers, and both use metaphors of infiltration to drive home that point. The circle of advisors should remain inviolate, much like the keep in a medieval fortress serves as the last safe refuge of the monarchy. Foreigners are to be repulsed as unsuitable—a dictum that is reflected not only in these visions but also in medieval Swedish law, which stipulates in an opening section of Magnus Erikssons Landslag that only native-born Swedes shall stand as the king’s advisors. Fiarþe æt [han] rike sino suerike skal styra ok raþa meþ inlænzskum mannum ok ei vtlænskum, æfter þy sum gamul lagh ok rikisins ræter hauer af alder varit; ok [ei] ma vtlænzskar man i raþ hans takas . . . 26 The fourth [article] holds that he shall govern and rule his kingdom Sweden with native-born men and not with foreigners, since this has been the law and the advice of the royal council since olden days. And no foreign men may be taken up into his council . . .

It is telling that the Old Swedish poem King Albrecht faults Albrecht for the very same gullibility and susceptibility to deception that Birgitta warns against in her revelation. Albrecht’s advisors led 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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Med the Leyon och så Pantere Meenar iak hans Rådgiffuare och andra flere Som haffua förrådat sin rätte Herra Med thera rådh . . . (136–39) The lions and the panthers represent his advisors and others who betrayed their lawful lord with their counsel . . .

In revelation 17, which follows directly after the previous vision, Birgitta uses the image of the fox to warn a king against permitting foreign lords from setting foot on his land or occupying his territory, even under the guise of friendship or alliance. Christus forbiudhir enom konung at han skal vntfaa een storan herra vtlännunga swa han gifwe honum ey nakan jngang j sit rike thy at han liknar han vidh räff thy at han är swikfullir ok högfärdhughir oc enfalla manna röfware xvij CHristus talar til sina brudh sighiande konungin letar ok astundar räfs hiälp oc vinskap Än huat är räfsins sidhuänia vtan skrymptelica lata sik vara dödhan at han skal gripa enfalla fughla Än kombir han jn j gaasa husit ey latir han sik nöghia at han ätir eena gaas Vtan han dräpir alla saman Swa thänne vm han far en del aff landit han latir sik ey nöghia för än han faar meer ok tha skal han saa missämio thy at infödde män skulu ey sämia sik mz vtlänningom Thy flyes hans vmgängilse swa som etirbläsandis orms thy at vm han faar framgang tha skal han fordärfwa landit j nidhirfal ok plokka enfalla gässena Christ forbids the king to welcome a powerful foreign lord into the kingdom, and he should deny him entry into his kingdom because he should realize that he is like a fox, for he is deceitful and prideful and a predator of the common man. [Chapter] 17. Christ speaks to his Bride, saying “The king seeks and desires the fox’s help and friendship. Yet what is the nature of the fox but that he cunningly pretends to be dead so that he can attack defenseless birds. If he manages to get inside the goose-hut, he will not be satisfied with eating just one goose, but he will kill them all. Thus it is, if the man comes into possession of even a little bit of land—he will not be satisfied until he receives more; and thus will he incite discord, for men who were born in this land should not traffic with foreigners. You must flee from his presence as if from the poisonous blast of a dragon, because if this man prospers he shall bring the land to ruin and pluck [i.e., kill] the helpless geese.27



him astray, and were loyal only to themselves.

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Here, as before, Birgitta’s political analogy warns of the dangers of deception, infiltration, and predation by foreign princes and other unsuitables who seek entry into the halls of power in Sweden. But in this revelation, the king is not the victim, and the sanctum sanctorum that must be guarded is not the king’s inner circle of advisors. Rather, it is Sweden itself, which Birgitta describes as a goose-hut (gaasa hus) filled with defenseless geese. It is not surprising that Birgitta, the aristocratic daughter of the lagman of Närke, saw the king as the first and primary defender of the sovereignty of the nation. Her view is likewise consistent with medieval Swedish law. This revelation mixes its metaphors in a rather haphazard fashion. In warning of the dangers posed by foxes, Birgitta draws on two separate tropes within the bestiary genre. The first characterizes the fox as a ravenous predator of geese and hens, while the other presents the fox as a clever trickster that uses deception to lull birds into a false sense of security. In typical examples of this second motif, the fox that pretends to be dead lies down in an open field and ceases to move; in some cases, the fox will roll in a pile of red dust to simulate dried blood.28 The spectacle of the fox’s defenseless and inert corpse attracts hungry birds that hover over his body, coming dangerously close to the fox’s jaws. In an instant the fox springs to life and catches the unfortunate birds in his mouth. The allegoresis of this motif follows two main trends of interpretation. In the first, the foxes that pretend to be dead are compared to religious heretics, whose deceitful ideas seem at first to be harmless and attract many followers; it is only with the passage of time that the followers realize, far too late, that the heretics have led them into perdition. According to the second, more direct interpretation of the fox-playing-dead motif, the fox represents the devil itself. This view is attested in the Revelaciones, too, when the Virgin Mary instructs Birgitta in ways to recognize the deceptions of the devil, likening him to a fox. Diäfwllin liknas vidh räff lxiij GWz modhir taladhe Et litit diur är hulkit som kallas räfwir thz är jdhit at rökta sinna vidhirthorfft, oc är fult mz suikom, Thz latir sik stundom suasom thz see dööt at thz maghe thäs raskare taka oc opäta foghana som ouarlica sätia sik owir thät . . . 29 The Devil is compared to a fox lxiii God’s mother said “There is a little animal known as the fox which is clever in fulfilling its own needs and is filled with deceit.




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The poet who wrote King Albrecht draws upon this folkloric motif of deceptive foxes in order to fashion a critique about Swedish susceptibility to deceit and infiltration. Let us recall that the foxes are the only non-German actors in the political allegory; instead they are native Swedish men who betray their roots and join the oppressor’s cause. A third example from Birgitta’s revelations returns us to the idea of the walled enclosure and the king’s responsibility for the safety of his subjects. Here, the imagery is somewhat different— the wild beasts are penned up inside the walls while the sheep are on the outside—but the underlying dynamic is identical. Birgitta, praying for a just king to rule over Sweden, received the following vision. GWz son taladhe til sina brudh tha hon badh fore enom konung oc sagdhe Vm thänne konung vil ärwodha til at vmuända siälana tha skipar jak honum twa radhgifwara hulke som hans rike skulu styra Förste älskar mik meer än sin thing oc är ämuäl redhoboin til at dö fore mik Annar . . . är nu redhoboin til at lydha mik oc ey kötino vtan at lydha andanom Än nu mat thw spöria hwi jak vtsätir mina wine ok latir them koma j dröfwilse Jak suarar thik mz liknilse oc äptirdöme Swa som vm nakir herra vare hulkin som hafdhe nakan skogh ällir ödhkn vmkring gärdha mz mwr Jnnan mwrin varo otam diur ok vtan murin faar oc murin hafdhe mang gap oc hol ok tw rwm vidh huart gap Än herran atvaktol ok gömel vm sin faar sighir sinom thiänarom O mine thiänara j vita at min faar äru enfald oc the diwrin äru grym oc gripande Thy standin ok gömin gapin ok holin at ey the grymmo diwrin vtgangande aff atirlykkelsomen skulu oc göra skadha enfallo faaromen Ey vare jdhir ledha j ärwodhe ey läte j vako Jthir röst vare swa som ludhir Stafwir vare jdhkelica j idhrom handom at tha som gripande diwrin nalkas faaromen skulu the rädhas, Thiänare lyddo gerna sins herra budhordhe Vm sidhir sagdhe herran sinom vedheman Gak vt j min skogh ok lät diwrin höra ludhzsins röst oc gör them räd mz thit rop Herrans thiänara hörande lwdzsins röst sagdho Thetta är vars herra vedhemanz röst opstandom thy nu rasklica varom ey nu rädde ok ey glömske vare nu var hand snarare til at slaa var röst höghre til at ropa öghat vakrare til at see ok hwar vi skipadhom för andra fore faranna wärn ther sätom os nu siälua.30 God’s Son spoke to his Bride when she prayed an intercession for a king, and said “If this king desires an opportunity to repent in his soul then I shall give him two counselors that will oversee his



It will pretend to be dead so that it can capture and devour the birds that gather around it, unaware of the danger.”

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kingdom. The first one loves me more than his possessions, and is prepared to die for me. The other . . . is eager to obey me—not only in the flesh but also in the soul. And now you will ask me why I test my followers and let them face difficulty. I will answer you with an exemplum or parable [the Old Swedish term used here is liknelse— the same word used to describe an allegory]. It is like a nobleman who walled off a portion of the forest or wilderness. Inside the wall he kept wild animals, but outside the wall were sheep. And the wall had many gaps and holes and two rooms at each gap. But the nobleman, concerned about his sheep, says to his servants ‘O my servants, you know that my sheep are defenseless and the beasts are fierce and wild. Therefore you must repair and close the gaps and holes, so that the fierce beasts may not escape from the enclosure and harm the defenseless sheep. Do not be timid in your use of authority, do not allow yourselves to be distracted. Let your voices resound loudly, carry staves in your hand, so that any animal who plots to attack a sheep might be sore afraid.’ The servants obeyed gladly the words of their lord. Then the nobleman spoke to his master of the hunt: ‘Go forth into my forest and let the animals hear the sound of your horn and make them fear your call.’ The servants of the nobleman, hearing the sound of the call, said ‘That is the voice of our lord’s hunter—therefore let us quickly arise and set with all good speed to our work, with our hands the quicker to strike, our voice the stronger to call, and the eye more keen to see, so that where we planned for others to guard our sheep, let us now set ourselves there.’ ”

These examples from Birgitta’s corpus highlight the extent to which metaphors of encirclement, predation, infiltration, and vigilance were used to deliver a political critique of Swedish kingship. King Albrecht follows in this same vein, not quoting Birgitta in any exact sense but nonetheless ringing the same changes: that Albrecht III has broken the prohibitions against misrule that are articulated in Swedish law. The poet of King Albrecht characterizes the king as being not only deaf to these warnings, but literally unable to speak out in defense of justice and the kingdom. Where the Birgittine vision urges the defenders of the kingdom to make themselves heard—“Let your voices resound strongly”— Albrecht III dismisses the pleas of his subjects with a reply in his own native tongue of Middle Low German: Ick kan / trowen / nicht beter / leue knecht [I really can’t do any better, dear boy]. The unjust king—himself also an interloper within the kingdom?—shows his true colors through the voice. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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Given the Birgittine echoes in this poem, it is intriguing to ponder whether the bishop in charge of the production of the Old Swedish Uppenbarilser, Nils Hermansson, might have influenced the composition of King Albrecht. The connections have an ecclesiastical but also a personal dimension. Nils, as archbishop of Linköping, had authority over Vadstena, which lay within his diocese, but he was also an outspoken critic of Albrecht III, a close advisor to Birgitta and Birgitta’s daughter Katarina and—in the critical years 1387 and 1388—a powerful ally of Margareta of Denmark and signatory of letters pledging his support to her. Nils Hermansson (1326–1391) was born to a prominent family in Östergötland. His maternal uncle was the archbishop of Uppsala, and while still a youth Nils was set on the path of service to the church as well. As a boy he attended the cathedral school in Linköping, and later studied law. Before attending university in Paris and Orleans, Nils forged close contacts with Birgitta and her family. It is a testament to his intelligence and fine character, qualities that his hagiographers would later comment upon, that Nils was chosen to serve as a tutor for some of Birgitta’s children during the summers in Östergötland (and even as a Latin tutor for Birgitta herself ) although he was still merely a scholaris at the time.31 After Birgitta left Sweden in 1349 she never saw Nils again, but she kept him in high regard and hoped to advance his career from afar. Nils had been appointed a canon in Uppsala in 1350, and it is likely due to her influence that he was elevated to archdeacon in Linköping in 1361. According to contemporary accounts, Birgitta wanted to see him become the archbishop of Linköping, the diocese that held jurisdiction over Vadstena, because Birgitta planned to establish a convent there. Her hopes for Nils Hermansson, which she communicated privately to her daughter, Katarina, eventually appeared as a divine revelation, number 79 in the Revelaciones extravagantes.32 Birgitta died in 1373, a year before Nils was nominated by the diocesan chapter to be archbishop of Linköping—this, notably, against the wishes of King Albrecht and his father Albrecht II of Mecklenburg, who both favored different candidates that were less ill-disposed toward the crown. Due to this unresolved dispute about the appointment, the archbishopric remained vacant until Katarina interceded with pope



Authorship and Citation in King Albrecht

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Gregory XI and asked that Nils be granted the seat. The appointment was finalized on March 14, 1375. Following the translatio of Birgitta’s remains to Vadstena, Nils was again drawn into the family’s orbit. Katarina asked him to oversee Birgitta’s writings and initiate the procedures that would lead to her canonization. Nils began this in 1374 with great vigor, even conducting a series of interviews with witnesses who would attest to Birgitta’s miracles.33 Nils did not live to see the lengthy process of Birgitta’s canonization completed; he died in 1391 in Linköping. Admired during his lifetime for his unswerving piety, Nils was canonized in the early sixteenth century as the last Catholic saint to be named in Sweden before the Reformation. According to the Processus canonizacionis beati Nicolai Lincopensis, the posthumous account of his life and miraculous deeds, Nils was a staunch defender of the church against abuses by the crown. In 1361, his conduct as archdeacon in Linköping so enraged King Magnus Eriksson and his son Hákon that they confined Nils within Linköping cathedral and nailed the doors fast, hoping to starve him into submission. The attempt failed. Subsequent clashes with Magnus and Hákon, also documented in the Processus, highlight Nils’ ironclad demeanor and his contempt for those that abuse their power. His attitude toward King Albrecht seems considerably more antagonistic. The Processus reports that the archbishop spoke contemptuously about the king, and his canonization documents reproduce the statement Nils allegedly made that disparaged Albrecht’s lordship and accused him of misrule, saying: “He has never been a true king, for although he has reigned in Sweden for twenty years he has not once acted justly, not even for the most insignificant matters.” According to the same account Albrecht would have struck down Nils and killed him on the spot, if eyewitnesses had not leapt in to intervene.34 In the final years of Albrecht’s reign, Nils took on an even more prominent role in the opposition. In 1386, after the death of Bo Jonsson Grip, one of the wealthiest landowners in Sweden, Nils was named in the testament to be one of the executors of his vast estate, holding the properties and castles in trust and keeping them out of the king’s hands. In October 1389, Nils took steps to secure Margareta’s lordship over Swedish territories by drafting a letter to the marshal of Tavastehus castle in Finland—one of the fortresses once controlled by Bo Jonsson Grip—informing him that the Swedish royal council and the group of twelve executors had 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




decided that nearly all of the castles in Swedish territory are to be turned over to Margareta, and that he must surrender Tavastehus when Margareta’s agents arrived.35 While the Processus is understandably laudatory of Nils Hermansson and was written with the benefit of hindsight, the text does identify him as an instigator of the rebellion against King Albrecht, and an early supporter of Margareta. This detail is reported in one of the depositions of witnesses that were taken up into the Processus. The witness, Eskil Djäkne, was interviewed at Vadstena in 1417. A minor official at Vadstena, Eskil confirms the essential truth of the thirty-eighth article of the hagiography of Nils Hermansson, according to which Nils had accurately predicted the banishment of King Albrecht from Sweden.36 As archbishop of Linköping, an outspoken antagonist of Albrecht III and leader of the opposition, a close ally of Birgitta and her family, and the leading light in the establishment and flourishing of the Birgittine convent in Vadstena, Nils Hermansson was undoubtedly a figure who would have agreed with the style and sensibilities of King Albrecht—but did he write it himself? It is not farfetched to consider it likely, because Nils was also known to have literary aspirations. In addition to his work on the Revelaciones, Nils is said to have produced a commentary on the Moralia Gregorii and a version of Cur Deus homo, which was probably adapted from Anselm of Canterbury’s work of the same title. Contemporary accounts also mention that Nils kept a manuscript with him, in which he recorded brief passages of a miraculous or mystical nature. The manuscript was last seen in the years around 1500, but the bishop who examined it claimed that it bore the title Hvite boock—a vernacular title that suggests its contents were likewise written in Swedish instead of Latin. Nils was also skilled in verse, as he wrote a number of Latin hymns and offices for St. Erik, St. Ansgar, and St. Anne, in addition to an office for Birgitta entitled Rosa rorens that stands as one of the finest examples of Latin poetry from the Swedish Middle Ages. If we consider the possibility that Nils Hermansson was the author of King Albrecht, or even just a contributor to it, then we are justified in viewing the poem less as a planctus about Mecklenburgian misrule in Sweden than as a truly polemical work that seeks to undermine the authority of the improper king. In this poem, cultural and moral shortcomings stand alongside accusations of legal misconduct and the disregarding of prophetic 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Margareta and Albrecht: The (Im)Proper Voice In the final section of this paper I hope to illustrate to what extent the voice can be brought across the divide, as it were, not in a predatory sense but in a mediated fashion. In the process of crossing over—from Latin to Swedish in Birgitta’s case, or from Danish to Swedish with Queen Margareta—the voice, exposed anew, finds additional resonances. The first example of a mediated voice is the one that Queen Margareta herself dispatched into Sweden in 1388. This was accomplished in a set of charters that included a letter signed by Margareta on March 22 of that year, eleven months before the battle of Falköping. The letter indicates that the conquest of Sweden was well underway long before Margareta’s first troops took the field in February 1389. What is intriguing about these charters is what they do to Margareta’s Danish voice. One of the first campaigns Margareta undertook was to win from the Swedish barons a clarification of her authority in Sweden. Although Margareta had legal claim to the title of queen of Sweden through her marriage to Hákon VI, who ruled as king over parts of Sweden from 1362–1371, she had no legitimate claim to the authority of rulership in that kingdom. This authority was relinquished when Hákon VI, after a long struggle against Albrecht’s forces, was compelled to sue for peace and surrender his claim to the Swedish throne. The terms of the peace treaty that was ratified on August 13, 1371, which exists only in a Low German redaction from the late fourteenth century, stipulate that “King Albrecht shall retain the entire country of Sweden and possess it in toto without claims of any sort arising from king Magnus and king Hákon or on behalf of their heirs” (koningh Albert scholde dat gantze ryke to Sweden beholden vnde besitten qwyth vnde vrygh sunder jennygerleye ansprake van koningh Magnus vnde koningh Haken wegen vnde erer eruen).37 The fact that Hákon and Magnus had no further claim (ansprake) to the kingdom did not impinge upon their right or their willingness to identify themselves as kings of Sweden in their letters and charters. On August 24, 1371, less than two weeks after the peace treaty was signed in Stockholm, Hákon signs a letter with the title Swerikis ok Norigis konungr [the king of Sweden 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


visions; Albrecht has failed on all fronts. There is only one figure who can still rescue Sweden. It is, paradoxically, another foreigner: the “noble lady queen” of Denmark.


and Norway]. A few weeks later, Hákon and Magnus issue a joint letter as Noregs og Suia konunga [kings of Norway and Sweden] and on September 27 of that same year Magnus again calls himself rex Suecie et Norwegie. It is notable that Albrecht did not make official use of his title as king of Sweden until some time had passed after he took power in 1363. It was not until later that decade that he first made formal use of the title. In March 1388, Margareta met with a delegation of Swedish barons and leading men of the kingdom. The meeting culminated in the drafting of letters signed by the Swedish stormän and leaders of the church, in which they pledge their loyalty and support to Margareta should she enter Sweden and attempt to overthrow the king. The first letter of March 22, 1388, was drafted by twelve of the Swedish stormän, among them Birger Ulfsson, Birgitta’s eldest son. Margareta’s titular identity as Sweden’s queen was recognized in the preamble to their pledge of service. In the letter they address Margareta as the hethærleghæ ogh werthegæ fruwæ, fruwæ Margretæ, Norighæs ogh Swerrighæs drotning ogh ræet erving ogh førstitnæ righæns i Danmark [honorable and worthy lady, lady Margareta, queen of Norway and Sweden and lawful heir and noblewoman of the realm in Denmark]. By signing the letter, the stormän pledged their fealty to her, but they did not do so in recognition of her authority as queen. The restrictions on female rule set forth in medieval Swedish law, that the king must be male, were apparently too great for the stormän to overlook entirely, and thus the letter makes it clear that Margareta’s lordship in Sweden would approximate that of a queen-regent. In this case the similarity is strained, because Margareta (should she be successful in deposing King Albrecht) would rule as a queen regent with no heirs—a twist of circumstance that complicated the implicit understanding of queens regent as rulers holding a temporary and surrogate lordship in trust until the lawful succession can be completed. It is therefore not only Margareta’s gender that proved a stumbling block in this construction of female lordship, but her singularity as well; she was the consors regni of a deceased king, a Swedish queen in title only. Mindful of these circumstances, the stormän turn liabilities into assets. In a bold rhetorical move they bypass the notion of Margareta’s gender altogether. In the letter of March 22, 1388, the stormän conceptualize Margareta’s lordship in explicitly masculine terms, pledging their allegiance to her not as queen but 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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At wi allæ fornefndæ ogh woræ wænær, allæ woræ frændær ogh allæ woræ hielpæræ ogh menæ righæns mætn i Swerrighæ ogh the for wor skyld giøræ ogh lathæ wilæ ogh righet i Swerrighæ oss tel lathet hafuæ ogh tel sæt meth al troescap, kiærligheeth ogh thiænæstæ ogh hiælp tel thetn fornefndæ woer kiære fruwæ, drotning Margrete, at wi skulæ hennæ woer fruwæ, drotning Margrete fornefnd for woer allæs ogh righæns i Swerrighæ futlmechtich fruwæ ogh ræet husbundæ holdæ ogh hafuæ i allæ mathæ, som tro dondemetn bør theræ husbundæ ogh theræ rætæ herscap at giøre, ogh os aldræ fra hennæ deythinghæ lathæ, ogh ey daghæ ogh ey frethæ ogh ey sønæ at taghæ meth kong Albricht ogh ey meth nocghræ hans hiælpæræ ogh ey meth nocghræ andræ the fiændæ, som hun ogh wil tel sammæn kutnæ fangæ, uthæn meth hennæs drotning Margretes ræth ogh williæ.38 That we, the aforementioned, together with our friends, allies, and accomplices, and with the common men of Sweden and those who have placed their trust in us to do such as needs to be done in Sweden, have granted all loyalty, affection, obligation of service and help to the aforementioned our dear lady, queen Margareta, and that we and all the realm of Sweden shall have and hold her, our lady, the queen Margareta aforementioned, as the ruling lady and proper head of the household (futlmechtich fruwæ ogh ræet husbundæ), in every way such as loyal servants submit to their heads of household and their authority; and we shall never part from her, break or seek peace or reconciliation with king Albrecht nor with any of his allies, nor with any of the enemies that she or we shall take prisoner together, except by the consent and authority of her majesty Margareta.

In another clause in the same letter, the stormän clarify the issue of royal succession. This was a complicated topic, since Margareta’s only son and heir, Olof, had died suddenly in August 1387, leaving no issue. This meant that the only eligible heirs to the Swedish throne in early 1388 were Mecklenburgian lords related to King Albrecht: his son Albrecht V and his nephew Erik. Eager to prevent a Mecklenburgian succession for the second time in Sweden, the stormän set no arbitrary time limits on Margareta’s authority. Item wi allæ fornefnde ogh gantze righet i Swerrighæ wilæ ogh skulæ thetn fornefndæ fruwæ, drotning Margrete, woer futlmechtighe fruwæ ogh ræet husbundæ hafuæ ogh beholdæ yfuær oss ogh yfuær righet i Swerrighæ, i nøeth ogh løst, æ mæthæn hun lifuær ogh thet meth williæ ey sielf yfuær gifuær.39



as Sweden’s “head of the household.”


Item all of us, the forenamed together with the entire kingdom of Sweden desire to have and to keep the aforementioned lady, Queen Margareta, as our ruling lady and proper head of the household, both over ourselves as over the kingdom of Sweden, in prosperity and in want, for as long as she shall live and as long as she does not relinquish this authority.

At the same time, however, the phrasing of next codicil in the letter indicates that the stormän were looking ahead toward the next election of a king. On this issue the stormän make a startling concession: they grant Margareta the authority to select her own candidate for the throne, and the stormän vow to ratify and elect—in consultation with Margareta—whichever candidate she has chosen. Item hwem wor fornefndæ fruwæ, drotning Margrete, wil ogh rather, at wi fornefndæ ogh righet i Swerrighæ skulæ tel kong ogh herræ taghæ, hafuæ ogh beholdæ entich i hennes lifuæ æller eftær hennes døeth, thetn sammæ skulæ wi allæ fornefndæ ogh righeth i Swerrighæ tel woræ allæs ogh righæns i Swerrighæ kong ogh ræt herræ taghæ, hafuæ ogh behaldæ meth fornefnde wor fruwe drotning Margretes raeth ogh williæ.40 Item whomever our aforementioned lady, queen Margareta, wants and desires that we the aforementioned shall take as our lord and king, to have and keep during her lifetime or after her death, that same man shall we all, the aforementioned and all the kingdom of Sweden, take as the lawful king over us and all the kingdom of Sweden, to have and to keep him according to the aforementioned queen Margareta’s will and pleasure.

The type of lordship envisioned here, which sets Margareta as the husbonde of the realm, hearkens back to the dominant mode of political rhetoric in Sweden (especially under the Mecklenburgian regime) that we have just discussed, namely the characterization of Sweden as an enclosed space threatened by predating beasts—be it a verdant garden now overrun by wild animals, a farm attacked by rapacious foxes, or a monastery set upon by ravenous wolves. Birgitta’s visions made use of the same imagery, and it is intriguing to ponder the possibility that the re-translation of her works into Old Swedish at Vadstena during the 1380s gave this rhetorical tradition new energy and a new urgency. By characterizing Margareta’s lordship as that of a husbonde for the realm, the barons construct a model of Sweden in which the kingdom is described as 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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a household over which one man holds ultimate responsibility— not only for its prospering but also for its security. Royal lordship is equated in this letter with the proper administration of duties by a just and capable höffdinghe, the same type of administrator that is harshly criticized for negligence in the poem King Albrecht. Here, finally, we see how voice marks the difference between good administrators and bad ones in late-medieval Sweden. In one of her letters written a few weeks after the meeting of the stormän, Margareta responds to the injustices the Swedes suffered under Mecklenburgian rule. She acknowledges in a letter sent on April 23, 1388, to the barons and burghers of Östergötland that they had suffered much, mentioning specifically the “hardship and toil and ruin that you have long endured with king Albrecht and his helpers, with assaults, theft and arson, and unjust taxation, and too many other weighty and ruinous things to list here . . .”. 41 At the conclusion, Margareta indicates that help is on the way (“when God wills it that we come into Sweden . . .”) and enjoins the readers of this letter to show their loyalty to its signatories of the previous letter dated March 22—the barons—who act in her stead to bring about political change in Sweden. The inhabitants of Östergötland should do as these men say, lika wiss wii idher thet sjelf medh munnen saghom [just as if we told you ourselves, with our own mouth].42 The phrase is in many ways a standard rhetorical turn in diplomatic use, a way of denoting emphasis or earnestness, but here the formula takes on a special resonance. Here is Margareta’s voice, the sense of it resonating sub voce in the commands issued in her stead by her Swedish allies. At the same time, the articulation of this voice is transformed in acoustic and linguistic terms by the translation into Old Swedish. Margareta’s voice is projected into Sweden, not in the intelligible yet undeniably foreign dialect of Old Danish, but rather in the vernacular known to all of the Swedish stormän. Her vox thus becomes laden with a cultural significance that encourages us to see the “vernacularization” of Margareta—from queen to husbonde, from Danish sovereign to Swedish noblewoman—as part of the process of becoming vulnerable, or perhaps sympathetic, that Dolar identifies as characteristic of the use of the voice. Instead of exposing herself to a Swedish “Other,” Margareta is able to speak to a Swedish nation inclined to regard her (or better: to hear her) not as an Other but as a Similar. That Margareta was indeed politically vulnerable, too, is evident from the closing of her letter, where she makes common cause 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




with the Swedish rebellion: “for we intend to prosper or to die with those whose loyalty is with us” (thy wii tenkiom dy och førderfwa med allom them, som wii thetta forskrifna medh troskap af finnom).43 The contrast between Margareta and Albrecht on precisely this issue—the status of voice as a marker of lordship—could not possibly be stronger. As mentioned previously, the climax of King Albrecht is marked by a confrontation at the king’s court in which a group of farmers pleads with Albrecht to give them justice. The king cannot be bothered to reply to their concerns, and brushes them off with a laconic phrase that—in a telling break from the poem’s diction—is expressed not in Old Swedish but in Albrecht’s native tongue of Middle Low German. Not only is Albrecht unwilling to act on their demands, he is shown to be literally incapable of expressing that thought in the vernacular of the kingdom over which he reigns. Here, language and voice serve to divide rather than unite. In this poem, Albrecht’s speech is demoted to a lower rank of vox, and his inability to voice himself as a just king betrays his true nature as the (bestial?) interloper who is no better than the Mecklenburgian overlords that serve under him. And lastly, with the diminution of voice comes a corresponding loss of authority. Albrecht’s cultural exposure in and through the voice led to rejection by the Other, to open ridicule, and in a few short months after King Albrecht was composed, it led to defeat and imprisonment as well. Albrecht could not voice himself properly: that was his undoing.

Conclusion This chapter explores the limits of our model, in that it deals with the agency of voice in a text where authorship and patronage remain indeterminate. There are good reasons to suspect that King Albrecht was composed at or near Vadstena, probably in the latter half of 1388, in all likelihood by a cleric familiar with Swedish traditions of devotional and political rhetoric; but there is no certainty here. Our final consideration will be how the voice of female authority manifests itself in this text. For this fourteenth-century context in Sweden, the political and cultural agency of voice is best illuminated when we consider that we are dealing primarily with echoes rather than voices in the first instance. It is in the interplay between source and repetition, between impulse and the anticipation of re-sounding, that 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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this poem finds its particular harmonic. We have seen that within it, numerous other discourses of its time are suspended—legal prohibition, revelatory address, anti-Mecklenburgian nativism, and devotional piety—all of which combine to deliver a polyvocal appeal to the listener. The auditors of King Albrecht are therefore exposed to multiple voices of authority in this poem: male and female, living and dead, secular and sacred, foreign and native. To this list we could add one additional differentiation of the voice: primary and secondary. An example of the first type would be Margareta’s skillful instrumentalization of voice in the charters she sent to the Swedish stormän in 1388, which represent a primary mediation of the royal voice through the medium of text. To read these charters is to hear Margareta speak: her royal voice is present, incarnate, it resonates within the limited space of its acoustic (political) reach and accomplishes the task of royal representation in the present moment. At the same time, however, if we widen our perspective and conceptualize the contested territories of this political landscape as an acoustic landscape, then we recognize that lordship—like the voice itself—rarely enjoys the luxury of quietude. In late-fourteenth-century Sweden the dynamics of royal power were noisily confused, wracked by the shrillness of embittered Mecklenburgian lordship and the buzz of discontented stormän. The voice of authority was thus forced to negotiate a contested space, one that was filled with rigid political obstacles and sharp corners and loud with the noise of conflict. In moving through this landscape, then, interference caused the authoritative voice to throw off echoes and reverberations, sonic aftereffects, and arresting harmonics—all of these, namely, not just facile acoustic metaphors for describing the ways in which multiplicities of power interact and clash but, as we see in the parallels between King Albrecht and Birgitta’s revelations, they are useful interpretive models that can help us recognize how authority in fourteenthcentury Sweden was amplified or muffled according to the voice’s ability to carry the ymaginatione of more than one source. This brings us back to the echo. It may seem incongruous to close this final chapter with a discussion of the echo—a sound, namely, that manages to outlive itself—but by doing so we can gain a better perspective on how sound and rulership are intertwined in this late-medieval Swedish context. Aquinas defines the echo, following Aristotle and Boethius, according to the familiar ripples-in-the-pond analogy. Sound waves travel outward from 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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Sic autem contingit de immutatione aeris apud generationem soni, sicut de immutatione aquae, cum aliquid in aquam proiicitur. Manifestum est enim quod fiunt quaedam regyrationes in circuitu aquae percussae. Quae quidem circa locum percussionis sunt parvae, et motus est fortis. In remotis autem gyrationes sunt magnae, et motus debilior. Tandem autem motus totaliter evanescit, et gyrationes cessant. Si autem antequam motus cesset, gyrationes illae aliquod obstaculum inveniant, fit motus gyrationis in contrarium [ . . . ] Sic igitur intelligendum est, quod ad percussionem corporum sonantium, aer in gyrum movetur, et sonus undique diffunditur [ . . . ] Tandem autem deficit totum. Si autem antequam huiusmodi gyrationes deficiant, fiat reverberatio aeris sic moti, et sonum deferentis ad aliquod corpus, gyrationes revertentur in contrarium, et sic auditur sonus quasi ex adverso. Et haec vocatur echo.44 The alteration of air at the generation of sound is like water’s alteration, when something is thrown into it. For it is apparent that a series of circular motions are made in the area around the water that has been struck. The circles near the place that was struck are small, and their movement is strong. But the circular motions farther away are greater, and their movement is weaker. In the end the movement totally subsides, and their circular motions cease. But if, before the movement’s force runs out, the circular motions were to meet some obstacle, then a movement circling back the opposite way would be produced. [ . . . ] In this same way, then, we should understand that at the striking of bodies making a sound, air is moved in a circle, and sound is diffused in all directions. [ . . . ] In the end, the whole thing fades. But if the air moving in this way and carrying sound to a body is deflected before those circular motions fade, then backward-circling motions would be returned the opposite way. Thus a sound is heard as if from the other direction; this is called an echo.45

This presentation is fairly unremarkable, except that Aquinas drives the discussion further by commenting on the nature of the inaudible echo. To the medieval mind, an inaudible echo is not a paradox. An echo that cannot be heard is no more unusual than a sound that cannot be heard; that is to say it was not at all unusual, because medieval authorities from Boethius to Johannes Ciconia insisted that the motion of the universe must produce a divine music of the spheres (musica mundana) that, while sublime, could not be heard by the human ear. So, too, with echoes. Aristotle pursues this aspect of his theory of sound to its logical conclusion 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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by maintaining that echoes are caused by every audible sound, in every instance, even if they cannot always be heard. The causation of echo is therefore a universal property of sound. Aquinas refines Aristotles’ theory by offering a new explanation of why some echoes are inaudible. In his Commentary, Aquinas suggests that it is not due to the faintness of the original sound or the distances separating source and reflective obstacle (as Aristotle maintains) but rather because echos are produced—as all sounds are—through percussion and motion. As a consequence of this percussion and motion, all sounds are capable of “bouncing” should they encounter an obstacle that is able to deflect the sound’s motion. Thus it is the obstacle’s materiality that determines the audibility of the echo, not the original sound itself. Deinde cum dicit: Videtur autem semper etc., ostendit quomodo diversimode fiat echon. Et dicit quod semper fit echon, sed not semper fit certus [ . . . ] Similiter autem, quando repercussio soni fit ad corpus concavum in quo natus est multiplicari sonus, fit echon certus, id est manifeste comprehensibilis; quando autem ad alia corpora fit reverberatio soni que non sunt nata multiplicare sonum, non fit echon manifestus.46 Next, when Aristotle says it appears, however, that an echo, etc., he shows how echoes are made in different ways. And he says that an echo is always made, but there is not always a definite one made— i.e., a clearly perceptible one. [ . . . ] When a sound is reflected by a hollow body in which sound is suited to be multiplied, then a definite echo is produced—i.e., one that can be clearly discerned. But when sound is deflected by other bodies that are not suited to multiply sound, then a clear echo is not produced.47

If, following Aquinas, the echo is generated by the obstacle rather than by the sound itself, then these obstacles take an active role in the acoustic reproduction of the original impulse. It is their interference that re-energizes the sound, making it audible again from a new angle. There is power in this duplication, too, according to the medieval understanding of the echo, for if a sound in motion fails to find a suitable obstacle it fills its acoustic sphere only once. Echoes and reduplications prolong the agency of sound—and the voice—in acoustic terms. And if acoustically, then also politically, as we have seen in these chapters that chart the impact of the echoes, proxies, and reduplications of the queen’s voice in medieval Scandinavia. There is an advantage to be won in being heard twice. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




I have argued that the re-translation of Birgitta’s Latin revelations into Old Swedish marked an important development in the representation of her visionary voice. Through the copying and dissemination of her vernacular revelations in the years after 1375, the Birgittine voice was reintroduced to Swedish audiences that were able to “hear” it in an unmediated fashion. With this innovation in language came an amplification of her authority as a prophetic witness, as the Old Swedish Uppinbarilser now sounded as if Birgitta would have spoken them. Her voice was now true to itself. The echoes of Birgittine locutions I have traced in King Albrecht suggest that this prophetic voice had taken on a new relevance for elite audiences near the centers of ecclesiastic and secular power in Sweden. But I maintain that the emergence of Birgitta’s reanimated voice in late-fourteenth-century Sweden was not precipitated solely by the fortuitous and timely re-translation of her works into Old Swedish. Taking inspiration from Aristotle’s definition of the echo, let us search the Swedish political landscape for the obstacle against which these revelations collided, and ultimately bounced back from. I submit that this obstacle was Albrecht’s disregard for the proper exercise of authority in Sweden—a critical breakdown of male rulership that was all the more disruptive in this late-fourteenth-century context because it had been predicted. Decades earlier, during the reign of Magnus Eriksson, Birgitta had delivered repeated warnings about corrupt kingship and the necessity of protecting the integrity of the monarchy, and we have seen that several of these critiques were framed by allegories or exempla that used animal or folkloric motifs. So, too, with King Albrecht, an allegory that does not cite Birgitta yet nevertheless speaks as if with her voice, taking the same tone and hitting the same dynamic of righteous condemnation. And yet, once the explication of the allegory is finished, the Old Swedish poem announces that time has run out. In contrast to the Birgittine revelations, which urge the kings to amend their ways and accept the blessings of God, the poet of King Albrecht declares the king’s reign to be already forfeit. And in a clarion call to a foreign queen, the poem sets the stage for the introduction of a new ruling voice in the Swedish landscape. Reading the Birgittine revelations in tandem with King Albrecht gives us a notion of what Swedish elites were hoping to hear from this foreign queen during the latter months of 1388. The revelation in the Uppinbarelser about the king’s servants repairing the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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walls of the enclosure that protected the sheep offers a telling portrait of the ways in which sound, voice, and authority are brought together in the exercise of just rulership. The nobleman in that allegory tells his master of the hunt to go into the forest where the wild beasts lurk and to blow his horn. In encouraging the master of the hunt to be bold, the nobleman demonstrates that the acoustic power of the horn is a tool of lordship: “let the animals hear the sound of your horn and make them fear your call.” In hearing the blast of this horn, the king’s servants quicken to the task at hand, and the revelation proceeds to spin the allegory further. In much the same way, King Albrecht calls for aggressive action: the queen should make the Mecklenburgian beasts and the vulpine Swedish sympathizers fear her power. The allegory in King Albrecht characterizes the neglectful watchman in the garden, Albrecht III, as being incapable of doing precisely this. When called upon to demonstrate his lordship, Albrecht instead uses his voice—and as the poem makes abundantly clear, this was the wrong voice. Instead of taking action, the king offers words that fall flat upon the ear: Ick kan / trowen / nicht beter / leue knecht. In speech as in rulership, Albrecht III has failed. Soon his reign—and his royal voice— would be silenced.







AFTERWORD

T

he lives of Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta offer a rare glimpse into the discursive poetics of queenship along the northern reach of medieval Europe. In this investigation of specific periods of crisis in the monarchies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, we retraced the steps taken to voice the queens’ political objectives in an innovative way: through the “broadcast” of poems by Rumelant von Sachsen, through the translation of courtly romances “in our tongue” for Eufemia’s daughter, or through the echoing of Birgittine locutions in the Old Swedish poem King Albrecht. Through their patronage and influence, the cultural authority that rests inherent in medieval queenship was transformed into an acoustic reality, and as a result of this incarnation their voices were able to reach new listening communities. Medieval authorities asserted that the voice is suffused with a distinct presence—an ensoulment—that distinguishes the voice from every other type of audible sound, and I have argued that these sensibilities survive the transference into different vernaculars, different literary genres and media, and different modalities of speaking. The queens’ voices were heard. It is notable, however, that in each case these voices sounded forth in a political landscape that was defined by a crisis of male lordship. For Denmark, the crisis was sparked by the murder of Erik V and the disputed succession that followed. In Norway, the crisis was less urgent—it played out over a series of years rather than months—but the challenge was likewise defined by problems in the dynastic succession that Hákon V, despite repeated negotiations with Erik Magnusson, could not resolve. The situation at the Norwegian court was exacerbated by the realities of childbirth, that he and Eufemia had only one daughter and no sons. In Sweden, the crisis of male lordship was of a different type. Here, it was caused not by an interruption of legitimate royal power or a challenge to its continuity (as in Denmark or Norway) but by a 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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surfeit of bad lordship and the abuses and injustices that resulted from it. If we conceptualize these periods of political crisis in acoustic terms, drawing an association between political power and the expression of voice, we realize that the articulation and broadcast of the queen’s royal voice coincides neatly with those moments or circumstances in which the voice of the king was silent or otherwise rendered impotent—that is, in the months following the assassination of Erik V in 1286, during the complicated engagement of Ingeborg to Erik Magnusson, and throughout the final stages of Albrecht’s misrule in Sweden. This conjunction is hardly coincidental, of course; political realities, then as now, demand flexibility and fortitude of their rulers, and it is no wonder that a weakness in one area will be compensated by strength in another. The loss of equilibrium at the medieval courts of Scandinavia is interesting in its own right, but we understand a great deal more about the discursive poetics of medieval queenship when we realize that Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta attempted to regain the equilibrium in rulership not by the exercise of power but through the marshaling of authority—authority, in large measure, that was conveyed through the skillful utilization of the cultural significances of voice. These challenges and interruptions in male lordship in medieval Denmark, Norway, and Sweden call the sovereignty of the queen’s political voice into question. Was it always “speaking,” as it were, or did it only become audible once the lordship of the king had been compromised? A related question would address the singularity of the queen’s voice in this context: whether it was stable and unchanging, or, in contrast, whether it was variable, rising and falling according to the demands of rulership. The point of departure for this final section acknowledges a debt to Ernst Kantorowicz’s work in The King’s Two Bodies, where he explores the limits of medieval kingship as they are defined by and through the body of the sovereign.1 The tensions between the royal and the personal self raise intriguing questions about embodiment as a guarantor of lordship; if, in other words, royal authority is conveyed because of the flesh or in spite of it. In applying these concepts to the lives of the Nordic queens, I take Kantorowicz’ proposals across the gender line, out of the purview of political theory and jurisprudence and into the realm of cultural self-fashioning. As a consequence I will attempt to expand 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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the inquiry away from its concern with the body per se and instead consider the reach and impact of the voice, a medium that works from, through, and upon the body as well as the body politic. Mindful of Theresa Earenfight’s warnings against totalizing scholarship on the nature of medieval queenship, I cannot hope to account for every variant and degree of the queen’s voice in all circumstances. Instead this book limits itself to a study of how this dynamic worked as a medium for royal power in the cross-cultural border zone of medieval Scandinavia, where the interlacement of different vernaculars and political allegiances complicated the expression of sovereignty. The discussion that follows about the embodiment of voice will consider the way in which the queen’s voice and the king’s voice intersected—or, to put it into acoustic terms, we will evaluate the degree of harmony that existed between the male and female voice of lordship and consider, as well, the consonance that existed between the queens and the poets that gave them voice.

The Queen’s Two Bodies? The first issue that confronts us is the relationship between the royal voice and the royal body. Following Kantorowicz’ model, we should begin by considering pluralities: the relationship between voice(s) and bodies. As is well known, The King’s Two Bodies opens with a survey of a number of legal cases in Tudor England. These disputes sought a clarification on the issue of the king’s sovereignty: whether it was bound up with the king’s body or, in contrast, whether sovereignty was ongoing and unending and merely invested in the king during his reign. One case in particular, involving a property dispute under Queen Elizabeth I, dealt with the question of whether the sovereign was able to own land privately, as a person, or, in contrast, only in his or her persona as monarch. At issue was the notion of ownership as it related to inheritance: if the sovereign, in other words, was entitled to own land privately and pass it on to his or her descendants, thus removing it from the purview of the crown. Edward Plowden, a lawyer in the case, set forth the notion of the king’s two bodies in order to explain where the division between the king’s public persona and private persona might lay. Plowden argued that the private ownership of land was not permissible for England’s monarchy. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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For the King has in him two Bodies, viz., a Body natural, and a Body politic. His Body natural (if it be considered in itself ) is a Body mortal, subject to all Infirmities that come by Nature or Accident, to the Imbecility of Infancy or old Age, and to the like Defects that happen to the natural Bodies of other People. But his Body politic is a Body that cannot be seen or handled, consisting of Policy and Government, and constituted for the Direction of the People, and the Management of the public weal, and this Body is utterly void of Infancy, and old Age, [ . . . ] So that [the King] has a Body natural, adorned and invested with the Estate and Dignity royal; and he has not a Body natural distinct and divided by itself from the Office and Dignity royal, but a Body natural and a Body politic together indivisible.2

Plowden’s conclusion asserts that the sovereign has no intrinsic, private self that can be separated from his or her embodiment as king or queen, and therefore the notion of private identity (and the rights that accrue to it) cannot apply. The sovereign body can be neither divested nor divided, for as Kantorowicz comments on this case, “. . . the King’s Two Bodies form one unit indivisible, each being fully contained in the other.” 3 In the eyes of the law the king’s two bodies are distinct, but in spite of this distinction their functions cannot be separated. This case highlights the political and legal ramifications of a paradox (Kantorowicz calls it a “mystic fiction”) that is intrinsic in medieval European kingship, that of the endurance of the monarchy despite the fallibility of the flesh of the king.4 Although all kings are mortal, their bodies corruptible, imperfect, subject to disease and infirmity and eventual death, the monarchy itself is unchanging and eternal. Even at the death of the king, there is no moment at which royal lordship is interrupted, for the succession (under optimal conditions, in a limited set of monarchies) takes place immediately, with the successor to the throne invested with the full authority of the monarchy—as proscribed, for instance, in the medieval Norwegian law of succession by the simple statement han skal konungr vera [he shall be king]. As Marie Axton sums up Snowden’s sixteenth-century case, “the lawyers were formulating an idea of the state as a perpetual corporation,” one that is ruled by a succession of monarchs that rise and fall with the fortunes of time.5 Let us now pull the threads together, posing a series of interlaced questions. If sovereignty is expressed through the body even 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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if it is not of the body; and if voice is of the body yet also expressive of sovereignty; and if the king has two bodies—does it follow that the king also has two voices? And if so, does the same apply to the medieval queens ruling in Scandinavia in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries? Do they also have two bodies, or two voices? The notion of a divided embodiment for medieval queens has been explored previously. Marie Axton, working with the drama of the Elizabethan age, shows how the theater of sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century England criticized the legitimacy of Elizabeth’s reign by raising questions about her status as woman and sovereign. Peggy McCracken has demonstrated through her analysis of Old French romances that these texts took up the notion of the queen’s two bodies and instrumentalized it as a literary topos. The romances construct and reify a dual embodiment for the queen consort in order to introduce a serious (and therefore highly entertaining) political conflict at court, which must then be rectified according to the demands of the romance genre. In these romances the divisions of the queen’s body are defined not by the investiture of authority or the demands of royal succession, but by the fertility of the female body itself. One of the queen’s two bodies is the licit reproductive body that begets children with the king; the other is the illicit adulterous body that poses a threat to the stability and succession of the monarchy. The romances, as McCracken demonstrates, use this tension to great literary effect.6 John Carmi Parsons approaches the issue from a historical perspective, wondering whether the political or juridical roles assumed by some medieval European queens might lead to a division of their bodies similar to (but not identical with) that which Kantorowicz proposes for the king. Parsons focuses especially on the role of the queen as intercessor. He associates this activity with aspects of female lordship that retain their efficacy even after her royal body can no longer substantiate them: Thus there is a sense in which a queen “dies” while a king does not, but certain of her attributes and duties could be seen to adhere to her office, not her person: if her biological maternity was limited in time by natural physiological processes, her role as nurturing mediator was not and could be identified with her official self. Long after her natural body ceased to manifest the king’s physical powers, intercession allowed her to continue a maternal function and reveal his ideal paternal magnanimity.7 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




Parsons’ notion of the queen’s two bodies conceptualizes the division of her embodiment at the level of “attributes and duties” rather than in the body itself. It is not what the queen’s body is but what the queen’s body does—or rather did—that suggests that female lordship may indeed transcend the natural limits of the physical body. Fertility, for example, is held up as one facet of female power that exerts a lingering influence over the king and the judicial process, for even after a queen could no longer bear children, the aura of motherhood could still (in a symbolic sense) be actualized and made effective in the political arena when other “children”—petitioners to the crown—were in need of an advocate. The difference between Kantorowicz’ model and Parsons’ notion of a divided embodiment for the medieval queen rests in the fact that, for Parsons, the divisions fail to outlive the queen herself. Whereas Kantorowicz demonstrates that one of the king’s bodies was understood to be immortal and unchangeable, the divided embodiment of the queen does not outlive her. It is notable, too, that the divisions are not only limited to the queen’s mortal body; they are defined by her sexual body as well. A common feature in McCracken and Parsons’ understanding of the investiture of female power is the way in which they conceive of the noblewoman’s secondary body as being unambiguously linked to concerns about sex and reproduction. The queen’s second body is therefore not a sovereign entity. Rather, it is predicated upon the sense of potestas and the virility of masculine lordship that is expressed by the king’s private, mortal body. The scenarios McCracken analyzes in medieval romance capitalize upon the threat of illicit sex in order to theorize a second, transgressive body for the queen, while in Parsons’ study the aura of maternal power that derives from actual reproduction serves to create a secondary embodiment for the queen that persists long after her reproductive years have past. What each of these constructions hold in common is the notion that the woman’s power is defined (yet also limited) by the model of consors regni: it is only through intimate contact with the corporality of the king that a queen’s political power can be secured. There is a paradox here as well, in that the queen’s body cannot be divided without the king’s involvement. Sovreignty and dependence are therefore closely (and paradoxically) intertwined. It is when these bonds are strained or broken that the status of consors regni is thrown into sharp relief. And in the event that 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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the queen’s body is separated from the king’s, what repercussions does that bring to bear on the constitution of her voice and the authority embodied in it? Here again, the anomalous nature of female rulership comes to the foreground, as we recall in the example of the law codes of medieval Scandinavia that did not address the nature of a queen’s sovereignty except (in some cases like the Hirðskrá) to exclude women from royal succession entirely. Even the changes to the Norwegian laws that were instituted by Hákon V, which permitted royal daughters to succeed their male kin, fail to address the conceptual and legal complications that might ensue under female rule. In the hypothetical situation envisioned by Hákon and codified in the 1302 and 1308 alterations to the Norwegian law code, the daughter’s act of “seizing the kingdom” (taka konungðomen) implies the overcoming of legal prohibitions against de jure queenship—a modality of female rulership, in other words, in which authority is not so much invested within the body as it is proclaimed over and against the body. The limitations of gender can be neutralized in word and deed, but not erased. The connections between the law and the queen’s body are determinative for our interest in the divisions of the queen’s voice. The evidence from the medieval Scandinavian tradition suggests that queens were, as a rule, unable to assert that the uncontested sovereignty of the monarchy had been fully, legally, and irretrievably invested in them. For this reason the divisions of the sovereign body that Kantorowicz proposes—the coexistence of an imperishable political body and a mortal natural body indivisible in one person—do not apply to the queens of thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Scandinavia. Thus we can stipulate that the medieval Nordic queen had only one political body. But does this imply that the medieval queen also had only one voice? In order to consider this question let us again consider the issue of kingship, and make use of a musical analogy to illustrate the difference between the king’s voice and the queen’s voice. We return once more to the notion of consors regni, but this time in an acoustic sense. An argument from Kantorowicz’ perspective would assert that the king cannot have two voices because—just as with the body—it is impossible to isolate private speech from royal speech. Because every act of the king’s mortal body is interpreted in the public sphere as an expression of the royal will, then the king has no arena in which his private speech, the articulation of his body natural, can be received as such, for the private body is effectively 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher




mute. The corollary of this is that the king’s speech must inevitably be public, because it is functionally (and politically) impossible for a king to speak in a register that is disassociated from his royal persona. For that reason the king’s voice is a solitary, singular voice. By the same token, the queen’s political voice is a solitary voice as well—but it is one that is rarely (if ever) heard in isolation. Rather, it is heard most often in accompaniment to the king. The partnership between king and queen as regnant bodies can be best illustrated by an analogy to medieval plainchant and polyphony. In musical terms, the king’s royal speech represents the cantus firmus of lordship. The cantus firmus sounds the melody according to the limits set forth by the plainchant modes that obtain in that instance—limits on the voice, in other words, that we could associate with the governing principles of the medieval laws that define and limit royal action. Just as the king voices the concerns of the crown, the lordship of a medieval queen can likewise be expressed in musical terms. Because the status as consors regni presupposes the instantiation of political and dynastic harmony with the king, according to this model the queen’s voice could well be associated with the discantus that rises above the cantus firmus issuing from the king. Her voice ornaments and complements the king’s plainchant melody, and yet, just as the discantus lacks the foundational grounding to serve as a melody in its own right, the expression of medieval female rulership remains subordinate to the male rulership that defines it. The rulership expressed in her royal voice is resonant yet essentially inconsequential; it is a productive ornamentation. And yet, kings inevitably fall, their bodies are perishable, and their voices, like their lordship, can be silenced. The critical issue addressed by this book examines what transpires when this cantus firmus of male lordship is interrupted, suppressed, or impaired. Does the queen’s discantus carry on as before, suddenly taking on the function of the cantus firmus simply by reason of its singularity, or is that female voice fundamentally transformed? And if it is transformed—by what agency and through what mediation does the transformation take place? Interruptions of male lordship were, of course, a commonplace for medieval noblewomen. Instances in which noblewomen wielded de facto rule during the temporary absence of their husbands (while on Crusade, for example) call attention to the 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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resiliant nature of female lordship. But the interruptions of male lordship discussed here are not necessarily caused by the mortality or absence of the king. Instead we have seen how other complications, such as the inability to produce a male heir (Hákon) or to administer justice in the kingdom (Albrecht) interfere with the proper “sounding” of royal power; and even in the case of the Danish King Erik V, murdered in 1286, the rumors and allegations of his transgressions (ut dicitur . . .) sounded a discordant note in his memoria that complicated Agnes’ attempts to unite the Danes around her young son. To effectively rule over these contested sonic spaces, the queens doubled their own voices. Not literally, of course; there is no evidence in the historical record documenting how or when these queens actually spoke to their subjects or their courts about the political objectives that are addressed in the poems and epics discussed here. The act of literary patronage, especially in circumstances where the poets are charged with the production of partisan works, effectively brings the queen’s voice out into the political arena. And here, again, we must confront the issue of singularity and consider how in the act of performance, in the acoustic realization of power through speech, the Aristotelian “significances” in the voices of the queen become entangled with the voices of the poets themselves. This, too, must factor into the discussion of the queen’s two voices.

Hearing the Queen’s (Two) Voice(s) Medieval philosophers, in the main, endorsed Aristotle’s characterization of the voice in De Anima by reiterating that the voice is set in motion by the soul. For this reason it is a vehicle for the transmission of verbum, the intentionality that comes from the Self. What is heard in the voice, therefore, is that which emanates from the speaking Self. The inevitable consequence of this model is that the voice that speaks is always and only one voice. A few recent studies, predominantly in the field of media theory, take issue with this characterization.8 Some contemporary theories of voice call its singularity into question, stressing that the voice is innately polyvocalic. Emphasizing the fact that the voice need not be audible to be considered a voice—to be silent, in other words, is to make use of the voice in its inverse—these studies call attention to the multiplicities of discourses that inhabit 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher



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The voice, made audible in the act of hearing, is a broken, divided, bifurcated voice, it is suffused with acoustic anticipations as well as overtones and resonances, it is filled with consonance and dissonance, it is an echo of itself.9

Rendering this German sentence into English was complicated by the fact that the original passage contains a term, Vorklang, which has no counterpart in our tongue. The noun Klang [sound] presents no difficulties, but the use of the prefix vor [pre–, implying “before”] transforms this Klang into a type of sound that seems to arrive before its time. The basic sense is that Vorklang represents an anticipatory “pre-echo” of a sound that has not yet materialized in full, much in the same way as the word Nachklang denotes a lingering of sound that persists after the acoustic event has passed and largely faded away. The use of Vorklang as the counterpart to Nachklang enables Waldenfels to construct a model of voice that transcends the “Zeitlichkeit” or temporality inherent in all sounds, for the voice that carries within itself the pre-echoes of its own sounding (Vorklang) is never truly silent. Waldenfels’ model has some parallels in Zumthor’s theory of vocalité in medieval performance. Both endorse the notion that the voice, despite its origins in the human throat and windpipe, serves as the medium for a host of inferences, aporiæ, and other significances that travel on the wavelengths of the voice, even if they are never articulated in speech. The evidence discussed here from the Scandinavian courts of the thirteenth to fifteenth century has identified a series of echoes and bifurcations in the poetic voice, each of which presented an opportunity for Agnes, Eufemia, and Margareta to secure political advantage. Among several that we could name are the overtones of cultural superiority that resonate in the elite poetic genre of Spruchdichtung; the resonant delights of end-rhymed narrative verse that Eufemia finally brought to the medieval Norwegian court; and the dormant traces of the vernacular Birgitta that were slowly being reconstituted through “retranslation” in Vadstena and dispatched into devotional circles in Sweden. By the same token, the concept of consonance is likewise exploited for political gain. This is audible in the fact that



each utterance. Speaking, then, is always a form of repetition, or as Waldenfels expresses it, voicing is intrinsically an act of citation, an echo, or a projection of other voices.

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Rumelant von Sachsen’s mother tongue of Middle Low German is the same as that of Queen Agnes. It is likewise present in the explicit references in the Eufemiavisor to the queen causing the romances to be translated “into our tongue,” an expression of cultural patronage that brings Eufemia’s voice across linguistic and dynastical divisions. And lastly it rings out in the passage in King Albrecht that appeals to the edla fru drotning to come into Sweden and save it from predation—a poetic plea that coincides exactly with Margareta’s political overtures toward Swedish elites in the year 1388, months before her troops began their armed campaign.

Voice in Spite of Silence Does the queen’s voice continue as before, after the king’s lordship has been compromised? I have tried to show that this does not take place. Time and again these queens took active steps to advance strategic goals through literary mediation and the deliberate use of voice as self-fashioning. The transformation of voice was not accomplished through the perpetuation of the discantus but rather by the sounding of a new cantus firmus that is predicated upon an intrinsically female modality of lordship: it is resonant with discoursive authority rather than the snap of potestas, and in its acoustic reach it seeks to appeal to new and unprecedented listening communities in order to secure allegiances that are led by the ear. Thus it appears that the queen’s voice does not speak indiscriminately to her subjects, as a king would under the vox Domini paradigm that maintained such a strong hold on medieval political theology. Rather, the queen, herself circumscribed in her political authority through the restrictions leveled by law or custom, manipulated those limitations in turn and—through the mediation of the poet—transformed the nature of vox from a medium into a tool. This, then, is the significance of the queen’s political voice: the queens were not “spoken for” by the poets but rather “spoken with,” the artful verses that rang out in the courts of medieval Scandinavia drawing the ear in ways that the queens— speaking for themselves—never could.







Introduction 1. On the lives of some queens of medieval Scandinavia, see Halvdan Koht, “Norske dronningar,” Syn og Segn 32 (1926); Halvdan Koht, “Magnus Erikssons giftemål med Blanche av Namur,” Historisk Tidsskrift 5 (1924); Werner Paravicini, “Das Haus Namur im Ostseeraum,” in Mare Balticum: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Ostseeraumes in Mittelalter und Neuzeit. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Erich Hoffmann, ed. Werner Paravicini, Kieler Historische Studien (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1992); Erich Hoffmann, “Margarethe Sambiria. Eine Pommersche Fürstentochter als Regentin des dänischen Reiches,” in Land am Meer. Pommern im Spiegel seiner Geschichte, ed. Werner Buchholz (Köln: Böhlau, 1995). A relatively accessible overview is provided in Steinar Imsen, “Late Medieval Scandinavian Queenship,” in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, UK; Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 1997). 2. Theresa Earenfight, “Absent Kings: Queens as Political Partners in the Medieval Crown of Aragon,” in Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain, ed. Theresa Earenfight (Hampshire, UK: Ashgate, 2005); Theresa Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens and the Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe,” Gender & History 19, no. 1 (2007). 3. Kimberly A. LoPrete, “The Gender of Lordly Women: The Case of Adela of Blois,” in Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Women: Pawns or Players?, ed. Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless (Dublin, Portland, OR: Four Courts, 2003), 100. 4. Eva Willms, ed. Der Welsche Gast von Thomasin von Zerklære (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004), vv. 1752ff. 5. Gerd Althoff, “Demonstration und Inszenierung,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993): 30. 6. Suzannah Biernoff, Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 4. 7. On representations of queenship and female rule in medieval Danish historiography, see, for example, Birgit Strand, Kvinnor och



NOTES

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Notes

Chapter One

Three Nordic Queens

1. “Annales Lundenses,” in Annales danici medii ævi, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1920), 129. 2. On this turbulent period in Danish history see, for example, Erik Arup, Danmarks Historie, 3 vols. (Copenhagen: H. Hagerups Forlag, 1925–55); Kristian Erslev, Den senere middelalder, 6 vols., vol. 2, Danmarks riges historie (Copenhagen: Det nordiske forlag, 1896–1907); Erich Hoffmann, “Der Kampf um die dänische Krone (1241–1340),” in Königserhebung und Thronfolgeordnung in Dänemark bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1976); Erich Hoffmann, “Spätmittelalter und Reformationszeit,” in Geschichte SchleswigHolsteins, ed. Olaf Klose (Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz, 1981); Kai Hørby, Status regni dacie. Studier in Christoffelinjens ægteskabs- og alliancepolitik 1252–1319 (Copenhagen: den danske historiske Forening, 1977). 3. Detlev Schwennicke, ed. Europäische Stammtafeln, Neue Folge, 24 vols. (Marburg: Stargardt, 1978–), vol. 2, Tafel 100. 4. [1264] Sequenti anno liberatus est rex ea condicione, ut Agnetam, sororem marchionis Brandenburgensis, virginem pulcherrimam, in uxorem reciperet sine dote. “Chronica Jutensis,” in Annales danici medii ævi, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1920), 159. 5. Other branches of the Danish royal line continued the tradition as well: Kristoffer’s nephew Erik I married Margareta of Rügen in 1272, their son Valdemar IV wed Elizabeth of Sachsen-Lauenburg in 1287, a son of that union, Erik II, married Adelheid of Holstein in 1313, and the son in the fourth generation, Valdemar V, married Richardis of Schwerin in 1358. 6. The reach and influence of Middle Low German through the Baltic region is discussed in Karl Bischoff, “Siedlungsbewegung und Sprachentwicklung im ostniederdeutschen Raum,” in Sprachgeschichte, ed. Werner Besch, Oskar Reichmann, and Stefan Sonderegger (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1985). On the history of Middle Low German literature and language see Robert Peters, “Mittelniederdeutsche Sprache,” in Niederdeutsch: Sprache und Literatur, ed. Jan Goosens (Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz, 1973); Willy Sanders, Sachsensprache, Hansesprache, Plattdeutsch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1982). The importance of Middle Low German within medieval Scandinavia is the topic of several collections of essays. See,



män i Gesta Danorum, vol. 18, Kvinnohistoriskt arkiv (Göteborg: 1980). Additional perspectives on queenship in Old Norse literature, including the saga genres, is found in Jenny Jochens, Old Norse Images of Women (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).

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for example, Kurt Erich Schöndorf and Kai-Erik Westergaard, eds., Niederdeutsch in Skandinavien I. Akten des 1. nordischen Symposions “Niederdeutsch in Skandinavien” in Oslo, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1987) and subsequent volumes; Erik Simensen, “Zum Kontakt zwischen Niederdeutsch und Nordisch im Mittelalter unter besonderer berücksichtigung der Frage nach einer niederdeutschnordischen Mischsprache,” in Niederdeutsch in Skandinavien II. Akten des 2. nordischen Symposions “Niederdeutsch in Skandinavien” in Kopenhagen, ed. Karl Hyldegaard-Jensen, Vibeke Winge, and Birgit Christensen, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1989). 7. The manuscript is Universitätsbibliothek Jena Ms. El. f. 101. 8. British Museum Additional Charter, 26049. Oc til sanz vitnis burdar oc fullrar stadfestu til þessarar varar gærdar, sættom ver fyrir þenna cyrographum vart insigli oc fru drotnengenn Eufemia ( . . .). Chr. C.A. Lange and Carl R. Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 22 vols. (Christiania: P.T. Mallings Forlagshandel, 1847–), 1:83–84, letter nr. 92, dated June 22, 1300. 9. Gustav Storm, Erik Gunnes, and Kjeldeskriftfondet, Regesta norvegica, 7 vols. (Oslo: Norsk historisk kjeldeskrift-institutt, 1978), 3:279, letter nr. 905. 10. Nuncii regis et ducis Norwegie Stralessundis venient in brevi, ut duci Norwegie adducant filiam principis Rujanorum. Hanseatic League, ed. Hanserecesse. Die Recesse und andere Akten der Hansetage von 1256–1430, 8 vols. (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1870–97), 1: letter nr. 42. 11. See Ursula Scheil, Zur Genealogie der einheimischen Fürsten von Rügen, vol. 1, Veröffentlichungen der historischen Kommission für Pommern, Reihe V: Forschungen zur Pommerschen Geschichte (Köln, Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 1962), 120f. 12. Witzlaw’s testament is printed in Carl Gustav Fabricius, ed. Urkunden zur Geschichte des Fürstenthums Rügen, unter den eingeborenen Fürsten, herausgegeben und mit erläuternden Abhandlungen über die Entwicklung der rügenschen Zustande in den einzelnen Zeitabschnitten begleitet, 3 vols. (Stralsund: Löffler, 1841–58), 3:128f. 13. Karl Koppmann, ed. Chronicon Slavorum (Detmar Chronik), vol. 19, Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1884), 382f. See also Scheil, Zur Genealogie der einheimischen Fürsten von Rügen, 124f. A somewhat antiquated summary of the historical sources is found in P.A. Munch, Det norske folks historie, 6 vols. (Christiania: Chr. Tønsbergs Forlag, 1852–59), 3:318–19. 14. Scheil, Zur Genealogie der einheimischen Fürsten von Rügen, 129.



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15. Gerd Heinrich, Die Grafen von Arnstein, vol. 21, Mitteldeutsche Forschungen (Köln: Bohlau, 1961), 70–82, esp. 79f. 16. Anders Bøgh, Sejren i kvindens hånd: Kampen om magten i Norden 1365–89 (Århus: Århus universitetsforlag, 2003); Vivian Etting, Queen Margrete I (1353–1412) and the Founding of the Nordic Union, vol. 9, The Northern World (Leiden: Brill, 2004); Michael Linton, Margareta. Nordens drottning 1375–1412 (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1997). 17. Bøgh, Sejren i kvindens hånd: Kampen om magten i Norden 1365–89, 75. Margareta’s use of these titles was not in line with Nordic practice, nor were they representative of any legal statutes about royal inheritance. Rather, as Bøgh suggests, they likely reflect Eufemia’s desire to enhance the scope of her political legitimacy through appellations of kinship and the claiming of authorities that lay just beyond her legal grasp (75). 18. Erik Kroman, Den danske rigslovgivning indtil 1400 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1971), 284. Olof’s lordship over the “Goths” refers to lands in the southern part of Sweden (known in Swedish as Götaland) such as Scania, which remained in Danish hands until the seventeenth century. 19. Bøgh, Sejren i kvindens hånd: Kampen om magten i Norden 1365–89, 275. 20. Adam Afzelius and Franz Blatt, eds., Diplomatarium Danicum, 2 Række, 12 vols. (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaards Forlag, 1938–50), 4:nr. 222, dated August 10, 1387. 21. “Annales Scanici,” in Annales danici medii œvi, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1920), 191. 22. Afzelius and Blatt, eds., Diplomatarium Danicum, 2 Række, 3: nr. 772. For an English translation of this document see Etting, Queen Margrete I (1353–1412) and the Founding of the Nordic Union, 55–56. 23. “Annales Scanici,” 191. 24. O.S. Rydberg, ed. Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 13 vols. (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1877–1934), 2: nr. 411a, 411b, 411c, 412, 413.

Chapter Two Sound, Voice, and Vox: The Acoustics of the Self in the Middle Ages 1. On the properties of medieval sound see Charles Burnett, “Sound and its Perception in the Middle Ages,” in The Second Sense. Studies in Hearing and Musical Judgement from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century, ed. Charles Burnett, Michael Fend, and Penelope Gouk, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts (London: Warburg Institute, 1991); Robert Pasnau, “Sensible Qualities: The Case of 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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3. 4. 5.

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Sound,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2000); Robert Pasnau, “What Is Sound?” The Philosophical Quarterly 49 (1999); Michael Wittmann, Vox atque sonus : Studien zur Rezeption der Aristotelischen Schrift “De Anima” und ihre Bedeutung für die Musiktheorie, 2 vols., vol. 4, Musikwissenschaftliche Studien (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987). Gina Bloom, Voice in motion: staging gender, shaping sound in early modern England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); Charles W. Connell, “In a Different Voice: Heloise and the Self-Image of Women in the Twelfth Century,” in The Worlds of Medieval Women: Creativity, Influence, Imagination, ed. Constance Berman (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1985); Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006); Friedrich Kittler, Thomas Macho, and Sigrid Weigel, Zwischen Rauschen und Offenbarung: zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Stimme (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002); Doris Kolesch and Sybille Krämer, Stimme : Annäherung an ein Phänomen, vol. 1789, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006); John Van Engen, “The Voices of Women in Twelfth-Century Europe,” in Voices in dialogue: Reading women in the Middle Ages, ed. Linda Olson and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005); Rosalynn Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late-Medieval Women Visionaries (Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY: York Medieval Press, 1999); Paul Zumthor, La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1984); Paul Zumthor, “The Text and the Voice,” New Literary History 16, no. 1 (1984). Bruce R. Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attending to the O-Factor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 7. Stephen Handel, Listening. An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), xi. Michael Camille, “Before the Gaze: The Internal Senses and Late-Medieval Practices of Seeing,” in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance, ed. Robert S. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Emma Campbell and Robert Mills, Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight in Medieval Text and Image (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Madeleine Caviness, “The Male Gaze and Scopic Economies,” in Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle, and Scopic Economy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); Dallas G. Denery, Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World. Optics, Theology and Religious Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Simon Gaunt, “The Look of Love: The Gender of



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the Gaze in Troubador Lyric,” in Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight in Medieval Text and Image, ed. Emma Campbell and Robert Mills (New York: Palgrave, 2004); Stephen G. Nichols, Andreas Kablitz, and Alison Calhoun, eds., Rethinking the Medieval Senses: Heritage, Fascinations, Frames (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Janet Martin Soskice, “Sight and Vision in Medieval Christian Thought,” in Vision in Context: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Sight, ed. Teresa Brennan and Martin Jay (New York: Routledge, 1996); Kathryn Starkey and Horst Wenzel, eds., Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Horst Wenzel and C. Stephen Jaeger, Visualisierungsstrategien in mittelalterlichen Bildern und Texten, vol. 195, Philologische Studien und Quellen (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2006). 6. Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England, 9–10. 7. Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England, 10. 8. Franz Müller-Heuser, Dieter Gutknecht, and Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller, Vox humana: ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung der Stimmästhetik des Mittelalters, 2 ed., vol. 196, Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung (Kassel: G. Bosse, 1997), 14. 9. Oxford English dictionary, q.v. noise. 10. The most comprehensive overview of Aristotle’s thoughts on sound is found in Ronald Polansky, Aristotle’s De Anima (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 285–301. For a translation of De Anima see D.W. Hamlyn, Aristotle De Anima Books II and III, 2 ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). Because my interest lies most closely with the phenomenology of hearing and sound production in the Middle Ages, this discussion passes over a great deal of the medieval medical literature on the ear and the sense of hearing. On that topic see, for example, the references noted in Burnett, “Sound and Its Perception in the Middle Ages.” 11. Avicenna’s reinterpretation of Aristotle’s De Anima, which incorporated some of the extant Greek commentary on it, was translated into Latin as Liber sextus de naturalibus in the 1160s. The work by Algazel is chiefly a summary of Avicenna. Averroes composed three commentaries on Aristotle, the third of which—the “Long Commentary”—was translated by Duns Scotus in the early thirteenth century as the Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros. See Burnett, “Sound and its Perception in the Middle Ages,” 44. 12. Hamlyn, Aristotle De Anima Books II and III, 29. 13. idcirco definitur sonus percussio aeris indissoluta usque ad auditum [ . . . ] omnis vero sonus constet in pulsu, pulsus vero omnis ex motu sit. Boethius, De institutione musica I.3, II.20.



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14. Auguste Borgnet and Émile Borgnet, eds., B. Alberti Magni Ratisbonensis episcopi, Opera omnia 20 vols. (Paris: apud Ludovicum Vives, 1890–1896), 35: 233. 15. Thomas Aquinas, A Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, trans. Robert Pasnau (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1999), 246. 16. Dicendum quod color et odor et sapor et qualitates tangibiles habent esse permanens et fixum in suo subiecto . . . Sonus autem causatur ex motu et non habet esse fixum et quiescens in subiecto, sed in quadam immutatione consistit. Citation and translation from Pasnau, “Sensible Qualities: The Case of Sound,” 37. 17. Borgnet and Borgnet, eds., B. Alberti Magni Ratisbonensis episcopi, Opera omnia 35: 233. 18. See the discussion in Pasnau, “Sensible Qualities: The Case of Sound,” 38. 19. On Regino of Prümensis, see Müller-Heuser, Gutknecht, and Niemöller, Vox humana: ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung der Stimmästhetik des Mittelalters, 16, note 20. 20. On this passage from Aristotle, De Interpretatione chapter 1, see J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 43. 21. Polansky, Aristotle’s De Anima, 297–301. 22. Hamlyn, Aristotle De Anima Books II and III, 33. The text is found at Aristotle De Anima, section 420b27. 23. René Gauthier, ed. Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima (Rome, Paris: Commissio Leonina, 1984), 145–46. 24. Aquinas, A Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, 246, emphasis by Pasnau. 25. Gauthier, ed. Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, 146. 26. Aquinas, A Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, 247, emphasis by Pasnau. 27. Borgnet and Borgnet, eds., B. Alberti Magni Ratisbonensis episcopi, Opera omnia 35: 243. 28. Joachim Vennebusch, ed. Ein anonymer Aristoteleskommentar des XIII. Jahrhunderts: Questiones in tres libros de anima (Admont, Stiftsbibliotek, Cod. Lat. 367) (Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1963), 218–19. 29. Ein anonymer Aristoteleskommentar des XIII. Jahrhunderts, 219. 30. Müller-Heuser, Gutknecht, and Niemöller, Vox humana: ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung der Stimmästhetik des Mittelalters, 134. 31. I wish to thank Tom Keeline (Harvard University) for help with the Latin translation of this passage. 32. Stephen G. Nichols, “Voice and Writing in Augustine and in the Troubadour Lyric,” in Vox intexta. Orality and Textuality in



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the Middle Ages, ed. A.N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 137–61. 33. Stephen G. Nichols, “Voice and Writing in Augustine and in the Troubadour Lyric,” 147–48. 34. De civitate Dei 22.24, see Augustine, The City of God by Saint Augustine, trans. Gerald Walsh (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958), 528. 35. Fiona Somerset and Nicholas Watson, The vulgar tongue: medieval and postmedieval vernacularity (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003). 36. Somerset and Watson, The Vulgar Tongue, ix. 37. Somerset and Watson, The Vulgar Tongue, ix. 38. Somerset and Watson, The Vulgar Tongue, ix. 39. Isidore, Etymologiae Book 1, Chapter 15 in J.P. Migne, ed. Patrologiae cursus completus (Patrologia Latina), 221 vols. (Paris: Garniere Fratres, 1844), 82: col. 39. 40. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, 101: col. 854. 41. Calvin M. Bower, “Sonus, vox, chorda, nota: Thing, Name and Sign in Early Medieval Theory,” Quellen und Studien zur Musiktheorie des Mittelalters 3 (2001); Müller-Heuser, Gutknecht, and Niemöller, Vox humana: ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung der Stimmästhetik des Mittelalters, 17. See also Boethius De musica I chapter 12, in Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, 63: col. 1178. 42. This discussion and diagram is drawn from Elizabeth Eva Leach, Sung Birds. Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), 33–35. 43. Leach, Sung Birds, 35. 44. Leach, Sung Birds, 35. 45. Zumthor, “The Text and the Voice,” 75. 46. June Meacham, “Reading between the Lines: Compilation, Variation and the Recovery of an Authentic Female Voice in the Dornenkron Prayer Books from Wienhausen,” Journal of Medieval History 29, no. 2 (2003); Sara S. Poor, Mechthild of Magdeburg and her book: Gender and the making of textual authority (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Claire Sahlin, “Gender and Prophetic Authority in Birgitta of Sweden’s Revelations,” in Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Jane Chance (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1996); Claire L. Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy, vol. 3, Studies in medieval mysticism (Woodbridge, Suffolk; Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2001). 47. Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, 80. 48. For recent treatments of voice as metaphor in medieval literature see also Marianne Børch, Text and Voice: The Rhetoric



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of Authority in the Middle Ages (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004); Albrecht Classen, The Power of a Woman’s Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures: New Approaches to German and European Women Writers and to Violence against Women in Premodern Times (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2007). 49. My understanding of orality and its influence was shaped by Fritz Bäuml, “Medieval Texts and the Two Theories of OralFormulaic Composition: A Proposal for a Third Theory,” New Literary History 16 (1984); John Dagenais, “That Bothersome Residue: Toward a Theory of the Physical Text,” in Vox intexta. Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, ed. A.N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991); John Miles Foley, “Oral Tradition into Textuality,” in Texts and Textuality. Textual Instability, Theory and Interpretation (New York, London: Garland, 1997); Margalit Finkelberg, “Oral Theory and the Limits of Formulaic Diction,” Oral Tradition 19, no. 2 (2004); Joachim Heinzle, “Zur Funktionsanalyse heroischer Überlieferung: das Beispiel Nibelungensage,” in New Methods in the Research of Epic, ed. Hildegard Tristram, ScriptOralia (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1998); Minna Skaften Jensen, “The Oral-Formulaic Theory Revisited,” in Oral Art Forms and their Passage into Writing (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2008). 50. Zumthor, “The Text and the Voice,” 75. 51. Zumthor, “The Text and the Voice,” 70. 52. Zumthor, “The Text and the Voice,” 68.

Chapter Three “You Danes Must Do as I Say . . .”: Queen Agnes and the Regicide of 1286 1. Koppmann, ed. Chronicon Slavorum (Detmar Chronik), 161. 2. There is much speculation as to motives for the murder and the identity of the perpetrators. For a review in English of the scholarship see William Layher, Queen Eufemia’s Legacy: Middle Low German Literary Culture, Royal Patronage, and the First Old Swedish Epic (1301) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University (diss.), 1999). A Danish perspective on the material is found in Jens E. Olesen, “Kongemord og fredløshedsdom,” in Marsken rider igen. Om mordet på Erik Klipping, Rumelands sange og marsk Stig-viserne, ed. Jens E. Olesen et al., Mindre Skrifter udgivet af Laboratorium for folkesproglig Middelalderlitteratur (Odense: Odense Universitet, 1990). See also Hugo Yrwing, Kungamordet i Finderup. Nordiska förvecklingar



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Notes under senare delen av Erik Klippings regering, vol. 45, Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund (Lund 1954). In the late 1990s a Danish TV program on famous unsolved crimes dedicated an entire episode to the murder of Erik V in 1286. 3. This entry in the “Annales Ryensis” from the year 1259 describes the beginning of Erik’s reign: Ericus filius eius regnavit, qui multa mala fecit ecclesias spoliando, lesis et inuriam passis iusticiam nullam faciendo. Monasteria quoque, quae patres eius per se et suos edificaverant, per equos et canes miserabiliter attenuavit. “Annales Ryenses,” in Annales danici medii ævi, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1920), 116–17. 4. “Annales Lubicenses,” in Monumenta Germaniæ Historica. Scriptorum, ed. V. Cl. Lappenberg (Hannover: Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, 1859), 412. 5. Interfectus est Ericus, rex Dacie, dictus Klipping, filius Christopheri regis et pater alterius Christopheri . . . In nocte vero sancte Cecilie ruri agens venationis gratia in dioecesi Wibergensi villa Findetorp cum graviter soporatus dormiret in horreo quodam, dormientibus etiam omnibus, qui cum illo erant, ingressi sunt clam septem viri, previa laternula, de industria armati, quorum unus regis caput manui innixum gravi pugione crudeliter perfodit, ceteri autem invadentes regium cadaver iam exanime intulerunt illi LXX vulnera in ultionem, ut ferebatur, nefande libidinis, qua corruperat et expugnaverat multarum etiam nobilium matronarum pudorem, inter quas fuerat etiam stuprata uxor domini Stigoti, marscalci regni. “Ex annalibus Dano-Suecanis 826–1415,” in Annales danici medii ævi, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1920), 141. 6. . . . qui et interfectus fuit per aliquos ab eis missos iuxta Wibergh, dum dormiret in lecto suo, in nocte sancte Cecilie anno Domini 1286, anno vero regni sui 27. sepultusque est Wibergh in ecclesia cathedrali. Recepit autem vulnera mortalis 56, quorum nullum fuit infra pectus preter unum. “Chronica Jutensis,” 159. 7. . . . eodem anno occisus est rex Ericus in lecto suo in nocte sancte Cecelie inflictis sibi vulneribus 56 in Findorp Jutie iuxta Viburg qui dicebatur Glepping. “Annales Ripenses,” in Annales danici medii ævi, ed. Ellen Jørgensen (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1920), 150. 8. Peter Fredrik Suhm, Historie af Danmark, 14 vols. (Copenhagen: Berlings, 1782–1828), 10: 941–42. On ON gleypr see the entry in Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson, eds., An IcelandicEnglish Dictionary, second edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 203. See also the related terms glæpr [crime, wickedness], glæpiligr [wicked] (206). 9. Marius Claudius Gertz, Scriptores minores historiæ danicæ medii ævi, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til dansk Historie, 1917–1920), 1: 193–94. On kingship ceremonies in medieval Scandinavia see Erich Hoffmann, “Coronations and 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Coronation Ordines in Medieval Scandinavia,” in Coronations and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual, ed. J.M Bak (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990). 10. 1276 Convocato generali concilio Nyburgh, filius ejus Ericus accepit nomen Regis, & principes, excepto Stigoto Marescalco suo, sub juramento sollempni fecerunt ei fidelitatem. “Annales Lundenses,” 121. 11. “Chronica Jutensis,” 159. 12. “Chronica Jutensis,” 159. 13. “Annales Ryenses,” 125. 14. “Annales Ripenses,” 153. 15. [1287] Eodem anno in pentecosten consilio celebrato generali in Nyborg comes Iacobus, Stigotus marscalcus, Petrus Jacobson et alii plures potentiores regni ex communi omnium decreto neci addicti sunt pro morte regis et proscripti. “Annales Ripenses,” 153. 16. [1287] Privati sunt occisores regis pace ex consensu totius regni ipso die penthecostes, et ad modicum post idem regis occisores receperunt se in Norwegiam. “Annales Lundenses,” 125. 17. Lange and Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 3.1: 23, nr. 24. 18. A detailed overview of Rumelant’s corpus is found in Horst Brunner and Burghart Wachinger, eds., Repertorium der Sangsprüche und Meisterlieder des 12. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, 16 vols. (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1986), 4: 309–26. For more on Rumelant see Peter Kern, “Rumelant (von Sachsen),” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelters: Verfasserlexikon (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1992). The study by Panzer is quite outdated, Friedrich Panzer, Meister Rúmzlants Leben und Dichten (Leipzig: Oswald Schmidt, 1893). 19. On the Codex Manesse manuscript C see Helmut Salowsky and Fridrich Pfaff, eds., Die Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse) in getreuem Textabdruck, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1984). For the Jena manuscript J and the Wolfenbüttler fragment W see Karl Bartsch, Untersuchungen zur Jenaer Liederhandschrift, vol. 140, Palaestra (Leipzig: Mayer & Müller, 1923); Helmut Tervooren and Ulrich Müller, Jenaer Liederhandschrift. In Abbildungen, mit Anhang: Die Baseler und Wolfenbüttler Fragmente, ed. Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher, and Cornelius Sommer, vol. 10, Litteræ. Göppinger Beiträge zur Textgeschichte (Göppingen: Alfred Kümmerle, 1972); Burghart Wachinger, “Jenaer Liederhandschrift,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978). For the Maastrichter fragment M see Helmut Tervooren and Thomas Bein, “Ein neues Fragment zum Minnesang und zur Sangspruchdichtung,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 107 (1988). 20. On Spruchdichtung see the overview in Helmut Tervooren, Sangspruchdichtung, 2 ed., vol. 293, Sammlung Metzler (Stuttgart: 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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J.B. Metzler, 2001). Other useful studies include Thomas Cramer, Waz hilfet âne sinne kunst? Lyrik im 13. Jahrhundert. Studien zu ihrer Ästhetik, vol. 148, Philologische Studien und Quellen (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1998); Albrecht Hausmann, “Wer spricht? Strategien der Sprecherkonstituierung im Spannungsfeld zwischen Sangspruchdichtung und Minnesang,” in Sangspruchtradition. Aufführung—Geltungsstrategien—Spannungsfelder, ed. Margreth Egidi, Volker Mertens, and Nine Miedema (Frankfurt a.M., Berlin, Bern: Peter Lang, 2004); L. Peter Johnson, “Formen der Lyrik,” in Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit. Die höfische Literatur der Blütezeit (1160/70–1220/30), ed. Joachim Heinzle and Wolfgang Haubrichs (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1999). 21. Friedrich Maurer, ed. Die Lieder Walthers von der Vogelweide 1. Die religiösen und die politischen Lieder, fourth edition, vol. 43, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1974), 20. 22. Georg Holz, Jenaer Liederhandschrift. Getreuer Abdruck des Textes, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Leipzig: C.L. Hirschfeld, 1901), 95v. See also Brunner and Wachinger, eds., Repertorium der Sangsprüche und Meisterlieder des 12. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, 4: 345. 23. Panzer, Meister Rúmzlants Leben und Dichten, 25. 24. The construction of biographies for itinerant medieval poets is a controversial task. Joachim Bumke accepts praise-poems and other stanzas that mention a patron by name as proof positive that a poetic performance of that stanza took place “on site” at the patron’s court; see Joachim Bumke, “Die Rolle der Frau im höfischen Literaturbetrieb,” in Mäzene im Mittelalter. Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland 1150–1300 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1979), 231–47. In his recent overview of didactic lyric, Helmut Tervooren calls Bumke’s assumptions into question, observing that not only the poets themselves, but also their patrons were to a large degree itinerant in late-twelfth- and thirteenth-century Germany, since travel to different castles, courts, and lands was a commonplace of medieval lordship in that era. It is therefore possible (even probable) that poets met patrons and received commissions for panegyric stanzas while that patron was a guest at another court or courtly event (tournament, coronation, and the like), and that performances also took place elsewhere, not only at the patron’s court. Tervooren, Sangspruchdichtung, 42–43. 25. The nineteenth-century edition of Rumelant’s corpus is plagued with minor errors and oversights, including the omission of an entire Rumelant stanza; see Friedrich von der Hagen, ed. Deutsche Liederdichter des 12., 13., und 14. Jahrhunderts, 5 vols. (Leipzig, Berlin: 1838–56). The transcription of Rumelant’s stanzas in Holz offers 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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a far more accurate reading, and I quote the stanzas from that source. I did not reproduce the line-breaks of the stanzas in J, but in order to make the rhyme-schemes of Rumelant’s stanzas more apparent I have adjusted the layout in accordance with standard conventions. 26. For more on Rumelant’s poetic engagement in Denmark—and the possibility that other thirteenth-century German poets had also performed before Danish audiences—see William Layher, “Meister Rumelant & Co.: German poets (real and imagined) in 13th-century Denmark,” Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie (Sonderheft) 119 (2000). The murder of Erik V also served as the subject for a number of late-medieval or early modern Danish ballads, in which the focus lies less on the murdered king than on the conspirators and other figures who were allegedly involved in the deed. On the Danish ballads see Leif Søndergaard, “Meningsdannelse og mytedannelse i marsk Stig-viserne,” in Marsken rider igen. Om mordet på Erik Klipping, Rumelands sange og marsk Stig-viserne, ed. Jens E. Olesen et al., Mindre Skrifter udgivet af Laboratorium for folkesproglig Middelalderlitteratur (Odense: Odense Universitet, 1990); Helge Toldberg, Marsk Stig-viserne, vol. 252, Studier fra Sprog—og Oldtidsforskning (Copenhagen: GEC Gad, 1963). See also my critical response in William Layher, “Killing Erik Glipping, 1286: On the early years of a Danish historical ballad,” Lied und populäre Kultur/ Song and Popular Culture: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Volksliedarchivs 45 (2000). 27. On feuding poets see Burghart Wachinger, Sängerkrieg. Untersuchungen zur Spruchdichtung des 13. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Beck, 1973). See also Obermaier’s cogent overview of the importance of kunst in medieval lyric and her chapter on “Literarische Polemik” in Sabine Obermaier, Von Nachtigallen und Handwerkern. “Dichtung über Dichtung” in Minnesang und Sangspruchdichtung, vol. 75, Hermaea, Germanistische Forschungen, Neue Folge (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1995). I differ from Obermaier on the impetus behind these polemic feuds. In light of recent theories about the performativity of emotions and the nature of lyric performance in medieval Germany, it seems likely that these polemic stanzas are less genuine than they are stylized and performative: the poet is defending his kunst before an audience who expects to hear that the poet in residence considers himself second to none. 28. On performance in medieval German lyric see, most recently, Margreth Egidi, “Der performative Prozess: Versuch einer Modellbildung am Beispiel der Sangspruchdichtung,” in Sangspruchtradition. Aufführung—Geltungsstrategien—Spannungsfelder, 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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ed. Margreth Egidi, Volker Mertens, and Nine Miedema (Frankfurt a.M., Berlin, Bern: Peter Lang, 2004); Jan-Dirk Müller, “Aufführung—Autor—Werk. Zu einigen blinden Stellen gegenwärtiger Diskussion,” in Mittelalterliche Literatur und Kunst im Spannungsfeld von Hof und Kloster, ed. Nigel Palmer and Hans-Jochen Schiewer (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1999); Jan-Dirk Müller, “Ir sult sprechen willekomen: Sänger, Sprecherrolle und die Anfänge volkssprachlicher Lyrik,” IASL 19 (1994). 29. Müller, “Ir sult sprechen willekomen: Sänger, Sprecherrolle und die Anfänge volkssprachlicher Lyrik,” 159. 30. See the entry under triuwe in Otfried Ehrismann, Ehre und Mut, Aventiure und Minne: höfische Wortgeschichten aus dem Mittelalter (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1995), 211–15. 31. To be clear, I am speaking of loyalty here specifically in the courtly sense. In the (archaic) heroic model, loyalty to one’s chieftain—as dramatized in the topos of the early medieval Germanic Männerbund—was of course of paramount importance. On that type of ironclad and fatalistic loyalty in the early German framework see, for example, Joseph Harris, “Love and Death in the Männerbund: An Essay with Special Reference to Bjarkamál and The Battle of Maldon,” in Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., ed. Helen Damico and John Leyerle (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1993). 32. Anno eodem dolose interfectus est Ericus rex Dacie, filius Christophori. nam accidit ipsum regum venacionis causa. apud oppidum quoddam hospitari. cumque in horreo quodam aperto hostio accubuisset et extincta candela. septem viri latenter super eum intraverunt in ipsum ibi interfecerunt eodem anno. “Annales Sigtunensis,” in Scriptores rerum Svecicarum medii ævi, ed. Eduard Berling (1871), 3:7. 33. Interfectus est Ericus, rex Dacie, dictus Klipping, filius Christopheri regis et pater alterius Christopheri . . . In nocte vero sancte Cecilie ruri agens venationis gratia in dioecesi Wibergensi villa Findetorp cum graviter soporatus dormiret in horreo quodam, dormientibus etiam omnibus, qui cum illo erant, ingressi sunt clam septem viri, previa laternula, de industria armati, quorum unus regis caput manui innixum gravi pugione crudeliter perfodit, ceteri autem invadentes regium cadaver iam exanime intulerunt illi LXX vulnera in ultionem, ut ferebatur, nefande libidinis, qua corruperat et expugnaverat multarum etiam nobilium matronarum pudorem, inter quas fuerat etiam stuprata uxor domini Stigoti, marscalci regni. Erik Kroman, ed. Danmarks middalderlige annaler (Copenhagen: Selskabet for udgivelse af kilder til dansk historie, 1980), 306. 34. The ballad is cataloged as DgF 145K. Svend Grundtvig, ed. Danmarks gamle folkeviser, 12 vols. (Copenhagen: div.publ.,1853– 1976), 3: 338–85. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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35. Agathe Lasch, Mittelniederdeutsche Grammatik (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1914), 1:286. 36. Agathe Lasch, Conrad Borchling, and Gerhard Cordes, eds., Mittelniederdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols. (Hamburg, Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz, 1928–), 2:717; Peters, “Mittelniederdeutsche Sprache,” 111; Geir Zoega, Concise dictionary of Old Icelandic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), 282. 37. The text is reproduced in Kroman, Den danske rigslovgivning indtil 1400. 38. On medieval poetry in Denmark see David W. Colbert, “The Middle Ages,” in History of Danish Literature, ed. Sven H. Rossel (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press in cooperation with The American Scandinavian Foundation, 1992). 39. Marius Claudius Gertz, Scriptores minores historiæ danicæ medii ævi, 1: 476, 480. 40. Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen, Et gammeldank digt om Christ Opstandelse efter Fragment Stockh. *A115 (ca. 1325), vol. 35, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filologisk Meddelelser (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1955); David W. Colbert, The Birth of the Ballad: The Scandinavian Medieval Genre, vol. 10, Skrifter utgivna av svenskt visarkiv (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989), 71–76; Colbert, “The Middle Ages,” 27–28. 41. On the art of skaldic poetry and its elitist voice see, for example, Heather O’Donoghue, Skaldic verse and the poetics of saga narrative (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). For information about the skaldic verse form see Roberta Frank, Old Norse Court Poetry: The Dróttkvætt stanza, vol. 42, Islandica (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978); Roberta Frank, “Skaldic Poetry,” in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. Carol Clover and John Lindow, Islandica (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985). 42. “Manuscripts clearly reflect the growth of dialectical divergences in Norden, but we cannot yet speak of distinct national languages . . . only ‘traditions.’ ” Einar Haugen, The Scandinavian Languages: An Introduction to their History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 189. 43. Carol Clover, “Skaldic Sensibility,” Arkiv for nordisk filologi 93 (1978): 64; John Lindow, “Riddles, Kennings, and the Complexity of Skaldic Poetry,” Scandinavian Studies 47 (1975). 44. Ólafur Halldórsson, ed. Jónsbok. Kong Magnus Hakonssons Lovbok for Island (vedtaget paa Altinget 1281) (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1904), 66–67. 45. “Annales Lundenses,” 118. 46. Afzelius and Blatt, eds., Diplomatarium Danicum, 2 Række, 3: letters nr. 239, 247, 249. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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47. Letters nr. 246 and 247 in Afzelius and Blatt, eds., Diplomatarium Danicum, 2 Række. The copies are identical, except for a slightly different phrasing of the date of issue. Erik’s copy gives the date as quarta feria pentecostes, while his mother’s copy ends with the phrase quarta die pentecostes durante adhuc regni Dacie concilio generali—a scribal amplification of considerable significance, in that it demonstrates expressis verbis that the lordship that Erik and Agnes both claim in this matter has been approved by the council at the Danehof of that year. 48. Afzelius and Blatt, eds., Diplomatarium Danicum, 2 Række, 3: nr. 238. 49. Afzelius and Blatt, eds., Diplomatarium Danicum, 2 Række, 3: nr. 238, 295, 301, 304, 308. 50. Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen and Poul Johannes Jørgensen, eds., Danmarks gamle landskabslove med kirkelovene, 8 vols. (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1920–45). 51. Brøndum-Nielsen and Jørgensen, eds., Danmarks gamle landskabslove med kirkelovene, 2: Book 1, paragraph 29. 52. The laws of Jutland were translated into Latin around 1300. For more on the Latin text of this passage, see Brøndum-Nielsen and Jørgensen, eds., Danmarks gamle landskabslove med kirkelovene, 4: 122–24. 53. Bettina Elpers, Regieren, Erziehen, Bewahren. Mütterliche Regentschaften im Hochmittelalter (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2003), 4–13. 54. John Carmi Parsons, “Of Queens, Courts and Books: Reflections on the Literary Patronage of Thirteenth-Century Plantagenet Queens,” in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June Hall McCash (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996). For a collection of sources detailing medieval female literary patronage, chiefly from a German angle, see Bumke, “Die Rolle der Frau im höfischen Literaturbetrieb.” 55. Yrwing, Kungamordet i Finderup. Nordiska förvecklingar under senare delen av Erik Klippings regering, 185–86. 56. Reinhold Schröder, “Dâvon sing ich ü diz liet. Rumelands strofer i anledning af Erik Klippings død,” in Marsken rider igen. Om mordet på Erik Klipping, Rumelands sange og marsk Stig-viserne, ed. Jens E. Olesen et al., Mindre Skrifter udgivet af Laboratorium for folkesproglig Middelalderlitteratur (Odense: Odense Universitet, 1990), 49–50. 57. Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter. Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland 1150–1300 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1979), 229; Vibeke Winge, Dänische Deutsche—deutsche Dänen: Geschichte der deutschen Sprache in



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Dänemark 1300–1800, vol. 1, Sprachgeschichte (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1992), 36. 58. See Hugo Moser, “Die hochmittelalterliche deutsche ‘Spruchdichtung’ als übernationale und nationale Erscheinung,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 76 (1957).

Chapter Four Voicing and Legacy: Queen Eufemia of Norway 1. The Regesta Norvegica and Diplomatarium Norvegicum list eleven charters mentioning Eufemia, her donations, or the provisions of her testament. See Gustav Storm, Erik Gunnes, and Kjeldeskriftfondet, Regesta norvegica. 7 vols. (Oslo: Norsk historisk kjeldeskrift-institutt, 1978), 2: nr 1041; 3: nr. 66, 304, 428, 548, 651, 772, 905; 4: nr. 122; Lange and Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 2: nr. 90, 118; 3: nr. 125. 2. On the cultural and linguistic history of Old Swedish, see Thorsten Andersson, “Svensk medeltid i fornsvenskt perspektiv,” in Svensk medeltidsforskning idag, ed. Göran Dahlbäck (Uppsala: Humanistisksamhällsvetenskapliga forskningsrådet, 1987); Vilhelm Gödel, Sveriges medeltidslitteratur (Stockholm, 1916); Ernst Håkon Jahr, “Språkkontakt og Språkforandring i Norden i Hansatida,” in Dialektkontakt, språkkontakt och språkforändring i Norden, ed. UllaBritt Kotsinas and John Helgander, Meddelanden från Institutionen för nordiska språk vid Stockholms universitet (Stockholm: MINS, 1994); Karl-Erik Löfqvist, Om riddarväsen och frälse i nordisk medeltid. Studier rörande adelsståndets upplomst och tidigare utformning (Lund: H. Ohlsson, 1935); Adolf Noreen, Altschwedische Grammatik, mit Einschluss des Altgutnischen (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1904); Elias Wessén, De nordiska språken, ninth edition (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965). 3. The critical edition is Erik Noreen, ed. Herr Ivan: kritisk upplaga, vol. 164, Samlingar utgifna av Svenska Fornskrift-Sällskapet (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1931). For an English translation of Herr Ivan, together with a facing-page version of the Old Swedish text, see Henrik Williams and Karin Palmgren, eds., Norse Romance: Hærra Ivan, vol. 5, Arthurian Archives (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999). On stylistic and literary aspects of Herr Ivan see also Karin Boklund Coffer, “Herr Ivan: A Stylistic Study,” Scandinavian Studies 48 (1976); Tony Hunt, “Herr Ivan Lejonriddaren,” Mediæval Scandinavia 8 (1975); Alfred Nordfelt, “En svensk riddardikt och dess original,” Studier i modern språkvetenskap 7 (1920); Gisela Vilhelmsdotter, “Herr Ivan



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Lejonriddaren. En medeltida utvecklingsroman,” in Till Barbro. Textar och tolkningar (Stockholm: Institution för nordiska språk vid Stockholms universitet, 1997); William Layher, “The Old Swedish Herr Ivan Lejonriddaren,” in The Arthur of the Northmen: The Arthurian Legend in the Norse and Rus Realms, ed. Marianne Kalinke (forthcoming). 4. The text is cited from Erik Noreen, ed. Hertig Fredrik av Normandie: kritisk upplaga på grund av Codex Verelianus, vol. 49, Samlingar utgivna av Svenska Fornskrift-Sällskapet (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1927). On the literary aspects of Hertig Fredrik see, most recently, William Layher, “Ein verlorenes Brautwerbungsepos? Wo ist *Herzog Friedrich von der Normandie in der deutschen Literatur einzuordnen?,” in Ordnung und Unordnung in der Literatur des Mittelalters, ed. Wolfgang Harms, C. Stephen Jaeger, and Horst Wenzel (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 2003); William Layher, “Origins of the Old Swedish epic ‘Hertig Fredrik af Normandie’: a Middle Dutch link?,” TijdSchrift voor Skandinavistiek 21 (2000). Perspectives on the origin and translation of Hertig Fredrik are offered by Bjarne Beckman, “Om tiden och sättet för Hertig Fredriks försvenskning,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 62 (1947); August Lütjens, Herzog Friedrich von der Normandie: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen und schwedischen Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. 2, Münchner Archiv für Philologie des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (München: Georg D.W. Callwey, 1912); Carl Ivar Ståhle, “Till frågan om tillkomsten av ‘Hertig Fredrik’,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 64 (1949); Per Wieselgren, “Hertig Fredriks datering,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 62 (1947). 5. Emil Olson, ed. Flores och Blanzeflor. Kritisk upplaga, 2 ed., vol. 214, Samlingar utgivna af Svenska Fornskrift-Sällskapet (Lund: C. Blom, 1956). The Old Swedish text has not attracted much scholarly attention in recent decades; see Aarno Malin, “Ett fragment från medeltiden av en hittils okänd textvariant av den fornsvenska Flores ok Blanzeflor,” Studier i nordisk filologi 12.2 (1921); Emil Olson, “Textkritiska studier över den fornsvenska Flores och Blanzeflor,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 28 (1916). There is no English translation of the Old Swedish Flores och Blanzeflor (nor of the Old Norse Flores saga ok Blankiflúr) but the transmission of the romance across the medieval vernaculars is examined in Patricia E. Grieve, Floire and Blancheflor and the European romance, vol. 32, Cambridge studies in medieval literature (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 6. One issue debated at considerable length in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century studies of the Eufemiavisor concerns the coherence of the text corpus: whether the three romances had been translated by the same person or by several different translators. For an overview of this debate and a cogent summary 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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of the evidence in favor of a single translator see Stanislaw Sawicki, Die Eufemiavisor: Stilstudien zur nordischen Reimliteratur des Mittelalters, vol. 28, Skrifter utgivna av Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1939). The view that the Eufemiavisor form a discrete corpus translated by the same person is now the predominant opinion; on this issue see Valter Jansson, Eufemiavisorna: en filologisk undersökning, vol. 8, Uppsala universitets årsskrift 1945 (Uppsala: A.B. Lundequistska bokhandeln, 1945). 7. Lange and Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 19: 422–23. 8. Bjarne Beckman, “En diplomatisk aktion av konung Valdemar,” Historisk Tidskrift (1948). 9. Stephen A. Mitchell, “Courts, Consorts and the Transformation of Medieval Scandinavian Literature,” NOWELE 31/32 (1997): 236, 240 n. 28. 10. See the discussion in Layher, Queen Eufemia’s Legacy: Middle Low German Literary Culture, Royal Patronage, and the First Old Swedish Epic (1301), 231–32. 11. The alleged Old French source for Hertig Fredrik is almost certainly bogus, and there is no trace of any bridal-quest romance or chanson de geste featuring the dukes of Normandie in the medieval French tradition. This fictitious source was probably invented in order to enhance the profile of the Old Swedish translation by linking it to the illustrious Old French tradition that was held in high regard in medieval Scandinavia. 12. These Old Danish redactions are preserved in fragmentary form in Cod. Holm. K4 (a version of Herr Ivan on 78r–162v) but in full in Cod. Holm K47 (Herr Ivan on 1r–111v, Hertig Fredrik on 112r– 153r, and Flores och Blanzeflor on 219r–255v). 13. “Ivan Løveridder,” in Romantisk Digtning fra Middelalderen, ed. Carl Joakim Brandt (Copenhagen: Samfundet til den danske Literaturs Fremme, 1869–77). 14. Lange and Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 5: nr. 42; Gustav Storm, Islandske Annaler indtil 1578 (Christiania: Det norske historiske Kildeskriftfond, 1888), 146. See also Sverre Bagge, “Aims and Means in the Inter-Nordic Conflicts 1302–1319,” Scandinavian Journal of History 32 (2007); Sverre Bagge, “The Structure of the Political Factions in the Internal Struggles of the Scandinavian Countries During the High Middle Ages,” Scandinavian Journal of History 24 (1999). 15. See the presentation in Ingvor M. Andersson, Erik Menved och Venden. Studier i dansk utrikespolitik 1300–1319 (Lund: Håkan Ohlssons Boktryckeri, 1954). 16. Bagge, “Aims and Means in the Inter-Nordic Conflicts 1302– 1319,” 11. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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17. Bagge, “Aims and Means in the Inter-Nordic Conflicts 1302– 1319,” 7. 18. Lange and Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 2: 73. 19. Rolf Pipping, ed. Erikskrönikan enligt Cod. Holm. D2 jämte avvikande läsarter ur andra handskrifter, vol. 68, Samlingar utgivna af Svenska Fornskrift-Sällskapet (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1963). Further citations will be given parenthetically in the text. On the Erikskrönikan see also Ingvar Andersson, Erikskrönikans Författare (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt, 1958); Sven-Bertil Jansson, Erikskrönikan (Stockholm: Tiden, 1985); Gisela Vilhelmsdotter, Riddare, bonde och biskop. Studier kring tre fornsvenska dikter jämte två nyeditioner, vol. 42, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis/Stockholm Studies in History of Literature (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1999), 22–84. 20. Lange and Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 9: 81. 21. Afzelius and Blatt, eds., Diplomatarium Danicum, 2 Række, 6: nr. 243. 22. Munch, Det norske folks historie, 4.2: 522 and note 4. 23. See also, more recently, Stefanie Würth, “Eufemia: Deutsche Auftraggeberin schwedischer Literatur am norwegischen Hof,” in Arbeiten zur Skandinavistik: 13. Arbeitstagung der deutschsprachigen Skandinavistik in Oslo, ed. Fritz Paul (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2000). 24. On the dating of the Old Swedish Hertig Fredrik see the articles by Ståhle and Wiselgren and the discussion in Layher, Queen Eufemia’s Legacy: Middle Low German Literary Culture, Royal Patronage, and the First Old Swedish Epic (1301), 192–211. 25. R. Keyser and P.A. Munch, eds., Norges gamle love indtill 1387, 5 vols. (Christiania: Chr. Gröndahl, 1846–95), 2: 420–21. 26. Keyser and Munch, eds., Norges gamle love indtill 1387, 2: 392. 27. Keyser and Munch, eds., Norges gamle love indtill 1387, 2: 393. 28. Keyser and Munch, eds., Norges gamle love indtill 1387, 3: 47. 29. Keyser and Munch, eds., Norges gamle love indtill 1387, 3: 48. 30. Gustaf Holmgren, “Taga och vräka konungen,” Fornvännen 32 (1937); Karl Olivecrona, Döma till konung. En rättshistorisk undersökning (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1942). The phrase Sveær egho konong at taka ok sva vrækæ is found in the opening sentence of Rætlösa balkr, manuscript B59 (ca. 1280) of the laws of Västergötland; see C.J. (Carl Johan) Schlyter and H.S. Collin, eds., Westgöta-Lagen, vol. 1, Corpus iuris sueo-gotorum antiqui, Samling af Sweriges Gamla Lagar (Stockholm: Z. Hæggeström, 1827). 31. Lange and Unger, eds., Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 11, nr. 6. 32. For more on the reign of Hákon IV see, for example, Donald R. Sunnen, “Life and Letters at the Court of Hákon IV Hákonarson,” Medieval Perspectives 8 (1993); Thomas Behrmann, “Norwegen und das Reich unter Hákon IV (1217–1263) und Friedrich II. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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(1212–1250),” in Hansische Literaturbeziehungen, ed. Susanne Kramarz-Bein, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1996), 46–48. The quotation from Matthew Paris is found in Henry Richards Luard, ed. Mattaei Parisiensis, monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, 7 vols., Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores (London: Longman, 1872–1883), 4: 652. 33. Still an authoritative source is Henry Goddard Leach, Angevin Britain and Scandinavia, vol. 6, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921). See also, more recently, Geraldine Barnes, “Romance in Iceland,” in Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Geraldine Barnes, “Some Current Issues in Riddarasögur Research,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi 104 (1989); Marianne Kalinke, “Norse Romance (Riddarasögur),” in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985); Gerd W. Weber, “The Decadence of Feudal Myth—Towards a Theory of Riddarasaga and Romance,” in Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literarature, ed. John Lindow, Lars Lönnroth, and Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense: Odense University Press, 1986). 34. E.F. Halvorsen, The Norse Version of the Chanson de Roland, vol. 19, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1959); Susanne Kramarz-Bein, “Þiðreks saga und Karlamagnús saga,” in Hansische Literaturbeziehungen, ed. Susanne Kramarz-Bein, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1996); Susanne Kramarz-Bein, “Zur Altostnordischen Karlsund Dietrichdichtung,” Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 62 (2006). See also Susanne Kramarz-Bein, Die Þiðreks saga im Kontext der altnorwegischen Literatur (Tübingen: A. Francke, 2002), 115–66. 35. Stefanie Würth, “Alexanders saga: Literarische und kulturelle Adaption einer lateinischen Vorlage,” in Hansische Literaturbeziehungen, ed. Susanne Kramarz-Bein, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1996); Stefanie Würth, Der “Antikenroman” in der isländischen Literatur des Mittelalters. Eine Untersuchung zur Übersetzung und Rezeption lateinischer Literatur im Norden vol. 26, Beiträge zur Nordischen Philologie (Basel, Frankfurt am Main: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1998). 36. Theodore M. Andersson, “Composition and Literary Culture in Þiðreks saga,” in Studien zum Altgermanischen: Festschrift für Heinrich Beck, ed. Heiko Uecker, Erganzungsbände zum Reallexikon 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1994); Heinrich Beck, “Die Thidrekssaga in heutiger Sicht,” in 2. Pöchlarner Heldenliedgespräch: Die historische Dietrichepik, ed. Klaus Zatloukal, Philologica Germanica (Vienna: Fassbaender, 1992); Susanne Kramarz-Bein, “Die Þiðreks saga im Kontext der altnorwegischen Literatur,” Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft 14 (2003); Hermann Reichert, “Þiðreks saga und oberdeutsche Heldensage,” in Hansische Literaturbeziehungen, ed. Susanne Kramarz-Bein, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1996); Hermann Reichert, “Die Nibelungensage im mittelalterlichen Skandinavien,” in Die Nibelungen. Sage—Epos—Mythos, ed. Joachim Heinzle, Klaus Klein, and Ute Obhof (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004). 37. The “Blüte/Verfall” dynamic (flourishing/decay) in the composition and transmission of the riddarasögur is discussed in Jürg Glauser, “Textüberlieferung und Textbegriff im spätmittelalterlichen Norden: Das Beispiel der Riddarasögur,” Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi 113 (1998): 7–17. For more on metaphors of decay in late-medieval Norse letters see Susanne Kramarz-Bein, “Höfische Unterhaltung und ideologisches Ziel: Das Beispiel der altnorwegischen Parcevals saga,” in Die Aktualität der Saga, ed. Stig Toftgaard Andersen, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1999), 77. On the late-thirteenth-century sagas as “products of decay” see Rudolf Meissner, Die Strengleikar. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der altnordischen Prosalitteratur (Halle: Niemeyer, 1902), 319. The “decline of the Court literature” is discussed in Halvorsen, The Norse Version of the Chanson de Roland, 26. Kalinke discusses processes of “textual attrition” in the translation and transmission of the riddarasögur, see Marianne Kalinke, King Arthur Northby-Northwest, vol. 37, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzell, 1981), 54, 56. Lastly, on the “pattern of reduction” in the Old Norse/Icelandic riddarasögur see Geraldine Barnes, “The Riddarasögur: A Medieval Exercise in Translation,” Saga-Book 19 (1977): 411. 38. Leach, Angevin Britain and Scandinavia, 153. 39. Robert Cook and Mattias Tveitane, eds., Strengleikar. An Old Norse Translation of Twenty-one Old French Lais, vol. 3, Norrøne Tekster (Oslo: Norsk Historisk Kjeldeskrift-Institutt, 1979), 4–5. 40. Marianne Kalinke, “Möttuls Saga,” in Norse Romance II. Knights of the Round Table, ed. Marianne Kalinke, Arthurian Archives (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999), 6–7. 41. Kalinke, “Möttuls Saga,” 6–7.



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42. Marianne Kalinke, “Ívens saga,” in Norse Romance II. Knights of the Round Table, ed. Marianne Kalinke, Arthurian Archives (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999), 38–39. 43. Weber, “The Decadence of Feudal Myth,” 425. Metaphors of reflection and doubling abound in Weber’s analysis (see p. 418 and pp. 436–37 on the sagas as “mirrors of a civilization”). 44. Weber, “The Decadence of Feudal Myth,” 425–26. 45. Geraldine Barnes, “Arthurian Chivalry in Old Norse,” Arthurian Literature 7 (1987); Geraldine Barnes, “Parcevals Saga: Riddara skuggsjá?,” Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi 99 (1984); and Geraldine Barnes, “The Riddarasögur and Mediæval European Literature,” Mediæval Scandinavia 8 (1975). 46. Barnes, “The Riddarasögur and Mediæval European Literature,” 54. 47. Barnes, “Arthurian Chivalry in Old Norse,” 57. 48. Barnes, “Arthurian Chivalry in Old Norse,” 71. 49. Kramarz-Bein, “Höfische Unterhaltung und ideologisches Ziel,” 81. 50. Kramarz-Bein, “Höfische Unterhaltung und ideologisches Ziel,” 82. 51. “Die übersetzten Riddarasögur leisten in fiktionaler Form ihren Beitrag zur Formulierung und Festigung der feudal-aristokratischen Königsidee unter Hákon IV Hákonarson.” KramarzBein, “Höfische Unterhaltung und ideologisches Ziel,” 82. 52. “. . . unter dem Deckmantel der Unterhaltung, eine streng hierarchisch gegliederte Gesellschaft vorgestellt und legitimiert [wird]; deshald habe Hákon Hákonarson auch diese Erzählungen für seine kulturpolitischen Bestrebungen eingespannt.” Jens Eike Schnall, Didaktische Absichten und Vermittlungsstrategien im altnorwegischen “Königsspiegel” (Konungs skuggsjá), vol. 307, Palæstra (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Rupprecht, 2000), 245. 53. Ludvig Holm-Olsen, ed. Konungs skuggsiá, second edition, vol. 1, Norrøne tekster (Oslo: Norsk Historisk Kjeldeskrift-Institutt, 1983). Citations are from this edition, with page number. On the Konungs skuggsjá and its connections to social, economic, political, and geographical concerns in thirteenth-century Norway see Sverre Bagge, The Political Thought of the King’s Mirror (Odense: Odense University Press, 1987); Kramarz-Bein, Die Þiðreks saga im Kontext der altnorwegischen Literatur, 264–87; Jens Eike Schnall and Rudolf Simek, eds., Der altnorwegische Königsspiegel (Konungs skuggsjá) in der europäischen Tradition, vol. 5, Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia (Vienna: Fassbaender, 2000). 54. See the discussion in Rudolf Simek, “Zum Königsspiegel,” in Hansische Literaturbeziehungen, ed. Susanne Kramarz-Bein,



Notes

55. 56.

57.

58.

59.

Notes Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1996), 271. The fragments are RA 58A from ca. 1260, RA 58C and Ny kgl. sml 235g 4to from 1260/1270, AM 1056 IX 4to from ca. 1300. A review of the scholarship is presented in Kramarz-Bein, Die Þiðreks saga im Kontext der altnorwegischen Literatur, 179–81; Schnall, Didaktische Absichten und Vermittlungsstrategien im altnorwegischen “Königsspiegel” (Konungs skuggsjá), 19–21. Gustav Storm, “Brudstykke af en latinsk Oversættelse af Kongespeilet fra 14. Aarhundrede,” Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi 1 (1882). See also Ludvig Holm-Olsen, Håndskriftene av Konungs skuggsjá. En undersøkelse av deres tekstkritiske verdi, vol. 13, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1952), 83ff. A redacted version of the text was translated into Old Swedish in the fourteenth century, probably for the education of the young prince Hákon Magnusson, son of Magnus Eriksson. On this text see Lennart Moberg, Konungastyrelsen: en filologisk undersökning, vol. 69:2, Samlingar utgivna af Svenska FornskriftSällskapet (Stockholm, 1984). See the discussion of the codicological evidence at Ludvig HolmOlsen, “The Prologue to The King’s Mirror: Did the Author of the Work Write It?,” in Speculum Norroenum, ed. Ursula Dronke, Guðrún Helgadóttir, and Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense: Odense University Press, 1981), 226–27. The Norwegian manuscript AM 243b is defective in the first gathering. Of the eight original leaves, the first three are missing. It is therefore possible that the prologue may have been part of the manuscript at one time. The opening chapter of Konungs skuggsjá begins on what is currently 1r of AM 243b, the leaf that used to be 4r (before the opening leaves of AM 243b were removed from the manuscript). The incipit is set roughly halfway down the page; the upper half of 1r is blank. The lacuna has led to much speculation, fueled in part by the poor condition of the vellum of the first leaf, which is “so thin that the letters of the other side [1v] shine through”— evidence, perhaps, of an erasure on 1r that removed all traces of whatever text had been there. Holm-Olsen, “The Prologue to The King’s Mirror: Did the Author of the Work Write It?,” 226. Others see no physical evidence of an erasure, and argue on codicological grounds that the lacuna on the upper portion of 1r would not have contained the prologue; see Anne Holtsmark, “Ludvig HolmOlsen, Håndskrifterne av Konungs skuggsjá,” Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi 68 (1953): 200–01. Holm-Olsen defends the theory of Icelandic interpolation: “Let us venture the suggestion that the Prologue in its present form



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was composed by an Icelander who worked at a time when there was no longer a royal court in Norway, and who wanted to introduce Konungs skuggsjá to a different audience. . . . For him and his audience it is no longer a textbook only for kings and princes, but a ‘common possession’ which can be of use to everybody, ‘no matter what his rank or title might be.’ Holm-Olsen, “The Prologue to The King’s Mirror: Did the author of the work write it?,” 238. 60. Laurence Marcellus Larson, The King’s Mirror (Speculum regale— Konungs skuggsjá), vol. 35, Scandinavian monographs (New York, London: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1917), 72. 61. Larson, The King’s Mirror, 73. 62. See further discussion in William Layher, “The Big Splash: Endrhyme and Innovation in Medieval Scandinavian Poetics,” Scandinavian Studies 80 (2008).

Chapter Five Margareta of Denmark and the Voice of Identity 1. On Albrecht’s reign as king of Sweden and the Mecklenburgian involvement in Swedish politics during the fourteenth century, see Erich Hoffmann, “Das Verhältnis der mecklenburgischen Herzöge Albrecht II. und Albrecht III. zu den skandinavischen Staaten,” Quellen und Darstellungen zur Hansischen Geschichte 46 (1998); Detlef Kattinger, “ ‘Jak lönthe the swenska mz sorg thz the mik hente aff mäkilborgh’: Aspekte der Fremd-Herrschaft am Beispiel Albrechts von Mecklenburg in Schweden (1364– 1389),” in Fremdheit und Reisen im Mittelalter, ed. Irene Erfen and Karl-Heinz Spieß (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997); Viljo Adolf Nordman, Albrecht, Herzog von Mecklenburg, König von Schweden (Helsinki: Finnische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1938). 2. There is some evidence the election and coronation itself were carried out in contravention of Swedish law. The Landslag sets out two requirements for the legitimate election of a king. First, the election must be attended and affirmed by all of the electors of the realm; and second, following the coronation the king must ride through the kingdom on a proscribed route, the Eriksgata, receiving pledges of loyalty from the noblemen assembled in each district to greet him. Due to the tenuous political situation in early 1364—Albrecht had not yet subdued the entire kingdom, and several regions remained loyal to Magnus Eriksson—travel was a risky undertaking. Albrecht’s riding of the Eriksgata was abbreviated accordingly, and soon abandoned. A third irregularity in Albrecht’s coronation concerns the ceremony itself. In the



Notes

Notes form used in the middle of the fourteenth century, the elected king must deliver spoken responses in Swedish. Whether this actually took place is highly doubtful; there is no indication in the historical record suggesting that Albrecht III was able to speak Swedish. The legal status of Albrecht’s election and coronation is discussed in Kattinger, “ ‘Jak lönthe the swenska mz sorg thz the mik hente aff mäkilborgh’: Aspekte der Fremd-Herrschaft am Beispiel Albrechts von Mecklenburg in Schweden (1364–1389),” 98–106; see also Nordman, Albrecht, Herzog von Mecklenburg, König von Schweden, 61–67. 3. C.J. (Carl Johan) Schlyter, ed. Konung Magnus Erikssons Landslag, vol. 10, Corpus iuris Sueo-Gotorum antiqui. Samling af Sweriges gamla lagar (Stockholm, Lund: div. publ., 1862), 4:8. 4. Mecklenburgisches Urkundenbuch, 786–1900. 25 vols. (Schwerin: 1863–), 15: nr. 9236; Svenska riks-archivets pergamentsbref: från och med år 1351. 3 vols. (Stockholm: Riksarkivet,1866–1872), 1: 602, 03. 5. The importance of Bo Jonsson Grip is discussed in Anton Blanck, “Konung Alexander, Bo Jonsson Grip, och Albrekt av Mecklenburg,” Samlaren 10 (1929); Nordman, Albrecht, Herzog von Mecklenburg, König von Schweden, 152–81, 206ff. 6. King Albrecht has been edited several times, but the most accessible edition is found in Vilhelmsdotter, Riddare, bonde och biskop. Studier kring tre fornsvenska dikter jämte två nyeditioner, 205–15. All quotations from King Albrecht are taken from this edition, with verse numbers as given. Translations throughout are mine, unless otherwise indicated. 7. The bibliography on Dikten is not extensive. For a review of the scholarship, together with some insightful historical analysis, see Conny Blom, “Liknelsen om konung Albrekt. Skämptet och löjet som politiskt vapen i en medeltida rimkrönika,” Scandia 58 (1992). 8. For more on these connections see William Layher, “Elephants in the Garden. On wild beasts and wlwalla in the Old Swedish Dikten om kung Albrecht,” in Lärdomber oc skämptan. Medieval Swedish Literature Reconsidered, ed. Massimilliano Bampi and Fulvio Ferrari, Serie 3. Smärre texter och undersökningar (Uppsala: Svenska fornskriftsällskapet, 2008). 9. See the evidence assembled in Kattinger, “ ‘Jak lönthe the swenska mz sorg thz the mik hente aff mäkilborgh’: Aspekte der Fremd-Herrschaft am Beispiel Albrechts von Mecklenburg in Schweden (1364–1389)”; Detlev Kattinger, “Schweden am Vorabend der Kalmarer Union: das Intermezzo Albrechts III. von Mecklenburg,” in ‘Huru thet war talet j kalmarn’. Union und Zusammenarbeit in der nordischen Geschichte. 600 Jahre Kalmarer Union (1397–1997), ed. Detlev Kattinger and Horst Wernicke (Hamburg: Kovac, 1997). 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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10. Jöran Sahlgren, ed. En Swensk Cröneka af Olavus Petri, vol. 4, Samlade Skrifter af Olavus Petri (Uppsala: Sveriges Kristliga Studentrörelses förlag, 1917), 125. 11. “Diarium Wazstenense ab anno 1344 ad annum 1545,” in Scriptores rerum Svecicarum medii ævi, ed. Erik M. Fant (Stockholm: Zeipel et Palmblad, 1818), 1:100. 12. The wolfish comment from the convent of St. Klara is referenced in Svenska riks-archivets pergamentsbref: från och med år 1351. 2: 212. 13. See, for example, the fifth paragraph of the Konungsbalkr section of the Old Swedish law code Magnus Erikssons Landslag from the first half of the fourteenth century, which delineates the king’s responsibilities: Förste articulus ær þet, æt han skal ælska guþ ok þe hælgho kirkio ok ræt henna styrkia, oskaddum allum kunungxlikum ræt, kronunna ok alz suerikis almogha “The first article is that he shall love God and the Holy Church and uphold its authority, preserving undiminished all of the powers of the monarchy, the crown and the Swedish people.” Schlyter, ed. Konung Magnus Erikssons Landslag, 8. 14. For more on the negative valence of the word “goose” as applied to women see Stephen Mitchell, “Nordic Witchcraft in Transition: Impotence, Heresy, and Diabolism in 14th-century Bergen,” Scandia 63, no. 1 (1997): 30f. 15. Ei ma kununger minzka kronunna ræt for aþrum kununge; gör þet nakar, haui þa þen kununger vald æfter komber þæt meþ ræt ater taka æn han giter. Schlyter, ed. Konung Magnus Erikssons Landslag, 6. 16. Schlyter, ed., Konung Magnus Erikssons Landslag, 9. 17. On Birgitta and her prophetic œuvre see, for example, Bridget Morris, “General Introduction,” in The Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden, Volume 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Bridget Morris, St. Birgitta of Sweden, vol. 1, Studies in Medieval Mysticism (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999); Claire Sahlin, “The Prophetess as Preacher: Birgitta of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy,” Medieval Sermon Studies Autumn (1997); Denis Michael Searby, The Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 18. Morris, St. Birgitta of Sweden, 57–58. 19. This vision was written down in the vernacular and appears to have circulated as a pamphlet endorsing the theological orthodoxy of Birgitta’s visions. See Jan Liedgren, “Magister Mathias svenska kungörelse om Birgitta’s första stora uppenbarelse,” Meddelanden från Svenska riksarkivet (1961): 101–16. 20. Olle Ferm, “Heliga Birgittas program för upprör mot Magnus Eriksson,” in Heliga Birgitta—budskapet och förebilden. Föredrag vid jubileumssymposiet i Vadstena 3–7 oktober 1991, ed. Alf Härdelin (Stockholm: Almqvist&Wiksell, 1993). On Birgitta’s engagement in Swedish politics see also Hans Furuhagen, Furstinnan av Närke som blev Heliga 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Birgitta (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1990); Hans Torben Gilkær, The Political Ideas of St. Birgitta and her Spanish Confessor, Alfonso Pecha. Liber Celestis Imperatoris ad reges: A Mirror of Princes, vol. 163, Odense University Studies in History and Social Sciences (Odense: Odense University Press, 1993). 21. Gustav Klemming, ed., Heliga Birgittas uppenbarelser, efter gamla handskrifter, 5 vols. (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt, 1857–1884). The Old Swedish corpus of Birgitta’s visions is still lacking a textual-critical edition that meets the expectations of modern scholarship. The history and relevance of the Old Swedish re-translations for latemedieval Sweden are discussed in Elias Wessén, Svensk Medeltid. En samling uppsatser om svenska medeltidshandskrifter och texter. III. De fornsvenska handskrifterna av Heliga Birgittas uppenbarelser, vol. 16, Kungl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademiens handlingar: Filologiska serien. (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1976); Lars Wollin, “Två språk och två skikt: Uppenbarelsernas tradition,” in Birgitta, hendes værk og hendes klostre i Norden, ed. Tore Nyberg (Odense: Odense University Press, 1991). In the late fourteenth century the Revelaciones were also translated into a “Birgittinernorsk” dialect for use in some Birgittine communities in Norway; on these translations see Hans Gilkær, “The ‘Birgittiner-norske’ Texts: Purpose and Tradition,” in The Translation of the Works of St. Birgitta of Sweden into the Medieval European Vernaculars, ed. Bridget Morris and Veronica O’Mara (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000). 22. Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden and the voice of prophecy, 9–12. Sahlin borrows the phrase “double-bind” from Karen L. King, “Prophetic Power and Women’s Authority: The Case of the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene),” in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millenia of Christianity, ed. Beverley Mayne Kienzle and Pamela Walker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 29. For more on the gendered voice of some medieval female mystics see the collection of essays in Catherine M. Mooney, Gendered voices: medieval saints and their interpreters (Philadelphia: University Pennsylvania Press, 1999). 23. Morris, “General Introduction,” 12. 24. Klemming, ed., Heliga Birgittas uppenbarelser, vol. 3:332. 25. The word trolkarl in the first line of the Old Swedish revelation is difficult to translate in context, as it appears at first glance to refer to some type of sorcerer or necromancer (cf. trolldom “sorcery”). Surely a king need not be warned to beware such persons. Some helpful clues about the nature of this word can be found in the Latin version of this revelation, where Birgitta cautions the king against admitting quendam adulatorem et sagacem into his council. I see the word sagacem (from sagax “keen-scented, acute, perceptive”) as connoting some type of trickster—a “charlatan” instead 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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of a “sorcerer”—because the Latin text did not use any of the common terms for sorcerer or magician such as maleficus, magus, augur, and the like. Thus I understand Birgitta’s warning as directing the king to beware those who seek to ingratiate themselves through deception, through ostentatious yet superficial “lip service” in the literal sense. 26. Schlyter, ed., Konung Magnus Erikssons Landslag, 9. 27. Klemming, ed. Heliga Birgittas uppenbarelser, efter gamla handskrifter, 3:332–33. 28. On foxes more generally in medieval folklore and bestiaries, see Debra Hassig, “The Heretic: The Fox,” in Medieval Bestiaries. Text, Image, Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Hans-Jörg Uther, “Fuchs,” in Enzyclopädie des Märchens, ed. Kurt Ranke and Rolf Wilhelm Brednich (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1987); Kenneth Varty, Reynard, Renart, Reinaert and Other Foxes in Medieval England: The Iconographic Evidence (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999); Dorothy Yamamoto, “The Fox: Laying Bare Deceit,” in The Boundaries of the Human in Medieval English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 29. Klemming, ed., Heliga Birgittas uppenbarelser, 2: 129. 30. Klemming, ed., Heliga Birgittas uppenbarelser, 3: 333–34. 31. Tryggve Lundén, Nikolaus Hermansson. Biskop av Linköping (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1971); Tryggve Lundén, ed. Sankt Nikolaus av Linköping kanonisationsprocess Processus canonizacionis beati Nicolai Lincopensis (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1963). 32. Lundén, Nikolaus Hermansson. Biskop av Linköping, 11–12. 33. Herman Schück, Ecclesia Lincopensis : studier om Linköpingskyrkan under medeltiden och Gustav Vasa, vol. 4, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1959), 90. 34. Nunquam adhuc est verus rex Swecie effectus, quia licet iam regnavit in Swecia ultra viginti annos numquam tamen in minimo negocio iusticiam ministravit. Lundén, ed. Sankt Nikolaus av Linköping kanonisationsprocess Processus canonizacionis beati Nicolai Lincopensis, 232. 35. Rydberg, ed. Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 2, nr. 413. 36. Lundén, ed. Sankt Nikolaus av Linköping kanonisationsprocess Processus canonizacionis beati Nicolai Lincopensis, 268. The account is taken from an early-fifteenth-century manuscript in the city archives of Florence, the Carte di S. Maria nuova e monasterio del Paradiso, Tomo VI. 37. Karl Koppmann, “Libellus Magnipolensis. Mecklenburgische Parteischrift über die Ursachen des Streites zwischen König Albrecht von Schweden und Königin Margaretha von Norwegen und Dänemark vom Jahre 1394,” in Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis 16. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1899), 368. 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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38. Rydberg, ed. Sverges Traktater med främmande magter.Rydberg, ed., Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 2, nr. 411a. 39. Rydberg, ed., Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 2, nr. 411a. 40. Rydberg, ed., Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 2, nr. 411a. 41. Rydberg, ed., Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 2, nr. 413. 42. Rydberg, ed., Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 2, nr. 413. 43. Rydberg, ed., Sverges Traktater med främmande magter, 2, nr. 413. 44. Gauthier, ed., Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, 137–38. 45. Aquinas, A Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, 232–33. 46. Gauthier, ed., Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, 138. 47. Aquinas, A Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, 233.

Afterword


1. Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies. A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). 2. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, 7–9. 3. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, 9. 4. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, 3. 5. Marie Axton, The Queen’s Two Bodies (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977), 12. 6. Peggy McCracken, The Romance of Adultery. Queenship and Sexual Transgression in Old French Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998). McCracken’s observations later about the Foucauldian view of the body as productive but also caught up in a system of subjection (83) raises the possibility of an additional division of the queen’s body into two distinct units: the physical body that acts, the political body that is relentlessly (and unendingly) acted upon. As McCracken notes, Foucault’s discussion of this point failed to take gender into account; it is unclear whether the distinction between the productive body and the subjected body could likewise reinforce the notion of a split embodiment for medieval kingship or queenship. 7. John Carmi Parsons, “The Pregnant Queen as Counsellor and the Medieval Construction of Motherhood,” in Medieval Mothering, ed. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Garland, 1996), 52–53. 8. Petra Gehring, “Die Wiederholungs-Stimme. Über die Strafe der Echo,” in Stimme. Annäherung an ein Phänomen, ed. Sybille Krämer and Doris Kolesch (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006); Alice Lagaay, “Zwischen Klang und Stille. Gedanken zur Philosophie der Stimme,” Paragrana 17, no. 1 (2008); Dieter Mersch, “Präsenz und Ethizität der Stimme,” in Stimme. Annäherung an ein Phänomen, ed. Sybille Krämer and Doris Kolesch (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006); 10.1057/9780230113022 - Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe, William Layher


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Bernhard Waldenfels, “Das Lautwerden der Stimme,” in Stimme. Annäherung an ein Phänomen, ed. Sybille Krämer and Doris Kolesch (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006). 9. “Die Stimme, die in der Erfahrung laut wird, ist eine gebrochene, zerteilte, gespaltene Stimme, sie wird durchtönt von Vor- und Nachklängen, von Einklang und Missklang, sie ist ein Echo ihrer selbst.” Waldenfels, “Das Lautwerden der Stimme,” 194–95.



Notes




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Agnes, Queen of Denmark 14–18 captivity 59 charters and letters 81–85 as literary patron 61, 65–66, 75, 78–81, 87–88 marriage to Erik V of Denmark 15, 16 as queen regent 84–86 relations with Danish barons 14, 57, 60, 70–72, 75–76 royal title 17, 82–84 voice 7, 18, 88–89 Albrecht III of Mecklenburg, King of Sweden 8, 26–29, 131–135, 149, 170 defeat at battle of Falköping 26–27, 135–136 as figure in King Albrecht 139–141, 146–147 voice 8, 140, 166, 171 Animal symbolism beasts 141 birds of prey 139 fox 69–71, 139, 142–143, 154, 155–156 goose 141–143, 154, 155 hen 142–143 mouse 69–71 sheep 139, 156, 157 wolf 139, 153, 157 Birgitta of Sweden, Saint 147–161, 164 biography 147–148 political revelations 8, 28, 149, 151, 152–157

Revelaciones and Uppinbarelser 148–152 voice 9, 150–151, 152, 170 Bo Jonsson Grip 134–135 Brandenburg 15–16 Denmark queenship and gender 84–87 royal succession 23–25, 26, 57–58 Dolar, Mladen 48–49 Erik Magnusson, Duke of Södermanland 102, 103–106, 108 and the Eufemiavisor 107–108 Erik V, King of Denmark assassination 14, 53–57, 60–61, 73–74, 77–78 childhood 15–16, 17 fifty-six wounds 72–75 reputation and surname 56–57 Erik VI, King of Denmark 14, 54, 57–59, 82–84, 103, 104 charters and letters 82–85 Eufemia, Queen of Norway 18–23, 91 charters and letters 19 childhood and family 18–21 as literary patron 18–19, 22, 91, 95–99, 100, 106, 108–109, 128, see also ‘Eufemiavisor’ marriage to Hákon V, king of Norway 19 voice 8 Eufemiavisor 91–93 Flores och Blanzeflor 93–94, 96, 107 Herr Ivan 93, 95–96, 100, 107



INDEX

Index

Eufemiavisor—Continued Hertig Fredrik af Normandie 93, 96–98, 100, 108 and listening communities 98–99, 128–130 translator see Peter Algotsson and voice 99, 122–123 Falköping (Battle of Falköping) 26 Hákon IV, King of Norway 114 and literary patronage 114–115, 123, 124, see also ‘Riddarasögur’ Hákon V, king of Norway 19, 61, 102, 103–106, 108, 132, 162 and royal succession in Norway 109–115 Hearing see Sound Ingeborg, Princess of Norway 91, 92 engagement to Erik Magnusson 102, 104 and the Eufemiavisor 102, 106, 109, 114 and royal succession in Norway 111–114 Jenaer Liederhandschrift 18, 63 see also Rumelant von Sachsen Kantorowicz, Ernst 174–176, 179 King Albrecht 8–9, 28, 135–147, 153 dating 135–136, 137 political allegory 137–139, 140–143, 171 and Swedish history 138–139 voice 157, 166–168 Kingship and embodiment 175–176 Konungs skuggsjá (King’s Mirror) 115, 123–125, 127 voice 126–128 Magnus Eriksson, King of Sweden 131, 132, 148, 149, 161–162

Margareta, Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden 23–28 charters and letters 27–28, 161–166 conquest of Sweden 9, 161–162 and Danish barons 25–26 as figure within King Albrecht 135–136, 143–146 marriage to Hákon VI, king of Norway 23 as patron of King Albrecht 136 as “sovereign lady” of Denmark and Sweden 25–26, 162–165, 170 and Swedish barons 8, 9, 132, 136, 144, 161, 162–164, 167 voice 7, 165–166 Margareta Sambiria, Queen of Denmark 16, 17 Mecklenburg 25 Nils Hermansson, Bishop of Linköping 152, 158–160 and authorship of King Albrecht 160 Norway political alliances 21–22, 102–103 royal succession 109–115 Olof Hákonsson, king of Denmark and Norway 24–25, 163–164 Peter Algotsson 94–95 Queenship and embodiment 176–178 and literary patronage 6 and marriage in Northern Europe 1–2, 16–17 and potestas 2, 3 Riddarasögur 115–119, 127 and political representation 119–122, 127–128 Rumelant von Sachsen 18, 61–65



236

poems about king Erik V 63–64 stanza J78 66–68 stanzas J101 and J102 68–72 stanza J103 72–76 stanzas J104 and J105 76–78 Sound auditivity 5, 6 contrast between hearing and sight 30–31 gender and hearing 5 hearing and listening 5, 32 medieval theories of sound 33–36 medieval theories of echo 167–169 and royal power 5, 166–168 as sensory experience 5, 31, 35–36 Spruchdichtung (didactic lyric) 62–65, 89 contrast to Danish literary tradition 78–81 contrast to Icelandic skaldic poetry 79–81 Sweden royal succession 112, 133–134

Vadstena 136, 149, 150 Valdemar IV, duke of Schleswig 58–59, 61, 88 Visuality contrast to auditivity 4–5, 30 and courtly hierarchy 3–5 gender of the gaze 5 Voice as acoustic event 29, 30 as broadcast 13 and embodiment 32–33, 42, 48–49, 51–52 and the intellect 39, 40 medieval theories of 36–41, 44–45, 181 as metaphor 6 as political tool 8, 47 as proxy 7 and the soul 37–41 and vernacular 43–44, 47 Witzlaw II of Rügen 19–22, 83 political influence 22 Zumthor, Paul 48–49, 51, 182


237


Index

Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe (Queenship and Power)

Elizabeth I: The Voice of a Monarch (Queenship and Power)

Elizabeth of York (Queenship and Power)

Divine queenship and Psalm 45

Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (Queenship and Power)

The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I (Queenship and Power)

Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power

The Foreign Relations of Elizabeth I (Queenship and Power)

The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503

The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503

Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry (Queenship and Power)

Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference held at King's College London, April 1995

The French Queen's Letters: Mary Tudor Brandon and the Politics of Marriage in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Queenship and Power)

The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe

The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and violence in medieval europe

Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

Money and its use in medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Perception and Action in Medieval Europe

Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Money and its Use in Medieval Europe

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Culture, Power and Personality in Medieval France

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Medieval europe

Landownership and Power in Modern Europe

Queenship and Voice in Medieval Northern Europe (Queenship and Power)

Elizabeth I: The Voice of a Monarch (Queenship and Power)

Elizabeth of York (Queenship and Power)

Divine queenship and Psalm 45

Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (Queenship and Power)

The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I (Queenship and Power)

Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power

The Foreign Relations of Elizabeth I (Queenship and Power)

The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503

The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503

Learned Queen: The Image of Elizabeth I in Politics and Poetry (Queenship and Power)

Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference held at King's College London, April 1995

The French Queen's Letters: Mary Tudor Brandon and the Politics of Marriage in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Queenship and Power)

The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe

The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and violence in medieval europe

Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

Money and its use in medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Perception and Action in Medieval Europe

Food and Eating in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe

Money and its Use in Medieval Europe

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Culture, Power and Personality in Medieval France

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Medieval europe

Landownership and Power in Modern Europe

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