Kirkehistoriske Samlinger

Kolofon

2024-03-25T14:18:01+01:00

Intet resumé.

Radulf, en bagmand fra 1100-årene – eller den varme sten i sengen

2024-03-25T14:20:29+01:00

Artiklen har sit udgangspunkt i en klassisk, hundredårig teori i dansk middelalderforskning, nemlig svaret på spørgsmålet om, hvem der hvornår og hvorfra fik bragt teglen til Danmark i 1100-årene. Mere principielt drejer det sig om samspillet mellem historie, kunst- og arkitekturhistorie og bygningsarkæologi, eller om man vil, historie og kulturhistorie. Det vil også fremgå af redegørelsen om den, der i 1924 blev udpeget som bagmand i teglsagen, nemlig Valdemar den Stores sekretær og kansler, Ribes biskop Radulf (død 1171).

Summary
In 1924 the Danish architect Mogens Clemmensen put forward his theory on the introduction of brick building into Denmark just around 1160. His explanation to this was mainly accepted, by architectural researchers and art historians as well as historians, although also put under discussion. His studies were concentrated on North Italian Lombardic churches and Cistercian abbey churches, pinpointing several architectonic details which he also identified in Danish brick churches from the second part of the 12th century, situated on the island of Seeland.
A few sources refer to the use of bricks for defensive works during the reign of king Valdemar the Great (1157-1182). Clemmensen also pointed to the man whom he believed had personally transferred the technique of brick making and building directly from the Lombardy to Denmark. This mastermind was Radulf (died 1171), an Englishman by birth, although his name occurs more than once in 12th century Denmark, and a secretary and chancellor of king Valdemar. According to Clemmensen Radulf attended a synod in Pavia in 1160 on behalf of the king. From there Radulf should have brought the knowledge of bricks and their use back into Denmark. The year 1160 was early enough to fit in with the proposed and very short initial construction period of the Royal Abbey Church of Ringsted and the erection of the Abbey Church of Sorø at the initiative of bishop Absalon, the king’s close friend and prime counsellor.

The Pavia meeting was summoned by the Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. It was a part of the Grand Schism and two years later, Valdemar had to submit to the emperor as his vassal and accepted the crown of his country from the emperor’s hand. Radulf also participated in these events which were described by the Danish historian Saxo who did his very best to hide most of the role of Valdemar and Absalon as followers of the schismatic line of Frederick Barbarossa. He almost accuses Radulf, whom he seems to have disliked, not to have acted to the best of Danish interests. A scrutiny of the available sources, presented in this paper, did not confirm the participation of Radulf in the Pavia meeting, which was instead attended by Elias, whom Radulf followed as a bishop of Ribe from 1162. Elias was Flemish by birth and obviously both prelates made their careers in Denmark due to their international education and skills. Both may have visited the Paris University Schools and maybe Absalon, who was there as a student before 1157, actually met Radulf in Paris.
The general idea of a single main ecclesiastical and political figure as Radulf as the mastermind behind the introduction of building materials and specific architectonic ideals represents a somewhat outdated view. Never forget what Abbot Suger wrote about diversity. Instead the rapid spread of building techniques may have followed the intense evolution of urban sites, clusters and trade during the second part of the 12th century, which created the background for the German Hanse and the connections between North West Europe, the Baltic and the Mediterranean.
A series of rather elaborated theories concerning the personal artistic views and influences of Radulf followed each other after the initial work of Clemmensen. These ideas were based on his supposed English origin and his activities as a church administrator, a supplier of church relics and as a founder of a Cistercian abbey as well as the possible initiator of the oldest brick building in Ribe, which does not show any similarities with Lombard architecture, however. His seal as a bishop has for long been considered as an English type. The best parallels, however, occur between the seals of Imperial bishops from the time of Radulf’s meeting with the emperor, and whoever did bring the collection of relics in question, most reasonably acquired them somewhere in North Germany, not in England.
As for the Cistercian Abbey of Løgum, for which Radulf was a true benefactor, like other fellow bishops, it had its roots in the Abbey of Herrisvad, whose monks came from France. Paris was also the place of inspiration behind a latin sermon of the second half of the 12th century which has survived from Løgum. It was written to a congregation of nuns and carries the name of an author called Radulf. An authorship of the bishop of Ribe remains unproven. On the other hand, the sermon demonstrates a close affiliation with Parisian theological thoughts and publishing.

Da Dominikanerordenen kom til Danmark

2024-03-25T14:25:59+01:00

I 2022 er det 800 år siden, at det første dominikanerkloster blev oprettet i Danmark, hvilket fandt sted i ærkebispestaden Lund. Det samme kan man i realiteten sige for hele Norden, for ganske vist havde ordenen forsøgt at etablere et hus i Sverige to år forinden, men det blev opgivet igen efter få år. Om det nu også virkelig var i 1222, at det første blivende dominikanerkloster blev oprettet, har dog været diskuteret, og også årene 1221 og 1223 har været foreslået. Årsagen til usikkerheden er, at hovedkilden til begivenheden nok oplister en række årstal, men ikke fuldstændig eksplicit for lige præcis klosterstiftelsen, hvor kildeteksten faktisk synes at modsige sig selv. Kilden, der er en krønike skrevet af Dominikanerordenen selv, rummer flere andre problemer og bør som alle andre historiske kilder indtages med et kildekritisk gran salt, men dens oplysninger om ordenens tidligste ankomst til Norden understøttes faktisk af flere andre uafhængige kilder. Denne lille ‘jubilæumsartikel’ vil søge at redegøre for Dominikanerordenens ankomst til Norden og for de tilgængelige kilder dertil.

Summary
The first Dominican friary in medieval Denmark was founded in 1222. It was also the first lasting friary of the Dominican Order to be established in its Scandinavian province of Dacia. Essentially, this is the core historical facts to be gained from reading this article. The aim of the article is, however, to go a little beyond the mere events of this monastic foundation, which now happens to celebrate its 800th anniversary, by adding a thorough presentation and even discussion of the sources to it. For a monastic institution in medieval Scandinavia, the history of the foundation of the Dominican friary in Lund is unusually well-documented. Not only do we have an almost contemporary chronicle written by friars of the order itself to provide us with a broad set of details on how the convent came about to be established. Several of the facts claimed by the chronicle are even collaborated by a variety of independent extant sources. Still, as is often is with medieval studies, an abundance of sources does not necessarily make it easier for present-day historians to figure out what actually happened, since medieval documents have a curious tendency of somewhat contradicting each other and even themselves. That is certainly the case with the history of the Dominican convent foundation in Lund, for which even the stated year of the event, 1222, is up for debate. The present article lists all available sources to what can be said about the foundation and the first three friars involved with it, as well as some of the various twists and angles that later historians have exposed these sources to in a common goal of getting closer to ‘the historical truth’.

At stå åbenbart skrifte

2024-03-25T14:29:00+01:00

Summary
In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council made it obligatory for all Christians to confess their sins to their parish priest at least once a year. According to Thomas N. Tentler, the mandatory confession in the medieval Roman Church was an instrument of social control. It intended not only to console worried consciences but also to regulate people’s behaviour.
The fact that it was obligatory to go to confession made Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century react strongly. It terrorized the consciences, Luther said, to have to perform the correct repentance and make the exhaustive confession that, according to the theologians of the medieval Church, was necessary for the absolution to have effect. Whereas Luther did away with the disciplinary side of the medieval confession, he praised the consoling aspect of it: that you could entrust yourself to and receive consolation from a priest. Therefore, private confession was upheld in the Lutheran churches. This was also the case in Denmark, as the Church Ordinance of 1537/39 shows.
In the Church Ordinance, there is a close connection between confession and the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist. Before you could be
handed the sacrament of the altar at Sunday Mass, you had to go to confession. The emphasis, however, was no longer on the individual enumeration of sins committed but instead on demonstrating you had the correct understanding of basic Lutheran doctrines. Since you had to pass such a ‘faith interrogation’ or ‘catechism exam’ to be able to participate in the sacrament, a new variant of the medieval mandatory confession had in fact been introduced.
Denying people access to the Lord’s Supper was a first, lenient sanction in the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline. Two other sanctions, public penance and excommunication, would be used in cases of graver sins. This article explores the element of social control connected to ecclesiastical discipline in Reformation Denmark, primarily how people who had committed fornication or adultery were forced to do public penance, i.e. to confess their sins in the presence of the whole congregation – something that was regarded as shameful.
The most important source used in the article is a court record book from 1577-1579, which was kept by the cathedral chapter in Lund and contains judgments in marital cases. This hitherto unexplored source shows that the sanctions of ecclesiastical discipline played an important role in the handling of cases of betrothal and marriage. This applies primarily to the requirement to publicly confess one’s sin and receive absolution for it. If either a betrothal or a marriage had been broken by one party while the other was innocent, the innocent party was usually allowed to separate from the partner and marry another. The person who had broken an engagement vow or a marriage, on the contrary, was ordered to confess in public. After this public confession, the person was ordered to remain unmarried until he or she had done pænitentia, i.e. had performed true, visible repentance that had led to an improved way of life. After this, he or she was allowed to re-marry by the ecclesiastical authorities.
The cases described in the court record book from Lund are evidence that, in sixteenth-century Denmark, the official social control of the ecclesiastical (and secular) authorities often went hand in hand with the informal social control exercised by family and relatives, neighbours and others in the local community. The parish priest played an important role in the social control that lay in ecclesiastical discipline. It was the parish priest in particular who judged whether people who had broken a betrothal or a marriage, after having confessed their sin in public, had also done pænitentia and could thus be allowed to enter into a new relationship. However, the practice also bears witness to the fact that local lay people, without any encouragement from the authorities, exercised social control themselves – that they kept an eye on each other and perhaps also reprimanded unacceptable sexual behaviour.
One of the reasons the ecclesiastical disciplinary sanctions were so successful in getting ordinary people to comply with the authorities’ demands in marital matters is also evidenced by the record book from Lund. In a betrothal or a marriage, there were strong material interests, both at the level of the individual and of the kin: to manage a farm required both a man and a woman, and they had to be married to have legitimate children to whom they could bequeath their farmland and property. At this point, Lutheran marriage ideology suited the social and material needs of agrarian society. It is therefore concluded that, in the small villages and market towns of Reformation Denmark, both the authorities and the local communities were interested in maintaining orderly conditions, particularly in the institution at the very heart of society: the family.

»Tarvelige« kirker til jævne folk

2024-03-25T14:34:54+01:00

I forbindelse med Københavns voldsomme befolkningsstigning i slutningen af 1800-tallet blev kirkebyggeri et politisk stridspunkt. Københavns Kirkefond lod en række nye kirker bygge, baseret på private indsamlinger blandt frivillige bidragydere. Fondet anså nye små kirker som et vigtigt virkemiddel i arbejdet for at redde »de vantro masser« fra socialisme og fritænkeri. Artiklen fokuserer på arkitekten Valdemar Kochs overvejelser om, hvorledes man kunne sikre de fattige for kristendommen ved hjælp af kirkernes arkitektoniske og kunstneriske udtryksformer. Med Kapernaumskirken som case illustreres, hvorledes det hyggelige hjem bliver en model for kirkerummets indretning og udsmykning. Koch designede sine »tarvelige« småkirker i en ydmyg og egalitær stil. Hans skønvirke-prægede blomstermotiver var direkte inspireret af samtidigt japansk og britisk kunsthåndværk og sigtede mod at påvirke de fattige til aktiv deltagelse i deres menigheder.

Summary
As the Danish Capital of Copenhagen experienced a dramatic population expansion in the second half of the 19th century, the building of new churches became an urgent issue. As the old fortification area surrounding the city was opened for new settlement, no one seemed to think of building churches. As a result, the newly immigrated proletariat was left without proper access to ecclesiastical service at christenings, weddings, and funerals. By clever exploitation of this misconduct, charitable organizations, first of all The Copenhagen Church Building Society (Kirkefondet), succeeded in collecting private money to erect 19 churches between 1860 and 1910. Theologically, The Copenhagen Church Building Society was closely associated with the Inner Mission, an evangelical movement critical of the established church and dedicated to building more activist congregations among the new settlers. A means to reach this aim was to build small and modest churches for the poor. The Danish architect Valdemar Koch (1852-1902) became the architectural advisor of The Church Building Society (Kirkefondet) and built five out of the 19 new churches. He wrote extensively on the esthetic and architectural aspects of the building activities and was the architect of the foundation’s first permanent church, The Kapernaum church north-west of Copenhagen.
The article focuses on the architectural expression of the churches and examines how the small new churches were built to accommodate the needs of the new parishioners. Not only as Sunday churches, but as »cosy [hyggelige] homes« to attract and win for Christianity an immigrant population, left to live under miserable conditions in tenement houses erected on the newly accessible grounds outside the city without proper public regulation. For this purpose, it was believed, small intimate churches decorated with »honest« art would be the best way to wring the individual away from the mass and establish a close relationship between the individual and the church. In this way the small churches were »modern« as they related constructively to a problem created by modernity by means of their historicist architectural expression.
Using the Kapernaum Church as a case study, the article demonstrates how the »hyggelige« – cosy – small church was conceived as an educational and civilizing force in creating a new congregation. The architectural and decorative style used by Koch was historicism, an eclectic piecing together of various styles, roman, classical, and Renaissance elements, but consciously designed as non-monumental and egalitarian. The unique nature-motives of his church interiors were directly inspired by contemporary Japanese and British art. But whereas the British Arts and Crafts movement had a socialist orientation, Koch used his decorative style to lead the proletariat towards a Christian existence within the established society.

Olfert Ricard og den unge David

2024-03-25T14:39:22+01:00

Dette essay er en let bearbejdelse af en forelæsning ved Selskabet for Danmarks Kirkehistories styrelsesmøde i efteråret 2020. Olfert Ricards klassiker Ungdomsliv fra 1905 tog udgangspunkt i Davidskikkelsen, der i form af franskmanden Antonin Merciés skulptur fra 1872 også kom til at pryde bogen. Den elegante og udfordrende skulptur af David var skabt i opposition mod Tyskland, hvilket svarede til Ricards politiske og nationale holdninger, men lå der mere end et politisk statement i brugen af netop dette signaturbillede?

Summary
Olfert Ricard (1872-1929) was the most influential leader of the Danish YMCA, a progeny of old Huguenot culture, a liberal Lutheran
theologian and a brilliant speaker. He produced a wealth of books such as sermons, devotional books, lectures, and addresses. His book Ungdomsliv, Youth Life from 1905 became an instant success and for many years, it remained an expected gift at young peoples’ confirmations. Its title page was decorated with French sculptor Antonin Mercié’s famous sculpture of the young David of 1872. It would seem relevant as the theme of Ricard’s book was determined by a quotation of 1 Sam about the brilliant young Israelite David. The sculpture however was an anti-German manifestation following the Franco-German War in 1870. In 1879, the owner the Carlsberg Breweries Carl Jacobsen donated a cast of the sculpture to the University of Copenhagen at its quarto centenary, not David in the nude, but in the version with a loincloth. In 1878, The German Empire cancelled the Paragraph 5 in the Peace Treaty of Prague. Until then it secured a future plebiscite in Northern Schleswig. The university consequently transformed its centenary into a Nordic feast – without representatives from Austria and Germany. Mercie’s sculpture of David distinctly reflects the animosity between the old adversaries. Ricard was distinctly anti-German, due to the defeat of 1864 and Denmark’s loss of Schleswig-Holstein. His national attitudes were obvious in the Ungdomsliv. In 1911, Ungdomsliv was translated into German with the title Jugendkraft, but the German editors replaced Mercié’s sensuous French (political) sculpture of David with Verrocchio’s David in Florence just as they omitted the chapter »Your Country« from Ricard’s book. Inspired by Michael Dorsch’s theories of French sculpture following the Franco-German War the essay not only discusses the political implications of the David sculptor in 19th Century Denmark but also the sensuousness and sexual symbolism of the sculpture in relation to Ricard’s bestseller.

En slibrig Fiske-vom: Søren Jonæsøns gendigtning af Jonas’ Bog (1680)

2024-03-25T14:48:50+01:00

Intet resumé.

Rystende læsning

2024-03-25T14:50:19+01:00

Intet resumé.

From og moderne lovlydighed i 1736

2024-03-25T14:52:35+01:00

Intet resumé.

Pastor Johannes Jacobsen, Arco, Sydtyrol/Trentino 1907-1915

2024-03-25T14:54:03+01:00

Intet resumé.

2021 – en oversigt over dansk kirkeliv

2024-03-25T14:55:57+01:00

Intet resumé.