The volume contains collected papers from a conference organized at the Centre for Medieval Studies in Bergen in June 2008, and is one of a series of edited volumes based on the Centre's activities. The participants investigated saints' cults and their context in the newly-formed Christian polities of Scandinavia and Rus'. Thus the book contributes to the growing literature on Northern and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. It also adds to existing comparative studies of Christianization and sanctity. The editors' introduction summarizes the conversion of these areas to Christianity, and draws out the conclusions of the individual papers, proposing some comparative perspectives and questions. Most significantly, they query the significance and context of imported and local saints, the nature of foreign influences, and the episcopal and royal patronage of cults. These are themes that run through many of the papers.
The individual contributions themselves are varied, and examine the cult of saints from many different perspectives, without any attempt to harmonize the topics apart from the broad unifying theme expressed in the title. There is some repetition as various authors address the same saint or group of saints, and repeat the necessary research context and background information.
Many of the authors focus on the cult of one or more saints in a particular locality or area and draw out the evidence of influences from other areas of medieval Europe. Rus' is especially well represented in this way. Ildar Garipzanov examines the cult of saints in Novgorod--a major urban and trade centre--in the eleventh century ("Novgorod and the veneration of saints in eleventh-century Rus': a comparative view"). Through the analysis of birchbark letters and a liturgical calendar, as well as other sources, he shows western European influences in Novgorod, thus confirming earlier results concerning links between early Rus' and Latin Christendom. He also demonstrates the divergence of cults in Novgorod and Kiev, attesting to the variety of influences within Rus'. While offering proof of the importance of ecclesiastical and princely patronage, he is one of the few authors in the volume who also demonstrates the role of popular devotion, in this case among merchants and sailors, in the development of cults. Tatjana N. Jackson focuses more closely on the cult of Olaf Haraldsson of Norway (d. 1030) in Novgorod, based on Norwegian-Icelandic accounts of his miracles in Rus', and the existence of a church dedicated to St Olaf ("The cult of St Olaf and early Novgorod"). Monica White argues for the impact of the hagiography of Byzantine military saints on the developing cult of Saints Boris and Gleb in Rus' ("Byzantine saints in Rus' and the cult of Boris and Gleb"). She demonstrates that different available models exerted an uneven influence: ascetic hermits were insignificant in the construction of sanctity in Rus', while martyrdom became central. Marina Paramonova discounts the influence of Czech models on the cult of Boris and Gleb and argues for the cult's formation based on social and political practices internal to Rus' ("The formation of the cult of Boris and Gleb and the problem of external influences").
Detailed studies connected to Scandinavia range from several on different aspects of the cult of St Olaf to the hagiographic traditions of Hamburg and Bremen, connected to evangelization in the North. Lars Boje Mortensen's "Writing and speaking of St Olaf: national and social integration", examines Olaf's significance for the Norwegian elites and other social groups. He engages explicitly with the relationship between oral and written sources, as well as with the function of the cults of saints for lower social strata. Lenka Jiroušková studies the manuscripts of the Passio Olavi, demonstrating that each contains a different and unique combination of a passio and a collection of miracles ("Textual evidence for the transmission of the Passio Olavi prior to 1200 and its later literary transformation"). Aidan Conti looks at the concerted attempt to shape cult in Odense in "Ælnoth of Canterbury and early Mythopoiesis in Denmark". He shows how Ælnoth wrote against the prevalent western perception of Danes as barbarians by writing Denmark "into the history of Christendom" (205). Jonas Wellendorf's "The attraction of the earliest Old Norse vernacular hagiography" examines the appeal of vernacular Old Norse hagiography to readers between 1150 and 1250. He concludes that the exoticism of the pagan world was already a major reason for the attractiveness of these texts. The characteristics of "paganism," however, were created based on Biblical and patristic models, rather than on observations of reality. Ǻslaug Ommundsen uses ordinals and legal texts to analyse the variety of influences on Norwegian cults in "The cults of saints in Norway before 1200". She focuses especially on the patron saints of dioceses, highlighting the parallel existence of Anglo-French and German models. James Palmer's "Anskar's imagined communities" ties Anskar's works as well as his Life by Rimbert to the creation of meaning and identity in Hamburg and Bremen, both at the level of local communities and that of social networks.
Haki Antonsson's "The early cult of saints in Scandinavia and the conversion: a comparative perspective" compares the cult of missionary saints in Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Sweden, and in particular the adaptation and invention of the missionary past. Antonsson demonstrates that the characteristics of such cults were tied to the political context of the place and period of the cults' promotion. This was sometimes much later than the conversion period, and far from the region where the missionaries had been active. The cults attest the choices of the elite, as little is known of popular preferences. Antonsson also draws out some similarities and differences across Scandinavia: monasteries did not initiate missionary cults, although they could adopt these cults subsequently; bishoprics in Norway and Sweden were major patrons of cults of missionaries, whereas in Denmark and Iceland they preferred near-contemporary saints. Anna Minara Ciardi's "Saints and cathedral culture in Scandinavia c. 1000-c. 1200" argues the importance of cathedral chapters (and communities preceding them affiliated to cathedral churches) in the creation and shaping of saints' cults through liturgy. She distinguishes between universal saints, such as the Virgin Mary or St Lawrence, who were also venerated in Scandinavia; foreign saints, whose cults were significant in Scandinavia although they were not universally celebrated, such as St Alban or St Lucidus, whose cults denote particular ties to specific areas such as the British Isles; and local saints, who had a role in the formation of identities.
In a concluding chapter, Gábor Klaniczay summarizes the cult of saints in Central Europe and sketches some parallels and differences between Central European and Scandinavian and Rus' cults. The volume offers valuable case-studies on Scandinavian and Rus' saints, and suggests analytical frameworks for the understanding of the significance of saints' cults in newly Christianized areas.