Power and Sainthood

The Case of Birgitta of Sweden

P. Salmesvuori

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137398932
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

Analyzing the renowned Saint Birgitta of Sweden from the perspectives of power, authority, and gender, this probing study investigates how Birgitta went about establishing her influence during the first ten years of her career as a living saint, in 1340–1349.

CHAPTER 1

FAMA SANCTITATIS IN THE 1340S

Birgitta’s Life¹ and Sweden in the Fourteenth Century

In the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Sweden, both the state and church were relatively young phenomena and they were only gradually taking shape.² The church’s activities were changing from a more missionary character to better reflecting an established institution. Sweden was invested with its first five episcopal sees, in Skara, Linköping, Uppsala, Strängnäs, and Västerås. In 1164, Uppsala was made the archbishopric, while the sixth Swedish bishopric was established in Turku³ in 1200. The clergy was educated in continental universities such as Paris and Köln; in the fourteenth century, Prague also became a popular educational center.⁴ Consequently, influences from abroad were vigorous.

Gradually, in the thirteenth century the institutions of the state and the church in Sweden grew more powerful and stable. At the same time, their mutual relationship developed. There were often power struggles but the state and the church also found allies in each other. The Cistercians, Franciscans, and Dominicans established their houses in Sweden during the thirteenth century, and the church not only grew into a powerful institution but also became one of the largest landholders.⁵ Concurrently, the nature of kingship was changing. In the thirteenth century, the king of Sweden was itinerant and often traveled through the country with his retinue. On their journeys, the king and his men had the right to demand hospitality from their subjects. On the one hand, this strengthened the court’s relations with the aristocracy, but on the other hand, the demand of the hospitality was felt as a burden.⁶

The centralization of power began in the thirteenth century and the state offices started to resemble those of central Europe. The royal administration consisted of few men. A duke (hertig)—earlier called “earl” (jarl)—acted as the king’s representative in Svealand and was usually closely related to the king. The councillor (rådsman) was the head of the council of state (riksråd). There were also a chancellor (kansler) and a steward (drots), who were responsible for the royal legislation. The army was led by a marshal (marsk).⁷

The largest social group was that of the free tax-paying yeoman farmers (bönder). They had considerable power: they had the right to vote in the election of the king and judges, could carry weapons, and swear oaths. As a class, the farmers could not be ignored by the monarchy or the nobility. In other European countries, the burghers were often the useful supporters of the nobility and monarchy, but in Sweden in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was the farmers who played this role. It was characteristic of Swedish society that, as Bridget Morris puts it, it “was divided into those who paid taxes, mainly the free farming class, and those who did not, mainly the nobles, their tenants, and the crown’s tenants.”⁸

This was the situation at the beginning of the fourteenth century when Birgitta and Ulf Gudmarsson, both members of the aristocratic class, married around 1316. Only a few years later, the power struggle among the rulers caused changes in Sweden. In 1319, King Birger Magnusson had his two brothers, Erik and Valdemar, killed. Instead of having the intended effect of ensuring his power, what followed was chaos and Birger had to flee into exile. In the same year, the Swedish nobles elected the six-year-old son of Erik Magnusson, the dead brother, as the king of Sweden. He was called Magnus Eriksson and during his minority, power lay mainly in the hands of the council, which consisted of members of the aristocracy and the church. Evidently Magnus’s mother, Duchess Ingeborg (d. 1361), also took part in politics. She was probably not very independent in her regency, however. The sources suggest that members of both the clergy and the aristocracy often took advantage of her.⁹ Birgitta’s father, Birger Petersson, as well as her uncle Knut Jonsson of Aspenäs (d. 1346) were lawmen.¹⁰ Birger Petersson served two terms in the first half of the fourteenth century as a drots, steward of the council of state. Also Birgitta’s brother, Israel Birgersson, held the office of drots in the 1340s.¹¹

Magnus Eriksson attained his majority in 1332 and was crowned four years later as the king of three regions—Sweden, Norway, and Skåne. He had inherited the kingship of Norway, whereas Skåne became part of his reign by a purchase: it originally belonged to Denmark but because of financial difficulties Denmark was forced to mortgage some of its territories, Skåne being one of them. Magnus Eriksson took over the rule of Skåne by paying its ruler, Johan of Holstein, 34,000 marks.

In general, the financial situation of Sweden was precarious. In 1336, Magnus found himself in deep economic troubles and in order to solve them, he mortgaged parts of Sweden, including Kalmar castle and the provinces of Östergötland, Dalarna, Närke, and Värmland. Furthermore, he increased taxes and borrowed from the papacy, the Hanseats, and German magnates.¹²

The king ruled with the help of the council of state. Besides the secular administrators, it consisted of the archbishop as the highest-ranking member, other bishops and clergymen, and usually 12 members of the aristocracy. This meant that the church and the aristocracy were in charge of the political decision making together with the king.

The imbalance of the economic system continued during Magnus’s reign in the 1340s. Therefore, it was crucial for him to cooperate with both the leading ecclesiastics and the old aristocratic families. The bishops of Sweden acted as the king’s highest counselors and were great landowners.¹³ In addition, the king had to take into account that the aristocracy had the right to remove the king from power if they were not satisfied. There was no acute threat of this during Birgitta’s time in Sweden in the 1340s but, nevertheless, the king was aware of the possibility. If he wanted to keep his crown, it was important for him to have allies in many places.

Magnus Eriksson’s first years as king were promising. Under his reign, all the provincial laws were codified into a national law, Magnus Erikssons landslag, around 1347. He also wanted to develop closer contacts with Europe. His marriage to the Flemish princess, Blanche of Namur (1318–1363), was useful in that respect. Moreover, Magnus was interested in keeping contact with both the secular and clerical rulers of Europe. He sent his legates on a few occasions to Pope Clement VI (1342–1352), who, as the former chancellor to the French King Philip and cardinal as well as legate to Pope Benedict XII (1332–1342), also understood the importance of public relations between church and state.¹⁴ Birgitta and her husband Ulf Gudmarsson knew the royal couple well and they had many common interests as will be seen later.

Birgitta’s family belonged to the highest aristocracy of Sweden. Her father, Birger Petersson, was probably born in 1265. He was a knight, a lawman, a politician, and a councillor of state. Birgitta’s mother, Ingeborg Bengtsdotter (b. after 1275), was Birger’s second wife. She was related to the Folkung dynasty and her father, Bengt, was also a lawman, as were many other men in her family.¹⁵ Their first child, Peter, died in infancy. Birgitta was probably born around the New Year in 1303, but the exact date is not known. Therefore, her date of birth is often given by scholars as 1302/1303. Soon afterward another daughter, Katarina, was born. Birger and Ingeborg are said to have had seven children, but only these two girls and their younger brother Israel reached maturity.¹⁶ In her Vita, Birgitta is described having been extraordinarily pious as a child. These stories bear a strong hagiographic flavor, and are thus intended to suggest that Birgitta was more interested in spiritual matters as a child than other children.¹⁷

Birgitta and Katarina were given in marriage when they were 13 and 12 years old, respectively, in 1316, a couple of years after their mother’s death.¹⁸ Birgitta’s husband Ulf Gudmarsson was about five years older than her. Ulf’s father, Gudmar Magnusson, was a knight and councillor of state just as Birgitta’s father was. Both fathers were often mentioned in state affairs in the fourteenth century. Birgitta’s sister, Katarina, was married to Magnus Gudmarsson, Ulf’s older brother. These marriages were probably seen as useful from political and financial perspectives.

Ulf followed his father’s example and became a lawman and knight. He also belonged to the council of state. His work was not only concerned with legislative matters, but also required him to travel with the king and his court around the kingdom.¹⁹ This lifestyle also provided Birgitta with important contacts, both as a noblewoman and a visionary.

Birgitta and Ulf had eight children. The oldest, possibly a son named Gudmar, was born around 1318 and the youngest, Cecilia, probably between the years 1334 and 1337. The other children, Märta, Karl, Ingeborg, Katarina, Birger, and Bengt were born between those years. Gudmar and Bengt died as children, and Ingeborg died quite young as well.²⁰

The beginning of the 1340s marked a new phase in the life of the aristocratic couple. Although Birgitta and Ulf were busy with their daily duties, they also arranged time for pilgrimage. In 1341, they made the long pilgrimage to Spain, to Santiago de Compostela.²¹ During this journey, Ulf became ill but recovered and both returned home. Only few years later, in 1344, he died.²² Birgitta’s life changed considerably when she became widow. She could have entered a monastery, since she had close contacts with many of them. There was, for example, a Dominican convent for nuns in Skänninge in Östergötland where Birgitta and Ulf left their youngest daughter Cecilia when they went on pilgrimage to Spain.²³ Birgitta had further connections to monasteries probably through her aunt Ramborg, who had donated her property to the Cistercian monastery in Riseberga in Närke. Birgitta’s daughters Katarina and Ingeborg were educated there.

When Birgitta felt the divine call, however, she did not enter a community for women. She lived for long periods in the vicinity of a monastery of Cistercian monks in Alvastra. At the same time, she started to experience revelations. They were written in Latin by her collaborators. Birgitta was in her early 40s at this time. Birgitta was far from reclusive—she maintained lively contact with all kinds of people around her. Her network of contacts can be clearly traced from her revelations.

In the present day, Birgitta is perhaps best known for her Birgittine monasteries, which are based on the Rule, whose first version she received around 1340s and which she elaborated during her Roman years. However, she did not have the chance to live according to the Rule; the first monastery was established in Vadstena, Sweden, by her daughter Katarina after Birgitta’s death in 1373.

Building up the Status of a Living Saint

The saint was a familiar figure in the daily experience of early modern society, the expression of potent social creativity, and a product of a cultural setting that recognized in the saint elements that made him or her the embodiment of the current religious ideology.²⁴

This is how Gabriella Zarri describes the social status of saintly people and their characteristics in her study of female sanctity. The saintly individual had to convince those around her of her calling and behave as was socially expected of her. According to Zarri, the living saints appear to us as if through two lenses: (1) as hagiographic stereotypes, by which they were also inspired, and (2) as new models they themselves created. Zarri is speaking of the situation in medieval and early modern Italy, where society was particularly receptive to the contributions of women in the social and ecclesiastical arenas. Both prophecy and mysticism were held to be...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• How to Study Power and Saints
• 1.  Fama Sanctitatis in the 1340s
• 2.  Lost Virginity and the Power of Role Models
• 3.  The Beginning—Birgitta as a Channel of God
• 4.  Master Mathias’s Role Reassessed
• 5.  Birgitta Encounters Her Critics
• 6.  Holiness in Action
• 7.  Birgitta and Power
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index