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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
This article questions the traditional perception of early Christianisation in Scandinavia and Northern Rus' as processes separated by established confessional and institutional boundaries. Surviving narrative sources mention a number of clerical peregrinators crossing confessional borders in northern Europe in the post-conversion period, and some contemporaneous baptismal rites from Scandinavia and northern Rus' testify to their ability to influence the basic Christian rituals in both regions. These phenomena suggest that differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were in no way preventing contacts across the early Christian north in the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century.
1 For more details and references see Abrams, Lesley, ‘The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia’, Anglo-Saxon England xxiv (1995), 213–49Google Scholar; Sverre Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, ‘The kingdom of Norway’; Michael Gelting, ‘The kingdom of Denmark’; Nils Blomquist, Stefan Brink and Thomas Lindquist, ‘The kingdom of Sweden’; and Jonathan Shepard, ‘Rus’, all in Nora Berend (ed.), Christianization and the rise of Christian monarchy, Cambridge 2007, 121–66, 73–120, 167–213, 369–416.
2 Abrams, Lesley, ‘Eleventh-century missions and the early stages of ecclesiastical organisation in Scandinavia’, Anglo-Norman Studies xvii (1995), 21–40Google Scholar at p. 23. It is true that the metropolitan see and bishoprics were established in Rus' more quickly than in Scandinavia, but as noted by Andrzej Poppe in regard to the post-conversion period, ‘[t]he Christianization and ecclesiastical administration of a broad territory, often separated from the seat of the bishop by hundreds or even a thousand kilometers, was nearly impossible’: ‘The Christianization and ecclesiastical structure of Kievan Rus' to 1300’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies xxi (1997), 311–92 at p. 353.
3 Abrams, ‘Eleventh-century missions’, 26f, 33f.
4 Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum iii.15, ed. Bernhard Schmeidler, MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum ii, 1917, 155f.
5 It has even been suggested that Osmund was consecrated in Rus' and therefore attempted to establish a national Swedish Church with Byzantine associations. For further details and references on Osmund see Abrams, ‘The Anglo-Saxons’, 234–6. But this interpretation lacks sufficient corroborative evidence.
6 Hungrvaka, in Biskopa sögur II, ed. Àsdís Egilsdóttir (Íslenzk fornrit xvi, 2002), 8f.
7 Origines Islandicae, ed. Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. Yorke Powell, Oxford 1905, i. 425–57 at p. 429.
8 On the identity of this Bishop Kolr see Vésteinsson, Orri, The Christianization of Iceland: priests, power, and social change, 1000–1300, Oxford 2003Google Scholar, 23 n. 13.
9 Íslendingabók: Kristni saga, trans. Sian Grønlie, London 2006, ch. viii, p. 10 n. 77f.
10 Uspensky, F. B., ‘Marginaliji k voprosu ob armianakh v Islandiji (xi vek)’, Scando-Slavica xlvi (2000), 61–75Google Scholar at p. 63.
11 For an overview of the debate and references see Dashkevich, Ja. R., ‘Les Arméniens en Islande (xie siècle)’, Revue des études arméniennes xxii (1986–7), 321–6Google Scholar; Hagland, Jan Ragnar, ‘The Christianization of Norway and possible influences from the eastern Churches’, Paleobulgarica xx/3 (1996), 3–18Google Scholar, and ‘Armenske biskopar i Norden på 1000–talet?’, in Henrik Janson (ed.), Från Bysans till Norden, Skellefteå 2005, 153–63; and Marit Myking, Vart Noreg kristna frå England?, Oslo 2001, 126–8.
12 ‘On the so-called “Armenian” bishops’, Studia Islandica xviii (1960), 23–38.
13 Dashkevich, Ja. R., ‘Armiane v Islandiji (xi v.)’, Skandinavskij sbornik xxxiii (1990), 87–97Google Scholar at p. 89; Uspensky, ‘Marginaliji’, 66f; Margaret Cormack, ‘Irish and Armenian ecclesiastics in medieval Iceland’, in Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (eds), West over sea: studies in Scandinavian sea-borne expansion and settlement before 1300, Leiden–Boston 2007, 227–34 at pp. 231f.
14 Gérard Dédéyan, ‘Les Arméniens en occident fin xe–début xie siècle’, in Occident et orient au Xe siècle: actes du IXe congrès de la société des historiens médiévistes de l'enseignement supérieur public (Dijon, 2–4 juin 1978) (Publications de l'Université de Dijon xvii, 1979), 123–39.
15 Françoise Micheau, ‘Les Itinéraires maritimes et continentaux des pèlerinages vers Jérusalem’, ibid. 79–104.
16 Cormack, ‘Irish and Armenian ecclesiastics’, 232f. The German route of the Armenian bishops would also correspond to the Hungrvaka's mention of them arriving in Iceland against the will of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen.
17 Dashkevich, ‘Les Arméniens’, 328. Hagland follows Dashkevich's interpretation and connects the presence of the Armenian bishops in western Scandinavia with Harald Hardruler's contacts with the eastern Church and his conflict with the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen: ‘Armenske biskopar’, 159f.
18 Laws of early Iceland: Grágás, trans. Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote and Richard Perkins, Winnipeg 1980–2000, i. 5, 50 n. 95.
19 Grágás: Islændernes lovbog i fristatens tid, ed. Vilhjálmur Finsen, Copenhagen 1852, i. 21f; English translation in Laws of early Iceland, i. 37f.
20 Uspensky, ‘Marginaliji’, 232f.
21 Laws of early Iceland, i. 37.
22 Kolbaba, Tia M., Inventing Latin heretics: Byzantines and filioque in the ninth century, Kalamazoo 2008, 133–5Google Scholar.
23 Later sources refer to him as bishop. This title is absent in earlier sources and, as noted by V. Ya. Petrukhin, his administrative functions clearly outweighed his so-called ‘ecclesiastical’ duties: ‘Khristianstvo na Rusi vo vtoroj polovine x – pervoj polovine xi v.’, in B. N. Floria (ed.), Khristianstvo v stranakh Vostochnoj, Jugo–vostochnoj i Central'noj Evropy na poroge vtorogo tysiacheletija, Moscow 2002, 60–132 at p. 96. On the role of Anastasios in early Christian Kiev see also Franklin, Simon and Shepard, Jonathan, The emergence of Rus, 750–1200, London–New York 1996Google Scholar, 226f.
24 ‘Lavrentjevskaja letopis’ (Polnoje sobranije russkikh letopisej i, 1926–8), cols 109, 116, 121, 124.
25 B. N. Floria, ‘Khristianstvo v drevnepol'skom i drevnecheshskom gosudarstve vo 2–j polovine x – 1–j polovine xi v.’, in Floria, Khristianstvo v stranakh Vostochnoj, 190–266 at pp. 248f.
26 ‘Quis enim prędecessorum tuorum tantas erexit aecclesias? Quis in laudem dei totidem coadunavit linguas? Cum in propria et in latina deum digne venerari posses, in hoc tibi non satis, grecam superaddere maluisti': Kürbis, Brygida, ‘Die epistola Mathildis Suevae an Mieszko ii. in neuer Sicht: ein Forschungsbericht’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien xxiii (1989), 318–43Google Scholar at p. 337. For a detailed discussion of this letter, its dating and relevant historiography see pp. 318–37.
27 For a detailed account of Bruno's missionary activities see Wood, Ian, The missionary life: saints and the evangelisation of Europe, 400–1050, Harlow 2001, 226–44Google Scholar, and Baronas, Darius, ‘The year 1009: St Bruno of Querfurt between Poland and Rus’, Journal of Medieval History xxxiv (2008), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latter work also provides a critical overview of earlier historiography.
28 Wood, The missionary life, 233.
29 Baronas, ‘The year 1009’, 14–19.
30 Kristni saga, in Biskupa sögur I, sí∂ari hluti – sögutextar, ed. Sigurgeir Steingrímsson and others (Íslenzk fornrit xv/2, 2003), 3–13.
31 Ibid. 36f. Although they differ in chronological details other Old Norse narratives agree on the place of his burial. For more details see Blöndal, Sigfús and Benedikz, Benedikt S., The Varangians of Byzantium, Cambridge 1978, 197–9Google Scholar, and Jackson, Tatjana, Austr í görðum: drevnerusskije toponimy v drevneskandinavskikh istochnikakh, Moscow 2001, 136–40Google Scholar.
32 Lavrentjevskaja letopis, cols 82–3.
33 For details and references see Elena Melnikova, ‘Varangians and the advance of Christianity to Rus in the ninth and tenth centuries’, in Janson, Från Bysans till Norden, 97–138 at pp. 120–4.
34 For the text of the shorter version see Buslajev, Fedor, Russkaja khrestomatija: pamiatniki drevnej russkoj literatury i narodnoj slovesnosti, 10th edn, Moscow 1907, 139–48Google Scholar.
35 See Kljuchevskij, V. O., Drevnerusskie zhitija kak istoricheskij istochnik, Moscow 1871, 306–11Google Scholar, and Colucci, Michele, ‘The image of western Christianity in the culture of Kievan Rus'’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies xii/xiii (1988/9), 576–86Google Scholar at pp. 581f; cf. Gerhard Podskalsky, Khristianstvo i bogoslovskaja literatura v Kievskoj Rusi (988–1237 gg.), trans. A. V. Nazarenko and ed. K. K. Akentjev, St Petersburg 1996, 237f; and Konrad Onasch, ‘Zur Vita Antonijs “des Römers”’, in Orbis scriptus: Dmitrij Tschiževskij zum 70. Geburtstag, Munich 1966, 581–5, who discounts any twelfth-century origin for this Life and explains it entirely in the context of the polemics of the sixteenth century. According to them, both the Roman origin of Anthony and the corresponding nickname are products of the sixteenth century.
36 See, for example, Murjanov, Mikhail, ‘O novgorodskoj kul'ture xii veka’, Sacris erudiri xix (1969–70), 415–36Google Scholar at p. 427; A. G. Kuz'min, ‘Zapadnyje tradiciji v russkom khristianstve’, in Vvedenije khristianstva na Rusi, Moscow 1987, 21–54 at p. 49; and P. A. Simonov and V. V. Mil'kov, ‘Istochniki uchenosti Kirika Novgorodtsa’, in P. A. Simonov and others (eds), Kalendarno-khronologicheskaja kul'tura i problemy eje uzuchenija: K 870–letiju ‘uchenija’ Kirika Novgorodtsa: materialy naychnoj konferentsiji. Moskva, 11–12 dekabria 2006 g., Moscow 2006, 13–25 at pp. 18f.
37 Novgorodskaja pervaja letopis' starshego i mladshego izvodov (Polnoje sobranije russkikh letopisej iii, 1950), 20–2, 27f.
38 Loseva, O. V., Russkie mesjatseslovy XI–XIV vekov, Moscow 2001, 297Google Scholar. For more details and references on this codex see Garzaniti, Marcello, Die altslavische Version der Evangelien: Forschungsgeschichte und zeitgenössische Forschung, Cologne 2001, 397–400Google Scholar. For dating see N. N. Lisovoj, ‘K datirovke Mstislavova Evangelija’, in Mstislavovo Evangelije XII veka: Issledovanija, Moscow 1997, 710–17. Lisovoj prefers the later date of 1117.
39 Lazarev, Viktor, Old Russian murals & mosaics from the XI to the XVI century, London 1966Google Scholar, 97f, 246f; Murjanov, ‘O novgorodskoj kul'ture xii veka’, 425f; Simonov and Mil'kov, ‘Istochniki’, 20.
40 A charter of ownership of the monastery's land indicates that Anthony bought it from two Novgorodians as a private individual. Furthermore, the testament of Anthony emphasises that he received nothing from the local prince or bishop except for a blessing from Bishop Nikita, and that his monastic community should elect its abbot without any interference from the outside: Gramoty velikogo Novgoroda i Pskova, ed. S. N. Valk, Moscow–Leningrad 1949, nos 109–10, pp. 159f.
41 Novgorodskaja pervaja letopis', 22; Murjanov, ‘O novgorodskoj kul'ture xii veka’, 425–8; Simonov and Mil'kov, ‘Istochniki’, 19f.
42 The literature on this subject is too vast to be cited here; for example see Blöndal and Benedikz, The Varangians, passim.
43 Ibid. 224–33; Mel'nikova, E. A., Skandinavskije runicheskije nadpisi: novyje nakhodki i interpretaciji, Moscow 2001Google Scholar; Kristel Zilmer, ‘He drowned in Holmr's sea – his cargo-ship drifted to the sea-bottom, only three came out alive’: records and representations of Baltic traffic in the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages in early Nordic sources, Tartu 2005, 144–63, 223–6.
44 For example, an early thirteenth-century monastic narrative from Kiev mentions that a certain Varangian of noble origin, known as Shimon, came to that town with a great number of followers, including priests, and thereafter he and his household converted from the Latin faith to Orthodox Christianity: The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, trans. Muriel Heppell, Cambridge, Ma 1989, 5.
45 Abrams likewise points to the trade and political communication via the North Sea as an important factor in the spread of early Christianity in north-western Europe: ‘Eleventh–century missions’, 21–4. For a more general overview of that subject see Hudson, Benjamin, Viking pirates and Christian princes, Oxford 2005, 107–204Google Scholar.
46 For details and references see Tatjana Jackson, ‘The cult of St Olaf and early Novgorod’, and Ildar Garipzanov, ‘Novgorod and the veneration of saints in eleventh-century Rus': a comparative view’, in Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov (eds), Saints and their lives on the periphery: veneration of saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c. 1000–1200), Turnhout 2010, 147–67, 115–45, and Garipzanov, Ildar H., ‘The cult of St Nicholas in the early Christian North (c. 1000–1150), Scandinavian Journal of History xxxv/3 (2010), 229–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
47 A good example of such a text is a short eighth-century baptismal formula in Saxon surviving in a Carolingian manuscript: Interrogationes et responsiones baptismales, in Capitularia regum Francorum, ed. Alfred Boretius, MGH, Legum ii, 1883, i. 222.
48 For a general overview of the literary context at the time when this law was written down see Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Den formative dialoge mellem latinsk og folkesproglig literature, ca 600–1250: Udkast til en dynamisk model’, in Else Mundal (ed.), Reykholt som makt- og lærdomssenter i den islandske og nordiske kontekst, Reykjavík 2006, 239–71 at pp. 254–6; cf. Rindal, Magnus, ‘Kristninga av Noreg og dei norske kristenrettane’, Misjon og teologi iii (1996), 76–99Google Scholar at p. 84, who advocates an earlier date.
49 De eldste østlandske kristenrettene, ed. Eyvind Fjeld Halvorsen and Magnus Rindal, Oslo 2008, 122.
50 Torgeir Landro, Kristenrett og kyrkjerett – Borgartingskristenretten i eit komparativt perspektiv, PhD diss., Bergen 2010.
51 See Keefe, Susan A., Water and the word: baptism and the education of the clergy in the Carolingian empire, Notre Dame 2002, i. 80–115Google Scholar.
52 Day, Juliette, The baptismal liturgy of Jerusalem: fourth- and fifth-century evidence from Palestine, Syria and Egypt, Aldershot 2007, 110fGoogle Scholar; E. C. Whitaker, Documents of baptismal liturgy, ed. Maxwell E. Johnson, Collegeville 2003, 32.
53 Whitaker, Documents, 123.
54 De eldste østlandske kristenrettene, 162.
55 Grágás, i. 22.
56 Laws of early Iceland, i. 38.
57 For details on the controversial nature of this source, its authors and dating see Simonov, P. A., Kirik Novgorodets – uchenyj XII veka, Moscow 1980, 21–7Google Scholar.
58 Voprosy Kirika, Savvy i Ilyi, s otvetami Nifonta, episkopa novgorodskogo, i drugikh ierarkhicheskikh lits, in Pamiatniki drevne-russkogo kanonicheskogo prava, ed. A. S. Pavlov and V. N. Beneshevich, St Petersburg 1908, i, cols. 21–62 at col. 33. For comments and German translation see Kirchenrechtliche und kulturgeschichtliche Denkmäler Altrusslands nebst Geschichte russische Kirchenrechts, ed. and trans. Leopold Karl Goetz, Stuttgart 1905, 253f.
59 Voprosy Kirika, col. 55. For comments and German translation see Kirchenrechtliche und kulturgeschichtliche Denkmäler, 318.
60 The Stowe Missal: MS. D. II. 3 in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, ed. George F. Warner, Woodbridge 1989, ii. 32.
61 Whitaker, Documents, 281f.
63 It is important to note in this regard that some norms in the Inquiries of Kirik have been interpreted as influenced by western penitential norms, and by the penitential norms of Boniface in particular. For details see Murjanov, ‘O novgorodskoj kul'ture xii veka’, 422, and Kuz'min, ‘Zapadnyje tradiciji v russkom khristianstve’, 46f. For the original discussion see Suvorov, N. S., Sledy zapadno-katolicheskogo tserkovnogo prava v pamiatnikakh drevnego russkogo prava, Jaroslavl´ 1888Google Scholar; Pavlov, A., Mnimyje sledy katolicheskogo vlijanija v drevnejshikh pamiatnikakh jugo-slavianskogo i ruskogo tserkovnogo prava, Moscow 1892, 114Google Scholar; and Nikol'skij, N. K., ‘K voprosu o zapadnom vlijanii na drevnerusskoje tserkovnoje pravo’, Bibliograficheskaja letopis' iii (1917), 110–24Google Scholar.
64 Simonov and Mil'kov argue that the entire literary production of Kirik was influenced by an Irish intellectual tradition fostered in that monastery: ‘Istochniki’, 14, 24f.
65 For details see Timofey Guimon, ‘Christian identity in the early Novgorodian annalistic writing’, in Ildar Garipzanov (ed.), Historical narratives and Christian identity on a European periphery: early history writing in northern, east-central, and eastern Europe (c. 1070–1200), Turnhout 2011, 255–75 at pp. 271–2.
66 Kolbaba, Tia M., The Byzantine lists: errors of the Latins, Urbana–Chicago 2000, 43f, 192Google Scholar.
67 Kanonicheskije otvety mitropolita Ioanna II, in Pamiatniki drevne–russkogo kanonicheskogo prava, i, cols 1–20; Kolbaba, Byzantine lists, 175f.
68 For details and references see Jackson, ‘The cult of St Olaf’.
69 Pamiatniki drevne-russkogo kanonicheskogo prava, i. cols 359–60.
70 Almazov, Aleksandr, Istorija chinoposledovanij kreshchenija i miropomazanija, Kazan 1884, 310–15Google Scholar; Senyk, Sophia, A history of the Church in Ukraine, Rome 1993, i. 358fGoogle Scholar.
71 De eldste østlandske kristenrettene, 122.
72 For a similar point about early links between western Scandinavia and the eastern Church being obliterated in Old Norse literature see Hagland, ‘The Christianization of Norway’, passim.
73 Kristni saga, 38–40. This active process of forgetting continues to affect modern Icelandic scholars: for example in his Christianization of Iceland, Orri Vésteinsson does not mention Armenian bishops at all.
