How Christian Were the Norwegians in the High Middle Ages?

The Runic Evidence

TERJE SPURKLAND

Assumed Christendom?
n the second decade of the twentieth century, there were two doctoral disputations at the University of Oslo with an aftermath that came to dominate the academic debate about the mentality of medieval Norway for a long time.1 The common topic of these dissertations was the religious life of Norway in the Middle Ages.2 The main question was: Were the Norwegians, generally speaking, really Christian in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? Two answers were given: one affirmative and one negative. Edvard Bull argued that Christian religion and morality did not penetrate the soul and mind of the Norwegians; they were just like the Russian nobility at the time of Peter the Great, in that as soon as you scratched them on the arm, the Tartar appeared.3 Frederik Paasche took the opposite view; the Norse Christianity reflected an actual change of religion, a real longing for Christ and His succession.4 In the 1980s, there was a historiographical discussion between the scholars John van Engen and Jean-Claude Schmitt about how to understand the predominant mentalities of the Christian Middle Ages.5 The general drift of this dis-

1 E. BULL, Folk og kirke i middelalderen: Studier til Norges historie (Kristiania and Kbenhavn, 1912); F. PAASCHE, Kristendom og kvad: En studie i norrn middelalder (Kristiania, 1914). 2 In this context and in the following the term the (High) Middle Ages refers to the period 1150-1350. 3 BULL, Folk og kirke i middelalderen, p. 12. 4 PAASCHE, Kristendom og kvad, p. 2. 5 J. VAN ENGEN, The Christian Middle Ages as an historiographical problem, The

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cussion was how to understand and how to uncover or reveal the mentality of the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Schmitt contested vigorously what was commonly called the legend of the Christian Middle Ages, suggesting that what we are dealing with is a minuscule clerical elite while the mass of medieval people lived in a folklore culture best likened to that observed by anthropologists in Third World countries. Van Engen rejected a conception of the Middle Ages as two distinct cultures: one clerical and bookish, the other popular, oral and customary. He admitted that it was undeniable that the great majority of the common people were cut off from direct access to the written norms of a Christian culture. The real question was the degree to which peoples rituals, art, literature and cosmology had nonetheless been shaped or influenced by these Christian norms that is to say, the degree to which Christian culture had over time become the peoples oral culture. It is evident that both the Bull / Paasche discussion and the van Engen / Schmitt controversy were focusing on more or less the same issue, albeit from different theoretical points of view: To what extent was common man in the Middle Ages Christian, and how was this Christianity or lack of Christianity manifested? In search of an answer to these questions, we have to draw a line between Christianisation and conversion. Some of the main characteristics contrasting these two concepts that normally appear in the literature are based on the assumption that conversion is connected to the level of the individual while Christianisation is linked to society. In an article from 2000, William Kilbride presents these characteristics in the following way.6
Christianisation is concerned with forms Christianisation is a process of the long dure Christianisation is a social phenomenon Conversion is concerned with faith

Conversion is a single, unique event

Conversion is a personal phenomenon

American Historical Review 91.3 (1986), pp. 519-552; J.-C. SCHMITT, Religion, folklore and society in the medieval West, in: Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. L.K. LITTLE and B. ROSENWEIN (Malden, MA, 1986), pp. 376-387. 6 W.G. KILBRIDE , Why I feel cheated by the term Christianisation, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 17.2 (2000), pp. 1-17, at pp. 2-3.

How Christian Were the Norwegians in the High Middle Ages? The targets of Christianisation are the structures of social reproduction such as the family, the state, local communities, social practice Christianisation is located in structures of power and dependence The target of conversion is the individual removed or independent of his / her social context

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Conversion is independent of, or at least insulated from, structures of power and dependence

Christianisation is constructed anthro- Conversion (if anything) is psychopologically logically constructed, certainly not informed by anthropology

The Bull / Paasche controversy went along these lines. The distinction between Christianisation and conversion remained, however, only implicit in the discussion; it was never explicitly drawn. Bull seems to acknowledge that Norway was Christianised in the actual period; his doubts concerned the degree of conversion among the common people. Stated in its extreme form, Bulls standpoint would be something like: Christianisation, yes; conversion, no. Paasches view, on the other hand, was yes to both. The Schmitt / van Engen discussion was a historiographical debate about how to uncover or reveal the mentality of the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Van Engen is a professor of medieval history at the University of Notre Dame, an independent Catholic university located in Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, while Schmitt, a former student of Jacques le Goff, is currently Director of Studies at the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. It should be evident that the disagreement between the two originated to a large extent in the different theoretical and methodological schools that each of them represents. Van Engen is the traditionalist historian opposing a prominent member of the Annales School. In this respect, we could say that Schmitt is the intellectual descendant of Bull while van Engen has taken the position of Paasche. The arguments on both sides of the battlefield are much the same, although the theoretical wrapping is different.

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Kyrie Eleison on the Wharf

It should be clear that the two opposing parties to a very great extent based their opinions on diverging types of evidence. Van Engen found support for his view in the clerical and bookish written culture, just as Paasche loaded his gun with devotional poetry like Geisli, Slarlj and Lilja.7 This Icelandic religious poetry is cited in support of the situation in Norway. Schmitt, on the other hand, just like Bull some seventy years before him, found evidence in popular, oral and customary culture. Van Engen did not reject the importance of popular culture, but in his view this culture was somehow amalgamated into Christian practice, while Schmitt regarded popular culture as a manifestation of how Christian rituals to a large extent were secularised or at least stripped of their sanctity. In Norway we have a written source material that was only to a limited extent accessible to Bull and Paasche, and seemingly completely unknown to Schmitt and van Engen. This is the great number of runic inscriptions from the last part of the twelfth century to well into the fifteenth century. The majority of these inscriptions are found in Bergen, on the wharf (Bryggen). In type they vary from religious and secular texts in Latin to Old Norse poetry, commercial correspondence, writing exercises and indecipherable hocus-pocus, to everyday messages and intimate communications, including pure obscenities. The inscriptions are mainly carved on wooden sticks, some on utensils, a few on animal bones, metal or stone. The Bryggen material amounts to approximately 600 inscriptions. At the time of Bull and Paasche, only a handful of them were known. A substantial number of these inscriptions might be characterised as Christian. By Christian I mean that they in one way or another refer to or relate to a Christian issue, such as prayers, invocations and other references to the Christian faith. What may these inscriptions add to arguments for or against a common medieval Christian mentality in the discussion referred to above?

7 Geisli: a poem about St Olaf, composed in Trondheim in 1152 / 1153. The poet focuses on Olafs sanctity, comparing him with Christ. Geisli means beam, ray. Slarlj: The Poem of the Sun. It belongs to the ancient genre of wisdom literature and exhibits a mixture of preChristian and Christian religion. The poet is supposed to have been a cleric. The poem is known to us from copies of a lost late medieval original. Lilja: a poem composed in the fourteenth century in honour of the Virgin Mary; hence the title Lilja (Lily) as a traditional appellation of the Virgin.

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Fig. 1. Runic stick from Bryggen in Bergen, N 627.

And how should this material be regarded in view of the historiographical dispute between Schmitt and van Engen, and to what extent may the runic material serve as ammunition for and against the arguments put forward by the two? As a start we can look at one runic stick from Bryggen (the wharf) in Bergen, N 627:8
kirilaiCuN:kriCTlaiCN kirialisun : kristalison Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison.9

In this inscription from about 1250-1300 we meet a popular version of Kyrie Eleison, which is the first acclamation of the litany in the Latin mass, sung directly after the opening of the mass. The basic text, which is Greek, consists of Kyrie Eleison (three times), Christe Eleison (three times), Kyrie Eleison (three times) (Lord, have mercy ... Christ, have mercy ... Lord, have mercy). The phrase Kyrie Eleison was used in the Eastern and Western litanies from at least the fourth and fifth centuries onwards. By the tenth century, the nine-fold shape was established. The congregation took part in the singing of this text, so these words should have been widely known among the public.

N + number indicates an inscription with a signum that has been published in M. OLSEN et al., Norges innskrifter med de yngre runer (NIyR), 6 vols. (Oslo, 1941-). 9 The version in bold is a transliteration of the runes; each bold letter represents the corresponding runic character. The italic version is a normalisation of the runic text.

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The runic text is quite clear. It follows traditional runic orthography and there are no spaces between words; there is, however, interpunction between the two sentences. The last vowel in Kyrie and the first vowel in Eleison is carved only once, and the same holds true for Christe Eleison. This vowel is, however, not rendered with an e-rune but an a-rune; in the ear of the carver this vowel may have sounded like /a/. Why he / she has spelled -son differently in the two instances of Eleison is more difficult to say. He might have been in doubt as to how to render this vowel; he vacillated between <o> and <u> and wrote both, to be sure. There is every reason to believe that the spelling reflects the way this prayer sounded in the ears of the carver, and that is the reason he spelled Kyrie with <i> and not <y>. If this inscription was carved by a common citizen of thirteenth-century Bergen, someone who had no learning in Latin, never mind Greek, he was a very good orthophonist. How illiterate could he have been, actually? The artefact must also be taken into consideration. It measures 126 millimetres in length; the shape is not quite rectangular and it tapers towards one end, which is formed like a neck. The reason for this could be that this end was meant to serve as a grip for a rope or a string. If that was the case, this rune stick may have served as an amulet. How could this artefact have served the argumentation of van Engen and Schmitt? In my opinion it favours both. We might regard this inscription as a popular expression of van Engens Christianitas or Christendom, a Christendom which included every person in medieval Europe except the Jews. Certain religious observances were expected of all and certain elements of religious culture were common to all, such as rudimentary knowledge of the Apostles Creed and the Lords Prayer. And here we could include other parts of the liturgy that they heard and took part in every Sunday.
The whole inner dynamic was for the laity to acquire parts of the priestly sacred culture, whether it be abbreviated in books of hours for noble women, set prayers for confraternities and tertiaries, chantry priests for guilds and patricians who could afford them, windows and burial sites in churches, or even stolen hosts and oils to use as charms.10

The runic version of Kyrie Eleison from Bryggen in Bergen fits well into this picture. Schmitt might, on the other hand, interpret this inscription as a
10

VAN ENGEN, The Christian Middle Ages as an historiographical problem, p. 547.

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manifestation of his complex medieval culture, with the learned, literary, written, Latin and clerical culture opposed to the folkloric, an opposition both in terms of their content and in the logic of how they functioned.11 If the Kyrie Eleison artefact served as an amulet, this is a materialisation of his folkloric culture, which has absorbed popularised aspects of the literary culture. Schmitt might also say that the inscription is an expression of religion as participation in rituals. The difference in the pragmatic meaning of this inscription might lie in the difference between religion as expression of belief and expression of ritual. Kyrie Eleison does not appear frequently in the runic material. There appears to be only one other example, and that is a folded lead plate from the l stave church in Hallingdal (A 1), where Kyrie Eleison is part of a longer text in corrupted Latin.12 There is, however, one other inscription that is of particular interest in this respect. It was found in the area of Bryggen in Bergen as early as in 1912, N 289. It is a wooden stick of a special shape, 17.5 centimetres in length and slightly tapering; the maximal breadth is 2.2 centimetres and the maximal thickness 1.2 centimetres. The text runs in three lines on the two broad sides and on one narrow side:
A: [T]rTe:uml:frm: k uCTrk:mik:Til rg r:LuT[] [t]rote(nn : um(alla : fram :( okustyrk : mik : til(allrag(ora : lut[a] B: [Tr]Te:ieC:uckriCT u r:cerbae:ergu k :m r 5hr5 k miT:? [tr]ote(nn :ies :uskris(tur :saerbe :ergu(ok :ma(ar 5hyr 5 (aka(llmit :? C: -ik: k biimer:miCkuN r :ui r :ik km r iu:m! ![r] ik : (okbiiamer : miskun(ar : ui(ar : ik(okm(ariu : m(1o!o[r]

SCHMITT, Religion, folklore and society in the medieval West, p. 381. A + number indicates preliminary registration in the Runic Archives in Oslo for runic inscriptions found outside Bergen and not yet published in NIyR.
12

11

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Drttinn um alla fram! Ok styrk mik till allra gra hlut[a]. [Dr]otinn Jss Kristr, s er bi er gu ok mar, heyr kall mitt ik ok bija mr miskunnar vir ik ok Maru, mur.13 Lord above all! And you strengthen me for every good lot. Lord Jesus Christ, who is both God and man, hear my invocation you, and pray for mercy for me from you and Mary, (your) mother.

This inscription had been recently found when Bull was working on his dissertation; he mentions it in passing in a concluding paragraph of his dissertation. When Christ in this inscription is called upon both as human and God, says Bull, the orthodox phrasing is nothing but an empty formula, the content of which is the magic effect one strives for by means of the Norse sacred characters, the runes.14 Apart from the fact that Bull apparently regarded the runes as pre-Christian magic signs, it is also clear that he considered the invocation of Christ in this inscription as a manifestation of non-Christian magic.15 He might have been supported by Schmitt in this contention. If we take a closer look both at the artefact and the inscription, it might rather be taken as evidence of a mentality that would corroborate Paasches and van Engens view in this matter. Parts of the text have been interpreted as an old Norwegian vernacular rendering of the invocations from the Kyrie Eleison part of the litany:

Transliterations like (al with a bow over two characters indicate a bind-rune, a ligature of two runes: l al > (al. A dot under the character indicates an uncertain reading. The reading of the inscription is updated on the basis of information from James E. Knirk, in a letter from 09.03.2011. 14 The quote in the original: Nr i en nyfunden runeindskrift ifra Tyskerbryggen i Bergen pkaldes: Jesus, som bde er Gud og mand, da er den ortodokse formulering bare tom form, og indholdet er den magiske virkning, man har villet opn ved de norrne hellige tegn, runerne; see BULL, Folk og kirke i middelalderen, p. 255. 15 In the days of Bull in the early twentieth century, it was a common view among scholars that the primary function of runes was as magical signs, or signs which were mainly used in connection with non-Christian cult and magic. This idea is no longer as common among runologists. Runes are letters whose main function is to denote sounds (phonemes) in the language. Just as any alphabet, runes may also be used to express magic, like abracadabra. This, however, does not imply that the single character has any connection with magic or cult.
13

How Christian Were the Norwegians in the High Middle Ages? Kyrie Eleison Christe Eleison Christe audi nos Drttinn um alla fram! Drttinn Jss Kristr heyr kall mitt.16

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The invocation of Maria might be a vernacular resonance of Ave Maria:

Sancta Maria, mater Dei Maru mur

In contrast with the Latin text referred to above, the wording in this inscription cannot be a reflection of something that the carver has picked up from church services and learned by heart. In my opinion this is far from an empty formula, as the meaning and the addressee of these words are highly intentional. It is a prayer in the vernacular, spelled out in the vernacular script, the runes. We are dealing with a vernacularisation of the Christian cult. On the outer edge of the rune stick there are twenty-three notches cut. The stick might have functioned as a tally stick for prayers, just like a rosary. How representative this text is as a vernacular version of a prayer is impossible to say. There are not many vernacular inscriptions of this kind in the Norwegian runic material; when people addressed themselves to Christ and the Virgin Mary in a liturgical way, they did it in some sort of Latin.17 We have not found any parallels to this text. The carving is executed with dexterity. The carver is fairly consistent when it comes to spacing between words, marked with two or three dots, but he writes words together when it comes to enclitic pronouns and the unstressed ok (and), as in: (okustyrk ok styrk (and you strengthen). He also excels in using bind-runes, or ligatures. The most conspicuous trait in the inscription is the doubling of consonants, trote(nn, (alla. During the whole history of runic script there seems to have been a convention that you never write a rune twice in succession. Today this principle would mean writing Good day as goday, male elephant as malelephant, and Kyrie Eleison as kirialeisun, as mentioned above. Double consonants were seldomly spelled out. In most cases this happens in medieval inscriptions. One is therefore inclined to say that a tendency to mark double consonants in a runic inscription is an orthographic
NIyR 4 (1957), p. 51. It was particularly prayers that were parts of the liturgy that were rendered in Latin in runic script. More personal prayers like God, help the soul of X were written in the vernacular. Already in the late Viking Age or early Middle Ages (late eleventh and twelfth century), rune stones were erected with the prayer Gu hjalpi sl hans / hennar.
17 16

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feature taken over from Latin-lettered literacy. The carver has a certain knowledge of reading and writing with Latin letters, and he is transferring some of the Latin writing spelling conventions to his use of the vernacular script. His predilection for bind-runes may also be evidence of a literate influence, as bind-runes parallel ligatures in Latin writing. What we have here then are indications that this rune carver was literate in the meaning of being able to read and write the Roman script. In this matter, he might be at the same level as the carver of the Kyrie Eleison text. As the contextualisation of the Latin text is less secure, we may be sure that the one who was invoking the Christian deities in his own language knew what he was doing. This is no empty formula; this is a heartfelt prayer that not only manifests a Christian mentality but also real devotion. The inscription is not only a manifestation of Christianisation, but also of conversion. This adds evidence in support of Paasche and van Engen.

Pater Noster and Ave Maria

Far more popular than the Kyrie Eleison were the Pater Noster and Ave Maria prayers, particularly Ave Maria. The number of Norwegian inscriptions containing (in most cases parts of) Pater Noster and Ave Maria varies from scholar to scholar, depending on who is counting and the extent to which corrupted texts where the reading is not obvious are taken into consideration. The number varies between twenty-two and thirty for Ave Maria and twelve and fifteen for Pater Noster.18 Agnieszka Ewa Sidselrud counts sixty-seven inscriptions with Ave Maria and eighteen with Pater Noster. She casts her net rather wide; she has included inscriptions that might possibly be interpreted as containing part of Ave Maria or Pater Noster (see footnote 18). However, only a very small number contains the whole prayer, with two instances of each. For us, the inscriptions that seem to have been made in a secular context are of particular interest. It goes without saying that inscriptions made in a clerical context must be characterised as Christian in every sense of the word. If we follow Sidselruds counting, there are thirty-one Ave Maria inscriptions and eight Pater Noster inscriptions related to a secular context. This material
A.E. SIDSELRUD, Religion og magi i nordisk middelalder: Ave Maria og Pater Noster med runer bnn eller magisk formula? (unpublished Masters thesis in Nordic Viking and Medieval Culture, Oslo, 2000), p. 39.
18

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Fig. 2. Tnsberg A 63, c. 1300-1375.

varies greatly when it comes to how much of the prayer is rendered; we have everything from just Ave or Maria, or Pater or pn, to more extended parts of the prayers. As long as the text may be read as an invocation of Mary or a reference to the Lords Prayer, it is included in the material. We have a very good example from Tnsberg (A 63):
uerigrsileNiNucTekubeNeisTTuiNulieribuc aue maria gracia Plena dominus tekum benedicta tu in mulieribus

Here we find on the street in Tnsberg the first half of the prayer, the angel Gabriels greetings to Mary according to Luke 1:28: Ave Maria, gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women). It is impossible to say who carved this inscription. When we encounter these types of inscriptions in churches, their presence can easily be ascribed to a cleric. And that could just as well be the case in Tnsberg. In any case, the carver must have been schooled enough to know a little Latin; the Latin is faultless, and that would have been difficult if the carver had no contact with Latin other than hearing the

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priest in the church. Even if everyone was expected to learn the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster, saying the prayers and writing them down were two very different matters with very different degrees of difficulty. However, it must be noted that this carver has no space between the words; the whole text is in scripta continua, and this can not be due to any Latin script exemplar after which the carver may have transrunerated his text. From the tenth century onwards, scripta continua is not common in Latin texts. It might be the case that the rune carver, even if he was literate in Latin, was aware of the different spelling conventions in the Roman script and runic script when it came to spacing and not spacing between words, and wanted to be loyal to the scripta continua tendency of runic script. Another relevant issue is the artefact. It has the shape of a pointed peg. It might have served as an amulet to be carried on a string around the neck, with the string fastened to the upper part of the peg. It might also have had a more trivial function as a sort of utensil, as a bung for a barrel. But why on earth should someone sanctify such a utensil with the angels greetings to Mary? There is one example from Bryggen with the whole prayer, also with the second half that consists of Elisabeths greetings to Mary, according to Luke 1:42: benedicta tu inter mulieres et benedictus fructus ventris tui (Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb). This is N 617 from c. 1400:
!u!mrigrsilNTmiNucTkm a!ue!mariagraciaplenatominustekom bNTikTT u iNmuliribucabNTikT uc benetikta(tuinmulieribusbenetik(tus frukTucuNTricTuimN fruktusuentristuiamen

In this case the spelling is more adapted to how the Latin is supposed to have been pronounced: et is spelled , reflecting the pronunciation of the Latin /e/ in this position and a fricative pronunciation of the Latin /t/ in unstressed syllables. Latin tecum with o may also be a reflection of how the Old Norse ending -um was pronounced in the dialect of the carver.

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Fig. 3. Bryggen in Bergen, N 617.

The artefact seems to be different from the pointed peg from Tnsberg. The primary function is to serve as a writing material for runes; it is a rune stick especially shaped for that purpose (in Old Norse, rnakefli). There are no physical attributes that would indicate that it was worn as an amulet. The runes are thoroughly carved with double lines inserted with ornamental dots. The whole text is in scripta continua, which in this case is not unexpected. We have an example of a Pater Noster that seems to be in the same category as the complete Ave Maria from Bryggen. The inscription is N 615, from the twelfth century:
pTer:NcTer:kuiCiNCel:cNTf!iceTur:NmeNTum:f!eN!ir!eN[.] pater: noster: kuisinselo : santaf!isetur : nomentum: af!en!iar!eno[.]

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Fig. 4. Bryggen in Bergen, N 615, twelfth century.

The text is the beginning of the prayer: Pater Noster, qui es in celis. Sanctificetur nomen tuum; adveniat regnum (Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. (Your) kingdom come). The rendering of the prayer reflects to a great extent the Latin pronunciation of the time. The artefact is more or less the same as the rnakefli with the Ave Maria. There are lots of runic artefacts whose primary functions were not to serve as writing material, such as kitchen utensils like wooden drinking vessels or stave tankards. On one such item from the early fifteenth century (N 622) we find Ave Maria carved in double lines on the inside part of the bottom. The text runs: i um ri (auem(aria Ave Maria. There is a single rune stave preceding the (aue. It would normally be read as an i-rune, but that gives no linguistic meaning. It might have been added after the Ave Maria was carved to make the carving more symmetrical. There are four runic artefacts from Bryggen that served as tankard bottoms, with Ave Maria spelled out in runes on what was once the inside part of the bottom.19 In this context the function of the inscription was to serve as a preserving agent, to protect the contents. In that case the inscriptions served the same purpose as magic signs like the pentagram, which has been in use on tools and utensils up to our time.20 It is not uncommon that such signs were put on places where they could not be seen, such as the underside or the inside part of the bottom. If the sign is placed on the inside part of the bottom, it must have been placed there by the carpenter who made the vessel, the lagger. In the four cases from Bryggen with the tankard bottoms inscribed on the inside with runes, the lagger must have been proficient in rune carving. It might have been part of his trade to furnish the equipment he made with runic inscriptions. In ship burials from Oseberg
N 622, N 623, N 624, N 626. L. WEISER-AALL, Magiske tegn p norske trekar?, By og Bygd: Norsk Folkemuseums rbok 1947, pp. 117-144, at pp. 138-139.
20 19

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Fig. 5. Bryggen in Bergen, N 622.

and Gokstad in Norway, dated to the ninth century, there were buckets with drawings consisting of concentric circles on both sides of the bottom.21 It might be the case then that to furnish tankards, vessel buckets and the like with symbolic signs both on the inside and the outside parts of the bottom was a custom that goes far back in history. The Ave Maria inscriptions on the bottom of the tankards from Bryggen might therefore be a reflection of that old custom.

21

WEISER-AALL, Magiske tegn p norske trekar?, p. 127.

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Cult or Magic?
How then should artefacts with texts such as the ones discussed above be interpreted as folklore, magic or expressions of Christian devotion? To answer this question, we have to make a distinction between magic and cult. The concepts of cult in the meaning of practising a religion and magic often overlap in discussions of runes and magic. Scholars of religion, however, often point out that magic and religion represent two distinctly different attitudes. A key characteristic of magic that is often adduced is its coercive and self-actualising quality. Man seeks to influence his environment through actions and incantations, which are thought to have a particular effect. In religion man is dependent on the divine, whereas in the context of magic man puts himself in control. The practitioner of magic either acts independently of support from a deity (self-actualisation) or exerts influence on the deity (coercion) to cause the deity to comply with his wishes. Nearly every primitive religion is regarded by its adherents as a medium for obtaining supernatural power; it offers the prospect of a supernatural means of control over mans earthly environment. Conversions to a new religion have frequently been assisted by the view of converts that they are acquiring not just a means of other-worldly salvation, but a new and powerful magic.22 In this respect the medieval Catholic Church shared the same primitive characteristics. The claim to supernatural power was an essential element in the Churchs fight against heathenism, and missionaries did not fail to emphasise the superiority of Christian prayers to heathen charms. One of the most efficacious means of the Church to demonstrate its monopoly of truth was the working of miracles. We also have to take into consideration the comprehensive range of formulas designed to draw down Gods practical blessing upon mans secular activities that the Church developed as the Middle Ages progressed. Even the Churchs sacraments had elements in them that pointed towards a power that was more than merely spiritual and symbolic. The formula for consecrating the holy bread given to the laity on Sundays called upon God to bless the bread so that all who consume it shall receive health of body as well as of soul. It was regarded as medicine for the sick and preservation against the plague.23 The medieval Church thus acted as a repository of supernatural power, which could
K. THOMAS, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenthand Seventeenth-Century England (Harmondsworth, 1978), p. 27. 23 THOMAS, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 32.
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be dispensed to the faithful to help them in their daily problems. In this perspective a distinction between magic and religious cult turns out to be a very fine one, if possible to make at all. The Mass in particular was associated with magical power; the laity could benefit from being present at the celebration even though they could not understand the proceedings. Next to the sacraments the prayers were a means of access to divine assistance. God was called upon to provide both guidance along the path to salvation and help with more material difficulties. In this way the Church itself contributed to the weakening of a hypothetical distinction between a prayer and a charm. Charms and prayers overlapped when it came to the coercing effect on God to grant the suppliant requests.
The medieval Church thus appeared as a vast reservoir of magical power, capable of being deployed for a variety of secular purposes. Almost any object associated with ecclesiastical ritual could assume a special aura in the eyes of the people. Any prayer or piece of the Scripture might have a mystical power waiting to be tapped.24

In this perspective, it is very difficult to draw a distinction between religion as ritual and religion as belief and to relate medieval runic inscriptions with religious texts to such a distinction. One could tentatively say that a runic inscription with a religious text like Ave Maria or Pater Noster is magical in function, if there is a coercive intention behind the utterance. If there is no such intention, the utterance should be read as a supplication, as an expression of belief and devotion. Pragmatic differences like these are hard to draw from the text alone or from the artefact. One could maybe say that the more literate the runic text, such as is found on the pointed peg from Tnsberg, then the greater the reason for associating the artefact with an ecclesiastical background. And conversely, the further away from a literate context the text may be, then the more reasonable it would be to interpret it as magical in some way. This could be the case with the Ave Maria on the inside part of the bottom of the stave tankard, the function of which might be to protect the contents of the tankard. Another answer to our main question is that the dispute between Bull and Paasche and van Engen and Schmitt is a quarrel about nothing it is hair splitting. The rituals of the medieval Catholic Church were in their nature of a kind that makes it impossible to discern between cult and magic. The Catholic reli24

THOMAS, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 51.

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gious cult is permeated by magical notions to such an extent that it is impossible to discriminate between religion as ritual and religion as belief or devotion.