The Norwegian Church in the Middle Ages

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1

I am taking a class this semester on the subject of middle age curch in norway and
the christianisation of norway. I thought to myself that it might be a good idea to
create a thread about this here at PWI because of all the members that are history buffs
and all the catholics here. The point of this thread are several and they are:

  1. By debate/discuss the issue of the catholic churc in the middle age norway and europa for
    that matter, it will help me understand the subject better( or so I hope ).

  2. Everything related to religion seems to be all the rage lately so I guess it will be welcomed by many of you and hated by others offcourse.

I would say this before the discussions starts that this is not supposed to be a atheist vs theist thread, so everybody who wants to debate that make your own thread. I am seeking if possible to discuss sentral concepts in the catholic doctrine and sentral aspect of the history of the catholic churc.

I cant start by asking if any one in here are familier with the concept of the “two swords ideology”( It might be called something else in english/latin, but hope someone understands what I meen ), As far as I know its an idea from a written work I do believe is called “the God state” or maybe it is " the state of God" in english. further on I gather that the two sword idelogy if you can call it that is in short an ideal of how the relationship beetwen the churc and king/earthly state should be. As so you can see my understanding of this concept is weak, so if anyone knows alot about this and are willing to share I will be most gratefull.

Florelius.

2

the two swords doctrine came from the papal bull “Unam Sanctam” issued by Boniface VIII in 1302

basically this doctrine states that :

-there is only one true “Kingdom” : Christendom / the catholic Church (remember that “catholic” means “universal”).
-the nature of power is dual : there is a spÃ?®ritual power (the “sword” of the Church / the priesthood) and a temporal power (the sword of the State / cesar’s stuff). This is heavily supported by scriptural sources, and Luther will say similar things 2 centuries later.
-the spiritual power is the source of legitimity of the temporal one. which means that there is no “divine right of the king” outside the Church / without the Church.
-the temporal power is hierarchically inferior to the spiritual power, which means that Philippe V le Bel, king of France, need to STFU.

what it is NOT :
-the ancestor of the secular “separation of the Church and the State”
-a legitimation of theocracy

this doctrine allowed the Church to be both the intellectual and metaphysical source of all powers AND a moral counter-power against the “power that be”.

3

[quote]kamui wrote:
the two swords doctrine came from the papal bull “Unam Sanctam” issued by Boniface VIII in 1302

basically this doctrine states that :

-there is only one true “Kingdom” : Christendom / the catholic Church (remember that “catholic” means “universal”).
-the nature of power is dual : there is a spÃ??Ã?®ritual power (the “sword” of the Church / the priesthood) and a temporal power (the sword of the State / cesar’s stuff). This is heavily supported by scriptural sources, and Luther will say similar things 2 centuries later.
-the spiritual power is the source of legitimity of the temporal one. which means that there is no “divine right of the king” outside the Church / without the Church.
-the temporal power is hierarchically inferior to the spiritual power, which means that Philippe V le Bel, king of France, need to STFU.

what it is NOT :
-the ancestor of the secular “separation of the Church and the State”
-a legitimation of theocracy

this doctrine allowed the Church to be both the intellectual and metaphysical source of all powers AND a moral counter-power against the “power that be”.
[/quote]

Thank you kamui for your insight in this.

I can add to this that in a norwegian context the two sword ideal where jused by both the curch and the king/state in the late 1100`s.( I know this goes against your dating of the two sword idea from Unam sanctam from 1302, but in a book about the norwegian king sverre I read last year, and author mentioned the two sword ideology. I will try to find a correct name of the book and the author later. ps. not trying to argue here ) anyways, according to the “sverre book” the churc and the state where having a conflict about who where supposed to be above the other, both the arch bishop and the king writes( if I remember correctly ) a speach or decrea( cant remember exactly, please bear with me lol ) where both with basis in the two sword idea claims theire institution for having the right to be above the other. I dont know if any of you have heard of this conflict beetwen king sverre and arch bishop eystein. My understanding of your descreption of the two sword ideology resembles what in norway are called “the saint olav ideology”, basicly it boils down to that saint olav is the eternal king of norway and because of this according to this ideology, the person who are functioning king are only occupying that position in the absence of saint olav( who have other and more important things to do ( you know playing chess with EL or whatever they are suppose to do up there in paradise ). Well the crux of this, is that since the curch is the institution who for a lack of a better word: repressent the saints, they are therefor in theire own eyes the true authority over the kingdom of norway and in the eyes of the curch/olavits the king is only a vassal who take care of the non-spiritual parts of the society. So I guess you can say that its my own countrys version of the two sword ideology as you described it.

ps. There is a huge possibility that there are plenty of grammatical errors and misspelling, sorry about that…

thanks again, this really helped to spark my memory about the subject. And if a missunderstood something, feel free to point it out.

Florelius.

4

It aint the best wiki article, but the concept of olav as the eternal king of norway is mentioned
in it.

ps. I tried to find the book I spoke of in the post above, but its taking out of this years pensum list
so it might take some time before I can find a reference for it.

this is perhaps more spesific.

5

Flor–I have a paper I wrote as a freshman in college about the life of St. Anskar, missionary to Scandinavian peoples in the (I think) ninth century. It is probably very evidently written by a green, naive 18-year old, but there may be something useful int here for you. Let me know if you would like me to copy it into a post or pm it to you or something.

On an almost completely unrelated note, I have begun an extremely intense graduate program and have not had time to post here in PWI for the past few months, but I really enjoy the debate on here. I learned a lot on the year or so that I was active, and I am going to try my best to check in every once in a while. I even sorta miss some of you heartless conservatives!

6

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Flor–I have a paper I wrote as a freshman in college about the life of St. Anskar, missionary to Scandinavian peoples in the (I think) ninth century. It is probably very evidently written by a green, naive 18-year old, but there may be something useful in there for you. Let me know if you would like me to copy it into a post or pm it to you or something.

On an almost completely unrelated note, I have begun an extremely intense graduate program and have not had time to post here in PWI for the past few months, but I really enjoy the debate on here. I learned a lot in the year or so that I was active, and I am going to try my best to check in every once in a while. I even sorta miss some of you heartless conservatives![/quote]

I can pm you my e-mail, and then you can send it there ( if that is okay with you ). I will be very interrested to read your paper about st. anskar.

ps. havent been so active here myself smh, everybody that are leftist in the eyes of the regular crowd here needs a break from this place once in a while. And the more leftist you are the longer the break, just look at ryan.p he havent posting here since christmas I think LOL… just kidding. Good to see you in here again and good luck with that intense graduat program( what field are you in btw ).

take care smh.

7

[quote]florelius wrote:
I know this goes against your dating of the two sword idea from Unam sanctam from 1302
Florelius.[/quote]

This is because of the nature of such works. The teaching in the bull is not really a “new” teaching, usually when things are written out is when someone questions them.

8

Flor–Studying at the graduate school of journalism at Columbia University. It is interesting in a way, but thus far my time has been occupied by (for the most part) work that is an unhappy combination of intensely rigorous, and trivial. Hopefully it will improve. I will send you the Asnkar paper as soon as I’m back at my apartment–either later tonight or tomorrow. Luck with everything!

9

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Flor–I have a paper I wrote as a freshman in college about the life of St. Anskar, missionary to Scandinavian peoples in the (I think) ninth century. It is probably very evidently written by a green, naive 18-year old, but there may be something useful int here for you. Let me know if you would like me to copy it into a post or pm it to you or something.

On an almost completely unrelated note, I have begun an extremely intense graduate program and have not had time to post here in PWI for the past few months, but I really enjoy the debate on here. I learned a lot on the year or so that I was active, and I am going to try my best to check in every once in a while. I even sorta miss some of you heartless conservatives![/quote]

What are you studying smh?

10

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
the two swords doctrine came from the papal bull “Unam Sanctam” issued by Boniface VIII in 1302

basically this doctrine states that :

-there is only one true “Kingdom” : Christendom / the catholic Church (remember that “catholic” means “universal”).
-the nature of power is dual : there is a spÃ???Ã??Ã?®ritual power (the “sword” of the Church / the priesthood) and a temporal power (the sword of the State / cesar’s stuff). This is heavily supported by scriptural sources, and Luther will say similar things 2 centuries later.
-the spiritual power is the source of legitimity of the temporal one. which means that there is no “divine right of the king” outside the Church / without the Church.
-the temporal power is hierarchically inferior to the spiritual power, which means that Philippe V le Bel, king of France, need to STFU.

what it is NOT :
-the ancestor of the secular “separation of the Church and the State”
-a legitimation of theocracy

this doctrine allowed the Church to be both the intellectual and metaphysical source of all powers AND a moral counter-power against the “power that be”.
[/quote]

Thank you kamui for your insight in this.

I can add to this that in a norwegian context the two sword ideal where jused by both the curch and the king/state in the late 1100`s.( I know this goes against your dating of the two sword idea from Unam sanctam from 1302, but in a book about the norwegian king sverre I read last year, and author mentioned the two sword ideology. I will try to find a correct name of the book and the author later. ps. not trying to argue here ) anyways, according to the “sverre book” the churc and the state where having a conflict about who where supposed to be above the other, both the arch bishop and the king writes( if I remember correctly ) a speach or decrea( cant remember exactly, please bear with me lol ) where both with basis in the two sword idea claims theire institution for having the right to be above the other. I dont know if any of you have heard of this conflict beetwen king sverre and arch bishop eystein. My understanding of your descreption of the two sword ideology resembles what in norway are called “the saint olav ideology”, basicly it boils down to that saint olav is the eternal king of norway and because of this according to this ideology, the person who are functioning king are only occupying that position in the absence of saint olav( who have other and more important things to do ( you know playing chess with EL or whatever they are suppose to do up there in paradise ). Well the crux of this, is that since the curch is the institution who for a lack of a better word: repressent the saints, they are therefor in theire own eyes the true authority over the kingdom of norway and in the eyes of the curch/olavits the king is only a vassal who take care of the non-spiritual parts of the society. So I guess you can say that its my own countrys version of the two sword ideology as you described it.

ps. There is a huge possibility that there are plenty of grammatical errors and misspelling, sorry about that…

thanks again, this really helped to spark my memory about the subject. And if a missunderstood something, feel free to point it out.

Florelius.[/quote]

Good stuff. I’ll be keeping an eye out on this thread, i may learn a thing or two.

11

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Flor–I have a paper I wrote as a freshman in college about the life of St. Anskar, missionary to Scandinavian peoples in the (I think) ninth century. It is probably very evidently written by a green, naive 18-year old, but there may be something useful int here for you. Let me know if you would like me to copy it into a post or pm it to you or something.

On an almost completely unrelated note, I have begun an extremely intense graduate program and have not had time to post here in PWI for the past few months, but I really enjoy the debate on here. I learned a lot on the year or so that I was active, and I am going to try my best to check in every once in a while. I even sorta miss some of you heartless conservatives![/quote]

What are you studying smh?[/quote]

Going for an MA in journalism, specifically conflict coverage. What better time to break into a profession than when it’s dying?! haha

12

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
the two swords doctrine came from the papal bull “Unam Sanctam” issued by Boniface VIII in 1302

basically this doctrine states that :

-there is only one true “Kingdom” : Christendom / the catholic Church (remember that “catholic” means “universal”).
-the nature of power is dual : there is a spÃ???Ã???Ã??Ã?®ritual power (the “sword” of the Church / the priesthood) and a temporal power (the sword of the State / cesar’s stuff). This is heavily supported by scriptural sources, and Luther will say similar things 2 centuries later.
-the spiritual power is the source of legitimity of the temporal one. which means that there is no “divine right of the king” outside the Church / without the Church.
-the temporal power is hierarchically inferior to the spiritual power, which means that Philippe V le Bel, king of France, need to STFU.

what it is NOT :
-the ancestor of the secular “separation of the Church and the State”
-a legitimation of theocracy

this doctrine allowed the Church to be both the intellectual and metaphysical source of all powers AND a moral counter-power against the “power that be”.
[/quote]

Thank you kamui for your insight in this.

I can add to this that in a norwegian context the two sword ideal where jused by both the curch and the king/state in the late 1100`s.( I know this goes against your dating of the two sword idea from Unam sanctam from 1302, but in a book about the norwegian king sverre I read last year, and author mentioned the two sword ideology. I will try to find a correct name of the book and the author later. ps. not trying to argue here ) anyways, according to the “sverre book” the churc and the state where having a conflict about who where supposed to be above the other, both the arch bishop and the king writes( if I remember correctly ) a speach or decrea( cant remember exactly, please bear with me lol ) where both with basis in the two sword idea claims theire institution for having the right to be above the other. I dont know if any of you have heard of this conflict beetwen king sverre and arch bishop eystein. My understanding of your descreption of the two sword ideology resembles what in norway are called “the saint olav ideology”, basicly it boils down to that saint olav is the eternal king of norway and because of this according to this ideology, the person who are functioning king are only occupying that position in the absence of saint olav( who have other and more important things to do ( you know playing chess with EL or whatever they are suppose to do up there in paradise ). Well the crux of this, is that since the curch is the institution who for a lack of a better word: repressent the saints, they are therefor in theire own eyes the true authority over the kingdom of norway and in the eyes of the curch/olavits the king is only a vassal who take care of the non-spiritual parts of the society. So I guess you can say that its my own countrys version of the two sword ideology as you described it.

ps. There is a huge possibility that there are plenty of grammatical errors and misspelling, sorry about that…

thanks again, this really helped to spark my memory about the subject. And if a missunderstood something, feel free to point it out.

Florelius.[/quote]

Good stuff. I’ll be keeping an eye out on this thread, i may learn a thing or two.
[/quote]

I am glad you are finding it interresting :slight_smile: