_King’s Mirror_ again shows unmistakably the influence of events in the
preceding century of Norwegian history. So long as the church of Norway
was under the supervision of foreign archbishops, first the metropolitan
of distant Hamburg and later the archbishop of the Danish (now Swedish)
see of Lund, there was little likelihood of any serious clash between
the rival powers of church and state. But when, in 1152, an
archiepiscopal see was established at Nidaros (Trondhjem) trouble broke
out at once. The wave of enthusiasm for a powerful and independent
church, which had developed such vigor in the days of Gregory VII, was
still rising high. Able men were appointed to the new metropolitan
office and the Norwegian church very soon put forth the usual demands of
the time: separate ecclesiastical courts and immunity from anything that
looked like taxation or forced contribution to the state. At first these
claims had no reality in fact, as the kings would not allow them; but in
1163[85] an opportunity came for the church to make its demands
effective. In that year a victorious faction asked for the coronation of
a new king whose claims to the throne came through his mother only. The
pretender was a mere child and the actual power was in the hands of his
capable and ambitious father, Erling Skakke. The imperious archbishop
Eystein agreed to consecrate the boy king if he would consent to become
the vassal of Saint Olaf, or, in other words, of the archbishop of
Nidaros. Erling acquiesced and young Magnus was duly crowned. It was
further stipulated that in future cases of disputed succession the final
decision should rest with the bishops.[86] The state was formally made
subject to the church. It must be noted, however, that it was not the
head of Catholic Christendom who made these claims, but the chief
prelate of the national Norwegian church. The theory was doubtless this,
that if the pope is superior to the emperor, the archbishop is superior
to the king.
Footnote 85:
The date usually given is 1164; but Ebbe Hertzberg argues quite
conclusively for the earlier year. “Den förste norske Kongekroning”;
_Historisk Tidsskrift_, Fjerde Række, III, 30-37.
Footnote 86:
According to the new rules of succession the oldest legitimate son, if
qualified for the office, should inherit the throne. The oldest might
be passed over, however, in favor of a younger legitimate son, or even
in favor of an illegitimate descendant, if the bishops should find
such a procedure expedient. See Gjerset, _History of the Norwegian
People_, I, 364.
The new arrangement did not long remain unchallenged. In 1177 the
opposition to the ecclesiastical faction found a leader in Sverre,
called Sigurdsson, an adventurer from the Faroe Islands, who pretended
to be a grandson of Harold Gilchrist, though the probabilities are that
his father was one Unas, a native of the Faroes.[87] Sverre’s followers
were known as Birchshanks, because they had been reduced to such straits
that they had to bind birch bark around their legs. The faction in
control of the government was called the Croziermen and was composed of
the higher clergy with an important following among the aristocracy.
Sverre’s fight was, therefore, not against King Magnus alone but against
the Guelph party of Norway. For half a century there was intermittent
civil warfare between the supporters of an independent and vigorous
kingship on the one side and the partisans of clerical control on the
other. King Sverre’s great service to Norway was that he broke the chain
of ecclesiastical domination. The conflict was long and bitter and the
great king died while it was still on; but when it ended the cause of
the Croziermen was lost. The church attained to great power in the
Norwegian state, but it never gained complete domination.
Footnote 87:
While it seems probable that Sverre was not of royal blood he was not
necessarily an impostor; he may have believed his mother’s assertions.
For a discussion of the problem see _ibid._, 376-377.
Sverre was a man of great intellectual strength; he was a born leader of
men, a capable warrior, and a resourceful captain. When it began to look
as if victory would crown his efforts, the archbishop fled to England
and from his refuge in Saint Edmundsbury excommunicated the king. But
exile is irksome to an ambitious man, and after a time the fiery prelate
returned to Norway and was reconciled to the strenuous ruler. Eystein’s
successor, however, took up the fight once more; and when Sverre made
Norway too uncomfortable for him, he fled to Denmark and excommunicated
his royal opponent. A few years later, Innocent III, who had just
ascended the papal throne, also excommunicated Sverre, and threatened
the kingdom with an interdict.[88] But the papal weapons had little
effect in the far North; the king forced priests and prelates to remain
loyal and to continue in their duties. No doubt they obeyed the
excommunicated ruler with great reluctance and much misgiving; but no
other course was possible, for the nation was with the king.
Footnote 88:
It is usually stated that Innocent III actually did lay an interdict
on the land, but this appears to be an error. He authorized the
bishops to do so, but they seem not to have made use of the
authorization. See Bull, “Interdiktet mot Sverre”: _Historisk
Tidsskrift_, Femte Række, III, 321-324.
The militant Faroese was a man with strong literary interests; he was
educated for the priesthood and it is believed that he had actually
taken orders. He was eloquent in speech, but he realized the power of
the written as well as of the spoken word. It is a fact worth noting
that among the Northmen of the thirteenth century learning was not
confined to the clergy. While the author of the _King’s Mirror_ urges
the prospective merchant to learn Latin and French, he also warns him
not to neglect his mother tongue. King Sverre replied to the
ecclesiastical decrees with a manifesto in the Norwegian language in
which he stated his position and his claims for the royal office. This
pamphlet, which is commonly known as “An Address against the Bishops,”
was issued about 1199 and was sent to all the shire courts to be read to
the freemen. It was a cleverly written document and seems to have been
very effective. In spite of the fact that the king was under the ban,
the masses remained loyal.
Between the political theory of the _Address_ and the ideas of kingship
expressed in the _King’s Mirror_ there is an agreement which can hardly
be accidental. It is more likely that we have in this case literary
kinship of the first degree. It has been thought that King Sverre may
have prepared his manifesto himself, but this is scarcely probable. Some
one of his court, however, must have composed it, perhaps some clerk in
the royal scriptorium, for the ideas developed in the document are
clearly those of the king. It has also been suggested that the _Address_
and the _Speculum Regale_ may have been written by the same hand;[89]
but the only evidence in support of such a conclusion is this agreement
of political ideas, which may have originated in a careful study of the
earlier document by the author of the later work.
Footnote 89:
This appears to be Heffermehl’s opinion. See _Historiske Skrifter
tilegnede Ludvig Daae_, 87.
King Sverre’s _Address_ begins with a violent attack on the higher
clergy: the bishops have brought sorrow upon the land and confusion into
holy church. This deplorable condition is ascribed chiefly to a reckless
use of the power of excommunication. In this connection the king is
careful to absolve the pope from all guilt: his unfortunate deeds were
due to ignorance and to false representations on the part of the
bishops. It is next argued that excommunication is valid only when the
sentence of anathema is just; an unjust sentence is not only invalid but
it recoils upon the head of him who is the author of the anathema. In
support of this contention the author of the manifesto quotes the
opinions of such eminent fathers as Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Pope
Gregory the Great, and other authorities on canon law. It will be
remembered that the king himself was under the ban at the time. The
author argues further that his view is supported by reason as well as by
the law of the church. Bishops have been appointed shepherds of the
flocks of God; they are to watch over them, not drive them away into the
jaws of the wolves. But if a bishop excommunicates one who is without
guilt, he consigns him to hell; and if his decree is effective, he
destroys one of God’s sheep.
From this subject the _Address_ passes to the nature of the royal
office. “So great a number of examples show clearly that the salvation
of a man’s soul is at stake if he does not observe complete loyalty,
kingly worship, and a right obedience; for kingly rule is created by
God’s command and not by the ordinance of man, and no man can obtain
royal authority except by divine dispensation.” The king is not a
secular ruler only, he also has holy church in his power and keeping. It
is his right and duty to appoint church officials, and the churchmen owe
him absolute loyalty the same as his other subjects. Christ pointed out
the duty of church officials quite clearly when he paid tribute to his
earthly ruler, one who was, moreover, a heathen.[90]
Footnote 90:
The _Address_ is published as an appendix to the Christiania edition
of the _King’s Mirror_. It has also been issued in separate form under
the title _En Tale mod Biskopperne_; this edition is by Gustav Storm.
It will be seen that the _Address_ puts forth four claims of
far-reaching importance: kingship is of divine origin and the king rules
by the grace of God; the power of royalty extends to the church as well
as to the state and includes the power to appoint the rulers of the
church; disloyalty to the king is a mortal sin; an unjust sentence of
excommunication is invalid and injures him only who publishes the
anathema. On all these points the _King’s Mirror_ is in complete
agreement with Sverre’s manifesto.
In the course of the dialog in the _Speculum Regale_ the son requests
his father to take up and discuss the office and business of the king;
for, says he, “he is so highly honored and exalted upon earth that all
must bend and bow before him as before God.”[91] The father accounts for
the power and dignity of kingship in this way: men bow before the king
as before God, because he represents the exalted authority of God; he
bears God’s own name and occupies the highest judgment seat upon earth;
consequently, when one honors a king, it is as if he honors God himself,
because of the title that he has from God.[92]
Footnote 91:
C. xliii.
Footnote 92:
C. xliii.
The author evidently realizes that statements of this sort will not be
accepted without further argument, and he naturally proceeds to give his
doctrine a basis in Biblical history. The reverence due kingship is
fully illustrated with episodes in the career of David. So long as God
permitted King Saul to live, David would do nothing to deprive him of
his office; for Saul was also the Lord’s anointed. He took swift revenge
upon the man who came to his camp pretending that he had slain Saul; for
he had sinned against God in bearing arms against His anointed. He also
calls attention to Saint Peter’s injunction: “Fear God and honor your
king;” and adds that it is “almost as if he had literally said that he
who does not show perfect honor to the king does not fear God.”[93]
Footnote 93:
C. xliv.
To emphasize his contention that kingship is of divine origin, the
author cites the example of Christ. The miracle of the fish in whose
mouth the tribute money was found is referred to in the _Address_ as
well as in the _King’s Mirror_. Peter was to examine the first fish, not
the second or the third. In the same way, and here the argument is
characteristically medieval, “every man should in all things first honor
the king and the royal dignity; for God Himself calls the king His
anointed.”[94]
Footnote 94:
_Ibid._
But, objects the son, how could Christ who is himself the lord of heaven
and earth be willing to submit to an earthly authority? To this the
father replies that Christ came to earth as a guest and did not wish to
deprive the divine institution of kingship of any honor or dignity.[95]
The author evidently deems it important to establish this contention;
for if Christ submitted to Caesar as to a rightful authority, the church
in opposing secular rulers could scarcely claim to be following in the
footsteps of the Master.
Footnote 95:
C. xliv.
It seems to be a safe conclusion that the doctrine of the divine
character of kingship as developed in the _King’s Mirror_ is derived
from King Sverre’s _Address_, unless it should be that the two have
drawn from a common source. There is nothing novel about Sverre’s ideas
except the form in which they are stated; fundamentally they are a
return to the original Norwegian theory of kingship. The Norwegian kings
of heathen times were descendants of divine ancestors. They recognized
the will of the popular assemblies as a real limitation on their own
powers, but no religious authority could claim superiority to the ruler.
The king was indeed himself a priest, a mediator between the gods and
men. The Christian kings for a century and a half had controlled the
church in a very real manner; they had appointed bishops and had also on
occasion removed them. The claim of the archbishop to overlordship was
therefore distinctly an innovation. The king makes use of arguments from
the Bible to support his theory, not because it was based on Scriptural
truths, but because to a Christian people these would prove the most
convincing.
In his statement of the fulness and majesty of the royal power, the
author of the _Speculum Regale_ goes, however, far beyond the author of
the _Address_. So complete is the king’s power, “that he may dispose as
he likes of the lives of all who live in his kingdom.”[96] He “owns the
entire kingdom as well as all the people in it, so that all the men who
are in his kingdom owe him service whenever his needs demand it.”[97]
These sentences would indicate that the author’s position lies close to
the verge of absolutism. But Norwegian kingship was anything but
absolute; the king had certain well-defined rights, but the people also
had some part in the government. Professor Ludvig Daae has put forth the
hypothesis that the author of the _King’s Mirror_ was acquainted with
the governmental system of Frederick II in his Italian kingdom, which he
governed as an absolute monarch.[98] There may be some truth in this for
there is no doubt that the character of Frederick’s government was known
to the Northmen; but it is also possible that the theory of absolute
monarchy had a separate Norse origin, that the insistence on divine
right in the long fight with the church had driven the partisans of
monarchy far forward along the highway that led to practical absolutism.
Less than a generation after the _King’s Mirror_ was composed, the newer
ideas of kingship appear in the legislation of Magnus Lawmender. Kings
have received their authority from God, for “God Himself deigns to call
Himself by their name;” and the preamble continues: “he is, indeed, in
great danger before God, who does not with perfect love and reverence
uphold them in the authority to which God has appointed them.”[99] This
is the doctrine of the _Address_ as well as of the _Speculum_; the
significant fact is that the principle has now been introduced into the
constitution of the monarchy. It is possible that the author of the
_King’s Mirror_ states an alien principle; but it is more probable that
he merely gives form to a belief that had been growing among Northmen
for some time.
Footnote 96:
C. xliii.
Footnote 97:
C. xxviii.
Footnote 98:
“Studier angaaende Kongespeilet”: _Aarböger for nordisk Oldkyndighed_,
1896, 189.
Footnote 99:
_Norges gamle Love_, II. 23; Gjerset, _History of the Norwegian
People_, I, 463.
On the question of the validity of excommunication the teachings of the
_Speculum Regale_ are in perfect accord with those of the _Address_. The
uncompromising position and methods of Innocent III had given point to
an exceedingly practical question: was a Christian permitted to obey a
king who was under the ban of the church? Generally the church held that
obedience under the circumstances would be sinful. The author of the
_Speculum_ distinguishes closely, however, between just and unjust
sentences of excommunication. God has established two houses upon earth,
the house of the altar and the house of the judgment seat.[100] There
is, therefore, a legitimate sphere of action for the bishop as well as
for the king. But an act is not necessarily righteous because it
emanates from high authority either in the church or in the state. If
the king pronounces an unjust judgment, his act is murder; if a bishop
excommunicates a Christian without proper reasons, the ban is of no
effect, except that it reacts upon the offending prelate himself.[101]
Footnote 100:
C. lxix.
Footnote 101:
C. lxx.
After the author has thus denied the right of the church to use the
sword of excommunication in certain cases, there remains the question:
has the king any superior authority over the church? The answer is that
the king has such authority; and the author fortifies his position by
recalling the story how Solomon punished Abiathar the high priest, or
bishop as he is called in the _King’s Mirror_. In reply to the young
man’s inquiry whether Solomon did right when he deprived Abiathar of the
high-priestly office, the father affirms that the king acted properly
and according to law. The king is given a two-edged sword for the reason
that he must guard, not only his own house of judgment, but also the
house of the altar, which is ordinarily in the bishop’s keeping.
Abiathar had sinned in becoming a party to the treasonable intrigues of
Adonijah, who was plotting to seize the throne of Israel while his
father David was still living. Inasmuch as the high priest had attempted
to deprive the Lord’s anointed of his royal rights, Solomon would have
been guiltless even if he had taken Abiathar’s life. The author also
calls attention to the fact that Abiathar was elevated to the
high-priestly office by David himself.[102]
Footnote 102:
C. lxx.
On the question of the king’s right to control episcopal appointments
the _King’s Mirror_ is also in agreement with the earlier _Address_. On
the death of Archbishop John, the _Address_ tells us, “Inge appointed
Eystein, his own chaplain, to the archiepiscopal office[103] ... without
consulting any cleric in Trondhjem, either the canons or any one else;
and he drove Bishop Paul from the episcopal throne in Bergen and chose
Nicholas Petersson to be his successor.” Doubtless the philosopher of
the _King’s Mirror_, when he wrote of the fall of Abiathar, was also
thinking of the many Abiathars of Norwegian history in the twelfth
century, especially, perhaps, of the bishops of Sverre’s reign, who had
striven so valiantly to rid the nation of its energetic king. There can
be no doubt, however, that he regarded the hierarchy as inferior to the
secular government. A bishop, who unrighteously excommunicates a
Norwegian king and attempts in this way to render him impossible as a
ruler, forfeits not only his office but his life.
Footnote 103:
Archbishop Eystein was consecrated in 1161.
There was another problem in the middle ages which also involved the
question of ecclesiastical authority as opposed to secular jurisdiction,
the right of sanctuary. There can be no doubt that in the unsettled
state of medieval society it was well that there were places where an
accused might find security for a time at least; but the right of
sanctuary was much abused, too frequently it served to shield the
guilty. The _King’s Mirror_ teaches unequivocally that the right of
sanctuary cannot be invoked against the orders of the king. As usual the
author finds support for his position in the Scriptures. Joab fled to
God’s tabernacle and laid hold on the horns of the altar; nevertheless,
King Solomon ordered him to be slain, and the command was carried
out.[104] Solomon appears to have reasoned in this wise: “It is my duty
to carry out the provisions of the sacred law, no matter where the man
happens to be whose case is to be determined.” It was not his duty to
remove Joab by force, for all just decisions are God’s decisions and not
the king’s; and “God’s holy altar will not be defiled or desecrated by
Joab’s blood, for it will be shed in righteous punishment.”[105] And the
author is careful to emphasize the fact that God’s tabernacle was the
only house in all the world that was dedicated to Him, and must
consequently have had an even greater claim to sacredness than the
churches of the author’s own day, of which there was a vast number.[106]
Footnote 104:
C. lxvi.
Footnote 105:
C. lxix.
Footnote 106:
C. lxvii.
There was a Norwegian Joab in the first half of the thirteenth century,
who, like the chieftain of old, plotted against his rightful monarch and
was finally slain within the sacred precincts of an Augustinian convent.
Skule, King Hakon’s father-in-law, was a man of restless ambition, who
could not find complete satisfaction in the titles of earl and duke, but
stretched forth his hand to seize the crown itself. In 1239 he assumed
the royal title, but a few months later (1240) his forces were surprised
in Nidaros by the king’s army, and the rebellion came to a sudden end.
Skule’s men fled to the churches; his son Peter found refuge in one of
the buildings belonging to the monastery of Elgesæter, but was
discovered and slain. After a few days Duke Skule himself sought
security in the same monastery; but the angry Birchshanks, in spite of
the solemn warnings and threatenings of the offended monks, slew the
pretender and burned the monastery.[107] This was an act of violence
which must have caused much trouble for the king’s partisans, and it is
most likely the act which the author of the _King’s Mirror_ had in his
thoughts when he wrote of the fate of Joab.
Footnote 107:
_Hákonar Saga_, cc. 239-241; Munch, _Det norske Folks Historie_, III,
977-978.
Writers on political philosophy usually begin their specific discussion
of the theory of divine right of kingship when they come to the great
political theorists of the fourteenth century.[108] The most famous of
these is Marsiglio of Padua, who wrote his _Defensor Pacis_ in 1324. In
this work he asserted that the emperor derived his title and sovereignty
from God and that his authority was superior to that of the pope. Some
years earlier William Occam, an English scholar and philosopher, made
similar claims for the rights of the king of France. Earlier still,
perhaps in 1310, Dante had claimed divine right for princes generally in
his famous work _De Monarchia_. Somewhat similar, though less precise,
ideas had been expressed by John of Paris in 1305. But nearly two
generations earlier the doctrine had been stated in all its baldness and
with all its implications by the author of the _King’s Mirror_; and more
than a century before Dante wrote his work on “Monarchy” Sverre had
published his _Address_ to the Norwegian people. So far as the writer
has been able to determine there is no treatise on general medieval
politics, at least no such treatise written in English, which contains
even an allusion to these two significant works.
Footnote 108:
On this subject, see Figgis, _Divine Right of Kings_, c. iii.