medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Greetings to all who helped us plan our trip to Norway from Bergen. On Sunday we attended Mass at Bergen's only Catholic church. We were expecting it to be a 'Sunday in Ordinary Time' but the priest was wearing the red vestments that signify the feast of a martyr and told us we were celebrating St Olav's day. Checking online, the actual feast day seems to be 29 July - so today.
Olav was the king of Norway who converted and then tried to convert his people, dying in battle this day 1030. As I'm writing on my iPad I can't provide links to images easily but we have seen a number, mainly wood on our trip.
Special thanks to Laura Miles for telling us to visit the Bergen University Cultural museum. She is quite right the medieval church artefacts are amazing - certainly more than we have in the British Museum and maybe more than the Victoria and Albert. Both here and in the Oslo Historic Museum, we have been stunned by the painted wood from the stave churches and charmed by the perky images of the Christ child in Madonna and Child statues. There are also more reliquaries in one museum than I think we have in Britain.
In Oslo, we visited the Akershus castle (thank you Jane) and the museums on Bigdoy (thank you Meg) as well as the (later) cathedral and royal palace. There are some marvellous early modern tapestries - often of the ten wise and foolish virgins and Herod's feast in the castle and creative Arts museum, where there is a stupendous Romanesque tapestry fragment (?Bondishal) with a knight who could have been brother to one of the Normans on the Bayeux tapestry. The Art gallery has some interesting late medieval Madonnas (often suckling) and child.
In Bergen, we have failed to visit the Hanseatic Museum and Mariakirken because they were overrun by cruise ship visitors, but have seen the Domkirken (thank you Anders) and Korskirken. Haken's Hall and the Rosenkrantz tower were fascinating, especially the hall, which one can compare to Lincoln bishops' palace, although it was not easy to see how the complex fitted together. Is this where the original cathedral was? The lady in the cultural museum had no idea where the seat of the medieval bishop might have been. The museums both here and Oslo are very empty. Frank Morget is quite right - the trip to Grieg's house is well worth while and now includes a short piano concert by a young Norwegian pianist.
Thank you all. We set off by car tomorrow and hope to see some stave churches in situ between Geilo and Oslo.
Rosemary Hayes
Sent from my iPad
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