The King's Mirror

INTRODUCTION

The place of the thirteenth century in the history of human achievement is a subject upon which scholars have not yet come to a general agreement. There can be no doubt that it was, on the whole, an age of progress in many fields; but there is much in its history that points to stagnation, if not to actual decline. From a superficial study of its annals one might be led to class it with the lesser centuries; most writers are inclined to rank it lower than the fourteenth century, and perhaps not even so high as the twelfth. It was in this period that the crusading movement finally flickered out and the Christian world was compelled to leave the cradle of the holy faith in the hands of the infidel. In the thirteenth century, too, the medieval empire sank into hopeless inefficiency and all but expired. The papacy, which more than any other power was responsible for the ruin of the imperial ambitions, also went into decline. Whether the loss in authority and prestige on the part of the holy see was compensated by a renewed spiritual energy in the church at large may well be doubted: what evidence we have would indicate that the religion of the masses was gross and materialistic, that ethical standards were low, and that the improvement in clerical morals, which the church had hoped would follow the enforcement of celibacy, had failed to appear.

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Yet the thirteenth century also had its attractive figures and its important movements. The old social order was indeed crumbling, but in its place appeared two new forces which were to inherit the power and opportunities of feudalism and reshape social life: these were the new monarchy, enjoying wide sovereign powers, and the new national consciousness, which was able to think in larger units. In England the century saw the development of a new representative institution, which has become the mother of modern legislative assemblies. The Italian cities were growing rich from the profits of Oriental trade; in the Flemish towns the weaver’s industry was building up new forms of municipal life; the great German Hansa was laying hold on the commerce of the northern seas. In the realms of higher intellect, in science, philosophy, and theology, the age was a notable one, with Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas as the leaders, each in his field. The century also meant much for the progress of geographical knowledge, for it was in this period that Marco Polo penetrated the mysterious lands of the Far East.

As the historian looks back into this age, he is, therefore, able to find broad traces of much that is regarded as fundamental to modern life. Of first importance in this regard is the employment of popular idioms in literary productions. French literature saw its beginnings in the eleventh century with the chansons de geste, songs of valorous deeds from the heroic age of the Frankish kingdom. In the next century the poets began to use the themes of the Arthurian legends and sang the exploits of the famous British king and the knights of his Round 

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Table. A little later came another cycle of poems based on the heroic tales of classical antiquity. The twelfth century witnessed a parallel movement in Germany, which at first was largely an imitation of contemporary French poetry. The poets, however, soon discovered literary treasures in the dim world of the Teutonic past, in the tales of the Nibelungs, in the heroic deeds of Theodoric, and in the exploits of other heroes.

Thus in the first half of the thirteenth century there was a large body of French and German verse in circulation. The verses were borne from region to region and from land to land by professional entertainers, who chanted the poems, and by pilgrims and other travelers, who secured manuscript copies. In the course of time the new tales reached the Northern countries, and it was not long before the Northmen were eagerly listening to the stories of chivalrous warfare, militant religion, and tragic love, that they had learned in the southlands.

The Northern peoples thus had a share in the fruitage of the later middle ages; but they also had a share in their achievements. Politically as well as intellectually the thirteenth century was a great age in the Scandinavian countries. The Danish kingdom rose to the highest point of its power under Valdemar the Victorious, whose troubled reign began in 1202. Valdemar succeeded in extending the territories of Denmark along the entire southern coast of the Baltic Sea; but the greatness was short-lived: after the defeat of the Danes by the North Germans at Börnhoved in 1227, the decline of Danish imperialism began. In Sweden, too, men dreamed of conquest beyond the sea. Under the leadership of Earl 

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Birger, the most eminent statesman of medieval Sweden, Swedish power was steadily extended into Finnish territory, and the foundations of Sweden as a great European power was being laid.

During the days of Valdemar and the great Birger Norway also reached its greatest territorial extent. After a century of factional warfare, the nation settled down to comparative peace. All the Norwegian colonies except those in Ireland, were definitely made subject to the Norwegian crown: these were the Isle of Man, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. In every field of national life there was vigor and enterprise. And on the throne sat a strong, wise, and learned monarch, Hakon IV, the ruler with the “great king-thought.”

The real greatness of the thirteenth century in the North lies, however, in the literary achievements of the age. It is not known when the Old Norse poets first began to exercise their craft, but the earliest poems that have come down to us date from the ninth century. For two hundred years the literary production was in the form of alliterative verse; but after 1050 there came a time when scaldic poetry did not seem to thrive. This does not mean that the interest in literature died out; it merely took a new form: the age of poetry was followed by an age of prose. With the Christian faith came the Latin alphabet and writing materials, and there was no longer any need to memorize verse. The new form was the saga, which began to appear in the twelfth century and received many notable additions in the thirteenth. The literary movement on the continent, 

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therefore, had its counterpart in the North; only here the writings took the form of prose, while there literature was chiefly in verse.

These two currents came into contact in the first half of the thirteenth century, when the men and women of the North began to take an interest in the Arthurian romances and other tales that had found their way into Norway. In this new form of Norwegian literature there could not be much originality; still its appearance testifies to a widening of the intellectual horizon. In addition to sagas and romances the period was also productive of written laws, homilies, legends, Biblical narratives, histories, and various other forms of literature. It is to be noted that virtually everything was written in the idiom of the common people. Latin was used to some extent in the North in the later middle ages, but it never came into such general use there as in other parts of Europe. In the thirteenth century it had almost passed out of use as a literary language.

In our interest in tales and romances we must not overlook the fact that the thirteenth century also produced an important literature of the didactic type. For centuries the Christian world had studied the encyclopedic works of Capella, Cassiodorus, and Isidore, or had read the writings of Bede and his many followers who had composed treatises “on the nature of things,” in which they had striven to set in order the known or supposed facts of the physical world. The thirteenth century had an encyclopedist of its own in Vincent of Beauvais, who produced a vast compendium made up of several Specula, which were supposed to contain all 

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the knowledge that the world possessed in science, history, theology, and other fields of learning. The age also produced various other Latin works of the didactic sort, of which the Historia Scholastica of Petrus Comestor was perhaps the most significant for the intellectual history of the North.

Norway had no encyclopedist, but the thirteenth century produced a Norwegian writer who undertook a task which was somewhat of the encyclopedic type. Some time during the reign of Hakon IV, perhaps while Vincent was composing his great Speculum Majus, a learned Norseman wrote the Speculum Regale, or King’s Mirror, a work which a competent critic has characterized as “one of the chief ornaments of Old Norse literature.”[1] Unlike the sagas and the romances, which have in view chiefly the entertainment of the reader, the King’s Mirror is didactic throughout; in a few chapters only does the author depart from his serious purpose, and all but two of these are of distinct value. The purpose of the work is to provide a certain kind of knowledge which will be of use to young men who are looking forward to a career in the higher professions.

As outlined in the introductory chapter, the work was to deal with the four great orders of men in the Norwegian kingdom: the merchants and their interests; the king and his retainers; the church and the clergy; and the peasantry or husbandmen. In the form in which the King’s Mirror has come down to modern times, however, the first two divisions only are included; not the least fragment of any separate discussion of the clerical 

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profession or of the agricultural classes has been found. It is, therefore, generally believed that the work was not completed beyond the point where the extant manuscripts close. Why the book was left unfinished cannot be known; but it is a plausible conjecture that illness or perhaps death prevented the author, who was apparently an aged man, from completing the task that he had set before him. It is also possible that the ideas expressed in the closing chapters of the work, especially in the last chapter, which deals with the subject of clerical subordination to the secular powers, were so repugnant to the ecclesiastical thought of the time that the authorities of the church discouraged or perhaps found means to prevent the continuation of the work into the third division, where the author had planned to deal with the church and the clergy.

In form the Speculum is a dialog between a wise and learned father and his son, in which the larger part of the discussion naturally falls to the former. The son asks questions and suggests problems, which the father promptly answers or solves. In the choice of form there is nothing original: the dialog was frequently used by didactic writers in the middle ages, and it was the natural form to adopt. The title, Speculum Regale, is also of a kind that was common in those days.[2] Specula of many sorts were being produced: Speculum Ecclesiae, Speculum Stultorum, Speculum Naturale, and Speculum Perfectionis are some of the titles used for writings of a 

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didactic type. The German Sachsenspiegel is an instance of the title employed for a work in a vulgar idiom. There was also a Speculum Regum, or Mirror of Kings, and a century later an English ecclesiastic wrote a Speculum Regis, but the writer knows of no other work called the Speculum Regale.

It is an interesting question whether the King’s Mirror was inspired by any earlier work written along similar lines. Originality was a rare virtue in the middle ages, and the good churchmen who wrote books in those days cannot have regarded plagiarism as a mortal sin. The great writers were freely copied by the lesser men, thoughts, titles, statements, and even the wording being often taken outright. It is, therefore, difficult to determine the sources of statements found in the later works, as they may have been drawn from any one of a whole series of writings on the subject under discussion. The writer has not been able to make an exhaustive examination of all the didactic and devotional literature of the centuries preceding the thirteenth, but the search that has been made has not proved fruitful. There is every reason to believe that the author of the King’s Mirror was an independent thinker and writer. He was doubtless acquainted with a large number of books and had drawn information from a great variety of sources; but when the writing was actually done he had apparently a few volumes only at his disposal. In the region where the work seems to have been composed, on the northern edge of European civilization, there was neither cathedral nor monastery nor any other important ecclesiastical foundation where a collection of books might be 

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found.[3] It is likely, therefore, that the author had access to such books only as were in his own possession. But he came to his task with a well-stocked mind, with a vast fund of information gathered by travel and from the experiences of an active life; and thus he drew largely from materials that had become the permanent possession of his memory. This fact, if it be a fact, will also help to explain why so many inaccuracies have crept into his quoted passages; in but very few instances does he give the correct wording of a citation.

There can be no doubt that the author had a copy of the Vulgate before him; at least one Biblical passage is correctly given, and it is quoted in its Latin form.[4] It has also been discovered that he had access to an Old Norse paraphrase of a part of the Old Testament, the books of Samuel and of the Kings.[5] It is likely that he was also acquainted with some of the works of Saint Augustine, and perhaps with the writings of certain other medieval authorities. Among these it seems safe to include the Disciplina Clericalis, a collection of tales and ethical observations by Petrus Alfonsus, a converted Jew who wrote in the first half of the twelfth century. The Disciplina is a somewhat fantastic production wholly unlike the sober pages of the Speculum Regale; nevertheless, the two works appear to show certain 

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points of resemblance which can hardly have been accidental. The Disciplina is a dialog and the part of the son is much the same as in the King’s Mirror. In both works the young man expresses a desire to become acquainted with the customs of the royal court, inasmuch as he may some day decide to apply for admission to the king’s household service.[6] The description of courtly manners and customs in the earlier dialog, though much briefer than the corresponding discussion in the Norwegian treatise, has some resemblance to the latter which suggests a possible relationship between the two works.

The Norwegian author may also have used some of the many commentaries on the books of Holy Writ, in the production of which the medieval cloisters were so prolific. Of the influence of Petrus Comestor’s Historia Scholastica the writer has found no distinct trace in the King’s Mirror; but one can be quite sure that he knew and had used the Elucidarium of Honorius of Autun. The Elucidarium is a manual of medieval theology which was widely read in the later middle ages and was translated into Old Norse, probably before the King’s Mirror was written.[7] But our Norwegian author was not a slavish follower of earlier authorities: in his use and treatment of materials drawn from the Scriptures he shows remarkable independence. Remarkable at least is his ability to make Biblical narratives serve to 

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illustrate his own theories of Norwegian kingship. He was acquainted with some of the legends that circulated through the church and made effective use of them. He must also have known a work on the marvels of Ireland[8] and the letter of Prester John to the Byzantine emperor,[9] in which that mythical priest-king recounts the wonders of India. But the chief source of his work is a long life full of action, conflict, thought, and experience.

The importance of the King’s Mirror lies in the insight that it gives into the state of culture and civilization of the North in the later middle ages. The interest follows seven different lines: physical science, especially such matters as are of importance to navigators; geography, particularly the geography of the Arctic lands and waters; the organization of the king’s household and the privileges and duties of the king’s henchmen; military engines, weapons, and armour used in offensive and defensive warfare; ethical ideas, especially rules of conduct for courtiers and merchants; the royal office, the duties of the king and the divine origin of kingship; and the place of the church in the Norwegian state.

In one of his earlier chapters the author enumerates the chief subjects of a scientific character that ought to be studied by every one who wishes to become a successful merchant. These are the great luminaries of the sky, the motions and the paths of the heavenly bodies, the divisions of time and the changes that bring the seasons, the cardinal points of the compass, and the 

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tides and currents of the ocean.[10] In discussing these matters he is naturally led to a statement as to the shape of the earth. All through the middle ages there were thinkers who accepted the teachings of the classical astronomers who had taught that the earth is round like a sphere; but this belief was by no means general. Bede for one appears to have been convinced that the earth is of a spherical shape, though he explains that, because of mountains which rise high above the surface, it cannot be perfectly round.[11] Alexander Neckam, an English scientist who wrote two generations before the King’s Mirror was composed, states in his Praise of Divine Wisdom that “the ancients have ventured to believe that the earth is round, though mountains rise high above its surface.”[12] Neckam’s own ideas on this point are quite confused and he remains discreetly non-committal.

But if the earth is a globe, there is every reason to believe in the existence of antipodes; and if there are antipodes, all cannot behold Christ coming in the clouds on the final day. To the medieval theologians, at least to the larger number of them, this argument disposed effectually of the Ptolemaic theory. Job does indeed say that God “hangeth the earth upon nothing,”[13] and this passage might point to a spherical form; but then the Psalmist affirms that He “stretched out the earth above the waters,”[14] and this statement would indicate 

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that the inhabited part of the earth is an island floating upon the waters of the great Ocean, by which it is also surrounded. This belief was generally maintained in the earlier centuries of the classical world, and it had wide acceptance in the middle ages. There were also those who held that beyond and around the outer Ocean is a great girdle of fire. It is likely, however, that many believed with Isidore of Seville that it is useless to speculate on subjects of this sort. “Whether it [the earth] is supported by the density of the air, or whether it is spread out upon the waters ... or how the yielding air can support such a vast mass as the earth, whether such an immense weight can be upheld by the waters without being submerged, or how the earth maintains its balance ... these matters it is not permitted any mortal to know and they are not for us to discuss.”[15]

There can be no doubt that the author of the King’s Mirror believed in the Ptolemaic theory of a spherical earth. In speaking of our planet he uses the term jarðarbollr,[16] earth-sphere. In an effort to explain why some countries are hotter than others, he suggests an experiment with an apple. It is not clear how this can shed much light on the problem, but the author boldly states the point to be illustrated: “From this you may infer that the earth-circle is round like a ball.”[17]

Toward the close of the medieval period there were certain thinkers who attempted to reconcile the spherical theory with the belief that the inhabited part of the earth is an island. These appear to have believed that 

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the earth is a globe partly submerged in a larger sphere composed of water.[18] The visible parts of the earth would rise above the surrounding ocean like a huge island, and the Biblical passages which had caused so much difficulty could thus be interpreted in accord with apparent facts. It is quite clear that the author of the King’s Mirror held no such theory. In a poetic description of how the eight winds form their covenants of friendship at the approach of spring, he tells us that “at midnight the north wind goes forth to meet the coursing sun and leads him through rocky deserts toward the sparse-built shores.”[19] The author, therefore, seems to believe that the earth is a sphere, that there are lands on the opposite side of the earth, and that these lands are inhabited. He also understands that the regions that lie beneath the midnight course of the sun in spring and summer must be thinly populated, as the sun’s path on the opposite side of the earth during the season of lengthening days is constantly approaching nearer the pole.