Swithun in the North: A Winchester Saint in Norway

Abstract

This paper briefly examines the veneration of the ninth-century Winchester bishop St Swithun in Norway throughout the centuries. By taking a chronological and at times historiographical view this paper demonstrates that there is still some uncertainty surrounding the establishment of the cult of St Swithun in Norway. Among the competing origin points of the veneration is both an eleventh-century context where English bishops and missionaries were active in Norway, as well as the more traditional view of Bishop Reinald of Stavanger as the person who introduced the saint from Winchester. Beyond this, the paper has highlighted that St Swithun’s mass ‘Syftesok’ on 2 July was an important date in the agricultural calendar throughout Norway from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The modern re-discovery of Swithun in the nineteenth century caused the saint became both a religious and civic symbol in Stavanger, demonstrating the longevity and change in Swithun’s role in Norway.