My latest article: Carl XIV Johan's coronation 200 years ago

200 years ago today, Carl XIV Johan was crowned King of Norway in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, which was, for many reasons, a remarkable event. For one thing, Carl Johan, the former revolutionary general Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, did not have a drop of blue blood in his vein. Carl Johan did nothing to deny this and rather based his legitimacy on his military deeds, which had paved his way to the thrones of Norway and Sweden.
In the new issue of Aftenposten Historie (no 8 - 2018), Norway's largest history magazine, I write about how this came to be expressed at his coronation and in the crown jewels Carl Johan commissioned for his coronation, including the sword he had carried in the battle where he helped defeat his great rival Napoléon.

My latest articles: Mountbatten in Sweden & Trondheim as coronation city

This year's last issue of the Swedish royal magazine Kungliga magasinet (no 7 - 2016) went on sale a couple of weeks ago, and to this issue I have contributed an article on how Earl Mountbatten of Burma, the éminence grise of the British royal family, tried to play the role of the power behind the throne in Sweden, where his sister Louise was Queen, including attempts at making Gustaf VI Adolf abdicate and marrying off the young King Carl Gustaf, for whose future Mountbatten often feared. (A shorter version of the article appeared in English in Majesty Vol. 36, No. 12 a year ago).
Also out is Trondhjemske Samlinger 2016, the yearbook of Trondhjems Historiske Forening (the Historical Association of Trondheim), where I mark the 25th anniversary of the King and Queen's solemn blessing with an article on Trondheim as coronation city in the middle ages and in modern times, based on a lecture I gave in Trondheim in connection with the jubilee in June, which was again based on my latest book Norges krone - Kroninger, signinger og maktkamper fra sagatid til nåtid. The yearbook may be purchased from one of the larger bookstores in Trondheim (for instance Ark Bruns or Norli at Nordre gate) or ordered from the historical association.

My latest articles: Silver jubilee and ex-Queen Anne-Marie

The August issue of Majesty (Vol. 37, No. 8) went on sale in Britain last week, and this month I have contributed a report on the King and Queen's silver jubilee, focusing on the celebrations in Trondheim last month, and an article on ex-Queen Anne-Marie of the Hellenes, who will turn seventy on 30 August.

Silver jubilee celebrated in Trondheim

Today is the 25th anniversary of the King and Queen's solemn blessing in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim on 23 June 1991. The King and Queen are currently on a silver jubilee tour along the coast, and having visited Tromsø and Bodø during the weekend, they arrived in Trondheim on board the Royal Yacht "Norge" yesterday. Today the celebrations began with a public event in Ravnkloa, the city's old fish market, at 10 a.m. At noon the royal family attended a jubilee service in Nidaros Cathedral and in the afternoon the King and Queen hosted a garden party for 600 guests in the garden behind Stiftsgården, the city's royal residence. I have been attending today's events as press and will do a report which will appear in the August issue of Majesty, which will be out in a month.
At today's service the King and Queen were joined by the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, Prince Sverre Magnus, the Crown Princess's son Marius Borg Høiby, Princess Märtha Louise and Ari Behn and their daughters Maud, Leah and Emma, Princess Astrid, Princess Ragnhild's widower Erling S. Lorentzen and his new partner Ebba Løvenskiold, as well as Princess Ragnhild's three children, Haakon Lorentzen, Ingeborg Lorentzen Ribeiro and Ragnhild Lorentzen Long, the latter two accompanied by their husbands. Rather surprisingly, none of Princess Astrid's children were present.
Yesterday the King, the Crown Prince and Princess Ingrid Alexandra posed for a photo in front of the crown jewels made for Carl XIV Johan's coronation in 1818, which are now exhibited in the Archbishop's Palace. The photo is by Torgrim Melhuus, TiTT Melhuus as/Nidaros Cathedral Restoration Workshop/the Royal Court.

My latest articles: "St Haakon" and coronations

Today is the 110th anniversary of the coronation of King Haakon VII - the last in Norwegian history - and I mark the occasion with an article in the newspaper Adresseavisen today, in which I look at the significance of King Haakon and Nidaros Cathedral to each other, how King Haakon achieved an almost superhuman position following the Second World War and is treated almost as a saint in the cathedral. The article (external link) is available online, but might be behind the newspaper's paywall.
Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of King Harald V's and Queen Sonja's solemn blessing, the ritual that replaced coronations. The King and Queen are currently on their silver jubilee tour and earlier today they arrived in Trondheim, where they will attend a service of thanksgiving in Nidaros Cathedral tomorrow. On that occasion, tomorrow's edition of Aftenposten, Norway's largest newspaper, carries an article I have written on the history of coronations in Norway and how King Olav invented the ritual of solemn blessing, thus ensuring that Norway is now the only European kingdom besides Britain that marks a monarch's accession with a religious ritual. The article (external link) is already now available on Aftenposten's website.

A radio documentary and three lectures

On Thursday next week, 25 years will have passed since the solemn blessing of the King and Queen in Nidaros Cathedral and to celebrate the silver jubilee they embark on a twelve-day tour of the kingdom by the Royal Yacht "Norge" tomorrow. My "contributions" to the jubilee will, except for my latest book, be a radio documentary and three lectures in Trondheim next week.
In the radio documentary, which will be broadcast by the NRK radio channel P2 as part of the programme "Museum", I tell the story of the struggle over the crown of Norway between the kings Christian I and Karl Knutsson in 1448-1450, how that power struggle made Nidaros Cathedral the coronation church for the first time and how one created a myth, which many still believe in, that this was where Norwegian kings had always been crowned. The programme will be broadcast at 6.03 p.m. on Saturday and 8.03 a.m. on Sunday, but is already now available as a podcast (external link).
On Monday at 6 p.m. I will be the guest of Trondhjems Historiske Forening (Trondheim Historical Society) in the Suhm House at Kalvskinnet to give a lecture on Trondheim as the city of coronations - more information may be found here (external link). On Tuesday at 2 p.m. I will present new knowledge of the crown jewels in a lecture at Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum (the museum of decorative arts and design) in Munkegata, about which you can read here (external link), and on Wedneday at 1 p.m. I will be at the Archbishop's Palace to give a lecture on the history of coronations and how and why they were replaced by solemn blessings - more information about that here (external link). If I have any readers in or near Trondheim I would be happy to see you at the lectures.

Last royal jubilee exhibition opened

I have just returned from Trondheim, where I on Monday attended the opening of the last of the six jubilee exhibitions based on the Royal Collections which are the government’s present to the King and Queen for their 75th birthdays. The exhibition was opened by the Minister of Culture, Hadia Tajik, in the presence of the King and Queen.
The exhibition in Trondheim shows royal vehicles from the years 1905-1945. The pièce de résistance is the coronation coach made for the coronation of King Haakon VII and Queen Maud in Trondheim in 1906 (the King refused to continue the tradition of walking to the Cathedral). In addition to several other carriages the exhibition includes King Haakon’s first car, a Belgian Minerva from 1913; a Baby Cadillac presented to Crown Prince Olav by his grandmother, Queen Alexandra of Britain, in 1912; a Lincoln used during the escape from the invading Germans in 1940; and a Buick in which King Haakon and Crown Princess Märtha made their triumphant entry into Oslo on 7 June 1945, following the liberation, and which was also used by King Olav for his consecration in 1958 and by King Harald and Queen Sonja for their consecration in 1991.
The exhibition, titled “Fra berliner til Buick - Kongelige kjøretøyer 1905-1945” may be seen at Dora Kulturbunker until 29 September.
Following the exhibition opening and the subsequent dinner at Ringve Manor the King and Queen embarked on their annual county tour, which this year will take them to several municipalites in Sør-Trøndelag. It was a beautiful sight to watch, from the balcony of the Rockheim museum, how the Royal Yacht Norge late on Monday night slowly sailed away on the Trondheim fjord with the light blue sky and the pink clouds as backdrop.

My latest article: The myths about the union

As part of the jubilee exhibitions based on the Royal Collections which are the government’s present to the King and Queen for their 75th birthdays last year, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum in Tromsø is currently showing the art collection which was presented by the Norwegian people to their King and Queen, Oscar II and Sophie, on the occasion of their silver wedding in 1882, and today I write in the newspaper Nordlys about how this exhibition disproves some of the common myths about the union between Norway and Sweden.
Many seem to believe that Norway only became independent in 1905 and that the Norwegian monarchy was invented that year, while the so-called “Swedish kings” hardly set foot in Norway. In fact the union was a very loose personal union between two independent countries, and the high quality of the artworks shown in the exhibition reminds us that the age of the union was a golden age for Norwegian art. That the majority of the artworks show Norwegian landscapes and coastal motifs reflects the fact that King Oscar II travelled more widely in Norway than any monarch since Christian IV. (Unfortunately a typo means that the article says that Oscar II was the first king to set foot in Norway since Christian IV in 1599, but that should obviously be in *Northern* Norway).
The exhibition, which was opened by the Minister of Culture, Hadia Tajik, in the presence of the Queen on 4 February, lasts until 1 September. On the coming Monday the King and Queen will attend the opening of the last of the six jubilee exhibitions, which will be shown in Trondheim until 29 September.
From today there is also another royal-related exhibition in Trondheim, where the stained glass windows presented by King Oscar II to Nidaros Cathedral to commemorate his and Queen Sophie’s coronation in 1873 (which were later removed during the restoration of the Cathedral) will be shown in the Archbishop’s Palace.

My latest article: The invention of the tradition of Nidaros Cathedral as coronation church

Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim has often been referred to as the ancient coronation church of Norway, but the truth is that the first coronations in the history of this country took place in Bergen and later in Oslo. Indeed it was only in 1449 that a coronation first took place in Nidaros Cathedral, and that was caused by the extraordinary circumstances following the death of King Christoffer. The majority of the Council voted in favour of King Christian I of Denmark, while the minority, led by Archbishop Aslak Bolt, voted for King Karl Knutsson of Sweden, whom the Archbishop made sure to crown in his cathedral. The following year, when Karl Knutsson had been defeated, Christian was himself crowned in the same church.
In this year’s last issue of Historie (no 4 – 2012), which went on sale on 20 December, I explore how one in 1449-1450 tried to create the impression that Nidaros Cathedral was the place where kings of Norway should by tradition be crowned. This invention of tradition proved a great success and in the subsequent decades and centuries one may find many references to this being the tradition, for instance when Frederik I decided that his Norwegian coronation should take place in Konghelle, which caused the Council to object that the tradition was that it should happen in Trondheim.
When Norway regained its independence in 1814 the “founding fathers” set it down in writing in the Constitution that the King should be crowned in Nidaros Cathedral, a requirement which was only abolished in 1908.
The story of how Nidaros Cathedral became the coronation church of Norway, and in particular what happened in 1449-1450 and 1814, is a prime example of what historians call “the invention of tradition”. This term was coined by an eponymous book of 1983, in which the recently deceased Eric Hobsbawm defines “invented tradition” as “a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past. […] The historic past into which the new tradition is inserted need not be lengthy, stretching back into the assumed mists of time”.
Such invented traditions arise “more frequently when a rapid transformation of society weakens or destroys the social patterns for which ‘old’ traditions had been designed, producing new ones to which they were not applicable, or when such old traditions and their institutional carriers and promulgators no longer prove sufficiently adaptable and flexible, or are otherwise eliminated: in short, when there are sufficiently large and rapid changes on the demand or supply side”, which was indeed the case in 1449-1450 as well as in 1814, both occasions where Norway found itself at major crossroads of its history.
This story was also the topic of a short article I wrote in Adresseavisen last January, while this is the longer, scholarly version, running to seventeen pages and fully referenced and documented.
As this is also my last article (and blogpost) of 2012 I take this opportunity to wish my readers a Happy New Year!

My latest article: How Nidaros Cathedral became the coronation church

Picking apart historical myths and misconceptions is of course one of the favourite pastimes of historians and in an article in Adresseavisen (external link) today I address the not uncommon idea that Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim has “always” been the coronation church of this country.
In fact, most medieval coronations took place in Bergen and later in Oslo. It was only towards the end of the medieval age that three coronations happened in Trondheim. The first of them was held on 20 November 1449 and caused by extraordinary circumstances.
After the death of King Christoffer of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1448, Sweden chose Karl Knutsson (of the House of Bonde) to be its king, while Denmark opted for Count Christiern of Oldenburg (Christian I). Norway had little choice but to choose one of them and a majority of the Norwegian council voted for Christian, an election which marked the transformation from hereditary to elective monarchy.
However, a minority of the council, among them the powerful Archbishop of Nidaros, Aslak Bolt, tried to push through their candidate by staging an election in which Karl was victorious and consequently had him crowned in Nidaros Cathedral.
At the time of the coronation Karl’s supporters made the claim that rightful kings of Norway ought to be crowned in Trondheim, but this was an invention. However, when Christian defeated Karl the following year, he too was crowned in Nidaros Cathedral, obviously to “annul” the coronation of the “usurper”.
Christian I’s son, King Hans, was later crowned in Trondheim in 1483, but Christian II was crowned in St Hallvard’s Cathedral in Oslo in 1514. However, the claim made in 1449 was so effective that it very soon seems to have become a generally accepted notion that coronations had traditionally been held in Trondheim. For instance, the Council used this argument when Frederik I decreed that his Norwegian coronation should take place in Kongehelle.
Frederik I was eventually never crowned in Norway and neither were his successors after Norway was declared part of Denmark in 1536. But it is possible to find references during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the supposed fact that coronations were usually held in Trondheim and this may well have inspired “the founding fathers” at the Constituent Assembly of 1814, who made it a constitutional requirement that the kings of Norway should be crowned in Nidaros Cathedral.
The myth about Nidaros Cathedral as the ancient coronation church of this country is, I argue, an excellent example of what historians call “the invention of tradition”. This is also a topic which I will return to in a longer and more scholarly article in the near future.

On this date: The first coronation in Nidaros Cathedral

Today is the 562nd anniversary of the first coronation to take place in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, now considered Norway’s foremost national monument and the obvious coronation church since time immemorial.
But it was in fact only on 20 November 1449 that such a ceremony took place in the great cathedral. Earlier coronations, which are known in Norway from 1163/1164, took place first in Bergen and later in Oslo, when that town succeeded Bergen as capital.
The Kalmar Union, which had been founded in 1397 and which united the three Scandinavian realms under one monarch, fell apart when King Christoffer on 5 or 6 January 1448 died suddenly in Helsingborg on his way to Sweden.
The Danes subsequently elected Count Christian of Oldenburg their new king, while the Swedes chose the nobleman Karl Knutsson of the Bonde family. Norway was no longer strong enough to stand alone and thus had to choose between Christian and Karl.
There were parties in favour of both candidates, but in June 1449 the Norwegian Council of the Realm chose Christian as King of Norway. This marked the transition from hereditary monarchy to electoral monarchy and Christian I thus issued a royal contract, the first such in Norwegian history.
But Karl’s supporters, led by Archbishop Aslak Bolt, did not give up. In June they managed to get the populace at the assembly called Frostating to declare their willingness to elect Karl king on certain conditions. The election took place at Hamar on 25 October and Karl continued north to Trondheim, where his coronation took place on 20 November.
We know little about the actual coronation, except that the Archbishop placed the crown on the King’s head with the assistance of the Bishop of Hamar and that several men were subsequently knighted.
Four days later an open letter to Christian I was issued in the name of the Norwegian people, where he was encouraged not to come to Norway as one had now elected and crowned Karl in the place where “rightful kings should be elected and crowned, which is in Trondheim”.
But this was not quite true, given that no kings had ever before been crowned in Trondheim. However, Nidaros, as Trondheim was called then, was where kings had been installed (or “taken as king”, as the term said) since at least the tenth century and since 1152/1153 it was also the seat of the powerful archbishop. And Nidaros Cathedral was the shrine of King Olav Haraldsson, Norway’s patron saint. Thus there were several reasons to hold a coronation there.
A practical reason was obviously that the Cathedral was the Archbishop’s own church and his crowning the King there was a visual demonstration of his role as kingmaker and underlined the position of the powerful church in relation to the King. One reason why Archbishop Aslak Bolt supported Karl’s candidature in the first place may well have been that he seemed likely to be a weaker monarch than Christian, which the church would benefit from. The royal contract issued by Karl was indeed more generous towards the church than Christian’s, which it otherwise closely resembled.
The coronation of Karl Knutsson, which contravened the Council of the Realm’s decision and could therefore be considered revolutionary, meant that there were now two rival kings of Norway. King Karl went back to Sweden to collect an army, but the following year he failed in his attempt at taking Akershus Castle in Oslo.
Negotiations were held in Halmstad, where the Swedish representatives, much to Karl’s chagrin, agreed that he should renounce his rights to Norway in favour of King Christian. Karl had little choice but to accept the outcome and on 10 June 1450 he ratified the Halmstad agreement.
Later that summer Christian I was crowned in Nidaros Cathedral, obviously in order to cancel out the usurper’s coronation. Christian’s son, King Hans, was also crowned there in 1483, but thereafter no coronations were held in Nidaros Cathedral until 1818, by which time the Constitution of 1814 had decided that kings should be crowned in that church.
Karl Knutsson’s remaining life was turbulent and marked by continued struggles with Christian I over supremacy in the north. He was twice driven from the Swedish throne, but returned in 1467 and reigned until his death in 1470. Much to the irritation of King Christian he also continued to use the title “King of Norway”. The Norwegian lion is also incorporated into his arms on his sarcophagus in the Riddarholm Church in Stockholm (second photo), which was executed by Lukas van der Werdt around 1574.
Unlike other claimants and usurpers Karl Knutsson is still included in the official lists of the kings of Norway. The reason for the difference in treatment seems to be the fact that he was indeed crowned in the national monument that is Nidaros Cathedral.

The “archbishopric” returns to Trondheim

This morning the King, the Speaker of Parliament and other notables were present at mass in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, where Helga Haugland Byfuglien was installed in the new position as Senior Bishop of the Church of Norway, making her in effect (although not in title) the first archbishop in centuries. Indeed this is a doubly historic day as the creation of this new position for the Primate of the Church again makes Trondheim the spiritual capital of Norway.
The last actual Archbishop of Norway was Olav Engelbrektsson, who fled the country at the time of the Reformation in 1536-1537, at which time Norway also lost its status as an independent realm. Subsequently there have been no archbishops, but after Norway regained its independence in 1814 a practice was established, through decisions of 1817 and 1820, whereby the Bishop of Oslo was “primus inter pares” among the bishops.
This arrangement lasted until 1998, since which date the bishops have elected one among their number to be Primate for four years at a time. Eventually it was felt that it was difficult to combine the role of Primate with a bishopric and it was therefore decided to create a twelfth bishop who would be Primate on a permanent basis and not hold any bishopric. On 25 March this year Helga Haugland Byfuglien, until then Bishop of Borg, was appointed to the position by the King in Council.
Parliament furthermore decided, after some political wrangling, that this Senior Bishop should be located in Trondheim. Thus Byfuglien caused quite an outcry when she recently stated her intention only to visit Trondheim when necessary and spend most of her time in Oslo. An apartment has now been arranged for her within walking distance of Nidaros Cathedral and the mediaeval Archbishop’s Palace, where her office will be.

Norwegian “archbishop” defies Parliament

The history of medieval Norway is full of archbishops opposing the political masters of the country, but this was probably not what one expected when it was decided last year to create a twelfth bishop as Primate of the Norwegian Church.
The post of primate had until the 1990s belonged to the Bishop of Oslo and thereafter to any of the eleven bishops elected, but because of complaints that it was difficult to reconcile the duties of primate with those of one’s diocese it was decided that a twelfth bishop without a diocese should be appointed primate. The title Archbishop has not been used in Norway since the reformation and one rather chose the designation “leading bishop”
After a lengthy debate it was decided by Parliament that the primate should be located in Trondheim rather than in Oslo and have her office in the Archbishop’s Palace in Trondheim (pictured above). This was in my opinion only logical, as the only major cathedral in Norway is to be found in Trondheim and the city could well be considered the ecclesiastical centre of the country.
Thus several MPs from the Trondheim area have reacted strongly against an interview with the leading bishop, Helga Haugland Byfuglien, in Adresseavisen yesterday, where she states that she will not move to Trondheim, will carry out most of her work in Oslo and will only go to Trondheim when necessary.
This is a rather blatant disregard for the decisions of Parliament and obviously no individual public servant is in a position to choose to ignore what has been decided by Parliament. If the leading bishop is not prepared to accept the conditions set for her job by Parliament she should not have accepted the post and unless she changes her mind it might soon be time for the government to consider her future in the post.

My latest article: Whatever happened to Mrs Schøller?

Stiftsgården, the royal residence in Trondheim, is not only one of Norway’s best examples of rococo architecture, but also the largest wooden mansion in Northern Europe. It was built between 1774 and 1778 by an unknown architect for Cecilia Christine Schøller as a manifestation of her wealth and power.
But Mrs Schøller herself never really lived there; hardly was her mansion finished before she left Trondheim for good. Where did she go?
In an article in Adresseavisen today (external link) I trace her footsteps to Copenhagen, where she was closer to the court and the powerful elite, but also to her friends. She died in her house at Østergade 34 on 19 April 1786 and was laid to rest in Nikolaj Church.
But her journey was not over, for the church was severely damaged in the city fire in 1795. Mrs Schøller’s remains were moved to the Garrison Cemetery and later again to Assistens Cemetery, Copenhagen’s answer to Père Lachaise, where her grandson Stie Tønsberg Schøller von Krogh erected one of the city’s most unusual tombstones.

Top 10: Architecture of Trondheim

Nidaros Cathedral, built 1180s-1321 (several later restorations), erected on the spot where St Olav is believed to have been buried and considered the most important church in Norway.

The Church of Our Lady was first mentioned in 1207 and has thus recently celebrated its 800th anniversary.

Munkegata (Monk Street) runs north from the Cathedral in the direction the small island Munkholmen and forms the central axis of Cicignon’s city plan of 1681.

Thomas Angell’s Mansion, built 1772 by architect Johan Chr. Neumann (altered by Axel Guldahl the elder 1904), is one of the best examples of Norwegian rococo.

Stiftsgården, built by an unknown architect on behalf of Cecilia Christine Schøller in 1774-1778, is the largest wooden mansion in Scandinavia and is now the King’s official residence in Trondheim.

The main building of Trondheim Cathedral School was built by the famous Danish architect Caspar Friedrich Harsdorff and inaugurated in 1787.

The late neoclassical main building of Trondhjem’s Hospital was built in 1843-1845 by the architects Theodor Christian Broch and Fredrik Hannibal Stockfleth, replacing an older building which was lost in the city fire of 1842. Today an old-age home, it is the oldest existing social institution in the Nordic countries.

The maternity clinic E. C. Dahl’s Foundation used to be housed in this art nouveau building by Johan Osness (1908). Today it houses the offices of the county governor of Sør-Trøndelag.

The Student Society’s award-winning building by the brothers Carl and Eysten Michaelsen (1926-1929) is one of the best Norwegian examples of the classicist revival in the Nordic countries in the interwar years.

The Pier Baths is a recent addition to the thousand-year-old city. This public swimming hall was built by Per Knudsen Architects in 1997-2001.

Through the year: Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim