The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway
The overall objective of the project is to gain new insights into the progress and effects of the long-term processes of transition which were triggered off by the Reformation in northern Norway and the adjoining parts of northern Fennoscandia - in a chronological perspective stretching from the late Middle Ages to the 1700s. By applying such a long-range perspective, the aim was to identify which broader societal processes that shaped developments in the north, with special regard to the changes in church organisation and institutions, the recruitment, professional role and living conditions of the new, Lutheran priesthood, as well as the development of relations between peoples and states in the northern regions.
In cooperation with its international partners and some Norwegian scholars, the project group has organized 4 seminars/workshops during the period 2013 - 2016, and published 2 anthologies:
«The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway: Introductory Studies» (Orkana Akademisk Forlag 2014; 240 s.) and
«The Protracted Reformation in Northern Norway, Vol. 2: Towards a Protestant North» (Wehrhahn Verlag, Hannover 2016; 252 s.)
The aim of the two last workshops was to discuss the contributions to the project's final, concluding anthology, to be published by the German publisher de Gruyter. The intention was originally to have the final anthology published during the autumn 2017, in connection with the conclusion of the project and the Reformation Jubilee. However, some of the manuscripts have been delayed, and the table of contents has been somewhat changed. The anthology will now be published in 2018, with the following contents:
CHURCH AND STATE:
- A. Otto: A Matter of the Learned: Ways of Reformation Knowledge from Germany to the North
- S. Høgetveit Berg: Tithes - the Main Tool of the Northern Reformation?
- R. Blix Hagen: Seventeenth Century Persecution of Sorcery and Witches in the High North
- E. Khodakovsky: Art and Power. The Russian Northern Eparchies in the Late Seventeenth Century
- M. Njåstad: 'The Long and Winding Road'? Sweden's Path towards a Lutheran Church in the Sixteenth Century
INTERACTION AND NETWORKS:
- L. I. Hansen: The Trading Networks of the High North during the sixteenth century
- I. Aamlid Dalen: Priesthood recruitment in the Early Post-Reformation period in Alstahaug, Steigen and Tromsø
- D. Storm: Pietistic Mission - An Analysis of the Religious Situation in the Mission District of Senja and Vesterålen in the Early Eighteenth Century
- I. Hage: Parsonages in the North in the 1600s and 1700s
IDEAS AND IMAGES:
- R. Heiseldal Bergesen: Images of Sámi Religion in a Protracted Reformation
- S.Rasmussen: Religious Practice among the Sámi in the Early Modern Period
- M. Schmidt: The Trondenes Armarium
- V. Trædal: The Clergy as Connoisseurs - recycling Medieval Art in the High North
- D.Johansen: The Staging of the Protestant Prince in Lutheran Churches in the Bishopric of Trondheim 1537-1814
Dissemination of results
- In collaboration with Tromsø Museum, the project has issued a separate number of the popular scientific journal «Ottar» (no. 4-2017), with the main title «Den langstrakte reformasjonen» ( = «The protracted reformation»), consisting of 7 articles: https://uit.no/tmu/art?p_document_id=535535
- In cooperation with Tromsø Museum, the project group has also composed an exhibition of church art from the pre-reformation period, reused in the post-reformation era. (Title: «Oh, my God»): https://uit.no/tmu/utstillinger/utstilling?p_document_id=535471
- Apart from presentations and introductions given at the seminars and workshops arranged by the project, the project participants have also held about 20 lectures with presentations of the project's tasks and results for a broader audience.
- Three of the project members have presented papers at a special session of «Det 29. nordiske historikermøte 2017» in Aalborg, Denmark (August 15.-18.), and one member has given a lecture at «Norske historiedager» in Trondheim (June 23.-25. 2017).
- The project work has also resulted in the establishment of new educational courses at UiT - the Arctic University of Norway: One regular bachelor-course with the title «The Reformation viewed from a perspective of history and religious science», held as part of the ordinary teaching in the autumn of 2016 and 2017, and as online course in the spring of 2017: https://uit.no/utdanning/emner/emne/508375/his-1030
And in addition, an open access on-line course, a so called MOOC (massive open online course), about the reformation: https://uit.no/nyheter/artikkel?p_document_id=532421&p_dim=88208
- Finally, the project arranged its concluding, international conference («Northern Reformations») on Sept. 21.-22. ? 2017, with about 38 participants and 13 speakers, of which 7 were international: https://uit.no/tavla/artikkel/sub?p_document_id=494754&sub_id=49479
This multi-disciplinary project - involving history, history of art and religious studies - aims at gaining insights into the Reformation process in Northern Norway, and to a certain extent in adjoining parts of northern Fennoscandia. Traditionally, for N orwegian scholars the Reformation was a 'water-shed' event: they have tended to focus upon differences between the Catholic, Norwegian church province of the late Middle Ages and the state church of the following centuries, as well as the consecutive esta blishment of new secular forms of government in Norway, dominated by the Danish nobility. By contrast, our project will highlight both the preconditions for, and the more long-ranging consequences of the Reformation on a longer timescale, from the 1400s u ntil the 1700s. Special consideration will be given to the particular conditions which affected the implementation of the Reformation in the north, viz.: 1) the special role played by the northern part of the country within the Catholic church province in the late Middle Ages; 2) the multi-religious situation in the North with first, a considerable element of surviving shamanistic beliefs and practices amongst the Sámi, and second, the fact that parts of northern Norway were a frontier zone against the Ru ssian Orthodox Church which also conducted mission work among the Sámi; 3) the fact that exact state borders had not yet been established in northern Fennoscandia, and that large areas were defined as general taxation areas where all the surrounding state s collected taxes from the Sámi. Our specific themes are:
- The restructuring of the church's organization after the Reformation
- The changing nature and use of church art and liturgy
- An analysis of the medieval and early modern library at Trondenes ch urch
- The post-Reformation priesthood's material conditions, social position and role in the interpretation of the Reformation to ordinary people
- Mission initiatives towards the Sámi in the 1600s and 1700s