Olav II Haraldsson «the Saint/Digre» den Hellige

• https://www.snerpa.is/net/snorri/landnama.htm
• http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00104684&tree=LEO
• http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=nor&person=Olav%20Haraldsso...
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_the_Holy
• https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyh%C3%A4_Olavi
• http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olav_den_Hellige
• http://www.snl.no/.nbl_biografi/Olav_2_Haraldsson_Den_Hellige/utdyp...
• http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/44977 (Current Archeology 11/23/16)
• http://www.katolsk.no/biografi/olav/
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway
• https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/norwegian-...

  ---

  
  

HARALD "Grenske" ([947]-murdered 995). The Historia Norwegie names "Haroldum Grensca" as son of "Gudrodus", commenting that he acquired his nickname from having been brought up "in Grenlandia"[241]. Snorre records that, “after his father Gudrod’s fall” (dated to [960/65]), Harald "Grenske" “fled to the Uplands”, before heading “eastward into Svithjod” where he “cruised...in summer” with “a man...Toste...a great warrior...often in battle, and...therefore called Skoglar-Toste”, and “in the winter...after passing two years in the Uplands, took up his abode with Toste”[242]. He supported the invasion of Norway by Harald King of Denmark in 965, and was rewarded with Vingulmark, Vestfold and Agder with the title of king[243]. He was murdered on the orders of Sigrid "Storrada/the Haughty", widow of Erik King of Sweden, to whom Harald "Grenske" proposed marriage (despite already being married to Asta)[244]. m as her first husband, ASTA Gudbransdatter, daughter of GUDBRAND Kula & his wife ---. The Historia Norwegie records the marriage of "Haroldum Grensca" and "Asta filiam Gudbrandi Culu", and her second marriage to "Siwardus Scroffa rex montanus" who was the son of Halfdan, son of "Siwardus Risi…filius Haraldi Comati"[245]. She and her father are named by Snorre, which also records both her marriages[246]. Snorre records that she returned to her father after learning that her husband had visited Sigrid "Storrada/the Haughty", widow of Erik King of Sweden, with a view to proposing marriage to her[247]. She married secondly Sigurd Syr King in Ringerike. Morkinskinna records that “Sigurdr sýr” married “Ásta daughter of Gudbrandr”, previously wife of “Haraldr grenski”[248]. Harald & his wife had one child:

[St] OLAV Haraldson (maybe posthumously 995-killed in battle Stiklestad 29 Jul 1030, bur in a sandbank in the river at Trondheim, transferred to St Clement's church later transformed into Trondheim Cathedral). Snorre records the birth of Olav son of Harald "Grenske" & his wife in Summer 995, implying that he was born after his father was killed[249]. The Historia Norwegie names "Olauum perpetuum regem Norwegie" as son of "Haroldum Grensca" & his wife[250]. According to William of Jumièges, Olav was christened [998] at Rouen[251]. He defeated Erik Haakonsson Ladejarl Regent of Norway at Nesjar[252] and succeeded in imposing himself 1016 as OLAV II King of Norway. The Gwentian Chronicle records that "Eulaf came to the island of Britain…to Menevia…and devastated Dyved" in 1021[253]. He reunified Norway, by incorporating the interior eastern parts of the country and the Vik area. He imposed a feudal system of administration modelled on Normandy, where he had spent time in his youth. The heads of the major farming families entered his service as vassals ("lendmenn") in return for receiving revenues from royal farms and a share of fines imposed by the courts. He completed the process of Christianisation of Norway, became head of the church in Norway and appointed a national bishop, placed under the supervision of the Archbishop of Bremen. Ecclesiastical administration was organised under an Act passed by a national meeting ("riksting") in 1024. In alliance with Sweden, King Olav defeated Knud King of Denmark in a naval battle off Scania. However, his Swedish allies deserted him, and revolt broke out against him in Norway. He was forced into exile in 1028 by King Knud, who imposed himself as king of Norway. Olav sought refuge in Russia with his brother-in-law Iaroslav Grand Prince of Kiev. He was defeated and killed on his return to Norway in 1030. Adam of Bremen records that King Olav died "IV Kal Aug" and that he reigned 12 years[254]. Soon after his death he was seen as a national hero, and considered a saint. m (Feb 1019) ASTRID Olofsdottir, illegitimate daughter of OLOF "Skotkoning" King of Sweden & his mistress ---. Snorre names "Emund, Astrid, Holmfrid" as the children of King Olof by his concubine Edla, specifying that Astrid was brought up in West Gautland in the house of Egil[255]. Adam of Bremen records that the wife of Olav King of Norway was "rege Sueonum…filiam"[256]. The Historia Norwegie records that Olav married "soror Margarete" after his betrothal to the latter was terminated by her marriage to "rex Iarezlafus de Ruscia"[257]. Snorre records the marriage of King Olav and "Astrid, daughter of the Swedish king Olaf"[258]. Her marriage was arranged to appease Swedish opposition to King Olav II's recently assumed rule. She remained in Sweden with her daughter when her husband left for Russia[259]. Mistress (1): ALVHILD [Elfhildis], daughter of --- (-after 1047). Snorre names "Alfhild…the king's slave-woman…of good descent"[260]. According to William of Malmesbury, she was English and captured by the Norwegians. Morkinskinna records that King Magnus´s mother grieved for her son when he died[261]. King Olav II & his wife had one child:

ULFHILD Olavsdatter (-24 May 1071). Snorre names Ulfhild as the daughter of King Olav & his wife[262]. Adam of Bremen records the betrothal of "soror Magni regis" and "Ordulfo ducis filio" at a meeting in Schleswig between Bernhard Duke of Saxony and Magnus King of Norway[263]. Morkinskinna names “King Magnus…sister…Úlfhildr…daughter of King Óláfr” and records her marriage to “a powerful duke named Otto south in Saxony”[264]. The Annalista Saxo names "Wifhildem…filiam Olaph Nortmannorum regis et martiris" as wife of Duke Ordulf[265]. The necrology of Lüneburg records the death "24 May" of "Wulfhild ductrix"[266]. m (Nov 1042) as his first wife, ORDULF Duke in Saxony, son of BERNHARD II Duke in Saxony [Billung] & his wife Eilika von Schweinfurt (28 Mar 1072, bur Lüneburg St Michaelis).

King Olav II had one illegitimate son by Mistress (1):

MAGNUS ([Apr/Jun [1024]-25 Oct 1047)]. Snorre records the birth of Magnus, son of King Olav by his concubine Alfhild[267]. Adam of Bremen names "Magnum" as son of "Olaphus martyris a concubina" when recording his election as king of Norway[268]. Morkinskinna records that “Queen Ingigerđr the daughter of King Óláfr the Swede”, wife of “King Yaroslav [of] Russia”, requested “King Óláfr in Norway” to send his “young son [born] out of wedlock…Magnús” to Russia to be fostered[269]. His date of birth is suggested by Morkinskinna which records King Magnus´s twentieth birthday “the following spring”, dateable from the context to 1044[270]. He was recalled from Novgorod by chiefs from the Trondheim area who were dissatisfied with Danish rule, and installed in 1035 as MAGNUS II "the Good" King of Norway. He claimed the throne of Denmark in 1042, on the basis of an alleged agreement with King Hardaknud in 1039. He also claimed the throne of England on the same basis, maybe with the support of Queen Emma[271]. He threatened to invade England but was too preoccupied with conquering Denmark to carry out the threat[272]. He was master of Denmark before the end of 1046. He defeated the Wends, a Slavish people from the southern shore of the Baltic, who were attempting to expand into Denmark. He died on an expedition against Svend Estridsen who succeeded him as King of Denmark. He was succeeded in Norway by his father's half-brother, Harald "Hardråde". Mistress: ---. No information has been identified concerning King Magnus's concubine.

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/NORWAY.htm#RagnhildMagnusdMHaakonIv...

_________

Olaf Haraldsson (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson, 995 – July 29, 1030) was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Norway he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood.

The son of the lord Harald Grenske and a descendant of the Norwegian ruler Harald I Fairhair, Olaf was reared as a pagan and became a Viking warrior in the Baltic region. He fought against the English in 1009–11 but assisted the English ruler Ethelred (Aethelred) II the Unready against the Danes in 1013. When the Danish king Sweyn (Svein) I gained the advantage in England, Olaf went to Spain and also to France, where he was baptized at Rouen (1013).

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Olaf-II-Haraldsson

Concerning the king's name

King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu - "forefather", Leifr - "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Reign

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

Norway during the reign of St. Olaf (1015–1028) showing areas under the control of hereditary chieftains (petty kingdoms).After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, had crushed the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, conducted a successful raid on Denmark, achieved peace with king Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time, engaged to his daughter, the Princess of Sweden, Ingegerd Olofsdotter without his approval. After the end of her engagement to Olaf, Ingegerd married the Great Prince Yaroslav I of Kiev.

In 1019 Olaf married the illegitimate daughter of King Olof of Sweden and half-sister of his former bride, Astrid Olofsdotter. Their daughter Wulfhild married Duke Ordulf of Saxony in 1042. The present king of Norway, Harald V and his father Olav V are thus descended from Olaf, since the latter's mother Maud was the daughter of Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, one of the numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, rallied round the invading Cnut the Great of Denmark, forcing Olaf to flee to Kievan Rus. During the voyage he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. On his return a year later, seizing an opportunity to win back the kingdom after Cnut the Great's vassal as ruler of Norway, Håkon Jarl, was lost at sea, he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard.

While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, most distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for 5 years after the Battle of Stiklestad, through the viceroyship of his son Svein. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Sainthood

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

Conversion of Norway

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway. So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074-5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries, since these priests were themselves of Norwegian descent, could speak the language and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be their new parishioners distant cousins and thus less likely to kill their pastors once Olaf and his army had left an area. One might note here, as well, that the few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros shows a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy.

Olaf's dynasty

For various reasons, most importantly the death of king Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Saint Olaf

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia, presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer:

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10-14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1-7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2-4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24-28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secret):

Almighty God, in awe we call upon your inscrutable might. Make holy these created things which you have chosen so that they may become the body and blood of Christ, your Son. Through the intercession of the holy Olav, king and martyr, let them for the salvation of body and soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Verse:

Great is his glory through your saving help. With glory and honor will you clothe him, Lord.

Closing Prayer (Postcommunion):

We who have been fed at the table of the Lamb implore you, almighty God, through the intercession of your blessed martyr Olav let us always stand under the protection of your Son who redeemed us by his death on the cross, he who lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.

---

Olaf Haraldsson (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson, 995 – July 29, 1030), was king of Norway from 1015–1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Fat" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Norway he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") as a result of his sainthood.

---

Olaf II Haraldsson, patron saint of Norway (Old Norse: Óláfr Haraldsson) (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). In modern day Scandinavia he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood. King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu – "forefather", Leifr – "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave. Olave was also the traditional spelling in England, preserved in the name of medieval churches dedicated to him. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Born: 995

Died: July 29, 1030

Father: Åsta Gudbrandsdatter

Mother: Harald Grenske

Spouses:

Astrid Olofsdotter

Alvhild (concubine)

Issue:

Wulfhild (Ulvhild)

Tore

Emund

Edla

Magnus the Good

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

Norway during the reign of St. Olaf (1015–1028) showing areas under the control of hereditary chieftains (petty kingdoms). After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, subdued the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, and conducted a successful raid on Denmark. He made peace with king Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time engaged to his daughter, Princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter, though without Olof's approval.

In 1019 Olaf married Astrid Olofsdotter, Olof's illegitimate daughter and half-sister of his former fiancée. Their daughter Wulfhild married Ordulf, Duke of Saxony in 1042. Numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines are descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid, including the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Maud of Wales, daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, was the mother of King Olav V of Norway, so Olav and his son Harald V, the present king of Norway, are thus descended from Olaf.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, supported the invasion of King Cnut of Denmark. Olaf was driven into exile in Kievan Rus. During the exile he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. In 1030, Cnut's Norwegian vassal king, Jarl Håkon Eiriksson, was lost at sea. Olaf seized the opportunity to win back the kingdom, but he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard. While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, though distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for five years after Stiklestad, with his son Svein as viceroy. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

This calls for an explanation of the status he gained after his death. Three factors are important: his role in the Christianization of Norway, the various dynastic relationships among the ruling families, and the needs for legitimization in a later period.

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway. So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074–5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries. These priests would be of Norwegian descent, could speak the language, and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be distant cousins of their new parishioners and thus less likely to be killed when Olaf and his army departed. The few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros show a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy.

For various reasons, most importantly the death of king Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One is the killing and throwing onto the mountain of a still visible sea serpent. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave's Church, York is referred to in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for 1055 as the place of burial of its founder Earl Siward. This is generally accepted to be the earliest datable church foundation to Olaf and is further evidence of a cult of St Olaf in the early 1050s in England. St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia, presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

On July 29-th, Faroe Islands celebrates Olavsøka (Saint Olaf celebration), the National Day also, when they remember Saint Olaf, the king who Christianized the islands.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer (Collect):

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10–14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1–7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2–4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24–28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secret):

Almighty God, in awe we call upon your inscrutable might. Make holy these created things which you have chosen so that they may become the body and blood of Christ, your Son. Through the intercession of the holy Olav, king and martyr, let them for the salvation of body and soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Verse:

Great is his glory through your saving help. With glory and honor will you clothe him, Lord.

Closing Prayer (Postcommunion):

We who have been fed at the table of the Lamb implore you, almighty God, through the intercession of your blessed martyr Olav let us always stand under the protection of your Son who redeemed us by his death on the cross, he who lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway

Olaf II Haraldsson (Old Norse: Óláfr Haraldsson) (995 – July 29, 1030) was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Scandinavia he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood.

Concerning the king's name

King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu – "forefather", Leifr – "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave[citation needed]. Olave was also the traditional spelling in England, preserved in the name of medieval churches dedicated to him. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Reign

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, subdued the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, and conducted a successful raid on Denmark. He made peace with King Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time engaged to his daughter, Princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter, though without Olof's approval.

In 1019, Olaf married Astrid Olofsdotter, Olof's illegitimate daughter and half-sister of his former fiancée. Their daughter Wulfhild married Ordulf, Duke of Saxony in 1042. Numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines are descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid, including the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Maud of Wales, daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, was the mother of King Olav V of Norway, so Olav and his son Harald V, the present king of Norway, are thus descended from Olaf.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, supported the invasion of King Cnut of Denmark. Olaf was driven into exile in Kievan Rus. During the exile he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. In 1030, Cnut's Norwegian vassal king, Jarl Håkon Eiriksson, was lost at sea. Olaf seized the opportunity to win back the kingdom, but he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by bishop Grimkell. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard. While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, though distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for five years after Stiklestad, with his son Svein as viceroy. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Sainthood

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

This calls for an explanation of the status he gained after his death. Three factors are important: his role in the Christianization of Norway, the various dynastic relationships among the ruling families, and the needs for legitimization in a later period.

Conversion of Norway

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity.[3][citation needed] However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway.[4] So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074–5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries. These priests would be of Norwegian descent, could speak the language, and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be distant cousins of their new parishioners and thus less likely to be killed when Olaf and his army departed. The few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros show a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy[citation needed].

Olaf's dynasty

For various reasons, most importantly the death of King Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Saint Olaf

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One is the killing and throwing onto the mountain of a still visible sea serpent. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave's Church, York is referred to in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for 1055[5] as the place of burial of its founder Earl Siward. This is generally accepted to be the earliest datable church foundation to Olaf and is further evidence of a cult of St Olaf in the early 1050s in England. St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia[1], presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

On July 29-th, Faroe Islands celebrates Olavsøka (Saint Olaf celebration), the National Day also, when they remember Saint Olaf, the king who Christianized the islands.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer (Collect):

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10–14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1–7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2–4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24–28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secret):

Almighty God, in awe we call upon your inscrutable might. Make holy these created things which you have chosen so that they may become the body and blood of Christ, your Son. Through the intercession of the holy Olav, king and martyr, let them for the salvation of body and soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Verse:

Great is his glory through your saving help. With glory and honor will you clothe him, Lord.

Closing Prayer (Postcommunion):

We who have been fed at the table of the Lamb implore you, almighty God, through the intercession of your blessed martyr Olav let us always stand under the protection of your Son who redeemed us by his death on the cross, he who lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.[6]

Other instances of St Olaf

Faroe stamp featuring St. OlavSt. Olaf College was founded by Norwegian immigrant Bernt Julius Muus in Northfield, Minnesota, in 1874.

St Olav's Church is the tallest church in Tallinn, Estonia, and between 1549 and 1625 was the tallest building in the world.

The coat of arms of the Church of Norway contains two axes, the instruments of Saint Olav's martyrdom.

The oldest picture of St. Olav is painted on a column in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

The only country which keeps July 29 as a holiday is the Faroe Islands; see Ólavsøka.

The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav was founded in 1847 by Oscar I, king of Norway and Sweden, in memory of this king.

Saint Olaf Catholic Church [2] in downtown Minneapolis and the statue of the saint from the sanctuary.[3]

The Tower of St. Olav is the only remaining tower of the Vyborg Castle

T.S.C Sint Olof is a Dutch student organisation with St. Olav as its patron.

---

Olav den helligeFra Wikipedia, den frie encyklopedi Gå til: navigasjon, søk Mangler kilder: Denne artikkelen inneholder påstander som trenger kildehenvisninger, enten fordi de er kontroversielle eller vanskelige å verifisere. Slike påstander kan bli fjernet. Olav II Haraldsson Konge av Norge

Navn: Olav den hellige Olav Digre Regjeringstid: 1015–1028 Født: 995, Ringerike Død: 29. juli 1030, slaget på Stiklestad Foreldre: Harald Grenske og Åsta Gud­brands­datter Ektefelle‍(r): Astrid Olofs­dat­ter, datter av Olof Sköt­konung av Sverige Barn: Magnus (1024–1047) Ulvhild Olavs­dat­ter, f. 1020 i Borg, d. i Saksen 24 mai 1071; g. m. Ordulf av Saksen (1020–1072)

Olav den hellige Konge og martyr Helligkåret 1031 Anerkjent av Den katolske kirke og Den ortodokse kirke Festdag 29. juli (Olsok) Se også Ekstern biografi Vernehelgen Norge I kunsten Konge med sverd, øks eller spyd.

Olav II (Haraldsson) den hellige (Óláfr Haraldsson, Óláfr hinn helgi) (født 995 på Ringerike, død 29. juli 1030 på Stiklestad), gravlagt i Nidaros, var Norges konge fra 1015 til 1028. Han er blant annet kjent for å ha felt London Bridge på en av sine vikingferder og for å være en sentral skikkelse i kristningen av Norge. Erklært helgen 3. august 1031. St. Olavs skrin i Nidarosdomen var et viktig nordisk valfartssted til reformasjonen i 1537.

Innhold 1 Bakgrunn 2 Oppvekst og impulser fra utlandet 3 Tilbake til Norge 4 Kristningen av Norge 5 Knut den mektige erobrer Norge - Olav rømmer 6 Olavs hjemkomst og slaget på Stiklestad 7 Helgenkongen 8 Arven etter Olav 8.1 Kristen helgenkultus 8.2 Olav i nasjonal retorikk 9 Referanser 10 Litteratur 11 Eksterne lenker

Bakgrunn [rediger]  St Olav fra Austevoll kirke i Sunnhordland fra ca 1450. Dragen med menneskehode som Olav tråkker på symboliserer hedenskapenHan ble født på Ringerike, og var sønn av Harald Grenske, og dermed tippoldebarn av Harald Hårfagre på farssiden. Hans mor var Åsta Gudbrandsdatter.

Harald Grenske døde da Åsta gikk gravid med Olav. Hun giftet seg senere med Sigurd Syr, som var en fredelig mann som likte bondeyrket sitt. Han var en rolig, sindig mann, klok og lovkyndig.[trenger referanse] Olav vokste opp på storgården hans.

Snorre Sturlason skildrer ham slik: «Han ble snart en kjekk kar. Han var vakker å se til, middels høy av vekst. Han var svært tettvoksen, hadde store krefter, lysebrunt hår, bredt ansikt, lys hud og rødlett ansikt. Han hadde usedvanlige gode øyne, de var vakre og så kvasse at en kunne bli redd for å se ham i øynene når han ble sint. Olav var svær i idretter og kunne mange ting. Han var god til å skyte med bue og siktet godt. Han kastet spyd bedre enn de fleste, var hendig og hadde et sikkert øye for all slags håndverk. Han ble kalt Olav Digre. (Det norrøne ordet kan bety tykk eller grovbygd, mest sannsynlig det siste, siden han selv likte dette tilnavnet). Han talte djervt og kvikt, var tidlig voksen i alle ting, både i styrke og vett, og alle frender og kjenninger var glade i ham. Han var ærekjær i leik, ville alltid være den første.»[trenger referanse]

Han hadde ikke så godt forhold til stefaren. Trolig var Olav veldig klar over den slekten han kom fra, og så litt ned på Sigurd Syr som var en slik ivrig bonde.[trenger referanse]

Oppvekst og impulser fra utlandet [rediger]12 år gammel dro Olav på sitt første vikingtokt. Med aner fra Hårfagre-ætten hadde han både villskap, griskhet, hevnlyst, grusomhet og et lettferdig forhold til kvinner, men også mer positive egenskaper som evnen til å organisere, styre og samle. Alt dette er egenskaper som gjorde at han likte livet som viking. Som tenåring dro han på tokt i Austerveg. Først noen år i Østersjølandene, deretter møtte han en jomsviking i Danmark som het Torkjell Høge, som han slo seg sammen med. Deretter herjet de sammen i England. De forsøkte å ta London, og i år 1011 tok de Canterbury.

Olav så det som sitt kall å samle Norge til ett rike, slik som hans forfar Harald Hårfagre i stor grad greide. På vei hjemover - etter en snartur nedom Spania og Karlså (sannsynligvis dagens Cadiz) - overvintrer han hos hertug Richard II av Normandie (1013-1014) (Frankrike). Denne regionen hadde normannerne (norske og danske vikinger) erobret i år 881, og de fikk beholde området i lovnad mot å ikke angripe resten av landet. De skulle også forsvare landet mot fremmede makter.

Her fikk Olav mange kristne impulser. Hertugen selv var en ivrig kristen, og normannerne var også kristnet. Siden Olav knapt hadde bodd hjemme, hadde han også liten tilknytning til Åsatroen, noe som nok gjorde ham mer åpen for disse impulsene. Han lot seg etterhvert døpe i Rouen (hovedstaden i Normandie). Under tiden sin her hørte han mange historier om gamle hendelser og helter, og særlig én gjorde inntrykk på ham - Karl den Store (Karla-Magnus) (ca. år 800). Han ble i stor grad Olavs forbilde som konge. Olavs sønn fikk navnet Magnus av Sigvat Skald, oppkalt etter Karla-Magnus.

På vei mot Norge dro Olav innom England. I år 1014 hjalp han anglo-sakserkongen Adalred II med å gjenvinne London fra danene, og rev i den anledning ned London bro. Den engelske barnereglen «London Bridge is falling down» kan ha sin rot i denne hendelsen. Olav ble rikt belønnet av Adalred for hjelpen. Han la igjen langskipene her, og reiste videre med handelsskip. Dette var høsten 1015.

Tilbake til Norge [rediger]Olav kom da til et politisk og religiøst splittet Norge. Etter Olav Tryggvasons død ved slaget ved Svolder ble landet delt mellom seierherrene: danskekongen, svenskekongen og ladejarlene. I tillegg var Norge i stor grad et ættesamfunn. Man tjente da først og fremst familien, som ble styrt av familiens mannlige overhode. Blodhevn var også vanlig. Det var lite som lignet på et samlet rike, og det var lite grobunn for innføringen av kristendommen. Imidlertid var ættesamfunnet noe på tilbakegang da Olav kom til Norge, og det hadde vokst fram bygdesamfunn og småriker, med høvdinger og småkonger. Herredsting og lagting var også etablert. Likevel skulle det bli en vanskelig jobb å kristne og samle et slikt rike, der selv jarlene og høvdinger som Erling Skjalgsson, Kalv Arneson, Hårek på Tjøtta og Tore Hund først og fremst tenkte på ættens fremgang.

Noe av det første Olav gjorde, var å ta Eirik Jarl (963 - 1024) sin sønn, Håkon til fange, og ga han grid mot at han forlot landet og reiste til sin far, Eirik jarl, i England. Etter dette begynte han arbeidet med å bygge seg opp makt, først ved å bli småkonge i Opplandene, der han kom fra. Kristningen ventet han med. Etter slaget mot Svein Jarl i Langesundfjorden ble han konge over Viken og Agder. Deretter tok han turen til Trøndelag, der han ble hyllet til konge, og senere også i Inntrøndelag. På vei sørover derfra ble han også kronet i ting etter ting. Dermed var han snart konge over hele Midt- og Sør-Norge.

Etter dette sluttet Olav fred med svenskekongen, og som en del av avtalen skulle han få gifte seg med datteren hans. Men innen bryllupet fant sted hadde svenskekongen giftet henne bort til fyrst Jaroslav i Novgorod. For å bøte på dette, rømte svenskekongens andre datter til Norge og giftet seg med Olav. Da dette var ordnet, dro Olav til Hålogaland og ble gjort til konge her også, og var i prinsippet konge over hele Norge.

Landet styrte Olav fra Borg, senere Sarpsborg, byen han selv grunnla i 1016. Etter å ha seilt opp Glomma nådde hans skip fossen Sarpr, idag kjent som Sarpsfossen. Fossen kunne ikke passeres, og kongen gikk derfor i land, og slo seg til slutt ned på oversiden av den. Byen Borg ble Norges hovedstad, og kongen lot bygge en voll rundt hele byen. Deler av vollen finnes den dag i dag. Da Olav giftet seg med svenske Astrid, var kongehus i en rekke land representert. Olav var også vert for andre bryllup og feiringer hjemme i Borg.

Kristningen av Norge [rediger]Kristendommen hadde på denne tiden begynt å få fotfeste i Norge, med ganske spredd, og mange var kristne i navnet, men fulgte ikke den kristne tro så nøye. Det var besluttet på lagtingene rundt i Norge at kristendommen skulle innføres. Noen steder var det problematisk å kristne folket, mens de fleste steder gikk det greit. Snorre Sturlason forteller historier om folk som ble drept eller lemlestet når de nektet å oppta den nye troen. Olav hadde også tatt med seg 4 biskoper fra England. Den viktigste av disse var bisp Grimkjell. Han var Olavs nærmeste i kirkesaker.

Ca. 1023 ble det avholdt et kirkemøte på Moster, med biskopene og kongens menn, der kristenretten skulle vedtas på Mostratinget; det vil si Kirkens lover. På dette tinget ble kirken knyttet til kongen, som en statskirke. Den nye loven omtales som «Det store sedskifte». Loven (1024) begynte slik: «Det første i vår lov er at vi skal bøye oss mot aust og be til Kvite Krist om godt år og fred, at vi må halde landet vårt bygd og drotten vår ved helse. Han være vår ven og vi hans vener og Gud være ven åt oss alle.»

Her ble det blant annet forbud mot å sette ut barn og treller skulle kjøpes fri. Flerkoneri blir forbudt. Nyfødte barn skal få leve og ikke settes ut i skog eller mark. Det blir satt strenge straffer for voldtekt og kvinneran. Kjøttmat blir forbudt på fredager. Det skal fastes hele syv uker før påske. Det blir nedlagt forbud mot å gifte seg med slektninger inntil syvende ledd. Nyfødte barn skal føres til kirken for å døpes. Det blir forbudt å gravlegge de døde i hauger eller røyser som i hedensk tid. Liket skal føres til kirken og begraves i hellig jord. Begravelse i vigslet jord blir nektet udådsmenn, kongesvikere, mordere, tyver og selvmordere. Kirker skal bygges i hvert fylke. Biskopen rår over dem og skal tilsette prester. Menn innenfor fylkesgrensene har ansvar for kirkenes vedlikehold og prestenes underhold.

Olav reiste mye rundt etter dette, for å holde ting med bøndene, og lese opp kristenretten. Her møtte han mye motstand, fordi disse lovene stred mot de skikkene som ble praktisert. Olav truet med både død og lemlestelse, og tap av eiendom. På denne måten skaffet han seg mange fiender. Han praktiserte likhet for loven, dvs at storfolk ble straffet på samme måte som bønder.

Knut den mektige erobrer Norge - Olav rømmer [rediger]I 1028 kom Knut den mektige til Norge med 50 krigsskip. Han var da konge over Danmark og England. Med sin enorme rikdom kjøpte han seg allierte blant stormennene, og de ble lovet stor makt og etterlengtet frihet fra Olavs harde styre dersom de støttet ham. Olav ble sviktet også av sine hærmenn, og måtte til slutt flykte. Biskop Grimkjell ble igjen for å styre kirken. Så drog han med sønnen Magnus og en håndfull trofaste menn til Gardarike (Russland). Han slo seg ned i Novgorod, hvor han ble vel mottatt av storfyrst Jaroslav og hans fyrstinne Ingegjerd av Sverige, som Olav i sin tid skulle hatt til ekte. Knut blir hyllet til konge på Øretinget, og gjorde Håkon Jarls sønnesønn Håkon Eiriksson til sin jarl i Norge

Jaroslav tilbyr Olav å bli konge i Volga-Bulgaria, noe han avslår. Olav vil bare ha tilbake sitt rike, Norge. Snorre Sturlason beskriver en drøm Olav har, der Olav Tryggvason åpenbarer seg for ham, og sier at han må følge Guds vilje og gjøre det som er rett. Han må la Gud bestemme om det skal bli seier eller tap. Olav får også høre at Håkon Jarl druknet i et skipsforlis, dette gjør at han bestemmer seg for å dra tilbake til Norge.

Olavs hjemkomst og slaget på Stiklestad [rediger]  Olav faller på slagmarken. Tegnet for den illustrerte Snorreutgaven av Halfdan Egedius.  Torgils og Grim bærer Olavs lik bort fra slagmarken. Tegnet for Snorres Norge Kongesagaer. Heimskringla (1899) av Halfdan Egedius.  Peter Nicolai Arbos romantiske maleri Olav den Helliges død fra 1859.  Alterbilde fra Nidaros som viser Olavs død på Striklestad.  Olav den helliges død. Miniatyrbilde.Olav reiser tilbake til Norge, og rir opp til Trøndelag. Like før slaget ved Stiklestad sover han litt, og drømmer at han klatrer oppover en stige som når helt opp i himmelen. Han lover sine menn at Gud vil gi dem større lønn enn gleden over verdslige verdier. De kjemper tappert, men Olav faller, og invasjonen blir stoppet. Olav gjorde kanskje en dårlig avgjørelse da han gikk for å ta Trøndelag, der han var minst populær, og møtte en hær mye større enn sin egen. Olav dør av hogg i halsen, magen og låret. Snorre hevder at det var Kalv Arnesson som hogg kongen i halsen, Tore Hund som stakk spydet i magen på kongen og Torstein Knarresmed som hogg kongen i låret. Dette var 29. juli 1030.

Snorres framstilling av kong Olavs død samsvarer med blant annet motivet på en portal fra den nedrevne Hemsedal stavkirke. Portalen, som har som tema kong Olavs martyrium og status som kristusliknende helgen, viser at den kraften og styrken som Sankt Olav ble tillagt som kristningshelgen, har basis i den framgangsmåten som de tre hedenske krigerne fulgte da de drepte kongen under slaget på Stiklestad, kombinert med kongens oppførsel i denne sammenhengen. I både Snorres beretning og middelalderens bildelige skildringer er drapet av kongen gitt et preg av hedensk kult innenfor en kristen, mytisk ramme. Dette preget av et hedensk kultdrap dannet i sin tid grunnlaget for Sankt Olavs mytologisk baserte virkekraft i hedenske samfunn, slik det framgår av at det hedenske Trøndelag kunne legges under kristen kongemakt uten væpnet kamp kort tid etter Sankt Olavs martyrium og opphøyelse til helgen.[1] Snorres beretning om kong Olav og hans død under slaget på Stiklestad er således først og fremst å betrakte som en gjengivelse av en formfullendt helgenlegende som hadde til hensikt å fremme og konsolidere kristendommen i både hedenske og kristne samfunn.

Helgenkongen [rediger]Mange angret på at de hadde gått i mot Olav, og folk begynte å tenke på ham som en hellig mann. Det ble fortalt underlige historier om ting som skjedde med Olavs lik. Etter slaget på Stiklestad hadde liket til Olav blitt lagt inn i et skur. En blind mann skal ha gått inn dit om natta og gnidd seg i øynene med Olav sitt blod slik at han fikk tilbake synet. Bonden på Stiklestad tok med seg liket og gravla det ved Nidaros.

Det påstås at liket ble gravd opp året etter og at negler, hår og skjegg skulle ha grodd. Denne påstanden fikk folk til å mene at det hadde skjedd et under, og Olav fikk tilnavnet «den hellige». Senere reiste mange pilegrimer til Nidaros for å få hjelp og trøst av Olav den hellige. Det ble reist ei praktfull kirke i Nidaros til ære for Olav, og etter sin død klarte han det han ikke klarte mens han levde; å samle et kristent Norge til ett rike under en konge. Sankt Olav ble periodevis også en viktig helgen i de andre nordiske landene i middelalderen, og St. Olavs skrin i Nidaros ble et betydningsfullt pilegrimsmål [2].

Den lutherske reformasjonen i Danmark-Norge i 1536-1537 satte en stopper for valfartene til St. Olavs skrin i Nidarosdomen. De to kostbare ytterskrinene ble raskt ødelagt, mens den opprinnelige trekisten med helgenkongens legeme ble oppbevart på erkebiskop Olav Engelbrektssons borg Steinvikholm 1536-1564 og deretter i en da offentlig kjent grav i Nidarosdomen fram til 1568. Siden er stedet for denne graven blitt glemt.

Arven etter Olav [rediger]Etter sin død i 1030 ble Olav utnevnt til Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae - «Norges evige konge». Norges konger skulle i ettertiden regnes som hans vasaller. Dette kommer også til uttrykk i Norges riksvåpen, der løven holder en øks - et symbol på helgenkongen.

Den eldste teksten som hyllet Olav som helgen ble trolig skrevet allerede i 1032: Glælognskvida av Torarinn Lovtunge. Størst utbredelse fikk Passio Olavi fra ca 1170, en helgenvita som både ble en del av Gammelnorsk homiliebok og som i en kortversjon ble spredt over store deler av Europa. Blant andre tekster kan nevnes diktet Geisli, som først ble fremført i 1153, ved innvielsen av erkebiskopsetet i Nidaros.

Kristen helgenkultus [rediger]Østkirkelig venerasjon av Olav den hellige St. Olav omtales rimeligvis oftest som en katolsk helgen, men også Den ortodokse kirke holder frem Olav Haraldsson som en stor norsk helgen. Ikke bare var han en del av den udelte Kirke før Det store skisma i 1054; han tilbragte også en viktig del av sitt liv i Russland. Da han forlot Russland, lot han sin sønn bli igjen i landet.

Olavskirker og -monumenter ble snart etter 1030 reist i store deler av den kristne verden, også i østlige egner som Novgorod, Viborg, Gdansk og Tallinn. Foruten Nidarosdomen er Ringsaker kirke og Avaldsnes kirke kjente olavskirker i Norge. Skt.Olai domkirke i Helsingør ligger like ved Kronborg slott på Sjælland i Danmark.. Olavskapellet i Konstantinopel skal ha oppbevart Olavs legendariske og mirakuløse sverd Bæsing.

Ortodokse ikonmalere har utvilet en egen olavsikonografi, og flere av de ortodokse kirkene i Oslo har Olavsikoner sentralt plassert eller som del av ikonostasen. Den norske ambassadørresidensen i Moskva huser også et russisk Olavsikon. Men det eldste kjente Olavsikonet i bysantinsk stil er fra 1200-tallet og finnes på én av søylene i Fødselskirken i Betlehem.

I Tromsø finnes Hl. Olav ortodokse kirkeforening, som er en del av Den ortodokse Kirke i Norge. Ortodokse olsokfeiringer har blant annet funnet sted i Nidaros, på Stiklestad og i Oslo.

Olav i nasjonal retorikk [rediger]Olavs liv og verk er tema i en rekke dikt, spel, drama, romaner og musikkverk.

Ludvig Irgens-Jensens oratorium Heimferd ble skrevet i 1930, i anledning 900-årsdagen for Olavs død. Det var på 30- og 40-tallet et av de mest populære musikkverk skrevet i Norge.

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Olaf

---

Olav Haraldsson, kallad den helige (eller S:t Olof), på norska Olav den hellige eller Olav II, latin Olavus rex, född 995, död 29 juli 1030, var kung av Norge och är landets nationalhelgon. Han firas på Olsmässodagen, 29 juli. Han var son till Harald Grenske och gift med Astrid Olofsdotter av Sverige. De hade tillsammans ett barn, Ulfhild av Norge. Olofs ende son, Magnus den gode, var en illegitim avkomma. Olav var i yngre år en framgångsrik viking. Han plundrade i Mälaren, i Östersjön och runt Danmarks kuster. Han deltog i tronstridigheterna i England där han förstörde London Bridge. I Normandie antog han kristendomen. 1015 landsteg han med få män i Norge och tog makten från ladejarlarna Håkon Eriksson och Sven Håkonsson. 1016 grundlade han staden Borg som blev norsk huvudstad. Som kung fortsatte han att kristna Norge på samma hårdhänta sätt som släktingen Olav Tryggvason. 1028 lämnade han Norge, invaderade sedan landet med svenskt stöd och stupade i slaget vid Stiklestad 1030. Hans helighet uppenbarade sig genast genom ett stort antal underverk som skedde i närheten av hans, efter slaget undangömda, lik. Kort efter hans död byggdes domkyrkan Nidarosdomen i Trondheim, där hans reliker förvarades. Helgon [redigera]

Olof blev Nordens första och mest populära helgon. I svenska kyrkor förekommer han på kalkmålningar och altarskåp, som staty och i helgonskåp, ofta tillsammans med Erik den helige, på Skogbonaden även tillsammans med den danske Knut den helige. Han är sjömännens och böndernas skyddshelgon. Attribut: framställd som kung (d.v.s. med krona, ibland även riksäpple); stor stridsyxa (med böjd klinga) och underliggare. Legenden bakom hans underliggare och den i flera kyrkor bevarade scenen Sankt Olavs seglats är följande: ” Olav och hans hedniske broder Harald tävlade om Norges krona. Striden skulle avgöras genom en kappsegling, där Harald seglade i den snabbe Ormen och Olav förde den tunge, otymplige Oxen. Olavs seglats blev ett mirakel, Oxen for fram över både vatten och land, och trollen som försökte hindra färden flydde slagna till sina hålor.

---

Olav "den Hellige" or St. Olaf.

Olav was a son of Harald Grenske. He spent several years in viking (raiding), among other places in Normandy, where he was baptized. He came to Norway in the fall of 1015. Immediately after his return, he captured Earl Erik's son, Haakon, and ended the power of the smaller kings. The Easter of 1016 Olav conquered Earl Svein in the sea-battle at Nesjar, and was named king at Oreting. During the fight against the leading chiefs, Erling Skjalgson, Einar Tambarskjelve, Haarek of Tjøtta and Tore Hund (Dog) of Bjarkøy, he had support from the lower aristocracy. After becoming the sole ruler of Norway, he forcibly Christianized the inhabitants.

His internal enemies united with King Knut (Canute) the Great of Denmark and England, who then claimed Norway. Along with Ethelred "the Unready", King of England, he fought the Danes in England, tore down London Bridge (commemorated in nursery rhyme "London Bridge is falling down"). In the summer of 1028, Knut came to Norway with 50 battleships, and Olav went to Gardarike (Russia). In 1030 he came back, but was slain during eclipse of 31 Aug 1030 at Stiklestad fighting Canute, King of England and Denmark, outmanned by the army of Trøndelag. The year after his death, his body was taken from its original grave, placed in a coffin and placed on the altar of the Klements-church in Trondheim. He was from then on considered a saint.

Olav (den hellige) Haraldsson. Født 994, død 29.07.1030 i slaget på Stiklestad. I ung alder dro Olav på vikingtokter til Østersjøen (de Baltiske stater og Finland), England og Frankrike. Under et opphold i Frankrike tok han kristendommen og lot seg døpe i Rouen. Full av iver for den nye troen kom han tilbake til Norge i 1015, hvor han straks vant tilslutning og avsatte de opprørske småkongene på Opplandene og forbød deling av riket. Den brutale og harde fremferden hans førte til at han fikk mange fiender, blant disse var stormennene Kalv Arnesson, Hårek på Tjøtta og Thore Hund. Olav Haraldsson ble viet i Sarpsborg med den gjeve og gladlynte Astri Olavsdatter, prinsesse av Sverige. Hun var datter av svenskekongen Olav Eiriksson Skötkonung. Olav Haraldsson var Norges konge i årene 1015-1028, og er vår nasjonalhelgen under navnet Olav den hellige.

etter sin død den hellige, 995-1030, konge 1015-28, sønn av Harald Grenske. Oppholdt seg flere år på vikingferder, bl.a. i Normandie, hvor han ble døpt. Kom høsten 1015 til Norge. Fangetstraks etter hjemkomsten Eirik jarls sønn Håkon og gjorde slutt på småkongenes makt. I påsken 1016 seiret O. over Svein jarl isjøslaget ved Nesjar, og ble tatt til konge på Øreting. I kampenmot de ledende høvdinger, Erling Skjalgsson, EinarTambarskjelve, Hårek fr aTjøtta og Tore Hund fra Bjarkøy,støttet O. seg til det laver earistokrati. O.s rolle vedinnføringen av kristendommen i Norg eer grunnleggende. Hansinnenlandske fiender forente seg med Knu tden mektige, somgjorde krav på Norge. Da Knut sommeren 1028 ko mtil landet meden flåte på 50 skip, drog O. til Gardarike. I 1030 kom hantilbake, men falt på Stiklestad 29. juli i kamp mot en overlegentrøndersk hær. Allerede året etter ble hans legeme tatt opp. Detble lagt i et skrin og satt på høyalteret i Klementskirken iNidaros, og han ble dyrket som hellig.After his death: St. Olav. 995-1030. King from 1015-1028.

---

Konge i Norge 1015 - 1030. Sendt i viking av moren 12 år gammel. Kom tilbake 8 år senere, i 1015. Søkte tilflukt hos Jaroslav i Kiev i 1028. Hadde med seg sønne Magnus, 4 år. Kom tilbake 1030, men Magnus ble tilbake i Kiev. Solformørkelsen dagen for slaget på Stiklestad er beregnet til 31. august. Dette er derfor antagelig den korrekte dødsdatoen.

Det nåværende kongehus stammer fra Ynglingeætten gjennom Olav den Helliges datter Ulvhild (ca 1020-71), som var gift med hertug Otto (Ordulf) av Sachsen, og ble stammor til huset Oldenburg."

---

Leo, Europäische Stammtafeln, Band II, Frank Baron Freytag von Loringhoven, 1975, Isenburg, W. K. Prinz von, Reference: Page 75
----------------------------------------
Ancestral File

name: Olaf II "The Saint" HARALDSSON KING OF NORWAY (AFN: 8HTG-LW)

sexo: male nacimiento: aproximadamente 0995

                        Of, Ringerike, Buskerud, Norway defunción: 	 29 July 1030  ,                        Stiklestad,, Norway entierro: 	 3 August 1030 

                        St. Clemens-Kirke, Trondheim, Sor-Trondelag, Norway matrimonio: 	 1 February 1019 

                        , Sarpsborg, Ostfold, Norway

Padres

Padre: Harald "Graenske" GUDRODSSON (AFN: G6T4-2C) madre: Asta "Astrid" GUDBRANDSDATTER (AFN: G6T1-TW)

Matrimonios (3)

cónyuge:

Astrid Olafsdatter Queen Of NORWAY ;[PRINCESS OF SWEDEN] (AFN: 9B4J-W8) matrimonio: 1 February 1019 , Sarpsborg, Ostfold, Norway

	Ocultar hijos (1) hijo 1: 	 Ulfhild OLAFSDATTER PRINCESS OF NORWAY  (AFN: 91RP-LQ) sexo: 	         female nacimiento: 	 aproximadamente 1020 

                        Of,, Norway defunción: 	 24 April 1070 

cónyuge: Alfhild Mrs HARALDSSON (AFN: XL4J-5N)

	Ocultar hijos (1)

hijo 1: Magnus I "The Good" OLAFSSON KING OF NORWAY (AFN: XL4J-6T) sexo: male nacimiento: aproximadamente 1024

                        Of,,, Norway defunción: 	 25 October 1047 

cónyuge: Thorberga ARNIMSDATTER (AFN: XL4J-86)

Enviado por (1) pdownby3012815

Cita de este registro "Ancestral File," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.2.1/MWB7-RSN : accessed 2014-05-24), entry for Olaf II "The Saint" HARALDSSON KING OF NORWAY.
--------------------------------------------

---

Olav Haraldsson, også kjent som Olav den Hellige, Olav Digre og Sankt Olav (gammelnorsk Óláfr Haraldsson og Óláfr hinn helgi), død 29. juli ca. 1030 på Stiklestad og gravlagt i Nidaros, var Norges konge fra 1015 til 1028. Han ble erklært som helgen av biskop Grimkjell 3. august ca. 1031. Olav Haraldssons mumifiserte lik ble oppbevart i St. Olavs skrin i Nidarosdomen fra om lag 1090. Dette var et viktig nordisk valfartssted fram til reformasjonen i 1537.

[http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olav_den_hellige]

---

Olav II Haraldsson «the Saint/Digre» den Hellige, king of No

http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00104684&tree=LEO

http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=nor&person=Olav%20Haraldsso...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_the_Holy

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olav_den_Hellige

http://www.snl.no/.nbl_biografi/Olav_2_Haraldsson_Den_Hellige/utdyp...

http://www.thepeerage.com/p4290.htm#i42893

http://www.katolsk.no/biografi/olav/

---

Olaf Haraldsson (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson, 995 – July 29, 1030) was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Norway he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood.

Concerning the king's name King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu - "forefather", Leifr - "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Reign

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

Norway during the reign of St. Olaf (1015–1028) showing areas under the control of hereditary chieftains (petty kingdoms).After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, had crushed the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, conducted a successful raid on Denmark, achieved peace with king Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time, engaged to his daughter, the Princess of Sweden, Ingegerd Olofsdotter without his approval. After the end of her engagement to Olaf, Ingegerd married the Great Prince Yaroslav I of Kiev.

In 1019 Olaf married the illegitimate daughter of King Olof of Sweden and half-sister of his former bride, Astrid Olofsdotter. Their daughter Wulfhild married Duke Ordulf of Saxony in 1042. The present king of Norway, Harald V and his father Olav V are thus descended from Olaf, since the latter's mother Maud was the daughter of Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, one of the numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, rallied round the invading Cnut the Great of Denmark, forcing Olaf to flee to Kievan Rus. During the voyage he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. On his return a year later, seizing an opportunity to win back the kingdom after Cnut the Great's vassal as ruler of Norway, Håkon Jarl, was lost at sea, he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard.

While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, most distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for 5 years after the Battle of Stiklestad, through the viceroyship of his son Svein. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Sainthood

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

Conversion of Norway

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway. So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074-5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries, since these priests were themselves of Norwegian descent, could speak the language and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be their new parishioners distant cousins and thus less likely to kill their pastors once Olaf and his army had left an area. One might note here, as well, that the few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros shows a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy.

Olaf's dynasty

For various reasons, most importantly the death of king Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Saint Olaf

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia, presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer:

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10-14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1-7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2-4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24-28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secr

Olav II Haraldsson «the Saint/Digre» den Hellige

• https://www.snerpa.is/net/snorri/landnama.htm
• http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00104684&tree=LEO
• http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=nor&person=Olav%20Haraldsso...
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_the_Holy
• https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyh%C3%A4_Olavi
• http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olav_den_Hellige
• http://www.snl.no/.nbl_biografi/Olav_2_Haraldsson_Den_Hellige/utdyp...
• http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/44977 (Current Archeology 11/23/16)
• http://www.katolsk.no/biografi/olav/
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway
• https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/norwegian-...

  ---

Olaf Haraldsson (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson, 995 – July 29, 1030) was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Norway he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood.

Concerning the king's name

King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu - "forefather", Leifr - "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Reign

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

Norway during the reign of St. Olaf (1015–1028) showing areas under the control of hereditary chieftains (petty kingdoms).After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, had crushed the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, conducted a successful raid on Denmark, achieved peace with king Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time, engaged to his daughter, the Princess of Sweden, Ingegerd Olofsdotter without his approval. After the end of her engagement to Olaf, Ingegerd married the Great Prince Yaroslav I of Kiev.

In 1019 Olaf married the illegitimate daughter of King Olof of Sweden and half-sister of his former bride, Astrid Olofsdotter. Their daughter Wulfhild married Duke Ordulf of Saxony in 1042. The present king of Norway, Harald V and his father Olav V are thus descended from Olaf, since the latter's mother Maud was the daughter of Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, one of the numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, rallied round the invading Cnut the Great of Denmark, forcing Olaf to flee to Kievan Rus. During the voyage he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. On his return a year later, seizing an opportunity to win back the kingdom after Cnut the Great's vassal as ruler of Norway, Håkon Jarl, was lost at sea, he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard.

While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, most distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for 5 years after the Battle of Stiklestad, through the viceroyship of his son Svein. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Sainthood

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

Conversion of Norway

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway. So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074-5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries, since these priests were themselves of Norwegian descent, could speak the language and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be their new parishioners distant cousins and thus less likely to kill their pastors once Olaf and his army had left an area. One might note here, as well, that the few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros shows a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy.

Olaf's dynasty

For various reasons, most importantly the death of king Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Saint Olaf

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia, presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer:

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10-14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1-7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2-4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24-28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secret):

Almighty God, in awe we call upon your inscrutable might. Make holy these created things which you have chosen so that they may become the body and blood of Christ, your Son. Through the intercession of the holy Olav, king and martyr, let them for the salvation of body and soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Verse:

Great is his glory through your saving help. With glory and honor will you clothe him, Lord.

Closing Prayer (Postcommunion):

We who have been fed at the table of the Lamb implore you, almighty God, through the intercession of your blessed martyr Olav let us always stand under the protection of your Son who redeemed us by his death on the cross, he who lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.

---

Olaf Haraldsson (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson, 995 – July 29, 1030), was king of Norway from 1015–1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Fat" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Norway he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") as a result of his sainthood.

---

Olaf II Haraldsson, patron saint of Norway (Old Norse: Óláfr Haraldsson) (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). In modern day Scandinavia he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood. King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu – "forefather", Leifr – "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave. Olave was also the traditional spelling in England, preserved in the name of medieval churches dedicated to him. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Born: 995

Died: July 29, 1030

Father: Åsta Gudbrandsdatter

Mother: Harald Grenske

Spouses:

Astrid Olofsdotter

Alvhild (concubine)

Issue:

Wulfhild (Ulvhild)

Tore

Emund

Edla

Magnus the Good

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

Norway during the reign of St. Olaf (1015–1028) showing areas under the control of hereditary chieftains (petty kingdoms). After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, subdued the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, and conducted a successful raid on Denmark. He made peace with king Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time engaged to his daughter, Princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter, though without Olof's approval.

In 1019 Olaf married Astrid Olofsdotter, Olof's illegitimate daughter and half-sister of his former fiancée. Their daughter Wulfhild married Ordulf, Duke of Saxony in 1042. Numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines are descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid, including the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Maud of Wales, daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, was the mother of King Olav V of Norway, so Olav and his son Harald V, the present king of Norway, are thus descended from Olaf.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, supported the invasion of King Cnut of Denmark. Olaf was driven into exile in Kievan Rus. During the exile he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. In 1030, Cnut's Norwegian vassal king, Jarl Håkon Eiriksson, was lost at sea. Olaf seized the opportunity to win back the kingdom, but he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard. While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, though distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for five years after Stiklestad, with his son Svein as viceroy. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

This calls for an explanation of the status he gained after his death. Three factors are important: his role in the Christianization of Norway, the various dynastic relationships among the ruling families, and the needs for legitimization in a later period.

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway. So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074–5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries. These priests would be of Norwegian descent, could speak the language, and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be distant cousins of their new parishioners and thus less likely to be killed when Olaf and his army departed. The few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros show a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy.

For various reasons, most importantly the death of king Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One is the killing and throwing onto the mountain of a still visible sea serpent. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave's Church, York is referred to in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for 1055 as the place of burial of its founder Earl Siward. This is generally accepted to be the earliest datable church foundation to Olaf and is further evidence of a cult of St Olaf in the early 1050s in England. St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia, presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

On July 29-th, Faroe Islands celebrates Olavsøka (Saint Olaf celebration), the National Day also, when they remember Saint Olaf, the king who Christianized the islands.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer (Collect):

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10–14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1–7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2–4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24–28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secret):

Almighty God, in awe we call upon your inscrutable might. Make holy these created things which you have chosen so that they may become the body and blood of Christ, your Son. Through the intercession of the holy Olav, king and martyr, let them for the salvation of body and soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Verse:

Great is his glory through your saving help. With glory and honor will you clothe him, Lord.

Closing Prayer (Postcommunion):

We who have been fed at the table of the Lamb implore you, almighty God, through the intercession of your blessed martyr Olav let us always stand under the protection of your Son who redeemed us by his death on the cross, he who lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway

Olaf II Haraldsson (Old Norse: Óláfr Haraldsson) (995 – July 29, 1030) was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Scandinavia he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood.

Concerning the king's name

King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu – "forefather", Leifr – "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave[citation needed]. Olave was also the traditional spelling in England, preserved in the name of medieval churches dedicated to him. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Reign

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, subdued the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, and conducted a successful raid on Denmark. He made peace with King Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time engaged to his daughter, Princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter, though without Olof's approval.

In 1019, Olaf married Astrid Olofsdotter, Olof's illegitimate daughter and half-sister of his former fiancée. Their daughter Wulfhild married Ordulf, Duke of Saxony in 1042. Numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines are descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid, including the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Maud of Wales, daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, was the mother of King Olav V of Norway, so Olav and his son Harald V, the present king of Norway, are thus descended from Olaf.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, supported the invasion of King Cnut of Denmark. Olaf was driven into exile in Kievan Rus. During the exile he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. In 1030, Cnut's Norwegian vassal king, Jarl Håkon Eiriksson, was lost at sea. Olaf seized the opportunity to win back the kingdom, but he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by bishop Grimkell. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard. While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, though distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for five years after Stiklestad, with his son Svein as viceroy. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Sainthood

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

This calls for an explanation of the status he gained after his death. Three factors are important: his role in the Christianization of Norway, the various dynastic relationships among the ruling families, and the needs for legitimization in a later period.

Conversion of Norway

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity.[3][citation needed] However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway.[4] So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074–5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries. These priests would be of Norwegian descent, could speak the language, and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be distant cousins of their new parishioners and thus less likely to be killed when Olaf and his army departed. The few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros show a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy[citation needed].

Olaf's dynasty

For various reasons, most importantly the death of King Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Saint Olaf

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One is the killing and throwing onto the mountain of a still visible sea serpent. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave's Church, York is referred to in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for 1055[5] as the place of burial of its founder Earl Siward. This is generally accepted to be the earliest datable church foundation to Olaf and is further evidence of a cult of St Olaf in the early 1050s in England. St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia[1], presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

On July 29-th, Faroe Islands celebrates Olavsøka (Saint Olaf celebration), the National Day also, when they remember Saint Olaf, the king who Christianized the islands.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer (Collect):

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10–14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1–7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2–4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24–28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secret):

Almighty God, in awe we call upon your inscrutable might. Make holy these created things which you have chosen so that they may become the body and blood of Christ, your Son. Through the intercession of the holy Olav, king and martyr, let them for the salvation of body and soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Verse:

Great is his glory through your saving help. With glory and honor will you clothe him, Lord.

Closing Prayer (Postcommunion):

We who have been fed at the table of the Lamb implore you, almighty God, through the intercession of your blessed martyr Olav let us always stand under the protection of your Son who redeemed us by his death on the cross, he who lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.[6]

Other instances of St Olaf

Faroe stamp featuring St. OlavSt. Olaf College was founded by Norwegian immigrant Bernt Julius Muus in Northfield, Minnesota, in 1874.

St Olav's Church is the tallest church in Tallinn, Estonia, and between 1549 and 1625 was the tallest building in the world.

The coat of arms of the Church of Norway contains two axes, the instruments of Saint Olav's martyrdom.

The oldest picture of St. Olav is painted on a column in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

The only country which keeps July 29 as a holiday is the Faroe Islands; see Ólavsøka.

The Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav was founded in 1847 by Oscar I, king of Norway and Sweden, in memory of this king.

Saint Olaf Catholic Church [2] in downtown Minneapolis and the statue of the saint from the sanctuary.[3]

The Tower of St. Olav is the only remaining tower of the Vyborg Castle

T.S.C Sint Olof is a Dutch student organisation with St. Olav as its patron.

---

Olav den helligeFra Wikipedia, den frie encyklopedi Gå til: navigasjon, søk Mangler kilder: Denne artikkelen inneholder påstander som trenger kildehenvisninger, enten fordi de er kontroversielle eller vanskelige å verifisere. Slike påstander kan bli fjernet. Olav II Haraldsson Konge av Norge

Navn: Olav den hellige Olav Digre Regjeringstid: 1015–1028 Født: 995, Ringerike Død: 29. juli 1030, slaget på Stiklestad Foreldre: Harald Grenske og Åsta Gud­brands­datter Ektefelle‍(r): Astrid Olofs­dat­ter, datter av Olof Sköt­konung av Sverige Barn: Magnus (1024–1047) Ulvhild Olavs­dat­ter, f. 1020 i Borg, d. i Saksen 24 mai 1071; g. m. Ordulf av Saksen (1020–1072)

Olav den hellige Konge og martyr Helligkåret 1031 Anerkjent av Den katolske kirke og Den ortodokse kirke Festdag 29. juli (Olsok) Se også Ekstern biografi Vernehelgen Norge I kunsten Konge med sverd, øks eller spyd.

Olav II (Haraldsson) den hellige (Óláfr Haraldsson, Óláfr hinn helgi) (født 995 på Ringerike, død 29. juli 1030 på Stiklestad), gravlagt i Nidaros, var Norges konge fra 1015 til 1028. Han er blant annet kjent for å ha felt London Bridge på en av sine vikingferder og for å være en sentral skikkelse i kristningen av Norge. Erklært helgen 3. august 1031. St. Olavs skrin i Nidarosdomen var et viktig nordisk valfartssted til reformasjonen i 1537.

Innhold 1 Bakgrunn 2 Oppvekst og impulser fra utlandet 3 Tilbake til Norge 4 Kristningen av Norge 5 Knut den mektige erobrer Norge - Olav rømmer 6 Olavs hjemkomst og slaget på Stiklestad 7 Helgenkongen 8 Arven etter Olav 8.1 Kristen helgenkultus 8.2 Olav i nasjonal retorikk 9 Referanser 10 Litteratur 11 Eksterne lenker

Bakgrunn [rediger]  St Olav fra Austevoll kirke i Sunnhordland fra ca 1450. Dragen med menneskehode som Olav tråkker på symboliserer hedenskapenHan ble født på Ringerike, og var sønn av Harald Grenske, og dermed tippoldebarn av Harald Hårfagre på farssiden. Hans mor var Åsta Gudbrandsdatter.

Harald Grenske døde da Åsta gikk gravid med Olav. Hun giftet seg senere med Sigurd Syr, som var en fredelig mann som likte bondeyrket sitt. Han var en rolig, sindig mann, klok og lovkyndig.[trenger referanse] Olav vokste opp på storgården hans.

Snorre Sturlason skildrer ham slik: «Han ble snart en kjekk kar. Han var vakker å se til, middels høy av vekst. Han var svært tettvoksen, hadde store krefter, lysebrunt hår, bredt ansikt, lys hud og rødlett ansikt. Han hadde usedvanlige gode øyne, de var vakre og så kvasse at en kunne bli redd for å se ham i øynene når han ble sint. Olav var svær i idretter og kunne mange ting. Han var god til å skyte med bue og siktet godt. Han kastet spyd bedre enn de fleste, var hendig og hadde et sikkert øye for all slags håndverk. Han ble kalt Olav Digre. (Det norrøne ordet kan bety tykk eller grovbygd, mest sannsynlig det siste, siden han selv likte dette tilnavnet). Han talte djervt og kvikt, var tidlig voksen i alle ting, både i styrke og vett, og alle frender og kjenninger var glade i ham. Han var ærekjær i leik, ville alltid være den første.»[trenger referanse]

Han hadde ikke så godt forhold til stefaren. Trolig var Olav veldig klar over den slekten han kom fra, og så litt ned på Sigurd Syr som var en slik ivrig bonde.[trenger referanse]

Oppvekst og impulser fra utlandet [rediger]12 år gammel dro Olav på sitt første vikingtokt. Med aner fra Hårfagre-ætten hadde han både villskap, griskhet, hevnlyst, grusomhet og et lettferdig forhold til kvinner, men også mer positive egenskaper som evnen til å organisere, styre og samle. Alt dette er egenskaper som gjorde at han likte livet som viking. Som tenåring dro han på tokt i Austerveg. Først noen år i Østersjølandene, deretter møtte han en jomsviking i Danmark som het Torkjell Høge, som han slo seg sammen med. Deretter herjet de sammen i England. De forsøkte å ta London, og i år 1011 tok de Canterbury.

Olav så det som sitt kall å samle Norge til ett rike, slik som hans forfar Harald Hårfagre i stor grad greide. På vei hjemover - etter en snartur nedom Spania og Karlså (sannsynligvis dagens Cadiz) - overvintrer han hos hertug Richard II av Normandie (1013-1014) (Frankrike). Denne regionen hadde normannerne (norske og danske vikinger) erobret i år 881, og de fikk beholde området i lovnad mot å ikke angripe resten av landet. De skulle også forsvare landet mot fremmede makter.

Her fikk Olav mange kristne impulser. Hertugen selv var en ivrig kristen, og normannerne var også kristnet. Siden Olav knapt hadde bodd hjemme, hadde han også liten tilknytning til Åsatroen, noe som nok gjorde ham mer åpen for disse impulsene. Han lot seg etterhvert døpe i Rouen (hovedstaden i Normandie). Under tiden sin her hørte han mange historier om gamle hendelser og helter, og særlig én gjorde inntrykk på ham - Karl den Store (Karla-Magnus) (ca. år 800). Han ble i stor grad Olavs forbilde som konge. Olavs sønn fikk navnet Magnus av Sigvat Skald, oppkalt etter Karla-Magnus.

På vei mot Norge dro Olav innom England. I år 1014 hjalp han anglo-sakserkongen Adalred II med å gjenvinne London fra danene, og rev i den anledning ned London bro. Den engelske barnereglen «London Bridge is falling down» kan ha sin rot i denne hendelsen. Olav ble rikt belønnet av Adalred for hjelpen. Han la igjen langskipene her, og reiste videre med handelsskip. Dette var høsten 1015.

Tilbake til Norge [rediger]Olav kom da til et politisk og religiøst splittet Norge. Etter Olav Tryggvasons død ved slaget ved Svolder ble landet delt mellom seierherrene: danskekongen, svenskekongen og ladejarlene. I tillegg var Norge i stor grad et ættesamfunn. Man tjente da først og fremst familien, som ble styrt av familiens mannlige overhode. Blodhevn var også vanlig. Det var lite som lignet på et samlet rike, og det var lite grobunn for innføringen av kristendommen. Imidlertid var ættesamfunnet noe på tilbakegang da Olav kom til Norge, og det hadde vokst fram bygdesamfunn og småriker, med høvdinger og småkonger. Herredsting og lagting var også etablert. Likevel skulle det bli en vanskelig jobb å kristne og samle et slikt rike, der selv jarlene og høvdinger som Erling Skjalgsson, Kalv Arneson, Hårek på Tjøtta og Tore Hund først og fremst tenkte på ættens fremgang.

Noe av det første Olav gjorde, var å ta Eirik Jarl (963 - 1024) sin sønn, Håkon til fange, og ga han grid mot at han forlot landet og reiste til sin far, Eirik jarl, i England. Etter dette begynte han arbeidet med å bygge seg opp makt, først ved å bli småkonge i Opplandene, der han kom fra. Kristningen ventet han med. Etter slaget mot Svein Jarl i Langesundfjorden ble han konge over Viken og Agder. Deretter tok han turen til Trøndelag, der han ble hyllet til konge, og senere også i Inntrøndelag. På vei sørover derfra ble han også kronet i ting etter ting. Dermed var han snart konge over hele Midt- og Sør-Norge.

Etter dette sluttet Olav fred med svenskekongen, og som en del av avtalen skulle han få gifte seg med datteren hans. Men innen bryllupet fant sted hadde svenskekongen giftet henne bort til fyrst Jaroslav i Novgorod. For å bøte på dette, rømte svenskekongens andre datter til Norge og giftet seg med Olav. Da dette var ordnet, dro Olav til Hålogaland og ble gjort til konge her også, og var i prinsippet konge over hele Norge.

Landet styrte Olav fra Borg, senere Sarpsborg, byen han selv grunnla i 1016. Etter å ha seilt opp Glomma nådde hans skip fossen Sarpr, idag kjent som Sarpsfossen. Fossen kunne ikke passeres, og kongen gikk derfor i land, og slo seg til slutt ned på oversiden av den. Byen Borg ble Norges hovedstad, og kongen lot bygge en voll rundt hele byen. Deler av vollen finnes den dag i dag. Da Olav giftet seg med svenske Astrid, var kongehus i en rekke land representert. Olav var også vert for andre bryllup og feiringer hjemme i Borg.

Kristningen av Norge [rediger]Kristendommen hadde på denne tiden begynt å få fotfeste i Norge, med ganske spredd, og mange var kristne i navnet, men fulgte ikke den kristne tro så nøye. Det var besluttet på lagtingene rundt i Norge at kristendommen skulle innføres. Noen steder var det problematisk å kristne folket, mens de fleste steder gikk det greit. Snorre Sturlason forteller historier om folk som ble drept eller lemlestet når de nektet å oppta den nye troen. Olav hadde også tatt med seg 4 biskoper fra England. Den viktigste av disse var bisp Grimkjell. Han var Olavs nærmeste i kirkesaker.

Ca. 1023 ble det avholdt et kirkemøte på Moster, med biskopene og kongens menn, der kristenretten skulle vedtas på Mostratinget; det vil si Kirkens lover. På dette tinget ble kirken knyttet til kongen, som en statskirke. Den nye loven omtales som «Det store sedskifte». Loven (1024) begynte slik: «Det første i vår lov er at vi skal bøye oss mot aust og be til Kvite Krist om godt år og fred, at vi må halde landet vårt bygd og drotten vår ved helse. Han være vår ven og vi hans vener og Gud være ven åt oss alle.»

Her ble det blant annet forbud mot å sette ut barn og treller skulle kjøpes fri. Flerkoneri blir forbudt. Nyfødte barn skal få leve og ikke settes ut i skog eller mark. Det blir satt strenge straffer for voldtekt og kvinneran. Kjøttmat blir forbudt på fredager. Det skal fastes hele syv uker før påske. Det blir nedlagt forbud mot å gifte seg med slektninger inntil syvende ledd. Nyfødte barn skal føres til kirken for å døpes. Det blir forbudt å gravlegge de døde i hauger eller røyser som i hedensk tid. Liket skal føres til kirken og begraves i hellig jord. Begravelse i vigslet jord blir nektet udådsmenn, kongesvikere, mordere, tyver og selvmordere. Kirker skal bygges i hvert fylke. Biskopen rår over dem og skal tilsette prester. Menn innenfor fylkesgrensene har ansvar for kirkenes vedlikehold og prestenes underhold.

Olav reiste mye rundt etter dette, for å holde ting med bøndene, og lese opp kristenretten. Her møtte han mye motstand, fordi disse lovene stred mot de skikkene som ble praktisert. Olav truet med både død og lemlestelse, og tap av eiendom. På denne måten skaffet han seg mange fiender. Han praktiserte likhet for loven, dvs at storfolk ble straffet på samme måte som bønder.

Knut den mektige erobrer Norge - Olav rømmer [rediger]I 1028 kom Knut den mektige til Norge med 50 krigsskip. Han var da konge over Danmark og England. Med sin enorme rikdom kjøpte han seg allierte blant stormennene, og de ble lovet stor makt og etterlengtet frihet fra Olavs harde styre dersom de støttet ham. Olav ble sviktet også av sine hærmenn, og måtte til slutt flykte. Biskop Grimkjell ble igjen for å styre kirken. Så drog han med sønnen Magnus og en håndfull trofaste menn til Gardarike (Russland). Han slo seg ned i Novgorod, hvor han ble vel mottatt av storfyrst Jaroslav og hans fyrstinne Ingegjerd av Sverige, som Olav i sin tid skulle hatt til ekte. Knut blir hyllet til konge på Øretinget, og gjorde Håkon Jarls sønnesønn Håkon Eiriksson til sin jarl i Norge

Jaroslav tilbyr Olav å bli konge i Volga-Bulgaria, noe han avslår. Olav vil bare ha tilbake sitt rike, Norge. Snorre Sturlason beskriver en drøm Olav har, der Olav Tryggvason åpenbarer seg for ham, og sier at han må følge Guds vilje og gjøre det som er rett. Han må la Gud bestemme om det skal bli seier eller tap. Olav får også høre at Håkon Jarl druknet i et skipsforlis, dette gjør at han bestemmer seg for å dra tilbake til Norge.

Olavs hjemkomst og slaget på Stiklestad [rediger]  Olav faller på slagmarken. Tegnet for den illustrerte Snorreutgaven av Halfdan Egedius.  Torgils og Grim bærer Olavs lik bort fra slagmarken. Tegnet for Snorres Norge Kongesagaer. Heimskringla (1899) av Halfdan Egedius.  Peter Nicolai Arbos romantiske maleri Olav den Helliges død fra 1859.  Alterbilde fra Nidaros som viser Olavs død på Striklestad.  Olav den helliges død. Miniatyrbilde.Olav reiser tilbake til Norge, og rir opp til Trøndelag. Like før slaget ved Stiklestad sover han litt, og drømmer at han klatrer oppover en stige som når helt opp i himmelen. Han lover sine menn at Gud vil gi dem større lønn enn gleden over verdslige verdier. De kjemper tappert, men Olav faller, og invasjonen blir stoppet. Olav gjorde kanskje en dårlig avgjørelse da han gikk for å ta Trøndelag, der han var minst populær, og møtte en hær mye større enn sin egen. Olav dør av hogg i halsen, magen og låret. Snorre hevder at det var Kalv Arnesson som hogg kongen i halsen, Tore Hund som stakk spydet i magen på kongen og Torstein Knarresmed som hogg kongen i låret. Dette var 29. juli 1030.

Snorres framstilling av kong Olavs død samsvarer med blant annet motivet på en portal fra den nedrevne Hemsedal stavkirke. Portalen, som har som tema kong Olavs martyrium og status som kristusliknende helgen, viser at den kraften og styrken som Sankt Olav ble tillagt som kristningshelgen, har basis i den framgangsmåten som de tre hedenske krigerne fulgte da de drepte kongen under slaget på Stiklestad, kombinert med kongens oppførsel i denne sammenhengen. I både Snorres beretning og middelalderens bildelige skildringer er drapet av kongen gitt et preg av hedensk kult innenfor en kristen, mytisk ramme. Dette preget av et hedensk kultdrap dannet i sin tid grunnlaget for Sankt Olavs mytologisk baserte virkekraft i hedenske samfunn, slik det framgår av at det hedenske Trøndelag kunne legges under kristen kongemakt uten væpnet kamp kort tid etter Sankt Olavs martyrium og opphøyelse til helgen.[1] Snorres beretning om kong Olav og hans død under slaget på Stiklestad er således først og fremst å betrakte som en gjengivelse av en formfullendt helgenlegende som hadde til hensikt å fremme og konsolidere kristendommen i både hedenske og kristne samfunn.

Helgenkongen [rediger]Mange angret på at de hadde gått i mot Olav, og folk begynte å tenke på ham som en hellig mann. Det ble fortalt underlige historier om ting som skjedde med Olavs lik. Etter slaget på Stiklestad hadde liket til Olav blitt lagt inn i et skur. En blind mann skal ha gått inn dit om natta og gnidd seg i øynene med Olav sitt blod slik at han fikk tilbake synet. Bonden på Stiklestad tok med seg liket og gravla det ved Nidaros.

Det påstås at liket ble gravd opp året etter og at negler, hår og skjegg skulle ha grodd. Denne påstanden fikk folk til å mene at det hadde skjedd et under, og Olav fikk tilnavnet «den hellige». Senere reiste mange pilegrimer til Nidaros for å få hjelp og trøst av Olav den hellige. Det ble reist ei praktfull kirke i Nidaros til ære for Olav, og etter sin død klarte han det han ikke klarte mens han levde; å samle et kristent Norge til ett rike under en konge. Sankt Olav ble periodevis også en viktig helgen i de andre nordiske landene i middelalderen, og St. Olavs skrin i Nidaros ble et betydningsfullt pilegrimsmål [2].

Den lutherske reformasjonen i Danmark-Norge i 1536-1537 satte en stopper for valfartene til St. Olavs skrin i Nidarosdomen. De to kostbare ytterskrinene ble raskt ødelagt, mens den opprinnelige trekisten med helgenkongens legeme ble oppbevart på erkebiskop Olav Engelbrektssons borg Steinvikholm 1536-1564 og deretter i en da offentlig kjent grav i Nidarosdomen fram til 1568. Siden er stedet for denne graven blitt glemt.

Arven etter Olav [rediger]Etter sin død i 1030 ble Olav utnevnt til Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae - «Norges evige konge». Norges konger skulle i ettertiden regnes som hans vasaller. Dette kommer også til uttrykk i Norges riksvåpen, der løven holder en øks - et symbol på helgenkongen.

Den eldste teksten som hyllet Olav som helgen ble trolig skrevet allerede i 1032: Glælognskvida av Torarinn Lovtunge. Størst utbredelse fikk Passio Olavi fra ca 1170, en helgenvita som både ble en del av Gammelnorsk homiliebok og som i en kortversjon ble spredt over store deler av Europa. Blant andre tekster kan nevnes diktet Geisli, som først ble fremført i 1153, ved innvielsen av erkebiskopsetet i Nidaros.

Kristen helgenkultus [rediger]Østkirkelig venerasjon av Olav den hellige St. Olav omtales rimeligvis oftest som en katolsk helgen, men også Den ortodokse kirke holder frem Olav Haraldsson som en stor norsk helgen. Ikke bare var han en del av den udelte Kirke før Det store skisma i 1054; han tilbragte også en viktig del av sitt liv i Russland. Da han forlot Russland, lot han sin sønn bli igjen i landet.

Olavskirker og -monumenter ble snart etter 1030 reist i store deler av den kristne verden, også i østlige egner som Novgorod, Viborg, Gdansk og Tallinn. Foruten Nidarosdomen er Ringsaker kirke og Avaldsnes kirke kjente olavskirker i Norge. Skt.Olai domkirke i Helsingør ligger like ved Kronborg slott på Sjælland i Danmark.. Olavskapellet i Konstantinopel skal ha oppbevart Olavs legendariske og mirakuløse sverd Bæsing.

Ortodokse ikonmalere har utvilet en egen olavsikonografi, og flere av de ortodokse kirkene i Oslo har Olavsikoner sentralt plassert eller som del av ikonostasen. Den norske ambassadørresidensen i Moskva huser også et russisk Olavsikon. Men det eldste kjente Olavsikonet i bysantinsk stil er fra 1200-tallet og finnes på én av søylene i Fødselskirken i Betlehem.

I Tromsø finnes Hl. Olav ortodokse kirkeforening, som er en del av Den ortodokse Kirke i Norge. Ortodokse olsokfeiringer har blant annet funnet sted i Nidaros, på Stiklestad og i Oslo.

Olav i nasjonal retorikk [rediger]Olavs liv og verk er tema i en rekke dikt, spel, drama, romaner og musikkverk.

Ludvig Irgens-Jensens oratorium Heimferd ble skrevet i 1930, i anledning 900-årsdagen for Olavs død. Det var på 30- og 40-tallet et av de mest populære musikkverk skrevet i Norge.

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Olaf

---

Olav Haraldsson, kallad den helige (eller S:t Olof), på norska Olav den hellige eller Olav II, latin Olavus rex, född 995, död 29 juli 1030, var kung av Norge och är landets nationalhelgon. Han firas på Olsmässodagen, 29 juli. Han var son till Harald Grenske och gift med Astrid Olofsdotter av Sverige. De hade tillsammans ett barn, Ulfhild av Norge. Olofs ende son, Magnus den gode, var en illegitim avkomma. Olav var i yngre år en framgångsrik viking. Han plundrade i Mälaren, i Östersjön och runt Danmarks kuster. Han deltog i tronstridigheterna i England där han förstörde London Bridge. I Normandie antog han kristendomen. 1015 landsteg han med få män i Norge och tog makten från ladejarlarna Håkon Eriksson och Sven Håkonsson. 1016 grundlade han staden Borg som blev norsk huvudstad. Som kung fortsatte han att kristna Norge på samma hårdhänta sätt som släktingen Olav Tryggvason. 1028 lämnade han Norge, invaderade sedan landet med svenskt stöd och stupade i slaget vid Stiklestad 1030. Hans helighet uppenbarade sig genast genom ett stort antal underverk som skedde i närheten av hans, efter slaget undangömda, lik. Kort efter hans död byggdes domkyrkan Nidarosdomen i Trondheim, där hans reliker förvarades. Helgon [redigera]

Olof blev Nordens första och mest populära helgon. I svenska kyrkor förekommer han på kalkmålningar och altarskåp, som staty och i helgonskåp, ofta tillsammans med Erik den helige, på Skogbonaden även tillsammans med den danske Knut den helige. Han är sjömännens och böndernas skyddshelgon. Attribut: framställd som kung (d.v.s. med krona, ibland även riksäpple); stor stridsyxa (med böjd klinga) och underliggare. Legenden bakom hans underliggare och den i flera kyrkor bevarade scenen Sankt Olavs seglats är följande: ” Olav och hans hedniske broder Harald tävlade om Norges krona. Striden skulle avgöras genom en kappsegling, där Harald seglade i den snabbe Ormen och Olav förde den tunge, otymplige Oxen. Olavs seglats blev ett mirakel, Oxen for fram över både vatten och land, och trollen som försökte hindra färden flydde slagna till sina hålor.

---

Olav "den Hellige" or St. Olaf.

Olav was a son of Harald Grenske. He spent several years in viking (raiding), among other places in Normandy, where he was baptized. He came to Norway in the fall of 1015. Immediately after his return, he captured Earl Erik's son, Haakon, and ended the power of the smaller kings. The Easter of 1016 Olav conquered Earl Svein in the sea-battle at Nesjar, and was named king at Oreting. During the fight against the leading chiefs, Erling Skjalgson, Einar Tambarskjelve, Haarek of Tjøtta and Tore Hund (Dog) of Bjarkøy, he had support from the lower aristocracy. After becoming the sole ruler of Norway, he forcibly Christianized the inhabitants.

His internal enemies united with King Knut (Canute) the Great of Denmark and England, who then claimed Norway. Along with Ethelred "the Unready", King of England, he fought the Danes in England, tore down London Bridge (commemorated in nursery rhyme "London Bridge is falling down"). In the summer of 1028, Knut came to Norway with 50 battleships, and Olav went to Gardarike (Russia). In 1030 he came back, but was slain during eclipse of 31 Aug 1030 at Stiklestad fighting Canute, King of England and Denmark, outmanned by the army of Trøndelag. The year after his death, his body was taken from its original grave, placed in a coffin and placed on the altar of the Klements-church in Trondheim. He was from then on considered a saint.

Olav (den hellige) Haraldsson. Født 994, død 29.07.1030 i slaget på Stiklestad. I ung alder dro Olav på vikingtokter til Østersjøen (de Baltiske stater og Finland), England og Frankrike. Under et opphold i Frankrike tok han kristendommen og lot seg døpe i Rouen. Full av iver for den nye troen kom han tilbake til Norge i 1015, hvor han straks vant tilslutning og avsatte de opprørske småkongene på Opplandene og forbød deling av riket. Den brutale og harde fremferden hans førte til at han fikk mange fiender, blant disse var stormennene Kalv Arnesson, Hårek på Tjøtta og Thore Hund. Olav Haraldsson ble viet i Sarpsborg med den gjeve og gladlynte Astri Olavsdatter, prinsesse av Sverige. Hun var datter av svenskekongen Olav Eiriksson Skötkonung. Olav Haraldsson var Norges konge i årene 1015-1028, og er vår nasjonalhelgen under navnet Olav den hellige.

etter sin død den hellige, 995-1030, konge 1015-28, sønn av Harald Grenske. Oppholdt seg flere år på vikingferder, bl.a. i Normandie, hvor han ble døpt. Kom høsten 1015 til Norge. Fangetstraks etter hjemkomsten Eirik jarls sønn Håkon og gjorde slutt på småkongenes makt. I påsken 1016 seiret O. over Svein jarl isjøslaget ved Nesjar, og ble tatt til konge på Øreting. I kampenmot de ledende høvdinger, Erling Skjalgsson, EinarTambarskjelve, Hårek fr aTjøtta og Tore Hund fra Bjarkøy,støttet O. seg til det laver earistokrati. O.s rolle vedinnføringen av kristendommen i Norg eer grunnleggende. Hansinnenlandske fiender forente seg med Knu tden mektige, somgjorde krav på Norge. Da Knut sommeren 1028 ko mtil landet meden flåte på 50 skip, drog O. til Gardarike. I 1030 kom hantilbake, men falt på Stiklestad 29. juli i kamp mot en overlegentrøndersk hær. Allerede året etter ble hans legeme tatt opp. Detble lagt i et skrin og satt på høyalteret i Klementskirken iNidaros, og han ble dyrket som hellig.After his death: St. Olav. 995-1030. King from 1015-1028.

---

Konge i Norge 1015 - 1030. Sendt i viking av moren 12 år gammel. Kom tilbake 8 år senere, i 1015. Søkte tilflukt hos Jaroslav i Kiev i 1028. Hadde med seg sønne Magnus, 4 år. Kom tilbake 1030, men Magnus ble tilbake i Kiev. Solformørkelsen dagen for slaget på Stiklestad er beregnet til 31. august. Dette er derfor antagelig den korrekte dødsdatoen.

Det nåværende kongehus stammer fra Ynglingeætten gjennom Olav den Helliges datter Ulvhild (ca 1020-71), som var gift med hertug Otto (Ordulf) av Sachsen, og ble stammor til huset Oldenburg."

---

Leo, Europäische Stammtafeln, Band II, Frank Baron Freytag von Loringhoven, 1975, Isenburg, W. K. Prinz von, Reference: Page 75
----------------------------------------
Ancestral File

name: Olaf II "The Saint" HARALDSSON KING OF NORWAY (AFN: 8HTG-LW)

sexo: male nacimiento: aproximadamente 0995

                        Of, Ringerike, Buskerud, Norway defunción: 	 29 July 1030  ,                        Stiklestad,, Norway entierro: 	 3 August 1030 

                        St. Clemens-Kirke, Trondheim, Sor-Trondelag, Norway matrimonio: 	 1 February 1019 

                        , Sarpsborg, Ostfold, Norway

Padres

Padre: Harald "Graenske" GUDRODSSON (AFN: G6T4-2C) madre: Asta "Astrid" GUDBRANDSDATTER (AFN: G6T1-TW)

Matrimonios (3)

cónyuge:

Astrid Olafsdatter Queen Of NORWAY ;[PRINCESS OF SWEDEN] (AFN: 9B4J-W8) matrimonio: 1 February 1019 , Sarpsborg, Ostfold, Norway

	Ocultar hijos (1) hijo 1: 	 Ulfhild OLAFSDATTER PRINCESS OF NORWAY  (AFN: 91RP-LQ) sexo: 	         female nacimiento: 	 aproximadamente 1020 

                        Of,, Norway defunción: 	 24 April 1070 

cónyuge: Alfhild Mrs HARALDSSON (AFN: XL4J-5N)

	Ocultar hijos (1)

hijo 1: Magnus I "The Good" OLAFSSON KING OF NORWAY (AFN: XL4J-6T) sexo: male nacimiento: aproximadamente 1024

                        Of,,, Norway defunción: 	 25 October 1047 

cónyuge: Thorberga ARNIMSDATTER (AFN: XL4J-86)

Enviado por (1) pdownby3012815

Cita de este registro "Ancestral File," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.2.1/MWB7-RSN : accessed 2014-05-24), entry for Olaf II "The Saint" HARALDSSON KING OF NORWAY.
--------------------------------------------

---

Olav Haraldsson, også kjent som Olav den Hellige, Olav Digre og Sankt Olav (gammelnorsk Óláfr Haraldsson og Óláfr hinn helgi), død 29. juli ca. 1030 på Stiklestad og gravlagt i Nidaros, var Norges konge fra 1015 til 1028. Han ble erklært som helgen av biskop Grimkjell 3. august ca. 1031. Olav Haraldssons mumifiserte lik ble oppbevart i St. Olavs skrin i Nidarosdomen fra om lag 1090. Dette var et viktig nordisk valfartssted fram til reformasjonen i 1537.

[http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olav_den_hellige]

---

Olav II Haraldsson «the Saint/Digre» den Hellige, king of No

http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00104684&tree=LEO

http://lind.no/nor/index.asp?lang=&emne=nor&person=Olav%20Haraldsso...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_the_Holy

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olav_den_Hellige

http://www.snl.no/.nbl_biografi/Olav_2_Haraldsson_Den_Hellige/utdyp...

http://www.thepeerage.com/p4290.htm#i42893

http://www.katolsk.no/biografi/olav/

---

Olaf Haraldsson (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson, 995 – July 29, 1030) was king of Norway from 1015 to 1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Norway he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood.

Concerning the king's name King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu - "forefather", Leifr - "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Reign

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

Norway during the reign of St. Olaf (1015–1028) showing areas under the control of hereditary chieftains (petty kingdoms).After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, had crushed the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, conducted a successful raid on Denmark, achieved peace with king Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time, engaged to his daughter, the Princess of Sweden, Ingegerd Olofsdotter without his approval. After the end of her engagement to Olaf, Ingegerd married the Great Prince Yaroslav I of Kiev.

In 1019 Olaf married the illegitimate daughter of King Olof of Sweden and half-sister of his former bride, Astrid Olofsdotter. Their daughter Wulfhild married Duke Ordulf of Saxony in 1042. The present king of Norway, Harald V and his father Olav V are thus descended from Olaf, since the latter's mother Maud was the daughter of Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, one of the numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, rallied round the invading Cnut the Great of Denmark, forcing Olaf to flee to Kievan Rus. During the voyage he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. On his return a year later, seizing an opportunity to win back the kingdom after Cnut the Great's vassal as ruler of Norway, Håkon Jarl, was lost at sea, he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard.

While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, most distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for 5 years after the Battle of Stiklestad, through the viceroyship of his son Svein. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Sainthood

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

Conversion of Norway

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway. So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074-5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwegian church, on the one hand, more independent of its king, but, on the other hand, more directly responsible to the Pope — did canon law gain a greater predominance in the life and jurisdiction of the Norwegian church.

Sigrid Undset noted that Olaf was baptized in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and suggested that Olaf used priests of Norman descent for his missionaries, since these priests were themselves of Norwegian descent, could speak the language and shared the culture of the people they were to convert. Since the Normans themselves had only been in Normandy for about two generations, these priests might, at least in some cases, be their new parishioners distant cousins and thus less likely to kill their pastors once Olaf and his army had left an area. One might note here, as well, that the few surviving manuscripts and the printed missal used in Archdiocese of Nidaros shows a clear dependence on the missals used in Normandy.

Olaf's dynasty

For various reasons, most importantly the death of king Knut the Great in 1035, but perhaps even a certain discontent among Norwegian nobles with the Danish rule in the years after Olaf's death in 1030, his illegitimate son with the concubine Alvhild, Magnus the Good, assumed power in Norway, and eventually also in Denmark. Numerous churches in Denmark were dedicated to Olaf during his reign, and the sagas give glimpses of similar efforts to promote the cult of his deceased father on the part of the young king. This would become typical in the Scandinavian monarchies. It should be remembered that in pagan times the Scandinavian kings derived their right to rule from their claims of descent from the Norse god Odin, or in the case of the kings of the Swedes at Old Uppsala, from Freyr. In Christian times this legitimation of a dynasty's right to rule and its national prestige would be based on its descent from a saintly king. Thus the kings of Norway promoted the cult of St. Olaf, the kings of Sweden the cult of St. Erik and the kings of Denmark the cult of St. Canute, just as in England the Norman and Plantagenet kings similarly promoted the cult of St. Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, their coronation church.

Saint Olaf

Among the bishops that Olaf brought with him from England, was Grimkell (Grimkillus). He was probably the only one of the missionary bishops who was left in the country at the time of Olaf's death, and he stood behind the translation and beatification of Olaf on August 3, 1031. Grimkell later became the first bishop of Sigtuna in Sweden.

At this time, local bishops and their people recognized and proclaimed a person a saint, and a formal canonization procedure through the papal curia was not customary; in Olaf's case, this did not happen until 1888.

Grimkell was later appointed bishop in the diocese of Selsey in the south-east of England. This is probably the reason why the earliest traces of a liturgical cult of St Olaf are found in England. An office, or prayer service, for St Olaf is found in the so-called Leofric collectar (c. 1050), which was bequeathed in his last will and testament by Bishop Leofric of Exeter to Exeter Cathedral, in the neighbouring diocese to Selsey. This English cult seems to have been short-lived.

Adam of Bremen, writing around 1070, mentions pilgrimage to the saint's shrine in Nidaros, but this is the only firm trace we have of a cult of St. Olaf in Norway before the middle of the twelfth century. By this time he was also being referred to as "The Eternal King of Norway". In 1152/3, Nidaros was separated from Lund as the archbishopric of Nidaros. It is likely that whatever formal or informal — which, we do not know — veneration of Olav as a saint there may have been in Nidaros prior to this, was emphasised and formalized on this occasion.

During the visit of the papal legate, Nicholas Brekespear (later Pope Adrian IV), the poem Geisli ("the ray of sun") was recited. In this poem, we hear for the first time of miracles performed by St. Olaf. One of these took place on the day of his death, when a blind man got his eyesight back again after having rubbed his eyes with hands that were stained with the blood from the saint.

The texts which were used for the liturgical celebration of St. Olaf during most of the Middle Ages were probably compiled or written by Eystein Erlendsson, the second Archbishop of Norway (1161–1189). The nine miracles reported in Geisli form the core of the catalogue of miracles in this office.

The celebration of St. Olaf was widespread in the Nordic countries. Apart from the early traces of a cult in England, there are only scattered references to him outside of the Nordic area. Several churches in England were dedicated to him (often as St Olave). St Olave Hart Street in the City of London is the burial place of Samuel Pepys and his wife. Another south of London Bridge gave its name to Tooley Street and to the St Olave's Poor Law Union, later to become the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey: its workhouse in Rotherhithe became the St Olave's Hospital, now an old-people's home a few hundred metres from St Olaf's Church, which is the Norwegian Church in London. It also led to the naming of St Olave's Grammar School, which was established in 1571 and up until 1968 was situated in Tooley Street. In 1968 the school was moved to Orpington, Kent.

St. Olaf was also, together with the Mother of God, the patron saint of the chapel of the Varangians, the Scandinavian warriors who served as the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor. This church is believed to have been located near the church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople. The icon of the Madonna Nicopeia, presently in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, which is believed to have been one traditionally carried into combat by the Byzantine military forces, is believed to have been kept in this chapel in times of peace. Thus St. Olaf was also the last saint to be venerated by both the Western and Eastern churches before the Great Schism.

There is also an altar dedicated to St. Olaf in the church of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome with a painting of the saint given to Pope Leo XIII in 1893 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination as a bishop by Wilhelm Wedel-Jarlsberg as its altarpiece.

Recently the pilgrimage route to Nidaros Cathedral, the site of St. Olav's tomb, has been reinstated. Following the Norwegian spelling the route is known as Saint Olav's Way. The main route, which is approximately 640 km long, starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads North, along Lake Mjosa, up the Gudbrandsdal Valley, over Dovrefjell and down the Oppdal Valley to end at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. There is a Pilgrim's Office in Oslo which gives advice to Pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, which awards certificates to successful Pilgrims upon the completion of their journey.

Propers of the Mass for the Feast of St. Olaf

Entrance Verse:

Let us all rejoice in the Lord on the feast of blessed Olav, Norway's eternal king. The angels exult over his martyrdom and praise the Son of God.

Opening Prayer:

Almighty, eternal God, you are the crown of kings and the triumph of martyrs. We know that your blessed martyr, Olav, intercedes for us before your face. We praise your greatness in his death and we pray you, give us the crown of life that you have promised those who love you, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Old Testament Reading: Wisdom of Solomon 10: 10-14.

Responsory Psalm: Psalm 31 (30): 1-7 with the response: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit."

Epistle: James 1: 2-4, 12.

Allelua Verse:

Alleluia. Holy Olav, you who rejoice with the angels of heaven, pray for us that we may be worthy to present our sacrifice of praise before the Lord. Alleluia.

Gospel: Matthew 16:24-28

Prayer over the Offerings (Secret):

Almighty God, in awe we call upon your inscrutable might. Make holy these created things which you have chosen so that they may become the body and blood of Christ, your Son. Through the intercession of the holy Olav, king and martyr, let them for the salvation of body and soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Verse:

Great is his glory through your saving help. With glory and honor will you clothe him, Lord.

Closing Prayer (Postcommunion):

We who have been fed at the table of the Lamb implore you, almighty God, through the intercession of your blessed martyr Olav let us always stand under the protection of your Son who redeemed us by his death on the cross, he who lives and reigns from eternity to eternity.

---

Olaf Haraldsson (Old Norse Óláfr Haraldsson, 995 – July 29, 1030), was king of Norway from 1015–1028, (known during his lifetime as "the Fat" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). His mother was Åsta Gudbrandsdatter, and his father was Harald Grenske, great-grandchild of Harald Fairhair. In modern day Norway he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") as a result of his sainthood. -------------------- Olaf II Haraldsson, patron saint of Norway (Old Norse: Óláfr Haraldsson) (known during his lifetime as "the Big" (Óláfr Digre) and after his canonization as Saint Olaf or Olaus). In modern day Scandinavia he is known as Olav den Hellige ("Olaf the Holy") or Heilag-Olav ("Holy Olaf") as a result of his sainthood. King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway had the given name Óláfr in Old Norse. (Etymology: Anu – "forefather", Leifr – "heir".) Olav is the modern equivalent in Norwegian, formerly often spelt Olaf. His name in Icelandic is Ólafur, in Faroese Ólavur, in Danish Oluf, in Swedish Olof, the Norse-Gaels called him Amlaíb and in Waterford it is Olave. Olave was also the traditional spelling in England, preserved in the name of medieval churches dedicated to him. Other names, such as Oláfr hinn helgi, Olavus rex, and Olaf (as used in English) are used interchangeably (see the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson). He is sometimes referred to as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, eternal King of Norway, a designation which goes back to the thirteenth century. The term Ola Nordmann as epithet of the archetypal Norwegian may originate in this tradition, as the name Olav for centuries was the most common male name in Norway.

Born: 995

Died: July 29, 1030

Father: Åsta Gudbrandsdatter

Mother: Harald Grenske

Spouses:

Astrid Olofsdotter

Alvhild (concubine)

Issue:

Wulfhild (Ulvhild)

Tore

Emund

Edla

Magnus the Good

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway

Olaf was the subject of several biographies, both hagiographies and sagas, in the Middle Ages, and many of the historical facts concerning his reign are disputed. The best known description is the one in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, from c. 1230. That saga cannot be taken as an accurate source for Olaf's life, but most of the following description is based on the narrative there.

Norway during the reign of St. Olaf (1015–1028) showing areas under the control of hereditary chieftains (petty kingdoms). After some years' absence in England, fighting the Danes, he returned to Norway in 1015 and declared himself king, obtaining the support of the five petty kings of the Uplands. In 1016 he defeated Earl Sweyn, hitherto the virtual ruler of Norway, at the Battle of Nesjar. He founded the town Borg by the waterfall Sarpr, later to be known as Sarpsborg. Within a few years he had won more power than had been enjoyed by any of his predecessors on the throne.

He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, subdued the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, and conducted a successful raid on Denmark. He made peace with king Olof Skötkonung of Sweden through Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker, and was for some time engaged to his daughter, Princess Ingegerd Olofsdotter, though without Olof's approval.

In 1019 Olaf married Astrid Olofsdotter, Olof's illegitimate daughter and half-sister of his former fiancée. Their daughter Wulfhild married Ordulf, Duke of Saxony in 1042. Numerous royal, grand ducal and ducal lines are descended from Ordulf and Wulfrid, including the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Maud of Wales, daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, was the mother of King Olav V of Norway, so Olav and his son Harald V, the present king of Norway, are thus descended from Olaf.

But Olaf's success was short-lived. In 1026 he lost the Battle of the Helgeå, and in 1029 the Norwegian nobles, seething with discontent, supported the invasion of King Cnut of Denmark. Olaf was driven into exile in Kievan Rus. During the exile he stayed some time in Sweden in the province of Nerike where, according to local legend, he baptized many locals. In 1030, Cnut's Norwegian vassal king, Jarl Håkon Eiriksson, was lost at sea. Olaf seized the opportunity to win back the kingdom, but he fell at the Battle of Stiklestad, where some of his own subjects from central Norway were arrayed against him.

Olaf, a rather stubborn and rash ruler, prone to rough treatment of his enemies, ironically became Norway's patron saint. His canonization was performed only a year after his death by the bishop of Nidaros. The cult of Olaf not only unified the country, it also fulfilled the conversion of the nation, something for which the king had fought so hard. While divisive in life, in death Olaf wielded a unifying power no foreign monarch could hope to undo.

Cnut, though distracted by the task of administrating England, managed to rule Norway for five years after Stiklestad, with his son Svein as viceroy. However, when Olaf's illegitimate son Magnus (dubbed 'the Good') laid claim to the Norwegian throne, Cnut had to yield. A century of prosperity and expansion followed, lasting until the kingdom again descended into a civil war over succession.

Owing to Olaf's later status as the patron saint of Norway, and to his importance in later medieval historiography and in Norwegian folklore, it is difficult to assess the character of the historical Olaf. Judging from the bare outlines of known historical facts, he appears, more than anything else, as a fairly unsuccessful ruler, who had his power based on some sort of alliance with the much more powerful king Cnut the Great; who was driven into exile when he claimed a power of his own; and whose attempt at a reconquest was swiftly crushed.

This calls for an explanation of the status he gained after his death. Three factors are important: his role in the Christianization of Norway, the various dynastic relationships among the ruling families, and the needs for legitimization in a later period.

Olaf and Olaf Tryggvasson together were the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. However, large stone crosses and other Christian symbols suggest that at least the coastal areas of Norway were deeply influenced by Christianity long before Olav's time; with one exception, all the rulers of Norway back to Håkon the Good (c. 920–961) had been Christians; and Olav's main opponent, Cnut the Great, was a Christian ruler. What seems clear is that Olav made efforts to establish a church organization on a broader scale than before, among other things by importing bishops from England and Germany, and that he tried to enforce Christianity also in the inland areas, which had the least communication with the rest of Europe, and which economically were more strongly based on agriculture, so that the inclination to hold on to the former fertility cult would have been stronger than in the more diversified and expansive western parts of the country.

Although Olav was certainly not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he established the first codification of the faith in 1024, thus laying the basis for the Church of Norway. So high did Olaf's legal arrangements for the Church of Norway come to stand in the eyes of the Norwegian people and clergy, that when Pope Gregory VII attempted to make clerical celibacy binding on the priests of Western Europe in 1074–5, the Norwegians largely ignored this, since there was no mention of clerical celibacy in Olaf's legal code for their Church. Only after Norway was made an metropolitan province with its own archbishop in 1151—which made the Norwe