Olaf

Olaf (Olave, Ola, Tola) (995–1030), king of Norway 1016–29, and its patron saint. He was the son of a Norwegian lord named Harold Grenske; after a career of war and piracy in the Baltic and Normandy, where he became a Christian, he fought for Ethelred II in England against the Danes in 1013. A few years later he returned to Norway; partly through his military prowess, aided by his eloquence, partly through the flight of his rivals, he seized power and ruled as king. Unexpectedly he gave his subjects peace and security, remaking old laws and insisting on their just execution unaffected by bribes or threats. His principal work for Norway was to make her Christian, for which end, like several other rulers, he used force as well as persuasion. This harshness contributed to a rebellion against him, fostered by Cnut, king of England and Denmark. Olaf was exiled in 1029; the following year he tried to regain his throne with Swedish help, but was defeated and killed at the battle of Stiklestad, 29 July 1030.

From his grave springs of water with healing properties flowed and miracles were reported. Grimkell, the English bishop of Nidaros (Trondheim), one of the missionaries who had helped Olaf establish the Church, built a chapel on the site of his grave and declared him a saint. The next year Olaf 's body, reputedly incorrupt, was enshrined. His cult was aided by the unpopular rule of Swein, Cnut's son; Cnut's death in 1035 resulted in the flight of many Danes from Norway and the accession of Olaf 's son Magnus. Thereafter the cult spread rapidly: Adam of Bremen (c.1070) wrote of his feast being celebrated by all the Scandinavian nations.

The cult was strong in England too, especially in the Viking areas. There are over forty ancient church dedications in Britain mainly in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, East Anglia, the Isle of Man, the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland. Others are in mercantile centres such as London, Chester, Waterford, and Dublin. His feast occurs in calendars of London, Norwich, Exeter, Winchester, and York; and in monastic ones of Ramsey, Sherborne, Abbotsbury, Launceston, and Syon. Possibly founders or benefactors of Viking origin may account for some of these.

English iconography of Olaf includes representations on the seals of Grimsby Abbey and Herringfleet Priory (Suffolk), on the 15th-century screen at Barton Turf (Norfolk), on an ivory crozier in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in glass at York Minster. He usually carries emblems of a battle-axe and loaves of stone. The most complete example, with six medallions from Olaf's life, occurs in the Beatus initial of the 13th-century Carrow Psalter, written in East Anglia and now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

The name Olaf was used in England before the Conquest as a Christian name. In Gaelic it became Amlaibh (Aulag), whence the Hebridean surname Macaulay. In England the name became corrupted by the addition of initial ‘t’ from the final letter of ‘saint’. As such it survives, e.g. in Tooley Street, Southwark, in whose neighbourhood schools, libraries, and a dock are named after this saint.

Olaf is a good example of a patriot who met a violent death being accorded the title of martyr, even in the Roman Martyrology. As in the case of Oswald, dynastic and patriotic considerations greatly helped his cult. Olaf's shrine in Trondheim cathedral remained until the Reformation, when his body was reburied. Feast: 29 July; Grimkell's translation took place on 3 August 1031.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• AA.SS. Iul. VII (1731), 87–120; Life by Richard of Fountains in Anecdota Oxoniensia (1881); Saga by Snorri Sturlason in Saga Olafs konungs ens helga (ed. P. A. Munch and C. R. Unger, 1853) and by O. A. Johnsen and J. Helgason (1941): Eng. tr. by E. Monsen and A. H. Smith (1932); B. Dickins, ‘The Cult of St. Olave in the British Isles’, Saga-Book of the Viking Society, xlii (1945), 53–80; F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 396–400; G. Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature (1953), pp. 175–90; Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings (1968), pp. 375–85