Anyone who has researched Norwegian records,
especially in 'bygdebøker' will have run across the source,
'Aslak Bolts Jordebok' - Aslak Bolt's Cadaster (Domesday Book) It is a
list of all the properties belonging to the church with their payable
dues and fees. Although it is just a bare list of farm names with no
personal names, it is a useful source for understanding the situation,
particularly after the ravages of the Plague. Archbishop Aslak is an
interesting, almost modern man and worth reading about:
Only two days after Archbishop Eskill's death in 1428, the
Cathedral Chapter proposed Bergen's bishop Aslak Bolt as archbishop.
Aslak came to Nidaros that same year and a message was sent to the Pope
advising him of the election. He accepted the proposal and appointed
Aslak after freeing him from the Bergen bishopric. Aslak's two
representatives in Rome, Canons Svein Eriksson and Torstein Nikolasson
fulfilled his financial duties to the Curia. They paid immediately the
prescribed 800 gylden in the main fee and the other fees. Aslak Bolt
belonged to one of the more prominent families of the time, and after
having been the bishop of Bergen for 20 years, he certainly had the
means to pay.
He must have been a man with a pronounced sense for order
and administration. Aslak was a powerful both in strength of the milieu
from which he originated and on the basis of of his position as bishop.
The list of his personal possessions gives signs of that.
With one exception, Aslak's books are all of a religious
or clerical nature, he owned no less than 19 theological works. This
must have considered a relatively large collection for the times. Among
his books we find two breviaries (books of prescribed daily prayers),
one was a breviary for the whole year, which was the practice in
Bergen. Further there a theological writing 'Compendium Theologice
Veritatis,' a book of devotions 'Textus Boecii de Consolacione' and
books that were meant for the preparation of sermons like 'Summa
Virtutum,' 'Sermones Dominicales Jacobi de Voragine' and naturally,
'Liber Revelacionum Birgitte.'
Right from the start, as head of the Norwegian
archdiocese, he wished to have order in the church's business. He began
immediately with a record of the income from the archbishopric's
properties (Aslak Bolts Jordebog) The book also enumerates the places
the archbishop was to visit and how long he was to stay at the various
places. Altogether there were 34 head churches and 4 monasteries.
Here, agreements were made as to how and where the various fees
an dues were to be paid. In all the accounts there is mention of
'mikkelskornet,' an ancient fee that had not been paid for a long time.
Also mentioned is where it should go: 'Now shall each altar have as
great an income as it before had, as agreed with everyone's consent.'
And it names the 14 altars in the cathedral and the parishes each of
them was to get this income from. Each canon was to have his altar in
the cathedral, so it is probable that the canons, like the archbishop,
had seen their incomes reduced on the basis o!
f shifting of land values and lower harvests. Naturally, the archbishop
had to offer the community something in return. The parishioners in
Selbu agreed that 'mikkelskornet shall go to St.Thomas altar in Nidaros
Cathedral and the canon for masses and good deeds on behalf of the
parishioners, both living and dead.' The parishioners would pay an
annual fee to the canons of the cathedral in perpetuity 'for masses to
be sung in Nidaros Cathedral, one to be sung for the living, for peace
and good crops and another sung for the souls of all the Christians who
are dead.'
The cadaster also gives other insights into Aslak's other
organized activities. Right after he was elected, he sent his curate to
Sweden to buy copper for the canopy over St. Olav's casket. He had also
gave decrees for the archbishopric's tenants, and he had precise
regulations how one could get clerical commissions. Aslak must have
planned the organisation of his administration in a precise system. He
wanted everything written and filed. Everyone was, through written
agreement and authority, to know what they had to adhere to. This
organized system that Aslak aimed for and accomplished, his
predecessors probably had no sense for, and this could well explain why
we know so little of their activities as archbishops.
Asalak held a meeting of his diocese in Bergen on August
1435 and then called a new council, this time in Oslo, the following
year. All the bishops met except the bishop of Olso. New statutes were
officially proclaimed at a meeting, 20 December 1436. A group of the
Aslak Statutes deal with ecclesiastical punishment such as
excommunication and banishment and with all the murderers in the
diocese. Only an official with the cathedral could absolve the latter
and a cleric who dared to do it without permission from the bishop
could face immediate banishment. Country priests were not permitted to
handle matrimonial cases or serious matters like simony,sacrilege
etc, but had to hand them over to the bishops or their officials with
the cathedral. One order:Wherever there are people who live together in
public concubinage, the priest shall name them by name three times in a
year, so that they would either leave one another or get married. If
they did not heed this admonition within a year, they would be denied Communion. The Council in Oslo in 1436
must have been the last eccliastical council held in Norway. The
statutes, therefore, would be the last for Catholic Norway and its
colonies.
Aslak was now an old man with a great many
responsibilities, it could not always have been easy for one person to
keep up with them. We won't get into Aslak's activity as a member of
the Royal Council. His authority is well understood and he out have had
special qualifications as a peacemaker. And at the same time he could
tend to his church's welfare. Along with Bishop Olav and his chapter he
arranged with English merchants to bring a skilled bell founder to
Bergen to manufacture bells for the cathedrals in Nidaros and Bergen.
Both were to have three bells, one big one and two smaller.
Aslak must have been astonishingly active, he must have
always been on the move, that we can ascertain for in documents we can
follow him year to year. Obviously he had been alert and attentive to
the end. In November 1449, he crowned Karl Knutsson Bonde as king, in
Nidaros.
We have seen Aslak as an administrator and a man of order
and have pointed to his abilities and interests in those areas. But,
how was he as a priest and shepherd? The records tell of agreements and
regulations but there is nothing about those things that one would
expect from a priest or bishop. We do know that Aslak visited in his
bishopric and we must conclude that he advised in the raising of young
people. Further, that he had read masses, consecrated churches and
priests, and as a good shepherd was concerned about the welfare of his
parish. The records give little or no information about this aspect.
Aslak, like his predecessors, saw their work on earth as a preparation
for the hereafter and they believed that they would not only answer for
their own lives but also for how they had led their people on the road
to God's Kingdom. There is a sentence that might have been said by
Aslak himself, 'All that is worth remembering and never forgotten is
God's grace and not the good will of men.'