As the cataloguing of more than 5,000 coins in Norway’s largest Viking coin hoard proceeds apace, archaeologist Anne Skogsfjord has identified one of the rarest coins in the country: a silver penny issued by Olaf Haraldsson, aka Saint Olaf, patron saint of Norway. Fewer than 20 Olaf Haraldsson coins are known to survive today. There are only four of this type, three of them in Sweden. The only one discovered in Norway was found over a century ago in 1924.
The coin bears the king’s portrait facing left wearing a conical helmet. In front of the profile is a cross on three steps, known as a Golgotha cross, a symbol frequently found on Byzantine coins. The inscription reads ONLAF R+ NORMANORV (“Olaf, King of the Norwegians”). The reverse features a double cross. The inscription is worn in this example so the final letters are missing, but we know from other surviving coins struck from this die that the full inscription reads +CE DVX DOMINNVS MEI (“My leader, my lord”).
Three different issues of Olaf Haraldsson pennies are known, all of them modelled after Anglo-Saxon pennies struck under Cnut the Great around 1024–1030. This issue dates to 1024-1028, the waning years of the Viking Age. Olaf Haraldsson is credited with spreading Christianity in Norway, and as he was likely directly responsible for deciding how the coins would look, the iconographic themes and inscriptions confirm his emphasis on Christianization.
The Museum of Cultural History calls the discovery a sensation.
“This is a coin commemorating Christianisation on a grand scale. We can see how King Olaf uses the coinage to legitimise the new faith, and to legitimise himself as a Christian king of European standing,” says Gullbekk. […]
It probably changed hands several times during the 20–25 years it was in circulation before being buried at what is now the Mørstad farm in Eastern Norway. Researchers can see several traces of small cuts made with a knife on both sides of the coin. This was a way of checking the silver content during payments.
The Olaf coin will be one of the coins from the Mørstad Hoard that will be going on display for the first time in a new exhibition at the Museum of Cultural History on November 20th.
The study of numismatics throws important light on the life and times of people of the bygone eras. The finding of the silver penny issued by Olaf Haraldsson opens interesting possibilities for study and reflection.
Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson (born 995 – died 29 July 1030), later canonized as Saint Olaf is a formidable figure for bringing people together for inter-faith dialogue and bridge-building initiatives. The Scandinavian saint is venerated by Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and by fellow Christians in the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
The Viking saint is hugely popular in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Estonia, and in parts of Germany, England, Scotland, Shetland, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Constantinople, Bethlehem, Eastern India, Canada, and in the United States of America.
In those countries Cathedrals, Churches, Chapels, an Augustinian Priory, a Dominican Monastery, Hospitals, Homes for the Elderly, Concert Halls, Castles, Colleges, Schools, Clubs, Towers, Coat of Arms, Student Unions, Streets, and Hotels have been named after Saint Olaf at different times in history.
Across the Faeroe Islands, the day of St. Olaf’s death is celebrated as Ólavsøka, a nation-wide holiday.
A Church in Rouen is dedicated to Saint-Olaf, who was baptized there by the brother of a Duke of Normandy. The Norwegian Saint-Olaf Church was built there in 1926, near the home of the Scandinavian sailors. The Norwegian Seamen’s Mission wanted to build a Lutheran place of worship for visiting sailors. A bone from Saint Olaf’s arm is kept as a relic in the crypt of Rouen Cathedral. In 2014 the city and the diocese of Rouen celebrated the millennium of the baptism of Saint Olaf with the Norwegian representatives of the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway.
To commemorate the memory of Saint Olaf, a 640 km long, Pilgrims Way starts in the ancient part of Oslo ending at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. A Pilgrim’s Office in Oslo gives advice to pilgrims, and a Pilgrim Centre in Trondheim, under the aegis of the Cathedral, awards certificates to pilgrims when they complete their pilgrimages.
In his time the future saint Olaf was used to moving from place to place. In our time the saint invites pilgrims to move from Oslo to Trondheim.
Like Tryggvason and others before him, Saint Olaf had been active in “collecting” silver in England, and allegedly some of his peasants slew him, when he later tried to “collect” land from them.
It appears that he on the one hand got in the way of others, but perfectly suited as martyr and to emancipate from the Danes.
Why “o’N’laf”?, one might ask. – Indeed, texts in their Anglo-Saxon and Latin versions speak of ‘Anlaf’ and ‘Anlav(us)’ instead of ‘Olaf’:
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“is synd ða friðmal ok ða forword, ðe Æthelred cyng ok ealle his witan wið ðone here gedon habbað, ðe Anlaf [Olaf Tryggvason] ok Iustin ok Guðmund Stegitan sunu mid wæron.” / “Hec sunt verba pacis et prolocutiones, quas Æþelredus rex et omnes sapientes eius cum exercitu firmaverunt, qui cum Anlavo et Iustino et Guðmundo Stegitam filio venit.” (Diplomatarium Norvegicum)