Cookies on our website

We use cookies on this website, mainly to provide a secure browsing experience but also to collect statistics on how the website is used. You can find out more about the cookies we set, the information we store and how we use it on the cookies page.

Continue

skaldic

Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages

Menu Search

Note to Anon Alpost 10VII

[5] hann var særðr með sverði ‘he was mortally wounded with a sword’: A sword or halberd is the iconographic symbol of Matthew’s martyrdom (see Kilström 1956, 175; Roeder 1956, 23). Occasionally the saint is represented with a sword piercing his back (Braun 1943, 523 [Abb. 280], 525; Foote 1976, 169), a detail which appears in most descriptions of the saint’s death at the hands of a king named Hyrtacus (see Cross 1979, 169); cf. the Auctaria (‘Supplements’) to the Martyrology of Usuard: Hircatus [sic] ... apostolum Matthæum ... gladio a tergo percuti fecit et martyrem Christi consecravit ‘Hyrtacus ... had the Apostle Matthew ... cut down from behind with a sword and consecrated him as a martyr of Christ’ (Usuardus Sangermanensis, Martyrologium, col. 493A). The list of Apostles in Holm perg 5 fol, 59vb likewise records that Matthew was med sverdi stangadr ꜳ baki ‘stabbed in the back with a sword’ (Foote 1976, 154, 168-9); cf. AM 764 4°, 16v.

References

  1. Bibliography
  2. Braun, Joseph. 1943. Tracht und Attribute der Heiligen in der deutschen Kunst. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung.
  3. Cross, James E. 1979. ‘Cynewulf’s traditions about the apostles in Fates of the Apostles’. ASE 8, 163-75.
  4. Kilström, B. I. 1956. ‘Apostelframställningar’. KLNM 1, 173-6.

Close

Log in

This service is only available to members of the relevant projects, and to purchasers of the skaldic volumes published by Brepols.
This service uses cookies. By logging in you agree to the use of cookies on your browser.

Close