Steffen Hope
LightNews LightNews
banner
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Steffen Hope
@hopesteffen.bsky.social
2.8K followers 780 following 5.5K posts
Norwegian medievalist, bibliophile, music lover and art enthusiast.

[Header: Valenciennes - BM - ms. 0320, f.120v]
Posts Replies Media Videos
hopesteffen.bsky.social
For reasons, today I was reminded of this transitory monument that I happened upon during my travels along the fjord. I find it immensely pleasing.
In the foreground, a cairn of four rocks is placed upon the top of a boulder. In the background, a river is foaming white down the cataracts at the end of a gorge, with green grass and green trees on either side of the river. In upper right-hand corner of the photograph, the grey, naked top of a mountain is seen against the stark blue of the cloudless sky.
November 30, 2025 at 4:59 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
It's almost two in the morning, & I'm awake in order to keep the dog company after a very wet late-night walk. In the meantime, I've written a blogpost on the concept of secondary medievalism, using one of my favourite comics to make my case: my-albion.blogspot.com/2025/11/seco....
Cover of a Norwegian translation of the Tex Willer comic book story "The Demons from the North". The cover shows the eponymous character - with his characteristic blue denims, yellow shirt and brown stetson - in the act of turning around with a winchester rifle in his hands. The figure stands against a white background.
November 29, 2025 at 12:59 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
I was just reminded of a two-part blogpost I wrote on the methodological challenges when analysing calendar fragments: blogg.lnu.se/mapping-sain...; blogg.lnu.se/mapping-sain....

My favourite illustration of these challenges is the fragment below.

[Sveriges Riksarkiv Fr. 25608]
Fragment of a twelfth-century calendar fragment cut vertically so that the names of the saints celebrated on each day are almost completely lost.
November 28, 2025 at 10:13 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
At around half past three this afternoon, I captured this almost sombre idyll in the village centre. There is an air of the timelessness of fjords here, even though this scene is very much a modern view.
View of the shoreline from a village situated at the innermost end of a fjord. In the foreground is a small green lawn with clumps of snow, two boathouses and a couple of boats taken on shore for the season. Beyond the boathouses are a couple of other wooden buildings. Beyond the houses, the blue-gray shore stretched outward, hemmed by a range of mountains tinged in snow and with their tops hidden by low but not dense grey clouds. In a gap between two clouds, the snowy top of one mountain is seen, coloured pink by the light of the setting sun.
November 25, 2025 at 8:39 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
For the feast of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a fifteenth-century depiction from the Church of Saint Mary in Bergen, Norway. This was the main church of the Hanseatic merchant sin the city, & the altarpiece was made in Lübeck.
Detail from a fifteenth-century altarpiece with a central field and two wings. The photograph is focused on a niche in the upper right-hand corner of the central field. In the niche, Catherine of Alexandria is shown in a red and blue dress with a golden cape draped around herself. She is crowned. Her left hand is resting on a wheel, which represent the torture device that was broken when the Romans attempted to use it on her. Her right hand is resting on the sword by which she was martyred. The niche is and the rest of the altarpiece are painted in gold, blue and read.
November 25, 2025 at 2:09 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Today is the feast of Saint Clement, who was martyrised by being thrown into the ocean with an anchor tied around his neck. Consequently, he was one of the most widely popular saints to invoke against dangers at sea.

[Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.269r]
Woodcut vignette from the 1492 edition of the Lübeck Passionael, printed by Steffen Arndes, a collection of saints' legends. The woodcut shows Saint Clement in papal garb, mitre and cross staff, holding a largre anchor in his left hand. He is standing in a landscape of low hillocks, with a city in the far background, seen against the sky.
November 23, 2025 at 9:25 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
For the feast of Saint Edmund Martyr, here is one of my favourite depictions of the wolf that guarded Edmund's head - a marginal drawing appearing by the lesson before the one in which the wolf is mentioned. Or so I interpret this figure.

[MS Pierpont Morgan 736, f.187]
Detail from a photostat picture of a page from a twelfth-century manuscript. The manuscript contains liturgical texts, and in the picture we see musical notation above a line of text, then a section of prose with the header "Lectio VII", which means that this is the seventh lesson out of twelve to be read aloud. In the margin on the right-hand side of the text is a drawing of a head that seems more like an animal than a human being, but it is difficult to see exactly what kind of animal.
November 20, 2025 at 9:19 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
For the feast of Saint Edmund Martyr, here is a new blogpost reflecting on the litany of the Odense breviary & its possible evidence of the cult of Edmund in medieval Denmark: my-albion.blogspot.com/2025/11/sain....

[Breviarium Othoniense 1482, f.91v]
Part of the litany of saints, beginning with Saint Alban and continuing onwards through other martyrs and then the confessors. Several saints are sharing the S initial, and the intials are coloured alternately in red and blue.
November 20, 2025 at 5:52 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
y el sol apenas vemos en Oriente
cuando la opaca tierra nos lo encubre

and we hardly see the sun in the east
before the dark earth covers it from us

- Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, Lleva tras sí los pámpanos Octubre (my translation)
View towards a valley hemmed by snow-covered mountains with flecks of black rock. In the gap between the mountains and in the space beyond them, a blue sky is partly covered by opaque clouds gilded by the sun, whose light is seen as a shimmer at the edge of the right-hand mountain complex. In the foreground are roofs covered in snow and a few silhouetted tree-tops.
November 19, 2025 at 11:47 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
The ephemeral beauty of a winter morning.
In the foreground is the dark water of a lake not yet touched by the morning light. In the centre of the picture, a pine-covered promontory juts into the lake, descending from a mountain-ridge dotted with snow-laden trees. On the other side of the lake, another mountain rises towards the upper right-hand corner of the photo, its forested slopes white-grey in twilit snow. Beyond these mountains and roughly in the middle of the background, the top of another mountain appears, covered in snow that is painted pink by the light of a slowly appearing sun. Above the mountain-top and between the mountains in the foreground, a golden-blue sky is dotted with pink clouds.
November 19, 2025 at 11:35 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
I'm currently thinking about contrasts between holiness & wilderness in Latin Christian thinking, & this depiction of John the Baptist encapsulates some of the main features of this contrast in a very beautiful way.

[Charleville-Mézières - BM - ms.0107, f.361]
Initial I from the beginning of the Gospel of Mark in a thirteenth-century French bible. The intial has a dull brownish-golden background. At the bottom, a dragon with its tail coiled around some tendrils is looking upwards, a green tongue issuing from its mouth. The dragon's tongue reaches - but does not touch - the feet of John the Baptist, who stands beardless and dressed in a gown of camel hair with a plate in his hand. On the plate is the lamb of God. Above John, a white dove - the Holy Spirit - touches his haloed head with its beak.
November 16, 2025 at 11:09 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
I'd be lying if I said my men weren't committing crimes

- Homer Simpson, The Simpsons (S05E11)

[Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.55r]
Woodcut vignette from the 1492 edition of the Lübeck Passionael, printed by Steffen Arndes. The woodcut introduces the chapter on Saint Kilian and his associates. The scene shows an execution with a low, crenellated wall in the background. On the left-hand side, a turban-wearing executioner is lifting a broad double-handed scimitar behind his head, ready to strike a kneeling young man. On the ground, two bodies and two heads with haloes are lying, one of which has a mitre (probably Saint Kilian). On the right-hand side, a judge or some kind of official is overseeing the execution with a stern face. In the background, between the two antagonistic figures, two devils are carrying a soul.
November 15, 2025 at 5:29 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
And every time I'm thinking of you from a distant shore

- Mark Knopfler, Golden heart
In the lower left-hand corner, a black and white East Siberian laika is standing on snow-crusted grass at the edge of a field and in front of a hem of brambles. Beyond the bramles, we see the water of a bay in a fjord at ebb, with a small islet located not far from the nearer shore. On the far end of the bay, the sun illuminates a stretch of the shore with six boathouses and a small hill forested with birches and juniper bushes. Beyond this hill, snow-whitened mountains stretch out of view.
November 14, 2025 at 7:54 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Somewhere in this valley, ten ravens are moving about, feasting on the remnants of butchered deers. It is rare to see so many of them at the same time, especially in the lowlands.
In the foreground, a few scattered pines rise up from a lightly snow-covered bog. On the right-hand side, a small crag is covered with a clump of tall pines silhouetted against the pale clouds. In the background, the sunlight has guilded a field in the forested mountain-side, and to the left another mountain can be seen inclining towards the left-hand side. The far mountain is also covered in a light dusting of snow, with black streaks marking where the rockwall is vertical. The grey clouds capture some of the sunlight, and in-between blue specks of sky are peering through.
November 14, 2025 at 3:35 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
en la tierra, el misterio

- Raquel Lanseros, Resistencia al cálculo
View of a bay in the innermost part of a fjord. In the background, mountains covered by a thin layer of freshly fallen snow are lit up by the glow of a sun barely visible behind the right-hand mountain. In the foreground, the light and the shadow of the mountains are reflected in the slightly creased surface of the fjord. On the far end of the bay, at the foothills of the right-hand mountains, a green field catches the light of the sun, making it seem like a green bar hovering between the empty spaces of the golden sky and its golden reflection.
November 14, 2025 at 11:53 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Also for the feast of Saint Martin, a 1492 rendition of perhaps the most famous episode from his life.

[Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.253r]
Woodcut vignette from the 1492 edition of the Lübeck Passionael printed by Steffen Arndes. The vignette shows Saint Martin astride a horse - who in turn has his left foreleg lifted off the ground - while cutting his cloak in half with a sword. Martin has his back to the viewer - possibly to emphasise the gift of the cloak. He has long hair and a short hat. The receiving beggar has lost his feet and rests his bandaged shins on wooden blocks with pegs on the bottom for a good grip on the ground.
November 11, 2025 at 12:07 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
The dog & I walked along the shore of a small island in the innermost part of the fjord. In the summer, we cannot explore this area because it is a nesting-ground for ducks. It had a definitive otherworldly quality about it, being as it is a place where land & sea are not always distinguishable.
In the foreground, a rounded stretch of land covered in golden-pale dead straw, Beyond it, a small bay mirrors the light grey clouds and is framed on the far side by another promontory covered in golden-pale dead straw. This promontory cuts the view of the fjord in half, with the mountains and a hill covered in houses stretching towards the clouds in the background. On the left-hand side of the picture, a row of six boathouses are seen by the shore of a larger bay in the fjord, minuscule against a hillside and against the forested mountain in the background.
November 10, 2025 at 12:18 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Yesterday, I returned to my home village after a month & a half, & I was greeted with some dramatic autumnal colours.
View of the afternoon sky seen in the concave of two mountain systems. The sky is covered with grey clouds tinged with gold on the bottom. On the right-hand side, a different, all-golden cloud, stretches from a spot of blue sky into the upper right-hand corner along the curvature of the mountains. The colours are dimly reflected in a lake in the foreground.
November 8, 2025 at 9:55 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Today, my penultimate full day in Odense, I walked past the Church of Saint John, rededicated to John the Baptist when the Hospitallers took charge of it. The closed hatch belongs to a pulpit for preaching to crowds gathered outside - possibly in connection with market days.
Part of a church building in brick, with the crenellated gable of the tower seen against a pale blue sky streaked with grey clouds. On the right-hand side of the photograph is a buttress in which a closed hatch is seen. At the bottom of the tower - seen right next to the buttress - is a arched window reflecting a light November greyness.
November 2, 2025 at 5:38 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Although the feast of All Saints was yesterday, I could not pass up on the chance of sharing this extract from the table of contents of a copy of Legenda Aurea, which also shows a relatively early case of this particular information technology, i.e., the table of contents.

[USAL MS 2660, f.1v]
First page of the table of contents from a fourteenth-century copy of Jacobus de Voragine's The Golden Legend. The initials are alternately red and blue. Several entries have additions in a second hand following the title of the chapter. A marginal notation - possibly in a third hand - is also visible.
November 2, 2025 at 9:32 AM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Aww, seems like everywhere I look, people are enjoying knives

- Bart Simpsons, The Simpsons (S05E08)

[Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.126r]
Woodcut vignette from the 1492 edition of the Lübeck Passionael, a collection of saints' lives and texts from the liturgical year printed by Steffen Arndes. The vignette shows the apostle Bartholomew bound to a low, sturdy table. Bartholomew is naked and two men are in the process of flaying him, one of whom is holding the butcher knife in his mouth while tearing the skin off the flesh. Bartholomew looks on unperturbed. The scene is set indoors.
November 1, 2025 at 6:54 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
For the feast of All Saints, here is the garden of saints from the vaults of the Church of Our Lady in Skive, Northern Jutland. The church itself is mainly thirteenth-century, but the frescoes were painted in 1522.
Choir of a thirteenth-century Danish parish church. The nave is quite narrow, and the vaults are covered with numerous pairs of haloed figures that appear to burst out of flower bulbs. The aisle runs along green wooden pews towards the golden eighteenth-century Baroque altarpiece.
November 1, 2025 at 1:33 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Bold as brass.

[Grave of King Christopher II of Denmark (d.1332) & Queen Euphemia (d.1330) in Sorø Monastery]
Brass lion with a bushy mane standing on four legs with an open mouth, displaying its fierce teeth. On the back it carries a structure reminiscent of a tall cage. It stands at the head of a brass effigy of a dead royal. Behind it stands a brass griffin.
October 31, 2025 at 7:04 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Today, I had a belated breakfast at a Danish bakery while working on an article draft. Writing by hand in such a serene setting was wonderful, & really helped me bring my ideas into some sort of coherence.
In the foreground, a desktop with an open notepad, a bag, and a paper cup of coffee. The notepad's page is almost completely covered in handwritten text. Beyond the desk and through a window is a quiet corner in a side street. On the closer side of the street, a board is advertising freshly made sandwiches. On the far side of the street are old-fashioned early-twentieth-century facades of houses in brick and stone, painted in different pastels.
October 31, 2025 at 2:06 PM
hopesteffen.bsky.social
Today is the feast of Saint Theodegarius of Vestervig, an eleventh-century missionary who was said to have been brought to England by Saint Olaf. His legend survives mainly in later breviaries.

[Breviarium Othoniense, 1497, f.421r]
Page from a printed breviary showing texts of the service of Vesper for the feast of Saint Theodegarus of Vestervig.
October 30, 2025 at 6:37 PM