Introduction
King Olaf II Haraldsson (?995-1030) ruled Norway from 1015 to 1028. A year after Olaf died in the Battle of Stiklestad on July 29th, 1030, Grimkell, English-born Bishop of Nidaros (Trondheim), glorified him as a saint. Here, Snorro Sturluson records some of the miracles that were reported at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, St Olaf’s shrine, where building began in 1070.
KING Olaf [the Quiet]* had a church of stone built in Nidaros,* on the spot where King Olaf’s body had first been buried; and the altar was placed directly over the spot where the king’s grave had been. This church was consecrated, and called Christ Church; and King Olaf’s shrine was removed to it, and was placed before the altar, and many miracles took place there.
The following summer, on the same day of the year as the church was consecrated, which was the day before Olafsmass,* there was a great assemblage of people, and then a blind man was restored to sight. And on the mass-day itself, when the shrine and the holy relics were taken out and carried, and the shrine itself, according to custom, was taken and set down in the church-yard, a man who had long been dumb recovered his speech again, and sang with flowing tongue praise-hymns to God, and to the honour of King Olaf the Saint.
* Olaf III Haraldsson ‘Kyrre’ (‘the Quiet’) (?1050-1093) ruled Norway from 1067 to 1093. Regrettably, he placidly handed the government of the Church of Norway over to the Archbishops of Bremen, something his predecessors had fought hard to resist. Not only did this undermine his Church’s self-governance, and strain Anglo-Norwegian church relations, it also helped to enmesh Norway in the nets of what was to become the Hanseatic League. At one time, Bishop Grimkell’s word would have been enough to make Olaf a saint; this new Church of Norway thought Pope Alexander III gracious when he confirmed it in 1164.
* Nidaros is the ecclesiastical name for Trondheim.
* That is, the Feast of St Olaf, which falls on July 29th, the anniversary of his death. Olaf is considered one the last great saints before the Great Schism in the middle of the eleventh century.
Précis
In 1070, King Olaf III of Norway saw to the building of a new church where one of his illustrious predecessors on the throne, St Olaf, lay buried. During celebrations on the first anniversary, a blind man was cured, and later that day a dumb man suddenly recovered the power of speech, and began singing hymns to St Olaf. (59 / 60 words)
In 1070, King Olaf III of Norway saw to the building of a new church where one of his illustrious predecessors on the throne, St Olaf, lay buried. During celebrations on the first anniversary, a blind man was cured, and later that day a dumb man suddenly recovered the power of speech, and began singing hymns to St Olaf.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, because, despite, if, just, or, since, whereas.
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