More recently A. V. Heffermehl has made an attempt to prove that the author so long sought for was Ivar Bodde, a Norwegian priest, who seems to have played an important part in the history of Norway in the first half of the thirteenth century as an influential member of the anti-clerical party.[[127]] Much is not known of Ivar Bodde, and nearly all that we do know comes from a speech which he is reported to have delivered in his own defence in 1217.[[128]] He entered King Sverre’s service “before the fight was at Strindsea,” which was fought in the summer of 1199. This was also the year in which King Sverre seems to have issued his famous Address. “I had good cheer from the king while he lived, and I served him so that at last I knew almost all his secret matters.” In King Inge’s reign (1204-1217) he served in the capacity of chancellor: “and that besides, which was much against my wish, they relied on me for writing letters.” During the same reign he also served as Prince Hakon’s foster father, and was consequently responsible for the education of the great king.[[129]] Ivar was also skilled in military arts: he was a warrior as well as a priest.[[130]] He was apparently twice sent to England on diplomatic errands, first to the court of King John, later to that of Henry III.[[131]] He withdrew from the court in 1217. In 1223 he reappears as one of the king’s chief counsellors. After this year nothing is known of Ivar Bodde.
The author of the King’s Mirror was a professional churchman who belonged to the anti-clerical faction; he was a master of the literary art. Ivar Bodde was a man of this type; nothing is known of his literary abilities, but it is clear that a man who was entrusted with the king’s correspondence can not have been without literary skill. There seems to be no reason why Ivar Bodde could not have written the King’s Mirror, and he may also have had a hand in the preparation of Sverre’s Address; but that he actually did write either or both of these important works has not yet been proved; there may have been other priests in Norway in the thirteenth century who stood for the divine right of Norwegian kingship.
From certain geographical allusions it is quite clear that the work was written in Norway and in some part of the country that would be counted far to the north. The author mentions two localities in the Lofoten region and he shows considerable knowledge of conditions elsewhere in Halogaland;[[132]] but it is evident that he did not reside in that part of the kingdom when he was at work on his great treatise. It is generally agreed that the home of the Speculum Regale is Namdalen, a region which lies northeast of the city of Trondhjem and which touches the border of Halogaland on the north.[[133]] This conclusion is based on certain astronomical observations on the part of the author, namely the length of the shortest day, the daily increase in the length of the day, and the relationship between the length of the sun’s path and the sun’s altitude at noon of the longest and the shortest day.[[134]] The Norwegian astronomer Hans Geelmuyden has determined that if the author’s statements on these points are to be regarded as scientific computations, they indicate a latitude of 65°, 64° 42´, and 64° 52´ respectively. All these points lie within the shire of Namdalen.[[135]] As the author can scarcely have been much more than a layman in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, the agreement as to results obtained is quite remarkable.
The problem of place is relatively unimportant, but the question of the date of composition has more than mere literary interest. There is nothing in the work itself which gives any clue to the year when it was begun or completed. It seems evident, however, that it was written after the period of the civil wars, though while the terrors of that century of conflicts were yet fresh in the memories of men. For various other reasons, too, it is clear that the King’s Mirror was composed in the thirteenth century and more specifically during the reign of Hakon IV.
The allusion to the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus,[[136]] whose reign began in 1143, gives a definite date from which any discussion of this problem must begin. It is also clear that the work was written after the church had begun to lay claim to power in the government of the state, which was in 1163.[[137]] The author looks back to an evil time when minorities were frequent and joint kingships were the rule;[[138]] but the period of joint rule virtually came to a close in 1184 when Sverre became sole king; and the last boy king whom the author can have taken into account was Hakon IV, who was thirteen years old when he was given the royal title. It therefore seems evident that the King’s Mirror was written after 1217, the year of Hakon’s accession.
On the other hand, it is also quite evident that the treatise can not have been written after the great revision of the Norwegian laws which was carried out during the reign of Magnus Lawmender. The new court-law, which was promulgated about 1275, is clearly later than the Speculum Regale: the fine exacted for the death of a king’s thegn, which is given as forty marks in the King’s Mirror, is fixed at a little more than thirteen marks in Magnus’ legislation. In 1273 the law regulating the succession to the throne made impossible the recurrence of joint kingships; but the principle of this arrangement appears to have been accepted as early as 1260, when the king’s son Magnus was given the royal title. Another decree, apparently also from Hakon’s reign, which abolished the responsibility of kinsmen in cases of manslaughter and deprived the relatives of the one who was slain of their share in the blood fine, also runs counter to methods described in the King’s Mirror, which states distinctly that kinsmen share in the payment.[[139]] It is therefore safe to conclude that the work was written some time between 1217 and 1260.
The earliest attempt to date the King’s Mirror was made by the learned Icelander, Hans Finsen. In an essay included in the Sorö edition (1768) he fixes the time at about 1164.[[140]] J. Erichsen, who wrote the introduction to this edition, doubts that it was composed at so early a date; impressed with the fact that the work reflects the political views of the Birchshank faction, he is inclined to place the date of composition some time in Sverre’s reign or in the last decade of the twelfth century.[[141]] The striking resemblance between the ideas expressed in the treatise and the guiding principles of Sverre’s regime led the editors of the Christiania edition to the same conclusion: 1196 or soon after.[[142]] And so it was held that the work is a twelfth century document until a Danish artillery officer, Captain Otto Blom, began to make a careful study of the various types of weapons, armor, and siege engines mentioned in the work. His conclusion, published in 1867, was that the King’s Mirror reflects the military art of the thirteenth century and that the manuscript was composed in the latter half of the century, at any rate not long before 1260.[[143]] This conclusion has been accepted by Gustav Storm,[[144]] Ludvig Daae,[[145]] and virtually all who have written on the subject since Blom’s study appeared, except Heffermehl, whose belief that Ivar Bodde was the author could not permit so late a date, as Ivar, who was a man of prominence at Sverre’s court about 1200, must have been an exceedingly aged man, if he were still living in 1260. Heffermehl is, therefore, compelled to force the date of composition back to the decade 1230-1240.
The weakness of Captain Blom’s argument is that he supposes the military art described in the Speculum Regale to be the military art of the North at the time when the work was written. If all the engines and accoutrements that the author describes ever came into use in the North, it was long after 1260. Nearly all the weapons and devices mentioned were in use in southern Europe and in the Orient in earlier decades of the thirteenth century; some of them belong to much earlier times. If certain engines and devices which Captain Blom is disposed to regard as mythical are left out of account, it will be found that only three items fail to appear in illustrations from the earlier part of the thirteenth century; and it would not be safe to assume that these were not in use because no drawing of them has been found.
Viewed against the background of Norwegian history, those chapters of the King’s Mirror which deal with the nature and the rights of monarchy and with the place of the church in the state take on the appearance of a political pamphlet written to defend and justify the doings of the Birchshank party. The motives for composing an apology of this sort may be found at almost any time in the thirteenth century but especially during the decade that closed with the coronation of Hakon IV. It will be remembered that the author of the King’s Mirror discusses the calamities that may befall a kingdom as a result of joint rule.[[146]] But in 1235, after one of Earl Skule’s periodic attempts at rebellion, his royal son-in-law granted him the administration of one-third of the realm. The grant was ratified the next year with certain changes: instead of a definite, compact fief the earl now received territories everywhere in the kingdom. In 1237 Skule was given the ducal title and to many men it seemed as if the curse of joint kingship was about to afflict the land once more. Two years later the partisans of the duke proclaimed him king: like Adonijah of old he tried to displace the Lord’s anointed.[[147]] But after a few months came the surprise of Skule’s forces in Trondhjem and the duke’s own tragic end in Elgesæter convent.[[148]] It will be recalled that the author defends King Solomon’s dealings with Joab and lays down the principle that the right of sanctuary will not hold against a king.[[149]] The rebellion of the Norwegian Adonijah was in 1239; he died the death of Joab in 1240. Three years later the believers in a strong monarchy were disturbed by the news that the bishops had revived the old claim to supremacy in the state. Soon after this series of events the political chapters of the King’s Mirror must have been composed.
In 1247, the year of Hakon’s coronation, the hierarchy was once more reconciled to the monarchy, and nothing more is heard of ecclesiastical pretensions during the remainder of the reign. It would seem that after this reconciliation, no churchman, at least not one of the younger generation, would care to send such a challenge as the King’s Mirror out into the world. One of the older men, one who had suffered with Sverre and his impoverished Birchshanks, might have wished to write such a work even after 1247; but after that date the surviving followers of the eloquent king must have been very few indeed, seeing that Sverre had now lain forty-five years in the grave. It is therefore the writer’s opinion, though it cannot be regarded as a demonstrated fact, that the closing chapters of the King’s Mirror were written after 1240, the year when Duke Skule was slain, perhaps after 1243, in which year Norwegian clericalism reasserted itself, but some time before 1247, the year of Hakon’s coronation and final reconciliation with the church.