Research by a UHI Archaeology Institute PhD student suggests the wooden box said to have contained the remains of St Magnus is contemporary with the martyrdom of the 12th century earl.
The box was recovered in March 1919, during extensive renovation work in St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall. Within it were human bones, the skull showing clear signs of injury. This saw the remains heralded as that of Saint Magnus, murdered at Easter in 1116, 1117 or 1118.
Despite this, there was always the possibility that the box and its contents were much later, perhaps introduced to cash in on the medieval pilgrim trade. Alternatively, the wooden reliquary may have been fashioned to protect the relics when they were hidden in the cathedral pillar ahead of the 16th century Scottish Reformation.
But a radiocarbon date secured from the box now suggests it, and by extension the bones, fit the timeframe of St Magnus’ demise.
Jenny Murray, a curator at the Shetland Museum and Archives, is researching Magnus Erlendsson for her SGSAH-funded PhD, which is looking at the physical traces of his cult in the North Atlantic.
Expanding on research carried out by the UHI Archaeology Institute’s Dr Sarah Jane Gibbon, Jenny has been recording sites relating to St Magnus as well as the surviving artefacts associated with his veneration. As part of this she was drawn to the box believed to have once held Magnus’ remains.
Jenny explained: “Funding from the Orkney Archaeology Society (OAS) allowed me to obtain a radiocarbon date from a small sample of the box lid. This revealed the tree used to construct the box was most likely felled between AD1034 and AD1168.”
The dating result was revealed at an OAS talk in Kirkwall last week.
“The date is hugely important on many fronts,” added Jenny. “It may be Scotland’s earliest surviving wooden reliquary but also strongly suggests that the box was original to the translation of St Magnus’ relics into the cathedral around AD1150, where it remained until 1919.”
Although the bones were reinterred in the cathedral pillar, the box is now on display in the Orkney Museum, Kirkwall.
She added: “There’s also the strong possibility that the box was fashioned around the time that Magnus’ bones were moved from Birsay to Kirkwall, to awaiting the opening of the cathedral.”
According to the Orkneyinga saga, Magnus’ remains were exhumed around 20 years after his death. They were washed, tested in consecrated fire and, on St Lucy’s Day, “enshrined and placed above the altar” at Christchurch, Birsay.
The relics remained in Birsay “for a long time” until Magnus appeared to a Westray man, Gunni, in a dream. Magnus told him to inform the Bishop of Orkney, William the Old, that the saint’s remains should be moved to Kirkwall.
The saga explains that Bishop William “led a grand procession east to Kirkwall, taking along with them the holy relics of Earl Magnus, and placed the reliquary above the high altar of the church that stood there at that time”. That temporary destination was the little church of St Olaf, where a “A good many miracles happened there immediately after these events.”
Some years later, around 1150, the saint’s relics were moved again – this time to the cathedral that had been raised in his honour.
The box, which is 74.5cm long, 25.7cm wide and 17.6cm high, was identified as being made from Scots pine in 1926, a conclusion confirmed by Associate Professor Scott Timpany, of the UHI Archaeology Institute, who also extracted and prepared the timber sample for radiocarbon dating.
Although it is not possible to say whether the wooden box held Magnus’ relics throughout that period, and part of the saint’s elaborate shrine at all three locations, there are a few tantalising hints.
The lid has been worn smooth at one end, suggestive of repeated contact. Are we seeing the result of pilgrims touching the sacred reliquary? Likewise, the body is damaged at the same side. It is purely speculative but were eager pilgrims taking fragments and splinters as talismans or keepsakes?
We know, from the saga, that two miscreants made off with gold from the shrine!
The healing properties of the saint’s relics were renowned and well-documented, with the Magnus saga stating that “a good many people kept vigil … beside the holy relic and were cured of their sufferings as long as they invoked Earl Magnus in true faith.”
That perceived healing power may have extended to the fabric of the buildings themselves, with evidence of marks within the cathedral where visitors scraped away tiny quantities of red sandstone – perhaps for curative reasons.
“The new radiocarbon dating also expands the narrative as to the reliquary’s position within the cathedral and adds an extra level of significance to the notion that the skeletal remains are indeed those of St Magnus,” said Jenny.
“In 1926, it was surmised that the box was transferred from the high altar to the column during the extension of the cathedral’s east end in the late 12th century.
“The altar would have been close to the pillar before it was moved into the extended choir. It’s been suggested that the interment within the pillars was intentional – placing the remains of both Saint Magnus and Saint Rognvald in a place of special honour and security.
The remains of St Rognvald were discovered in the early 18th century, set into a stone pillar opposite the one that would, years later, be found to contain those of St Magnus. Rognvald, who founded the cathedral in his uncle’s honour, died around 1158 and was canonised in 1192.
“One of my PhD supervisors, Dr Sarah Jane Gibbon, has proposed the pillars’ inward-facing position was so the two saints could watch over and ‘protect’ the high altar.
“With St Magnus and St Rognvald being placed within the very fabric of the cathedral, the building itself can be seen as the reliquary and the red sandstone becomes even more special.”
The saint’s remains?
During the 1919 renovations, a workman noticed a loose stone in one of the pillars in the cathedral’s choir. On removing it, a cavity was revealed containing the wooden box. The obvious damage to the skull within was clear and it was generally agreed that there was no reason to doubt that the relics of St Magnus had been found.
(📷 Courtesy of Orkney Library and Archives)
The remains were examined in 1925 and based on the Orkneyinga saga account of Magnus’ death, the two experts – Professor R. W. Reid of Aberdeen University and Rev Dr George Walker of Aberdeen’s East Parish Church – agreed.
“Those acquainted with the circumstances of the murder of St Magnus could have little hesitation in believing that the skull bore the veritable mark of his death wound and that these were the relics of the saint,” wrote Dr Walker, before adding that the examinations “entirely proved the identification”.
But anyone with a passing interest in Norse sagas knows the dangers of treating them as accurate historical documents. The saga writers had their own agendas – whether playing down unsavoury deeds or glorifying others, the saga writers were not above embellishing a good story.
Saint Magnus himself is a fine example of this.
Most of the details of Magnus’ life found in the Orkneyinga saga were based on an earlier written account of the saint’s life, or Vita, and a separate document listing the miracles ascribed to him. The Vita, which is now lost, was like most other Saint’s Lives and generally dwelled on the piety and godliness of the saint in question.
An ecclesiastic source for the Orkneyinga saga‘s version of events is clear from the way it emphasises the earl’s saintliness in the face of all adversity. It is the Orkneyinga saga that declares Earl Magnus knelt meekly before his executioner to receive a single blow. But this version of the execution differs from later accounts. The Greater Magnus Saga, which is more graphic, has the earl standing to receive the blow, before falling to his knees after being struck twice in the head.
The reader must remember that the sagas are embellished history, with the odd story thrown in for good measure. As such it is impossible to differentiate what is true history and what is later embellishment.
This was highlighted in 2004, when the eminent forensic anthropologist Professor Don Brothwell revisited the 1925 reports on the bones. Professor Brothwell concluded that the damage to the skull did not match the Orkneyinga saga’s account of Magnus’ murder in Egilsay.
The saga states that Earl Hakon’s cook, Lifolf, who was standing before the kneeling Magnus, struck the killing blow. The narrative recounts: “Then, when [Magnus] was led to execution, he said to Lifolf ‘Stand before me, and hew me a mighty stroke on the head, for it is not fitting that high-born lords be put to death like thieves.’”
According to Professor Brothwell, the position of Lifolf in relation to Magnus would have undoubtedly influenced “the form and position of bone damage on the skull”, adding that the two wounds did not “fit with axe blows from the front of the individual.”
He wrote: “Neither of these two possible injuries, if they are indeed trauma evidence, could have been received from axe blows directed down from the front, and this calls into question either the authenticity of the skull or the position of the executioner.”
But as we’ve seen, the account in the Greater Magnus Saga is completely different.
From the damage to the skull, Professor Brothwell suggested that a sideward blow to the head felled the man. As the victim was knocked sideways, fell and rolled over he was struck again.
But as Judith Jesch and Theya Mollison pointed out in 2005 (The Death of Magnus Erlendsson and the Relics of St Magnus. In The World of Orkneyinga saga. The Broad-Cloth Viking Trip: 127-143): “Not all medieval relics are what they claim to be, and it is notoriously difficult to match the physical remains of the past to their historical and literary contexts.
“Nevertheless, the location in the cathedral of the bones attributed to St Magnus gives grounds for considering this attribution to be accurate. In our comparison of these remains and the various relevant texts, we have found nothing to contradict this attribution. While we can never be certain that the bones are those of Magnus, Earl of Orkney and saint, there is a remarkable congruence between the texts and the skull which makes this the most likely explanation.”
A conclusion that Jenny’s new radiocarbon date seems to bear out.
Jenny would like to thank Dr Sarah Jane Gibbon and Associate Professor Scott Timpany, of the UHI Archaeology Institute, Dr Siobhan Cooke-Miller, curator of archaeology at the Orkney Museum, and the Orkney Archaeology Society for their assistance in the project.
We’d be delighted to hear from anyone considering a self-funded MRes or PhD. Our research themes and topics are outlined here and if any of those are of interest, contact Professor Jane Downes for more information.
