Christopher Sprecher: From Noregur to Nea Rhōmē: the Cult of Saint Olaf in Byzantium and Metropolitanism

This paper will briefly examine the contradictory impulses of inclusion and exclusion within a metropolitan setting by means of the example of the cult of St Olaf as well as the ceremonial surrounding the Varangian Guard and other Germanic warriors in Constantinople in the late eleventh century. The spread of this cult from the fringes of Norway to the courts of Byzantium is a remarkable instance of intercultural and metropolitan networks functioning to funnel information, worship, and ecclesiastical legitimacy to the heart of the Byzantine Empire. Yet the evidence we have in Old Norse, Latin, and Greek texts in terms of cult and ceremonial - as well as what does not exist - points to clear limits in Byzantium for the incorporation and adoption of non-Hellenic elements into court and culture.