Yes to a boost for Trondheim’s Viking and medieval history

Under it easily Absurd headline “Juicy stories such as power struggles, adultery, sex and murder are something that everyone likes” in Adresseavisen on 25 April, a long-awaited municipal acknowledgment is hidden from us with a genuine commitment to Trondheim’s history: “Trondheim is too modest and fails to convey the exciting history of the Viking and medieval city well enough.” During a meeting of the chairmanship, it was raised how Trondheim Municipality’s lack of involvement in the city’s earliest history, from the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, has caused it to sink into awkward backwardness. The board’s statement testifies to a joyful self-awareness. A number of professionals and institutions, in various contexts, have long pointed out that Trondheim established itself as the central city center of the early Norwegian kingdom during the late Viking Age and early Middle Ages.

The earliest royal kings Olav Haraldsson and Harald Hardråde built royal residences in the city, while Olav Kyrre at the end of the 11th century built Christ Church, one of the country’s first episcopal churches. Olav Haraldsson, Norway’s national saint, was declared a saint in the city the year after the battle at Stiklestad, and his coffin was kept in several early churches in the city before he was placed over the altar in Christ Church. This process laid the foundation for Trondheim from the middle of the 12th century to become the seat of an archbishop and the country’s ecclesiastical and one of the country’s most important political centers for the rest of the Middle Ages.

The very central one the position Trondheim took in the Norwegian state’s establishment and consolidation period and throughout the Middle Ages is in no way in line with the position the city should have among the cities and places that today compete to have a leading historical role in the country’s founding history. This is a game of knowledge resources and opportunities that the city’s central role in older Norwegian history has lost. The city could use this to a much greater extent for profiling, to attract tourists, but not least to help build identity, belonging and a unique local urban environment. Other cities and places have long since realized this and thus taken over the position that Trondheim had for a long time. Oslo now stands out as the country’s most important medieval city. The active association Medieval Oslo organizes annually Oslo Medieval Festival with 5,000–7,000 visitors. They have taken the initiative to create a Medieval Park where the city was located in the Middle Ages. It is part of Oslo’s urban planning development. Tønsberg and Hamar also have their medieval festivals. Tønsberg also has a Viking festival and a municipal decision (yes!) that they are “Norway’s oldest city”. Sarpsborg is also in the limelight and markets the city that Olav founded in 1016 as “Olav’s city”. In Haugesund, they market Haugalandet as “Norway’s birthplace”, and have built up the visitor centre Norway at Avaldsnes, referred to as “Norway’s first royal seat” and Haraldshaugen as “Norway’s National Monument”. In this way, we could continue to list one initiative after another that actively promotes the towns/places’ Viking Age and medieval history.

Trondheim once was in this layer. At the end of the 1980s, Aftenposten cleared the front page with the title “Historical viking find – sensational find from the Viking age in Trondheim” and the Museum of Art and Industry opened its premises for the exhibition The city under the street, which in a few summer months gathered over 30,000 visitors. In the anniversary year 1997, when Marvin Wiseth served as history-interested mayor, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) had taken the initiative to create a historical path through the city, with stations in central places in the city where you could both read beautifully designed signs and hear stories related to to that very place. In recent times, there has also been no shortage of good dissemination of the city’s Viking Age and medieval history. NIKU and the Pilgrim Centre’s formidable effort must be commended. The latest addition is the Medieval Center where several departments from NTNU have joined forces in an interdisciplinary research, teaching and communication center with a spotlight on the Middle Ages.

Against this backdrop, it is high time that Trondheim municipality gets actively involved in promoting this important historical heritage. The municipality’s cultural unit has established regular contact with the Medieval Center about several initiatives and events in the future. There is great potential here, but it does no good to advertise interest if it is not followed up with will, effort and priorities, something other city municipalities in the country have understood and profited from with regard to profiling and increased tourism. We therefore welcome the chairmanship’s own recognition of long-term awkwardness (but not powerlessness!) and hope that it is a chapter over. An opportunity with great potential for the city to show what it wants and can do is to use the upcoming Jubilee Year in 2030 as a source of motivation and renewed efforts to actively spread knowledge about the city’s central historical position in the Middle Ages when Norway became a unified kingdom and kingdom.

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