Kvinnobilder - helgonnamn

The basis of this paper is a comparative study, on the one hand of the frequency of saints' names among the women in medieval Denmark, and on the other of the occurrence of pictures of female saints in the same region. As to certain names, e g Catherine, Barbara and Anne, there is a correspondence of frequency and time, which suggests a deliberate popularization of the saints in question. Othr cases present obvious discrepancies. To explain this the author considers the different motives for naming and picture creation.
In most cases the pictures serve as an incitement to and a support for contemplation and prayer, which results in a predominance of saints with an established reputation for relieving the distressed. This is above all true of occasional, ikon-like representations of saints, whose pictorial frequency often seems to be distinctly related to their usefulness. There is a difference as regards the rendering of legends: S Catherine's is the most frequent among them and she also occurs frequently in sermons, as an illustrative example. S Ursula's legend, also quite often represented in pictures, as unusual dramatic qualities.
The naming of children was often decided by family tradition, and that could be why the names of early introduced saints got a dominating position. Cecilia and Christina were among those early introduced names and became very ppular without leaving any traces worth mentioningin the pictorial world of the region.
As pictures of saints began to appear comparatively late in Scandinavia, the earliest introduced saints, who did not have very definite functions of relief, had by then possibly already been outclassed by later imported, Central and North European ones with clearer defined functions and more frequent images.