Sökandet efter en tidsanda : i spåren efter Absalon

In this dissertation I have sought to test the possibility of recreating a detailed picture of an individual medieval person, tracing the Danish archbishop Absalon's own world of thought and action through those surviving sources that he has left behind. The sources are both written and material, and they include the cloister church in Sorø, the Havn Castle, the Medieval history Gesta Danorum, the rune stone and church in Norra Åsum and Absalon's testament.

During the course of this work, a pattern has emerged. In Absalon's contemporary Denmark, there were mainly two strong loci of power. One was the regional aristocratic power. The other was the international power of the Church. These two forces and interests encompassed different traditional ideologies, and they were defined by somewhat distinctive ambitions and goals. By working within these different power loci - and by integrating their traditional ideologies - Absalon created his own field of practical action. The Cistercian Order became, for Absalon, a mediating link between those two major political forces. The Order could unite ideals taken from both the local aristocratic and also the Catholic Church tradition. In my work, I utilise Absalon in synthesising a Zeitgeist. At the same time, I try to use my analysis to bring forth the contours of Absalon's personality and identity; I examine Absalon as his person appears, not only in the different sources, but also in the meetings between them. Here, I define a focus for this dissertation. From the material traces and written sources, I seek those (political) acts of positioning that can be interpreted as characteristically Absalon's own.