The Hamar Chronicle ( no, Hamarkrøniken) is a book written in the 1500s by an unknown author. It describes life in the town of

Hamar Hamar is a List of cities in Norway, town in Hamar Municipality in Innlandet Counties of Norway, county, Norway. Hamar is the administrative centre of Hamar Municipality. It is located in the Districts of Norway, traditional region of Hedmarken. ...

during the Catholic era (until 1537). The book is an important source for the study of Hamar's history because it describes the settlement of the town. The book is first and foremost a local patriotic depiction of Hamar in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

. It discusses the most important buildings (the

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

, the bishop's residence, St. Olaf's Monastery, the cruciform church, Saint George's Church, the town hall, and the prison) as well as the life of the town and how it was governed, and it contains a short narrative about the last bishop's departure from the town. In addition, it lists all of the bishops in Hamar during the Catholic era.

Origin

The author of the Hamar Chronicle is unknown, but from the language and the description there is reason to believe that the author was from

Hedmarken Hedmarken (, ; known as ''Hedemarken'' until 2003) is a Districts of Norway, traditional district in Innlandet county in Eastern Norway. Hedmarken consists of the municipalities Stange, Hamar, Løten, and Ringsaker. In the past, it also containe ...

, if not Hamar itself. On the other hand, the book tells about its origins: on July 22, 1553 many important people gathered at the Hamar farm (i.e., the bishop's residence) to review the bishop's letters and books. Following royal orders from Copenhagen, some of the Catholic archives were to be registered, and

lensmann in modern Norwegian or in Danish and older Norwegian spelling (; ) is a term with several distinct meanings in Nordic history. The Icelandic equivalent was a . Fief-holder The term traditionally referred to a holder of a royal fief in Denmark ...

Christen Munk Christen Munk (1520 – July 5, 1579) was a Danish born, Governor-general of Norway and county governor. Biography He came from Danish nobility and was the son of Hans Munk (died 1535) and Maren Christensdatter Spend (died 1543). He started h ...

, the son-in-law of

Truid Ulfstand Truid Gregersen Ulfstand (1487 – November 16, 1545) was a Danish nobleman, landowner, and privy council member. He was active in Norway in the 1530s during the time that the country was entering into a real union with Denmark, and was a command ...

, was to be responsible. He had gathered freeholders with allodial tenure and other secular men together, and together they were to record the most important of the town's buildings, streets, organization and population. Strikingly, it also presents many memories of the city's golden age and a narrative of earthquakes and the last bishop's struggle. It is widely believed that these observations were added by Trugels the cantor, the church choral director.

Portents before the bishop's capture

The Hamar Chronicle describes portents before Bishop Mogens was captured. The chronicle says that in the middle of the night all the bells in the cathedral, the monastery, and the church began to ring of their own accord. In the church and the cathedral it was as though it were the middle of the day, and there was a sound as if two armies would fight. The chronicle goes on to say: ''Dernest om höy dags tijd beteede sig en gresselig stor orm oc forferdelig, som kaldis Siöormen, udi Miöß, som var gandske lang oc meget stor, oc siuntes at naa fra öens landt oc jnd udi Kongsland'' (Next there appeared in the middle of the day an enormously large and abominable sea serpent, called the Sjøorm, in Lake

Mjøsa Mjøsa is Norway's largest lake, as well as one of the deepest lakes in Norway and in Europe. It is the fourth-deepest lake in Norway. It is located in the southern part of Norway, about north of the city of Oslo. Its main tributary is the rive ...

, which was exceedingly long and very large, and it seemed to be coming from the island Helgøya,_the_'holy_island'.html" ;"title="Helgøya,_Hedmark.html" ;"title=".e., Helgøya, Hedmark">Helgøya, the 'holy island'">Helgøya,_Hedmark.html" ;"title=".e., Helgøya, Hedmark">Helgøya, the 'holy island'and approaching the land of the king.) It then relates how one of the bishop's men killed the beast with an arrow and how they disposed of its enormous carcass.

Regarding the last bishop

Finally, the chronicle describes the occasion and the events of the day that Bishop Mogens was captured and sent to Denmark. The bishop had to surrender because of

's forces' modern weapons: bullets and gunpowder against the bishop's arrows and

crossbow A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an elastic launching device consisting of a bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar fashion to the stock of a long fi ...

s. When the bishop left the city, he fell on his knees and thanked God for every day he had spent in the city. He asked the city to pray for him and said he would return. Then the chronicle states that he prayed: ''O Gud fader udi himmelen, findes vj icke för, da Gud giffue det vj findis i himmerige. Denne bön bad hand med grædende taare oc sagde, vale, vale, vale.'' (O God, Father in heaven, we do not exist for gifts from God, but to find heaven. He prayed this prayer while crying tears, and said farewell, farewell, farewell.)

Hamar's coat of arms

The chronicle also describes what Hamar's coat of arms looked like, and it is from this depiction that today's municipal coat of arms was designed in 1899, on the occasion of the town's 50th anniversary. The chronicle states: ''Hammers vaaben det var en vhrhane med udslagen vinger vdi toppen paa it grönt furutræ'' (Hamar's coat of arms was a

black grouse The black grouse (''Lyrurus tetrix''), also known as northern black grouse, Eurasian black grouse, blackgame or blackcock, is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, spanning across the Palearctic in moorland and step ...

with outspread wings at the top of a green pine). The chronicle says that this coat of arms was carved into the woodwork over the town hall in the old marketplace.

References

{{reflist

External links

The Hamar Chronicle at Dokumentasjonsprosjektet

The Hamar Chronicle at Bokselskap
Hamar Scandinavian chronicles