Ego sum Anna, domina omnium coniugatarum, que fuerunt ante legem. Ego eciam sum mater omnium coniugatarum fidelium, que sunt post legem, quia Deus voluit de generacione mea nasci. Ideo tu, filia, honora Deum isto modo: ‘Benedictus sis tu, Ihesu, fili Dei et fili virginis, qui de coniugio Anne et Ioachim matrem tibi elegisti! Ideo propter preces Anne miserere omnibus, qui in coniugio sunt, vt fructificent Deo! Dirige eciam omnes, qui ad coniugium tendunt, vt in eis honoretur Deus!’1

1Late medieval piety was deeply attached to images and representations of saints and holy events. The image embodied the spirit of the saint and an important relic located within the altar, or inside the altarpiece placed on it, emphasized the link to the supernatural. Images were considered not only as elements of devotional practices and inspirational meditation, but also as sites of various possibilities of identification and responses.2 Mirroring the reciprocal systems of favour found in the prevailing society, miracles and cures were expected from the saints in return for worship and gifts.3 However, surviving medieval art is generally disconnected from the circumstances of its use, so it is challenging to trace the reception or patronage of a particular person, place and time.4 This becomes especially demanding when the works of art studied are mainly fragmented, and available written sources are scarce. This is very much the situation concerning the history of art in medieval Finland.5 Only a few of the artifacts or images from the pre-Reformation era can be connected to specific acquisitions or persons either through the pictorial evidence offered by the object or image or through written records.6 No accounts exist of private thoughts or feelings upon seeing a sacred image, or explanations for the veneration of a particular saint or holy subject.

2The reception of a religious image may be studied by focusing on public reactions heightened by, for example, preaching or devotional literature interacting with the visual elements.7 If, on the other hand, the study attempts to suggest why a donor preferred the depiction of a certain saint, the research fields of reception and patronage intermingle. In the same way that painters, carver masters and workshops had an impact on the formation of an opus, so did those who wanted, commissioned and paid for the work. Indeed, art history today seeks answers not only to traditional questions such as when, where and by whom the images were made, but also why they were acquired and venerated. Reception and patronage are considered integral parts of the process of production of art and its use, and also as keys for tracing meanings of specific images.

3As elsewhere in Europe, members of the nobility and local wealthy families in late medieval Finland (the eastern part of the Swedish Kingdom) often took part in decorating a church and its altars. This article focuses on the agency of one particular individual from the uppermost class: Lucia Olofsdotter (Skelge), a pious and prosperous lady. Her surviving wills and other documents reveal that she made bequests to convents and individual clergymen, and supported the cults and shrines of many saints.

4One of the saints mentioned in the documents related to Lucia is the grandmother of Jesus, St Anne. In this essay I wish to investigate the encounters between the cult of St Anne and Lucia Olofsdotter as well as the significance of the holy grandmother for her. The paper also examines how written records, albeit indirectly connected to the altarpieces or other images, can be useful in finding contexts, or ‘frames’ for little known works of art for which no documents survive. I consider these contexts to be in a reciprocal relation to the devotional images, and not necessarily capable of explaining their ‘birth’ or overall meaning. I shall first give a brief account of the cult of St Anne in the Turku diocese, and then go on to explore Lucia’s biographical data, her actions, and selected works of art from her surroundings. Although some documents considering Lucia’s activities have survived to the present day, we have no knowledge of her devotional motivations. I shall attempt, by juxtaposing Lucia’s actions to specific traits of the multifaceted cult of St Anne, to provide some plausible suggestions.

5The imagery and cult of St Anne have aroused scholarly interest in recent decades.8 However, the visual material or local circumstances in the Turku diocese, i. e. medieval Finland, have not been addressed. Like elsewhere around the Baltic Sea, the cult of St Anne was supported by a wide range of people and was spread by ecclesiastical authorities, mendicant orders, aristocrats and burghers. Although it is possible that early Eastern Christianity had left traces of the veneration of St Anne, the first archival information about her cult in the Turku diocese is from the late fourteenth century.9 The cult was strengthened by the impact of the Swedish noblewoman, visionary and founder of the Birgittine order, Birgitta Birgersdotter (1303–1373), who valued St Anne highly, and by the direct contacts with Baltic towns such as Reval, Stralsund and Lübeck, where St Anne enjoyed great reverence. The Turku diocese commemorated St Anne on December 15th, a date that differs from most calendars used in Western Europe where her feast day is usually July 26th or December 9th.10 Hence, in Finland the feast marked the winter solstice, an important turning point of the year in the North since ancient times.11 St Anne’s popularity peaked in the second half of the fifteenth century, when she is mentioned as patrona of the whole diocese together with Saints Henrik and Birgitta.12

6People spread the word, but sacred artifacts also mediated new ideas. Over forty wooden polychrome sculptures depicting St Anne survive in Finland.13 The sculptures are made of various types of wood, and originate primarily from Northern Germany and the Uppland region, while others were carved in local workshops. All of them are more or less damaged, but this is due to neglect, not to acts of iconoclastic zeal inspired by the Reformation. All of them, with various compositional arrangements, characterize the St Anne Trinity, formed by St Anne, the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. Depictions give emphasis to St Anne’s dignified bearing, and she comes across as a woman of substance. To quote Virginia Nixon, who described St Anne as a saint who not only interceded for, but also helped her devotees to reach heaven, this role “in the economy of salvation is alluded to in the compositional formats and iconography of the works of art depicting her.”14 Although mentioned frequently in the written sources, Lucia Olofsdotter (c. 1423–c. 1498) has not been the subject of specialised research. Birgit Klockars, in her invaluable monograph on the Birgittine convent Vallis gratiae, its inhabitants and benefactors, has gone furthest in covering her life. Recently, Anu Lahtinen has captivatingly analysed Lucia’s status in the various transactions of real property.15 Information on Lucia can be gleaned from wills, personal letters, sales contracts, legal documents and letters of donation. Many of those are connected with the convent Vallis gratiae, for which she was a most outstanding and long-term benefactress.

7Lucia was born into an aristocratic family (rälssi) circa 1423.16 Lucia’s father, Olof Skelge, died when she was fairly young. Consequently, her father’s relative, Henrik Svärd, arranged Lucia’s marriage. The groom was found within the family circle: Henrik Klasson (Djäkn) was the brother of Henrik Svärd’s wife, Birgitta Klasdotter. The siblings belonged to one of the most influential families in Finland. In approximately 1438 Lucia and Henrik Klasson were married and soon after, in 1441, Henrik was knighted on the occasion of King Kristoffer’s coronation. He then became King’s councillor and lagman of the Upper Satakunta (Norrfinne) province. In the early years of their marriage they lived in Nousiainen, but later moved to neighbouring Mynämäki (Virmo). In the spring of 1442 Lucia and Henrik travelled to Stockholm to handle an important affair. They donated the land for the final location for the Birgittine convent, established four years earlier.17 The estate was originally Lucia’s inherited property, but she had first given the other half to her husband so that they could donate it together.

8Lucia mentioned St Henrik and St Birgitta as her patron saints.18 Why those saints? Were Henrik Svärd and Birgitta Klasdotter her godparents? At least she probably lived with them for some time before her marriage.19 Lucia’s veneration of St Henrik may also have been strengthened thanks to her husband who, unsurprisingly, mentioned sanctum Henricum as his patron saint.20 Furthermore, they lived in the very vicinity of the first burial and veneration place of the martyred bishop, still the location of his outstanding sarcophagus. This site was also mentioned in Lucia’s will, as she bequeathed a gold ring and an altar clothing to sancte Henrix graff i Nosis.21 The fact that Lucia did not seem to depend on her own namesake may be due to general fashion; St Lucia was not a particularly popular saint in the Turku diocese. Depictions of St Lucia are rare, her altars receive no mention in the written sources, and neither were any of the churches known to have been dedicated to her.22

9Lucia and Henrik had no children. No information of the circumstances around this fact, for example, miscarriages or deceased children, survives. One detail in Henrik’s will refers to a pilt, a young boy. In 1449 he bequeathed a bed and some garments to min pilt Æwra.23 Who was Æwra, and why is he left out of the two later wills?24 In all probability Henrik was referring to a personal servant of some sort, and not a child born out of wedlock. Æwra did, however, enjoy Henrik’s favour, as he was promised more than simply little bits and pieces. Similar items were given to most influential men as well; for example, Henrik’s relative Peder Karpalainen, the häradshövding (hundreder) of Masku, was promised bedclothes and a pitcher.25

10In 1458, when Lucia was about 35 years old, she became a widow. She did not follow the common habit and remarry. Lucia lived an exceptionally long life, over 70 years, and spent her old age in the Birgittine convent in Naantali.26

Mysterious St Joachim

11Lucia’s three wills list her property, and to whom she wished to bequeath it.27 In her second will from the year 1451 she listed, among other things, gold jewellery, several silver bowls and other vessels, knives with gilded mounts, oxen and horses. Considering our topic, an interesting detail is the bequest of an altar cloth to the shrine of St Joachim in the Naantali convent church.28 This is noteworthy, since in the mid-fifteenth century the cult of St Joachim, the husband of Anne and father of Mary, was rather limited in the Turku diocese. The Birgittine convent’s calendar had a feast day for St Joachim on December 16th, the day after St Anne’s day, whereas the calendars used in the parishes do not list it at all.29 St Birgitta in her Revelations had actively advocated the ideal nature of the chaste marriage of Anne and Joachim. According to Birgitta, Mary assured her that Anne’s and Joachim’s union was based on holy love, and that they came together carnally against their own will—they would rather have died than made love out of fleshly lust (I. 9). In another Revelation (IV. 55), Birgitta was a little less harsh and stated, again through the mouth of Mary, that Mary’s conception took place more out of godly love and piety than of carnal lust.30 This emphasis was to be followed by the latefifteenth-century writers of St Anne’s hagiographies, such as Johannes Trithemius and Petrus Dorlandus.31

12The bequest to the altar of St Joachim is no longer mentioned in Lucia’s last surviving will drawn up in 1455, and neither is it mentioned in any other source. Thus, the existence of the altar is vague, but nonetheless possible. The mid-nineteenth-century inventories from the convent church list a now lost wooden sculpture depicting a male figure, presumably St Joseph.32 Later scholars questioned this identification, and suggested St John the Baptist instead.33 One might assume, though, that the early antiquarians would have recognized St John the Baptist with his distinctive garb, particularly since he would have been an obvious choice being one of the official patrons of the convent.34 Hypothetically, the image could also have illustrated St Joachim and would thus form a tempting link to Lucia’s will. As the sculpture is lost and no image of it survives, this will remain a mystery.

Sancta Anna sielff tridie in Turku Cathedral

13Lucia bequeathed seven gold-plated buttons or brooches to the altar of St Anne. In the last will (1455) she specified that they were for the acquisition of a chalice.35 The texts do not clearly indicate the church she had in mind, but I think Turku Cathedral is the obvious locus.36 What is significant is the fact that the altar of St Anne in Turku is mentioned in several contemporary documents,37 whereas the Lucia’s will is the only one that refers to its existence in Naantali. Secondly, she mentioned the altar of sancta Anna after three prominent, prosperous and often-mentioned shrines in Turku, namely the Altar of the Virgin in the clerics’choir, the Altar of the Three Kings and the Altar of All Souls—all of them without an explicit place reference, which suggest these altars were well-known to her contemporaries.

14Nonetheless, Vallis gratiae convent was a special place concerning the veneration of St Anne. As mentioned earlier, the holy grandmother was favoured by St Birgitta. Moreover, the convent was consecrated to St Anne as well as to the Virgin Mary, St Birgitta and St John the Baptist.38 The background of the dedication to St Anne is linked to the previously planned, but unrealised, Dominican convent of St Anne.39 While we have no exact evidence of the altar of St Anne in Naantali, it is likely that there was one, but it might have been shared with other saints, notably with St Birgitta herself. The two saints had shared altars for example in Vadstena and Uppsala.40 Be that as it may, the possible altar of St Anne in Naantali was obviously not as important a veneration site for her cult as the shrine in the Cathedral, which had both the guild of St Anne and a prebenda supporting it.41

15The importance of the St Anne altar in Turku is revealed not only by the evidence drawn from the written sources, but also by the remaining altarpiece (fig. 1). This is a beautifully carved St Anne Trinity group, which in all likelihood once stood on her altar. It is believed to have been situated in the chapel of the Holy Cross, which is on the south-east side of the Cathedral. The vaults of the chapel were painted in the 1480s, including a depiction of St Anne—unfortunately very faint today. It is plausible that the sculpture was acquired around the same time that the chapel was refurbished.

16The Anna Selbdritt sculpture has been dated to the 1480s. This is based on stylistic analysis as no documents survive. The sculpture, made of oak, has been linked to the workshop of the famous Bernt Notke.42 The connoisseur Walter Paatz did not, however, acknowledge the sculpture in his extensive monograph on the artist43 and, consequently, most scholars do not mention it in their Notke studies.44 Nonetheless, as C. A. Nordman has remarked, the figures in the Turku sculpture bear a noteworthy resemblance to those of the Århus reredos, clearly attributed to Notke.45 This has become even more apparent since the Turku sculpture was restored at the beginning of the 1980s. Thus far, the St Anne in Turku has received very little scholarly attention.46

17The sculpture discussed above could not have been on the altar at the time Lucia’s wills were drawn up, as it was carved about 25 years later. It is tempting to ponder, if we trust that it indeed has something to do with Bernt Notke’s workshop, whether Lucia could have been involved with its acquisition later on in her life. She certainly had the right contacts. Bernt Notke’s stay in Stockholm was linked with the commission established by Sten Sture, the Regent of Sweden, for the impressive sculpture of St George and the dragon in Stockholm’s Storkyrkan.47 Lucia, in turn, was in contact with Sten Sture at least from the 1470s till 1490. She had approached him and other high-ranking men to solve an inheritance quarrel with Rötger Olofsson, a relative on her mother’s side, concerning landed property. Lucia won the case thanks to a deal she made with Sten Sture, the riksråd Knut Posse, Archbishop Jakob of Uppsala and Bishop Magnus of Turku. As a result, she was able to get the properties transferred according to her plans to the Naantali convent.48

18While it remains unclear how the St Anne Trinity group found its way to Turku Cathedral it evidently became well-known. Most likely it also led to a term of Magnus Frille’s will: in 1508 he bequeathed his property in Salo to the prebenda of St Anne in Turku and ordered an eternal mass to be held on Tuesdays on the altar of sancta Anna, sielff tridie.49 It is probable that Magnus actually had in mind the tangible object, the precious sculpture depicting the beautiful St Anne with two children.

Lucia’s initiation in the Vallis gratiae

19In 1485, Lucia expressed her devotional interests in a letter of donation, in which she hands over to the Naantali convent two estates on the condition that the brothers would start celebrating morning masses similar to those being held in Vadstena Abbey. She named seven marianic themes: Sundays for Mary’s holy conception (helga concepcione), Mondays for her birth, Tuesdays for the Annunciation, Wednesdays for the Visitation, Thursdays for the Nativity, Fridays for Mary’s Purification and Saturdays for her Assumption.50

20The timing of Lucia’s wish to influence liturgically the spiritual life of the convent and strengthen the cult of the Virgin Mary coincides with the acquisition of the large winged reredos, also from the 1480s. It is considered to originate in a workshop from the Uppland region.51 Its central theme depicts the highlight of the new masses Lucia initiated, the Coronation of the Virgin in heaven (fig.2). This sculpted scene is flanked by statues of St Birgitta and her daughter, the beatified Katarina of Vadstena (c. 1331–1381).

21The holy events evoked by the new masses are depicted more fully in the exquisite altar frontlet, today in the National Museum of Finland (fig. 3). The cloth, over two metres long, was embroidered in the Naantali convent, probably in the late fifteenth century in a style also used in Vadstena.52 The dating, however, is uncertain. There are two pairs of saints at each end of the altar frontlet: at one end St Birgitta and Katarina, and at the other two fragmented male saints. In between, a row of scenes from the Virgin’s life are depicted, starting with the image of Mary’s conception emblematised by the meeting of her parents at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem.

22Suggested by the initials b and a at opposite upper ends of the altar frontlet, the cloth is considered to have been embroidered by a nun, Birgitta Anunds-dotter.53 The connection was the fact that the altar frontlet came from the parish church of Huittinen, where Birgitta’s mother, Rikissa Olofsdotter, owned property.54 Nonetheless, this attribution needs to be reconsidered. Although a nun might have signed her handiwork, it certainly was not common practice.55 What is more, the letters are placed one at each end, not side by side, which would have been a more obvious choice for a signature. The conclusion by earlier scholars that Birgitta Anundsdotter did this embroidery for her home parish is also weakened by the fact that we do not know if she ever lived there, neither do we have any information that the embroidery was in Huittinen during the Catholic era. It may well have been in use in the convent church and perhaps sold after the Reformation, when the convent hit hard economic times. The initials most likely have a devotional meaning; for example, b for Birgitta and a for Anne.56

Lucia’s motivations

23Together with St Anne’s general position as a mighty intercessor holding a place at the very core of the Christian faith, many aspects of her cult could have appealed to a person such as Lucia. I suggest three possibilities. Firstly, St Anne promoted fertility and marital life.57 Secondly, she was an example of charity and sharing one’s wealth with the poor, and finally, in Northern Europe, she was, at least according to the visual material, “twinned” with St Birgitta.58 The suggested motivations derive from events in Lucia’s personal life, her position as a member of the elite, and her devotional preferences.

24Lucia’s and Henrik’s childlessness was publicly stated in their mutual wills in 1445. The chosen words and the document itself reveal that the spouses had little hope of having children.59 The situation was likely to be stressful for such a family, for whom heirs meant more than just personal joy or security, because they were essential in the kinship structures and for holding the properties together. Thus, Lucia’s attention to St Joachim may not have been related so much to his role as an ideal husband in holy matrimony as to the emphasis the nobility put on kinship; the ancestry of Jesus mirrored the dynastic policies of the nobility itself.60 Even if childlessness was considered no fault of the woman per se, it surely weighed heavily on Lucia, since family and household were her domain, as public life was Henrik’s. On the other hand, to be left without heirs was not so uncommon; this was also the fate of Arvid and Thomas, Henrik’s brothers.61

25One of the principal points of the legend of St Anne was her miraculous pregnancy: God had helped the elderly woman to conceive. Consequently, St Anne became known as a protector of matrimony, a promoter of fertility and even as a helper in childbirth. Many miracle stories circulated in Europe describing St Anne’s ability to help barren women. St Birgitta’s Revelations were also used in this effort. According to one vision, while Birgitta was obtaining the relics of St Anne from the sacristan of San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome, St Anne appeared and taught her a prayer to venerate the relics. St Anne claimed that by revering her, those who are in wedlock may bear fruit to God (VI. 104).62 In the later vernacular versions of this prayer, the stress on the old and new alliance between God and people is reduced and the fruitful matrimony of man and woman is emphasised. Lucia was presumably familiar with this prayer as well, as its vernacular version is found in a codex written in the mid or later half of the fifteenth century in Vadstena especially for the Naantali convent. The reference to fertility is explicit: Miskunna thy for Anna böne allom thöm som i hjonalaghe äru, at the maghin gudhi fructer göra fructsamj vara.63

26Did Turku Cathedral receive some of St Anne’s relics that had been acquired by St Brigitte and that were so strongly connected to the prayer? The list of relics owned by the Cathedral has not survived, but supposedly it possessed dozens of them.64 Intriguingly, the first known donor of the St Anne altar in 1438 was Matthis Olaffson, a Finnish-born provost of the Uppsala Cathedral, which did have relics of St Anne.65 With or without relics, Lucia still perhaps hoped that St Anne, hjonalaghens fru, lady of matrimony, would intercede on her behalf.

27Even if Lucia’s prayers did not produce miracles, in the end she did achieve motherhood, although in a spiritual sense. A document recalling events after Lucia’s death called her a mother, moder fru Lucia.66 As abbesses were commonly called mothers, this wording has caused speculations as to whether she actually ran the Naantali convent as an abbess for some time.67 It is more likely, however, that moder was an honourable way of addressing a respected elderly woman who had spiritual authority. Furthermore, moder is not used alone in the text but together with fru, a term of address reserved for wives of knights or other high ranking men, and not exactly suitable for an abbess.

28Secondly, one essential aspect in the devotion of St Anne was charity and the redistribution of wealth. St Anne’s legend as, for example, rephrased in the The Golden Legend tells of St Anne’s and St Joachim’s generosity; they gave one third of their money to the temple and its ministers, one third to the poor, and kept only one third for their own needs and those of their household.68 Direct depictions of St Anne’s charity are, however, difficult to find. A small Brabantian wood sculpture from the late fifteenth century currently on display at the Musée du Cinquantenaire in Brussels is an exception. It portrays St Anne giving money to a poor woman carrying a child on her shoulder.69 Lucia was a donatrix, too. Her wills contain her donations to charity organisations; the two hospitals in Turku were each promised a pair of oxen and two cows. Together with the Naantali convent, the Cathedral and several parish churches, the beneficiaries included Vadstena Abbey and the Franciscan and Dominican houses in Viipuri, Turku and Rauma. The bishop and ministers were not forgotten either. Charity was not only a pious act suitable for ladies, or a duty of the nobility, but a way to demonstrate prestige as well.70

29Finally, would St Anne’s link to St Birgitta have appealed to Lucia, a devotee of Birgitta? Not only was St Anne highly revered by Birgitta, but they were often portrayed in a similar manner, like in the altar frontlet described earlier (fig. 3). As the visual representations do not distinguish historical personalities from more or less fictitious ones, St Anne’s worldly, societal rank could have been perceived as more factual when juxtaposed to Birgitta Birgersdotter’s noble background. Generally, saints were depicted resembling people of the upper classes, and in her fine attire St Anne was certainly no exception. As T. A. Heslop has aptly remarked, “the authority of divinity on the one hand and the power of the already wealthy sections of contemporary society reinforced each other’s dominance through the assimilation of their visual appearances.”71 One of the factors of Anne’s and Birgitta’s visual pairing was their roles as mothers and grandmothers, starters of a family tree. In the St Anne imagery, this is vividly expressed in the Arbor Annae, an adaptation of the tree of Jesse motif, while St Birgitta was pictured as a stem for her descendants, namely Katarina.72 Just as St Anne was the mother of a virgin daughter, so too was Birgitta, since Katarina actually became known as a widow-virgin.73 In the words of Bridget Morris, “at the time when the cult of the Virgin’s mother, St Anne, was strong, Katarina is part of a pattern in which saintly families, consisting of more than one generation of saints, are created.”74 Moreover, Birgitta was the symbolic mother of the followers of her new order, Ordo Sanctissimi Salvatoris.

30As has been shown, although wills and other documents said nothing about actual purchases of, or payments for devotional images, they do offer a possible route investigating them. Thus, in spite of the lack of documentation, the potential histories of little known works of art can be discerned. The earlier and incorrect attribution of the embroidered altar frontlet, however, serves as an illustration of how the written sources indirectly connected to works of art should be very cautiously applied if the focus is not on the context, but on the search for the artist. The trajectory of Lucia Olofsdotter indicates a pattern of interaction between the cult of the saint, its sacred imagery, and the responsive person. The powers of St Anne were expected to be mediated through the image to the devotee, whose agency, in turn, for example in the form of donations and art patronage, provided material existence, visibility and prestige to the shrines of the holy grandmother.