ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the itineraries and actions of several papal legates visiting Scandinavia in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in order to demonstrate how the members of the Nordic elites transformed their networks and power bases through contact with Rome’s deputies. Through the examples of Nicholas Breakspear, archbishops Absalon and Anders Sunesen, Gregorius de Crescentio, and William of Modena, the chapter traces the transformation and European expansion of the clerical, educational, and political networks of ecclesiastical and secular elites in Scandinavia. It is claimed that both locally appointed papal legates and those sent from Rome functioned as exceptionally potent nodes constricting or enabling interaction between an array of networks. They functioned also as influential mediators converting different types of capital: social, dynastic, educational, and symbolic. By representing and appropriating the symbolic power of the Roman pontiffs, papal legates constituted a hallowed fusion of the priestly ministerium and governmental mysterium. As a result, they offered the Nordic elites a new type of sacralized political technology of delegation of power to employ and emulate.
