With few urban centres and a scattered peasant population, eighteenth-century Norway was not easily administered or controlled by the strictly centralized twin monarchy of Denmark–Norway. The most central apparatus for communicating with the population was actually the Lutheran clergy. Being a pastor in the Norwegian countryside was quite different from holding a pastor’s office in an urban context: the challenges were different, the tasks more extensive, the congregations less motivated for change and contact with colleagues was limited. This chapter raises the following question: how did a rural pastor in Norway consider his duties, and what means did he have at his disposal to spread Enlightenment to his congregation? In the search for the characteristics of ‘pastoral Enlightenment’ in Norway, three representatives of the clergy from the latter part of the eighteenth century will serve as examples.

The chapter is divided into three parts. The first part discusses whether the Norwegian eighteenth-century clergy had distinctive features – not necessarily in respect of theological thinking, but when it came to structural and structuring conditions for pastoral activities. The second part addresses issues related to ideals and instruments for the dissemination of new theological ideas. The third and final section is an analysis of three pastors who illustrate the Norwegian ‘pastoral Enlightenment’ in different ways (see also Sidenvall’s chapter in this volume for alternative uses of this concept).

Eighteenth-century Norwegian church history has not received much attention, nor has it been pursued systematically. There are several reasons for this. As Norway had been in a union with Denmark since the late Middle Ages, and then formed a kind of vassal state from the sixteenth century onwards, research has focused on periods when major changes took place. Consequently, the sixteenth century and the Reformation have come in for a great deal of attention. The same is true of the nineteenth century, when Norway gained a more independent status and its own institutions after 1814. The period 1660–1814 was characterized by the absolutist and strongly centralized Danish-Norwegian Lutheran Church, with the king as its supreme head and the Danish Chancellery in Copenhagen as the most important executive bureaucratic institution. To distinguish Danish from Norwegian in this period is both difficult and historically problematic, even though national church historians have largely done just that. The transnational perspectives have been few and scattered.

Background

When examining the context of the Norwegian theological Enlightenment, it is relevant to compare the geography and demography of Denmark and Norway. The majority of the population of sixteenth-century Denmark–Norway lived in agricultural areas; and in most cases, parish borders remained unchanged during the Reformation and in the ensuing centuries. Slowly, however, demography changed. The population increased, as did the number of towns. Norway had approximately 440,000 inhabitants in the 1660s and 883,000 in 1801. In 1801, 8 per cent of the country’s population lived in urban areas.¹ Denmark had a population of approximately 600,000 in 1536 and 929,000 in 1801. The urban population in 1801 was 21 per cent.² By comparison, in 1570 Sweden had approximately 900,000 inhabitants and in 1800, 2,347,000. In 1800, about 10 per cent of the population lived in urban areas.³

These figures show that Denmark and Norway developed differently with regard to demographics during the eighteenth century. Denmark was – unlike Norway – to a large degree characterized by urban culture and small market-town communities with complex institutions. The connection is quite simple: in the highly centralized Danish-Norwegian state, Norway lacked important institutions such as universities and political decision-making bodies, and at the same time had a population that was spread across large geographical areas.

In 1801, the urban structure in Denmark was also different to that of Norway. At that time, 11 per cent of the population lived in the capital, Copenhagen (101,000), while 10 per cent (93,000) resided in provincial market towns, which were as many as eighty-eight in number. The size of these towns could vary from a few hundred inhabitants to four or five thousand.⁴ In 1801, Norway had twenty-three market towns; in addition, there were seventeen so-called staple ports, with limited rights in trade and economy. The largest provincial centres in Norway were the diocesan cities – Bergen, Kristiania, Trondheim and Kristiansand, with 18,100, 9,200, 8,800 and 2,223 inhabitants, respectively. The other towns were smaller, and in some cases considerably smaller.

Norway only had four dioceses, while the geographically much smaller Denmark had six. The two largest Norwegian dioceses – Kristiania and Trondheim – were very extensive, but they differed in respect of demographic structures.⁵ The market towns and staple ports were unevenly distributed between the dioceses: ten towns and seven staple ports were located in the Diocese of Kristiania, and with the exception of the mining town of Kongsberg, they were all located on both sides of the Kristiania fjord. Six towns and ten staple ports were located along the coast in the Diocese of Kristiansand. The Diocese of Bergen had only one – the city of Bergen, which was very dominant. The Diocese of Trondheim had six market towns, but apart from the diocesan city of Trondheim they were small, especially in northern Norway. The dioceses were also different demographically: the dioceses of Kristiania and Kristiansand, covering eastern and southern Norway, had about 466,000 inhabitants, or 53 per cent of the country’s population, while the geographically much larger Diocese of Trondheim had about 181,000, or only 20 per cent of the population.⁶

Some important conclusions can be drawn from these observations: Norway had few urban centres. Located along the coast, they were particularly important along the coastline from Fredrikshald in the east to Stavanger in the west, and situated in the dioceses of Kristiania and Kristiansand. Compared with Denmark, Norway was mainly composed of rural parishes. The educated reading public in Norway was presumably smaller than the one in Denmark, and most of the Norwegian clergy had an agrarian and pre-industrial society as their main cultural context.

Another important difference between Denmark and Norway must also be pointed out, namely the forms of governance. After the introduction of absolute monarchy in 1660, a number of large aristocratic estates were established in Denmark (1671) – counties and baronies – with far-reaching authority within economy, jurisdiction and, not least, Church organization. This new noble elite held its estates at the king’s pleasure, but in practice they controlled the estates on behalf of the king. Ius patronatus and ius vocandi were among the privileges of these estates. This implied that control of churches and clergy over large parts of Denmark resided with the landowners. In Norway, this was not the case; after 1671, only two counties and one barony were established. The counties were situated west of the Kristiania fjord, while the barony was centrally located in the Diocese of Bergen. This meant that the traditional structure of the Lutheran Church, with an appointed pastor reporting to and communicating directly with the central government through the Church structure (parish pastors, deans and bishops) remained intact in most of Norway.⁷

A possible hypothesis is that the Norwegian clergy – especially in the rural parishes – were relatively more independent than their colleagues in Denmark. This hypothesis derives from the observation that the Norwegian pastors were not subject to the preferences of a noble landlord, and that many of them were located in geographically large parishes far from the diocesan cities. This meant that the possibilities of controlling them were fewer than in Denmark and in the Danish-Norwegian towns and cities. In addition, Norway – despite a few attempts⁸ – lacked the important Danish arena of the landemode, an annual assembly of canons or a synod. When it came to control, deliberation and communication within the clergy, this synod had been crucial in Denmark since the Reformation, as it functioned as a regular meeting place for the diocesan clergy. At the landemode, the ecclesiastical superiors presented their demands and expectations, as well as new laws and regulations. The clergy could also participate in discussions about ecclesiastical affairs and share opinions and experiences between them.⁹ The fact that the Norwegian clergy lacked such a central forum implied that they were partly left to their own judgement, or had to await formal visits by the dean or bishop to have their practice evaluated.

It should be added that within the Danish-Norwegian clergy there was a basic cultural and theological community. The kingdom had one university and one faculty of theology. All future pastors had to go through the same education and the same test of skills and aptitudes. The liturgy and – with minor modifications¹⁰ – the Church Law was identical in both countries. Many Danish-born men served as pastors in Norway for shorter or longer periods. In addition, Norwegian-born pastors, though perhaps fewer, held offices in Denmark.¹¹ To some degree, too, Danish- and Norwegian-born bishops in the eighteenth century circulated between the two countries.¹² There are indications that the introduction of the absolute monarchy made this circulation of clergy in Norway possible, whereas the control of the aristocratic landlords in central parts of Denmark made such circulation more difficult.

Generally speaking, this leaves the impression that the pastoral conditions in eighteenth-century Norway differed from those in Denmark in many ways. In order to understand ‘Enlightenment’ in these countries, such differences must be taken into account. Some researchers have described these differences by claiming that ‘Enlightenment’ in Norway was mainly a ‘pastoral Enlightenment’, thus pointing out that in most local communities the parish pastor was the most central representative of the king and the main mediator of political, cultural and theological change.¹³ ‘Enlightenment’ in the sense of motivating and enhancing changes in thinking, attitudes and practice was an important dimension of eighteenth-century clerical practice, regardless of theological observance. The Norwegian clergy had few competitors in this respect.

Arenas

A central part of the Lutheran pastoral ideal was the clergy’s being visible to the congregation. The pastor was not to perform rituals in secret or only for a small group of people, but be publicly available to all. In order to be able to perform his work, the pastor therefore needed a number of arenas and instruments.

The most central arenas were, of course, the church building, including the rectory, the family of the pastor and the pastor’s economy. In urban parishes, the pastors rented or bought their own house, had no farm of their own, were dependent on a monetary economy and lived relatively secluded from their congregation. In the countryside, however, the situation was very different.

The pastor was a preacher on a number of occasions, at ordinary or occasional services and rituals. The sermons combined predictability – based on biblical texts, catechetical texts and rhetorical conventions – with variation and innovation. New sermon ideals introduced in the latter part of the 1700s placed greater emphasis on body language, persuasive gestures and voice, focusing on ‘moving’ the audience in order to motivate a change of thinking and behaviour.¹⁴ The degree to which this actually had an impact on the average Norwegian countryside pastor is difficult to determine, but the point is that the new homiletic ideal was designed to promote change. This new ideal had its roots in pietistic thinking, not least as expressed in the pastoral theology of professor and bishop Erik Pontoppidan (1698–1764).¹⁵ It was developed further by rationalist Enlightenment theologians such as Christian Bastholm, confessionarius to the royal court in Copenhagen.¹⁶

The rectory was centrally located in the local community and frequently close to the parish church. It was often a large farm constructed according to local standards. Through various laws and regulations, the parishioners had a number of duties related to its maintenance. The rectory was thus integrated into the local agricultural economy; and its maintenance affected not only the pastor but also a large number of servants, tenants, farmers, service providers and general observers. Far from being a private enterprise, the administration and keeping of a rectory was a visible public issue and hence an important instrument for promoting change in agricultural technology, economy and mentality.¹⁷

The pastor’s family was also a central part of the clergy’s field of practice. The Lutheran ideal of the Christian household had its optimization in the family of the pastor. The pastor, the pastor’s wife, children and servants were all part of this optimization. The unmarried clergyman – if such occurred – was an anomaly in Lutheran culture. Through their visibility, their behaviour and their practice, the pastor’s family as a whole was a realization of the Lutheran ideal,¹⁸ in spite of a significant potential for conflict in this visibility.¹⁹ This picture also included exposure of the clergy’s expertise in writing, reading, medicine and obstetrics, agricultural economics, social care and legislation.²⁰

The pastor’s remuneration was also – mutatis mutandis – an arena for the display of theological ideals. In a rural parish, this was part of a complex system with many variations. The main source was, of course, the income from the rectory. The pastor was a farmer. In addition came the tithe of the agrarian production of the parish, offerings and fees at church holidays and ritual celebrations. By charging a fee for a funeral sermon, the pastor could enter into a dialogue with his parishioners about the memory of the deceased, focusing on cultural and religious ideals and standards: what was a good Christian, an honest farmer and a law-abiding subject of the king?²¹

The sermon, the rectory, the pastor’s family and remuneration constituted a public arena, creating opportunities for influence and negotiation between pastor and congregation. This arena primarily had references to the parish, where the pastor actually met people and dealt with them directly. If a pastor wanted to address a wider public, there were a few possibilities. The most important were to report and communicate through the clerical bureaucracy or to engage in publishing activities. Reporting through the bureaucracy was in many ways a closed system: as a civil servant, the pastor acted in solidarity with the government; but he could also position himself and influence decisions. Publishing, on the other hand, meant appealing to a general public whose reaction was less predictable; but at the same time, it entailed a potential for ‘improvement’ and increased ‘Enlightenment’ among readers. These readers did not represent physical quantities but a more abstract, indirect reality.

The bureaucratic public sphere was mainly focused on liturgy, legislation, education and charity. Since the 1680s, the Danish-Norwegian church government had explored the clergy’s views on shortcomings and desired changes.²² This had few results until the end of the eighteenth century, when the Danish Chancellery wanted legitimization for planned changes in the liturgy. Discussion of liturgical changes became a virtually explosive literary genre in Denmark–Norway in the 1780s, with a large number of authors from both countries contributing booklets and proposals that either defended the status quo or called for radical reorientation.²³

On a more general basis, the Danish-Norwegian bureaucracy used the clergy’s assessment of local conditions to inform the government and improve the quality of political and economic decisions. For example, a large number of Norwegian officials, including many pastors, answered the Danish Chancellery’s questions from 1743 about local and regional history, antiques, culture and natural resources.²⁴

The printing presses of Norway were regulated by censorship until 1814.²⁵ However, this did not prevent the emergence of a literary public sphere which also encompassed ecclesiastical and religious issues. The clergy in Norway also contributed; they prioritized having their publications printed in Copenhagen, which had by far the largest number of publishers and printing houses and thus afforded their publications the greatest possible distribution and attention. However, Bergen, Trondheim and Kristiania had printing presses and publishers in the eighteenth century, and they were used as well.²⁶ These printing houses had a regional impact, though they were still subject to censorship. In cases where publications were not sent to Copenhagen, they were produced in a closer relationship between author, censor and readers than could be expected in the Danish-Norwegian capital.

The observations so far are that the eighteenth-century Norwegian clergy were increasingly used to inform about, and evaluate, various aspects of culture and society. The censorship imposed limits on how freely they could express themselves; but the central authorities also increasingly emphasized that clerical officials should contribute to change in the cultural and ecclesiastical area. A number of media and arenas were thus available to the clergy. The Lutheran ideal of the pastor’s visibility helped make the clergy a particularly useful instrument for communicating needs for improvement and change in relation to a wide range of topics, from medicine and farming to ethics, politics and theology.²⁷ In a local context, the rural clergy – in a completely different way from the urban clergy and other civil servants – were in possession of a number of arenas and media that could be used for ‘Enlightenment’. In the literary public sphere the possibilities were fewer, but they were more far-reaching.

Messages

Then, of course, comes the big question: what is Enlightenment – was ist Aufklärung? With pastoral practice as a point of departure, it is possible to downplay the philosophical and theological differences within the eighteenth-century Norwegian clergy. Instead, the variety of opportunities and endeavours will be demonstrated by an analysis of three clergymen who were variously concerned with creating change by imparting new knowledge and new practice, using arenas accessible to them. Despite their different cultural and theological backgrounds, they had forms of ‘Enlightenment categories’ in common.²⁸ Herman Ruge (1706–1764), Hans Strøm (1726–1797) and Peder Hansen (1746–1810) covered three generations of clergymen and the entire latter half of the eighteenth century.

Herman Ruge (1706–1764): critical reader and provider of books

Herman Ruge was the son of a pastor who served in Nesodden parish outside Kristiania. He became a student in 1724. In the years 1737–1763 he was the pastor of Slidre parish in Valdres. He then took up a position in Eidanger, but died soon after arriving there. In his own time, Ruge was known as a learned, active clergyman, with extensive knowledge of theology, philosophy, history, topography, medicine and science. He practised as a physician, recommended his congregation to grow potatoes as a remedy against famine and worked to improve agriculture and forestry in Valdres. As a student, he had had the celebrated professor and author Ludvig Holberg as a private tutor. Ruge declared his dependence on Christian Wolff’s and Holberg’s attempts to reconcile natural science with theology and religion. Little is known about Ruge’s relationship with his congregation in Valdres. Local tradition, however, has retained the memory of his combative and critical encounters with farmers who were, in his opinion, self-willed and uninformed.²⁹

Though none of his sermons have been preserved, in 1754 he published a book in Copenhagen in which he presented Fornuftige Tanker over adskillige Curieuse Materier, udi XI. Breve afhandlede til gode Venner (‘Rational thoughts on several curious matters, in eleven letters written for friends’]).³⁰ At first glance, the issues discussed in these letters are surprising: most of the topics relate to (local) folklore and folk beliefs – about changelings, ghosts, supernatural beings, Christmas traditions and the bear’s winter den. Ruge also addressed topics such as the punishments of hell, the banishment of sinners, promiscuity and the forbidden tree in Paradise. He attempted to place supernatural beings in a scientific context, but without rejecting their real existence; according to him, there were natural explanations for the existence of these creatures. His aim was to ‘enlighten’, but also to explain existing phenomena and locate the contemporary popular culture in its proper scientific context. Ruge is thus far from Erik Pontoppidan with his total rejection of popular traditions such as paganism and papism. On this basis, one might have thought that Ruge would have been unequivocally in favour of the popular religious culture, but that is not the case; instead, he wanted to explain that culture to the reading public and disconnect it from ‘the common man’s fabulous imagination’.³¹ The ‘Enlightenment’ that Ruge pursued in the local public arena was critical, and it was aimed at changing practices and attitudes, for instance in agriculture, nutrition and medicine. His local recognition is indicated by the rumour that he was a keeper of secret magical books, so-called ‘black books’. This probably expresses more of a respect for Ruge’s special connection to supernatural powers than a willingness to listen to his actual message, in writing or speech.

This ambivalence is not part of Ruge’s role as an author addressing the national public. He gave the content of his book a discursive touch by shaping it as letters to ‘friends’. Through the dedication to Erik Pontoppidan, who had served his last year as Bishop of Bergen in 1754 and was on his way back to Copenhagen as the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Ruge sought to address the learned public. It is obvious that Ruge would rather have seen himself in the position of a professor than as a clergyman banished to a remote parish vocation. He used his book as an imperfectly concealed application for such a career change. To be noticed in even higher circles, he also included in the book a mourning poem about the late and very popular Danish-Norwegian queen Louise (1724–1751).

Not even this book from 1754 yielded any immediate benefit for Ruge. It would be almost ten years before he was awarded an office in an urban area, and he never received a university position. In Norwegian intellectual history, he has often been sidelined as one of the ‘forgotten’. This does not do him justice. He is an interesting and early example of a rural pastor using his possibilities to act as an agent of change in a local context and to address a literate public with observations based on his pastoral practice.

Hans Strøm (1726–1797): indefatigable writer and rural spectator

Hans Strøm was born in Norway into a widely branched family of pastors. He became a student in 1743 and a theology graduate two years later. In 1750, he became chaplain to his father’s successor as parish pastor in Borgund. Strøm was appointed parish pastor in Volda in 1764, a position he exchanged for Eker parish near Kristiania in 1779.³²

For posterity, Strøm has often been highlighted as a prominent zoologist and natural scientist. However, he was primarily – in line with Herman Ruge – a Wolffian theologian who saw God’s will and plan in nature and in natural phenomena. With Wolffianism as a background, ‘Enlightenment’ became important for Strøm as well. His many articles on natural phenomena gained a national and international readership; but as a clergyman, he related to several dynamic public arenas different from those of natural science.

In the 1760s, Strøm published a two-volume topographical description of Sunnmøre, which quickly became a model for similar works in Denmark–Norway.³³ His potential readership was national, but much of the knowledge presented in the book was gained by observing and talking to local people during his fourteen years as a chaplain. Though the topography of Sunnmøre was a scholarly work according to the standards of the time, it was also built on pastoral practice.

Another printed work was his two-volume magazine Tilskueren paa Landet (‘The rural spectator’), published in Copenhagen in 1775.³⁴ Here Strøm acts as an observer who comments and interacts with his contemporaries. In the preface, he stresses his conviction that not only urban readers but also readers living in the countryside could find useful arguments and thoughts in his writings. Therefore, he wrote so that ‘common people’ could be acquainted with what might ‘improve the human sense and heart’.³⁵ From the towns and cities, increased Enlightenment and knowledge would come, Strøm believed, and all ‘savagery and senselessness’ would eventually disappear.³⁶ In his journal, he addressed not only scientific topics but also psychological, ethical, agricultural-economic, political and folkloristic ones. The appeal to ‘common people’ was explicit; but as the magazine was published in Copenhagen, the readership seemed far away from his local congregation or the regional ‘spectators’ in Sunnmøre. The ‘common people’ became an imaginary reader, a rhetorical figure who had limited connections with Strøm’s pastoral practice in Volda parish.

Strøm took up office in Eker in 1779, thus moving to a very different part of Norway. Here, too, he was active as a preacher; and in the 1790s, he published a collection of sermons intended as a ‘devotional exercise for the common people’.³⁷ Though the book was printed in Copenhagen, it was dedicated to his local congregation. In these sermons, Strøm appeared as a conservative, Lutheran preacher, bound to the current liturgical texts. However, he added a chapter with ‘instructions for the common people on how to know God by his deeds in nature’,³⁸ referring to his ‘Rural Spectator’ magazine published twenty years earlier. In this chapter, Strøm explained how traditional church preaching was the explanation of God’s creation. This collection of sermons from the 1790s can be interpreted as a summary of Strøm’s ‘Enlightenment’. Those who were enlightened among his parishioners in Eker should learn both from nature and from theology: ‘not all peasants (as Luther has said) are geese just because they are grey’.³⁹

With less success, Strøm had attempted the genre of ‘nature sermons’, following contemporary German conventions, in the 1780s. He realized that in meetings with common people, the pastor had to ‘push on with the most necessary information and repeat it a hundred times’. One could not, then, aspire to achieve the stylistic level of, for instance, Christian Bastholm. Such fashionable and elevated styles disagreed with the taste of the common people: ‘fashionable new words and expressions do not fit in with the concepts and ways of speaking used among common people’.⁴⁰

Strøm’s 1790 collection of sermons summarized his life-long work for ‘Enlightenment’. Both pastors and congregations were in need of a widened understanding of God’s creation and an improved utilization of nature. The divine voice, expressed through the local pastor’s mouth, still had to adhere to traditional patterns. ‘Enlightenment’, then, had two faces: one was traditional, the other experimental and forward-orientated.

Peder Hansen (1746–1810): fighter against superstition

Peder Hansen was born in Copenhagen. His father was a craftsman and his mother a wet-nurse. Fortunately for him, she was chosen to breastfeed the future King Christian VII. Thanks to this connection to the court and his obvious talents, Hansen made a remarkable career. He graduated with a theological degree ‘with distinction’ in 1768, and then received a royal scholarship to study abroad. In Halle and Jena, he encountered modern, Bible-critical theology. In 1780 he became an extraordinary professor of theology, and in 1793 was awarded a doctorate in theology in Halle. In 1771, Hansen became resident chaplain at Elsinore’s castle and garrison congregation, and in the following year he was appointed to preach to the scandalized and arrested Danish-Norwegian queen Caroline Mathilde (1751–1775) at Kronborg castle. In 1775, he became pastor in Skanderborg, in 1779 in Ringsted and in 1787 in Copenhagen. In 1799, he was appointed Bishop of Kristiansand and in 1804 Bishop of Funen.⁴¹

Hansen was originally influenced by Christian Wolff’s thinking. In a collection of sermons published in the 1780s, he expressed himself in a rather conservative manner. In the 1790s, however, he became influenced by more radical German theology. In 1795, he published a book on the ‘gravity’ of Lutheran clergy, in which he discusses pastoral dignity squeezed between modern thinking and conservative values. He also dealt with this issue in 1803, when he claimed that the pastor was an ordinary civil servant in the service of the state who worked for Enlightenment, refinement and ‘happiness’ (lyksalighed) among the king’s subjects. Authorship and clerical practice show Hansen’s ideological development, but they also demonstrate the complexity that many clergymen grappled with at the time, adapting (‘accommodating’) to their listeners’ knowledge and cultural level.

Peder Hansen’s foremost interest as a bishop was educational work. His explicit goal was to replace widespread prejudice and superstition with rational moral and religious concepts. Hansen started by reforming the schools in the city of Kristiansand. After visitations in his diocese, he concluded that there was an urgent need for school reform. The remedy was to provide better training for schoolteachers and to motivate common people to read. Between 1799 and 1802, Hansen himself held annual courses for schoolteachers, and he submitted several proposals for improving education and conditions for teachers. Interest in reading was to be supported by local associations ‘for enlightenment and the dissemination of good conduct’,⁴² where members were given access to books and exposed to favourable influences through pastors. Hansen’s school and reading programme included both modern religious literature and a wide range of ‘useful’ topics. He also organized his own synods, where new theology and new ideals for practical church life were discussed according to his instructions.

Hansen’s way of thinking is also displayed in his work on liturgy. He wanted to simplify worship, hymn singing and clerical dress according to the demands of the new age. In his opinion, the modern, ‘enlightened’ Evangelisk-Christelig Psalmebog (‘Evangelical-Christian hymn book’) from 1798 should be imposed on all parishes, and the clergy were encouraged to choose sermon texts on a free basis and not feel obliged to adhere to the prescribed sequence of the liturgical year. Hansen wanted to reduce or simplify the old liturgical forms, for instance allowing the pastor to perform the service from the pulpit, wearing an everyday robe. In addition, Hansen launched his own draft of a new baptism and communion liturgy. He began his short episcopate in Norway by distributing a letter to the clergy in which he warned against fanatical and irrational religiosity. In particular, he referred to the pietistic revival movement inspired by the commoner Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771–1824) as an obvious danger to Church and state. His last official act in Norway was in the spring of 1804, reporting on this movement, which seriously set the Danish Chancellery in motion to stop its leader. A comprehensive expression of Hansen’s efforts as a bishop in Kristiansand is the two-volume Archiv for Skolevæsenets og Oplysnings Udbredelse i Christiansands Stift (‘Archive for the increase of school education and enlightenment in the Diocese of Christiansand’, 1800–1803). In this publication the bishop published his reform proposals, presented school arrangements, submitted messages from the clergy and offered information about topography, history and ‘the superstition of the common people’.⁴³

Peder Hansen had important networks in the Danish-Norwegian capital of Copenhagen, and he demonstrated an ability to promote his own career. Addressing a national reading public with messages directed towards the bureaucratic church establishment became his most important instrument for appearing as an advocate of ‘Enlightenment’. Theologically, Hansen was radical. However, his major problem as Bishop of Kristiansand may have been that he did not understand Norwegian conditions, and that he was too eager to show his superiors in Copenhagen that he was a man of action, reason and progress. As a bishop, Hansen had limited access to the local public, and the ‘Enlightenment’ he presented and represented had limited significance in the local and regional context.

Conclusion

The Norwegian eighteenth-century Enlightenment had many arenas, instruments, spokesmen and lines of argument. Though ‘pastoral Enlightenment’ was dominant in Norway, where the clergy was central in a state administration of the king’s subjects, options for control, deliberation and communication were limited. A mainstream idea in the latter part of the century was that religion and mentality ought to be developed according to new standards and ideals, and not just defended as something from the past or unchangeable. Sharing this perspective, Pietists acted along the same lines as advocates of enlightened progress: the present was a problem, change was the solution, and action and strategy had the future as their horizon. ‘Enlightenment’ was about a desire for improvement and change, but this desire could be justified by various theological positions.

In a country like Norway, the clergy had to balance between different public spheres and arenas. A pastor of a rural congregation had to understand his parishioners, but he must also criticize and correct them. In this endeavour, the pastor had limited options. The Norwegian farmers were not serfs; they were not bound by stakes, but had an independent perception of the local religious context and their own rights to negotiate with their pastor. They owed him services, but he was dependent on them. The enlightened pastor’s solution to this dilemma was accommodation, adaptation to the local public. Herman Ruge was an example of this dual position: he acted locally and argued nationally, but may not have succeeded either way. In his local parish, he was only remembered as a pastor with magic power.

During the 1790s, having experienced a brutal and offensive public in Copenhagen, Peder Hansen evolved a vision of ‘Enlightenment’ influenced by a new-found respect for the clergy. Whether that enabled him to interpret the cultural context of the many rural parishes in the Diocese of Kristiansand is an open question. However, there are many indications that he, with his Danish urban background, was not able to achieve balance between the various public arenas in his diocese.

Hans Strøm arguably succeeded better than Ruge and Hansen when it came to defining a ‘Norwegian voice’ in the absolutist double monarchy. Strøm had intimate knowledge of Norway; his background was a Norwegian, orthodox-pietistic clerical family; and he was able to interpret the contemporary need to combine tradition with renewal. There were novel traits in Strøm’s ‘Enlightenment’, but it was simultaneously rooted in local traditionalism. He balanced between local and national public arenas, and he tried – with the authority of his clerical office – to understand the ‘commoners’ in all their complexity.

In the enlightened public arenas, between the local and the national, Hans Strøm – and many clergymen with him – ended up as ‘rural spectators’. They sought to understand and interpret their congregations; and they communicated and negotiated with them while simultaneously addressing a national literate audience. Balancing this cultural and theological ambiguity, these clergymen demonstrate the complexity of the ‘Enlightenment’ in the European North. It was, in the words of the Danish literary historian Thomas Bredsdorff, a ‘variegated Enlightenment’.⁴⁴