Grundtvig and England

P. G. Lindhardt

doi:10.1017/S0022046900072365

Grundtvig and England

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

P. G. Lindhardt

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P. G. Lindhardt: Affiliation:
Professor of Church History in the University of Aarhus, Denmark

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No other single person has had an influence on the whole Danish people as immense as Grundtvig. His name is known all over the world together with the names of Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard, but his works are not. He is very difficult to translate and his train of thought is often difficult to follow. Clear thinking and concise expressions were not for him. He was—as he called himself—a bard (skjald), and the language of the bard is not always clear although it is often profound.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , July 1950 , pp. 207 - 224

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900072365 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950

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^{page 208 note 1} Kirke-Speil, 1871, 388; Mands Minde, 1877, 458f.

^{page 209 note 1} In order to understand Grundtvig's position and the events which he influenced, some knowledge of the circumstances of the State Church of Denmark is necessary. Membership in the State Church was compulsory and Church ceremonies involved civic consequences. Baptism, confirmation and the marriage ceremony were compulsory for all Danish citizens and these carried legal consequences. Communion was (strictly speaking) also compulsory but on this point the law was not enforced. The parish was a unit of the Church and all inhabitants of the parish must be served in all ecclesiastical matters by their parish priest. The rationalists practised extreme freedom in their preaching, far removed from the spirit of the Lutheran confession, and took liberties with the liturgy, violating both the spirit and the letter of Creed and ritual. As the relations between the parish priest and the congregation were regulated by law this might lead to conflicts of conscience, a problem which the religious revivalists daily emphasized and which they tended to solve by breaking out of the Church and forming dissenting groups.

^{page 209 note 2} Cf. Lindhardt, P. G., ‘Borgerlig Indretning—himmelsk gæst’, in Dansk teologisk Tidsshrift, 1949, 129 f.Google Scholar, and my book Grundtvig: An Introduction, London 1950.

^{page 209 note 3} Udvalgte Skrifter (subsequently cited as U.S.), ii. 345 f.

^{page 209 note 4} Hørup, H.: Grundtvigs Syn paa Tro og Erkendelse, 1949, 137 fGoogle Scholar.

^{page 209 note 5} As early as 1820 Grundtvig translated the Beowulf Legend into Danish and produced generally accepted contributions to its interpretation which have been generally accepted by scholars, as for instance R. W. Chambers and Kemp Malone. On Grundtvig's work on the Old English literature see, moreover, Brage og Ydun, iv, 1841, 480 f.; Grundtvig's text-edition with introduction (Beowulfes Beorh eller Bjovulfs-Drapaen, 1861); Fr Rønnings treatise in Historisk Maanedsskrift, 1885, iv, 1 f., 321 f., v. 1 f., Brevvcksling med Molbech, 154 f., Grundtvigs Breve til hans Hustru under Englandsrejseme, 1920, passim; J. P. Bang, Grundtvig og England, 1932, passim; and H. Toldberg, ‘Grundtvig og de engelske antikvarer,’ Orbis Litterarum, v. 3ñ4, 1947.

^{page 210 note 1} Probably he had heard of the anti-rationalist writings of H. J. Rose and E. B. Pusey.

^{page 210 note 2} Theologisk Maanedsskrift, xii. 1828, 30.

^{page 210 note 3} U.S., iv. 611. However Grundtvig scarcely attached great importance to the succession; the ordination of priests was continued in Denmark, and if God will make prophets bishops can be dispensed with. But as late as in 1854. when Martensen was to be consecrated bishop he was requested by a couple of Grundtvigian priests to be consecrated by a Swedish bishop in order to mend the break which took place in Denmark in 1537 when the first Lutheran bishops were ordained by Bugenhagen who was not a bishop himself.

^{page 210 note 4} Bang, op. cit., 30 f. The book is preserved with Irving's dedication: ‘To the Rev. S. F. Grundtvig of Copenhagen, In testimony of my Esteem and Love to Him and Honour of His Sufferings in the Cause of the Gospel of Christ.’

^{page 210 note 5} For instance, about eschatology and the millenium.

^{page 210 note 6} Englandsbreve, 35.

^{page 211 note 1} Toldberg, Grundtvig og de engelske antikvarer, 259 ff., 309. Certainly Grundtvig showed much interest in the British experiment, but I do not feel quite sure of Toldberg's suggestion, that the mutual (or monitorial) system of the School ‘influenced the organization of his Folk High School system’.

^{page 211 note 2} Grundtvig's papers (in the Royal Library of Copenhagen) on the University of London are as yet unpublished—there are two fragments in Danish (fasc. 342) and one in English (fasc. 363); cf. Toldberg, op. cit., 261 f.

^{page 211 note 3} Letters in fasc. 446. Grundtvig mentions that he has resigned his office in the ‘contradictory’ (protestant) Danish Church but adds, that not even his literary interests in England would have made him cross the sea ‘if I had not learned from the history of the holy catholick church to revere the Church of England and to long for better information about her establisment and her institutions’; cf. Englandsbreve, 107.

^{page 212 note 1} The Westminster Review, xv, 1831, 442 f.; cf. Toldberg, op. cit., 298 f. There is great conformity between this Review and the huge Mythology of the North.

^{page 212 note 2} Herbert Jenkins, The Life of George Borrow, i, 1912, 82; cf. Toldberg, op. cit., 266 f. Toldberg's remarks that Bowring prevented a real collaboration between Grundtvig and Borrow seem quite justified.

^{page 212 note 3} Toldberg, op. cit., 280 f.; cf. the following remark: ‘Madden's Diaries provide evidence that Grundtvig was not justified in looking upon him as one of his most loyal friends.’ When he discovered Grundtvig's ability in reading the Anglo-Saxon texts and heard that he wanted to publish the chief Layamon MS. in Copenhagen, he changed his policy towards him, and Grundtvig's misfortunes in his Anglo-Saxon work are very much due to this fact. The intrigues of the British antiquaries need not be related here as Toldberg has discussed them very thoroughly.

^{page 212 note 4} Englandsbreve, 167 f.

^{page 212 note 5} Englandsbreve, 14; cf. Toldberg, op. cit., 278 f. The Foreign Quarterly Review, vi (1830), contains an article on Danish literature. After a very fine treatment of Oehlenschlager it continues (p. 81): ‘Comtemporaneous with Oehlenschläger, and formed to a great extent under the same circumstances, was Nicholas Grundtvig, an eloquent preacher and poet, whose services have not been in the regions of fancy, but in those of learned research. His productions ought to have excited more attention in England, which he visited last year, unknown and unnoticed, for he has mainly occupied himself with topics of deep interest to all Anglo-Saxon students, and be it allowed us to remark, that there is no portion of the field of our literature which has been less successfully cultivated than the Anglo-Saxon…. Grundtvig's Bjovulfs Drape, and poetical translations of this Anglo-Saxon epic is honourable to his taste, talent and erudition. The introduction is valuable for its facts, and the notes acute and useful, proposing various emendations, and suggesting much matter for intelligent criticism.’ The authors were Bowring and Borrow. In 1833 J. M. Kemble published The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf and in the preface he mentioned Grundtvig's ‘spirited paraphrase’ of Beowulf written in 1820. Otherwise Grundtvig's name has been quite forgotten or omitted in the writings of Anglo-Saxon scholars until quite recent times.

^{page 212 note 4} Mands Minde, 456 f., 466 f.

^{page 213 note 1} Bibliotheca Anglosaxonica: Prospectus and Proposals of a Subscription for the publication of the Anglo-Saxon MSS. illustrative of the poetry and literature of our Language, most of which has never yet been printed.

^{page 213 note 2} Breve, ii. 194.

^{page 213 note 3} Englandsbreve, 178, 110.

^{page 213 note 4} Englandsbreve, 149. He did not like Simeon and among the Grundtvig MSS. (fasc. 448), where many as yet unpublished letters from British correspondents are kept, there is a sermon of Simeon's with a friendly dedication to Grundtvig; but he has not read it!

^{page 213 note 5} Brevveksling med Molbech, 176: cf. Breve, ii. 194. If Grundtvig met some of the young scientists and men of literature of Trinity College (Julius Hare, John Sterling, Rich. Trench, Connop Thirlwall, F. D. Maurice, some of whom at least were in Cambridge at that time) his words about the ‘German’ circle are even more justified. I intend to publish a study on this subject in Studia theologica.

^{page 214 note 1} Breve, ii. 194.

^{page 214 note 2} Grundtvig's opinions are best expressed in the lectures Mands Minde, 1838, but are also strewn about his writings of the 1830s and 1840s.

^{page 214 note 3} U.S., v. 353.

^{page 214 note 4} Sang- Væk til den danske Kirke, i, nos. 360, 364, 372.

^{page 215 note 1} Mands Minde, 376 f. The danger threatens more from Prussia than from the German universities. This prophetic saying was uttered in 1838 long before the union of Germany and the German wars of aggression.

^{page 215 note 2} During the Crimean War Grundtvig wrote a paper on this matter (1855). It is a fragment (fasc. 363)—yet unpublished—and written in English. In this paper Grundtvig tries to attract England's attention to the problems of the North: ‘But in our North we find Races inspired by the Spirit of liberty and armed with an indomitable courage and native hardihood. Of this all their history bears witness. Of this the brave and free and enduring English people also is a proof-for four—fifths of its forefathers were gallant Northmen. It was only in consequence of internal disunion fostered and used by Russian intrigues, and the unfortunate dynastic and territorial connection with Germany, that Moscow succeeded in the eighteenth century, in seizing the Baltic Provinces, and in founding a Navy already far more powerful than the fleets of the sundered Scandinavian States. Let then the Western Powers use the same means against Cronstadt and Petersburgh as they have against Sebastopol. Let them annihilate the Russian fleet in the Baltic; they will then only need to establish that Northern Confederation between Denmark, Norway and Sweden-Finland for which the Northern peoples are already so eager in spite of the weakness and intrigues of their governments. The rest would follow of itself. The free North would triumphantly guard its own shores. The centre of the Russian movement is Petersburgh and its principally-Finnish fleet. Destroy that fleet and fling back that centre to Moscow. Else all opposition will be fruitless and the Baltic will in the nineteenth century become, like the Black Sea in the eighteenth, a Russian Lake. case nothing can prevent Russia from seizing by some sudden coup the Sound and the Danish Islands. But Sweden would then be so jammed in by the Czar on both sides of its territory that its resources would not allow it any prolonged resistance. Norway, already more than threatened, would follow as a matter of course. But Russia in possession of the Sound and the martial northern populations, and commanding the finest sailors in the world next the English, would then “gravitate” so strongly that there would no longer be any question of breaking its supremacy. The rest of the West would then have abundant difficulty in holding their own for a longer or shorter period, for the end would come.’ A century later these words are of no less current interest. In his day Grundtvig remarked that if Germany or Russia conquered Denmark he would emigrate: ‘even if I were go years old I would have myself carried out of a country in which a German or a Russian ruled’; Danskeren, v. 1890, 214Google Scholar.

^{page 216 note 1} Mands Minde, 443.

^{page 216 note 2} Mands Minde, 283.

^{page 216 note 3} ‘Om Daabs-Pagten’ (The Baptismal Covenant), 1832; U.S., v. 366 f.

^{page 217 note 1} Grundtvig might have heard about these matters already from John Bowring. Bowring was an Unitarian and he took Grundtvig to the church of W. J. Fox (whose sermon seemed to Grundtvig very dry: Englandsbreve, 86), the editor of The Monthly Repository. This periodical fought energetically for religious freedom and in the summer of 1830 a Unitarian congress (under the conduct of Bowring and F. D. Maurice's father, Michael Maurice) ‘without exception or reserve advocated the principle that no civil distinctions or disabilities should attach to opinions on religious matters’ (Monthly Repository, 1830, 447 f.). Grundtvig read the newspapers eagerly and was well acquainted with the pamphlet-literature of the time.

^{page 217 note 2} U.S., viii. 52 f.

^{page 218 note 1} On the Constitution of Church and State according to the Idea of each, 1829. Here the 4th edition, 1852, is used; cf. R. Sanders, Coleridge and the Broad Church Movement, 1942. There are many paralleb between Coleridge and Grundtvig, not only in regard to die relations between Church and State.

^{page 219 note 1} op. cit., 66 f. Cf. this quotation from Luther's Table Talk: ‘If (God) will have his Church, then he must look how to maintain and defend it, for we can neither uphold nor protect it. And well for us that it is so! For in that case we could … we should become the proudest ass under heaven. Who is the Church's protector, that hath promised to be with her to the end? Kings, Diets, Parliaments, Lawyers? Many thanks, no such cattle!’

^{page 219 note 2} cf. R. Whately, Letters on the Church by an Episcopalian, 1826, 192: ‘as Citizens … we ask of the Government only that protection which it is bound to extend to all classes—as a Church we ask nothing, but to be let alone’. Coleridge seems in some respects rather much influenced by Whately, whose importance both for the High Churchmen and for the Broad Churchmen must be highly estimated. In my essay ‘Borgerlig Indretning—himmelsk gæst’ (Dansk teologisk Tidsskrift, 1949, 129 ff.) I have tried to see the views of Coleridge and his principal disciples (Arnold and Maurice) against the background of English views of Church and State from Hooker via Warburton and Paley to Whately.

^{page 219 note 3} There is scarcely any direct connection between the two books, but Grundtvig was very well acquainted with the English problems on which Arnold's book is based. Arnold and Grundtvig agree not only in their basic intentions, but in many details and practical suggestions for reforms; also in the fact that the development both in England and Denmark followed the direction pointed out by them. Cf. Brilioth, Y., The Anglican Revival, 1925, 91 f.Google Scholar; Carpenter, S. C., Church and People 1789ñ1889, 1937, 67Google Scholar; and my essay, ‘Den danske folkekirke upartisk betragtet,’ Frit Ord, 1947, 337 f.

^{page 220 note 1} Wade was in Denmark 1833–9; 1839–46 he was curate at St Paul's, Finsbury, London, and 1846–90 rector of St Ann's, Soho. His diaries are—so far as they concern Grundtvig—published together with a short biography by H. Toldberg in Grundtvig Studier, 1948, 42 f., 107 f. When Wade first met Grundtvig he wrote in his diary: ‘Had a most delightful and useful interview with Pastor Grundtvig: he is decidedly a man of genius & of a first rate order. I don't know that I ever met with so comprenhensive a mind, he seems to sweep the whole world history at a glance & philosophise upon it & that soundly & with one scope God & his dealing with man for his Redemption’ (op. cit., 48).

^{page 220 note 1} Fragment in Grundtyig MSS., fasc. 446; cf. Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, 6, vi, 1949, 272 f., where Toldberg has published Hammerich's, Pusey's and one of Grundtvig's letters. Cf. F. Hammerich, Et Levnedsløb, 1882, 327 f. [The quotations from Hammerich and Grundtvig are given as originally written in English, which accounts for die curious usages here and elsewhere.—Ed.]

^{page 221 note 1} op. cit., 273 f., 275 f.

^{page 221 note 2} op. cit., 279 f.

^{page 221 note 3} ‘Aabent Venne-Brev til en engelsk Præst’, 1839; U.S., viii. 192 f.

^{page 221 note 4} Wade's letters are contained in the Grundtvig MSS. (fasc. 448); they certainly deserve to be published.

^{page 222 note 1} H. Beck, Gunni Busck, 2nd ed., 1878, 173 f. Cf. Breve til Ingemann, 262 f.

^{page 222 note 2} The following description is based on Grundtvig's letters to the Queen; Danskeren, v, 1890, 195f.

^{page 222 note 3} Liddon, H. P., The Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, ii, 1893, 306 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 222 note 4} Toldberg in Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 6, vi. 382 f.

^{page 223 note 1} op. cit., 382 f., is citing a passage from Newman's diary: ‘M. Grundtvig, Mr. Wade, Bowden, C(harles) M(arriot), A. Mozley, Duncan, Oakely, Anderson and Lockhart to breakfast in Common Room with me’.

^{page 223 note 2} Fr Barfod, P. A. Fenger, 1878, 298.

^{page 223 note 3} Cf. Wade's letter (21 Oct. 1845): ‘You have heard of course of Ward's perversion to Romanism and heard it without the least surprise, but Newman's going over is another matter which will be received with very different feelings. About a week or so since he resigned his fellowship at Oriel and the day or a few days after was received into the Romish Church by—would you believe it—re-baptism!!’ Wade cannot understand ‘how such a man after writing as he once and for long did could take a step like this … a step by which he denied not only the Christianity of us all but his own during all his previous life … all this however though it will grieve will not surprise you—two years ago you foresaw that all this might come any day in the case of Newman and those who with him adopted the Development Theory’. Cf. (22 Jan. 1846): ‘How true a prophet you have proved about the issue of the New Theory of Development—it has just landed there where you said it would’.

^{page 223 note 4} In the Grundtvig MSS. (fasc. 448) there are two letters from Palmer (25 Aug. and 3 Sept. 1843). Palmer insisted that the validity of baptism in every case depends on the baptised person's attaching himself to the episcopal Church. Grundtvig maintained the validity of baptism independent of the validity or otherwise of the ordination of the baptizing minister; even if he has not the apostolic succession in the Anglican sense, his ministration of the sacraments is valid because he derives his authority from the word of God. What probably annoyed Grundtvig very much was this: Palmer declares that he did not say, ‘that you were or were not a fellow-member of the visible Church, not that you were or were not in some sense a servant or “minister” of Christ working among your fellow-men for good … ‘

^{page 224 note 1} U.S., ix. 55 ff.

^{page 224 note 2} U.S., ix. 402 ff.

^{page 224 note 3} The conspicuous parallels between Grundtvig and F. D. Maurice, especially, need some elucidation.

^{page 224 note 4} Grundtvig's debt to the English universities and the English college system might prove to be a profitable subject of investigation.

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