Postscript

In this study, with the later Middle Ages as a starting point, we have explored the potential for understandings, experiences, and functions of the crucifixes from Fana and Røldal and the cross from Borre across the Reformation period and through the subsequent centuries. We have seen that even the most image-hostile theologians in post-Reformation Norway allowed for images of crosses and crucifixes to remain in churches. As Joseph L. Koerner has noted, the ambivalence of iconoclasm is never more evident than in the meeting with the image of the incarnated God on the cross. We do not know if any crosses or crucifixes were destroyed during the Reformation period. However, as demonstrated in this study, numerous crosses and crucifixes—including those credited with miraculous abilities and connected to extra-liturgical cults—have survived. Their potential for commemoration and their symbolic value secured their prolonged life inside the Lutheran liturgical space, or at least saved them from destruction. Undoubtedly, there was an unwillingness to destroy an image of the cross and/or the God incarnate, no matter what powers were or were not believed to reside in the image.