48 THE KING'S MIRROR 



Joab's blood, for it will be shed in righteous punish- 

 ment." * And the author is careful to emphasize the fact 

 that God's tabernacle was the only house in all the world 

 that was dedicated to Him, and must consequently have 

 had an even greater claim tosacredness than the churches 

 of the author's own day, of which there was a vast 

 number, f 



There was a Norwegian Joab in the first half of the 

 thirteenth century, who, like the chieftain of old, plotted 

 against his rightful monarch and was finally slain within 

 the sacred precincts of an Augustinian convent. Skule, 

 King Hakon's father-in-law, was a man of restless am- 

 bition, who could not find complete satisfaction in the 

 titles of earl and duke, but stretched forth his hand to 

 seize the crown itself. In 1239 he assumed the royal 

 title, but a few months later (1240) his forces were sur- 

 prised in Nidaros by the king's army, and the rebellion 

 came to a sudden end. Skule's men fled to the churches; 

 his son Peter found refuge in one of the buildings be- 

 longing to the monastery of Elgesseter, but was dis- 

 covered and slain. After a few days Duke Skule himself 

 sought security in the same monastery; but the angry 

 Birchshanks, in spite of the solemn warnings and 

 threatenings of the offended monks, slew the pretender 

 and burned the monastery.! This was an act of violence 

 which must have caused much trouble for the king's 

 partisans, and it is most likely the act which the author 

 of the King's Mirror had in his thoughts when he wrote 

 of the fate of Joab. 



*C.lxix. fC.lxvii. 



J Hdkonar Saga, cc. 239-241; Munch, Del norske Folks Historic, III, 977-978. 



