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ESSENTIAL DISCRETE
MATHEMATICS FOR
COMPUTER SCIENCE

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ESSENTIAL DISCRETE
MATHEMATICS FOR
COMPUTER SCIENCE

Harry Lewis and Rachel Zax

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PR I NC ETON U N I V E R SI T Y PR E S S ∼ PR I NC ETON A ND OX FOR D 0
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Copyright 
c 2019 by Harry Lewis and Rachel Zax

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work

should be sent to permissions@press.princeton.edu

Published by Princeton University Press

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To Alexandra, Stella, Elizabeth, and Annie

and
to David, Marcia, Ben, and Aryeh

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An engineer is said to be a man who knows a great deal about a very

little, and who goes around knowing more and more, about less and
less, until finally, he practically knows everything about nothing;
whereas, a Salesman, on the other hand, is a man who knows a very
little about a great deal, and keeps on knowing less and less about more
and more until finally he knows practically nothing, about everything.

Van Nuys, California, News, June 26, 1933

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CONTENTS

Preface xi

1 The Pigeonhole Principle 1

2 Basic Proof Techniques 11

3 Proof by Mathematical Induction 25

4 Strong Induction 39

5 Sets 49
6 Relations and Functions 59

7 Countable and Uncountable Sets 69

8 Structural Induction 79

9 Propositional Logic 89

10 Normal Forms 101

11 Logic and Computers 111
12 Quantificational Logic 119

13 Directed Graphs 133

14 Digraphs and Relations 141

15 States and Invariants 151

16 Undirected Graphs 161

17 Connectivity 173

18 Coloring 179

19 Finite Automata 187

20 Regular Languages 201

21 Order Notation 211

22 Counting 233
23 Counting Subsets 243 −
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x contents

24 Series 261

25 Recurrence Relations 277

26 Probability 297

27 Conditional Probability 311

28 Bayes’ Theorem 323

29 Random Variables and Expectation 335

30 Modular Arithmetic 359

31 Public Key Cryptography 371

Index 381

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PREFACE

Τοῦ δὲ ποσοῦ τὸ μέν ἐστι διωρισμένον, τὸ δὲ συνεχες.

As to quantity, it can be either discrete or continuous.
—Aristotle, Categories (ca. 350 BCE)

This introductory text treats the discrete mathematics that computer scien-
tists should know but generally do not learn in calculus and linear algebra
courses. It aims to achieve breadth rather than depth and to teach reasoning
as well as concepts and skills.
We stress the art of proof in the hope that computer scientists will learn to
think formally and precisely. Almost every formula and theorem is proved
in full. The text teaches the cumulative nature of mathematics; in spite of the
breadth of topics covered, seemingly unrelated results in later chapters rest
on concepts derived early on.
The text requires precalculus and occasionally uses a little bit of calculus.
Chapter 21, on order notation, uses limits, but includes a quick summary of
the needed basic facts. Proofs and exercises that use basic facts about deriva-
tives and integrals, including l’Hôpital’s rule, can be skipped without loss of
continuity.
A fast-paced one-semester course at Harvard covers most of the material
in this book. That course is typically taken by freshmen and sophomores as
a prerequisite for courses on theory of computation (automata, computabil-
ity, and algorithm analysis). The text is also suitable for use in secondary
schools, for students of mathematics or computer science interested in
topics that are mathematically accessible but off the beaten track of the
standard curriculum.
The book is organized as a series of short chapters, each of which might
be the subject of one or two class sessions. Each chapter ends with a brief
summary and about ten problems, which can be used either as homework
or as in-class exercises to be solved collaboratively in small groups.
Instructors who choose not to cover all topics can abridge the book in
several ways. The spine of the book includes Chapters 1–8 on foundational
concepts, Chapters 13–18 on digraphs and graphs, and Chapters 21–25 on
order notation and counting. Four blocks of chapters are optional and can
be included or omitted at the instructor’s discretion and independently of
each other:
• Chapters 9–12 on logic;
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• Chapters 19–20 on automata and formal languages; 0
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xii preface

• Chapters 26–29 on discrete probability; and

• Chapters 30–31 on modular arithmetic and cryptography.
None of these blocks, if included at all, need be treated in full, since only
later chapters in the same block rely on the content of chapters earlier in the
block.
It has been our goal to provide a treatment that is generic in its tastes and
therefore suitable for wide use, without the heft of an encyclopedic textbook.
We have tried throughout to respect our students’ eagerness to learn and also
their limited budgets of time, attention, and money.
.
With thanks to the CS20 team:
Deborah Abel, Ben Adlam, Paul Bamberg, Hannah Blumberg,
Crystal Chang, Corinne Curcie, Michelle Danoff, Jack Dent,
Ruth Fong, Michael Gelbart, Kirk Goff, Gabriel Goldberg, Paul
Handorff, Roger Huang, Steve Komarov, Abiola Laniyonu, Nicholas
Longenbaugh, Erin Masatsugu, Keenan Monks, Anupa Murali,
Eela Nagaraj, Rebecca Nesson, Jenny Nitishinskaya, Sparsh Sah,
Maria Stoica, Tom Silver, Francisco Trujillo, Nathaniel Ver Steeg,
Helen Wu, Yifan Wu, Charles Zhang, and Ben Zheng;
to Albert Meyer for his generous help at the start of CS20; and to
Michael Sobin, Scott Joseph, Alex Silverstein, and
Noam Wolf for their critiques and support during the writing.
Harry Lewis and Rachel Zax, June 2018

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ESSENTIAL DISCRETE
MATHEMATICS FOR
COMPUTER SCIENCE

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Chapter 1

The Pigeonhole Principle

How do we know that a computer program produces the right results? How
do we know that a program will run to completion? If we know it will
stop eventually, can we predict whether that will happen in a second, in
an hour, or in a day? Intuition, testing, and “it has worked OK every time
we tried it” should not be accepted as proof of a claim. Proving something
requires formal reasoning, starting with things known to be true and con-
necting them together by incontestable logical inferences. This is a book
about the mathematics that is used to reason about the behavior of computer
programs.
The mathematics of computer science is not some special field. Com-
puter scientists use almost every branch of mathematics, including some
that were never thought to be useful until developments in computer science
created applications for them. So this book includes sections on mathemat-
ical logic, graph theory, counting, number theory, and discrete probability
theory, among other things. From the standpoint of a traditional mathemat-
ics curriculum, this list includes apples and oranges. One common feature
of these topics is that all prove useful in computer science. Moreover, they
are all discrete mathematics, which is to say that they involve quantities that
change in steps, not continuously, or are expressed in symbols and structures
rather than numbers. Of course, calculus is also important in computer sci-
ence, because it assists in reasoning about continuous quantities. But in this
book we will rarely use integrals and derivatives.
.
One of the most important skills of mathematical thinking is the art of
generalization. For example, the proposition

? There is no triangle with sides of lengths 1, 2, and 6

2
1

6 is true, but very specific (see Figure 1.1). The sides of lengths 1 and 2 would
Figure 1.1. Can there be a triangle have to join the side of length 6 at its two ends, but the two short sides −
with sides of lengths 1, 2 and 6? together aren’t long enough to meet up at the third corner. 0
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2 essential discrete mathematics for computer science

A more general statement might be (Figure 1.2)

?
b There is no triangle with sides of lengths a, b, and c if a, b, c are
a
any numbers such that a + b ≤ c.
c
Figure 1.2. There is no triangle with The second form is more general because we can infer the first from the
sides of lengths a, b and c if a + b ≤ c. second by letting a = 1, b = 2, and c = 6. It also covers a case that the pic-
ture doesn’t show—when a + b = c, so the three “corners” fall on a straight
line. Finally, the general rule has the advantage of not just stating what
is impossible, but explaining it. There is no 1 − 2 − 6 triangle because
1 + 2 ≤ 6.
So we state propositions in general form for two reasons. First, a propo-
sition becomes more useful if it is more general; it can be applied with
confidence in a greater variety of circumstances. Second, a general propo-
sition makes it easier to grasp what is really going on, because it leaves out
irrelevant, distracting detail.
.
As another example, let’s consider a simple scenario.

Annie, Batul, Charlie, Deja, Evelyn, Fawwaz, Gregoire, and

Hoon talk to each other and discover that Deja and Gregoire
were both born on Tuesdays. (1.1)

Well, so what? Put two people together and they may or may not have
been born on the same day of the week. Yet there is something going on
here that can be generalized. As long as there are at least eight people, some
two of them must have been born on the same day of the week, since a week
has only seven days. Some statement like (1.1) must be true, perhaps with
a different pair of names and a different day of the week. So here is a more
general proposition.

In any group of eight people, some two of them were born on the
same day of the week.

But even that isn’t really general. The duplication has nothing to do with
properties of people or days of the week, except how many there are of each.
For the same reason, if we put eight cups on seven saucers, some saucer
would have two cups on it. In fact there is nothing magic about “eight” and
“seven,” except that the one is larger than the other. If a hotel has 1000 rooms
and 1001 guests, some room must contain at least two guests. How can we
state a general principle that covers all these cases, without mentioning the
irrelevant specifics of any of them?
First, we need a new concept. A set is a collection of things, or elements.
−1
The elements that belong to the set are called its members. The members of
0
a set must be distinct, which is another way of saying they are all different
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the pigeonhole principle 3

from each other. So the people mentioned in (1.1) form a set, and the days
of the week form another set. Sometimes we write out the members of a set
explicitly, as a list within curly braces {}:

P = {Annie, Batul, Charlie, Deja, Evelyn, Fawwaz, Gregoire, Hoon}

D = {Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday}.

When we write out the elements of a set, their order does not matter—in any
order it is still the same set. We write x ∈ X to indicate that the element x is
a member of the set X. For example, Charlie ∈ P and Thursday ∈ D.
We need some basic terminology about numbers in order to talk about
sets. An integer is one of the numbers 0, 1, 2, . . . , or −1, −2, . . . . The real
numbers are all the numbers on the number line, including √ all the integers
and also all the numbers in between integers, such as 12 , − 2, and π . A num-
ber is positive if it is greater than 0, negative if it is less than 0, and nonnegative
if it is greater than or equal to 0.
For the time being, we will be discussing finite sets. A finite set is a set that
can (at least in principle) be listed in full. A finite set has a size or cardinality,
which is a nonnegative integer. The cardinality of a set X is denoted |X|.
For example, in the example of people and the days of the week on which
they were born, |P| = 8 and |D| = 7, since eight people are listed and there
are seven days in a week. A set that is not finite—the set of integers, for
example—is said to be infinite. Infinite sets have sizes too—an interesting
subject to which we will return in our discussion of infinite sets in Chapter 7.
Now, a function from one set to another is a rule that associates each
member of the first set with exactly one member of the second set. If f is
a function from X to Y and x ∈ X, then f (x) is the member of Y that the
function f associates with x. We refer to x as the argument of f and f (x)
as the value of f on that argument. We write f : X → Y to indicate that f is
a function from set X to set Y. For example, we could write b : P → D to
denote the function that associates each of the eight friends with the day of
the week on which he or she was born; if Charlie was born on a Thursday,
then b(Charlie) = Thursday.
A function f : X → Y is sometimes called a mapping from X to Y, and f
is said to map an element x ∈ X to the element f (x) ∈ Y. (In the same way, a
real map associates a point on the surface of the earth with a point on a sheet
of paper.)
Finally, we have a way to state the general principle that underlies the
example of (1.1):

If f : X → Y and |X| > |Y|, then there are elements

x1 , x2 ∈ X such that x1  = x2 and f (x1 ) = f (x2 ). (1.2)
−
The statement (1.2) is known as the Pigeonhole Principle, as it captures in 0
mathematical form this commonsense idea: if there are more pigeons than 1

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4 essential discrete mathematics for computer science

? pigeonholes and every pigeon goes into a pigeonhole, then some pigeonhole
must have more than one pigeon in it. The pigeons are the members of X and
the pigeonholes are the members of Y (Figure 1.3).
We will provide a formal proof of the Pigeonhole Principle on page 34,
once we have developed some of the basic machinery for doing proofs. For
now, let’s scrutinize the statement of the Pigeonhole Principle with an eye
X Y
Figure 1.3. The Pigeonhole
toward understanding mathematical language. Here are some questions we
Principle. If |X| > |Y| and f is any might ask:
function from X to Y, then the
1. What are X and Y?
values of f must be the same for
some two distinct members of X. They are finite sets. To be absolutely clear, we might have begun the
statement with the phrase, “For any finite sets X and Y,” but the
assertion that f is a function from X to Y makes sense only if X and Y
are sets, and it is understood from context that the sets under
discussion are finite—and we therefore know how to compare their
sizes.
2. Why did we choose “x1 ” and “x2 ” for the names of elements of X?
We could in principle have chosen any variables, “x” and “y” for
example. But using variations on “X” to name elements of the set X
suggests that x1 and x2 are members of the set X rather than the set Y.
So using “x1 ” and “x2 ” just makes our statement easier to read.
3. Was the phrase “such that x1  = x2 ” really necessary? The sentence is
simpler without it, and seems to say the same thing.
Yes, the “x1  = x2 ” is necessary, and no, the sentence doesn’t say the
same thing without it! If we didn’t say “x1  = x2 ,” then “x1 ” and “x2 ”
could have been two names for the same element. If we did not
stipulate that x1 and x2 had to be different, the proposition would not
have been false—only trivial! Obviously if x1 = x2 , then f (x1 ) = f (x2 ).
That is like saying that the mass of Earth is equal to the mass of the
third planet from the sun. Another way to state the Pigeonhole
Principle would be to say, “there are distinct elements x1 , x2 ∈ X such
that f (x1 ) = f (x2 ).”
One more thing is worth emphasizing here. A statement like “there are
elements x1 , x2 ∈ X with property blah” does not mean that there are exactly
two elements with that property. It just means that at least two such elements
exist for sure—maybe more, but definitely not less.
.
Mathematicians always search for the most general form of any principle,
because it can then be used to explain more things. For example, it is equally
obvious that we can’t put 15 pigeons in 7 pigeonholes without putting at least
3 pigeons in some pigeonhole—but there is no way to derive that from the
−1
Pigeonhole Principle as we stated it. Here is a more general version:
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the pigeonhole principle 5

Theorem 1.3. Extended Pigeonhole Principle. For any finite sets X and Y
and any positive integer k such that |X| > k · |Y|, if f : X → Y, then there are at
least k + 1 distinct members x1 , . . . , xk+1 ∈ X such that f (x1 ) = . . . = f (xk+1 ).

The Pigeonhole Principle is the k = 1 case of the Extended Pigeonhole

Principle.
We have used sequence notation here for the first time, using the same
variable with numerical subscripts in a range. In this case the xi , where
1 ≤ i ≤ k + 1, form a sequence of length k + 1. This notation is very conve-
nient since it makes it possible to use an algebraic expression such as k + 1
in a subscript. Similarly, we could refer to the 2ith member of a sequence
y1 , y2 , . . . as y2i .
The minimum value of the parameter k in the Extended Pigeonhole Prin-
ciple, as applied to particular sets X and Y, can be derived once the sizes of
X and Y are known. It is helpful to introduce some notation to make this
calculation precise.
An integer p divides another integer q, symbolically written as p | q, if the
q
quotient p is an integer—that is, dividing q by p leaves no remainder. We
write p  q if p does not divide q—for example, 3  7. If x is any real number, we
write x for the greatest integer less than or equal to x (called the floor of x).
For example,  17 6
3  = 5, and  2  = 3. We will also need the ceiling notation:
x is the smallest integer greater than or equal to x, so for example 3.7 = 4.
With the aid of these notations, we can restate the Extended Pigeonhole
Principle in a way that determines the minimum size of the most heavily
occupied pigeonhole for given numbers of pigeons and pigeonholes:

Theorem 1.4. Extended Pigeonhole Principle, Alternate Version. Let X and

Y be any finite sets and let f : X → Y. Then there is some y ∈ Y such that f (x) =
y for at least

 
|X|
|Y|

values of x.

Proof. Let m = |X| and n = |Y|.If n | m, then this is the Extended Pigeonhole
Principle with k = m m
n − 1 = n − 1. If n  m, then again this is the Extended
Pigeonhole Principle with k = m n − 1, since that is the largest integer less
|X|
than |Y| . ■
.
Once stated in their general form, these versions of the Pigeonhole Prin-
ciple seem to be fancy ways of saying something obvious. In spite of that,
we can use them to explain a variety of different phenomena—once we −
figure out what are the “pigeons” and the “pigeonholes.” Let’s close with an 0
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6 essential discrete mathematics for computer science

application to number theory—the study of the properties of the integers. A

few basics first.
If p | q, then p is said to be a factor or divisor of q.
A prime number is an integer greater than 1 that is divisible only by itself
and 1. For example, 7 is prime, because it is divisible only by 7 and 1, but 6
is not prime, because 6 = 2 · 3. Note that 1 itself is not prime.

Theorem 1.5. The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. There is one and

only one way to express a positive integer as a product of distinct prime
numbers in increasing order and with positive integer exponents.

We’ll prove this theorem in Chapter 4, but make some use of it right now.
The prime decomposition of a number n is that unique product
e
n = pe11 · . . . · pkk , (1.6)

where the pi are primes in increasing order and the ei are positive integers.
e
For example, 180 = 22 · 32 · 51 , and there is no other product pe11 · . . . · pkk
equal to 180, where p1 < p2 < . . . < pk , all the pi are prime, and the ei are
integer exponents.
The prime decomposition of the product of two integers m and n com-
bines the prime decompositions of m and of n—every prime factor of m · n
is a prime factor of one or the other.

Theorem 1.7. If m, n, and p are integers greater than 1, p is prime, and p |

m · n, then either p | m or p | n.

Proof. By the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (Theorem 1.5), there is

one and only one way to write
e
m · n = pe11 · . . . · pkk ,

where the pi are prime. But then p must be one of the pi , and each pi must
appear in the unique prime decomposition of either m or n. ■

The exponent of a prime p in the prime decomposition of m · n is the

sum of its exponents in the prime decompositions of m and n (counting
the exponent as 0 if p does not appear in the decomposition). For example,
consider the product 18 · 10 = 180. We have

18 = 21 · 32 (exponents of 2, 3, 5 are 1, 2, 0)
1 1
10 = 2 · 5 (exponents of 2, 3, 5 are 1, 0, 1)
2 2 1
−1 180 = 2 · 3 · 5
0 = 21+1 · 32+0 · 50+1 .
1

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the pigeonhole principle 7

We have color-coded the exponents to show how the exponents of 2, 3, and 5

in the product 180 are the sums of the exponents of those primes in the
decompositions of the two factors 18 and 10.
Another important fact about prime numbers is that there are infinitely
many of them.

Theorem 1.8. There are arbitrarily large prime numbers.

“Arbitrarily large” means that for every n > 0, there is a prime number
greater than n.

Proof. Pick some value of k for which we know there are at least k primes,
and let p1 , . . . , pk be the first k primes in increasing order. (Since p1 = 2,
p2 = 3, p3 = 5, we could certainly take k = 3.) We’ll show how to find a prime
number greater than pk . Since this process could be repeated indefinitely,
there must be infinitely many primes.
Consider the number N that is one more than the product of the first k
primes:

N = (p1 · p2 · . . . · pk ) + 1. (1.9)

Dividing N by any of p1 , . . . , pk would leave a remainder of 1. So N has no

prime divisors less than or equal to pk . Therefore, either N is not prime but
has a prime factor greater than pk , or else N is prime itself. ■

In the k = 3 case, for example, N = 2 · 3 · 5 + 1 = 31. Here N itself is

prime; Problem 1.11 asks you to find an example of the case in which N
is not prime.
A common divisor of two numbers is a number that divides both of them.
For example, 21 and 36 have the common divisors 1 and 3, but 16 and 21
have no common divisor greater than 1.
With this by way of background, let’s work a number theory example that
uses the Pigeonhole Principle.

Example 1.10. Choose m distinct numbers between 2 and 40 inclusive, where

m ≥ 13. Then at least two of the numbers have some common divisor greater
than 1.

“Between a and b inclusive” means including all numbers that are ≥ a and
also ≤ b—so including both 2 and 40 in this case.

Solution to example. Observe first that there are 12 prime numbers less than
or equal to 40: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, no two of which share
a factor greater than 1. Let’s define P to be this set of 12 prime numbers. −
(We needed to specify that m ≥ 13, because the claim would be false with 0
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8 essential discrete mathematics for computer science

m = 12 instead: the set P would be a counterexample.) Now consider a set

X of 13 numbers in the range from 2 to 40 inclusive. We can think of the
members of X as pigeons and the members of P as pigeonholes. To place
pigeons in pigeonholes, use the function f : X → P, where f (x) is the smallest
prime that divides x. For example, f (16) = 2, f (17) = 17, and f (21) = 3. By
the Pigeonhole Principle, since 13 > 12, the values of f must be equal for
two distinct members of X, and therefore at least two members of X have a
common prime divisor. ■

Chapter Summary

■ Mathematical thinking focuses on general principles, abstracted from the

details of specific examples.
■ A set is an unordered collection of distinct things, or elements. The
elements of a set are its members.
■ A set is finite if its members can be listed in full one by one. The number of
members of a finite set X is called its cardinality or size and is denoted |X|.
A set’s size is always a nonnegative integer.
■ A function or mapping between two sets is a rule associating each member
of the first set with a unique member of the second.
■ The Pigeonhole Principle states that if X is a set of pigeons and Y a set of
pigeonholes, and |X| > |Y|, then any function mapping pigeons to
pigeonholes assigns more than one pigeon to some pigeonhole.
■ The Extended Pigeonhole Principle states that if X is a set of pigeons and Y a
set of pigeonholes, and |X| > k|Y|, then any function mapping pigeons to
pigeonholes assigns more than k pigeons to some pigeonhole.
■ A sequence of terms can be denoted by a repeated variable with different
numerical subscripts, such as x1 , . . . , xn . The subscript of a term may be an
algebraic expression.
■ The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic states that every positive integer
has exactly one prime decomposition.

Problems

1.1. What are each of the following?

(a) |{0,
 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6}|.
(b) 111 .
 55 
(c) 111 .
−1 (d) The set of divisors of 100.
0 (e) The set of prime divisors of 100.
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the pigeonhole principle 9

1.2. Let f (n) be the largest prime divisor of n. Can it happen that x < y but
f (x) > f (y)? Give an example or explain why it is impossible.
1.3. Under what circumstances is x = x − 1?
1.4. Imagine a 9 × 9 square array of pigeonholes, with one pigeon in each
pigeonhole. (So 81 pigeons in 81 pigeonholes—see Figure 1.4.) Suppose that all
at once, all the pigeons move up, down, left, or right by one hole. (The pigeons
on the edges are not allowed to move out of the array.) Show that some pigeon-
hole winds up with two pigeons in it. Hint: The number 9 is a distraction. Try
some smaller numbers to see what is going on.
1.5. Show that in any group of people, two of them have the same number of
friends in the group. (Some important assumptions here: no one is a friend of
him- or herself, and friendship is symmetrical—if x is a friend of y then y is a
friend of x.)
1.6. Given any five points on a sphere, show that four of them must lie within a
Figure 1.4. Each pigeonhole in a closed hemisphere, where “closed” means that the hemisphere includes the circle
9 × 9 array has one pigeon. All that divides it from the other half of the sphere. Hint: Given any two points on a
simultaneously move to another sphere, one can always draw a “great circle” between them, which has the same
pigeonhole that is immediately
circumference as the equator of the sphere.
above, below, to the left, or to the
right of its current hole. Must some 1.7. Show that in any group of 25 people, some three of them must have
pigeonhole wind up with two birthdays in the same month.
pigeons?
1.8. A collection of coins contains six different denominations: pennies, nick-
els, dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and dollars. How many coins must the
collection contain to guarantee that at least 100 of the coins are of the same
denomination?
1.9. Twenty-five people go to daily yoga classes at the same gym, which offers
eight classes every day. Each attendee wears either a blue, red, or green shirt to
class. Show that on a given day, there is at least one class in which two people
are wearing the same color shirt.
1.10. Show that if four distinct integers are chosen between 1 and 60 inclusive,
some two of them must differ by at most 19.
1.11. Find a k such that the product of the first k primes, plus 1, is not prime,
but has a prime factor larger than any of the first k primes. (There is no trick for
solving this. You just have to try various possibilities!)
1.12. Show that in any set of 9 positive integers, some two of them share all of
their prime factors that are less than or equal to 5.
1.13. A hash function from strings to numbers derives a numerical hash value
h(s) from a text string s; for example, by adding up the numerical codes for the
characters in s, dividing by a prime number p, and keeping just the remainder.
The point of a hash function is to yield a reproducible result (calculating h(s)
twice for the same string s yields the same numerical value) and to make it likely
that the hash values for different strings will be spread out evenly across the
possible hash values (from 0 to p − 1). If the hash function has identical hash −
values for two different strings, then these two strings are said to collide on that 0
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10 essential discrete mathematics for computer science

hash value. We count the number of collisions on a hash value as 1 less than the
number of strings that have that hash value, so if 2 strings have the same hash
value there is 1 collision on that hash value. If there are m strings and p possible
hash values, what is the minimum number of collisions that must occur on the
hash value with the most collisions? The maximum number of collisions that
might occur on some hash value?

−1
0
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Chapter 2

Basic Proof Techniques

Here is an English-language restatement of the Pigeonhole Principle (page 3):

If there are more pigeons than pigeonholes and every pigeon goes
into a pigeonhole, then some pigeonhole must contain more than
one pigeon.

But suppose your friend did not believe this statement. How could you
convincingly argue that it was true?
You might try to persuade your friend that there is no way the opposite
could be true. You could say, let’s imagine that each pigeonhole has no more
than one pigeon. Then we can count the number of pigeonholes, and since
each pigeonhole contains zero or one pigeons, the number of pigeons can be
at most equal to the number of pigeonholes. But we started with the assump-
tion that there were more pigeons than pigeonholes, so this is impossible!
Since there is no way that every pigeonhole can have at most one pigeon,
some pigeonhole must contain more than one pigeon, and that is what we
were trying to prove.
In this chapter, we’ll discuss how to take informal, specific arguments
like this and translate them into formal, general, mathematical proofs. A
proof is an argument that begins with a proposition (“there are more pigeons
than pigeonholes”) and proceeds using logical rules to establish a conclusion
(“some pigeonhole has more than one pigeon”). Although it may seem easier
to write (and understand!) an argument in plain English, ordinary language
can be imprecise or overly specific. So it is clearer, as well as more general,
to describe a mathematical situation in more formal terms.
For example, what does the statement

Everybody loves somebody (2.1)

mean? It might mean that for every person in the world, there is someone
whom that person loves—so different lovers might have different beloveds.
In semi-mathematical language, we would state that interpretation as −
0
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Random documents with unrelated
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courtly manners and customs in the earlier dialog, though much
briefer than the corresponding discussion in the Norwegian treatise,
has some resemblance to the latter which suggests a possible
relationship between the two works.
The Norwegian author may also have used some of the many
commentaries on the books of Holy Writ, in the production of which
the medieval cloisters were so prolific. Of the influence of Petrus
Comestor’s Historia Scholastica the writer has found no distinct trace
in the King’s Mirror; but one can be quite sure that he knew and had
used the Elucidarium of Honorius of Autun. The Elucidarium is a
manual of medieval theology which was widely read in the later
middle ages and was translated into Old Norse, probably before the
King’s Mirror was written.[7] But our Norwegian author was not a
slavish follower of earlier authorities: in his use and treatment of
materials drawn from the Scriptures he shows remarkable
independence. Remarkable at least is his ability to make Biblical
narratives serve to illustrate his own theories of Norwegian kingship.
He was acquainted with some of the legends that circulated through
the church and made effective use of them. He must also have
known a work on the marvels of Ireland[8] and the letter of Prester
John to the Byzantine emperor,[9] in which that mythical priest-king
recounts the wonders of India. But the chief source of his work is a
long life full of action, conflict, thought, and experience.
The importance of the King’s Mirror lies in the insight that it gives
into the state of culture and civilization of the North in the later
middle ages. The interest follows seven different lines: physical
science, especially such matters as are of importance to navigators;
geography, particularly the geography of the Arctic lands and
waters; the organization of the king’s household and the privileges
and duties of the king’s henchmen; military engines, weapons, and
armour used in offensive and defensive warfare; ethical ideas,
especially rules of conduct for courtiers and merchants; the royal
office, the duties of the king and the divine origin of kingship; and
the place of the church in the Norwegian state.
In one of his earlier chapters the author enumerates the chief
subjects of a scientific character that ought to be studied by every
one who wishes to become a successful merchant. These are the
great luminaries of the sky, the motions and the paths of the
heavenly bodies, the divisions of time and the changes that bring the
seasons, the cardinal points of the compass, and the tides and
currents of the ocean.[10] In discussing these matters he is naturally
led to a statement as to the shape of the earth. All through the
middle ages there were thinkers who accepted the teachings of the
classical astronomers who had taught that the earth is round like a
sphere; but this belief was by no means general. Bede for one
appears to have been convinced that the earth is of a spherical
shape, though he explains that, because of mountains which rise
high above the surface, it cannot be perfectly round.[11] Alexander
Neckam, an English scientist who wrote two generations before the
King’s Mirror was composed, states in his Praise of Divine Wisdom
that “the ancients have ventured to believe that the earth is round,
though mountains rise high above its surface.”[12] Neckam’s own
ideas on this point are quite confused and he remains discreetly
non-committal.
But if the earth is a globe, there is every reason to believe in the
existence of antipodes; and if there are antipodes, all cannot behold
Christ coming in the clouds on the final day. To the medieval
theologians, at least to the larger number of them, this argument
disposed effectually of the Ptolemaic theory. Job does indeed say
that God “hangeth the earth upon nothing,”[13] and this passage
might point to a spherical form; but then the Psalmist affirms that
He “stretched out the earth above the waters,”[14] and this statement
would indicate that the inhabited part of the earth is an island
floating upon the waters of the great Ocean, by which it is also
surrounded. This belief was generally maintained in the earlier
centuries of the classical world, and it had wide acceptance in the
middle ages. There were also those who held that beyond and
around the outer Ocean is a great girdle of fire. It is likely, however,
that many believed with Isidore of Seville that it is useless to
speculate on subjects of this sort. “Whether it [the earth] is
supported by the density of the air, or whether it is spread out upon
the waters ... or how the yielding air can support such a vast mass
as the earth, whether such an immense weight can be upheld by the
waters without being submerged, or how the earth maintains its
balance ... these matters it is not permitted any mortal to know and
they are not for us to discuss.”[15]
There can be no doubt that the author of the King’s Mirror
believed in the Ptolemaic theory of a spherical earth. In speaking of
our planet he uses the term jarðarbollr,[16] earth-sphere. In an effort
to explain why some countries are hotter than others, he suggests
an experiment with an apple. It is not clear how this can shed much
light on the problem, but the author boldly states the point to be
illustrated: “From this you may infer that the earth-circle is round
like a ball.”[17]
Toward the close of the medieval period there were certain
thinkers who attempted to reconcile the spherical theory with the
belief that the inhabited part of the earth is an island. These appear
to have believed that the earth is a globe partly submerged in a
larger sphere composed of water.[18] The visible parts of the earth
would rise above the surrounding ocean like a huge island, and the
Biblical passages which had caused so much difficulty could thus be
interpreted in accord with apparent facts. It is quite clear that the
author of the King’s Mirror held no such theory. In a poetic
description of how the eight winds form their covenants of friendship
at the approach of spring, he tells us that “at midnight the north
wind goes forth to meet the coursing sun and leads him through
rocky deserts toward the sparse-built shores.”[19] The author,
therefore, seems to believe that the earth is a sphere, that there are
lands on the opposite side of the earth, and that these lands are
inhabited. He also understands that the regions that lie beneath the
midnight course of the sun in spring and summer must be thinly
populated, as the sun’s path on the opposite side of the earth during
the season of lengthening days is constantly approaching nearer the
pole.
But while the author seems to accept the Ptolemaic theory of the
universe, he is not able to divest his mind entirely of current
geographical notions. There can be no doubt that he believed in the
encircling outer ocean, and it is barely possible that he also looked
with favor on the belief that the whole was encompassed by a girdle
of fire. On this point, however, we cannot be sure: he mentions the
belief merely as one that is current, not as one accepted by himself.
[20]

It was commonly held in the middle ages that the earth is divided
into five zones, only two of which may be inhabited. This was a
theory advanced by a Greek scientist in the fifth century before our
era,[21] and was given currency in medieval times chiefly, perhaps,
through the works of Macrobius.[22] At first these zones were
conceived as belts drawn across the heavens; later they came to be
considered as divisions of the earth’s surface. It will be noted that
our author uses the older terminology and speaks of the zones as
belts on the heaven;[23] it may be inferred, therefore, that he derived
his information from one of the earlier Latin treatises on the nature
of the universe.[24] For two thousand years it was believed that
human life could not exist in the polar and torrid zones. Even as late
as the fifteenth century European navigators had great fear of travel
into the torrid zone, where the heat was thought to grow more
intense as one traveled south, until a point might be reached where
water in the sea would boil. The author of the King’s Mirror seems to
doubt all this. He regards the polar zones as generally uninhabitable;
still, he is sure that Greenland lies within the arctic zone; and yet,
Greenland “has beautiful sunshine and is said to have a rather
pleasant climate.”[25] He sees quite clearly that the physical nature of
a country may have much to do with climatic conditions. The cold of
Iceland he ascribes in great part to its position near Greenland: “for
it is to be expected that severe cold would come thence, since
Greenland is ice-clad beyond all other lands.”[26] He conceives the
possibility that the south temperate zone is inhabited. “And if people
live as near the cold belt on the southern side as the Greenlanders
do on the northern, I firmly believe that the north wind blows as
warm to them as the south wind to us. For they must look north to
see the midday and the sun’s whole course, just as we, who dwell
north of the sun, must look to the south.”[27]
On the questions of time and its divisions the author of the King’s
Mirror seems to have had nearly all the information that the age
possessed. He divides the period of day and night into two “days”
(dægr) of twelve hours each. Each hour is again divided into smaller
hours called ostenta in Latin.[28] Any division below the minute he
apparently does not know. The length of the year he fixes at 365
days and six hours, every fourth year these additional hours make
twenty-four and we have leap year.[29] The waxing and waning of the
moon and the tidal changes in the ocean are also reckoned with fair
accuracy.[30]
Medieval scientists found these movements in the ocean a great
mystery. Some ascribed the tides to the influence of the moon;[31]
others believed that they were caused by the collision of the waters
of two arms of the ocean, an eastern arm and a western; still others
imagined that somewhere there were “certain cavern-like abysses,
which now swallow up the water, and now spew it forth again.”[32]
The author of the Speculum has no doubts on the subject: he
believes that the tides are due to the waxing and waning of the
moon.[33]
In his discussion of the volcanic fires of Iceland he shows that on
this subject he was completely under the influence of medieval
conceptions. He has heard that Gregory the Great believed that the
volcanic eruptions in Sicily have their origins in the infernal regions.
Our author is inclined to question, however, that there is anything
supernatural about the eruptions of Mount Etna; but he is quite sure
that the volcanic fires of Iceland rise from the places of pain. The
fires of Sicily are living fires, inasmuch as they devour living
materials, such as wood and earth; those of Iceland, on the other
hand, consume nothing living but only dead matter like rock. And he
therefore concludes that these fires must have their origin in the
realms of death.[34]
The author has a suspicion that earthquakes may be due to
volcanic action, but he offers another explanation, though he does
not give it as his own belief. Down in the bowels of the earth there is
probably a large number of caverns and empty passages. “At times it
may happen that these passages and cavities will be so completely
packed with air either by the winds or by the power of the roaring
breakers, that the pressure of the blast cannot be confined, and this
may be the origin of those great earthquakes that occur in that
country.”[35] In this theory there is nothing new or original: the belief
that the earth is of a spongy constitution and that earthquakes are
caused by air currents is a very old one, which can be followed back
through the writings of Alexander Neckam,[36] the Venerable Bede,[37]
and others, at least as far as to Isidore.[38] The elder Pliny, who
wrote his Natural History in the first century of the Christian era,
seems to have held similar views: “I believe there can be no doubt
that the winds are the cause of earthquakes.”[39]
The chapters that deal with the northern lights are interesting
because they seem to imply that these lights were not visible in
those parts of Norway where the King’s Mirror was written. The
editors of the Christiania edition of this work call attention to the fact
that there have been periods when these phenomena were less
prominent, and suggest that there may have been such a period in
the thirteenth century.[40] The author discusses these lights as one of
the wonders of Greenland, and the natural inference is that they
were not known in Norway. But it is also true that he speaks of
whales as if they were limited to the seas about Iceland and
Greenland, which is manifestly incorrect. It is likely that the author
merely wishes to emphasize the fact that the northern lights appear
with greater frequency and in greater brilliance in Greenland than
anywhere in Norway. He gives three theories to account for these
phenomena: some ascribe them to a girdle of fire which encircles
the earth beyond the outer ocean; others hold that the lights are
merely rays of the sun which find their way past the edges of the
earth while the sun is coursing underneath; but his own belief is that
frost and cold have attained to such a power in the Arctic that they
are able to put forth light.[41] In his opinion cold is a positive force as
much as heat or any other form of energy. To the men of the
author’s time there was nothing strange in this belief: it seems to
have been held by many even before the thirteenth century that ice
could under certain conditions produce heat and even burn.[42]
Among the author’s scientific notions very little that is really
original can be found. It is Riant’s belief that he drew to some extent
from Oriental sources, the lore of the East having come into the
North as the spoil of crusaders or as the acquisitions of Norwegian
pilgrims.[43] It may be doubted, however, whether the Saracenic
contribution is a real one: almost everything that the author of the
Speculum Regale presents as his belief can be found in the Latin
scientific manuals of the middle ages. He alludes to the writings of
Isidore of Seville, and there can be little doubt that he was
acquainted with the ideas of the great Spaniard, though he does not
accept them all. His ideas as to the shape of the earth and the
probable causes of earthquakes may have been derived from the
writings of the Venerable Bede, or from one of his numerous
followers. The divisions of time are discussed in many of the
scientific treatises of the middle ages, but the division of the hour
into sixtieths called ostenta is probably not found in any manual
written before the ninth century; so far as the writer has been able
to determine, ostenta, meaning minutes, first appears in the works
of Rabanus Maurus.[44]
The discussion of these scientific notions has its chief value in
showing to what extent the Norwegians of the thirteenth century
were acquainted with the best theories of the age as to the great
facts of the universe. The author’s own contribution to the scientific
learning of his time lies almost exclusively in the field of geography.
“Beyond comparison the most important geographical writer of the
medieval North,” says Dr. Nansen, “and at the same time one of the
first in the whole of medieval Europe, was the unknown author who
wrote the King’s Mirror.... If one turns from contemporary or earlier
European geographical literature, with all its superstition and
obscurity, to this masterly work, the difference is very striking.”[45]
This is doubtless due to the fact that our author was not a cloistered
monk who was content to copy the ideas and expressions of his
predecessors with such changes as would satisfy a theological mind,
but a man who had been active in the secular world and was
anxious to get at real facts.
Among the chapters devoted to scientific lore the author has
introduced several which are ostensibly intended to serve the
purpose of entertainment; the author seems to fear that the interest
of his readers is likely to flag, if the dry recital of physical facts is
continued unbroken. It is in these chapters, which profess to deal
with the marvels of Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and the
Arctic seas, that he introduces his geographical data. In the
description of Greenland are included such important and practical
subjects as the general character of the land, the great ice fields, the
products of the country, wild animals, and a few facts from the
economic life of the people. In the chapters on Iceland the author
limits himself to certain physical features, such as glaciers, geysers,
mineral springs, volcanoes, and earthquakes. He also gives a
“description of the animal world of the northern seas to which there
is no parallel in the earlier literature of the world.”[46] He enumerates
twenty-one different species of whales[47] and describes several of
them with some fulness. He mentions and describes six varieties of
seals[48] and also gives a description of the walrus. The marvelous
element is represented by detailed accounts of the “sea-hedges”
(probably sea quakes) on the coasts of Greenland, the merman, the
mermaid, and the kraken.[49] But on the whole these chapters give
evidence of careful, discriminating observation and a desire to give
accurate knowledge.
For all but the two chapters on Ireland the sources of the author’s
geographical information are evidently the tales of travelers and his
own personal experiences; of literary sources there is no trace. The
account of the marvels of Ireland, however, gives rise to certain
problems. It may be that the Norwegian geographer based these
chapters on literary sources that are still extant, or he may have had
access to writings which have since disappeared. It is also possible
that some of the information was contributed by travelers who sailed
the western seas and had sojourned on the “western isles;” for it
must be remembered that Norway still had colonies as far south as
the Isle of Man, and that Norsemen were still living in Ireland,
though under English rule. When Hakon IV made his expedition into
these regions in 1263, some of these Norwegian colonists in Ireland
sought his aid in the hope that English rule might be overthrown.[50]
It has long been known that many of the tales of Irish wonders
and miracles that are recounted in the Speculum Regale are also told
in the Topographia Hibernica by Giraldus Cambrensis. The famous
Welshman wrote his work several decades before the King’s Mirror
was composed; and it is not impossible that the author of the latter
had access to the “Irish Topography.” Moreover, the Speculum
Regale and the Topographia Hibernica have certain common features
which correspond so closely that literary kinship seems quite
probable. The resemblances, however, are not so much in the details
as in the plan and the viewpoint. In the second book of his
“Topography,” Giraldus recounts “first those things that nature has
planted in the land itself;” and next “those things that have been
miraculously performed through the merits of the saints.”[51] The
author of the King’s Mirror has adopted a similar grouping. After
having discussed some of the wonders of the island he continues:
“There still remain certain things that may be thought marvelous;
these, however, are not native to the land but have originated in the
miraculous powers of holy men.”[52] This correspondence in the
general plan is too remarkable to be wholly accidental; at least it
should lead us to look for other resemblances elsewhere.
In his general description of Ireland the author of the Norwegian
work calls attention to the excellence of the land and its temperate
climate: “for all through the winter the cattle find their feed in the
open.”[53] Giraldus informs us that grass grows in winter as well as in
summer, and he adds: “therefore they are accustomed neither to cut
hay for fodder nor to provide stables for the cattle.”[54] Both writers
emphasize the fact that grapes do not grow on the island. In both
writings attention is called to the sacred character of the Irish soil,
which makes it impossible for reptiles and venomous animals to live
on the land, though Giraldus has his doubts as to the supernatural
phase of the matter. Both writers add that if sand or dust is brought
from Ireland to another country and scattered about a reptile, it will
perish.[55] Both characterize the Irish people as savage and
murderous, but they also call attention to their kind treatment of
holy men, of whom the island has always had many.[56] In fact, every
statement in the King’s Mirror as to the nature of the land and the
character of the inhabitants can be duplicated in Giraldus’ description
of Ireland, except, perhaps, the single observation that the Irish
people, because of the mildness of the climate, often wear no
clothes.
But even if Giraldus’ work is to be regarded as one of the sources
which the Norwegian author may have used in writing his chapters
on the Irish mirabilia, it cannot have been the only or even the
principal source. The account of these marvels in the King’s Mirror
does not wholly agree with that of the Welshman’s work. In some
instances the wonders are told with details that are wanting in the
earlier narrative. Frequently, too, the Norwegian version is more
explicit as to localities and gives proper names where Giraldus has
none. It also records marvels and miracles which are not found in
the Topographia Hibernica.
In an edition of the Irish Nennius the editor has added as an
appendix a brief account of the “Wonders of Ireland,” many of the
tales of which have interesting parallels in the King’s Mirror. There is
also a medieval poem on the same theme[57] which contains allusions
to much that the Norwegian author has recorded with greater
fulness. Neither of these works, however, can have been the source
from which the chapters on Ireland in the Speculum Regale have
been derived.
The learned editors of the Christiania edition of the King’s Mirror
reached the conclusion that the author did not draw from any
literary source but derived his information from current tales and
other oral accounts.[58] This is also the opinion of Dr. Kuno Meyer, the
eminent student of Celtic philology.[59] Dr. Meyer bases his belief on
the form of the Irish proper names. As written in the Speculum
Regale they can not have been copied, as the spelling is not
normally Irish; he believes, therefore, that they show an effort on
the author’s part to reproduce phonetically these names as he heard
them spoken. But this theory ignores the fact that in writing them
the author employs combinations of consonants which are unusual
to say the least. Combinations of ch and gh are used in writing
nearly all the Irish proper names that occur in the King’s Mirror and
the gh-combination is found nowhere else in the work.[60] It was
probably coming into the language in the century to which the work
is credited, but the author uses it only as indicated above. It seems
likely, therefore, that he had access to a written source, though it is
also likely that he did not have this account before him when the
writing was actually done. As has already been stated, the author
seems to have written largely from memory, and his memory is not
always accurate.
Having discussed the subjects which he considers of chief
importance for the education of a merchant, the learned father
proceeds to describe the king’s household and its organization, the
manners which one should observe at court, and the business that is
likely to come before a king. For the part which deals with the royal
court, it is probable that no literary sources were used. The author
evidently wrote from long experience in the king’s retinue; he is not
discussing an ideal organization but the king’s household as it was in
Bergen and Trondhjem in his own day. If he drew from any written
description of courtly manners, it may have been from some book
like Petrus Alfonsus’ Disciplina Clericalis, which has already been
mentioned[61] and which seems to have had a wide circulation
throughout western Europe in the later middle ages.
The chapters that are devoted to the discussion of the duties and
activities of the king’s guardsmen, to the manners and customs
which should rule in the king’s garth, and to the ethical ideas on
which these were largely based are of great interest to the student
of medieval culture. They reveal a progress in the direction of
refined life and polished manners, which one should scarcely expect
to find in the Northern lands. The development of courtesy and
refined manners may have been accelerated by the new literature
which was coming into Scandinavia from France and Germany, a
literature that dealt so largely with the doings of knights and kings;
[62]
but it was probably not so much a matter of bookish instruction
as of direct imitation. The Northmen, though they lived far from the
great centers of culture, were always in close touch with the rest of
the world. In the earlier centuries the viking sailed his dreaded craft
wherever there was wealth and plunder and civilized life. After him
and often as his companion came the merchant who brought away
new ideas along with other desirable wares. After a time Christianity
was introduced from the southlands, and the pilgrim and the
crusader took the place of the heathen pirate. And all these classes
helped to reshape the life of courtesy in the Northern countries.
It is difficult to overestimate the influence of the crusader as a
pioneer of Christian culture in Scandinavia, but it seems possible that
the pilgrim was even more important in this respect. It was no doubt
largely through his journeys that German influences began to be felt
in the Scandinavian lands, though it is possible that the wide
activities of the Hanseatic merchants should also be credited with
some importance for the spread of Teutonic culture. It is told in the
King’s Mirror that a new mode of dressing the hair and the beard
had been introduced from Germany since the author had retired
from the royal court.[63] It is significant that the routes usually
followed by Norwegian pilgrims who sought the Eternal City and the
holy places in the Orient ran through German lands. As a rule the
pilgrims traveled through Jutland, Holstein, and the Old Saxon
territories and reached the Rhine at Mainz. It was also possible to
take a more easterly route, and sometimes the travelers would go by
sea to the Low Countries and thence southward past Utrecht and
Cologne; but all these three routes converged at Mainz, whence the
journey led up the Rhine and across the Alps. It will be noted that a
long stretch of the journey from Norway to Rome would lead
through the German kingdom. Concerning the people of the Old
Saxon or German lands an Icelandic scribe makes the following
significant remark: “In that country the people are more polished
and courteous than in most places and the Northmen imitate their
customs quite generally.”[64]
The cultural influences which followed in the wake of the returning
crusaders were no doubt largely of Frankish origin. As a rule the
crusading expeditions followed the sea route along the coasts of
France and the Spanish peninsula; thus the Northern warriors came
in contact with French ideas and customs in the Frankish homeland
as well as in the Christian armies, which were largely made up of
enthusiastic and venturesome knights from Frankland. The author of
the King’s Mirror urges his son to learn Latin and French, “for these
idioms are most widely used.”[65]
One of the reasons why the son wishes to master the mercantile
profession is that he desires to travel and learn the customs of other
lands.[66] In the thirteenth century the Norwegian trade still seems to
have been largely with England and the other parts of the British
Isles. It is also important to remember that the Norwegian church
was a daughter of the church of England, and that occasionally
English churchmen were elevated to high office in the Norwegian
establishment. It is likely that Master William, who was Hakon IV’s
chaplain, was an Englishman; at least he bore an English name.[67]
Information as to foreign civilization and the rules of courteous
behavior could also pass from land to land and from court to court
with the diplomatic missions of the time. The wise father states that
envoys who come and go are careful to observe the manners that
obtain at the courts to which they are sent.[68] Frequent embassies
must have passed between the capitals of England and Norway in
the thirteenth century. It is recorded that both King John and his son
Henry III received envoys from the king of Norway, and that they
brought very acceptable gifts, such as hawks and elks,[69] especially
the former: in twelve different years Hakon IV sent hawks to the
English king.[70]
Embassies also came quite frequently from the imperial court in
Germany. It was during the reign of Hakon IV that the
Hohenstaufens were waging their last fight with the papacy, and
both sides in the conflict seemed anxious to secure the friendship of
the great Norwegian king. The Saga of Hakon relates that early in
the king’s reign “missions began between the emperor and King
Hakon.”[71] In 1241, “when King Hakon came to the King’s Crag, that
man came to him whose name was Matthew, sent from the emperor
Frederick with many noble gifts. Along with him came from abroad
five Bluemen (negroes).”[72] Just how acceptable such a gift would
be in medieval Norway the chronicler does not state. There can be
no doubt, however, that Hakon returned the courtesy. The saga
mentions several men who were sent on diplomatic errands to the
imperial court. One of these emissaries had to go as far as Sicily,
“and the emperor received him well.”[73]
The relationship with the other Scandinavian kingdoms was more
direct. The King’s Mirror states that occasionally kings find it
necessary to meet in conference for the discussion of common
problems; and that on such occasions the members of the various
retinues note carefully the customs and manners of the other
groups.[74] These meetings were usually held at some point near the
mouth of the Göta River, where the boundaries of the three
kingdoms touched a common point. In 1254 such a meeting was
held at which Hakon of Norway, Christopher of Denmark, and the
great Earl Birger of Sweden were in attendance with their respective
retinues.[75]
The kings of the North were not limited, however, in their
diplomatic intercourse to the neighboring monarchies; their
ambassadors went out to the remotest parts of Europe and even to
Africa. Valdemar the Victorious, in his day one of the greatest rulers
in Christendom, married as his first wife Dragomir, a Bohemian
princess who brought the Dagmar name into Denmark, and took as
his second consort Berengaria of Portugal, Queen Bengjerd, whose
lofty pride is enshrined in the Danish ballads of the age. Hakon IV
married the daughter of his restless rival, Duke Skule; but his
daughter Christina was sought in marriage by a prince in far-away
Spain. The luckless princess was sent to Castile and was married at
Valladolid to a son of Alfonso the Wise.[76] Louis IX of France was
anxious to enlist the support of the Norwegian king for his crusading
ventures and sent the noted English historian Matthew Paris to
present the matter to King Hakon.[77] The mission, however, was
without results. Norwegian diplomacy was concerned even with the
courts of the infidel: in 1262 an embassy was sent to the
Mohammedan sultan of Tunis “with many falcons and those other
things which were there hard to get. And when they got out the
Soldan received them well, and they stayed there long that
winter.”[78]
An important event of the diplomatic type was the coming of
Cardinal William of Sabina as papal legate to crown King Hakon. The
coronation ceremony was performed in Bergen, July 29, 1247. At the
coronation banquet the cardinal made a speech in which, as the
Saga of Hakon reports his remarks, he called particular attention to
the polished manners of the Northmen. “It was told me that I would
here see few men; but even though I saw some, they would be liker
to beasts in their behaviour than to men; but now I see here a
countless multitude of the folk of this land, and, as it seems to me,
with good behaviour.”[79] If the King’s Mirror gives a correct
statement of what was counted good manners and proper conduct
at the court of Hakon IV, the cardinal’s praise is none too strong.
As a part of his discussion of the duties and activities of the king’s
henchmen, the author describes the military methods of the age,
arms and armour, military engines and devices used in offensive and
defensive warfare, and other necessary equipment.[80] He also
discusses the ethics of the military profession to some extent. This
part of the work has been made the subject of a detailed study by
Captain Otto Blom of the Danish artillery, who has tried to fix a date
for the composition of the King’s Mirror on the basis of these
materials.[81] It is not likely, however, that the work describes the
military art of the North; such an elaborate system of equipment and
such a variety of military engines and devices the Norwegians
probably never knew at any time in the middle ages. It is the
military art of Europe which the author describes, especially the war
machinery of the crusades. One should not be surprised to find that
he had knowledge of the devices which were employed by the
Christian hosts in their warfare against the infidel in the Orient. The
crusades attracted the Norwegian warriors and they took a part in
them almost from the beginning. The fifth crusade began in 1217,
the year of Hakon IV’s accession to the kingship. Several Norwegian
chiefs with their followers joined this movement, some marching by
land through Germany and Hungary, while others took the sea route.
One is tempted to believe that the author was himself a crusader,
but it is also possible that he got his information as to the military
art of the south and east from warriors who returned from those
lands.
From the subject of proper behavior and good breeding the author
passes to a discussion of evil conduct and its effect on the welfare of
the kingdom. Many causes, he tells us, may combine to bring
calamities upon a land, and if the evils continue any length of time,
the realm will be ruined.[82] There may come dearth upon the fields
and the fishing grounds near the shores; plagues may carry away
cattle, and the huntsman may find a scarcity of game; but worst of
all is the dearth which sometimes comes upon the intellects and the
moral nature of men. As a prolific source of calamities of the last
sort, the author mentions the institution of joint kingship, the evils of
which he discusses at some length. His chapter on this subject is an
epitome of Norwegian history in the twelfth century when joint
kingship was the rule.
According to the laws of medieval Norway before the thirteenth
century, the national kingship was the king’s allodial possession and
was inherited by his sons at his death. All his sons were legal heirs,
those of illegitimate birth as well as those who were born in
wedlock. When there was more than one heir, the kingship was held
jointly, all the claimants receiving the royal title and permission to
maintain each his own household. Usually a part of the realm was
assigned to each; but it was the administration, and not the kingdom
itself, which was thus divided. It is readily seen that such a system
would offer unusual opportunities for pretenders; and at least three
times in one hundred years men whose princely rights were at best
of a doubtful character mounted the Norwegian throne. It is an
interesting fact that two of these, the strenuous Sverre and the wise
Hakon IV, must be counted among the strongest, ablest, and most
attractive kings in the history of Norway.
Though there had been instances of joint rule before the twelfth
century, the history of that unfortunate form of administration
properly begins with the death of Magnus Bareleg on an Irish
battlefield in 1103. Three illegitimate sons, the oldest being only
fourteen years of age, succeeded to the royal title. One of these was
the famous Sigurd Jerusalemfarer, who took part in the later stages
of the first crusade. About twenty years after King Magnus’ death, a
young Irishman, Harold Gilchrist by name, appeared at the
Norwegian court and claimed royal rights as a son of the fallen king.
King Sigurd forced him to prove his birthright by an appeal to the
ordeal, but the Irishman walked unhurt over the hot plowshares.
Harold became king in 1130 as joint ruler with Sigurd’s son Magnus,
later called “the Blind.”[83] Three of his sons succeeded to the
kingship in 1136. During the next century several pretenders
appeared and civil war became almost the normal state of the
country. Between 1103 and 1217 fifteen princes were honored with
the royal title; eleven of these were minors. The period closed with
the defeat and death of King Hakon’s father-in-law, the pretender
Skule, in 1240.
It was the history of these hundred years and more of joint
kingship, of pretenders, of minorities, and of civil war, which the
author of the King’s Mirror had in mind when he wrote his gloomy
chapter on the calamities that may befall a state. Perhaps he was
thinking more especially of the unnatural conflict between King
Hakon and Duke Skule,[84] which was fought out in 1240, and the
memory of which was still fresh at the time when the King’s Mirror
was being written.
Of the king and his duties as ruler and judge the Speculum Regale
has much to say; but as these matters offer no problems that call for
discussion, it will not be necessary to examine them in detail. Wholly
different is the case of the king’s relation to the church, of the
position of the church in the state, of the divine origin of kingship, of
the fulness of the royal authority. On these questions the author’s
opinions and arguments are of great importance: in the history of
the theory of kingship by the grace of God and divine right and of
absolute monarchy, the Speculum Regale is an important landmark.
In the discussion of the origin and powers of the royal office, the
King’s Mirror again shows unmistakably the influence of events in
the preceding century of Norwegian history. So long as the church of
Norway was under the supervision of foreign archbishops, first the
metropolitan of distant Hamburg and later the archbishop of the
Danish (now Swedish) see of Lund, there was little likelihood of any
serious clash between the rival powers of church and state. But
when, in 1152, an archiepiscopal see was established at Nidaros
(Trondhjem) trouble broke out at once. The wave of enthusiasm for
a powerful and independent church, which had developed such vigor
in the days of Gregory VII, was still rising high. Able men were
appointed to the new metropolitan office and the Norwegian church
very soon put forth the usual demands of the time: separate
ecclesiastical courts and immunity from anything that looked like
taxation or forced contribution to the state. At first these claims had
no reality in fact, as the kings would not allow them; but in 1163[85]
an opportunity came for the church to make its demands effective.
In that year a victorious faction asked for the coronation of a new
king whose claims to the throne came through his mother only. The
pretender was a mere child and the actual power was in the hands
of his capable and ambitious father, Erling Skakke. The imperious
archbishop Eystein agreed to consecrate the boy king if he would
consent to become the vassal of Saint Olaf, or, in other words, of the
archbishop of Nidaros. Erling acquiesced and young Magnus was
duly crowned. It was further stipulated that in future cases of
disputed succession the final decision should rest with the bishops.
[86]
The state was formally made subject to the church. It must be
noted, however, that it was not the head of Catholic Christendom
who made these claims, but the chief prelate of the national
Norwegian church. The theory was doubtless this, that if the pope is
superior to the emperor, the archbishop is superior to the king.
The new arrangement did not long remain unchallenged. In 1177
the opposition to the ecclesiastical faction found a leader in Sverre,
called Sigurdsson, an adventurer from the Faroe Islands, who
pretended to be a grandson of Harold Gilchrist, though the
probabilities are that his father was one Unas, a native of the Faroes.
[87]
Sverre’s followers were known as Birchshanks, because they had
been reduced to such straits that they had to bind birch bark around
their legs. The faction in control of the government was called the
Croziermen and was composed of the higher clergy with an
important following among the aristocracy. Sverre’s fight was,
therefore, not against King Magnus alone but against the Guelph
party of Norway. For half a century there was intermittent civil
warfare between the supporters of an independent and vigorous
kingship on the one side and the partisans of clerical control on the
other. King Sverre’s great service to Norway was that he broke the
chain of ecclesiastical domination. The conflict was long and bitter
and the great king died while it was still on; but when it ended the
cause of the Croziermen was lost. The church attained to great
power in the Norwegian state, but it never gained complete
domination.
Sverre was a man of great intellectual strength; he was a born
leader of men, a capable warrior, and a resourceful captain. When it
began to look as if victory would crown his efforts, the archbishop
fled to England and from his refuge in Saint Edmundsbury
excommunicated the king. But exile is irksome to an ambitious man,
and after a time the fiery prelate returned to Norway and was
reconciled to the strenuous ruler. Eystein’s successor, however, took
up the fight once more; and when Sverre made Norway too
uncomfortable for him, he fled to Denmark and excommunicated his
royal opponent. A few years later, Innocent III, who had just
ascended the papal throne, also excommunicated Sverre, and
threatened the kingdom with an interdict.[88] But the papal weapons
had little effect in the far North; the king forced priests and prelates
to remain loyal and to continue in their duties. No doubt they
obeyed the excommunicated ruler with great reluctance and much
misgiving; but no other course was possible, for the nation was with
the king.
The militant Faroese was a man with strong literary interests; he
was educated for the priesthood and it is believed that he had
actually taken orders. He was eloquent in speech, but he realized
the power of the written as well as of the spoken word. It is a fact
worth noting that among the Northmen of the thirteenth century
learning was not confined to the clergy. While the author of the
King’s Mirror urges the prospective merchant to learn Latin and
French, he also warns him not to neglect his mother tongue. King
Sverre replied to the ecclesiastical decrees with a manifesto in the
Norwegian language in which he stated his position and his claims
for the royal office. This pamphlet, which is commonly known as “An
Address against the Bishops,” was issued about 1199 and was sent
to all the shire courts to be read to the freemen. It was a cleverly
written document and seems to have been very effective. In spite of
the fact that the king was under the ban, the masses remained loyal.
Between the political theory of the Address and the ideas of
kingship expressed in the King’s Mirror there is an agreement which
can hardly be accidental. It is more likely that we have in this case
literary kinship of the first degree. It has been thought that King
Sverre may have prepared his manifesto himself, but this is scarcely
probable. Some one of his court, however, must have composed it,
perhaps some clerk in the royal scriptorium, for the ideas developed
in the document are clearly those of the king. It has also been
suggested that the Address and the Speculum Regale may have
been written by the same hand;[89] but the only evidence in support
of such a conclusion is this agreement of political ideas, which may
have originated in a careful study of the earlier document by the
author of the later work.
King Sverre’s Address begins with a violent attack on the higher
clergy: the bishops have brought sorrow upon the land and
confusion into holy church. This deplorable condition is ascribed
chiefly to a reckless use of the power of excommunication. In this
connection the king is careful to absolve the pope from all guilt: his
unfortunate deeds were due to ignorance and to false
representations on the part of the bishops. It is next argued that
excommunication is valid only when the sentence of anathema is
just; an unjust sentence is not only invalid but it recoils upon the
head of him who is the author of the anathema. In support of this
contention the author of the manifesto quotes the opinions of such
eminent fathers as Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Pope Gregory the
Great, and other authorities on canon law. It will be remembered
that the king himself was under the ban at the time. The author
argues further that his view is supported by reason as well as by the
law of the church. Bishops have been appointed shepherds of the
flocks of God; they are to watch over them, not drive them away
into the jaws of the wolves. But if a bishop excommunicates one
who is without guilt, he consigns him to hell; and if his decree is
effective, he destroys one of God’s sheep.
From this subject the Address passes to the nature of the royal
office. “So great a number of examples show clearly that the
salvation of a man’s soul is at stake if he does not observe complete
loyalty, kingly worship, and a right obedience; for kingly rule is
created by God’s command and not by the ordinance of man, and no
man can obtain royal authority except by divine dispensation.” The
king is not a secular ruler only, he also has holy church in his power
and keeping. It is his right and duty to appoint church officials, and
the churchmen owe him absolute loyalty the same as his other
subjects. Christ pointed out the duty of church officials quite clearly
when he paid tribute to his earthly ruler, one who was, moreover, a
heathen.[90]
It will be seen that the Address puts forth four claims of far-
reaching importance: kingship is of divine origin and the king rules
by the grace of God; the power of royalty extends to the church as
well as to the state and includes the power to appoint the rulers of
the church; disloyalty to the king is a mortal sin; an unjust sentence
of excommunication is invalid and injures him only who publishes
the anathema. On all these points the King’s Mirror is in complete
agreement with Sverre’s manifesto.
In the course of the dialog in the Speculum Regale the son
requests his father to take up and discuss the office and business of
the king; for, says he, “he is so highly honored and exalted upon
earth that all must bend and bow before him as before God.”[91] The
father accounts for the power and dignity of kingship in this way:
men bow before the king as before God, because he represents the
exalted authority of God; he bears God’s own name and occupies
the highest judgment seat upon earth; consequently, when one
honors a king, it is as if he honors God himself, because of the title
that he has from God.[92]
The author evidently realizes that statements of this sort will not
be accepted without further argument, and he naturally proceeds to
give his doctrine a basis in Biblical history. The reverence due
kingship is fully illustrated with episodes in the career of David. So
long as God permitted King Saul to live, David would do nothing to
deprive him of his office; for Saul was also the Lord’s anointed. He
took swift revenge upon the man who came to his camp pretending
that he had slain Saul; for he had sinned against God in bearing
arms against His anointed. He also calls attention to Saint Peter’s
injunction: “Fear God and honor your king;” and adds that it is
“almost as if he had literally said that he who does not show perfect
honor to the king does not fear God.”[93]
 To emphasize his contention that kingship is of divine origin, the
author cites the example of Christ. The miracle of the fish in whose
mouth the tribute money was found is referred to in the Address as
well as in the King’s Mirror. Peter was to examine the first fish, not
the second or the third. In the same way, and here the argument is
characteristically medieval, “every man should in all things first
honor the king and the royal dignity; for God Himself calls the king
His anointed.”[94]
But, objects the son, how could Christ who is himself the lord of
heaven and earth be willing to submit to an earthly authority? To
this the father replies that Christ came to earth as a guest and did
not wish to deprive the divine institution of kingship of any honor or
dignity.[95] The author evidently deems it important to establish this
contention; for if Christ submitted to Caesar as to a rightful
authority, the church in opposing secular rulers could scarcely claim
to be following in the footsteps of the Master.
It seems to be a safe conclusion that the doctrine of the divine
character of kingship as developed in the King’s Mirror is derived
from King Sverre’s Address, unless it should be that the two have
drawn from a common source. There is nothing novel about Sverre’s
ideas except the form in which they are stated; fundamentally they
are a return to the original Norwegian theory of kingship. The
Norwegian kings of heathen times were descendants of divine
ancestors. They recognized the will of the popular assemblies as a
real limitation on their own powers, but no religious authority could
claim superiority to the ruler. The king was indeed himself a priest, a
mediator between the gods and men. The Christian kings for a
century and a half had controlled the church in a very real manner;
they had appointed bishops and had also on occasion removed
them. The claim of the archbishop to overlordship was therefore
distinctly an innovation. The king makes use of arguments from the
Bible to support his theory, not because it was based on Scriptural
truths, but because to a Christian people these would prove the
most convincing.
In his statement of the fulness and majesty of the royal power, the
author of the Speculum Regale goes, however, far beyond the author
of the Address. So complete is the king’s power, “that he may
dispose as he likes of the lives of all who live in his kingdom.”[96] He
“owns the entire kingdom as well as all the people in it, so that all
the men who are in his kingdom owe him service whenever his
needs demand it.”[97] These sentences would indicate that the
author’s position lies close to the verge of absolutism. But Norwegian
kingship was anything but absolute; the king had certain well-
defined rights, but the people also had some part in the
government. Professor Ludvig Daae has put forth the hypothesis
that the author of the King’s Mirror was acquainted with the
governmental system of Frederick II in his Italian kingdom, which he
governed as an absolute monarch.[98] There may be some truth in
this for there is no doubt that the character of Frederick’s
government was known to the Northmen; but it is also possible that
the theory of absolute monarchy had a separate Norse origin, that
the insistence on divine right in the long fight with the church had
driven the partisans of monarchy far forward along the highway that
led to practical absolutism. Less than a generation after the King’s
Mirror was composed, the newer ideas of kingship appear in the
legislation of Magnus Lawmender. Kings have received their authority
from God, for “God Himself deigns to call Himself by their name;”
and the preamble continues: “he is, indeed, in great danger before
God, who does not with perfect love and reverence uphold them in
the authority to which God has appointed them.”[99] This is the
doctrine of the Address as well as of the Speculum; the significant
fact is that the principle has now been introduced into the
constitution of the monarchy. It is possible that the author of the
King’s Mirror states an alien principle; but it is more probable that he
merely gives form to a belief that had been growing among
Northmen for some time.
 On the question of the validity of excommunication the teachings
of the Speculum Regale are in perfect accord with those of the
Address. The uncompromising position and methods of Innocent III
had given point to an exceedingly practical question: was a Christian
permitted to obey a king who was under the ban of the church?
Generally the church held that obedience under the circumstances
would be sinful. The author of the Speculum distinguishes closely,
however, between just and unjust sentences of excommunication.
God has established two houses upon earth, the house of the altar
and the house of the judgment seat.[100] There is, therefore, a
legitimate sphere of action for the bishop as well as for the king. But
an act is not necessarily righteous because it emanates from high
authority either in the church or in the state. If the king pronounces
an unjust judgment, his act is murder; if a bishop excommunicates a
Christian without proper reasons, the ban is of no effect, except that
it reacts upon the offending prelate himself.[101]
After the author has thus denied the right of the church to use the
sword of excommunication in certain cases, there remains the
question: has the king any superior authority over the church? The
answer is that the king has such authority; and the author fortifies
his position by recalling the story how Solomon punished Abiathar
the high priest, or bishop as he is called in the King’s Mirror. In reply
to the young man’s inquiry whether Solomon did right when he
deprived Abiathar of the high-priestly office, the father affirms that
the king acted properly and according to law. The king is given a
two-edged sword for the reason that he must guard, not only his
own house of judgment, but also the house of the altar, which is
ordinarily in the bishop’s keeping. Abiathar had sinned in becoming a
party to the treasonable intrigues of Adonijah, who was plotting to
seize the throne of Israel while his father David was still living.
Inasmuch as the high priest had attempted to deprive the Lord’s
anointed of his royal rights, Solomon would have been guiltless even
if he had taken Abiathar’s life. The author also calls attention to the
fact that Abiathar was elevated to the high-priestly office by David
himself.[102]
On the question of the king’s right to control episcopal
appointments the King’s Mirror is also in agreement with the earlier
Address. On the death of Archbishop John, the Address tells us,
“Inge appointed Eystein, his own chaplain, to the archiepiscopal
office[103] ... without consulting any cleric in Trondhjem, either the
canons or any one else; and he drove Bishop Paul from the episcopal
throne in Bergen and chose Nicholas Petersson to be his successor.”
Doubtless the philosopher of the King’s Mirror, when he wrote of the
fall of Abiathar, was also thinking of the many Abiathars of
Norwegian history in the twelfth century, especially, perhaps, of the
bishops of Sverre’s reign, who had striven so valiantly to rid the
nation of its energetic king. There can be no doubt, however, that he
regarded the hierarchy as inferior to the secular government. A
bishop, who unrighteously excommunicates a Norwegian king and
attempts in this way to render him impossible as a ruler, forfeits not
only his office but his life.
There was another problem in the middle ages which also involved
the question of ecclesiastical authority as opposed to secular
jurisdiction, the right of sanctuary. There can be no doubt that in the
unsettled state of medieval society it was well that there were places
where an accused might find security for a time at least; but the
right of sanctuary was much abused, too frequently it served to
shield the guilty. The King’s Mirror teaches unequivocally that the
right of sanctuary cannot be invoked against the orders of the king.
As usual the author finds support for his position in the Scriptures.
Joab fled to God’s tabernacle and laid hold on the horns of the altar;
nevertheless, King Solomon ordered him to be slain, and the
command was carried out.[104] Solomon appears to have reasoned in
this wise: “It is my duty to carry out the provisions of the sacred law,
no matter where the man happens to be whose case is to be
determined.” It was not his duty to remove Joab by force, for all just
decisions are God’s decisions and not the king’s; and “God’s holy
altar will not be defiled or desecrated by Joab’s blood, for it will be
shed in righteous punishment.”[105] 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 to sacredness than the churches of the
author’s own day, of which there was a vast number.[106]
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 ambition, 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 surprised 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
belonging to the monastery of Elgesæter, but was discovered 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.[107] 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.
Writers on political philosophy usually begin their specific
discussion of the theory of divine right of kingship when they come
to the great political theorists of the fourteenth century.[108] The
most famous of these is Marsiglio of Padua, who wrote his Defensor
Pacis in 1324. In this work he asserted that the emperor derived his
title and sovereignty from God and that his authority was superior to
that of the pope. Some years earlier William Occam, an English
scholar and philosopher, made similar claims for the rights of the
king of France. Earlier still, perhaps in 1310, Dante had claimed
divine right for princes generally in his famous work De Monarchia.
Somewhat similar, though less precise, ideas had been expressed by
John of Paris in 1305. But nearly two generations earlier the doctrine
had been stated in all its baldness and with all its implications by the
author of the King’s Mirror; and more than a century before Dante
wrote his work on “Monarchy” Sverre had published his Address to
the Norwegian people. So far as the writer has been able to
determine there is no treatise on general medieval politics, at least
no such treatise written in English, which contains even an allusion
to these two significant works.
The ethical ideas that are outlined in the Speculum Regale are also
of more than common interest. On most points the learned father
preaches the conventional principles of the church with respect to
right and wrong conduct, and as a rule his precepts are such as
have stood the test of ages of experience. He emphasizes honesty,
fair dealing, careful attendance upon worship, and devotion to the
church; he warns his son to shun vice of every sort; he must also
avoid gambling and drinking to excess.[109] In some respects the
author’s moral code is Scandinavian rather than Christian: in the
emphasis that he places upon reputation and the regard in which
one is held by one’s neighbors he seems to echo the sentiment that
runs through the earlier Eddic poetry, especially the “Song of the
High One.” “One thing I know that always remains,” says Woden,
“judgment passed on the dead.”[110] And the Christian scribe more
than three centuries later writes thus of one who has departed this
life: “But if he lived uprightly while on earth and made proper
provision for his soul before he died, then you may take comfort in
the good repute that lives after him, and even more in the blissful
happiness which you believe he will enjoy with God in the other
world.”[111] And again he says: “Now you will appreciate what I told
you earlier in our conversation, namely that much depends on the
example that a man leaves after him.”[112]
 The author is also Norse in his emphasis on moderation in every
form of indulgence, on the control of one’s passion, and in
permitting private revenge. His attitude toward this present world is
not medieval: we may enjoy the good things of creation, though not
to excess. On the matter of revenge, however, his ideas are
characteristically medieval. Private warfare was allowed almost
everywhere in the middle ages, and it appears to have a place in the
political system of the Speculum Regale. But on this point too the
author urges moderation. “When you hear things in the speech of
other men which offend you much, be sure to investigate with
reasonable care whether the tales be true or false; but if they prove
to be true and it is proper for you to seek revenge, take it with
reason and moderation and never when heated or irritated.”[113]
The theology of the King’s Mirror, as far as it can be discerned, is
also medieval, though it is remarkable that the Virgin and the saints
find only incidental mention in the work. No doubt if the author had
been able to complete his treatise as outlined in his introduction, he
would have discussed the forms and institutions of the church at
greater length and we should be able to know to what extent his
theological notions were in agreement with the religious thought of
the age.
In this connection his theory of penance and punishment for crime
is of peculiar interest. He makes considerable use of Biblical
narratives to illustrate his teachings and refers at length to some of
the less worthy characters of Holy Writ, including certain men who
suffered death for criminal offenses. Almost invariably he justifies
the punishment by arguing that it was better for the criminal to
suffer a swift punishment in death than to suffer eternally in hell.
Apparently his theory is that a criminal can cleanse himself in his
own blood, that a temporal death can save him from eternal
punishment. The idolaters who were slain by Moses and the
Levites[114] “were cleansed in their penance and in the pangs which
they suffered when they died; and it was much better for them to