and courts, establishing new churches, and converting
cash rents into payments in kind.
Suger also learned from the monastery’s history that
it had been a frequent benefi ciary of royal munifi cence.
Lands, money, and precious objects had been given to
Saint-Denis by kings of France from Dagobert on. He
knew, too, that it was in times of peace and harmony
that Saint-Denis had prospered most. An opportunity
to recreate that special harmony between king and ab-
bot arose from the fact that Louis VI, once a pupil at
the abbey, had a particular devotion to the martyrs and
confi dence in Suger. Although Suger was to become
regent while Louis VII was on crusade, and it was
then that he acted as a royal “minister” of the king, it
was really during the reign of Louis VI (d. 1137) that
troublesome enemies of both king and abbey, like the
lords of Le Puiset, were brought to heel. The ancient
relationship between regnum and monasterium was not
only enhanced but refashioned when Louis VI returned
the crown of his father, Philip I, to Saint-Denis; took
the royal standard from the abbey’s altar as he left for
war in 1124, declaring that if he were not king he would
do homage to the abbey; granted the fair of the Lendit
what amounted to an immunity from royal justice; and
declared that the kings of France should be buried at
Saint-Denis.
The more rigorous administration of the monastic
lands and the creation of symbols that emphasized Saint-
Denis’s special importance for the French were anteced-
ent to Suger’s intention to tear down the old church and
replace it with a larger one with more splendid hangings,
stained glass, altars, crosses, and other objects. Though
this must have long been planned for, Suger tells in his
De consecratione ecclesie sancti Dionisii that once
construction started the work proceeded quickly, the
western narthex and towers being consecrated in 1140,
and the translation of the saints to their new reliquaries
and the construction of the eastern end with the new
ambulatory and stained-glass windows completed in
- If stylistically the chevet anticipates many features
of the Gothic churches of the Île-de-France, the church
also incorporates many of Suger’s major concerns: the
preservation of the past, a harmonious adaptation of the
old to the new, an emphasis on the liturgy, and most of
all the exaltation of the saints.
Suger was inventive and eclectic. He reshaped and
adorned objects that had been in the church; if he was
not given the precious stones he needed, he bought them.
So, too, he found the sources for his conception of the
church in writings as diverse as saints’ lives, liturgical
texts, biblical commentaries, chronicles, and the writ-
ings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, as well as in
buildings he had seen.
Suger was a small man and an assertive one, and on
behalf of his church he considered any means legitimate.
In his last years, as regent, he had had to spend much
of his time away from Saint-Denis, and money that had
been intended for the rebuilding of the nave he used for
the king’s needs. He died at Saint-Denis in 1151.Further Reading
Suger. Vie de Louis VI le Gros (Vita Ludovici VI), ed. and trans.
Henri Waquet. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1929.
——. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis and
Its Art Treasures, ed. and trans. Erwin Panofsky. 2nd ed.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. [Liber de rebus
in administratione sua gestis, chs. xxiv–xxxiv; Libellus de
consecratione Sancti Dionysii; Ordinatio.]
Bur, Michel. Suger, abbé de Saint-Denis, régent de France. Paris:
Perrin, 1991.
Cartellieri, Otto. Abt Sugervon Saint-Denis, 1081–1151. Berlin:
Ebering, 1898.
Gerson, Paula L., ed. Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis: A Symposium.
New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986.
Thomas G. WaldmanSUNESEN, ANDERS (ca. 1160–1228)
Anders Sunesen was archbishop of Lund from 1201/2
to 1223/4. His father, Sune Ebbesen, was a cousin of
Archbishop Absalon and one of the wealthiest men
in Denmark. In the 1180s, Anders studied abroad. He
probably received his main training in Paris (arts and
theology), but also visited Italy (for law studies in Bo-
logna?), and England (for an unknown purpose). After
becoming a master of arts perhaps by 1186, and of
theology some years later, he spent some time teaching,
probably theology in Paris, before becoming chancellor
to King Knud VI (r. 1182–1202). His fi rst-known job
as chancellor was on an embassy in 1195 that tried to
reconcile Philippe Auguste of France with his Danish
queen, Ingeborg. In 1201/2, Anders succeeded Absalon
as archbishop of Lund and left the chancellery to his
brother Peter, bishop of Roskilde, Denmark. In 1204,
Anders was named papal legate to Denmark and Swe-
den. During the years 1206–1222, he cooperated with
King Valdemar II (r. 1202–1241) in the subjugation
and christianization of pagan populations in the Baltic
area, in particular Estonia. Though initially reluctant,
he seems in the end to have obeyed a papal summons to
attend the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome in 1215. In
1222, he petitioned the pope to be relieved of his duties
as archbishop due to “an incurable bodily infi rmity.” His
successor, Peder Saksesen, was consecrated in 1224.
Anders died in 1228, leaving various possessions to
Lund chapter, including a collection of books.
As archbishop, Anders was an able administrator and
politician on good terms with both pope and king. A
later legend, modeled on the story of Moses in Exodus
17, credits him with prayer that secured Danish victory
in the decisive battle against the Estonians at LyndanisSUGER