Introduction: Botanizing in the parishes
In the spring of 1770, Bishop Johan Ernst Gunnerus of Trondhjem diocese in the state of Denmark-Norway planned a visitation journey to the northern-most parts of Norway. A visitation journey was a highly ritualized church administrative tour, regulated by law and the chief means of governing and controlling the religious state of affairs in the kingdom. Moving from parish to parish, the bishop would interrogate, supervise, and admonish deans, clergymen, schoolteachers, and parish clerks. On tour the bishop represented the highest authority of state and church in this absolutist Protestant monarchy. As one of only four bishops in Norway, Gunnerus supervised an enormous diocese, stretching up to the Russian border, and it would take the bishop four to six months to travel back and forth to the most distant parishes in need of guidance and supervision (see Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910; Hagland Reference Hagland2002; Ramberghaug Reference Ramberghaug2006).
That summer the bishop invited two professors of natural history in Copenhagen to accompany him. In his letter to the newly appointed professor of economy and natural history at the University of Copenhagen, Johan Christian Fabricius, Gunnerus described how most of the trip would be conducted by sea, where the bishop's boat would offer comfortable boarding, and “under these conditions the journey would surely prove agreeable, and the expenses would not be considerable, as in my company you will have free food and drink in the vicarages” (Gunnerus to Fabricius, 6 March 1770, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). The professorship in natural history was a poorly paid post, hence Gunnerus emphasized that the expedition would cost Fabricius nothing.
The letter described in detail the route they were to follow. When the party went ashore, they would be offered “handsome situations” and “attractive fields,” Gunnerus assured him, and “by all such occasions Your Honourable will have time to observe and collect a large amount of natural objects and to make important discoveries in natural history and other things, which could deserve Your attention” (ibid.). Along the route natural objects of all kinds abounded, and this was the bait Gunnerus could lay out for the poorly paid professor of natural history in Copenhagen. But he would have an additional piece of bait. He was at this time one of the most renowned scholars of natural history in the kingdom, and his visitation journeys to the north were reputed to be expeditions of discovery. His correspondents would enquire and congratulate him on the “treasures from his northbound journey” (Klevenfeldt to Gunnerus, 15 October 1762, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910) or recount how they had heard rumors in Copenhagen about “beautiful collections of rarities from the northern countries” (Müller to Gunnerus, 20 October 1762, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). Gunnerus also mustered his own assistants. As he particularly urged professor Fabricius to bring his own draftsman, he made it clear that he was himself traveling as a naturalist, emphasizing that the draftsman he brought along “will overcome to draw only half of what is collected for me on a voyage like this, and which need immediate drawing” (Gunnerus to Fabricius, 6 March 1770, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910).
When he received his calling as a bishop in Trondheim in 1758, Johan Ernst Gunnerus had very limited knowledge of natural history. Now, twelve years later, he could invite able professors to take part in journeys that were esteemed to be important contributions to the field of knowledge. He had written the first Norwegian flora and close to thirty papers on natural historical topics; he had set up a scientific society, and corresponded with learned men and reputed naturalists in northern Europe (for the history of the Society and Gunnerus’ role within it, see Andersen et al. Reference Andersen, Brenna, Njaastad and Wale2009). Since his arrival in Norway, the bishop had been transformed from a learned metaphysical university lecturer into a renowned naturalist. But the letters quoted above also show how Gunnerus’ rise to fame as a naturalist depended on the church organization he controlled. He used the free board and travel that were his due as a bishop to undertake naturalist work. Moreover, as I will show, his naturalist practice depended upon work performed by clergymen, commoners, and state officials. The organization or network that he built has been accurately labeled a church-scientific organization (Hagland Reference Hagland2002), an organized scientific endeavor that was carried out through and by way of the church.
A modern divide between expert and lay knowledge did not yet exist. Naturalists, “experts,” had often not received formal training in the subject they excelled in; they mostly earned their money from other sources or occupations, and would rarely define themselves socially in relation to the science they followed (Clark Reference Clark and Porter2003; Shapin Reference Shapin and Porter2003). Hence the demarcation line in relation to the non-expert, “the lay person,” was blurry, without in any way implying that there were particularly unclear criteria for evaluating knowledge. What I want to emphasize is that a “lay-expert divide” was articulated in relation to social and intellectual criteria that would develop later on, and it was transformed when new social practices were introduced. In the case to be presented here, we will deal with persons who had none or little previous knowledge of natural history. Through their mutual engagement some became highly esteemed practitioners, others contributed but were not identified as naturalists. To complicate the issue, clergymen made up the most substantial part of the group we are dealing with, and they were all considered as learned in contrast to the laity, the lay persons. Their standing as learned persons was, however, important in their local community, but only occasionally in relation to the centers of natural history inquiry.
Trade and trading companies, colonial administrative bodies, and mission organizations have been shown to have been decisive in enabling natural history projects in early modern Europe (see esp. Cook Reference Cook2007; MacLeod Reference MacLeod2000; Schiebinger Reference Schiebinger2004; and Schiebinger and Swan Reference Schiebinger and Swan2005). In the case of the Protestant Scandinavian states, the state-church seems to have played a far greater role. Particularly in the case of Norway, which had few other institutions, it can be seen in this period as the single most important institution for promoting natural history. In Sweden it has been noted that the clergymen played an important role in establishing Swedish hegemony in the North, where Russians, Danes and Swedes competed for control. The encounters between clergymen and the laity there have been termed “micro-rituals of official presence” by Sverker Sörlin. He uses this concept originating with Stephen Greenblatt to describe the encounters between clergymen and the local inhabitants, where the most prominent aspect of official presence was the church and the clergy (see Sörlin Reference Sörlin, Bravo and Sörlin2002, esp. 83–85). These micro-rituals of official presence did share many traits with contemporary activities in European overseas colonies. However, in Norway, even more than in Sweden, the organization of science depended on the Church and on the micro-rituals performed by clergymen (many of whom were Danes) and the local population (who were mostly of Norwegian, but also of Sami and Finnish descent).
Earlier treatments of bishop Gunnerus’ scientific activities have tended either to look at the “pure” scientific content of his work, portraying him as the first Norwegian scientist and hailing his Linnaean connection, or to approach his activities as part of a strictly national (i.e. Norwegian) culture. Early modern natural philosophy and natural history in Norway have not been extensively researched, and Gunnerus is in fact the one who has received most attention. But predominantly this has been in the form of anthologies where specialists in the different “disciplines” he pursued have dwelled on his contributions to the specific fields of knowledge ([Gunnerus] Reference Gunnerus1918; Nielsen and Supphellen Reference Nielsen and Supphellen2005). This article will attempt to locate and situate the naturalist practices that were developed by Gunnerus within both a broader culture of natural history in the eighteenth century, and with a view to the specificities that concern the particular organizational form this took in the northern part of Denmark-Norway. If we use an approach inspired by recent colonial histories of science and works focusing on the specificities of German and Scandinavian early modern natural history, Norwegian natural history in the second half of the eighteenth century can both be understood as less peripheral and more specific than earlier approaches have allowed. This takes the heterogeneous organization of early modern science as a starting point, and does not assume that there was one standard model of “science.” Lastly this approach resists a simple core-periphery dichotomy.Footnote 1 On the one hand, the approaches to natural history that were developed around the scientific society in Trondheim (established 1760) were internationally oriented and part of broader international currents of scientific practice.Footnote 2 On the other hand, the specific social system with clergymen as the largest group of learned people, the predominance of free peasants, the special situation as a semi-colony of the Danish crown, and the topographical traits of the country which made travel and correspondence slow and difficult, are only four of the factors that make Norwegian eighteenth-century natural history a local and unique phenomena.
First I want to establish that the state and contemporary state practices were the central conditions for Gunnerus’ exploitation and education of his subject clergymen and other parishioners as scientific observers. I will proceed by focusing on the ways he interested the subjects; how he made the subjects work for him; how he approached them, and what were their reactions. Next, I will examine what sort of knowledge was provided by these collaborators, before I turn to the question of how nature was transformed into a specific kind of object through this network.
Sciences of nature in absolutist Denmark-Norway
The king in Copenhagen governed a large territory in the eighteenth century: small colonies in India, islands in West India, trading posts in Africa, and closer to home, Greenland, Island, the Faeroe Islands, and Norway. These territories were governed by different means. Norway was a kingdom ruled by the Danish king, and the two states were variously called the twin kingdoms or the “whole state,” which implied that Norway was an integrated part of the state. Norway's economy was based on export of raw materials, but increasingly during the eighteenth century the crown in Denmark enforced a common economic policy, thus strengthening Norway's position as a province of Denmark. Copenhagen was the undisputed cultural, political, and economic center of the state, and from the time the king was granted absolute power in 1660 on through the eighteenth century, centralization became ever more pronounced (Rian Reference Rian2003).
During the rule of Christian VI (1730–1746) the administration in Copenhagen strengthened its control over the inhabitants, and here the Church organization was pivotal. With the bishops as mediators, clergymen were increasingly expected to report back to a newly established General Church Inspection Office regarding births and deaths (Horstbøl Reference Horstbøl2004). A new catechism was made for obligatory use, confirmation was instituted as a necessary requisite to being considered a subject (1736), and compulsory schooling was introduced (1739). These were all measures that enforced discipline, produced homogeneity and better control, though this is not the place to discuss how well it actually functioned.
Parallel to this increased interest in the population there were numerous attempts to get to know the territory better. It is common to claim that the starting point was “The 43 questions” issued by the King's administration in Copenhagen and presented to all diocesan governors, bishops, and county governors in 1743.Footnote 3 These 43 questions were far more exhaustive than previous questionnaires had been, asking about the position and situation of a place, about forests, fields, islands, soils, types and amounts of different animals, as well as questions about illness and the health of inhabitants, the number of castles and churches, of antiquities, strange words in the language, and the most common names of the men and women. Through this questionnaire a relationship was built between the central government and the clergymen, making them important agents for observing, collecting, and describing the territory of the kingdom.
There was no university in Norway, and precious few other learned institutions. Small academies for mining engineers, military officers, teachers, and Sami missionaries had been set up during the 1750s in the towns of Christiania, Kongsberg, Bergen, and Trondheim, but they were small and they did not offer education at the university level. There were, moreover, five Cathedral (Latin) schools in Norway that prepared Norwegian students for university training in Copenhagen. Although important, these institutions had too few teachers to become important centers. Neither were there physicians who could act as a collective in the pursuit of natural history. Norway had approximately 700,000 inhabitants, 480 clergymen, and about ten physicians (for clergymen, Mansåker Reference Mansåker1954, 21; for physicians, Utheim Reference Utheim1901, 4). Clerics working as naturalists, collecting and recording local floras, mineralogies, and natural histories, were far from uncommon in early modern Europe (see for example Sörlin Reference Sörlin, Bravo and Sörlin2002; Cooper Reference Cooper2007; Outram Reference Outram1995, Shapin Reference Shapin and Porter2003). The special aspect of the Norwegian case was that the clerics were almost alone in pursuing natural philosophy and natural history, what was commonly termed “natural knowledge” in the sources from the period.
In the first part of the eighteenth century, natural knowledge was at low ebb in Denmark-Norway, according to both contemporaries and later historians. The turning point is said to have occurred around the middle of the century (Kragh Reference Kragh2005; Dahl Reference Dahl1888–90, 136). The king's interest in promoting natural philosophy, mathematics, natural history, and economic sciences grew as he and his ministers increasingly came to see them as useful. The king's support for the sciences (in the sense of the Danish Videnskaber, which equals the German Wissenschaften) was not new, but the extent and consequences of King Fredrik V's interest were unprecedented (Feldbæk Reference Feldbæk, Bohnen and Øhrgaard1994, 3). His policy was directed at Europe – or more specifically at emulating the intellectual life in the large European capitals. Within the fine arts, literature, and history, measures were taken to promote excellence and Europeanize the Copenhagen scene. He aimed not only to lift Danish science and culture to a high European level: his ambition was to give specific Danish contributions to the enlightened cultures of Europe. As kings and ministers in other European kingdoms collected, experimented, and promoted science within their countries, the Danish king and his ministry also wanted to improve the scientific reputation of the country (Feldbæk Reference Feldbæk, Bohnen and Øhrgaard1994).
Various new measures were carried out to achieve these goals: most important were calling in new professors from the continent, establishing a botanical garden and a natural cabinet with professorships, installing a pro-chancellor at the university in an attempt to reform it, initiating work on a Danish flora, organizing and financing a large scale international scientific expedition to Arabia felix (Yemen), and supporting publications on economy and natural history (see Kragh Reference Kragh2005; Sörlin Reference Sörlin and MacLeod2001; Wagner Reference Wagner1992).
The making of the naturalist-clergyman
But how could these initiatives for improving the sciences of nature and applying them for the welfare of the nation be transported out of the capital? How could enlightenment (Oplysning) and the sciences (Videnskaber) be transmitted throughout the vast Danish-Norwegian kingdom, reaching from North Cape, by way of Greenland and Iceland, to the Elbe? One method of transmission was to designate the clergymen as the spearheads of science. The University of Copenhagen was basically a clergyman's institution: In the period from 1732 to 1788 about 67 percent of the students left the university with a degree in theology, about 30 percent were educated in law, and the remaining three percent were divided between philology and medicine (Kragh Reference Kragh2005, 45).
With a keen eye on developments in Sweden, and especially informed by the rhetoric of Linnaeus, many voices pointed out how great advantage could be gained by giving theological students a broader scientific education. Former bishop of Bergen and pro-chancellor of the university, Erich Pontoppidan, echoed the words of Linneaus when he insisted on the need to include what he termed natural knowledge in clerical education. He was a learned man of considerable power, not only as the chief ideologue of the particular kind of state-pietism in the kingdom, but also as a historian, antiquarian, and church annalist. In Norway he had devoted himself to natural history, and in 1752 he wrote the first natural history of the kingdom, Natural History of Norway, which soon appeared in German and English translations; he mentioned here the usefulness of natural knowledge (in the following quotations I use the English 1755 translation): “If physical knowledge be not, like godliness, profitable to all things, yet it is so to many, and in a certain degree to most things” (Pontoppidan Reference Pontoppidan1755, v; emphasis in the original).Footnote 4 Such knowledge was useful for the practice of law, he claimed. It was obviously useful for medicine, according to Pontoppidan. But first and foremost the sciences (Videnskaber) were useful for those who would educate others on the road to salvation. A theological candidate ought to study physics as well as metaphysics and logic, but “these last not being so indispensably necessary and useful as the former,” argued Pontoppidan. He contended that for clergymen who were called to attend a country parish, natural knowledge will
not only furnish them with many clear arguments, and edifying reflexions to themselves and their hearers, but it will besides prove a liberal amusement in their solitude; it will enable them, by much greater opportunities than the learned enjoy in towns, to make useful discoveries or improvements, from the products of nature, to the lasting benefit of their country, which it is their duty to promote. (Ibid.)
In Norway, skills in metallurgy would be of greatest importance in order to know “the species of ores and minerals, to make little experiments by fusion, and thus to form a judgment of the intrinsic value of a mine, and how far it will answer the expence of opening” (ibid., vii-viii).
This tripartite motivation for studying nature embraced natural knowledge as a pleasurable pastime that would keep clergymen away from idleness and furnish them with work to perform as good Protestants. It would also furnish them with intellectual stimulation as they moved out to the barren peripheries. But not least, it would make them useful servants of the state, helping to harness the treasures of the countryside. The bottom line was that knowledge of nature was useful, and even more useful in the provinces than in the capital; this marked clergymen as prime targets for reform.
There were ambitions to get more theological students to study physics and mathematics (Kragh Reference Kragh2005, 47), and there were also suggestions that clergymen who could document natural history should be given preference for new positions. Even if these initiatives did not have any immediate effect, they were well-known and would provide strong motivation for ambitious clergymen with an interest in the study of nature.
The dark North which needed to be civilized and polished by means of the educated elites in Copenhagen was printed on one side of the coin of Denmark-Norway's peripheries. The other side of the coin depicted the vast natural resources for prospecting and providing wealth for the state. The picture of a resourceful North was painted even more vividly around the middle of the eighteenth century, spurred by the obvious importance of natural resources in the economic expansion of colonial states, by the new importance attributed to agricultural improvement especially in England, and by the doctrine of cameralism which gave an unprecedented role to managing internal territorial resources as the basis of good government. Whether the impetus came from the Swedish preoccupation with cameralist ideas and Linnaean ideology, or more directly from the newly established disciplines in German states, cameralism was utilized as an economic ideology that underpinned charting national territories for new natural resources and implementing improvement schemes in agriculture (for cameralism and the Linnean tradition, see Koerner Reference Koerner1999; Müller-Wille Reference Müller-Wille, Schiebinger and Swan2005; for Denmark-Norway, see Markussen Reference Markussen1995; Bisgaard Reference Bisgaard1902; Glamann Reference Glamann1983, Kragh Reference Kragh2005).
Natural resources had become the principal source for keeping the populace happy and the nation rich. This is important background for understanding how a bishop who had made his most valuable contribution to learned life within metaphysics happened to convert to natural history after a year in Norway. “He arrived in our Trondheim, . . . almost totally foreign to the delights of nature,” wrote the historian Gerhard Schøning in his eulogy of bishop Gunnerus (Schøning Reference Schøning and Wille1805).
A pastoral letter of scientific advancement
The bishop's duties were extensive: he had to supervise deans, ministers, and parish clerks, churches, schools, and poor-houses. Bishops were religious leaders in a monopoly system in which only one religion was accepted and deviants were punished. They were first and foremost loyal civil servants to the king, and they controlled, administered, and judged according to the king's will. The king's decrees were presented to subjects as proclamations and propaganda; while at the same time information traveled back to the king in the form of careful visitation reports and tabulations of the living and the dead. The bishop would report to the central administration on numerous matters, including the knowledge of the Bible to be found in the parishes, the voices of the clergymen, their ability to ignite their subjects, and the moral and religious standards of the clergy and the population as a whole (Supphellen Reference Supphellen1989; Horstbøl Reference Horstbøl2004).Footnote 5
The newly appointed bishop of Trondheim was a learned man. He was born in Christiania in 1718, in a family impoverished after the death of the father, the town physician. Gunnerus was helped by patrons to obtain a degree at the Latin school, and later to pursue studies in theology in Copenhagen. From Copenhagen, Gunnerus went to Halle on a scholarship and later moved to Jena where he obtained degrees and became a university lecturer and author of books on theology, philosophy, and natural law. When he was summoned back to Copenhagen in 1754, he was given an extraordinary professor's chair in theology at the university before being appointed bishop in Trondheim in 1758. In Jena and Copenhagen, Gunnerus had studied and lectured on a wide variety of topics, deeply inspired by German metaphysics in general and the philosophy of Christian Wolff in particular. Gunnerus studied in Halle after Wolff's return to the university, and his enlightened practices can be seen as a product of German Aufklärung, informed by the reconciliation of Pietism and Wolffianism (Clarke Reference Clark, Clarke, Golinski and Schaffer1999). His knowledge was broad, but there are no signs that he had any interest in natural history before arriving in Trondheim.
Soon after his appointment as bishop, he issued a pastoral letter expressing his theological philosophy and practice. But his emphasis was elsewhere: he made it clear that he expected clergymen to cultivate knowledge on a broad range, from oratory and mathematics to metaphysics. “We are called learned, well and high learned,” he explained. “Therefore, it would be a great shame for us, my brothers, if we did not aim at well-founded knowledge” (Gunnerus [1758] Reference Gunnerus1997, 20). Gunnerus encouraged clergymen to produce learned writings, first by showing all that had been previously accomplished in this supposedly unlearned country in the form of an intellectual bibliography of Norway listing all written works and writers of merit, and making this the most extensive part of the pastoral letter. These were examples to be followed. A compilation of what had already been achieved could encourage the ministers to see themselves as the learned men they were, according to Gunnerus. His insistence on his subject-ministers being highly learned could be seen just as much as rhetorical encouragement as a statement of what he considered to be fact, as most clergymen would have had only a rudimentary university education, often spending only months at the university and earning their living through house teaching or other temporary jobs (see Hodacs and Nyberg Reference Hodacs and Nyberg2007 for the importance of house teaching). But he continued by urging his clergymen to serve the Church and the Fatherland with their learned writings. He also expressed his ambition to establish a learned society, where the clergymen could present their texts in “Oratory, poetry, natural and other history, physics, the intent and divine hallmarks of natural things, economy, Psychologia Empirica and other subjects that . . . can be treated in a beautiful and pleasurable way, and do not exceed the horizon of the reasonable but untutored” (Gunnerus [1758] Reference Gunnerus1997, 31).
A pastoral letter urging clergymen to pursue scientific studies, and especially in the form of secular sciences, was totally unprecedented. Such letters would normally contain theological explorations and statements. Gunnerus’ ambitions were clearly transformative, and he put great stress on the importance of publicly conveying learning. Gunnerus urged the learned to present their texts in a form that could be comprehended also by the uneducated. It would please me, he wrote, if those of you who were capable would present your insights, and so “serve the Public in one way or another” (ibid., 21). To present one's thoughts in writing would always be beneficial. As Gunnerus puts it, “it is seldom that one thinks through a case as careful and accurate, and reaches as deep within it, as when one delivers one's thoughts in writing, most especially when one aims to convey them in public” (ibid., 30). Writing was the essential technology of the learned for Gunnerus. He insisted that all sermons ought to be written, word for word, and read according to the written text. This was the only way to follow the best rules of oratory. The implication was that oral culture was to be replaced by a culture of writing. The clergymen needed to pursue writing to be learned, and the public they should serve was not the congregation, or not only the congregation, but a wider imagined community. The clergymen were called upon to create a public sphere.
Another main theme was that the clergymen were to set an example for their congregations, not only in their practice of Christianity, but even more so as practical working men. They were to teach them both by giving advice and through example how to understand their houses and improve their circumstances, insisted the bishop, and “haul the peasant under his arms and show him . . . how he can take better advantage of his land and his other assets” (ibid., 40). Thus the clergymen's efforts should be directed both toward making them writing partners with a wider community of learning in which they would take part, and moving them towards practical farming, making them living examples of the rational tenure of the earth. The farmer, Gunnerus later came to emphasize, was a subject with great potential. In Norway farmers were endowed with more wit, wisdom, capability, and ingenuity than in other parts of the world, according to the bishop. They possessed patriotic sentiments, eagerness, audacity, and ardor. What they lacked was encouragement, counseling, and instruction (Gunnerus Reference Gunnerus1768a, 21).
The third theme of the pastoral letter was the establishment of a learned society. Gunnerus invited the clergymen to take part in this endeavor by composing writings, or pieces as they were referred to, based on the examples of previous writers. Two years later, a scientific society was established by Gunnerus and the historians Gerhard Schøning and Peter Friedrich Suhm, Det Tronhjemske Selskab, from 1767 Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab (The Royal Norwegian Scientific Society). This society was conceived as a broad learned society – including not only the arts in the form of history and philology, but also theology. However, natural history came to play an important role in the society's meetings as well as in the journal the society issued under the name of Det Tronhjemske Selskabs Skrifter (Writings of the Society of Trondheim, hereafter Skrifter).
Traveling objects
Deans and ministers answered the call of the pastoral letter; one might ask, how could they not? A number of manuscripts arrived with promises and plans for literary activities. Given both the pastoral letter and the learned background of the bishop, this was not surprising. But in a few months, the arts and historical narratives were far outnumbered by natural objects and observations. The big shift was the visitation journey which Gunnerus undertook to Vardø and Vadsø during the summer of 1759. After the first journey, which lasted from May to September, the clergymen began to deliver.
“Following orders, I send 12 stuffed birds packed in a half-barrel, small sticks are tied to their necks with numbers written on,” wrote sogneprest (clergyman) Buschmann from Nesna (Buschmann to Gunnerus, 31 August 1759, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). He expressed doubts as to whether he could find a vessel that would carry the living eagle he wanted the bishop to have. The sogneprest Ross in Orkdalen humbly asked the bishop to receive a couple of living hares (Ross to Gunnerus, 10 October 1759, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). The personlig kapellan (personal chaplain) at Inderøy, Høyer, had made an appointment with the Sami people to bring Gunnerus a living reindeer. “I ask you humbly to receive this small and meager present which I hope will not be disagreeable to you” (Høyer to Gunnerus, 25 October 1759, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). The variety and volumes of the gifts are amazing, and so are the clergymen's struggles to fulfill the bishop's wishes. “Of Naturalibus I have not yet been fortunate enough to overcome anything, but, if God were to preserve my life and health until spring, I have fair hope of some achievement,” wrote sogneprest Molde (Molde to Dahl, 31 July 1759, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). “It shall be my devotional duty and proof of my loyalty to do my utmost to find and retrieve to give my merciful Master some elevated pleasure,” replied residerende pastor (residing pastor) Bruun from Øksnes (Bruun to Gunnerus, 6 August 1759, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). “Your least command, then, should be enough to make me most active in procuring anything that I may be able to achieve. There is nothing that I would strive for with more Empressement, than your satisfaction,” the missionary Eric Schytte from Lyngen wrote (Schytte to Gunnerus, 15 August 1759, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). Hundreds of letters and as many objects arrived at the bishop's home, and the tone of these letters was exceedingly submissive and written in a rhetoric fitting subordinates writing to their bishop.
The traveling objects and animals can be seen as means of achieving personal favor with the bishop – and ultimately the king. And it was indeed reasonable to seek to enjoy the bishop's favors: Many priests were isolated in extremely poor parishes, where promotion was the only path to a better income. “I offer myself to be enveloped in Your memoirs of promotion,” wrote the personal chaplain to Tromsø, Fredrik A. Bødtker, in the last paragraph of a letter where he described a runebomme, a Sami ritual drum he tried to get hold of for the bishop (Bødtker to Gunnerus, 11 September 1759, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). This was a normal phrase, but Bødtker was making more of his case than many others, “Pious Father! Do something for the sake of my minor children!” (ibid). And Gunnerus never made it a secret that advancing science, especially by procuring objects for him or undertaking natural historical observations, would be a good career move: “I greatly thank you for the two very beautiful pieces,” he wrote to missionary Birch in Snåsa, “and it will be my pleasure if I can return the favor, even in relation to Your promotion” (Gunnerus to Birch, 30 March 1763, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). In short: Interest and participation in natural historical investigation would be beneficial for securing a better position. It was not among Gunnerus’ prerogatives to hire clergymen, but his recommendations were important. This is also obvious in the many letters from grateful clergymen who had obtained better positions.
Personal earthly ambitions were not the only reason why ministers would strain themselves to provide for the bishop's interest in natural history. The positive value of natural history in serving God was repeatedly stressed in the bishop's scientific works. He insisted that the study of nature was an important way to honor God: “Natural knowledge as well as natural history serves splendidly in convincing us that there is a God, and to introduce to us his eternal perfection in its complete Glory (Gunnerus 1758, 7).” These were common natural theological reflections in Gunnerus’ times, but his claims had more to them than both a physico-theological defense of faith and the general legitimacy of pursuing natural historical interests. In the introduction to his Flora Norvegica, published in 1766, he wrote: “In an excellent way, natural history confirms what is proven by Divine reality, and it throws light on its Divine and unlimited perfection. It provides a foundation for all branches of natural knowledge. Thus, it is a most useful aid to us citizens, both in private and in public. For this reason, it is the duty of any human being, and in particular of the good Christian citizen, to promote this most useful, yes, one should really say Divine discipline, as much as he is able to” (quoted in Ramberghaug Reference Ramberghaug2006, 58).
Any human being was obliged to pursue this discipline and, to a subordinate clergyman, this message was a strong obligation to act and react. But Gunnerus also expressed another sentiment in this text: a sense of mission, of scientific work as an honor to God, and not only to honor God by studying his work, but to enlighten others scientifically:
Therefore, it is my opinion that this duty and this task was given to me not only so that I should devote myself to science, but also so that I should enlighten in the greatest possible degree, and not even that being enough, I should inspire others to do their best to the benefit of science and the Fatherland. Two things have been of great use to my goal and my work: travels of exceeding length, both at sea and on land (on which I set out every year to attend church meetings), and the eagerness and enthusiasm of my countrymen in recounting anything that may seem remarkable in the realm of Nature. (Quoted in ibid.).
The bishop's nature
His countrymen were enthusiastically conveying to him what they found remarkable, Gunnerus claimed, and that is something of an understatement when one looks at the extent to which they presented him with nature's gifts. There was a steady flow of objects: some living, but for the most part dead: birds and fishes, models, ritual Sami drums, old daggers and swords, flowers, seeds, trees, and landed coconuts. How could the ministers know how and what to collect? Some of them did not. Gunnerus not only received scientific specimens, but barrels of butter, cloud berries, and smoked salmon – objects suggesting that the understanding of the bishop's wish for “natural objects” was indeed wide. “As there is a lack here of rarities to send, I humbly beg for Your Highness to accept 1 barrel of oysters and a small pot of sprat, which I send to You with the utmost devotion,” wrote the clergyman From (From to Gunnerus, 27 March 1765, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). The fiscal market dominated other parts of the economy, but tithes were still predominantly paid in kind. In this sense, the natural objects continued a well known tradition of giving the bishop natural gifts. The way Gunnerus’ subjects “misunderstood” his appeals to be provided with natural objects shows how he tapped into a tradition of gift economy, analogues to the exchanges analyzed by Harold J. Cook's study of the gift economy of a naturalist's exchanges with people in the East Indies (Cook Reference Cook, Schiebinger and Swan2005, esp. 116–7). Not only were tithes paid in kind, but clergymen would be given naturalia for the performance of baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and burials. The bishop introduced a new definition of the good gift in an existing gift economy. In Danish naturalia as a term implied payment in kind, but the term naturalia would gradually aqcuire a second meaning – natural objects. One of the achievements of Gunnerus was to help redefine nature as naturalia.
He also instructed his subjects on what could count as natural objects and how to make precise descriptions. He was, on the one hand, interested in all things, “natural objects. . . be they of any kind, also the ordinary” (Gunnerus to Kolderup, 20 April 1762, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). “I happily receive everything You collect ex 3bus regnis naturæ” (Gunnerus to Kaurin, 10 December 1764, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). On the other hand, his conception of what was ordinary was not easy to convey. He would be interested in everything that was ordinary in northern Norway, but things were of greater value if they at the same time were extraordinary within the learned community of scholars: “There is nothing unusual about this Molluscum (an ink-fish), as it has been described and drawn by many authors, but it is very good that You do exercise by describing these sorts of things” (Gunnerus to Hagerup, 25 May 1768, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910).
He would encourage the use of systematic approaches, as he stated in the introduction to the first issue of Skrifter (i.e.Writings, the journal of the scientific society in Trondheim) in 1761. The society would especially wish for the countrymen to work within economy and natural history, it was stated, “but to ensure that one could work with more happiness, order and clarity, it would be most welcome, if one were to make a thorough acquaintance with Linnæi floram, as well as Faunam Svecicam, and in addition the newest or tenth edition of his Systema Naturæ” (Gunnerus Reference Gunnerus1761a). Books, and most importantly Linnaeus’ works, were the scientific tools that he most eagerly wanted his subjects to put into use.
He also gave more explicit practical advice for those who wished to collect and send natural objects, and detailed descriptions of how to prepare flowers and insects, and increasingly asked for specific exemplars, as he would receive large amounts of objects which had no real value to him. To others he posed questions, following a long tradition for collecting facts through surveys, which had been used with success since the early days of the Royal Society in London, and perhaps more directly relevant, as addressed in the Kungliga Svenska Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar(Transactions of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science). He inquired about two types of capelin he had received: When were they fished? If any of them smelled bad? On what time of the year did they come and depart from the fjord? Are the fish eaten? And so on (Gunnerus to Frugaard, March 29 1765, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). Many of the priests’ answers pointed to the great difficulties involved in obtaining the kind of information Gunnerus requested: From the allegedly wrecked, unhealthy, illness-infected, and poor parish of Vardø, clergyman Kaurin wrote with resignation that he was unable to provide the Norwegian names of the flowers he sent. He had no tools, that is books, to help him, and from the ignorant inhabitants there was no help to be had. They knew all the plants by “the well-known name flowers” (Kaurin to Gunnerus, 10 August 1764, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). Kaurin's position also gives a good indication of how precarious the livelihood of the clergymen could be, and thus explains their ambitions for promotion and natural history. Kaurin and his family had arrived in Vardø after six weeks of strenuous travel. On arrival they found that most of the inhabitants had died, only 20 Rettighedsmænd (property owners) were left, and even many of the soldiers had died, leaving only twelve. In addition, the fisheries had failed, and that left the last inhabitants without the means to pay for church services (Kaurin to Gunnerus, 25 June 1764, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). Kaurin would stay in Vadsø for several years, but he would strain himself to observe and procure natural knowledge for the bishop, acquiring better understanding of what natural history with Episcopal flavor was all about.
Gunnerus was educating the clergymen by interrogating and explaining, in a manner well known through church practice. Interestingly this was also a way to encourage a certain kind of observation, a certain kind of “factual sensibility,” to use the words of Lorraine Daston (Daston Reference Daston1988). A kind of observation and collecting that could be used to bring forth good natural objects. The objects ought not to be improved upon by human ingenuity. When he encountered an especially well-made basilisk, he admitted that a person without good knowledge about such things could easily be fooled: “Nevertheless it must be stated: The more natural, the better; because pure Nature. . . without human hand and art intervening is by far the best for honoring the Wisdom, Power and Goodness of God,” he exclaimed (Gunnerus Reference Gunnerus1763, 312). The nature he preferred was one that honored God, that proved useful in all matters of improvement, but which could also deliver facts to the greater world of learning. What he promoted was to observe in and collect from nature what contemporary naturalists would deem scientifically interesting. Thus he directed the eyes of the clergymen towards a specific nature, which consisted of objects of “pure” nature, one that could be collected and described. Naming and describing the surface, and noting possible uses were all-important. According to his eulogy the fruit of his work was that others were encouraged and enlightened: “A passion to wander about in the Kingdom of nature, to contemplate its riches, to observe its magnificence and graces with a more attentive eye, and to collect thereof, all unfolded everywhere” (Schøning Reference Schøning and Wille1805, 67).
Latin as the language of nature
But the objects needed names, as eighteenth-century natural history was at its core a naming sport. The visible should be provided with a nomenclature. This indeed is the essence of Gunnerus’ activity, he was naming the visible nature, and he trained observers to look and identify with him. This does not mean that everything visible was important, one had to learn what to see, as Foucault underlines in his exposition of eighteenth-century natural history (Foucault [1966] 2002, 144). One striking trait of the majority of works of natural historians in the period was that eagerness with which names were sought for. For Gunnerus, all the names of a plant or a fish were important: the Sami, the Finnish, and the local Norwegian dialect. But this was highly dependent on the existence of one common denominator, which, of course, was Latin. Thereby the politics of language in this natural historical enterprise made certain kinds of knowledge a precondition for participation, and the mobilization of clergymen versed in Latin was indeed important. But the interest in names had another implication: The bishop and other naturalists were dependent on the local population when it came to providing names for the natural objects.
The need for mastery of Latin put severe limits on who could participate in the realm of natural history. Clerics and others who had graduated from the Latin schools could be taught to be good observers as well as collectors. Those with knowledge in Latin would in many instances be encouraged to write “pieces” and publish them in Skrifter, the journal of the scientific society, while those who had no such training were bound to be observers of another category, and would thus also be barred from becoming members of the Scientific Society in Trondheim. Most notably this is expressed by P. C. Buck, the head of the Den Kongelige Handel (The Royal Commerce), the privileged commerce company for the north, who became an important participant in Gunnerus’ natural observation and collection network. Living in Hammerfest, which was to become the world's northernmost town when it acquired town status in 1789, he lived in an environment with few learned men. Or to put it more bluntly: there was hardly anybody living in Hammerfest which was said to be the smallest town in the world with its 77 inhabitants (1801). But Buck, claiming to be an untutored lover of natural objects, was a busy merchant and naturalist. He had ample contact with people who visited areas untouched by science: ishavsfarere (hunters in the Arctic sea region) who docked in the town, Russian traders from Siberia, and Sami hunters and herders. He saw natural history as a possibility of finding new resources for commercial activity in the north, but he also eagerly made descriptions of creatures and objects which were meant to support the scientific enterprise of the bishop. His letters also clearly expressed his reluctance to appear in public. Buck explained that he did not want to have his observations presented: “I am too weak to withstand the critique,” he claimed, pointing to the way the newspapers criticize the learned and famous (Buck to Gunnerus, 6 July 1771, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). However, we can deduce from his humble letters an ambition to be invited to become a member of the Society in Trondheim, an honor he would never attain, notwithstanding the drawings, relations, and observations he produced.
Representations of nature
Those named in the publications and who appear in the voluminous correspondence of Gunnerus are predominantly members of the clergy. But there were, as we have seen, other important conveyors of knowledge for Gunnerus. Here I want to present one case in which other common people played an important role. The case brings up the question of how a natural fact could be represented, through what means knowledge would travel. It also shows how Gunnerus presented his working methods and the contributions of his helpers in his writings, and finally it provides an example of how the knowledge he gathered and produced was integrated both in a theological and a natural historical discourse.
A basking shark is an enormous fish which can be up to fifteen meters long. In the summer of 1763, a basking shark was harpooned off the coast of Smøla, not far from Trondheim. Commonly these gigantic fishes would be killed and their livers cut out while at open sea, and the fishermen would be the only persons to actually see them. But this time the fish was towed to shore. There four horses were needed to get it up on to the beach. The skin was then removed, before being filled with grass and moss. The upholstered fish was thereafter sent by boat to Trondheim and transported by way of two horses to the Berg farm just outside the city. Here at the residence of Bishop Gunnerus, the stuffed animal was observed with utmost care. Gunnerus had been waiting eagerly for this possibility to examine the previously undescribed basking shark, which he was subsequently able to name Sqvalus maximus. This whole process is detailed in the long description Gunnerus published about the animal in Skrifter (Gunnerus Reference Gunnerus1765).
In Gunnerus’ great pains to establish the facts about the shark, numerous different methods were used. He approached fishermen, local merchants, and the schoolteacher of the area. He made it clear that he appreciated different sorts of representations, including wooden models, upholstered skins, and written statements. And he also made it clear that he valued the different observations made, but he still insisted that the most certain description of the fish, the way of establishing it as a new species, was that he himself had the object brought to his premises. The hierarchy of knowledge and of observers was clear. Fishermen were necessary, as they were normally the only people who actually got to see the shark, which seldom came close to land. But they were not named in the accounts provided by Gunnerus. The schoolteacher fared better, as he was named; however, lastly the most grateful statements were reserved for the rich merchants who employed the fishermen and organized the fishing. They were even given remuneration for their work, a habit the bishop seldom practiced.
Some years later, a new article on the basking shark was published in the Skrifter (Gunnerus Reference Gunnerus1768b). This time Gunnerus had received a complete and fresh head, and especially by examining the teeth and mouth of the shark, Gunnerus was now able to establish more facts about the creature. Again he provided information about the work involved in getting the head from the distant ocean to his own collection. But now he also established the animal within another scientific field. The article proved, according to Gunnerus, that the basking shark was the animal that swallowed the biblical figure of Jonah. After considering all relevant sources, Gunnerus could show by way of a detailed examination of the facts that the animal was the only likely fish which could have swallowed Jonah without hurting him. The natural fact was thus situated within the field of theology as well as within the field of natural history. Observations and descriptions made by those who were close to the facts but low in status were important, but their most important contributions were to provide the bishop with the material objects. Nature was transported to his house, to be observed and described in a manner fitting for the learned journals, be it as evidence in theological or natural history discourses.
What does it mean to contribute?
The flow of objects into the bishop's house testifies to the success of the project of making attentive collectors; but did he succeed in making good observers and learned writers? Gunnerus not only directed his efforts at the potentially learned men in the North. His pastoral letter was translated into German and distributed in Copenhagen and to foreign contacts. The journal of the scientific society, Skrifter, first appeared in 1761 with Gunnerus as the most productive author. It was stated that all articles should be presented in the vernacular (which was Danish), thereby emphasizing the ambition of creating a national scientific culture. Still, German translations of the first volumes were soon issued, clear evidence of the international ambitions of Gunnerus. Some of the famuli, the helpers of Gunnerus, would get an article on print. Some clergymen would have one or two articles printed, but in all, only a few persons would actually produce material that could be worthy of a place on the pages of Skrifter, which were intended both for the “reasonable but untutored” Norwegians and for international scholars (Gunnerus [1758] Reference Gunnerus1997, 31). This double ambition must also be seen as the reason why the threshold for producing scientific pieces was high for the local clergy and other collaborators.
The consequence of the high ambitions of the Skrifter was dire for the establishment of a writing and learned Norwegian clergy elite. There was one exception, the clergyman Hans Strøm who produced a great number of articles for Skrifter, but also for journals in other countries (on Strøm, see Apelseth Reference Apelseth1999). He would also become a distinguished member of a number of scientific societies. But from the vast material the lay observers of clergymen and commoners collected in Norwegian nature, Gunnerus was mainly the one to extract the matters of fact that deserved to be put down in writing. One could claim that Gunnerus made neither the clerics nor the peasants into a writing scientific elite but into providers of raw material for his scientific projects. Perhaps the strongest expression of this comes from a missionary, later to become a clergyman, who complained rather bitterly that every time he was at the point of having something approaching a mineralogical collection, someone demanded the contents. There seems to be no doubt that this someone was the bishop (Hagland Reference Hagland2002).
But indirectly the local, national audience would have great influence on the content of the scientific articles, certainly as providers of the observations and specimens that were described, but perhaps even more profoundly as part of the intended public for the writings. Gunnerus’ articles were pedagogical pieces. “Your works are so beautiful, so fulfilled and elegant that I have hardly ever read anything with greater pleasure,” wrote Linnaeus from Uppsala; “you present the natural objects so visibly that I imagine seeing them with my own eyes and feeling them with my own hands” (Linnaeus to Gunnerus, 12 March 1764, in Amundsen Reference Amundsen1976). As I have shown in the case of the basking shark, Gunnerus thoroughly described the process of getting hold of a specimen, and who helped him. In addition, Gunnerus’ papers on specific specimens give exact information on how one goes about examining the objects, how one dissects, and how one observes, and he explains the essential and enduring qualities one has to look for. Thus pedagogic ambitions and interest in creating local observers and producers of natural knowledge had a great impact on the way Gunnerus produced his articles, his style, and presentation of natural history.
Gunnerus’ first scientific article in the first volume of Skrifter began with the following sentence: “On my visitation journeys, and especially in Nordland and Finnmark, I have collected some natural objects of all kinds, and I have prepared myself to describe some of the pieces, those that seems to me to deserve it the most” (Gunnerus Reference Gunnerus1761b, 184). In this first article about the fulmar (havhest) he established himself as a collector, and at the same time, established the collection as the place for doing scientific work. He immediately stated that this strange bird was a worthy object of scientific study, not least because it “gives us sufficient proof of the Wisdom of God” (ibid.). The collection was thereby established as a place where Science and God were honored through the bishop's work.
After this initial framing there followed an extensive description of the bird: the color, the size, the form of the eyes and the head, the length of the throat, the form of the body, the length of the feathers and wings, with special attention paid to the feet and beak. Gunnerus was not describing a fulmar in general, he was describing this particular fulmar, this exemplar, the one that was found by the North Cape and transported for weeks or months on a boat before it arrived in his hands. Throughout the text Gunnerus guides the reader, focusing his gaze on this specific bird. He compares it with similar birds described or illustrated in books. On occasion he must make do with birds decomposing already on arrival, and only compare their exterior. Sometimes he dissects on his own, while at other times he “let the specimen be cut,” implying that the town-physician Henrici, educated by Albrecht von Haller in Göttingen, did the cutting.
Paula Findlen writes in her book, Possessing Nature, on the early natural historical collections in Italy, that the collectors saw the museum as a key to a more precise natural history. Nature came uniquely close in the museum, and like the telescope and the microscope, the collection enhanced the human senses (Findlen Reference Findlen1994). This also seems to have been the function of Gunnerus’ collection. Indeed, the man who was among the first to investigate large parts of Norway scientifically, to observe and name Norwegian nature in its large variety, needed the collection to get close enough to nature to describe it.
It is difficult to establish what Gunnerus’ collection looked like as no written or visual representations exist. We know that thousands of objects must have arrived at his house on the farm Berg outside Trondheim. In the early 1760s he strived to establish a botanical garden, and he housed his collection in the farm house connected to this. His article suggests that the collection was a place for examining natural objects. But we also know that he exchanged and bought objects intended for the collection. Of special notice are the Greenlandic objects, kayaks, weapons, and clothes that were ordered from Denmark. These were objects that figured prominently in other Northern European collections at the time, and his eagerness to have them in his house in Trondheim indicates an intention to build up a natural cabinet of display. An auction catalog, Fortegnelse over forhen Højædle og Højærværdige Hr. Doct. Johan Ernst Gunneri Naturaliesamling (Inventory of the Natural Collection of the late Honorable Doctor Johan Ernst Gunnerus) which was made for the sale of his belongings after he died in 1773, leaving a huge debt, gives us an idea of the content of the collection. The objects were grouped under 169 numbers, where one number was Gunnerus’ substantial herbarium (which still exists), other numbers could be “a Swedish copper medal,” or “two bats.” Basically metals, minerals, and animals (stuffed, dried, or wet) made up the largest part; models of different kinds were quite numerous; and he also had a small electricity machine, a microscope, and some objects that had been found in the soil. The only idea we can have about how the collection looked is from entrance number 162, “ten small pedestals made of wood” and 164, “two cabinets with glass doors”; but these entrances give only an idea of a room with cabinets, but not how the objects were arranged and classified. Still we can presume that he wanted to establish his botanical garden and the collection as a center of natural history in Norway (cf. his mention of the botanical garden in a letter to Geheime Raad Tott, 17 September 1763, in Dahl Reference Dahl1890–1910). At the auction the collection was bought by a member of the scientific society in Trondheim, who donated it immediately to the society. It became the basis of the museum that still exists in Trondheim today.
If it is uncertain exactly how the collection was meant to be used, we know that it played a significant role in establishing Gunnerus as a socially and scientifically important ally in Trondheim. Gunnerus would himself send off specimens from his collection to other naturalists, such as Linneaus, but also to important political contacts in the capital Copenhagen. These recipients were not naturalists, but prominent members of the government who had become eager collectors in the mid-eighteenth century. The king also had a Royal Collection, The King's Kunstkammer, which received objects from Gunnerus.Footnote 6
Conclusion
In his article, “Walnuts at Hudson Bay, Coral Reefs in Gotland,” Staffan Müller-Wille describes how two different social systems should be recognized when we speak of “botany in colonial connection.” On the one hand there is the particular social system a naturalist would inhabit, including economic interests and political infrastructure. On the other hand there is an altogether different social system “which constituted the discourse and tradition of botany as a scientific discipline and consisted in the circulation of specimens and names among professional botanists” (Müller-Wille Reference Müller-Wille, Schiebinger and Swan2005, 47). This larger world of knowledge, what we might term “the system of experts,” would be important in deciding what were important facts to draw from Norwegian nature, and in deciding how specimens should be named and treated. Gunnerus would attain a position within this system by transforming the knowledge, the objects, and the observations that others provided into scientific specimens and names circulating in this social system.Footnote 7 At the time of his death in 1773, Gunnerus was a member of numerous scientific societies, his name had been given to an exotic plant family, and the aging Linneaus could write with remorse, “Salvius is dead, von Switen is dead, Bishop Gunnerus . . . is dead” (as quoted in Sörlin and Fagerstedt Reference Sörlin and Fagerstedt2004, 208).
But we can in addition find two different social systems that were important for his endeavors. In relation to the powerful elite in Copenhagen he could build his social standing with the help of the natural objects he had gathered himself or received from other people. These objects were sent to politically and culturally important people in the capital of Denmark-Norway, to high state officials and the king, all of whom would have their own collections of natural objects and would appreciate the rarity and beauty of the objects they received. This could of course be seen as part of the first system Müller-Wille describes, but it is based on a long-distance relation, and is different from the immediate local context in the town of Trondheim on the one hand and the scientific circulation system on the other. The people in Copenhagen were neither naturalists nor commoners, but took part in an international network of collecting.
These different systems that Gunnerus took part in depended on his relations to the clergy who collected, observed, and described specimens, and who gave him free board as he went through the diocese on his visitation journeys. He could graft his natural history ambitions onto the preexisting church-organization. As Linneaus wrote to him: “In Your Fatherland, You will be able to achieve more than any other mortal. You, who have every clergyman in the district under Your command, use Your instruments with success!” (Linneaus to Gunnerus, 4 July 1762, in Amundsen Reference Amundsen1976). This practice was legitimized by the government's stated interest in natural history explorations, but also by the theological writings of Gunnerus himself. In his direct communication with clergymen, he addressed them as “learned,” as part of the elite in Norway which could help further the sciences in this country poorly furnished with learned institutions. They were also invited to present their writings in the journal of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences, but only a few notable exceptions did. However, Gunnerus himself would use his articles in the journal to describe in detail how a natural historical enquiry could be executed, how important the different stages in collection, observation, and description were, and in this way he accommodated the intended public for the journal. By constituting a public, a group of readers, the Norwegian clergy and common people would influence the natural history writing of the bishop. However, Gunnerus would be the one who could transform the gifts he received from the clergy into exchangeable facts in other social systems.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Kristin Asdal, Ingunn Moser, John Law, Simon Schaffer, and Sverker Sörlin for comments on the very first draft of this paper. I would also like to thank Conevery Bolton Valencius and the other participants for generous comments at the workshop sponsored by Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. And finally I am indebted to the Royal Scientific Society for Sciences and Letters in Trondheim for financing this research, and the members of the book-committee for the history of the society, Ida Bull, Axel Christophersen, Knut Ove Eliassen, Helge Holden, and Steinar Supphellen who generously shared their knowledge.
