Published by Medieval Institute Publications

The Northern Medieval World

On the Margins of Europe

Edited by: Carolyne Larrington, Oren Falk, Dawn Hadley, Kate Heslop, Jana Schulman and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson

Overview
Volumes

The Northern Medieval World aims to integrate research from historical, archaeological, literary and other traditions. Highly interdisciplinary in scope, the series embraces also gender, literary, manuscript, philosophical, religious and textual studies, as well as sources for educational use. We welcome cutting-edge approaches that seek to engage with all of medieval Scandinavia: not only Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden but also regions of the world that were part of the Norse universe in the Middle Ages—such as Rus, Normandy, the Danelaw and Greenland. Comparative studies are also welcome, as long as there is a significant Northern focus. The Northern Medieval World is open in particular to "edgy" approaches, such as queer studies, ecocritical studies and digital humanities-based approaches.

The editorial board comprises:

Carolyne Larrington, St. John’s College, Oxford (Chair)
Oren Falk, Cornell University
Dawn Hadley, University of York
Kate Heslop, University of California, Berkeley
Jana Schulman, Western Michigan University
Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Universitetet i Oslo

Topics

Book 2023

The Medieval North and Its Afterlife

Essays in Honor of Heather O’Donoghue

Siân Grønlie, Carl Phelpstead

More Cite

This book showcases the variety and vitality of contemporary scholarship on Old Norse and related medieval literatures and their modern afterlives. The volume features original new work on Old Norse poetry and saga, other languages and literatures of medieval north-western Europe, and the afterlife of Old Norse in modern English literature. Demonstrating the lively state of contemporary research on Old Norse and related subjects, this collection celebrates Heather O’Donoghue’s extraordinary and enduring influence on the field, as manifested in the wide-ranging and innovative research of her former students and colleagues.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501516597
ISBN:: 9781501516597
ISBN:: 9781501524837
ISBN:: 9781501516603
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Subject:: Literary History
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2022

Anglo-Danish Empire

A Companion to the Reign of King Cnut the Great

Richard North, Erin Goeres, Alison Finlay

More Cite

Anglo-Danish Empire is an interdisciplinary handbook for the Danish conquest of England in 1016 and the subsequent reign of King Cnut the Great. Bringing together scholars from the fields of history, literature, archaeology, and manuscript studies, the volume offers comprehensive analysis of England’s shift from Anglo-Saxon to Danish rule. It follows the history of this complicated transition, from the closing years of the reign of King Æthelred II and the Anglo-Danish wars, to Cnut’s accession to the throne of England and his consolidation of power at home and abroad. Ruling from 1016 to 1035, Cnut drew England into a Scandinavian empire that stretched from Ireland to the Baltic. His reign rewrote the place of Denmark and England within Europe, altering the political and cultural landscapes of both countries for decades to come.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513336
ISBN:: 9781501513336
ISBN:: 9781501519819
ISBN:: 9781501513374
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: Western Europe
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2021

Reading the Old Norse-Icelandic “Maríu saga” in Its Manuscript Contexts

Daniel C. Najork

More Cite

Maríu saga, the Old Norse-Icelandic life of the Virgin Mary, survives in nineteen manuscripts. While the 1871 edition of the saga provides two versions based on multiple manuscripts and prints significant variants in the notes, it does not preserve the literary and social contexts of those manuscripts. In the extant manuscripts Maríu saga rarely exists in the codex by itself. This study restores the saga to its manuscript contexts in order to better understand the meaning of the text within its manuscript matrix, why it was copied in the specific manuscripts it was, and how it was read and used by the different communities that preserved the manuscripts.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514142
ISBN:: 9781501514142
ISBN:: 9781501514128
ISBN:: 9781501518539
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Subject:: Textual Scholarship
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Religion
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2021

The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland

Ryder Patzuk-Russell

More Cite

Medieval Iceland is known for the fascinating body of literary works it produced, from ornate court poetry to mythological treatises to sagas of warrior-poets and feud culture. This book investigates the institutions and practices of education which lay behind not only this literary corpus, but the whole of medieval Icelandic culture, religion, and society. By bringing together a broad spectrum of sources, including sagas, law codes, and grammatical treatises, it addresses the history of education in medieval Iceland from multiple perspectives. It shows how the slowly developing institutions of the church shaped educational practices within an entirely rural society with its own distinct vernacular culture. It emphasizes the importance of Latin, despite the lack of surviving manuscripts, and teaching and learning in a highly decentralized environment. Within this context, it explores how medieval grammatical education was adapted for bilingual clerical education, which in turn helped create a separate and fully vernacularized grammatical discourse.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514180
ISBN:: 9781501514180
ISBN:: 9781501518553
ISBN:: 9781501514432
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: Northern Europe
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Subject:: Social Sciences
Subject:: Education
Subject:: Theory and History of Education
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2020

Paranormal Encounters in Iceland 1150–1400

Ármann Jakobsson, Miriam Mayburd

More Cite

This anthology of international scholarship offers new critical approaches to the study of the many manifestations of the paranormal in the Middle Ages. The guiding principle of the collection is to depart from symbolic or reductionist readings of the subject matter in favor of focusing on the paranormal as human experience and, essentially, on how these experiences are defined by the sources. The authors work with a variety of medieval Icelandic textual sources, including family sagas, legendary sagas, romances, poetry, hagiography and miracles, exploring the diversity of paranormal activity in the medieval North. This volume questions all previous definitions of the subject matter, most decisively the idea of saga realism, and opens up new avenues in saga research.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513862
ISBN:: 9781501513862
ISBN:: 9781580443296
ISBN:: 9781501513619
Subject:: Cultural Studies
Subject:: Topics in Cultural Studies
Subject:: Popular Culture
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Mythology and Folk Literature
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2020

The Vikings Reimagined

Reception, Recovery, Engagement

Tom Birkett, Roderick Dale

More Cite

The Vikings Reimagined explores the changing perception of Norse and Viking cultures across different cultural forms, and the complex legacy of the Vikings in the present day. Bringing together experts in literature, history and heritage engagement, this highly interdisciplinary collection aims to reconsider the impact of the discipline of Old Norse Viking Studies outside the academy and to broaden our understanding of the ways in which the material and textual remains of the Viking Age are given new meanings in the present. The diverse collection draws attention to the many roles that the Vikings play across contemporary culture: from the importance of Viking tourism, to the role of Norse sub-cultures in the formation of local and international identities. Together these collected essays challenge the academy to rethink its engagement with popular reiterations of the Vikings and to reassess the position afforded to ‘reception’ within the discipline.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513886
ISBN:: 9781501513886
ISBN:: 9781501518157
ISBN:: 9781501513640
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Cultural History
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2019

Monsters in Society

Alterity, Transgression, and the Use of the Past in Medieval Iceland

Rebecca Merkelbach

More Cite

Dragons, giants, and the monsters of learned discourse are rarely encountered in the Sagas of Icelanders, and therefore, the general teratological focus on physical monstrosity yields only limited results when applied to them. This, however, does not equal an absence of monstrosity – it only means that monstrosity is conceived of differently. This book shifts the view of monstrosity from the physical to the social, accounting for the unique social circumstances presented in the Íslendingasögur and demonstrating how closely interwoven the social and the monstrous are in this genre. Employing literary and cultural theory as well as anthropological and historical approaches, it reads the monsters of the Íslendingasögur in their literary and socio-cultural context, demonstrating that they are not distractions from feud and conflict, but that they are in fact an intrinsic part of the genre’s re-imagining of the past for the needs of the present.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514227
ISBN:: 9781501514227
ISBN:: 9781501514098
ISBN:: 9781501518362
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Cultural History
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2019

The Saga of the Jómsvikings

A Translation for Students

Alison Finlay, Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir

More Cite

Unique among the Icelandic sagas, part-history, part-fiction, the Saga of the Jómsvikings tells of a legendary band of vikings, originally Danish, who established an island fortress of the Baltic coast and launched and ultimately lost their heroic attack on the pagan ruler of Norway in the late tenth century. The saga's account of their stringent warrior code, fatalistic adherence to their own reckless vows and declarations of extreme courage as they face execution articulates a remarkable account of what it meant to be a viking. This translation presents the longest and earliest text of the saga, never before published in English, with a full literary and historical introduction to this remarkable work.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501514678
ISBN:: 9781501514678
ISBN:: 9781580443135
ISBN:: 9781501514463
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Medieval History
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Mythology and Folk Literature
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2018

The Saga of the Jómsvikings

A Translation with Full Introduction

Alison Finlay, Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir

More Cite

Unique among the Icelandic sagas, part-history, part-fiction, the Saga of the Jomsvikings tells of a legendary band of vikings, originally Danish, who established an island fortress of the Baltic coast, launched and ultimately lost their heroic attack on the pagan ruler of Norway in the late tenth century. The saga’s account of their stringent warrior code, fatalistic adherence to their own reckless vows and declarations of extreme courage as they face execution articulates a remarkable account of what it meant to be a viking. This translation presents the longest and earliest text of the saga, never before published in English, with a full literary and historical introduction to this remarkable work.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627169
ISBN:: 9783110627169
ISBN:: 9783110625455
ISBN:: 9781580443111
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2018

New Studies in the Manuscript Tradition of Njáls saga

The historia mutila of Njála

Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Emily Lethbridge

More Cite

Njáls saga is the best known and most highly regarded of all medieval Icelandic sagas and it occupies a special place in Icelandic cultural history.

The manuscript tradition is exceptionally rich and extensive. The oldest extant manuscripts date to only a couple of decades after the saga’s composition in the late 13th century and the saga was subsequently copied by hand continuously up until the 20th century, even alongside the circulation of printed text editions in latter centuries. The manuscript corpus as a whole has great socio-historical value, showcasing the myriad ways in which generations of Icelanders interpreted the saga and took an active part in its transmission; the manuscripts are also valuable sources for evidence of linguistic change and other phenomena.

The essays in this volume present new research and a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the Njáls saga manuscripts. Many of the authors took part in the international research project "The Variance of Njáls saga" which was funded by the Icelandic Research Council from 2011-2013.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781580443067
ISBN:: 9781580443067
ISBN:: 9783110625394
ISBN:: 9781580443050
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Subject:: Literary History
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications

Book 2018

Influences of Pre-Christian Mythology and Christianity on Old Norse Poetry

A Narrative Study of Vafþrúðnismál

Andrew McGillivray

More Cite

The Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál serves as a representation of early pagan beliefs or myths and as a myth itself; the poem performs both of these functions, acting as a poetic framework and functioning as sacred myth. In this study, the author looks closely at the journey of the Norse god Óðinn to the hall of the ancient and wise giant Vafþrúðnir, where Óðinn craftily engages his adversary in a life-or-death contest in knowledge.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781580443364
ISBN:: 9781580443364
ISBN:: 9781580443357
ISBN:: 9783110625387
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Literature of other Nations and Languages
Subject:: Scandinavian Literature
Publisher:: Medieval Institute Publications