Fyrirlestrar / Lectures
Stjórnspeki Snorra Sturlusonar
The political philosophy of Snorri Sturluson
Þriðjudaginn 23. september 2025 kl. 16.30–18.00
Tuesday, September 23, 2025, at 16.30–18.00
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu (E-103) / Edda auditorium (E-103)
Fundur Miðaldastofu í samstarfi við Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag og RSE, Rannsóknamiðstöð um samfélags- og efnahagsmál, í fyrirlestrasal Eddu 23. september 2025 (á dánardegi Snorra Sturlusonar) kl. 16.30–18.00. Tilefnið er útgáfa á riti prófessors Sigurðar Líndals, Stjórnspeki Snorra Sturlusonar eins og hún birtist í Heimskringlu, en það var upphaflega ritgerð í Úlfljóti 2007. Prófessor Ditlev Tamm mun ræða um réttarsögu Norðurlanda og framlag Sigurðar Líndals til hennar. Dr. Tom G. Palmer mun ræða um Snorra Sturluson frá sjónarmiði nútíma frjálshyggjumanns. Á eftir erindum þeirra verða umræður og á milli kl. 18 og 19 móttaka á staðnum fyrir fundargesti. Garðar Gíslason, fyrrv. hæstaréttardómari, stjórnar umræðum.
A symposium hosted by the University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies (Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands) in collaboration with the Icelandic Literary Society (Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag) and The Centre for Social and Economic Research (Rannsóknamiðstöð um samfélags- og efnahagsmál, RSE) September 23, 2025 (Snorri Sturluson’s death day), in the auditorium in Edda (E-103) at 16.30-18.00. The symposium is to celebrate the re-issue of the late professor Sigurður Líndal’s work, Stjórnspeki Snorra Sturlusonar eins og hún birtist í Heimskringlu, which originally appeared in Úlfljótur in 2007. Professor Ditlev Tamm will discuss Scandinavian legal history and Sigurður Líndal’s contributions to the field. Tom G. Palmer will talk about Snorri Sturluson from the point of view of a modern libertarian. Their presentations will be followed by general discussion, and light refreshments will be served. Supreme Court Judge Emeritus Garðar Gíslason will chair the symposium.
Ditlev Tamm
With the law the land shall be built: King, people, law, and parliaments in the Nordic legal tradition
The Nordic countries today share democratic values and welfare-state mentality. Similarities between the Nordic countries are often stressed. However, different roads have led to present day conditions. Starting with the medieval period that interested Sigurður Líndal, I will reflect on the history of the main Nordic institutions of democracy, on Nordic attitudes towards absolutism and democratic traditions and the historical differences which mark the Nordic liberal legal tradition.
Ditlev Tamm (f. 1946) lauk doktorsprófum í lögfræði frá Kaupmannahafnarháskóla 1977 og í sagnfræði frá Háskólanum í Óðinsvéum 1984. Hann kenndi réttarsögu og aðrar greinar í lagadeild Kaupmannahafnarháskóla frá 1978 og er nú prófessor emeritus. Voru þeir Sigurður Líndal góðir kunningjar. Tamm situr í fulltrúaráði hugveitunnar CEPOS í Kaupmannahöfn Hann hefur birt fjölda bóka á fræðasviði sínu, meðal annars Rettens rødder – hvordan lov og ret har skabt Danmark (2022), Konseilspræsidenten – Jacob Brønnum Scavenius Estrup – 1825-1913 (1996) og Retsopgøret efter besættelsen (1984).
Ditlev Tamm (b. 1946) has a doctoral degree in law from the University of Copenhagen (1977) and in history from the University of Odense (1984). He taught legal history and related subjects in the University of Copenhagen Law School from 1978 and is now professor emeritus. The late Sigurður Líndal and he were good friends. Tamm is a member of the CEPOS think tank in Copenhagen. He has published several books, including Rettens rødder – hvordan lov og ret har skabt Danmark (2022), Konseilspræsidenten – Jacob Brønnum Scavenius Estrup – 1825-1913 (1996), and Retsopgøret efter besættelsen (1984).
Tom G. Palmer
Deliberation, Liberty, and Democracy: Comments on Sigurður Líndal’s contribution to the Understanding of Nordic Liberal Democracy
My comments will focus on an aspect of democratic liberty that Professor Sigurður Líndal touches on repeatedly, but which he does not make thematic. Sigurður Líndal stipulates, “When a society is called democratic, what is primarily meant is that political power is controlled by its people; and political institutions are thought to be democratic to the extent that they conduce to such an arrangement.” That is, as he notes, somewhat vague and could be improved by focusing on what is arguably the key to being conducive to the public weal and which was characteristic of the Nordic legal tradition, which is discussion and deliberation before public decision. Discussion and deliberation are found throughout the ancient traditions he discusses, obviously including the Nordic tradition, but also those of classical Athens and republican Rome. Democracy is, I submit, better understood as at base not merely an enumeration and tabulation of votes, such that, in Sigurður Líndal’s words, “political power is controlled by its people,” but rather, as Frank Knight phrased it, “government by discussion.” Discussion, rather than diktat, was a principle of Athenian and Roman republicanism, as well as of the Germanic societies.
I will also offer a wider appreciation of Sigurður Líndal’s interpretation of the role of Roman law, as in the essays before us he identifies as the key Roman law principle Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem (what pleases the prince has the force of law) (derived from the preface to the Institutes of Justinian, that is, from the teaching manual), which became a mainstay of royal power and absolutism. He does not treat the competing principle that Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur (what touches all must be approved of by all), which became a principle of European constitutionalism and popular government, e.g., the slogan of the Polish-Lithuanian Republic of Nobles (Nic o nas bez nas, Nothing concerning us can be settled without us), Magna Carta’s no scutage or aid shall be imposed in our realm unless by the common counsel of the realm, and the American’s no taxation without representation, among other instances. The thorough resistance of Icelanders to the principle that the king is absolute and above the law is a testimony to an ancient principle that was only later, and through much struggle, revived and defended elsewhere.
Tom G. Palmer (f. 1956) lauk doktorsprófi í stjórnmálafræði frá Oxford-háskóla og er forstöðumaður alþjóðamála hjá Atlas Network, sambandi nær sex hundrað hugveitna um heim allan, þar á meðal CEPOS í Danmörku og RSE á Íslandi. Hann er áhugamaður um íslensk fornrit, hefur margsinnis komið til Íslands og var góður kunningi Sigurðar Líndals. Hann hefur gefið út eða ritstýrt fjölda bóka, þ. á m. safni ritgerða eftir hann sjálfan, Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice (2009).
Tom G. Palmer (b. 1956) has a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Oxford and is director of international affairs at Atlas Network, a network of nearly six hundred think tanks worldwide, including CEPOS in Denmark and RSE in Iceland. An acquaintance of the late Sigurður Líndal, Palmer is interested in medieval Icelandic literature and he has visited Iceland multiple times. Palmer has published and edited many books, including a volume of his papers, Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice (2009).
Málstofan verður haldin á ensku og er öllum opin. / The symposium will be conducted in English and is open to all.
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Fyrirlestrar / Lectures
Hélène Tétrel
Choosing the “right” text of Chrétien de Troyes
A look back at a long-running editorial debate
Fimmtudaginn 4. september 2025 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, September 4, 2025, at 16.30
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu (E-103) / Edda auditorium (E-103)
Medievalists know that textual traditions are unstable, but when looking at Parcevals saga or at the Strengleikar, scholars are confronted with a particularly complex situation, having to look at the French texts as well as the Scandinavian ones. Not only are the manuscripts numerous and sometimes hard to access, but the codicological, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds also differ. These difficulties may be strictly philological to begin with, but whether one is aware or not, they influence one’s choices. For instance, which edition of the Conte du Graal should be chosen? Many of these questions have to be addressed in a similar way, whether the aim is to compare Parcevals saga and Chrétien’s poem, translate the latter into a modern language, or produce a school edition, because there is no standard edition of the Conte du Graal.
France, the country where the philologist Joseph Bédier presented his theories on editing medieval texts, is also the country where the policy of editing a text from a unique manuscript has been most predominant. This, in turn, has led to long-running debates and sometimes “raging wars” on editorial issues. In this talk, I will look back at the long-running editorial debate which has characterised the study of Chrétien de Troyes.
Hélène Tétrel is professor of medieval literature and language at the University Rouen-Normandie, department of French language, literature and comparative Literature, and member of the research laboratory CEREdI. She works on the translated sagas and has recently published an edition and a study of Breta sögur (La Saga des Bretons, Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021). She is currently working on a collaborative project on the Conte du Graal and the Parcevals saga.
Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.
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Fyrirlestrar / Lectures
Forn kveðskapur norrænn og bragarhættir
— Old Norse Poetry and Metrics
Málþing á vegum Miðaldastofu Háskóla Íslands — A University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies Symposium
Laugardaginn 21. júní 2025 kl. 14.00-17.00 — Saturday, June 21, 2025, at 14.00-17.00
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu (E103) — Edda auditorium (E103)
Dagskrá — Programme:
14.00–14.30 Gudrun M. J. Samberger, Würzburg University: Nominal Word Formation in the Poetic Edda (GKS 2365 4to): The influence of metrics on etymology
14.30–15.00 Haukur Þorgeirsson, Árni Magnússon Institute: Cohesion in Germanic poetry
15.00–15.30 Bianca Patria, University of Oslo: Nýtask mér máltól: Allusive Art and Exegetical Thought in Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli
15.30–16.00 Kaffihlé — Coffee Break
16.00–16.30 Klaus Johan Myrvoll, University of Stavanger: The poetry of Gunnlaugs saga: a late thirteenth century patchwork?
16.30–17.00 Mikael Males, University of Oslo: How old are the oldest eddica minora?
Málþingið fer fram á ensku og er öllum opið. — The symposium will be conducted in English. All are welcome to attend.
Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands — The University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies
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Gudrun M. J. Samberger
Nominal Word Formation in the Poetic Edda (GKS 2365 4to): The influence of metrics on etymology
This talk presents findings from my PhD thesis on nominal word formation in the Poetic Edda (GKS 2365 4to), focusing on the nominal suffix Proto-Germanic *-wandja- and its unique history in Old Norse, as well as related suffixes. My project explores nominal word formation through the study of etymologies of nouns containing the relevant suffixes. These studies lead to a deeper understanding of the function and semantics of the suffixes in question.
In the initiation of a study of etymologies in a corpus, it is imperative to first discern general nouns from other words that have undergone nominalisation in context. In some suffixes, such as the -nd-suffix that is attested in nouns of Proto-Germanic origins as well as in present participles that can be more recent formations, consideration of the literary context is necessary to differentiate ad-hoc formations from older nouns that may have been substantivized adjectives at some point. When studying corpora composed of metrical texts, considering the metrics of the attestation context plays a vital role for the interpretation of a word’s etymology.
An illustrative example is the case of gróandi. This noun is attested in Alvíssmál 10,5 only. Alvíssmál is a dialogue poem, almost entirely composed in ljóðaháttr. In stanza 9, Þór asks the dwarf Alvíss for the name of the earth used by different species. Alvíss answers (Alv. 10):
Jörð heitir með mönnum
En með álfum fold,
kalla vega vanir,
ígræn jötnar,
álfar gróandi,
kalla aur uppregin.
In this verse, due to the metre, gróandi must be a three-syllable noun that can denote the earth. The noun is transparently formed by building a present participle from gróa ‘to grow’ which is then nominalized. It is also conceivable that this may be a noun that has already been lexicalised. Nevertheless, several arguments suggest that the formation was ad-hoc: 1. The noun is not attested anywhere else with the same meaning. 2. In contemporary Icelandic, the noun gróandi does not continue the meaning ‘earth’ but rather means ‘growth period’. 3. In this particular context, gróandi is the form of a feminine participle, while nominal formations with -nd- are masculine within Old Norse (Noreen 1923: 287, 297).
Considering the metrics, therefore, informs the researcher if a specific word appears as a result of metric requirements which would make it liable to neologism. It is a fundamental step of philological work to establish the study material within a given project.
Gudrun M. J. Samberger has a master’s degree in Indo-European Studies awarded by the University of Marburg, Germany. She is a PhD student in Comparative Historical Linguistics at Würzburg University. Within her PhD project, she researches Nominal Word Formation within the Poetic Edda, specifically formations with the wandja-suffix.
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Haukur Þorgeirsson
Cohesion in Germanic poetry
In quantity-based poetry, the length or weight of the final syllable of a word may be affected by the onset of the following word, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as cohesion. This principle applies uncontroversially to Greek, Latin and Vedic metrics. It is, however, a more difficult question whether or to what extent it applies to Germanic poetry. Eduard Sievers concluded that it did not, pointing to a number of examples where monosyllabic words occupy a strong position within a line of poetry without apparent regard for the onset of the following word. As an example, the skaldic poem Vellekla has the line “mannfall við styr annan” where the word styr needs to form a heavy syllable despite its short vowel and single consonant in the coda. Later, Hans Kuhn discovered a possible explanation for many lines of this type.
This paper presents a new study of cohesion in Old Norse and Old English poetry and explores the implications of the data for textual criticism, historical phonology and comparative metrics.
Haukur Þorgeirsson is research professor at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic studies. His interests include Old Norse and later Icelandic poetry, historical linguistics, and metrics.
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Bianca Patria
Nýtask mér máltól: Allusive Art and Exegetical Thought in Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli
In the poem Geisli, Einarr Skúlason’s majestic drápa for Saint Óláfr composed c. 1152, traditional dróttkvæði meets Christian poetry in Latin, inaugurating a new era in skaldic composition. As scholars have previously noticed, some passages in this poem contain echoes of early, pagan skaldic verse, but, at the same time, they appear to be infused with theological resonances. This talk will illustrate three instances of this phenomenon, arguing that the poetic allusions in Geisli reveal an allegorical and, precisely, exegetical reading of the pre-Christian matter of early Norse poetry. Einarr Skúlason’s allusive art finds conceptual parallels in the contemporary theological reflection and discloses the doctrinal underpinnings of the renovation of the skaldic genre in the course of the twelfth century.
Bianca Patria is a postdoctoral fellow in Old Norse philology at the Unviersity of Oslo, where she obtained her PhD in 2021. Her research focuses on intertextual phenomena in Old Norse poetry, skaldic diction and Germanic metrics.
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Klaus Johan Myrvoll
The poetry of Gunnlaugs saga: a late thirteenth century patchwork?
The sagas of Icelanders can be divided into three groups according to the extent of authentic poetry they contain (cf. Myrvoll in SkP V, 2022): early sagas with mainly authentic poetry, late sagas with mainly spurious poetry but some elements of authentic poetry, and late sagas with poetry of approximately the same date as the written saga. Of the middle group, Gunnlaugs saga stands out as a particularly problematic case. The twenty-five stanzas of the saga include parts of two encomiastic poems, one stanza of the so-called Gunnlaugsdrápa ormstungu, attributed to Þórðr Kolbeinsson, and a total of twenty lausavísur. The most intensive debate has concerned the situational stanzas, and opinions about them have shifted. Except for one stanza identical with a stanza from Kormáks saga and two stanzas uttered by dead persons, Finnur Jónsson (1920–24) accepted all as authentic productions of Gunnlaugr and his contemporaries. Most scholars have, however, been more sceptical, including Björn Magnússon Ólsen (1911), Russell Poole (1981) and Kari Ellen Gade (2001). Gade points out many resemblances between the stanzas of Gunnlaugs saga and poetry by other skalds, among them Gísli Súrsson, Kormákr and Hallfrøðr vandræðaskáld. These echoes of more securely attested poets may indicate that much of the poetry of Gunnlaugs saga is in fact made for the saga, with the combination of earlier materials to make new stanzas being one of the saga poet’s main strategies. This lecture will explore this strategy in some detail and at the same time try to distil what authentic poetry there still may be in the saga.
Klaus Johan Myrvoll is professor of Nordic linguistics at the University of Stavanger, and as of this autumn, associate professor in Nordic medieval philology at the Arnamagnæan Institute, University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on Old Norse poetry and metrics, textual history and manuscript transmission as well as Nordic language history from all periods, including the study of names and runic inscriptions.
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Mikael Males
How old are the oldest eddica minora?
Eddic poetry in the legendary sagas, the so-called eddica minora, is mostly considered to be young. The main exception is Hlǫðskviða or The Battle of the Goths and the Huns in Hervarar saga. This poem is thought to be early, perhaps even to be the earliest eddic poem of all. Some poetry in Ǫrvar-Odds saga and Ásmundar saga kappabana is also thought to be potentially old.
A study by Haukur Þorgeirsson in 2012 presents counterindications to the consensus view on Hlǫðskviða, suggesting that the question needs to be reopened. This talk explores additional features. On closer inspection, Hlǫðskviða contains both metrical and semantic indications of late composition. Still, a few stanzas may well be old. This invites us to investigate an alternative scenario, which will here be fleshed out through comparison with Ǫrvar-Odds saga and Ásmundar saga kappabana. I will suggest that the “all or nothing” approach of previous scholarship, according to which a poem is either young or old, does not reflect the actual production process of some of the poetry contained in early legendary sagas. Rather, it would seem that a very limited amount of early poetry was known and considerably expanded in the creation of primarily poetic “proto-sagas”, a lost intermediary between earlier purely poetic and later saga form. Like so many other transitional evolutionary stages, this one is lost to us, but it can be detected through a chronological stratigraphy of preserved sagas, as well as through comparison to Saxo. By so doing, crucial components in the development of the genre of the legendary sagas emerge.
Mikael Males is professor of Old Norse philology at the University of Oslo. He has published mainly on skaldic poetry and grammatical literature, but also on eddic poetry, saga literature and Irish-Norse influence.
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Málþingið fer fram á ensku og er öllum opið.
The symposium will be conducted in English. All are welcome to attend.
Miðaldastofa Háskóla Íslands — The University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies
Fyrirlestrar / Lectures
Jonathan L. Ready
The Homeric Wild Papyri and Scribal Performance
Mánudaginn 16. júní 2025 kl. 15.00 / Monday, June 16, 2025, at 15.00
Fyrirlestrasal Eddu (E-103) / Edda auditorium (E-103)
The scribal act of copying an exemplar needs to be understood as a performance. Building on linguistic anthropology’s study of oral performers, my contribution resides in explaining what scribal performance entails. I use the Hellenistic-era wild papyri of the Homeric epics to show how scribal performance involves (1) entextualizing; (2) aiming for completeness; (3) enhancing a text’s affective power; (4) operating as a tradent as well as traditionalizing; (5) negotiating an intertextual gap; (6) fashioning a bookroll; and (7) adopting a stance toward one’s work.
Jonathan L. Ready is a professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan. His most recent monograph is titled Immersion, Identification, and the Iliad (Oxford 2023). His current book project has the working title Euripides’s Orestes and Post-Critique.
Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.
Fyrirlestrar / Lectures
Gareth Lloyd Evans, Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, Carolyne Larrington et al.
Saga Emotions
A Joint Lecture on Feelings in Old Norse Literature
Fimmtudaginn 12. júní 2025 kl. 16.00 / Thursday, June 12, 2025, at 16.00
Oddi 101
How were emotions expressed in Old Norse literary texts? How can we trace the feelings of the past in sagas written centuries ago? This joint lecture explores these questions and more, marking the launch of Saga Emotions, a new academic volume that challenges and enriches our understanding of emotion in Old Norse literature.
The book investigates how emotions are represented in Old Norse literary texts, laying a particular emphasis on those genres which are regarded as quasi-historical or naturalistic. It engages with a broad range of individual emotions through close lexical examination and analysis of case-studies across a range of saga genres. The fundamentally lexemic approach is intended to grapple with the methodological issues raised by using modern emotion terms to interpret medieval texts, which risks forcing the material into preconceived and possibly anachronistic categories. In taking this approach, and by ranging beyond the better-known Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders) also to consider samtíðarsögur (contemporary sagas), konungasögur (kings’ sagas), and biskupasögur (sagas of bishops) alongside other religious texts, the book reconfigures the field of emotion study in Old Norse literature. Saga Emotions is the first book to take this kind of systematic approach to Old Norse prose literature. As each chapter takes its cue from a particular Old Norse word or set of words with demonstrable emotional connotations, the book aims to bring rigour to, and to interrogate, the assumptions with which modern readers analyse these often profoundly strange medieval texts. The aim is to alert readers to emotion that is implicit or understated, and to warn against imposing modern and anglophone taxonomies on literary works that originate in a very different textual culture and social milieu.
The lecture begins with a keynote by editor Carolyne Larrington, University of Oxford, outlining the book’s main findings and approaches. This is followed by brief “lightning talks” from contributors, each showcasing key insights into how emotions like anger, grief, love, and joy appear in the medieval saga world.
- Secular love – Sif Rikhardsdottir, University of Iceland
- Going berserk and the killing mood – Gareth Lloyd Evans, University of Oxford
- Sadness – Edel Maria Porter, University of Castilla-La Mancha
- Compassion – Ásdís Egilsdóttir, University of Iceland
- Desire – Alexander Wilson, University of Leicester
- Grief – Kristen Mills, University of Oslo
- Disgust – Rebecca Merkelbach, University of Tübingen
- Pride – Katherine Olley, University of Nottingham
- Anger – George Manning, University of Oxford
- Shame – Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, University of Iceland
The event will conclude with an open discussion, offering the audience a chance to engage with the speakers and reflect on the relevance of medieval emotional worlds to our own.
The editors of Saga emotions are:
- Gareth Lloyd Evans, Associate Professor of Old Norse at the University of Oxford.
- Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, Assistant Professor of Icelandic Literature at the University of Iceland.
- Carolyne Larrington, Emeritus Professor of Medieval European Literature at the University of Oxford.
Fyrirlestrarnir verða haldnir á ensku og eru öllum opnir. / The talks will be delivered in English and are open to all.
Fyrirlestrar / Lectures
Miðvikudaginn 11. júní 2025 heldur Alban Gautier, prófessor í miðaldasögu við Université de Caen Normandie, tvo fyrirlestra á vegum Miðaldastofu — / — Wednesday, June 11, 2025, Alban Gautier, professor of medieval history at Université de Caen Normandie, will give two talks for the Centre for Medieval Studies:
Alban Gautier
The ‘Massacre of the Long Knives’: transformations of a narrative from the ninth to the thirteenth century
Miðvikudaginn 11. júní 2025 kl. 11.00 / Wednesday, June 11, 2025, at 11.00
Árnagarður 304
A story first appearing in the Historia Brittonum traditionally ascribed to Nennius (early ninth century) tells how, after the Saxons led by Hengest first arrived in Britain, they invited all British noblemen to meet them: in the course of the meeting, the Saxons drew their knives and each one killed his neighbour. I will retrace the transformation of this narrative over five centuries, showing how it was retold and modified in history, pseudo-history and romance, and in a variety of European languages. The most important turning point here was undoubtedly Geoffrey of Monmouth and his History of the Kings of Britain: after him, nearly all versions, from Wace’s Roman de Brut to Breta sögur, drew some inspiration from his version, still modifying it, adding or removing individual details.
Alban Gautier is professor of medieval history at Université de Caen Normandie. His research focuses on Norse culture of the Viking Age where he has researched the roots of the concept of the “noble heathen” which appears in medieval Icelandic literature. In his book Beowulf au paradis: Figures de bons païens dans l’Europe du Nord au haut Moyen-Âge (Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2017), Gautier traces the origins of this concept to the writings of medieval theologians and offers a new interpretation of Beowulf.
Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.
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Alban Gautier
‘Righteous heathens’ before the age of sagas: did something change in the early twelfth century?
Miðvikudaginn 11. júní 2025 kl. 15.00 / Wednesday, June 11, 2025, at 15.00
Árnagarður 304
The notion of the ‘righteous heathen’ or ‘good pagan’ is well-known from Icelandic sagas. There abundance in North European written narratives about the pre-Christian past seems to start sometime in the first half of the twelfth century, when so-called ‘national historians’ such as ‘Gallus Anonymus’ in Poland, Cosmas of Prague in Bohemia or Geoffrey of Monmouth in Britain tell long stories about rulers from the pagan past, celebrating their virtues and their achievements. I will show that, before this date, such stories were not inexistant in the North, but were limited to some regions (especially Ireland) and to a few notable individuals (a handful of them being even regarded as possibly admitted to Paradise). So did something change in the early twelfh century, that made such stories more acceptable for writers that were no less Christian and no less clerical than their predecessors?
Alban Gautier is professor of medieval history at Université de Caen Normandie. His research focuses on Norse culture of the Viking Age where he has researched the roots of the concept of the “noble heathen” which appears in medieval Icelandic literature. In his book Beowulf au paradis: Figures de bons païens dans l’Europe du Nord au haut Moyen-Âge (Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2017), Gautier traces the origins of this concept to the writings of medieval theologians and offers a new interpretation of Beowulf.
Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.
