Arthurian Ethics in Thirteenth Century O

BIBLIOTHECA NORDICA
BIBLIOTHECA NORDICA
Redaktører for serien
Odd Einar Haugen

Karl G. Johansson
Jon Gunnar Jørgensen
Riddarasǫgur
The Translation of European Court Culture
in Medieval Scandinavia
Edited by
Karl G. Johansson
Else Mundal
Novus forlag
Oslo 2014
© Novus AS 2014.
ISSN 1891-1315
ISBN 978-82-7099-XXX-X
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Contents
Preface
Karl G. Johansson and Else Mundal ......................................... 7
Introduction
Else Mundal .................................................................................... 9
“Or volsko”, “Na den walschen boucken”, “Out of Frensshe”:

Towards a model of adaptation
Keith Busby ..................................................................................... 17
Chivalric culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Martin Aurell ............................................................................... 33
Translation topoi in Old French narrative literature

Peter Damian-Grint ..................................................................... 57
Rewriting Le Chevalier au lion: Different stages

of literary transmission
Sofia Lodén .................................................................................... 91
Riddarasǫgur in the North Atlantic literary polysystem

of the thirteenth century. The value of a theory
Jonatan Pettersson .................................................................... 107
5
contents
A wave of reading women: The purpose and function

of the translated French courtly literature
in thirteenth-century Norway
Ingvil Brügger Budal ................................................................ 129
Svá var þá siðr at gera riddara: The chronology

of the riddarasǫgur re-examined
Suzanne Marti ............................................................................. 155
Arthurian ethics in thirteenth-century Old Norse

literature and society
Stefka Georgieva Eriksen .......................................................... 175
The colour of a sail and blood in a glove.

Medial constellations in the Riddarasǫgur
Jürg Glauser ................................................................................ 199
A dragon fight in order to free a lion

Karoline Kjesrud ........................................................................ 225
“Sir Snara Asláksson owns me”: The historical context

of Uppsala De la Gardie 4–7
Bjørn Bandlien ............................................................................ 245
Clári saga, Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, and the evolution

of Icelandic romance
Marianne Kalinke ...................................................................... 273
Bibliography .................................................................................... 293
About the authors ........................................................................... 329
Indices .............................................................................................. 333
6
Preface
The first steps toward what was to be this book were taken already on
the 17–18 October 2008 in a conference on Riddarasögur and the Trans-
lation of Court Culture in 13th Century Scandinavia at the University of
Oslo. The conference was organized as a collaboration between the
project Translation, Transmission and Transformation: Old Norse
Romantic Fiction and Scandinavian Vernacular Literacy 1200–1500,
which was financed by the Norwegian Research Council in the period
2007–2010 and administrated by the Department of Linguistics and
Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo, and the Centre for
Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen, financed as a Centre of
Excellence by the Norwegian Research Council.
Some of the articles in the present volume are elaborated versions of
papers presented at this conference. In order to broaden the scope of the
book, however, a number of scholars who did not participate with papers
at the conference were invited to contribute to the book. Our aim is to
provide articles on a wide range of topics, written by young scholars as
well as more established authors in order to present a view of contem-
porary scholarship on the Scandinavian riddarasǫgur with a clear Conti-
nental perspective.
In our editorial work with the production of the book we have received
help and goodwill from many people. The articles have been reviewed by
anonymous fellow scholars, who deserve thanks for their help. We have
had great use of their comments and suggestions in the editing of the
volume. Alan Crozier has read and corrected the English in most of the
articles written by non-English authors. For this we are very greatful. We
also wish to thank Helen Leslie, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and
Rosie Bonté who read and corrected the English of some of the articles.
7
karl g. johansson and else mundal
The conference was funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This enabled

us to invite scholars from the international field of riddarasǫgur studies.
The book is published with financial support from the Norwegian
Research Council. We would also like to thank the former Centre of
Medieval Studies in Bergen and the Department of Linguistic and Scan-
dinavian Studies in Oslo for their support.
Karl G. Johansson Else Mundal
8
Introduction
Else Mundal
C hivalric literature was introduced to the North early in the thir-

teenth century. We know that Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar was trans-
lated into Old Norse in the year 1226 by a certain Brother Robert, and in
the prologue where the translator names himself, he claims that he did the
translation at the request of King Hákon Hákonarson. In four other trans-
lations, Elíss saga, Ívens saga, Mǫttuls saga and Strengleikar, it is said that the
work was done at the king’s request. It has been a matter of discussion
whether references to the king can be trusted or should be taken as literary
clichés. References to authorities are in many cases false. However, if such
references stem from translations in the king’s own time and in his milieu,
they are most likely reliable, since it would be an insult to honour the king
for something he had not done. It cannot be proven that references to King
Hákon are original and stem from the king’s own time in these five works,
but the only surviving manuscript of Strengleikar, Uppsala, De la Gardie
4–7 fol, was probably written only a few years after the king’s death, and
the mentioning of the translator as Brother Robert in Tristrams saga ok
Ísǫndar and as Abbot Robert in Elíss saga – who in all likelihood is the
same man as Brother Robert after his promotion to Abbot – do also indi-
cate that the prologue with the reference to King Hákon is original. This
little detail with the titles indicates at least that the prologues were written
in the time of Robert, the translator. The direct references to the king in
the prologues of these translations, as well as what we know about the
milieu in the Norwegian court in King Hákon’s time from other sources,
indicate that the king himself and the circles around him were the driving
forces behind the introduction of chivalric literature to the North.
We do not know for certain that Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar was the
first saga to be translated, but if the king himself took a very active
9
else mundal
interest in the work, as the references to him indicate, it is not likely that
the translations started much earlier. In 1226, when Tristrams saga was
translated, the king was still a young man of around 21 or 22 years old,
and it is not likely that he would have taken the initiative to have foreign
literature translated much earlier. To what degree chivalric literature was
known among the cultural elite before the translation took place is hard
to say, but such literature was certainly not completely unknown, since
the contact between the literary milieus in the North and those on the
continent and in England was close.
The European chivalric literature may have been known both in
Norway and in Iceland before the time of the first translations, and we
cannot exclude the possibility that some early translations were done in
Iceland. However, early in the thirteenth century the Norwegian court
seems to have been the milieu that promoted the introduction of this
popular European genre more than others and was the milieu from which
it spread to other literary centres in the North. Iceland, which in spite of
its remote situation and small population had the most productive literary
milieus in the Scandinavian-speaking world, gradually took over as the
leading milieu for cultivating this translated literature and transmitting
it to posterity, and several of the chivalric texts that were first translated
in Norway exist only in Icelandic manuscripts. In Iceland, strangely
enough, chivalric sagas became a productive genre far outside the chivalric
culture. Partly using translated chivalric sagas as models, the Icelanders
started to compose a sort of chivalric saga genre of their own, a strange
mix of the translated sagas and the domestic genre the fornaldarsǫgur.
The popularity of chivalric literature in the North shows that people
living in the northern countries were very interested in the outside world
and open to literary impulses from abroad. This did not come as some-
thing new with the translations of chivalric texts, mostly from Old
French, early in the thirteenth century. The stories told in most of the
heroic Eddic poems take place on the continent. The legends of saints
from the first centuries of Christianity and later from the continent and
the British Isles were among the first texts to be translated and became
popular also outside the setting of the Church. Pseudo-historical texts,
such as Veraldar saga, Trójumanna saga, Breta sǫgur, and Romverja saga,
10
introduction
are translations from Latin and as a group are older than the translated
chivalric sagas. They are, however, sometimes seen in close connection
with each other, and show the same interest in the outside world and the
common European history of which people in the North also wanted to
be a part. The translation of the pseudo-historical works seems, however,
mainly to have taken place in Iceland, whereas the translation of chivalric
literature took place mainly in Norway.
To get a good picture of the chivalric literature and how it functioned
in the northern countries it is necessary to know the chivalric culture in
the countries where this culture developed and to try to understand why
the literature that was created as part of this culture had such a great
appeal in the northern countries in spite of the fact that there were great
cultural differences between the two regions of Europe. It is also neces-
sary to know the culture around the court of King Hákon Hákonarson,
and his policy and attitude to Europe in order to understand why he and
the people around him were so eager to have chivalric literature translated
into Old Norse. The background for the latest development of chivalric
literature in the North, the Icelandic indigenous riddarasǫgur, is the Ice-
landic society in the late Middle Ages. An insight into the Icelandic cul-
ture in this period, when the fantastic and heroic fornaldarsǫgur and rímur
– rhymed texts often telling the same type of stories as the fornaldarsǫgur
– had become the most popular genres, is necessary to understand the
genre’s latest stage of development that deprived it of most of the hall-
marks of genuine chivalric literature.
Several of the articles of the present book discuss what happened
during the process of translation. Others focus on the chivalric culture
in the regions of Europe where this culture developed, or on how this
chivalric literature functioned, or was meant to function, in the North,
and others again on the development of the genre in the Nordic culture
and the spread from the circles around the Norwegian court.
Keith Busby argues in his article, which opens the book, in favour
of the idea of a medieval Francophonia. The Norman conquest in 1066
marked the beginning of a linguistic, cultural, and political empire that
was to stretch far beyond France and England. The new political central
point created a need and a demand for translations and adaptions from
11
else mundal
the French. The translations into Old Norse should be seen in connec-
tion with the spread of French culture to many regions outside its central
area. Scandinavia differed, however, from most other European regions,
by having a strong native narrative tradition, and therefore translations
and adaptations had to meet the expectations of audiences accustomed
to the native tradition. Busby rounds his article off by offering a model
of adaption.
In the second article of the book, Martin Aurell gives an overview
of chivalric culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He comments
on all aspects of chivalric life and way of thinking, but pays especial atten-
tion to the intellectual activity of the aristocratic warriors. The twelfth
century witnessed an intellectual renaissance, that is reflected in litera-
ture. Knowledge and courtesy became increasingly important. This
change coincided with a general pacification of the aristocracy, private
wars between lords decreased, and the courts of kings and princes in
towns became the centres of chivalric culture that included courtesy and
learning.
The subject of Peter Damian-Grint’s paper is translation topoi in Old
French narrative. These translation topoi are references to Latin books
and authorities, more general claims of truthfulness, phrases about the
need of translation for the unlettered, difficulties of the work, and the
request of translation from an authority. He examines the distribution
of translation topoi across the different literary genres of Old French:
saints’ lives, historiography, didactic works, chansons de geste and courtly
romances. His findings support the idea that such topoi originated in non-
fiction, and probably came from religious works, but they also suggest a
hierarchy of authority and a clear consciousness of the distinction
between fact and fiction.
Sofia Lodén examines a specific scene in Chrétien de Troyes’ Cheva-
lier au lion and its translation in the Old Norse Ívens saga and the Old
Swedish Herr Ivan, and she uses this scene as an index of the relationship
between the three texts. In the epilogue of Herr Ivan it is stated that the
translation into Swedish was made from French, but whether that is true,
or whether the Swedish translation partly, mainly, or even exclusively,
builds on the Old Norse translation has been a matter of discussion.
12
introduction
Lodén’s investigation indicates that the translator used both a French

and an Old Norse text, but her main point is to draw attention to the
fact that the two translations are different in their ways of dealing with
their sources.
In the riddarasǫgur and in the fornaldarsǫgur we find a new kind of
subjectivity compared to the objective style of the older saga literature.
Jonatan Pettersson discusses the role of translation in this innovation.
The foregrounded narrator has been considered one aspect of subjectivity
in texts, and Pettersson shows with examples two different solutions
that the narrator could choose when translating a source text with a fore-
grounded narrator. One solution, the author-reference solution, was to
put in a reference to the author of the text. This would make the style
less subjective than the source text with the foregrounded narrator and
can be regarded as a way of adapting to the target culture norms. In the
second solution, the adopted-narrator solution, which would be identical
with the solution in modern translation, the speaking “I” in the source
text would be replaced with a speaking “I” in the target text. The first
solution is very common in Alexanders saga, for example, while the
second solution was frequently used in Strengleikar. Pettersson suggests
that the two different translation strategies point towards two different
cultures of openness, one where it was necessary to adapt to the target
culture (Iceland?) and one more open to new literary trends (Norway?).
Ingvil Brügger Budal takes her point of departure in the Norwegian
author Hans E. Kinck’s view of the translated chivalric literature and
King Hákon Hákonarson, the Norwegian king to whom this literature
has been connected. In the nineteenth century, King Hákon Hákonarson
was looked upon as a great hero and his time as the most glorious in the
history of Norway. Kinck, writing early in the twentieth century, repre-
sented an opposite view. King Hákon was in his eyes a conceited fool
who admired anything foreign, and the literature the king commissioned
for translation Kinck patronizingly labelled as “reading for ladies”. Budal
discusses what the purpose and the function of the translated French lit-
erature might have been in thirteenth century Norway. She argues that
the intended function and the function these sagas actually served were
not necessarily the same.
13
else mundal
Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar, which according to the prologue of the saga,

was translated in 1226, has often been regarded as the oldest of the trans-
lated chivalric sagas. Suzanne Marti challenges this well-established view.
She distances herself from earlier attempts at dating on the basis of infor-
mation found in prologues or epilogues in manuscripts that are consid-
erably later than the presumed time of translation, and instead she sug-
gests that a lexical analysis with a focus on the translator’s treatment of
foreign subject-matter can give an indication of the relative age of the
translations. Marti chooses to investigate how the French vocabulary
used to refer to chivalric practice of dubbing is translated into Old Norse.
In Old French there existed expressions like faire chevaliers, ‘gera riddari’
/ ‘make a knight’, that would be easily understood in the target language
even by people who did not know chivalric culture well. There also
existed a special word, adouber, ‘to dub’, that was taken up in Old Norse
as a lone word. Marti argues that in the oldest translations we should
expect to find the paraphrasing expression that would be understood by
an audience without intimate knowledge of chivalric culture, while the
use of the loan word indicates a later translation. Marti’s analysis suggests
that Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar is not among the oldest translations, while
there are other sagas, like Parcevals saga, that may have been translated
earlier than previously assumed.
The topic of Stefka Georgieva Eriksen’s article is Arthurian ethics
in thirteenth century Old Norse literature and society. The main source
for her study are four texts in the Norwegian manuscript De la Gardie
4–7 fol from around 1270 of which two, Pamphilus and Dialogue between
hugrekki and œðra (short fragment) are translations from Latin, and the
other two, Elíss saga ok Rósamundu and Strengleikar, are translations from
Old French. These texts are read ethically and in a dialogic relationship
to each other, and the aim of the article is to discuss the function of
Arthurian ethics and ideals in the thirteenth century and the relationship
between fiction and contemporary legal norms with regard to specific
ethical dilemmas. She finds that the ethical dilemma between love and
personal consent on the one hand and social norms on the other that was
so typical of Arthurian literature was also present both in Norwegian
laws and in Norwegian mentalities and realities.
14
introduction
The article by Jürg Glauser investigates different aspects of mediality

in Old Norse texts. He takes his point of departure in the last scenes of
Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar. The two trees growing up from the graves of
the two lovers reaching each other over the church’s roof form a powerful
symbol, and the black and white sails carry more meaning than many
words. On the basis of these motifs and others found in Eiríks saga rauða
and Vǫlsunga saga Glauser discusses whether visual signs or verbal com-
munication is presented as the more reliable form of communication. In
the middle section of the article he discusses some theoretical aspects of
mediality and makes some observations about performity in medieval
literature. He completes his article with a new section of textual analyses,
this time using examples from Njáls saga and Karlamagnús saga, to show
how a connection between objects with human blood and guilt is estab-
lished in these texts. He further demonstrates how oral, verbal, spoken
and written language as a medium are viewed in the texts, and his con-
clusion is that the authors in thirteenth century Scandinavia no doubt
were thinking about the potential and limitations of communicative
strategies.
Karoline Kjesrud focuses on one specific motif found in six different
sagas from Iceland and Norway, the dragon fight in order to free a lion,
and in addition the same motif found on the Valþjófsstaðir church door
is also examined. This motif may vary from one context to another, but
there are three necessary returning elements, a dragon, a lion, and a
knight. The common function for all the representations of the motif is
to present a hero’s achievement and thus his moral fight against evil.
However, in the different saga narratives the motif has also other func-
tions: one of these is to add religious and biblical symbolism to the text.
Bjørn Bandlien aims in his article to elucidate the historical back-
ground to the production and audience of courtly literature in Norway
in the two first generations after the death of King Hákon IV. He argues
that in this period courtly literature was no longer commissioned only
by the king and his court, but also by a new aristocratic élite. To make
his point, he chooses the Norwegian manuscript De la Gardie 4–7 fol,
to show how the texts of this manuscript, written around 1270, take a
special interest in certain themes and moral thinking that seem to point
15
else mundal
at an audience of courteous clerks and courtly retainers. On the second

leaf of the manuscript, the name of the owner of the manuscript at a cer-
tain point of time is mentioned. The name has been read as Snara
Asláksson, and if that reading is right, he can in all likelihood be identi-
fied with a man who seems to have been in the group of learned, profes-
sional officials in the administration of King Hákon V. Bandlien argues
that the manuscript De la Gardie 4–7 fol most likely was written in the
court of King Magnús Hákonarson in Bergen. Snara’s ownership of the
manuscript, or part of it, shows how a manuscript connected to the court
spread from one group to another and from the court to local centres of
power.
Marianne Kalinke investigates the development of a motif that
became very popular in Icelandic indigenous romances, the meykongr.
The sagas that are built around this motif formed a subgenre of
romances, the maiden king romance. The pattern of these narratives is
that a suitor seeks to marry a maiden king; the maiden king mistreats
the suitor; the suitor returns in disguise to take revenge; he wins the
maiden king’s hand through trickery or magic; and the story ends with
the wedding between the maiden king – who will no longer be a king –
and the suitor who takes over the position as king. Kalinke shows how
this subgenre developed out of loans from translated romances on the
one hand and indigenous old Norse motifs on the other. Foreign motifs
were combined with indigenous motifs, indigenous motifs were some-
times interpreted on the basis of a foreign narrative pattern and in the
process of transmission a translated romance sometimes underwent
acculturation. To what degree foreign motifs became productive and how
they were transformed is determined by what could be accepted in the
Icelandic society and by the literary taste of the Icelandic audience.
Chivalric literature, translated or indigenous, has not been regarded
to be of the same quality as the sagas of Icelanders and the sagas of kings,
and the same level of interest has not been shown in it. It is however
worth noticing that chivalric literature was very popular in the North for
several hundred years, and continued to be a productive genre in Iceland
long after the end of the Middle Ages.
16
“Or volsko”, “Na den walschen boucken”,
“Out of Frensshe”: Towards a Model of
Adaptation
Keith Busby
R ather than being a theoretical model for the study of adaptation, this
article is more of a series of reflections and questions, some of which
are addressed to specialists in Nordic literature and the riddarasǫgur. Nev-
ertheless, I hope at the very least it will raise some issues that are relevant
to the subject of French-Scandinavian literary relations in general. And I
will offer towards the end a modest practical model of adaptation.
The first question that arises in my mind is that of the demand for
translations and adaptations from the French. The initial stimulus for
these must come from knowledge of the existence of the originals, the
inability properly to comprehend or appreciate them in their original
form, and some notion of their desirability and significance for the
receiving culture and language. If this seems to be stating the obvious, I
would argue that it is not necessarily so in light of the cultural and lin-
guistic geography of medieval Europe. In particular, I would like to argue
here (as I have done elsewhere) in favour of the idea of a medieval Fran-
cophonia, the study of which can be in many ways compared with that
of the modern version so eloquently formulated by our modernist col-
leagues.1 When William the Conqueror landed on Pevensey beach in late
September, 1066, the seeds were sown of a linguistic, cultural, and polit-
ical empire that was to stretch far beyond France and England. Within
decades, the Normans had moved westwards into Wales, establishing by
intermarriage and symbiosis a distinctive Cambro-Norman culture, and
in 1169, Raymond le Gros landed at Wexford in southeastern Ireland,
paving the way for Richard FitzGilbert de Clare (better known as
1 I have explored this notion at greater length and in the context of medieval multil-
ingualism in Busby & Putter (2011).
17
keith busby
Strongbow) to marry Aoife, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, and

ascend to the throne of Leinster when the latter died a year later. By the
middle of the thirteenth century, the varieties of medieval French were
in use for everyday, administrative, legal, and literary purposes, from
much of Ireland through roughly two-thirds of the modern hexagon of
France (minus the region of the langue d’oc). Additionally, courts in Flan-
ders, Brabant, and Hainaut were bilingual at various points, and there is
even evidence of Francophony as far north as Utrecht. Recent work by
Cyril Aslanov (2006a and 2006b) and Laura Minervini (2010) has fur-
thermore underlined the importance of French in the Levant, particularly
Acre, Constantinople, the Morea, and Cyprus, in the thirteenth century.
And in the second half of the thirteenth century and first half of the four-
teenth, French was an important and imported literary language in
northern Italy, mainly the city republics.2
The well-attested decline in English as a literary language throughout
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and its supplanting by Norman
French, whose speakers soon constituted the vast majority of the literary
public, rendered Middle English versions of French romance more or
less superfluous until the second half of the thirteenth century (pace a
few exceptions; Short 2007: 11–31). The implantation of Norman aris-
tocracy and ecclesiastics did not alone create the Francophone audience
in the British Isles, for the Normans’ skillful acculturation through mar-
riage and integration of native traditions also did much, perhaps more,
to facilitate the shift from germanic to romance. Evidence of this lies in
the composition in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries of
romances of the so-called “matter of England” such as Horn, Haveloc,
Waldef, Boeve de Hantone, Gui de Warewic, and Fouke le Fitz Warin,
which are testimony to the conquerors’ interest in the history of their
new home (Crane 1986). Horn, Haveloc, and parts of the Brut texts in
particular have a curiously circular turn as they take us back to the Scan-
dinavian origins of the Normans, origins which neither the insular nor
2 It should be noted that we are, of course, dealing with different kinds of Franco-
phony: by means of colonization (England and Ireland), crusade (the Levant), and
cultural fashion (Italy).
18
“or volsko”, “na den walschen boucken”, “out of frensshe”
the continental Normans ever forgot. Some of these romances are also
among the first to be adapted into Middle English with the growth of
demand for literature among the new anglophone merchant class. I
should add here that English, of course, was never completely sup-
pressed, and as the majority vernacular outside the governing elite, it is
the reason why French is not an official language of Great Britain today,
just as Danish is not an official language of northwestern France (Short
2007; Richter 1979).
Nor should we exaggerate the practical linguistic difficulties posed by
the very real regional variations of Old French. The uppermost echelons
of English aristocracy and the royal houses possessed manuscripts in con-
tinental French and there is clear evidence of insular compositions circu-
lating on the Continent and continental texts circulating in the islands
(even where insular manuscripts have not survived) and well after the loss
of Normandy to the English crown in 1204 and the consolidation at Bou-
vines ten years later. What we have is essentially a common Francophone
culture on both sides of the English Channel, albeit with regional charac-
teristics (not simply insular and continental, for areas such as Picardy and
Burgundy-Lorraine show marked preferences for certain texts, genres,
and authors). In England, the pretensions of the monarchy to the throne
of France assured closer ties to continental culture at the very top of the
pyramid than among the run-of-the-mill descendants of the normanni,
whose proximity to, and identity with, the angli was of necessity greater.3
This common Francophone culture has repercussions for the theory
of transmission of the riddarasǫgur base to Scandinavia since it renders
less acute the need to postulate the Normans as intermediaries. Indeed,
it would support Jürg Glauser’s contention that:
In some cases, the Old French romances were translated into Old
Norwegian via an Anglo-Norman intermediary; however, there were
also direct transfers from the Old French to Old Norwegian. Some
3 Essential reading on French as a common language in the upper echelons of both

French and English society, and as an administrative language is Lusignan (2004),
who also addresses the question of regional variations (dialects).
19
keith busby
riddarasǫgur go back to works of known French authors, such as

Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France […], though most are based
on anonymous texts. (Glauser 2005: 374)
The argument works both ways, of course: those works of Chrétien and
others could have been transferred via Anglo-Norman manuscripts
which do not survive or through continental manuscripts circulating in
the insular parts of Francophonia in the early thirteenth century. Lin-
guistically, at least, the Anglo-Norman issue might be a red herring,
although transmission via the Norman domains in the British Isles
remains the most likely principal route.
What is common to most of the linguistic regions (I hesitate to use
the word “country” here for obvious reasons) which produced adaptations
of French romances or works based on French models is some kind of
geographic and/or political contiguity with medieval Francophonia. Lack
of same is, of course, one of the defining features of the nordic regions
which produced the riddarasǫgur. In spite of the many political and cul-
tural ties between the Francophone regions and Scandinavia in the Middle
Ages, the remoteness of the Nordic countries from Francophonia as a
factor in determining the extent and nature of literary adaptations surely
cannot be dismissed, even if it can be exaggerated. If manuscripts of
French romance were circulating in the British Isles, easily available in
courts and elsewhere of border areas in the Lowlands and Germany, what
was or were the physical means of the transmission of, say, Chrétien de
Troyes and the Tristan romances to the Nordic regions? Where did
Brother Robert get his texts? So far as I know, there is little evidence of
French manuscripts circulating in Iceland or Norway as there is elsewhere
and as far as I have been able to ascertain, attempts to show the depend-
ence of the individual riddarasǫgur on particular manuscripts or branches
of the manuscript tradition of the source text have not yielded much fruit.4
4 An exception might be suggested by the case of the Swedish Herr Ivan (1303–1312),
the poet of which may have had access to a French text as well as the Norse version
in a court of the north in the early fourteenth century; any French manuscript could
have been there long before. My thanks to Else Mundal for reminding me of this.
See now, for a detailed study of the Old Swedish text, Lodén (2012)
20
If it is not possible to prove the circulation of French manuscripts in

the Nordic countries, it may at least be theoretically possible to demonstrate
the proximity of an adaptation to a version of the source text. Perhaps scan-
dinavists have simply not had access to all the materials needed in such an
exercise. I am aware of the problems posed by the transmission of some of
the riddarasǫgur in Icelandic rather than Norwegian manuscripts, and late
ones at that, but can such transmission totally obscure the nature of the
source text? And what I mean by “all the materials” is complete and accurate
transcriptions of all surviving manuscripts of the model along with complete
codicological and palaeographical descriptions of them. Variants, however
generous, in critical editions of French texts may offer the occasional clue,
but they are an inadequate substitute for the kind of collected evidence I
have in mind. In the case of French texts which have survived only in one
or two copies or even in fragments, such material may not be particularly
helpful or instructive (say, Thomas’s Tristan, Floire et Blanchefleur or Elie de
Saint Gille) but the rich tradition of Erec et Enide, Yvain, Perceval, Boeve de
Hantone, Partonopeus de Blois, the Brut and Troy texts, the Alexander mate-
rial, and the Pseudo-Turpin might offer hope if the material were available.
In the case of the four last mentioned (Brut, Troy, Alexander, and Pseudo-
Turpin), Latin sources will have to be considered for the Breta sǫgur, Tróju-
manna saga, Alexanders saga, and parts of the Karlamagnús saga. I do not
underestimate the practical difficulties involved in such undertakings.5
The other aspect in which Scandinavia differs from most of the other
regions which produced adaptations of courtly romance is, of course, the
existence of a dominant native narrative tradition. I say “most of the other
regions” because there is at least one other area which produced a body of
indigenous narrative which generated intertextuality with the adaptations
of French romance when they appeared, namely Wales. I am not going to
re-open the can of worms known to literary history as “die Mabinogion-
frage” although the relationship of “y tair rhamant” to both Chrétien and
the four branches of the Mabinogion proper may be worth re-examining.
Here is a situation in some ways comparable to that found in the Nordic
5 The decline of the great Scandinavian tradition of romance philology has done little
to help matters.
21
keith busby
countries (and no doubt different in just as many): a corpus of native nar-

rative (Mabinogion and others, sagas), not predominantly courtly, alongside
which stands a decent corpus of adaptations from the French, in many
ways clearly adapted to meet the expectations of audiences accustomed to
the indigenous tradition. There is, of course, a further complication in the
case of Wales since the very origin of the matière de Bretagne in the Celtic
realms makes the adaptations of Chrétien (if indeed they are such as I
believe them to be) a return to their point of departure, restoring some
archaic features lost or excised by Chrétien.6 And is it a coincidence that
the three analogues of Chrétien’s stories which appear in Middle Welsh
as Gereint, Owein, and Peredur are the same ones transformed in the north
as Erex saga, Ivens saga, and Parcevals saga/Valvers þattr (and for that matter,
in Middle High German by Hartmann and Wolfram). Can the absence of
adaptations of Lancelot and Cligés be explained by anything other than coin-
cidence? In the latter case of Perceval, incidentally, neither the Middle
Welsh nor the Norse preserve the Perceval-Gauvain structure of Chrétien’s
original. Nor does the Middle English Sir Perceval of Galles, with Ywain
and Gawain one of the two Chrétien romances adapted anglice.
The Celtic connection leads me to what might appear to be a digres-
sion, although it is in fact quite relevant to the subject of the present book
since it concerns the Normans and relates, amongst others, to one of the
principal Norse texts derived from French models, namely the Strengleikar.
It concerns fol. 200r of Shrewsbury School (Shropshire), ms. 7, a flyleaf
dating from about 1270 of a slightly earlier collection of mainly Latin
didactic and moral works in prose (fig. 1). I believe the list to have been
copied around the Chester area, near the border with Wales. Although it
is clearly a list of titles of poems, in Anglo-Norman, its function is not evi-
dent: a table of contents of a lost or planned manuscript, poems available
in the scriptorium for copying, a jongleur’s repertoire, all are possibilities.
And what is the function of the grouping by the wavy red lines? Not the-
matic or generic as far as I can see, and not alphabetical. It is possible that
each group represents a set of poems that would have fitted onto one gath-
ering of a manuscript; the red lines are probably contemporary.
6 A good overview of the issues is to be found in the various essays in Bromwich,

Jarman & Roberts (1991).
22
Figure 1. Shrewsbury School, ms. 7, fol. 200r (Reproduced with permis-

sion of Shrewsbury School).
23
keith busby
Let us take a look at the titles which we may take to be those of

works circulating in England in the mid- to late thirteenth century, and
almost certainly much earlier. Space does not permit commentary on all
of the items, but some features of the list are striking. First, there is a
large number of lais, generously defined, although longer romances and
possibly chansons de geste and pseudo-chronicle texts also seem to be rep-
resented. Secondly, although many of the titles refer to extant poems,
others do not, and the subjects of some of these are obscure or simply
impossible to recognize. However, I have been able to identify several
which may have particularly significant implications for the transmission
of medieval narrative material in the British Isles and potentially from
there to the Nordic countries.
First the apparently unproblematic titles of extant romances: Beu
desconu, Veyn le fiz urien, Glygis (Cligés?), and Anyle egalerun. Then prob-
able romances, the precise subjects of which are not clear: Merlin le
suuage, Leleys alicsandre, Tristram, Le rey march, Le rey arthur; two poems
which appear to be planctus: La pleinte vavayn, and La pleynte meliaduc.
Probable subjects from Brut-texts: Glou de gloucestre, Le eir de leycestre,
and Cadewelan le ueyl. Other apparently historical subjects, possibly
tending to the chanson de geste: Le rey aluered, Le rey pepyn, Ranbaud de
frise, and Ysanbras len ueyse. Then the lais, not all Breton, extant or
attested elsewhere: Bisclaueret, Beu desire, Doun, Eygnor, Frene, Gorum,
Laumual, Le numper, Tjdorel, Eliduc, Le caycyuel, Nobaret, Cheuerefoil,
Milun, Vygamer, and Yonech; and there are other lais not attested (Lay
de puceles, Lay de amurs, Lay de uent, Ley del engleis) and one hagiograph-
ical legend referred to here as a lai (Lay sent brandan). A nordic connec-
tion is assured by Le rey haueloch, whose story is preserved in an Anglo-
Norman text designated as a lai, and by the number of texts, versions of
which are found in the Strengleikar: Guiamars lioð, Eskiu lioð, Biclarets
lioð, Desire lioð, Tidorels lioð, Chetivel, Douns lioð, Guruns lioð, Miluns lioð,
Geitarlauf, Ianuals lioð, Ionets lioð, Naboreis lioð, and quite possibly Ricar
hinn gamli. That is fourteen out of nineteen, the same number, sauf erreur,
if not exactly the same texts, shared with Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. fr. 1104,
the manuscript with which De la Gardie 4–7 is most often compared. I
am not suggesting here a direct connection between the Shrewsbury
24
manuscript and any surviving riddarasǫgur but at the very least we are in
the kind of milieu which through some unknown transmission route pro-
vided source texts for the nordic adaptations.
The milieu is, of course, Norman, and Celto-Norman at that. Wit-
ness, for example, the titles that clearly indicate the existence of poems
on Welsh topics: Vithel penmeyn, Rey mabun, Luelan lychlez, Lay de uent,
Van delmer, Karleyn (Sims-Williams 2010), and probably Mil de mereth,
Vinerun, Vespris, and Lau diduc. More astonishing, however, are at least
two titles, Le rey heremon and Coscra, which appear to be stories taken
directly from Irish mythology: Érimón is one of the three sons of Míl
Espáine, the first Milesian king of Ireland (tale related in the Lebor
Gabála Érenn), and Cuscraid Menn, the stammerer of Macha, appears
in one of the foretales of the great Irish epic, Táin Bó Cúailgne.7 What
this suggests is that the Normans, practised appropriators of foreign cul-
tures, had tales from Welsh and Irish mythology and history translated
directly from Welsh and Irish into French as a means of assimilating the
lore of the peoples they had conquered. The provenance of this curious
document in the Welsh marches, probably Chester, points to Cambro-
Normans who had proceeded westwards and became Hiberno-Normans,
more Irish than the Irish themselves (hiberniores hibernis ipsis). It may pro-
vide a clue to the transmission of Celtic mythological material into the
langue d’oïl, somehow related to the equally curious case of famosus ille
fabulator Bledhericus, the Welshman Bleddri ap Cadivor, latinarius, who
may have visited Guillaume IX, the first known troubadour, in Poitiers
sometime before 1126 (Gallais 1967).
I return to the question of the why and the wherefore of the appear-
ance of the riddarasǫgur in Norway in the first half of the thirteenth cen-
tury and of whether it is attributable solely to the desires of Hákon and
his court to be fashionable and to put modish French tales to didactic or
entertainment use or both. There is in any case evidence in the Konungs
skuggsjá that French was held in high esteem as a practical language by
7 I have touched on this in Busby (2007: 154–156). I would also like to thank Patrick
Sims-Williams for letting me look at his work on the Shrewsbury manuscript when
it was still in progress. It has since been published (Sims-Williams 2010).
25
keith busby
Norwegians of the mid-thirteenth century: [...] oc æf þu ƿillt ƿærða full-

komenn í froðleic . Þa næmðu allar mallyzkur en alra hælzt latinu oc ƿalsku .
Þƿiat þær tungur ganga ƿiðazt ‘[...] and if you want to become perfect in
your wisdom, then you should learn all languages, and first and foremost
Latin and French because those languages are used most widely’.8 The
whole history of medieval Francophonia and the reception through adap-
tation of various layers of narrative material, from the absorption of
Celtic mythology into Norman, Plantagenet, and Angevin narrative to
the reworkings in languages other than French is riddled with politics
and notions of ethnicity, identity, and lineage. Why would this not be
the case in medieval Scandinavia? Were there political and/or ethnic rea-
sons which might be adduced to account in part for the fashion in the
North of literature of Norman French origin which in turn would have
played a part in the genesis of the non-adapted riddarasǫgur composed
on the French model? The body of French romance apparently accessible
to the medieval North, was, to quote Jürg Glauser once again, part of “a
foreign culture that evidently held a certain fascination for the Scandi-
navian peoples” (Glauser 2005: 382). Clearly, modishness and the desire
prodesse et delectare were central, whatever other reasons might be posited.
Here we need the help of historians. If the Normans remained aware of
their Scandinavian roots, did medieval Scandinavians regard the Nor-
mans as their descendants? And if so, might they have regarded Norman-
French culture in the broad sense as in some way part of their legacy to
the world which they wanted to recapture by adapting and adopting it
back into their own vernaculars?
In three places in the Heimskringla, Snorri gives a genealogy of the
Dukes of Normandy. In the third narrative, Haralds saga ins hárfagra (Hkr
I: 123–125), Snorri tells how Rolf Ganger (Gǫngu-Hrólfr), expelled from
Norway by Harald, reaches the Hebrides and moves on to France (Val-
land).9 There he founds the earldom which he peopled with men from
the North, whence the place is called Normandy. He sketches the line of
8 My thanks once more to Else Mundal for this reference and her translation of the
passage from Holm-Olsen (Konungs skuggsjá: 5).
9 English version in Hollander (1964).
26
Rolf’s descendants through to William the Conqueror and subsequent

English kings, saying that the earls of Normandy are also descended from
him. Similar passages are to be found in Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar, par-
ticularly in sections relating to the Battle of Hastings (Hkr III: 168, 193–
195). And in a passage in Óláfs saga helga (Hkr II: 26–27) concerning Olaf’s
visit to Normandy in 1013–1014, Snorri again tells us of the descendants
of Rolf Ganger in Valland: William Longspear or Longsword (of whom
there may have been a now lost Anglo-Norman romance (Busby 2002:
685–686, 760)), the two Richards, William and Robert:
Frá Gǫngu-Hrólf eru komnir Rúðujarlar, ok tǫlðu þeir lengi síðan

frændsemi við Nóregshǫfðingja ok virðu þeim þat lengi síðan ok váru
inir mestu vinir Norðmanna alla stund, ok áttu með þeim friðlǫnd
allir Norðmenn, þeir er þat vildu þekkjask. (Hkr II: 26–27)
From Ganger-Hrolf are descended the earls of Rouen. They called

themselves for a long time kinsmen of the Norwegian chieftains and
considered themselves such for a long time. They were always the
greatest friends of the Norwegians; and Norwegians who wanted to
come there had a friendly welcome with them.10 (Hollander 1964: 259)
How widespread was this segment of Scandinavian historiography in the

first part of the thirteenth century? And could it account in part for the
fascination that French-language culture held for medieval Scandina-
vians? Paul White (2005) has further argued that overlaps between
Norman historiography and later Scandinavian sagas can best be
explained by a direct literary trail from Normandy to the North, by con-
tinued contact between Scandinavian travellers to the Continent and the
inhabitants of Normandy. Such contact would have fostered the notion
that the Normans were the descendants of Scandinavians and surely
stimulated the interest in the culture of the former, an interest which
takes concrete shape in the riddarasǫgur. White’s research on the non-
native sources of the Konungasǫgur suggests that access to Latin historio-
10 I thank Sverre Bagge for this reference.
27
keith busby
graphical works, many of them Norman, was had both within and
without Scandinavia. Clerical education and monastic libraries were
surely the conduits for this. Booklists from such libraries in both England
and France contain, perhaps surprisingly, much secular literature in
French, romance and epic, alongside more openly edifying material
(Busby 2002: 736–766).
I will conclude with the model of adaptation promised in my title
and introduction. It is derived in large part from some of my earlier pub-
lications (Busby 1978; 1982; 1987) and in particular from work done on
adaptation by scholars of Middle Dutch.11 What might be called the “Ger-
ritsen-van Oostrom” model is constructed with the input of various
approaches: the strictly philological, the socio-cultural, the structural, the
rhetorical, and the reception-based. Its complete bibliography would be
eclectic. I have added to the model some codicological matters which
underlie my own more recent work (Busby 2002), and which echo Jürg
Glauser’s plea (Glauser 2005) for the study of the manuscript context of
the riddarasǫgur. In essence, rather than a theoretical model or a transla-
tion theory in the strict sense of the term, it might function as a practical
guide or handlist of the kind of issues, phrased here mainly as questions,
which scholars dealing with adaptations into other vernaculars of French-
language originals might want to take into account. It makes no claims
to exhaustivity, less still to originality. Some of the questions were also
raised earlier by Marianne Kalinke in her ground-breaking King Arthur
North by Northwest (Kalinke 1981), to whom we are all indebted.
I present the model here in summary form:
1. Base text. Can we identify the version/redaction of the French text

on which the adaptation is based? Can we further identify the man-
uscript or manuscript family closest to the adaptation?
2. Translation versus adaptation. Are there instances of literal transla-
11 I quote here, only as examples, Gerritsen (1963), van Oostrom (1981), and Hogenbirk
(2004); the last-mentioned is significant as it examines an original Middle Dutch
Arthurian composition, which could perhaps be compared to the non-translated rid-
darasǫgur.
28
tion? How much and what does the adaptor add to, or omit from,
the French? Can we speak of translation errors? Did the adaptor
understand or appreciate all the implications and subtleties of the
original with respect to composition, style, and content? This is
clearly complicated when we are dealing with Icelandic copies of
Norwegian originals, but the latter can sometimes be reconstructed,
and in any case, the modifications made by the Icelandic redactors
may be interesting in themselves.
3. Rationalisation. If the French is replete with the merveilleux (as is

often the case), does the adaptor rationalise by explaining and moti-
vating actions? The reverse is theoretically possible, but rare. Chré-
tien is the case study in merveilleux. We should re-examine the cate-
gories of merveilleux and supernatural with respect to adaptations.
4. Place, time, and climate. How does the adaptor represent the geog-
raphy, the passing of time, and the meteorology of his text? Is the
landscape described more or less “realistically”? Are real place-names
employed and to what effect? Is there a move towards a more chron-
icle-like representation of time, perhaps aimed at suggesting his-
toricity? How is the weather?
5. Idealization. Does the adaptor show his characters as embodying an

ideal? Does he enable discussion and questioning of, say, courtly or
chivalric ideals as Chrétien does? If not, then the adaptations may be
more of a speculum curiæ or speculum militiæ and less of an examina-
tion of the limitations of a way of life. Consequently, the “psy-
chology” of the characters might be less profound.
6. Form and function. Is the adaptation from verse to prose, verse to

verse, prose to prose, or prose to verse? What does this tell us about
the adaptor’s working methods and audience reception? Does the
adaptor keep to the narrative structure of his original? For example,
if adapting a text intended for individual reading to a situation of oral
reception, he may have to simplify structure (say, unlace the entrelace-
29
keith busby
ment of French prose romance). Did the adaptor of Parcevals saga

and Valvers þáttr appreciate or even understand the complex interre-
lationship between the Perceval and Gauvain parts of Chrétien’s
Perceval?
7. Literary traditions. Is the adaptation influenced by the “learned”

rhetorical tradition of the artes poeticæ? Or are any traces of rhetorical
devices attributable to, or merely derivative of, a common arsenal of
received ideas and procedures? To what extent does the adaptation
conform to other, perhaps dominant, literary traditions of the
receiving culture? In the case of the riddarasǫgur, this would primarily
be the native saga tradition. If the audience for the adaptation was
less familiar with the general tradition of the text being adapted, this
would give the adaptor considerably more freedom in the treatment
of all kinds of conventions, including the portrayal of particular char-
acters.
8. Audience. Although such undertakings are hazardous, we must

attempt to identify the nature of the intended audience. This is tricky
even in the case of the corpus of French romance, but is generally
thought to have been aristocratic, courtly, and consisting of both
sexes. Köhler (1956) and others have pointed to the younger sons of
vassals and vavassors (Duby’s juvenes. cf. Duby 1973) as one major
element in this audience. Was the original audience of the adaptation
exclusively aristocratic or can we speak (as we can in the case of
Middle English adaptations) of the merchant class as potential
readers and/or listeners? And, of course, we have to make a distinc-
tion between primary and secondary audiences, between primary and
secondary reception. The secondary audiences, even of the French
originals, would likely have expanded into the bourgeoisie.
9. Codex and context. In what kind of manuscripts is the adaptation pre-

served? Modest or luxurious? Are any illuminated? Can they be asso-
ciated with other manuscripts, perhaps containing other types of text,
and be associated with the production of a particular location, work-
30
shop, or even scribe? What can we learn from the details of the mise
en texte, mise en page, and mise en livre? Do there seem to be principles
behind the composition of the manuscript, for example, as regards
the choice and ordering of its contents? Does the lifting of a text out
of its manuscript context, the end result of the philological process
of editing, turn a medieval text into the anachronism of a modern
book?
I have ranged rather widely in this article, from the old chestnut of Celtic
sources through notions of medieval Francophonia to questions of
supply and demand with respect to the riddarasǫgur in the nordic Middle
Ages. Together with the framework of what I have called a model for
adaptation, I hope to have raised some issues and questions which may
prove useful within the larger framework of riddarasǫgur research. In the
last (and first) instance, progress would seem to me to be dependent on
collaboration between specialists in nordic and romance philologies,
netherlandists, germanists, anglicists, and celticists dealing with adapta-
tions from the French, and — last but not least — historians of all the
regions involved.
Chivalric culture in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries
Martin Aurell
C ulture can be defined in two ways, one broad in scope, and the other
narrow. In its widest sense, culture encompasses information and,
in particular, the practice and techniques that allow mankind at large to
control nature, and more specific groups to adapt to global society. In its
second meaning, culture refers to erudite knowledge, to artistic works
and to any other form of science or creation of the human mind that
might be considered superior. Both of these definitions seem to apply to
a specific field of human sciences. The first, more extensive, meaning
concerns sociology and – even more pertinently – “cultural” anthro-
pology, while the latter is used rather more by historians of literature,
art and science. This second definition of culture is reserved for the most
sophisticated forms of knowledge and should not be confused, for
example, with gestures of manual work, with structures of kinship or
with feasting, all of which are so essential in ethnological studies. Some
thirty years ago as a result of those categories – as convenient as they
were misleading – in which each academic science was neatly filed, the
broad definition of culture typically referred to material, popular and oral
culture, while the narrow meaning was applied to spiritual, elitist and
writing culture. Nowadays, however, the interdisciplinary method shows
us how these epistemological barriers are artificial and reductive, demon-
strating a need to abolish them in favour of restoring historical phe-
nomena to all their life, depth and richness.1
Nonetheless, the medievalist who studies chivalry would be as wrong
to move away from the anthropological definition of culture as to reject
1 Some excellent studies about the interactions between the literary culture and the
so-called “cultural culture” can be found in Mundal & Wellendorf (2008).
33
martin aurell
its more elitist definition. There is a need to perceive the object as a

whole, including values, attitudes, representations, ideology or literary
and artistic creations that should not be separated. For medievalists, it is
of great importance that we know how the knight read or wrote a text,
how he made war, educated his children, told a story, listened to a sermon
or attended mass. In other words, we need to know how he held not only
his pen or his Psalter, but also his spear, the sleeve of his lover, his hawk
or his spoon. Even then, it would not be reasonable of us to level all these
gestures and treat them as if they were of equal importance in the evolu-
tion of the group of knights, who, as a result of their dominant position,
acted as a model for lesser social categories. Perhaps in saying this, I am
a prisoner of the prejudices of my own socio-professional category; but
I believe that the intellectual activities of these aristocratic warriors
deserve special treatment, mainly because they mark a definite shift in
the evolution of Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In
my view, Western culture owes much, even in its modernity, to the lit-
eracy of knighthood. For this reason, the literate knight (miles litteratus)
will be particularly in the spotlight in this article.
Like any historical object, chivalric culture can only be understood
from documentary evidence, which offers a broad guide to the researcher.
However, these medieval sources were mainly produced by clerics who,
writing in the elite language of Latin, described practices such as war that
were in any case prohibited to them. But even if these authors had
received the tonsure and entered sacred orders, these intellectuals were
unlikely to be strangers to the realities of chivalry. Instead, they
approached them in line with mental categories and ecclesiastical values
that inevitably distorted their descriptions, their narrations, and more
importantly, their judgements about the actor they depicted. Moreover,
whilst thinking and communicating about chivalry, they also configured
its ideological boundaries, influencing its evolution. Like these clerics,
some rare knights also took up pens, but chose to write in the vernacular,
among them men such as Bertran de Born, Robert de Boron, Snorri
Sturluson, and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Others instead chose to
sponsor and guide the work of authors and jongleurs. The children of
William Marshal, for example, asked John Early to write the biography
34
chivalric culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
of their father in his memory and in their service (see History of William
Marshal). From an entirely different perspective, archaeological material
can teach us much about the life of warriors. Light can thus be shed on
chivalric culture from very different angles.
Combat techniques and military equipment reserved for

the nobility
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, chivalry and nobility were inex-
tricably linked. Knights on horseback, whom none of the common folk
could resist, were masters on the battlefield. A new fighting method
spread among them. Fixing a lance to their right arm, they used the force
of their galloping horse to unseat their enemies, at the same time
employing their left arm to protect themselves with a shield. This tech-
nique, achievable only though long training, explains their superiority in
war. Only those who were gently born, who held power and wealth, and
who were positioned at the very top of the social hierarchy, could afford
to fight in such a way. One needed riches indeed – as well as freedom
from labour – to afford the arms, the horses and the long preparation
time required for battle.
During this period, an important development occurred. The emer-
gence of a strong kingship, able to control the status of individuals, accel-
erated the establishment of a rigidly hierarchical society. Each individual
belonged to a category with its own legal privileges, in the etymological
sense of Privatæ leges – ‘private law’, or laws specific to a juridical corpo-
ration (Aurell 2005). From this point onwards, only members of a noble
lineage had the right to fight on horseback, to be dubbed a knight, to pay
feudal homage to a free fief or to participate in tournaments. Almost all
of these men were noble by birth, although from the late thirteenth cen-
tury some may have enjoyed letters of ennoblement that emanated from
the royal chancery.
The new legal arrangement, which reserved several rights specifically
for the aristocracy, also coincided with economic realities because it was
35
martin aurell
extremely expensive to fight on horseback. Steeds often suffered

irreparable injury during battle, and it was necessary for each knight to
possess at least three mounts in his stable. At the same time, however,
the horse had become far more expensive than previously. It is calculated
that at the end of the twelfth century, a warhorse represented the equiv-
alent of some eleven ploughing horses in France in contrast to only four
in the eighth century. The increase in price was mainly due to the invest-
ment and work needed to obtain a breed suited to combat. In 1172, the
term stud (haracium) appeared for the first time in a charter from the
Norman monastery of St Evroult. It designated the selected herd from
which one could obtain quality animals through the selective crossing of
stallions and mares, usually isolated from one other. At this time, the
equine luxury trade was largely controlled by Italian merchants, with
Spanish and Lombard horses proving especially popular and expensive
(Bautier & Bautier 1978). The marshals also thought about veterinary sci-
ence: around 1240, Jordanus Rufus, working for Emperor Frederick II,
wrote an extremely popular treatise on equine medicine that was inspired
by his personal experience and by Arabic works (Prévot 1991). Medical
advances in the care of men were also reflected in veterinary science. At
the same time, the harnessing of the horse was improving, as saddlers,
blacksmiths, bridle-makers and other craftsmen worked on its different
parts. The key area of progress was with the saddle, where changes were
made that led to the rider being more securely seated than in the past.
The horse was also given greater protection, with the addition of the
chamfer on the head and a cover that was reinforced with metal rings.
Covered with iron, this was less subject than before to the vagaries of
the fray.
The emotional attachment of the knight to his horse was great:
Renaut de Montauban and Baiart, Aioli and Marchegai, William of
Orange and Beaucent, El Cid and Babieca are just a sample of the many
inseparable couples that were immortalized in epic verse. The anthropo-
morphism of the horse, completely devoted to his rider, was a frequent
theme in literature. In his Recreation for an Emperor, for example, Gervais
of Tilbury (c. 1150–c. 1221) notes that he saw Good-Friend, the horse of
Guerau, Viscount of Cabrera and a Catalan of the court of the King of
36
Aragon, in Arles. Good-Friend was so strong and swift that he was invin-
cible in fighting. He communicated by sign language with his master, to
whom he would give comfort in sorrow and wise counsel. Guerau would
feed him with white wheat bread from a silver vessel and provided him
with a feather mattress upon which to sleep. When the viscount died,
Good-Friend stopped eating and smashed his own head against a wall
(Otia Imperialia: III, 92). This humanization of the horse, with his pas-
sionate affection for his owner, responds well to the close identification
between the knight and his steed. It has its roots in paganism, which
regarded the horse as a psychopomp spirit, leading the deceased warrior
away to the world of the dead.
Equally deep was the knight’s commitment to his sword. The epic
attributes an almost-human personality to weapons such as Durandal,
Excalibur or Tizona, their inherent strength contributing significantly
to the victory of the hero (Chassel 1989). These swords were forged by
legendary craftsmen, figures such as Wegland or Trebuchet who worked
on fairy islands or in the underworld.2 Imprecations and prayers were
etched into their blade, and relics placed upon their hilt. Handed down
from father to son for generations, the sword perpetuated the memory
of those ancestors who had once possessed it. Considered to have a mag-
ical force, the sword was the most popular weapon of the warrior. Wide,
straight, heavy at 1.5–2 kg in weight, and around 90 cm in length, the
sword benefitted hugely as a result of the progress in metallurgy from
the twelfth century onwards. The core, made of twisted lamellae, was
covered with a steel blade. To turn this into a damask sword, shimmering
and beautiful, solid, yet thin and flexible, the blacksmith repeatedly
crushed this blade, pounding it six hundred times while hot.
Although perhaps less glamorous than the sword, the spear nonethe-
less also had a great symbolic importance because of new fighting tech-
niques. Made from ash or apple wood, by this time the stem had been
increased in length to reach 2.7 m or even 3 m, with a tip of arrow-shaped
2 Chrétien de Troyes, Perceval ou le conte du Graal (1994: l. 3144–79, 3654–87 and

4712, pp. 763–4, 775–6 and 801); Jean de Marmoutier, Historia Gaufredi ducis (1913:
179–80). See Marx (1952: 127–129, 172–181).
37
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metal. To wield this weapon from a galloping horse required a specific

skill that could be obtained only after a long education, begun in adoles-
cence and maintained through constant training. The consummate art of
riding became like second nature for the knight, who, welded to the
saddle, spent most of his time on horseback. His body inevitably bore
the traces of those long rides. In 1177, Pierre de Blois, Archdeacon of
London, described his master King Henry II of England (1154–89), “with
his arched femurs and equestrian tibias [...]: his legs are horribly injured
and covered by bruises from frequent kicking of horses; he never sits
down, except on a horse or at the table” (Epistolæ: PL 207, no. 66, col.
197C). Modern studies of the graves of fighters have confirmed this tes-
timony: osteological analysis reflects their wide fork and repeated frac-
tures, which were nonetheless cured efficiently by physicians. They also
demonstrate the breadth of those warriors who were able to bear the
great weight of armour on their shoulders while striking powerfully at
their enemies with heavy spear or sword. A diet which must have been
much better than average enabled them to maintain their strength and
health. Just a glance at their muscles and their height would have been
enough to distinguish them from the peasants and the bourgeois.
Powerful defensive weapons kept the knight protected from head to
foot. In the thirteenth century, a helmet in the form of a truncated cone
or “bucket”, which completely hid the face, replaced the simple iron cap.
The mail coat, or hauberk, was a long shirt constructed from small rings
of wire that were interlaced and riveted to each other. It weighed between
ten and twelve kilograms, and its price – at least twice that of a warhorse
– was exorbitant. From around 1200, this was gradually shortened in
length to mid-thigh, a change that was offset by breeches made from
mail. Mittens and stockings of mail were also worn, to protect the hands
and feet. Joints, so vulnerable, were lined with full metal pads for the
knee and elbow and with gorgets for the neck. The belt extended, pro-
tecting both sides of the hips. The shield, once almond-shaped, took on
a triangular form: it was now painted with the arms of the owner – a
motif that also appeared on the surcoat and as a coat of arms, a precious
and colourful fabric that covered the hauberk (Cardini 1992: 46–47).
From the beginning of the twelfth century, heraldry became a system in
38
the semiotic sense of the term, and it spread throughout the aristocratic
hierarchy, from princes to the more modest knights. The improvements
made in such protection reduced the risk of injury, but they also increased
the price of military equipment: in England, circa 1250, weapons and
warhorses cost some twenty pounds sterling, the equivalent of the
average annual income of a manor. Only the rich landowners, who levied
a high annual rent, could thus still fight nobly. This explains the final
insistence on the symbolic significance of the arms, manifested in the
ritual of knighthood, where they were solemnly handed over to the new
knight.
Respecting one another in war
Chivalry demonstrated a strong degree of class-consciousness. Knights

were proud of their high birth and ancient pedigree, their castle and lord-
ship and their power over men. But they may have been prouder still of
their exploits on the battlefield. There, they could shine both individually
and collectively, as part of a team. They would attack together on horse-
back with their spears in what is called conroi in Old French, a cohesive
and compact group of twenty warriors entering the enemy scrum.
Nonetheless, they showed some respect towards their aristocratic adver-
saries – only rarely would they kill their opponents or go after a wounded
man.
In his Ecclesiastical History, Orderic Vitalis (1075–1142) notes that
during the Battle of Bremule (1119) between Henry I of England and
Louis VI of France, in which 900 knights fought, only three were killed
while 140 French were captured by the victorious Anglo-Normans. This
monk from St Evroult has several explanations for this low mortality:
“They were everywhere dressed in iron. They spared themselves both
by their fear of God and by their bonds of friendship. They tried to cap-
ture the fugitives rather than to kill them. They were Christian warriors,
never thirsty for the blood of their brothers. They rejoiced for their legit-
imate triumph, God helping, for the sake of holy Church and for the
peace of the faithful” (Orderic Vitalis: XII, 18, t. 6, p. 240). The three rea-
39
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sons put forward by the text to explain the absence of massacres and
mutilations are significant: the effectiveness of the hauberk, the interde-
pendence between knights and their evangelical values. There was no
need to place too much emphasis on the protection provided by the
defensive armament, which has just been described.
More interesting is the reference to “bonds of friendship”. The Battle
of Bremule saw Norman and French knights oppose each other in a well-
established border war. However, the social closeness of these two bands
may in fact have resulted from more than mere geographical proximity.
It leaned on kinship and friendship that ran through the two camps. Each
side had an identical value system that included solidarity between mem-
bers of the same army, bravery in the face of the enemy, respect for the
defeated nobles, generosity in distributing the bounty, loyalty to the
leader and contempt for non-combatants. Binding together a group of
warriors in close companionship, such behaviour could not be restricted
to one single society, but worked in a similar way to that of all civiliza-
tions. If we place Christian medieval society in a broader context, it is
clear that the way knights both initiated and dealt with conflict was not
exclusive to this social group, but is in fact similar to the exercise of vio-
lence by dominant warrior groups in many primitive and even pre-indus-
trial societies (Barthélemy 2007).
Orderic Vitalis mentions thirdly the Christian religion of the war-
riors of Bremule. The undeniable value of the ethnological approach
should not prevent the historian from exploring the specific charac-
teristics of twelfth- and thirteenth-century knighthood. The activity
of the Church evolved in line with chivalry. Priests increasingly par-
ticipated in the liturgy of dubbing, while their texts and sermons pro-
vided a framework within which warriors could exercise armed vio-
lence. From 1170 onwards, this clerical involvement established the
creation of a code of knightly conduct that lasted for several centuries
(Crouch 2005). The clerics advised the aristocratic warriors to fight
only under princely orders, to uphold law and order, to protect the
weak, to avoid fighting amongst Christians, not to be cruel and to par-
ticipate in the crusade. These duties are summarized in the Policraticus
(1159) by John of Salisbury, a treatise on political philosophy that
40
focused on royal government and on the reform of the habits and cus-
toms of those knights and courtiers who advised the king: “What is
the purpose of disciplined knights? To protect the Church, to combat
treachery, to venerate the priesthood, to protect the poor from injus-
tice, to pacify the country, to shed their blood to defend their brothers
as required by their oath and, if necessary, to pay with their lives” (Pol-
icraticus: VI, 8, t. 2, p. 23). They were at the top of the social hierarchy,
and they placed their arms at the service of ideals that were formulated
by intellectual clerics. Chivalry was thus a warrior ethic steeped in
Christian values.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the capacity of the Gospel to
change the mores of a warrior should not be underestimated. Preaching
continuously stigmatized the faults of knighthood. In particular, the Ser-
mones ad status often reminded the warriors of their professional duties.
First of all, they admonished their covetousness and their tendency to
make illegal gains. In the early twelfth century, Honorius, in his Augus-
todunensis Elucidarium, considered that “because of their pride and their
greed, knights steal others’ property” (L’Elucidarium: II, 54, p. 427).
Stephen of Fougères (d. 1178), Bishop of Rennes, adopted a similar dis-
course: “They steal, tax, oppress and exhaust the hungry, on whom they
impose corvées [...]. After eating and drinking the rents attributed to
them by the law, they deceive the peasants and demand of them more
and more [...]. My God, it is a shame to call them lords. Indeed, they are
not lazy about performing evil!” (Le Livre des manières: l. 545–556, p. 80).
The violence of the knights towards the poor and needy is also pointed
out by clerics. The “folly” and “insanity” of “the corrupt order of chivalry”
is explicitly denounced in a sermon by Cardinal Jacques de Vitry (d.
1240), Bishop of Acre, in which he condemns physical attacks by knights
on disarmed holy men and women, and even more on peasantry: “they
impose arbitrary corvées upon them, without leaving them bread to eat”
(La Chaire française: 357). Ramon Llull offers a vehement attack on aris-
tocratic brutality in his Book of Contemplation in God (1273–1274), in
which he depicts knights as executioners of the devil. “With the same
weapons that should destroy the wicked, they kill the righteous and those
who prefer peace to war.” Because of them, the earth was covered by fire
41
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and blood. Destruction followed them everywhere. “The knights kill

men, depopulate towns and villages, cut trees and plants, make wives
widows and steal in the roads.” In compiling a list of the other vices of
knights, which ran from adultery to magic and divination, the philoso-
pher stopped on their suicidal attitude on the battlefield (Libre de contem-
plació en Déu: CXII, § 2, 15, 19–25, t. 2, p. 339–368). He noted that the
knights’ capital sin of pride quickly degenerated into anger, which
unleashed their violent instincts. According to Ramon Llull’s rhetoric,
their thirst for blood would never be quenched. To sum up, for the eccle-
siastical writers, pride, greed and anger often subverted knighthood. It
is therefore no wonder that they called members of this order “tyrants”
and that they made play on the words militia ‘chivalry’ and malitia
‘wickedness’ as a way of pushing them to correct their conduct.
A similar pastoral can be found in the iconography of Romanesque
and Gothic churches. The theme of the Massacre of the Innocents, for
example, was often depicted in sculpture, with the assassins sent by
Herod carrying swords and covered by helmets and coats of mail in the
manner of knights. Fictive writing also encouraged warriors to follow a
Christian ethic. The persuasive speech of conversion was ubiquitous in
Arthurian literature, whose authors clearly showed their willingness to
change the habits of the nobility in arms. The History of the Holy Grail
(Le Livre du Graal, 1225–1235) states that Galahad, son of Joseph of Ari-
mathea, gave proof “of such probity that his prowess, his deeds, his words
and his works must be present at in the minds of all honest people, so
that the wicked depart from their folly and the good, who maintain the
order of chivalry, improve themselves towards God and towards the
world” (Joseph d’Arimathie: §446, t. 1, p. 413).
In most romances, the narrative begins with a moral digression, often
in the form of sermons by bishops, chaplains, anchoresses and especially
hermits. Even the voice of God Himself can thunder from Heaven, while
angels may take human or a most unexpected animal form in order to
speak to the characters. The Bible – the key point of reference – is con-
stantly quoted in the romances, while some of their pages are a cento,
piecing together scattered pieces of the Holy Scripture. Other persuasive
speeches, which look towards repentance, are less openly expressed, but
42
are reflected primarily in the actions of King Arthur and his Knights of
the Round Table, whom immanent justice punishes or rewards even
while on earth. Some characters who are highly successful, such as
Galahad, Lancelot’s son or who, like Perceval the Welshman’s sister,
embodies peaceful and generous femininity, behave in a perfect identifi-
cation with Christ. As such, they provide examples for the reader to imi-
tate. In short, while many authors included religious messages that were
quite explicitly expressed, they also proposed standards of conduct in a
more implicit way, using a mechanism that was at once more subtle and
possibly more efficient (Gîrbea 2010).
The professional ethics that were offered to knights by intellectuals,
most of them clerics, were strongly influenced by the Gospels and Chris-
tian theology. In particular, many thinkers drew heavily on a speech that
was reserved by the Church in Carolingian times for the sole king, in
which he was asked to protect the weak – represented in the Old Testa-
ment by the widow and the fatherless – and the clergy (Flori 1983; 1986).
In the mid-twelfth century, the text quoted above from John of Salisbury
reflected the transfer of these responsibilities from the monarchy to the
knighthood. In essence, the clergy accepted the existence and the role of
combatants in Christian society, provided they complied with the
requirements of a just war, as set out long before by Augustine of Hippo.
In particular, if one was to fight according to human and divine law, one
had to obey the legitimate authority represented by the crown, whose
power at that time was increasing. War against the infidel could also be
encouraged, since the establishment of a Christian government in
Muslim or pagan lands allowed the mission of friars and the conversion
of the unbeliever. The essential point was that this war should be con-
ducted as a crusade, proclaimed by the Pope and conducted under the
supervision of his legate.
Clerics considered knighthood as an order – in the dual sense, both
social and religious, of this word. This order was entered into through
the ceremony of dubbing, in the same way that the clergy entered
through the ceremony of the tonsure. As for the priesthood, the idea of
order, both in the sense of the ordination or initiation and in the sense
of a professional category performing a particular function, was inherent
43
martin aurell
to the warrior class. In the Story of the Grail (1181–1190), the cleric Chré-
tien de Troyes wrote that the act of dubbing conferred on Perceval “the
order of the knighthood which is the highest that God has established
and ordered” (Perceval: l. 1635–1637, p. 726). A generation later, the
writers who depicted the Perceval story in their own prose-style texts
mentioned “the holy order of the knighthood” or “the celestial knight-
hood”, in an attempt to provide a closer description of the supernatural
calling of knights (Gîrbea 2007).
Having forced knights to adopt a specific ethic, the clergy could only
recognize the merits of their mission. Even when legitimate and given
some degree of regulation, the use of weapons remained an evil – yet it
was a necessary evil. For medieval thinkers, it followed on from the orig-
inal sin that broke the harmony of creation and sowed discord among
men since at least the point when Cain murdered Abel. The fundamental
equality of mankind could therefore no longer be respected. “If we had
not sinned, we would have stayed all the same,” wrote Peter Cantor
(Freedman 1999). This conclusion from the Parisian master neatly sum-
marized a widely diffused idea that was contained in the beginning of
Lancelot (1215–1225), where the fairy Viviane introduces her young pro-
tégé to chivalry. According to her, the nobility of primitive men, all of
whom were descended from Adam and Eve, was unable to resist the
temptations of envy and greed that replaced justice in social relations
with a struggle for riches and power. The weak and peaceful were there-
fore forced to appoint some superior men endowed with moral and phys-
ical qualities as their defenders (Lancelot 1978–1983: t. 7, p. 246).
In 1275, Ramon Llull began his Book on the Order of Chivalry with
the fall of our first parents: “Charity, loyalty, justice and truth failed in
the world, and then hostility, dishonesty, injustice and falsehood begun”
(Libre de l’orde de cavalleria: 167). Knights were appointed so that order
could be restored. The etymology of miles, inspired by Isidore of Seville
(Etimologías: 9.3.32), proved this founding event of the human hierarchy:
it comes from the “thousand” (mil) men, among whom only one knight
was elected due to his courage and his many qualities, so that he might
impose justice on them through fear as a replacement for failing charity.
According to Ramon Llull, the root of the word cavaller, the Catalan
44
translation of miles, refers to “the most noble of beasts and the most able
to serve humanity”, which was given for the exclusive use of the knight.
Ultimately, original sin and human evil make legitimate the domination
of warriors, who are indeed an “elite” in the etymological sense of “elec-
tion, choice, selection”. Fear of weapons leads to justice when love is no
longer a powerful enough force to see it done. For churchmen, the ide-
ological justification of violence – when legitimate – as exerted by the
chivalrous was not without moral compensation. Called to a high mis-
sion, knights had to obey the Decalogue and their king for the sake of
peace and justice.
Literacy of knights
The twelfth century witnessed an unprecedented intellectual renaissance

(Benson, Constable & Lanham 1982). This movement touched not only
the cathedral schools and emerging universities, but also extended to the
castles of the aristocrats. In his autobiography, the Picard monk Guibert
of Nogent (1053–1124) wrote that his mother spent a long time searching
for a private tutor to teach him Latin at home, “because there were no
grammarians at that time in the villages and there were few even in the
towns, and their knowledge was slight, even compared to the minor itin-
erant clerics of the present time” (Autobiographie: I, 4, p. 26). Guibert
wrote around 1115, and his comparison with the years around 1060, when
he was a child, clearly demonstrates that there had been a growth in the
number of teachers, as well as an improvement in their training.
The increase in prestige among knights that a lettered education
could afford is clearly identifiable in literature. Lancelot, the most accom-
plished of the Knights of the Round Table, is seen to have a mastery of
reading in the first text in which he appears. In Chrétien de Troyes’
Knight of the Cart (1177–1181), Lancelot himself reads the names inscribed
on the headstones of a cemetery one after another (Lancelot ou le chevalier
de la charrette: p. 553, l. 1869–1870). Forty years later, in the prose
Lancelot, he even appears to be writing a parchment letter in his own
hand, “because he was endowed with knowledge and because there was,
45
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in his time, no other knight as knowledgeable as he” (Lancelot 1978–1983:

t. 4, p. 346). It is for this reason that the German writer Heinrich von
dem Türlin claimed in The Crown, written around 1230, that Lancelot
was both knight (Ritter) and cleric (Pfaffe): Heinrich adds that Lancelot
also commented on the tales that he read out loud to his comrades in
arms (Diu Crône: l. 2076). A model Christian soldier, Lancelot is said to
have perfect mastery of both reading and writing. He was, at one and
the same time, miles and clericus.
In reality, there were indeed examples of scholarly warriors – or at
least examples of individuals who were considered as such by their con-
temporaries. Numerous eulogies have come down to us of the Latin
training of counts from dynasties such as Anjou and Champaign in
twelfth-century France. The monk John of Marmoutiers considered
Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou (1129–1151), to be: “the greatest by
his military achievements, but also by his fortune and other works,
having devoted himself to civilian arms and liberal studies”. He describes
the first conversation – which was spiritual and “embellished with the
colours or rhetoric” – between the young count and his future father-in-
law, Henry I (1100–1135), whose nickname “Beau Clerc” would appear
to be of some significance. John goes on to relate how the king of Eng-
land dubbed his son-in-law during a ceremony of such spiritual depth
that it increased his knightly dignity (Historia Gaufredi ducis: 176–180).
Even greater praise is to be found in a Latin poem from the same period
by Stephen of Rouen (d. circa 1170), a monk from the monastery of Le
Bec, who was close to Geoffrey’s widow, Empress Matilda of England
(d. 1167). Stephen remembers him as “another Mars as soon as he put on
his helmet”. If we are to believe Stephen, the letters of the deceased count
matched his military talents: “Cicero was inferior to him in prose, Virgil
in verse, Socrates in logic and Achilles on horseback in the use of arms!”
(Chronicles: no. 3, l. 7, 37–38, t. 2, pp. 765–779). Here, the hyperbole pro-
vides the utmost praise for a knight who possessed the two supreme
qualities of courage in battle and literary instruction.
Among the generation that followed, two other counts were show-
ered with similar praise. Two long laudatory letters were written to
Henry the Liberal of Champagne. The first was sent to him in 1152 by
46
Nicolas de Montiéramey (d. 1175 x 1178), a lettered Cistercian monk who

was protected by Henry after Saint Bernard had expelled him from Clair-
vaux. In this letter, Henry is compared to the philosopher-king, praised
by Plato: “You sit between the lettered and the equestrian orders, to the
greater glory of both, magnificent and liberal towards the two” (Epistolæ:
PL 196, ep. 56, col. 1651). The second epistle was written by the Premon-
stratensian abbot Philip of Harvengt (d. 1183). It provides the most
emphatic of praise: “Oh you, noble knight and prince of knights, who
have as much love and respect for the knights covered in their coats of
mail as you have for the clerics and their letters!” This epistle also claims
that Henry was a fine Latin scholar, who made others look like “donkeys
eating thistles” (Epistolæ: PL, t. 203, ep. 17, col. 153). In addition, the afore-
mentioned Philip of Harvengt sent a written missive of an identical
model to Philip of Flanders (1157–1191), in which he described Philip as
the most educated and accomplished offspring of a lineage in which miles
and clericus were but one (Epistolæ: PL, t. 203, ep. 16, col. 147–151). As
excessive as this may seem, such praise corresponds to a definite pen-
chant for letters on the part of the Counts of Anjou, Champagne and
Flanders that is also attested elsewhere (Benton 1961).
The undeniable patronage of Geoffroi le Bel, Henry the Liberal or
Philip of Flanders should not prevent us from identifying the stereotyp-
ical elements in the eulogies of the chronicles and epistles that were
written by clerics indebted to such patrons. More specifically, they
tended to apply to these patrons a discourse that was generally reserved
for the “scholar king”,3 a very popular character among the intellectuals
of the twelfth-century renaissance. The images and themes of their syco-
phantic praise stem, as might be expected, from Greek and Latin Clas-
sics. They reproduce the union of “strength” (fortitudo) and “wisdom”
(sapientia), that Homer and his imitators applied to the fine strategists
of the Trojan Wars. The cunning of Ulysses, the experience of Nestor
and the eloquence of both men were of greater importance in the final
victory of the Achaeans than the impetuous fury of the younger soldiers.
But such wisdom did not prevent Ulysses and Nestor from being excel-
3 For recent publications concerning an earlier period, see Rodríguez de la Peña (2008).
47
martin aurell
lent combatants – in fact, it was quite the contrary (Curtius 1956 [1947]:
212–221). Through stoicism, Christianity included these two qualities
among the four cardinal virtues. One key difference, however, is that
“wisdom” was transformed into “prudence”. The celebrated Etymologiæ,
written by Isidore of Seville, picks up on these qualities to define the
epic, whose “‘heroes’ are named from the ‘air’, in other words from the
heavens for which they have made themselves fit through their wisdom
and their force” (Etimologías: 1.39.9).
From the milieu of princes, we find some examples of nobles who
had mastery of Latin. In his Chronica Majora, Matthew Paris provides
an elegy for one of Henry III’s principal royal officers and advisors.
Paulin Piper, who died in 1251, was, according to Paris, miles litteratus
sive clericus militaris ‘a literate knight or a military cleric’ (Chronica majora:
t. 5, p. 242), a summary that clearly praises his excellent mastery of Latin.
If more proof were required, further on in the same passage, Paris gives
evidence of his secular status through mention of his greedy acquisition
of land and royal income to build luxurious manor houses, and further
on still, through reference to his wife, who remarried shortly after his
death. Elsewhere, Paris claims that Paulin Piper had solemnly undertaken
to join the crusade with other English knights in 1250 (Chronica majora:
t. 5, p. 101). Yet despite such secular references, a table of contents given
in a partially preserved manuscript lists “a written rhyme on Saint George
by Paulin Piper”.4 Unfortunately, the corresponding folios for this hagio-
graphic poem, written in praise of a martyr warrior, have been lost; but
the very reference to this poem nevertheless seems to corroborate the lit-
erary ability, most probably Latin, of its author.
There are fewer examples attesting to the spoken and written use of
Latin by the laity than there are for knights writing songs and narratives
in the vernacular. This is certainly the case with regard to the majority
of Occitan poets, for example. In this case, slightly more than half of the
hundred or so known troubadours belonged to the lay nobility, in com-
parison to less than one tenth who belonged to the clergy (Ménégaldo:
2005: 144–147). They spoke about chivalry, war and partisan commit-
4 Cambridge University Library, ms Dd. ii. 78, quoted by Russell (1936: 94).
48
ment, all themes that appeared in the political genre of the sirventes, in
contrast to the cansons that depicted courtly love (Aurell 1989). The most
famous author of sirventes – a figure whom Dante envisages wandering
in Hell, carrying his decapitated head as a lantern in punishment for
enthusiastic singing about violence and for fostering numerous uprisings
– is Bertran de Born (d. 1215), lord of Hautefort on the Limousin-
Perigord border. Most of the forty-seven poems that have been attributed
to Bertran contain mention of the battles in which he fought in this area
in the late twelfth century. Indeed, he often composed them to encourage
his side in the struggle against his opponents. He appears to have been
engaged in a virtually perpetual war, first against his brother Constantin,
whom he drove out of the previously shared Hautefort family castle
around 1182. The newly dispossessed Constantin responded by calling
on Aimar, Viscount of Limoges, and Richard the Lionheart (d. 1199),
Duke of Aquitaine, for help. The three of them fought the troubadour
the following year, while Bertran received support from Richard’s
brother, Henry the Young (d. 1183), who was unhappy with his inheri-
tance. In order to end the conflict, King Henry II then summoned his
sons Richard and Henry to Caen for an assembly at which Bertran sat,
the latter being then in contact with another of the king’s sons, Geoffrey,
Duke of Brittany (d. 1186). Early in 1183, the troubadour took part in yet
another war against Richard the Lionheart, supported by Henry the
Young and Geoffrey of Brittany. Richard, with the help of his father and
Alfonso II of Aragon, crushed his foes and in the process took over
Hautefort, which was returned to Constantin. Bertran, perhaps having
made peace with his brother, was to come into possession of the castle
again later on. In 1185 strife broke out anew between Richard and his
brothers Geoffrey and John over the dukedom of Aquitaine; but this
time, Bertran seems to have stood aside. After the Christian defeat in
Hattin (1187), however, his songs goaded the King of England, his sons
and other princes and lords of the western world into joining the Cru-
sade. He praised Richard’s bravery in the Holy Land – the two of them
by that time having made their peace for good – and rejoiced over his
release from captivity by Emperor Henry VI (1190–1197). Finally, in
1195, he gave up both society and strife, becoming a Cistercian monk in
49
martin aurell
Dalon monastery next to his land, where he died twenty years later
(Gouiran 1985). Bertran was just one of many troubadours who knew
how to make use of both the sword and the pen.
Some authors were proud of their chivalry. Around 1200, Wolfram
von Eschenbach, the well-known author of Parzival, must have come
from a milieu of ministeriales or lesser knights. In his poems, he praised
the Counts of Thuringia and Wertheim. It is possible that he was a war-
rior in their army, for he describes weaponry, horses and fights with pro-
fessional accuracy, and it is as a knight that he explicitly introduces him-
self in Parzival: “Wearing an escutcheon, such is my natural condition!”
In this particular passage, having foregone the praise of a lady who had
angered him, he claims himself to be ready to love and serve others, pro-
vided they yield to him not for his poetic talents, but for his military
feats: “Let her not love me for my singing, if I don’t prove valiant, and
let me win the prize of her love with escutcheon and spear!” Wolfram
then poses as an illiterate who does not even know his alphabet and who
recounts his story without any help from books (Parzival: §114–116).
He even claims to have heard the Grail story straight from the mouth of
Kyot the Provençal, rather than revealing that Kyot had actually provided
him with a manuscript. Indeed, Wolfram presents Kyot as the French
translator of the “genuine tale” that was kept in Saragossa – a fact that
was supposed to give Parzival an edge over Chrétien de Troyes’ Story of
the Grail (Parzival: §416, 453–455, 827). In Willehalm, Wolfram again
brings up the subject, claiming he “knows nothing about the contents of
books” (Willehalm: §2, l. 19–22).
Wolfram’s self-introduction as a barely literate warrior, mock-
humble and complacent as it is, provides just another instance of autho-
rial posture and of the literary topos of modesty. It is evidenced through
his repeated references to what he has heard people read out or recount,
as well as through the fact that he transmits his work orally (Berthelot
1991: 105). The uncultured knight thus raises himself to the status of a
competitor with clerks – all the more so when ladies’ hearts are at stake.
The same polemic attitude towards scholars makes him exaggerate his
lack of education, while elsewhere he does flaunt, albeit indirectly, his
book culture through his medical, astronomical or geological references.
50
By the same token, the direct recitation of his work at the court causes
him to play down the importance of written support whenever he makes
mention of the creative process. He denies his poem the status of a book
(Zumthor 1987: 308), purporting to voice it before a connoisseur audi-
ence who would shout approval. Nevertheless, he betrays himself in one
verse, where he expresses his wish that many a damsel should “see his
narrative laid down in writing” (Parzival: §337, l. 3). This slip of the
“tongue” – if indeed it is – is revealing. That Wolfram was able to com-
pose Parzival, producing a work that had such a consistent narrative
fabric despite its length, and that was so formally polished, does imply
that he must have resorted to reading and writing for he could not pos-
sibly have dictated it from memory. His illiteracy is therefore but a pose.
The examples of knights who doubled as writers could be greatly
multiplied, for they were to be found at every rung of the nobility. The
high nobility was well represented amongst the troubadours, trouvères
and Minnesänger, while for counts, viscounts and other princes, com-
posing and interpreting songs was a badge of distinction. The court
admired their creations and performances, and this newly acquired pres-
tige, in turn, increased their authority within both the aristocracy and
the lower ranks of the bourgeoisie and peasantry. The real hotbed of
writers, however, was to be found in the less prestigious nobility: poor
Occitan knights, French vavasseurs, armed Italian urban citizens or
German ministeriales would take to writing more often than did their
liege lord. They composed short songs but also long romances, chronicles
and autobiographies. This cultured lesser nobility provided the king with
warriors who knew how to write, and they thus became indispensable
in laying the solid groundwork for a bureaucratic state. The pragmatic
writing of the royal officers led quite naturally to the creation of literary
and historiographical works. The same reed pen that recorded acts, min-
utes, laws and accounts in Chancelleries was also to serve literature. Even
if political propaganda is always present in the songs, romances and his-
tories of these authors, who would serve their princes or cities in war or
administration as well as in literary fiction, this propaganda is not at all
incompatible with poetic intuition or the quest for aesthetics.
51
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Courtesy and civilization of mores
The influence of literacy and literature on aristocratic behaviour is a com-

plex problem. Knowledge and courtesy were inextricably linked during
the Middle Ages. Orderic Vitalis associated them in his praise of
Mathilda of Flanders (d. 1083), wife of William the Conqueror. Indeed
he credits her with “the science of letters and all the beauty of manners
and virtues” (Orderic Vitalis: IV, 5, t. 2, p. 224). At a lower social level of
the aristocracy, the Lombard Acerbo Morena co-wrote his History of
Frederick Barbarossa with his father Ottone around 1164. This work
draws together not only literary and courtly qualities, but also military
skills in the fulsome praise given to Conrad of Ballhausen, “the most
powerful adviser” of the Emperor: “Lettered and scholarly, gentle and
affable, wise and courageous in war, learned in German and Italian”
(Annales de Lodi: 170).
The gracious manners and gentle conversation for which Mathilda
of Flanders and Conrad of Ballhausen were so praised find direct corre-
spondence not only in the words curialitas, corteisie, cortesia or Hövescheit,
but also in urbanitas or civilitas. A number of vernacular derivatives of
these words can also commonly be found in twelfth- and thirteenth-cen-
tury literature produced in Latin, French and Occitan, Castilian, Italian
or German. The antonyms of these words were rusticitas or villenie,
vocabulary that criticized the alleged brutality and lack of education of
rural people and country serfs. In his Latin treatise On the Eloquence of
the Vernacular (De Vulgari Eloquentia, 1303–1305), Dante defines cour-
tesy (curialitas) as “a balancing rule in what must be accomplished” and
identifies courteous behaviour as taking place in the royal palace (De Vul-
gari Eloquentia: I, XVIII, 4, pp. 46–48). This interpretation of the term
underlines the level-headed and moderate nature of codes of behaviour
at the court of a powerful ruler, a place where men and women of the
aristocracy and the clergy would meet. ‘Court’ comes from the classical
Latin cohors or cors, which designates an enclosure for raising livestock,
the sixth part of a legion, or a magistrate’s personal guard. During the
high Middle Ages, the term curtis initially evolved from cohors as a way
to signify the rural estate. Under the increased influence of Romance
52
languages, the term then shifted further, taking on the meaning of curia
(the ‘assembly of the Senate’ in Rome), the place where royal, princely,
or aristocratic power, and those who wielded it, were to be found. The
semantic field of the word court thus covered not only the palace where
the holder of authority lived and worked, but also the advisers who would
help the authority figure to govern (Roncaglia 1982: 34–35). The literary
education of these advisers, which was vital for bureaucratic rule, later
meant that the medieval definition became further expanded to refer to
knowledge (Scaglione 1991). But even more than a focus on knowledge
and literary, the meaning of the term courtesy was expanded to include
norms of behaviour, which provided a ruler’s entourage with the manners
that would affirm his political domination to an even greater extent.
“Urbanity” and “civility” meanwhile, evolved alongside their antonym
“rusticity” to indicate the superiority of the urban mode of life over the
rural. It was at court and in town that this distinction resided.
The adoption of codes of behaviour in social life required self-control.
Courtesy demanded that every individual, however sociable, had to question
their conscience. It therefore regulated the behaviour of each individual,
promoting moderation and control of personal desire. More specifically, it
increased the moral importance of amorous passion. Courtesy was a code
of behaviour that applied equally to women and men and was thus separate
from chivalry, which was a specifically male ethic of combat. While courtly
values gradually became integrated at an individual level, they still retained
their collective implication since they provided a means of regulating ten-
sions in the closed and densely occupied milieu of the court (Elias 1979
[1939]). Even if in theory, the body was the mirror of the soul, with bodily
movements reflecting interior morals, in practice, the courtier’s behaviour
most often reflected the need to please others. The inquisitive gaze and the
judgement of others therefore rested on the courtier’s exterior facet, visible
in physical presence and dress. It is interesting to note that the first courtesy
books appeared during this period (Nicholls 1985). The same was true for
speech, which had to reflect the level of sophisticated education common
to other people of the same social standing.
Medieval courtesy was rooted in the ancient ideal of the virtuous cit-
izen giving himself to the service of the State (Jaeger 1991 [1985]). In his
53
martin aurell
person, honesty (honestum) and efficiency (utile) came together for the
advantage of society, in line with the pattern set out in Cicero’s On Duty
(44 BC), a text known by medieval writers through the work of the same
title by Bishop Ambrose of Milan (d. 397). According to this classic work,
these qualities of honesty and efficiency were the attributes of the learned
orator (doctus orator), the expert with a mastery of rhetoric. The same
notion of a cult of wisdom placed in the service of the common good can
be found in the writings of Seneca the Younger (d. 65) and the other
Stoics. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the intellectuals of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries held these two authors in high esteem.
In his Entheticus, John of Salisbury claimed that “the world has known
nothing grander than Cicero” (Entheticus: l. 1215, p. 174), while a century
later, the Franciscan monk and Oxford professor Roger Bacon (1214–
1294) expressed similar admiration for Seneca. In Opus tertium (1270),
Bacon writes that his respect for the pagan Seneca is even greater because
he discovered his morals “without the light of faith and with reason as
his sole guide” (Opera: LXXV, t. 1, p. 306). He goes as far as to suggest
that Seneca, alongside Aristotle and Cicero, possessed a natural sense of
ethics that was superior to the Christian morals “of us who are in the
depths of vice, from whence only divine grace may save us” (Opera: XIV,
p. 50). The twelfth century Renaissance therefore involved a return to
the Stoics and their conception of ethics.
Like chivalry, courtesy must be understood in both the short and the
long term, synchronically and diachronically. It corresponds on the one
hand to a form of behaviour that has been advocated by the governing
elites of centralized and bureaucratic states everywhere in the world since
antiquity. But it can also be considered as a value system that has greater
importance and is more present during certain periods. In the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, it was of capital importance among elites, who
compared it to chivalry. Raoul de Hodenc (d. 1234), probably a jongleur
from Picardie, sets out a list of qualities or “feathers” of the two “wings”
of chivalry – that is to say, largesse and courtesy – in his allegorical trea-
tise Roman des eles (Romance of the Wings). In his prologue, he states that
“Chivalry is the fountain of courtesy that no one will dry up. Courtesy
comes from God and the Knights possess it [...] It grows only in the fief
54
of the knights” (Le roman des Eles: l. 12–15, 23–24, p. 31). Created by
God, courtesy merges inextricably into chivalry. Alike in concept, these
elite forms of behaviour are what distinguish the aristocracy from the
vulgar. Like chivalry, courtesy is a code of conduct that facilitates under-
standing and harmony among the lay nobility, albeit in a different context
from the conflict in arms.
If the intellectuals of the period insisted on quality of bearing, excel-
lence in gesture or high levels of conversation, it is because they consid-
ered that the results of good breeding generated empathy, improved
society and diffused peace. In their eyes, good manners were responsible
for weaving the fabric of society and harmonizing relations between men.
As such, they increased the reputation of peaceful and sophisticated
people. Such a conception of aristocratic honour, which was based on
the esteem gained through the correct form of behaviour, contrasted
sharply with the dominant idea of male knights gaining renown through
a violent, even vindictive, reaction to offensive words or to deeds that
called into question the good repute of women of their own lineage. A
treatise on courtesy, written in Latin verse around 1200 by Daniel of
Beccles, for example, advised the husband who was too “jealous to learn
to look at the ceiling” (Urbanus Magnus Danielis Becclesiensis: l. 2005) –
in other words, to ignore the conversations between his wife and other
men that verged on, or indeed, that surpassed, gallantry. Harmony was
to be sought above all else.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, elegance and distinction gave
a certain air of “je ne sais quoi” to an already extant attractive and
debonair assurance, reinforcing the idea that the elite should not be vio-
lent, quarrelsome or vindictive. Obviously, such urbanity was more
common in court than on the battlefield; but it nonetheless facilitated
other struggles. To adapt a turn of phrase used by sociologists, the “sym-
bolic capital” provided by education could be essential in the “social field”
as a way to conquer and to accrue power (Bourdieu 1979). In politics,
courtesy had perhaps become more efficient than chivalry. Furthermore,
manners were inextricably linked to the erudite culture that was com-
municated in Latin, and through the medium of books. Both of these
forms of communication regulated the actions and conversation of
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nobles, winning them the esteem of rulers. Courtesy and knowledge also
provided some knights with the tools and skills to move at ease in a cler-
ical, ecclesiastical milieu, to make use of, and control bureaucracy, and to
give advice to princes. In short, they provided access to the very heart of
government.
This new sensibility, a behavioural code under which no one could
intimidate and still less threaten his neighbour – especially if that neigh-
bour was powerful – coincided with a general pacification of the aris-
tocracy. The private wars between lords decreased, a change that was
directly related to the resurgence of the monarchy and the development
of royal administration evidenced in written records (Clanchy 1993). The
essentials of power gradually became concentrated at the courts of kings
or princes, at the expense of independent castellanies. To succeed and to
gain power, the aristocrats therefore had to go to the royal palace. There,
they adopted a regulated conduct, a strict code of behaviour whose rudi-
ments they had learned in childhood from their mothers or from tutors
in the clergy. Chivalry triggered a revolutionary shift, and the evolution
of this cultural change has now passed from the study field of the anthro-
pologist to that of the historian of literature, science and religion.
56
Translation topoi in Old French narrative
literature
Peter Damian-Grint
I t would be hard to argue with Peter Dembowski’s statement that all

medieval writing is (potentially) rewriting (Dembowski 1989: 205).
One might perhaps want to narrow the field of reference somewhat: “all
medieval writing” covers a lot of ground, and most of us cannot claim
the linguistic abilities that would be required to verify the statement.
Nevertheless, in the field of Old French narrative writing which was the
context of Dembowski’s proposition, the proposition is undeniable: not
only is most Old French writing rewriting, but it is blatant, unashamed
rewriting, rewriting that draws attention to its unoriginality. Almost
invariably, the audience is told that they can rely on what they are hearing
because ‘the book says it’, or because the writer ‘read it in the book’, or
because this is what St Augustine, or Isidore, or some other favoured
authority, says. Clearly originality is not perceived – at least by Old
French writers – to be a valuable commodity.
Leaving aside the fact that such writers are in the habit of referring
to what they have ‘read in the book’ above all at precisely the moment
when they have written something that is not in the book (a natural
result of a mindset that is based on the paradigm of rewriting),1 the
most obvious functional reason why writers make a point of drawing
their audience’s attention to their source is because it acts as a guarantor
of the worth and the truthfulness of their own text. This sometimes
happens implicitly, as in references to the vraie estoire,2 but at other
times it is very explicit, in phrases such as Jehan Bodel’s exhortation:
1 Arguably, it is especially the extra-textual additions that are likely to make writers
immediately conscious of the fact that they are in fact rewriting, and also to underline
their faithfulness to their source.
2 ‘true history’: see, e.g., Gautier de Coinci, La Vie de sainte Cristine (42); La Chevalerie
57
peter damian-grint
[…] escout bone chançon vaillant

don li livre d’estoire sont tesmoing et garant! (La Chanson des Saisnes:
2–3)3
Listen to a good brave song of which the books of history are witness
and guarantor!
or the Chevalerie Vivien’s aggressive (or possibly defensive) truth claim:
Ceste cançons si est de verité,

n’esst de mençogne ne n’est de fauseté,
ains est d’estore de grant antiquité. (La Chevalerie Vivien: 53–55)
This song is indeed of the truth, it is not from lies nor is it from false-
hood, rather is it from a history of great antiquity.
This claim explicitly links the reliability of the text to the fact that it is
drawn from an ancient written source. The antiquity of the source is reg-
ularly used as a means of emphasizing its authority; the fact that no
attempt is made to justify this, or even to explain it, merely underlines
how much the idea was taken for granted that ‘ancient’ means ‘authori-
tative’.
It should be noted that although this reference to a specifically
ancient written text may not be language-explicit, it is certainly not lan-
guage-neutral. For an audience of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
there is essentially only one type of ancient written text: a Latin one. But
source and language go hand in hand for the same audience in another
way too, because they are both part of a larger concept, that of enarratio
or exegesis. In this period, the task of the writer is seen as a pragmatic
and exegetical one: to make an old text available to a new audience, by
taking the material and adapting or transforming it so that it is once again
Vivien (30 (MS E)); Le Roman de Jules César (3, 35); Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Eng-
leis (A17); Jordan Fantosme, Chronicle (1).
3 Quotes from MS L.
58
translation topoi in old french narrative literature
understandable.4 This adaptation for the audience will often – or even

habitually – include turning it from one language into another;5 never-
theless translation, in the modern sense of cross-linguistic transfer, is
part of a larger process and it is this larger process which is referred to
when a writer uses the verb translater.6 It is thus not surprising that both
the quotations given above use the word estoire, for this word, which is
taken directly from the Latin historia, indicates a truthful historical nar-
rative in Latin (see Damian-Grint 1997).
The topos of a Latin source which the author has adapted by, among
other things, turning it into the vernacular for the sake of an illiterate or
unlettered audience (that is, one not learned in Latin) occurs with some
frequency in Old French literature. In addition to making use of the per-
ceived truthfulness and authority of an ancient written text, the topos
takes advantage of the high status of Latin as the language of learning
and of the wisdom of the past. In addition, any author who claims to be
translating from a Latin source is also implicitly claiming the status of a
scholar; they sometimes make this claim explicit by calling themselves
maistre, and sometimes also reinforce it by adding a scornful dismissal
of the untrustworthy oral tales of the vilains jogleors. The usefulness of a
Latin source claim for reinforcing the authority of both the text and the
writer is obvious, and explicit references both to the Latin source itself
and to the process of translation can be found in a wide range of texts.
The purpose of this study is not to investigate how Old French
writers in fact carry out the task of translating their Latin sources –
what types of changes (rhetorical, structural, etc.) they make, how they
4 And also appealing to the audience, as authors of the period draw with a certain fre-
quency on the concept of delectatio as part of the purpose of literary works (see Hunt
1979).
5 This specifically linguistic part of the adaptation is usually described in other words,
faire romanz or en romanz metre, to ‘make’ the text vernacular or ‘put’ it into the ver-
nacular, or en romanz torner or en romanz traire, to ‘turn’ or ‘draw’ it into the verna-
cular (see Peter Damian-Grint 1999a: 353–356).
6 See Damian-Grint (1999a: esp. 351–356). The AND does not give ‘adaptation’ as a
meaning under translater, although it does indicate ‘transfer’ (in spatial and other
contexts) as its primary sense. Old French writers sometimes talk about ‘translating’
French sources: see p. 69 below.
59
peter damian-grint
deal with words for which no equivalent exists in their target language,
and so on – but rather what they say about their sources and their work
of translation. How frequently do they talk about translating, and how
do they describe the task? Are references to translation long and
detailed, or are they only passing mentions? Do they appear more fre-
quently in romances or in epics, and so on? In order to sketch out at
least the beginnings of an answer to these questions, I will look briefly
at the use of the translation topos in a number of major Old French nar-
rative forms. The presence of references to Latin sources from very
early on in Old French narrative literature – they appear even in the
Chanson de Roland (c. 1096) and Benedeit’s Voyage de seint Brendan
(possibly 1106) – makes it extremely hard to ascertain the origins of
the topos, but there is a certain logic to beginning with forms that are
in fact largely translations from Latin sources: saints’ lives, historiog-
raphy and didactic literature.
Saints’ lives
The suggestion that the translation topos in Old French originates from
saints’ lives is somewhat embarrassed by the inconvenient fact that nei-
ther of the two earliest surviving examples of Old French hagiography,
the ninth-century Cantilène de sainte Eulalie and the eleventh-century Vie
de saint Alexis, contain any explicit reference to sources, language or trans-
lation. Nevertheless, the undoubted heavy reliance of vernacular saints’
lives on Latin sources still makes this suggestion attractive, although
source references in Old French hagiography are frequently vague or
oblique: si cum il est escrit ‘as it is written’; in Chardri’s Vie des Set Dormanz
(62); si cum lisum en l’estoire ‘as we read in the history’ in the Vie de saint
Laurent (84); treis a guarant le livere ‘I call the book to witness’ in
Matthew Paris’s Seint Aedward le rei (39).
References to the work of translation in hagiography can be as
brief as the request by the author of the Vye de seynt Fraunceys for
prayers for:
60
ly […] ke se entremyst
de translater en fraunceys
ceste vye de seynt Fraunceys. (La Vye de seynt Fraunceys d’Assise:
6400–6402)
he […] who undertook to turn into French this life of St Francis.
However, they can also include detailed explanations about the source,
with details of the process – or at least the fact – of translation. Benedeit,
author of the Voyage de seint Brendan, notes in the introduction to his
work that his text has been en letre mis e en romanz – that is, put in writing
but (still unusually for this period) in the vernacular.7 Other texts are
more expansive on the question of translation: one of the more elaborate
of these explanations is Matthew Paris’s epilogue to one of his saints’
lives, the Vie de seint Auban, which includes a first-person statement by
the putative author, a convert Saracen eyewitness to St Alban’s mar-
tyrdom, who has written his narrative in his ‘barbarin’ language:
La geste ai, cum la vi, escrit en parchemin.

Uncore vendra le jor, ben le di e devin,
la estoire est translatee en franceis e latin. (La Vie de seint Auban:
laisse 48, 1821–1823)
As you see here, I have written the gesta on parchment. The day will
yet come, I say and foresee, when the history will be turned into
French and Latin.
7 See Benedeit (St Brendan: 11). Benedeit’s phrase has been explored by a number of
scholars, but the context and Old French usage of the beginning of the twelfth cen-
tury points strongly towards a distinction between the letters of the Latin alphabet
and the language in which the text is written; see Clanchy (1993: 216). The word
letre in Old French often means ‘Latin text’: see Legge (1961: 333–334); Damian-
Grint (1999a: 358).
61
peter damian-grint
And the epilogue is helpfully preceded by an explanatory rubric:
Ci parole cist Sarrazins cunvers ki estoit presenz a tutes cestes aven-

tures e tut mist en escrit, ke puis fu translaté en latin e aprés ço fu trans-
laté de latin en rumantz. (Vie de seint Auban: rubric before laisse 48)
Here speaks the Saracen convert who was present at all these hap-
penings and put it all in writing, which was later turned into Latin
and after this was turned from Latin into the vernacular .
Similarly elaborate is the prologue to the early thirteenth-century Vie de

seint Clement (despite its name largely a life of St Peter), which gives ver-
nacular and Latin names for the source (Livre Clement and Petri Itiner-
arium), identifies the author – St Clement himself – and also explains
rather baldly how the translator has abridged the text because it would be:
trop ennuius e trop granz

si tute la disputeisun
fust mise en translatiun.8 (La Vie de seint Clement: 84–86)
too boring and too long if all the debates were adapted/translated .
Pierre d’Abernon of Fetcham gives an involved explanation in the pro-

logue to his Vie seint Richard de Cycestre that he wrote the work in
response to a request from a canon of Chichester, who lent him the Latin
vita and begged him:
ke de translater le m’entremeisse,
e ke jeo le latin en franceis feisse.9 (La Vie seint Richard evesque de
Cycestre: 57–58)
that I might set about adapting it and that I might turn the Latin into
French.
8 For the names and author see La Vie de seint Clement (57–72).
9 Pierre also mentions his work of translation at the end of his text (M1209–1210).
62
This spelling out of the process of enarratio, in which Pierre clearly dis-
tinguishes between the work of adaptation and the cross-linguistic
transfer, appears in the middle of the more general explanation that:
[…] pur ceo de plusurs est desiré

que fust en franceis translaté
ke lais entendable pot estre […]
de latin le translateray
en franceis au meuz ke jeo say. (La Vie seint Richard: 53–55, 61–62)
because many people wished for it to be adapted into French so that

it can be understandable by lay people… I will adapt it from Latin
into French as best I can.
Pierre uses here the ‘translation for the unlettered’ topos, but emphasizes
the point that the work has been translated into the vernacular for the
benefit of specifically lay people, because they do not understand Latin.
This particular emphasis may perhaps have been seen as especially appro-
priate for a hagiographical work: certainly it appears repeatedly in saints’
lives, as well as in other religious texts.10 One of the striking things about
it is that the idea that lay people were uniformly unlettered was becoming
more and more outdated by the late thirteenth century when Pierre was
writing; certainly anyone who could understand French would be likely
to have at least some ability in Latin (see Clanchy 1993: 224–252; esp.
234–240, 246–252).
Historiography
If translation topoi are common in the saints’ lives of the period, they are
no less common among the estoires or works of historiography – at least
10 See, e.g., Matthew Paris, La estoire de seint Aedward le rei (35–48); The life of Saint
John the Almsgiver (81–84, 7661–7670). For other texts see, e.g., The Hospitallers’
Riwle (587–604); Robert le Chapelain, Corset: a rhymed commentary on the Seven
Sacraments (9–10).
63
peter damian-grint
those based on Latin original, as opposed to the eyewitness estoires which,

logically enough, hardly if at all mention the concept. Geffrei Gaimar,
author of the earliest surviving estoire in Old French, the Estoire des
Engleis, explains in his epilogue how:
Ceste estorie fist translater

dame Custance la gentil.
Gaimar i mist marz e averil
e tuz les dusze mais
ainz k’il oust translaté des reis.
Il purchaça main esamplaire,
liveres engleis e par gramaire
e en romanz e en latin […] (Estoire des Engleis: 6435–6437)
The noble lady Constance had this history adapted/translated.

Gaimar took March and April and a whole twelve months before fin-
ishing this adaptation/translation of [the history of] the kings. He
obtained large numbers of copies of books – English books, by dint
of learned reading, and [books] both in the French vernacular and in
Latin.11
Gaimar’s description is remarkable for its reference not only to Latin but
also to Old English (in this case, the West Saxon Schriftsprache of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of Gaimar’s major sources) as a language of
learning.12 Although estorie in Gaimar’s text may be a self-reference, it
occurs elsewhere as a source reference and such references to Latin
sources, usually identified as a Latin historia or gesta (see Damian-Grint
1997), are frequent in estoires. Thus the hagiographer and historian Wace
identifies the source of his Roman de Brut as the ‘Geste des Bretuns’ or
Gesta Britonum, and links the work of translation with a truthfulness
11 Translation from Ian Short (1994: 341), with the omission of some words placed in
square brackets by the translator.
12 The only other example in Old French is the no less remarkable one in Marie de
France’s Fables or Ysopet (see p. 87 [n. 46] below). Gaimar’s estoire is also one of very
few to note the amount of time taken by the translator.
64
claim and a self-identification, adding his scholarly credentials with his

title of maistre:
Maistre Wace l’ad translaté

ki en conte la verité.13 (Roman de Brut: 7–8)
Master Wace has translated it and tells it truthfully.
In a similar way he gives the ‘Geste des Normanz’ or Gesta Norman-

norum ducum as the source of his Roman de Rou, and links his translation
topos with a self-identification with his remark:
Longue est la geste de Normanz

e a metre grieve en romanz.
Se l’on demande qui ço dist,
qui ceste estoire en romanz fist,
jo di e dirai que jo sui
Wace de l’isle de Gersui […] (The Roman de Rou: 5297–5300)
The gesta of the Normans is a long one and hard to set down in the
vernacular. If anyone asks who said this, who wrote this history in
the vernacular, I say and will say that I am Wace from the Isle of
Jersey.
Benoît de Sainte-Maure likewise identifies the source of his Chronique

des ducs de Normandie as the ‘Estoire de Normandie’ (his name for the
Gesta Normannorum ducum); he repeatedly refers to it explicitly as a
Latin work,14 and to the difficulties of his work of translation:
13 His reference to the Gesta Britonum, the most common contemporary name for the
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie, occurs at the end of the text: Ci
falt la geste des Bretuns (14859).
14 Ce dit li latins ‘the Latins say this’ (Chronique des ducs de Normandie: 18023); ce retrait
l’estoire latine ‘The Latin history tells this’ (13735, 20768).
65
peter damian-grint
Granz est l’estuide e li labours,

granz esmais sereit as plusors
de si faite ovre translater […]15 (Chronique des ducs de Normandie:
2123–2125)
Great is the attention and the work needed; many people would be
dismayed in the face of such a work of enarratio.
Or vient l’estoire des granz faiz

a translater e a escrivre […] (Chronique des ducs de Normandie: 14780–
14781)
Now comes the history of great deeds to adapt and write down:
Des deus Richards a translaté

ce que j’en truis d’autorité. (Chronique des ducs de Normandie: 32071–
32072)
I have written an adaptation/translation of what I have found about

the two [dukes] Richard that is authoritative:
Ai translaté des dus normanz,

d’eus l’estoire qui moct est granz
e ou moct ai trové a dire
e grant estuide e grant martire. (Chronique des ducs de Normandie:
42049–42052)
I have written an adaptation/translation of the Norman dukes, from

their history, which is very large and where I have found many things
to say and [also] much study and much hard work .
Sir Thomas Gray’s elaborate prologue to his much later Scalacronica has
15 Estoire de Normandie ‘History of Normandy’ (Chronique des ducs de Normandie: 26922);

cf. also estoire… des dus normanz ‘History of the Norman dukes’ (42049–42050).
66
an unintentionally entertaining image in which the author, after telling

us that he has taken his material from what is trové en escript en divers
livers en Latin et en romaunce ‘found written down in various books in
Latin and in the vernacular’ and adding that he cest cronicle translata de
ryme en prose ‘this chronicle adapted/translated from rhyme in prose’
(Scalacronica: §1),16 then describes a dream in which he sees himself
climbing a ladder under the guidance of the Sybil, and seeing on each
rung a different historian whose work is described in some detail and is
recommended for his own history.
In addition to these mentions of source translation, typically in pro-
logues or epilogues, expressions like ce dist li livres ‘thus the book says’ and
si l’estoire ne ment ‘as the history does not lie’ which refer to a written
(implicitly Latin) source are thickly sprinkled throughout the narrative
of most estoires, even on occasion the eyewitness ones.17
Didactic works
Although largely neglected by modern scholarship, didactic works are an

important Old French literary form: they include scientific, moralizing
and general knowledge texts. Scientific texts – which include mathematical
works such as the computus and the algorism, works of natural science
such as the bestiary and the lapidary, and medical works such as books of
fisike and chirurgerie – are by their nature works of compilation and trans-
lation, often drawn from multiple sources in Latin. Detailed descriptions
16 The entire dream takes up most of §§ 1–2. Thomas remarks at the start of the dream
how he contemplated a treter et a translater en plus court sentence, lez cronicles del Graunt
Bretagne et lez gestez dez Englessez ‘composing and translating, in a greatly shortened
form, the chronicles of Great Britain, and the deeds of the English’ (Scalacronica: §2).
17 To these may be added numerous implicit references to sources, see Damian-Grint
(1999b: 151–171, 209–264 passim). In general terms, the estoires are remarkable in
Old French literature for the exceptional density of their source references – excep-
tional even by comparison with the multiple references in bestiairies, geographies
and other technical and scientific works (see below). References to written sources
appear, e.g., in Ambroise’s eyewitness Estoire de la guerre sainte, (letre 10959; estoire
2181) and in the Geste des Engleis en Yrlande (escrit 3134).
67
peter damian-grint
of translation in such works are rare, but the topos of ‘translation for the
unlettered’ is nevertheless a favourite one. The early twelfth-century writer
Philippe de Thaon refers to translation in his geographical Divisiones
mundi, with an unusual emphasis on the difficulty of the work:
Plusurs clers dient ben

ke nul pur nule ren,
taunt ne savereit de letre,
ne purreit mie metre
en romance ne rimer,
tant ne savereit limer.18 (Divisiones mundi: 34–62, vv. 13–18)
Many clerics say indeed that nobody, however much Latin they
knew, could ever put it into the vernacular nor into verse, for any
[reward] at all, however much they knew how to wear it down .
This is of course an implicit self-praise, which is reinforced by his rather

boastful assurance that he has decided to do it:
kar requide ke unke més

ne fu fet tel romanz. (Divisiones mundi: 24–25)
For he believes that never yet was such a work of adaptation done.
The topos of ‘translation for the unlettered’ appears again in a thirteenth-

century computus, the Livre de kalendar of the poet Ralph of Lenham,
who explains in his prologue that:
[…] mun seignur

pur ki amus cest’ overe enpris,
comandé m’aveit et requis,
d’aprendre lui e enseigner
en romanz le art del kalender. (Kalendar: 18–22)
18 The text appears under the name of ‘Perot de Garbelei’, but was convincingly attri-
buted to Philippe by Hugh Shields in his ‘More poems by Philippe de Thaon?’ (1993).
68
my lord, for love of whom I undertook this work, ordered and

requested me to teach and learn him the art of calculating time in the
vernacular.
And he reiterates the topos in his epilogue, repeating that he has worked
at the request of his lord:
kar cest art saver voleit

e pas le latin ne entendeit,
kar il n’esteit fors poi lettré,
e pur ceo en romanz ai treté. (Kalendar: 1299–1302)
because he wished to know this art and did not understand Latin,
because he was hardly literate, and so I have dealt with it in the ver-
nacular.
The anonymous authors of a roughly contemporary algorism also refer

to requests for translation in their prologue:
Li dui clerc qui ont translaté

conpot en roumans sunt hastés
de plusors que a cheu [s’]ametent
que en roumans argorisme metent,
ausi con il ont fait conpot. (Algorism: 45–84, 1–5)
The two clerks who adapted/translated Computus into the vernac-

ular have been urged by many to set to work putting Algorism into
the vernacular, just as they did Computus.
An unusual note of realism is injected in the suggestion that people were

so happy with the authors’ vernacular computus that they asked for a
vernacular algorism as well. Such claims are of course a form of modesty
topos, indicating that the authors are not doing their work out of self-
aggrandisement but only to please their prospective audience – or, as in
the case of Ralph of Lenham, their patron.19
69
peter damian-grint
References to translation occur in another of Philippe’s works, his

Bestiaire, which begins with the doggerel quatrain:
Philippes de Thaün
en franceise raisun
at estrait Bestiaire,
un livre de gramaire. (Le Bestiaire 1900: 1–4)
Philippe de Thaon has extracted into the vernacular Bestiary, a Latin

book.
Here gramaire, a term referring in principle to learned works, simply

means ‘Latin’. Another bestiary, that of the poet Gervase, similarly men-
tions translation as ‘extraction’ in its introduction:
Gervases […]
vuet .i. livre en roman traire.
Li livres a non Bestiaire;
a Barbarie est [en] l’armaire
li latins qui mult est plaisanz;
de illuec fu estraiz li romanz. (Le Bestiaire 1872: 420–443, 32–36)
Gervaise wishes to compose a book in the vernacular. The book is

called Bestiary; in the book-cupboard at Barbarie is the Latin [version]
which is very agreeable; from this the vernacular was extracted.
And Guillaume Le Clerc’s Bestiaire divin is similarly presented:
Voelt Guillaume en romanz escrire

de bon latin, ou il le trueve. (Bestiaire divin: 57–61, 8–9)
19 In a period when most literary works were written for a patron, either present or
prospective, such claims may often be true; nevertheless this form of acknowledge-
ment (which is frequent in Old French texts) is a topos.
70
Guillaume wishes to write in the vernacular from the good Latin

[version] where he finds it.
These references to linguistic transfer are reinforced by the numerous

references to Latin sources and authorities. Philippe de Thaon names
nearly 30 different sources for his Comput, and two dozen sources for
his Bestiaire.20 Medical treatises in Old French similarly mention and
quote from their sources: Euperiston, a complete physician’s reference
book, names a dozen sources, particularly Avicenna,21 while the short
gynaecological handbook Trotula regularly cites Galen and Hippocrates
in the text, and begins by listing its main sources which include Dias-
corides and Cleopatra.22 It may be noted, however, that explicit references
to translation are by and large absent from these medical works, possibly
owing to their nature as practical handbooks.
Other moralizing and general knowledge texts using translation topoi
include another work by Pierre d’Abernon of Fetcham, his Secré des secrez,
in which he refers in the epilogue to:
[…] ceo k’ai escrit

e del ensampleire translaté. (Le Secré de secrez: 2245–2246)
what I have written and adapted/translated from my exemplar.
And he adds, as he did in his life of Richard of Chichester, a request for

prayers:
Mes ore priez, pur Deu amur,

en ceste fin pur le translatur
20 See Philippe de Thaon, Comput and Bestiaire; Damian-Grint (1999a: 349, 361). Both
Philippe’s Comput and his Bestiaire average a source reference every 30 lines.
21 Euperiston, in Anglo-Norman Medicine (134). The prose Euperiston has 48 references
in 157 paragraphs, and names 14 authorities as well as mentioning ‘les autors’ and
also personal experiences, although as the editor points out these could be present
in the sources.
22 See Trotula, in Anglo-Norman Medicine (6–12). Trotula has 26 references in 852 lines
of verse – about one every 33 lines – and names 10 authorities.
71
peter damian-grint
de ceste livre, ke Piere ad nun. (Le Secré de secrez: 2376–2378)
but now pray to this end, for the love of God, for the adapter/trans-
lator of this book, who is named Pierre.
Translation topoi appear, too, in Marie de France’s Ysopet or Fables, which

is the only Old French text other than Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis to refer
to Old English as a language of learning. The detailed description in the
epilogue to her work (she mentions translation in her prologue as well)
brings in an otherwise totally unknown putative Old English version by
Alfred the Great:
Pur amur le cunte Willame, […]

m’entremis de ceste livre feire
e de l’engleis en remanz treire.
Esope apel’um cest livre,
qu’il translata e fist escrire,
del griu en latin le turna.
Li reis Alfrez, que mut l’ama,
le translata puis en engleis,
e jeo l’ai rimee en franceis. (Fables: 3867–3876)
For love of Count William… I undertook to make this book and

draw it into the vernacular from the English. This book is called
Esope, for he [Æsop] translated it and had it written down, turning
it from Greek into Latin. King Alfred, who was fond of it, then
adapted/translated it in English, and I have put it into French verse.
In reality Marie’s collection of fables appears to be based on a number

of sources, so her mention of Alfred can be seen as appropriation of a
significant authority figure, a fact which further underlines the unex-
pected nature of her presentation of Old English as her source lan-
guage.23
23 See Spiegel’s introduction to Marie de France’s Fables (1987: 8–9).
72
Languague matters also appear in Philippe de Thaon’s Comput, as

he reassures his audience in the introduction that his poem:
nen est griu ne latins, […]

ainz est raisun mustree
de la nostre cuntree:
ben poënt retenir
çoe dum ges voil garnir.24 (Comput: 99, 101–104)
[it] is not Greek or Latin, but it is clearly in the speech of our own
country: they [the listeners] can easily remember what I want to tell
them.
It is noteworthy that Philippe here refers to Greek and Latin in the same
breath as languages of learning, for Greek in this period tends to appear
rather as an exotic language, as it was largely unknown in Western
Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This point is, how-
ever, less striking than it might appear at first glance, for Greek termi-
nology appears with some frequency in Latin scientific works used as
sources in the period.
By and large, the use of Greek in the Old French texts is linked to a
completely different setting for translation which appears in a number
of didactic works: that of the accessus. This is in fact far more than a mere
topos; it counts instead as a distinct form of translation. Whereas the
great majority of translated Old French texts, as we have seen, treat cross-
linguistic transfer as a single component of the enarratio, so that the
whole meaning is considered to be transferred from Latin to the vernac-
ular, these didactic works model themselves rather on the common Bib-
lical citation-and-gloss exegesis in which both the original and translation
are provided, the latter sometimes in the forms of both a litera or word-
for-word translation, a type of direct accessus, and an interpretative enar-
ratio or glose.
24 It is striking that Philippe sees no incongruity in describing French as ‘the speech

of our own country’ while writing in England.
73
peter damian-grint
Given the Bible-exegetical origins of the structure, it is not surprising

to find it being used by the twelfth-century poet Sanson de Nanteuil in
his Proverbes de Salemon, which is based on the Book of Proverbs. He uses
a complete tripartite division, giving first a citation from the Latin original;
then a close translation (though not word-for-word, as he is writing in
verse); and finally a long interpretative glose. When referring specifically
to linguistic transfer he often uses the verb ethimologier,25 reserving such
words as gloser and (less often) senefier to the interpretation.
The same format is used by Philippe de Thaon in his Bestiaire, where
the Greek names of the animals are cited, followed by a literal translation
and then a long discursive discussion of the significance of the name and
the animal:
Ço qu’en griu est leün

en franceis ‘rei’ ad nun. […]
Or oëz senz dutance
d’iço signefiance. (Bestiaire 1900: 25–25, 45–46)
That which is leon in Greek is called ‘king’ in French. Now hear what
is the undoubted meaning of this.
Sometimes the Latin form of the name appears too:
Honocrotalia,
en griu itel num a,
e en latin sermun
ço est lungum rostrum;
en franceis ‘lunc bec’ est. (Bestiaire 1900: 2335–2337)
Honokrotalia has this name in Greek, and in the Latin speech it is

longum rostrum; in French it is ‘long beak’.
25 This may be a neologism of Sanson’s: his is the only use recorded in the AND, and
the related ethimologie appears only in his Proverbes and the much later Old French
version of the Ancrene Riwle.
74
Philippe’s alphabetical lapidary uses a similar structure – but only

once:
E or oëz de jaspide
pur quei cest nom li fud dune:
Yas in griu, c’est ‘vert’ en franceis,
e pinasun ‘gemme’ est ‘a reis’;
iço que jaspis apelum
‘verte gemme’ en franceis ad num. (Alphabetical lapidary, in Anglo-
Norman lapidaries: 200–259, 1223–1228)
And now hear about the jasper, why it was given this name: yas in
Greek is ‘green’ in French, and pinason is ‘royal gem’; so what we call
jaspis has the name ‘green gem’ in French.
A similar format occurs in other works, such as the thirteenth-century

compendium La Petite Philosophie, sometimes with a Latin version but
more frequently on its own:
kar cyclon en lur gregeis

dit ‘rund’ en cest nostre franceis. (La Petite Philosophie: 1301–1302)
for kyklon in their Greek means ‘round’ in our French.
Iceste dispositiun
le Sodiac en griu numum;
ço est Signifer en latin,
kar les signes porte sanz fin. (La Petite Philosophie: 2333–2336)
this arrangement we name the Zodiac in Greek, that is Signifer in

Latin, because it always bears the signs.
In these cases the use of Greek depends entirely on the authors’ sources,
as neither Philippe nor the unknown author of the Petite Philosophie is
likely to have had any knowledge of the language.
75
peter damian-grint
Other didactic texts use a simpler version of the same structure. The
final section of Philippe’s last work, the Livre de Sibile, provides the Latin
original and an Old French rendition that falls mid-way between a literal
translation and an enarratio. The thirteenth-century Livre de Catun does
something very similar, drawing on the standard commentary of
Remigius of Auxerre to amplify and explain – but only very briefly –
the meaning of the original Disticha Catonis. Simpler still is the use of
Latin terms followed by literal vernacular versions, a form that occurs
frequently in Philippe’s Livre de Sibile and his Comput.
The citation-and-gloss format, together with the relatively heavy use
of Greek (and also Latin) terms, foregrounds the concept of translation
in a way that is unique to the didactic works. Although the format is
based on the use of citation-and-gloss enarratio in many of the Latin
sources, the decision to keep citations in the original language is a pointed
and even heavy-handed claim to scholarly authority by the authors
involved.
Chansons de Geste
The chansons de geste, epic poems with a strong oral flavour, have been
described by modern critics as a form of common celebration of a oral
tradition which is shared by the jongleur and his audience (see Uitti 1973).
Authorization is, therefore, primarily by appeal to this shared memory,
and the chansons are typically presented as bone and veire, good and true,
by implication ‘as we all know’; this idea even underlies slighting refer-
ences to the malveis jugleors who have falsified the original story which
the present jongleur is about to give in its true form, as the audience are
expected to recognize this. Nevertheless, even these self-justifications
often include phrases such as chanson de veire estoire ‘song made from a
true history’ or chanson de droit estoire ‘song made from an accurate his-
tory’ – phrases which refer, however vaguely or imprecisely, to a putative
written source, a Latin historia.
Moreover, these claims of a Latin source are explicit in a significant
number of chansons de geste. The fourteenth-century epic Girart de Rossillon
76
calls its source a livres en latim ‘a book in Latin’ (6338) and adds, par ce le
rommans dou latim vous deliver ‘thus I give you the vernacular out of the
Latin’ (6638); but even the eleventh-century Chanson de Roland refers on
two occasions (1443, 3262) to a written Latin work, a Geste Francor or Gesta
Francorum. Those that do not use this form of reference frequently refer
to the age of the source: in Le Siege de Barbastre it is a vielle istoire ‘an old
history’ (Le Siege de Barbastre: 2), in La Chevalerie Vivien it is an estore de
grant antiquité ‘a history of great antiquity’, and a jeste del tans anchïenor ‘a
gesta from very ancient times’ (La Chevalerie Vivien: 53 [MS E], 1631 [MS
C]), the age of the source text being a guarantee of its truthfulness.26
To be sure, recent scholarship has underlined the literariness of the
chansons de geste, so it is only to be expected that they are based on written
sources, and indeed the texts we have now are often the end result of a
long (and frequently tangled) history of textual transmission. Neverthe-
less, as we have seen, such an explicit reliance on Latin written sources
seems to go against the spirit of the chanson, particularly in the case of a
work like the Destructioun de Rome, whose author, not content with
staking the truth of his version on the written historia in St-Denis, adds
– rather gratuitously – that in comparison with his estoire, all the know-
ledge of ten thousand jongleurs is not worth a penny.27
Courtly romance
The term romance covers a great deal of ground: the Old French word
romanz does not originally refer to a specific literary genre, but means
26 The Entree d’Espagne goes one better and claims an original record written down by
an eyewitness, Archbishop Turpin himself: L’arcivesque Trepins, qi tant feri d’espee, /
en scrist mist de sa man l’istorie croniquee ‘Archbishop Turpin, who struck so much with
the sword, wrote in his own hand the history in order’ (L’Entree d’Espagne: 47–48).
This may be a reference to the popular Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi attributed
the Turpin, composed around 1140 and translated into Old French several times.
27 mais si ore en fussent ci ensamble .x. milier, / devant euls osereie bien dire e afichier / ke euls
toutz ne sevent mie le mont d’un diner ‘Even if there were 10 thousand of them together
here, I would [still] dare to say and state in front of them that all of them [together] do
not know even a pennyworth’ (Destructioun de Rome: 44–46).
77
peter damian-grint
simply ‘vernacular’ and thus, by extension, any text not in Latin.28 It is

not until the thirteenth century that it begins to take on the meaning of
a particular type of text. Although what we think of as courtly romance
comes into existence in the twelfth century, authors use a variety of
words to refer to their works: conte or ‘tale’; dit or ‘saying’; estoire or ‘his-
tory, story’; often they use more than one term – Chrétien de Troyes
calls his Erec et Enide both a conte (13, 19) and an estoire (23); quite often
they do not give any generic label at all.
The most widely known distinction between different types of
romance is Jehan Bodel’s scheme of the three Matters about which sto-
ries are told:
Ne sont que .iii. matieres a nul homme atandant,

de France, de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant. (La Chanson des Saisnes:
4–5 [MS L])
There are only three Matters given over to any man: that of France,
that of Britain and that of great Rome.
Although there have been widely differing interpretations of Jehan’s

meaning, they can serve to draw a very rough pragmatic distinction
between popular romances (which represent the Matter of France),
Arthurian romances (for the Matter of Britain), and classical romances
(for the Matter of Rome). Naturally, many romances include elements
of more than one Matter: Chrétien de Troyes’s Cligès, a classical romance
with Greek protagonists, begins with the hero’s father travelling to
Britain to be knighted by King Arthur; conversely, the impeccably
Arthurian romance of Yder features Cligès and also mentions Amis and
28 Originally a reference to the lingua romana rustica, the form of Latin spoken by
uneducated people, which by the seventh century had diverged so far from the lite-
rary Latin used as an official Schriftsprache that the two were mutually incompre-
hensible; to speak romanice (as opposed to latinice) then meant to speak the verna-
cular: cf. the modern Spanish romancear (to translate into Spanish) and the modern
Italian romanizzare (to translate into Italian). See also the Anglo-Norman Dictionary
(1992), s.t. romanz; romance, -aunce; cf. romancer; romançour.
78
Amile, eponymous heroes of a popular romance.29 Nevertheless, the dis-

tinction between the Matters is not arbitrary; among other things, it can
be seen in the different ways authors use source references to give
authority to their texts.
It is perhaps little surprise to find that the classical romances or
romans d’antiquité generally emphasize their Latin and Greek sources.
Curiously, although source references appear in most classical
romances,30 they are not always precise and explicit references to trans-
lation are surprisingly infrequent. Thus the author of the Roman de
Thèbes explicitly mentions Statius, the author of the work’s source, the
Thebaid, on several occasions,31 and has other vaguer references, including
one to Virgil, but makes no direct reference to the work of translation.
Most of the major classical romances do, however, make use of trans-
lation topoi. Benoît de Sainte-Maure begins his Roman de Troie with a
‘translation for the unlettered’ topos, in which he affirms that:
[…] me vuell travailler

en une estoire conmencer,
que, de latin ou je la truis,
se j’ai le sens e se ge puis,
le voudrai si en romanz metre
que cil qui n’entendront la letre
se puissant deduire el romanz. (Le Roman de Troie: 33–39)
I wish to work at beginning a history which, if I have the intelligence

and the ability, I would like to turn it from the Latin in which I found
it into the vernacular, in such a way that those who do not understand
Latin writing can enjoy it in the vernacular.
29 Even if, as Alison Adams argues, the Cligès named in the romance may not be Chré-
tien’s hero, see The Romance of Yder (257), the use of the name is still significant.
30 The Roman d’Énéas, unusually, appears to have no source references at all; see Phi-
lippe Logié (1999). The same is true of Robert de Blois’s Floris et Liriope, which is
based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
31 See Roman de Thèbes (1890) and (1995: 2739, 7463, 8905, P20).
79
peter damian-grint
This he follows up with a detailed and completely fictitious description

of his source, a long-lost eyewitness account of the Trojan War which,
he tells his audience, was rediscovered by chance in a library in Athens
by the scholar Cornelius Nepos, who made it available by translating it
from Greek into Latin;32 and this elaborate explanation is reinforced with
occasional subsequent references to the putative authors of this eyewit-
ness account, Dares and Dictys (Le Roman de Troie: 75–128).33 Benoît
goes on to make use of what begins as a conventional enough translator’s
promise to be faithful to the source:
Ci vueil l’estoire conmencier:

le latin sivrai e la letre;
niul autre rien n’i voudrai metre
s’ensi non cum jel truis escrit. (Le Roman de Troie: 138–141)
Here I wish to begin the history: I will follow the Latin word for
word; nor do I wish to put in anything that is not as I find it written.
But he undermines this mock-precision by following it up with a sly,

apparently throwaway remark:
Ne di mie qu’aucun bon dit

n’i mete, se faire le sai,
mais la matire en ensirrai.34 (Le Roman de Troie: 142–144)
I do not say that I will not put in any fine turns of phrase if I can do
so, but I will follow the substance [of the source].
A remark his audience would do well to remember, as Benoît will use it
32 De grec le torna en latin / par son sens e par son engin ‘he turned it form Greek into
Latin by his intelligence and ingenuity’ (Le Roman de Troie: 121–122).
33 Dares the Phrygian was the ostensible Trojan author of the De excidio Troiae, Dictys
the Cretan the Greek author of the Ephemeris belli Troiani.
34 See Fein (1993).
80
to permit himself the most outrageous alterations of and additions to his

Latin original.
Benoît’s contemporary Alexandre de Paris similarly uses a ‘transla-
tion for the unlettered’ topos in the prologue to his Roman d’Alexandre,
in which he states that:
L’estoire d’Alixandre vos vuel par vers traitier

en romans qu’a gent laie doive auques porfitier […] (The medieval
French Roman d’Alexandre: I, 30–31)35
The history of Alexander I wish to compose in verse for you, in the

vernacular so that it might be of some profit to unlettered folk.
Although there are few other references to translation in his text, he

refers throughout to the estoire and the livre from which he is drawing,
and ends with the remark that his versified text stops here because the
historia goes not any further.36
Thomas of Kent’s Geste de Alisandre,37 another retelling of the tale of
Alexander, includes one of the most explicit discussions of translation in
any Old French text, going on from protesting his accuracy and truth-
fulness to a discussion of his theory of translation:
La verité ai estrait, si l’estoire [ne] ment.

N’ai sez faiz acreu, çoe vus di verreiement,
mes beles i ai mis nequedent.
N’i ai acreu l’estoire ne jo n’i ost nient;
pur plaisir as oianz est un atiffement;
35 For another similar translation source reference see The medieval French Roman
d’Alexandre (IV, 1541–1542). The source of the Roman d’Alexandre tradition in the
Middle Ages was the Epitome Julii Valerii, an abbreviated Latin version of the Res
gestæ Alexandri Macedonis.
36 Ci fenissent li ver, l’estoire plus ne dure (The medieval French Roman d’Alexandre: IV,
1701).
37 Usually known by its colophon as the Roman de toute chevalerie. The title given here
comes from MS P; its alternative title (in MS D) is Alisandre le grant.
81
peter damian-grint
home ne deit lange translater autrement;

qui d[ir]eit mot pot mot, trop irreit leidement.
D’un bon livre en latin fis cest translatement. (The Anglo-Norman
Alexander P46–48)
I have extracted the truth, if the history does not lie. I have not
expanded his deeds, I tell you this truly, but I have nevertheless put
in elegant words. I have not expanded the history, nor do I take out
anything. An embellishment is for the pleasure of the audience; a
man should not translate languages in another way: whoever says it
word for word does it very inelegantly. I have made this translation
out of a good book in Latin.
This explanation, unusually, adds an explicitly aesthetic element to the

standard translation hermeneutic of the period (see Damian-Grint 1999a:
352–353).
The early thirteenth-century writer Calendre similarly remarks on
his work of translation in his Les Empereurs de Rome, explaining that:
Qualandre qui cest livre fist

et de latin en romanz mist
n’an puet or plus rimer ne faire
car il n’a mes de l’essanplaire. (Les Empereurs de Rome: 4857–4860)
Calendre, who made this book and turned it from Latin into the ver-
nacular, cannot rhyme or compose any more of it because he no
longer has the source book.
And he goes on to explain that the original from which he had been trans-
lating had originally been borrowed from the Byzantine emperor
Manuel, to whom it had now been returned – a textbook case of the
ironic tall story, we might think, although it appears in fact that it may
be one of those cases when the truth is stranger than fiction.
A similar use of the topos of translation from Latin can be found in the
related Greco-Byzantine romances such as Guillaume de Palerne, whose
82
author, having described his source as an ancïene estoire (20) in his prologue,
uses his epilogue to praise his patron, the countess Yolande, who:
cest livre fist diter et faire

et de latin en roumans traire. (Guillaume de Palerne: 9659–9660)
she had this book composed and made and translated out of Latin
into the vernacular.
Hue de Rotelande likewise finishes his parody Protheselaus by indicating

that:
Gilbert le fiutz Badeloun […]

cest lyvre me comaunda feire
e de latyn translater
d’un livre q’il me fist moustrer,
dount sis chastels est mult manauntz. (Protheselaus: 12701, 12706–
12709)
Gilbert FilzBaderon ordered me to make this book and adapt/trans-

late it out of Latin from a book he had shown me, of which [books]
his castle is very well-stocked.
Whether Gilbert FitzBaderon, lord of Monmouth, would have been flat-

tered at being thus associated with such a mediocre work is questionable
(Protheselaus was an extremely disappointing sequel to Hue’s hilarious
Ipomedon); but there is little doubt that the romance was pure invention,
and not an adaptation of any Latin work given to Hue by his patron.
While classical romances might in some measure be expected to refer
to Latin sources and Latin translation, the situation is quite different in
the case of popular romances, texts that have no overt link to classical
antiquity. And although the majority of works appear to refer at least in
passing to a Latin source, usually an estoire,38 occasionally a geste,39 an
38 E.g. L’Escoufle 38; Floire et Blancheflor 939; Guillaume de Palerne 20, 280, 327, 9652;
83
peter damian-grint
auctor or auctorité,40 we find very few mentions of identified written

sources and still fewer examples of the topos of translation from Latin.
Those romances that do mention translation tend to do so in a spirit of
irony: thus the author of Joufrois de Poitiers gives a detailed description
of how he copied his story from a Latin manuscript:
la u ge la trovai escrite
a Saint Piere de Maguelone.
Des lo main i mis jusqu’a none,
ainz que j’en fussë a la fin.
Illuec la getai de latin.
Despuis si l’ai en rime misse
et en romanz l’estoire asisse. (Joufrois: 2322–2330)
There where I found it written in St-Pierre de Maguelone. I worked

at it from early morning until three o’clock in the afternoon before I
got to the end of it. There I took it out of Latin; then I put it into
rhyme and set down the history in the vernacular.
Although the details are not in themselves implausible, the exaggerated

precision and the convoluted explanation of the process by which the
work was translated and versified are a clear indicator of irony.41
In Partonopeus de Blois the same idea is introduced indirectly, when
the author notes – in his entirely tongue-in-cheek self-justification – that:
Cil clerc dïent que n’est pas sens

d’escrire estoire d’antif tens
Romance of Horn 5230, 5238; Ille et Galeron 5803; Robert le Diable 4103, 5088.
39 E.g. Romance of Horn 251, 1644, 3236; Robert le Diable 2184.
40 E.g. Roman d’Auberon 1123, 1177, 2094.
41 The time indicated (perhaps eight hours) is not unrealistic for a simple transcription;
the suggestion of a quick, rough-and-ready vernacular translation in situ, followed
by a longer work of turning into rhyme, is possible though not perhaps likely. More
important is the fact that the work as a whole, and the narrator’s stance in particular,
point strongly in the direction of parody.
84
quant jo nes escris en latin,

et que je pert mon tans enfin. (Partonopeus de Blois: B Meta 67–78)
These clerks say that there is no point in writing a history of ancient

times when I do not write it in Latin, and that I am wasting my time.
He then goes on to explain that (unlike those who play backgammon and
chess, v. 81) he is not at all wasting his time because he is writing and all
books are of benefit to others – a statement which he proves with a delib-
erate and recognizable misquotation from Saint Paul.42
There is very little mention of the language of putative sources: the
authors of popular romances speak rather of the truthfulness of both text
and source – a truthfulness which, significantly, is not proven but merely
stated. Thus Philippe de Remi introduces his romance La Manekine by
explaining that he has decided to write pour çou que vraie est la matere
‘because the material is true’ (35) and adds, with a touch of humour sim-
ilar to Benoît’s in the prologue to his Roman de Troie:
que ja de mot n’en mentirai

se n’est pour ma rime alongier. (Le Roman de la Manekine: 46–47)
because the material is true; and I shall not lie by so much as a word
— except to draw out my rhyme.
The situation of the Arthurian romances is similar to that of the popular

romances. Although Arthur was launched as a major literary figure by
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Gesta Britonum and, in the vernacular, by
Wace’s translation of Geoffrey, the Geste des Bretuns,43 the literary Matter
42 que quanqu’est es livres escrit / tot i est por nostre profit ‘that whatever is written in books
is all there for our profit’ (Partonopeus de Blois: B Meta 93–94). The reference is to
a very mutilated 2 Tim. 3:16: Omnis scriptura [divinitus inspirata] utilis est [ad
docendum, ad arguendum, ad corripiendum, ad erupiendum in iustitia].
43 The Gesta Britonum is the most common 12th-century title for Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth’s work now usually know as the Historia regum Brittanniæ, as the Geste des
Bretuns is the title Wace himself uses for his work, more usually known as the
Roman de Brut. See Damian-Grint (2009: 80–81; 1999b: 258–259).
85
peter damian-grint
of Britain is largely unrelated to classical antiquity, and there is little need

for Latin texts to authorize what the author tells us. Thus Marie de
France introduces her Lais with the dismissive comment:
[…] començai a penser

de aukune bone estoire faire
e de latin en romaunz traire;
mais ne me fust guaires de pris:
itant s’en sunt altre entremis.44 (Lais: 28–32)
I began to think about composing some good story and drawing it

out of Latin into the vernacular; but it was of no value to me; others
have done as much.
And indeed there is no mention of Latin in her text, apart from the pro-
logue to her very first lai, Guigemar:
Les contes ke jo sai verrais,

dunt li Bretun unt fait les lais,
vos conterai assez briefment.
El chef de cest comencement,
sulunc la letre e l’escriture,
vos mostrerai un’ aventure […](Lais: 19–24)
The true stories that I know, of which the Bretons have made lais, I
will tell very briefly. At the very start, following the Latin and the
writing, I will set out an adventure for you.
To Marie’s audience, the expression la letre e l’escriture would certainly

indicate a written Latin text. Apart from this preliminary mention,
however, the texts of the lais consistently present oral sources in
Breton.
44 Although most of Marie’s lais are not Arthurian, they are very much part of the
Matter of Britain.
86
Marie’s approach resembles that of most Arthurian texts. In general

references to sources are no more than brief mentions: significantly,
words like estoire and geste which refer to Latin sources are almost com-
pletely absent;45 it is vaguer terms such as conte, matiere and escrit that
are used.46 As in the popular romances, so in Arthurian romances it is
not the work of translation or the Latin source that gives authority, but
the truthfulness of the tale.
Conclusion
Translation topoi in Old French literature are just that – topoi, literary
commonplaces that appear to be used in the first place because they form
part of what the author is expected to say within the particular literary
form in which they appear. A saint’s life, a bestiaire, an estoire, a roman
d’antiquité would be incomplete without some reference to their Latin
source and the process by which it was adapted and made available to the
intended audience, but the same is not true of a chanson de geste or an
Arthurian or popular romance. But when we have said that we have said
very little: it is hardly more than a tautology to say that Old French
authors tend to mention translation when they are expected to mention
translation, for we can only guess that they are expected to mention
translation because that is what they actually do.
What is more interesting to note is that the references to translation
(except in cases which are clearly ironic or humorous) seem to be, so far
as we can tell, truthful. When Old French authors talk about translating
from a Latin original, the Latin original can usually be clearly identified,
45 A rare exception is si con raconte li istoire ‘As the history tells’ in Le Bel inconnu (6246).
46 Conte is used in Raoul de Houdenc, La Vengeance Raguidel (6100–6101). This refe-
rence is ambiguous, as it could refer to Raoul’s own work; but the context and paral-
lels from other works tend to indicate rather a reference to the lack of further source
material. Matiere appears in Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot (26). Escrit is used in The
continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, vol. 1: The First Conti-
nuation, redaction of MSS TVD (13206 T); The continuations of the Old French Per-
ceval of Chrétien de Troyes, vol. 5: The Third Continuation by Manessier (42665); Guil-
laume le Clerc, The Romance of Fergus (4080); escriture in La mule sans frein (885).
87
peter damian-grint
and is often almost visible behind their text – for many Old French
author-translators have a remarkable knack for turning Latin prose into
vernacular verse which yet manages to be almost word-for-word trans-
lation. (Whether the results are always of a high literary level is another
question.) If a saint’s life, a bestiaire or an estoire would be incomplete
without some reference to their Latin source and to the process of trans-
lation, it is because these works almost invariably were translated.
This fact suggests, naturally, that the references in the cases where a
Latin original has not (yet) been identified may also be accurate; and
raises intriguing questions in the more intractable cases, like the Old
English original that Marie de France claims for her Ysopet. What it also
suggests is that the Arthurian and popular romances and other works of
fiction that make no claim to an explicitly Latin source and no reference
to translation are probably being quite honest in their position – which
raises interesting questions when we consider the remarkable fact that
chansons de geste are more likely to refer to a Latin source than are the
Arthurian and popular romances.
We can see that as a general rule the Arthurian romances, unlike
almost all other genres, pay little attention to the external proofs of
authenticity. The romance is truthful not because it has a source – and
that source is ancient, or in Latin – but because it tells the truth about
the human condition. Yet can we say that references to an unspecified
source appear in almost every courtly romance are only topoi, or are they
also statements of fact? The usefulness of such claims to provide
authority for the text is indisputable, but could it be that even romancers
felt the need to provide an extra-textual witness to their work?
The distribution of translation topoi across the different literary
genres of Old French strongly supports the idea that such topoi originate
in non-fiction and may indeed come from religious works.47 But they
also strongly suggest a hierarchy of authority and a clear consciousness
of the distinction between fact and fiction in the eyes of both author and
audience: a sense, almost, that those who have translated are not justi-
47 The exception of the romans d’antiquité, intriguing though it may be, is hardly surprising
given the number of these works that are indeed translated from Latin originals.
88
fying their work but boasting of their privileged position. It would be

hard to explain why Ralph of Lenham should feel the need to draw atten-
tion to the fact that his computus – a painfully dry factual manual on cal-
culation – was translated from a Latin original, while the best Chrétien
de Troyes can manage for his fantastical Lancelot is an ambiguous refer-
ence to his matere. If later romances make a virtue of their internal truth-
fulness as against external authority, surely it is a case of making a virtue
of necessity.
Rewriting Le Chevalier au lion: Different
stages of literary transmission
Sofia Lodén
C hrétien de Troyes’ romance Le Chevalier au Lion, dating back to the

late twelfth century, enjoyed great success at the time of its com-
position and spread rapidly to many European countries. In the thir-
teenth century, it reached the Nordic countries in the form of the Old
Norse version Ívens saga, and in the early fourteenth century came the
Swedish Herr Ivan – both written for the Norwegian court. According
to their epilogues, Ívens saga was composed at the behest of King Hákon
Hákonarson and Herr Ivan at the command of Queen Eufemia. The saga
was written in prose, at least in those versions that are extant today, while
the Swedish version was written in verse.
The aim of this article is to discuss the Old Norse and Old Swedish
rewriting of Le Chevalier au Lion. I will not present a comprehensive view
of the subject, but concentrate on a specific scene in Chrétien de Troyes’
text and its translations in Ívens saga and Herr Ivan.1 More precisely, I will
take a closer look at a particular episode from Chrétien’s narrative and at
the ways in which this episode has been translated, such that we may use
the scene as an index of the relationship between the three texts.
Whereas scholars have widely agreed that Ívens saga was a translation
from the French, their views on Herr Ivan have been subject to further
debate. In a study of Herr Ivan and the two other texts said to have been
translated into Swedish on the commission of Eufemia, the so-called
Eufemiavisorna (Eufemia’s lays), Valter Jansson (1945) summed up an
earlier discussion on the subject and seemed to solve many of the prob-
lems associated with the text. According to his study, Herr Ivan was
almost certainly translated from the French, although, as he acknowl-
1 For a fuller account of the subject that I deal with in this article, see my doctoral dis-
sertation published in 2012.
91
sofia lodén
edged, it did contain influences from both Old Norse and German liter-
ature. In an article about Herr Ivan, Tony Hunt (1975) noted that the
most plausible explanation for the perceived similarities is that the trans-
lator used a manuscript of Chrétien’s romance alongside a fuller and
more complete copy of Ívens saga than the ones extant today. However,
Hunt also considered it more likely that Ívens saga was only used as an
occasional aid, whereas Chrétien’s text was the translator’s main source
text. Even today, the last word on the much argued subject has yet to be
said. For example, in her PhD thesis, Hanna Steinunn Þorleifsdóttir
(1996) argues that the Swedish author exclusively used the Old Norse
version when writing Herr Ivan.
The German influence on Herr Ivan is undoubtedly important. For
example, it is written in Knittel, a German metrical form. Eufemia, who
is said to have ordered the Swedish translation, was queen over Norway
but of German origin. Thus, it would be tempting to suggest that the
translator actually based his text on the German version of Le Chevalier
au Lion, Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein. However, a number of scholars
seem to have shown convincingly that this is not the case (see for example
Jansson 1945: 44–45).2
Calogrenant’s story
Moving back to the subject at hand, then, let us consider the scene in
question. At the beginning of Le Chevalier au Lion, the knight Calo-
grenant tells the story of what happened to him one day when he was
looking for adventure in the forest of Broceliande: first, how a man and
his daughter received him in their fortress, then, how he met an ugly
peasant in the forest who watched over wild animals, and finally, how
he arrived at a boiling spring where he provoked storm and tempest and
was challenged and defeated by the protector of the spring. Calogrenant’s
story is told at King Arthur’s court during the Pentecost celebration.
King Arthur himself has fallen asleep, but his knights are awake and so
is the queen, who is the one who finally orders Calogrenant to speak.
2 I also argue this in Lodén (2012: 42–45).
92
rewriting le chevalier au lion
Calogrenant’s story plays a crucial role in the composition of the

romance, given its role as a kind of trigger for the main intrigue. It rep-
resents, as Tony Hunt (2005: 168) puts it, “in embryo (mise en abyme)
the courtly tale or conte”, and although it is strikingly ironical, it is, in
effect, a “miniature romance” (Hunt 2005: 168) – that is, to all intents
and purposes, it is the kind of episode that could be described as a stand-
alone narrative thread, but one which nonetheless significantly colours
the trajectory of the rest of the romance. Thus, one would assume that
any translator would want to render it justice.
The Old Norse version of Le Chevalier au Lion, Ívens saga, is extant
only in Icelandic copies dating from the fifteenth century and later; and
it is thought likely that what we have today is the saga in an abbreviated
form. Consequently, even though Herr Ivan sometimes translates parts
of the French text that the saga omits, the Swedish text could still find
some of its origins in the Old Norse if, for example, the author of Herr
Ivan only used an older and more complete copy of the Old Norse text.
When it comes to Calogrenant’s story, however, this part of the text
seems, nonetheless, extremely well preserved in the Icelandic copies, and
as such it provides an excellent example for analysing the relation
between the saga, Herr Ivan and Chrétien de Troyes.
Herr Ivan: a translation from the Old Norse?
As already stated, the Swedish version repeatedly echoes the Old Norse
text and this is perhaps nowhere better revealed than in the Calogrenant
episode. This can be demonstrated through some examples of modifica-
tions that the saga makes to the original French story, which are also to
be found in Herr Ivan.
In his search for adventure, Calogrenant encounters a peasant in the
forest. Chrétien says that the peasant resembles a mor (v. 286) ‘Moor’.3 In
3 The quotations from Le Chevalier au Lion follow Le Chevalier au lion ou Le roman

d’Yvain, edited by David F. Hult (1994). The English translations of Le Chevalier
au lion follow William W. Kibler’s translation in Arthurian Romances / Chré tien de
Troyes (1991). Moreover, I would like to thank Professor Keith Busby for his help
with the transcriptions of the different French manuscripts, which has been very
useful for my analysis.
93
sofia lodén
both of the Nordic versions, mor is translated as blámann (p. 40), blaman
(v. 259) ‘blackman’.4 Then, the French text says that the peasant had Une
grant machue en se main (v. 291) ‘a great club in his hands’. To this, Ívens
saga adds the material of the club: Hann hafði járnsleggju mikla í hendi (p.
40) ‘He had a large iron club in his hands’. If we then look at Herr Ivan,
the same adjectival description is applied to the club: Han hafde ij hænde
ena stang / aff iærn, badhe digher ok lang (vv. 261–262) ‘In his hands he car-
ried a pole of iron, both thick and long’. In what follows, Chrétien gives
a detailed description of the peasant’s appearance. Of his nose, Chrétien
says it resembles that of a cat: nes de chat (v. 300). Ívens saga, however,
does not make the same comparison, preferring instead to describe it as
crooked: krókótt nef (p. 40) ‘crooked nose’. The same description is then
developed in Herr Ivan: næsa krokotte som bokka horn (v. 268) ‘his nose as
crooked as the horn of a goat’. Later, when the peasant sees Calogrenant
approaching, the French text tells us that he leaps to his feet and climbs
up on a tree trunk: S’ot bien .xvii. piés de lonc (v. 320) ‘where he towered a
good seventeen feet high’. In two of the French manuscripts, there is some
variation on this measurement: in one it is fourteen feet, while in the
other, eighteen. In Ívens saga, however, the tree trunk is said to measure
átta alna (p. 40) ‘eight ells’, and the same measurement is also given in
Herr Ivan: attæ alnæ (v. 289) ‘eight ells’. Then, in the dialogue between
Calogrenant and the peasant, Calogrenant asks the peasant what he is
doing there. The peasant replies: Ychi m’estois, / Si gart ches bestes par chu
bois (vv. 331–332) ‘I stand here and look after the beasts of this wood’. In
Ívens saga, this reply is rendered: Ek geymi kvikindi þessi sem þú mátt hér sjá
(p. 40) ‘I take care of these beasts as you can see’. If we compare this to
Herr Ivan, we recognize the formula ‘as you can see’: Thet haffuer iach gøræ
om dagha langa, / the diwr at gøma thu seer hær ganga (vv. 313–314) ‘I have
to do this all day long; I herd the animals you see wandering about’. Fur-
4 The quotations from Ívens saga and their English translations follow Marianne
Kalinke’s edition of Norse Romance (1999). I have chosen this edition because the
Old Norse text and its English translation correspond closely to each other. How-
ever, since Ívens saga has been transmitted in three different primary manuscripts, I
have also consulted Ívens saga, edited by Foster W. Blaisdell (1979). The quotations
from Herr Ivan follow Erik Noreen’s edition (1931). The English translations of
Herr Ivan follow Henrik William’s and Karin Palmgren’s translation in Marianne
Kalinke’s edition of Norse Romance (1999).
94
ther, in Chrétien’s text, the peasant tells Calogrenant that: La fontaine

venras qui bout, / S’est ele plus froide que mabres (vv. 378–379) ‘You will see
the spring that boils and yet is colder than marble’. In the Nordic versions,
the iciness of the spring is never compared to marble, rather to other
waters or ice, a comparison that cannot be found in any of the French
manuscripts. In Ívens saga, it says: Hún er kaldari öllum vötnum, en hún
vellr þó stríðara en nokkurr hituketill (p. 42) ‘It is colder than any other water,
and yet it bubbles more fiercely than a boiling kettle’. Herr Ivan compares
it to ice: the sama kælda hafuer mere priis: / hon ær æmkaald som annar iis
(vv. 359–360) ‘This spring has yet another quality: / it is as cold as ice’.
When Calogrenant finally arrives at the fountain, the French text states
that: Qu’ele bouloit com yaue chaude (v. 421) ‘it was boiling like hot water’.5
Ívens saga, however, takes this description a step further: keldan vall svá
at alla vega kastaði um (p. 42) ‘the spring was boiling such that water splat-
tered all about’. In Herr Ivan, too, the water is said to be boiling over:
[…] then kælla væller swo

som then kætil ouer elle henger
oc vællin alla weghna wm gænger. (vv. 400–402)
the spring boils as hard

as the kettle hanging over the fire
and the boiling water spreads all around it.
These are just some examples of how Herr Ivan uses expressions that
echo phrases used in the saga, and they show, usefully, how the Swedish
version makes modifications to Le Chevalier au Lion that are also made
in Ívens saga, for example by adding elements to Chrétien’s romance that
have been added in the saga as well.
Furthermore, the Old Swedish and Old Norse texts do not only
make similar additions to their source text; frequently, they also make
the same omissions. To begin with, neither text translates or replaces the
name Brocheliande (v. 189), rather they talk about mörkin (Ívens saga, p.
38) ‘forest’, or vidha mark (Herr Ivan, v. 167) ‘vast forest’. Furthermore,
5 The verse is missing in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 794.
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when the peasant tells Calogrenant how to get to the spring, he says in
the French text:
Chi pres trouveras orendroit

Un sentier qui la te menra.
Tout droit la droite voie va,
Se bien veus tes pas emploier,
Que tost porroies desvoier :
Il y a d’autres voies mout. (vv. 372–377)
Nearby you will soon find a path that will take you there. Follow the
path straight ahead if you don’t wish to waste your steps, for you
could easily stray: there are many other paths.)
In Ívens saga and Herr Ivan, nothing is said about the risk of getting lost
in the forest. Ívens saga simply says: Ok ef þú ríðr þenna litla veg, þá kemr
þú skjótt til þessarar keldu (p. 42) ‘And if you ride on this little path, you’ll
quickly come to the spring’. The same is true of Herr Ivan:
Thænne vægh ther ij hær seer,

han falder thiit ther han idher teer
the kældo ther iak hafuer aff sakt (vv. 351–353)
The path you see here

will lead you where it will show you
the spring I have told about.
Later in the story, when the protector of the spring enters the scene, his
violent arrival is described as follows in the French text:
Et chil me vint mal talentis,

Plus tost c’uns drois alerions,6
Fiers par samblant comme lions. (vv. 484–486)
6 In the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 12603, it does not say
alerions but esmerillons.
96
and he, as if with evil intent, flew at me swifter than an eagle, looking
as fierce as a lion.
Neither of the Nordic versions compares the knight to an eagle or a lion.

Ívens saga says: En hinn þegar sem reiðr ok illgjarn hleypti sem hann mátti
skjótast ok svá framt sem ek sá hann (p. 42) ‘And the knight, like a mad man
bent on evil, galloped as quickly as he could toward me just as I saw him’.
Once again, Herr Ivan makes the same omission: Han var grymber ok illa
vredh (v. 459) ‘he was fierce and very angry’.
Thus, Herr Ivan makes modifications and omissions that seem to
echo those made in Ívens saga. Some of them, such as the translation of
mor into blámann and blaman, seem to indicate that the Swedish author
did indeed make noteworthy use of the saga; others, like the omission
of the name Brocheliande, however, seem less significant.
Herr Ivan: a translation from the French?
We do not know which French manuscript(s) circulated in the Nordic

countries at the time of the composition of Ívens saga and Herr Ivan.
The fact that Herr Ivan makes changes to Le Chevalier au Lion similar
to those in the saga does not necessarily mean that the Swedish trans-
lator did not use the French text at all. It is feasible that the Norwegian
and Swedish authors used a manuscript that already contained the mod-
ifications and changes that we have seen here. In addition, we may also
consider the possibility that those who, in the fifteenth century, made
the copies of Ívens saga that are extant today also consulted a copy of
Herr Ivan.
Having looked at examples that would suggest that Herr Ivan was
translated from Old Norse, we now need to consider the other possible
scenario: that it was translated from French. Again, the Calogrenant
episode provides a rich resource of material on this point.
When Calogrenant, at the beginning of his story, arrives at the
fortress, the owner of the fortress is said to carry a moulted goshawk on
his wrist: Sor son poing .i. ostoir müé (v. 199) ‘with a moulted goshawk
upon his wrist’. In the Nordic versions however, there is no hawk in the
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saga, whereas the Swedish text says: han hafdhe een høk a sinne hænde
(v. 173) ‘he carried a hawk on his hand’.
Then, when Calogrenant leaves his host and discovers some wild ani-
mals fighting in front of him, the French text says that he backs away:
Que de paour me trais arriere (v. 283) ‘I backed off a little way of fear’. In
Ívens saga, this is toned down: Ek nam staðar (p. 40) ‘I stopped’. Herr
Ivan, on the other hand, is closer to the French: Iak drogh mik tha ater til
baka (v. 257) ‘[I] drew back again’. In connection with this passage, it is
also interesting to notice that the animals mentioned in the saga are dif-
ferent from those in Herr Ivan. It is true that there is some variation
upon which animals are mentioned across the body of French manu-
scripts, but the selection of animals included is always made from the
following list: bulls, bears, leopards and lions. Ívens saga, too, talks of
bulls and leopards, the most common animals in the French manuscripts,
but Herr Ivan speaks rather of lions, bears and panthers. Thus, the ani-
mals that the Swedish writer picks up on from Chrétien’s text are pre-
cisely the ones that the saga does not mention. Furthermore, lions only
figure in one of the French manuscripts, Chantilly, Bibliothèque du
Château (Musée Condé), 472, together with bears and leopards: ors
sauuages lions lupars. The closeness to Herr Ivan here is indisputable as
the likeness between a leopard and panther is close enough to imply at
least a reliance on the original French.
Later in the story, in the description that is given of the peasant, Le
Chevalier au Lion says: Et vi qu’il eut grosse la teste / Plus que ronchins në
autre beste (vv. 293–294) ‘and [I] saw that his head was larger than a nag’s
or other beast’s’.7 The Old French roncin, meaning ‘small horse’, ‘pack
horse’, ‘horse of little value’, has in Ívens saga been translated as ‘ass’: Han
hafði meira höfuð en asni (p. 40) ‘His head was larger than that of an ass’.
In Herr Ivan, roncin is translated by ‘horse’: hans hofwdh var større æn ørsa
høs (v. 264) ‘his head was bigger than that of a horse’. This is another
example that suggests that Herr Ivan was translated directly from the
French. If the Swedish text were translated from Old Norse, why would
the translator not keep the Old Norse translation of roncin, ‘ass’, instead
of translating by ‘horse’?
7 In the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 12560, ronchins is

replaced by toriaux.
98
A little later, the French text says of the peasant:

Vestus de robe si estrange
Qu’il n’i avoit ne lin ne lange,
Ains eut a son col atachiés
Deux cuirs de nouvel escorchiés,
De .ii. toriaus ou de .ii. bués. (vv. 307–311)
[he] wore a most unusual cloak, made neither of wool nor linen;
instead, at his neck he had attached two pelts freshly skinned from
two bulls or two oxen.
Ívens saga follows Chrétien closely, although in an abbreviated form:

Hann hafði hvárki í klæðum sínum ull né lín; heldr hafði hann fest um sik tvær
griðunga húðir (p. 40) ‘He had clothes of neither wool nor linen; instead
he had tied two bulls’ hides around himself’. Herr Ivan’s version, on the
other hand, is undoubtedly freer – and longer:
Hans klædhe varo vnderlik

vtan kostnath hedherlik;
the rikasta klædhe han hafdhe aa,
thet varo nøta hudher twaa,
skornæ alle i rema,
them saa iak ther om honum swema. (vv. 281–286)
His attire was strange

splendid yet gratis;
the most valuable clothes he wore
were two cow hides,
entirely cut up into streamers,
which I saw flapping around him
As is often the case, Herr Ivan adds new details to Chrétien’s romance.
However, in one respect, this passage is actually closer to the French than
is the saga. The verse hans klædhe varo vnderlik (v. 281) ‘His attire was
strange’ echoes the French Vestus de robe si estrange (v. 307), a verse that
the Old Norse version does not translate.
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In the dialogue that follows between Calogrenant and the peasant,

Ívens saga has taken away some of the direct speech. In the French text,
Calogrenant asks the peasant: Et que fais tu? (v. 331) ‘What are you doing
here?’ The saga rewrites the question into indirect speech: Þá frétta ek
hvat hann gerðí í mörkinni (p. 40) ‘I then asked what he was doing in the
forest’. Only Herr Ivan keeps the direct speech format: Huath hafuer thu,
kompan, hær at gøra? (v. 311) ‘What are you doing here, my good fellow?’
As we earlier saw, in reply to Calogrenant’s question, the peasant answers
that he watches over the wild animals of the woods. Calogrenant is
stunned and exclaims in the French text:
– Gardes ? Pour saint Perre de Romme!

Ja ne connoissent eles homme!
Je ne cuit qu’en plain n’en boscage
Puisse an garder beste sauvage,
N’en autre liu, pour nule cose,
S’elle n’est loiïe u enclose. (vv. 333–338)
Watch over them? By Saint Peter in Rome, they’ve never been tamed!
I don’t believe anyone can watch over wild beasts on the plain or in
the woods, nor anywhere else, in any way, unless they are tied up
and fenced in.
Once again, Ívens saga renders the knight’s words into indirect speech:
Ek spurða hversu hann mætti þau geyma er svá váru olm ok víðræs (p. 40) ‘I
asked him how he could take care of them when they were so savage and
far-roaming’. Herr Ivan retains direct speech:
Iak veet ey huru thet ma væra

at thu kanth them gøme hære,
ville diur ij ødhe mark,
vtan the varo bundin medh band swa stark. (vv. 315–318)
I do not understand how it can be

that you can herd them here,
wild animals in this desolate land,
unless they were strongly fettered.
100
Further, the Swedish text not only preserves direct speech, it also trans-
lates en plain n’en boscage (v. 335) ‘on the plain or in the woods’ and S’elle
n’est loiïe u enclose (v. 338) ‘unless they are tied up and fenced in’, two
details that the saga omits.
When Calogrenant asks how the peasant watches over the animals,
the French text says: Et tu comment? Di m’ent le voir (v. 341) ‘How do you
do it? Tell me truly’. Ívens saga entirely omits this question whereas Herr
Ivan translates Calogrenant’s insistence as follows: Nu manar iak thik a
thina tro, / sigh huru thet ma vara swo! (vv. 323–324) ‘Now I urge you,
upon your honor, / tell me how this can be!’. When the peasant has told
Calogrenant how he watches over the animals, he asks Calogrenant in
return who he is. Calogrenant answers:
– Je sui, çou vois, uns chevaliers

Qui quier che que trouver ne puis ;
Assés ai quis et riens ne truis. (vv. 356–358)
I am, as you see, a knight seeking what I cannot find; I’ve sought
long and yet find nothing.
Ívens saga adheres to its construction of indirect speech: Ek sagða at ek

var einn riddari at leita ævintýra ef ek mætti reyna mína hreysti ok riddarskap
(p. 42) ‘I said that I was a knight who was seeking adventure so that I
might test my prowess and knighthood’, while Herr Ivan in turn con-
tinues with its preferred direct speech format:
Jak ær een riddare, iak far ok letar

æpter thy mit hiærta reter,
hwar iak matte æwintyr fanga
ther mik til æro matte ganga. (vv. 337–340)
I am a knight; I set out to seek,

as my heart bids me,
whatever adventure I might encounter
that might contribute to my honour.
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Incidentally, it is interesting to notice that both Nordic versions add some

words about why one would seek out adventure, an explanation probably
superfluous for a French audience.
In what follows, the peasant tells Calogrenant about the spring where
any knight can test his abilities, and one detail in his description suggests
a close relationship between the French and the Swedish texts. He says:
Ombres li fait li plus biaus arbres

C’onques peüst faire Nature.
En tous tans le fueille li dure,
Qu’il ne le pert pour nul yver.8 (vv. 380–383)
It is shaded by the most beautiful tree that Nature ever formed. Its leaves
stay on in all seasons; it doesn’t lose them in even the harshest winter.
In Ívens saga, the tree is not mentioned at all by the peasant and is only
spoken of on one occasion once Calogrenant himself has arrived, and
even then nothing is mentioned about its leaves. Herr Ivan, however, is
much closer to Chrétien, although the lone tree that the French text
speaks of has now been multiplied into several trees by the Swedish: the
ædhlo træ varo sat medh lista, / fore vintirs twang the løff ey mista (vv. 355–
356) ‘the noble trees are planted with skill: / and despite harsh winters
they do not lose their leaves’.
When Calogrenant finally arrives at the spring, the French text
describes the tree close to the spring as follows:
Bien sai de l’arbre, ch’est la fins,

Que chë estoit li plus biaus pins9
Qui onques sor tere creüst.
Ne quit c’onques si fort pleüst
Que d’yaue y passast une goute,
Anchois couloit par dessus toute. (vv. 411–416)
8 In the manuscript Vaticano (Città del), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat.,
1725, it is not spoken of winter but soir ne matin.
9 In the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 12560, it is not the
most beautiful pine but the highest: li plus hauz pins.
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I know for a fact that the tree was the most beautiful pine that ever
grew upon earth. I don’t believe it could ever rain so hard that a single
drop could penetrate it; rather it would all drip off.
Of this, Ívens saga only says: Var þar sá fegrsti viðr er á jörðu má vaxa (p.
42) ‘It was the most beautiful tree that ever grew on earth’. Herr Ivan,
on the other hand, not mentioning the tree but thæn vænasta lund (v. 388)
‘the most beautiful grove’, says:
medh blomster ok løff var hon swa thakt,

mic thocte thet matte ey reghna swa,
at thet matte ther genom ga. (vv. 392–394)
It was so covered with flowers and foliage

that I did not think it could rain so hard
that it could be penetrated.
Thus, on the one hand, the saga is closer to Chrétien in that it mentions
the tree; but on the other hand, it is only the Swedish version that trans-
lates the verses about impenetrability.
Then, by pouring water on the stone next to the spring, Calogrenant
starts a violent storm and thus offends the protector of the spring,
Esclados le Roux, who comes riding to seek revenge. He is upset and
tells Calogrenant about the damage he has caused. Here too, Herr Ivan
is closer to the French than the saga. Ívens saga only mentions the damage
that Calogrenant has done to the wood, whereas in Herr Ivan (as well as
in Le Chevalier au Lion), Esclados talks about how Calogrenant also has
damaged his castle. Herr Ivan even takes this a step further, mentioning
the grievously afflicted women, who used to be merry in this castle but
are now in deep sorrow.
Of the battle that follows between Calogrenant and Esclados, the
saga gives a close if somewhat abbreviated translation, while Herr Ivan
abbreviates to an even greater extent. When Esclados has left, Calo-
grenant does not know what to do. In the French text he sits down beside
the spring and waits there for some time. This, however, has been
removed from Ívens saga, whereas Herr Ivan preserves it.
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Chrétien de Troyes’ romance is full of expressions that give the text

features of orality: Mais pour parler de chix qui furent (v. 29) ‘but let us […
] speak now of those who were’, Pour che me plaist a reconter / Chose qui
faiche a escouter (vv. 33–34) ‘Therefore it is my pleasure to tell something
worthy of being heard’. Just like Chrétien, Calogrenant’s story is
designed to be heard. The knight explicitly asks his listeners: or entendés!
(v. 149) ‘listen […] now’ and this appellation is kept in both the Old Norse
and Old Swedish texts.
In the 405 (173–578) verses that make up Calogrenant’s story, the knight
directly addresses his audience on seven occasions. In most of the cases, he
addresses them in order to confirm the truth of what is being told: Du souper
vous dirai briefment / Qu’il fu du tout a ma devise (vv. 252–253) ‘I’ll tell you in
short that the supper was entirely to my liking’; Se je le voir dire vos vueil (v.
282) ‘if the truth be told to you’; De la fontaine poés croire / Qu’ele bouloit
com yaue chaude (vv. 420–421) ‘As for the spring, you can be assured that it
was boiling like hot water’; Et sachiés, ja a enscïent / Ne vous en mentirai de
mot (vv. 428–429) ‘everything I say is the truth, so far as I know it’; Saichiés
que mout fui esmaiés, / Tant que li tans fu rapaiés10 (vv. 447–448) ‘You can be
sure I was very frightened until the storm died down’; Par mi le voir, che
saichiés bien, / M’en vois pour ma honte couvrir (vv. 524–525) ‘I am telling you
the truth, you must understand, to explain the cause of my shame’; Si vous
ai conté comme fox / Çou c’onques mais conter ne vox (vv. 577–578) ‘Now like
a fool I’ve told you what I had previously never wanted to tell’.
Of these addresses, four are translated in Ívens saga and three in Herr
Ivan. Only one of them, the last one, is kept in both versions: Si vous ai
conté comme fox / Çou c’onques mais conter ne vox (vv. 577–578). These
verses constitute the final lines of Calogrenant’s story and thereby play
an important role in the construction of the story, being the final and
concluding lines of the knight’s speech. Thus, the fact that both transla-
tors have chosen to preserve them seems quite logical. As for the other
addresses, Ívens saga translates what Herr Ivan leaves out and vice versa.
When comparing the occurrences of the addresses to the audience in
Chrétien’s text with those in its Nordic versions, it would be tempting
10 In the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 12603 and Vaticano
(Città del), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat., 1725, sachiés has been omitted
and there is thus no direct address to the audience.
104
to draw the conclusion that there has been a move towards a less orally-
marked style of storytelling. This, however, would need to be examined
more thoroughly. What is interesting here is the fact that, in most cases,
Ívens saga and Herr Ivan do not translate the same addresses.
A long list of examples has now been given that in one way or the
other suggest that Herr Ivan was not translated from Old Norse but from
French. Some of these, such as when Herr Ivan translates something
completely omitted from Ívens saga, could be explained by the fact that
they have been taken away from the saga at a later stage, since the earliest
extant copy of this text is from the fifteenth century. Thus, Herr Ivan
would help us to fill up lacunae of the Icelandic copies. One might con-
sider, however, whether this might help explain the occasions when Ívens
saga and Herr Ivan both follow Chrétien, but in different ways. For
example, why does Calogrenant encounter bulls and leopards in the saga,
whereas the Swedish Calogrenant encounters precisely those animals
included in the French manuscripts that the saga does not mention?
Conclusion
When comparing Ívens saga and Herr Ivan to their French original it is
clear that we are not dealing with the same kinds of texts. The most
striking difference is undoubtedly that the saga is written in prose and
the Swedish version in verse. Yet almost as striking are their different
ways of dealing with their sources. Whereas Ívens saga translates Chré-
tien’s story in an often abbreviated but faithful way, Herr Ivan is more
independent, making additions and comments for the sake of intrinsic
coherence and elegance, rather than with a view to conforming to the
French original. It is for this reason that the Old Norse and Swedish
texts can be described as representing different stages of literary trans-
mission, Ívens saga being the first link in the chain and Herr Ivan the
second. I have barely begun to discuss the additions that the Swedish ver-
sion makes, such as the inclusion of considerably more direct speech than
appears in Chrétien’s original; these additions deserve a separate study.11
11 The additions made by the Swedish translator are analyzed more closely in my doc-
toral dissertation (2012).
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By comparing the three different versions of the passage in which

Calogrenant tells his story, we have seen examples that indicate that the
Swedish version was translated from Old Norse and we have seen other
examples that rather suggest that it was translated from the French orig-
inal. Surprisingly however, these examples do not contradict each other;
on the contrary, they remind us of the importance of reading the Nordic
versions in conjunction with each other and that we must not forget the
intricate relationship between them. Le Chevalier au Lion was probably
the translator’s main source, while the Old Norse version was used as a
secondary source.12
Scholars have often chosen to study either Ívens saga or Herr Ivan,
but an interest in one of the texts will inevitably influence any conclu-
sions made about the other. Thus, we must learn to talk about these texts
not as concurrent, competing translations, but rather as representing dif-
ferent stages of literary transmission.
12 See Lodén (2012: 38–141).
106
Riddarasǫgur in the North Atlantic literary
polysystem of the thirteenth century
The value of a theory
Jonatan Pettersson
A re translation theories useful for our understanding of medieval

translated literature like the riddarasǫgur? Are theories designed for
modern research questions applicable to medieval conditions? And are
they worthwhile? I think one should address such questions with an open
mind, conscious about the scarcity and problems of sources from the
Middle Ages, but at the same time attentive to the potentials of an
explicit theory. The translation studies scholar Andrew Chesterman
(2007) argues that the general aim of any theory is understanding, hope-
fully a better understanding than was possible without the theory. The
original meaning of the word, “a way of looking at something”, displays
quite well what it is all about. Theories are instruments of understanding,
but, Chesterman continues: “theories are also goals or ends in their own
right, in the sense that they are conceptual structures that need to be
designed, formulated and tested. In other words, theories themselves are
also forms of understanding” (2007: 1). Theories furthermore require us
to rethink the basis of our knowledge where unquestioned truths,
common-sense preconceptions and circular reasoning might hide. Still,
what I think counts when it comes to the value of a theory is its potential
of being productive in an interpretative process; sound reasoning does
not depend upon theory. If a theory does not deepen our understanding
of a given material or offer us new knowledge compared to what we
knew before, there is little need of it. This does sometimes happen when
what is named a “theory” is no more than a metalanguage and a set of
descriptive categories, resembling a methodology more than a theory. In
this article, I will discuss the potential of a specific theory, the polysystem
theory of Itamar Even-Zohar, to help us understand why some West
Nordic translators translated the way they did. There are thus two foci
107
jonatan pettersson
in the article, both the empirical data of the different source materials
and the value of a theoretical interpretation.1
The topic of the article is the translation of literary subjectivity,
here understood as the narrator’s voice in the text, which for example
might be perceivable when the author/narrator addresses the reader/
listener or comments upon the story.2 Such expressions of the narrator
are not rare in the Old French romances or Latin historical texts which
were translated into Old Norse, mainly in the thirteenth century, and
it is very likely that it must have constituted a challenge to the Old
Norse translators. In the Old Norse indigenous sagas, the narrator is
generally invisible or only indicates the start or end of a text in stan-
dardized phrases like Nu er at segia etc.3 Invisibility seems to have been
the expected mode of a narrator in the Old Norse text culture, and the
active, explicit narrator of the foreign texts must have been a novelty,
at least during some period.4 When a translator is faced with some-
thing that is different from what is considered normal in his own cul-
ture, he is forced to choose whether to adjust his translation to what
he expects that his audience is used to, or to retain the novelty and
challenge the norms. The translator’s worries about what people might
have wanted are by no means negligible as the success of the text and
future commissions might depend upon reader/listener reactions to
his choices.
The dilemma of conflicting norms of the source and target cultures
is not at all specific to the Middle Ages; it is part of the general conditions
of translation, known to translators of all times. This is in fact one reason
1 An earlier version of this paper has already been published (Pettersson 2009a),
describing the historical and literary context more than the present article. This
article is a completely reworked version with a more pronounced theoretical focus.
2 The concept of literary subjectivity differs widely among scholars. For instance, it
has been defined as the explicit voice of the narrator, the representation of the emo-
tions of the characters or the internal perspective of the narration. There have been
many attempts to trace the origin and evolution of subjectivity in Western European
literary history, with the breakthrough dated from as early as the twelfth to as late
as the nineteenth century (Spearing 2005: 31–32).
3 The invisible narrator of the Old Norse literature could be ascribed to the well-
attested “objective” style of the indigenous sagas (cf. Mundal 2013: 458–462).
108
riddarasǫgur in systems
for using polysystem theory on medieval material: the theory deals with
this kind of norm conflict, and the same norm conflict has essentially
been present at all times, even if the contextual settings have changed.
Of course there are several potential problems to address: One might
object that the methodological concepts become inadequate when applied
to the free translations of the Middle Ages. Or one might object that we
cannot discuss medieval translation at all as we do not know who is
responsible for the preserved text: the translator, a scribe or a redactor?
I will return to such questions after a brief survey of the theory, but I
think that it is possible to reach solutions to these problems which are
satisfactory enough for this investigation.
Theoretical framework
The polysystem theory is not a theory of translation exclusively; it is

rather a theory of literature at large, or rather of cultural semiotics and
the dynamics of cultural phenomena. Its roots stem from the attempts
among the Russian Formalists to explain literary development, but the
Israeli scholar and “father” of polysystem theory, Itamar Even-Zohar,
developed the Formalist model in different ways, partly through the
introduction of translations in an overall cultural analysis.5 The theoret-
ical model became very influential within translation studies, especially
in the form further developed by Gideon Toury.6
4 This suggestion, of course, depends on how the relative age of the fornaldarsǫgur is
estimated, as the narrator can be visible in these sagas in a similar way as in the for-
eign source texts. Here I assume that the active narrator is an innovation that found
its way into the fornaldarsǫgur from the foreign text norms, probably mediated by
the translated riddarasǫgur. For comments on the narrator’s voice in Old Norse lit-
erature, see e.g. Meissner (1902: 136) and Hallberg (1982: 6–7).
5 The theory is presented in Even-Zohar (1990), but also extensively conveyed in
Gentzler (2001: 106–144), Lindqvist (2002: 24–38) and Codde (2003).
6 As Gentzler (2001: 119, 123) argues, the polysystem theory played a vital role for
the evolving discipline of Translation Studies in the 1970s in that it shifted interest
from simply a close inspection of the similarities and dissimilarities of source and
target texts to a social, historical and cultural view of the phenomenon.
109
jonatan pettersson
The term system does not refer to descriptive models like, say, the
linguistic tense system descriptions we find in grammars. Such systems
describe an ideal, simplified structure, in this case of language, and
ignore the variation of the real world. In polysystem theory, system is
rather understood as a network within a socio-historical situation, or
as relations between different phenomena on different levels in a hier-
archical structure: A single text might be seen as a system, which at the
same time is part of a larger system, like a genre, which in turn is part
of a larger system of the literature of a given language, which is part of
a larger system of a general cultural system. One system is always
related to other systems, and it is the idea of systems connected to other
systems within other systems that is the reason for talking about poly-
systems, especially when referring to the higher levels in the hierarchy.
The sum of it is that one text cannot be understood in isolation but
must be interpreted in relation to other texts and the different contexts
they are part of.
This contextual view of cultural phenomena is not as original
today as it might have been when the theory first evolved in the 1960s
and 1970s as some kind of contextual approach is rather the unmarked
case within modern textual studies. What is still original about poly-
system theory is instead a set of hypotheses and ideas about how dif-
ferent systems interact in some given circumstances. The theory pro-
poses several laws and predictions in different situations, formulated
on the abstract level. Several of them have been criticized and debated,
but some have proven useful and relevant in the interpretation of
translational behaviour.7
These hypotheses are in many cases derived from the theoretical
architecture of the model. One of the keystones is the interpretation of
literary systems in terms of cultural status. In a given historical context
some literary texts might be canonized, assigned a high cultural value,
while others are considered of low cultural value and sometimes rejected.
7 Some of the criticism is summarized in Gentzler (2001: 120–123), identifying the prob-
lems of general deductive models in understanding unique historical processes. Bassnet
(1998: 127–128) criticizes the evaluative categories of “strong” and “weak” cultures.
110
In the theory, these different cultural values are described as central

(highly valued) or peripheral (low valued) positions in the system. Central
literature is thought to have the potential of being normative, so that its
characteristics might influence the production and consumption of other
texts. The highly valued literature encodes not only literary strategies but
also ethical values, social networks, institutions and reading practices
which might be imitated in the production and consumption of other
texts on the periphery. New texts might launch innovations in competi-
tion with prevailing norms of the central literature, but at risk of being
ignored and forced out into a peripheral position.
The distribution of texts between centre and the periphery is not
necessarily a stable one. At the very core of polysystem theory is the
desire to understand and explain change, for example, when some influ-
ential literary ideals are replaced by others. The theory suggests that there
is continuous competition for the central position in the system of cul-
ture, and the outcome of such competition is influenced by several fac-
tors. One factor might be the strength of the centre and how the norma-
tive power is executed. If there are strong institutions and a ruling elite
in a culture which defend good taste and tell us what literature is crap,
the chances of renewal from the periphery are smaller. If, conversely, a
culture lack a tradition of literacy or if literature is not a highly valued
cultural phenomenon, the centre might be described as weak and inno-
vations might more easily find their way into a possibly emerging
national canon in the centre.
So how do translations fit into this model? What is the position of
translations in a literary system? The answer is not the same for all cul-
tures, but the expected answer is still that translations tend to be held in
low esteem. Some translations might be highly valued as translations, but
they have generally been treated as inferior to their originals and inferior
to the indigenous literature. The default position of translation is thus on
the periphery. But cultures are different, and translations (as well as other
categories of texts) can be assigned a more or less peripheral position.8
8 They might even be truly central, Bible translations have in many cultures played
the role of a norm.
111
jonatan pettersson
Different cultures take different interest in literature from other cultures,

and a way to measure this interest has been statistics of published litera-
ture.9 In today’s Sweden approximately 60 percent of all published fiction
consists of translations; similar figures appear in several other countries.
In the USA the share of translations has been less than 5 percent
(Lindquist 2002: 34–35).10 Such hard facts might be interpreted to mean
that translations play a greater role in Sweden than in USA, and that, in
Sweden, there is a relatively greater interest in what is written in other
languages than is the case in USA. To put it in polysystemic terms: trans-
lations are generally more highly valued and thus inhabit a more central
position in the Swedish literary polysystem than in that of USA.
The question that follows is what such shifting contextual condi-
tions might lead to. Do translators act in certain ways depending on the
position of translations within a culture? The theory suggests that they
do, that different positions of translations invite translators to make dif-
ferent choices when they face dilemmas of conflicting norms. As men-
tioned earlier, the translator can choose either to adapt his translation
to the norms of the target culture, using translation strategies to make
the translation acceptable to the audience; or he can retain even contro-
versial features of the source text in pursuit of translation adequacy in
relation to its source, at the same time taking the risk that the translation
will be rejected by the audience. The theory suggests that translators are
prone to use strategies of acceptability in literary systems where trans-
lations are peripheral, i.e. which are characterized by a strong indigenous
literary culture and a marginal interest in literature from other cultures.
On the other hand, when a society assigns a high value to translations,
giving them a central position in the system, translators tend to preserve
the text norms of the source text, making fewer adjustments vis-à-vis
the norms of the target culture (Even-Zohar 1990: 50–51; cf. Toury
1995: 271–272).
9 Pym (1999) has also suggested that the publication of literature in a foreign language
could be a indicator of the relative openness of a culture.
10 The figures depend on several choices in the calculation, e.g. if you include only the
first edition or reprints etc., but the pattern remains essentially the same.
112
Such predictions must be treated with care. On the one hand there
are a number of studies which have confirmed the pattern. Venuti’s very
influential study of the Anglo-American book market (1995) was not
based on the polysystem theoretical framework, but in its analysis it is a
confirmation of the connection between different translation behaviour
and publishing policies, as the Anglo-American book market demands
“fluent” translations aimed at target culture acceptability. There are also
studies confirming a tendency in small languages towards acceptability
in relation to the source text (cf. Lindquist 2008, 2010). On the other
hand it will always be possible to find counter-examples, and there is fur-
thermore different translation behaviour in different kinds of literature.
Lindquist (2002) compares translations of high-prestige literature (a
Nobel Prize winner’s novel) and low prestige literature (pulp fiction) and
find an expected tendency towards adequacy in the former and accept-
ability in the latter.
The theory assumes that social context might condition translational
behaviour in certain ways, but it should not be understood as a deter-
ministic prediction, it just defines what is expected in some given cir-
cumstances. Systems that give translations a more central position are
described as “open”, bringing in new models, genres, features, words etc.,
whereas systems that instead assign a peripheral position to translations
can be described as “closed”, taking less interest in foreign models. The
characteristics of open and closed systems can be presented schematically
as in Figure 1.
“Open” systems “Closed” systems

Publication policy Translations form a large part Translations form a small part
of all published literature of all published literature
Translational behaviour Strategies of adequacy are Strategies of acceptability are

preferred in norm conflicts preferred in norm conflicts
Literary system&tradition Weak&young Strong&old
Figure
Figure 1.1.Expected
Expected characteristics
characteristics of “open”
of “open” and and “closed” systems
“closed” systems
As mentioned above, the theory is not uncontroversial, but the suggested correlation between
the position of translations in the target system and translational behaviour has been noted113in
several studies. This short overview of the theory is in many ways simplified, and it is
necessary to underline that the theory stresses the complexity of the unique historical
situations and that it is not reductionist. It proposes analytical categories that can be used to
interpret empirical observations, and as several of the hypotheses are interdependent, it is
jonatan pettersson
As mentioned above, the theory is not uncontroversial, but the sug-

gested correlation between the position of translations in the target
system and translational behaviour has been noted in a number of
studies. This short overview of the theory is in many ways simplified,
and it is necessary to underline that the theory stresses the complexity
of the unique historical situations and that it is not reductionist. It pro-
poses analytical categories that can be used to interpret empirical obser-
vations, and as several of the hypotheses are interdependent, it is pos-
sible to turn one observation into another hypothesis. If we find, for
example, that translations in a culture are translated close to the source
texts, we would expect that translations form a large share of all pub-
lished literature and we would look for other features that characterize
an open literary system. The theory suggests possible explanatory con-
nections between different kinds of observations, and this is what makes
it interesting here. As is well known by all medievalists, the preserved
sources are few and scattered, and in such a situation it is especially wel-
come if different pieces of shattered information can be integrated in a
meaningful whole.
Using polysystem theory on medieval material

Before we look at the empirical material, it is necessary to say something
about the specific problems of investigating medieval translation men-
tioned above. One is the source-critical problems that stem from general
terms of the manuscript culture, i.e. that we don’t have any “original”
manuscript of the translators preserved. Is there any possibility of inves-
tigating medieval translation when we only have copies of copies of the
original and we do not know when or where or why or for whom or by
whom a translation was made? In at least one case, I would suggest that
there is a sufficient degree of validity in the observations of the source
text and target text as witnesses to the translation process, and it can be
formulated as a hypothetical assumption:
114
Close correspondence between source text and target text is generally

the work of the translator and is not due to a reworking by a sec-
ondary scribe or a redactor. Such an assumption might look like a
truism, but in a culture where free translation and secondary
reworking were ubiquitous, close correspondence is as important to
recognize as rewriting (cf. Würth 1998:112). And this assumption is
not only valid for translations which render their sources word-by-
word, but also counts for structural, systematic correspondences
between source text and target text in free translations, i.e. when spe-
cific features in the source text are solved in a certain way in the
translation.
If, for example, a translation that consistently renders the source
sense-by-sense rather than word-by-word switches between present
and preterite tenses at exactly the same place as the source text, it is
reasonable to believe that it is the result of the translator’s choice,
even if other explanations must be considered. Another example is
if the target text comments directly upon the source text per se, as
when there are complaints in the translation Alexanders saga about
an unclear passage in the source text: Þat ma raða at likendum þott
M(eistare) Galterus [the author of the source text] gete þess eigi íboc
sinne. (Alexanders saga: 136.14–15) Such a dialogue with the source
text and its author Galterus stems most likely from the translator,
but it must also be considered whether such metacomments stem
from marginalia which have been integrated into the main text in the
transmission.
In the empirical investigation below, I draw on the different cases of

this hypothetical assumption. Some of the observations concern cases
where the translation corresponds closely to the source text; others con-
cern metacomments which are systematically inserted into the transla-
tion when some specific conditions are met in the source text. A general
prerequisite, which counts for all research on translations, is further-
more that one should choose very specific features to investigate. In the
present investigation, the focus is on the narrator’s voice and its lin-
guistic realizations.
115
there are complaints in the translation Alexanders saga about an unclear passage in the
source text: "at ma ra#a at likendum $ ott Meistari Galterus [the author of the source text] gete
$ ess eigi íboc sinne. (Alexanders saga: $(+.$*–$)) Such a dialogue with the source text and its
author Galterus stems most likely from the translator, but it must also be considered
whether such metacomments stem from marginalia which have been integrated into the
jonatan
main text in pettersson
the transmission.
In the empirical investigation below, I draw on both these hypothetical assumptions. Some of
Another
the observations problem
concern concerns
cases where the applicability
the translation corresponds closely of toconcepts
the source such
text; as
others concern metacomments which are systematically inserted
strategies of acceptability and strategies of adequacy to the often freeinto the translation when
some specific conditions are met in the source text. A general prerequisite, which counts for all
translations
research of theis Middle
on translations, furthermoreAges. One
that one canchoose
should certainly question
very specific thetorele-
features
investigate. In the present investigation, the focus is on the narrator%s voice and its linguistic
vance of making a distinction between them when we look at an
realizations.
example like the
Another problem onethe
concerns inapplicability
(1), where the Latin
of concepts such source textof is
as strategies to the left,
acceptability
and strategies of adequacy to the often free translations of the Middle Ages. One can certainly
the Old
question Norse of
the relevance translation to the between
making a distinction right, andthem modern
when we look English translations
at an example like
thebelow them.
one in ($), where the Latin source text is to the left, the Old Norse translation to the right,
and modern English translations below them.
($) Alexandreis II.$+(–$+) Alexanders saga !*.)–+
Perfusus Macedo sudore et Hann leypr alsveíttr akallt

puluere membra, & Temperie vatnn.
fluuii captus specieque
liquoris & Corpore adhuc
calido subiectis insilit undis.
The Macedonian, his limbs He leaps, soaked in sweat,

covered with sweat and dust, into the cold water.**
attracted by the coolness of
the river and the loveliness of
the water, jumped into the
nearby stream, though his
body was still very hot.*
* Trans. from Jolly (1968: 68). ** My translation.

* Trans. from Jolly ($-+,: +,).
** My translation.
The free rendering in the Old Norse text taken as a whole can never be
The free rendering in the Old Norse text taken as a whole can never be anything but an
anything but an expression of a translation strategy aiming (extremely)
expression of a translation strategy aiming (extremely) at acceptability, and if such more or less
at acceptability, and if such more or less free renderings are ubiquitous
in a culture, the analytical distinction between adequacy and acceptability
becomes uninteresting.11 The solution is, as mentioned above, to look at
specific features in isolation which might be controversial in the target
culture, thereby focusing on the translator in his dilemma between con-
flicting norms. We can thereby estimate his choices as part of a strategy
of acceptability or adequacy. Did the translator retain the specific feature
or did he rewrite it? As I see it, the narrator’s voice makes up one such
specific feature that seems to have been possibly controversial in West
11 There are however reasons to make distinctions between different kinds of free
translations, cf. Copeland (1991) and the discussion in Pettersson (2009b: 53–58,
summarized in English on p. 260).
116
Nordic text culture, and through which we might get a glimpse of atti-
tudes in the translation culture.12
The treatment of the narrator’s voice in

Old Norse translations
A literary narrator can be manifested linguistically in different ways;

according to Fludernik (1993: 452), “most minimally by evaluative expres-
sions, maximally by a speaker–addressee level of personal pronouns and
by distinct (meta-narrative) commentary”. Here I will concentrate on the
linguistically overt, “maximally marked” narrator, textualized through
pronouns, verbal inflection and certain speech acts.
For the Old Norse translator, there were basically four different
kinds of solutions to treat the narrator’s voice in the source text: he
could retain the voice, he could omit it, he could rewrite it or circum-
scribe it. Of these four, the first one – to retain the voice in the target
text – is especially interesting here, as the narrator’s voice is assumed
to be the controversial choice, possibly in conflict with prevailing text
norms of the target culture. When we look at the Old Norse corpus
we find examples of this solution in several of the translated rid-
darasǫgur, as in example (2) from the beginning of the Bisclaret story
of Strengleikar, the thirteenth-century translation of Marie de France’s
Lais.
In the original the text speaks in the first person and the translation
retains this solution. A conclusion we can draw is that it was apparently
not impossible for the translator to allow the narrator’s voice to be lin-
guistically realized in the target text, and this stands in stark contrast to
the practice in the indigenous sagas. It is, however, important to stress
that the translator(s) of Strengleikar was (were) not consistent about this.
12 Other polysystemic analyses of medieval literature can be found in Tymoczko (1993)

and Bampi (2008). Tymoczko suggests an explanation for literary evolution of
French romance, Bampi interprets the translation strategy of the Old Swedish Flores
och Blanzeflor in polysystemic terminology.
117
– is especially interesting here, as the narrator%s voice is assumed to be the controversial choice,
possibly in conflict with prevailing text norms of the target culture. When we look at the Old
Norse corpus we find examples of this solution in several of the translated riddaras!gur, as in
example (!) from the beginning of the Bisclaret story of Strengleikar, the thirteenth-century
translation of Marie de France%s Lais.
jonatan pettersson
(!) Lais de Marie de France -$.$–! Strengleikar p. )-
Quant de lais Since I am $ Since I am Nv me. /ui at

faire undertaking to trying to ec vi.rlæita. at
m%entremet,& compose lais, compose and gæra ok sægia
narrate stories y.r lio.a ok
of songs and strænglæiks
lais for you, sagur
Ne voil ublier I donಬt want to ! I don%t want to /a vill ec æigi

Bisclavret; forget pass over gloeyma
Bisclavret.* “Bisclaret”.** Bisclaret.
* Trans. by Hanning & Ferrante (1978: 92) ** Trans. from Strengleikar (87)
* Trans. from The lais of Marie de France (*!).
** Trans. from Strengleikar ()#)
Sometimes the speaking voice is omitted and sometimes it is rewritten
with an impersonal construction. Most important, though, is the fact
$$that it was possible to retain the speaking narrator, even if they sometimes
There are however reasons to make distinctions between different kinds of free translations, cf. Copeland
$!reduced the number of occurrences.
($**$) and the discussion in Pettersson (!""*b: +(–+), summarized in English on p. !-").
Other polysystemic analyses of medieval literature can be found in Tymoczko ($**() and Bampi (!"")).
Tymoczko
In Asuggests
different
the original the text way
speaksof
an explanation for treating
literary
in the
evolutionthe speaking
of French
first person and narrator
romance, Bampi
the translation
strategy of the Old Swedish Flores och Blanzeflor in polysystemic terminology.
retainscan
interprets
this be found
the translation
solution. A in
Alexanders saga, the thirteenth-century translation of Gauthier de
conclusion we can draw is that it was apparently not impossible for the translator to allow the
narrator%s voice to be linguistically realized in the target text, and this stands in stark contrast
toChâtillon’s
the practice in Latin epic poem
the indigenous sagas. Alexandreis. On several
It is, however, important occasions
to stress in the trans-
that the translator(s)
of Strengleikar was (were) not consistent about this. Sometimes the speaking voice is omitted
lation, there is an inquit clause added which has the source
and sometimes it is rewritten with an impersonal construction. Most important, though, is the
text author as
subject,
fact forpossible
that it was example in the
to retain form segir
the speaking meistari
narrator, Galterus,
even if as in reduced
they sometimes example the (3).
number of occurrences.
In example (3) we can see the inquit clause at line
A different way of treating the speaking narrator can be found in Alexanders saga, the 344, and the same
kind of solution
thirteenth-century appears
translation in about
of Gauthier eighteen
de Châtillon%s places
Latin in the
epic poem saga. On
Alexandreis. 13
Some
several occasions in the translation, there is an inquit clause added which has the source text
scholars
author have
as subject, for suggested
example in thethat form the addition
segir meistari wasasmotivated
Galterus, in example (().by a desire to
(() Alexandreis X.(,)–(+" Alexanders saga $+!.-
tot O gods, for (,( What has Hvat hevir

presignatus what crime has Alexander the Alexander
ab the Macedonian macedo /ess
ortu&Prodigii Macedonian, done? gort
s Macedo, foreordained
superi, quo from his birth (,, says master segir
crimine with so many Galterus M(eistare)
uestrum&De prodigies, lost Galterus
meruit uite in your favour in (,+ as the gods er gu.en
tanta such a short rage upon him gremiaz
breuitate span of life?* at that very honom. /ann
fauorem? moment tima
13 In Pettersson (2009b: 220–236) the passages framed by inquit clauses are analysed
in detail.
118
uestrum&De prodigies, lost
meruit uite in your favour in (,+ as the gods er gu.en
tanta such a short rage upon him gremiaz
breuitate span of life?* at that very honom. /ann
fauorem? riddarasǫgur
moment tima in systems
(,- when his er ág0tt lif hans

magnificent er sem lettast.
life is at the
easiest,
(,# which they /ar er /au birtu

manifested firir 0ve hans
through great me. miclum
wonders stormerkivm.
before his
time.**
* Trans. from Jolly (1968: 254). ** My translation.
* Trans. from Jolly ($*-): !+,).

create a distance to the
** My translation.
emotional or rhetorical character of the source
text in these passages, but the explanation is rather that the author or
In example (() we can see the inquit clause at line (,,, and the same kind of solution appears
in narrator
about eighteensuddenly
places inbecomes linguistically
the saga.$( Some scholars havevisible
suggestedin that
thethe source text
addition wasand
$(
that the translator wants to make clear who is speaking. This becomes
In Pettersson (!""*b: !!"–!(-) the passages framed by inquit clauses are analysed in detail.
clear if we scrutinize the text where the solution appears: The passages
which are supplied with an inquit clause provide a very heterogeneous
collection with respect to the content. Among them are rhetorical and
emotional passages like exclamations and apostrophes, but also quite
neutral comments about what is going on and what is going to happen
in the future, descriptions of characters and places, and discussions of
moral and religious topics. But what almost all of the eighteen passages
with an inquit clause share in common is that the author/narrator is
lexicogrammatically construed as a speaker in the source text. This may
be through exclamations, apostrophes, vocatives, verbs in the second
person, imperatives, first person pronouns with reference to the nar-
rator etc. There are furthermore no instances of a speaking narrator in
the source text without an inquit clause in the target text, and when
the author/narrator delivers a long speech there might even be several
inquit clauses to ensure that the reader/listener does not forget who is
actually speaking. The correlation certainly seems significant.14 The
14 There are three passages where an inquit clause is added even though the author is
not overtly construed as a speaking narrator in the source text, and this contradicts
the proposed interpretation. However, these three passages share another feature,
which I argue explains the reference to the author, namely that their content is in
some way hard to believe. For example, in one of these cases (Alexandreis: VII.1–3;
Alexanders saga: 101.4–7), the text claims that the sun took a slower course one day,
119
jonatan pettersson
conclusion is thus that, in the case of Alexanders saga, the translator cir-
cumscribed the speaking narrator consistently. He did not rewrite the
speaking narrator, he actually retained it but also circumscribed by
framing it with an inquit clause, thereby creating a distance between
the narrative text and the speaking narrator that is not present in the
original.
These two texts provide examples of solutions that indicate different
translation strategies, one which is striving for adequacy in relation to
the original, and one which accommodates the original text, probably to
make the translation acceptable to the target audience. The first solution,
that of Strengleikar, can be found in several of the riddarasǫgur. As in
Strengleikar, the translators retain the speaking narrator but not in every
instance. There seems to be a pattern that the narrator is allowed to visu-
alize in the beginning and in the end, but can be omitted in between. An
omitted narrator, however, is difficult to attribute to the translator; it
might just as well be a later redactor who found the narrator intrusive.
The important thing is nevertheless the fact that they did not silence the
narrator’s voice.
The other solution, that of Alexanders saga, is far more rare, I have
only found a clear parallel in Rómverja saga, the translation of works by
Sallust and Lucan, though the three different parts of the saga include
partly different solutions (cf. Meissner 1910: 170–174). The same kind
of inquit clauses can be found in the B-redaction of Trójumanna saga,
another saga of antiquity, but in this case the inquit clauses probably orig-
inate from a secondary reworking, possibly to follow the model of
Rómverja saga and Alexanders saga.15 In the two remaining sagas of antiq-
which is something the reader might question. By inserting the reference to the
author in such unbelievable passages, the translator refers the responsibility for the
truthfulness to the source text author, thus avoiding undermining his own credibility.
Guarding against what the reader might doubt is one of the typical acts of the
speaking narrator in the new Old Norse genres (Hallberg 1982).
15 The preserved texts of Trójumanna saga are clearly products of revision and reworking,
and it has been argued that Alexanders saga exerted some influence on them (Louis-
Jensen 1981: xlvii–xlviii). It is perfectly clear that the author-references in Trójumanna
saga are not systematically related to a speaking narrator in the source text, or any
other common feature but occur rather unexpectedly. The only exception is the one
120
uity – Breta sǫgur and Gyðinga saga – there is no speaking narrator in the
source text, so the solution was never required.
To sum up: we find the acceptability-oriented solution in two trans-
lations of Latin texts, whereas the adequacy-oriented solution to retain
the narrator’s voice is found in translations of French romances.
The investigation could stop here, making nothing but a descriptive
claim of different translation solutions in different texts, but it is at this
point that the theory becomes a vehicle for an attempt to go further. We
leave behind the firm ground of empirical description and turn to the
more unstable areas of interpretation. Such interpretational attempts
might be undertaken without any explicit theory, and I will briefly give
an example of that, which has a bearing of its own on the discussion of
the translation cultures of the North Atlantic.
Eyvind Fjeld Halvorsen’s interpretation of

West Nordic translation strategies
In a short, but not seldom mentioned, article by Eyvind Fjeld Halvorsen

(1974), the author suggests that there is a difference between how trans-
lations were carried out in Norway and Iceland. If we forget the prob-
lems of attributing texts to “Norway” and “Iceland” for a minute, it is
interesting to follow Halvorsen’s line of argument. Several Norwegian
translations are, according to Halvorsen, close to the source texts, while
their Icelandic counterparts are freer in their relation to their source.16
Halvorsen proposes that the two different strategies were the results of
different authority structures in the two societies. For the argument it is
also necessary to point out that the close translations of Norway are seen
as less enjoyable than the freer Icelandic translations. Norway, he sug-
gests, has a more developed administration of power, and this would have
occurring in the last lines of the saga, but this is a direct translation of the source text
and it has the character of a colophon (cf. Pettersson 2009b: 220, footnote 237).
16 Of course, we cannot be sure whether a specific Old Norse translation was carried
out in Norway or Iceland, but Halvorsen relies on an educated guess.
121
jonatan pettersson
encouraged a verbatim – or perhaps one should say slavish – translation

strategy. “If somebody orders you to go away and translate something,
then it is possible for that same somebody to order somebody else to read
or listen to the translation you produce, whether it is good or bad”
(Halvorsen 1974: 58). In this interpretation, the authority would have
had power over both the translator and listeners, not taking any interest
in the quality of the product. The translator, satisfied with obeying his
tyrant, just transferred the source text to his native language, avoiding
the responsibility of accommodating and improving the source text in
his translation.
In Iceland, Halvorsen claims, the situation would have been different.
The authority structure was weaker and this would have turned the trans-
lator a subject to the demands of the market: “The people who undertook
translation in Iceland had to make a conscious effort to get their work
accepted” (Halvorsen 1974: 59).
Halvorsen thus suggests that there is a causal connection (or at least
conditioning) between the power structure in society and the overall
translation strategy preferred, so that authoritarian societies would
encourage verbatim strategies and, conversely, a lack of authority would
lead to free translation strategies.
Even though the contextual approach of Halvorsen’s analysis was
actually quite far-sighted for its time, the problem with his model is that
it lacks a theoretical foundation and empirical support from other inves-
tigations. Are there other cultures were we can observe the same pattern?
It remains to be investigated – as far as I know there are no other inves-
tigations within translation studies which have suggested the same kind
of interpretative framework.17 It also is blurred by the contemptuous
17 Halvorsen’s approach should not be dismissed completely, however. Among the

Toledo translations we find extremely close translations, and Pym (2000: 53) suggests
that it was a strategy for the translators to avoid responsibility for the texts. There is,
however, an important difference in that the Toledo translations were translations
of authoritative texts which were potentially controversial, and this, suggests Pym,
is one of the reasons for the literal strategy, as well as the interest among those who
ordered the texts to get a translation as close to the original as possible. Halvorsen’s
analysis is concerned with less controversial texts and relies on the assumption that
the rulers were genuinely indifferent to the translations, which is very doubtful.
122
anachronistic literary evaluation, which too often in historical textual

studies has dismissed translations to the benefit of more prestigious lit-
erary works. It was common in previous research, but it is rarely seen
nowadays (cf. Glauser 2005: 372). Texts conceived as bad or boring are
ridiculed, whereby the personal taste of the scholar is turned into a rele-
vant fact in the historical analysis. The emergence of translation studies
was partly a reaction against exactly that kind of evaluative approaches,
and in this movement the polysystem theory was one of the leading
forces.
A polysystemic interpretation
If we look at Halvorsen’s empirical observations through the lens of poly-

system theory, quite another story emerges. If there are Norwegian trans-
lations which are close to the source text, this would rather be a symptom
of an open system, as described above, and we would expect an interest
in foreign textual models and a rather weak indigenous literary culture.
If there are Icelandic translations which are freer in their rendering, the
theory would explain it by the presence of a strong indigenous literary
culture and perhaps a culture in relative isolation.
When we consider the historical situation of the thirteenth-cen-
tury North Atlantic, this analysis does not seem so odd. There were
considerable differences between Norwegian and Icelandic society.
Norway was a medieval kingdom and the royal family had contacts
with courts all over Europe.18 Iceland was a kind of republic without
a similar network with the royal dynasties of Europe. Norway was
the centre of the West Nordic ecclesiastical organization, whereas Ice-
land was a diocese within the mainland episcopal structure. Norway
traded with many parts of Europe, and there was an international
milieu in the city of Bergen, which included the presence of the Baltic
18 The high prestige of King Hákon Hákonarson among the rulers of Europe is noted
by Almazan (1988: 213) in an investigation where he compares the translational
activity in the Norwegian court with that in Castile.
123
jonatan pettersson
Sea trade organization, the Hansa.19 Foreign trade in Iceland was less
developed and was concentrated, to a great extent, in Norwegian ports
(Gelsinger 1981). The societal conditions of Norway seem to favour
an openness to foreign culture, especially as the Norwegian kingdom
was an emerging power in the European system under the reign of
Hákon Hákonarson and his successors. Iceland was more isolated and
its connections with the European culture must have been fewer, at
least in comparison with Norway. This does not mean that Iceland
was not part of the European networks through the Church, monas-
teries and education, but there was certainly a difference between Ice-
land and Norway regarding the intensity of contacts with other cul-
tural systems.
If we turn to the literary systems, the analysis is undermined by the
difficulties in deciding where a certain text was originally conceived. It
is, however, uncontroversial to assume that the astonishingly rich litera-
ture of sagas that deals with Icelanders is of Icelandic origin, and that the
attributions of texts like Heimskringla, Íslendinga saga etc. to historically
known Icelanders are generally correct. There are, on the other hand,
relatively few texts that with some certainty stem from Norway, they are
mostly some historical works from the twelfth century. It is hardly con-
troversial to say that a very strong indigenous literary culture developed
in Iceland, flourishing in the thirteenth century, whereas the same does
not seem to have happened in Norway.
And then there are the translations. If the indigenous texts are hard
enough to ascribe to either Norway or Iceland, it is even more difficult
in the case of translations. We certainly have attributions of single trans-
lations to certain historical persons in colophons, but these are generally
late and uncertain. Yet there are in any case reasons to believe that the
thirteenth-century translated riddarasǫgur in some way were produced
under the auspices of the Norwegian court. Several of them include apos-
trophes to or mentions of the king as a patron of the translation, and it
is often assumed that the translations were part of a royal programme to
Europeanize the Norwegian court. Despite the uncertainties of these
19 See the various articles on “Handel-” in KLNM, vol. 6.
124
attributions, there are few arguments in favour of a specific Icelandic

origin of these translated riddarasǫgur.
Surely there were other translations in other genres which were pro-
duced in Iceland and Norway, especially within religious institutions,
but if we stick to the literary subsystem of secular narratives, a pattern
emerges of, on the one hand, a rich indigenous literature in Iceland com-
bined with few translations, and on the other hand, a relatively weak
indigenous literature in Norway combined with the rich corpus of trans-
lated riddarasǫgur, which is not insignificant in size even by European
standards. And if Halvorsen’s diagnosis of differing translation strategies
in Icelandic and Norwegian translations would be correct, this is exactly
what is expected from the polysystem theory point of view. Systems with
a weak literary culture, a description that seems to fit Norway, invite the
translator to render his source closely; systems with a strong literary cul-
ture, like that of Iceland, tend to make translators adopt their translations
to the indigenous norms.
But Halvorsen’s suggestions are in many ways debatable. For
example, the “free” translations ascribed to Iceland might be reworkings
of older, more faithful translations.20 We really need a lot more empirical
data if we are to reach any certainty in this analysis. But it is in this con-
text that analyses like the observations of the treatment of the narrator’s
voice might be useful. In the riddarasǫgur discussed here, we find a readi-
ness, at least partly, to accept the foreign text norm of an active narrator,
and this would confirm the systemic analysis above. In Alexanders saga
and Rómverja saga, we instead find a reluctance to retain this literary
strategy unaltered. As with the other translations, the origin of both of
these texts are difficult to decide. The translation of Alexanders saga is
explicitly attributed to an Icelander, Brandr Jónsson, but the information
can be questioned. These translations are however generally thought of
as Icelandic, and they fit in with what seems to be an indigenous Icelandic
production of historical learning (Würth 1998).
The analysis would then point to a conclusion that there were dif-
ferent translation cultures in the North Atlantic in the thirteenth century.
20 Cf. the discussion in Hanna Steinunn Þorleifsdóttir (2004) on Ívens saga.
125
jonatan pettersson
In Norway, at least around the Norwegian court, there would have been
an openness to literary innovations. There was not much literature that
actually had originated in the mainland culture – the literary texts that
dealt with Norwegian matters were, on the contrary, in several known
cases imported from Iceland! There was, in other words, not much of a
centre in the Norwegian literary system. In Iceland there would have
evolved a greater self-confidence in the indigenous tradition and the text
norms that were established in numerous highly valued texts, leading to
a hesitation towards new literary strategies that deviated from the indige-
nous norms. This does not mean that the Icelanders would have resisted
foreign influence for the sake of any provincial shortsightedness. It was
just that there had developed a strong literary tradition and that the foreign
models did not have the same cultural value and meaning as they might
have had in thirteenth-century Norway, where a consolidating state
looked for models in more developed parts of Europe. It does not mean
either that this situation did not undergo changes during the whole of the
Middle Ages. The polysystem theory deals with historical situations and
changes, and the interpretation I propose rather points to cultural situa-
tions that might have evolved during some periods. During periods these
situations might have had consequences for what translators thought
people wanted from their work, and the treatment of the narrator’s voice
might be the result of such conceptions among translators.
Concluding remarks
I will not take this analysis further here. The scarcity of sources in the
Middle Ages demands prudence of us in our scholarly interpretative
work. Still, I think that it is required of us in the human sciences to seek
for possible interpretations and explanations, even if they might not be
proven in the strictest sense. What we rather look for is perhaps a certain
kind of understanding characteristic of the humanities. As Chesterman
puts it: “our sense of understanding […] comes more from seeing the
broad picture than from evidence of causality in a strict sense” (2007: 3).
It is not enough to be content with descriptive empirical data, we ought
126
to offer creative explanations for the patterns we can observe, however

fragmentary these patterns may be. And in that task, I think that explicit
theories, like that of polysystem theory, are to be preferred to free spec-
ulations, as long as we do not turn into too convinced believers and take
the results of our analysis for unquestionable truths. Theories might
however be independent of specific historical contexts; the general
hypotheses can be tested on historical periods that offer far more data.
This is what I think makes them important in the study of the Middle
Ages. Given the often few and fragmentary pieces of medieval source
material, the theory forms a structure in which scattered observations
might be inserted, offering us a possible view of the broad picture. In
this perspective, I argue that one should give a positive answer to my
introductory questions: Yes, theories can be useful; yes, they can be
applicable; yes, they are worthwhile!
A wave of reading women: The purpose and
function of the translated French courtly
literature in thirteenth-century Norway
Ingvil Brügger Budal
T he Norwegian poet and philologist Hans E. Kinck summed up

the translations of Old French literature into Old Norse as “a
wave of imports […] that flooded the indigenous intellectual life, partly
suffocating it”1 (Kinck 1922: 89). The result, he concluded, was a
“major weakening – possibly a breakdown – of the entire artistic edi-
fice” (Kinck 1922: 89).2 Kinck compared the translations of Old
French romances to what he understood to be the indigenous Norwe-
gian literary production of the thirteenth century – the Old Norse
sagas, meaning the kings’ sagas and in particular, the Sagas of the Ice-
landers. However, it is uncertain to what extent the latter were known
in early thirteenth-century Norway. In addition, Kinck labelled the
translated Old French romances as “reading for ladies” (Kinck 1922:
120), whose origin lay in a period marked by a “vague and epically
incapable” cultural life that inevitably resulted in “a period of literary
misery”.3 Laconically, Kinck observed that “at this point in time, the
death penalty was no longer applied for the writing of love poetry”.4
In other words, he appears to suggest, the sinner, the cultural criminal
deserving of such punishment, was none other than “a lack of origi-
nality personified […] Håkon Håkonsson”, king of Norway 1217–1263
(Kinck 1922: 89).5
1 “en bølge av import […] som flommet ind over det hjemlige aandsliv og tildels kvalte
det.” Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own.
2 “en stor svækelse – for ikke å si et sammenbrud – i hele den kunstneriske reisning.”
3 “damelektyre […] utflytende og episk evneløs […] En tid i litterær usseldom.”
4 “Nu er der ikke dødsstraf længer for elskovsvers”. In Old Norse society, writing of
love poetry, mansǫngr, was punishable by death.
5 “Uselvstændigheten i person – […] Håkon Håkonsson.”
129
ingvil brügger budal
Throughout the nineteenth century, Norwegian historians invariably

ranked Hákon Hákonarson amongst the very best of kings, acting in line
with the wider European tendency to use medieval kings, heroes, litera-
ture and history as a way of establishing a common national feeling.
However, this view shifted over time, and the harsh tenor of Kinck’s
statements is to some extent representative of the way in which Norwe-
gian historians perceived Hákon Hákonarson from approximately 1900
onwards – as a mediocre man who just happened to be in the right place
at the right time (see Bagge 1996 for a discussion and overview). Never-
theless, it is appropriate to examine the selection of Old French courtly
literature that, according to Kinck, in its translated form constituted such
a suffocating and destructive wave, as well as to look into the position
that these texts held in French medieval literature. While this paper will
place particular emphasis on the translations that were connected to
Hákon Hákonarson, I will nevertheless start with a brief overview of the
Old French material that seems to have been transmitted to Norway, the
translation of which constituted the majority of known written literary
activity in thirteenth-century Norway.
Several suggestions have been made as to which historical events
could have instigated the translations of Old French chivalric literature.
I will therefore present and comment upon these before moving on to
the ongoing debate regarding the purpose of these tales. No clear dis-
tinction seems to have been made between the reason that the transla-
tions were commissioned, and their contemporary function and the way
they would have been perceived by an audience. A merging of these two
quite distinct concepts therefore seems to be implied, when in fact
emphasis should be put upon the quite likely divergence between the
intention or purpose of a commissioner and the actual contemporary
function of these translations. That the riddarasǫgur were translated with
a didactic purpose – albeit an entertaining one, as a form of medieval
Nordic “edutainment” in foreign customs – does not exclude the possi-
bility of their actual function being pure entertainment. As I will show,
it is possible to imagine a third potential purpose and function of these
sagas.
130
a wave of reading women
The riddarasǫgur and their sources
By the beginning of the thirteenth century, a wide range of texts, mostly

religious, had already been translated into Old Norse from Latin. The
true novelty of the thirteenth-century translations from Old French was
therefore not in the fact that they were translated, but in the decision to
translate vernacular texts that belonged to a very specific genre, that of
Old French courtly literature. Later on, the translations were eagerly imi-
tated, and the Norse genre of riddarasǫgur (ʻtales of knightsʼ) is therefore
commonly considered to be bipartite, consisting of the translated rid-
darasǫgur, as discussed in this article, and of the indigenous riddarasǫgur,
which were composed and transmitted in Iceland (see for example the
entries under “Riddarasögur” in Pulsiano 1993: 528–533).
The source texts of the translated riddarasǫgur all belong to chivalric
literature, but nonetheless, they form a far from uniform material, instead
illustrating the diversity of origins, genres and quality of medieval courtly
literature. Their common denominator is first and foremost linguistic:
they were written in Old French, or in fact, in a majority of cases, in the
Anglo-Norman dialect – “more accurately Anglo-French” (Rothwell) –
that was used in England by the king and court in the thirteenth century,
as well as forming the language of record, law and administrative matters.
Anglo-Norwegian trade at this time, together with traces in the transla-
tions and their close accordance with the texts in Anglo-Norman manu-
scripts, makes it likely that Anglo-Norman England, and not continental
France, was the region of origin of the Old Norse translated riddarasǫgur
(see Budal 2009).
Even though some of the source texts for the riddarasǫgur are ranked
among the finest Old French medieval literature to be composed in the
latter half of the twelfth century, their Norse translations were for some
time classified as a secondary literature, unworthy of serious scholarly
attention, and less significant than the so-called indigenous medieval
genres. Almost tangible traces of such scholarly attitudes are to be found
in a variety of prefaces and editions. Gísli Brynjúlfsson, for example, clas-
sifies the riddarasǫgur as “a quite subordinate part of the old literature”
(Saga af Tristram ok Ísönd: 416) in his edition of Tristrams saga ok
131
Ísǫndar.6 This tale of the unbearable love between Tristan and Isolde is
a translation of Le Roman de Tristan composed in the late 1150s by
Thomas d’Angleterre, and it most likely marks the starting point for the
translation of courtly literature into Old Norse, being widely recognized
as the most representative text to initiate this activity. Extant in a multi-
tude of versions, this widespread legend was translated into, and adapted
for, several European vernaculars during the Middle Ages.
The original texts for three Old Norse translations were composed
by one of the most successful authors of the twelfth century – the court
poet and trouvère Chrétien de Troyes. The first of these is the novel Erec
et Enide, composed before 1170 and named Erex saga in translation. This
narrative recounts the story of Prince Erec, one of King Arthur’s knights,
who is so content with his married life that he forgets his chivalric skills,
and as a result, is heavily criticized. He therefore decides to abandon his
home and attempt to regain his honour. Through a series of battles
against foes including dragons and giants, he is able to prove himself and
thus return to living happily ever after with his wife. The second text,
Yvain, was written in approximately 1179 and has the Norse title of Ívens
saga. In this text, the knight Íven, having failed to return home at the set
time, is punished with eternal separation from his wife. He travels the
world and takes part in a series of adventures, including rescuing the life
of a lion, who becomes his faithful companion. At the end, Íven is finally
allowed to reunite with his wife. The third and final translation of Chré-
tien’s writings tells of the brave but naïve hero Parceval, in Perceval or
Le Conte du Graal, which dates to 1181, but which was never completed.
At some point, a newly composed ending, Valvers þáttr, was added to the
translated Norse Parcevals saga. The internal chronology of these three
translations is unknown, but they are commonly dated to the second half
of the thirteenth century, possibly the period 1250–1257.
Even the first female author to have written in Old French is repre-
sented in Norse translation: the noblewoman Marie de France is in par-
ticular known for her Lais, a series of high-quality short stories that were
written in octosyllabic couplets during the latter part of the twelfth cen-
6 “en ganske underordnet Afdeling av den gamle Literatur”.
132
tury. The majority of these, together with a series of younger imitations,

were translated into Norse in the mid-thirteenth century, and are gath-
ered in Strengleikar, a collection of twenty-one stories and a prologue.
The roman d’aventure Floire et Blancheflur is the source of the Norse
text Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr. The text was composed around 1140 and is
among the most widely distributed of texts in European vernacular lan-
guages during the Middle Ages. The account tells of the childhood
friendship of the pagan prince Flóres with the Christian princess Blanki-
flúr, which turns into a complicated love story when they get older.
Another roman d’aventure that enjoyed a similar popularity to that
of Floire et Blancheflur in the Middle Ages is the tale of the love and sub-
sequent broken hearts of Prince Partalope and Princess Marmoria. This
is recounted in the novel Partonopeus de Blois, composed between 1182
and 1185 and translated into Old Norse during the latter half of the thir-
teenth century.
The Norse tale of Charlemagne and his paladins, Karlamagnús saga,
is a compilation of matière de Bretagne – probably as many as ten texts,
all translated individually and later assembled into a coherent tale. This
manner of transmission raises a number of problematic issues: these
include uncertainty with regard to the dating, to the original language
of the texts, and to the place of origin of the translation – or rather,
translations. The majority of the text originates from a variety of Old
French chansons de geste, among them La Chanson de Roland; but not
all of the French sources are transmitted, and at least one part of the
text originates from a Latin chronicle that was probably translated
before 1200. The nationalities of the redactors who worked on the text
of Karlamagnús saga are also open to debate (Icelandic or Norwegian
or Icelandic and Norwegian?), but all of the surviving manuscripts are
of Icelandic provenance, including a fragment from as early as the mid-
thirteenth century.
If the number of surviving manuscripts is an indication of popularity,
the Norse Elíss saga ok Rósamundu ranks higher than classics like Tris-
trams saga and Strengleikar. In this narrative, a paternal conflict forces
Prince Elís to leave home, and he goes on to fight heathens and convert
the pagan princess Rosamunda. The Old French original, a chanson de
133
geste named Elie de Saint Gille, was composed during the twelfth century,
and is barely mentioned in histories of Old French literature. Modern
scholars have characterized the tale as a “very rough and vulgar chanson
de geste” (Halvorsen 1959: 18).
Vulgar is a term that could perhaps more accurately be applied to Mǫt-
tuls saga (ʻThe Tale of the Mantleʼ), where the desires of frivolous women
are exposed through the use of a magical mantle. The Old French original,
Le Mantel Mautaillé, differs in terms of genre from the rest of the sources
for the riddarasǫgur – it belongs to the genre of fabliaux, short and satiric
tales recounted in verse that typically deal with everyday subjects.
As the only existing versions of a number of now-lost Old French
texts, some of the Norse translations should be of particular interest to
scholars of medieval French language and literature. This is certainly the
case with regard to four of the Strengleikar stories, some of the ten
branches or parts that constitute Karlamagnús saga and the tale of
Flóvents saga Frakkakonungs (ʻThe Saga of Flóvent, Ruler of the Franksʼ).
With a total of 35,000 words, Flóvents saga Frakkakonungs is one of the
most voluminous Norse translations of chivalric literature. It is trans-
mitted in two main redactions that frequently complement each other,
but the actual source text of Flóvents saga is lost. Some scholars regard
the saga as “related to French, Dutch, and Italian poems” (Kalinke &
Mitchell 1985: 47). Others, however, claim that the saga should probably
be seen as an adaptation of a now-lost Old French chanson de geste, prob-
ably executed towards the end of the reign of Hákon Hákonarson, rather
than as an actual translation (Zitzelsberger 1993: 202). The Norse saga
also gives delightfully repetitive mention to an otherwise unknown
Frenchman, a master Simon, who is said to be the author of the Old
French source text (Flóvents saga: 124).
Finally, there are some translations from Old French to Norse that
linger at the edges of this article’s subject. The oldest known translation
from Old French is in fact not a courtly text but the Anglo-Norman
poem Un samedi par nuit, a short dialogue between body and soul. Mis-
labelled as Visio sancti Pauli apostolic, the translation is found in the
Gammal norsk homiliebok (ʻThe Old Norwegian Book of Homiliesʼ), and
is commonly dated c. 1200.
134
One of the youngest-known translations is Bevers saga, which was

possibly translated during the reign of Hákon V Magnússon (1299–1319)
– and may have been translated in Iceland (Kalinke 1990: 3). Whether
the language of the original source was English or French remains open
to debate; but in the most recent scholarly edition, the decision was made
to give a synoptic presentation of the Norse and an Anglo-Norman text
(Bevers saga).
Finally, the last translation to be included in this overview is Mágus
saga jarls, known from an incredible seventy-five manuscripts. Of these,
the two oldest date from the fourteenth century, but the vast majority
are much younger and in the form of paper manuscripts. This quantity
of manuscripts is exceptional for Norse literature in general, and for the
riddarasǫgur it is particularly so. Even if the Norse riddarasaga displays
similarities to Renaud de Montauban and Les quatre fils Aymon, it is nei-
ther a translation nor an adaptation of these, and it seems most likely to
have originated from a now-lost chanson de geste. The legend recounted
in the saga was well-known throughout medieval Europe; and the rela-
tionship between Mágus saga jarls and its potential European sources is
worthy of analysis. The story was perhaps translated in Reykjahólar in
Iceland, possibly towards the end of the thirteenth century (Glauser 1993:
402–403).
With regard to the internal chronology of the courtly translations
presented above, very little is known. Moreover, if the aim is to establish
such a chronology, the texts contain very little information that can aid
in this task.
According to the famous prologue included in Tristrams saga, the tale
was translated in 1226. However, the reliability of this prologue remains
debatable, as it is only known from a late seventeenth-century manu-
script. It could therefore be – in part or in full – a scribal addition
included in the transmission process in order to enhance the saga’s
authenticity. The formulaic prologue introduces the foreign origin of the
text and also names the translator, a Brother Robert. The scarce use of
the first name Robert in thirteenth-century Norway makes it likely that
he is identical to the Abbott Robert who translated Elíss saga. As such, if
the prologue to Tristrams saga is original, it is possible to establish a rel-
135
ative chronology of these two sagas, with the difference in Robert’s cler-
ical rank indicating that Tristrams saga predates Elíss saga, and that the
latter was translated post-1226. These sagas were both commissioned by
King Hákon (i.e. Hákon Hákonarson, who reigned 1217–1263), who was
a young king of just 22 in 1226; and it is likely that this was the first trans-
lation the king ordered. Strengleikar, Mǫttuls saga and Ívens saga also
name Hákon as their commissioner, and in addition he is probably linked
to Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr, Parcevals saga, Erex saga, Partalopa saga and
Flóvents saga Frakkakonungs.
The origins
The translation of Old French courtly literature was an extensive activity

and an important addition to the indigenously composed literature for a
relatively short time span. While the origins of this activity are unclear,
two scenarios are commonly presented to explain what may have insti-
gated the translation of Tristrams saga in 1226 and consequently, the very
activity of courtly translations. The first scenario, which is undoubtedly
charming and often repeated, recounts that a newlywed Hákon ordered
the translation of Tristan, as a tale of the love of young people, to please
his wife Margrét after their wedding in 1225 (Fidjestøl 1997: 359). This
romantic anecdote may be appealing and delightful; however, the infor-
mation available about both the marriage of Hákon to Margrét, and
about the function and arrangement of medieval marriage in general, sug-
gests that this account relies on an anachronistic transfer of the modern
concept of love to Hákon’s marriage.
Composed shortly after the king’s death, Hákon’s biography,
Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, has been criticized for being lengthy and
overly detailed due to the abundance of oral and written sources that were
accessible to its author, Sturla Þórðarson. This official biography was
composed shortly after Hákon’s death; and while it might fall short in
regard to its literary qualities, it is to some extent a valuable historical
source. Early on in the saga, around the year 1219, Hákon’s counsellors
suggest that he becomes engaged to Margrét, the daughter of his arch-
136
enemy Skúli Bárðarson, who had a rightful claim to the throne and who
ruled while Hákon was underage. The purpose of uniting the king and
the earl through marriage is made very clear throughout the saga: at þa
myndi allt tryggt vera ok iarl myndi þa vnna konunginom sem sinom seyni
ʻthat all will be safe then and the earl will then love the king as if he was
his own sonʼ (Codex Frisianus: 418). The fifteen-year-old king displays a
fair amount of reluctance before he finally agrees to the engagement,
acknowledging that his advisors are concerned, but commenting that he
is hræddr at alt komi til eins ʻafraid that it will make no differenceʼ (Codex
Frisianus: 418). His fears prove right, and after a temporary period of
calm in the ongoing power struggle, the relationship of Hákon and Skúli
deteriorates during the 1230s (Helle 1964: 80), culminating in Skúli
claiming the king’s title and rights at Eyraþing in 1239, before being assas-
sinated by the Birkebeiner party, Hákon’s army, in the convent of Elge-
seter in 1240.
As expected, the saga thus describes the marriage of Hákon and Mar-
grét as a strategic union rather than a loving relationship; and it is rea-
sonable to assume that this was anticipated by the couple. Marriage
within medieval, and more specifically, Norse, culture was frequently
used in precisely this manner – as a mechanism to calm conflicts or end
feuds (see for example Frank 1973: 478). Some kind of love, friendship,
or union might have developed between the spouses over time, but no
information about this is given in Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar. Queen
Margrét’s part is largely peripheral to the text, and she is in general men-
tioned only for staying behind while the king travels. A single short
glimpse is given of their married life when the king is described as vis-
iting his wife in her quarters shortly after Skúli pronounced himself king
in 1239. As expected, Margrét faces a conflict of loyalty between her
father and her husband:
konvngr geck at reckionni. enn drottning stóþ i silkiserk ok kastaði

yfir sig tvglamautli rauðum. hon fagnaði konvnginom. hann tok þui
bliðliga. hon tok einn silkikodda ok bað konvnginn sitia. hann qvez
þat eigi vilia. Hon spvrþi ef konvngrinn hefði frett nockvr ny
tiþinndi. Sma ero tiþindin segir hann. tveir erv konvngar i Noregi i
137
senn. Hon sagði. Einn mvn vera rettr konvngr. þa sagði konvngr at
faðir hennar hefði latið gefa ser konvngsnafn a Eyraþingi. Betr mvn
vera segir hon ok gerit fyrir gvðz sakir trvit þesso eigi meðan þer
megit viðdyliaz. Kemr þa vpp gratr fyrir henni ok matti hon ecki
fleira vm tala. Konvngrinn bað hana vera kata. sagði at hon skylldi
ecki giallda frá honom tiltækia faðvr sins. Litlu siðarr geck konvngr
i brot […]. (Hákonar Saga Hákonarsonar 1869–1871: 500)
The king approached the bed; the queen stood there in a silk gown
and put on a red laced coat. She greeted the king and he answered
gently. She then took a silk cushion and asked the king to be seated.
He said that he didn’t desire that. She asked if the king had heard
any news. “There is no big news,” he said, “now there are two kings
at the same time in Norway.” She said: “There is only one true king,
and that is you, and this is the will of God and Saint Óláfr.” Then
the king told that her father had pronounced himself king at
Eyraþing. “It could be better than it appears,” she says, “and by God,
do not believe this as long as you can avoid it.” Then the tears over-
whelmed her and she was unable to speak. The king said that she
should not be fearful and that she should not suffer for her father’s
actions. After a little while the king left.
This particular meeting between the spouses is only known from the main
manuscript of the kings’ sagas, the Codex Frisianus dating to c. 1325, in
which the saga is extensively shortened. The tenor of this passage strongly
resembles the riddarasǫgur, and it differs in both style and content from the
rest of the saga to such an extent that it might be a later addition to the text.
As the marriage of Hákon and Margrét was part of a political
strategy, the assumption that the young king was so madly in love that
he commissioned translations of Old French courtly literature to please
his wife must be considered anachronistic. The king’s arranged marriage
was part of a political scheme, and it was a scheme repeated by the king
himself when he arranged marriages for his children with royalty from
Castile, Denmark and Sweden, unions that were all first and foremost
political alliances with a commercial character.
138
While this first scenario behind the translation of Tristan can thus
arguably be rejected, Hákon’s marriage is nonetheless also the pivot for
the second explanatory scenario. In his introduction to his translation of
Tristrams saga into modern Norwegian, Soga om Tristram og Isond (19),
Magnus Rindal mentions that some scholars have pictured the transla-
tion as originating from a French manuscript that was presented to the
newlyweds as a wedding gift from England, possibly from Henry III.
As mentioned above, the saga of Hákon is characterized by being overly
detailed; and in accordance with Hákon’s expansive political agenda, the
text emphasizes his relationships with a multitude of prominent for-
eigners including kings, nobility, and papal delegates. Any mention of a
precious gift from a figure as important as Henry III would therefore fit
nicely into the desired image of the king. However, no such gift is men-
tioned in the saga.
The most valuable source materials for official Norwegian matters
from this period are the letters and documents of the Diplomatarium
Norvegicum. Notably, in the years surrounding the wedding, a series of
letters are preserved both to and from Henry III regarding mercantile
agreements and Norwegian matters; but neither the wedding nor a wed-
ding gift is mentioned in these texts.7
Moreover, the Tristan legend tells of the impossible love between
two young people when the heroine has been promised to a third party,
and therefore seems to make a highly inappropriate wedding gift for an
arranged marriage. Furthermore, the queen-to-be was probably unable
to read French – and however literate King Hákon was, it is possible
that he had no knowledge of Old French either – making the gift a rather
awkward one.
Can we really believe that this kind of gift would have been offered
at a medieval wedding? Scholarly attention has been devoted to the
importance of gift exchange during the Middle Ages (see for example
Cohen & de Jong 2001 and Bijsterveld 2007), but the research on this
subject has largely been limited to property exchange. The common def-
inition of gift exchange is as “a transaction to create, maintain, or restore
7 I have examined the material from the period 1222–1228.
139
relations between individuals or groups of people” (Bijsterveld 2007:

124). Whether at pagan or Christian weddings, in Norse society, guests
were given gifts upon their departure (Jochens 1995: 30 and 53). The host
would offer gifts to his guests, and not the other way around. In Njáls
saga, for example, it is therefore the bridegroom, Gunnarr, who is
responsible for distributing gifts upon the departure of his guests: Gun-
narr gaf mǫrgum mǫnnum gjafir ‘Gunnar gave many men gifts’ (Brennu-
Njáls saga: 90; for two additional examples, see Jochens 1995: 52–54).
While no presents are mentioned in the description of Hákon and Mar-
grét’s wedding in Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, detail of a second royal
wedding is given when, on 11 September 1261, their son Magnús
lagabœtir (ʻthe law-menderʼ), was married in Hákon’s Hall, the newly
constructed royal hall in Bergen. This was followed on the third day of
the wedding (14 September) with the coronation of Magnús. As such,
the celebrations for Magnús’ wedding and his crowning merge into one,
and when the new king is seen to offer his guests gifts upon their depar-
ture, attention is drawn in particular to the Danish entourage of his
queen. The gifts are distributed chronologically according to social rank,
beginning with the most prominent guests who received the most gen-
erous presents (Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar 1977: 186–187).
No reference to wedding gifts being offered by guests can be found
within the saga literature or in transmitted official documents from the
thirteenth century. In Norway it was not until the eighteenth century
that a new custom, å gje i skåla ʻto give in the bowlʼ, emerged, with the
wedding guests offering money to the newlyweds. Even so, no actual
objects or household equipment were given. This custom of gje i skåla
still existed in Norway as late as 1859 (Hodne et al. 1985: 127).
The descriptions of gift exchange at weddings in English and Euro-
pean sources from the High Middle Ages display a remarkable similarity
to the Old Norse sources. Negotiations between the groom and the
bride’s father to obtain a legally binding contract of marriage were fol-
lowed by a series of property transfers (see Jochens 1995: 17–64 and
Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir 2010).
The medieval wedding celebration was rounded off by a generous
host offering gifts to his guests. This ceremonial routine appears analo-
140
gous to the description of Magnús lagabœtir’s wedding; gifts were dis-

tributed according to social position, starting with the most valuable pres-
ents for the high-ranking guests, and finishing with the travelling jesters.
At the wedding of Emperor Frederick II and Isabel of England in 1235,
it is recounted that the emperor refused to offer gifts to the jesters as
their performance had disappointed him greatly (Bumke 2000: 230).
The bride, Isabel of England, was incidentally the sister of King Henry
III – the same king who allegedly sent a version of Le Roman de Tristan
as a wedding gift to Hákon. There therefore seems to be a striking sim-
ilarity between the norms of gift exchange – or rather, gift distribution
– as seen in medieval Norway and Iceland on the one hand and in the
European royal courts on the other. In both cases, it was the host, and
not the guests, who distributed gifts at celebrations such as receptions,
feasts and weddings.
In line with the points discussed above, it seems that both the
assumption that King Hákon had Tristrams saga translated to please his
wife and the suggestion that the manuscript of the Old French Tristan
was presented as a wedding gift must be judged as anachronistic. Modern
scholars have too frequently used modern conceptions and customs in
order to shed light on and explain events in the past.
When Tristrams saga was translated, the import of foreign literature
through translation was a well-established activity. The riddarasǫgur were
an addition, a new genre to this activity of translation; but there is
nothing to indicate that they should be considered as anything other than
a continuation and expansion of this activity. As such, it is no longer so
important to link the date of the first of the known translations to spe-
cific historic events.
Purpose, intent and actual function
It seems likely that the translated riddarasǫgur would have been read
aloud at the court. But for what purpose were they translated – and what
function did they actually serve? How did the new audience perceive the
subject matter and protagonists of the riddarasǫgur? Is it possible, for
141
example, that the purpose of the translations was akin to that of King
David of Scotland, who, in the mid-tenth century, promised up to three
years’ tax exemption for those who would habitare cultius, amiciri elegan-
tius, pasci accuratius8 (Gesta Regum Anglorum: vol. 1, 726). In other words,
was it part of an attempt to financially encourage the education of the
king’s entourage and subjects in courtly customs?
The medieval didactic use of fiction was certainly common, and
Geraldine Barnes (1987) has suggested that this was the sole purpose of
the numerous Norse translations of Old French courtly literature, with
the king intending to teach the chivalric codes of conduct to his entourage
and court through the exempla of the riddarasǫgur. To support this point
of view, Barnes (1987) analyses the tendency to shorten or expand specific
passages in the translations, arguing for a connection between the stylistic
and structural changes of the translations and their contemporary func-
tion and purpose.
However, the alterations that Barnes points to are problematic to
date. The majority of the sagas and their Old French sources are pre-
served transmitted only in young manuscripts, which makes it difficult
to decide at what point in time the changes were made. Even though ele-
ments of these alterations stem from the original translations, one should
also be aware of the variance that characterized the medieval text in trans-
mission. A text could always be improved, and medieval scribes and
redactors were trained to make alterations through expansion, reduction
and restructuring, with the result that texts were continuously recreated.
Young copies or versions of the riddarasǫgur would therefore have passed
through the hands of a number of redactors, with each and every one
having interfered with the text. Any structural changes, or the removal
or emphasis of a particular selection of narrative elements, are just as
likely to have happened at a late stage of the textual transmission as in
the translation process or even during the thirteenth century. A future
analysis of style and structure of the entire riddarasǫgur corpus, in which
particular emphasis will be given to the diachronic textual development,
8 “pay more attention to their dwellings, dress more elegantly, and feed more nicely”
(trans. from William of Malmesbury (434)).
142
will hopefully offer new knowledge about what happened at which stage
of transmission.
Firmly situated on the opposite side to Geraldine Barnes in this
debate on the riddarasǫgur is Marianne Kalinke, who has pointed out on
multiple occasions that the actual content of these translations hardly
classifies as either edifying or as chivalric education (see e.g. 1981: 20–
45). She suggests that the translations of Old French courtly literature
served as pure entertainment at the royal court; and this viewpoint is in
accordance with statements in the majority of the prologues and epi-
logues of these texts, where the audience is alerted to the fact that the
riddarasǫgur were translated til gamans ok skemtanar ‘for jest and merri-
ment’. When examining Barnes’ and Kalinke’s arguments, it seems that
where Barnes looks at the purpose of the riddarasǫgur but uses what hap-
pens to medieval texts over time to prove her point regarding the com-
missioner’s intent, Kalinke has a clear understanding of the transmission
of the texts but would perhaps benefit from making a sharper distinction
between purpose and actual function.
The choice of genre to be translated seems to have been intentional.
If these texts were intended to serve an edifying purpose, it is puzzling
that none of the Old French originals are classified as didactic literature,
even though the majority of Anglo-Norman writings surviving from this
period are. It is unlikely that the commissioner, Hákon Hákonarson, had
sufficient knowledge of contemporary European literature to order spe-
cific texts to be translated. Nevertheless, an order regarding the genre to
be translated is imaginable, even if the actual selection of texts was left to
a royal delegate who purchased or could gain access to this kind of man-
uscript in England. It must be considered highly plausible that the actual
translations of the Strengleikar were carried out in England (Budal 2009:
411–426) – which would suggest that Hákon himself had no control over
the choice of text and instead trusted his translator(s) with this task. How-
ever, if the very first translation pleased the king, it is likely that a royal
translator or delegate would endeavour to find similar texts suitable for
translation. In this case, the very first text to be translated, possibly Tris-
trams saga, would have immense significance for what was to follow,
serving as a guide in the selection of later material for translation.
143
To what extent is it possible to see the riddarasǫgur as exempla, tales

that set out a way to live and that were to be imitated to the best of one’s
abilities? This question can perhaps be answered by looking more closely
at two of the translated tales. The first of these, the Norse translation of
Le mantel mautaillié known as Mǫttuls saga, is a satire, a fabliau that
recounts the Pentecost celebration at King Arthur’s court. The arrival of
a young traveller and his magical cloak provide the evening’s entertain-
ment: a chastity test for women in which the mantle offers a perfect fit
only to the virtuous. With one singular exception, all the women fail the
test. Could the purpose of this story – regardless of the language it was
presented in – ever have been anything more than til gamans ok skemtanar
‘for jest and merriment’?
In much the same way, could any response other than laughter be
expected if the story of Leikara lioð from Strengleikar were narrated at a
reception? The story itself states that its correct title should be The Song
of the Pussy; and the main point of the tale is made perfectly and repeat-
edly clear in the Old French text, for instance in v. 92–5:
Nule fame n’a si bel vis

Par qu’ele eüst le con perdu
Jamés eüst ami ne dru(i).
Quant tuit li bien sont fet por lui,
No woman has such a beautiful face that,

If she had lost her cunt,
She would ever have a friend or lover.
Since all good deeds are performed for it (Lecheor)
The majority of the Old Norse translation of this lais and the beginning
of the next story of Strengleikar are lost. Someone carefully cut out a leaf
from the single surviving manuscript, De la Gardie 4–7, and the editors
Cook and Tveitane (Strengleikar: 207) suggest that this was a way of cen-
soring the story’s daring content. An alternative suggestion might be that
someone took such an interest in this story that they wanted to keep the
leaf to themselves.
144
These two striking examples were admittedly explicitly chosen in

order to add emphasis to my argument; but what expectations would the
Norse audience have of this performed literary material? If we move on
and contrast the different riddarasǫgur texts themselves, comparing a
selection of the narrative elements from those texts that were probably
known at the king’s court, we may get some idea.
The external, geographical and physical setting of the riddarasǫgur –
places, treasures and customs – are generally both foreign and exotic,
but so, too, are the overwhelming, paralysing expressions of emotions
seen in the genre, featuring love, fears, and broken hearts. In one of the
earliest written descriptions of the Norwegians, Adam of Bremen refers
to the Norwegians as “very valiant fighters who, not softened by any
overindulgence in fruits, more often attack others than others trouble
them” (Adam of Bremen: 211). Furthermore, he sees them as the “most
continent of all mortals, with all diligence prising frugality and modesty,
both as to their food and to their morals” (Adam of Bremen: 211). This
rough image fits quite consistently with the way the Norwegians are
depicted in the kings’ sagas, which were among the historical writings
most likely to be known – and potentially performed – at the Norwegian
royal court. A series of religious and administrative writings are also
known from thirteenth-century Norway, but the majority of sagas and
poetry were transmitted only in Iceland, which means that caution is
required when any kind of comparison is made. I have therefore chosen
to limit the comparison of certain narrative elements in the riddarasǫgur
to the kings’ sagas.
The depiction of King Hákon on his deathbed in Kirkwall, Orkney,
is probably the most famous description of Norse literature being read
publicly. A variety of Latin and Norse texts were read aloud to the king,
with the reading of his grandfather’s biography, Sverris saga, receiving
particular emphasis (Codex Frisianus: 580). In this saga portrayal, King
Sverrir is characterized by his moderation: the closest he ever gets to an
outburst of emotion is when he hafði sviga í hendi ok let ganga ‘had a stick
in his hand and hit out with it’ (Sverris saga: 205).
There is a fundamental difference between the kings’ sagas and the
riddarasǫgur with regard to how and when the protagonists let loose their
145
emotions. Whereas in the latter, the majority of emotional outbursts are

caused by sentiments connected to love, in the kings’ sagas, most displays
of feelings are caused by some kind of slander or defamation. The trig-
gers for an emotional response are therefore very different, and diverging
tendencies appear when we examine the heroes’ behaviour. In the rid-
darasǫgur, the heroes of these works are overwhelmed and immobilized
by their feelings – they even fall seriously physically ill and often com-
municate their misery and despair though long, verbose monologues.
A clear example of such emotion can be found in Flóres saga ok
Blankiflúr, where the protagonist, Flóres, is tricked into believing that
his love has caused Blankiflúr’s death. He faints repeatedly and, kneeling
at his lover’s tomb, asks in a long monologue that death will come and
fetch him, before rising and:
leitar sér at dauða; dró hann frame inn kníf, er Blankiflúr hafði gefit
honum, ok þá mælti Flóres við knífinn: “Þú knífr”, sagði hann, “átt
at enda mitt líf! Gaf þik mér til þess Blankíflur, at gera minn vilja
með þér: þú, Blankiflúr”, segir hann, “visa knífi þessum í brjóst mér!”
(Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr: 24)
[seeking] death. He pulled out a knife that Blankiflúr had given him,
and then Flóres spoke to the knife: “You, knife,” he said, “are now
going to put an end to my life. Blankiflúr gave you to me so that I
have my way with you. You, Blankiflúr,” he said, “show this knife
my chest!”
His mother leaps forward and manages to stop him, at which point
Flóres explains: Móðir, heldr vil ek deyja nú, en þola lengr þenna harm
(Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr: 24) ‘Mother, I would rather die than have to
endure this misery any longer’.
The contrast between Flóres and the reticent Norwegian kings is
striking. Of Saint Óláfr, it is told that um flest var hann fámæltr, þat er
honum þótti sér í móti skapi (Hkr II: 164) ‘he was overall reticent, when
something was not to his liking’. Upon hearing that he has been betrayed,
he becomes reiðr mjǫk ok hugsjúkr, ok var þat nǫkkura daga, er engi maðr
146
fekk orð af honum (Hkr II: 132–133) ‘very angry and upset and for some
days, no man was able to make him utter a word’. On a separate occasion,
at the quite infamous feast at Avaldsnes, Asbjǫrn rushes in, immediately
after the king is seated. Asbjǫrn:
hjó þegar til Þóris. Kom hǫggit útan á hálsinn, fell hǫfuðit á borðit
fyrir konunginn, en búkrinn á fœtr honum. Urðu borðdúkarnir í
blóði einu bæði uppi ok niðri. Konungr mælti, bað taka hann, ok var
svá gǫrt, at Ásbjǫrn var tekinn hǫndum ok leiddr út ór stofunni, en
þá var tekinn borðbúnaðrinn ok dúkarnir ok í brot borinn, svá líkit
Þóris var í brot borit ok sópat allt þat, er blóðúgt var. Konungr var
allreiðr ok stillti vel orðum sínum, svá sem hann var vanr jafnan. (Hkr
II: 200)
immediately struck at Þórir. The blow fell at the back of his neck
and the head fell on the table in front of the king, and the body upon
his feet. The tablecloths were blood-stained at both the top and the
bottom. The king asked them to take Ásbjǫrn and led him outside,
and they took him and led him out of the hall. They carried out all
of the table-settings and the tablecloths, they carried out Þórir’s body
and cleaned all that had become blood-stained. The king was tremen-
dously angry, but governed his words wisely, in his usual manner.
Significant dissimilarities between the riddarasǫgur and the kings’ sagas

also appear if we look at representations of the moment of death. In Ólafs
saga Tryggvasonar, for example, neither promises nor threats will make
Eyvindr kinnrífa embrace Christianity:
Síðan lét konungr bera inn munnlaug fulla av glóðum ok setja á kvið
Eyvindi, ok brast brátt kviðrinn sundr. Þá mæltu Eyvindr: “Taki af
mér munnlaugina. Ek vil mæla orð nǫkkur, áðr ek dey.” (Hkr I: 323)
Then the king had a washbasin filled with embers carried in and
placed on Eyvindr’s stomach. Then Eyvindr said: “Remove the wash-
basin from me. I would like to say some words before I die”.
147
In comparison, the image painted of Tristram, wounded not only by a

poisoned sword, but also suffering from a broken heart, a chagrin
d’amour, could not be more different: Svá mikinn harm ok ógleði hefir nú
Tristram, at hann er né allr megnlauss, andvarpadi, en stundum vissi hann
ekki til sín, sakir Ísöndar dróttningar, er hann vildi gjerna at kæmi ‘Tristram
had suffered so much grief and sorrow that he was moaning and very
feeble. At times he fell unconscious, all because of Queen Ísǫnd, whom
he wished so much to see’ (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 218–219).
It is indisputable that the contents of the riddarasǫgur would have
appeared foreign and exotic to a Norse audience. A group of the trans-
lated riddarasǫgur – texts such as Mǫttuls saga, but first and foremost,
the Leikara lioð mentioned earlier – would, in my opinion, primarily
have served as a source of pleasure, jokes, fun and merriment, whether
in the Old French or the Norse version.
In comparison to the kings’ sagas, which were known at the thir-
teenth-century Norwegian court together with religious and official
texts, the subject matter, and perhaps even more so, the behavioural pat-
terns of the heroes presented in this imported literature, must have insti-
gated fun and merriment at the Norwegian court for reasons quite dif-
ferent from the enjoyment derived from the originals in other European
courts. The protagonists and heroes that appear in the majority of this
translated literature stand out as alien and rather ridiculous when com-
pared to the ideal behaviour, expectations of literary heroes, and indige-
nous literature familiar to Norse society in the thirteenth century. If one
expects a reticent hero characterized by self-control and instead encoun-
ters a sobbing Tristram proclaiming perpetual, self-centred monologues
of misery and despair, I cannot believe other than that this must have ini-
tiated a great deal of astonishment and laughter. But this is central to
their popularity. By virtue of the fact that they differed so radically from
the indigenous written literature, the riddarasǫgur must have appeared
even more entertaining. My perception of the ludicrous nature of certain
elements in the translated literature is in part confirmed by the later adap-
tations and rewritings of some of the sagas, together with a variety of
their motifs and narrative elements. This may have been what led to the
later Icelandic parody-like rewriting of Tristrams saga, the fourteenth-
148
century Icelandic Tristrams saga ok Ísoldar (and not Ísǫndar!), as well as a

number of similar tales in which elements from the riddarasǫgur are
grossly exaggerated and ridiculed.
How, then, are we to understand the concept of “didactic literature”
when it comes to the riddarasǫgur? What is supposed to characterize
didactic literature? C.S. Jaeger emphasizes the fact that both fabulous
narratives and history could be used to instruct the laity in courtly cus-
toms (1991: 233). However, this applies to a laity within feudal Europe
and so does not necessarily include Scandinavia. The primary significance
of the term didactic is that the translated literature was intended to pro-
vide an education in courtly customs and practice; on the basis of this
definition, I am reluctant to categorize the riddarasǫgur as didactic liter-
ature because they seem to lack elements that would provide a truly
instructive function. In order to be instructive, a literary text must
present a protagonist acting in such a manner that he is an exemplum,
someone whose actions deserve imitation – or at least, whose actions
have consequences that could either inspire or frighten an audience. It is
not until an author (or, in the case of this discussion, the medieval text)
and the audience share a common basic perception of values, virtues and
the world that the possible didactic elements of a text can obtain the
desired instructive effect.
Even though the riddarasǫgur can hardly be seen as exempla, it is still
possible that they had an edifying or didactic function in educating an
audience in the literature and heroes that were familiar to their European
peers, and in serving as a basic introduction to the European feudal
system and the concept of the rex justus, the righteous king. However,
the kings mainly hold subordinate roles in the selection of translated
courtly texts, and they frequently lack not only righteousness, but also
honour and virtue, thus to some extent providing poor exempla of the
rex justus. The protagonists are princes or nobles that for some reason
have fallen out with the king and courtly society, often because they are
on the borders – or indeed, the very outskirts – of the society of courtly
romance, having failed to meet all aspects of their assigned role. They
may be incapable of love, or on the contrary, so smitten by, and absorbed
in, love that they forget their knightly skills and obligations. In either
149
case, the consequence is an educational journey, both real and metaphor-

ical, during which the protagonists can acquire the qualities and skills
they initially lacked.
Among the original texts featured in Strengleikar, the collection of
translated lais, is a single short story in which a king takes the leading
role, namely the Old French tale of Equitan (Equitan: 33–43 and Streng-
leikar: 67–83). King Equitan has a loyal and righteous seneschal who
serves him well, but despite this loyalty, the king eagerly engages in an
adulterous affair with the seneschal’s wife and the couple scheme to dis-
pose of the seneschal by luring him to bathe in a tub of boiling water.
The plan backfires, and the amorous couple is caught in flagrante. Utterly
terrified, the semi-dressed king attempts to hide and inadvertently jumps
into the tub of boiling water, to be followed soon after by his partner in
crime – who is thrown in head first by her husband. This is, of course,
the ending of the couple. The tale is amusing, the punishment spectac-
ular, but when the potential didactic nature of these tales is examined, of
particular interest is the way in which rank is reproduced in this specific
story. In the translation, the rank of king is replaced by a chieftain
(hǫfðingi), and the only trace left of King Equitan appears in two newly
composed and somewhat maladroit Latin verses at the very end of the
story. The consistent alteration of rank throughout the story must orig-
inate with whichever translator or scribe redacted the Norse text, most
plausibly out of fear of insulting the commissioner’s name, but also per-
haps as a result of the idea of royal supremacy. If a king is a rex justus and
fictional kings should serve as exempla, then the actions of Equitan are
not representative of the image of a king. Nonetheless, this is, to the best
of my knowledge, the only occurrence in which social status is consis-
tently changed in the corpus of translated riddarasǫgur.
The purpose or intention in having these texts translated does not
necessarily diverge or conflict with the actual function of these transla-
tions when performed: even though in performance the main function
of the riddarasǫgur may have been entertainment, they could still have
been ordered with a didactic intention. Nevertheless, if the aim of this
paper is to understand the function of the riddarasǫgur, and not the inten-
tion of whoever commissioned the translations, a contemporary under-
150
standing of the texts’ subject matter and knowledge of the circumstances

surrounding textual transmission are essential. As shown above, the for-
eign nature of the heroes’ behavioural patterns in comparison to the
indigenous literature, for example, leads me to agree with Marianne
Kalinke when she claims that this literature served to entertain, with tales
from a “fantasy world of abducted queens and fairy mistresses, of giants
and dwarfs, of fire-breathing dragons and grateful lions, of magic man-
tles, springs, rings, and potions” (1981: 45).
There is an element, however, that has thus far been ignored in the
debate about function but that relates to both the intended purpose and
the contemporary function of the riddarasǫgur – their potential political
function. In what might seem to be a digression, I would now like to
return to the previous discussion of a host offering presents to his guests.
How did medieval leaders, kings, monarchs and chiefs nurture and
strengthen their bonds with subjects and supporters, and what did they
do in order to benefit from the services of their followers over a period
of time? This is where the offering of a gift, the display of something
new, different, and more tempting than whatever a competitor might
present, becomes important. In Old Norse society, feasts and gifts, pos-
sibly together with the distribution of property and power, were com-
monly used as mechanisms to create and maintain allegiance. At such
feasts, oral performances or readings of sagas may have served as enter-
tainment, as demonstrated in Þorgils saga ok Hafliða in the description of
Helga Yngvildardóttir’s wedding to Óláfr in 1119 in Reykjahólar. Here,
the entertaining activity of sagnaskemmtan is specifically mentioned as
part of the seven days of celebration and festivities, with sagas told by
the host, a priest and one of the guests (Þorgils saga ok Hafliða: 17–18).
From the sources detailing the life of King Hákon Hákonarson, it is
clear that he used gift exchange as one of several methods of establishing
close bonds with European royal courts, enabling him to succeed in his
expansive political project. Offering stories to his entourage might there-
fore be considered equivalent to the presentation of exotic gifts such as
falcons (and on one occasion, a polar bear) to foreign royal houses. The
riddarasǫgur, with their heroic deeds, exotic locations, enchanted ships
and breathtaking beautiful fairies could possibly have been employed
151
quite intentionally by Hákon as the gift of entertainment, thus enabling

him to offer a taste of something foreign to his followers, and more
importantly, simultaneously to increase his own value and prestige as a
host. In accordance with the standard rhetorical formula of prologues
and epilogues, several of the translated riddarasǫgur present Hákon as
the commissioner who had the saga translated from Old French into
Norse. These statements also served as emblems, a public announcement
of ownership that made sure the audience knew who had commissioned
the text and spent a huge amount of resources on providing a translation
for their entertainment and pleasure.
Concluding remarks
What assumptions is it therefore possible to make regarding the histor-

ical background, the purpose and intention, and the actual function of
the translations of Old French chivalric literature into Norse? A close
examination of the two most common suggestions for how these trans-
lations came into being has led me to conclude the following:
1. It is unlikely that Hákon Hákonarson, entering an arranged marriage

somewhat reluctantly, suddenly fell so desperately in love with his
new bride that he commissioned translations of romances and courtly
literature to please and entertain her. Furthermore, the subject matter
of several of these stories would seem to be highly inappropriate, fea-
turing female protagonists who, trapped and unhappy in arranged
marriages, are unfaithful to their husbands.
2. It is equally unlikely that the Old French original of the first translated
riddarasaga was sent to Norway as a wedding gift from the king of
England, Henry III. The language would probably have made the text
inaccessible to the newlyweds, and the subject matter of the Tristan
legend would certainly have been unsuitable for an arranged marriage.
Furthermore, no reference to such a gift is found in contemporary
sources and – perhaps more importantly – there was no custom in
either Norway or England of offering gifts to newlyweds.
152
Nonetheless, the traditions of gift exchange may offer a different approach

to this material. The politician and strategist Hákon Hákonarson used a
variety of methods to reinforce his position both nationally and interna-
tionally, disposing of his adversaries, rewriting legal codes to his benefit,
and nurturing the friendship of high-ranking foreigners through arranged
marriages and the offering of gifts. Ongoing political uncertainty at the
start of his reign, together with conflict with his father-in-law, may have
made Hákon anxious to ensure a lasting fidelity from his entourage; and
in offering something exotic and foreign, something different, he may even
have been able to expand his entourage.
The translated riddarasǫgur offered their Norse audience a taste of a
variety of genres within Old French chivalric literature; but they were
all intended primarily for entertainment. As such, it is also interesting to
note which texts were left untranslated. The corpus of texts translated
into Norse reflects a careful selection that – noticeably – does not include
texts from the Anglo-Norman didactic literature. This choice of text indi-
cates that this kind of didactic function might not have been their primary
function. In my opinion, the purpose behind, and contemporary function
of, these translations form two different aspects in research into the rid-
darasǫgur. The purpose could have been didactic, it could have been
entertaining, or – as discussed above – it could have been political. At
the same time, one could claim that the purpose could have been didactic,
entertaining and political, all to varying degrees for each text.
It is possible that the original purpose of these sagas was didactic;
but, as the activity of translation in thirteenth-century Norway expanded,
the primary purpose of the riddarasǫgur must have been entertainment,
in accordance with Kalinke’s view. However, I have suggested that these
sagas might have had the function of a gift of sagnaskemmtan, story-
telling, to King Hákon’s court, thus adding a political function that could
strengthen his subjects’ allegiance. Moreover, in introducing the heroes,
tales and myths that were commonly known in the country that was
Norway’s most significant mercantile partner in the thirteenth century,
they did also serve a didactic function. If we elaborate still further on the
possible didactic nature of these sagas then the main argument put for-
ward by Barnes, namely that the changes to these texts were made in
153
order to clarify their didactic content, is not unreasonable. Nevertheless,

given the way in which medieval textual transmission as a whole func-
tioned, and more specifically, given the history and age of the riddarasǫgur
manuscripts, I do not agree when she claims that these alterations are the
results of translators working according to their commissioners’ orders.
Nonetheless, it is quite likely that these changes were intentional and the
result of the condensation and movement of the riddarasǫgur genre
through transmission.
Even if the intention of these translations was didactic, their con-
temporary didactic function must, in my opinion, be regarded as sec-
ondary to their role as entertainment. Furthermore, it should be stressed
that it is problematic to treat the corpus of riddarasǫgur as a single, uni-
form group. Some of them do have passages that could be regarded as
didactic, such as the moralizing conclusion to the tale of Equitan in
Strengleikar, but in the case of this particular story, the subject matter
shows a distortion of courtly society that virtually borders on parody.
Moreover, as the majority of the translations are transmitted in late
manuscripts, the stylistic and structural alterations that we see may not
stem from the original translation, but could instead be from the later
transmission and copying of the texts. For this reason, these alterations
are linked to a development of the Old Norse courtly prose style and are
therefore more the expression of a gradual condensation of subject matter
in the riddarasǫgur than the result of a vigilant didactic intent employed
during the actual process of translation. Nevertheless, if we turn to the
actual contemporary function of these texts – in other words, how they
were received in comparison to the content and ideals of literature that
was already known at the Norwegian court – the translated heroes and
their adventures must primarily have been a source of amusement and
laughter. However, by the very virtue of their entertainment, they may
have been effective in acquainting the audience with European legends
and heroes, as well as proving a political purpose by strengthening the
retainers’ bonds of loyalty to King Hákon.
154
Svá var þá siðr at gera riddara: The chrono-
logy of the riddarasǫgur re-examined
Suzanne Marti
S eeing that most riddarasǫgur are only preserved in manuscripts that

postdate their assumed time of composition by up to several cen-
turies, it is hardly surprising that the question of their dating and
chronology should have puzzled scholarship for decades. What little we
know about the different sagas’ origin has been inferred from some of
their prologues and epilogues, though these, too, raise questions of origin
and authenticity. Most famously, Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar provides us
with a specific dating in a prologue that reads as follows:
Hér skrifaz sagan af Tristram ok Ísönd dróttningu, í hverri talat verðr

um óbæriliga ást, er þau höfðu sín á milli. Var þá liðit frá hingatburði
Christi 1226 ár, er þessi saga var á norrænu skrifuð eptir befalningu
ok skipan virðuligs herra Hákonar kóngs. En Bróðir Robert efnaði
ok upp skrifaði eptir sinni kunnáttu með þessum orðtökum, sem eptir
fylgir í sögunni ok nú skal frá segja. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 28)
Written down here is the story of Tristram and Queen Ísǫnd, in which
is told about the unbearable love they had between them. 1126 years
had passed since the birth of Christ when this saga was translated into
Norse at the behest and order of the great king Hákon. Brother Robert
prepared the text and wrote it down according to his knowledge in the
words appearing in this saga. And now it shall be told.1
Despite the connection to the Norwegian king Hákon Hákonarson and

the rare dating it offers, the information we can gain from this prologue
1 All the translations of passages in Old Norse or Old French are my own.
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suzanne marti
is far from being unproblematic. After all, Tristrams saga, in its entirety,
only comes down to us in a single manuscript, AM 543 4°, which is com-
monly dated to the seventeenth century (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 26).
Hence, so is its prologue – as it is not preserved in any of the few older
surviving fragments of Tristrams saga (cf. Saga af Tristram ok Ísönd: 3).
Nevertheless, this dating has repeatedly been the basis for the hypothesis
that the continental tale of Tristan was the first to have been translated
in thirteenth-century Norway. Marianne Kalinke, for example, considers
the Norwegian king’s young age at the supposed time of composition to
speak for its primacy, arguing that, “[s]ince Hákon Hákonarson was only
22 years old in 1226, Tristrams saga was presumably the first of the trans-
lations commissioned by the Norwegian king himself” (1981: 3). Also
Knud Togeby deems it likely that Tristrams saga should represent the
beginning of translation activity at the Norwegian court, adding that it
would only have been natural to begin with Tristan, “qui avait obtenu
un succès incomparable en France et en Angleterre” (1975: 183). The
veracity of the dating in AM 543 4°, which is a necessary prerequisite for
Kalinke and Togeby’s lines of argumentation, has been discussed in some
detail by Sverrir Tómasson, who reaches the conclusion that “[b]æði ytri
og innri rök benda til þess að ritun riddarasagna sé þegar hafin á
ríkisstjórnarárum Hákonar gamla” (1977: 75). However, this does not
entail that the extant version of Tristrams saga corresponds closely to the
initial translation, nor does it satisfactorily answer the question of the
authenticity of its dating.
Beside Tristrams saga, two more riddarasǫgur provide us with some
chronological delimitation, and we find additional links to Hákon
Hákonarson both in Elíss saga ok Rósamundu and in Ívents saga. At the
end of Elíss saga, the reader is informed that Roðbert aboti sneri, oc Hakon
konungr, son Hakons konungs, lét snua þessi nœrrœnu bok yðr til skemtanar
(Elis saga ok Rósamundu: 116) ʻthe abbot Robert translated, and King
Hákon, son of King Hákon, had this book translated into Old Norse for
your entertainmentʼ. In its main manuscript version in Holm perg 6 4°,
Ívents saga ends as follows: Ok lykr her sǫgu herra Ivent. er Hakon kongr
gamlí lett snua or franzeisu J norenu (Ívens saga: 147) ʻAnd here ends the
saga of Sir Ivent, which King Hákon the Old had translated from French
156
the chronology of the riddarasǫgur re-examined
into Norseʼ. Due to the appellation Hakon kongr gamlí, ‘King Hákon the
Old’, it is reasonable to assume that this phrasing originates in the life-
time of Hákon Hákonarson’s son – Hákon Ungi, ‘the young’. Born in
1232, Hákon the Young died six years before his father at the mere age
of twenty-five, without ever having ascended to the throne. If we are to
believe in King Hákon’s alleged commission of Ívents saga, we can con-
sequently date its composition to some time during his son’s life, i.e.
between 1232 and 1257 (Finnur Jónsson 1920–1924: 948). However, as
in the case of Tristrams saga, we are confronted with the problem of the
youth of the manuscripts in which the relevant passage is preserved.
While the primary manuscript of Ívents saga, Holm perg 6 4°, is com-
monly dated to the beginning of the fifteenth century (cf. e.g. Blaisdell
1979: xi), it is moreover extant in AM 489 4°, a vellum manuscript from
c. 1450, as well as in a number of younger paper manuscripts, many of
which are copies of Holm perg 6 4° (Blaisdell 1979: xi). Thus, this attri-
bution of the composition of a riddarasaga to Hákon Hákonarson’s reign
should likewise be taken with a pinch of salt, since the phrasing respon-
sible for this link stems from manuscripts that are by no means contem-
porary witnesses of Hákon’s time.
In view of the vagueness of these clues to the dating of Old Norse
riddarasǫgur, it seems apposite to return to the question of the chrono-
logy of their translation. Most particularly, it is time to challenge the sup-
posed primacy of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar. In this paper, I therefore want
to distance myself from earlier attempts at arranging the composition of
the riddarasǫgur according to information that is only preserved in com-
paratively young manuscripts. Instead, I want to suggest that a lexical
analysis of different riddarasǫgur, especially with a focus on their treat-
ment of foreign subject matter, can give us an indication of their relative
age. Taking the vocabulary used to refer to the chivalric practice of dub-
bing as an example, I will illustrate how such a lexical analysis can lead
us to new hypotheses regarding the order in which the riddarasǫgur were
introduced in medieval Norway.
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suzanne marti
Theoretical foundations
Before I turn to a discussion of references to dubbing in Tristrams saga

ok Ísǫndar and other sagas of chivalry, let us consider the theoretical
framework that can assist us in the task of determining the order in
which certain works were translated. An obvious starting point lies in
culture-oriented Translation Studies, and more specifically in the so-
called Polysystem Theory put forward by Itamar Even-Zohar (1990). For
the purpose of this paper, Even-Zohar’s discussion of the position of
translations within the literary polysystem is of some interest.2 Not only
does he point to the central role translations can play in the emergence
of new literary models – as can be observed in the surfacing of literature
of chivalry in medieval Norway and Iceland – but he also draws attention
to the way translated literature can be a vehicle for new elements to be
introduced into native literature. Further, he argues that a variety of fea-
tures such as “a new (poetic) language, or compositional patterns and
techniques” (Even-Zohar 1990: 47) can enter a literary system by means
of translations. When a new type of literature emerges in a literary
system, it is therefore only natural that this should entail the appearance
of a new, specific vocabulary. If we take the introduction of European
literature of chivalry in thirteenth-century Norway as an example, we
can thus expect the new genre to depend on a particular kind of vocabu-
lary that equally has to make its way into the existing literary tradition.
However, there are text-external factors that can govern – and above
all limit – the extent to which such new vocabulary enters a literary lan-
guage, for example in the form of loan-words. On the one hand, the
status of the respective source and target languages can play a decisive
role in this process. While it is not uncommon for certain languages to
be perceived as having a higher inherent status than others, Even-Zohar
also points to the hierarchical relations that have always existed between
the literatures of Europe. Consistently with these hierarchies, more
peripheral literatures have often been modelled in relation to more dom-
inant ideals, and, accordingly, more established literary systems have a
2. For a definition of polysystems, see Even-Zohar (1990).
158
tendency to influence smaller ones (Even-Zohar 1990: 48). Thus, the

status of the source language, and its literature, can play an important
role in the degree to which the receiving literature is affected by the con-
tact. The higher this status is, at least from the point of view of the target
culture, the more it is likely to leave a visible imprint in the literature of
the target language – also in the form of loan-words.
On the other hand, the use of loan-words in translated texts can also
be related to the question of interference between different literary sys-
tems. Even-Zohar defines interference as the “relation(ship) between sys-
tems, whereby a certain system A (Source system) may become a source
for direct/indirect loans for another system B (Target system)” (1990:
92–93), and, as such, it represents the interplay between source and target
language on a lexical level. When a literary system is in need of a new
vocabulary, for example due to the introduction of a new literary genre
like the riddarasǫgur, it is likely to resort to another system to fill such
gaps. This is above all the case when a suitable terminology is “unprovid-
able by the home repertoire”, as Even-Zohar puts it (1990: 93). However,
the degree of interference from the source system can also be limited by
specific conditions in the target system, as it always depends on the ‘open-
ness’ of the latter. Only if the target system is accessible, that is to say,
prepared to accept influences from another system, can interference actu-
ally take place (Even-Zohar 1990: 93). Moreover, the degree to which a
literary system is open to foreign influence is governed by the status of
translation in the respective target culture. As Gideon Toury argues in his
work Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (1995), the status of trans-
lation in a particular culture determines how much a translation is adapted
to established norms and models of the target culture (1995: 271). When
translation – both in the sense of the activity and in that of the resulting
text – has a dominant position in the receiving culture, it is more likely
to bring with itself visible features of the source system than if this is not
the case. With regard to loan-words we therefore also have to cater for
the possibility that their use in the target text may be influenced, and
restricted, by the status of translation in its socio-cultural context.
Thus, there are a number of important influences outside of the hands
of the translators that have to be taken into consideration when we examine
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how frequently loan-words appear in translations. In the case of the rid-

darasǫgur, however, these external factors can be assumed to have been vir-
tually identical for several translations. Provided that we accept the common
hypothesis that the central period of translation activity from Old French
was during the reign of Hákon Hákonarson (see e.g. Kalinke 1981; Barnes
1993), we can see the riddarasǫgur as part of one relatively homogeneous
system. Thus, such determining factors as the status of the source language,
and that of translation, would have been alike for the different riddarasǫgur.
Hence, they would also have affected the translated sagas and their use of
loan-words in the same manner and to the same extent. It therefore seems
justifiable to leave these factors out of the equation when we discuss the
use of loan-words in these translations that in all likelihood originate in the
same historical, cultural and literary context. Instead, we can assume that
differences in the amount of foreign vocabulary that appears in the indi-
vidual translations are conditioned by other factors. These factors may
include the personal style of a translator or, more specifically, his specific
knowledge of – and attitude towards – new additions to the target language
lexicon. However, the use of loan-words can also be regarded as an indica-
tion of a text’s “modernity”. As Chesterman suggests in his discussion of
loan in translation, the first time a loan-word appears in a language it is
always a neologism (Chesterman 1997: 95); the comparatively frequent use
of such new items of vocabulary can therefore point towards the novelty of
a text. Thus, an examination of the incidence of loan-words in different
texts that are assumed to have been translated in the same context can give
us an indication of their relative chronology. While texts that favour tradi-
tional domestic vocabulary and opt for explanation and paraphrase rather
than borrowing can be argued to be older, those with a more established
lexicon with specific loan-words relating to new concepts can be interpreted
as more “modern” and consequently younger.
Dubbing in the riddarasǫgur
In the analysis presented in the following, I study the occurrence of loan-

words in the assumedly early translation Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar and
160
other riddarasǫgur. Since borrowed vocabulary typically appears in con-

nection with newly introduced subject matter, the common theme of the
riddarasǫgur – chivalry – lends itself particularly to such an examination.
For the purpose of this article, I will more specifically focus on the way
the chivalric practice of dubbing is referred to in the individual texts. As
the vocabulary used to allude to this foreign tradition can give us an indi-
cation of how well-known it was at the time of composition of an indi-
vidual saga, this analysis can lead us to new hypotheses regarding the
chronology of the riddarasǫgur.
Before we turn to the vocabulary that is used to refer to a man’s tran-
sition into knighthood in the Old Norse riddarasǫgur, I briefly want to
present the type of phrases we find in the Old French source texts. In
romances like Chrétien de Troyes’ Le Conte du Graal, from which the
examples below are taken, there are two main ways of expressing that a
man becomes a knight. On the one hand, we find variations of the verb-
noun construction faire chevaliers, ‘make a knight’, as in examples one
and two:
1) Et li vallés au chevalier,
Qui tant avoit a lui parlé,
Dist: “Sire, par chi sont alé
Li chevalier et les puceles,
Mais or me redites noveles
Del roi qui les chevaliers fait
Et le liu ou il plus estait.” (Le Roman de Perceval: 15, ll. 328–334)
And the young man said to the knight, who had spoken to him so
much: “Sir, the knights and the maidens have passed by here. But
now tell me about the king who makes knights, and the place where
he usually resides.”
2) Et li preudom s’est abaissiez,

Si li chaucha l’esperon destre.
La costume soloit tex estre
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suzanne marti
Que cil qui faisoit chevalier

Li devoit l’esperon cauchier. (Le Roman de Perceval: 67, ll. 1624–1628)
The gentleman leaned over and attached his right spur. It was custom
that the one who made a knight should attach his spur.
Beside this expression that lays more emphasis on the result of a man’s
knighting than on the ceremony involved in it, the Old French poets also
use a single verb to refer to this custom: adouber, ‘to dub (a knight); arm,
equip’ (Old French-English Dictionary: 12). In the following examples
from the Conte du Graal, it is clearly the aspect of dubbing that is implied
in the use of the verb:
3) “Qui vos atorna dont ensi?

– Vallet, je te dirai bien qui.
– Dites le dont. – Molt volentiers.
N’a pas encore .v. ans entiers
Que tot cest harnois me dona
Li rois Artus qui m’adouba.” (Le Roman de Perceval: 13, ll. 285–290)
“Who, then, has equipped you like this?” “Young man, I will tell you
who.” “Then tell me!” “With pleasure. It has not been five whole
years since King Arthur, who dubbed me, gave me all this equip-
ment.”
4) “Au roi d’Eschavalon ala

Li aisnez, et tant servi l’a
Que chevaliers fu adoubez;
Et li autres, qui puis fu nez,
Fu au roi Ban de Gomorret.
En .i. jor andui li vallet
Adoubé et chevalier furent,
Et en .i. jor meïsme murent […].” (Le Roman de Perceval: 19–20,
ll. 463–470)
162
“The older went to the king of Escavalon and served him until he
was dubbed a knight. And the other, the younger, went to King Ban
of Gomeret. On the same day, the young men were dubbed and
became knights, and on one and the same day they died.”
Thus, the Old French poets have the choice between using a relatively
specific single verb and a more paraphrasing expression to refer to
knighting. From the way in which dubbing is alluded to in Chrétien de
Troyes’ romances, it also becomes evident that the poet expected his audi-
ence to be familiar with the central implications of a man’s transition into
knighthood. For instance, this becomes apparent in the following passage
in the Conte du Graal, where Perceval is advised who to refer to as the
source of all his chivalric education:
5) “ – Li vavasors, ce porrez dire,

Qui vostre esperon vos caucha,
Le vos aprist et ensaigna.” (Le Roman de Perceval: 70, ll. 1686–1688)
“You can say that the gentleman who attached your spur taught and
instructed you.”
By calling the knight who dubbed Perceval the “gentleman who attached
your spur”, the poet reveals his expectations to the audience: they should
be familiar enough with the practices involved in the ceremony of
knighting to be able to infer what the attaching of the spur symbolizes.
Hence, the implications of dubbing appear to have been well established
and commonly known at the time of composition of the Conte du Graal,
as is clearly suggested by this metaphorical allusion to Perceval’s
knighting (cf. also Broughton 1986: 293–294).
Now that we have seen what kind of vocabulary the Old French
sources use with regard to the tradition of knighting, let us turn to its
representations in the riddarasǫgur. Although Thomas d’Angleterre’s
Tristan is not preserved in its entirety, and therefore cannot serve as a
source for direct comparison with its Old Norse counterpart Tristrams
saga, I want to begin by examining mentions of dubbing in this purport-
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edly early translation. Like the Old French romances, Tristrams saga also
reveals two ways of referring to the ceremony that marks a man’s entry
into chivalry, and they are not unlike the expressions found in Old
French. In example six, dubbing is mentioned in an account of a great
feast held by King Markis in Cornwall:
6) Þar gerðuz þá nýdubbaðir riddarar ok ungir menn með fögrum

atreiðum ok léku riddaraliga fyrir útan öfund ok hégóma ok öðlaz
með því ást ok yndi fríðra meyja ok kurteisra kvenna [...]. (Tris-
trams saga ok Ísöndar: 32).
There the newly dubbed knights and young men entertained them-
selves with jousting and played chivalrously without ill-will and
deceit, and thereby stirred up love and delight in beautiful maidens
and courteous women.
At this first mention of knighting in Tristrams saga, the relevant expres-

sion, nýdubbaðir riddarar, contains an adjective that refers to the recently
acquired status of the men in question. This adjective is constructed on
the basis of the verb dubba ‘to dub a knight; to arm, dress’ (Cleasby &
Vigfusson 1874: 108), which bears clear resemblance to the aforemen-
tioned Old French verb adouber. Although it is not possible to determine
whether the choice of this adjective could have been directly influenced
by the source text the translator was working with, it is important to
note this first occurrence of an expression based on what is clearly a loan
– and most likely one that stems from Old French (cf. de Vries 1962:
86). However, the verb dubba is not consistently used to refer to
knighting in Tristrams saga. When a man is rewarded for bringing news
about Tristan’s return to King Markis’ court, the Old Norse text reads
as follows:
7) Sem kóngr heyrði þessi tíðindi, þá varð hann feginn ok mjök

glaðr ok gerir þegar þann unga mann riddara ok gaf honum góð
herklæði sakir fagnaðartíðinda. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 120)
164
When the king heard this news, he was joyful and very glad, and he
immediately made the young man knight and gave him good armour,
because of the good news.
Instead of the verb dubba, the composer of Tristrams saga here uses the
phrase gera riddara, which corresponds closely to the alternative
wording in Old French. Thus, references to dubbing in Tristrams saga
reveal that the terminology that was available in Norse at the time of
its composition strongly resembles that used in Old French romances.
And, as the translator had at his disposal two alternative ways of refer-
ring to a man’s transition into knighthood, vocabulary relating to this
particular aspect of chivalry appears to have been relatively well estab-
lished when Tristrams saga – or at least its surviving version – was
written down. While the phrasing gera riddara probably would have
been intelligible even for an audience without much knowledge of
chivalry, the use of the verb dubba in Tristrams saga suggests that its
scribe assumed his audience to already have a deeper familiarity with
this new concept. After all, dubba does not make the implications of
this practice as explicit as the phrase gera riddara, and its use therefore
presupposes that the audience already has a fundamental knowledge of
knighthood and its rite of initiation.
The Norse translator of Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal, on the
other hand, does not appear to have expected the same kind of familiarity
of his audience – or the relevant vocabulary may not have been known
to him. As a thorough analysis of references to knighting in Parcevals
saga has shown (cf. Marti 2010: 130–135), it does not reveal the same
lexical variety to denote a man’s entry into chivalry as Tristrams saga.
Unlike the author of the latter, the translator of Parcevals saga never uses
the loan-word dubba, but rather the construction gera riddara or another
paraphrase. That is to say that gera riddara is used to translate both the
corresponding Old French phrase faire chevaliers and the single verb
adouber. In example eight, one of the earliest mentions of dubbing in the
Conte du Graal is clearly paraphrased in Old Norse:
165
suzanne marti
8) “N’a pas encore .v. ans entiers

Que tot cest harnois me dona
Li rois Artus qui m’adouba.” (Le Roman de Perceval: 13, ll. 288–290)
“It hasn’t been five whole years since King Arthur, who dubbed me,
gave me all this equipment.”
Riddarinn sagði honum, at þetta váru allt vápn þau er Artús kóngr
gaf honum. (Parcevals saga: 108)
The knight told him that all these were arms that King Arthur had
given to him.
Here the translator does not explicitly render the dubbing that is alluded
to in the Old French original, but rather focuses on one single aspect that
is implied in this ceremony. Even though this central message of how
the knight obtained his equipment is retained in Parcevals saga, the fact
that the bestowal of arms was connected to his knighting is omitted.
Thus, the Old French adouber here does not have a direct rendering in
Parcevals saga, which raises the question of whether the translator would
have known one at all.
When the phrase faire chevaliers is used in the Conte du Graal, the
Norse translator is able to follow the Old French model more closely.
This is for example illustrated by the following passage from the Conte
du Graal and its counterpart in Parcevals saga:
9) “Et cil le norri et garda

Au plus chierement que il pot,
Tant c’une soe fille sot
Proiere et requerre d’amor;
Et cele dist que a nul jor
S’amor ne li otroieroit
Tant que il chevaliers seroit.
Cil qui molt voloit esploitier
Se fist lués faire chevalier
166
Puis si revint a sa proiere.” (Le Roman de Perceval: 205–206, ll.

4846–4855)
“And he raised and protected him as dearly as he could, until he

sought the love of one of his daughters. And she said that she would
not give him her love until he was a knight. And he desired so much
to succeed that he had himself made a knight immediately, and then
returned with his request.”
[...] ok hann var með honum þar til er hann var vaxinn, en þá beiddiz
hann ástar dóttur hans er hann unni með allri ást. En hún sagði at
hann skyldi fyrr riddari vera. En hann gerðist þegar riddari sakir ástar
hennar […]. (Parcevals saga: 168)
And he stayed with him until he grew up, and then he sought the
love of his daughter, whom he loved with all his heart. But she said
that he should first become a knight. And he was made a knight at
once for the sake of her love.
Although the Old Norse version of this account of why a man chose to
become a knight is slightly abridged, the phrase relating to his actual tran-
sition corresponds directly to its Old French model. The facility to follow
the original closely is here certainly increased by the similarity the Old
Norse phrase bears to its Old French equivalent faire chevaliers. However,
an examination of other references to dubbing in Parcevals saga reveals
that the translator favours the expression gera riddara also when the
wording in the original does not encourage its use. In example ten, the
occurrence of this phrase rather seems to be incited by the translator’s
attempt to render the passage more easily intelligible for his audience:
10) “Li vavasors, ce porrez dire,

Qui vostre esperon vos caucha,
Le vos aprist et ensaigna.” (Le Roman de Perceval: 70, ll. 1686–1688)
167
suzanne marti
“You can say that the gentleman who attached your spur taught and
instructed you.”
“Seg at sá höfðingi kendi þér svá er þik gerði riddara.” (Parcevals saga:
130)
“Say that the lord who made you a knight taught you.”
As suggested above, the Old French wording here presupposes a sound

knowledge of chivalry and the traditions related to it; after all, the link
between attaching a spur and bestowing knighthood would only be evident
to a reader/listener who has been previously confronted with this ceremony.
The fact that the reference to this practice is not rendered more literally in
Parcevals saga, on the other hand, indicates that the translator did not expect
the same degree of acquaintance with knighthood from his audience. This
impression is particularly strengthened by the occurrence of a comparable
phrasing shortly before this scene in Parcevals saga. In the description of
Perceval’s own knighting, the reader is informed that síðan batt riddarinn
spora á hægra fót honum (Parcevals saga: 128) ʻthe knight then attached a spur
to his right footʼ, because this is how it was customary to make a knight at
that time (Svá var þá siðr at gera riddara; Parcevals saga: 128). Despite this
foregoing explanation of the traditions involved in the ceremony of dub-
bing, the translator does not seem to have considered them to be known
well enough amongst his prospective audience to use the attaching of the
spur as a metaphor for knighting. Instead, he once again applies the phrase
gera riddara that makes the meaning of the ceremony more explicit, and
that he often seems to deem the most suitable for his purposes.
There are several possible objections to the assumption that the trans-
lator of Parcevals saga consciously employs gera riddara due to his audi-
ence’s limited familiarity with chivalry, or that it results from the unavail-
ability of other expressions – such as the loan verb dubba. For one thing,
the frequency with which the Old French source text also uses faire cheva-
liers, rather than adouber, can be regarded as a possible reason for the
absence of dubba from Parcevals saga. As Chrétien de Troyes regularly
opts for this construction in the Conte du Graal, the translator may
168
simply have been influenced by the Old French word choice when he
favoured its Norse equivalent over other ways of referring to knighting.
Yet, an examination of other riddarasǫgur reveals that their translators
can make use of dubba even when faire chevaliers figures in the source
text. For example, the following scene from Erec et Enide and its Old
Norse version Erex saga illustrates that the loan dubba is established
enough to replace the more literal gera riddara:
11) Aprés por la joie angreignier

Comanda çant vaslez beignier;
Que toz les viaut chevaliers feire.
N’i a nul qui n’et robe veire
De riche paile d’Alixandre
Chascuns tel com il la vost prandre
A s’eslite et a sa devise.
Tuit orent armes d’une guise
Et chevaus coranz et delivres;
Toz li pire valoit çant livres. (Erec und Enide: 53, ll. 2015–2024)
Then, to increase the joy, he commanded a hundred young men to

bathe, because he wanted to make them all knights. There was none
who did not receive a robe of beautiful Alexandrian silk, each just as
he wanted to have it, according to his choice and taste. All had iden-
tical arms and swift and agile horses; even the worst was worth a
hundred pounds.
[G]ledur nu og sæmer þa alla er komner voru til hanz, og setur þetta

brudlaup med allre prijde og glede, dubbar hann margann ungann
mann til riddara, gefur þeim aullum einfaulld vopn, og agiæt klæde
[...]. (Erex saga Artuskappa: 28)
He now brings joy and honour to all those who have come to him,
and he arranges this wedding with great pomp and joy. He dubs
many a young man a knight, gives them all identical weapons and
excellent clothing.
169
suzanne marti
While this passage differs slightly in the two surviving versions of Erex
saga, which are preserved in the manuscripts AM 181b fol (cf. the excerpt
above) and Holm papp 46 fol, the verb dubba translates the Old French
faire chevaliers in both of them. And although the Old Norse text here
does not follow Chrétien’s model very literally, it is certainly worth
noticing that this loan-word is used in all the extant versions of the saga,
even without the occurrence of the corresponding verb adouber in any
of the extant versions of Erec et Enide. If the translator chose to render
the account to how King Arthur knighted many young men by means
of the loan dubba, this verb must already have been fairly well known at
the time of composition of Erex saga – both to the translator and to his
audience. Furthermore, this usage of dubba clearly suggests that its
absence from Parcevals saga cannot solely be explained on the grounds
of the sparing use of adouber in the Conte du Graal.
This is where another possible objection comes into play. Seeing
that specific formulations in the surviving versions of the riddarasǫgur
may stem from later copyists, rather than the initial translator, the
occurrence of the loan-word dubba in these sagas has to be put into
perspective. In the case of Erex saga, for example, the extant manu-
scripts postdate the assumed time of composition of the riddarasǫgur
by centuries. While AM 181b fol, a copy of Holm perg 6 4°, is dated
to around 1650, the alternative version in Holm papp 46 fol, a copy
of *Ormsbók, was written in 1690 (Kalinke 1999: 219–220; Blaisdell
1965: xv–xxxv). Thus, it may well be that a copyist – at some point
in the course of the saga’s transmission in medieval, and post-medieval,
Norway and Iceland – replaced a hypothetical previous phrasing like
*gerir hann margann ungann mann riddara with the transmitted dubbar
hann margann ungann mann til riddara. Since Tristrams saga likewise
is only preserved in a seventeenth-century manuscript, the singular
incidence of the adjective nýdubbaðir in this saga could equally well be
attributed to a later scribe, who may have replaced the translator’s orig-
inal wording with a construction based on a more recent loan. How-
ever, another riddarasaga illustrates that dubba is by no means entirely
absent from thirteenth-century manuscripts. At the beginning of Elíss
saga ok Rósamundu, the Norse adaptation of the chanson de geste Elie
170
de Saint Gille, the translator clearly seems influenced by the word

choice of the Old French original:
12) “Par Saint Piere de Rome, ja sera adoubés.

S’il avoit or les armes, par la foi que doi Dé,
Mar seroit en ma terre ne veus ne trovés.
Salatré,” dist li quens, “mes armes m’aportés.”
(Elie de Saint Gille: 4, ll. 97–100)
“By Saint Peter of Rome, he will be knighted now. By the faith I owe
God, if he already had arms, it would be unlucky for him to be seen
or found in my lands. Salatre,” said the count, “bring me my arms.”
Þat væit hinn helgi Petr, Ruma borgar postole, at nu bæint scal ec
gera hann riddera! Þui nest callaðe hertoginn til sin Salatre, scialld-
suiæin sinn, oc mællti: fœr mer hin beztu hervapn oc klæðe min,
þuiat nu vil ec sun minn dubba til riddera, oc lát nu þegar læið upp
ræisa a vollum atræiðar ás oc a binnda sciollduna oc bryniuna hia
Darbes, borg varre. (Elis saga ok Rósamundu: 10)
Saint Peter, the Apostle of Rome, knows that I will right away make
him a knight! Then the duke called his shield-bearer Salatre and
spoke: “Bring me my best weapons and armour, because I want to
dub my son a knight, and let the quintain pole be raised on the field
and tie the shields and coat of mail to it at Darbes, our castle.”
Although this passage from Elie de Saint Gille is somewhat paraphrased

in its Old Norse version, the translator faithfully renders the overall
meaning of the account of how Elie’s father decides for his son to become
a knight. Moreover, this excerpt reveals that the author of Elíss saga also
knows both possible ways of alluding to this ceremony. While the con-
struction gera riddara is first used to translate the Old French adouber, it
is interesting to note that the translator subsequently still makes use of
the verb dubba. Thus, the translator seems to be affected by the wording
of the original, even if the loan-word appears in a slightly different con-
171
suzanne marti
text than its Old French counterpart. What is, however, particularly
important about this occurrence of dubba is the fact that it is preserved
in all the surviving manuscript versions of Elíss saga. It does not only
appear in younger manuscripts like AM 533 4° or Holm perg 6 4° – both
from the fifteenth century – but also in one of oldest and most significant
riddarasǫgur-manuscripts, De la Gardie 4–7 fol from the mid-thirteenth
century (Kölbing 1881: viii–ix). We are here possibly confronted with
the earliest surviving usage of the verb dubba, which provides us with
some counter-evidence to the suggestion that its occurrence in other
sagas should be ascribed to later scribes, rather than their original trans-
lator. Moreover, it is worth noticing that the loan dubba thus also figures
in Holm perg 6 4°, the main manuscript of Parcevals saga, which was also
written by the same hand as Elíss saga. As Holm perg 6 4° preserves both
Elíss saga with its use of more “modern” vocabulary, and Parcevals saga
and its more traditional terminology, it seems plausible to assume that
the absence of the loan dubba from Parcevals saga can be traced back to
its translator. It may thus indeed be due to the original translator’s lacking
familiarity with this new vocabulary – or his conception of the prospec-
tive audience’s limited knowledge of chivalry and its practices – that the
translation of Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal does not contain any
instances of this addition to Old Norse lexicon.
Conclusions: The chronology of

the riddarasǫgur re-examined
As we have seen from the passages relating to dubbing in a number of
translated riddarasǫgur, the various texts display different degrees of
familiarity with chivalry and the traditions related to it. The authors of
some of the sagas of chivalry, such as Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar and Elíss
saga ok Rósamundu, reveal – and presuppose – a sound acquaintance with
chivalric practices, which manifests itself in the various ways of referring
to a man’s transition into knighthood. Since these sagas make use of a
varied vocabulary that reflects the expressions employed in the Old
French sources, the pertinent terminology appears to be relatively well
172
established at the time of their composition. Moreover, their authors

seem to expect their respective audience(s) to be aware of the implica-
tions of dubbing, as they apply a vocabulary that does not always make
its consequences as explicit as, for example, an expression of the type
gera riddara. Other sagas, however, do not bring to light the same degree
of knowledge of this practice. As the translator of Parcevals saga renders
all the allusions to knighting in Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal by
means of the phrase gera riddara or additional explanations, he does not
appear to have expected his audience to be equally familiar with the
implications of the ceremony as other translators. This impression is fur-
ther strengthened by the extent to which the translator repeatedly
explains the consequences of knighting to his audience, particularly by
additionally informing it about the bestowal of gifts involved in this ritual
(cf. Marti 2010: 133–135). As many riddarasǫgur are only preserved in
manuscripts that are considerably younger than their assumed time of
composition, it is tempting to attribute the use of more varied and
“modern” terminology relating to dubbing to scribes in the post-transla-
tional transmission of the sagas in question. However, the occurrence of
the loan dubba in the oldest surviving riddarasǫgur manuscript, De la
Gardie 4–7 fol, indicates that it was already known to a translator, or
subsequent copyist, in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. Thus,
the absence of this specific item of chivalry-related terminology from
Parcevals saga suggests that the translation of Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte
du Graal may have been composed at a time when the relevant vocabulary
was not very well established – and at any rate not as commonly known
as at the time of composition of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar or Elíss saga ok
Rósamundu. Conversely, the use of a precise loan-word to denote a facet
of the newly introduced concept of chivalry speaks for the relative
“modernity” of Tristrams, Elíss and Erex saga, and thus also for their com-
position at a time when the Norse audience was already relatively well
acquainted with different aspects of knighthood.
A more extensive study of vocabulary relating to such foreign insti-
tutions as chivalry would certainly be requisite in order to be able to
establish just how much previous knowledge the Old Norse translators
expected of their audience, or indeed had themselves. Nevertheless, the
173
suzanne marti
case study presented above reveals some lexical evidence for the hypoth-
esis that riddarasǫgur that have traditionally been regarded as early trans-
lations – most particularly Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar – may not be as old
as often suggested. Others, like Parcevals saga, may have been introduced
in thirteenth-century Norway earlier than previously assumed. It there-
fore proves to be fruitful to dedicate some time and attention to the
vocabulary that was introduced in Old Norse by means of the translated
riddarasǫgur, and a broader study of this kind may finally give us some
insight into the order in which these tales of chivalry appeared in
medieval Norway.
174
Arthurian ethics in thirteenth-century Old
Norse literature and society
Stefka Georgieva Eriksen
T he aim of this article is to discuss the function of Arthurian ethics

and ideals in thirteenth-century Old Norse literature, as conveyed
in Old Norse translations of Arthurian material, and the relationship
between fiction and contemporary legal norms with regard to specific eth-
ical dilemmas. In this discussion, the main emphasis will be on the reflec-
tive and ruminating cognitive process when solving an ethical dilemma,
which appears as a core meaning-constructing element of both literary
and social realities. The main sources of this study will be the four texts
from the Norwegian manuscript De la Gardie 4–7 fol. (DG 4–7) from c.
1270, which will be read in dialogic relationship to each other. Two of the
texts are translations from Latin and two from Old French, including Old
Norse translations of some of the lais of Marie de France, which comprise
Arthurian material. Texts of different genres and origins will thus be jux-
taposed and, whether coherent or not, the holistic image of the ethical
dilemmas presented in these four texts will then be related to the contem-
poraneous Old Norse socio-cultural and legal context. The main questions
that I will address are: (1) What are the prevalent ethical conflicts in a
sample of thirteenth-century Old Norse literature, and what role does the
Arthurian material play in this context on the literary level, and (2) How
do the Arthurian ethical issues described in these texts relate to the socio-
legal norms in thirteenth-century Norway?
The material and main questions
The content of the manuscript DG 4–7 makes it especially suitable for

discussing the reception of Arthurian material, as well as ethical issues
175
stefka georgieva eriksen
prevalent in thirteenth-century Old Norse society. The manuscript con-

tains texts translated from two different languages and representing dif-
ferent literary genres.1 This distinguishes it from most other extant con-
temporary Norwegian manuscripts which contain only one text. The
intended dialogic reading of the four texts is implied by the codicological
coherence of the manuscript. It has a uniform layout and is written by
three closely-collaborating scribes. It appears, thus, as a single production
and usage unit.2 The four text-witnesses seem therefore to have been
intended to be read in a dialogic manner, i.e. that the audience would
have been familiar with all of them and understood them in the light of
each other, even if the separate texts were read individually. The four
texts in the main part of the manuscript are:
1. Pamphilus, a translation of the Latin Pamphilus de amore, a pseudo-

Ovidian production on the “art of love”, composed by an anonymous
author at the end of the twelfth century, probably in England or
northern France (Holm-Olsen 1940; Tveitane 1972: 28; Évesque
1931: 169–171).
2. Dialogue between Hugrekki (courage) and Æðra (fear) which is highly

fragmentary, since only thirteen lines from it are still extant. The dia-
logue was translated from Moralium dogma philosophorum, a collec-
tion on moral philosophy. The identity of the author of Moralium
dogma philosophorum has been extensively discussed by scholars. One
possibility is the French author and philosopher William of Conches
1 Note that the manuscript DG 4–7, as it is preserved today, consists of two parts. The
first parts consists of two leaves and contains the end of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, a ver-
nacular version of a lost Latin work by the Icelandic Benedictine monk Oddr Snor-
rason (Tveitane 1972: 9). The second and main part is the one of main interest here
and what I refer to when discussing the content and the structure of DG 4–7 fol. The
two parts were most probably not part of one and the same manuscript in the thir-
teenth century, but they may have been produced in the same scribal centre, since the
mise en page and mise en texte are quite similar, with the exception that the writing is
smaller and finer in the Óláfs saga part. I will come back to the Óláfs saga part towards
the end of the article, when discussing the ownership and readership of DG 4–7.
2 The terms production unit and usage unit were introduced by Kwakkel (2002).
176
arthurian ethics in thirteenth-century old norse
(c. 1080–1154), who himself may have built on the pseudo-Senecan

De remediis fortuitorum. Other possible authors are Walter of
Châtillon (Gauthier 1951) and Alan of Lille (Glorieux 1948).3
3. Elíss saga ok Rósamundu,4 a translation of the Old French chanson de

geste Elie de Saint-Gille.5
4. Strengleikar,6 a collection of short stories, including some of the lais

of Marie de France, some other lais with known French originals
and some without known French originals. Three of the strengleikar
are translations of Arthurian material, and will be the core object of
this study.
The intended dialogic reading of these four texts is reflected not only in
the very compilation of these four texts in one manuscript, but also in
their content and form. Pamphilus is sometimes characterized as a drama,
or a fabliaux-like story, even a farce. It is written in the form of a dialogue
between Pamphilus, Galathea, the goddess Venus and an old woman
Anus. This is a love story, with special emphasis on the personal moral
features of the main protagonist Pamphilus. The thirteen lines that sur-
vive from the dialogue between Hugrekki (courage) and Æðra (fear) do
not reveal much of the actual content of the dialogue, but its form and
voices in the dialogue, i.e. hugrekki and æðra legitimate the focus on inner
moral dilemmas. Elíss saga is about Elís’ relationship to his father, mother,
friends, comrades and beloved, i.e. again personal relationships which
are often defined by means of inner ethical struggles in the protagonists.
The stories in Strengleikar cover issues like love, infidelity, bridal quests,
friendship, loyalty and betrayal, but include also magical elements and
3 See also Williams (1957), for a review of the discussion from 1931 to 1956.
4 The work is edited by Kölbing (Elis saga ok Rosamundu). I have transcribed and
translated into English two versions of Elíss saga, which will serve as a basis for a
new forthcoming critical edition.
5 The Old French poem is edited by Raynaud (Elie de Saint Gille), Hartmann & Mal-
icote (Elye de Saint-Gilles).
6 The text is edited and translated into English in Strengleikar (1979).
177
creatures with supernatural qualities, such as elves and dwarfs. Some of

them function as exempla, containing moral conclusions, defining and
distinguishing between right and wrong.
In addition to the subject matter commenting on personal ethics,
the form of the texts underscores the very process of reflection and con-
templation on such issues. The dialogic forms of both Pamphilus and
the Dialogue invite a discursive mode of reading. The words hugrekki 7
and æðra8 refer to a mental process of reasoning and philosophic evalu-
ation. In addition, the four text-witnesses, if read dialogically, would
have presented different aspects and nuances of the ethical issues
described, thus further intensifying and enriching the reflection-
inspiring potentiality of the manuscript as a whole. The subject matter
of this study is closely related to and springs out of this discursive and
dialogic content and form of the texts and the manuscript, when read
as a coherent book.
Many medieval philosophers comment on personal ethical dilemmas
and the options one has when choosing appropriate actions (See Cople-
ston 1985). They pay close attention to the parameters conditioning per-
sonal ethics, such as rational thought and reason, desire for knowledge,
social expectations, lustful desires, or personal faith.9 Many of these
concerns were at the heart of chivalric ethical ideals, which are conveyed
in Arthurian material. Chivalric culture, where personal moral ethics
were inseparable from religious and secular/legal guidelines, was the
context in which the source-texts of the text-witnesses in DG 4–7 were
written. The introduction of chivalric culture has been suggested as a
possible reason for the commissioning of the translations by King
Hákon Hákonarson (Fidjestøl 1997). A primary purpose of ethical
dilemmas in literature is often narratological; a good story almost always
requires an ethical conflict. Laws, on the other hand, have a different
7 Mod, Uforfærdethet; lat. Fortitudo (Fritzner 1886–1891).

8 Frygt, Betænkelighet, Mangel paa frimodighet; æðrast – ad finde eller føle betænke-
ligheder ved noget, saa at man derved afholdes fra at befatte sig dermed (Fritzner
1886–1891).
9 For general introductions see Jones (1969), Copleston (1985), Wyller (1999),
Johansen & Vetlesen (2005), and Koterski (2009).
178
primary purpose; even though they may be rhetorical in the sense that
their purpose was to produce an effect, which could be done by
numerous rhetorical nuances and emphases, laws are not bound by the
same narratological requirements as literature, and therefore allow a
more direct insight into actual and relevant ethical conflicts. The focus
of the comparison between fiction and law will thus not fall on linguistic
and stylistic representations, but on the core content of the ethical
dilemmas presented in the literary as opposed to the legal texts. Studying
chivalric ethics, as represented in the Old Norse Arthurian translations,
in conjunction with contemporary socio-cultural and legal realities in
Norway, is ultimately instructive of the social, moral and ethical func-
tion of such literature as that preserved in DG 4–7 fol. as well as its pos-
sible reception by individual readers.
Ethical reading and writing
It has to be emphasized that by focusing on the moral and ethical func-

tion of the manuscript as a whole, I will not be in search of a single clear
moral framework inherent in the manuscript, but rather look for various
norms and modes of thinking, which co-exist or are set up in dialogic
juxtapositions. In this, I follow the main premises of ethical reading
(tropologia) which was one of the four main modes of reading in the
Middle Ages. The four senses of the Scripture are littera, which teaches
the literal stories and meanings of events; allegoria, which indicates the
allegorical meaning of a story or event; tropologia, which teaches the
moral significance of a story and the reader is supposed to apply the
moral lesson of the story upon his own life; and anagogia, which con-
textualizes an event within the story of heavenly eternal glory (Lubac
1998: 1). Littera and allegoria are commonly seen as stages of lectio
reading, which is the process of studying the exposition, the grammar
and dialectic of a text. Tropologia and anagogia are mostly regarded as
parts of moral theological discussion, but also as a meditatio process,
which “constitute the ethical activity of making one’s reading one’s own”
(Carruthers 1990: 165).
179
It is the tropologia-level of reading which is of particular interest here.

John Dagenais (1994)10 classifies ethical reading as one of the most
common modes of medieval reading (Dagenais 1994: 8), a process which
is steered by any form of practical wisdom, be it theological, political or
social. By ethical reading, he means a reading which does not aim to dis-
cover a specific meaning, or to lead to a judgemental evaluation of good
vs. evil. Ethical reading is rather a process which allows for and accepts
dualities, contradictions, oppositions, similarities and associations.
Medieval readers saw a world of human action for good or ill co-
extensive with their own. Texts were acts of demonstrative rhetoric
that reached out and grabbed the reader, involved him or her in praise
and blame, in judgments about effective and ineffective human
behavior. (Dagenais 1994: xvii)
It is precisely in these discursive oppositions that the loci of textual meaning

are often to be found (Dagenais 1994: 7). A similar idea is expressed by
Minnis and Scott (1988). They claim that the primary goal of historians in
the Middle Ages was not to record mere facts, but to present a repertoire
of exempla, which gave the reader the possibility to reflect over good and
bad: “Not objectivity, but deliberate moral bias was what was valued”
(Minnis & Scott 1988: 115). Mary Carruthers (1990: 164) also stresses that
medieval reading was “to be digested, to be ruminated, like a cow chewing
her cud, or like a bee making honey from the nectar of flowers”. Reading
in the Middle Ages meant making a text familiar and making it one’s own
by reflecting, meditating and remembering it.
The applicability of the four levels of reading of the Scripture on sec-
ular texts can be and has been debated.11 Reading the text-witnesses in
10 The primary material that is discussed by Dagenais is the Libro de Buen Amor, which
is an adaptation and reworking of Pamphilus. This is relevant in the context of this
investigation, since one of the text-witnesses I study is a version of Pamphilus. Dage-
nais’ conclusions will be easily comparable to my own, since I am partly adopting
his methodological and theoretical approach.
11 The discussion is well covered in Dante studies. See for example Singleton (1950).
For allegorical readings of Old French literature, see Silvia Huot (1997). For alle-
180
DG 4–7 ethically is, however, explicitly legitimated and invited in the

Dialogue, where it is stated:
Þat hæfir huerium dugande manni at kiosa ser rett efni oc siðan vera
fasthalldr a þui oc þui fylgia oc iamnan gott gera. (Heilagra Manna
Sögur: 452)
It is appropriate for every capable man to choose what is right and then
be true to that and follow it and always be good. (My translation)
This explicit statement, even though not directly referring to ethical

reading, situates this and the other text-witnesses in the manuscript in
an ethical sphere of debate.
Even though, in this article, I am mostly interested in the recipients’
perspective on DG 4–7, i.e. how the manuscript may have been read,
interpreted and understood, it is significant to foreground that the pro-
duction and writing of the manuscript entailed the same ethical and
digestive processes. This statement may be supported by Carruthers’ dis-
cussion of ethical reading in the Middle Ages, which I referred to above.
She points out that “digestion” is a term applicable to all the complemen-
tary processes of reading, namely composition and writing, collection
and recollection (Carruthers 1990: 166). Other scholars have pointed out
that other text-generating activities, such as translating and copying,
which were central for the production of DG 4–7, shared the same core
characteristics as composition and writing. Rita Copeland (1991), for
example, argues that translation and textual commentary were similar
activities, which both had the potential to reproduce and provide an inter-
pretation of a text within a new cultural and historical situation, even
though the relationship between the source and the target-text could vary
greatly.12 The copying process may be seen as essentially similar to com-
gorical reading of travel in Arthurian romances, see Artin (1974). For a general com-
prehensive investigation of allegory, see Rita Copeland and Peter Struck (2010).
12 Other scholars who have pointed out the same, but based on different material and
argued in a different manner, are Ernst Robert Curtius (1953), A.J. Minnis (1984)
Minnis and A.B. Scott (1988). They all argue that composing, commenting and glossing
181
posing, translating, commenting or glossing, even though the degree of

changes made during the copying of a text-witness from one manuscript
to another may differ greatly.13 In addition, it is not implausible that the
scribes of the manuscript belonged to clerical circles, and were schooled
and well acquainted with the four levels of interpreting.14 Therefore, I
will regard DG 4–7 as a result of the collective ethical “reading” of the
four text-witnesses, produced and infused with various potential mean-
ings by the three scribes who cooperated on the writing of the manu-
script, and whose work was most probably conditioned by other external
factors, such as a possible commissioner, the place of work and intellec-
tual background of the individual scribes.
Arthurian ethics in DG 4–7
With these theoretical clarifications in mind, I now turn to Strengleikar

which includes Old Norse translations of Arthurian material. There are
three strengleikar (short stories) that have Arthurian motifs – Gurun,
Janual and Geitarlauf. A lai called Gurun is mentioned by Thomas in his
romance about Tristan, but there is discussion as to whether it is the
same story as the Old Norse Gurun. One of the hypotheses is that there
may have been up to three different stories with the same name. In addi-
tion, Gurun in Strengleikar does not convey any special ethical dilemmas,
and my attention will therefore fall on the other two stories.
Janual belongs to Arthur’s retinue, together with Sir Gawain and Sir
Yvain. In the beginning of the story he meets a beautiful maiden, who
offers him her love and fortune, under the condition that he keeps their
love secret. So it happens that despite his promise, Janual reveals his
secret, in order to save his social prestige when accused of being gay and
were activities similar in nature and that Latin literary tradition had a great impact on
works by vernacular authors like Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer and Gower.
13 See for example Nichols (1990) and Dagenais (1994), among others.
14 It is suggested that the manuscript was produced in Lyse Abbey in the south-west
of Norway, see e.g. Leach (1921: 180) and Tveitane (1972: 26). The issue is discussed
by Bjørn Bandlien (2005b: 200–203).
182
as an explanation for rejecting indecent propositions by his queen. The

conflict is therefore between Janual’s personal love and the promise to
his sweetheart, on the one hand, and loyalty and respect for his queen
and king, on the other. His social honour and ultimately, his life, are at
stake. This ethical conflict, concerning a choice between being loyal to
the king and one’s own convictions and beliefs, is explicitly referred to
in the story. When Janual is to be judged by the king, it is said that:
Margir varo þeir er at lica konungi ok drottning villdu spilla hans lut.
(Strengleikar: 220|222)
There were many who, in order to please the king and queen, were
willing to decide against him. (Strengleikar: 221)
Geitarlauf is a story about a secret meeting between Tristan and his beloved
queen in a forest, when she is on her way to Pentecost holiday festivities
at the king’s court. As is known, the moral conflict in this story is between
Love and Fate, on the one hand, and social relationships and loyalty within
the family, on the other. The conflict is caused by a magic love potion which
Tristan and the queen accidentally drink, and which ultimately leads to
their death. We know that, and probably the medieval reader would have
known that, but the short story in Strengleikar does not explicitly mention
the drama of the story. The two sides of the ethical dilemma are described
in somewhat unbalanced fashion, with the emphasis placed on:
[…] hina tryggazto ast þeirra. af hverio þau fengo margan harmulegan
harm. ok um siðir do þau bæðe a einum degi. (Strengleikar: 196)
The very true love between Tristram and the queen, from which they
had much tragic grief and in time they both died on the same day.
(Strengleikar: 197)
A clear consequence of the faithful and intense love between them is

their sorrow and emotional pain:
183
[…] sa er ann trygglega er harms fullr mioc þa er hann fær ei vilia sinn.
(Strengleikar: 196)
[…] he who loves faithfully is full of sorrow when he does not achieve
his will and desire. (Strengleikar: 197)
Tristram’s emotional devastation and sense of the unsolvable situation

is clear when he exclaims:
Ei ma ec lifa on þin. ok þu on min. (Strengleikar: 198)
I cannot live without you nor you without me. (Strengleikar: 199)
The other aspect of the conflict, i.e. the social difficulties and disappoint-
ments this love brings, is expressed only once, when King Mark expresses
regrets about his own decision to send Tristram away from his court. He
blames it on the bad counsel of evil men (Strengleikar: 198–99).
The ethical dilemmas mentioned above, from both Janual and Geitar-
lauf, may be seen as juxtaposing personal concerns, such as promises,
love, beliefs, on the one hand, with social norms and responsibilities, on
the other. This ethical conflict is present in other Arthurian material
which was translated into Old Norse.15 In the following, I will read this
ethical dilemma against the background of the other three non-Arthurian
texts in DG 4–7 fol. and discuss whether this Arthurian dilemma stands
out from or merges well with its literary background.
Ethical dilemmas in DG 4–7
The motivational factors for action in the four texts in DG 4–7 are man-
15 Love, which may be seen as an example of a personal concern, has been frequently
discussed based on the Old Norse romances translated from French. See for
example, Bjørn Bandlien (2005b) and Robert Cook (2012). Very often, however,
the focus in these studies falls on one or the other aspect of the conflict, and not on
the ethical and ruminating function of ethical dilemmas in literature, as here.
184
ifold but may be organized in three main groups. First, protagonists’

actions are often determined or conditioned by personal, inner inspira-
tions, such as love, passion, lust and free will. Second, the social context
is of major significance, be it because of its normative rules, the loyalty
bonds it demands, or the reputation and condemnation it produces and
compels. Thirdly, faith, respect and consideration for extra-humane fac-
tors such as God, nature, fate and magic motivate protagonists in their
behaviour. The protagonists are very often drawn between some of these
conflicting ideals, as will be shown in the examples below.16 This tension
sets the frame for many of the narratives and the narratological develop-
ment. Even though the ethical dilemmas may be seen as a narrative tool
for the retelling of a good story, this does lessen the significance of the
reflection, rumination and evaluation process that a reader or listener of
the texts was compelled to engage with upon reception.
External vs. Social

The first example is from Eskia, one of the short stories in Strengleikar.
In the beginning of the story we are told about two knights, who are
good neighbours and best of friends, and their wives. One of the wives
becomes pregnant and gives birth to twin boys. The event is scornfully
commented by the other wife, who claims that no woman can give birth
to two babies at the same time unless she has been with two men. This
sets the first wife in a very bad social position for times to come. The
cruelty is, however, soon to be paid for: a short while later, the gossiping
wife gets pregnant and it is now her turn to give birth to twins. This
opens up for a moral dilemma, a situation of conflicting solutions which
she is debating on her own and with her maidens. She is mourning over
the social death this event would bring her, if it became known and how
she herself is to blame for it because of her lies. Her conclusion is:
En nu at veria sialfa mec fyrir skomm ok svivirðing þa værð ec at myrða

aðra mœyna. Þui at hælldr vil ec þætta mandrap bœta við guð en verða
16 Many other examples may be chosen, but with these, I aim for broadness and represen-
tativeness when it comes to both ethical motivations and the four texts in the manuscript.
185
fyrir hatre ok hafnan allra minna ættingia. Ok ropi allz folksens. Fyrir
þui at sonnu ef þetta kœmr upp fyrir unnasta minn ok frændr þa man
ec æiga allzangan vin þar sem nu a ec marga þui at ec dœmda sialfa mec
i róp. Ok hatr ok amæli. Allra dugandi kuenna. (Strengleikar: 46)
And now, to defend myself from dishonor and disgrace, I have to

murder one of the girls, because I would rather atone for murder
with God than suffer the spite and scorn of all my kin and the slander
of all people, because truly if this comes to the attention of my
dearest one and my family, I will have no friend at all, though I now
have many, because I sentence myself to the slander and hatred and
blame of all virtuous women. (Strengleikar: 47)
The dilemma here is between taking the life of one’s own child and
repenting before God or suffering eternal social humiliation and disgrace.
If she is atoned with God, her social pride will suffer; if she acts in order
to preserve her social honour, she will have to pay for this before God.
The choices are between God and eternal judgement, on the one hand,
and social norms and humiliation, on the other; on a grander scale:
between eternity and earthly existence. In this case, these choices are pre-
sented as incompatible. After a short discussion, the lady’s maidens come
up with a new solution, which seems to satisfy both factors – one of the
babies is taken away and placed at the doors of a monastery, where she
is found and taken care of, and ends up growing up. In other words,
placing the baby in God’s hands is an acceptable solution according to
social, secular and religious norms.17
Social vs. Personal

At other times protagonists have ethical dilemmas and ruminate over sit-
17 A variation on the theme appears in Milun, where a lady gets pregnant out of mat-
rimony and claims that giving birth to the child would bring her loss of honour and
patrimony and every other good. The child is then given away to her sister after
birth. The moral conflict is not as explicitly between social norms and God, as in
Eskia, but the compromise is the same – social honour is saved by a socially, and
religiously acceptable act, i.e. giving away the child.
186
uations when their personal desires conflict with the social norms. The
examples from the Arthurian material presented above, with their focus
on the inner conflict between personal promise, conviction or love, and
social relationships, may be grouped under this category. Many other
examples may be given here, as so many of the Strengleikar stories, for
example, deal with adultery and infidelity, when there is a choice between
love, desire and passion, on the one hand, and submissiveness and social
loyalty to an often old and cruel, partner on the other.
This ethical conflict is also at the core of Pamphilus. The text mainly
deals with the issue of how to win a woman’s heart and how to bear the
emotional turmoil of being in love. A major aspect of the conflict is that
the woman is of higher social standing than the man, which is not socially
acceptable. In his love pursuit, Pamphilus initially pleads to Venus for
assistance and asks her to help him find calmness. She comforts him by
challenging him not to be afraid to show his true love and emotions. Here
there is an implicit conflict between being rational and calm and being
emotional. Venus points out that being emotionally honest is also ration-
ally smart, and encourages him to be persistent, friendly, playful and
entertaining in his attitude and speech.
Pamphilus finds himself in such an intense conflict between his strong
love and the social norms and rules that he experiences physical intensity
and discomfort when he is about to approach his beloved for a chat:
O hosson huessu fogr hon sitr með bero hári. oc hue gott nu væri
um þat at röða við hana. hyggia engi er með mer ne orð huartki. afl
ecki. hennd skialfa. fötr bifaz. mer hamstolnum samir ængi klæða
bunaðr. ræzla nittar þat at mala. er aðr hugt hafða. æigi em ec sa er ec
aðr var. traut kann ec sialfan mik. æigi fylgir rodd ne raust. en þo
verd ec at röða. (Pamphilus: 103)
Oh how beautifully she sits with her uncovered hair! And how nice
it would have been to be able to tell her that! But my mind is not
with me and neither is my speech nor power. My hands are shaking.
My feet are trembling. It does not suit me, with my frantic mind, to
get ready and dressed. Fear, that I never thought I had, stops me from
187
speaking. I am not as I used to be. […] Neither my senses nor my

voice obey me. Nevertheless, I will speak to her. (My translation)
He finally approaches her and tells her that he likes her more than any-
body else, that he is in love with her, and has loved her firmly for years.
She rejects him. He continues to plea to her and she rejects him again,
on the grounds that such a relationship would give her a bad reputation.
Pamphilus seeks advice from an old woman, who helps him to get what
he wants eventually, even though Pamphilus is of lower social standing
than the lady and despite the fact that she is betrothed to somebody else.
The text is traditionally seen as pseudo-Ovidian and a great part of
the text has the sound of proverbs or general ethical counsels about how
to be courteous to women, how to behave properly, to be generous and
entertaining. Venus teaches him that women need to be taken care of
and have emotional security. The old woman teaches him about the sig-
nificance of earthly possessions and being generous. The ethical conflict
is between social norms and personal convictions, between outer riches
and inner beauty and love. The moral lesson is that persistency will even-
tually bring what one dreams of.
External vs. Personal

Despite its considerable brevity, I wish to comment on an excerpt from
the Dialogue where the ethical conflict discussed is between service and
appreciation of God as opposed to personal sorrow. It is argued that:
ohygginn er sa, er harmr barn missu, ne þat at syrgia, at helldr have

Kristr en ec. mæira er at virða hans virðrtaku en brottaka. (Heilagra
Manna Sögur: 452)
He is unwise, who mourns over the loss of his child or grieves that it is
Christ who owns it and not himself. It is better to one should value
higher his receiving [of the child] than the loss. (My translation)
This short passage exemplifies a dilemma hovering between personal

feelings of sorrow and belief in God. Interestingly, the example may be
188
read as a comment on the episode from the short story Eskia, mentioned
above, which was also about the “loss” of a child to God. In Eskia, the
dimension of personal loss of a child was not reflected upon at all, and
the emphasis was placed on the social disgrace that having a child, under
those particular circumstances, could bring. These two examples serve
to illustrate that the dialogic reading of the two texts, Eskia and the Dia-
logue, brings about new perspectives on the dilemmas they describe, com-
pared to their separate reading.
Elíss saga presents another example of the conflict between the per-
sonal and the external aspect of the agent. Elís falls in love with
Rosamunda, who is a Saracen princess. Despite his love for her, he would
not marry her, neither for money nor for property, and not until her land
is taken over by the Christians and she is baptized:
Nu er sa dagr kominn oc timi, er þu scallt min fa til æiginnar konu:

æigi scal þat lengr frestaz! Þegi, iungfru! kuað hann. þat ma æigi
vera: þu ert hæiðin oc truir alog Fabrins oc lytr treguðum Maghun
oc Terrogant; en þoat mer se gefinn þessi hinn mickli dalr fullr af
brendo gulli, þa trui ec alldri a þa: helldr scolo uit gera annat rað. þat
er mer hefir i hug comit: tocum gull œrit oc silfr oc allz conar fiarluti
oc gnogar vistir til tueggia manaða; æigi mon þurfa lengr; oc faurum
ihinn hæsta oc hinn stercasta turnn, oc buum þar; syslum okr æinn
trygguan mann oc gerom eftir liði mer til hialpar. & mon þa hingat
koma Julien hertogi sancti Egidíj, oc með honom Vilialmr or Orengi-
borg oc fiolði hinna bauztu riddera, oc scolo vær þa vinna allt þetta
land; oc scallt þu þa vera skirð oc kristin. Giarnnsamliga! kuað
mærin, ef þu staðfestir mer orð þín upp atru þina. (Elis Saga ok
Rosamundu: 115)
Now this time and day have come when you shall have me as your
own wife. This will not be put off any longer!” “Be silent, maiden!”
he said, “This will not happen. You are heathen and believe in the
law of Fabrin and obey the wooden deities Maghun and Terrogant;
and even if I receive this great valley full of pure gold, I will never
believe you: we should rather do something else, which I came upon:
189
let’s take our gold and silver and all types of valuables and enough
provisions for two months; we should not need more; and let us go
in the highest and strongest tower and live there; we may get a trust-
worthy man, whom we will send to get a troop for help, and Earl
Julien from St. Giles will come here and with him Viliam from Oren-
giborg and many of the best knights and we shall then win over this
whole country and you will then be baptized and Christianized.” “I
would love to!” said the lady, “if you swear to me in the name of your
faith.” (My translation)
The social and legal norm, that a Christian cannot marry a non-Christian,
is obviously a primary premise in this dilemma, which once again illus-
trates that reflection upon numerous personal, social, and religious fac-
tors, is inherent in the reading of the text.
Others
The last two examples above elucidate that the personal, social and
external aspects of various dilemmas are artificially distinguished from
one another: these are often intermingled and condition each other. In
addition, sometimes ethical conflicts occur between motivations of the
same kind: two conflicting emotions, or social norms, or religions factors.
One example of that may be given from the short story Equitan. At the
beginning of the story we are told about one of the female protagonists:
þesse fru var suo frið orðen at væxti ok fægrð ok allri likams skæpnu.
at þo at natturan hæfði hænni huætvitna gevet þat er til fægrðr væri.
Engi var suo ræinlifr munkr i allu þui riki. er hann sa nokkora stund
annlit og alit hænnar at hann myndi æigi skiott snua allum hug sinom
til hænnar ok allum hug at unna hænni. (Strengleikar: 66)
This lady had become so fair in form and beauty and all the shape of
her body that it was as though nature had given her everything that
belonged to beauty. There was no monk in all the realm so chaste that,
if he ever saw her face and features, he would not turn all his thoughts
to her at once and love her with all his heart. (Strengleikar: 67)
190
The conflict is presented here as being between Nature and the beauty,
love and passion it inspires as opposed to chastity and service to God.
The opposition may be seen as one between Nature and God, between
the created and the creator, which certainly deserved attention if seen
against the background of the major philosophical debate about God and
His creation. On the other hand, the passage may be seen as a comment
on the lack of free will to resist the temptations of beauty, which may be
read either as a philosophical observation on the existence of free will,
or more specifically, a comment on monks’ morality.
Nature is mentioned in Guigemar as well, but this time not as
opposed to God. Here it is the cause of something as unnatural as a man
who is not interested in women:
En þat var undarlegst i hans natturo at hann hafnaðe vandlega konom

at unna. Þui at engi var sua frið ne agæt fru. Ne frið mær at hann
villdi til mæla. (Strengleikar: 12)
But what was rare in his nature was that he completely avoided loving
women, for there was no lady so beautiful or excellent, no maiden
so beautiful, that he was willing to direct his love toward her. (Stren-
gleikar: 13)
The passage confirms that love comes from Nature, as was suggested in
Equitan, and that everybody who is not interested in love should be
taught a lesson.18
In Elíss saga, as mentioned above, Rosamunda experiences ethical
conflict because of the difference of her own and her lover’s religion. In
other episodes of the saga, however, the difference of religion is not a
problem, as at one point in the story Elís fights on the side of one group
of Saracens against another group of Saracens. The Dialogue presents an
explicit conflict between the two personal feelings courage and fear. Sev-
eral of the strengleikar indicate that a knight could have an ethical dilemma
18 Note that Nature is a natural way towards God according to Chartrian philosophy,
which propagates that it is through knowledge of nature that one may know God.
191
when trying to balance two social goods, namely the love of a maiden
and the right chivalrous reputation.
The four text-witnesses in DG 4–7, when read ethically and dialog-
ically as a whole, thus present the reader with a wide range of ethical
conflicts, where clear-cut solution is seldom formulated explicitly. The
appropriate solution is most often negotiated in a process of internal
reflection or a dialogue with other protagonists. The reading of the texts
would have inspired such internal or dialogic discussions within a pri-
vate reader as well as within a social community of readers. It is then
not the ethical dilemmas themselves, but rather the process of reflection
upon them that appears as a central meaning of the texts in this manu-
script.
In one case only, the moral is explicitly announced by the narrator,
namely in Equitan. The narrator condemns the actions of the two main
protagonists by quotation from the Bible, with references to the holy
leper Lazarus and the holy Job, a quotation from St Augustine’s De libero
arbitrio 3 (On the Free Choice of the Will) and De natura et gratia, and a
quotation from the Latin poem Pergama flere volo.19
Þvi at guð skipar lanom sinom sem hanum synizc. Gæfr þæim er
hann vill gævet hava. fra tekr þæim er illa nyta. æða ælligar at ræinsa
þa ok rœyna sem hinn hælga Jobb… Guðer vornn ok varnaðr gnog
gæva ok urugg gæzla saklausra ok mæinlausra. ryðr skiott ok af þæim
rindr uvini ok umsætr allzskyns. (Strengleikar: 78)
For God deals out his loans as he wishes; he gives to those to whom
he wants to give, and he takes away from those who use them badly
– or else to purge them and prove them like the holy Job… God
watches over the misdeeds of men and he sees their malevolence; he
turns against themselves the evils which they contrive for others.
(Strengleikar: 79)
19 The poem is part of an elegy De destruction Troiae. It appears in several literary con-
texts, such as a medieval collection of proverbs, and Carmina Burana.
192
Regardless of whether one is ethically motivated by God, personal pas-

sions and desires, or social requirements, the implicit moral in the texts
in DG 4–7 as a whole, is similar in many cases: one is to be just and loyal,
courageous and mentally strong, in control of extreme urges and enduring
in physical and mental turmoil. The recurrence of these moral goals, seen
in combination with the different inspirations leading to them, empha-
sizes that it is not only the goal, but also the process of reflection while
pursuing the goal that is of primary meaning-defining significance.
To recapitulate, from the sender’s perspective, DG 4–7 and its four
text-witnesses are the result of a collective ethical reading, translating and
compiling of texts from Latin and French literary tradition, which build
upon classical tradition (Ovid), oral Celtic tradition, Christian philosoph-
ical texts, and Arthurian material. For the reader, on the other hand, the
manuscript functions as a reading in ethical reflections and discussions,
where the rumination process functions as a meaningful topos in itself, as
explicitly suggested in the Dialogue. The ethical dilemmas present in the
Arthurian material, between personal concerns and social responsibilities,
did not stand out from its literary context. They appeared in the other
texts as well, which may indicate that this was a literary, and presumably
socially, significant and relevant debate. The conflict between the personal
and social was also only one of a myriad of ethical conflicts, which were
all potential discursive topics for the audience. The two interpretations
of the function of Arthurian ethics in Old Norse literature – that from
the sender’s and the reader’s point of view – evince the hermeneutic
appropriation of foreign material, in this case Arthurian, in the new con-
text of a thirteenth-century Norwegian manuscript.
The Old Norse socio-cultural and legal context
Unfortunately, the thirteenth-century owner and readers of DG 4–7 are

unknown, as is the case with most medieval manuscripts. There are,
however, several arguments suggesting that the owner may have been a
member of the Norwegian aristocracy, possibly in a close relation of
service to the king, in south-western Norway. The manuscript is sug-
193
gested, on palaeographical and orthographical grounds, to have originated

in the area in or around the town of Bergen and the king’s main quarters
(Tveitane 1972: 13; Hægstad 1935 (Óláfs saga fragment and Strengleikar);
Holm-Olsen 1940). The dedications to King Hákon Hákonarson in
Strengleikar and Elíss saga present another link to the royal see of Bergen
and the royal chancellery, at least when it comes to the actual translations.
Another possible provenance for the translations is Lyse Abbey, which
had a scribal centre of sufficient size and capacity to produce a manuscript
like DG 4–7. Even if these arguments are most relevant for the transla-
tions themselves, and not the rewritings in DG 4–7 which were second-
hand copies, they suggest that the texts were available for reading and
copying in these geographical and social circles.
The main argument pointing in the direction of a possible aristocratic
ownership of DG 4–7 is a name appearing in the Óláfs saga fragment,
which may have been written in the same scribal centre as the four texts
discussed here (see note 1). A now worn-out sign has previously been deci-
phered to read herra Snara Aslaksson a mik (Tveitane 1972: 13). A man called
Snare or Snara Asláksson was one of the leading men under King Hákon
Magnússon (1299–1319). The name appears in various charters from the
period 1296–1319, and the documents indicate his gradual climb in the
social hierarchy, from someone without a title to a herra, a member of the
council of state and a baron (Tveitane 1972: 14). The letters, some of them
between King Hákon V of Norway and King Edward II of England,
clarify that Snara was a tradesman and owned a ship (Tveitane 1972: 14).
Exactly where the man lived is unknown, but various letters and docu-
ments indicate connections to Stavanger, West Agder, a place called Hamre
in Kvinesdal (which has been interpreted by some as Hamar), and Huseby
in Lista (which was the royal estate). The manuscript may thus have been
produced in a secular or monastic scribal centre in or close to Bergen and
read by an aristocratic audience in the same area of the country.
The identity and social stature of the owner and readers of DG 4–7
are actually not crucial. For the argument in this article, it is more signifi-
cant that the owner and readers of the manuscript belonged to Norwegian
society and fell under the jurisdiction of Christian and local secular laws.
The conclusive question I wish to address here concerns the relationship
194
between the Arthurian ethical dilemmas, as discussed above, and the socio-
cultural and legal ideals and norms in Norway. In other words, what was
the actual legal reality for somebody who read DG 4–7 and could reflect
on the Arthurian ethical dilemmas? Arthurian material merged well within
its literary context, but did the dilemmas exist only in literature, or were
they also actualized in other spheres of social life, such as law?
Such a juxtaposition of literature and law is not feasible when it comes
to all the ethical dilemmas exemplified above. There is certainly no room
for Fate or Nature, or Love as an emotion in legal texts. But the conflict
between love and social norms, as conveyed in Geitarlauf for example,
may be seen as parallel to discussions concerning the significance of female
consent to marriage in a legal context.20 Even though love as an emotion
is not a valid aspect in religious and secular laws, it may be translated, with
some reservations, into the idea of consent. The concepts of consensus and
maritalis affectio were used in Roman law as well,21 although with different
connotations from those the terms had in Christian law, or today.
The core of marriage, and with that the concept of consent were fre-
quently discussed from the beginning of the eleventh century and until
the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The general development in this
period was towards stronger emphasis on the personal and emotional
bonds between a man and a woman as more significant than the eco-
nomic, social and sexual ones. In this period celibacy became a require-
ment for monks, based on the fact that they were already “married” to
the Church (Bandlien 2001: 133).
20 Many scholars discuss the idea of consent in marriage, adultery, divorce, etc. in var-
ious Old Norse literary sources. See e.g. Bandlien (2001), Jochens (1986), Cook
(2012) and Auður Magnúsdóttir (2001). The abundance of available research is one
of the reasons I choose not to pursue a discussion based on other literary sources.
There are also many difficulties concerning the origin, dating and provenance of
these sources, which further complicate the picture. Most significantly, the main
locus of discussion here is not marriage ideologies prevalent in Old Norse literature,
but rather the significance of ethical reflection as a process when writing and reading,
and its interrelatedness to ethical legal and social dilemmas.
21 For an account of the significance of the terms in Roman law, see Bandlien (2001:
132–133).
195
According to Gratian (1140) both consent and consummation were

necessary to validate a marriage. Pope Alexander III (1159–1181) made
this decree known and valid throughout Europe and the full doctrine of
female consent was known in Norway by c. 1160.22 There is intense cor-
respondence between Pope Alexander III and Archbishop Eysteinn
(1157–1188) of Norway, which emphasizes the significance of consent and
consummation for the validation of marriage. The Christian section of
the Frostathing law, one of the regional laws, was revised accordingly (F
III 3, 22). In the latter clause, it is stated that a man becomes the lawful
husband of a woman if he asks her to marry him in front of witnesses,
and if she is silent or says “yes”. The Christian section in another of the
regional laws, the Eidsivathing law (E 22) includes the consensus idea, but
combines it with more traditional norms – a marriage is valid if both par-
ties agree, as well as their relatives. Whether a marriage was valid or not
affected important economic and inheritance-related issues. Both laws
seem, therefore, to operate with a mixture of marriage strategies, one
related to the emotional link between the parties (the Christian model),
and the other to the economic and social bonds (the traditional model).
This ideology is also expressed in the Christian section of the Norwe-
gian National Law by Hákon Hákonarson’s son Magnús the Lawmender,
from 1274. The bride and the groom are to take each other’s hands and
before witnesses she is to express vocal consent. The significance of the
motif is even visually emphasized by illumination in one of the manuscript
versions of the National Law, namely in Codex Hardenbergianus, GKS
1154 fol (fol. 24r), from c. 1325–1350, at the Royal Library in Copenhagen.
However, other sections of the National Law emphasize other impor-
tant factors for a marriage. It states that the parents should choose the future
22 I choose here to concentrate on conditions in Norway, because of the provenance

of the manuscript DG 4–7. For the parallel development in Iceland, see for example
Jochens (1986), Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir (1999) and Bandlien (2005b: 143–44). This
choice may certainly be discussed, since Norway and Iceland most probably shared
common mentality ideals, and Icelandic diplomas and other texts representing Ice-
landic conditions may be illustrative of actual conditions in Norway as well. I am
more interested here in explicit norms than actual conditions. It may be mentioned,
however, that the idea of consensus did not appear in Icelandic law until the Chris-
tian law of Bishop Árni from 1275 (Bandlien 2001: 147).
196
husband of their daughter. If she does not want to marry him, she is to lose
her inheritance, and is thus less attractive for marriage. The consent of the
male relatives of a woman appears thus as a more significant legal prere-
quisite than her own consent. Even though the Christian doctrine is imple-
mented, a marriage remains a political and economic arrangement.
The mixture and dichotomy between the two models which appear
in the laws has been interpreted as an indication that the consensus idea
was a more or less compulsory foreign introduction, and not a result of
people’s problems and disagreement with the traditional model (Bandlien
2001: 158–159). Many have discussed the socio-cultural implications of
this new marriage theology. The highlighting of individual consent may
be seen as a movement towards greater appreciation of individual and
emotional values. On the other hand, it may be seen as a strategy under-
mining one of the basic modes of keeping aristocratic and secular power,
namely through keeping property and inheritance within the right
circles.23 It is debatable whether the discrepancies between secular and
religious ideals about marriage were large or not, but it is certain that the
introduction of this new marriage model by the Church created a new
debate on political, religious and individual-mentality level.
Either way the idea of consent, even though foreign, was clearly incor-
porated in the Norwegian law and had its legal and social function. A
reader of DG 4–7, presumably a Norwegian aristocrat at the end of the
thirteenth century would have been acquainted with the new ideals for
love and consent, and the ethical dilemmas they could result in. The lit-
erary dilemmas, as described above, would then certainly have resonated,
and appeared familiar based on the socio-legal realities of the reader. Fur-
ther, the focus on the reflective and contemplative process as a meaning-
defining structure of the literary texts has certain resonance with the partly
conflicting clauses in the Norwegian law as well, which most certainly
must have demanded reflection and debate when making a decision.
The degree to which these new ideas were internalized in the men-
tality of Norwegian aristocrats and whether the ethical dilemmas were
actual and real is of course unknown. The contemporary kings’ sagas
24 For further references see Bandlien 2001: 134–135.
197
may give some indication with regard to actual handling of such social
conflicts. They convey stories where the traditional and Christian models
of marriage are in conflict, from about the beginning of the twelfth cen-
tury. Many central historical figures are described as captured by this
ethical dilemma, among others, King Sigurðr Jórsalafari (1103–1130), his
son Magnús the Blind, his daughter Kristín Sigurðardóttir (Hkr III:
406–407) and King Sverrir’s sister Cecilía Sigurðardóttir (Bǫglunga sǫgur:
26–27). In the last two cases especially, the woman’s consensus is explic-
itly foregrounded (Bandlien 2001: 160–162). One example which is more
relevant here, because it represents events from the thirteenth century,
is the marriage between King Hákon Hákonarsson and Margrét,
daughter of his main competitor Earl Skúli (see e.g. Hákonar saga
Hákonarsonar 1977: 34–35). Despite the great and very important rivalry
between the two men, Margrét’s consent is described as essential for
their marriage in 1219 (Bandlien 2001: 163). One should certainly be cau-
tious when interpreting these sources as actual historical accounts, since
they are literary texts and, like all literature, they are defined by literary
norms and conventions as well as narratological requirements. Nonethe-
less, the similarity of ethical dilemmas, and most significantly the focus
on the reflective process required for their solution in various literary
genres and legal texts conveys a certain sense of social reality. A reader
of DG 4–7 fol, would have been able to relate to the Arthurian ethical
dilemma between Love and social norms. All types of texts – literature,
law and contemporary sagas – reflect not only the new ideal of love and
consent, but also the very discussion when solving this conflict, i.e. all of
them present an actual evaluation of the different options and factors.
This, together with the fact that the Arthurian ethical dilemma of Love
versus social responsibilities was only one of many ethical debates in the
literary material, emphasizes the centrality of ethical rumination in the
writing, reading and interpretation of texts in thirteenth-century
Norway.
198
The colour of a sail and blood in a glove
Medial constellations in the riddarasǫgur
Jürg Glauser
T his article examines medieval ideas about mediality by discussing

two well-known riddarasǫgur, Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar and Karla-
magnús saga I. The term mediality emerged from scholarship concerned
with traditional concepts of orality and literacy but in recent years it has
come to denote a separate, interdisciplinary field of study based largely
on communication theory, media history and media philosophy. The Uni-
versity of Zurich currently hosts a broad interdisciplinary research project,
“Mediality. Historical Perspectives”, which engages with a variety of
issues concerned with mediality (see also www.mediality.ch).
The present article examines how medieval prose texts from the Nor-
wegian-Icelandic tradition incorporate concerns about the usage and effect
of various medieval forms of communication and artistic expression. To
discuss such “medial constellations” (as moments of heightened and
changing engagement with medial issues may be called), the following
analyses will closely examine the individual texts and present numerous and
at times lengthy textual excerpts. The first part of the article will discuss
three different texts: Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar, Eiríks saga rauða and Vǫl-
sunga saga. The main question asked of these texts is whether they present
visual signs or verbal communication as a more reliable form of communi-
cation. The third and last part of the article again presents close textual
analyses and uses examples from Njáls saga and Karlamagnús saga I to
demonstrate how these texts establish a connection between (human) blood
and guilt. In the particular case of the riddarasǫgur, some brief remarks on
the importance of written texts in a feudal society are also in order. These
two text-based parts will be linked by a short intermediary part (part two),
which discusses theoretical aspects of mediality and presents some general
observations about performativity in medieval literature.
199
jürg glauser
1 White sails, black sails? Medial density at the end of

Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar
Towards the end of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar, Isodd’s husband Tristram

is residing at his court in Bretland. Once again, he is thus spatially sepa-
rated from his beloved mistress, Ísǫnd dróttning ‘Queen Ísǫnd’, who is
residing with her husband, King Markis, in England. One day, Tristram
is visited by a giant knight called by the unusual and somewhat unfitting
name of Tristram dvergr ‘Tristram the Dwarf’ (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar:
212/213). The knight begs Tristram to help him bring back his wife, who
had been abducted. In the subsequent fight against the abductors, Tris-
tram the dwarf loses his life and Tristram is wounded greviously by a
poisoned sword. None of the leeches at his court are able to help him
and his health deteriorates uncontrollably. He finally calls for his trusted
companion Kardín, unaware that his wife Ísodd is secretly listening to
their conversation:
Ok vill hún vita, hvaða ráðagerð þeir hafa. Ok stóð hún út við vegginn
at heyra orðræður þeira gegnt því, er Tristram lá í hvílunni, ok setti
menn til at gæta, at engi yrði varr við. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 214)
Because she wanted to know their plan, she stood just on the other
side of the wall from where Tristram lay in bed, in order to hear their
conversation. And she posted men to prevent anyone from discov-
ering her. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 215)
Ísodd thus hears how Tristram asks Kardín to visit Queen Ísǫnd and
gives him a golden ring as a token of recognition. Kardín’s task is to bring
Ísǫnd back to the sick Tristram, because only she can cure him of his ill-
ness:
“Ef ek væra í mínu landi, þá munda ek fá þar hjálpræði af nokkurum

manni, en hér kann engi svá gott í þessu landi. Af því mun ek deyja af
hjálpleysi. En ek veit engan þann lifanda mann, er mik kunni at græða
200
the colour of a sail and blood in a glove
eða hjálp veita nema Ísönd dróttning á Englandi. Ok ef hún vissi þetta,
þá mundi hún nokkurt ráð til leggja, því hún hefir beztan vilja til ok
mesta kunnáttu. En nú veit ek eigi, hversu hún má þessa víss verða.
En ef hún vissi þetta, þá mundi hún sannliga koma með nokkur
hægindi. Engi maðr í þessum heimi er jafnvel kunnandi í læknisdómi
ok allrar kurteisrar listar, er kvennmanni sómir at hafa. Nú vil ek biðja
þik, Kardín félagi minn, með ástar bæn, at þú farir til hennar, ok seg
henni þenna atburð, því engi er sá, er ek trúi jafnvel sem þér, ok engri
ann ek jafnmikit sem henni, ok engi hefir gert jafnmikit fyrir mínar
sakir sem hún.” […] Kardín […] mælti til hans: “Ek vil gjarnsamliga
fara til hennar ok gera allan þinn vilja […].” En Tristram þakkaði
honum ok sagði, at hann skyldi hafa skip hans ok kallaz kaupmaðr, er
hann kæmi þar: “Fingrgull mitt skaltu bera til jartegna, ok sýn henni
sem fyrst. Ok þá veit hún, hvaðan þú ert kominn, ok mun hún vilja
tala við þik einmæli. […].” (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 214)
“If I were in my country, then I would get help there from someone,
but no one here in this country is knowledgeable enough, and so, for
lack of help, I must die. I know of no living soul who could cure me
or provide relief except for Queen Ísǫnd in England. If she were
aware of this, then she would know what to do, for she has the best
motivation and the most expertise. But I don’t know how she might
learn of this, for if she knew of it, then she would surely come with
some relief. There is no one on this earth so knowledgeable about
the practice of medicine and all the secrets of the court that befit a
woman to possess. I wish to implore you now, Kardín my com-
panion, for the sake of our love, to go to her and tell her what has
happened, for there is no one whom I trust as much as you, and no
one I love as much as her. No one has done as much on my behalf as
has she.” […] Kardín […] said to him: “I will gladly go to her and do
all that you wish […].” Tristram thanked him and said that he should
take his ship and pretend to be a merchant when he arrived there.
“Take my gold ring as a token and show it to her right away. Then
she will know where you have come from and be willing to speak
with you alone. […]” (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 215)
201
jürg glauser
The unintended result of this conversation between Tristram and Kardín

is that Tristram’s hitherto unsuspecting wife Ísodd is now aware of his
true feelings towards Queen Ísǫnd. Yet the subsequent potential for
jealous actions remains initially unfulfilled:
Nú þóttiz Ísodd, kona Tristrams, vita, at hann unni annarri meir en

henni, af því at hún hafði nú heyrt alla viðræðu þeira. En hún lét sem
hún vissi þat ekki. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 214)
Now Tristram’s wife Ísodd realized that he loved another more than
her, for she had heard their whole conversation. But she made believe
that she was unaware of this. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 215)
As soon as he arrives in England, Kardín goes to the royal court and

meets Ísǫnd. He presents her with two gold rings, one of which she
immediately identifies as Tristram’s:
Því næst tók hann tvau fingrgull ok sýnir henni ok bað hana kjósa
hvárt hún vildi. En hún sá á fingrgullin ok kennir þegar fingrgull
Tristrams, ok skalf hún þegar öll, ok um sneriz hugr hennar, brá lit
ok andvarpaði mjök þungliga, því hún þóttiz vita, at hún mundi
spyrja nokkur þau tíðindi, er ekki væri henni huggan at. […] Því næst
fóru þau Kardín á einmæli. En hann berr henni kveðju Tristrams með
fögrum orðum ok mikilli ástsemd ok segir, at í hennar valdi sé líf
hans ok dauði. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 216)
Next he took two gold rings, showed them to her, and asked her to
choose whichever she wished. But when she looked at the rings, she
immediately recognized Tristram’s ring, and she began to shake all
over and her heart sank. She turned pale and sighed heavily for she
suspected that she would hear news that would not be of comfort to
her. […] Thereupon she and Kardín went off to speak in private. He
delivered Tristram’s greeting eloquently and with feeling, and told
her that his life or death lay in her hands. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar:
217)
202
In the company of her maid Bringvet Ísǫnd secretly leaves England on

Kardín’s ship, while back in Bretland, Tristram’s illness worsens and is
quickly becoming life-threatening. He frequently sends his men to the
beach or even asks to be brought there himself in order to look out for
Kardín’s ship. When Kardín finally approaches the shore, a storm rises
and prevents the ship from landing for ten full days. It is Tristram’s wife
Ísodd who tells him this news and, in answering Tristram’s question
about the colour of the ship’s sails, utters the fatal words which lead to
his death:
“Unnasta,” kvað hann, “muntu þá vera sannfróð, at þat er hans skip?

Ger mér kunnigt, ef satt er, með hverju segli hann siglir.” En hún
svarar: “Ek kenni þat gerla, ok með svörtu segli sigla þeir ok hafa byr
engan, nema rekr aptr ok fram fyrir landinu.” (Tristrams saga ok
Ísöndar: 218)
“Beloved,” he said, “are you absolutely certain that it is his ship? Con-
vince me by telling me what color sail he is using.” She answered: “It
is difficult to tell, but1 they are using a black sail and have no wind,
so they are just drifting back and forth off the coast.” (Tristrams saga
ok Ísöndar: 219)
The narrator stresses this crucial moment with an explanatory com-

mentary referring back to the scene where Ísodd had spied on Tris-
tram:
En hún laug at honum, því Kardín sigldi með hvítu ok blám

blankandi seglum, stöfuðum, því Tristram hafði svá beðit hann, til
merkis, ef Ísönd kæmi með honum. En ef Ísönd kæmi ekki með
honum, þá skyldi hann sigla með svörtu segli. En Ísodd, kona Tris-
1 The English translation of the passage “Ek kenni þat gerla, ok […]” (Tristrams saga ok
Ísöndar: 219) ‘It is difficult to tell, but […]’, must be a misunderstanding. See e.g. the
more accurate translations into German (Tristrams saga ok Ísondar: 203; and Uecker
2008: 124): ‘Ich erkenne es genau […]’, or into New-Norwegian (Soga om Tristram
og Isond: 211): ‘Eg ser det tydeleg […]’, i.e. ‘I see/recognise this clearly’.
203
jürg glauser
trams, hafði heyrt allt þetta, þá er hún leyndi sér á bak við þilit. (Tris-
trams saga ok Ísöndar: 218/200)
But she was lying to him, for Kardín was sailing with gleaming white
and blue striped sails, as Tristram had asked him to do as a sign if
Ísönd were accompanying him. And if Ísönd were not with him, then
he was supposed to sail with a black sail. But Tristram’s wife Ísodd
had heard all of this, when she hid behind the wooden partition.
(Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 219/201)
The consequence of this lie – which from a point of view of linguistic

economy relies only on a single word being altered, albeit a word on
which the whole meaning and the core of the comminunication act rests
– is as simple as it is dreadful for the protagonists involved. It is equally
terrible for the narrative logic and therefore for the recipient of the text.
After the already mentioned narrative entanglement, much to-ing and
fro-ing and several disgressions and retardations, the uttering of this lie
finally initiates the subsequent sad ending. For one, Tristram dies of
sorrow because it seems to him that his beloved mistress had stopped
loving him and thus refused to come and heal him:
En sem Tristram heyrði þat, þá var hann svá mjök syrgjandi, at aldri
beið hann slíkan harm. Ok sneriz hann þegar upp til veggjar ok mælti
þá með harmsfullri röddu: “Nú ertu, Ísönd, mik hatandi. Ek em nú
syrgjandi, er þú vill ekki til mín koma, en ek sakir þín deyjandi, er
þú vildir ekki miskunna sótt mínni. Ek em nú syrgjandi sótt mína
ok harmandi, er þú vildir ekki koma at hugga mik.” Þrisvar kallaði
hann Ísönd unnustu sína ok nefndi á nafn, en hit fjórða sinn gaf hann
upp önd sína með lífi sínu. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 220)
When Tristram heard what she said, he was so grief stricken that he
had never endured such suffering. He immediately turned toward
the wall and spoke in an anguished voice: “Ísönd, you hate me now.
My heart aches, because you do not want to come to me, and because
of you I will die, for you did not wish to take pity on me in my ill-
204
ness. Now I am suffering from my sickness and grieving, because

you do not want to come to comfort me.” Three times he called out
to his beloved Ísönd and spoke her name, but the fourth time he sur-
rendered his spirit and died. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 221)
Second, when Ísǫnd finally reaches land and sees her dead beloved, she
too dies:
Ísönd dróttning gekk nú þangat, sem líkit lá á gólfinu, ok sneriz í

austr ok bað bænar sinnar með þessum orðum: “Ek bið þik, guð
allsvaldandi […] Amen.” […] Hún talaði þá mörg orð um ást þeira ok
samvist ok um þeira hörmuliga skilnað. Ok því næst lagðiz hún niðr
á gólfit ok kyssti hann ok lagði hendr um háls honum. Ok í því lét
hún líf sitt. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 220/222)
Queen Ísönd then proceeded to where Tristram’s body lay on the

floor and, turning to the east, said a prayer with these words: “I
beseech Thee, almighty God […] Amen.” […] She spoke a great deal
about their love and life together and about their distressing separa-
tion. Then she lay down on the floor and kissed him and placed her
hands about his neck. And there she died. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar:
221/223)
At this stage, the narrator inserts a last assessment into his narrative, only
to conclude the story of this great, unbearable and unhappy love shortly
afterwards. He concludes with a powerful and very impressive image:
the two lovers are buried on opposite sides of a church and upon their
graves two trees grow. Separated by the church, these trees nevertheless
manage to reach each other as their branches entwine over the church’s
roof – a powerful symbol of their indestructible love:
Af því dó Tristram skjótast, at hann hugði, at Ísönd dróttning hefði

gleymt honum. En Ísönd dó því skjótast, at hún kom of seint til hans.
Síðan váru þau jörðuð. Ok er sagt, at Ísodd, kona Tristrams, hafi látit
jarða þau Tristram ok Ísöndu sitt hvárum megin kirkjunnar, svá at
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þau skyldu ekki vera nærri hvárt öðru framliðin. En svá bar til, at sín
eik eða lundr óx upp af hvárs þeira leiði, svá hátt, at limit kvíslaðiz
saman fyrir ofan kirkjubustina. Ok má því sjá, hversu mikil ást þeira
á milli verit hefir. Ok endar svá þessa sögu. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar:
222)
Tristram had died so quickly because he thought that Queen Ísönd

had forgotten him, but Ísönd died so quickly because she had arrived
too late for him. Afterward they were buried. It is said that Ísodd,
Tristram’s wife, had Tristram and Ísönd buried on separate sides of
the church so that they couldn’t be close to each other in the future.
But it came to pass that an oak or other large tree sprouted from each
of their graves and grew so tall that their limbs intertwined above the
gable of the church. By this we can see how great the love between
them had been. And so ends this story. (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar:
223)
The two concluding sentences of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar are a fitting

example of the possibilities of studying medieval literature in relation to
mediality. The very last sentence, for instance, demonstrates that the text
is able and willing to acknowledge its own fictionalization and textuality
through meta-commentaries. In the case of the present saga, which is a
medieval text contained in an early modern manuscript, this is evident
in the awareness of issues concerned with writing which openly influence
the text. These are expressed freely, even though the formulaic expres-
sions often found at the end of sagas clearly are literary tropes and should
not be taken too literally (see Glauser 1983: 61–110; Glauser 1994;
Glauser 2010). Even so, this simple sentence produces a frame that suit-
ably concludes the text, although ideally the image of the two trees
uniting over the roof of the church remains more lastingly in the mind
of the audience. As the second last sentence implies, this image is so pow-
erful and impressive that the depth of their love is suitably visualised
through it. The text states that one can literally see how great their love
was during their life time, the crucial visual aspect being consciously
evoked in use of the verb sjá ‘to see’.
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Even beyond this single example, the passages quoted from the end
of the saga are expressive of the dense network of medial construction
inherent in the text. Some comparable constellations shall now be dis-
cussed in the following analyses. What is immediately striking is that
the text repeatedly uses expressions loosely related to communication,
that is, mediality. It explicitly mentions terms such as sending, travelling,
accompanying, saying, asking, hearing, listening, showing and recog-
nizing. Most noticeably, the protagonists send each other objects as
tokens and signs. Moreover, words – such as lies – can even cause death.
The mere “looking at” the ring of the distant beloved immediately causes
a strong emotional reaction in Ísǫnd and the whole passage is full of emo-
tional tension in relation to all major characters: Tristram, his beloved
and his wife. The density of medial phenomena increases considerably
in such moments of hightened emotions and especially in precarious sit-
uations in many riddarasǫgur. One indication of this is the increased
usage of the present participle tense in these passages in Tristrams saga
ok Ísǫndar. Similar to a spider’s web, the present participle connects nar-
rative and protagonists’ speech and marks especially emotional moments
such as the deaths of Tristram’s father and mother, Tristram’s birth, and
his and Ísǫnd’s tragic deaths.
Especially noteworthy is the stylistically and medially developed
motif of sound. In these cases, the tonality of the text must be noticed
and appreciated too because passages especially concerned with the
effects of sound(s) are part of the overarching structure of medial con-
stellations. Strikingly, the use of the present-participle in such instances
is comparable to end rhyme. Yet within the soundscape of the saga –
perceived here as a text to be read aloud – they also incite a deliberately
evoked strangeness. This strangeness is often expressed as an “exotic”
feature in courtly translation style. The end of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar
thus shows a dense web of emotions, and these are reflected even on a
linguistic level: the use of the present participle thus becomes a medium
to effectively express emotions and emotional states.2
2 Such medially charged passages may possibly even be read as ironically intended,
and irony is certainly found in the later Icelandic Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd.
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The final image found in Nordic Tristran narratives such as Tristrams

saga ok Ísǫndar, Tristrams kvæði and Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd of the two
trees touching over the church’s roof is a powerfully lasting and double-
sided medium. On the one hand, the trees can be read as a sign of their
love – initiated by the love-potion, itself a strong medium – but on the
other also as a sign for the equally understandable dissappointment of
Tristram’s deceived wife. As such, these images are always also medial
events and histories of media and in the case of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar
these are concerned with love, deceit and death.
Exploring the reliability of visual signs

In any culture, some media are perceived as particularly reliable signs. Tris-
tram’s ring or the colour of the sails on Kardin’s ship are suitable examples
as they clearly testify for the intention of the sender. A further well-known
example is the wolf’s hair which Guðrún entwines around the ring she
sends to her borthers Gunnarr and Högni to warn them in Atlakviða. One
therefore may propose that in certain Old Norse texts, visual media are
preferred to non-visual media because they are perceived as being somehow
“more reliable” and less ambiguous. An Icelandic proverb states that sjón
er sögu ríkari ‘seeing is believing’, literally ‘seeing is more valuable than a
story’, and this appears reflected in these medieval texts also. On a general
basis, objects such as rings of all kinds (fingerrings, signet rings, arm rings)
but also other highly visual objects such as sails, are staged as powerful and
unambiguous media. The arm rings, which Óláfr Tryggvason and Sig-
mundr Brestisson receive in Færeyinga saga and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar
respectively, also express certain values (in this case paganism, which is
negatively connoted in the Kings’ Sagas) and eventually lead these men to
their deaths. The finger ring at the end of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar is imme-
diately recognised by Ísǫnd and is interpreted correctly.
A short but often quoted passage from Eiríks saga rauða shows that
under certain circumstances, even visual media from a different culture
can be interpreted correctly.3 Chapter 10 and 11 of this saga show how
3 The ability or problematic inability to interpret such foreign sings in Eiríks saga
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some people who followed Karlsefni to Vinland make contact not just
with a foregin country but also with its inhabitants:
Ok einn morgin snemma er þeir lituðusk um sáu þeir níu húðkeipa, ok

var veift trjánum af skipunum ok lét því líkast í sem i hálmþustum ok
fór [AM 544 4°: var veift] sólarsinnis. Þá mælti Karlsefni: “Hvat mun
þetta tákna?” Snorri svarar honum: “Vera kann at þetta sé friðartákn ok
tǫkum skjǫld hvítan ok berum í mót.” Ok svá gerðu þeir. Þá reru hinir
í mót ok undruðusk þá, ok gengu þeir á land. […] En er vára tók geta
þeir at líta einn morgin snemma, at fjǫlði húðkeipa reri sunnan fyrir
nesit, svá margir sem kolum væri sáit, ok var þá veift á hverju skipi
trjánum. Þeir brugðu þá skjǫldum upp ok tóku kaupstefnu sín á millum
[…]. En er sjá stund var liðin sjá þeir sunnan fara mikinn fjǫlða skipa
Skrælinga, svá sem straumr stœði; var þá veift trjánum ǫllum rangsœlis,
ok ýla allir Skrælingar hátt upp. Þá tóku þeir rauða skjǫldu ok báru í
mót; gengu þeir þá saman ok bǫrðusk. (Eiríks saga rauða: 428–429)
Early one morning they noticed nine hide-covered boats and the
people in them waved wooden poles that made a swishing sound as
they turned them around sunwise. Karlsefni then spoke: “What can
this mean?” Snorri replied: “It may be a sign of peace; we should take
a white shield and lift it up in return.” This they did. […] One
morning, as spring advanced, they noticed a large number of hide-
covered boats rowing up from the south around the point. There
were so many of them that it looked as if bits of coal had been tossed
over the water, and there was a pole waving from each boat. They
signalled with their shields and began trading with the visitors […].
After that they saw a large group of native boats approach from the
south, as thick as a steady stream. They were waving poles counter-
sunwise now and all of them were shrieking loudly. The men took
up their red shields and went towards them. They met and began
fighting. (Eirik the Red’s Saga: 15–16)
rauða and Grœnlendinga saga was examined by Hanselmann (2005) with regards to
phenomena of cultural contact.
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Despite the fundamental strangeness between the cultures at their first

meeting, the text clearly states that signs are sent from both sides. These
are interpreted correctly, which leads to coherent narrative action. Even
though the consequence of the interaction is rather negative in the third
case – leading to bloodshed and resulting in the Northmen leaving the
country – communication is simple and effective thanks to clear and
unbiased media such as colour.
However, when it comes to the interpretation of spoken language,
the potential of such media may be changed drastically. Such cases are
especially interesting to consider because the unreliable nature of speech
is often expressed in sagas in that a statement is subject to a change of
media. Most frequently, this is apparent in a switch from visual to verbal
or written discourse. According to some sagas, this leaves the spoken
word open to (incorrect) interpretation or even deliberate alterations or
distortions.
The precarious nature of the spoken word

It follows that, in opposition to the apparent reliability of non-verbal
messages, spoken messages in sagas are always subject to the danger of
being overheard and/or subsequently altered. A text such as Gylfaginning
uses this idea of illusion and uncertainty to create its own poetics and
systematically explores such scepticism towards the spoken word – a fact
reflected even in its title (see Glauser 2013). The communicative situation
presented at the end of Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar is equally interesting to
consider. Many such “communicative constellations” are observable in
various other sagas, as well. Their central questions are: How may I send
a message to my beloved? And: What communicative obstacles and what
dangers (occasioned by a particular choice of medium) are connected to
this act of sending? Guðrún Gjúkungadóttir in Vǫlsunga saga faces exactly
such problems when she is eavesdropping on her husband Atli, who is
instructing his messenger Vingi to ride to her brothers Gunnarr and
Högni with a treacherous invitation. She therefore tries to prevent her
brothers from accepting this invitation:
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Gudrun ristr runar, ok hun tekr einn gullhringh ok knyte i vargshar

ok fer þetta i hendr sendimonnum konungs. Siþan foru þeir eptir
konungs bode. Ok adr þeir stige a land, sa Vingi runarnar ok sneri a
adra leid ok, at Gudrun fyste i runum, at þeir kvęme a hans fund. […]
(Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar: 91)
Gudrun cut runes, and took a gold ring and tied a wolf’s hair onto it.
She gave it to the king’s messengers who then departed as the king
had ordered. Before they stepped ashore, Vingi saw the runes and
changed them in such a way that Gudrun appeared to be urging the
brothers to come and meet with Atli. […] (The Saga of the Volsungs:
96)
Vingi presents Gunnarr and Hǫgni with Atli’s invitation and hands over
some gifts. Gunnarr ponders how they should react to such a proposal,
but Hǫgni answers:
“[…] uradligt man vera at fara a hans fund, ok þat undrumzt ek, er ek
sa giorsimar þer, er Atli konungr sendi ockr, at ek sa vargshare knyt
i einn gullhring, ok ma vera, at Gudrunu þicki hann ulfshug vid ockr
hafa, ok vili hun eigi, at vid farim.” Vingi synir honum nu runnarnar
þęr, er hann kvad Gudrunu sent hafa. (Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga
loðbrókar: 91–92)
“It seems inadvisable to go to visit him. And when I looked at the

treasures King Atli had sent us, I wondered at the wolf’s hair I saw
tied around a gold ring. It may be that Gudrun thinks he has the
thoughts of a wolf toward us, and that she does not want us to go.”
Vingi then showed him the runes that he said Gudrun had sent them.
(The Saga of the Volsungs: 97)
The scene featuring the treacherous invitation and Guðrún’s unsuccessful

warning as presented in Vǫlsunga saga is especially illuminating in terms
of mediality because of its narrative density and complexity. For one, it
contains the idea of spoken discourse being precarious and dangerous
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because it can be overheard. Moreover, because of the great spatial dis-

tance, Guðrún uses a medium (writing) which can easily be altered, may
not be understood by the recipient or has to be laborously interpreted.4
The colour of the sail in Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar appears, on the
other hand, as an unambiguous sign even though it is not a “natural” one
(as sails are unquestionably a cultural product). It contains a clear message
and its interpretation is unambiguous as long as it is visually transmitted.
Through oral discourse, i.e. a change in media, it can however quickly
become an ambiguous, dangerous verbal sign. Eventually, Ísodd’s few
but unfaithful words exemplify the unreliability of the spoken word:
“með svörtu segli sigla þeir” (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 218) “‘they are using
a black sail’” (Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar: 219). Strikingly, it is a single,
intentionally altered word – svörtu instead of hvítu – which leads to the
death of the two unhappy lovers, and to Ísodd loosing her husband.
2 Performativity in medieval literature
In the above quoted examples from riddarasǫgur and other sagas, a certain
aspect of mediality and textuality is especially apparent: performativity. It
is performativity which provides these episodes with narrative action and
through this creates meaning.5 In recent years, medieval texts have increas-
ingly been studied in view of their dynamic qualities relating to performa-
tive issues. Consequently, textual phenomena are seen more and more as
occasioned by specific literary processes rather than as static entities which
encode (a) fixed meaning to be decoded in an act of hermeneutical inter-
pretation. Texts – signs in general – are therefore no longer perceived as
bearers of fixed, intentional, referential meaning but rather their specific
character as events and their individual productions of meaning, depending
on a certain situation, are foregrounded. Works of art are no longer
thought of as pre-given, fixed structures, whose inherent meaning is to be
4 For a study of the development of this motif in Atlakviða, Atlamál and Vǫlsunga
saga in relation to oral versus written communciation see Glauser (2007: 22–25).
5 The following sketch is based mainly on Herberichs & Kiening (2008). For indi-
vidual aspects of performativity in saga literature see also Glauser (2007).
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discovered and analysed with scientific methods, but they are perceived as
flexibel and consisting of various narrative events. This in turn explains
the recent shift of focus from examining general structures towards inter-
preting individual situations and events in which a text’s materiality, pres-
ence, reflexivity, its paradoxes, contradictions and unstable nature become
important. In relation to medieval literary texts such as the riddarasǫgur,
this means asking what happens in the narrative through communication
and, eventually, to communication as a subject. The literary performativity
of such texts is determined by the singularity of a certain event, but also in
that general aspects are repeatable. These questions are interesting to con-
sider precisely because the actual performance, the “performed perform-
ance”, of pre-modern literature is lost in time and can only be examined
through the traces it left in the material of the texts themselves.
It is at this point that the concept of writing, of the written word,
becomes important. It may be expected that medieval and early modern
manuscripts were compiled for a specific act of performance, usually to
be read aloud. In the subsequent exhibition of the manuscript, and the
subsequent creative re-writing of texts in hand-written form this intended
performativity was expanded, explained, retold etc. Eventually, a certain
text could come to (re)present ideas about all kinds of possible perform-
ances. The same text nevertheless may contain elements and traces of the
dynamics of medieval text production and text reception as noticeable
variants. Literary texts may mark their own performativity beyond the
actual point of performance, they can present and instal themselves as
written, staged, spoken etc. works of art. Pre-modern literature is espe-
cially interesting to examine with regard to such issues because it was part
of a culture in which elements of performativity such as corporeal aspects,
movement, ritual and symbolic communication, participation and multi-
mediality can all be found. Of course there is no such thing as a “theory”
of performativity in the Scandiavian Middle Ages, even though the Prose
Edda engages with exactly these issues of performativity in its prologue,
in Gylfaginning and in Skáldskaparmál. At times, the Prose Edda even
touches on these concerns on a theoretical level.6 The examples presented
6 Sandra Schneeberger, a PhD-student at the Universität Zürich, is researching such
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here in relation to performative actions as medial aspects in the rid-

darasǫgur and other sagas engage with the performative and the medial
from a very different, implicitly pragmatic, perspective. Nevertheless, they
too exhibit a deep-rooted awareness of the central mechanisms of perfor-
mativity and the importance of medial issues in narrative texts.
3 Treason and fidelity as medial process
Fatal slaps and a bloodied garment – an example from Njáls saga

Like many other Íslendingasǫgur, Njáls saga contains a considerable
number of impressively narrated scenes in which media and human emo-
tions are deeply entangled. Two such scenes will now be examined more
closely. The first presents the fatal combination of “a slap and death”.
Just like in the example from Karlamagnús saga I discussed below, this
narrative set-up proves particularly devastating because it simultaneously
breaches different dimensions such as social status (diminished by the
action of a woman), sexual desire (driving the married couple towards
each other) and gendered violence. The last aspect is performed by a man
but, in being entangled with the other issues, it becomes so emotionally
charged that in the narrated universe of the saga, this imbalance can only
be neutralised by the death of the husband.
It is a known fact that Hallgerðr Hǫskuldsdóttir, undoubtedly the
most noticeable female character in Njáls saga, marries three times. All
three of her husbands succumb to slapping her in a matrimonial argu-
ment, and each one of them pays for it with his life. In Chapter 11, hus-
band nr. 1, Þorvaldr Ósvífrsson, laust hana í andlitit, svá at blœddi (Brennu-
Njáls saga: 33) ‘struck her in the face, so hard that she bled’ (Njal’s Saga:
15) and is killed in the same chapter by Hallgerðr’s foster-father Þjóstólfr
(Brennu-Njáls saga: 35; Njal’s Saga: 15). In Chapter 16, husband nr. 2,
Glúmr Óleifsson makes the same mistake: drap til hennar hendi sinni
issues as part of her dissertation, which is concerned with performative aspects in the
Prose Edda. She finds the three categories of “saying as doing”, “repetition” and
“framing” especially central in theorizing eddic speech and poetry or even mythography.
214
(Brennu-Njáls saga: 48) ‘Glum struck her’ (Njal’s Saga: 22) and hence suf-
fers the same fate as Þorvaldr one chapter later (Brennu-Njáls saga: 50;
Njal’s Saga: 22). In chapter 48, husband nr. 3, Gunnarr Hámundarson,
either has a bad memory or falls victim to the same male supercilliousness
and lýstr hana kinnhest (Brennu-Njáls saga: 124) ‘slapped her on the face’
(Njal’s Saga: 57). After some narrative retardation to raise the tension,
this finally leads to his death in chapter 77: “Þá skal ek nú,” segir hon, “muna
þér kinnhestinn, ok hirði ek aldri, hvárt þú verr þik lengr eða skemr” (Brennu-
Njáls saga: 189) ‘“Then I’ll remind you,” she said, “of the slap on my face,
and I don’t care whether you hold out for a long or a short time”’ (Njal’s
Saga: 89).
In the second part of Njáls saga, Hǫskuldr’s bloodied cloak becomes a

powerfully staged medium when Hildigunnr shows it to Flosi to goad
him to revenge. Chapter 116 shows Hildigunnr spilling many tears and
insistently pleading with Flosi but she remains unheard – Flosi in fact
seems to be immune to her verbal and mimic arts of persuasion.
Hildigunnr thus resorts to another medium, an object and thus material
proof of evidence against which Flosi seems powerless.
Hildigunnr gekk þá fram í skála ok lauk upp kistu sinni; tók hon
þá upp skikkjuna, er Flosi hafði gefit Hǫskuldi, ok í þeiri hafði
Hǫskuldr veginn verit, ok hafði hon þar varðveitt í blóðit allt. Hon
gekk þá innar í stofuna með skikkjuna. Hon gekk þegjandi at Flosa.
Þá var Flosi mettr ok fram borit af borðinu. Hildigunnr lagði þá
yfir Flosa skikkjuna; dunði þá blóðit um hann allan. (Brennu-Njáls
saga: 291)
Hildigunn then went to the hall and opened up her chest and took
from it the cloak which Flosi had given Hoskuld, and in which
Hoskuld was slain, and which she had kept there with all its blood.
She then went back into the main room with the cloak. She walked
silently up to Flosi. Flosi had finished eating and the table had been
cleared. Hildigunn placed the cloak on Flosi’s shoulders; the dried
blood poured down all over him. (Njal’s Saga: 137)
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The dried blood on the cloak of the murdered man can be said to mediate
between the dead person and his legitimate avenger with an almost reli-
gious aura. Of special importance in relation to medial concerns is that
not verbal pleading but a mute gesture and especially the presentation of
an object – reminiscent perhaps of the showing, ostentatio, of a relic per-
haps – finally lead to the subsequent act of revenge.
A fatal slap and a bloodied glove – an example from Karlamagnús saga I

A slap in the face of a woman also leads to the death of one of the perpe-
trators in a scene in Karlamagnús saga I. The episode is similar to the pre-
viously discussed one from Njáls saga with regard to the use of media, even
though the example is situated in a very different literary context. The
scene is found in the introductionary part of the saga, which relates the
difficulties Karlamagnús faces when he seeks to follow his father Pippin
to the throne. These short “histories of media”, which form the main part
of the following analyses, are primarily concerned with the treason towards
Karlamagnús. In addition to his human friends and adversaries, higher
powers too seem to be engaged in these medial constellations. In the first
section, God himself participates in the action and sends his angel to warn
Karl, as the main protagonist is called at this point of the narrative. Karl
subsequently visits his advisors and tells them about the vitran ‘revelation’.
In the second section, God again sends an angel to Karl and it advises him
to commit a robbery with Basin the Thief (which eventually leads him to
find out about the planned assassination). In another section, finally, the
angel informs Karl that his mother is pregnant.
En eptir dauda kongs villdu þeir menn sem vered hofdu riddarar hans
drepa Karl. En allzvolldugur gud sa er fyrir hafde hugat þessum agięta
kongs syne hinna hæstu sæmd kongligrar sæmdar j allri verolldunne
liet þat eigi fram fara ok sende eingil sinn at segia Karle at þeir hỏfdu
radet honum bana. Ok þa fór hann at hitta radgiafa sina ok sagde
þeim þessa vitran. En þeir vrdu fegnir vitranenne. Enn þotte miok
illa er þesse suik voru bruggut ok vissu þa eigi fliotliga huat af skyllde
rada fyrr enn þeir visse huerir þeir være. Riedu þeir þa Karle fyrst
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at forda ser ok eptir þat foru þeir brott leyniliga allir saman ok komu
j Ardenam til þess ridara er Drefia het ok sogdu honum sin erende.
(Um Karlamagnús konung: 2–3)
After the king’s death certain men who had been among his knights
wanted to slay Karl; but almigthy God, who had destined the
world’s greatest regal glory for this excellent prince, did not let this
come to pass. He sent his angel to tell Karl that these men were
plotting to kill him. Karl went to his counsellors and told them of
this revelation, and they rejoiced that the revelation had been
granted but thought it most terrible that this treason was plotted;
they could not say at once what should be done when they did not
know who was involved. They advised Karl that the first thing to
do was to make sure his life was safe; and so they all rode away
together in secret and came into the Ardena, where they went to
the knight who was called Drefia and told him their business. (Kar-
lamagnús Saga: 54)
ok er þau voro mett at náttverde foro þau at sofa ok er Karl var sof-
nadr kom guds eingill enn til hans ok bad hann vppstanda ok fara at
stela enn honum þotti þat kynligt at eingillinn bad han þetta giora
edr hversu hann skyllde at fara er hann kynni ekke at. eingillin mællti
at hann skylldi senda eptir Basin þiof ok skyllde þeir fara bader saman
“fyrir þui at af þessu efni mattu odlaz riki þitt ok hafa lif þitt ok sęmd
ok er flest til þess vinnanda.” (Um Karlamagnús konung: 3–4)
When they had all eaten their fill of supper, they went to bed, and as
Karl slept, one of God’s angels came to him and told him to rise up
and go to steal. It seemed very strange to him that the angel should
give him such an order, and he did not know how to go about it. The
angel said that he should send for Basin, the thief, and the two of
them should go together; “for by this means, you can win your
kingdom and preserve life and honor; there is much to be gained by
it.” (Karlamagnús Saga: 55)
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The repeated appearance of the angel in Karl’s dreams and visions can
easily be interpreted as a medium of salvation, a widespread trope in
medieval mysticism and visionary literature (see e.g. Dauven-van Knip-
penberg et al. 2009).
Yet there are further “media” in use in Karlamagnús saga I. Writing
and affixing seals to letters with a signet ring are typical medial actions
in this saga, which overall appears fascinated by written communication.
In the first of the two following scenes, Naflun (one of Karl’s supporters)
hands him a ring. With this ring, Karl can seal letters to Naflun and the
recipient can thus easily idenitfy the sender. This is what happens in the
second scene below, in which a letter bearing Karl’s seal is sent to Naflun:
Naflun tok eitt fingrgull af hendi ser ock feck Karle ok mællti vid
hann “þat sem þer ber at hendi þa skrifa bref ok innsighla medr
fingr gullinu ok send mer. þa man ek kenna.” (Um Karlamagnús
konung: 5)
Namlun took a gold ring from his hand and gave it to Karl, saying
to him, “If you will bear this on your hand, when you write a letter
and seal it with the ring,7 and send it to me, then I shall know it is
from you.” (Karlamagnús Saga: 57)
kallar hon þa til sin Jadunet rennara ok bad hann fara medr brefi Kar-
llamagnvs. En erkibiskup skrifadi brefit ok setti þar a nafn allra
suikaranna […]. Karllamagnus spurdi ef Iaduneth væri tryggr enn modir
hans sagdi at eigi mundi annar madr trygguare. þa tok Karllamagnus
brefit ok jnnsigladi medr fingrgulli Nafluns ok feck sidan rennaranum
brefit enn hann færdi Nafluni ok Drefiv ok bad þa fara sem tidaz aa
fund erkibiskups ok drottningar enn þa er Naflun sa ritit kenndi hann
innsiglit ok braut sidan vpp brefit ok er hann sa nǫfn suikaranna þotti
honum miǫgh vndarligt at þeir skilldu vilia suikia hann sem fadir hans
hafdi gort rika menn. (Um Karlamagnús konung: 11–12)
7 The translation is here somewhat inaccurate, since the Old Norse text says ‘If some-
thing happens, write a letter and seal it with the ring […]’.
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She [the queen] then called Jadunet, a messenger, to her, and asked
him to go with a letter for Karlamagnús; and the archbishop wrote
the letter, and set in it the names of all the traitors […]. Karlamagnús
asked if Jadunet were trusty, and his mother said that no man could
be more trustworthy than he. Then Karlamagnús took the letter and
sealed it with Namlun’s ring, then gave the letter to the messenger.
And he went to Namlun and Drefia, and asked them to come at once
to the archbishop and the queen; but when Namlun saw the writing,
he recognized the seal and at once broke open the letter. And when
he saw the names of the traitors, it seemed very strange to him that
they should wish to betray the son of the man who gave them their
power. (Karlamagnús Saga: 64)
The main aim of this section clearly is to find the conspirators. When
finally all friends of Karlamagnús are gathered, the letter is opened and
read aloud, even though everybody present already knows what it con-
tains. This scene is especially interesting because it shows that the act of
reading a written document aloud is hugely important:
þa tok Naflun brefit ok feck erkibiskupi ok bad hann lesa ok hann

giordi sva ok nefndi þa alla aa nafn er suikia villdu Karllamagnus ok
sva hverssu þeir ætludu hann af lifa. Ollum þeim þotti þetta undarligt
er þessir menn uilldu suikia hann er honum ættu bezstir at vera.
Hatun jarll spurdi huersu hann vard þessa uiss. enn hann svaradi
“med guds miskun” kuad hann “ok medur brǫgdum Basins” ok sagdi
þa allann atburd huersu þeir foro at stela ok huersu þeir wrdu uisir
at þeir hefdu latit gera xii hnifa at drepa hann med. Renfræi skilldi
vera kongr ifir Valandi. (Um Karlamagnús konung: 13–14)
Then Namlun took the letter and gave it to the archbishop,8 and
asked him to read it. And he did so, and gave the names of all those
who wanted to betray Karlamagnús, and how they planned to take
8 The translation ‘fetched the archbishop’ (Karlamagnús Saga: 66) for feck erkibiskupi
is not correct.
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his life. It seemed strange to all of them that these men, who should
have been his greatest supporters, wanted to betray him. Earl Hatun
asked how he [Karlamagnús] had become certain of this, and he
answered, “By God’s mercy,” said he, “and by Basins’s crafty tricks”.
And he told them all the circumstances, how they had gone to steal
and how they had learned that twelve knives had been prepared to
kill him with, so that Renfrei should be king of Valland. (Karla-
magnús Saga: 66–67)
The inherent ambivalence and ambiguity of oral, verbal, spoken and

written language is expressed very clearly in this scene of reading aloud.
Interstingly, the letter – which Karlamagnús had the archbishop write
and sent to Naflun and which Naflun now brought with himself to
council – is not read out by Karlamagnús. Instead, it is the archbishop
who reads it alound – a fact which may give added weight to its content.
The scene demonstrates the superiority of the written word over the
spoken one in establishing truth. It exemplifies the auratic dimension of
written texts, a concern of central importance in the pre-modern period,
even though in this example it does appear as specifically embedded in
verbal communication. This is foregrounded when Jarl Hatun asks how
Karlamagnús came to know all this – and the hero answers him by
speaking to him. The written text appears as wholly grounded in a verbal
context, yet it unquestionably testifies for the truth Karl speaks and
proves the allegations. Karlamagnús saga I certainly does not show any
scepticism towards the written document, as is the case in other sagas.
Instead, the belief in the authority of a publicly read and presented piece
of writing prevails (see further, for example, Teuscher 2007; Teuscher
2012). The saga makes it explicit that it views writing as the preferred
medium of the honest, while the spoken word is the medium of liars and
conspirators.
As the following long passage shows, Karlamagnús saga I also contains
confidential conversations which are listened into. Furthermore, it also
featuers non-verbal actions of evidential nature which imminently lead to
death. For instance, one night Karlamagnús and the thief Basin sneak into
the house of Jarl Renfrei, where they hear the Jarl tell his wife about the
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planned assassination. When she scolds him about this, he hits her in the
face so hard she starts to bleed from her nose and mouth. Karlamagnús,
who is hiding behind a pillar, catches this blood in his glove without being
spotted. The bloodied glove is repeatedly mentioned in the subsequent
development of the narrative and finally becomes a token, a medium,
which proves Karlamagnús’ accusations against Renfrei. The glove is thus
invested with the quality of a powerful medium, which effectively under-
lines the orally presented explanation of the assault. It also crosses the
plans for an assassination in favour of Karlamagnús and leads to the death
of the main conspirator, Renfrei.
[…] sofnudu allir nema jarl. hann mælti (vid) frű sína “Sjá er ęjrn lutr,
frű, er ek vil sejgia þier, ok skalltű honum vel lejna.” “herra” segir hűn
“skilld er ek þess.” hann mællti “þu ueist nu at Pippin kongr er
andaþur enn hann aa eptir einn son er Karll heitir. hann er sva aagiarn
madr at hann uill allar þiodir undir sik leggia. hann ætlar at lata uigia
sik til kongs at iolum j Eirs borg ok bera koronu. En vær xii er rikaz-
stir erum i kongsins velldi hofum suarit eid at vær skolum hann sigra
ok eigi hans ofsa ne ifirgang ifir oss hafa ok sua skolum vær ad
honum vinna sem nu man ek þer segia. Vær hofum latid gera xii hnifa
tuieggiada af hinu hardazsta stali ok a iola kuolldit er hann hefir
halldit hird sina skolu vær drepa hann ok alla menna hans. siþann
skolum vær saman safna ollum vorum uinum ok skal uigia mik til
kongs. her j Tungr.” þa svaradi fruin “herra” segir hon “ecki stendr
ydr sua at gera […].” “þegi fól” segir hann “sua skal vera sem raad er
fyrir giort.” fruin mællti “huerir ero þessir þinir uinir er þu truir sua
vel til slikra stor raada at þer skulut ganga moti rettum konge þeim
sem borinn er til rikis ok tignar.” hann mællti “þar er firstr madr
Helldri […], annar Annzeals […], hinn xii Valam af Brittollis […] en
ek keisari i Romaborg.” fruin mællti “hera” segir hun “hversu hafi
þer þetta raad stadfest.” hann svaradi “sva” segir hann “at vier hofum
suarit eida vid alla gudz helga menn at vær skolum allir at einu ráde
vera at drepa Karll a þann sama dag sem hann er uigdr. skolu vær
ganga inn i suefnhus hans ok hafa sinn hnif hvor varr i sinni ermi
ok þa skolu vær vega at honum allir i senn.” “hera” segir hon “jllt rad
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ok armt hafe þer medr hondum […].” enn iarll vard reidr miog ok
laust medr hnefa sinum aa munn hennar ok nasir sua at huartueggia
blæddi. En hun laut framm or huilunni ok villdi eigi lata blæda aa
klædinn enn Karll sopadi blodinu i glofa sinn hægra. En hun lagdiz
þa aptr vpp i huiluna […]. (Um Karlamagnús konung: 6–8)
[…] all went back to sleep except the earl [Renfrei], who said to his
wife, “There is something I would like to tell you, and you must keep
it a secret.” “Lord,” she said, “I am obliged to keep your counsel
secret.” He said, “You know that King Pippin is dead now, and that
he left a son who is named Karl: a man so ambitious that he wants
to subject all nations under himself. He intends to have himself con-
secrated as King in Eiss at Yule, and to bear the crown. And we
twelve, who are the most powerful men in the king’s realm, have
sworn that we shall vanquish him and not endure his tyranny and
overbearing conduct over us. And our struggle against him shall be
as I shall now tell you: we have had twelve double-edged knives pre-
pared of the hardest steel, and on Christmas eve, when he holds his
court, we shall slay him and his men. Afterwards we shall gather all
our friends together and I shall be consecrated as king here in Tung.”
The lady then answered, “Lord,” she says, “you should not do that,
[…].” “Be silent, fool,” says he; “it shall be as we have planned.” The
lady said, “Who are these friends of yours that you can trust so well
in such great undertakings that you will act against a rightful king,
born to kingship and majesty?” He said, “The first is Heldri […], the
second Annzeals […], the twelfth Vadalin af Brettolia […] and I shall
be emperor in Rome.” The lady said, “Lord,” says she, “how have
you planned to do this?” He answered, “Thus,” says he: “we have all
sworn by God’s saints that we shall all be of one mind, and slay Karl
on the day when he is anointed. We shall go into his chamber, each
of us with his knife in his sleeve, and we shall then attack him all at
once.” “Lord,” says she, “you have in hand an evil and wicked plan,
[…].” The earl was much angered, and struck her with his fist so that
her mouth and nose bled. She bent out from the bed, not wanting to
let the blood fall on the bed-clothes, but Karl caught up the blood in
222
his right glove; then she lay down in the bed. […]. (Karlamagnús
Saga: 58–60)
ok hefir ek her glófan sem i for blodit. (Um Karlamagnús konung: 22)
I have here the glove which the blood ran into. (Karlamagnús Saga: 77)
[…] Gelęin […] feck honum glofan med blodinv. þa spurdi Karla-
magnus Renfrei ef hann kendi bloþit. Renfrei kuat hann vndarliga
męla. Karlamagnus suarar: “vndarligar hefer þu gert. þetta er bloþ
konv þinnar.” […] enn Renfrei kuad kono sina hafa suikit sik. en Kar-
lamagnus sor at hann laug. “þui at ek var þar þa er Basin tok fe þitt
ok suerþ. en ek tok bloþit ok hest þin.” […] hann geck þa j gegn ỏllo.
Herfi hertugi bad kasta þeim j myrkvastofu ok hengia vm morgunin.
(Um Karlamagnús konung: 42)
[…] Gilem […] brought him the glove with the blood. Then Karla-
magnús asked Renfrei if he recognized the blood. Renfrei said he
spoke strangely. Karlamagnús answers: “You have acted (even more)
strangely; that is the blood of your wife.” […] Renfrei said that his
wife had betrayed him. But Karlamagnús swore that he lied: “For I
was there; Basin took your treasure and sword, and I took the blood
and your horse.” […] He then confessed all.9 Duke Herfi advised that
they be cast into a dungeon and hanged in the morning. (Karla-
magnús Saga: 98-99)
Just like Njáls saga, Karlamagnús saga I thus presents strikingly multi-
faceted attitudes towards media and especially the performativity of
media. The beginning of the saga consists of a complex system of sending
and receiving messages which may be written, dreamt, oral, open or
secret, verbal or non-verbal. Messages sent in the form of visions or let-
ters lead to actions such as the preparation of voyages, advice or coun-
9 “While the idiom here may mean the contrary (‘denied’), ‘confessed’ appears to be
the sense throughout this part of the saga” (Footnote 5, Karlamagnús Saga: 21).
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termeasures against the assassination attempt. One of the most fre-

quently asked questions is: Wherefrom did you gain this knowledge?
Hatun jarll spurdi huersu hann vard þessa uiss. (Um Karlamagnús konung:
13) ‘Earl Hatun asked how he had become certain of this’ (Karlamagnús
Saga: 66).
Such repeated questions asked by protagonists within the narrative,
further lead to some underlying – and more abstract – questions: “How
do narratives originate?” and “How and from what matter is fiction cre-
ated?” It is precisely these questions which make a reading of sagas such
as Karlamagnús saga I or Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar such an interesting
enterprise, both from the perspective of mediality and within literary
history at large. Authors in thirteenth century Scandinavia were clearly
thinking about the importance and the possible potential and limitations
of communicative strategies – and thus mediality – in a much more dif-
ferentiated way than the commonly purposed configuration of orality/lit-
eracy. This is reflected in their works – such as the riddarasǫgur (Glauser
2010) – which contain explicit references to literary theory. On the other
hand, these concerns may also be expressed implicitly in highly complex
narratives such as Karlamagnús saga I or Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar. In
these and other texts we find very substantial reflections on literature as
a medium. This results in a discourse focused on literary and media
theory and concerned primarily with the possibilities of fictional narra-
tives. As such, these sagas can be seen to testify for a highly developed
engagement with issues of mediality in medieval culture.
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Karoline Kjesrud
S everal narratives, and parts of narratives, are preserved in both texts

and pictures from the Old Norse period. In this article I will focus
on one specific episode realized in different narrative contexts: A dragon
fight in order to free a lion. The episode, henceforth designated as a
motif, occurs in different contexts. Here I will concentrate on the repre-
sentation of the motif in six sagas from medieval Iceland and Norway:
Ívens saga, Þiðreks saga, Ectors saga, Konráðs saga keisarasonar, Vilhjálms
saga sjóðs, Sigurðar saga þögla.1 In addition to these sagas, the ornamenta-
tion on the Valϸjófsstaðir door will be examined. Occurring in such a
variety of sagas, the motif has some differences in the way it is presented.
In each context the motif has an individual meaning and consequently
different functions (Kjesrud 2010). Some of its different functions will
be explored in the following.
Consider the episode of a dragon fight in order to free a lion as a
motif; there are some theoretical premises that could help to reveal char-
acterizations of each specific representation. Talking about motifs and
elements, it is reasonable to take semiotics into account. Theories of
semiotics are often referred to as a theory of signs. A fundamental
premise in semiotics is that a sign in relation to other signs makes a
meaning, and hence has a function (Eco 1976; Asdal et al. 2008). The
idea of signs in relation to others may indeed be transferred to both lit-
erary and iconographic motifs. Thus, a motif may be understood as a
1 In the following I will refer to the sagas and how they are represented in the fol-
lowing editions, based on specific manuscripts. Ectors saga: AM 152 fol (c. 1500–
1525), Konráðs saga keisarasonar: Holm perg 7 fol (c. 1450–1475), Ívens saga: Holm
perg 6 4° (c. 1400), Vilhjálms saga sjóðs: AM 343 a 4° (c. 1450–1475), Sigurðar saga
þögla: AM 152 fol (c. 1500–1525), Þiðreks saga: Holm perg 4 fol (c. 1275–1300).
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karoline kjesrud
unity of smaller elements. Each element is then to be considered as a

sign. The combination of these elements creates a motif, and conse-
quently meaning. In the Middle Ages, people were familiar with expres-
sions in motifs, both in texts and in images (Aavitsland 2002). For
example, the literary tradition of exempla was intended for transmission
of moral issues. Exempla are short stories defining a moral problem and
possible interpretations. These kinds of exempla are often to be included
in a larger narrative (Haugen 2009: 63). Images were often expressions
of motifs as well. Altar frontals are typical examples from the medieval
period, expressing motifs in a narrative context. This feature is also to
be seen in wall paintings in churches and even on runestones and stave-
church portals. Such motifs often represent a larger story, such as Sigurðr
killing the dragon, which is a frequently depicted motif in the pictorial
material. Henning Laugerud in an article from 2003 states that medieval
pictures were rhetorical, supposed to communicate a message (Laugerud
2003: 22).
Let us now move to the examination of the dragon fight-motif. The
frequency of the motif of a dragon fight determines a motif not bound
to one specific context. To examine the differences among these repre-
sentations of the motif, I will sort out the most predominant elements
in the motif. In each of the six sagas mentioned above, there are three
important recurring elements: a dragon, a lion and a knight. In addition
to these recurring elements, each presentation of the motif includes other
elements. The individual combination of elements is important to sepa-
rate the motif presentations from each other and reveal each motif’s indi-
vidual meaning. Some of the motifs are more similar in their appearance
than others. A brief glance may give the impression that the presentation
of the motif in Vilhjálms saga sjóðs and Sigurðar saga þögla looks quite
similar. There are nevertheless some differences between them, which
makes them interesting to analyse separately.
In all the presentations of the motif, except in Konráðs saga keisara-
sonar, the scene of action is in a forest. The setting for the dragon fight in
Konráðs saga keisarasonar is some place on Konráðr’s journey towards the
mountains. Certainly, one could imagine that there would be a forest on
his road, but the text does not clarify that and hence we do not know. A
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common feature in all the presentations of the motif is the fighting scene.
The dragon fight always takes place outside the centre. On his journey
through peripheral surroundings, the knight catches sight of this fight.
It may not be surprising that the dragon fight is placed outside the
centre. There is reason to consider it like other threats, usually placed
outside the centre. Consequences of the episode, however, are brought
into the centre later. In five sagas the lion becomes the knight’s dear
friend and companion after the fight. The lion therefore follows the
knight back to the centre. This can happen because the lion at that point
no longer is a danger or a threat. It has accepted the knight’s claim to
leadership. Only in Þiðreks saga does the lion not follow the knight back
to the centre; in this version of the motif the lion dies in the fight.
The motif presented in various narratives
Ívens saga
Ívens saga is often described as one of the sagas King Hákon Hákonarson
had translated from French to Old Norse at the beginning of the thir-
teenth century. The saga is based on one of Chrétien de Troyes’ works,
Le Chevalier au Lion. Even though the saga is assumed to have been
written in the early thirteenth century, the only manuscripts preserved
are from the fifteenth century. As such, the saga is a typical witness of
the Norwegian manuscript tradition; few Norwegian manuscripts from
the thirteenth century are preserved today.
When Íven rides through deep valleys and thick forests, he and his
horse recognize and follow certain noises from the forest. The noises
they have heard are caused by a fight between a lion and a dragon.2 The
dragon holds the lion tight round its tail and burns it with venom and
fire from its mouth. The moment Íven sees this, he jumps off his horse
and armours himself. He doesn’t know though, which party he should
support in the fight. He walks toward the struggling animals with his
2 In Ívens saga and Þidreks saga the Old Norse word ormr is used, no doubt denoting a
dragon. I discuss this various terminology later on in the article.
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karoline kjesrud
shield upraised to protect him from poison and fire. When he suddenly
hears the lion cry out for his help, Íven realizes whose side he should take
in the fight. He then walks towards the dragon, raises his sword and cuts
the dragon in the middle. The dragon dies, but Íven keeps cutting him
into pieces to loosen the grip he has on the lion’s body. When Íven has
freed the lion and killed the dragon, he is still not sure of the lion’s pur-
poses. He therefore raises his shield again to protect himself from the
lion. Íven soon realizes that the lion will not hurt him, only show him its
gratitude. The lion lies down on the ground, turns its belly up and crawls
toward Íven, praying for peace with tears in its eyes. In this way, the lion
surrenders itself to the knight. Íven thanks his God for the help and for
getting such a companion (Ívens saga: 100–102).
Þiðreks saga
Another narrative assumed to have been written in Norway in the thir-
teenth century is Þiðreks saga. This saga is preserved in a Norwegian
manuscript from the late thirteenth century.
In Þiðreks saga the dragon fight appears when the main actor, Þiðrekr,
rides in a forest. On his journey through the forest, he observes a dragon
and a lion struggling. Very soon Þiðrekr becomes aware of the lion’s
mark on his weapons. This observation makes Þiðrekr sympathize with
the lion and he decides to fight for it. Þiðrekr attacks the dragon and call
out for help from God. He then receives the strength to pull up a tree
with its roots. Subsequently the dragon gets awfully angry and grabs the
lion with its mouth, and Þiðrekr with its tail. The dragon then flies away
to its nest where the hungry dragon offspring are waiting. The dragon
and its kids eat the lion with pleasure. At last, Þiðrekr manages to get
free from the dragon’s tail. He finds a sword, King Hertnið’s old sword,
with which he succeeds in killing the dragon. As soon as the dragon is
dead, Þiðrekr finds more weapons and clothes. After he has armed him-
self with these new finds, he praises the Lord and thanks God (Þiðreks
saga II: 361–363).
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Vilhjálms saga sjóðs

Vilhjálms saga sjóðs is preserved in manuscripts from the early fifteenth
century onwards. In this narrative the dragon fight takes place when Vil-
hjálmr has recently settled down for a night’s rest on a journey. He sud-
denly hears screams and noise from the woods nearby. He walks towards
the noise and observes smoke and fire poring out of a mountain. A little
closer, he meets a dragon with a lion in its claws. The dragon tries to fly
away with the lion, but the lion clings to the trees and pulls them up by
the roots. Vilhjálmr is enraged and attacks the dragon. The dragon
answers Vilhjálmr’s attack with breathing fire out of his mouth and nose.
Vilhjálmr continues to attack the dragon, and with his third attack, he
manages to cut the dragon’s head off. To release the lion from the
dragon’s grip, he cuts off the dragon’s claws. As soon as the lion is freed,
it crawls towards Vilhjálmr and becomes his friend and companion for
the rest of its life. After he has rescued the lion, Vilhjálmr walks towards
the mountains from where he saw the smoke. Here he finds the dragon’s
nest filled with gold and precious objects, as well as the dragon’s three
offspring. Vilhjálmr kills the small dragons and brings with him all the
gold he desires. Afterwards he takes care of the lion and heals its wounds
(Vilhjálms saga sjóðs: 26–27).
Konráðs saga keisarasonar

Konráðs saga keisarasonar is assumed to have been written in the early
fourteenth century. The oldest preserved manuscript containing this saga
is Holm perg 7 4°, from c. 1300–1325.
In this narrative the motif of the dragon fight takes place in one
of Konráðr’s trips out of Miklagarðr, trying to convince the emperor
of Miklagarðr that he is the rightful son of Saxland’s emperor. Konráðr
observes fire and smoke from the mountains and rides towards it.
While he rides he hears noise from the forest, which turns out to come
from a dragon with huge wings. Konráðr sees the fearless animal, the
lion, standing beneath the dragon, and the dragon has its claws in the
lion’s body and is ready to fly away with it. Konráðr rides towards the
dragon and attacks him with his sword, without hurting the lion. In
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this way, he frees the lion from the dragon’s claws. When the lion is
free, it crawls towards Konráðr. Konráðr speaks to it and says that he
has been told that the lion is the wisest animal in the world and that it
even understands human language. Konráðr continues his speech by
asking to be the lion’s lord and master, and the lion to follow him in
all enterprises. If the lion accepts, he will take care of it and groom its
wounds. As an answer, the lion cries as a human, crawls towards Kon-
ráðr and turns its belly up. In the following Konráðr travels to the
mountains where he finds the dragon’s home. He kills two dragon off-
spring and helps himself with gold. At this moment, Konráðr realizes
it was the gold that had caused the impression of fire (Konráðs saga
keisarasonar: 66–69).
Ectors saga
Ectors saga is supposedly from fourteenth-century Iceland. The earliest
manuscripts containing the saga date from around 1400.
Ectors saga narrates the story of Ector and his six knights. Together
the seven knights have made a promise to experience knightly affairs on
their own. In the saga we follow each of the knights on his trip through
unfamiliar areas. One of the knights, Trancival, travels through deep val-
leys and thick forest. One day he has a thick forest on the one hand, and
the sea on the other. Suddenly Trancival hears noises and screams from
the forest. The noises are so strong that the earth shakes and trees are
pressed down to the ground. Trancival climbs down from his horse and
unexpectedly sees a dragon flying out of the forest. The dragon is
spewing poison in such a manner that both the ground and the forest
turn black. In his claws, the dragon holds a lion, the fearless animal. It
has pierced its claws into the lion’s body. The dragon is strong, but still
it gets tired when the lion clings to trees and pull them up by their roots.
Trancival stands between two trees waiting for the dragon to come closer.
When it is close enough, Trancival strikes his sword on the dragon’s back
and splits it down the middle. In gratitude, the lion decides to follow
Trancival from that day (Ectors saga: 123–124).
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Sigurðar saga þögla

Sigurðar saga þögla is from fourteenth-century Iceland. The saga is spar-
ingly preserved in medieval manuscripts.
In Sigurðar saga þögla, the dragon fight takes place shortly after Sig-
urðr has been given weapons and armour by his foster father. When he
has armed himself, Sigurðr walks into the forest and straight into a
dragon that holds a lion in its claws. The dragon has coiled its tail around
the lion’s body. When the dragon tries to fly away with the lion, the lion
grips the trees with such strength that they nearly break. The lion
screams when the dragon pierces its claws into its flesh, and the dragon
spews fire and poison. Realizing that he has the lion’s mark on his shield,
Sigurðr wants to help the lion. The lion still has a hold on the trees which
forces the dragon to fly a bit lower so that Sigurðr can reach its wing with
his sword. The blood gushes and the dragon loses its strength and also
its grip on the lion. This makes it possible for Sigurðr to cut off the
dragon’s feet and tail. Subsequently the dragon falls to the ground and
Sigurðr cuts off its head. The dragon fight is characterized as Sigurðr’s
first achievement. When Sigurðr turns to the lion it crawls towards him
in gratitude. Sigurðr grooms the lion for three nights. After these three
nights they ride away together to the dragon’s residence, situated in a
gap in the mountains. After spending some time with the lion, Sigurðr
realizes that the lion can just about understand human language. When
they reaches the dragon’s lair together, they cooperate and bring up gold
from the gap. Sigurðr also makes sure to kill the dragon’s two offspring.
When the motif of the dragon fight is related in Sigurðar saga þögla, more
information about the lion is presented as well. The lion is presented as
nimble as a cat, it sleeps with its eyes open, and thus can see anything
that may harm it. A legend of how the female lion gives birth to lifeless
pups is also told. The lion pups lie lifeless for three days and three nights,
until the male lion breathes life on them. In this the lion symbolizes God
himself, who raised his son from the dead after three days. After this
legend, the narrative includes a reference to Meistare Lucretius. Accord-
ing to the saga narrator, Meistare Lucretius called the lion holy in its
nature, as it does not harm human beings unless it is extremely hungry
or wounded (Sigurðar saga þögla: 141–147).
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This brief review of the different presentations of the motif has

revealed certain similarities and certain differences. Considering the
motif as consisting of smaller units – elements – there are some elements
recurring in all the presentations: the dragon, the lion and the knight
who gets involved in the fight. These three elements may be considered
as a minimum of the motif’s existence. Without one of these three ele-
ments, the motif could not have been considered as a variant.
There are also other recurring elements of varying importance. Some
of the differences noticed have an impact on the further understanding
of the motif in its context. These will be discussed later on in connection
with the individual functions. To sum up some similarities of the pre-
sentations of the motif above: In all of the sagas, except Þiðreks saga, the
lion becomes the knight’s companion after it is saved. Trees are dragged
up by roots occur in Þiðreks saga, Vilhjálms saga sjóðs, Sigurðar saga þögla
and Ectors saga. In the three latter ones, the lion tries to prevent the
dragon from flying away with it. The fact that the lion’s grip on the tree-
tops actually pulls the trees up by the roots strengthens the impression
of the immense strength these animals represent. The knight praises God
after the fight in Ívens saga and Þiðreks saga, and a humble subordination
is noticed in Ívens saga and Konráðs saga keisarasonar. Here the lion
shows its humility by turning its belly up and crying tears, like a human.
In Þiðreks saga, Þiðrekr receives unknown power after he has prayed to
God for strength and help to take part in the fight. Even though Þiðrekr
prays for help, he does not manage to prevent the dragon from killing
the lion. Íven and Trancival are the only knights who do not seek out the
dragon’s residence and collect gold and precious objects. In the motif as
it appears in Ívens saga, Þiðreks saga and Sigurðar saga þögla, the knight
uses a shield to protect himself. The shield is certainly an important ele-
ment in the knight’s armour and different descriptions of the shield
strengthens the impression of the knight’s participation in the fight, and
even of the terrifying dragon. In the two latter, the knight’s shield is even
marked with a lion, which makes the decision as to which side he was to
fight on easier.
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The door from Valϸjófsstaðir

Let us now turn from textual narratives to a pictorial one. The dragon
fight in order to free a lion is presented on a medieval Icelandic door
from Valϸjófsstaðir. This door is approximately two metres high (206.5
cm to be precise) and is dated to around 1200 (Magerøy 1967: 32). If this
dating is correct, it implies that this door is the oldest known Old Norse
presentation of the dragon fight motif. Interestingly enough, Ívens saga
and Þiðreks saga are the closest text-works to this pictorial presentation,
if we are to consider a chronology. Nevertheless, Ívens saga is usually
considered to be one of the sagas translated at the court of King Hákon
Hákonarson in Norway, in the first half of the thirteenth century. Þiðreks
saga is assumed to have been written in Norway in the mid-thirteenth
century. In my opinion, the pictorial presentation of the motif on the
door from Valϸjófsstaðir exemplifies how one single motif could exist
alone, without being dependent on a specific narrative to be distributed.
The motif had a symbolic value in itself, and was communicating a mes-
sage even without a surrounding narrative.
The door is decorated with two large medallions, vertically placed
one underneath the other. The lower medallion is filled with ornaments
of dragons. The upper medallion consists of two sections divided in the
middle, obviously representing stages of a narrative. In the lower section
there is a lion caught by a dragon’s tail. The dragon has its mouth open
with its tongue hanging out. The lion trying to escape from the dragon
is situated to the left and the dragon to the right. A knight on his horse
appears in between the two fighting animals. The knight pierces the
dragon with his sword, which may explain why the dragon’s mouth is
open. The three main elements characteristic of the motif – the lion, the
dragon and the knight – are represented in this section. The fighting
scene is encircled by plant ornaments, which may represent a forest and
hence the scene of action. As such, this pictorial presentation of the motif
is quite similar to the saga presentations. There is also a bird flying above
the lion in this section, perhaps another element marking the scene of
action. In the upper section the lion is following the knight on his horse
on the left. Each of them has perfectly outlined ornaments and curves.
The bird is now sitting on the horse’s neck. To the right in this section,
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Figure 2. The door from Valϸjófsstaðir, Iceland (Photo: Þjóðminjasafn Íslands).
234
a small building forms the background and the lion lies on an elevation
with a cross on its right side. It is plausible to interpret this as the lion’s
grieving over the knight’s death.
In the introduction to this article semiotics were mentioned as a the-
oretical platform. The most important semiotic idea, however, is that
small elements together with other elements create a larger unit, a motif,
in which a meaning can be discerned. The relations between elements
make up each individual presentation, and hence its distinctive functions.
The motif of the dragon fight in order to free a lion may be considered
as built up of several building bricks. Each building brick denotes a semi-
otic element. In the pictorial presentation these building bricks, or ele-
ments, become very clear. Each figure is an element. The same structure
occurs in the textual presentations. They may, however, be more con-
cealed in dialogues and descriptions. In pictorial presentations, the
details, dialogues and names are left to the receiver. In the case of the
Valϸjófsstaðir door, we cannot know whether the craftsman had one spe-
cific knight in mind when the ornaments on the door were made. Per-
haps one knight we do not know, who was accompanied by a bird?
Judging by the other presentations of the motif in different sagas, how-
ever, we can conclude that the main elements are the same, and hence
the core of the motif is the same.
The functions of the motif – analysis
Before analysing the different presentations of the motif and construing

their functions, the three main elements in the motif will be more thor-
oughly outlined.
The dragon is one of the three main elements in the motif. In the
different presentations various terms are used to denote the dragon.
Most common is dreki ʻdragonʼ, but also flugdreki ʻflying dragonʼ and ormr
ʻsnakeʼ are used. In Þiðreks saga, both dreki and ormr are even used inter-
changeably. It seems that these three different expressions connote the
same phenomenon: a poison-filled animal, with wings and hence able to
fly. None of the descriptions include other characteristics such as colour
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and size. Thus, we cannot be sure how the receivers of the presentations
visualized this creature when they heard about it. According to Kulturhis-
torisk leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder (drake: 3, 267–270; ormer: 13, 1–
8), the division between dragon and snake is modern. In the Middle Ages
the terms were used indiscriminately. Snakes as a species (Latin serpens)
constitute a large family, in which draco is one separate sub-category.
During the Middle Ages, the term draco was extended to include fabu-
lous animals. It thus seems that the inconsistent use of the terms dreki,
flugdreki and ormr does not reflect a conscious division into a real and a
fabulous animal. The animal designated is sometimes with legs, some-
times with wings, sometimes in the shape of a snake. A section from the
Revelation of John in the Bible may illustrate this inconsistency further.
In this section, draco and serpens are used synonymously:
Et factum est proelium in caeolo

Michahel et angeli eius proeliabantur cum dracone
et draco pugnabat et angeli eius
et non valuerunt neque locus inventus est eorum amplius in caelo
et proiectus est draco ille magnus
serpens antiquus qui vocatur Diabolus et Satanas
qui seducit universum orbem
proiectus est in terram et angeli eius
cum illo missi sunt. (Vulgata, Apc. 12: 7–9)
And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not;
neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and
his angels were cast out with him. (Holy Bible, Revelation 12: 7–9)
Both draco and serpens are used here in the description of evil, both as
personifications of the devil and Satan.
A fascination with dragons is prominent in medieval literature. First
and foremost they are creatures with evil intentions, and thus function
236
as symbols of evil. The snake was also, as in the example above, associ-
ated to the devil. Literary effects underline this symbolism, as dragons
crawl and fly towards one, their mouths filled with poison and fire. To
push the symbolism of the dragon even further, an association with
another motif in Þiðreks saga including a dragon, may be illustrative. After
Sigurðr Fáfnisbani has fought a dragon to death, he rubs himself with
the dragon’s blood. The blood makes him acquire armour similar to a
dragon’s shell. With this coat, no sword or spear could penetrate his
body. There is one place between his shoulders, however, where Sigurðr
was not able to spread the dragon blood. This unprotected area is where
a spear ultimately pierces him to death. Even though this description in
Þiðreks saga is not related to the motif under discussion, it may give us
an impression of what the dragon as a creature was like to those who
were familiar with it. It is most plausible also to assume that other
descriptions of this kind were widely spread.
In contrast to the dragon, the lion is a real animal. Nevertheless, its
symbolic qualities run further than its actual presence in certain faunas.
The Greek Physiologus, later translated into Latin, described the lion as a
symbol of the Lord Christ. In the same way as the lion hides its foot-
prints from hunters, Christ hides his divinity for those who do not
believe. In the Physiologus, the miraculous circumstances of the lion’s
birth giving are described. These miraculous circumstances are inter-
preted allegorically as the death and resurrection of Christ, closely related
to the description found in Sigurðar saga þögla. The Holy Spirit breathed
life into human beings; in the same way the male lion breathes life into
its offspring, the third day after their birth. An Icelandic version of Phys-
iologus is preserved in two manuscript fragments, containing twenty-four
descriptions of animals and their allegorical meanings. The legend about
the lions and their birth-giving is not included. However, the legend is
related in Sigurðar saga þögla, as follows:
Margar natturugiafir hefir hann og merkiligar. hann sefur opnum

augum og sier alt þat ath honum ferr sem honum m/aa/ geigur e(dur)
grand ath verda. kuenndyrit fædir dauda sijna huòlpa og suo liggia
þeir lijflausir .iij. daga og .iij. nætur. og sijdan kemur til kalldyrit og
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blæs at huelpvnum þar til þeir lifnna. og merkir hann j þessu gud
sialfan er sinn sonn Reisti af dauda /áá/ þrijdia degi eptir pijning
sijna. Hann slædir jordina med sijnum hal/aa/ suo at eigi megi Renna
fotspor hans. Meistare Lucretius kallar helgann leoninn j sinni nat-
turu þuiat hann granndar ei manninum utan af sarum sullti. ef
madurinn gerir honum eckj /aa/ motj og hann gefur og manninn
lidugann ef hann gefz fyrir honum. (Sigurðar saga þögla: 145–146)
It is obvious that the legend about the lion was well known in Iceland, at
least in the fourteenth century. Where the inspiration for the retelling
in Sigurðar saga þögla came from cannot be stated with certainty. It is
interesting to notice that in this retelling, the symbolic meanings are out-
lined. In this way, those who read or listened to the story would be able
to understand the similarities between Christ and the lion, and hence the
symbolic power the lion was given. However, this description from the
legend of the lion does not occur in the Icelandic Physiologus. The closest
animal to the lion here is panthera, and it is plausible to assume that pan-
ther was used as another word for lion in earlier days. The panther is
described as having only one enemy, the dragon. In addition it should be
mentioned that the description of the panther includes a metaphor for
Christ:
[…] Phisiologus seger, at dreke ein ovinr ϸess. Þa er ϸat ıetr oc er fullt,
legsc ϸat oc søfr. Efter ϸria daga vacnar hann oc rẏmr (hȧtt); en meϸ
rẏmnum feʀ ılmr søtr ẏr munnı ϸuı. En dẏr heẏra rǫdd hans bęϸe
ner oc fiarre oc fẏlgıa ılmınum; en drekenn scriϸr ı ıarϸar holor oc
lıgr, sem hann se dauϸr. En annor kẏcquende fẏlgia panteram, ar er
hann ferr. Sua oc drotters var ıesus christus, er saϸr pantera er, (alt) folc
dro af dıofle, ϸat es hann hafϸe aϸr. Þuiat pan(ter)a ϸyϸir alla hlute
g(ripanda). (The Icelandic Physiologus: 27)
The lion as a symbol of Christ is also found in the Bible, as in the Rev-
elation of John:
238
Et unus de senioribus dicit mihi

Ne fleveris
Ecce vicit leo de tribu Iuda radix David
Aperire librum et septem signacula eius. (Vulgata, Apc. 5: 5)
And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold the Lion of
the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book,
and to loose the seven seals thereof. (Holy Bible, Revelation 5: 5)
The lion had more symbolic qualities in addition to being a symbol of

Christ. It was also a great symbol of warrior virtues and strength. As a
symbol of kingship and specific regents, the lion is well distributed, both
in visual and literary narratives. There can be no doubt of its magnificent
role as a symbolic animal if we take objects of art, weapons, textiles and
coins into consideration.
As for many animals and beings in general, descriptions and symbolic
values given both in Physiologus and in other learned texts can often be
linked to Isidore of Seville. In his description of beasts, the lion and panther
sort under the same category. He writes about their characteristics:
The word beast, bestia, properly belongs to lions, panthers, tigers,

wolves and foxes, dogs and apes, and others, serpents excepted,
which are savage in using their mouth or claws. They are called bestiae
from the power, vis, of their ferocity. (Isidore: xii.2.1)
The symbolism of Christ concerning panthera, as mentioned in Physio-

logus, is most relevant to consider in the light of the lion’s symbolic values
in Isidore’s writings. It should be remarked that Isidore underlines that
the snake is the only enemy of the panther, in exactly the same way as in
Physiologus.
The third element in this motif is the dragon killer, the knight. There
are several texts and pictures where figures are presented as dragon
killers. In the Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, the Archangel
Michael acts as one of God’s angels. In the Revelations of John he fights
against the devil and evil in the shape of a dragon. Here the previously
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cited passage from the Revelations is also relevant for a wider under-
standing of the dragon killer as an element. When the knight fights the
dragon, he does not only fight a terrifying animal – he fights evil. Those
combating evil and fighting the devil possess a strong position. As in the
biblical story of the dragon killer, the Archangel Michael’s position is
clearly exalted. The act itself is definitely a hero’s achievement.
There have been other dragon fighters in narratives, preserved both
in literature and in other artefacts. Among the most famous dragon
fighters is St George. Having fought and killed a dragon, St George is
given the honour of having converted 15,000 people to Christianity
(Farmer 2004).
Sigurðr Fáfnisbani is another example of a dragon fighter, preserved
in numerous stone carvings, poems, narratives, church portals and other
artefacts from both secular and Christian contexts. According to many
of these presentations, Sigurðr kills the dragon Fáfnir to get hold of the
treasure he is hiding. Presentations of the Sigurðr narrative are
numerous, and the most popular motif in its cycle is definitely the killing
of the dragon. It should not be controversial to assume that the motif
could be a symbolic presentation of good fighting evil.
Different presentations – different functions
A dragon fight in order to free a lion is built up by the three elements

discussed above. These elements are necessary for the motif to exist. In
addition to those three elements, each presentation includes several other
elements as well. Some of these elements recur in the different presen-
tations, some are exclusive for one presentation. As such, the motif is
quite different in each presentation. These differences also make it pos-
sible and even natural to construe various meanings of the motif. Even
though each motif may be construed in an individual manner, one overall
function of all the motif presentations may be revealed. The dragon fight
in order to free a lion must be understood as a description of a knight’s
heroic achievement. There is no doubt that fighting the dragon is an
impressive act. Most of the presentations of the motif may easily be con-
240
nected to Christian symbolism as well. Ectors saga, however, stands out

with no specific signs that could make it natural to interpret the motif in
a Christian framework. In this saga’s presentation of the motif, there are
no references to Christian symbolism. The saga seems to have had
another intention in presenting the motif, namely, to strengthen the
knight’s reputation, both in the saga narrative’s further actions and in the
reader’s mind. Trancival does not seek the dragon’s lair after he has
defeated him. In this saga, the motif is in any case presented briefly, as a
digression interrupting the main narrative of Trancival’s journey. This
observation indicates that the motif is retold here first and foremost to
explain the deeds of Trancival’s journey. He won a fight and travelled on
to new experiences. The presentation in Ectors saga exemplifies how this
motif lived its own life, as on the Valþjófsstaðir door, with one main
function: to show a knight’s skills. It is a motif first and foremost to
strengthen the knight’s knightly position.
Sigurðar saga þögla has the most explicit formulations regarding the
interpretation of the motif. Christian symbolism is explicitly formulated
in this presentation. Thus, it is not a coincidence that the lion in the motif
presented in Sigurðar saga þögla rests for three days before it is able to
follow Sigurðr on his further journey. These three days should be seen
in relation to Christ’s three days in the grave before his resurrection. This
symbolic event may also be connected to what is told about the lion in
Physiologus. Here the fight between the lion and dragon may clearly be
interpreted as a fight between good and evil. The knight himself may be
seen as an inexperienced apprentice when he first caught sight of the
fight. Later, he stands out as the most righteous knight, who chooses to
fight for good, not evil. Again, the Christian symbolism suggested above
is more explicit in Sigurðar saga þögla when it comes to the description
of the lion:
Enn þo hann megi kongr kallazt allra annara dyra þæ hafdi hann þo
vid þessa skadsamliga dreca huorce afl ne grimleik þuiat hann hafdi
suo hardliga hneptan leoninat hann matti eigi laus verda. (Sigurðar
saga þögla: 141)
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The lion is the king of all animals. The same description ought to be
found in Isidore’s Etymologiae as well. However, even though the lion
needs more strength and help to fight the evil dragon, it drags up trees
by their roots when the dragon tries to fly away with it. The enormous
strength involved is easy to imagine.
In some of the sagas, the knights begin to sympathize with the lion
when they become aware of the mark of the lion on their shields. In Vil-
hjálms saga sjóðs, though, the knight’s fight with the dragon is not due to
an explicit sympathy with the lion. Vilhjálmr rather has an antipathy to
the dragon. To Vilhjálmr, the dragon is evil, which must be crushed.
Thus, there are slight differences in how the knights meet the fight, and
what their motivation is. Neither Íven nor Þiðrekr knows which side he
should take in the fight. In these two presentations the impression of
strong animals is thus mighty. The lion is the mightiest of all animals,
but the dragon may outdo the lion’s strength with his sly attitude and
fantastic behaviour. Both Íven and Þiðrekr decide to fight against the
dragon. However, Íven is still not sure whether he has deserved the lion’s
gratitude, and protects himself from the lion after he has fought the
dragon.
In Þiðreks saga the dragon fight turns out in another way. As the sum-
mary made clear, the dragon manages to kill the lion and feed its hungry
offspring in this version. The lion was not strong enough to fight against
the dragon. After the lion’s death the knight kills the dragon. Compared
to the other presentations, this may weaken the symbolic interpretation
of the fight between good and evil, as it would make the evil vanquish
the good. From another point of view, the death of the lion may increase
Þiðrekr’s powerful strength. As a knight he kills a dragon that has fought
the strongest of all animals. The presentation of the fight in Þiðreks saga
includes a great many details, and there seems to be an uncertain end to
the fight. It is a tough match, and Þiðrekr is caught for some time in the
dragon’s claws. If we are to interpret the lion and dragon as personifica-
tions of Christ and Satan, Christ does die, but with God’s help Satan will
be slain by the good knights.
In all the other presentations of the motif, the lion ends up as the
knight’s companion. In this position, the knight could be interpreted as
242
the winner of the good. As the knight’s companion, the lion may be inter-
preted as a symbol of power and warrior abilities, and this benefits the
knight. In the subsequent actions in which the knight takes part, he is
stronger and has more authority thanks to the lion.
In Ívens saga, the knight does not visit the dragon’s lair after he has
killed it. In this presentation, the dragon is not described with wings, nor
does it try to fly away with the lion. The dragon fight in this saga takes
place only on the ground. As such, the presentations in the other sagas
present a more fantastic picture of the dragon.
It is plausible to assume that the motif has existed separately from
other surrounding narratives in the Middle Ages. An excellent example
of this is the door from Valϸjófsstaðir. The name of the knight depicted
on the door is unknown. Nor do we know whether the craftsman or the
one who ordered the work recognized this episode as a smaller part of a
larger narrative. The core of the motif is the same in all presentations,
also in the pictorial one, constituted by the three main elements. When
the motif was included in a larger narrative, various elements which per-
fectly fitted the narrative were included. In this way the motif may be
seen as a building brick in the surrounding narrative, with a distinct func-
tion – pointing at the narrative as a whole. When the motif stands alone,
such as on the Valϸjófsstaðir door, its possible function as an exemplum
pointing at moral deeds is striking. Such an understanding underlines
the individuality of every single presentation of the motif.
To sum up, I will suggest different possible functions the motif may
have had in its specific context. As already mentioned, one common func-
tion for all of the narratives is to present a hero’s achievement and thus
his moral fight against evil. This is a way to increase his knightly repu-
tation and chivalric ideals. In the different saga narratives other functions
may also be revealed, as I have tried to imply above.
Ectors saga has the simplest description of the motif. In this presen-
tation, I would suggest that the motif mainly occurs to strengthen the
knight’s reputation. Trancival’s achievement of killing the dragon is only
one in a series of other challenges he meets on his journey.
The presentation in Vilhjálms saga sjóðs is important in building up
Vilhjálmr’s qualities and strength. Courtliness and knightly details do
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not seem to be of such importance, Vilhjálmr has no shield and there is

no subordination of the lion.
The knightly achievement is also underlined in the other presenta-
tions. In addition to describing a knightly achievement, Þiðreks saga and
Ívens saga also include religious references. In these two presentations,
there are prayers and thanks to God. So far, these two narratives are more
explicit in relating the connection between Christian practice and the
knight’s affairs. There are, however, some differences between these two
accounts. Most important is the fact that the lion is not freed in Þiðreks
saga. The dragon manages to kill the lion before Þiðrekr comes to the
rescue. To me it seems to have been important to show the knight’s rela-
tionship to God is. In Þiðreks saga it is more important to underline
Þiðrekr’s actions in cooperation with God, rather than to save the lion.
In Ívens saga there is also an underlining of the knight’s relation to
God. He prays and thanks God, and there can be no doubt that the knight
is strengthened by God. Íven manages to kill the dragon and free the lion.
He is not sure whether he should protect himself against the lion, but he
soon understands that the lion will be his companion. Íven then thanks
his God for sending him this help. This might be understood as a moral
of the story: if you fight evil you will receive gratitude.
Thanks to God are also found in Konráðs saga keisarasonar. Addi-
tionally, knightly manners are underlined in this presentation. The reader
is given the opportunity to understand the motif’s deeper symbolism.
Konráðr speaks directly to the lion and tells it that it is the strongest of
all animals, and that it is capable of understanding human language. I am
also tempted to suggest that this presentation teaches a moral about the
exchange of favours. Konráðr heals the lion’s wounds because he is eager
to acquire the lion as a loyal companion.
In addition to presenting the knightly achievement in Sigurðar saga
þögla, this narrative includes learned references, and thus it is plausible
to assume that the motif indeed had a function of presenting these alle-
gorical references. This kind of allegory and symbolism is without doubt
connected to learned literature in this period.
244
“Sir Snara Asláksson owns me”:
The historical context of Uppsala
De la Gardie 4–7
Bjørn Bandlien
T he translations of romances and chansons de geste into riddarasǫgur

in thirteenth-century Norway are well known. Most of the trans-
lated sagas have been connected to the reign of King Hákon IV (1217–
1263). The translation of Thomas of Britain’s version of the legend of
Tristan and Isolde is perhaps the most famous, and symbolizes the
starting point of the translation programme into Old Norse. The pro-
logue to Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar in a seventeenth-century Icelandic man-
uscript states that it was commissioned by King Hákon and translated
in 1226 by Brother Robert. The translation has usually been connected
to the wedding of King Hákon to Margrét in 1225, the daughter of the
man second in power to the king, Earl (later Duke) Skúli Bárðarson (d.
1240). According to Hákonar saga Hákonarssonar, almost every noble,
bishop, monk and cleric of some importance was present at this wedding.
This feast might have been a good opportunity to show splendour and
courtliness.
Although knowledge of courtly culture and literature probably devel-
oped before Tristrams saga was composed, the many translations of
romances and chansons de geste in Norway must have contributed signif-
icantly to the awareness of ethical concepts of courtliness – especially
courtly love and chivalric valour.
Still, the focus on the translations in the reign of Hákon IV has con-
ventionally left the literary culture in the last third of the thirteenth cen-
tury in the shadows. One of the most important manuscripts preserved
concerning the development of courtly literature in Norway is Uppsala,
De la Gardie 4–7 fol (hereafter DG 4–7). This has been studied mainly
as a source of the translations made in the age of King Hákon. However,
the manuscript itself was written c. 1270 and has the potential to reveal
245
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the practices of the scriptorium and the audience of courtly texts a gen-
eration after the translations of the individual sagas (cf. Kalinke 1979;
1985: 334–335). DG 4–7 is of particular interest also because a note in
the margins on the second leaf, albeit uncertain because the script is
almost illegible, has been interpreted as: herra Snara Aslaksson a mik ‘Sir
Snara Asláksson owns me’. Although doubts have been raised as to
whether he owned the main part of the manuscript, containing in addi-
tion to translations of Old French lais (Strengleikar), also Norse versions
of a chanson de geste (Elíss saga) and a Latin school text (Pamphilus), the
identification of Snara Asláksson, a man in royal service during the reign
of Hákon V Magnússon (1299–1319), as the owner might provide us
with some insights into the later context of this important manuscript.
The purpose of this study is to give an historical background to the
production and audience of courtly literature in Norway in the two gen-
erations after the death of King Hákon IV, from the production of DG
4–7 in c. 1270 to the death of Snara Asláksson c. 1320. I will argue that
in this period, it was no longer only the king who commissioned courtly
literature, but a new elite with great ambitions. It is not my intent to
question the importance of King Hákon IV, but to focus more on the
contents on the manuscript DG 4–7 as a whole, its social and cultural
context, and its possible audience up to the early fourteenth century. My
analysis is historical, trying to understand how this manuscript was a
part of the learned and aristocratic culture in Norway in this period.
Contents of DG 4–7
DG 4–7 contains five texts which are all defective in different degrees:
1. Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar by the Icelandic monk Oddr Snorrason

Only the last part of this saga is preserved, telling about King Óláfr’s
defeat at the battle of Svǫlðr, his alleged survival and his journey to the
Holy Land. These two leaves are originally from a different manuscript
than the rest of the texts (DG 4–7 I).
246
“sir snara asláksson owns me”
2. Pamphilus
This text is a translation from Pamphilus de amore, a text usually con-
nected to cathedral schools. The last part of the saga (and the first part
of the next text) is lost due to a lacuna of probably three leaves.
3. Hugrækki ok æðri
Only the last thirteen lines are preserved. It is a translation of the Latin
text Dialogue between courage and fear from the work Moralium dogma.
This work has been connected both to William of Conches and to Walter
of Châtillon. Another version of the poem is found in the codex
Hauksbók from c. 1320, together with another dialogue, that of mind and
matter. There the text is attributed to Meistar Valtari.
4. Elíss saga ok Rósamundu

This is a translation of the chanson de geste of Elie de Saint-Gille. Two
leaves from the middle section of the saga are lost.
5. Strengleikar
A collection of lais, many of those attributed to Marie de France. It has been
seen in connection to the lais of the manuscript Harley 978 compiled in the
1260s, but also contains translations of anonymous lais, some known from
French manuscripts and some not known outside this Norwegian manu-
script. Two of the leaves were cut out from the manuscript and are now in
the Arnamagnæan Collection in Copenhagen, in the shape of a bishop’s
mitre belonging to the cathedral church of Skálholt (AM 666 b 4°).
In this manuscript we find a mix of translations from Latin and Old
French originals, and also a variety of genres; the moral dialogue, the Latin
comedy of a young man who needs Venus’s help to seduce a woman, a
chanson de geste, and finally the courtly short stories in Strengleikar.
The relationship between DG 4–7 I and DG 4–7 II
It is generally agreed that the text of Oddr Snorrason’s Óláfs saga Trygg-
vasonar originally was an independent manuscript, what is usually
247
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referred to as DG 4–7 I, while the other texts are from the same manu-
script. There has thus been reasonable doubt as to whether Snara
Asláksson owned DG 4–7 II in addition to DG 4–7 I. Matthias Tvei-
tane, the editor of the facsimile edition of the manuscript, thought it was
not likely that he owned DG 4–7 II (Tveitane 1972: 14).
However, he also noted that DG 4–7 I had been written at the same
time and place as the rest: “The first two leaves (the Óláfs saga fragment)
are exactly the same size as the main part of the codex, c. 31×23 cm. Script
and language show that the fragmentary text must have been written at
more or less the same time as the major part and in the same region
(south-west Norway)” (Tveitane 1972: 15).
Tveitane also discussed the history of the manuscript after Snara, a
story that indicates that the two manuscripts were transmitted as a
double early on. It was donated by Magnus De la Gardie to Uppsala
University Library in 1669. De la Gardie had bought it in 1652 from the
collection of the Danish historian Stephanus Johannis Stephanius
(1599–1650). Stephanius most likely got hold of it through a Norwegian
student, Laurits Alctander from Bodin in Nordland, whose signature is
found on leaf 43v, along with the date 1624. Alctander visited Copen-
hagen in 1625 and probably also in 1630, and on both occasions he could
have sold the manuscript to Stephanius. Alctander seems to have
obtained DG 4–7 through his connections with Gildeskål, where the
Danish governor of Nordland resided. The previous owner, Torlov (or
Tollev) Jonsson of the Benkestokk family, died on the farm of Øvre
Fore in Gildeskål in 1622.1 One of Torlov’s ancestors in this family was
Anders Benkestokk, a student at the University of Rostock in the 1480s
and a canon at the cathedral of Nidaros early in the sixteenth century.
He seems to have been a churchwarden before 1510, and thus in a promi-
nent position at the cathedral. It thus seems plausible that DG 4–7
might have belonged to him and that he was the one that cut out two
leaves for the production of a bishop’s mitre. Then this favour might
1 This family was related by marriage to the Kruckow family who used the unicorn
in their coat of arms, which might explain the post-medieval drawing of a unicorn
in DG 4–7. Two versions of this coat of arms can be found in Vigerust (1999: 21).
248
have been for Bishop Ögmundur Pálsson, who was consecrated in

Nidaros in 1521 as bishop of Skálholt.
The Benkestokk family had also been powerful in the fifteenth cen-
tury, as some members were on the royal council. The family cannot be
traced further back than the last half of the fourteenth century, and then
to the Bohus district. At what time and from whom the family acquired
the manuscript after Snara’s death in 1320 and c. 1500 is thus difficult to
know.2 The family members’ connections to the high nobility of Norway
and many official duties in the fifteenth century mean that there are many
alternatives.3 A guess would be that the manuscript came to Bergen after
Snara’s death, perhaps to Bishop Auðfinnr (1314–1330), and was acquired
by one of the Benkestokks who lived in Bergen during the fifteenth cen-
tury.
What seems to be important in this context is that both manuscripts,
DG 4–7 I and II, were acquired by the Benkestokks. This implies that
the two parts had been bound together at least in the mid-fifteenth cen-
tury – perhaps as early as in the fourteenth century.4
All this does not prove with certainty that Snara owned both parts,
but indicates that they initially were produced in the same milieu with
the same interests. Far from being conclusive arguments, our knowledge
of the history of DG 4–7 up to the Reformation at least does not con-
tradict the thesis that Snara might have owned both parts. If he did not
own both manuscripts before his death c. 1320, it indicates that someone
in the elite network in Bergen owned DG 4–7 II and acquired DG 4–7
2 The link of the family to Talgje in Ryfylke, as presumed by Tveitane, is tempting

because this was where the descendants of Finnr Ǫgmundarson, a friend of Snara
Asláksson, lived in the fourteenth century. However, the Benkestokks’ connection
to Talgje seems to be a construction from the seventeenth century; see Vigerust
(1999: 9).
3 It is disputed whether Anders Benkestokk’s father was Trond Tordsson Benkestokk,
a member of the royal council in the 1440s who moved to Bergen in the late 1450s,
or a man who is possibly another Trond Tordsson who is mentioned in Bergen in
the 1470s, or Jon Tordsson Benkestokk who was a merchant and lawman in Bergen
from the 1430s (Vigerust 1999: 12–18).
4 Tveitane (1972: 11): “This must mean that the codex had an older, medieval binding
[…]. It appears likely that the first two leaves (the Óláfs saga fragment) occupied the
same position in the medieval binding as they do now.”
249
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I after Snara’s death in c. 1320. Perhaps it might have been a gift to the
royal chapel of St Lawrence chapel close to Huseby in Lista, where Snara
lived during his later career as a royal official (see below). It was the
provost of the Church of the Apostles in Bergen that had visitations to
this church, and at some point one of these provosts might have brought
the manuscript from Lista to Bergen, where it was acquired by the
Benkestokks.
Scriptorium and audience
“Who was this saga-man […] who first planted the rose of romance
in the stony garden of the North?” (Leach 1921: 178–179)
The only name and place of a translator of Old French romances into
Norwegian in the thirteenth century known to us is Brother Robert,
cited in the prologue of a seventeenth-century manuscript of Tristrams
saga, and Abbot Robert, mentioned at the end of Elíss saga. This has con-
ventionally been perceived as the same man who was promoted from
monk to abbot after his completion of the translation of Tristrams saga.
In 1921 Henry Goddard Leach linked the name to Lyse Abbey south of
Bergen (Leach 1921: 180–181). This abbey was a daughter house of Foun-
tains Abbey in England, and monks from Lyse were frequently used as
envoys of the Norwegian king to England in the first half of the thir-
teenth century. This suggestion has been accepted without much discus-
sion in later studies, for instance by Ludvig Holm-Olsen who edited
Pamphilus: “Det er altså atskillig som taler for, og ikke noe imot Leach’s
teori om at Robert har vært knyttet til Lyse kloster”.5
Could also DG 4–7 have been produced in Lyse Abbey? An obvious
objection against Lyse is that this was a Cistercian abbey, a monastic
order that initially sought a life in piety and isolation. On the other hand,
during the thirteenth century the connection to the court became
5 Holm-Olsen 1940: 85. “There is thus much that supports, and nothing that contra-
dicts, Leach’s theory that Robert was connected to Lyse Abbey.”
250
stronger and many monks and especially abbots were in the king’s service
(Henriksen 2005).
Still, an obvious alternative is that Robert was connected to one of
the monasteries in Bergen. The most likely candidate then is the Bene-
dictine abbey of Munkeliv. In her study of Þiðreks saga af Bern, Kramarz-
Bein discusses where the late thirteenth-century manuscript Holm perg.
4 fol. was written. She argues that it has similarities to the style of
Brother/Abbot Robert and belongs to the same scribal school, which
could be Lyse Abbey. However, she also mentions Munkeliv as a possi-
bility (2002: 100–101). This was a royal foundation and perhaps the
most prominent monastery in the thirteenth century with close connec-
tions to the kings. An episode that illustrates the connection to the royal
house in this period is that Ingeborg, the daughter of King Erik of Den-
mark, lived at Munkeliv from her arrival in Norway until her wedding
with Magnús Hákonarson, future king of Norway, in 1261. This
monastery had an important scriptorium at least from the late twelfth
century (Gullick 2010). A certain Sigurðr is mentioned as abbot in 1223,
probably the same as the abbot named “S” in a document from 1250.
Another Sigurðr is mentioned as abbot of Munkeliv in the 1271, and it is
in fact possible that the monk Robert who translated Tristrams saga
might have been abbot here, rather than in Lyse Abbey, some time after
1250 and before 1271.6
Tveitane also discussed the possibility that Lyse Abbey was the place
where DG 4–7 was written, but he was more inclined to believe that it
was produced in Bergen and suggested the royal chancery as the scripto-
rium (1972: 26). This scriptorium is also where Ludvig Holm-Olsen
argued that AM 243 b α fol., one of the earliest preserved manuscripts
of Konungs skuggsjá, was produced in the mid-1270s (1952: 36).
A clue to the scriptorium might be the fact that one of the scribes of
DG 4–7 has been identified as an Icelander. While we do not have infor-
mation about any Icelander who was a monk at Lyse or Munkeliv at this
6 Another possibility is that Robert – if he had been a monk at Munkeliv in 1226 –

could have become abbot at the Benedictine abbey of Selja – they were often
recruited from Munkeliv. The abbots of Selja between 1238 and 1305 are not known.
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time, there were several Icelanders in royal service in Bergen. A well-

known Icelander in Bergen in the 1260s and 1270s is Sturla Þórðarson,
known as the royal biographer of King Hákon and his son Magnús, and
himself the protagonist of Sturlu þáttr involving King Magnús and Queen
Ingeborg. He stayed in Norway from 1263 to 1271 and became connected
to King Magnús’s inner circle. Some years after Sturla’s arrival in Norway,
his wife joined him together with their sons. According to Sturlu þáttr, she
was received by the queen with great honour. One of their sons, Þórðr
Sturluson, was consecrated priest in Norway and remained a clerk at the
royal court (hirðprestr) until he died in 1283.
Although there is always a risk in connecting a name to a scribal hand,
Þórðr Sturluson’s background in a saga-writing family, his clerical training
in Iceland and his service to the king of Norway at least represents the
type of scribe that could have been involved in the making of the manu-
script.7 The Icelandic scribe thus points in the direction of the royal
chancery in Bergen as the scriptorium where DG 4–7 was produced.
There are some common themes that suggest an interest in didactic
stories by the compiler. In the Dialogue between Courage and Fear, Fear
(or Discourage) reminds Courage of four basic misfortunes – (1) death
may strike you anytime and everywhere; (2) sickness could torment you
for the end of your life; (3) that people might talk ill of you; and (4) that
even the most wealthy man could fall into poverty. Courage finds com-
fort in his pious faith in Christ, and is humble enough to be glad not to
have to sin or risk having false friends because of power and riches.
This theme is further emphasized in Strengleikar, in which the translator
or scribe wrote a moral epilogue to the lai of Equitan, shaping the lai into
something like a sermon. The Norse translator equates the troubled knight
with Job – every noble soul that suffers deceit and treachery in this world
will get a reward in the next. This moral is emphasized with the insertion
of a passage of Augustine and the biblical story of the wealthy man who did
7 Another Icelandic priest at the Norwegian court was Hafliði Steinsson, the close
friend of Bishop Lárentíus of Hólar. He is said to have been a royal chaplain
(kapellupréstr) of King Eiríkr Magnússon (1280–1299) and the queen for some years.
The queen is unnamed, but this is probably Ingeborg, the widow of King Magnús
Hákonarson and mother of King Eiríkr. Queen Ingeborg died in 1287.
252
not want to help poor Lazarus. When he ended up in Hell, the rich man
could not be helped despite his prayers. All good deeds have to be performed
before death. As in the Dialogue between Courage and Fear, the audience is
reminded that death can strike at any time. Finally, the “sermon” points to
a very practical lesson to the audience: You should make atonement with
those you have wronged, and if they are dead, to their heirs.
One might suspect that the translator or scribe felt uncertain that his
audience would grasp the “real” moral of this lay, and try to avoid other
readings of a story that could be perceived in many ways. The epilogue
makes it into an exemplum, on which the friars were the experts. Espe-
cially the Dominicans’ profession was to preach, and often in the form of
entertaining tales with a moral twist. In Bergen, the Dominican Jón
Halldórsson, who had studied in Bologna and Paris and later became
Bishop of Skálholt, translated many of these exempla. The Franciscans at
this time were likewise orienting themselves towards a wider audience in
the cities, and they had a special connection to King Magnús Hákonarson,
who made large donations to their priory in Bergen in the 1270s.
The “obscenity” of some of the lais seems to contradict a clerical
milieu, for example in the Leikara lioð (the translation of the lai of Gum-
belauc). There it is asked, in a relatively direct way, what a man would
prefer – the lower or higher part of the women’s body. This question,
however, would be familiar to most students as a part of training for dis-
putation. “Would you have her if she had an ugly face or an ugly body?”
was part of an intellectual puzzle in schools of Paris and elsewhere.8
8 The dilemma in choosing either the upper or lower part of the body is found, for
example, in Andreas Capellanus, De amore. To Parisian theologians like Peter
Cantor, Courson and Thomas of Chobham, “sexual desire occupied the least cul-
pable level of venial or pardonable sin” – if he does not put his mind to it nor is
pleased by carnal delight, he sins no more than if he had eaten sweet food, cf.
Baldwin (1994: 124). A possible allusion to such a tradition is the well-known
episode in the saga of Lárentíus Kálfsson. While he studied in Norway in the 1290s,
he became friends with a Flemish master of canon law. He had an awfully ugly con-
cubine, and was asked why this was so. The answer was that he was so jealous that
he could not bear it if anyone seduced her – his concubine was so disgusting that
no one would try. The master, who had probably studied in Paris and Orléans,
clearly chose the body before the face (Lárentíus saga: 238–239; 244–245).
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Pamphilus emphasizes this culture of learning, with its use of the love
goddess Venus and allusions to Ovid. Its source text, the Latin Pamphilius
de amore, was a very popular texts for learning, especially in the cathedral
schools, where Venus is depicted as a helper of amorous poets writing
in Latin. This kind of intellectual culture was also shared by scholars and
students in Bergen. Indeed, among the hundreds of runic inscriptions
on sticks found in Bergen in the 1960s, there were Latin poems that are
also known from the famous collection Carmina Burana. On some of
the wooden sticks, it says just Amor vincit omnia – originally a citation
from Vergil’s Bucolica, but used by Ovid in his Ars Amatoria and often
attributed to him in the Middle Ages. In this textual culture Ovid was
seen as a model clerk, witty, eloquent, learned, besides being a teacher of
the amorous. It is tempting to see such use of Latin inscriptions in con-
nection with Geitarlauf/Chievrefoil in Strengleikar. Here, Tristran “cut
off a hazel branch and made it four-sided with his knife and carved his
name in the stick”, as well as a message to his beloved queen about how
he must see her and could not live without her (Strengleikar: 196–198).
We find another use of the Latin poetic tradition in the story of
Guiamar in Strengleikar. In the moral addition in DG 4–7 to Equitan,
two lines from the Latin poem Pergama flere volo are cited (Strengleikar:
82) – an elegiac distich from the destruction of Troy also found in
Carmina Burana.9 In the manuscripts written in the vernacular from the
early fourteenth century in Norway, Latin verses or proverbs in the mar-
gins are found quite frequently (Knirk 1981).
Although the translators and the scribes of the DG 4–7 had a learned
background, whether clerical or monastic, the audience would have been
a mix of clerics, monks and aristocrats. While Pamphilus usually is con-
nected to schools, the long battle scenes in Elíss saga would probably
appeal more to an aristocratic group of knights and warriors. Further-
more, we get an idea of the audience of the saga in the Norse prologue
to Strengleikar. Marie de France’s prologue as rendered in Harley 978
9 A Latin distich on the veneration of images, composed by Baudri of Bourgueil (d. 1130),
is cited (albeit with numerous errors) on the Kinsarvik altar frontal, probably produced
in (or influenced by an altar frontal from) Bergen c. 1275 (Stang 2009: 175–176).
254
dedicates the lais to the king, while DG 4–7 is addressed to a wider audi-
ence. The king is mentioned first, and God is praised for bestowing on
him wisdom and goodness, but then it is also addressed to all the “cour-
teous clerks of his court” and “courtly retainers” (hǿverskir hirðmenn).10
That such a mixed audience as one would find at the Norwegian
court really was the intended audience of DG 4–7 as well seems most
likely. The elite of both clerics and the retainers closest to the king was
very closely linked. Many of them, monks, clerks and magnates, were
used in the service of the king as diplomats and envoys, as for example
in the many negotiations about peace, marriage and alliances between
France, England, Scotland and Norway from the mid-thirteenth century
to the beginning of the fourteenth century. At the time DG 4–7 was
written, many aristocrats in the king’s service themselves would have had
some learning in Latin and associated with learned men, in order to fulfil
their duties as the king’s officials.
Snara Asláksson (fl. 1295–1320) as a learned reader
Snara Asláksson, the strongest candidate for the ownership of DG 4–7,

was a member of this network of educated noblemen in royal service.
He first appears in the sources as a witness to a settlement in Stavanger
in 1295 concerning issues between Abbot Eiríkr of Munkeliv Abbey in
Bergen and Bishop Árni of Stavanger (1277–1303). This settlement was
a part of a bitter conflict between Bishop Árni and the cathedral chapter
over the income from the island of Finnøy, to which Abbot Eiríkr had
been appointed as a papal judge (DN: iv, 16).
The other witnesses mentioned in the letter indicate the importance
of the settlement, as well as the network of Snara Asláksson. First was
Duke Hákon Magnússon, brother of King Eiríkr and later king of
Norway (1299–1319). Duke Hákon ruled in the eastern part of Norway,
but his realm also extended along the southern coast and included
10 ef þer lika þa er mer fagnaðr at starf mitt þækkez ok hugnar sua hygnum hofðingia
ok hans hirðar kurtæisom klærkom. ok hœværskom hirðmonnom (Strengleikar: 8).
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Ryfylke (the district north-east of Stavanger, including Finnøy). Second

was Áki, chancellor of King Eiríkr, then three named knights besides
Snara, namely Sæbjǫrn Helgason, Bassi Guttormsson and Magnús
Daske, “et pluribus aliis fidedignis”.
Áki had been Duke Hákon’s chancellor at least since 1293 and was
for many years one of the most trusted of the king’s officials. He had
studied abroad (probably Paris and Orléans) and was, according to one
source, a very accomplished master (Lárentíus saga, 253). He was
appointed as a judge in the conflict over Finnøy, a case that required the
utmost expertise in canon law.11 A few years later he was King Hákon
V’s spokesman in the conflict between Archbishop Jǫrundr (1287–1309)
and the cathedral chapter of Nidaros. He is said to have spoken elo-
quently in both Latin and in Norse on legal matters, especially on how
princes should exert power in both spiritual and secular matters (Láren-
tíus saga, 254–255). Such emphasis on royal authority also in the matters
of the church has been seen as inspired by the contemporary ideology in
France during the reign of King Philip IV (1285–1314). Áki later became
provost of the royal chapel in Oslo, St Mary’s Church. He was probably
involved in royal legislation, and we find his name on most letters of
importance up to his death shortly after 1312.12
Sæbjǫrn Helgason, like Snara, is first mentioned in connection with
the settlement of 1295. He became a baron shortly after and married
Ragnhildr Jónsdóttir, probably the sister of Hafþórir Jónsson (d. c. 1320).
Hafþórir Jónsson was one of the important councillors of King Hákon,
and in 1302 he married Agnes, conventionally seen as the illegitimate
11 During the conflict, he stayed at the Church of the Apostles in Bergen, a royal chapel
that was rebuilt at the time after having received a part of the Crown of Thorns as
a gift from Philip III of France. On the very competent use (and abuse) of canon
law in this conflict, see Vadum (forthcoming).
12 Áki must have known French very well, and in 1307 he was sent to the papal curia
in Poitiers by King Hákon V to negotiate papal privileges for the royal chapels in
Norway. He also signed a trade treaty with the count of Flanders on his way home
to Norway. Áki stayed a full year in Poitiers, and probably also had negotiations
with the Hospitaller Master, witnessed the arrest of the Templars, met King Edward
I of England and King Philip IV of France, and possibly initiated diplomatic and
commercial relations with Cilician Armenia, see Bandlien (forthcoming b).
256
daughter of the king. Sæbjǫrn’s daughter Guðrún later married Finnr

Ǫgmundarson, also knighted and appointed baron by King Hákon V.
Finnr and Guðrún owned the rich and important farm of Hesby
(Hestbø) on Finnøy, and it is their descendants who are mentioned as
owners of a copy of Bevers saga, the Old Norse version of Boeve de Han-
tone, in 1366. Sæbjǫrn appears in the sources into the 1320s, and con-
tinued to be in the inner circle of King Hákon throughout his reign.
Bassi Guttormsson was a sworn retainer and the bailiff (sýslumaðr)
of Duke Hákon in Stavanger from the 1280s. Later he was appointed
bailiff in Bergen. His background and family are not known, but he prob-
ably was appointed on account of his education and competent service
rather than his lineage. Magnús Daske is otherwise unknown, but is also
mentioned as a retainer. He probably was a member of Hákon’s hird, of
a local family not recorded in other sources.
Snara was soon to be appointed to more responsible assignments.
After Hákon became king in 1299, Snara was the first envoy that he sent
to King Edward I of England. The purpose was partly to show his good
intentions to the English king, partly to ask for protection for Norwegian
merchants in English ports, but mostly to get Edward’s assistance in his
case against the Scots. Hákon V informed Edward I that he planned to
send an army to Scotland and asked for his assistance (DN: xix, 412). We
do not know anything more about Snara’s journey, but he most likely
stayed at the royal court in England in the winter of 1299/1300.
Hákon V must have been pleased with Snara’s diplomatic trip. We
meet him again in 1301 as the keeper of the king’s seal. Here he sealed
many letters for the king in the following years, most of them in Bergen,
but also in Oslo, Nidaros, Tønsberg and Konghelle. He is mentioned as a
baron by 1308, and frequently attended important political events during
the reign of Hákon V. He appears occasionally in the company of such
people as Bishop Árni of Bergen, the lawman Haukr Erlendsson and
Queen Isabella Bruce.13 He was in Copenhagen with those who guaranteed
the peace treaty with King Erik Menved in 1309 and was a witness at
13 Isabella Bruce owned a manuscript of the Estoire d’Eracles, probably written in

Antioch in the early 1260s, see Bandlien (forthcoming a).
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Hákon V’s daughter Ingibjǫrg’s betrothal to the Swedish Duke Magnus

Birgersson in Oslo the same year. In 1311 he was again an envoy for Hákon
V in Denmark to negotiate in the problematic Scandinavian relations.
Shortly afterwards he became a bailiff in Agder and lived at the royal
farm of Huseby in Lista, close to one of the royal chapels of Hákon V.
However, he continued to have a house in Bergen, as many other mag-
nates had in addition to their local farms.14 At some point he started to
trade in England with his own ship. In 1313 he had on this ship cargo
worth 300 pounds sterling (72,000 silver pennies) in Kingston on Hull
(DN: xix, 500). In 1316, however, he confiscated at Sælør in Vest-Agder
cargo from a Kingston ship worth 100 pounds sterling. This complicated
trade by Norwegians in England, and in 1319 King Edward II ordered
the confiscation of the goods from Norwegian merchants in England to
repay the Kingston merchant. This indicates that Snara hardly could trade
in England after 1316.
Snara appears the last time in Oslo in July 1319. King Hákon V had
just died and his grandson, Magnus Eriksson, was elected king over both
Norway and Sweden (DN: viii, 50). His position among the magnates
of Norway is indicated by his order in the list of magnates. After the
new chancellor, Ívarr Óláfsson, he signs as number three of twenty-nine
barons and knights, after his old friend since 1295, Sæbjǫrn Helgason,
but before Erlingr Viðkunsson who was to be regent of Norway in the
1320s. Snara probably died soon after signing this document in 1319.
Despite the prominent position of Snara, we cannot be sure of his
lineage. It has been suggested that he was related to the powerful Hesby
family on Finnøy, or a grandson of Rǫgnvaldr Urka, lendman during the
reign of King Hákon IV.15 Unfortunately, it is not possible to verify or
14 Snara owned Snaregard, probably at Stranden which was a very popular district for
the elite at this time. Most of the elite owned a house in Bergen, such as Haukr
Erlendsson (who lived in Audunargard after the excecution of Auðunn Hugleiksson
in 1302), Bjarni Auðunarson, Sæbjǫrn Helgason, Hákon Rǫgnvaldsson, Bjarni
Erlingsson, Erlingr Ámundarson and Peter Guðleiksson (Helle 1982: 297–298).
15 Munthe (1833: 31) first suggested that he was of the Hesby family of Finnøy, but
rejected his own thesis later in the same article. Munthe also thought he might have
been the brother of Rǫgnvaldr Asláksson, something that P. A. Munch supported.
In that case, Snara could be the son of Aslákr Rǫgnvaldsson, possibly son of the mag-
258
falsify either of these assumptions with certainty. However, it might have

been presumed that if Snara belonged to a prominent family, this would
have been reflected in the sources. It seems more likely that he was one
in the group of learned, professional officials that Hákon V used in his
administration and promoted to powerful positions (Helle 1972: 412–
413). Áki, the chancellor, is perhaps the prime example of this type of
official. His name suggests an origin from Denmark or Sweden, but it is
telling that we do not know his last name. It is his skills and loyalty that
brought him to power, not lineage.
Thus, Snara’s career as a royal official and successful diplomat was
probably due to his knowledge of some Latin and French, in addition to
learning legal matters and not least courtly manners. It is not impossible
that he studied abroad, although this cannot be proved. He is never called
a “master” as many others who had studied abroad were. We do not
know much about schools in Norway at this time, but since his place of
origin seems to have been in Ryfylke, or perhaps Agder, the cathedral
school in Stavanger would seem the most likely alternative. The other
option in the area would be Utstein Abbey, an Augustinian house estab-
lished probably in the 1270s or 1280s. This abbey was halfway between
Stavanger and Finnøy, but it also had the responsibility for St Olav’s
Church in Stavanger where the Augustinian canons might have assisted
the cathedral chapter in the education (Nenseter 2003: 73–80). A third
possibility is of course that different arts were taught at the cathedral and
the abbey, and that Snara might have received education from both.16
nate Rǫgnvaldr Urka Smør (Helle 1972: 449). Rǫgnvaldr Urka was one of the trusted
men of King Hákon IV and joined in the campaign to Scotland in 1263. Aslákr Rǫgn-
valdsson had been knighted before 1290, is mentioned as a baron in 1302, and was
bailiff of Skiensyssel at this time. Herr Rǫgnvaldr Asláksson seems to have died in
Orkney in 1320 (at least his wife did). However, there is no substantial proof that
Snara was brother of Rǫgnvaldr Asláksson, or that he was related to Rǫgnvaldr Urka.
16 Yet another background might be suggested. As he seems to have ended his life at
Huseby in Lista, he might have had some background in this district. Close to
Huseby was the royal chapel of St Lawrence. This chapel was run by magister and
provost Eiríkr who is mentioned in the years 1285–1299 (DN: xii, 8, 15, 17, 22). All
four letters that mention him are from the Register of Munkeliv Abbey in Bergen,
but he might have had dealings with other church institutions as well, for example
in Stavanger. The abbot of Munkeliv Abbey is the same Eiríkr that made a settle-
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Crusading and loyalty

– unifying themes in DG 4–7 I and II
Oddr Snorrason was a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Þingeyrar

in Northern Iceland. Sometime around 1190 he composed a biography
in Latin on the Norwegian King Óláfr Tryggvasonar who had been
defeated at the Battle of Svǫlðr in the year 1000. Óláfr was here por-
trayed as the first king who Christianized Norway; he was like the
apostle who prepared the kingdom for the great and holy St Óláfr. The
extant translation of this Latin text into the Norse saga form has received
much attention as one of the first royal biographies in Old Norse.
The saga exists in three manuscripts, Holm perg. 18 4° (S), AM 310
4° (A) and DG 4–7 (U), all written c. 1250–1300. S is probably the
youngest, written c. 1300 in Iceland. The scribal hand has been identified
as the same as in fragments of Orkneyinga saga, Egils saga, Laxdœla saga
and Eyrbyggja saga (Bjarni Einarsson 1986). The context of A has been
much more debated. Most commentators have held it to be a Norwegian
manuscript from the third quarter of the thirteenth century. However,
the scribal hand in A has been identified with fragments of Sagas of
Apostles (AM 655 XII–XIII and XIV 4°), a part of Þingeyrabók (AM 279
a 4°), and Karlamagnús saga (NRA 61).17 Especially Þingeyrabók must be
linked to Þingeyrar, but it is still possible that AM 310 4° was written in
Norway by an Icelander (Holtsmark 1974: II) or at Þingeyrar for export
to Norway (Stefán Karlsson 2000b: 198–200). The other fragments of
the A scribe indicate different interests and milieu from S. Besides the
obvious monastic connection to Þingeyrar in Þingeyrabók, Pétrs saga pos-
tula in AM 655 XII–XIII 4° shows firm support for episcopal and papal
power.18 If the scribe worked in Norway or not, this attitude is more in
ment which Snara witnessed, with the Bishop of Stavanger in 1295. As a magister,
it is not unlikely the Eiríkr of Lista might have run a school there and sent him to
Stavanger (or Bergen) for further education.
17 See Widding (1952); Stefán Karlsson (2000a: 181–182). A useful survey of the
research can be found in Ólafur Halldórsson (2006: cxlvi–cli).
18 Er su virþing oc tign Petri postola um alla menn aðra fram, at sa scal avalt œztr oc tignastr
vera i allum heiminum, er í hans stoli sitr, pavinn sialfr í Rumaborg, oc skal hann um alla
dœma þessa heims, en engi um hann. Eigum ver ok allt traust meþ guþi undir þessum hinum
260
line with Bishop Árni Þorláksson or Archbishop Jón rauði rather than
the councillors and officials of King Eiríkr II and Hákon V.
In DG 4–7 I (U) only the final part is preserved, from midway into
the Battle of Svǫlðr to stories of his life in the Holy Land. The ending
still indicates some peculiarities. All three manuscripts include the stories
about King Óláfr’s survival and afterlife. This section starts when Óláfr
is said to have accepted that it was God’s will that he was destined to lose
and his opponent, Eiríkr jarl, to win. Then a heavenly light surrounded
the king and he disappeared.19 All versions refer to the different opinions
as to what happened after the king vanished from the battle – if he died
at Svǫlðr, or if he escaped to Vendland and later became a pilgrim who
ended up as a hermit in Greece, Syria or the Holy Land to repent the
misdeeds of his youth.
A and U have different additions at the end.20 A states that King
Óláfr had been a great friend of King Æthelred the Unready (Aðalráðr)
of England. His son, King Edward Confessor (Játvarðr), revered the
memory of King Óláfr every Easter by telling his knights about him and
his deeds. One year he was able to tell his men that he had received news
œzta hofþingia Petro postola, er allt vart land hevir hnigit under hans tign oc valld firir
ondverþo oc undir biscupsstol þann er i Scalahollti er (Postola sögur: 215).
19 God’s power over the outcome of the battle is emphasized in all three versions. Some
variations exist. A and S depict how Óláfr got angry when Einarr þambarskelfir
thought his broken bow would be the cause of the king’s defeat – this is omitted in
U. Most striking is the addition in A, saying that Eiríkr jarl replaced an image of
Þórr in the prow of his ship with a Holy Cross: Ok Eiríkr jarl hafði áðr haft í stafni
á skipu sínu Þór, en nú lét hann koma í staðinn hinn helga kross, en hann braut Þór í sundr
í smán mola, en krossinn setti hann í stafn á Járnbarðaranum […] Óláfr konungr mælti
er hann sá at jarl røri at: “Genginn er nú Þórr ór stafninum á Járnbarðananum, en nú er
í staðinn kominn hinn helgi kross. Ok heldr mun Jésus Kristr, Dróttinn, vilja til sín tvá en
einn.” (Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar: 336–337). ‘Up until this time Jarl Eirik had had Thor
on the prow of his ship, but now he substituted the holy cross and broke Thor into
smithereens. He set up the cross in the prow of Járnbarðinn […] When King Olaf
saw the jarl rowing toward them, he said: “Thor is now gone from the prow of Járn-
barðinn, and the holy cross has been put in his place. The Lord Jesus Christ would
presumably rather have two than one.”’ Translation from Theodore M. Andersson
(The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason: 127).
20 S breaks off at the beginning of this addition, but presumably had the same ending.
An interesting difference is that S has sínum mǫnnum while A has riddurum sínum.
A seems in general to use the terms kurteisi and riddari more than S.
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from men coming from Syria. They had told the king that King Óláfr
had now left this world with much honour, and received eternal glory.
His successor, Harold Godwinson (Haraldr Guðinason), who was
defeated at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, is said to have taken King
Óláfr as an example to follow. The A version says that King Harold sur-
vived the battle, but remembered what Óláfr did after the Battle of
Svǫlðr. So he abandoned the kingdom and preferred to live in a
monastery until he died several years later.21
In the last chapter, more references are given to the life of Óláfr in
the Holy Land through Óláfr’s missionary bishop Jón Sigurðr. Hearing
men who doubted the king’s survival, he knew that the king’s mailcoat
hung on the door of the church in Jerusalem (the Holy Sepulchre?), many
had seen his spear, and his helmet was in Antioch. To the men who still
doubted Óláfr’s pious life in the Holy Land and wanted to see some
proof, the bishop said that no gem hidden in monastic life should be
exposed to and trampled on by ignorant and sinful men who are com-
pared to unclean animals (Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar: 361–362).22
U (DG 4–7 I) mentions as a source for the knowledge of Óláfr’s life
after the Battle of Svǫlðr an otherwise unknown man named Sóti skáld.
According to him, Óláfr spent two years in Vendland, a year in Rome
posing as a merchant, a year in Ladoga, before he finally went to Jerusalem.
After three years in the Holy Land, everyone thought he was so distin-
guished that they offered him the command over two towns and three cast-
les. In addition he adopted black clothing and took charge of a monastery
there. Five years later, some Norwegians came to the Holy Land and Óláfr
met with them. Óláfr gave them a book in which his story was written,
and asked them to give it to King Æthelred. He later passed it on to his
son King Edward. King Óláfr also sent tokens back to his sister and to
Einarr þambarskelfir, who had fought with the king at the battle of Svǫlðr.23
21 This legend of Harold’s survival is found in several other Norse texts, and might be
inspired by Vita Haroldi.
22 This addition in A (and presumably in S) might be from the monk Gunnlaugr’s lost
version of Óláfs saga; cf. Sveinbjörn Rafnsson (2005: 97–112) for a discussion of
the contents of Gunnlaugr’s saga. The image of animals as unclean animals is found
in other clerical and monastic sources at the end of the twelfth century.
262
In this version, King Óláfr became, not a monk in the Holy Land, but
a ruler and military leader. While Óláfr in A had abandoned warfare, in
the Norwegian manuscript he is still a warrior. He is far from proud, and
he wears black clothing, but he is not a monk himself. He is more like a
knight of the military orders. A medieval audience would be reminded of
Godfrey of Bouilloun, the first ruler of the Holy Land. He refused,
according to most chronicles, to take the title of a king after the capture of
Jerusalem in 1099, but was called the defender (advocatus) of the Holy
Sepulchre. He is described by William of Tyre, as “a man of deep religious
character, devout and God-fearing, merciful and just. Serious and steadfast
in word, he shunned all evil ways. He scorned the vanity of the world, a
trait rare at his time of life, and especially in one belonging to the military
profession. He was constant in prayer, assiduous in good works, and noted
for his liberality. Gracious and affable, kind and forbearing, he showed
himself in all his ways commendable and pleasing to God” (A History of
Deeds: 387).24 Another allusion is the black dress of the Hospitallers. This
military order had been established in Norway at Varna, Østfold, probably
in the 1170s. At the time of the writing of DG 4–7, this Hospital was con-
nected more firmly to the king’s court. In the Norwegian Retainers’ Law
(Hirðskrá), probably composed in 1274, the Hospital at Varna was to
receive a third of the tithes from the hirdmen (Hirðskrá: 97).
The theme of the pious ruler in the past who defends the Holy
Land and Christianity at the end of Oddr Snorrason’s Óláfs saga Tryg-
23 Þar þóttusk allir menn sjá at hann var gofugr maðr ok mjok umfram aðra menn, ok buðu
honum þvvi ríkismenn vald ok ríki yfir tveim borgum ok þremr kostulum með ollum þeim
tekjum sem til lágu. En af bœn þeira meir en af sœmðarfýst tók hann við þessu ríki ok fór i
svort klæði ok réð ok fyrir munklífi því er skammt var frá Jórsalaborg tvá vetr (Ólafs saga
Tryggvasonar: 373).
24 This allusion is relevant as an Old French translation of this chronicle was made in
Bergen at the end of the thirteenth century. The Norwegian copy of the Estoire d’Er-
acles was probably made in Antioch c. 1260–1268. Queen Isabella Bruce’s name is
on the first and last folios. She married Eiríkr II in 1293 and died in Bergen in 1358
or 1359. The manuscript might have come to Bergen in the 1270s or 1280s and ini-
tially might have belonged to the king and/or the bishop of Bergen. According to
Robert the Monk, Godfrey gave the impression of being more a monk than a sol-
dier, but was like a lion when in battle (Historia Iherosolimitana: I. 5). See also Ralph
of Caen (Gesta Tancredi, ch. 14) and Bandlien (forthcoming a).
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gvasonar in DG 4–7 I, is found in a different version in Elíss saga. In

fact, there might also be a link between Strengleikar and the crusading
ethos of Elíss saga. In the Norse prologue to the work, there is a change
compared to the prologue in the French. In DG 4–7, the prologue
states that the following stories should teach them of the ancient times,
when people were better, stronger and more exalted. This is somewhat
in opposition to the French prologue in which it is explained that
people are in constant progress. The Norse version de-emphasizes this
aspect of progress by including a sentence in the translation of Marie’s
prologue. There the Norse translator or scribe simply says that it is the
attentiveness to good deeds that has increased. It is then added that “the
most learned men in every country began expressing themselves in the
language of that country”.25 The sense of progress is here changed in
comparison to Marie de France’s prologue: The emphasis is on the
growing awareness of the good deeds in the past, brought by transla-
tions of learned into the vernacular of stories written in Latin or
French.
We find this topos also in the short Latin chronicle Profectio Dano-
rum, probably written in Tønsberg around 1200, in which the travels of
Danish and Norwegian crusaders in the aftermath of the third crusade
are depicted. The author says that when the Danish court listened to the
reading of the letter from the pope about the fall of Jerusalem, the mag-
nate Esbern Snare began a speech of the olden days, saying that he had
heard much of their bravery and greatness. How could Christians be less
courageous when Jerusalem itself needed help? Again, such courage
depended on the learned who transmitted knowledge of the past heroes
and their honourable deeds to present day warriors. The audience should
be spurred by their forefathers’ heroic bravery in order to fight for a wor-
thier cause, for the liberation of the Holy Land from the Saracens.
This is the background to Elíss saga, a narrative about the threat from
the infidels to Christians in Europe – they have not only taken Jerusalem
according to this saga, but threaten Rome and Hungary as well. More-
25 sva at i ollom londum gærðuzc hinir margfroðasto menn mælanda sinna landa tungum
(Strengleikar: 6).
264
over, the saga puts emphasis on the need of the bishops and even the
pope to be protected by good knights. This noble chivalry should in turn
most of all be loyal to king and Christ. It is striking that not all Saracens
were depicted as monstrous or devilish others in Elíss saga – the ethics
of chivalry could in fact unite noble Saracens and Christians. Christian
knights, on the other hand, could be traitors, and these were condemned
much more harshly than noble heathens (Bandlien 2009). A similar
theme of loyalty can be found in the love stories of Strengleikar; lords
and ladies who were not loyal to a knight or lover (as in Equitan) were
of no worth, while love – even when it could cause adultery – was
excused when accompanied by courtly virtues.
It is tempting here to see this potentially positive – or at least
ambiguous – image of heathens in context with the contacts Norwegian
nobles actually had with Muslims in the period when Elíss saga was trans-
lated and DG 4–7 was written. In fact the Norwegian envoy Lodin Lepp
made two journeys to Northern Africa, first to Tunis and then to Cairo
in the 1260s to meet “Soldan” – the title Sultan used as a personal name.
The Arabic poet and historian Ibn Sida, who lived in Tunis and Cairo at
the end of the thirteenth century, mentioned that gerfalcons from the
north were so valuable that even dead ones were bought at a high price
(Birkeland 1954). The purpose of Lodin Lepp’s journey might have been
to promote the lucrative trade in gerfalcons. Some decades later, King
Magnus Eriksson, grandson of Hákon V, received permission from the
pope to continue trading with Saracens, and in 1345 we find two Swedes
in Barcelona on their way to Cairo (Fritz & Odelman 1992).
It might also be of some relevance that at the time DG 4–7 I and DG
4–7 II were written, a group of Norwegians joined the eighth crusade
in 1271. Prince Edward of England landed in Acre in that year. Parts of
an itinerary of this journey to the Holy Land are preserved, written by a
Franciscan monk who served the Norwegian kings in the last third of
the thirteenth century (Bandlien 2011). It is said that Andrés Nikolásson,
one of King Hákon Hákonarson’s most trusted men, led the Norwegian
group. Andrés died on the way home from the Holy Land. If he indeed
had been acquainted with DG 4–7, he might also have found some com-
fort in the statement of Courage in the Dialogue between Courage and
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Fear, that it is not dangerous to die in foreign countries, even to be eaten

by dogs and ravens – God will take care of his soul anyway. It is even
said to be more honourable to die in foreign lands than at home.26
This does not necessarily mean that the Norwegian kings, church
and knights were as interested in going on crusade and recovering the
Holy Land as, for example, English and French kings were in this period.
There were some attempts at a crusade against the heathens in Northern
Norway in the 1320s, and wars against the Russians at the end of the
1340s that were acknowledged as a crusade by the pope. However, more
important in aristocratic piety was the reverence of the Holy Land and
the Holy Cross within Norway. In 1274 King Magnús Hákonarson
received a piece of the Holy Thorn from King Philip III. This piece came
from Sainte-Chapelle, built especially for the holy relics brought to
France from Byzantium. It is presumed that the Church of Apostles in
Bergen was rebuilt on the model of Louis IX’s chapel. If the French cru-
sader king brought back Passion relics to the west and took over the
guardianship of them in the line of the Byzantine emperors, back to Her-
aclius, Helena and Constantine, the Norwegian kings were only happy
to help out with some of them. Some decades later, Philip IV gave a relic
of St Louis along with a new thorn from the Crown of Thorns to Hákon
V. The Norwegian king built a royal chapel dedicated to St Louis outside
Bergen, while the prestigious relic was placed in the royal chapel in Oslo.
This reverence of the Holy Cross and relics connected to Jerusalem
also spread to the royal officials and local magnates. Although there are
very few inventory lists preserved for churches at this time, we know of
two “Jerusalem crosses” in parish churches in south-western Norway. In
Hauksbók, a large compilation of historical and learned texts from the
early fourteenth century, Jerusalem is made the centrepiece.
26 As stated above, only the last thirteen lines of the Dialogue are preserved in DG 4–
7 (edited in Heilagra Manna Sögur: 452 n1). A version is found in Hauksbók (pp.
303–308), a compilation traditionally attributed to Snara’s friend Haukr Erlendsson.
In Hauksbók, there are added citations from Seneca, Lucan and Cicero at the end,
but the parallel passage between Hauksbók and DG 4–7 is fairly close. A version of
the passage on death in foreign lands referred to above was most likely also in DG
4–7, although full certainty cannot be achieved.
266
More striking is the altar frontal in Nedstryn church in Nordfjord

from c. 1300, depicting eight scenes from the legend of the restoration
of the Holy Cross by the seventh-century Emperor Heraclius. This altar
frontal tells of emperor Heraclius restoring the cross, and how the hea-
then king Khosroes thought he was a god, made a glass heaven for him-
self, and feigned rain. It is a story of humility, war against infidels and
of knightly piety. This narrative is not far off from the stories we find in
romances and chansons de geste, or in the late medieval Icelandic rid-
darasǫgur, as for example Kirialax saga. The appeal of the story is sug-
gested by how Heraclius was made into a romance in the 1180s by Gau-
tier d’Arras, who worked for the counts of Flanders at the time when
the source text of Elíss saga, Elie de Saint-Gille, was probably composed
at the same place. By the thirteenth century, histories of the Holy Land
and legendary crusaders were often hard to distinguish from the chansons
de geste (Hodgson 2007; Edgington & Sweetenham 2011).27
It has been suggested that the Nedstryn altar frontal was originally
made for the Church of the Apostle (von Achen 1990). This seems plau-
sible as this royal chapel was prestigious and had contained passion relics.
However, the art historian Margrethe Stang has argued that the altar
frontal was meant to be placed at Nedstryn (Stang 2009: 192–197). In
this district we find Peter Guðleiksson, who had been the Norwegian
sýslumaðr (bailiff) of Iceland and who was well acquainted with the royal
court. Peter owned a house in Bergen in addition to his estates at Eide
in Nordfjord. Stang suggests that Peter Guðleiksson commissioned the
altar frontal at the time of his father’s death in 1296.28 As with Snara
Asláksson, he was attached to the court in Bergen, had a royal office, and
at the same time brought this culture to the home district.
During his stay in Iceland, Peter became good friends with the young
clerk and future Bishop of Hólar, Lárentíus. While the two were in
Bergen in 1293, Peter asked Lárentíus to help him write a letter of pro-
27 An example of this is when one of the Icelandic Annals tells how “Soddan that ruled
over Jorsalaland” in 1347 sent a letter to the French king and asked him to send his
bravest man to fight in single combat to decide who should rule the Holy Land –
the Danish King Valdemar volunteered (Islandske Annaler: 223).
28 Stang assumes that Guðleikr Viljálmsson was Peter’s father, but this is contested.
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posal to a woman, a relative to King Eiríkr Magnússon. He wanted to

have the letter written in Latin, and Lárentíus – who was said to have
composed poetry in Latin as fast as he could talk, wrote a poetical letter
that impressed the king (Lárentíus saga: 236–237). In this account, the
prestige of Latin and poetry composition is emphasized. Although Peter
did not feel competent to write a good letter in Latin, he certainly had
wanted to do so. It is unclear whether this woman herself knew some
Latin, but she might also have needed a clerk to translate the poem. It
was a letter of proposal meant to be read in public and to impress both
clerics and aristocrats.29
Peter seems to have fallen out of favour in the court soon after King
Eiríkr II’s death in 1299, when Hákon V marginalized some of his
brother’s officials. Peter might not have died for the sake of Christ, but
he could very well have learned a lesson from the Dialogue between Courage
and Fear – it is better to fall from power and be saved, than to be rich
with false friends. From Strengleikar he would have learned that a false
lord would be punished, while the loyal and humble knight was to be
rewarded. Peter’s career thus differs from that of Snara Asláksson, who
remained in favour with the king in the early fourteenth century. Still,
they had in common their dependency on the king for a good office, their
language skills, and their knightly piety with an international flavour.
Concluding remarks
It is not possible to prove beyond doubt that Snara Asláksson owned DG

4–7 II, and even his ownership of DG 4–7 I is based solely on a marginal
note that is scarcely possible to read. What we do know, however, is that
these two manuscripts were made in the same environment and possibly
at the same scriptorium, and that they seem to have been kept together in
south-western Norway until the fifteenth century. The ending of Óláfs
29 Lárentíus later went to Nidaros, but his poetic skills were not as much appreciated
there as at the king’s court – the Archbishop asked him to stop making verses and
start reading canon law.
268
saga Tryggvasonar in DG 4–7 I, with its unique features probably appealed

to an audience who would also have enjoyed Elíss saga, who looked for
glorious deeds in the past and related this to the defence of the Holy Land.
The most likely context for the writing of DG 4–7 II c. 1270 is the
royal court in Bergen during the rule of King Magnús Hákonarson and
Queen Ingeborg. One of the possible writers of the manuscript was the
court priest Þórðr Sturluson at the royal chapel, son of the Icelandic chief-
tain, skald and saga writer Sturla Þórðarson. This was probably also the
context of DG 4–7 I. In the next generation, Snara Asláksson fits well with
the probable audience for both DG 4–7 II and DG 4–7 I. He was a learned
man with ambitions, who made his career in Stavanger during the rule of
Duke Hákon in the 1290s and then became his official during his reign in
1299. He was used as envoy to England, but also had a house in Bergen
and traded with England, and then ended up as a bailiff with great local
power and became a member of the king’s council until his death c. 1320.
Snara also seems representative of other preserved manuscripts that
were produced in Norway at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning
of the fourteenth century. Although both King Hákon V and Queen
Eufemia commissioned translations at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, Snara’s ownership of DG 4–7 might indicate how a manuscript
connected to the court was spread to the regional aristocracy. The group
who owned and commissioned books in Norway was, as far as the
sources let us know, not very large. Still, we get a glimpse of a learned
elite at the start of the fourteenth century that consisted of a mixture of
clerics, monks and secular aristocracy, most closely connected to the royal
court and used in the king’s service. They had international connections,
both from their own travels and through people from abroad living in
Bergen. Some, like Snara and Peter Guðleiksson, show how the textual
culture thriving in a royal centre as Bergen would spread from court to
local centres of power, like Lista and Eide. Bailiffs like them would have
their own group of warriors in their service who swore fealty to them.30
30 Other examples that deserve mention here are Bjarni Auðunarson, who commis-
sioned a translation of the story of Ólíf ok Landres during his stay in Scotland in 1286–
1287, and the possible ownership of Bevers saga by Finnr Ǫgmundarson of Finnøy.
269
bjørn bandlien
It would be interesting to compare in more depth a manuscript like

DG 4–7 with similar manuscripts elsewhere in Europe. One such study
has already been done in connection with a contemporary manuscript from
Flanders (Eriksen 2014), but two English manuscripts also seem especially
promising, and here I will just make some preliminary observations.
The first is British Library MS Harley 978. This contains many of
the same lais as DG 4–7 II, but also songs with notations, goliardic verse,
medical texts and the Song of Lewes. This was compiled in the 1260s in a
learned milieu, probably at Oxford, and its first owner is a Benedictine
monk of Reading, William of Winchester. Andrew Taylor suggests that
the manuscript – together with theological manuscript Bodley 848, also
in the possession of William, was a kind of manual in the arts that was
acquired by a learned man but not on the curriculum at Oxford. He
might have used them in his sermons, but also table manners, songs and
– based on the later charges against brother William – in conversation
with noble women and the seduction of nuns (Taylor 2002: 76–136). If
this interpretation is correct, the Harley 978 is connected less to the court,
school and monastery than DG 4–7.
The other relevant manuscript is the famous Auchinleck manuscript
(Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates 19.2.1) from the
1330s; both seem to share an interest in Saracens as well as exploring
identity through vernacular romances, poems and lais.31 Auchinleck has
been connected to the making of an English identity in relation to the
ruler as well as to the barbarous Saracens with whom this ethnic identity
was negotiated (Turville-Petre 1996; Calkin 2005). In comparison, DG
31 If we include all literature translated in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century

Norway, the overlap with the Auchinleck manuscript becomes longer: Roland and
Vernagu/Karlamagnús saga, Floris and Blauncheflur/Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr, Of
Arthour and of Merlin/Breta sǫgur, Sir Bevis of Hamtoun/Bevers saga, þe Desputisoun
Bitven þe Bodi and þe Soule/Viðrøða líkams ok sálar, Amis and Amiloun/Amícus saga
ok Amílus, The Harrowing of Hell/Niðrstigninga saga, Kyng Alisaunder/Alexanders saga,
Sir Tristrem/Tristrams saga, as well as versions of the saints’ lives and miracles of the
Virgin. We might also add the story of the miraclous recovery of the royal lump (later
King Eiríkr Magnússon) found in the Lanercost Chronicle, which might have origi-
nated among the Franciscans in Bergen and been transmitted to England. This story
has a peculiar similarity to Þe King of Tars, cf. Calkin (2005: 105–106).
270
4–7 seems rather to support the making of an identity for a self-con-

scious elite that looked towards the court culture and chivalric ethics of
England and France. For example, when in Bisclaret – telling the story
of a wealthy farmer who changes shape to a wolf, the translator added
that he had seen this himself at home. Wondrous events that happened
elsewhere in Europe could also happen in Norway (cf. Sif Rikhardsdottir
2012).
Since this elite were placed in the circles around the king and the
court, with connections to Europe, and with one foot in the regions, they
contributed to the knowledge of courtly and chivalric culture in the dif-
ferent districts of Norway, and to distinguish them within their regional
context, for example Lista or Eide.
Clári saga, Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, and
the evolution of Icelandic romance
Marianne Kalinke
B ridal-quest narratives originated in Germanic Latin historiography,1

flourished in twelfth-century German vernacular literature,2 and
enjoyed a renaissance in fourteenth-century Iceland, where a subgenre
developed, the meykongr saga or maiden-king romance. The earliest attes-
tation of a maiden-king narrative appears to be a tale in Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar, the oldest manuscript of which, a fragment, is dated c.
1300.3 The meykongr sagas diverge from other bridal-quest tales in that
their female protagonists are rulers of a country and call themselves king.
The maiden kings, who are inimical to all suitors, humiliate and maltreat
all who seek to marry them. The maiden-king narratives, either an entire
saga or a short story (þáttr) interpolated into a longer work, reiterate ever
the same pattern: a suitor seeks to marry a maiden king; the maiden king
mistreats the suitor; the suitor returns in disguise to avenge himself. He
finally wins the maiden king’s hand through trickery, magic, or other
deception. The narratives conclude with the wedding feast.4
The motif of the woman who maltreats her suitors was not invented
by the authors of the meykongr sagas. Recall, for example, how Sigríðr
Tóstadóttir came to earn the cognomen in stórráða. Both Óláfs saga Trygg-
1 See chapter 1 of Bornholdt (2005: 17–41) for a discussion of the origin and devel-
opment of bridal-quest narratives.
2 See the discussion of the so-called Spielmannsepen, the German minstrel epics, in
Bornholdt (2005: 120–59).
3 A fragment of 1 leaf, AM 567 XIV 4°, is dated c. 1300. The basis of Ferdinand Detter’s
1891 edition of Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar (in Zwei Fornaldarsögur) is Holm perg 7 4°,
which is dated c. 1300–1325. See Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. Registre (1989:
269–70).
4 Erik Wahlgren was the first to survey the maiden-king romances in The Maiden
King in Iceland (1938).
273
marianne kalinke
vasonar and Óláfs saga helga report that she burns the two drunken
suitors, the kings Haraldr inn grenski and Vissavaldr (Vísivaldr) in their
hall and then comments that this is how petty kings should be made to
regret that they have come from other lands to propose marriage to her:
svá skyldi hon leiða smákonungum at fara af ǫðrum lǫndum til þess at biðja
hennar.5 She disdains the suitors as being beneath her. This is the central
motif of the Icelandic maiden-king romances and generates the plot in
the second bridal-quest narrative in the quadripartite Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar. It is also the central motif of a foreign narrative that cir-
culated contemporaneously with Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar in Iceland,
namely Clári saga. According to its incipit, Clári saga was told by Bishop
Jón Halldórsson, who had come upon a Latin metrical version of the
story in France. The saga opens with the statement: Þar byrjum vér upp
þessa frásǫgn, sem sagði virðuligr herra Jón byskup Halldórsson, ágætrar
áminningar, en hann fann hana skrifaða með látínu í Frannz í þat form, er
þeir kalla ‘rithmos’, en vér kǫllum hendingum (Clári saga 1907: 1).6 The Latin
source of the saga, if indeed there ever was such a text, is not extant. Jón
Halldórsson, a Dominican friar, was the thirteenth bishop of Skálholt
from 1322 until 1339, the year of his death. While still quite young, Jón
entered the Dominican Order in Bergen. He studied at the universities
of Paris and Bologna and returned to Bergen at the conclusion of his
studies, where he lived for at least a decade, before being consecrated
bishop of Skálholt (Jakobsen 1964: 17–20). Jón was famed for his knowl-
edge of Latin; indeed, it was said of him that he spoke Latin as well as
his mother tongue (Lárentíus saga: 403).
Scholarly interest in Clári saga has focused mostly on the issue of
how the translation came about. It is unclear what the verb sagði in the
incipit implies about the process that led to the writing down of the story
that is transmitted solely in Icelandic manuscripts. In other words, did
Jón tell the story or did he translate it, a Latin work that he came upon
in France. Gustaf Cederschiöld proposed four possible explanations for
5 Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (Hkr I: 289). The same comment is also cited in Óláfs saga
Helga (Hkr II: 436).
6 Subsequent references are to this edition. The saga is also available in an edition
with modern Icelandic orthography (Clári saga: 161).
274
clári saga, hrólfs saga gautrekssonar
the origin of the saga: Jón translated the tale himself in Paris and brought
it back home with him; Jón had someone else translate the tale for him
in Paris; Jón brought the Latin text back north and translated it himself;
Jón brought the Latin text back north and had someone else translate it
(Cederschiöld 1907: xxvii–xxviii). In each instance Cederschiöld assumes
a process of translation from a Latin text.
Who might have translated the story Jón brought back from abroad,
if indeed it was translated, and where it was translated, is not pertinent
here. What most likely happened is that a manuscript containing Clári
saga was brought to Iceland from Norway by Jón, or possibly it was not
written down until he was in Iceland. Whatever the situation, Clári saga
and Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar presumably circulated in Iceland at around
the same time. In the case of Clári saga we confront a cultural transfer as
well as acculturation: while a foreign narrative type was introduced in
Iceland and had an effect on the development of Icelandic literature,
existing Icelandic narrative conventions determined the manner in which
the text was subsequently received.
Clári saga belongs to the international “König Drosselbart” or “King
Thrushbeard” folk-tale type, so named after the Grimms’ fairy tale by
that name (Philippson 1923). The narrative is bipartite, consisting of a
bridal-quest romance that reflects the continental courtly culture and a
marital romance7 expressive of the clerical culture of its author, or trans-
lator, whatever the case may be. Prince Clárus of Saxland woos the cruel
and disdainful Princess Serena, but she spurns him and has him ejected
by force from her court. In disguise the prince undertakes three subse-
quent quests for the princess, each time bringing along precious objects
that she covets, but he is repeatedly tricked by her and physically
assaulted by her men. In the end he does win her hand in marriage, but
the tale does not conclude with the wedding. Instead, at the hands of
Clárus’s disguised teacher Master Perus, whom Serena believes to be the
prince, she is made to suffer repeated humiliation and physical abuse, all
7 I borrow the term from Theodore M. Andersson, who noted that bridal-quest
romance on the Continent yielded to “another form of romance, which we may call
marital romance because it dealt not with the problem of acquiring a bride but with
the problem of preserving the marital state” (1987: 68).
275
marianne kalinke
of which she patiently endures, so that at the end of the saga the narrator
approvingly comments that Serena had given an example – ljós dœmi,
hversu ǫðrum góðum konum byrjar at halda dygð við sína eiginbœndr eða
unnasta (Clári saga 1907: 74) – of proper wifely conduct. In using the
word dœmi, the author indicates that Clári saga is to be understood as an
exemplum. A preacher might easily have incorporated a shortened version
of the story into a homily on wifely obedience and fidelity.
Clári saga is a bridal-quest romance and the plot revolving around
the haughty princess who rejects all wooers, her humiliation of the
eponymous protagonist, followed by his subsequent attempts in disguise
to win her by appealing to her cupidity, but her threefold trickery coupled
with her men’s physical attacks on him, involve a pattern that appealed
to Icelandic authors. In the wake of Clári saga a series of romances was
composed, the so-called meykongr sagas, in which the female protagonist
is ruler of a realm and calls herself king. This is not to say that the author
of each of the maiden-king romances borrowed directly from Clári saga,
but rather that Clári saga inspired one author to emulate the quest pat-
tern, and that other authors may have drawn indirectly, via an already
existing maiden-king saga, to replicate the pattern. There is evidence,
however, in the form of distinct verbal echoes, that one saga borrowed
directly from CIári saga, and that is Sigurðar saga þǫgla.8 Despite the nar-
8 The female protagonist of Sigurðar saga þǫgla, like Serena in Clári saga encounters and
sleeps with a giant creature, whose portrayal is modeled after that of Master Perus.
Like the snot from Perus’s nose in Clári saga (ein úfǫgur lista hekk af hans nǫsum ok niðr
í munninn; dró hana ýmist út eða inn fyrir andardrættinum [1907: 53]), from the giant’s
nose in Sigurðar saga þǫgla: liggja stóra listu mjög ósýnilega allt niður á bringu, því eigi ólíkt
sem það væri froðan úr honum (Sigurðar saga þögla 1954: 213). In Sigurðar saga þǫgla
(1992: 33), the variant hanga appears for liggja above. This is an edition of the oldest
manuscript of Sigurðar saga þǫgla, AM 596 4°, c. 1350–1400. The word lista for the
mucus from the giant’s nostrils is, of course, the same Low German loan as for the
egg streak left on Clárus’s tunic (kyrtil þann hinn myrkbrúna . . . með listu þeiri, sem hann
hafði fengit í heimboði frúinnar [1907: 24]) and the snot in Clári saga. As happens in
Clári saga, where Serena awakens lying on the ground covered by a skarpr skinnstakkr
(1907: 53), Sedentiana in Sigurðar saga þǫgla is enveloped by the giant’s mikla skinnstakk.
Einar Ól. Sveinsson (1964) discusses Sigurðar saga þǫgla in his essay on the sources of
Viktors saga ok Blávus and notes that “the most important link between Sigurðar saga
þögla and Viktors saga ok Blávus is the fact that both make use of Klárus saga” (1964:
cxviii). Since his point of departure is Viktors saga ok Blávus, however, rather than Clári
276
rative paradigm of the maiden-king sagas that unmistakably derives from

Clári saga, their plot differs in one crucial aspect from the tale that
inspired them, namely the conflict in the quest section. The specific
nature of the conflict in the maiden-king narratives did not derive from
Jón Halldórsson’s presumed import, Clári saga, but rather from the
indigenous Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar.
Clári saga had currency in Iceland at the same time as Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar,9 which is structured around four bridal-quest narra-
tives, the second of which tells of Hrólfr’s quest for the maiden king
Þórbjǫrg. King Hrólfr seeks to marry Þórbjǫrg, the daughter of the
king of Sweden, who has acquired not only all the feminine arts but
also excellent knightly skills. Her argument for her manly pursuits is
that as the king’s only child she will have to defend the kingdom after
his death:
“Nu með því,” segir hun, “at þú hefir eigi meir en eins manns líf til
ríkisstjórnar ok ek er nu þitt einberni ok á allan arf eftir þik, má vera,
at ek þurfi þetta ríki at verja fyrir konungum eða konungssonum, ef
ek missi þín við. Er eigi ólíkligt, at mér þykki illt at vera þeira
nauðkván, ef svá berr til, ok því vil ek kunna nokkurn hátt á ridd-
araskap. Þykki mér þá líkara, at ek fái haldit ríki þessu með styrk ok
trausti góðrar fylgdar, ok því bið ek þik, faðir, at þú fáir mér nokkut
af ríki þínu til forráða, meðan þú ert á lífi, ok reyna ek svá stjórn ok
umsjá þeira manna, sem í mitt vald eru fengnir.” (Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar 1954: 63)
saga, he does not address the giant’s portrayal in Sigurðar saga þögla, the immediate
donor of which has to be Clári saga. Einar Ól. notes the description of the dwarf
Dímus in Blávus rimur (XI, 42 ff.): Flestar í nasir fellu úr dinglar furðu grænir (1964:
cxvii). See also Björn K. Þórólfsson (Rímur fyrir 1600: 329).
9
I see no reason to doubt the authenticity of Clári saga’s incipit, which informs the
reader that Jón Halldórsson told the story. This suggests that the tale became known
in Iceland before 1339. In any case, the oldest manuscript of Clári saga, AM 657 a–
b 4°, is dated c. 1350; the oldest manuscripts of Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, Holm perg
7 4° and Holm perg 18 4°, are dated c. 1300–1325 and 1300–1350 respectively. See
Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. Registre (1989: 44, 269–270).
277
marianne kalinke
“Since you’ve been given only one life to govern this kingdom and
I’m your only child and heir,” she said, “it seems very likely that I’ll
have to defend it against a few kings or princes, once you’re gone.
It’s also hardly likely I’ll be keen to marry anyone against my will, if
it ever comes to that, and that’s why I want to get to know something
of the skills of knighthood. It seems to me that would give me a
better chance of holding on to this kingdom, with the help of strong
and reliable followers.”10
What Þórbjǫrg fears is the fate of many a woman in romance as well as

real life, that is, that she will be forced to marry (vera nauðkván) someone
she does not want to marry. As a ruler, with her own men to command,
she will have a better chance of holding on to the kingdom.
Her father gives her control over one-third of Sweden and she con-
vokes an assembly, where she has herself elected king. She adopts a mas-
culine name and becomes Þórbergr konungr. When Hrólfr approaches her
father concerning marriage to his daughter, he is told that he will have
to ask her himself. He goes to her palace where he sees a harðla voldugr
maðr með konungsskrúða ágætum. Þessi maðr var fagr ok fríðr (Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar 1954: 81) ‘an imposing figure, fair and handsome, wearing
a magnificent royal costume’ [p. 53]). When Þórbjǫrg learns the nature
of his errand, she becomes enraged, calls on her men to seize their
weapons and capture him, and says, in words reminiscent of those
uttered by Sigríðr in stórráða: Skal svá launa ok af venja smákonunga at
hæða oss eða gabba svá heldr konunginn föður várn (Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar 1954: 82–83) ‘We’ll pay him back, we’ll teach petty kings
to ridicule us and poke fun at the king, our father’ [p. 54]). Þórbjǫrg is
characterized by her own father as stórráð (Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar 1954:
80) and her words presumably reflect not only her sense that she con-
siders a marriage proposal an insult but also her rage at Hrólfr’s words
when he entered her presence: hvárt skulum vér hér kveðja, son eða dóttur,
konung eða konu (Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar 1891: 17) ‘whom should we
10 Hrolf Gautreksson, a Viking Romance (1972: 35). Subsequent references are to this
translation.
278
be greeting here, a son or a daughter, a king or a woman’.11 Hrólfr and

his men defend themselves against Þórbjǫrg’s forces and fight their way
out of the hall.
The initial bridal quest in Clári saga is also unsuccessful, ending with
an ignominious retreat by Clárus and his men, but the source of the con-
flict and the eventual resolution of hostilities between wooer and wooed
are quite different. Whereas Þórbjǫrg rejects King Hrólfr because she
does not consider him her equal in respect to power – she dismisses him
as a smákonungr, that is, kinglet – Serena rejects Prince Clárus because
he lacks proper table manners. To be sure, this also turns on equality, but
it is an equality determined by aristocratic etiquette. In other words, the
conflict is one that could have arisen only in a foreign aristocratic culture.
Clárus is invited to a banquet the last course of which consists of a soft-
boiled egg that he is to share with the princess. The egg slips out of his
grasp and lands on his breast so that its congealed contents spill down
over his tunic all the way to his belt. Serena’s reaction is swift, as she
tears into the wooer:
“Sé hér,” segir hon, “leiðr skálkr ok fúll farri! hvílíkr þú vart, ok
hversu þú drótt þinn flatan fót úsynju út af þínu móðurhúsi, meðan
þú kunnir eigi svá mikla hoftypt,12 at þú mættir þér skammlaust mat
at munni bera hjá ƒǫru góðu fólki. Ok nú í samri stund vera úti, vándr
þorpari! af þvísa herbergi með ǫllum þeim fǫntum ok ribbǫldum, er
þú drótt hér inn, svá framt sem þú vilt úskemðr vera!” (Clári saga
1907: 22–23)
11 Hrólfr’s question occurs in the oldest manuscript, Holm perg 7 4° (c. 1300–1325),
the basis of Ferdinand Detter’s edition of the saga (Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar 1891).
It is missing in Guðni Jónsson’s edition (Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar 1954) of the longer
redaction as found in the manuscript AM 152 fol (c. 1500–1525). Detter considered
the redaction in Holm perg 7 4° to be the original version. The two versions com-
plement each other, however, and I cite now from one, now from the other to make
my point. An analysis of the relationship of the two redactions is desirable, but
beyond the scope of this article.
12 The word used here is hoftypt, a loan from MLG hoftucht ‘courtly deportment’,
‘courtly bearing’. The corresponding MHG hofzuht is the title of a didactic work on
courtly behavior ascribed to Tannhäuser. See Kalinke (2008: 19–20).
279
marianne kalinke
“See here,” she says “miserable rogue and disgusting beggar that you
are; and how did you drag your flat foot unwisely out of your
mother’s house, when you have not acquired sufficient courtly
behavior to be able to bring food to your mouth without disgracing
yourself in the presence of other good people. And now take yourself
out immediately, wretched boor, from this chamber, with all these
rapscallions and ribalds whom you dragged in here, if you want to
avoid being disgraced.”
The scene concludes with Clárus leaving the banquet hall “unwashed”
(úþveginn) while the doors are locked behind him. Unlike the wooers in
the derivative maiden-king romances, his initial mistreatment by the
princess is not physical but psychological; he is neither physically abused
nor forcibly evicted, but rather severely humiliated. A few days later he
sails off, after having placed his soiled tunic in a locked chest.
The vengeance portions of Clári saga and the Hrólfr-Þórbjǫrg nar-
rative in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar differ considerably in that the nature
of the vengeance in each is determined by the character of the wooed.
Hrólfr returns to wage war on the woman who calls herself king, not
only to avenge himself but also to show that she is not able to protect
her kingdom on her own. She presents herself as a man and a skilled war-
rior and thus the suitor seeks to subjugate her on the battlefield. He suc-
ceeds. The situation is quite different in Clári saga: Serena’s rejection is
not based on a power play, as is Þórbjǫrg’s, but rather on the suitor’s
deportment in a courtly culture. Clárus returns, not to engage in combat,
but rather to wage psychological warfare, by appealing to Serena’s
cupidity, to her female desire for beautiful things, in this case three pavil-
ions drawn by mechanical animals that she covets. Unlike Hrólfr, who
openly confronts the woman he wants to marry on the battlefield, Clárus
returns in disguise.
As aforementioned, once Clárus has won Serena in marriage the nar-
rative does not end with the wedding feast. The saga is bipartite: the
bridal-quest romance is followed by the marital romance that treats of
Serena’s marriage and the humiliation and physical abuse she is made to
suffer by her presumed husband, but all of which she bears patiently and
280
stoically. At the end of the saga, she is praised for having shown herself
to be an exemplary wife. It turns out that Jón Halldórsson’s romance
was intended as an exemplum for women.
What was the fate of Clári saga in Iceland? The narrative is preserved
in some 24 manuscripts and fragments, the oldest from around 1350, the
youngest from the nineteenth century (Kalinke & Mitchell 1985: 72–73).
The extant manuscripts suggest a sustained interest in this particular nar-
rative. Although the manuscript transmission of this tale from the
Middle Ages into modern times, from a courtly culture into a conserva-
tive rural society, might suggest that the cultural transfer had been suc-
cessful, this is by no means the case. The saga was copied, but its basic
conflict and its function as an exemplum did not find resonance.13 The
fate of Clári saga was similar to that of the works belonging to the matière
de Bretagne that were translated in the thirteenth century and which,
although transmitted in Icelandic manuscripts, did not inspire the pro-
duction of indigenous Arthurian narratives, as happened, for example,
in the German-language area. Presumably one or the other Icelander
hearing or reading Clári saga might have found it entertaining, for such
it is, yet the tale as Jón Halldórsson told it, like the Arthurian narratives,
did not generate a slew of similar bridal-quest and marital romances with
an explicitly didactic function. No Icelander felt compelled to compose
a similar narrative that focused on a protagonist’s failings in social inter-
course as an obstacle to winning the desired bride; nor was anyone
inspired to produce a narrative that dwelt on the husband’s cruel testing
of the woman to determine whether she might be an exemplary wife.14
And yet Clári saga did have an impact on the development of Ice-
landic literature: the foreign motifs of the haughty woman who rejects
13 The very young redaction of Clári saga published by Bjarni Bjarnarson (1884) is a
greatly modified version that has lost not only its courtly but also its exemplary char-
acter. Serena’s conduct is no longer lauded as a ljós dœmi ‘clear example’ for other
women.
14 It should be noted, however, that Boccaccio’s story of patient Griselda in the
Decameron was transmitted via a circuitous route – Petrarch, a Low German version,
Steinhöwel’s High German Griselda, a Danish chapbook – to Iceland in the seven-
teenth century. See Seelow (1989: 117–132).
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and abuses all suitors and the suitor’s vengeance that plays on a woman’s
weakness, that is, her avarice and love of beautiful things, were combined
by Icelandic authors with the indigenous motif of the maiden king to
produce a sub-genre of bridal-quest romance. The plot in all of these nar-
ratives turns on three motifs: the motif of the arrogant woman who
rejects and mistreats her wooers, the motif of the rejected suitor in dis-
guise, and the motif of the woman’s cupidity. The distinctiveness of the
Icelandic literary creations lies in the portrayal of the woman: unlike
Serena in Clári saga, who faults the wooer for his lack of courtly decorum,
the women in the maiden-king romances deem the wooers inferior to
them in power and they are therefore rejected. The vengeance portion
of these tales is ever the same: the wooer in disguise succeeds in tricking
the woman into marrying him because she covets his wondrous posses-
sions. The source of this story pattern is Clári saga, the product of a
courtly and clerical environment. Clárus fails because his conduct does
not conform to the expectations of a courtly society. Serena succeeds in
the end because she measures up to clerical expectations of a married
woman. She has been transformed into a humble wife, whose patience
and constancy have been proven and who has shown herself to be a
faithful wife throughout the greatest wretchedness.
The didactic second part of Clári saga did not inspire any similar tale,
which is not surprising, given the fact that had an Icelandic wife experi-
enced the abuse that Serena did – for example, Clárus slaps her so hard
on three different occasions that she nearly loses consciousness – this
could have been reason enough for a wife to declare herself divorced from
her husband according to Icelandic law (Jochens 1995: 56).15 The bridal-
quest paradigm of Clári saga, however, figured large in the development
15 The saga relates that Clárus gefr henni svá þungan pustr undir eyrat, svá at hon tekr
annan meira af múrinum hjá sér, svá at náliga er hon í svima (Clári saga 1907: 65).
Serena is slapped by Clárus on two subsequent occasions (Clári saga 1907: 56). See
Laws of Early Iceland (Grágás II: K §149, p. 63): “There shall be no separation of
man and wife here in the country unless […] one of them inflicts an injury deemed
a major wound on the other.” Among these is a wound incurred “when a man is
knocked into a daze” (Grágás I: K § 86, p. 142). This is certainly the case in Clári
saga, when Clárus slaps Serena so hard on three different occasions that she is
knocked nearly unconscious against a wall.
282
of Icelandic romance, that is, the suitor’s ignominious rejection and the
two motifs of the vengeance section, the suitor in disguise and the
cupidity of the woman. What was not imitated was the conflict that leads
to the suitor’s rejection, that is, his failure in courtly conduct.
In concert the two sagas, the indigenous Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar
and the presumed foreign import Clári saga, led to the development of
the maiden-king romances.16 In Clári saga the desired woman fulfills the
function of a maiden king, insofar as nearly the entire government of her
country is entrusted to her; her position as ruler, however, does not play
any role in the development of plot. She does not reject Clárus because
as the son of a king, but not a king himself, he is her inferior. Rather,
she rejects him because he does not behave the way a nobleman should
in a courtly society. The case is quite different in Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar: Þórbjǫrg, alias Þórbergr, rejects Hrólfr as a petty king to
whom she is superior.
While the maiden king Þórbjǫrg inspired the portrayal of the female
protagonists of the maiden-king sagas and their conflict, the vengeance
section of Clári saga was the model for the same in the maiden-king tales.
In the romances produced in the wake of these two sagas Icelandic
authors rejected the foreign emphasis on courtly conduct as a desider-
atum in a prospective husband in favor of an emphasis on the equality
of the marital partners. The woman refuses to wed a man whom she does
not consider her equal.17 Even while Icelandic authors of romance rejected
what must have seemed to them a frivolous test for a suitor, proper
deportment at table, they accepted Clári saga’s means of winning over
the woman, indeed subjecting her, by appealing to her great weakness,
avarice, that is, her insatiable desire for precious objects.
16 Shaun F. D. Hughes has most recently proposed that the claim that Clári saga is based
on a Latin poem encountered in France should be understood as a modesty topos. He
argues cogently that the saga was composed by Jón Halldórsson himself in Iceland
and that the saga should not be considered a translated romance but rather an original
Icelandic composition, a pastiche of romance and fairy tale (Hughes 2008: 158). The
evidence mustered by Hughes in support of this thesis is most persuasive.
17 On the issue of the equality of marital partners, that is, jafnræði, see Jochens (1995:
21–22, 24).
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Three motifs from Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar and Clári saga, that is,
the motifs of the maiden king, the wooer in disguise, and the avaricious
woman, were combined in the creation of a subgenre of romance, the
meykongr, that is, maiden-king romance.18 Maiden kings came to be the
protagonists of a number of indigenous bridal-quest romances: the
eponymous protagonist of Nitida saga (1–37); Ingigerðr in Sigrgarðs saga
frækna, who, like Þórbjǫrg takes a male name, Ingi (54–55); Sedentiana
in Sigurðar saga þǫgla, who becomes absolute king, einvaldskonungr, upon
the death of her father (1954: 104); Philotemia in Dínus saga drambláta
(1960); and Fulgida in Viktors saga ok Blávus, who rules India as a maiden
king and to whom two vassal kings are subject (1964: 35). Then there is
Gibbons saga, a strange commixture of two narrative types. Into a fairy-
mistress plot the author interpolated a maiden-king narrative, the female
protagonist of which, Florentia, has herself named king (kongr) over a
third of India (1960: 22), and this recalls Þórbjǫrg’s rule over a third of
Sweden.
Finally, the most striking adaptation of the maiden-king motif from
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar and the wooer-in-disguise motif from Clári
saga is the Helga þáttr of Hrólfs saga kraka (14–19). In the aforementioned
works the motifs borrowed from an indigenous romance and an
imported romance were combined to produce a new romance type, the
maiden-king saga. In the Helga þáttr, however, the two loans are used as
a means of interpreting a traditional narrative, the basic plot of which
derives from the Gesta Danorum and Skjǫldunga saga. The maiden king
of romance is transplanted into the realm of the heroic-mythological.
The married queen of Skjǫldunga saga (1982: 23–24) becomes the maiden
king Ólǫf of Saxland, although the title meykongr is never used with her.
But like Þórbjǫrg in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, Ólǫf is depicted as a war-
rior king, dressed in a coat of mail, carrying a sword and shield, and
wearing a helmet (Hrólfs saga kraka: 14). Like Clárus and his successors,
King Helgi proposes marriage to Ólǫf, and like Serena and the other
maiden kings, she maltreats Helgi. He is shaved and tarred and thus mal-
18 For an analysis of the maiden-king romances, see ch. 3, “The Misogamous Maiden
Kings,” in Kalinke (1990: 66–108).
284
treated and humiliated he is transported back to his ship. Like the other
disgraced wooers, Helgi returns and tricks Ólǫf by appealing to her
cupidity. Since we are in the realm of the heroic, however, and dealing
moreover with a traditional narrative, the story cannot end happily but
must run its tragic course: Helgi rapes rather than marries Ólǫf. The
author of Hrólfs saga kraka sought a way to rationalize Hrólfr’s inces-
tuous origins. Quite aptly he drew on two motifs from romance, from
Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar and Clári saga, to interpret and augment the
terse narrative of Skjǫldunga saga.
Whereas the figure of Ólǫf, as transmitted in Hrólfs saga kraka, is
indebted to the maiden king in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, the nature of
Helgi’s vengeance derives from Clári saga. Here we see the impact of
these two sagas, the one indigenous, the other foreign in origin, on the
development of traditional Nordic narrative. Moreover, the quintessen-
tially Icelandic figure of the maiden king also influenced how Icelandic
redactors read and interpreted the foreign romance Partonopeus de Blois,
known in Icelandic as Partalopa saga. Under the impact of the maiden-
king romances the female protagonist of Partonopeus de Blois, a fairy mis-
tress intent upon finding a husband, is transformed into a maiden king
concerned about loss of power should she marry.
Partalopa saga is transmitted in two redactions, the one represented
by two vellum manuscripts (AM 533 4°; Holm perg 7 fol) dated to the
second half of the fifteenth century. Whereas the other redaction is trans-
mitted in a paper manuscript (Holm papp 46 fol) dated 1690, this is a
copy of the text in the now lost Ormsbók from the fourteenth century
(Andersen 1983: xlviii–lviii). This enables us to date the composition of
Partalopa saga before the fourteenth century. Scholars have suggested
that the saga originated in thirteenth-century Norway, but this cannot
be proven.19 The extant manuscripts transmit a narrative that is clearly
of Icelandic provenance, as is especially evident in the portrayal of the
female protagonist. What is odd about the saga, as also about its Euro-
19 Lise Præstgaard Andersen (1998: 58–59) believes that the romance could just as well
have been translated in Iceland, where, starting in the fourteenth century, the Nor-
wegian translations of romances were imitated in the indigenous riddarasǫgur.
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pean antecedents, is that the work is named after the male protagonist
even though its plot is driven by the heroine.
Partalopa saga derives from Partonopeus de Blois, a medieval French
verse romance, composed in the last third of the twelfth century, which
relates how the young hero, Partonopeus, is transported to a mysterious
city where he encounters the heroine Melior, who remains invisible to
him. Partonopeus proved popular across medieval Europe: adaptations
appeared in Middle High German, Old Norse, Middle Dutch, medieval
Spanish, Catalan, and Italian (Kölbing 1875). What distinguishes
Partonopeus de Blois from other medieval romances is the relation of the
male and female protagonists. The work is not a bridal-quest but rather
a groom-quest narrative: the initiative is taken by the woman, not the
man. She is versed in the magic arts and like a fairy mistress chooses the
man on whom she will bestow her favors. She lures the male protagonist
into her kingdom but remains invisible to him. His sojourn is dictated
by the tabu that he must not see her until they are married.
The romance is transmitted in two branches distinguished by the
country in which the narrative begins. The plot in the extant French man-
uscripts commences in France, the home of Partonopeus, whereas in sev-
eral translations/adaptations of the romance, the action begins in Greece,
home of the heroine Meliur.20 Of particular interest for understanding
Partalopa saga in its European context is the Middle English Partonope
of Blois, which has been transmitted in two redactions, the shorter of
which, like Partalopa saga, commences in Greece rather than France. This
shorter English version is extant only as a fragment of 308 verses and is
dated to around 1450 (Partonope of Blois: viii). The romance relates that
a noble king had two daughters, the older of whom, called Melior, is
fairer than any other woman in the world. Her father names her as his
heir (Partonope of Blois: vv. 23–24). She is so bright that she learned more
in twelve months than others learned in three years, and among the skills
she acquired was magic (vv. 31–35). When her father dies she becomes
20 The Historia del conde Partinoples also opens in Greece and seems to derive from the
same branch as the Middle English and Icelandic versions. See Kölbing (1875: 64–
65, 72–74, 103).
286
queen (vv. 47–48) and needs a husband. Therefore she sends scouts to
look for someone who might be her peer (vv. 52–54) and their choice
falls upon Pertinope de Bloys.
The English romance is unproblematic. An unmarried queen seeks
a husband; emissaries are sent out to scout out a possible candidate; they
recommend Pertinope, and the queen sets out for France, where she uses
her powers of enchantment to bring him to her. The situation is rather
different in Partalopa saga, which, like the Middle English poem, com-
mences in Greece. The heroine is here named Marmoria. She is twelve
years old when her father dies, but unlike the English Melior she does
not become queen but rather king, that is, meykongvr yfir ỏllv rikinv (Par-
talopa saga: 2.9).21 She is so powerful that twenty-four vassal kings serve
her. Her counselors believe, however, that she is incapable of defending
her country and ruling the kingdom (litil landvǫrn edur rïkis stjörn mundi
af hennj standa) because she is a woman (þui at hon var kvenn madur
[2.19]), and they advise her to marry a king who could protect the country
and rule the kingdom. She rejects the wooers from her own kingdom
and sends emissaries to her vassal kingdoms – twenty-four kings are her
subordinates – to look for someone who is a paragon of manhood and
suited to rule.
Partalopa saga is extant in two redactions and these diverge at the
beginning of the narrative, the one, found in the oldest manuscripts,
transmits a reduced text, whereas the other, a seventeenth-century copy
of the no longer extant fourteenth-century Ormsbók (Andersen 1983:
xlviii–lx), expatiates on the problem of marriage for as powerful and
intelligent a woman as Marmoria. Partalopi is introduced in the shorter
redaction as having all manner of desirable traits: he is mature in wisdom,
and has no equal in France in respect to accomplishments, stature,
appearance, and learning. The Ormsbók redaction tells us more about
him: there is no better scholar in France than Partalopi because he knew
both heathen and Christian books. In addition to his humility and pop-
21 Subsequent references are to page and line of this edition. The B-redaction, which
derives from Ormsbók, does not contain this statement but subsequently does refer
to her as meykóngr (8.23–24).
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ularity, which the shorter redaction also mentions, the Ormsbók version
additionally comments on his gentleness, generosity, and moderation
(Partalopa saga: 5.47–49). Marmoria’s emissaries ascertain that Partalopi
is most promising and capable, and when they return to Constantinople,
they tell Marmoria that they could not find anyone more accomplished
than he is.
Marmoria decides to set out herself for France to check out Partalopi.
She leaves in secret and through magic is able to enter the king’s hall
without anyone seeing her. She is able to confirm for herself that Par-
talopi is indeed all that her courtiers had reported. She is concerned, how-
ever, about her own position were she to marry Partalopi, for if she had
her way she would not want as husband someone who would be more
powerful than she is. To her mind, the man
mvndi keisari [B-redaction: kongur] verda yfir allri Grecia er hennar

feingi ok sa mvndi rikari verda en hon ok þotti henni þat mikil
minkan at heita sidan keisarina [B-redaction: drottnïngh] þar er advr
het hon meykongvr yfir Partalopa ok morgvm ỏdrvm hỏfdingivm
(Partalopa saga: 8.21–25).
who married her would become emperor [king] over all of Greece,
and he would be more powerful than she, and she considered it a
great abasement to be called empress [queen], whereas before she
was a maiden king ruling over Partalopi and many other chieftains.
At issue is power: whether Marmoria is to be called ‘empress’, as in

the shorter redaction, or ‘queen’, as in the Ormsbók redaction, either
title indicates a lessening of her primacy. She maintains that the title
dróttning or keisarinna designates a woman whose power is derivative,
dependent on a husband who is king or emperor, and whose subordi-
nate she is.
She informs her courtiers that she is not willing to marry a man who
is her vassal king. Yet Marmoria wants Partalopi, and through her astro-
logical knowledge she is able to bring him to her court, where she, how-
ever, and her retainers remain invisible to him. All will be well as long as
288
Partalopi does not attempt to see her. Not unexpectedly he breaks the
tabu: once he can see her, he in turn also becomes visible to her retainers,
and they condemn him to death. Unlike the French romance, the saga
does not reveal why Partalopi must not be discovered by Marmoria’s
courtiers. In Partonopeus de Blois, however, the issue is his immaturity;
he has not yet been knighted and Meliur knows that he would not yet
be acceptable to her courtiers as her husband. He must remain invisible
for two and a half years, at which time her counselors will no longer
object to him (Le Roman de Partonopeu de Blois: vv. 1438–90).
This brings us back to Þórbjǫrg in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar and
Hrólfr’s vengeance for his treatment at her hands. Hrólfr eventually
returns to Sweden, lays siege to her fortress, and finally engages in a great
battle. Þórbjǫrg is defeated and tells her father what has happened. He
tells her to stop warring – leggja styrjöld – and to become reconciled with
Hrólfr – ok samþyckjaz Hrólfi konungi (Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar 1891:
24). He says that she should turn to feminine matters and go to her
mother’s boudoir – attu takir upp kvenligar atferðir ok farir i skemmu til
móður þinnar (Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar 1954: 97). She obeys and hon
kastaði þá af sér herklæðum ok öllum konungligum bunaði en tók upp kvennz-
ligum búnað, svá sem heyrði til ríkri mey ok konungs dóttur (Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar 1891: 24) ‘removed her battle garb as well as all her royal
attire and donned female garments, as was appropriate for a wealthy
maiden and daughter of a king’; she then goes into the boudoir, but first
hands her weapons over to her father – en gaf í vald Eireki konungi vápn
þau, er hún hafði borit (1954: 97) – and sits down on the bed next to her
mother and begins working embroidery – settist hun til sauma (Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar 1954: 97). Þórbjǫrg’s transformation is extraordinary: with
one change of dress she no longer competes as a man or a monarch. There
is a distinction between her being dressed in konungligum búnaði, not to
mention armor, and her putting on kvennzligum búnað. The divestiture
of her male and royal garments is symbolic of her loss of royal power,
for at the conclusion of the wedding feast the narrator reports that Hrólfr
eignaðiz […] þá þann hluta ríki, er konungsdóttir hafði áðr stýrt (Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar 1891: 25) ‘then took possession of the part of the kingdom
that the princess had ruled over before’.
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If Marmoria were a character in Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, she would

say: “See, this is what I was afraid of”. Indeed, toward the conclusion of
Partalopa saga, when Partalopi is thought dead, Marmoria’s vassal kings
and other nobles convene and then report that no one thought she should
continue to call herself maiden king (ỏngvm þotti hon þat nafn mega bera
at heita meykongvr yfir þeim) because of her wickedness – sidan hana hafdi
þann glæp hent (Partalopa saga: 85.37–39) – and even though they did not
want to take away her paternal inheritance, all friends and relatives
thought that she should marry (Partalopa saga: 86.39–41). The retainers
accuse Marmoria of glæpr, which connotes ‘misdeed’, ‘crime’, ‘wicked-
ness’, but they do not reveal what they consider this crime to be.
Upon transgressing Marmoria’s tabu, Partalopi is discovered by
Marmoria’s courtiers and they determine that he is to be killed. Mar-
moria’s sister offers to carry out the death sentence herself, but instead
she secretly sets him free. Subsequently she accuses Marmoria, who does
not know that Partalopi is still alive, of having brought about his death
through her trickery (fyrir þina pretta [Partalopa saga: 91.34]), but she
does not elaborate. The question therefore remains what Marmoria’s
misdeed is thought to be. Is it the fact that she had harbored Partalopi
under her roof without her court’s knowledge? Or is it the larger issue
of her not wanting to be subject to a man and thereby losing power? Pos-
sibly the reference is to her declaration, in the Ormsbók-redaction, after
her retainers had singled out Partalopi as being an acceptable husband,
that “she never wanted to marry the man whom she could,” that is, Par-
talopi, since he “did not seem as well proven that she wished him to be
king over her, since she was already king over all his kingdoms.”22 Does
she want both to have her cake and eat it too, that is, have Partalopi but
not marry him so that she will not lose power? That this might be at issue
is suggested by her decision at the beginning of the narrative to “deal
secretly with this matter and get him nevertheless” (ok gerdi sier þat ihvg
at hon skylldi leyniliga med þessv mali fara ok fa hann þo allt at einv [Par-
22 at hon villde alldreigi giptast þeim mannj er hon m þeim henni þőtti æigi reyndur sva vel
sem at hon villde til þeß at vera köngur yfvir sier þar sem at hon var dur kongur yfvir ǫllum
hanns rikiumm (Partalopa saga: 9: 29–33).
290
talopa saga: 9.26–28]). In the end Partalopi is declared victor in the tour-
nament that is to determine whom Marmoria is to wed. And as Mar-
moria knew would happen, Partalopi is chosen as emperor (keisari) and
she as his queen (dróttning), and the couple are married: ok nv jstad var
Partalopi tekinn til keisara ok settv hann jhasæti .iiij. kongar ok .xx. en Mar-
moriv tokv þeir til drottningar ok settv hana hia Partalopa en hann festi hana
þar at ǫllum hiavervndvm (Partalopa saga: 125.95–98).
Despite the concluding statement that Partalopi and Marmoria ruled
Constantinople, Greece, and many other great countries – Partalopi ok
Marmoria riktv Mikla gardi ok ỏllv Gricklandi ok mỏrgvm ỏdrvm storlỏndvm
(Partalopa saga: 126. 117–19) – the fact remains that the moment Mar-
moria is married to Partalopi she loses the title of king, and as queen her
authority is derivative. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the redactor of the
version in one of the two oldest extant manuscripts, AM 533 4to (c.
1450–1500), in effect erases Marmoria from the saga when he concludes:
ok lykvr svo sỏgv Partalopa (Partalopa saga: 126. 119).23 Nonetheless, Par-
talopa saga does celebrate the power of a woman since she is the one who
controls Partalopi’s fate most of the time. Still, it is presumably the way
in which she handles the situation that is considered a misdeed by her
retainers and this is what condemns her to having to accept as husband
the victor in a tournament. That this turns out to be Partalopi after all,
the man she herself had chosen as lover, does not change the fact of her
impotence vis-à-vis her male vassals. In the end she does submit to a man
and thereby her power is diminished.
Although Partalopa saga is derivative – its ultimate source is a French
romance – the text as we have it is an Icelandic reinvention of the story
of a quest for a marital partner, a story in which the woman is the con-
trolling half. This inversion of the quest as depicted in the bridal-quest
romances presumably inspired the anonymous Icelandic author to com-
bine the figure of the fairy mistress with that of the maiden king. By
transforming Marmoria into a maiden king and letting her voice her con-
23 In contrast, the version in the manuscript JS 27 fol (c. 1670) concludes: Ok lijkur hier
nü þessare saughu frä Partalopa ok Marmorju (Partalopa saga: 126. 61–62); and the
Ormsbók-redaction embraces the couple with the plural pronoun: ok lykur þar fr
þeim at seigia (Partalopa saga: 126.38–39).
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cerns about the consequences of marriage for her station, the Icelandic
author of Partalopa saga ingeniously combined the foreign and indige-
nous female figures representing power over a male.
The development of indigenous Icelandic romance is the result of a
two-fold process, on the one hand loans from the translated foreign
romances, such as the bridal-quest paradigm from Clári saga, inspired the
narrative patterns of some indigenous compositions, but on the other
hand the foreign motifs were combined with already existing traditional
motifs, such as the King Thrushbeard motif of Clári saga with the indige-
nous maiden-king motif, the latter presumably ultimately rooted in the
valkyries of myth. The combined cultural transfer and subsequent accul-
turation affected both indigenous narratives, such as the Hrolf kraki
legend as well as foreign narratives. On the one hand a traditional narra-
tive was interpreted on the basis of a foreign narrative pattern, as hap-
pened in Hrólfs saga kraka; on the other hand, a translated romance
underwent acculturation in the process of transmission, as is the case in
Partalopa saga, whose Icelandic redactor successfully combined the for-
eign fairy-mistress motif with the indigenous maiden-king motif.
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328
About the authors
Martin Aurell is professor of medieval history at the university of

Poitiers. He has published a number of books on medieval history.
Among his works should be mentioned L’Empire des Plantagenêt (1154–
1224) from 2003 and La Légende du roi Arthur (550–1250) from 2007.
Bjørn Bandlien is associate professor at Buskerud and Vestfold Uni-

versity College. He defended his dissertation on Masculinity in the
Norse Middle Ages at the University of Oslo in 2005. The same year
he published Strategies of Passion: Love and Marriage in Medieval Norway
and Iceland. In 2012 he edited an anthology about the 14th century Nor-
wegian queen Eufemia, Eufemia: Oslos middelalderdronning.
Ingvil Brügger Budal is associate professor at Norsk lærerakademi

(NLA University College) in Bergen, Norway. In her PhD dissertation
from 2009 she dealt with issues related to the translation of French
courtly literature. She also provided a synoptic edition of the French lais
and their Old Norse translation. In a number of articles, Budal has dis-
cussed questions concerning the translated riddarasǫgur and their context.
Keith Busby is professor emeritus at University of Wisconsin-

Madison. He has written extensively on Old French literature. Among
his works should be mentioned Codex and Context. Reading Old French
Verse Narrative in Manuscript (2002) and the translation of Marie de
France, The Lais of Marie de France, together with Glyn S. Burgess.
Peter Damian-Grint is Correspondence Editor of Electronic Enlight-

enment; he previously worked for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biog-
329
about the authors
raphy. He taught Old French at the University of Oxford between 1996

and 2010. Damian-Grint has written widely on Old French literature,
especially historiography; his recent publications ‘Robert Courteheuse
et Henri Beauclerc, frères ennemis dans les estoires de Wace et Benoît’,
in Tinchebray 1106–2006 (2009); he has also contributed extensively to
the Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (2011). Damian-Grint is cur-
rently in Rome, working on a research project into literature describing
Christian life and work in medieval England.
Stefka Georgieva Eriksen has a three year postdoc scholarship from

the Norwegian Research Council at the Department of Linguistics and
Scandinavian studies, University of Oslo. She wrote her dissertation on
the transmission of the story of Elie in Old French and Old Norse lit-
erary contexts and defended it at the University of Oslo in 2010 (pub-
lished in 2014). Georgieva Eriksen has published a number of articles on
Strengleikar and the translated riddarasǫgur and has also focused on the
manuscript transmission of medieval literature.
Jürg Glauser is professor of Scandinavian studies at the University of

Basel and the University of Zurich. Among his interests are the litera-
tures of late medieval Iceland and early modern Scandinavia. He has
written on the translated and original Icelandic romances as well as on
Danish and Swedish chapbooks. His publications include Isländische
Märchensagas (1983), Skandinavische Literaturgeschichte (ed. 2006), Text
– Bild – Karte. Kartographien der Vormoderne (co-ed. 2007), Island – Eine
Literaturgeschichte (2011), Balladen-Stimmen. Vokalität als theoretisches und
historisches Phänomen der skandinavischen Balladentradition (ed. 2012),
Text – Reihe – Transmission. Unfestigkeit als Phänomen skandinavischer
Erzählprosa 1500–1800 (co-ed. 2012), Rittersagas – Übersetzung, Über-
lieferung, Transmission (co-ed. 2014).
Marianne Kalinke is CAS Professor Emerita of Germanic Languages

and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She
is an international authority on cultural and literary relations between
Scandinavia and the Continent in the medieval and early modern period.
330
about the authors
In her books and articles she has addressed the transmission of conti-
nental literature to Scandinavia, the nature of translation in the Middle
Ages, and the impact of medieval French romance on the development
of Old Icelandic literature. Her publications include King Arthur, North-
by-Northwest (1981), Bridal-Quest Romance in Medieval Iceland (1990)
and St. Oswald of Northumbria: Continental Metamorphoses (2005), and
she has recently edited The Arthur of the North: Arthurian Literature in
the Norse and Rus’ Realms (2011) in the series Arthurian Literature in the
Middle Ages.
Karoline Kjesrud has a three year postdoc scholarship from the Nor-
wegian Research Council at the Department of Linguistics and Scandi-
navian studies, University of Oslo. She defended her dissertation on the
later Old Icelandic riddarasǫgur and their reflection of contemporary
ideas and world views at the University of Oslo in 2011. She has pub-
lished articles on this literature and presented her research at a number
of international conferences.
Sofia Lodén defended her dissertation on the Old Swedish translation

of the French Chevalier au lion into Herr Ivan at the Stockholm university
in 2012. She has published a number of articles on the relation between
the French courtly literature and Scandinavian literature. Lodén is cur-
rently working on a three year postdoc project at Ca' Foscari University
of Venice and Stockholm University financed by the Swedish Research
Council.
Suzanne Marti defended her dissertation on the Norse Parcevals saga

and its French sources at the University of Oslo in 2011. She has pub-
lished articles on this literature and presented her research at a number
of international conferences. Marti is currently working on a postdoc
project financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Else Mundal is professor emerita at the University of Bergen. She has

published extensively on Old Norse sagas, Eddic and skaldic poetry, Old
Norse mythology and religion, legends and cults of saint, on subjects
331
about the authors
within women’s history, on aspects of the cultural history of Medieval

Scandinavia, on Old Norse literature as a historical source and on the
relation between Old Norse oral and written culture. A collection of Else
Mundal’s work was recently published as volume 4 of Bibliotheca
nordica. She was a member of the Centre of Medieval Studies (CMS) at
the University of Bergen 2003–2012.
Jonatan Pettersson defended his dissertation on the Old Norse

translation of the Latin epic Alexandreis into Alexanders saga at the
Stockholm University in 2009. He is currently working in the project
Retracing the Reformation. The dissemination of the Bible in Medieval
Scandinavian Culture with an individual postdoc scholarship from Åke
Wibergs stiftelse.
Indices
1 Personal names
Aavitsland, Kristin Bliksrud, 226 Amis, 78
Abel, 44 Andersen, Lise Præstgaard, 285,
Acerbo Morena, 51 287
Achen, Henrik von, 267 Andersson, Theodore M., 261,
Achilles, 46 275
Adam, 44 Andreas Capellanus, 253
Adam of Bremen, 145 Andrés Nikolásson, 265
Adams, Alison, 79 Anus, 177
Agnes, 256 Aoife, 18
Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir, 140, 196 Aristotle, 54
Aimar, Viscount of Limoges, 49 Árni, bishop of Stavanger, 255
Aioli, 36 Árni, bishop,
Áki, 256, 259 Árni Sigurðsson, bishop of
Alan of Lille, 177 Bergen, 257
Alban, saint, 61 Árni Þorláksson, bishop of Skál-
Alctander, Laurits, 248 holt, 196, 261
Alexander, Greek Emperor, 81 Arthur, mythological king, 43, 78,
Alexander III, Pope, 196 85, 92, 132, 144, 162, 166, 170,
Alexandre de Paris, 81 182
Alfonso II, king of Aragon, 49 Artin, Tom, 181
Alfred the Great, king of Eng- Asbjǫrn, 147
land, 72 Asdal, Kristin, 225
Almazan, Vincent, 123 Aslákr Rǫgnvaldsson, 258–259
Ambroise, 67 Aslanov, Cyril, 18
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, 54 Atli, 210–211
Amile, 79 Audfinnr, bishop of Bergen, 249
333
indices
Audunn Hugleiksson, 258 Birkeland, Harris, 265

Auður Magnúsdóttir, 195 Bjarni Auðunarson, 258, 269
Augustine of Hippo (St. Augus- Bjarni Erlingsson, 258
tine), 43, 57, 192, 252 Bjarni Bjarnarson, 281
Aurell, Martin, 12, 35, 49 Bjarni Einarsson, 260
Avicenna, 71 Björn K. Þórólfsson, 277
Blaisdell, Foster W., 94, 157, 170
Bagge, Sverre, 27 Blankiflúr, 133, 146
Baldwin, John W., 253 Bleddri ap Cadivor, 25
Bampi, Massimiliano, 117 Boccaccio, 182, 281
Ban, 163 Bonté, Rosie, 7
Bandlien, Bjørn, 15–16, 182, 184, Bornholdt, Claudia, 273
195–198, 256–257, 263, 265 Bourdieu, Pierre, 55
Barnes, Geraldine, 142–143 Brandr Jónsson, 125
Barraclough, Eleanor Rosamund, 7 Bringvet, 203
Barthélemy, Dominique, 40 Bromwich, Rachel, 22
Basin, 216–217, 219–220, 223 Broughton, Bradford B., 163
Bassi Guttormsson, 256–257 Budal, Ingvil Brügger, 13, 131, 143
Bassnet, Susan, 110 Bumke, Joachim, 141
Baudri of Bourgueil, 254 Busby, Keith, 11–12, 17, 25, 27–
Bautier, Anne-Marie, 36 28, 93
Bautier, Robert-Henri, 36
Benedeit, 60–61 Cain, 44
Benkestokk, Anders, 248 Calendre, 82
Benkestokk, Jon Tordsson, 249 Calkin, Siobhain Bly, 270
Benkestokk, Trond Tordsson, Calogrenant, 92–98, 100–106
249 Cardini, Franco, 38
Benoît de Sainte-Maure, 65, 79– Carruthers, Mary J., 179–181
81 Cecilia Sigurðardóttir, 198
Benson, Robert Louis, 45 Cederschiöld, Gustaf, 274–275
Benton, John F., 47 Chardri, 60
Bernard of Clairvaux, saint, 47 Charlemagne, 133
Berthelot, Anne, 50 Chassel, Jean-Luc, 37
Bertran de Born, 34, 49–50 Chesterman, Andrew, 107, 126,
Bijsterveld, Arnoud-Jan A., 139– 160
140 Chrétien de Troyes, 12, 20–22,
334
indices
29–30, 37, 44–45, 50, 78–79, Dante Alighieri, 49, 52, 180, 182
87, 89, 91–95, 98–99, 102–105, Dares Phrygius, 80
132, 161, 163, 165, 168, 170, 172– David, King of Scotland, 142
173, 227 Dembowski, Peter F., 57
Christ, 43, 155, 188, 237–239, Detter, Ferdinand, 279
241–242, 252, 261, 265, 268 Diarmait Mac Murchada, 18
Cicero, 46, 54, 266 Diascorides, 71
Clanchy, Michael, 56, 61, 63 Dictys, 80
Clárus, 275–276, 279–280, 282– Dímus, 277
284 Drefia, 217, 219
Clement, saint, 62 Duby, George, 30
Cleopatra, 71
Cligès, 78–79 Eco, Umberto, 225
Codde, Philippe, 109 Ector, 230
Cohen, Esther, 139 Edgington, Susan B., 267
Conrad of Ballhausen, 52 Edward I, king of England, 256
Constable, Giles, 45 Edward II, king of England, 194
Constance, 64 Edward the Confessor (Játvarðr),
Constantin, 49 king of England, 261–262
Constantine, Byzantine Emperor, Edward, Prince of England, 265
266 Einarr þambarskelfir, 261–262
Cook, Robert, 144, 184, 195 Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, 276–277
Copeland, Rita, 116, 181 Eiríkr, abbot of Munkeliv Abbey,
Coplestone, Frederick, 178 255
Cornelius Nepos, 80 Eiríkr jarl, earl, 261
Courson, 253 Eirikr, provost, 259–260
Crane, Susan, 18 Eiríkr Magnússon, king of
Crouch, David, 40 Norway, 252, 256
Crozier, Alan, 7 El Cid, 36
Curtius, Ernst Robert, 48, 181 Elias, Norbert, 53
Cuscraid Menn, 25 Elís (Elie), 133, 171, 177, 189, 191
Equitan, 150
Dagenais, John, 180, 182 Erec, 132
Damian-Grint, Peter, 12, 59, 61, Erik, king of Denmark, 251
64, 67, 71, 82, 85 Erik Menved, king of Denmark,
Daniel of Beccles, 55 257
335
indices
Eriksen, Stefka Georgieva, 14, Galahad, 42–43

270 Galathea, 177
Érimón, 25 Galen, 71
Erlingr Ámundarson, 258 Gallais, Pierre, 25
Erlingr Viðkunsson, 258 Galterus (Meistari Galterus), 115,
Esbern Snare, 264 118
Esclados le Roux, 103 Gauthier de Châtillon, 118, 177,
Eufemia, queen of Norway, 91– 247
92, 269 Gautier d’Arras, 267
Eve, 44 Gautier de Coinci, 57
Even-Zohar, Itamar, 107, 109, 112, Gauthier, René A., 177
158–159 Gawain, 182
Eysteinn, archbishop of Niðarós, Geffrei Gaimar, 58, 64, 72
196 Gelsinger, Bruce, 124
Eyvindr kinnrífa, 147 Gentzler, Edwin, 109–110
Geoffrey, duke of Brittany, 49
Fáfnir Hreiðmarsson, 240 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 65, 85
Fate, 183, 195 Geoffrey the Fair (Geoffroi le
Farmer, David Hugh, 240 Bel), count of Anjou, 46–47
Fein, David, 80 Geoffrey Chaucer, 182
Fidjestøl, Bjarne, 136, 178 George, saint, 48, 240
Finnr Ǫgmundarson, 249, 257, Gerritsen, Willem P., 28
269 Gervais of Tilbury, 36
Finnur Jónsson, 157 Gervase, 70
Florentia, maiden king, 284 Gilbert FilzBaderon, 83
Florés, 133, 146 Giles, saint, 190
Flori, Jean, 43 Gîrbea, Catalina, 43–44
Flosi Þórðarson, 215 Gísli Brynjúlfsson, 131
Fludernik, Monika, 117 Glauser, Jürg, 15, 19–20, 26, 28,
Frances, saint, 61 123, 135, 206, 210, 212, 224
Frank, Roberta, 137 Glorieux, Palémon, 177
Frederick II, emperor, 36 Glúmr Óleifsson, 214–215
Freedman, Paul, 44 God, 39, 41–42, 44, 54–55, 72,
Fritz, Birgitta, 265 138, 171, 185–186, 188–189,
Fulgida, maiden king, 284 191–193, 205, 216–217, 220,
222, 228, 231–232, 239, 242,
336
indices
244, 255, 261, 263, 266 Halvorsen, Eyvind Fjeld, 121–123,

Godfrey of Bouilloun, 263 125, 134
Gouiran, Gérard, 49 Hanna Steinunn Þorleifsdottir,
Gratian, 195 92, 125
Griselda, 281 Hanselmann, Victoria, 209
Gudleikr Viljálmsson, 267 Haraldr hárfagri Hálfdanarson,
Guðni Jónsson, 279 king of Norway, 26
Guðrún Gjúkadóttir, 208, 210– Haraldr inn grenski, 274
212 Harden, Arthur Robert,
Gudrun Sæbjarnardóttir, 257 Harold Godwinsson (Haraldr
Guerau, viscount of Cabrera, 36– Guðinason), king of England,
37 262
Guibert of Nogent, 45 Hartmann, A. Richard, 177
Guillaume IX, troubadour, 25 Hartmann von Aue, 22, 92
Guillaume le Clerc, 70, 87 Hatun, 220, 224
Gullick, Michael, 251 Haugen, Odd Einar, 226
Gunnarr Hámundarson, 140, 215 Haukr Erlendsson, 257, 266
Gunnarr Gjúkason, 208, 210–211 Helena, Byzantine emperess, 266
Gunnlaugr Leifsson, 262 Helga Yngvildardóttir, 151
Gǫngu-Hrólfr, 26–27 Helgi, 284–285
Helle, Knut, 137, 258–259
Hafliði Steinsson, 252 Heinrich Steinhöwel, 281
Hafþórir Jónsson, 256 Heinrich von dem Türlin, 46
Hákon Hákonarson, king of Henriksen, Dag Sverre, 251
Norway, 9, 11, 13, 15, 25, 91, Henry I, king of England, 46
123–124, 129–130, 134, 136–141, Henry II, king of England, 38
143, 145, 151–157, 160, 178, 194, Henry III, king of England, 49
196, 198, 227, 233, 245–246, 252, Henry VI, emperor, 49
258–259, 265, 269 Henry the Liberal of Champagne,
Hákon Magnússon, king of 46–47
Norway, 16, 135, 194, 246, 255– Henry the Young, king of Eng-
259, 261, 265–266, 268–269 land, 49
Hákon Hákonarson ungi, 157 Heraclius, Byzantine emperor,
Hákon Rǫgnvaldsson, 258 266–267
Hallberg, Peter, 109, 120 Herberichs, Cornelia, 212
Hallgerðr Hǫskuldsdóttir, 214 Herfi, 223
337
indices
Herod, 42 208
Hertnið, 228 Ívarr Óláfsson, 258
Hilidigunnr Starkaðardóttir, 215 Íven, 132, 156, 227–228, 232, 242,
Hippocrates, 71 244
Hodgson, Natasha R., 267
Hogenbirk, Marjolein, 28 Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre, 41
Hollander, Lee M., 26–27 Jadunet, 219
Holm-Olsen, Ludvig, 26, 176, Jaeger, C. Stephen, 53, 149
194, 250–251 Jakobsen, Alfred, 274
Holtsmark, Anne, 260 Jansson, Valter, 91–92
Homer, 47 Janual, 182–183
Honorius Augustodunensis, 41 Jarman, A. O. H., 22
Hrólfr Gautreksson, 277–280, Jean de Marmoutier, 37
283, 285, 289 Jehan Bodel, 57, 78
Hue de Rotelande, 83 Job, 192
Hughes, Shaun F. D., 283 Jochens, Jenny, 140, 282–283
Hunt, Tony, 59, 92–93 Johansen, Kjell Eyvind, 178
Hult, David F., 93 John, king of England, 49
Huot, Silvia, 180 John Early, 34
Hægstad, Marius, 194 John Gower, 182
Hǫgni Gjúkason, 208, 210–211 John of Marmoutiers, 46
Hǫskuldr Þráinsson, 215 John of Salisbury, 40, 43, 54
Jolly, William Thomas, 116, 119
Ibn Sida, 265 Jón rauði, archbishop of Niðarós,
Ingebjǫrg Hákonardóttir, 258 261
Ingeborg, queen of Norway, 252, Jón Sigurðr, bishop, 262
269 Jón Halldórsson, bishop of Skál-
Ingigerðr, maiden king (alias holt, 253, 274–275, 277, 281, 283
Ingi), 284 Jones, William T., 178
Isabel, 141 Jong, Mayke B. de, 139
Isabella Bruce, queen of Norway, Jonsson, Torlov (or Tollev), 248
257, 263 Jordan Fantosme, 58
Isidore of Seville, 44, 48, 57, 239, Jordanus Rufus, 36
242 Joseph of Arimathea, 42
Ísodd, 200, 202–206, 212 Jørund, archbishop of Niðarós,
Ísǫnd, 148, 155, 200–203, 205– Julien, 190
338
indices
Jǫrundr, archbishop of Niðarós, Leslie, Helen, 7

256 Lindqvist, Yvonne, 109, 112–113
Lodén, Sofia, 12–13, 20, 92, 106
Kalinke, Marianne, 16, 28, 94, Lodin Lepp, 265
134–135, 143, 151, 153, 156, 160, Logié, Philippe, 79
170, 246, 279, 281, 284 Louis VI, king of France, 39
Kardín, 200–204, 208 Louis-Jensen, Jonna, 120
Karl. See Karlamagnús Love, 183, 195, 198
Karlamagnús (Charlemagne), Lubac, Henry de, 179
216–223 Lucan, 120, 266
Karlsefni. See Þorfinnr Karlsefni Luctretius (Meistari Lucretius),
Þórðarson 231, 238
Khosroes, 267 Lusignan, Serge, 19
Kibler, William W., 93
Kiening, Christian, 212 Magerøy, Ellen Marie, 233
Kinck, Hans E., 13, 129–130 Magnus Birgersson, 258
Kjesrud, Karoline, 15, 225 Magnus Daske, 256–257
Knirk, James, 254 Magnus de la Gardie, 248
Konráðr, 226, 229–230, 244 Magnus Eriksson, king of
Koterski, Joseph W.S.J., 178 Sweden and Norway, 258, 265
Kramarz-Bein, Susanne, 251 Magnus the blind. See Magnús
Kristin Sigurðardóttir, 198 Sigurðarson inn blindi
Kwakkel, Erik, 176 Magnús Hákonarson lagabœtir,
Kyot the Provençal, 50 king of Norway, 16, 140–141,
Köhler, Erich, 30 196, 251–253, 266, 269
Kölbing, Eugine, 172, 177, 286 Magnús the Lawmender. See
Magnús Hákonarson.
Lancelot, 43, 45–46 Magnús Sigurðarson inn blindi,
Lanham, Carol Dana, 45 king of Norway, 198
Lárentíus Kálfsson (Laurentius), Malicote, Sandra C., 177
bishop of Hólar, 252–253, 267– Manuel, emperor of Byzantium,
268 82
Laugerud, Henning, 226 Margrét Skúladóttir, queen of
Lazarus, 192 Norway, 136–138, 140, 198, 245
Leach, Henry Goddard, 182, 250 Marie de France, 20, 64, 72, 86–
Legge, M. Dominica, 61 88, 117–118, 132, 175, 177, 247,
339
indices
254, 264 260, 263

Mark, k 183 Odelman, Eva, 265
Markis, 164, 200 Olaf. See Óláfr Haraldsson
Marmoria, maiden king, 133, Óláfr, 151
287–291 Óláfr Haraldsson, king of
Mars, 46 Norway, 27, 138, 146, 260
Marx, Jean, 37 Óláfr helgi. See Óláfr Haraldsson.
Marti, Suzanne, 14, 165, 173 Óláfr Tryggvason, king of
Master Perus, 275–276 Norway, 208, 246, 260, 261–
Mathilda of Flanders, 52 263
Matilda, empress of England, 46 Ólafur Halldórsson, 260
Matthew Paris, 48,60–61, 63 Ólǫf of Saxland, maiden king,
Meissner, Rudolf, 109, 120 284–285
Melior, 285–287 Oostrom, Fritz P. van, 28
Meliur, 286, 289 Orderic Vitalis, 39–40, 52
Menegaldo, Silvère, 48 Ottone, 51
Michael, Archangel, 236, 239– Ovid, 79, 193, 254
240
Míl Espáine, 25 Palmgren, Karin, 94
Minervini, Laura, 18 Pamphilus, 177, 187–188
Minnis, Alistair J., 180–181 Parceval, 132
Mitchell, Phillip M., 134, 281 Partalope, 133
Munch, Peter Andreas, 258 Partalopi, 287–291
Mundal, Else, 20, 26, 33, 108 Partonopeus, 286
Munthe, Gerhard, 258 Parzival, 50–51
Paul, St., 85
Naflun, 218–220 Paulin Piper, 48
Nature, 102, 191, 195 Perceval, 22, 30, 43–44, 163, 168
Nenseter, Olav, 259 Perot de Garbeley, 68
Nestor, 47 Pertinope de Bloys, 287
Nicholls, Jonathan W., 53 Peter, saint, 62, 100, 171
Nichols, Stephen, 182 Peter Cantor, 44, 253
Nicolas de Montiéramey, 47 Peter Guðleiksson, 258, 267–269
Noreen, Erik, 94 Petrarch, 182, 281
Pettersson, Jonatan, 13, 108, 116,
Oddr Snorrason, 176, 246–247, 118, 121
340
indices
Philip III, king of France, 256, Richard FitzGilbert de Clare

266 (Strongbow), 17
Philip IV, king of France, 256, Richter, Michael, 19
266 Rindal, Magnus, 139
Philip of Flanders, 47 Robert, Anglo-Norman, 27
Philip of Harvengt, 47 Robert, abbot, 9, 135–136, 156,
Philippe de Remi, 85 250–251
Philippe de Thaon, 68, 70–71, Robert, brother, 9, 20, 135–136,
73–76 155, 245, 250–251
Philippson, Ernst Albert, 275 Robert de Blois, 79
Philotemia, maiden king, 284 Robert de Boron, 34
Pierre d’Abernon of Fetcham, Robert le Chapelain, 63
62–63, 71–72 Robert the Monk, 263
Pierre de Blois, 38 Roberts, Brynley F., 22
Pippin, 216, 221–222 Rodríguez de la Peña, Manuel
Plato, 47 Alejandro, 47
Prévot, Brigitte, 36 Roger Bacon, 54
Pulsiano, Philipp, 131 Rolf Ganger. See Gǫngu-Hrólfr
Putter, Ad, 17 Roncaglia, Alessandro, 53
Pym, Anthony, 112, 122 Rosamunda, 133, 189, 191
Rothwell, William, 131
Ragnhildr Jónsdóttir, 256 Russell, Josiha Cox, 48
Ralph of Caen, 263 Rǫgnvaldr Asláksson, 258
Ralph of Lenham, 68–69, 89 Rǫgnvaldr Urka Smør, 258–259
Ramon Llull, 41–42, 44
Raoul de Houdenc, 54, 87 Salatre, 171
Raymond le Gros, 17 Sallust, 120
Raynaud, Gaston, 177 Sanson de Nanteuil, 74
Remigius de Auxerre, 76 Satan, 236, 242
Renaut de Montauban, 36 Scaglione, Aldo, 53
Renfrei, 220–222 Schneeberger, Sandra, 213
Richard, king of England, 27, 49, Scott, A.B., 180–181
66 Sedentiana, 276, 284
Richard, duke of Normandie, 27, Selow, Hubert, 281
66 Seneca, 54, 266
Richard of Chichester, 71 Serena, Saga Princess, 275–276,
341
indices
279–282, 284 Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, 262

Shields, Hugh, 68 Sverrir Sigurðarson, king of
Short, Ian, 18–19, 64 Norway, 145
Sif Rikhardsdottir, 271 Sverrir Tómasson, 156
Sigmundr Brestisson, 208 Sweetenham, Carol, 267
Sigríðr Tóstadóttir (in stórráða), Sæbjørn Helgason, 256–258
273, 278
Sigurðr, abbot of Munkeliv, 251 Tannhäuser, 279
Sigurðr, abbot of Munkeliv, 251 Taylor, Andrew, 270
Sigurðr Jórsalafari, king of Teuscher, Simon, 220
Norway, 198 Thomas d’Angleterre, 21, 132, 163,
Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, 226, 237, 240 182, 245
Sigurðr þǫgli, 231, 241 Thomas of Chobham, 253
Simon, master, 134 Thomas of Kent, 81
Sims-Williams, Patrick, 25 Thomas, Gray, Sir, 66–67
Singleton, Charles S., 180 Togeby, Knud, 156
Skúli Bárðarson, earl, 137, 198, 245 Toury, Gideon, 109, 112, 159
Snara Asláksson, 16, 194, 246, Trancival, 230, 232, 241, 243
248–250, 255–260, 266–269 Trebuchet, 37
Snorri Sturluson, 26–27, 34 Tristan, 132, 139, 152, 156, 164,
Socrates, 46 182–183, 245
Sóti, skáld, 262 Tristram, 148, 184, 200–208
Spearing, Anthony C., 108 Tristram dvergr, 200
Spiegel, Harriet, 72 Tordsson, Trond, 249
Stang, Margrethe, 254, 267 Turpin, archbishop, 77
Statius, 79 Turville-Petre, Thorlac, 270
Stefán Karlsson, 260 Tveitane, Mattias, 144, 176, 182,
Stephanius, Stephanus Johannis, 194, 248–249, 251
248 Tymoczko, Maria, 117
Steinhöwel. See Heinrich Stein-
höwel Uecker, Heiko, 203
Stephen of Fougeres, bishop of Uitti, Karl, 76
Rennes, 41 Ulysses, 47
Stephen of Rouen, 46
Struck, Peter, 181 Vadum, Kristoffer, 256
Sturla Þórðarson, 136, 252, 269 Valdemar, king of Denmark, 267
342
indices
Valtari (Meistari Valtari), 247 William Marshal, 34

Venus, 177, 187–188, 247, 254 Williams, Henrik, 94
Venuti, Lawrence, 113 Williams, John R., 177
Vergil, 254 Wolfram von Eschenbach, 22, 34,
Vetlesen, Arne Johan, 178 50–51
Vigerust, Tore H., 248–249 Würth, Stefanie, 115, 125
Vilhjálmr, 229, 242, 244 Wyller, Truls, 178
Vingi, 210–211 Yolande, 83
Virgil, 46, 79 Yvain, 182
Vissavaldr (Vísivaldr), 274
Viviane, 44 Zitzelsberger, Otto J., 134
Vries, Jan de, 164 Zumthor, Paul, 51
Wace, 64–65, 85 Þiðrekr, 228, 232, 242, 244

Wahlgren, Erik, 273 Þjóstólfr, 214
Walter of Châtillon. See Gauthier Þórr, 261
de Châtillon Þorbjǫrg, maiden king (alias Þór-
Wegland, 37 bergr), 277–280, 283–284, 289
Wellendorf, Jonas, 33 Þórðr Sturluson, 252, 269
White, Paul, 27 Þorfinnr Karlsefni Þórðarson,
Widding, Ole, 260 209
William, 72 Þórir, 147
William, Anglo-Norman, 27 Þorvaldr Ósvífrsson, 214–215
William of Conches, 176, 247
William of Orange, 36 Æsop, 72
William of Tyre, 263 Æthelred the Unready (Aðalráðr),
William the Conqueror, 17, 27, 52 king of England, 261–262
William Longspear or
Longsword, 27 Ögmundr Pálsson, bishop of
William of Malmesbury, 142 Skálholt, 249
William of Winchester, 270
343
indices
2 Works
Alexanders saga, 13, 21, 115–116, Cadewelan le ueyl, 24
118–120, 125, 270 Cantilène de sainte Eulalie, 60
Alisandre le grant, 81 Carmina Burana, 254
Alexandreis, 116, 118–119 Caycyuel, 24
Amícus saga ok Amílus, 270 Chaire française, 41
Amis and Amiloun, 270 Chanson de Roland, 60, 77, 133
Ancrene Riwle, 74 Chanson des Saisnes, 58, 78
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 64 Chetivel, 24
Annales de Lodi, 52 Le Chevalier au Lion, 12, 91–93,
Anyle egalerun, 23 95, 97–98, 103, 106, 227
Ars Amatoria, 254 Chevalerie Vivien, 57–58, 77
Atlakviða, 208 Cheuerefoil, 24, 254
Atlamál, 212 Chronica Majora, 48
Augustodunensis’ Elucidarium, 41 Chronicle (Jordan Fantosme), 58
Autobiographie (Guibert of Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen,
Nogent), 45 Henry II, and Richard I, 46
Chronique des ducs de Normandie,
Bel inconnu, 87 65–66
Bestiaire (Gervaise), 70 Clári saga. See Clárus saga
Bestiaire (Philippe de Thaon), 70– Clárus saga, 274–277, 279–285,
71, 74 292
Bestiaire divin, 70 Cligès, 22, 24, 78
Beu desconu, 24 Conte du Graal. See Perceval ou le
Beu desire, 24 conte du Graal
Boeve de Hantone, 18, 21, 257 Comput, 71, 73, 76
Bevers saga, 135, 257, 269–270 Corset, 63
Bisclaret, 271 Coscra, 25
Biclarets lioð, 24
Bisclavret, 118 De Amore, 253
Bisclaueret, 24 Decamerone, 281
Blávus rimur, 277 De destruction Troiae, 192
Breta sǫgur, 10, 21, 121, 270 De excidio Troiae, 80
Brut, 18, 21, 24 De libero arbitrio, 192
Bucolica, 254 De natura et gratia, 192
344
indices
De officiis, 54 169–170, 173

De remediis fortuitorum, 177 L’Escoufle, 83
De Vulgari Eloquentia, 52 Eskia, 183, 186, 189
Desire lioð, 24 Eskiu lioð, 24
Destructioun de Rome, 77 Estoire d’Eracles, 257, 263
Dínus saga og drambláta, 284 Estoire de la guerre sainte, 67
Disticha Catonis, 76 Estoire des Engleis, 58, 64, 72
Diu Crône, 46 Estoire de seint Aedward le rei, 63
Divisiones mundi, 68 Etymologiae, 44, 48, 242
Doun, 24 Eufemiavisorna, 91
Douns lioð, 24 Euperiston, 71
Eygnor, 24
Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Eyrbyggja saga, 260
Vitalis, 39, 52
Ectors saga, 225, 230, 232, 241, 243 Fables, 64, 72
Edda (prose), 213–214 Floire et Blanchefleur, Floire et
Egils saga Skallagrímssonar, 260 Blancheflur, Floire et Blancheflor,
Le eir de leycestre, 24 21, 38, 83, 133
Eiríks saga rauða, 15, 199, 208– Flores och Blanzeflor, 117
209 Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr, 133, 136,
Eliduc, 24 146, 270
Elíss saga ok Rósamundu, 9, 14, Floris and Blauncheflur, 270
133, 135–136, 156, 170–173, 177, Floris et Liriope, 79
189, 191, 194, 246–247, 250, Flóvents saga Frakkakonungs, 134,
254, 264–265, 267, 269 136
Elie de Saint Gille, 21, 134, 170– Fouke le Fitz Warin, 18
171, 177, 247, 267 Frene, 24
Empereurs de Rome, 82 Færeyinga saga, 208
Entheticus, 54
Entree d’Espagne, 77 Geitarlauf, 24, 182–184, 195, 254
Ephemeris belli Troiani, 80 Gereint, 22
Epitome Julii Valerii, 81 Gesta Britonum, 64–65, 85
Equitan, 150, 154, 190–192, 252, Gesta Danorum, 284
254, 265 Gesta Francorum, Geste Francor,
Erec et Enide, 21, 78, 132, 169–170 77
Erex saga Artúskappa, 22, 132, 136, Gesta Normannorum ducum, 65
345
indices
Gesta Regum Anglorum, 142 Historia Gaufredi ducis, 37, 46

Geste de Alisandre, 81–82 Historia Karoli Magni et Rotho-
Geste de Bretuns, 85 landi, 77
Geste des Engleis en Yrlande, 67 Historia regum Britanniae, 65, 85
Gesta Tancredi, 263 Horn, 18
Gibbons saga, 284 The Hospitallers’ Riwle, 63
Girart de Rossillon, 76–77 Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, 273–
Glou de gloucestre, 24 275, 277–280, 283–285, 289–
Glygis, 24 290
Gorum, 24 Hrólfs saga kraka ok kappa hans,
Grágás, 282 284–285, 292
Griselda, 281 Hugrækki ok æðra (Dialogue
Grœnlendinga saga, 209 between Courage and Fear), 14,
Gui de Warewic, 18 176–178, 247, 252–253, 265–
Guiamar, 254 266, 268
Guiamars lioð, 24
Guigemar, 86, 191 Ille et Galeron, 84
Guillaume de Palerne, 82–83 Ianuals lioð, 24
Gumbelauc, 253 Ionets lioð, 24
Gurun, 182 Ipomedon, 83
Guruns lioð, 24 Íslendinga saga, 124
Gyðinga saga, 121 Ívens saga, 9, 12, 22, 91–106, 125,
Gylfaginning, 210, 213 132, 136, 156, 225, 227–228,
232–233, 243–244
Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, 136– Iwein, 92
138, 140, 198
Haralds saga ins hárfagra, 26 Janual, 182, 184
Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar, 27 Joseph d’Arimathie, 42
Harrowing of Hell, 270 Joufrois de Poitiers, 84
Haveloc, 18
Heimskringla, 26, 124 Karlamagnús saga, 15, 21, 133–134,
Helga þáttr, 284 199, 214, 216–221, 223–224,
Herr Ivan lejonriddaren, 12, 20, 260, 270
91–106 Karleyn, 25
Hirðskrá, 263 Kirialax saga, 267
Historia del conde Partinoples, 286 Konráðs saga keisarasonar, 225–
346
indices
226, 229–230, 232, 244 Mantel Mautaillé, 134, 144

Konungs skuggsjá, 25–26, 251 Mule sans frein, 87
Kyng Alisaunder, 270 Merlin le suuage, 24
Metamorphoses, 79
Lais, 86, 117–118, 132, 175, 177 Mil de mereth, 25
Lancelot ou le chevalier de la char- Milun, 24, 186
rette, 22, 44–46, 87, 89 Miluns lioð, 24
Lanercost Chronicle, 270 Moralium dogma philosophorum,
Lárentíus saga, 253, 257, 268, 274 176, 247
Laxdœla saga, 260 Mǫttuls saga, 9, 134, 136, 144, 148
Lau diduc, 25
Laumual, 24 Naboreis lioð, 24
Lay de amurs, 24 Niðrstigninga saga, 270
Lay de puceles, 24 Nitida saga, 284
Lay de uent, 24–25 Njáls saga, 15, 140, 199, 214–216,
Lay sent brandan, 24 223
Lebor Gabála Érenn, 25 Nobaret, 24
Leikara ljóð, 144, 253 Le numper, 24
Leleys alicsandre, 24
Ley del engleis, 24 Of Arthour and of Merlin, 270
Libre de contemplació en Déu, 41– Óláfs saga helga, 27, 274
42 Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar, 147, 176,
Libre de l’orde de cavalleria, 44 208, 246, 261–263, 268–269,
Libro de Buen Amor, 180 273–274
The life of Saint John the Almsgiver, Ólif ok Landres, 269
63 Opus tertium, 54
Livre de Catun, 76 Orkneyinga saga, 260
Livre de kalendar, 68–69 Owein, 22
Livre de Sibile, 76–77
Le Livre des manières, 41 Pamphilus, 14, 176–178, 180, 187,
Le Livre du Graal, 42 246–247, 250, 254
Livre Clement, 62 Pamphilus de amore, 176, 247, 254
Luelan lychlez, 25 Parcevals saga, 14, 22, 30, 132, 136,
165–168, 170, 172–174
Mabinogion, 21–22 Partalopa saga, 136, 285–288,
Mágus saga jarls, 135 290–292
347
indices
Partonopeus de Blois, 21, 84–85, Roman d’Alexandre, 81

133, 285–286, 289 Roman d’Auberon, 84
Partonope of Blois, 286 Roman de Brut, 64–65, 85
Parzival Roman d’Énéas, 79
Perceval ou le conte du Graal, 21– Roman de Jules César, 58
22, 30, 37, 132, 161–163, 165– Roman de Rou, 65
168, 170, 172–173 Roman de Thèbes, 79, 85
Peredur, 22 Roman de toute chevalerie (Ali-
Pergama flere volo, 192, 254 sandre le grant), 81
Petite Philosophie, 75 Roman de Tristan, 132, 141
Pétrs saga postula, 260 Roman de Troie, 79–80
Petri Itinerarium, 62 Roman de la Manekine, 85
Physiologus, 237–239, 241 Roman des eles, 54–55
La pleinte vavayn, 24 Romance of Fergus, 87
La pleynte meliaduc, 24 Romance of Horn, 84
Policraticus, 40–41 Rómverja saga, 10, 120, 125
Profectio Danorum, 264
Protheselaus, 83 Saga of Tristram ok Ísodd, 207–208
Proverbes de Salemon, 74 Scalacronica, 66–67
Pseudo-Turpin, 21 Secré des secrez, 71–72
Seint Aedward le rei, 60
Quatre fils Aymon, 135 Sermones ad status, 41
Le Siege de Barbastre, 77
Ranbaud de frise, 24 Sigrgarðs saga frækna, 284
Renaud de Montauban, 135 Sigurðar saga þǫgla, 225–226, 231–
Res gestæ Alexandri Macedonis, 81 232, 237–238, 241, 244, 276–
Le rey aluered, 24 277, 284
Le rey arthur, 24 Sir Bevis of Hamtoun, 270
Le rey haueloch, 24 Sir Perceval of Galles, 22
Le rey heremon, 25 Sir Tristrem, 270
Le rey mabun, 25 Skáldskaparmál, 213
Le rey march, 24 Skjǫldunga saga, 284–285
Le rey pepyn, 24 Snorra Edda. See Edda (prose)
Ricar hinn gamli, 24 Strengleikar, 9, 13–14, 22, 24, 117–
Robert le Diable, 84 118, 120, 133–134, 136, 143–144,
Roland and Vernagu, 270 150, 154, 177, 182–187, 190–192,
348
indices
194, 246–247, 252, 254–255, Vie de seint Auban, 61–62

264–265, 268 Vie de seint Clement, 62
Sturlu þáttr, 252 Vie des Set Dormanz, 60
Sverris saga, 145 Vie seint Richard evesque de Cyce-
stre, 62–63
Táin Bó Cúailgne, 25 Vye de seynt Fraunceys d’Assise,
Thebaid, 79 60–61
Tidorels lioð, 24 Viktors saga ok Blávus, 276, 284
Tjdorel, 24 Vilhjálms saga sjóðs, 225–226, 229,
Tristan, 20–21, 136, 139, 141, 163 232, 242–243
Tristram, 24 Vinerun, 25
Tristrams kvæði, 208 Visio sancti Pauli apostolic, 134
Tristrams saga ok Ísoldar, 149 Vita Haroldi, 262
Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar, 9, 10, Vithel penmeyn, 25
14–15, 131–133, 135–136, 139, Voyage de seint Brendan, 60–61
141, 143, 148, 155–158, 160, 163– Vie seint Richard de Cycestre, 62
165, 170, 172–174, 199–208, Vye de seynt Fraunceys, 60–61
210, 212, 224, 245, 250–251, 270 Vygamer, 24
Trójumanna saga, 10, 21, 120 Vǫlsunga saga, 15, 199, 210–212
Trotula, 71
Waldef, 18
Un samedi par nuit, 134 Willehalm, 50
Urbanus Magnus Danielis Beccle-
siensis, 55 Yder, 78–79
Yonech, 24
Valvers þáttr, 22, 30, 132 Ysanbras len ueyse, 24
Van delmer, 25 Ysopet, 64, 72, 88
La Vengeance Raguidel, 87 Yvain, 21, 132
Veraldar saga, 10, 199, 210–212 Ywain and Gawain, 22
Vespris, 25
Veyn le fiz urien, 24 þe Desputisoun Bitven þe Bodi and
Viðrøða líkams ok sálar, 270 þe Soule, 270
Vie des Set Dormanz, 60 Þe King of Tars, 270
Vie de saint Alexis, 60 Þiðreks saga af Berns, 225, 227–228,
Vie de saint Laurent, 57 232–233, 235, 237, 242, 244, 251
Vie de sainte Cristine, 57 Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, 151
349
indices
3 Manuscripts
Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale,

Château (Musée Condé) 472, 98 BnF, fr. 794, 95
BnF, fr. 12603, 96, 104
Copenhagen, Den Arnamag- BnF, fr. 12560, 98, 102
næanske samling (The Arnam- BnF, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, 24
agnæan Collection),
AM 181b fol, 170 Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Mag-
AM 243 b α fol, 251 nússonar á Íslandi (The Arnam-
AM 310 4°, 260 agnæan Collection,
AM 533 4°, 172, 285, 291 AM 152 fol, 225, 279
AM 543 4°, 156 AM 279 a 4°, 260
AM 567 XIV 4°, 273 AM 343 a 4°, 225
AM 655 XII 4°, 260 AM 489 4°, 157
AM 655 XIII 4°, 260 AM 596 4°, 276
AM 655 XIV 4°, 260
AM 657 a–b 4°, 277 Reykjavík, Landsbókasafn
AM 666 b 4°, 247 (National Library),
JS 27 fol, 291
Copenhagen, Det kongelige bib-
liotek (The Royal Library), Stockholm, Kungl. biblioteket
GKS 1154 fol, 196 (The Royal Library),
Holm perg 4 fol, 225, 251
Edinburgh, National Library of Holm perg 7 fol, 225, 285
Scotland, Holm perg 6 4°, 156–157, 170, 172,
Advocates 19.2.1, 270 225
Holm perg 7 4°, 229, 273, 277, 279
London, British Library, Holm perg 18 4°, 260, 277
Harley 978, 247, 254, 270 Holm papp 46 fol, 170, 285
Oslo, Riksarkivet Uppsala, Uppsala University

NRA 61, 260 Library,
DG 4–7 fol, 9, 14–16, 24, 144,
Oxford, Bodleian Library, 172–173, 175–176, 178–179, 181–
Bodley 848, 270 182, 184, 192–198, 245–252,
350
indices
254–255, 260–266, 268–271 Vatican, Vaticano (Citt. del), Bib-

lioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Cambridge, Cambridge Univer- Reg. lat., 1725, 102, 104
sity Library,
Ms Dd. ii. 78, 48
Schrewsbury, Shrewsbury School,

Ms. 7, 22–25
Bibliotheca Nordica
Skriftserien Bibliotheca Nordica ble grunnlagt i 2009. Den inneholder

monografier og artikkelsamlinger om nordisk middelalder i vid forstand,
det være seg i et språklig, litterært eller historisk perspektiv. Serien har
bidrag på skandinavisk, engelsk og tysk, og den er åpen for bidragsytere
fra alle land.
Initiativtakere og redaktører for serien er Odd Einar Haugen (ved
Universitetet i Bergen), Karl G. Johansson og Jon Gunnar Jør-
gensen (begge ved Universitetet i Oslo). I tillegg til den faglige vur-
deringen som redaktørene gir, blir bøkene gjennomgått av fagfeller for å
sikre et høyt og konsistent nivå. Serien blir utgitt på Novus forlag i Oslo.
Målgruppen for serien er alle som er interessert i nordisk middel-
alderforskning, særlig i det akademiske miljøet, men initiativtakerne
håper at bøkene også vil nå et videre publikum.
1. Karl G. Johansson og Maria Arvidsson, red. Barlaam i nord.

Legenden om Barlaam och Josaphat i den nordiska medeltidslitteraturen.
207 s. 2009.
2. Jonas Wellendorf. Kristelig visionslitteratur i norrøn tradition. 437

s. 2010.
3. Odd Einar Haugen og Åslaug Ommundsen, red. Vår eldste bok.

Skrift, miljø og biletbruk i den norske homilieboka. 315 s. 2010.
4. Else Mundal. Fjǫld veit hon frœða. Utvalde arbeid. Red. Odd Einar
Haugen, Bernt Øyvind Thorvaldsen og Jonas Wellendorf.
429 s. 2012.
353
5. Karl G. Johansson and Rune Flaten, eds. Francia et Germania:
Studies in Strengleikar and Þiðreks saga af Bern. 390 pp. 2012.
6. Lasse Mårtensson, Skrivaren och förlagan. Norm och normbrott i

Codex Upsaliensis av Snorra Edda. 331 s. 2013.
7. Karl G. Johansson and Else Mundal, eds. Riddarasǫgur. The

Translation of European Court Culture in Medieval Scandinavia. 354
pp. 2014.

Arthurian Ethics in Thirteenth Century O

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BIBLIOTHECA NORDICA

Redaktører for serien

Odd Einar Haugen

Bokdesign: Andreas Stötzner, Leipzig

Vignetten på omslag og tittelblad viser

Bidragene i denne boka er fagfellevurdert

Boka er utgitt med støtte fra Norges Forskningsråd (NFR)

Spørsmål om boka kan rettes til

“Or volsko”, “Na den walschen boucken”, “Out of Frensshe”:

Chivalric culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Translation topoi in Old French narrative literature

Rewriting Le Chevalier au lion: Different stages

Riddarasǫgur in the North Atlantic literary polysystem

A wave of reading women: The purpose and function

Svá var þá siðr at gera riddara: The chronology

Arthurian ethics in thirteenth-century Old Norse

The colour of a sail and blood in a glove.

A dragon fight in order to free a lion

“Sir Snara Asláksson owns me”: The historical context

Clári saga, Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar, and the evolution

Bibliography .................................................................................... 293

About the authors ........................................................................... 329

Indices .............................................................................................. 333

The conference was funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This enabled

Karl G. Johansson Else Mundal

C hivalric literature was introduced to the North early in the thir-

Lodén’s investigation indicates that the translator used both a French

Tristrams saga ok Ísǫndar, which according to the prologue of the saga,

The article by Jürg Glauser investigates different aspects of mediality

at an audience of courteous clerks and courtly retainers. On the second

Strongbow) to marry Aoife, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, and

3 Essential reading on French as a common language in the upper echelons of both

riddarasǫgur go back to works of known French authors, such as

If it is not possible to prove the circulation of French manuscripts in

countries (and no doubt different in just as many): a corpus of native nar-

6 A good overview of the issues is to be found in the various essays in Bromwich,

Figure 1. Shrewsbury School, ms. 7, fol. 200r (Reproduced with permis-

Let us take a look at the titles which we may take to be those of

Norwegians of the mid-thirteenth century: [...] oc æf þu ƿillt ƿærða full-

Rolf’s descendants through to William the Conqueror and subsequent

Frá Gǫngu-Hrólf eru komnir Rúðujarlar, ok tǫlðu þeir lengi síðan

From Ganger-Hrolf are descended the earls of Rouen. They called

How widespread was this segment of Scandinavian historiography in the

10 I thank Sverre Bagge for this reference.

1. Base text. Can we identify the version/redaction of the French text

2. Translation versus adaptation. Are there instances of literal transla-

3. Rationalisation. If the French is replete with the merveilleux (as is

5. Idealization. Does the adaptor show his characters as embodying an

6. Form and function. Is the adaptation from verse to prose, verse to

ment of French prose romance). Did the adaptor of Parcevals saga

7. Literary traditions. Is the adaptation influenced by the “learned”

8. Audience. Although such undertakings are hazardous, we must

9. Codex and context. In what kind of manuscripts is the adaptation pre-

its more elitist definition. There is a need to perceive the object as a

Combat techniques and military equipment reserved for

extremely expensive to fight on horseback. Steeds often suffered

2 Chrétien de Troyes, Perceval ou le conte du Graal (1994: l. 3144–79, 3654–87 and

metal. To wield this weapon from a galloping horse required a specific

Respecting one another in war

Chivalry demonstrated a strong degree of class-consciousness. Knights

and blood. Destruction followed them everywhere. “The knights kill

The twelfth century witnessed an unprecedented intellectual renaissance

in his time, no other knight as knowledgeable as he” (Lancelot 1978–1983: