This week’s lesson begins a multi-part series on the literature pertaining to the Vikings. This is among the more important of topics to understand for those wishing to study the period. Much of the information that we know about Vikings have come from this literature (and other literature from other places).

The most important thing to understand about this literature is that it is all from the period directly following the actual Viking Age and took place after the conversion to Christianity. The following lessons will discuss the source material that we use to gather the majority of our knowledge about the culture that may have existed (in some form) during the Viking Age. This lesson will be introducing this branch of the study (Saga Studies) as well as the nature of these sources for historical purposes.

I apologize in advance for the possibly frustrating, abstract concepts that will appear in this lesson.

Contents:

1. Historical Memory
2. From Illiteracy to Literacy
3. Why Iceland?
4. The Significance of Poetry

Historical Memory

I want to start our discussion today with a very important concept that I call historical memory. I have used this term many times in other posts that I have made, but I have never spent any time dedicated to understanding the significance behind it. As we will discuss shortly, the Viking Age was a time when things were not often recorded in writing. The majority of written documentation that we have from the “Vikings” themselves come after the Viking Age. Although they were well aware and capable of writing, the actual practice did not come until Christianity came (it helps to have a group of people dedicated to writing – monks). In other words, much of what we know about the Viking Age comes from interpreting these sources that came afterwards.

Some of these sources, most notably the Íslendingasögur(Icelandic Family Sagas), cover events that allegedly took place during the Viking Age. However, they were not written down until nearly two or three-hundred years later. The reason I use the term historical memory is due to this lapse in time that has distorted the events they are recording. Memory is a mix between what once happened and what is currently happening. The perception of our past changes as we experience new things and so, history is recalled through the lens of the present. This concept is stated well by William Ian Miller:

“The family saga world is thus not merely the world of the author’s time; it is an amalgam representing the effects of temporal compression that included whatever the culture knew or wished to believe about its own past.”

So, the literature I will be covering mainly pertains to the time that it was written, not the Viking Age itself. However, culture does not change over night, especially not in Iceland. The memory of the Icelanders during the thirteenth century can tell us a great deal about the Viking Age. More directly, it tells us what they thought of themselves during that period (or what they wanted to think about themselves). However, this is only true if we tread with caution and do not get tempted by the author’s orchestrations. This fine line is well stated by Robert Cook:

“The reader should not be seduced by the dry, factual prose style and the convincing social and geographical setting into thinking that this is anything other than a masterful work of prose fiction.”

It is easy to fall victim to this desire, to accept something that sounds too good to be true. Even I like to play with this idea, that the story unfolding happened word for word, but it is only attractive in such a way because the author has orchestrated it to be so. Still, these sources are among the most valuable of sources we have in understanding the time directly following the Viking Age and their memory of that period.

From Illiteracy to Literacy

The majority of written record from the Vikings themselves are from runestones. However, runestones have much more limited space when compared to writing in a book. These runestones also generally served a specific purpose and do not elaborate on a variety of practices. Much of the other written material did not stand the test of time, being made of wood or leather.

A lack of literacy does not mean that there was a lack of culture. In fact, there is something to be desired from a lack of written word. History, culture, stories, and myth all survived through an oral tradition. It may seem primitive to our modern, communication-hungry world, but factual perfection of information was not the priority. I enjoy referring to oral traditions as living history. By this, I mean that history and knowledge is fluid and can be interpreted and changed as needed. This pattern can be seen in norse mythology, where multiple versions of a single story can coexist alongside one another. The meaning and cultural significance is what is important, not the facts relating to the events.

Literacy retained some of these elements, however, we tended to read it as if it was meant to be the final, concrete word. This is why I stressed historical memory so much. The literature and poetry that surrounded the Vikings should be understood in a fluid way. An event being recorded in writing is a memory, not a witnessing. It is victim to reinterpretation the moment that the words are put to paper.

Literacy flowered in Iceland around the year 1000, when Christianity came. It is somewhat unclear why the Icelanders took so strongly to the practice, but it seems to be their way of preserving their tradition. The majority of literature written in Iceland after the Viking Age used the latin alphabet, but was in the vernacular (Old Norse). But, why does nearly all of our medieval norse literature come from Iceland? What facilitated this?

Why Iceland?

Iceland was settled in the ninth century, mainly by Norwegians but many Celts were picked up along the way. This island, far-removed from Scandinavia, venerated the traditions of its mother country. Iceland was unmistakably Nordic. During the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, Iceland became an unusual literate society. This likely stems from oral tradition and their familiarity with story telling. The Icelanders had become the keepers of lore. This is best stated by William Ian Miller:

“The Icelanders, it seems, were anxious to record and preserve monuments of their experience as Icelanders at the very time that the social arrangements enabling that experience were being destroyed or had already been superseded.”

Despite being Christian, their history as heathens was not looked down upon. Iceland, unlike many places in medieval Europe, converted to Christianity peacefully and through a democratic process (Alþing). Instead, the Icelanders saw their past as something that should be admired, remembered, and studied. Even Snorri Sturluson aimed to elevate norse mythology to the same status as greco-roman mythology.

Iceland became a unique bubble of norse, germanic culture. In isolation, it was able to, without pressure from outside forces, retain its roots. Even more interesting is that, around the thirteenth century, competition between wealthy families actually stimulated the growth of literature in Iceland. This is why the majority of literature is actually about particular families and their histories.

Iceland, a small island often forgotten about, is what we owe the majority of our thanks for preserving the culture of the “Vikings”. Due to their interest in literacy and storytelling, we have a rich pool of sources pertaining to the culture of medieval norse traditions.

The Significance of Poetry

Poetry provides a mix between the old oral tradition and the new tradition of writing. Many scholars believe that a great deal of poetry, due to strict meter, was able to preserve material and information without a great deal of change. In other words, poetry has the potential of keeping information safe from the change of information over time (like telephone). 

Poetry is often cited and incorporated into Icelandic sagas. The authors even felt that using poetry from skalds helped obtain credibility. Skaldic verse, the work of the Icelandic poets (Skalds), was an invaluable source of historical information for these saga writers, tying the new literary world back to its oral remnants. 

Of course, with poetry comes the difficulty of interpretation. It is a great deal more challenging to understand that riddles of poetic verse than it is the read and understand straight-forward prose. Still, the same thing that complicates poetry is what was able to make it so reliable in historical terms.

Key Terms

1. Saga Studies – The study of historical literature in order to learn and understand the culture of the time in which it was written.
2. Historical memory – The perception of the past through the lens of the present.
3. Íslendingasögur – The Icelandic family sagas.
4. Oral tradition – History told orally and not recorded in writing.
5. Living history – History and culture that remains fluid and changeable, only retaining the significance of meaning and not on factual representation.
6. Vernacular – One’s own native language (Old Norse instead of Latin).
7. Alþing – (Allthing) The Icelandic word for the assembly in which each district of Iceland came together to make decisions.
8. Snorri Sturluson – Member of a powerful, twelfth-century Icelandic family. Wrote the Prose Edda and more.
9. Skaldic Verse – The courtly, historical poetry of the Skalds.
10. Skald – Icelandic and Old Norse term for poet.

Wrap-up

I give praise to anyone who actually read this and made it through this lesson. It was a bit rough and abstract, but I believe the information is valuable even if you do not study this material like I do. If you have any questions or would like me to elaborate on anything, feel free to send me a message or an ask. I would be more that happy to help. After all, this is the portion of Viking Studies that I personally focus on quite a bit.

Anyway, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this week’s lesson! 

Next week’s lesson: Literature and the Sagas, Part II: Snorri Sturluson and the Edda. [multi-part lesson series]

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Sources

1. Jennifer Dukes-Knight, “Literature and the Sagas”, lecture, Viking History, University of South Florida, 2015.
2. William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 43, 50.
3. Robert Cook trans., Njal’s Saga. (London: Penguin Classics, 2001), xxxiii.
4. Heather O’Donoghue, Skaldic Verse and the Poetics of Saga Narrative. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 10.