Sagas, saints and settlements / / edited by Gareth Williams and Paul Bibire.

• Superior document: The Northern world, 11
• TeilnehmendeR: Williams, Gareth.; Bibire, Paul.
• Year of Publication: 2004
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Northern world ; v. 11.
• Physical Description: x, 153 p. :; ill., maps.
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

This volume includes selected papers from an interdisciplinary symposium in Norse Studies held at the University of St Andrews. The symposium brought together scholars with a shared interest in medieval Scandinavian history and culture, especially the sagas, from a variety of disciplines, and this diversity is reflected in the papers published here. Topics covered include saga genre, with particular focus on encyclopaedic manuscripts and the late Íslendinga sögur respectively, the relationship between saga literature and hagiography, with papers on Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar and on the textual traditions surrounding St Magnús of Orkney and St Thomas of Canterbury, and various aspects of the Norse settlement in Scotland. The volume shows the variety of approaches which can be taken to the sagas as texts, especially when combined with other historical and literary material.

Table of Contents

Preface -- The world and its ages: the organisation of an encyclopadeic narratives in MS AM 764 4to -- The question of Genre in the late Islendinga sogur: a Case Study of Porskfirdinga saga -- Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson, Pilgrim and Martyr -- Two Twelfth-Century Martyrs: St Thomas of Canterbury and St Magnus of Orkney -- LAnd Assessment and the Silver Economy of Norse Scotland -- Earldom Strategies in North Scotland -- Scandinavians in Central Scotland- by-place-names and their Context -- Index.