Medieval Icelandic textual culture

Abstract

This article is a revised version of a paper I presented to the symposium Nordic Civilization in the Medieval World held at Skálholt in September 2007. I was asked to address the theme of Medieval Icelandic Textual Culture in a workshop whose theme was ‘The world-view reflected in texts and practices’. The article surveys the debts of medieval Icelandic textual culture to both indigenous and non-indigenous traditions and suggests ways in which Icelanders showed their awareness that their culture was part of the mainstream medieval European culture of Christendom as well as at the same time maintaining an indigenously inflected vernacular tradition within which literary innovation could and did take place. It reviews the very large range of textual kinds produced in Iceland during the Middle Ages, both in poetry and prose, and builds up a map of Icelandic cultural interests and activities in the context of medieval European civilisation.