The Legends Of The Saints In Old Norse Icelandic Prose

With The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse–Icelandic Prose, Kirsten Wolf has undertaken a complete revision of the fifty-year-old handlistThe Lives of the Saints in Old Norse Prose.

The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry is a complimentary volume to The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse–Icelandic Prose (UTP 2013). While its predecessor dealt primarily with medieval prose texts about the saints, this volume not only focuses on medieval poems about saints but also on Icelandic devotional poetry created during the early modern period. The handlist organizes saints' names, manuscripts, and editions of individual poems with references to approximate dates of the manuscripts, as well as modern Icelandic editions and translations. Each entry concludes with secondary literature about the poem in question. These features combine to make The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry an invaluable resource for scholars and students in the field.

The Saints in Old Norse and Early Modern Icelandic Poetry is a complimentary volume to The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic Prose (UTP 2013). This volume focuses on Icelandic devotional poetry created during the early modern period.

The legend of Saint Barbara is preserved in two 15th-century manuscripts which are presented here on facing pages followed by an English translation. In addition, Wolf presents the Latin source text Passio Sancte Barbare . The texts are preceded by a lengthy and heavily annotated discussion of the legend's manuscripts, sources and content which also places the legend within the literary and historical context of Scandinavia and Iceland.

Maríu saga, the Old Norse-Icelandic life of the Virgin Mary, survives in nineteen manuscripts. While the 1871 edition of the saga provides two versions based on multiple manuscripts and prints significant variants in the notes, it does not preserve the literary and social contexts of those manuscripts. In the extant manuscripts Maríu saga rarely exists in the codex by itself. This study restores the saga to its manuscript contexts in order to better understand the meaning of the text within its manuscript matrix, why it was copied in the specific manuscripts it was, and how it was read and used by the different communities that preserved the manuscripts.

This book provides an overview of medieval monasticism in Iceland, from its dawn to its downfall during the Reformation. Blending the evidence from material remains and written documents, Monastic Iceland highlights the realities of everyday life in the male and female monasteries operated in Iceland. The book describes the incorporation of monasticism into the Icelandic society, the alleged land of the Vikings, and thus how the monasteries coexisted with the natural and social environments on the island while keeping their general aims and objectives. The book shows that large social systems, such as monasticism, can cross social and natural borders without necessitating fundamental changes apart from those triggered by the constant coexistence of nature and culture inside the environment they exist within. The evidence provided debunks the myth that Icelandic monasteries, male or female, were isolated, silent places or simple cells functioning principally as retirement homes for aristocrats. To be a member of an ecclesiastical institution did not mean a quiet, secluded life without any outside interaction, but rather active participation in the surrounding community. The book is for researchers in archaeology, osteology, and medieval history, in addition to all those interested in monasticism and the medieval history of northern Europe.

An examination of hagiographical traditions and their impact.

A comprehensive guide to a crucial aspect of Old Norse literature.