This book provides an in-depth study of depictions of England in the Saga of Icelanders (Ķslendingasögur), examining their utility as sources for the history of Viking Age Anglo-Scandinavian cultural contact.
The Ķslendingasögur present themselves as histories, but they are difficult historical sources. Their setting is the Saga Age, a period that begins with the settlement of Iceland in the late ninth century and ends along with the Viking Age in the late eleventh centuryhowever, the saga texts are disconnected from this setting, having first been written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This book traces the transmission and development of Icelandic cultural memory of Saga Age England across this distance of centuries. It offers case study analyses of how historical time, place, cultures, and events are adapted and conceptualised in the Ķslendingasögur and suggests methodological approaches to their study as historical literature.
Remembering England is an interdisciplinary book that will appeal to scholars and students of the history of pre-Norman England, the Icelandic sagas, medieval literature, and cultural memory.
Introduction: Literature and Memory, History and Historiography
Cultural Memory and the Ķslendingasögur
Ķslendingasögur as Sources of History: The Debate
Ęthelstan, Ęthelred and Knśtr: A Historical Overview
Chapter Overview
Part 1
1 Narrative, Verse and Memory
The Fear of Forgetting and the Value of Writing
Cultural Memory and Medieval memoria
Communicative Memory and Skaldic verse
Memory and Literature
2 Saga Age England
England in the Ķslendingasögur
England in the skįldasögur: Egils saga
England in the skįldasögur: Gunnlaugs saga, Bjarnar saga
3 Iceland and the Writing of the Ķslendingasögur
The Ķslendingasögur Corpus
Saga Age Iceland
Iceland in the Age of Saga Writing
Part 2
4 Memories of Heroism: Bjarnar saga Hķtdlakappa
Manuscript Contexts
Bjrns Travels
Reconstructing a Chronology
Thematic Intertextuality: Of Kings and Dragons
5 Memories of Rulers: Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu
Gunnlaugrs Travels
The skįld in Literary Frameworks
The skįld as Poet: The Hierarchies of Verse
The skįld as Warrior: A Fabricated Narrative
6 Memories of Conflict: Egils saga Skallagrķmssonar
Egills Travels
The Battle of Brunanburh
The Court of Eirķkr blóšųx in York
Conclusion
Interpretation and Reinterpretation
Remembering England
Bibliography
Matthew Firth is Australian Research Council Fellow (DECRA) and Associate Lecturer in Medieval History at Flinders University, Australia. His research focuses on historical narrative and its transmission across time and place with particular interest in the historiography of tenth- century England. Matthews first monograph, Early English Queens, 850 1000: Potestas Regina, was published by Routledge in 2024. He is also the author of over twenty articles and book chapters focused on the development of medieval history writing traditions.
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