Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet

Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Jómsvíkinga Saga as a Part of Old Norse Historiography
University of Oulu.
2014 (English)In: Scripta Islandica: Isländska Sällskapets Årsbok, ISSN 0582-3234, E-ISSN 2001-9416, Vol. 65, p. 33-58Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The article argues that Jómsvíkinga saga, despite its mixed modality, should be included in Old Norse historiography. A comparison with kings’ sagas and legendary sagas — in this case Yngvars saga víðfǫrla — shows how these modes were used in Jómsvíkinga saga. The saga is often grouped with Orkneyinga saga and Færeyinga saga, which were also written around the year 1200; all deal in some way with the relationship between kings and aristocrats. The reason for this may be found in contemporary events: The Scandinavian kings were strengthening their position, while the aristocracy was trying to maintain its influence. Therefore, the sagas have also been called political sagas. The oldest extant versions of Jómsvíkinga saga contain the first part of the saga, which deals with the history of the Danish Kings; this shows that the saga was intended to be perceived as history. However, a later version (AM 510 4to) omits this part, which suggests that the historicity of the saga had eroded. The fact that Jómsvíkinga saga was incorporated into manuscripts containing legendary sagas also shows that the saga may have been valued for its entertaining plot and not because of its connections to real events and historical characters.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2014. Vol. 65, p. 33-58
Keywords [en]
Historiography, political sagas, genre
National Category
History
Research subject
History
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-241336OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-241336DiVA, id: diva2:778535
Available from: 2015-01-10 Created: 2015-01-10 Last updated: 2017-12-05Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(830 kB)2068 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 830 kBChecksum SHA-512
d3ac5ab9e3094e3104b894171349e6b6ece4a059a39dea0f67b096de2a86cdcf997b4f66a958c669f6cf2d53f54a46a20b0bd1be585b5bb3f28756ad5e5ba47a
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

In the same journal
Scripta Islandica: Isländska Sällskapets Årsbok
History

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 2069 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 3721 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf