Historia Norwegiæ

Historia Norwegiæ is a short history of Norway written in Latin by an anonymous monk. The only extant manuscript is in the private possession of the Earl of Dalhousie, and is kept at Brechin Castle, Scotland. However, the manuscript itself is fragmented; the Historia itself is found in folios 1r-12r. The manuscript was previously dated back to the 15th century, but recent dating efforts place it somewhere c. 1500-1510A (Kunin and Phelpstead 2001, x).

The original text appears to have been written earlier than the manuscript itself; the text refers to both a volcanic eruption and an earthquake in 1211 as contemporary events,[1] and Orkney is reported to be under Norwegian rule.

Content

Historia Norwegiæ consists of three parts:

Important Features

One of Historia Norwegiæ's most important features is a Latin translation of an independent version of Þjóðólfr of Hvinir's skaldic poem Ynglingatal. Besides that text, there is the Ynglinga saga in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. The text also contains a number of unique ethnographic details, including a description of a shamanic séance among the Sami people. It is the earliest preserved written source for many of the historical details it contains.

Dates & Publications

Along with Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum and the work of Theodoricus monachus, Historia Norwegiæ is considered one of the Norwegian synoptic histories, and is thought to have been written, at the earliest, sometime between 1160 and 1175AD. This dating, however, is under debate and the year 1220AD has been put forward as a more conservative suggestion. The text may have been composed somewhere in eastern Norway.

The manuscript was published by Peter Andreas Munch in 1850 as Symbolæ ad Historiam Antiquiorem Rerum Norwegicarum. The standard edition was based on that of Storm (1880) for many years, and the first English translation was done by Kunin and Phelpstead (2001). A new critical edition and translation appeared in 2003.[2]

References

Notes

External links

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