Category: Reports

Read about Rosemary’s interesting research and interviews with elderly Icelanders on farm life and folk beliefs here.

From 10^th-18^th May 2023 I sailed c.364 nautical miles around the English Channel, spending over 65 hours at sea, to research the seascapes of the Norman invasion of England in 1066. The aim of this period of fieldwork was to experience the maritime environments associated with the Norman invasion to appreciate the lived experience of seafaring that, I argue, lie behind many of the eleventh and twelfth-century texts that I am exploring in my doctoral research. I will combine the knowledge gained on this trip with the other periods of fieldwork I have already completed at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark (May 2022 and June 2023) to consider the practicalities of eleventh-century Channel crossings and to contextualise the Norman invasion of 1066 within Normandy’s wider eleventh-century maritime history. This experiential approach, combined with more traditional research methodologies drawn from the disciplines of history, archaeology, and environmental science, offers a new perspective on the popular and well-studied subject of the Norman Conquest of 1066.

I am extremely grateful to the Viking Society for Northern Research for generously supporting my research through the society’s Research Support Fund, without which I would not have been able to undertake this innovative and important period of fieldwork.

Translation of MA thesis: Bændr, sagnaritarar ok kirkjumenn. Saga er til þess. Zur Autorschaft der Hrafnistumannasögur

In my MA thesis on the authorship of the Hrafnistumannasögur (Ketils saga hængs, Gríms saga loðinkinna, Örvar-Odds saga, Áns saga bogsveigis), I worked on the genealogical connections between the Hrafnistumenn and the Icelandic elite in the 13th and 14th century.

Among the descendants are chieftains, bishops, monks and scholars with a remarkable literary output. In my thesis, more than a hundred descendants are named and described focusing on their literary activity. This should start off further research on the authorship, not only of the Fornaldarsögur, but of Old Norse literature in general by providing detailed information about the connections between texts, manuscripts, persons, places and collaborations (e.g., The North Icelandic Benedictine School).

At the 18th International Saga Conference 2022 I received encouraging support to publish my work in English, so more scholars can do future research on the authorship and the literary and maybe even social relevance of the Fornaldarsögur (and other genres). All of this and the continuing encouragement of my MA-thesis supervisor Prof. Dr. Rudolf Simek and PhD-thesis supervisor Prof. Dr. Kathrin Chlench-Priber led to the idea to translate and publish my text.

Thanks to the generosity of the Viking Society and the Research Support Fund I was able to finance the translation of my thesis from German to English by Angela Simek-Hall. The publication of Vikings, Half-Trolls and Saga-Authors. The Norwegian Hrafnistumenn and their Icelandic Descendants is planned for late 2023/early 2024 by a publisher in Vienna (Verlag Fassbaender) in the reputable series Studia Medievalia Septentrionalia, as Vol. 30.