Minni and Muninn. Memory in Medieval Nordic Culture

Building on and applying the theoretical debates developed in /Memory and Remembering: Past Awareness in the Medieval North/, ed. Pernille Hermann and Stephen A. Mitchell, special issue of /Scandinavian Studies/, 85:3 (2013)—itself the result of a 2012 Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar—the articles in this volume deal with the vocabulary, concepts, and functions of memory in medieval Norse texts (e.g., sagas, myths, skaldic poems, laws, runic inscriptions, historiographical writings), with reference to international memory studies. Drawing on these emerging theoretical tools for studying—and conceptualizing—memory, the collection looks at new ways of understanding medieval cultures and such issues as transmission and media, preservation and storage, forgetting and erasure, and authenticity and falsity. Despite its interdisciplinary and comparative basis, the volume remains grounded in empirical studies of memory and memory-dependent issues as these took form in the Nordic world.

CONTENTS: JÜRG GLAUSER, “Foreword” vii; PERNILLE HERMANN, STEPHEN A. MITCHELL, and AGNES S. ARNÓRSDÓTTIR, “Introduction: Minni and Muninn – Memory in Medieval Nordic Culture” 1; Part I. Memory and Narration —PERNILLE HERMANN, “Key Aspects of Memory and Remembering in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature” 13; JOHN LINDOW, “Memory and Old Norse Mythology” 41; MARGARET CLUNIES ROSS, “Authentication of Poetic Memory in Old Norse Skaldic Verse” 59; KATE HESLOP, “Minni and the Rhetoric of Memory in Eddic, Skaldic, and Runic Texts” 75; RUSSELL POOLE, “Autobiographical Memory in Medieval Scandinavia and amongst the Kievan Rus’” 109; Part II. Memory and History — RUDOLF SIMEK, “Memoria Normannica” 133; STEPHEN A. MITCHELL, “The Mythologized Past: Memory in Medieval and Early Modern Gotland” 155; GÍSLI SIGURÐSSON, “Constructing a Past to Suit the Present: Sturla Þórðarson on Conflicts and Alliances with King Haraldr hárfagri” 175; STEFAN BRINK, “Minnunga mæn: The Usage of Old Knowledgeable Men in Legal Cases” 197; AGNES S. ARNÓRSDÓTTIR, “Legal Culture and Historical Memory in Medieval and Early Modern Iceland” 211; Index 231