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English history and Norman legend in the Icelandic saga of Edward the Confessor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Christine Fell
Christine Fell
Affiliation:
The University of Nottingham
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Extract

In this, my third article on the sources of Saga Játvarðar konungs hins helga, the fourteenth-century Icelandic saga of Edward the Confessor, I hope to cover all the material that I have not dealt with previously. In my first article, on the hagiographical sources, I suggested that the saga writer used two specific texts, a service book containing the lections for St Edward's day and the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais. In my second one, on the saga's version of the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium, I showed that this account was very closely related to the one in the anonymous and unpublished Chronicon Laudunensis. Here I wish to show the full extent of the saga's debt to CL. In doing this I also need to show how the saga writer used Scandinavian sources, a range of material that he acknowledges when he refers us to what is said í æfi Noregskonunga. The specific saga which he has utilized most fully is that of Harald Hardrada, Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar. Since he was compiling JS in the fourteenth century, HS would have been available to him in a number of recensions. Extant ones include the early-thirteenth-century Msk and Fsk, both of which may have been utilized by Snorri Sturluson in Hkr later in that century. Some of the later manuscripts of Hkr, such as Eirspennill, include interpolations and there are compilations, such as the fourteenth-century Hulda, which combine material from Msk and Hkr. The evidence indicates that the compiler of JS knew HS in more than one of these redactions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 6 , December 1977 , pp. 223 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

page 223 note 1 ASE 1 (1972), 247–58.Google Scholar

page 223 note 2 ASE 3 (1974), 179–96Google Scholar. On the Chronicon Laudunensis (cited henceforth as CL) see Krijnie, Ciggaar, ‘L'Émigration anglaise à Byzance après 1066’, Revue des Études Byzantines 32 (1974), 301–42Google Scholar. My transcripts from CL are from Paris, BN Lat. 5011, with cross-references to MS Phillipps 1880. For permission to use these manuscripts my thanks are due to the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, respectively.

page 223 note 3 Icelandic Sagas, ed. Gudbrand, Vigfusson, Rolls Ser. (1887), I, 396Google Scholar. All quotations from Játvarðar saga (cited henceforth as JS) are from this edition. See also the version of JS in Flateyjarbók, ed. Vigfusson, G. and Unger, C. R. (Christiania, 1860–1868) III, 463–72.Google Scholar

page 223 note 4 Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni, Aðalbjarnarson, Íslenzk Fornrit 26–8 (Reykjavík, 1941–1951) III, 68–202Google Scholar also Morkinskinna, ed. Finnur, Jónsson (Copenhagen, 1932), 1–286Google Scholar. I use the following abbreviations: HS = Haralds saga; Hkr = Heimskringla; Msk = Morkinskinna; Fsk = Fagrskinna.

page 224 note 1 See ASE 1, 253–4.

page 225 note 1 Phillipps 1880: ‘heinaldi regis anglorum‘.

page 225 note 2 Freeman, E. A. cites most of them in his History of the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1867–1879) 11, 583–90Google Scholar. He includes a reference to the only other known occurrence of the name Gunnhild in this context. In the fifteenth century Sir John Fortescue wrote: ‘Sanctus Edwardus … ordinavit quod Wilhelmus Dux Normanniae consanguineus suus germanus ex Gunilda amita sua sorore patris sui in jure coronae Angliae sibi succederet’ (The Works of Sir John Fortescue, ed. Thomas, (Fortescue) Lord Clermont (London, 1869), p. 506).Google Scholar

page 226 note 1 See Douglas, David C., William the Conqueror (London, 1966), pp. 76–8 and 391–5.Google Scholar

page 226 note 2 Chronicon Sancti Martini Turonensis, ed. Martène, E., Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum … Amplissima Collectio (Paris, 1724–1733) v, col. 1004.Google Scholar

page 226 note 3 Ed. Le Baron de, Reiffenberg (Brussels, 1836–1838) 11, lines 16903–91.Google Scholar

page 226 note 4 Cf. 117V, where the leader of the English emigrants is named as comes, translated as jarl; JS p. 398; but see also ASE 3, 182.

page 227 note 1 See ASE 1, 257–8.

page 228 note 1 Phillipps 1880 reads Lavert. The orthography of the verb is not clear in either manuscript and it is likely that the scribes were not quite sure what they were transcribing. Phillipps 1880 is usually better on Anglo-Saxon names than BN Lat. 5011; see ASE 3, 190, and below, p. 230, n. 2.

page 228 note 2 Scandinavian sources usually include both Morcar and Waltheof among the sons of Godwine.

page 228 note 3 ASE 3, 179–96, esp. 189–90.

page 229 note 1 Hkr p. 32; Msk p. 54.

page 230 note 1 Cf. ‘En Viljálmr þóttisk betr til kominn til ríkis í Englandi en Haraldr fyrir frxndsemis sakir þeira Eatvarðar konungs’ (Hkr p. 193).

page 230 note 2 BN Lat. 5011, geth; Phillipps 1880, gerth.

page 232 note 1 Hkr p. xxviii.

page 232 note 2 CL's account here is almost verbally identical with that of the Chronicon Turonensis, except that the latter includes Tostig: ‘Quo audito, Hariwich rex Nordanymbrorum cum Testino & cum Flandrensi cum mille navibus venit in Angliam regnaturus …’ (col. 1006). Both chronicles are early-thirteenth-century and have a fair amount of material in common.

page 233 note 1 For further CL confusion on Harald Hardrada, see ASE 3, 186–9.

page 233 note 2 See Scott, F. S., ‘Valþjofr jarl: An English Earl in Icelandic Sources’, SBVS 14 (1953–1957), 78–94.Google Scholar

page 234 note 1 See Margaret, Ashdown, ‘An Icelandic Account of the Survival of Harold Godwinson’, The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of Their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Peter, Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 122–36.Google Scholar

page 234 note 2 See above, p. 223, n. 2.

page 234 note 3 ‘Á sama ári gerði enn heilagr Thómas hit þriðja verk mikillar nytsemdar, er harm tók or jörðu heilagan líkam Eðvarðar konungs, er leiddr hafði verit í Lundúnum. Enn nú skipast harm sann-heilagr maðr upp í millim annarra heilagra dóma í því nývígða mustari, er áðr var greint’ (Thómas Saga Erkibyskups, ed. Eiríkr, Magnússon, RS (1875–1883), 1, 136).Google Scholar

page 234 note 4 Ed. Fornmanna Sögur vi (Copenhagen, 1831)Google Scholar. The text is available in facsimile, ed. Jonna Louis-Jensen, Early Icelandic Manuscripts in Facsimile 8 (Copenhagen, 1968).

page 234 note 5 Hulda p. 396; cf. JS p. 395.

page 235 note 1 See ASE 1, 258.

page 235 note 2 See ASE 3, 182; cf. also ‘In occiduis uero partibus quas Angli West appellant…’ (CL 117V).

page 236 note 1 Rose, V., Verzeichniss der … Meerman-Handschriften des Sir Thomas Phillipps (Berlin, 1892), no. 144 (p. 327)Google Scholar, and Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS 26, 442.