''Historia Norwegiæ'' is a short history of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

written in Latin by an anonymous

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...

. The only extant manuscript is in the private possession of the

Earl of Dalhousie Earl of Dalhousie, in the County of Midlothian, is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, held by the Chief of Clan Ramsay. History The family descends from Sir George Ramsay, who represented Kincardineshire in the Scottish Parliament in 1617 ...

, and is now kept in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. The manuscript contains several other texts; the ''Historia'' itself is in folios 1r-12r. Recent dating efforts place it somewhere c. 1500-1510A. The original text was written several centuries earlier than the manuscript itself; the text refers to both a volcanic eruption and an earthquake in 1211 as contemporary events, and

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

is stated to be under Norwegian rule.

''Historia Norwegiæ'' consists of three parts: * I. A short geographical survey of Norway and its dominions, followed by a brief history of Norway * II. Genealogy of the Earls of Orkney * III. Catalogue of the Kings of Norway

Notable

One of ''Historia Norwegiæ'''s important features is a Latin translation of an independent version of

Þjóðólfr of Hvinir Þjóðólfr ór Hvini (anglicized as Thjódólf of Hvinir or Thiodolf; fl. late 9th–early 10th c. AD), was a Norwegian skald, said to have been one of the court-poets of the semi-legendary Norwegian king Harald Fairhair. His name suggests that h ...

's skaldic poem ''

Ynglingatal ''Ynglingatal'' or ''Ynglinga tal'' (Old Norse: 'Enumeration of the Ynglingar') is a Skaldic poem cited by Snorri Sturluson in the ''Ynglinga saga'', the first saga of Snorri's ''Heimskringla''. Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (Thjodolf), who was a poet ...

''. Besides that text, there is the ''Ynglinga saga'' in Snorri Sturluson's ''

Heimskringla ''Heimskringla'' () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorre Sturlason (1178/79–1241) 1230. The name ''Heimskringla'' was first used in the 17th century, derive ...

''. The text also contains ethnographic details, including a description of a

shamanic Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiri ...

séance among the

Sami people Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

. It is the earliest preserved written source for many of its historical details.

Dates

Along with ''

Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum ''Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum'' ( Icelandic for "''Summary of the Norwegian Kings' Sagas''"), often shortened to ''Ágrip'', is a history of the kings of Norway. Written in Old Norse, it is, along with the ''Historia Norvegiæ'', one of the N ...

'' and the work of

Theodoricus monachus Theodoric the Monk ( la, Theodoricus monachus; also ''Tjodrik munk''; in Old Norse his name was most likely ''Þórir'') was a 12th-century Norwegian Benedictine monk, perhaps at the Nidarholm Abbey. He may be identical with either Bishop Tore of ...

, ''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 1220AD may be more accurate. The text may have been composed somewhere in eastern Norway. The manuscript was published by

Peter Andreas Munch Peter Andreas Munch (15 December 1810 – 25 May 1863), usually known as P. A. Munch, was a Norwegian historian, known for his work on the medieval history of Norway. Munch's scholarship included Norwegian archaeology, geography, ethnography, ...

in 1850 as ''Symbolæ ad Historiam Antiquiorem Rerum Norwegicarum''. The standard edition was 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.

References

Sources

* Ekrem, Inger (editor), Lars Boje Mortensen (editor) and Peter Fisher (translator) (2003). ''Historia Norwegie''. Museum Tusculanum Press. * * Storia della Norvegia. Historia Norwegie (XII sec.), Italian transl. with parallel Latin text, ed. Piero Bugiani, Vocifuoriscena, Viterbo 2017. * Storm, Gustav (editor) (1880). ''Monumenta historica Norwegiæ: Latinske kildeskrifter til Norges historie i middelalderen'', Monumenta Historica Norwegiae (Kristiania: Brøgger) *

Nordisk familjebok ''Nordisk familjebok'' (, "Nordic Family Book") is a Swedish encyclopedia that was published in print from between 1876 and 1993, and that is now fully available in digital form via Project Runeberg at Linköping University. Despite their co ...

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Notes and Queries, Issue 56

External links

Historia Norvegiae in English
Translation and notes by Kunin and Phelpstead (2001). {{DEFAULTSORT:Historia Norwegiae 12th-century history books 12th-century Latin books History books about Norway Kings' sagas Medieval Latin histories Norwegian manuscripts

Contents

Notable

Dates

References

Sources

External links