Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia, c. 1100–1350

Description

This book investigates the nature of intellectual activity in the Middle Ages from the perspective of medieval Scandinavia by discussing how a multimodal and multilingual Scandinavian culture emerged through the dynamic interchange of foreign and local impulses in the minds of creative intellectuals. By deploying cognitive theory, this volume conceptualizes intellectual culture as the result of the individual’s cognition, which incorporates physical perceptions of the world, memory and creation, rationality, emotionality and spirituality, and decision making. In doing so, it elucidates the diversity of social roles that could be assumed by people engaged in the activity of thinking. Attention is paid in particular to the key intellectual activities of negotiating secular and religious authority and identity; to thinking and learning through verbal and visual means; and to ruminating on worldly existence and heavenly salvation. These processes are explored in a series of essays that focus on various visual and textual artefacts, among them Church art and sculptures, manuscript fragments, and texts of both different languages (Latin and Old Norse) and genres (sagas, poetry and grammatical treatises, laws, liturgical explanations and theological texts). The variety of intellectual and ideational processes connected to the textual and material culture of medieval Scandinavia forms the focal point of this study. As a result, this book actively seeks to transcend the traditional cultural dichotomies of written versus oral material, Latin versus vernacular, lay versus secular, or European versus Nordic by foregrounding the cognitive and creative agency of intellectuals in medieval Scandinavia. Front Matter ("Contents", "List of Illustrations", "Acknowledgements"), p. i Free Access Introduction: Intellectual Culture and Medieval Scandinavia, p. 1 Stefka G. Eriksen https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110519 Old Norse Intellectual Culture: Appropriation and Innovation, p. 35 Gunnar Harðarson https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110520 Negotiating Identity Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris: Academic Discourse, Marriage, and Money, p. 77 Ian P. Wei https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110521 A Deliberate Style: The Patronage of Early Romanesque Architecture in Norway, p. 103 Kjartan Hauglid https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110522 Situated Knowledge: Shaping Intellectual Identities in Iceland, c. 1180-1220, p. 137 Bjørn Bandlien https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110523 Canon Law and Politics in Grímr Hólmsteinsson’s Jóns saga baptista II, p. 175 Kristoffer Vadum https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110524 Thinking in Figures Grammar, Rhetoric, and Figurative Language: Learned Innovations and Vernacular Receptions, p. 213 Rita Copeland https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110525 Traces of Latin Education in the Old Norse World, p. 243 Åslaug Ommundsen https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110526 Applied Grammatica: Conjuring up the Native Poetae, p. 263 Mikael Males https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110527 Two Cultures of Visual(ized) Cognition, p. 309 Mats Malm https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110528 Worldly Existence and Heavenly Salvation Messuskýringar: Old Norse Expositions of the Latin Mass and the Ritual Participation of the People, p. 337 Sigurd Hareide https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110529 Cultivating Virtues on Scandinavian Soil: The Rise of a Christian Humanism and Ecclesiastical Art in Twelfth-Century Denmark, p. 373 Kristin B. Aavitsland https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110530 Body and Soul in Old Norse Culture, p. 393 Stefka G. Eriksen https://doi.org/10.1484/M.DISPUT-EB.5.110531 Back Matter ("Index"), p. 429