Saints' sagas

Saints' sagas (Old Norse heilagra manna sögur) are a genre of Old Norse sagas comprising the prose hagiography of medieval western Scandinavia.

The corpus of such sagas and their manuscript attestations was surveyed by Ole Widding, Hans Bekker-Nielsen, L. K. Shook in 1963.[1] Their work revealed over 100 different saints' lives, mostly based on Latin sources. Few are of Icelandic saints, with only Jón Ögmundarson (d. 1121), Þorlákr Þórhallsson (d. 1193), and Guðmundr Arason (d. 1237) being candidates.[2]

In the words of Jonas Wellendorf:

While the sagas of the Icelanders might be the unique contribution to world literature that clearly demarcates Old Norse-Icelandic literature from other literary traditions in the Middle Ages, and indeed other periods as well, the lives of saints connect the very same literature with the rest of Western Europe.[3]

These sagas are preserved in many medieval manuscripts. Two notable collections are Kirkjubæjarbók, which is exclusively concerned with female saints, and Codex Scardensis which gathers together lives of the apostles.

List of Sagas

The following list of sagas is taken from Wolf's The legends of the saints in Old Norse-Icelandic prose.[4] The corresponding saints are listed in parentheses after the saga titles. Material relating to saints which is incorporated into other sagas is listed separately, below.

Maríu saga

Other texts

Wolf's list notes that the Old Norse-Icelandic tales of Charlemagne, Canute of Denmark and Canute Lavard are secular works and therefore cannot be considered as saints' lives.

Editions
  • Unger, C. R. (1877). Heilagra manna søgur: fortællinger og legender om hellige mænd og kvinder. 2 volumes. Christiania. (Link is to Vol. 1. Vol. 2 here.)
  • Unger, C. R. (1877). Heilagra manna sögur: fortællinger og legender om hellige mænd og kvinder. Christiania. (Link to the text version on Heimskringla.no)
  • Unger, C. R. (1871). Mariu saga: Legender om jomfru Maria og hendes jertegn. 2 volumes. Christiania: Brögger & Christie. (Link is to Vol. 1. Vol. 2 here.)
  • Unger, C. R. (1874). Postola sögur: legendariske fortællinger om apostlernes liv, deres kamp for kristendommens udbredelse samt deres martyrdød. Christiania.
  • Unger, C. R. (1869). Thomas Saga Erkibyskups. Christiania.

References
  1. Widding, Ole; Bekker-Nielsen, Hans; Shook, L. K. (1963). "The Lives of the Saints in Old Norse Prose: a Handlist". Mediaeval Studies. 25: 294–337. doi:10.1484/J.MS.2.306819.
  2. 'Saints' Lives', in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano (New York: Garland, 1993).
  3. Wellendorf, Jonas (2010), "The Attraction of the Earliest Old Norse Vernacular Hagiography", Saints and their Lives on the Periphery, Cursor Mundi, Brepols Publishers, 9, p. 242, doi:10.1484/m.cursor-eb.3.4597, ISBN 9782503530338, retrieved 2019-04-13
  4. Wolf, Kirsten (2013). The legends of the saints in Old Norse-Icelandic prose. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442646216..

Further reading
  • Collings, Lucy Grace (1969) The Codex Scardensis: studies in Icelandic hagiography; doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, 1969
  • Codex Scardensis; edited by D. Slay. (Early Icelandic Manuscripts in Facsimile; vol. 2.) Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1960 (includes "Postola sögur")

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