1st Edition
Remembering England: Cultural Memory in the Sagas of Icelanders
Introduction: Literature and Memory, History and Historiography
Cultural Memory and the Íslendingasögur
Íslendingasögur as Sources of History: The Debate
Æthelstan, Æthelred and Knútr: A Historical Overview
Chapter Overview
Part 1
1 Narrative, Verse, and Memory
The Fear of Forgetting and the Value of Writing
Cultural Memory and Medieval memoria
Communicative Memory and Skaldic verse
Memory and Literature
2 Saga Age England
England in the Íslendingasögur
England in the skáldasögur: Egils saga
England in the skáldasögur: Gunnlaugs saga and Bjarnar saga
3 Iceland and the Writing of the Íslendingasögur
The Íslendingasögur Corpus
Saga Age Iceland
Iceland in the Age of Saga Writing
Part 2
4 Memories of Heroism: Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa
Manuscript Contexts
Bjǫrn’s Travels
Reconstructing a Chronology
Thematic Intertextuality: Of Kings and Dragons
5 Memories of Rulers: Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu
Gunnlaugr’s Travels
The skáld in Literary Frameworks
The skáld as Poet: The Hierarchies of Verse
The skáld as Warrior: A Fabricated Narrative
6 Memories of Conflict: Egils saga Skallagrímssonar
Egill’s Travels
The Battle of Brunanburh
The Court of Eiríkr blóðøx in York
Conclusion
Interpretation and Reinterpretation
Remembering England
Bibliography
Biography
Matthew Firth is Australian Research Council Fellow (DECRA) and Associate Lecturer in Medieval History at Flinders University, Australia. His research focuses on historical narrative and its transmission across time and place with particular interest in the historiography of tenth- century England. Matthew’s first monograph, Early English Queens, 850– 1000: Potestas Regina, was published by Routledge in 2024. He is also the author of over twenty articles and book chapters focused on the development of medieval history writing traditions.
‘… serious scholars of the Íslendingasðgur, and especially the skáldsðgur, will need this book ... medieval historians will find the analysis of how memories of events in England during the Viking Age manifested themselves in the cultural memory of a medieval society geographically distant several centuries later to be rewarding’ - Parergon 42.2 (2025).
