"Edda" is an Old Norse term that has been applied by modern scholars to the collective of two Medieval Icelandic literary works: what is now known as the Prose Edda and an older collection of poems now known as the Poetic Edda. The term historically referred only to the Prose Edda, but this usage has fallen out of favour because of confusion with the other work. Both works were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching back into the Viking Age. The books provide the main sources for medieval skaldic tradition in Iceland and for Norse mythology.
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature.
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries.
The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or, historically, simply as Edda, is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some extent written, or at least compiled, by the Icelandic scholar, lawspeaker, and historian Snorri Sturluson c. 1220. It is considered the fullest and most detailed source for modern knowledge of Norse mythology, the body of myths of the North Germanic peoples, and draws from a wide variety of sources, including versions of poems that survive into today in a collection known as the Poetic Edda.
Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia.
Wulfstan was an English Bishop of London, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York. He is thought to have begun his ecclesiastical career as a Benedictine monk. He became the Bishop of London in 996. In 1002 he was elected simultaneously to the diocese of Worcester and the archdiocese of York, holding both in plurality until 1016, when he relinquished Worcester; he remained archbishop of York until his death. It was perhaps while he was at London that he first became well known as a writer of sermons, or homilies, on the topic of Antichrist. In 1014, as archbishop, he wrote his most famous work, a homily which he titled the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, or the Sermon of the Wolf to the English.
Sturlunga saga is a collection of Icelandic sagas by various authors from the 12th and 13th centuries; it was assembled in about 1300, in Old Norse. It mostly deals with the story of the Sturlungs, a powerful family clan during the eponymous Age of the Sturlungs period of the Icelandic Commonwealth.
The Vercelli Book is one of the oldest of the four Old English Poetic Codices. It is an anthology of Old English prose and verse that dates back to the late 10th century. The manuscript is housed in the Capitulary Library of Vercelli, in northern Italy.
The Blickling homilies are a collection of anonymous homilies from Anglo-Saxon England. They are written in Old English, and were written down at some point before the end of the tenth century, making them one of the oldest collections of sermons to survive from medieval England, the other main witness being the Vercelli Book. Their name derives from Blickling Hall in Norfolk, which once housed them; the manuscript is now at Princeton, Scheide Library, MS 71.
A homiliarium or homiliary is a collection of homilies, or familiar explanations of the Gospels.
Þiðreks saga af Bern is an Old Norse saga that collects almost all Germanic heroic legends known from Germany into a single narrative. At the center of this narrative is the biography of the hero Dietrich von Bern.
The Vercelli homilies are a collection of twenty-three prose entries within the Vercelli book and exist as an important example of Old English prose structure, owing to the predominance of poetry within the pool of extant Old English literature. In keeping with the origins of the Vercelli manuscript in general, little is known about the exact authorship of the Vercelli homilies. It is widely believed that the individual homilies were gathered from several authors and copied by one scribe into the manuscript at random. The compilation of the Vercelli book is typically placed within the late tenth century AD.
The Old Icelandic Homily Book, also known as the Stockholm Homily Book, is one of two main collections of Old West Norse sermons; the other being the Old Norwegian Homily Book, with which it shares eleven texts. Written in around 1200, and both based on earlier exemplars, together they represent some of the oldest examples of Old West Norse prose.
Stjórn is the name given to a collection of Old Norse translations of Old Testament historical material dating from the 14th century, which together cover Jewish history from Genesis through to II Kings. Despite the collective title, Stjórn is not a homogeneous work. Rather, it consists of three separate works which vary in date and context, labelled Stjórn I, II and III by scholar I.J. Kirby.
The history of Bible translations into Icelandic began with the country's conversion to Christianity around 1000 CE but efforts accelerated with the Icelandic Reformation in the mid-16th century. Since then, 11 complete translations of the Bible have been completed into Icelandic. Currently, the Icelandic Bible Society oversees translation and production of Icelandic-language Bibles with the most recent full translation completed in 2007.
The Codex Wormianus or AM 242 fol. is an Icelandic vellum codex dating from the mid-14th century. It contains an edition of the Prose Edda and some additional material on poetics, including the First Grammatical Treatise. It is the only manuscript to preserve the Rígsþula.
The Lambeth Homilies are a collection of homilies found in a manuscript in Lambeth Palace Library, London. The collection contains seventeen sermons and is notable for being one of the latest examples of Old English, written as it was c. 1200, well into the period of Middle English.
Langfeðgatal is an anonymous, twelfth-century Icelandic genealogy of Scandinavian kings.
Dórótheu saga is an Old Norse-Icelandic saints' saga that recounts the legend of St Dorothy of Caesarea. It is preserved only in the manuscript Kirkjubæjarbók, a codex containing lives of female saints written in Iceland around 1500. This manuscript also contains the only Old Norse-Icelandic poetry written about St Dorothy before 1500 and a Latin prayer to the saint not known from elsewhere in medieval Scandinavia.
Merlínússpá is an Old Norse-Icelandic verse translation of Prophetiae Merlini in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae. It is notable for being the only translation of a foreign prose text into poetry in Old Norse-Icelandic literature and for being the earliest Arthurian text to have been translated in medieval Scandinavia. Merlínússpá is preserved in two consecutive parts preserved in the Hauksbók version of Breta sögur. In both Hauksbók and the version of Breta sögur preserved in the manuscript AM 573 4to, the poems are attributed to Gunnlaugr Leifsson. The poem is omitted in AM 573 4to, with the scribe noting that "many people know that poem". Gunnlaugr Leifsson wrote Merlínússpá around 1200. It is a close translation of the Prophetiae Merlini but also includes material from the Historia regum Britanniae.
