Theriddarasögur (literally 'sagas of knights', also known in English as 'chivalric sagas', 'romance-sagas', 'knights' sagas', 'sagas of chivalry') are Norse prosesagas of theromance genre. Starting in the thirteenth century with Norse translations of Frenchchansons de geste and Latin romances and histories, the genre expanded in Iceland to indigenous creations in a similar style.
While theriddarasögur were widely read in Iceland for many centuries they have traditionally been regarded as popular literature inferior in artistic quality to theIcelanders' sagas and other indigenous genres. Receiving little attention from scholars ofOld Norse literature, many remain untranslated.
The production of chivalric sagas in Scandinavia was focused on Norway in the thirteenth century and then Iceland in the fourteenth. Vernacular Danish and Swedish romances came to prominence rather later and were generally in verse; the most famous of these are theEufemiavisorna, themselves predominantly translations of Norwegian translations of Continental European romances.
The termriddarasögur (singularriddarasaga) occurs inMágus saga jarls where there is a reference to "Frásagnir...svo sem...Þiðreks saga, Flóvenz saga eðr aðrar riddarasögur", "narratives such as the saga of Þiðrekr, the saga of Flóvent, or other knights' sagas".[1] Another technical term sometimes encountered islygisögur (singularlygisaga), "lie sagas", applied to fictional chivalric andlegendary sagas.
The first known Old Norse translations of European romances occurred under the patronage of kingHákon Hákonarson of Norway, and seem to have been part of a programme of Europeanisation. The earliest dated work is a 1226 translation by oneBrother Robert ofTristan byThomas of Britain. The Old Norse work,Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, is especially valuable since the original Old French poem is only preserved in fragments.Elis saga ok Rósamundu, a translation ofElie de Saint Gille, is similarly attributed to an Abbot Robert, presumably the same man having been promoted within his order. King Hákon also commissionedMöttuls saga, an adaptation ofLe mantel mautaillé,Ívens saga, a reworking ofChrétien de Troyes'sYvain andStrengleikar, a collection of ballads principally byMarie de France.[2]
Works in similar style, which may also have been commissioned by King Hákon, areParcevals saga,Valvens þáttr andErex saga, all derived from the works of Chrétien de Troyes.Karlamagnús saga is a compilation of more disparate origin, dealing withCharlemagne and his twelve paladins and drawing on historiographical material as well as chansons de geste. Other works believed to derive from French originals areBevers saga,Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr,Flóvents saga andPartalopa saga.
Pseudo-historical works translated from Latin areAlexanders saga (a translation ofAlexandreis),Amícus saga ok Amilíus (based onVincent of Beauvais'sSpeculum historiale),Breta sögur (a translation ofHistoria Regum Britanniae), andTrójumanna saga (a translation ofDe excidio Troiae). Also pseudo-historical,Þiðreks saga af Bern is unusual in having been translated from German.[2]
These Old Norse translations have been characterised by Margaret Clunies Ross thus:
Inspired by translated Continental romances, Icelanders began enthusiastically composing their own romance-sagas, apparently around the later thirteenth century, with the genre flourishing from the fourteenth century. The rise of the genre has been associated with Iceland coming under Norwegian rule in the 1260s, and the consequent need for Icelandic ecclesiastical and secular elites to explore Icelanders' new identities as vassals to a king. These new political formations particularly affected the marriage market for elite Icelanders, making gender politics a central theme of many romances.[4] One seminal composition, directly or indirectly influential on many subsequent sagas, seems to have beenKlári saga, whose prologue states that it was translated from a Latin metrical work whichJón HalldórssonBishop of Skálholt found in France, but which is now thought to have been composed by Jón from scratch.[5] Jón's work seems to have been one of the inspirations for the fourteenth-centuryNorth Icelandic Benedictine School which, while most clearly associated with religious writing, also seems to have involved romance-writing.
Chivalric sagas remained in widespread manuscript circulation in Iceland into the twentieth century.[6] They were often reworked asrímur, and new chivalric sagas in the same mould as medieval ones continued to be composed into the nineteenth century.[7]
Particularly during the eighteenth century, some chivalric sagas were taken to be useful historical sources for the history of Sweden and Denmark, underpinning their imperial aspirations, and were printed in these countries. One prominent example isErik Julius Biörner'sNordiska kämpa dater of 1737.[8][9]
The most comprehensive guide to the manuscripts, editions, translations, and secondary literature of this body of sagas is Kalinke and Mitchell's 1985Bibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Romances.[10]
The genre received a fairly substantial survey inMargaret Schlauch's 1934Romance in Iceland,[11] since when the main monograph studies of the genre have been Astrid van Nahl'sOriginale Riddarasögur als Teil altnordischer Sagaliteratur,Jürg Glauser'sIsländische Märchensagas,Marianne Kalinke'sBridal-Quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, andGeraldine Barnes'sThe Bookish Riddarasögur.[12]
Kalinke and Mitchell'sBibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Romances lists the following translatedriddarasögur:[10]
The following is a probably complete list of original medieval Icelandic chivalric sagas.[10]
Romance sagas continued to be composed in Iceland after the Middle Ages in the tradition of the medieval texts; ten are believed to have been penned, for example, by the priestJón Oddsson Hjaltalín (1749-1835).[13] There are thought to be about 150 post-medieval examples.[13] The following is an incomplete list:
