The Arrival of Writing
The project aims at contributing to the study of oral cultures mainly in the Nordic countries, the interaction with the later written culture, the development of centres of writing, as well as the mutual influence between the oral and written culture as parallel cultures.
More in detail, the research in the period 2007-2012 will focus on the following subfields:
- Administrative literacy, with a particular emphasis on comparisons between the centre and the periphery on the one hand, and the vernacularisation of the administrative culture in the later Middle Ages one the other.
- Oral art forms, Eddic and skaldic poetry and the oral basis of medieval written literature, accentuating the international theoretical discussion of these questions. So far the relationship between oral and written has mostly been studied in connection with the transmission from oral to written culture. In our research we will, in addition, pay more attention to the oral and written as parallel and interacting channels in a given society.
- The relationship between Latin and the vernacular as part of the process of the vernacularisation of the written word.
- Identifying scribal centres, with an emphasis on their form and function. Knowledge about scribal centres and their production provides a good basis for comparison between different regions within the Nordic periphery, as well as between them and the rest of Europe. The liturgical fragments in public collections hold a great potential for the study of early Norwegian book culture.
- The relationship between the written culture introduced in the periphery and local oral traditions as well as the differences between various oral cultures. Regarding the interaction between the oral and the written culture and the consequences of literacy, the Later Middle Ages will be an interesting period to study.
Last updated 3.2.2009