Medieval manuscript fragments are some of Norway’s most significant testimonies to medieval book history. Through analysis of a selection  of the thousands of manuscript fragments kept in public collections, we are exploring the first centuries of book and scribal culture in Norway.

The focus is primarily on three aspects of Norwegian book culture: 

• The impact of regions and centres in Western Europe, with an emphasis on England (primarily the south-east, including London) and France (primarily the north-west, including Paris)

• The effect of Nordic ecclesiastical collaboration, particularly with Denmark (Lund) in the twelfth and Iceland in the thirteenth century.

• The development of book producing centres in Norway, and how local scriptoria adapted international impulses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.