Vita til sanns at satt er. Gerald of Wales and the King's Mirror

The first part of the Old Norwegian King’s Mirror (Speculum regale, mid-13th century), the so-called ‘Merchant’s Chapter’, relates a number of Irish marvels. Many of them are known from earlier texts, but by far the closest  parallel is found in the Topographia Hibernica (first version 1187) by the Cambro-Norman cleric Gerald of Wales. These similarities were noted early on, but the transmission was described as 'merely oral' by older scholarship. However, when widening the scope and reading both the King’s Mirror and the Topographia as part of a more general discourse of liminality and marvels, it appears that similarities go beyond individual motifs. Both texts employ similar strategies to address concerns with the authority and veracity of knowledge about the self-identified periphery of the medieval world.

The present paper argues that this, together with several close parallels in wording, makes it unlikely that transmission of the Irish material was oral and vernacular. Instead, the King’s Mirror appears to attest to the transfer of continental Latin learning to Norway through the British Isles.

For more information on the speaker and his work see his webpage at the Abteilung für Skandinavische Sprachen und Literaturen.