Seminar 7 (23/04/2026): Old Norse Week!
For the seventh seminar of The Long Middle Ages, we welcome Mary Catherine O’Connor and J.D. Moore.
Paper 1: Mary Catherine O’Connor, ‘Raging Royals and Kingly Virtue: Rex Iustus ideology and Norse Arthurian Romance’
Abstract:
During the thirteenth century King Hákon Hákonarson of Norway commissioned a series of translations including several romances from Old French into Old Norse. Amongst these translations were three of Chrétien de Troyes’ romances: Erec et Enide, Yvain, and Perceval, which are known in Old Norse as Erex saga, Ívens saga and Parcevals saga. Alongside the importation of foreign literature Hákon also commissioned original compositions for his court such as Konungs skuggsjá or the King’s Mirror. This is a didactic work elaborating on the duties of merchants, courtiers, and kings. These works are set against a wider political context in which Hákon sought to create a feudal state, centralise power in Norway, and transform the ideological foundations of the Norwegian monarchy, in particular, emphasising the concept of the rex iustus or the ideal of the Christian just king.
This paper will argue that the Old Norse translated romance Erex saga is inflected with rex iustus ideology and was instrumentalised as part of Hákon’s political programme to inculcate new ideas about the monarchy. This paper will examine and compare the depiction of Arthur’s kingship in this saga, focusing particularly on the performance and restraint of anger, pride, and humility. These concepts are also discussed in Konungs skuggsjá’s section on kingship and throughout this paper I will highlight connections between Konungs skuggsjá and this translated romance, illustrating the ways in which literature was used to serve the monarchy’s interests in High Medieval Norway
About the speaker:
Mary Catherine O’Connor is a 3rd Year DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford’s Faculty of English. Mary’s thesis examines the translation of kingship, knighthood, and aristocratic women in the translated Arthurian romances into Norse and their links with contemporary political doctrine. She is also a non-stipendiary lecturer in Middle English at St Edmund’s Hall, University of Oxford.
Paper 2: J.D. Moore, ‘Encounters with Courtesy: Jarl Rognvald Kali Kolsson and Ermengarde of Narbonne in the Mid-Twelfth Century‘
Abstract:
The Orkneyinga saga’s depiction of Jarl Rǫgnvaldr Kali Kolsson’s expedition to the Holy Land in the mid-twelfth century is fraught with adventurous episodes, ranging from castle sieges to thrilling naval battles. It also includes a notable encounter with a rapidly developing continental paradigm that would not take hold in Norway for several more decades: the world of courtly romance. Rǫgnvaldr’s brief stay with Viscountess Ermengarde of Narbonne had a lasting impact on the jarl, with depictions of her kindness and beauty appearing in several skaldic poems attributed to periods after his men had left her court. This episode in Orkneyinga saga suggests a period of cultural exchange, one in which two distinct poetic and literary traditions collide.
However, this encounter may not be all that it seems on the surface, with parallels occurring across Germanic literary tradition, from Beowulf to the works of Snorri Sturlusson. As part of an ongoing project that aims to reconsider Jarl Rǫgnvaldr’s expedition as a whole, this paper aims to use the Ermengarde episode as a framework to suggest a way in which the saga writer appropriated the sources available to him to craft his narrative. This analysis will ultimately test a hypothesis that the saga writer, through a conflation of several earlier traditions, reordered the series of events in order to turn expedition member Eindriði the Young into a more antagonistic figure, knowing that the Varangian-Guardsman-turned-Crusader would later be on the losing side of a succession dispute in the Norwegian kingdom.
About the speaker:
J.D. Moore is a second-year PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews studying under the supervision of Professor Alex Woolf and Dr. Victoria Turner. Prior to his studies at St Andrews, where he received a Master of Letters in 2024, J.D. worked for nearly a decade in the U.S. entertainment industry in Los Angeles as a writer & producer and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the American Film Institute in 2016.
His current thesis research involves examining literary adaptation in the Middle Ages, the transmission of texts from the continent into the Medieval North, and specifically the development of crusading motifs in the riddarasögur.
The Long Middle Ages 
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