Iceland and Images of the North

The Emergence of Norðrlönd in Old Norse Medieval Texts, ca. 1100–1400

Sverrir Jakobsson, “The Emergence of Norðrlönd in Old Norse Medieval Texts, ca. 1100–1400,” in Iceland and Images of the North, ed. Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson with the collaboration of Daniel Chartier, Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, “Droit au Pôle” series, and Reykjavík: ReykjavíkurAkademían, 2011. The Emergence of Norðrlönd in Old Norse Medieval Texts, ca. 1100–1400 Sverrir Jakobsson University of Iceland Abstract – The subject of this article is the emergence of the term Norðrlönd in Old Norse textual culture, the different meaning and functions of this term, and its connection with the idea of a Northern people who shared certain features, such as a common language, history, and identity. This will be explained through analysis of the precise meaning of the term Norðrlönd within medieval discourse, in particular with regard to how it was used in the Scandinavian lingua franca. A secondary aim is to explain its connection with related concepts in other languages, for example, Latin. In order to achieve this, an analysis will be made of how the term was used and in what context. In addition, the influence of power structures on the term and their uses will also be analysed. A third consideration will be how the inhabitants of Norðrlönd were defined, in other words, who was included and who was not. This study of medieval discourse is qualitative rather than quantitative, as befits the nature of the documentary sources consulted. The primary sources themselves, and the information they provide, is the major focus of the study. Through careful analysis of the term Norðrlönd and its use in contemporary texts, the dominant discourse concerning the North in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages will be elucidated, as will the creation of an image of the North and a specific Nordic identity. Keywords – The North, Iceland, worldview, medieval identities, ethnogenesis, literacy, medieval historiography, medieval geography, exoticism, mental maps Introduction Any study of historic phenomena has to start from a set of assumptions. To study the images of the North, one has to take for granted that the North can signify something besides a cardinal direction, that it includes places and communities that can be imagined. The meaning of the North can be both varied and multiform, as evidenced by the heterogeneous views on offer in this collection of articles. To study the North from a historical perspective also presupposes that the images and identities of the North can evolve according to the existing historical circumstances. ICELAND AND IMAGES OF THE NORTH [ 26 ] The purpose of this article is to analyze the identities of the North from an etymological perspective by examining the term Norðrlönd as it appears in the earliest known Scandinavian sources and providing a general overview of its use in medieval Scandinavian sources. The emphasis on the Old Norse terminology turns the focus to the internal image of the North and how a specific discourse about a certain society was shaped by those belonging to that specific society. Of particular interest is the way in which those who belonged to the North could represent it to other peoples as an exotic location with inherent wonders, in works such as The King’s Mirror (Konungs skuggsjá), written in Norway in the 13th century (see also Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson in this volume). Any analysis of the term, however, can only benefit by taking into account the terms used to represent the North in other languages, in particular the international language of the day, Latin. The use of this comparative method should offer some insight into northern identities and shed light on how the people of the North identified themselves and made a distinction between themselves and others. The function of the term within literary discourse is also of interest for establishing whether the North was primarily seen as a geographic, social, or even a linguistic community. How did those who identified themselves with the North distinguish between themselves and others who were seen as outside that community? Were all who lived in northern lands seen as part of the North? From the inception of literary discourse in the northern countries, history was seen as a vital marker of identification. Through the construction of a legendary past in works such as Tales from the Ancient North (in Modern Icelandic: Fornaldarsögur Norðrlanda), the Nordic countries were reinvented as a historical community with an ancient...