Literary Treasures
Open: all year
11.00-17.00
A guided tour of the Medieval Manuscripts in English every Monday and Friday at 3:30 p.m
also on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer.
Homepage
www.thjodmenning.is
    
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Sagas
and poetry recounting Viking voyages and describing Norse
mythology exist only in medieval Icelandic manuscripts,
which have played a vital role in Icelandic culture and
politics, and still do.With the advent of Christianity,
the Icelanders acquired a written language for the first
time, and oral narratives evolved into literary works. In
later centuries the unique Icelandic medieval sagas and
manuscripts attracted attention from abroad, for the ancient
Norse-Germanic traditions they preserved, and many manuscripts
were placed in libraries abroad, especially in Denmark.
In Iceland, consciousness of the free and independent Icelandic
nation depicted in medieval literature provided a basis
for the 19th century campaign for independence from Danish
rule. Hence it was a vital issue to the Icelanders to reclaim
their medieval manuscripts from Denmark, and the return
of the first manuscripts in 1971 was an occasion of national
rejoicing. The Árni Magnússon Manuscript Institute
was founded to preserve and study the ancient manuscripts.
The exhibition includes the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda
and the Flatey Book, which contains a collection of sagas
of Norwegian kings, the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson,
several manuscripts of the Saga of Egill, law codes, etc.
The exhibition also explains how vellum was prepared and
books made in the middle ages. |
