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areas in which there is very little indication of an Icelandic interest in trans­
lation. the most obvious of these, as Paul Lehmann pointed out in his
study of Scandinavia’s debt to Latin literature (1937, 15–16, 37), is what he
called Fachphilosophie, including the writings of classical and medieval phi­
losophers, aside from various of the works of Honorius Augustodunensis
and what was transmitted through encyclopedias. In the area of the more
theoretically inclined and abstract writings of the Christian Church, too, in
contrast to traditional biblical exegesis, there is relatively little to show;
few of the Church Fathers seem to have been known directly, although
some works like the Dialogues of Gregory the Great appear to have been
known (Hreinn Benediktsson 1963; Boyer 1993) and Augustine of Hippo’s
De doctrina christiana appears in the inventory of viðey abbey late in the
fourteenth century (olmer 1902, 7, no. 18). from the later medieval period
in Iceland, there does not seem to have been much of a taste for the writ­
ings of medieval ascetics and mystics, as was the case in much of the rest of
europe. It is possible, as mentioned earlier, that a great deal has been lost,
but, if so, one would have to argue that the losses were particularly heavy
in the areas of philosophy and theology, and that is rather improbable,
given that some at least of the writings of the Church Fathers were widely
distributed in medieval Europe. A more likely hypothesis is that there was
no tradition of speculative philosophy and theology associated with pre-
Christian Scandinavian religion, and that there continued to be little inter­
est in importing foreign literature from these fields after the conversion to
Christianity. To the extent that we are able to judge from the medieval
reconstruction of pre­Christian religious thought in Snorri Sturluson’s
Edda and other Icelandic writings, religious and philosophical concepts
were primarily expressed through mythic narratives, which tend to particu­
larise and personalise abstractions, at least on the surface.
If we turn from the paratextual evidence for Icelandic participation in
the textual world of medieval Europe to the internal evidence of vernacular
Icelandic texts themselves, there are a number of levels on which it is fruit­
ful to document their engagement. the first of these is their treatment of
sources. In some kinds of texts, Icelandic writers refer specifically to their
foreign sources, especially in types of learned or schoolroom literature.
They do this largely to authenticate their work. For example, in a piece
about the star of Bethlehem published by kålund and Beckman in Alfræði
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