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medieval codices, perhaps suggesting some evidence of a medieval idea of
genre categories similar to those used in modern scholarship, the collection
of texts preserved in AM 152 fol. and their intertextual nature opens up
questions about how critical these boundaries actually were in the minds
of medieval redactors, patrons and audiences.39
Ideology
these sagas, especially those set outside of Iceland, can broadly be seen as
constructing and naturalising a monarchist ideology, a social order charac-
terised by a strong monarch and loyal followers who harbour no ambitions
to challenge or usurp his power; at the end of the saga, these companions
are rewarded with royal offices or sub-kingdoms, appropriate brides, or
both.40 king Njörvi of Þorsteins saga even makes his jarl, Víkingr, swear
an oath that he will never aspire to rise higher, stating that they are ‘til
bornir’ [born for] their positions.41 foreign, heathen and/or simply evil
kings do not enjoy the respect given to allied rulers, and the protagonists
often expand their realm and influence at their expense. upwards mobility
is possible, mainly by marrying ‘up’, e.g. princesses from richer and more
powerful kingdoms, an idea that, as rowe discusses, is imported from feu-
dal ideology, where younger sons who did not inherit their fathers found
themselves at a loose end.42 Wooing noble ladies is a process fraught with
anxieties about rejection and humiliation, as the maiden-king narratives,
prominent in this manuscript, convey.43 Perhaps the most complicated
representation of power relations between classes is in Gautreks saga: refr
rises from farmer’s son and kolbítr to a jarl, marrying a king’s daughter by
his ingenious navigation – both on the sea and within the social sphere –
39 for an introduction to the broad spectrum of views about genre in relation to fornaldar-
and riddarasögur, a detailed discussion of which would be beyond the scope of this article,
see e.g. ‘Interrogating Genre in the fornaldarsögur: A roundtable Discussion,’ Viking and
Medieval Scandinavia 2 (2006): 275–296; Massimiliano Bampi, ‘the Development of the
Fornaldarsögur as a Genre. A Polysystemic Approach,’ in Lassen et al., eds., The Legendary
Sagas, 185–199.
40 rowe, ‘Absent Mothers,’ 154; Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Le roi chevalier. the Royal Ideology and
Genre of Hrólfs saga kraka,’ Scandinavian Studies 71 (1999): 152–163; Bagerius, Mandom och
mödom, 89.
41 Þorsteins saga, 199.
42 rowe, ‘Absent Mothers,’ 133–134.
43 see jóhanna katrín Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature. Bodies, Words and Power,
the new Middle Ages (new York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 117–119.
IDEoLogY AnD IDEntItY In LAtE MEDIEVAL WESt ICELAnD