Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Page 25
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gaf om }>a er ver var om koronader, hvært er ver stadf astum a nyalaik (D.
N. I no. 92). But the dignified language of the official proclamations, and
of the Laws and Ordinances from the time of Magnus the Lawmender,
is probably due less to the influence of court literature than to the con-
temporary artes dictaminis, which were, in their turn, influenced by the
rhetoric of the schools29.
II
The development of vernacular literature in France
For five hundred years, from A.D. 800 to about 1300, the main cultural
impulses came to Norway from England. But after 1066, England became,
in matters of literary culture, a French province, and to understand what
kinds of secular literature the Norwegians might become acquainted with
in England at the beginning of the 13th century, it will be necessary to
give a short survey of the development of French literature.
In France as in Scandinavia, vernacular literature begins with religious
writings, and in the lOth and especially the llth century a vast number of
metrical Saints’ Lives were written. Just before 1100 the oldest chansons
de geste were created. They are epic poems, dealing with the more or less
historical wars between the French and the Saracens of Spain; they are full
of action, of bloodshed and violence, and of heroic sentiments. Except for
the most famous of all chansons de geste, the Chanson de Roland, there
is little trace of psychological refinement in the descriptions. These poems
are essentially popular in character, and they are filled with enthusiasm
for the crusading spirit and the great deeds performed by the French
knights fighting in Spain during the second half of the llth century. They
remained popular for two centuries, and new chansons de geste were com-
posed throughout this period. But the faet that they are popular does not
mean that they were composed by and for the ordinary people: at this
early date, the literary tastes of the fighting noblemen were probably just
as simple as those of their retainers. But since they were acceptable to
“ For these artes dictaminis or dictandi and their development, vide C. S. Bald-
win: Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic, pp. 208-27, and E. R. Curtius: Europaische
Literatur u. lateinisches Mittelalter, Bern 1948, pp. 83-85. On the language of Nor-
wegiari writers in the 14th century, see Bjarne Berulfsen: Kulturtradisjon fra en
storhetstid, Oslo 1948, especially pp. 249-93.