Laurence M. Larson

This is an annotated English translation of the Speculum regale or Konungs skuggsjá, a didactic work originally written in Old Norse in thirteenth century Norway. Somewhat to my surprise, there doesn't seem to be a Swedish translation available.

The work takes the form of a dialogue between an inquisitive young man and his wise old father. It claims to provide the knowledge necessary for right conduct in four walks of life, namely those of merchants, of kings and kingsmen, of clerics, and of peasants and husbandmen, but if the latter two sections were ever written they were lost from the manuscript tradition very early, and that on merchants is not merely much shorter than that on kings and kingsmen, but in large part devoted to general geographical information of no special mercantile relevance. It's thus mainly a book about kings and courtiers.

While the style is artificial and sometimes long-winded by modern standards, it's got a wealth of interesting info on contemporary attitudes and conventions. It can be downloaded freely from Gutenberg.… (plus d'informations)

This 100 year old biography of Canute is well written and easy to read. It puts the King into an international context and shows clearly the reach of his power at its height, covering England, a chunk of what is now southern Scotland and a large part of Scandinavia -Denmark, Norway and parts of southern Sweden. He must have been a remarkable character, though we know almost nothing about him as an individual. This gives a good picture of his age, especially in terms of the development of Norse society and how it is reflected in the sagas. While somewhat lacking in analysis compared to most more recently written history books, the only real sign of the age in which it was written is the assumed superiority of Christianity over "inferior" heathen belief systems. 4/5… (plus d'informations)