Why Would the Skalds Not Have Lied about the Rulers’ Expeditions and Battles? Some Remarks on a Relic of Medieval Attitude toward Sources in Modern Medieval Studies

Rutkowski, Rafał (1986– )

doi:0001-6829

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Why Would the Skalds Not Have Lied about the Rulers’ Expeditions and Battles? Some Remarks on a Relic of Medieval Attitude toward Sources in Modern Medieval Studies Rutkowski, Rafał (1986– )

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Why Would the Skalds Not Have Lied about the Rulers’ Expeditions and Battles? Some Remarks on a Relic of Medieval Attitude toward Sources in Modern Medieval Studies

Acta Poloniae Historica T. 122 (2020)

Rutkowski, Rafał (1986– )

Polska Akademia Nauk. Komitet Nauk Historycznych ; Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Instytut Historii PAN

Warszawa

2020

p. 165-179

Snorri Sturluson, 1179?-1241 - criticism and interpretation ; literature and society - Scandinavia - history ; scalds and scaldic poetry ; skaldic poetry ; Morkinskinna ; methodology of history ; medieval historiography

The article presents a critique of a research method whereby historical sources could not have possibly lied as they were targeted at the addressees who knew the actual course of the events described or referred to. This attitude toward the sources has its antecedence in Snorri Sturluson’s argument on the reliability of skaldic poetry. To his mind, the poems were biased but still valuable, in a way, as they were declaimed before the rulers who would have perceived an untrue account “as a mockery, rather than a praise”. The question arises, what kind of a situation Snorri tried to preclude: one where a mean warrior would have been shown as a great hero? Or, perhaps, one where a defector would have been portrayed as a warrior bravely marching in the first rank? The story of Giffard from the Morkinskinna saga seems to offer the answer. Giffard fled from the battlefield but had a praise poem dedicated to him, which the (real) character aptly deciphered as derision aimed at him.

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