دانلود کتاب A History of Norway and The Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Óláfr

The introduction and notes to these translations of "Historia Norwegiae" and "Passio et miracula beati Olavi" have been compiled with the needs of students primarily in mind and are designed to provide essential background information and to stimulate further reading of texts listed in the Bibliography. Complete consistency with regard to the treatment of personal names and place-names in the translations has proved neither possible nor desirable. In general, the aim has been to use the forms most likely to be encountered when reading other texts from or about medieval Scandinavia. Almost all personal names are therefore in their standard Old Norse forms; the exceptions include some Anglo-Saxons, a Russian, biblical names and a few unidentified individuals left in Latin. Place-names in Scandinavia are also usually given in Old Norse where possible, with modern equivalents given in the index of place-names. With one or two exceptions, non-Scandinavian place-names (and all countries) are in their usual English forms. The Bibliography includes details of the texts to which references are made in abbreviated form. Biblical references are to the Latin Vulgate translation, with parenthetical references to the Authorised Version where this differs. (Foreword)

The bulk of extant writings on Norwegian history can be credited to the verve and industry of the Icelanders in recording the past of other nations as well as their own. By comparison, the few purely Norwegian texts struggle to gain attention. The writer of the "Historia Norwegiae" was already lamenting that for lack of writers the deeds of great men were daily being forgotten (presumably he set little store by the skaldic form of memoria). This new publication goes some distance to offset the general neglect, providing translations and commentary for the "Historia Norwegiae" and the "Passio et miracula beati Olavi" (here F. Metcalfe's title is used in preference to that of the manuscript, "Passio Sancti Olavi regis et martyris"). While nothing definite can be said about authorship, the two texts are linked by their associations with Archbishop Eysteinn Erlendsson (d. 1188). (Russell Poole)