Tools of Literacy : The Role of Skaldic Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

This is an examination of thirteenth-century skaldic verse, the literary production of Iceland in the thirteenth century, and of the textual culture which nurtured the poets.

It demonstrates the connection between thirteenth-century skaldic verse and the formal study of grammatica in schools, and establishes that skaldic verse was treated much like a Nordic equivalent of classic texts.

It also reevaluates and reemphasizes the versatility of skaldic verse, and demonstrates the link between Icelandic authors and intellectual currents in Europe at the time.The study systematically links the thirteenth-century poets with leading families and with ecclesiastical and secular learning, and shows that skaldic verse-making was one of the class symbols of the new aristocracy in thirteenth-century Iceland.

The author has developed a database of approximately 1900 entries which serves as a point of reference throughout the book.