Icelandic Uniqueness or a Common European Culture? The Case of the Kings' Sagas

question of Nordic, particularly Icelandic, uniqueness in the Middle Ages has often been the subject of discussion. The traditional opinion, dating back to the nineteenth century and closely connected to Icelandic and Norwegian nationalism, was that there was indeed a unique culture of the North, a culture not only different from the rest of Europe, but in many respects better: more rational and less superstitious, avoiding the extreme, not to say hysterical, expressions of medieval Catholicism, and producing a literature with greater appeal to modern readers than that of the rest of Europe. Y A reaction against this view came in the post-war period, headed by heretics like Hermann Palsson and Lars Lonnroth,2 who interpreted Icelandic culture, including the sagas, as part of the common culture of Western Christendom. This heresy gradually received the status of orthodoxy or at least respectability. In recent years, particularly with the studies of society, inspired by social anthropology, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to the earlier view.3 Evidently, the question of uniqueness or common culture cannot be answered en bloc; one has to consider different works and genres. The sagas of the Icelanders immediately present a strong claim for uniqueness, the genre itself, as far as I know, having no direct parallel elsewhere. The kings' sagas can present no such claim; there is an abundance of