Indigenous and Latin Literature

Abstract

The international position and organization of the Church paved the way for an international literature in Iceland, which in turn influenced indigenous literature. Sometimes Latin sources served as a model for the writing of a saga, sometimes as a mere inspiration for passages of varying length, and sometimes Latin works have been reshaped through translation into what we today term an ‘indigenous saga’. Historical works in Latin from other countries are also likely to have been used as models for indigenous historical sagas in Iceland. Apart from translating Latin texts into the vernacular, Icelanders produced a number of original works in Latin; there were likely no fewer than eight original Latin works written in Iceland during the Middle Ages. The relationship between indigenous and Latin literature is not in itself complicated: Latin literature, whether translated or not, lies in the background of the entire Icelandic saga corpus.