"The Rights of the Player": Evidence of Mimi and Histriones in Early Medieval Scandinavia

Abstract

In the past, Scandinavia has tended not to figure very highly in the history of drama in medieval Europe.1 Only one paragraph in the recent Companion to the Medieval Theatre is dedicated to Scandinavian drama prior to 1500, and that is limited to the few liturgical plays that have been unearthed in Sweden.2 The implication is that for some reason medieval Scandinavia was, to all intents and purposes, void of any other dramatic activity. The Scandinavians were allegedly not interested in such antics. The essential problem is that for most theater scholars, including E. K. Chambers, Old Norse seems to have remained a relatively closed book. The majority have had to rely on the Old Norse scholars of the past, for whom, in many cases, the concept of drama continued to be based on Aristotelian definitions and confined within the decorative frame of the proscenium arch. Notable exceptions to this rule were Bertha S. Philipotts, whose underrated book The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian