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A Meeting of Worlds an Investigation Into the Development of a Christian Vocabulary Set Within the Old Norse Language Using a New Statistical Methodology

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A Meeting of Worlds an Investigation Into the Development of a Christian Vocabulary Set Within the Old Norse Language Using a New Statistical Methodology A Meeting of Worlds An investigation into the development of a Christian vocabulary set within the Old Norse Language using a new statistical methodology Laurel Joy Lied Master Thesis in Nordic Viking and Medieval Studies 60 Credits Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Oslo May 2016 1 Summary: This thesis is a statistical study of the development of a Christian vocabulary within the Old Norse Language. It employs a new analytical methodology developed by myself, inspired by the historical and sociological study, Saints and Society, which employed statistics to analyze wider historical trends in medieval hagiographical literature. The thesis examines an extensive word list of Christian terminology and focuses upon etymology and word frequency across the different written mediums and genres within Old Norse: prose literature, skaldic and eddic poetry, and runic inscriptions. It aims to examine the different etymological or thematic trends of the Christian vocabulary present in these four textual mediums. Of particular focus is the Old Norwegian Homily Book, the name given to the manuscript AM 619 4to, for its value as the earliest extant and complete vernacular Norwegian manuscript. The ultimate aim of this study is to shed light on the process of Christianization that Norway underwent in the medieval period. These different textual sources and mediums offer a picture of this process’s effect on the Old Norse language. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: My deepest gratitude and thanks go to my supervisor Karl-Gunnar A. Johansson for his constructive criticism and support throughout this process of research and writing for this thesis. I would also like to thank Jón Viðar Sigurðsson for providing me with initial ideas and suggestions on the topic and supplying the main electronic text I worked with. 3 Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................. 5 Chapter Two: Background and Theory ...................................................................... 9 Section One: Impetus for Research Methodology ............................................................ 9 Section Two: Background on the manuscript, AM 619 4°, ‘The Old Norwegian Homily Book’ .............................................................................................................................. 11 Section Three: Medieval Vocabulary Acquisition and Translation Theory .......... 14 Section Four: D.H. Green’s Linguistic Categories ............................................................ 24 Section Five: Christianization of Norway (and Iceland) .............................................. 26 Chapter Three: Method ................................................................................................. 30 Section One: Creating a Word List ....................................................................................... 31 Chapter Four: Analysis of Overarching Trends .................................................... 45 Section One: Etymology Category Breakdown, words alone ...................................... 45 Section Two: Etymology Categories’ Word Frequency ................................................. 64 Section Three: Thematic Category analysis ..................................................................... 73 Section Four: Intersections between Thematic and Etymological categories ..... 74 Section Five: Discussion of Low Frequency Words ........................................................ 76 Section Six: High Frequency words within the Homily Book ..................................... 87 Section Seven: Names and Titles for God or Christ ........................................................ 89 Section Eight: General Religious Practices ....................................................................... 93 Chapter Five: Conclusion ............................................................................................. 98 Section One: General Conclusions ....................................................................................... 98 Section Two: Possible areas for future studies ............................................................ 100 Section Three: Final Thoughts ........................................................................................... 102 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 103 Appendix 1: Data List .................................................................................................. 106 1.2 Chart Key and Headings Information ....................................................................... 106 1.2 Data List ............................................................................................................................. 108 Runic Data Set ......................................................................................................................... 135 Appendix 2: Abbreviations Used ............................................................................. 148 Appendix 3: Charts ....................................................................................................... 149 3.2 Thematic Category Distribution according to word count (not frequency) 150 3.3 Etymology Distribution according to word frequency ....................................... 151 3.4 Thematic Category Distribution according to word frequency ...................... 153 3.5 Etymology Distribution according to word frequency, with +350 occurrences in one textual category omitted ........................................................................................ 154 3.6 Thematic Category Distribution according to word frequency, with +350 occurrences in one textual category omitted ............................................................... 155 3.7 Low Frequency Words ................................................................................................... 156 3.8 High Frequency Words .................................................................................................. 157 4 Chapter One: Introduction Topic and Reasons for Investigation This thesis is an investigation into the process of Christianization that the Old Norse- speaking culture, particularly in Iceland and Norway, went through. I focus on the linguistic remains or results of this process and attempt to identify and understand any trends or tendencies within the adoption of Christian terminology and vocabulary within the Old Norse language. I chose to carry out this study because I was interested in the process of Christianization upon a culture. An additional impetus for this study was also the blended literary interests of a culture that produced works dealing with more ‘local’ persons or characters, as in the Icelandic Family Sagas, but also sagas on the more classical figures such as Alexander the Great, not to mention Christian saints or bishops. The question of the extent of Christian or greater European cultural influence on Old Norse culture is strongly represented in the present academic discussion. Even works assigned earlier to a non-Christian authorship are now being re-evaluated in light of medieval Christian imagery and themes.1 Christianization as a process involving the shaping and reshaping of a society, including, but not limited to, the establishment of a formal clergy and ecclesiastical structure, is a multifaceted phenomenon that I wished to understand in greater depth. The relics of this lengthy process include archeological artifacts (a subject examined extensively in Nordeide’s The Viking Age as a Period of Religious Transformation : The Christianisation of Norway from Ad 560-1150/1200) and literary reflection on the process, especially in the kings’ sagas. My attention was drawn especially to the oldest existing complete Norwegian manuscript written in Old Norse, AM 619 4to, also known as the Old Norwegian Homily Book (abbreviated ONB in this study).2 Dated to c. 1200, the manuscript and its textual material represents a cultural development such that the Old Norse language is able to describe and promulgate Christian ideas and concepts. It is written after the establishment of major eccelesicatical structures in Norway (for example, the archbishopric of Nidaros 1 See Samplonius, Kees, “The background and score of Völuspá.” in The Nordic Apocalypse, 2 The English title commonly used for the manuscript, AM 619 4to, also known as Gamalnorsk homiliebok. 5 in 1152), but before most of the great literary flowering of the Old Norse sagas. The Old Norwegian Homily Book represents a linguistic and vocabulary development within Old Norse now being finally more fully displayed in a written vernacular. According to Christopher Abrams, the ONB potentially offers “a very valuable insight into the early teachings of the Scandinavian church, and also into…the development of Old Norse literary prose style.”3 Yet where does this vernacular achievement fit in when it comes to cultural influences? Various researchers have attempted to understand the Homily Book’s placement within the wider Norse and European cultural landscape.4 Do the homilies represent an earlier Carolingian homelitic tradition? Conti notes more “recent research into the cultural and intellectual background of the [Old Norwegian Homily Book] emphasizes its contemporary surroundings as well as its ultimate source material.”5 The English influence on the Old Norwegian
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