Christopher Callow

The construction of colonisation stories

The case of the landnám in northern Iceland

Fimmtudaginn 5. mars 2015 kl. 16.30

Odda 101



The reality of when and how Iceland was colonised is unlikely to be represented in the surviving medieval narrative accounts we have in Íslendingasögur and other texts. This paper will consider instead how and why particular kinds of account of the landnám for Iceland’s medieval Northern Quarter were written in the particular form they were. It will consider these in the context of literary production in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Iceland and the likely wider political situation.

Christopher Callow er lektor í miðaldasögu við Birmingham-háskóla. Doktorsverkefni hans fjallaði um miðaldasögu Íslands. Hann hefur m.a. rannsakað lífsferil manna á miðöldum og viðhorf Landnámabókar til landnámskvenna.

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