Marriage in the sagas of chivalries : with implications concerning the "un-civilising" character of the sagas for the Norwegian court

Abstract

This thesis will examine marriage in the sagas of chivalries, in order to characterise the sagas' example for Hákon Hákonarson's court as "civilising" or "un-civilising". My definition of "civilised" will be determined by three main theoretical perspectives, namely Elias' theory on the civilisation process, gender theory and theory concerning the Christian influence on the civilisation process. The main approach in the thesis will be comparison between the 13th century Norwegian context and the context created by four sagas of chivalries. The introductions of all four chosen chivalric sagas mention that king Hákon commissioned their translations. The comparative analysis will focus on four aspects of marriage , namely the arrangement of marriage, the legitimacy of offspring, adultery and divorce. The main conclusion of the thesis is that even though the chivlaric sagas may have introduced a civilising example to the Norwegian court on some aspects, the predominant example seems to be "un-civilising", at least according to the theoretical perspectives adopted in the thesis.