Curated category
Medieval literature
- QuranIn the year 610 CE, inside a cave named Hira on the outskirts of Mecca, Muhammad received his first revelation. The experience was not quiet or gentle.
- SaGaThe Old Norse word saga carries the weight of spoken history. Its primary meanings include what is said, an utterance, or an oral account.
- Matter of RomeIn the twelfth century, a French poet named Jean Bodel drew lines on a map of literature. He divided all stories into three great cycles: the Matter of…
- Prose EddaIceland in the early 13th century stood as a remote island where oral traditions met written history. Snorri Sturluson, an Icelandic scholar and lawspeaker…
- Matter of BritainIn the 12th century, a French poet named Jean Bodel wrote an epic poem called La Chanson des Saisnes. Within its lines he declared that all Western stories…
- Germanic heroic legendThe year 551 marks a specific moment when Jordanes wrote his Getica, embedding early Gothic heroic legends into written history.
- Rök runestoneA tall stone stood embedded in the wall of a church built during the 12th century. This structure sat within Östergötland, Sweden, near the village now…
- Sagas of IcelandersA sheet of calfskin from the thirteenth century holds the words of Egill Skallagrímsson. These prose narratives emerged during the Saga Age, spanning the…