Articles centred on the use made by European nations of medieval texts and other artefacts to define their history and origins. The 19th century was a time of fierce national competition for the "ownership" of medieval documents and the legitimation of national histories. This volume contains papers dealing with the attempts of French scholars to claim English documents (and vice versa), as also of disputes between Scandinavian and British scholars, and Dutch, German and Italian scholars. Regionalism is also a repeated topic, with claims made for the autonomy of Frisia within the Netherlands, and Languedoc within France. Other papers deal with the rediscovery of medieval music, with early American attempts to redirect the course of 20th century poetry by appeal to medieval precedent, and with the continuing vitality of Dante's Divina Commedia (especially the Inferno) in the light of 20th century experience. The volume as a whole sheds new light on the whole process of appropriating history, which remains a vital and contentioustopic, both inside and outside the academic world. CONTRIBUTORS: MARK BURDE, MAGNUS FJALLDAL, ALPITA DE JONG, ANNETTE KREUZIGER-HERR, NILS HOLGER PETERSEN, RACHEL DRESSLER, KARL FUGELS, WILLIAM QUINN, PETER CHRISTENSEN

Medieval Icelandic authors wrote a great deal on the subject of England and the English. This new work by Magnus Fjalldal is the first to provide an overview of what Icelandic medieval texts have to say about Anglo-Saxon England in respect to its language, culture, history, and geography. Some of the texts Fjalldal examines include family sagas, the shorter poettir, the histories of Norwegian and Danish kings, and the Icelandic lives of Anglo-Saxon saints. Fjalldal finds that in response to a hostile Norwegian court and kings, Icelandic authors - from the early thirteenth century onwards (although they were rather poorly informed about England before 1066) - created a largely imaginary country where friendly, generous, although rather ineffective kings living under constant threat welcomed the assistance of saga heroes to solve their problems. The England of Icelandic medieval texts is more of a stage than a country, and chiefly functions to provide saga heroes with fame abroad. Since many of these texts are rarely examined outside of Iceland or in the English language, Fjalldal's book is important for scholars of both medieval Norse culture and Anglo-Saxon England.