Museological approaches to pre-Christian funerals and the representation of the past in Old Norse literature
<p>Death and the disposition of the body are essential to all cultures. These events are of particular significance for medieval Scandinavia, however, as dealing with the dead was a key issue in the transition from heathen religions to Christianity. Depictions of pre-Christian funerals in Old...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | Old Norse English |
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2023
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| Summary: | <p>Death and the disposition of the body are essential to all cultures. These events are of particular significance for medieval Scandinavia, however, as dealing with the dead was a key issue in the transition from heathen religions to Christianity. Depictions of pre-Christian funerals in Old Norse sources are thus key sites for understanding medieval attitudes towards the pagan past. This thesis examines depictions of pre-Christian funerals in Old Norse literature as representations of the past through a unique theoretical framework derived from museology and heritage studies. It is built around three core concepts: the process of musealization; the idea of the ‘curatorial present’; and the production and promotion of ‘Authorised Heritage Discourses’ (AHDs). This theoretical framework is used to analyse depictions of cremation and mound inhumation in both prose and poetry from museological and heritage studies perspectives.</p>
<p>The beliefs and practices concerning death and funerals at the time in which the Old Norse corpus was produced are examined through religious texts, legal codices, and sagas. Cremation funerals are only ever depicted in the remote past of myth and legend, and the custom is characterised as an imported practice performed primarily by non-Scandinavian elites. Mound inhumation is depicted as a Scandinavian innovation that is practised up until the conversion to Christianity. The relegation of cremation to the most remote past, the emphasis placed on its foreignness, and the taboo nature of cremation within medieval Christianity and its association with exorcising the undead evidences a desire to distance this aspect of the past. This is examined through the museological concept of ‘difficult heritage’ and its application to the depiction of the funeral of Brynhildr and Sigurðr in Sigurðarkviða in skamma, Helreið Brynhildar, Vǫlsunga saga, and Norna-Gests þáttr. The widespread geographical and temporal depiction of mound inhumation, and its characterization as a Scandinavian practice, suggests the construction of cultural heritage, as it can be aligned more readily with the burial practices of the Christian curatorial present. It is examined as a heritage practice that links past and present funerary rites in Heimskringla, Landnámabók, and the Íslendingasögur through the shared practice of inhumation, creating a community of the pre-Christian dead. In the Íslendingasögur, the practice of burying the ‘bad’ dead in dysjar (stone cairns) can catalyse their transformation into malevolent draugar (revenants), reflecting medieval anxieties about life after death, the potency of the dead body, and improper burial.</p> |
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