Historia Norwegie: En analyse av skriftets prolog

Sammendrag

The author underlines to begin with the importance of Cicero's treatise Orator as a model for the dedication in Historia Norwegie (HN). In his commentary on §7 the present author advocates Fredrik Paasche's suggestion (1924) for identifying the dedicatee as the Franciscan Agnello da Pisa (Agnellus) who was sent on a mission to England in 1224, the apogee of which mission was the founding of a convent and school in Oxford in 1229. If this Agnellus was the dedicatee the date of HN is presumably the first half of the 1230s. Alternatively, the date could be as much as ten years earlier if Agnello and the author met each other during Agnello's time in Paris (between 1217 and 1224). The essential point is that Agnello da Pisa would have a motive for imposing a task like the one sketched out in §3. As to HN as a historical treatise, the most probable view is that there has been a sequel containing Norway's history after 1015 that has been lost.