Within the last two decades, scholars have increasingly
turned their attention to constructions of impairment
and disability in medieval literature and history,
utilizing interdisciplinary approaches to cast light on
how visible and invisible difference was understood in the Middle Ages. One of
the most significant contributions to this emerging field of study remains Irina
Metzler’s 2006 monograph Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking About Physical
Impairment During the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400. Metzler’s work provided the
theoretical foundation for later studies and inspired readings of a variety of
medieval Latin and vernacular texts through the lens of critical disability
studies, an approach that “rejects the traditional bio-medical understanding of
disability as an individual deficit” and instead proposes that disability should
be understood as “as a social phenomenon embedded in social arrangements
and cultural conventions” (2).
In the field of Old Norse-Icelandic literature and medieval Icelandic history,
a number of contributions have recently appeared, which discuss physical, sensory,
and mental difference
in medieval Iceland.
These studies have clearly
demonstrated how what we now refer to as “disabilities” are present in the
prose narratives of medieval Iceland, both in characters who are central to the
narrative as well as those who are incidental within it. Various forms of
physical, sensory, and mental difference may be an important part of a central
saga character’s background, and/or an explanation for their nickname, or
may be critical to a major episode within the saga. In minor (often unnamed)
characters, physical, sensory, and mental difference may serve as a foil to the
major character, or the major character may “cure” the other’s state of
difference in order to demonstrate their own powers. As a whole, as these
studies indicate, appearances of disability motifs in the saga corpus speak to
what the saga public thought was narratively believable, and as such warrant
closer consideration.
The important scholarship on physical, sensory, and mental difference in
Old Norse society has concentrated primarily on what can be gleaned from the
Sagas and Tales of Icelanders (Íslendinga sögur and þættir), narratives based on
events that took place in Iceland during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh
centuries. Recent research has built upon this foundational work through an
examination of the lives and experiences of disabled people in Iceland as
depicted in Old Norse-Icelandic hagiography through an analysis of all
instances of physical, sensory, and mental difference from the bishops’ sagas
(biskupa sögur)—native Icelandic hagiographies that contain a number of
examples of miracles and miraculous events surrounding individuals who were
cured of a variety of forms of visible and invisible difference (Van Deusen).
An Old Norse-Icelandic text that has much overlap with the bishops’ sagas, and which
ought to be brought into the larger and ongoing conversation surrounding
constructions of disability in medieval Icelandic hagiographic literature, is
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar [The Saga of Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson], a samtíðarsaga
[contemporary saga] with overt hagiographic overtones. The aim of this article
is twofold. Firstly, it seeks to demonstrate through the identification and
analysis of two instances in the saga that the text is also a valuable source for
an understanding of psychological disability in medieval Iceland through its
descriptions of the experiences and treatments of individuals who are depicted
as experiencing mental distress, which may, in turn, cause individuals to
experience physical or sensory difference. Secondly, it argues that the saga’s
presentation of mental difference is another important way in which this saga
may be characterized as pseudo-hagiographic in nature, especially when
compared to other vernacular hagiographies and the version of text
incorporated into Sturlunga saga.
Mental Distress in Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar, which belongs to the textual corpus of the so-called
samtíðarsögur [contemporary sagas] due to its account of events that had
only just recently occurred, concerns the eponymous Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson (d.
1213), a wealthy chieftain from Eyri in Arnarfjörðr. Hrafn was the son of
Sveinbjörn Bárðarson svarti [the Black] and Steinunn Þórðardóttir, and married
Hallkatla Einarsdóttir in Kaldaðarnes, with whom he had eight children. Hrafn
was a poet and a skilled craftsman who was both well-spoken and well-versed
in the law, and who travelled widely. Politically, Hrafn was a chieftain who was
known for being generous, capable, and popular (Ólason 373). Details of his
career as a chieftain and as a healer are recounted in Hrafns saga, which was
composed between 1230 and 1250 and exists in the so-called “separate saga” in
two versions (the original A-version and the condensed B-version) and the text
incorporated into Sturlunga saga. The saga, which was edited in 1987 by Guðrún
P. Helgadóttir, centres on Hrafn’s feud with the Vatnsfjörðr chieftain Þorvaldr
Snorrason (d. 1235), which ultimately led to Hrafn being killed in 1213.
Prior to the description of Hrafn’s feud with Þorvaldr Snorrason, the
separate saga describes in great detail Hrafn’s devotion to God and his career as
a physician [læknir]. Shortly before 1200, Hrafn went on pilgrimage to
Canterbury, St. Giles, Rome, and Santiago de Compostella, where he visited
shrines of saints and dedicated his life to God. Once he returned to Iceland by
way of Norway, Hrafn began to practice healing, and treated a number of
individuals of a variety of ailments and did so without accepting payment. The
saga author stresses that God assisted Hrafn in all of his healing tasks. He writes
that “Torvelt er at tína ǫll ágæti íþróttligrar lækningar hans, þeirar er guð gaf
honum. En fyrir því má slíkt eigi undarligt sýnask, at guði eru engir hlutir
ómáttugir, ok af guði er ǫll sǫnn lækning” [It would be difficult to enumerate
all the skilful treatments and cures which God granted Hrafn to perform. But
this should not seem strange, since from God comes all true healing], and then
quotes St Paul: “Alii gratia sanitarum in eodem spiritu” [to some men is given
the grace [of healing] by the Holy Spirit] (Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar 6; The
Saga of Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson 9–10). Indeed, the divine gift of healing was said to
have been bestowed upon Hrafn’s family by St. Óláfr of Norway through his son,
Magnús góði [the Good], alongside whom Hrafn’s great-grandfather fought at
the battle of Wends (Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar xci–xcii; McDougall 66).
Through a combination of medical skill and divine favour, Hrafn healed a
variety of conditions; these included wounds, illnesses that caused extreme
swelling throughout the body, and painful bladder stones. In addition to these
physical ailments, Hrafn is said to have treated two individuals who are
characterized by the saga as in need of a cure for their experiences of mental
distress. In both cases, the accounts are brief, and detail within the span of
several sentences the individuals’ psychological conditions and the methods by
which Hrafn cured them. However, despite their length, the accounts cast light
on how mental distress was named and treated in medieval Iceland. The first
account involves an unnamed woman, whose experiences of mental distress and
Hrafn’s treatment thereof are described as follows:
Kona sú kom á fund Hrafns, er mikit hugarválað hafði. Hon grét
lǫngum ok var svá brjóstþjungt, at nær helt henni [p. 6] til ørvilnunar.
Hrafn tók henni æðablóð i hendi í æði þeiri er hann kallaði þrotandi.
En þegar eptir þat varð hon heil.
(Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar 5–6)
i [A woman came to Hrafn; she was very depressed in mind, often wept
a great deal, and she had such a feeling of heaviness in her chest that
it was difficult for her to breathe: she was near despair. Hrafn opened
a vein in her arm called the þjótandi, and after that she was well.]
(The Saga of Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson 8)
The second example, which immediately follows the first (indicating a
perceived thematic connection between the two on the part of the saga author),
concerns a man named Þorgils, who is similarly suffering from mental distress;
unlike the unnamed woman, who is described as having
hugarválað [depression,
literally misery of mind or heart], Þorgils suffered from fits of
vitfirring
[insanity, literally wit estrangement] that brought on violent physical attacks.
The text reads:
Þorgils hét maðr, er tók vitfirring. Hann var svá sterkr, at margir
karlar urðu at halda honum. Síðan kom Hrafn til hans ok brenndi
hann í hǫfði díla nǫkkura, ok tók hann þegar vit sitt. Litlu síðar varð
hann heill.
(Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar 6)
[There was another man by the name of Thorgils who was subject to
fits of insanity. He was so strong that several men had all they could
do to hold him when the attacks came on him. Hrafn cauterized him
in several places on the head; then he came to his senses and a little
later he was cured.]
(The Saga of Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson 8)
In both of these scenes, the individuals are evidently cured of their mental
distress through Hrafn’s medical intervention—for the woman, by bleeding, and
for the man, by cauterization, which was a common treatment at the time (
The
Saga of Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson 7; see also McDougall 66–67). As Ásdís Egilsdóttir
notes, Hrafn’s use of medical techniques is hardly uncommon when considered
within the broader context of medieval miracle stories, which “frequently tell
us that people tried to get help from local healers and home remedies before
they invoked a saint and there was also a very fine line between folk-remedies
and ecclesiastically approved methods” (35).
No background is given for either of the two instances of mental distress in
Hrafns saga, and as such the text does not provide information on their
perceived causes; there is no description of any moral failing or particular
action that led to the two individuals’ experiences, which is not atypical in
comparable examples from the biskupa sögur and hagiographic literature more
generally speaking, where the focus tends to be on the miraculous cure, which
showcases the power of the saintly individual and their connection to God (Van
Deusen 13). The saga makes clear that in both instances, mental distress brings
on temporary physical impairment, speaking to how interrelated experiences
of physical, sensory, and mental difference were seen as being; the woman has
difficulty breathing due to having hugarválað, and Þorgils loses control of his
body in his fits of vitfirring. What is also clear from the text is the belief that
mental distress can be cured through Hrafn’s divinely endowed healing powers.
And, as is characteristic of instances of physical, sensory, and mental difference
in the biskupa sögur, the individuals and their experiences are included not for
their own sake, but rather to demonstrate the saintly nature of the individual
who cured them, and their special relationship with God. Some incidental
insight is given as to their condition and, in the case of Þorgils, how it was
managed by members of his community, namely through restraint, much like
the binding strategies used for individuals experiencing mental distress in, for
example, Jóns saga helga as well as Guðmundar saga A (Van Deusen 15–16; 19–20).
And just like in comparable examples in the biskupa sögur, no further
information is provided on the individuals after the scenes in which they are
healed; the purpose of their stories has been served, as they have sufficiently
demonstrated the sanctity of the healer and his special relationship with God,
from whom all healing comes (Van Deusen 21–22).
Of particular interest when considering the hagiographic nature of the two
examples in which Hrafn treated individuals experiencing mental distress are
the Old Norse terms used to describe their experience—the neuter noun
hugarválað for the woman and the feminine noun vitfirring for Þorgils. The
Dictionary of Old Norse Prose lists 15 instances of the noun hugarválað in the corpus
of Old Norse-Icelandic prose. Other than its use in Hrafns saga, it is found
exclusively in religious literature—both in translated texts from Latin and
German sources as well as in a number of examples from the saga of Bishop
Þorlákr Þórhallsson, in which the saintly bishop cured individuals afflicted with
this condition. Christopher Crocker, Yoav Tirosh, and Ármann Jakobsson note
that examples of hugarválað in hagiographic narratives are “often presented as
temporary” and point to the example of “when Saint Þorlákr cures a man who
tried to commit suicide when in the throes of a bout of hugarválað (melancholy)”
(16). Another example concerns a woman named Þorbjǫrg, who according to
Jarteinabók Þorláks byskups önnur “tók vanheilsu mikla, svá at hon var ávallt með
miklum vanmætti, en stundum hætt með öllu. Hon hafði ok hugarválað mikit,
en var snauð at auðæfum” [became very sick, so that she was always very weak,
and sometimes stopped altogether. She also had a great depression, and she was
poor]. Bishop Þorlákr appeared twice to Þorbjǫrg; the second time he appeared
to her, “styrkði byskup hana þá með öllu, ok er hon vaknaði þá var hon heil” [he
strengthened her in everything, and when she awoke she was cured] (Biskupa
sögur II 240). In the case of Hrafns saga, more traditionally medical methods are
used to treat the woman, but previous remarks in the saga regarding the divine
nature of Hrafn’s healing gift (bestowed upon his family through the
intercession of St. Óláfr) is what ultimately accounts for the treatment’s
effectiveness.
The use of the noun vitfirring is more widespread and is found in religious
texts but also in other works, such as medical miscellanies and law codes.
However, the entries for this word in the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose indicate a
large portion of those works in which the term is found are works that may be
defined as religious in nature, and the term is used in descriptions of cures
performed by Iceland’s saintly bishops, as well as in Cecilíu saga, which was
translated into Old Norse from Latin (Dictionary of Old Norse Prose; Van Deusen
13, 16). One such example, which can be compared to the episode in Hrafns saga,
is from the S and H recensions of Jóns saga helga and concerns a man named
Kálfr, who “tok vitfirring svá at hann varð í bǫndum at hafa” [lost his mind and
had to be tied up] (Biskupa sögur I 283; The Saga of St. Jón of Hólar 77). One of Kálfr’s
kinsmen made a vow to Bishop Jón on his behalf, and on the next night Kálfr
experienced a vision of a man who was “mikill ok virðuligr” [tall and noble-looking]
(Biskupa sögur I 283; The Saga of St. Jón of Hólar 77). The man, who was
presumably Bishop Jón himself, told Kálfr that he had experienced God’s wrath
for leading an evil life and for failing to cross himself before he drank. He
advised Kálfr to behave more carefully and piously in the future, and instructed
him how to do penance for his sins, which the man said would also please the
holy Bishop Þorlákr. Kálfr awoke the next morning, “heill orðinn” [completely
cured] and with his wits restored, and told his kinsmen of what he had seen
(Biskupa sögur I 283; The Saga of St. Jón of Hólar 77). Unlike the episode in Hrafns
saga, where there is no cause indicated for Þorgils’ vitfirring, the author of Jóns
saga provides an explanation for Kálfr’s vitfirring. However, the means by which
the men are understood through the respective texts to have been cured—through the intervention of an individual endowed by God with healing
powers—is the same, as is the manner in which the individuals with vitfirring
were handled: by being bound. But with the instance of the unnamed woman,
there is an implied medical understanding of how to treat the condition, which
is combined with a religious one. As Guðrún P. Helgadóttir notes, while “the
accounts of Hrafn’s treatments begin and end with phrases closely resembling
those that are conventional of reports in miracles . . . the methods he is
described as using are of a pragmatic kind, firmly based on classical medical
learning and its medieval development in southern Europe,” though the saga
author did not “discriminate between the powers of healing divinely bestowed
and powers of healing humanly acquired” (Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar xciv).
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar as Pseudo-Hagiography
Margaret Cormack describes
Hrafns saga as being “infused with the odor of
sanctity,” and discusses the various hagiographic motifs found in the saga,
including his work as healer (210). Ásdís Egilsdóttir similarly points out the
hagiographic qualities of the text, comparing the text to the legend of St.
Þorlákr. Ásdís writes that the healing powers exhibited by Hrafn and the
miracles he performs are one of the many qualities that characterize Hrafn as a
saint-like figure, particularly since his healing abilities derive ultimately from
God (32). She writes that the way in which Hrafn’s cures are described is
not very different from the miraculous cures related in the Icelandic
saints’ lives. The need for divine sanction and support is obvious when
Hrafn has to perform a risky operation. Hrafn seeks the opinion of
priests and wise men in his household; they say that the patient will
die unless he is operated on. On their verdict and with God’s help
Hrafn decides to operate, and before doing so he asks everyone
present to chant five paternosters.
(Egilsdóttir 36)
Similarly, in the introduction to her critical edition of the saga, Guðrún P.
Helgadóttir points out the comparability of the healing miracles in
Hrafns saga
with those found in Icelandic saints’ lives (xciii–xciv). Sarah Baccianti, too,
comments on the “link between healing hands, spiritual intercession . . . and
medical knowledge” in the saga, where Hrafn is portrayed as a saint-like figure,
and his medical skill is a gift from God (75–76). None of this, of course, is a
coincidence, as the saga author is said to have modelled his life of Hrafn on the
life of St. Magnús by Master Robert as well as the life of Thomas Becket, probably
the one written by Robert of Cricklade (
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsónar lxiv–lxxiv;
Egilsdóttir 34–35; Antonsson 170).
A close examination of the two instances in the saga in which Hrafn cures
individuals of mental distress confirms previous characterizations of the saga
as pseudo-hagiographic in nature, and Hrafn, in turn, as a pseudo-saintly figure.
As noted above, the examples considered in this article may be directly
compared to the names for and treatments of mental distress found in the
larger corpus of bishops’ sagas and translated hagiographical literature from
medieval Iceland, a corpus that provides a unique perspective on physical,
sensory, and mental difference through their focus on both the perceived cause
of the condition and its perceived cure through divine intervention (Van
Deusen). But, as noted above, the examples in Hrafns saga stand slightly apart
from these instances, as they combine both a medical and religious
understanding of the treatment for the mental distress experienced by the
unnamed woman and Þorgils. The saga author makes clear that Hrafn’s skill in
medicine and his healing abilities are bestowed upon him by the grace of God,
as is the case in comparable examples from, for example, the sagas of Iceland’s
holy bishops as well as translated hagiographic literature. In this way, the
examples of mental distress and their combined medical and religious methods
of healing, described with vocabulary found predominantly—or exclusively, in
the case of hugarválað—in hagiographic and religious texts, and following the
same healing paradigms as in these texts (namely, to show predominantly the
saintly power of the healer), reflect the saga’s hybrid characterization as a
contemporary saga and a hagiography.
It is also noteworthy that these scenes do not appear in the
Sturlunga saga
version of the text. The elimination of these scenes in
Sturlunga saga also
supports Úlfar Bragason’s conclusion with regard to the key differences
between the longer version of the saga and the shortened version in
Sturlunga
saga. Úlfar writes that
whereas the author of the original version mixed
elements of hagiographic literature with a conventional feud story, his purpose
being to write an exemplum of a good Christian, the compiler of Sturlunga tried
to eliminate the hagiographic features by shortening Hrafns saga in accordance
with other feud stories of his compilation. These changes resulted in a different
emphasis and meaning of the Sturlunga version of Hrafns saga”
(267).
Ásdís
Egilsdóttir similarly observes that the separate saga is “a mixture of
hagiography and a conventional thirteenth-century Icelandic feud narrative,”
and states that the compiler of
Sturlunga saga “omits or shortens hagiographic,
religious or supernatural material” (29). The absence of the examples discussed
above from the
Sturlunga saga version is therefore consistent with previous
scholars’ argument that the compiler of
Sturlunga saga intentionally omitted the
material that could be characterized as hagiographic.
Conclusion
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar is a valuable source to consider when attempting
to understand constructions of disability in medieval Iceland, and especially
how mental distress was named, experienced, and treated. The examples in the
saga of the unnamed woman and of Þorgils mirror similar examples of mental
distress from the biskupa sögur. As such, they serve to further solidify the
characterization of the saga as pseudo-hagiographical, particularly since these
examples were omitted in the Sturlunga saga version. The examples not only
help to characterize Hrafns saga as a pseudo-hagiography and reflect through
their own hybrid medical and religious features the saga’s hybrid nature,
but
they also contribute to our larger understanding of how various forms of
difference were understood and experienced, particularly within a Christian
religious context. The two episodes in question also serve to remind us that
psychological disability is not a modern phenomenon, and that individuals in
the premodern world experienced difference in a variety of different ways, just
as they do today. Because of the distinctly Christian perspective from which this
text was written, the scene in which two individuals are cured of mental distress
through Hrafn’s combined medical and religious intervention also illustrates
how hagiographic and pseudo-hagiographic texts provide deeper insight into
ideas of the perceived religious causes for and especially the means of “curing”
individuals with physical, sensory, and mental difference. As such, it ought to
be considered both within the larger hagiographic corpus but also alongside
examples from the “secular” sagas as well as within the wider scope of the
religious understandings of disability in the European Middle Ages.