5G0 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



The time of greatest intimacy between the clergy of Norway and 

 England, as we judge from the English Rolls, was the reign of Hakon 

 Hakonarson (1217-1263), and especially the decade ending in 1230. 



Toward the end of the thirteenth century records grow scanty. In 

 the fourteenth century the breach between the English and Norwegian 

 churches became complete. 



After L290 the route between Bergen and Bruges brought Norway 

 into closer contact with France. The popes moved to Avignon. 

 During the fourteenth century France (and Flanders) took the place of 

 England in the eyes of the Norwegian church. 



The date 1290 makes a convenient mark of transition. In so far as 

 the Norwegian clergy before that date imported foreign culture, espe- 

 cially foreign literature, we should expect it to come from England ; 

 after 1290 from France. When all else is discounted, there remain 

 the actual records of a sufficient number of clergy passing between 

 Norway and England to assure a literary intercourse in the twelfth and 

 thirteenth centuries. For France it is not so. The great body of 

 foreign literature, and notably the Arthurian and Carolingian romances, 

 were translated into Old Norse before 1290. The chief agent of 

 translation was the clergy, and the clergy depended for its foreign re- 

 lations upon England, to the relative exclusion of the continent. 

 England, then, and not France, was the chief medium of exchange. 



Harvard University, 

 June 1, 1908. 



