6 THE KING'S MIRROR 



the knowledge that the world possessed in science, his- 

 tory, theology, and other fields of learning. The age also 

 produced various other Latin works of the didactic sort, 

 of which the Historia Scholastica of Petrus Comestor 

 was perhaps the most significant for the intellectual 

 history of the North. 



Norway had no encyclopedist, but the thirteenth 

 century produced a Norwegian writer who undertook a 

 task which was somewhat of the encyclopedic type. 

 Some time during the reign of Hakon IV, perhaps while 

 Vincent was composing his great Speculum Majus, a 

 learned Norseman wrote the Speculum Regale, or King's 

 Mirror, a work which a competent critic has character- 

 ized as " one of the chief ornaments of Old Norse litera- 

 ture." * Unlike the sagas and the romances, which have 

 in view chiefly the entertainment of the reader, the 

 King's Mirror is didactic throughout; in a few chapters 

 only does the author depart from his serious purpose, 

 and all but two of these are of distinct value. The pur- 



pffift of the work jfi +n prnvj/4*v o rwtmri VJTirl 



edge whickwilLLe of use to young men who are looking 

 for ward Jam, carper Jn the higher pjofegsions. 



As outlined in the introductory chapter, the work was 

 to deal with the four great orders of men in the Nor- 

 wegian kingdom: the merchants and their interests; the 

 king and his retainers; the church and the clergy; and 

 the peasantry or husbandmen. In the form in which the 

 King's Mirror has come down to modern times, how- 

 ever, the first two divisions only are included; not the 

 least fragment of any separate discussion of the clerical 



* B. Keyset in the introduction to the Christiania edition (p. xi). 



