Edda
Edda auditorium
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The University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies.
An Icelandic Traveller in Medieval Europe
Hans Jacob Orning
Friday, 6 November 2026, at 14:00
Edda auditorium (E-103)
In 1152, Nikolas Bergsson from Munkaþverá embarked upon a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Nikolas was just one of tens of thousands of pilgrims who journeyed across Europe in the Middle Ages every year. However, he left for posterity an itinerary that makes him unique in a Scandinavian setting. Leiðarvísir is a frustratingly terse source, recounting almost only dry facts of his travel, such as what towns he visited and what were their most important churches and saints. Still, he sometimes reveals more personal preferences, for instance concerning Sienese women and Mediterranean beaches. Above all, his account is a veritable treasure chest into the world of a medieval Icelander, rendering a “total” picture of what Europe was like in 1152.
In 2020, when Europe closed down due to the covid epidemic, the professors Svein H. Gullbekk and Hans Jacob Orning from University of Oslo found out that it was possible to traverse borders by using bicycle. With five kilos of luggage each, they set out to cycle in the footsteps of Nikolas Bergsson, partly to retrieve the lost world of mid-12th century Europe, partly to bring that world into dialogue with our contemporary times. The result after one month on the wheels was En reise til Roma i fotsporene til pilegrimen Nikolas Bergsson, året 1152 (Dreyer 2024), a scholarly and popular report from this journey into the past and present Europe.
In this presentation, Orning will highlight some features of Nikolas Bergsson’s universe. What was “Europe” in 1152 – and what did it mean to him? What was familiar and what was alien to an Icelander travelling through Europe at that time? How did an Icelander tap into the religious universe of Christendom? And why did he undertake his journey – was he a pilgrim, an adventurer, a tourist, or all at once?
NB: We know that the identity of Nikolas Bergsson and the manuscript context of Leiðarvísir is complex and debated. Our journey presupposes that Nikolas Bergsson did exist and undertook his journey, dictating his story after he came back.
Hans Jacob Orning is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oslo. He has published extensively on topics from the Nordic Middle Ages, most recently Constant Crisis: Deconstructing the Civil Wars in Norway, ca. 1180-1220 (Cornell 2025). He has been PI in projects on the Nordic Civil Wars, a comparison of medieval Poland and Norway, and Standardization in the North – all resulting in international anthologies. Of particular interest to Icelanders, he published The Reality of the Fantastic: The Magical, Geopolitical and Social Universe of Late Medieval Saga Manuscripts (Viborg 2017) on legendary and chivalric sagas. Since 2020, he has published five books in Norwegian on various medieval topics, including the project that will be discussed here, namely En reise til Roma i sporene til pilegrimen Nikolas Bergsson, året 1152 (co-written with Svein Gullbekk, Dreyer 2024).
The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.
The University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies
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Buses 14, 1, 6, 3 and 12 stop at the University of Iceland in Vatnsmýri. Buses 11 and 15 also stop nearby. Let's travel in an ecological way!