Marian Words & Marian Images. Motifs of Intellectual and Spiritual Mediation.

The project "Marian Words & Marian Images. Motifs of Intellectual and Spiritual Mediation" highlights how Mary, the Mother of God, has been an important role model for people from the Christianization of Norway until today. The ideas and concepts about Mary changed in line with social and political prioritizations. The project has aimed to highlight the interference between religious and intellectual spheres, and Marian motifs show the interplay between religious, intellectual and political content in symbolical messages. By way of including a female perspective to the Scandinavian history, the project contributes to new perspectives on the traditional male dominant historical narrative. The most important source to the Old Norse Mary, The saga of Mary, is translated within the project. Three subprojects have been developed; one project exploring the Queens role in Viking- and Medieval Norway, secondly, a project investigating the interaction between religious and intellectual life in Late Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia, and thirdly a project exploring basic theoretical and methodological strategies for working interdisciplinary on sources with symbolic contents. Marian words and images exemplify past and present communication and place the project in a melting pot of religion, ideology and power.

This project will contribute to academic renewal in Medieval Studies by exploring medieval sources of Marian devotion. The project has two main aims. The first regards medieval mediating in general terms, developing basic theoretical and methodological st rategies for working interdisciplinary on sources with symbolic contents. The other is to explain how the cultural context was affected by the cult of Mary and vice versa, by analyzing the Old Norse Virgin Mary in terms of European practices. Grounded on the power of motifs, the project strives towards an interdisciplinary approach. Textual and pictorial motifs are carriers of symbolic content. A mediation of motifs will always involve the recipients in different manner, stimulating both intellectual and emotional conceptions. By using Marian words and images to exemplify how these structures worked in the medieval period, the project will find its place in a melting pot of religious, ideological and power-related movements. More specific, the project wil l reveal the importance of the Virgin Mary in Old Norse culture. A wide array of medieval material give witness to her strong position, but as of today, only parts of this material are well-known and debated in scholarly milieus. One priority of the proje ct is to discuss the most central Old Norse narrative about Mary, Maríu saga, which is still rarely studied by scholars. The neglect of Maríu saga in studies of Old Norse saints cult is a paradox, as there can be no doubt of her position as the leading sa int in medieval Christianity - also in Scandinavia. By highlighting unexplored material, this project provides new insight into Mary's position in this area. It will contribute to new perspectives on our Scandinavian religious history in its own right, as well as relating it more thoroughly than before to European Christian practices.