New publication: Byzantine history in the legend of Saint Olaf of Norway

 
Today, a collection of articles was published where I was fortunate enough to contribute with a publication. The book in question is based on a conference on Byzantine history in hagiography, arranged in Paris in December 2017. I was invited to give a presentation, and since I am not a byzantinist I decided to talk about a miracle story that appears in Miracula Olavi, a collection of miracles pertaining to Saint Olaf of Norway, collected in the end of the twelfth century. According to the miracle account, Saint Olaf appeared to a group of Varangians - the Byzantine imperial body guard - in a battle against the nomadic Pechenegs and caused Byzantine victory. This story is found in many different versions in Latin and Old Norse texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and I provided an overview of the various versions and their developments. 

The book is titled L'histoire comme elle se présentait dans l'hagiographie byzantine et médiévale, and is edited by Anna Lampadaridi, Christian Høgel, and Vincent Deroche. It is available in open access on this website. My own contribution is titled "Byzantine history in the legend of Saint Olaf of Norway". 

I am very happy to be included in this collection, because the conference was very interesting and the volume is full of interesting materials. It has also been one of the most rewarding texts I have ever written, and definitely text I have had the most fun writing, because I was venturing so far out of my expertise that I had to learn a lot of new things, and to seek help from a number of colleagues. And I was lucky enough to get very expert and patient aid from the editors, without whom I would have delivered a product of much lower quality.