Abstract
The roles of women in the medieval Scandinavian society will be analysed from two principal points of view: those of documents (DN) and of the official fiction, the chivalric sagas. Thus, we will focus on the real social roles as well as on the literary roles of women in the contemporary courtly epics.
The analysed correspondence has been chosen from the period of queen Eufemia's life, the second most famous Norwegian ruler to order courtly epics to be translated into Old Norse. Therefore, we will simultaneously focus on literary texts: courtly epic translated in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Norway was European cultural periphery at the beginning of the 13th century, so the first translations, commissioned by Hákon the Old, were meant to affect the extra-literary attitudes of the aristocratic audience. Thus, possible influence on real life should be considered.
We will also ask whether the texts express some strong attitudes towards women and we will examine the proverbial "Norse gender equality".