This thesis aims to shed light on the presence of the Old Swedish courtly literature in the changing profane textual landscape of medieval Sweden to better understand the function and significance of this literature. The point of departure for this study are the three verse romances collectively known as the Eufemiavisor and their properties in their capacity as courtly literature. The material consists of 31 profane literary works and 26 manuscripts produced between 1300 and 1529. The study draws on polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1990) and makes use of notions and approaches from various fields of textual scholarship such as philology and the history of literature.

The study is divided into three main parts. The first part focuses on the work perspective and structures the development of the Old Swedish profane textual landscape into four stages: introduction and establishment; diversification and expansion; politicizing and centralisation; and further development and administration of literary traditions. The second part, which analyses the use of a courtly repertoire in the corpus, uses these stages to interpret the results. The courtly repertoire is defined as a set of properties manifested in the Eufemiavisor. The properties included in the analysis are a courtly vocabulary, certain expressions, the form Knittelvers, adventure as a theme, and the intratextual temporal and spatial settings. The analysis shows that certain parts of the repertoire quickly become obsolete while others (such as a core vocabulary and the Knittelvers) remain productive until the end of the Middle Ages but gradually transform into stereotypes or evolve to become useful outside of a courtly literary context. The third part focuses on the manuscript perspective. A network analysis of the texts’ appearances in manuscripts shows that even though the Eufemiavisor had a central position, the rhyme chronicle Erikskrönikan could be considered the central node connecting various interests and textual orientations, keeping the chronicle relevant throughout the Middle Ages. The analysis of the transmission of the Eufemiavisor reveals their dynamic and multifunctional nature. Of the three romances, Hertig Fredrik av Normandie is perhaps the most nuanced, a factor that may have contributed to it being the most copied as well as the longest-lasting of the Eufemiavisor.

The results suggest a gradual move of the courtly repertoire from a central position towards a peripheral position in the literary system as a consequence of a growing system, new interests, and new groups governing the system. By the end of the Middle Ages, the function of the courtly repertoire appears to have become one of preservation of traditional literary taste.

The Old Swedish romance Hertig Fredrik af Normandie, one of the Eufemiavisor,has been preserved in six different manuscripts from the late Middle Ages. The Old Danish rendering of the story, Hertug Frederik af Normandi, is only available to us in one single manuscript, Cod. Holm. K 47. Although it was translated from Swedish in the fifteenth century and shares many features with its Swedish counterparts, there is also significant variation concerning wording and contents between the K 47 text witness and those in Old Swedish. Some textual differences between the text witnesses could be explained as results of lacunae and corruptions in the sources, but the nature of some of the variation in the K 47 text witness could also indicate scribal adaptation strategies related to the interests and expectations of the audience. The overall purpose of the K 47 manuscript as a whole may have been to amuse readers with a renewed interest in courtly culture.

This article examines the linguistic variation and paleographical phenomena in the 15th century Old Swedish manuscript Codex Thott 4 4:o. The manuscript contains the Pentateuch Paraphrase, the oldest known Bible text in the Swedish vernacular. A comparison between Cod. Thott 4 4:o and Codex Holm A 1, the other remaining Old Swedish manuscript containing the Pentateuch Paraphrase, reveals significant linguistic variation even though the manuscripts are thought to share a common source. Cod. Thott 4 4:o has been considered the work of one person, an experienced scribe, albeit not always consistent in his actions. One of the most interesting features of Cod. Thott 4 4:o is that the linguistic variation vis-à-vis Cod. Holm A 1 seems unevenly distributed. This seeming inconsistency of the Cod. Thott 4 4:o scribe also seems to somewhat correlate with paleographical phenomena. A combination of analyses of the linguistic variation vis-à-vis Cod. Holm A 1 and the paleographical phenomena in Cod. Thott 4 4:o suggests that Cod. Thott 4 4:o could in fact be the work of two scribes with somewhat different work principles. Similar to Haukur Erlendsson in Hauksbók, one of the scribes of Cod. Thott 4 4:o frequently changes and adapts his material whereas the other scribe more often follows the source.