Il computo del tempo nella Scandinavia medievale. Riflessioni sulla memoria lineare e ciclica dalle genealogie ai calendari runici

This paper focuses on medieval time-reckoning as it was conceived and experienced by the Scandinavians, both in historical perspective and in everyday life. The relevant sources have been selected from the rich Old Icelandic historical and literary corpus, but also from the vast range of runic epigraphic documents produced in Scandinavia – mostly in Sweden – from the Viking Age until late and post-medieval times. The Author’s purpose is to show how time-keeping gradually changed in the North under the influence of the Western Christian tradition, taking into account both ‘linear’ systems and ‘cyclic’ regular patterns of time, from the oldest Icelandic computus to the portable runic calendars and almanacs dating to the end of the Middle Ages and after, from the popular practices deriving from pre- Christian tradition to the new time-reckoning techniques widespread in the Christian West.