I am the project leader for two projects: "Transformations of Medieval Law: Innovation and Application in Early Modern Norwegian Law Books" and "Ballads Across Borders: The Faroe Islands in the Norse Story-Telling World".

My research is centred on later translations of medieval texts (both early modern and modern), early modern law books, legal prologues, the Faroese Völsung ballads and Old Norse prosimetrum, particularly in the fornaldarsögur. 

Selected publications (see my Academia.edu page for PDFs of many of these)

• 2022. 'Translation and the Fracturing of the Law: The Motivation Behind the Norwegian Law of 1604.' RMN Newsletter 15-16 (2020-2021): 57-65.
• 2019.   ‘Ǫrvar-Oddr’s Ævikviða and the Genesis of Ǫrvar-Odds saga: A Poem on the Move.’ Moving Words. Ed. Amy Mulligan and Else Mundal. Turnhout: Brepols. 279-296
• 2018.   ‘Perspectives on Translating Medieval Law.’ Tradurre: un viaggio nel tempo. Ed. Maria Grazia Cammarota. Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari. 131-147.
• 2017. 'The Ecology of Eddic and Skaldic Poetry.' RMN Newsletter 12-13: 123-138.
• 2016. 'Eddic Poetry and the Genre System of the Fornaldarsögur.' Genre – Text - Interpretation: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Folklore and Beyond. Ed. Frog, Kaarina Koski and Ulla Savolainen. Studia Fennica 22. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. 251-275.
• 2015. 'The Old Norse Poetic Form stikki.' RMN Newsletter 9: 35-43.
• 2014. 'The Death Songs of Örvar-Odds saga.' Cartografies del l’ànima. Identitat, memòria i escriptura. Ed. Isabel Grifoll, Julián Acebrón & Flocel Sabaté. Lleida: Pagès editors. 231-244.
• 2013. 'Younger Icelandic Manuscripts and Old Norse Studies.' Approaching Methodology. Ed. Frog & Pauliina Latvala with Helen F. Leslie. Revised 2nd edition with an introduction by Ulrika Wolf-Knuts. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Humaniora series, Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica. 287-309.
• 2012. 'Younger Icelandic Manuscripts and Old Norse Studies.' RMN Newsletter (special issue Approaching Methodology) 5: 148-161.
• 2010. '"The Matter of Hrafnista".'  Quaestio Insularis 11: 169 – 208.
• 2009. 'Border Crossings: Landscape and the Other World in the Fornaldarsögur.' Scripta Islandica 60: 119 – 136.

Programdeltagelse

• Koch, Sören; Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances; Hatløy, Brage Thunestvedt et al. (2024). Publisering av Landsloven - Paneldebatt og podcast. (ekstern lenke)

Vitenskapelig artikkel

• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2023). Corrected and Improved: The Motivation behind the Printing of the Norwegian Lawbook of 1604. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2022). Translation and the Fracturing of the Law: The Motivation Behind the Norwegian Law of 1604. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2022). The Parergon and the Transformation of the Prologues to the Medieval and Early Modern Norwegian 'Landslǫg' (1274–1604). (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). The Ecology of Eddic and Skaldic Poetry. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). The Old Norse Poetic Form stikki. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Younger Icelandic Manuscripts and Old Norse Studies. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). "The Matter of Hrafnista". (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2009). Border Crossings: Landscape and the Other World in the Fornaldarsögur. (ekstern lenke)

Vitenskapelig Kapittel/Artikkel/Konferanseartikkel

• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2022). The Theft of Food in Thirteenth- Century Norway and Iceland. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2022). Accretive Quotation and the Performance of Verse in Fagrskinna. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Ǫrvar-Oddr's Ævikviða and the Genesis of Ǫrvar-Odds saga: A Poem on the Move. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). Perspectives on Translating Medieval Law. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2016). Eddic Poetry and the Genre System of the Fornaldarsögur. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2014). The Death Songs of Örvar-Odds saga. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2013). Younger Icelandic Manuscripts and Old Norse Studies. (ekstern lenke)

Poster

• Myking, Synnøve Midtbø; Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Mellomalderlov i endring. Nyvinningar og bruksmåtar i førmoderne norske lovhandskrift . (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). Transformations of Medieval Law: Ordering, Conveying and Updating Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Norwegian and Iceland Law Books, from 1274 to 1687. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). Transformations of Medieval Law. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). Sigurðr in the Medieval North. (ekstern lenke)

Vitenskapelig foredrag

• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Offuerset, corrigerit oc forbedrit: The First Printed Norwegian Law of 1604. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Queer Textures of the Past, 5th to 16th Centuries: A Round Table Discussion. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Parergon, Paratext and Processes of Transformation in the Medieval Legal Prologue. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Mangia godh thing: Saint Birgitta in a 14th Century Norwegian Law Manuscript. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). The Eyes of Justice: Morality and Body Metaphors in English Legal Texts. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Non-Linear Access to Information in Manuscript Books. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). The Codicological Contexts of Norwegian Law in the Middle Ages. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). The Cross in Text and Image: Sources of the Dream of the Rood. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Grant Writing Workshop. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). The 1604 Danish Translation of 13th-Century Norwegian Law. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). Taking the Law West in the 9th to 13th Centuries. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). The Self-Representation of King Magnus the Law-Mender in the Landslov of 1274. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). St Bridget in a Norwegian Legal Manuscript: Codex Hardenbergensis. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). “Written at the Beginning, Before the Book itself Begins”: Prologues to Medieval Norwegian Laws.. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). Mangia godh thing: St. Birgitta at the Beginning of a Norwegian Law Manuscript. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). How Innovative is Innovative? Adaptations of Norwegian Law in New Law Codes in Iceland and Norway from the Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). Final Places of Belonging: Home in the Old Norse Death Songs. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). The Sacred Grove in Pre-Christian Germanic Religion. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). Laws for the Margin of Society in 13th Century Norway. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). The Figure of the Poet and the Old Norse Death Songs. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). Definitions of Terms and Social Norms in Medieval Norwegian Law. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2016). Food and the Landslov in Thirteenth Century Norway. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2016). The Performance of Skaldic Poetry in the Prosimetric Fagrskinna. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2016). 'If a Man Steals Apples or Turnips': Law and Food in 13th-Century Norway. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2016). Aspects of the Germanic Hero Sigurðr Fáfnisbani in Medieval Scandinavia, Especially Norway. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). The Medieval Germanic Hero and Old Age. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). New Directions in Fornaldarsögur Studies Round Table (Ballads). (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). “Ertu ei sá Oddr er fór til Bjarmalands fyrir lǫngu?”: Places and the Construction of Ǫrvar-Odds saga. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). The Evidence for the Existence and Function of Sacred Groves in Germanic Pre-Christian Belief. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). Project Presentation: Approaches to the Manuscript Compilations of the Landslov. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). Coming Face to Face with Sigurd Fafnesbane in Medieval Norway. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). The Sacred Grove in Germanic/Scandinavian Pre-Christian Religion. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). The Norwegian National Law of 1274 and its translation into English. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2014). Omsetjing til engelsk (igangverande). (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2014). Medieval Icelandic Prosimetra in the Context of the Learned Tradition. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2014). The Landslov of 1274. A new translation. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2014). The mise-en-page of poetry in manuscripts of fornaldarsögur. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2014). Intertextual Perspectives on Örvar-Oddr's Death Song in its Various Manuscripts. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2014). Eddic Poetry in the Fornaldarsögur: Contexts and Questions. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2013). Runic Revaluations and the Bryggen (Bergen) Finds. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Mise-en-page and the prosimetrum of Ketils saga hængs. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Heroes and the Death Song in Germanic Tradition. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry: Snorra Edda and the fornaldarsögur. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Mise-en-page and the Prosimetrum of Ketils saga hængs. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Latin and the Light Literature in Old Norse. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Settling the North and Mythic Ethnography in Two Old Icelandic Genres. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2011). Types of Poetic Autobiography in Old Norse Legendary Sagas. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2011). Starting Points for the Theory of "Science" Essay. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2011). Unanswered Questions: Intertextuality and the Shaping of Gylfaginning. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2011). Unanswered Questions: Intertextuality and the Shaping of Gylfaginning. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2011). Well-Pissers and Water Goblins: What the Monsters of Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka Mean. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2011). Three Vættir in Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2011). Grottasǫngr. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). Performing Óðinn and the Prosimetric Form in Snorra Edda. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). Performing Óðinn and the Prosimetric Form in Snorra Edda (article presentation). (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). The Introduction of Eddic Poems into the Narrative of Gylfaginning. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). Project: Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). Continuum of Tradition and the Men of Hrafnista. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). The Quotation of Grottasöngr in Snorra Edda. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2009). Landscape and the Other Worlds of the Fornaldarsögur. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2009). The Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2009). Landscape and the Other World in the Fornaldarsögur. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2008). “Metamorphosis of Context: Generating Meaning in Völuspá”. (ekstern lenke)

Faglig foredrag

• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). Transformations of Medieval Law: The Hows and Whys of Designing a Larger Research Project. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2019). TMS Starting Grant – A Personal Path to Funding. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2018). Transformations of Medieval Law: Innovation and Application in Early Modern Norwegian Law Books. Project Presentation.. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). Round Table: Career Planning & Funding Applications. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2017). Round Table: Teaching: Skills and Technologies. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). Member of Group "Endings and Beginnings". (ekstern lenke)

Populærvitenskapelig foredrag

• Leslie-Jacobsen, Helen Frances (2015). Cycles of Violence in Old Norse Mythology. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2010). Old Norse, Manuscripts and Rune Stones. (ekstern lenke)

Vitenskapelig antologi/Konferanseserie

• Leslie, Helen Frances (2013). Approaching Methodology: Second Revised Edition with an Introduction by Ulrika Wolf-Knuts. (ekstern lenke)

Doktorgradsavhandling

• Leslie, Helen Frances (2013). Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry, Primarily in the Fornaldarsǫgur. (ekstern lenke)

Anmeldelse

• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). Gunnhild Røthe: I Odins Tid: Norrøn Religion i Fornaldersagaene. (ekstern lenke)
• Leslie, Helen Frances (2012). In Odin's time: Norse religion in historical age sagas. (ekstern lenke)

Se en full oversikt over publikasjoner i Cristin

Project leader for:

Transformations of Medieval Law: Innovation and Application in Early Modern Norwegian Law Books

Funded by Bergen Research Foundation and University of Bergen

The research project Transformations of Medieval Law explores how medieval and Early Modern law books in Norway and Iceland reflect the legal and cultural contexts in which they were written and compiled. How were the laws recorded before the timeframe of the recognisable red volume, Norges lover 1687-2015?

The answer to that is found in over 100 manuscripts preserving Norway’s medieval and Early Modern law-code. The law code valid in Norway prior to 1687 was written in Bergen and passed in 1274, and is known as the Landslov, the first law-code valid for the whole of Norway. It was in force for an exceptional 400 years, lasting for the reigns of 19 monarchs until it was superseded by Christian den femtes Norske Lov of 1687. This exceptionally long-lived code is of the utmost importance for Norway’s history; law manuscripts are the most abundant genre of manuscript available from medieval to Early Modern times. 1 During that period, Norway transformed from a medieval kingdom to an Early Modern European state, the sweeping changes in religion, culture and language all captured in and reflected by the law manuscripts of the period.

The problem is that many of the manuscripts pertinent to this project are so far unedited and not analysed: whilst the medieval Landslov manuscripts from the 14th century onwards in Old Norwegian have generally been well-researched, very little information is available about the translation of the law from Old Norwegian to Danish in early modern Norway (16th and 17th centuries), the ammendments by the roster of later monarchs who later edited the law, and its revision to form the law-code Jónsbók in Iceland, some parts of which are still in force today.

This innovative project seeks to fill this gap in research by employing methodologies and theoretical frameworks in a novel way to combine legal history and philology. The project team will undertake research on the later manuscripts of the Landslov in order to gain an insight into the development of the law from the end of the Middle Ages onwards. The project makes these manuscripts and their contents accessible to a wide audience, and highlights Norwegian Early Modern cultural heritage, thus making an important contribution to the study of Norway’s legal, linguistic and book history from a hitherto unexplored perspective.

The project has been developed based on the following research questions:

1) How and to what extent do innovations in the structure, contents and use of law books of Early Modern Norway reflect changes to Norwegian society during the Reformation and Renaissance?

2) How did legal circles in Norway and Iceland order and apply their knowledge in medieval and Early Modern times?

The goal of the project is to situate this approach in the cultural, historical and religious contexts in which the Landslov existed through its lifetime. The interdisciplinary, longue durée approach presented here is a unique approach to the contextualisation, transformation and application of the law.

Ballads Across Borders: The Faroe Islands in the Norse Story-Telling World

Young CAS Fellowship, Centre for Advanced Studies (Oslo)

The Faroe Islands are a tiny archipelago nation in the North Atlantic Ocean with a truly unique story-telling heritage; this project explores how this small community preserved and transmitted some of the most exciting and enduring stories from Germanic legends. The Faroese medieval heroic ballads preserve an enormous amount of material from the story-world of the medieval north. Despite this, they remain hugely under-researched and are inaccessible to most researchers.

The project 'Ballads Across Borders: The Faroe Islands in the Norse Story-Telling World (BARD)' will conduct ground-breaking research on the medieval heroic Faroese ballads from the perspective of Old Norse philology, thereby locating the Faroese ballads in the Norse story-telling world. By doing so, the project will uncover new material about several of the preeminent heroes of the north: Sigurðr Fáfnisbani (the mighty dragon slayer, called Sjúrður Fávnisbani in Faroese) and his mysterious and violent lover, Brynhildr Buðladóttir, not only updating but significantly extending previous research. The subject of the project is three, very long, medieval Faroese ballads called Regin smiður, Brynhildar táttr and Høgna táttr (known collectively as the Sjúrðar kvæði, ‘ballads about Sigurðr’), which provide some of the preeminent material from the medieval North concerning the Völsung legend, stories about the hero Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and his violent, mysterious and powerful lover, Brynhildr Buðladóttir.

The aims of the project are to determine how the Faroese ballads relate to and are located in the Norse and wider Germanic story-telling world, and to integrate the Faroese ballads into the relevant research fields that discuss story-telling traditions of the North. The project will also make all of the Faroese ballad material about Sigurðr Fáfnisbani available in English translation, to aid other scholars in building on the project’s findings.