SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Trohetsuisan and Chaucer's Lak of Stedfastnesse 289
tradition may be correct since it was certainly written in
the Strangnas cathedral chapter, but he would prefer some
confirmation. A little is found for Frihetsvisan in a
proclamation by the Council, including Thomas Simonson,
where there is parallel wording to the poem.s" but nothing
for Trohetsvisan. Indeed, as I think, the provenance of
the manuscript may throw doubt on the attribution, since
it may indicate partisan activity for Strangnas in the
person of one of its bishops. Seemingly one more
mediseval poem becomes anonymous.
Hildeman had rightly founded his argument on
opposition to the traditional opinion of the historians but
his positive literary contribution was to identify
Trohetsvisan with other poems in other languages and so
to indicate its genre. If you have glanced at the list of
abbreviations on the cyclostyle-? for Chaucer's poem you
will have anticipated many of the following comments, but
before Hildeman's remarks there had been no discussion
of the Swedish poem on these lines. He stated, as we now
expect, that the poem "represents a mediseval kind of
poetry, or at least a pattern of motifs with stereotyped
expression and consistent characteristics - with many
variations and of great extent. It is a generalising poetry
of lamentation which, above all, is concerned with the
same personified moral concepts; virtues such as Justice,
Truth, Wisdom, Fidelity or their opposites, e.g. Falsity,
Avarice, Injustice, Envy. The theme varies insignificantly,
outbursts over the wretchedness of the time,
lamentation over the perpetual inferiority of the Good,
resignation or indignation before the triumphal march of
Evil through the world."28
The moralising plancius or 'complaint' is found in many
European languages so it is probable that its origin is
Latin or that its spread is explicable by Latin versions.
.. ibid.
" Now Appendix B.
28 Hildernan, op. cit., 128.