The French romance spread remarkably quickly across medieval Europe, and this contributed to the Europeanisation of culture that took place in the Middle Ages. One might even go so far as to say that the spread of the genre sheds light on the emergence of what is today understood as ‘Western literature’. The romance, however, reached medieval Sweden rather later than it did most other parts of Europe, including Norway, despite the close relationship of its literary tradition with Sweden’s. The chronological gap between Herr Ivan, Flores och Blanzeflor, Namnlös och Valentin, Riddar Paris och Jungfru Vienna and their French originals is thus considerable. It seems clear, therefore, that the choice to translate these specific texts into Old Swedish was not motivated by their popularity on the European literary scene at the particular moments in history at which they were translated. Rather, they seem more likely to have been selected on the basis of their literary style and ideological content.

Despite the different contexts in which the Swedish texts were written, all four texts are linked to the tradition of Old French verse romances and all, except Namnlös och Valentin, are written entirely in verse. This does not only differ considerably from the closely related Old West Norse tradition of prose sagas, but also from the tendency in late medieval France to rewrite verse romances into prose. The popularity of the Germanic verse form knittel stands out as a stylistic feature that links many Old Swedish texts – and not just those under consideration here –, at the same time as it reminds us of the significant influence of Germanic culture and tradition on medieval Sweden more generally.

Due to the frequent exchange between the Swedish and Low German cultures and societies, German influences are in some ways much subtler than French ones, because they were already deeply knitted into Swedish culture. However, whereas the linguistic influences are mostly concrete and traceable, cultural influences can be more difficult to identify. The texts discussed in this book are derived from the French tradition, but the role of the Low German tradition as an intermediary tradition should not be underestimated.