From an international point of view Scandinavian literature of the Middle Ages is largely identified with the narrative literature of Iceland, particularly the myths of the Edda and the classical family sagas. When the Church brought the Latin alphabet and European learning to Scandinavia, the culture of the region was basically oral, although runes played a certain role. Traditional oral culture encompassed all aspects of life. In east Scandinavia, literary production was originally confined to very few centres of clerical learning. The first Scandinavians known to have studied at foreign centres of learning are Icelanders in the eleventh century. Both bishops of Skálholt, Ísleifr and Gizurr were educated in Germany and France. The Eddic style was used, in composing new poetry for fornaldarsögur, while some fragments of heroic poetry included in such sagas may be old and preserved in oral tradition into the fourteenth century. The chapter also discusses storytelling literature, Skaldic poetry, and king's sagas.