In the autumn of 2015 the Old Norse milieu at the University of Oslo organised a series of lectures on thirteenth century encyclopaedia followed by a conference treating the well-known work Konungs skuggsjá with references to European Mirrors of Princes and encyclopaedic literature. Already at the outset we planned to make a volume combining the lectures and the papers from the series and the conference. We have, however, subsequently also asked new authors to contribute to the volume in order to further illuminate the relation between contemporary Western European traditions and the Konungs skuggsjá. The book is the result of a project where all the articles have been carefully edited in order to provide an impression of the present research as well as opening for new perspectives on the introduction of the speculum literature and the genre Mirrors of Princes in Norway in the second half of the thirteenth century. In our work with the production of the book we have received help and goodwill from many people. The articles have been reviewed by anonymous fellow scholars, who should be thanked without any mention of names. Their comments have definitely helped us to make a more coherent and relevant book. We would also like to thank Alan Crozier for reading and correcting the English in the articles written by non-English authors.