Norway Archive
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The vegetarian component of a late medieval diet
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsTrondheim was the seat of an archbishop and the centre of the see of Nidaros from 1152/53 until 1537 when the reformation reached Norway and the last Norwegian archbishop, Olav Engelbrektsson, fled the country. This marked a turning point in the town’s history. The arch- bishop’s residence, Erkebispegården, which was established around AD 1170 between the cathedral and the river Nidelva. -
“The Wrath of the Northmen”: The Vikings and their Memory
Posted on March 2, 2013 | No CommentsThese raiding peoples emerge out of all three Scandinavian homelands--Norway, Sweden, and Denmark--sending off their young men all over the known world in search of wealth and prestige. -
Strangers in Icelandic Society, 1100-1400
Posted on February 11, 2013 | No CommentsThe term ‘stranger’ (der Fremde) was defined by Georg Simmel (1858-1918) in a brief excursus (1908, 685–91). Scholars following in the footsteps of Simmel have distinguished at least two different types of stranger. One is the sojourner, who clings to the culture of his own ethnic group. The other is the immigrant, a newly-arrived outsider who has come to stay (see Siu 1952; Wood 1934, 43–44). The merchant Örn is close to the first type... -
Marriage between King Harald Fairhair and Snæfriðr, and their Offspring: Mythological Foundation of the Norwegian Medieval Dynasty?
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsHistorians in Nordic countries since the turn of the twentieth century have become increasingly aware of the problem using these primary sources from earlier times, especially the sagas from the late twelfth- and thirteenth centuries, about three hundred years after Harald assumedly lived. It was Halvdan Koht(1873-1965)who introduced this point of view into Norwegian historiography, although some researchers, including Yngvar Nielsen, had cast doubt on the accuracy of the account before him. -
Awkward Adolescents: Male Maturation in Norse Literature
Posted on January 25, 2013 | No CommentsAlthough medieval masculinities have become a subject of scholarly interest, there has been relatively little discussion of the transition in Old Norse until very recently. -
The Dominican Convents in Medieval Norway
Posted on January 6, 2013 | No CommentsIn the Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Norway was larger than it is today, where the former Norwegian districts of Jämtland and Bohus are now parts of Sweden. In 1380, the Norwegian throne was inherited by the Danish king, and for the rest of the Middle Ages, Danish monarchs ruled Norway, but even though the kings often made use of Danes in the administration, the Norwegian kingdom did in fact remain as an independent part of a so-called double monarchy. -
The Gendered Landscape: A discussion on gender, status and power expressed in the Viking Age mortuary landscape
Posted on January 5, 2013 | No CommentsI will attempt to show that the gender roles of the Viking Age are perhaps often interpreted and represented too simplistically, and that popular stereotypes fail to take into account the complex multitude of categories, variations and negotiations which one ought to expect from the interpretation of gender. -
Beyond fragments and shards: Children in medieval Bergen
Posted on December 10, 2012 | No CommentsBy analysing physical remains reflecting the games, behaviour and clothing of children (specifically toys and shoes) it has been possible to obtain new information and shed new light on the everyday life of children in medieval Bergen -
The Emergence of the North
Posted on December 5, 2012 | No CommentsApart from this bipolar system that contrasted North and South, authors writing in the Old Norse-Icelandic language also appear to use the term Norðrlönd within a quadripolar system that held good beyond the immediate region: Norðrlönd, the Vestrlönd (the British Isles), Suðrríki (Germany, the Holy Roman Empire), and Austrríki or Austrvegr (Russia and other lands to the East). -
The Church in Fourteenth-Century Iceland: Ecclesiastical Administration, Literacy, and the Formation of an Elite Clerical Identity
Posted on November 28, 2012 | No CommentsIn what follows, therefore, I provide a detailed study of Icelandic clergy and the institutions of the Icelandic Church in the period from 1300 to 1404. -
Nordic Witchcraft in Transition: Impotence, Heresy and Diabolism in 14th-century Bergen
Posted on November 26, 2012 | No CommentsWithin the orbit of witchcraft, what is the relationship between sexuality, heresy, and diabolism? -
Murder and Execution within the Political Sphere in Fifteenth Century Scandinavia
Posted on November 23, 2012 | No CommentsA quick glance at the regnal list of fifteenth-century Sweden shows that members of the nobility were at each others' throats more or less all the time, especially from the 1430s and onwards. -
The Schism that never was: Old Norse views on Byzantium and Russia
Posted on November 23, 2012 | No CommentsIt is my contention that, in the general view of Icelanders, the Christian world was united, ’catholic’ in the original meaning of the word. Christianity in the East was thought to have similar roots to Christianity in Iceland and differences between the religions of Nordic and Eastern people were considered insignificant. -
Haraldr the Hard-Ruler and his poets
Posted on November 19, 2012 | No CommentsIf Haraldr's contemporaries and the early writers did not know him as hardradi, what did they call him? -
Iron Smelting in Vinland
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsAny former iron smelting site presents a special problem for archaeologists. The process of converting iron rich ore into a working iron bar requires a complex series of steps. Each separate function is most likely to be undertaken by heavily modifying the previous equipment set up. Unfortunately for the archaeologist, the evidence of those important earlier stages is certain to be blurred, if not totally obliterated, by later steps. It will be the very last part of the whole process which alone remain as evidence. -
Draumkvedet and the Medieval English Dream Vision: A Study of Genre
Posted on September 23, 2012 | No CommentsThe Medieval English dream vision evidence influences from a variety of earlier vision literature, notably the apocalyptic vision and narrative dream. -
Re-forging the smith: an interdisciplinary study of smithing motifs in Völuspá and Völundarkviða
Posted on August 29, 2012 | No CommentsIn this dissertation I examine key smithing motifs in the eddic poems Võluspá and Võlundarkviña in relation to the socio-cultural role of smithing techniques and sites in early medieval Scandinavia. -
The Participation of the Kings in the Early Norwegian Sailing to Bjarmeland (Kola Peninsula and Russian Waters) and the Development of a Royal Policy Concerning the Northern Waters in the Middle Ages
Posted on August 14, 2012 | No CommentsThe first move of Norwegians into the polar regions was to Finmark. Archaeologists cannot say for certain how early the Fins and the Norwegians came into cultural contact with each other. -
Modern nationalism and the medieval sagas
Posted on August 5, 2012 | No CommentsNineteenth-century romanticism had a special interest in both the medieval world and primitive, untainted rural culture. As the nineteenth century progressed and turned into the early twentieth, the Danes fell more and more under the nostalgic spell, tending to look upon the Icelanders through increasingly romantic and patronizing eyes -
Iceland’s external affairs in the Middle Ages: The shelter of Norwegian sea power
Posted on July 21, 2012 | No CommentsThe main aim of this paper is to test the case of Iceland within the framework of small- state theory and answer its key consideration by examining whether Iceland, as a small entity/country, had external shelter or stood on its own during the Middle Ages. -
Fishponds as garden features: the example from the Archbishop’s Palace, Trondheim
Posted on July 9, 2012 | No CommentsUntil the 1990’s, however, little was known of the nature of the buildings in the eastern and southern wing of the courtyard in the palace for the time until 1640. -
Ship grave hall passage – the Oseberg monument as compound meaning
Posted on June 10, 2012 | No CommentsThe ship in Oseberg does not give the impression of a ship sailing the sea—moored, as it is, to its bollard stone—but it does give the impression of a ship loaded and ready to take off. The overall installation is organised in a way similar to most boat- and ship-graves. -
Researchers look to save deteriorating Viking treasures of Oseberg
Posted on June 6, 2012 | No CommentsConservation experts in Norway are conducting tests to see if a solution can be found on how to save important archaeological finds from the Viking Age that were discovered in Oseberg in 1904. -
Á Þá Bitu Engi Járn: a brief note on the concept of invulnerability in the Old Norse Sagas
Posted on May 20, 2012 | No CommentsHarald made for Thorir's ship because he was the greatest berserk, and very brave. There was the fiercest fighting on both sides. Then the king ordered his berserks forward. They were called wolfskins; but iron could not bite on them and when they charged nothing could withstand them -
The genetic and historical linkage between the Old Norwegian Sheep, the Icelandic Sheep and the Navajo Churro
Posted on May 19, 2012 | No CommentsIt may be possible to substitute a readily available double coated sheep fleece from the American Southwest for the original Scandinavian double coated fleece in order to make suitable vadmal fabric for clothing
