The paper is a comparative study on the aristocrats of eastern England, eastern Normandy, western Flanders and central Norway.
Lords Of The North Sea: A Comparative Study Of Aristocratic Territory In The North Sea World In The Tenth And Eleventh Centuries
April 5, 2014 By
The Process of State-Formation in Medieval Iceland
March 22, 2014 By
The aim of this article is to analyze the process of state-formation in Iceland in light of some general models of state-formation in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Sickness in the Nidaros Cathedral?
March 14, 2014 By
Up towards the ceiling vault of the Nidaros Cathedral, a number of artworks are hidden from public view. Many of the stone sculptures portray mythological animals and other scary creatures. In such company, one would imagine that human faces were also intended to evoke fear and anguish. Do they depict people with diseases?
Accepting Fools as Heroes
March 10, 2014 By
What sociocultural attitudes towards the intellectually disabled – commonly referred to as fools – were prevalent during the Viking Age?
Women in early towns
March 8, 2014 By
What do we know about women’s role in these societies? What did women do and how numerous were they? And did they pay the same role in Viking-Age proto-towns as in more developed medieval urban communities?
In quest for the lost gamers: An investigation of board gaming in Scania, during the Iron and Middle Ages
February 22, 2014 By
The games we play today are of course not entirely the same as those played a thousand years ago,
Rituals of Greeting and Farewell: Reflections on a Visit to the Royal Court of Norway in 1302
February 6, 2014 By
An account of reception and farewell rituals at the royal court of Norway in 1302 is described in detail and analyzed through the use of ritual studies.
Runic and Latin Written Culture: Co-Existence and Interaction of Two Script Cultures in the Norwegian Middle Ages
February 1, 2014 By
Runic and Latin Written Culture: Co-Existence and Interaction of Two Script Cultures in the Norwegian Middle Ages Stephanie Elisabeth Baur: zur Erlangung des Grades Magistra Artium im Fachbereich Nordische Philologie Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen: Deutsches Seminar Abteilung für Skandinavistik, Magisterarbeit, 14. Juni (2011) Abstract When Latin writing finally reached Scandinavia sometime in the 11th century, it was […]
The Hunted Children of Kings: A Theme in the Old Icelandic Sagas
December 18, 2013 By
In this instance life appears to imitate art, that is if we categorize fairy tales as art. Life, or at least the life of King Sverrir, resembles a story about stepmothers.
Viking slaves were beheaded and buried as grave gifts, archaeological find suggests
December 15, 2013 By
An archaeological research project on the northern Norwegian island of Flakstad has revealed new details about the lives and deaths of people who live during the Viking era
Food and the North-Icelandic Identity in 13th century Iceland and Norway
December 9, 2013 By
Now food is becoming globalized, but we still recall how food could be used to construct a national identity, with the aid of the institutions of the national state.
Tooth-tool Use and Yarn Production in Norse Greenland
December 8, 2013 By
During a dental study of medieval Norse skeletons from Greenland, Iceland, and Norway, a distinct pattern of wear was observed on twenty-two anterior teeth of twelve Greenlanders.
Persian silk worn by Vikings, researcher finds
November 4, 2013 By
When the Oseberg Ship was discovered in Norway in 1904, more than one hundred silk fragments were found among its artefacts. New research has shown that these silks were probably purchased from Persia through a trade network.
Viking Age Queens: The example of Oseberg
September 30, 2013 By
The Oseberg ship burial is a Viking Age burial mound containing a double female inhumation, which is located in the Oslofjord area in Norway.
King Harald Sigurdsson of Norway in History and Legend
August 25, 2013 By
Yet behind the legend we find that Harald is a much more complex figure than Adam of Bremen would have you believe. The most extraordinary episodes in Harald’s life were in fact historical, and can be discerned from the tales that have come down to us if only we are willing to tease out the facts from the corpus of myth surrounding him.
Indigenous and imported Viking Age weapons in Norway – a problem with European implications
July 28, 2013 By
The numerous Viking Age swords and spearheads found in Norway are a mixture of indigenous and imported items, but sound criteria for distinguishing between the two origins are lacking.
Have archaeologists found a lost Viking trading centre in Norway?
July 15, 2013 By
It was a routine archaeological dig, necessitated by the expansion of Norway’s main north-south highway, the E6, just north of Trondheim, the country’s third largest city. But the finds surprised archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum, who now believe they have solved a centuries-old puzzle posed in Norse sagas.
Matthew Paris in Norway
May 27, 2013 By
It appears that Matthew only ever left England once, when, in 1248-9, he visited Norway to assist in settling a dispute at the Benedictine abbey of Nidarholm near Trondheim. It is on this episode that the following will focus.
Delivering stability: Primogeniture and autocratic survival in European monarchies 1000-1800
March 27, 2013 By
Although the dominating position of primogeniture at the end of the period might seem natural given primogeniture’s many advantages for the monarch and the ruling elite it was first rather late in history that the principle came to dominate Europe.
The vegetarian component of a late medieval diet
March 10, 2013 By
Trondheim 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
March 2, 2013 By
Marriage between King Harald Fairhair and Snæfriðr, and their Offspring: Mythological Foundation of the Norwegian Medieval Dynasty?
January 27, 2013 By
Historians 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
January 25, 2013 By
Although 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
January 6, 2013 By
In 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
January 5, 2013 By
I 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.
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