Scandinavia and the Huns. A source-critical approach to an old question
By Ulf Nasman
Fornvannen: Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research, Vol. 103 (2008)
Synopsis: Examines archaeological evidence showing impact of the Huns in Scandinavia.
Posts Tagged ‘Norway’
From Viking to Saint: How the Liturgy of St. Olav Created the Patron Saint and Eternal King of Norway
By Andrew Casad
Published Online (2002)
Introduction: In the year 793 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records: “on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.” The Norsemen thus received their introduction to the rest of Europe for having sacked one of Christendom’s most hallowed monasteries. Saint Aidan had founded this Holy Island, Lindisfarne, in 635 on land granted by Oswald, King and Saint of Northumbria. Two centuries later one such seafaring raider was himself canonized and can be found listed in litanies with King Oswald.
This transformation of a Viking into a Saint and the conversion of his people to Christianity raise important questions. How could a Viking be transformed into a Saint? What was the relationship between this transformation and the spread of Christianity into these lands? These questions can be answered in part by turning to the early liturgical practices of the Norwegians. Much of early Norwegian liturgy was borrowed from other places, which could only have been brought about through the type of cultural exchange the Viking expeditions made possible. The integration of indigenous and borrowed aspects of liturgical celebration by the medieval Norwegians additionally sheds important light on the process of inculturation of Christianity.
In addressing these questions, this paper will examine the historical context, drawn in large part from the sage of the Norwegian Kings, Heimskringla, penned by Snorri Sturluson in the early thirteenth century. The liturgial manuscripts used by the medieval Norwegians and the sources from which they were drawn will then be addressed. A study of how the liturgical texts came to bear on the historical context and created the Saint and King of Norway, St Olav will be undertaken. Finally, I will make some remarks as to the contemporary relevance of this study.
Introducing Medieval Scandinavia (and esp. medieval Icelandic literature
By Alaric Hall
A four-video series outlining the scope of the medieval Scandinavian world and some of its major cultural, policitcal and literary characteristics. Presented by Alaric Hall, lecturer in the School of English, University of Leeds
Part 1: Geography
Part 2: Vikings
Part 3: Religious and Political Change
Part 4: Icelandic Sagas
Local Disputes and the Role of the Royal Judiciary in Early Fourteenth-Century Norway
By Anders Berge
Communities in European History: Representations, Jurisdictions, Conflicts, edited by Juan Pan-Montojo and Frederik Pedersen (Pisa University Press, 2007)
Abstract: This chapter examines the local legal system in Norway in the early part of the 14th century by investigating legal practices recorded in four well-documented local disputes. I argue for the existence of a dual legal system that accepted as legal authorities both local opinion and decisions made by the royal judiciary. This resulted in a situation where feuding parties not only had to fight over truth, that is, to establish the facts about a case. They also had to create a context in which truth could be interpreted and established. Having recourse to two legal bodies, litigants had considerable opportunity to circumvent unfavourable decisions. Furthermore, comprehensive conflict resolution required that settlements be reached by both local opinion and the royal judiciary, and these settlements required negotiations between the parties involved and agents of the local communities and the royal judiciary.
History and Fantasy in Jómsvíkinga saga
By Alison Finlay
Paper given at Thirteenth International Saga Conference (2006)
Introduction: In his Prologue to Heimskringla Snorri Sturluson enumerates the kinds of source material he drew upon for his history of the kings of Norway. Besides genealogies and oral narratives, he acknowledges influence from fornum kvæðum eða söguljóðum er menn hafa haft til skemmtanar sér. While this is a reference to poetic material rather than the written sources that Snorri also clearly used, it acknowledges that some of his source material was intended for entertainment rather than sober historical record. Snorri’s Prologue makes no mention of written sources, which he may have assumed could be taken (literally) as read, but it is generally accepted that he did make use of earlier written works, and among them was almost certainly a version of Jómsvíkinga saga, in a separate redaction from that to which the surviving manuscripts belong.
Jómsvíkinga saga was written in Iceland probably around 1200, and its textual history is complex. Because of the considerable difference between the version used by Snorri and the author of Fagrskinna on the one hand, and the version best preserved in AM 291 4to (other surviving versions appear to be based on a combination of these redactions), it has been deduced that ‘if we assume there was originally one written saga, based on oral traditions and to a lesser extent on older written sources, this saga would seem to have split into two redactions quite soon after its composition. The alternative is to allow for two sagas composed separately, but both based on oral traditions’.
Gods and Worshippers in the Viking and Germanic world 
By Thor Ewing
Termpus Publishing, 2008
ISBN 978-0752435909
What was paganism really like? Who were the gods and how were they worshipped? These are the questions Thor Ewing addresses in this fresh perspective on the pagan beliefs and rituals of the Viking and the Germanic world, a world which encompasses not only Scandinavia and Germany, but also Anglo-Saxon England.
Gods and Worshippers explores ancient cult sites and religious gatherings, as well as burial customs and the rites of the dead, and it reveals the intimate links between religious and secular power. Using the surviving archaeological evidence as well as the recorded myths and poetry from the various regions, Ewing explores the realities of day-to-day worship, such as sacrifices and sacred space, as well as arguing that traditional magical-religious societies operated in parallel to mainstream society, according to their own distinctive morality and laws.
The picture that emerges is that of a complex pattern of powers which are respected, honoured, propitiated or even cajoled. It is in this relationship between powers and people that the religion exists, and though it takes many forms it is fundamentally one of respect, honour and worship – a relationship between gods and worshippers.
Contents
Part 1: Rites of the Gods
Chapter 1 Sacrifice
Chapter 2 Invocation
Chapter 3 Gods, groves and idols
Chapter 4 Temples, priests and festivals
Part 2: Another Society
Chapter 5 Seeresses and seers
Chapter 6 Valkyries and norns
Chapter 7 Another society
Epilogue: Rites of the Dead
Chapter 2 Invocation
Chapter 3 Gods, groves and idols
Chapter 4 Temples, priests and festivals
Part 2: Another Society
Chapter 5 Seeresses and seers
Chapter 6 Valkyries and norns
Chapter 7 Another society
Epilogue: Rites of the Dead
King Olaf Gudrødsson
By Jon Johannesson
Thridji Vikingafundur [Third Viking Congress], edited by Kristján Eldjárn Ritsjóri (Reykjavik, 1958)
Introduction: In the Ynglingatal, which was composed in honour of a certain King Rognvald, probably in the first quarter of the 10th century, the principal events of the life of this King Rognvald’s father, King Olaf Gudrødsson of Vestfold in Norway, are outlined. Irish and Scottish annals and other authorities, on the other hand, mention a King Olaf Gudrødsson (Amhlaeibh mac Godfraidh) of Dublin, who raided Ireland and Scotland in the years 853-871 and assumed cheiftainship over an extensive stte there. Historians were bound to notice the resemblance of the two names, but few of them have been able to conclude that they referred to the same man, because the chronology of the Kings of Vestfold as it is represented by Old Icelandic historians does not quite agree with the date of King Olaf of Dublin according to British sources.
The location of the fall of Olaf Tryggvason
By Sven Ellechoj
Thridji Vikingafundur [Third Viking Congress], edited by Kristján Eldjárn Ritsjóri (Reykjavik, 1958)
Synopsis: Examines the accounts that describe the battle between King Olaf Tryggvason and the Danish king Svein Forkbeard and Swedish king Olof Skotkonung in the year 1000, which traditionally has been placed near the island of Svold.
Indigenous and Early Fisheries in North Norway
By Alf Ragnar Nielssen
The Sea in European History, edited by Luc François and Ann Katherine Isaacs (University of Pisa, 2001)
Introduction: In 1997 a book entitled The History of the Cod, written by the American journalist Mark Kurlansky, was published. Strangely enough, this documentary book soon became a bestseller. In the book Kurlansky pays quite a lot of attention to the early cod fisheries, giving ample space to the legendary pre-Colombian Basque fisheries in North America. In general Kurlansky did extensive background work for his book, with particular emphasis on Newfoundland, where Europeans opened the commercial cod fisheries in the 1500s. He also utilises the literature about Iceland, where the large-scale cod fisheries seem to have started in the early 1400s. Here, however, we will consider the North-East Atlantic, that is, the fisheries of the Norwegian waters and the Barents Sea area. Here we find one of the real cradles of the commercial cod fisheries – which however Kurlansky does not discuss in his book – in the Lofoten islands and in Finnmark, both areas on the Norwegian coast north of the Arctic Circle. Both places are spawning areas of the cod from the Barents Sea. The commercial cod fisheries in Lofoten seem to have started already in the 11th century, in Finnmark a century or two later. The beginning of these cod fisheries then coincides with the starting point of the general population growth in Europe, combined with urbanisation. The urbanisation created a demand for food supplies and became the most important factor in the trade development of Europe.
Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia
Edited by Thomas Andrew DuBois
University of Toronto Press, 2008
With original translations of primary texts and articles by leading researchers in the field, Sanctity in the North provides an introduction to the literary production associated with the cult of the saints in medieval Scandinavia.
For more than five hundred years, Nordic clerics and laity venerated a host of saints through liturgical celebrations, written manuscripts, visual arts, and oral tradition. The textual evidence of this widespread and important aspect of medieval spirituality abounds. Written biographies (vitae), compendia of witnessed miracles, mass propers, homilies, sagas and chronicles, dramatic scripts, hymns, and ballads are found in the region’s surviving medieval manuscripts and early published books.
Sanctity in the North features English translations of these texts from Latin or vernacular Nordic languages, in many cases for the first time. The accompanying essays concerning the texts, saints, cults, and history of the period complement the translations and reflect contributors’ own disciplinary groundings, in folklore, philology, medieval, and religious studies.
Articles
St Ansgar: His Swedish Mission and Its Larger Context, by Scott A. Mellor Scott
Sts Sunniva and Henrik: Scandinavian Martyr Saints in Their Hagiographic and National Contexts, by THOMAS A. DUBOIS
St Olaf and the Skalds, by JOHN LINDOW
Sacred Non-Violence, Cowardice Profaned: St Magnus of Orkney in Nordic Hagiography and Historiography , by MARIA-CLAUDIA TOMANY
St Knud Lavard: A Saint for Denmark, by THOMAS A. DUBOIS AND NIELS INGWERSEN
The Cult of St Eric, King and Martyr, in Medieval Sweden, by TRACEY R. SAND
Pride and Politics in Late-Twelfth-Century Iceland: The Sanctity of Bishop Þorlákr Þórhallsson, by KIRSTEN WOLF
St Katarina in Her Own Light, byTHOMAS A. DUBOIS
Hendreks saga og Kunegundis: Marital Consent in the Legend of Henry and Cunegund, by MARIANNE E. KALINK
Better Off Dead: Approaches to Medieval Miracles, by MARGARET CORMACK
