Tag: Orkney Islands

Articles

Vikings in the Prehistoric Landscape: Studies on Mainland Orkney

Norse colonists in Orkney contended not only with the islands’ existing occupants, but also with a foreign landscape filled with visible ancient monuments. This paper provides a brief synthesis of the results of research on the landscapes of Viking-Age and Late-Norse Orkney which explored the strategies undertaken by the Norse settlers to re-model their social identities in their adopted environment.

Norse era construction - St. Magnus Church, Egilsay, Scotland
Articles

Norse Influences in the Organisation of the Medieval Church in the Western Isles

In its definitive form of a system of local churches serving identifiable districts, usually known as parishes, grouped together under a diocesan bishop, the medieval church cannot be said to have existed in the general area of Scotland until the twelfth century. At this time, and for some three centuries previously, the islands to the north and west, with parts of the adjacent mainland, were under Norse control.