The Incorporation and Integration of the King's Tributary Lands into the Norwegian Realm c. 1195-1397
The Incorporation and Integration of the King's Tributary Lands into the Norwegian Realm c. 1195-1397

Author: Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-05-23

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9004206140

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The emergence of a Norwegian medieval state had consequences beyond Norway. Inspired by transnational research on state formation, this book presents a comprehensive study of the political incorporation and subsequent judicial and administrative integration of Iceland, the Faroes, Shetland, and Orkney, into the Norwegian realm c. 1195-1397. Building on centuries-old cultural, economic, and political ties, the Norwegian crown established direct royal lordship over the former autonomous and semi-autonomous areas. Judicial unity, administrative development, and the king’s local representatives ensured that the tributary lands were comprised in the state-formation process. Although the political and administrative system allowed for local variation, the process led development in the direction of a unitary state, at least in judicial and administrative terms.

The Fish Lands
The Fish Lands

Author: Bart Holterman

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-09-21

Total Pages: 531

ISBN-13: 3110651823

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The late medieval German trade with the North Atlantic islands, in the margins of the Hanseatic trade network, has received only limited scholarly attention. Merchants from predominantly Hamburg and Bremen established direct trade relations with these islands in the late 15th century, and managed to control the international trade with Iceland, the Faroes and Shetland for much of the 16th century. However, the Hanseatic commercial infrastructure was absent in the North Atlantic, which forced these merchants to develop new trade strategies. Besides a critical re-evaluation of the economic and political conditions, this volume offers a comprehensive study of the organisation of the trade and the methods used to establish and maintain networks between islanders and German merchants. Moreover, it analyses the role and socio-economic position of the communities of merchants with the North Atlantic in their home towns. The book shows that the North Atlantic trade was anything but insignificant. It was a dynamic and integral part of the trade network of the northern German cities, and its study is highly relevant for the economic history of Northern Europe.

Vox regis: Royal Communication in High Medieval Norway
Vox regis: Royal Communication in High Medieval Norway

Author: David Brégaint

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-10-05

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 9004306439

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In Vox regis: Royal Communication in High Medieval Norway, David Brégaint examines how the Norwegian monarchy gradually managed to infiltrate Norwegian society through the development of a communicative system during the High Middle Ages, from c. 1150 to c. 1300. Drawing on sagas, didactic literature, charters, and laws, the book demonstrates how the Norwegian kings increasingly played a key -role in the promotion of royal ideology in society through rituals and the written word. In particular, the book stresses the interaction between secular and clerical culture, the role of the Church and of the Norwegian aristocracy

Viking Friendship
Viking Friendship

Author: Jon Vidar Sigurdsson

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2017-03-07

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1501708473

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"To a faithful friend, straight are the roads and short."—Odin, from the Hávamál (c. 1000) Friendship was the most important social bond in Iceland and Norway during the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages. Far more significantly than kinship ties, it defined relations between chieftains, and between chieftains and householders. In Viking Friendship, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson explores the various ways in which friendship tied Icelandic and Norwegian societies together, its role in power struggles and ending conflicts, and how it shaped religious beliefs and practices both before and after the introduction of Christianity. Drawing on a wide range of Icelandic sagas and other sources, Sigurðsson details how loyalties between friends were established and maintained. The key elements of Viking friendship, he shows, were protection and generosity, which was most often expressed through gift giving and feasting. In a society without institutions that could guarantee support and security, these were crucial means of structuring mutual assistance. As a political force, friendship was essential in the decentralized Free State period in Iceland’s history (from its settlement about 800 until it came under Norwegian control in the years 1262–1264) as local chieftains vied for power and peace. In Norway, where authority was more centralized, kings attempted to use friendship to secure the loyalty of their subjects. The strong reciprocal demands of Viking friendship also informed the relationship that individuals had both with the Old Norse gods and, after 1000, with Christianity’s God and saints. Addressing such other aspects as the possibility of friendship between women and the relationship between friendship and kinship, Sigurðsson concludes by tracing the decline of friendship as the fundamental social bond in Iceland as a consequence of Norwegian rule.

Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia
Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-09-25

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 900422159X

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In Scandinavia the study of disputes is still a relatively new topic: The papers offered here discuss how conflicts were handled in Scandinavian societies in the Middle Ages before the emergence of strong centralized states. What strategies did people use to contest power, property, rights, honour, and other kinds of material or symbolic assets? Seven essays by Scandinavian scholars are supplemented by contributions from Stephen White, John Hudson and Gerd Althoff, to provide a new baseline for discussing both the strategies pursued in the political game and those used to settle local disputes. Using practice and process as key analytical concepts, these authors explore formal law and litigation in conjunction with non-formal legal proceedings such as out-of-court mediation, rituals, emotional posturing, and feuding. Their insights place the Northern medieval world in a European context of dispute studies. With introductory sections on social structure, sources materials, and the historiography of Scandinavian dispute studies. Contributors are Gerd Althoff, Catharina Andersson, Kim Esmark, Lars Ivar Hansen, Lars Hermanson, John Hudson, Auður G. Magnúsdóttir, Hans Jacob Orning, Helle Vogt and Stephen D. White.

The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas
The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas

Author: Ármann Jakobsson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-02-17

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 1317041461

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The last fifty years have seen a significant change in the focus of saga studies, from a preoccupation with origins and development to a renewed interest in other topics, such as the nature of the sagas and their value as sources to medieval ideologies and mentalities. The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas presents a detailed interdisciplinary examination of saga scholarship over the last fifty years, sometimes juxtaposing it with earlier views and examining the sagas both as works of art and as source materials. This volume will be of interest to Old Norse and medieval Scandinavian scholars and accessible to medievalists in general.

Sturla Þórðarson
Sturla Þórðarson

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-03-06

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 9004342362

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Sturla Þórðarson is one of only a handful of thirteenth-century Icelandic historians to be known by name, and he is certainly one of the most significant. A number of works may be traced directly to his literary-cultural circle, notably Landnámabók (The Book of Settlements), Íslendinga saga (The Saga of Icelanders) and Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (The Saga of King Hákon). Moreover, it is thought that Sturla was involved in the production of the legal text known as Járnsíða, as well as annals and, possibly, some of the Íslendingasögur (Sagas of Icelanders). In addition to his role as author and compiler, Sturla Þórðarson was one of the most powerful men in Iceland. In 1262 Sturla visited the court of King Magnús Hákonarson ‘the Law-mender’ in Norway as a court poet. He later became the king’s liegeman, and it was for King Magnús that Sturla wrote the sagas of King Hákon and King Magnús. Sturla served as lawman of all Iceland in the period 1272-77, and then as lawman for the north and west of the country until 1282. He died on 30 July 1284. Contributors are Ann-Marie Long, Ármann Jakobsson, Auður Magnúsdóttir, Gísli Sigurðsson, Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, Guðrún Nordal, Gunnar Harðarson, Hans Jacob Orning, Helgi Þorláksson, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Lena Rohrbach, Patricia Pires Boulhosa, Philadelphia Ricketts, R.I. Moore, Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl, Roberta Frank, Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Sverrir Jakobsson, Theodore M. Andersson, Úlfar Bragason and Verena Hoefig.

The Gunns; History, Myths and Genealogy
The Gunns; History, Myths and Genealogy

Author: Alastair Gunn

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2020-02-15

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0244863113

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Here is a radical, academically based text which demolishes the myths currently masquerading as Gunn 'history'. Gunns are best thought of as the original, non-related inhabitants of northern, mainland Scotland. They do not have an Orkney Islands origin. Gunns should not be viewed as a clan as they had no founding ancestor. There was never an historic 'Clan Gunn Chief'. The first Gunn known to history was Coroner Gunn of Caithness who died around 1450. His eldest son started the MacHamish Gunns of Killernan line - many descendants from that line exist all around the world. Major detail on this MacHamish line is included. This book is an important addition to Scottish Highland history.

Medieval Iceland
Medieval Iceland

Author: Sverrir Jakobsson

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-09-20

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1040122795

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In the ninth century, at the beginning of this account, Iceland was uninhabited save for fowl and smaller Arctic animals. In the middle of the sixteenth century, by the end of this history, it had embarked on a course that led to the creation of a small country on the periphery of Europe. The history of medieval Iceland is to some degree a microcosm of European history, but in other respects it has a trajectory of its own. As in medieval Europe, the evolution of the Church, episodic warfare, and the strengthening of the bonds of government played an important role. Unlike the rest of Europe, however, Iceland was not settled by humans until the Middle Ages and it was without towns and any type of executive government until the late medieval period. Medieval Iceland is a review of Icelandic history from the settlement until the advent of the Reformation, with an emphasis on social and political change, but also on cultural developments, such as the creation of a particular kind of literature, known throughout the world as the sagas. A view of medieval Icelandic history as it has never been told before from one of its leading historians, this book will appeal to students and scholars alike interested in Icelandic and medieval history.