HIS2128/4128 Perspectives on Viking Age History (c. 750-c.1050) autumn 2018
Sources
Political culture
Heimskringla II, Saga about Olav Tryggvason, ch. 80, 85, 88
Viking Ethnicities
Old English Orosius: Ohthere and Wulfstan’s accounts
Power and religion
Eyrbyggja saga, ch. 1–4. Vita Ansgari, ch. 11, 12, 19
Viking ships
Ibn Fadlan, The Burial of the Rus’ Chieftan, trans. by Montgomery
Excerpt from the Annals of St Bertin
Books (available at the campus bookstore Akademika):
Somerville, Angus A. and R. Andrew McDonald 2013, The Vikings and Their Age: Companions to Medieval Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Jón Vi?ar Sigur?sson 2017, Viking Friendship. The Social Bond in Iceland and Norway, c. 900–1300. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Extra readings for HIS4148
Sawyer, Peter H. 2013, The wealth of Anglo-Saxon England: Based on the Ford Lectures delivered in the University of Oxford in Hilary Term 1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Online articles (accessible through the UiO network):
Abrams, Lesley 2012, “Diaspora and Identity in the Viking Age,” Early Medieval Europe 20: 17–38 (22 pp.)
Andrén, Anders 2013, “The Significance of Places: the Christianization of Scandinavia from a Spatial point of View,” World Archaeology 45: 27–45 (19 pp.).
Ashby, Steven P. 2015, “What really caused the Viking Age? The social content of raiding and exploration,” Archaeological Dialogues 22: 89–106 (18 pp.).
Baker, Matthew J. and H. Bulte Erwin 2010, “Kings and Vikings: On the Dynamics of Competitive Agglomeration,” Economics of Governance11, 207–27 (21 pp.).
Bonde, N. and A. E. Christensen 1993. “Dendrochronological Dating of the Viking Age Ship Burials at Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune, Norway,” Antiquity 67: 575–83. (9 pp.).
Croix, Sarah 2015, “The Vikings, Victims of Their Own Success? A Selective View on Viking Research and Its Dissemination,” Danish Journal of Archaeology 4: 82–96 (15 pp.).
Downham, Clare 2012, “Viking Ethnicities: A Historiographic Overview,” History Compass 10: 1–11 (11 pp.).
Gazzoli, Paul 2011, “Denemearc, Tanmark ala, and confinia Normannorum: The Annales regni Francorum and the Origins of Denmark,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 7: 29–43 (15 pp.).
Gl?rstad, Zanette Tsigaridas 2012, “Sign of the Times? The Transfer and Transformation of Penannular Brooches in Viking–Age Norway,” Norwegian Archaeological Review 45: 30–51 (20 pp.).
Goeres, Erin 2011, “The Many Conversions of Hallfre?r Vandr??askáld,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 7: 45–62 (17 pp.).
Haki Antonsson 2005, “Saints and Relics in Early Christian Scandianvia,” Mediaeval Scandinavia 15: 51–80 (30 pp.).
Jessen, Mads Dengs? and others, 2014, “A Palisade Fit for a King: Ideal Architecture in King Harald Bluetooth’s Jelling,” Norwegian Archaeological Review 47: 42–64 (23 pp.).
Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter and Gert Tinggaard Svendsen 2003, “Rational Bandits: Plunder, Public Goods, and the Vikings,” Public Choice, 117: 255–72 (18 pp.).
McKinnell, John 2007, “The Making of Hávamál,” Journal of Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 3: 75–115 (41 pp.).
Montgomery, James E. 2000, “Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 3: 1–25 (25 pp.)
Sindb?k, S?ren M. 2008, “The Lands of Denemearce: Cultural Difference and Social Networks of the Viking Age in South Scandinavia,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 4: 169–200 (32 pp.).
Skre, Dagfinn 2007, “Towns and Markets, Kings and Central Places in South-western Scandinavia c. AD 800–950”, in Kaupang in Skiringssal, ed. Dagfinn Skre (Aarchus and Oslo: University of Oslo), 445–69 (25 pp.).
Stylegar, Frans-Arne and Oliver Grimm 2005, “Boathouses in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic,” The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 34: 253–68 (16 pp.).
Thorir Jonsson Hraundal 2014, “New Perspectives on Easterm Viking/Rus in Arabic Sources,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 10: 65–97 (33 pp.).
Wicker, Nancy L. 2012, “Christianization, Female Infanticide, and the Abundance of Female Burials at Viking Age Birka in Sweden,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 21, 245–62 (18 pp).
To be distributed in a pdf format:
Garipzanov, Ildar 2008, “Frontier Identities: Carolingian Frontier and the gens Danorum,” in Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identity and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Ildar H. Garipzanov and others (Turnhout: Brepols), 113–42 (30 pp.).
Garipzanov, Ildar 2014, ‘Christian Identities, Social Status, and Gender in Viking-Age Scandinavia’, in Conversion and Identity in the Viking Age, ed. Ildar Garipzanov (Turnhout: Brepols), 139–65 (27 pp.)
Garipzanov, Ildar 2014, ‘Introduction: Networks of Conversion, Cultural Osmosis, and Identities in the Viking Age’, in Conversion and Identity in the Viking Age, ed. Ildar Garipzanov (Turnhout: Brepols), 1–19 (19 pp.)
Jón Vi?ar Sigur?sson 2014, “Conversion and Identity in the Viking-Age North: Some Afterthoughts, Conversion and Identity in the Viking Age,” in Conversion and Identity in the Viking Age, ed. Ildar Garipzanov, Turnhout: Brepols, 225–43 (19 pp).
Compendium
*L?nnroth, Lars 1997, “The Vikings in History and Legends,” The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, ed. Peter Sawyer (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 225–49 (25 pp.)
* Svanberg, Fredrik 2003, Decolonizing the Viking Age 1 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International), 36–99 (64 pp.).
*Heather, Peter 2008, “Ethnicity, Group Identity, and Social Status in the Migration Period,” in Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identity and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Ildar H. Garipzanov and others (Turnhout: Brepols), 17–49 (33 pp.).
*Ohthere’s Voyages: A Late 9th–century Account of Voyages along the Coasts of Norway and Denmark and Its Cultural Context, ed. by Janet Bately and Anton Englert (Roskilde: Viking Ship Museum, 2007), pp. 18–65 (48 pp.).
*Wulfstan’s Voyage: The Baltic Sea Region in the Early Viking Age as Seen from Shipboard, ed. by Anton Englert and Athena Trakadas (Roskilde: Viking Ship Museum, 2009), pp. 14–28 (15 pp.)
*Antonsson, Haki 2014, “The Conversion and Christianization of Scandinavia: A Critical Review of Recent Scholarly Writings,” in Conversion and Identity in the Viking Age, ed. Ildar Garipzanov (Turnhout: Brepols), 49–73 (25 pp.).
*Bill, Jan 1997, “Ships and Seamanship,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, ed. Peter Sawyer (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 182–201 (20 pp.).
*Pedersen, Ole Crumlin and Birgitte Munch Thye (eds.) 1995, The Ship as Symbol in Prehistoric and Medieval Scandinavia: Papers from an International Research Seminar at the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, 5th–7th May 1994 (Copenhagen: National Museum), 9–18, 41–48, 131–37, 139–47 (34 pp.).
*Myhre, Bj?rn 1997, “Boathouses and Naval Organization,” in Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, AD 1–1300: Papers from an International Research seminar at the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, 2–4 May 1996, ed. Anne N?rg?rd J?rgensen and Birthe L. Clausen (Copenhagen: National Museum), 169–83 (15 pp.).
*Varenius, Bj?rn 2002, “Maritime Warfare as an Organizing Principle in Scandinavian Society 1000–1300 AD,” in Maritime Warfare in Northern Europe: Technology, Organisation, Logistics and Administration 500 BC–1500 AD, ed. Anne N?rg?rd J?rgensen (Copenhagen: National Museum), 249–56 (8 pp.).
*Price, Neil 2008. “Dying and the Dead: Viking Age Mortuary Behaviour,” in The Viking World, ed. Stefan Brink and Neil Price (London: Routledge), pp. 257–73 (17 pp.)
*Annals of St Bertin, trans. Janet Nelson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), pp. 94–96 (3 pp.)