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This book explores the practical and symbolic resources of
legitimacy which the elites of medieval Scandinavia employed to
establish, justify, and reproduce their social and political
standing between the end of the Viking Age and the rise of kingdoms
in the thirteenth century. Geographically the chapters cover the
Scandinavian realms and Free State Iceland. Thematically the
authors cover a wide palette of cultural practices and historical
sources: hagiography, historiography, spaces and palaces,
literature, and international connections, which rulers, magnates
or ecclesiastics used to compete for status and to reserve haloing
glory for themselves. The volume is divided in three sections. The
first looks at the sacral, legal, and acclamatory means through
which privilege was conferred onto kings and ruling families.
Section Two explores the spaces such as aristocratic halls,
palaces, churches in which the social elevation of elites took
place. Section Three explores the traditional and novel means of
domestic distinction and international cultural capital which
different orders of elites - knights, powerful clerics, ruling
families etc. - wrought to assure their dominance and set
themselves apart vis-a-vis their peers and subjects. A concluding
chapter discusses how the use of symbolic capital in the North
compared to wider European contexts.
Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume II explores
the structures and workings of social networks within the elites of
medieval Scandinavia to reveal the intricate relationship between
power and status. Section one of this volume categorizes basic
types of personal bonds, both vertical and horizontal, while
section two charts patterns of local, regional and transnational
elite networks from wide-scope, longitudinal perspectives. Finally,
the third section turns to case-studies of networks in action,
analyzing strategies and transactions implied by uses of social
resources in specific micro-political settings. A concluding
chapter discusses how social power in the North compared to wider
European experiences. A wide range of sources and methodologies is
applied to reveal how networks were established, maintained, and
put to use - and how they transformed in processes of centralizing
power and formalizing hierarchies. The engagement with and analysis
of intriguing primary source material has produced a key teaching
tool for instructors and essential reading for students interested
in the workings of medieval Scandinavia, elite class structures,
and Social and Political History more generally.
This book explores the practical and symbolic resources of
legitimacy which the elites of medieval Scandinavia employed to
establish, justify, and reproduce their social and political
standing between the end of the Viking Age and the rise of kingdoms
in the thirteenth century. Geographically the chapters cover the
Scandinavian realms and Free State Iceland. Thematically the
authors cover a wide palette of cultural practices and historical
sources: hagiography, historiography, spaces and palaces,
literature, and international connections, which rulers, magnates
or ecclesiastics used to compete for status and to reserve haloing
glory for themselves. The volume is divided in three sections. The
first looks at the sacral, legal, and acclamatory means through
which privilege was conferred onto kings and ruling families.
Section Two explores the spaces such as aristocratic halls,
palaces, churches in which the social elevation of elites took
place. Section Three explores the traditional and novel means of
domestic distinction and international cultural capital which
different orders of elites - knights, powerful clerics, ruling
families etc. - wrought to assure their dominance and set
themselves apart vis-a-vis their peers and subjects. A concluding
chapter discusses how the use of symbolic capital in the North
compared to wider European contexts.
Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume II explores
the structures and workings of social networks within the elites of
medieval Scandinavia to reveal the intricate relationship between
power and status. Section one of this volume categorizes basic
types of personal bonds, both vertical and horizontal, while
section two charts patterns of local, regional and transnational
elite networks from wide-scope, longitudinal perspectives. Finally,
the third section turns to case-studies of networks in action,
analyzing strategies and transactions implied by uses of social
resources in specific micro-political settings. A concluding
chapter discusses how social power in the North compared to wider
European experiences. A wide range of sources and methodologies is
applied to reveal how networks were established, maintained, and
put to use - and how they transformed in processes of centralizing
power and formalizing hierarchies. The engagement with and analysis
of intriguing primary source material has produced a key teaching
tool for instructors and essential reading for students interested
in the workings of medieval Scandinavia, elite class structures,
and Social and Political History more generally.
The reality of the fantastic combines a 'new philological' close
study of a fifteenth-century Icelandic manuscript compilation of
fifteen fornaldarsoegur and riddarasoegur, AM 343a 4to, with an
historically-based analysis of the manuscript's various contents,
demonstrating how fictions that are in many respects non-realistic
can be made to yield up insights into the real-world concerns and
interests of a group of fifteenth-century Icelanders. Both the
methodology of this study and its conclusions should interest
readers from diverse fields, including literature, history and
manuscript studies.
A comprehensive guide to a crucial aspect of Old Norse literature.
We cannot read literary works without making use of the concept of
genre. In Old Norse studies, genre has been central to the
categorisation, evaluation and understanding of medieval prose and
poetry alike; yet its definition has been elusive and its
implications often left unexplored. This volume opens up
fundamental questions about Old Norse genre in theory and in
practice. It offers an extensive range of theoretical approaches,
investigating and critiquing current terms and situating its
arguments within early Scandinavian and Icelandic oral-literary and
manuscript contexts. It maps the ways in which genre and form
engage with key thematic areas within the literary corpus,noting
the different kinds of impact upon the genre system brought about
by conversion to Christianity, the gradual adoption of European
literary models, and social and cultural changes occurring in
Scandinavian society. A case-study section probes both prototypical
and hard-to-define cases, demonstrating the challenges that actual
texts pose to genre theory in terms of hybridity, evolution and
innovation. With an annotated taxonomy of Old Norse genres and an
extensive bibliography, it is an indispensable resource for
contemporary Old Norse-Icelandic literary studies.
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