Medieval Scandinavia went through momentous changes. Regional power centres merged and gave birth to the three strong kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. At the end of the Middle Ages, they together formed the enormous Kalmar Union comprising almost all lands around the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. In the Middle Ages, Scandinavia became part of a common Europe, yet preserved its own distinct cultural markers. Scandinavia in the Middle Ages 900-1550 covers the entire Middle Ages into an engaging narrative. The book gives a chronological overview of political, ecclesiastical, cultural, and economic developments. It integrates to this narrative climatic changes, energy crises, devastating epidemies, family life and livelihood, arts, education, technology and literature, and much else. The book shows how different groups had an important role in shaping society: kings and peasants, pious priests, nuns and crusaders, merchants, and students, without forgetting minorities such as Sami and Jews. The book is divided into three chronological parts 900-1200, 1200-1400, and 1400-1550, where analyses of general trends are illustrated by the acts of individual men and women. This book is essential reading for students of, as well as all those interested in, medieval Scandinavia and Europe more broadly.

Medieval Scandinavia went through momentous changes. Regional power centres merged and gave birth to the three strong kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. At the end of the Middle Ages, they together formed the enormous Kalmar Union comprising almost all lands around the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. In the Middle Ages, Scandinavia became part of a common Europe, yet preserved its own distinct cultural markers. Scandinavia in the Middle Ages 900-1550 covers the entire Middle Ages into an engaging narrative. The book gives a chronological overview of political, ecclesiastical, cultural, and economic developments. It integrates to this narrative climatic changes, energy crises, devastating epidemies, family life and livelihood, arts, education, technology and literature, and much else. The book shows how different groups had an important role in shaping society: kings and peasants, pious priests, nuns and crusaders, merchants, and students, without forgetting minorities such as Sami and Jews. The book is divided into three chronological parts 900-1200, 1200-1400, and 1400-1550, where analyses of general trends are illustrated by the acts of individual men and women. This book is essential reading for students of, as well as all those interested in, medieval Scandinavia and Europe more broadly.

This book examines the Danish Empire, which for over four hundred years stretched from Northern Norway to Hamburg and was feared by small German principalities to the South. Evolving over time, it has included most of Scandinavia and the North Atlantic, has shifted from a Western orientation under the Vikings to an Eastern one in the Middle Ages, and from a North Sea Empire to a Baltic Empire. From the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, it comprised small overseas colonies in India, Africa and the Caribbean. Exploring the rise and fall of Denmark's Kingdom, from 9 AD to the present, this textbook considers how such vast empires were kept together through ideology and symbols, military force, transport systems and networks of civil servants. The authors demonstrate how the lands under Danish rule included a variety of religious groups, social and economic structures, law systems, and ethnic and linguistic groups. They also consider the economic and ideological benefit of an empire structure in comparison to a nation state. Providing a detailed overview of the long history of the Danish Empire, whilst also confronting current debate and providing novel interpretations, this book offers an original, imperial and multi-territorial perspective on the history of the Danish state, providing essential reading for students of Danish or Scandinavian history and European or Global empires.

Monasteries were important cultural centers in the Middle Ages. In monasteries, classical authors were copied and studied, new music and new sermons were composed, and new standards from abroad were introduced and spread throughout an ever larger Europe. Monks and nuns created European networks, connecting them to individuals with whom they shared particular interests in theology and learning, but they also had a keen eye for the importance of cultivating connections to local magnates and kings. In the long 13th century, new orders like the mendicants emerged, and monastic life as a whole flourished. Sustained experimentation, the adaptation of new intellectual inspirations, and the adjustment of organizational structures were major characteristics of this life. There was a balance between contemplating the transcendent and securing the material foundation that allowed the individual monk or nun to disappear into the Divine. Monastic communities were powerful centers for innovation that decisively influenced secular life and shaped European history. The contributions in this festschrift are offered in honor of Professor Brian Patrick McGuire, a recognized authority on the Cistercians, and in acknowledgment of his significant contribution to the study of European monastic culture.

The roles of popes, saints, and crusaders were inextricably intertwined in the Middle Ages: papal administration was fundamental in the making and promulgating of new saints and in financing crusades, while crusaders used saints as propaganda to back up the authority of popes, and even occasionally ended up being sanctified themselves. Yet, current scholarship rarely treats these three components of medieval faith together. This book remedies that by bringing together scholars to consider the links among the three and the ways that understanding them can help us build a more complete picture of the working of the church and Christianity in the Middle Ages.