Filling a gap in the literature for an academically oriented volume on the Viking period, this unique book is a one-stop authoritative introduction to all the latest research in the field.

Bringing together today 's leading scholars, both established seniors and younger, cutting-edge academics, Stefan Brink and Neil Price have constructed the first single work to gather innovative research from a spectrum of disciplines (including archaeology, history, philology, comparative religion, numismatics and cultural geography) to create the most comprehensive Viking Age book of its kind ever attempted.

Consisting of longer articles providing overviews of important themes, supported by shorter papers focusing on material of particular interest, this comprehensive volume covers such wide-ranging topics as social institutions, spatial issues, the Viking Age economy, warfare, beliefs, language, voyages, and links with medieval and Christian Europe.

This original work, specifically oriented towards a university audience and the educated public, will have a self-evident place as an undergraduate course book and will be a standard work of reference for all those in the field.

Filling a gap in the literature for an academically oriented volume on the Viking period, this unique book is a one-stop authoritative introduction to all the latest research in the field. Bringing together today's leading scholars, both established seniors and younger, cutting-edge academics, Brink and Price have constructed the first single work to gather innovative research from a spectrum of disciplines (including archaeology, history, philology, comparative religion, numismatics and cultural geography) to create the most comprehensive Viking Age book of its kind ever attempted.
Consisting of longer articles providing overviews of important themes, supported by shorter papers focusing on material of particular interest -- specific sites or finds, crucial written sources or the results of the latest individual research projects -- this comprehensive volume covers such wide-ranging topics as social institutions, spatial issues, the Viking Age economy, warfare, beliefs, language, voyages, andlinks with medieval and Christian Europe.
Conceived and assembled in Scandinavia, with a marked international flavour, this original work, specifically oriented towards a university audience and the educated public, will have a self-evident place as an undergraduate course book and will be a standard work of reference for all those in the field.

Nordic slavery is an elusive phenomenon, with few similarities to the systematic exploitation of slaves in households, mines, and amphitheaters in the ancient Mediterranean or the widespread slavery at American plantations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Scandinavians in the early Middle Ages lived in a society foreign to us, characterized by different and shifting social statuses. A person could be at once socially respected and unfree. It was possible to hand oneself over as a slave to someone else in exchange for protection and food. One could be sentenced temporarily to enslavement for some offense but later purchase his manumission. Young men could enter into a kind of "contract" with a king or chieftain to join his retinue, accepting his authority, patronage, and jurisdiction, while at the same time making a quick social elevation. Slavery was widespread all over Europe during the early Middle Ages and Scandinavians, as Stefan Brink illustrates in this book, became a major player in the northern slave trade. However, the Vikings were not particularly interested in taking slaves to Scandinavia; instead, their "business model" seems to have been to raid, abduct, and then sell captured people at major slave markets. Their goal was not people but silver. Using a wide variety of source materials, including archaeology, runes, Icelandic sagas, early law, place names, personal names, and not least etymological and semantic analyses of the terminology of slaves, Thraldom provides the most thorough survey of slavery in the Viking Age.

Namenwelten ist eine breit angelegte Dokumentation zu Namen und Namenforschung im deutsch-skandinavischen Raum. Einen Schwerpunkt bilden Beitrage, die Fragen nach Herkunft, Entstehung und Bildungsweise von Ortsnamen nachgehen und dabei umfangreiches neues onymisches Material vorstellen. Die Erforschung der Personennamen umfasst auch theoretisch-methodische Aspekte, allgemeine Prinzipien sowie Kontinuitat und Tradition der Namengebung. Eine Reihe runologisch orientierter Artikel widmet sich den in Runeninschriften uberlieferten Namen und verknupft sie mit sprach(geschicht)lichen Problemen; dabei werden in Einzelfragen auch benachbarte Forschungsgebiete gestreift. Der Index erschliesst annahernd 5000 Orts- und Personennamen.

The work of the German Federal Constitutional Court has a significant effect on all three branches of government. While public interest and the media primarily focus their attention on spectacular court decisions, the academic study of law strives to record, analyze, and structure the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court in its entirety. Research associates are the first to observe patterns and trends in case law and follow them in their work. From this intimate perspective, this volume strives to address central, characteristic, and significant topics and questions and discuss them at an academic level. The contributions to this volume range from judgment discussions to summaries of case law. The particular value of this volume lies in its presentation: it is court employees themselves that present the reader with background information as well as trends in constitutional case law and the current and practical bearing on the activities of other branches of government.