Northern Medieval World – serie

Anglo-Danish Empire is an interdisciplinary handbook for the Danish conquest of England in 1016 and the subsequent reign of King Cnut the Great. Bringing together scholars from the fields of history, literature, archaeology, and manuscript studies, the volume offers comprehensive analysis of England’s shift from Anglo-Saxon to Danish rule. It follows the history of this complicated transition, from the closing years of the reign of King Æthelred II and the Anglo-Danish wars, to Cnut’s accession to the throne of England and his consolidation of power at home and abroad. Ruling from 1016 to 1035, Cnut drew England into a Scandinavian empire that stretched from Ireland to the Baltic. His reign rewrote the place of Denmark and England within Europe, altering the political and cultural landscapes of both countries for decades to come.

The Old Norse-Icelandic konungasögur (kings’ sagas) have been thoroughly studied for centuries for their vivid representation of Scandinavia’s Viking Age past, but women have frequently been overlooked in scholarly discussions of the political culture found within the texts. Women, Politics, and Social Networks in the Sagas of Norwegian Kings shows that in their accounts of early Norwegian history, the kings’ sagas portray aristocratic and royal women as able to participate in politics at a similar level to men, but only within certain social parameters. Women are structurally enabled to enter male-dominated political spaces and positions through their participation in, interaction with, and manipulation of, multifaceted aristocratic networks based around interpersonal bonds of kinship, friendship, and lordship. Inspired by advancements within medieval network theory and studies of aristocratic group behaviour and women’s social agency in medieval historiography, the book demonstrates that the sagas portray elite women as utilising the same network strategies as men and potentially exercising similar levels of political power as a consequence, while being excluded from the institutionalised roles of kingship, chieftaincy, and military and judicial leadership.

This edited volume examines literary production and reception during a rich but neglected chapter of Iceland’s history. It questions the usefulness of the binary division of premodern texts into religious and secular, advocating for a more holistic approach in which one can glimpse the sacred in the profane and the profane in the sacred. The volume brings together contributions by twelve scholars that cover topics ranging from þulur and rímur poetry to the lives of premodern Icelandic poets and hymnists. The book includes a concise introduction to literary and cultural developments in Iceland after 1500, while also providing fresh insight into the premodern Icelandic literary environment and how it has been perceived and portrayed.