Know Thine Enemy: Scandinavian Identity in the Viking Age

Scandinavian Journal of History, 2015

Early Medieval Europe, 2003

This paper addresses the impact of the Scandinavian settlements in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, and the role that ethnic identity and affiliation played in the society of the so-called Danelaw. It is argued that ethnic identity was not a constant factor, but one that only became relevant, at least in the evidence available to us, at certain times. It is suggested that the key to understanding expressions of ethnicity lies in the absorption of new ruling elites in northern and eastern England, and in subsequent political manoeuvring, rather than in the scale of the Scandinavian settlement. Indeed, the scale of the settlement does not easily explain most of our evidence, with the exception of some of the linguistic data. This paper stresses the importance of discussing the Scandinavian settlements not simply by reference to ethnic factors, but within the social and political context of early medieval society.

2000

During every war between Denmark and Sweden from at least 1505 to 1676 popular peace treaties were concluded by "common men" on both sides of the national border. These treaties were negotiated in contrast to the aggressive policy of the political leaders and to the nationalistic discourse of the elite. The aim of this article is to use archaeology to give an economic, social, and mental background to these treaties, and to the regional identity across the border that they presuppose. Above all a specific building tradition seems to have given the peasants a mental affinity across the border.

Quaestio Insularis 18, 2017

This article considers the theoretical approaches commonly used to propose answers to two questions. First is the question of how one should define ‘collective identity’. The second is how to identify groups of collective identity using the limited resources available. The article outlines a methodology with which to reconstruct the regional landscape of pre-unification Viking Age Norway, which is then be tested through two detailed case studies based on the modern Norwegian ‘landsdeler’ of Vestland, Sørland and Nord-Norge. Finally, this article proposes that regional elites are likely to have played the primary role in the creation and maintenance of regional collective identity.

Relations and Runes: The Baltic Islands and their Interactions During the Late Iron Age and Early Middle Ages, 2020

Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 2008

Thegns around the North Sea: Elite, Nobility, Aristocracy of the Late Viking Age, 2024

This cross-disciplinary doctoral thesis examines thegns (OE/ON þegn) in late pre-Norman England and Viking-Age Scandinavia, departing from the problem of interpreting thegns commemorated in 45 runic inscriptions from around 1000 AD. The thesis highlights that thegns’ socio-conceptual roles stemmed from concrete historical processes and changing social meanings. Studying them provides insights into the social order and interconnectedness of the North Sea region. The dissertation comprises five research chapters, five accessory vignettes for historical context, and two excursuses into related but not decisive matters. CHAPTER 1 presents the problem and research questions on: 1) social structures communicated through OE/ON þegn; 2) power distribution illuminated by thegns’ socio-economic and political conditions; 3) interactions between England and Scandinavia that follows from the answer to the former two questions. The chapter also charts the historical and theoretical background, methodology, and study design. It emphasises the need to sidestep the few and potentially problematic sources and to instead use digital language corpora for a maximum range of contextualised meanings of OE/ON þegn. CHAPTER 2 outlines the historiographical background, summarising previous scholarship and potential hurdles in interpretation of primary sources: Archbishop Wulfstan of York’s texts in England; post-Viking-Age English sources and native toponymic material in Scandinavia. CHAPTER 3 establishes that OE þegn always connoted non-humiliating service by a free man to a lord, usually a king. Through royal co-optation during the studied period, the term evolved to denote lay landowning aristocratic elites. This process involved tenurial and interpersonal relationships, which in the monarchocentric discourse attracted the name “bookland” for the landed property and “thegn” for its owner. The chapter wavers to definitively pronounce if such elites internalised the thegnly identity as a master status and became a historical ontology. With that, the chapter concludes by offering a new possible reading of Wulfstan’s writings. CHAPTER 4 shows that ON þegn rarely meant “servant” and instead denoted lay elites and/or kings’ junior partners, and that Scandinavian kings sought to turn the former into the latter. The chapter argues that their common trait was an economic powerbase in ancestral landed property, the “odal”. The chapter explores the hǫldar status group associated with “odal” and the thegnly elites’ transition from royal liegemen to subjects through an expanding royal lordship. The chapter concludes by interpreting runic thegns as local magnates rather than immediate royal agents. CHAPTER 5 summarises the conclusions, positing that pre-Conquest England’s social order was strongly affected by a monarchocentric discourse, unlike in Scandinavia. The chapter emphasises recognising the bias in the term “thegn”, especially in England, and that in Scandinavia, senses imbued in ON þegn appear independent of each other and irreducible to one “core” meaning, unlike in England. The chapter harmonises these conclusions by suggesting that thanks to a closely knit socio-conceptual space, social ideas traversed the North-Sea region. A possibility is entertained that due to significant interactions at the turn of the 9th–10th and 10th–11th centuries, Old Norse inherited late OE þegn senses in received forms and adapted them to local social conditions, the results of which, among others, got engraved in the 45 runic inscriptions in question. NOTICED ERRATA: 155 printed: "western third of the “Greater” Wessex" read: "western third of “Greater” Wessex" 158 printed: "six historical counties" read: "six historic counties" 165 printed: "Darlington in favour of must" read: "Darlington in favour of Styrr must" 170 printed: "9201" read: "920" 170 printed: "yields no addition information" read: "yields no additional information" 171 printed: "hēafodman" [×2] read: "hēafodmann" 172 printed: "who pointed Dr Blair’s article to me" read: "who pointed out Dr Blair’s article to me" 172 printed: "reiterating (Sukhino-Khomenko and Guimon" read: "reiterating: Sukhino-Khomenko and Guimon" 274 printed: "Rättegångsbalken, V" read: "Rättegångsbalken V"