Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume III

Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume III PDF Author: Wojtek Jezierski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000200116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
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-à-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 III

Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume III PDF Author: Wojtek Jezierski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000200116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book Here

Book Description
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-à-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

Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050–1250, Volume II PDF Author: Kim Esmark
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000037347
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
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.

Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume I

Nordic Elites in Transformation, c. 1050-1250, Volume I PDF Author: Bjørn Poulsen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429557280
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This book, first in a series of three, examines the social elites in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, and which social, political, and cultural resources went into their creation. The elite controlled enormous economic resources and exercised power over people. Power over agrarian production was essential to the elites during this period, although mobile capital was becoming increasingly important. The book focuses on the material resources of the elites, through questions such as: Which types of resources were at play? How did the elites acquire and exchange resources?

The Queens and Royal Women of Sweden, c. 970–1330

The Queens and Royal Women of Sweden, c. 970–1330 PDF Author: Caroline Wilhelmsson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040155200
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This is the first major piece of scholarship to provide an overview of the lives of Sweden’s earliest documented queens, together with some of their most influential female relatives, who lived between 970 and 1330. Spanning a period over 350 years, approximately 40 biographies are included from the semi-legendary Viking queen Sigrid Storråda to Duchess Ingeborg of Norway, the first female de jure and de facto ruler of Sweden. Rather than merely summarising previous research, this study offers new perspectives on the evolution of queenship in medieval Sweden. It tracks the different religious, political, and socio-economic trends which defined and shaped the office of queen and identifies three main phases of development which led to royal women’s economic and political emancipation by the mid-fourteenth century. The study’s main strength lies in its close reading and novel interpretation of the surviving primary sources, enabling readers to understand the importance of these women and wider themes such as state formation, Christianisation, and international politics. The Queens and Royal Women of Sweden, c. 970–1330 is of interest to scholars of queenship and gender studies, medieval historians in general, those with an interest in ecclesiastical history, and anyone studying medieval Scandinavia.

Making Livonia

Making Livonia PDF Author: Anu Mänd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000076938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The region called Livonia (corresponding to modern Estonia and Latvia) emerged out of the rapid transformation caused by the conquest, Christianisation and colonisation on the north-east shore of the Baltic Sea in the late twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. These radical changes have received increasing scholarly notice over the last few decades. However, less attention has been devoted to the interplay between the new and the old structures and actors in a longer perspective. This volume aims to study these interplays and explores the history of Livonia by concentrating on various actors and networks from the late twelfth to the seventeenth century. But, on a deeper level, the goal is more ambitious: to investigate the foundation of an increasingly complex and heterogeneous society on the medieval and early modern Baltic frontier – ‘the making of Livonia’.

Tracing the Jerusalem Code

Tracing the Jerusalem Code PDF Author: Kristin B. Aavitsland
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110636271
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 841

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Book Description
With the aim to write the history of Christianity in Scandinavia with Jerusalem as a lens, this book investigates the image – or rather the imagination – of Jerusalem in the religious, political, and artistic cultures of Scandinavia through most of the second millennium. Jerusalem is conceived as a code to Christian cultures in Scandinavia. The first volume is dealing with the different notions of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages. Tracing the Jerusalem Code in three volumes Volume 1: The Holy City Christian Cultures in Medieval Scandinavia (ca. 1100–1536) Volume 2: The Chosen People Christian Cultures in Early Modern Scandinavia (1536–ca. 1750) Volume 3: The Promised Land Christian Cultures in Modern Scandinavia (ca. 1750–ca. 1920)

Quantitative Approaches to Medieval Swedish Law

Quantitative Approaches to Medieval Swedish Law PDF Author: Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527580571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This book presents a novel framework for studying historical legalisation using quantitative methods, with 10 fully-preserved laws from medieval Sweden, written between c. 1225 and 1350, serving as a case study. By applying a systematic classification scheme to each legal provision, it is possible to investigate the major differences and similarities in structure and content between the 10 laws. This, in turn, allows for the re-assessment of many long-standing problems in Swedish and European medieval legal history that have been challenging to address with traditional methods based on text analyses. Over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, major changes in the proportion of legal provisions devoted to different fields of law, and to prescribed consequences, are found. The book shows how the proportions of civil law and public law expanded at the expense of criminal law. Furthermore, a clear transition from casuistic to more abstract law provisions can also be witnessed.

Scandinavia in the Age of Vikings

Scandinavia in the Age of Vikings PDF Author: Jon Vidar Sigurdsson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501760491
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
In Scandinavia in the Age of Vikings, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson returns to the Viking homeland, Scandinavia, highlighting such key aspects of Viking life as power and politics, social and kinship networks, gifts and feasting, religious beliefs, women's roles, social classes, and the Viking economy, which included farming, iron mining and metalworking, and trade. Drawing of the latest archeological research and on literary sources, namely the sagas, Sigurðsson depicts a complex and surprisingly peaceful society that belies the popular image of Norsemen as bloodthirsty barbarians. Instead, Vikings often acted out power struggles symbolically, with local chieftains competing with each other through displays of wealth in the form of great feasts and gifts, rather than arms. At home, conspicuous consumption was a Viking leader's most important virtue; the brutality associated with them was largely wreaked abroad. Sigurðsson's engaging history of the Vikings at home begins by highlighting political developments in the region, detailing how Danish kings assumed ascendency over the region and the ways in which Viking friendship reinforced regional peace. Scandinavia in the Age of Vikings then discusses the importance of religion, first pagan and (beginning around 1000 A.D.) Christianity; the central role that women played in politics and war; and how the enormous wealth brought back to Scandinavia affected the social fabric—shedding new light on Viking society.

The House of Godwin

The House of Godwin PDF Author: Michael John Key
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445694077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The most powerful dynasty behind the throne of Anglo-Saxon England, shedding new light on events such as the Battle of Hastings.

Urban Elite Culture

Urban Elite Culture PDF Author: Luisa Radohs
Publisher: Böhlau Köln
ISBN: 3412528617
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 693

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Book Description
Medieval towns were vibrant and complex social environments where diverse groups and lifestyles encountered and influenced each other. Surprisingly, in the study of urban archaeology, the aristocracy, one of the leading and most influential groups in medieval society, has so far been neglected. This book puts "aristocracy in towns" on the archaeological research agenda. The interdisciplinary and comparative study explores the significance and representation of aristocrats and their interaction with civic elites in sea-trading towns of the southwestern Baltic from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Essentially, however, the analysis of urban elite culture leads to discussion of a much more fundamental issue: the informative value of material culture for the investigation of social conditions. The book provides new archaeological approaches to the study of social differentiation in towns, and contributes to a deeper understanding of the complexity of urban social structures.