Peter Hayes Sawyer was an English historian. His work on the Vikings was highly influential, as was his scholarship on Medieval England. Sawyer's early work The Age of the Vikings argued that the Vikings were "traders not raiders", overturning the previously held view that the Vikings' voyages were only focused on destruction and pillaging.
Sawyer is particularly known for his annotated catalogue of Anglo-Saxon charters. Anglo-Saxon charters are referenced by "Sawyer" numbers (abbreviated 'S' as for example in charter "S 407") according to his catalogue.
This book provides more nitty-gritty archaeological evidence than what I was looking for, but I found the chapters on Scandinavian society and Pagans and Christians fairly helpful to my research.