People and Places in Northern Europe 500-1600

by Niels Lund, Ian N. Wood

A collection of essays dealing with the history and archaeology of Northern Europe in the middle ages. It looks at Anglo-Saxon England, at its contacts with Francia and Scandinavia, and at the impact of the Norwegians and the Danes on the place-names of the British Isles. Two papers deal with the history of women as recorded in runestones, and as evidenced by law suits of the medieval period.

Table of Contents

The Franks and Sutton Hoo - Ian Nicholas Wood
Baptismal 600-800 - Richard Morris
In search of King Offa's `Law Code' - Patrick Wormald
Reconstructing a royal reflections on Alfred, from Asser, chapter 2 - Janet L Nelson
Crime and punishment in the reign of King Aethelred the Unready - Simon D Keynes
Sources for pre-conquest York - R A Hall
The ideal of men dying with their lord in the battle of anachronism of Nouvelle Vague - Roberta Frank
Of danes - and thanes - and domesday book - G Fellows-Jensen
A domesday postscript and the earliest surviving pipe roll - Alexander R. Rumble
Norse settlement in the what happened to the natives and what happened to the Norse immigrants? - Per Sveaas Andersen
Jelling from Iron Age to Viking Age - Steen Hvass
`Denemearc', `tanmarkar but' and `tanmaurk ala' - Niels Lund
Danes and a study of the Danish attitude towards the wends - Tinna Damgaard-Sorensen
On the early coinage of Lund - Brita Malmer
The origin of the tuna-names reconsidered - Thorsten Andersson
Iconography and rune the example of Sparlosa - Ake Hydenstrand
Women as the role of womer in Viking-age Scandinavia - Birgit Sawyer
Women and justice in Norway c.1300-1600 - Grethe Authen Blom
Ancient monuments act - exploitation - medieval archaeology - thoughts on manifest connections - Hans Andersson

Genres: History

270 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 1996

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

These essays are generally more historical in slant than about the literature. The one on 'The Battle of Maldon' is perfectly useful for literature students too, though. It discusses the theory about, well, 'The Ideal of Men Dying with their Lord in The Battle of Maldon', with reference to older essays and theories, and bringing up several interesting analogues in the literature of the same period -- or, at any rate, closer to it than the Germania.

Useful for contextualising 'The Battle of Maldon', and through that, Tolkien's theory of 'Northern courage', which was partly drawn from texts like it where people died avenging their lord.

Must confess, didn't really read the other essays. Not my area, really.