The Northern World
Series · 25
books · 2001-2015
Books in series
#1
Tools, Weapons and Ornaments
Germanic Material Culture in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400-750
2001
This illustrated book continues themes in Central European cultural history treated elsewhere with the intention of presenting an interdisciplinary study of early medieval socio-cultural developments.
A continuation of the preceding books, this volume examines the archeological evidence of the groups who settled Central Europe. It aims to amplify the information recorded during the late Roman Empire about societies, social dynamics and ethnological contexts by examining their material culture. The language of significant objects complements the literature of significant texts.
The three parts of the book inform of the historical and archeological evidence; elaborate the socio-cultural conclusions provided by archeology; examine the system of values as reflected in the forms of artistic expression. The study of objects helps clarify the contours of the Germanic populations of pre-Carolingian Central Europe.
#2
Traditions and Transformations in Late Medieval England
2002
This volume deals with political, military, social, architectural, and literary aspects of fifteenth century England. The essays contained in the volume range across the century from some of the leading scholars currently working in the period.
Contributors: Mark Addison Amos, Douglas Biggs, Kelly DeVries, Matthew Boyd Goldie, Virginia Henderson, Gwym Meirion-Jones, Michael Jones, Helen Maurer, Sharon D. Michalove, Michael D. Myers, Anthony J. Pollard, A. Compton Reeves, and Joel Rosenthal.
#3
The Mother of all Trades
The Baltic Grain Trade in Amsterdam from the Late 16th to the Early 19th Century
2002
In the early-modern period, the Dutch called the grain trade on the Baltic the 'mother of all trades', as they considered it to be the basis of most of their trade and shipping and indeed the cornerstone of the Dutch economy. For a very long time the mass grain exports from the Baltic were dominated by the Dutch, and Amsterdam was the central entrepot from which the grain was distributed over the Dutch hinterland and the rest of Europe.
This book aims to present a general history of the 'mother of all trades' and particularly shows the fundamental importance for transaction costs, including the costs for transport, insurance and protection, the quality of the local services sector in Amsterdam, the influence of monetary and mercantile policies, and the efficiency of trade organization.
#5
An Unofficial Alliance, Scotland and Sweden 1569 - 1654
2003
This work reveals the hitherto unrepresented relationship that developed between Scotland and Sweden during the second half of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries. Sweden's emergence as an independent Nordic, and indeed European, power required continual military and economic growth, which in turn necessitated a constant supply of manpower. The initially piecemeal migration of private individuals from Scotland bringing both martial and mercantile skills to Sweden gradually grew into an informal alliance, albeit officially sanctioned by the Swedes, based on personal networks. Equally the impact of Sweden's support for the Scottish Covenanting movement on British state-formation is scrutinized. This fresh perspective on Scottish-Swedish connections is aimed at those interested in state-formation, migration studies, diplomatic developments, and military history.
#7
Fargrskinna, a Catalogue of the Kings of Norway
A Translation With Introduction and Notes
2003
This volume includes the first complete translation of a thirteenth-century vernacular history of Norway from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. An immediate source for the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson, it is a central text in the Old Norse genre of Kings' sagas. It includes extensive citation of skaldic verses, some of them preserved nowhere else. This translation preserves many of the metrical features of this complex verse form, which are explained in the commentary along with aspects of historical and cultural interest arising from the text. The introduction places the text within the Kings' saga tradition and examines the particular concerns of its anonymous author. The volume will be of use to historians and those interested in Old Norse literary history.
#12
Viking Rus
Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe
2004
This volume deals with one of the most controversial issues in writings about early medieval the presence of Scandinavians, known as Rus, and their impact on Eastern Europe during the Viking Age. These studies give for the first time an extensive and detailed picture of the Norse population in the East by using, besides written narratives, a wide range of archaeological sources. The seven chapters survey the background, then depict the first Norse centres and sites of Norse colonists in the north-western Russia; further chapters contain information about the great number of settlements in the Volga region and, finally describe the activities of a group of Rus that resulted in creation of the principality of Kiev. With the help of numerous illustrations the contents of the book clarify many problems and support the conclusion that in the East real Norse societies existed that were an important and natural part of the Scandinavian värld.
#12
Kingship and State Formation in Sweden 1130 - 1290
2007
Kingship and State Formation in Sweden covers, for the first time in English, a key period in the consolidation of the Swedish state. The book begins with an overview of Sweden prior to the twelfth century and a reign-by-reign history of the period 1130 - 1290. Thereafter issues related to kingship and state formation are treated thematically, with sections on royal administration and taxation, legal and military institutions, relations between king and Church, the development of Christian kingship ideology and expansion into Finland.
Extensive appendices are included on the genealogy and landholdings of powerful families and on fortifications. The book is well furnished with over forty maps and genealogical tables. Developments in Sweden are placed firmly within their European context, and the volume will be of interest to all those with an interest in medieval politics in general as well as to students of early Swedish or Scandinavian history.
#13
Between Betrothal and Bedding
Marriage Formation in Sweden 1200-1600
2009
Swedish medieval marriage formation was a process, written down in the secular laws. However, it started to evolve because of the interaction with the medieval Catholic marriage doctrine, which focused on mutual words of consent. Although first the canon law of marriage, and then Lutheran marriage dogma influenced the Swedish development, the perception of marriage as a process, consisting of several legal acts and accompanied by property transfers, proved remarkably resilient. The pragmatic and rural character of Sweden contributed to this, despite pressure from canon and Roman law and attempts at bringing marriage formation under ecclesiastical control. Marrying by stages was in itself unremarkable in Europe, but the legal foundation and formality make medieval and sixteenth-century Sweden a unique case study.
#14
Sexuality, Law and Legal Practice and the Reformation in Norway
2009
This book argues the continuities between the medieval and early modern in Norway in regards to extramarital sexuality and the manner in which it was criminalised and punished, as well as the position of women within the law.
#17
Reputation and Representation in Fifteenth-Century Europe
The Northern World. North Europe and the Baltic C. 400-1700 Ad Peoples, Economies and Cultu
2004
This volume deals with political, military, social, architectural, and literary aspects of fifteenth-century England. The essays contained in the volume range across the century from some of the leading scholars currently working in the period.With contributions by Mark Arvanigian, Kelly DeVries, Sharon Michalove, Harry Schnitker, Charlotte Bauer-Smith, Candace Gregory, Helen Maurer, Karen Bezella-Bond, E. Kay Harris, Daniel Thiery, John Leland, Peter Fleming, Virginia K. Henderson.
#19
Texts and Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions. the Northern World
North Europe and the Baltic C. 400-1700 Ad Peoples, Economies and Cultures, V
2003
This volume gathers all older fuark inscriptions found in Denmark, Germany, England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Hungary, Bosnia, Rumania, Norway and Sweden. It contains essays on early runic writing, the historical and archaeological contexts of runic objects, and a new theory on the origin of runic writing. The book contains also a catalogue of the runic inscriptions found in the regions mentioned above. The catalogue gives datings, readings and interpretations, plus limited graphic, orthographic and linguistic analyses of the inscriptions from the above mentioned corpora, complete with concise bibliographical references. The overall aim has been to provide the reader with a practical survey of the oldest inscripti-ons from the aforementioned areas, together with relevant archaeological and cultural-historical data. The book is particularly useful for runologists, students and others interested in runes, such as archaeologists, historians, linguists and amateurs. It is actually a handbook covering all older runic inscriptions and their context.
#20
The Reign of Alexander II, 1214 - 49
2005
This volume explores aspects of the political, social, cultural, economic and religious development of Scotland in the reign of King Alexander II (1214-49). It constitutes the first full-length, multi-author study of the king and his reign. The nine contributors to the volume explore issues as diverse as the historiography of the reign, Anglo-Scottish relations, Church-State relations, economy and international trade, law, aristocratic symbolism, urban development and the territorial expansion of the kingdom. This book, the first major study of a reign which saw the Scottish monarchy achieve its mastery of northern mainland Britain, is of great importance to historians of medieval Scotland and the wider British Isles. The book is illustrated with 24 colour and b/w photographs and 5 maps and plans.
#21
Unpredictability and Presence
Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages
2008
This book applies a legal anthropological framework to high medieval Norwegian history. It formulates the question of state formation in a new and challenging way by showing how the king a substantial degree based his dominion on unpredictability and presence.
#22
Power and the City in the Netherlandic World
2006
In the absence of a powerful state, how was coercive power established within, over, and by the cities of the Low Countries? Eleven chapters covering the medieval and early modern periods explore this theme from various angles. Some chapters detail symbolic contests or armed struggle, while others focus on industrial control by urban magistrates or their attempts to regulate servants and maintain religious orthodoxy. The essays suggest that the Netherlandic world, in which cities have always loomed large, may have followed a distinctive path of political development that characterized the urban belt of Europe more generally. As such, this volume aims to create new understandings of the place of the Low Countries in European history.
#24
Plantation and Civility in the North Atlantic World
The Case of the Northern Hebrides, 1570 - 1639
2015
The settlement of the Hebrides is usually considered in terms of the state formation agenda. Yet the area was subject to successive attempts at plantation, largely overlooked in historical narrative. Aonghas MacCoinnich s study, Plantation and Civility, explores these plantations against the background of a Lowland-Highland cultural divide and competition over resources.
The Macleod of Lewis clan, uncivil, Gaelic Highlanders, were dispossessed by the Lowland, civil, Fife Adventurers, 1598 - 1609. Despite the collapse of this Lowland Plantation, however, the recourse to the Mackenzie clan, often thought a failure of policy, was instead a pragmatic response to an intractable problem. The Mackenzies also pursued the civility agenda treating with Dutch partners and fending off their English rivals in order to develop their plantation.
#25
Kind Neighbours
Scottish Saints and Society in the Later Middle Ages
2015
In Kind Neighbours Tom Turpie explores devotion to Scottish saints and their shrines in the later middle ages. He provides fresh insight into the role played by these saints in the legal and historical arguments for Scottish independence, and the process by which first Andrew, and later Ninian, were embraced as patron saints of the Scots.
Kind Neighbours also explains the appeal of the most popular Scottish saints of the period and explores the relationship between regional shrines and the Scottish monarchy. Rejecting traditional interpretations based around church-led patriotism or crown patronage, Turpie draws on a wide range of sources to explain how religious, political and environmental changes in the later middle ages shaped devotion to the saints in Scotland.
#26
The Lordship of the Isles
2014
In The Lordship of the Isles, twelve specialists offer new insights on the rise and fall of the MacDonalds of Islay and the greatest Gaelic lordship of later medieval Scotland. Portrayed most often as either the independently-minded last great patrons of Scottish Gaelic culture or as dangerous rivals to the Stewart kings for mastery of Scotland, this collection navigates through such opposed perspectives to re-examine the politics, culture, society and connections of Highland and Hebridean Scotland from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. It delivers a compelling account of a land and people caught literally and figuratively between two worlds, those of the Atlantic and mainland Scotland, and of Gaelic and Anglophone culture.
Contributors are David Caldwell, Sonja Cameron, Alastair Campbell, Alison Cathcart, Colin Martin, Tom McNeill, Lachlan Nicholson, Richard Oram, Michael Penman, Alasdair Ross, Geoffrey Stell and Sarah Thomas.
#27
The Brendan Legend
Texts and Versions
2006
The Brendan Legend: Texts and Versions deals with the vast textual tradition relating to the Irish Saint Brendan, known as 'The Navigator'. Stories about Brendan have been popular in the whole of Western Europe, from the seventh to the twentieth century. The themes of the book are the interrelated problems of the textual and literary embedding of Brendan texts. For the first time researchers in Celtic, German, Latin and Romance languages and literatures have co-operated on the Brendan tradition, and they have mapped the changes in textual traditions according to different circumstances and audiences. This book will be important to those studying the influence of Celtic literature on the European Continent, and, more generally, to those interested in the versatility of textual traditions in Western Europe.
#28
Commerce and Print in the Early Reformation
2007
Communications and the spread of nonconformist views were key to the spiritual upheaval that gripped many parts of northern Europe in the 1520s. Emphasising economic and cultural hegemony, this book explores the transmission of innovation through networks of trade. Interrelated themes include commercial typography, legal and illicit book distribution, espionage, and censorship. These are elaborated through a series of episodes involving printers and patrician oligarchs, spies and fugitives, and pamphleteers and entrepreneurs.
The accent on commerce and print broadens the interpretive scope for study of the early Reformation beyond national, political, or exclusively religious contexts. It also leads to a reassessment of some conventional assumptions about merchants as distributors of Scripture texts and reformist propaganda.
#29
Pictish Progress
New Studies on Northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages
2010
Survey chapters analyse advances in studies of Pictish culture during the last fifty years. Inter-disciplinary case studies cover archaeology, place-names, history, liturgy, and history within a wider European framework.
#30
St. Magnús of Orkney
A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context
2007
This book looks at the emergence of the cult of St Magnús, earl of Orkney (d. 1117), and the literary corpus composed in his honour. Both aspects are examined from a wider Scandinavian and European perspective.
#31
Urban Politics and the British Civil Wars
Edinburgh, 1617 - 53
2006
On 23 July 1637, riots broke out in Edinburgh. These disturbances triggered the collapse of royal authority across the British Isles. This volume explores the political and religious culture in the Scottish capital from the reign of James VI and I to the Cromwellian occupation. It examines for the first time the importance of Edinburgh to the formation of the Scottish opposition movement and to the establishment of the revolutionary Covenanting regime. Although the primary focus is the Scottish capital, an explicitly British perspective is maintained. This is a wide-ranging study that engages in debates about early modern urban culture, the problem of multiple monarchy and the issue of post-Reformation religious radicalism.
#32
Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland, 800 - 1200
2009
Concentrating upon the lifestyle, attitudes and motivations of the slave-holders and slave-raiders, this book explores the activities and behavioural codes of Britain and Ireland s warrior-centred societies c.800-1200 highlighting the significance of slavery for constructions of power, ethnic identity and gender."
#32
A Spirited Exchange
The Wine and Brandy Trade Between France and the Dutch Republic in its Atlantic Framework, 1600 - 1650
2010
#33
Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World
Studies in Honour of James Graham-Campbell
2012
Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World brings together leading experts on the European early Middle Ages in a celebration of the life and work of internationally renowned scholar James Graham-Campbell.
The geographical coverage of this volume reflects Graham-Campbell's interests and expertise which ranges from Ireland to Eastern Europe and from Scandinavia to Spain. The new perspectives and original studies offered represent a major contribution to the field of medieval studies, with papers on the art, archaeology, history and literature of European societies between the fifth and thirteenth centuries.
Contributors are Noel Adams, Barry Ager, Marion M. Archibald, Birgit Arrhenius, Coleen Batey, Cormac Bourke, Stuart Brookes, Ewan Campbell, Helen Clarke, Martin Comey, Rosemary Cramp, Wendy Davies, Ben Edwards, Signe Horn Fuglesang, Richard Gem, David Griffiths, Mark A. Handley, Birgitta Hardh, Negley Harte, David A. Hinton, Ingegerd Holand, Judith Jesch, Alan Lane, Mick Monk, Richard North, Raghnall O Floinn, Patrick Ottaway, Raymond I. Page, Caroline Paterson, Neil Price, Barry Raftery, Mark Redknap, Andrew Reynolds, Ian Riddler, Else Roesdahl, John Sheehan, Alison Stones, Gudrun Sveinbjarnardottir, Gabor Thomas, Nicola Trzaska-Nartowski, Patrick F. Wallace, Leslie Webster, Naimh Whitfield, Gareth Williams, Sir David Wilson and Sue Youngs."
Authors
Aonghas MacCoinnich
Author · 1 books
Aonghas MacCoinnich is a lecturer in Celtic History at the University of Glasgow. Recent publications include an article "The Maritime Dimensions of Scotland's Highland Problem, 1540 - 1630" (2019) and a mongraph Plantation Civility in the North Atlantic World: The Case of the Northern Hebrides, c.1570 - 1639 (2015).
David Wyatt
Author · 1 books
David Wyatt began illustrating at the age of seventeen, working for the British comic 2000 AD. He has illustrated ever since, when not distracted by music or trees. He lives in England.
Sharon D. Michalove
Author · 7 books
Sharon Michalove grew up in suburban Chicago. She received four degrees from the University of Illinois because she didn't have the gumption to go anywhere else, and spent most of her career at the university, eventually earning a PhD, working in departmental administration, publishing and libraries. Her specialties are 15th-16th century European history, polar exploration, and food history. She may be one of the few people in America to never live outside her home state. In graduate school, she met and married the love of her life. They shared a love of music, theater, travel and cats. He died in 2013. Sharon also loves hockey, reading, cooking, writing, and various less elevated activities like eating cookies and sampling gins and single malts. After spending most of her life in a medium-sized university town she moved back to Chicago in 2017 so she could go to more Blackhawks games and spend quality time at Eataly. She hopes to accomplish a lifetime goal by publishing a book this year. Unfortunately her other lifetime goal, to be English, is likely to remain unfulfilled.
Laura A.M. Stewart
Author · 2 books
Laura A.M. Stewart is Professor in Early Modern History & Head of Department at the University of York. Before joining the Department of History at York in 2016, she taught for ten years at Birkbeck, University of London, where she also held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2005-7). Her research focusses on seventeenth-century British history. She has written widely on the civil war era, Scottish political culture and Anglo-Scottish relations, and on state formation and political communication in the British archipelago.
