Download or read book Culture and History in Medieval Iceland written by Kirsten Hastrup and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1985 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 930, Iceland first established a common law for the island and became an autonomous republic, which lasted until it came under the sovereignty of the Norwegian king nearly three and a half centuries later. This volume is a two-part analysis of that society, known as the Icelandic "commonwealth" or "Freestate." The first section examines how medieval Icelanders classified and perceived such domains as time, space, kinship, political organization, and cosmology, linking together these various realms to present an integrated picture of the society's world-view. The second section focuses on the changes that took place during the period in the fields of ecology, demography, religion, property relations, and the law, and explains how and why these changes, interacting with more fundamental social structures and beliefs, undermined--and ultimately destroyed--the society.
Download or read book Culture and history in medieval Iceland written by Kirsten Hastrup and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland written by Ryder Patzuk-Russell and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the institutions and practices of education which lay behind medieval Icelandic literature, as well as behind many other aspects of medieval Icelandic culture and society. By bringing together a broad spectrum of sources, incl
Download or read book Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland written by Oren Falk and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians spend a lot of time thinking about violence: bloodshed and feats of heroism punctuate practically every narration of the past. Yet historians have been slow to subject 'violence' itself to conceptual analysis. What aspects of the past do we designate violent? To what methodological assumptions do we commit ourselves when we employ this term? How may we approach the category 'violence' in a specifically historical way, and what is it that we explain when we write its history? Astonishingly, such questions are seldom even voiced, much less debated, in the historical literature. Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland: This Spattered Isle lays out a cultural history model for understanding violence. Using interdisciplinary tools, it argues that violence is a positively constructed asset, deployed along three principal axes - power, signification, and risk. Analysing violence in instrumental terms, as an attempt to coerce others, focuses on power. Analysing it in symbolic terms, as an attempt to communicate meanings, focuses on signification. Finally, analysing it in cognitive terms, as an attempt to exercise agency despite imperfect control over circumstances, focuses on risk. Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland explores a place and time notorious for its rampant violence. Iceland's famous sagas hold treasure troves of circumstantial data, ideally suited for past-tense ethnography, yet demand that the reader come up with subtle and innovative methodologies for recovering histories from their stories. The sagas throw into sharp relief the kinds of analytic insights we obtain through cultural interpretation, offering lessons that apply to other epochs too.
Download or read book Force of Words A Cultural History of Christianity and Politics in Medieval Iceland 11th 13th Centuries written by Haraldur Hreinsson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-03-29 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Haraldur Hreinsson examines the social and political significance of the Christian religion as the Roman Church was taking hold in medieval Iceland in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries.
Download or read book Medieval Iceland written by Sverrir Jakobsson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-09-20 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the ninth century, at the beginning of this account, Iceland was uninhabited save for fowl and smaller Arctic animals. In the middle of the sixteenth century, by the end of this history, it had embarked on a course that led to the creation of a small country on the periphery of Europe. The history of medieval Iceland is to some degree a microcosm of European history, but in other respects it has a trajectory of its own. As in medieval Europe, the evolution of the Church, episodic warfare, and the strengthening of the bonds of government played an important role. Unlike the rest of Europe, however, Iceland was not settled by humans until the Middle Ages and it was without towns and any type of executive government until the late medieval period. Medieval Iceland is a review of Icelandic history from the settlement until the advent of the Reformation, with an emphasis on social and political change, but also on cultural developments, such as the creation of a particular kind of literature, known throughout the world as the sagas. A view of medieval Icelandic history as it has never been told before from one of its leading historians, this book will appeal to students and scholars alike interested in Icelandic and medieval history.
Download or read book Medieval Iceland written by Sverrir Jakobsson and published by . This book was released on 2025 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the ninth century, at the beginning of this account, Iceland was uninhabited save for fowl and smaller arctic animals. In the middle of the sixteenth century, by the end of this history, it had embarked on a course that led to the creation of a small country at the periphery of Europe. The history of medieval Iceland is to some degree a microcosm of European history, but in other respects it has a trajectory of its own. As in medieval Europe, the evolution of the Church, episodic warfare, and the strengthening of the bonds of government played an important role. Unlike the rest of Europe, however, Iceland was not settled by humans until the Middle Ages and it was without towns and any type of executive government until the late medieval period. This is a review of Icelandic history from the settlement until the advent of the Reformation, with an emphasis on social and political change, but also on cultural developments such as the creation of a particular kind of literature, known throughout the world as the sagas. A view of medieval Icelandic history as it has never been told before from one of its leading historians, this book will be appeal to students and scholars alike interested in Icelandic and medieval history"--
Download or read book Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-08-16 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the life and times of Jón Halldórsson, bishop of Skálholt (1322–39), a Dominican who had studied the liberal arts and canon law in Paris and Bologna, and provides a snapshot with wider implications for understanding of medieval literacy.
Download or read book Icelanders in the Viking Age written by William R. Short and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sagas of Icelanders are enduring stories from Viking-age Iceland filled with love and romance, battles and feuds, tragedy and comedy. Yet these tales are little read today, even by lovers of literature. The culture and history of the people depicted in the Sagas are often unfamiliar to the modern reader, though the audience for whom the tales were intended would have had an intimate understanding of the material. This text introduces the modern reader to the daily lives and material culture of the Vikings. Topics covered include religion, housing, social customs, the settlement of disputes, and the early history of Iceland. Issues of dispute among scholars, such as the nature of settlement and the division of land, are addressed in the text.
Download or read book The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition written by Gísli Sigurðsson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores the role of orality in shaping and evaluating medieval Icelandic literature. Applying field studies of oral cultures in modern times to this distinguished medieval literature, G sli Sigur sson asks how it would alter our reading of medieval Icelandic sagas if it were assumed they had grown out of a tradition of oral storytelling, similar to that observed in living cultures. Sigur sson examines how orally trained lawspeakers regarded the emergent written culture, especially in light of the fact that the writing down of the law in the early twelfth century undermined their social status. Part II considers characters, genealogies, and events common to several sagas from the east of Iceland between which a written link cannot be established. Part III explores the immanent or mental map provided to the listening audience of the location of Vinland by the sagas about the Vinland voyages. Finally, this volume focuses on how accepted foundations for research on medieval texts are affected if an underlying oral tradition (of the kind we know from the modern field work) is assumed as part of their cultural background. This point is emphasized through the examination of parallel passages from two sagas and from mythological overlays in an otherwise secular text.
Download or read book Saga written by Jeff Janoda and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This retelling of the ancient Saga of the People of Eyri is a modern classic. Absolutely gripping and compulsively readable, Booklist said this book, "does what good historical fiction is supposed to do: put a face on history that is recognizable to all." And medieval expert Tom Shippey, writing for the Times Literary Supplement said, "Sagas look like novels superficially, in their size and layout and plain language, but making their narratives into novels is a trick which has proved beyond most who have tried it. Janoda's Saga provides a model of how to do it: pick out the hidden currents, imagine how they would seem to peripheral characters, and as with all historical novels, load the narrative with period detail drawn from the scholars. No better saga adaptation has been yet written."
Download or read book The History of Iceland written by Gunnar Karlsson and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iceland is unique among European societies in having been founded as late as the Viking Age and in having copious written and archaeological sources about its origin. Gunnar Karlsson, that country's premier historian, chronicles the age of the Sagas, consulting them to describe an era without a monarch or central authority. Equating this prosperous time with the golden age of antiquity in world history, Karlsson then marks a correspondence between the Dark Ages of Europe and Iceland's "dreary period", which started with the loss of political independence in the late thirteenth century and culminated with an epoch of poverty and humility, especially during the early Modern Age. Iceland's renaissance came about with the successful struggle for independence in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and with the industrial and technical modernization of the first half of the twentieth century. Karlsson describes the rise of nationalism as Iceland's mostly poor peasants set about breaking with Denmark, and he shows how Iceland in the twentieth century slowly caught up economically with its European neighbors.
Download or read book A Companion to Old Norse Icelandic Literature and Culture written by Rory McTurk and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-03-11 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This major survey of Old Norse-Icelandic literature and culturedemonstrates the remarkable continuity of Icelandic language andculture from medieval to modern times. Comprises 29 chapters written by leading scholars in thefield Reflects current debates among Old Norse-Icelandicscholars Pays attention to previously neglected areas of study, such asthe sagas of Icelandic bishops and the fantasy sagas Looks at the ways Old Norse-Icelandic literature is used bymodern writers, artists and film directors, both within and outsideScandinavia Sets Old Norse-Icelandic language and literature in its widercultural context
Download or read book The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland written by Ryder Patzuk-Russell and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-02-08 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Iceland is known for the fascinating body of literary works it produced, from ornate court poetry to mythological treatises to sagas of warrior-poets and feud culture. This book investigates the institutions and practices of education which lay behind not only this literary corpus, but the whole of medieval Icelandic culture, religion, and society. By bringing together a broad spectrum of sources, including sagas, law codes, and grammatical treatises, it addresses the history of education in medieval Iceland from multiple perspectives. It shows how the slowly developing institutions of the church shaped educational practices within an entirely rural society with its own distinct vernacular culture. It emphasizes the importance of Latin, despite the lack of surviving manuscripts, and teaching and learning in a highly decentralized environment. Within this context, it explores how medieval grammatical education was adapted for bilingual clerical education, which in turn helped create a separate and fully vernacularized grammatical discourse.
Download or read book Island of Anthropology written by Kirsten Hastrup and published by Coronet Books. This book was released on 1990 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This history of the anthropology of Iceland covers society from medieval times to current issues.
Download or read book The Troll Inside You written by Ármann Jakobsson and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2017 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do medieval Icelanders mean when they say "troll"? What did they see when they saw a troll? What did the troll signify to them? And why did they see them? The principal subject of this book is the Norse idea of the troll, which the author uses to engage with the larger topic of paranormal experiences in the medieval North. The texts under study are from 13th-, 14th-, and 15th-century Iceland. The focus of the book is on the ways in which paranormal experiences are related and defined in these texts and how those definitions have framed and continue to frame scholarly interpretations of the paranormal. The book is partitioned into numerous brief chapters, each with its own theme. In each case the author is not least concerned with how the paranormal functions within medieval society and in the minds of the individuals who encounter and experience it and go on to narrate these experiences through intermediaries. The author connects the paranormal encounter closely with fears and these fears are intertwined with various aspects of the human experience including gender, family ties, and death. The Troll Inside You hovers over the boundaries of scholarship and literature. Its aim is to prick and provoke but above all to challenge its audience to reconsider some of their preconceived ideas about the medieval past.
Download or read book Strategies of Passion written by Bjørn Bandlien and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2005 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is concerned with the social and gendered meanings of love in medieval Norway and Iceland. In the Viking Age, to love would most often imply a submissive social position, while being loved by a woman could elevate a man above the status of her family. Women were supposed to love upwards in the social hierarchy, but could also use their desire to negotiate the social position of men. A close reading of the skaldic poetry shows the dilemma men faced when longing for women's love and approval. These ideas of love relations shaped Norse interpretations of courtly love and marriage formation by consent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. However, new ideas of sexuality, gender and aristocratic culture changed several aspects of love and marital affection in the later middle ages. Men became the loving subject, but in a way that did not challenge the social order. For women, ideal love was attached to humility and submission to parents and husband. But even though the new ideology of love and marriage to some extent neutralized the tensions between consent and parental control, the sources show that both men and women could use the new conceptions of love to serve their own marital and social strategies.
