In Iceland’s Relationship with Norway c.870 – c.1100: Memory, History and Identity, Ann-Marie Long reassesses the development of Icelandic society from the earliest settlements to the twelfth century. Through a series of thematic studies, the book discusses the place of Norway in Icelandic cultural memory and how Icelandic authors envisioned and reconstructed their past. It examines in particular how these authors instrumentalized Norway to explain the changing parameters of Icelandic autonomy. Over time this strategy evolved to meet the needs of thirteenth-century Icelandic politics as well as the demands posed by the transition from autonomous island to Norwegian dependency.

An examination of what dialogues and direct speech in Old Norse literature can convey and mean, beyond their immediate face-value.

A collection of eleven chapters which explore the question of forgery from different disciplinary angles and in varied national contexts, using the concept of performance to gain greater insight.

Pre-modern long-distance trade was fraught with risks which often created conflicts of interest. The ensuing disputes and the ways the actors involved dealt with them belong to the field of conflict management. How did victims of maritime conflicts claim compensation? How did individual actors and public institutions negotiate disputes which transcended jurisdictional boundaries? What strategies, arrangements and agreements could contribute to achieve the resolution of such conflicts, and to what effect? These and other questions have mainly been studied separately for the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions. Here, the two seascapes are connected, allowing for a comparative long-term perspective. The different contributions enhance our understanding in the complexity of various approaches to conflict management. Thierry Allain, Cátia Antunes, Eduardo Aznar Vallejo, Catarina Cotic Belloube, Kate Ekama, Tiago Viúla de Faria, Ana Belem Fernández Castro, Jessica Goldberg, Roberto J. González Zalacain, Ian Peter Grohse, Thomas K. Heebøll-Holm, Laurence Jean-Marie, Daphne Penna, Pierrick Pourchasse, Pierre Prétou, Ana María Rivera Medina, Carlo Taviani, and Dominique Valérian.

This book concerns textile production at the fringes of north-western Europe - areas in western Norway and the North Atlantic in the expanding, dynamic and transformative period from the early Viking Age into the Middle Ages. Textiles constitute one of the basic needs in human life - to protect and keep the body warm but also to show social status and affiliations. Textiles had a wide spectrum of use areas and qualities, fine and coarse in various contexts, and in the Viking Age not least related to the production of sails - all essential for the development and character of the period. So, what were the tools and textiles like, who made them, who used them and who exposed them? By tracing textile production from the remains of tools and textiles in varied landscapes and settings - Viking Age graves and in situ workplaces from the whole period - and combining this with textual information, many layers of information are exposed about technology and qualities as well as gender, gender roles, social relations, power and networks. By combining tools, textiles and texts in various settings, this book aims to contextualize dispersed archaeological finds of tools and textiles to uncover patterns across larger areas and in a long-term perspective of half a millennium.