Customer Reviews

Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation, circa 800-1500 (Nordic Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book does a very good job of covering the evolution of government, religion, economics and towns in medieval Scandinavia. The chapter on women was a bit disappointing. It seemed to be included as an obligatory chapter, but used too much speculation about the status of women in this time period. The book finishes with an interesting chapter covering the context that the authors of the original sources worked in.

Admittedly, I speak as a specialist, but I think this is a very fine book, and accessible to all audiences. Most welcomely, the authors are more wary than some of using the Icelandic sagas as straightforward historical or anthropological sources for the study of medieval Scandinavian society, and hence resist taking romanticized and potentially ideological depictions, e.g., of medieval women, as fact. In addition, the book is jargon-free and well written by academic standards.

Good book on a topic that sometimes gets overlooked in favor of a purely Viking Age experience.

I ordered this book for my son who is away at college. He received it quickly and said it was fine. Thanks.

Almost all of the primary sources of medieval Scandinavian history
was coming from oral sources of the period in question. Most of the
people who figure in the written recounts belonged to the royal and
aristocratic families and clergy. These are included in the skaldic poetry, Icelandic sagas, ballards and church literature.

To quote T. S. Eliot, "importance of criticism in work of creation
itself," and this, the authors, Birgit and Peter Sawyer have done
comprehensibly with MEDIEVAL SCANDINVIA - From Conversion to
Reformation circa 800-1500.

Dag Stomberg