Churches and Social Power in Early Medieval Europe
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Studies in the Early Middle Ages, vol. 34
The Legacy of Medieval Scandinavian Encounters with England and the Insular World
Richard Dance, Sara Pons-Sanz, Brittany Schorn (eds)
- Pages: 454 p.
- Size:156 x 234 mm
- Illustrations:11 b/w, 12 tables b/w., 5 maps b/w, 3 maps color
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2025
- € 125,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60770-2
- Hardback
- Temporarily Out of Stock
- € 125,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60771-9
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A unique companion to the Viking legacy in Britain, with thirteen new essays on linguistic, historical, and literary subjects.
Subject(s)
Review(s)
"In all, the editors and contributors have created a long-lasting contribution to the subject with a scholarship of which they may be proud." (Richard North, in The Medieval Review, January 2026)
"This volume is admirable in several ways. Its scope is broad yet coherent; the individual contributions are excellent in their review of previous research in their respective areas, presenting new and exciting findings, and pointing to the potential for further research. Many chapters present, as it were, pilot studies for ongoing research, and show the rich potential for new studies aided by digital projects such as Gersum and other historical and lexical digital databases that can now be consulted and employed comparatively. In their ‘Introduction’, the editors have provided the reader with an outstandingly rich analysis and overview of the chapters that follow it. The book is a landmark contribution to the field." (Greg Waite, in Parergon, 43/1, 2026, p. 165)
"The chapters complement each other: the intended structure has worked well. The objective stated in the introduction has certainly been achieved. (...) All chapters outline methodologies or bases to be expanded upon, suggesting promising future avenues of exploration. In this light, the authors’ suggestion that it might serve as a jumping-off point or handbook for the language contact under inspection seems appropriate." (Samuel Rowe, in Early Medieval Europe, 34/2, 2026, p. 369)
BIO
Dr Richard Dance is Reader in Early English in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in the University of Cambridge.
Dr Sara M. Pons-Sanz is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Communication at the School of English, Communication and Philosophy in Cardiff University.
Dr Brittany Schorn is Research Associate in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in the University of Cambridge.
Summary
The Vikings had a major and lasting impact on the English language. This volume is a unique companion to the study of Anglo-Scandinavian language contact, providing expert discussions of its contexts, backgrounds, and the considerable afterlife of its effects through the Middle Ages and down to the present day. It contains thirteen new articles by leading specialists in the fields of early medieval languages, literature, and history, specially commissioned in order to explore as wide a range as possible of the historical and cultural contexts for Anglo-Scandinavian encounters in the Viking Age and the evidence for them. These essays analyse in detail the Old Norse influence on English, offering studies of words and their meanings in their textual and literary contexts, and including lexicography, dialectology, and syntactic research; they explore findings from archaeology, inscriptions, and place-names; and they situate Anglo-Scandinavian contacts in the larger multilingual, multicultural contexts of the North Sea and Irish Sea worlds.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Conversations with Vikings
Richard Dance, Sara M. Pons-Sanz and Brittany Schorn
Section A. Meeting, Talking, Writing: Identity and Change in the Viking Age
Two Baptisms, Some Funerals, and Other Contexts of Interaction: Vikings and the Church in England in the Late Ninth Century
Lesley Abrams
Scandinavian Runes in England: Dating, Distribution, and Contexts
Judith Jesch
Scandinavians and Verb-second in Northumbrian Old English
George Walkden
Ransacking the Wordhord: The Stylistic Use of Old English Lexical Borrowings in Viking Age Skaldic Poetry
Nikolas Gunn
Anglo-Scandinavian Contact from a Scandinavian Perspective: Ecclesiastical and Political Contacts in Norway and Iceland c. 1000–1050
Elizabeth Ashman Rowe
Some Contexts for Gospatric’s Writ
David Parsons
Section B. Finding Viking Words: The Scandinavian Legacy in the Middle Ages and Beyond
The Scandinavian Influence on Irish Vocabulary: Evidence from the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL)
Máire Ní Mhaonaigh
Old Norse Watery Terms in English Place-Names: A Survey of Medieval Evidence from Two Regions of England
Jayne Carroll
Gersum: Lexis of Old Norse Origin in the Poetry of the Middle English Alliterative Revival
Brittany Schorn
The Lexico-Semantic Distribution of Norse-Derived Terms in Late Middle English Alliterative Poems: Analysing the Gersum Database
Sara M. Pons-Sanz
Topographical Vocabulary in The Wars of Alexander
Thorlac Turville-Petre
Norse Borrowings in the OED: A Fresh Examination
Philip Durkin
The Vikings and the Victorians and Dialect
Matthew Townend
Index
