The Northern Medieval World: On the Margins of Europe
The Northern Medieval World aims to integrate research from historical, archaeological, literary and other traditions. Highly interdisciplinary in scope, the series also embraces gender, literary, manuscript, philosophical, religious and textual studies, as well as sources for educational use. We welcome cutting-edge approaches that seek to engage with all of medieval Scandinavia: not only Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden but also regions of the world that were part of the Norse universe in the Middle Ages—such as Rus, Normandy, the Danelaw and Greenland. Comparative studies are also welcome, as long as there is a significant Northern focus.
The Northern Medieval World is open in particular to “edgy” approaches, such as queer studies, ecocritical studies and digital humanities-based approaches. It aims to break down barriers with the other literary and cultural traditions in the Nordic world and to situate the literary and documentary evidence in its full historical context. Entering into dialogue with an inclusive range of topics that connect to medieval Scandinavia, the series will reach beyond the narrower market and thus speak to scholars and students across disciplines. Interdisciplinarity is thus a key characteristic of the series.
Keywords: Medieval Scandinavia, history, literature, law, gender, paleography, philosophy, religion, translations, editions.
Geographical scope: Scandinavia and its wider geographical context
Chronological scope: Medieval
All Books in This Series
Women, Politics, and Social Networks in the Sagas of Norwegian Kings
By Markus Eldegard Mindrebø
The medieval Old Norse kings’ sagas have been thoroughly studied for centuries for their vivid representation of Scandinavia’s Viking Age past, but women have frequently been overlooked in scholarly discussions of the political culture found within the texts. Women, Politics, and Social Networks in the Sagas of Norwegian Kings remedies this by showing that in their accounts of early Norwegian history, the kings’ sagas portray certain women as structurally enabled to enter and shape male-dominated political spaces. Through their participation in, interaction with, and manipulation of, multifaceted elite networks based around interpersonal bonds of kinship, friendship, and lordship, many such women play active and socially sanctioned roles as aristocratic power brokers.
ISBN 978-1-50152-121-8 (hardcover), 978-1-50151-759-4 (PDF), 978-1-50151-760-0 (EPUB) © 2025
The Medieval North and Its Afterlife: Essays in Honor of Heather O’Donoghue
Edited by: Siân Grønlie and Carl Phelpstead
This book showcases the variety and vitality of contemporary scholarship on Old Norse and related medieval literatures and their modern afterlives. The volume features original new work on Old Norse poetry and saga, other languages and literatures of medieval north-western Europe, and the afterlife of Old Norse in modern English literature. Demonstrating the lively state of contemporary research on Old Norse and related subjects, this collection celebrates Heather O’Donoghue’s extraordinary and enduring influence on the field, as manifested in the wide-ranging and innovative research of her former students and colleagues.
Anglo-Danish Empire: A Companion to the Reign of King Cnut the Great
Edited by Richard North, Erin Goeres and Alison Finlay
This volume is an interdisciplinary handbook for the Danish conquest of England in 1016 and the subsequent reign of King Cnut the Great. Bringing together scholars from the fields of history, literature, archaeology and manuscript studies, it offers comprehensive analysis of England's shift from Anglo-Saxon to Danish rule. It follows the history of this complicated transition, from the closing years of the reign of King Æthelred II and the Anglo-Danish wars to Cnut's accession to the throne of England and his consolidation of power at home and abroad.
ISBN: 978-1-50151-981-9 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-333-6 (PDF), 978-1-50151-337-4 (EPUB) © 2022
The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland
By Ryder Patzuk-Russell
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, including sagas, law codes, and grammatical treatises, it addresses the history of education in medieval Iceland from multiple perspectives.
ISBN: 978-1-50151-855-3 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-418-0 (PDF), 978-1-50151-443-2 (EPUB) © 2021
Reading the Old Norse-Icelandic Maríu saga in its Manuscript Contexts
By Daniel C. Najork
Maríu saga, the Old Norse-Icelandic life of the Virgin Mary, survives in nineteen manuscripts. In the extant manuscripts Maríu saga rarely exists in the codex by itself. This study restores the saga to its manuscript contexts in order to better understand the meaning of the text within its manuscript matrix, why it was copied in the specific manuscripts it was, and how it was read and used by the different communities that preserved the manuscripts.
ISBN: 978-1-50151-853-9 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-414-2 (PDF), 978-1-50151-412-8 (EPUB), © 2020
Paranormal Encounters in Iceland 1150-1400
Edited by Ármann Jakobsson and Mariusz Mayburd
This anthology brings together articles by several scholars all engaged in the study of the many manifestations of the paranormal in the Middle Ages. The guiding principles of the collection are a clear focus on the paranormal experiences themselves, and, essentially, how they are defined by the sources. The authors work with a variety of medieval Icelandic sources, including family sagas, legendary sagas, romances, poetry, hagiography and miracles, exploring the variedness of paranormal activity in the medieval North.
ISBN: 978-1-58044-329-6 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-386-2 (PDF), 978-1-50151-361-9 (EPUB), © 2020
The Vikings Reimagined: Reception, Recovery, Engagement
Edited by Tom Birkett and Roderick Dale
Rediscovering the Vikings explores the changing perception of Norse and Viking cultures across different cultural forms, and the complex legacy of the Vikings in the present day. Bringing together experts in literature, history and heritage engagement, this highly interdisciplinary collection aims to reconsider the impact of the discipline of Old Norse Viking Studies outside the academy and to broaden our understanding of the ways in which the material and textual remains of the Viking Age are given new meanings in the present.
Northern Medieval World 6, ISBN 978-150151-815-7 (clothbound), 978-150151-388-6 (PDF), 978-150151-364-0 (EPUB) © November 2019
Monsters in Society: Alterity and Transgression in Medieval Iceland
By Rebecca Merkelbach
Employing literary and cultural theory as well as anthropological and historical approaches, this study reads the monsters of the Íslendingasögur in their literary and socio-cultural context, demonstrating that they are not distractions from feud and conflict, but that they are in fact an intrinsic part of the genre’s re-imagining of the past for the needs of the present.
Northern Medieval World 5, ISBN 978-150151-836-2 (clothbound), 978-150151-422-7 (PDF), 978-150151-409-8 (EPUB) © November 2019
The Saga of the Jómsvikings: A Translation for Students
Translated by Alison Finlay and Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir
Unique among the Icelandic sagas, part-history, part-fiction, the Saga of the Jómsvikings tells of a legendary band of vikings, originally Danish, who established an island fortress off the Baltic coast, and launched and ultimately lost their heroic attack on the pagan ruler of Norway in the late tenth century. This volume features an abridged literary and historical introduction to the text specially targeted to students, along with Finlay and Johannesdottir's translation of this remarkable work.
Northern Medieval World 4, ISBN 978-158044-313-5 (paperback), 978-158044-314-2 (PDF) © 2019
Influences of Pre-Christian Mythology and Christianity on Old Norse Poetry: A Narrative Study of Vafþrúðnismál
By Andrew McGillivray
The Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál serves as a representation of early pagan beliefs or myths and as a myth itself; the poem performs both of these functions, acting as a poetic framework and functioning as sacred myth. In this study, the author looks closely at the journey of the Norse god Óðinn to the hall of the ancient and wise giant Vafþrúðnir, where Óðinn craftily engages his adversary in a life-or-death contest in knowledge.
Northern Medieval World 1, ISBN 978-158044-335-7 (clothbound), 978-158044-336-4 (PDF), © 2018
New Studies in the Manuscript Tradition of Njáls saga: The historia mutila of Njála
Edited by Emily Lethbridge and Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir
Njáls saga is the best known and most highly regarded of all medieval Icelandic sagas and it occupies a special place in Icelandic cultural history.
The manuscript tradition is exceptionally rich and extensive. The oldest extant manuscripts date to only a couple of decades after the saga's composition in the late thirteenth century and the saga was subsequently copied by hand continuously up until the twentieth century, even alongside the circulation of printed text editions in latter centuries. The manuscript corpus as a whole has great socio-historical value, showcasing the myriad ways in which generations of Icelanders interpreted the saga and took an active part in its transmission; the manuscripts are also valuable sources for evidence of linguistic change and other phenomena.
The essays in this volume present new research and a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the Njáls saga manuscripts. Many of the authors took part in the international research project "The Variance of Njáls saga," which was funded by the Icelandic Research Council from 2011-2013.
Northern Medieval World 2, ISBN 978-158044-305-0 (clothbound), 978-158044-306-7 (PDF), © 2018
The Saga of the Jómsvikings: A Translation with Full Introduction
Translated by Alison Finlay and Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir
Unique among the Icelandic sagas, part-history, part-fiction, the Saga of the Jómsvikings tells of a legendary band of vikings, originally Danish, who established an island fortress off the Baltic coast, and launched and ultimately lost their heroic attack on the pagan ruler of Norway in the late tenth century. The saga's account of their stringent warrior code, fatalistic adherence to their own reckless vows, and declarations of extreme courage as they face execution articulates a remarkable account of what it meant to be a viking. This translation presents the longest and earliest text of the saga, never before published in English, with a full literary and historical introduction to this remarkable work.
Northern Medieval World 3, ISBN 978-158044-311-1 (clothbound), © 2018
