Scandinavian history in the Viking age - Department of Anglo-Saxon ...

Scandinavian History in the Viking Age
The colonies
[B830] For the British isles in general, see: M. Olsen, ‘Runic inscriptions in Great Britain, Ireland and
the Isle of Man’, Viking antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland. VI: Civilisation of the Viking settlers in
relation to their old and new countries, ed. H. Shetelig (1954), 151-232 [UL S592.b.94.19]; M.P. Barnes,
‘Towards an edition of the Scandinavian runic inscriptions of the British isles: some thoughts’, NS 29
(1992), 32-42; see also (I47)
[B831] Runic inscriptions from the isle of Man have been edited more recently by R.I. Page, see ‘Some
thoughts on Manx runes’, SBVS 20 (1978-81), 179-99 and ‘More thoughts on Manx runes’, Michigan
Germanic studies 7 (1981), 129-37; cf. also (I230 ff.) and for the runic crosses more generally (M155 ff.)
[B832] For the Scottish isles, A. Liestøl, ‘Runes’, (I121):224-38
[B833] For Ireland, see: M.P. Barnes et al., The runic inscriptions of Viking age Dublin, National
Museum of Ireland medieval Dublin excavations 1962-81 B:5 (1997) [ASNC]
[B834] The inscriptions discovered so far in mainland Russia tend to be fairly cryptic, or often plain
garbled: A. Liestøl, ‘Runic inscriptions’, (J28):121-31; E.A. Melnikova, ‘Scandinavian runic inscriptions
as a source for the history of eastern Europe’, (J55):169-73; J.K. Kusmenko, ‘Zur Interpretation der
Runeninschrift auf den Anhänger von Alt-Ladoga’, NOWELE 30 (1997), 181-201
[B835] For England, see: M. Syrett, The Vikings in England. The evidence of runic inscriptions. ASNC
Guides, Texts, and Studies (2002) [UL 2003.11.1929]
Runic literacy
The guides above (B800 ff.) and studies of the late Viking-age runestone explosion (C90 ff.) provide
orientation in the field of runic literacy in Viking-age Scandinavia, which may (or may not) have been
quite extensive; our impressions seem to have been coloured by the more widespread casual use of runic
script in mediaeval Scandinavian towns.
[B835] A. Liestøl, ‘The literate Vikings’, (A45):69-78
[B836] C.W. Thompson, ‘Nonsense inscriptions in Swedish Uppland’, Studies for Einar Haugen
presented by friends and colleagues, Janua linguarum: series maior 59, edd. E. Scherabon Firchow et al.
(1972), 522-34 [UL 779.b.32.59]
[B837] J. Meijer, ‘Corrections in Viking age rune-stone inscriptions’, ANF 110 (1995), 77-83
[B838] T. Spurkland, ‘Literacy and ‘runacy’ in medieval Scandinavia’, (O89):333-344
[B839] T. Spurkland, ‘Scandinavian medieval runic inscriptions: an interface between literacy and
orality?’, Roman, runes and Ogham: medieval inscriptions in the Insular world and on the Continent,
edd. J. Higgit, K. Forsyth, and D. Parsons (2001), 121-28 [ASNC]
Non-runic inscriptions
[B840] M. Syrett, The Roman-alphabet inscriptions of medieval Trondheim. 2 vols. Skrifter for
middelalderstudier; nr. 13 (2002) [ASNC]
Place-names
The study of place-names has an immense contribution to make to the history of Viking-age Scandinavia;
for some of the various applications of toponomastics, see the sections on social organisation (C60 ff.),
cult-sites and paganism (K90 ff.), parishes and early churches (L220 ff.), and settlement patterns (M25
ff.). The discipline is however a highly specialised one, where little of the research is conducted outside
the Scandinavian languages, which makes an initial approach to the topic seem rather forbidding. For
bibliographical guidance, see:
[B841] G. Fellows-Jensen, ‘Place-name research in Scandinavia 1960-1982, with a select bibliography’,
Names 32 (1984), 267-324; for the Atlantic colonies, see also E.J. Ellingsve, Islandsk navnebibliografi;
Færøysk navnebibliografi (1984) [UL Uc.7.8301]
[B821] P. Larsson, ‘Recent research on personal names and place-names in runic inscriptions’, Onoma
37 (2002), 46-68
56