Danes in Wessex : the Scandinavian impact on southern England, c.800-c.1100 / edited by Ryan Lavelle, Simon Roffey.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lavelle, Ryan, editor, author.

Roffey, Simon, editor, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Danes--England--Wessex--History.

Danes.

Scandinavians--England--Wessex--History.

Scandinavians.

Vikings--England--Wessex.

Vikings.

Wessex (England)--History.

Wessex (England).

Great Britain--History--Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066.

Great Britain.

Wessex (England)--Antiquities.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 pages) : illustrations, maps

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; Philadelphia : Oxbow Books, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

There have been many studies of the Scandinavians in Britain, but this is the first collection of essays to be devoted solely to their engagement with Wessex. New work on the early Middle Ages, not least the excavations of mass graves associated with the Viking Age in Dorset and Oxford, drew attention to the gaps in our understanding of the wider impact of Scandinavians in areas of Britain not traditionally associated with them. Here, a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to the problems of their study is presented. While there may not have been the same degree of impact, discernible particularly in place-names and archaeology, as in those areas of Britain which had substantial influxes of Scandinavian settlers, Wessex was a major theater of the Viking wars in the reigns of Alfred and Æthelred Unræd. Two major topics, the Viking wars and the Danish landowning elite, figure strongly in this collection but are shown not to be the sole reasons for the presence of Danes, or items associated with them, in Wessex. Multidisciplinary approaches evoke Vikings and Danes not just through the written record, but through their impact on real and imaginary landscapes and via the objects they owned or produced. The papers raise wider questions too, such as when did aggressive Vikings morph into more acceptable Danes, and what issues of identity were there for natives and incomers in a province whose founders were believed to have also come from North Sea areas, if not from parts of Denmark itself? Readers can continue for themselves aspects of these broader debates that will be stimulated by this fascinating and significant series of studies by both established scholars and new researchers.

Contents:

Introduction: Danes in Wessex / Ryan Lavelle and Simon Roffey

West Saxons and Danes: negotiating identities in the early Middle Ages / Simon Roffey and Ryan Lavelle

The place of slaughter: exploring the West Saxon battlescape / Thomas J. T. Williams

A review of Viking attacks in western England to the early tenth century: their motives and responses / Derek Gore

Landscapes of violence in early Medieval Wessex: towards a reassessment of Anglo-Saxon strategic landscapes / John Baker and Stuart Brookes

Scandinavian-style metalwork from southern England: new light on the "first Viking age" in Wessex / Jane Kershaw

Death on the Dorset Ridgeway: the discovery and excavation of an early Medieval mass burial / Angela Boyle

Law, death and peacemaking in the "second Viking age": an ealdorman, his king, and some "Danes" in Wessex / Ryan Lavelle

Thorkell the Tall and the bubble reputation: the vicissitudes of fame / Ann Williams

A place in the country: Orc of Abbotsbury and Tole of Tolpuddle, Dorset / Ann Williams

Danish landowners in Wessex in 1066 / C.P. Lewis

Danish royal burials in Winchester: Cnut and his family / Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle

Some observations on Danes in Wessex today / Lillian Céspedes González.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781782979326

1782979328

OCLC:

925785411