The emergence of a Norwegian medieval state had consequences beyond Norway. Inspired by transnational research on state formation, this book presents a comprehensive study of the political incorporation and subsequent judicial and administrative integration of Iceland, the Faroes, Shetland, and Orkney, into the Norwegian realm c. 1195-1397. Building on centuries-old cultural, economic, and political ties, the Norwegian crown established direct royal lordship over the former autonomous and semi-autonomous areas. Judicial unity, administrative development, and the king's local representatives...

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) won fame and infamy as a natural scientist and visionary theosopher, but he was also a master intelligencer, who served as a secret agent for the French king, Louis XV, and the pro-French, pro-Jacobite party of "Hats" in Sweden. This study draws upon unpublished diplomatic and Masonic archives to place his financial and political actitivities within their national and international contexts. It also reveals the clandestine military and Masonic links between the Swedish Hats and Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), providing new evidence for the...

This publication is the culmination of an extended programme of conferences that have sought to mark the contribution of F. T. Wainwright to Pictish studies and, in particular, the 50th anniversary of The Problem of the Picts. The book is firmly in the tradition of interdisciplinary scholarship Wainwright did so much to promote and brings together much fresh thinking on the archaeological, art-historical, place name and historical understanding of Northern Britain in the second half of the first millennium AD. Within a wider, European framework it addresses questions of landscape, material...

This book is an examination of some of the principal issues arising from the study of the kings' sagas, the main narrative sources for Norwegian history before c. 1200. Providing an overview of the past two decades of scholarship, it discusses the vexed relationship between verse and prose and the reliability as historical sources of the verse alone or the combination of verse and prose; the possibility and extent of non-native influence on the composition of these texts; and the function of the past, in particular given that most of the historiography of Norway was produced in Iceland. This...

The Hanse in Medieval and Early Modern Europe discusses new research on this unique organization of towns and traders, and places the findings in the broader context of European economic, legal and social history.

In Protestant Cosmopolitanism and Diplomatic Culture, Daniel Riches investigates seventeenth-century Brandenburg-Swedish relations to present an image of early modern diplomacy driven by complex networks of individuals whose activities were informed by their educational backgrounds, intellectual and cultural interests, religious convictions, and personal connections. The Brandenburg-Swedish relationship was crafted not only by formally-credentialed diplomats, but also by an array of officers, bureaucrats, clergymen, merchants and scholars who conversed in the symbolic language of a...

This book provides a detailed survey of the Danish navy during the highly influential reign of Christian IV. He created a large and powerful navy with impressive ships and one of Europe's finest dockyards. It was relatively advanced in the design and construction of its warships and the administration of its seamen and dockyard workforce. However, its political and military leadership were highly flawed, reflecting the power struggle between the king and his council at both an international and domestic level, which ultimately led to its crushing defeat at the hands of Sweden. This work...

Modern sensibilities have clouded historical views of slavery, perhaps more so than any other medieval social institution. Anachronistic economic rationales and notions about the progression of European civilisation have immeasurably distorted our view of slavery in the medieval context. As a result historians have focussed their efforts upon explaining the disappearance of this medieval institution rather than seeking to understand it. This book highlights the extreme cultural/social significance of slavery for the societies of medieval Britain and Ireland c. 800-1200. Concentrating upon the...

Royal Police Ordinances in Early Modern Sweden offers a comprehensive account of the legal regulation of 16th- and 17th-century Swedish society. In comparison to present-day usage, during the early modern period the term 'police' had a broader meaning. It referred to 'good societal order' covering a variety of areas of societal life such as public finances, commerce, professions, infrastructure, public health and poor relief, public morality, public security, and so on. Through an analysis of a large body of ordinances Toomas Kotkas claims that in 17th-century Sweden a new,...

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held in Oslo in late 2005, which brought together scholars working in a wide variety of disciplines from Scandinavia, Great Britain and Ireland. The papers here began as those read at the conference, augmented by two written immediately after by attendees, but have been updated in light of the discussions in Oslo and more recent scholarship. They offer historical, archaeological, art-historical, religious-historical and philological views of the interaction and interdependence of Celtic and Norse populations in the Irish Sea region in the...