#viking-wars

#viking-wars

This collection of essays honors Shaun F.D. Hughes by sharing scholarship that engages deeply with Middle English, Old English, Icelandic, and Old Norse traditions, while also breaking new ground.

The concept of hóf in Norse culture represents a cultural expectation of moderation and restraint, which was pivotal in resolving disputes and maintaining order within communities.

"The ruins from the Middle Ages are part of our common history. With these grants, we are strengthening the work that makes it possible to preserve them, not only as historical traces, but also as living sources of knowledge for both researchers, craftsmen and local communities."

After celebrating its fifth anniversary earlier this month, the tough-as-nails survival Viking game Valheim is coming to Switch 2 this year. Initially launched as a Steam Early Access game in 2021, Valheim lets you team up with up to nine other players online as you explore a procedurally generated open world inspired by Norse mythology. Whether playing alone or with your Viking pals, survival depends on crafting the right gear, building shelters and prevailing in punishing combat encounters.

Beyond the reach of medieval Christendom, Viking-age Scandinavia drew its ideas about gender less from scripture than from myth, law, and the practical demands of life in a raiding and trading world. Luke Daly explores how women could wield real authority-as estate managers, property holders, ritual figures, and, at times, political actors-within a society that was still hierarchical and often violent. Beyond the cathedrals and the long shadow cast by Rome lay societies whose moral and social assumptions were not governed by the cross.

CHARM is built around a large-scale survey of material connected to three major writing centres-Turku, Naantali, and Viipuri-in the 15th century. By comparing charters and book fragments together, the researchers aim to map how writing practices were adopted, modified, and localised, and what that meant for society and administration in a region that was then part of the Swedish realm.

Excavations carried out in 2025 by the Arctic University Museum of Norway revealed that the artefacts came from a boat burial. The grave contained the skeleton of a woman placed inside a boat measuring about 5.5 metres in length. She had been buried together with a dog, suggesting the animal may have been an important companion in life.

"Cnut: The North Sea King" by Ryan Lavelle is a short and engaging biography of the most ambitious and successful Scandinavian leader of the Viking Age. Lavelle captures both the brutality and pragmatism that allowed Cnut to govern England effectively for almost two decades, despite being an outsider and a foreign conqueror. In 1066 and All That (1930), a parody book of English history,

Early migration and Erik the Red The first humans settled in Greenland around 4,500 years ago. They came from the North American continent. In the 12th century, they were gradually displaced by Asian immigrants, the Thule people, who arrived on the island from Siberia via the Bering Strait. Their descendants are the Inuit, from whom most of the 56,000 Greenlanders today are descended.

The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle ( Livländische Reimchronik) is an anonymous account of the Livonian Crusade written in Middle High German, covering the years between 1143 and 1290. It is one of the chief written sources concerning the Livonian Crusade, significant in that it was written by a member of the crusading orders, and it is notable for its rhyming form, unusual among chronicles.

We get started by exploring the origins of the Normans in the county and then duchy of Normandy. We will understand their Norse background and their relationship with the Carolingians. The timeline approach will help us discover all the counts and dukes of Normandy, and what they contributed to their realm. This will set the foundation for the interconnected stories that will lead us to England and the Mediterranean.