Networks in the Medieval North. Studies in Honour of Jón Viðar Sigurðsson

By the late thirteenth century, Norgesveldet — the Norwegian realm — stretched far beyond its core in western Scandinavia. At its height in 1264, Norgesveldet connected Norse speakers in tributary territories ranging from the Irish Sea to Orkney and across the Atlantic to the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. But what held this disparate realm together? What were the dynamics of power between the men and women of the governing and elite classes of Norgesveldet? And what roles did different bodies play at different levels of society in creating and maintaining these networks — from kings and bishops to scribes and scholars, traders, and law-makers?

This volume aims to expand on and further recent important research into connections between Norway and the wider Norse North Atlantic from the eleventh century, during which the Norwegian kingdom began to emerge, through to the fourteenth-century decline of Norgesveldet with the creation of the Kalmar Union. Each chapter addresses a different facet of the Norgesveldet networks, building a complex picture of both their function and their evolving nature. Taking as its inspiration the research and career of its honorand, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, the volume explores medieval Norway and its wider connections using three key frameworks — sociopolitical networks, legal and material networks, and literary networks — with the aim of shedding new light on the people and processes of this North Atlantic polity.