Module description
Between the eighth and the eleventh centuries, Viking adventurers sailed from Scandinavia and made their way all over Europe and beyond, from Kiev to Newfoundland, and from the Barents Sea to Morocco. This was both a profoundly unpredictable event and a deeply significant turning-point. Nearly everywhere they brought about huge change, as existing inhabitants and polities adjusted to their presence, at first intermittent, then more sustained, and had to change their habits and expectations accordingly. In Britain and Ireland they founded colonies and towns like York or Dublin. In Francia they were attackers, allies and settlers. In Constantinople they became the Varangians, an elite troop of imperial bodyguards. In the Baltic and Russia they traded along the river system, above all in slaves transported along trade routes ranging as far as Baghdad and the Samanid empire in Afghanistan. This course follows them on their long tour, and looks at their increasingly complicated entanglements with the societies they encountered along their way. At least half of each class will be devoted to close reading of primary source extracts, including later Icelandic sagas, rune stones, annals, saints’ lives, and accounts of Arab travelers.
Assessment details
1 x 1,500 word formative essay, 1 x 3,000 word essay (100%)
Teaching pattern
10 x 2 hour seminars (weekly)