INTRODUCTION

There are a huge number of books and articles about the Vikings and this selection is but a small drop in the ocean. The interdisciplinary nature of the subject also means that scholarship on the Viking Age is very wide-ranging, encompassing among other things historical, archaeological, literary, textual, religious, and linguistic studies. This bibliography focuses almost exclusively on English-language publications as it is primarily designed for those who cannot read the Scandinavian or other languages. This, however, does unfortunately mean that the sections on Scandinavia and the European continent are rather underrepresented when compared to the British Isles and the North Atlantic, although some attempt to counter this has been made in section XVIII, which contains a selection of important works in the Scandinavian languages. The bibliographies listed under I. Reference Works will fill in some of the inevitable gaps, and by consulting the bibliographies of the articles and books that are included, students and researchers will also be able to find further references to particular topics. Please note that works by Icelandic scholars are listed under their surnames rather than their forenames.

Although its focus is primarily on the period after the end of the Viking Age, the multiauthored Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia is an invaluable source of reference for those seeking detailed information about Scandinavia and its North Atlantic colonies and contains bibliographies for each entry. It is particularly useful for finding out more about individual literary and historical works produced in the Scandinavian world in the medieval period that, for reasons of space, it has not always been possible to include in this dictionary. Readers of the Scandinavian languages are also directed to the 22-volume Kulturhis-torisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder (section XVII), which, although now somewhat dated, provides extremely useful summaries of scholarship on various aspects of medieval Scandinavia. Similarly, the Dictionary of Northern Mythology by Rudolf Simek provides a fairly substantial account of the individual deities, mythological works, and religious practices of pagan Scandinavia, with select references for each entry. Those looking for additional works on the Viking period in general are strongly recommended to consult Martin Syrett’s annotated bibliography, Scandinavian History in the Viking Age. This was produced for students in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and focuses on modern English-language scholarship, although not exclusively. It is divided into five main sections: textbooks, reference works, and written sources; political and social history; the Viking expansion; religion; and archaeology. Simon Keynes’s bibliography of Anglo-Saxon England also contains particularly useful sections on Scandinavian sources relating to England, the Danelaw, and the Danish kings of England.

Section II, Primary Sources, contains only English translations, or editions with translations, of the most important sources for Viking-Age Scandinavia. Francis Tschan’s translation of Adam of Bremen’s History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen is perhaps one of the most useful of these primary sources, containing as it does much information on Scandinavian geography, society, religious practices, and rulers that is not found elsewhere. There are separate sections on religion and mythology (XII), literature (XIII), and runes (XVI) that contain secondary works and scholarship relating to many of these primary sources. In addition to this, the final section in this bibliography, Scan-dinavian-language sources, contains some of the most important editions of primary source material that is not available in English, including, for example, the corpus of runic inscriptions from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Peter Sawyer’s Age of the Vikings remains a seminal and essential work some 30 years after the second edition was published. It marked the birth of modern Viking studies through its questioning of many long-held assumptions about the period, such as the size of the Viking armies, the reliability of primary source material, and the reasons underlying the Viking expansion. Although not all scholars agree with all of Sawyer’s conclusions, much of what he wrote in Age of the Vikings and its sequel, Kings and Vikings, forms the basis of modern debate on the period. It is especially good for its critical discussion of key written sources and for using often-neglected numismatic evidence. Else Roes-dahl’s The Vikings gives a more up-to-date and less controversial overview and pays more attention to the nature of Scandinavian society and to the archaeological evidence for the Vikings at home and abroad. The Viking World, edited by James Graham-Campbell, also provides a good starting point for students, with lots of high-quality illustrations that bring the period to life. It is divided into short thematic rather than chronological sections and gives clear and basic introductions to subjects such as Viking ships, Viking art, and trade and towns.

There are very few English-language monographs on Scandinavian history during the Viking Age, as opposed to Viking activity in the period, and much of the material in Section IV is therefore in the form of specialized articles. An exception is Birgit and Peter Sawyer’s Medieval Scandinavia, although as the longer time span of this volume (800-1500) suggests, there is also a good deal of material that relates to the period after the end of the Viking Age. A good political survey of the Viking period by Niels Lund is available in volume 2 of The New Cambridge Medieval History and there is a separate short bibliography on Scandinavia at the back of the volume, pp. 913-14, which includes many Scandinavian-language sources. Although not available at the time of writing, Cambridge University Press also has a multiauthored Cambridge History of Scandinavia, by Knut Helle et al., scheduled for publication in August 2003. Scandinavian-language surveys of the individual countries can be found in section XVII, and readers are particularly referred to Peter Sawyer’s Da Danmark blev Danmark and Ndr Sverige blev Sverige (updated Swedish version of The Making of Sweden) and to Per Sveaas Andersen’s Samlingen av Norge og kristningen av landet800-1130.

In recent years, there has been a good deal of new archaeological work on the North Atlantic colonies established by the Vikings in the British Isles, the Faroe Isles, Iceland, and Greenland, as well as renewed interest in the Viking discovery of North America c. AD 1000 that accompanied the celebrations of the new milliennium in 2000. The collection of articles in Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, edited by William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward, accompanied by a large bibliography, is particularly good for its account of new archaeological work in North America, Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Isles. However, it also contains useful survey articles on Scandinavia, Finland, Frankia, and Britain and Ireland.

Section VI, The British Isles, is the largest single section of the bibliography, reflecting both the diversity of the Viking experience in different parts of Britain and Ireland and the huge scholarly output in this area. Recent works to single out are the collections of papers found in Vikings and the Danelaw, Cultures in Contact: Scandinavian Settlement in England in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, The Vikings in Ireland, and Ireland and Scandinavia in the Early Viking Age, which contain introductory surveys alongside more detailed and discursive articles on individual aspects of the Viking experience in these regions. No survey of the British Isles has been published since Henry Loyn’s The Vikings in Britain, so for more up-to-date accounts incorporating recent archaeological evidence in particular, readers are instead referred to surveys of the individual countries: James Graham-Campbell and Colleen Batey’s Vikings in Scotland: An Archaeological Survey, Mark Redknap’s Vikings in Wales: An Archaeological Quest, and Julian Richards’s Viking Age England. Barbara Crawford’s Scandinavian Scotland is a key work for students of the Vikings in Scotland and is particularly useful because it deals with written and place-name evidence, as well as archaeological material. Gillian Fellows-Jensen’s work on the place-names of the British Isles is an essential starting point for anyone interested in onomastics and in the density of Scandinavian settlement in the British Isles, although it should be noted that her views have developed and changed over the period since she began publishing.

In addition to the items listed in section VII, readers of French are also directed to Lucien Musset’s Les Invasions: Le second assaut con-tre l’Europe chretienne (Vlle-XIe siecles). Published in 1971 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France), this remains a classic work on the European experience during the Viking Age. The recently-published collection of papers, L’heritage maritime des Vikings en Europe de l’Ouest (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2002), edited by Elisabeth Ridel contains several articles on the Vikings in Normandy, including work on ships and the maritime vocabulary of the region. Most articles also have short English summaries for those who do not read French.

Recent years have seen fresh archaeological work on Scandinavian activity in Eastern Europe, which has led to a reassessment of the nature and role of the Rus in the mixed society of European Russia. Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shephard’s The Emergence of the Rus is a recent and authoritative account of the Scandinavian contribution.

Those seeking a general introduction to the range of Viking ships and navigation techniques are directed to the articles by Jan Bill and Arne Emil Christensen in section IX. Olaf Olsen and Ole Crumlin-Pedersen’s Five Viking Ships from Roskilde Fjord provides a good introduction to these important finds. Judith Jesch’s book is a critical account of the vocabulary used in skaldic poetry and runic inscriptions to describe Viking ships and their crews. Sean McGrail’s Ancient Boats is a technical and comparative account of the ships of northwest Europe and is recommended for those who require a more in-depth and contextual view of Viking ships and shipbuilding. Ian Heath and Angus McBride’s The Vikings is part of a popular series on the “history, organization, appearance, and equipment of famous fighting men of the past and present” and contains color illustrations of how Viking warriors and weapons may have looked, as well as plates showing some of the more famous archaeological finds of weapons and armor. There is a small bibliography at the end of this book, but this is very general and somewhat outdated; those seeking more detail and more references are advised to consult the entries “Weapons” and “Warfare” in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (see section I).

Much of the evidence for Scandinavian society postdates the Viking Age and comes from Iceland, rather than Denmark, Norway, or Sweden. Saga and Society, the English translation of Preben Meulengracht S0rensen’s 1977 Danish classic Saga og Samfund, provides an excellent introduction into the literary evidence for Icelandic society in the medieval period. However, runic inscriptions and skaldic poetry provide some information about conditions in Scandinavia before c. AD 1100. Judith Jesch’s books on Viking women and men deal with both types of this evidence, as well as other kinds. However, while Women in the Viking Age is written as an introduction that can be read by both the beginner and the more experienced researcher, Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age is more detailed and more technical in its discussion and focuses on the precise meaning of social ranks that are referred to in inscriptions and poetry. Ruth Mazo Karras’s book on slavery remains the classic work on this subject.

Helen Clarke and Bjorn Ambrosiani’s Towns in the Viking Age contains accounts of individual towns across northern Europe, as well as more general information about the development of urban communities in this period, and remains the best starting point for layman and scholar alike. Viking-Age Coinage in Northern Lands includes an introductory article by A. E. Lieber on “International trade and coinage in the northern lands during the early Middle Ages” (pp. 1-34). Readers of the Scandinavian languages are also encouraged to consult the entries “Coins and mints” and “Hoards” in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (see section I), which includes a comprehensive bibliography of works, many of which are written in Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish.

Those seeking a good introduction to Norse mythology could start with R. I. Page’s Norse Myths, a slim volume that nevertheless manages to survey all the major sources, tales, and provides a useful annotated select bibliography. More detail about scholarship on the subject can be found in John Lindow’s “Mythology and mythography.” Anthony Faulkes’s translation of Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda (see section II) is essential for those who wish to consult one of the two major primary sources for this mythology. Translations of the Poetic Edda are more difficult to recommend; Carolyne Larrington’s (see section II) is the most recently-published, but see the review in Saga-Book 25, 1998, pp. 92-95. The Christianisation of Scandinavia by Birgit Sawyer, Peter Sawyer, and Ian Wood provides a vey useful introduction to the sources and debates surrounding the conversion of the Vikings. In both Sweden and Norway, research projects on the conversion process have produced a number of important works in the Scandinavian languages that are included in section XVII. In particular, readers are directed to Kristnandet i Sverige, edited by Bertil Nilsson, which includes English summaries of most articles, and to Fra hedendom til kristendom: Perspektiver pa religionsskiftet i Norge, edited by Magnus Rindal.

The number of books and articles on Old Norse prose and poetry is huge, and the list included in section XIII is extremely selective. Perhaps the single best survey is Carol Clover and John Lindow’s Old-Norse Literature: A Critical Guide, which contains substantial articles by experts in the fields on most of the major saga genres and on skaldic and Eddic poetry. Jonas Kristjansson’s Eddas and Sagas is a much shorter, illustrated introduction to the subject, for those who require a more basic survey of the major sources.

Ole Klindt-Jensen and David Wilson’s Viking Art, although published many years ago, remains the classic work of reference on the subject, although it is not particularly lavishly illustrated. The chapter on Viking art in The Viking World, edited by James Graham-Campbell (see Section III), has short accounts of each major art style and includes color illustrations. Much of the published work on sculpture deals with England, where stone monuments were produced in large numbers following the Scandinavian settlements. The series, Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, is a major source of reference, providing as it does a detailed catalog of all the stone sculpture from the areas settled by Vikings, accompanied by illustrations. A less detailed but nevertheless invaluable survey, which discusses the significance of the material as a whole, can be found in Richard Bailey’s Viking Age Sculpture in Northern England.

The section on language and place-names is dominated by work on the British Isles, where the continued debate on the scale of Scandinavian settlement has made this material particularly important. As mentioned above, Gillian Fellows-Jensen’s work is a necessary starting point for anyone interested in this subject. R. I. Page’s and David Parsons’s articles on “How long did the Scandinavian language survive in England” are key works on this difficult question. More recently and in more detail, Matthew Townend has discussed the question of linguistic contact in England and includes a full account of the sources for this topic in his Language and History in Viking Age England. Much of the work on language and place-names in Scandinavia is published in the Scandinavian languages, and readers are advised to consult Gillian Fellows-Jensen’s article with bibliography “Place-name research in Scandinavia 1960-1982,” and Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (see section I), under personal names and language for further details. In addition to this, the classic works on place-names in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have been included in section XVII.

Those readers seeking a general introduction to the evidence of runic inscriptions should consult Ray Page’s Runes, which includes material from Viking-Age Scandinavia alongside that from Anglo-Saxon England and Dark-Age Europe. More detailed surveys of the runes of Denmark and Sweden can be found in Erik Moltke and Sven B. F. Jansson respectively, both of which remain classic works. Unfortunately, there is no similar English-language counterpart for the Viking-Age inscriptions from Norway, although admittedly there are far fewer runic inscriptions from this part of Scandinavia. Michael Barnes’s and Ray Page’s work on the runic inscriptions of the British Isles is authoritative and scholarly, although both are primarily concerned with establishing the corpus and correct readings of texts. Katherine Holman’s book is, as the title suggests, a consideration of the historical significance of these inscriptions, but does also contain a list of all the known Scandinavian runic inscriptions in Britain. Birgit Sawyer has recently published The Viking-Age Rune-Stones, which brings together a number of Sawyer’s theories about the historical significance of 2,307 Viking-Age rune-stones from Scandinavia and centers around her main argument that the entire corpus can be viewed as the result of concern for inheritance and property. The published editions of

Scandinavian runic inscriptions are listed in section XVIII for those who read the Scandinavian languages.