Viking Connections
Proceedings of the Nineteenth Viking Congress
Will be published approx. on 28. June 2026
Book
Hardback
488 pages
978-1-80596-742-2 (ISBN)
Description
Viking Connections is an edited collection representing the most recent scholarship in the interdisciplinary study of the Viking Age. The 32 papers arise from the Nineteenth Viking Congress which took place in Wales and North-West England in July 2022. They focus on new research from across the Viking World encompassing Archaeology, History, Literature, Language, Place-names, Numismatics, and the History of Art. Themes include Irish Sea connections as well wider connections across the Viking World. There is also a Congress diary. The title Viking Connections expresses the importance of international networks and long-distance patterns of contact, which underlie both the Viking Age itself and our contemporary community of interdisciplinary scholarship. Contributors include senior academics, early career researchers, and museum and heritage professionals.
The picture that emerges from this volume is of the Viking Age as a vibrant and complex period of movement and change. Highlights include James Graham-Campbell's survey of the metallic wealth of the Isle of Man, Mark Redknap's comprehensive account of Viking Age finds in Wales, Orri Vesteinsson's investigation of the effects that the introduction of large amounts of silver had on Viking Age society, Elizabeth Pierce's study that tracks the tenth- to twelfth-century Scandinavian presence in eastern Scotland whose evidence suggests substantial trading activity, Soren Sindbaek's demonstration of how radiocarbon calibration curves, when applied to the fine-meshed stratigraphy of Ribe, suggest a new chronological framework for the beginning of the Viking Age, and Christian Cooijmans' exploration of the idea of viking camps as not just military barracks, but sites where all aspects of everyday life went on, and which formed the basis of the whole viking phenomenon.
The picture that emerges from this volume is of the Viking Age as a vibrant and complex period of movement and change. Highlights include James Graham-Campbell's survey of the metallic wealth of the Isle of Man, Mark Redknap's comprehensive account of Viking Age finds in Wales, Orri Vesteinsson's investigation of the effects that the introduction of large amounts of silver had on Viking Age society, Elizabeth Pierce's study that tracks the tenth- to twelfth-century Scandinavian presence in eastern Scotland whose evidence suggests substantial trading activity, Soren Sindbaek's demonstration of how radiocarbon calibration curves, when applied to the fine-meshed stratigraphy of Ribe, suggest a new chronological framework for the beginning of the Viking Age, and Christian Cooijmans' exploration of the idea of viking camps as not just military barracks, but sites where all aspects of everyday life went on, and which formed the basis of the whole viking phenomenon.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
134 black and white and colour images; 134 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 170 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80596-742-2 (9781805967422)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Clare Downham is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Liverpool. Her publications include Medieval Ireland (Cambridge University Press 2017) and Medieval Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ivarr to A.D. 1014 (Liverpool University Press 2007). Fiona Edmonds is Professor in Regional History, Lancaster University. Her publications include Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: the Golden Age and the Viking Age (Boydell & Brewer 2019). Nancy Edwards is Professor Emerita in Medieval Archaeology, Prifysgol Bangor, Bangor University. Her publications include Life in Early Medieval Wales (Oxford University Press 2023). David Griffiths is Professor of Archaeology, University of Oxford. His publications include Vikings of the Irish Sea (History Press 2010, new edition 2025).
Content
Paton's foreword
Introduction and Congress Diary
Council, attendance and contributor lists
Obituaries
Maire Ni Mhaonaigh
Kin, Allies, Frenemies: the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland and cross-cultural exchange
Ben Guy
Poetry and Taxes: Welsh responses to Viking attacks in the late tenth century
John Hines
Exploitation of the unfree: the impact of the Viking Age on Welsh society and economy
Mark Redknap
Vikings, Places, Silver and Contexts: a Welsh perspective
?Ryan Foster
Scandinavians in Cumberland: elite takeover, mass migration, or something else?
Steve Dickinson
The Viking Age shieling: craft, cues and contexts
Caroline Paterson
The Contribution of Recent Excavations of Furnished Burials to our Understanding of the Scandinavian Settlement of Cumbria
Danica Ramsey-Brimberg
Grave Circumstances: revisiting the influence of location on Viking Age burials in the Irish Sea area
Erin McGuire
Migrant Identities, Mortuary Citations, and New Ancestors in Western Scandinavian Scotland
Dirk H. Steinforth
Pagan Images for a Christian Message: tracing bi-cultural Viking-Age iconography in the Irish Sea region
Maeve Sikora
A Hoard of Vessels from Derreen, Co. Clare: its Irish and Scandinavian context
?Raghnall O Floinn
Late and Early Post Viking-Age Insular Ringed Pins (c. 900 - c. 1125): a reassessment
Griffin Murray
The Shrine of St Patrick's Bell and the Origins of the Hiberno-Urnes Style
Russell O Riagain
The Viking Age in the Overkingdom of Ulaid
Caitlin Ellis
Um Irlandshaf: presentations of the Irish Sea in Old Norse-Icelandic
Jane Kershaw and Stephen Merkel
Viking Wealth in the Irish Sea Zone: new evidence from lead isotope analyses of Viking-Age rings and ingots
James Graham-Campbell
Wealth in the Isle of Man in the Early 10th Century
Kristin Bornholdt Collins
The 2021 Northern Mixed hoard (c. 1030/35), Isle of Man
Johanne Porter
A Saint from the East and a Hoard in the North: a reassessment of the St Edmund coins from the Cuerdale hoard
Wendy Scott
Copies and Crossing the Water: the implications of the unusual elements in the Lenborough Hoard for coin circulation in Anglo-Danish England.
Fedir Androschchuk
Viking-Age Silver Hoards in Norrland: find places, content and origin
Jens Christian Moesgaard
Who Controlled the Minting in Lund in the 11th Century?
Orri Vesteinsson
Silver and Social Change in the Viking Age
Soren M. Sindbaek
Ribe and the Beginning of the Viking Age
Thorsten Lemm
All Roads Lead to Hedeby: communication routes, local markets and mercantile interaction in the hinterland of a trading town
Lene B. Frandsen
Nybro: a road connection in south-west Jutland from the early Viking Age
Christian Cooijmans
A Place of Contact and Contradiction: the socially constructed space(s) of viking encampment
Lesley Abrams
Defining the Danelaw
Elizabeth Pierce
Identifying a Scandinavian Presence in Eastern Scotland in the Viking Age
Mari Arentz Ostmo and Marianne Moen
Connecting Death: interpersonal and other affiliations in burial monuments with multiple individuals from Norway
Cassidy Croci
Building Bridges: visualizing the Role of Women in Sturlubok
Judith Jesch
Afterword
Introduction and Congress Diary
Council, attendance and contributor lists
Obituaries
Maire Ni Mhaonaigh
Kin, Allies, Frenemies: the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland and cross-cultural exchange
Ben Guy
Poetry and Taxes: Welsh responses to Viking attacks in the late tenth century
John Hines
Exploitation of the unfree: the impact of the Viking Age on Welsh society and economy
Mark Redknap
Vikings, Places, Silver and Contexts: a Welsh perspective
?Ryan Foster
Scandinavians in Cumberland: elite takeover, mass migration, or something else?
Steve Dickinson
The Viking Age shieling: craft, cues and contexts
Caroline Paterson
The Contribution of Recent Excavations of Furnished Burials to our Understanding of the Scandinavian Settlement of Cumbria
Danica Ramsey-Brimberg
Grave Circumstances: revisiting the influence of location on Viking Age burials in the Irish Sea area
Erin McGuire
Migrant Identities, Mortuary Citations, and New Ancestors in Western Scandinavian Scotland
Dirk H. Steinforth
Pagan Images for a Christian Message: tracing bi-cultural Viking-Age iconography in the Irish Sea region
Maeve Sikora
A Hoard of Vessels from Derreen, Co. Clare: its Irish and Scandinavian context
?Raghnall O Floinn
Late and Early Post Viking-Age Insular Ringed Pins (c. 900 - c. 1125): a reassessment
Griffin Murray
The Shrine of St Patrick's Bell and the Origins of the Hiberno-Urnes Style
Russell O Riagain
The Viking Age in the Overkingdom of Ulaid
Caitlin Ellis
Um Irlandshaf: presentations of the Irish Sea in Old Norse-Icelandic
Jane Kershaw and Stephen Merkel
Viking Wealth in the Irish Sea Zone: new evidence from lead isotope analyses of Viking-Age rings and ingots
James Graham-Campbell
Wealth in the Isle of Man in the Early 10th Century
Kristin Bornholdt Collins
The 2021 Northern Mixed hoard (c. 1030/35), Isle of Man
Johanne Porter
A Saint from the East and a Hoard in the North: a reassessment of the St Edmund coins from the Cuerdale hoard
Wendy Scott
Copies and Crossing the Water: the implications of the unusual elements in the Lenborough Hoard for coin circulation in Anglo-Danish England.
Fedir Androschchuk
Viking-Age Silver Hoards in Norrland: find places, content and origin
Jens Christian Moesgaard
Who Controlled the Minting in Lund in the 11th Century?
Orri Vesteinsson
Silver and Social Change in the Viking Age
Soren M. Sindbaek
Ribe and the Beginning of the Viking Age
Thorsten Lemm
All Roads Lead to Hedeby: communication routes, local markets and mercantile interaction in the hinterland of a trading town
Lene B. Frandsen
Nybro: a road connection in south-west Jutland from the early Viking Age
Christian Cooijmans
A Place of Contact and Contradiction: the socially constructed space(s) of viking encampment
Lesley Abrams
Defining the Danelaw
Elizabeth Pierce
Identifying a Scandinavian Presence in Eastern Scotland in the Viking Age
Mari Arentz Ostmo and Marianne Moen
Connecting Death: interpersonal and other affiliations in burial monuments with multiple individuals from Norway
Cassidy Croci
Building Bridges: visualizing the Role of Women in Sturlubok
Judith Jesch
Afterword