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Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation, circa 800-1500 (Volume 17)
Book by Sawyer, Birgit, Sawyer, Peter
288 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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April 3, 2025Scandinavia disappears from most people's conception of history with the close of the Viking era. It reappears, if at all, only with the rise of the Swedish and Danish colonial empires of the seventeenth century. That leaves a gap of at least five centuries. This is both a puzzle and a shame. For not only are those centuries quite well documented, they contain some of the most important and interesting chapters of Scandinavia's past.
Those neglected centuries include, for example, the political unification of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Known as "the Kalmar Union," this medieval Nordic super-state persisted for more than a century. Its existence facilitated the development of a unique Scandinavian identity, around which the Scandinavians could rally to defend themselves against German economic and cultural imperialism. But for the Kalmar Union, Scandinavia would have been even more heavily Germanized than it was, perhaps even absorbed into the eventual German state.
Given the global interest in Scandinavia's Viking past, and the disproportionate social and political influence of the Scandinavian countries on the world today, you might think this dynamic middle period would attract more attention from historians and the general public alike. You might think there'd be all the more popular interest given that the founder of the Kalmar Union, Margrete I, was a woman. But you'd be mistaken.
Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation also covers all this, plus the familiar Viking centuries. In my opinion, it needn't have bothered with the latter. There's already a massive and ever-expanding library of books on that subject. Given the scarcity of English language sources about the later Scandinavian Middle Ages, I think this book would have done better to concentrate on the overlooked post-Viking period.
Beyond that, I found Medieval Scandinavia a rather dry read: more a scholarly than a popular history. I read it over a decade ago, however, alongside several other books with overlapping themes, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy. In its favor, it fills a need. I don't know of another book in English with quite the same focus. I wish there were a dozen.
The best source I've encountered about the indomitable queen Margrete and the Kalmar Union is A History of the Swedish People, From Prehistory to the Renaissance by Wilhelm Moberg.
Those neglected centuries include, for example, the political unification of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Known as "the Kalmar Union," this medieval Nordic super-state persisted for more than a century. Its existence facilitated the development of a unique Scandinavian identity, around which the Scandinavians could rally to defend themselves against German economic and cultural imperialism. But for the Kalmar Union, Scandinavia would have been even more heavily Germanized than it was, perhaps even absorbed into the eventual German state.
Given the global interest in Scandinavia's Viking past, and the disproportionate social and political influence of the Scandinavian countries on the world today, you might think this dynamic middle period would attract more attention from historians and the general public alike. You might think there'd be all the more popular interest given that the founder of the Kalmar Union, Margrete I, was a woman. But you'd be mistaken.
Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation also covers all this, plus the familiar Viking centuries. In my opinion, it needn't have bothered with the latter. There's already a massive and ever-expanding library of books on that subject. Given the scarcity of English language sources about the later Scandinavian Middle Ages, I think this book would have done better to concentrate on the overlooked post-Viking period.
Beyond that, I found Medieval Scandinavia a rather dry read: more a scholarly than a popular history. I read it over a decade ago, however, alongside several other books with overlapping themes, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy. In its favor, it fills a need. I don't know of another book in English with quite the same focus. I wish there were a dozen.
The best source I've encountered about the indomitable queen Margrete and the Kalmar Union is A History of the Swedish People, From Prehistory to the Renaissance by Wilhelm Moberg.
December 21, 2018
First time I read it was at university.
Re-read in 2018.
Re-read in 2018.
November 11, 2015
Well Written Concise Summary. Analytical skeptical approach to conceived wisdom regarding era.
August 15, 2022
I've read this as a uni literature, now for the first time through and through as recommended. Do I regret it? No. Did I however expect a little bit more, yes I can say that.
History books have this ever present issue which I imagine comes from the amount of information the authors aim to cover and present to the readers where right from the get go or in some books a little bit later the text presented and the way information are put together just come of as dry to the mouth when read. There's no doubt about the competence of the authors and their knowledge expressed through writing a work like this and yet still it comes of as underwhelming and at times makes you wan to skip a paragraph of four.
This could of course be due to the lack of written evidence to further give us the more in-depth dive into the subject cowered or due to writing expecting the pre-knowledge to be possessed by the readers to some extent not in all aspects, before reading this book (even tho such approach at least in my opinion does not do much favor to the writers in regard to future reading of their work after the initial one taken up); which could both be the case with this book.
So even tho we are presented with an undoubtedly fascinating topic to explore the way it is approached and at times written in this book tho filled with sometimes very detailed explanations and descriptions(at time at an expanse of one or another more interesting yet not further explored topic), does not bring the ultimate satisfaction it one such work could and I think should.
And it does a really major skip with giving almost no direct space to the topic of widely known voyages and explorations of the Vikings which is something I just do not understand.
I mean wouldn't it be like building a long boat and then deciding to not give it sales or the mast....
History books have this ever present issue which I imagine comes from the amount of information the authors aim to cover and present to the readers where right from the get go or in some books a little bit later the text presented and the way information are put together just come of as dry to the mouth when read. There's no doubt about the competence of the authors and their knowledge expressed through writing a work like this and yet still it comes of as underwhelming and at times makes you wan to skip a paragraph of four.
This could of course be due to the lack of written evidence to further give us the more in-depth dive into the subject cowered or due to writing expecting the pre-knowledge to be possessed by the readers to some extent not in all aspects, before reading this book (even tho such approach at least in my opinion does not do much favor to the writers in regard to future reading of their work after the initial one taken up); which could both be the case with this book.
So even tho we are presented with an undoubtedly fascinating topic to explore the way it is approached and at times written in this book tho filled with sometimes very detailed explanations and descriptions(at time at an expanse of one or another more interesting yet not further explored topic), does not bring the ultimate satisfaction it one such work could and I think should.
And it does a really major skip with giving almost no direct space to the topic of widely known voyages and explorations of the Vikings which is something I just do not understand.
I mean wouldn't it be like building a long boat and then deciding to not give it sales or the mast....
August 3, 2019
This book, though not exactly what I was looking for was a very interesting look into the period it covers, and in defiantly a great read for anyone interested in Scandinavian history.
February 5, 2016
This was an interesting generic history of Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, one that treats a wide variety of historical and cultural aspects. It was fairly dry in most places, and failed to really draw me in. If I hadn't been recently reading a lot of other books on the same subject that were a lot better, I might have been more satisfied with this. One specific problem I had with this book was its attitudes toward source materials. Again, this probably has to do with the fact that I had just finished reading Jenny Jochens' Women in Old Norse Society, which included a whole treatment of old Norse sources and the scholarly approaches to them. Jochens concluded that while older scholarship had serious doubts as to the reliability of the oral elements in the sagas and other sources, modern scholars have demonstrated that, as long as a critical view is taken of these sources, they are fairly reliable and informative. The Sawyers seem to be saying the opposite, and I can only guess that this book, being written earlier than Jochens', was written before these new shifts in opinion had taken place. Jochens' views seem reasonable to me and seems to more closely echo the findings and views of folklorists of other cultures. So I think the Sawyers' doubts must be taken with a grain of salt. All in all, this might be a useful historical source, but it isn't a very engaging one.
April 29, 2011
informative, historical, class reading
November 15, 2008
Very informative but the Sawyers have to do something about repetition and delivery of content.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews