The Early Medieval North Atlantic
About the Book Series
This series provides a publishing platform for research on the history, cultures, and societies that laced the North Sea from the Migration Period at the twilight of the Roman Empire to the eleventh century.
The point of departure for this series is the commitment to regarding the North Atlantic as a centre, rather than a periphery, thus connecting the histories of peoples and communities traditionally treated in isolation: Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians / Vikings, Celtic communities, Baltic communities, the Franks, etc. From this perspective new insights can be made into processes of transformation, economic and cultural exchange, the formation of identities, etc. It also allows for the inclusion of more distant cultures – such as Greenland, North America, and Russia – which are of increasing interest to scholars in this research context.
Please contact Dorothea Schaefter, Publisher at Routledge ([email protected]) to submit a proposal or to find out more about the series.
The Danelaw in Viking Age England: The Distribution, Impact, and Duration of Danish Law
1st Edition
By Alexander D. M. Thomas
June 22, 2026
This book provides the first comprehensive reassessment in over 30 years of the Danelaw, an area of north-eastern England, established in the late 9th century in a treaty made between King Alfred of Wessex and King Guthrum of East Anglia. It revisits its duration, its boundary, trade dynamics, and ...
Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire: Ideals and Expectations during the Reign of Louis the Pious (813-828)
1st Edition
By Rutger Kramer
January 09, 2026
By the early ninth century, the responsibility for a series of social, religious and political transformations had become an integral part of running the Carolingian empire. This became especially clear when, in 813/4, Louis the Pious and his court seized the momentum generated by their ...
Charlemagne’s Defeat in the Pyrenees: The Battle of Rencesvals
1st Edition
By Xabier Irujo
December 01, 2025
The Battle of Errozabal (Rencesvals) is the one of the most significant historical events of eighth century Vasconia and in all Western Europe. The present monograph examines Charlemagne’s campaign from the perspective of military history but also as part of a complex socio-political process that ...
Ethnic Identity and the Archaeology of the aduentus Saxonum: A Modern Framework and its Problems
1st Edition
By James M. Harland
December 01, 2025
For centuries, archaeologists have excavated the soils of Britain to uncover finds from the early medieval past. These finds have been used to reconstruct the alleged communities, migration patterns, and expressions of identity of coherent groups who can be regarded as ethnic 'Anglo-Saxons'. Even ...
Fish Trade in Medieval North Atlantic Societies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Human Ecodynamics
1st Edition
By Val Dufeu
December 01, 2025
Val Dufeu here reconstructs settlement patterns of fishing communities in Viking Age Iceland and proposes socio-economic and environmental models relevant to any study of the Vikings or the North Atlantic. She integrates written sources, geoarchaeological data, and zooarchaeological data to examine...
Food Culture in Medieval Scandinavia
1st Edition
Edited
By Viktória Gyönki, Andrea Maraschi
December 01, 2025
The making, eating, and sharing of food throughout society represents an important and exciting area of study with the potential to advance the field of scholarship, particularly in the context of Scandinavian Studies. This book analyses the historical, legal, and literary sources of the region ...
Fosterage in Medieval Ireland: An Emotional History
1st Edition
By Thomas O'Donnell
December 01, 2025
Fosterage was a central feature of medieval Irish society, yet the widespread practice of sending children to another family to be cared for until they reached adulthood is a surprisingly neglected topic. Where it has been discussed, fosterage is usually conceptualised and treated as a purely legal...
Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions
1st Edition
Edited
By Emily Lyle
December 01, 2025
Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions explores the traditions of two fascinating and contiguous cultures in north-western Europe. History regularly brought these two peoples into contact, most prominently with the viking invasion of Ireland. In the famous Second Battle of Mag ...
Otherworld Women in Early Irish Literature
1st Edition
By Heather Key
December 01, 2025
In early Ireland, there were many names for what scholars have dubbed the ‘Otherworld’: the Plain of Delights, the Land of Youth, the Land of Promise, and more. Many of the myths and legends from this period involve an encounter between a hero and a woman from this Otherworld, with sufficient ...
Outlawry, Liminality, and Sanctity in the Literature of the Early Medieval North Atlantic
1st Edition
By Jeremy DeAngelo
December 01, 2025
In reality, medieval outlaws were dangerous, desperate individuals. In the fiction of the Middle Ages, however, the possibilities afforded by their position on societies' margins granted them the ability to fill a number of transitory, transgressive roles: young adventurer, freedom fighter, and ...
Roman Infrastructure in Early Medieval Britain: The Adaptations of the Past in Text and Stone
1st Edition
By Mateusz Fafinski
December 01, 2025
Early Medieval Britain was more Roman than we think. The Roman Empire left vast infrastructural resources on the island. These resources lay buried not only in dirt and soil, but also in texts, laws, chronicles, charters, even churches and landscapes. This book uncovers them and shows how they ...
Shapeshifters in Medieval North Atlantic Literature
1st Edition
Edited
By Santiago Francisco Barreiro, Luciana Mabel Cordo Russo
December 01, 2025
Representations of shapeshifters are prominent in medieval culture and they are particularly abundant in the vernacular literatures of the societies around the North Sea. Some of the figures in these stories remain well known in later folklore and often even in modern media, such as werewolves, ...