Abstract
This book aims to investigate the taking and giving of hostages in peace processes during the Viking Age and early Middle Ages in Scandinavia and adjacent areas. Scandinavia has been absent in previous research about hostages from the perspectives of legal and social history, which has mostly focused on Antiquity (the Roman Empire), Continental Germanic cultures, such as the Merovingian realm, and Anglo-Saxon England. The examples presented are from confrontations between Scandinavians and other peoples in which the hostage giving and taking was displayed as a ritual act and thus became symbolically important. Hostages were a vital part of the peace processes and used as resources by both sides in the ‘areas of communication’ within the ‘areas of confrontation’. Literary texts as well as runic inscriptions, picture stones, place names, and personal names are used as source material. ‘<i>It is a work of very high academic quality. It is based upon meticulous and thorough studies of a great variety of sources. The author has definitely a very good knowledge of the source material. It is a very good study of a previously neglected research field.</i>’ — Thomas Lindkvist, Professor emeritus, University of Gothenburg
Highlights
Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion (SSCR) (ISSN 20024606) is a peer-reviewed series initiated by Åke Hultkrantz in 1961
The above discussed analyses of ritual acts are important in cases that include the hostages, since the giving and taking of hostages could appear in connection with – or as a result of – critical moments where the performativity could be a part of a power demonstration, as well as a part of a power strategy and where it was a question about displaying the intentions of the practitioners
Legal historians and historians have focused on the Roman Empire, Continental Germanic, and Old English cultures
Summary
This book is a revised version of my thesis, Gísl: givande och tagande av gisslan som rituell handling i fredsprocesser under vikingatid och tidig medeltid (‘Gísl: Giving and taking of hostages as a ritual act in peace processes during the Viking Age and early Middle Ages’). This new revised edition has been read through and commented on by Professor Håkan Rydving, who stood beside me from the very beginning of this project.
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