Conversion of Scandinavia

Anders Winroth

ISBN 10: 0300205538 / ISBN 13: 9780300205534

Published by YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS ACADEMIC Apr 2014, 2014

About this Item

Neuware - Overturning the received narrative of Europe's military and religious conquest and colonization of the region, the author contends that rather than acting as passive recipients, Scandinavians converted to Christianity because it was in individual chieftains' political, economic and cultural interests to do so.

Seller Inventory # 9780300205534

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Conversion of Scandinavia
• Publisher: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS ACADEMIC Apr 2014
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300205538
• ISBN 13: 9780300205534
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu

About this title

Synopsis

In this book a MacArthur Award-winning scholar argues for a radically new interpretation of the conversion of Scandinavia from paganism to Christianity in the early Middle Ages. Overturning the received narrative of Europe's military and religious conquest and colonization of the region, Anders Winroth contends that rather than acting as passive recipients, Scandinavians converted to Christianity because it was in individual chieftains' political, economic, and cultural interests to do so.

Through a painstaking analysis and historical reconstruction of both archeological and literary sources, and drawing on scholarly work that has been unavailable in English, Winroth opens up new avenues for studying European ascendency and the expansion of Christianity in the medieval period.

About the Author

Anders Winroth, the Forst Family Professor of History at Yale, is the author of The Making of Gratian's "Decretum," for which he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003.