Ritual Performance in the Viking Age

Om bogen

The performance of rituals is a key component in understanding the culture of Late Iron-Age and Viking-Age Scandinavia, which was marked by tremendous social and religious transformations. New approaches to social, political, and religious rituals are currently offering stimulating new perspectives on the period and the entanglements of symbolism, the exercise of power, materiality and agency. Research on finds such as iconographic objects or buildings associated with rituals, as well as new interpretations of well-known textual and material sources points to the continued relevance of the ritual perspective for exploring the Viking-Age mind-set.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 39th Interdisciplinary Viking Symposium, held on 20th May 2022 at Aarhus University. The five chapters of the book pose questions of what, how, and why as well as by or for whom rituals of various kinds were performed in the Viking Age in a predominantly pre-Christian context. By considering the involvement of people, words, things, and spaces in ritual acts, it seeks to deepen our understanding of ritual performance in the period from a truly interdisciplinary perspective.