How did medieval rulership over multiple kingdoms and lordships work out? A new book explores the political, but also the practical, challenges of rulership in the fluid territorial reality of the 13th century, while floating a new concept: “transregnal”. What might this mean?
New book on the Angevin World circumvent a touchy English question. Was there ever an "Angevin Empire"?
At the head of the Bay of Arcachon, west of Bordeaux, lies the small town of Lège, nestled within a nature reserve that still preserves something of the landscape that characterised this corner of the Atlantic coast in the Middle Ages
Are the devastating wildfires of this summer the result of the shifting climate? Of human greed and stupidity? Or simply of a decline in extensive husbandry and pastoralism?
A thousand years ago, Lisbjerg, just north of Aarhus, was home to one of the king's powerful officials, Ketil the Norman. To understand his world, we must first imagine the landscape in which he lived, travelled, and exercised his authority.
The medieval church in Lisbjerg dates to c. AD 1100 – 1150. However, a predecessor in the form of a wooden stave church was built as part of a fenced manor c. 1000 – 1100.
The Runic stone was discovered at the beginning of the 19th century in a dry-stone wall near the estuary of Egå, a small river north of the city of Aarhus in Eastern Jutland. Allegedly, local people said that the stone had originally stood near a bridge across the Egå. Judging by similar monuments, the runestone may have formed part of a donation to the local community, consisting of at least the monumental erection of both the bridge and the stone.
The transliteration of the Runic inscription reads:
alfkil : uk : hns : suniR : risþu : stin : þansi : ift : | : mana : sin : frinta : þans : uas : lantirþi : kitils : þis : | nuruna :
while the transcription reads:
Alfkæll ok h[a]ns syniR rēsþu stēn þannsi æft Manna, sinn frǣnda, þann’s vas landhirðiR Kætils þess norrøna.
Based on this, the official translation reads:
“Alfkell and his sons raised this stone in memory of Manni, their kinsman, who was Ketill the Norwegian’s estate steward.”
Thus, in the official translation in the database, the Old Runic word norrøna is interpreted to mean that Ketil was a Norwegian, that is, a person from Norway. However, Ketil is not described as a Norwegian; he is merely identified by the epithet norrønn (Norse). The inscription therefore does not identify him by his place of origin, which would more likely have been expressed by a form such as Noregi, as in nuruiak (Jelling Stone 2) or nuriki (Ketil Stone), both of which are understood to refer to Norway. Rather, Ketil is identified as a norrønn person. Most likely, nuruna refers to someone who spoke Old Norse rather than dansk tunga, corresponding to the explanation of norrœna, f. (3), as the Norse language. The flipped stone shown as featured photo marks the importance of the “Nuruna”-part of the inscription – as seen in the middle part. Maybe Ketil was just called his nickname?
Apart from that, we can be certain that Ketil must have been an important man. Remember that the stone, and probably also the bridge, were erected to honour his man, the steward responsible for Ketil’s estate. The word landhirðiR is also known from the stone Ravnkilde 1. Here it is plausibly indicating an estate steward. Manni may, however, have fulfilled another role, namely that of priest. The title landhirðiR is not as widely used as bruti, bryde, which apart from three Runic stones is also known from early written sources in the 11th and 12th centuries. Perhaps it is significant that the stone was carefully decorated with an early Christian cross? In addition, an early bronze cross was discovered in a grave in the burial ground excavated at Egå. The stone must have been raised around the time when Christianity was becoming more prevalent in the landscape.
Ketil means “cauldron” or “kettle”, and it has been suggested that the name referred either to the vessel containing the sacred mead or beer, indicating a man who provided feasts. Alternatively, it has been interpreted as referring to someone wearing a kettle-shaped helmet, making it a nickname denoting a warrior. Perhaps the infamous Ketil Flatnose, who for a short time ruled the Isles, derived his name from wearing a helmet with a prominent nose guard, such as that seen on the Coppergate Helmet.
Ketil was a very common name throughout the Viking diaspora. The Icelandic Landnámabók, for instance, lists approximately forty-three different individuals named Ketil, either as a simple or compound name, indicating that it was widespread throughout the North Atlantic settlements. One Ketil, as mentioned above, became ruler of the Northern Isles (Ketil Flatnose), while another settled in Greenland, giving his name to Ketilsfjǫrðr.
In Denmark, at least fifteen place names derive from Ketil, including Ketilstorp, now known as Kelstrup. In England, about eighty people named Ketil were recorded as landowners in the Domesday Book. Approximately two-thirds of these estates were located along the eastern coast between Norwich and York, and about 85 per cent are known to pre-date the Norman Conquest. The name was also not uncommon in Normandy, where at least ten place names incorporate Ketil, for example Quettehou on the Cotentin Peninsula. In short, the name was ubiquitous.
Thus, Ketil of Egå may have come from Norway, Iceland, or even Greenland, but he might equally well have originated in the British Isles or Normandy. Accordingly, we refer to him here as Ketil the Northman. The fact remains, however, that he spoke nuruna or norrœna.
We have absolutely no way of identifying the lord of the manor at Lisbjerg as identical to Ketil the Northman.
It is intriguing, though, that Lisbjerg has been archaeologically documented as
Approaches to the study of linguistic identity in the Viking Age
By Eldar Heide
Unpublished manuscript for the seminar Migration And Transcultural Identities In The Viking Age , University of Nottingham, march 3 – april 1, 2006.
Tradition and Innovation: the Function of Ambiguity in the Three Scandinavian Runic Conversion Monuments.
By Arne Kruse. In: Scandinavia Refracted: A Festschrift in Honour of Bjarne Thorup Thomsen. Ed. by Giles, Ian. Edinburgh (2022).
(3) A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. By Geir T. Zoëga. Oxford University Press 1910: and ONP: Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, University of Copenhagen: norrǿna
A new excavation at Søften, near Lisbjerg, has revealed an extensive production environment that may have supplied Viking Age Aarhus with textiles and other craft products.
Could the Bamberg Shrine have been a diplomatic gift presented to Otto the Great by the emissaries of the Danish king at Quedlinburg in AD 973?
The village of Vindelev in Eastern Jutland was presumably a gift to a Vendish military commander, who operated east of Vejle in the middle of the 400s. An impressive gold hoard opens up the world, in which he lived.
The Norwegian state, Norway, derives from the sailing route along the coast known as the Norðvegr. A recent paper explores this Norðvegr and its maritime mindscape as a lived experience.
What did it feel like to travel long distances in an open, clinker-built Viking boat along the Norwegian coast at the turn of the first millennium, when Cnut the Great ruled north-western Europe from Newfoundland to Sigtuna in Sweden? How did it all hang together? One of the preconditions was, of course, the technology – the Viking ships and boats, their oars, sails and rigging, the hardtack, and all the other paraphernalia involved. However, another was the knowledge of how to make way: the maritime mindscape. In terms of archaeology and literary studies, this is certainly not an unexplored field. An important contribution, however, has been the experimental archaeology carried out since the first recreation of a Viking ship set sail for Chicago in 1893. Most of these voyages have had the character of large-scale enterprises involving reconstructed ships based on the famous larger vessels discovered in Norwegian burial mounds or in the Firth of Roskilde.
Recently, though, experimental voyages have taken on another, and perhaps less spectacular, character: charting and exploring parts of the Norðvegr, which formed part of the via franca of the north-western European realm. What was the feasibility of travelling up and down the Norwegian coast in the small, ordinary, day-to-day clinker-built ships of yesteryear?
Greer Jarrett and his crew have explored this question “through experimental and ethnographic fieldwork onboard traditional Norwegian boats, focusing on aspects of Viking Age route choice, risk judgement, and the location of possible anchorages and harbours”. The goal has been not only to discover where people travelled, but also, through the identification of small harbours, to reconstruct concrete maritime itineraries along the Norwegian coast. In 2022, the sailing boat – an open, square-rigged clinker vessel modelled on those used during the Viking Age (800–1050 AD) – made a journey from Trondheim to the Arctic Circle. Since then, Jarrett and his team have sailed more than 5,000 km along historic Viking trade routes.
His research suggests that Viking voyages often took place well offshore, challenging earlier assumptions about their navigation methods. Simply put, navigating close to the coast appears to have been more unpredictable, as underwater currents and winds descending from the mountains created more complex sailing conditions. In short, the idea that Viking ships and boats sought to “hug the coast” is a myth. Putting out to sea was, in many cases, a better option. Over time, the Vikings became thoroughly accomplished seafarers. In an earlier study, Jarrett and his colleagues showed that, during the Middle Ages, Greenlanders could use this type of boat to reach remote areas of the Arctic in search of walrus tusks, while interacting with Inuit communities in the High Arctic.
Another conclusion is that the concrete experience of the preferability of the open sea helps to explain the location of the royal manors linked to the sea-king, Harald Fairhair, in Hordaland, which display a marked preference for outlying coastal areas. It may also explain why populations in inner Norway, hit by the climatic downturn after AD 536, moved westwards to the sea rather than maintaining settlements in the interior peninsula.
One result has been the identification of four long-forgotten landing sites awaiting archaeological excavation. It is hoped that they will yield information about jetties, ballast stones, cooking pits, shelters, dung heaps, and other material remains – lost coins, amulets, and so forth.
However, one of the most important results of the research has been the identification of a cultural commonality which Jarrett has termed “the Maritime Mindscape”, or more precisely, “the Maritime Cultural Mindscape”. Put simply, the research has uncovered the practical seamanship underpinning the performance of this Maritime Mindscape, which was shared by people across the north-west and is also reflected in the literature (Jesch 2015), in mental geography (Jackson 2009), and in place-names signifying shipyards and landing sites (Stylegar 2002). Some Icelandic texts, such as Landnámabók, include passages that may be read as straightforward land- and sea-marks, so-called landkenningar.
The research has also shown that navigation was indeed possible – even across the open sea – without technical instruments. Seafarers well versed in this traditional lore would have been highly prized. In this respect, however, the recreated experience can never be entirely precise.
For reasons of safety, one “experience” was not explored: ignoring the weather forecast. Nor was the need to avoid actual Vikings – that is, pirates – part of the agenda. Moreover, relative sea level in 2022 differs from that of 1,200 years ago. Post-glacial land uplift would have resulted in a coastline that today lies approximately 3–5 metres below the level known from AD 1000.
Lund University and Greer Jarrett.
Maritime Mindscapes: using experimental archaeology to reconstruct Viking Age seafaring routes
By Greer Jarrett
In D. Dangvard Pedersen, & J. Hansen (Eds.): Travelling Viking Age: Proceedings of the 40th Interdisciplinary Viking Symposium. Odense, University of Southern Denmark, May 3, 2023 (pp. 8-23).
(Kulturhistoriske studier i centralitet – Archaeological & Historical Studies in Centrality; Vol. 11). Forskningscenter: Centrum – Museum Odense – University Press of Southern Denmark
The lore of the leið: Tracking Viking Age voyages through traditional seafaring.
By Greer Jarrett
Acta Archaeologica Lundensia Series Altera in 8°, No 77
Doctoral Thesis (compilation), Department of Archaeology and Ancient
History, Lund University (2025).
From the Masthead to the Map: An Experimental and Digital Approach to Viking Age Seafaring Itineraries.
By Greer Jarrett
Journal of Archaeological Method Theory 32, 42.
The Threatening Wave: Norse Poetry and the Scottish Isles
By Janet Jesch
In: Barrett, J.H., Gibbon, S.J. (Eds.), Maritime Societies of the Viking and Medieval World. Routledge (2015)
Leeds, pp. 320–332.
Place-names as evidence for ancient maritime culture in Norway
By Frans-Arne H Stylegar
Årbok Norsk Sjøfartsmuseum 2002, pp 79-115
Ways on the “mental map” of medieval Scandinavians,
By T. N. Jackson
in: Heizmann, W., Böldl, K., Beck, H., Schier, K. (Eds.), Analecta Septentrionalia: Beiträge Zur Nordgermanischen Kultur- Und Literaturgeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 211–220.
In spring 2026, the Prado in Madrid will offer a spectacular exhibition inviting us into the artistic world of Mediterranean Gothic, 1320–1420.
When Angus’s father died c. 1250, an Irish bard composed a praise poem petitioning the son to pay his father’s debt. The poem offers a vivid account of the cultural inventory of one of the Sea Kings.
Excavated since 1987, Finlaggan on Islay, demonstrates how the medieval Kingdom of the Isles was on par with the rest of Europe in terms of political and cultural sophistication.
Since 2012, archaeologists and scientists have been poking through 1300 bones, the remains of kings, queens and bishops laid to rest in the mortuary chests in Winchester Cathedral.
When Greenland was settled by Norse immigrants in AD 997, it was uninhabited. From the outset it became part of the Danish–Scandinavian world