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Medieval Scandinavia After the Vikings
How Denmark, Norway and Sweden became Christian kingdoms with bishops, laws and taxes after the raiding age, and how Iceland fit into the northern world.
The Wider Medieval World
Scandinavia and the North
Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden after the Viking Age.
Greenland Norse Settlements
The Norse colonies in Greenland, founded around 985, lasted for centuries. What life was like there and why historians still debate how they ended.
Iceland: Settlement and the Althing
How Norse settlers built a society on Iceland with no king, ruled by chieftains and a yearly assembly called the Althing, until Norway took over in the 1260s.
Norse Sagas as Historical Sources
What the Icelandic sagas can and cannot tell us about the Viking Age and medieval Scandinavia, and how historians check them against archaeology and other texts.
Runestones and Early Scandinavian Writing
How runic writing worked, who carved runestones and why, and what the surviving inscriptions, from memorials to everyday notes, can and cannot tell us.
Stave Churches and Wooden Building in Norway
How Norway's medieval stave churches were built, why timber was the natural material, and what their carved portals and dragon heads suggest about the period.
The Kalmar Union
How Denmark, Norway and Sweden were joined under one monarch from 1397, why the union kept fraying, and how it ended in Sweden in 1523.
Related topics
More in the wider medieval world
The Islamic World and Caliphates How the Abbasid, Fatimid and Andalusian worlds worked and what they shared with Europe. Mongols and the Steppe Steppe peoples, Mongol conquests and the Eurasian links they created. Medieval Russia and Eastern Europe Rus, Poland, Hungary and Bohemia between the Latin and Orthodox worlds. Africa and Asia in the Middle Ages Mali, Ethiopia, Song China, Japan and India during the European medieval centuries.