Seasons in the Literatures of the Medieval North


Book Description

A fresh examination of how the seasons are depicted in medieval literature.




Paranormal Encounters in Iceland 1150–1400


Book Description

This anthology of international scholarship offers new critical approaches to the study of the many manifestations of the paranormal in the Middle Ages. The guiding principle of the collection is to depart from symbolic or reductionist readings of the subject matter in favor of focusing on the paranormal as human experience and, essentially, on how these experiences are defined by the sources. The authors work with a variety of medieval Icelandic textual sources, including family sagas, legendary sagas, romances, poetry, hagiography and miracles, exploring the diversity of paranormal activity in the medieval North. This volume questions all previous definitions of the subject matter, most decisively the idea of saga realism, and opens up new avenues in saga research.




Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar


Book Description

Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar is a handbook designed to help modern readers unlock the vast cultural, religious, and scientific material contained in early modern calendars and almanacs. It outlines the basic cosmological, astrological, and medical theories that undergirded calendars, traces the medieval evolution of the calendar into its early modern format against the background of the English Reformation, and presents a history of the English almanac in the context of the rise of the printing industry in England. The book includes a primer on deciphering early modern printed almanacs, as well as an illustrated guide to the rich visual and verbal iconography of seasons, months, and days of the week, gathered from material culture, farming manuals, almanacs, and continental prints. As a practical guide to English calendars and the social, mathematical, and scientific practices that inform them, Astrology, Almanacs,and the Early Modern English Calendar is an indispensable tool for historians, cultural critics, and literary scholars working with the primary material of the period, especially those with interests in astrology, popular science, popular print, the book as material artifact, and the history of time-reckoning.




Landscape in Middle English Romance


Book Description

Our current ecological crises compel us not only to understand how contemporary media shapes our conceptions of human relationships with the environment, but also to examine the historical genealogies of such perspectives. Written during the onset of the Little Ice Age in Britain, Middle English romances provide a fascinating window into the worldviews of popular vernacular literature (and its audiences) at the close of the Middle Ages. Andrew M. Richmond shows how literary conventions of romances shaped and were in turn influenced by contemporary perspectives on the natural world. These popular texts also reveal widespread concern regarding the damaging effects of human actions and climate change. The natural world was a constant presence in the writing, thoughts, and lives of the audiences and authors of medieval English romance – and these close readings reveal that our environmental concerns go back further in our history and culture than we think.




Winters in the World


Book Description

Interweaving literature, history, and religion, an exquisite meditation on the turning of the seasons in medieval England—now in paperback. Winters in the World is a beautifully observed journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, exploring the festivals, customs, and traditions linked to the different seasons. Drawing on a wide variety of source material, including poetry, histories, and religious literature, Eleanor Parker investigates how Anglo-Saxons felt about the annual passing of the seasons and the profound relationship they saw between human life and the rhythms of nature. Many of the festivals celebrated in the United Kingdom today have their roots in the Anglo-Saxon period, and this book traces their surprising history while unearthing traditions now long forgotten. It celebrates some of the finest treasures of medieval literature and provides an imaginative connection to the Anglo-Saxon world.




The Elements in the Medieval World


Book Description

The thirteen essays and the final poem contained in this volume reflect the fundamental importance of water across the whole breadth of medieval endeavour and understanding, as both source of life, and object of scholarly fascination, whose manifestations were the source of rich symbolism and imaginings. Ranging geographically from Ireland to the Arab world and from Iceland to Byzantium and chronologically from the fourth century CE to the sixteenth, the essays explore perceptions and theories of water through a wide range of approaches. Contributors are Michael Bintley, Tom Birkett, Laura Borghetti, Rafał Borysławski, Marilina Cesario, Marusca Francini, Kelly Grovier, Deborah Hayden, Simon Karstens, Andreas Lammer, David Livingstone, Luca Loschiavo, Hugh Magennis, Colin Fitzpatrick Murtha, François Quiviger, Elisa Ramazzina, and Karl Whittington.




Unusual Death and Memorialization


Book Description

Most cultures and societies have their own customs and traditions of treating their dead. In the past, some deceased received a burial that deviated from tradition. The reasons for unusual burial could result from reasons such as outbreaks of epidemics or wars, or from premature births, distinctive social status, or disability. Authors present a selection of cases addressing the issue of unusual deaths, burials, or ways to remember the deceased. Chapters explore theoretical views related to social memory of death and memorializing the deceased and their resting places during modern period. The case studies introduce varied views on ‘otherness’ that are visible in burial customs and memorialization.




Fast Goes the Fleeting Time: The Miscellaneous Concepts of Time in Different Old Norse Genres and their Causes


Book Description

This work is concerned with time reckoning and perception in Old Norse culture. Based on an analysis of various prose and poetic works, the author reconstructs the native images of time, as well as their changes in relation to social development, namely the arrival of Christianity and feudalism to the North. The primary sources are divided into three groups. The first group comprises works that contain traces of the original domestic understanding of time, the „Poetic Edda“, „Snorri’s Edda“, legendary and family sagas. The second group includes different types of texts, all of which adopt foreign concepts of time that spread to Iceland especially through various learned treatises and the influence of the Church. Lastly, it is examined how foreign time reckoning and perception affected the temporal structure of kings’ and bishops’ sagas included in the third group of sources.




Influences of Pre-Christian Mythology and Christianity on Old Norse Poetry


Book Description

The Eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál serves as a representation of early pagan beliefs or myths and as a myth itself; the poem performs both of these functions, acting as a poetic framework and functioning as sacred myth. In this study, the author looks closely at the journey of the Norse god Óðinn to the hall of the ancient and wise giant Vafþrúðnir, where Óðinn craftily engages his adversary in a life-or-death contest in knowledge.




The Handbook of Organizing Economic, Ecological and Societal Transformation


Book Description

This handbook gathers contributors from different disciplines of the social sciences, such as organization and management studies, sociology, anthropology and political science, to constructively discuss the kinds of transformations we need to see in coming years. These transformations concern the way we work, produce and consume but also the way in which we think about work, production and consumption. In an explicit rejection of the demand that the social sciences provide quick fixes, the contributors of this handbook discuss possible solutions in a critical and comprehensive manner and with an eye to both their environmental and societal implications. The handbook is divided into four parts: Opening up futures, Techno-economic transformations at work, Sustainable environmental transformation, and Radical democratic futures. The handbook is of interest to all critical academics interested in constructive suggestions regarding necessary societal transformations.