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IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 1219: Rituals North by Northwest: Hospitality and Language of Ceremony in Scandinavia, 11th-13th Centuries

Wednesday 9 July 2014, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Wojtek Jezierski, Institutionen för historiska studier, Göteborgs Universitet
Moderator/Chair:Steffen Patzold, Seminar für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Paper 1219-aFestive Governance: Feasts as Rituals of Power and Integration in Medieval Norway
(Language: English)
Hans Jacob Orning, Institutt for arkeologi, konservering og historie, Universitetet i Oslo
Index terms: Anthropology, Mentalities, Social History
Paper 1219-bJust Rituals: Ritualization, Manipulation, and Social Order in Saxo's Gesta Danorum
(Language: English)
Kim Esmark, Department of Culture & Identity, Roskilde Universitet
Index terms: Anthropology, Historiography - Medieval, Social History
Paper 1219-cConvivium in terra horroris: Helmold of Bosau's Rituals of Hostipitality
(Language: English)
Wojtek Jezierski, Institutionen för historiska studier, Göteborgs Universitet
Index terms: Anthropology, Mentalities, Social History
Abstract

Contributions in this session address political uses of hospitality and manipulations of rituals in Norway, Denmark, and on the missionary frontier in Northern Germany. Together they constitute an excerpt from a forthcoming anthology (presented by Lars Hermanson) on political rituals in Scandinavia and transmission of ritual language from the continent. Orning shows in what ways weak Norwegian kings used feasts as means of governance (in Morkinskinna). Esmark presents the abuse, invention, and the danger of ceremonies in Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum. Jezierski discusses Helmold of Bosau's hospitable frame of mind as a mode of perception of political reality in Chronica Slavorum.