IMC 2022: Sessions
Session 335: The North in Transition, II: Circulating and Re-Narrating Ideas of Demons, Infidels, and True Believers across Northern Borders
Monday 4 July 2022, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | 'Creating the New North' Research Programme, Universitetet i Tromsø - Norges arktiske universitet |
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| Organiser: | Sigrun Høgetveit Berg, Institutt for historie og religionsvitenskap, Universitetet i Tromsø - Norges Arktiske Universitetet |
| Moderator/Chair: | John McNicol, Department of Archaeology, Conservation & History, UiT the Artic University of Norway |
| Paper 335-a | Substance or Just Rhetoric?: Expressions of Crusading Ideology in the Norwegian and Swedish Expansion into Fennoscandia (Language: English) Index terms: Crusades, Mentalities, Politics and Diplomacy, Rhetoric |
| Paper 335-b | Boundaries of Sorcery: The Role of Seiðmenn in Viking Age Society (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Dutch, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Pagan Religions |
| Paper 335-c | A Witchcraft Triangle: Transmitting Ideas of Witchcraft across Borders in Europe (Language: English) Index terms: Literacy and Orality, Mentalities, Printing History, Theology |
| Abstract | The first paper investigates how crusading ideology was applied to Scandinavian expansion into regions inhabited by 'heathen' or 'schismatics' during the Middle Ages. Was this a genuine inspiration for the expansion? Was it a strategy of practical use to central authorities? Or was it merely a cosmetic adornment? In the second paper, the term seiðmenn in the sagas is explored, to evaluate whether it describes a distinct and coherent category of Viking Age sorcerer. The paper suggests that there are internal inconsistencies in the textual portrayals of seiðmenn. Moving on to the eve of the medieval period, circulation of demonological witchcraft ideas took place within different levels of society, in written as well as oral form. The third paper shows how these ideas were transmitted between the three European countries Germany, Scotland, and Norway. |