Cross, Katherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9038-5527 (2025) Vikings in early medieval narratives: how an occupation became an ethnicity. In: Bleile, Ralf, Hilberg, Volker, Lichtenstein, Franziska and Lemm, Thorsten, (eds.) Vikings? Vikings! Towards a Responsible Use of the Term ‘Viking’. Mainz, Germany, LEIZA Verlag (In Press)

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Abstract

‘ “Viking” was a job description, not an ethnicity’: this phrase will be familiar to anyone who has engaged with the recent public history of the Viking Age. Yet early medieval writers did not make such a clear distinction between occupation and identity. This chapter focuses, not on the word ‘viking’, but on the concept of the ‘Scandinavian seaborne raider’ as it is employed by modern historians and archaeologists. It is argued that early medieval writers represented the activities of ‘seaborne raiders’ in the Viking Age in terms of ethnicity; moreover, the grouping of disparate individuals and groups into a single descriptive mode can be recognised as concealing multiple identities and affiliations among those we now term ‘vikings’. Thus, the category of a ‘Scandinavian seaborne raider’ originated as a form of ‘othering’, but ultimately came to be used as a source of self-identity, too.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	In Press
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D111 Medieval History D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain > DA129-260 Early and medieval to 1485 > DA140-199 Celts. Romans. Saxons. Danes. Normans D History General and Old World > DC France D History General and Old World > DD Germany D History General and Old World > DL Northern Europe. Scandinavia
School/Department:	School of Humanities
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/13834

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