Pope Alexander III, born Roland, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 September 1159 until his death in 1181.
Scandinavia is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or more broadly to include all of Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.
The Viking Age (793–1066 CE) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germanic Iron Age. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of Scandinavia but also to any place significantly settled by Scandinavians during the period. The Scandinavians of the Viking Age are often referred to as Vikings as well as Norsemen, although few of them were Vikings in sense of being engaged in piracy.
Vikings is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia, who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and settled throughout parts of Europe. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, Volga Bulgaria, the Middle East, and North America. In some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a collective whole. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Estonia, and Kievan Rus'.
Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson was a king of Denmark and Norway.
Olaf II Haraldsson, later known as Saint Olaf, was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. Son of Harald Grenske, a petty king in Vestfold, Norway, he was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae and canonised at Nidaros (Trondheim) by Bishop Grimkell, one year after his death in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030. His remains were enshrined in Nidaros Cathedral, built over his burial site. His sainthood encouraged the widespread adoption of Christianity by Scandinavia's Vikings/Norsemen.
Saint Rimbert was archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, in the northern part of the Kingdom of East Frankia from 865 until his death in 888. He most famously wrote the hagiography about the life Ansgar, the Vita Ansgari, one of the most popular hagiographies of middle ages.
Olsok is a national day of celebration on July 29 in the Nordic countries of Norway and the Faroe Islands, and also in the provinces of Härjedalen in Sweden and Savonlinna in Finland.
Irnerius, sometimes referred to as lucerna juris, was an Italian jurist, and founder of the School of Glossators and thus of the tradition of Medieval Roman Law.
The Decretum Gratiani, also known as the Concordia discordantium canonum or Concordantia discordantium canonum or simply as the Decretum, is a collection of canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist known as Gratian. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici. It was used as the main source of law by canonists of the Roman Catholic Church until the Decretals, promulgated by Pope Gregory IX in 1234, obtained legal force, after which it was the cornerstone of the Corpus Juris Canonici, in force until 1917.
Norse funerals, or the burial customs of Viking Age North Germanic Norsemen, are known both from archaeology and from historical accounts such as the Icelandic sagas and Old Norse poetry.
Huguccio was an Italian canon lawyer.
The Christianization of Scandinavia, as well as other Nordic countries and the Baltic countries, took place between the 8th and the 12th centuries. The realms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden established their own Archdioceses, responsible directly to the Pope, in 1104, 1154 and 1164, respectively. The conversion to Christianity of the Scandinavian people required more time, since it took additional efforts to establish a network of churches.
Robert Eugene Somerville was until his retirement the Ada Byron Bampton Tremaine Professor of Religion and Professor of History at Columbia University, New York. Since July 1, 2020, he has been the Tremaine Professor Emeritus of Religion. He has taught at Columbia since 1969, except for a year at the University of Pennsylvania (1976–1977).
John of Tynemouth was a medieval English clergyman and canon lawyer. He was among the first teachers of canon law at what later became Oxford University, where he was by 1188. By the late 1190s John had joined the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter. Besides his position in the household, he also held a number of ecclesiastical positions, which earned him a substantial income. After Walter's death, John continued to serve as a lawyer as well as hold clerical offices. He died in 1221 and a number of his writings survive.
Peter Hayes Sawyer was a British historian. His work on the Vikings was highly influential, as was his scholarship on Medieval England. Sawyer's early work The Age of the Vikings argued that the Vikings were "traders not raiders", overturning the previously held view that the Vikings' voyages were only focused on destruction and pillaging.
The term "Viking Age" refers to the period roughly from 790s to the late 11th century in Europe, though the Norse raided Scotland's western isles well into the 12th century. In this era, Viking activity started with raids on Christian lands in England and eventually expanded to mainland Europe, including parts of present-day Russia. While maritime battles were very rare, Viking bands proved very successful in raiding coastal towns and monasteries due to their efficient warships, and intimidating war tactics, skillful hand-to-hand combat, and fearlessness. What started as Viking raids on small towns transformed into the establishment of important agricultural spaces and commercial trading-hubs across Europe through rudimentary colonization. Vikings' tactics in warfare gave them an enormous advantage in successfully raiding, despite their small population in comparison to that of their enemies.
Anna Brechta Sapir Abulafia, is a British academic who specialises in religious history. The main focus of her research is medieval Christian-Jewish relations within the broad context of twelfth and thirteenth-century theological and ecclesiastical developments. At the moment she is engaged in a project examining the place of Jews and Muslims in Gratian's Decretum and its glosses. Since 2015, she is the professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at University of Oxford and a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
The history of Christianity in Norway started in the Viking Age in the 9th century. Trade, plundering raids, and travel brought the Norsemen into close contacts with Christian communities, but their conversion only started after powerful chieftains decided to receive baptism during their stay in England or Normandy. Haakon the Good was the first king to make efforts to convert the whole country, but the rebellious pagan chieftains forced him to apostatize. Olaf Tryggvason started the destruction of pagan cult sites in the late 10th century, but only Olaf Haraldsson achieved the official adaption of Christianity in the 1020s. Missionary bishops subjected to the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen were responsible for the spread of the new faith before the earliest bishoprics were established around 1100.
Marie Louise Stig Sørensen is a Danish archaeologist and academic. She is Professor of European Prehistory and Heritage Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Professor of Bronze Age Archaeology at the University of Leiden. Her research focuses on Bronze Age Europe, heritage, and archaeological theory.
