The Christianization of Iceland: Priests, Power, and Social Change 1000-1300

Couverture
OUP Oxford, 18 mai 2000 - 334 pages
In this first historical study of High-Medieval Iceland to be published in English, Dr Vesteinsson investigates the influence of the Christian Church on the formation of the earliest state structures in Iceland, from the conversion in 1000 to the union with Norway in 1262. In the history of mankind states and state structures have usually been established before the advent of written records. As a result historians are rarely able to trace with certainty the early development of complex structures of government. In Iceland, literacy and the practice of native history writing had been established by the beginning of the twelfth century; whereas the formation of a centralised government did not occur until more than a hundred years later. The early development of statelike structures has therefore been unusually well chronicled, in the Icelandic Sagas, and in the historical records of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Based on this wealth of material,The Christianization of Iceland is an important contribution to the discussion on the formation of states.
 

Table des matières

Introduction
1
Prehistory
17
The First Christian Institutions
58
Churches and Property
93
The Bishops
144
The Priests
179
The Church and the Increase in Social Complexity
238
Bibliography
247
List of Terms
287
Index
303
Droits d'auteur

Expressions et termes fréquents

Informations bibliographiques