Adam of Bremen
Summoned to Bremen in 1066/7 by Archbishop Adalbert soon after he and his see had suffered setbacks, Adam was made scholasticus and given the task of writing the Gesta Hammaburgensis ...
Anders Chydenius
(1729–1803), Scandinavian statesman and writer on political economy. Anders Chydenius was an important political figure and political writer, especially in the 1760s. He was a priest at that time and ...
Anskar
(801–65),archbishop of Bremen. Born near Amiens of a noble family, Anskar was educated at Corbie (Picardy), where he became a monk. Later he moved to Corvey (Westphalia), where he began apostolic ...
archaeology: Germany and Austria
1. Introduction2. The early MA and the Carolingian period3. The high MA1. Introduction2. The early MA and the Carolingian period3. The high MA1. IntroductionIn Germany and ...
art and architecture: Cistercian
The Cistercian order was founded in 1098 at Cîteaux, in Burgundy, by a group of monks who had left a reformed but traditional Benedictine monastery in hope of living a ...
art and architecture: Scandinavian
Medieval art in Scandinavia, c.775–1550, represents eight centuries of highly diverse crafts, techniques, functions, and aesthetics, and the development can be traced in a constantly changing pattern ...
art, Highland
A widely recognized concept of Highland art is witness to a distinctive visual and aesthetic tradition; powerful, persistent, and conservative in character, it gives the impression of belonging in a ...
Baldwin family
Counts of Flanders. Baldwin I (r. c.863– 79) held the pagus Flandrensis (the Bruges district) and domains near Ghent from Charles II ‘the Bald’, after Baldwin’s elopement with Charles’s daughter ...
Baltic Sea
This entry contains two subentries: An Overview, Regional NaviesThe Baltic Sea, including the Gulfs of Bothnia, Finland, and Riga but excluding The Sound and the Danish straits, has an ...
Baltics
[This entry contains six subentries, on Baltic sources from 500–1300 and 1300–1500, an overview of Baltic military history from 500–1300 and 1300–1500, and on Baltic historiography from 500–1300 and ...
barbarian
While we associate Classical culture primarily with emphasis on citizenship (membership of a polis), Classical Greek literature also assigns considerable importance to defining a common Greek ...
Battle of Brunkeberg
In 1450, the Danish king Christian I (d. 1481) was also named king of Norway, uniting both countries under his rule. Seven years later he assumed the throne of Sweden ...
Battle of Nesjar
Olaf Haraldsson’s victory at Nesjar, off the coast of Norway, was decisive in his campaign to become king of Norway and make his country independent of Denmark and Sweden. The ...
bautastein
Large stone raised on end and secured in the ground. Without inscription, such stones served as memorials, fertility symbols, or grave markers, and were common in Norway, Sweden, and parts ...
Bergen
Norwegian town. Bergen probably became a bishop’s seat and a legally confirmed urban community in the reign of King Olaf III Haraldsson (1067–93). The town grew into the all-important export ...
Birka
[Si]Viking trading centre and entrepôt constructed on the island of Björkö west of Stockholm in the early 9th century ad. Excavations show that the settlement and harbour were bounded by a rampart on ...
Birsay
The Brough of Birsay, a tidal island, is one of the best‐known archaeological sites in Orkney, projecting out into the Atlantic at the north‐west corner of Birsay Bay. Its name ...
Black Death
(1347–50)The most virulent epidemic of bubonic and pneumonic plague ever recorded. It reached Europe from the Tartar armies, fresh from campaigning in the Crimea, who besieged the port of Caffa ...
bracteate
Term designating two distinct series of objects: Scandinavian gold pendants of the early MA, and the silver coins circulating in parts of central and northern Europe in the 12th and ...
Burgundians
A series of age-old migrations led the Burgundians from their native Scandinavia all through Germany, from the shores of Pomerania (late 2nd c. BC) to the banks of the Rhine ...
