HIST 388: Topics in European History
HIST 388-001: Viking Middle Ages
(Spring 2027)
03:00 PM to 04:15 PM TR
Krug Hall 242
Section Information for Spring 2027
The Viking Age — roughly AD750 to 1050 — saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider medieval world. As traders and raiders, explorers, colonists, and conquerors, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe, from Dublin to Baghdad, among (and against) Byzantines and Carolingians, Northumbrians and Umayyads, from the wind-swept Shetlands to the sun-washed streets of Seville. Viking activity in all these contexts and locations shaped and transformed (and sometimes swept away) key features of the political and religious landscape of much of early medieval Europe. Our task in this class is to set all this Viking activity in context and evaluate how we place the Viking Age in the wider history of the Middle Ages. Through a close reading of primary sources, we will take on a range of key topics in Viking studies to include: the Old Norse poetic and saga traditions and their difficulties as sources for the period, pre-Christian religion and Christianization, Viking Age archaeology, patterns of Viking raiding and settlement, the Volga Vikings, Vikings in North America, and the different ways the memory and idea of the Vikings have been used and misused in subsequent popular culture.
View 3 Other Sections of this Course in this Semester »
Tags:
Course Information from the University Catalog
Credits: 3
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.
The University Catalog is the authoritative source for information on courses. The Schedule of Classes is the authoritative source for information on classes scheduled for this semester. See the Schedule for the most up-to-date information and see Patriot web to register for classes.