Between specific natural resources, openness to the open sea and development of a hierarchical society, the period preceding the Viking age is one of the most unknown in the history of Scandinavia and must be reread in the complete perspective of the first millennium in our era.
Archeology, priority out -of -documentation
By kissing the first eleven centuries in our era, Lucie Malbos shakes up a chronological scheme anchored in the French and international historiography of pre-modern Scandinavia, where the Viking period systematically serves as a pivotal moment. Including the latter in a long first millennium, the work redefines the contours of a history of ancient Scandinavia centered on the Scandinavian Iron Age (500 BCE-000 AD). It provides an audience with specialists and non-specialists the first summary work in French over this period. This makes it possible to clearly affirm that the Scandinavian Middle Ages begins after the period under study, and not at the Ve century AD as a chronology modeled on that of the medieval West would like.
By attacking this period, it is truly to a “ prehistory From Scandinavia that, in many cases, the author must face, in the absence of consistent textual sources, as one of the three “recalls” Historian workshops »Proposed at the end of the book. Indeed, there are a few runic inscriptions from the IIe century AD, then the emergence of a rich scaldic poetry at IXe century and many Western sources on the Viking phenomenon at the same period: however, these three corpus of written sources are for the first too limited, for the other two too late to cover most of the centuries concerned by the study. Also, in addition to the few Latin sources of the first centuries in our era which are interested in these “ Northern Peoples »Beyond the limes Romain, it is mainly towards archeology that the author turns massively in this work: the study is full of synthetic descriptions of known archaeological sites (Gamla Uppsala, Valsgärde, Oseberg …) or less known (Vorbasse, Gudme-Lundeborg, Hoby …), richly illustrated with quality photographs, schemes and maps in large numbers.
Incessant contacts with the outside world
Throughout the book, it is a constantly Scandinavian world on the lookout for external contacts which is portrayed to us, starting with the Roman world, whose relations with Scandinavia are the subject of a complete synthesis in the first chapter of the work. Here, Lucie Malbos is based above all on approaches from English -speaking historiography, as one of the last works of Neil Price or the work of the Danish archaeologist Lotte Hedeager.
These contacts intensified at the time Viking, treated within five central chapters, but from a perspective which gives pride of place to the internal consequences to Scandinavia that this opening on the outside was able to train. To the consolidation of political structures gradually leading to the formation of Scandinavian kingdoms at the turn of the Xe century is added parallel a vast movement of Christianization, which the author deals with in all the complexity of its interactions with local polytheism.
Beliefs and imaginations of a plural Scandinavian culture
Rather than making a linear history of Scandinavian Christianization as a process irresistibly winning the whole of society, Lucie Malbos treats the dissemination of Christianity in Scandinavia as a fully cultural phenomenon, rather than strictly religious. Here we find an approach already adopted by the author in her Harald And whose French historiography about the Nordic worlds has been grasped for several years already. In this, the proposed approach is definitely more from historical anthropology than religious history.
The peculiarity of the work is undoubtedly to include in reflection on Christianization a consideration of the artistic dimensions of the phenomenon, with many iconographic sources in support, such as the weather vane of the church of Söderala using the style of Ringerike, characterized by animal patterns reminiscent of the old mythology (p. 258-259). It is therefore a religious world with multiple aesthetic influences which is emerging under the pen of Lucie Malbos, as the mention of the mysterious Buddha found in Helgö (p. 128), object of one of the very numerous boxes that enamel the work.
The question of syncretism and on this point then arises, the incomplete documentation of the processed eras invites a certain caution. Nevertheless, the author takes the side of using this concept in the chapter Vi (p. 246-254) to designate the religious forms which emerge from the first contacts between polytheism and Christianity in the north of Europe in these ancient times. The uninhibited employment of the term goes against studies which, in recent years, have pleaded in favor of a limited use of the concept of syncretism with regard to Scandinavia during Christianization. Because if religious cultures meet in this space crossed by multiple cultural influences, it is not certain that a religion resulting from the fusion of Christian dogmas and polytheistic beliefs was born as such in Scandinavia. The question remains debated, in view of the artefacts which, like the Cross and Marteaux mold of Thor de Trendgården (Denmark, Xe century), seem to point towards a concomitance of the two religious paradigms before the year a thousand, without constituting proof of the existence of a religion mixing them on one and the same plane. The author relies on here on the notion of “ cultural osmosis »Developed by Ildar Garipzanov for ten years and also offers the more flexible adaptation term. The notions of hybridization, compromise, mixtures or “ polysemy of certain patterns and symbols (P. 248) are added to what one could call the vocabulary of interculturality, emblematic of the approach adopted in the work.
Genre, environment, migrations
This refusal to consider the North Ancient as a closed world on itself expresses the author’s desire to be part of the most recent trends in historiography about ancient Scandinavia. There is no doubt that the tracks offered in the third workshop at the end of the book concerning the “ new guidelines for Scandinavian studies (P. 559-571) are well represented in the work. Its history of the peoples of the North thus brings new lights also to the Viking period, while taking up the great contributions of the existing French historiography on the subject of the latter.
The chapter VIII on “ Scandinavian patriarchal, composite and moving societies (P. 317-369) is emblematic in this regard. If he deals largely from matters of material history, such as food, hygiene or the playful practices of the ancient Scandinavians, he also affirms that men are the dominant genre, cutting short the extrapolations on a north old governed by strong women, according to a common stereotype. The use of this analysis grid inspired by gender studies thus allows the author to present a world to us where women are, in the same way as slaves and children, beings considered to be inferior and subject to male power.
On the other hand, the author highlights the “ very strong sense of the collective (P. 352) which guarantees a certain balance in these highly hierarchical societies. Thus, while not attending to emphasize that female figures could play an important role in the Scandinavian imagination and in certain circumstances of everyday life where men were absent, the work accurately painted the material reality of the submission of women to the patriarchal order within the household, from the modalities of divorce to the gendered distribution of domestic tasks. The thorny case of “ Birka warrior “, Female body found in a tomb with warranty attributes, is not mentioned, the author having already analyzed her several times, in particular in her previous work.
It is not the same for environmental and migratory themes, about which many research is under way both in history and archeology, and to which this work makes an essential contribution for the French -speaking domain. Thus, the question of interactions between the Scandinavians and the natural circles they occupy appears in the red thread of all the text: the panorama of the geological conditions and territorial resources of each region of ancient Scandinavia is in this regard (p. 20-30). Indeed, apart from rare syntheses in English, data is often scattered in a myriad of environmental archeology publications which are difficult to access to non-specialists.
Finally, the question of “ Viking diaspora », Concept borrowed from Judith Jesch, is discussed in the chapter VII (p. 271-315) from a perspective capable of encouraging a renewal of questions on this subject, in the wake of the recent development of Studies migration. This powerfully interdisciplinary field seems to inspire Lucie Malbos in Lucie Malbos which, in addition to the traditional Scandinavian establishments in the Frankish world, also includes in his reflection Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the North Atlantic as a colonization. However, the author refuses to attribute to the former Scandinavians “ Expansionist »(P. 271): A balance between study of the violence of the conquest and refutation of the stereotype of the bloodthirsty viking is thus negotiated.
In a work which synthesizes the recent contributions of research, in particular archaeological, Lucie Malbos therefore opens up new tracks of study, especially for centuries prior to the Viking period, largely abandoned by French -speaking specialists in Scandinavia. It provides anyone interested in this space, for ancient times, the first reference work in French, holding both the encyclopedic sum and the historiographical renewal.