Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • 17 - Music

  • from PART V - HIGH AND LATE MEDIEVAL CULTURE
  • Edited by Knut Helle, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Scandinavia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    04 September 2003, pp 550-556

  • Summary

    The knowledge of music in prehistoric Scandinavia is mainly based on finds of instruments. The most remarkable are no doubt the bronze lures of which about fifty specimens and fragments from the period circa 1200-500 BC have been discovered in Denmark as well as a few in southern Sweden, southern Norway, and northern Germany. The evidence of song and music increases significantly in the high Middle Ages. Finds of instruments from this period have been made even in Finland and the islands of the Western Ocean. After Scandinavia was officially Christianised from the late tenth century, regional variations of church music became popular. The musical climate of west Scandinavia deteriorated in the late Middle Ages. The unions with Sweden and Denmark meant that the monarchy moved away and the country lost its courtly milieus, which favoured the development of secular music in Denmark and Sweden.

  • (d) - The Norse island communities of the Western Ocean

  • from 8 - Early political organisation
  • Edited by Knut Helle, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Scandinavia
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    04 September 2003, pp 202-220

  • Summary

    The area from Ireland and the Irish Sea in the south-west to Greenland in the north-west saw an extensive expansion of Norse settlement in the ninth and tenth centuries. The earliest known Viking raids on the coasts of Britain and Ireland towards the end of the eighth century suggest that by then there were at least Norse pirate settlements in the Northern and Western Isles and a few Norse grave finds in the islands may possibly be older than 800. However, it appears that the westward expansion of settlement from Norway did not assume larger proportions until the mid-ninth century. The community of Føroyar appears to have been dominated by chieftains and large landowners, and probably formed a separate legal entity with its own political and administrative institutions quite early. In Iceland, the Church expanded as chieftains and wealthy farmers built private churches on their farms.