Startseite Linguistik & Semiotik The Viking outgroup in early medieval English chronicles
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

The Viking outgroup in early medieval English chronicles

  • Olga Timofeeva EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 12. April 2016

Abstract

This paper relates diachronic change in discourse strategies of the Viking-age historical writing to political changes of the period and to communities of practice that produce these histories and chronicles. It examines the labels and stereotypes applied to the Vikings and establishes their sources and evolution by applying a fourfold chronological division of historical sources from around 800 to 1200 (based on the political developments within Anglo-Saxon history and on the manuscript history of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). The data for the study come from both Old English and Anglo-Latin chronicles. The results are interpreted in terms of critical discourse analysis. It is demonstrated that the chroniclers employ strategies of dissimilation exploiting the notion of illegitimacy and criminality of the Viking outgroup. These strategies change over time, depending on the political situation (raiding vs. settlement vs. reconquest period) and communities of practice involved in the maintenance and dissemination of a particular political discourse.

References

Ashe, Laura. 2007. Fiction and history in England, 1066–1200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

ASMP = Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems. 1942. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition 6, ed. by Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie. New York: Columbia University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Bately, Janet A. (ed.). 1986. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A collaborative edition, vol. 3, MS A. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Suche in Google Scholar

Bremmer Jr., Rolf H. 1984. Friesland and its inhabitants in Middle English literature. In N. R. Århammar, Ph. H. Breuker, Freark Dam, A. Dykstra and T. J. Steenmeijer-Wielenga (eds.), Miscellanea Frisica. A new collection of Frisian studies, 357–370. Assen: Van Gorcum.Suche in Google Scholar

Brooks, Nicholas. 2010. Why is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle about kings? Anglo-Saxon England 39. 43–70.10.1017/S0263675110000050Suche in Google Scholar

Campbell, A. (ed.). 1962. The chronicle of Æthelweard. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons.Suche in Google Scholar

Clunies Ross, Margaret B. 2014 The role of the horse in Nordic mythologies. In Timothy R. Tangherlini (ed.), Nordic mythologies: Interpretations, intersections, and institutions, 50–70. Berkeley and Los Angeles: North Pinehurst Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Coupland, Simon. 1991. The rod of God’s wrath or the people of God’s wrath? The Carolingian theology of the Viking invasions. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 42(4). 535–554.10.1017/S0022046900000506Suche in Google Scholar

Coupland, Simon. 1995. The Vikings in Francia and Anglo-Saxon England to 911. In Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), The Cambridge medieval history, vol. 2, c.700-c.900, 190–201. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CHOL9780521362924.010Suche in Google Scholar

Crossley-Holland, Kevin. 2002. The Anglo-Saxon world. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Darlington, R.R. & P. McGurk (eds.). 1995. The Chronicle of John of Worcester, vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Dijk, Teun A. van. 2008. Discourse and power. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Suche in Google Scholar

Dijk, Teun A. van, Stella Ting-Toomey, Geneva Smitherman & Denise Troutman. 1997. Discourse, ethnicity, culture and racism. In Teun A. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction, vol. 2, 144–180. London: Sage Publications.10.4135/9781446221884Suche in Google Scholar

DOE = Dictionary of Old English: A to G. Online. 2007. Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey, et al. (eds.). Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project. http://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/ (accessed 8 January 2016).Suche in Google Scholar

DOEC = Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus. 2009. Antonette diPaolo Healey, with John Price Wilkin & Xin Xiang (eds.). Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project. http://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doecorpus/ (accessed 8 January 2016).Suche in Google Scholar

Dumville, David N. 2008. Vikings in insular chronicling. In Stefan Brink in collaboration with Neil Price (eds.), The Viking world, 350–367. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Foot, Sarah. 1996. The making of Angelcynn: English identity before the Norman Conquest. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (Sixth Series) 6. 25–49.10.12987/9780300129113-006Suche in Google Scholar

Foot, Sarah. 2005. The historiography of the Anglo-Saxon ‘nation-state’. In Len Scales & Oliver Zimmer (eds.), Power and the nation in European history, 125–142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511614538.006Suche in Google Scholar

Godman, Peter (ed.). 1985. Poetry of the Carolingian renaissance. London: Duckworth.Suche in Google Scholar

Greenway, Diane E. (ed.). 1996. Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum: The history of the English people (Oxford Medieval Texts Series). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Haddan, Arthur West & William Stubbs (eds.). 1871. Councils and ecclesiastical documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Irvine, Susan. 2004. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle: A collaborative edition, vol. 7, MS E. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Suche in Google Scholar

Keynes, Simon. 1997. The Vikings in England, c. 790–1016. In Peter Sawyer (ed.), The Oxford illustrated history of the Vikings, 48–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Keynes, Simon. 2007. An abbot, an archbishop, and the Viking Raids of 1006–7 and 1009–12. Anglo-Saxon England 36. 151–220.10.1017/S0263675107000075Suche in Google Scholar

Keynes, Simon & Michael Lapidge. 1983. Alfred the Great: Asser’s life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Suche in Google Scholar

Kirner-Ludwig, Monika. 2015. Heathens, pagans, misbelievers: A lexico-semantic field study and its historico-pragmatic reflections in texts from the English Middle Ages. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.10.1515/east-2016-0008Suche in Google Scholar

Lavelle, Ryan. 2010. Alfred’s wars: Sources and interpretations of Anglo-Saxon warfare in the Viking Age. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.Suche in Google Scholar

Lavezzo, Kathy. 2006. Angels on the edge of the world: Geography, literature, and English community, 1000–1534. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Lutz, Angelika. 2000. Æthelweard’s Chronicon and Old English poetry. Anglo-Saxon England 29. 177–214.10.1017/S0263675100002453Suche in Google Scholar

MacLeod, Nicci & Barbara Fennell. 2012. Lexico-grammatical portraits of vulnerable womenin war. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 13(2). 259–290.10.1075/jhp.13.2.04macSuche in Google Scholar

Michelet, Fabienne L. 2006. Creation, migration, and conquest: Imaginary geography and sense of space in Old English literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

MLASS = Medieval Latin from Anglo-Saxon Sources Corpus. 2011. Olga Timofeeva, Anne-Christine Gardner & Alpo Honkapohja (eds.). University of Zurich.Suche in Google Scholar

O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine (ed.). 2001. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle: A collaborative edition, vol. 5, MS C. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Suche in Google Scholar

Page, R.I. 1985. Anglo-Saxon aptitudes: An inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Cambridge on 6 March 1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Page, R.I. 1987. “A most vile people”: Early English historians on the Vikings. London: The Viking Society for Northern Research.Suche in Google Scholar

Plummer, Charles. 1902. The life and times of Alfred the Great. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Prentice, Sheryl & Andrew Hardie. 2009. Empowerment and disempowerment in the Glencairn Uprising: A corpus-based critical analysis of Early Modern English news discourse. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 10(1). 23–55.10.1075/jhp.10.1.03preSuche in Google Scholar

Richards, Julian D. 2000 [1992]. Viking Age England, 2nd edn. Stroud: Tempus Publishing.Suche in Google Scholar

Richards, Mary P. 2014. The laws of Alfred and Ine. In Nicole Guenther Discenza & Paul E. Szarmach (eds.), A companion to Alfred the Great (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 58), 282–309. Leiden: Brill.Suche in Google Scholar

Sawyer, P. H. 1971 [1962]. The age of the Vikings, 2nd edn. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Suche in Google Scholar

Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The ethnic origins of nations. Oxford: Blackwell.Suche in Google Scholar

Stenton, F.M. 1971 [1943]. Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn. (The Oxford History of England vol. 2). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Stevenson, William Henry & D. Whitelock (ed.). 1959 [1904]. Asser’s Life of King Alfred, together with annals of Saint Neots erroneously ascribed to Asser. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Swanton, Michael (ed.). 1996. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle. London: Dent.Suche in Google Scholar

Taylor, Simon (ed.). 1983. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle: A collaborative edition, vol. 4, MS B. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Suche in Google Scholar

Timofeeva, Olga. 2013a. Anglo-Latin and Old English: A case for integrated bilingual corpus studies of Anglo-Saxon registers. In Paul Bennett, Martin Durrell, Silke Scheible & Richard J. Whitt (eds.). New methods in historical corpora (Corpus Linguistics and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Language 3), 195–204. Tübingen: Narr.Suche in Google Scholar

Timofeeva, Olga. 2013b. Of ledenum bocum to engliscum gereorde: Bilingual communities of practice in Anglo-Saxon England. In Joanna Kopaczyk & Andreas H. Jucker (eds.), Communities of practice in the history of English (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 235), 201–224. Amsterdam: Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.235.13timSuche in Google Scholar

Timofeeva, Olga. Forthcoming. Alfredian press on the Vikings: Critical discourse approach to outgroup construction. Journal of English Linguistics.Suche in Google Scholar

Townend, Matthew. 2002. Language and history in Viking Age England: Linguistic relations between speakers of Old Norse and Old English (Studies in the Early Middle Ages 6). Turnhout: Brepols.10.1484/M.SEM-EB.5.106296Suche in Google Scholar

Wenger, Etienne. 1998. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511803932Suche in Google Scholar

Whitelock, Dorothy. 1979 [1955]. English historical documents, c.500–1042, 2nd edn. London: Eyre Methuen.Suche in Google Scholar

Winterbottom, Michael. 1967. The style of Æthelweard. Medium Aevum 36. 109–118.10.2307/43627340Suche in Google Scholar

Wodak, Ruth, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl & Karin Liebhart. 2009 [1999]. The discursive construction of national identity, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Wood, Johanna L. 2004. Text in context: A critical discourse analysis approach to Margaret Paston. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5(2). 229–254.10.1075/bct.1.05wooSuche in Google Scholar

Wormald, Patrick. 1994. Engla lond: The making of an allegiance. Journal of Historical Sociology 7. 1–24.10.1002/9781444309706.ch5Suche in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-4-12
Published in Print: 2016-4-1

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

Heruntergeladen am 3.2.2026 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jhsl-2016-0004/pdf
Button zum nach oben scrollen