Saga Brief 24 - Slavery in the Viking Age (Live Presentation at the University of Connecticut)

Saga Thing

We were recently invited to speak at the University of Connecticut's Annual Medieval Studies/ECE Outreach Seminar on a variety of subjects related to the Viking Age. We prepared and recorded our morning presentation on Slavery in the Viking Age as a Saga Brief so that everyone in our listening audience could enjoy. It's a subject Andy's been thinking about a lot as we've been working our way through Laxdaela Saga, which is why he took the lead on this topic. Later in the day, John presented on Viking Age board games, focusing on Nine Men's Morris and Hneftafl. We then led a conversation on the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok and his Sons among other topics. Sadly, these afternoon sessions were workshops and thus not recorded.

We hope you enjoy this little attempt at a live Saga Brief. The audio is not pristine, but it is pretty decent for a live recording. The questions from Q&A are a bit difficult to hear and had to be edited slightly. Apologies for the poor quality there. We'll use two mics next time.

For those interested in learning more, here is a list of valuable research on the subject Andy used to prepare the Saga Brief:

Brink, Stefan. "Slavery in the Viking Age." In The Viking World, edited by Stefan Brink and Neil Price, 246-257. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Brink, Stefan. Thraldom: The Viking Age Slave Trade. Uppsala: Swedish Science Press, 2018.

Byock, Jesse L. Viking Age Iceland. London: Penguin Books, 2001.

Gelsinger, Paul. Icelandic Enterprise: Commerce and Economy in the Middle Ages. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1981.

Gustin, Ingrid, and Sven Kalmring (eds.). Viking Age Trade: Silver, Slaves and Gotland. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2013.

Heebøll-Holm, Thomas. "Piratical Slave-Raiding: A New Perspective on Viking Age Maritime Violence." In Viking-Age Trade: Silver, Slaves and Gotland, edited by Ingrid Gustin and Sven Kalmring, 219-240. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2013.

Jarman, Cat. River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.

Jochens, Jenny. Women in Old Norse Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. Revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. "Concubinage and Slavery in the Viking Age." Scandinavian Studies 79, no. 4 (2007): 403-422.

Naumann, Elise, Maja Krzewińska, Anders Götherström, and Gunilla Eriksson. "Slaves as Burial Gifts in Viking Age Norway? Evidence from Stable Isotope and Ancient DNA Analyses." Journal of Archaeological Science 41, (2014): 533-540.

Price, Neil. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. London: Allen Lane, 2020.

Raffield, Ben. "The Slave Markets of the Viking World." History Today 66, no. 4 (2016): 12-19.

Music Credits

Opening song – Icelandic Folk Music: Tröllaslagur

Outro – Ólafur Liljurós