Viking-Age Rune-Stones

There are over 3,000 runic inscriptions on stone made in Scandinavia in the late Viking Age. This book is the first attempt by a historian to study the material as a whole. The analysis reveals significant regional variations that reflect the different stages in the process of conversion to Christianity and the growth of royal power. Many monuments were declarations of faith or manifestations of status; but virtually all reflect inheritance customs found in laterScandinavian law codes. The results of this analysis make a significant contribution to understanding developments in other parts of the Germanic world, as well as Scandinavia. The inclusion of a digest of the data-base on which this book is based will facilitate further study of this rich veinof evidence.

Review from previous edition the secions on the patterns of social order and inheritance will make this book an indispensable example of runology applied to social history, a line of study with a future. It is worth buying for the careful tabulation of inscriptions and motifs alone... Sawyer ... brings half a lifetime's work, and many modifications of her original thesis, to an impressive consummation. All the available material is listed, classified and identified in a series of appendices and notes which will bring blessings on her head from anglophone researchers waiting for the completion of the general rune-text database., This is a stimulating book, challenging accepted interpretations and suggesting new sources for Viking Age social history., thorough statistical coverage, backed up by a seventy page "Catalogue" ... her work puts the English-speaking reader for the frst time in possession of the basic information painstakingly recorded by Scandinavian scholars, as well as providing an entirely fresh and convincing explanation of the Viking Age corpus ... Birgit Sawyer [has] offered models of patient and dispassionate research in potentially exciting and contested areas.