Hello my name is Sara Ann Knutson
and I am this year's winner of the U of M Library
Undergraduate Research Award for my
history honors thesis titled,
“Bridges to Eternity: Women, Conversion, & Religion in Viking-Age Sweden”.
What I'd like to do is give you a brief
overview of
my thesis project, my research as it
evolved over the past two years,
and the resources through the support
U of M library
that made my research possible.
[music playing]
For most of us, the Viking age is an infamous era
that evokes images of raiding ships
and exploration.
But this was also the time of the coming of
Christianity in the north.
By the twelfth century, many Scandinavians
had converted to the new faith
and yet the Continental Europeans still
considered them heathens.
In 1095 Pope Urban II
purportedly condemned the religion of
the Viking Age Swedes
located on the margins of Europe.
He declares, "for all those barbarous peoples who in far-distant Islands
frequent the ice-bound Ocean, living as they do
like beasts –
who could call them Christians?"
In my thesis, I explore the assumption that Scandinavia was a marginal land
and that the Swedes therefore engaged in
barbaric religious practice,
or when they did convert that they
passively accepted the faith of the Europeans.
The Viking-Age rune stones, Christian monuments created to honor the dead,
tell a different story.
What motivated the Swedes to create over 1900 rune stones, which still survive today?
Seeking to answer this question,
my research took me across the Atlantic,
where I spent a year
working with archaeologists
and traveling throughout Sweden to study
the runic inscriptions.
I focus on the religious motivations
behind these monuments,
which surprisingly scholars have largely
ignored.
During the initial research phase
I collaborated with librarians, Sigrid Cordell and
Neil Robinson, who directed me to
valuable research guides and databases
in medieval history, Scandinavian studies,
and Northern European history.
Resources such as the ATLA Religion Database,
the International Medieval
Bibliography,
and the British and Irish Archaeology Bibliography,
informed my research and
provided current perspectives
on northern European history.
With her
specialization in Old English and Old Norse,
Anthropology and Linguistics Librarian, Jennifer Davis,
directed me to specialized
resources in archaeology
as well as primary source materials.
I began reading primary and secondary sources
written in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian,
Latin, Icelandic, and Old Norse.
Such work would have never been possible without library resources
such as HathiTrust and Articles Plus,
as well as the dedicated staff at inter-library loan.
One of the most important resources was the Samnordisk runtextdatabas,
a database from Uppsala University that records runic inscriptions
from the pre-Viking age to late Middle Ages.
This resource became invaluable to my
research
and I consulted the database regularly
in Sweden
when I traveled to rune stone sites.
[music playing]
I arrived in Sweden intending to investigate
the regional patterns
and and runic inscriptions for my thesis.
However, serendipity would further impact and shape my research.
I studied archaeology under Frands Herschend
at Uppsala University and traveled
across Sweden -
from examining Bronze Age landmarks
in the south,
to meeting the Saami people in the
Arctic Circle -
I realized how the history of religion remains alive in the landscape.
I modified my thesis topic
and applied the relationship between
religion and landscape
to the Christian rune stones.
Returning to Ann Arbor, Michigan,
I worked with Spatial Librarian, Nicole
Scholtz, on ArcGIS mapping techniques
and quantitative approaches that are at the forefront of current research
and landscape history
in archaeology.
I had taken an ArcGIS workshop with Nicole a few years earlier,
as a research scholar in the Undergraduate
Research Opportunity Program,
and I knew that her expertise was exactly what I needed to analyze my findings.
Using the coordinates of rune stone sites
I mapped the distribution of these Viking-age
landmarks
and tracked the production of rune stones by examining the gender
of the rune stone sponsors.
In doing so, I discovered an unexpected pattern.
The practice of raising rune stones was gendered,
more so than previous scholars have
realized.
Scholarship has failed to fully
appreciate the context in which
Viking-age women were involved with rune stones
and therefore Christianity.
But what are
the implications of women's involvement in the runic material?
Especially regarding religion and
conversion during the Viking Age?
My collaborations with scholars and peers across the world
have enabled me to overcome such
challenges
and discover unexpected findings.
Adherence to a discipline specific
methodology
is an inadequate approach to Viking
history,
a field consisting of diverse specialists -
ranging from linguists and
art historians, to climatologists and
zoologists.
Indeed, working with my peers in gender
psychology,
geology, linguistics, and anthropology,
informed my research and final project. I
learned to apply interdisciplinary
approaches to medieval history,
a methodology I often found lacking in
the secondary literature.
Through these collaborations,
I found myself adopting the
methodologies of other disciplines
thus changing the way I interpret my
source material.
My research experience has challenged the stereotype that historians work alone.
Innovative thinking from
interdisciplinary work can often inspire the best ideas.
As I conclude my thesis research,
such collaborations inspired me to re-evaluate the international connections
that shaped medieval society, thinking
more broadly
about Scandinavia's place the Viking Age
and medieval world.
Scholars today are in danger making the
same mistake
as Pope Urban in the Middle Ages.
They work under the assumption that Scandinavia was and is situated
on the margins of Europe, and thus
underestimate the sophistication
and agency of Viking-Age society in adopting and
adapting Christianity.
International networks through
migration and trade
have transformed the globalizing world
throughout history
not least during the Viking Age.
Religion is but
one development  of such networks visible in the landscape.
