Professor Lesley Abrams
I began my research with a study of Glastonbury Abbey and its archive in the pre-Conquest period, and I retain an interest in all periods of the Anglo-Saxon Church. My research and publications, however, have concentrated most on periods of conversion to Christianity, whether that of the English in the seventh century or of Scandinavians in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh. I am interested in all aspects of the Scandinavian world in the early middle ages, including viking activity and the history of Scandinavia and the overseas settlements. Within this broad field, I have worked particularly on Scandinavians abroad, applying an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to issues of integration and interaction between incomers and established societies, while also considering what far-flung Viking-Age populations had in common.
Some of my research has concentrated on periods of conversion to Christianity, including the English in the seventh century and Scandinavians in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh. Most recently I published ‘Bede, Gregory, and Strategies of Conversion in Anglo-Saxon England and the Spanish New World’ (Jarrow Lecture, 2015), an exercise in comparative history. I am also interested in all aspects of the Scandinavian world in the early middle ages, including viking military activity and the history of Scandinavia and the overseas settlements. Within this broad field, I have worked particularly on Scandinavians outside their homelands, applying an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to issues of integration and interaction between incomers and established societies, while also considering what far-flung Viking-Age populations had in common. My recent published work on these subjects includes 'Diaspora and Identity in the Viking Age', Early Medieval Europe 20:1 (2012), 17-38, 'Early Normandy', Anglo-Norman Studies 35 (2013), 45-64, and ‘Connections and Exchange in the Viking World’, Byzantium and the Viking World (ed. F. Androshchuk, J. Shepard, and M. White) (Stockholm, 2016), pp. 27-52. Although I have retired from formal teaching, I am continuing to research in these fields. My current project is a study of political baptisms and the conversion of viking armies in ninth- and tenth-century Francia.
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‘Connections and Exchange in the Viking World’, in Byzantium and the Viking World (ed. F. Androshchuk, J. Shepard, and M. White) (Stockholm, 2016), pp. 27-52
May 2016|Chapter|Byzantium and the Viking World -
‘Bede, Gregory, and Strategies of Conversion in Anglo-Saxon England and the Spanish New World’
October 2015|Scholarly edition -
Medieval Dublin: Vols. IX, X, and XI, ed. Sean Duffy
June 2014|Journal article|The English Historical Review -
VIKINGS Life and legend
March 2014|Journal article|TLS-THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT -
Diaspora and Identity in the Viking Age
February 2012|Journal article|Early Medieval EuropeThis article investigates the implications of the recent application of the term ‘diaspora’ to the overseas settlements of the Viking Age and offers a speculative assessment, based on literary, historical, archaeological, sculptural and onomastic evidence, of how the concept might contribute to our understanding of the cultural dynamics of the period. This exploratory look at connectivity in the ‘viking world’ considers the respective roles of the Scandinavian homelands and overseas settlements in the interplay of cultural forces from the ninth to the eleventh century. -
The Viking World
December 2010|Journal article|ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW -
Conversion and the Church in Viking-Age Ireland.
January 2010|Chapter|The Viking Age. Ireland and the West -
Early Religious Practice in the Greenland Settlement
January 2009|Journal article|Journal of the North AtlanticWhile the beginnings of Christianity in Greenland are very poorly recorded, the settlement has played a prominent role in the discussion of paganism, the conversion, and early Christianity in the Viking world, thanks to the sagas in which Greenlanders feature. In particular, the range of religious practice that is reflected in the literary representations of the past is very striking; the rituals of the seeress, Thorbjorg, the Christian practice of Eric's wife, Thjodhild, and Gudrid's pilgrimage to Rome and profession as a nun offer contrasting perceptions of lived religion in the late Viking Age. While the absence of other relevant sources relating to Greenland is clearly a disadvantage, it leaves us free to question entrenched assumptions about the early religious life of the community. While, as elsewhere, the conversion to Christianity in Greenland would have had a practical impact, ranging from the creation of political and economic alliances to changes in social custom (including burial and memorialization), I argue in this paper that Greenland might have been somewhat different from other Scandinavian communities overseas. Discussing and drawing on the written and material record, I propose that we might gain from resisting the narrative of Christian convention, which requires sudden, dramatic, and emphatic change, in favor of a different understanding of religious practice. If we entertain the possibility that some societies may have had more room for religious diversity than Christian sources would allow, it could be argued that the early community of Greenland, instead of conforming to Christian stereotype, experienced an extended period of diversity; a mixed society encompassing traditional religious practice and a largely domestic Christianity could have continued for some time until Christianity gained a sufficient degree of institutionalization to impose a more conventional Christian way of life. -
Germanic Christianities
September 2008|Chapter|The Cambridge History of Christianity