ABSTRACT

Britain and its Neighbours explores instances and periods of cultural contact and exchanges between communities in Britain with those in other parts of Europe between c.500 and 1700.

Collectively, the twelve case studies highlight certain aspects of cultural contact and exchange and present neglected factors, previously overlooked evidence, and new methodological approaches. The discussions draw from a broad range of disciplines including archaeology, history, art history, iconography, literature, linguistics, and legal history in order to shine new light on a multi-faceted variety of expressions of the equally diverse and long-standing relations between Britain and its neighbours. Organised chronologically, the volume accentuates the consistency and continuity of social, cultural, and intellectual connections between Britain and Continental Europe in a period that spans over a millennium.

With its range of specialised topics, Britain and its Neighbours is a useful resource for undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in cultural and intellectual studies and the history of Britain’s long-standing connections to Europe.

chapter |14 pages

Britain and its neighbours

Contacts, exchanges, influences. An introduction

chapter 1|16 pages

Wayland the Smith and the Massacre of the Innocents

Pagan-Christian ‘amalgamation’ on the Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket

chapter 2|20 pages

The permeating presence of practices

Northwest English and Manx ecclesiastical sites with Viking-Age furnished burials and sculpture

chapter 3|18 pages

Between continental models, a Christian message, and a Scandinavian audience

Early examples of the image of ‘Christ trampling the Beasts’ in the British Isles 1

chapter 4|18 pages

Silver threads

How Scandinavian Scotland connected with a wider economic world 1

chapter 5|18 pages

The problem of Manx

Norse linguistic evidence for the survival of Manx Gaelic in the Scandinavian period 1

chapter 6|16 pages

Legal custom and Lex Castrensis?

Using law and literature to navigate the North-Sea neighbourhood in the late Viking Age

chapter 7|19 pages

Ring–fencing the gardinum?

European romance to British reality of the thirteenth-century Caernarfon Castle garden and park 1

chapter 8|18 pages

Albany and the poets

John Stuart, Duke of Albany, and the transfer of ideas between Scotland and the continent, 1509–1536

chapter 9|17 pages

Anglo–Swiss relations in the seventeenth century

Religion, refuge, and relief

chapter 10|17 pages

Fashioning an expanding English world

Commerce, curiosities, and coastal profiles from Edward Barlow’s 1668 voyage to Italian port cities

chapter 11|15 pages

‘England is not a kingdom located on the Moon’

Use and usefulness of English knowledge in early modern Swedish agricultural literature

chapter 12|19 pages

An honoured guest

The 1764 journeys across Piedmont of Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany