Memory, State, and Past Remembering in East Central and Northern Europe

Analysing the mechanisms that lead to the formation of early state forms, Memory, State and Past Remembering in East Central and Northern Europe, Two Volume Set defines the role of gifts, religious belief systems, prestige, and reciprocity within segmentary and chiefdom societies in East and Northern Europe.

Volume I explores the functioning of early medieval cultural phenomena, memory and power. The development in East Central and Northern Europe has long fascinated scholars interested in the cultural implications of the renewed Empire’s influence on these regions. The text provides various scholarly perspectives, with each contribution reflecting a distinct methodological approach, contributing to a multifaceted discourse on how these cultural phenomena were shaped, contested, and remembered in the medieval context.

Volume II explores the concept and the idea of memory, commemoration and material culture related to the power of memory and functioning of medieval state observed in sources. This book discusses how gift and elite exchange gained significant importance over the early and high middle ages and encompassed, at the level of symbolic communication, the Christian perspective on power rituals as well as the sacred dimension of its legitimisation and manifestation.

Both volumes provide an interdisciplinary study of material culture and memory across medieval Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Bohemia and Rus. An ideal resource for students of medieval East Central and Northern Europe, medieval material culture and memory more broadly