Heide, Eldar

Phone: (+47) 55 58 80 86
E-mail: eldar.heidems.uib.no

Project title:
Scandinavian maritime influence on Europe

Project summary:
The project has a double aim:

• To increase our knowledge of Scandinavian maritime terminology in the Middle Ages.
• To increase our knowledge of how the Scandinavian maritime tradition influenced Europe in this period, through a study of Scandinavian loanwords from the period in other European languages.

In Medieval Europe the only field dominated by Scandinavia was the maritime one. Scandinavia was the driving force in the technological development and Scandinavian terminology was borrowed into languages from France to Russia. This makes the maritime field interesting in a study of the interaction between centre and periphery in Europe in this period. Within this field the most important contribution to the forming of a common culture in Northern- and Western Europe came from Scandinavia. I am studying this Scandinavian influence through an investigation of Scandinavian maritime terminological loans from Scandinavian to other European languages, especially English, French, and Low German. One could have studied the material loans – the maritime technological solutions and details – but this is difficult because we have so few finds of ships and because it is difficult to see where the technological solutions came from. Terminology, on the other hand, can be traced; a linguist can often see from the form of a word where it comes from. At the same time there will always be a pattern in the loans: They are few or many, words from certain semantic fields are borrowed, not words from others; there are early loans and late ones, some are borrowed “against the current”, and in some cases there later came a flow of loanwords in the other direction. This pattern can give important information about cultural dominance, cultural orientation, cultural influence and interaction. No one has attempted to throw light on the growth of a common European culture from this angle. Unfortunately we do not know the Scandinavian maritime terminology well enough to have a satisfactory basis for comparison. The major publication on the topic is still Hjalmar Falk’s Altnordisches See­wesen from 1912. Therefore the first part of the project is an investigation of Scandinavian maritime terminology. I examine the information about ships and sailing in the Old Scandinavian written sources and interpret them in the light of ship finds, reconstructed ships and replicas, and ethnographical documentation of square sail traditions from recent times. The knowledge on both fields has increased dramatically during the latest century. The basis for this investigation is my 25-year experience with the use of Viking ship replicas and Scandinavian square sail boats in late tradition.

My other main fields of interest are pre-Christian religious and cultural history in Northern Europe, with the utilization of late sources and the development of a methodology for it; and Scandinavian language history, especially dialect history, in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times.

Selected publications:

• “Låge og breie segl, likevel?” Klink og seil. Festskrift til Arne Emil Christensen. Norsk sjøfartsmuseum / Kulturhistorisk museum, pp. 165-74, University of Oslo 2006
• “Spinning seiðr ” In Anders Andrén et. al. (eds.): Old Norse religion in long-term, perspectives. Vägar till Midgård 8, pp. 164-70, Lund: Nordic Academic Press 2006.
• “Spirits through respiratory passages”, In John McKinnel et.al. (eds.): The Fantastic in Old Norse / Icelandic Literature - Sagas and the British Isles. Preprint papers of the 13th International Saga Conference, Durham and York, 6th -12th August 2006.
• Gand, seid og åndevind. Doctoral thesis, 341 pages, University of Bergen 2006. ISBN 82-308-0196-7
• “Víking – ’rower shifting’? An etymological contribution”, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 120/2005, pp.41-54
• “Felleskjønnet i bergensk. Resultat av mellomnedertysk kvantitetspåverknad?” Maal og minne 2003, pp. 23-35 (2003)
• “Stamnkarakteriserande skips- og båtnemningar. Knorr [knörr] og geitbåt.” Norsk sjøfartsmuseum. Årbok 2002. pp. 57-72 (2003)

Publications and activities registered in CRISTIN