Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond

Nancy Edwards, Roy Flechner, Maire Ni Mhaonaigh

Conversion to Christianity is arguably the most revolutionary social and cultural change that Europe experienced throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Christianization affected all strata of society and transformed not only religious beliefs and practices, but also the nature of government, the priorities of the economy, the character of kinship, and gender relations. It is against this backdrop that an international array of leading medievalists gathered under the auspices of the Converting the Isles Research Network (funded by the Leverhulme Trust) to investigate social, economic, and cultural aspects of conversion in the early medieval Insular world, covering different parts of Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Iceland. This volume analyses the effects of religious conversion on landscapes of cult and on religious practice in Europe, focusing in particular on...