Gripla - 20.12.2009, Side 27

27A MutAtInG PeRIPHeRy
account (this is, more generally speaking, a major blank spot in toynbee’s
Study of History, whereas recent versions of civilizational analysis have
taken it more and more seriously). A brief overview of basic facts will
highlight the importance of this factor. Patterns and processes of state for­
mation were involved in the changing relationship between Scandinavia
and Western Christendom. the conquering and colonizing forays of the
viking Age culminated in a more constructive contribution to state build­
ing in different parts of europe (the norman inputs have been extensively
described and sometimes exaggerated by historians of medieval europe).
As for the ultimately more decisive reverse movement, notions and visions
of statehood were crucial to the integration of Scandinavia into Western
Christendom; the imported models, grafted onto indigenous trends, were
in part directly linked to the Church as a core civilizational institution, in
part embedded in the broader civilizational patterns that accompanied
Christianization.
State formation was, in short, an eminently significant field of interac­
tion between North and South. But its ramifications also went beyond that
context on the two frontiers mentioned above. In the east, the directions
and outcomes of state formation were shaped by a very different environ­
ment; new approaches to the origins of Russia have highlighted the com­
plexity of this background. It is beyond the scope of the present paper (for
a very wide-ranging and rather speculative discussion, see Pritsak 1981).
My main concern will be with developments on the other frontier.
Questions about the conditions, varieties and limits of state formation also
arise in connection with the colonization of the Northwest Atlantic, and
here the main case in point is – to anticipate later arguments – the trajec­
tory of the Icelandic Freestate (I follow Borgolte (2002), Byock (2000)
and Hastrup (1985) in using this term; it seems more adequate than other
labels on offer).
But before moving in this direction, it may be useful to take a look at
another interpretation of the medieval North, obsolete in some ways but
still of interest because of its attempt to bring the Northwest Atlantic into
focus as a historical region. Christopher Dawson’s work on the making of
europe can, to some extent, be read as an alternative to toynbee’s project,
albeit on a much smaller scale. It is still one of the most articulate Catholic
readings of european history. A chapter on “the age of the vikings and