Wulfstan's Voyage: The Baltic Sea Region in the early Viking Age as seen from shipboard (Maritime Culture of the North)

Following on from the success of Ohthere's Voyages , this volume presents Wulfstan's account of a voyage along the east-west axis of the Baltic Sea, providing a rare and vivid view of the early Viking Age.

Table of Contents

Foreword (Ole Crumlin-Pedersen & Friedrich Lüth)

Wulfstan's Account; Wulfstan’s voyage and his description of Estland: the text and the language of the text (Janet Bately); Who was Wulfstan? (Judith Jesch); Wulfstan’s account in the context of early medieval travel literature (Rudolf Simek); On the reliability of Wulfstan’s report (Przemyslaw Urbanczyk)

The Western and Central Baltic Sea Region in the 9th and 10th Centuries; Ests, Slavs and Saxons: ethnic groups and political structures (Christian Lübke, with a note by Przemyslaw Urbanczyk); Danes and Swedes in written and archaeological sources at the end of the 9th century (Wladyslaw Duczko); Routes and long-distance traffic thee nodal points of Wulfstan’s voyage (Søren M. Sindbæk); Hedeby in Wulfstan’s days: a Danish emporium of the Viking Age between East and West (Volker Hilberg); Wulfstan and the coast of southern Scandinavia: sailing routes from Langeland to Möre (Johan Callmer); Viking-Age sailing routes of the western Baltic Sea a matter of safety (Jens Ulriksen); Harbours and trading centres on Bornholm, Öland and Gotland in the late 9th century (Anne Nørgård Jørgensen); Ports and emporia of the southern coast: from Hedeby to Usedom and Wolin (Hauke Jöns); The settlement of Truso (Marek F. Jagodzinski); Handelsplätze zwischen Danziger und Rigaer Bucht zur Zeit Wulfstans (Vladas Zulkus & Mindaugas Bertasius)

Navigating the Baltic Sea; Transport zones in Wulfstan’s days (Christer Westerdahl); An 8th-century written source on ships and navigation: the Cosmography of Aethicus Ister (Ian Wood & George Indruszewski); Boats and ships of the Baltic Sea in the 9th and 10th centuries: the archaeological and iconographic evidence (Ole Crumlin-Pedersen); Sailing in Wulfstan’s wake: the 2004 trial voyage Hedeby-Gdansk with the Skuldelev 1 reconstruction, Ottar (Anton Englert & Waldemar Ossowski); Seafaring then and now (Seán McGrail); The art of sailing like Wulfstan (George Indruszewski & Jon Godal, with contributions by Max Vinner)

Exchange and Control; Principles of trade and exchange: trade goods and merchants (Heiko Steuer); The 9th-century Christian mission to the North (Jörn Staecker); The Christian mission in the northwestern Slavic territories (Felix Biermann); Piracy and naval organisation in the Baltic Sea in the 9th century: some security considerations concerning Wulfstan’s voyage (Jan Bill);

Summary (Michael Müller-Wille)