In 2021, I was hired as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, working as part of a project that was a collaboration between the University of Oslo and the University of Warsaw. One of my tasks in this period has been to co-edit a volume of articles together with Grzegoz Pac and Jon Vidar Sigurdsson, based on a conference we co-organized in Warsaw in the autumn of 2021. The volume collects a number of articles that explores how various elites in East Central and Northern Europe. The scope of the volume, and the comparative aim, served as a backdrop for the core purpose of the project itself, which was to explore the way elites in medieval Norway and medieval Poland sought to legitimise their positions in society. The volume includes case studies from both Norway and Poland, but also from several other countries.
The process has been immensely educational, and, although often tiring and frustrating given the nature of such editorial endeavours where there are so many details to keep in mind, a phenomenal opportunity for seeing how much interesting and novel research is being undertaken in our section of academia. Seeing this book published is both a relief and a joy at the same time.
A description of the book can be found on Brepols' website, and the book itself is freely available in open access. Each individual article can be found here.
There are numerous reasons why I am deeply satisfied with this book, and very proud of it. One of these reasons is the introduction - to be read here - which provides both a broad historical context for the cult of saints, and a discussion of the various forms of legitimisation to which the saints were used in the newly-Christianised polities of Northern and East Central Europe.
I also contributed with a chapter of my own, but this is the subject for a future blogpost.
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