Routledge - Ancestor Worship and the Elite in Scandinavia

Explore the complexities of religious practice in the Viking Age with this scholarly study from Routledge. While many people view ancestor worship as a primitive tradition, this book challenges that perspective by investigating whether ancestor ideology was a fundamental part of religion in late Iron Age and early medieval Scandinavia. Using a broad socio-anthropological framework, the text provides a deep look into how specific individuals were honored through cults in Old Norse literature. It moves beyond the standard focus on gods to examine the role of ancestors within the social and religious structures of the time. This work is an essential resource for students and historians interested in the cultural shifts of medieval Europe and the nuances of Old Norse belief systems.