Kinship Connections and the Earldom of Orkney c. 900-1263

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Scotland's northern frontier during the medieval era remains a mysterious space with transnational connections. A clearer understanding of this borderland has the potential to transform how we view the origins of the Scottish nation. To discover these new insights, innovative techniques are required to interpret complex literary evidence. Orkneyinga saga, an Old Norse text composed in Iceland in the thirteenth century, describes the careers of a Scandinavian dynasty which controlled the earldom comprising of the Northern Isles and Caithness. Orkneyinga saga contains genealogical information which provides a cross-section of the Orkney earldom's aristocracy, covering many hitherto unexplored individuals. This project will use Orkneyinga saga and genealogies from other sagas to map out the family relationships between individuals from Orkney, Norway, Iceland, Scotland, and beyond, comparing the literary evidence with other documents, place names, and archaeology. It will establish the connections between the aristocracies of Scandinavia and Scotland and reveal the relationships which maintained the interconnectivity of the Viking world.