Reviewed by:

• Visions of North in Premodern Europe ed. by Dolly Jørgensen and Virginia Langum
• Patrick Ball

One outstanding feature of this miscellany is the skilful fitting together of the chapters: despite approaching the topic from disparate angles, and spanning antiquity to the eighteenth century, each segues seamlessly into the next. Close interrelations between the contributions likewise make this volume one best read as a whole. Something would be lost in consulting a single essay.

The North, as Dawn Hollis puts it (p. 225) is ‘something between a direction, a place and a sense of distance’, necessarily envisaged in regard to a [End Page 216] South. Rather than consider it as a geographic entity, the book addresses notions and constructions of North, how these changed over time, and how northerners incorporated southern sentiments into their own experience.

The investigative method is frequently innovative and multi-disciplinary. Barbara Auger, for instance, uses linguistic, textual, and architectural evidence to propose that chroniclers devised a conversion narrative satisfactory to Norman dukes—in which pagan Vikings fled Scandinavia to become Christian Normans— from classical accounts of barbarian invasions, and scriptural precedents whereby the Old Testament prefigured the New. One result of this methodological verve is that readers are regularly exposed to theoretical concepts: imagology, belonging, p-values, paramaps, and a ‘grammar of the North’. While these are interesting, the terminology is not always as fully explained as might be desired.

Connections between chapters create recurring motifs. Those interested in a history of ideas about the North can follow the influence of notable writers, down time and on each other: Strabo, Pliny, Jordanes, Adam of Bremen, Jean Bodin, Olaus Magnus, Olaus Rudbeck, and others. Stefan Donecker describes how the notion, obtained from Jordanes, of Scandinavia as a breeding-ground for migratory tribes suffered when Tacitus’s Germania, which suggested Germans were sedentary, resurfaced in 1450.

The essays reveal persistent ambivalence towards the region. Pär Sandin’s and Lewis Webb’s chapters, which survey classical references to Thule and Hyperborea, describe positive and negative attitudes. This duality persisted. Hollis finds resemblances to orientalism in eighteenth-century southern sentiments towards Scots and northern Englanders.

Classical and biblical texts represented the North as a source of barbarians and the seat of Lucifer. Northern writers had to integrate such stereotypes with their own experience. Several contributors address this dilemma. Steffen Hope describes twelfth-century Norwegian authors, new to Latinate Christendom, equating the ‘real’ North with Lapland, home of the pagan Sami. This strategy, whereby northern nations sought to identify themselves with southern civilization by displacing undesirable northern attributes onto other peoples, is addressed by several contributors, including Jeremy DeAngelo and Virginia Langum, who reviews English reactions to the prevalent climate theory, which endowed northern nations, themselves included, with negative character traits.

Southern visions of the North were less complicated, with Vikings and Protestants striking Spaniards and Italians as confirmation of its reputation. However, as Mateo Ballester Rodríguez, and Helena Wangefelt Ström and Federico Barbierato describe, after the Thirty Years’ War these nations’ improved acquaintance with Sweden and Denmark forced them to adjust their ideas. The effect on preconceptions of advancing knowledge is another of the book’s recurrent themes. The rise of Germany, England, and Sweden rendered climate theories that linked high latitudes with barbarism untenable. [End Page 217]

The development of a Republic of Letters also prompted reassessments of the North. Kim Simonsen presents the Faroe Islands as a case study. Päivi Maria Pihlaja concludes the volume with an account of French astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly’s unlikely location, after scientific inquiry, of Europe’s first advanced civilization, Atlantis, at the Spitsbergen Archipelago between Norway and the Arctic. This brings the volume full circle, back to Thule and Hyperborea, but also attests a shift from southern stereotypes of the North as the home of evil, monsters, and savages, to a positive view of it as the fount of liberty and civilization. Contributors note the dangers inherent in a move...

审核人：

• 北欧在前现代欧洲的视野ed。多莉·约根森（DollyJørgensen）和弗吉尼亚·兰格姆（Virginia Langum）
• 帕特里克·鲍尔

这种杂项的一个突出特点是各章的技巧巧妙地结合在一起：尽管从不同的角度探讨了这个话题，并且跨越了古代到18世纪，但每个故事都无缝地进入了下一个故事。贡献之间的密切联系同样使该书成为整体上最好的读物。查阅单篇论文会失去一些东西。

正如黎明·霍利斯（Dawn Hollis）所说（第225页），“北方”是“在方向，位置和距离感之间的东西”，这对于[End Page 216]南方是必不可少的。该书未将其视为地理实体，而是论述了北方的概念和构造，这些概念和构造随时间的变化以及北方人如何将南方的情感融入他们自己的经验中。

调查方法经常是创新的和多学科的。例如，芭芭拉·奥格（Barbara Auger）使用语言，文字和建筑学证据，建议编年史家设计出令诺曼公爵满意的转变叙事-异教维京人逃离斯堪的纳维亚半岛，成为基督教诺曼人，这是基于对蛮族入侵的经典记载和圣经先例所致。旧约预示着新约。这种方法论精神的结果是，读者定期接触理论概念：意象学，归属，p值，paramap和“北方语法”。尽管这些很有趣，但术语并不总是像所希望的那样得到充分的解释。

各章之间的联系产生了反复出现的主题。那些对北方思想史感兴趣的人可以跟随著名作家的影响，停滞时期以及彼此之间的影响：斯特拉波，普林尼，乔丹斯，不来梅的亚当，让·博丁，奥劳斯·马格努斯，奥劳斯·鲁德贝克等。斯特凡Donecker描述的概念，从约尔丹尼斯作为繁殖地迁徙部落获得斯堪的纳维亚半岛，如何遭遇时佗的日耳曼，这表明德国人久坐不动，在1450复出。

这些文章揭示了对该地区的持续矛盾情绪。帕尔·桑丁（PärSandin）和刘易斯·韦伯（Lewis Webb）的章节，对Thule和Hyperborea的经典引用进行了调查，描述了积极和消极的态度。这种双重性依然存在。Hollis在18世纪对苏格兰人和英格兰北部人的南方情绪中发现了与东方主义的相似之处。

古典和圣经经文将北方视为野蛮人和路西法所在地的来源。北方作家不得不将这种刻板印象与自己的经验相结合。一些贡献者解决了这个难题。斯特芬·霍普（Steffen Hope）介绍了十二世纪的挪威作家，这些作家不熟悉拉丁基督教世界，将“真正的”北部与异教徒萨米人的故乡拉普兰等同起来。这项策略使北方国家通过将不良的北方特征转移给其他民族来寻求自己与南方文明的认同，这一策略得到了一些贡献者的关注，其中包括杰里米·德安基洛（Jeremy DeAngelo）和弗吉尼亚·兰格姆（Virginia Langum）。包括自己在内，具有负面的性格特征。

南方对北方的看法并不那么复杂，维京人和新教徒殴打西班牙人和意大利人以证明其声誉。但是，正如Mateo BallesterRodríguez和Helena WangefeltStröm和Federico Barbierato所描述的那样，在三十年战争之后，这些国家与瑞典和丹麦的相识不断加深，迫使他们调整了观念。这对高级知识的先入之见的影响是本书的另一主题。德国，英国和瑞典的崛起使得将高纬度与野蛮性联系起来的气候理论变得站不住脚。[结束页217]

共和国的发展也促使了对北方的重新评估。金·西蒙森（Kim Simonsen）以法罗群岛为例进行了介绍。在科学询问后，PäiviMaria Pihlaja总结了法国天文学家让·西尔文·拜伊（Jean Sylvain Bailly）在欧洲最先进的文明亚特兰蒂斯位于挪威和北极之间的斯匹次卑尔根群岛的可能性不大的情况。这使整卷画成一个完整的圆圈，回到了Thule和Hyperborea，但也证明了从北方作为邪恶，怪兽和野蛮人之家的南方成见到对它作为自由和文明源头的积极看法的转变。贡献者指出了此举所固有的危险。