The languages of Scandinavia: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, have been either of Indo-European or Finno-Ugrian origin. The conception of the development of Finnish and Sami branches of Finno-Ugrian rests on comparison of their various post-Reformation manifestations with each other and with related languages. The development of a characteristically Scandinavian form of the Germanic branch of Indo-European has largely to do with the spread of Germanic to the east, south and west, with resulting linguistic splits between the different groups of speakers involved. The earliest extant vernacular manuscripts, of Iceland and Norway in twelfth and Denmark and Sweden in late thirteenth century, confirm the existence of numerous and significant linguistic differences between the various areas of Scandinavia. Many scholars have in fact reckoned with an East Nordic-West Nordic split from as early as the end of the syncope period. East Nordic is roughly the language of Denmark and Sweden, West Nordic that of Norway and later of Iceland.

This chapter explains the treatment of mentality with respect to the monarchy and the church that were built up in Scandinavia in the high Middle Ages. In this way, it becomes possible to treat mentality in close connection with ideology. A main theme in most surveys of the Scandinavian countries until around 1300 is the growth of the state. The mental aspect of this development is illustrated clearly in The King's Mirror. The conflict between the old and the new attitude to a central authority emerges clearly from The King's Mirror. An important symbolic expression of the new ideology was royal unction and coronation which introduced in Norway, Denmark and Sweden in the 11th and 12th centuries. Courtly culture was an important medium of the far-reaching changes as a result of the victory of the state. The chapter also discusses the importance of Christianity, oral and visual preaching, and Christianity as a religion for the laity and the nobility.

The main tendencies in the development of Scandinavian political organisation in the high Middle Ages were centralisation and growth of public authority under the monarchy, the Church, and the secular aristocracy. This chapter outlines the development of three Nordic kingdoms that grew into more state-like entities, until 1319 when the first of the Nordic unions was established between Norway and Sweden. Danish struggles over the succession to the throne from the 1130s to the 1150s were followed by the strong and expansionist Valdemarian monarchy which once more made Denmark the leading kingdom in Scandinavia. In Norway, the Norwegian church was centralised under the archbishop of Trondheim in 1152-3, and in the following decades the first steps were taken towards a nationally organised system of government. Scandinavian kingship entered a new phase in the high Middle Ages, reflected by the introduction of royal unction and coronation. There may have been early royal initiatives in provincial thing legislation in the Scandinavian kingdoms.

From an international point of view Scandinavian literature of the Middle Ages is largely identified with the narrative literature of Iceland, particularly the myths of the Edda and the classical family sagas. When the Church brought the Latin alphabet and European learning to Scandinavia, the culture of the region was basically oral, although runes played a certain role. Traditional oral culture encompassed all aspects of life. In east Scandinavia, literary production was originally confined to very few centres of clerical learning. The first Scandinavians known to have studied at foreign centres of learning are Icelanders in the eleventh century. Both bishops of Skálholt, Ísleifr and Gizurr were educated in Germany and France. The Eddic style was used, in composing new poetry for fornaldarsögur, while some fragments of heroic poetry included in such sagas may be old and preserved in oral tradition into the fourteenth century. The chapter also discusses storytelling literature, Skaldic poetry, and king's sagas.

For 300 years, beginning at the end of the eighth century, Scandinavians, figure prominently in the history of western Europe, first as pirates and later as conquerors. In the ninth century it was the English who called the invaders Vikings, originally a Scandinavian appellative: víkingr. The first recorded raids were on monasteries in the British Isles. The pressure of increasing population in Scandinavia and the consequent shortage of land was the main cause of Viking activity. However, in other parts, most of the first generations of Vikings were seeking wealth. Scandinavians took advantage of internal conflicts in western Europe. In 838 Vikings supported the Britons of Cornwall against the West Saxons, and in 844 a deposed Northumbrian king was restored to power. Reasons behind the decrease in Viking activity in western Europe may also lie in the better wealth-gathering opportunities that existed in the east where there had been great changes since the eighth century.