{"id":2225,"date":"2019-03-25T20:19:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T17:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/?page_id=2225"},"modified":"2026-05-30T19:54:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T16:54:47","slug":"2018-2-sukhino-khomenko","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/volumina\/2018-2\/2018-2-sukhino-khomenko\/","title":{"rendered":"2018-2-Sukhino-Khomenko"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sukhino-Khomenko D. V. <\/em>Historiographical Wishful Thinking and Debates on Some Early Medieval Social Phenomena in the North Sea Region [Digital Resource] \/\/ Vox medii aevi. 2018. Vol. 2(3). P. 38\u201369. URL: https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/2018-2-sukhino-khomenko<\/a>
DOI: 10.24411\/2587-6619-2018-00016<\/p>\n\n\n

> Download the article<\/a><\/strong>
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Denis Sukhino-Khomenko<\/h3>\n\n\n

PhD-student at Department of Historical Studies, the University of Gothenburg (Sweden)
denis.sukhino-khomenko@gu.se
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Historiographical Wishful Thinking and Debates on Some Early Medieval Social Phenomena in the North Sea Region
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This article interrogates certain historiographical trends of constructing self-sufficient models of explanation for essentially unrelated data in the primary sources. For a case study the essay spotlights the protracted examination of the early medieval social group of thegns <\/em>(OE\/ON \u00feegn<\/em>). Attention is drawn to the influential articles by Svend Aakj\u00e6r, Rachel R. Reid, and David Roffe. Aakj\u00e6r\u2019s main thesis was that Viking-Age thegns <\/em>and drengs <\/em>(ON drengr<\/em>) known from the Scandinavian runic inscriptions used to be members of royal retinue(s), just like they were strata of landed nobility in England. Rachel Reid drew an institutional parallel between the Anglo-Saxon king\u2019s thegns <\/em>and medieval barons, and David Roffe augmented this later view by suggesting a continuity in 11th-century landholding patterns. The author hypothesises that the inherent flaw of such models lies in an unconscious confirmation bias when dealing with the source material. By addressing the primary sources directly, the author seeks to demonstrate that some of these views suffered from a lack of empirical data already at the inception. Though contextualising his polemics in modern historiography, in his criticism the author relies on the ad fontes<\/em> method rather than the wisdom of hindsight. The article also aims to tackle the circulation of the self-sufficient models of this sort in subsequent historiography, as well as to identify plausible origins of prominence and consequences. The author hopes to relate this individual case study to a broader context of medieval research, thereby offering a feasible model of its application to further topics.
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Key words:<\/em> Baron; Historiography; King Cnut; Runic Inscriptions; Thegn.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2304,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-2225","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"no-featured-image-padding"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52933,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2225\/revisions\/52933"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}