Dr. Jake Stattel

A historian who uses legal sources to understand early medieval peoples and societies; currently a postdoctoral Research Fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge and within the Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic. My research began by outlining the unique Anglo-Scandinavian legal culture of England's Danelaw, culminating in a multi-award-winning article. I recently completed my PhD at Cambridge which highlights both the Scandinavian legacies within English law, as well as how sources from England can illuminate legal practice among Viking-Age Scandinavians. See my Cambridge webpage for more.

As Scandinavians travelled and settled across the 'World in the Viking Age', legal customs regulated these societies and shaped daily life. With the earliest surviving Scandinavian legislation and narrative records dating to much later, 'Viking law' is difficult to see within the period. My current postdoc project 'Law in the Viking Diaspora' seeks to bring new insights by drawing from a wide range of contemporary records from across this global network. In both cooperative and combative contexts, legal interactions with Vikings can be seen within the writings of outside groups. This is the case in regions where Scandinavians settled permanently like England's Danelaw or the Rus lands, but also more broadly within legal records produced by polities with whom they traded, raided, and negotiated. In my current stage of the project, I am carrying out a comparative legal analysis of peace-treaties made between medieval kingdoms and Viking military groups.

As a Visiting International Researcher at the WiVA Centre, my 'Law in the Viking Diaspora' project will greatly benefit from the expertise of the Centre's many specialists. WiVA's particular focus on Viking contacts across Asia, and the insights provided by Arabic sources, will be crucial for the global scope of my ongoing research. In return, I hope to add a new perspective to the Centre drawing upon legal history and how administrative documents can form an invaluable lens for seeing past societies.