Academic interests
Medieval history in Europe and in the Nordic region, especially legal history, intellectual history, cultural history, church history, and the history of Vikings. Premodern world history.
Courses taught
- HIS1200 – Eldre historie fram til ca. 1800 - Universitetet i Oslo (uio.no)
- HIS2128 – Perspectives on Viking Age History (c.750 - c.1050) - University of Oslo (uio.no)
- HIS2915/HIS4915 - Fair Trial: Meeting Out Justice from Antiquity to the Present
- HIS4035 – Prosjektutvikling og arbeidsmetodikk i historiefaget - Universitetet i Oslo (uio.no)
- HIS4100 – Viking and Medieval Europe: Interdisciplinary Perspectives - University of Oslo (uio.no)
- HIS4128 – Perspectives on Viking Age History (c.750 - c.1050) - University of Oslo (uio.no)
- HIS4211 – Political and Legal Culture in the Middle Ages - University of Oslo (uio.no)
- VMS4100 – Philological theory and Method - University of Oslo (uio.no)
Background
Educated at Stockholm University (BA 1990) and Columbia University (MA, MPhil, PhD 1996), Anders Winroth taught medieval history 1998-2020 at Yale University, last as the Birgit Baldwin Professor of History. He has published widely in the fields of medieval legal and intellectual history and in Scandinavian history during the Viking Age.
Winroth's first book The Making of Gratian's Decretum (Cambridge University Press, 2000) was widely recognized as a major and transformational contribution to medieval legal history, notably within the history of canon law. Reviews talk about the book as "revolutionary" and "a "triumph," which "work[s] a major change in the history of medieval law."
The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (Yale University Press, 2012) is a critical synthesis of the history of Scandinavia's conversion to Christianity in the Viking Age. The book focuses on how Nordic chieftains used Christianity and its practices as part of the gift exchange nexus of their societies, because it "with its prestigious associations worked better than other religions." Christianity was useful to the emerging hierarchical kingdoms of Scandinavia as a monopolizing religion.
With the "accessible and engaging" The Age of the Vikings (Princeton University Press, 2014), Winroth reaches tens of thousands of readers (and listeners to the two audiobook versions). The book is an "outstanding resource" and "a compelling and successful" synthesis of the history of the Viking Age, drawing directly on a wide range of primary sources in Old Norse and Latin, as well as archeological reports and the long historiography of the topic. The book has been translated into German, French, Chinese, and Korean, and audiobooks exist in English and French.
Awards
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow, 2004-2008.
- International Fellow, British Academy, 2026
- Fellow, Medieval Academy of America, 2015.
- Korrespondierender Mitglied, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich, 2010.
- Member, Kungliga Sällskapet för utgivande av skrifter till Skandinaviens historia, Stockholm, 2009.
Positions held
- Birgit Baldwin Professor of History, Yale University, April 2018–June 2020
- Forst Family Professor of History, Yale University, April 2013–2018
- Professor of History, Yale University, July 2004–June 2020
- Associate Professor of History, Yale University, July 2003–June 2004
- Assistant Professor of History, Yale University, July 1998–June 2003
- Sir James Knott Research Fellow, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1996―1998
- Assistant Editor, Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, Stockholm, 1987–1991
PhD dissertations directed
- John C. Wei, “Law and Religion in Gratian’s Decretum” (PhD, Yale University, 2008). Revised and published as Gratian the Theologian (Catholic University of America Press).
- Joshua C. Tate, “Advowson Law and Litigation in the English Royal Courts, 1154–1250” (PhD, Yale University, 2009). Revised and published as Power and Justice in Medieval England (Yale University Press).
- Sara McDougall, “Bigamy in Late Medieval France” (PhD, Yale University, 2009). Revised and published as Bigamy and Identity in Late Medieval Champagne. (University of Pennsylvania Press).
- Eric Knibbs, “The Origins of the Archdiocese of Hamburg–Bremen” (PhD, Yale University, 2009). Revised and published as Ansgar, Rimbert, and the Forged Foundations of Hamburg-Bremen (Ashgate).
- Michael Wehrman, “De-Emphasizing the Miraculous in Early Medieval Saints’ Lives, 590–800” (PhD, Yale University, 2012).
- Gregory Roberts, “Policing and Public Power in the Italian Communes” PhD, Yale University, (2013). Revised and published as Police Power in the Italian Communes, 1228-1326 (Amsterdam University Press).
- Kristina Hosoe, “Regulae and Reform in Carolingian Monastic Hagiography” (PhD, Yale University, 2014).
- Elizabeth Walgenbach, “Excommunication and Outlawry in the Legal World of Thirteenth–Century Iceland” (PhD, Yale University, 2016). Revised and published as Excommunication and Outlawry in the Legal World of Medieval Iceland (Brill).
- John Burden, “Between Crime and Sin: Penitential Justice in Medieval Germany, 900–1200” (PhD, Yale University, 2018).
- Aaron Vanides, “The Ends of Authority at the Council of Constance, 1414–1418” (PhD, Yale University, 2018).
- Amelia Kennedy, “Growing Old in a Cistercian Monastery, c. 1100–1300” (PhD, Yale University, 2020).
- Sebastian Rider Bezerra, “Between the Leopard and the Lily: The Use and Abuse of the Law in English Gascony” (PhD, Yale University, 2020).
- Mireille Pardon, “Tropes of Violence and the Changing Nature of Urban Urban Justice in Late Medieval Bruges and Ghent” (PhD, Yale University, 2020).
- Tatiana Petrukhina, "Custom in the Long Twelfth Century Canon Law: Theory and Practice" (PhD, University of Oslo 2025).