This book discusses the impact of various social networks on Scandinavian society from a longue duree perspective, from the Viking Age to the nineteenth century. Friendship, patron-client relationships, and social networks played a fundamental role in Scandinavian society from the Viking Age through to the Industrial Era. Personal ties were essential to Viking chieftains for building their power base, and such ties were equally crucial for early modern merchants, who used their personal bonds to create trade networks. Furthermore, social networks connected medieval men and women to the saints and to God. The articles in this book emphasize the strong correlation between political developments such as the emergence of the state and the evolution of friendships and social networks. They also highlight radical changes in the importance and contexts of friendship that occurred between the Viking Age and the late eighteenth century. During this period, friendships became far more than community-based social relationships, but rather tools for the elite in social positioning and wealth acquisition. This volume highlights the major significance of friendships and patron-client relationships to political and cultural life in medieval, early modern, and modern society. It covers social networks in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, each of which are characterized by different societal features, ranging from the free-state republic of early medieval Iceland to the early modern kingdom of Denmark. Table of Contents; Introduction Jon Vi?ar Sigur?sson and Thomas Smaberg Holy Unbreakable Bonds: Oaths and Friendshipin Nordic and Western European Societies, c. 900?1200 Lars Hermanson The Changing Role of Friendship in Iceland, c. 900?1300 Jon Vi?ar Sigur?sson The Motif of Friendship in Vernacular Icelandic Hagiography Joanna A. Skorzewska Friends or Patrons? Powerful Go?Betweens in the Norwegian Realm in the High Middle Ages Randi Bj?rshol Waerdahl The Reception and Adaptation of Courtly Culture in Old Norse Society: Changing Conceptions of Hirarchy and Networks in Two Versions of Tristrams saga Hans Jacob Orning Educating the Danes: Anglo-Danish Connections in the Formative Period of the Danish Church, c. 1000?1150 Mia Munster -Swendsen Masculinities and Friendship Nanna Damsholt The Language of Masculine Friendship: Idealism and Political Realism in a Swedish Fourteenth-Century Rhyming Chronicle Thomas Smaberg The Friendship of Kings: Friendship and Clientelism around the Kings of Denmark, 1600?1750 Gunner Lind Friends, Brokers, and the King: A Norwegian Merchant?s Informal Political Network in Copenhagen in the Early Eighteenth Century Ola Teige The Value of Friendship in Trade and Political Networks: An Interactive View of the Late Eighteenth-Century Urban Elite of Christiania Bard Frydenlund Friends, Patrons, and Clients in the Middle Ages Helgi ?orlaksson