, ed. Stefka G. Eriksen, Karen Langsholt Homqvust, and Bjørn Bandlien. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2020, VIII, 339 pp., 16 colored ill., 12 b/w figures.

Many, if not most of our efforts in the Humanities are focused on the self and its relationship with the natural and social environment, although tracing back its original formation becomes harder and harder the further we look into the past. Through the exploration of the self, meaning of life and identity are established, so we can use the category of ‘self’ very well to determine cultural history. In some periods, the collective ruled supremely, in others, the individual emerged and forged its own path. At the same time, all those categories could be questioned as well because the medieval heroes, for instance, are certainly characterized by their individual selfhood in clear contrast to the unnamed masses, or their retainers. Nevertheless, not to throw the baby out with the bath water, there are some particular periods in which the self emerges in more specific and clear terms and determines its society, such as in the twelfth or the fourteenth century.