Medieval Icelandic society

The present study scrutinizes the outlawry and outlaws that appear in the Icelandic Family Sagas. It provides a thorough description about outlawry on the basis of extant law and saga texts as well as an analysis of referential connotations attached to it. The concept of outlawry was fundamental for the medieval Icelanders conceptions of their past. Indeed, understanding outlawry is essential for understanding many of the Family Sagas. Outlaws appear in saga texts in significant roles.

The Icelandic Family Sagas comprise a group of prose narratives that were written down in the 13th and 14th century Iceland. They are based on events and personae that belong to the 10th century Iceland. These narratives introduce many outlaws, out of which some 75 are named.

The Family Sagas are studied here as one corpus and special emphasis is given to those narrative features that repetitively appear in connection with outlawry and the outlaw characters. Therefore, the eventual objects of this study are the medieval Icelanders general conceptions of the historical outlawry as well as the variations of these conceptions throughout the period of saga writing. The medieval Icelanders general conceptions about the 10th 11th century, which are reflected in the Family Sagas, are here referred to as the Saga World. The Saga World is the historically based taleworld to which all of the Family Sagas refer.

The medieval law texts, which were derived from centuries old legislative traditions, reveal that outlawry meant banishing from the society and being denied all help, and that the outlawed person lost the protection of the law. In practice, outlawry was a death sentence.

However, outlaws occupy many differing roles in the saga narratives even in connection with recurrent narrative motifs. These roles reflect the social and spatial structures of the Saga World. The inspection of outlawry within these structures reveals that the definition of outlawry as it appears in the law texts is insufficient for understanding outlawry in the saga texts.

The social and spatial structures also provide a basis for the connotations of outlawry. In this study, these connotations are inspected primarily from the referential connections between outlawry in the Family Sagas and corresponding phenomena in other concurrent literature. This is done by studying the implementations of the basic elements of outlawry in the Family Sagas marginalization, banishing, rejection and solitariness within other literary genres and the taleworlds to which they refer. It is argued that these taleworlds reflect the same ideas that were associated with outlawry in the Family Sagas albeit in different forms and that these different forms reciprocally contributed to the conceptions of outlawry.

The variety of denotations and connotations of outlawry that is visible in the medieval Icelandic texts reflects the ambiguity of outlawry in the Family Sagas. This ambiguity may shed light to questions such as why an outlaw could be perceived as a hero in a literary genre that predominantly promoted law and order and why the same outlaw could be perceived as a villain on another occasion.

Chapter 4 of Eiríks saga rauða has long drawn the attention of scholars due to its detailed description of a seiðr, a rare occurrence in Íslendinga sǫgur as well as in sagas of other genres. The protagonist of the scene, a Greenlandic seiðkona named Þorbjǫrg, is depicted as a social functionary who creates a relationship with the supernatural world and acquires a deeper knowledge and foreknowledge concerning the surrounding area, for the benefit of the local community. The performance takes place during a great famine at the beginning of the eleventh century, and the semi-public ritual had the purpose of predicting when the dearth would come to an end. It consisted – among other things-of a ritual meal: a porridge of kid's milk and of the cooked hearts of all the living creatures that inhabited the area. The present paper aims at casting light on this specific aspect of Þorbjǫrg's seiðr, and at contextualizing it within a wider literary and historical landscape. The intention is to integrate traditional interpretations with observations on the importance of sympathetic magic in ancient and medieval Europe, and particularly in medieval Scandinavia.

This article deals witha wide concept of freedom as an idea that constitutes communities in Early Middle Ages. The work is split in three parts: a theoretical side, a practical side, ad final conclusions, The first touches upon issues related to the "origines gentium" stories, which are about peoples' origins, where as the second serves as a supplement to earlier considerations. Mention of several examples illustrates the practical aspect of formation and organisation of said communities, based on the premise of liberty.

Abstract: Some of the bloodfeuds in Iceland during c. 870–1056 are described in details in the numerous sagas, which makes them the main source of this article. A thorough analysis of these texts leads to the conclusion that the feuds on the island follow the development of the social patterns, the jurisdiction and the legislation in medieval Iceland. In a way this personalizes the Icelandic type of feud. In order to substantiate this point, the article focuses firstly on revenge as an act underlying any enmity. Vengeance obeys a set of specific rules and norms that place it within a certain framework. Secondly, attention is paid to the public support as a factor crucial for any conflict during the first two centuries of the Icelandic history.
  Along with all this, to get an idea of the actual flow of events in any bloodfeud, one needs to trace the individual development phases of the feud. According to what is mentioned in the sagas, feuds are most often prompted by purely human feelings such as love, jealousy, pride, by selfish acts like desire for succession rights or avarice. The results of such acts usually lead to retaliatory actions that often escalate into physical attacks on someone’s life, property or honour. Thus a feud is already a fact and it can quickly escalate to bloodshed. Events of this kind are also at the centre of the plot in most Icelandic sagas. Any feud is at its deadliest point when escalated, but then it subsided, and the warring parties made peace with each other. In some cases an agreement is achieved by judicial decision. In others, lawsuits are resolved through arbitration, which represents an extrajudicial practice that includes negotiations and mediations between two parties. The dispute is resolved by a third party – an arbitrator, who is a respected and fair-minded neutral person. Most often he achieves agreement between the conflicting parties by directing and convincing them to make peace through certain guaranties, compensations and other payments.
Judging by the information in the Icelandic sagas, bloodfeuds are amongst the phenomenon characteristics of the medieval Icelandic society. On this basis most of the events during the period 870–1056 take place during one or another family conflict. Although the Icelandic people were not involved actively in the major events of the Viking era, their history contributes significantly to the understanding of the historical processes in the medieval Scandinavia.

The Old Icelandic text The Saga of Þórður kakali survives today as part of the fourteenth-century compilation The Saga of the Sturlungar. In extant form, The Saga of Þórður kakali is a biography of Þórður kakali Sighvatsson (c.1210–56) – chieftain, royal retainer, and sheriff – and covers the periods 1242–50 and 1254–56, providing an interesting view of power politics and political culture from the periphery of medieval Europe, challenging dominant historiographical narratives derived from the sources produced at the center.

Hitherto, only one English translation of The Saga of the Sturlungar (and thus The Saga of Þórður kakali) has ever been produced. This translation was carried out by Julia McGrew and R. George Thomas (published in two volumes, 1970–74). Nevertheless, even with the invaluable assistance of the eminent Icelandic scholar Sigurður Nordal – who provided English translations of the trickier passages of text – McGrew and Thomas’s translation turned out to be “defective and unreliable” (in the words of Oren Falk).

Published translations are cultural levelers insofar as they open up texts to broader audiences – members of the interested wider public – who may not have the means or time to learn the original language merely to study a single primary source or read a lone literary classic. While McGrew and Thomas’s translation of The Saga of Þórður kakali is more or less serviceable if used with extreme caution (i.e., by native English speakers with fluency in Icelandic), the importance of competent translations should not be forgotten, especially for the reader without Icelandic language skills: poor translations can offend, confuse, and mislead users of the target language.

This paper proposes to analyse how the Icelandic Benedictine house of Þingeyrar in the Northern diocese exercised power over the neighbouring territory from its foundation in 1133 to ca. 1250. The study is based essentially on two acts of Þingeyrarklaustr in 1220 and 1250 and some other historical documents (legal codes) along with the vernacular narrative sources (the contemporary sagas). I will first present briefly the status of Benedictine monasticism in the 12th-13th century and its relation to local powers in feudal Europe. Of the four benedictine monasteries founded in Iceland, Þingeyrarklaustr is the oldest and the most influential in the 12th and 13th century. I will then focus on the analysis of the two acts from the monastery and when possible corroborate it with other texts, for example the connection between one of the acts and the legal provisions concerning rekaþáttr thought to belong to the oldest fragments of the Grágás. From this analysis, I will try to shed a light on the establishment of such a house in the Icelandic diocese of Hólar and its connections to the local powers of the time, i.e. the diocese and the neighbouring lordships.

Dear reader,

Please note this article is published with Brepols Publishers as a Gold Open Access article under a Creative Commons CC 4.0: BY-NC license.

The article is also freely available on the website of Brepols Publishers:  https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.VIATOR.5.127050  under this same license.

Disability and Deaf studies offer differing yet complementing approaches toward the investigation of deaf and nonspeaking characters in late medieval Icelandic texts. Through these approaches, which focus on the individuals and their lives as well as their ability to communicate with the hearing world, this article shifts its attention to the experiences of these characters rather than any symbolic meanings their literary representation might hold. The article is divided into four main sections, considering prose from the Icelandic sagas and various legal sources. The first focuses on the communicative possibilities that deaf and nonspeaking people had recourse to in their private and public lives. The second examines the participation by deaf and nonspeaking people in the political and legal activities so prominent in medieval Icelandic culture. The third section turns to the race, class and gender considerations of society’s approach toward deaf and nonspeaking people, stressing the issues of gender, class, and race. Lastly, the article considers accounts of people miraculously acquiring and reacquiring speech and hearing through the mediation of saints.

The Icelandic sagas describe men and women from the North travelling throughout the medieval world, journeying to foreign, even marginal lands, fighting in foreign wars, serving at, or visiting foreign courts.  These saga far-travellers were uniquely Icelandic cultural creations; their stories were a form of epic literature.  The sagas were also written during a time of unrest and uncertainty; a time when Icelandic society was under great pressure from Norwegian political influence that was bringing great change to the community.  This thesis argues that the saga authors used images of far-travelling warriors and explorers to create and foster a sense of Icelandic independence, and their imagery was a deliberate construct that served to subtly advance the reputation of Iceland and Icelanders on the world stage.  The crafting of these images also reveals aspects of author intent and values, and how far-travel and journeys have been used to promote personal agendas, be it religious evangelism, to legitimise land-holdings, or for political purposes.  They articulated a literary response to a sense of an emerging Icelandic identity; the images served to shape, and were in turn shaped by attitudes towards far-travellers.  Far-travellers were now to be seen as cultural heroes.

This thesis aims to demonstrate that, through use of literary genre, vocabulary, and emphasis of detail, the authors of Christian skaldic verse in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries continually reshaped a specific set of representations for Christ to suit each poem’s individual purpose, its audience, and the literary tastes of the periods in which they were written. In order to show how Christ’s portrayal changes over time and according to each poem’s overarching purpose, I have selected the following five Christian skaldic poems and made each the focus of a chapter: Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli, Gamli kanóki’s Harmsól, and the anonymously-composed poems Leiðarvísan, Líknarbraut, and Lilja. Within each chapter I provide an overview of the poem, selecting stanzas that highlight features of Christ that are prevalent or striking in some way, and analyse how these representations not only influence the poem itself, but also shape perceptions of Christ’s relationship with humanity. Each chapter leads to an overall consideration both of the image of Christ as this has been represented, and of the degree to which this has been influenced by biblical and patristic writings, Old Norse literature and culture, or by a combination of these elements. In the concluding chapter I identify the prevailing representations of Christ throughout these five poems, dividing these characterisations into five categories: Christ as Warrior Chieftain, as Healer and Abundant Nourisher, as Legal Authority, as Beguiler, and as Light. I assess the changing importance of each of these representations over time and in these poems, in order to enable a better understanding of the changing images of Christ in the medieval skaldic corpus and how these may reflect locally specific perceptions of Christ.

The earliest known Icelandic manuscript containing translations of Chrétien de Troyes’ romances was commissioned by the rich landowner Ormur Snorrason. In this version the Arthurian knights defend the kingdom while maintaining a problematic relationship to the court. Ormur Snorrason experienced similar challenges during his career as a royal official in Iceland.

This study contends through a formal analysis of extant rules and material gaming pieces that the medieval board game hnefa-tafl served as an important example of cultural and historical record for the Icelandic Commonwealth. Due to the piecemeal and recondite nature of academic research concerning hnefa-tafl itself, an initial objective of this study is to propose a dice-based reconstruction that makes use of available archaeological and literary evidence originating from subsequent tafl games. Because detailed information about these descendant games survives in more complete fashion, the scant material relating to the rules and layout of hnefa-tafl found within earlier Icelandic sagas is supplemented in this diachronic study with conclusions drawn from later tafl games. Players must understand not only the logical rules of play, but also the cultural framework informing its representation. To this end, game mechanics and decision-making in hnefa-tafl are further explored through the cultural lens of saga literature, which serves as the principle source material for fully understanding how much of hnefa-tafl depended on player agency and to what end the incorporation of chance-based gameplay affected interpersonal relations between players. Evidence suggests that these interactions were characterised by an ex post facto distinction made from dice rolls distinguishing lucky and unlucky individuals, which in turn presupposed that fortune was inherent to the player as part of their personality, at once both the cause and the expression of socially recognised accomplishment or condemnation. Such fatalistic aspects inherent to tafl play are also identified in eschatological imagery recounting the development and demise of the Icelandic Commonwealth, which leads this study to conclude that hnefa-tafl constituted a mode of recollection specific to board games wherein societies invest material apparatus with connotations of their owners’ cultural identities.

Outlawry in Medieval Scandinavia as a subject of academic interest has been growing more popular in recent years. But now, as in the 1930s when the topic first took off among Dutch and German scholars, the focus seems set on a predominantly literary study through the lens of the Icelandic sagas, with the collections and codes of law taking a back seat. While comparative studies between sagas and laws have been tackled in the past few decades, with scholars like William Ian Miller and Agneta Breisch attempting to further develop our collective understanding of the society of Commonwealth Iceland, few, if any, have adopted such a comparative approach to two different law codes. This thesis seeks to remedy this situation. By comparing the different forms of outlawry and punishment in Grágás and the Gulaþingslǫg, an improved picture shall be created of how outlawry developed and was utilized in the two different political systems that characterized twelfth and thirteenth century Iceland and Norway.

This work presents an outline of the Old Norse vocabulary associated with magic and its practicioners. The research is focused on the individual words’ evaluative aspect and on their function within the texts, as well as on the narrative roles of magic as a literary motif and as a cultural concept. The literary motif of magic plays a significant role as a narrative device that enables the construction of multiple layers of meaning in the texts. The cultural concept of magic contributes to the conceptualization of various social and psychological aspects, such as the transformations of political power, gender roles, the transgression of norms, irrational impulses, and diverse forms of otherness.

https://www.utzverlag.de/catalog/book/44810

The society depicted in the Íslendinga sögur ('sagas of Icelanders' or 'family sagas') is one which is made up of links, of social bonds, between individuals and groups. Slaves are tied by a bond of ownership to farmers. Workers are also tied to farmers by year-long terms of service. Farmers in turn declare themselves in þing with a goði. Groups are also linked by kinship bonds, or bonds created by marriage. Although these bonds can occasionally be changed or adjusted, people do not vacillate between social groups. What then of saga characters who have no social bonds – no support structure but also no loyalties or responsibilities? In this article I will look at some examples of vagrants in these sagas; and, in particular, at how such characters seek to use their position on the fringes of saga society and their lack of social bonds to their advantage. Vagrants - gǫngumenn, einhleypingar, stafkarlar - are portrayed in an almost exclusively negative light in the sagas. They are depicted as being scurrilous, mercenary, treacherous and manipulative and rarely have social or kinship links of significance. For the saga narrator, however, they proved vital agents to move along saga plots, escalate feuds and transfer information across the social and geographical landscape of Iceland that was impassable for other saga characters.

In both lawcodes and literary accounts, the medieval North displays a common and specific punishment: outlawry. In all cases, being an outlaw meant to fall outside the protection of the law, therefore being exposed to be killed by anyone without legal consequences. The punishment did not only legitimate a revenge-killing, it also had the practical consequence to force the criminal to flee the territory, and thus getting rid of troublemakers. While in Scandinavia most outlaws escape, in Iceland they face a very different configuration: they cannot leave the island. Icelandic outlaws had then to wander around the land, inhabit its wild landscape, some of them for almost 20 years, leaving a memorable trace in saga-writing. Did Icelanders actually use their island as a natural prison? This paper aims to argue that thinking in terms of geography is a key to understanding the nature of Icelandic outlawry as a social structure and its representation in saga literature. Questioning the authenticity of the accounts of skóggangr, I will analyse the vocabulary connected to outlawry throughout the saga corpus and classify it according to geographic settings and time of action. This will unveil a persistent pattern of representation through time (from the earliest Íslendingasögur to the later ones) and space (from Iceland to Norway and other Norse settled territories) not following social nor legal changes, but geographical ones only, and therefore depicting Iceland as a timeless and specific territory. Finally, this will lead to an assessment of Icelandic outlawry as a long lasting literary device created and transmitted by saga-writers to differentiate Iceland from its nordic cousins in general, and from Norwegian authority in particular.

HISTOIRES RÉGIONALES DU NORD DE L’ISLANDE 
(lxxx + 360 p)
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Traduit du vieil islandais, introduit et annoté par Grégory Cattaneo

Histoire des gens du Ljósavatn (Ljósvetninga saga)
L’Histoire des gens du Ljósavatn existe en deux versions. La plus ancienne nous est parvenue par fragments, tandis que la plus récente, existant sous la forme d’une œuvre complète, est complétée par des « dits »  (v. isl. þættir) indépendants qui ne peuvent pas avoir fait partie de l’original. Problématique dans ses formes existantes, la saga originale peut avoir été assemblée de manière maladroite en trois parties très différentes. La première partie décrit les conflits causés par le trouble-fête Sölmundr. La partie centrale tourne autour des personnages de Þórir Helgason de Laugaland dans le Hörgárdalur et Þorkell d’Öxará, fils de Þorgeirr le « chef » (v. isl. goði) de Ljósavatn, qui sont à la source de rumeurs malveillantes sur Guðmundr le Puissant de Möðruvellir, grand seigneur du nord de l’île boréale. Guðmundr réagit en affrontant et en tuant Þorkell. La dernière partie de la saga décrit une variété de conflits opposant les jeunes générations et particulièrement les descendants de Þorgeirr et Guðmundr. Les événements dépeints à la fin du récit se déroulent après 1050 et une période proche plus de la date de composition de la saga que pour le reste des Íslendingasögur ou « sagas des Islandais ». Les liens entretenus avec des personnages de sagas de contemporains (samtíðarsögur) comme ceux de la saga des Sturlungar et les sagas des rois (kónungasögur) ainsi que sa forme narrative brute et orale, suggèrent que l’Histoire des gens du Ljósavatn pourrait être l’une des plus anciennes Íslendingasögur, dont la rédaction remonterait au début du XIIIe siècle.
Cette traduction, inédite en français, de la Ljósvetninga saga ainsi que du Sörla þáttr, de l’Ófeigs þáttr et du Vöðu-Brands þáttr sera faite à partir des rédactions médiévales des manuscrits AM 561 4to et AM 162 C fol et de l’édition de référence : Ljósvetninga saga með þáttum […]. Björn Sigfússon gaf út, Reykjavik, Hið íslenzka fornritafélag (Íslenzk fornrit, X), 1940, p. 1-106.

Histoire des gens du Reykjadalur et de Skúta le Meurtrier (Reykdœla saga ok Víga-Skútu)
Les événements de l’Histoire des gens du Reykjadalur se déroulent dans la même région que la saga précédente (Histoire des gens du Ljósavatn) mais à une période antérieure (le Xe siècle) et par conséquent les deux œuvres ont peu de points communs. L’Histoire des gens du Reykjadalur comporte deux parties distinctes : la première traite périodiquement de Vémundr la Frange (chapitres 1 à 16) et la seconde de Skúta le Meurtrier (chapitres 17 à 30). Un autre personnage important de la première partie de la saga est Áskell le Goði, oncle du fauteur de troubles Vémundr. Homme de paix, Áskell finit par dissimuler sa blessure mortelle afin d’éviter d’être la cause de nouveaux conflits : il représente un noble païen conçu par l’auteur de la saga en termes de vertus chrétiennes. La saga se divise non seulement en deux parties principales, mais également en de nombreuses sections thématiques plus petites; selon toute vraisemblance, le texte médiéval a été maladroitement assemblé à partir de récits oraux. Bien qu’il soit difficile à dater avec certitude, le style primitif de la saga et les références fréquentes à la tradition orale suggèrent que cette narration pourrait être parmi les plus anciennes des Íslendingasögur ou « sagas des Islandais ».
Cette traduction, inédite en français, de la Reykdœla saga ok Víga-Skútu sera faite à partir des rédactions médiévales des manuscrits AM 561 4to et AM 507 4to et de l’édition de référence : Reykdœla saga ok Víga-Skútu, dans Ljósvetninga saga […]. Björn Sigfússon gaf út, Reykjavik, Hið íslenzka fornritafélag (Íslenzk fornrit, X), 1940, p. 149-243.

This paper looks at the use of ergo and nið in the poetic Eddas and the various sagas. It is intended for a nonacademic audience within the medieval recreation group of which I am a member. It replaces a similar paper I withdrew this past summer.

Now open access at https://edition.fi/kalevalaseura/catalog/book/956.

Much of both Icelandic and medieval Irish literature is, in one way or another, storytelling about places, reflecting a deep engagement with the concept of ‘place’ and the creation of a ‘sense of place’. This book takes as its starting point the shared interest that Icelandic and Irish storytelling have in ‘place’ and asks whether the medieval Icelandic sense of place, as reflected in Icelandic narrative culture, has been influenced by the close contacts that existed during the Viking Age between Iceland and the Gaelic-speaking world of Ireland and Scotland. In attempting to answer this question, the book contributes to the long-standing debate about Gaelic influences in Icelandic culture, the much more recent discourse on the spatiality of medieval Icelandic literature and storytelling, and the cultural history of the Icelandic Settlement Period. Obliquely, the findings of the book may even shed light on the origins of Icelandic saga literature.
The books offers critical insights on a number of general points of spatial theory, as both the Gaelic and the Old Norse-Icelandic material can offer valuable contributions to the theoretical-systematic study of ‘space’, ‘place’, and ‘home’. The focus of the monograph, however, lies on an in-depth study of material drawn primarily from toponymy and two especially place-focused medieval Icelandic texts: Landnámabók, the ‘Book of Settlements’, and Eyrbyggja saga, the ‘Saga of the Inhabitants of Eyr’.
The book’s first chapter (“Place, Naming Place, and Playing with Place”) starts out with presenting the reader with an introduction to fundamental aspects of current theorising on the concepts of ‘space’, ‘place’, and ‘home’. After this theoretical prelude, the discussion takes a more empirical turn, making a survey of Icelandic place-names that seem to have been directly transferred from Britain (esp. Scotland and the Scottish islands) and undertaking a comparison of three medieval Irish and three medieval Icelandic place-stories that highlights remarkable structural parallels in how stories are told about places in both the medieval Gaelic-speaking world and in early Iceland.
The second and main chapter of the book (“Narrating Place: a Survey of Place-Stories on the Move”) then undertakes an in-depth study of nine specific examples of Icelandic-Gaelic place-lore adaptations:
1. the water-horse story in Landnámabók H71/S83;
2. the account of Ørlygr Hrappsson’s settlement in Landnámabók H15;
3. the biographies of ‘Saint’ Ásólfr in Landnámabók S24 and H21;
4. the account of Auðr the Deep-Minded and the Krosshólar Hills in Landnámabók S97;
5. the accounts of papar in Landnámabók (S1/H1, S320/H280, S323=H283) and Íslendingabók (ch. 1), which can be shown to be purely pseudo-historical constructs playing on Gaelic approaches to the semantisation of space rather than relating any factual presence of Gaelic monks in pre-Settlement Iceland;
6. the early modern folklore of the Ódáinsakur in the Hvanndalur Valley and its possible Viking Age prehistory;
7. the accounts of houses of excessive hospitality in Landnámabók (S72/H60; S86/H74; S200=H168) and Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 8);
8. the story of Þórólfr Twist-Foot and his transformation into a splendid but violent bull in Eyrbyggja saga (especially chs 33–34, 63);
9. and the report of Hvítramannaland in Landnámabók (S122/H94).
All these narratives seem to be based on an adaptation of prominent and common Gaelic storytelling motifs as they are found in medieval Irish literature, esp. Irish hagiography and the heroic storytelling of the Ulster Cycle of Tales. With some important caveats, these nine examples aim to be an exhaustive survey of major Icelandic adaptations of Gaelic place-lore. The chapter also pays particular attention to the use of toponyms in such narratives and to the specific historical situation of the Icelandic settlement. In particular, this includes the strong emphasis on the narrative construction of ‘home’ that results from this historical situation and which in many ways is mirrored in the narratives under scrutiny: it seems that some early settlers made themselves at home in Iceland by inscribing Gaelic stories into their newly-taken land.
Chapter 3 (“Epiloge: Hoofprints and Sagas”), the book’s final chapter, focusses on patterns and cross-connections rather than on individual tales. It takes the material introduced in chapter 2 and analyses it laterally, highlighting themes that appear to recur and play dominant roles across this data set. Among the most notable of these recurrent themes is a strong impression that the way how Gaelic material is adapted in high medieval Icelandic place-storytelling seems to imply an element of a genuinely Settlement Period-tradition in thirteenth-century Icelandic literature: this literature seems to preserve much more early material than the author would have thought possible before the conclusion of the project presented by this book. Another recurrent theme is the importance of the Hebrides for the transmission of Gaelic place-lore to Iceland: more than half of the (it seems) clear cases of an Icelandic adaptation of Gaelic place-lore are explicitly connected with early Icelandic settlers that reached Iceland not directly from Scandinavia, but first emigrated to the Hebrides before finally moving on to Iceland. The Hebrides, it seems, acted as a central corridor for the transmission of Gaelic cultural elements to Iceland: for some early Icelandic settlers, the reference point for what ‘home’ should be like was not Scandinavia, but was the Gaelic landscape of the Scottish isles, and so after their arrival in Iceland they went on to turn the Icelandic landscape conceptually into a facsimile of the landscapes of the Gaelic world. This last point, furthermore, already plays into one of the two final important points to note: Gaelic-inspired Icelandic place-lore seems to show a marked emphasis on the Christian religious semantisation of the land as well as a pervasive focus on the creation of ‘home’.
Both of the latter points, of course, arise naturally from the overall historical situation of the Settlement Period: during this period, early Icelandic Christianity was first and foremost dependent on Irish and Scottish Christianity, and the settlement on a previously entirely empty island necessitated a concerted effort to establish a bond between the settlers and this new, empty land. Taking the implications of this emphasis on the creation of ‘home’ one step further, the third chapter – and the book – conclude by considering some recent and classical contributions to the discussion about the origins of Icelandic saga literature. Thus, the book closes with the question of whether the reception of Gaelic place-lore in Iceland, which first and foremost seems to reflect a deep yearning for ‘home’ by partly Gaelicised settlers that had reached Iceland via Britain and Ireland, might not be just another expression of the same need that later on would bring forth Icelandic saga literature.

The article deals with the birth of a linguistic norm in Iceland and Italy. The discussion focuses on four works, which lay the foundations for the discussion of grammar and poetics in their respective vernaculars, namely Dante Alighieri’s De vulgari eloquentia and Convivio for Italian, and the First Grammatical Treatise and Snorri Sturluson’s Edda for Icelandic. A parallel between these four works is established, and the view that Latin has been little used in Iceland during the Middle Ages is challenged, also in accordance with both earlier scholarship (Lehmann 1937 and Walter 1976) and recent discoveries (Gottskálk Jensson 2002, 2004, 2009 and Marner 2016). It is argued that Latin is bound to have been used as a language of scholarship in Iceland as it was in Western Europe, although manuscript transmission seldom provides direct evidence in this respect. Moreover, a view that takes into account the different weight that Latin as such had in the two different speech communities, Italian and Icelandic, is advocated. This approach rests upon the fact that, whereas in Italy there was an unbroken literary tradition in Latin from Roman times to the Middle Ages, in Iceland Icelandic was the only language to be used until the Conversion, i.e. until the Latin alphabet was introduced. Thus, it is not surprising that the Icelandic vernacular was held in relatively higher esteem in Iceland, therefore leading to a relatively earlier and richer literary tradition in that language, whereas in Italy the vernacular had to be first raised in linguistic status in order to be used as literary language.

The nature and operation of medieval trade in Iceland over seven centuries is examined in this paper. Three phases of trade can be distinguished. The first, from c. 900 was marked by the growing dominance of Nor- wegian traders who came to dominate overseas commerce and culminated with the union with Norway. The second from c. 1250 is marked by the growing importance of dried cod (stockfish) which superseded coarse cloth (vaðmál) as the major export from Iceland. The third phase in the 15th and 16th centuries was marked by the capture of the stockfish trade by the English and German merchants. The modest level of trade prevented the emergence of a merchant class in Iceland, but the demand for vaðmál and stockfish had a profound effect on Icelandic society and in the measures of value used. Coins were not employed, and trade was carried out by barter. The units for the measurement of value were successively silver, cloth and then stockfish. As the items of trade changed, so did the units of value.

»Er det overhovedet muligt at skrive en fælles vestnordisk historie« (21), fragt sich der isländische Historiker Jón Th. Thór zu Beginn des ersten Sammelbandes über die Geschichte des „Westnordens“, also einer gemeinsamen Geschichte Islands, Grönlands und der Färöer.  Dies ist die Kernfrage dieses Sammelbandes, sie zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch das Buch hindurch und an ihr muss sich jedes Kapitel messen lassen. Für Thór und seine Mitherausgeber Daniel Thorleifsen, Andras Mortensen sowie Ole Marquardt lautet die Antwort auf die Frage eindeutig ja, zumindest was die Zeit von 985 bis 1400 betrifft und von 1721 bis heute (22–23)...

torfi h. tulinius Skrásetning og stjórnun lands og lýðs: Um Landnámuritun og goðamenningu Íslendingabók Ara fróða og Landnámabók segja frá upphafi byggðar á Íslandi. Reyndar er heimildum frá tímum sjálfs landnámsins á níundu og tíundu öld ekki til að dreifa. Því þarf að setja þann fyrirvara að þetta er mynd tólftu og þrettándu aldar af þessu upphafi. Hins vegar bendir fátt til annars en að þessi mynd samraemist veruleikanum hvað varðar þann tíma þegar landnámið hófst og að landnemarnir hafi flestir verið frá Noregi og norraenum byggðum á Bretlandseyjum. 1 Að öðru leyti ríkir mikil óvissa um sannfraeði Landnámabókar og raunar Íslendingabókar þótt skemmra sé á milli atburða og ritunar hjá Ara, sem var að störfum í byrjun tólftu aldar, en höfundum þeirra gerða Landnámu sem varðveist hafa; þeir unnu sín verk á seinni hluta þeirrar þrettándu. 2 Auk þess er þessi mynd mjög tak-mörkuð. Mest er sagt frá landnámsmönnum af karlkyni en lítið er sagt af kvenfólki, börnum, þraelum og vinnufólki sem hlýtur að hafa komið með. 3 Sem heimildir um samtíma sinn, þ.e. tólftu og þrettándu öld, eru baeði ritin þó mjög merkileg. Segja má að mynd sú sem Íslendingabók dregur upp sé á vissan hátt lóðrétt því að hún lýsir upphafi byggðar á Íslandi og síðan hvernig helstu stofnanir þjóðarinnar urðu til í réttri tímaröð. Aftur á móti er myndin sem er máluð í Landnámabók að svipuðu leyti lá rétt. Þrátt fyrir það sem kalla maetti sagnfraeðilegan inngang í þeim gerðum sem varðveist hafa með frásögninni af þeim Ingólfi og Hjörleifi er viðfangs efni ritsins að lýsa því hvernig byggð hófst á landinu frá héraði til héraðs, firði til fjarðar, frá einum landsfjórðungi til þess naesta réttsaelis í kringum landið. Ef Íslendingabók lýsir þessu upphafi og framvindu þess í tíma þá fjallar Landnámabók að mestu um rýmið og hvernig því var upphaflega 1 Gunnar Karlsson, Landnám Íslands, Handbók í íslenskri miðaldasögu 2 (Reykjavík: Há-skóla útgáfan, 2016), 90 og áfram og 103 og áfram. 2 Jakob Benediktsson, "Formáli," í Íslendingabók-Landnámabók, útg. Jakob Benedikts-son, Íslenzk fornrit 1 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1968), l og áfram. 3 Jakob Benediktsson, "Formáli," cxxiv.

In this paper, an attempt is made to elucidate the enigmatic chapter in Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, where Egil receives the gift of a shield from a younger skald, Einar Helgason, who bears the nickname 'skálaglamm' or 'bowl-tinkle'. Einar and his shield are mentioned in several sagas which all seem earlier than Egils saga. It will be argued that the story of the shield as it is told in the saga is on the one hand a subtle intertextual play with the story of Einar skálaglamm and on the other a commentary on the saga itself. Building on this, attention will be drawn to the theme of 'conver-sion' in the saga, not only religious, but also of the conversion of valuables from one form into another. The myth of the origin of poetry will be discussed as the matrix for this 'poetics of conversion' which is discernible in Egils saga and other works associated with Snorri Sturluson. Zusammmenfassung: Dieser Artikel unternimmt den Versuch, das rätselhafte Kapitel der Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, in dem Egil von dem jüngeren Skalden Einar Hel-gason mit dem Beinamen ‚skálaglamm' oder ‚Schalenglanz' einen Schild geschenkt bekommt. Einar und sein Schild finden in einer Reihe Sagas Erwähnung, die alle früher zu datieren scheinen als die Egils saga. Die Geschichte des Schildes, wie sie in der Saga erzählt wird, kann auf der einen Seite ein subtiles, interetextuelles Anspie-len auf die Geschichte des Einar skálaglamm sein, auf der anderen Seite aber auch ein Kommentar zur Saga selbst. Auch dem Thema der ‚Konversion' wird Beachtung geschenkt, und zwar nicht nur im religiösen Sinne, sondern auch in Bezug auf die Umwandlung von Kostbarkeiten. Der Mythos von der Entstehung der Dichtkunst wird als Matrix für eine ‚Poesie der Konversion' diskutiert, die in der Egils saga und anderen Werken im Umfeld Snorri Sturlusons greifbar wird.

This work offers a new reading of the society of medieval Iceland through the prism of the communities of inhabitants. Using concepts from historians of the medieval West and a thorough examination of the corpus at our disposal, we managed to discover how the communities of inhabitants came to existence and function during the 11th and 13th centuries. They assumed with the adoption of the Tithe Laws the functions that parishes could perform in other parts of the medieval West. Around 1100, we observe a change within a society where large landowners became local chieftains and assumed power based on their control of the territory and the community. During our period, the Icelandic society was complex and could be approached through the elites, the peasants and the needy or in other words: verticality, horizontality, and charity.

Ágrip
Þessi ritgerð bíður upp á nýja sýn á samfélagi miðalda á Íslandi í gegnum prisma á samfélaga íbúanna. Með því að nota hugmyndir frá sagnfræðingum um miðalda vesturlönd og ítarlega athugun á líkinu sem við höfum, tókst okkur að uppgötva hvernig samfélög íbúanna urðu til og störfuðu á 11. og 13. öld. Þegar tíundarlögin voru samþykkt gerðu samfélögin ráð fyrir að störf sem sóknir sinntu voru eins í öðrum hlutum vesturheims miðalda. Um árið 1100 fylgjumst við með breytingum innan samfélags þar sem stórir landeigendur urðu að höfðingjum á staðnum og tóku völd byggt á stjórn þeirra á landsvæðinu og samfélaginu. Á okkar tímabili var íslenskt samfélag flókið og var hægt að rannsaka það í gegnum elíturnar, bændur og fátækt fólk, eða með öðrum orðum: lóðrétt, lárétt og góðgerðarstarfsemi.

Revista Chilena de Estudios Medievales | eISSN 0719-689X Resumen: En este artículo buscamos evaluar la aplicabilidad de la categoría "sociedad de base campesina", propuesta por el historiador británico Chris Wickham, para la sociedad Islandesa medieval. Dado que la isla noratlántica es uno de los ejemplos históricos que él considera modélicos respecto de la categoría, resulta pertinente considerar en qué medida esta caracterización se adecúa a lo que la historiografía describe sobre el ejemplo islandés. //

In this article I aim to assess the applicability of the concept "peasant-based socioeconomic system" as proposed by the British historian Chris Wickham, to Medieval Icelandic society. As the North Atlantic island is one of the historical examples he considers a model for such category , it is meaningful to consider how his characterisation conforms to what historiography has described for the Icelandic example.

Between the late 9th and the middle of the 13th century, Iceland was a pre-state society with a political system based on “private” creation, adjudication and enforcement of law. The functioning of this society has been a subject of numerous studies conducted within various disciplines, including legal history, political anthropology and institutional economics. In recent decades, medieval Iceland has also become an object of interest to the various branches of the modern anarchist movement, whose members are prone to looking for historical examples of societies which lack a coercive government. The aim of this article is to critique the anarchist reconstructions of the medieval Icelandic  mode of governance. In particular, I try to demonstrate that the anarchist visions of the non-state Icelandic socio-political order are anachronistic and substantially diff er from the accounts found in the Old Icelandic narrative sources, as well as in the private collections of the medieval local law, known as Grágás.