Medieval Icelandic society
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Recent papers in 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... more
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... more
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... more
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... more
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) –... more
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... more
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:... more
An Article in Scandinavian Journal of History (2013), pp. 273-295.
See https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03468755.2013.803498
See https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03468755.2013.803498
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... more
A draft version of an article in Arkiv för nordisk filologi 132 (2017), 75-99.
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... more
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... more
III. Uluslararası Türk Dünyası Kültür Kongresi: Dede Korkut ve Türk Dünyası, İzmir-2015 / III. International Turkish World Culture Congress: Dede Korkut and Turkish World, Izmir-2015
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... more
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... more
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... more
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... more
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... more
HISTOIRES RÉGIONALES DU NORD DE L’ISLANDE (lxxx + 360 p) - 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... more
This is a study of the conflicts between Snorri Sturluson and his nephew Sturla Sighvatsson that may provide the background for the way the saga of their common ancestor Egill Skalla-Grímsson was told.
This paper is a summery of my MA thesis that was submitted to the University of Iceland in 2012 and was given at a joint conference held in Japan with Korean young promising researchers.
A short article (in Spanish) comparing scholarship on bloodfeud and gifts for Medieval Iceland, with special reference to its links with the anthropological tradition.
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... more
Średniowiecze Polskie i Powszechne. T. 8 (12), Katowice, 2016
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’... more
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... more
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... more
This paper offers an analysis pf the connection between the marriages described in Njals saga & Laxdaela saga and new late 13th century marriage contracting laws and relatively new Consent doctrine proposed by the late 13th century Church.
»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... more
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... more
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'.... more
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... more
An article in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 14 (2018), 193-210.
See https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.VMS.5.116395
See https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.VMS.5.116395
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... more
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... more