Debating the "Thing" in the North: Selected Papers from Workshops Organized by The Assembly Project. Vol. 1

Description

'The Assembly Project (TAP) – Meeting-places in Northern Europe AD 400-1500' is an international collaborative project investigating the first systems of governance in Northern Europe. The study of lordship and power in medieval societies in northwest Europe has seen considerable attention in historical as well as archaeological scholarship, with a particular focus on the transition between chiefdoms and petty kingdoms to supraregional kingdoms and states. The study of military and royal institutions has largely dominated the scholarly discourse, however, at the expense of discussion on what can be considered perhaps the most important agent in the process of medieval power: the assembly. Around the North Sea littoral, by the 9th to 12th centuries A.D., kingdoms were governed using systems of power in which assembly — both royal and public — were integral elements in the processes of negotiating, achieving consensus and exercising authority. In Norse society, assemblies referred to as 'thing', which were both parliaments and courts, are evidenced in runic inscriptions and written documents from the 11th century onwards. Debating the Thing in the North I: Introduction / Alexandra Sanmark, Sarah Semple, Natascha Mehler, and Frode Iversen 1 I. DEBATING SOURCES 'Concilium' and 'Pagus' — Revisiting the Early Germanic Thing System of Northern Europe / Frode Iversen 5 'Þing goða' — The Mythological Assembly Site / Nanna Løkka 18 Sacred Legal Places in Eddic Poetry — Reflected in Real Life? / Irene Riisøy 28 II. SYSTEMS OF POWER State Formation, Administrative Areas, and 'Thing' Sites in the Borgarthing Law Province, Southeast Norway / Marie Ødegaard 43 Tracing Medieval Administrative Systems: Hardanger, Western Norway / Halldis Hobæk 64 Governance at the Anglo-Scandinavian Interface: Hundredal Organization in the Southern Danelaw / John Baker and Stuart Brookes 76 II. PLACES OF ASSEMBLY Patterns of Assembly: Norse 'Thing' Sites in Shetland / Alexandra Sanmark 96 What is in a Booth? Material Symbolism at Icelandic Assembly Sites / Orri Vésteinsson 111