Viking Age Iceland

Description

The popular image of the Viking Age is a time of warlords and marauding bands pillaging their way along the shores of Northern Europe. Yet, as Jesse Byock reveals in this deeply fascinating and important history, the society founded by Norsemen in Iceland was far from this picture. It was, in fact, an independent, almost republican Free State, without warlords or kings. Honour was crucial in a world which sounds almost Utopian today. In Jesse Byock's words, it was like "a great village": a self-governing community of settlers, who adapted to Iceland's harsh climate and landscape, creating their own society. Combining history and anthropology, this remarkable study explores in rich detail all aspects of Viking Age life: feasting, farming and battling with the elements, the power of chieftains and the church, marriage, the role of women and kinship. It shows us how law courts, which favoured compromise over violence, often prevented disputes over land, livestock or insults from becoming "blood feud". In Iceland we can see a prototype democracy in action, which thrived for 300 years until it came under the control of the King of Norway in the 1260s. This was a unique time in history, which has long perplexed historians and archaeologists, and which provides us today with fundamental insights into sometimes forgotten aspects of western society. By interweaving his own original and innovative research with masterly interpretations of the Old Icelandic Sagas, Jesse Byock brilliantly brings it to life. List of Illustrations List of Maps Acknowledgements Preface Note on Names, Spelling and Pronunciation Introduction 1. An Immigrant Society 2. Resources and Subsistence: Life on a Northern Island 3. Curdled Milk and Calamities: An Inward-looking Farming Society 4. A Devolving and Evolving Social Order 5. The Founding of a New Society and the Historical Sources 6. Limitations on a Chieftain's Ambitions, and Strategies of Feud and Law: "Eyrbyggja saga" 7. Chieftain-Thingmen Relationships and Advocacy 8. The Family and Sturlunga Sagas: Medieval Narratives and Modem Nationalism 9. The Legislative and Judicial System 10. Systems of Power: Advocates, Friendship, and Family Networks 11. Aspects of Blood Feud 12. Feud and Vendetta in a "Great Village" Community 13. Friendship, Blood Feud, and Power: "The Saga of the People of Weapon's Fjord" 14. The Obvious Sources of Wealth 15. Lucrative Sources of Wealth for Chieftains 16. A Peaceful Conversion: The Viking Age Church 17. "Gragas": The "Grey Goose" Law 18. Bishops and Secular Authority: The Later Church 19. Big Chieftains, Big Farmers and their Sagas at the End of the Free State Appendix 1: The Law-speakers Appendix 2: Bishops During the Free State Appendix 3: Turf Construction Appendix 4: A Woman Who Travelled from Vinland to Rome Notes Bibliography Index