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The popular image of the Viking Age is of warlords and marauding bands pillaging their way along the shores of Northern Europe. In this fascinating history, Jesse Byock shows that Norse society in Iceland was actually an independent one-almost a republican Free State, without warlords or kings. Combining history with anthropology and archaeology, this remarkable study serves as a valuable companion to the Icelandic sagas, exploring all aspects of Viking Age life: feasting, farming, the power of chieftains and the church, marriage, and the role of women. With masterful interpretations of the blood feuds and the sagas, Byock reveals how the law courts favored compromise over violence, and how the society grappled with proto-democratic tendencies. A work with broad social and historical implications for our modern institutions, Byock's history will alter long-held perceptions of the Viking Age.
- Sales Rank: #275244 in Books
- Color: Multicolor
- Published on: 2001-09-01
- Released on: 2001-09-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.80" h x .80" w x 5.00" l, .73 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 432 pages
From Publishers Weekly
The Icelandic Vikings, according to Byock, professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian at UCLA, were far more than fur-clad, flea-bitten, mead-swilling raiders, as legend would have them. In this survey of their surprisingly complex society, spanning the three centuries from the island's settlement to 1260 when the king of Norway took control of it, Byock shows the Icelanders as a strong-willed and legally minded people who managed to carve a living as farmers out of an inhospitable environment while creating a remarkably modern free state governed by powerful laws and notions of honor instead of warlords and kings. He introduces readers to the Icelandic economy, social life (especially blood feuds) and home and family life, including a wonderful illustrated appendix on construction using turf. While this book will appeal to some readers of popular social surveys, in particular The Last Apocalypse: Europe at the Year 1000 A.D, by James Reston Jr., Byock's tone is generally academic and so more similar to that of, say, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens, by James Davidson. Byock's approach to his material also threatens an academic dust-up. He defies historiographical convention, but not without good and well-stated reason, by mining the Icelandic sagas for historical truths. Some may consider this approach akin to mining Cheever for truths about the lives of 20th-century suburbanites, but he certainly puts those facts he finds to cogent use. Illus.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Byock (old Norse and medieval Scandinavian, UCLA; Medieval Iceland) here attempts to dispel some popular Viking stereotypes. The image of the Viking as a pitiless destroyer of monasteries and a pillager of towns must be amended, he argues, to include the creation of great literature, a republican form of government, and the mechanisms for conflict resolution. Byock presents the evolution of Viking Iceland from its settlement beginnings, to its flowering as a highly developed legislative body, to its dissolution at the hands of the conquering Norwegians, who imposed a monarchical government in the 1260s. Byock uses Icelandic sagas to illustrate Viking efforts toward a type of conflict resolution that would be least injurious to society as a whole. He also points out the roles that women and Christianity played in the evolution of what was, for a time, a progressive society. This work should appeal to both students and general readers with an interest in Viking-age Europe. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries. Robert James Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Byock brings several disciplines to his work, crossing the boundaries between history, literature, law, and archaeology. This well-written book takes up a wide variety of subjects, including the social fabric, domestic realities, cultural codes, politics and legal infrastructures, and the mechanisms that defused conflicts among the fiercely independent early Icelanders." —Viking Heritage Magazine
"A vital and original reinterpretation both of the sagas and of the society which created them. Byock's book is an essential guide at once to living conditions and to mentalities."—The London Review of Books
Most helpful customer reviews
50 of 50 people found the following review helpful.
The Uniqueness of Early Icelandic Society
By James Paris
At a recent academic symposium about Viking culture, one member of the audience asked, "Why didn't the Icelanders protect their settlements in Greenland with police or the military?" From his point of view, it was a reasonable question -- except that he had missed the point completely about why Iceland, especially during its golden age from AD 870 through 1260, was a truly unique society.
Professor Byock in his excellent VIKING AGE ICELAND zeroes in on this period and answers the question why this society was like no other. Where mainland European societies were all ruled either by large or petty despots or by the Church, Iceland was governed more or less by the consent of the governed. There was some slavery, and people on the edges of society fared no better (or worse) than anywhere else -- but your average Icelandic freeman and even women had some protection from the rich and powerful.
Until its submission to Norway in 1260, Iceland was a country without an executive, without an army, without a navy. Instead, grievances were addressed by seeking powerful allies whose self-interest in the issue could result in some gain for them. If a neighbor or even a chieftain encroached on your property, you could bribe another chieftain to become involved on your side. You may lose some property, but keep the most part intact for your heirs. (On the continent, your life AND property would both be forfeit.) Chieftains had no clearly defined territory, but only adherents -- and adherents could at any time align with competing chieftains at any time. Any disputes that showed signs of getting out of hand were ultimately resolved at the althing, an annual meeting of the chieftains and their adherents at Thingvellir in the southwest of Iceland.
Byock takes the sagas as his principal source and carefully shows how conflicts were resolved in such a way that life and property were protected. That is not to say that bloody, long-lasting feuds did not erupt -- but the damage was limited by the intercession of chieftains so that the feud would not divide society at large. As Njal Thorgeirsson says in NJALS SAGA: "With laws must our land be built, or with lawlessness laid waste."
Some of the features of Icelandic society are difficult for us hieratic Europeans and Americans to comprehend. Byock provides detailed and lavishly illustrated examples to make his points clearly and convincingly. Indeed, in few historical works that I have ever seen has there been such superb illustrative maps and charts. Additional support is provided by comprehensive notes, bibliography, appendices, and index. This is at the same time a scholarly and an eminently readable work -- and by far the best study of Icelandic society to date.
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent Companion to the Icelandic Sagas
By R. Albin
This is an excellent book about the society that produced the great Icelandic Sagas. This is not a narrative history but an effort to describe the essential features of Icelandic life. While the period covered spans centuries, there is strong continuity in Icelandic culture during this time and the basic features of Icelandic culture were largely unchanged from the settling of the island to the establishment of Norweigian royal domination. Written by a leading scholar of Icelandic literature and history, this volume describes the material basis for Icelandic life, provides a good deal of information about the ecologic impact of the settlers, and provides an outline of the major historical events in the period from the settling of Iceland to the beginning of Norweigian lordship. The center of the book, however, is a detailed and lucid discussion of the unique political and legal structure of Iceland. Iceland was settled by Norse fleeing the emerging powers of monarchs in mainland Scandinavia. The near subsistence nature of Iceland's economy required dispersion of people across all the viable portions of the island and the absence of useful cash crops and other sources of exports prevented concentrations of power. Iceland had no central government, no towns, and a legal system based on relative equality. Iceland was not a feudal state, there were no overlords, and even after the conversion to Christianity, the Church had little power. Governence and justice were essentially private matters, worked out by individuals either informally or through a sophisticated legal system that ostensibly was based on equality. The key figures in this system were chiefs who commanded authority by virtue of family and political ties, legal skill, wealth, and charisma. These positions were not hereditary and were based partly on ability to command allegience of smaller farmers. Failure of chiefs to lead well could lead to desertion by followers. Excessive success by Chiefs in amassing power could lead to local violent reactions and the antagonism of other chiefs, preventing the emergence of regional leaders who could have become overlords. This system for centuries maintained a relatively egalitarian society very distinct from feudal mainland Europe. Byock does an excellent job of describing this society and tracing its ecological and historic roots. Byock provides also a very interesting and cogent analysis of feuds, which appear as central elements in many Sagas. While most commentators and readers are often impressed at the violence in the feuds, Byock points out the many ways in which feuding was channeled into non-violent ways of resolving disputes. In Byock's analysis, the manipulation of feuds is a cardinal example of the ways in which the highly individualistic and competitive Icelanders prevented serious damage to the social fabric. For Byock, the overarching theme of Icelandic culture during this period is the channeling of individual passions and resentments into non-destructive results, a remarkable goal in a society without formal government in our sense and entirely private means of seeking justice for grievances and disputes. It may also be this unique feature that gives the Sagas their great appeal. Byock uses effectively many quotations from different Sagas to illustrate his points. In so doing, he shows how the Sagas exemplify the cultural focus of Icelandic society.
It is surprising that a group of stories devoted largely to personal and legal conflicts among a group of Medieval farmers continue to command a large audience. The skilful composition of the best Sagas explains some of their appeal but other forms of Medieval literature do not attract this many readers. The underlying theme of conflict between individual impulses and social cohesion is tremendously appealing to modern readers.
This book contains a number of excellent additional features including good maps illustrating the locations of the major Sagas and other important aspects of Icelandic life.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
An essential companion to the Icelandic sagas
By Jill Malter
This is an excellent book about Viking society in Iceland, and Jesse Byock is a great authority on the topic.
Byock describes an Icelandic society that valued "order more than justice," and we see numerous examples of what he means by this as he examines how Icelanders kept feuds from getting completely out of hand.
Still, the book already is worth getting simply for the explanations of where all the action takes place in the Sagas, complete with useful maps, the descriptions of what Icelandic houses looked like, complete with archaeological house plans, and the depiction of Icleandic society as almost completely rural, with virtually nothing in the way of a town. As well as an important explanation of the Althing and its structure.
Plenty of us read one or more Icelandic sagas. But these sagas were written for people who knew quite well where Iceland was and where the various parts of it were located. They knew what an Icelandic house looked like, and they knew something of the terrain and the weather in the land. They knew how Icelanders obtained food and what resources the country had. And they knew all about the Althing (basically, their parliament). To understand these sagas, we need to know some of this as well. And Byock is wonderful at giving us this very valuable information.
There is a good description of how justice worked in Iceland. Blood vengeance was an option, but not a necessity. Compromise was preferred. Those who got too far out of line, say, with multiple murders, were outlawed. That left enforcement of penalties up to others. The system worked fairly well.
Two things about Icelandic society made the strongest impression on me. First, for many reasons, Icelandic society had enormous respect for truth. Their writings have plenty of facts. But more important (maybe because they were not numerous and lived on an island), there were very few secret felonies! Most people confessed to murders at once, to try to avoid blood vengeance. As Byock says, "rarely was there true secrecy" about who the guilty parties were.
In any case, I think Byock has confirmed that in Icelandic society, perjury was a worse crime than murder. That is very different from modern nations, where people on trial generally are expected to tell plenty of lies under oath and get away with it, and where government officials are expected to lie as well. I got the feeling that Viking society happened to value truth very much indeed.
Second, in spite of the value on truth, Icelanders valued pragmatism even more. I think Byock makes the point about Icelandic pragmatism in his description of the Icelandic conversion to Christianity. I see this event a little differently than Byock, but I have no problems at all with what he says about it.
I think that what Byock says is consistent with my feeling that the Icelanders knew that Christianity was at best a perverse fraud and an untruth but accepted it anyway for pragmatic reasons. However, I think the Vikings went too far here, and that a society with so much respect for truth that accepts a known lie as a rule to live by has simply destroyed itself. If one accepts such a lie to preserve one's society, what is left to preserve?
I recommend all of Byock's books. I truly enjoyed reading this book, which may be his best.
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