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Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power
The history of medieval Europe is incomplete if it does not take Iceland into account. Jesse Byock's reassessment of medieval Iceland uses all the available sources—the medieval Icelanders' historical writings, extensive saga literature, and intricate laws—to explore the way Iceland's social order functioned.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published August 2, 1988
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About the author
Jesse L. Byock
13 books72 followersJesse L. Byock is Professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Feud in the Icelandic Saga (1982) Medieval Iceland (1990), The Saga of King Kraki (1998), and Viking Age Iceland (2001).
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 10, 2015
I have no criticism of this well-written and carefully-researched book, but I'm not its intended audience. Byock's study is a social, economic, and political history of medieval Iceland drawn primarily from the literary evidence of the late family sagas - especially the Sturlinga Saga. His primary concern is closely examining extant discussions of power politics and economics with an eye to examining how, in a completely de-centralized state system, power was wielded and resources were accumulated by the goðar.
Often translated as "chieftain," the goðar held a unique office in which they essentially acted as power brokers, representatives at regional councils, and advocates in disputation. Their roles were not hereditary and, though the role was characterized by Icelandic legal codes, it was somewhat nebulous in its responsibilities. As far as I can gather, the primary currency of the goði (singular) was clout.
I'm no specialist, but my sense is that the main thrust of this book's argument is twofold: 1) it's an example of how to rely on the literary evidence of the sagas to conduct careful historiographic research, without falling to either the extreme of dismissing the sagas as fiction altogether, or the extreme of treating them as literal historical records; 2) to clarify the role and powers of the goðar.
Speaking further in my role as non-specialist, I'll say that this book is written with specialists in mind. Not that it is obscure or highly-technical, mind you, but, well, my primary area of interest is culture, religion, and literature, and while this book did shed some adventitious light on those domains, they are far from the book's central concern. And to those generalists who aren't interested in pinning down the historical arguments with precision, I'd say you would probably be better rewarded by simply reading the sagas themselves.
Another note - if I'm not mistaken, Professor Byock has made significant contributions to Scandinavian archaeology, and I was a little disappointed that the discussion overwhelmingly focused on literary evidence.
Often translated as "chieftain," the goðar held a unique office in which they essentially acted as power brokers, representatives at regional councils, and advocates in disputation. Their roles were not hereditary and, though the role was characterized by Icelandic legal codes, it was somewhat nebulous in its responsibilities. As far as I can gather, the primary currency of the goði (singular) was clout.
I'm no specialist, but my sense is that the main thrust of this book's argument is twofold: 1) it's an example of how to rely on the literary evidence of the sagas to conduct careful historiographic research, without falling to either the extreme of dismissing the sagas as fiction altogether, or the extreme of treating them as literal historical records; 2) to clarify the role and powers of the goðar.
Speaking further in my role as non-specialist, I'll say that this book is written with specialists in mind. Not that it is obscure or highly-technical, mind you, but, well, my primary area of interest is culture, religion, and literature, and while this book did shed some adventitious light on those domains, they are far from the book's central concern. And to those generalists who aren't interested in pinning down the historical arguments with precision, I'd say you would probably be better rewarded by simply reading the sagas themselves.
Another note - if I'm not mistaken, Professor Byock has made significant contributions to Scandinavian archaeology, and I was a little disappointed that the discussion overwhelmingly focused on literary evidence.
October 27, 2018
Very well written, gives good background on the matter.
July 20, 2022
I really enjoyed this book, and learned a lot. For one, I learned that Commonwealth Iceland (circa 900-1200 AD), did actually eventually record their laws down in writing, the Gragas (though some sections seem to contradict each other). I also learned that the disparagement of the sagas as historical evidence, occurred roughly near the time of Icelandic nationalism against the Danes, since the sagas were depicted as literary, rather than historical, to give Iceland its great national literature. Finally, the sagas can be divided roughly into two types, the early family sagas and the later sturglunga sagas.
Icelandic Commonwealth culture is quite unique in that it was a very level society. It was mostly populated originally by Norwegians seeking to to escape the centralizing power of the early Norwegian kings. Since there were no natives in the island (other than Irish monks who quickly left), and Norway was too fragmented at the time to dominate Iceland, there were no external threats to force people into organized hierarchies. And even though the initial settlers brought slaves, since the land was only mostly good for herding instead of farming, slave labor, fit more for plantations, died out quickly. During the initial settlement, the Norwegian king helped create rules for how much land individuals could claim, for a man it depended on how far he could set fires near each other, and for women it was how far they could walk with a young cow (two years old) in a spring day.
That incredibly flat structure lead to a unique political culture, one based on consensus, based mostly on "things"-legal assemblies. Farmers could pledge their allegiance to chiefs (there were roughly 36, give or take), but both parties were allowed to break the relationship more or less at will. The chiefdoms could be bought, inherited (a woman could inherit but had to assign someone else to exercise it) or shared. The chiefs could not really tax (other than a temple tax or thing tax, but those were to defray expenses) or make much money from their own chiefdoms (they could set trading prices, but Iceland was mostly a price taker, and setting too high prices could force traders elsewhere). Rather, the chiefs acquired money by resolving disputes for their thingmen. There would be local things, where disputes could be resolved and also island-wide things, called the Althing. The chiefs could legislate as a council at the things (though it's unclear what the required vote was, and each chief could have two advisors), or suits would be settled (parties could also effectively legislate by requesting clarifications of law). Suits were brought before juries selected by chiefs. Ordinarily the main deterrent from harming others was owing them or their relatives compensation. If compensation was not rendered/accepted, and the case could not be arbitrated, a suit could be brought at at thing (local or althing). A successful suit could lead to full outlawry, anyone could kill the guilty party without owing compensation, and anyone who helped the outlaw was also outlawed. Minor outlawery was essentially a three year exile. In some forms of exile, the guilty party lost the rights of being an Icelander, important because the Norwegians granted certain protections for Icelanders.
The legal system was quite sophisticated in some ways. A major reform was to make quarter courts (that covered each an quarter of Iceland) a court of either first instance or appeals from local things, since it was believed that an accused defendant would not get a fair trial if he was prosecuted away from home. Eventually, a fifth court was created to resolve deadlocked juries (before a six-six split would just issue two conflicting judgments).
While in theory, anyone could prosecute a case, in practice, a chief's support was required to prosecute the case. Since there was no executive branch, the winners of a case had to self-execute successful lawsuits (including running courts of confiscation, which can be lucrative but dangerous for a chief). Chiefs could rally up the necessary bands of men to bring and execute the suit. While each quarter had a limited number of chiefs, the chief-thingman relationship was not strictly geographical, with lots of mingling on the ground. A plaintiff in a suit could also grow his forces by forming "friendship" agreements with others. In many cases it seems like a plaintiff had to give up all their property (in a special handshake agreement) to their chief to encourage a prosecution. That sometimes became tricky because under Icelandic law, it was not really possible to transfer land without the consent of heirs. But chiefs that pushed too hard, not infrequently met bad ends.
There were cultural norms of honor that focused on being proportionate and fair. The culture valued men of honor who could step in as third parties to resolve disputes. Inherent in coalition building is also the value of compromise, which helped maintain the violence level (also channeled into acceptable forms) to an acceptable level.
The conversion of Iceland is quite interesting and was potentially critical in the ending this period of Iceland. When Christianity first came to the island the split between the new God and old Gods threatened to engulf the island in war. So, in an Icelandic manner, the issue was left up to the pagan Lawspeaker (the one paid official in all of Iceland, whose job was to memorize and repeat the laws). After some time under a cloth, the lawspeaker announced that all of Iceland was to become Christian, with a three year grace period for private pagan practice. Because of Iceland's distance from the continent, the church was in many ways quite insular, and not very powerful. There was no separate ecclesiastical hierarchy for the most part. Church property was frequently treated as that of a family, and priests sometimes even acted as chiefs or participated in lawsuits (though the bishop in Norway attempted to stop the practice). The Icelanders also did not let the church take over the traditional method of self defined groups providing for the poor and insurance. But, critical to the income of chiefs, land that had churches on them could collect a tax imposed on anyone who could pay the thing tax (and those could not but had no dependents), roughly fifty percent of could end up in the landowner's hands (a church and priest maintenance fee, the bishop and poor fee went elsewhere). That income, along with the fees collected from prosecuting lawsuits allowed certain chiefs to become large and aspire for more regional control. Their feuds, eventually lead to the intervention of the Norwegian king and archbishop, which effectively ended the Commonwealth era.
Overall, a wonderful readable introduction to Commonwealth Iceland.
Icelandic Commonwealth culture is quite unique in that it was a very level society. It was mostly populated originally by Norwegians seeking to to escape the centralizing power of the early Norwegian kings. Since there were no natives in the island (other than Irish monks who quickly left), and Norway was too fragmented at the time to dominate Iceland, there were no external threats to force people into organized hierarchies. And even though the initial settlers brought slaves, since the land was only mostly good for herding instead of farming, slave labor, fit more for plantations, died out quickly. During the initial settlement, the Norwegian king helped create rules for how much land individuals could claim, for a man it depended on how far he could set fires near each other, and for women it was how far they could walk with a young cow (two years old) in a spring day.
That incredibly flat structure lead to a unique political culture, one based on consensus, based mostly on "things"-legal assemblies. Farmers could pledge their allegiance to chiefs (there were roughly 36, give or take), but both parties were allowed to break the relationship more or less at will. The chiefdoms could be bought, inherited (a woman could inherit but had to assign someone else to exercise it) or shared. The chiefs could not really tax (other than a temple tax or thing tax, but those were to defray expenses) or make much money from their own chiefdoms (they could set trading prices, but Iceland was mostly a price taker, and setting too high prices could force traders elsewhere). Rather, the chiefs acquired money by resolving disputes for their thingmen. There would be local things, where disputes could be resolved and also island-wide things, called the Althing. The chiefs could legislate as a council at the things (though it's unclear what the required vote was, and each chief could have two advisors), or suits would be settled (parties could also effectively legislate by requesting clarifications of law). Suits were brought before juries selected by chiefs. Ordinarily the main deterrent from harming others was owing them or their relatives compensation. If compensation was not rendered/accepted, and the case could not be arbitrated, a suit could be brought at at thing (local or althing). A successful suit could lead to full outlawry, anyone could kill the guilty party without owing compensation, and anyone who helped the outlaw was also outlawed. Minor outlawery was essentially a three year exile. In some forms of exile, the guilty party lost the rights of being an Icelander, important because the Norwegians granted certain protections for Icelanders.
The legal system was quite sophisticated in some ways. A major reform was to make quarter courts (that covered each an quarter of Iceland) a court of either first instance or appeals from local things, since it was believed that an accused defendant would not get a fair trial if he was prosecuted away from home. Eventually, a fifth court was created to resolve deadlocked juries (before a six-six split would just issue two conflicting judgments).
While in theory, anyone could prosecute a case, in practice, a chief's support was required to prosecute the case. Since there was no executive branch, the winners of a case had to self-execute successful lawsuits (including running courts of confiscation, which can be lucrative but dangerous for a chief). Chiefs could rally up the necessary bands of men to bring and execute the suit. While each quarter had a limited number of chiefs, the chief-thingman relationship was not strictly geographical, with lots of mingling on the ground. A plaintiff in a suit could also grow his forces by forming "friendship" agreements with others. In many cases it seems like a plaintiff had to give up all their property (in a special handshake agreement) to their chief to encourage a prosecution. That sometimes became tricky because under Icelandic law, it was not really possible to transfer land without the consent of heirs. But chiefs that pushed too hard, not infrequently met bad ends.
There were cultural norms of honor that focused on being proportionate and fair. The culture valued men of honor who could step in as third parties to resolve disputes. Inherent in coalition building is also the value of compromise, which helped maintain the violence level (also channeled into acceptable forms) to an acceptable level.
The conversion of Iceland is quite interesting and was potentially critical in the ending this period of Iceland. When Christianity first came to the island the split between the new God and old Gods threatened to engulf the island in war. So, in an Icelandic manner, the issue was left up to the pagan Lawspeaker (the one paid official in all of Iceland, whose job was to memorize and repeat the laws). After some time under a cloth, the lawspeaker announced that all of Iceland was to become Christian, with a three year grace period for private pagan practice. Because of Iceland's distance from the continent, the church was in many ways quite insular, and not very powerful. There was no separate ecclesiastical hierarchy for the most part. Church property was frequently treated as that of a family, and priests sometimes even acted as chiefs or participated in lawsuits (though the bishop in Norway attempted to stop the practice). The Icelanders also did not let the church take over the traditional method of self defined groups providing for the poor and insurance. But, critical to the income of chiefs, land that had churches on them could collect a tax imposed on anyone who could pay the thing tax (and those could not but had no dependents), roughly fifty percent of could end up in the landowner's hands (a church and priest maintenance fee, the bishop and poor fee went elsewhere). That income, along with the fees collected from prosecuting lawsuits allowed certain chiefs to become large and aspire for more regional control. Their feuds, eventually lead to the intervention of the Norwegian king and archbishop, which effectively ended the Commonwealth era.
Overall, a wonderful readable introduction to Commonwealth Iceland.
May 27, 2023
The title is a bit misleading in that the book mainly covers methods of power and wealth accumulation by the free state chieftains. Otherwise, it's a very interesting, if very slow, read analysing the political structure of a centuries past society. If you'd prefer a more general overview of the Icelandic Free State, I'd go for Viking Age Iceland by the same author.
March 6, 2010
Interesting book about the settling and governing of Iceland, pieced together through the Icelandic sagas as well as archaeology. the Vikings settled a large hunk of volcanic rock in the North Atlantic and were able to survive there for the next thousand years. Weird people, the Norse. This book made me cold. I had to read it while wearing a blanket over my head.
October 5, 2025
This book is like a dense nutrient brick of information. It's not an easy read, but it does pack in a ton of information and made me feel more confident about discussing this place and time in history. It totally broke the illusion I initially had that medieval Iceland was this kingless libertarian/anarchic paradise, when in actuality it was mired in conflict and was not especially pleasant. I do love the structure of the book too, with tons of information and context being dumped in the first 4/5ths of the book, and the last fifth being dedicated to tales from the sagas to give an impression as to what all that info may give context too.
However, I do have a few minor critiques. A more in-depth pronunciation guide would have been greatly appreciated (Grágás is NOT pronounced how I thought it was). I think the description of Iceland's conversion to Christianity as "peaceful" is not necessarily incorrect, but inadequate to describe the events of the conversion overall. This may be just me, but I frequently found myself caught up in the names of the various people described in the book, sometimes confusing one person for another.
Overall though, I really enjoyed the book, in the same way you enjoy a tough steak.
However, I do have a few minor critiques. A more in-depth pronunciation guide would have been greatly appreciated (Grágás is NOT pronounced how I thought it was). I think the description of Iceland's conversion to Christianity as "peaceful" is not necessarily incorrect, but inadequate to describe the events of the conversion overall. This may be just me, but I frequently found myself caught up in the names of the various people described in the book, sometimes confusing one person for another.
Overall though, I really enjoyed the book, in the same way you enjoy a tough steak.
April 1, 2012
The real inventors of the legal thriller, Scott Turow notwithstanding, were the saga writers of Iceland. They had everything: shifting alliances with supporters, battling spouses, manhunts, legal maneuvering at the national parliament (the evocatively named Allthing), thievery, and, of course, spectacular violence. Byock dissects the obscure political, geographic and societal bases of the lawsuits and the murders that either preceded or were provoked by them, and, in a triumphant reading of what must be very difficult texts, manages not to sacrifice drama while making the intricate moves and counter-moves almost understandable. There was a rough legal and political system, but the questions it answered were unabashedly medieval, such as what price compensates for a life taken, or when it is appropriate to murder.
October 1, 2015
In my effort to have one book on the Graduate Historiography syllabus that is directly in the wheelhouse of each student, this made the syllabus in a week about the kinds of sources historians can use, as well as providing an example of a relatively early move toward cultural history. It also served as an opportunity to work with students on reading things in new fields, and in our discussion we ended up talking quite a bit about "studies" fields, which was fruitful. Students found and read reviews of the book, which turned out to be very useful because it was reviewed in a wide variety of different kinds of journals, plus the reviewers had an unusually wide range of opinions, which provided us with lots to talk about.
July 2, 2015
Quite possibly the "best government ever tried," this book goes over the Medieval Icelandic institutions of government, with their system of baendr (free farmers) who were each represented at quarterly local assemblies and the annual national assembly (the Althing) by their goðar (chieftains). The highest ranking official at the Althing was the Lögsögumaður (literally, the law-speaker) who had to memorize all laws in effect and be able to recite them aloud to those assembled. Talk about a disincentive to create convoluted, lengthy laws! Power was shared, there was no executive authority in government, no national standing army, and no national police force.
January 9, 2009
ABSTRACT: This text gives a comprehensive ethnographic summary on the workings of medieval Iceland and serves as a crash-course to better understand the subtlies in the sagas that a modern reader would not understand (like me). PERSONAL OPINION: We should return to these days. Tough as they were, the "rules" then made more sense than the ones we subscribe to today and were much simpler. (That's the viking in me talking...)
July 18, 2012
Interesting study how an an isolated northern European country managed to successfully govern themselves for over two hundred years without a king or any other absolute authority. Historical developement here is illustrated through the stories or "sagas" of the residents involved. It is a bit "dry", however.
January 6, 2008
Most of the same material is covered in more detail in the 2001 book 'Viking Age Iceland.'
July 26, 2016
A very accessible presentation of accumulated information about Old Icelandic society and how it is expressed in saga literature.
January 21, 2024
Knowing a little of the Norse origins of Icelandic people, this helped me gain a better grasp on how the country and very admirable society took root and grew there.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews