Medieval Iceland

Medieval Iceland

Author: Jesse L. Byock

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1990-02-07

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780520069541

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Gift of Joan Wall. Includes index. Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-248) and index. * glr 20090610.


Excommunication and Outlawry in the Legal World of Medieval Iceland

Excommunication and Outlawry in the Legal World of Medieval Iceland

Author: Elizabeth Walgenbach

Publisher: Northern World

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9789004460911

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"In this book Elizabeth Walgenbach argues that outlawry in medieval Iceland was a punishment shaped by the conventions of excommunication as it developed in the medieval Church. Excommunication and outlawry resemble one another, often closely, in a range of Icelandic texts, including lawcodes and narrative sources such as the contemporary sagas. This is not a chance resemblance but a by-product of the way the law was formed and written. Canon law helped to shape the outlines of secular justice. The book is organized into chapters on excommunication, outlawry, outlawry as secular excommunication, and two case studies-one focused on the conflicts surrounding Bishop Guðmundr Arason and another focused on the outlaw Aron Hjǫrleifsson"--


Bloodtaking and Peacemaking

Bloodtaking and Peacemaking

Author: William Ian Miller

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-05-15

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0226526828

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Dubbed by the New York Times as "one of the most sought-after legal academics in the county," William Ian Miller presents the arcane worlds of the Old Norse studies in a way sure to attract the interest of a wide range of readers. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking delves beneath the chaos and brutality of the Norse world to discover a complex interplay of ordering and disordering impulses. Miller's unique and engaging readings of ancient Iceland's sagas and extensive legal code reconstruct and illuminate the society that produced them. People in the saga world negotiated a maze of violent possibility, with strategies that frequently put life and limb in the balance. But there was a paradox in striking the balance—one could not get even without going one better. Miller shows how blood vengeance, law, and peacemaking were inextricably bound together in the feuding process. This book offers fascinating insights into the politics of a stateless society, its methods of social control, and the role that a uniquely sophisticated and self-conscious law played in the construction of Icelandic society. "Illuminating."—Rory McTurk, Times Literary Supplement "An impressive achievement in ethnohistory; it is an amalgam of historical research with legal and anthropological interpretation. What is more, and rarer, is that it is a pleasure to read due to the inclusion of narrative case material from the sagas themselves."—Dan Bauer, Journal of Interdisciplinary History


Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages

Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-02-01

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 9004448659

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Law | Book | Culture in the Middle Ages takes a detailed view on the role of manuscripts and the written word in legal cultures, spanning the medieval period across western and central Europe.


The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition

The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition

Author: Gísli Sigurðsson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13:

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This work explores the role of orality in shaping and evaluating medieval Icelandic literature. Applying field studies of oral cultures in modern times to this distinguished medieval literature, G sli Sigur sson asks how it would alter our reading of medieval Icelandic sagas if it were assumed they had grown out of a tradition of oral storytelling, similar to that observed in living cultures. Sigur sson examines how orally trained lawspeakers regarded the emergent written culture, especially in light of the fact that the writing down of the law in the early twelfth century undermined their social status. Part II considers characters, genealogies, and events common to several sagas from the east of Iceland between which a written link cannot be established. Part III explores the immanent or mental map provided to the listening audience of the location of Vinland by the sagas about the Vinland voyages. Finally, this volume focuses on how accepted foundations for research on medieval texts are affected if an underlying oral tradition (of the kind we know from the modern field work) is assumed as part of their cultural background. This point is emphasized through the examination of parallel passages from two sagas and from mythological overlays in an otherwise secular text.


Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland

Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland

Author: Theodore Murdock Andersson

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 9780804715324

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The two sagas here presented in translation with commentary belong to a class of medieval Icelandic texts commonly called family sagas. There are some three dozen of these sagas, composed for the most part in the thirteenth century, which tell stories about leading Icelandic figures and families from the time of the island's colonization around 900 to the middle of the eleventh century. This book contains the only complete translation of Ljosvetninga saga in English and the only English commentary on either saga. The authors aim to present the basic material needed for an informed reading of the Icelandic sagas. Both represent a school that urges that the sagas be refocused as historical documents, and they represent the two approaches to rehistorian (Andersson), the other a social and legal historian (Miller). One attempts to tie the sagas more closely to medieval literature and oral literature in general. The other attempts to define the relationship between the sagas and the social systems in which they evolved, and is much influenced by American legal realism and law-and-society scholarship."


The Conflict of Law and Justice in the Icelandic Sagas

The Conflict of Law and Justice in the Icelandic Sagas

Author: William Pencak

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-02-22

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 9004463844

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The world's longest lasting republic between ancient Rome and modern Switzerland, medieval Iceland (c. 870-1262) centered its national literature, the great family sagas, around the problem of can a republic survive and do justice to its inhabitants. The Conflict of Law and Justice in the Icelandic Sagas takes a semiotic approach to six of the major sagas which depict a nation of free men, abetted by formidable women, testing conflicting legal codes and principles - pagan v. Christian, vengeance v. compromise, monarchy v. republicanism, courts v. arbitration. The sagas emerge as a body of great literature embodying profound reflections on political and legal philosophy because they do not offer simple solutions, but demonstrate the tragic choices facing legal thinkers (Njal), warriors (Gunnar), outlaws (Grettir), women (Gudrun of Laxdaela Saga), priests (Snorri of Eyrbyggja Saga), and the Icelandic community in its quest for stability and a good society. Guest forewords by Robert Ginsberg and Roberta Kevelson, set the book in the contexts of philosophy, semiotics, and Icelandic studies to which it contributes.


Landscape, Tradition and Power in Medieval Iceland

Landscape, Tradition and Power in Medieval Iceland

Author: Chris Callow

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-08-03

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 9004331603

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In this volume Chris Callow provides a critical reading of the evidence for changes in Iceland’s socio-political structures from its colonisation to the 1260s when leading Icelanders swore oaths of loyalty to the Norwegian king.


Law, Literature, and Social Regulation in Early Medieval England

Law, Literature, and Social Regulation in Early Medieval England

Author: Andrew Rabin

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2023-02-21

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1783277602

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Valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society. Pre-Conquest English law was among the most sophisticated in early medieval Europe. Composed largely in the vernacular, it played a crucial role in the evolution of early English identity and exercised a formative influence on the development of the Common Law. However, recent scholarship has also revealed the significant influence of these legal documents and ideas on other cultural domains, both modern and pre-modern. This collection explores the richness of pre-Conquest legal writing by looking beyond its traditional codified form. Drawing on methodologies ranging from traditional philology to legal and literary theory, and from a diverse selection of contributors offering a broad spectrum of disciplines, specialities and perspectives, the essays examine the intersection between traditional juridical texts - from law codes and charters to treatises and religious regulation - and a wide range of literary genres, including hagiography and heroic poetry. In doing so, they demonstrate that the boundary that has traditionally separated "law" from other modes of thought and writing is far more porous than hitherto realized. Overall, the volume yields valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society.


Emotion, Violence, Vengeance and Law in the Middle Ages

Emotion, Violence, Vengeance and Law in the Middle Ages

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 9004366377

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Contributions to this Festschrift for the renowned American legal and literary scholar William Ian Miller reflect the extraordinary intellectual range of the honorand, who is equally at home discussing legal history, Icelandic sagas, English literature, anger and violence, and contemporary popular culture. Professor Miller's colleagues and former students, including distinguished academic lawyers, historians, and literary scholars from the United States, Canada, and Europe, break important new ground by bringing little-known sources to a wider audience and by shedding new light on familiar sources through innovative modes of analysis. Contributors are Stuart Airlie, Theodore M. Andersson, Nora Bartlett, Robert Bartlett, Jordan Corrente Beck, Carol J. Clover, Lauren DesRosiers, William Eves, John Hudson, Elizabeth Papp Kamali, Kimberley-Joy Knight, Simon MacLean, M.W. McHaffie, Eva Miller, Hans Jacob Orning, Jamie Page, Susanne Pohl-Zucker, Amanda Strick, Helle Vogt, Mark D. West, and Stephen D. White.