Beyond Historical Anthropology in the Study ofMedieval Mentalities

Arnved Nedkvitne

1. Introduction

1.1. The problem

Medieval mentalities – were they simpler, less complex than those of modern man?If historians have emphasized simplicity at the expense of complexity, is this due tothe influence of historical anthropology?1 These are the questions that are discussedin this article. The source material will be Norse2 sagas written in the 13th century.

1.2. Historical anthropology in saga studies – a theoretical problem

In the 1990s saga studies were strongly influenced by historical anthropology, andthis meant a revitalization of historians’ interest in the sagas. This was the starting-point for the study of mentalities in medieval Norse society.

The method in historical anthropology is to find the fundamental values thatgoverned the actions, ideas and mentalities of the members of a society. WilliamMiller’s Bloodtaking and Peacemaking. Feud, Law and Society in Saga Iceland is an excellentexample of historical anthropology. In Miller’s case the fundamental values ofIcelandic society 1100–1264 are connected to feud and what he calls “bloodtaking”and “peacemaking”. The tension between these two values is the key tounderstanding Icelandic society and mentalities in this period. In Miller’s hands,this turns out to be a fruitful perspective. The problem is that Miller analyses onlythe consequences of actions, and “bloodtaking” and “peacemaking” are seen ascomplementary values urging the warriors to actions that create a social balance.Miller uses a functionalist perspective that tends to overlook social differences andchanges. An analysis of the values behind the urge to “peacemaking” will show acomplexity of motives, which are socially differentiated and changing and whichcreated tensions in the minds of individuals. Does Miller’s perspective tend to makethe protagonists more harmonious and simple minded than they really were?

Preben Meulengracht Sorensen’s important study Fortælling og ære presents itself asa study of literature, with the Islendingasogur as its subject.3 But Sørensen also uses

Arnved Nedkvitne, born 1947, is affiliated to Historisk instituttet, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. His publishedworks include Møtet med døden i norrøn middelalder, Oslo 1997; Oslo bys historie, vol. I, Oslo 1991; Norskutenrikshandel 1100–1600, Bergen 1983. He is presently researching Norse religion.

Address: Department of History, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1008, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway

1 I define “mentalities” “as collective understandings, values and attitudes”. See P. Burke, History andSocial Theory (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 91–96.

2 Icelandic and Norwegian.3 P. M. Sorensen, Fortælling og ære (Aarhus, 1993), p. 15.

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other sources such as laws, sagas of contemporaries and Landnamabok. As theanalysis progresses, it appears that he intends to say something about the ideas andmentalities of real-life Icelanders, not just the literary characters of theIslendingasogur.4 Sorensen calls his method “literary anthropology”.5 It is indeedanthropological in the sense that Sorensen seeks and finds one central valuegoverning the thoughts and actions of medieval Icelanders – honour.6 The problemis that Sorensen never defines what honour is. A person’s honour is created by theopinion of “the others” who value a man according to the norms of society. Thenorms of honour told how a man should be. According to Sorensen, it was clear inthe minds of the contemporaries what an honourable action was, consequently it isnot necessary for him (Sorensen) to define it.7 But the old Norse language lacked aword corresponding to the modern “honour”, Sørensen analyses several words withpartly overlapping meanings.8 It is a problem for the reader that Sorensen is unableto define what this concept meant to a medieval Icelander or to himself as a modernscientist. What Sorensen says in practice is that people who behaved according tothe social norms of their society were given respect by “the others”. Do we knowsocieties where that is not the case? Such a wide and vague understanding of whathonour is enables him to construct an “Icelandic honour” which includes andunifies all Icelanders from the “landnam” up to 1264. It seems to me that Sorensenhere combines modern anthropological thinking and 19th century ideas of nationalidentities. Such vague and general concepts make the historian unable to analysesocial, chronological and individual complexities, and are not useful in the analysisof the interplay between mentalities and society.

To sum up, the anthropological tradition tends to focus on the static features ofmentalities and society within the time and space to be studied (Iceland before1264), and focuses on a few basic values governing that society. The tradition tendsto overlook social differences, chronological differences and individual complexitieswithin that society. Ten years ago anthropology meant a renewal for saga studies.But has it now become a straightjacket for future studies on saga mentalities?

1.3. Normative sources in saga and medieval studies – a methodological problem

These theoretical questions are connected to a methodological problem. Mostsources from before c. 1300 have a normative character. Such writings tend to givesimple stereotypes, it is not the moralist’s duty to describe the complexities of thehuman mind. Most descriptions of human behaviour tend to idealize or condemnthe protagonists, this is the case for lay as well as clerical authors. They dwell uponwhat the author sees as the positive sides of the protagonists’ actions and thoughts,and neglect everything else. This creates an image of people acting according to afew basic norms, which they do not question. These could vary between the estatesof the realm: the prince, the warrior, the priest, the lady and the peasant, but somenorms all good people had in common.

4 For example, Sorensen, op. cit., pp. 121–127.5 Sorensen, op. cit., p. 25.6 Sorensen, op. cit., pp. 328–332.7 Sorensen, op. cit., p. 211.8 Sorensen, op. cit., pp. 188–191.

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Medieval authors and their readers would know that these accounts onlydescribed one aspect of the human mind. To the modern historian the differencesbetween normative and descriptive sources are well known. But the historians ofmedieval mentalities have not always taken the practical consequences of thisknowledge. The reasons are not difficult to understand. Because most relevantsources are more or less normative, it is difficult to penetrate behind the veil ofidealized and normative images. But the result has been an understanding ofmedieval man as rather “one-dimensional”; there has been an evolution frommedieval simplicity to modern complexity.

This understanding is most evident in Norbert Elias’s theory of the “Civilisingprocess”. But it is a problem also in the writings of the so-called “Annales-school”.In The Knight, the Lady and the Priest Georges Duby describes the attitudes of priestsand knights through the normative writings of clerics, and his exotic description oftheir attitudes to women, sexuality and marriage may be due to his rather uncriticaluse of his sources. The Time of the Cathedrals, The Birth of Purgatory and other classics ofthe “Annales school” make use of the same type of sources.

A problem that arises from the lack of a clear distinction between norms andpractice is a diffuse distinction between ideologies and mentalities, where theformer express the explicitly formulated ideas or norms of church, state orprominent intellectuals, while the latter expresses what people actually thought.Jacques le Goff writes in his introduction to The Birth of Purgatory that his specialinterest will be “… rapports entre croyance et societe, sur les structures mentales,sur la place de l’imaginaire dans l’histoire.” He considers Dante the best source tohow laymen imagined purgatory, but does not discuss why.9 Does Dante’spurgatory exist only in the literary universe of the “Divina comedia”, or is itrepresentative of the religious mentalities of medieval laymen in general? Thisdiffuse demarcation between ideologies and mentalities makes it difficult to discusssocially differentiated mentalities, and the complexities of individual mentalities.

But some historians have managed to overcome these problems. In Montaillou,Emmanuel le Roy & Ladurie made use of the interrogation protocols of theInquisition. They describe what the heretic population of this village in fact thoughtand felt. This is done in a study that is anthropological in its approach, but notfunctional like Miller’s. It is possible to seek the fundamental values of a society andat the same time to try to understand the complexities of these values.

In his biography of St. Louis, Jacques le Goff considers each of the normativesources as presenting one aspect of the complex mentality of this king. The finalpart is called “Saint Louis, roi ideal et unique”, and seeks to unite these sources intoa coherent picture of a man with a complex mentality. Adding up differentnormative sources to understand the complexities of medieval mentalities is arelevant method for all kinds of research in this field.

Miller thinks his book “shows how blood vengeance, law and peacemaking wereinextricably bound together in the feuding process. In this culture, all social actionwas driven by the related norms of honour, reciprocity and balance.” The subjectof most sagas is feud. Miller evidently thinks that the values that dominated the

9 J. le Goff, La naissance du Purgatoire (Paris, 1981), pp. 25–26.

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literary sources also dominated the Icelandic society of the 13th century;10

Icelanders living in the 13th century were just as one-dimensional as the sagacharacters. But were they? Or is it rather that the sagas in their idealization of thewarrior hero describe just one side of the mentalities of the 13th-century Icelandersand Norwegians?

The questions to be discussed here have already been mentioned at thebeginning of this article, but can now be formulated more precisely: Were thereimportant social differences in mentalities? Was the mentality of each individualdominated by one value, or was there a tension between several? Is the evolutionfrom the simple medieval mind to the complex modern one an illusion?

These questions will be discussed in relation to three subjects: violence, religionand love/marriage.

What now follows relies heavily on five unpublished theses in history written atthe University of Oslo by Anton Rygg (1997), Anne Louise Lien (1997), HildeHaaland (1998), Bjørn Bandlien (1998) and Marlen Ferrer (1999).11 The theoreticaland methodological points I try to make in this article have been put into practicein these theses and in my own book on attitudes to death in the Norse Middle Ages,Møtet med døden i norrøn middelalder (1997).

1.4. Sources

The sagas were written c. 1130–1350, most of them in the 13th century.The Islendingasogur, tells the story of Icelandic families living c. 900–1030, 2–300

years before the sagas were written down.The subject of Sturlunga saga is feuds between Icelandic chieftains in c. 1117 to

1264, mostly written just a few decades after the events.The Bishops’ sagas tell the story of several Icelandic bishops living between 1056

and 1331. The earliest bishops had their sagas written almost 200 years after theirdeath, the latest just a few years after.

The kings’ sagas tell the stories of Norwegian kings from c. 900 up to 1264. Theearliest kings had their sagas written down 300 years after their death, the latest justa few years later.

The sagas describe persons from several social groups: kings, magnates, bishops,local chieftains, peasants – and their women. The sagas idealize their protagonists,but they do so far less than most European sources of this period. The sagas createa good basis for those who want to examine whether medieval mentalities weremore complex individually and socially than is usually thought.

The saga authors and their audience do not seem to have been conscious ofmental changes through the centuries leading up to their own time. Consequently,mentalities expressed in the sagas are those of people living in Iceland and Norwayin the 13th century. There are some exceptions, which will be mentioned later.

10 W. I. Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking (Chicago, 1990), pp. 267–270 and the dust cover.11 J. A. R. Rygg, Fra spontanitet og voldsglede til selvkontroll og avsky for vold? unpublished thesis (Oslo, 1997);

A. L. Lien, Fra krigerflokk til høvisk hoff? unpublished thesis (Oslo, 1997); H. E. Haaland, Kirkensfordømmelse og det verdslige samfunns normer, unpublished thesis (Oslo, 1998); B. Bandlien, “… takask meðÞeim goðar astir”, Kjærlighet og ekteskap i norrøn middelalder, unpublished thesis (Oslo, 1998); M. S. Ferrer,Emosjoner i norrøn tid, unpublished thesis (Oslo, 1999).

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The sagas are literary sources, and it is sometimes a problem to distinguishbetween attitudes, values and mentalities that are included because they belong to acertain saga genre, and those that reflect the mentalities of the saga author and hispublic. This problem can be overcome by comparing sagas belonging to differentgenres, and other sources such as the laws. If the same mentalities occur in, forexample, both bishops’ sagas and Islendingasogur, it should be assumed that theyreflect the mentalities of the saga author and his audience, unless specialcircumstances indicate the contrary.

Given these principles of source criticism, the sagas are excellent sources for thehistorian of medieval mentalities.

1.5. The social background

Icelandic society in the period described by the sagas has recently been wellpresented to an English-reading public by Jesse Byock and William Miller, and onlythe main points will be repeated here.12 Iceland was settled in the decades around900 mainly from Norway. At that time, local chieftains dominated both countriespolitically and socially, a parallel to feudal lords in Northern Europe.

Norway was unified under one king in the 10th century, and after c. 1150 a stateorganization emerged gradually. It was common for sons of Icelandic chieftains andskalds to visit the court of the Norwegian king and serve him for a time, but the kinghad no right of taxation or other formal powers in Iceland. Icelandic chieftainscontinued their feuds up to 1262/64, long after the king had pacified localcommunities in mainland Norway. In that year the Icelanders accepted to becomethe subjects of the Norwegian king and grant him taxes.

Norway was gradually Christianized in c. 930–1030. The Icelanders voted on theAllting to become Christians in the year 1000 AD. From the end of the 11thcentury, bishoprics were organized.

2. Violence

2.1. The warrior attitude to violence: Bloodtaking versus peacemaking

A state is usually defined as an organization having a monopoly of legitimateviolence within a given area. Therefore attitudes to violence in this period areimportant. Today “violence” is generally used in the sense of “private andillegitimate use of force”, and has negative connotations. Here, in this article“violence” will include both public and private, legitimate as well as illegitimate,uses of force.

Up to the year 1264 Iceland was ruled by a warrior class, and use of privateviolence was a precondition for its social power. This also characterized thewarriors’ mentality. In the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson we are told that Egil and hismen raided the coasts of the Baltic as Vikings. They once stole the valuables of afarmer without anybody noticing it, and returned to their ship. But then Egil

12 J. L. Byock, Medieval Iceland (Berkeley, 1988) and Miller, op. cit.

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suddenly stopped, and said to his men: “Now we are behaving badly, and not likewarriors. We have stolen the peasant’s valuables without him knowing it. That isshameful. Let us return and make it known to them.”13 The others did not thinkthat was a good idea, but Egil returned alone and burnt down the house with thepeasant and his family in it. To a warrior, theft is shameful, but killing in openconfrontation gives honour! Heroic acts like these clearly made Egil a hero in theeyes of the saga author.

But the motives for violence were complex. Theft and confiscation of property asa motive for feuds is rare in the idealizing family sagas, but very common in themore realistic Sturlunga saga.14 A typical example is the conflict between the twochieftains, Bjørn and Loft, which according to the saga “had many causes”. Itstarted as a conflict about a forest. But it became a question of honour when Loftwas repeatedly insulted by his enemies, and responded by insulting them.Underlying it all was a conflict over political power, “the Oddi family did nottolerate that the Haukadalr family obtained power east of the river.”15 The twotypes of sagas together suggest that power and money in real life was the mainmotive behind the feuds, but that the conflict normally developed a dimensionwhich involved honour.16

A chieftain also gained honour by finding peaceful solutions to difficultproblems.17 It is self-evident that a society can’t exist if all men of power seek theirown advantage violently and without restraint. The warrior culture was bipolar,“bloodtaking” and “peacemaking” were both necessary.

But for ordinary Norwegians and Icelanders the attitude to violence was notsolely determined by the two poles just mentioned, but by many. There wereseveral understandings of honour and violence in 13th century Norse society.

2.2. Attitudes to violence at the court of the Norwegian king

Sturla Tordsson was one of the most prominent Icelanders of the 13th century. Hestarted his career as a feuding Icelandic chieftain. But in 1262 the Icelandersformally recognized the Norwegian king as their sovereign, and Sturla thought itwise to visit the king to obtain his favour. But as it turned out, his Icelandic enemieshad slandered him and the king showed his unfriendliness by pretending not tonotice Sturla’s salutations. The other courtiers noticed this, and nobody wanted toeat with him. But Sturla was a resourceful person. He made himself popular withthe courtiers by telling sagas as entertainment. The queen learnt this, and invitedSturla to tell a saga in the presence of the royal couple. So Sturla did so with greatsuccess, and the queen thanked him. The king said nothing, but smiled faintly. Thefollowing evening, however, the king called Sturla to his presence, took a sip of winefrom a silver cup, and gave the cup to Sturla saying: “One should drink wine with

13 Islenzk fornrit, vol. 2, edited by Sigurður Nordal (Reykjavõ k, 1933), ch. 46.14 Rygg, op. cit., pp. 21–32 and 58–67; G. Nordal Ethics and Action in Thirteenth-century Iceland (Odense,

1998), pp. 147–165.15 Rygg, op. cit., p. 56.16 Miller, op. cit., p. 219.17 Miller, op. cit., pp. 226–227.

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one’s friends”. We are made to understand that the king had been persuaded by hisqueen to do this. After this, the queen was very friendly toward Sturla, and theother courtiers followed her example. The king treated him honourably and gavehim the prestigious task of writing the previous king’s saga.18

These events show an attitude to violence and honour radically different fromthat found among Icelandic warriors. Sturla did not attain prestige and honour atcourt through bravery in battle and by killing off his enemies, but because thequeen and the king understood that he was a “learned and wise man”.19 Hedistinguished himself through his cultural skills. The king and his queen bestowedhonour on the courtiers, and the others accepted the king’s judgement. The socialnorm at court was cooperation, sociability and the acceptance of a hierarchydecided by cultural skills and the king’s evaluation, contrary to the violentcompetition of Icelandic society.

Sturla Tordsson combined a career as a warrior chieftain on Iceland andcourtier and official in the service of the Norwegian king. He wrote Islendinga sagaabout his political experiences on Iceland, and in the saga of king Haº konHaº konsson he describes life and values at court. Both sagas were written afterSturla had passed the age of 50 and was in the service of the Norwegian king. Histwo roles demanded different attitudes to violence. How did he in his sagas try toreconcile the two roles he had played?

Sturla evidently thought that on stateless Iceland before 1264 it had beenlegitimate for a man to start a feud if he was challenged. But this should be donewith a minimum of violence. Sturla repeatedly stresses that he himself had used aminimum of violence when engaged in feuds. Take one characteristic example: In1241 Sturla and his fellow chieftain Urøkja had captured one of their enemies.Sturla wanted him to be pardoned, but Urøkja executed him. “Sturla had gone tochurch when he was told of Kløng’s death”.20 Sturla was in church, perhapspraying for Kløng’s soul, when Urøkja executed him.

Sturla Tordsson, as saga author in his later years, was clearly critical of theunbridled violence of his fellow chieftains, and this could be interpreted as acriticism of the warrior culture on Iceland before 1262. The chieftain Orækja wasonce captured by his first cousin Sturla Sigvatsson, who ordered Orækja to becastrated. While this was being done, Sturla Sigvatsson asked his victim to think ofhis wife Arnbjørg, which suggests a sadistic pleasure while watching the scene.21

Similarly the chieftain Gissur Torvaldsson once ordered a captured chieftain to beexecuted. After the first blow Gissur went up to the victim and put his fingers intothe wound in the man’s throat in order to feel how deep it was. Then he orderedanother blow to be sure he was dead. This suggests a complete lack of empathy onthe part of Gissur.22 Scenes of killing, maiming and torture in Sturlunga saga are

18 Sturlunga saga in the original language, edited by O. Thorsson (Reykjavõ k, 1988), pp. 765–767.Sturlunga saga, vol. 2, translated by K. Kaº lund (Copenhagen, 1904), pp. 331–334.

19 Sturlunga saga (1988), p. 766.20 Sturlunga saga (1988), p. 442 and vol. 1 (1904), p. 496; Rygg, op. cit., pp. 74–75 quotes other

examples.21 Rygg, op. cit., p .83.22 Sturlunga saga (1988), p. 756 and vol. 2 (1904), p. 325.

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presented in such a way that it is reasonable to assume they are meant to createdisgust in the reader.23 Sturla Tordsson, in his description of death scenes,frequently turns the perspective from the killers to their victims by describing thevictims’ religious preparations for death.24 The intention may have been to evokethe reader’s empathy. There can be little doubt that Sturla Tordsson meant to showthat feuds set the scene for arbitrary, excessive violence.

This was different at king Haºkon’s court as described by Sturla. The courtiersaccepted that the king had a monopoly of legitimate violence. There were isolatedinstances of private violence between courtiers, but they are described as illegal ordishonourable. The king himself used his powers with considerable restraint.25 Thedetailed descriptions of violence and wounds found in Islendingesaga are mostlyabsent from Haº kon’s saga. When such descriptions occur, they are used tocharacterize the king’s enemies negatively. One illuminating example is from dukeSkule’s rebellion in 1239 against king Haº kon. One of king Haºkon’s local officialswas surrounded, and had to seek refuge on the roof of a nearby church. After anight on the roof, in the winter cold, he was physically weak, and one of theattackers stabbed him with a spear. The official fell from the roof, dead. “But on thechurch’s roof there remained blood and entrails. That was the third summer afterking Haº kon had consecrated the church.”26 The episode skilfully contrasts theillegitimate violence of the rebels and the religious dignity of the legitimate king.The court is described for us as a social environment, free from violence. Possiblythis betrays a court mentality which is disgusted by violence and the description ofit.27

But the two sagas do not contradict each other in their attitude to violence.Sturla had internalized both his old warrior norms and his new courtier norms, andmade a mental compromise between them. Sturla did not share the idealization ofprivate violence prevalent in Icelandic warrior society. But he did accept privatefeuds on stateless Iceland. The compromise was that feuds had to be conductedwith a minimum of violence.

Hallfred Vandraºdaskald, the main character of an Islendingesaga, is anotherexample showing that 13th century Icelanders imagined that the two norms couldcoexist in the mind of one person. When on Iceland, Hallfred behaved in a defiantmanner and gained honour by humiliating others. He refused to marry hisgirlfriend Kolfinna, but nevertheless kissed her publicly after she had beenbetrothed to another man. He later visited her, spent a night alone with her, andcomposed insulting verses about her husband. These were grave offences againsther father and husband.28 But at the court of king Olav Trygvasson, Hallfredplayed a different role. He obtained a prominent position at court as the king’s

23 G. Karlsson, “The Ethics of the Icelandic Saga Authors and Their Contemporaries”, The SixthInternational Saga Conference. Workshop Papers vol. 1 (Reykjavõ k, 1985).

24 Nordal, op. cit., pp. 199–217.25 Rygg, op. cit., pp. 117–118, 121, 124–125 and 141; Konungs skuggsia, edited by L. H. Olsen (Oslo,

1983), p. 66; Hakonar saga Hakonarsonar from Skalholtsbok yngsta, edited by A. Kjær & L. Holm-Olsen (Oslo, 1910 and 1986), ch. 121 (114), pp. 405–406.

26 Hakonar saga Hakonarsonar, op. cit., ch. 226 (202). pp. 511–512.27 Rygg, op. cit., pp. 137–140.28 Ferrer, op. cit., pp. 35 and 49.

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skald, but this created envy. Hallfred reacted according to his Icelandic warriornorms, and killed one of his slanderers. The king was furious and threatened toexecute Hallfred, who ended up weeping in the presence of king and court, notbecause he feared death, but because he was desolate to have lost the king’s love.The king rewarded Hallfred’s humility with a pardon. Back on Iceland, Hallfredchallenged Kolfinna’s husband, Gris, to a duel. But the day of the duel, Hallfredwas told of king Olav’s death. He felt as though he had been struck by a stone, andhe went to bed and refused to go to the duel. His friends accused him of being acoward, which he evidently was according to the warrior ideals. But Grisunderstood and defended Hallfred. Gris had himself in his youth been a warrior atthe Byzantine emperor’s court, and felt great sorrow when the emperor died. “Thelove for the prince is heated” (er heit lanardrottins ast).29 Hallfred’s love for his prince ispresented as honourable, it shows his noble and courteous mind. He hadinternalized the norms of a warrior as well as the norms of a courtier, and followeddifferent norms in different situations. But both norms increased his honour amongfellow Icelanders.

Some scholars, and Preben Meulengracht Sørensen the most prominent amongthem, have maintained that the horizontal warrior honour and the vertical courthonour were like fire and water. The two could not be added up to constitute aperson’s “honour capital”; the king’s honour was not valid in Icelandic society. In1220, when Snorri Sturlusson returned from the Norwegian court with greathonours and the task of bringing Iceland under the sovereignty of the Norwegianking, he was met with ridicule on Iceland, according to Sorensen. But Sørensen’sinterpretation of this episode is not supported by a closer analysis of the relevantsources and numerous other sources confirming the opposite view. Hallfred hasalready been mentioned.

Egil Skallagrimsson, in his old age on Iceland, composed poems contrasting hispresent weakness, impotence and humiliation with former glory. And when heevokes this glory, it is always his position at kings’ courts, not his warrior bravery.30

Saga literature’s best-known couple, Hallgerd and Gunnar from Lidarendi, met atthe Allting. Gunnar had just returned from abroad, and wore ornamented clothesgiven to him by the king of Denmark, and a gold ring given to him by earl Haº kon ofNorway. Hallgerd asked him to tell about his experiences abroad, the proudHallgerd fell in love with him, and they agreed to marry. Hallgerd’s admiration forhonour gained at foreign courts was evidently shared by most Icelanders in the 13thcentury.

The combination of warrior honour and hierarchical honour given by princescorresponded to the social realities of Icelandic society in the 13th century.Important chieftains before 1264 visited the Norwegian court, hoping to receivehonours and political backing. The chieftains at this time aspired to full control ofcertain districts of Iceland. Here they demanded hierarchical subordination andloyalty from the peasants. The chieftains did not accept feuding between theirsubjects.31 Feuding between equals and the corresponding horizontal warrior

29 Islenzk fornrit, op. cit., vol. 8, p. 192.30 Islenzk fornrit, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 294–296.31 Rygg, op. cit., p. 63; Sturlunga saga (1988), pp. 428–429 and vol. 1. (1904), pp. 479–480.

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honour game at this time existed only between chieftains. In theory and practicethere existed two secular norms of honour in the minds of Icelanders, the horizontaland the hierarchical. And both seem to have been equally internalized.

2.3. The clergy’s attitude to violence

William Miller tends to minimize the importance of religion and church insubduing violence. Peacemaking must have its place in ideology and practice,irrespective of religion, “all cultures develop means for resolving disputes”.32 Thiscorresponds to Norbert Elias’s view that “Religion … never has in itself a ‘civilising’or affect-subduing effect. On the contrary, religion is always exactly as ‘civilised’ asthe society or class which upholds it.”33

Elias evidently has a point. The saga that most openly justifies violence whichmodern people would consider abominable was written in c. 1190 by Odd, monk atÞingeyrar monastery in Northern Iceland. Its hero is king Olav Trygvasson, whoChristianized Iceland and Norway. King Olav once preached the faith at a Thingmeeting, but was contradicted by an eloquent man. “Olav seized the man, andordered them to let a small worm creep into the man’s mouth. They opened theman’s mouth, but he blew against the worm, and the worm twisted away and didnot want to enter the mouth. The king then let them bind a hot iron at the worm’stail. It fled the heat, crept into the man’s mouth, wriggled down into his stomach,and out. When it emerged it had the man’s heart in its mouth. The heathens werestruck with great fear.”34 Odd and his colleagues went far in accepting violence inthe service of a good cause. Descriptions like those above indicate that they lackedan internalized disgust for violence. Odd’s descriptions of violence surpass those ofEgil’s saga, written by a layman perhaps 30 years later. The clergy seems to havebeen just as familiar with violence as the secular chieftains and their men.

But the attitudes of Icelandic clerics were changing in the decades around 1200.The international reformed church of the 12th and 13th centuries had on itsagenda the limiting of private violence. The Icelandic bishops’ sagas, written in c.1210–1350, are more normative than other sagas, and the pacifist ideal is evidentthere. The bishops did not seek personal honour, but were humble and repentedtheir own wrongs towards others. They controlled their anger and were patient,showed mercy and charity. They were emotional men, but their emotions were“soft”, and they were not ashamed to weep.35

This propaganda created in the 13th century an image of the priest as a non-violent person, and laymen expected the clergy to live up to this ideal. In 1255 thechieftain Torgils consulted abbot Brand on how to proceed in his planned feudagainst two other chieftains. In reality the abbot supported the project, but feltbound by the norms of his ecclesiastical office. The abbot started by counsellingTorgils not to start a feud, “and it is forbidden for me to participate in plans against

32 Miller, op. cit., p. 267.33 N. Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford and Cambridge, 1994), p. 168.34 Saga Olafs Trygvasonar, edited by F. Jonsson (Copenhagen, 1932), ch. 56, pp. 166–167; Soga om Olav

Tryggvason. Etter Odd munk Snorresson, translated by M. Rindal (Oslo, 1977), ch. 58, p. 114.35 Ferrer, op. cit., pp. 75–100.

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human life or any kind of strife. But if you can’t sit still, it is better not to be alone”.Torgils then said he was willing to ally himself to Torvard, if he as compensationcould get Skagafjord. “The abbot then jumped to his feet and asked God’s will tobe fulfilled. Some of those present commented that the abbot was too eager becausehis face was red as blood”. Leaving the room the abbot added that it was “hard tosee our own high-born relatives killed by sons of peasants without being givencompensation, and so would my brother Odd have said, if he had been alive”.Later the abbot regained self-control, and repeatedly counselled the chieftains notto start the feud.36 We are made to understand that there is a struggle in the abbot’smind between his warrior honour and the Christian norms which he was supposedto represent and which we must assume he had equally internalized. The Icelandicclergy clearly experienced a conflict between the norms of the international churchand the norms of Icelandic warrior society.

The fate of the Norwegian-born bishop Henrik of Holar demonstrates theproblems of living up to the church’s expectations in a society awash with feuds. In1253 the two chieftains Eyjolf and Hrani attacked Gissur Thorvaldsson in his homeand killed several members of his family and household. Afterwards, they rode tobishop Henrik, confessed their sin and received absolution from him. Henrikevidently hoped to end the feud there, and the killers, probably after consultationswith Henrik, proposed to put the conflict to the judgement of the Norwegian king.But Gissur had the upper hand in the feud, and killed one of Eyjolf’s allies. Thebishop responded by excommunicating Gissur, who accused Henrik of supportingthe other side. A friend of Gissur committed the next killing, and Henrikexcommunicated him too. The banished man with his armed followers then rodeup to the bishop’s residence, accused him of lacking in charity, and ended up in anundignified wrangling with the bishop. The warriors got angry, and abducted thebishop. The conflict dragged on with the bishop becoming more and more excitedand engulfed in the conflict.37 Bishop Henrik at the outset evidently wanted to stopthe feud by putting the case before the king, who according to Henrik’s thinkingought to have a monopoly of legitimate violence. But the Icelandic warriors did notaccept Henrik’s motives and intentions. They interpreted his actions asparticipation in the feud, which was their normal way of understanding politicalinitiatives. The bishop lost moral authority, because laymen did not expect clericsto participate in feuds.

The bishops Thorlak and Gudmund had earlier tried to instruct secularmagnates on Christian behaviour, creating great problems for themselves. Theconclusion must be that Icelandic clerics personally were expected to be charitable,non-violent and stay out of feuds. They generally lived up to these expectations. Butif they tried to sermon chieftains to the same effect, they met with small success andcreated trouble for themselves.

The Icelandic clergy therefore normally chose a more flexible attitude to privateviolence, and accommodated their ideals to social reality. They had no choice,unless they wanted to isolate themselves from Icelandic realities. Here the

36 Sturlunga saga (1988), pp. 686–689 and vol. 2 (1904), pp. 247–248; Ferrer, op. cit., pp. 165–166.37 Sturlunga saga (1988), pp. 642–659 and vol. 2 (1904), pp. 206–223; Ferrer, op. cit., pp. 160–164.

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sacrament of penance was useful, as illustrated by the following story. ToralvBjarnesson behaved in an arrogant and offensive manner towards his neighbours,and twelve of them rode up to his farm and killed him. “They next rode up to thesee of Holar, where bishop Botolv absolved them. They next rode to Stad and kepttheir men together.”38 We must suppose that warrior honour and religion wereequally internalized by the killers. A short ritual and a penance prescribed by theirconfessor satisfied the modest demands of the church. But the social action of thetwelve laymen was determined by warrior honour.

Even if Miller is right in saying that the desire for peace and peacemaking inwarrior society existed independently from and was older than Christianity, it isevident that Norwegians and Icelanders living in the 13th century understoodpeacemaking and the desire for peace as a Christian value. The Islendingasogurcertainly present many heathen peacemakers. But the authors and their public alsounderstood the conflicting demands of “Bloodtaking and Peacemaking” as aconflict between warrior honour and Christianity.

This is evident in Njaº l’s saga. Gunnar from Lidarende remained a heathen all hislife; he died before Christianity came to Iceland. He is presented as an idealwarrior, reacting valiantly to challenges. But the violence he committed in the nameof honour gave him no joy. “I don’t know if it is because I am less courageous thanother men, but it is more difficult for me than for others to kill.”39 He refused to bedrawn into a conflict with his friend Njaº l, even if circumstances justified violentreactions. Gunnar felt a mental tension between two norms that seem to be equallyinternalized. This contrasts with the joy expressed by Egil Skallagrimsson whengiving free rein to his violent inclinations.

Njaº l himself was even more negative to violence. He was wise, knowing the lawswell, and solved his own and others’ conflicts honourably with a minimum ofviolence. But he had also internalized the “bloodtaking” part of the warrior’shonour. He blamed his sons for not having killed Lyting as a revenge for Høskuld.And in the last attack on Bergtorskvaº l he refused to leave his burning house: “I aman old man and unable to revenge the death of my sons, and I don’t want to livewith shame”. Njaº l’s pacifism is explicitly connected to his religion. He was one ofthe first men on Iceland to convert to the new faith. After the fire at Bergtorskvaº l hisbody was found unburnt, and his face was the most radiant those present had everseen in a dead man. “All praised God, and thought it was a great miracle”.40

As mentioned above, Hallfred Vandraºdaskald abandoned his duel with Grisbecause king Olav in a dream asked him to do so. The king represented the courtvalues, but he had also converted Hallfred to Christianity and been his godfather.Court mentalities and Christian mentalities represented the same peace values, andwere opposed to warrior mentalities. King and religion in the shape of OlavTrygvasson who had Christianized Iceland, represented for Hallfred – and perhapsfor most Icelanders of the 13th century? – the same attitude to violence.

38 Sturlunga saga (1988), p. 429 and vol. 1 (1904), p. 480.39 Islenzk fornrit, vol. 12, p. 139.40 Islenzk fornrit vol. 12, p. 342.

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To sum up, the Islendingasogur presents us with men who lived with a tensionbetween an urge to violence and the desire for peace. The latter is presented assecular, existing before Christianity, as a court value and as Christian.

Elias was partly right in saying that religion was “exactly as civilised as the societyand class which upheld it”. Odd the monk represented the same attitude to violenceas the layman who wrote the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson. But after c. 1200 thereformed Icelandic church represented non-violent attitudes that clearly were atodds with those of the warrior class. In this period the church was more pacifist and“civilized” than the ruling class, and undoubtedly contributed to undermining thepower of the warrior class. Church joined court in stigmatizing the violentmentalities of the warrior chieftains. Several of the warriors must have experiencedthe same tensions as Sturla Tordsson, feeling uncomfortable when participating infeuds. In this period the church was an independent force that contributed toimportant social changes.

2.4. Social and individual complexities in attitudes to violence

In this article we have already compared several saga genres with different genrecharacteristics. This was methodologically necessary to obtain an impression of thementalities of real people belonging to different social groups. Saga mentalitiesturned out to be more complex and differentiated than earlier studies suggest.There were evident social differences.

The warrior class on Iceland still lived in a stateless society in the century before1264, and this characterized their attitudes to violence. But they were alsoinfluenced by the attitudes preached by the church and practised at court. Thiscreated tensions and doubts in Sturla Tordsson and more fictional members of theIcelandic warrior class such as Hallfred Vandraº daskald, Gunnar from Lidarendeand Njaº l. Perhaps it is this tension which makes the best of saga literature soexciting for modern readers?

Courtiers supported and profited from the king’s claim to a monopoly oflegitimate violence. In practice, many courtiers did not live up to this ideal.Norwegian magnates and warlords kept civil strife going up until 1240. The kings’sagas also tell of armed conflicts between courtiers over questions of honour. Themental tensions of the courtiers were different from those among Icelandic warriors.For the warriors it was between two socially accepted and honourable values,“bloodtaking” and “peacemaking”. For courtiers, private “bloodtaking” was acriminal act, for them the problem was to control their violent inclinations so as notto come in conflict with the king’s monopoly of legitimate violence.

Clerics experienced tensions that were similar – and different. They weresupposed to preach the international church’s message of social peace and a ban onprivate violence. Social realities on stateless Iceland made it impossible for thewarrior class to practice these norms, the church had to make compromises andadaptations, which caused tensions and conflicts in the minds of clerics.

2.5. Chronological changes in attitudes to violence

Most saga literature was written in the 13th century, by medieval standards a shortperiod, and precise dating within this century is difficult or impossible. Fortunately,

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all historians of literature agree that Egil’s saga is one of the earliest (c. 1220?) andNjaº l’s one of the youngest (c. 1285?).41 In between these dates lies the Icelanders’acceptance of sovereignty of the Norwegian king in 1264. Differences in attitudes toviolence between these two sagas have been explained as consequences of thispolitical transformation.

Egil’s saga gives an unquestioning approval of violence to defend honour. Njaº l’ssaga, on the other hand, questions violent feuds; good men should favour peacefulsettlements according to law. Egil’s saga describes an unpredictable society wheredisputes frequently were settled by arms, Njaº l’s saga depicts a safer and morepredictable society, where disputes were normally settled at the ting. In SturlaTordsson’s Islendinga saga there is a difference between the feuding chieftains’brutality before 1264, and Sturla’s own scepticism to this violence when writingafter 1264. In Iceland there seems to have been a change in the attitude to violencepossibly already in the years before, but definitely in the years following 1264.

The transition from “feudal” social ties to a state society occurred over most ofEurope in this period, but developments in Iceland were slow. This makes the well-documented attitudes to violence in Icelandic society interesting also from aEuropean perspective.

3. Religion and magic

3.1. Religious mentalities – more homogeneous than attitudes to violence?

Medieval Christianity was primarily a religion of salvation. The central theme of allpreaching was life after death and how to obtain it. Do we find the same pattern ofsocial, chronological and individual complexities in religious mentalities as in theattitude to violence?

The Christian religion was introduced gradually in Norway and Iceland in thecentury leading up to c. 1030. There are no indications of a heathen “subculture” inNorway or Iceland after this date. The Icelandic skald Hallfred was baptized whenhe entered the service of king Olav Trygvason. His doubts are expressed in thefollowing poem: “Our ancestors composed poems to gain the favour of Odin. Iremember their renowned art. I appreciated Odin’s rule. Now I serve Christ, butdo not hate Odin.”42 There are other examples in saga literature of people whowanted to serve two Gods and were “bad Christians”.43 But this seems to have beenlimited to the transitional period before 1030.

The church of the 12th and 13th centuries taught that one had to be free of sin toenter paradise, and the sacraments of Holy Communion and shrift were the mostimportant means to purify oneself from sin. In saga literature they appear mainly asdeath sacraments. The need to purify oneself from sin before dying seems to havebeen internalized. Typically, we are told of a prisoner who was to be executed:“Tormod shrived himself and received Holy Communion. Afterwards he lay downand was beheaded by Atle Hallsson”.

41 V. Olason, Dialogues with the Viking Age (Reykjavõ k, 1998), p. 191.42 Islenzk fornrit, vol. 8, p. 157.43 Islenzk fornrit, vol. 4, pp. 222 and 225.

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But the church by this time wanted people to receive these sacraments regularly.In c. 1170/80 Norwegian and Icelandic church legislation gradually started to makeannual communion and shrift compulsory, this was put into final form in 1268.44

But in the meantime the priests had a hard job convincing their parishioners.Ingmund priest in 1180 experienced a near shipwreck. When the sailors suddenlyrealized the danger, they leapt up from their dinner, and the master of the shipcalled out “Where is our priest? We want to be shrived!” The priest, however,retained his composure and answered: “It is not better for you to be shrived nowthan earlier this autumn. I asked you to do so every Sunday, but you would notobey. Now let God shrive you, because the rocks are close, do your work at onceand without fear!”. The episode shows that the impulsive and immediate priority ofthe sailors was to save their souls rather than the ship. They had internalized shriftas a death sacrament. Their priest, however, thought this an excellent occasion tolecture them on the advantages of regular shrift, which would protect them againstconsequences of sudden death.45 Church legislation and preaching in parishchurches gradually indoctrinated the importance of the sacraments in people fromall social groups.

The idea of purgatory provides another example of the church’s efficaciousindoctrination. Purgatory was increasingly accepted by leading Europeantheologians from the end of the 12th century, and was made a church dogma in1274. Norse sources first mention purgatory in a collection of Icelandic homiliesfrom c. 1200.46 The increasing popularity of requiem masses in the followingcentury can only be understood against the background of the gradual acceptanceof purgatory among laymen from all social groups who could afford to buy masses.The first known non-noble layman to buy such masses was a peasant or smalllandowner from the area south of Stavanger in 1286.47 A century had passed fromthe time the idea of purgatory won general acceptance among leading Europeantheologians to the time the idea was internalized among Norwegian peasants. InEngland, purgatory also won acceptance among laymen during the 13th century.48

This confirms the efficiency of Norwegian and Icelandic church propaganda.There is, however, one 13th century idea that was a survival of paganism.

Icelanders evidently thought that the souls of their pagan ancestors still existed inthe barrows where they had been buried. But is this idea contrary to the Christianreligion? The whereabouts of the souls of dead heathens who had never known thetrue religion was a debated question among theologians. Preachers claimed thatsouls who had not received a Christian burial, erred as ghosts. To assume thatpagan souls still existed as kind of ghosts in and around their barrows was notcontrary to church dogma49

44 I. Torkelsen, Sakrament og samfunn, unpublished thesis (Oslo, 1996), pp. 110–115, 169, 177–179 and286–290.

45 Sturlunga saga (1988) p. 110; A. Nedkvitne, Møtet med døden i norrøn middelalder (Oslo, 1997), p. 115. Theepisode is said to have taken place in 1180, but was put in writing c. 1237–1249; Medieval Scandinavia.An Encyclopedia (New York, 1993), “Guðmundar sogur biskups”.

46 A. J. Sandal, Synd i Gamalnorsk homiliebok og islandsk homiliebok, unpublished thesis (Bergen, 1996).47 Nedkvitne, op. cit., pp. 67–70.48 A. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1995), p. 47.49 Nedkvitne, op. cit., p. 103.

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Religious mentalities of laymen seem to have accepted the norms of the church,and it is not possible to observe social differences. But the church’s preachingnevertheless created individual tensions. Laymen who accepted the church’s normswere often incapable of putting them into practice, and to escape the consequencesof their sin, they had to resort to the church’s sacraments. Behind this differencebetween church norm and practice there was often a tension between two types ofnorms, those of the church and those of secular society.50

3.2. The double attitude to magic

Magic represented an alternative to God and the saints in obtaining supernaturalhelp in this world. An appropriate definition of “magic” in a Norse context is “non-Christian rituals which enable a person to change what is understood as the naturalcourse of events or to make prophesies. The magician expects an automatic resultof his actions.”51

It is evident that saga authors and their public in the 13th century thought thatmagic in this sense was possible. But that does not necessarily mean that theyresorted to magical help, because the church, through its saints and angels, offeredthe same kind of supernatural help. The church condemned all magic, regarding itas the devil’s work or part of the pagan religion. The norms of the church areshown most clearly in church preaching, sagas written by clerics and in codes of lawconcerning the Christian religion. The punishment for most kinds of magicthroughout the period was outlawry.52

The sagas written by secular authors indicate that there was little magicalpractise in Norway and Iceland after Christianization (c. 1030). The sagas describemany magicians, but virtually all of them lived in the pagan and Christianizationperiods or were non-Christians. The Christianization kings fought dramaticstruggles against pagan magicians.

The best-known magicians in the Christian 12th and 13th centuries were theFinns, who were not considered to be good Christians.53 In the kings’ sagas,accusations of magic against Christians are very rare, and always directed againstpolitical enemies.54 One should expect such accusations to have been morefrequent if magic had been widely practised. One should also expect accusations ofmagic to occur in the struggles between Icelandic chieftains as described in theSturlunga saga, but here they are absent. From Norway, just one process for magic isknown. Ragnhild Tregagaº s, a woman from a peasant community, was accused in1325 of having perverted the sexual life of her former lover. She denied theaccusation, but later confessed her sin to the bishop, and he gave her a penitenceconsisting of fasts and pilgrimages. This shows that secular laws, demandingoutlawry in such cases, gave maximum punishments that were not always followedby the bishop prosecuting the case.55

50 Nedkvitne, op. cit., pp. 126–12851 Haaland, op. cit., p. 552 Haaland, op. cit., pp. 68–70 and 82–83.53 Haaland, op. cit., pp. 37–38, 76–77 and 81.54 Haaland, op. cit., pp. 161–167.55 Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 9 (Christiania, 1876), no. 93–94.

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Runic inscriptions excavated from Norwegian towns from 1100 to 1300 giveseveral examples of people seeking supernatural help. Almost all of them seek thehelp of God, saints or angels. But there is at least one example of someone askingOdin for help to recover stolen goods.56

It is reasonable to assume that harmful magic was felt to be threatening not justby the church, but also by laymen. People from the local community initiated thecase against Ragnhild Tregagaº s.57 Moreover, useful magic such as healing wassuperfluous because the church, through its saints, offered the same supernaturalservices. The church’s norms on magic seem to have won general acceptance andwere generally practised in the 13th century. Magic according to the definitiongiven above existed, but was a marginal phenomenon.

But most magicians in the sagas belonged to the pagan period. They could notseek the help of God and his saints. Did saga authors and their audiences of the13th century think it was wrong for people who did not know the Christian religionto practice magic?

There were two partly conflicting norms governing attitudes to magic in thepagan period, one ecclesiastical and the other secular. The official church taughtthat magic was the work of the devil and associated with the pagan religion, andconsequently to be condemned, irrespective of time and place. Among laymen,however, there existed another norm accepting pagan use of magic under certainconditions. If the result of the magic was in concordance with positive values andnorms in society, it was considered good. If the result harmed good people andpositive norms, it was considered criminal. Magic was evaluated according to itsconsequences, just like any other action. Egil Skallagrimsson is the hero of his saga,and he performed three magical acts which are all evaluated positively by the sagaauthor: He cured a sick girl, protected himself against poisoning and chased the evilking Eirik Bloodaxe from the land.58 In its positive attitude to magic, Egil’s saga isin line with the Edda poem Rigstula, probably composed in the Viking age.59 Heremagic is considered useful and necessary knowledge for the rulers of society, kingsand earls, but not for people lower down on the social ladder, such as peasants andslaves. It was a legitimate means to obtain power and prestige. But Egil’s saga is anexception in its positive attitude to magic.

Most sagas reveal a double attitude to magic. On the one hand, the saga authorand his public evidently had internalized the church’s condemnation of all magic.On the other, they also had a pragmatic understanding for the pagans’ need to seekmagic help. The attitude to pagan magic in saga literature must be understood asmore or less unconscious compromises between these two internalized attitudes.

In the saga of Erik the Red we are told of a famine which occurred onHerjolvsnes on Greenland. The local chieftain invited a woman magician calledTorbjørg to make her prophecy on how long the famine would last. The magician

56 K. Seim, “Var fuÞarken en magisk formel i middelalderen”, Proceedings of the Third InternationalSymposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, edited by J. Knirk (Uppsala, 1994), pp. 279–300; J. Knirk,Arkeo 1995/1 (Bergen, 1995), pp. 27–30.

57 Haaland, op. cit., p. 68.58 Haaland, op. cit., pp. 89–92.59 Medieval Scandinavia. An Encyclopedia (New York, 1993), “RigsÞula”.

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was treated with great respect by the others. She demanded help in her rituals froma woman of the household called Gudrid, who is described as a good Christian andbecame the ancestor of three bishops. Gudrid at first refused, but was persuaded bythe local chieftain. The magician then prophesied that the famine would soon end,and also that Gudrid would become the ancestor of a glorious lineage. The attitudeto this magic evidently is complex. On the one hand, the magician is invited by anhonourable chieftain and prophesied good and useful things, the end of famine andthe birth of bishops. On the other hand, we are told that the good Gudrid initiallyrefused to participate because she was a Christian and that a visiting Icelandicpeasant left the house while the superstitious rituals (hindrvitni) were performed. Thesaga author evidently knew that magic rituals had been performed on this occasion,and he sought to describe them in a way that was in harmony with his own attitudeto magic.60

The aim of most magic in the sagas is to take life or cause bodily harm, and isconsequently condemnable by secular as well as religious standards. This mayreflect an unconscious attempt to avoid describing situations where the two normsconflict with each other.

Furthermore, saga authors unconsciously show their negative attitudes to paganmagicians by depicting them as people of low social standing and unsympathetic.Landnamabok describes several magicians. Most of them use their powers egoisticallyto harm others, but a few also to the betterment of the community, e.g. to improvefish catches or to obtain just revenge. Landnamabok lists 38 of the original settlers asthe most “prominent chieftains”. None of them are presented as magicians.61

The attitudes to the magic practices of pagan ancestors had mainly theoreticalinterest. The question was not important in the church’s preaching. But it wasimportant that Norwegians and Icelanders of the 13th century did not practisemagic, and in that field practice largely conformed to the norms of the church.

Attitudes to violence were complex, chronologically, socially and individually.Religious mentalities, however, show chronological changes as the result ofdevelopments in church propaganda, but no social differences, at least not amonglaymen. Why were religious mentalities more uniform, less complex?

A monopoly of legitimate violence was essential to the medieval state but also tothe power and prestige of social groups. Consequently there was sociallydifferentiated resistance to and support for the state’s claims.

Life after death, however, was essentially obtained through rituals such as thesacraments, burial in cemeteries and church attendance. Fulfilling these religiousobligations did not concern vital social interests, at least not in the short term. Thechurch’s saints gave good alternatives to magic help. Internalizing the church’spreaching did not affect secular interests and the social positions of individuals inthe same way as monopoly of violence. Consequently, the church couldindoctrinate its preaching in people of all social groups with little resistance.

60 Islenzk Fornrit, vol. 4, pp. 206–209.61 Haaland, op. cit., pp. 132–141.

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4. Love and marriage

In the earliest part of the Middle Ages marriage was seen as a legal agreementbetween the heads of households. The couple, and particularly the woman, had noright to consent, and love as a precondition for and in marriage was withoutimportance. The deciding factor was the political and economic interests of therespective families. It was not until the 12th and 13th centuries that ideas of courtlylove and the church’s demand for consent began to change these traditionalattitudes.

This is the commonly accepted view, but reality was more complex. For theearliest period, the Edda poems and the early Islendingasogur show two normsexisting side by side.

First, the norm of the head of households. In principle, the father should decidethe marriage of his daughters. If a suitor or lover did not respect his authority, itwas considered a challenge, and it became a question of honour between men. Butthe feelings of the couple were not without importance. A good marriage should bebetween equals (jafnrædi), and it was the fathers’ responsibility to see to it that thiscondition was met. Equality in social standing was most important, but includedpersonal qualities and appearance. If there was no equality, it was considered likelythat the marriage would break up, usually by the woman leaving her husband, andthe father would be blamed by “public opinion” as a bad matchmaker. In Sturlungasaga we are told of five divorces, all of them on the wife’s initiative. The husbandhad to live up to his wife’s expectations. Consequently, there was an element ofconsent, but that was after the marriage had taken place. Women’s feelings wereimportant also in the earliest period.62

These norms applied to relations between peasant households of approximatelyequal social standing. But there was also another understanding of love, that of thewarrior. In short, this norm held that a woman should love the best warrior.Consequently, it bestowed honour to be loved by a good woman, it affirmed in theeyes of everybody that the loved warrior was the best man. But the warrior himselfshould not become emotionally involved with women; to love showed weakness; itput the lover in an inferior position. This norm justified love outside as well asinside marriage. Warrior kings and Icelandic chieftains had a sexual life that wouldhave been inadmissible and dangerous for men of peasant stock. In the earliestperiod, kings and chieftains could have several wives and official concubines, laterseveral mistresses. This does not show a liberal or “modern” attitude to sexualmorals, but rather that power created its own norms.63

The conflict between the householders’ and the warriors’ norms are illustrated inseveral sagas of skalds. Hallfred Vandraºdaskald is a courageous and adventurouswarrior hero. He courts and wins the love of the beautiful Kolfinna, but refuses tomarry her. He plays the role of the warrior hero who gains honour by being lovedby good women, but avoids engaging himself. This is understood as a challenge toKolfinna’s father and later her husband, who both react, as heads of householdsshould do to protect their honour.

62 Bandlien, op. cit., pp.184–192 and 345.63 Bandlien, op. cit., pp. 35–82 and 110–130.

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A man in his position as warrior could have other norms than in his position asfather. The difference between householders and warriors was partly a differencebetween two age groups, partly between two social classes, and partly it existed inthe mind of the same man in two social roles.

After c. 1230 the norm system surrounding love and marriage grew even morecomplex.

The idea of courtly love was introduced to Norway and Iceland at the end of the12th century through the court of the earls of the Orkneys, from the 1220s throughthe court of the Norwegian king, and throughout the period through clerics whohad studied abroad. According to the courtly norm, love was an emotion whichgave prestige. Even if love remained unrequited, it had a value in itself because itennobled and distinguished both men and women. As a supplement and parallel, atthe end of the 12th century the church introduced to Norway and Iceland itsdemand that the couple should give their formal consent before being married.

Church and court from c. 1200 linked love and marriage in a new way. Thecouple should be in love before marriage and freely consent to the union. The ideadoes not seem to have created conflict, mainly because it was seen as a modificationof traditional ideas. Consent before marriage could be seen as a new way ofpractising the traditional idea of equality; it could be sensible for the father to askhis daughter whether she thought there was equality between herself and theproposed husband. Consent before marriage could also be seen as a development ofthe traditional idea that the woman had the right to demand after marriage thather husband lived up to her expectations. Consent could also be tied to thetraditional warrior ideas on love, which held that women should love the bestwarrior even if she was not married to him.

It was part of the courteous understanding of love that a person with a noblemind would fall in love with a man or woman equally noble. Daughters’ free choicewould not result in social degradation; she should choose a man belonging to herown social group. This idea developed and modified the traditional warrior normthat women should love the best warrior.64

Consent and love as a precondition for a happy marriage is evidently anunderlying idea in Laxdola saga. Gudrun was persuaded into her first marriage byher father, but she ended up divorcing her husband. She married her secondhusband for love, and they were happily married until he drowned. She is thenagain persuaded into her third marriage with Bolli, which again is a failure. But hergreat love was Kjartan, the best man in Iceland. Her love for him has clear roots inthe old warrior norm that the best warrior should be loved by the best women. Bysome misunderstanding, they were not married, and she ended up having himkilled. Another interesting courtship concerns Olav Pa and Torgjerd. Olav asksTorgjerd’s father for her hand, but he wisely leaves the decision to Torgjerd, whorefuses. But then Olav puts on his best clothes, meets her, and talks to her for awhole day about his glorious adventures abroad in the service of foreign kings. Thatdecides the matter; Torgjerd recognizes that Olav is really one of “the best men onIceland”, she consents to marry him, and the marriage is happy. Here are elements

64 Bandlien, op. cit., pp. 341–351.

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of old and new: love and consent should precede marriage, the best warrior shouldbe loved by the best woman.65 The author of Laxdola saga evidently had a lowopinion of the matchmaking skills of fathers.

These new ideas emerged among clerics and courtiers at the end of the 12thcentury, and after 1300 also among ordinary people in the towns andcountryside.66 A consensus between old and new gradually developed, whichsatisfied the interests of church and state as well as warriors and heads ofhouseholds. This understanding of love and marriage has been called “the doubleconsent”.67 The father should choose a husband for his daughter, but he should askher in the presence of witnesses whether she consented to be married to theproposed husband. If she answered no, the marriage would not take place. Butonce legally contracted, a marriage could not be dissolved. These principles firstappear in Norwegian and Icelandic legislation and statutes at the end of the 12thcenturies.68 The courtier ideal that the couple should be in love before the marriagefits well into this norm.

But within this rather vague consensus there still was room for tensions: betweenfathers and daughters, between clerics and people who wanted to get out of amarriage claiming that it had never been valid.

5. Conclusion

5.1. Medieval mentalities – more complex than imagined in the anthropological tradition

This analysis has underlined the complexity of Norse mentalities in the 13thcentury. There were social differences between warriors, courtiers and clericsconcerning attitudes to violence, magic and love/marriage. Conflicting norms wereoften internalized in the mind of the same individual. We have already seen howindividuals tried to cope by finding compromises (the double consent), using ritualsthat allowed them to satisfy two norms (feud and penance) or using different normswhen playing different social roles (warrior and courtier). If these strategies failed,the conflict would come into the open and create problems (priest and feudingpolitician).

The social point of view in the sagas is that of kings, bishops and warriorchieftains. Only glimpses are given of the peasants who made up perhaps 90% thepopulation. Should we assume that the conclusion above is relevant also for them?The situation becomes clearer on their account in the late Middle Ages. Honour-based violence resulting in brawls and murder are found in Norwegian peasantscommunities, particularly in peripheral areas, but they were considered criminalacts and punished severely.69 Court values were preserved in oral tradition inpeasant communities through ballads. Bendik and Aº rolilja is clearly inspired by the

65 Bandlien, op. cit., pp. 288–294.66 Bandlien, op. cit., ch. 6.67 Bandlien, op. cit., p. 320.68 Frostatingslova, translated by J. R. Hagland & J. Sandnes (Oslo, 1994), part 3 para. 22; Bandlien, op.

cit., pp. 206–208.69 J. Sandnes, Kniven, ølet og æren (Oslo, 1990).

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French verse novel Tristan and Isolde, which was translated to Norse by order of kingHaº kon in 1226. The most famous of all Norwegian ballads, Draumkvedet, tells of aman who in a dream vision wandered through the realm of the dead. It was writtendown in the 1840s, but its content suggests that it was composed in the Catholic lateMiddle Ages. Popular, peasant culture of the late Middle Ages seems to have beenjust as complex as the culture of the elite had been a couple of centuries earlier inthe high Middle Ages. There is no reason to believe peasant culture of the 13thcentury was less complex than that of the contemporary elite.

Earlier in this article we have seen changes in mentalities in the 13th century.Important dates were 1264 in Iceland and the end of the civil wars in Norway in1227. But what about earlier changes? There has been a general tendency amongrecent historians to assume that the pre-state society and mentality, as described inthe earliest sagas, were more or less constant and unchanging far back into anundetermined past. Miller thinks that the social system described in the earlyIslendingasogur existed in real life back to c. 1100. What society was like before thattime is not clearly apparent from the existing sources.70 Sorensen’s “Icelandic sagasociety” goes back to c. 900. Bagge’s pre-state society in Norway stretches back to atleast c. AD 850.71 But was society less constant, were the changes in mentalities andsocial relationships more important than these authors are willing to admit? Before1200, and particularly before c. 1120, the sources are poorer; changes are difficultto detect. But should we assume that they do not exist? I think we should besceptical of theories about more or less static Norse societies before 1227/1264.The kings began their efforts to obtain a monopoly of legitimate violence back inthe 11th century; the church’s indoctrination of laymen was a long haul. Changes inmentalities and social relations may have been important and continuous also in the12th and 11th centuries, and further back, although we know less about them.

As mentioned in the introduction, this implies a criticism of Miller and Sorensen,who tend to think in terms of rather static mentalities (stateless Iceland) with fewsocial differences. They represent a tradition that has a tendency to think in termsof function and social consequences, and show little interest in the complexities ofmedieval mentalities. But the criticism also applies to much of the history ofmentalities written by the “Annales school”, where the most prominentrepresentatives of “historical anthropology” are to be found.

5.2. Mentalities as an independent cause of social change?

An understanding of these complexities makes it possible to discuss to what extentmental developments should be considered an independent cause for social change,or whether mental changes only mirror material changes.

The development of the two strong organizations of state and church, 1150–1300, was fundamentally based on military and judicial powers being transferredfrom local chieftains and ting assemblies. The superior, and gradually monopolized

70 Miller, op. cit., pp. 49–50.71 Sorensen, op. cit., pp. 79–80; S. Bagge, Mennesket i middelalderens Norge (Oslo, 1998), pp. 18–74,

particularly p. 18.

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military power of the king combined with political alliances here no doubt playedthe major role in forcing local communities to accept the new rule.

But the example of Sturla Tordsson and other Icelandic chieftains of the 13thcentury also show how their confidence in their own warrior values gradually wasundermined by church and court culture. Churchmen condemned and warriorsgradually became ashamed of the unbridled violence shown in Icelandic feuds. Thebest man was not necessarily the most violent warrior. He had to compete with thecourtier who was polite and used his learning in peacetime and showed his braveryonly in just wars for his king. The chieftains began to feel uncomfortable using themarriages of their children to further their own political ends, because the churchand courtly ideal told them it should be done differently, and they compromised byaccepting the “double consent”. The church’s preaching gained weight by laymen’sfear of the eternal life, which evidently was internalized by everyone. The highestcultural prestige, the socially most distinguished people gradually were seen asbelonging to church and court. The prestige of the local warrior culture wasdiminishing, even among the warriors themselves. The Icelandic warrior chieftainswere drawn between defending their local military and judicial powers on the onehand, and on the other taking part in the education and prestige being offered bychurch and state, and receiving high offices in the king’s hierarchy. In the 13thcentury up to 1264 they did both. But this feeling of divided cultural identity andperhaps cultural inferiority made the chieftains vulnerable to the political pressurefrom the king in 1220–1264.

One must assume the same process had taken place in Norway 100–200 yearsearlier, although military force played a larger role there for obvious geographicalreasons. The same could probably be said for the growing monarchies in the rest ofEurope.

In the state formation process of the European high Middle Ages, use of superiormilitary force and political alliances evidently played the major part. But thedivided cultural identity of the warriors that gradually undermined their self-confidence no doubt was an independent cause for the change, making the king’smilitary and political work easier.

5.3. How were mentalities created? Indoctrination and socialization

Chronological changes had their cause and origin in the elite. Church and stateintroduced new ideas from Europe. This was so for violence, life after death,marriage and love. But there had to be adjustments and accommodations betweenthe new ideas and traditional attitudes. Resistance, compromises and the resultingsocial differences give clues to the relationship between mentalities and society. Theanalysis above has shown that mentalities were created in a compromise betweenthe norms of church and state on the one hand, and the individual’s adaptation tohis social role on the other.

The dynamics in attitudes to violence was created by church and state introducingnew ideas claiming the state’s monopoly of legitimate violence. But these ideas metwith resistance that was socially differentiated. It was in the self-interest of courtiersand priests to support the new mentalities, while it was in the interests of the local

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warrior class to resist because it undermined their social power. Consequently,there were contradictory social norms in Norse society concerning violence.

Church preaching concerning life after death and what had to be done to get therechanged according to new theological ideas from Rome and Paris. Resistance fromNorse society was weaker, there being no visible differences between social groups.The reason was that the church’s demands here had limited consequences for thesocial position of the different social groups. The changing landscape of heaven andhell was imaginary, and the actions demanded by the church to gain heavenconsisted mostly of rituals: sacraments, church attendance, prayers, fasts, alms, andso on. They could be observed by all social groups without consequences for theirsecular social position. This helps to explain why the mentalities related to life afterdeath seem to have been so socially uniform.

The church’s and the court’s new norms on marriage and love would have deprivedheads of households of an important means to further the interests of theirhousehold. But here a compromise was possible. “The double consent” wasacceptable to church, state and household heads. It was so flexible that it laid thepremises for a slow development over centuries towards a greater say for the coupleover their own marriage. In the 13th century the church’s ideas on marriage didnot challenge, only modified, the fathers’ power over their children’s marriages. Butit created a tension in people’s minds about who should decide, which was nolonger self-evident.

The analysis has shown mentalities being formed partly by the eliteindoctrinating new European ideas from above, partly by social groups beingsocialized into their roles in contemporary society. Tradition unaided bycontemporary socialization does not seem to have been important. One mightexpect significant survivals from paganism or popular magic to have surviveddespite church preaching, but that does not seem to have been the case.

The analysis has shown an interplay between mentalities and social realities.People did not uncritically accept everything the elite sought to indoctrinate inthem. But a combination of indoctrination and slow material changes in societywould gradually break down resistance and create a new society and newmentalities.

5.4. Medieval and modern mentalities

The dynamics and tensions in medieval Norse culture and mentalities were notfundamentally different from those described by Peter Burke for early modernEurope.72 The force of change was according to Burke elite culture which slowlysank down and changed popular culture. This sinking could happen throughvoluntary imitation, propaganda from church or state and finally throughlegislation and force. The process resulted in compromises with traditional popularculture, but could also create tensions. The dynamics and tensions were different in1150–1300 and 1550–1750, but the mechanisms behind them were very similar.

72 P. Bruke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Oslo, 1978).

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Were the two periods special because they were “periods of transition”? But are notall centuries periods of transition in some way or another?

What about modern man, or even “post-modern” men and women of the 21stcentury? They are supposed to be able to play different roles according to thevarying demands of a complex modern society. In her thesis on Emotions in NorseSociety, Marlen Ferrer argues that this was equally the case for medieval men andwomen.73 As shown earlier, Sturla Tordsson had to confront different challenges asan Icelandic chieftain and at the court of the Norwegian king. He followed differentnorms in the two situations. He was also a religious man. The sagas give a morecomplex image of medieval mentalities than one derives from the more or lessnormative sources so often used by both Scandinavian and European historians.Perhaps medieval mentalities were just as complex and full of contradictions asthose of our own times?

73 The question is discussed more extensively in Ferrer, op. cit., pp. 185–192.

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